Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Dale Earnhardt Jr. Interview

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

In this special episode of Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, two NASCAR legends come together for an epic conversation. Kevin Harvick sits down with Dale Earnhardt Jr. to discuss the upcoming CARS Tour Late Model race, where the two will be sharing the broadcast booth. As co-owners of the CARS Tour, they break down their vision for the series and how they hope it will shape the next generation of NASCAR stars. Harvick and Dale Jr. also reflect on the current development system, highlighting standout young drivers like Josh Berry. To wrap things up, they share candid stories about their transition from racing to media and what they’ve learned along the way. 0:00 - Intro 0:31 - Dale Earnhardt Jr. Joins the Show! 0:57 - Growing Cars Tour/Driver Development 25:59 - Going from driving to broadcasting 38:15 - First Car Story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There should be a driver committee that boats on the people that are entering these races. Do you think the development system's broke? I feel like it's broke. The NASCAR that I knew doesn't exist anymore. That's hard for me to believe. I got out and I went, I didn't appreciate what Tony had done. He walked in there open the front door, fired his 12-gay shotgun out the front door to wake us all up. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by Echo Park Automotive and NASCAR on Fox. And this week, we've got my business partner and good friends. Dale Jr. in the chair.

And man, I can't tell you how much. I appreciate you taking a time to come down here and sit in a chair. Mainly because I really can't hear on Zoom. That's really my excuse for most interviews. But it's always more fun when you have somebody sitting in the chair. So thanks for taking the time. Massive week for us with the cars tour. You know, I think you probably thought I was crazy when I first started talking about this

with everything that we had happening, the possibilities of putting late model stocks on FS1. And what do you think this means to the series and the drivers and everything that we've worked towards to this point? It's exciting for you and me to feel like that we're doing some of the things we had promised the competitors in terms of growing the series and trying to take the series to new places. And, you know, we've, you have this, you know, incredible relationship with Fox that's produced an opportunity. and my favorite part about it probably is hearing from the drivers saying that they're really excited about it. It's hard to get those guys to admit

when they're excited about something. And you can boost the purse, you can change this, change that. And you might hear some grumblings of happiness, but they're thrilled to have the opportunity to race on FS1. and at Wilkesboro, in front of the industry on All-Star weekend, you know, we've been on this race weekend for a couple years now. So it's just a lot of great momentum for the tour and trying to continue like me and you've been trying to do,

trying to make it better every year. And you came with a great idea, and it's pretty cool that it's a reality. So we're going to be in the booth with Eric. And I think, you know, for me, to be up there calling the race with you is something that I don't know that I ever thought we would be able to do together because I work for Fox. You work for Amazon, T&T, NBC before. It's hard to, and I know you've been in the Fox booth with the guys at Talladega before. But to me, that's going to be a lot of fun because I feel like I've gotten to know the competitors better.

I always try to walk around the garage when we're practicing and say hi to the guys. But you have this deep tie to late model stock racing. How did all of this start? I know the backstory, but I want everybody to hear the backstory of how the opportunity came to buy the series. Well, I'll say this. Me and you did a little TV work back at Sonoma, probably around 2003. That was just a mess with Myers. I know, but we had fun and that'll live forever.

It will. And I raced, you know, you came from a straight rail offset car on, you know, like a pro or super late model on the West Coast. And the late model stock car is kind of similar to a truck or an Xfinity car chassis in terms of there's no offset in the chassis. And it's really got a very specific footprint in the, in the, North America, basically in the Carolinas and Little Tennessee and Little South Carolina, a lot of Virginia.

But that's kind of where the car has lived and existed for as long as I've been around. And we have raised, I say we, I've filled a car in this tour for over a decade with Josh Barry and different drivers. We've filled multiple cars in this tour forever. And Jack was a fellow that on the tour for a while. and was thinking about bringing in partners or selling a tour. He wanted it to kind of live on. He was thinking about getting out or scaling back his involvement.

And actually at the race at North Wiltsboro, when we brought Wilkesboro back in 2022 and had an event there with the Cars Tour and the Modifieds, we started conversations about how to keep the tour going, who should buy it, who should invest in it, who could do it. And I was like, well, I'll be a partner. I wasn't ready to run a series.

