The Dale Jr. Download - 227 - Super Friends & Superwaxers

Episode Date: July 31, 2018

Dale Earnhardt Jr. brings his old friend Brad Means on to tell tales of growing up at the track, getting into mischief, knockin' over laptops, getting girl crazy and literally waxing the competition.�� #DJD also covers Bubba Wallace's crash, Kyle Petty’s smokes, Jimmie’s 600th start, having dry underwear and more. 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 a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download with my co-host, Mike Davis. Hey, buddy. producer, editor, director, all those things. Matthew Dillner. We got a great show today, excited about it.

Let's get to it. I'm Dill & Hark Jr. And this is the Dale Jr. download. The Exaltes Studio. All right, let's do this. Do this. Delan Hark, Jr. The Exhausted Studio.

Del and Hart Jr. It's going to be a great show. I got a friend of mine coming in here in a bit that I'm excited for everybody to hear about and excited to talk to. I haven't talked to him in a while, so this is going to be a lot of fun. Buddy mine from running around at the racetrack when we're kids, so we've got a lot of great stories. We're going to have some ass junior here in a bit.

Let's go ahead and talk about Pocono. Man, there was a lot of things about Pocono. I mean, to be honest with you, I don't even know where you want to start, but you had Kyle Bush doing some great things this weekend, and you had a really good race again. And you also had a really scary crash. Where do you want to start first? Yeah, let's just start with the crash.

Bubba Wallace lost the brakes. We see this time and time again going down into term one. We talked about it on air during a race. My dad had the same issue in 1982. We've seen it with Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson. It's frightening. And that's a track where you use so much break. And when they take the spoiler off the back of these cars

and they take basically drag off the cars, that you got to use more brake. You know, I downshifted early, and that would use engine braking to help slow the car down, and I did that because I was afraid of overcooking the brakes. And I'll, you know, so a lot of guys don't downshift that early. They downshift a little further down in the corner, and it's a little better for the motor that way,

but it also forces you to use more brake. So that's a track where brakes can be a real problem. And we've seen some vicious ones. there, man. Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson. Yeah. So Bubba crashing, that was very scary. The way we cut to it, like it looked like he hit the wall at 250 miles an hour.

After watching it, in replay, you can see him kind of jump through the grass and all that. It's a Dukes a hazard. Knocked a little bit of speed out of the car, and it wasn't. Thankfully. Yeah, thankfully, it wasn't as hard as it looked initially. Just there was a little bit of time before bubble dropped the net. That had us very concerned. I could see him moving around in there, but as a broadcaster, you don't know.

ever make any assumptions in a situation like that. You don't assume, oh, it looks like, you know, you don't say it looks like this or that, the other. You don't, you can't do that in that situation. You just lay out, you wait for him to drop the net, you wait for something to happen. It's a great, you know, feeling to see him climb out of the car. Obviously, shaking up a little bit. He talked about his foot, banging around in the shoebox down there where the pedals are.

That's a real potentially dangerous situation for any guy that's going to hit wall really hard, especially when he's on the brake pedal, is his foot slamming into the clutch of the gas pedal as he hits the wall. And very painful and glad that he's, you know, he's probably sore today. We'll talk to him. I'll probably text him here in a bit. I'm sure he's getting tons of text messages. So Bubba, we're glad you're great.

You're glad you're happy. You're out and you're safe. And you're going to race another day. Kyle Busch. Daniel Suarez gets the poll because of all the issues in Qualifying or Post-Tech or post-qualifying tech. So, you know, we had 13 cars that failed and had to go to the back. You know, there was a big blow up about that.

Fans on social media, mad, or, you know, everybody negative this and that and the other. Here's, you know, everybody's got a solution. Listen, that whole thing worked as design. That's what's supposed to happen. Your car goes through tech, it either passes or it fails. If it fails, you go to the back. That all worked the way it's supposed to work, okay? So we move on to the race.

And I don't, it's not a big deal to me where the freaking 30 cars fail. Whatever, you know? It's tech, you pass, you fail. We go to the race. We go to the next part of the race weekend. Daniel, sits on the pole. Great opportunity for Daniel. This is a possibility for him to have a career day.

Well, he did. Run second. Almost wins the race. Right there. He's right there. Did a great job. They had some issues that lost a lot of track position at some point in the race, early in the race. They worked all day to get all that back.

He had great speed. Eric Jones had a great day. He's another guy that since his win has shown a ton of consistency and a little bumping speed, those first wins will do that. Those first wins will give you that confidence as a driver and give the team to morale. And you just move up, you just start running better. It's a weird deal. Confidence.

There's no real answer to why. But yeah, confidence, morale, those things can really make a difference in performance. You know, you think it's parts and pieces. You think it's engineering. Sometimes it's just attitude. We're seeing that out of Jones. Also another thing, maybe it's not a big deal to a lot of people, but I think it's a big deal. Ryan Newman, two top tens in a row here.

Yeah, that's actually a good point. I didn't think of that. Well, you know, it wasn't really to be that big of a deal if he kind of lucked into it. And he might have done that last week in New Hampshire with some pit strategy. But this particular weekend, I was watching, they drew my attention to this. The 31 and the three had more speed this weekend. All right. The three, if he had, if he had, you know, past tech would have started in the top 10,

he had a good qualifying run. He had decent speed in practice, Austin Dillon. We saw HMS cars have more speed, too, at one point in the race. they were all legitimately running into top 10. Yeah. So Chevrolet had a little bit of a boost in performance, or were seeing a little bit more speed out of those guys. Bowman.

I mean, how about that? Bowman. Hendrick Motorsports was there. You noticed them. The children's guys should bring up a good point. I mean, I know last week you made a point, hey, let's not get carried away. Chevlet's got a long way to go.

They still got a cut. But that's two weeks in a row. We've noticed them at the front, up towards the front. Look, I mean, I'm born in a Chevy family. I want nothing but Chevy success. but you've got to call it straight. It's been a tough year, but we're seeing some gains in this Camaro.

We've heard the talk from some of the Chevy camp that they're way down on down force. They're way down on the numbers. Andy Petrie is talking about how the Chevy teams need to get together and work together and make that ground up. I don't know whether they're working together, but they're starting to show some improvements as a whole.

So that was good to see. And the reason why I bring that up about Ryan Newman is because Ryan Newman is less than 100 points out of the playoffs. You know, there's enough races left for him to make a charge. I mean, if he keep this kind of performance up and sneak into those top tens and every once while legitimately getting the top 10 like he did this weekend, you know, he could work his way into that battle, and that's what we want to have is storylines.

And, you know, we talk about the big three. Everybody's sick of hearing about those guys, but they keep winning. As long as they're winning, we're going to talk about them. The other thing we're going to talk about is the bubble. And the bubble right now is Jimmy Johnson, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, and everybody else. And Ryan Newman is working his way into that conversation. So I'm going to keep an eye on Ryan Newman Because he's a kind of guy that does that

He slides on in there You absolutely right he does He sneaks up in there and under the radar He ended up in the final four You know Three years ago A couple years ago Almost had it

Wait And nobody can tell you how A hundred percent Right That's right That's how Newman does it So that's That's uh

The last thing we're going to talk about Is Jimmy Johnson 600 starts Yeah I was trying to think You know When somebody told me I think when I actually got to my 600 start, I was like, that don't sound like a lot.

You know, it don't feel like a lot. I don't know how to, how can I articulate it to where, you know, or make it relative to something that you would go, oh, wow, yeah, that is a lot. So, because in racing, what is 600 starts? I don't know. So, yeah, what do you compare that to, right? Yeah. So we did a little numbers crunching.

I got my stats guys. Tom Brady has started around roughly 290 football games. So Tom Brady is 40 years old, one of the best players in the game, comparable to Jimmy in performance and talent has 290-ish football games. Jimmy's 600 races. So that to me, I think, shows you how much racing Jimmy has done, how long he's been in the sport. I think that's a good way to compare it. The other thing about Jimmy is he's influenced my life.

We talk about Jimmy's stats, his championships, but we also talk about how great a guy he is. He got me into social media, and I joke about that, but it's true. He literally pestered me for two years about, hey, man, I know you as a person, and I know you're going to like this. Please, try this. And he said the same thing about cycling. And Jimmy's that kind of guy. He's not that kind of guy just to me. He's like that to everyone.

He thinks about other people. When he sees something that he enjoys, he thinks about who else might enjoy that. And then he calls them or texts them and says, hey, I thought about you, this is why. And he's politely persistent. Yes. You know, not knowingly persistent, but politely persistent. That, to me, is an amazing person. Yeah.

One that thinks of others and tries to influence their lives for the better. So I appreciate Jimmy for that. I got a quick question on Jimmy. Yep. For both of you guys. Yeah. You guys know the racing history better than I do. What is comparable to Jimmy Johnson's 600 start being with the same team, same sponsor, same crew chief?

Is there anybody else that you can compare that to? I'd say Tom Brady. He's been with the Patriots, he's been with Billichick. In all the sports, yeah. Yeah, but what about in racing? You can't even compare that to the king because, you know, the king had that, you know, him and Eminem split there. But, yeah, people would obviously think King, but, yeah, King had different crutches.

