The Dale Jr. Download - 253 - Will Power: The One Punch Rule

Episode Date: April 23, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and IndyCar Champion Will Power hang out to talk about the Indy 500, IndyCar safety, fan accessibility, the Aussie way of life, social media bravery, fighting, kitchen karaoke and a bunch more.  Plus, Dale Jr. is excited to share a discovery he made after a recent purchase of an old Intimidator racecar & the most unreal Odd History tale yet.  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, this is Mike Davis here with Matthew Dillner. Before we get to this episode, we felt it was necessary and appropriate to address the timing of this podcast and also the news that you most likely already know but might not. On Monday, probably an hour after we wrap this taping with Dale and IndyCar Driver Will Power, we received the news that we've been dreading that Dale Jr's mom and our beloved colleague here at Junior Motorsports Brenda Jackson had passed away. Now, we're not going to spend a lot of time here sharing our emotions on this loss. You can go watch a video of a wonderful tribute that the Dirty Mo Media team put together. It's on our social media platforms. My point here is to tell you that shortly after we've received the news on Monday, Dale and I had a conversation about this podcast. Do we want to put it out?

Do we want to do something else? Do we just want to leave, just do nothing? and frankly Dale didn't even hesitate. He wants you to hear this episode. We had a tremendous conversation with Willpower. It was very insightful. And we were really grateful for the first time. Dale felt really good about this episode once we were done.

And so he wants you to hear it. And so do I. So, so here it is. It's the Willpower episode of the Dale Jr. Download recorded Monday. Hope you enjoy it. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for the Dale Jr. download with my co-host Mike Davis.

Matthew Dillner, Leah, everybody is here. We got wheelpower as our guest on the show. We will not be shotgunning beers this week, and you'll find out why. We've got this old race car I want to talk about that I bought Mike, and we've got some fan questions, guys, so let's get started. Yeah, I think I've ridden past your place.

Do you bike over here? I used to. I don't anymore. I don't want to get hit, man. You quit biking? I still bike, actually. I go on Broly School Road. because there's a bike lane

but I used to bike around that area we used to ride from... You think it's worse over here? From the shop. Well, yeah, you know, at least on Brolley School is a bunch of... The lane.

Well, yeah, there's a lane and a bunch of people ride there so people who are driving there all the time kind of used to it. Yeah, I'm not around as much, but... Yeah, it's good stuff. It's kind of addictive. Well, I don't have any biking stories, so that's why...

No biking stories? Not on Brawley School. Oh, okay. You got the one. I got the one? You went to the story? and I made you sit on one. He took me to the cycling store and I sat on a...

Electric bike. Oh, I'd like one of those. That was pretty cool, actually. Yeah, that's electric bikes. You know, I so heard a story in one of the... I don't know, it wasn't tour to France, but it was... Yeah, I got the motor in there. Yeah.

I got my wife. That's a real NASCAR story right there. I got my wife one of those electric ones. Yeah. And so she can do about a 16, 17 mile an hour average with, you know, and she don't use at all. She don't use the power all the time. You can turn around her. But that way she can, her and I ride together.

And I can ride at a decent click. Yeah, I would like to do it for my wife, but she would crash, man. Like, she's bad. I worry for my son. Like, I hope you got some of my coordination for the driving thing because otherwise

they're in trouble. I've taken her out to go pro there and, yeah, no. Are you good with this? He's like, yeah. Maybe introduce who the guest is, yeah. So, yeah, well, you can hear. Our guest today is Will Power. Will, thanks for coming.

Yeah, thanks for having me. So I'm glad you're here and really want to get to know you a little bit better. Now, I mean, I didn't even know you lived in Moorsville. So I know very little, other than you're a badass race car driver and you're very successful. I'm going to the Indy 500 for the first time this year. My first Indy 500. And I've watched it on TV since I think the first one I ever watched was 82, 83. And so, I mean, I've watched it all my life, but everybody says that there's nothing like the real thing and being there in person.

So what do I need to know? What do I need to be aware of? What should I – what are the things that I don't need to miss? Well, I think, you know, the first thing you want to do is go stand on the pit wall there as they're going to turn one, like, at qualifying. That's 240-mull an hour turning into turn one wide open. Yeah, which is pretty amazing. It kind of scares you as a driver the first time you do that. You see how fast they are, especially when you hear an engine stop and then you hear, boom.

Yeah. And then you've got to get in and go out and do it yourself. But, yeah, I mean, it's amazing on race day. When you walk out of gasoline alley there with the size of the crowd, I mean, you spent the whole month there, you know, belt and around. And they're really, you know, I don't know how many people are there on practice days. Obviously, qualifying as a few more people. but race day it's insane it's amazing um just that that feeling that atmosphere how many people turn up and uh you know i think it's there's a lot of families that turn up it's just a tradition

for them um you know through the generations you know you speak to some people there and they say oh i've been coming here since 1960 or you know this is my 50th indie 500 which is just amazing yeah um for people to be i just i'd say to them said, man, you must have seen some pretty cool things, pretty cool cars, amazing drivers. But yeah, I mean, it's just a, you know, honestly when I first turned up there, 2008, I had no idea of the size of the event, you know, because I grew up racing road courses, raced in Europe, you know, they don't do ovals over there. So everyone talked about the Indy 500, and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever. Yeah, my first year, I just couldn't believe.

believe the amount of media coverage it got and just you're there the whole month and and people turn up every day and you know just hardcore fans. So that was my first experience. It just blew me away. One of the first one of the things that is interesting to me is just the history of the racetrack. And a lot of people really don't realize the, that the Indie Motor Speedway is sort of where racing began in in North America. And really when it was starting, the world like this like people from overseas in 19 in the 1900s 1910s were coming over here to run at Indy in these in these races and like the guy that started Chevrolet the guy that started for they all drove and the track actually closed down in World War II yeah and was like a like it

was a left for dead you know yeah yeah you know grass grown up to the truck yeah yeah crazy that is I mean, the track, and, you know, someone was smart enough to revitalize it and get it going again when the war was over, but I couldn't imagine what it was like to live through those times and experience that as a race fan in the area. You're talking about the media. Me and Mike have heard a few things about you guys. We're trying to learn more and more about any car drivers, and one of the things I hear about you guys is y'all have, y'all do an hour-long autograph session every single weekend. The whole field does an hour-long autograph session every single weekend. Yeah, no, we do a hour long. When does that happen, for example, I imagine on a race weekend you're there.

What's your race weekend like if you go to somewhere besides Indy? Yeah, well, usually it's, you know, on Friday you have two practice sessions. Then Saturday you have a practice and qualifying, obviously race on Sunday. But, yeah, sometimes you'd be doing that autograph session in between practice and qualifying, which we kind of complain about and say, come on, let's, can we do it either after qualifying? or on Friday. So yeah, they'll put it in there where it fits. Yeah.

And yeah, that's just, man, they're very fan-friendly, you could say, which is really typical of American sports in general. That's the thing I noticed over here. Like, Americans love a good deal, right? You know, you go to a Formula One race. And, you know, the fans can't even see the drivers. They pay a lot for a ticket and all that. And, you know, I just couldn't see that flying too well over here.

in America. But, yeah, I mean, I'm sure NASCAR is similar in that respect where it's very fan-friendly. Yeah, people can walk around the garages, see the cars. Yeah, there's a lot of access for the fans. There's not maybe as much access to the drivers in NASCAR as I see in any car. I went to a drag race at Charlotte, it's Charlotte. I say Charlotte Mare Streetway, but the drag race at the dragstrip across the street from Charlotte. And I couldn't believe, like, the fans could get anywhere.

And the drivers were available at all times. really just walking around. There was no ropes, no fence, no nothing keeping anybody separate. But you guys, outside of that autograph session, y'all do every weekend, what is the typical obligations for any car driver like?

It depends on the, like for me with Verizon has been really good because I've had just the one sponsor and I have the same sponsor all year. So I haven't been like some of these other guys, like my teammates who have a different sponsor, you know, probably four or five times a year. You know, they have a lot more commitments and appearances and such. Yeah, and I'm sure that's the same through the field.

It's been good for me. Like, I've been really lucky to. What will your indie, though, be like? Indy 500, how intense from Saturday to Sunday will your schedule be? Yes. On the actual weekend, it's crazy busy. The whole month is it wears you down sometimes. You know, we had to say the team, like, you've got to give us a bit more time to rest

because, you know, appearances every night, dinners, all this sort of thing. I mean, because it's just such a big event for the sponsors. They bring their customers, you know, and you've got to do the work, basically. I mean, they're putting the money in. How many times will you eat at St. Elmo's in a month? Yeah. For, like, sponsor events. You know, whatnot.

Yeah, I mean, you have a lot of functions like that. So I try to eat good food. Not saying the St. Elmo's is terrible, but try to eat good food. But no, I heard that about you. You're very particular about your diet, right? Yeah, yeah, I am. You know, I went through a period where I was struggling a lot. So I changed my diet a bit.

What do you say struggling, you mean in the car? Yeah, I just physically, I was having a few issues a couple of years ago. I almost quit. Like, I almost said, I'm done. Really? Yeah, I almost like, I just can't, because I had no energy and I hadn't, you know, I couldn't work out. so we kind of worked out what it was a bit of an allergy thing and did a bunch of blood work

so on back to feel better than ever honestly like fitter more experience faster than I've ever been I feel that way so yeah it all counts you know all the little details these days counts yeah you see that and uh Jimmy Johnson is the best example in NASCAR with the details and working out take care of his body and doing things like that and a lot of guys man in the 90s and even in in the first half of my career, none of us really worried about our physical fitness. And we just thought, you know, don't do anything stupid, you know. I mean, you know, it just, it's changed. In the last probably 10 years, it's changed so much to where all the drivers work out. I even got into cycling and you're into cycling as well. And if, you know,

when Jimmy's out there winning championships, it was basically, you would either look at Jimmy and go, man, you know, I need to do better. Or your sponsor or your owner would look at you and go, you need to be doing what this guy's doing. He's the one winning all the races. So is there that kind of pressure in the drivers in IndyCar? Is there pressure to, is there pressure to compete off the track in physical fitness and hand-eye coordination, all the things, getting in the SIM, getting SIM time, stuff like that?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, all these guys, they post their work. I don't know why you would post a workout. Oh, that's the thing now. Like, you're trying to keep secret what you're doing. I mean, you look on, you know, Pit Fit is where they all train up in Indian. They're just showing you everything they do coordination-wise and all that. But yes, at the end of the day, in the Indy car, you can't not be fit.

Like, seriously, you reach max heart rate in qualifying on a road course. What's your max heart rate? Mine's like one 70s. Holy cow! Ever see. Like, if I'm 150, I'm hurting. 160, I'm almost puking. What are you?

So for me, what? What is uncomfortable on the bike? For me, 170 was uncomfortable on the bike. Oh, uncomfortable for me is once I'm starting to hit the 50s. Like, 150, I'm like, I'm paying. It's different for everybody. Everybody experiences that different. So you're 170.

Yeah, 170 is. God, the most I ever saw in a race car for me, like, was a high of 130s. I never got over 130 in the race car. Yeah, I mean, Pageno, my teammate, wears a heart rate monitor. He said he was at St. Pete. He was 190 in qualifying. But, like, seriously. So you come in, plug into the intercom, and you're like,

you are out of breath? I think you're out of breath? I think you do because of the G-force. I don't reckon you hold your breath a bit, but it's just physical. Like the steering is ridiculous. Steering the G-force, the braking force, everything about it. It's a brutal car. Yeah. So you can't not be fit.

If you're not fit, you'll be slower and you'll make mistakes. Like simply, like in a race, it comes down to a point where you're burning. It'd be like on the bike when you're starting to hurt. are burning? Yeah, you know, in the car, your glutes are burning, your arms are burning, your neck's burning, and you're breathing heavy, and you're trying to crack the visor, get a bit of air, trying to relax on the straits. I mean, you know, there's a point where fitness counts.

Like, it really counts for speed, mistake-free, team saying, okay, it's time to push. We're at the end of a stint. We need to pull a gap for the stop. So, yes, man, you've got to be fit. And, you know, fitness keeps you mentally sharp, all those little, I mean, the whole, I mean, the whole field at Long Beach was covered by one second. That's 24 cars, one second on how many turns do they go there? It's like, you know, 13 turns or something.

