NASCAR: Dale Jarrett’s Five Most Significant Wins
By Mike Hutton
Number 1: The Dale & Dale Show – 1993 Daytona 500
Significance: Dale’s father Ned “calling him home” to win the race
Related Story: David Pearson's Five Most Significant Wins
Commentary: Every NASCAR driver wants to win the Daytona 500. Every father of a NASCAR driver surely wants to be as much a part of the win as well. The Jarrett family has been fortunate to have this happen – twice. The first of those Daytona wins called by TV analyst and Hall-of-Fame driver Ned Jarrett for his son Dale occurred in 1993. The call was by an emotional father more so than by an impartial journalist. He seemed to be calling strategy to his son on the last lap, and just about everything echoed by the elder Jarrett resonated it’s way to Dale on the track. Family matriarch Martha Jarrett was in a van in the infield, too excited to watch, but the CBS cameras nonetheless showed several shots of her as well. In his typical gentlemanly-demeanor, Ned found Earnhardt, Sr. the following week at Rockingham and apologized for being biased on the last lap, to which Earnhardt replied, “Hey, I’m a dad too.”
The race also featured a violent crash in which Rusty Wallace flipped violently, nearly disintegrating his car. This was one of the incidents which led to the development of the roof flaps, which are still used to this day and which are designed to keep a car on the ground instead of becoming airborne in such an incident.