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.