Jarrett, Sadler share many common bonds

HAMPTON, Ga. -- The racing connection between Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler extends far beyond identical seats, steering wheels and interior car configurations.

	Dale Jarrett

They have the same 6-foot-2-inch height and 200-pound build. Their personalities mesh as seamlessly as their equipment, but to comprehend the core of their relationship, you must hear their tag-team version of their initial meeting.

It's late summer, 1996. Jarrett and Sadler are among a group of drivers testing at Darlington Raceway. Jarrett, who will compete for The Winston Million bonus in the Southern 500, is fine-tuning. Sadler, then a newcomer, is facing the 1.3-mile, egg-shaped oval for the first time.

"He doesn't know me from a hole in the wall," Sadler said. "I walk up to him and ask him for some help at that racetrack, and he goes, 'Instead of talking to you about it, why don't I just go and drive you around the track?'"

That reply still elicits Sadler's amazement. Jarrett was just as amazed that the younger driver asked for help.

"A lot of them want to go there and think they know everything anyway," said Jarrett, adding that he'd raced against Sadler's older brother, Hermie, and therefore did know Elliott from a hole in the wall.

Jarrett also sensed deja vu. Prior generations of racers helped him learn "The Track Too Tough to Tame," both in the form of words (Harry Gant's personal explanations) and deeds (Darlington master David Pearson's race-day examples). So the opportunity to perpetuate tradition was too important.

"I'd had a lot of success there at that point," said Jarrett, who starts 16th in Sunday's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. "I felt like that if I could help Elliott and explain it to him ... I was just giving him advice that had been passed down to me and things that I had learned."

So Darlington officials temporarily closed the track that day. The resultant 30-minute, one-on-one tutorial hatched a bond that's now stickier than duct tape.

"First, I thought, 'Wow, is everybody in racing like this?'" said Sadler, who starts third Sunday. "Then shortly I found out, no. Everybody's not like that. But if a man like that can take time out from trying to win a million dollars to help me -- who he doesn't know from Adam -- learn stuff about a track, man, this a great guy."

Leapfrog seven seasons. Resum?s and a two-decade age gap now are about the only significant differences between the two.

PERFECT FIT? Elliott Sadler and Dale Jarrett discuss their friendship and how it will benefit them on the track. Play video  •  Jarrett's Driver Page  •  Sadler's Driver Page  •  Team overhaul should put Yates in title hunt

Jarrett, 46, is a former Cup champion with satiny gray hair, a NASCAR family legacy and one of the Cup series' most visible owner-sponsor packages. Sadler is a soon-to-be 28 with a velvety Virginia accent, four full-time Cup seasons and the increasingly grating label of an underachiever.

They're teammates for the first time this year, and Sadler's presence is just one change that reshaped Robert Yates Racing. His and Ricky Rudd's seat switch -- Sadler supplanted Rudd at RYR and Rudd took Sadler's place with the Wood Brothers -- was last season's biggest silly-season soap opera. Among the first to hear of Sadler's urge to move was Jarrett, who'd lived the same experience at the end of the 1991 season, when he left the Wood Brothers for Joe Gibbs Racing.

"He came to me and asked about how I handled that situation with Eddie [Wood] because he knew that Eddie and I were still good friends," Jarrett said of Sadler. "So he figured that obviously I had gone about it the right way, and that's what he wanted to do. He didn't want to leave on bad terms, but he felt like it was time for everybody to have something a little different, so we discussed that."

This year, Sadler isn't even driving Rudd's No. 28, a longtime RYR number. He's in the No. 38 because the No. 28's sponsor, Havoline, defected to Chip Ganassi Racing. He's also working with a teammate for the first time.

"I ask him so many questions about racing and not about racing, it's not even funny," Sadler said of Jarrett. "Stuff that I haven't asked people in part of my family, because I know I can really get a straight answer out of him."

RYR's new structure houses the two teams in the same North Carolina shop and in philosophy. Working under general manager Doug Yates, that alignment demands driver cooperation. Although their circa-1996 friendship smoothes most bumps, Sadler believes his and Jarrett's age differential will protect their relationship.

"We don't feel like we're butting heads as teammates," Sadler said. "As long as I'm 42nd, I'm happy if he's 43rd. We don't have that competitiveness to each other. We're more big fans of each other and want each other to do well."

That magnanimity extends to the crews. Jarrett's crew chief, Brad Parrott, and Sadler's crew chief, Raymond Fox, III, grew up together, and Jarrett adopted Sadler's race set-up two weeks ago at Rockingham, riding it to his first win of the season. Doug Yates says Jarrett and Sadler's interaction is what drives RYR, not nuts, bolts or strategies.

"With Dale, obviously the maturity level is there," Yates said. "Elliott's really hungry and aggressive, and the maturity level will come with him. Just [their] physical stature is the same, you know? But they just get along well. And that's a good foundation for what we're looking for."

Jarrett said he stayed out of RYR's 2002 silly-season drama except to counsel Sadler. But he was thrilled to learn his buddy might become a teammate. To date, their synthesis is exactly what Jarrett thought it might be. After all, it's one thing to be good friends, quite another to work together. Yet Jarrett says Sadler knows more about race cars than 75 percent of the people who drive them, and that he'll eventually silence his critics.

"He's going to be someone that is going to run up front consistently, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't stand here and say it just because he's my teammate," Jarrett said. "I honestly believe that. I know that he has a good head on his shoulders. He understands when to race, and I think that's something, too."

Jarrett might field an argument on the last point. Some say that Sadler is a wreck-magnet; too uncontrolled, impatient. Jarrett says he and Sadler have discussed the subject, using Jarrett's own trying-too-hard mistakes during an aggravating 2002 season.

	Elliott Sadler

"I think that it helped him understand a little bit when I said, 'You know, I've been doing 25 years, not necessarily Winston Cup racing that long, but in driving,'" said Jarrett, who finished ninth in the points last season. "'I found myself in that very thing last year trying to make up for something and got myself in trouble a number of times.'"

Jarrett has also learned from Sadler. Because their tastes are so similar, one can substitute for the other. Sadler tested his car and Jarrett's at Atlanta two weeks ago. The similarities ease communication between crew chiefs, engineers and shop personnel.

"I think that what he does is drive me a little bit," Jarrett said. "Because I know when he goes to these places and tests, he gets our cars good. And it's up to me. When we were in Kentucky [testing earlier this year] he was way faster than I was there, and he was faster in my car than I was. I think that he shows me that there's work that I can do in that area, too."

Jarrett warns not to dwell on Sadler's happy-go-lucky, sometimes-goofy persona. Or on the fact that when he and Sadler go out to dinner, or are seen having fun away from the track, that few of their conversations are racing-related.

"I'm not sure that everybody realizes how serious he is about this," Jarrett said of Sadler. "Because this is what he does. He doesn't do anything else. He has no desire to do anything else. He's very passionate about this and wants to be very, very good at it. He has all the qualities and capabilities of backing all of that up."