The Dale Jr. Download - 251 - Richard Childress: Hold My Watch

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Richard Childress opens up to Dale Earnhardt Jr. about his relationship with the Intimidator, run-ins with Geoff Bodine, "The Great Horse Wreck," and why RC didn't quit after Earnhardt's passing.  DJD gets feisty debating whether time or mph matters more, Darrell Waltrip's retirement and Odd/Drunk History.  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.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for the Dale Jr. Download with my co-host, Mike Davis. Matthew Dillner, Leah, is in the house. Everybody's here. We've got Richard Chilers coming in in a bit. What else are going to talk about, Mike? I mean, Richard Childer's coming in. I mean, what else do we need to talk about? Does anything else matter? He's got a RC. He's been on Kelly's podcast twice. She said he's an amazing storyteller, so I'm excited to hear some of the stories. Before we get to that, let's get to our friends from Butcher Box. Think about Butcher Boxes. your neighborhood butcher, Mike, delivered right to your front door on dry ice. Mm.

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That's what I'm saying. Hotel bacon. That floppy hotel bacon sucks. Oh, yeah. I love it. I got to have crispy. Yeah. I got to have super crispy.

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plus $20 off. Go to butcherbox.com slash Dale Jr. Or enter the promo code, Dale Jr., D-A-L-J-R. With the number three, 20 years ago, 20 years of trying for Earnhardt. He won the Daytona 500. Austin Dillon wins the... I started driving race cars when I was just 16. From selling peanuts in the stand being on the scene.

Ricky Rudd. It's his first victory. Racing stuff. You just got to go out and race. every race individual and do as hard as you can. The checkered flag belongs today to the Richard Chilbris Grove, Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt from Catapolis, North Carolina, comes off of corner number four and takes the checkered flag Earnhardt as won again in 1987.

Did he come up and try to feed me out? Wow. I didn't take it. We just let him drive. He's driving as hard as he can right now. What a pile of grit. Erdhart is in the car. Parking instructions to the crew. 20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration.

Man, that's good stuff, Matthew. It brings back a lot of memories. I know that brings back a lot of memories for you, Richard. Appreciate you coming out on the download, man. It's great to have you here. Yeah, but it's good to be here with you guys. And, man, what a studio. I'm so impressed with all of the memorabilia and stuff you have here.

It's really cool. But that was a cool intro there. You're a singer. I mean, we're a little singing in there. Yeah, yeah. I went to Nashville on that deal, and that's another story. Hey, well, we might ask you about it. Who knows?

I think it was 1981. I told you. Around 1881, I've got that record. I've got two copies of it. You can find it on auction websites. But I've got two copies of that record, and a lot of the drivers went to Nashville. Dad did it. Bill Elliott did it.

James Hilton, Dave Marcus. I mean, the list goes on and on. You were on there, and everybody got to sing a song. Yeah, that was cool. I remember this was back in my little wilder days, and I didn't get in early that morning, and I started out singing if you'll listen to the song, it gets better as it goes.

I said, man, I got to have something to drink. They said, brought me a Coke in there or whatever it was, and I said, no, I mean something hard whiskey. Back in was Jack Daniels' days, so it got better as I sang. How many takes? How many takes did you do? Probably in there for about,

hour maybe or something. Yeah. Enough to get better. That's crazy. It's amazing that they got all those people to do that, to agree to it. I mean, can you imagine? I know. I think today that 99% of the drivers would have said no to that request.

Yeah. So I don't, how to, I mean, y'all, what was the, what was the conversation between everybody? You going to do it? All right. You're going to do it. I might do it. Is Bill doing it? Is James doing it?

Yeah, we went around. A lot of us talked about it. But I didn't forget. Maybe they all. offered us five grand or something like that's a lot of money back in it was big money for us and uh we went and uh went to nashville they had somebody to come to the racetrack i think it was talladega and we sat there and they had a couple of songwriters come in and we uh talked about it and that's how they came up with that song we just told some stories yeah you think they made

their money back i don't think so it's really it's still paying dividends today i think uh dad's song was hard charger or something like that and i used it as a walkout song for bristol so i'm sure austin probably has used your song maybe even if he has and he should yeah i know chase has used his dad's so it's still paying off after all this time so richard uh again glad to have you on the podcast we have a lot of stuff we want to get to and uh obviously uh we can't get everything today but one of the things that I wanted to start with is your start in racing. What was your first memory of race cars? What was your first car?

Why did you buy the car? Why did you get in racing? What sparked that interest? Well, it started at Bowman Gray Stadium. You know, I had been to a couple of races, went to up to Wilkesboro, went to the fairgrounds in Winston when they was running those old huts. and stuff. I can remember back then, just as a kid. So my stepdad carried my brother and I over there one night, and we watched them run. We've seen these kids selling peanuts and popcorn. I said, man, that's cool. We could make a little money. Come over here and watch races. So he says, y'all can go, but you've got to walk over there. We'll pick you up at night. But it's about five miles from where we live. So we went there, and we'd go by Billy and Bobby Myers shop was on the way, and Bob Wilburne, some of these guys like it. And I just sat there. And I just sat there. down in the middle of after watching these guys race, I said, that's what I want to do

someday. So I was working at Adams Milles in High Point, I mean in Carnsville. And the opportunity was there for a $99 claiming car. So I bought an old 47 Plymouth and paid $20 for it. $20. $20. The best investment I've ever made in my life. And I even had a partner. So we ran it. We ran it. Go splits. He's on it. All right. Yeah. And we flipped the coin. He drove it to first week. I drove it to next week. And I said, man, I got to have another car. So we become a two-car team. I think we paid 30 bucks for 54, Plymouth. And I started driving it. Wow, it went up that quickly, huh? It's a $20 to $30 on this cars. Boy, I tell you. Do you still have them? No, I wish I could find it on 47 Plymouth. This is probably buried somewhere. Somewhere. What was the deal with burying cars? Everybody buried race cars.

Back in those days, I don't know why. I've got some. buried. I've got several of our old cars sitting in a lake in front of my house. Holy cow. So I've got some of the old cars. When we built the lake, I just had some bodies that had been wrecked up in different stuff. And I just put them in the bottom of that lake. Yeah.

Yeah. So when I was racing late model stock cars with an old guy named Gary Hargett been around since, you know, forever working with Harry Gant in the 70s, dad and all kinds of different guys. But he told me that he had cars buried out in the yard. and I thought he was telling a field. I thought he was pulling my leg. But people did take a, they took a backhoe and dig a hole and push your car in it

because it would just, they didn't want it sitting in the yard. Yep. And that's what we, I know we're a couple more or that I buried on another old piece of property I had back in the day. But there's no real purpose other than to just to get it out of the way. Yeah, just get it out of the way. And to get to play on the backhoe. I mean, you always take a hole and play around, right?

So you, you raced at Bowman Gray mainly starting out. Did you run or when did you start moving around a little bit and start making you start making some money? Yeah, I started out with the old claiming car and then went to the hobby division. So what the claim car means that if you go out and win the race, a guy could buy your car? For $99. And I didn't have $99 to go buy one, so we just built one. And myself and a bunch of my old buddies, we built it. You know how it was back in.

We were just a bunch of kids having fun. And then I started running some dirt tracks. I started racing at South Boston. on the asphalt with modified. And then we started running some dirt tracks, 311 speedway, the old Diamond Speedway at Stokesdale, and we moved around, ran some dirt tracks, even ran Concord once where you grand did way back wind.

And so we run dirt for a while, and then in 69, probably the biggest break I got, we went to Talladega, ran the road course on Saturday. And that's when the driver's boycotted, the PDA boycott it. Oh, yeah. And Bill France, Sr., he gave us deal money. Back in, you got deal money to go to the tracks. So he gave us some money to come and run the Grand American cars.

And that evening, I never will forget him standing up on the bench in the old garage area. You know how it used to look at the old concrete top. And he said, boys, if y'all are race tomorrow, he said, we'll give you, it might have been 500 bucks or whatever it was. That was one of the probably biggest breaks I got was when they boycotted. And I left there with maybe three, four, I don't know how much money. It was a lot of money then, more than I'd ever seen in my life. And I said, man, I'll never have to work again.

You know, here I am still working, you know. So you were a replacement driver during the boycott then. Yeah, yeah, I ran the Talladega 500 back in 1969. Wow. And it was a cool, cool deal for me. Back up just a second. If you had not landed into this fascination with racing at Bowman Gray, Did you already have some sort of idea what you were planning to do?

I imagine you were what, 16 or 17. So most kids don't really have it figured out at that point. But did you, what were you going towards before racing came and you had the bug? Sure, man. I don't know. I probably wouldn't be here today if it wasn't been for racing because I was pretty wild back in the younger days. Yeah. When I was 18, 19 years old.

Didn't like school much? No, no. I didn't make it all way through. So that's just one of them deals. I had to go out and go to work. And I had two brothers and two sisters, and I was throwing a little money back there. So that's when I had to make it on my own, you know. Early age, too.

Yeah. Well, you had a great career as a driver. How hard was it step out from behind the wheel? I mean, you made that transition. You still, you weren't, you know, you were 38. Yeah, 33 or four or five. Really? Yeah, I wasn't that old.

I wasn't really ready to get out. but Dale, I could see the change in the sport coming. And I'd told some of the guys at RJ Reynolds prior to that, I said, man, if you see a deal come along, I'll get out of the car because, you know, you had MC Anderson, Warner Hodgdon, Austerland, all these guys coming. And, you know, I could get some top 10 finishes, occasional top five. And then all of a sudden I caught myself running 15th or something.

and wasn't as much fun, and I could see the money they were bringing in, and they were hiring even my people. They had hired anybody that was any good. So I knew I had to get out of the car. And then Dale at Talladega means so much to me in so many ways. In 81, it was 10 races to go, I think. We ran the Talladega race, and Dale and I and Phil Homer, I can't remember who all was in the room at night.

It was four of us. A couple of guys from Wrangler, and they said, said, we won't put you in the car. One of the guys from Winston was there wanted to put Dale in the car. And I said, and I went by and talked to Junior Johnson earlier that evening in a hotel. He said, man, he says, there's a lot of good drivers out here, but we don't have many good car owners right now that are racing car owners. He's seen the sport changing as well. So that's how it all came down to putting Dale in the car. And that was a nut. Life's about breaks. And I promise you, you look at an individual, It's had a lot of good breaks that year in 81, 69, 81 on throughout my life.

Well, we asked, we went on social media and asked our fans, we put up a poll and asked them to predict what they'd say the most significant moment in 50-year history of RCR is. And do you think, what do you think that is? What do you think that moment is? Was that the moment? When dad came? It probably was, but most people would think winning. You know, we tried to win at Daytona 500 so many times with Dale. To me, that would probably go back to one of the biggest days in RCR history,

and then my grandson winning would. But the biggest was, I think, after 20, not 20 years, all the years that we tried to win, we won the 499 several times, but it didn't quite pull a 500 at all. You won everything except the 500. But am I close? Yeah, Leah, what did they say? Yeah, we had 72% of people say that the 98 Daytona 500 was the most significant.

