The Dale Jr. Download - 259 - Michael Waltrip: The Cruelest Thing

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

An emotional interview between teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip, forever bonded in triumph and tragedy.  The two discuss the day that changed them forever, their thoughts of DEI, going 0 for 462, punching Lake Speed, giving a deer a lift, and brotherly love-lacking early days.  The DJD gang discuss Dale Jr's recent health scare, fishing for Indianapolis bricks and NASCAR's track dryer that crashed from the sky..  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. with the Dell Jr. download. Back again with Mike Davis. Matthew Dillner, Leiavon, the Queen of Social, it says. Is that what it said? We laugh, by the way. You never say her last name. So for the past few weeks, I purposely put her last name.

She's the only one. We've got an inside joke about that. All right, all right. So we laugh every time we hear Leia Vaugh now. I feel like I'm like Reba. Like, Reba doesn't need a last name. So I'm Leah. That's exactly what.

I'm Junior. You're just like Reba. I'm junior, so I'm good with it. There you go. All right. We got Michael Watcherp on the show. This is a interview that you guys are going to love. Hello, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome back to the program. The Dale Jr. Download. Today we are going to talk about a rather serious topic. The Dale Jr. download. Download starts now. So, yes, I was, been having these sharp chest pains. I was at my house, and my chest. was hurting, but it's not deep in my body.

It's like out here on the out, you know, near my skin. It's not, it's not my heart or an organ. I'm not having pain like a, like you might have, you know, stomach pains or anything like that deep in there. It was just on that surface, right? And, but I'd had this before for years, and it would come and be there for a day or two and then go away and never come back. And I didn't know what it was, but it wasn't ever very painful.

just more annoying than anything, but this particular night, it was really painful, and the only thing that would make it stop was to lay down on the floor of my belly. And so Amy is like, what's wrong with you? What the heck? I'm like, I got these pains, and I don't know why. I've had them before, but this is real bad. It's really bad. And she's, she was getting really worried about it being something with my heart,

and I'm like, it doesn't feel like it. It feels like it's toward, you know, out here near my skin, just below the skin. And so anyhow, I went to see my personal doctor, and he, I don't even know how to pronounce the word, he said it was this, he thought that it would be this common sort of, like an arthritis sort of thing that you would get, and it's in the cartilage between your sternum and your ribs.

Like it gets inflamed. Okay. I was like, you know, all right. And he could push in the area and make it hurt. And he's like, I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I want to, and I said, look, I, you know, I want to be sure. I want to do everything I can do. So we ran every test we could run, cleared basically anything that it could be with my heart.

And he sent me to this guy in Charlotte, and we had a x-ray, and I did a stress test, breathing test, and all this type of different stuff. And we got done. He's like, man, you know, it's got, I'm pretty sure it's this inflammation of the cartilage in your sternum to the, to the ribs and it's because it's only on one side. It's not centered. It's kind of off to the side a little bit. So it's, you know,

the sternum and then you got the ribs connection. So it's off on, it's just this one side. He's like, but when did you break your sternum? And I said, man, I don't know what you're talking about.

I've never broke my sternum. And he goes, it's been broke. And I said, how in the heck do you know it's been broke? He's like, holds the thing up. He's like,

right here, you can see it's been broken in half right there. It's toward the bottom. and he said you even have a rib that was broke right here neck really close to the sternum and I'm like oh my god that's crazy that was that I mean I he's I had you know I've got some treatment sort of have an understanding of what the problem is which is nothing too serious it's just annoying and painful it's there right now like it's constant all day long I don't know why it's bothering me now and it just you know my my you know my curiosity is to is you know why now why am I

having why is this you know inflammation there today um and why is it not going away how to you know um it's just annoying yeah but uh yeah i didn't know that i had broken my sternum and then uh i saw rodney childer's reply reply to those tweets and said you know i i had broken a ton of ribs and go-karts and didn't know it. He used to go-kart race and wreck a lot and, you know, well, he's very good too. He won a lot. He's like, I did an x-ray recently and the doc said, man, you got a lot of breaks and he had no clue. Yeah. That he had all these broken ribs. You know, I think that was really profound to find out that you broke your sternum. It's not a little thing. No, it ain't. Yeah. And there's no way you will ever know where that

happened. No. But have, now that you've had a few days to think about it, can you, like, had a couple incidents has come to mind. I mean, you think about the worst ones. The California, in 2001, I guess, or whenever that was. That was just looking at, just thinking about the real hard hits. California, the Kansas crash where I had the major concussion issues. Those two probably would be the only two that stand out. I thought about those as well. And the reason I thought about those one was because of the hard hits, too, because there was a more significant injury that you incurred from those that would have certainly taken the attention when you're delivering the news to your doctor like, all right, what's wrong? Well, the concussions were prevalent, to say the least. When I crashed at Milwaukee

and broke my shoulder blade, and I felt like I had been shot with a shotgun. Like, my whole body was on fire, and I burned all over. That would have been another one that I think could have potentially been a problem where I'd broken my sternum, but, you know, I don't know. And maybe it didn't happen in my racing career. Maybe it didn't happen when I was a child. I mean, we just got done talking about all the bud days. I mean, like, surely there was a, I mean, you know, maybe during the phone party, who knows. I mean, I mean, when I was a kid, like 10. No, that could have happened then, too, of course. I fell off of a high dive, and I fell off of a high diving board in Daytona when I was 12 and you're the reason they took out diving boards that that hurt my in my torso very badly and i did

not go get checked out i laid in the bed uh so i fell off this high diving board and i landed basically kind of on my side no wait a second on the edge of the pool what oh yeah you didn't hit water no my my like my hips legs like my hip and my hips and my hips and my hips and my pelvis and legs were in the water. My head was on the sidewalk, so my torso landed on the edge of the pool. Holy. Yeah, it was awful. And how old were you? Probably 12.

This is Daytona. He's down there for the race. And I hurt. Like, I hurt bad. And they carried me up to the hotel room and put me in the bed. And I laid in the bed all day. And dad came in there and was like, yike. I was like, I guess, yeah, hey, I'm glad you're here.

I fell. I'm scared. You're fine. Put some dirt on it. Yeah, never got checked out. So, I mean, it could have happened then. Because it fell. In fact, I'm making my bet that's what it happened. Yeah, you think that's what happened? Yeah, now that we know that he fell off a diving board onto concrete.

I'm going to call it a hunch. I bet he broke his sternum then. Maybe. Or a real. Do you remember it being tough to breathe? Because that, hey, when, hey, I know you're 12. Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't remember much about that.

But that was a very scary thing. Yeah. Yeah. I was scared when I broke my ass bone that year. That's about 12 when that happened. Same thing. Your ass bone. Yeah.

Your coxics. I had to sit on a cushion. You broke your ass bone? Sit on a coxics. Did I remember? Did you break that? I thought we talked about it on here. We talked about it on here.

The dumb things you did as a kid. I totally wouldn't have just brought that up if I hadn't thought we've already talked about it on here. Sometimes that's how it happens on the podcast. Dumb injuries. You know, I had some chest pains this year, too. I wonder if it's the show. bringing these things out, like flaring them up.

Not saying that you didn't happen. I mean, these injuries happened in the past, but all of a sudden, we're all starting to fall apart. When I saw his tweet, I was wondering about it too. Yeah. Getting old, man. Did anybody have any clever responses to your tweet? You obviously saw Rodney Chilters.

I didn't go reading a lot of Twitter. Good. So we were on vacation, and I had lost my, I didn't lose my phone. We were on vacation, but I left my phone in North Carolina. So all I had was my watch, and it's great for texting, but not for tweeting or anything like that. You can't really do anything in depth. I'd get to an iPad probably once every two or three days for about 15 minutes, and so I was sitting there thinking, oh, man, how is that? Did it feel good to get this?

No, pun of tet. No pun intended, yeah. Get this off my chest. All right. That's like a dorky joke I would usually say. That's a dad joke. Today's dad joke, brought to you by Valvaline. Did it feel good, a little cleansing to not have a phone all week?

So the new Apple Watch has service, so you don't need your phone near, whereas the old ones need the phone for its service to be able to get text messages and so forth on your watch. But I can basically leave my phone and get all the critical information that I need. Somebody needs me now, or I can make a call. So it does everything I want. So it was great. I was without my phone. for several days and I was engaged in conversation at the table.

Right. I spent time, you know, more time. You realize you have a daughter and a wife? I spent more time focusing and playing and doing. That's awesome. It was great. Yeah. So when he was on the phone, he was like James Bond, you know.

Oh, yeah. When we're at restaurants and stuff and I'd have to reply to a text, I'm like, one or two words, text messages. And I'm like, I hope people don't think I'm being rude. Not people in the restaurant, but the people received. the text message that it were like very short like thumbs up emojis i was basically turned into martin trix junior for the week where it was either thumbs up cool okay i got yeah i would i texted you a couple times about stuff it was always it was either emoji or a yep yeah it's like perfect

that's all i needed though on my phone or on my watch do you have a good we call i had yeah i had an amazing time i'm getting um let's see i'm getting a little bit nervous because we're getting ready We're coming closer and closer to broadcasting. That's at the end of the month. I'm going to go to Sonoma. Yeah. So that's going to be fun. And we got a practice broadcast this weekend.

Oh, really? Yeah, we're going to do one of our, we do a little practice broadcast. We're going to do that this weekend. So that'll be cool to get the guys together, get the gang, get the band back together. By the way, you have been practicing broadcasts with these big live events lately anyway. So, like, you've been getting you. Yeah, going to all the... Yeah, is the way...

Indy 500 and so forth. Yeah. Now, I've got to tell you, I'm biased, obviously, but it seems like you loved the Indy 500. You and Rut certainly put off this vibe that was pretty cool, and I think that the whole telecast was exceptional, right? I mean, the whole group did an exceptional job on that. Was it as fun as it appeared to be as we were watching?

It was. It was a blast. It was extremely nerve-wracking because it's such a big event, and it's not your normal race. So when I went there, when I walked in there, I didn't feel like, oh, I've been here before. This is Andy. I braced here. It didn't feel that way.

Wow. It felt like a bigger moment, bigger thing. I wasn't prepared. I wasn't up to speed. I felt like I had a lot to learn. Boy, I better get my stuff together. I better study. I better work hard over these next couple days

and learn everything I can about all these teams and drivers and all this stuff. And I need to know, no, no, everything, right? And there's, I don't know how to explain to you that the Indy 500 is like, it's bigger. Like, I don't know how to say this. So I've raced in NASCAR forever. The Daytona 500 to me is a special event, very important.

It's our Super Bowl. We say that all the time. The Indy 500, though, is different. You know, it's a bucket list item. It to me is like going to the Olympics or going to the Super Bowl or going to the derby. All those are like, if you're a sports fan, those are bucket list items. Like I need to go to an NHL final.

I need to go to an NBA final game. I want to, you know, I want to, if you want to see all the biggest moments in sports, the ND500 is in that list. Now, I think the Daytona 500 is too, but I've lived there. I go to the Daytona 500 every year. It's not, it's, it's, it's different. I don't know how to explain it. So I get it now.

Like I didn't understand when I used to argue, oh, Daytona 500 to me is bigger than 8500. It's more important. Daytona 500 is more important than any 500. It's not more important than any 500. It's not even the same thing. Like the Indy 500 is 300,000 people. It's got, they got concerts going on every day,

The race is a tenth of what's happening there. The 80500 is not a good name for this weekend. Oh, wow. Because there's more happening than the race. And it's a month long. But I don't think that's what he's talking about. I think you're talking about even in that weekend. They need to name it.

They need the festival. Festival. Like the race, like Daytona has Speed Weeks, right? Yeah. Speed Weeks is bigger than the Daytona 500. Right. You get in there. You get the Clash, Arc Race.

You're talking about everything. Speed Weeks is cool. It's an event. It's a... Yeah, you got racing, short track racing in town, all that. Speed Weeks is a happening. That's what this was to me. It was a happening.

The race was just a fraction of the shit that's cool that's going on. They got, they had Zach Brown playing. He didn't even play on Sunday, race day. They had, in my opinion, like he, he wasn't even the headliner. Right, right, right. You know, now he might not feel that way, but they had great concerts leading, every day leading up to the race itself. They had the snake pit, and the snake pit is full of college-age kids that are there to enjoy a concert

and a DJ and whatever else is going on there. They had DJs and all kinds of stuff happening in the snake pit starting at 7 o'clock in the morning. They're there raising hell. I mean, 9 o'clock, they're partying hard. They're partying hard like I would at 4 in afternoon. So we had two hits there, 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock, and it was madness. What was the difference between them? Just about 10,000 more people.

