THROUGH THEIR OWN EYES: DALE JARRETT LOOKS BACK ON 25th ANNIVERSARY OF 1996 DAYTONA 500 WIN

DAYTONA, Fla. - This season marks the 25th anniversary of Dale Jarrett’s 1996 Daytona 500 win in the No. 88 Quality Care/Ford Credit Ford Thunderbird. What makes this one of the most memorable wins in Ford Performance NASCAR history is that it was the first race for the team, which was put together for NASCAR Hall of Fame owner Robert Yates just a couple months earlier.

Jarrett, who had driven the No. 28 Texaco/Havoline Ford the previous year in place of an injured Ernie Irvan, moved over to the new team upon Irvan’s return and was paired with crew chief Todd Parrott and a handpicked crew.

Ford Performance recently caught up with Jarrett, Parrott and Doug Yates to talk about that time and how everything that happened eventually served as a springboard to the 1999 series championship.

Today, we feature Dale Jarrett, who is one of only five men to win the Daytona 500 at least three times (twice with Ford) and ranks fourth on Ford’s all-time NASCAR Cup Series win list with 30.

WHAT WAS THE FEELING LIKE GOING TO DAYTONA KNOWING THIS WAS YOUR TEAM AND YOU WEREN’T A FILL-IN DRIVER ANYMORE FOR ERNIE?
“It was a totally different feel than ’95. The expectations in ’95 were tremendous. They were for myself. I put a lot pressure on myself to perform, and even though we won the pole, we struggled in the race. We ran fifth, but this was a situation where I knew Robert was still against starting this second team. His quote always was, ‘When they make victory lane big enough for two cars, that’s when I’ll have a two car team. If I’ve got two cars and one goes to victory lane, somebody is always gonna be mad and not happy about the situation.’

But Ford really wanted this, so to be asked to come back after our struggles in ’95, and get the people that we wanted, I actually felt like there was a lot less pressure. The only pressure came from whenever we did this deal was with Ford Quality Care and Ford Credit. I’ll never forget Edsel Ford saying as he was introducing me as the driver of it was, ‘the only thing you’ve got to do is go beat that Goodwrench car every week,’ so that is some pressure that – that you’ve got to go beat the very best at his business with Earnhardt.

But to go to Daytona and beat him in the Clash and then beat Dale Earnhardt again in the Daytona 500 was validation for me. I was like, ‘Hey, I can do this. You made the right choice.’ I felt like everything from there was just gonna be a case of us getting better as we move forward. It did a lot of good for my confidence, which had taken a real beating in ’95 to be quite honest, so for Robert and Doug and Richard Yates to all get together and say Ford wanted to do this second team with me as the driver made me feel good. And then to validate it immediately at our biggest race and get that second Daytona 500 was just incredible. I’ll never forget the feeling of that and what that was like. A lot of people questioned what I did in going to Robert’s, which was fine. The whole thing was ‘well, this second team at Robert’s is gonna get second-hand stuff to the 28,’ so I think we proved that wrong right from the start. Our equipment was gonna be every bit as good as anybody else, so I felt really good about the prospects moving forward starting that way.”

YOU WON THE BUSCH CLASH, BUT ROBERT SANDBAGGED THE WHOLE WEEK LEADING UP TO THE 500 UNTIL HAPPY HOUR WHEN HE WORKED UP SOME EXTRA HORSEPOWER. AFTER THAT PRACTICE DID YOU FEEL YOU WERE ONE OF THE CARS TO BEAT?
“Yes. I did. I had full confidence in what they were telling me. ‘Just get your car driving the way that you want it. We have more for you coming.’ I’d heard that my whole racing career. ‘Hey, we’ve got a little extra for you,’ but I had never been in a situation where that really panned out.

This was a situation, and I knew that, through the final practice but as we got into the race I truly knew what I had was something special and if I could get myself positioned in the right place late in the race, I just didn’t think they would be able to beat me. As it turned out, they couldn’t.

Actually, the week before in the Busch Clash, Robert got a little mad at me because I started 16th or 17th and before we came around to complete the second lap of the race I was on Earnhardt’s bumper going into turn three for second place. He was not happy because he had told me, ‘We’ve got a fast car here. Don’t show them everything. We don’t want them messing around us for next week. Next week is the most important thing.’