I'd never done that before my life. We might still not be ready for that. Right. But here we are. And me and Jeff Burton, Burton drove late model stocks at South Boston growing up. And we were in a booth together. And I was like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this thing. I'm just trying to, Burton's the kind of guy, as you know.

You can just tell him things that you're thinking about doing, and he'll tell you whether it's a good or a bad idea, right? And I didn't expect really for him to want to get involved in it. but he said, hey, I might want to do that. And then he thought, we should talk to Kevin. I was like, you think Kevin want to do this? And he's like, yeah, let's talk to Kevin. So we sat down and talked to you.

You're like, I'm in. And I think we should talk to Justin Marks. And so it just kind of like grew into this really cool group of guys that all have kind of similar motives, but different ways of looking at things. And that's how we, you know, we ended up buying the tour and taking it over and trying to help grow it and keep it strong. And I think that's been probably my favorite part is we sit in that room and we all look at it from a totally different perspective.

But we have this respect for each other that it's like, okay, that's his lane. Let him run down that lane. I might disagree with this or that. But nobody ever takes it personal because I think that that passion for grassroots racing is something that we all believe in. And in my opinion, I think that there's a massive, hole in the grassroots asphalt racing piece of the puzzle. And really, I think we've seen that over the last year when we've taken some stuff out west. We've seen the growth with the cars tour.

I think flow has been a big part of helping us grow the tour with their involvement, whether it be with the purses or just being on flow. And really, the competitors, in my opinion, have benefited from when you put something on social media or you talk about it on on your podcast or we talk about it here. They see all this exposure. And now it's been this consistent passion and involvement that we've been at the track. Obviously, you've filled it cars.

We filled a car. But I think that having that consistency from the competitors, it's like, hey, butterbeams over here win in Arka races. Carson's, Guapples and Dale's Xfinity car. We've got Connor Zilich has come through here, won races and immediately left because they realize if you can win here, you can win anywhere. And now it seems like the rest of the industry is noticing that with the opportunities

that some of these guys are getting. Do you feel that way? I do. I think that, and I'm biased, obviously, but I feel like the cars tour provides a driver the best opportunity to really learn racecraft. We get a lot of fast race car drivers that come in there and don't know how to finish races and don't know how to put together complete races. there's some nights where it's rough and a lot of calamity and things to dodge and and

wreck avoidance. But truly getting down in the corner and racing somebody side by side and getting out the other end successfully, that's something I think that guys and girls can come into our tour and learn. And if you can be competitive and over the course of a season put together really solid races, you are ready to get into the truck or Infinity Car and go out there and compete without making mistakes or getting yourself or other competitors in real big trouble because you've been in so many tight, tight, you know, hard battles in the cars tour, week in and week out.

So, yeah, I feel like that we provide a unique product for young drivers to come in and really hone their craft and truly get ready for that next step. Yeah, and I feel like right now, and I think Butterbean has proved that this year. I mean, he's gone right into ARCA National and just started winning. races and did it again last weekend at Kansas. But who in your opinion is the next one? Like, who do you think in our tour is the next one that could possibly come out of there? Because I think there's a few of them. And I really think that when you go back and you look at Josh Barry, I don't think you have to be 16 years old anymore. I think that him being

a little older now, and now you've kind of walked him through the whole process and helped him along the way. And he's proven now he's a winner on the cup side. And he just grounded out. Where do you feel like the age, I guess not just our tour specific. I don't want to put you on a spot there. Where do you think the whole age thing kind of falls into what we do now that we've seen Josh have all that success? And is it necessary that they're 16, 17, 18 years old? Corey Heim's 22. So what's your opinion on that? Well, I feel like that we've all learned that each driver's different. But you look at William Byron, Joey Lugano,

those guys got kind of thrown into the cup level at a very young age, and fortunate enough for them, there was enough people in the industry to believe in them over the course of the time that it took them to find their way, right? And I think a lot of drivers risk, not developing into their true potential because they rush to get there.