I was going to say when dad came back either, I didn't even think about 81, but when dad came back in 84, but you think, you're the man, you're the, you would know better. You would know better. 84 was a big year too. I never will forget that. It was, you know, how we all came. Dale and I were hunting buddies down here in South Carolina, and we'd always talk about, won't. to get back together after those 10 races. And so y'all, so y'all became great friends after, even before 81, when he drove for

you, because I know that, I know you and him met at Metralina or got to know each other in the mid-70s. So y'all had become great friends and even hunting buddies before 84 when he began to drive for you and get on that big run. Yes. And, you know, we knew each other. We'd talk at a racetrack. And, man, you, I know, I want to tell you something else.

Most people don't know. My brother was at Carraway, and he was the chief steward or whatever they called him. And he called me one Sunday morning. He said, if you ever look for a race driver, this was back in the 70s, I guess it was. He said, you've got to look at this Dale Earnhardt. He said, last night him and Butch Lindley was racing at Carraway. He said, he'd come up two wheels on the wall and two wheels and beat Butch Lindley. He said, he's a race driver.

Yeah. So that's the first time that this must have been 70. four, five, right in there. Dale had just got started running some of the late. So you probably raced against him then, right? Yes. Oh, yeah. I've raced against him.

You race against him one time, beat him, won to race at. Metropolitan. Metrolina. I got pictures of that. Yeah, that was a, I never forget. Both of us had a long, shaggy hair and, you know, just young guys having a blast doing what we were doing. And after the race, Kiel and I wrecked going into turn three and four, I think I said I lost

my brakes but I beat Dale back to the line he he come over later that afternoon I was leaning on the old trailer we pulled our stuff with a trailer and a pickup truck back then and I sat back back here having a cool one he come over and he said you know he'd grab you on the collar and he'd say next time I race with you I'm going to beat you and whoever knew what the history would come from that that might have been 76 maybe so you talked about you and dad become a great hunting friends. I know that dad, you know, drivers today have to kind of be careful

on what they're doing outside the race car. They've got to take care of their bodies. They got to, you know, can't break their legs skiing and doing silly stuff like that, fooling around on the lake. But dad would go hunting, and you and him would get into a pretty precarious situations that a lot of us didn't even know what was going on.

And one time, y'all fell down the mountain or he fell down the mountain? Yeah, what happened? We had ran Rockingham, I think it was, and we left Rockingham, and we were headed to Phoenix. And so we took off, we stopped in New Mexico to hunt. And we right in the middle of the night, we got in 12, 1 o'clock at night,

and we took off up the mountain. On a horse. On horses. And we stopped at the camp. Next morning we got up and we headed on up the mountain. It was icy, and we'd hold the horse's tail in front of you and, you know, hold your reins in the horse. And I had Dale's horse, and he had the guide's horse.

up our guy had actually had a mule and was going up this real steep hill with ice on it and Dale's horse started slipping and myself and the horse went off the mountain you and yeah and I flipped over and over down through air and I got up and man he was as white as I was I think he thought it 'd kill me and got back and got to the up there I killed an elk with his gun it broke my gun and he first thing he said after he's seen it I was live he said Why'd you pull my horse off the mountain? You know how you did. I couldn't pull it off.

I couldn't hardly breathe. When you say fall off a mountain, though, how long? Come on now. It was going on to my head. We flipped down this real steep ravine, probably 50, 75 feet. What? A tree caught me. It busted my spurt, sternum, whatever you call it.

And you were probably more upset than it messed up your gun. It was. I ended up using his, both of us got elk. and got back to camp at night. And that's another thing, probably what kept me in it after 2001, was I was at Bill France Jr.'s' house and sitting around on the mountain.

That night, go back to the story that night after the, Dale and I used to call it the Great Horse Wreck. And we got there and got back to the camp at night around the Campfire, and I said, Dale, you know, if I didn't make it off this mountain, you'd have had to went to Phoenix and raced. He said, if it ever happens to me, you got to race the next week. And that's the reason I was in Rockingham in 2001. Wow.

That's another part of the story. Yeah, I've always wondered, you know, we all dealt with dads lost our own ways. And I always kind of wondered how, I'd heard you say that before, but I always kind of wondered how y'all got, you know, the team, you know, getting the guys together, getting a team together, and talking about how you're going to go forward. How did you organize all your guys and your company? And what was that process like over the next couple of days

to get yourself to Rockingham, to get there and know that you were going to continue? I mean, I know once you got the Atlanta and won the race with Kevin, that had to been storybook. Yeah. You know, that night I got back home over in, Florida and I told my wife, I said, we're getting out of the sport. I'm done with it. I'm selling everything and we're getting out. And had my mind made up to do that for the next two days, I think it was like on a Tuesday. I was walking at Bill Francis House and walked around, went out on a dock,

thought about that story from Dale and I had out in New Mexico, and I knew then what I had to do. And so I went in the house. I called Bobby Hutchins. I said, Bobby, we're going to Rocking. have the guys paint the car white, call NASCAR and get the lowest number they got, the lowest number they had at that time was 29. And I said tell Kevin Harvick to be at the office. I should be there 10, 11 o'clock tonight. We brought Dale back. And so as soon as I got back, I went to the race shop, pulled everybody together,

and sitting there and talked to Kevin, put the deal together that night, and headed to Rockingham with a white number 29 car, yeah. But you said that you went two days, though, thinking you were going to sell everything. Was it the memory of that mountain that then caused the 180? Yeah, that kept me in it. I had a promise. Yep. And he would have did the same thing with me.

If something would have happened to me, he would have had to keep on racing. That was a deal we had. Worked out, you know, over time. It's still a great loss to all of us. You know that he mentioned the Harvick win. in 01 and that was another thing on our poll that I think people were voting on as far as as a significant thing we had Steve Park in here earlier this year we've had Shelmerdine we've had people that you were connected with I know Steve we talked about the healing process in

oh one and you know Steve winning that race the very next week at Rockingham helped us all heal I felt like that Atlanta win helped us all hill too I mean in a big way I know that you guys were trying to heal and then him in July yeah I think I think those three moments for three big healing moments. Watching Dale Jr. win at Daytona, where we had lost Dale, was probably one of the better healing moments for me because I know that we were all doing what we would, Dale would want us to do and what we all needed to do. Wow.

Wow. So when you came in here earlier, started talking about us, 1984, we was talking about this uniform on the wall and got to talking about 1984, 1985, 86. You had Willie Nelson sponsoring the car, and there's an old story that I've been wanting to ask you about. They had Red-Hitted Stranger on the back of the car, and that was Willie's – Willie had a tour and a movie or something going on. That's what that was called, and Dad was mad when he saw it thinking that you were pulling a prank on him. Yeah.

That's another story. I won't go too deep into it, but it is funny. I mean, it's really funny. But, you know, he didn't see the car, and he walked in at Daytona and seen the back of it, Like you say, Willie had some kind of tour, and Rangler was sponsoring Willie at the same time, and sponsoring Dale at the same time. And so he come in, and he's seen that red-headed stranger on the back of there,

and he come over to me and grab me about it. What? Is that doing it on the car? I said, man, wait a minute. I said, that's, Wrangler wanted that on there. So we got it sorted out. But that was funny. That was a funny story.

The legend is that when Dad and, you and went to meet Willie that Willie offered Dad a joint. Is that true? I think that might have been 85. I'd been up in the Yukon hunting, and I'd flew back into San Francisco. I never will forget that either. It's funny how you remember certain things.

You can't remember what you was doing yesterday. Yeah, we were waiting on Willie Dill, and I was sitting in the limo that morning waiting on Willie to come. And I got the pictures of this shot. I ought to send you one of them. and we were waiting on him. So here come this guy with a ball cap on and a member's only jacket,

a black member's only jacket. And I said, I was that? I was expecting Willie with his cowboy hat or something. And he gets in the car and sits down, leans back in the car, and he says, boy,'s the morning, how you doing?

Rose out of joint there, and he says, y'all won't fire it up, y'all won't want it. Now, we'll drink something later. But that's the true story. I was wondering if that was true, man. There's just something mind-blowing about Willie Nelson and Dad

and Willie offering Dad the joint. Now, you said, and I don't even know if we go down this road, but I mean, like, Dale Earnhardt had to answer this too, right? He had to... Oh, he did. He probably answered it before I did. Okay. No, no.

He said, no. He said, not me. I might have said we'll have something to drink for him. Dale brings up a point. There are a lot of legends and stories of richer, children, and Dale Earnhardt over the years. I don't even know if they're true anymore. Like, we were just, you know, because a good story,

I mean, like, these are the kinds of stories that you hear when you know people are sort of making stuff up but just to tell a good story. But I've got a feeling they're all true, you know. You guys, y'all lived. Oh, yeah, we, you know, I'm so happy that I was able to enjoy those many great years before social media, before cameras.

You know, you could go have just a good, evening or or you could go do something, go hunting, go eat together and do what you wanted to. And I didn't have to worry today. You're on your toes every minute. So another one, you know, we've got a few more of those stories of that you're going to have to, you're going to have to tell us whether they're true or not. But you once drove the number three good wrench card indie at a test. Oh, yeah.

You had, you had, how did that come about? Did you say I can run X time and they doubted you and you said, well, I'll get in the car and go do it? Or did Dad say, you should take it for a lap? Well, how did that all happen? We were at St. Elmo's one night. It was one of the early tests. We left Loud and then came down there. And we had, I'd have a few glasses of wine, all of us.

You know, just having a good time. And they were running like 53 something, low 53s. and, you know, I had another glass of wine, and all of a sudden I could run to 54s, and I bet him, I said, hell, I can run to 50-for's. He said, I'll bet you you can't run to 54s. And so I didn't say nothing to anybody,

and I had Kevin Hamlin working on the, our old Loudoun car, had a real quick steering box on it, not real quick for Dale. He never drove anything real quick, but it was quicker than the other one. And I said, Hamlin, get that car ready.

I went over and seen Bill Simpson, got me a uniform, and barred one of his helmets. And so the last day, the last hour of the test, on like the fourth day, it was a four-day test. I'd get over and go in there and put on my uniform, come driving out in that car. And I said, I'm going to run to 54.

So I put four, no, it had just regular tires on it. And I wasn't going maybe 56 or something. So I had Hamlet already lined up for four left-side tires. Which the lefts are stickier than the right. Yeah. So, and Dale still says I didn't, but I got the paper that says I run a 5480. So I ended up winning the bet, and I ended up getting this big bottle of wine from St. Elmo's and charging it on his card, and I took it out of Skinner's check because he was in there.

So I got paid for going fast. No kidding. So did Judy appreciate you taking the car out on the racetrack? No, she had a few words with Dale next time she seemed. Oh, she put in his dad's fault. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So your wife was mad.

Yeah. She wasn't proud. She should have been proud. She was mad. Yeah, she should have been proud. I lived through it. But, no, she got on the deal all about it. Don't you ever make him get another race car?

Well, so you said that the big magnum from the magnum bottle of wine that's $3,500 bucks. Yeah. You gifted that to yourself? Yes, I did. And I actually went, this is true. When we won the 98 Daytona 500, we had a little get-together in the shop, and I opened it up, and I still got it where he and Skinner signed it.

Wow. So I still have the bottle in my. Celebration, yeah, after the 98. We drank it there. That's cool. That's cool. Well, that did pay off well, didn't it? Yeah, it did.