I really just picked the right line and the right places to go on that. He was happy that I won the race, but he wasn’t happy the way that I got there so quickly on that day. They were great to strategize with, to talk with, to learn and understand from. They taught me so much about what to do, what not to do, how to take care of their engines, and then the engines would take care of me which is exactly what they did.”

WHAT DO YOU RECALL FROM THE RACE ITSELF?
“I’ll have to say that the whole first part of the race I don’t recall a lot of, but I look and compare those first two wins in the 500 – ’93 where I passed Earnhardt on the last lap of the race, and only had to hold him off for basically three-quarters of a lap to win that first one.

So as we got into the race I knew that I had a good car, but what made it so totally different is I think I took the lead with 23 or 24 laps to go and had to hold Earnhardt off the rest of that time.

 

He had his buddy Schrader behind him for the majority of that time, so I knew they were gonna team up as best they could, but this car and this engine that I had was so incredible. I had to lift off the gas a couple of times because I literally could pull away, which would only help them to get a better run at me. I kind of had to back up to them because otherwise, it drove so good out front I could stay wide open when I really wanted to.

I could put the car right on the very bottom and gap them by myself. It was an incredible race car, but the nerve-wracking part was knowing that Dale Earnhardt Sr. had still not won that race at the time and he was gonna do anything and everything he could, especially if he got to my bumper. I had to try to literally every lap down the back straightaway I was trying to break the draft just to keep him from getting that run to where he could somehow get me out of shape if he got enough of a push.”

IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE RACE YOU HIT A SEAGULL. WHAT WAS YOUR LEVEL OF CONCERN WHEN THAT HAPPENED?
“It was just past the start-finish line. I was actually behind Schrader at the time and I just pulled out because I had a run and I knew something hit the front. I just assumed it was something that came off of somebody’s car and was bad luck that it happened to find the front of mine. I had no idea of damage or anything. I knew that I was a little bit slower, so I had to be really careful in making my moves at that point. Then they tried to get some patchwork on it and do what we could, but there wasn’t a lot they could get done without losing a ton of time. So, they made the most of it, but it was a big enough impact that it was kind of a jolt that you knew something had happened, but, again, I just assumed something came off of somebody’s car.”

WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND WILDLIFE AT DAYTONA? DIDN’T YOU HIT A TURTLE THERE ONE YEAR AS WELL?
“Yes, that was in practice for the July race. It was actually the last lap I was running. I don’t know how it got on the track, but I was leading the draft and looking in my mirror more than I was anything else and I heard that hit. I didn’t even have any idea of what it was at the time. I just knew I’d run over something and it did a lot of damage to the front of the car, but by the time I got back to the garage area, which was just from turn three where it happened, it was cooked. That smelled horrible. I drove into the garage stall and they immediately pushed it out because it smelled so bad.”

BACK TO THE RACE. A CAUTION COMES OUT AND EVERYBODY PITS ON LAP 160. EARNHARDT TAKES TWO TIRES AND YOU TAKE FOUR, BUT AFTER THAT YOU WENT DOWN TO THE APRON AND PASSED A NUMBER OF CARS BEFORE GOING TO THE OUTSIDE TO GET BY EARNHARDT. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING AT THAT POINT?
“The four tires were a key. Todd and I talked about that. We did that in ’93 with Jimmy Makar and Earnhardt only got two tires that time. I knew when we got four I said, ‘This comes down to having a good enough car to get where you want to go.’ You know they’re gonna make a run and they’re gonna get close to your bumper to try to get you loose. If my car is not performing well and I have to get out of the gas, basically like Earnhardt had to do in ’93 when I got to his bumper, then I’m gonna be a sitting duck.

So, Todd and I had discussed that. That’s what we wanted to do and it worked out perfectly. Whenever you run one spot continuously they know how good your car is, but I think me going to the outside was the furthest thing from his mind. That would have been a more risky move without someone behind me, but I knew the help that I had there and it all worked out.”

