Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Ron Hornaday Jr. Interview

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Ron Hornaday Jr. sits down with Kevin Harvick for an emotional and entertaining conversation about a racing life that helped shape the sport. Hornaday shares how he got his start, what it was like building the West Coast racing scene, and how his bond with Dale Earnhardt Sr. changed his career. The two also reflect on their personal relationship, how Hornaday helped launch Harvick’s career, and the hilarious memories they’ve made along the way. 0:00 - Intro 0:38 - Ron Hornaday Jr. Joins the Show! 3:16 - Ron’s Start In Racing 10:21 - Ron Helping Young Kevin 19:12 - Ron Driving for KHI 24:16 - White Glove Incident 29:50 - Ron’s First Car Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You quit buying the stakes and the beer. You got no more friends. The network and the connection of people that you have in this sport is almost as important as how fast you can drive. Back in the day, I spoke to my race car. I spoke to my race car. It's August. I took him out the window and hit the other guy's window behind me. Your son reminds me of me. He don't care who it is or what it is.

He just sees a car and he wants to pass it. And that's all I've ever done. Welcome to Kevin Harvick's happy hour presented by NASCAR on Fox. And today we have one of my great longstanding friends, Ron Horner, NASCAR Hall. of famer Ron Hornaday Jr. Thanks for coming. Yeah, when Candace called me, Kevin went you on the show.

It's like, so where do we start? Do we start when Kevin was 16, I raced against him at Mason-Rend. Do we start problems we had on the lake with your boat? Do we start with a water fight at the house? We talk about Lana Lewis. We talk about Keeling. We talk about your life.

I don't know what you want to talk about. Oh, we talk about all the time. We're going to talk about ourselves and how much fun we had had through the years. But, you know, I think let's, let's, let's go, we're going to go back a little bit here because we could probably talk for two hours or three hours or four hours. Yeah, we got to, I got to be a little bit segmented just because of the fact that we'll

probably have to do two or three of these shows as we go forward. But take me back, I want to go back to the beginning of the truck days. I want to go back to that moment in time when Earnhardt called, how did all that go down? You were racing winter heat. Uh-huh. And that's really where all that started. How did all that time period go down with the call from Dale and how it got started? Well, the winter heat started perfect timing because no NASCAR was done racing and everything

and it was on TV. And I think I won almost everything down there. And I asked Darrell Walter, but I said, how come I got a phone call? This new truck series coming up and everything. Everybody thinks you're 50 years old, your gray hair. You're going to have to die it to do something. And that next week I died it, and Dale Earnhardt called me. But it all started with Wayne Spears.

Same way you got your start and your start and your way. Winston West days and everything is the exhibition six races. Wayne put the truck together. We got to run on six races. And winter heat, I think I, maybe Skinner won that race down there. But exhibition race down there, we ended up winning that thing, got the phone call from Dowell. So you, the exhibition races, and I think for a lot of people that don't know the history of the truck series, the truck series actually started with six guys that built trucks.

They had some exhibition races. It was you. Off road. It was off road race. Yeah, you had... Ben of Old, Jimmy Smith, and all that is the one who started. Porelli, who were the six guys in that field to start with? Was Roger Mears in that field?

No, I don't think so. I think it was more like Kozlowski's dad. Man, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, well, anyway, the truck series was really originated in Bakersfield, California, and those trucks were actually built off a turn two at Mason Morin. Perry, Gary Collins. And that's where a lot of those trucks,

really, really began. And so the West Coast really started the truck series. And you go back to, even before the days when Dale called, you started where? How did your racing career start? Married Lindy and I was working on people's race cars. She goes, what are you doing? How are you getting home so late every night? They said, I like working on race cars. So why don't you build your own race car? So I talked to my dad the next day and worked Galp and Ford. And he goes, go up there and see Rudy Prince. So Rudy Prince gave me a car. And I drove it all. ripping the ad liner out of it. Yeah.

And I went to Lindy's dad's and got a cage for $5 from John Christensen, and we were racing Annelette Valley Fairgrounds. Antelope Valley Fairgrounds. And then, so Anelope Valley Fairgrounds, and then ultimately your heyday was really where you made your name was Saugus, correct? Right, yeah. Saugus Speedway in California. Right.

