When he saw the huge pack of traffic
racing three- and four-wide behind him, Dale Jarrett knew his chance
of passing Dale Earnhardt for victory was fading. Jarrett has
finished second at Talledaga before, and he knows from experience
that you don't make a last-lap pass for the lead without drafting
help behind you. "It seems like every time I finish second here,
I get into second and the guys get side by side behind me and I
don't ever get the help that I need to make that pass," said Jarrett,
who has finished second at Talladega four times in the last five
years. "I don't know if I could, but I'd like to at least have the
opportunity."
|
|
Jarrett's only hope was third-place Mark,
who caught Jarrett too late to help.
|
|
"Mark just didn't get there in time,"
said Jarrett, who won here last October. "I think that we could have
worked to try and get by Earnhardt, but trying to pass
Dale Earnhardt at one of these places with a lap or two to go is
a pretty tall order. He makes the 3 car pretty wide."
|
Mark may have been able to help Jarrett had he
gotton to the front sooner. But he lost his own drafting partners
with three laps remaining, leaving him and Jarrett to challenge Earnhardt
alone. "Our car was super-fast, but we needed some help," Mark said. "We had
the help. The 20 car(Tony Stewart) and the 18 car (Bobby Labonte) made my
car. I'll bet we were running five miles an hour faster than Dale Jarrett
and the 3 car for a lap or so we were reeling them in so fast." But both
Stewart and Labonte got caught in a wild three-and-four-wide scramble
with John Andretti, Jeff Burton and Ken Schrader and lost the lead
draft. "When they got hung up side by side back there on a pass,
that left me by myself," Mark said.
|
"We got some great help from Tony Stewart
at the end and that was fantastic," Mark said, who led one lap during
the event. "It breaks my heart that he and Bobby got hung up on that
last pass with Schrader. There was no question we were catching the
leaders by a huge margin. It was shaping up to be extremely exciting
at the end, but I lost my partners and wasn't able to help Dale any
by myself." That left Mark and Jarrett to battle the one man neither
wanted to be behind on the last lap at Talledega. For every trick
they tried, Earnhardt had the answer.
|
"You don't want to be in front of him or
behind him," Jarrett said, "I don't care to have him in either place.
He's a hard man to pass. He knows where to put it and he's good at
anticipating. As I peddled back to Mark a little bit to try to
get me a little bit of a push, he peddled right back with me.
He's smart and he knows what to do. We had to have more help than
me and Mark to get around him.
|
|
For Mark, just finishing the race was a
relief. He had been caught in multicar crashes in the last three
races at Talledega, so finishing third was huge. "I wanted to thank the
team for giving me a car that was fast enough to contend." he said.
"At least I only spent two-thirds of the day three-wide instead of
all day."
|