They get 30,000 people in this small little area down in turn 3 for the snake pit. And no, this is not men as a slam. A lot of them don't even really care to be involved in the race experience. They're there for that concert. experience. That's what they want to enjoy. The hope is that it's the best marketing tool the racetrack has for the 20-something crowd

because their hope is that some of those kids do get turned on to the race while it's happening. And they do come back later as they turn 30, 35, 40, 45 years old. They continue to come to the track for the race itself. And those Indy car guys, they go to the snake pit

and we'll hang out for a little bit and kind of interact with those guys. So, like, you get the drivers down in there and I think that probably helps turn it around too. I was really nervous about going in there, man, but the vibe in there is positive, it's happy, it's good. And they're raising hell. Know that.

Because I was with you, I can use this as a good vibe. As a barometer. Compare it to that time we went into the Kentucky Derby infield. Was it similar to that? Yeah, it is a little bit similar to the Kentucky Derby infield, but it's a, if you took the snake pit out of the race and just had it by itself anywhere in the country. It's still a freaking very attractive, popular, fun, experience, music festivals type of thing going on. I mean, in itself, it's 30,000 people in itself doing just that.

They're there to come to that part of the racetrack and stay there all day and do what's happening in that place. Everything else happened around the track. They got another concert over in Turn 4, another stage, another 20,000,000 people watching something totally different. That's awesome. Throughout the weekend. They have, you know, you've got the museum and all kinds of attractions. They have the parade downtown, and Marcos. And Reddy says it's the second biggest parade in the country in the year.

He ranked it right up there. This year it looked less because of the balloons. Something you had to see. So the parade is in town. They have a driver's autograph session that's, you know, every driver's there. They're all going to be available. That was another thing. I mean, you standing on the front straight away at driver's intro is hot as hell,

way its sun was beaten down. But there's, it's people. You can't fit any more people on that front straightaway, right before they shuffle everybody off when the guys are getting in their cars and going to fire them up. Right before that moment, you can't fit another person on the front straightway.

You've been to Memorial Day, the 600 and how dramatic that pre-race is. I've only been to one 500, Indy 500, and I couldn't believe the feel on that grid because it was unlike anything I've ever seen. What was your take on it? So you've been to the Indy 500. Once when Montoya won't

first. So try in your best words to compare the Indy 500 to any of NASCAR's biggest races, whatever you think it's the 600, whether you think it's a Daytona 500. You can't. You can't compare them because they're not the same.

The Indy 500 is its own thing over here by itself. And it's been that way for a hundred years. It's just incredible. That too is another thing that I love. That's probably my favorite part about India is the history. And I talked about it ton during the opportunities that I had some live TV. The track was built in 2009, or 1909.

It survived the Great Depression. Now, imagine that. You hear those words, but imagine going through the Great Depression. All the things, I mean, the things that didn't make it out of the Great Depression, things didn't survive. Which was most of things. Yeah. And that track was able to get through that.

It survived two World Wars. I don't know about... Being shut down, yeah. I don't know about World War I, but in World War II, they... banned auto racing in the country. That meant for whatever reason, during the second war war, the idea

of racing coming back to Indy was losing more and more momentum. And by the end of the war the track had weeds and trees and shi growing up through the surface. I mean, it was in terrible, terrible shape. Almost like an abandoned racetrack. It was. It had been, no one

had used it. In World War I, they used it as an airfield. Right. Right. So that kind of kept it up to speed and at least kept the grounds taken care of so when the war was over they could just plop back down and start racing right bring cars back in and here we go well by the end of the war war two the track hadn't been fooled with nobody was there nobody was taking care of it and the guy that owned it was going to sell it and they were going to develop it into housing oh my god they say that it almost happened so you know and i think about like wow you know you're

standing there on the grid for that race and all that almost didn't have and all that almost wouldn't be there. It makes you really thankful for that racetrack. And, you know, we dug up a brick out of the creek. That was fun. We had a little fun with that. So me and, me and Rut are great, great pals. I love hanging out with him.

I love preparing and talking for, we'll get together a day or two ahead of our hits on live TV, and we've got to prepare what we're going to say. What are you going to say? Well, I'll say this. Well, I'll say that. You should say this. And we just keep on tuning and tweaking, right? and we were he's like man I got a break out of that creek I said I heard a lot of guys got bricks

out of that creek and I've heard they're there and you'd never done it I'd never done it oh and I said how long do you think it'll take us to get one he goes 15 minutes I can find one if you just got to go out there and just got jump right in got to be willing to get down in there and get your hands dirty you're not going to find one just laying on the ground and so we got down in there and boy it's an hour and we ain't found nothing we're found I mean we found like half of a brick yeah broken stuff. I didn't want a half. I want the whole thing, right? We're looking and looking, and I gave up like three times. I got out, and I'm, I'm, if I was just on a verge of saying,

man, let's go, this guy here, this ain't going to happen. And finally, we've, I say we, but Rutt found this pocket of where somebody had dumped a pile, like come back, came back in there in 2019, or whatever, and wheelbarreled a whole load right in this spot in the creek. and we found a bunch of halves and broken ones, and I started digging further down, and you could feel them down in there, like 12 inches down into the mud. You could feel the corners of all these bricks.

And so it was a pile of them there. And I just had to keep pulling out bricks until I found that full brick. And the one I pulled out, it's got some nicks and a chip here and there, corner missing off, but it was way down there. It took a lot to get it out,

because we didn't have any tools. We used our hands. Yeah. Was it a culver? Who? Was it a culver? Yeah. Because there's like three or four different type bricks.

There's a tarot. There's culver. Gotcha. Yeah. And we found some that looked relatively newer, but we, you know, I wanted the one with all the writing on it and looked the most legit. Absolutely. And so we found, we ended up finding about six full bricks.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And we lined them up and took a picture like a bunch of fish like we'd been fishing on. Oh, that's awesome. Deep sea fishing. But we didn't even, we didn't. Like that was on, me and Rut were just going to do that. We weren't even going to film it.

And there was a girl that's working with NBC that does their social media, and she says, I'll go film it. And we told the producer Barnes were like, man, we're going to take the camera out there, we're going to mic up, we're going to shoot this. And whatever happens happens. If we find a brick, we find a brick, you'll have it. You can use it and not use it. Now you ended up using it on the pre-race, which I thought was cool.

we kind of created our own piece. Yeah, when did you go out there? Was it Saturday? Night before. So y'all put together that piece. In 12 hours. You know, they plan for months. These Yahoo's go out to the creek and put together a pre-raised feature.

We did. I was so proud of ourselves that we, like, to be able to create a produced piece for the ND500 or any kind of big sporting event like that, like you say, I mean, a lot goes into that. And they spend days and days and days. tuning those things and voicing them over with this, you know, doing the color and the sound. And we had that, those guys do that together real quick. And I was proud of it. We added something.

We brought something to the table. That's right. Where's the brick? The brick is in the motor home. And the motor coach is here. We need to bring it in the studio. The brick can come here and stay. That's awesome.

There's probably a lot of amoeboos and all kinds of other stuff on it. It's probably some things on there that we don't want on there, but they're going to start crawling all over this room. Because it's been in that hole, it's been in there for 20, no, it's been in there for 100 years. More than 20. Yeah. I was thinking 1920.

So I'm just going to assume it's been in there for almost 100 years. Dang, that's so cool. That creep. I got one and I cherish that thing. I think it's so cool. Did you dig yours out? Yes, sir. Yep.

I've dug a bunch of them out. I'm still looking for a tarot. That's the rarest. I got a culver. Did you have the forethought to tape it and put a mic on? No, because. Plus, nobody wants to see me digging with my toes. I would totally watch a small, trim-down-produced piece of you finding your brick.

I mean, because I want me to fall in the water. I know, a lot of people are going to want to know exactly where you dug. You can go anywhere even outside the facility. Yeah, that's where we went out. This was the outside of the golf course. We were outside the golf course, yep. Okay, yeah. We're going to have the Indy 500 winner in here.

Heck yeah. You all excited about that? Big time, man. Simon. So Simon, I got to meet Simon in the grand. garage, I got there and I'm thinking, man, I want to go in the garage. Of course. And I'm just going to walk in there.

And I walked right in. And I stood over by the inspection station. And all those guys started talking to me. And I'm sort of getting more and more comfortable with being there because I felt like, you know, anyone get in trouble. I didn't want to be in the wrong spot, getting away, getting anybody hollering at me. Hey, boo! What are you doing, neither there?

And so I talked to these, uh, Inspection guys, they told me how they did the whole process, and I watched several cars go through and met some of the crew guys that worked on each of the cars. And Steve was over at Penske's garage, and he texted me, and he said, come over here. So I walked over there, and Simon was there. Okay. And he's getting ready to walk off to do whatever, go get something to eat. And he, so I talked to him for a second, and he's like, I'll show you some of the car. Here, come over.

He's showing me, they had wheelpower's car sitting there, his backup car. He's like, you want to sit in it? And I'm like, hell yeah, I want to sit in it. Oh, so those are the pictures. Yeah. And so they text the wheel as I was climbing in and like, got to get over here, got to show you something. Somebody's over here.

And so he come walking up and didn't know I was sitting in the car. And it was funny. He almost seemed a little, like a little perturbed that somebody was sitting in his car. Of course. I don't think you drivers let people just sit in the car during race weekend. Of course he was perturbed. But that's kind of my thing. Like when I went to 24 hours of Daytona, I was climbing in everybody's cars.

Because I want to sit in them and see how the cockpit feels. Yeah. I want to know what all. all the buttons do. I want to know what the switches on. Everybody has something different going on, and everybody does it differently. And if I'm going to be talking about that race,

I want to have some sort of unique knowledge to what's happening inside the car. But he was cool. Will Power is cool. We obviously had him on the show, so he knew. Didn't he just win? Didn't he win this weekend? If not, if we only had somebody who was great at Googling or.

Wait, hold on. We got Mr. King Google right here. Handy with a desktop. I don't know. So Scott Dixon won One on Sunday Dickson one Oh okay

Newgarden won the other So that's that All right Great conversation Indy was a lot of fun Now we're all still Curious as to how the sternum got busted We'll never do

Before we get to our guest Michael Walter I want to talk about my relationship with Vaviling That was as special to me As that relationship with Michael Walker Poor Michael Everything they've done with me has been on a custom and personal level.

Being the only motor oil brand with a dedicated engine lab makes them a great partner outside and under the hood. In 2014, they let me build a one-of-a-kind, all-time favorite. A 1974 Chevy Cheyenne shortbed pickup truck. We took that baby out and raised tail, thanks to Valvill. It was orange. Like I said, they let me do it my way. We had a good time working together, not short on some funny moments. in 2016, they made me into a bobblehead for their pit pales promotion.

You're only your best friends will do that for you, Michael. That's right. That was actually really funny. They had these voices. Remember that? I do remember. I remember shooting that stuff. We shot it right here in Mooresville.

I remember it, Junior Motorsport. But no other motor oil brand goes the extra mile to build a relationship like Vavilene does. And that's why I trust them in my engines and you should too. From high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wear film to new engines that have carbon buildup, check out. Vavelein.com slash Dell. to find the product for your engine. That's Babylon.com slash Dell.

Now let's bring you in our guests. By his brother, the Superflow Chevrolet. Here he is coming up. The flag is waiting. And I think I'm all right. Got some contusions and a little bit of confusion, but that's probably not too unusual. Michael Waldrop wins the all-star race for the front.

If he wants to continue to be an idiot, then we can play that game. I don't mind. I just prefer to be nice to people. Michael Waldrop in second, but it's going to be Dale Earnhardt Jr. Using lessons learned from his father to go from six to first and score the victory of the Pepsi 4. You never got to celebrate your win in February and you celebrate now.

All right. That's it, man. Michael Walter, he's here in the chair. Any of that stuff sparking good memories? Yeah, the contusions and confusion. Yeah. Who are you calling an idiot? I don't remember. Klimbore.

It could have been in any. Clent lawyer? Yeah. I wouldn't say he's an idiot, but... In that moment, you felt like he was. I felt like that. Isn't it funny? I just didn't sound quite as sophisticated back then as I do now.

I don't know. I kind of missed Michael Watchup the driver. So, Bristol, I want to start off with talking about that Bristol crash. We're talking about the Bush race in the 30 Kool-Aid car, Countrytime Kool-Aid. So the one thing I kind of always wanted to know, I mean, there's a million questions about that. I'm sure you get, you talk about it all the time. But when that, do you remember, so sometimes when you crash things slow down? Do you remember when you hit the wall and came to a stop in between that, the steering wheel being in the wrong place or not being there at all?

It was like, well, obviously, you know, you were, do you remember the car coming apart? Well, there's so many great stories about that day. and the quick answer is I remember more about that crash than I do most others because generally when you have a bad crash, for example, the one I had in Talladega in 89 or whatever where I walked across the track, there's an in-car video of me just flopping around. I hit the wall and hit my head and knock me out. And I had a concussion.

