The Dale Jr. Download - 214 - Settling Old Scores

Episode Date: April 17, 2018

On the 10-Year anniversary of the Richmond wreck heard ‘round the world, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and guest Kyle Busch talk for the first time about their incident and the decade-long feud that ensued. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Kyle's audition for his dirty mode program that he's going to start. Are you going to eat any of that? I will. Are you working on Dad Bod 2018 right now? Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. And we have, that's a Budweiser beer that you just heard.

Mike Davis is opening a beer at 8 o'clock in the morning. We have beer and donuts. Mike. That is what we have, my friend. And we're going to tell you why. We will tell you why. We got a great show. What's all on the?

Show today. Well, Dale, you may not remember this, but 10 years ago, this happened. You'll be side by side down the back straight away. Oh, man, that was tight off turn two. He's got him. I believe he's got him this time. Oh, he turned him. No.

Oh, he turned him. It's like Nancy Kerrigan, you know, back in the night. Why? That was one of several run-ins between you and Kyle back in 2007. And until now, you two have never talked about. That was in 2008, that's what happened. It started in 2007, I would say, when the animosity started happening. So you guys have never talked about it until now.

We've got Kyle Busch in studio. This is going to be a fantastic conversation. And we want to catch up with the race winner from Bristol yesterday. So that's what we got for today. All right. Let's get started. The year nine, top for his first. 160,000 partisan crowd.

Dale Hart Jr. wins the Sharpie 500 of Bristol. It's one of the biggest wins in my career. Why is that? It's Bristol, baby. Bristol Motor Speedway, been a place that both of you guys have had success. Most recently, yesterday, Kyle Bush. Kyle, welcome.

What's up? Welcome to the Dale Jr. download. I appreciate it. Thanks for y'all having me. Yes, this is pretty cool. We, if you have been over... Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was just going to let y'all talk.

I was going to sit over here and drink your beer and donuts. I'm telling you, if he's trying to win our hearts, he did it. And it's cold beer. It's cold. Dude, I just stopped. Like, I planned it all out. I knew the store I was going to hit. The lady's looking at me like, you're buying beer at what time?

I wasn't sure if it was legal. He'll cheers to the victory yesterday. Awesome race. The 24 hours of Bristol. 24, 26, whatever. But yeah, it was a long one, that's for sure. It was. Long couple days.

So this is a bit of a, this podcast is kind of a prelude too. Or a sequel to an article Jeff Gluck just put out yesterday. Coming up on the anniversary of the 2008 Richmond race that a lot of people remember and have talked about for many years, still do. Still do. So Gluck gets together and contacts us all individually about doing this article, which I've read, you've read it. Yes. And I thought it was awesome. I thought the way he laid it out was awesome.

I didn't think he's going to do it that way. It's pretty much, you know, everybody's direct quote, a timeline of everybody sort of, it's like everybody's in the same room talking. And we have been conversating. We've been talking to you for about, I don't know, several months trying to badger you into doing your own podcast. Yeah. And so, because we think that that would be awesome. But aside from that, it's, I think it led to you maybe coming on the show. and it just so happened that this article comes out.

This is the anniversary of that race. Ten years has passed. A lot of things have happened since then, and we thought it'd be a great opportunity. You know, this is the time to do it. This is a time to have you on. So thanks for making time. We're glad that you won the race,

because now we have the race winner on our show in the studio. Usually if we're trying to talk to the race winner, we've got to call him up on the phone. So we got him here in the studio. You said you read the article that Gluck put out. A couple things that really surprised me. First off, when we started talking, when I, I don't know if you were on social media much over the last several days because you were in and out of the race car and all that. But I was really surprised.

Ten years later, fans are still so freaking passionate about that night. I mean, I hear about it all the time. I bet. And I know that there's a direct divide between our fan base. And we call them unicorns, the ones that like both of us. Yes, absolutely. And they're really rare. But we, and me and you've had a lot of fun with that over the years.

But I'm so surprised by how people were, there were people that were like, oh, this is going to be awesome. I can't wait for this podcast. We had people say they were going to boycott the podcast, not listen to it. I mean, I was just really surprised that people were still that, you know, kind of into or still bothered or affected by that whole thing. I was actually taking screenshots last night of some of it because I wasn't sure if we were going to talk about some of the reactions to it were. Well, I mean, we might as well. I mean, some of the people were talking about, I'm not going to listen because Kyle hates Dale Jr. And I said, well, if that's the case, wouldn't you want to hear Kyle say it to Dale Jr?

Yeah. If that is really the case, why can't Kyle speak for himself on that one? I would guess he probably doesn't hate him. But once we started trying to work out our differences or whatever people want to call it, we would begin to have. Kyle came up with a great idea one time at a driver's intro for us to go. We had qualified side-by-side somewhere, and he'd come up with an idea for us to walk out for each other during intros.

Did we do that? We did. Fortunately, it was, I qualified worse. You were in front of me, so you went out for me first. Yeah, and I got the booze. Yes. And then he got the cheers. Well, I tell you, I mean, he said at the banquet that he was now on a campaign to win over Junior Nation because he was ready to have the cheers.

And so, I mean, listen, if this is what he's doing, he's already doing a good job. Between going out when you're introduced, bringing beer and donuts, I got to say, man, you're doing a pretty good job. You're doing a good job. I didn't even have to do this from what you told me a little bit earlier when I first got here. What were you doing last night? What was I doing last night? What do you mean? Cheering for you?

Yeah. Yeah. I admitted to Kyle that I don't recall ever doing this, but I was like really pulling for Kyle Bush to win the race because I knew he was going to be here. I even asked Janice. I said, what all kind of media would y'all have built up? He goes, I don't know, your show.

I said, leave it that way. Yeah, let's just keep it at that. Yeah, I shut everything else down. So you guys started having fun with this little rivalry that developed over your fan bases and that kind of thing. And that started what? A couple years ago, last year? No, I think it started 11, 12.

Yeah, before then. I think for me it was more about I can't stand being at odds with anybody. I don't know why that just bugs me for someone to think, for someone to have a bad opinion of me or have the wrong, assuming I'm different than I really am or something, you know, it just bothers me. So I knew that one day we'd work it out. I didn't know how or when.

after reading Gluck's article I really was it was a good lesson in the fact that a lot of wrong assumptions are made about from one guy to the other I think a lot of give me one we never got a chance to ever

sit down and talk about it or hash it out or anything like that this is actually kind of the first one besides us kind of becoming closer better understanding and a better relationship over the past three four years but um

there were a lot of assumptions made as to what was kind of going on and what was going down. And to kind of, I don't think we're here to clear the air from the Hendrick Motorsports side, but it's certainly some construed things that were kind of happening in that time. Yeah, I think we both had the wrong idea of each person and who they were. Yeah. And it took a long time. It really took a long time because neither one of us were willing to sit down and talk about it. One of the first things that I think that happened to help that relationship was,

You wanted to ask some questions about your truck team or you wanted to compare notes, I guess, on some things that we were doing with our respective teams. And we sat down in my bus at Martinsville. I remember that conversation. And I left that. When you left, I talked, I called my wife. And I said, you'll never guess who I just had a two hour conversation with in my bus. And I said, she's like, who? I said, Kyle came in here.

And we're just talking about our teams. And I had always, you know, one thing. that I've always tried to do, even when we didn't get along, was I respected your talent and I respected your efforts as an owner because I know that that truck team's not easy to run. Right. You know, and I know because of the Xfinity team, what type of challenges you're up against, and you really face all that stuff head on.

It's really difficult. You know, people see good looking race trucks and winning trucks, and they think you guys are just on cruise, and it's not like that at all. all. It's really challenging. Financially, you're, you're probably coming right in at the number every year trying to break even on. Well, because it's coming in under, so I'm making it at the number. Yeah, it don't go much over that.

Exactly. So I respected that. I respected your ability to find talent and just you as a driver. There's no denying you're going to go down as one of the greatest drivers that's coming to the sport. You know, with everything you've done to this point, plus everything you're going to do beyond this point, there's no denying that you're in that. conversations. So even though we didn't get along, I always respected you. But when we started

having these conversations, that really, I think, changed both our opinions of each other. And we started sort of, we wanted to get along, I think. Don't you think? I think so. Well, you guys were originally friends. I mean, like, you guys were friendly. I remember that. I think the thing that kind of kept me probably a little bit farther out than getting further in the end was the age difference. Yeah. You know, like when I, like you were, like you were, We were talking about like 0-5-06, like me kind of get into that. I was only, I was 20 just turning 21. Yeah.