The guy come down and said, I got an old car out in the backyard, an old Chevelle, if you want to race Saugust. I said, sure, so we thrashed on it the last two or three weeks and got there. You know how you stage at Saugers, you're staged in the back straightaway. And there's three or four divisions there. Well, I got in the wrong division. I got in the sportsman division instead of the streetstock division. And I ran pretty good.

And I think the second race, I won a heat race. And it says Hornaday wins at Saugers again because my dad always race there. So my dad got involved and built a house car. And that's when we're running to modify the chisel nose, big car, and all the open comps and everything. Did you ever run the figure eight races out there? Not at Saugers, but Ascot, I did. Really? But I got to run the chain races there.

Saugas was more like Tim Huddleston. Yeah. More Hula and everything else was better. A lot of flair. Yeah, a lot of flair. That went with that. So you run the late models or you run the sportsman divisions and street stocks and things at Saugus. When did it finally say, okay, I'm going to start traveling?

You ultimately wound up into Southwest Tour. So you go from Saugas and how did you make that step from local racing? Well, really start two local racing in the light model cars. And then with my dad's car, we won everything in that one year, the Firecracker 150 is August 3rd. It's got to be 82, 83-ish right in there. So I was born. Yeah, finally. But I mean, and then it's, I talked to, we won the championship with John Colvan's car, Pop Covans car at Sager Speedway.

and we were in Laughlin, Nevada, and Lindy and Dennis Dyer and everybody went to another casino, and I stayed there, and I had $100 left, played Lindy's dad's keynote numbers and won $7,900. So I took $900 and put $7,000 away, and Lindy come running in or come walking in, and I come running out, and she thought she was in trouble. I said, I just won. We got home Monday morning and went straight down to Dave Jackson and had him the money and said, I want to build a Southwest Tour car then. And that was kind of the way that it was, maybe I'm not remembering this correctly,

but it was always, all right, I want some money here. I got some money here. Because ain't getting shoes. We're getting new tires. Yeah. But that's how you guys race, though. It was a lifestyle. You had a full-time job.

Yeah, you had a full-time job. I mean, I drove from Palmdale, Lancaster, to work on Subpovita and then drive another hour to my dad's house in Simi Valley and then drive home that night. So you get home at 1, 2 o'clock, and then getting up at 5.36 going to work. And that was a routine. you always had. So your kids didn't see you that much, you know,

because you wanted to race. And we just did it because we loved it. You know, someday, you know, put food on the table, but not that much. We always put it back into the car, but we've never,

I've always taught my kids when you leave your house or leave your shop with your race car, all your bills are paid because if you wrecked that car, you don't owe nobody, nothing.

All you have is a wrecked race car. When did it become a job? When were you able to quit your job and just race for a living? Or give, you know, give it a... Well, I mean, when Earnhardt called,

in 94. That was the first time you didn't have a job? Yeah, I mean, we had Victory Circle Race cars. We were building them. The chassis company. Chassie company. And then we owned Ron Hornet's automotive right there in a little four base there on San Fernando Road and Newhall. And we're working at, didn't see every day. And Lindy had a full-time job. So we had Lance Hooper with B working out there. And then I'd leave there and go up to Victory Circle Race cars. We had six guys there building cars. So very successful. I think our biggest deal was 36 cars started the field at Phoenix and 27 were our cars. No kidding.

Yeah, so we were really getting in. And then we called and sold a shop to Craig Rodman when Earnhardt called. So you sold the business? You sold the chassis business as soon as you left. No. Okay. Lindy stayed back. She didn't come back until 95.

I came back in 94, helped Doug Richard build the truck, learn about it, learn the guys. And Lindy finally ended up selling it into 95, but we had to give it away because nobody was there. You know, Ron Horne wasn't there. So my five-star body was like 300. A lot of money. I don't know what it was. Yeah. They'll keep calling me for money.

So I finally caught five-star. He says, yeah, they got this much money out. Well, they were giving body parts out because they thought it was a sponsorship. I said, no, one fender. Not every time he wrecks. Yeah. So we had a crash dummy. It worked every week.