I mean, that's crazy. Tight quarters. Yeah. Now that we know what his heart rate climbs up to, doesn't it make a lot of sense when we hear those clips after he wins a race and he's like, you know, and he's like, respect, you know. And like, now it makes sense because he's now coming back down to normal, but he's been on the edge the whole time.

What are you talking about? Yeah, let's hear it. Oh, come on. Now it makes all the sense in the world. That's a fire burning, man. That's a fire in your belly, right? You just won the biggest race to your career. Yeah, when you accomplish something, you put so much into, like, yeah, that's the energy

that I put into a race in the whole effort. Well, was that the Indy 500? Indy 500. Okay. You're justified. You won the industry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You say whatever you want.

Like, seriously, the beginning of that month, I was so disappointed in my career. To have won so many races and the championship and, you know, so many pole positions, but not have won that rate. You don't really recognize until you win that race. So that was all that coming out. You know, I remember thinking during that month, like, man, if I finish my career without winning a 500, I'd be so disappointed. So, yeah, that's why I was just absolutely.

You got to let it go. Oh, man. I did. I love hearing that, and we have a race in our sport, the Daytona 500 that kind of has the same, you know, emotion to it as far as for the drivers. It's one of those races that you just have to, that's the one you want to win. Being from Australia, so I went to Australia back, I think it was 2006. I think it was 2006. I took like eight of my buddies over there, and we had, Marcus Ambrose was racing in the Cup series at the time.

and had become pretty good friends with him. And Chevro wanted to send me over there. They were building the new Camaro. And that's where they were testing this Camero. And so they were like, hey, you want to go to Australia? I'm like, of course. And Australia, I don't know how to, how to, Australians are just different. Different.

So, and I've tried to come home and explain that to everybody that I know. And all my friends, my wife, she wants to go. And it's a hard thing to explain. mentality, the approach to life, the way you guys sort of, there's a real, there's low stress, and it's all, you, y'all just send it every day and there's not a lot of concern about repercussions. Yeah, yeah. How do you, can you explain it? Because I sure can't.

It's actually hard to explain, because I've obviously grew up in Australia. I lived in England for three years and I moved over here. And, you know, although they're all English-speaking countries, there's something about each culture that you can't really define. It's really difficult. I know exactly what you're talking about, and it's really hard to kind of put it into words, you know, the difference in attitude.

Attitude. Whatever it is. I mean, you know, I wouldn't say Australians are particularly laid back, but they just have a... Carefree. Cattitude. Kind of a bit more carefree, no BS.

Right. Sort of attitude. I loved it. And I'm like, man, I wish I could adopt more of that into my life. And I can't explain it, Mike, but you got to go over there. It's different. I mean, what I found in the U.S. people here, like seriously, the U.S. has some of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

Helpful, nicest, friendly, respectful people. And I found that as a difference between Australia and the U.S. Because Australians can be real smart-asses. Yeah. And I don't find that over here as much, but it's just something within the culture that's different like that. Australia, you know, your mates are constantly giving you crap about everything. Yeah. Yeah.

When you went to Australia, you bring back Paul Morris and Owen Kelly. Yeah. And so we got our first taste of Australian carefree attitude would have been those guys. Right. And my God. Especially Paul Morris. Paul Morris, I mean, like, I don't, you talk about a heart rate. I don't think his heart rate gets over 70. I mean, like, you know, and he could be in a helicopter crash and not even get nervous about it.

And it's like, so, so are you saying they're all like Paul Morris? Not quite as extreme as Paul. He got it. But there's a lot of that and everybody over there. I think, yeah, I don't know how to explain it, man, but it's pretty awesome. I've never met an Australian that I didn't like. And I got to drive Paul's supercar while I was over there, which was a lot. a lot of fun.

At Queensland Raceway? I think so. I think that's where I remember seeing the article. Yeah. Yeah, that was my home track. Really? Tawamba's only like less than an hour from there. Yeah.

So I did a lot of miles around there in former Fords and V8 supercars. Did like, that's where I did all my testing at V8 there. Really? Yeah, pretty cool. That sounds fun. It was a lot of fun. What's the name of your hometown? Tawamba.

Tawamba. Yeah. And I heard that it was, it was, you know, you got into a couple fights here and there. Like, it was not like, it wasn't like Australia. Like, we know Australia. Like, it was definitely not. That's one thing about Australians.

They like to fight. Really? To go out, drink. Yeah. And fight? They actually had to bring a law and called the one punch law that, um, they called a coward, they call it a coward punch now because a lot of people were getting killed, uh, by a single punch hits.

So it's a great initiative. I mean, uh, you know, and that was, it was a weird thing where I grew up, like, if you went downtown. We call it downtown. Man, you were getting a fight. Like, if you went out drinking, there was always fights. It was just a normal way. I think things have changed there since, you know,

I haven't lived back there for almost 15 years, but it was very much like that. Like, when I grew up, if you, if your friend met another friend, you were judged by how you could fight. Like, is he a good fighter? Like, that's what you would say. Like, yeah, he's a good fighter. Like, that's...

Wow. Then you got to hang out. Yeah, then you got to hang out. weren't a good fighter, they're kind of, huh? Yeah, seriously. That was a weird, weird deal. I don't know why that was. Were you a good fighter?

I, I did fight, but I wouldn't say I was a good fighter. So did you don't have any friends then? Yeah, no, no. Yeah, I mean, seriously, like, when the fight broke out, like, you didn't want to, like, you had to jump in. You'd be nervous, but you have to, you have to do it. You got all your mates watching. What's the last fight you've been in?

I mean, this has got to be a long time. It was a long time ago, yeah. the last fight I was actually knocked out in a casino oh no was it the one of the Gold Coast it was yeah

that casino of the Gold Coast yeah that's where we stayed yeah seriously I didn't see any fights while I was there so naturally it was good thing so naturally it was actually it was after a race

there I'd race former 3 at the Gold Coast there I was in a casino just stupid man I just avoid that sort of thing like the plague I don't want to What happened? Getting a fight.

I just got, it's just stupid, you know? Yeah. Just, that's how someone was looking at you, just started bigger. That's like, that's really how. It's so weird. Like, why, why fight?

It's just, now I look at it, it's so strange. Like, why do you pick fights? Like, it's kind of stupid. You're in a casino and you pick a fight. Like, why? What is the one punch law? You only are allowed one punch? No, no, no, no.

It's to stop people doing, you know, an unexpected one punch on someone. Oh. killing like yeah it's a sucker punch oh like a sucker punch yeah yeah so they made the made it sound like they call it a coward so people it's not made to look like oh yeah i knocked you're a coward like if you hit someone with a single punch it's a real coward move it really is yeah you know without them knowing it's yeah yeah i saw i did see one fight while i was there so we were in the it's all coming back well we were the dirt track with tony stewel was no

i did i did go to the dirt track uh and i sat in the grandstands and just, you know, there was a dirt track close by where we were staying, and we went over to this, to it, and bought a ticket and sat in the grandstands and ate a bunch of junk food and watched the sprint cars run, and that was a lot of fun just kind of being anonymous. But that was the greatest thing about being in Australia was nobody who knew who the hell I was. Yeah, he'd be able to walk around and just doesn't matter. It was awesome.

We were in this one bar, and TJ, this guy was flipping TJ off. Well, that happens. Just, I guess TJ looked at him wrong. I don't know. Yeah, that's the sort of weird thing that happens. in Australia. You look at a guy wrong. And the next minute you're outside fighting.

Paul Morris went over there and laid him out. He did. Oh, yeah. Paul Morris, man. He's a big guy. He's the example of an Australian. Like, seriously, he would, he's a type of guy. Like, yeah, I mean, Paul can fight too.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't surprise me when you say that. Like, you wouldn't screw with Paul Morris. A big guy. I think he used to do a bit of boxing. I'm sure he did. Yeah.

I'm sure he did. I mean, that must have surprised. you he gets up and punches. I didn't expect him to go over there and handle it like that. I thought he'd just kind of tell the guy to, you know, leave us alone or whatever. T.J. looks at everybody like that. But he didn't give the guy.

He didn't even give the guy a chance to explain yourself. It sounds like he might have violated the one punch law. Well, the guy knew it was coming. The law probably wasn't around then, so he got away with it. Otherwise, he'd been jail right now. So like a 10-year sentence. Just throw a second punch just for good measuring you. You're exempt.

You're good. Throw the second one. He's like, yeah, he's good. he's good, let him go. If Paul was on a first name basis with the jail security guards, would any of us be surprised? No, no, he'd probably been there a couple times. So one of the things I noticed when I was over in Australia is the way that Australians do cars. And I mean, even just manufacturers, everything that I saw, at least, in my opinion, when I come back home and I look at our car industry, you guys do everything better.

Y'all have the Ute, for example. Yute. I can't believe you guys don't have the Ute over here. The UD is the coolest. Oh, man. All this is from my experience in 2006, but it still is true today. The Holden Commodore, to me, in 06,

was an amazing streetcar. Seriously. Everything had, like, not overdone, but reasonable ground effects, good engines. There was not like a low, no-options model, right? You can't go get, like, a stripped-down version of a car there. everything is going to have the best of the best on it. Everything that I saw driving around, there's no stripped down models.

I see Holden. I see that called Pontiac over here. All right. So what happened was, after 06, I heard that the Holden was coming to the U.S., and I was hoping that it was coming as the SS, which eventually it did. Eventually the SS that we raced in NASCAR a couple years ago

was from the Holden in Australia. but it came as the Pontiac G8 to North America. Pontiac went out and went out of business and I found a G8 for a reasonable price and I had all the stuff shipped over from Australia to turn it into a Holden. So I have a Holden here at the house. Yeah.

And one of my favorite cars, man, just a beautiful car. But you guys did automobiles. Everything seemed cooler. Everything, it's like you say, no bull-no-s-h-h-h-it. They just said, every car should be cool. Every car, you know, why would we have a stripped down model of a holding when everybody should just have the right thing, you know, the right kind of car. Yeah, yeah, and for a good price. I mean, it can you get for a really good holding over there.

Yeah, my dad, I mean, 70 grand you can get a pretty awesome machine, like with all the best stuff on it. The Ute's kind of like an S-10 would be over here, but this thing's low to the ground, nice ground effects, nothing overdone, big motor. Yeah, yeah. And they race, they have a Ute series over there. I went to Phillip Island to watch the race. The great thing about the wintertime here is it's a summer over there and they're racing. Yeah. And so we went and watched the race there.

Yeah, the youths, man, I don't know if a Ute would take off over here, especially down here. I mean, they love their trucks. Yeah, yeah. They don't like the low-looking Ute you see around here, like people are driving. I think it would be kind of like the return of the El Camino. I think it would work. If you positioned it as an El Camino sort of turn, I mean, the El Camino is. iconic.

What's it? El Camino is basically a Ute. It's basically if you got a, I don't know. Oh, so that's what a Ute is? A Ute's like a car truck? Yeah. It's a low, it's a low rider S-10. Oh, okay.

But if you brought it over here, maybe as El Camino. El Camino would be basically like a Monte Carlo, 1980-79 Monte Carlo with a bed on it. Yeah. That's a Ute. That's a straight up. Right. Yeah. That's an El Camino, yeah.

That's an El Camino. Yeah, I mean, that's a U. Like, that's a U. Like, that's a U. looking youths. So you're saying that they raced. They raced those.

What? In Australia. I'm moving tomorrow. Are you kidding? In El Camino racing series? Don't they also have those cars I've seen on TV with the freaking,

looks like bumper cars, man. They got all the rails all around them and stuff and those little short track cars around dirt? Did you ever run Bathurst? Yes. Do you think that Bathurst is the track of all tracks?

Oh, yeah, man. It's amazing. Bathurst, to me, doesn't get the respect it deserves. as, I don't want to say dangerous, because it's not dangerous. It's not, dangerous isn't the right word. It's just, you got to, it's, it's, it's just an amazing high commitment.

Yes. Right. Track. I don't think there's another track in the world like it. And it's almost built for a sedan. It's almost built for, you know, an open wheel car wouldn't do it justice. Because you just be wide open or all the way across the top there. But in a V8 supercar, heavy car, I mean, it's a handful.

You know, coming down the. over the skyline there they call it just as you start heading down the mountain i mean how steep that is it's a blind corner i think they're in fifth gear there i mean uh top speed uh amazing amazing track really tough um just i really want to do it again what did you what did you race over there i race a v8 there i also did they had a 24 hour race there and i raced a portg t3 which was just awesome it was amazing uh i had the the early morning stint like 4 a.m. So just as I'm coming over the crest there,

I see the sun, one lap the sun wasn't there, next lap she's popped up. It's just a really cool event. You know, a 24-hour race there, really, really fun car to drive. Yeah, but I want to go back and do the Bathurst 1000. Now the Penske has a great team. I mean, it's just a cool event.