Well, I wanted to see. Did anybody know, like, you got Hamlin to get you the car ready, but when you came out in that fire suit, did anybody else know you were about to do that? No, I don't even think they all knew it at the time. Family and I kept it pretty quiet. That would have been. Because we was over our piddling with that old car when he was out running, so we got her going. Was there a camera anywhere?

I know our producer Brian over there, and the TV is already trying to look for footage of this thing. There's no footage of this, is there? No. And Rusty Wallace come out there, and he tried to mess with me while I was driving, but I put the softer tires on there. And I went, like the second lap, I think, I went in the 54s. He says I didn't. He says he had his stopwatch. And he was timing me with a stopwatch, but he was a little slow on a stopwatch.

I told him he was anyway. Yeah, of course he was. Oh, that's so good. Those are fun days, man. I tell you, I got so many of them great fun memories like that. Yeah. Does owner Richard let his drivers do these things today? I try not.

I don't know what they all do, but you try not to. Yeah. I got you. I don't know, y'all, because y'all lives. He was talking about when y'all hunting, we have that picture of, Dale Earnhardt in a tree stand. It's like 150 years up in a tree. He is.

South Carolina? There are airplanes that fly lower than where he was in this tree. And I say to Dale Jr., said, shot the dark here. He don't have a harness around, does he? He knows damn good and well. He don't have to be that high. But that was bad. He tried to get me to climb at one morning.

I said, man, I'd get nosebleed if I went down. He went all the way to the top of it. If you had a tree stand higher that he was going to put his higher, If your car was lower to the ground, he's going to come chop his springs and get lower than you. Cruising town with Tony Sr. Yeah. So just recently, Austin wins the Daytona 500. Where does that rank as far as memories for you?

I mean, you have championships with dad memories that just pile up. Where does having your grandson get in the business win the biggest race in the sport? In the three car? In the three. Where does that rank? You know, to me, it's right at the top. You know, nothing's thicker than blood. You know, I'll never forget the 98.

Over all the championships and everything that Dale and I won, the first one was really great. It felt like somebody had picked a tractor and trailer off my shoulders winning that championship in 86. But when Austin won that, that was probably for family. No different. I was standing on the truck with him in Texas Motor Speedway. when you won that race, both of us.

He and I was up there. And he jumped, had on him cowboy boots, and he jumped from up there to the bottom, from there to the bottom, and how he didn't break something. I don't know, run into the winter circle. So that's what it is. It's nothing thicker than blood.

Yeah. You were talking about winning the championship in 86, and we had Kirk Shemberdeen on the show a couple weeks ago, and he was talking about how he felt like even during those times, you y'all were still a small team. Y'all never really, y'all always kind of felt like the underdog. And is that something that you felt as well, even in 86, 87, when y'all were just, you went in 10, 13 races a year dominating.

I know that physically the team was small, the building was small, the headcount was small, but did y'all feel like, you know, the little guy beating up on the Giants? Definitely, we did, you know, and it was our idea. We had the old junkyard, dogs, you know, chocolate and wheel and all those guys. But we never went to a race with Dale Earnhardt. We didn't think we were the car to beat. And it was one of those deals that Junior Johnson and back in those days of Petties and Junior and Budmore and all those guys, they just had a lot more money and a lot more support than we had.

And we built it over the years. We finally built it. But, yeah, we were always looked at as the underdog, but Dale carried the load when we couldn't. So it was a win-win. I'll tell you a quick story, Dale Jr. I don't know if you ever heard this one, but 1985, he and Teresa come up and stayed at our house, and we'd take an old King Air 90, and we flew up to Pocono.

And we blew, at that time, we blew about eight or nine engines, 10 engines, wherever it was. Worst year, one of the worst years we ever had. And got back that evening, we didn't talk much on the plane. We got back, and we were Dale's cars parked there at my house. house has a little brick wall and I sat down there I said Dale let me tell you you need you're a lot better than this you need to go find you someplace to drive you need to get you a different ride I'll let you out of your contract next year you just need to go drive for somebody else we ain't doing what a champion

deserves this is 1985 I never will forget him to look at him and he says we started it together we're going to end it together and I'll never forget that day sitting out there on that brick wall and he was that kind of man. And he had other opportunities to go other places throughout the years and even up in the 90s. And he never said anything to me about it or nothing, but I knew he did. When did that bond really set? When did that bond, you know, to say I'm not leaving you. How much earlier?

Because you guys have been, it sounded like best friends since the 70s. Well, he, you know, I couldn't say when it did. We just always knew each other. we believed in each other, even in 84. Eighty-one we'd sit there in that old trailer down in South Carolina and talk about, man, we need to get back together someday. I said, we can't right now. I ain't got the money, ain't got the thing.

We put Ricky Rudd in there and won a couple of races and won four poles and 83 to start with and won a couple of races. And I knew then that we could go out and win. And I said, that's when we put it back together. And there's such a long story, really, about how we got back together. It was Junior Johnson. Mike Kerb had a lot to do with it. And I'll tell you those stories someday.

That'll be when we get him back. Yeah, right. Back on the show for that one. You know, we asked Kurt Shemardine this question, and I want to ask you, too. They had Dale's back, certainly publicly. But was there not one time where you might have had to pull Dale? Just you know his aggressive driving. knew what he was doing. Did you ever have to go to him and just say, that was a little screwed

up now. I mean, I don't know that I would have taken him out like that. I mean, one, any time did you get little, was it precarious the way he was so aggressive? Well, let me correct you. He never took anybody out. He might have, somebody might have backed into him. Of course. Or whatever. It was their fault. God. I never, I never said, if anything, I was probably the agitator to help him along, you know. It took you so long, Dale. No, we were at just another quick story. I got all kind.

We were coming, took the white flag and was coming at Pocono to win the race, and Jeremy Mayfield hit him going in the tunnel. I don't know if you remember that race. Oh, yeah. And knocked him up, and by the time he called across the finish line, he said, Richard, don't you do nothing. You come over here and see me. Oh, he knew where you were going.

Yeah. So I didn't say nothing. I did what he told me. But that's kind of a bond we had. You know, he knew me. I knew him. Yeah. Wow. You were the aggressor. He calmed you down. That's good. I guess, yeah, I never even thought about it like that. But I guess the junkyard dogs, Richard Childers, Deller and Hart, they all were one and the same. And y'all kind of encouraged each other the mentality that you had to be aggressive and that y'all were going to go out there and do it and make it happen. And they're going to have to take it from you. What was my, to get a little deeper into Mike's question, I'll throw out a couple moments. What, and I want to kind of want to know what the tougher one was, or what a tough, what the toughest moment was when the controversy was the, was the deepest. And the moments that I could think of are the Winston and 87. That was pretty, pretty difficult, but you, you win the race. was the time when him and Jeff couldn't stop running over each other

maybe the toughest, difficult, most difficult thing to navigate? Jeff Bodine, you mean? Jeff Bodine, you mean? Jeff Bodd? Yeah. Was the wreck at Richmond with Daryl, Walter, maybe the toughest waters to navigate? What was the most challenging time for maybe the team or you as the owner?

Because it wasn't all smooth sailing. What was probably the more difficult part of that relationship with that? Well, you know, believe it or not, I can only think of one time that we really had a true disagreement over something. But it went away before we even started practice. But I supported about everything. Back then, it was over a pair of Nike tennis shoes or something. Are you serious? Yeah, that Benny or Taylor or somebody had put together.

And I said, hell, we ain't doing that. Anyway, that's a whole other story. Tell it. Oh, yeah. That's the. I'll go back to one of the first fines I can ever remember getting was after Daryl and Dill and Dail and Daryl wrecked at Richmond. Dale pulls the end of the gas pump in their interview and you can look at the story and watch his face. And I know that's why Lest Richter and those guys gave us a fine.

Because he smiled. Because he smiled when he said it was just racing wherever he said. And he gave it one of those Earnhardt smiles as much task. It was $10,000. or fine, I think. For a smile. Wow. That's what got him, though.

Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot into that smirk. So, but 87 was, those were tough in that movie that they did, whatever the name of it was. Days of Thunder. Yeah, Days of Thunder was about the story with Dale and Bill Jr. And a lot of the story part was true.

But it didn't all go down. I remember Bill France bringing us in there and telling us that I want to see you guys running. If you have to run on each side of the racetrack, you're not going to get together again. You're not going to destroy our sport. As a kid watching that particular, I think that was probably the toughest part of dad's career for me to understand. Yeah, to understand.

I know what happened at Richmond and I know what he was trying to do there. I know what he was trying to do at the All-Star race with Bill in 87, but that year and a half, or however long that was with Jeff, where whenever Dad got to him, he spun him out or ran into him. And Jeff did the same thing. And, I mean, in points races, in the Bush race on Saturday, in the Cup race on Sunday, they were just throwing away points and throwing away races. I remember Dad got like a five-lap penalty.

What? Five-lap. Yeah. At Charlotte. At Charlotte, they put him in the penalty box, which no one had ever been put in before. We got most of them laps back, though. We got a lot of them back. And for me, as a kid watching, I'm like, God, Dad, come on.

You didn't even, I mean, he's fast, and there's a race to win, and as soon as he saw a bow die and he goes, this is what I'm doing. This is what's going to happen. It's like that dog and a rabbit. You just keep, no matter what, you're just going to chase that rabbit. So there was never a point for you. when you were like, come on, Dell, damn. No, not really because I can't say it on radio, but it was one of those deals that whatever he gave up guy, Bodine, he deserved.

Oh, he had it in common. And so I never did, because it was one of them deals. We didn't want to be run over, and they started it. In my opinion, he started it. And once it started, we wasn't going to be the ones to give up. Mr. France helped us give up. He was mad. He was mad.

So what Richard Childress is referring to is the moment in the Days of Thunder movie where they have, where Bill France sets down the two drivers. That actually happened. Japanese inspection, they called it in the movie. Right. Japanese inspection. I think it was an Italian restaurant. Oh, was it? Oh, is that right? Yeah.

That's even more mob-like. That's pretty cool. What did he say? What did he say? What exactly did he say? Was it close to that movie? I don't remember watching the movie. movie that close. I seen it one time, and they had some fat guy doing me as owner, and I didn't like that. Excuse me, I don't know who he was. At that point on, you turned it off. You don't know what they said, but basically he told us, he says, boys, you're not going to, I can go back a little further in history on another story about Bill France Jr. But he just flat told us, he says, you're not going to

destroy this sport. Rick Hendricks and I was there, and we were all sitting around the table. in his conference room. And then he did put Dale and Bowdine in a car, and Rick and I in a car with him. I think he was with us. And we headed to an Italian restaurant. So to get that clear, Dad and Jeff Benin had to drive a rental car together

to the restaurant. Yeah. That's so interesting. Who drove? I don't even remember. I remember they were in one car. Rick and I was in the other one. And I think Bill Jr. was with us.

So were you in Rick at odds at all? over that whole time? No, at one time, I was, but I realized it wasn't Rick Hendricks or me. It was our drivers and it was up to them to work it out. And Rick and I talked one time after that, and he says, no matter what happened. No, I mean, during that, he said, we're not driving these cars. We own them, they drive them. So we bought Rick Henderson and I was always had a good relationship.

