News-Record.com

So Dale Jarrett is finally going to give up racing. About time.

I know the guy is going to go down as one of the better drivers in Cup history - 32 wins (19th all-time), three Daytona 500 wins, one Cup championship, nearly $59 million in winnings and nearly 237,000 miles of racing. Pretty impressive stats.

Probably the most impressive thing about Jarrett is his perseverence. He got into racing because that's what his daddy did. And after nine full-time seasons, he had just four wins (including the 1993 500). Most athletes are done at that point. Not Dale - he was just getting started. He won seven races the year after turned 40, a Cup championship at age 42 and his third 500 at age 43.

The problem, of course, is that he kept racing. Over the past four seasons, he has 11 top 5s in 128 races - that's 8.5 percent. Not bad if you're David Stremme. It's awful if your career mark for top 5 finishes is nearly 25 percent. And 41st in points? That's a guy pedaling backward.

I know UPS sunk a ton of money into him, and his commercial spots are probably the funniest on the air among the current crop of NASCAR ads. But now they're just pitiful because they make fun of an old man who's just doing laps at the back of the field - when he makes the race. He couldn't do any worse if he showed up at Martinsville next week in a big brown truck.

Stepping away from something you love to do - and have done well - is one of the toughest things to do not just as an athlete but as a person. I'm glad I don't have to make that decision. Jarrett finally did - and it's the right one for him.