Sonoma, Calif. ? Andy Petree was a teenage gearhead back in 1977, building his own race car, when 20-year-old Dale Jarrett stopped by for a look.

Jarrett’s visit to the garage where Petree spent every spare minute would shape both men’s lives in ways they never could have imagined.

Andy Petree watches the Dodge Save Mart 350 last weekend at Sears Point Race way in Sonoma, Calif. Petree was building his own race car in 1977 when 20-year-old Dale Jarrett, photo below, stopped by for a look. Jarrett's visit would shape both men's lives in ways they never could have imagined.

Jarrett, of course, went on to become one of racing’s top drivers and the 1999 NASCAR Winston Cup champion. Petree became a respected crew chief and now owns his own team.

Back then they were just Dale and Andy.

Jarrett was a talented athlete at Newton-Conover High School in Newton, N.C. Name the sport and he was on the team: football, basketball, baseball. He even excelled at golf.

Even though his father was NASCAR great Ned Jarrett, young Dale didn’t care much for racing. But following in dad’s footsteps seemed a natural progression when he decided to skip college.

Surprisingly, Gentleman Ned’s son found his new career tough going.

“Everybody that I went and talked to about wanting to drive a car I knew a lot of people around there that had cars but everyone of them was the same, ‘When you get some experience, come back and see me,”‘ he said. “Well, it was kind of hard to get experience when you didn’t have a car.”

Petree, a few years younger than Jarrett, was his opposite. A car freak “from the time I could walk,” his life’s ambition was to be a race car driver.

He and buddy Jimmy Newsome started building a chassis from scratch with the dream of racing. Because it was such a small community, both of them knew Jarrett. Newsome had gone to high school with him.

“He stopped by one night to say hello. But a lot of people stopped by, they were kind of curious about what we were doing there at night,” Petree said. “Then he showed up another night with his dad, and they wanted to talk to us about Dale driving the car.

“At first I was kind of shocked, because I just didn’t see Dale doing it. Even though his dad was a race car driver, he was a golfer, an athlete in every way back in high school. You just didn’t think of those kind of people as interested in racing.”

Jarrett and Petree shared one thing in common: Neither had much money. So a deal was struck. If the Jarretts could get hold of an engine, Dale could drive.

“I was like, man, I don’t want to do that,” Petree said. “My dream was to build this car and drive it, not to let somebody else drive it. But we’d put so much effort and heart into it, we wanted to see it on the track, too.”

Jarrett, Petree and Newsome, who formed DAJ Racing using the initials of their first names, entered a race at Hickory Motor Speedway, where Ned Jarrett was the track promoter.

In that first event, Jarrett finished ninth.

“Honestly, I’d won championships in almost all the sports I’d ever played in. I’d hit home runs, I’d thrown touchdown passes, I scored points in basketball games and I’d won golf tournaments,” Jarrett said. “But nothing gave me the thrill of finishing ninth that night in my first race. That was the biggest thrill I’d had, doing anything.”

Jarrett worked for a time at a service station that Petree ran. Then Ned Jarrett helped Petree land his first NASCAR job as a tire changer for team owner Junior Johnson and driver Darrell Waltrip in 1981.

Jarrett took up with what became the NASCAR Busch Series in the early 1980s, establishing a name for himself that would lead him to Winston Cup.

In 1991, Jarrett won his first race in the fall event at Michigan International Speedway. After a stint with the team of former NFL coach Joe Gibbs in the early 1990s, Jarrett joined with Robert Yates.

With Yates and crew chief Todd Parrott, Jarrett earned the Winston Cup championship in 1999 with 24 top-five finishes. Jarrett joined his father as just the second father-son winners of NASCAR’s elite series, after Lee and Richard Petty.

This year, Jarrett has struggled. He appeared on the upswing with a win in the Pocono 500, and then he took the pole and finished second at Brooklyn. But engine trouble at the Dodge-Save Mart 350 in Sonoma forced him to start back in 37th. He made up ground on race day, finishing 15th.

“It could have been a lot, lot worse,” Jarrett said. “We’ll take it and move on.”

Petree earned his name as Dale Earnhardt’s crew chief in 1993 and 1994, when The Intimidator won back-to-back championships.

In 1996, Petree inherited Leo Jackson’s team and began a new career as an owner. His Andy Petree Racing owns the No. 55 Chevrolet with Bobby Hamilton in the driver’s seat.

Although they now compete against each other, Jarrett and Petree remain pals. Recent speculation had Jarrett leaving Yates to join a reported alliance between Petree and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Jarrett denied it.

The two friends also share a good-natured back-and-forth about the good old days.

“He tells everybody that it was that one day in 1977, that if he would have gotten in behind the wheel of that car instead of me, he would have been the 1999 Winston Cup champion,” Jarrett joked.

“He said that? I’ve never said that!” Petree replied.

When his laughter died down, Petree turned pensive.

“I’ve got no regrets about it. It’s been a wonderful career for me,” he said. “For a small town guy like me, with basically no education, it has been a good deal. It really has.”