You know, you were what, 30-something probably. Yeah. And so it was kind of already, the split was too great right there. So I was kind of too late. It was kind of like we've already got our club. Like, we're good, but also he's just a kid. Like, I didn't want to be corrupt either. No, I hear you.

There was, you know, I was, another thing. Now I'll just corrupt you. Another thing that surprised me about Gluck's article was, the fact that when you came into the sport that you you sort of envisioned us as becoming friends one thing that i think nobody knows about was at the um when you were you weren't quite as far as we knew and i say we i mean d i i didn't know exactly what your situation was as far as who you had a contract with or whatever and i stopped you in the bus slot at michigan i believe and said i don't know what you're doing but i want to let you know that de i would be interested in

to you about driving their Exfinity car for chance too. And I was tasked by Richard Gilmore and some people at DEI to talk to you and put that in front of you and try to put that bug in your ear. And I know that Hendrick probably already had you maybe wrapped up at that point. But we were trying to make a push. DEI was trying to make a push to get him in that company at one time. So I, in that moment of two or three or four months, however long that was going on when you were up, when you had yet to make your decision on what you were going to do, I was already thinking about you coming into the, you know, what would that be like having you, you know, everybody thought you were a really talented guy coming into the sport, trying to race car, race trucks and everything.

I remember all that because it was actually going to be, I think a split thing, right, between me and Truex. Yes. they were offering a split ride. Yeah. And so I hadn't signed yet, but that was kind of something that was on the table. It was the seven-year roush lock you in deal. Right. It was the chance to split with Truex deal,

and then there was the Xfinity deal with Hendrik. And so all of that was going on at the time. So yeah. Yeah. So there was a point. Your memory is way, way better than mine. You know, the funny thing is, like, you remember things about that. I was reading that article, and you remember things that I forgot.

And vice versa. Yeah. But I don't think a lot of people knew that DEI was pushing to get to Kyle, and Kyle was being courted by all three of those teams at one time heavily. We had run-ins before. You mentioned it in the article, the 2007 Kansas race. I want to say that there was nothing personal there if you want to go look back at the tape. Well, wait, not at that race.

But if you go talk to Ryan Newman, I actually wrecked him identically at Atlanta, two races in a row. I had a real bad habit of, the top was so good at that time in those cars. You were good at the top. And I had a real bad habit of running in the back of everybody that come up off the bottom. And I know that when you...

That's where Brad got it from. Yeah. I was watching you. You mentioned something in that article. You were like, I came off the corner and I gave him the top. And I forgot about that. You did. You gave me that outside line and I came down.

off the top and ran straight in the back of you. Because in my mind, you were coming up to the wall. I know this is hard for you to believe or anybody else is hearing this because it doesn't sound truth. But that was like, I had a real bad habit of running the back of people off that corner or off any corner really from the top because I don't know why me and Newman. I don't know why Newman didn't try to kill me because I wrecked him twice off of the turn to Atlanta the same exact way.

He was, you know how hard he is the past. and I had these monster runs off a turn two, and he pulled right up in front of me, right? I mean, right against the wall. And I just was driving straight in the back of him. And then he did it again, the next race. And I'm thinking, man, this guy is huge. I can't, you know, if I keep doing this,

he's going to try to kill me physically. Clearly you didn't think Kyle was going to try to kill you, because you wrecked him twice that year, too. I wrecked, I ran into Bobby Labani. There might have been more. That's just twice I remember. I turned Bobby Lobney in Vegas off. of the top off a turn to.

I just had a terrible habit of doing that. So really, in 2007, when that happened, I did not know where I was going to drive. I had no idea that I was going to Hendrick. We were still talking to a lot of different people. You probably did the whole tour, right? Yeah. He did. I went to talk to a lot of different teams.

You were about probably four or five months ahead of me. Yeah. And three. Three months? Yeah. People talk about the Texas. race where we both got in that crash where Stewart smoked up the whole race track. Yeah, I don't remember what happened.

So Tony spun, right? Tony was having a terrible day and was getting lapped. Okay. And lost his car and just stood in the gas and had smoke everywhere. So I slowed down because I couldn't see where he was. And I plowed right through you. And you hit me because you couldn't see anything. Yeah.

We come in the garage. All I remember is Pidge come down and said, hey, we need somebody. out of the car, can you drive it? And I said, I'll try to get in there. And your seat was so small because you're so skinny. I was. I had to sit in there sideways and drive like this. It was the most freaking dangerous thing I've ever done in my life because I was, there's no way I was going to survive a crash if anything happened. So from my standpoint on that deal, when I wrecked, when I hit you, like my glove was stuck to the steering wheel and my hand shot off the steering wheel. actually rip the back of my hand open.

Wow. And it, like, it kind of hurt my wrist. But anyways, like, I was like, oh, we're done. It's over. It's killed. Like, it's destroyed and all that stuff, you know. So we pull back the garage area. And I go up in the hauler, and I start changing my clothes.

And I'm like, okay, well, somebody's surely going to come tell me whether or not they're going to fix this thing or not. And I asked the PR lady, I'm like, are they working on it? She goes, well, they're working on it. But I don't think they're going to be able to get it back. So I walked out of the hauler because nobody talked to me about it. I went back to my bus, grabbed my stuff, got. in a rental car and left.

Like nobody ever said anything that we were going to go back out because I swore the thing was destroyed. Yeah. Right? I mean, I knocked the air cleaner off the thing. Yeah, it was bad. And so, anyways, they ended up getting it back together and how, you got what, like five, eight laps in it or something?

Yeah. Oh, we ran a lot. Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay. We, uh, I can't remember. We ran a lot. It was at the end of the race, though.

They were just trying to make a few extra laps. 40 laps. And there was an opportunity to pick up two or three spots, which I think happened. But my whole thing. was you probably don't I don't know if you'll understand this but anyone that wasn't driving a Hendrick car all you heard about and all that would be talked about in your garage or your your shop would be the Hendrik power and I'm thinking man here's my shot to feel that Hendrick power you know and I'm I

was disappointed because I wasn't gonna know how the car really drove because they put all the left front suspension back on it but I was like man I really get a shot to they're gonna let me drive this car and feel this motor and and drive their car and get some understanding and take whatever I can learn from this situation back to my team, which was nothing really. I was glad to drive it because we had so much respect for their motors. Sure.

And I didn't know Alan. I didn't really know any of those guys. At that point, still had no idea that I was ever going to drive for Rick. You either just announced or you were about to announce the next week that you were leaving DEI. Right. I don't think it came out yet. It's, I mean, it was all happening at the same time.

And when I, what I remember by that time was there were some things that were beyond anybody's control and there were just coincidence. But everybody speculated, oh, wait a second. He jumped in Kyle's car. When you announced that you believe in the EI, that's all tied together. That did it was all tied together. It wasn't. And you guys, it was just coincidental that you guys were sort of getting pitted against each other. But you weren't even trying that, right?

I mean, he, like, he hurt his wrist. He left. You ended up driving the car. Like, who would have predicted that, right? And yet, it's sort of played into the. the narrative that played out over the next several months. I just remember trying to get in that car. I was really excited because I was going to get to drive it.

And then I got in the seat and I'm like, oh, no, I'm not going to be fit in here. I mean, it was huge. It was such a huge. Why? I didn't. I was just trying. I was like, oh, no, I'm in here. Now I'm going to get out and say I can't fit.

Well, what if you can't get out? Freakened myself back in that seat. It was so uncomfortable. Get all the butter you can. It's terrible. Oh, it's awful. but we both gained some pounds since then. I might be a fit in them now.

You'll be a lot. You'll be all right. So moving forward. I was probably 145 then. You were so skinny. I didn't know, I mean, you were skinny, but damn, that seat was tiny. Uh-huh. So you kind of went out of order.

So we had Texas incident. Then we had the Kansas incident. Which was later. I mean, so the Kansas incident, that was after Dale had already announced. He had already announced. Motorsports, and you know how I had already announced. And you had already announced because you had this great quote. I had forgotten about Kansas until I read Jeff's article.

And then I remembered that was the famous quote where you said, I hope those boys on the five team appreciate him coming over and wrecking their car because they're contended for a championship and I don't think he's got any or something like that, right? I don't. Oh, yeah. It was something based off the line was like he's actually wrecking his next year's equipment already. Right, right. Like something like that.