King drove for different manufacturers. King drove for different teams. Yes, that's right. Yeah, in 84, he drove for curb. Mike curb. Maybe Jimmy is the only one that's done that. You know, you just look at that, and I was thinking about it yesterday because there was all of a sudden that social media a little black.

right before the race of, oh, congratulations, Jimmy Johnson, 600 starts. And you're like, yeah, whatever. You see that every year. There's somebody that runs their, so, whatever, 100th race. But then you look at the 83 wins and that 600 starts, and you realize, like, I'm not a math guy. I freaking hate math. And then I looked at that yesterday. I'm like, man, that's like one win every, I don't know what it was, 7.5 starts or something stupid like that.

That's ridiculous. Yeah. It is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah, when Jimmy came into the Cup series, I'll tell you a little Jimmy's story. Jimmy's going to run its first Xfinity race. He's driving the Kingsford Charcalls car at St. Louis. Gateway.

Yeah. And he comes up to, he's like, hey, he calls me. He's like, hey, man, people are telling me I need to buy a bus. Do I need to buy a bus? I'm like, Jimmy, yeah, I'd wait a little while on buying a bus. Maybe he ran a bus for a little bit. Once you get some, you know, and I'm telling this to Jimmy Johnson, but this is Jimmy trying to start a career.

He doesn't have a full-time ride. I'm like, maybe once you get the full-time ride, then I'd buy the bus. Yeah, he's coming in with his ASA, people with Herzog, yeah, at the time. So we've been friends that long. So we would sit on the boat in Lake Norman, and we would talk about being teammates. When I was at DEI and he was at HMS, you always want to be teammates with your friends. You know, you always, even when you're great where you are, you always look and go, man, it'd be cool if we were teammates.

Yeah. You always do that. And so it, and we talked earlier on another show when I busted my head open at that party at Ricky's house. Who drove me to the doctor? 3 o'clock in the morning. That's friends. Yeah. Good guy.

Appreciate you, Jimmy, 600 starts, man. Congrats on that. Let's go to Ask Junior. Let's do it. It's time for Ask Junior. I got a question. You have a question for me? Hit us up on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior.

All right, some really good questions this week. Last week we had those video questions, but this week, using the hashtag Ask Junior on Twitter. Let's start out with Michelle Riston. During practice, when you were broadcasting from the turn, she asked, I guess she listens to the podcast because she remembers this. Being so close to the track, did you have any signs of the concussion symptoms that you felt at Martinsville when you were that close to the racetrack? Yeah, great question. I didn't. I had a little bit of that in the booth on Sunday when I looked, I was standing, we're pretty close to the track.

Yeah, I didn't have any there at that practice, which is strange. You'd think I would, considering how I felt at Martinsville. but during the race, we had this very limited view, and so you can only see the cars go by in about a very small window. And so watching, that was kind of weird, but I think that would make anybody feel funny. Yeah, I haven't had any issues all season since that little episode in Martinsville. And I'm glad, yeah, you know, I don't like having any kind of issue,

even normal things that people do that make you dizzy, even things that make you dizzy, Matthew, or you dizzy. when it happens to me, I go, oh, what was that? Yeah. But everything's been good. What was it like being in the corner like that? Because that's where I used to earn my bread and butter in the corner is there. I sat in, yeah, we climbed up there.

The scaffold that I got on top of, I think's been there since the track started. I'm not saying that in a joking manner. I'm serious. It's been there a very long time. You could see the old boilerplate wall that was the original wall in the set of 7980s. Took a picture of that. Yeah. And then there's like dirt between that.

and the concrete wall that they put in, and then there's, you know, the safer barrier they added eventually. It's kind of like seeing the rings of a tree. Chronological order, yeah. That's right. It's really, it's just like that. And watching the cars go through the bump in the tunnel and seeing how that upset them on exit was pretty fun.

You had a very good vantage point. It was great. I enjoyed it. And the reason why they put me out there was to give me a sense of what I'm going to be doing this weekend, Walkinsglen. And Wachens Glen, they're going to put me in the chicane or the bus stop. Oh, really? Great.

Yeah. So we're doing a radio-style. broadcast. So in the booth will be Rick Allen and LaTart and then Bagley and me and Jeff Burton will be out on the racetrack and they're going to put me in the bus stop.

That is incredible. I love that. I love that. So that was the reason why they thought to put me in the tunnel turn was to give me a little experience of watching the cars from a particular part of the racetrack and getting kind of a groove

of being a call. Sean Gabia wants to know. He said he recently saw the footage of you back when Steve Park had that flip at Pocono. And you running to Steve Park's car after the wreck. he wants to know, can you remember what was going through your mind in that time from when Steve Park finished his flipin, and you ran to him? I ran over the car and there was fuel and fluids and stuff leaking out of it.

So, you know, I just wanted Steve to get out of the car as fast as he could to, you know, before the car was, you know, there was to be any fire or anything like that. I think that the ground was wet, so we were, you know, we weren't going to have a fire as long as that was the case. but anytime there's fluid pouring out of the car, you want to, because his car's on his side, and I think the fuel is coming out of it. There's also a bit of a, you know, it's disorienting for anyone inside of a cockpit to be trying to get out of it when it's not upright.

Yeah. And so, you know, I was thinking, hell, what can I do to help him figure out his way to get out? And because you've got to come around, headrests and all that stuff. We had these, you know, we had all kinds of stuff in those cars that day that was a little unconventional

to be able to climb out of the car that way. And also the car, the car would easily topple over maybe with him and they're moving around in the cockpit trying to come out of it it could roll over on its roof or something so i was just trying to help him get out i remember when the car was flipping watching it was like slow motion because i was sliding backwards and he's flipping i remember him hitting the wall and going up in the air and it was like a bar of soap coming out of your hand it was like chew up in the wall just pushed it up in the air because the wall was like a spring. It launched a car and the guardrail. And I remember it

flipping real slow motion. All right. We're talking about Pocono and Rec. So let's give one more on that. You know, looking at Bubba's wreck, Jeff, who's Helly's Daddy, that's his tag there, says when you know you're going to hit the wall like that, do you ever scream or been like, ah? No, you don't scream. The only time that I've ever been in that situation, so when you have a failure and there's been some kind of failure on the car where you're either out of control, you don't have control of the steering, or you don't have any brakes,

and so you're flying into the wall and you know you're going to hit it, but you have enough time to think about it. So normally in Rex, you get hit, and the hitting just starts, you know. You don't have time to think about, I'm about to hit this, and this is going to hurt. Normally in Rex, the hits happen before it even,

you get a chance to think about it. But in that rare situation that Bubba described, where something breaks and you've got time to think like you're heading toward this wall at 180 mile an hour and you're going to hammer that damn thing. You don't know what the result's going to be. And you do think about like your own, your ability to survive it. Are you going to survive it? Are you going to die? Are you going to be injured? You know, you think about all those things. You would be surprised what all you can cover in a mere, you know, a couple seconds.

Bubba definitely had time to think about that because watching that replay in real time, real time, not slow-mo, but in real time, is horrifying. Even the third and fourth and fifth times you see it. Because of how much time he has to think before he hits that wall. Remind me at Jimmy Johnson at the Glen there where he had time to think of it. I remember him telling us that we were one of the first people to get to interview him after that. And he was like, man, I just looked up and I saw that styrofoam at Watkins Glen. And I thought it was the white concrete.

And I was like, I'm done. Yeah. Scary. Yeah. So you think about that. You think about, I don't know, favorite driver thinks about losing their life, but you potentially think about, you know,

being injured or, you know, just God, I hope I survive this. Yeah. There's some relief. I think that's where I think that's where the joke that he tells about, you know, they gave me a ultrasound and I don't have twins. I mean, you're, you're almost in a relief.

Right. Jovial mood because nothing, you know, it's all in one piece. Okay. Right. Holy cow. It's probably the only time when a driver will ever admit to being scared because there's no way you can dodge. There's no way you're going to fool anybody that you didn't get scared there. All right. Aaron Bratton wants to know, what's your most prized possession out of your retro NASCAR memorabilia?

Oh, gosh. Because I mean last week, we've had Connie in here. It's hard to pick. It really is hard to pick my favorite piece, but I have some old autograph books that I've bought either on eBay or I've required. that someone who was a fan went to the race and purposely sought out as many drivers as possible and got autographs and filled these books up. And I'm talking legends, not just stock car legends,

A.J. Foyt, Mario Andredi, and all these different guys from different motorsports disciplines, I have their autographs, and these are like autographs from the 40s, 50s, 60s, I have a Ralph Earnhardt autograph. Yeah, so those things, I never really, an autograph today almost doesn't have any value to me. It's so commonplace now. It is.

But will it be 50 years from now? That's a good question. Is it going to be that simple just to walk around the corner and grab a, you know, grab a Jimmy Johnson autograph off the table? That's a great question. Are you going to wish. The difference is you can't buy them. Are you going to wish 50 years from now that,

freaking a, I had so many opportunities to get Jimmy's autograph. I'm just using Jimmy as an example. It's true. 50 years from now, you're going to go, shit. Why don't I have a Jimmy autograph? I'd love to have that in my collection. You bring up a good point. My wife tells me all the time, you know, because I collect retro stuff like you do and stuff.

And she's like, why don't you have stuff for the last 20 years of your career? I'm like, because it's not cool. It's not cool. And she's like, think about your kid. You know, your kid's going to want like a Dale Earnhardt Jr. thing or Jimmy Johnson thing or Jeff Gordon thing. I'm like, ah, it's different. And it will be, we'll all regret, you know, not collecting modern, you know, modern autographs and memorabilia like we do the retro stuff.

We'll be, we baying the shit out of Jimmy Johnson autographs. We'll get that old Jimmy Johnson autograph. I have material thing. Oh, okay. I do have the answer. I'm glad I stuck around on this one. All right. The autographs are cool.

