The Dale Jr. Download - 257 - Mike Helton: Both of Y'all Hush

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr and NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton get in depth about the future of the sport, his relationship with the Intimidator, the new Gen-7 car and the most difficult announcement a friend ever had to make.  DJD spars about fighting in racing, Bubba's emotions and drama at Indy Bump Day & more. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Don't waste that morning voice. Hey, everybody, is Dale Jr. for the Dale Jr. Download. Back again, we got a great show today. We got Mike Helton in the studio as our guest. Mike Davis, the co-host, Matthew Dillner, Leah. Everybody's here. We're recording for NBCSN for Tuesday's show. Is that going to be at 5 o'clock?

I'm back to 5. None of this midnight hour stuff. Man. Hey, we did good at midnight. By the way, yes we did. Oh, wow. We were up. It's midnight.

Damn, leave us at midnight, then. Says a lot about our fans. Nighthouse. What's a late hours. Well, I'm excited about this show with Helton. We'll get into it in the conversation with him of why. I'm excited, but this is one I've been looking forward to. Let's get going.

Look into your glass ball. Not so long ago. In a galaxy, basically in the middle of Morton. Episode 2.15. It's an episode of unrest in the Dirty Mobedia Studios. Rebel Mackey Dillner is in command of the motherboard. A Swift and Darren, Alabama Davis, is the leader of the resistance. Meanwhile, Princess Leia continues to resist the dark side.

And a retired, yet relatively young Jedi, equipped with Google. And I Google. some sort of laser gun. Let me shoot, I think you've done. Bound, yeah, shoot. It's staged to host the show and defeat the powers of darkness, which is not a reference to our guest. Sorry, Mike.

Pound, pown, pown, show. There's a gun again. Bound, pown, pown, show. Really? Bown, pown, town, pown, pown, down, Pound, down, down, down. Anyway, may the Dale Jr. download be with you. And also with you.

What nail? You have too much time on your... Oh, that's awesome. What the heck? I don't even know what that was. I don't even know what that was in reference to, but I loved it. We woke you up. Yeah.

Are they insinuating that Mike Hilton is the dark side? Like the dark side of the force? Is that what he's doing? I don't know what we're doing here. That makes sense. Jedi Dale. Oh, man. There's a lot here.

We got a big show because there's so much going. on in motorsports from the Indianapolis qualifying to the All-Star Race Weekend, so let's dive right into it. First off, we had some grassroots racing this weekend. I watched a lot of racing, but we had Josh Berry racing for junior motorsports in the cars tour at Motor Mile. My man led every single lap of the race. He's running into turn three on the white flag.

got the victory in hand, no problem. Nobody's near him. A guy decided to dump another guy and brings out the yellow. They don't finish under caution there, so we re-rack them for a green-white checkered. On the restart, I think we went a lap. So we're getting the white flag coming into term one.

Bobby, McCarty, this guy that was a champion last year, really talented driver with a great team. They got underneath Josh. Did a little crossover move in three and four. So he's underneath Josh now going into term one. And Bobby didn't really turn left when they got to turn one. Jeez. And he said that Josh was trying to crowd him, but Josh never even got the chance.

Bobby just doored him in the driver's door and turned Josh around. And they had to caution for that. And Bobby went on and won the race in a thrilling finish. He was apologetic, but it was aggressive. And unfortunate, Josh led every single lap. Obviously, we were disappointed as a team, and Josh was there living it. And I thought he handled himself pretty well considering. And Bobby did too.

I mean, in his interview in the post-race, I thought he was, you know, it was a subdued celebration because I think he felt like he knew that it was not the way that he wanted to win the race. Did Josh go say anything to him? I don't think so. I don't know exactly. I have tried to get a hold of Josh. and I didn't really get a chance to get any more information from him about his experience after the race. He didn't throw haymakers in the window?

No, he didn't. Okay, got it. That's a reference to Newman and Boyer. But, golly, man. I'm sitting there. It seems like this year Josh has had a unbelievable car. It just came off a win at Ace. I mean, let's not get too greedy, but we've had a dominant car at a lot of races this year and just had some been roughed up.

You know, got moved out of the way at one race at Southern National. and that's racing. You got to use the bumper, and I told Josh, I said, man, you've got to be more aggressive. These guys are going to lean on you, and you've got to show them that you'll return the favor, or they'll keep doing it, and they'll use you up, knowing that you're not going to do anything about it.

So it's been a lot, even though he's won over 50 races in late models, he's still learning lessons, hard lessons, this year. And still got a great shot and we're in good position in the points for the Cars Tour Champions. Chip and it's been exciting to watch that. You can watch that on Cars Tour TV. Just Google Cars Tour TV, and if you want to watch those races, I'm watching them. It's a lot of fun.

Dude, you tweet about that every week, by the way, and it still feels like if there's anybody that has never taken the technological advances that we've had over the ability to be able to watch races on your computer over the weekend, you appreciate it more than anybody, and I feel that every time you tweet about it, because it's like, I'm watching races all weekend because I got my computer here and I got this here and you love that. Couldn't have done that 20 years ago. You love it. Yeah, I mean, if you owned a car, so imagine, Mike, if you were the owner of a car, but yet,

you know, your schedule didn't allow you to go see the races in person and you couldn't watch them. I mean, you had to basically just kind of get text messages from whoever's there or just the most primitive ways of sort of keeping up with action as it's going. And then all of a sudden now you can watch them on your iPad and, and, and, and, and, you know, And it's very good coverage. You know, there's great commentary and a lot of different camera angles. I mean, it's well done.

It's well produced. The Cars Tour and the folks they work with, they do a great job at bringing the action to the home and making it fun to be a part of it. They interact with Twitter and social media online during the race. I've tweeted in and several other people as well, commenting about the race and so forth. So it's kind of fun and entertainment. That's cool. And there's a lot, I can't even list all the different places that you can go watch racing,

whether it be world outlaw, midgets. There's just, there's a place for everybody. Fans Choice TV covers, carries a lot of different racing every single weekend. I mean, it's everywhere now. Speed 51, we can't forget about the Dillners and what they do for short track racing and bringing that to the house, being able to watch that at comfort of your own home. Anyhow, you know, very disappointing.

I'm not going to give Bobby a lot of shit for turning Josh around. It's racing. Don't do it again, though, Bobby. Well, I just told Josh, I said, man, you know, you just got a, you got, when you got the opportunity to do, to return a favor, do it. Don't waste a lot of time more thinking about it. All right.

Bubba Wallace. Let's talk about Bubba Wallace this weekend at the All-Star race prior to that, Bubba Wallace. You know, I haven't talked to Bubba, and I haven't read any transcripts of any kind of media that he's done since, but he spoke out about struggling with, I guess, depression. It seems like for a long – and if you know Bubba, you see any kind of interviews that Bubba does in the media center or after a good or a bad finish, he is out – he's out there with his emotions. I mean, he does not hold back anything.

Totally transparent. Right. And so, and I've noticed that in him, his reaction to running second in Daytona 500. You know, his reaction when things aren't going his way, his willingness to confront or speak out about competitors and so forth. I mean, he's just always been pretty transparent. And so, you know, the revelation, I guess, that he's suffered with some depression or some struggles mentally doesn't surprise me. because of how he wears his emotions on his sleeve. And also the situation that he's in is very difficult.

He wants to win. He wants to go out there and compete. He feels very confident in his ability to do that. He's had some, even before this particular situation with Richard Petty Motorsports, you know, he's learning a lot about how to navigate the waters with a team that's underfunded and hard-pressed to keep up with the big teams. It's nothing new for that company. They've done this a while, and they've figured out a way to do that,

figured out a way to make that work. But it's a new experience for Bubba. Before that, even, he's had some difficult times, with the Roush Fenway experience where his ride sort of dried up and disappeared. He's kind of been through the ringer, if you will. You can't fault the guy, I guess, for having some moments of doubt and disappointment and going home and thinking, man, can it get any worse? You've had it.

Oh, yeah. And so I guess this past weekend at the All-Star race, I don't know if everybody knew, I don't know if everybody watching knew about his admission to dealing with some difficulties mentally. He goes out there and just laid it on the level. line. Like, I could not believe what I was seeing. And I don't know whether that was sort of a big, you know, I don't know if that, you know, maybe his, maybe the, maybe the, maybe him being able to say that and get that off his chest and say, look, man, I'm struggling, I feel down, I'm disappointed. Maybe that freed him of some of his anxieties and some of the, some of the, I don't

know, some of the struggles that he's had on the professional side. Up some downs, yeah. Maybe that freed him and made him feel like, hey, I got nothing to lose. Maybe all the help or maybe all the support that he heard and received, you know, after telling us about his depression, maybe all that gave him this newfound, I don't know, of not giving a dam and letting her all hang out, yeah. Right. So we get to the All-Star Race of the Open to try to get into the All-Star Race,

and he almost wins the first stage, just aggressive and not really anything anybody can complain about. I mean, the guy, it's win and get in. You've got to go. He's not going to win the fan vote. Little do the fans know that although it's not been announced, most of the teams are aware who won the fan vote. All right. And so Bubba knows, hey, I'm not going to get in on the fan vote. I got a win.

I got a win to get in. and he went out there and was extremely aggressive in a great way for us as far as viewers and put on a hell of a show. He doesn't win the first segment. William Byron snuck in there and got it. And I thought in my mind, oh, man, that's deflating. You know, I know Bubba's just told us about his history and his mental struggles. Is this going to be the wind out of the sails?

You're right. Absolutely not. No. Nope. Bubba went back out there even more determined, like pissed off and continued to be aggressive. What a damn show, man. Dude. I just was so, you know, I'm proud of Bubba, but at the same time, I'm like, man, thank you.

Because what matters in racing is the drivers and the driver's ability to deliver the show. And damn it, Bubba was one of the guys that day that was delivering the show. There were several drivers that did that. Bubba gave us a hell of a time. Absolutely gave everybody their money's worth. So Bubba, thank you. What did you make of his emotional, the aftermath? It's typical Bubba Wallace.

I mean, it's what you come to expect. It's everything that we've seen from him beforehand. Just as I mentioned, his second place finished at Daytona, he had the same sort of emotional sort of, I don't know, breakdown or transparency during his media center with his mom there and everything and the same thing he gets out and he's just

he knows more he knows better than any of us what he's dealing with all right so when you know people always say like you know be kind because you don't know what that person is going through right right we don't know everything that bubba's going through and he's not going to tell you all the personal that he's dealing with we don't know

It might be far worse than we even think we know. Sure. I mean, obviously, he feels like he has, you know, when he wins, when he gets his way into the all-star race, he and that team are the ones who know best what they've, what hurdle they've jumped. You know what else? For a moment, it gave us this rare opportunity to really understand how difficult this sport is. You know, not often we get that. We take it for granted because, you know, like, you know, setbacks,

and hurdles and challenges, that ain't Kevin Harvick having a bad pit stop, so therefore he finishes second and not first. Or it ain't, you know, Kyle Bush not winning every single truck race. It's guys like Bubba Wallace who had, was not on anybody's radar to go into the all-star race, to race his way into the all-star race. And it's like he showed up to a black tie fair with his tuck zone and sat his ass down on the front row and wasn't going to be stopped. That's that right there in that moment of release when he just, his emotions came out,

that's when to me I feel like, oh yeah, yeah, this is hard stuff. The pressure these guys are under, it's hard stuff. And we don't ever get that every week with the storylines that were fed because of these top guys. They got it all right. Yeah. They got it all right. I loved it. I love Bubba for everything that he is.

I love that he could cry like a grown man. Commend the crew as well, the team for giving him. him a car that, you know, could get the job done, complimenting his effort. Awesome job by them. It's not, and it's, you know, it's an all-star race. It's the open. There's not a lot on the line unless you win that race. For them to go out there and throw down like they did,

guy finishing the top five for the all-star race after driving his way in an open. Yeah, there was that, too. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a fluke or situational. With those short segments in that open and the different guys taking tires and staying out and all that strategy. You can sort of get in a situational deal where a guy can have some really good fortune just because of things happening around him, guys strategy and stuff. He went out there in the All-Star Race and showed that it was a real true performance.

And good job of those guys. Nothing else happened on the All-Star Race. Yeah. Punching and fighting, man. Obviously, Boyer and Newman had some action out on the racetrack, and then it spilled over into the final cool-down lap, ending up with Boyer hitting the fence. And, you know, there's not a lot of great footage of exactly everything that went down

to know exactly who turned who and why Boyer really ended up in the wall. I don't know if Newman was intentionally trying to do that or what, But eventually you got the footage of Boyer running over to Newman's car and punching the hell out of him while he's sitting there on pit road. And great for TV, great drama, great for ratings, great for everybody. Maybe not Newman, but yeah, great for everybody else. Newman didn't seem too bothered by it. No. I called Boyer yesterday and said, hey, man, I got to ask you about Helton.