That doesn't seem like anything you would say in that moment. I remember that. And so it's right. So yeah. So then, yeah, so then there were run-ins that I had forgotten about. And that led to what I already knew was a tumultuous 2007 season where you guys just ended up, you know, on opposite sides of the trenches. And that was another one that did not help because you were contended for a championship at the time. At the time.

Yeah, I mean, whether or not we would have made it there or not, who's in the know. but doesn't matter. Yeah. That comment, I remember that, and that made my mind go, hmm, he thinks I'm taking his ride, and I'm thinking the whole time, I'm not taking your ride.

They're moving, they're keeping mirrors. Mears is taking your ride. That made me assume that he was, he was like, Juniors screwed me over so many times. He's wrecked me. He's pushed me out of HMS, or he's coming there and turn me out of,

I had it in my mind that you were, you thought I was the devil. Absolutely. He did. Yeah. Yeah. Were you surprised when you read that article how, what he said about Mears? Did you know that he felt that way? No, I did not know that way.

Uh-uh. No. So what he said about how he actually kind of told those guys, hey, I think we ought to keep Kyle and Mears probably ought to be the guy to go. I never would have known that he would have said anything like that. You know, I wish there would have been a chance that you and I would have been able to, like, together while all this was kind of going on and just be like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What can we do together? Like now at this time, at this stage of my career and my age, I would have

done that. Right. Well, you know, both are hard. Let's admit it. You had every chance every week to ever get together. You guys were both stuck. I think he's right. I think we were both young. He was older, though. I wasn't still. He probably should have pulled at first time. He didn't act as age at that time, though, Kyle. Yeah. I still didn't, I wasn't mature enough even than that point but yeah I think people are going to say what it worked out for Kyle I mean and it did you're you're in an amazing organization done amazing things there but who knows what could happen had we got together right and figured out a way to to had we become teammates you know who knows what would happen so we'll move on

to to the rich rich richmond race and a well hold up before you move on it I want to move on to 2008 for sure because what I think also this wasn't in the article but I I want people to remember how good both of you were out of the gate in 2008. I mean, now you're over at Hendrick. You won about every race except the Daytona 500 that weekend in your new car. The points battle was amazing. He won Atlanta.

He won two races. And here's the thing about that. You led a lot of laps. You led in those first 10 races, 401 laps. You led 398. You guys were basically neck and neck. With the exception of he had a couple wins. You were so close.

You had second place finishes. And as you know, are you got, did you sit on the poll at Daytona? He sat on the poll at Texas. He sat on the, no, he did not sit on the poll at Daytona, but he won his duel. Okay, yeah. And so he started third. Yeah. And he won the poll at Texas.

And you guys were just always right there around each other. And you know how when you go into a season, there was a lot of pressure on you. And really the whole team based off this newness, now you're at Hendrick. You know, you got no excuses. What are you going to do? And you know how you do. You look at the schedule and say, okay, this is a race.

I know I can have a good chance to win. This one. Well, Kyle goes off and wins Atlanta and then Talladega. Talladega is the one race that you. You know, my only win at Talladega. You led a ton of laps that day. You might have even led the most that day.

And this guy goes off and wins it. And it was just like one of those other things where I think Kyle at that moment, if he was in the mindset that we now assume he was, was just like double bird finger. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. And he was taking advantage of every opportunity he could that ultimately led up to Richmond.

I think it was just like a time bomb that was kind of just building because he was winning. You both were leading laps. You and Tony Jr. were feeling pressure. Your team was still trying to figure out what the hell is going on because they were his old guys, right? And so it's like it definitely was us against them. You didn't want it to be, but like everywhere I turned there was Kyle. At first I think it was kind of me versus. 88 team, junior, like those guys, mainly junior.

But then kind of as it developed, as the season was kind of going, it was more of like a me against Hendrick Motorsports type thing. Is that right? Yeah. Like it just became like a, look, you all made this decision, so now you're all going to feel the wrath of this decision. Do you think that made you better? Absolutely.

Like it drove you. No question. I think anything you can find a fire of, you're going to use it. Yeah. You know? So we get to Richmond. And I totally didn't. remember what happened in that race up to that point.

I didn't either. Okay, so Denny's boring. Yeah, Denny's dominating. And we read in the article that I'm still mad at Denny because he parked on the racetrack. You know, that's a real no-no. So Denny was leading, and I was second and you were third, right? And Denny started to have a flat and you started gaining on me during that long run. Right.

And we both got to Denny at the same time. And then I tried to go low and you went high and you made it around him. first and now you're the leader. Yep. And it's what, 20 something to go maybe? Yeah. Okay. And we ran, we got down inside the last few laps, like inside 10 to go.

Yeah. And Denny parked up on the racetrack. And in the article, he says, Gluck tells him that I'm pissed because he parked on track. He goes, quote, yeah, well, if I never got the flat tire, he would have never had the chance in the first place. Like that's an excuse to park on the track. He's still not owning the fact that he stopped on it.

Even after all this, that's perfect. That's quintessential. Diddy Hamlin. Oh, man. And that's exactly, as soon as that happened, I knew, and like you say, as you recount the events, you had the better short run car, and I didn't. And I knew, I'm like, man, I'm going to have a handful. And that's why I went right to the top, because at that particular time, that was, it was

where you were going. It was hard to pass, guys. Yeah. You know, it's hard to pass people. Well, remember, too, with those COT cars, I said it in there was, we had, remember we had all the wedge pole. out of them things. Yeah.

We were running like 50% wedge to get them things to turn, and you go off in the corner and touch the brake pedal, and the dang left front locks up because there's no weight on it. Yep. You know, so. Yeah, it was a recipe for disaster. For disaster. And everything, like you say, Mike,

everything up to that point throughout the first half that year was leading to this moment. And here we are at a crossroads. I'd never, even in the moment, like as mad as I was, even in the moment, I knew that it wasn't you turning me on purpose. As a race car driver, you know how to move somebody. That is not the way you move somebody out of the way. He went down in that corner. He tried to get into the corner, and I'm not putting words in your mouth, but as a race car driver, I'm looking at it and I'm going, he went in the corner a little

higher trying to get a better arc into the corner because a shallow entry on the bottom there. It wasn't going to work. And he knew that. So as I'm moving up the track, he's like, okay, if you're going to go up to track, I'm going to go up the track a little bit, and I'm going to get a better angle for the exit. And like, you know, you just got down in there and got loose up underneath me. Well, the other thing, too, was like, each lap, like, there was a little bit more. We're trying harder. A little bit deeper, deeper, yeah. A little bit more. And I'm getting the sense of urgency because I'm like, man, I got to go. Like, I better complete this now because I know that if I can complete it now and get out in front of you, I have a better shot of holding you off for the longevity

of the rest of that run, which was what, four more laps? Yeah. And if you would have cleared me, if you would have gotten out there, it would have been over. You know, so I knew, like, I was like, ah, I just, I got to get it done. I got to go. Yeah, my car was rolling tight a little bit on the early runs, and that was, that was, you know, it took my car a while to sort of build up to wherever a roll center

and turn in the middle. So we get down in the corner, car get, you know, we get together, cost you the win, cost me the win. I was going to say. I mean, both of us got taken out of the, lead there. I think the one thing that bugged me

was, and this was just you at that age, was when you were in front of a microphone, the things that you would say and I'm like, God, you know, it's enough that we're, it's, it's hard and I guess it's awkward enough

as it is that everything that happened between me and you in 2007, then the exchange of teams and where you went and where I went and all those things that happened. Us badly, you You know, us sort of tit for tat on the racetrack up to that point. I knew that the wreck wasn't intentional, but it was when you would get out of the car and say, and I know how, now out reading that article, I know why you did that, but when you get out of car and say things that you would say, I'd go,

you know, if it was just, hey, man, I was racing, you know, I got in a corner too deep, but you wouldn't. You would get out of the car and go, I don't care. So what? So what he got wrecked? And you had such a chip on your shoulder. And that was the part. And really, I was really, it took a while. So did you know in the moment, though, when the wreck happened and you got a chance to see it that it wasn't purposeful?

Yeah. He says it in the interview. As a matter of fact, in fact, Tony Yuri Jr. gets on there and says, it looked like Kyle got loose. He said that on the radio. And in your interview, actually, in the interview, actually, in the interview, in the interview, both your interviews, y'all were pretty decent about it. The only thing that got you a little off the rails was the fact that Pidge, Rick Pidge and went down there and you guys have a friendship and y'all had words.

