Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Mike Skinner Interview

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

NASCAR legend Mike Skinner joins Kevin Harvick for an unforgettable conversation about his one-of-a-kind journey to the top of the sport. From working as a well driller in California to winning the very first NASCAR Truck Series race and championship with Richard Childress Racing, Skinner reflects on the long road to breaking into NASCAR at age 39. He shares behind-the-scenes stories about driving the iconic No. 3 Goodwrench truck, racing alongside Dale Earnhardt, his Cup Series near-misses, and so much more. 0:00 - Intro 0:42 - Mike Skinner Joins The Show! 9:32 - Truck Series Start With RC 15:38 - Relationship With Ron Hornaday Jr./Jack Sprague 24:53 - Cup Series Experience/Differences 26:22 - Being Dale Earnhardt’s Teammate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I think the racing today is really good, but they don't have men anymore. No matter how bad you were hurt, you were never hurt. We want you to start acting like a race car driver. Go out, get drunk, stay up late, sleep in the next day. You look at 2001, Dale Pass and away, those cars were ready. I believe he would have won that other championship. The biggest thing I regret in my career was getting back in the car too quick. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Art, presented by NASCAR on Fox.

And today we have one of the legends of our sport, one of our, good friends for a long time, Mike Skinner. And thank you for taking the time today. Got you out of the mountains. I've been looking forward to it. Yeah. Well, you know, I think as we've gone through the podcast, we've learned that we have a lot of listeners that really, really enjoy hearing

about the past of people like you that have had such a good career in a sport, been a part of a lot of the building process of what NASCAR went through, whether it was the truck series or the cup series or whatever it was and your own personal stories. So let's start today with just how did your career get started? You were a West Coast guy and I love West Coast stories. So they all know I'm a little bit biased to West Coast people. But during your time, West Coast racing was, I mean, racing was really popular on the West Coast coast, but it was extremely hard for a West Coast guy to get to the East Coast for a while.

And, you know, I think once you guys broke down, but tell us how your racing career started and where you started and kind of how it evolved into getting that opportunity with the trucks. Well, back here, I mean, especially up north, they can race four or five nights a week. Yeah. And out there, we'd race a couple times a month or three times a month. It was a lot different there. but I started, it's crazy, I had a really fast street car. It was a 71 road runner and used it for a trophy car one week,

totaled the car the next week out on a road going way faster than I should have been going. And the insurance company totaled it and we bought it back. And my friend Alan Cossack says, you're crazy as hell. You're always out running the cops. You're always doing crazy stuff. You should make a, we called them hard top.

You should make a hard top out of that thing. So we did and flipped it end over in the very first night and rolled it. It's Susanville. That's Susanville. And it set for a few weeks and we went out there and, you know, let's crank this thing up. The bodies tore all the pieces, but let's see if it still runs. And it did.

Anyway, long story short, it went back and won the next six races and ended up winning the championship. Yeah. And this beat up roadrunner. And I got hooked. I always wanted to be a billiards professional. Really? And when I was a kid, you know, I was raised in a tavern. And so I practiced every day and then I'd play at night and worked really, really, really hard at it and got pretty good at it.

I'm glad I figured out how to race because now I'm old and can't see. I'd be going broke trying to shoot pool. I'm right there with you on that. But, you know, when I found out that I was better at driving a race car than I was playing pool, I got hooked on it. And we ran, I guess we won three dirt track championships and said, I'm ready to go asphalt racing. So I bought an outlaw sprint car and took it down to West Capitol Speedway. It was actually an asphalt car that we converted over and got to run against Sammy and Steve Kinser and those guys. It was so cool.

I just, I'll never forget as long as I live. And I basically started in the back of the B main, I think, and came up, finished second, and started in the back of the A main, came up, spun out, all the way the back, came up, spun out all the way in the back three times, ended up finishing fourth in the thing. And Steve Kinzer won the race. And, you know, they were coming up to me going, who are you? I mean, what's the, you're crazy. What's going on?