But I would assume that there would be some sort of expectation if, I mean, because If Bodine had it coming, that means he's causing stuff. Wouldn't the owners want to expect the other owner to sort of do something about their driver? I mean. Yeah, did you and Rick have Rick Hinder have a disagreement on who started? Yeah. Now, probably, but I can't remember. But, you know, I just, you know, it just kind of pissed me off every time I'd see him in a car out there, Jeff.

Oh, excuse me. Did that night, was it over? I mean, was there ever any other run-ins with Bodine? I don't think or was. I mean, we both, we all took it real serious. Rick and I and Del and Bow-Dine, we all took it serious. But that was back in the days, you know. No, that still works today.

I have two, a couple years ago here at Junior Merchior's had two employees that didn't get along, and I said they had to go to dinner. Really? Yeah. If they wanted to keep their jobs, they had to take, They had to invite each other to dinner, go to dinner and sort it out. Yeah. So that's a, forcing them to be together and forcing them to figure out how to make common ground.

Yeah. Is a good way to do it. Did you make them pay for it, the dinner? Yeah. Okay, good. I didn't know how much you were wanting them to work it out. Yeah. All right, before we get to the rest of the interview with Richard Childers,

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Sign up at Delljr.com. That's Dalejutor.robinhood.com. Now back to Richard. I've got questions, but it's a completely different topic. I just wanted some, I wanted to ask you a question. And Dale doesn't necessarily like it when I do this, but I'm going to put him on the spot. When did, you obviously knew Dale Jr. as a kid.

When did you look at Dale Jr. as a potential race car driver? Like, when was it that you're like, They have some talent. I don't know if you even remember this, but we're at Wiltsboro one day testing, and this goes back in the real early 80s. How old old would you have been, you were just a young kid back in, let's say. So you must have been maybe 10, 11 years old, and he was laying up in the front of the truck of sleep while we were practicing.

You probably don't remember that. No, but that sounds about right. And I went up there, I told him, I said, junior, I said, you'd better get out here and watch you're dead run. I said, if you want to drive for me someday, you get out here and watch him run. I told him that. Damn, I don't remember that. Well, he was probably still asleep.

That's good advice. Yeah. No, that's good. But so, like, you know, obviously, we piece together stories. You know, with the Uri's in here, and it sounded to me like, could be wrong, that even Dale Earnhardt didn't actually look at his son as a, this guy's going to win two Daytona 500s in his career. I can tell. I can tell, you know. But then he goes and starts running street stocks with his brother here and there.

You know, but so when did the talent, when, when is there apparent talent in this? Was it when he got into those Bush Series cars? I think that was real recognizable, but I think running some of those legend cars, didn't you do good in those pretty good? Yeah, I remember you running. I run over Hank Jones one night. And Hank Jones was partners with dad in the souvenir business. Him and Benny Ertel, Benny was dad's PR guy.

And they were in cars. And they had spent a lot of money on their cars. And I had the third car ever built by Legends cars. Oh, wow. Like, this is the, this is an old car. And so I got my car out there, and I'm running around. Well, Dad had been helping me race. Well, he got tired of that.

And so he sold my car to Hank. And so now Hank's my car owner, Hank Jones. And so we was running at, I think it's pole night or something on Wednesday, and we's running our little Legends cars out there. And I caught Hank. for the win. I'd never want a race before. And so I ran in the back of him

and passed him and won to race. And he was hot as hell. He came to me and said, that ain't the way with race. I ain't the way, I ain't no way to race. That's dirty. And they had just gave me the check for the money and the trophy.

And I said, well, here, you can have the money and I'll keep the trophy. Oh, wow. I remember that. That's the first time I remember seeing you. I think it was over in three and fours where you hit him. but hey i remember that coming well the funny thing the funny thing about it is is that i i didn't know

nothing about setups and i set my car up but i didn't know what i was doing i was only one working on my little legend's car so i get it ready and the week before we had had a race and i called a guy's wheel and my car hopped way up in the air and it landed back down on the ground and it compressed and ruined the rear springs and made them softer um it changed the rate of the rear and it bent the shock mount, and so it changed the ride height on the car. And the next week I'd go out there, I didn't have springs to put in it,

so I left them old springs in there that were ruined. But the traction that it gave me the drive off, because you can't get the power hooked up on them little things. They got little motorcycle engines in them. And we weren't, you know, the tires were just street tires, like old street tires. And so having them softer springs in that lower ride height in the back, man, it took off.

It took off. I remember that. It was fast as hell. That's awesome. Yeah. Did you have a big, think back to 2007, 2008, when Dale announced that he was going to leave DEI, what was your reaction to that? 2007, we made the announcement. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. We talked, and he definitely made the best choice, you know, because if he would have come up there with us, everybody would have been looking at him and his dad's career comparing it. And I think that was one of the things that, and we didn't want to run the three at the time. But we had talked and people's asking, so why didn't they'll come up there? I get that a lot of questions.

And I'll just say, hey, he made the best decision he could have made in his career. And you did. You know, that was a good deal. Yeah, I always wonder what might have happened. But we did get to, I have two really, really good memories in my career with you. And that is driving. We won, the Wrangler car was a partnership with you driving at number three. Wrangler.

But even, 2010. Even before that, I drove, this was really seriously driving for RCR. This wasn't a partnership where the car was over at DEI or anything like that. But I went to drive, it was an Oreo car. That's right. And it was your race car, your guys, and the number three. And I ain't never had an easier time. You warm out in that cold.

Daytona, my gosh. 2002, wasn't it? Yes. Is that the Monday, yes. That was 2004, wasn't it? No, well, I think there were several, but he won the Daytona 500 in 2004 and then went in that Exfinity race. Bush Series then had been rained out or something. And he had to stay and run that car on Monday.

But I think he won several, didn't you? But I remember that one for sure. I still have that car in our museum. You've got the car. Oh, yeah. Oh, man, that's a pretty car too. So he's, and Bobby Hutchinson's, I think, was working on the car, a couple of the guys that were familiar. I can't remember everybody that was working on the car,

but I walk over there. I've got to run the cup car on Sunday, and, you know, it's speed weeks, and it's busy, and doing a ton of the media, and got to worry about the cup car and get qualified in and go run the qualifying race, and I'd walk over to that Xfinity garage to drive Richard's car, and they're just all hanging around.

What do y'all want to do in this practice? I'd just go out and run four laps. Okay, I'd go out there and run four laps. Okay, we're good. we're not going to run anymore i'm like none not going to draft nothing nope we're good i was like okay and uh they wanted to try one thing

and i was like all right so we went out they got under car and they fooled around a little bit and i go back out there and i'm driving i'm like man this thing turns really good it's really hooked up because back then the track was wore out and when you with those bush cars and the way to spoiler and everything was when you'd come off the corner a bunch of air would get underneath the car and it would get real tight off of four and depending on which way

the wind was blowing, but it typically off turn forward to it real tight. And they fixed it just like perfect. And I said, man, what did y'all do? And they were like, well, I got a hole in the pan underneath, and it's creating a vacuum, how the air would come into the grill and go under the car and threw the hole in that pan of the radiator would create a vacuum and suck the nose, suck the car to the ground. And it was so awesome.

I'd never, ever had an easier time of driving a car and winning than I did in that car years. It might have been 2004. I can't, it was back in those days, yeah. Yeah. But it was the crew chief. I think Bobby Hudson. Bobby, I think he would have been the crew chief on it. Yeah.

But it was so fun because that for me, I had, there was, there's a couple other times when I got to drive the black three car at tests. We were at Vegas once testing. And dad swapped cars with me. And then we were at Indy. And you'll like this. We were, I was fast in, and we're at this test. And I'm happy with my car.

and we've got this big giant sway bar in our car, and the car's pinned down on the left front, and big right front spring, little left front spring, and it's driving great. And dad's car's okay. He's not, you know, he never tested wide open. He just kind of go out there and run, get it comfortable. I'm out there testing qualifying hard as I can go.

Like right on the edge. Hammer down. He never would. And I get in his car and I drive it, and all I want to do is match his lap time. and we got the little lap timer on the dash, and I'm out there running. I run just the same lap that he run.

I'm like, oh, great, good. I did exactly what Daddy did. Because if you run slower, he's going to say something. And he goes and drives my car, and we come back in, he goes, I said, what did you think about my car? So fast, and he goes, it ain't going to work. And his car had a little bar in it, a little sway bar and pretty even on the front springs,

and he'd go in the corner, it would roll over, and the left front would come up, and it just had a completely, weird, different feel. The whole thing just rolled over on the right rear side, right rear court, right rear spring. And I'm like, man, how's that going to work? And he's like, I'll see you in about 20 laps. Because I qualified, we ended up qualifying in the top three.

And he qualified around 15th or 12th. And he's like, I'm going to pass you with, you know, about 20, 30 laps in this race. I was like, whatever. And so sure enough, here you come. 10, 15 laps in the race, my car quits turning. And it won't turn. Got too big a bar. little left front spring, too big a right front spring, and just won't go through the corner.

And here you come. And he goes by me, and that thing's rolled way over, left front valances of freaking four inches off the ground. I'm like, damn. He knew what he wanted, and he went by field in the car, you know. That was one thing I never could get. I would look at the time on the sheet, and I had to go faster. Whatever it takes to make it go faster, if it drives worse, whatever, I don't care.

I want to run as fast as I possibly can. where he would go by comfort and, you know, it's got to turn for 100 laps. It's not going to, you know, if it don't drive this way or feel this way, it's not going to work for over the entire run. And I just wanted it go fast for a lap. If it went fast for a lap, I figured it'd go fast, you know, it was going to be good. But he was really good and knowing about the field. A lot of times he hardly ever worried about the, he hardly ever worried about the speed,

unless we were way off. But he wanted that car to feel like he wanted it. He had every crew chief he had, they had it worked out. Is that why he never really cared much about qualifying laps and polls and that kind of thing? Or at least I've always heard that. Is that true? No, we won some polls for sure. But it always seemed, I don't know.

He just wanted that car to feel a certain way. And we'd spend more time working on that than we'd eat. Sometime we wouldn't even make a qualifying run. You know, a practice qualifying run. The answer may be no, but were you at the test when he called and told Dale Jr. to get on the airplane in Talladega? I don't think they were. So, I don't think y'all were there. They were testing the V8 and the Xfinity car. The Bush cars run to V6. Oh, yeah. I don't think a cup car was there. I think it was just Dad's Exfinity car.

Okay. Okay. I got you. I got you. I know that Petrie was a crew chief back then, and he flew up on the plane with me, and he drove the car, too. Oh, do you know this story? Oh, no. This is at Daytona. Or Tal'Dago. Oh, yeah. I'm working at the dealership, changing oil. My brother, Kerry, is 10 feet away as a service writer. Phone rings. Kerry says, Daddy.

He says, he wants to talk to you. I was like, all right. He says, hey, tomorrow morning, be at the airport, getting on the King Air, come to Talladega, get your helmet and your driver's suit. Why? Don't ask any questions. Don't tell Kerry. Hangs up the phone.

Don't tell Carrie. Terry's standing right there. I was like, okay. I just walked back over and went back to changing oil. Next morning I get on the plane, Petrie's on there, I think. But I know he was at the test. And we get there, I got my old Blake model stock driving suit, and they're testing the V8 for the Xfinity series.