And that made it, you know, sort of about that. And so, but Dale Jr. says in a very dejected, disappointed way, that you did not try to intentionally wreck him, that you got loose. And Tony Jr. said that. So. So you read in the article, though, like my mindset in that moment was like, If it was somebody else, if it was a teammate or if it was somebody that I was actually kind of like getting along with, there probably would have been two more inches given, right?

Right. An extra, given. Sure. But in this moment, there was no given. That's right. So it was kind of like, ah, I got loose. Yeah, whatever. Right.

Like you said, you know, so. That's right. Sorry. No, yeah. And I, reading the article and remembering everything that happens, see, you kind of forget some of those things that happened before that moment. And I saw it from my point of view, not yours. And so read the article gave me your viewpoint of the whole experience. And so I get why in that moment you're like, screw it.

I don't care if he's upset or whatever happens to him there happens to him. I get it. So from that moment on, super frosty for several years. Because can we admit that Kyle still, let's just say, maximized the opportunities that he was given to take dicks? I mean, would you agree? The ones that would bother me was the one that bothered me the most. I'll never forget it was at Dover. We always had this 12, this top 12, the top 12 drivers had to do media on Friday.

And I dreaded that every day, not because I did too. I did doing media, but I knew. Even though you don't think I did, I did too. I know you probably didn't enjoy it. I won't name names, but there are a couple people in the media. They're not there anymore, but they would always ask Kyle something about. me every week almost and they would walk down to whoever who's ever holler they were at first they were going to get a nugget there and take it to the other guy and it was every damn week

and kai said this what do you think about that Dale said this what you think about that and we couldn't get over our differences because the media kept shoving it in our face every day every Friday and we were at dover this was probably two or three years after 2008 incident me and Tony Jr. had, I think that was just happening. I just started to work with Lance, and they asked him what they thought, what does Kyle think about Dale's struggles and the crew chief change? And Kyle said, it's never Jr.'s fault. Yep, I remember that. That was quintessential Kyle Bush at the time.

That probably bothered me more than anything that ever happened on the racetrack. I mean, racing and wrecking and getting wrecked. that's just shit that just happens. You know, you get turned around and get spun out. And I don't even remember the others. I mean, I don't even know if you ever said anything else outside of that one comment. That one comment bugged me so bad. I was consumed by our rivalry in different points of my life.

Like, I always knew where Kyle Busch was at on the racetrack. I don't know, you know. I'm glad that it's over. I'm glad that we get along. I don't know if there's anything that bothers either one of us about it anymore. I don't feel bothered by it anymore because it's been such a long time. But man, I'll tell you, from 2008 to 12 or 11, I was consumed by it. It bothered to be it.

And I hated it. I didn't like it. It wasn't like fun at all. Did you ever feel like it was sort of kicking a man while he's down? because 2009 and 2010 were the worst years for you. And you were sort of trying to find your easy. I was an easy target. Yeah.

And I mean, I even thought my career might be over. I mean, I thought I didn't know whether I was going to come back from. Here I am at Hendert Motorsports where I wanted to go because it was the best. And I'm in my mind. I'm going to the best team. This is my opportunity. You know, I'm putting myself in a situation where I got to make it happen. And it was going south like south.

And I'm thinking, man, my, you know, my sh-this could be it. You know, if I don't, I don't know how we're going to turn this around. And Rick don't wait around too long for people to turn it around. And I don't know that he, I don't know how he's going to treat me, but I've seen him make changes before with drivers and crew chiefs. And I don't want to, this is getting bad. So I had that all on my back. And then Kyle's taking his shots and he's winning.

Oh, man, it was tough. It wasn't fun at all. Eventually, I don't know. I think I've seen a change in Kyle when he got married. Samantha seems to be an awesome person in his life that's sort of changed his demeanor. Demeanor, for sure. That's a great way to put it. And then you became a father, and I was going to change anybody.

I'm about to go through that experience. I changed a lot. I got married and met Amy around the same time when all this was happening. She changed the way I think about things and the way I handle. things. You know, you come home. You get wrecked or I say some, you know, if I piss you off or you piss me off and you come home and there's nobody there to tell you whether you're right or wrong, you're just going to be hard-headed. Yeah. Yeah, you keep boiling. Yeah. And your wives will sit down with you and go, hey, really, is this that big a deal? Or they'll agree with you if they think you're

right or whatever, you know. And I think that that's helped both of us. Yeah, mine's a little fiery too. There's sometimes where she gets her. She defends you. Her blood gets boiled too on our situation. Kyle, what was your recollections of the aftermath of that first Richmond race? You know, he was talking about his 2009, and I know the rest of 2008 season. I mean, we haven't even talked about something that you did bring up in that article and that people do casually forget about it, and that is that Dell got you back at Richmond on the return trip. He even says that in the article. He's like, nobody remembers that shit.

And he's right. He's right, though. And that's not actually fair. It is. So let's talk about the aftermath. of the first Richmond. Okay. What was your recollections of everything and what were your feelings?

Of the, of that night? Well, start there and then in the rest of 2008 season and then even 2009. In the Gluck article, I stated that I don't really remember there being anything different. And Samantha was like, are you drunk? Like, what's wrong with you? And I was like, what? I don't remember anything. And she goes, there were things being slung at us and there was rocks being through.

So we went from the motorhome lot on the golf cart over to the helipad. used to helicopter out at that time. It was still pretty busy to get out of racetracks. And so we golf carted over there. So Samantha was on the golf cart. Dickerson was on the golf cart. I think, no, it wasn't Dickerson. It was Cody.

Cody was on the golf cart. Cody Salman, right? Yeah. And so we made our way over there. And there was words being slung, rocks being slung, hats being slung, beers being slung. At you? At us, at the golf cart.

We had the sides down. But yeah, there was stuff hitting the golf cart. I don't remember that. Oh, okay, you didn't remember. You thought it was just a regular old ride out. I did. And so when I got to the, now that I got a little recollection, Samantha, I remember, gave it back to me. But when we got to the helipad, there was a couple, remember there was a couple like trailers.

And so they, from where the crowd, there was always a line of crowd going in. And then you go around. So they took me all the way in and all the way around, and they put me in one of those buildings until the helicopter got there. And then we went in the helicopter. So they kept us away from the masses for that. and then past that for like the rest of the year, like there was crazy death threats and stuff like that. Like there was death threats to the house.

There was a guy that called, I don't remember if he called NASCAR or the racetrack, but it was Kentucky Speedway. I was at Kentucky for the Xfinity Series race. And it was back then when we flew in to run the standalone Xfinity series races. And so I won that night. And as soon as I did the Victory Lane stuff,

like they corralled me and got me and took me into a cop car and took me out of the racetrack and a cop car. and I'm like, what are we doing, boys? Like, what's going on? And they were like, we've had a tip off that there's a shooter on the loose. Like, a guy's coming to the racetrack with a shotgun. Well, that was his uncle Danny. That was no, no kidding.

So it was just stuff like that. And that was kind of happening not weekly, but periodically through that time, probably definitely through the rest of 08 and maybe once or twice in 09. And so we actually had like a behind the scenes FBI guy tailing me through the rest of 08. We didn't need him. We didn't think we needed him anymore after 08 was over. So I do remember that guy. Wow. He came with us. I had no idea that. No, I didn't either. He came with us about everywhere. So I did remember that. So past all of that stuff, the next part of it was like an 09 and 10. Like what about it? Well, let's talk about like, you know, leading to Dover. I vividly

remember the Dover comment. Did you, do you recall saying that even? Yeah. Do you recall it being pre-calculated? No. It's just that you comment in the moment. Were you baited by media, do you felt? You always. I'm smarter now. Right.

But absolutely. Then, anytime they baited me, they had my number, man. They knew what they could get what they wanted. It was just throw it on out there. Oh, yeah. Oh, I was a catfish, man. I was just like, oh. So how many wins did you have in 2008?

10. In 08? Eight. Yeah. God, gosh, that's a lot. Carl 1-9, I won 8. Oh, okay. Yep.

And did you feel vindication? Did you feel vindicated after that 2008 season, or did you still carry the chip on your shoulder into 2009? I didn't feel vindicated because we sucked so bad through the final 10. Oh, really? Like as soon as we hit chase time, we literally just stepped on any tack we possibly could find. It was horrible. So you guys just didn't have a good playoff or good chase. We did not.