YOU PASSED EARNHARD WITH 24 TO GO, BUT NOBODY HAD LED THAT MANY LAPS AT ONE TIME THE WHOLE DAY. WHAT MADE THOSE LAST 24 LAPS DIFFERENT THAN WHAT WE HAD SEEN TO THAT POINT?
“I think the biggest thing was in other parts of the race, especially for myself, I wasn’t as concerned about having to stay out front at that point in time. I didn’t show all of what I had and even running second and third through there I didn’t want to show exactly how strong my car was. I wanted to wait until I got the lead at what I thought was gonna be the final time.

I knew I still had a chance even if they somehow teamed up as long as they didn’t wreck me that I still had a good enough car to do that, but I knew my best chance was gonna be in control of the race. So that’s whenever I decided I was gonna do everything, use every trick that I knew to make sure that I kept just a little bit of gap between us and that was the difference then versus other times during the race because people were making runs and you just didn’t want to get yourself in trouble at that time. But this was the point in time, for me, deciding that I wanted to be in control when we got inside the last five laps of the race.”

IS IT A FINE LINE OF NOT GETTING TOO FAR IN FRONT SO THEY CAN MAKE A RUN WHILE AT THE SAME TIME NOT LETTING EARNHARDT GET TO YOUR BUMPER?
“It really is and you have to really be careful in doing that. I even see people today as they try to back up you can’t let them get too close because you’re gonna lose your momentum, so I was balancing it and trying to do things a little different.

At times I would drag the brake, which he couldn’t tell I was really slowing down that much that way. Other times, I would just come out of the throttle a little bit and it gives you a different sensation, and if I literally came out of the throttle I had to make sure that I got back to that as I saw him getting closer to me because it takes a little more time for the engine to respond that way with the RPMs than if you’re dragging the brake.

But it was two different scenarios, and then sometimes as I would not want to do either one to do that, I would just try to break the draft a little bit where he couldn’t get that big run and it would effectively do the same thing.”

YOU MENTIONED THAT SCHRADER WAS BEHIND EARNHARDT IN THE CLOSING LAPS. HOW CONCERNED WERE YOU THAT THEY MIGHT TEAM UP AND PASS YOU?
“I think in a situation like that, Schrader knows his best chance to win is probably not pushing Earnhardt through there, so his chance would have been best if he could somehow get me and Earnhardt in a situation or if he could get himself to second, if Earnhardt slips just a little bit. There was a lot less of that at that time. I didn’t care what manufacturer it was during that time. Whoever could push me or help me the most, that’s who I was after.”

YOU END UP WINNING THE RACE FOR A SECOND TIME WITH YOUR DAD CALLING IT ON TV. WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE A HEADLINER IN DALE VS. DALE TWICE AND COME OUT ON TOP BOTH TIMES?
“Nobody got the upper hand on him very many times and to do it the first two times in a race at a place that he had won everything, except the Daytona 500, to keep him out of victory lane was very, very gratifying because he was the best at that.

Even after Dale Jr. came along and Jeff Gordon came along, Dale Sr. was still the best at that type of racing and to go head-to-head with him twice in that type of situation meant a lot to me, and he and I talked about that. The confidence that it instilled in me to be a better race driver and believe more in myself and to have him to tell me what an accomplishment it was meant a lot to me, so I loved racing against him. He beat me way more times than I outdueled him, but in this particular race I was able to get the first two.”

IS THERE A WAY TO EXPLAIN HOW MUCH THIS RACE MEANS TO PEOPLE?
“So much. I knew after ’93 and winning that race to get Joe Gibbs his first win as a car owner in the Cup Series, my brother-in-law was the crew chief. It was about family there, especially with my dad calling the race and the way that all went down.

This second one for Robert Yates and Doug Yates meant just as much because that’s what they built their reputation on was going with the most speed and to win the Daytona 500. I saw firsthand. In ’95 when we went down there to test I was like, ‘How did we ever beat these guys?

The way they go about this is just incredible.’ So I knew that effort was gonna be there once again and to bring that to them there was nothing that I ever did that was more satisfying and gratifying to me than to win races for Robert and Doug Yates. Just knowing everything that they had done in the sport. It was their life and to be able to do that, especially to start out this new team with a win like that did all of us a lot of good.”