Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Clint Bowyer Interview

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

In Episode 40 of "Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour," NASCAR legend Kevin Harvick engages in an insightful conversation with fellow racing icon Clint Bowyer. In this episode, Kevin and Clint dive into the thrilling world of professional racing, providing fans with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the sport. The discussion begins with Clint recapping his recent Truck Series race, marking his first Truck start since retiring following the 2020 season. Clint also shares his journey from starting to drive race cars at 16 to making it to the Cup Series. He reveals what his first car was and talks about his pivotal decision to move from Richard Childress Racing to Michael Waltrip Racing, among other fascinating topics. Don't miss this action-packed episode filled with expert analysis and all the exhilarating NASCAR moments you love! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was the deciding factor in saying, I'm going to leave here and I'm going to go to Michael Walter. Well, first of all, the hardest thing that I'd ever done personally in my life. That was an extremely hard, you know, conversation, even thought to have. I mean, this man handed me everything that I got. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. And today we have one of my favorite guests that we've probably booked so far, and that is Clint Boyer. Clint and I have been around each other for a long, long time,

spent half the season together in the booth this year, and we are really looking forward to getting this interview started. So I hope you enjoy this interview with Clint. Here we are, and this is probably even more awkward than standing in the booth with you during the races for the first time. Now I'm sitting here having to interview you, but we plan this out because, of the fact that we both tried to do

something that we used to do this weekend and that was go race. I know how mine went. Tell me how your weekend went at the truck race. Well, it just goes to show you that it's, again, you've heard me say this before when people ask about our jobs and the way we act. So you do realize we had to wear a helmet to make a living, right?

I mean, you do realize that. So we're not very smart anyway. And we didn't, that being said, We didn't set ourselves up for a good opportunity to podcast, given the weekend that we both had. I blew it, bud. That's what I did. I completely blew it. I went to a fun race.

I'd say how bad it was. I got home. We were on our way home yesterday, and Cash goes, way to go, Dad. You had a pretty good record at Nashville Super Speedway. Boy, you just blew that. Thanks, son. What was the hardest thing for you to get used to? You know, the preparation was obviously drastically different.

I was not at all ready for that. That is the games changed. Went to the simulator and spent a couple hours in there. And honestly, that has evolved a lot since, you know, the four years that I've been in it. I was quite surprised and how far that has come as far as the setups. I mean, literally, they were starting down a path where back when I was in, I was like, listen, guys, don't put any. we'll go there and we'll get some situational awareness and visuals and I'll be ready to go,

but do not put anything into anything I say in this speaker and a simulator because I don't know how to correlate that to the real thing. And I told Patty that this week, but that being said, we were really tied in a similar. Hey, sorry, I told you, the dog's barking. That's perfect. We were extremely tied in a simulator. I could not. get that thing to turn. Everything you did just would not roll the middle. So he went down the path was starting to change the setups quite a bit. And it answered a call in that simulator. And I was like, uh, all right. Well, what do we, what do we believe in here, right? And, uh, we've freed it up

too much. It was the end of the day, I think he took some nose weight out of it. And as soon as we got it off the truck and on the racetrack, I was, I knew we were in trouble. It was really wicked loose getting into the corner and old clint you get him loose in he's in big trouble if you can i can handle the throttle up off and keep it underneath of me but if i'm loose in i am in trouble and that's the case and you know again working with patty over the years the thing that i do love about him is he doesn't quit trying he just continued to swing the bat each and every chance that that we got and um you know move the needle quite a bit but just wasn't near enough driver's messed up. I knew going in, Kevin, that it was probably going to be the fundamentals that were

going to be the toughest obstacle to overcome, and it was. Caught me off guard, you asked me what caught me off guard. The lack of horsepower, you know, we ran those Ilmore Motors and those SRX cars, and I felt like they had gobs of horsepower. You forget that those cars are way lighter than those trucks are. You know, I just kind of, like back then in those cars, you could floor it at any given time and blow the tires off of it. I leave the pit box, and I was a little bit gingerly with it, knowing that, you know, back in the day, the juice was not doing that. Don't John force it out of the pit box, but slowly walk it out of there, keep the tires

rolling and get to your lights as fast as you can. As soon as I, you know, I floored it because I was a little bit nervous about it. So I just floored it, and when I released the clutch, that thing went, Bois, I was in big trouble. So I killed it. Then lack of timing in this truck, Kevin. I didn't even know where the damn ignition switch is. So I couldn't find the starter.