And on that day in Talladega, I walked across the track. Luckily, no cars were coming. and I lived in North Carolina, and I woke up Monday morning. I'm like, I'm in Kentucky. I wonder how I got here. And when the race was over, they check you out, and are you fine?

Yeah, I'm fine. What's your name? Mike, good. Your check, you're gone. You passed. And my buddies were there, and I said, I want to go back home. I want to go to Owensboro.

And I got in the car, and I drove six hours back to Kentucky, went to my mom and dad's house, woke up the next day and had no recollection. of how I got there. Wow. So that's bad.

Yeah. This is pretty cool. Bristol, I hit, and I remember as soon as I hit, I couldn't breathe, the concussion of the, you know, the violence of the impact. It knocked the breath out of me, just like you get hit by a football player or something. I couldn't breathe. And I remember thinking, oh, no, I'm going to choke to death. I'm going to suffocate. Really?

Yeah. And when I thought that, I couldn't breathe. I blocked out, but I didn't get knocked out. So a few minutes later, I come to and everybody's... So you really come too? Like you were there for a minute you weren't knocked out, but you weren't aware. Yeah, I think I would do what you call blacked out because I thought I was going to die from not being able to breathe. Shock.

Yeah. And when it stopped, I'm sitting there, and there's so many wrecks where you don't remember, or I don't. I've had a lot of concussions that I don't remember anything about it. But I remember this is funny because I'm sitting there and people are staring at me and they're, they're like, are you okay? And I say, yeah, I'm fine. And obviously I wasn't fine because the fact that the steering wheel was in the passenger side and my feet were on the road, didn't really register to me that I had a real big problem, you know.

and I get up out of the car and walk to the infield carousine. Yeah, but you had to look at the car and go, how? You didn't do that? I didn't at the time. And I'll tell you, even... I was standing at the fence when you walked to the helicopter, and you looked like a guy that had realized that you just survived a miracle by that point. Now, it's been about 20 minutes after the crash, but did it, so did it sink in at any point where you're like, oh, my God?

Yeah. I don't think it really sunk in until I got. They put me on that helicopter and took me to the hospital. And when I got there, I was able to see it on TV. Oh, that was the first time I really, the magnitude of it really registered. But I was on the way on the, I could have been the coolest guy ever because I was on the way to the helicopter. And Robert Presley wrecked me that day. He was the reason why I hit the wall.

Did he do that on purpose? Yes. What happened? He did? How did that? Huh. I don't know. Had y'all been beating on each other a little bit?

A little bit. Yeah. And I was so fast in that, you know, and I was this sissy from Kentucky, you know, and he's a big Asheville guy. Yeah. And, you know, they beat people up up there. We run from them in Kentucky. We run from people like him.

But I'm convinced he did it on purpose. He'll probably deny that. But when I went by his car, I had this chance because he was still buckled in. I remember he's sitting over there in that number 59 trucking car. fitting sponsor. Yeah. And I wanted, I thought about for a split second while he was in his car, run over there and beat him up, you know, punch him.

When is this? On the way, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the hospital. No, on the golf, I mean, the air, the way the helicopter. Yeah. Oh. And I thought about it. And then I thought, well, he might get out and I'd be, then I'd, then maybe I would really

die today. Wouldn't that be something? You survived the crash. Yeah. Yeah. Get killed by Robert Presley. Wow. Oh, my gosh.

So we get to the hospital. and I saw it on TV and I thought, wow, that's crazy. And yeah, I have a funny story about that week. Do you want to hear it? Yeah, we want to hear all the funny stories. I think we do. So we go to Bristol on Wednesday, me and a couple of my buddies. This is 1990, you remember, and I'm staying at the Days Inn.

And we go to Bristol on Wednesday because we wanted to have some fun, go out and have some beers. So there's a Ramadian or something there and they have a bar. We go there. And I meet this girl. And I say, you want to go to the race on Saturday? And she said, sure, I'd love to. And I said, okay, I'll come get you. So Saturday morning comes around.

I get up from the days in. I drive to her house, pick her up, take her to the racetrack, put her on top of a truck with Rick Wilson. I said, I'm going to race. Frick's not racing. You stand up there with him. So the race starts, you know, and I started in the back because qualifying got rained out. And I was, I think I spun out once even.

was the fastest car for sure. And I was going back to the front and this crash happens. And the whole track, as you know, went silent and people think they just saw this guy get killed. And Rick's my buddy and he's distraught and he doesn't know what to think. And I get out of the car and people cheer and she's still just trying to figure this all out. And they take me to the helicopter and she really hasn't said anything. She's just kind of looking around and trying to understand. And I fly off and first thing she said,

said to Rick, she said, well, how am I supposed to get home? Like, one of the first people to the hospital was Rick, because he couldn't wait to tell me how concerned my girl was. That's funny. That's hysterical. How did she get home? Anybody know? Or is she still there?

I don't know what happened to her. It didn't really work out after that, did it? That wasn't the one for me as it turned. That wasn't one. As it turns out. And then another cool thing. happened when I was in the hospital your your dad came by you know my brother came your dad came by and he's like shook his head he said you're one tough son of a bitch you know that

and he left and i said y'all hear that yeah bill thinks i'm tough yeah yeah so you talked about walking up wanting to walk over and punch um robert presley in that moment you did walk over and punch lake speed on pit road we see well he ain't from ashville is he no he's a little smaller but yeah there was no really concern there we always see just a clip of that even today we see it often what happened on the track

well it was it was 95 and I think it's the day the track tore up the track started coming up and it was one groove and it was really tough racing and I I was I think you know we were running probably 12th or whatever with Lake and he went into the turn

and he was in the spam car I think you was I think you was That made it him worse. Yeah, that's just fun to say, though. That got in that spam car. So he got in those gravels and ran me up the wall. He didn't even wreck me, but he just, it was just, it just was uncalled for.

Yeah. And so I honestly, first of all, Lake and I are buddies, and we've always been buddies, and we're buddies after that. But I honestly just wanted to go back there and explain to him how stupid I thought what he did was. and when I got back there, this was right on the beginning of full-face helmets. It'd been going on for a couple years, but not everybody was wearing them. And I get back there,

and he's got on a white full-face helmet, no paint, just a white helmet like he'd just bought it, trying it out, clear shield, and a pair of gargoyles. And those gargoles just sent me right over the edge. I'm like, not only was that a stupid move, you look stupid, in my opinion. You got one coming just on the way you look. As it turns out, he had two coming because I punched him twice.

But in my defense, I hit his helmet. I didn't try to hurt late. Like I wouldn't, if he had been sitting there without a helmet, there's no way Sissy Mike from Kentucky would have punched him in the nose. Like, I just, I don't have that in me. Yeah. But I just wanted to say how mad I was. And that's what I did.

But wait, you punched the helmet. But then you hit the helmet twice. And then I walked off, and I thought, I dang it, that's dumb what he did. And then Buster grabs me and said, let's go to the trailer. I want to go to the trailer buster. I want to tell somebody what he did was so dumb. And then we walked a few more steps, and I said,

why are we going to the trailer? He said, Mr. France wants to see you. And this is the best thing about the whole story, because I walk in there, and I think it's baity, and I don't know, three or four officials, and sitting on the end of the bench and the NASCAR hauler was Mr. France. He was sitting there smoking a cigarette.

And I walked in, and he looks like he's 12 years old. You know, he's just, he's the happiest, it's the coolest thing he's ever seen. It's like, why'd you punch Lake Speed? I did not punch Lake Speed. He went, watch this. And they had it recorded, you know, from, and he said, watch us, watch us.

And I said, I hit his helmet. That's all. I didn't hit him. I hit his helmet. So, all right. Nice try. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Did you explain to him the gargoles, though? Because maybe Mr. Frans would have understood a little bit better.

Yeah, he probably could have got down with that. No, I didn't. So Monday, it was, it was, I lived in Cheryl's Ford, and Buffy and I were hanging out on Monday morning, and it was a rainy, dreary day, and I get a call. And it's NASCAR, and they're like, we're going to find you 10 grand for that incident yesterday. And I said, it's a lot.

1995, that was a whole lot. And it just seemed fitting. You know, it was raining, it was dreary, and I got fine 10 grand. But I texted Clint the other day, I said, you made me look like a sissy the way you went off on Newman. I know, right? He got more than two in. He got 11.

You counted them. I paused it. Oh, man. But does that bring back memories of that? I mean, because like that, I don't know, I don't know that you can even compare the two, right? I mean, have you been in a fight like that? No.

No, I'm not much of a fighter. Has anybody come trying to fight you like that? Yeah, Mike Dillon. What was, I think I've heard some of this. Where was that at? That was at Bristol. He, I don't remember what happened, but he might have either, I don't remember what happened on the track, but then after the track, after the wreck, I'm mad again, and I go to him and confront him

about the incident, accident, whatever we call it, and we start getting aggressive. And, you know, Mike Dillon is country strong. Yeah. He could probably beat up Robert Presley if you put them in. That'd be a good... Robert Presley, I love how... Robert Presley is his measuring stick on anything tough, right?

I'd like to see some of that, actually, now that I think about it. Anyway... Robert Presley versus Mike Dillon. Dylan pulls back. and punches at me, right at my face. And I guess that when he ran out of throw, when he ran out of reach, I had pulled back just enough to where it stopped about even with my face.

And when I saw it coming, I'm like, oh, no, I'm going to get knocked out. And it got there. And then I thought, well, actually, I'm not even hurt. and by that time all the crew guys John So Dylan's got T-Rex arms He's got little L'A. Big tough guy

doesn't have much of a reach. No throw on that arm. Holy crap. But he Don't go to dinner with him He would never get down in his pocket. Oh, man. So when that happened,

all the crew guys jump in and we get in a wrestling match and they get it pulled apart. They called us to the trailer We're outside the trailer And I said, Dylan, none of that happened If they asked, we didn't have any problem

Just crew guys pushing And he said, no, I'm going to tell them what you did I said, you did it too And he Yeah, that's a good idea He figured it out He finally figured it out A little slow to it, but he got there

Man, can we just talk fighting with Michael? I mean, like, you know, maybe you haven't been in enough fights, but maybe you know people that have And you just watched, you know, And you just could commentate fights. Have you ever made dad mad on the racetrack?

No. I tell a story in our doc about Dale and I was, your dad. I'm sure he had made you mad a few times, but. Yeah, he made me mad at Darlington. I was running like top five and he went down into what is now turn one, which was turn three, and just hit me. And I didn't never, I wasn't much of a top five guy back in the early 90s. I got them in there every now and then, but he just, you know, he just, you know, he just

I guess he either wanted to hit me or he just misjudged a bit and into the outside wall. I went just right into, you know how you crashed. So, but Darlington, when I was a rookie, not even a rookie at 85, one of my five races I ran as a, as the year before my rookie was, the Southern 500. And I was running pretty darn good for a kid that just been racing baby grand cars. And it was probably midway through the race. and he was leading and I came off turn two and and I just I didn't see him I didn't know what was going on and I was up on the straightaway off term two then and by the time I thought I landed he was already down

inside of me in that Wrangler car that you could see him you could see his feet almost in those cars back in the day you know you could almost see the whole guy and his he had that finger pointing at me and I'm like, oh no, that's bad. That's Del Earnhardt. And I'm Daryl's little brother, and he is mad at me. Yeah. And I bet he's got some throw in those arms. Yeah, I wouldn't.

I would have left Darlington in my car before I confronted him. Yeah. But it was one of those moments, though, that as I thought about it, you know, I almost, I took it as a lesson. Not him being pissed, just, you know, get it together, buddy. Yeah. I got that same thing at Darlington. I think it was my rookie year, and I didn't know any better. So I was racing the shit out of the leaders, and you weren't supposed to. And I think I got loose in front of Jeff, and dad and Jeff were having a little battle. And I got loose and Jeff almost wrecked trying to check up and miss me. And then they went by and dad's pointing at me. Like, get the hell out of the way, you know. You have to tell one dad story. Tell them the one about Martinsville. That's my favorite.

Oh, yeah. So, yeah, Michael was there. We were running my first Martinsville race. There's a lot of tracks like Martinsville that you go to where you just have to destroy the car the first few times. If you go look at, we've become a great plate race where he already was. But I wrecked in my first three or four plate races because I just didn't know how to how to do it. and I didn't know how to finish races. And I don't know how we won championships in the Infinity Series

because I still, when I got the Cup Series, didn't know how to finish races, especially 500 miles or 500 laps. Martinsville, we got a flat tire or something. I cut my tire down, drugged the sway bar off, had to come in the garage and get it fixed. And I hit the Pace Truck. There was a truck, like a, yeah, behind the garage.