The number one, my number one favorite piece of memorabilia that I have, I have the uniform my dad wore in his first cup win. Really? Yeah. Let me tell a story. I think I've told that story. I'll tell it again because we always have a new audience, but we're cleaning out this storage unit. 80% of the stuff in this storage unit's junk. So we're cleaning it out, right? So a lot of junk. And we've got this flatbed dump truck that we're throwing everything in the back of. And I mean, we're just, you know, trash bag here, piece of furniture here, old frame picture and all, just crap. You know, that I just, I'm a hoarder in a storage unit.

If you give me a storage unit, filling it up. Because I won't throw away nothing. Yeah. I threw this trash bag in there and a few minutes goes by, half hour goes by. Buddy mine is helping me. He jumps up to the back of his truck. He's like, man, look all this stuff you're throwing away.

I got, I'm going to rummage through the trash. And I'm like, yeah, he's wasting time. All that's crap. We're going to get rid of it. And he opens up this trash bag and then it's a driver suit. Who's in a trash bag? No. And he's like, hey, dude.

there's a driver suit in his back. I'm like, really? I didn't even look at it. And he pulls it out, and it's that uniform. It's like the holy grail of uniforms. I mean, if Del Earnhardt, arguably, is the greatest race car driver that's ever been in a Cup series, his first win uniform has to be the top uniform.

That's like Hall of Fame stuff. To be collected, right? It's a step-a-blow-ha-hanna-car. Yes. Right. So here I have this uniform. Well, I didn't know. exactly what it was. I knew what era it was from. You could obviously look at it and say this is

7980, only one of those two years. So I get home, I got tons of pictures of his winds and him standing around in the garage and the pits. So I start looking for this uniform and it's got the patches and his patches were all different on each uniform in different places even. So there's no doubt when you look at the picture of him in Victor Lane at Bristol in 79 for his first win that he's wearing this uniform. That's incredible. And the funny thing is, he wore it 1980 also. So he wore it in 79 and 80. I got you.

So he didn't only win his first race in that uniform, but he continued to wear it. Maybe one in it again. I've yet to even look at the rest of the wins in the victory lane photos to see if he's wore this suit in other races or other wins in 1979, 1980. Other neat thing about that uniform is

if you look at his uniform from 1981, it's all yellow, but he has blue up here on top, on his shoulders, and it comes down in a V shape on both sides. Okay? And a little small V, and it's blue. And that's the only change from his uniform from 1980 to 81. Well, on this 1979 race-win uniform, there's ink pen,

where they drew on the uniform as if they're saying, hey, for next year's uniform, we're going to bring the blue down here and make it like that. So they drew on this uniform like, hey, guys, for 81, we're going to change this and change that. Isn't that crazy? is not like drawing it on a piece of paper. That, if I...

Right, right, right. Let's just bring the uniform out. Right. Get the Sharpie. We ain't going to forget this one. Let's just do that with your, uh, the exalta uniform. You know, the last one you... Back here?

What's next? This goes back to our whole thing. When these guys had this uniform in 1981, it wasn't, that wasn't a value to them. They put it in a plastic bag. It was modern memorabilia. Worthless. Yeah. Yeah.

Actually, good point. But now today, it's the most critical piece of memorabilia that could be in Dale Earnhardt's legacy. And to them, then, it was just an old uniform. We're going to draw on it, toss it aside. It's crazy. Somebody hand me that and said, hey, I got one of your dad's uniforms here, and I threw it up in a storage unit,

and then I almost threw it away. All right, Jimmy Sipriani comes in with this question. When you were a kid growing up, Dale, at your dad's races, were there any driver's kids that you really ran around the garage with? Absolutely. I had, there was a lot of dads. whether they were drivers, crew chiefs or whatever, that bring their kids to the racetrack. I was begging Dad to go every chance.

And there was, so Bob Wickham that owned the Pure Lader 10 car that Derek Cope won the Daytona 500 with in 1990. His son, Mike Wickham, would come to the track. We'd hang out a little bit. Mike is in Charlotte now. He owns some Jersey Mike's. Jersey Mike subs. Whoa. That's Jersey Mike?

No, it's not. He owns a Jersey Mike. Yeah. He's a franchise owner. Yeah, franchise owner. That was big. You kids, y'all made cess of yourselves. I mean, y'all are a big deal.

Yeah. And Doug William, who was a crew chief for various teams, he originally worked with Bud Moore when dad was there in the 80s. His son, Scotty and I, we hung out quite a bit. We raced go-carts a little bit or just played with our go-carts, really. We didn't race, like, organized racing, but. we weren't allowed to at that time.

Well, you hear that voice right there and that's one of them. Yeah. For the people listen to the podcast. Let's bring him in. This is Brad Means, Jimmy Means son. Me and Brad were probably

out of all the kids or people that came to the racetrack I spent most time with Brad. Brad would do the same. Brad was pretty much like me, beg his dad to go to race every chance he would go to every race. He would go to probably

a little bit more races than I would. So when you get a chance to go, So, whether you're 12, whether we were 15, as soon as you get to NASCAR registration, sign in, have your pass in your hand. And your dad, his mind's like race car, going to do race car, wherever I got. I got somewhere I got to be. His day is planned. As soon as we get our pass in our hand, me and him, like, sought each other out. I'd be over in his holler.

Brad over here. Brad over here. And, you know, he'd be at mine. We'd find each other immediately. And we'd spend the rest of the weekend together. And we did all kinds of stuff. We were at either, we might go, if there was a go-car track nearby that's paid a ride or something, we may go over there. A lot of times we would wander around in other people's haulers.

Oh, for sure. Like we owned the places. Yep. Just going there. Like the coolest thing is as a kid, you know, going in, I would walk straight in the three trailer, Delernhardt, you know, the biggest icon in our sport. Just walk straight to the lounge, R.C., whoever's in there. He's like, you know where he's at. All right.

I'm out. Like I owned it. You know, it's awesome as a kid because it was a lot of different environment back then. About how old do you guys? I mean, I know this is over the span of many years, but I'm saying, you know, when did you guys start becoming buddies at the racetrack? I first met junior and I was 12 at Riverside. Okay. 1988.

Oh, so you remember the time you met Del Jr.? I do. Absolutely. Well, and why do you remember that? Why is that so memorable? Because I don't think, like, you know, at that age, a lot less media at this time, you know, far as a lot smaller bubble. It's like, my dad tells me that Del Senior has a son. He's like, he'd like to meet you, which is crazy.

because, like, I didn't know that how big a fan junior was in my father. So that was, like, really cool for me that my opposite hero, not opposite, but my hero other than my father was Dale, right? So it's really cool that you can kind of come together that way. So we sought each other out at Riverside the first time I'd ever been to California. It's a lot different experience than it is now, of course. So we spent, like, that entire weekend together, hanging out, staying out of the way. The biggest thing was staying out of the way. That's why I could do our own thing was stay out of the way.

Not cause trouble for our dad's doing their job, right? So as long as we didn't hurt ourselves, we were good. And I'll never forget that weekend, I got your dad's phone number. You wrote it down on a piece of paper, and it was from the Beverly Hills Hotel, and he gave it to me. And we had the same red-eye flight to go back home, which is a lot different than today as well, you know. So we were in coach. You guys were in first class. I mean, hey, you know, and Kelly was going to swap with me and sit with my dad, so I'd go and sit with you.

But we never made it. We fell asleep. So that was it. Junior fell asleep on a flight? I don't believe that at all. We both did. Yeah, I got you. But that's how it started.

So every weekend after that, we'd go. We'd seek each other out in the other group. Like, he talked about all the other kids, like a little pack running around. Yeah. It was a lot fun. I remember going to, I'm a real big fan of underdogs. Any sport, you know, when it comes to March Madness, whatever it is.

I'm like, man, you know, Cinderella story, Underdog. And that was Jimmy. Jimmy was independent. I didn't know much about him other than I knew his car. I'd, you know, followed racing for a while. I knew Jimmy's sort of story a little bit and how he, I recognize his car right away through any of the years in his career. But it's probably 1986 maybe or somewhere around then, 85. We were at North Wilsonville Speedway, and back then they just kind of parked you wherever.

And dad's down on the end and turn one and next to him is Jimmy's car. and I said to dad, I said, I know that car, I like, I like that guy. And he's like, you want to meet him? I said, yeah. And this was a really rare moment where dad had a few seconds that we were having a conversation at the racetrack when I was, you know, I'm 10 years old. Typically, he's like, all right, where the track? You sit here, don't move.

I'm going to be practicing it out all day. Do not leave this hauler. You stay right here. And that was that. You know, you stuck close and stayed out of the way, like Brad said. But he was a little bit down time. So he walks me over a few feet. There's Jimmy introduce me to Jimmy.

I was like, wow, I met Schmutt Means. Jimmy Means. So that was it. I was Jimmy Means fan, solid from there on out. I followed Jimmy his whole career even today. And, yeah, so Dad and Jimmy got to talk, and I thought it'd be cool to introduce us to. And so I think just shortly after that, maybe a year or two later, you know, Riverside and hung out.

And so during, I remember one time during Caledega race, the race is going on, and we would stand around in the garage and wait for the cars to come in that were fall out of the race, and we'd just look at them, you know, whether they were wrecked or not. But man, as soon as a car came in the garage that was out of the race, we were like all over it. Like vultures. Yeah, just like, oh, look, you know, whoa, it's hot, you know.