I mean, it was like, it went from bad to worse that fast. Flip the switch, restart. They stacked up in front of me, junk the truck. The rest is history. So what did you, let's go back to practice. What did you think of the short practice and then go right into qualifying and that process? How was that to get used to everything? Obviously, you know, you didn't know where the switches were.

You had that, but that was in the race. I can't even imagine what it was like for that 20-minute practice. Was your heart beating? Because I know on Thursday my heart was beaten pretty fast when I had to go out on the racetrack to practice. Well, because of, you know, ends and outs of practice and trying to get the truck underneath, let me get into the corner.

Again, I was caught off guard right off the bat. And we were frankly trying to get that under control to get me in the corner because we all know as racers. If you can't get into corner, you might as well give up. Like, fix that first and foremost and then go to work on the rest of it. and nothing was really changing that much. So 20 minutes of practice was shot, boom, before you know it, here I am going to qualify and they're handing me S&T data and all this stuff.

I'm like, guys, I was scrambling so much on my entry trying to get the truck underneath. I mean, trying to find an arc that I could get away with, right? I mean, when they're loose in, you can't really get that big arc that you need at Nashville. Well, now you're in trouble. So now I'm trying to gauge, trying to in the back of my mind, think, all right, well, where am I going to enter this corner? And this spot is Tyler Green Show me all this SMT day. Man, you need to, you're living a little bit too deep.

You're not here. You're not there. I'm like, guys, I don't even have my reference points down because I haven't even got that far yet. Like 20 minutes of practice is nothing to your point. And I hadn't even known. I don't even have my lifting part. You know, my lifting marks figured out yet. So now we're going out to qualify.

And I told myself, don't get loose in and overcome. but you got to pick it up. I mean, I needed to pick up seven, eight tenths. I knew the truck could do a little bit, but I knew I had to pick up too. So I buried it off in the corner as much as my heart had stand. And it kind of came out from me, meet with me in one and two, where three was my problem, right? We were losing a three big time. So now I'm thinking, oh, crap, going down the back straightway.

You know, you have a conversation with yourself. It seems like it was a three-minute conversation. It was about three seconds, but I got off into three, two. too hard and too low, which I was doing on purpose to try to keep the truck underneath. I ended up, you know, biff in that corner too. So, yeah, I just, nothing went right. Timing is an essence in that deal. Well, I think that the biggest thing that I learned over the weekend

racing the super late model race, and I went down to Pensacola. I'd never been to Pensacola to Five Flag Speedway. And I'm listening to Driver Intros, and it's like, here for the first time is Kevin Harvick. and they get to Bubba Pollard. And on the poll for tonight, looking for his 26th win at Five Flag Speedway, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, what have I got myself into here?

And I learned really quickly that I needed to race more. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to run a few more races. Did you get the bug enough to say, hey, I want to do a few more? You know, I left there, my friend, a good friend of mine, which is a big reason why I did it. Let's face it.

Nashville's always been special to me. I mean, since I retired from full-time racing, all my friends live in Nashville. And by the way, I didn't meet them through racing. I met them through friends and friendships and music and stuff like that. So they had never watched me race, right? They'd never seen me compete before. So they were all there and he asked me. He's like, that was cool to watch.

But, damn, man, you know, now what do we do? And I was like, well, I can't go out like that. I can promise you that. I've got enough of the bug that I have to go back and redeem myself because, I just can't suck that bad. And then that being said, I also told him, I will tell you this. I remember why I quit. I hate that feeling.