And as an Australian, that was the race you watched as a kid. You get up, you know, when it started early in the morning, and then, you know, you'd watch it all. day. So it's a dream of mine to win that. Any Australian kid, it was a dream to win Bathurst. So I want to go back there and have a shot or just get some experience there and be in a position where I could potentially win it. Sure. I encourage everybody listening to check out Bathurst, go to YouTube and look some of the videos of the guys racing around that track. And Alonzo talks about trying to win the

Triple Crown or whatever where it's 24 hours of Lamont, Indy 500 and so forth. And I would put Bathurst, the Bathurst 1,000, not only in that conversation, but toward the top, because of just the challenge of the track is itself. Just an incredible race track. People live on that track. You can drive on it. You can take a rental car. I'm glad we did. It's a bit of a trek for us to get there, but it was worth it. We loaded up this minivan and drove over there and drove the minivan around the track. That's crazy. Because we've raced on the track on I racing on the computer. Yeah, yeah. So we're like, man, here we are, you know. We actually sat in the museum and watched the video, and I bought a Docass from the museum one of them.

Yeah, actually haven't been in the museum there. Really? Yeah, that would be cool. I'll just do that next time. Have you been to the indie museum? Because Dale, have you been to that one? I've seen it a little bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's the same.

You get to watch the video. That's the first thing I did. When I came to U.S. to test in 05, the first thing I dig was I landed hotel and caught a cab to the speedway, jumped in that bus. You know, you pay the money, you go on the bus and do a lap of the speedway. I kind of went through the museum and everything. It was actually cool. experience. So if we get back to Indy, he's going to go be part of the broadcast team.

Tell us what drivers he needs to stay away from, what drivers he needs to be near, who's going to give him the best interview, give us the lay of the land on the Indy car drivers. You're helping Dell out in his first Indy 500 in the broadcast coverage. Yeah, I mean, they're all pretty good guys. I mean, easy to talk to. Obviously, you know, Hinchcliffe's a great character in the series. great interview. It's just a bunch of really good guys. I mean, they're all media-friendly.

Yeah, it's 33 drivers. It's really hard to tell you who to stay away from. You know, you bring up something, and I've always heard this. You know, we always like to compare our world and NASCAR to other racing series, and he was talking about going to the drag strip, and we think we're accessible.

But then you go somewhere else, and we realize that we're not as accessible. We're a bit more insulated than what we think we are. You know what I'm saying? And so if he wants to go up and interview somebody in the IndyCar series, what does he have to do? Does he have to book an appointment? What do you got to do?

I think because of Dale, I don't think everyone will be like, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, no, I think, I mean, you could go up to anyone in that field and they will want to be interviewed by you. During practice? We're actually really stoked that you're coming to be in the commentary team. That was one of the things. So I was flattered as hell that any of you guys even cared that I was coming. Believe me, everyone was super happy to your coming.

It means a big deal for us. It means a lot to me that you guys think that. I used to get this question all the time and never understood why it was important. People always asked me all the time who I was hanging out with, who I was friends with. Who are you friends with on the track? Who you hang out with? And I'm like, why is that? It's not that cool.

But I'm curious. Do you hang out with any of the guys that you race again? You live in Mooresville. I don't know that many of them live in this area. Yeah. Yeah. No, actually, I don't. It's just, it's, it's, well, for one, I don't live around them, but it's actually quite difficult to be good friends with someone you've got to compete with at a high level. Yeah. Like, you can't be a good friend to them, you know, really you would be holding stuff back and, you know, I could see myself being really good friends with these guys after I finished my career, but while you're battling it out on the track, you know, it's just really tough. I mean, you give them all the, you know,

give them the respect they deserve and you're friendly to them, but you couldn't really, you know, be going to dinner, hanging out with someone that you really need to beat, you know. It's, it's, the competition's so tight now. It's just, you know, it's just a tough situation. You simply couldn't be a good friend to him. You couldn't be a truthful, good friend because, you know, as a competitor, you would be holding something back.

You know, you wouldn't be completely honest with them. So to me, you know, I'm friends with them. but you couldn't be close friends living in moorsville you get to spend time i know you see several drivers in a nass car uh whether it's a you know the cup series exfinity series or truck series just living in moorsville you're around a lot of them you're working out with them yeah are you are you from good friends with some of those guys uh yeah i used to do a bit of cycling uh you know with josh wise you probably know josh wise um who well i see a bunch of those guys around And John Nemechek used to write, man, he's super fit.

He is. He takes care of. He gets up. Yeah, he's good. He's very talented. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's, there's plenty of drivers around here. And, you know, they all work out. I see, what's, Eric Amarola.

Yeah, I see him sometimes in the gym I go to. So if you're not hanging out in good friends, great friends with any NASCAR drivers, what are you doing in Morrisville? Actually, I hang around a couple of local guys. You probably know you. Travis Beam. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I actually hang around guys that are true locals here that have been here for a long time. A cycle with them, work out with them. You know, just a small group of guys. Did you go back in there building? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is cool. Travis Beam's family has a museum here in Morseville. Oh, you've never been there. No.

Matthew, yeah, Matthew, this is like right up your alley. He's got, like, crash cars. Yeah, it's just amazing. and stuff he's collected. Matthew, you're right. You stirred. You stirred a... So, Matthew, in this museum, it's all in 150 when you go past...

You go past Steg and Shake on the right and the best buy. I mean, on the left. Best Buy and Stake and is on the left, down 150. Yep. Heading toward Denver, I guess. Lee Petty's car that went over the wall at Daytona. He has that car. No.

Yes. I thought they would be buried or something behind. That would be the only... That would be enough reason. Yeah. To go to this museum. Yeah, so Travis has a living... I need to go.

Travis has a cycling company called Livid Extreme. Okay. And you work, you spend time with him. Great guy. Yeah. Super, super cool guy. But they have this giant collection. I mean, huge building full of NASCAR memorabilia and race cars.

I'm excited. Oh, man, you got to go. It's pretty awesome. Travis is going to be thrilled. He mentioned that. Oh, man. He'll be over the moon. Talking about him.

Yeah, he's a great guy. Yeah. So we, um, one of the things that we, um, one of the things that we, wanted to talk about and it's so good to have you here because of this a lot of the guys, we won't talk about the double, all right? And the double is running

the Indy 500 and the World 600, I like to call it the World 600. It's just easier in the same day. And we started a poll, we put a poll up on our social media, Leah. Yep. So we had four drivers, Tony Stewart, Robbie Gordon, John Andretty, and Kurt Bush. We asked the fans

the double, who did it better and overwhelmingly Tony Stewart. which goes right along well with the stats. Yeah, so he did. Four drivers, obviously. Kurt did it back in 2014, John Andredi in 1994. Robbie Gordon in 97, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004. Tony Stewart did it in 99 and 2001.

And he finished pretty high up there in both. Yeah. Stewart is the only driver to do all the miles. So all 500 miles at Indian, all 600, or 600 in the world 600, 1100 miles and he did that in 2001 finishing 6 at Indy and 3rd at Charlotte That's a big day

Yeah Big big day I remember the first time he'd get it He was laid out on the pavement After he got out of the car in Charlotte And was needing oxygen And IVs and everything else Yeah man that's like

I couldn't imagine after being Running the 500 And then having to jump in a chopper or a plane To get down there and run 600 How long's the 6-under take four and a half hours I think the toughest part probably is the commitment on the IndyCar side

being a month long commitment because we're still kind of racing throughout that month of May every weekend and you as a NASCAR driver to go and be available and be present for that month of May and Indy would be tough Yeah yeah yeah I mean Kurt Busch did a bloody great job He did really really good job

Even if you weren't a Kurt Busch fan you were pulling for Kurt in that environment. And I think it'd be the same way for an IndyCar guy to come to Charlotte in race no matter whether you were a fan of his or not or maybe you disliked him as an IndyCar driver but you would want him to do well.

Yeah, I mean in practice, in the last practice, I was following him and right in front of me, boom, into the wall. And what blew me away, he didn't lose confidence. That was his last time in the car. Next time was the race.

and he jumped in and not a problem. Like normally when you have a hit in IndyCar, they're bloody big, man. Like they hurt and sometimes you don't even know what happened. Like, man, what happened? I get a gust of win. So you're a bit unsure when you get back in. But he, I guess in NASCAR you have so many hits.

It's just like, oh, yeah, it's just another one. I'll jump in. But, man, he was, like, I was impressed. He did a bloody good job. In 1970, Donnie Allison won the World 600, and he finished fourth at Indy 500, but they weren't on the same day. That's pretty good.

It's good. It's good, but that double the same day is crazy. Davy Jones attempted to do the double in 1995, it failed to qualify for the World 600. So, Will Power, are you ready to announce that you're doing the double? Oh, man. I have been trying. I want to do an oval race in a NASCAR, man.

Really? You know somebody that owns NASCAR. I just want to drive one. I just want to feel what it's like. You think you would be able to get that opportunity at a test or something with Roger? Yeah, I just got to find the, like, time. They don't do anything for no reason. You know what I mean? Like just so I could experience a car, they'd be more like, it's got to make sense to him. So, um, but he was passed.

I think, I can't remember if I asked him. I think he said, win a, win a championship in a 500, then we'll talk. So I've done that. Oh, you're good. Oh, you're good. So like, I would just, I would love to do. Okay, so here, on the line is Roger Pinsky right now. Matthew, you want to pat you? We're going to have. I'm kidding. I'm curious is what track you'd want to run. What race would you run? I don't know. I'm a mile and a half over. I sure. track would be bloody cool, but a mile and a half oval would be, would be fun. Like, it'd just be something that I've watched and I want to experience. I just want to feel it. I just want to see what, what are these cars like, you know, could it be, would it be okay in them or what? But I think

I'd love it. I've done it on ir racing. I was like, I love these things. You know, I don't know how close it is, probably miles off. Do you, do you, I race a lot? Yeah, not in the season, because it gives you, it gives me bad habits, but, you know, sometimes in the off season I do a little bit. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's some good guys. there. I think I races is as close as you're going to get. Yeah, yeah, seriously. You know, without spending millions of dollars to do the real thing. So if talking about the double and who did it the best, we want to talk about drivers

that we think we'd like to see it pull a double. And I think all of us pulled together different names and different drivers. So I'll let you go first, Mike. Well, you're going to think I'm joking, but I want to see Brad Kislowski pull the double. for no other reason than to have him get out after an IndyCar practice or race, and then Brad tell everybody what they're doing wrong and basically the state of the sport at IndyCar. But Brad will have a strong opinion about something.

And I just sit here and get entertained by them. But I think Brad is, you know, he could probably, if he committed to it, I think he would be pretty good at it. I didn't think about that. I'm on board with that. Who do you got? No, no, no. I love that.

I love that about Brad. Yeah. He just goes on and on about every topic he's so passionate about it. Put him in the car two times and he'll know everything about your sport that needs to be fixed. Yeah. I think he got excited after Kurt did it. I think that's when he tested the car. He drove the car, rode America.

Oh, he did. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, he could do it. I think the guy that could do it. Well, Larson, I reckon would be awesome. but Carl Bush. Yeah.

I have Kyle on my list too. I have Kyle and Jimmy. I think Jim, the only reason I put Jimmy on there is because of, it's kind of like the Alonzo thing. Like you want to see Jimmy go, Jimmy says he's going to race after his cup career is over with, and I assume that he's going to go try to compete in these big,

giant events and just do more cool stuff. And so I'd love to see his attempt at the ND 500 and his, what that would. I think, you know, some of the cup drives would be more willing once they put the windscreen on. I think that's coming next year. Oh, yeah? So it'll be a lot safer, a lot safer.

So expand on that a little bit. What's happening next year? Yeah, I think the plan is, I'm not going to say it's done, but the plan is to have a windscreen next year. Okay. Which is, to me, a huge step in safety. The last step, like the last big step in safety that they need to implement. Because when you look at the last two fatalities,

it would have prevented it. I don't even know before that, but yeah, a big difference. And I think people feel a lot safer or more confident and coming over and doing like a one-off at Indy. Is it like the halo like thing? Yeah. Like in Formula One you're talking about it? It will be something like that.

