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Twice as nice? Road to a Winston Cup repeat fraught with potholes
Posted: Wednesday February 16, 2000 07:26 PM
By John Giannone, CNNSI.com DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Now Dale Jarrett knows what Michael Jordan so often felt, what fueled Wayne Gretzky's greatness, what the New York Yankees so often trumpet. The notion that once is not enough "I've always wondered if you get that championship, can you say, 'Well, we got that, that's nice.' " Jarrett says. "But what it does is make you want it even more now, when you enjoy those spoils of victory." And even in the breakneck world of NASCAR, uneasy is the head that wears the crown. "I don't know that it makes it easier," he said. "I think that sometimes it can be more difficult when you look back and see what it took to accomplish that, to win the championship, you realize all the good breaks that you had to have." One person who will agree with that is Jarrett's crew chief, Todd Parrott. "We know what it takes to win, how you win a championship. No failures, no engine failures, the driver being smart when the car's not right. It's not going to make it any easier. But it's made us a lot smarter." That intelligence level has been challenged throughout a winter-long construction crash course. Because they focused so much on winning the title last fall, Jarrett's crew didn't begin building its 2000 Taurus until December, months behind the competition. The added burden was to build a car worthy of a defending champion.
"Obviously NASCAR isn't going to let it be a whole lot better," said Parrott. "You know, they kept picking on us in the wind tunnel, doing this and doing that. You know, 'You can't have this and you can't have that.' You want to take a mile but they only give you a quarter." Jarrett says patience will be the early key to ultimate success. "I know that commitment that our guys make, knowing how particular Todd is in getting the first few built and making sure they are right so our guys have something to go by. I think that's always the difficult part, getting those first few done." And look for history to play a role in making some valuable improvements, too. "In 1998 we built quantity and halfway through the season we had to cut up every car we had because it wasn't good enough," remembers Jarrett. "So what we're going to do now is take the time and make the cars right and build quality cars." And that measure of quality will be tested immediately. Because Jarrett knows even though it's not clearly visible, there will be a giant bull's eye emblazoned on the No. 88 car all season, beginning this weekend at Daytona. "It doesn't take long to get behind," he says, "especially with people like Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte, who finished the season on a huge roll. They've got the same race car and everything. You can't afford to get behind." Parrott doesn't see that happening. "The car isn't going to be any worse," he says. "We didn't build a car that was any worse than what we just got through racing in 1999. It's something that's just a little bit better." And being a little bit better is Jarrett's mission statement for the new millennium. Last weekend he captured the Bud Shootout on Sunday and grabbed the pole for Sunday's Daytona 500. Amazingly, Jarrett never sat on the pole during an overwhelming run to his first Winston Cup title last season.
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