The Dale Jr. Download - 264 - Gary Balough: Racing, Fighting & Smuggling

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr has called it “one of the most fascinating stories in all of Motorsports,” and now sits down with Legendary racer Gary Balough about his life on the track and behind bars.  They uncover stories of smuggling marijuana, evading the Feds, getting busted and how it cost him his career and family.  On track, Balough was a driver who pissed off Richard Petty, got spit on by fans and was not intimidated by Dale Earnhardt.  Off track, his dangerous lifestyle added to the Legend of “Hot Shoe” Gary Balough.  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 Dirtymoe Media. By definition, outlaw. A person who has broken the law. Synodens. Fugitive, criminal. Outcast. Coriah. Bandit. Desperado. Villain. Black Hat.

Some outlaws are of legend. Jesse James. Doc Hollin. Bonnie and Clyde. Billy the Kid. Some of these outlaws. Wielded gun. This one, he gripped a steering wheel. The guest in our studio today is perhaps the most intriguing guests, Mike, that we've ever had on the download.

This is one of the most successful racecar drivers ever to strap into a race car. It's possible that a lot of people don't even know his name, but it's possible you do. I've sure heard a lot of stories about him over the years, some rumors and wise tales. So I took it upon myself, actually, to read his book I have right here. And I want to know about his past in racing as well as his truck. troubles that landed him in jail. My dad certainly knew Gary. Mark Martin said recently that there were only four people in this world that were never

intimidated by Dale Earnhardt and one of them was Gary Hotshoe Blue. That says something. I just finished reading Gary's book, Hot Shoe, A Checkered Past, My Story. I was blown away by what I read. One insert here. After a race in 1981, my dad referred to Gary as one of the dirtiest drive and son of a bitches he ever raced against. I've got questions about that.

Dad certainly raced against a lot of dirty driving SOBs, but he was certainly called one several times in his career. I also want to know how someone's so talented, so successful could get wrapped up in smuggling drugs, a decision that cost Gary 10 years of his life with his family and his career. I'm still fascinated by the stories of smuggling drugs. No podcast, no book, no documentary, it's ever going to relieve my curiosity about that part of Gary's life.

But the one thing I really appreciate from the book is reading about Gary's work ethic, his creative approach to racing. From that I tell all my young drivers that if they would read this book, it will definitely, without a doubt, make them a better race car driver. If they can apply Gary's approach to how they prepare their own cars, they will see the results on the racetrack every week. We've got a lot of questions, and I'm thankful that Gary flew all this way over here to answer them. I'm extremely honored to welcome Gary Hotshoe-Baloo to the download.

No, anytime, man. I'm glad to be here. So, you know, many Hall of Fame race car drivers consider you one of the greatest drivers that they've ever competed against. What do you think made you so good as a race car driver? Work. You know that?

The people you surround yourself with. You're only as good as the people you surround yourself with. Yeah, as you read that book, I've never won a race by myself ever, including my very first race. What's the first race I raced at highly I won in a Hobbit thought car. Yeah. But Buddy Griffin helped me build a race car.

car and help me build the rear springs and the spindles and it would put a good cage in it and put a seat in it I mean the doors weren't held shut with seatbelts they were wallet shut you know what I mean it was high ride and I won 37 races that year you say air is free and I try to tell my late model guys the same thing how do you explain to us what you mean by that I got off in the euro as I knew I knew nothing about ero with a cup car so I said I'll never get there I don't I don't understand none of this And he got around Pete Hamilton and Ray Stalkis. Pete was in the area with a late model car, you know, and of course they wore, he drove for Petty and so forth.

He'd tell me, I'd call him, and I say, this ain't still tight getting in. You know, he said, puts more in the nose. Put some more in the nose and it'd be loose getting in. I said, now it's loose. He said, puts more on the back. You know, okay? Put some more in the front.

But some more in the back. And we kept on and we kept on, until we got a real good balance. And then I got to where I started painting the nose and stuff. And I actually put like two inch holes. in the nose, would have a balloon plate over top of it, I could move around. I got so balanced underneath. Right. You know, it turned up underneath. But it was ugly behind somebody else that would lose the air. So then I started moving the nose to the right and left front of

a front of front of front. It went to a wave before the late, the cup cards. Right. It's closing the hole up. And I worked on closing the hole up, closing a hole and pulled way from the bottom. So I just got off into the air. Then I got moving the carbure box around and air box around and cheating in the back with a rear spoiler and I had some mechanical advantage back there. Sometimes the back would hop up two or three more inches and worked on the roof and narrowed the roof up and worked on the B post A and the B and turned the A's and

oh yeah, but the big advantage I had was that I did get to go race with a couple cars and see a lot of that. Then I was around Raymond Beatle also with the drag carts. Raymond didn't know much about there, but what did he know about organizations and people? So, you know, as I grew up, like racing the late model cars, Marty Henshaw, It was Bobby Alton.

Yeah. I mean, he run sheet metal shops of 70, 80, 100 people, so he was really skilled with people. He taught me all of them skills of, you can have 10 people working on a hot rod, and you know what each one of them were doing, and you're doing, you're doing, you're right on top of it, you know. So that was really good.

It's the people that I was around, you know, was incredible. So you began racing in Florida, but you moved to the northeast to run dirt modifies in the 70s and dominated up there. You were a hired driver. So was it common to have, hired drivers in the 70s. That to me was really surprising to take away from your book,

that you were really hired to go drive a car, be the mechanic. They got a mechanic a little on the cheap because they just pay you a little extra percentage from the winnings. But was there many guys like you in the 70s that were hired to be driving? There was quite a few, you know,

to come from South Florida. I got them to deal there on when Peston had me go up there with a Turino that was a heavy car and he had to run in smockets and so forth. It was a late model car, and it was heavy, and they called me up here to help me straighten it out, and I said, I don't know much about dirt, you know, but anyway, we got up here, and I got the cut in torch to it, and lightened it up, and put some neat stuff on it, built some springs for it. The cat that was going to drive, didn't want to drive it, and it wanted me to drive it.

I said, I know, I'm not racing no dirt. I don't know about that. Well, I had watched him a week before pretty good, and said, I'll just get behind this cat right here, wearing, by wearing, and following right to the front, and I did, I followed him in front of the second. Yeah. Well, that got me going into dirt cars there. Then Millinger picked me up, and that was a Bobby Allison car. Well, Bobby were pretty tight. So Bobby would help me, and Eddie and him, and we got going pretty good,

want some races. And then they called me and said, come on, we rode a modified car. So, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't know about big blocks of the injectors of fuel. But you were making a living as a driver. Yeah. And so was that a lot of guys doing that? Not a lot of people could have made a living as a driver. That speaks to your talent.

People would hire you because they knew they were going to go win racing. They knew the car would be better. They knew you would make the car better. Well, let me tell you. When I first went to New Jersey, they had a Tobias car. I couldn't hit my both of both hands. I mean, I was ready to come on because I was used to winning races with a late model car of Palm Beach and Highland and wherever we went and used to run it wherever.

It was ugly. I had to run a concede to make the race. I'd run in the back. I don't run 12, 15, 13th. I'm not doing this. I don't want to do it. I said, no, no, no, no, no. Just stay, say, say.

Mulligan's building a new car. well whip like the fish and he'd like to dittle and it might speed they said well go up there and help him i said i love to so i got a chance to go from work a whip in his shop and we finished the car rocket ship i'm talking about i'm back you know yeah so we went to heights out of the first night stan polacki was a hot dog and he'd set it to start a stand which i've raised asphalt like to drive it off in and just set it and then drive it off you know not tarred tires off of it well i come from the And I got to him and he was leading it and I jumped outside him like I knew what I was doing He set the car boom straight into the glory well the wheel the right front wheel and axle

Right rear tube all that stuff and part of the wheel went up hit the starter and broke his leg Damn so no I didn't kill the car but I tried to kill the starter I ended up in the infield two records to take it back and I remember going across my head down I can't build a wreck this brand new car all this work you know like you're done jerk you know Paul Hillman had owned it was standing there and he said Gary, get your head up Why do you have your head down?

I said, have you seen your hot rod? He said, I've seen it. He said, we're going to go in the whip tonight and fix it we're ready tomorrow night. Okay. I said, listen, I'll make you a deal. Whatever I make, I'll pay for what I tore up tonight. He said, get out of here.

What are you crazy? We went back and we worked all night long. We went to Flemington the next night. It had V-belts on it. I can remember. It had V-Belmore belt. It had power steering, and stuff.

Well, it's got 12, 14 degrees of caster. You know, when you turn it, lifts you up out of the seat. So I got the ball as tight as I can. It's lift me out of the seat. I'm leading it. Flemington, square race, right? I couldn't. My arms were falling on.

I far one second. Poloski won it. My arms, my arms hurt so bad. My arms hurt so bad. I mean, I'll pump some iron and stuff, and you know how your arms filled the next day and all that, and the day after, and then start sealing. I couldn't even, I was up my zipper of pee, but so wipe my butt.

You know? They said, come on. We're going to NASA tonight. I said, listen, guys, I can't even lift my arms up. We're coming to get you. I said, no, no, no, no. Here they come. Drive up in front of the yard.

Get in, get in, get in. I said, you've got to be kidding me. Put me in there, put me in the car, and truck moving on to the racetrack. All right, let's get in. And I said, I don't think I can do this. Get in. I got in. They hooked the belts up for me.

That's a member arm's hurt. I went out and I practiced, and this thing was rocking again. I met my arms were Phil Good now. Yeah. We won the first night to a hundred upper. So that was cool. We were on a roll then, you know, but it took that new car. I mean.

How challenging was it to never be able to really establish a long-term foundation moving around so much? I mean, from South Florida up north and back down to South Florida, being that hired gun and driving for so many different owners, you were moving and moving and moving all the time. You know, like two best hunters I drove for, Robbins, say, in Florida and Miami area with Marty Hensho and Johnny Merindino. I always say to ride with them when I come home. You know, like wintertime, he's a drive for one or the other, depending on where Marty was with Larry and this one and that one. They were pretty good hot rides, and I'd take them, and I'd work on a chassis.

That's what went to Palm Beach on Friday night. I brought some Canada Libra Hoosiers back for 200 Lapper, and Marydheim's Memorial. And they're round. There's no edge on the top, you know what I mean? So we're going to run them Saturday night at 200 lap. We went to Palm Beach, 50 Lapper, big block, and one of the race, come back and build a 377 motor, and we put that in the car.

And when they put it in and enough to plug off underneath the head, And we fired it up, and it was all blowing everywhere. He said, well, head studs, boom, wah, right, and the head come out. I said, okay, here's the plug and put it in. I did it a little around there for about an hour, and I got it in and it full of silicone. They ran ahead and back down, never readjusted the last or nothing. We went to High Leia, but the Cantilead, we'd never run. They said, okay, you start in the back.

Marty's car was on the pole, real hell. I said, wow, thank you. You know, start in the back at Highlanda, that's, you know, give me a break, you know, in the back. I said, okay, we started the back, and there's probably 30-some cars, 38, 38, 36, guards. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I went to caught Larry. Now he wasn't having no of me getting by him. He'd run me to him. Marty's car now. I can't run into him. I don't want to run into him. We're friends. And on and on and on. Finally he slipped into nothing where I dove up under him. And he turned down. I hit him in the door. And he started spinning, I gasped up a little bit,

hit him in the left front, straighten him up. Then he got straightened. I went on. I'm leading it. He's riding around waiting on me. Well, Marty told me when he waited on, you drive through him. Don't, no, just drive through him. Okay. You're saying if they're waiting on you to come around so they can take you out, you're saying you always learn take them out. Listen to me. I've hit them head on. Okay. I'll come in the opposite direction.

