Jarrett awaits return to Lowe’s

His final race will be on the track that almost ended his career.

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) — A day after Dale Jarrett drove in his final Sprint Cup points race, he was sinking putts left and right Monday on his way to shooting 69 on the golf course.

So it’s perhaps fitting that Jarrett spent Wednesday unveiling his plans for his final track appearance at May’s All-Star race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. For it was at this track that Jarrett’s storied racing career — and his golf game — were nearly ruined 28 years ago.

As Jarrett’s handlers unveiled a car with a special paint scheme for his final race and track promoters hawked special ticket packages, the low-key Jarrett talked about the scary wreck that nearly ended his career before it started.

“When you get out of a car and you’re on the ground and your foot is turned the wrong way, then you’re not sure what’s going to happen,” he said.

Jarrett, the son of two-time Cup series champion Ned Jarrett, was a young driver trying to make it in 1980 when he got a spot in the field for a late-model sportsman race at the track an hour from his home in Hickory.

With three laps to go, Gene Glover blew an engine and Jarrett rammed into the back of Glover’s slowing car.

The impact shattered Jarrett’s ankle. He was able to climb out of the smoking car, but immediately collapsed to the ground.

“They assured me I’d probably walk again,” Jarrett said. “They weren’t sure about golf, and that was a little upsetting at the time.”

Despite the horrifying wreck, Jarrett had gotten a taste of racing. He was determined to return to this track again.

“It showed me that day that it was something I wanted to do even more than I ever wanted to before,” Jarrett said. “It was my first opportunity at a big race track and the showplace of NASCAR racing. I knew that I wanted to come back here.”

Jarrett eventually got back to racing a year later at his local track in Hickory. Then in 1982 he got a ride in the first year of what is now the Nationwide Series.

Jarrett soon embarked on a 24-year career in NASCAR’s top series, where he won the 1999 points championship, three Daytona 500s and collected 32 wins. He became a tough opponent on the golf course, too.

Jarrett decided to run only the first five points races this year, finishing 37th Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. But he wanted to end things where his career got off to a rocky start.

“When you have a break that was as severe as that and you have to spend a lot of time thinking about it, a lot of guys kind of fade off into oblivion,” said Lowe’s Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler, who witnessed the wreck in 1980. “He did exactly the opposite.”

Before the 51-year-old Jarrett becomes a full-time racing analyst for ESPN later this year, and an even more frequent golfer, he’ll be honored on All-Star weekend May 17-18.

Jarrett will be inducted into the track’s court of legends with his father, and hopes his last race gives him his first win in the non-points event.

“It’s the one thing that I wish that I had, one of those trophies,” Jarrett said. “So we’ll try extremely hard and do everything short of cheating to make that happen.”