You know, you just drove the wheels off that thing. I'm like, well, I didn't know any better. And so I did that for a little while, but we ended up going back and taking what, I guess our roadrunner would have been called a, I don't know, a hobby stock maybe. Okay. And then went to the super stock

where you could have a built motor and bigger tires and just started going around Northern California and running the big races, the fair races and all dirt. And then we'd go into Carson City. and racing asphalt and just got hooked. Next thing you know, I was building my own motors. We'd go buy cylinder heads from Yule Brothers out there. So did you work as well during the week?

Yeah, I was a well driller. Okay. I had a well drilling business. And so, you know, you drill wells all day, work on a race car all night, half the night, rinse and repeat. And I was building my own motors. And I was at Roseville, Sacramento. And same story.

Came from the back, one to B main, went to the A main, and finished the top two or three. And Terry Ellage, which you probably remember, Terry Ellage, came to my motor home and he goes, no offense. He says, but your car, I mean, did you set that car up? I'm like, yeah. He goes, man, that thing's really fast in the corner. He goes, I don't know who builds your motors,

but looks like that thing struggles on the straight of a little. Well, I do. He goes, well, I'm sorry. I didn't want to offend you. Anyway, we cut a deal, and Terry started building my motors, and we went from a, we'd go to Bakersfield, run forth every week. Yeah. We immediately started winning.

And, boy, it was a, it's a different world when you thing handles on the straightaway. Oh, yeah. Makes a big difference. It really does. It makes a driver's job a lot easier at that point. So you go and you finally get a break with the engine side of it. So on the late model,

side. When did you start venturing out side of California with, did you ever go outside of California or did you just primarily stay on the East Coast? Did you ever start venturing out and getting an opportunity anywhere else? You know, um, not really. I mean, we'd go to Nevada and race. We'd go around Sacramento. We went to Arizona, went to Phoenix, Vegas. Not really. Yeah. We were just basically a West coaster. And first of all, we didn't have any money. Yep. And just really didn't have, I had local sponsors.

You know, I had a beer sponsor. Which Coors gave us an old hauler that we towed the trailer with. And we basically just stayed there. And Terry moved from Redding to back east, took Petty Enterprise's engine. his engine program over from Maurice, and he said, I'll give you a job working in the engine shop if you want to move back here and try to make it as a race car driver. And I said, I don't, I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if I can handle it or not. I don't know if I can beat those guys or not, but I know that when we ran the big open comp races out there, you know, Rutman would come out there and Dick Trickle and, you know, some of Larry Deegence and some of the really, really good guys. and we could beat them sometimes. And so I'm like, you know, I'll give it a shot. So move back, went to work for petty enterprises. I think I made $205 a week, take home there.

It was very humbling for a guy that had his own well-drill in business a year before. So you go back to the engine shop and you get the opportunity to work. When did you, when did the opportunity you start to drive other things? I was riding my motorcycle up the Rannelman Road one day and I look over and I see this old and I knew exactly what it was and old third design how chassis sitting alongside the road

and I stopped in there, there was a body shop, another body shop and this guy named Reggie Newman said, yeah, we're getting ready to go run the hell caraway speedway or somewhere and I'm like, okay. He said, you need any help? He goes, yeah.

So I helped him put a body on it. And, of course, there was no rules. We had that thing so cheated of it. It was amazing. And we went down to test the car, and he rode around there, around 21 seconds or something. He says, I don't know if I can tell you what's wrong with this car,

but if you'll take a couple laps in it, so I jump out there and run 1780s and 90s, and he goes, okay, you're the driver. And that's how I got my first, late model ride back here. And so we started winning a lot and doing well and kind of took off. Yeah. And, you know, I think that as you go through that time period, you get all the, you make the move from west to east, you get to start to get the recognition as being able to win on the East Coast. That probably changed some of the conversation as you got your opportunity for the truck ride.

So explain how that all happened. You've probably heard this story from your ex-boss before. Yeah, but I think they're good stories. And I think that the fans will appreciate just how those things used to work because it's fun when you go back and you look at that truck series. And I watched it in Bakersfield. I mean, there were six of those trucks. They put on exhibition races the first year.

