| | Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. -- It wasn't long ago that short-track racing seemed like the specialty keeping Dale Jarrett from joining the Winston Cup championship hunt.
Ten years into his career, Jarrett had never won on a track shorter than a mile while others -- most notably Jeff Gordon -- had used consistency on NASCAR's smallest, tightest tracks to build seasons that ended with the series title.
That all changed three years ago, when Jarrett won consecutive short-track events in Brisol, Tenn., and Richmond, proving he wasn't just a superspeedway specialist.
And this weekend, when the 13-year series veteran returns to Richmond International Raceway for the Pontiac 400, it is as the defending race champion, the defending series champion and a big fan of RIR's always eventful racing.
It's the track where patience paid off last year, allowing him to bide his time until his car was hooked up, then pass Mark Martin with 32 laps to go to end a 14-race winless skid and take over the top spot in the series points race.
He never looked back, winning three more times and never relinquishing the points lead on the way to winning the championship that had become his obsession.
"As I look back on the championship season, that was kind of the turnaround for us," he said this week. "We got our first win and that kind of got us going."
Even before that, Richmond had been a place of memories for Jarrett.
Two years ago, Jarrett seemed on his way to victory when NASCAR took the unusual step of red-flagging the race under caution with six laps left to provide for a green-flag finish. The move angered Jarrett, especially after Terry Labonte nudged him aside and passed him with two laps to go, going on to Victory Lane.
"It seems like I'm in the middle of most things that go up there in some way, shape or form," Jarrett said this week. "It's been a good race track for us."
Jarrett's good fortune on the three-quarter-mile oval last June coincided with bad luck for then-points leader Jeff Burton. In a race marred by a large number of blistering tires and crashes, Burton had transmission trouble and finished 37th.
Both have won races this season -- Jarrett in the season-opening Daytona 500, Burton two races later in Las Vegas -- and so have eight other drivers.
The streak of 10 different winners to start the season is a series record, and Burton thinks it's a sign of a championship race that will go down to the wire.
"It kind of tickles me a little bit. I really got perturbed early in the year with people talking about the racing not being competitive. I've found it funny that there's been 10 different winners to show how competitive it is," he said. | |
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