Dale Jarrett beat Davey Allison by a slim margin that NASCAR measured as just 10 inches in the 1991 Michigan race. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“There were two different theories, and neither one was against the rules,” Wood said. “But as things went forward the trend was to build cars with the back end up high.”

But on this day, the Woods had just enough downforce, and a winning game plan to boot.

As Jarrett battled Allison, Eddie Wood’s voice was the one he heard over the radio.

Knowing a driver in a door-to-door battle doesn’t need the distractions of lengthy chatter, Wood kept his advice simple: “Remember Richard and Cale at Daytona.”

What Wood was referring to was a battle in the not-too-distant past in which Richard Petty used a side-draft-like move to overcome Cale Yarborough and get his 200th win, in the Firecracker 400 at Daytona. It was a move that Jarrett and Wood had discussed more than once up to that point.

Sure enough, on the final lap, Jarrett caught Allison just right and got the boost he needed to score a win by a razor-thin margin. The record book lists it at 10 inches. The tire mark on the door of the No. 21 Ford showed that Jarrett indeed had perfected the Petty move.

“It was Dale’s first win, and [father Ned Jarrett] was calling the race on ESPN, so it was a really special deal,” Wood said.

But there also was the element of ironic that often accompanies a memorable moment. By that point, the Woods were already aware that Jarrett was leaving at the end of the season to drive for a start-up team, Joe Gibbs Racing.

Wood said that if the cylinder heads and the added speed had come along a little sooner, things might have been different with them and Jarrett.

“Unfortunately for us, we got fast about 30 days too late,” Wood said. “But Dale had already made his decision to go to Joe Gibbs. We tried to save it, but things had gone too far down the road. But it was the right decision for Dale.”

Wood said that the whole matter was handled as diplomatically as it could have been.

“We got a nice letter from Joe thanking us for being OK with it,” he said.

Even with the changes looming, the Woods and Jarrett ran strong the rest of the season. In fact they almost won the very next week.

“We were going to win at Bristol, but we ended up breaking a wheel,” Wood said. “And we were close to winning a couple of other times.”

Rick Minter is a veteran, award-winning sports journalist who joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1991 covering motorsports as well as serving as a bureau chief. From 2000-2008 Minter focused on racing exclusively, traveling the NASCAR circuit as the paper’s motorsports writer.


Rick can be reached at rminter@racintoday.com