NASCAR Cup

Ford Media Day - Jarrett

All eight Ford NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series drivers participated in media day at Daytona International Speedway on Thursday. DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus WHAT ABOUT ALL THE CHANGE THIS YEAR? "I don't think I could ever remember this many ...

Published: Feb 7, 2004, 11:16 PM

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Dale Jarrett

All eight Ford NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series drivers participated in media day at Daytona International Speedway on Thursday.

DALE JARRETT - No. 88 UPS Taurus

WHAT ABOUT ALL THE CHANGE THIS YEAR? "I don't think I could ever remember this many changes in going into a season. Obviously, having a new title sponsor in NEXTEL -- changes to the cars, a pretty big change to our point system - yeah, there are a lot of changes. I think it's gonna take a little getting used to with everything, but I don't know that change is all bad."

Dale Jarrett.

Photo by Eric Gilbert.

YOU'RE PROBABLY HAPPY TO HAVE A CLEAN SHEET OF PAPER TO START THE YEAR? "Yeah, I don't know that there's anybody out here that appreciates starting over and having a clean slate as much as we do this year. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to make amends for what was just a terrible season at Robert Yates Racing last year and hopefully we can do that."

DOES IT TAKE THE OFFSEASON TO STOP THAT DOWNWARD TREND? "We thought at times we kind of had our ship righted last year during the season, but we've totally overhauled everything. We have a lot of different people. We have a different person in charge and Mike Ford is that person who is totally in charge now, but we're doing things completely different. I don't think we could have made these changes during the season last year because they're so different. It takes ending one season to get to the beginning of another to make that big of a change."

THE TIRES ARE ANOTHER CHANGE THIS YEAR. "Yeah, there are so many things that are different. The tires are gonna be an interesting situation to see exactly how that plays out as we get to some race tracks here at the beginning of the season. You have one with our second race at Rockingham where it's just brutal on tires and see how that works and how everybody goes about handling that, but it's gonna be interesting to see. Again, we have a lot of changes within our race team and a lot of other changes outside of that, but it's still racing. You still go out and you've got to perform on the race track."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE BUD SHOOTOUT? "I enjoy the Bud Shootout. I think it gives you an opportunity being in that race to get that first racing opportunity out of the way and get you back into a drafting mode and what it takes there. As far as myself, the two years that I've won the Bud Shootout, I've gone on to win the 500 so I think it's pretty good practice to get ready."

-ford racing-

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