The Dale Jr. Download - 271 - Matt DiBenedetto: Racing For My Life

Episode Date: August 26, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns to the studio in this packed episode and gets deep with NASCAR racer Matt DiBenedetto.  They talk about why it's ok to call him Guido, his uphill fight in the Cup Series, the dumbest thing he's done in his career, Ryan Newman costing him his first win, losing his ride with Leavine Family Racing and what the future holds for this relentless athlete.  Steve Letarte drops in to give a movie review after taking heat for never seeing Days of Thunder.  The DJD dives into the junkyard for a man-cave idea, noodles a 24-hour NASCAR race, chats Darlington throwbacks and why there was never a 13th Annual Southern 500. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. We're excited to be with you today. Also, I have Michael Patrick Davis here with me, my co-host. Producer Matthew David Dillner. I need to start calling him David Dillner. That really rolls off the tongue. Dave Dillner.

David Dillner. Damn it, David Dillner. David Dillner. And our social media expert, Leah Marie Vaugh. T.I. Leah Marie. That's a nice day. Is that what your dad would say when you got in trouble?

Lea Marie? Oh, yeah. I say that because when we named Isla Rose, I told Amy, I said when she's in trouble, you know we're going to say Isla Rose. Yeah. But any other day, it's Isla. That's what middle names are for. Yeah.

For just when you're in trouble. But only when they really connect. Well, like some middle, some first and middle names like, Michael Patrick. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of syllables. Makes me want to drink beer. Michael Davis in itself is just a common name. I wish they would have given me a little bit of more of a unique middle name. What would you prefer?

I don't know, like a gambler. Ulysses. All right. Well, anyways, we got a great show for you today. Matthew de Benedetto is on the show. We also have a movie review. Oh, that's right. That's right, man.

Let's get started. No, Lord. Lord. That was the way. And stop. No, dog. For children's birthday parties. Holy crap.

Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Del dude.

Oh, my God. That's perfect. That's awesome. Yeah. Sounds just like Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody. The boys wanted to welcome you back with, laughter. Hey, it worked.

That's good stuff. Yes, we're back. It seems like forever. Man, it does feel like forever. Yeah. I mean, it's actually been, what, a week and a half? You know, two weeks, something like that. But we do this show every week on Monday.

And last week we had to move our recording to accommodate some vacation plans that didn't work out. It didn't exactly pan out, did that? So it's just been a long time. It's good to be back in the studio. And we've got a movie review, so we talked about it on social media, but if in case you hit weren't on Twitter or weren't following along, I found out that Steve LaTardt had never seen Days of Thunder. Right.

And that in itself is pretty miraculous, but the fact is he worked at Hendrick Motorsports, who supplied basically all the race cars or a lot of the cars and technology, advisory, and every, I mean, they basically helped them solely make the movie. movie. It's about Tim Richmond-esque. It's sort of about a driver that drove at Rick Hendrickson and they modeled the owner and everybody. I mean the whole thing

is basically influenced. Yeah, you would think they play the movie at the employee entrance video. Like when they hire them, they probably play it, and then quiz them on it. Yeah, so we, you know, that makes it even more astonishing that Steve never saw the movie. He did start working

there after the movie was out. So he wasn't working there when they were making the movie, right? Does that make sense? It makes sense. So that was his excuse. Well, I wasn't working there when all this was going on, but still. It's still pretty fresh. I know, and it's a race. I mean, if you're in racing, I would think that you have

seen almost all of the racing movies ever made, even the ones about F1 and any car or anything else, even the bad ones. Right. So we're going to bring him in. He's actually went and watched the movie, and so let's get his review. Bring on Steve LaTart. Oh, here he comes

with us. He's got a star You got his aviator sunglasses. Don't be given me any. Oh, is this a TV? Is this a game show? Oh, boy, this is serious. So here's the rules. You hit the buzzer.

You hit the buzzer. You need a movie review. There's a lot of rules. That is not movie review music. That is game show. That was game show. Oh, I'm good now. They got me.

That is game show music for sure. What did you try to claim that was? There's all kinds of surprises today. We didn't know. of this stuff. See, you're playing to win these items on the table. All right, so we were just talking about it, introducing you. You hadn't seen the movie.

You said, though, you said, though, you had seen pieces, but never the whole thing run through, right? There's a lot of highlight reels, but I've never stitched them together in the order of the movie. All right, so, and you had, you made an excuse at one point that you didn't see the movie. You know, I wasn't working at Hendon Motorsports when the movie was getting made and all that was going on. I don't know if I made that excuse. Guess who? None of us were either. I don't think I made an excuse

I just never had interest enough apparently How is that possible? I don't know I connect the movie to Hendrick Motorsports It's so influenced by Rick and his company And they used all their cars The paint scheme City Chevrolete all that

There's so many connections to HMS within the movie It's clear now for sure Right? Yeah All right so as a man in motorsports You grew up in racing Your family was in racing Do you not seek out racing movies And watch all the even the bad ones like driven

Apparently not Because that one's not And I don't know that one either Well we need to make a list of movies That you need to see Before you take another step in your journey Fire off a couple Let's just see which ones he's watched

All right so easy one stroke race Nope God Steve You have to see stroke race I don't think I'm a movie guy That's all right Clearly You are of course you're a movie guy

Stroke race no Driven no You don't need to see driven Okay Stroker race Driven is a bad movie Okay, good. I could...

Six-pack. Nope. With Keene Rogers. Nothing. Nothing. I've never even heard of that one. Yeah, six-pack. Really?

No. My God. I feel like you've let me down all this time. We've known each other a long time. Don't put this on me. He let you down. How about Last American Hero? Never heard of that one either.

Those are three racing movies about NASCAR, stock car, that I would see if I were you, since you're in the stock car world. I got to start making some notes before. Everybody turns on me. You've seen Rush? No. Talladeganites. Taladega Nights, probably.

God, if that's the only one you've seen. I'm sure I've seen it. Don't worry about that. I've seen that one. I've seen that one. But I've seen that one. I'm sure of it. Yeah.

Rush is Opie. Ron Howard. Incredible film. Directed that. Oh, wait, wait. Wait, wait. I might have seen that one. Nicky Lauda.

I've seen that one. I know that was the name. Yeah, I knew that one. That's a great, great movie. That was a spectacular movie. Lamaz is an old. movie. Grand Prix. Grand Prix and LaMonts. I would watch both of those. I'm making my list. Well, Grand Prix's amazing. I mean, come on. That's a great racing movie.