They had the V6s in there, and they're trying to go to V8. And so I get in the, I'm, dad's like, all right, get your stuff on. Dave Marcus was there. He was driving the car a little bit. The funniest thing is that I have no idea, I don't know any better. So when dad says, hey, if you lift, you're going to. burn a piston, ruin his motor. So don't lift.

I'm like, at all? No. And he didn't tell me did that mean in the garage, pit road. So I literally are like trying to, yes, I literally am thinking in my mind, how do I get out of this garage and down pit road wide open? Yeah. And that's funny. All right. So when I put it in gear and get it rolling, I go, wop!

And just lift off the gas and roll out on pit. road and as soon as I got on pit road wide open and I'm going down the back straightaway looking at that banking in the turn three and I'm thinking how's the car not going to fly out of the racetrack right yeah I'm like how does it how's it how's it going to stay in the track and man you go in the corner and you you're talking about feeling grip like you ain't never felt before in your life but that's that's a funny story I'd never heard that one that's pretty cool go wide open yeah he's like go wide open well he just he was trying to scare me into holding it wide open.

He was thinking that I was going to go out there and go in the corner and lift. And it wouldn't have burnt the piston. He was just telling me a fib to keep me from lifting because he thought that I was going to go in there and get scared and driving down into turn three. He wasn't talking about wide open out of the pits in the garage, but in my mind I'm going,

damn, I've got to get out of here wide open. How am I going to do that? Was that your first time at Talladega? I've never been anywhere but Myrtle Beach. Now, that was a transition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Another funny part of that story that I learned about dad is, and driving in his smarts is, so I go out there and I ran, I didn't know how to, I didn't, you know, I didn't know that you, to stay lower off the corner and down a straightaway would, would cut distance off the lap, literally cut feet off the lap. I was driving the car out to the wall and straight away and then down in the bottom of the corner and adding thousands of feet to the lap in the distance of my lap, adding. adding time to my lap. So I'm out there running and I mean I got a hold of that steering wheel right. I'm freaking I got a hold of it hard and I'm thinking I got that I ran just as fast as Dave Marcus had ran just a moment before and I'm thinking wow okay well now that I get out and I'm going to think about it and I'm going to go out there and I'm going to let the car feed out to the wall and I'm going to be easy with the wheel and let the wheel do what it wants in the corner and man I should go way faster and I went out there and I was two second slower.

and I came in there and dad was hot. He was like, what? Yeah, he was like, what in the hell did you do? And I'm like, well, in the corner, you know, the bumps, I'm letting the wheel kind of move around in my hands a little bit and thought that maybe that would free it up and let it roll faster and coming off the corner, open the wheel up and come out to the wall. He's like, no, he's like, hold the wheel, don't let it move.

When it hits the bump and it tries to jerk the steering wheel out of your hand, don't let it move. Hold the wheel straight. and he's like coming off the corners run right against the yellow line tight and so I go back out there and I ran back down to where I was running and then's funny yeah and I'm like man

I'm at the end of the day I'm like I'm a race car driver now right I'm with Dave Marcus my dad and we're all driving and we're all running the same laps this is great and then Petrie's just hanging out right and then at 4.30 we're going to quit at 5 and go home dad goes hey Petrie we want to take some laps And I was like, oh man, come on.

Everybody going to get a lap? What the hell? Oh, my goodness. Took the wind out of my sales. But I didn't know Petrie was a racer. He did as good as we did. I mean, Petri used to race late-mile stocks at Hickory and was very successful. Yeah, he's a good racer.

By the way, Richard, Kerry still doesn't know about this so we can just kind of keep this to ourselves. It's still a secret. He's getting right. Yeah, yeah, still don't know. You talk about that Xfinity car that we won with the Daytona and the museum. Your museum is incredible. You've been telling me to get up there for years, and I finally did. One of the best things, if you're a race fan in this area in North Carolina,

if you've got a minute to go up to Welcome North Carolina to the RCR race shops and go through that museum, you guys do an amazing job up there. What was the vision for that? Y'all literally left the shop as is, the old good rent shop, all that stuff. It's just tell us a little bit about the experience of going through that museum, because to me, I think it's one of the best things you can do as a NASCAR fan. Yeah, you know, and we do, we still get a lot of people through there. We really got a lot of people through there when we first opened it.

How many cars y'all have? I got 42 or 44 original Earnhardt cars. Original cars that are- Original cars that your dad drove. And we've got Austin's championship cars. We've got Kevin's brickyard win and his Daytona win. We've got probably 50-some cars in there, I guess. I got some of deals on loan to some of the other museums.

But, you know, after 2000, I didn't know what I was going to do with that shop. I knew that it was not to be just rented out for somebody to do a shop with. And we were building a brand new shop down. Already? Yeah, we were going to move in and like in between Rockingham and Atlanta or something. And so it just sat there. We went ahead and moved in.

It was empty building. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it, I'd go up there and look around and said, we need to turn this into a museum. There's too much history that came out of this building for us not to turn it into a museum. how we ended up take I had so many even before I had several his cars in our old museum which was the smaller part of that one and I just kept adding on and saved a lot of stuff I got a room at my home that's upstairs and I have no idea what to do it I got so much stuff and I was just other and then I went behind the wall it was completely full of just stuff you know member bill you

member bill, your hats, jackets, just so much of that stuff. And I honestly don't, I'm at the point at my life, I don't know what to do with all of it. It's just there. And then I've got, I moved all that stuff from behind because I scared it's going to dry out, newspaper clippings, you name it. It's there. And I put it all down in another building I got. And I just, I got to figure out, it's just there.

It's my own private collection. I've collected for many, many years. And I don't know if I want to take and put it out on the, display or build a room in the museum, but it is... Get on a backhoe. I mean, I've got... Dale wrecked somewhere and he had an old vest. David Allen gave him a rodeo vest to help hold his chest together.

I got it up there. I mean, I got so much stuff. When he broke his sternum. Yeah. Richard, are you wearing a Fitbit? Is that what I'm seeing here? Is that what you wanted to take off when you went to go whoop Kyle's ass? No.

Oh, it was the other one. It was the one. It wasn't a hold my fit bit. Okay. That's a long story too, but we were in the, this was in the 70s, I think it was, and we were, used to go out to the bars and have a good time and everything. And we were up, an old bar down there in Daytona one night, and big fight broke out, and I happened to be in it.

And I had a Rolex, first Rolex ever had in my life. And I lost it in that fight. So ever since that, you always take your watch. The watch is the first thing you take off then, right? The first thing you take off. Now it makes sense. It's wisdom. And I've never heard, I've never heard the story about what happened that day with Kyle.

I've never heard anybody tell me a fabrication of what their version of it is. Kyle ran into one of your cars on the racetrack, and you were mad. It was a truck race. A truck race. Yeah. No, it goes, it went back to Homestead. Oh. And that's where it went back to.

And, uh, I really hate to talk about it. But I mean, hell, that's history. But what happened was Kevin, we were running for the championship, and 11, I think, was there. And 18 was kind of holding Kevin up. Kevin wrecked him coming off of 4. And at night, I mean, hell, I was good friends with Kyle. And so we were eating at that place, and him is, I think he was a girlfriend at his time.

That's before he got married. And a guy from Toyota there, they had won the championship. And I went over and congratulated him for winning the truck championship. and he says, you know, I got to wreck your car. I said, what do you mean? He said, you know, Kevin wrecked me today, I'm going to wreck your car. I said, what you need to do is wreck you is Exfinity car. Don't wreck my car.

And he says, no, I got to do it in the cup. I said, if you wreck my car, I'm going to whip your ass. And that's the true story, how it went down. And Dylan was with me, and he backed up. You know, he didn't know where it was going. And, you know, I really hate it ended up like it did. But so at Darlington on Pitt Road, he had wrecked my car.

He'd run into Kevin. So they carried us over in the trailer and got on to all four of us. And I think Joe was in there, and Kyle and me and Kevin. And I just told him what I was going to do. And I kept my word. You're a man of your word. I tried to keep your word. Yeah.

Wow. So that's how it happened. But, you know, I kind of wished it hadn't had done that like it did. But I was put in a situation that, you know. You had to keep your word. Yeah. Yeah. I really just was, I didn't expect you to be wearing a Fitbit.

That's honestly. Oh, great. I don't know how many steps you're trying to get in each day, but now you know. I keep up with it. I try to walk two and a half miles in the morning when I'm at home and I can. Okay. Walk at the racetrack every chance I get. Good for you.

Try to keep my old body in shape. Well, Richard, one of my favorite things that you and dad were like brothers. And there's, y'all were brothers. And through that relationship, I feel like we, all became family after dad was lost. We stayed close. We did a lot of things together. One of the things that you still do today that a lot of people don't know about is you send mamma flowers once a month. You still do to this day since dad passed away. I think that says a lot about what you think of our family and what that relationship, that bond is. My wife Amy will never get to meet dad, never get to

know him. The best way that I thought to help her understand who he was, was to watch that Dale documentary. And in that documentary, she sees you. And she goes, well, to get to know, Dale, I need to know these people. And I want to go meet Richard. And so I called Richard and I said, hey, man, I want to come up and have lunch. I'm bringing Amy. And we just want to, just want you and Amy to meet. And so Richard meets us at the front door. We drive up to the vineyard, and he's standing on the front door and takes us upstairs and we had lunch and amy ended up falling in love with the place and we ended up getting married there she had we had ideas of where we you know going somewhere and doing it somewhere far off and crazy but it just seemed perfect and uh yeah i just appreciate everything

you ever done for our family the the friend that you've been and i hope that you'll come back on the show we've got we've got so many more stories that we love to talk to you about and have you you know, we'll try to pry them out of you and... Yeah, we've... I always tell people we're all family, and I'll always believe that and always know it because of the relationship at Dell and I had. And then the kids, you know, Austin and Ty,

I remember him push him around on a creeper up at the race shop. And when he won the Daytona 598, Austin was standing up on the trophy, and I said, get off there. He says, they won it's our trophy, you know, so it is. It's pretty cool to still be, for me to be around 50 years later and from being fortunate enough to start out with an old $20 race car

and a kid with a dream. When I speak to crowds or speak places, and I'll go there, and a lot of times I'll start out by saying, only in America, only in America, could a kid with a $20 race car and a dream be here speaking today? So same deal here. Kid with a $20 race car and a dream only in America could I be sitting down here and speaking on this radio. Yes, sir.

We're glad you here and hope you enjoyed it. Oh, yeah, man. It's cool. And we'll get you. We'd love to have you back. I've got a lot of other stories too. We know you do. We know you do.

All right, man. All right. Thanks. All right, man. You go to an auction. There are a lot of people there. A lot of stress. I don't know what's stressing you out, but, you know, could be anything.

A lot of noise. Now you can do it from the comfort of your couch, your office, podcast studio, anywhere you want. No stress, no people. Just get it done. No noise. That's nice. Get rid of those pesty people. Pristineauction.com is an incredible online sports auction website where you can bid and win some items.

They're incredible. Very incredible. Autograph sports, Melbourne, Mirabilia. Oh, damn. I got you. Yeah, we all know. Mike loves that word. And now dinner.

It gets everybody. See, you know. Lee is the only one that has been tripped up. It's all. Yeah, it's all coming back on all y'all for laughing at me. Anyways, all these auctions, they start at $1. That's pretty cheap. So everybody can get in on the fun.