The guy dove behind the pace car at Redding it. He ran his mouth in the driver's with me. He was going to wreck me and Brideville. I said, whoa, whoa, I drive the red car, a three car. Bright bull drives the white car. No. Who are you talking about? I have not a problem with you.

No, not you. I said, don't say white car is in. The heat race, he nailed me in the left foot pass him. for leading. That was probably 14 cars and he race at Redding. Obo modifies. If one of them don't hit you in the face, you're lucky.

So nobody hit me. I said, you know what? He run his gator that he was going to do this. All right. I got a fireback up and I watched him. He went down the back straight away.

I said, I got to time this right. And I gas her up, down the front straight in the wrong way. And he came off four. And I was coming down on the front of straight. I'd put about half a throttle. And he seemed to come when he dove

behind the pace car. When he did, I caught him right front of the front of the car. at the right front. Wow. Oh, Liddy of a car. Oh,

you gotta kill somebody. Somebody's going to get a kill and he stopped everything. You know what I mean? Well, you know, if I could have got him radio cap,

the radio cap I would have. Yeah. But you know that, you know that, you got to stop it because if we don't stop it, everybody's going to take a shot. They'll run you over.

Why pass you? Just knock you out. How many, do you know how many feature wins you were credited for? Is there a number or did it get too many to count? We got the other side

of thousand. and we just basically quit. I'm going to say someplace between $1,200, something like that. I don't know. Wow. So you get to the point of what. So you've had more than a thousand feature wins, and you just sort of gloss over the versatility.

And that's one of the things that really blew me away in your book is that really how you can go somewhere race a different car, different track you've never been at. And you're just talking about following a guy. But most people don't pick up race. that easily. I mean, what is it about you and your adaptability that made you be able to drive just about anything? I think that as far as the racetracks, I excelled on going to a racetrack that nobody had ever raced on, you know, a new racetrack. We all went there. Okay.

It was like, we kept on a trailer and we would get it quicker than most. Just by out thinking? I think just being a natural. I don't know exactly a while, but anytime we went to a new race track, We were always right at the top of the ladder, you know what I mean? But everybody thinks they work hard. I mean, you ask any racers, they're like, yeah, man, my boys been working hard. But you guys were, it seemed like you were smarter. Like you had something to it. Is that, am I wrong about that?

People. People's one thing. People's a big thing. The right people. And people work together. It's team effort. There's no whiteness. It's a team effort.

I appreciate what you're saying. And that's right. But I still think that those, I don't know, I think you're not giving yourself enough credit because a thousand wins. is unbelievable. And like Dale was saying, you were bouncing around to a bunch of different people.

Yeah, this isn't a thousand wins or something. You're running late miles. You're running ASA. In the Midwest. There's a lot of people. Dick Trickle drove a few different type race cars, but nobody in history of short track racing, I don't think, was so versatile in that sense.

I think one great example, we've got a lot from the book, but 1973 at the Schaefer 100, you basically bolted two fuel sales in the car. Yes. There was a magnificent. There was a mandatory fuel stop, and he both, so he, you know, they just, they would think around the rulebook. It wasn't a break.

Cut the bottom on one, bowled together. Right. There can. Because we run 45 gallons, I'll call them things, so we run constant light detectors. So it wasn't nothing the way that. I mean, we worked on that. So I think, and Gary's, Gary was an amazing driver. Should have won it.

But for what, yeah. From what I take away from that is, yeah, he could get in anybody's car and be awesome. but if he could actually work on it a little bit beforehand, he could make it even better because he worked around the rulebook. He didn't break the rules. They didn't say he couldn't run two. It looks like he might. Let's not go that far.

Thank you, Del. I mean, what are some of the craziest things aside? I mean, that's a great example, putting two fuel sales together in the car to be able to hold more fuel so you didn't have to take so much fuel on that mandatory stop. They held it in the pits. They held him in the pits because this fuel guy didn't. He didn't do a good enough job to win a Grammy. Faked the fuel into the car.

What's some of the cool, craziest things you ever done to trick your cars up and even break the rule? Well, Arrow was real big. I mean, we had the back of the car to where... You talk about the car hiking up three inches. Hike it up. The hell, the quarters hiked up. So you put like four inches, five inches, three inches more.

We're spoiling the car. You get off in the corner deeper. You know all that. So how did you do that? mechanically. Yeah. Woody cranks and then probably the most outlandish thing we ever did was run mercury. What is that?

Wait, what? So why would you run mercury? Left side. My car was 60% left side without the driver. Yeah. So how did you do that? Pumps. Stain those cans?

Yeah. The frame rail to frame rail. And it pumped mercury from one side of the car or the other. Yeah. Wait, what? While you're on the racetrack or why you're in the pits. Happy 1-2-10. Right.

Yeah. Incredible. It's amazing. Yeah. So Darrell Waltrow. It was nothing in the movement because you couldn't do that at the time. Yeah. They got to where EPA and all that stuff, boy.

Yeah. I imagine how many rules have been created because of you, like because of your stunts. I mean, I bet there's a bunch. Now, you guys slid, I've heard things about you guys being able to slide around weight during races. That's what he's talking about. Yeah. I mean, the mercury. The mercury pumping from one side of the car or the other.

During the race. Yeah. Well, in the pits. Okay. To get it across the scales. I'll tell you a good story. I had a fireball, and I'd move from the left side to the right side. It was like 41 pounds in full mercury.

So it was pretty hard to get that under the steel wheel and get it from the right side and the left. But one concord, and it got caught. The steering wheel would have got to cross a lot, just cool down the left. I won it. Yeah. I couldn't get it over. I was in trouble. You know what I mean?

So I thought, what I was going to do? I rolled up off the form. I passed out. I was exhausted. I pulled off, but down in the infield and just pull up to the inside Garbera and bumped a little bit, and they all come running. I was, Ray, move it, move, get it over there. Yeah?

Ray, got it over there. Then we got to the scale, but the fuel and everything, and I think we're about three pounds light. And then back and forth, back and forth, we stuffed it, we shook it, with everything, you know? And I'm like, ah, la, blah, blah, they got quick change gears. They come up, it's a great change years, and I put them on pockets. When I go, I go getting hot rod and the cop once to pat me down, and said, get away from me, man. What's wrong with you? Do you nuts or what?

And I got to call and we finally made wait, you know. Dang. I'm a cop was patting you down. Padding me down, man. Get in the race car. He said, get away from me. What do you think you are? That is amazing.

Well, they do that stuff at the Snowball Derby now. I mean, uh, you know. Ricky Brooks is the best, bass inspector I've ever seen anywhere, any place. Oh, yeah. He's better than DEA drug dog. Well, you know, you know that, right? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. The local racing in the 70s and 80s was a wild affair. How many physical. I know you were a fighter. How many physical fights you think you've been mixed up in? As many wins? As many feature wins. What do you have more of wins or fights?

Probably close. We go to a fight, a gun fight, and a knife fight, maybe it would be a race breakout. I'm telling the partner out there was rough. They were gaiters, man. What made that? I raced with gasters. They were gangsters.

Okay, so that might be one reason. I don't know where El Capone was. He should have been there. Maybe he was there. Maybe. Well, so you got in a lot of fights, a lot of dust-ups, and you mentioned some in the book. Give us one that just stands out in your early days that you had to really just, you're talking about having to stand your ground to people.

Give me a good fight story. I tell you one when I got my butt beat. Bill Flingo was late in the race one night, and he was the president of the organization. And who is it? Bill Flingoes. Okay. All right. And I brought him down.

Marty's going to caught him and tried to get by him. He's all over a race track. Finally, I got under him and turned him around. He waited on me. Well, you know what happened? You run him out? All the way up to the back seat. The football were all into the seat.

So you just plumb Ryan Antoin. Marty said, you did good. Yeah, look at your hot rod. He said, I don't care. We'll put it up. You fix it. Yeah. He didn't mess with you again, right?

No, that was over. Till in the park lot when the races were over. Oh. Uh-oh. What happened there? Well, they surround me. And it was more than me. And it beat your shit out of me.

Really? Oh, yeah. I got a good ass beating there. With that being said, my brothers were pretty crazy. They liked to fight, and there were in fights all the time in Highland. I mean, my dad was a police officer, but my brothers were pretty wild. They come to the race act the next week with me with guns. They're all the guns there now.

You don't want to be without a gun. Yeah. And High Leia, that was a rough place. I mean, for the fans listening, you're talking about some of the great racers in motorsports history coming out of there. You're talking about Bobby Allison, of course, is the benchmark name that everybody knows. Donnie Allison, the Anderson. and so many people cut their teeth down in that Miami area, which now is like a ghost town of racing.

But in the day, there were so many hot talents coming from that area. And, you know, there was a lot of money down there, but there was also a lot of incredible talent. Well, I thought about that and thought about that. Bobby Brackett, I talked about it. It's such a hard race track. It's flat, and it's a third. Yeah.

It's all rhythm. And you got to learn to pick the throttle up and go to there and back the corner up and so forth. And I believe that's what a race is. I say to myself, why was Peeley so good, Gilhern and Bobby Brack and Dickie Anderson and Bobby Allison and Donnie Allison and Rags Carter? All them guys, how come that were so good? And that shit, crap old race track, you know? It's not a good race track.

We didn't have a very good playground in our backyard. Palmettos Peeway and Palm Beach was way better high-lib, but that's why. You won two races in your career with your seatbelts came undone. I mean, I just shit my pants and pulled into the pit. The first time with party. It was Marty's car, highly, and I came in, I was all cocky. I didn't handle the seatbelt on, and he said, what did you just say? I said, the seatbelt come off about halfway too.

He said, I got my sleeve caught in it, didn't have it turn right. Yeah. He said, no way. I said, yeah. He said, how to beat your butt right now. He said, if you ever drive my race car, I'm going to beat the seatbelt off, I'm going to beat the living's out of you. And I said, I just wanted a race.

He said, I don't really care if you want to race. Yeah. That was the first time. Now, the second time I was in my own car out in Texas. Does that make it safer? No. No. And I'm leading the race.

I'm trying to win a point in time. I'm going to stop. I'm bleeding. He had a caution that I come over. I said, I'm trying to get this belt hooked up. What? I said, a belt come loose. I'm trying to get the belt hooked up.

And Ray says, what are you talking about? I said, see, a belt coming loose. It's off. He thought you might be talking code. I said, they're getting ready to restart. I said, Ray, just run down, sit there with a spotter's tell them, I have no seat, but I'll let them go. I'm not going to race them.

But I am going to stay the lead lap. I'll race them that hard. Yeah. So he told them all that, and then we were on about 15, 20 laps that belt was off. And I said, oh, this is stupid. But you still, but you didn't stop. No, ain't stopping. Oh, geez.

I did it cause you come back out and I'll pull off the side, and I got the balls back on. I went to the back. We won it. You want it. Of course you did. Yeah, if I had to pull out, I wouldn't want it. That's right.

I guess so. He wouldn't have pulled out neither. I don't know. I don't know. They got rules these days that probably make you, which makes me wonder. Those in-car cameras will do something to you. I mean, I wonder how well you would fare today. Like if you were racing in this generation and these kids, let's forget the seatbelts and stuff,

but just in today's race cars. I mean, you guys took race cars and made them your own. I mean, you would, could you do it today and apply everything that you were so good at? His dad and I and all of us way back, we built our own roads cars. I mean, it's a tubing off the rack. We've built our own cars.

We built our own spindle. We had four or five spindle from a junk garden, and build a lot of it. I built a fixture, and I built a fixture, some jigs for leaves, brings to rate them. And we used to use a bottle jack with a gauge on it and a piece of aluminum at the right front tire and jack it, drag it up, pulling it,

to it and see what the split was before we had scales. I mean, we had a bottlejack with a gauge before we ever had scales, you know. But we were that far ahead of buddy. Then we'd flat put the car from the front to the back and Jackson's under it and Bobby Allison. So your answer is probably not, because they don't do that these days, you know.