And then all of a sudden, it became a thing. And, you know, I think that we had Hornaday on and listening to his stories with Dale. your stories are very similar to how you got started and how you got the call from Richard and how that whole process started. So oddly enough, Kevin, it really wasn't much different racing back here than it was out there. You know, we still were broke. We were still struggling. We still had to work our ass off all night to make stuff happen.

And, you know, I was having success. And Mike Dillon was, he probably had the biggest sponsored late model car. here. I think it was Performance Plus car, whatever. And so we would outrun, we'd go to the Martinsville. We won the big races. We'd go to Myrtle Beach, go to New River Valley, I think it was called Pulaski back then, and Tri-County and Hickory. We even come up and ran Asheville. We just started winning a lot of the bigger races and just getting opportunities. And we were at New River Valley one night. And I was drawing for Gene Petty, Richard's first cousin. And it was toward the end of the race.

And I'm looking like I can either win the race or run in the top two or three. Big crash. Here comes some guy wide open, never checked up. Hits my left rear, runs up. His right front comes through the window, hits me in the head. Big black tire mark on my helmet, tears the A post out, the windshield, tears the air cleaner off. the car, the hood.

And, you know, Gene goes, oh, my God, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, he goes, well, get in here. You know, as soon as they'll, they red flagged it, of course, get that thing in here. And we want to make sure you're okay. And I said, no, I'm still third. I said, I can't park it. I need the money.

And so he questioned it. But anyway, I stayed out there and ran really, really well. Yeah. Well, Mike Dillon saw that. And Richard, there was talks about the truck series. and I got an opportunity. Yeah. They said, Mike Dillon and Terry said, you know, Skinner's crazy.

He's going to tear up a lot of stuff. He's also going to get a lot of trophies. Yeah. And that's kind of how I got my opportunity with Richard. So you go and you start the truck process. And the truck racing then, you had halfway breaks. You had, you know, you had a three truck. You had Horner Day in the truck.

He had Rutman. You had all these. Butch Miller. Short track legends. I mean, that's basically what the truck series became. It was the truck series became all the best short track racers in the country to kind of go to one spot. And all the sudden you're putting on shows in Flemington, New Jersey, and Louisville, Kentucky, and Bakersfield, California. What was that like the first year as you guys were traveling around?

and packed houses and kind of the, really the beginning of what I would consider the NASCAR heyday from those mid-90s until the mid-2000s. It was a pretty cool time to be a part of the sport, but the truck series in specific. It was insane, the transformation that it did with racing, even in the Cup series, because when all of us short track guys started truck racing, I'd go to the shop. Nothing was low enough, light enough, or left enough for me. Tanks. Yes, they were tanks. And I'm like, I'm wanting to drill holes and stuff and then tape over.

I want to trick up the trailing arms. I'm wanting to put bite in the car. I'm wanting to do all these things to make it a short track piece. And they finally fired me. Will Lynn, I came in the shop one day and Will says, hey, we want you to start acting like a race car driver. I'm like, well, I've never been a race car driver. What's that mean? So what's that mean?

What do I do? He goes, you know, go out, get drunk. stay up late, sleep in the next day. I'm like, okay. Yeah. And about three months later he goes, you know, you could come by and take the guys to lunch once in a while they'd be okay. I'm like, you told me you didn't want me here anymore.

Yeah. But I was blessed, and you, another well-known guy, Todd Barrier, Johnny Seiler, Jesse Koch. I had some amazing. We had in 2000, I mean, in 95 and 96, we had the dream team. We had the best fabricators. We had good motors. Eddie Lanier was making good power for us.

And we had really good chassis people. And guys like Todd. Todd was my shock guy. Yeah. And so, I mean, he's a rocket scientist. We were building stuff that was out there. And we won a bunch of races. And half the races we won in 95, we had dirt track shocks on the back of the car, you know?

So it was a big transformation. Then you started seeing that go over into the Cup series. and the Bush series at the time. Next thing, you know, those cars are getting lighter and they're getting tricker and they're doing stuff. And, you know, when we started, the rulebook was about this thick. And toward the end of 95, the rule book was that thick.