And so you did not feel vindicated. No, but it didn't have any. anything to do with Dale with Dale or with Hendrick or anything like that we just absolutely faltered and and threw it away you know so that was it probably things probably would have maybe turned around sooner if 08 would have ended with like a championship I may have been a little bit smarter and grown up a little bit quicker where it would have been like hey Dale I'm sorry I'm a total I'm sorry like can we just forget about 08 like I'm okay now like everything's good You're saying, did that ever cross your mind?

There were times, yeah. It was like, man, when can we just figure out how to bury this hatchet? Like, I hate being mad at the guy, but I just, I was just, I was always waiting on him. And I don't know why. I felt like I was the girl in the moment, you know, just waiting on Dale to do something. Maybe it was because of age or maybe it was because of his stature. Maybe it was just because, I don't know why it was because. That's interesting because, you know, and I mentioned this to Jeff is that I remember at Waukins Glen,

you being at the back of your hauler, and I know you don't remember this, but I was, I think y'all are partner each other, and you were like, why does Dale not even talk to me anymore? And I thought that you was being, you know, kind of cocky and like you didn't know why or something. Yeah. But hearing what you're saying now,

maybe that was kind of a seed you were planting to say, look, are we going to ever talk about this or what? Yes, right, correct. That's so crazy because I never thought of it like that. I thought Kyle hated my guts, hated what I was or who I was or didn't want anything but bad shit to happen to me. Really? I mean, and...

I wouldn't say it was that bad. I just hated your guts. I think I'm... So that's... So it's just weird to hear you say, you know, even in those moments that you were hoping that things would turn around. I think I was too. It just, yeah, we're just really hard-headed. We're either one of you guys aware of the brewing rivalry between your...

fan bases and did you ever think that hey maybe this is an opportunity to maximize it much in the way your dad did with Jeff Gordon no we did know about it because we both couldn't escape it especially on social media but he had me covered i mean i don't know whether we just 50 to one or 10 to one or what the ratio is but he no question we weren't juniors got me covered yeah we weren't smart enough to think about how to i want monetize is the wrong way to look at it or say it but like take it to the racetrack and use it it as a positive for the sport. Man, we weren't smart.

You know, when Rusty and Dad were going through that, man, they were in their mid-30s. I was going to ask you, wasn't it, Bodine and your dad, though, that kind of had that worse? They did, but they really hated each other and wrecked each other until Bill France, Sr. got in there and said, y'all going to quit. Right, so that's kind of. That's similar to us. Right.

Nobody stepped in to straighten us out. Uh-huh. They just let it fester. Yeah. Well. I know it. Isn't that nice? Good for you guys.

Yeah. And neither of us were smart enough to fix it ourselves. Right. So Fall Richmond. Fall Richmond. Yeah, he wants to talk about Fall Richmond. So we... We don't need to talk about that.

We don't have any time. Let's go. I'm kidding. Right of time. Yeah. So here's the thing about Fall Richmond. I felt like that if I didn't wreck you at some point, my fans were going to be really pissed. Even after this.

I was already behind 3-0. I know. Well, I was. I didn't. Who's keeping score, right? That wasn't the score that my fans had. So I was under a lot of pressure from my fans to do something. And from myself.

Like, I felt in my heart, like, if I don't get him back, then I'm just going to be this. Everybody's going to look at me like this guy that just get wrecked and not do shit, you know. And you know as a driver how that feels sometimes when you get done wrong, You're like, not only do I got a, not only am I mad at this guy, but I got to show everybody else here that I ain't going to take this, you know, I ain't going to take. And there's, I don't know what that's about. Ego, just being hardheaded and ignorant. But I had to, I felt like, man, I have to do something. And here is perfect opportunity was right there in front of me.

We're at the same racetrack. We're running you down early in the race. and it was just a perfect opportunity. And I was like, if I don't do it. So you'd been looking for the opportunity for a long time. Yeah, he'd been contemplating it. I had been contemplating it and dreaming about it. Are you kidding me?

Like, but at the same, if you can understand this, man, even contemplating it and thinking about it all the time, dreading it. Because I didn't want to do it, but I had to do it. Is that making sense? Oh, it's not really your driving style. I mean, you know, that's what's always the awkward thing is that when your dad's fans that became your fans who expect you to be your dad, but then also they'll compare you to Dale Earnhardt based off of driving style. And that always is an awkward comparison and awkward conversation at well.

And that wasn't what you'd like to do. You don't like taking people out ever. Well, there's a no-win situation for any of us in that. Right, right. Yeah, I think that it's definitely not my personality to, I hate confrontation in any form, and I try to avoid it at all costs. I like to, you know, I like everybody to be happy.

But that's not going to be the way it is on racetrack and in that environment. But I felt this pressure, like if I didn't do something that I was going to always be labeled as this, you know, it's just going to be, he's not his daddy, he's not, you know, you don't stand up for himself. He lets people push him around. I mean, Kyle,

had said all these things, or, you know, the Dover comment, things like that, it's like, man, I got to do something if it's there in front of me. And luckily, like you're talking about the wedge being out of this car, the left front tire locked up. And that was like my, well, you know, I got in there too hard, my bad. If the left front tire does not lock up, it's completely obvious what the hell is going on there. You'd even worked on your talking points once that ever happened. That's beautiful.

I'm just going to blame it on the wedge. is I didn't do a good enough job of it. Kyle backed in the fence just barely and kept on going. I mean, it did hurt your race car a little bit, but I was a little disappointed. Yeah, instead of finishing fourth, I think we finished eighth. Yeah, I didn't get him good enough.

I think he did in 07. Yeah, yeah. So that was that. And, yeah, I don't know. So how about the situations where, okay, so Richmond, spring Richmond happens, I am public enemy number one. Yeah.

And then you have a couple run-ins with other drivers throughout the last five, six years, whatever. Like who? And one driver twice. Who? In one year. Who? Y-R-B, right? Ryan?

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. And yet, like, that gets blown over. And yet I am, like, still public enemy number one. Well, to be honest with you, like, I almost felt, you tell me if I'm wrong. I always felt like one of the things that sort of drew people away from you guys was the fact that you kind of had some Brad Kislauski's, you know, run-ins.

Ligano. There have been, I mean, you found some other people to, and it usually was people that you were racing against. I mean, so, again, by no fault of anybody's, you end up being right there in the trenches and that happened. So I thought always that kind of deflected a little bit of the attention away from what was going on in you guys between 2008 and 2009. Yeah.

Yeah, but I think the chorus of the booze at Driver Intra, is Spring Richmond. Stends from that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like when I fear, even when I first started, I had my first Xfinity Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway

in the 87 DITAC car with Nemech at Charlotte there, and that was right in the time where Kurt was getting into it with Jimmy Spencer. Yep. So I was guilty by association. I remember that.

We won, race one, moment one. So I get booed at driver intros. And I'm like, not fair. Not fair, but kind of one of those moments were like, hell, if that's my well, coming moment, then it's not going to go well.

I'm under a no-win situation to begin with. Yeah, that's exactly right. I remember that. I remember people booing you or people didn't like you right out of the gate because of what was going on in your brother's career at a time. And then to top on top, you know, put on top of that. What happened through 2008, there was no way you were going to escape that. Let's talk about, it's jumping way ahead.

In the last probably two or three years, I've seen. a concerted effort from you to be more personable. And you used this opportunity a lot of times in social media. You're doing a lot of videos, funny videos. You really used to do none of that stuff. And it was all you were either happy when you won or pissed when you lost. That's all you knew about Kyle Busch was the guy that won second or the guy that won the race. Two completely different, Jekler Hyde.

But now you're kind of showing a. a personality that none of us is really, a lot of us knew was there, but none of us, none of the fans have really seen in the last three years. And I don't know whether that's something that you and your wife talk about or is she part of helping you do that or encouraging you to do that? Is that something you that come up in your own mind? What's going on there? She's a little bit of part of it.

