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| Affiliation | Independent |
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| Name | Dale Jarrett |
| Address |
Hickory, North Carolina , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
November 26, 1956
(68 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Thomas Walker
Jan 20, 2004 04:12pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | While most Cup Series drivers had their career paths chosen by the time they were out of elementary school, when Dale Jarrett graduated for Newton Conover High School in Hickory, N.C., he had no idea how he wanted to make a living.
After all, he was the star quarterback of the football team, the star forward on the basketball team, the star shortstop on the baseball team and the star golfer.
"I knew that he was going to be a professional athlete of some sort because he had so much God-given talent," Ned Jarrett said. "I really thought he was going to be a pro golfer more than anything else."
Dale was offered a golf scholarship to the University of South Carolina but turned it down because he "wasn't much interested in studying," as Ned put it.
Instead, Dale got a job at Hickory Motor Speedway doing any odd job the speedway needed done.
"You could say I lacked direction," Jarrett said. "But every day during lunch, I'd set up my little driving range behind the racetrack and hit balls into an empty parking lot. I was really into golf before racing came along."
Dale finally got the itch to drive a race car at the age of 20, when he started putting together a machine with high school friends Andy Petree, now a NASCAR team owner, and Jimmy Newsome.
In his debut race at Hickory, Jarrett started 25th and finished ninth. It was then that he decided he wanted to race cars for a living.
While Dale was struggling to make a name for himself, he met his future wife Kelley, who knew immediately that their life together wasn't going to be normal.
"He would work on his race car at the shop until 9 or 10 at night, and I just couldn't understand why he wasn't coming home for these home-cooked meals," said Kelley, who was a fifth-grade teacher back then. "Well, I realized right then we weren't going to be June and Ward Cleaver."
Despite that, Jarrett, the 1999 NASCAR champion, says all the struggles were worth the rewards.
"My racing career has been a struggle because I never had any money, so it has been one slow step at a time," Jarrett said. "But I'm a believer that things are brought to you when you're ready for them. It's just taken me a long time to be ready for this."
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