Right. The end of 96, the rule book was that thick, just like the Cup series. Right. And it was a big transformation for racing, in my opinion. Yeah. And the truck series was evolved. When you look back at those truck days,

I mean, I think back to, well, I think back to you, Hornaday and Sprague, primarily. What was that like to compete against those two guys and the three of you? I mean, you guys were really the figureheads of the series. And on the racetrack, it seemed fierce. But off the racetrack, it was probably more entertaining than anything. I came in a little bit later, but was around Hornaday and Sprague more, but watched the three of you race. And so what was that competition like? Was it as fierce off the race? I mean, I know it wasn't as fierce off the racetrack. But off the racetrack, it seemed like it was as much fun as you probably ever had in your

life. But on the racetrack, you guys would knock each other's doors in every week. We hated each other on the racetrack and loved each other off the racetrack. Ron and I have been like that since the very first day we met. Yeah. And we would beat and bang and cuss and give each other the finger. And, I mean, you name it. It was full contact out there. And, we would be sitting over at his motor home or mine 20 minutes after the race was over having a beer. Yeah. And but if you touched Jack, oh, cancel Christmas. Yeah.

I mean, Jack did not see any humor in that whatsoever. And he was always one that would carry a grudge. Yeah. And he owed you one. He was going to pay you back. And then actually, after we were all retired, then we became a lot closer with Jack. Now we all, we text back and forth and just, you know, really. I really love those guys. I have so much respect for them.

Yeah, and I think that's one thing that when you look at racing today, that camaraderie between the teams and the competitors is very different. It's obviously become much more of business-oriented sport than what it used to be. But you look back at those battles and you talk about it, you know, with you guys probably gave Sprague a lot. of grief. We did. Yeah. And he probably takes a lot more of it now than he did then. But when he beat us, it was huge for him. Yeah. And he beat us a lot. Yeah. You know. Did you race against, was he in the late models while you were running the late model stuff too? Yes, but we didn't race against each other. We probably did a couple places, but I didn't know him. That's why they, that's why they called him one track jack,

right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He had a couple places he ran pretty good every time he went. Yeah. And, you know, I think when when you go back and you talk about that camaral but between the competitors, that's really what drew the fans in, was they knew that you guys were going to knock the shit out of each other on the racetrack. And you guys were also having fun off the racetrack. And I think the fans saw how much fun the truck series was for the competitors, and it drew people that didn't necessarily always just want to follow cup racing, I guess, is my point. I have to be really careful how I say what I'm getting ready to say. But and I'll probably get in trouble.

My wife will probably get the hook. Yeah. But, you know, Rusty and I are good friends, Rusty Wallace. And we were talking about this last week, him and Bobby Labani, and I was sitting around talking. And I'm like, you know what? I think the racing today is really good. I love this car that they have in the Cup Series.

I love the way the trucks are. The trucks you can still work on. You can still get a little bit of an arrow advantage if you work really, really hard. I really, really love it. But in 95 and 96, we had men. Yeah. They don't have men anymore.

Yeah. They have a lot of guys that are really high technical. You know, their fitness program is impeccable now today. But they fall out of the seat way more than we probably did. And it's insane that with all the tools they have in the toolbox, it's that hard. But they're little guys, they're smaller guys. and we're finding out all the time that the smaller frame and the less weight you have and the shorter you are, you're like a jockey.

Yeah. Kyle Larson should win every race, right? Yeah. Well, he used to, but it's really crazy. I absolutely have become a huge fan and I love our racing now, but we need more of those rivalries. Yeah. We need the Jack getting mad at, you know, we need, we need. you had rivalries all the time.

It was fun to watch. Yeah. And you just had to know how to take you because you would play games and you were really good at it. And it gave you an advantage at times. And so we don't see enough of that in my opinion today. Although, like I said, I got to be careful. I love our racing. I love our sport.