I was so mad. And this truck was trying to move and they've been out on the track, throwing some speedy dry down, and I'm trying to get to the garage, and they won't move, and they're, like, telling me to move, and I'm in a car,

and I'm like, race car has the right-of-way. Clearly, yeah, in the garage, and plus I got one tire flat. I can't really control this thing. And we got that fixed, and we got back out there, and we restarted on the inside. This was real early in the race,

and I had new tires, and the other guys, I don't think, pitted. All the leaders hadn't pitted, so they had a little less tire. Take off, man, I put a straightaway on the leaders. I was proud. And Dad could see it.

He was running in top ten. I knew he could see it. Then we wrecked about three or four more times. Finally, the last wrecked. I had no fenders left on my car. Hood's gone. We had a restart. And I mean, it's just start.

We just had a restart. And I'm back there. I'm going to ride this out. I'm okay. And I come down in the corner and I was underneath. I think it was Blaney's dad. And he came down and I hopped his tire with my, my car because I didn't have any fenders.

And I jumped him, and when it landed, I was at the fence. And it bent the steering wheel. I still have that steering wheel, but it bent the steering wheel into the dash and just killed this car. And so Richard, dad comes over the radio to Richard Childerson says, tell him to park it. And Richard's like, I think it's done. And so we get in the helicopter, and dad goes to chewing my butt. over just how much shit I tore up and wrecking. I mean, I imagine he was pretty embarrassed

because I called about four yellows. And he got done chewing my ass, and I said, yeah, man, but did you see me yard the leaders? I had to put a straightaway on that one time. You ain't even going to talk about that? So the more to that story is that morning, I had gotten, Dale said you want to ride up on the helicopter. I said, sure, so they picked me up at Charles Ford.

and I'm sitting at Dale's place in the helicopter, and Dale and I are sitting there, and Dale Jr., he's not late, he's right on time, but he comes into the helicopter, sets down, he's got on a, like, one of those big coats, like a hunting coat almost in his hat. He sits down that helicopter, and he looks over me and goes, and I never said a word.

The whole hour ride up to Martinville, never said a word, just sit over there like he was still asleep. guy out of the helicopter and left. And that was kind of our relationship. There really wasn't one. At that time, we were just, I was Dale's friend, and he was Dale Jr. And we knew each other, but that's about it. Y'all nodded each other.

Yeah, well, he nodded at me. Yeah, he nodded back. So the race is over, and I think Dale Jr. So Dale ran top five, I think he was second or third. And I think you had to go talk to NASCAR about running over the paste truck. I did. So he goes to the hauler, and Dale does all the post race, and I don't remember what I did, but I was sitting in the helicopter waiting on them both, and Dale gets there first,

and Dale Jr's in there talking to NASCAR. He hit everything in this place. Hell, he's on fire once, I think. And so the new Dale Jr. That gets on the helicopter for the ride back, he gets in and says, Dad, straightaway them. You see he straightaway the leader? I'm like, Had them covered.

Had them covered. So, yeah, talking about our relationship, but we didn't really have, you and dad were friends for a real long time. I want to talk about that here in a bit, but I didn't really, the first time I met Michael, the first time I knew Michael, I knew of Michael. I'd been to the racetrack for years and years and seen Michael there a hundred times.

But the first time I really remember talking to Michael his dad brought Michael and Buffy over to show them something around at the farm. He'd probably been there before, but whatever the reason was, dad was showing y'all around the property, and this was probably, I don't know, man, this was probably 1997, and I was working on Kelly's late model car, and maybe one of my cars, but he brought y'all in there. And he's like, hey, this is Dale Jr., Michael Buffy, and then y'all went on.

And for the longest time, like you and dad were tight, but we never really talked. We never hung out. I just, but I didn't hang out with that much either. You know what I mean? I was just kind of not around. I don't know. I was doing whatever I was doing, racing and carrying on.

Then we got to be teammates at DEI. You know, you have a documentary coming out. There's a lot of great, I think for anybody that wants to know about you, wants to know about DEI, wants to know about your experience, your life from the time you started racing, your relationship with your brother. This is an amazing documentary. And you talk a lot about,

going to work at DEI and how that, you know, how that was a big deal for you. Explain the conversation that you and dad had about coming to drive for it. That conversation lasted for years. Right. You know, I drove for your dad in the 80s. I ran a couple of bush races and he just... A one, one. No, I didn't.

Or run second at Rockingham. Yeah. Fender. Yeah, to Mark Martin at Rockingham. That's another funny dad's. story. He's up in the he's up in the suites

and they just repaved Rockingham. And his car isn't as fast as Mark Martins. I can promise you that. And it's late in the race and the caution flag comes out. And I come on the radio

and I'm like, I think we need to stay out. And he says, no, you ain't staying out. That's dumb. I said, well, two tires. Shut up and drive. Shut up and drive. Four tires, guys. I'm like, okay, four tires. And so we come in and we follow Mark out.

I think Chad Little maybe even stayed out. And we both passed Chad and man, I just knew in my heart if I'd gotten two tires out of one or whatever. But I liked him as a car owner that day because I usually was somebody as a driver that thought I knew more than everybody. And having that authority that having someone tell me what we were going to do was something that I needed and I liked it a lot. And so that relationship was, was, was, was, dates back to the 80s and, and why, I really don't

recall exactly why we became buddies. But I, I know now what I, what I believe was my, my big brother, he, he, he didn't really give me anything else. He didn't, he never let me drive his cars growing up. He, he just, you know, he told me to figure it out if I wanted to figure it out, but he, he was busy. And I figured it out. And I'd made it. And I'd make, you know, he never let me. And I'd made it to not only winning on the Bush series, but nearly winning in the Cup series. And I think that your dad just thought, well, you know, he got here. He did it. He made it.

And nobody handed him anything. And he appreciated that. Yeah. And he raced with me on the track and he thought that I could win if I had the right opportunity. And the reason why I got to drive the Wood Brothers car in 96 was Dale told Eddie and Lynn that he thought they should put me in that car. Really?

Yeah. not know that. Yes, and that's the reason why I got that ride. So he couldn't put me in one of his yet, but he wanted to make sure that I had something good to race. And we were able to run well in the Woodbrother's car. And then eventually that ran its course. And I went to drive the seven car for Jim Smith. And we ran in the top five a few times and had a chance to win a couple of races.

And it was coming to late 2000. like August, and we didn't have anything signed with Jim for 2001, but Jim wanted me to drive it, and I'm like, well, you know, I just felt like I'd wasted so many years resigning, and I didn't feel it. I didn't want to do that. And one day, Dale's at Richmond or, I think, I don't remember where we were, but he said, have you got something for next year?

And I said, yeah, I guess. He said, well, hang on. I'm working on something. I like when I do, Dale, because I'm always yelling at me. You know what's that? Hang on. I got something figured out. And so he had Ty call me and said, come to the shop, and we talked about 2001.

He said, I think I'm going to close my Bush team and I'm going to have three cup cars. I want you to drive one of them. And I said, yes, that's exactly what I want to do. And he said, all right, give me a few days. I'm going to work on it. So they went down to Atlanta and talked to Napa and called me by. back and said, we got it worked out. We want you to come drive for us for, for, for, um, as our third car in 2001. How much did you all hang out? How much were you hanging out with

Dale? Like, I think you were friends. It sounds like you were friends for a long time. And I, from the surface, I, you know, I don't think you would take offense to this. I don't see a whole lot of similarities between like, you know, most people. There's age difference. There's that, but most people always have a hunting story. They're like, they, well, we were hunting buddies, of course. I mean, I think that Dale had hunting buddies that even didn't go hunting with him. Yeah. If I may be honest.

But you didn't hunt with him, did you? No, we would come to go to DEI a lot and go to the deerhead head shop and do target practice, shoot guns at targets. But I'm not a hunter and never was much of one. And I like looking at deer's walking by. I never think about shooting one of them. We certainly didn't have that in common. But we were buddies first.

Like I would come to the farm and he would show me how he put. put up a eight-foot fence and there's deer living in there and built this creek and this pond and so I felt like I was a I was a Dale Jr., if you will, in the sense that I bought me 100 acres out in Sheryls Ford and I wanted to put up a fence and I wanted to have deer and I wanted to have a creek. With no real, real passion for any of that, right? Just because Dale want, just because that's what you learned? No, I just, I love nature.

Okay. I love being outside. So did you really appreciate, how much? of that was you just pretending like you were interested when he was showing you zero pit-part zero part it was all love like okay i would i would walk around or we would ride the four-wheeler around his his farm and i thought this is this is the coolest place ever it was how many acres though 500 or something yeah 300 so i had 50 i had the ability to replicate almost on my 50 acres what what he did here and

he called me one day and said come over here i got you a deer and and and i got my fence up he he gave me all the fencing and i got my fence up and he said all right i got you deer and we come i come over and i'm driving a pickup truck and he's got this deer in a cage he said this deer got hit do you remember this story yeah this deer got hit in ohio pistol it's mom and the pistol hit i think no the nose if we it nose was bent and its nickname name was pissed. Oh, no, I'm talking about Lucky. Lucky. Do you remember Lucky to do you? No, I don't. Yeah. These, they must have been sisters or something. Y'all remember the names of deer. I keep going. So the funny thing, the fact that their sisters is another part of my story about my 50 acres, but I'll tell you that in a minute.

So he says, come over here. So I come over and he said, this is lucky. It was, its mom was hit by a car in Ohio the other day. A race fan cut the mom's belly and delivered the baby. They bottle fed it, raised it, and they wanted me to have it because they knew I had this land for this deer to be safe on. And so he said, this is a perfect deer for you to start. And when that deer gets old enough, I'll bring you another deer, and then you can have more deer. So I get this deer in the back of my truck, and I'm getting ready to leave. And he grabs me by my shirt collar, and he says, hey, if anybody pulls you over, you don't know where you got that deer. I'm like, so I'm, what the hell is wrong with you?

What do you mean? He said, you can't be driving a deer across town? Just so I'm clear, I could shoot this somebody right between the eyes if I want to, but I can't give it a ride. No, you can't be giving a deer a ride. Well, I won't tell anybody then. So I take lucky to Cheryl's Ford and Mike, you wouldn't believe my property. It was a mini version of what Dale had. I even found a crevice in the hills there and dug into that crevice and we built a cave just because I always wanted a cave.

Wow. That sounds cool. Yeah, it is really cool. And my other goal, right before it all, we decided we didn't want to live there anymore was I wanted to bury one of those, cargo container like a cargo container shipping container and put dirt over it and just have like a tunnel yeah and i actually wanted to do like three or four of one a row so it was a real long tunnel but i never got around to that but anyway the deer back to the deer that lucky's living there and it gets old enough so they'll bring we we figure out a way to get another one i give another one a ride across town

deer uber yeah so they the deer are coming across so now i got like four or five dears and it's a couple years and now I'm thinking, you know, all these deer, they're going to start reproducing, and I'm going to have some weirdo deers here eventually because there just isn't that much room and there ain't that many of them. So we eventually opened the gate and let

them come and go as they please. And lucky, I've got a great picture of my mom and dad with Lucky standing, you can feed Lucky and Lucky standing behind my mom and dad and it's their Christmas card. It's just really, really fun time in my life. And it was, it

You know, you think about Dale's influence on my career on the track, but he was my buddy, and I did so many fun things because of his influence and how I, how much I looked up to him. Yeah. Yeah. I think you were an older version of me because I did a lot of crazy stuff with my property, too, that you probably would regret now how to put those containers in the ground and spending all that money on nothing. Oh, if I can just have it. I mean, there's somebody, somebody would come down my driveway and they say,

we can put a pond right over there. I'd say, really, when could you start? Yeah, right. Or we need a rock wall right in that area. Oh, yeah, we do. Could y'all get to that? Yeah. I did all that for a long time.

Yep. Now you're sort of, if I heard right, you're in between Charlotte and Phoenix. Well, I spent last winter for the first time for about two months in Phoenix. How'd you enjoy that? I loved it. It's really nice, and I like golf, and obviously December, January is a great time to be golfing out there in Phoenix, but I still haven't determined exactly where I'm going to land, how it's all going to work out. I'm working on that. Yeah. So you start driving from DEI in 2001. I was really excited about that personally because we didn't have that relationship that I was hoping we would have. I loved y'all's friendship. I loved you and dad's friendship. But I also saw possibility for me and you to be. friends. That age difference between you and dad gave me confidence that me and you could get along and we could have fun. And we did. We got the racing together and right away, at least, you know,

maybe it took us a while to get to know each other, but on the racetrack, it seemed like we got along really well. Yeah. I don't even remember the numbers or how many who won what or how many times we finished first and second. A lot. But it seemed like every plate race, me and you knew that If we were there together, we could hold them off. And, you know, whoever was leading was going to lead. Right. You know, I remember Talladega red flag on the back straightaway. I think you were leading at that race.