There's nothing worse as a competitor of being that pissed off, leaving a racetrack. And my wife goes, now you see, now you got your fix? This is the Clint I hate. I hated this guy too. And I was like, we'll get over it tomorrow. So I went downtown and went out for a little while and it. that works. You need to do something like I did. You need to do something that's got way less pressure and then there's a beer drinking session at the racetrack after the race. It's more of the

more of the social short track racing scene. You got all that pressure with all the big lights and the big racetracks and the big sponsors and all that stuff at the NASCAR track. You got to go, we got to take you somewhere where you can just do it out in the middle of nowhere like Pensacola or whatever short track that you choose. We got to find you a car to race that's just more fun. The whole atmosphere is different with less pressure. What do you think? Well, I wanted to go down that path too.

So I did that for a lot of reasons, multiple two of reasons. And one being I wanted to know what that felt like again. It's been 20 years since I was at Nashville Super Speedway. Those tires felt like basketball is out there. I mean, the hardest feeling I've ever felt in my life, so much harder than anything I ever remember. Like, even I remember retiring and feeling like our tire for weight to be hard. The construction of them, they were extremely hard. It felt like they were steel balls on the rims.

Like, that's how, you know, just unforgiving they were. And the lack of horsepower, those guys are in a box, a tight window. We hear him complain about it all the time. I don't like it. I'm not a fan of it. And there's no, that window of, it just puts you in such a box of, all right, you can't get in the corner this much too far because now the car wants to, the front end won't set. You drive through the grip and the tires and the front tires. They'll take off up the racetrack or that truck being loose.

It'll swap ends on you in just two seconds. So you're stuck in that box on your entry speed. All right, so I can fix that. Back in a day, you back the corner up. I'm losing. I'm going to back the corner up. I'm going to keep this thing rolling through the middle. I'm going to throttle through the middle.

Make that straight away longer, and I'll beat you the other end. My lap time will be faster. That is out the window, too. Now you back the corner up, you pick the gas up, you're driving a push into it, about knocked the wall down on the exit. You're just stuck in such a tight window that is very, very frustrating, especially when you get mired back there in traffic. You get out.

So once I knock myself out of the, I think I, I was running like eighth or ninth when the pit came or when we finally pitted and I messed that up. But once I got back there in traffic, it didn't matter. And you watch those races back. Watch yesterday's race. You know, once Chase Elliott got back in the back or Christopher Bell, he led every single, dominated the race. He got back there and ended up wrecked in five laps.

We got to, we have to be mindful of the product. And we got lucky with that race yesterday. We did get lucky. I love that market. I love that event, but we got extremely lucky with that race. I have to figure out how you go to Kansas and that package works so well at a racetrack like Kansas Speedway or Charlotte,

like some of these mile and a halfs have been. Then you go to a place like that and it just doesn't work. I don't have all the answers to that, but somebody does and there's some validation there that we need to understand. Well, we all like horsepower, and I think we all agree on the horsepower piece of it needing to be higher. But let's get off of the serious stuff. I want to talk about... No, that was me vinton right there.

That felt real good. You told me about these podcasts. Look, I'm going to save you from yourself right here. We're going to go down a different path right now. So we see a lot of what you've done in a race car. But tell us how you got to where you did in your career. you start because you started on motorcycles and i and i don't know that a lot of people remember your story tell me your path to to how you got to cup where you started and how you got there

in a in a brief in a brief segment here well let me try to condense it all right go to stewart hoss racing back in it for the last when we were there when i was there uh for four years or whatever you go inside the door and everybody's childhood racing pictures are on the wall in black and white Kevin Harvick's up here in a number eight go-kart. Tony Stewart's over in his go-cart with square wheels on it and an open-face leather helmet. You know, we were all up there. Danick was up there in black and white. Like all everybody in go-carts, not me.