It costs a little bit of money. So Robben got the Victory Circle pretty cheap. We sold our house. Johnny Pahorkas sold to him. I shouldn't say it, but he still owes me the down payment out because he didn't have the money, so I put the down payment out for it. And he says, when he sells the house, he's going to pay me. because his dad's living

still to this day. No kidding. So I haven't got paid. Well, that's the way, that's the way that that usually... I'm not hurt in the feelings so high. Yeah. Well, so you get the call to go back.

You sell the chassis company. You move your whole family. But before you always... I mean, you still help people before you left. So we sell the chassis company. We go back to drive for Dale. And all of a sudden, everybody is in your house.

as far as it's eventually myself and you had Jimmy Johnson. Who else went through this whole process? Because when you moved, you started driving, but you immediately started bringing other West Coast guys and helping people. Jimmy, I met Jimmy. He was an off-road driver, and I was at and we had a Chevrolet function out in Vegas. And he told me he was going to run for the HERS logs to come out and rent a house. And I said, hey, you got my house to save your money,

figure out how much you were going to pay for rent, put that away. be your down payment on the house. I think you kind of did the same thing a little bit where Lendy wouldn't let you rent and she found a house for you and Jimmy did that. So it just opened up. We helped, I mean, Ross, when he came out, you know, he's not very far away. He's only eight hours away where we were 3,000 miles away. Ross only stayed there for a couple weeks until he got on his feet and know the boundaries of Mooresville. And poor Blake Feast, he tried to sleep on the couch like you guys did. It didn't work.

You got fired when Ricky Hendricks got killed, you know, because he was working for him and Ricky were really close friends. So a lot of people. But you know what I found out is when you sell the house, the big house, you quit and buying the stakes and the beer. You got no more friends. Yeah. Yeah, you quit buying all stakes and beer.

It's weird. Less people show up. That's it. Well, I mean, for me personally, you know, being able to have somebody that I knew and raced with and could trust, that's hard in racing. You know as well as I do. It's hard to find somebody that you can actually trust.

But when I started in the truck series with Spears, it was, all right, here's what you need to do. Get your autograph cards. And he'd make me, Ron would make me go to the autograph sessions and sit next to him and sign autographs because nobody wanted my autographs. So I had to sign first because he knew that they would have to go to me before they went to him. And then I would have to sign the autograph. and he made sure that people knew who I was in order to start building a brand and building a name and took me to the shop and took me to places that I didn't know about.

And that was just what you guys did. And for me personally, that really opened to my eyes to what you were supposed to do, how you're supposed to treat people. The network and the connection of people that you have in this sport is almost as important as how fast you can drive. It is. It is. I mean, that's what I tell the kids nowadays. I mean, I probably told your son a couple of times. But, I mean, Landon Lewis, I beat it in his head is when you're at dinner, you get your elbows on the table. You don't wipe your mouth off with a napkin. I said, that guy's standing over there might be your next sponsor, your next owner. So I said, your personality, everything outside the racetrack is more important than on the track. And it seemed to work out. I don't know. I mean, I got very fortunate to be one of the first ones to get called, and then Biffle got called from out there.

and then you started racing. So the West Coast got pretty big out there. And so they started looking for drivers out from them. So this is really going different. I thought, man, we were going to talk about the water hose in the house. We'll get there. I know. We'll get there.

We'll get there. And, you know, I think as the racing and the time went on, you know, people really started to realize that West Coast racing was no joke. It was. And what you're doing right now to the cars tour out there, I mean, you get phone calls. saying, hey, what's Kevin doing? I mean, we usually get 12, 13 cars,

and now they're getting 20 cars out there. So it's the rules, I believe, of what you follow. And I don't care if you're a driver, a crew member, or anything. There's rules to follow, and you do that. People are going to watch it, and they're going to look. Yeah. So it's, racing hasn't changed other than the only thing I miss is the cars. I miss the people out there.

But I think NASCAR has really developed this new car. I mean, you hear everybody complain about it, you know. I never got to drive with them. mouthpiece. I still drove with open helmets. And when they were to full face, I was the first one to complain about it. Yeah. Because back in the day, I smoked in my race car, you know. How many cigarettes would you smoke in a race? Uh, just every yellow flag. I just use it to when I'm restart that's August, I'd flick him out the window and hit the other guy's window behind me. Yeah. You know, and they'd think, oh, wrong sparking. Did you smoke at Earnhardt's track?

