Ned Jarrett
- Born:
- October 12, 1932, Newton, North Carolina, U.S. (age 92)
- Awards And Honors:
- Sprint Cup Series (1965)
- Sprint Cup Series (1961)
Ned Jarrett (born October 12, 1932, Newton, North Carolina, U.S.) is an American stock-car driver who won two National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) championships (1961 and 1965).
According to legend, Jarrett first began driving cars at age nine, when his father would allow him to drive the family car to church on Sunday mornings. He competed in his first race at age 19, finishing 10th at the Hickory (North Carolina) Motor Speedway.
Jarrett’s love of racing led him to make some choices that, in retrospect, seem humorous. Forbidden by his father to race, he would enter races under assumed names. But once he began winning, his father discovered the ruse and let him drive under his own name. In 1959 Jarrett decided to make the leap to NASCAR’s Grand National (now Sprint Cup) Series. He agreed to pay $2,000 to buy one of Junior Johnson’s Fords, but, since he did not actually have that much money in the bank, he wrote the check after the banks closed for the weekend and then won two races to cover the check.
The risky investment paid off as Jarrett won the Grand National championship two years later. He also captured two Sportsman (now Nationwide) Series titles. In his 353-start Grand National career he won 50 races, including an impressive 28 across two seasons in 1964 and 1965. Jarrett believed in running every possible race, and in his 13-year career he never ran fewer than 37 races in a season. In 1964, for instance, he ran 62 races.
Jarrett holds the distinction of greatest margin of victory by mileage, winning the 1965 Southern 500 by an astonishing 14 laps. He went on to capture the second of his two championships that year. When Ford announced its (temporary) departure from NASCAR in 1966, Jarrett decided to retire from racing, at the age of 34. He remains the only driver to retire as series champion.
After his retirement Jarrett smoothly transitioned into television announcing. One of the more-memorable moments in NASCAR history came in 1993 when he openly cheered his son Dale on to victory in the Daytona 500 over Dale Earnhardt. Jarrett is a member of most major motor-sports Halls of Fame, and he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011.