You know, they're great friends. I wanted to see if he had anything that I needed to know or ask. He starts immediately as soon as he picks up the phone and he knows who it is. He goes, oh, man, I'm sorry. He's like, I shouldn't have done that. I'm like, I'm not even calling about that. I'm calling about Hilton. Newman's fine, so don't even worry about it.

That's really the way I feel about it. He went into apology mode. Well, I apologize, man. Sown some tickets. The next day, so when you do this, when you do this kind of thing, Your reaction to it the next day is Now I'm in the middle of all this. This is going to be footage that I'll see

as a driver for not only, maybe for the rest of my life, but certainly for the next several years as they try to sell tickets and attract viewers for this All-Star race. Hell, they'll probably use this for other races that aren't, for the Roval. They'll probably use it for the Pocono preview.

Right. Charlotte Symphony. Watch Sonoma. Come by a ticket and sit on a pow, pow, pow, pow, pound. And so you regret it. And you're like, I wonder if my dad or my mom or, you know, who have I embarrassed by this activity? Your kid, maybe.

Right. So, you know, I think that's Boyer's reaction, which a lot of people have that same one if you are in the middle of that mess. For us that aren't in it, it was great. I guess my question is, is where do you draw the line? NASCAR obviously is going to say, Hey man, we talk to them. They're good.

We feel good about where the drivers are. We don't want them going out on the track and using their race cars as weapons and doing crazy shit like that. So that's all nice. But where do you draw the line? How many times does Clint have to punch Newman in the face? For it to be too much? On the pit road for them to go, all right, enough, enough, no. Well, apparently we know that he can do ten times, and it not the,

bad enough. I just wonder, I guess I'll talk to, you know, we'll get more learned from Mike about, well, where is the line between too, you know, too much fighting, too much chaos going on? Obviously, they don't want big pile-ups of crews and all that stuff spilling out into the pits. But even when it's one-on-one, driver versus driver, when do they step in? Pretty interesting. And that's going to definitely bring the viewers and the fans in for next week's 600. or this week's 600.

Well, hold on. There is one big debate going on about that. Okay. You know what it is? No. Obviously, no. Was Boyer right or wrong for leaving his helmet on when he was doing the fight? Well, that's the thing.

I don't think that Boyer was going to take the time to remove his helmet. Right. He's going over there to hit him. He's not, he don't get a-he about his head and his helmet. He's not thinking about the rules of the fight. I mean, there was a great conversation. There was a great conversation on social media between Brett Griffin and Jeb Burton that I thought was hilarious. Oh, really?

What was it? Yeah. So, let's draw. Bring it up here. Leah. Got it. Give us a little bit of the timeline. It's just a couple tweets.

My whole thing is, it's like hockey. If it's two guys, driver, driver, let them go until somebody hits the floor. Like a driver, you want to, you're okay, if a driver gets nice. knocked out unconscious? If somebody gets knocked out and then intervene. Is that necessary? If somebody's down on the ground, intervene. If crews are involved, it's crap.

For a guy to have a head trauma, it's necessary for that to happen? You want a guy to get laid out? I'm not against fighting. I mean, I didn't. I fought for a lot of stuff back in the day. I'm not against fighting either. You know, him going up there and punching him a couple times, but there's got to be some sort of a known, there's got to be rules.

There's got to be some unspoken sort of conduct here. That's like hockey. When somebody hits the ground, you stop punching and they pull you off. That's code. Okay. Then what's the code if you're sitting in a car and a guy's punching? That's right. I think that's ultimately like –

I'm against that. You're strapped in. I'm against that. Exactly. I'm against that. All right. So Brett tweeted hashtag Team Boyer and Jed Burton responded, I'll go with Newman. And Brett responded back with your too young to remember 510 Skinny Newman.

If you gain 50 pounds tonight, it won't make you a bad. ass by Monday. A country boy should know better. So Jeff responds, correct. A badass would let the other get out of the car. And Brett says, if I set out to whip your ass, guess what? I'm going to whip your ass and you can make up the rules when I'm done. Wow. That's interesting. Okay. There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah, right. So I kind of, Jeb's right. If you're going to go, if you're going to fight a guy and let him get out of his car so you can have a real fight. What was the one that comes to mind, Spencer

and Kurt Bus? Spencer and the chicken man at St. Louis. Oh, Spencer Gallagher. Yeah, where they're rolling around. John West Town. Yeah, let's have that kind of fight. Yeah, that was a fair fight. That was fair. It was just no punches, but it was fair. It was hilarious. They're rolling around in the grass like what I love. That's what I'd rather see with

Clinton Newman. Yeah. We don't want to see no Juan Pablo Montoya and Carvick slap fest. But at the same time the my favorite part of that interaction between brett and jeb is brett's i'll make you know you can make the rules up after i'm done i mean i i think you know that's most in in the heat of the moment when you're really pissed off and you want to go over there and you just want to take a guy and punch him in the face you're not thinking about making it fair you're not thinking about you're not thinking about anybody else's reaction to how this is going down. You're just going to go over and punch him.

Deliver a message. There was a message that he was trying to deliver. It was not a message of fairness. It was a message of, I'm not to be messed with the way you just messed with me. That's what you're trying to convey. It's not taking your helmet off. It isn't like letting him out. Eventually, Newman got out. You know, he could have done something then. Absolutely. And so I think Clint saw an opportunity, a very small window to do that. and taking his helmet off and all that shit wasn't on his mind. Right. It wasn't intentional to leave the helmet on.

It was just reactionary. He went over there to make his intentions known. Even if it was intentional, I don't know that I have a problem with it because, you know, Newman is like Farmer Strong. Yeah. I mean, listen, let's be real. He's hay bales and cutting cows strong. That ain't Gold's gym.

So you don't believe in Brett's analogy. No, no. Brett's description of him is that he's, he's, underneath all that's a very skinny week. I don't buy it. I don't buy it at all. And I don't want to be the one to find out by being fair by taking off my helmet. Can we get Newman on DBC now?

Can we get Newman on DBC after that statement? I think Jeff and Brett are, but listen, Brett's take on this is completely predictable, all right? I mean, like he was also on the receiving end of whatever they felt like Newman was doing. So I'm just saying, I loved all of it. I had no problems with any of it. I really commend Newman for not beat him like an egg when he got out of the car. I saw Boyer just haymaker, hey maker, hey maker, hey maker. And I'm like, oh, son, when he gets out, when Newman gets out of that car, it is going to be on.

And they talked. I was like, I couldn't believe the restraint that Newman showed. And by the way, Boyer still had his helmet on during that conversation. Forre thought he was a lap down, which when Newman's reaction there was like, I want to wasn't a lap down, you dumb. How about they have an autograph session together this week? I'm going. I'm going to get my autograph.

It's passion, man. I think you're right. Listen, I think that ultimately you're not thinking that stuff. I think that we as fans can use hindsight. It's so easy for us to go, why didn't he take his helmet off? Why didn't he let him get out? I mean, what the hell's going on here? Is this an organized fight or what?

This is a pit road dispute where, I mean, I've drove, you know, I've seen guys coming down pit road and getting jack handle swung at the race car i mean that's just short track racing yeah you you better have your damn head on a swivel uh because somebody might come in there and punch you right i mean i've been on i've been on pit road a tony senior come at my window yeah right who wants that yeah so you leave your helmet on for that is that is that why you always put your helmet on before you got in the car always kept it off when you got out that is not why okay but maybe you was and it's just Keep your head on a swivel. I mean, it's, there's no rules.

No rules. Oh, so there is not. But, I mean, this, we saw, we saw, well, I'm wanting to know when it, when, when NASCAR's going to step in. Obviously, you can't. I'm glad they didn't. If a guy, you know, you're sitting there punching a guy repeatedly, uh, just beating a shit out of him, eventually somebody needs to make a cut it, make it, get it, you know,

come to an end. And, and there should be some kind of repercussions for it going too far, getting grotesque, right? But yeah, but the question is, did you think it went too far? We'll ask Mike. No. You don't not think it was fair. And, you know, what happened? I agree that they shouldn't find them.

NASCAR's made this sort of statement that they're reverting back to their old ways and making some, you know, stop going after this new, you know, imaginary fan and sticking to their core fan base and what got them here. And I think that's what got them here. You know, what you saw, what you saw happen on the racetrack, what you saw happen on Pit Road, and their reaction to it is circa 1975, 1985, 1999. I mean, that's really how things were done and how things were handled in the boom of the sport.

I'm good with it. You know what? It made the All-Star race mean something again, right? I mean, you haven't seen emotion and carrying on like that after an All-Star race in a long time. That's what it's about. Yep. I liked it. More of it.

More. Kyle Larson wins the all-star race, but he doesn't know how NASCAR works. Did y'all see this? No, I saw it, but I wanted you to tell me about it. I didn't want to go read too much into it. It's just a transcript that popped up on Twitter. All right, let's hear it. I cannot, obviously we don't know the tone of this conversation

whether Larson was being sarcastic or not, but Larson, I don't even know if this locks us into the playoffs. or not. Moderator. It does not. Sorry. Larson. I was hoping you were going to say it does.

Don't we get some kind of playoff points like, you know, maybe? Moderator, no. Larson. Wow, that sucks. Moderator. But you want a million dollars. Larson. Yeah, dang.

Oh my gosh. I just, you know, surprises the hell. I mean, certainly he has to be joking. No, no, no, no. I know you drivers. I know you guys. I know you guys are oblivious to most things that would be obvious. Yeah, like the rules and those things.

Well, no, maybe this is because they get changed so much. But look, I don't think he was kidding. All right. Well, Larson doesn't know how NASCAR works. I would know that. I would know the fact that, you know, you don't get playoff points. There were some rules that I didn't give a shit to know about. Mostly those rules pertain to penalties.

What kind of penalty? Like there's a summer, some penalties might be a pass-through. Some penalties might be a lap. Some penalties, you might get held 15 seconds. I mean, typically these are pit road violations and so forth. I don't know none of those. And somebody will always tell you. Even as a broadcaster, when something happens on pit road, I'm like, I don't know what the penalty is for that.

I guess we're all, I'm going to find out. That's what you got LaTart. He's the crew chief. He didn't know that. I never had to worry about that crap. You know, as a driver, I just left it up to Greg to tell me, look, man, we've got to come down and do X, Y, Z, and then we're good. And so for the longest time, I never had to worry about it. But as a broadcaster, I'm sort of having to learn, you know, what I would call the deep confines of the rulebook and understanding what every penalty is.

But that really surprised me. Larson, to me, seems like, you know, there's been, I've heard conversation about, his knowledge of the car or the lack of it. And, you know, I've heard that he's like, hey, man, I'm the driver. I don't have to worry about X, Y, or Z or understanding how things work. I just drive the car. And it seems to be consistent here with that particular exchange after his win. Earlier in the week, Denny Hamlin was asked, does the sport need a 600-mile race?

I did see this. Yeah. Denny Hamlin, his response is no. The sport doesn't need anything in particular. I don't think that anything is totally necessary. If the race was 300 miles, you'd have the same core group watch the race, possibly even more that are interested because it's not five hours long. And then he was asked, is there any part of tradition that you like? Tradition smadition.

It's whatever, he says. All sports adapt and change. I hate it when people say, well, that's the way it always was. Things are different. I'd be just as happy with a Coke 300 trope. is a Coke 600, to be honest with you. I'm for whatever, but I certainly know that my friends, they choose to come to the All-Star Week, not the 600 week,

because it's just too long. They don't want to sit there for five hours. And so this kind of brings me to this. So we had an awesome All-Star race. That should quiet down the concerns of moving the event or the how-do-we-fits-it conversations that you have for so long. This All-Star race has been awful. What are we going to do?

There's talk of moving it to Bristol and Martinsville and all these different places. My opinion on the whole sport is this. If the drivers deliver, and they did, an exciting race, then we can stop talking about shortening events, moving events, getting rid of events altogether. That goes for the Bush Clash, the Dules, the R-Star Race, the World 600, Dover, Pocono, and anywhere else in between. You can cut, all to remove whatever you won't. But it's all pointless and unnecessary.

Providing excellent action and compelling personalities is what matters. Leave everything else alone. There's too much equity, tradition, and history creating value, in the sport and that needs to be preserved. Great racing, great drivers. Great racing. Great drivers. That's all it matters.