No. No, I was a secret closet smoker back then. I was trying to cut back then. But I drove for Wayne Spears and Corelli beat me up there in Colorado and it's just home track. Yeah. And Wayne calls me in and says, hey, look at that truck. I go, what's that? You go, that's for your cigarettes. And I got a cigarette lighter in there. He said, you ran out of nicotine. You need more cigarettes.

Wayne said that. Wayne said that. And it was really cool to see Connie Spears this weekend up there. Yeah. Well, the Spears family has been such a massive part of so many careers as they've gone through time. Even when you look at it from a crew member standpoint, just introducing, they were really the only team that had the capability to really.

run nationally. And he built his own orders. Built everything right there in the house. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, I got an opportunity to go with Wayne to Indy, West High in points, top two can go back there and make sure they made the indie race. Right. And that was an experience just to go there.

And that almost turned my mind of, do I really want to go cup racing? Because the traffic, you know, if you're not an Earnhardt or a big name with a police escort to get in there, you're going to be late for driver's meeting because of the traffic. You got to get up earlier. Yeah, you got to get a lot earlier. It's a full-time job. Nobody knows that. It's like getting into car and race.

So we were fortunate to have a lot of fun, and you taught me a lot about life in general. But I think some of the most fun times that I had were probably when we bought the bobcat. And I don't know. So Ron would, there were several things that would happen. Ron would sit in my cove in the morning outside of my lake house, and he would honk the horn.

in the cove until I would wake up. Kevin was not a morning person. Not a morning person. So he would sit in the cove and honk the horn and then we would go and hurt people on the tube or have lunch or drink beer or whatever the situation was on that particular day. But we bought this, or he bought the bobcat. I wasn't buying anything. He bought the bobcat.

And we would knock trees down. We would read the roads. But my favorite story, we decided, his wife bought me this house, and we decided that we were going to redo the inside of this house. Yeah. She told Kevin to buy it. I bought it. Yeah.

So I bought my first house, and we got this house. We take all the wood paneling out of it. We take it down to the studs inside and put the sheetrock up ourselves, put the, you know, the diamond plate up in the rooms. We made game rooms. Well, we get the inside done, and we decide that we're going to take this bobcat, and we're going to redo the outside of the house. I've got a picture of this.

It's got a nice deck overlooking that with a hill going down to the lake. Yeah, so we took all that down. And we decided that we're going to dig a hole. And we've got all the stuff. We were digging underneath that thing to make the bar back there. Right. Yeah, but you take the deck down. We still left the deck on the back of the house.

Yeah. Just sidewalk. Just the sidewalk right outside the house. So right in front of the sidewalk, we decide that we're going to dig this trench to make the little deck. A little cave. A little man cave down below, overlooking the water. So we bring this bobcat over here,

and Hornaday has dug out this, I don't even know how, I mean, how wide do you think that thing was? It had to be 30 feet wide, 40 feet wide? It had to be. And probably eight, eight feet tall? Oh, yeah. Well, it's right in front of my house. Facing the lake.

Facing the lake. So it starts raining a lot, and the concrete starts to fall down. The house is probably going to wash away. We didn't really, and I couldn't afford to go back and build it. But, so we dug this hole. We had all the trash from the inside of the house at the top. And we decided that we were going to burn it one night.

So we take all the trash out to the bottom and we burn this, this. Yeah, but get back to the point digging it out. Yeah. And you weren't there that day. And I made you come down. You dug it out while I was not there. But we, I think that five to seven headstones we found. The guy used to own the house.

If he messed up, built, making a headstone, spelling the name wrong, he'd bring him home and making a seawall. But something got under there when I started digging it out. And we had headstones. We were digging out Kevin's house. We thought they were... Hot it.

We definitely thought the house was haunted. But we had the biggest fire that you could possibly imagine. I don't know how we didn't burn the whole neighborhood down. We probably did. We didn't really care. No. We didn't care at that time. one thing after another. Always.