I think they're going to announce something like that coming up here. But it's, yeah, it's going to be a windscreen, basically. It'll be a full windscreen, not like the Formula One where they just got the, the halo, but they're going to actually do a wind screen is what we need. Because, man, when one of those cars on a Super Speedway crashes in front of you, it's just, I remember indie a couple of years ago, I put my arm up, like, it's probably going to get chopped off with some of the speed you're doing,

but it's just stuff goes everywhere. And when you think about, like, just the tiniest piece to the helmet and, you know, you've seen that in Indy car, or Formula One. Yes, yeah, exactly. So that's, I mean, I think more formal one drives will want to race indie and same with the cup drivers. Really? Okay. Yeah.

Just because it's safe. We were talking about cup guys going to indie. What about indie guys going to the World 600, Mike? Hinchcliff and Will. I think either one of those. And maybe Helio? Yes. That's who was number one on my list was a guy to go that way.

You know, I think that would be fun. Again, you know, I'm not. coming at it from the race. I'm just coming out of it from my own entertainment, right? And I look for the most entertaining guys and people that would amuse me. I think those would be it. Who do you got? Will and Scott Dixon. I think because of their success, y'all success on Oval Racing, which is something that you've worked really hard at. Yes. You know, you weren't, you weren't, you were struggling on the Oval's, and how did that happen? How did, how did you get better as an Oval racer? Yeah, when I, my first, uh, Oval was actually in O-6 at Milwaukee.

It was just, I was racing Champ Car, which is, yeah, what merged into IndyCar. And they just had one oval race, short track race. Yeah, enjoyed it a lot, loved it. I was seven, I did no ovals. But, oh, eight, the two series merged back together and suddenly half the races were ovals. But I actually didn't like the formula. The formula was really high downforce. So you'd literally drive out of the pits on a mile and a half oval and you'd be wide open first lap on the white line all the way around.

And it just didn't require Enough talent Like it was kind of ridiculous You guys know about it I mean you guys have the pack racing You know Talladega, Daytona So it was like that every week You know apart from short Oval

So but yeah It still required a skill Where to run in the wake and how to run I actually quite enjoyed it I just had a lot of bad luck And kind of lost some championships So the last four races were ovals I'd have a big lead and I'd just lose it through, you know,

I guess you could call it inexperience and lack of confidence. But then once they reduce the downforce, I really, really started to enjoy ovals and just experience. And, you know, the last few years I've done, I've felt, I feel confident going to any race now, whether it's oval or road course that I have a shot to win. So, yeah, worked hard at it. I actually love like ovals more than road course.

courses now. Whoa. I actually need to go back and start working on some street course stuff. But yeah, I look forward to ovals now. I really love, I wouldn't care if the whole series was ovals. Because I enjoy racing them so much. It's just so much fun. Just enjoyable.

I understand what I need to get out of the car, how to drive them, all that stuff. Was there a moment? Because I'm hearing you say that, and I'm thinking about him in road courses. He did not like going to Sonoma, did not like going to Watkins Glee. Glenn and his confidence and his attitude approaching each one of those you could he was already defeated I mean you I'm saying stuff that you would admit right Dale I mean I'm not I felt like you were defeated before we even got out there because oh this is a no well I'll get them next week at wherever right right right yeah but then all of a sudden when Steve LaTart tried something like

we're not going to test we're not going to do anything we're just going to go out there and just have fun and all of a sudden the light switched it's like you know all of a sudden not only is he performing better on road courses but he was enjoying them What's up with this? Was there a time when that flipped for you? I think what happens is you're not sure what you want from the car and you're not sure how to drive. Or you have a lack of confidence.

And I reckon that, I reckon when you go into something that you're excited about and you really understand it, you're just so on top of it. But when you kind of feel like you don't understand it, maybe you do, maybe you're fine, maybe everyone else is in the same boat. Just that lack of confidence gives you that unsureness.

so you kind of back out of moves and you're just not confident. I think now when I go into an Oval, I'm so confident. I know what to tell me, engineer. I know the adjustments I need to make in the car. You know, I know how the car should feel. That was a big thing for me is like, should this thing feel so nervous all the time? It was just so unnerving.

And you know, and you feel like you're a bad driver because you're scared to put lock in and all that. But that's actually because the car wasn't handling well. But I didn't know that it's how a good car, should feel until you've got one one day then you're like oh my god like this car's solid and I feel confident so then you understand you know what to tell your engineer I think that's like a big part of it is once you really know what you want from the car how it should feel all times and the adjustments and the ideas that you can give to your engineer you're starting to really get on top of it because you know

oval racing I mean you know more than anyone like it's so much about getting the car right for you to be competitive. Like you really can't drive around a problem on an oval. You just simply can't. Do you relate to any of that stuff? Yeah, that's my, that's your, it's a NASCAR driver running over every single weekend.

That's really your career in a nutshell is going from, you go to every single racetrack throughout your career, not really knowing exactly what you need or what's possible until you find that car. Yeah. Until you show up and, wow, this is the best car I've ever had here. I didn't know I could have a car that could do this, that, and the other. And then you know to achieve, or try to achieve that every time you go.

And you go, you don't feel bad asking for it. Yeah. The more times it happens, the more times you get a good car, the more confident you are and how that feels and what you should say. I mean, it's just experience, right? Like, you just keep adding to your toolbox of experience of, like, how it should feel off the wall, how it should feel in the middle, how it should feel off. I mean, it's just endless, right?

Like, I've never stopped learning. I've been racing for 20 years now, and I have not stopped picking little things up constantly. I think the day you stopped doing that or you're willing to do that, you know, you shouldn't be racing. You talk about adding to your toolbox, and one of those things that's new in the toolbox for a lot of drivers is social media,

and you've been ramping up your social media, especially on Instagram over the last six months. What's the thought process behind that? Just random. Just eating some... I mean, serious, I just... Sometimes I just say what I think. I'm not doing, I just, like some of my stories, really like the, the Amazon one, I just was

outside. Like, more boxes. Like, I honestly, look, I could live on 15 bucks a week. I don't spend any money. But every day, a bunch of Amazon boxes turn up at my doorstep. My wife moves in inside. I don't even know what's in them. I don't even know where they go.

They just disappear, but it's every day. Every day. Even some stuff gets sent back. I mean, so, yeah. Yeah, I just did a story on that. It was just like, you know, on Twitter got like 50,000 views. It was really surprising. It really struck a nerve with people.

I think it's because it's relatable. Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people have the same issue. With their wife. Yeah, the man. Yeah, the man. Seriously, the wife doesn't have to go to the bloody mall anymore. It's just like, the mall is this, man, this, click at a button.

And the worst thing is you can send it back. So they just, there's nothing holding them back from just find that. You send a straight back, like, you know, we can get a refurb. fun. Sometimes box the sent back piles right up and it's like, you're going to send that stuff back or what? I was just going to stay there. Yeah, I mean, it's, that's funny. So, look, okay, so you, so she has an Amazon Prime problem. Yeah. No more than probably most people, honestly, but I'm not saying, she's great. Honestly, she is great. She's going to kick my heart for something. Yeah, backtracking now.

I had a little bit of Insta story. We're not breaking news here. Yeah. No, no, no. I don't know, she's great. It's, it's, it's, it's just amusing that so many people. When I said it, I thought I was the only one that had the problem, but I was at driver intros and Ryan Hunter Ray's like, yeah, man, every day. And then one of the other guys, like, yeah, I just had boxes turn up all the time. I was like, oh, yeah, that's why it is story. I realize everyone has this issue.

It's like, well, to her defense, I'm sure she puts up with some obnoxious habit that you do that probably she doesn't love. What is that? Multiple. I mean, I'm just a pain in the ass. How so? It's just in every way. She's just, I mean, she cooks my meals. She does, she does everything.

She's just a great support system. She's bored, she's made me better. There's no question. Like, a great wife, great wife, very passionate. I heard you have a karaoke machine in your kitchen. Yeah, I actually do. Why? I didn't know about that.

Kill my bloody wife, man. What the? Why, why have it in your kitchen? I think, I think I'd, I think I'd got that for a birthday or something. And I just set it up in the kitchen. I just, I'll sing karaoke every now and then. My kid, like when I'm really out of tune, he puts his hands over his ears. It's kind of good reference. But yeah. Well, how old your kid? He's two. And he can recognize bad singing already. I think he can. Like, even when he was one, like, I was singing, and he's just like,

like, he and he was looking sideways at me. I got a really funny video of that. And my wife so wanted to put on social media, but like, no, the scene is so bad. The singing is so bad. I still got it. I could do it. But just embarrassing for me, because I really want to be a good singer,

but I'm just not. So you don't karaoke outside the house? Definitely not. Really? Maybe I'll have to branch out. What's your go-to song? I got a bunch of them as red hot chili peppers. Wow, this is some challenging stuff.

Yeah. Guns and roses, patience. Oh, jeez. That's a good one. What else? A bit of Stone Temple Pilots. That's tough, man. Right.

Yeah. It's not good. I'm not a good singer, but it's a good release. It's just fun. You play the drums, though. I do. And you're a good drummer. Reasonable.

Like, I can play some songs. Drumming for me, I used to play the drums years ago. It's not like riding a bike. It's more like playing golf, whereas if you don't do it and you try to go back to it years later, you have to relearn it all over again. It's not a habit that you kind of. You don't retain that muscle memory. And so when I, I would, I quit drumming because everywhere I went, not everywhere,

but I would go places and people go, get on the drums. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sometimes, get on the job. Actually, I'm a bit more confident now to get on because I can play a few songs. Yeah, it's pretty easy for me now to pick up a beat. You'll be confident until Kid Rock says you're an awful drummer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wow.

That happened. Oh, that kills you, right? Because with drumming, like when you first learned, the better you get, the worse you realize you are. Like, you get to a point where you start to think you're good, then you start to, you know, understand all the intricate little details to be a good drummer. And then you realize how bad you are. Yeah. Like, drumming is, man, it's tough. Like, like, you feel pretty good as soon as you get that, you know, that beat, that first beat.

You're like, oh, yeah, I'm a good drummer. But yeah, right. Did Kid Rock bring you up during the show? I stayed at Kid Rock's house, actually. Oh, okay, great. Yeah. with Marco Andretti. I stayed there. Marco knows everybody. He knows

everyone. I'm like, dude, take me on vacation. No kidding. What's the god? Ludicristen. Ludicristen. Kevin Hart. I was like, take me on vacation. Come on. My brother's a stand-out comedian. He would kill to meet Kevin Hart.

Marco, hook us up. Give us some of your contacts. I'm with you. I mean, like, Marco's a friend of yours too, so like you've never been able to connect the dots with the He hadn't invited me on vacation yet. I just don't know how he, how does he meet these people? And then, like, he must just text him and say, that's all I went to his wedding.

Ludacris was there. Ludacris was at my 30th birthday party. Yeah, see, you're amazed by all this, and you're basically repeating some things that have happened to Dell as well. That's true. Luda was at his 30th birthday party in Moorsville. No way. In Morrisville. And it drove up from Atlanta, because he doesn't like to fly, I guess.

Wow. So he just drove up, hung out. Just drove up and hung out. No way. In some little seedy bar in Mooresville. Yeah. Just because you have friends with him. We had done a photo shoot together and just became friends.

That's cool. That's cool. I'm going to start taking these numbers. But we're not vacationing together. I haven't talked to him in years. Vacationing together. That's the next level. Yeah.

I'm with you, man. I was at a, yeah, I started, I tried to learn how to play the drums. Really, really love music, especially a lot of bands from Australia, like Silverchair. I play silver chair. You know, what? You play silver chair? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you said with.

No, why. That would be cool. Another band that's one of my favorites is Midnight Oil. Oh, yeah. And you know that former HMS crew chief, Keith Rodden, looks just like the lead singer Midnight Oil, Peter Garrett. You have to look at the comparison. We do. I used to call him Midnight Oil.

That was his nickname for me anyways. He probably didn't get it either, did he? He didn't know. New. Did he know? Okay, good. I doubt you would have explained it to. I could see you going up to me and call, hey, midnight old, and then walking out.

No, like we're being debriefs and I'm going, what's like, midnight old? How's your, has a car? Casey liked the car? Another good band you like is called Grinspoon. If you had a Grinspoon, good Aussie band. Really? Yeah, I think you like it. Is that new?

No, no, they're from the, man, they're probably 90s band. I got you. Yeah. What kind of music? Yeah, grunggy. Grunggy. Yeah. Conjy type music, yeah.