I still work with late model teams right now as far as bump springs and bump rubbers and Packers and all that, yeah, and shocks and all that. I still do all that. Okay, see. I still do all that. Yeah, but could you drive? I'm going to tell your story.

We're putting a Seneca car together with Mike Garvey right now. Oh. in Pensacola. Okay. Terry wants me to make a lap with a car and so the car. She's got to drive this. Go car. You've got to drive this.

I'm done. This is recently? No, we're doing it right now. Oh, okay. Put another car together right now. When that car is done, we go to Berlin, I'm going to make some laps. I don't care. I don't care.

I don't care. Sure. I want to sit with that sitting there goes like. I mean, would any of us be surprised if we come back and find out that he laid down the the track record at 71 years old? Well, here's the deal. You're digging. I'm probably picking one of the hardest asphalt tracks in the country, Berlin.

True. True. Dick Chricka went there twice, and the second time he went to and knocked the motor on the car and set the car on fire. Burns the cart down. Give you 30 minutes, you'll have it figured out. 30 minutes. Maybe 45. I just want to sit in a thing and make a few laps, that's all. You still got it.

You still got that thing inside. That's what's so hard for me to go to a show car to go to batmills some place and do a boat siding or whatever. All the work to get that thing unload and set it all up and not get to make a lap. Right. It's the badmobile, man. That thing is a legend. Just making it alive, all your frustrations and everything that's inside you goes away because you just get tunnel vision and you get in just what you're doing.

And it just, you know. Do you talk about your experience with fans throughout the book? Yeah. occasionally, but not all. But not all. Just for a while. You went too much, you become a villain. After a feature win in South Florida,

someone threw a cinder block off an overpass, and busted the windshield out of your truck. Yeah. I mean, for the longest time... Let me tell you that story real quick. Yeah, let's hear. Abel of that story. I beat Dickie and beat Peewee's,

car. I was talking Peeley's car. He had a Goodyearth. And he kind of left me out, and I was throwing all the test for Goodyear. He called me, needed more wheels. Bring wheels. I said, I want to bring the car. Bring the car.

Well, they drew straws, and I got the good set of tires. That's right. So I beat him. Well, he wouldn't even talk to me. Shut the elevator door on my face. I said, that was him. I'm going home. I was with Uncle Herbert told me.

We loaded up and we head south. And the guy throws a block off the bridge. Bust the wind showed all in our face. Jesus. Are you driving? Could have killed you. Uncle Herbert was driving. He pulled off the side of the road.

He just wigged out. Maybe you turn him, went across the road, went back. I said, what are we doing? He said, I'm going to kill him. I said, whoa, ho. Go back and turn and come back, and pull off the side of road, and he ran up the hill and had a nine-movemator, and he started loading that thing.

I'm begging him to stop, but you're going to kill somebody. I'm trying to kill him. What did you still do with us? What did you just do to us? I said, whoa, this is bad. You know, come on, we'll just get a wind show for this thing, get on. Yeah. So we got some duct tape out and taped her up and got to the house and bought a new windshield.

So what, so for the longest, I don't, for the longest time in your career, you had a difficult, relationship with fans at particular tracks. Crowds, you know, would give you the finger, boo you. Oh, yeah. You were given... Spit on me. You were, yeah.

Spit on you. You were giving the officials the finger, and the crowd thought you were doing that. I've done that before. No. No. Yeah. Yeah. I was getting thrown out of a race at Hickory Motor Speedway and flipped off the tower.

And obviously, the fans are in between me and the tower. Oh, yeah. They thought I was giving them the bird. So that ruined my reputation of Hickory for about. about a decade. You ever been banned from a race track? Oh, yeah. Highly put it out for life. Really? Yeah, I won a 200 life over there, and afterwards that the cannily retards.

But Larry was the president at the time and a lot of politics. They took the race from me. I kept the trophy. I said, well, okay, we could get it. I'll get the to trophy. Bring your trophy back or you're out of here for life. I said, I'm bringing a trophy back. I thought about it. I'm home for the winter. I got a coup de ride. I could win a bunch of races. This is stupid. Just go eat some crap and do it. you got to do. Yeah. So I went back out to the board beating, humble pie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever you want to do, I give the trophy back. They had to kill me. Yeah, because I give the trophies to all the kids and stuff. I don't care. I used to, I'd rather race for the trophy. Didn't have money. He raced for a living. And so I give the trophy back to him.

Just be off. They had a 50 lapar like two weeks later, and Brax driving off. He passed me in the outside and went on. I couldn't catch him, couldn't do nothing. It was over. and about five laps ago he coached it off into the infill boats a quick change gears

and I won it, I won a trophy twice I got it back I got it back and I got it thrown on on Nashville for that but I came down to front straight with the opposite direction doing it yeah well

oh that was probably one did and you're getting ready to start the race they're getting ready to start the race I got one of three and four you know what I mean I had won to qualify for Nazareth for Syracuse and we figured out

yeah yeah it was a qualified fire for the big Syracuse race. I'd won that. We went back and we were testing a set of injectors Lucas time injectors, which was on gas because he could run, constant flow on gas, which could make them work. So we got time injectors and put on it. The ink was still wet on the paper outlaw on it, Nazareth. So they made that rule just for you that day? Yeah, that day. That day. And so what did you do? And here I am representing them. Yeah. And then did, what did you do then? Because you said that What did I do? What did I do?

He came down to front of a street, he's shooting them all a bird. They knocked the fence down and come over the fence, and it was ugly. It wasn't nice. I know that. So then he said, you're out of here, man.

You're done. Jerry Friedger, you're done for life. That's it. Yeah. And Puriol, call him up and talk to him, my boss. Well, anyway, we're going to let him come back, to come over here and apologize to everybody. Oh, yeah, he wanted you to apologize.

Yeah, so I'd bump on the front straightway with my boss apologizing to the world, you know? What was that like? Hard. How does it? Race car drivers don't apologize a whole lot. I don't know if y'all know this or not. We're always right.

You're always right. So they made you get on the loudspeaker and apologize to the crowd? Yeah. The key is you apologize to the crowd, not to the tower, though, right? One of the... Yeah. I think one of the biggest signs... It wasn't about the crowd.

It was about the tower. I think one of the biggest signs of respect that you can show his drivers to put a bounty on him. In 1994, you had a $500 bounty on yourself at Newsemer in a Speedway, meaning anybody that came in there and beat you, got an additional $500 from the track. Do you remember all the bounties or the highest bounty that you might have had? That was one of them, but they'd done it several times, but I used to tell Clyde all the time, I said, how come I don't get paid extra?

You know what I went? The client said, no, no, no. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you need? But that was a pretty neat deal. We won 67 out of 79 races that year. That's where that thousand number comes from. If you win 67 races a year.

Yeah, that chips away at that big number. What year was that? 94. 94. So 94, you go down there, you win 60. And I quit. I'd quit. I'd retire.

Yeah, this is your retirement tour. Working for James, all that, you know. And I went down to help Peewee out, they'd struggle with a car and stuff, a handicraft of a car, and it was all in myself. He said, but I would have a new summer in the next door. I said, how about getting him fall a bikini and all that? No, no, he's not going to job. No, I don't.

And all the wild springs broke. I said, people, what are you doing? You're a racer. You're a racer. You know about this. You've won racists and racists. You've got to get the hot run right now. garage. We worked and we worked and we worked and went back and we won and we won and we won and we won.

And every week he'd show up to the racetrack with a car running in the trailer. He'd fired up, born all up in the trailer. The door would be open. I'd be waiting on him and he'd get there in time. Practice is over. He said, you don't know practice. You race on it years. I said yeah, but you change everything on it this week. We tried a couple things. Yeah. And you go out, you know, for the heat race and you'd hang on and you'd win it. But come back and say, put the car back. What are you doing? You raced all the way through the 60s and 70s trying to strive to get your first opportunity in NASCAR. Your first cup race was 1979 Dayton 500.

Yes. That's an iconic race, obviously, because of the finish between Richard Petty and, I mean, Donnie Allison, Richard Petty went in the race, Cal Yarbril, Bobby Donny and all them fighting down there in the corner. A few questions. You're driving for Billy Harvey. You blew a few motors in speed weeks.

Eventually, you got a short track block. from Grand Adcocks. Exactly. Or a short block from Grand Adcox. So the block itself is destroyed in the other engines.

You barred the heads from one blown motor. You barred the intake from the other blown motor to put that together to be able to qualify for the race. Obviously, that's not how you're used to doing it.

No. Because all your short track stuff is a first class operation. Five motors. We broke and we were down at the end, and we were down in the end, and on fire, cross the front of the hell of it

tell you, how exciting that gets. You know what I mean? Like, how I didn't kill myself or hit somebody else or wrecked really bad? I don't know. That's before the race.

Yeah. That's before the race. I said, I'm done with that. I'm not doing no more of that guys. That's what we got to Grand A Cock motor. That was a H motor. So this is the 1979 day-trial.

We run out of the top five with that thing all day long. So it broke. But this is fascinating to me. Because I think one of the underlying things through your book, and I think that's important note for your career was that you wanted to get to NASCAR your whole life. Oh, yeah. You were killing it in late models and killing it

modifies, but let it be known that you were trying to get to the top. I had a chance to run in an Apple's car car several times and I bailed out. I didn't do it. Turn it down. Good rides with AJ. So you get to this chance to race in the 1979 Daytona 500, which is an iconic race. And this is your first race, correct? Yeah. And Dale's talking about you blowing five motors and all that stuff. But I'm curious because I'm reading about it. And it doesn't seem like at any time you stopped to recognize that I made it. I'm like I've been trying my whole life to get here. Did you or were you so laser focused on that race car and the fact that you were going

through a motor or two? Oh yeah. Did you stop? Trying to make the race. Did you try to make the race? Because that's obviously it. But any point did you have satisfaction or fulfillment just for a second that you were in the Daytona 500? I think when the satisfaction finally come about.

is when we run up with Daryl and everybody running the top five and you could actually see the lead car you know what I mean like holy Christ how this happened with everything had happened it's not supposed to happen right and had Mario Rossi as a crew chief and I remember it rained it rained it rained and we started the race and a racetrack was wet and I said look I really want to do this but do I want to run 200 mile an hour on a wet race track yeah and this thing was 35 degrees tight yeah that flat back window that beautiful So it was ugly in the beginning.

And it pushed, you get up in, you get in the, I'm going to get in the water and really wrecked, you know. Yeah. And I run about, I don't know, five or six, after I got on a radio and I said, this ain't good. And Rod said, just drive it. You was, just drive it. It'll get better. And he changed everything on the car. Yeah.

Everything. The night before the race, yeah. But he'd been around a block and knew everybody. And it got better and it got better. And I said, you know, we're driving it to the front. I said, wow, this is pretty good. So, I mean, it was a bumpy, bumpy, bumpy week. And then we broke a crash, and we took Pearson out.

It was raining. It was raining. How far into the race did that crash happen? Almost about three quarters away through the race. Okay, so you're moving right along. Yeah. Were you there at the end? I mean, do you recall being there to, I mean, the Alessons were your buddies.

You knew about that. Oh, yeah. I'm going to tell you what happened. We got up by an officer afterwards, and Richard Hill was up, what is some we were talking and then Bob Bohili came up and he was pissed off because they got involved in Iraq and screaming out. I mean I chased him around the car to beat his little butt.

I ended up driving for them. Yeah, you did. But they grew up around me, you know what I mean? The other fight. Yeah. The other fight, the fight we haven't. The not so famous fight. But did you, when the Allison's got into it with Kale, where were you? Had you left the track already? I was there with Harvard. No,

we were to pets. You were? Yeah. Did you see it? I've seen it, but I mean, I've seen what happened with Kail and Donnie and all the people I've ever raised with in my life, including his dad. And his dad would intimidate you. I'm talking about intimidate you now. Yeah. Donnie Alice intimidated me more than anybody. Really?