And it's all smoky and bit. And we just couldn't get enough. I mean, we were running from one end of the freaking track to the other all over the property. We were in the souvenir rigs. Driver's lounges. The drivers had driver's lounges back then that they used. This is like a building. Yeah, yeah.

You know, not the lounge. There was a dedicated room in the garage. Oh. You know, probably wherever the gas pumps were or something like that. The drivers had a lounge that they could go into it. And we'd sit in the lounge. hours. They had AC and showers for the drivers.

Watching TV and all that. We were just in there goofing off. We would, the drivers would come in and they, you know, knew who we were and they talked crap to us and stuff. And we would go into the media center. You know,

every driver had their own folder of, you know, here's his stats, here's a sticker and a postcard and everybody had their own. Some were way more robust than others. And we would go into the media center and be like, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, buddy. And we'd walk out with all of them, and we'd go and lay them all out and take out of things we wanted and postcards and whatever. Every week we would get. The same thing. The same thing. And Jimmy Means one that was like this. Yeah, kind of, yeah. Every week we would go get the same thing.

Right. We would get the starting lineup. And, I mean, the media's in there trying to use all that stuff. Do their jobs. And we're in there just, gimme, give me, give me. And we would, like at Talladega, we'd go. wander over to the dirt track at night and watch dirt track races. Wow.

I don't know what our dads were doing or where they were. They weren't with us. We were not hurting ourselves. That was the biggest thing. Stay out of their way. You said as long as you stayed out of that way, you were fine. Think about it. We didn't have cell phones and stuff like that.

So for our dads to just like trust us to just chew, chew, you know, wander off. So to be a parent now and think about that. Yeah. I can't fad on that. For my kids, all right, I'm not going to see you for like 12 hours. Yeah. Take care yourself, right? Yeah, in a racetrack.

At a racetrack. There's no suspect people at a racetrack. Not at all. Not at all. Dad, we're going to go over to this go-car track on, you know, 15 minutes away and ride go-cars. Don't know how we get there and all that. So how would you get there? I mean, we're out there on the side of Palenega Boulevard.

We'd find somebody that would take us or. There would always be like a racetrack mom or something that would come like for, like with my dad's team. They'd bring food. My dad always fortunate people have people come help like voluntary. volunteer help from all over the country. And typically, like, one of those people would take us because they were, like, keep us out of the way, you know, so that was a lot of fun. Yeah.

And I think one of Mike Wickham may have got his license first, so he ended up driving us a few times because they would always have a rental. And he'd steal his dad's rental, and we'd, you know, not steal, but he would take his dad's rental and we'd go. So you said, as long as you all stayed out of your dad's hair, you were fine, which I believe that, knowing, you know, knowing what I know of both your dads. Do you recall ever a time when that didn't happen? like you actually caused some trouble or whatever and you had to get your dad's involved well the only the only thing i remember

like from a trouble was which was like we didn't know we did it until after like we were at richmond one time and wearing my dad's uh tractor hit a cab over his blue aquacelser uh tractor and uh we were as a rain it's a rain right so we were in the the sleeper of the truck because it's raining we can't be we can't play in the rain it's way too wet right so we're staying out of the way which is like trying to cage animals in such a small room because it's like we're going nuts, right? So we're listening to radio, I think, like, Def Leopard. I think we play Def Leopard. I think we play DeFleopard of hysteria, like, for 12 hours straight in the rain, right?

So we're, like, you know, telling stories and, like, dreaming about driving race cars and doing the things that, you know, kids do in our position as driver's kids, you know, so that's what we're doing. That's every weekend we do that. So we're talking about, would you run this car where you want to race at and those things that just telling stories about everything. So we're sitting there listening to music all day long. I can't remember if the race rained out or if we even ran a race that day.

I can't remember at all. But I do remember that we just turned the radio down. We didn't turn it off. So we leave and my dad's truck driver at the time who did everything for my dad. He did like he was the guy, right? His name was hippie. Awesome guy. I didn't know his name for like 12 years.

It's about hippie, right? Yeah. So he goes to leave the track and the tractor won't start because we killed all the batteries. So that's probably the only time that I ever got in trouble. Ran it out? I didn't know if you were there for this, but at one time we were at Michigan and we climbed up on top of the the purillator. Oh, I was beside you.

You were. Of course. So we climb up on top of the hauler of the 10 purulator car, and I knocked freaking laptop off the top of the son of the bitch and busted it. I mean, like, yeah, like, yeah, it was, there's definitely a lot of silence right there. Knowing what I know now, I feel even worse about it. Yeah. Because then, you know, they didn't, they were like, you could tell it was disappointment on their

face, but they didn't say, get to F out of here. You don't, you know, y'all get off this hauler and get out. out of here, you get in the way or anything like that? They were just like... What team is that? The 10? The 10 team, Derricko. Derrick Coe.

Bob Wickham owned it. I think it was Steve. Was it Steve Peterson? I think that's who it was. Really? Yeah, that was his laptop. Yeah. Wow.

What's the story with Steve Peters? Well, Steve Peterson was official in NASCAR up until, I don't know, 2010 or so? But it was like, I mean, it was like, because there were no laptops back then, right? It was not like it is today. That was like, it was huge. Today, you have stuff backed up on servers and stuff like that. Still, it'd be just his fist stuff. off.

There weren't many laptops around back then. No, not at all. So that was like they were sort of, that was innovative. Innovative. Innovative stuff for them to be up there with laptops and all that. I wonder how that information gets relayed back to your dad's. Like, do the, does the purlayer team go talk to, they probably just internally found out? My dad would have.

Yeah. My dad would have pulled a belt off. Yeah. Right there in the garage. No, he would have just, I'd have known he'd have found out because he'd have felt it. Yeah, for sure. You'd have felt it. Yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. It would be shame. It would be more than that. Our dads both had the, would get the belt. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's pretty cool. I'm fascinated. I always have been about Dale Jr.'s always pulling for the underdog. And that's, you know, hoping underdogs win, that's not too unnatural. But you usually wait until the underdog is like contending for a race win or whatever. You know, in an Olympics, you got somebody contending or whatever. But Dale Jr. knew of Jimmy Means before anything.

And he was fascinated by the underdog, right? Yeah. Where did that come from? I don't really know. I don't really know. It might have been, it might have came from Jimmy. Going to that race in North Willsboro, I had, I didn't, like I met other drivers. I didn't know any other drivers.

Never really met anybody in the sport at that point. And so Jimmy just happened to be the car next to Dad. And he's, dad said, hey, you want to meet the guy that drives his car. Yeah, that's cool. And I was like, yeah, I do. Okay, you know, whatever you want, whatever you say, Daddy. Yeah. And so that was all it takes, you know.

It's just like if you're a kid and somebody takes you to a baseball game and you've never been to a baseball game and you're like, cool, whoever wins is my favorite team now. Yeah, and if you happen to meet a player or something like that, they're your favorite player. Yeah, exactly. Fan for life. And Jimmy, Jimmy did play the underdog role and the independent role his whole career, but there was one race at Richmond in 87 that, you know, they just hit on it and had a good enough car to drive up there and take the lead. and he passed that for the lead, and led a handful of laps and finished seventh. Seventh or ninth, I think.

And back then, that race wasn't even on TV. Yeah. It was taped, but it was on the radio. So it's like, just go back. We watch it at your house, right? You go back and watch it. It's just awesome because you remember this in the MRN and hearing it. We're hearing it on the MRN going,

wow, Jimmy's running this good. This is incredible. Oh, he passed for the lead. Wow, what the heck, you know? And we can't see it. It's driving us crazy. One other thing that I remember that was, that was really difficult.

Me in 86, I believe, or 85, they built the condos in term one at Charlotte. And so, if I'm in the condo, Brad's in the condo, man. And, hey, Brad, you know, I got the perfect place to watch the race today. That was our other thing, seeking out the best place to watch the race. That was one thing we did, like on Friday or Saturday. All right, man, we've got to find out we were going to watch this thing. Yeah. And not in the way, also.

And we would find these little niches and perches and where no one else was. You know, that's great, man, here. This is going to be our spot. I saw him down in the garage or something. I'm like, man, we're going to watch it in a suite. It's all good. It's going to be cool. And anyways, this was right around when Tim Richmond was getting sick.

And so Tim Richmond has AIDS, HIV. But nobody really knows at this particular point. Jimmy's going to drive a car. You know, I don't know exactly how that came about, but... I don't really know exactly how he got the opportunity to, but I think, you know, he'd run well, and Rick just wanted to give somebody an opportunity that hadn't had one. Jimmy drove Tim Richmond's car. Yeah, for Rick.

Rick Hendricks's like, hey, here's a guy that needs an opportunity. It's so awesome. That is so cool. Jimmy qualified fourth? Fifth. So Jimmy qualifies fifth, right? At this particular point, me and Brad are like over the moon. Yeah.

This is the most exciting. it. That's the most exciting thing ever. We cannot freaking wait to watch this race. We're up in the suite. The condo. The condo. The only people in there is Tristan and some of our family. It's going to be great. This is paradise. We just can't imagine how much anticipation there is. He is sitting there about to watch his dad realize his dream of being in a competitive car. He's already showcased he has a speed.

And that's my dream too, right? As his son. That's all I want. It's going to be that opportunity. So the race starts and eight four, five, ten laps go by. And they had somebody, I, like, Dad fell back. He wanted to, like, he wanted to be a little bit of conservative and take care of his equipment.