Nothing. Santa. My goodness. I'm waiting for you to really make this list. The Santa documentary. Are you really going to make it? I'm making it. I don't know if I'm ever going to watch them all, but I'm going to make a list. You and your son could watch them together. This would be very educational for him. So my wife was really, she said she made my son watch Days of Thunder twice. Didn't know that I hadn't seen it. She was very disappointed. You're disappointed at me. She was married more disappointed than this table was. Wow. She was crushed. She said, and I quote, she goes, you know that's all about Hendrik, right? And I was like, apparently I didn't. How does Hendrick let you get away with that? Ray Abraham on Twitter was also very disappointed. He was. I actually am going to put it back on him. Like, I mean, shouldn't that bad part of my job? Like, you know.

That's what I think. I thought it was part of the entry interviews that Hendrick Motorsports employers go through. And it might be, Steve. I mean, you still probably, I mean, you still probably, I mean, You're just like, I don't need it. I'm Steve LaTart. I've gotten it. This is like the greatest. Hey. Hey. That's the greatest impression.

I was running a mean brim. Nope. They haven't running a mean broom. Mean brim at the time. Like, yeah, you didn't have time. You were the broom sweeper. You didn't have time to be watching movies. No, we were committed.

So you're here to give us a review of Days of Thunder. Your impressions after watching the movie. You know, it was a fine. You know, so here's the thing. I was tainted because after everybody heard that I hadn't. Twitter exploded and half the people can't believe I didn't see it and half the people were trying to downgrade the film. I know, I didn't like that.

I thought it was a solid enough film. I'm not saying it was a highlight, like it changed my life, but I was like, of all the, you know, apparently, so I didn't put it, it wasn't a documentary type level, right? It was just a somewhat fictitional kind of, you know, I thought it was pretty solid. I mean, it had real race footage

from real race tracks. Right. People were mad, they connected the wrong track to the wrong footage. I'm like, they're way too in the weeds. Like, the fact that it was real, cars of the correct era on the right race that was good enough for me yeah i didn't need a lot so i was good with it i was good with the whole thing right i learned a lot i put a few out like talking to a car totally real oh you do that oh yes you've talked to your race cars many times do you say a lot of i've got to give you an extra big no no no it's more what i've learned is he was talking and i more

was begging i think oh yeah i need you to turn the middle i just need you to be good through the Entry and turn the middle. Is this a conversation you're having in the presence of the car? Oh, yeah, no presence of the car. You know, there's a lot of times you're the last one at the shop. So much like here with the window, right, you see it out there? You go out and have a little talk with it before you go home. So nobody's ever seen you have a conversation.

No, you can't do the conversation in front of someone. Yeah. Do you have the conversation in your mind or do you say the words? Oh, you know me. They're out loud. I bet this has got to be on some security camera footage at HMS because they don't let it. They don't let anything slap for that Christmas party. Right.

You know they've watched it. There's somebody, Hendrick Motorsports, like, that idiot's talking to the car again. Yeah, right. Well. Okay, so you talked to cars. Talk to the cars. That is a realistic thing. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Right. What else? What else did you like about it? So, look, like I said, I thought the footage was good, but the cars were cool. I thought the whole, like, that's what I expect racing in that era to be like, right? Like, there wasn't a lot of, now I don't know about riding in the back of the trailer,

but driving to the racetrack, the guys at the shop. So I've been up to the single level shop forever. That was where Pov Hendricks shop was. And it didn't look exactly like that, but it was pretty dang close with a single roll-up door, the office in the back with the old coffee maker. That's kind of what it was. So picnic table in the corner. I mean, I was there firsthand.

So the barn in the movie. You know the barn, right? Yep. All right. The barn, I lived on Lake Norman, on Irvin Road, and it's a dead end road. and it's right across the street from Best Buy in Mooresville. Right, okay. Yep.

All right next to Best Buy, basically, is where that barn is. Yeah. Still today. Still today. So back. Right. When I leave here, I might go look for the barn. It's there, yeah.

If you're driving down 150 out of Mooresville toward Denver, urban road is on your right. We used to live down that road. Dad's first, when Dad bought his Lake House in 78, that's down that road. And across the street from, across 150 on the other side of the road, from Irvin Road, is the barn.

And while they were making the movie, I would drive my little S-10 pickup truck down Irvin Road and park in the field and sit on the tailgate and watch. And watch them film? Well, I wouldn't get close. I would be about 300 yards away. But they would light that damn barn up

in the middle of the night like it was daytime. Really? It was incredible how much they could, how they could light it up. And there was nothing there at the time. No Best Buy, no five guys. It was just fields. And it was not developed at this time.

And so I remember that being really cool. I'm like, in my mind, Tom Cruise was there every night. Obviously, probably wasn't even at the barn scene or around that spot shooting much at all. But I'm thinking, man, Tom Cruise and all those guys were over there. Big Daddy's and stayed at the days in. Robert Duval might have. Right. They might have.

But they shot there for quite a while. considering how much of that barn is in the movie. Yeah. But yeah, that barn, that was one thing that I'll always remember. Tom Cruise, I got to meet him. Okay. So at Dad's Deerhead Shop on the property at DEI, the original building that was first put there,

still there today, still the same as it was when Dad was alive. When he died, they locked a door. But we were in that shop. And Dad and Teresa and everybody's like, all right, Tom Cruise has come by. they want to talk to dad. And so, me and Kelly are standing there. Tom Cruise comes walking in.

Rather short fella. Yeah. Had some pimples on his face, but he's a lot younger back then. I just remember his face kind of being broke out. The details. I was 12. No, wait, wait, no, I was 18, 17. This is 92, 91.

I don't remember when they made the movie. 92? You would have been right 18. Well, this was before they even started making the movie. Okay. So I was probably about 14, 15. Well, if you were born in 74, if this was 92, then you'd be... Well, this was before they started making the movie.

Okay, you're right. You're right. You're right. I got you. So he comes in. I'm like, all right, he's short. Face a little broke out. Him and dad, he said, hey, we said, hey, it was very cool.

He walked into the dad's office. Dad had this small little office, and him and dad sat in there by themselves for over an hour. Really? Yeah. Research. Yes. and the rumor is that they offered dad or trying to convince dad to take the role of Rowdy Burns

I've heard this rumor before even seen the movie I had heard this so these are the facts I have heard before that they gave him the chance to play the part and he turned it down and he turned it down because he did not want to be the bad guy Real-life bad guy was okay

But the Hollywood bad guy was too much It was too much Thank you Dad I just don't want to come off You know intimidating anybody Dad went on to rebound with roles in basketball And

And the Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas Small cameos in both of those So he met All right we're going to take Who was giving him brand? advice. So I had heard that was the case. It was given the shot at the role. Wow. I'm glad that story came up.

