Dale Jarrett says the move to Toyota gives him an energy he hasn't felt in some time. Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Q&A: Jarrett

Q: What's the outlook of this year's 500 for you?

Dale Jarrett: I've been looking forward to it. Obviously a new and different challenge for me starting 2007 with a new race team and definitely a new car. But you come to a place like Daytona where the racing is close, and I think it gives you the idea anybody can win this race if you get yourself in the right position, regardless of how little experience a team may have. But we've had a good test so far, so I've been very much pleased and encouraged by what I've seen.

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Matt's doing a terrific job, and trying to get to know everybody and see how things are done differently than what I've been accustomed to the last 12 years has been an experience this week, and a good experience. The Toyota people have been fantastic, very much on top of their game and I think that should quicken our learning curve quite a bit because of their input.

Q: What was the motivation behind your move to Michael Waltrip Racing, and what are the realistic goals for you and this new team this year?

Jarrett: Whether it was me or a combination of myself and where I had been for 12 years, it was like we were just kind of finishing out my career, it just wasn't new and exciting anymore. I felt a change like this was something that was exciting to me, to think about the opportunity I have to help a good friend of mine, Michael Waltrip, start up his race team.

I've been very impressed and was even before I took the job with everything that Michael and his people had done to get prepared for this. To help him and then to help Toyota come into the sport was a challenge I felt would give me that energy and that fire inside of me again to really want to help and make this something special.

If I can look back after everything is finished and say I had a big part of helping Toyota enter the Cup series and be successful, then that will be pretty rewarding. It was that type of scenario I was looking for, and I've always been excited about getting into the car, but this was a lot more than just getting in the race car.

Realistic goals, thinking we could make the Chase, that would be up there pretty far. Can it happen? Sure, it can. But a more realistic goal for us would be to be around that Top 15 in points the first year. I think that is attainable. It would have been easy to go in and say, 'I think we can finish in the top 25' but that's not setting your goals very high, so you tend not to work as hard. I think we can get to victory lane. Not having as much testing, that's going to hurt us a little bit, but I honestly think that we can get to victory lane and I've stated a number of times that I would like to be the driver that took Toyota there first.

Q: You understand there's going to be questions regarding Toyota and their entry into Nextel Cup, have you thought about how you are going to answer thoser questions when asked by fans and other people?

Jarrett: Yeah, we could talk for an hour about a lot of the stuff that I've thought about. If everything stood still, then your jobs would be a lot harder. You would not be on laptops sending everything back, and it would be a lot more difficult for you to do your job. And it's the same here. Things are not going to stand still. If we did that, things would be kind of boring for everybody, if we didn't have that technology and that advanced technology to make things new and more exciting.

As far as Toyota, sure, the parent company is foreign. We could get into the argument about where the Ford Fusion is built; every one of them are built in Mexico. The Monte Carlo's are built in Canada. So we could go through all that stuff and see who is right and who is wrong, but there are a lot of Toyota's that are built in the United States. They employ a lot of people and are a great car company. Probably not too far from being No. 1 in the world. But you're not going to get that across to some people, and I'm not going to try to. That's not my job or my plight to come out here and try to convince everybody that this is the right thing to do for Toyota to be involved.

But we have to be accepting of change. If we don't, then you would still be watching 12" inch TV screens, and that's not a lot of fun whenever you've got everything else that's out there. You just have to understand the United States government allowed Toyota to come into our country and build and sell Toyota vehicles, and there's a lot of people out there that drive them.

If I wanted to really get nasty, I could say, go in your house and check and see if that TV you're watching our great races on was made in the United States. If you're going to argue with me about not being an American.

So there's a lot of things I could say. I can't convince everybody and I'm not going to try. Understand we all have to make decisions at times based on what is best for me and my situation, and Toyota is a big part of the United States economy. We have to be accepting and why shouldn't NASCAR change along the way, too. There's nothing saying we can't continue to change here in this sport and see what's best for the sport.