And he knows. So he's like, 10th, 15th or whatever. My dad's back there. I think it's Derek Cope. I think it is. Derek Cope triggered this accident. And I'm talking 15 cars. Oh, yeah.

Crash into this accident. And Jimmy destroyed the front end of his car. And me and Brad sat there and that, that no one else, now think about it, no one else in this condo is plugged into this moment like we are. No one else is a Jimmy's fan in this condo. They didn't like, they didn't dislike Jimmy, but it was like, you know. No big deal. They weren't.

No relationship. They weren't clued into what was happening. So me and Brad are sitting at the front couch right against the glass, sitting there balling our eyes out. Really? Oh, yeah. It was like it's traumatic. That's sad.

Yeah. Yeah. That was it. That was the opportunity. So Derek Colt triggered a wreck that collected Jimmy. Yeah. Your dad. That was early in the race?

It was very early. Like way too early. 10 laps. That sucks. And it was over. I was so heartbroken and we knew that, you know, more than likely that Jimmy wasn't going to get an opportunity like that. Yeah. Jimmy goes back and he gets a, you got an Alka-Seltzer deal.

That was pretty cool. Those are some good years. That light blue car. My favorite car that Jimmy drove was actually the Eureka car, and I designed my street stock that I ran. And my first ever race car, my street stock is the same paint scheme. Really? Red and flat black hood. I couldn't get the red red, so I had a poppy red orange car, but the black hood and the white numbers.

Oh, yeah, the white numbers red car black hood. That was a knot. And we had Hardee's on the hood, but we angled it just like Eureka. He had the Eureka vacuum cleaner sponsorship. So I angled the hardies on my hood just like that and everything. And it was a nod to Jimmy's Eureka car. The Eureka car that Jimmy drove. was in the 87-86 season.

My street stock is in 1990, 1991. So this is like a, you know, he's already moved on to another paint scheme, but I just love that car. I just thought, man, black hood, that's badass. You know, that's outlaw. My car is painted, but my hood's black. Yeah. So.

A little rebellious. Yeah. Me and him would draw, he said it, we would draw race cars all the time. We would talk about this is the bad, this would be the baddest paint scheme because this sponsor would be so cool. And if we could get this sponsor, this would be a cool way to design it. We did that. We did that all day long, all weekend long.

He actually, they got the Alka-Seltzer sponsorship in 1989. He designed the car for his dad. Really? And how old? 12, 13. So that's a great-looking car. Yeah. Yeah.

It was just simple. Like their graphics department, you know, they designed like really busy, like complicated paint schemes. And I'm like, Dad, that just doesn't look good. That won't look good. So what do you think? So I drew up some stuff. and I gave it to them, and that's what they went with. And I would do that all the time.

Dad had people looking for sponsors and two proposals. That's the car. I placed Jimmy Means when I think Jimmy Means. That's the car that I think about. That's for sure. So his dad's always chasing sponsors just like we are today, and he would draw all the cars for the proposals. Oh, wow.

Because it was a lot less technical than it was today. You were one of the original marketers, NASCAR marketers. That's right. That's bad. So let's bring this full circle. And when we started. our fantasy football team a couple of years back. He called his fantasy foot team Smut means business.

Smut means business. Smut means business and it was, my logo was that number 52. That's awesome. Yeah. And then Junior cheated and I didn't win the championship. I find it hard to believe. I thought this was coming full circle when Derek Cope wrecked y'all and that had to do with the laptop.

He was busted. Actually, yeah. Derek Cope's crash was 86. The Derek Cope wreck was 87. I got you. And the laptop is 91. 90. Hey, did you guys ever, like, go to, like, when Dale Earnhardt would win a race and you guys are there, would you go to Victory Lane ever?

That was the, that's a really cool story for me. North Hook Spura. We were hanging out all weekend. First race with the radial tire. Oh, wow. Really? Maybe the first win for Dad in the black car. I think it could be.

Whoa. And there's a couple pictures. Well, there's a lot of pictures, obviously, in the Victory Lane. Like, and I went there that we were hanging. out all weekend. That was one of our favorite tracks to go to because it's close to home, right? So you would most time always go to that race. And we'd wreak havoc and the driver's lounge and everywhere because it was like small and that was home for us. Dale happened to win. And Junior's like, let's go, Victor Lane. It's on top elevator. So I go up there and I'm in the back corner out of the way because

I'm just privileged to be there. You know what I mean? And we were hanging out and I think that's so awesome. And Junior had this big trucker hat of my dad's on. That's the car. Yeah, they weren't cool luck they were today, you know. And, uh, like, and I remember standing in the corner and they do all the hat dance and all the woo faces for all the pictures and junior, not take the hat off. So every picture that you see from that race, the cover Winston Cup scene, everybody's got, they're all kneeling number one. Junior's got the, my dad's hat on. So that's neat. That's a really cool story for me. And after that, all the celebrations over, they got the big fake check. Yeah. And I got to carry that down. And they got so awesome. You know what I mean? So it's,

that's a really cool memory for me. That is neat. You know, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, hear a lot of fun stories like him you know stealing some change out of his dad's jar and the in the house and all that but y'all hung out together and got into some mischief i'm sure when you're kids you know i heard you guys you know talking about going go-kart racing uh any really cool fun stories out of that like uh you know talladega they'll mention we'd go there a lot for whatever reason it was close semi-close to the uh track and it was a it was a cool track they would wet one corner down and have like fast carts and like they have like fast carts and normal carts So we're in Tallega and we go in the garage, you know, go in the lounge of the three truck and Junior asks his dad for some money to go-carts.

And like, we all had like 20 bucks and Senior gives Junior a hundred bucks, you know. And I guess it's on, you know, so we're going. Jackpot. So Junior's buying the fast ones. We're by, you know, we're like being, you know, economic minded, you know, getting the slow ones. They're $5 a piece and the fast one's $10 a piece. And we'd also take, because it got sandy and like dirty at this track and you get grit in your eyes and you couldn't see. You know, so that would, we'd take actual bubble goggles from our dads and wear them.

So we could see because it was serious. Go-carts were serious for us, you know. Our whole group would go there. We wanted to win, you know, even for leisure go-carts. That's what we did. So we'd go back the next day. We'd spend all our money. Junior spent us $100 and senior expected to have change back.

There was no change to give. He's a racer. He should know. Apparently dad doesn't know how expensive go-cars are, especially the fast ones. I mean, he needs to know. Money by speed, baby. I mean, we'd spend that $100 that ride and go cars in a couple hours.

Yeah. It'd be gone quick. That's hilarious. Spend all you got. Just like racing, right? You spend all you have. I wonder, it's such a different dynamic. I wonder like the driver's kids, the ones that are around, you know, I don't know how many

there are that have 10 and 12 and teenagers, but like if they kind of run in a pack at the tracks, kind of like you guys did back in the day. I think they do. I think it's a lot different. It's just so different, right? I mean, it's more organized. But I think, you know, as far as MRO and a lot of the great things that's come along through those guys, they have the same type of things.

thing, right? But it's not, way less freedom than what we had. It's less six-pack, less rag tag. Oh, yeah. Less six-pack. That's great movie. Our dads would tell you that they worked on the cars ever since they got, once they threw the passie out, that they were actually wrenching on the cars with their dads. That's what they would believe.

Right. But they were running around, eating bologna sandwiches and being idiots, just like we were. Yeah. And the funny thing is, you know, at that time, you know, they have minors, passes and all that. Now, we couldn't get passes. I don't know how many times you rode on the floorboard covered up with rags to getting racetracks. I did that a lot, you know.

Well, yeah, we still do that. No, I'm kidding. Because I was like, because at one time you could be 12, you know, and under and, you know, get in, like for free or whatever, not to pay or get a pass or whatever. And I was like, the tallest 12-year-old ever because I was just 12, he's 12, or if I wasn't hiding under rags and a floorboard. Get a mustache, but yeah, no. My parents used to ask me to squat when we went to the ticket booth. Yeah, because then they had to say, and do the same things. We had to pull in here and drop something off, you know, in our car and open the trunk up and I'd dive out the door and go into the trailer, you know, just.

I bet you guys know every nook and cranny of every racetrack. I mean, you guys have, talk about kids exploring and going through the neighborhoods and finding the hole and kind of dick going. You guys probably know stuff about racetracks that nobody, that people that work at the racetracks don't even know. We did for then, back then for sure. It was so much fun. What was your favorite?

It's hard to be, like for me, Bristol, you know who works for a kid, they're in my two favorites because Bristol at that time, the asphalt with the, like, the light, we'd go sit on the bank after a cup qualifying to watch. to watch the bush race on the hill and to see the light reflect off the black asphalt. Yeah, so this is awesome. He says on the hill, this was before they put the grandstands all the way around. And off of turn two, you could sit on this grassy heel

and actually watch the race. And a lot of teams would go up there, a cup guys would go up there after, you know, after Cup qualifying and they were done. Because there are no tunnels. Yeah, you had to get out. You had to get out. You'd leave the track because if you didn't leave then, you were trapped during the Xfinity race. You couldn't get out.

So, yeah. That was great. Yeah. Bristol was great because it's small. It's small and we, you know, trying to run. We would literally, I'm telling you, we'd go from corner to corner of the property. We would not, there was not some,

there was not a part of the racetrack property that we did not see at some point during the weekend. The hill on Bristol was so much fun because it's, I mean, there's so much, there's action everywhere, right? So it's not like everybody's spread out, or everybody's spread out, so not like they're one line together.

