DJ Expected to Retire
October 11, 2007 by Tim Zaegel
Filed under Racing
After 23 years of Cup Racing, NASCAR legend Dale Jarrett has called for a press conference this Friday to announce his plans for next year which has led the majority of the racing world to believe that this will be his final year that the 1999 Winston Cup Champion runs a full-time schedule for NASCAR.
This past Sunday’s race at Talladega marked the 592nd career start for Jarrett in the premier series of stock car racing. During that span, Dale – current driver of the no. 44 UPS Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing – has amassed a total of 30 wins, 146 top five finishes, 230 top ten finishes, and 14 career pole positions. However, his last win came on October 2, 2005 at Talladega and the last checkered flag he brought home before that was in 2003. In fact, since winning the Cup Championship back in 1999, Jarrett’s only managed 10 victories and 39 top five finishes, most of which came in the early portion of this decade. In 2006, he managed only one top five and four top ten’s and has failed to finish a race this year inside of the top ten.
I’m not trying to show any kind of disrespect to the guy, because I do recognize him as one of the true legends in this sport. However, everyone has their time, and for Dale Jarrett that time was five years ago. Take a sign from Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin and give up the full-time schedule while the gettin’s good, or else you’ll just wind up another Ricky Rudd … again, no disrespect intended, but that wasn’t a compliment.
Is there any word on who will take his ride?
I think once you go gray or bald, you should be forced out anyway. They could make “Just for men” testing part of the pre-race inspection. Think of how many jobs that would created!
No word yet. In fact, we won’t know for sure until tomorrow if Jarrett will in fact retire or not. I’m thinking he will, which will leave an opening at Michael Waltrip Racing. The first name that comes to mind for me as a possibility to fill the void would be JJ Yeley since Kyle Busch will be driving the 18 car for Gibbs next year.
I think will either drive the 96 or 70 seventy i thought that was annouced but i’m sure. Also the gray or bald statement mark martin did pretty well after his hair was gray.
Roc
sorry i was talking about j.j yealy.
roc
He did good, but he got boring. He started driving like a senior citizen racer.
Roc, I just confirmed that Yeley will indeed be driving for Hall of Fame Racing next year, and I believe it will be in the 96 DLP car. The contract he signed is for three years.
Mark never drove like a crazy man the whole time he drove he never pushed the envolope.
I think with racing it just seems a little harder to tell people when to hang them up versus some of the other sports.
Maybe that’s why he has no championship under his belt!
But is still one of the best on the track. And i,m not even a martin fan.
I think Mark Martin is an exception here, though. If he wasn’t running well in the majority of the races that he’s run this year, I highly doubt that he’d be coming back for more next year. It’s sad to think of what’s become of drivers such as Bill Elliott and Ricky Rudd.