Dale Jarrett is still looking for his first Chase appearance. Credit: Autostock

Changes at RYR give Jarrett hope for 2006

New crew chief, Fusion has former champion thinking Chase

Like most Cup veterans Dale Jarrett is trying to keep up with the times.

"You've got to be willing to make that change at some point in time and we've been a little slow to react to that because of the amount of success we had here for so long," said Jarrett, who won 26 races from 1996-2001.

Inside the Numbers Dale Jarrett in 2005 Wins 1 Top-5s 4 Top-10s 7 DNFs 2 Poles 1 Laps Led 4 Avg. Start 20.4 Avg. Finish 18.2 Earnings $4,540,408 SUPERSTORE •   Get Dale Jarrett gear! ALSO •   Jarrett leads test session

The last Cup champion of the 20th Century is finding it tougher to compete in a millenium just a month into its seventh year. It says a lot for how much NASCAR has changed in just a short period of time.

"It's incredible what has taken place," said Jarrett, who has started more than 600 Cup races in his 20-plus years on the tour. "I think that's why we see so many competitive teams now because not only with what NASCAR has done with templates and things, but the engineers we have involved now.

"There are so many smart people in this business. Not that the people before weren't smart, but these people are smart in a different way and have a much better handle on what they're trying to accomplish, instead of just trial and error as we were before."

Since finishing ninth in the points in 2002 -- and the previous six years finishing in the top five, including his 1999 title run -- Jarrett has been a non-factor. He's won only twice in the past three years, ending a 98-race winless string with a victory late last season at Talladega.

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He finished 15th in the points for the second consecutive season but had only four top-fives and seven top-10s in 36 starts. He led a total of four laps all year.

"What makes it more difficult now is ... you have so many teams there that can make you go from a reasonable day to a really bad day with either just missing the setup or having a slight problem," Jarrett said. "I think that's why it becomes so much more difficult to get in the Chase and then from that point on to go on and win the championship."

Still, Jarrett was in position to make the Chase as late at August, whe he was ninth in points after the Brickyard 400. But a stretch of five races with a finish of 22nd or worse leading up to the Chase left Jarrett out of NASCAR's second-year playoff format again.

"At our organization we have to do some different things because to get the proper attitude of the car and be able to carry the speed where you need to carry, it takes something different than what we won races with from '96 to 2000," Jarrett said of his Robert Yates Racing No. 88 Ford. "You've got to do things a lot, lot different."

To that end, both his owner and manufacturer have made changes. Yates re-hired Slugger Labbe to be Jarrett's crew chief. Labbe was a Chase crew chief the past two seasons for Jeremy Mayfield.

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"Slugger has had quite a bit of success," Jarrett said of his former car chief. "I would say that the potential is there ... to be in the top 10 and make the Chase, it's just a matter of us going out and making that happen now.

"We have a better engineering staff than we've ever had at Robert Yates Racing. If you look at it we've improved our team immensely in a lot of areas."

Ford also has doing its part, replacing the Taurus with the Fusion.

"With the Fusion -- starting a couple of years ago as this car started to get into the works -- [Ford] did come to the teams and asked for input as to what would make it better. What small things," Jarrett said. "They weren't gonna totally change the design of the car, but what small things could they incorporate that would give us a better race car -- something that would be easier for us.

"The changes that were made have made this a better balanced race car for us, so therefore we might not have to try to trick the car as much as what we had to with the Taurus at times. We have a better product with the Ford Fusion."