What was your... The time... The time we got the water guns squirting around the house and everything. Oh, your wife was so mad. Years broke. No, she loved you. Yeah. And Kevin don't play fair. If you guys didn't know that. He was a practical joker. Watch him do it as follow-all with all the balls in the car.

So his squirt gun breaks. And all he found is so we chased him around and he found the garden hose with a little spray nozzle. It was stuck wide open. It wouldn't shut off. And Lindy got him right in the face. So he's after Lindy. He chased her all the way in the house through the front door through there. She runs in the bathroom. And he's spraying it up underneath the door and spraying it everywhere.

And Lindy comes out with a dirty old plunger chasing him down to the thing. So every time Kevin has a get-together, she always brings his plunger. Yeah. That's all I can remember. She remembers the whole story. Do you remember the day that we got the boat stuck on the, you know, in the shoal? In the shoal. Yeah.

She was not happy about that either. No. No. And the story that badass boat you bought from Mike Bliss and driving down the lake with 12 people in it and the steering brakes and the whole boat flops over and your elbow and your knees or your elbows in your head sit in the water. It's leaned over and we had to drive it all the way back with a mile and a half, two miles in the water. Yeah, we definitely, we definitely had fun. And then as you go through time and we have all the things that we were fortunate to experience together during that time, my team gets to a point. on the truck side at KHA, it's like, man, we're not winning enough. We're not where we want to be.

I don't like the demeanor of our team. That's why I wear their shirt. Yeah. Because if it wasn't for you and Delana hiring me, I wouldn't probably be in the Hall of Fame, but they put the wrong person in there. Lundy should be in there for all the stuff she's done for us. Yeah. I mean, she kept us in line. We might want her the wrong way, but she's the first one to put us back in line. Yeah. And I think for me, I went over to hire Ron. I knew that that was who I wanted to to drive my truck. And so I went over there with the intention of leaving with you agreeing to drive that truck. And tell them, tell them how it went that day. I really don't remember that much because you and your dad was huge, you know, and you're always, I'm always nervous of your dad. I mean,

his hands are so big when he shakes your hands. And when he speaks, you say, yes, sir. Yeah. I deal. But, I mean, I always got along with him. And you came in there and then you just said, here's what I'm going to do. Here's what I can offer. You put on a piece of paper and sat there And I think I said, well, let me go. I think it was on a paper towel, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Paper towel, yeah.

I said, let me get back to you. And I didn't think you were ready for that. Yeah. Well, I knew that we needed to, you know, from a team standpoint, I knew that we needed to kind of take it to the next level. Because it's a very similar position that the sport is in the truck series right now with, with Dodge coming back into the sport. So our truck team started because Toyota came into NASCAR.

Right. And when Toyota came into NASCAR, the CEO of GM at the time had said in a meeting that all he wanted Toyota to do was to see their tailgate. Right. And at that point, they had to basically go all in on their truck program. And they came to us because I had been running the trucks and said, hey, we need to start a truck series program that can win. We need to be at the forefront. We have GM Goodrich as the sponsor. We have the technical support.

Will you do it? Well, we did it. And the first year went okay. And in the second year, you know, there was a lot of pressure to say, you know, we needed to win races. We didn't need to say it. We needed to go out and win races. And I knew at that time that you had the experience because you had had a couple of situations that didn't go correctly for you.

But I felt like between us and our relationship that you could get in that truck, and put it in a position to where we could win races. And we did. So when we did, we agreed on something. And I got to the shop that Monday and talked to Fred, Lexi. Yeah. Everything kind of changed a little bit because he's your lawyer. Yeah.

But we agreed upon it. And I think you announced that I was driving for you at your Christmas party. Yep. And I think everybody got there a little earlier and I got there a little later and Kevin announces me. And he goes, so before I tell you who our new driver is, I'll just let you know so you guys don't get all mad. I hired two more fabricators. Yeah. And it's the drawn horn and everybody started clapping.

So Kevin knew I was hard on equipment. I, I, I, but that's what I wanted. Right. I didn't wreck a lot of guys. I didn't, I mean, Jack Spragge did the station, so I've been wrecked him a lot. But it's, I knew I had to put food on the table. That's my job. Every position was a couple hundred dollars here, a couple hundred dollars there.

