Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 - Dale Jarrett Notes

“Atlanta is a great track for racing and it’s a place I look forward to racing at. After what happened last weekend at Las Vegas, I’m really looking forward to a place where this team excels. We’re putting what happened last week behind us and looking forward.” - Dale Jarrett on racing at Atlanta

The #88 Team Rested, Ready For Atlanta
Dale Jarrett ¨Atlanta Motor Speedway¨ March 9, 2003

Jarrett Looks to Rebound From 41st-place Finish This Week in Atlanta . . . The #88 UPS Racing team experienced the extremes of NASCAR Winston Cup racing during the last two race weekends with a win in Rockingham two weeks ago, then a 41st-place finish in Las Vegas last week due to an accident. Jarrett was running in eighth place when he was tapped from behind and retired from the race. Atlanta Motor Speedway has been a good track for Jarrett and the #88 UPS team where they have scored one win, nine top-five and 10 top-10 finishes. Jarrett returns to Atlanta with a third-place finish during the track’s last Winston Cup Series race which took place in November 2002.

“We had a good racecar there last fall and it was just a good run for us,” Jarrett said. “We adjusted on the car, had good pit work and it was a good race for us. We’ll be looking for similar, if not better, results this time around.”

The #88 Team Hopes to Capitalize On #38 Test Session at Atlanta . . . Prior to leaving for Las Vegas Motor Speedway last week, the #38 Robert Yates Racing team spent two days testing cars at Atlanta Motor Speedway. In addition to getting the #38 Fords prepared, driver Elliott Sadler got behind the wheel of the #88 UPS Ford to shake it down prior to this weekend’s “MBNA 500.”

“We’re taking the same car we finished third with at Atlanta last November,” said crew chief Brad Parrott. “The #38 team tested it and fine tuned it for us. They found a couple things that we think will make the car even better than it was last November. We feel like we have a car that will be as good if not better than the one we had in Rockingham.”

In addition to the car being the same one from Atlanta last fall, it is the same car that the #88 team won with last June at Pocono, and then again at Michigan in August.

Jarrett to Make 500th Cup Start in Darlington . . . The race at Atlanta this weekend will be Dale Jarrett’s 499th Winston Cup race. He will reach a career milestone in one week when he makes the 500th Winston Cup start of his career.

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