So you can stand on a hill and you jump up and point the other way and everybody jumps up and looks. Because it's so much going on there. They lose focus. But that was fun to do that. During the cup races, all the teams had comfort coach vans. So this is a conversion van. And like a 15-passener van that's been converted to something a little more nice.

And a lot of the drivers had them and they would park them into turns. There's no guardrail really between you and the racetrack. There's just like 30 feet, you know, 40, 50 feet of grass. And all the, you know, the drivers would park their buses or their vans over there. and they'd have ladders on the back and we'd climb up there and sit and watch the race and I mean you could see the drivers in there working their hands and stuff and you could watch them come through the corner and a couple guys that are disagreeing with each other for about 20 laps just beating on each other and they finally wreck in front of you they roll down the hill

into the grass right next to you and you're like there I don't I don't think that it can ever get like that again but it was the best experience I mean even if I'm a 43 year old fan today, that would be the way I'd want to watch a race. It was great as a kid. That's why you're a fan today, right? You experienced that, right? You'll never really replicate that. No, you can't.

You can never go back. Intimacy that you had with. At that time, for sure. Those ages for me, that was the best time of my life as far as those experiences. Did you guys have other drivers, not your dads that you both, you both liked to watch race? Like, I always like Kyle. You know, Kyle Petty. I always liked him because he was like just cool.

He was always cool to us. Yeah, we'd see Kyle Petty, because Kyle Petty used to smoke cigarettes, and he would sneak into other haulers and other people's lounges and smoke cigarettes. Why would he sneak in it? I don't know. He's hiding from his dad. Yeah. And, like, you know, I saw you posted something on Twitter the other day.

Like, Trickle was always cool. Yep. And this briefcase was with candy bars and cigarettes in it. Did he not? Always. That was the only thing in it. And a baby change of underwear, I think. Right.

That briefcase is like, it's like that briefcase in Pulpiction. You open it up and there's a. Glowing. But it's Reese's underwear. You need underwear, man. Everybody needs back up. If your Dick Trickle, after a long day of smoking,

eating greasy cups and sitting in race cars, you've got out. You better have freaking dry underwear to put on. I mean, who wants to drive home in wet underwear? Who wants to have wet underwear on it? I don't. He was a smart man.

Dick Trickle, gosh, almighty. And he'd walk, as I said, and Dale said, we just walk in the lounge is like we owned them, right? And our friend Scotty, his dad's recruit you for trickle at the time. We're in the lounge,

like three of us. Like that's where they do work. Everything. Everything, right? So we're in there, like, it's ours, you know, in the way. So Trickle would come in there and get his coffee like every morning. And he had this like little Detroit lean stance he'd get his coffee with. And he looked at his briefcase, get his candy bar to be out.

To be a kid and be around those guys. Yep. Richard Petty, Bobby, all those guys. When we were little was awesome. Yeah. I remember Kyle's going to be mad as hell at this. I remember, say it, say it, say it. I think you were there.

Scotty, our buddy Scotty, he was. the kind of guy that would do this. But Kyle comes in and starts smoking a cigarette. And Scottie goes, you know that every puff takes 20 seconds off your life? And Kyle goes, 20, 60. It sounds like Kyle. And Kyle's like, shut up, kid. I want to hear from you.

Man, that is, I can see it even knowing Kyle today. Kyle, he's that one. Yeah, he don't care. Kyle don't care. Yeah. That's why he liked him because of Kyle's, you know, attitude. He has the same attitude today. Yeah.

I think that's why you liked it because he was so carefree. That is cool. That is. Kyle don't care. You know, it's really cool. You know, just watching you guys laugh and stuff like this. You know, I had friends growing up at the racetrack and whatnot. But y'all are in your 40s now.

Paddad. And you're still old. Yeah. You're still friends. You know, that loyalty, that bond there that you have in racing with your friends, sometimes it's just unbreakable. It's just cool to see people friends that long. So Brad, Brad gave me his.

his dad's uniform that he drove in that race where he drove Richmond's car. Really? Brad, I say gave. Brad thinks he gave it to me. But it's basically just mine till Brad's ready to take it back. It's on a loan. I have Jimmy's 1974 Winston Racing Series Championship helmet. So when you win the Winston Race Series Championship regionally or nationally, you got a helmet.

Was it the red with the white striped? Oh, yeah. So 74. What track? Nashville. Nashville. Yeah, neat. So I have that.

I have an old Oldsmobile Alka-Seltzer race car that they, where'd you buy that car? It was a mailing car. No, sorry, it's a Jackson car. Okay. It was a Jackson car. Leo Jackson. So the Skoll Bandit. So they buy this car to try, you know, they usually ran Pontiacs trying to get better.

Wasn't a very good car. Didn't work out. Raced it a couple times. I think Mike Wallace wrecked at Atlanta. And broke a shoulder. Broke the shoulder blade. That was in the car. The car's been sitting in this guy's fence.

outside for a long, long time, and I finally got my hands on it, and it's in the graveyard. So I have an old Jimmy Means car. That's the only Alka-Seltzer car in existence. Really? That's it. That's the only one that's left. And you got it. It's missing a fender and a nose.

It's like the Holy Grail. And it's an Oldsmobile, you know, they ran Pontiacs back in there. It needs a front and rear clip and a frame rail, but it's, you know. Besides that, ready to race. It's got a tree going through it right now. I think that, you know, Dad gave you a, for your birthday. that open-face Alka-Seltzer helmet.

Dang, yeah, I got Alka-Seltzer helmet. Oh, really? Yeah. And it means a lot to me because junior's, you know, affinity from my father and makes my dad feel, you know, special that somebody at a junior status in our sport looks up to them and admires him. So they have a really good bond and that's important to me. So he'll preserve that and kind of foster that, you know.

I've got a question. There was a moment, and you may have to refresh my memory because the details are foggy, but about five years ago, Daytona, Wasn't Jimmy Means your car? Because Jimmy Means is still going to the track, racing. He's got drivers that race. They were in an early crash. Was it a practice crash or a qualified crash?

And Dale Jr., there with our junior motorsports cars, unloaded a backup, I believe, for your dad to be able to race. Yes, sir. I can't even remember who. Bobby Santos. Bobby Santos. Oh, that's right. I remember Jimmy being, like, moved to emotion for that.

For that gesture by Dale. And Dale was just like, it was almost like an O'Rand for me. Oh, for sure, yeah. That was like the first, like, COT-style race in February for the Xfinity series for that year. So that whole year, all those, that's what you ran all year, was those cars. And that car there, it was a struggle to get it together. There was a front row chassis from, like, Dad's good friend, Bob Jenkins, gave him the chassis. And I want to think that he got the body parts from Junior Motorsports.

And then I put the body on it, and it was like brand new car. take it down there like first time on racetrack that a suspension part failure and totaled it i mean santo's lucky he didn't get hurt because he hit a ton i mean a ton and at that moment that's one of the best paying races of the year for you know for that series and that's that means a lot to my you know my father's existence on the purse money to survive at that moment what do you do because he didn't have a backup car and uh like to your point instantaneously i forget who asked dad if you had a car and said no so we got one i think y'all may be running four cars there at that time so you're like spread thin on cars yeah you're like you're like spread thin on cars yeah you're

You may be in the race. We had four cars. We had four backups. We had lots of cars, man. Yeah, I saw Jimmy's car crash, and I saw it in the garage area, and I was curious if they had a backup, and I was assuming they didn't. And so I asked Tony Senior, I said, hey, man, I got, I really, this is a crazy idea, man, but I'd love to give Jimmy one of our backups.

He doesn't have a car. He needs to run this race, at least get, you know, start and get the points. And get the money. This was the best paying race. This is a race that he needs to be. in and he's counting on that race to, you know, he's already budgeted his season off that race. And without that race, you know, it changes everything. Tony Sr. is like, yeah, we can make it work.

We'll figure it out. So we unloaded one of their cars, one of our cars, and Bobby drove it. And so in this race, the tandem's kind of getting figured out. People are figuring out the tandem drafting, but I didn't want to do it. I was like, I ain't freaking doing that. I ain't racing. So I'm sitting there running and they're like, all right, man, they're telling me where the leader is. He's a leader's half a lap behind you or half a lap ahead of you.

Okay, no problem. We're still good running along. And I look in the mirror and it's Santos. He's back there behind me. And I'm like, oh, man, look, Jimmy's car is running pretty good. You know, I didn't know where they were, you know. I didn't know whether he even started parked or what. You know, I didn't know what they decided to do.

And I told Jimmy, you know, just do whatever. He said, I saw before the race. I saw before the race. I said, y'all just race if you want race. man. So here he is up there, and there's about six or eight of us, and I'm kind of leading this little six or eight pack, and I'm watching him, watching him, watching him in the mirror, watching him in the mirror, and he bounced off the fence, and I was like, hey, tell him to calm down now. I was like, I was like, I just wanted him to finish good, because I knew the higher

they finished, the more money they were going to get. I was like, tell him chill out now. Don't freaking wreck. And I didn't care if you crash a car for our sake. but I wanted Jimmy get best possible finish you could. And then the leaders started catching us, and I was like, well, I guess if I'm not going a lap down here, I better start tandem drafting with some man. I think I got hooked up with Joe Nimichick. We started going.

And I don't remember seeing them after that much. But I mean, actually all day, 17th, I think. Yeah. Like all day, all the car, like your junior sports cars and dad's car, you know, with Bobby, they all ran really close together. Yeah. So it was like fun. It was so much fun for me because we, you know,

trying to do all the fuel strategy stuff together, right? the more cars for draftions is better. So, like, I'm on dad's pit box. Tony Senior's on one. Tony Jr.'s on one. And I'm running back and forth between the two of them and talking to dad about what's, you know, what we're going to do is we don't mess their plan up.

