Winner of NASCAR’s coveted Winston Cup Championship in 1999, Dale Jarrett still retains vivid memories of his first victory on the Winston Cup circuit eight years earlier. That win, at the Champion 400 at Michigan International Speedway, was capped by a fender-banging duel to the finish line with Davey Allison, driver for the Texaco/Havoline racing team. As winner of that gripping race, Jarrett had no inkling that he would later “sit in Allison’s shoes” as pilot of the Texaco/Havoline Ford during the 1995 season.

A native of Conover, N.C., Jarrett began his racing career in 1977 at age 21 in the Limited Sportsman Division at the Hickory (N.C.) Speedway. It was the same course where his father, two-time Winston Cup champion Ned Jarrett, was once the track promoter. He began competing in the Busch Series in 1982, the series’ first season, before joining the Winston Cup circuit in 1984. Seven years later, in his 129th start, he finally achieved his memorable first Winston Cup win.

Jarrett’s success quickly ratcheted up in 1993, when he won the Daytona 500 and finished fourth overall in series points as a driver for Joe Gibbs Racing. That same year, Ernie Irvan became a driver for the No. 28 Texaco/Havoline Ford with Robert Yates Racing, following Davey Allison’s tragic death in a helicopter crash. In 1995, after Irvan incurred life-threatening injuries during a practice run, Jarrett stepped in as driver of the Texaco/Havoline-sponsored car for the remainder of that season. After Irvan secured clearances to resume racing, Robert Yates Racing expanded to a two-car team with Irvan taking over the No. 88 companion car to Jarrett’s No. 28 Texaco/Havoline Ford.

In 1996, Jarrett’s debut for Yates’ No. 88 Quality Care Service/Ford Credit team was a memorable one, as he captured all three of the Winston Cup’s richest races: the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600 and the Brickyard 400. He was the first Ford driver to win the Brickyard 400 and the first driver to win Daytona and Brickyard in the same year. He finished the NASCAR season in third place, while his team partner, “Comeback Kid” Ernie Irvan, finished 10th.

A year later, Jarrett won seven races for a second place finish in the Winston Cup point standings and missed winning the NASCAR Championship by a mere 14 points. He won the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship in 1999 as driver of the No. 88 Robert Yates Racing Ford, with Texaco as an associate sponsor. For the second time in three years, he was named the National Motorsport Press Association’s Richard Petty Driver of the Year.

In 2000, he finished fourth in points, despite having as many top-10 finishes as the series’ winner and more top-fives than the series’ runner-up.

His feats on the track mirror those in the community. In 2000, he earned “True Value Man of the Year” honors for his charity work, including his position as national spokesperson, with his wife Kelley, for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. It was the second time he was cited with the award.