Well, the drivers got to continue to bring it. Do what Bubba did. Let it all hang out. That's right. You know, Denny doesn't care about the history, so he won't really care if he's in the Hall of Fame or not, I guess, someday. Whatever.

Don't matter of him. It got under your skin a little bit, too. It looks like it, which I could have, I could have predicted that. You could have predicted that. I get the point that Denny's making, by the way. I get what he's saying. But I got to be honest, I disagree with him, not because of probably the same reasons you do. I just like the idea of having one race that tests the endurance of these drivers.

You don't need them all. Listen, I got a short attention span too. What? But I'm just telling you that a 600-mile race seems to test people. I know how Dale didn't necessarily love those extra 100 miles either when he was racing. But it was a test of endurance for the driver's stamina and also the equipment to, last an extra 100 because I already put it to the extremes already. And so it's a, you know, sometimes it becomes a race of attrition and there's strategy.

And I think it's just give me that one race that gives me that. I have to say, if you take Denny's point and pair and couple it with Dover, Pocono, Sonoma, a lot of, you know, 80% of the races, I agree with it. I would, I would be as happy winning at Sonoma if it was 50 laps. or 150 laps. I would still be, it would mean as much to me one way or another, and I wouldn't, to me,

there's no equity in tradition in the length of that race. The 600, though, is the 600. It's one of a kind. And to me, that would be one I couldn't agree with, I couldn't agree with Denny on that particular point

for this specific race. The 600, you know, it's the 600. And I go, I talked about the clash, the duels. There's been conversations about those changing or going away altogether. There's equity there. There's history.

And if those races are exciting, we would be in love with them and want them. Everybody would be wanting them to stay on the schedule, you know. And it's not the fact that the race has become obsolete. eat. It's the action. It comes down to the drivers, the action on the track, the personalities,

the guys delivering. If they'll deliver it, we'll want more of it. I want a race that you hate it when it's over. You don't want it to end, you know, and I think the drivers deep down inside feel the same way.

They want to have fun out there. They want to enjoy what they're doing. They want to be in an awesome, fun environment. And so if we just provide, a product that does that, much like we saw this past weekend at the All-Star Race. Maybe all the drivers didn't actually love how the cars race or the package and all that stuff. But damn, it was fun to watch.

That's such a good race. Yeah. It was a good race. I never thought in my mind, man, I wish this was shorter. I don't know why they had that open. That's pretty ridiculous. Yeah, but he wasn't talking about the All-Star Race. You have thought that about the 600.

No, I'm just saying, like, if you want to take this point and, you can, and, you're You could apply it to it. Right. We never felt that. We never felt this way about the All-Star race. Right. You know, there's been conversations about taking the All-Star race and merging it into the 600 weekend to give the teams and the drivers and everybody an extra off weekend. Marcus Smith said there's no way he's doing that because it would, you know, it would take away from the importance of this race altogether.

Mm-hmm. You know. I agree. Yeah. And I do, too. The All-Star race would, it would minimize what that race means. So the fact that that conversation is going on, and once you have an amazing race, that conversation goes away.

Yeah. That's right. So for me... Just give us our action. Yeah, that's all we want. Great racing, great drivers. I'm going to the N8500 this weekend for the first time. You are, I haven't heard.

Yes. I got asked to drive the pace car over the past couple days. That's cool. I know. I was a little nervous about it because I'm a NASCAR driver, and I feel like that in some ways it could be viewed as sacrilegious or blasphemy. for a NASCAR driver to be leading the Indy 500 field. I understand that this is like a the motorsport event in the country,

especially in the eyes of the open wheel crowd. So I took that into consideration when I was being asked to fill in for, who was it? Al Roker. Well, I thought, hell, man, it's Al Roker. I'm filling in for Al Roker. It's not like, I think that, that, in itself made it okay. You're not filling in for Parnelli Jones.

Or Mario Andretti. Absolutely, yes. Yeah, if they were like, that is the point. I'm trying to make. So everybody, you know, it was going to be Al Roker. And Al's a great guy, I'm sure, and he would have done an awesome job. Couldn't do it. Something came up in his schedule, I guess, that made it difficult for him to do.

And they asked me, and I thought, wow, what an honor. I can't believe I'm even being considered for this. I will be there, so it might as well add to my experience of seeing any 500 for the first time. So that's going to be awesome. Anyhow, with that said, you know, I've watched the Indy 500 for years. I don't know that I tuned in that much to qualifying. I knew who, you know, was on the poll and, you know, bump day and the battle for the final row. I don't know that I really plugged into those particular occasions in the past, but man, I was watching yesterday in that final row battle. I don't even know how to pronounce

this guy's last name. Kyle Kayser? Kaiser? I thought it was Kaiser. I hope it's Kaiser because it's like Kaiser. It's cooler. I was just thinking the same thing. It just sounds cooler. You know, they worked their way into the field. Fernando was bumped out,

which is an incredible story. Fernando Alonzo. You're talking about a world champion. Yeah. I mean, they just had a different. A lot of people's opinion is that they came unprepared and they didn't have the association that they had last year. He crashed too.

And he crashed one car that they had built. The backup was not up to snuff and same quality. Anyhow, pretty interesting for bump day and then for the final row battle, I don't think it could have went any better for IndyCar, for NBC. It has created a ton of drama. I think that even though Fernando's not in the race, they've built up a lot of value. and surely increased viewership opportunities for this race with what's been going on this week. Is there a short version of what happened on Bump Day that made that so dramatic?

Basically, to recap it for you, Fernando Alonzo went out there, put up a speed that put him in the field. And then this small team, okay, that wasn't really expected to do what they did. Kaiser didn't have the speed really. They had also had an accident. They had a – yes, had an accident. Rebuilt their car. Okay. was one of the last cars and bumped a world champion,

a small little team, bumped McLaren, and Fernando Alonzo going for the triple crown and racing, the big story, bumped him out of the Indy 500. You want to talk about drama. That team was going nuts. Alonzo was just, you could tell, dejected. It was one of the most different bump days that I've ever seen in my life.

It's all going down right at the end. Yeah, right at the end. Yep. And then Simon Pajino getting the poll there, that was drama too. It's just been really interesting. A lot of great storylines leading up to this Indy 500 and making it something that's going to be a lot of fun to watch play out next Sunday.

And even though Fernando is not in the field, I know for a lot of F1 fans, that's a big deal. And for a lot of indie fans, too, to have him competing. Anytime you get a guy like that coming to your series and be a part of the biggest race in your series, It's awesome. You're looking forward to seeing how he'll compete. Unfortunately, he's not going to be out there.

I think it was very commendable that they decided not to try to purchase a ride. Because there's always that after bump day, is you have these opportunities to purchase a ride. They said, you know, not going to do that. We want to earn our way in. Good for them. From the little bit of immediate that they've done post getting bumped out of the field, it sounds like they're going to come back and try again.

I don't know if Fernando's on board. with that just yet, but you have to imagine that they would definitely want to come back and try to redeem themselves as a group. So that'll be interesting to follow in the future. But, man, it's still going to be a compelling race. I can't wait to get there and experience at James Hinchcliffe. He also worked his way in after some issues. So very, very, very good buildup in storylines. And it's been fun to follow. A lot of the folks that cover our sport are covering this as well. Jenna and they've been a lot. They've been, fun to follow on social media.

Yeah, over the past several days with the storylines. It's been, you almost feel like you're there or wanting to be there to see this happen. So we appreciate, you know, the journalists and everybody and the hard work they're doing to keep everybody informed. It's tough being and trying to be in two places at one time. Anyways, looking forward to that. During, with that conversation said, I mean, there's been, there's, there was some talk earlier before we got to qualifying in Indie that some owners want to guarantee spots. You know, kind of like NASCAR has where, you know, certain teams are guaranteed spots in the field,

and there would be a minimal amount of available positions for other teams to work their way into or qualify into. And I think that, man, this experience, I'm not, you know, I'm not a expert in Open Wheel or the Indy 500. I'm going to see my first Indy 500 in person this weekend. But with what I saw in the drama in qualifying, the drama of Bump Day and the battle for the final road, I would have to say I love it the way it is. And I know that there are some other people as well that have spoke up.

I think Bobby Rahal spoke up saying, man, leave it like it is. This is why this is so important. This makes this race so special. And I think that, you know, honestly, man, you could look at NASCAR and the changes that they made to make guaranteed spots. that has that made things better? Has that made things more compelling? It's all about you got to say, you got to say, look, man, what brings people to watch? What, what's going to make people come see us do this? And has those guaranteed spots done that? I would say it hasn't. And I would be careful. Well, it depends on how you look at it. If you look at it from the vantage point of sponsorship

dollars matter more than anything, because you've got to have lifeblood and that money is the lifeblood. If you look at it from that point, then you would say it does matter to have guaranteed spots. I don't know. You could reverse engineer that and say. No, no, you absolutely could. I mean, it just matters a perspective. It's just your perspective. Right, right, right, right.

I'm saying is it. From an owner's point of view, and I'm an owner of an Xfinity series, a guaranteed spot takes a ton of pressure off my shoulders. Especially with the sponsors. It does not. I don't think it makes a hill of beans to my sponsor. That's crazy. No, no, of course it does.

That's why NASCAR did it. My sponsor is calling me going, hey, how many people tuned in this week? How many people were there? Look, no, no. That's what my sponsor is looking at. My sponsor's looking at viewership. You know, the guaranteed spot is to make the race. That is exactly why NASCAR guaranteed spots.

I don't like it. I never liked it. I'm not saying you like it, but let's just be real. That's why they do it. I know why they decided to do it. Has it made things better? It absolutely takes away from the compelling I mean look

What you just talked about with Bumdavey was insane That's insane That is drama I know okay That's better for the sport And I particularly like that I like that drama It's like taking a movie

And editing out some of the more exciting scenes It's not as good of a movie Of course Of course It's not gonna be that It's not gonna be as good as it could be And I think that that's what those guaranteed spots would do

It would take some of this drama that we just had with Fernando and Kaiser. Picture jaws without him going after anybody on the beach. Right. Yeah. Just a shark. You see a fin. That's it. He's chasing no one.

Chasing nobody. Serious question, because I don't know. Back when we had two-day qualifying, was that, were there guaranteed spots in NASCAR even with two-day qualifying? There was provisional. Provisional only. That's right. To fall back on. And that's fine.

Champions provisional, yes, that's right. The champions provisional wasn't around until like in 90s or sometime. Yeah, it was early. Yeah, yeah, yeah, early 2000s. But there was those provisionals. You can use a certain amount per season. Points provision. Which was basically the same thing.

I like that. It was basically the same thing. If you were good in points, you could depend on that provisional. And that's sort of a smaller version of what we have in guaranteed spots today. I wish we go back to that. Did you only have so many provisionals to use for years? Yeah, it was like five. or something.

I like that. Yeah, I remember that. That presents some really interesting storylines. And the great thing about having, it did draw out the weekend. And the great thing about having second round qualifying was the energy in the garage. So you got guys that were locked in. Hey, man, I made it. I'm in the top 20.

But now you've got another half of the field that has to re-qualify the next day. And they could decide, Mike, whether they wanted to sit on their time. or go again. Right. So you could say, you know what? I think I'm going to sit on my time. I'm pretty good with it. Well, a lot of guys could go out there and bump you out of the field, and you're done.

You don't get to go back out. You don't get to, once you made that decision to rest on the time that you have from the day before, you don't get a chance to redo it if everybody ever kicked your ass out of the race. And that was freaking intense, right? That's gone. You know that now, like we struggle to have enough teams to actually fill out of fill out a field in which you send people to go home. I wonder if that's a repercussion of that decision to have guaranteed spots like we do now,

because when you could leave it open, you probably have more teams that would try to go interfield, certainly for the big races, right? I mean, like Daytona, you always have people to go home. Yeah. But I'm just saying, I think that, you know, maybe if we did have it back of the old days, you would have more race teams, which I think that we would all love, right?

I mean, you'd like to have more people, more underdog stories for sure, trying to race their way into a field. Yeah, for Daytona, you can count on one hand how many available spots there are for any team, any, that's right. Any unguaranteed team, you know. Right. You're not going to have 80 cars show up, 40 guys, you know, you're not going to have 60 cars, 55 cars that used to come to Daytona show up, you know, 15 guys trying to battle for those

four places. Anyways, interesting conversation. I can't wait to hear your experience at Indy. I think it would be awesome. I'm jealous of you. That would be awesome. I wish you were going. I wish I was too, but I got a camping trip at Edisto Island.