You know, I mean, trying to help. You know how when you're, you know, you appreciate somebody, but you have a hard time sort of being able to articulate how much they mean to you. And you never feel like you get a chance, you know, get it clear so they know. That was the perfect opportunity to show Jimmy what he meant to me and how much I appreciated him.

Because his whole career was, inspiration to me on perseverance initiative determination. I mean all the things that got thrown to this guy and all the difficulties he had to battle with finances and so forth in this sport, the changes in this sport. So many things happen with little regard really to how it affects the teams and especially a team like his and he continued to work through it and they'd figure out a way. Anyways, this was the golden opportunity. right in front of me to show Jimmy what he meant to me

or to show him some appreciation. And that made the year. Because that finish, that made the year. If you start off that year without the purse money, without the points, like it's the year's over. You know, for those small teams, that meant so much.

You know, I mean, it was like, that made the year for a dad, for sure. Well, that's old school, cool. Yeah. That is. I wish there were Hall of Fames for moments like that and for people that just work their butts off. Not for wins and they're not sitting there

They're just doing it because of passion Just because they love Jimmy's still racing You guys are still racing? Where were you this weekend? We were in Pocono and that was in Iowa They finished 19 And he's still, I mean, through some health problems lately He's still getting after.

He had a heart attack. Michigan didn't even call him tell me Because he's old school. He's at a different, he's standing at a house somewhere And I found out of the racetrack next morning And what did he say when you talk to him? Go find me some tires. I need help.

That's what he wanted. Yeah, don't come see him, he go find him some cars. Incredible. That's just, that's what, you know, we grew up racing and we're racers. That's what we do. You don't know anything else. You get, you're lost without some connection to it. I feel like that I would be, you know. Yeah.

I don't know what, you know, you've seen this year with not being in a car, but you're still connected. So I think you'd always have to be connected in some way because that's definitely. Racing's a family. You know, I mean, like you're my oldest friend outside of any of my family members, and that hasn't changed from 12 years old to now. You know, I mean, those people that you meet in this business, there are some wonderful people and you never forget them and they'll do great things for you and you do great things for them

and it's just it's been awesome to grow up that way. Well, when you've knocked over Derek Cope's laptop, you're kind of winged man for life. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's kind of a golden rule in NASCAR. I don't know if you knew that. Speaking to the driver's lounge things, I remember one, like at Bristol, you know, small area,

we go in there, we're going to go in there one day and they're not going to let us in. Security Guard, new guy didn't know us, whatever. He's kind of getting a little, you know me. He's getting a little mouthy, right? Yeah, yeah. So, uh, Junior looks at the guy and goes, look, look, my dad's Del Earnhardt, his dad Jimmy Means, and we're going in here. And we went in there. I mean, it's like, you know.

Wow. Yeah, we were, yeah. That's hilarious. It's awesome. Yeah. We, there was one little, like, window. We had all these crazy ideas, and there was this one little window where we would go around wax other guys, other teams race cars. What?

Yeah, so we had, as me, you and Scotty, started this business. business. We didn't make him money. We didn't get paid called super waxers. And we made stickers on little white sheets of paper. Our idea was that we were going to walk around the garage and wax everybody's car that would let us wax their race car. And then we would ask them if we could put our sticker on their car.

And we did business to business deals. Yeah. So we went, I remember going and asking Barry Dodson on the, He was 27. Barry Dawson was Rusty Wallace's Cody's car and we're like

hey man can we wax y'all's car and they're like yeah sure I mean all the car this is in between practices

there's probably like a three hour break every car's up on jack stands and everybody's just you know eating a sandwich or something and we're

walking around waxing everybody's car and I mean just tons of gobbing it just not you know

terrible we're you know 13 14 years old they let us put a sticker on their car And they had the bumper cams back then, and we watched that race religiously to see if we could find... Because we put our sticker on the bumper of the 27 car. Really?

Yeah. What race was this? This is Bristol, probably 1988 or 89. I get the logic of that, too. Night race. I think it's a night race. Yeah. And so...

The rear bumper? I don't remember. Is this going to say you, Dad? I'm pretty sure it's a rear bumper. Used it up, yeah. I think that was the only car that let us put the sticker on there, but we probably waxed about a dozen cars that day. that business lasted about two or three months. That's more than a lot of businesses these days last.

I mean, that's good. Super Waxers Incorporated was pretty good. That's a three-month bill. LLC. LSCAR teams are terrible, terrible tippers. We didn't have a flat rate, so we were just hoping to get a little extra go-car money. All you can do for free, right? Oh, that's hilarious.

What a great story. I've never heard that. That's good. Super Waxers. Here they are. The Super Waxers team. You know, there's a parking lot full of employees cars up there. Scottie's around.

Mike's around. Me and Mike text all the time talking about getting lunch one day. So, I mean, I see some of these guys, Heidi Bodine, Brett's daughters. You know, I've talked to her, haven't talked to her recently, but she was in the garage and running around. She's one of our friends. Jason Jarrett's a spotter now, Dale Jarrett's son. Jason was running around. He was a little pack there.

Yeah, he was part of the group. Who else? There's Barry Bowdine for a little bit. Barry Bodine? Justin Labony. Justin Labony. He was a little young. Yeah.

When you got, you just brought something up. Barry Bodine. Now, I don't know how Barry Bodine is, but I know that your dad and Jeff Bodine never were, you weren't peas and carrots all the time. So did you, did that ever become a thing with you? Not that you guys were fighting about it. No, no, not between. But the other driver's sons. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Really? Oh, yeah. There'd be a little animosity. You have to split. You know, I mean, you'd get back together and you'd. split again and it was like i can only imagine like me the friendship with the bodines was real weird ball towel sorts yeah we thought i mean you know we thought that they were arrogant they probably

thought we were arrogant me not we yeah but um you know so i i mean it was weird i you know there were time when our dads were crashing each other we didn't know how to interact with each other and yeah both bullheaded well we just were kids and we're like mad at our we're mad at each other's dads and then that so that made communicating for us real challenging but we're way it we're way over it today yeah i text with barry every once in a while but got you know there were other kids that we would run into or that would become part of the group and then they would you know fall away they'd fall away or do something or get girl crazy or whatever and uh me and brad never did really get girl crazy too we're not it's always that kind of like we were late bloomers on that yeah for sure we're

too goofy yeah we were like like total dorks yeah it was they're not very popular. We had no game. We had no game. But I mean, and also outside of the racing side, I think, you know, we had a lot of, like, common, I think we were a lot more similar, I think, like personality-wise. All we cared about was race cars and paint schemes and, you know, just being in the garage and talking about racing. I mean, we didn't care about, I think Mike Wickham was the one that got, first one to get girl crazy. I remember when we were, like, when Mike was 16, you know, he's like, oh, I'm going to go, we're going to go, we're going to go, go, go, go, we're going to go hang out. What the hell you mean to take this girl to Domino's, man?

We're going to go car track. Was it a driver's daughter? Like, who had the hottest daughters? No, no, no, no. I don't remember anybody have any hot daughters. We'll stay that one for later. That's a private podcast. I don't remember any.

Mark had, they had daughters. All right. He thought Mark's daughters were pretty hot. Yeah. I did. I mean, you know, for me, they're like. bit older, I think. You know, I was like a dork, so it was, you know, it wasn't hard to upgrade for me.

We weren't putting the full court press on one's daughters. No, I was not. I was not. We were dorks and we were good with it. I hear you. Well, cool. Dude, this was fun. Yeah.

I'm glad you brought this up. Dale Jr.'s been wanting to get you on the download. You were up the top five. Awesome. You were a wish list. The only bad part about it is is it will walk out of this room in five minutes and think of all of these other great stories that we could have told. Hey, guess what?

You know the person that hosts the show, Dale. You can bring him back anytime you want. And you can, Brad can chime in on social media. We'll, you know, fans are going to ask questions. So we, Brad means 92. Yes, sir. At Jimmy means racing. At Jimmy means racing.

On Twitter. Jimmy means racing. Yep. Any questions and, you know, comments. Oh, we got one more. All right. Oh, the light bulb went on. Last, this is the last story.

We both raced. So Brad drove some. Yeah, and I drove some. Brad. You drove some? Yeah. So I drove some. Yeah.

So I drove some. I've drove some. I've drove some. I've drove some. So, gals, so we are, we're both kind of in the middle of our, you know, working our way through the ranks trying to grind our gears and racing late models. And he's racing a limited late model at Tri County. He's built his own car.

It's a great looking race car. Really nice. And I know through my relationship with him, you know, how much he's got in this thing. tons of efforts, tons of work. He's a body man. So, you know, his profession today is bodies for race cars. That's why he's done his whole life. So he's got a ton of time in this thing, making this thing look pretty.

And he's like, hey, man, I was like, I'm going to come watch you. I got the weekend off from my... Go watch Kelly. And he's racing in the limited race before. Kelly's in the late models. So I'm over there. And he's like, hey, I can't have a spotter, man. Can you spot for me?

I'm like, yeah, I ain't never spot before, but it can't be too hard. I'm a driver. So he's starting on an outside pole or whatever and on the front road. Green flag. Is it the first lap? No, we made a few. All right. So they made a couple laps.