I was on a PW50, you know, at Loretta Lens Amateur National or Pawka City, Oklahoma. I did grow up racing motorcross. That was our dream. That was what I wanted to do, what I thought I was going to do. My brother and I, all three of us, I have two brothers, all three of us, race motorcross. Casey quit when, I don't know, when we got in high school and he started playing basketball. He was a damn weapon, boy.

He drove through it, he rode completely, lost his, says he lost his brakes, went over a bull corner, which was a metal machine shed, Morton building behind, and went clear through the wall, clear through the steel wall, gets out, he's all bloody. My dad finds like, boy, what in the hell? You're done. Like, how did you do that? You know, he hit like 12 feet up in the air and went through this guy's Hay Barn. So Casey quit, and then Andy was starting to turn pro.

He was two years older than me. And I was kind of stuck, 16-year-old kid starting to get on. I just went off the 80s, right, and getting on the big bikes. And I just burnt out. As funny as that sounds in all the years of racing and all the NASCAR stuff that went back in the day when we would test and sponsor here, sponsor there. Like, we were busy every single day

that we'd be for our first, probably 10 years of our career, right? At least. And I never got burnt out on that, but I did have traveling in that car, driving down the road. I remember vividly, my dad, we'd go to 59th and Douglas

on Friday night in Oklahoma City, right next to the Air Force Base, race with Romney Raynard and all the guys around the Midwest, and we could compete with them. My brother was running at the top. at his game and I was pretty fast down there. We'd leave there and go to Lake Whitney, Texas,

13-hour run all the way back home. Andy and I'd wake up in a parking lot at grade school or middle school back then and it was time to walk in the door. We were literally at school. My dad had drove all night, which takes me back to our dads and how he got done, you know, racing.

Now we're dads and our sons are racing, but there's no way in hell that I'm driving 13 hours through the middle of the night to get my son back to school. I just, we're not that tough. I guess. I don't know what it is. Tough, dumb, something. I'm not that guy. Yeah. Yes. I always say, I'm like, Dad, what in the hell were you thinking? You were nuts. But he was as ate up with it as we were. And that's what we did. I was 16 years old working at a good year

tire store, lost as a kid, didn't really know what to do. I was kind of burnt out on that. And my boss went and bought a, like, I think it was a 72, 72, 75. The big Monte Carlo with the huge front end on it. The ugliest Monte Carlo they ever built. And we start building a street car. After work, we started building a street stock car. We'd go to the races. He'd blow up.

We'd go to the junkyard, get another motor, put his intake carburetor on it. Go to the track, blow up. It was a constant cycle. But my God, was it fun. We'd go to those dirt tracks, boy. There'd be a hell of a wreck, a hell of a race, and a hell of a party afterwards. and I'm like, huh, this is pretty good. I think I want to try this.

So that's exactly what we did. I went home and drug a 78 Camaro. I started a ponies. Yeah, yeah. You have not driven a car at all until you're 16. You've never driven a car until you're 16. No, California, boy. In Kansas, you can start driving at 14.

No, no, no. I'm talking about a race car. I understand that you could have driven on the street, but you've never raced a car. Hell no. I did not know that. No chance. Huh.

So 16. No, no, no. You start. All right. So my dad was off. I actually built a pony stock car first. Me and me and, uh, Muffler Man Don at Floyd's auto body built, he built me a roll cage. And I'm pretty sure it was out of muffler tubing.

It wasn't the correct certification, uh, because we built it pretty damn fast. And my mom and I, this, this, it was a chivet. I built out of my dad. My dad on a towing service, right? So we, it was a, it was a, it was a, car that was impounded. I went back there. The damn thing, it'd start and run. So I took it to the body shop. Muffler Man Don put a real cage in it. My mom and I took dad's rollback and we went to Yates Center, Kansas. I go there. This thing still had the radio, the dash, everything in it. The windows,