Yeah, so I learned the drums to Stone Tau Pilots. I actually learned how to play the drums playing CCR, Credence. Because it's so simple, real easy tempo. Yeah. And I tried to get better from there, but then I had to, I just quit, man. I couldn't. Nirvana's good, like, Navana's good. Dave Drill is like.

Yeah. But they're easy to learn. Really? Yeah, they're not crazy, crazy, you know, like. Do you post videos like, Bubbaugh? Wallace about your drumming? You should? No, I haven't. I got some videos, but yeah, I haven't, I need to get, like, it all miced up and stuff, so you can actually play it. Camera angles and all that. Yeah, yeah. Well, not even the camera angles, but like, just so I could actually play.

I don't know how he connects the music with the drums. He must have a mic up. You know, he lives in Morseville where you live. Yeah, does he. Yeah, yeah, I need to hook up with him. Yeah, I would. I need to hook up with some of these guys. Yeah. Yeah. He does. He shows off he does. Yeah, he's a good drummer. Yeah. I've watched him. Like he's considered good? Yeah, he's good. Like, I've seen him play. He's like, yeah, pretty tight.

Yeah. My drum off. I'm starting to feel a drum off between these two guys. See, that's it. Everything's a competition. That's when it gets no fun. Not, no. Yeah, I know.

Then you're not enjoying it. That's when it's no fun. You guys, come on. Oh, since you're not in the, since you don't have to be in the competition, it's okay. Right. Can it be a drum fest? God, I'm sick of that.

You're sick of that shit. Everything's a competition. Just like the shotgun in the beer. this week. Everybody got to make it in the competition. He's insecure about something, and I knew it. It was the shotgunning of the beer. Shotgun of the beer.

Clint's shotgun of beer. Clint's shotgun of beer and said I was, we were, Clint was on the show last week, and I was joking with him, saying we were going to shotgun beers, and we didn't. All right? It was 9 o'clock in the morning. And so he goes on vacation, and he gets Larson's wife and goes, I found somebody manned enough to shotgun a beer with me, and they shotgun one. He posted on Twitter and gets 15,000 likes.

And so I had to shotgun a beer then. So I go into my shop and found a Bud Wiser and shotgun it, and I shotgun it in 10 seconds because I haven't shotgunned a beer. And so long that I forgot you're supposed to do it fast. Shotgun a bit. I didn't even know it. Oh, yeah. Right.

So he does. And Clint's wasn't even full. You can tell he had a half full beer. So he cheated. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. You got to call him out on that.

Right. And, yeah, I try to do something, I try to do something nice and, or I try to just, you know. Try to have fun with it. Have fun with it. Have fun with it. Come to competition. just like everything else that's that's one thing Travis beamed it you know like everyone's doing this like they hit yeah hit the beer like that's like he's he had like how I can't

tell you how many goes he was trying to do that while wake surfing oh on the boats he's got to be a bah bah bah bah won't break like gosh I'm like dude come on don't you know like he's going to get CTE like trying to try and just to get a viral video sure some of the some of the crap people do these days to get some attention on bloody social media. It's created some really... Do you get social media trolls going at you at all for anything like he would have? Like if it's a shotgunning of beer or whatever it is, I mean, and how do you deal with social media trolls? Trolls.

Or haters. So, yeah, you won't find that much on Instagram, but are you on Twitter much? Yeah, Instagram. Twitter, yeah, I used to get, like, pounded, man. Like, back in the day when I was racing Dario. Like, you just... No, like it actually has turned people into more computer robots when they do interviews. Because if you do an interview from the heart and you actually, you know, and you're a bit pissed off and you say something,

you just get pounded by people and people are so brave when they're sitting behind a bloody keyboard. The stuff people say on Twitter, on social media, it just blows me away. It's just like, dude, you would never say that to my face. Not what you're upbringing. No, exactly. The one punch rule isn't over here in the U.S. You're allowed to one punch. You're allowed to go behind somebody, just whack him.

You have the pictures on your phone. Show him. This is incredible, by the way. Because he knows Matt Midnight Oil and the lead singer. There you go. So yeah, there's the old crew chief. That's not. That's like their brothers.

That is not. Oh, sorry, I was looking at Peter Garrett. Oh, look at the second one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that is similar, man. That's very similar. I know it was awesome.

Yeah. Oh, good. So somebody, so another, another, another quirk of yours is that you can bank sleep. Explain to me what banking sleep is. You've been speaking to Jennifer. We don't reveal, we don't reveal our sources. Yeah, no, um, uh, yeah, I, I think, I think, I, I think I could, I tried, I had, I don't believe it anymore, but I believe this years ago.

So I want you to explain what that is. Well, yeah, I, I find, like, when you have, like, a week of really big, sleeps you kind of I feel like you've banked it like you can have a then you can have a couple of sleepless nights on the race weekend and be kind of okay but if you have a bunch of sleepless nights it really catches up to you like that's how I feel but sometimes just one big sleep fixes it all you know what I mean one deep sleep like you'd rather have one like four hours of deep sleep than eight hours of restless sleep but you're thinking that if you say if you need eight hours all right every night just say for for a number and if you slept 12

12 and 12, you don't need to sleep as much throughout the weekend? Yes. If you sleep as, if you sleep more in the front half of the week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You think this? Kind of like, yeah, that's what I feel. The reason I think that is because when you have like, I used to have race weekends and no sleep.

And, ah, so exhausted by then. And it took, and it take you a few days to catch back up on the sleep. So it works the other way as well. If you get a lot of sleep, then you can have a few sleepless nights and be fine. Yeah. It's so weird. Some race weekend.

where literally before qualifying, I would not sleep. Like, I would not sleep. And I'd get up and then you qualify on pole. I've had that at Pocono a couple years ago. I did not sleep the whole night. Why not? Just didn't, I couldn't sleep. I was just wound up.

I couldn't sleep. You know, it's kind of... Nervous about qualifying? Yeah, it's just a bit of a, you know, Poconos. Poconos. It's a treacherous. Dangerous. And didn't sleep, super anxious, getting in the car.

Like, almost like, I don't even want to write. I don't want to get in this car and go out and win. It just blows me away that you can have that. So you think about like and then some days you have the best sleep totally relaxed calm laughing before you get in the car and you have a horrible race. I don't get it. Yeah, like why you're just more prepared your body more prepared, your mind more prepared when you're kind of nervous and and you really thinking about it all night. Yeah, it's no pattern to it. I don't get like why for a lot of my career. I would not sleep the night before qualifying. I'd be so wound up. I always felt like I raced better if I partied hard at some point in the week. Yeah. If I had a good hard party, like a good night of staying up late drinking. Yeah.

Like on a Tuesday night, Wednesday night, if I raised hell real hard, I ran better on the weekend just because I had this sort of got it all out of my system. And if I didn't, if I had to do parents all week and was bottled up and couldn't kind of blow any steam off, I didn't run as well. You reckon like partying kind of was almost like a mind reset? Yeah. You know, like kind of... Just loosen me up. I've had that before, like, you've, you know, been stressed out,

and you go out, party all night. It's almost like a reset in your mind or something. I don't know if you just forget about everything. I don't know. I mean, it's not like the Surgeon General is recommending this type of behavior for race car drivers, but I'm just saying that it worked for him. Yeah.

I can't say I've ever done that. Like, seriously, I'll go a whole season without drinking. Yeah, I heard that. Yeah. I just won't drink. I thought I was doing really good by not drinking beyond. beyond Thursday or beyond Wednesday. Yeah, never in a million years

if I, I just, I've never done that in my career. I've been so, like, focused that I just, and if it was anything that I felt that might hinder my performance, I just wouldn't do it. What do you like to drink? If I drink, yeah, a beer. So what's that first beer like after the end of the season? That must be the greatest beer ever.

He's out. He gets that long, he gets that 12-hour sleep. He always delivered. We go champagne on the podium one sip and I'm just like out, like in the press conference. Actually, when I won in Fontana one year, the sponsor was Fuzzy's vodka. So instead of getting champagne, you go out of fuzzy vodka, I took a bunch of swigs of that. And when I got to the press conference, man, I was beaming. I was just like, out.

Yeah, because I'm super dehydrated and I don't drink much. Yeah, you're tall. You drank at least one beer after the Indy 500 win, right? I drank nothing. Nothing. Wow. Just milk. Yeah, just the milk.

That was it. That was it. Like, yeah, probably in the past, I would. But since I had that, you know, a bit of fatigue and a few food allergy issue, I just didn't drink. I was trying to look off my body. You know, you get later in your career, you want to make it last as long as possible. And you know when you go out, like, it takes a chunk out of you. You know, like, you don't want to, you want to prolong it.

You can drink as much you want when you're done. But while you're doing it, you want it. want to get as much out of it as possible. Talk about taking care of your body. You broke, this is crazy. You broke your back twice, not only once, but twice in your career. I was like compression fractured the T4-5, like four times. God, four times.

So what's, what, and how do you mentally come back from the second time? I mean, the first time, okay, I broke my back, I'm going to work hard, I'm going to come back. That's a reasonable thought process. The first time was terrible, like a bad, like a nasty, nasty, like it was actually broken. Yeah, but you break it a second time. That should have been, a lot of people would have said, I'm not doing this no more enough. Yeah. Well, the second time was a compression fracture.

Like the compression fracture up high was nowhere near as bad as when you did the L, you know, 2, 3 and 4. Like, that was just the most nasty pain I've ever felt in my life. Like, it was next level. I was just asking them while I'm in the car, just give me something. The pain, I was shooting morphine up my nose, did nothing. Then they injected me with something once I go to the medical center and just went from the worst pain ever to no pain, zero pain. I was like, I think it's a good question because, you know,

the Middle Olympics that you seem to deal with, even just on a normal weekend. I mean, like you've said a lot confidence and confidence was your issue. And to have that kind of back pain and those types of injuries, It's a wonder that you were able to regain your confidence in yourself and in your driving ability because it would be hard to let your brain forget about the possibility of injuring your back again, I would think. And that's true. Like when you come back for the first time, all I thought was, what if I'm not as fast as I was? I was so just caught up and being as good as I was after I crash.

Is it going to affect me? Will I be as good as I was? Like, you know, that was, that caused me a lot of anxiety. like a lot. Like, I remember the first race back, I was so paranoid, but I won it. And really, like, such a relief. But, yeah, I mean, you know, you've got to switch that stuff off. You know, you have some injuries.

You have some pretty big hits in Indy car. You know, you see stars and maybe get a concussion, but you have to, you can't be thinking that stuff going in the car. You know, I've been through all that stuff. I mean, you just can't. It's got to switch off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you've got that in the back of your mind.

You got that in your subcontract. just you kind of bringing more of that on. Yeah, I think if you have that thought process, if you're worried about getting hurt, you're bringing that into your law of attraction kind of thing. Yeah, I feel that. I went through that. And I feel, I was just watching your career from the outside, I feel like you may have gone through a period like that too.

You're scared of hitting the wall because you've had too many head hits and that sort of stuff, and you have more of it. Yeah. But when you just get in an attack and you think nothing of it, nothing, you don't think anything about crashing or anything. All you're thinking about is performing. and getting the guy in front, you don't hit the wall. Like, you got a whole season, you won't hit the bloody wall.

Like, you used to drive me nuts. Like, why do I hit the wall? You know, every year I have a shunt somewhere. You know, and you see some of these guys who never crash. It just blows my mind. But it's got to be a mindset. It's got to be that because you're trying not to hit the wall. You're hitting the wall.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, do you know that he has one of your noses in his race? Yeah, he's got that Vegas one. Yeah, yeah, the top. Yeah, that's what I heard. Yeah, I called, I've got this race car graveyard that we've kind of collected all kinds of stuff over the years, just different. But it's all NASCAR race cars and trucks and stuff.

No indie cars, nothing really outside of that until I called Brad Hezlaskin. I said, hey, I think somebody on Twitter asked me if I had an indie car, and I called Brad on a whim, and I was like, you know, do you think there's any indie cars? Like, how hard would it be to get? I'm thinking these things are just expensive, and there's no way in hell. I'm going to get a tub or anything sent to me. But they did. They sent me... There's a bunch of tubs lying around, yeah.

Really? But that, you got the one of Vegas. That tub has won a lot of races. Really? Yeah, that one, that one for sure, because that was my 2011 car. I won six races that year. So that would have been the same tub every race? I'm sure that tub, it wouldn't have been the same every race.

