Break of the race: Dale Jarrett

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Just when Dale Jarrett thought he’d finally caught a break, his luck dried up along with Monday’s weather at Texas Motor Speedway.

The defending champion of the rain-delayed Samsung/Radio Shack 500, Jarrett watched the chances for a potential win evaporate in the length of one disastrous pit stop.

“Basically we ran out of gas,” he said.

It was more complicated than that.

Running second behind Rusty Wallace with 103 laps remaining, Jarrett endured a double crisis during his stop on lap 231. First, he had to coast into his pit, his gas tank empty. Second, the engine wouldn’t re-fire once the tank was full. His crew frantically sprayed ether through a hood crack, a common trick. The engine did roar to life, but directly in front of Jarrett, the Winston Cup official in Jeff Gordon’s pit ordered Gordon -- who’d pulled in at an angle -- to back up behind the white line before he departed.

The order came at the same instant Jarrett’s crew motioned him out of his pit, and the two vehicles collided like bumper cars; no one’s fault, but the total delay cost Jarrett 30 seconds - the sum of two pit stops. It also dropped him two laps behind then-leader Tony Stewart.

Jarrett was far more perturbed about the gas issue.

“We had a good race car,” he said. “I don’t know if we had a fuel pickup problem or what it was, but it kind of ruined our day.”

The same running-on-fumes glitch cost his Robert Yates Racing teammate Ricky Rudd. An empty gas tank caused Rudd -- who was in the top 10 at that point -- to coast in, too. Rudd, however, rebounded to finish fourth, jumping from 14th to ninth in the points. Jarrett finished 24th.

“The strategy on the fuel situation sort of hurt us,” said Rudd, who led 29 laps. “We actually got a lap down there or at the tail end of the lead lap. DJ was on the same sync with us and when that happened, we just couldn’t get caught up after that. We were lucky to finish fourth.”

It’s been a tough 10 days for Jarrett’s No. 88 team. Crew chief Jimmy Elledge resigned April 3, leaving Jarrett’s former crew chief, Todd Parrott, to resume his duties. Entering the Texas event, the 1999 Winston Cup champion was mired in 24th place in the Cup points standings. He leaves in the same position despite leading a race-high 134 laps and driving a car good enough to win.

“Anybody can say that,” Jarrett said. "But you don’t know what would have transpired at the end. We had a good race car. We got a little bit tight and kept trying to make some adjustments and finally there at the very end we got it out of it.”