The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series arrives back to the East Coast for this weekend's Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. After an accident eliminated them from the race last week in Las Vegas, the UPS Team looks for redemption at Atlanta this weekend. Dale Jarrett earned his best starting spot of the 2007 NASCAR season during the fall race in Atlanta, qualifying third.
"I think we took over the upset of the year from Appalachian State when they beat Michigan by qualifying third," Jarrett recalled. "That was a pretty good weekend for us last year. It was our best qualifying effort and one of our best finishes of the year last year. Hopefully, we'll see even better things this weekend."
The Kobalt Tools 500 takes place Sunday, March 9 at 2 p.m. EST. FOX will provide live television coverage beginning with its pre-race show at 1:30 p.m. EST while PRN will provide live radio coverage.
Jarrett Discusses Racing at Atlanta Motor Speedway
What has Atlanta meant for your racing career?
"It's a track that I have always enjoyed racing at from the time it was configured before the changes to the way it is today. It's obviously a very fast race track but it's a wide track and there have been some great finishes here and I've been fortunate to be a part of some of those great finishes. I would liked to have won at Atlanta with its new configuration but we came close several times and obviously we still have one more shot to make that happen but even then I can't complain because this is a track that has been very good to me. Aside from the competition side of it, there are a lot of companies that I have been fortunate to have associations with that are located in Atlanta. UPS and Coca-Cola obviously come to mind. I've enjoyed a long relationship with Coca-Cola and then when UPS came on board as our sponsor in 2001, this track took on a whole new meaning. So there are a number of things that make this place very special and that I will miss as a competitor."
What did the team accomplish at the test that took place in Atlanta at the end of last season?
"At the time I think the biggest thing for us was to try as many things as we possibly could so we could compile a lot of information because that's the things that engineers need to make decisions about the direction we're heading with our cars, set-ups and configurations. Obviously so much has changed within our organization since that test but it was a very useful test for us and being able to have three teams participate in that test definitely was an advantage. We were able to have each team doing something different which allowed us to get a lot more and varied information which is always useful when preparing for one of these races. While we learned some things at that test there are still plenty of unknowns going into the weekend because the tires won't be the same but at the very least we'll have a better starting point."
UPS Racing Team Notes of Interest
- Dale Jarrett is a former Atlanta winner and will make his 41st career start at the 1.5-mile speedway this weekend. Jarrett earned his win at Atlanta during the spring race at the track in 1997.
- In 40 starts at Atlanta Jarrett has scored one win, 11 top-five and 18 top-10 finishes.
- In addition to his finishes, Jarrett has started on the pole at Atlanta twice, starting first in 2000 and 2001.
- Five of Jarrett's top-five finishes at Atlanta are second-place finishes including a string of second-place finishes he scored during the fall race at the speedway from 1996 to 1999.
- In 40 starts at Atlanta, Jarrett has failed to finish races at the 1.5-mile track only five times.
- The last time Jarrett failed to finish a race in Atlanta was the track's spring race in 2000 which was the result of an engine failure.
- Jarrett earned a season-best starting spot of third place for the Bass Pro Shops 500 at Atlanta in October 2007.