Yep. So you like the movie. You enjoyed it. Listen, I gave it a solid B-B plus. Everybody loves talking about the... Everybody loves the scene about the drafting. What was your favorite scene? I think when he was talking to the car was my favorite scene. It's got to be it, right? That was hit for me. But I did put out there that the drafting scene, first of all, it's not sugar at Sweet and Low. You got to get your facts right if you want it's sweetened low packets.

And then I put down there very clearly that if every 18-year-old boy was explained drafting with that, we'd have much better drafters. Everybody would go to Daytona tell it. I'd be like, I get it. Now I get it. It's solid. That's why I told NASCAR Kazan, who was always dogging the movie, which surprises me. But I said, it's going to come back when the only realistic part that Stevie finds from

the movie is the drafting example. I also think, though, that we can, you know, listen, there's a lot. We can learn from that. Racing back to the yellow, when was that ever a good idea? Yeah. Right. Right. But that was realistic.

I mean, that's, I mean. I'm not saying it wasn't realistic. No, no, I know. But that's right. It's good to relive. I think everybody needs to go back and rewatch it. Listen, you know the thing about it that's 100%. I think it's timeless, right?

It's kind of time. Absolutely is. Well, there might be some unrealistic things, even they may have been realistic then. What I think it captures is the the personalities of racing. When I think of Robert Duval's character, there are people even today. today that it reminds me of that are in our sport. I mean, like, Pops. I was going to ready to say, all I could picture was Tony Urey Sr.

every time he had something to say. I was like, I feel like I've worked with this guy. Couldn't you just see Pops and you go into a test and then, you know, him going, his way, my way, and I was faster. You know, that would be a Pops line, wouldn't it? No doubt. I want to know, though, did people wreck rental cars before the movie or was this the green light that you could, like, tear up rental cars?

Well, that scene was. sort of off of, based off of a real-life event between Dad and Jeff Benign. But the truth of that is, is that the story is that Dad and Jeff Bedin took rental cars and wrecked them on the way to dinner. Because NASCAR Bill France was going to make them all go to dinner and meet. And so the rumor was that Dad and Jeff took these rental cars and got their banging and having fun, and by the end of the night, they're like, Ha-ha, back slapping and everything's great.

But the truth is that Rick Hendrick told me that that's not how it went, that actually they made Dad and Jeff ride in the same car to dinner. Oof, that's rough. Yeah. But they twisted it up a little bit for the movie because that's a better story. It's way bad. If they were to run together, it would have been not memorable at all, just a part of the movie. Someone would have had to write some creative lines to make that work.

I love that part of the movie. I do too. My favorite part of the movie is, well, there's a few usually it's all of the racing stuff where they're in the car the motor blows or he breaks the motor on purpose

you remember when he blows the motor on purpose right yeah yeah yeah and that might be from a rumor Tim Richmond's last race at Michigan he broke the motor and the thought was that he might have done it on purpose he was his very last race ever and that he was like you know what I've had enough had enough

and so all these, if you're watching Days of Thunder, any kind of moment like that in the movie is derived from a rumor or a story or tale of NASCAR's real history. So what I think is crazy is the things that I like are like no one else enjoyed. Well, talking to the car was one, but like the first test at Charlotte, just watching the laps at Charlotte, I was like, man, that's what, like, so I've been able to test it all these tracks. Everybody else only sees it on race weekend.

I'm like, that's what an empty track. Nobody there. Car making laughs. And the camera work was impressive to have this car. It could have been going 80, but it looked like it was running 195. So I thought that was pretty cool. I'm with you on the, there was a couple of parts in the movie that threw me, even as a kid, and even today, kind of threw me where I got, I sort of got disconnected, was where they mock get pulled over on the side of the road by the police officer. So here's the problem.

That's not a lounge of a truck where they were hanging out. that was the disconnect. Right. Like, you know, like, they're riding and they're going in and out of a door and they're all, and they're not shaking around. Like, I rode a truck before, man. You're not drinking moonshine. You're spilling it on your buddy.

Right, right. You're not drinking it. Right. So that was the only disconnect. That's the problem I had there. And you would never ride in the hauler. No. You would never ride in the lounge of the trailer.

Now, if they would have pulled over about a 1978 conversion van, 100% correct. Exactly. You would have bought that. You'd have been like, oh, the old Mark three. The old comfort coach. Yeah. See, everybody hanging out in the comfort coach. Now, maybe he could have had, they could have had the comfort coach van in front of or behind the hauler.

Then I would have been like, oh, yeah, I see what's going on. But when they're in this lounge, I'm like, wait, man, nobody, you can't ride in the lounge or the trailer? That never happened. Nobody ever did that? Right. Did you see the comment? Somebody said on Twitter, like, it's not realistic. You know, they wouldn't eat ice cream on the pit box, and I thought, you don't know, Steve LaTart.

He's very capable of eating ice cream. I did get a cup of coffee delivered about every 50 laps. So it's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same ice cream. Listen, I'm actually disappointed. I didn't think back then to have them bring me a coffee and ice cream. I feel like I really missed an opportunity. He loves ice cream.

Of all the inconsistencies and oddities, that was the one that they had a problem with. That was it. Well, I mean, and a number of other things. Now, listen, we have made long runs. That's really thick. That's not a stretch. That's not a stretch, right? We've made long runs at a Martinsville test because we're all too hung over to change stuff.

Yeah. Well, I mean, like. Your entire test. We're going to go. run 100. You say 100? A hundred. We got to make sure these brakes work. Yeah. I hear. I mean, listen, you know, paying to the pits during the 600 and you get people eating over there like it's a buffet. Oh, yeah. That pit crews, right. Oh, yeah. That bojangles boxes, man. They're everywhere. Right. The line back there. You got a pre-order. That's right. Now, you know, the driver getting out and fighting the crew.

Oh, yeah. That was very good. But that was funny. Although the wreck after the check, you know, put the tires on, it goes out and wrecks them. Yeah, I had somebody goes, that would never happen. And I was like, that actually happened at Michigan. Wasn't it you that got wrecked? I mean, they didn't go put tires on it, but it was the same thing. Carl Edwards went out there and door banged him as he's on his celebration lab. So some of these people, I think, that have problems with the movie, just haven't been paying attention.

Like, I think the movie's more accurate than the people alive. I never connected it, but I can blame Days of Thunder for that. I think so. Teaching Carl Edwards that that was okay. That was Tommy Ellis and Tommy Ellis and, and, Tommy Houston, I believe, that derived from at Martinsville. Dale Jarrett just told this story to me the other day playing golf. So a buddy of mine who doesn't know anything about racing was asking, like,

does it ever get crazy? Do you always go the same way? And he told the story, and I'm sure it way up. But basically four or five of them were racing for what was then, probably even Bush Grand National. And had some of them wrecked. And who was it? Tommy Ellis came backwards. Tommy Ellis got wrecked into one.