I said that one time. He said, Gary, why? I said, everything you never watched you race. I never thought I was intimidating. I said, Bobby could run with me, and I could run with Bobby. I could run with your dad. Pearson, any of them. But I always had Donnie.

I was intimidated. But I grew up around, Donnie, right in the back of his pickup truck. I don't know how many fights Donnie was in at the races. So it was just another Donnie fight. It's all you're looking at. But Donnie, but yeah, Donnie, Donnie was aggressive. Yeah. Bobby was smooth and Donnie was aggressive.

Right. They're still like that, aren't they? You know, Bobby's smooth. What about Richard Petty? Did you ever, I mean, because he goes and wins that race. What was your recollections of versus Richard? I made a big mistake of Richard Petty at Michigan. Oh, really?

Real big mistake. Paxisson. But I think there was some difficulty there with people. he'd help him be in my driving coach and driving for Richard because it just richard never really cared for me oh and then i got underneath him and then down the back straightway at michigan i followed buddy becker by he and he didn't always end to come down and i got him in the door and he almost wrecked practice was over i didn't want to go back in the pits yeah they said that'll come out and receive and all and all and gary do yourself in favor and stay right here for a while and finally push the

car and then everybody laid their tools down and he's going who Richard is? Yeah. So I go across there, he's running on the tires. Where do you think you're at? I lose B-way? I said, Richard, I was drafting by you. With buddy, I got two tires on a flat to keep running into it.

It's practice. I got to win practice, too. You know what I mean? I feel like if you're fastest car in practice and you sit on a pole and you need every lap and you want to race, let's have a beer. If you don't want to have a beer, we'll fight. I don't care.

Yeah. There's other options, by the way. It didn't have to be a beer fight. No, but you know what I'm saying. So the king wasn't happy with you there. He wasn't there to win. Yeah. Right?

When was the first time you met Dale Earnhardt? The first time I'm about your dad. I would have said in the Carolina. Okay. Really? Yeah. That's the first time I'd say, you were there with your sister and had a couple of shit boxes and you guys were struggling.

I really wanted to walk over. I'll tell you the story. And I really wanted to walk over and try to help you all because I was going pretty good there. Yeah. Your dad was there. And I said, He doesn't need my help. He's got it, you know what I mean?

And it took you all the while, but you got it. It's like Davy Allison. I kind of tutored him. Donnie gave up on him. I was standing right there, and he called Bobby. He said, I'm done. I can't deal with this kid. No, more.

I'm done. Well, the kid's there by himself. Yeah. So I put him under my wing and it helped him a lot and got him going. And I felt like you were the same way, you know, from your dad. And your dad was busy. If I was there, why could I help you? Yeah.

Yeah. Y'all race, one of the races that I first ever saw you drive was the 1981, Charlotte 300 at Late Mall Sportsman Race at Charlotte Merge Speedway. That's the one where Dad called you the dirty driving SUV. Amazing race. And a little bit of me had become a fan of you that day. Even though you and Dad beat and bang to the finish, I don't know, there was just something. I love the car, the beautiful race car, and I thought your style was very similar

to dads. You were aggressive, and I like that type of race car driver. And you learned of dad's comments right after that race from Donnie Allison in Victory Lane? Donnie Allison, come over and reach the car, I went, in my mouth, let go, let go, you know? He said, whatever you do, keep your mouth shut. He said, that is the crown prince that you just got into a wrecked. Yeah. That is the crown. I said, no shit. I know, you know. But it was one of him deals that Dale was real good about getting on your right rear. And he's real good about getting on that right rear and that arrow and that void off at windshield

and that nose. It's still there. It hadn't changed. Right. And he was just on the right rear, and I moved up, and he got me the right rear on the other side finish line in Charlotte. Well, the other side goes that way, comes back. You're going to wreck.

You know what I mean? But I got lucky. I let go and grabbed him. Let go and grab him. Mark Martin said he's seen all the smoke. He thought somebody blowed up. Then he looked and he said, he's still going straight.

well then he drove alongside me I said to myself we're gonna go way off and three here now because I had to really pedal hard to be alongside of him getting in yeah he got up and he got loose stuff

he was in Robert G's car yeah Robert comes down and said but what the hell's around you I said well I said we just got racing hard got racing too hard were you guys beating and banging

before the last lap or was this all on the last lap yeah well I was kind of like the new kid on the block and him and Jody were both good Jody Ridley? Jody Ridley yeah yeah

Mark was right there but Mark was behind us a little bit. I think I had a better hot rod to both of them. I was going to win. I mean, I got a hot rod here to win. Yeah. And they, they teamed up on me. Why wouldn't you? Yeah. That was

a tough one. Was that the first time you had raced against Dale Earnhardt? Or did you race? No, we run a couple of cars. Yeah. No, we'd race some money before that. I remember. You got to remember that Alcini was my hero. I mean, I took his ground all the time. He's one of the best racers in the world, man.

So I remember I don't remember what year this was. I was somewhere between four to six years old and went to Metro-Lina Motor Speedway and it was dirt. And I remember Dad was there. He was in Cup at this time,

so this was somewhere in the early 80s. But you were running and just destroyed everybody. Very Wright's car. Really? Yeah, Buddy Griffin owned it. Was that a white car? White car with 12 on it.

It was. So I remember like images of that day. Dad was driving somebody else's car. Might have been in Robert G's car. I'm not sure, but run second to you by a straightaway back. Everyone else was not even in the same lap. And that was right around that same time frame as the Charlotte 300. And so I'd seen you run Charlotte, and now you're at the dirt track dominating.

That was my first recollection of you and racing dad. So I don't know how many times y'all. I used to race against each other in a cup series quite a bit. that it was written and said by many people, even as recently as the 90s, that you were the Dale Earnhardt of the short tracks. Is that a... That's a compliment.

And you talk about how you appreciate, you know, dad as a driver. Although he flipped him off once. You did flip, yeah. Hold on a second. We got to hear about that. I don't remember that. Talladega, 1981, Talladega 500. Jody Realty.

Yeah. I know he remembers. I did he come from the back. Yeah. I didn't make the race for both. Valspring qualifying. We started on a provisional rocket ship.

Rocket ship. Come from the back. And at the first time, the night, if you really come from the back and pass him, but I was going to the front and he's going to like,

I'm going to buy you. Get in line. He wanted you to get in line with him. Exactly. Just, where are you going this early? Why didn't you just pass him? I did. I know.

But you had to hang a bird out the window at the same time. He wanted me getting a line behind him. No, I'm going to get in line behind you. I'm going to buy you. So you flip them off. That's you. I never. I never read a story about anybody flipping off Dillner.

I'm sure it happened, but I never knew anybody. Well, he did right back, don't you? Did he do it? Of course he did. He gave me the same motion. We were at Michigan. We were at Michigan in that race where we run side beside of the finish line.

Oh, the Iraq race? Oh, yeah. The whole freaking race, every single lap. He's giving me that line. Oh, yeah. Get in line. Stay in line. Stay in line.

Don't pass me. Stay behind me. I'm like, I'm in a hornet's nest back here. Yeah. They're all over my quarter panels. And he's out front and I'm protecting him. and I'm like, I'm not liking this. You'd be better if you were behind me.

Exactly. You guys in your Earnhardt stories. Did you ever have any good Earnhardt stories? Every time you, he rates was a good earnhardt story. I know that. I know. I know. Are you kidding me?

I mean, did you guys ever have any good, get along good? No, we got along great. We got along good. Oh, yeah. Oh, we always talked and hung out and, you know, yeah. One of the funniest thing. Dale and I literally laugh at this when we were talking about it. But when, and I'm jumping ahead, but this is an Earnhardt story.

And one of my favorites is in the book is when you were coming back into the garage after your first stint, you know, away. And Dale Earnhardt looks at you. He's like, are you back? And then when you said you were back. He went, look here. I walked out. I said, it was out, bud.

And he put his hand and said, he said, are you going to come back and race with us? Uh, it's a maybe. I hope not. I'm going to tell you something. That deal is Charlotte. Probably cost me a golden opportunity to drive for your dad. Really? Oh.

I would have loved it driven for your dad. Do you ever remember coming to Newston Martin getting on top of the truck? He used to watch the races from up on your hauler. He called me. He wanted around in a pitch and said, Look, come here. And I'd go, what, what's up?

You race it? And I said, yeah, we won a couple of us already. He said, I'm going to come over tonight and I said, well, come on, come to the gate. And when you get to the gate, help me call me and come to the golf cart and get you, put you on trucks and nobody knows you're even there. I want to tell you how that deal goes.

He gets on truck, and he watched me race. And that was, to me, like to have him watch me race are you kidding me that's something yeah but he enjoyed watching me i guess because i was out of control most of the time i don't think i think i think i think he felt the same way i felt he liked your style it was so similar to his y'all were you were aggressive yeah you were aggressive people called you the dylan harler short tracks a lot of people uh you know compare you to tim richmond i think you're kind of a merr a blend of both um y'all all you all sort of had that same sort of

Tim and I were real good friends Tim drove from me and stuff and Tim was a cool guy he had one hell of a race driver so we want to talk about the drug smuggling era of your life now at this point in your life obviously you know you

you cover this really well in the book and which I was really interested about it for me it's exciting it's it's you know we see movies get made about this stuff and sensationalize and so forth, for me to know somebody in racing that was so successful, yet had this whole other

life that was incredibly dangerous. And I just want to know at this point in your life, are you, I don't know, have you come to terms with, you know, obviously that took a lot away from you. And I understand, I can't even imagine how that affected your life. But now you're here. You're hit a podcast. You wrote a book. You're doing a documentary. Are you at a point in your life? where you're comfortable, you know, discussing that part of your history. Oh, for sure. And sort of using it as a message. Oh, yeah.

You don't want to get involved in that. Right. So at what part of your life, at what point in your life did you become a guy capable of doing that? And in the book, a couple people come up to you at points in your career and say, man, this is something you'd be good at. And it was kind of maybe tongue-in-cheek. and then it becomes more serious conversation. And you said at one point,

the money sounds good. I'm going to go give this a run. All I got to do is count the bails. That's not a big deal. I'm just a counter. So at what point in your life did you sort of move from a guy that would go count bails to somebody who thought, man, I'm going to get a little further into this and make a little bit more money?

It wasn't further. You know, here's what happens to you deal is you start out. I want to make $100,000 just get my bills paid off. Right. You know? So I raised for a living. And it was hard in times. You had a lot of debt.

A lot of debt. And you go and you pitch some bells and catch some bells and count and you see everything everybody's got and what they're doing. It takes money to fuel all this. Without money, you're not fueling this. That's nothing. That's where the money comes from to get me to Daytona in 79. Right.

I don't believe to this day that it's any worse than Moonshine. Sure. And this whole sport was basically. rebuilt on moonshine. And I could look at myself in the mirror and deal with what I was doing because it was weed. It was marijuana.

It wasn't cocaine. It wasn't heroin. It wasn't none of that crap. And I had an opportunity to do all that because my credibility was so good. When I told you I was going to be there, I was there. When I told you I was going to do it, I did it. And my equipment was like my race guards.

Right. It finished because if you can't finish, you can't win. And with that, when you don't finish and you throw it over, it floats with you. You're all getting rid of it. You know what I mean? So you got a finish. And I did my smuggling just like I raised.

Yeah, so you talked about starting your first, the first time you ever got involved in any of that, the guy asked you to go on the boat as a counter just to count the bails. And then you created your own operation. How big was that operation at its peak? It got pretty huge. It's like that train running down the track. It's just going and going and going and everything gets bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.