There's daily auctions. You don't have to wait around for multiple days to bid and win, which is pretty annoying. He's got time to like, and it's like, you know, we've got to wait for days before it's decided on who gets it. There's also even a cooler auction called a 10-minute. auction. It's fast-paced, rapid fire. You know the key to pristine, Mike? Tell me, Dale. It's authenticity. All their items come fully authenticated.

That was it. That was good. It worked. It worked. It's heard worse. By the most trusted sources, I've signed for them. Am I trusted source? Yes, you are. You are. This is the real deal, folks. The best part is it's affordable. Before the show, we had saw that there was a bundle of two of our chance to die-cast cars that Martin Truex Jr. drove both from 2003, two different cars. One of them is is the Robert G scheme. It started at $1. It's seven bid so far.

It's only $36. That's more proof that you can win big on Prestine. Go to pristineauction.com now. You'll get it hooked. It's free to register, free to bid, and of course, you only pay for the items you win. That's Pristine Auction, spelt P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E auction.com. And when you register,

be sure to select the Dale Jr. download podcast from the drop-down menu in the How Did You Hear About Us section. That lets them know that we sent you. All right, so we got a little general discussion here before we get on to the live-ass junior portion of the show. DW announcing his retirement. All right. Worst kept secret. Been kind of speculated for a while that he was going to retire and he finally made that official.

I think it's got to be great for him to hear all the folks talking about how much that he's meant to the sport. He's, you know, to go back and relive all these memories and have these people talk about all the things that they remember Darrell Ford. and from, seeing clips of him on social media. Because he is, to me, so many different chapters, so many different versions of himself. Like the race car driver, even there were many chapters. Yeah. You know, he drove for himself in the Western Auto car, the years with Rick Hendrick in the Tide car, the Mountain Dew car with Junior Johnson, all these little layers.

The Gatorade car, just so much, so much. much there to remember and enjoy his interviews and the way that he went about, they called him Jaws because of his interviews. And he was one of the first drivers to really play mind games in the media and be bold enough to challenge the other drivers in the field with his words. He ushered in sort of a new style of building your brand and sort of staking your claims. to what you feel is rightfully yours in the sport, gets out of the race car and goes into broadcasting, been in the broadcast booth for 19 years,

was a big part of the sports, you know, growth in the early 2000s. For sure. And oversaw that as a broadcaster and did a lot of great things. So we appreciate DW. The race, I watched that, and I thought it was a really entertaining race. It's Bristol, and I think Bristol does a pretty good job

of putting on a pretty awesome show, if you know what to look for, but this one had a little bit of everything. I mean, starting to race off. Holy mackerel. You know, they have that spin out, and it looks like, well, Kyle might be at a disadvantage the rest of the day,

and he was. I don't think he had the best car. I think the Penske guys were very fast, but when it came down to the end, Kyle found a way to put himself out front. That's when I knew he would win, when he spun out on lap three or four. No, for real.

Because there wasn't enough damage to really affect him. He just pissed him off, pissed off Kyle Busch. He usually wins. Yep. Ryan Blaney, set a new track record but didn't win the poll. Are you guys okay with that?

I mean, we're set, you know, we talk, I'm just, are you okay with that? You got a guy that wins the track record and he is the track record holder. Yeah, I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. Are you not okay with it? No, I'm okay with it. It doesn't affect my life. Another reason I, I'm not going to open this kind of words.

No, no, he opened it. Another reason, another reason I'd like single car qualifying back. Oh, I got you. Sorry. Yeah. Just me. Yeah, are you, I mean, yeah, I guess, are you a little surprised? I mean, I'm not, why would we be surprised by this, the way they got

qualifying now. Yeah. I just think it's weird. It's weird to celebrate a guy that has a new track record, but there's another guy celebrating the pole. This is the life we live in now. But do you know, speaking of this, we started that conversation about qualifying a week or so ago, and I'm a little surprised that the single car qualifying has gotten as much

traction as it has as possibly coming back. or am I hearing this wrong? I just thought that, like, I thought it was a door that was shut and nailed. Yeah, we talked about it last week with Steve Phelps as a guest. But people are talking about it more. Yeah. Steve, well, O'Donnell went on Sirius XM and said, it's a possibility we may have to bring it back or we'll bring it back.

I don't believe that NASCAR wants to bring it back. They want to try to make qualifying more entertaining, however they have to do that. And in my mind, they're being a bit hardhead. about it. I'm sure that even my bosses have a good reason why we need an entertaining qualifying show. Sure. And I hear that. I understand what you're saying, but for the integrity, I guess, of qualifying and setting the field, I mean, until we can figure out what that is, we should go back to single car qualifying, I would do it really everywhere. You know, even at Indy and some of these

other places, just the bumping and having the fastest rookie and all those things. There were just so many things that were cool and interesting about how single car qualifying set the field. I hope that it comes back. Speaking of qualifying or miles per hour and times, a bit of a debate on Twitter that comes up. It comes up every year or two between sharing with the public how fast a guy ran. Do you like the time?

like, hey, he just ran a 1450 around Bristol, or do you like the miles per hour, whatever that would be? And Bob Pockris will say that he likes the miles per hour. He wants to see how fast the car went in miles per hour, whereas a guy like Mark Martin or myself wants to see the time because we know time. Yes, you know. When I see miles per hour, I don't know what that means.

I don't know. It's just a random number. Especially like Martin's a lot. Yeah, anywhere. It's a random number unless it's the fastest that a cars ever went, like when Bill Elliott runs 214. Yeah, yeah. Ambrose at Michigan.

And I want to hear that. I want to hear, oh, wow, yeah, 214? Nobody's, a guy went 215? Okay. Heck yeah. That's a good time for me to hear miles per hour. But when any other time, I want to see the time. I want to see 1550, and I want to know what I need to run to beat that,

beat that guy. I want to know that I need to run a 40. I want to know that, well, my 70 is two-tenths off. Right. So I can understand in my mind how far off I am. I can't tell with miles per hour how slow I am or how much better I am than another guy. I measure the lap in time. Yeah. And we've always measured the lap in time. And so I think that we as in racers, you in the racing community. Our argument is that should be the standard. No, I don't think you're wrong on that. It should be the standard in the race, in the garage, and how you guys do it. They can't have it both ways. Of course you can have it both ways.

I think you even should, for the pilots. What about the pilots? You need to also add their knots, you know, how fast. I mean, come on. You are what you are, right? I mean, like, yeah. Nobody wants to know how fast the plane is going, just how long it's going to take to get there. Unless you're, you know, unless you work on an airplane.

I mean, I'm just saying, You in the racing community don't know any other language. But what is a 15 second... What does a 15 second lap mean to me? I don't have anything to apply that to. Because when I hear, like, I'm sorry, when I hear 90 miles per hour at a short track, that doesn't impress me much.

Mike. Okay, but if someone's a second off, that matters, or two-tenths off, that kind of stuff. Let me ask you a question. So your favorite driver's getting ready to go out on the track. All right? You know the polls of 1436. Don't you want to know that?

The pole is a 1436 or you want to know the pole is 185 miles an hour? I could know both. Yeah, but how do you know what your guy needs to run? Like your favorite drivers pull him on the track. You just answered the question for it. Are you saying, God, I hope he runs 187 here. That's really important that he runs 187.

And while you're watching him run the lap, you can't. If that's the pole speed, then that's what I'm naming for. I know, but you can't, you can't watch. watch that on the broadcast and you can watch the time. He's a little quicker. He's getting faster. The time's dropping. I guess I get your point.

I mean, I definitely get your point. I'm only saying I don't know why it's got to be mutually exclusive. Because that's how we measure the lap. Be consistent like. We is in the racing community. No, everyone. We measure it on TV.

Of course, on time. But you know, you also don't have a speedometer in the race car. So like, why would mouse power matter? They wouldn't. They shouldn't. That's, hence my point. but to Bob Pockrass's point, he's not in a race car, he's not a racer, he has to be able to translate, and he translated into the world that you live in.

And we don't, I don't measure. I'm not in a car. I don't translate. I don't measure my time when I'm going to Christmas to visit my family. Actually, I do measure time. But I'm saying is it like, you know, your speedometer into speed matters the whole way there. So you sit there and say, hey, I went 65 miles per hour. I'm just saying I can see both.

It took you five and a half hours. I know. I'm going to drive down to do NASCAR America later today, and I need to leave at 3.30. I don't tell myself, I need to run 67 miles an hour to get there on time. But do you need to know how fast you need to go down there? No. Of course you do. No. Hell, I don't.

I need to get there in 45 minutes. Hey, why is there a speed limit sign? Why doesn't it say, you know, you need to be running 45 seconds from this pole to that pole or whatever? Why is there's a speed limit sign? Why does that matter? So you don't get a damn ticket, but... Oh, really? So why would y'all...

So that's why Mike's for more pit road penalties? Why would y'all sit here and hate on people that just want to know, be able to see how fast somebody goes by the miles per hour? All right. Really? If you have... Nobody's taking your time away from you. Nobody's trying to take your time away from you. You're going to have a problem with me or Bob Pockrest because we want to know miles per hour?

No, but I disagree. You're a asshole for that. I'll say this. I'm proud to be a... I'll say this. I don't mind Bob saying miles per hour, but I want him to include the time because for... Fair enough.

The time to me is the more common language. Even though there are people that prefer miles per hour, when this debate fires up on social media, it's usually people wanting the time. There's not a lot of people that hear a time and go, where's the miles per hour? Why isn't anybody saying miles per hour? Nobody really...

It's always the opposite. Not in the racing community. Right. Well, I'm just saying in general, fans, the majority want a time. And so if Bob and his small group, you included, you don't know that it's small. Look, my only point on this is you guys are speaking for the small group, and you don't know that it's small, and you also don't know. And you can't, it's impossible for you to know. Because you're a race team owner, and this is all you know. Not social would be the last place I'd go, to be honest with that.

How? I wouldn't go to social. They're all going to tell Dale what he wants to know. He's going to be like, poll question. Would you rather have miles per hour of time? What are they going to say to Dale? But if Bob ran the same poll. Let Bob run it.

Did he? No. Come on Bob. Yeah, let Bob run it. Let Bob run the pole. But again, look, hey, you know what? This is where I, most of my opinions form on this. I think you just realize where he thinks that poll's going.

Most of my, listen, most of my opinions form from this simple foundation, from this base. New fans. I'm sorry. if it gets old to you, but you old school racers are going to go, and you should not change. Nobody's asking you to change. But do not expect new fans to sit there and adapt to your way. That's why we're in the situation that we're, no, no, no, I'm pointing to you.

I don't mean you deal. I would say we just had a conversation last week with Phelps, how we're not going to, we're not catering to that anymore. But I'm just saying, you got away from it. You can't expect new fans, okay, you can't expect new fans to just sit there and go, okay, now I'm going to figure out the time what a poll time is at Indy or Pocono or whatever.

Track and field and anything else. You've got a time to beat. This is the time to beat. That's so easy to understand. The majority of the public out there understands that. It's not like we're trying to teach people some sort of newfangled freaking way of understanding. Well, I mean, I think that we agree that they should have both.