I'm pretty sure they would have had a road course and an oval car. That would have been the oval car. So maybe it didn't win. I had to see the number. I mean, they'd have the records of that. But yeah. My mom was walking through the graveyard. We've got these trails back there.

And she's walking through the graveyard. And she's text me. She's like, the bobsled. That's so cool. Mom, it's not a bobslet. Yeah, a child just looks like a bloody bobs. So it doesn't it? Yeah, when it came to me, I'm like, oh, okay.

I'll take whatever I can get. But it was literally just the driver seat. They should have given you the bloody, like a... It was basically just that in the engine, right? They got, yeah. Well, did you get? There's nothing left. From the seatboard?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they should have given you, yeah, they should have given you a roll of gearbox and everything. Oh, man. Well, I took the tub and stuck it in the wire. It's like 15 feet in the air. I think I've seen a picture of it. It's pretty cool.

I'm very proud of it. Thank you. We know it hurt, but thank you. It hurt. Well, that was a broken bat. That was a compression fracture right there. Yeah. The bottom of that, yeah.

That was a, that was kind of the start of actually gave me the idea. Like, yeah, I should have different, I think we're getting a drag, dragster here in a couple weeks. Oh, I've heard about it. Oh, yeah. Funny car body. Tommy Johnson. Yeah, Tommy Johnson. Yeah, Tommy Johnson.

Yeah. He had one to explode, and so they're sending the body down here. And we got a land speed record car in the woods. I have yet to see it. But there's a land speed record car in the woods. That's all I can tell you. but it's got the dome wheels and all that. Oh, boy.

Yeah. See, doesn't, doesn't Morris will feel like just Australia of the West where you just put wrecked race cars in woods and just show them off like that? Seriously, man. It's just what you came from. This is like a small town feel like this, I love this area.

Yeah. It really is. Like, it's got a small town field. It's a real racing town. But it's not like a, you know, it's a racing town that's kind of like grassroots racing feel. Well, you stay here when your, when your career's over. I probably will unless I have

The only other place I'd live is Indianapolis If I was going to move Just because of opportunities up there You know as far as work after racing But most probably stay here We'll see you know, yeah I'll probably plan on having a couple of kids By that time

And they're probably going to school here And have friends and all that So it'd be a lot harder to get up and move Yeah Absolutely Yeah Well man I appreciate you coming on We've had a lot of time

We've had a lot of fun talking to you. Yeah, thank you. And I can't wait to get to Indy. And, you know, I've got a couple friends there, but now I've got one more. Yeah. And hopefully see you around town. I know you're not big-time friends with a lot of race car drivers, but I quit, so I'm not necessarily racing anymore. See, he doesn't have any friends either.

Anyone I compete again. I'm not like, I don't dislike that. I'm just messing with it. But we'll get out on the bike or something, man. Yeah. Yeah, let me know, man. I would love to. Yeah, I'm always, always out there.

doing, I'll have to keep bloody fit. So, yeah. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Thanks. I really appreciate it. It's really cool to finally meet you and have a great chat. Absolutely, man.

Take care. Cheers. Mike, there's a lot of great places to buy stuff online, cool stuff. We won't name them. Nowhere's cool as pristine auction, though. Christine auction.com. It's an online sports auction website where you can bid and win some incredible items. Mike, they got some sports memorabilia.

That's right. You like sports memorabilia. Only when it's pronounced. properly. I think I just did it twice. And that's why I love it. There's daily auctions. You don't have to wait around for multiple days to bid and win, which I love.

There's also a 10-minute auction, fast-paced, rapid fire. Everything that's on Pristine is authentic. Authenticity, guarantee. I've signed for Pristine, so I know that every autograph sold of me on there is the real deal. That's the best part about it. But yet, there's another good part. It's affordable.

Every auction on Pristine starts at one buck, one dollar. That's the start for every auction. Before the show, the guys spotted a unique, listen to this one, 13.5.5-1-2-1-1-inch custom-matted lithograph. What in the hell is that? Of Bobby Labonte for only $5.25. This is the number 18 Interstate Batteries Pontiac, a lithograph. That is 13.5 by 21 and a half, by all means.

It's better than 8 by 10. Go to pristine auction.com now. You'll be hooked. It's free to register, free to bid, and of course, you only pay for the items you win. That's pristine auction spelled P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-Oction.com. And when you register, be sure to select Dale Jr. Download podcast from the drop-down menu.

Dale Jr. Download podcast from the drop-down menu. I really need you to try to do that in the How Did You Hear About a section that lets them know that we sent you. Christine. Guys, we're getting ready to talk about something that I'm freaking excited about. And for our listeners, back at wherever you're at. You're going to have to use your imagination. I'm going to talk about some photos. You can't see them, but we'll try to do our best to help you guys understand what we're talking about.

But there's this car, all right? My dad drove a car in the Xfinity series in the mid-80s. And Mike, you got some stats on this card. I mean, this car that your dad drove six total wins, two at Rockingham, two at Darlington, one at Charlotte, one at Daytona, built in 1984, ran about three or four years, or at least of winning races. I mean, this thing was successful. O'Dale Earnhardt could get around in a black cake and that number eight good wrench car.

Okay, so this was originally a Pontiac Ventura. Oh, okay. After a few races or a year or two of racing that way, it was transferred. They cut the nose off the car and made it a Nova, okay? And I've seen this car, it's an old bush car, and I've seen it pop up over the last 15 years. It's been to Monterey. It's been to all it's been raced as an vintage racer for many, many years. It's been over to Goodwood.

Goodwood. Yeah, it's been to Goodwood twice. I don't know why I couldn't think of that. It's been to Goodwood twice. And I've seen this car over and over and over. I've never seen it in person. And I've always wondered, is it the real car, right? They're claiming it's the real car, but how do you know?

How do you know this is a real car? Well, obviously the car came up for sale recently at Barrett Jackson. I'm getting all kinds of text messages from everybody. even my sister and talking about, man, you've seen this car, you've seen this car. And I had, I mean, it pops up on my social media timelines. And I'm thinking, wow, man, this thing is getting around. And I wonder why, of course, it's getting sold. And we've seen in the past, especially recently, a lot of dad's cars in my cars going on auction.

Right. Some real, some not real. Some not real. All right. And it's pretty easy, to be honest with you, to know what's real and what's not. But even, you know, and I guess the line or the history with this car going into the Barrett-Jackson auction was that my uncle on my mom's side, Robert G. Jr. had verified that this car was legit. He had this car, this car was brought up to Robert G. Jr. to be looked at. And the reason why they would take it to him is because he put the body on the car.

All right, and he did several things on the car and would go to the racetrack with the team as well. I've got him at the racetrack in a photo with the rest of the team standing next to this car. And so Robert G. Jr., who works here at Junior Motorsports, has worked on this car and put the body on it. So I asked him, I said, Robert, is this the car? He goes, yeah, it is. I'm pretty confident this is the car. I said, well, this car is probably going to go for $150,000. Are you $150,000 confident that this is the car?

And he goes, I'm pretty sure. No, no, no, I need more than that. Like, well, what is it? You know, I mean, he saw this car. They brought it up to him, but it was in the late 90s when he saw this car. And I'm like, well, man, what if it's not that car? And he goes, well, if it's the car I saw in the 90s, it's the real car. And I'm like, how do you know, okay?

Because you did the body of, you could look at the body. Can't you look at the body, Robert Jr. and say, that's my work? And he goes, well, no, really, the thing that I saw on it was the drive shaft hoop. Okay, so it has a drive-shaft hoop at the back toward the rear-in-housin. If the drive-shaft comes loose with the yoke brakes to keep the drive-shaft from tearing the rear-in, or tearing the sheet metal out of the car and hitting the driver. And he said, he watched my dad make that loop, and it's unique because dad made it. And the way it was made, the way dad chose to make it.

He heated it up with a settling torch and wrapped this thing around an oxygen tank, which is quite dangerous. and made it himself right there in front of Robert in the shop. And Robert says, I saw that drive shaft hoop on that car. Well, I'm thinking, well, hell, you could put that drive shaft hoop on any car and say, it's the car. It still doesn't mean that it's the car. How do I know? I need markings.

Did you see anything in the body that was original to your work? Because he was the body man. Did you put Uncle Robert was here? Right. You know, somewhere etched on inside of the sheet metal. He could do stuff like that. He couldn't give me enough. confirmation to make me completely sure that I was, this was the real car.

I got some encouragement within my family that I should purchase this car. I called Tony Sr., and I talked to him about it. I kind of swung for the fences. I called Rick Hendrick. I said, Rick, you're at the auction, and he's going to bid on some cars. I said, I got one I need you to get for me if you can. And he goes, sure. And I said, it's probably going to go for $150.

but if it goes if it's under 200 try to stay in the fight and so we got the car for 190 all right they bring it back to the house they ship it all the way up here

on Rick's guys brought it to us unload the car I have been climbing all over this car all right as you should trying to find some identification

something anything that would make me feel confident 100% that this was the car, all right? And I, you know, there's the floorboard of the car, and I'm going to send you guys a quick picture. My dad would take the floorboard of the car and he would beat it down with a ball peen hammer to get his seat low.

Okay, when you get the car, you put the seat in. A lot of guys would go, okay, it's against the floorboard. It's the low as it's going to go. Well, dad wanted to be lower. That wasn't low enough. Wow. He would get in the car and with a hammer, seat out of the car, get in the car with a hammer and beat the floor down all as much as he needed to,

all right, to get the seat as low as possible. So I sent you guys a photo and you can see right there. Oh, you see the hammer marks. You can see the ballpene hammer marks in the bottom of the car. This picture is taken from underneath the car. And you can see this. It's obviously been hammered down a ton all the way across the back to get this back of the seat lower

and get him to get dad to where he can sit lower. So, okay, all right. That still doesn't say this is the car. Anybody else Somebody else could have beat their seat down I don't know That's a very earned art thing there It's a very earned heart thing

But it isn't And I can't find another picture of the car From 1986 of the bottom Showing this exact same hammer marks So that doesn't do it for me Okay All right I'm the one that has spent the money

I need more All right All right So I got this photo stream On my phone With over a thousand photos thousands of photos of my dad's career at many, many points. 70s, 80s, photos are rare, hard to find.

And there's a couple photos of me that I've collected as well. And here is one of me in 1986. I'm sitting in the car, all right? I'm sending that to you. And that gives me a view of the driver's window. Wow. All right? And some of the interior of the car,

as far as the rear sheet metal in the back interior of the car, the roll cage. One of the things that I look at in this photo is how they hooked up the window net at the top of the window. Back then, everybody would have done that differently. A car didn't come, when you put the body on,

you made that yourself, how you were going to hook up the window net. And so when you see those mounts, they're unique to the car. And I would look at those, mounts and go, well, that's exactly like the mounts on my car. So that's a pretty good confirmation, but still, well, still not, still not a, still that's a 99% maybe or 95% sure that this is the car.

Somebody could have copied that or somebody could have done that on another car. And then I found this photo, same day, me sitting in the car at some racetrack in the garage from the passenger window. All right. Look at this. And so this is a picture of me in the car, and I can see the seat, the seat belts, the steering wheel, the steering shaft, the dashboard. And if you draw in, look closely at the above the steering shaft, there is a radio box. Yep.

All right. Yeah, see it. And it's riveted to a roll bar with two rivets and then to a piece of sheet metal by two rivets as well. And if you'll look, it's kind of cocked. counterclockwise just slightly it's not level with the roll cage of the car all right so I go into the car

quickly with my camera when I'm looking at this picture I'm standing next to the car and I dive in that car with my with my camera all right and I take a picture I sent it to you

of the car today oh my goodness there's the ribbon holes and there's the and the fact that it's off angle there's the rivet holes and there's the there's the they're off angle

that's it. That's it. That's awesome. I don't need anything else. No, no. That to me locks it down that I'm holding the real thing. That's $150,000 guarantee. That's absolutely. That's awesome. So I'm going to tell you right now, I ran back up to the house to tell Amy.

I was almost in tears getting that type of confirmation that I had the car. And, you know, I was calling my sister. I was calling Rick. I called Robert Jr. I called a Tex-Toney Senior. I'm telling everyone like, I got it. I got what I needed. And I really do have this car.

Why is this? I mean, any car that my dad drove, of course, would be important to me. But this one in particular is important because this car was built in the shop next to Mamaw's house. What? Is that right?