Yeah. And they don't have quite enough people at that level, at the cup level, to truly believe in them and stay with them to get to that point. I mean, Joey could easily not be a three-time cup champion. Very easily. Right. Yeah. And there's a lot of value, I think, in being patient.

you know, the only problem is is that it's a money game, right? And it's all, you know, for almost everyone, it's pay to play. Yeah. If you got the money, you got to go, right? Right. The finances that are behind the driver often dictate the speed

in which they move through the ranks, and sometimes they're not able to take the time that they need. But I feel like that you could spend, I always felt this way, you could spend at least two years in each level, like two years in the car store, two years in the trucks, two years in Xfinity to truly get to where you need to be before you get to the cup level. But sometimes drivers just don't have that luxury because of how much of,

you know, how much of the big machine behind them is pushing them forward. Maybe they don't have the time to be able to wait. But you think it's broke? I mean, do you think the development system's broke? I feel like it's, I feel like it's broke. And I feel like, I look at irasing. I had an interesting conversation with Joey from NASCAR about a point system, kind of like iraicing. If you don't have enough points at this level, you can't go to this level. If you don't have enough points at this level. And I feel like that if we made that cup piece of it harder to get to, it would make it more prestigious, but it would also get more guys the opportunity to go there that have the right path. Do we need to make some sort of system like that?

I've thought about that, especially over the last several months, a lot. And I was, so I was in a situation with Lannon Castle and Danica, a few other drivers, where I felt like they were qualified to go race in the Xfinity race at Daytona, but NASCAR felt like they needed to race in the Arka series. we were going to run Josh somewhere, but to, in an Xfinity car at a mile and a half track, but NASCAR required us to run him in a truck somewhere before then. So that was like a $25,000 expense that we really didn't have or Josh didn't have in his, you know, in his business model.

And we really didn't want to spend that money at the time with Landon Castle. We felt like he didn't need to run that arc race. I mean, it was a great experience for him. But there was a time, what I'm trying to say is there was a time when there was a bit of a system and you had to have this many starts here or you had to run the half mile before you got to the mile before you got to. You know, there was this process that was clunky and not really perfect. Honestly, the best scenario might be a bit of a driver's committee at the cup level. there should be a driver committee that votes on the people that are entering these races. When you went to Darlington, you had to have a rookie orientation as a driver.

Even A.J. Foyt had to go through that to be accepted. And the drivers were the ones sitting and watching that practice and saying, this guy is ready, this guy is not ready. And so maybe at each level, you know, there's a group of three or four drivers that are the ones that determine if somebody, is eligible or should be eligible for whatever race. Because I feel like there are those weird cases where you get a driver who's absolutely qualified,

but they haven't checked the boxes. And do you want to force that driver through that pipeline, which you may not take? So he may just avoid the whole thing altogether. You don't want to do that. But I feel like those guys stick out like a sore thumb. Like when you look at a, you know, you look at a Connor Zilich or somebody along that line, you know,

that he, you can noticeably see the guys that are ready. Exceptions, right? And so then that would be where the committee could work because they could see that, right? You as a driver would be able to go, I'm good with Connor racing here, you know, but maybe not the other guy that you don't think has, you know, needs to go do something else for a little while. Yeah. And that's just the honest, and it's hard, you know, it's an honest truth that people have to face. If somebody says, look, man, you need more time.

you know, I know a driver who's got two arc starts that's already thinking about running a truck. And I'm like, no, don't do that, you know. Get a couple more stars in ARCA before you try to go run a truck race and make a fool of yourself. Yeah. It's definitely a tough scenario. But, you know, I feel like if it was, you look at F1 and we got into this with Will Buxton last week about the super license. And, you know, it seems a little bit, it's definitely skewed towards European racing. and F4, F3, F2 there.

And you can't, you can gather super license points here. But the IndyCar champion not being eligible, especially now that Cadillac and the F1 team are going to be housed in America. And really, it's almost impossible to look at any of those guys because they're not even eligible. Right. Yeah, that's too strict of a policy.

It blows my mind that if you really want it to be this international piece of the puzzle, but I think that even the open-wheel piece of the, the puzzle is broken a little bit. But I definitely, I definitely think that we could, we could do a better job and just saying, hey, here's the path. Now, if there's an exception, we might be able to give somebody a waiver that, that is just stands out above the rest that could be more rapidly moved wrong. But I feel like Cup is so prestigious. And I feel like we've taken some of the prestigiousness of everything that we do away from each level because it's, you can buy your way. Easier to get there. To get there. So it's an, it's an, it's an, it's an

interesting conversation. And you deal with it a lot with your with your Xfinity teams. You have a lot of guys and gals that that have come through that program. Where where do you think the Xfinity series is in this whole puzzle as far as trucks, Xfinity? Is it better to go to trucks? Is it good to go to Xfinity? I don't really know because the new cup car is so different. Yeah. Well, that is I believe that the, so the the parts and pieces that we're all using to race trucks or Xfinity are bit obsolete.