But with the trucks, we were elbows up, gloves off, ready to go. Yeah. And I think that I'm with you. I love everything about our sport. And it's what got me what I have today and what I love to do. I love to watch it. I love to do it and be a part of everything it goes on. The thing that I try to explain to people about that,

most of the, our generation of guys now, super young. Yep. And most of them are becoming adults right in front of our eyes, right? You look at Joey Logano. You look at William Byron. Joe is a veteran. Yeah, Joe is a veteran. Kyle Bush. Yes, Kyle Bush. We're like, what happened to Kyle? The natural evolution of life is you become hopefully more mature. You have a family. And those men become, they become men and understand how to lead a team and do the things that they do. But a lot of them are just trying to figure out who they are as far as how to express themselves, how to go out and run into somebody on the racetrack and not come in. and say you're guilty.

How can they have children? What's next? They're trying to figure that circle of life out. So I think our runway for those young competitors to develop into some of those rivalries. It's just like yesterday, right? Like you watched that race and Josh Barry just knocked the hell out of Carson Hosevar. He ran into him in one corner. He probably had it coming.

He probably had it coming. But, you know, it's rough. You know, some of those guys are, you know, talk to Josh Barry. lot older when he started and you run him off the racetrack. He's coming right back. He's going to run you off the racetrack. He's a late model guy. He's not going to worry about the consequences. We'll worry about the consequences later, but it's definitely an interesting dynamic of how all that evolves and how our drivers evolve into those personalities. I love watching some of the guys. Of course, I'm a, you know, how could you not be a SVG fan on road courses?

I love Christopher Bell. I love, there's a lot, I love Kyle Larson. And I love how these guys, they kind of race you how you race them. And if you race them clean, they're not just going to come in there and dump you. Right. I saw some opportunities for the 19. I mean, he could have dumped Shane. They're on them restarts there. He could have just run it in there until he turned him around.

But he didn't. Yeah. And so I'm sure that respect will come back. One of the problems, and I talked to Ron about this, Ron, when he came back and ran some truck race, she goes, these kids don't know how to pass. So the only way they can pass you is to knock you out of the way. And I'm like, well, I'm fine with somebody knocking me out of the way to win a race.

If you wreck me, we're going to have some problems. Yeah. You know, don't wreck me. If you need to move me to win a race, I'll probably move you the next time the shoe's on the other foot. But we don't need to crash each other and tear up people's race cars for it. And I think we're seeing a lot of that in the Cup series. We're seeing a lot of people crash people,

but we're also seeing people go, if you don't race me like that, I won't race you like that. Which makes a good show. And that's how, that's really how it worked, right? Yeah. That's how you learned when you came into the Cup series and, you know, if you ran over somebody,

they were going to run over you, but you were also going to hear about it. Yeah. And whether it was, you know, for me, it was Bobby Hamilton. It was Rusty Wallace. It was Dale Jared. It was you. It was all the guys who had been,

there for a while to say, hey, guess what? That's really good, but you shouldn't do it that way. Right. Because if you continue doing it that way, you're going to have a hard time getting in your pit stall. You're going to have a hard time. You're going to have a hard time doing a lot of things that are just going to make your day. Your tire carrier is going to be scared to run out there and run into the tires. That's right. That's exactly right. So, you know, you talk about, we talk about the cup experience. You go from the trucks and you guys decided to go cup racing. And I think that that jump from, whether it's truck or Xfinity, even in today's world, is very similar to when you went from trucks to cup and did the things you do. What were the

biggest differences at that time as a driver that you had to get used to from making that jump? You know, I explain it to people like if you were a high school quarterback, you're the man. Yeah. And you're winning all the games. And then you go to college and go, wow, this is hard. Yeah. And the next thing you know, you get a chance to go to the pros and find out that, hell, you're on the bench half the time because you're not good enough.

Yeah. And in the trucks, I was, once again, I had a great truck and I had a great race team. I probably had tools that a lot of the other drivers didn't have. So it gave me a little bit of an advantage, and I won. And there'd be six or seven cup guys over there in the truck race. and we'd end up Ron or I would win or Jack or, you know, one of us short track guys would win the race. And that gives your confidence level an amazing boost. Then I went to the Cup Series.