Sure. I think that she's kind of the one that that's there in the moment and kind of gets the camera, if you will, you know, so like the Martinsville one, for instance, when we were leaving racetracking. We were in traffic. And I saw the girl, she was just playing with her phone in the passenger seat, and she had an M&M's hat on. And I go, hey, watch this. To Samantha, you know, just messing around. And I honked the horn a couple times, and she, like, looks up and looking to see what's going on. Nothing's happening. So she goes back to her phone. So then I roll my window down, and I honk the horn, and that's

when you get the reaction. We got that on camera, you know. But that was a unique instance. and then there's other times where whenever I see, like even when I go to driver intros or when I go to the driver's meeting or things like that, when you see people that are wearing your stuff, I tend to try to veg them out and go take care of them for what they have to do and endure and put up with all the SHIT from everybody else

from the other side of the fan base and it's like, I'm going to take care of them first and foremost and do what I can for the M&M fans, the 18 fans, the Kyle fans, whatever it might be. And so that's been pretty cool. seeing people out walking the streets in Vegas, you know, when we went out there for a couple appearances. And so it's just rewarding to be able to give back to my fans and what they're all about.

And, again, the stuff that they have to put up with. Yeah. You did some TV show where y'all were, I don't know, you dressed like kind of a 50s greaser. Mega race on Discovery. All right. So you allowed them to dress you up, take your picture. You did this football spike with M&Ms. Yeah.

I mean, those are things that I didn't see Cobblish doing years ago. And it's really, I mean, honestly, man, it's really refreshing to see your personality instead of seeing the second place finisher and the winner guy that everybody sees on TV, seeing you be you, you with your son and your wife during the week. That's one of my favorite things is when drivers share what they're doing on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And I understand, like, I mean, there's either part of me that thinks like, you know, there's parts that I don't want. to share and I don't want to share too much. I don't want everybody knowing everything we're doing, but that is such a gift when drivers open up a little bit on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

I'll be honest with you, man, that's the best thing that I've seen you do in the last four years, three or four years, that I think has changed a lot of people's perception of you and changed that. We were talking about, you know, the guy that they all booed in 2008. I think a lot of people, and I've read it on social media this week when we announced the opportunity that you were going to be here. A lot of people said, well, boy, I really hated him when that happened. But then this happened, and I've changed my mind. I'm coming around since then because of X, Y, and Z.

Yeah, there's certainly a, that's a tool, right? I mean, you can utilize that tool as much as you can, as much as you want to use it with what content you have or what you make of it. But, you know, what's unique about that is you're talking about how people see the winner or the loser or whatever. that's what like a 15, 20, 30 second sound bite that you get on television. Yeah.

And that's at your job. And when you're defeated at your job, and because of everything that you give it and all you do is eat, sleep, breathe, dream, racing. And you fail at that when you finish second, when you finish third. That's a failed day in my mind. And so I'm devastated. I'm heartbroken. I'm pissed off. I'm whatever I am.

That's how people think you are through your whole life. Right. well that's not the case like I I'll get over it it might be Monday it might be Tuesday I'm not sure but I'm going to get over it I'm going to get on to the next one yeah you know but at the racetrack man like that's that's my that's my office that's my space that's my work time that's my job I try to focus in on all that and when you're away from that and you're having cool moments and doing other things that you get a chance to do it's it's it's pretty awesome and it doesn't matter what you do you're always going to get picked on one way or another for it right so for instance since this past win at Texas, we were in the drive-through and in-out burger. And I look through the window and I see this kid wearing a yellow sweatshirt. And I'm like, who wears a yellow sweatshirt? Right? So I stare at him for a little while and I'm watching and he starts to move just a little bit and I see a K.

And I'm like, that's got to be mine, right? And then he like moves a little bit more and I can see the one underneath the K. And I'm like, that's a Kyle Busch sweatshirt. And Samantha was like, yeah, it looks like it. And so I asked the guy behind the counter. I'm like, hey, just give me one of them paper hats. Let me sign it for him. Go give it to him as kind of like a surprise gift.

I saw him. Like, he'll cherish that. Not only did he cherish that and he loved that, which was really cool by the kid. But now I'm getting beat up on social that I didn't drive around and get out of my vehicle and go in the store and meet him and shake his hand and take a picture and sign an autograph for him in the store.

Well, I had already thought about all of that. And I knew as soon as I would have went into the store that the other 20 patrons in the store, it would have been about them too, not just the kid. I wanted it to just be about the kid that was wearing my stuff and not about everybody else within the store and having an autograph moment. So the mom already responded to us on social.

We're going to take care of the kid next time we go out there and see him and meet them and have fun and whatever. And so it's like, we got this stuff behind the scenes. Like I don't need to be beat up just because. No good deed. It goes unpunished. Let me ask you something. And I know we need to get to some fan questions, but I'm going to ask you a question.

What I'm hearing from you is a concerted effort to do nice things and win people's hearts. All right. Now, that's probably pretty deep. But I also hear, and even Dale Jr. has had this comment, how when they sit there and they analyze the state of our sport, they will often say, we need that antagonist. We need Kyle Bush. you always get looped into that role. Yeah. To be the bad guy, so to speak.

So my question to you is, where are you comfortable? Do you like being the bad? Are you trying to get away from the bad guy image? Or is that something that you have purposely relished in? Because, you know, you used to really lean into that bow at Bristol and lean into those victory deals. And I want to know where do you stand right now? That's a great question.

So fortunately, I feel like I've got the support. support of my sponsors now. Like they get me, they understand me. And mainly speaking of M&Ms and Skittles and those guys. I don't think I have a problem with Interstate. Those guys are awesome to begin with with Norm and Scott Miller and those guys from Texas. But, you know, M&Ms, they've been with me for a long, long time. Them have supporters of me through a lot worse stuff than getting some booze at the racetrack. But the interesting thing is they're like, look, when you keep doing some of these little neat things with the social postings. posts, you know, the autographs here, the surprise visits.

Like, they're all about moments of surprise, so they like that sort of stuff, that they feel like the bad guy image, like, that's just a character. Like, that's just somebody out of a movie. You know what I mean? Like, that's like the Joker and the Batman movie. Like, it's just, that's kind of what it is at the racetrack, but they know the flip side of it. So they get me. And we may not always change the perception of every single fan out there.

and they get that and they understand that. And the grand scheme of things, they're a billion-dollar business with a B, right? And they have billions of people that are buying their stuff worldwide. When they get 30 or 100 or 300 emails or phone calls about something Kyle Bush did, that's like an aunt walking through the world. It doesn't correlate to their core business. And so it's good but yet bad maybe at the same time. I'm not sure how you could look at that. Are you misunderstood?

Absolutely. More times than not, right? Yeah, I agree. Right? I think so. Everyone I'm hearing. Because it's the struggle between knowing. When we didn't know each other, you could obviously say that we were both a bit misunderstood of one another.

But now that we've gotten to grow a little bit closer to one another, we can see each other and what we're all about. I mean, hell, this idiot over here even invited me to his wedding. I mean, who does that? Well, I mean, he invited everybody. He did invite everybody. No, I did not. I'm kidding. Kyle and Samantha were the most active.

They were the ones that sort of set the tone at the New Year's Eve portion of the party on dance floor. Y'all must take classes. No? No. I am skilled. Damn. We took two classes before our wedding. Just to make sure that we got the first dance down.

Yeah. You know? Right. Okay. Y'all were dancing the storm up, man. And it looked like y'all had been taking classes. Like y'all. I appreciate that.

That's got to be saying. Classes on the side. So are you saying that you didn't like my touchdown dance then? No, on the social media? Yeah. It's hilarious. I couldn't wait for dance sarcasm to make a gift. People were like, man, you can't quit your day job.

And I was like, man, I didn't think it was all that bad. I don't know. It's perfect. Listen, it was just enough. All right. It was just enough. We're going to answer some fan questions. There were many.

Let's throw it to an exaltor race center update real quick, and we'll be right back. This is the Exaltor Race Center update. I'm Natalie Saither. Both Cup and Xfinity competed at Bristol Motor Speedway over the weekend. However, a rainstorm would delay the Cup race till Monday. On Saturday, Ryan Priest outran Justin Algeyer to win the Fitzgerald Glider Kitt's 300 Xfinity race. Fellow Junior Motors' drivers Elliot Sadler finished fourth, Tyler Reddick 7th, and Michael Annette crossed the finish line in 21st.

With laps already in the books, the Food City 500 would resume on Monday afternoon where Kyle Bush would use a move Kyle Larson had already pulled on him earlier in the race to pass him for the win at Bristol. The Junior Motorsports late model drivers were off this past weekend. This has been your Exalta Race Center update. Exalta is the official paint partner of NASCAR, developing, manufacturing, and supplying coatings to all types of vehicles and industrial applications. For more on Exulta, visit ExultaCS.com. It's time for Asked Jr. I got a question.