Oh, boy. Where do? Edisto Island. Okay. Edisto, what? Ireland. Island. Island?

Yeah. Iowa. That sounds interesting. I don't know. All right. No idea. All right, let's move. Before we get to the real meat environment show.

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Butcherbox.com slash Dale Jr. Or enter the pro mode at Dale Jr. I mean, this is crazy. You've got to do this. They're giving it away. All right, so Mike Helton's here. Been looking forward to you coming on the show. You said that you've watched and listened to a few episodes,

so you kind of know what this is all about. Does anything make you nervous? No, I kind of worry about things. You do worry about things? Well, I want to tell you something, man. I called a buddy of yours yesterday. and he said this about you. He takes over the room when he enters.

Demands respect without asking for it. That's Clint Boyer. And that's the way a lot of people feel about you. You can be an incredible friend, but you can also, the funny thing I think is that when you need to chew somebody's ass, you can get that done too.

And there's been a time, there was one time, maybe there were multiple times, but I know one time when you had to get after me pretty hard. We were at Bristol Motor Street. speedway. I had a pretty good car, but for some reason I got shuffled out of the side, outside the top 10th and I was sitting around 10th or 12th. We had a car explode brake rotor on the racetrack and threw brake parts all over the place.

And there's about 15 laps to go and we're running under caution. Typically, sometimes at this particular situation happens, NASCAR red flagged the race and I was wanting them to do that, but they didn't. And we're riding under caution and I don't see the brake stuff. I'm like looking at the track. Everything's great. Why are we under caution? I'm raising hell. like really F-bombing, G-D this. And this is in the Bud Day. He's got Tony Sr. on the radio. I think he was encouraging me a little bit as well.

And somebody comes on, I think our spotter comes over and says, they want you and Tony to come to the truck after the race. And I stopped talking immediately. I was like, oh, no, what happened? And so that's when I learned first off that Mike Hilton and the guys in the booth listen to the drivers, right? Right. And so I was saying, oh, man, they heard me. And so anyways, you know, the race gets going.

I think that might have been the same race where I ran over Robbie Gordon, and he ran over me on pit road, but I'm not sure. But anyways, we got a couple spots, maybe finished eighth or something. And we go up in the NASCAR holder. And me and Tony Sr. still feel like we're in the right. We're going up in there and on the way over to the haller, me and Tony Sr. going, we're going to tell him this. We're going to tell them that. We're going to, this is what.

And so we're going in there. with thinking that we're going to tell Helton our side of it, and he's going to go, well, you're right. Well, if you put it like that, guys, then you should have red flagged the rate. So we go in there and sit down. And as soon as, so we're sitting there, and it's probably five minutes go by because Mike's got to come down from the booth. And I've never really been in this situation before to where,

I don't know who's coming in there. I know Mike's probably coming in there, but I don't know who's coming with him. And we're sitting in the front of this lounge, which you really never go. into unless you're called. You don't go in there unless you're told to go in there. So we're sitting in this lounge and me and Tony Senior are thinking, thinking, thinking. And finally, as soon as Helton's head come through the door jam, Tony Senior and me and both go, we start pleading our case.

And Mike Helton said, both of y'all hush. Y'all aren't going to talk. I'm going to talk. And he, I mean, you were so mad. Do you remember this, right? Oh, yeah. You were so angry. And when I realized how mad you were,

I was so disappointed in myself for disappointing and angering him, right? And if you know Mike Helton, and if you're lucky enough to be friends with Mike Helton, like that's your reaction. I was thinking, oh, man, I've realized now what I've done, you know. And so he's, from that moment on,

I remember, all right, they're always listening, and don't do anything that's going to piss them off. Don't do anything. Like, you got a friend up there, you got a guy that you look up to, a guy through respect. Don't do anything out there or say anything. And I tried. I probably pissed you off a few times after that. But probably not that much. Probably not that much.

Oh, so that was the most mad you've ever been at Dale? Hopefully. I want to know what he remembers about that. I really wouldn't that mad. at Dale, I just, I think it was a moment to learn that, that we'll run the race. You run your race car. We'll run the race. If we believe we need to do something, we'll do it. We're not, I mean, we're human, so we can make mistakes. I didn't think we made a mistake that night or I wouldn't and got that mad. But the way he unloaded on the radio and everything, I said, well, this is a good

time for learning. To learn an experience. And I'd learn before that, I knew you're a good student. You absorb a lot and you take it and you make it work. Even sometimes if you don't agree with it, you figure it out. It's good for you to learn it. But there was two or three things that happened that night that really got everybody upside down, including me. They had nothing to do with us. Right. Tony and Dale Jr. just happened to be.

It took Tony Sr. a long time to get over that. He was mad at me for a long time. I'm not sure that he is yet. Really? Yeah. Oh, man. I didn't know that. I mean, you know, I've never asked, beyond that moment, like Tony Senior is pretty, you know, wears his heart on his sleeve.

If he don't think you're a driver, you don't think you can drive a car, he'll tell you. You're no driving son of a gun. And it's hard to convince him of his. And, yeah, I mean, he don't got time to fool around. And I always thought he had a lot of respect for you. I never heard him say a word about you after that, but maybe y'all had some conversations that gave you that impression. Do you still, when's the last time? time that you've had to do that with a driver? When's the last time that you've had to sit down

and straighten out a driver? I don't, it's probably been three or four years. Maybe five. Yeah. That's, that's on O'Donnell and his group now, yeah. Yeah. But I think the, if wasn't in my last one, pretty close to my last one, was Tony Stewart toward the end of his career. Yeah. But we'd had several. Yeah, Tony. With Tony. Yes. So he's not as good as student as you. you are. But it was a similar situation where he thought he had it all figured out. And once I explained it to him, and it took some doing to get it explained, and he understood it, but I think that was the last round where we had, where our voices escalated. Yeah. Do you remember the first time you ever were tasked to sort of handle a situation like

that? Do you remember, because you've been in a sport forever, how far back to, how far back to, that job description go for you? It was an early race in Martinsville. I think it would be my first or second year. So what year you think was this? This would have been 93 or 94. Okay, yeah. So you had to handle the...

Do you remember who it was? You've been chewing drivers' asses for decades. This was actually a crew member. Oh, man, I'm sure that you have one... You have an opportunity for that almost every week, I would imagine. Yeah, but this was a crew member that didn't act right at the end of the race. Yeah. You know, that's the thing, is that like that speech that he used, not to call it a speech,

but a speech that he used on you. I would imagine that it wasn't the first time, wasn't the last time to have to explain to the drivers that they don't have the best ideas on how to run a sport. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that can't be a unique situation. Well, in that conversation in the Hall at Bristol, he's like, we had break parts all over the racetrack.

We had a reason that the caution was so lengthy. And we're going to clean all that up. We're going to do what we need to do for the show. You are the least of our worries. you're going to finish and how good your car is and what you think needs to, you know, and as soon as he started chewing our ass, I was like, oh, my God, man, I can't wait that we get out of here. Oh, I'm never going to do this again, you know. That's, that's the type of emotion we've always been led to believe that comes with a talking to from Mr. Helter.

Yeah. That, that, he brings that aura and that presence. Is that how, was that, do you know that you had that effect on them? No, but I learned it from Bill Jr. Oh, really? Yeah, Bill Jr. was a pretty stern leader. Yeah. When it came to making sure that the athletes in the sport understood, you know, how it all fits together. And I remember walking in a couple of haulers with Bill Jr. early in my NASCAR side, and this would have been like in 93, and I felt sorry for the driver.

For the ones on the other end. Oh, really? Yeah, and there was one in particular. and Tony Glover, and he works for us now. So he gets a kid. We talk about this every now and then. And we walk into the trailer, and there's a whole host of people in there, but Tony happened to be one of them, and he was the crew chief of the car that day.

And he was sitting on the end of the sofa, and Bill Jr. and I walk in, and Tony says, now let me try to explain. Bill said, just shut up and get out of here. This ain't about you. So he ran Tony out. And Tony probably didn't check up. No, Tony, you're right. I'm out. He's gone. He's gone. Tony, Tony quieted down and went on out, and so we got that conversation over with, he was a stern leader.

It was his sport, and he was going to, you know, he worked hard to make everybody do well in it. But he was going to, he's going to do his job teaching people how it all worked out. Did you guys ever have to have that conversation like that with that temperament with Dale Earnhardt? He and Bill got into it a couple of times, and Dale and I got into it a couple of couple of times, but not, it wasn't a heavy temperament. It was just, it was a strong disagreement. And I think, you know, I know he and Bill had, and then I think I ended up in a similar relationship where you could have a strong conversation and just lay all the cards out on the table, say exactly what you're thinking, and get it over with because the beauty of those deals,

even the reputation of being a bad guy inside the trailer and everything, when you, when you left all that and you went on down the road, you were going to do something during the week where you're going to be staring at each other laughing and shaking hands and being buddies again. But, you know, I don't think, I don't, I think Bill Jr. and Dale probably got into more of them because Bill was to Dale Sr., kind of like Dale Jr. was to me.

Dale Sr. and I were more like brothers. And so we would argue like brothers. but Bill was a father figure. Right. And so it comes a little different that way. Yeah. Yeah, I think that gave dad the comfort to be able to go into that holler and tell his side and stay in his ground, lay it out. So you talked about Bill being the guy that controlled the sport or was, you know, sort of demanded respect and kept everybody in line.

And you've been that guy. You're the only guy that could walk into or get up at the podium of the driver's meeting. Drivers meetings sometimes get out of hand, a couple questions get asked. Everybody starts chattering, a lot of conversation, a lot of talking, and there's lost control. And Mike would always stand up, walk over to the podium. Everybody stops chattering and he restores order and tells everybody, look, this is how it's going to be. That's what's going to happen. Carry on with the driver's meeting.

And you're the only guy in the room that could do that. There was nobody else in the room that had that ability. I think Jim has it now. When he gets up there and talks, everybody listens. You talked about Bill Jr. had that ability. You're not going to be here forever. Who's the guy? Is there a guy?

Who's the guy that has that? Yeah, Steve O'Donnell's earning that. He is? Yeah, he's, I walked into this thing. When I came from running racetracks over the NASCAR side, I thought I was pretty smart. I thought I knew the sport. I knew a lot of people in it.

run a lot of racetracks and garage areas. But man, when you come over on this side of the fence, it's different as night and day. So it took me a while to get my legs underneath me. And O'Donnell, Steve has got a pretty good handle on it right now. Even after Saturday night's race, you know, he led a couple of conversations in the hauler afterwards from guys off a pit road. We don't know what you're speaking of. No, we actually have a lot of questions. about that. But I think Steve's earning his stripes.

And he's doing it as in his own style and his own way. And in fairness, I think today's culture is different than it was back when you and I go around maybe or hang out. And Steve's managing that really well. And how drivers, how you have to deal with them, what do you mean it's different? And how you, like, discipline? Or just the relationship you've done. build with them, you know, being stern or being mean. Not everybody does it the same way.

I learned from Bill Jr. And kind of followed his route. But in today's world, I think the culture is more of, all right, let me try to get you to understand it one more time before I get mad at you. Gotcha. Type thing where I just got mad and just got it over with, and I was fine after it was over. Yeah. So I was talking about Jim France. He's, you know, he's sort of taken over the reins, if you will. How important is it to have a France family member plugged in to, you know, the everyday workings of the sport and obviously at the racetrack. Jim's been around forever, but he's sort of taking the reins visually. I can't say I know what he's doing behind the scenes, but from being at the race. racetrack and being at the driver's meetings and so forth, it's awesome. And he gets up to the podium.

He talks with, he's genuine. You believe what he's saying. But he's, like I said, he's been around forever. What is his future? Do y'all talk? Do you all discuss? Like, what is, what is the potential for his future going forward in the sport? Yeah. I think Jim will, will, has taken the responsibility that he had to take. And he will manage that responsibility for as long as it takes to get the right next leader of that caliber. I know he and Lisa are very close. He and Ben Kennedy are very close. If Ben were 10, 15 years older, maybe 10 or 15 more years experience, you know, that's certainly as sharp as Ben is and the different things he's done in the sport. But Jim is, he was always our best kept secret because no one would see him, but he knows this sport inside and that.

I mean, he just, he's the son of the founder. He's been at it in his entire life in some form or fashion, whether it's a kid sitting at a dinner table, listening to his mother and dad talk about the business, or being involved in it at every level you could possibly be involved from driving a race car, riding a motorcycle, racing motorcycles, and running the companies. And what we've got right now is Bill's brother, who has a lot of the same characteristics of Bill, certainly has the mind that can see around corners and see how pieces of puzzles go together. And is a studious of the sport as anybody I've seen. and that works for us.