And I wish they weren't. I wish there were companies out there still making these parts and wanting to make them so that, you know, when the cup car moved away from the rear and housing and the suspension and types of things, steering boxes and all the stuff that we currently run, it's put things in question in terms of what's the future. physically of the, of the exfinity car. What does it look like in five years? And there's some rumors that that's, that's going to change. And, um, and that's because of the steering boxes and all the, all those all this stuff is old. Yeah. It doesn't make sense because now you don't,

now you don't have the cup cars with everything flowing down with the parts and pieces to, to make the Xfinity cars more functional. That's right. And there's really not anybody currently making a lot of the stuff. Transmissions are getting harder to find, even for short trackers. We're already an old transmission. Everybody's running pretty much kind of same stuff. And even the short track guys at the local level are having a hard time finding parts and pieces, steering boxes and stuff like that.

So it's a bit of everything's kind of in a bit of a spin right now. But I believe that the Xfinity series has to find a bit of an identity. And I think NASCAR is trying to figure out what that is. Is it hybrid? Is it, you know, there's some, they aren't making this electric. car for fun. There's a purpose behind that. Oh, God, don't get me started on that. I know. Well, like it or not, I'm not entirely in love with it, but they're not doing that

just to kid and play around. There's a, there's, there's, there's, there's a real possibility that that that could be a series at some, at some point. Yeah. And something that NASCAR wants to get behind and push. And if, you know, the other thing, too, is, is that the, you know, the business model in the Xfinity series has worked really well, but as the charter system changes in the Cups series and the dollars that you need from corporate America to race in the Cups series change, it conflicts with the business model at the Xfinity level a little bit. And so there's some, you know, if the CUP series, if you could ever get to where you're competitive in the Cups series at $5 to $10 million, then that's going to make it difficult to make the dollars work in

the Xfinity Series. Yes, it really is. It gets into that same price. But we've seen you guys dip your toe in. I mean, you had a great experience at Daytona. That looked like fun. Tons of fun. Just from your enthusiasm and everything that came with that. It was a ton of fun, but it wasn't the real deal, right?

I mean, it was like, we're an open team. We did buy a car like that, that, we didn't borrow a car. We bawled a car from, you have to go to NASCAR, buy the car. And when we, if we're going to run one race, they have to then buy it back from us. And it goes back into their inventory. And so parts of it were genuinely real. The risk and the financial risk was real. Putting all the people together and getting the crew together was real.

You know, it wasn't, we did have a lot of help from Hendrick Motorsports and a lot of support there. But there were some real levers that I had to pull or we had to pull. So it felt genuine. And that's why I think I enjoyed it so much. It wasn't like someone, you know, in this case, Rick Hendrick just put a car on the car on the car. grid for me and said, here, pretend to be an owner for a weekend. But it did open my eyes to how challenging that landscape is. Yeah. It is so challenging. Yeah, it is. And the good teams have risen back to where they were before this car with the old car, right? Everybody said this is going to

make it more even. But the good teams have still risen to the top. But just the financial challenges too. Yeah. And parts and pieces and people and carbon fiber and everything. You know, we were out there running around. I'm like, you know, we had a little damage in our race, in the qualifying race, in our duel. I had a little damage.

And I'm sitting there sweating whether we can repair that front splitter or whether we're going to have to pay for a new one. Yeah. And so luckily we were, you know, NASCAR was like, hey, it's a scratch, you know, do a little bondo here, fix it up, you know, you'll be good to go. But I'm sitting there going, wow, man, if I had to replace that, that's a big chunk of money that we weren't really budgeting for and all that just kind of adds up, tic-tack stuff throughout the weekend. And that's just one race. That's my, that's been my favorite part of the ownership group

is you are so efficient and know what everything costs. You are the tightest, you are definitely the biggest tight one. in the group for sure. And I love that because the rest of us are pretty ambitious. And you're always like, well, what's this going to cost? And I think that is fantastic. You have to have one of those guys. You wouldn't think it would be me. And I love that. I love that part about what you do. And I think, you know, it'd be, in my opinion, the grid would be better if there was a car in a cup series that said junior motorsports on it. Man, I feel the same way as you do. Yeah. I said, I've voiced this opinion to the folks that matter, and, and, and it's not, it's not a harsh critique, but I, I still have to, I still have a disbelief that we are in a place. I remember, I have been around long enough to remember that if you and I just woke up one day and said, man, we're going to enter a cup car in any race.

