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Dale Arnold Jarrett (born November 26, 1956) is an American former race car driver and current racing commentator for NBC. He is best known for winning the Daytona 500 three times (in 1993, 1996, and 2000) and winning the NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship in 1999. He is the son of 2-time Grand National Champion Ned Jarrett, younger brother of Glenn Jarrett, father of former driver Jason Jarrett, and cousin of Todd Jarrett. In 2007, Jarrett joined the ESPN/ABC broadcasting team as an announcer in select Nationwide Series races. In 2008, after retiring from driving following the 2008 Food City 500, he joined ESPN permanently as the lead racing analyst replacing Rusty Wallace. In 2015, Jarrett became a part of the NBC Sports Broadcasting Crew for NASCAR events. He was inducted in the 2014 class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2025.
Jarrett spent his childhood traveling to his father's races across the Southern United States. He was introduced to golf by the age of twelve; he also played football, basketball and baseball while attending Newton-Conover High School. Jarrett led his high school's golf team to three conference championships, and was named the school's athlete of the year as a senior. Following graduation in 1975, Jarrett worked at Hickory Motor Speedway, the track his father managed. Jarrett was offered a full golf scholarship from the University of South Carolina, which he declined. Though he continued to play golf, Jarrett was interested in following his father's footsteps as a racing driver.
He won his first Cup race for Yates at Pocono Raceway and finished 13th in the final standings. When it was announced Irvan (who had returned toward the end of the year in a Texaco Havoline Yates car numbered 88) would return to the No. 28 after a year-long absence due to injuries, Yates had planned to help Jarrett compete in his own team with a Hooters sponsorship. The deal fell through, however, and Yates promoted the No. 88 car to full-time in the Winston Cup Series with Ford assuming the sponsorship through its Quality Care Service and Ford Credit divisions. In 1996, Jarrett won the Daytona 500 for a second time, and finished in the top-two in each of the first three races of the season. He also won the Coca-Cola 600, Brickyard 400, and the second Michigan race. Jarrett finished third in the final point standings behind Hendrick Motorsports teammates Terry Labonte and Jeff Gordon. Jarrett's kissing of the bricks at Indianapolis started a tradition that has been used by every NASCAR team at the race since then and in the Indianapolis 500 since 2003.
The following season, he won a career-best seven races but lost the championship to Jeff Gordon by 14 points, who by Jarrett's own admission on August 25, 2012, was "eleven hundred times the driver I ever dreamed of being". In 1998, Jarrett won three races, and finished second in the last two races of the year, ending up 3rd in the final point standings to Jeff Gordon, despite suffering gallbladder problems, which made him miss the exhibition race in Japan. After an offseason surgery, Jarrett returned in 1999 and took the points lead after his first win of the season at the Pontiac Excitement 400 and held it for the rest of the season, when he won The Winston Cup title by 201 points over Bobby Labonte with four wins (Richmond, Michigan, Daytona, and Indianapolis), 24 top-fives, a then Modern Era record 29 top-tens, and an average 6.76 finish. He also retired from the Busch Series to become a part-time owner, partnering with National Football League quarterback Brett Favre to field the No. 11 Rayovac Ford for his son Jason, Yates teammate Kenny Irwin Jr., and Steve Grissom. He had eleven wins in the Busch Series when he retired.