You've been there, you're there, you know. Were you always on the, where you always run? running a boat or did it become so big? No, I got to where it was people driving a boat, but I was there. I was there for every one of them. The operation never went to the race track without being there. Yeah.

But explain to the fans listening to this podcast. When you're talking about running a boat, what exactly are you talking about here? Like, for the fans listening that don't know this smuggling story, tell them what you were doing. Well, basically what you do is you get to equipment

and you had a connection. and the connection was good. I drove his hot rides. We all know where that was about. And when it's time to go, you go. They tell you to go. And you've got to go a certain place. You've got to a fiery rock.

Or you've got to go to Bimini. You've got to go to the north later. You've got a point. You've got to go. But you can remember that's a stick sticking up out there. We didn't have GPS then. We had a compass in a watch. He'd throw a line out in water if you broke down

and see where the current was. Just how much you were drifting, how much you had changed course. And it was pretty hard to go out there in the middle of the night. It's dark out there. There's no lights. I mean, dark if it's a cloudy night, there's no stars, there's no moon. I mean, you can't see your hand right there. So it was a challenge.

It really was a challenge. I went, like, when I first got the boat in 24-foot sea ray, I went 13 times, and almost lost my house and had my race cars all put up. We couldn't afford to buy tires for them. And I just wouldn't quit. I persevered. Bobby Allison taught me that a long time ago. Yeah.

It didn't quit. So you went the first several trips and didn't even get a bill? Nothing. I mean, I don't understand that. How come? Because they didn't show up. They didn't make it. They broke down or they got busted.

So you're losing money. You're doing this to get money and you're losing money. Oh, kill me. Hey, before we get back to Gary, let's hear from my friends over at Vavilene. As many of you probably know, I was sponsored by Vavilleen for several years. and I even drove a Voweling car, Darlington, back in 2015. That baby was hot. Good looking race car.

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I mean, like, you had some lines in there in the book that were, like, you used a lyric from a song, Smuggler's Blues, and it's, but the, because it's, you know, basically saying that smuggling is easy, and it's easy money, and then you say, you call. BS that you're like nothing's easy so my question to you is the risk and the reward at some point it seemed like you you mentioned enough thing you're talking about 20 foot seas and you're talking about your you know 13 time going 0 for 13 and get before making money when did it did it not seem like this isn't worth it you know maybe this isn't worth it I have my theory is you were trying to get the cup and you're trying to pay your ride to cup and so that exactly that that's the why

question why I did it exactly But at some point, did it seem like, well, this isn't going to get me to cup? Yeah, you're bussed, you know, I can't get there. You know, and I never got busted. I got toll on, you know, and it was a dry conspiracy. It didn't happen. We were there, and it didn't happen. I come home, put everything away and went to Syracuse and won Syracuse.

You know, but, like, when we finally got successful, when you drive through that cut and you get that stuff unloaded and you get it in a house and you get it back to people and own it, it's like winning in Daytona or winning in Apple's 500. Really? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the adrenaline rush is absolutely incredible. See, I never got that from reading the book. I mean, I did understand that you got an adrenaline rush from it

and that you found some thrill in it. But I never took, that's the first time I'm hearing that, you know, once you were done with a job, it was like, all right, win a race. Hell yeah. It's like winning a race. Right. Incredible. Like afterwards, having to bear with everybody, you know.

That's fascinating. But it's hard. There's no end to it. Like, you know, once you get it home, you've got to get it offloaded. You've got to get it in the house. You've got to scale it. You've got to go through it. You've got to get your percentage out.

You've got to get the rest of the people that own it. Now you've got to get it out the front door. The front door is different than the back door. The back door is a boat. The front door is a street. So you've got to come up with a deal on the front. Camping trailer that's there. You know, the floor's all done in it and everything out of it.

And put a door in the house so you get to the trailer. And they've got to take the trailer in and out every week. in that they're camping with it to the neighbors out there to think that that's what's going on yeah you know oh that was fascinating actually because a sprinkler system company digging in or putting plants in or a roofing company i mean it had to be something to get you got to get it out he got just as creative all the creativity he was putting in race cars he was putting them also in those trucks exhausting like how the the charade right seems exhausting to try to cover up the actual operation.

How about the back when the boat's tied up to the dogs and neighbors? You take them fishing, you take them to have a drink and they bring it back

you come in and they're standing on top of it. We're cooking fish and explaining to fish, you know what I mean? That had to make you nervous. Oh, a little bit.

How about when, you know, over in the Bahamas and the cops are standing on top of it. You know? On top of your boat? Yeah.

On top of the drill? They come down. They come down every night. They'd have a barrel with us and talk and stand right on top of it. I'm up in Saturdays and feet. You know, like, haven't you all got some place to go?

One of the craziest stories from the smuggling days for me in the book is a close call you had where the boat filled up with gasoline. And tell that story, and I want to ask after you're done, is that the one real scare? The pinnacle of the scare. That was a pretty good scare. I've had some other ones, but that one there, we had moved two times, three times trying to get the line with the freighters to get

what we had to get, and finally we got moving around by North Light, and we got loaded. And that was a small load, it was probably 2,000 pounds or something. It was a 30-foot boat. And I saw a gas. What the heck is that?

We put a bigger tank in it and covered it and carpet and rod holders and stuff. Look right. The kid at work for me, did the lines and stuff, evidently the tie wrap broke or he didn't tie it off enough and the line got it in to the balancer I flipped the back up and I look and the gas is all way up to the alternators if we'd ever tried to start it it would have blown up and killed us all and I had a rider with me a good friend of mine and you're still at a dock

no you're out the water you're out in the middle ocean yeah what about 70 to 80 miles out okay oh Christ so we start bailing the gas out well the gas just gonna float with you we built the gas out the best we can I get on a handheld and I call out to look how we've got a problem big problem we need to get this shit off this boat and get to somebody else and I don't know what we're going to do here with this thing but just keep balance keep balance I'm going to go gather some soap for your boat's cleaner and you know dawn works real good with that so they go gather all they can gather all the village clear and don everything everybody's got because there's probably 20-30 boats out there to do it and he brings that to me well when he bought that

to me I put the rider off on a boat with them You had a buddy on the boat. Yeah, I noticed since the boat that was born up here. Right. You'd have seen that exposure from Miami, you know? So I put him off in the boat and put him up and put water in it and bailed and put water in it and bailed and I dump all this soap and boat's canter in it and I put some more water in and I'll wash it out and I fill it back up again and go, it's got to be easier way. And I think about it and I said, I'm going to turn the switches back on. they're not supposed to you know

it was waterproof and it shouldn't ignite and they should the billage pumps so I took the billage pumps on and pumped it out and filled it up and pumped it out well now with that that tank leaking the fuel line we don't have the fuel we had

that's why that tank was in there so I borrowed about 10 gallons and that's all I could get because everybody else already topped off they bring the fuel with jerry doves said wow this is going to be close so I start back and I get all the way back and I get about five miles out and it shuts off

Oh, no. I said, well, I've got to take the floor up in this thing. I could take the floor up. The tank was under it, and I'd take the tank apart. And the pickup goes down, and it's about that far down, and there's probably that much an inch of gas in the bottom. There's gas laying there. So you had to fashion some more to the pickup.

Yeah, a little McIver here. Took the fuel line apart off the Raycord, got me a piece, the clamp. Put it on the bottom, put it all back. You got put the floor back in. So the council back over, bold it back down. All right, here we go. I drive her on in. While I get to where I'm supposed to be,

it's a marine, and the cat that's running to travel lift, it's supposed to lift me out. I'm not there. They're going to use a forklift. Remember now, no fuel the bag of the thing and all that's in the front. He lifts it out, and it's feeling like this.

I'm going, oh, shit. And I grab the back, and I'm hanging on the back. He says, get away with that, man, you crazy? I said, no, yeah, a little bit. Yeah. If it dumps over, I'm done anyway. Right. You know, like, you get to wait for that thing.

Man, I got away for that. I'm just watch it. Watch it. She'll fly it sets out on the trailer. I can never ever wait to get that thing out of the Marine and get it back. I'd say so. You said there were some crazier stories and some closer calls. Do you remember in those?

Here's a real good one. They call me up. I'm at home. They're in bed. And they got a 58-foot crisscraft, and it's got probably 15,000 pounds on it. 15,000 pounds of drugs. And they call me, marijuana. And they call me, oh, this thing's going down.

I said, what do you want me to do? We need some out. We need some out. Well, I'm putting a swimming pole at my house. There's a four mudsucker there. I said, all right, on my way. I call a couple of my guys. And I had my wife put the mudsucker to back of Boduli, wide open all the way to south, you know,

Miami and out there than Fort Lauderdale. And to get there, and this thing won't start. We're pulling it. We're pulling, and this thing's rolling over on its side. The water's running out of the portholes. All of a sudden, I hear of sirens and all this, and here they come down the waterway, chasing this boat.

Oh, shit. You thought they're coming to y'all. This thing's going in. Oh, yeah. All this stuff floating along the boat and up around the boat. What it is? Just soap and the boat's cleaner

and everything, you know what I mean? They can pass us and I'm just, I just stopped and stood still. They went down in the water, went on and turned on and they checked them back the other way. I said, where did I just go? They were full in the movie. Oh, my goodness. Holy shit.

Wow. Oh, my God. finally we got the mudsucker going we got it pumped out and then we saved it oh my god at the closest you have any idea how upset they would be if you sank behind the house with 15,000 pounds of weed

how upset yeah yeah how upset what do you think way upset life or death upset way upset yeah I had a partner that thought he could move everything and do this and do all that

and we kept keeping a bunch of their stuff one time and they had him they had him for ransom Damn. I said, oh, God, how'd we get into this, you know? Yeah. But that's when you get out too far, and you believe in people that do that and don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah. Did you fear for your life, or were you fear for getting caught? I feared for getting caught. But you never feared for your life. No, because listen to me, if you do the right thing, you don't steal. There's plenty of money there for everybody. Why would you want to steal from them? There's no sense in that.

Right. And you do the right thing. You tell me you're going to be there and you're there? Like I told him, I said, why ever get this big trip? I'm going to buy all Rolexes, presidentials. That's nothing to them. You know what I mean? That's like a piece of popcorn.

Yeah. But for me to do what I said I was going to do, I bought, I don't know, 10 Rolex's. I couldn't believe it. You really did that. I said, yeah, I told you I was going to do it. So I was a candidate for all the time with them wanting me to do bigger, better things, and I don't do. It seems like that you knew at some point that the whole thing was going to unravel. Sure.

They followed us for four years Right And so I mean And during that time Are you thinking I want to get out of this I'm too far in

I can't get out Like what's going through your mind I was pretty close I think With a cop deal But it's a 28 car Yeah And plus I was there with Raymond

Beatle of a third With Reggie and Raymond on that Milwaukee and all that And I had to bail And they didn't understand You know Like

Raymond didn't understand Carrie can't You can't. I said, I got it, too. It's going to remove it all for all of us. I put Tim Rutsch in the car. Then I put Rutz in the car. When Tim went with Hendrick, I put Rust in the car. But in the smuggling game, you knew it was going to come to an end. You knew the cops were watching. Why didn't you try to get out sooner?