race we want. We can go find us a car, find us a driver, get all the parts and go do it. Right. Now there's some couple hoops to license. You've got to get license and got to enter the car, pay the money, the intrafee, all that good stuff. But it was pretty much, you know, understandable challenge. Yeah. But today to get just out there and compete, you know, you need that $50 million. And that charter is going to be $100 million and $150 million and $200 million. It's going to go to the moon over the next several years. Well, that's a good time to buy it right now. It was a good time to buy it 10 years ago.

Yeah. I regret that I didn't. But it's become this place where only people with that kind of money can play. Yeah. And the world, the NASCAR that I knew in terms of, you know, just being able to field a car and go race doesn't exist anymore. And that's just hard for me to like, that's hard for me to not really, that's hard for me to just believe that we're in that, you know, for me to go run an open car isn't realistic. It's not realistic for anybody to do it every single week.

But while that is tough for me to stomach, it is incredibly great for the current people that are involved in the sport. Great for NASCAR, great for the France family, great for the owners and teams that have those charters that are appreciating year after year after hour after hour. They're just going up. But for somebody who's trying to get in, you can't play unless you got a big entity behind you,

somebody with real cash. Well, I think you could bring a lot to the table. I mean, the effort that you and Kelly and your group put into the sport. And you guys are always, you're always out there. And your group is always out there. And the impact that it would have on cup racing would be through the roof. But there are a lot of other pieces that fall into that puzzle. I'll be honest with you.

I think about that. And I had a real good opportunity years ago to get in as a cup owner. I could have, you know, I should have or, you know, there's that argument out there. But when we go to a cars tour race or if I sit down and buckle down and work on the cars tour for a day and, you know, spend real time going over things with KIP or talking to you, I'm just as happy and rewarded, right? And so sometimes I think to myself, man, maybe, maybe all that, maybe all that cup level stuff is in the rearview mirror, you know? I enjoy broadcasting and what I'm thankful to be able to get back into the booth and do a little bit of that this year because, as you know, it's just a ton of fun. It is. But I love being able to put all the effort into the cars towards Unimuror Motorsports and all the other pieces and things we're doing.

Because it is a 24-7 job. If you're going to be a good cup owner, it's a 24-7 job. All the things that I do that I'm passionate about that I would probably have to put to the side. I mean, if you went back to driving, tomorrow, I think of all the things you'd have to say, yeah, I can't do those things anymore that I've just started doing and enjoying. It's commitment.

Yeah. It's a full commitment. Well, let's talk about the Amazon piece of it, getting started here. You guys have your first race coming up at the Coca-Cola 600. What's that process been like getting ready to get back into the booth? You took a year off.

And so what's the process been like getting ready? I didn't want to take a year off, but it just didn't work out. And so I've missed it. I've missed it a lot. And we had, this past weekend, you guys were in Kansas, and we were at the NASCAR building using your feed to do a rehearsal of sorts. Just practice and play with Adam and LaTard and some of our people with Amazon.

I was really nervous because, like anything, if you don't do it every day and you're not in there in the grind, you know, you can kind of, It's like golf. If you don't swing a club all the time, you know, you might not be as good next time you try to go out and do it. But we had a little practice run, felt awesome. It reminded me, like, every time I get back in the booth for how fun it is and how lucky I am to be able to do it. And so my excitement levels through the roof, honestly. I'm pumped.

Honestly, we got done with that rehearsal. All of us with our Amazon bosses and everybody on next day. this text, and we're texting back and forth, and I said, there's just one problem that we only get to do this five weeks. Right. I was like, you know, there's just not enough for, not enough pie for everybody, but it'd be awesome to have a, you know, a good chunk of the season, but I'm going to run through, I'm going to do July with Amazon, then, or June with Amazon and July with TNT, 10 race stretch,

and I'll probably be, you know, it'll probably be hard to stop. Yeah. NBC picks it up, but, you know, that's where we are, and I'm thrilled to just have the chance. I'm just thankful to be able to do it a little bit. So you're going to go up there for the longest race of the season. I've never done to 600. Yeah, what does Dale Jr. look like in the booth? Are you a guy that has to eat it halfway?