You know, when they put you in a Hall of Fame, you don't think of the Hall of Fame or anything. I race to put food on the table. That was my job. Every position was something, so I was greedy. Your son reminds me of me when I was younger. He don't care who it is or what it is or you or whoever he's racing. He's racing against guys I race against. And you race against.

Your son's 12 years old. So he just sees a car and he wants to pass it, and that's all I've ever done. Yeah. When you look back at those truck days, I know for we had our time period, but all the way back to when you started, who was the best rival? Who was the best? We're going to have to say, Jack, because he was in it at the longest, and he was the one that always pissy enough where you can rub him.

And he always says, how can you run into me so much? And I said, well, you've got to, I don't have a compatible motor, so if I can slow you up in the corners, I can run with the down the straightaway. But he'd keep score. And he'd say, hey, you got this many wins. I got this many wins. I owe you one or stuff like that. He was always the funnest.

Skinner went in it long enough. He was, I mean, when he drove the good wrench chuck back then, he was good. he was a guy that you had to beat. Did you feel like Joe Rutman. I mean, we had Butch Miller. We had, I mean, the who's who is short track racing. Everybody. I mean, you got to remember they're all trying to make a name for themselves.

We had 43 trucks start the field back then on a half-mile racetrack. The biggest trip track we went to was a mile. So, I mean, you had a lot of short track racers guys who were trying to make a name for themselves from Joe Rutman. I mean, you start naming everybody. It was, it was tough to win a race. Yeah. And when you look at, when you look back at those. those Sprague wars, was there one that sticks out?

Oh, there's three. Three. The white glove incident, you know, and then the next one, we'll tell him what the white glove incident was. It was in Indy. He just, he said he got loose, but you can see his hands. So he didn't wear white gloves no more. Yeah.

He got me there, but we got, I think Milwaukee got me. He just, he gets underneath you, and you, back in the day, you pin him down a little bit, and they get loose and they wreck you, and they keep going on. But Loudon was the best one, he got me, and I backed it in the fence, I don't know how they got the truck running back again, but Jack was not going to win the race.

He'd go to Lap Me, and I'd make sure I'd pin him against the wall and slow him up and all that. But we still go to dinner. Really? Yeah, we just went to dinner with Wayne Otton and then Jack about it three weeks ago. Did you spend much time in the NASCAR trailer with Jack? Did it ever get to that point? No.

Really? No, our biggest one was Mike and I back in the day, not in that hauler, but in the Earnhardt hauler where, hey. You're talking Mike Skinner? Mike Skinner. Yeah. Childress, Earnhardt race for Childeris, Skinner races for Chilers, I race for Earnhardt, and we're rubbing the crap out of these trucks.

We're putting bodies on them every week, beating them, bang, and they're short track. And he says, you guys got to stop. This is costing us money. So it's just, I mean, you'll learn a lot. And, I mean, I don't know, back in the day, I had some pretty good burnouts. And I started racing for you and started looking where the money's coming from and what gets ruined when you win a race, where you can't run that drive shaft again. You can't, the axles.

It starts costing a lot of money, so everybody's doing burnouts, you know. When I was going to throw that car away. Earnhardt liked the burnouts? No. No. He said, next burnout, you do, I'm going to find you. And all the pit crews guys go, how much is, I'll tell you what, if he does it again, I'm firing him. Really?

Yeah. So, I mean, it was. Now, didn't you back one in the wall? Yeah, that was that you're going to race there. Evergreen. Evergreen Speedway. It just started misting. And it rained the night before.

And I don't know how I got to leave. but I kept going into turn one, and they cut off the poles for the, it used to be a movie theater, and they cut the poles off of the speakers, and there's one down there, and if you can just hit that little patch of concrete, and it'll lift your truck up there,

and it lands in a puddle of water, and it spray the track. The time you come back around, it was dry because you had 43 trucks going through it. And they kept yelling at me not doing it. So into the race, spoiled was a little too low, so it's a 5-8 small track.

That's one of the biggest tracks we ran on back then, So the little donut and back through the fence and push the back of the truck up. Yeah. Did he make your race it the next week? Yeah, we took it to my shop in California because we were doing that. I think we were in, what, three or four races out there in a row. So, yeah, we straightened it up. I had to do it myself.