If you knew they were watching for four years. Conspiracy is conspiracy. If it's five years, six years, four years, conspiracy. And that's what gets you. We were pretty good at what we. we did as far as getting in and doing everything right and people in house and all that but you can't control that yeah that's what that's what get you but i understand what is it so he felt like i get what you're selling me is when you learned that the cops were on your trail you knew you were getting the time whether you stopped now or kept digging when they come to arrest me i'm i love it in

a 500 cut a tire down on the end of all that and they come at five o'clock in the morning and the first thing they said to me was you got a better career in future and anybody were arresting and arresting 70 people to swart another oh wow yeah a lot of people going down but they've been four years yeah but they come for you buddy they got it don't don't don't you think when you see it's in the book here when you see the United States government versus Gary blue that's your first clue it gets your attention how are you going to beat the United States government yeah man I thought I could you know you make a little money I like it's good attorney right and I could have won it I should have almost won it but he

They wouldn't sever me from the other nine defendants. And they were, you know, on tape and just bail list and names everywhere. And, I mean, oh, my God, guilty of sin. Yeah. But that's the way goes. You're in, you're in. Gary, I mean, my question, the thing that Dale and I would ask each other is, before we started reading the book, we were like,

why would someone with this much talent and this much opportunity, or, you know, promise with, to get where he wants to go, get caught up with it. And then as you read the book, you realize this was what you call the short cut plan or the, or this was a way to get your dream. And that answers the question why. Like, and that answers the question why. But when it didn't happen, well, hold on. Before I ask that, can you somehow qualify us or quantify how much of this might have actually funded your racing? And we talk about the number of wins. But like, I think you must have been in this more, before that I even realized.

So, like, how much of this do you think funded your career? Percentage-wise? 50% of it? None. None. That was involved in none. At the end. Yeah, at the end, when we finally got to the cup,

right, with Harvey and so forth, that's what helped us. It didn't like, when we went to Syracuse and 19, they were about, we'll build the money there to do it right. Yeah. I mean, it takes boo-cooled money to make all this happen. So it didn't ever contribute to your cup stuff? Yeah, it did. It did. That's how I finally got. So it did. So in a way, you could say that that was a successful, whatever the path you chose, it helped you achieve it to a degree. Is that fair to say?

Here's what I'm going to say. I got the 75 car and got the racing and got the bead there. And then Raymond Beatles seen me. We got to become friends and I'm drag races with him. And he wanted to get involved. And we got Reggie Jackson involved with me. we're pretty well on our way and Barry Dothman had some good people put together Barry Dauphson, yeah. Yeah, good people. When I won a championship with Rusty in old Milwaukee

and blah, blah, blah, blah. I knew that I was fixing to be indicted, but I've been my attorney and he said you're 300% and I said, 300% of a thousand. He said, no, 300 I'm 100. That's right. Boy, they're a bad odds. To clarify, I remember

right, you're talking about the chances you had to beat this, right? And he said you had 300% of being indicted. Right, right, right. And he said, no, you're 300%. In other words, you have no chance of getting out of this. You're going to be arrested. You're going to be indicted.

There was also a chance, though, but you had to do something that you didn't want to do. No, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it and not going to do it. Yeah, so you were real careful, and you talk about that in the book, being careful about certain details of the crimes and the individuals involved. Is that why you feel like there's no fear of any danger for you? even today.

Oh, yeah. Like you have, you don't walk around looking over your shoulder at all. Not at all. Really? And never did. Nope.

Wow. Companies love me, the Bahamians love me. Yeah. I didn't talk about nobody. Right. And if people I'll work for and work with, I said nothing.

They're like, Dale, all the years I've raised, I've never protested, nobody in race it. Never. And I won't walk up or the scale and watch you go through

and tell the officials and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'll walk around and look at and I'll come next week with that and something better. During your, during the years of your appeals, you continue to race and win.

And I'm going to rattle off some of those victories here in a bit, but you had to know that jail was certain in your future, as you just said, 300% your lawyer's telling you out of 100%. How did you block that out? The hardest thing was to get that close with a cup deal, a real good deal. Oh, yeah. And have that in the back of your mind.

The thing that I wanted to do from the time I was 19 years old. But you went and ran all pro and you won the biggest races that could be. race. I want a race. I know. I know. But yet I raised all pro. I race that late ball car, like what I learned from a couple of years. I know, but mentally, how did you block that out, knowing that you were going to go to jail for years? I mean, how did you, I would have, how, a normal person or me would have said, you know, I'm not, what's there to race for? Like, I've got nothing to look forward to, but you kept going about your business as a race car driver and one races.

One of a championship. I just don't understand. A million dollar sponsor for 14 races. I don't know how you were able to do that. Yeah. Like you went, so you. Because I thought I was going to win the pill.

I never give up. In your mind, you never gave up. You went to the 1986 Snowball Derby and won. Saturday night, a Saturday night in January in 1987, you celebrated the 1986 All-Pro Championship. That following Monday you walked into prison. Checked in. Like, I can't even imagine.

One of the hardest things they've ever do in my life. Drivers these days, a sinus cold will take over their mind while they're racing. And to be honest with you, and probably cause them to not perform as well. I mean, and that's just, I'm not knocking drivers these days. I'm just saying it's hard for a normal person to compartmentalize even the minor things that are going wrong because you're such a, you know, a creature of habit and routine. So you've got your life on the line in your head. And that's a fair question that he's asking.

How do you race and win while that's going on? How can anybody do anything and do it so perfectly with that? Why did you race? You race to win. Yeah. The anytime you were sitting at a hot ride, you wanted to win. I think it speaks to your talent. It's all about winning.

I think it speaks to your pure talent as a driver and your ability to take a car and make it better than everybody else's. That to me probably is the most fascinating part of your career. I mean, I'm curious about the smuggling side of it, but the fact that you did what you did during the appeal process to me is... It's amazing. We had 1142 motions. Those are from case law. Explain that to me.

What does that mean? When you're in trial and they use something against you and somebody else has won on it, that's case law. That's a pallet issue. The judge has something going through that somebody else had won. on. You have to have real good attorneys

that stand up and appeal it. They had 1142 moches took them four years and didn't win on one. How did I know about people all went on that? Yeah. So you keep thinking, well, there's a shot.

There's a shot. So many things wrong during trial. Right. Oh, my God. Yeah. But listen to me. They paid a judge. Oh.

The agents get paid every Friday. They don't care how long it takes. Right. How are you going to beat that? They got all the money in the world. you're not beating that but she thought you were well yeah i read a lot of the court records on that i could find um fascinating how you guys all went back and forth with the legal system arguing surveillance and all kinds of things and i that to me kind of spelled out how that process would

be so drawn out another another fascinating thing that mike and i both found uh interesting is during your time in jail um during your first uh prison term, you were sent to the Federal Correctional Institute in all places, Talladega, Alabama. The cars were running. You were there that weekend. I was locked in a hole. You were in solitary. Solitary.

While the race was going on. I could hear them. You could hear. That killed me. I could think of the guards there had been at the races and knew who I was. Right. They didn't. No.

But they do. I knew they knew by things I heard them say, you know. That's going to be some kind of torture. I mean, if I think about torture, for you to read the first half of this book and know where you are, who your heart is, to hear the cars in a race that you had been in previously. And who knew Talladega even had a federal correction facility? I thought the Talladega infield jail. The holding cell was the only jail like that.

You don't want to be, that's a penitentiary. You don't want to go there. You don't want to go to Atlanta. You don't want to go to Lewisburg. to all of them. You don't want to go to none of them. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to go to any of them.

Those are the real deal. Yeah. But take us inside that cell that day because what intrigues me, Gary, is the beginning of your book, something that really resonated with me is how you're a child and you're on top of your roof listening to race cars. Yeah. And you get this passion. You develop this passion.

You want to be inside. You want to be there. So you get there. And seven years after you raced at that Talladega race, you're on a floor of a cell here in those race cars wanting to be inside there again can you walk me through what was going through your mind that day?

It's a mindset. I mean, it's just, you have to put it aside to survive because you've got to survive. You can't just lay down and die because you have that fire in you, that no quit. You're done. You know, they're dragging it out, dragging you around.

And then he dragged me to Lewisburg Penitentiary when I remember getting there and I looked at it and the guard tires and the walls and said, what have I really done to deserve this?

And I thought about it and I said, I know what I've done. I'm paying for my crime. But to go to a penitentiary, that's incredible. Hey, let's take a quick break to tell you about a new partner,

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That's Stamps.com, enter Dale Jr. Boom. Another interesting story from 1989, you watched the Winston, where Rusty turned there on the front straightaway for the wind with other inmates. Well, I own part of that deal. I was still in with Raymond Beetle. Really? And Reggie, yeah.

While you're in jail. I put Rusty in that quarter. Right. But once Tim left it, Raymond said, what are we going to do now? I said, we'll put Rusty Wallace. and he said, Rusty who? I said,

Rusty who? I said, he's never done nothing. I said, he's the next candidate. I'm telling you, he's a racer. He said, we got to hire. You've been racing against Rusty, and you do him well. Oh, yeah, ASA at all.

We're a good friend. So you talk about how Rusty winning the championship in 1989 really affected you because you had had the opportunity or work. That was sort of your destiny to actually be in that car. Yeah. Had things gone your way. But it was still good for me to see Raymond do good and Rusty do good. I have some team player.

Yeah. But it hurts, you know, that's what you work for all your life, and that's why you did what you did to get there. And here we are. I never knew that. So when you, I never knew your affiliation with the 27 car. I never even knew you ever had an opportunity or were working on a deal for the 28 car. Yeah.

We're near car at that time. So it's interesting for me to see like a visual graph of what your career, what your direction was. Like you had a plan. Like when you were at the racetrack in 1979 in Daytona, you might not have knew exactly what that plan was. But after by 1981. But to get good enough to get in the top right. By 1981, you're in a 75 car with rehealing those guys. And that you were working on a plan.

You had a plan. So imagining you now in that 27 car and, and, and, and, and, you were working. and having that potential to be with that team really even makes it more intriguing. I didn't know that because I didn't know that you had that much of a foundation created in the Cup series in 81 when you left. So that's interesting. Here's how I feel about that 28 car. Yeah. If your dad had ever been in that 28 car, the rest of them have been raised for a second every race they went to.

It was a rocket ship. Yeah, it was. Yes, sir. It was a rocket ship. And I think that was the best thing It could ever happen to Davey. I mean, he might, it was a lot more race car than there was driver there that first year.

But boy, you can't drive, you can't learn to drive until you can get in a car that can do what it needs to do. A good hot ride car. Good hot rod. That's right. So that probably was the best thing

could have happened to Old Davey. We talked about how well you could have fared as a driver in today's racing. You're still involved in motorsports. You're still, you're working with, do you still work with Stewart? Yeah, a little bit. on his stuff.

A little bit. You work, I mean, it seems like you're working. Yeah, Stuart freezing. Stewart freezing. You're working, you're working, we tried to, I tried to hire Stewart this year. Keep trying. I know.

He is a little shoe, man. The boss wanted to come with me. His mom just passed away Monday. They sat down and maybe talk to you about that. I want to, we had some opportunities to get, uh, with some open races in the eight car for Xfinity and I talked to Stewart about that, but nothing, we couldn't get nothing put together. Uh, how many different teams are you working with right now?

Can you even count them? Yeah. I'm working with a guy. guy Jim Weber with some Senator stuff. Yeah. And that's a pretty good deal. Probably bring Jimmy Carter in or maybe Stuart in a few races. And that's asphalt? Yeah, all asphalt.

Yeah. Your own asphalt strictly now? Yeah. No, I go to dirt. I go to the big block dirt. I go to the middle town. My boss owns all that. Okay. And we go up there. I mean, New York, it's like incredible with a bulk. I don't know. It's like New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, wherever it's only raced up for

five seasons. It's incredible. The fans are there. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Sounds like you're still running. When I first went back up there, I walked across the racetrack, and I don't know anybody. And I got to the bottom of the racetrack, and it was 15 people in one of my autograph and said, you've got to be kidding me.

How do these people even remember me? They don't make sense. Everybody remembers you, man. Yeah. But it's just crazy to be gone that long walking someplace. You've never been gone. Everybody still remembers who you were. Where do you live?

I live in Ohio. I live in Cleveland, but I went there and put some race teams together. It made event cards for Brian Short and Jimmy Carter. And then I went to Tom Ferris with Scott Baker and put three teams together there. Then I put another team together over in Pennsylvania with a Seneca car. Then I got to Dillow in Illinois, and I got all that stuff going on in New York State. But I'm excited about the movie. I want to do a movie.