Yes. I guess, yeah. I mean, this predates any of the stuff at DEI. This was before DEI. So this was built in that shop. behind my mom's house and dad I would beg dad to take me when he would go to the he went to that shop every single day of the week before he would you know then he'd go the race uh but he was there working on his cars and and hanging around and I begged to go we ate water burger for lunch every

day I mean it was just so fun and I climbed all over this car and all over that shop I mean it wasn't but two bays but I remember I've taken pictures with this car obviously I got pictures of me in the car hanging out playing around it just means so much to me to have it. And so I made a long list of things that I'm excited to do to the car. I've got a sort of a little, I'm not going to really do a frame off restoration on the car. I want to drive it. I don't want to worry about, I'm not going to race it, obviously.

But I want to, I don't want to worry about the thing getting nicks and scratches and dirt. So I'm not going to do a complete frame off restoration. I am going to take it apart, make sure everything works. works right, but it needs a proper seat. I want to get a time period correct seat, time period correct steering wheel, fire bottle. It's got a lot of stuff on it that doesn't need to be on it because it was raced in the vintage series.

Like it's got a break light in the back. It's got a real glass in the back glass. That would have Lexan. I got to put a Lexan glass in that back there. I'm going to sand the body and clean the body up and repaint it. You have G help you with some of that and make it even more? That would be cool. Me and him spent a lot of time climbing all over the car,

climbing underneath it over the last couple of days. And I asked him a few times if he had one more restoration in him, and he hasn't answered me yet. Oh, he needs to do it. He'll be involved, I'm sure. But I love it, man. I'm so proud that I got, I can't believe that I have it. I have that car, and obviously we've talked about it,

the 1980 Cup Series championship car, championship winning car, and just to have anything like that. When dad died, I got a pair of boots, you know, that were his. And so since then, I've been collecting more and more items that belong to him. And that's been my own, anything that I've gotten was either given to me by someone nice enough to give it to me or by something I've collected or tracked down myself. So I'm so, I'm thrilled. That is incredible.

Now, what was Robert G's emotions like when you, or when you guys were going through it? Did he have any? Because he's kind of a rough and gruff guy. Well, I was still, I was still beating on him going, man, do you see anything here that can confirm it? Do you see, like, can you look? So this was before that realization? Yeah. Oh, okay.

I just did this. This realization literally happened yesterday. Wow. Okay. I've had the car for four or five days looking all over it. And I finally went through that. I was looking at this photo stream going, I got to have more pictures of that car. And I was like, here's perfect interior photo.

And, oh, man. And I was looking at that picture of me sitting in the car, and L.W. was with me, my sister's husband, and he goes, look that. Look at that. Radio box. They just mounted it like that's weird. And then we went to the next thing.

You know, we're looking elsewhere for some identification. We didn't even think about the radio box and the way it's mounted in the root holes. And then I was back, I went down there and looked at the car, and I'm looking at these pictures. And I went, oh, crap, the radio box, the holes. That's it. dove right in their head first, and there they were. That's amazing. So the funny thing is because this car, so dad had this car,

and I guess when he was done racing with, he sold it, just sold it. He sold it. They had a sportsman series that ran at Charlotte, and they ran these cars, and this car went and had another life. It raced in the sportsman series. And it survived. Well, it wrecked hard. A few times in the sportsman series, the rear clip's not original.

I don't know if the front clip's original either, but I know the rear clip's not original. The rear sheet metal, though, is original. And they cut the clip out from under it and leave the sheet metal and just straighten it out and put a new clip under it and tack this old sheetmess. Interior 10, yeah. Yeah, the interior 10 is all tacked up and had, and it's been, it's had a clip or two underneath it.

And so they had to run a quick change rear in-housing in the sportsman series. And so they gut it, they hack job the sheet metal in the trunk so that the back of that quick change could clear into the sheet metal of the trunk series or the truck area. So there's this weird random box kind of sitting in the trunk of sheet metal so the quick change doesn't crash into the rear original sheet metal. Little things like that tell the story of this car and where it went and what it did. Eventually, the guy that sold it at auction had the car restored twice. He restored it in late 90s when he brought it to my uncle Robert to get verified.

He took the car and ran it in vintage racing for a long time. It went over to Goodwood twice, festival speed, all kinds of different places, and then was restored once more in 2013. It just unbelievable that it's still... So when I was looking, if I'll show you this picture of the car, one of the things that we were doing was the windshield straps, okay? There's these little

clips that hold the windshield in if you look at any race car. Yeah, zoom in on this picture of Dad at Darlington in the Winter Circle. It's the front of the car, him sitting in the front of the car, and look at the windshield, and it's got these four black tabs across the top. And they aren't there. Yeah, there's a couple down the side.

The tabs aren't there on the car currently. but when I feel underneath in the roof the holes and the nut fasteners are there in the sheet metal for those tabs so they just bandoed over it when they when they were you know when they renovated the car for the first time

restored the car for the first time they never put the tabs back on and just bonded over it the car has not the car has some incorrect decals on it currently the numbers are white they were never white I'm looking at the die-cast of it right here. Yeah, so the die cast came with it. That was nice of them to give me the diecast.

All for, you know, 190. As a least they can do. You can't, I'm telling you, I know it's a lot of money. You can't put a price on it. But I got a little bit of a list of restoration stuff that I'm going to do to it. And I would hope that one day when I'm finished with it, that I can drive it at a racetrack. Maybe a throwback weekend at Darlington, if that's still going on, take it over there

and let people take a look at it and enjoy it. So that's, yeah, that's what I've been doing. What's you guys been doing this week? Not that. Didn't do that. That's badass. I am impressed. I saw you post this picture on social media, and when I saw that it was in your shop,

I was like, what? Because that car is so badass. It is so cool. And I don't have the, I didn't have the history and the knowledge of all that he accomplished in that car. But, you know, I knew he did. And if he had it in his shop, I knew it was special. And I couldn't wait to hear the story of how he got it.

I've always loved that car because I've loved those years, Nova's. And then my best friend there, Mike Herman Jr., his dad kind of helped every once in a while on that pit crew there on that car. So Herm has such an admiration for that car that I've grown to like that car so much. So when I saw that, I got geeked up. It looks like the gray ghost. I mean, it's got that black and the silver. But that Nova body is just. No, no.

I know it's not the same car. I'm just saying the paint scheme on it. That Good Wrench. It's also kind of cool just seeing the black Good Wrench paint scheme without a three on it. I mean, this is just so cool to see the number eight. Plus, I always thought the Ventura and the Nova were different cars. I didn't know it was, you know. You thought they were different chassis entirely.

I didn't know if it was the same car. I didn't know that. So that's cool. Well, the way you know that is looking at the side windows. They post the B post and the side windows are identical and it just put a different nose on it and called it a Nova. even though it had like maybe a Pontiac side window I guess you can do that yeah

I guess a Pontiac in the Nova they're like sister cars had similar side windows probably hell really freaking cool it is cool because if that turned out to be not real I don't know that he was going to be able to be we would have a working relationship with Dale Jr. moving forward he would be a down puppy

he would be dejected. What year Nova? 77, 78. Is that 78? It was my first car, send me, you know. Yeah, crazy, man. Well, congratulations on that. Thank you so much.

That's really cool. That's awesome. Nobody could top that. All right, we got some new partners here to Dale Jr. download, Mike. Let's hear about it. Door dash. Door dash. Yeah, let me tell you about that, man.

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No. You better be ordering 15 or more, though. Not damn $10. Depends on if she's going to eat. Are you having dinner? Yeah, heck yeah. Well, then it's going to easily be 15 bucks. Hey, everybody.

It's Dale Jr. for the Dale Jr. download live on Ask Jr., presented by Nationwide. Hopefully, these are some great questions we can add to the rest of the show. So let's get started, Leah. All right, first questions from Amanda. What was your favorite cartoon as a kid? Man. Tom and Jerry was pretty good.

And Looney Tunes, man. I mean, Looney Tunes is always nice. I don't know. Did anybody have any... Transformers. Transformers. It's weird. Transformers.

That was later. It's kind of dark. It doesn't matter about the time. Maybe for you, but it wasn't for me. Courageous cat, Minut Mouse. No. No? I don't remember that. Mighty Mouse.

Mighty Mouse was great. Great. I was a Looney Tunes fan. I had my first pair of glasses had Bugs Bunny on them. It was really cool, like in first grade, you know. Helmer Fudd. G.I. Joe? Are you going to crap on that, too? I was never into that or He-Man or any of those? Oh, He-Man, I didn't like that. I didn't like. I didn't like, weird. I didn't like He-Man. Yeah. G.I. Joe was hot, though. I needed my cartoons to be really simple, man. I didn't need, like, Transformers and He-Man and all that.

Storylines. Yeah. I like, you beat each other up and dropping an handle on them or. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You needed a cat chasing a mouse. Roadrunner and Wally Coy. You guys remember Laughal Olympics? No.

When they took all the characters from like Hannah Barbera and they put them in like an Olympic contest. No. That sounds terrible. Oh, and Snagglepuss was the reporter. He was like, exit stage right even. I don't even know who snagelpuss is. I think we've went long enough on this next question. We always get a question about an item in the studio this week.

It's about the Kurt Cobain poster. Yeah. Uh, yeah, just, it's a cover of a hit parade, uh, or whatever. I don't know exactly what the name of the, um, what is that? I can't tell. His head's in the way. Yeah. Anyways, just cover magazine.

I was a big Nirvana fan. I remember where I was when I heard, actually it was on MTV. I saw, uh, smells like Teen Spirit. Like saw the video or heard the song. I remember when I, where I was, I was at a friend's house. I had not heard Nirvana. and this song had just come out and we were walking out the door

we were headed somewhere and we were on a mission to go have some fun and that song came on and my buddy goes hey have you heard this? I'm like what? He's like got to hear this song man so he stopped

and stood like five feet from the door looking at the TV listening to this song watching the video on MTV and I'll never forget it because I mean that changed my freaking life I was huge Nirvana fan that song changed your life

The mutant or vanity it. Their sound. Yeah. They were... Iconic. Different. We're way better off that they made music. Yeah.

No, for sure. All right, Ty Smith, chiming in on YouTube. In honor of Talladega this weekend, what's your favorite Talladega memory? Four in a row, you know, just going there and winning four damn races in a row. And you know what, really? It's kind of like every other race car driver, you think about what could have been. But five in a row. was the race where they gave it to Jeff Gordon

when the caution come out and apparently he was ahead so I didn't get five in a row I ran second but then we came back in one the next race so that would have been six in a row Mike yeah yeah you were on a run there but I was just talking about this on Twitter the other day I have the engine that won the first three of four in a row and that engine was in the car

for that four in a row race but in practice it had a leak and it was pushing water out of freeze plug or something and they um they were like oh we got pull this thing we got to put another motor in and so they pulled it and we never race it again because it was just too risky to run again and richie gilmore and the guys at the motor shop at de i put this motor on a on a rolling motor stand really nice and cleaned it up made it look brand new and gave it to me i have it and i don't know why it's not in here we keep saying we need to bring it over we need to bring it over it in the corner that would be cool that i'm in the corner

show we're going to call Sunny and say, hey, we need that motor over here. It's heavy. So I have that engine. Not only did it win three of the Talladega races, but it won, I think the Pepsi 400 in 2001, a couple qualifying or a couple duels at Daytona shootout, stuff like that. I mean, it has a hell of a winning streak. We won two No Bull, Winston million races. It won two million bucks just in those two races alone.

Oh, because they would have been in Talladega. Yeah. That's cool. Pretty awesome to have it. Renee wants to know what was your first car that you ever owned? First car I owned me. Well, you know, dad gave me an S-10 when I was 16, so I didn't own that. He owned it.

But I did trade that S-10 in, as if it was mine, on a... Actually, no. So I had the S-10. That was dads. I drove it. I graduated. When I graduated high school, he gave me a two-tone brown. brown, full-sized Chevrolet truck, stripped, no options, no carpet, just basically straight-up

work truck. And I'm like, this sucks, Dad. This is not even as good as the S-10. I want my S-10 back. And I would drive by the S-10 and the used car lot, look at it in this shitty old brown two-tone truck wishing that I had my S-10 back. Finally, I traded the brown truck in on a S-10. And I started making the payments.

It was a 1990, 1991, I think, S-10 that I started making the payments on, and I had it financed for five years, and my payments were $100 a month. And I flipped it. That's the one you flip. Yeah.

Oh, man. I was driving. So I'm thinking, man, $100 a month. I got this, five years, whatever. And I drive the truck two months, and it was on Christmas Day. I'm going to Mamaw's house to the family reunion. Everyone's there.