I don't even know who won it. Yeah, I think I did that one. Yeah. When Elliott flipped. Yes. And sitting there thinking, man, just in that moment, you know, when you have a red flag, you get time to sort of reflect. And I'm sitting there thinking, man, I can't believe how good we are at this.

You know what I mean? I know our cars were amazing. Our cars were freaking crazy. And it was funny because your Creek Chief Slugger had a whole different approach than Tony Senior and Tony Jr. But they both made fast race cars. And we knew that, you know, as the race went on, our cars got better and better. What made y'all good?

Yeah, I think, well, so Michael was already very good at plate racing. Right. Even, you know, no matter the team, he always found his way to the front. And for me, that's why, like, so people say plate racing is all chance. It's a lottery. It's just, you know, guesswork. It's not. You always see the same guys at the front of the field.

And that's because there's a method to it. And there's an approach and there's a mentality to how you race it to plate tracks that changes. And you need to adjust and be able to adjust with the package and what works and doesn't work. But like Kurt Bush, Michael Waltrip, myself. I mean, there's a long list. Denny Hamlin, there's guys that always do well, and it's a mentality. And so, Michael, for whatever reason, had that, do you, what's your approach to plate raising?

Why do you think you were so successful and consistent? I will, I think as I've thought about it over the years, your dad, you know, I watched him, and I'm like, how does he do that? And why is he able to do that? And just talking to him about his philosophy and the air and how important, putting yourself in the right spot with the air. And I didn't have the fastest cars at the beginning of my career, but I listened to that.

And I could feel it. And I'd be like, damn, there it is. There's that air. It made my car almost as fast as Buddy Baker's. You know, I'm like, that's pretty cool. And knowing that it was more than chance. And I never bought into that. I'm like, that's not possible.

There has to be a way that you can figure this out. And I just was a student of that. type of racing and I saw it as such a huge opportunity for me early in my career to be able to run with Dale Earnhardt because I had this air that was going to suck me up to him and I just I always I always looked forward to that opportunity because a lot of places you know quite honestly I didn't have a chance but this was a place that I did well we get into the DEI cars which were very good race cars especially on the plate tracks richie gilmer and those guys had the motors figured it out. We had the RAD program, making these amazing bodies. And so we had a stacked hand

when it came to Daytona and Talladega, and it showed in our results. You win the Daytona 500, right? We had Mike Helton on the show last week, and I told him that I thought he might have had the most difficult job that day having to get up there on that press conference and tell people about dad and him passing. But, you know, with you sitting here in the room, it's obvious to me that maybe the most difficult position that anyone was in was the one you were in, having won the race, realized this amazing moment. You'll learn a lot about this in the documentary. But at the same time, you know, you just lost your best friend.

Do you, and we went to Rockingham. You know, we all knew we were going. The picture of us three sitting on Pitwall, me and you. and Park is one of my favorite moments. It was a very, very bad time for all of us, but it's one of my favorite moments from our time together. And we talked about that with Steve Park. We did.

We did at length. And we said, what were y'all laughing about? And they said, probably something Michael said. That was it. And it probably was. I remember, like, Michael was always kind of the guy that kept things light and always had something that would sort of break the ice. It was like we went to your dad's funeral.

And after the funeral, we went to lunch. we were laughing and just reminiscing and the joy of his life and how important he was to us. And the funny moments, things he would say and do, you know, we were laughing and the waitress come up and I said, you'll have to excuse us. We just left a funeral. But, yeah, we were able to, you know, you celebrate life. Life ended here, but in my opinion, life goes on. And we were celebrating Dale's life. And probably in that moment, in Rockingham, we were doing the same thing. I remember at Rockingham,

and practice had just started. Practice had been actually going on maybe for a half hour, and you went to the top of the board. Do you remember that? Yeah. And I was sitting there. And that was like, you did good at Daytona, but what's he going to do when he gets to Rockingham?

Right. Yeah. That's right. And it was a check mark. It would check the box. Like, this, that was right. Michael can do it. I'd never been to the top of the board.

Right? And it was, it was, that to me was sort of like, all right, we can do this. This group can make this happen. And we did. We went on and won a lot of races together, drafted together. How did we, how did you decide, you know, in certain moments. You talk about it.

I've heard you talk about it before. I hate to keep mentioning a documentary, but it's really good. But I think you mentioned a documentary. Dayton in 2001, how did you decide that you were going to push? Well, first of all, let's go back to the February race, the 500, because, again, I'm Dale's buddy, and I'm driving for DEI, and he's my teammate, and we've never had one conversation about anything. We're just like, hey.

You've nodded. Yeah, in a helicopter. Hey, I would tell you this, we've got that nod thing down by now. We were agreeing all over the place with each other. But prior to the Daytona 500, prior to the Daytona 500, on Thursday, I was, I think I was going to win my qualifying race. And I went, there was a restart.

I went from second to third, and I had my car positioned perfectly. I went from, I was getting ready to go from third to fourth. I didn't shift in time. and I hit the rev limiter, and cars just started going by me, like crazy. And it, I was old for 462. No one had ever lost 462 races, and then won one. And by the way, no one ever will either, because they'll never get a chance to lose that many.

Right. And I was so disgusted, disappointed with myself that I had done that. I mean, this is just a qualifying race, but it was my first chance in Dale's car. and Dale was in my race, and, you know, I was going to win the race. I know I was if I had just shifted the gear. And so that really jarred me, and it put me in a bad place mentally. And Friday afternoon, isn't it weird, 18 years ago, 19, whatever it is, it just like it was yesterday. I'm walking through the bus lot, and there's Dale's bus, and I'm just trying to go because I don't want to see him.

He's going to be pissed at me for missing a gear. How do you do that? And the door swings open. I went, get up here. So I go in, he said, man, I'm sorry. I messed that up. He said, what are you talking about? I said, I should have won that race.

He said, you shouldn't have won it. I should have won it. That don't matter anymore. Here's how we're going to win Sunday. You and me and Dale Jr., we're working together. These rules, the way the spoilers are, they're drafting so key, the three of us are going to work together, and we're going to win this race. And I'd never heard in my 462 previous attempts, no car owner had ever sat down

and told me exactly how we were going to win a race, and no car owner was Dale Earnhardt. So, you know, it just was an amazing moment for me. He didn't care about Thursday. He was focused on Sunday. And I fast forward to tell this story, I wanted to, so we stopped for the red flag when Tony Stewart flipped. And when Dale told me, me, him and Del Jr. are going to win the race.

I was like, yeah, yeah, we are. And then I walk out and think, there's 40 other cars out there. How are the three of us going to do that? And then I would start down. on it. Nope, Dale said it. I'm going to do it. We're going to work together. That's how it's going to happen. They have this huge crash. Red flag, 30 laps ago in the Daytona 500. We stop on the front straightaway. I'm first, Dale Jr., Dale's second and third. And I look at my mirror and I'm like, damn, no wonder he wins all these races. He not only is a great race car driver. He's also a race whisperer. Mine reader.

Right. Race whisperer. That's awesome. The Jedi mind trick on the whole. filled. So then I'm sitting there and, you know, we got probably 10, 15, 20 minutes of sitting still. Yeah. And I'm looking at my mirror and there's Dale and I can see Dale Jr. And I'm like, yeah, Dale told me we were going to work together. I wonder if he told Dale Jr. I'm sitting here wondering the same thing. I am too. I can promise you, I did not know. I did not know whether he had told him or not because we hadn't talked about it. And we went back to racing and,

It became obvious as the laps ran down, 15, 10, 5 that I was doing, I wasn't just having my foot on the floorboard riding around the racetrack. I was doing everything I could, letting off the gas, getting him to push me, doing anything I, anything I'd learned in those previous races, I was trying my best. And Dale Jr. and I had it made because he was going to push until the end. and we had separation. The pack never got to us because Dale was third and he was pushing, and his plan was the three of us to push together. And as you watch the race, you know, this, Dale, that this is the case. He was in a freaking hornet's nest.

They were all over, but he wasn't given up, and he fought. And the crazy thing was when we took the white flag, I looked in the mirror, and Dale, Dale Jr. was right on me, which that was good driving on my part because I didn't want to be out, you know, so I did my part. Dale Jr. was right on me, and there was a gap to Dale. And when we took the white, I said to myself, I'm going to go down to that end and make two left turns. I'm going to go down the other end and make two more. And situationally, if my engine don't blow or my tire don't go flat, I'm winning this race.

I knew it. I just did. There was no way. It wasn't working behind us. And then when we got to turn three, you know, the fighting, the blocking, the side drafting, all that had been going on, it just went wrong when we got to turn three. And that was crazy because we took the checker and it was Dale. And like you said, just so much excitement and energy and thankfulness.

And then when I ran, when I don't know about you, I was going to ask you this. I thought about this morning. When I drove through turns three and four back by the accident scene to go celebrate the win, I didn't even see anything over there. Like my eyeballs, if I had seen Dale Redd, you'd have stopped. I would have stopped because that's my buddy. And I guess the same with you, you would have seen. Like I just was blocked from that.

And I never knew. I never knew what was setting down there. Yeah. I remember as the laps were going down, dad had told me about the plan. He yanked me into the bus and said, I talked to Michael, this is the plan. And I was like, all right, you know,

I hope it works like that. I hope it, that would be, you know, great for all of us. I love what you said in the movie. It was so perfect. But I don't even remember. Because that's a crazy talk. Yeah. Because I was thinking.

You were thinking it. He said it. I was thinking the same thing. I was like, nope, nope, he said it. I'm going to do it. Yep. But when it came down to it at the end and I looked in the mirror, I thought if I did get a run and I took it, he would never let me hear the end of it. He would be so angry because I knew that he was going to go with Michael.

Because Michael wasn't breaking the plan. I was. And if I break the plan, he ain't going to help me. He's going to go, I told you not to do that. Now I'm going to show you why. You know, and I'm going to send you back there where I'm at in the Hornet's nest. And so I'm sitting there going, all right, you know, this is how it's going down. We're going to do this.

And when I came through there, I looked over there and I saw that dad had, I saw it in the mirror. You know, so I knew there was a wreck and came by there and there they're sitting there. And I don't know. I just had a feeling, you know. And I got out of the car and just thought, I need to go to the infield care center just to make sure everything is okay. You know, I just had this, because you usually don't do that. You know, you just go, well, you know, they'll get checked out, and I'll meet them. I'm going to just go to Victor Lane.

I'll meet him there. But for whatever reason, I just thought, man, I just need to go to the infield care center. And so I went in there, and when I walked by, it was weird that had these little rooms that they stick in. And I walked down this hall just searching for Dad in each one in rooms, and I saw Schrader. And he just looked at me. And I just knew. He looked at me. And the way he looked at me, I was like, oh, my God.

And then we ran out the back door and jumped in a cop car, and they were already headed to the hospital. But, you know, for all these years, I've felt so bad about that situation because you had just won this race, like you said, 462 losses in this one win, and you never got to – it was just the cruelest thing. The cruelest thing could I imagine happen to somebody that had been trying and trying, and trying and trying all their lives. Finally, they're partnered up with this friend of theirs

and they win this race and they can't really celebrate it. We go back, what, 2003? 2003. And you did win the race. Now, but even then. Did you get to celebrate? Right. You know, you say you do, but everything ties back to the...

It still feels... It's the same. Yeah. Yeah. The best moment in time was, you know, July 01. Really? Yeah, because we... we forget, like, I don't know, victory lane in 2003 was cool too.

You know, you're celebrating with your team. But just the joy that brought me and you, obviously, our teams, D-E-I, but all the fans. I mean, that was just, that was just a magical moment being on those cars. And again, in typical Dale and Mike fashion, we didn't plan any of that crap. We didn't say, hey, man, you meet me in the infield if I win. It's like, Dale wins. and I had raced all the way up to second after screwing up on pit road. And I saw him go go down toward the start, finish line.