Do you stand? Do you sit? What do you do? I'm pretty animated and moving a lot. I wonder sometimes if it's annoying to Lartre because I sit up, stand out, sit down, sit at stand. I'm moving all the time. Oh, you should come in our booth. You want to talk about sit-up, stand down turn.

Oh, my God. Is that Clint? Yeah, Clint's all over the place. Yeah. I'm kind of the same way. And I just, I don't know, I'm just so, honestly, I sit at home and watch races. I enjoy them. Yeah. If I'm at a racetrack in person, I enjoy that experience.

But I don't know what it is about being in the booth is like the most fun I can have. Yeah. Watching a race. And, you know, you just, you just, you're, you just, you're, you just, you just, you're, you don't have a choice but to really be in it, you know, watching everything going on. And as a person with that kind of perspective from the booth, you see the battle that's happening on the television that everyone else is watching, but you also see everything else going on in the rest of the field. And you can't. It's so much happening, and you can only

put one thing on the screen. And it's like, it's an adrenaline rush. It really is. Live TV is, you know, the first, that little, you know, first quick pop on air, It's pretty scary. Makes your heart race. Yeah. Yeah. And there's wins and losses up there. I don't have to worry.

I don't have to, you know, when we raced, when we raced and we had a bad day, we had talked to the media about it and try to tell everybody how we're going to do better. We don't do that anymore. No. But we do come out of the booths and go, that was a great show. Yeah. It's such a great show. You know, I did this wrong.

I can do this better. I need to prep better. I need to do. Don't call Kyle Larson, Kyle Bush. No. Did you see Boyer this weekend? Oh, that was fantastic. Mike Joy and I were, we were beside ourselves.

Yeah. It was hysterical. Y'all's reaction was real. I saw that. It was pretty fun. Clint, I was watching production and Clint's sitting on the pit road. Y'all weren't on air yet, and he's sitting there writing his notes. And that's the part that a lot of people don't see is you guys, you know, how much, you know, y'all and our team, how much work goes on behind the scene.

So much behind the scenes. You're studying and thinking. note taking all the way up until the moment the camera turns on. Yes. And you, it's fun. It's a fun challenge. You're chasing, having a great show. And you don't want to do bad.

You're representing the sport. You're representing the competitors. You know 99% of the guys in the garage and you want them to leave. Some of them might be mad about being honest or something to say, but you want to tell the story correctly. I find that you never have a, it's never, somebody told me this is great advice. They say it's never as good as it felt, but it's never as bad as it felt either. And you're always, I like trying to always chase the perfect show or the perfect segment or the perfect comment, knowing I'll never probably be that happy with everything I do.

But I'm competitive and I chase that the same way I tried to chase a car that turned in the middle when I was driving race cars. It's just a different team. It really is. It's a different team of people doing different things. So we have our last race this weekend. All-Star race. Obviously, you've been a big part of North Wilkesboro and everything that's happened there, kind of kicked it off. like you said, with late model stocks and the revival of the whole track,

you've been, you know, one of the guys behind that mission to see what it is today. And, you know, we've got the all-star race. And I'm of the opinion that North Wilkesboro should be a points race. I think we need 37th race and we need to eliminate the all-star race and honor our guys that are all-stars in some other way, shape, or form. But my opinion is North Wilkesboro would be a better race if it had all the cars on the track and we just made it a points race. What do you think?

You could get me to buy into the idea of somehow taking the clash and the all-star race and mashing it into one event, right? I like that. And maybe, you know, to kick our season off, we have an all-star event at the start of the year. Yep. And if it meant Wilkesboro got the points race, it needs a 400 lapper. Because I do think the racetrack really raced better than people probably remember. I know everybody probably just remembers Ligano dominating this race last year,

but the track was widened out. They chased it all the way to the fence in turn one and two. Turns three and four had multiple grooves as well. If you were, if it was, you know, if you needed to get out of the bottom, you could still make time in the middle and the top of the racetrack. And I think that's just going to continue to improve as the race track ages over time. And I do believe I'm, I, things are, things go in circles, everything that was, old as new again and everything that's out of style comes back in style.