And Toyota is going to be very good for the sport. They are going to put a lot of dollars into the sport, and I don't mean dollars in the way that a lot of people are talking and going and buying this and buying that and buying people. They are going to put a lot of dollars in promoting our sport, and that's going to be good for our sport as a whole.

Q: Will you have a Toyota dealership in North Carolina, and secondly, can you talk about the difference between the Toyota and the Ford in the draft yesterday?

Jarrett: As far as the dealership goes, that process had been started well before I ever thought about driving a Toyota. Dale Jarrett Automotive Group, my partners had explored that opportunity a little over two years ago. We had applied and got the application and sent it back to Toyota, been approved at that time. We were not ready at that time to really get ourselves in that position.

If it would have been one in North Carolina -- we were offered one, but it wasn't in North Carolina, it was in Alabama and we were not in position to do that at that time. This is not going to happen just because I'm starting to drive a Toyota. Do I want to acquire a dealership? Absolutely, because it's a money-making operation and that's what we're in business to do.

We will keep the Ford store. We are in the process of breaking ground right now with the Suzuki store that we currently sell right beside the Ford dealership. We do have our application in. I have a good friend at Hickory, Mike Johnson, that owns the Toyota store there, and he and I have talked numerous times even before this came along about the possibility of doing some things together.

As far as the car, the Toyota in the draft, was pretty good [Tuesday]. The car we used wasn't the better of the two cars for me either in speed or drivability. But I was still pretty pleased with what I saw, especially as we made some changes to it. The first time out it wasn't very good, but we made some changes, it responded, and we got the car driving much better to where it could keep up and suck up in the draft.

We have two cars here [Wednesday]. We brought in a different car that's a little bit different build and I'm excited about seeing what it's going to do in the draft.

Q: You, Sadler, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin, have all left Ford, can you assess where Ford Motor Company is in their racing company, and in your opinion, can they keep up?

Jarrett: Well, they certainly can keep up. But I think ever since Dodge came in, they brought a new era into our sport, with a lot of engineering and a lot of support from the manufacturer. I think Ford has slacked off a little bit in that respect over the years and they are still very strong.

They have some very good teams out there, but it's going to continue to cost money to be successful in this sport. And you have to be willing to put those dollars out there, and when the company itself is struggling a little bit, that makes it more difficult.

So they are going to have to realize, that's what they are going to have to do, and hopefully we'll start selling more Ford vehicles and that will help them. But from the technology side of it, I do think they haven't put the effort there that the other manufacturers have.

Q: We hear a lot about how Toyota as a manufacturer encourages all of its teams to share data with each other. Has this been going on so far, and how much of an advantage could this be if you guys continue and if you do that all season?

Jarrett: Yeah, that's a good question and that's what they preach from the very first time I spoke with the Toyota representatives; that's what was going to happen. They felt like in their model and their plans, that was the best way for all of us to become more successful more quickly. And yes, that is happening. Even before we got here to start testing on the racetrack, that was happening, from other tests at tracks [like] Kentucky, Nashville or even Lakeland. And Red Bull was the same way, Bill Davis the same way. So information is being shared and we feel like that's our quickest way to get over some of the hurdles we have.

There will come a point in time that some of that will break away. But we have a ways to go before we get to that point, and I think everyone understands that and is very much willing to work together.

Q: Talk about the relationship with you and your crew chief and what that takes on for and you how difficult that might be?

Jarrett: Normally you wonder how long it's going to take to start learning each other's speak, so to speak. Like what is Matt looking for me to say, and when he's telling me something, because he could talk way above my head being the engineer that he is and I'm not understanding a word, but he figured that out pretty quickly and he talks on a level that I can understand.

We've had a lot of good talks from the first time I sat down with him and we talked for a little over two hours. We had good conversation there. I understood a lot about where he was coming from and what he was looking to do. We've had a lot of conversations whether it be at lunch or at the racetrack after practice and things.

It's gone very well, and Matt is a very determined young man, very knowledgeable. He understands a whole lot more about what's happening with the race cars than you could ever imagine.