That helps us a lot putting pieces together right now. But he's going to stay in that role for as long as he feels like he has to, and he's fully committed to it. I'm proud of the way he stepped in, and he's running hard on both sides of the fence. And right now, like in Bill Junior's Day, we had a guy that was running both the racetrack side of the business and the sporting side of the business. Well, we're back into that right now. Gotcha.

Jim's the CEO or the chairman of the board of, of ISC, and he's the chairman of NASCAR. And so that helps the sport. That will make the sport stronger, better, quicker. The hope is, I assume that Ben Kennedy is a big player in the growth of the sport, and his future is, you know, maybe not pre-planned, but it's the hope that he eventually does feel that role for the France family. Is that true?

Well, it's up to him. But he has great interest in it. He's as smart as a whip. He takes on something and he masters it. And then he goes on to something else to learn from. He's a great student of all that. And just a humble, non-assuming individual. But he loves the business.

He wishes he could still be a driver. But since he's not, then he's jumped in with both feet. and tackles everything that he gets handed to him with great style and learns from it. And the big thing is is that he wants to be in the business. Yeah. He's working his way up, similar to Brian. I mean, a lot of people don't remember, or a lot of fans, today's fans, don't know Brian's history. And that he had so many different jobs.

I mean, it seemed like he worked in every department at some point. I can see Ben sort of going through that same route. and maybe there's some lessons learned from Brian versus Ben, whereas a lot of fans today don't know that about Brian and didn't have that respect for Brian when he was given the reins of the sport, didn't have the respect for the history that he had and the time that the dues he paid, if you will. And I think with Ben, there's a great opportunity here

if he is the guy for fans to know him now and know his progression. And when he is in that position one day, have that respect that we had for Jim or for Bill Jr. For you, that's my hope. Getting back to your relationship with Dad, we obviously want to talk on that. When was the first time that you and Dad, do you remember meeting Dad?

I met him in the infield of Bristol in the Rod Austerlund car. So that was a book. 1970, 1979, 1980. Yeah. So I had heard of him, and I watched him raise, from a grandstand at carolins or someplace. I came maybe sent down here somewhere before that.

But when he got in a cup car and he came to Bristol, I went inside and I had helped some of the folks out at Darlington a couple races before that and had met Judy Tucker. And Judy Tucker was Dale Earnhardt's membership club guru. Yeah. She did all the work for Dale and the Wrangler organization and all that stuff. And so I had a chance to meet Dale, and it was an easy conversation to have. It wasn't anything that it just seemed like we clicked.

Even way back then. Yeah. He had his mission, you know, at that moment. But then after that moment when we'd hang out in Bristol or Nashville, because I was still living in Bristol back then. You were working in radio? Yep, the W-O-P-I radio in Bristol, but I'd work part-time at the racetrack,

which a lot of racetracks back then only used part-time. You'd literally go in and clean it up two weeks before the next race and get it ready and throw some paint where you had to and cut the grass. But I remember going to Nashville and hanging out and your dad would stay with Ed Clark in Nashville. Ed had an apartment down there, but he lived in Bristol too, and we'd hang out. And so just kind of watching him progress in the sport was my first attachment to somebody that I didn't have or that I didn't learn from from just being a fan of the sport,

like a Richard Petty or a Cale Yarber or Bobby Allison. Your dad was one of the first guys that I watched kind of, you know, work his way up into being who he turned out to be. And that was a fun deal. So way back then, you guys got to connected. I mean, you go through decades of being around each other and racing around each other. Eventually, you went over to Atlanta Motor Speedway as a GM.

Right? That was before Talladega? Yes. So you're the GM of Atlanta Motor Speedway. You're working in radio. You get a call to come over to be a part of NASCAR and what is being the GM of Atlanta Motor Speedway in, I guess, the 1980s, what does that entail? Well, you did.

It was like running a farm. You did a lot of everything. So I was in Bristol and Tom Roberts, TRPR. Oh, wow. He's the PR guy in Atlanta, and he's going back to Nashville. He wants to go back to Nashville, he and Jonah. And we were at the race in Bristol, and he said, I'm going to go. back then the track was owned by Walt Nix and LG the Witt.

LG owned Rockingham, but he owned half of Atlanta with Walt Nix. And I met Walt at the Bristol race, and he said, well, come on down. We got an IndyCar race in a couple of weeks, so I drove down there and hung out. And so I started off in the PR business at Atlanta. Oh. And then I worked my way up to being general manager. But even still, it didn't matter. If you were PR or ticket sales or general manager of the place, you know, you were general

manager on race weekend. but the rest of the time you were painting and cutting grass and making sure fences were right and all that other stuff because it was a small staff. But it was a lot of fun. Yeah. And you have a place in Atlanta now. Yes.

Did you have that first? No. So what's the connection to Atlanta? Is it from that job as a general manager? I met Linda my wife in Atlanta. Okay. And so she's got a lot of family in that area. I liked Atlanta.

But the piece of real estate we got down there, I didn't buy it until like 1998. But I knew of it when I was running the racetrack. It was a cattle farm. And I always enjoyed just driving by it because I just like the, I just like the looks of the big cattle farm. And then I left and went to Talladega. I left Talladega and went to NASCAR. Did you know, I guess when you get the opportunity and you get to call to go to Talladega, You're like, hey, I must be doing something right.

No, I didn't look at it that way. I just thought it was a great opportunity because I love Talladega. I mean, when I lived in Bristol, I'd love going to races in Talladega. I thought that was the greatest place in motorsports outside of Bristol to go run races. And so when I got the opportunity, but backing up just a little bit, so in the 80s, most all the racetracks were individually owned. So Atlanta was Walt and LG and Rockingham was LG and Bruton, Smith owned Charlotte, but somebody, the Sawyers owned Richmond, so they were all individually

operated. Daytona built Talladega, so they were connected, and they were also connected on the NASCAR side because of the family. Right. So as the sports started growing, and you were looking at, and I think most people that go through Daytona, Talladega, do that because there's, in those days, the Franciscan, family made a living off of racing. Yeah.

That's all they had. You know, Roger had Michigan and Walt was selling airplanes and LG was selling peaches and and everybody else had some other business and the racetrack was not necessarily a hobby, but it wasn't its primary source of income. The France family depended on racing. NASCAR had a work right. Daytona had a work right. Talladega had a work right.

And so I think when there's, when you look at it. at your next career step, if you had the opportunity to go to work for the France family, you did that because you wanted to stay in the business. And you got the best opportunity. And I was lucky enough to, to, to, from Atlanta, it's actually Jim Hunter and Les Richter that said, hey, you know, there's, there might be an opening in Talladega. You want to take a look at it. And I said, heck yeah. Right. So you're, now you're in the family. That's my point. Like you're sitting there thinking, man, this is, I must be doing something right. And there must be more, somebody sees a bigger future for me.

in this sport than what I'm seeing. But in your time as general manager at Atlanta and Talladega, what's the most epic race that you recall that stands out that you just, to this day, as a general manager, what is the one that comes to mind? That's a good question. Actually, I was in Atlanta watching the race in Talladega when Bill Elliott made up two laps. So I wasn't running Talladega then, but I was running Atlanta and I was in Talladega watching that race.

and that's one that comes to my mind when you talk about Atlanta at Talladega. And then later on there were some great races in Atlanta, and I was running Talladega and come over to watch the race with when Alan Kowicki won the championship. But I was running Talladega watching a race in Atlanta. 92. Wow, yeah. I mean, because the reason I ask is I would imagine if the explosion of fans and the reason to build on grandstand seats, the racing on the track and the stuff had been amazing, and it was, man.

I mean, you think about some races and some of the competitors, back in those late 80s, early 90s, man, they put it all out on the line, both of those places. Atlanta, especially when it had that oval, you know, that old configuration was fantastic. Well, that's what's great about walking through the Hall of Fame and you see the age of the cars, like all these little models sitting here,

and these are real race cars. Hell yeah. And you walk through the Hall of Fame and you see the difference between a K-2 and a modern-day race car. It's phenomenal. to think that the pioneers of this sport drove those cars under the circumstances they drove them. We were doing an event for Richard Childers last week and had the three Monte Carlo there,

the black three Monte Carlo. And when you stand there and look at it, you wonder how in the world they drove those things for 500 miles at 200 mile an hour in Daytona, Taua, it's pretty remarkable. Scott Miller, he's kind of the talking head when something goes down. He's the guy that gets put in front of the camera for NASCAR to give their sort of side of things. And that was you coming out of Talladega. Is that when your and dad's friendship really started to – because he could spend more time – y'all were around each other more.

He's obviously – you're working more hands-on with the drivers as opposed to being in Talladega all the time. How did you guys get to become such great friends? Because you're not the enemy, but you're kind of – You're both wanting the same thing. You're both trying to fight for the same thing. You want a healthy sport, but he's a driver. And you're the official. How do you guys become such great friends?

I think you, well, your dad's unique personality drove most of that. So over the course of time at racetracks, the thing about Dale Sr., he would go into the ticket office or the administration office every racetrack, every race weekend, and say hi to everybody. Really? He would. Yeah. Every employee at every racetrack would see Dale Senior on race weekend.

and that's kind of the relationship he had with the industry. Now, if he called up and said, hey, I need three extra parking tickets or something like that, the relationship worked both ways. But he knew he'd come into NASCAR during Daytona. He'd come into the office building and walked to every floor, every desk. Really? And say, hello.

And so that was his unique personality that did that. But along the way at the racetracks, he and I figured out with Richard Childress and with Bill Jr. connections that we had a lot in common. We liked hanging out and all that. So when I end up on the NASCAR side, now, you know, he says, welcome to the dark side type thing. And it gets, and we have the conversation at dinner one night with Bill Jr.

and Dale and some other folks that, you know, we're going to argue about stuff. But, you know, two or three days from now just won't seem that important. But, you know, let's argue and be fair with each other. And so as time went on, my phone would ring six o'clock in the morning. And I knew it was either going to be Bill Jr. or Dale Sr. One of the two of them because they were, if it's something that your dad didn't like on Sunday, first thing Monday morning the phone would ring for even, you know, before I had the first cup of coffee. But he worked through all those things just to get them out of the way so he could go back and be himself with whoever.

he wanted to be with himself. He was just that unique type of character. But the other thing I think that bonded us a lot was Bill Jr. enjoyed your dad's company a lot, and Richard Childers, too, and relied on Dale's input for what the garage area may or may not need, and relied a lot on Richard's input along with Bud Moore and some of those individuals. but Richard was a key player. But Bill Jr. would put together trips.

And so it'd be me and Linda, Bill Jr., Betty Jane, Dale, Teresa, Richard, and Judy. And we'd go to Europe. We went to Monte Carlo. Jeez. We went to London and Paris. And we went to Tokyo on the way to Suzuki. Yeah. And I mean, and just had a really good time socially and mesh together and everything.

So that's where I think we'd be. bonded to the point to where we could have a brother talk. And if he didn't like it, he was going to take us to task publicly on a TV camera. He would? Oh, yeah. He'd take us to task over the radio in his car. Did that drive you crazy? I mean, when anybody goes to task publicly, when you have, he had already developed that, that channel in to do it privately. Did that ever, what did that mean when he would do it publicly? Well, it still stings. I mean, when you, when you hear it being said and understand there's thousands of other people hearing it, it stings a little bit more, but you work through it, you get through it.

Did you ever take it personal? I couldn't help but take it personal. Right. He would take stuff personal. You know, if we'd change something back in, we were changing spoilers or whatever, you know, almost every week. If it was a change on the Monte Carlo where he thought it fits some, or helped somebody else out, he'd take that personal, you know.

You just don't want me to win any more races, do you? And part of that was joking, but you also knew part of it. had to come from somewhere. I was going to ask what, you know, I didn't expect you to tell me what the disagreements would be, but I think you kind of hit it. If it was a competition thing, that's where drivers feel it the most, I guess. I would assume that that's what Dale Earnhardt would take exception to most of the time, right? Well, yeah, but I think that might have been an easier topic on the, I think the other things

that Dale Sr. kind of led in our industry is he smartened up other drivers and car owners on how to participate in the sport, the marketing part of it. Oh, wow. You know, the Chase Authentics. That was your dad that put that group together, but he didn't do it on his own. He knew Jeff Gordon and Rusty Wallace and Dale Jared and those guys needed to be part of it.