I thought, I'm going to go with him. And it didn't have a plan, just was going to go see. Clearly, y'all didn't talk about anything. So, yeah. They nodded. Right. I mean, a serious question. I mean, because one of the things you've said that surprises me is that by, I guess my

assumption was by the time the 2001 Daytona 500 rode around, You guys are new teammates, but your teammates, so clearly you guys have developed a relationship. But it doesn't sound like you guys talked a whole lot. Come July, now that you've gone through the tragedy, had you and Dale in those few months? No, is that right? I didn't really talk to anybody. I didn't, I don't know that, you know, I've told Dell this before. Like, I'm probably the perfect candidate to go to therapy, and I never have.

and it still hurts like it did that day. And to me, that's sort of a good thing because it tells me how much I miss my friend and how special he was. But we just, you know, I'd lost all those races in a row and every week I wanted to go to the racetrack. And after February 18, 2001, we went to Rockingham because we knew we had to

and we went to Atlanta because we knew we were supposed to. But after four or five, six tries, I'm like, this this I'm not I'm not in a good place and I told Buffy when we got ready to go to Daytona in July I said and daddy's going to get his balls back like I'm going to go I'm going to go show this place who's boss and that was my plan and and I'm sure that was your plan too yeah and I know that it was it wasn't really that emotional for me to return to Daytona because every day was emotional you know it didn't it didn't mean anything Yeah, extra.

It wasn't harder because the day before in Mooresboro, wherever you were, it was hard. Yeah. But the way that ended and the way you guys were able to celebrate, it sounds to me like that was more of a healing moment than anything else that you had, even the 2003 Daytona 500. Yeah, when I look back at, you know, that period in time, that victory's celebration and I didn't even win was one of my favorites because I got to share it with Dale Jr.

and I got to, you know, I think it helped a lot of fans maybe that weren't as tight, close to the involved as you and I were. I think it helped them Hill too, seeing Dale Jr. win. The thing with Michael and me is he was married and I was wild and, you know, did the bud days. That's all you really used to say. And then I got married and now he's wild and he's in his bud days. Y'all never did, you know, matchy sings.

up very well, did it? For people that worked so well together on the track, y'all definitely didn't get the running, running off the track matched up very well. Isn't that funny when you look from 10,000 feet down and see us on the track, you're like, man, they got that figured out. When you get down in there, like, they don't got to figure it out. Yeah, exactly.

I can't believe that you guys didn't. So when did y'all become buddies? Because, I mean, listen, from that point on until about 2004, you guys had them covered at restrictor plate tracks. And, I mean, if you weren't winning, you were. and you'd finish second and then vice versa. Michael was a great plate racer. I felt like I was a great plate racer and we had two of the best cars.

I mean, it was just, it was for lack of mental, it's a terrible word to use, but for me and him together it was easy because our cars were so good and I knew what he was going to do because he knew how to do it. I knew how he was going to use the air off the car around him, and I knew what I needed to do to even help that, you know, help that happen for him, help him buy someone. He could do the same thing for me. Like he didn't get up behind me and not know what to do.

Every time he was behind me, if I got stuck beside a guy or whatever, I needed some help real quick, he knew exactly what I needed, and vice versa. Race car drivers rarely compliment each other, and I got one of the coolest memories of a compliment that I ever got, and it came from Dale Jr. And we're talking one day, and he said, I can tell you're really good at this plate stuff,

he said, because when I see you do something, I think I would have done that already. Thanks, I guess. No. So, okay. Well, I meant, what I meant was... Next time, they'll just nod at me. I'll tell you.

What I meant was, is I'd have done that exact same thing in that scenario. But that's not what it came out. It's not how Michael remembers it. I would have done the exact same thing. I think the thing with Michael is, um, dad, dad's friendship. So we're, dad's friendship and him made him family, you know, and so I look, he's either an older brother or that fun uncle, whatever you want to call him. And when we, when we went through that tragedy, we were forever bonded.

And it, and me and my brother Kerry, love him to death. I hardly talked to him. But I know if I called him right now. We'd pick up a conversation like we'd been talking all day yesterday. And that's the way it is with Michael, you know, and he's busy, I'm busy. We're both doing different things, and he's working and I'm working. But I know that there's a handful of people that I could count on in any moment in my life, and he's one of them, and vice versa.

And he knows that too. And it's just because we're not only connected because of dad's friendship, but because of that tragedy. We both sort of bond-welded together in that moment, you know, and it's unbreakable. We're going to get back to our guest, Michael Walter. Before we do that, I want to tell you guys about something that's pretty cool. Ever wonder where your family comes from? You can discover more about them and learn about your story like I have

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That's Ancestry.com slash Dale Jr. For 20% off your ancestry DNA kit. Ancestry.com slash Dale Jr. Now back to Michael. One of the things I think Michael, me and Mike were talking about this before the show, one of my biggest regrets in my career was breaking up with URIs. That was also maybe one of the better times for you at DEI. You and Tony Jr. had a pretty awesome season together.

We did. We had so much speed and we didn't take advantage of it. It was so frustrating for me. I knew I came to DEI one day and they said, you're going to drive Dale's cars and he's going to drive yours. And we weren't in charge. We didn't really even, I don't know how much you had to do with it. I had everything to do it.

I walked into Gibson's office and said, there was a couple people there that thought, you know what, maybe you guys I split up. And I said, that sounds great. Let's split up. And it was, I don't, I was so pissed off and stupid. But, you know, so I had a lot to do with it. And that's why it's, I didn't have anything to do with it. That's one of my biggest regrets.

It sounds like that you got talked into that. I don't want to put it on anyone, man. Don't name names. But you got talked into it. But I was also like, yep. Yeah. If we're going to, you know, we're going to show them. Yeah.

I can do it without them. So this, I called, I left the shop and, and when they told me, it was like December. I mean, it was late, right? Yeah, off season, right? After 2004. Yeah, and I called Buffy and I said, either the best thing in the world just happened to me or the worst thing. But I'm not sure which.

Yeah. And I explained to her that we. were switching and so it was you know I was cool Dale Dale Jr. was winning races and I wanted to do the same things and I wanted when I got the chance to drive for Dill in a one I wanted that pressure I wanted to have make me go do my job I'll show you and the same thing the same thing happened at the end of the 04 season and it was such a such a missed opportunity for me because we go to Daytona I don't know if you remember but me Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon were I passed you on the last lap in the qualifying race.

Yeah. And won the qualifying race. And then we were running up front. We had one of the best cars and the engine blew. And then we go to Atlanta or wherever we went next. And the same thing. We had some engine issues. And then finally I get to Phoenix, a place where you had been so dominant with the URIs.

You had won a couple, three, four times there. And I'm like, this is my, nothing's going to go wrong. I'm going to win this race. And practice happens on. on Friday and we qualify 26th. And I was just so disappointed because I didn't do a very good job. But they started the race and I drove to the front and I led and I finished second to Kurt Busch

trying to catch him on the last lap and ran in the wall. And I was second and Dale Jr., I think you finished fourth. You were right up in the front at that day. And we celebrated after that way. He's like, damn, this is gonna work out. Yeah. But I had a chance to, I think, I sat on the poll at Pocono, and we ran up front a lot.

Yeah, I remember at Pocono we run second and third. Like, there was moments in that season now that you would bring it up, where we both went, this was a good change. This was good for me, good for you. And, yeah, just kind of. Did it ever get awkward between you guys? I don't think so. I don't think so.

Because there was awkwardness between you and the URIs for sure. Yeah, me and Tony Sr. and Tony Jr. had, we went into Homestead in 2004. We won six races, and we, We were fighting, verbally arguing during practice. And it was, I'm going to take as much responsibility as anyone. I was a, you know what I'm saying? I had no guidance, no authority. And so, yeah, Tony, and when, me and Tony, when I would fire into junior, he'd fire right back.

And we just would get worse and worse and worse. And by the end, the practice, it was like, I'm done with you. And I'm done with you. and, you know, so we let it fester and fester, but anyways, you know, they went on and they had, I thought you guys had a great season. I know you'd probably wanted more. And the midway through it, we determined I wasn't going to be at DEI anymore. Yeah.

That's right? Yeah. That happened midway through that year? Maybe even before mid, but. How did all that go down? I don't, I don't really, I don't, 100% remember. I can't either.

I know that. Was Napal even? No. If I remember correctly, you did an interview in May or June, and maybe you said that I wasn't long-term, a long-term fit at DEI or something, and do you recall that? Was it 0-5 when we wrecked? No, it was 0-4 when we wrecked this Charlotte. 0-5.

Oh, 5. No, I remember that vividly. It was, and then I think at Dover, maybe, maybe you said that, or someone said you said that. And I thought, well, it's, it's probably, probably good idea for me to look around for something better to do. And, or something else to do. And then that's sort of how it started up with me talking to Toyota about doing my own team.

Wow. What do you recall that? I don't, never remember saying anything like that. Really? I mean, yeah. No, no, no, not about the interview. No. Do you remember the conversation going on?

You were going through turmoil as your own. You were going through crouties like laundry. You know, I think that's, well, I think I've got this story correct, because I remember when you announced you were going to Hendrick, I thought, I said in an interview, I said, I don't guess Del Jr. was long-term. I remember that. Long-term fix for DIA.

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. And your words were correct. There was so much turmoil, and nothing was going on. There was no leadership or direction it didn't feel like. And so it was obvious that something was, and in the end, you know, I think you were obviously correct for both of us. Yeah. What did you, hey, go back, because I remember vividly that Charlotte incident, was it All-Star race or was it the 600?

It might have been 600. It was not the All-Star race. It was in the big race. The big race. And that's where I felt like the Uri's had pent up frustrations that clearly boiled over into the media that night. Because I remember looking over and Pops basically had, it looked like McCaddenville or it looked like Times Square with all the lights that were shining on Pops. And he was holding court with the media. And I was like, oh, boy, this is going to bowl over.

But did you have, I mean, clearly he wasn't going to wreck you on purpose. Right. I just thought he tried to push me. and it messed it went wrong. So that didn't leave you with any soreness as far as feelings towards Dale that. I've never had one feeling of ill will toward him. I've loved him ever since I've known him, and I didn't know him, but I still loved him. Didn't know.

Because he just, he's exactly the kind of friend you'd want to have, the kind that you said, you know, if you want to call him up, you don't talk to him, but if you need something, give me a call. and I didn't think anything, I didn't think you ever, you know, I didn't think anything bad about that. I just thought, I just thought that, like he said, things that sort of run their course. Hey, for both of you, you know, this morning I'm driving to work and I drive up Highway 3 and I pass that shop. Do you guys ever pass that shop and does it ever invoke any kind of emotions out of either one of you guys seeing it sitting there? I've never, I don't think I've been by it in years. Really? No, I just, I don't go that way.

The whole thing, we said it earlier, every day it's emotional to me about that place. Are you avoiding it or you just don't happen that way? Maybe a little bit of both. Yeah. I know there's a lot of memories there and there's a lot of great moments. And I just, I get lost in, sometimes I get lost in what might have. have been, you know. I had, I had dreamed of driving for Dale. And we had talked for three months about driving for Dale. And the best part about it was he, I know what he thought. He's like,

I know you can drive. You're just, you've done a crappy job managing your career. I'm going to take that part over. I'm going to run this thing for you. And we'll, we'll show them. I think that was a little bit of it. Dale said, we'll show them. And, you know, never got that post race hub. And, you know, never got that post-race hug to say, I know what he said that day. He'd have said, I won that race for you. Now, go win one for yourself. I guarantee you he'd have said that. And I would have welcomed that. You know, I just miss those, miss, like, I hate to look, I hate to wonder, but I wonder what life, how it would be different today if, not for the sport, but for me. Yeah. Would have been, how it had been different if things hadn't have ended that day.

Yeah, I think about it too. I think about him. There's moments, like there's moments where I think, man, if he was in this room right now, how things would be different or what he would say about this. So I do that too. I drive by there and, I mean, it's not a great feeling looking at it. But, yeah, I don't, I kind of always wonder, like, the deerhead shop. Yeah, what's there?

What's going on inside there? Right. He had this closet where it had all his old uniforms. Mine and Kelly's military clothes are in that closet upstairs in a deerhead shop. From Oak Ridge? Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in this little Cedarer closet that you had. And there's just be cool to see some of that stuff.

Yeah, it would. I don't know. I hid a lot of things in that Deerhead building, Deerhead Shop. When I was racing late models in there, I hid old, you know, cheater carburetors and stuff like that. It's wonderful if that stuff is still sitting around. Man. You think there'd be a security guard or somebody like, listen, I hit a lot of stuff out. Yeah, I need to go.

Can I go retrieve it? I need to go get that. You don't understand. I have a funny memory of the deerhead shop. So me and Dale and Buffy, we get on three horses and we're going to go ride around the property. That was that day. Was it? I think it was.

When they introduced? Yeah. Yeah, he brought y'all by. Y'all are on horses? That was a part of the story that was. We got on three horses and we ride out and we're gone evidently maybe five. We might have made it five minutes and my horse freaked out and I'm not a horse rider. This was a little bit out of my range and my horse, I didn't do anything.

I just riding on it freaked out and it reared up and I, we're on the, we're still on pavement and there's a ditch there. And when it rare it up, I bailed. Like I dove off my horse into the grass because I didn't want to get hurt. And so Dale Jr. and all the boys are up there and the three horses ride off five minutes later, one horse comes running back. That was Michael's horse. Where's Michael? One empty horse. Oh, my God.