You have a question for me? Hit us up on Twitter using the hashtag. Ask Junior. All right, let's go to the questions now. A lot of fans chime in, of course, because they knew we had Kyle Busch in the house. I'm pulling up the numbers. Yeah, man. Yeah, it's all good.

Definitely going to be our best episode. Your listeners. Or worst. It'll be the best. Well, Jason Hamilton, this is kind of a general question, but I think it really has a lot of value, and I think as racers, you'll appreciate this. If you guys could live firsthand in any driver's career, past or present, who would it be and why?

I don't envy you for a minute, by the way. So you wouldn't want to be Dale Jr.? No. To me, bad. To me, it's too much of roller coaster. I wouldn't want to go it over again either. Not because of that, man, the amount of pressure and stuff that you've had in your entirety of your career, just let alone, like, in 1998 when you won the championship

and, like, I was a fan of the sport in general. I loved watching racing, and I was a fan of Dale Jr. I was a fan of Dale Jr. when he got to Cup. you know, just Dale Jr., right? So if I'm a fan of Dale Jr. because of Dale Jr., everybody's got that same allure. And then 2001 happens, and now you've got even more put on you. Like, that's just something that I could never even imagine. So obviously, I look up to you a lot in that respect because that's huge.

Appreciate it. Right? But, man, I don't envy you for one minute. So I don't want to be Dale Jr. Yeah. I wouldn't want to do it over. I think I'd say dad. but dang man i mean richard petty's career was pretty awesome think about racing back in the 60s and 70s 80s and 90s

i mean doing it i've always look i've always really not been as i love the drivers but i was always more curious about the cars yeah when i see like the old dodge chargers and uh how do they drive what they drive like you know how they feel and the tires and how they drive i'm always more interested i guess and the cars and what the cars were like. And Petty won in four different decades. So that would be a pretty cool career to live first-person view through. Absolutely. I got to agree with you on that.

I think Petty with the four different decades. And because he ran all the races through that time. Celebrated a lot. You think about Pearson. It's like, well, Pearson ran full-time three times. That's it. You know, so Petty's the guy. Here's a quick fun one.

Todd Barry. Todd? No, no. Todd Barry, man, if we had a question from Todd Barry, that would be cool. Todd Barry wants to know. Dale, what's Amy's favorite Mars candy product? Be prepared, Kyle. Oh, she likes dark chocolate.

I mean, because apparently it's healthier. I don't really know. A little bit. Yeah, right. It's like chocolate. Yeah, if you eat 10 of them, it doesn't really healthy. I'm a big Mr. Goodbar fan. She likes the dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate Eminens. Does she get dark chocolate Eminems or does she do like the FLMs? Ethelms? Okay, I'll get you some. What the hell? I don't know what that is either. I've never heard of that. It's like Toyota versus Lexus.

Like it's a high end. It's like I've heard of it. Premium M&M. Yes. Whoa. Premonims. I'll get you some. Tim Stockwell, a big senior and junior fan, but here lately I love Kyle.

I love what you and Samantha have done with your bundle of joy fund. And personally, I'm a big fan of that as well because my wife and I went through it and what Sam and you did publicly helped a lot of people that were going through the same thing. He said that he battled an unexplained infertility for four years and he gave him a different perspective. Now they're expecting a baby boy in August. Yeah, right on. Do you have any advice for him and Dale on the upcoming fatherhood? There you go. You can't go wrong becoming a dad. I mean, it's just, you know, it's how you were raised. You kind of look at the things that you're, now that you're becoming a parent, you look at the things your parents did.

you're like, why am I the way that I am? And you're like, well, that's why, that's why, you know. You look at some of the things that you think you can do better than what your parents did, but then you also look at the things that your parents did well that is like, man, I want to mimic that or I want to do that. Like Brexton right now, it's like how soon is too soon to get into a race car? Just let him be who he is and who he wants to be. I was 13 when I first started.

So it's really not that big of a rush, right? But, you know, I think it's just being supportive and being patient. Obviously, I've grown into a lot of patience lately with Brexton. and he seems to have that very passionate type personality where he is what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, how he wants to do it. And so there's a lot of hardness and being able to break him from some of that stuff.

But it's fun. I love it. I wouldn't trade it for nothing. All right. A serious question here, competition question for Kyle from Alan Bedgood. Kyle, why are you so against spec engines and what's your idea of maybe leveling the playing field

without penalizing top teams and the lower-funded teams as well. The spec engine thing is, look, racing, I think, was made in the days in which anybody could go out there and put anything they wanted on the racetrack and go out there and compete with it, right? You look at what Smokey Unic wouldn't be what Smokey Unic is if it wasn't for the opportunity to be innovative and make changes and work on his own stuff, how he wanted to do it. If it was always just go down to your local store and grab an engine and put it in and you couldn't do anything with it, we would have no Smoky Unix stories. You'd probably not have very many Dale Inman or Richard Petty stories as well either, right?

So everybody wants to create parity and make everything fair. Why are we in the world of fair? Like, I don't want a blue ribbon for my son who finishes second place at the local fair or whatever. I want them to win. I want them to get the trophy, you know? So that's how I look at things. It's just like there's a winner and there's other not so winner. They're losers.

I mean, it just is what it is. What do you think? I mean, I, you know, I agree with you about taking innovation out of the sport is a bad thing. Too many rules is a bad thing. They certainly could benefit from opening up and allowing a bigger box for guys to get creative in. That'd be under the hood and the engine, the bodies, the chassis, all kinds of things. There needs to be innovation and guys learning new things. you don't have to

they worry that it's just going to drive costs anytime anybody's doing anything to try to re-engineer something that it's going to be expensive but really that's But I think like some of the things Like back in the day for instance I'm talking maybe 90s-ish

You had guys that were working on chassis On setups and getting the mechanical game down So they would excel probably at the shorter tracks And then you had guys working on Other teams were working on arrow developments And so they wouldn't be as great at short tracks But they'd be good at mile and a halfs You had guys that were working on horsepower, the Yates guys, right?

Like they always had the two-mile racetracks down. They were the motor team. Right? Yeah. So you had other teams were working in different areas and utilizing their spend in different areas. And now everybody, the rule book is so tight and so thick that it's like everybody's working in the same space all the time. And there's so hard nowadays to find any little particular advantage. And if that advantage is found, right away everybody knows what it is.

and they go to work in that area. Yeah. Right? So it's just, it's too close, in my opinion. You don't have room for people to be good at, for instance, us, right? We're good everywhere we go because there's not much you can do anymore. Where years ago you'd have somebody good at short tracks, speedways, whatever it might be. Yep.

Dei game, the RAD program, right? Good points. Did you read the baby books yet? I haven't. Me and Amy have stacks of babies' books. We're like, oh, we're going to read these. Dude, you've just winging it? You got like 15 days.

I know it. I know. Or sooner. You better get them glasses out, son. Get on it. I know. All right, one last question on Ask, Jr. Roger Wolfe, I thought this was really cool.

All those years with you guys where you definitely really kind of were at odds and definitely didn't like each other. Did you ever dream you'd be sitting here doing a podcast together? Did we do one already? I can't remember. I was in here with Samantha. Samantha did. That was Kelly's show. Kelly did Fast Lane family for Dirty Moe.

And Samantha was a guest. And you were here. That might have been the day that you met with Kelly possibly. Maybe not. But I know you stopped in. Before that. Okay. Because she actually talked on the show that day about how Kyle's not so bad with Samantha.

That's right. That's right. So you have been in the studio before then. I got to watch out when I go down the hallways here at JRM though. Because I'm still not sure there might be a foot that sticks out of a doorway. or something. I doubt it. I doubt it. I doubt it. That would, especially down by the Kelly office area. I've got one more question. What was the question? I forgot.

Did you guys ever think you'd be on a podcast together? Back in that day, absolutely not. Hell not. No, but the last few years, yeah. Yeah, we were just trying to figure out the right time and how to do it. When are you going to start your podcast for Dirty Mo? Mine for Dirty Mo? Oh, yeah, it's going to be for Dirty Mo. Like, I got to come here and do it? You can do wherever you want. We'll make it a deal. easy on you. Here's an idea. Send me a term sheet.

It's turn key. I will. It's turn key. I'm not doing this. No, hell no. Our agent who is new to. You don't want to do one every week? No, I don't want my own like, I don't want the studio, the equipment and all that sort of stuff.