Kelly, Dad, the whole, family, Earnhardt family. I'm driving on Highway 3. My sister had got me a CD player that had the tape deck adapter. Oh, right. Right. It's playing in the pasture seat, and I'm trying to change the CD. I drove the damn truck

off the road and hit a driveway cover, a pipe for a driveway, and rolled the truck seven times. Oh, yeah, destroyed this truck. I got pictures of that. I mean, how did you come out so okay? Seven times. Yeah. I had all my

Big. My hands, all my hands and all my knuckles were busted because they were on the steering wheel and the windshield busted windshield was slapping on my hands. Clash, yeah. And knocked all my, damn, busted all my hands up. But otherwise, I had my seatbelt on, and I stayed in the truck. And I got out, and this car was stopped, and it was this couple, and they had just got engaged. I'll never forget it.

And they were like, man, are you okay? I was like, yeah, I think I'm fine. I think I'm actually okay. I was like, I just need to call somebody. I need to call my dad or my mama or somebody. And there's a long line of cars starting to form behind my truck, which is laying in the middle of the road. And I walk up to this one lady, and I'm like, do you have a phone, the closest car to me? I'm like, I need a phone to call.

And she's like, you need to sit down. You're in shock. You need to sit down. You're in shock. I'll never forget that. I was like, oh, my God, I was so pissed off. I was like, next. Go over the next car.

and they're like here and I was like I called called Kelly or Mamma or somebody and I was like put dad on the phone I called dad and I'm like dad I flip my truck you got to come get me I'm in he's like yeah so he he comes driving up in his truck it's he I'm 20 minutes away got to sit there he drives up still no cop still no police car yeah really yeah and dad drives up and I'm thinking I'm getting ready to get my butt chewed man he is going to be so mad at me and especially because I had to pull him out of the family union. I'm ruining Christmas for everybody. And he pulls up and he's smiling and he's laughing.

And he goes, I'll be right back. And he drives like two more miles down the road to the farm where a DEI would eventually get built. And he gets the roll back. He comes back. And by that time, state trooper shows up. And now I'm thinking, oh, man, I didn't think about the law I might have broke or whatever trouble I'm in as far as my license and all that for flipping my truck.

And so I'm nervous now. there's a trooper there. And dad and him talking to, dad's like, trooper's like, you're going to get this truck out of the road? Y'all got it? And dad's like, yeah, we'll get it. We're good. All right, man, I'm going to take off.

I'm like, whew. Okay, so I'm not in trouble with that, with the law or anything. Dad's like, dad yanks the truck up on the roadback, and we drive him back to the farm, and he slaps me on the shoulder, and he goes, I flipped my car when I was 18. I was like, really? He goes, yeah. I was like, man, I was like, this sucks.

I love that truck. and I had financed it down to $100 a month. It was so affordable. And now what am I going to do, right? And I didn't know how insurance and all that worked. Oh, boy, you're about to find out. Well, they actually gave me a good check for this truck. And I ended up buying a 94 brand new S-10 from Dad's dealership.

And it's about $130 a month on that. But I was so glad. I got pictures of me. I got a picture of the truck on the rollback. Oh, really? I've seen them, yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's the wind, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

mirror is down next to the radio buttons. Mm. Oh, my gosh. The freaking roof was crushed. Yeah. The only thing that saved me was the fact that it was an extended cab and having that extra and structural, uh, integrity in the back of the cab is what kept it from crushing it down on top of me. Oh, my gosh.

Nothing got your head like with the air or nothing. No. Like once the windshield was mashed. The, the wind shield was mashed. When the windshield came down, it was like just back beyond the steering wheel because I remember my knuckles getting hammered by that windshield and I pulled my hands off the wheel and the truck was flipping so quickly, spinning so quickly that my arms went like this out, straight out.

And I was like, ah, because one's out the window at this point, banging around. And I was like, I remember like trying to pull my arms back in and going, I can't. Like it's spinning so fast. Like, I'm just like a ragdoll. Yeah, and I'm like, I literally had to concentrate to get my arms back in and grab a hold of my seatbelt or something, you know, the bottom of the steering wheel. So my arms wouldn't fly in it. It was violent crash. Oh, my gosh.

It broke the wheels off of it. This thing is destroyed. Did you say this already? Was this on Highway 3 that you erect it? Two miles past DEI head toward Canapolis. Wow. It's a little bit snow on the side of the road. There wasn't any on the road.

but when I went because when it started going off the road it was gone like I couldn't I couldn't get it. It just went down in the ditch and when it hit and like as soon as it went in a ditch I'm going 60 mile an hour probably 55 mile hour hit that pipe and stood on its nose and went bobo bo boom boom oh so it nose over nose or two this is from the people that were coming to me driving at me the couple that got engaged two end over ends and four barrel rolls four or five barrel rolls oh my gosh that was crazy You must one go to get that many rolls. I mean, if you're going to do something, you get that.

I think it's the violence of hitting the pipe. And the tire, the right front tire went into the pipe. And it just po govalted the truck. Yeah. It's crazy. Sorry. Go ahead. Next question.

Wow. We got deep into that one. First automobile he ever owned. Didn't know that was going to go into that. Yeah. It's a bad. I miss the hell out of that truck. Eric Messer, if you could add one foreign track to the NASCAR schedule, what would it be and why?

Oh, Kuyga? or? Yeah, yeah. What's it called now? Oh, shoot. Track in Canada. Short track. It used to be Kyuga and it's now Jilissa.

Jalissa, no, is it Jalisa, Jalisco, Motorsports, Parker? Yeah. I'll look at it. I would love to go to a short track. I probably would add a short track and it'd be up in Canada. I think it, you know, it'd be awesome for our team. I know it's probably challenging to get through customs and do all those things. It's very tough logistically for the teams because we've done.

done it here at even junior motorsports that would that would be awesome to go up there and run short tracks oswego maybe oswego is pretty cool uh steel palace man steel walls on both sides of the track that thing's unique but uh jukasa motor speed gecasa that place i heard is like a crown jewel and where in canada is it i hate to wear crown jewel it's um in haggersville which is in ontario okay i don't even know why i hate it i don't either but you don't know it's not a crown jewel i'm I'm like, what is that? What is the crowd? Can we call it then like a awesome place?

Yeah, there you go. It's really good. It's more gooder. He has his bad experience with crowns apparently. When somebody says crown jewel, I don't know where to put that. Where do you even put that? It's a crown jrown. I know exactly where that is.

You don't have a lot of jewels. You're not a jewel guy. I'm not a jewel guy, but nobody is. You got some jewels, Mike? I mean, I might. All right. Next question. Let's see here.

What's the top on your playlist right now? We were talking about music earlier with Willpower. Oh, my buddies at Danger's Summer just came out with a new record called Mother Nature. The Dangerous Summer is the band. It's kind of punk alternative pop. So love those guys. Went and seen them in concert here recently. New record called Mother Nature.

It's awesome. All right. That's all we got time for today. Awesome. Well, that's a lot of fun. That was actually some great questions. That'll add a lot to already a great show. so thanks for everybody for tuning in.

Thanks for nationwide for sponsoring Asr Jr. Keep talking about it. White flag, bud. White flag right there. White flag. All right, white flag. Let me start guys with a programming note, a TV programming note. This episode of the Dale Jr. download will not be airing on its regular Tuesday time slot on NBC Sports Network this week.

So they've got some other TV live event coverage going on. We're told it'll air some point prior to the Indy 500. So we'll keep you posted on our dirty-mo media social media channels. All right. We have a bunch of new reviews on our Apple podcast page. If you, it's Bristol Baby says we're junior fans through and through so excited to listen to the download weekly. Learning so much about racing that we never knew before. Also, my 18-month-old Bristol, yes, we named her after Bristol Motor Speedway, loves it too.

So we've got people naming their babies after racetracks, which made me wonder what race tracks would be good baby names. Like I could see Dillner doing this. I did. You did? I did. What did you name your baby after a racetrack? Well, his first name is Hudson, which pays homage to the famous race car. Okay.

And then his middle name is... Phoenix? No, his middle name is Gray after my beloved Bowman Gray statement. Oh, my God. Did you know he named his kid after Bowman Gray? Well, no, my wife, my wife loved the name Gray. You have a comment about this. You want to say it, Dale.

He's got that little smirk on. My wife didn't want any cheesy racing names, okay? Listen. But she loved, she thought the name gray was a really pretty. I don't have, I don't have, I don't, I think it is good as long as his wife loves the name. Yeah, that's the only one that I could sneak in there. Did you try others? Oh, yeah.

What did you try? I try that. I tried the Islander players names, all different things. Oh my gosh. She's a, she's a smart cookie. So we have another one here. I don't know how to pronounce it. T-J-U-O-N-G says, Dale Jr., fellow Morsville.

high grad here. My grandparents actually kept you some on weekends when your dad was racing back in the date. There's a lot of those people out that kept you, by the way. I've noticed over the years. I don't know. I don't know how many babysitters you had. You're right about cops being better than live PD going back to a conversation we had in the early episodes this year. If you ever want to experience the real thing, let me know. You could ride with me. Moreswell Police Department. Oh, really? That's awesome. That's cool. That's cool. So there you go. By the way, that reminds me that you can buy a raffle ticket on Ride With Dale Jr.com at Darlington for $25. That's in a race car, not a police car, by the way.

Chris Petski says, I had never listened to podcasts until about a month ago when I heard Dale Jr. now I am subscribed to yours and 10 others that I listen to every week. I agree with almost every opinion you have, Del Jr. And Dale also, P.S., if you want to join our NASCAR pool, it's $30 a year. And The Honest Truth says, I was away from NASCAR for a few years, but this podcast has reignited something in me. I decided this year to fully jump back in, and I thoroughly look forward to the podcast week, each week.

And I was saying this to Dale Jr. earlier this morning, guys, is that I have noticed a lot of people, especially in these reviews that were saying that they got away from NASCAR, and now they're coming back because of the conversations that we're having here. So I think we could all be appreciative of that. I mean, if all the things that we're doing, I mean, if it's bringing people back to their love of racing, we'd have no problems with that, right?

Leave the sport a better place. That's right. Lastly, follow Dirty Mo Media on all our social media channels, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. It's very easy. It's at Dirty Mo Media. And Dale Jr., that's it, buddy. All right, man, we've got some odd history for you. This was pretty good.

L.W. Wright made his NASCAR debut at Talladega in May, 1982. But was he really a racer or a con man? Uh-oh. Here we go. Right. First came on the scene when a man named William Dunaway contacted a Nashville newspaper, to do some publicity on a local racer attempting to compete in Talladega's Winston 500. He claimed to have support from country music star T.G. Shepherd.

Oh, T.G. Shepard supported NASCAR, and he supported Rick Hendricks, Tim Richmond's driven number 25 Folgers coffee car. As the story, after the story was printed, Shepard claimed to have never met Wright. So Shepard says, look, I ain't ever heard of this guy. Wright purchased a car from Sterling Marlin of Nashville, coincidentally. with $17,000 in cash and a $3,700 check. He then bought a NASCAR license after submitting a check for $150 and entered the race as Music City Racing. Okay.

All right, number 34. Wright was legally allowed to compete under Alabama's right to work law, which allowed anyone to race if they could afford the license and pay the $100 entry fee along with possessing a car that met NASCAR regulations. Besides, he also had a pit crew prepared. Part of that crew, crew chief, Sterling Marlin. This is crazy. Whose skepticism grew when his driver asked questions at the track that Marlin later said, experienced drivers typically wouldn't ask. Why is there banking in this thing?

When confronted at Talladega about his TG Shepherd sponsorship, he admitted it was a bit premature, but said he was working on support from another country music star, Merle Haggard. Of course. It's the name dropper. On track, Wright, wrecked, and qualifying. They repaired his Chevrolet, and on Sunday, he finished 39th after an engine failure, took him out after only 13 laps.

What happened next is even more peculiar. Peculiar. You got it. Wright abandoned the car and disappeared. He got out and took off. It turned out that L.W. Wright was a fake name, and all of his checks were back. Owing thousands of dollars to many people, private investigators were hired and police issued warrants seeking his arrest. The man was never found, and the real identity of L.W. Wright remains a mystery.

What? This is the crazy. I thought it was going to be in the identity. I don't know. I don't know how. I don't know how in the hell you can't enjoy today's podcast, folks. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

This bit of bad assery was made by. Dirtymoe media. Dirtymo!