Dale Jarrett and Pat Morita Credit: Autostock/AP

6 Laps of Separation

Connecting former champ Dale Jarrett with the late Pat Morita

This time around, we bring together Dale Jarrett, the 1999 Cup champion and future Toyota driver, and the late, great Pat Morita, who's known to millions as Mr. Miyagi, a poor man's Yoda to Ralph Macchio's Daniel LaRusso in the Karate Kid trilogy.

Hold on tight.

1

Jarrett won the '99 Cup championship with four wins and 29 top-10 finishes in 34 starts. Jarrett finished second in five races that season, including the season finale when Bobby Labonte beat Jarrett to the line at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It mattered little, as Jarrett claimed the championship by 201 points -- over Labonte.

2

Bobby Labonte's first Cup victory came in the 1995 Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Labonte led 85 laps in that event, an event he won by 6.28 seconds. The second driver to cross the finish line? Labonte's brother, Terry Labonte. Incidentally, that was not the only time that Bobby and Terry finished one-two in a Cup event that season. Bobby beat Terry to the line by 6.8 seconds to win the 1995 GM Goodwrench Dealer 400.

3

Terry Labonte is one of many drivers who played themselves in Stroker Ace, a 1983 movie starring Burt Reynolds and his future -- and now former -- wife, Loni Anderson. Reynolds played a NASCAR driver who tried just about anything to get out of his contract with his sponsor, Clyde Torkel's Chicken Pit. Incidentally, Ned Beatty was more than a little funny in his portrayal of Torkel.

4

Reynolds played Judge Walter Burns, an overly critical hockey father in Mystery, Alaska, a 1999 comedy about a small town's residents who get a little too excited when their town gets chosen to host a televised hockey game pitting its players against the New York Rangers. The character of John Biebe, the sheriff of Mystery and one of the town's hockey stars, was played by Russell Crowe.

5

Crowe played the role of John Nash, a brilliant but socially inept mathematician whose life takes a dangerous turn after he accepts some covert work in cryptography, in A Beautiful Mind. The film garnered Academy Awards for both Crowe, for best actor, and Ron Howard, for best director.

6

Before hitting it big as a director, Howard played Richie Cunningham on the long-running ABC sitcom, Happy Days. Cunningham and his friends would always meet at Arnold's restaurant, whose namesake was played by Pat Morita from 1975-76 and again from 1982-83.