So you're making a documentary. Tell us. The documentary is real close to being done. Really? We worked in it all last summer. I'd seen the Rough God over. it. It's incredible how they move stuff around. Is it similar to the book?

It's from the book. Okay. Yeah. So, all right. And so a lot of the names that we read about in here, are they in the documentary? Oh, yeah. It's like that documentary is, like we sit right here and talking. Yeah, whatever it is, I'm going to tell it.

Right on. Well, I want to rattle off some victories, man. 1968, Florida's Governor's Cup, 200 winner, 1976, Syracuse 200 winner, 77 Syracuse 200 winner 78 Syracuse 200 winner 81 Miller High Life 300 winner 1980 Snowball Derby winner 1980 Syracuse 200 winner 84 All-American 400 winner 84 world crown 300 winner 86 all-American 400 winner 86 All-Pro champion 86 snowball derby winner winner over 1,000 races feature events in his career Gary Ballou I've always wanted to talk to you to me you're one of the most fascinating stories in motorsports and appreciate you writing this book because I had,

they were a ton of holes to feel for me. And I know there's a lot of the people out there. And as curious about you as I am, they need to read this book, Hot Shoe, a checker pass, my story by Gary Ballou and Bones, Bouchier. How do you pronounce it? Boucher. Boucher.

I've always said, I'm North East Guy up. That's why everybody calls him Bones. Bones. He's one of the best. He bats. It's a real racing. I waited a year and a half for that. You got 181.

and trying to find a sponsor, somebody to help me with it. They Chris stepped up. Yeah. And I got with a little boy, and they were doing a contract, back and forth, back and forth. They sent me all the stuff,

but they can still contract in the envelope. So I just said, well, they haven't got it yet. And I waited, I waited, I waited, and I waited. Finally I called him, I said, where's the contract? He said, you got it. You got it. You're waiting on you. I said, I don't have it.

Oh, yeah, you do. I said, I don't have it. Well, meanwhile, Bowens had to do something. He took a job in California. Oh, I had to wait a year and a half to get him to do it. But I went doing that book without Boney and Bachelard. So my boss kept sending me Gary. There's other authors.

Just other people can do that book. I said, no, there's not. When we finally did that book and he was reading it as I was proofreading it, my boss does all the contracts. He said, I don't like to read, Gary. I said, okay. I'll send some chapters to me. He said, he called me up.

He said, holy Christ, what have you done to me? I said, what have we done? Oh, you know? Like, oh, man, what have we done? Yeah. He said, that's the best book I've ever read about my life. I can't wait to get home to read another part of it. Yeah.

So that was good. You know what I mean? It's such an education on racing. And that sounds so cliche, but I'm not a racer. I work for a racer. Yeah. A good one. And I learn about race cars in the ingenuity that can be applied to it.

It was unbelievable how much it educates people. And you don't have to be a racing fanatic. It's just, it's impressive. It's an impressive piece of work. He attached to me Christmas and said, you read the book. And I was elated. I thought, ah, that's not, Jr. really. And then he said, the whole thing,

he patted some of his career out to my style and went, oh, my God. If Big E could hear that, you know, right? Then he went on and started telling me about the ingenuity and what the cards and how sanitary of the cards were, including they were. And that meant a lot to me to hear that from him, you know. Well, I appreciate. Because he has got there and he has made it and he has done it. He's been okay for himself.

Yeah. I was, I'm glad I got to learn all about you. There's so many layers to you. Couldn't add. Yeah. Well, they all tell a story and they all have, there's lessons in there. And I do tell, I tell my driver, I told Josh Barry, my late model guy that's out there, he's won 50 late model races and still racing today. I said, you need to read this book because you will be a better race car driver when you're done.

Like, the, because I'll go over to the shop, and Josh ain't going to be too happy about me telling him to this. But I go over the shop and I look at his car and I go, I know that you're not getting everything you can out of the body of this car. And he doesn't, he doesn't think, he doesn't think that. Half all don't matter. He doesn't think that it's important enough. And I want him to read this book.

Just need more. Smaller Red Shaggy need more. I know. I want him to read this book because I feel like that, and I don't want everybody to read it because they'll make, you know, any of the guys is racing. against at least. Because I do think that if you read this book, it's sort of a manual on creativity and an approach

that all short track racers should have. So I know I'm curious about the wild, crazy outlaw part of your life, but there is an amazing amount of information for racers in here. You got the documentary coming out. I can't wait to see it. I can't wait.

I've seen some of it. I'm amazed. I'm amazing. My boss is three times. He told me over the weekend, oh, my God, I'm a God. Yeah. To get that was good out of him, it's really hard. Yes, sir.

You know what I mean? We all sit here every week on the show and talk about racing because we all understand racing from different levels, especially Mike's got the PRN. He's got the driving in and growing up in it. I got the growing up in it. But I don't understand things like what it's like to serve time. Oh, horrible. And I want to hear from you since you're a racer, and I can identify. with you and he can identify with you.

I really want to know your words. You can do it in that mic there. What it's like to serve time? Because I don't understand that. Well, it is so hard to have somebody tell you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat, and lock you down,

and you can't watch it, and you can't do that. It's incredible that way. But my first deal was you have all your family. And it's like you can't keep in your mind, and survive prison and time and try to keep your life going with your family. It's so hard. It's so hard.

I mean, it just, it's like it takes all that away from me. It takes them put you over here someplace away from everybody and everything. It's brutal, brutal. And then when they drag you someplace on a writ because they want to re-indict you and they drag each every crap hole they can drag you to, that's what you really know

what they're doing to you and where you're at. I mean, the worst thing in the world is to get involved in a situation where you're ever going to have to do any of that. I mean, what I would do to change that. I mean, yeah, I've had some nice stuff, nice boats and planes and cars and race cars and homes. And did a lot for my family, my mom, my dad, and my brothers and my in-laws and my children for school and this and this and that. But it's got to be a better way. And the better way was racing, I just probably got impatient because I was going to get there. but it was also for some money that was in the background.

And you see all that, and you just, you get tired of being without and doing what out and struggling and struggling and say, get tired of your knees bleeding. So you take that chance. Well, it's like to me, I started with a hobby car, and I got to a late model car, and I got to sportsbook cars, and finally you get the comp cars. It's ever-od spread cars and midgets and a little bit of everything. You know what I mean? I've won him most of it.

And so you get involved in that, and then it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I was real careful not to get myself so involved that I had to do anything, such as anyone in a mafia life. Oh, we can help you. We get you out of this, but you have to work for us? No, no, no, no, no.

So I was pretty fortunate I never got involved that deep. And the same thing with the Colombians. I mean, they're all my friends and they're family. They're really family, man. All you're going to do is do the right thing with them. They're not ruthless people. They're good people. but it's called doing what you got to do and do what you say you're going to do.

And my dad taught me at 11 years old treat people the way you want to be treated. And I've done my whole life that way. Sometimes that bite you, but the other side, that's the way I want to be. I mean, that's the way I've been and that's the way I want to be. Gary, I'm going to ask you one more thing. If you don't mind, just made you think of that. We talked about the first time you got involved in smuggling was to help sort of speed up the process of getting you into the cups series and affording that because it is a big undertaking financially what was the reason for the

second time once you and so when i read when i read about that it made me think wow i mean you knew the feds were watching you for four years in the 80s in the late in the early 80s the first time how could you even think about going back in there didn't were they not still watching you did they not like keep an eye on you even when you're out and you're done and you serve your time they do but they don't. That means they do, you know, with your probation and all that. I mean, I, when this all started, I did four years on a pill, then I did four years then, then I did five years on paper, which I was up here doing that. Then the second time, I got a seven-year sentence, and I did 68 months in, and five years on paper afterwards. So that all that up, it's about 13, 14 years. I don't

know. But why did you go in the second time? The second time, because my needs were bleeding. It couldn't get a sponsorship. I couldn't make no more. You're at the bottom? At the bottom, at the very, very bottom. And I went to bed and fishing. And you got to remember all them kids over there now have grown up. I made Christmas for all them kids. I load my hat or something, $30,000, $40,000 with toys that take over there and we have Christmas.

You know, and they needed bikes and they need this, they needed that. Whatever they needed, we figured out how to get it. Now they're grown up. They remember that Gary kept a spouse shut, grandpa, they call me. Yeah. He's our hero. You need to do this. You need to do this.

No, no, no, no. I don't need to do another. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you do one trip. One trip's all it takes. You're back in. You're in.

You're in. I'm going to tell you something. The only thing I've done in my life that was exciting as racing is smuggling. Shit. Oh, my Christ. Dale. But you can't he well. And I tried to get him to stop and not get him to stop and not get involved in what he got involved in.

He wanted to get involved in. He wanted to get involved in other stuff. Kenny, don't. I'm telling you, you don't want to get around them people. This is way different. It's like moonshiders. There are lots of people than people in heroin and meth and all that crap. Kenny that helped you build a Batmobile.

Yeah. What happened to Kenny? He got arrested. He did 10 years. But he got off into some of the other stuff. We're stuck. Dick Oak and they just gets out of control there. And you get dealing with people that are out of control.

Well, you know, so. apparently, you know, at this time in your life, you wrote the book, you got the documentary to come out. I'm glad that it's part that you're comfortable talking about that part of your life. It's fascinating. It's there. It's fascinating. And he mentions he paid his dues.

Like he doesn't apologize. He's paid, he's served his time and he paid your penance. Is that how you feel? That's how I feel. I mean, I'm sorry. I got involved for my family and my children, but. There was a lot of good to come out of that, too. Yeah.

You know. Thank you so much. Yes, sir. You're welcome. It's been a pleasure. It's been a privilege to talk. It's really cool, beating them and being around him a little bit. Yeah.

I mean, I've been at the racetrack, and I wanted to walk up and talk to him. But he doesn't know. Damn, I wish you would have. I'm not going to do that. I wish you would have. Well, thanks for coming. Thanks for coming all this way, man. I appreciate it.

I really appreciate being here on the show, with you and didn't have spent some time with you? Yes, sir. I want to go fishing. Let's go fishing. Let's go fishing. Hey, I'm going to do the Key West with you. Yes, sir. Yeah.

All right, let's do it. We'll get down there and just have some fun, man. Sounds good. Get on the boat. You're not going to go to the Bahamas, are you? You're not going to go to a Bay. We're going to check now. Here's what's going to save us.

The Keys from South Florida, go off to the west and off into the Gulf. Bahamas are over here now. We were down around a marathon. Maybe not a marathon is a little too far down. We've done some stuff in a marathon, but Key Largo is about what we need to be straight across. We got GPS now. So now we don't need a cup out. I love, I mean, there's a lot of stories we didn't get to tell today.

I'd love to hang out with you and get to hear some more cool stories. I want to hear you sing some more. Yeah, all right, we'll get enough beer in me. We'll do some karaoke. Yes, yes, sir. All right, man, we'll see you. All right, man, thank you. It's good to be here.

Okay, none of that interview was Bull, which is the perfect segue into our new partner. You wrote that. No Bull. Matthew wrote that joke. The new partner's no Bull. It's time to demand. more from your workout gear the way you demand more from yourself. No Bull doesn't believe in excuses or BS. Everybody knows what that stands for. And that's why you won't find any in their footwear apparel or accessories.

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Kind of like a race car, man. Stripped down all that unnecessary weight. Okay. The only thing that will make you fitter is you working hard day after day. That's it. No bull training gear is designed just for that. Products that perform with you when and where you need. them wherever your workout takes you that's it i'm excited i have a pair of these shoes a shirt and some

shorts coming and i'm looking forward to wearing also looking forward to working out in them if you're ready to challenge your gear the way you challenge yourself go to no bull project dot com slash dale junior today for people who put in the work day after day visit no bull project dot com slash dale junior and check out their training gear. That's N-O-B-U-L-L-P-R-J-E-C-T dot com slash Dale Jr. That's a spelling quiz. That's a lot of spelling. That's all right.