And Dale Jarrett said when he came off turn four racing to the check and here was Tell me Alice coming the opposite way. Oh. And he said, I went from trying to win to just don't get hit head on. Wow. Wow. So, listen, this has happened before.

To your point, all of these scenes are connected. Who was your favorite character? Oh, man, I got to take my... Robert DeVall? Yeah. Who's your second favorite character? The guy that played Rick. How about your...

Tim Dalyan? Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah, that was great, man. What's his real name? Nobody knows. Yeah, he's the guy... I have another.

And then the guy that played Bill, Sr., who was that actor? Oh, he's the old politician. That guy was pretty good, too, because he didn't have a big part, but, man, he sold it. He was a good bill. I've been in the trailer, never with Bill, but with NASCAR executives. I like the Rowdy Burns guy. Rowdy was great. He's the guy that's doing the promo.

Yeah, he's doing the NBC promos now. I thought he was NASCAR-ish and all that. He fit right in, believable. Wasn't it Buck? Yeah, Brotherton. Yeah, yeah. Buck was they were all pretty good. Buck was John C. Riley, man.

That's one of my favorite actors, John C. Riley. He is the man. To your point, there was some pretty good... Dr. Steve Bruill. It's damn nice to meet you, too, Cole. Rules, rules. Rules. I did not like the other bad driver.

Ross Wheeler? Yeah, I thought that was a little bit of a stretch. Too clean cut. Like, we jumped into the mid... We jumped the whole decade of NASA. You're right. Yeah. Right, like, if it had come out, 99, maybe, oh, I could totally see that.

But he was too much of a jump. I agree. I felt bad for Hardee's, because Hardee's has always had such badass race. and all of a sudden, Russ Wheeler. So here's my question, though. He almost reminded me of the blonde Russian from Rocky. I agree. Drago?

Yeah. He showed up and I'm like, what is it? We're going to take the clean cup blonde kid and make him the bad guy. Rocky and Days of Thunder. It kind of made around the same time frame. Yeah, it was sort of a trend. I didn't know if there was something I was missing. We got to get him watching another racing movie.

This is so much fun. I agree. I agree. It was a big day. All right, we're going to need a movie review on the, movie Stroker Race. Stroker race. So that's your next one to watch

and we'll have you back on to to discuss your thoughts on that. That's starring Bert Reynolds. I've never not liked the Bert Reynolds movie. I'll just go into that. So I have a lot of great movie quotes but no racing movie surprisingly. What do you mean? Like I've seen all the other ones. You want to like

you know the band. Like you smoke in the band you've watched it. Yeah. Animal House. He looks at me like, of course I've watched smoking. That's my point. I was crushed. I was crushed. So listen, so we have my own Tom Cruise story. So he came to a banquet in New York and sat at our table.

Because of the Jeff Gordon retirement. Was that it? Remember, he was the surprise. But I don't think Jeff had retired. No. No, it was another banquet he was there for a Jimmy championship, I think. Long story short, my wife is infatuated with Tom Cruise. And he comes to the table and he's super polite.

And he stands up. She stands up. It's very nice to meet you. And she's like lost in his eyes. And, of course, I ruined this because my wife's like, he's just, he's so engaging and he's so this and he's so that. And I'm like, yeah, he's an actor and a good one. And it crushed her.

She was like, I thought I had a moment. And now you're telling me he was just acting. Hold on. I think she's right and you're actually wrong because I think he is, I think he goes out of his way to be very engaging. He came to Fontana. I was going to say. So maybe I'm wrong.

You are. So 2008, I believe we went to Fontana. And I'm driving for Rick with Tony Jr. the crew chief and we got in a wreck Casey Mears spun out and some weepers and clipped the right rear and spun me in the wall and we went to and it rained to race out and we had to spend a night and finish

it the next day. So Tom Cruise was in the garage while we're working on the car and he had his son there with me but Tom Cruz comes over and he burns a hole in you when he looks at you. That's what she said. I thought he was trying to he's right. All right. I thought he was for a second he's trying to convert me over to

Scientology just just with his gaze. And whether or not he was trying, he is now a Scientologist. Yeah, right. Kidding. But anyways, he was a, uh, he was a, uh, he was very easy going and like just walked up and go, oh, man, tough luck, you know, we just started starting having a conversation.

I'm like, gosh. That's exactly my takeaway from that. When he came, I mean, he had his son there. Yeah. His son was about 12 or 13. And when Tom Cruise talks to you, he really connects his eyes. I mean, he really does. Everything Trish said is right.

If you're going to agree with her, I'm not going to back on. And then he introduces his son, which is a, you know, a really, cool thing to do if you're Tom Cruise is like hey this is my son 12 years old say hello right say hello son but i thought that tom cruise was a true gentleman and all that stuff i mean like he had a swarm of people of course rick hendricks walking around like i got two rock stars you know he said they're going i got dale junior i got tom cruise look at my life the only mistake i made the day is i was going to get a city Chevrolet hat and wear it in here there's one right there oh i could have worn it yeah that was also the first race in fontana where i've learned that

you could use the apron and turn three and four just for no, you know, I know that's neither here or another. Really? Yeah. That was the first time I ran the apron in three and four. I had forgotten that the Tom Cruise race was that race where you wrecked like in the, it was like the first 10 laps.

Yeah, didn't you wreck it at Rockingham and have to come back the next day to finish too? I don't remember. I don't know about that. I'm going to tell you something. You want to talk about the most miserable, miserable story of Dale Jr. Like the most miserable he's ever been.

I would put that Fontana weekend against almost any of them because he wrecked early. Then we had to stay. Just to be clear. So we had to start the race. If there was a plane, I'd have left. What's that? We'd have left if there was a, we weren't coming back to finish a race with a wreck car. That wasn't happening.

Like, I would have drawn the line. Why did we stand? Because it was back then. It was points, man. It was like third race of the year. God, that's right. Right. It's what it was.

Principle. Yeah. Oh, that was terrible. And the Daytona 500 is still king, even in the movie. There was a lot about the movie I enjoyed. I don't really have a lot of complaints. I was expecting to have way more complaints. It didn't change my life.

It was a quality two and a half hours spent with my family sitting in the living room. You kidding me? When I told Trish was what going on, she couldn't run Netflix a month ago. Now she's like Netflix Pro. Oh, it's right here. We rent it. Oh, yeah, here it is.

Everybody's sit down. Tyler came in the room talking, hey, sit down. We all sat there and watched Days of Thunder. Like a family. Yeah. Nothing like watching the drafting scene with your wife and two kids. I'm going to tell you right now.