I would almost think that over all those years of just nods and no talking, at some point Dale would say to you, are we ever going to talk about this horse incident? But, you know, I got to know what happened, right? Those were fun afternoons. We would drink beer and shoot guns a lot in the afternoon. Yeah. Dylan, his dad and I. Yeah.

What was it you said that you hit? It was on a show recently, and you said that you hid out there, or you hid somewhere and then your dad found it. What was it? The cone. That was back at the house. That wasn't there. Okay. It was a leghouse.

He had stuff hitting all over Moors. I stole the traffic cone and hit it and hit in the pie needles. in the shrubbery around the house and he found it made me return he's very angry have you ever tried to hide anything from dale earnhardt i don't think so i don't think so i think so i think that our friendship really grew because of the boating you know yeah me and buffy and and and tie and his wife and dale and trisa would go out to the bahamas we had a lot of off weekends back in the right in the 90s so we would we would pretty much race on sunday come home i had my little bush team that I started behind my house

because Dale had a little bush team behind his house. There were so many things that I did because I respected and looked up to him so much in the farm, the bush team. But we would sort our business out on Monday or Tuesday and then we'd leave on Wednesday maybe and it would be off weekend. We'd stay all the way to the following Wednesday

and show up at the races. And I don't, like you said, I don't like to say I have any regrets in life, but I think, I appreciate it, enjoy those times as much as I possibly could have, and I certainly know how special they were now, and I think I did then as well. And that's that hat you got on today. Yeah.

Sunday money. So you got the Sunday money hat. The name of Dad's a boat. Yeah, that's his boat. I would imagine he didn't just hand out hats to everybody. There was some of us that were part of the crew. And one day we were landing, we took Dale's plane, and we were landing. and when we're landing, Dale said, look down there.

The fish are jumping. They're feeding right there. We've got to get there. So we're like scouting out fish on a jet, you know, and we land. We get in a golf cart and fly out of the boat and get on the boat and drive out there, and them fish are still right there. Yeah. That was good hunting fish.

Whatever you call, right? That's a good way to hunt fish right there. Right. And then when you're back on land, you're fishing deer. Hey, I got to ask you something. Go back to the... You had said that you thought that maybe Dale took a like into you because of your relationship with your brother or maybe lack thereof?

I think so. What was up with that? Why was there... What was with the relationship between you and Daryl? Well, I was... He was 16 when I was born. So all I ever knew was race... You know, my brother was a race car driver.

And as a little kid, you're dumb. You don't know anything. You're just like, I want to be a race car driver, dude. Just like my big brother. But by the time I was 10 years old, Darrell was 26, and he's running in the Cup series, and he's fighting every day with Petty and Pearson, and he's the new guy with his nice slacks and his loafers and his mouth, and, you know, he's got a lot going on. And they're just, we just never really were in, he moved to Tennessee, and I lived to Kentucky, and we just, we just never knew each other, never really spent any time together. and by the time that I got my chance to race, you know, my brother gave me in,

my brother gave me my last name, and it made it, it was relevant in this world. And I guess my brother said, if you can't use that and make it, then, you know, sorry about that. Wow. And so that's, that's just the way that was. And that really didn't, I didn't know any different. I didn't, I didn't care.

Like I just said, all right, that's fine. I'll figure it out. And I think me figuring it out, like I said earlier, I think Dale appreciated that. He knew I didn't just get handed all I had. I find some similarities between both y'all's stories. The way Darrell might have treated you and the way your dad sort of treated you, because he certainly wasn't handing you out freebies here and they're growing up. I mean, you were talking about the...

I had it a little easier than Michael, I think. Is that right? I don't know. I don't know, man. You bounced around to schools. this, that, and the other, got fired from the dealership that had your dad's name on it, for Christ's sake. And then probably deservingly so, right? Yeah, right.

Yeah. My as ain't as he didn't do anything. I told you. I was a . But anyway. Apparently, all the way through 2005. I think so, right, yeah. Yeah.

So, how did you get the dash ride, the baby grand car? I was racing a, so I raced go-carts, and this buddy of mine built a, mini stock car in his garage in Owensboro, Kentucky. And he literally, he was so talented. He was like the best mechanic, best constructor, anything you can think about where you take your hands and build something, he could do it. Remember Richard Petty's blueprint of his Dodge

back in Stock Car Racing Magazine where it showed the... The kit car? Yeah. So he put that on his garage wall, and he got metal, and he began. And he built a mini-stop. car, many modified car, and racing just fortunately for me started back up at Kentucky Motor Speedway in Owensboro where my brother had raced 16 years before. It had died off. Not much happened,

but when I was a senior in high school in 1981, Andy Virtree, he's a guy from Louisville, Kentucky, came down and he bought the track and he was going to bring stock car racing back there. and my buddy was building this kit car off of a picture in a magazine, and he's doing it by himself. He was sort of a loner kind of guy, and I said, well, I'll help you if you'll let me drive it, and I'd con my way into a couple of go-kart rides and had one go-kart races was pretty good at it.

And he said, all right, if you'll help me, you can drive it. And we went out to the track the first night or first practice day, and I was, I'd never driven a car, a race car at all. This was my first chance, and I was fastest. I was the fastest in my class. And the first night that we went racing, we raced on Sunday night, we were there, and I saw all the guys that were at the test, and I was better than all them. I'm like, full of myself.

I got my new henchman uniform. I ordered out of stock car racing magazine. I put it on like at 8 that morning. I'd worn it all. I'd worn it all day. And I get to the racetrack, and in comes this hauler. And it's got an enclosed trailer behind it, you know. I'm like, I wonder what that guy's fancy.

It said, Newt Moore, the 4th, Nashville, Tennessee. Like, I hope he ain't racing in my class. Sure enough, they rolled out his little mini modified, and it was badass. And we go out and qualify, and I qualified first, and I set a new track record. And I'm like, this is awesome. Newt goes out, breaks my track record. Now he's got the track record. We do the trophy dash.

He passes me and wins. We do the heat race. He wins. We're in the feature. It's my first night, and I'm driving this number 11 mountain dew Capri, and it's beautiful. And Newt passes me late in the race, and I figured it out. And I slid inside of him, passed him back in one. I won my first ever race.

So everybody in town was like, this kid's good, this kid's good. And Richard Mash from Taylor'sville, North Carolina. Richard Mash is the same guy that Kerry drove forward when he ran. Okay. Yeah, very successful. Yeah. Richard Mash is the junior Johnson of. baby grand back in the day he he had the best cars and and so dean combs was driving for him and there's

a guy that sponsored dean and they wanted to go cup racing and that left richard's car open i just needed some sponsorship and this is really when when darrell helped me for for the first time because he had a there's a band company i know you remember it dale had him comfort coaches right there on the side of buddy baker's car comfort coach and so we got some money from comfort coach and i got the ride and And in 1983, I won six races and the championship in that DASH series car. So that started it for me. And 84, I ran some races. Some what, dash?

Some dash. I ran a couple of RCA races, just trying to figure out late model races. Anything I could get in. And at that time, I was living with Richard Petty. And Richard said, you're wasting your time with these dash cars and these late models. You need a cup ride. And my dream had always been, I'm going to be a baby grand guy, and then I'm going to be a Bush guy, and then I'm going to be a cup guy.

And Richard said, and that's what he did with Kyle, you know. He put Kyle right into it. Yeah, right into it. So I'm like, well, I never heard that plan before. All right, let me give that a try. So I went and saw Dick Bayer in Statesville, and this is 1985. And he said, you can drive my car if you can get some sponsorship. So I went and found Humpy Wheeler.

I said, Humpy, I can get this ride. if I can get some tires, and he got me a little bit of a sponsor from a local company to put some tires on my car. And we went out in my first try, I qualified 24th or 6th for the World 600. And that was my first cup start in Dick Baer's car. What year? 85. 85.

We ran five races that year. The fifth was the Southern 500. And then in 86, we ran for rookie of the year against Alan Quickey. and we were grossly underfunded and Dick Bayer sacrificed so much to keep us going to the racetrack or there's, I don't know, for me there's like all these moments

where like damn it almost was over and something happened to keep it going. Yeah. Incredible. So I was talking about the documentary and you cover the whole story from your beginnings to today tell us about why you wanted to make that documentary.

You wrote a book a couple years ago that I thought was really good. It was a bestseller. Yeah. This documentary, though, I've seen it, and it's something special. But tell me, tell me like the process of, yeah, I'm going to do this. Because I know that that's got to be a decision you had to put some thought into. Well, there's a couple of things. So when I wrote the book, it was someone told me it would be good therapy for me to write a book.

And like I said, I hadn't been to therapy. so I thought, well, yeah, I can do that. So I'll give it a try. And I met this guy who's a good dude, Ellis Hinnigan, and he had written a couple of books. And we worked together on it. And I got done with it. And, you know, I'm like, this is,

I don't care if anybody buys it or not. This is my story. And it's told from my eyes. It's not like me telling some ghost writer stories, and he writes them down the way he's, you know what I mean? Like sometimes you just don't feel like you're listening to the guy that.

that you're reading about. And mine certainly was my words, and I was really proud of the book. And a couple years ago, Mitch Covington from Monster Energy, he read the book and he's like, man, you gotta give a speech about this. So I go to the National Sales Convention for them in Las Vegas, and I get up on stage

and got all this video elements, and 30 minutes or so, I tell this story. And the guy, from monster like coming up and big old big old burly looking fellas a man you made me cry that's a good story right there appreciate it and i'm i said well that's that makes me feel good to to to bring out emotion in people and let them know that life's life's not always as as easy as it looks and so we we started talking about would would the movie would the documentary be something that would inspire people and maybe give them give them a reason to to get over something in their life that

they hadn't been able to to to deal with and we started the process and and through the process i i had i've only ever worried about what this is probably going to make me cry but i'm going to try to be tough i only tried to ever i only worried about what three people thought in the whole world about this stock. And one was me, obviously, it's my story. Two was Buffy because she lived all that, and she knew everything that I was dealing with. And three was Dale Jr. Because he was, you know, he was so involved in such a big part of it.

And so we interviewed Dale and we do all this and I send it to him, you know, and he watched a couple of days go by. I'm like, every time my phone beeps. I was. I'm like, God, I hope he's okay with it. And then, you know, finally he texted me and he said, that's really good. I really like what you did.

I appreciate your honor and my dad, which is basically, you know, was the big part of doing it was to honor his dad. and and so after that I didn't have war in the world I figured you know if all three of us approve of it we probably uh do you think there's anybody else I should care about what thing oh I don't know I didn't think about yeah yeah I think that um you know I I want to ask you what you hope people take away from it I you tell so I think you're you living that experience and that tragedy, you are only one of a few people that are able to tell it, talk about what that day did

and what that day meant, and then I feel like I'm one, you're one, there's a handful of people that are in that circle. And that part is amazing, but it does something else. It spells out to me, you go further than that. You talk about y'all's relationship before. You sort of are really thorough and showing what dad meant to you. One of my favorite things about the documentary is it'll be able to help Amy or my daughter Ila know who Dell was. There's only one other documentary that I know of that can do that, and that's the Dale documentary that they did with Ryan McGee.

But so there's a very small lot of stuff that I would really want to show Ila when she gets old enough. And this would be one of them. You were dad's best friend and one of his few best friends. But the other thing that I loved about it was you talk about Darrell, you talk about that relationship, you talk not, you know, in the book I don't know that you went into detail about your life, you know, not just your relationship with dad, but your life. And that sort of helps people understand how you got.

to the relationship with dad and how that's affected you and why that was so difficult. You know, so that's what I loved about it is it said, it showed everything about you. And so, because you're an amazing guy and you have a huge, huge heart. But what mostly we've seen all this time is a little snapshot of you, who you are today that we see on television. And we know about the tragedy and people talk about your career. but we don't really know where you came from. We don't, not a lot of people get to hear the layers that make up Michael Walschup and, you know, you're changing evolution of relationship you have with your brother,

which I think is fascinating. And so that to me is what I'm excited about for you. I'm excited for people to learn that, but I'm excited about it for you because you're going to hear even more and more about how people appreciate who you are. what do you hope that someone seeing this takes away what do you hope someone understands or learns from it just i mean i think it's a story of persistence you have to you have to keep trying um and you know and and relationships when you let someone in your life they can they can help you grow and i am guilty and maybe have been guilty since 2001 of not letting anyone in.

You know, people see me as this fun, crazy guy with lots of friends. You know, that's just probably not me. I'm not that way. But I try every day to evolve and to grow and to be more of a person I like to see in the mirror. And that's, I'm still a work in progress. But this documentary, it just means the world to me that people know that this wasn't just some guy driving for another guy. These were buddies. These were, it was about friendship.