What was the most fascinating part of the story to you? My most fascinating part of the story to me is definitely the trip on the boat with the gas and almost, you know, the pump and barely making it back. the concealed compartment. And how the dogs even couldn't find it. That is innovative. And he applied the same innovation and ingenuity to his race cars, which explains, I think, which explains his more than 1,000 wins. I also found it very intriguing how when he was in prison,

early in his prison sentence, he could hear race cars at Talladega. And he had just been in that race. a few years. Seven years before, yeah. I mean, can you imagine? To me, there's irony there, though, because if you think about it, like, this is my biggest takeaway from the whole book. I thought it would be smuggling.

But just imagine in yourself the irony of the beginning of the book how he's standing on a roof and he's listening to race cars. And he wants to be inside that racetrack, you know what I mean? He wants to be there. And then all those years later, after being in the sport, he's then back on the the outside, laying on a cold jail cell floor here in those race cars. Oh my God, that like killed me, you know? Barry, it must, it seems like it's really got you. That affected to shit out of you, man. This is like, I don't know, you know me. You can call me a dork, but I'm passionate

as hell about, you know, you guys from up north. Your passion is evident. You guys, just a little bit. From your passionate? Yeah. Understatement of the century. Learn something, learning something new passionate, sensitive, all the above. I mean, remove your specific passion to racing for a second. Impossible. Where does Gary Ballou rank with people up in Pennsylvania and New York? Like, is he, I mean, there's Richie Evans. If you're not looking at like the cup guys or whatever, I'd put him with Dick Trickle, Richie Evans.

But it's like, I look at it and it's like, yeah, you look at his statistics and the fact that he drove dirt modifies and drove freaking everything, late models, Roddy Combs, you know, help them out, stuff like that. But think about it. If he didn't waste 10 years of his, you know, arguably 7, 8, 9, 10 years of his career, you know, being behind bars is what might have been. Or, you know, I think he would have been a Raymond Beatles car maybe instead of rusty or instead of maybe Tim Richmond. Yeah.

You know, and think about the trajectory that would have been there, you know. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was as good as dad, as good as Tim. In a general sense, he was as good as they were. Now, when, you know, we didn't get to see him go through 20 years of cup racing to see exactly the stats he would have compiled. But in the moment, I believe you could say that he was in the same mold as if you took Tim and dad and sort of clone their DNA together, that's what you get. You get here. Absolutely.

All right, time for Valve Lean DIY. Dale, a question coming in for you here. What's a time in your racing career? where you kind of took matters into your own hands and rigged something up or even worked on your own race car. Wow, I've worked on a race car for years. I've worked on my own street stock car, worked on my own late mall car for four years or so,

built Kelly's cars, worked on them, made duckwork, crush panels, battery boxes. I know you made something for your phone the one time when we were allowed to run with the phones in the car. We had a pocket. We just sold a pocket into the, padding in the doorbars and you could put your sunglasses in there or a piece of paper or a phone, I guess, when phones were popular. A walk man.

No. I used to, I did. I used to listen to the music sometimes back in the day when we were testing at Daytona in the winter. You're running by yourself. So you have to run by yourself. So you go out there and you get in line and you wait your turn to go. And it would be a long line of cars sometimes. And it'd be 40 minutes sitting in that line waiting on your turn to go.

go. It's not bad. Seats comfortable. It's not hot. Just quiet. So I would get one earplug for music, run into my phone or my... What tunes were you listening to? Then I would have the other earplug listening to Tony Jr., whoever telling me, hey, man, it's your turn or go after this car that goes by. You don't want to pull out in front of somebody. I listen to all kinds of music

You get asked what kind of music that you listen to It depends on the day, right? Yeah, everybody listens, I mean, I want to meet someone who listens to one specific kind of music and that type only. Boring. Yeah. Is anybody in the room like that?

Leah? No, I know. I would have pictured that Leah would actually be that person. I know you guys are getting ready to go there. No, I have a, I mean, I go from like Prime Country to serious XM fly like next to each other on my... What's fly?

It's like old school like hip-hip. Oh. Fly is old school? X-M fly? I don't even know the X-Im names of the stations. Prime country's good. I do, I stream Pandora and Spotify. But my habits are, I'm like six months on this.

Could be alternative country, old rock, whatever. I'm listening to that for six months, and then I transition back to something and over to something else, and then I do rap for a while. I kind of, and it's just this sort of cycle than I'm in. but so I don't even know what I was listening to back then whatever back when we used to work on the cars if you're wrecked was there ever a time where you just like when you got out of the car you're just like

give me a jack and you start working on your own crap that you remember hmm I mean I don't know I've when I've very slate models I was the only one well I had Wesley Cheryl there and a couple of other guys there but yeah I mean I worked on my crashed cars I mean you know fixing the front of the car putting fenders on it nose on it put it cutting the hood all those things. We didn't want to do it as well. We didn't want to do it too often.

But we did. I could see the smoke. Yeah. You know, I think the toughest thing for me was painting. So if I needed to put a new fender on my car, so when I worked on my late models, I was sort of fitting into whatever available space was around the shop. And there was a dad's Xfinity team with Tony Sr.

They were, you know, they had Jeff Green or somebody driving the car at that time and they're the they're the deal you stay out of their way you don't use any of their stuff i don't care if it's a roll of tape you got to figure out you know you got to ask for it borrow you know you don't just go and grab and i tore an off my car and i needed to i needed to i had a fender i needed to paint it i had no idea how to etch it or prime i didn't know nothing about painting mixing paint or whatever but i asked enough questions to try to do it myself and i think that was probably the toughest thing because I could make a court you know I could put it on the car I could cut and fabricate I could bolt weld I could do everything but the paint is something that I never really

put a lot of time in to learn and that's probably the that's probably the one thing that I'm most or that I'm least fluent in is is priming painting mixing making it look good so that was that was an experience trying to you know when you have to put on a new fender a new door or something on the car you know, getting it looking good, getting it matching. Because you got that car and I had a white car. You run that thing two months. That white's a little different color. It's not exactly the way it was and it come out of booth.

Put a new fender on there. It stuck out like a sort of thumb a little bit. You did it though. You got it done. That part I probably didn't enjoy that much because it was a lot of cleanup too. You got to mix it, paint. Then you got to clean up the gun and get all your crap out of the way for the next guy coming in to paint something else. All right.

From high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wear film to newer engines that have carbon buildup. We know how much we hate carbon buildup in here. Head on over to valene.com slash dale to find the product spec for your engine. All right, nationwide white flag. Keep on the bud. White flag right there, white flag. Leah Vaughn's debut. That's me.

That's me. Awesome. So Mike stepped out of the studio here, so we're putting white flag on your butt. All right. nationwide white flag here we go um dale you're on vacation this week so enjoy that i am set a surprise to you that's nice uh we have some new reviews on apple podcast that i thought i'd share with you guys today the first one is from s f o lynn and it says i was never a dale hard and could often be quoted saying he could only drive at plate tracks or up high against the wall

but after he was married dale junior began to open up more and show us his personality and i began to respect him more. When the podcast launched, I became a diehard listener and fan. I enjoy his insight, his respect for the history of racing, and the stories from his life and behind the scenes. The download goes to the top of my podcast list every week, right behind door bumper clear. Oh, that's funny. Here we are. It's like pumping the tires. I know. They are out of the same stable. It is some healthy competition. What's good for them? It's good for us. What's good for us? Good for me. Who's this person's name? SFO Lynn.

Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. Our next one is from American Diamond, and he says, this podcast is easily one of the top five of all podcasts of any subject. Dell Jr. is a pro. Ila is ready for a little brother, and Leah needs a raise. Anyway, is that from Leah? I mean, that's what it said on Apple Podcast.

He has a burner account. Yeah, right. That's pretty funny. All right. Just a reminder that Driven to Give Gloves campaign will be underway soon. There are 55 drivers participating this year. The gloves will be autographed by each driver and Dale Jr. The auction kicks off on July 12th and in July 19th.

So get ready for that at NASCARFoundation.org slash Dale Jr. All the proceeds go the Dale and Amy Earnhardt Fund at Nationwide Children's Hospital. All right, Dale, odd history? Yeah, man, we've got some odd history for you. We're headed off to Kentucky this weekend. The Bluegrass State has produced many successful NASCAR drivers and industry folk and some infamous people, including the notorious J.D. Stacey, boy, do we know about this guy? In early 1977, the Kentucky Cole millionaire bought the K&K insurance team from Nord.

How do you even pronounce that? Krauskoff. Krauskoff. All right, so you remember the Orange 71 with K&K insurance on it? Well, that was team he bought. Very successful team. Bobby Isaac drove for him, Neil Bonnet, Dave Marcus. He was convinced to do so by a friend.

That friend happened to be the team's crew chief, Harry Hyde. Neil Bonnet had been driving the car and stayed in the seat. He switched numbers from 71 to number five. And by the end of 1978, it was reported that he'd stopped paying his employees and had angered so many people that he was the target of an assassination, assassination, assassination, a shashination attempt. Somebody tried to kill this man. In November of that year, 10 sticks of dynamite,

were discovered underneath Stacy's Cadillac limousined at a Concord, North Carolina motel. Stacey admitted it was the second time in six years that someone tried to blow him up. I mean, no big deal. That's just whatever. All that. Investigators were unable to determine who attempted to kill J.D. Stacey. Stacey actually left the sport in early 1979. He was actually sued by Harry Hyde.

Two years later, though, he bought Rod Austerlund's team. That happened to be the team dad had, was driving. driving forward, won the championship four in 1980, and returned the NASCAR ranks as an owner. During Stacey's NASCAR tenure, his drivers included Sterling Marlin, Farrell Harris, Neil Bonnet, Joe Rutman, Tim Richmond, and my dad. So he would put his name on all the cars. They were like at one point in 1981, J.D. Stacey had his name on about eight different damn race cars. It's crazy.

Probably all his checks bouncing all over the damn place. His plans for his second go-around in NASCAR were to run a five-car operation, so he called his company the five racers. Dad had a falling out with Stacey quite quickly. And that grand idea for Stacey to have type five teams never materialized and his own personal team. So he put his name on everybody's car, but he had only the one car. Seast operations at the completion of the 1983 season. Boy, there's a lot more to old J.D. Stacey than that. But assassination.

Holy crap. Dad got the hell out of there as soon as Stacey bought the team because he's a great friends with Neil Bonnet. Neil Bonnet had a lot of dirt. He said, you don't want to be in business with this man. So that's it, boys. I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I enjoy Pristineauction.com. You knew it was coming.

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All bids start at $1. The authenticity of these items is the biggest thing. I've signed for Pristine. That's why I know they're legit. Every autograph on there, that's the real deal. There's no fakes, no phonies. That's my favorite part. Dillner, what did you spot before the show?

It got you so excited. Yeah, I saw the boys at BBC. They were getting some cool stuff. T.J. got a Buffalo Bills helmet. I figured I'd look at one of my favorite teams, the New York Islanders, and I saw a really cool Johnny Boychuk's sign jersey for only 20 bucks. He even said Johnny Rocket on that. I thought that was cool.

Yeah, it figures you'd bid on that. Just go check out pristineauction.com now. It's free to register, free to bid. and of course you only pay for the items you win. That's pristine auction spelled P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-Oction.com. And when you register, please select Dell Jr. download podcast from the drop-down menu in the How Did You Hear About a section that lets them know that we sent you. We had a great show.

Hope you have a great week. This bit of bad assery was made by Dirty Mo Media. Dirty Mo!