But I don't know what's wrong with both. But don't exclude the time. Let's say this. What am I excluding if I just said both? The time should always be constant, miles per hour when preferred. Well, that got confusing. Always, if Bob's going to tweet, I want a time every time. If anybody's going to tell me how fast somebody ran around a racetrack, I want to see the time.

If it is important for them to... I've always seen them both. I have it. If it's important for them to put the miles per hour, whatever, I want to see the time every time. Okay. All right. Good. I just want both.

I want to be able to know what the time. I got to know what the translation is. this debate. You can really confuse. You can really confuse people because what if somebody has a quicker mile per hour, but it doesn't have the fastest lap time? Like that can get really confusing. I get it.

That's why you should have both. How do you just have both? Like what if they have the quickest mile per hour, but it's not like for like one. She's thinking drag racing. She's thinking drag racing with ET. Of course I am. Of course you are. What do you have a preference, Leah?

I feel like I need to know lap times. If it's. Yeah. Mile per hour matters in drag racing. But not, I don't think mile for hour matters in Oval and roundy round. It matters how you, it matters

how quickly you get from start and finish line back around again. Again, listen of course it matters in the racing community. But you dinosaurs don't ever think about other people. You think about yourself. You know what? Phelps said it best. Okay, we sit here and we try to

cater to people that don't want stuff that we want as damn racers and we've done that long enough and I'm sick and tired of it. Because our sport is freaking cool. So we try to make it like other sports so people will like it. No. How about just let our sport be freaking cool like it is and then other people

will want to come in because it's like, yeah, man, that's cool. What do you think, Mike? I'd ask how's that working out? Yeah, it's working out because we left it. How's it working out? Phelps admitted that. So in other words, you're not going to even worry about anybody. They got to adapt to our way or not? Hell yeah. Well, good God. I'm Mike. Raced

used to be badass and it used to be what it is. It was a green flag and a damn checker flag. We didn't have 20,000 pit roads penalties and all this rules that you can't understand because you can't, unless you follow, unless you're on TV, watching TV. All fair points. I don't think we're debating that. But that's part of it. We're not debating that.

We're not debating that, but it's part of it. Time versus Mile and hour. Time versus Mile and hour. Let's see a show of hands in here. Time versus Mile and hour. Camera two. Cameron, too. Let's see.

Time. Time? Everybody raise your hand if you like time. Oh, you suckups. Time. Everybody. We all love time. Okay.

And so, all right. Raise your hand if you like. But, but, but, Miles per hour. Hold up. Hold up. All of y'all. Dustin, you like miles per hour?

So there's two miles per hour. Stop. Damn, Dustin. Again, I'm raising my hand on both. Does anybody have a problem to have more information and have both? I'm good with both. Raise a show of hands. I think everybody in here likes both.

Yeah. Okay. But the debate is one or the other, which one do you prefer? I don't, those are not mutually exclusive for me. They're not. They're not. But, but, but of all means, y'all, y'all hash out. those big problems of the world and then I'm sure we're going to be good.

We're going to be better off people as a society. By all means. I think it matters. It matters. It matters. Time matters. But you didn't think, you thought that general discussion was going to go, just going to fly by. Keep it to four minutes, guys.

We had some grassroots short track racing, $30,000 to win race at Orange County Emergency Speedway, the biggest select model stock car race payout ever. Lee Pulliam wins the race. No passengers. No, no passengers. Lee, it was great, hard, good, tough racing. And our guys, Josh Berry and Adam Limkeke, Adam run third, Josh fourth. Josh led a lot of the race, but just didn't have the balance at the end that they needed.

Good finish, though. Congratulations to Lee and his team. That's a huge, huge accomplishment for Lee. Lee's won just about everything in late Mollstock racing. And they're the, he's, you know, Mike, if you remember, he's one of the guys in the contraband. anniversary last week. Oh, of course I remember. I remember.

I just can't remember if he got fine or not. I remember NASCAR. He is, I think he's banned from racing at South Boston until April 17th. Which is fine because he wasn't going to go. So he's not going to miss any races. That's beautiful. It is. Well, that's nice.

Oh, how about this? This was what I thought was hilarious. So they penalized NASCAR. That's right. Down in NASCAR land levels these penalties, right? Against him and the other guy. Lee. Forest Reynolds.

the crew of chief. It ran out on the track and Philip Morris, the other driver. And then the track, South Boston, openly, comes out and disagrees

with NASCAR's pedal us. What a damn mess. I love it. Why in the hell? I've never heard a track coming. I don't agree with NASCAR on this one. Hence why I didn't know

who was actually fined and who was penalized or not. What in the world? They didn't try to change anything. It just said, that wasn't us. That was them. We thought they were fine, right? That's basically what happened.

I have never. I don't think I've ever seen a racetrack come out and publicly disagree with NASCAR. What does that do to you? Yeah, that's different. Yeah, what is that meeting on? Where are we at? What world are we in when the tracks? Nope, don't agree with NASCAR, the sanctioning body.

I don't recall it ever happening. Oh, man. South Boston, they're one of a kind. Balls. They are balzy. They grew up a pair. We told them, too. We told them, man.

We told them. You did. Man. All right. You guys want to do some Asr Jr.? Sure. All right. Let's do some ass junior.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. With the Dale Jr. Download. This is the live Asc Jr. Part of the show on YouTube. Appreciate you guys following our dirty moh media handles on YouTube. Twitter and Instagram.

We've got co-host Mike Davis here. Matthew Dillner, Leah, everybody's here. Going to take some questions. So, Leah, let's go. All right. First question. You tweeted about this this past weekend. Since WrestleMania is in this weekend,

who's your favorite wrestler? past or present. I always love Stone Cold Steve Austin, and I was watching WrestleMania last night, and I was imagining who could be the next Stone Cold Steve Austin. So in my head, I would picture every wrestler that I saw on TV smashing beers and think, and one, you know, and think, okay, yeah, that guy could definitely smash beers and be the next Stone Cold Steve Austin. There were a few.

But Stone Cold Steve Austin, I liked him, and obviously the Rock, his pro, his, his, his, his, his promos that he would cut interviews and such were just gold, must-watch TV. I mean, we even, when you go back and watch videos on YouTube, it's the promos. You're watching Rick Flair,

Dusty Roads, Magnum T.A. Arn Anderson. Oly and Arne Anderson, yeah. I liked Oly because he was the less popular of the two Andersons. But Magnum T.A. was one of my favorite wrestlers and unfortunately got in that car accident and

his career was cut short, but Tully Blanchard, DeFoor Horseman, I was around. Back in those days, I had this pillow that was kind of about as tall as I was, and I'd wrestle with it when I'd watch wrestling on TV, and then Teresa would not allow me to watch wrestling anymore because I was too hyper. And so I didn't get to watch much wrestling on Saturdays. That sucked, because I was a huge wrestling fan back when I was a kid. But, yeah, still am, man. And I haven't watched WrestleMania in a long, long time when Stone Cold and those guys kind of phased out.

I phased out with them. But at the encouragement of my buddy Tim Dugger, I got back in there last night. Tim Dugger. Yeah, Tim Dugger's like, Tim, what are you doing? Because I was going to play some PubG mobile with Tim, which is a video game. We've been playing on our iPads. And he's like, I'm watching WrestleMania. I said, all right, I'll watch it too.

So I bought it and watched it with. We've texted the whole time. It's fun. Jamie wants to know it's coming up soon on NBC who's your pick for the Stanley Cup Who's the Name me five teams

Yeah, tell me who's in it Go ahead Matthew, go ahead New York Islanders, man The Underdogs You've got to root for the underdog Pick to be the lottery team, man Surprising everybody Okay

Is the Vegas back in it or? Yeah, Vegas is back in it They got a big first round Matchup against San Jose That'll be tough What about Washington? Washington is in it They were first in the

I pull for them Oh, thanks a lot I don't believe it. He went to Washington last year. I got to take you in an honor game then. That was a great, that was pretty incredible experience, actually, to see the fans. During the game, the fans that weren't in the arena were out in the street watching on this big screen. And when something good would happen, when the screen in the stadium would show the people in the street, the stadium would cheer.

Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, man. It was a there was a brotherhood. It's the same scene. Yeah, there was like a, hey, there's our people. And, you know, back and forth.

Hey, I did like that video of that Islanders fan last week. Oh, you got it. Yeah, that's yelling at the player in the penalty box. Yeah, that's all that. God almighty, it was ruthless. Is that what y'all do? Dude, New York fans are a little rough, but that guy snaked us, John Tavares. And so they actually voted him.

I think Sports Illustrated one of the most hated sports athletes in the past decade. What? Just because he, you know, the captain and team left the team the way he did. Yeah. Next question. He's like enough about hockey, damn it. Amber wants to know what's with that big shoe on the table? That's our trash can.

That's Mike's shoe. My shoe. Mike's trash can. Mike has a really big feet. I bring my shoes. Well, he had a medical issue. Hold that thing up. He didn't want to quit playing basketball, so he had to wear that particular shoe for a while.

This is a sign. It's size 22. or 23, Shaquille O'Neal's shoe that he signed. And they asked when he, we did this deal in 2010 when, what was the show called? Shack versus. And they asked, do I want to sign jersey or sign shoe? And I said, is this even a question? I want the shoe.

So there you go. I like when people ask about anything in the room. Yeah. We're real proud of the room. Yeah. And this wasn't down here until Dale, Dale implored me. He's like, why have you not put the shoe down here? It never occurred to me to bring it.

It's just so interesting. Now I like it. I like the fact that you held it up too because it's like a fish. When it's on the table, you're not sure how big it is. Right. And you just held it up.

You can tell. Sticking with the room topic, is the chicken pit sign actually from the stroke race movie? No, so I had a dirt track, go-cart track on my property, and we made some signs that would have stuff on it

from different eras of NASCAR and different sponsorships and so forth. And that was one of the signs. Basically, to make this room, we went in, a bunch of, and dug up a bunch of all my crap and just thought, this is a little cool in there. So, yeah, Mike went on the property and said, can I have one of the signs down from the dirt track? Because the dirt track is grassed over now, sold all the go carts.

Yeah. They just, it just got so dangerous. We were getting so wild that I'm like, this is becoming a liability. But the signs are still there and the track impression is still in the ground. It's a lost speedway. You put the track right next to a creek. That was one thing. Well, the great thing about that is, is we illegally dammed up the ground.

creek to be able to pump water into the sprinkler system to be able to soak the track and pack the track in. Oh, really? Yeah. We didn't have a water truck or anything, so we put a sprinkler system in and pumped it out of the creek. You're not supposed to put, you know, you're not supposed to put a dam in there. No, okay, got it.

In case I ever get the opportunity. So anyway, Glenn wants to know, have you ever wanted to design your own racetrack, similar to how golfers and design golf courses? We had a real good chance of doing that. down in Alabama. We were in conversations with an organization about building the racetrack in Alabama and then the recession got us and every, you know, the whole thing just fell apart. What was it going to be?

I think I want, I mean, I was definitely going to be a short track. Something, obviously short track meaning half mile or shorter. And, yeah, so I, you know, just we never got very far down the road. I went down there. We had a lot of meetings, some dinners and got. Got all the politicians in the same room that needed to be there, and then the money went away. Yeah.