I'd taken the windows out, I had to do that, put screens in it, but like literally you could go down to back straight away and turn the AC on and turn radio on if you wanted to. So that sucked. It was a close the piece of crap you've ever seen in your life but somehow i managed to flip it about 17 times down to back straightaway that night no wall at this race track and they told you all the guys like listen if you go it over the edge don't try to bring it back on don't let it drag into rocker panels you'll roll like yeah yeah yeah well that's exactly what happened i got over the edge and i did him braille rolled down to back straight away and i remember i put a battery box i went to blue Stim Farm Ranch supply like a boat marine plastic battery box, right? And I put it in a

it, it couldn't be underneath the hood for whatever reason. So I thought the passenger floorboard would be a pretty easy place to put it. It was a couple self-tapper screws and it'll stay right over there and it'll be fine. So I put this battery over there and I'm flipping down to back straightaway and just something is knocking the hell out of me in the head and I can't figure it out. Finally, I open my eyes and this is how long it's things rolling down the back straightaway. I open It's this battery swinging back and forth in his car and just nailing me in a head. So now I'm rolling, holding this battery like this as it's flipping down the back straightaway, come to a stop and like, holy crap, got it put back, got back on the rollback.

You know it's a bad situation and a bad plan when you show up on a rollback because that's exactly how it left on a rollback. Well, I don't know that I expected that street stock story. I can tell you that my streetstocks, we had a streetstock that we ran and we had more fun in that dang thing. Ours was on asphalt, but that was probably, that's an experience that's everybody that races needs to go through. They need to go through a street stock career. So you go through your street stock career and somehow you wind up in an arc of car and it was at Nashville, correct, that you got noticed? So whose arc a car was that? And how did you get noticed and recognized by Richard Chauau?

Childress. So let me condense this down real quick. I, so obviously went back after that car was junk, built a street stock car out of a guys. Literally, it was in a, in a hedge row. We drug it out of there, built a Camaro, had some luck with that, got into the dirt modified ranks. And when I did that, what I did was the smartest thing ever did. Back then, you had to Dodge Weekly Racing Series. And that's what put me on the mat. Every track we ran in the Midwest was under that NASCAR umbrella. It was a point system that was a NASCAR. national, you know, a point system, which meant if I won that weekend, we had full car count at Lakeside Speedway, you'd rush home, wait for the dial tone, get online, the internet back in the

day, and you would look up for the Northeast and see where Ted Christopher finished, see where all these guys finished, because that's who you were racing for the national points. I think that deal paid like 350,000. Regionally, it paid like 80 to 100 or something like that. This is back in like 2000, right? So damn good money. And I was racing at, at Harlem Park, Topeka was an NASCAR track, Lakeside was an NASCAR track, and I-70 across the river was a different NASCAR track that was in a different region. So in 2002, I won, that was my first year race in asphalt. We actually won that championship that year at I-70 and Lakeside, but they were two different regions, which was just a geographically weird deal, right?

Weird situation, but we won a ton of money, and the biggest thing was it gave us a lot of national exposure. That's when Nashville Speedway come about. Scott Traylor on 810 Sports Radio bought a, out of Kansas City, bought an NB2 motor sports old Pontiac. That's how long ago this was, and said, man, let's go to, let's figure this out. I want to see you run Nashville. This is, this is a true story.

We go over there. I took the car to the Ford Body Shop I was working at. Me and my painter did all the bodywork on it. It looked exactly like your Sonic Drive-ins car, which was probably the best idea that ever happened. I had a regional Sonic Drive-In sponsorship with Craig Abbott, which was still there at that race this weekend, right? Craig and Georgia were still there.