Nothing clears up drafting more than Tyler, pay attention, Ashland, cover your eyes. That's hilarious. That's great. All right. Stroke race. I got my notes. Struck race, man.

That'll be the next one. Good stuff. All right, buddy. Thank you, Stevie. See you, buddy. Before we end this open segment, there's one little small bit of conversation I'd like to have. So throwback weekend coming up, Darlingson, right? And this, the throwback weekend obviously is what it is.

You know, we get a nod to the history of the sport. And when teams show up or they're throughout the months before the race, even, they're announcing their throwback schemes, and they're all. all over the board, right? They're from different parts of the sport, the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. There's no rhyme or reason to the time frame that these, you know, you see throwbacks from all types of NASCAR history. But the track is honing in on a specific time in NASCAR for some reason,

like the early 90s, right? Yeah, 90 to 94. Okay, so it's a deck, it's four years. Why? I don't know. Oh, wait, you're saying the theme of this year's throwback weekend is the early 90s. That's what you're saying. What was last year?

Do you need a theme? Was last year? They have a theme every year. I know, but do you need it? What was last year? 80s. Late 80s? I thought it was late 80s.

Are they going in chunks? I don't know. Because some guys aren't thrown back to the 90s this year, so it kind of doesn't make sense. I don't think it actually influences what people do in their paint schemes, but they're trying to encourage people to do it, I guess. You're looking for a reason. and we don't know.

Is that right? Because you're like, what's the point of it, right? So eventually we're going to get to where, like, at some point, it's not, you know, we're going early 90s. I guess next year will be the back half of the 90s from 95 to 2000. I don't know if they'll continue going forward, but eventually we've got to stop because we're going to not be a throwback last week. And then what happens?

I mean, what needs to be done here is Darlington needs to stop saying, a specific time frame, like early 90s. They need to stop and just say throwback. It's just a throwback weekend. Wholeheartedly agree. No, wait a second. Make that what you will. Can I just throw one little thing and play devil's advocate?

Absolutely. We need that. Darlington may be doing other throwback things that weekend that don't just apply to paint schemes. Now, I don't know that to be sure. I'm just throwing something out. There's got to be a purpose. But I'm saying is it, remember last year you went and didn't you do this like a Q&A with Richard.

Yes. Yeah, and I think that was themed around the late 80s, I believe. And so maybe it's something to do with their programs or their track activities, maybe show cars, maybe stuff like that. I'm just saying that maybe extend beyond just paint schemes. That's my only thing. My fear is that the throwback weekend to me belongs to Darlington. It should be at Darlington.

It should last forever. This should be the one week that we take time to remember and think. about the history and the legends, this should be what we do every year at this race. And I believe they should just quit with the particulars of, well, we're throwing it back to 1990 to 1994 and just say, you know what, it's just a throwback weekend. Make of it what you want. I got you. And enjoy it however you like, which people do. And I know the track's not pressuring people to enjoy it a certain way. But that little part right there just gets under my skin a little bit. I don't know why. It's probably one of them things like Matthew Dillner has those

little particular things that get under his skin. Right. No. Like when somebody doesn't go re-sign up for fantasy football and that just irritates him. Yeah. It's tradition. Eventually though, they're going to have to just go, you know what? Just reset the deck and start over. Yeah. I mean, it depends on what exactly they're trying to achieve on that. And we don't know the answer to that. But my question is, are they going to do the, you know what I love about throwback weekend is when they do the old. broadcasters in the booth for a few lives. But I just feel like when they do this, it muddies the waters. It makes it too confusing? It just might, why? What's the point of the going, what's the point of singling out those four years or five years there? Yeah. It kind of muddies the water a little bit.

Just, it's a throwback we can. Just leave it wide open for anybody's interpretation and, and call it day. Yeah. All right. That'd be that. Well, that was my own little piece of, that's the only thing I had to complain about today. Well, that's, hey, listen. Besides the fact of my neck is killing. We love, is your neck killing? Yes. What's wrong? Something. So you know how you get those little knots on top of your shoulder blade? I guess. Oh, man.

Yeah. Yes. I got one on the left that's been there for freaking weeks. Like a kink in your neck? Yeah. And it hurts so freaking bad. You need a back rub. Matthew, come over here.

Stop. So. It's unrelated to the plane crash in my lower back and all. It hasn't, I had this before that. And it won't go away. Like every morning I wake up hoping it's gone. But damn. I mean, getting out of bed.

It hurts so freaking bad. Man. Yeah. Just go to Cairo and get a massage, man. Well, when I had, my doctor told me not to go to Cairo yet. Oh, because, yeah. Yeah. Oh, but your doctor, I got you.

Yeah. I got you. Anyhow. By the way, I know this is unrelated, but the, I wish they'd bring Hobbs. David Hobbs. I'd love to see Hobbs back in the booth. Yeah. Only if he's in the 90s.

Only early 90s. I would love David Hobbs, 1987 to 1989. Only, only 87-89 hops. That sounded a lot like 82, David. Just change that for us. Change that little to tempo is not right. We saw, if we're still talking about this real quick, I saw you had, do you want to talk about who you had in the shop just a little while ago?

Yeah, so we had Norman Negree. He came by. He's going on vacation. I got at my hand here. My throwback car for Darlington is a car that my dad, Dad drove in 1975 in his first cup race at Charlotte. Dad borrowed the car from Ed Negree. It was a Dodge.

Ed's son, Norman, was around Dad's age. And Dad and Norman took the car to the racetrack. Ed basically said here, y'all can borrow the car. Go have fun. And so Dad and Norman went to the racetrack. And they were good friends, and Norman has a lot of great stories about dad. But Norman's going on vacation. He ain't going to have a chance to go to the race this weekend.

So he came by the shop to get a pick. on his cell phone with me and him in the race car. That's cool. So that was really neat to have Norman in here. Ed Negree was his father, and Ed drove that number eight in the 70s for NASCAR in the Cup Series. Very cool. That's a good story.

All right, guys, before we get to our guests, let's talk a little bit about Valvaline. Yeah, Mike, Vavilene is a great partner on this podcast. They've been for many years in my racing career. They're even a partner here for our race teams of junior motorsports. Right. Yeah. We're coming up on Darlington Race Weekend, which makes me think back to when they were our main sponsor on the 88 car in 2015. We ran an awesome Vivalene Throwback Paint scheme honoring some different, depending on who you like, the car could be referenced to Ron Bouchard's Vivaling car or Kell Yarbril's Vavilleen car, but those two very similar.