You know, Ray Parker Jr., he came to the documentary the other night, and he's a rock and roller and he's a tough guy. And he said, man, you know, that's a story about. relationships. It's more than racing. It's a story about friends based, you know, around racing. And I just hope that people know that there's, there's always tomorrow and you can keep, you can always be better tomorrow. Cassie Smith, our friend, you know, she, she put something on Instagram recently and it said there's always room to be a better person, always. And my story, I hope makes people want to be a better person and want to know that just because circumstances on earth don't look exactly like you want them to. We're only here for a while and to try to make

the best of it. Was there anything that you learned about people? I don't know who all's in your documentary. I know Dale is. Did you learn something? I learned that he didn't know. I learned that he knew the plan. When I looked in the mirror, and I was wondering, did he make, I learned that he did know it. I didn't know if he was going to hang with it or not, but I, I just, you know, I just appreciate my brother, you know, he kind of tells a story about how he didn't really help me that much. That was, that was hard to listen to a little bit because he's, you know, he's my hero as a kid,

but I, I don't know. Had it been nice to hear him acknowledge, like he knows he could have been different. You know what? I told the people that made doc, I said, can we just take that out? I don't want my brother to feel bad. You know, he's, he don't need that. But I sat on the front row of the industry screening of it the other night and held my daughter, Macy's hand in one hand and my brother's in the other.

Is that right? We shed a lot of tears. And I'm happy that he was there for it. Sounds like it was therapeutic then. And maybe you have to go through the crap sometimes to get to the roses. And I don't know if you said that you did your book for therapy, maybe is a therapy? I don't, did it do that? Or was the documentary the second half of the therapy?

I think they're both the same. Okay. I felt great about my book. You know, I was proud of it. I'm like, these are all my words and this is how I feel. And then the doc, when I got to watch it, you know, there's so many parts and pieces to it be able to be as proud of it as I was the book. I just want, I guess what I'm saying is nothing's going to fix me, I don't think.

It just helps me deal with it. And both the book and the doc and your friendship and being able to shed tears and laugh about what was probably, you know, I've got two beautiful daughters and two grandchildren and a great family. but I almost think that the thing in my life that it all evolves around was was Dale and I's friendship and to have that part missing it's never I'll never be fixed but I certainly certainly try every day to to understand it and I'm a I'm a Christian kind of guy I feel like I'm going to heaven and I also feel like that that that Dale was a believer, and I think about this a lot,

and this brings me happiness. If I'm driving off the last turn and my son and my buddy are going to win the Daytona 500 and you take me out of life, I'm going to be like, dang, that's a pretty good way to go right there. Yeah, it would be. That's right. Yeah, I think earlier we were talking about mine and Michael's relationship, and you were surprised that we weren't daily hanging out.

But I think the reason why our relationships still there is because, for me anyways, there's a few people that they broke. And Michael was one of them. I was one of them, my sister, and a few, you know, there's a handful of people, like I say, that are in that circle. And that knowing, I know how that affected Michael, and I think it's always made me worry about Michael. the way I worry about my own, you know, happiness and have worked hard to make, you know, my life better,

it'll never be the way, it'll never be as good as if Dad were here. But, you know, we all work harder to make it as good as it can get. Yeah, your sister came up to me after the documentary and she was really pleased with what she saw. I'm sure she was. And that, that made me happy. Yeah. But you're right. So I think that that worry, I guess.

It's a concern. I have a concern in love for Michael, and I just want to know that he's good. And I feel the same way about the other few people that are in that circle that were affected that day. And I hope that, you know, more people see this. How will people be able to see the documentary? Well, it is going to come out in a limited release

around the country in theaters. So I think 500 theaters across America in October, they will show a one day showing of it. And then also at film festivals and different events that is criteria for it to be eligible for an Emmy. Right. And it's going to go through all that process. And hopefully Fox Sports will show it. Right.

Hopefully NBC will show it. Who knows who all will show it. But I think that that's the plan as of now is to let it, to let it. come out in the fall. Well, I'm looking forward to when that's available for everyone to see. I'm looking forward to the response that you're going to get from and the joy that that's going to bring you, brother. Amen to that. It's going to be fun. Because I've seen it. It's amazing. What's the blink of an eye? So when that comes out, we'll be talking about it. We'll be sharing it with everybody. I'm sure you'll hear about it everywhere else as well. It'll be a big talk in the industry.

But it's one of the things everybody should be looking forward to for sure. Well, I've been looking forward to coming to your studio. Yeah. I do a little... You do a podcast, now? I do a little podcast, and in fact, I'm going here in a bit to talk with Kyle Larson. That'll be fun. And so looking around, I mean, I'm basically doing mine in a closet.

Well, we were at one point. We were doing it in there last year. Don't feel bad. Hi. Hi. This is new this year. Yeah, we were in that space last year. So, you got to start somewhere.

This is really, really good. I like the memorabilia and all the different. We need some Michael Walter pieces. I should have brought you one. This is, is that, is that Daryl's? No, but it's a street stock car that we built in 98 or something and raised it. One at Concord, won't race at Concord, but it looks like it, don't it? Yeah.

That's a beautiful. That's when he drove for Robert G. Robert, yeah. Yeah. Robert was special. Yeah. He came to our house in Kentucky once. when they were making a Midwestern swing with their cars.

And I had gerbils. Of course you did. I had gerbils. I don't know what you're... You know who doesn't have gerbils? Robert Presley. He probably looked at me once and said, that so much probably has gerbils.

So I had gerbils. And Robert comes out for breakfast and he said, that boy's got some damn rats in that room. He got them rats caged up And they spun on that wheel all night long I didn't sleep a week I didn't sleep a week That's funny

I can hear it I can totally hear it That's funny Have you seen that card that he just acquired I want to show you to it Yeah I got two things to show you before you leave All right

All right buddy thank you We'll do it again Appreciate y'all Show's not over We got a lot more stuff coming here Shortly for that I want to tell you about our friends Butcher Box

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That's two New York strip steaks, babyback ribs, and two pounds of ground beef free in your first box plus $20 off at butcherbox.com slash Dale Jr. Or in a promo code, Dale Jr. All right, everybody, it's time for the Valvillin DIY question of the week. Junior, it's been a few weeks since we've heard updates on all of your restoration's projects. Yeah, we've got two now. You've got a few. Let's hear about it. All right, so we got the 1980 Monte Carlo that Dad won the championship with, and we also have

the 1984 Bush Grenasional car that we bought at Barrett Jackson. The 1980 Monte Carlo is getting decaled. The entire car got painted from front to back. It looks beautiful. We did it right here at Junior Motorsports. We're now decaling the car. as it ran that final race in Ontario. We'll send some more updates on social media about how that's going.

I think the final decal day for that car is the 17th of this month, so we got a few weeks before we can get that finished. Once it's decowed, we're going to start taking the brakes apart and dive into the brakes and make sure all that stuff's working properly, and then we'll continue to go through the drive line. The 84 Busker National car that we bought at Barry Jackson is in the back of Junior Motorsports and the fab shop, getting stripped down.

Yeah, I was back there the other day and I saw Robert G. working on it. Right. So it's being stripped apart. They're going to start to fix the body of the car and put it all back together. And, you know, it's going to be a full restoration, it looks like. I thought we were going to do really kind of like a 60% restoration. But I think it's looking more like it's going to be more of a full restoration, at least 85, 90% restored.

Once they got to diving into it, they saw some things that they just weren't going to halfway fix. They wanted to fix all the way, and it's just easy. Those guys are just, you know, the professionals, and I told Uncle Robert, I said, I'm telling everyone who did this when it's done. There you go. So that alone made him want to fix it up just right. He was saying, too, that looking at the car deeper, he probably obviously told you this,

but that he pretty is very certain that that roof is completely original. Oh, yeah, I'm sure the roof is. So, yeah, the roof's original. I know that everything from the door tops down is new. Center section. Or have been fixed. But everything from the doortop, like the A post, B, post, C post, all that stuff's original. So that's an update on that, the Valvaline DIY segment.

From high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wire film, the newer engines that have carbon buildup, head over to valvillin. Go to find the product spec for your engine. That's a good one. Good tag. Good tag, Reed. Keep talking about it. White flag right there. White flag. This white flag is brought to you by Nationwide. They usually bring Asc Junior, but we didn't do Asch Jr. today. So today Nationwide brings you white flag. Thank you nationwide for all you do for us. Darlington's seat fitting today. I know that this is not something that you thought would be in White Flag, but I noticed it on the calendar.

This is a big deal. You ready for Darlington? I mean, the paint scheme looking nice. Yeah, paint scheme's cool. Um, start, yeah, we'll start doing little things that are triggers for knowing that the race is on the horizon. Yeah, I mean, you know, doing the seat fit and should work out good. Hopefully all the stuff is just like it was last year. I had a car last year that I drove and the seat was fitting in it pretty good. You dang straight. It ain't a fact of, have I changed, has my body changed?

It's just like getting it in the car and making sure the headrest and everything's where it needs to be. I got you. You don't have any dad, Bob. Can we sit down here again this year? Like we, and do the kind of behind the scenes thing? one and done. I don't know. You think everything will work?

Technology seems to be a little tough time. As long as we don't have to go live, I think we're fine. My goodness. As long as we don't have to broadcast it on YouTube. As long as we don't have to go live with the return, part two. Matthew, I'm sorry. I'm going to move on. Scorn.

Burn. Delt you. Do you guys? Like, is there tire tracks? Oh, my God. Heading to, Dale, you're heading to the Ohio State Brain Health and Performance Summit tomorrow this Tuesday, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, to speak at the Concussion Expo there. We're going to see Mickey Collins. Yeah, I always love seeing Mickey and talking and helping him and promoting what he's doing.

Yeah. It's going to be a lot of fun. We've done that a few times and had some great response from it, so look forward to it. That'll be cool. On behalf of True Timberdale, Daniel Jr., will be at the Cabellas signing autographs this weekend in Greenville, South Carolina. That's going to be 10 to noon, Eastern Time. 10 to noon at the Cabellas in Greenville, South Carolina. Catch us on TV, NBC Sports Network on Tuesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

I've even heard a rumor. I mean, this is just a rumor, but, you know, we're about the rumors. We don't need the hard facts. We can even spread rumors here on the Diljur download. I heard a rumor that they are working to get a re-airing each week in a primetime slot. That's nice. Yes, sir. All right, so we'll keep you updated on if that rumor actually becomes something that we would otherwise have delivered as a fact.

And lastly, I just want to say this. This is not also typically something we would say, but we've got a pre-taping coming up this week that Dale and Matthew and myself are all really excited about. And it is Gary Balloo, Hot Shoe Balloo. And if you don't know who this guy is, just wait because we got something coming for you. And that's going to, I'm looking forward to that. I know you guys are. And Dale, that's it.

How about me throwing it to you right in the middle of a burp? I love to tell you something. People think we're amateurs. We are professionals here. I mean, let's just be real. I hate to rate our guests or give anybody the impression that one's favored over the other, but the Gary Ballou interview is one I am really looking forward to, and you'll find out why, once we get into that.

Yes. Odd history. Let's hear it. How odd is it? It's pretty odd. All right. During a rain delay in 1969, Michigan International Motor Speedway got soaked, obviously. It's raining.

Back in those days, Trucks would typically drive around the track, dragging tires behind them with a big chain. And, you know, they'd pull about 10 or 12 tires chained together behind these trucks. During the Yankee 600 at Brooklyn, Michigan, things were a little different. They used a low-flying helicopter to drive the surface by flying close above the track, the wind from the rotors, you know, obviously dry the asphalt a little quicker. But unfortunately, the helicopter, crash.

Oh. You know, on a safety truck has sometimes it has a real tall antennas, but that that antenna, the truck was driving under the helicopter, which is pretty crazy to be driving anywhere near a helicopter. Surely the driver saw the helicopter,

right. So the safety truck hit the rotors with his antenna. The helicopter dropped about 10 feet or so on the payment. Nobody was hurting the accident, and the helicopter was towed away. After another rain delay, the race concluded just past halfway due to darkness.

David Pearson won the 56th race of his storied career. There you go. The helicopter crash was one of the cautious for that day. They were hell-bent to get that race in. I think the truck driver, that had to been a dare. Like, hey. That had to be the worst feeling ever is looking in your mirror and see the helicopter laying on the ground all mangled.

Yeah, you'd think. Did I do that? If you had a heart. Oops. Yeah, oops. Damn. All right, well, hope you guys enjoy the show. Good stuff.

Michael was amazing. I'm so glad that he came in and was so honest. Looking forward to next week. Yes, sir. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.