Yeah. We will have a short track package that we all love one day. It will happen. And somehow, some way, they'll stumble into something that actually is awesome. And so I think, you know, that that bodes well for Wilkesboro as well to one day be a track that puts on an incredible product like we had, you know, just not only, you know, eight or ten years ago on the short track level. I remember coming out of the Martinsville race where Denny and Chase got into it. I come out of that race and I said,

man, if we could bottle this up every week, we'd be on top of the world because I felt so just my adrenaline was running, leaving that racetrack after seeing that race and thinking, man, the drama and the excitement and how that all played out. And it kept, you know, Martinsville was delivering there every single week till, or every single race till the next year.

And so, but I think they'll figure it out with this car. And I think that that's why we need to kind of keep pushing Wilkesboro and all these other tracks and trying to keep short tracks on the schedule. Yeah. And it's so interesting because the short track stuff was really good. Yeah. With the old car. And now it's a mile and a half.

And, you know, we go to Kansas and Texas. Remember when the COT came in and they ran like eight or 10 COT races at one year? Yeah. A little blend. Split it up. Yeah, they did. That's one thing I thought about with it. They got rid of all-star race was maybe we just need to have all the cup drivers go to an Xfinity team and we'll just have a vintage race.

There you go. Maybe that's what happens to the Xfinity program as it turns into the short track package. Yeah. I mean, you never know what really works. But, you know, I think it's really interesting to see where the short track package has evolved to because I don't think anybody really thought it would be where it's at. I think the tire has helped it a lot. I think maybe if they put that motor in that you had in that truck, Eclatuses, There you go.

More horsepower. Big power. That would definitely make it harder to drive. It'd be all over the place. Was that the most horsepower of anything you've ever driven in your life? Yeah, no question. That thing, so I had a Camero with a line lock, and so I kind of knew what I was doing or getting myself into,

but I had no idea what the acceleration was going to feel like when I let off that button and that thing took off. It was like, you know, you see those little things where people are on them, they're strapped down on this big bungee cord and they turn them loose and they fly up into the sky. That's what it felt like. Like I just shot forward like an amusement park. And it made me lightheaded and...

That's unbelievable. It was, it really... I wasn't ready. My body was not ready for it. And that's what was... You know, they were messing with me because I didn't run full throttle that first run. And I was like, all right.

Oh, you ran it twice? Yeah. Okay. I got back in it and I was like, they were giving me, you know, crap about lifting. And I was like, well, this back straightaway, apron's bumpy. There's a great down there that I don't want to run over at 140 miles an hour. And I said, all right, I said, I'm going to run it wide open.

Let me back in it. And they were like, okay, we're going to run it again. And so we had to cool it down, you know, get it all back ready to go again. And I was like, I don't, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, I don't care what's happening. I'm running it wide open. I'm running wide open. I'm running wide open. They're not going to give me a, yo.

I'm running wide open. I don't care if I wad this thing up. And so the next time I read it wide open, and I got out and I went, and this was the week that I think Tony Stewart had won. Oh, the NHRA race. Yeah, the four wide deal. I got out and I went, in like two years, Tony Stewart has become a competitive, successful. And he goes twice as fast as this.

I was, I didn't appreciate what Tony had done as much as I did. After I drove that truck, I was like, that was fast. I can't imagine what your body goes through to go twice as fast in an eighth mile. I can't imagine what that must feel like. And how they go up there and get on the line and they do it over and over all weekend line. I would assume that you just become. Your body has to come acclimated to it. Yeah.

Because it's definitely hearing you talk about that. I didn't really think about everything that Tony had to go through. I admire. I love Tony Stewart. He's awesome. We all know that he kicks ass. But dang, I honestly feel like I really didn't put his NHR a career anywhere near the other things that he's done in racing. But now I got to say that I put it near the top, if not at the top.

It's so easy from the outside end. Yeah, because I'm like, what he had to go through and what he had to learn and be willing to learn, right? Willing to put himself through that. Holy moly. Well, he's got a pretty strict coach. Leah, she drops the hammer on Tony. And she is not. He's gotten in shape.

Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know about that. I do. I think he's lost some weight. He has lost some weight. I don't know that he's got in shape. So he's changing diapers, changing diapers, losing weight, all the stuff that. I remember back in the day, flying home with him one time. I don't know what I was in between planes or something. And I hopped on the plane and he had like an extra large happy meal. I was like, dang. Like, I ain't doing it right.