But throwing it back a little bit to the early 80s. They got amazing history. motorsports and involve some of the greatest names in racing, Unser, Foyt, Mark Martin. Oh, that's right. They've been a mainstay in the timeline of motorsports history, but a lot of drivers are sponsored by motorolds, but Vavilene, to me, is a little bit different, and that's because they're a true partner and always hands-on. That's the most important part.

They're hands-on and helping us make our engines perform better, and you want to know how they do that. Well, when I was working at Hintra Motorsports, they would send teams of people over to the shop to work with the engine guys directly, mixing oils together to create different various weights and so forth, determining whatever we needed for short tracks, road courses, especially restrictor plate, qualifying motor oils, whatever. Over the years, they've been able to develop the motor oil that would give us the power we needed depending on the track.

It's helped us perform and be great. That's why Valvillin is the only motor oil that I trust in my engines, and it's why that you should trust them in your engines too from high mileage rides that need that think anti-wear film to newer engines that have carbon buildup. Head over to Valveline.com slash Dell to find the product spec for your engine. That's Valvene.com slash Dell. Hi, I'm Dellenhart, Jr. Due time off is a campaign by Mountain Dew.

They want to empower people to do what they love, and they help remove those barriers to get in the way of their passion. Do the Do. In partnership with Mountain Dew, I'm going to give some of my employees DTO. That's due time. off and a thousand dollars to pursue their passions stay tuned and do the dude come on in buddy have to see even like driver intros there waving people evo come on in all right so he's in

the show he's in the house matthew de benedetto say your last name de benedetto de benedetto yep am i saying it right yeah you got it have i said it wrong i get accused of saying it wrong sometimes i will heavy i go heavy on the tease at the end of benedetto I've never noticed. It's always been good to me. All right. I've always wondered, is there a preference from the man himself? No, the only criticism I've heard from, I can't remember who would say they would say D. Benedetto.

I do that too sometimes. Don't do that? I don't know. I don't really care. You don't care? I bet you've heard people butcher it, though, haven't you? Oh, yeah. See, that's a good thing with telemarketers when they call.

Oh. Can I speak with Matt Dibonito? Nope. Sure can't. Never heard of them. And so you got on the roof of your car, Guido. Yeah. Right?

And so when I think of Guido, I think of Jersey Shore and Polly Dee. Oh, yeah. Is that sort of, what's, where are Guidosos from? Well, until that freaking show, it was, that kind of ruined it a little bit. But that was my grandfather's first name. Oh. It was Guido. So my father and his.

whole side of the family is full Italian. So Guido is a pretty common Italian name. It's normal. It's like, hey, Guido, what are you doing? And so that's, I'm Matthew Guido de Benedetto. My father's Anthony Guido. So your name is really Guido. Yeah, that's my true real name. I did not know that. Oh yeah. Why you're on the show, we're learning. So I thought it was a slang term. No, uh-uh. No, we're learning all kinds of good stuff today. Yeah. So it's my true middle name. Well, I'm definitely going to be more comfortable calling you that. Yeah, I know. Jeff Burton's like, man, call him Guido. Just call him. I'm like, no, I'm not saying that on national TV.

That's why I had to like explain. I made a video about it. Like, guys, this is my real middle name. It's okay. That's awesome. Oh, okay. That is cool. So the reason I brought you on this show is to talk about you being a filter time customer.

Yeah. Yeah, it's been good. Blake said it would give me a good run at Bristol. Yes. It was worth out. Yeah, it was pretty good. I just realized, Blake texted me, or Blake tweeted that on Twitter. He's like, awesome, filter time customer.

Right. Like, as a co-owner, a filter time, a business we started. And you and him are great friends. Yep. Actually, man, we got a lot to talk about. Obviously, you got a lot going on. A lot of ups and downs. Good things happening to you, but there's a lot of things, too,

that have been hard to swallow. We're going to go all the way back, all right? You started out racing. I think the first time anybody ever really kind of noticed you was when you got the opportunity to race at Joe Ging. Gibbs racing. You were racing a K&N series, am I right? Yep. Did you race their late model at all? No. Okay, so you went right in their K&N car. What had you been running before that? Late models, some limited late models, Hickory Motor Speedway, and then late models, Summit Hickory,

but then traveling around in the UARA Stars Tour series back then. Did some of that. Then that's when we quit as a family and sold all our stuff in 2007. Just got too expensive for us, sold everything, and then a team out of Asheville West Racing that Mark Setser used to drive for a little bit. They had way better equipment than what we had. And they were like, hey, we're on matting some big races. And then I was like, man, there's stuff way nicer. And they can buy new tires and everything. This is awesome. And we went. And then we're winning all races right off the bat. So you had some great success in that. And that's what got you the attention from Joe Gibbs racing. Yeah, so we beat the JGR limited late model team at Hickory for the championship,

and they could see we were kind of, you know, doing it a little underfunded stuff. So the word sort of got around. It's a long story of how it happened, but that was part of it. And they were like, oh, this is cool and got to know them, become friends with them. And then, Steve DeSuzza from JGR was at the track one time and saw us, you know, out there win. And so a lot of these little things kind of got pieced together where we built a relationship. And you got into JGR car and the Canaan car, you had pretty decent success in that. How come the relationship didn't pan out? What happened there?

Yeah, so I got a limited schedule of races in the K&N series, and we ran like, what, six races or something. We won, I think we won two of them. Led the most laps for the season, even though we only ran less than half. So it was a lot of success right off the bat. But I was really new and had no experience. Then the next season got to run six, six, Xfinity races and it was just really limited funding and you know back in that 2009-2010 range was a

tough time economically yeah economically very tough time so it just they tried still to piece together something for me to be able to run run some races and I'll be honest I wasn't mentally ready so this is in the Canaan or the Xfinity series you felt like you weren't quite ready for that just yet yeah I just just mentally wasn't prepared I was fresh off of like part-time late models, part-time few K&N races and then Xfinity. And you know how much the mental game is. I think I was just too overwhelmed by it all and felt a lot of pressure and didn't do a real good job and things just didn't work out.

We broke in a couple races. I'm like, what in the world did I do wrong in life for this to be going so south? And so I only ran just a few races within the car once every couple of months. It was just they were doing the best they could for me. Financially, you know, that was just I got to run a few races. But that was all we could do, and that was all, that was it. Yeah, so the Joe Gibbs Racing Opportunity, you're thinking, man, this is the best opportunity of opportunities and it's gone. What's next?

Yeah, I thought, I guess I'm done this dream, this journey, that's it. And I sat doing almost nothing for a little bit. And then that's when some, my friends, Adrian and Tanner and Tina Berryhill were, starting up their Xfinity team for their son Tanner a little bit, and they wanted to start and park a car too, just trying to do what they could as a family, make it work, get to the racetrack. So they asked me to do that, and that kind of brought me back in to racing, was starting parking their number 37, Xfinity car, and making the races, qualifying it in and some tough pressure situations and things.