You know, and so he kind of, he won't ever get the greatest amount of credit for it. But that's how big a thinker he was. He was a student of everything, and he understood how to make, Bigness out of it. So you talk about collaboration, you know, y'all going on trips, dad coming up in the hauler and talking to Bill or Bill leaning on dad, Bill leaning on Richard Childers. That's sort of, like today, we have tons of collaboration in the sport.

You got driver councils and competition councils and owners, and owners had formed their association. And it felt like when I was a driver, thought, you know, I thought the Drivers' Council was a great idea. But initially, we were going to organize ourselves. Me and Denny and Jeff Gordon got together and were going to organize the drivers. And then NASCAR said, well, we'll just have a driver's council. And, okay, that's a great idea for the drivers to get together and we'll try to help you guys sort of, you know, tell you what we need. As I got out of sport, I don't feel that way anymore. I've changed the way I think.

and I don't think that all the collaboration is helpful, and it slows and drags the sport down. It felt like it was better when it was one or two guys, a couple trusted drivers, a couple trusted owners, and there was a stern Bill Jr. or Mike Hilton-style guy at the top of the heap telling everybody this is how it's going to be. You say the sports changed, the culture's changed, and things are different.

you feel like the collaboration that we have with the drivers councils and all of that is is that the way is the sport going to be run or kind of controlled by this you know many different layers between the the competition committee the owners and the drivers and obviously the industry i know the drivers council sort of influx now i don't even know if that's got a future at all going forward but just seems like the collaboration has is really ramped way up because i thought it was always better when Bill Jr. was at the top going, here's what we're doing. Everybody fall in line. Now it's like everybody has an opinion or they're entitled to it and voicing it. Well, there are a lot of opinions. And the cycle of building these collaborative elements was

probably necessary when we did it. And they'll serve a purpose. But I think in the meantime, what you want to see is confidence in a gym france from the owner's side a confidence with with a group of drivers with Steve O'Donnell to be a good relationship to call pick up the phone and said hey you know and and those are real important elements for the integrity of the sport and for making the right decision at the end of all these dialogues and you're right it seems like it we take too long to turn the boat around sometimes. But I think what the spirit of that is, is in the past, all of this dialogue would be held internally by just a few NASCAR folks. Right. And we'd say, well, this is what we know from over here.

This is what we know from over there. And we'd make the decision, and everybody that didn't like the decision would say, well, where'd that come from? And they wouldn't understand all the back channel work on it. The good thing I think with the councils and all that collaboration now is that everybody understands all the thinking that's going into it from our side. We share all the thinking. At the end of it, I think what we're getting better at doing is sharing our thinking, narrowing it down to a quick decision, and then NASCAR will make the decision because I don't think you get any group or all the groups together.

You're going to have a universal decision. but I think there's confidence in the decisions that NASCAR starts making now because they understand more about NASCAR's thinking, if it makes sense. But the influence from a driver, the influence from a car owner, the influence from a track operator, those are still important and are the ones that happen between all the council meetings. You know, those, and Steve's building relationships with, with drivers that he will call. Individuals.

Yes. And say, what do you think about this? That's pretty cool. One of the, you know, obviously, dad would probably, I'm just going to assume dad would be at the top of the list. But back in, you know, say, let's just say 90s, early 90s. Aside from him, who are the drivers that you guys trusted? Who are the guys that would come up in that holler and actually get y'all's ear on different topics and what the, what the driver? wanted or needed or what they were talking about besides dad.

Well, Rusty was a good voice. Dale Jarrett, both Labonte's, Terry in particular. But Terry did it in an interesting, unique quality. How so? Just quietly. Yeah. But if Terry walked in a trailer and said, hey, I need to talk to you about something, you knew you better shut up and sit down and listen.

Because he wouldn't do it. See, you should have just gone in there at Bristol quietly like Terry did it. You would have got a lot more to say. Well, we've had some interesting conversations with Terry. in Bristol, but on the... That's right. We were the ones that were called on the carpet, I mean, but the...

You know, I... But in the era with your dad, he inherited that ability. Takes time. Yeah, and, but I think the key drivers or all the drivers in the garage area, he said, well, Dale, what are you think? And if he said, no, I don't mess with it,

then it never came up. But if he said, yeah, you know, I'm not too sure, go together and talk about it. So he'd bring Rusty and Dale Jarrett with him. You know, but sometimes he'd come in and just on his own and, and you, you just, we paid attention to everybody that come in there. But when Dale walked on the truck, you didn't know if he was just going to sit there and shoot the bull with you or tell you about a deer he just killed or where he was going next to do something or if he was going to have a racing topic. And so it kind of all blended

it together. It was a social visit that could turn into a business competition. And then eventually one day you gave, you called up me and a couple of the drivers and said that you wanted to get together and talk about some ideas. That was sort of the beginnings of what the Drivers Council is today. If my memory serves correct, it was me and Harvick and Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon, I believe. Yeah, I think Jimmy come to one or two. Jimmy came to one or two. And we would actually meet up at my Western Town. Oh, yeah, I remember this. Well, he had never, for one, this was an excuse for Mike to see it.

Mike had never seen it. And it was also great to have Harvick and Burton and those guys to come see it. They would never, you know, come, come. Well, we were never invited each other over. So, but we did. We talked about double file restarts. Mike says, you know, hey, what are you guys thinking about putting the lap guys in the back and having double file restarts?

everybody and figuring out a way to make that work. And there was a good handful of things that we sort of hammered out. And I know NASCAR already had the idea and the plan in place and moving forward, but that's kind of how you had dad and those drivers sort of doing it the way they did it. And then it transitioned into us meeting up with Mike. How did the idea to get us together come about? How fruitful was that for now? NASCAR, and is that really kind of what started the driver council?

You know, yeah, it started a lot of the councils, actually, but the drivers were a key component when we were going to change up procedures in the race, you know, whether, I remember when Pitt Road Speed came up, you know, it was it was something you had to vent through. But I think what in that era where we would get together, that group would get together. We had a narrow list of things that we were getting ready maybe to pull the trigger on, but I said, hang on a second. Let's talk about it with a group of drivers that we have confidence in to tell us what they're thinking

before we would finalize it, if that made sense. Because a lot of times just sitting around there talking about things, you all would give us ideas that we hadn't thought about, and then we tweak it a little bit after that. But that was kind of the start of today's version of the collaboration with the different groups, the drivers, the teams, and tracks and everything. Yeah, and with Jim coming in and sort of taking over a bigger role, Lisa, obviously, you know, taking over a bigger role as well and creating relationships,

I'd heard over the past this year that they went on a trip with some drivers. There was two or three different trips where the industry took drivers to, to different places to hang out and just build relationships. That's going on now. Yeah. We hadn't done that in a while. And Jim and Lisa kind of wanted to start back up to get to know both the veterans, if you will. But then the younger guard in separate environments.

So we've had a few of those. Yeah. That's just creating relationships with the guys in the industry. It's getting to know them, but giving them a chance to get to know. us. Right. You know, to get to know Steve Phelps and get to know, you know, Chase Elliott knows Steve O'Donnell pretty well. But to get to know Steve Phelps, to get to know Jim France, to get to know Lisa Kennedy in a casual social environment, that's what built the relationship between me and your dad. And the France family has always been really conscious of it's the

relationships in our business that keep us glued together. Yeah. Did NASCAR sort of lose its way? because you're putting so much emphasis in the relationship building. I wondered, is that a response to maybe getting away from that a bit? I don't know that I would call it losing our way, but I think it's certainly something that says, well, this worked before, why don't we do it again? Right. Yeah, there's times when I feel like NASCAR takes unfair criticism,

and then there's some times that I feel like NASCAR probably takes fair criticism that even you guys would determine it's fair criticism. I mean, like, what comes to mind when you think of unfair criticism? fair versus fair criticism NASCAR's taken over the years? Well, I don't know. It's kind of hard to separate those. But you're right. There's both.

I mean, I think sometimes the industry or a component of the industry jumps to a conclusion without knowing everything behind the decision. Of course. But sometimes the feedback or the public outcry is, oh, shucks. You know, we might have done that wrong. let's back up and start over again. So it goes both ways. So getting back to y'all's relationship with dad, vacationing with dad,

y'all used to have this trip in, I don't know if it was always in Key West, but in the middle of year, right around Daytona, there was fishing trips. Between, you know, everybody had boats at the time, like Bill Jr. had a boat. Dad would have a boat, but a lot of, I think even, I don't remember if Rusty have a boat. No, but we'd find one. He'd find one to put him on. So that was another one of those deals where it was, well, it was industry.

It was Bill Jr., all you guys, and some drivers. And y'all were going to, in the middle of the season, go fish. And team owners. And team owners, yeah. So Richard and all those guys. So, and y'all don't do that anymore, unfortunately, because now that I have a house in the keys, y'all decided not to keep that tradition going. When we started that, we were doing in Bahamas.

Really? Really. And so what would you, I imagine y'all talked about, you know, ideas and things, y'all wanted to do or what you know where the drivers were at where the owners were at but who was who was the best fisherman who was a good fisherman on there uh it was it generally come down to bill and dale really yeah yeah and was it competitive i imagine oh yeah yeah it got so competitive that we'd have to be sure when the way in came in that they weren't sinkers and lead and stuff inside the fish they were tinkering with the rules even then putting weight in the fish oh my god

yeah it was competitive yeah That's so funny. They had that a couple of times in Key West. It was a lot of fun. And I wish you guys still did that. That's one you need to crank back up. We may talk about that. And the other thing is Steve Phelps and Jim and us.

We were talking about, you know, now we've got a group like yourself, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Bobby Labani, Jamie McMurray that are looking through a different lens. Yeah. Like you were talking earlier, you look at it differently now. And I think that that'd be a good one to put that group back together and go to the Keys with. I don't know that we get anything accomplished. Well, for you guys, I don't know that accomplishing things is really the goal of that trip, right?

I mean... Well, I mean, if we... You'd always sit around and something would come out. I mean, at the end of the day, when everybody was, you know, kind of cleaned up and through the competitive part and just... You'd set around back and you start talking about something, and it'd be...

You'd get some input. Yeah. Hey, I got a question for you, because we had put out a question on our social media, and you're talking about all this general managers and stuff like this growing up, and if you had never... You talked about you started in radio, but if you had never gotten into racing, was radio your career path?

That certainly wasn't my strength. What would have been? What do you do if you're not racing? Well, you know, I think I don't know to answer the question because it just kind of flowed and I kind of just got into it, not by design, but just got on the wagon at the right time. But I probably ended up at a car dealership. Okay. Well, Dale says you studied math. Is that right?

So you were a math guy. Yeah. Numbers came easy. So when I had to sign up for a major in college, I signed up from math. Boy, when I'm looking for easy majors, I don't think math. That doesn't jump off the page. That was back in the early 70s. I think freshmen and high school are studying the way we studied in college.

Is it changed that much? Leah, do you want to give us a few of what people think that Mike Hilton would have been? Yeah. Just like in everything else, the race fans have the best ideas on what you. So you just listen to them. They will tell you, right? Yeah, we had a lot of responses to dig through. 294 people actually responded to this.

So I went through and pulled some of the best ones. We had a lot of people say like a high school principal. We did have some people say run a car dealership, which is funny that you said that. Las Vegas, pit boss, mafia boss, an empire, a prison warden. We had a few people say that you might be a funeral director or an undertaker, which I thought, Goodness gracious. Wow. It's dark and twisty.

Mike Helton, attorney at law, the one that you call when you have a fender bender. I can see that one. He'd be a Tom Selleck stand-in or possible Tom Selleck look-alike contestant. That's not bad. Tom Selleck, you're a looking guy, isn't he? Yeah, I feel bad for Tom Selleck. A mustache model. We had a lot of those.

Oh, man. Some interesting input there. Any of them close? Well, unfortunately, we don't have to worry about that, do we? I guess we don't. No, no, you're right about that. You're right. We'll get right back to the rest of the Mike Kelton interview.

First, let's hear from my friends over at Valvene. As many of you probably know, I was sponsored by Valvene for several years, and I even drove a valvene car at Darlington back in 2015. That baby was hot. A lot of drivers are sponsored by motor oils, but Valvene, they're a little different. They're more than just another logo on the suit or on the top. the quarter pound of the race car. Vavilene is a true partner and they always were hands-on and helping us make our engines

perform better. They'd send teams over to Charlotte to work directly with our engine guys in the garage to squeeze a few more horsepower out of our engines. We literally mixed oils together, different combinations to try to get the power that we needed for whatever track we were racing at. It didn't matter if we were running plates, road courses, short tracks, or in a minute. They always had a solution to make our stuff better. Vavilene even helped me get the monkey off my back at Martinsville in 2014, where I got

a first win ever on NASCAR's oldest track. That's why Valvillin is the only Motorola I trust in my engine, and it's why you should trust them in your engine too. From high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wear film to newer engines that have carbon build up, head over to vavine.com slash Dell to find the product spec for your engine. That'saville.com slash del. Before we get down the road, I wanted to ask you about the Gen 7 car.