Alabama Motorsports Park. That's right. Side draft wants to know, what driver currently in the Xfinity or Truck Series do you think will be a cup champion in the future? Oh, man. Look into your glass ball. Moffat comes to mind. If he gets the right brakes, you know, as in gets a cup or out,

that's in a quality car. I think he can win a championship. I mean, there's so many guys that I think are hidden talents or, I mean, look at Algar. I mean, I know he drives for us and we're big fans of his. But he just, I think that he was a missed opportunity for Penske. You know, he never got out of their Xfinity stuff, and he ran great in it when he was in there. And so I think that, you know, if given the right opportunity, he could win races. in the Cup Series and even championships.

Just drive so hard every single lap. But there's a lot of guys. It just depends on them getting the right opportunity. I think, obviously, Christopher Bell is on that list and everybody else's list. All right. That'll be it for today. All right, guys. Appreciate everybody tuning in asking great questions.

Those are some really good ones today. We want to thank Nationwide for sponsoring this segment. Nationwide. I always forget that. But I'm helping you. It's all right. Nationwide sponsors this particular part of the show. So thanks to those guys.

So we're joined in the studio today right now by Blake Cook. Because Dale, by the time people listen to this podcast, you guys will have already announced a new partnership between you two. You want to tell us about it? Yeah, actually, today is the announcement of a partnership with Blake. Blake, you started a company what a year ago? Yeah, almost. Filter time. Tell us what filter time is.

Filter time is an air filter subscription service for your home. So everybody needs air filters for the house. You go on to filtertime.com, select the filters you need, how often you want them, and then they just show up at your door automatically when it's time to be changed. Same price of the store, free shipping, cancel any time. There's really no reason not to sign up. So Blake, I've known you for a long time. And always, you know, everyone's always kind of looking for opportunities.

When I got out of the race car, I thought, man, I got a, what am I going to do? What am I going to find to motivate me and get me excited? you were also sort of getting out of the race car right around the same time. And you created this business and you have a passion for it. You sat down, you called me. You said, hey, man, I want to talk to you about this idea I have. Came to me, said, man, I don't know, we talked for about 30 minutes to an hour about filter time and this business.

And you said you came in wanting to talk about doing just a Facebook post or some sort of a quick hit to get some exposure to your show. But I don't know how we ended up changing, going from there in 30 minutes to becoming partners. I know how. Yeah. How? I remember it. Man, I almost fell out of my seat.

You know, I first time I texted you, I was like, hey, man, you know, I'm out of the car, and I'm just as excited about this new business idea as I wasn't racing, and I'd love to pick your brain at it because you're the best at marketing and branding. And at that time, I was reaching out to a lot of marketing companies. I just didn't feel good about what people are telling me, didn't have that trust. And I knew that you guys were the best at it. And if I could just get your guidance and assistance, with the marketing with filter time, that it would be everything I wanted to be and go where I

wanted to go. You offered to meet with me, and at that point, I didn't have a website or anything. I was like, oh, this is a little early to meet with Dale. But by the time we met up, I had launched the site, and I really just was hoping that you could do a little post and just tell people about my business and maybe be a mentor for the business and Kelly's assistance. And you're like, man, you know, I like this. You know, it's a great idea. You're here. What can I do for you? And I was like, well, and this is where I kind of just shot from the hip, I was like, man, I would, I would love for you to be the face of the company. Like, so, like, how, I would love for you to be involved. I would love for you to help me with this and build it into a company that is

awesome and people trust and love and helps people's needs by making it more convenient to buy air filters. And you're like, well, I'm not really just looking for, you know, sponsorship. I'd like to be partners with you. Would you consider that? And that's what I was like, for you, yeah. I mean, I wasn't really, I didn't start the business to look for a partner, but when you offered that to me, it was a no-brainer for me, not only because of just your fan base, but because of what you have and the people around you. With DirtyMill Media, with Junior Motorsports, and Kelly and Mike, and everything you have is what I needed to make this business a success and take it to where I saw that it could go. Well, when I met you as a race car driver,

I thought, who is this guy? He's always smiling. Race car drivers are mean, grumpy people. And you are at the track going about your business as a driver with a smile on your face. And you had this really positive disposition and way about you. When you came in here to talk about the business, I thought, man, this is going to work. This guy is going to make this work. And, you know, I know you were going to, I just could see you in the future networking with people and building this brand and making these connections that you need to make to get more and more

production out of your business. I just knew it was going to be a success, and I wanted to be a part of it. So I'm glad that you were excited about an idea of partnering together. We've been talking about this, and this was eight months ago when we met for the first time. In June, first week of June. So we've been working on this partnership for a long time. We are announcing that today. We announced it earlier today when this podcast comes out. you'll be able to go on filter time and read about our partnership and how it came together. You'll be able to sign up for air filters and get them sent to your home. So, man, I'm just glad to, I'm glad to get this started.

I'm glad to finally be able to tell the public, I can't wait to continue to grow this business with you and put a lot into this. And I know it's going to win. And I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, becoming better friends, and seeing where this goes. Awesome, man. Thank you so much. And thank you, guys. Thank you, Mike. Thank you.

I appreciate you guys very, very much. Thank you for caring about my air filters because I can promise you I don't spend it now. It's a time doing it. I'm terrible. If you'll make it your priority to fix my house up, yeah, I'm signing up, buddy. I love air filters. I got you. To speak on that just for a second, the reason why I thought, man, this is such a great idea.

And what it needs is a guy like Blake behind it with his personality and attitude and determination, this will work. I was at my house, I was down in the Keys on vacation. We had a little trouble with air conditioner down there with the heat. And I got in there and I'm like, God, this filter is nasty. So I'm going to go to the store. I go to the store and I can't find the right size. So I got to buy a filter and fudge it and smash it into this hole. And then months later, I'm like looking at this.

I'm working on my air conditioner again and the filter's nasty. And I'm like, God, I got to go to the store and get in a filter. Do it again. In the middle of my vacation, I got to go back to the store. I go to the store and I'm getting something else. I was repairing a couple of the landscaping lights. And I'd come back home without the filter because I forgot. That's everybody's story, too.

Yeah, I got tricked up on the lights. And so then I got to go back to the store. And so I went and bought like a bunch of air filters. None of them are the right size. Once I got to look into the house, it takes all these little 12 by 12 inch foot filters in the ceilings. So it's got four or five different shapes that I have to have. And I can't remember.

I don't want to get them every time I go down there for vacation. I want them to be there. I want, and I want the reminder to change them. If I don't, if I'm not reminded, the ones that I bought in bulk from the store are going to stay in the closet. That's right. And so when he came to me, he's like, man, you know, the filters will come, they'll show up the door. That's the reminder to change them. And the cost.

I mean, it's the same price as the store. There's no contracts you can get in and get out whenever you want. We're just asking you to buy from us. And so I thought, man, this is perfect. This is exactly what I need because clean air filters are. or dirty air filters is the number one reason why people have problems with the HVAC. Yeah. It makes it work too hard.

And plus the quality of air in your house, especially these days with the flu and different things going around. I mean, having clean air filters can greatly increase your chances of staying healthy for a long term. And so I'm thinking, man, this is perfect. You'd be a good spokesman. Well, right. Y'all should do business together. Yeah. I think I would have partnered with Blake no matter what his business idea was because

I know that he's going to make it win, but this, this was something that I personally was like, yeah, this makes perfect sense. And I, too, have had the same sort of experience that everybody, has. You've had it yourself. Yeah, absolutely. This is how you came up with the idea for the company. You went to the store to get filters, came home without them. Yeah, and spent a bunch of money on things I didn't need. Right. Except for the air filters. So I'm excited about this. Everybody, go to filtertime.com. Sign up. We're going to make you happy. You ready, gilner? I'm ready and willing for the. that white flag.

All right. All right. White flag. White flag. Listen, I'm doing something a little different. I'm just going to read ratings and reviews because we had a few. We had quite a bit this past week. So here, let me just get started.

Fireman 1431 says, I travel across the state with my job, which gives me the opportunity to catch the podcast when it hits. My brother and I text back and forth about the topics you guys cover. So there you go. It's Fireman. Zeal Show 7 says, I love listening to the podcast at work, which confuses a lot of my customers since I work at music and art store. So we are big in the music and arts industry. I've always felt that. It's kind of why we started it. That was our, that was our demo.

Ladies Man 1-99 says, that's right. Blake, was this you? I mean, are you? Okay. Ladiesman 199 says, I'm a police officer in Kansas. A police officer named Ladies Man. There you go. I'm a police officer in Kansas and worked the night shift. I like listening to the podcast at night. It keeps me awake. There you go. I'm glad to keep some awake. I guess Kansas is doing pretty good if we're keeping the cops awake. You know, on the night shift.

So, Strawl 045 says being a fireman outside the nation's capital, I look forward to your favorite hockey team, you know, Washington Capitals. I'm a police officer. Oh, I'm sorry. Being a fireman outside of the nation's capital, I look forward to listening to the podcast each week on my 80-mile drive.

Me and my wife are both fans. We actually got engaged in Miami-Dale's final race. weekend. So we got firemen and policemen weighing in this week. This is the last one. Iowa Hawkeye fan says I'm a new NASCAR fan who prefers miles per hour. I added that. I did not say that. I'm a new NASCAR fan and for the reason I've been tuning in and watching is no small part due to Dale Jr. and crew on this podcast. You're fun to listen to and you've helped me learn to sport. P.S. I don't feel like Dillner is a punching bag. I agree. Good. So he's giving us a compliment there, I think. We're not punching on. No, no, I took it

way. I took it that way. So there you go. Hey, keep those coming. Ratings and reviews. It's really been enjoyable to see what everybody thinks of the podcast. We're going to keep reading some every week here on Dale Jr. Download. Dale, close us out, buddy. All right, we got some odd history. April 12th marks the anniversary of one of NASCAR's strangest moments on that day in 1952. A drunk fan tried to drive his passenger car across the track during a cup race at Columbia, South Carolina. E.C. Ramsey crashed into the fan's car and suffered a broken radiator. Ramsey got out and beat the hell out of the guy until the police came. and brought the junk to jail.

Buck Baker wins the race. Good job, Buck Baker. Buddy Baker's dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. E.C. Ramsey finished 20th. Finish his day and 20th after beating on that guy. Hey, all right. And South Boston still thinks that they did not agree with the penalty.

We have another odd history I wanted to read because this was sparked my interest because in the debate with Richard Petty's 200 wins, people were saying that gas station owners and plumbers and so forth were taking cars out on the racetrack and that's all that Richard was having to beat. Oh. Well, maybe possible that some of that's true. Yeah. At Richmond in 1967, Cotonos was convinced by Popular Science Magazine to enter one of their

writers in the race so that he could write an article about NASCAR. Jim Wright, qualified 10th. Damn. God of mighty. But was spun out on lap three and the damages put him out of the race. His article was published three months later. I want to read that article now. I know it.

That's great. We've got to thank NASCAR man on social media, Twitter handle the NASCAR man. See Jim Utter in a race car? Oh, God. Just to write a story. The Wonderbust. Jim Utter, Qualifying Tintz at Bristol at 186 miles. That's a lot.

Don't care where this time was, though. All right. That's a good show. See you guys next week. This bit of bad assery was made by Dirty Moom. Media. Dirty mode.