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Odd Rumor; Jarrett and DEI? Denied UPDATE:

July 15, 2003 at 12:00 AM

Dale Earnhardt, Inc., is looking at Dale Jarrett [NOTE: signed thru 2006 with Yates], according to sources. Ty Norris, the general manager of DEI, said: ‘If Dale Jarrett was on the market, and if DEI were looking for a driver, there’s not a more experienced guy, with tons of class, who sponsors love, and who has tremendous ability … but we’re still hot and heavy in our sponsor search. And if you rated it hot, medium or cold, we’re pretty cold right now. “When we have a sponsor who is ready to sit down and talk about what driver they’d like, we’ll approach it then. But there’s not an organization in this garage that wouldn’t love to have Dale Jarrett. Dale and I are friends, and Dale is friends with Dale Jr. But I’ve never had a conversation with him about driving for us … except ‘who wouldn’t want him to drive for you.”( Winston Salem Journal )(7-14-2003) UPDATE: Can You Address Jarrett’s Situation? “We do the same thing to other teams. When they get down we put some pressure on them, too. Everybody would love to have Dale Jarrett drive their race car. That’s natural. In a way, it’s flattering to us that other teams would be interested because we think the world of Dale. Dale and I have talked and we’ve come a long way together as an organization. He started that 88 team and we expect him to finish out his career in that car. Our goal is to give him something good to drive and for him to give us good feedback to make it good.” What is Dale’s Contract Status? “We’re working on an extension for Dale right now. We have a contract through next year with him and we’re working on an extension. UPS is signed for three more years after this, so things are real solid there. It’s embarrassing to us and Ford and UPS, and that’s really the biggest thing. We’re gonna have good and bad days, but UPS is a great sponsor and we’re letting them down right now. That’s what we’ve got to do a better job of and that’s a lot of our responsibility. The big brown truck doesn’t need to run in the back.”(commnets by RYR’s Doug Yates at Ford Racing )(7-15-2003)