Consistently running
up front has put Dale Jarrett in position to win
the
Winston Cup championship, and he has no plans to
abandon that strategy now that he's closing in on
his
goal.
Owning a 251-point lead atop the standings with six races left, Jarrett was asked Thursday if he had reached the stage where he could start running cautiously to protect his position.
"I can't imagine we'll ever get to the point of being conservative," said Jarrett, who has 23 top-10 finishes in 28 races this year. "I think we'll just be racing the way that we've always raced, and if we can keep a big-enough lead to where the last race or two that all we have to do is start or something like that, then it's wide open. Then you can go as fast as you want."
Jarrett will start ninth in Sunday's UAW-GM Quality 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway, a track where he has won three times in his Winston Cup career.
"It makes you breathe a little easier whenever you're at a place that you've done well in the past," he said. "We know that without any unfortunate luck, we should be in the top five here at the very worst and we should be contending to win."