Yeah. Tony was never shy about eating. And it never was very good. He did everything his own way. We just ran a race and he's like, I'm challenging. down. I'm going to have a happy meal. Dang, I'm jealous. Probably had cheese and ketchup on it, like our kids would eat.

Yeah. All right, last question. So we ask everybody on the show, what was your first car that you drove on the highway? Ever. My first car was a black and silver, 1988, S-10 pickup truck with the Tahoe package. I loved it because it had the seek button on the radio. Radio's back in. The what? A seek button.

Oh, seek button. Yeah. Remember, like right before 1988, like around 85, Radio, you had to turn that dial. You had to hit a button to run all the, you know, through the channels. Or you had the little button to push to have your favorite save. You had like five of them. This had a button that you just hit the seek and it would just find the stations, right?

And I'm like, man, that was so nice. So it was black and silver. That was just by coincidence. Dad found this truck at one of those, there's an auction dealer auction center off of 77 north of Statesville. Yeah. And he was a dealership owner, and they found that truck. I loved this truck. Loved it.

And when I graduated high school, he thought that it would be a good idea to get me a Z-71 full-size truck, not a Z-Sat 71, but a 1,500 full-sized Chevrolet extended cab. I come home from school near the end of my 12th grade, and it was a two-tone brown, no carpet farm truck. And it was awful. Yeah. And I was so upset because I just would have been happy keeping my little S-10. And I used to drive, take that two-tong brown truck and drive by the used car lot where my S-10 was and just look at it.

You were mad that. Yeah. Now, when I was a kid, all the S-10s, you wanted them dragging the ground. Mine was a 4-4. Okay. Yeah. So yours was up. See, on the West Coast, you wanted them dragging the ground so they ripped the reflectors off going down the highway.

Yeah. It was a group. Yeah, they call them pebble pushers and all kinds of things around here. but I ended up getting me a low-rider, single-cab S-10 pickup truck for a while. It had a big block, or it had a V8 in it, not a big block. Dad had a S-10 pickup truck with a 454 big block in it. No kidding.

Yeah, on the farm. It was fun. Now, is that the same one, is it true that he used to run into the little trailer or when he was mad at you? No, when he was mad at me, I'll say he never ran into the trailer, but now this trailer is where Dale used to live and that's where I took my wife on our first date

yes to one of the parties there one of the parties there one time we did have a party and everybody's asleep in the floor and he like I mean there's 12 or so of my friends all sleeping in the floor of the living room dining room everywhere right he walked in there open the front door

and fired his 12-gay shotgun out the front door to wake us all up. Yeah. Yeah. Standing on the porch. Still one of the most intimidating things I've ever done was walk up into his office with Hornaday for the first time.

I walked up in there. And we had decided that we were not very good at golf and we wanted to shoot shotgun. So we walk up into his office and he's got his glasses on. He's got piles of paper all over his desk. And you know how he was. He'd sit there like this and he'd look over his glasses. What are you two idiots want? And I'm like, well, nice to see you as well.

I'm thinking of my mind. you would never say that. And Hornaday says, well, we want to learn how to shoot guns. He said, well, shouldn't you guys be working on your race cars? And I had no clue. I'd say Hornaday would ban her back and forth with him. And finally we got to the point. He's like, Ron, you go down and get the truck, Kevin, you come with me.

And we walked back and he had that little knife gun room with all the guns and everything in it. That's where I got my first shotgun. Really? Yeah, he gave me a Remington shotgun. And I still have it today. That's pretty cool. That was, and he sent Danny. You remember Danny that used to work for Remington, the trick shooter?

Yes. He sent Danny. He called him up and he said, hey, can you take these two morons out to learn how to shoot these guns? I don't need them shooting their foot off. Yeah. It was, he was an intimidating dude. Well, I appreciate you taking the time. Yeah.

Looking forward to everything that we get to do this weekend. I think it's going to be a lot of fun and can't wait to see how it all goes. Yeah, I'm excited to get in the booth with you, bud. And hopefully we'll have a great night for the cars tour and a great. A great night for a great weekend for NASCAR with the All-Star Race. It's a big deal in Wilkesboro there. Back to work next week. Thanks for taking the time.

Thank you, bud.