I don't know if that's really the name of it or not. I know there's a lot of things being thrown around, but there's a lot of excitement, anticipation about this car. And obviously, everybody's got opinions on what this thing needs to accomplish. What are some of the most important things that it accomplishes on your side of the fence? What are some of the things that are key to you? I think it's the key, there's a lot of things that's important about this car, but some of the key components is it being relative to the production car. Production car because how reliance on the OEM is very important.

100% agree with that. How close is the current model? How much further are we going to go with that? I mean, do we got a long way to go? Are we close? I think we're close. When it comes to the skin of the chassis coming off and resembling Camaro, then we're close, but we could get better.

We could get better on the sides. We could get better on the tail of the car. We can get closer to it. And I think that's one of the things. The other part is to plan for the future now that we're building a new chassis from the ground up. And we did what's Gen 5, but everybody refers to his car tomorrow. Some people don't like it. It served us well when we needed to be because,

Those were tough years with the automobile manufacturers in 2008 and 2009. So it served its purpose. But this is not that car. This is a very well-thought-out chassis that could produce a lot of efficiencies in motorsports so that teams don't have to manufacture so many parts themselves and put race cars back together efficiently. But make room for what might happen next, not in a short term, but if the automobile industry and the racing industry go down the road with

some type of electrification, the chassis should have room for that. In the motor compartment, whatever evolution we go to in the next generation of power plants for the cars, transmissions, paddle shifts, whatever. We have the opportunity with a clean sheet of paper to build a chassis that can accommodate that easily without having to tear a car apart. So it's some flexibility. flexibility, relevancy. I got you.

A lot of the things that, you know, there's, you know, what we're seeing today with the current package of the car, the less horsepower than we had the year before, more down force, is this all sort of a test and tune process? The new model car is coming in two, three years? Is this a bit of a learning process of eventually what we want out of that Gen 7 car with power and downforce aerodynamics and so forth. I think a lot of people, a lot of fans maybe don't see the connection between what we're

doing today with our cars and that new car coming down the road. Is that what you guys are doing is trying to connect the dots to get to where y'all want to be from a downforce and power standpoint in this new car? Yes. And that's a soft yes, because what Steve and his group have come up with that we're racing with in 2019 is. is horsepower and aerodynamic that we could accomplish quickly on the current vehicle. And so the idea was to take that to where the future vehicle would be similar.

Yeah. But see what this, before we made the commitment, see what this package would be like. A lot around the 550 horsepower is in conversations with engine builders, and the automobile manufacturers is most of their performance vehicles are 550 horsepower vehicles. The architecture in our industry today is way more efficient at 550 horsepower than it is at 750 horsepower. I know, I get the fact, and I'm a NASCAR fan first and foremost, that why can't it be a thousand horsepower? Why can't motorsports be an uncontrolled number of horsepower? And it could, but it will put too big of an economic burden on the sport to go down that road.

So this is one of the things that NASCAR has to make decisions on, is to we have to have relevant packages that are the best efficiencies we can have in our sport so that individuals that want to be a team owner can afford to be a team owner. And that's tough right now. But a lot of these steps that we're taken gets us closer to that line where people can be team owners in our sport, whether it's in a truck series, Expendity, ARCA, K&N, or Cup. And a lot of these decisions that we're making,

and particularly that go into the Gen 7, are economic decisions that Marshall Carlson will be sure that there's still a Hendrick Motorsports. The Dillins will be sure there's an RCR. Yeah, I think the big changes that we've had from last year to this year with the car between the down force and the power were much easier for me to accept and be on board with knowing there was an objective with the Gen 7 car, knowing that this was all to be able to produce a better car a couple years from now, a new version that we will all be happy about. and we had to learn these things. We had to do these things to get there. And so I'm glad to hear that that's the case.

Getting back to dad real quick, there's one thing that I wanted to talk to you about. It's a bit of a difficult subject to discuss, but typically when people come on this show and they have any kind of connection such as you do with my dad and the day we lost dad, we've never sat down and really went through that. We're not going to do that right now. that's for us to do another day but a lot of the world and industry fans alike

were introduced to Mike Hilton the day you had to get up on that podium and deliver that news that we had lost dad. If you can, tell me when you have that information y'all are great friends. Did you realize, I guess, in that moment, what you had to do, what you were about to do,

and was I mean obviously I imagine that might have been the hardest thing you've ever had to do can you can you kind of help me understand I guess what you went through to go through that process and even maybe what the hours were like after that what all that you know you I think you might have been living in Dayton at the time so you didn't it wasn't like you had to get up and go home like we did or the rest of the industry you drove down the road to the house at some point in the day but you got to go up there and deliver that news. How did you do that? How, I mean, that to me, you were, to me,

that was the toughest thing to do for anyone that whole day, was to go up there and tell everyone what had happened. I don't know how you did it, and how did you? I'm not sure how I did it, but the sequence of events got us to the point where, okay, we, you know, a lot of folks had already assumed, what had happened, but we had to authenticate it by making an announcement. So we're back from the hospital into the garage area there, and Bill Jr., if you remember, going through cancer,

and so he was on his toes, sort of speak, but he didn't have the energy that he didn't want to do it. And Brian and Paul Brooks and myself and Bill Jr. and others were sitting and saying, you know, we've got to go make the announcement. And so Bill just kind of pointed to me and said, you go do it. And I said, well, what do I say? I said, you know, we just lost the greatest driver we've ever had. What am I supposed to say?

And I think it was Brian or Paul Brooks both at the same time, stepped in and said, just say that. You know, just say we lost him. and I still think that the realness of all that hadn't sunk in. I still thought that there was part of me that thought, well, I'm going to wake up here before I have to go do this, and I never got a chance to wake up. I just had to go do it and walked in and said what I said, and I don't know that it was scripted or it just came out the way it came out. and then, you know, we went from there and did the best we could to figure out what next.

Yeah, do you remember the rest of the day? Yeah. So at the hospital, Teresa and Taylor were staying on the boat, the intimidator down at the chart house. And so when we knew the final results of things, then and I told Richard and Judy, and I told Teresa, I said, if you don't want to stay on the boat, you can come stay with me and Linda. Because your dad had stayed down there during the 24-hour race.

Yeah. And he'd call her up, and so she knew that connection anyway. So we sent a car with her and Taylor down to the boat, and then they went to the house. I had, I left my car at the racetrack, and there was two other people with me. I think it might have been Michael and Richard. Maybe it wasn't Richard.

I think Richard and Judy came in a little bit literal. So we all kind of just gathered at my house that afternoon. Taylor and Teresa stayed overnight. Somebody else did too, but I can't remember exactly it. It wasn't Michael and Elizabeth or Richard and Judy, but we kind of operated out there. and it just all kind of flowed. There wasn't any plan or design or anything.

That evening just kind of unfolded because obviously there was a lot moving every step of the way. And staying close to Teresa and Taylor was important in Richard and Judy. And I remember we got to the house and I got a phone call from the track security guy. and he said, do you know where Teresa Earnhardt is?

I said, yeah, she's here with me. Why? The president of the United States wants to call her. And that was George Bush. Yeah. And so he ended up calling the house and talking to Teresa that night. And there's the strange little things that you kind of remember. And I'll never get into all the other details that I remember. but we didn't sleep much, and you guys didn't sleep much at night.

I don't remember nothing about it. After leaving the hospital, I remember going to the bus and talking to Tony Senior and Tony Jr. And I don't remember nothing after that. I don't remember how we got home or what I did that night or where I was at. Did you, I mean, for me, I had to, you know, I had a lot of emotions about going back to the racetrack. And Rockingham was the next race. We had a great win with Steve Park, and it was an interesting, very emotional, positive day with the pre-race. Everybody was walking around with their three hats on.

What was your emotions, I guess, going forward? Like, you know, in the industry, I mean, you guys had to have a plan for the sport and had to make decisions for the sport and the betterment of the sport. but personally, did you have doubts about your future? Did you think, man, what are we going to do? Did you have doubts about the future of the sport? I mean, how did you guys as an industry pull the pieces together going forward? Yeah, and I don't know that Bill was sick, and I worried a lot about him

because of his relationship with your dad. but the the mechanics of it all you know between Daytona and Rocky NAM the service and and it from an industry perspective and personally too I thought it was almost kind of a relief to go back to the racetrack yeah it didn't feel right and that may not be exactly what you wanted to do but there was some there was some relief to getting back it was like putting the pieces back together and keeping going but at the same time being and very understanding of what happened. And I don't think I ever worried about the future of the sport.

And I never questioned my job in the sport at that point. I think we were more focused on finding an answer to how these things happened. You know, because if you remember in 2000, it was Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin's and Tony Roper in very similar situations. And so we had a series of things going on. which is what established the R&D Center over here at Concord Regional Airport is a focused effort on finding out why this is happening in our sport and stop it. And then we were working with Tony George in the Indianapolis Group and building the safer barriers, and we were in the middle of developing all of those things.

And so while we were finding the answers because the world wanted to say, hey, what happened here? You know? Yeah. We lost one of the greatest drivers in the history of motorsports. So what? What the heck did happen, you know? So we had an obligation to figure that out. We had to go through that.

And that took us to August, I think it was, before we were able to get in front of everybody and say, here's what we found. And we used experts from all over the world to get those answers. And in the meantime, it was, how do we stop this from happening again? You know, we can't go back and we don't have a time machine. So the best tribute is to be sure it doesn't happen again.

And so we turned the WIC way up and everybody in the world wanted to play a role in it. That was the most concerted effort around making race cars safer that ever happened and still exist today because of that. And when I think about that day, I always land on the fact that that, that, you know, hopefully we've done good from that. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's saved countless lives with the innovation and the safety that we have in our cars today. You talk about Terry Labani.

You've been a man in a few words. I've probably had about 30 total with Terry Labani. And I would say about 75% of those are about safety and what I had in my car and what he thought I should change. And all that, I think the whole sport was in a... in a mode of trying to improve and trying to be better and sort of eliminate those issues. Well, I wanted to, you know, to me that, I know that you would not want that to be a defining moment in your life, but it is, it was, you going up there to that podium to deliver that news.

I can't think of anyone else that I would have wanted to do that. and you know you've always protected that our family you've always protected me as a friend you're a friend of many people in the garage many drivers and you know we appreciate you and appreciate everything you've done I know you're going to be around for a long time and be a big part of the sport you're around longer than I ever thought you'd be that's for sure but I appreciate you coming on the show and I hope you enjoyed it. I did. It's fun to be here. Thank you. Yes, sir. And I hope you'll come back. Anytime.

Hiring used to be hard. Very hard. Very hard. Hiring used to be hard. Still is. Not if you use ZipRecruiter. Multiple job sites. You've got stacks of resumes and a cute, confusing review process. Is that all sound familiar, Mike? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But today, hiring can be easy. And you only have to go to one place to get it done. that's ziprecruiter.com slash Dale Jr.

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ZipRecruiter.com slash Dale Jr. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. It is time for the Valvaline DIY question of the week. Dale Jr., coolest things hanging in your garage. could be anything, what you got. I mean, you know, I think I have some sheet metal. I feel like some of the coolest stuff is my own sheet metal. That's okay. I hate to admit it.

Well, the thing about it is, is like the pieces that I really appreciate the most, actually, Amy, I have one piece of sheet metal hanging in my house. This was the, you know, it's great to be able to get some stuff from dad's cars. or some other important stuff that's got some significance. But the late model stock stuff from my career, I never hung on to none of it. I never thought to. I'm so frustrated that I never thought, man, I should keep this.

But that was a lot of it. We went through plenty of doors and parts and pieces and raced four years and bent up a lot of stuff. But eventually, you know, in the last probably 10 years, eight years, I started thinking, man, if I could find some of that stuff, I'm going to get it. And it's been expensive because people, you know, don't want to come easy with it. They don't want to turn it over for nothing. But Amy found Amy Kelly and a few other people for, I think my, maybe my 40th birthday.