I found myself racing harder than I've ever raced in my life against Terry Labani for 25th. Yeah. And he was the champion the year before. And man, this is hard. It is so hard. Not everybody gets to jump in Dale Senior's car and go win Atlanta as soon as they get in there. I mean, that was such an amazing thing. That was a perfect thing to happen at that moment. Yeah. But it also shot your career through the roof immediately. Yeah. And I think when you look back at,

when you look back at your time when you jumped into the Cup series, very unique time, you could just basically go out and say, hey, you want to sponsor my car? Sure. Yeah. How much you need. Yeah. And, you know, the growth of everything that happened, when you go back and look at that and you go back now, A lot of pressure being seniors' teammate. You know, we both got to live that in some way, shape, or form, being on and in the same organization as Dell. What was it like when you came in? Was he, hey, I want you here?

Was he, hey, we don't need two cars? What was that like? It was more of the latter. Yeah, really? He didn't want a teammate. And I think I had stolen... Not stolen, but I'd acquired some of his fans because I was in the Good Wrench truck.

Yeah. And it wasn't, I mean, that wasn't my fault. That was our sponsor. Yeah, I had the same deal. And so it was a tough, tough road. And sadly, we lost Dale at the pinnacle of our relationship. We had never gotten long better. We were at Texas.

And, you know, he was always rough and gruff. And even if he liked you, he didn't want you to know he liked you. Yeah. And he was like 40th on the sheet and the 31 car was top of the board. And he said, asked Richard said, see if you can get Skinner to run this car a couple laps. You don't see that happen anymore in the day's world. But I got in the car, my very first lap, put it third on the board. Came in and he goes, man, you made me look stupid.

I'm like, well, wait a minute. There's like five minutes left to practice, right? I said, let's talk about why I ran seven-tenths of a lap faster in one lap. And so I told him what I was doing coming to the flag. And he goes, oh, my God, I'm not doing that. He goes, I'm running like we're in race pace. Well, we're qualifying trim. You know, it's time to go.

And he jumped back out there and he ran good and ran good in the race. And our relationship did a complete flip-flop. Then I think Dale realized that sometimes having a teammate can be beneficial. Yeah. You know, he's still not going to let me win. He's not going to give you a spot, not going to do anything for you. But I think he gained, I finally got a little respect from Dale, and we got along wonderful.

And, you know, when we lost Dale, I swear, to this moment, I believe I would have won plenty of races the next couple of years, and he would have won that other championship. I mean, he was in a good spot. He'd got some surgery. He's physically and mentally in a really, really good spot. I think he was ready to go. Yeah.

And I think a lot of people don't realize how prepared the team was in 2001. You know, you go back and obviously he won the Daytona 500 in 98. The struggles of 99. I know I pushed him by Jeff Gordon. Yeah. But I mean the struggles of the RCR team in 98, 99, 2000 were real. Yes. As far as the performance went.

And when you go back and you look at 2001, Dale Pass in a way, those cars were ready. And that's one reason that I was able to win in Atlanta. And we were competitive that year, week in and week out, for the most part, as we went to the racetrack. And that's because they had to have a huge push to try to get that championship. They, that might have been why he was a little bit bitter with the whole, okay, we're starting a truck team. We've got these, you know, we're doing, I think he might have thought Richard was trying to do too much. And then next thing, you know, he's a car owner and he's, now he's, now he gets it, right? Yeah. So that could have had some, some to do with that. But the race team, Richard, you know, Richard Childress is a racer, man. And he had a lot of good qualified people working on those cars.

Yeah. When you go back and you look at the, the cup piece of the career, what's the one day you're like, oh my God, I cannot believe. we did not just win that race. Well, Atlanta, for sure, it was the first time. I mean, I was just playing with them. Yeah. And I'd run about three laps, and I'd jump out there about a second.

And I'd say, just tell me whatever second place is running. We just slowed down and just rode right there. I was hearing Gene Petty in my ear going, win this race going as slow as you can go. Right. And, you know, I was never smart enough to do that.