We take this thing to Nashville and borrow, beg, stole, whatever. but the craziest story about all of this is we were going that weekend we get there Scott said we didn't know I was like how who sets the car up or who pits it or like we don't have nothing nothing Kevin so my old man my uncle and a bunch of guys they've got a bunch of borrowed pit crew unit but dude it was embarrassing so they're they're pitting a car but the guy that that we picked up at the airport at Nashville um showed up and I'll never forget at this. I'll never see this kid walking up and going, what in the hell? That's your guy? He had a backpack over his shoulder and a Simpson carbon fiber briefcase. That backpack had four

springs in the back of it and that briefcase had four shots, four Pinsky shocks. Those four shocks and four springs and a man named Trent Owens that we all have known now almost won that Archer race that day. And that's what put me on the map. Richard Chilers was watching out of Rangelae and Pocono. He hired me a few weeks, short weeks after that. And that's why I came back to Nashville for the truck race and to just kind of put a period at the end of it. That was a cool racetrack for me, a cool experience. Always a good racetrack. It was my first win that I had actually won in NASCAR at first Xfinity wins. So a lot of great memories there. And as my son Cash told me and reminded me, I blew it all with my last.

race there. So come full circle, baby. Yeah. Well, we both have smart-ass kids, that's for sure. And I think that as they go through their racing career, they're going to learn that it's a lot harder than they think it is. But so you go to Childress and you run, you know, all those years. What was the, what was the tipping point to say, okay, I've been at RCR, I need to go do something different. And you go to, what was the deciding factor and saying, I'm going to leave here and I'm going to go to Michael Walter. Well, first of all, the hardest thing that I'd ever done personally in my life. That was an extremely hard, you know, conversation, even thought to have. I mean, this man handed me everything that I got and I had a lot of stuff. I'd been there for 18 years and things were good. Those were the heydays. He gave me everything and I owed everything to him and I knew that. You know, and loyalty's a big thing in anybody's life. But it was frustrating.

We were all, you know, frustrated with one another. And I felt like it was time to move on. I got a couple opportunities to go to some big rides. And honestly, I thought I was landed one. And, you know, we were in talks with all. All the big names, all the big owners and through a sponsorship and through a lot of wild, crazy stories, it'd be a hell of a book. But ended up having to go back to RCR, which is what put the sour note, you know, and ultimately what I left. I mean, my departure to RCR wasn't that last year.

It was three years prior to that. That last conversation or that last contract that I had, three. your contract was not on very good terms. You kind of, I left the house, you know, but then the other marriage didn't, the other girlfriend didn't work out. So I had to come back in and get back in bed with that one. It was one of those deals and it wasn't very pleasant for either one of us and nobody really got along. So I left, you know, here comes five-hour energy. Five-hour energy came to me and said, don't really know where we're going or what you're doing, but we want to be a part of it. That's when things change for me.

I no longer had to worry about going to somebody and saying, all right, well, you're hiring me for this or whatever, and then we'll figure out the sponsors. And then you have to come back to the table. We're going to give you this instead of that. All that guesswork went out the window. Those days are probably long gone, but it gave me the affordability to truly go shop around. I mean, I was the total package. Not only was I the driver, I had to, the,

sponsors in my hand too so plug and play here you go right and that's when we went around everywhere we that's exactly what they asked me to do go around and we want a contract from every team you can possibly get buddy i got a stack of them it's this awesome stories and and that's that's what we did we went around and and talked to all of them again in nwr which by the way was my last choice i told my brother. I said that there's no way I'm going over there. I just watched Dale Jarrett. You don't have trouble. Wall Trip. They've struggled over there. They turned a corner. There's no question, but a lot of struggles came out of there. Everything works for a reason. And I do believe that. I think eventually you wake up and you open your eyes. You're like,

why am I fighting this so hard? If I'm fighting this hard, it shouldn't be. Maybe I need to open. in my eyes and look into this opportunity. Called Ty Norris, went down and met with him, and immediately fell better about it. Went back to them. I said, you know what? I think that's a good idea. Let's go over there and let's do this. The best damn thing that ever happened to me.