I'm not real sure. But one of my birthdays, they got a door, the right door from a late model car that I raced in 96. and it's in great shape, but it just, that's, I was able to put that up in my house. Most of the other stuff I have out in the garage. But anything that's mine, I got that door from that late model from 96. Actually, it was on the car 95 and 96. I had the door, I have a side off of the first bush race I raced at Myrtle Beach in 1996. Really?

Yeah. I don't know how I came with that. I came up with that. But all this stuff I never kept, and I've had to track it down. So, I mean, there's stuff on eBay now. It's just ridiculous. Guys, there's a bumper from my sundrop car from 1994, and this guy wants $2,500 for it.

I just can't do that, man. I just cannot pay that. I'd love to have it, but if I can get it at a decent price, that's what I'll do or trade. I like to trade. But that's the stuff that's probably the most important to me, because it's so hard to come by. And it's part of my life.

It tells you, you know, it's part of my story. That's pretty good stuff. I mean, listen, when you come at the coolest things in your garage, I think you've got people beat with all the stuff you got. And, I mean, that's in your garage. Actually, I'm thinking about the dirty dome shop. Yeah. You got cool things hanging in any of your other garages?

Well, we have this. Multiple garages. You know, we have the door or the roof of the two car in here. It's not even the real thing, but to me it's still the coolest thing in the room. I agree. We got a door off of TJ's street stock car that I helped build. I helped build and fund that car to be put together, and that door is in here. That we won our Junior Motorsports won their first ever race with TJ driving that car at Concord Motor Speedway in a streetstock race.

And so, I mean, those things, the sheet metal is really what I dig. I love it. Mike, you got anything hanging in yours? That's really cool. First of all, I don't, I have a barn. I don't have a garage. And I hang stuff in my barn. All right, yeah.

So what's in your barn? But it's mostly tools in like, I do have this small collection of license plates. Like old light, like I got John Deere, Alabama stuff. I mean, that I got hanging on the outside of my barn. Like tin. I like some of those old antique tin stuff. You hang on the barn. So that's kind of what I have.

Awesome. All right. All right. Well, listen. Thank you, Valvaline, from high mileage rides that need that thick antipal. to newer engines that have carbon buildup, head over to valvoline.com slash dell. That's valvine.com slash dell to find the product spec for your engine. So this is the final part of this four-week series that we've been doing on Navy-sealed John Tomlson.

And if you listen last week, and I occurred you to do so. Last week was an emotionally tough episode. You heard the sisters of John Tomlinson say that the healing never stops. Well, sort of like Mike Helton alluded to, to today on this show following the loss of Dale Earnhardt, there is good that can come of things. We can respond in a positive way to carry on the legacy. And as Helton alluded to with Dale Earnhardt, that's the same thing that can happen. And this is what we'll learn today has transpired in the loss of John Tummelson.

Take a listen. Christy and Joy, it's been a privilege to hear John's story. What motivates you today to continue sharing? I think being able to share his story, having opportunities like this, when you lose someone you love, your biggest fears, people are going to forget them. You don't want people to forget. I heard you say opportunities like this, which I take to mean seeing John honored with the patriotic paint scheme on the number 88 this weekend.

How exactly did that happen? Our cousin Greg has worked for nationwide, cousin for, I think over 20 years as a CPA. And so he called me and he's like, hey, it was opportunity through work with Nationwide. Can you give me a call? It's about John. So I called him and he's like, you know, they have this idea. They told me about what they do every Memorial Day. And he's like, they selected John to be the one that they'll do the car. Then I called Christy and said, hey, you know, are you on board with this? And she without hesitation said yes too and so.

I guess it's just ironic because my ex-boyfriend got me into NASCAR and Dale was our driver and I remember John saying to him, I can't believe anybody in this world would get my sister this hooked to NASCAR, you know? So I think how ironic is that? He said that and now he's going to be on the number 88 car. There's millions of names they could have put on the car. It's humbling. I noticed the paint scheme doesn't just honor John.

There are 30 stars each representing a service member lost. And even a paw for the service dog who was the 31st on the whole talk. Tell me about that. The one thing that I think both of us agreed, we said that, I mean, John would not want this attention. He'd roll his eyes if people called him a hero. You know, he was doing his job. So we said, don't make it just about him. Like, we want the other 31 that were with him honor too.

Todd Kubli, you are with Nationwide, and you brought Christy and Joy here today. Being so close to this program, I imagine it gets pretty emotional for you as well. Every time I tell the story about what we're doing, I beam with pride. And every time I talk about John, I call him a superhero. Because to me, the Navy SEALs and anyone in the military is as close to being a superhero as I think we'll find. The sacrifice they make on the family side, obviously John paid the ultimate sacrifice, but the sacrifices they make for us to allow us to do, have this conversation here today,

and get to go to the race on Sunday. They're just superheroes, in my opinion. And they said the same thing that every family said is, you know, when his name is not said anymore, that's when we feel like we really lost them. So for us to be able to continue to say his name and say it over and over again is what we take the most pride in. I have to confess, I am not a big NASCAR fan.

Not that I'm not a fan, I just, I watch it when it's on, but I don't like, so I have to confess that. But what I learned from coming here today that I think is so interesting in ties into John is, you know, as we toured and looked at the cars, I think there's such a correlation because NASCAR is all about pushing the cars to the extreme limit. It's about teamwork, everybody working together, you know, it's not just about Alex driving the car and being a great driver. It's everything that goes on behind the scenes. And I think that so encompasses John and his thought. He knew that he wasn't good just because of the training that he had. He knew it took the whole team to get him where he was and that he could count on the people that had his back.

And so I think knowing that and how John trained and then learning all this about NASCAR and how NASCAR works, I think it's pretty cool to see the correlation. Since we lost John, how special has Memorial Day become for you? The Memorial Day for me definitely has more of a meaning because I think as an average American citizen, no matter how much American pride you have, you go about your day, you don't realize or you forget that there's people on the other side of the world that are put in their life on the line for you every single day. And so I think sometimes it's easy to take for granted our freedoms and

what that, you know, how those freedoms really have come to be. And so for me, I think losing John put those things in perspective. just the sacrifice, you know, not even the sacrifice of John giving his life, but the sacrifice that all military families do, you know, that our family had to put up with a lot of birthdays and holidays that he wasn't there even when he was alive and kids that, you know, grow up and their dads aren't there for their birthdays or to experience those things. I think it probably just, not that the day is harder, I think it just put things in perspective for me. When we see that 88 car this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway,

what is it you want us to know most about the name that's on it? Navy SEAL John Tomlinson. He was a brother and a son and an uncle and a friend, and he would have given his shirt off his back for a stranger. I mean, he just was that type of guy and that, he loved what he did and he gladly laid down his life for every single person that's watching that race that day. And I think if he would have known when those doors were closed, what the end result would be. I'm 100% confident he would have gone anyway.

And now you guys know the story of John Tomlson. And it's been a pleasure for us to help. tell it, and I hope that now, when you watch the race this weekend, the World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and you see that number 88 nationwide car on the track, it means something a little more to you. And that is our hope. And we really appreciate nationwide. We appreciate the Tomlson family.

And most importantly, we appreciate all of the men and women of our armed forces for doing what they do for us. Keep talking, bud. White flag, right there. White flag. Say hi. Hey. Hello. Hello. If she said her first word in the microphone.

That would be amazing. It would be epic. I love. Mike drop. Hello. You're going to get quiet. What? Perfect. I love it. All right. White flag is brought to you by Ila.

Ila's bringing white flag today. She's sitting here at the table. Hey, Ila's got a lot to say. That's right. We're hoping for her first word. Listen, Dale Jr. We already have a victory from Indianapolis to talk about. And it is that you. will be able to go to your first Indianapolis 500 this weekend and drink Pepsi products because Pepsi, our longtime friends and partners, have now obtained the pouring rights to the Speedway. I'd like to think that they did this for you, Dale. And for, oh, she's about to.

Oh, Lord. Here's where it goes down. She doesn't like Mike's white flag. She can get up and go, though, can she's running across that studio. First of all, I almost think that they would like to do this, they did this for you to go to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but the fact is they've been working on this for a long time. Hard to believe that they have been our partners for as long as I have. I want to say congratulations.

I know you do too. So Indianapolis has the pouring rights to PepsiCo? Other way around. Pepsi has the pouring rights to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So, wait a minute. So, Mike, Indianapolis has the rights to pour Pepsi? Yes. Yes.

Did I get that right? No, Pepsi has the rights to... Pour Indianapolis. No, no, you're right. You can't pour Indianapolis? You can't pour Indianapolis? No. Okay.

No. You're right. They pour it Pepsi, don't they? That's right. Is PepsiCo going to make some new milk? So much like different fast food restaurants are exclusive to Pepsi. That's right. Racetracks are as well. And Indy is now on the list. If you go to Indy, you're going to get Mountain Dew. You're going to get Pepsi.

All the great products. All the great PepsiCo products. They've been a great partner buyers for very long, very long time. Yeah. And congratulations. I mean, that's Indianapolis. That's it. I mean, yeah.

Get Indy, you're good. Okay. For the first time in Dale Junior Download History, we have a bonus episode coming your way. We talked about that a little while ago. Look for it this Friday prior to Charlotte Race and Memorial Day weekend. All this talk about Dell driving the pace car for the 8500 makes us want to give a shout-out to Chevrolet. You're going to be driving a 2019 Corvette Grand Sport. So you actually talked about doing that, but you didn't talk about the nerves that come with that.

Now, you've already done the Brickyard 400 pace car driving. you ended up in kind of an odd area. You got all this worked out, you think? No, I don't. We still don't know where you end up. That's the thing. That's the thing about doing these. You never know what's going to happen.

You never know where you're going to end up and how you're going to get back into the infield safely. Yeah. So I do know one way, but, you know, that involves jumping a fence. Over a fence. Right, right. That's right. We do have that one. So our TV show for the next two weeks airs at its normal time for the, you know, I'm assuming that.

That's Tuesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern on NBC Sports. network. Lastly, Dale, I don't know if you notice, we got Will Powers. Pinsky Racing sent over Will Powers die cast cards sitting right in front of you there. That was mighty nice of them. So cool. Here is one more. Roger Penske himself has sent you a gift. Oh, no. Yeah. We're giving it to you right now. My goodness. It's been hiding under the table the entire day. I have kicked it over three times. Yes, he has. It's heavy. Giant book. It is a giant. Did Mike bother to open up the plastic for you? No, no. I don't go open up his book. presence forms.

Oh, it is a giant book. Oh, my God. Whoa. This is from Roger himself. That is something. Oh, I really likes it. 50th anniversary of the N5-100, Team Pinsky. As we celebrate, Team Pisckey's 50th anniversary of the N-500 this month,

I want to welcome you to the greatest spectacle in racing for the first time. I want to thank Pinsky for sending that to me. It's pretty bad. It is. Very nice. Very nice. Huge book. Yeah.

Wow. That's cool. And lots of pictures, just the way I like it. And I would say have a good time in Indianapolis, my friend. You will do a great job, I'm sure. We'll be watching. Odd history. We have two odd histories.

And one's since we have the World 600 and the Indy 500 this weekend, we're going to give you a little bit of history on both. First off, for the Indy 500, I'll be driving the Pace Car. I won't be doing this. Actor James Garner drove the Pace Car for the 1975, NTIF00. He was the star of the movie Grand Prix. and of the TV show the Rockford Files. Four days before the Indy 500, he got a speeding ticket for driving one of the pace cars too fast through downtown Indianapolis.

He was clock doing a 59 and a 40 miles per hour zone. This racing enthusiast. This wasn't much of a ticket for a night. It wasn't much of a ticket, yeah. I mean, guys just did a movie about Grand Prix. At a court date a month later, he paid $100 fine. You could just drive the pace car down. Just take the pace car, see you.

All right, for the World 600. We have a little odd history from 1973. Charlotte Merger Speedway paid owner Junior Johnson to build a car, and they held a contest for fans to vote on a deserving driver to race the car in the World 600. After two months, short track racer and legend, Billy Scott, won the contest with over 70,000 votes. In the race, he suffered mechanical problems, finishing 22nd. One year later, they held a similar contest.

Scott, again, won the vote. He was sidelined just after halfway, finishing 24th. The number one car, that was the number you had, he drove. Both years was entered under the team Big Chance Special. All right. Billy Scott, I mean, the guy's a legend. Heck yeah. One tons of races. He raced against

I think he raced against Ralph, my dad. He beat out Dick Trickle, Harry Gant. Stick Elliott. A lot of A lot of big names. Oh, in the votes, yeah. I'm looking at that now. That's your odd history, guys. I enjoyed the show. Thanks for my helping being on the show. Make sure you follow all the social media

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