And that's what led to getting me back in and doing these basically starting park things. I know it's kind of, that's been a sensitive thing to say or talk about it. I think it's open now. Here. This is a great opportunity for you to explain why were they doing the starting park. They did this as a purpose to be able to afford and fund their program entirely. So help people understand, like, what was the purpose of that starting part? Yeah, so they, you know, we're just a family team and trying to help Tanner, their son,

which one of my best friends, live out his dream, and try and get to race as well. And so them going to the racetrack putting me in, they knew like, okay, you have some experience, you can go try and get it done and qualify the car. And that's all my job was. Very limited practice, go out, qualified in the race, and that starting money would help pay for tires and such for them to try and race their primary car. Just a handful of races, the close ones.

I mean, it was a very tough deal. They were really stretching it, trying to make it work. So that's it, just qualified in and purse money. Yeah, and so is that similar to what people are doing today with starting parks? And you see, I don't even know what teams will be doing that, but somebody might have a starting park team, but that's supplementing some of the income on the other car that's actually going to run and trying to compete. Yep.

Yeah. So it's crazy the things that they'll try and do. I know it. All right. So what part of your career you think was the low point for you where you were just, I mean, was the, I imagine probably when the JGR deal dried up, that had to be pretty difficult. But what part of your career were you, like, least motivated to get out of bed in the morning? Oh, man. Yesterday was one of them. There's been so many. But that's the, in the grand scheme of things, the good thing, it makes me appreciate it. It has made me work extra hard and pick myself up, made me mentally stronger every single time. But I'd say if I've having to pick out ones was probably, after the JGR thing went south, I was like, wow, I wasn't ready. That's, this is, that's it. I had one shot. I'm done. So that was a tough one.

And when I was kind of sitting out doing nothing, I'm like, I have no skill sets, nothing. I'm not good at anything else. I don't like anything else. What am I going to do with my life? So that was just miserable on me and my family. And then picking out others, I'd say I got that opportunity at BK racing and that was good. And then got to go to go fast racing and that was neat. And then when I took the gamble and peddle myself last year and really wasn't sure if it was

going to work out. I'm like, did I work my whole life to get this far and keep progressing and then just to be done? And it's all over at this point. And I was, I was a really hard person to be around in it. It's a testament to my wife keeping me, you know, mentally going. You mentioned your wife. So how helpful has she been in helping you in those times? I mean, that, you know, I always say there's a behind every good man, there's a better woman or a great woman. And I know that you, you should, You know, you share her with the public a lot in some of your social media and, you know, and let us into your life a little bit and what you're doing. So how important has she been in that journey?

Oh, I wouldn't be mentally put together without her. It's, she is 100% my other half. So I'm a, I'm a tough, I feel like I put on a good, a good front as far as like keeping very composed and people thinking, I'm composed all the time, and I am. I'm a strong, really strong person. This journey has made me tough, but I think I put on a real good front that people don't understand what goes on in my, I'll give you an example of yesterday, even. But Taylor, how much she helps me to stay put together.

I wouldn't get out of bed yesterday. I was so angry at myself over the Road America race this weekend and frustrated that we threw away. You don't want to say an easy win. But by far the fastest car, yeah. It was like we were leading that thing. And we had the windshield wiper sticking straight out so I could feel that was hurting downforce quite a bit in things. And we had a left front tire issue because I locked it up.

And I was just riding at like 30%. And I'm like, we're still leading the race. This thing is fast. Holy cow, we slap some tires on, fix that. I'm going to try it 60%. And we'll still win. And I was like, it's amazing how fastest car is. And then when the pit stop happened and we lost a lot of track,

position and then made two mistakes, one on the white flag, obviously, but I'm coming through the field and still threw away what was my job to try and play catch up and get back to the front. I couldn't even, I wouldn't get out of bed yesterday. I was so angry at myself, which is the worst. You know, as a driver, when you feel like you let people down there is nothing worse than that. But she did nothing but pick me up, make me breakfast, but just trying to cheer you up. What is required to build you back up after something like that that happened yesterday? Just reminding me of like, hey, don't forget just a week ago, you almost won the Bristol Night Race, one of the toughest races. Like, that's no fluke.

And, hey, just remember that, you know, I don't think of these things. I just think of how I can be the best for my team. And I like to be perfect. And I don't want to let anybody down. She's reminding me of all those things. She reminded me of, you know, hey, just remember what you. you and that 95 team have built this year. Remember all these top fives and top tens you guys been clicking off.

That's not fluke. Everybody's human. You make mistakes, you know, and I, and that helped me, but I was still pretty hard on myself. Yes. What happened? Yeah, so. Well, basically what happened in the last corner. Yeah, so two things happened.

I'll sum it up. The pit stop had a hang up on the right rear, and we lost a lot of position. And I should have been more mentally, I didn't say anything. I just to myself was like so angry. And I feel like I didn't do a good job staying composed to myself. And I tried too hard. So I missed a breaking zone once and went through the dirt. And I was like, am I stupid?

Like I never do this. My number one rule on road courses, don't go off track. Don't blow a corner all day. If I do that, you run well. And I didn't stay composed. I did that. And I'm like, Matt, you moron? What are you doing?

You know? And then so then we still managed to come back. and drive to second. And I was so mad because we're flying. I get the second and I'm in, and bells right there in front of me. I'm like, all right,

well, you know, blew this one. And then going to the last corner, I'm like, whatever, we're second, just finished second.

This is the dumbest thing I've ever done. Going there in the 22, Austin Cindrick was on fresh tires, flying through the field because that place has turned into like homestead. It's so worn out. And I'm going in the last turn. I'm like, okay,

he's behind me. Just make sure I don't crash in this last corner. you see how that turned out. I'm like, just watch my mirror, make sure if he's going to dive it off in there. See, he was close. If he's going to dive in there under me, I don't want to chop across his nose and spin out in the last corner. So I just peek up in my mirror. I'm like, okay, I didn't drive in there hard.

Just drove in there too high, got the marbles. And just spun by, like, okay, I don't want to crash. And by intending to not crash and not do something stupid, I did the dumbest thing I've ever done in my whole career. Like, ever. Wow. Yeah. But everybody's done something dumb. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's just a part of it. It's growing. It's going to make you better. It's, for sure. It's a... It stinks because it was just a few days ago. Right. Yeah, yeah, it does.

