Post by Savant on Jul 12, 2004 2:49:18 GMT -5
Dale Jarrett managed to pull off something akin to another miracle comeback on Sunday in the Chicagoland Tropicana 400 Nascar~Nextel Cup event.
Starting near the back of the pack, he slowly clawed his way up the fleet, but was lapped and found himself at the front of the Nascar snake ahead of a re-start. He might well have been wondering how he was ever going to get up with the leaders, when as the fleet began to accelerate, Dale must have breathed a huge sigh of relief when as he witnessed smoke rising behind him, that he too was not part of the disintegration of the closest cars that were following him as a rear end bump to Kasey Kahne’s No 9 Dodge by ultimate race winner Tony Stewart’s No 20 Home Depot caused a 9 vehicle pile-up putting almost as many out of the race.
This gave Dale the break he needed to cut loose and pass by almost the entire remaining contenders. In fact, he caught up so fast towards the end, that had the race gone on a few more laps, he might just have pulled it off and made it to first place and Victory Lane.
The fact that he beat out #1 place pole sitter and early leader Jeff Gordon for 3rd place was fairly significant in of itself, as was coming in just behind Jimmie Johnson who finished 2nd. This brings Dale Jarrett 3 notches closer, now in 12th place to making it to the Nextel Cup top ten elite qualifiers for eligibility to win the series trophy for 2004 and the first Nextel Cup.
Earlier in the race, it was hard to imagine that DJ could actually come from so far behind and pull off another stunner, but the true hallmark of a champion is one who can pull off such a rare and exceptional anomaly.
It looks as if they have really got a great combination of driver, team and powerful car in the making given their propensity to come from so far behind of late and even lead the race on occasions only to have been plagued more recently by mechanical setbacks and the like.
It just goes to show how incredibly unpredicatble, unbelievably competitive and hard to win NASCAR racing really is, with no dominant player managing to remain on top for long and with outcomes that are often times breathtaking in their amazement through unexpected twists of fate and unlikely changes in fortunes...
Also nice to see DJ giving credit to the 350,000 UPS employees for their support and for his contributions to charities for the day.
May they be the biggest winners...
Race Well
Savant
Starting near the back of the pack, he slowly clawed his way up the fleet, but was lapped and found himself at the front of the Nascar snake ahead of a re-start. He might well have been wondering how he was ever going to get up with the leaders, when as the fleet began to accelerate, Dale must have breathed a huge sigh of relief when as he witnessed smoke rising behind him, that he too was not part of the disintegration of the closest cars that were following him as a rear end bump to Kasey Kahne’s No 9 Dodge by ultimate race winner Tony Stewart’s No 20 Home Depot caused a 9 vehicle pile-up putting almost as many out of the race.
This gave Dale the break he needed to cut loose and pass by almost the entire remaining contenders. In fact, he caught up so fast towards the end, that had the race gone on a few more laps, he might just have pulled it off and made it to first place and Victory Lane.
The fact that he beat out #1 place pole sitter and early leader Jeff Gordon for 3rd place was fairly significant in of itself, as was coming in just behind Jimmie Johnson who finished 2nd. This brings Dale Jarrett 3 notches closer, now in 12th place to making it to the Nextel Cup top ten elite qualifiers for eligibility to win the series trophy for 2004 and the first Nextel Cup.
Earlier in the race, it was hard to imagine that DJ could actually come from so far behind and pull off another stunner, but the true hallmark of a champion is one who can pull off such a rare and exceptional anomaly.
It looks as if they have really got a great combination of driver, team and powerful car in the making given their propensity to come from so far behind of late and even lead the race on occasions only to have been plagued more recently by mechanical setbacks and the like.
It just goes to show how incredibly unpredicatble, unbelievably competitive and hard to win NASCAR racing really is, with no dominant player managing to remain on top for long and with outcomes that are often times breathtaking in their amazement through unexpected twists of fate and unlikely changes in fortunes...
Also nice to see DJ giving credit to the 350,000 UPS employees for their support and for his contributions to charities for the day.
May they be the biggest winners...
Race Well
Savant
