SIGNATURE PROFILES
© 1999-2003 Dwight Drum

JASON JARRETT

DOB: Nov.14, 1975
Birth Town: Newton, N.C.
Home Town: Hickory, N.C.

Photos © by Dwight Drum and Nancy A. Osterhoudt
Web work by Gary Larsen

Jason Jarrett is part of a racing legacy, but he's even more a part of every racing moment because Jarrett knows his role as a driver and his part of that racing family. Sometimes the offspring of racing legends and public figures struggle in the shadows. Jason Jarrett seems to thrive. Mostly he exudes the family decency.

I've been fortunate to interview hundreds of professional racers and overall they could overwhelm any negative misconception about their drive. Some have personalities that sparkle in the lights. Some seem to excel in silence. Others dwell between the spotlight and the shadows and display their emotions like a warm breeze over cool water. Sometimes the big drive within bursts, other times it sizzles within. Drive has its downside as well as the popular upside.

Jason Jarrett has his own drive, but that drive was properly influenced by not only some of the best gear-and-grease genetics in racing but also the warmth of family that's hard on quitting. Jason Jarrett has grown up with all these wonderful ingredients. When you take a seat beside us during this interview you might sense the racing nobility in Jason Jarrett, but you are really only just getting a moment of decency.

I believe I can nudge the good out of any driver, that's my focus, but you won't witness any nudging here…Jarrett is a Jarrett. I believe you'll witness in Jason a family trait that emerges and runs like a warm breeze over cool water.

DWIGHT CHATS WITH…JASON JARRETT

"I think being sincere to people. I want to treat people the way I want to be treated."

"I hate to narrow it to just my grandfather and father. I'd have to say my whole family. They've all been very supportive. No matter if I was driving a race car or needed help in school or what it might have been, it seems like my family has always been willing to help out."

"Yeah, I don't have any regrets. We're all responsible for our own decisions. I have had a good time every step of the way, from go-carts to late models to what I'm doing now."

"At this point I don't think anything could please me more...maybe to win more races; that's one of our goals this year. It's not that I wasn't pleased with my season last year, but that's about as straight forward as I can put it."

"Absolutely."

"Honesty."

"Sometimes I have a hard time thinking about that. You don't really want to think about it. My stepfather is in the insurance business, so I've been around a little of it. I might be an insurance salesman or something. I don't really know. I might be a shop specialist on one of these teams. I think I would be in racing in some way."

"I play a little golf. I like computers and mess around with the web site, trying to keep traffic coming to my web site and things like that. It relaxes me to look at e-mails and to send e-mails back. I'm into finding quotes to keep me going and keep me motivated."

"A Ford Taurus from Dale Jarrett Ford."

"It's all about winning, that's why we're here. We have fun, but at the end of the day if we don't win we don't have as much fun."

"On a race track, you're all trying to go in the same direction. On the highway you don't know where the idiots are going. Everybody seems to have their own agenda when it comes to highway driving. At least on the race track for the most part, we try to go the same way"

"I'd like to be able to make my mind a little stronger."

"Not anything set in stone. I usually spend a little quiet time a couple hours before the race. From the drivers meeting to the race, I'm quiet and laid-back. I lay around in the lounge and find a quiet spot."

"That's a loaded question. In racing, I broke my foot in Memphis. It wasn't really scary...it was probably the biggest set back that I have had."

"I'm similar to a lot of others. I fear not being successful or not meeting my own expectations. I set a high standard for myself so if I don't reach it, I hold that against myself."

"Go fishing, take a bike ride, go to the gym."

"A couple weeks ago, I dreamed that my dad won the Daytona 500 again this year. That was kind of a weird dream because I usually don't remember what I dream. I just happened to remember that. I hope somewhere I was tied into that dream in ARCA."

"Knowing that I have a lot of good people and family around me."

"I worry about making everybody happy."

"Depends on what track you're on. Some tracks feel faster than others. A high-back half mile, you feel a lot more G forces than you would in a place like Daytona, because of the restrictor plates. You don't really get the full effect of everything here at Daytona. When you get 40 cars around you at Daytona, then you feel a lot of different things than you do when you are by yourself. Depends on certain situations. Atlanta feels fast. Charlotte feels fast. There's a select few that really feel fast and have that physical effect as well as mental."

"I learned that no matter what series you're in, you have to be happy with what you are doing, you have to have good people around you. Sometimes the grass is not greener on the other side."

"I'd have to put God first and probably my wife second, not in that particular order, but God plays a big part on all of our lives."

"I'd probably take my grandfathers' patience, my mom's ability to get the things she gets done in all she has to do. She raised three boys, and always seemed to do more for us than we could do in return. Third person would be Tony Stewart's ability to drive any kind of race car."

"I have two Siberian Huskies."

"I like Steak and Shake. I don't know if that's special or not. During the season I try to be more conscious about what I'm eating. I can do the working out part, but I just can't seem to get the eating part right."

"The Jet. An announcer Ken Rook, in Hickory in 1994 gave me that name."

"Obviously my family had a big influence on that. I probably took a lot different route than most drivers do now. I had my fun in high school, and got in trouble with my buddies. I played baseball. I didn't go to a whole lot of races when I was growing up, but whenI turned 15 and closer to driving a car, I got more interested in racing. That got me started. It wasn't my dad or grandfather talking to me about it. One day it hit me, I might want to try this. I knew for a long time in the back of my mind, I just didn't know how to approach my parents about it. Once I did in 1992, racing is all I've ever done."

"The cost. I've always thought the best driver is probably sitting on the couch watching the race, because it costs so much to be involved in the sport. It's not like basketball where he can go buy a basketball at Wal-Mart and start practicing. To even get started at the lowest level is going to expensive. The sport might have grown too fast, but there's really no way around it."

"I'm quietly competitive, very determined and goal-oriented. I always try to create goals everyday and every year. It's not necessarily moving to the next level. I want to achieve the goals I've set for myself. It's a personal thing throughout my life."

"My dad didn't push me into racing, I never remember my dad saying anything negative to me when I told him I wanted to start. I never remember him pushing me. At the time, he was having a rough time so he might have had mixed emotions, but he never let me know. He always stayed behind me, and even though my mom has been quiet about it -- t's harder for the wives and the moms because they don't understand how much we need to be gone. Even though you drive a race car for a living, not many know just how much work it takes to keep a team solidly together, even to get a ride. It may not be the toughest work physically working hour after hour, but you really have to be a different breed of person that puts up with the hardships that go along with racing, just for the few good times that it offers."

"I think it goes back to where my grandfather got started, his visions of the way it was supposed to work. It goes back to his nickname 'Gentleman Ned', his just being nice and sincere, having the integrity to respect others and himself. Also my dad has what I call 'Michael Jordan Mentality'. He never ever thinks about giving up. You never here a negative comment from either one of them. My dad and my grandfather are very positive people, and I think that carries over to me. I was always a positive person and I always thought I could do well in this sport, or whatever it was I thought I decided to do."

Finding one word to characterize any racer is a task, but when I began our Signature Profile interviews about 160 racers ago I chose to end each interview with one or two words that best described each personality. Jason Jarrett is complex like all drivers and has many attributes to consider. I tried to turbo-charge a word to match his nickname 'Jet' and found no speed. I looked to his family legacy and explored a treasure chest of great adjectives but couldn't dig up one that focused solely on his character. I passed by stacks of good words without finding one that encompassed Jarrett's demeanor. Then in a moment of clarity it struck me that he carries a word around with him at all times. I discussed this simple word with webmaster Gary Larsen and he agreed. Jason Jarrett is…

REAL