Dale Jarrett: "We're pretty intense on making sure that we're ready when this season starts, and I view us right now being a top-10 race team." Credit: Autostock

After rebuilding, Jarrett ready for quick results

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Usually when a driver talks about a rebuilding year, it's simply an excuse for running poorly.

But for Dale Jarrett and the No. 88 Robert Yates Racing team, 2004 was truly a rebuilding year. The 2003 season was one of turmoil for Jarrett, as his victory at Rockingham early in the year was his only top-five.

	NASCAR ACCELERATION •   Know Your NASCAR •   Tickets for Daytona •   2004 Daytona 500 highlights •   Get TrackPass for 2005! MULTIMEDIA NASCAR Today Dale Jarrett joins the show to focus on the upcoming 2005 season Day Three Drivers set their sights on added speed in Daytona PHOTO GALLERY Thursday's test session

The victory was an anomaly, as Jarrett suffered through his worst season in more than a decade. RYR, and Jarrett's team in particular, had fallen badly. Once a powerhouse in the sport, RYR was left as an also-ran.

That's where the rebuilding part came in. Yates hired Mike Ford as Jarrett's crew chief and Eddie D'Hondt as the team's general manager. While D'Hondt worked to get the pieces the team needed, Ford worked to put them in the right place.

Slowly, Jarrett's team was put back together. He didn't win in 2004, but the six top-fives and 14 top-10s were a solid foundation.

"A much better race team, a much better prepared team," Jarrett said Thursday at Daytona International Speedway during NASCAR Preseason Thunder testing.

"(Ford) has done a really good job. When he came there last year, and he'll be the first to tell you, that about three or four months into it he was totally overwhelmed at really what he was having to rebuild. He had no idea really when he took the job exactly everything that had taken place there, and maybe more what hadn't taken place."

When 2004 started, Jarrett wasn't sure if his No. 88 team would run in the top 10, or struggle along in the top 25. Turns out, Jarrett did a little of both. By midseason, Jarrett was 15th in points, but rallied to the edge of the top 10 with six top-10s in eight races -- including a runner-up finish at the Brickyard 400.

But the No. 88 tanked in the final race before the Chase for the Nextel Cup, finishing two laps down in 26th at Richmond. Jarrett had four top-10s in the Chase, but bad luck and poor performance left him 15th in the final standings.

Still, Jarrett is loaded with confidence as the 2005 season looms. The team is testing heavily, going to Las Vegas, California and Lakeland, Fla. before Speedweeks. Heck, even during Speedweeks at Daytona, Jarrett will test his short track cars at Lakeland.

Inside the Numbers Thursday drafting speeds No. Driver MPH 1. M. Bliss 186.959 2. J. McMurray 186.459 3. G. Biffle 186.189 4. T. Kvapil 186.181 5. J. Mayfield 186.070 6. M. Waltrip 185.893 7. M. Skinner 185.759 8. E. Sadler 185.759 9. Ky. Busch 185.705 10. C. Edwards 185.697 11. D. Jarrett 185.686 12. D. Earnhardt Jr. 185.670 13. R. Rudd 185.659 14. C. Mears 185.563 15. R. Newman 185.513 16. J. Gordon 185.437 17. B. Said 185.086 18. J. Leffler 185.021 19. K. Earnhardt 184.294 20. K. Petty 184.230 21. M. McLaughlin 183.899 22. Ku. Busch 183.891 23. K. Wallace 183.419 24. R. LaJoie 183.206 25. M. Shepherd 181.984

"We're pretty intense on making sure that we're ready when this season starts, and I view us right now being a top-10 race team," Jarrett said. "I think we showed towards the end of the year that we had those capabilities. When we got to race 26, yeah, we didn't make the top 10 and we weren't exactly at that time a top-10 team, but we have made improvements, and I'm pretty excited about that.

"I honestly think that if we get started like I think that we are going to, we can show that we can challenge for a championship again and win some races."

Jarrett's year has started off well enough, as Jarrett was fastest in single-car speeds during Daytona testing. Thursday morning's session was wiped out by rain, and most of Thursday afternoon was used for drafting practice.

Jarrett and Yates teammate Elliott Sadler skipped most of the afternoon session, loading up their haulers for the drive back to North Carolina well before the extended practice ended at 7:30 p.m.

Jarrett's speed of 186.455 mph was tops among the 26 drivers here before Thursday's drafting session.

Mike Bliss posted the fastest time Thursday, going 186.959 mph in his Haas CNC Racing Chevrolet. Jamie McMurray was second at 186.459, followed by Greg Biffle at 186.189, Travis Kvapil at 186.181 and Jeremy Mayfield at 186.070.

Jarrett's best speed Thursday was 185.686.

"The testing has gone well so far," Jarrett said. "We literally started building (speedway cars) back in September of last year and had them in the wind tunnel quite a bit. Of the three pages of things we wanted to try to get through here at the test -- obviously you don't ever get through all of that -- but the things we saw that might be beneficial from the wind tunnel have actually translated into some speed here on the race track, so that's always nice when that happens."

Gains are usual miniscule during restrictor-plate testing, but Jarrett and Ford have been able to pick up speed since they got to central Florida.

"You see the same numbers and you want to think it's stuck, but we've been fortunate to see some gains," Jarrett said. "We may make three or four runs and not see anything happening much, but then we do find one thing that picks us up half-a-tenth or a tenth, and that's a big gain out here. So it's been kind of a fun test."

Daytona has been a fun place for Jarrett over the years, as he's visited the Daytona 500 Victory Lane three times. If Jarrett were able to win it this year, he'd tie Cale Yarborough for second place behind Richard Petty's seven Daytona 500 victories.

"Until you win it -- and I've been very fortunate to do it three times -- it's just incredible what it does for your career and the feeling you get, the feeling of accomplishment," Jarrett said. "This race, being our biggest race, we're the best prepared for this race of any that we go to. We do more wind tunnel testing, more track testing. Everybody is in the best shape that they're going to be in. Nobody is injured, so you have the best at their best, and when you win, you know that's a great feeling of accomplishment."

To win three times -- or perhaps four times -- puts Jarrett in an exclusive group.

"This has always been a focus of Robert Yates Racing, this race here," Jarrett said. "The last few years, even though we may qualify well, we haven't seemed to be there when it came time to try to win the race. We're putting a lot more emphasis on that. Even though we ran fast (Wednesday), our objective was to get something that we know is going to drive good, so it would mean a lot to me, especially at this point in time of my career, to get that fourth Daytona 500."