A Jarrett Victory Is Money in Tank

In 1985, when Bill Elliott won the Winston Million, a million dollars sounded like, well, a million bucks.

No one has won stock car racing’s bonus prize since, but when Dale Jarrett takes a shot Sunday in the renamed Winston Select Million, it won’t have the same effect on racing as it did 11 years ago. Not with Michael Jordan getting $30 million for one season of basketball, Shaquille O’Neal $120 million for seven years, Troy Aikman $50 million for eight years of football or Barry Bonds nearly $45 million for six years of baseball.

Back then, Elliott’s victories in three of four specified Winston Cup races earned the bashful kid from Dawsonville, Ga., the nickname, “Million Dollar Bill.”

“ ‘Million Dollar Dale’ doesn’t have quite the same sound as ‘Million Dollar Bill,’ but it sure sounds good to me,” Jarrett said Thursday after arriving at NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway, where all he needs is to win the Mountain Dew Southern 500 on Sunday at Darlington Raceway to collect the $1-million bonus from a tobacco company.

Jarrett won two of the first three races, the season-opening Daytona 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR’s longest race, at Charlotte.

Only two others, Darrell Waltrip and the late Davey Allison, have been in a position to win the million. In the Southern 500, Waltrip finished 22nd in 1989 and Allison fifth in 1992.

Robert Yates, owner of Jarrett’s No. 88 Ford, also was the owner of Allison’s car.

“We had that [1992] race won and made one big mistake,” Yates said. “We were leading the race when we brought Davey in [to the pits] and right then it started raining and they stopped the race.”

Waltrip, who inherited the lead when Allison pitted, stayed on the track and won.

“We thought we had all the bases covered,” Yates continued. “We had sent a guy to the NASCAR trailer to look at the radar to see what the weather was doing. He came back and said it was clear, so we pitted.

“Later, we asked the guy about it and he said the entire screen was green so he thought it was clear. He saw some red and orange spots away from Darlington and he thought that’s where it was raining. All of us knew that green meant rain on those radars--except him.”

Allison actually had two chances at the million. He won the first two races, Daytona and the Winston Select 500 at Talladega, Ala., needing only a win at Charlotte or Darlington.

Larry McReynolds, who oversees Yates’ two-car team of Thunderbirds for Jarrett and Ernie Irvan, was Allison’s crew chief at the time. Looking back, he thinks the team’s desire to win every race it ran hurt its chances.

Recalled McReynolds, “Davey’s favorite car was old ‘James Bond.’ He won three races with it at Charlotte, but instead of saving it for the million-dollar race, we ran it in an all-star race the week before. Davey won the race, but we killed the car in doing so.”

Allison and Kyle Petty crashed as they crossed the finish line in the all-star race. The accident demolished “James Bond.”

“I believe if we’d had that car around for the Coca-Cola 600, Dale Jarrett might be trying to become the third driver to win the Winston Select Million this week,” McReynolds said, wistfully.

Yates, whose cars have never won on Darlington’s “track too tough to tame,” recalled his last try at the $1-million bonus:

“In my lifetime, it was the first time I’d ever known that I had high blood pressure,” he said. “I went to the infield hospital at Darlington that morning and my blood pressure was double the normal reading.

“I’m going to get excited Sunday too. It’s not about the money, but something shot my blood pressure up, so it’ll probably go up again. I think we have a good shot at winning. I just hope we don’t choke again, like we did the last time when we made that questionable decision to pit.”

Waltrip’s dream in 1989 ended when he scraped the wall in mid-race.

“We had tested at Darlington weeks before the race and really felt good about our chances,” Waltrip, 49, said. “Race weekend, everything was fine, and then race day came.

“We got a lap down early and got the car going good middle ways in the race and were trying to get the lap back. I got in under somebody and got the car loose and got up into the wall in Turns 3 and 4. We never ran good after that. We just hung on until the end.

“The degree of difficulty at Darlington, when you think about how fast we’re going, there is no good place to pass or even run round that track. It’s very treacherous. Jarrett is going to the worst possible place to finish it off. Even as good a shape as he’s in, Dale knows Darlington isn’t a place you can go and be casual about it. It takes full focus on just running the race, let alone worry about winning the million dollars.”

The only man who made it, Elliott, probably enjoyed the experience less than those who tried and failed. He was only 29 when he arrived at Charlotte for his first shot at the million. The crush of reporters, TV interviewers, agents, salesmen and well-wishers almost sent him packing back to Dawsonville.

“I had a lot of trouble dealing with some things back then,” Elliott said. “Back then, I was the driver, crew chief. . . . I wore so many hats it was unreal. Every time somebody took me away from the race car, I resented it. I had a hard time coming to terms with that. The race car was what got me to the point where I was at. I was comfortable in the car, nowhere else.

“Dale’s different. He’s more mature, he’s got a mature team and they’ll be able to handle it.”

Jarrett, 39, is the son of two-time Winston Cup champion Ned Jarrett, and has been around racing tension all his life.

“Even if he wasn’t going for the money, he would be a definite top-three pick to win the race,” Elliott said. “Dale and those guys with him have got their act together.”

Elliott’s luck, unlike Allison’s or Waltrip’s in later years, was all on his side on race day at Darlington.

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen,” Elliott said. “A lot of things happened that, looking back, you realize you were meant to win. Earnhardt spun right in front of me and I managed to dodge him.

“Then, with about a couple of laps to go, Cale [Yarborough] was leading and I was running second. His power steering let loose and I was able to get around him. I still had to drive hard to hold him off ‘cause he was coming fast. But I did and we won. We, my brothers and me, we were kinda in a daze in victory lane.”

Linking his career to Elliott’s, Jarrett may have the stars lined up in his favor.

His victory in the GM Goodwrench Service 400 on Aug. 18 at Michigan International Speedway was, to the day, five years after his first triumph on the same track. It was also 11 years to the weekend after a win by Elliott at the same track. Two weeks later, on Labor Day weekend, Elliott won at Darlington and won the million.