Almost won the championship that year. We got to hire a crew chief. It's the only time ever that I actually said this is the crew chief that I wanted. My whole career and never had an opportunity to do that. that was the time that I said, I want Brian Patty and you get me him. We'll go out and win races, and that's exactly what we did. We had two great years. Unfortunately, you know, things didn't work out. The team shut down, but here comes another opportunity. And this is where my career really got weird. All right. Tony Stewart decides he wants to get out of the car. We don't know if this guy's going to get out this year, next year, whatever, but we know what he's already said, get somebody because when I decided, he's side, I'm done. So they literally hired me a year ahead of time. So now I'm at a crossroads

where you want me to just sit on the bench and wait a year? Like, I'm what, I was probably 38 years old or something. I'm not sitting on the bench. I'm not going to go drive a truck or drive an Xfinity car or something like this.

Like, what, what am I going to do? So that's when the Harry Scott deal came about. Again, I had five hours. He's trying to keep them alive trying to bridge the gap to get to Stuart Haas to the to the the good opportunity that we were all longing for and God almighty what a disaster that turned out to be um I think riding you know I if if I had to do it again I think how to just rode the bench had to come over here at the lake and had me a fun here again it probably prepared me the same that would have been you can't

do that because I didn't learn a damn thing that would have been a disaster you that would have been a disaster. And I know it was a disaster, but... I probably never came back. It would probably never come back. But I, you know, I think as I look back at Stuart Haas, obviously we had fun at Stuart Haas, and we had fun at RCR, and, you know, everybody knows the story of us being in the booth. And by the way, we had a great time in the booth this year. But if there was, if you had to do all that again and you know everything that you know now, what would be the team that you went and drove for?

I can tell you Hendrick. Yeah. It's a pretty easy answer. Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting. There's a Hendrik contract in the desk that that had been a pretty good one to sign. Yeah, and it's interesting because we had Brad Kozlowski on the show, and he talked about, you know, the effect that Mark Martin had on his career, and he had a contract with Hendrick, and they decided to put Mark in the car, and that changed his direction.

So I think a lot of these old stories that people don't know changed the course of so many different careers and push things in so many different directions. And I think, you know, obviously, you know, you drive in Hendrick or anybody driving in Hendrick is going to give them an opportunity that, you know, it's just unique. So we got a couple minutes left. And I asked everybody this. Hold on that. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Stay on that real quick. Think of the difference it made in Kyle Larson. Yeah. You're right. Think of the difference that it made. made in Kyle Larson. He raised five years. People forget he raised five years in the Cup

Series of NASCAR and everybody knew you had this mound of talent, but you had to get him in the right equipment. And he finally did that. I'm happy for Chase Briscoe. That boy is on the clock, though. He is in the baddest ride you could possibly get what the top five rides in the garage area he's in and i think he'll shine in it i'm looking forward to watching him but that's a lot of pressure on a young man and he's stepped up to the plate let's see how harding swing it back yeah and and but when you think that's what i love about our sport when you think back to kyle larsen though think about this and what i just said you know how it changes the course steward hoss racing was going to hire kyle larsen to drive that car that's who tony tony stewart had the deal all worked out

and Ford said absolutely not you're not hiring Kyle Larson and Stuart Haas Racing is closing down and Kyle Larson is going on to race for more championships at Hendricks so you know I think all these things that that go on behind the scenes that people don't understand all right last question before we before we go and I ask it to everybody tell me about the first car that you bought and drove on the street what was it and where did it go well when you're doing Ed owns a towing lot and you had all these impound cars out back. You didn't really buy cars. You just, we had to get them fixed up and, you know, people just leave them.

Like, literally, just leave cars. You wouldn't believe that whether they went to jail, whether, whatever, but, like, his lot was always full of cars, have to go through an option and I'd buy it for whatever, $100 or something. But my brother had a Brown AMC Nash, had chrome directional wheels on, had MTX kickers in the back.