In 2001, he won three of the first eight races of the season (Darlington, Texas, and Martinsville) and traded the points lead with Jeff Gordon, with the two of them having the same point totals for a few different weeks, but won only once more at New Hampshire in July and faded back to fifth in the standings. In addition, Jarrett suffered a concussion from a hard crash at the new Kansas Speedway. In an interview, Jarrett said that he did remember not being in the Protection One 400 but only getting on the plane to go to the racetrack. After that season, Jarrett's long-time crew chief Todd Parrott departed and Jimmy Elledge took over the role as a replacement. After seven races of the 2002 season, Jarrett and Parrott reunited, and Jarrett went on to clinch two victories (Pocono and Michigan) and rebounded to 9th in the final standings after the poor start to the year. Jarrett began the 2003 season by winning at North Carolina Speedway but only posted five more top-ten finishes, relegating him to 26th in the final standings. He rebounded in 2004 to finish fifteenth in points, despite not winning a race for the first time since 1992. In 2005, Jarrett had an up-and-down year in 2005. In the Busch Series Bristol race, he was involved in a crash with Shane Hmiel. When Jarrett confronted him under a red flag, Hmiel The finger drawing a fine from NASCAR. Jarrett was not penalized for any part he had in the wreck. Later, Jarrett got his last career Cup series win at Talladega Superspeedway, again finishing 15th in the standings.
Jarrett started the 2007 Nextel Cup season on a high note as he drew pole position for the annual exhibition race, the Budweiser Shootout, at Daytona. He finished 18th out of 21 cars. Since Jarrett's team was a brand new team and had no owner points, and due to a rule change, he was eligible to use the Past Champion's Provisional five times as his 1999 championship was the most recent among past champions who were driving for teams not in the top 35 in owner points; prior to the rule change the use of a Past Champion's Provisional was not limited.
Jarrett was forced to use all six of his provisionals at the start of the season, starting at Daytona mainly because Michael Waltrip Racing was penalized by NASCAR for an illegal fuel additive during Speedweeks and the penalties knocked Jarrett, Waltrip, and Reutimann out of the top-35 in owner points-the safety net for qualifying regardless of rain and cancellations of qualifying.
Jarrett started 43rd in the Daytona 500 and finished 22nd. Jarrett used his last champion's provisional at the spring Talladega race, Aaron's 499. For the rest of 2007, Jarrett had to get into that weekend's race on time. Jarrett missed twelve races in 2007 as a result.
During an interview on Speed Channel, Jarrett said after his contract is up with MWR (which was expected to be in the 2009 season), he would retire, but the timetable was pushed up in October 2007 prior to the 2007 Bank of America 500. Jarrett retired from points racing after the 2008 Food City 500, turning the No. 44 Toyota ride to David Reutimann. His final race was the All-Star race on May 17, 2008, after which he joined ESPN's NASCAR coverage full-time as a booth announcer.
However, Jarrett was not guaranteed to start the first five races using the champion's provisional as he had the year before as Kurt Busch, the 2004 champion, had his team's owner points transferred to his teammate Sam Hornish Jr. and would be first to receive it. Jarrett started off 2008 with a sixteenth place finish at Daytona. He retired from points racing after the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. At the weekend's pre-race driver's meeting, he spoke to the other drivers, saying
Enjoy this. We all have our time in this, and mine has been fantastic. To me, it has been an honor and a privilege to be able to race in this series and say I raced with and against and sometimes beat the best in the world. Thanks for allowing me to do that. Enjoy it. It's a great sport, and you guys make it what it is.
| 1988 | Ellington Racing | Buick | 36 | 16 |
| 1989 | Cale Yarborough Motorsports | Pontiac | 20 | 32 |
| 1991 | Wood Brothers Racing | Ford | 17 | 6 |
| 1992 | Joe Gibbs Racing | Chevrolet | 35 | 36 |
| 1993 | 2 | 1 | ||
| 1994 | 41 | 35 | ||
| 1995 | Robert Yates Racing | Ford | 1 | 5 |
| 1996 | 7 | 1 | ||
| 1997 | 3 | 23 | ||
| 1998 | 5 | 34 | ||
| 1999 | 8 | 37 | ||
| 2000 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 2001 | 31 | 22 | ||
| 2002 | 21 | 14 | ||
| 2003 | 11 | 10 | ||
| 2004 | 31 | 10 | ||
| 2005 | 1 | 15 | ||
| 2006 | 25 | 10 | ||
| 2007 | Michael Waltrip Racing | Toyota | 43 | 22 |
| 2008 | 20 | 16 |
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