Ned Jarrett’s death cause released by family in official statement

Ned Jarrett’s family has released a statement announcing the NASCAR Hall of Famer’s cause of death. It revealed that the two-time NASCAR champion (1961, 1965) passed away at his home from natural causes at 93 years old.

Jarrett competed in the NASCAR Cup Series for 13 seasons and won 50 races. After retiring at 34 years old, he moved to television and radio broadcasting.

According to his family, Jarrett died of at his home in Newton, North Carolina, on June 4, 2026.

“He died peacefully of natural causes at his home in Newton, N.C. with his family by his side. He was 93 years old. Our father was a devout Christian and a devoted, loving, family man. He was a friend to everyone he met and NASCAR’s oldest living champion,” the statement read (via Kelly Crandall of ESPN).

“By all accounts, he was a true NASCAR legend. While we mourn his passing, we celebrate the remarkable life of an amazing man and truly the best father anyone could have wished for. Rest in Peace, Dad.”

Jarrett’s sons Dale and Glenn also raced in NASCAR. Dale also won the Cup title in 1999 and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2014.

When Ned Jarrett called his son Dale’s Daytona 500 win

Ned Jarrett had a successful television career. He worked for CBS and ESPN as a pit reporter and race analyst. Some of his most famous NASCAR broadcasts were of his son Dale Jarrett’s first Cup Series win in 1991 and his Daytona 500 victory.

Jarrett also reflected on the special broadcast of the 1993 Daytona 500 in a 2020 episode of The Scene Vault podcast.

“That was such a special moment. We didn’t really realise at the time how special it would become,” he said.

Jarrett also shared how his CBS producer Bob Stenner told the other announcers to lay off and instructed Ned to “be a dad” and call the final lap himself.

“I just went from being a supposedly professional announcer to being the dad, and it was interesting to Dale. When you see that tape of the race, everything that I was saying to him, he was doing. I said, ‘Take it the inside, Dale, let him sit down the inside.’ He was pull it right down to the inside. The instinctably knew how to do that,” Ned Jarrett said.

“I had people arguing to me, ‘Oh, you had two way radio.’ No, I didn’t have a two way radio.”

Jarrett’s broadcasting career started in the early 1960s with a radio show on WNNC in Newton, North Carolina, when he was still racing in NASCAR’s Grand National Series.

Edited by Palak Gupta