This baby jammed all the way through, had vinyl top on it, just turd brown, right? He had it all the way through high school, had air shocks on it, and we used to jump the ever-living crap out of this thing on railroad tracks. I'm talking 15 feet in the air, like stuff that you'd see in the movies

and somehow this thing would land. We went to the Votex school, and you'd hit this railroad track ramp. It was the damnedest jump you've ever seen your life. Like, if we had phones back then, we'd have been big on the internet. I can tell you that. Instagram would have been big. So I get to his car back to 14, like I told you, you can get a driver's permit,

a worker's permit to drive to and from work. Well, dad owned a tow and service. So technically, if you had a radio in your car, you was on call and headed to a wreck or something. So we had that covered. I get my license. My brother picks me up. I said, get the hell out. I'm driving. I've been wanting to air these railroad tracks out for years. One of my dad's employees took us over there, Wands to go be it. He's in a back seat, and we line up and hit these railroad tracks.

Well, old Clint hit him a little too hard. Either I hit it too hard, we didn't have enough airing of shocks, because when we landed, all hell broke loose, sparks, crap went flying, and oil was running out of the back of this thing as fast as you can. I'm trying to get it down to the shop, and there's a pile of oil. It looked like a racetrack, right? I'm oiled down. We're stopping to stop. Like, finally, the light oil light comes on. Like, oh, crap, I had to shut it off. Well, you know who you have to call to come get it towed, right?

Oh, yeah. There was another towing company in town. I'd have called them. He came and was so pissed off. He backed up, hooked onto that thing, never left us in it. Got on it, we were in the car, on a roll back, and took us back, Amy left. Those guys just like sked-addled out of there and left me for the biggest

ass to you and I've ever had my life and I went without a car for about a year. That was my first car. It lasted maybe 20 minutes. I knew that your story would be like no other and that one definitely did not disappoint. Well, go back to vacationing. I'm

actually enjoying this Fox schedule. As you told me, I needed to learn how to how to take control and relax. a little bit. But these last couple weeks, I feel like I've done a little bit better. So enjoy your Fourth of July. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. And it's been a great year. I had fun and I appreciate everything this year from me, man. Man, we've had a lot of fun. It was special to have you up there. A lot of people don't realize, but we've been teammates,

the better part of my career. I mean, what was there maybe four or five years of 16 or 17, 18 years that weren't, you know, alongside you. So thank the world of you. We have a lot of fun up there in the booth. It's an important job. It's a fun job. I enjoy it. But it is, I think it's a perfect time, right?

You get down to the end of ours, and your bucket is empty, so to speak, a little bit. You know, it's hard to stay fresh each and every week. I couldn't imagine doing that for 38 weeks, like some of the radio guys or some people do. I mean, we lived it inside the car. but your job and your task specific to that given weekend a lot different than you are in the TV world. I like when NBC comes on. I learn some things from them. I see some things I love and some things that I don't care for. So they do a great job. There are friends, right? I mean, Burton's been our teammate for probably six years of our careers.

So I love Salah Tart in the lobby before I left, but that's what I love the best about it. When they take over them on vacation, I said I was leaving. I was in the lobby, leaving. as he's going to the race check. I said, well, buddy, probably going to be a lot of green five runs today. Have fun. Wishing the best. So I can't wait for next year to be a lot of fun. Can't wait to see the end of the season.

Things are heating up in a big way. Boy, I thought, well, we had another new winner, right, with Lugano punching his ticket. But, boy, could you imagine a Lajoy would have won that or one of those other guys up front? That would have sure changed the playoff picture in a big way. And that's all it takes. one little thing like that. Those guys running out of gas and all hell breaking loose at the end of that thing. It's all it takes.

Somebody's going to punch your ticket. Well, have a good week, man. I appreciate you taking the time. I'm glad you're doing these podcasts. Thanks. I'll keep you informed. Bye. Well, we want to thank Clint for taking the time today.

I know he's on vacation, but we don't care. We wanted to hear about his race. And we also wanted to enlighten you on a few things that most people don't know about Clint Boyer. So I didn't even know that he hadn't driven a car or race car until he was 16. So hopefully you enjoyed the interview. We encourage everybody to follow us on YouTube or follow us anywhere on social media at Harvick Happy Pod. And we'll see you next week.