Car owner Robert Yates and driver Dale Jarrett were a powerhouse combination in the mid-to-late 1990s, winning the 1999 NASCAR championship, as well as the Daytona 500 in 1996 and 2000, and a pair of Brickyard 400s as well.

Jarrett already has been inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and Yates is scheduled to go in next January.

But before Jarrett signed with Yates for the 1995 season, Yates nearly signed another famous Dale – the legendary Dale Earnhardt.

Yates said earlier this week that he spoke with Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2007 about moving to Hendrick Motorsports, and then he filled in some details on trying to sign Earnhardt Jr.’s father more than a decade earlier.

“If you want the best seat in the house now, Hendrick is the best seat,” Yates said he told Earnhardt Jr. in 2007. “And it was. And if you do your own thing, the fans will hang with you a long time. He did it right.”

Then, this.

“Even his dad wanted to drive for us at times,” Yates said. “He even signed a contract. Never gave it to us. That’s how close he came to driving (the No. 88 Robert Yates Racing Ford). And I went to Ford and said, ‘I like racing against Dale Earnhardt. Let’s take the other Dale (Dale Jarrett) and beat him.’ And we did.”

Yates said he also suggested that Ford give the Quality Care/Ford Credit sponsorship package that wound up with Jarrett and the No. 88 to another Ford team — Team Penske.

“I said, ‘Please give that sponsorship to Penske,’ because he can handle it,” said Yates. “I didn’t want it. And (Ford) said, ‘We want you to do it.’ And I was like, ‘But I gotta beat the 3 car (Earnhardt) or you don’t win. It don’t matter what you do.

“So I took it, and guess what? Dale (Jarrett) turned in to be … we weren’t sure about it. His confidence wasn’t there yet. But once we shook hands — no contract — he got in the car. He worked hard at it, we worked hard at it.”

And the rest is history.