The turn key, you, you kind of sold it with that. You come in here, sit down, talk about anything you want for. That's right. Now you don't have to worry about the post-race interviews because you got your own way to do. Yeah, I hear you. But you know what it might be, it might be like on some really blown up race days or something like that. We're going in there. We're going to talk about it. Watch this.

Yeah. Our agent, we have, he's sort of new to NASCAR out in L.A. and he has just been blown away by some of these characters that we have all just taken for granted all these years because we know them. And he's like, Samantha Bush and Kyle Bush, they have got to be on a television show. And I got the idea. And he goes, and this needs to be the Dirty Moe show. I said, okay, hit me with it.

And he goes, it's like PTI. It's Kyle Bush and Brad Kislowski. and all they do is debate. And it's real because I know they don't like each other. You're talking about on a show? Why would I ever agree to be on a show with Brad? Because it would shut down the networks. It would crash.

I would never win. It would set records. I don't know about that, man. But they say, you know, we were just talking about before the fact that his dad and Gordon and all kind of own that rivalry. That would be a way to kind of own that rivalry in a way. Who would you do a debate show? Who would you start to like one another? No, let's not go that far.

Then let's not start it. All right. Well, we threw it out there. We've got to get you, man. I tell you what you'd be incredible. Tell me what you want. We'd have to convince you to do it. But not that show, maybe, but maybe something else.

Maybe something else. Not that show. Okay. All right. Keep talking about white flag, bud. White flag right there, white flag. We're going to wrap this up with white flag. I know you already know what white flag is,

because you subscribe to the podcast and all. Of course. But this is where we talk about Dale's upcoming week and promotions, and I'll even give you an opportunity to do that. Just so you know, everyone, Dale Jr.'s raffling off as Camaro. We've been talking about it for a few weeks. It's a Corvette. I'm sorry, it's a Corvette.

Oh, my God. Are you going to wrap off? Hey, at the Camero. It's not like you said in the aisle. No Camero. We've been doing this every week, and I just got that wrong. Sure it wasn't a Camry. That's another scene.

Oh, good heavens. No, I'm pretty sure it's not a Camry. It's Wendale Jr.'sride.com. You can just go see for yourself what it is that he's raffling off $25 raffle tickets. Don't forget, Dale will be back on NASCAR America Wednesday night. It's the Wednesday. 18 next time. Wednesday.

$18. Make it $18. Are you trying to, you're trying to routy up Junior Nation. This is what you're doing. It's cheaper. It's cheaper to be a cow guy. It is, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. I'm economical. What can I say? Are you still trying to win Junior Nation? What is your best campaign pitch? The banquet, I thought, was pretty good. It was funny. To do it right then and there.

But I really don't have a campaign pitch. I think the overall pitch is just having fun, drinking Budweiser at 8 o'clock in the morning, and winning races. All right. There's his campaign pitch. Our numbers for the download have been incredible. I just want to remind you, if you're new to this, many of you might be because you just tuned in to listen to Kyle and Dale talk about Richmond. You can subscribe to the show on all. In fact, you subscribe to all Dirtymo programming on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, all podcasting platforms.

Also, don't forget to follow Dirtymo Media on all the social media channels, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Kyle, what do you have going on this week? I have team meetings coming up, but all that boring stuff aside. We're going to do the Denny Hamlin Foundation charity race, the Hamlin Short Track Showdown. Does he park it under caution? Does he bring out the caution in this charity race? He probably will. He got it.

Okay. So that's on Thursday, right? Up at Langley Speedway, we're going to go up there. We're going to run that. It's the old late model stock cars, so you're familiar with those. I'm not very familiar with those. There's a tire rule at Langley. You can put on as many as you want.

Oh, don't get him started on that, right? So if you want to come in and get new tires at any point in the race, help yourself. That's not what I heard. That's what I'm the... Philip Morris. Oh, you're talking about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard about it.

Okay, I did hear about that. All right. So our race, the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown race, I think it's 200 laps, and you run the first 75, and then you can come in and get four. Oh, good. And then you've got to run the final 125 on the same set. Do you know whose car you're driving? I'm driving Marcus Richmond's car.

My crew chief at KBM, who helps Timothy Peters in the late-old short-tracks. Yes. Denny's driving one of those as well? Denny's driving one and Timothy's driving. So three cars. Okay. What number is yours? 18?

51. 51? Of course. Yeah. Black. Black Rowdy machine. Of course it is. That's an incredibly great team.

So those are great race cars. Yeah. So my car is a brand new car. It's actually a KBM chassis. Really? Yeah, we'll see how that goes. Your first true late model chassis? No.

So my first true late model stock car chassis was the one I won with at Richmond. I won the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown at Richmond. You built a straight rail or not a straight rail, but a late model stock car. And won one and one at one. It won its first race. Wow. Yeah. Where's that car?

It's in the shop. Oh, is it? Yeah. We ran it again the following year at South Boston and ran third. It wasn't very good. No. So we built another one. That's pretty cool.

Marcus wanted it. So we gave him a car. So we're going to go run it this weekend. And then we're at Richmond this weekend. The old 10th anniversary, I'm sure we'll see some film of that in the highlight reels of the pre-rate show. Yeah. 10th anniversary, they'll bring it back. What are you doing this weekend?

Let's see. I'm on baby watch. So what am I doing? I'm not doing anything. I got to go to, I'm going to Philadelphia tonight for the, for the, the Urban Youth Racing League. They're giving out a bunch of awards. I've done that.

I've been there. It's very cool thing. I started, I was associated with them back in 2001, was it, Mike. That was before my time. Yeah. And then Friday, I am going to Redskins Foundation. Redskins Foundation. We donated and raised money to rebuild a library in a local school up in D.C.

and we're going up there to finish the decoration of the library. I get to hang out with the Redskins players, which would be a lot of fun. So pretty busy weekend. I won't be coming to the track. I'm missing the racetrack pretty bad. Of course, I don't know what I'd do if I was there. But you're there for Fall Richmond, right? I will be, yeah.

I'm going to run the Xfinity race. Are you? No, I can't run that one. Oh, okay. See, that's a great thing. Why not? That would be it. I would wreck it out of them.

God. Man. that's the great thing about being retired is you can run all the expedited races that you want one and he's got one right you know how hard it is you know his chief's going to be his yeah uh-uh steve lart yeah oh is that right and i've got to ask he's got to come out of the tv for that right he's i'm going to this is our plan is he going to do prep and all that stuff too is he just going to show up sit on the box and call the race which that was what he was so good at anyway right you know he wasn't good at the other part

You should run that race and bring out Addington and, you know, just kind of do a 2008 throwback. Oh, man. That'd be ugly before it started. The one thing that I'm wanting to do during that race is since I'll be NBC is I want to do, what do they call it? The in-race reporter when the driver. So I want to do that but under green flag. What? Yeah.

So I want to. You are? Yeah. talk on the broadcast during the green that's only happened like push a button yeah like no like hey dale what's going on well you're gonna do you expect you know got to do it nobody's ever done an in race reporter during the green flag so that's what i'm gonna try see if they'll let me do it i got to ask i got to ask roger pinsky's permission but i'm going to see if t j could spot he's available there's no way they're going to let him do that why not if i ask

roger he might he's available with legano i guess Ligano, as long as he's not running that race, right? He's not. T.J.'s available. Oh, there he go. He's available. T.J. only has a couple. Closing thought.

Everything I gathered from this whole experience is that there are a lot of assumptions that were incorrect in this whole deal that festered over years. A few conversations, although they're very hard to have. Would have helped the situation for everyone. So hopefully this whole podcast inspires a lot of people to go out and get with their arc rival and straight out. Do you guys want your fans to get along? Come on.

It wouldn't bother me if they did. It wouldn't bother me if they did. Wow. All right. There would be any more unicorns, though. No more unicorns. No more unicorns. Right.

Well, you know what? The bottom line is, y'all made up, and we had donuts and beer. I mean, it's a perfect day. You win the award for that. I know. I was thinking to bring in my drink, but I was like, that's dumb. Let's bring some bucks. There you go.

Thanks, Kyle. You got it, brother. Appreciate you. Yes, sir. Thanks for having you guys. That was cool. That was fun. Winning the race.

You're going to have a busy week. Appreciate you cutting out a little bit of time for us. Yep. Good luck in Richmond. And going forward, looks like you guys are going to have a pretty good season, and we'll see you around. We'll hope to continue to do that. Good luck with Babywatch, man.

That's right. Thank you. All right. All right. Crack me up in a beer.