I've preached for a long time about needing engineers, and I have one as a crew chief now. I think that's a benefit to any race team. Not saying that you have to have that to be successful, but obviously if you have an engineer in that position, they are much more willing and able to work with the engineering staff. I see that with Matt and I think everybody is very comfortable with him. He works people very good, and so I'm excited about the opportunity of working with someone of that caliber.

I think it was going to take someone like Matt Borland to come in where this operation was to get us up and running this quickly, and he's done a real good job of that in a short period of time.

Q: Fans are following the testing, watching where the Toyotas are and the reaction, tough to tell what's going on at Daytona with the drafting. How in general do you think testing is going for the Toyotas?

Jarrett: I think it's going very well. I don't know that I've looked at it that much so I think I would have a hard time. I think Dave Gilliland has been pretty fast for the three days or two and a half so far, so they look like they have their program going very well. We've had one car that's been pretty good and then another one that wasn't quite as good. But we're working to make those closer. But I think as a whole, everyone in the Toyota camp has to be pretty pleased with what we've seen. The engines have been very good, and to be quite honest, that was a concern of mine.

Obviously coming from where I came from, that was never an issue. You wondered just how caught up they make it, because I know the many hours and hours and dollars that have been spent by Robert Yates Racing, by Hendrick Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing on these restrictor plate engines over the years.How quickly could Toyota come in and be successful at this? I was very pleased the first time I went on the racetrack with what I saw with regards to the engine.

We're kind of having to do a balancing act to see what we can do to gain some speed; yet then what changes can we make that are going to be beneficial to us in the race downforce-wise without hurting the speed too much.

We kind of go back and forth, and if fans are following that, you might wonder why today we are not as fast as we were yesterday. Wind has a little something to do with it. But we concentrated more when we came in today on trying to make some of those changes that would give us some downforce back.

Q: I just wanted to clarify what you said about Ford, because the criticism is that Toyota is creating a new pay scale and paying outrageous, predatory salaries. Are you saying that Ford isn't catching up and that Toyota's at the pay scale that other manufacturers are, or Toyota has set the bar much higher?

Jarrett: No, Toyota has not set the bar. This has always happened whether it's been new teams coming in or manufacturers. When Dodge came in and Ray Evernham started his deal up, he had to go do the same thing. To get experienced people to make sure that things start off in a pretty good mode, you have to go get some experienced people. You can't take all novices and rookies and bring them in and expect to be pretty good. So you might have to pay someone a little bit more to get them to come over.

But basically, I can tell you for a fact, because I know what we are paying a lot of these people, that they are not getting a huge raise to come work for Toyota, especially at Michael Waltrip Racing. We have a budget that we have to live within, and that's not what is happening here. They are off-base saying that Toyota is coming in and buying people off.

I know that there were a number of people that talk from Robert Yates Racing before they knew they were going to have the second car back again, and they were making more money there than what they were being offered at Michael Waltrip Racing.

So it's not like we are coming in and buying everything. Is Toyota coming in and stepping things up from an engineering standpoint? Absolutely. That's where they are going to step everything up. Dodge did the same thing when they came in. They had a huge engineering staff and a lot of technology there and that's where their dollars were. The sponsors are still in a couple of the cars, so how can say this; but it's going to be a battle and it's going to be a feud.

Ford is going to have to step up and make sure they can keep up with the program. They have very good race teams. Robert Yates Racing and Roush are very good, but they have to put the support behind it to make it all work. It happens every time, regardless if you have new teams coming in.

It's going to be a battle and it's going to be an argument. You're going to get he said and he said. I'm not -- I'm in a better position to state the facts because I know both sides of it, and people can believe me if they want to or not, that doesn't really make any difference. But everybody will have to step up.

You know, it's no different than the amount of money and technology that Hendrick Motorsports has. It's amazing, it's just tremendous. They can try to put it on the new guy on the block in Toyota coming in that's creating this expense, but it's just the sport in itself. It's the other manufacturers that are doing that, too.