And it was there. Everything was perfect. And, you know, I think a rod bolt broke or something, a $5 part with a handful of laps to go. That was big. I mean, you know, we had a six-second lead at Pocono. They threw the caution out. Larry said, well, whatever you do, they're going to do the opposite.

What do you want to do? And I said, well, that's what they pay you for. Yeah. And he said, stay out. Every car behind me came in. Oh, my gosh. And so I'm stuck out there on old tires. I think we started to race with four laps to finish sixth.

So there's some times where we just had a dominant car, led the most lap, sat on the pole, run front, and either the tire would blow out because I drove it too hard or I ran over something or a chunk of rubber at Martinsville got in the alternator and had to come in and check. You know, it just goes on and on and on and on. So we kind of based ourselves on the best should or coulda would have team in that era.

Yeah. But it still, I have no regrets. I don't have any regrets. I regret some of the decisions I made. Probably the biggest thing I regret in my career was getting back in the car too quick after the Texas crash. I shouldn't have been in a race car. I was claustrophobic. I still hurt, bad concussion.

Back in them days, NASCAR didn't have much of a protocol. No. You okay? Yeah. How many fingers you see? Three. Okay. Close enough.

Let's go. And I think that the way that we were brought up racing, you race to put food on the table. Yes. And you were never hurt. No. No matter how bad you were hurt, you were. No matter how bad you were hurt, you were never hurt. And there was not a time.

I mean, you have those moments. I have those moments where you know you shouldn't have been in a race car, but it still paid money to start the race. Yes. And you had to be in the race car to pay the bills because that's how you raced. You race by selling your old car. You're raced by the prize money so you could buy tires and you had to show back up. Yeah. And I think, you know, you see this happen in the music industry a lot.

You'll see guys that was good at playing a guitar and then all of a sudden they're a rock star. Yeah. And all of a sudden they're buying a jet airplane and a farm and a motorhome. And that's who I was. I'd never had anything. And I started making money and I'm buying farms and Harleys and Cadillacs and, you know, motorhomes. and the next thing you know, that right front tire blows out,

and you go, ooh, yeah. Man, I'm not far from this all being over. Yeah. This could end the next race. So, you know, I think a lot of times, that's why I think having a good support system around you nowadays, some of the tools that these young guys have, and NASCAR stepping in and having the protocols that they have

to not let you self-destruct. Yeah. I think that's a good thing in today's world. I agree. And I think it's important, you know, for people to really understand a lot of the kids, a lot of adults, right? Well, I shouldn't say kids. A lot of the drivers in general are just not wired that way. And you see the kids now, they're much more in tune. I call them kids again. You see the drivers much more in tune to be able to speak up and say, hey, my head's not right, my back's not right, whatever that is.

So that's a good thing. So last question. And I just, I have a feeling that this is going to be good. What was your very first car that you remember driving on the street? That was yours? Well, I wasn't supposed to be on the street because I didn't have a driver's license, but I had an old 53 Chevy truck that I would sneak out and go down the road with. But my first car that I had was a 55-5.

Ford truck. And still have it. Really? My son, Jamie. Yeah. That's awesome. And I restored the thing several years ago. And a customer of my mom's said, if I gave you that truck, would you promise to never

lend it out of your family? And I said, yes, sir. And I didn't. So now my son has it, and then his son will have it. So it was a 55 Ford truck. Yeah, well, that's awesome. I remember my first car opportunity that I had was a 55 Chevy. and a race car.

And my dad brought me in a garage and he said, all right, we got a decision to make. We can sell that one and race that one and hope that it all works out or we can quit racing and restore this.

So obviously. We know the right choice. We know the decision. You made the right choice. If this one over here does good, I can buy all of those I want. That's right. Yeah.

It all worked out. Yeah. It all worked out. But Mike, I appreciate you take. We could talk for three hours. We'll have to come back and do this again. But I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for everything that you've done and do for our sport and keeping racing alive and well.

I appreciate that a lot. Thank you.