Well, there's this guy that's like looking underneath him, but he wasn't there. And so down the front straightway, I'm like, clear. And the guy dive bombed him. Oh, just the last second. And he came down and the guy turned Brad and another car hit Brad in the front and knocked the whole front off the car. And it's over. that's it yeah and he bring you know i mean brad's like god you know damn it you know my car all this

work and dale's devastated because he felt like you know he wasn't his fault you know and i remember like like vividly this because the guy i was so mad because the guy just run all over me yeah he ran he got me in the left rear ran through me and jumped over me like over like my that's right he drove over the hood and i'll never forget sitting there watching as i'm mad right uh throwing out expletives as he's clearing the top of me. And I remember seeing his drive shaft spinning. Oh, my gosh. Because he's still in the gas, you mean?

Oh, geez. And, like, he lands and takes another guy out after clearing me. And that guy ran out with a tire pole from his trailer. He was hot because he ran through me and took him out. And Junior's devastated because, you know, he felt like he got me in a wreck. And then after that, you know, he's running late models. He had a little, I think, a sponsor deal for bodies and stuff. Like, I made my bodies because there are sheet metal at that time.

But the hoods were fiberglass and you couldn't make those. I killed my hood, which is a big deal because you had to buy that part of it. $500,500 or so. So the junior had an extra one, so we drove to Morrisville and he gave me a hood for my late model, so that was cool. That didn't even feel like enough. I bet. I know you.

I know. He would have been devastated. I'm like, man, I got a hood. I'll give you a hood. He can make the rest, and I knew he wouldn't. Even if I gave him the fenders and stuff for a body, he would just make his own. Oh, okay. And because he can make them better.

That's how I, that's how, you know, survived racing at that time was a big. I built my own cars. I liked it. I mean, I had like an affinity for building things, and it kind of came easy to me. So that's how I got in the body world, and I've done it ever since. Yeah. Who you work? You work at RCR now?

I work at RCR. And I do like R&D, wind tunnel, track support, anything related to the bodies, I'm a part of and get to be a part of. So it's pretty special to be there. You know, 30 years later, working on a three car. It's pretty amazing. Jimmy races, Xfinity Series is a car owner, his driver's David Starr. And they're doing pretty well. I mean, they're overachieving for their budget for sure.

They're definitely having a good season comparable to the last few years. You think he's improved in performance. So Dave Starr's doing a great job. He's a super nice guy. He's a great guy. It's great. I mean, like it's family. So our schedules are really busy.

So the companion races, I'll see Dad. Not a lot because we're engaged in what we're doing. He is too. But I'll see him doing the tire dance trying to get tires from all the cup guys. So he'll pass me and say, hey, if you see so-and-so, see if he's got anything, so I'll text my tire guys and whatnot to help Dad out at the track. So it's fun. You're still doing, you know, you're still trying to scrounge of stuff.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. After all these years, which that's neat, man. You look at the dictionary, dictionary for a definition of racer, man. Yeah. I think Jimmy Means now. That's a racer right there. And you guys are all part of that.

Do we want to know how he got the name? It's a, it's a smoky eunuch, obviously, you know, a legendary car builder. Yeah. He, there was, I guess he wrote a book of, and about how to build a 302 Chevrolet, I think. and dad was running short track races, short track at Huntsville, Nashville, and Birmingham. And dad read this book, and he was successful in things he did, and he kind of modeled himself after some of the things that Smokey did. And I guess there's also another story when he was younger.

He helped some other guy racing and helped change headers and got all dirty and tailpipes, and he's all suited up from all the exhaust dirt. And so fast forward to the Smokey Unique references. and I guess they said there'd never been another smoky. So it's called him smut. I got it. Because in the short track, you know, world back then, dad was really competitive.

He had a chance to go to Nashville and beat Daryl, and he had a chance to go to Birmingham and beat Red and Alson's and Neil. And they couldn't really come to beat him at his track. You know, so that I would love to be in that day. And racing those guys and those cars at that time had been awesome. Me and Brad share a photo stream on our phones. That's true. Share it with a lot.

There's a lot of other people in the photo stream. Me and Brad started it of our day. And basically anybody that's in the stream, put pictures in there. But me and Brad have filled it up with Jimmy Means pictures and dad's pictures. And there's so many pictures of Jimmy Means in the 70s when he was running Huntsville, Nashville and Nashville and all, Birmingham and all his places. And it's so cool to see that part of his life because he was so competitive back then.

That's very cool. Brad, thank you for being here. Awesome. Thanks for having to love it. I have a feeling this won't be the last time. I hope not. It's a great time. I've really do.

It's been enjoyable. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Let's run to an Exaltor Race Center update. This is your Exalta Race Center update. I'm Matthew Dillner. You can easily rename Pocono NASCAR weekend to The Kyle Busch show.

In Truck Series action on Saturday, Kyle Busch's number 51 drove to a dominant win. It was Bush's 51st truck win, tying him with Ron Hordaday for the most in series history. Sunday was a different story. A few different cup drivers saw their time on top, but when the date was done, it was Kyle Busch again in Victory Lane, notching his sixth Cup Series win of the season. The Xfinity series had a thriller at Iowa Speedway on Saturday. Christopher Bell and Justin Allgaier got physical coming to the white flag, and Bell ended up coming out on top, scoring his third victory in a row.

The Junior Motorsports Late Model program ran North Carolina's historic Hickory Motor Speedway Saturday night, and it was J.R.M. driver, Sam Mayer, who took the checkered flag. The Wisconsin driver led all 40 laps of the first feature to notch his first win with the team. Jagger Jones was JARM's top finisher in the third. the second feature coming home fifth. Next up for the late models is the popular cars tour throwback 276 at Hickory on August 4th.

The Xfinity and Cup series head to the Finger Lakes region of New York this week to do battle at Watkins Glen International. 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 Exxalta, please visit exaltta c.com. This white flag, Boy is brought to you by Dirty Moe Media on YouTube. You didn't know that Dirty Moe Media on YouTube is paid for this sponsorship, this segment. $5.5 sponsorship.

It's like the super waxer. Do I get like a burrito? Yeah. Subscribe to Dirty Moe Media on YouTube. By the way, Dale Jr., I want to give you props a couple of things over the weekend. One, it looked like you had fun at your Dangerous Summer concert. That looked like that was a good success at Pocono.

Good? Yeah, Danger Summer, a band that's friends of mine, punk rock band came out and played a NASCAR race. So typically Tim Dugger or somebody like that might play the show. I asked Tim, you know, hey, could I get guys out there? He said, yeah, Pocono would be a great place for that. I think it went well. I don't think the NASCAR crowd.

I don't think everybody was punk rock fans, but I'm sure that the dangerous summer might have changed a few of those minds. Cool. They were there to hear some free bird, but they got some punk rock. They got some punk rock instead. That's cool. Also, I couldn't help but notice you went and hung out with those Aaron Hart boys for a day.

Johan Sr. Johan Jr. Yeah, Jacob. That was cool. Yeah, I went to a house that was built in 1803 in Amas, Pennsylvania, by my relatives, my family from like seven generations ago built this house. Actually, the Earnhardt started Amas. They started the town, Amas? Okay.

I thought there was just Southern accent for a mess. Nope. Amas? Nope. Yeah. That's cool. Amas was created. by Jacob Bernhard and another family, the Knaas family.

They both donated 50 acres of land to create the town center. I wonder if that's now known as the Canalsas. I don't know. Could be. Well, that's cool. I did text, Chad Knauz. I said, me and you could be partners. I need to do some homework, but be ready for some great information.

How cool is that, though, that you're on your NASCAR weekend with NBC, man, and you get to go do something that and kind of. see some family history. It was great. A buddy of mine from up that way, when I was posting on social media, I was like, hey, man, I'm up in Amas. He texts me. He's like, you'd be cool while you up in my neck of the woods. I said, this is actually my neck of the woods. That's cool. If you really want to go back a couple hundred years. All right. So, Pennsylvania. You're so Dutch. Junior, you and I, we're going to go make a trip to the National Children's Hospital this Thursday. I've never actually been there, so I'm really looking

forward to them. Oh, never been there? Never been there. Holy crap. Neither is out. Alex Bowman. And he's going, too. So the best part about going to the hospital is taking people that never been there. This makes me excited. So, Mike, you're about to have your world impacted like never before. I can't wait. Speaking of Nationwide Children's Hospital this weekend is the weekend of 32-cup drivers.

And all four junior motorsports drivers will wear Dale Jr. Skeleton gloves during the race. Each driver will sign their pair of race-use gloves. And then all the gloves will go to auction on August 8th. All proceeds benefiting the Dale and Amy Earnhardt Fund at Nationwide Children's Hospital. So that's cool. I've been saying it every week. I'd like to just one quickly thank all the drivers.

Thanks to all the drivers for doing this. These guys are great about getting involved in each other's charitable initiatives. I'm not a driver anymore, but I appreciate them being on board. We got Dale Jr.'s book still pre-orders out there. Go to Dale Jr.com forward slash book. Be sure to watch Wednesday with Dale version of NASCAR America this Wednesday with special guest, Martin Turex Jr. That airs at 5 p.m. Eastern on NBC Sports Network. also you can watch the TV version of this show.

The Dale Jr. download Thursday at 5.30 p.m. on NBC Sports Network. Boys, I'm done with Whitefly. That's a great show, Mike. Yes, sir. That was a good last lap. That was nice and quick. Thank you. And thank you for making the bread for the thing happen.

Yeah, that was fun. All right, boys. See you all. See you. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.