And that was my whole deal with, and I did it with your truck, too. If I was racing and wrecked the truck and I was going for the lead or something like that, it didn't bother me as bad as me being stupid and running into somebody and tearing it up for no reason, And I'd be the first one over there cutting the body off, helped putting it back together and stuff like that. I've always been a guy who'd like to work on things and couldn't just sit at home. But we did, but, I mean,

you still went up there two or three days a week and try to do what you can take. So did you work in the truck shop while you were at Earnhardt? If I wasn't wearing the trucks, I was working with the kids because I came from late model days and they'll keep sending them cars out to put bodies on over at handkeys and all this. It's like, they'll let the kids put their own bodies on

to learn how to race that way. If you just have your sponsors paid for putting bodies on, they're not going to earn out of race. Yeah. And I remember, and I've told this story on here before, but that's where we got our first shotgun. Yeah, trying to play golf. Yeah, because you're pretty good at it.

Our golf game was bad. I'm with 68. 68. On the first nine. On the first night. Yeah, and I'll never forget walking into his office that day, and you just go bouncing into the office and you sit down, and he's looking at you over his pile of paper.

What do you two idiots want? And that serious face. The one was just, am I supposed to be in here? Yeah. Yeah. Was that, was he ever, did you ever, did he call you a lot and scold you? He called every morning because Del Jr. stayed at our house. Really?

Lady, Junior there? Give me the phone. Give him the phone, you know, every morning. So, yeah, Junior stayed with us a lot back then. You know, Lady co-signed for Dale Jr. Sure cell phone. So we were around on them days. Cell phone.

Cell phone. Yes. Junior don't remember it. Yeah. I mean, she didn't let you get that close to him. Yeah. He was your buddy. I mean, Monday nights would have Monday night thunder

and talk about the racing and have a couple beers and then he'd send you home. But he never, never been on his boat, but one time just down there to have dinner. But it's nothing like you and I type deal. Yeah. So he was, he was a race. You didn't have to use excuses, kind of like you.

You know, you've done it. You've been there. I don't have to go in there and say, hey that guy wrecked me here's what I did no no I screwed up that's all there's too long as you long as you met you mistakes you were good yeah well it was an interesting time I always tell people it was the best time that you could possibly imagine because you got to race for and against guys like Dale you got to race against the next generation of guys coming up it's just such a unique time especially for me to be able to to race against the current generation of guys

that is driving see the next generation come up having raced with you and Sprague and a lot of those guys as I was coming up. So you got to experience a lot of different generations of race car drivers. And it was quite the time to grow up. But last question, what was your first car that you drove on the street? Do you remember? Oh, I do. I worked full time when I was 15 years old at a transmission shop. And I had 12 credits left to finish high school or eight credits left. And I was playing basketball at night, getting credits and I wasn't doing that because everybody was out there smoking dope and doing all that so I just started working full time and since I didn't graduate my father didn't

buy me a car like he bought my sisters so my brother gave me the family card what my dad gave to him was a 65 four-door galaxy my dad took her to work and got it painted put the US wheels on it it was a sleeper had a boss 428 in it oh man if I put more than three people and I had to put two by fours under springs and I never got beaten that car because it's good by thinking about it I'd move them out the way beat as in street racing oh yeah okay oh yeah you know see me valley just started that new 118 freeway and come down there make a hard sweep your right hand or you're already seen how fast you you go down it first it was 50 then it was 60 then you're 80 mile an hour then it's raining and you're sliding and hitting the other side of the curve so we had fun then I bought my own van

and that was it everybody in my ears is is from l.A so they're they're trying to imagine these as they currently exist and you street racing down them as as they were being built but well thanks for taking the time today i know that we can sit here and tell stories but um we got a lot of them appreciate everything that you've done for the sport and and me personally so well i wore their shirt and i usually don't wear it because i don't believe that i deserve it my wife does but i got to thank you and delana just a part of my whole career of give me the championships the the trucks to do that the people behind us. I mean, it was pretty damn cool.

Do you believe it in me? It was fun. Well, we appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time today. Appreciate it.