RYR teammates Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler have formed a productive bond. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive

Age just a number for enthusiastic Jarrett

While Wallace, Martin eye retirement, Jarrett eyes wins

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Dale Jarrett isn't ready for the rocking chair just yet. And he hopes to prove it in 2005.

With Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin ending their Nextel Cup careers this season, many have wondered who would be next to head out to pasture. Jarrett, at 48 -- the same age as Wallace and two years older than Martin -- is approaching retirement age.

But not so fast, Jarrett said.

DALE JARRETT •   Driver Page •   Superstore: Jarrett gear! •   Jarrett Article Archive

"If anything is going to wear on me physically, I want it to be the actual racing itself," Jarrett said. "I don't see that there's anything that these young guys that are 20 and 25 and 30 years old - they're great race drivers and very good talents - but I don't see anything that makes me, because I'm 48, physically not be able to do the things that they can do.

"Hopefully, my experience comes in somewhere along the way that will allow me to do things as well if not better than what they can."

Jarrett, though, is fighting an uphill battle. Time isn't on his side, and if he doesn't get back to consistently competing for victories this year, questions about his retirement will be more frequent.

But Jarrett could be poised for a solid season. After a rough 2003, Robert Yates Racing hired Mike Ford as Jarrett's crew chief, and the Jarrett/Ford pairing has paid dividends.

Jarrett didn't win a points race in 2004, but the No. 88 team stepped up its performance significantly over the previous season. A poor run at Richmond in September helped keep Jarrett out of the Chase for the Nextel Cup, but he reeled off four consecutive finishes of eighth or better in the final 10 races.

And Jarrett knows getting in the Chase can be done. After all, teammate Elliott Sadler did that last year.

"Not only do we get a lift from seeing that, but seeing how they did it and what areas they were working in was a big help to us," Jarrett said. "Mike is very good at taking the resources that he has around him and putting them to good use.

"That meant using (Sadler's crew chief) Todd (Parrott's) abilities and his engineer, Kevin (Collins), to our advantage, and they've been very good in helping us.

"So not only watching them, but working closely with them gives us a lot of hope for our race team."

The Sadler-Jarrett relationship has blossomed to the point that the two drivers are inseparable at the track. That also has helped performance, since whatever Sadler learns goes to Jarrett, and vice versa.

NASCAR ACCELERATION •   Know Your NASCAR •   Tickets for Daytona •   2004 Daytona 500 highlights •   Get TrackPass for 2005!

"If he's off testing I know that by 6 o'clock that evening I'm going to get a phone call from Elliott, and he's going to tell me what they'd done, what worked, what didn't work," Jarrett said. "So that gives me that process to start thinking about our cars, and then I can call Mike or go to the race shop the next day and, we start that process of talking and seeing if that's something we want to look at and do with our car."

That unity among teams has helped resuscitate Jarrett's bunch and should help Jarrett keep improving in 2005. This year, Jarrett won't fool anyone by winning the Bud Shootout, as he did in 2004.

Winning the pole-winners race was a good start, but it didn't signal the team was back on track.

"In all of that excitement and giving that reward to your team for their hard work and efforts, you don't want to bring them down by saying, 'Look, this isn't what this season is going to be all about right now. We have a lot of work to do,'" Jarrett said.

"We weren't the fastest car that night, but we ended up in Victory Lane. What needed to be said was that, 'This is great, it's great for morale, but we have a lot, a lot of work to do.'

"We were trying to build a team back and decide what type of racecars we were even going race. Obviously we were going to race Fords, but what type of chassis were we going to be running?"

That issue wasn't settled until May. But with more than a half-season with the same chassis and starting 2005 with Yates/Roush power, the foundation is in place.

Dale Jarrett posted the fastest single-car lap during preseason testing at Daytona. Credit: Autostock

"Even though we showed some signs of improvement the second half of the season and were able to compete at certain types of tracks, we still realize where our weaknesses are, so we've put a lot of effort towards that," Jarrett said.

The biggest weakness may have been mile-and-a-half tracks, so Jarrett and Ford spent a lot of time at Kentucky Speedway trying to get better.

This year, more emphasis will be put on short tracks and flat speedways like New Hampshire and Phoenix.

That narrowing of focus should be comforting to Jarrett, for this time last year he wasn't sure he could even run in the top 20.

But now, Jarrett is aiming a little higher.

"I view us right now being a top-10 race team," Jarrett said. "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."

→Click here for more 2005 previews.