It does. I will... You got any stories for me of things that embarrassed you before? Hell yeah. The one thing that I would say is that, you know, when I would do something bad or something bad happens to me or I made a mistake or whatever anytime, even if it's not your fault, is to think about... Think of something that you did five years ago, ten years ago that was awful, where you wouldn't want to get out of bed. the next day and how you're over that, how you're past that, how that's not affecting you today, how that's not controlling the decisions you're making or what you're doing or where

you are or who you're with. And think that this same thing will be a distant memory. And it won't be affecting your day five years from now. It won't be affecting what job you have. It won't be affecting people you're around and just try to remember that. Like it's going to suck today. It's going to suck for a few more days. But in weeks or months from now, it won't be the most important thing, you know. It won't be the one thing that's really, there'll be something else. Yep. Driving you crazy. Yep. You know? Oh, true. You were talking about how you bet on yourself, you know, took a risk getting out of 32, and I wanted to get you to explain that to us because I just have, you know, we basically have the general idea that you're driving this 32 car for

go fast. You'd been doing that for a while. You had been working hard. And the perception was that you were making you and other people as well. I'm sure you'd credit a lot of people on that team for y'all's progression. But you were improving that team from where it had been once you got in it, right? And that's been kind of your M.O. Much like a Kurt Busch or other guys, you know, everywhere they go, things get better. And it's a combination of them and their ability to communicate and the people that they surround themselves with. So you're doing that with this 32 car.

And maybe you got to a point to where you're thinking, you know what, my time's running out, I'm getting older, I think I've done everything I could do here, I don't want to keep doing this, I'm plateauing, whatever, and you decided to quit that job, right? The idea and the perception is that you quit the job without any other job, right? Yep. So there was no phone call to 95 or nobody calling you. you just got you said i'm quitting this job yep and there was no job opportunity line zero how why in the hell why in the world would you do that yep so this is one of those other mental battles and struggles where i mean i couldn't even i couldn't eat for like weeks hardly i was so stressed trying to figure out what do i do because i i got to a point where like you said

all the organizations I'd been lucky enough to go to and surround myself with the right people because you're only you're only as good as people you got around you. I'd gone to and improve. That'd be my job and goal. Build the right people and let's improve this organization. So I went to GoFASS, you know, BK, we did it, go to GoFAS and took them from where they were running respectfully. They wanted to get better.

They knew they were running in the very back and they were like, we want to get better. The very back. Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, they were just struggling and we went in there and saw There's just a lot of things that need improving on their team and people. And so we kind of, I had a good group surrounding me, and we kind of went in there and tried to help it and fix it. So we did that, and I did that in 2017 and major improvements. And then 2018, you know, do it again. And, you know, what did we get?

We got some top tens and a bunch of top 20s and just running real good for the equipment and the budget. But then it got to the point where I was like, man, what would I do next year? Like, you know, they're a small team. And they're not going to spend more money. It would be millions to even, you know, get to the next level. And for me as a driver, I'm like, I have nothing else to prove or do here. I feel like I'm maxed out.

And I felt like I knew, especially from talks I was having with people and Ford at the time and folks trying to push. Like, hey, I want to get a better opportunity. I want to, you know, drive and try and improve a bigger organization. I was getting like, oh man, you're doing good, just keep doing what you're doing. And I was like, all of a sudden I'm like, this is what my, this is what my past is going to turn out to be forever. And this isn't what I worked since I was a little kid to do. I came here to win. And so that's when it finally became clear to me of like, I can't do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

I was lucky to do it for those two years, but I felt like I tapped out. And that's where I was like, all right, well, either my career is going to go this path and fizzle out and I'm going to be done, or I'm going to take the biggest camel of my life and make sure my wife's okay with it because she's, you know, in this journey too. What did she say when you came to her and said, I'm going to opt out of this opportunity and hope for something else? She was 100% on board. What if you didn't get another opportunity?

What were you going to do? So the way that I coped with this is finally one day, I swear to you, I woke up one more. I'm battling this in my head and like, how am I going to live? I mean, I'm not financially set on this stuff. how am I going to live if this doesn't work out and whatever and then finally one day I woke up and was like you know what shoot we've been through so much trying to dig and you know get to where I am and my whole dream is to win in the cup series that I can live with myself if it blows up in my face and everything fails I can live with myself knowing I went all in and gave every bit of my heart and I can't live with myself I won't ever be able to live with myself if I know that I took any sort of a safe route to collect a paycheck and keep on digging, and I took that path. I would much rather have known I laid it all out on the line, and it blew up on my face,

but at least no and not question the rest of my life, man, what if I did do this? Maybe I could be out there winning, and that would eat me alive more. Sure. Well, you said you didn't have any skill sets. Did you have in your mind like a B plan or a C plan on, man, I'm going to get this job or I'm going to try to do this? You were going to be a physical trainer? What are you going to do?

dude, I've battled that. You didn't have that. You didn't even think about it. But those thoughts had to lead to a possibility of something. Like even if you didn't have skill sets, what were you going to pursue? You would have to do something, right? Yeah, man, I have so many limited things. Motivational speaker.

Enjoy. Financial advisor. Man, I think about that all the time because you wouldn't be human if you didn't think about what am I going to do. You have to. But I would think about it and never really come up with any good conclusions other than maybe like, oh man, I like physical fitness and stuff. And I've helped a lot of people.

I enjoy helping people with that. So maybe. But it's just, although I love it, it's not my, what I live, eat, sleep, and breathe. You have to be pretty hardcore into it to do what you've done as far as transitioning yourself physically and a much more healthier person. I care about my health, but I'm not out there blowing up. Matt D. Benadetto. Yeah, he's swollen. Yeah, he is.

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The rumor is you were not the first option for that team. They were looking at another driver. How did all that work out? How did you end up with that chance? And how long did you go? Everything he said, plus what was the time frame from you not knowing to knowing? Oh, I'd have to think back. It felt like an eternity.

I'll tell you that, just because it was a miserable, probably like at least a month and a half. Are you calling teams? Are you ringing up the phone going, hey, man, I can make your team better. I'd love this opportunity. Anything there? You're handing out your resume, so to speak. Yep, absolutely. Did you call them?

Oh, yeah, I'd known Bob Levine and his wife, Sharon. And I built a good relationship with them and became actually friends with them. But I would bug them all the time. Every year I'd bug them like, hey, you want me to come in there? But they got Casey in there and driving. And so I still, I didn't know. Nobody knew at that time if Casey's retiring and all that. And I knew actually when I pursued them.

So I said, all right, I'm leaving my deal. All right, time to network and keep pushing. So I talked to them. And that was at the time when they were trying to get Casey, a two-year extension. That was the talks they were having and I'm like, well, crap. I guess that's probably not going to be an option for me. And so I was pursuing everything else, talking with folks, and I got one that I'm not bitter about. I hope this sounds okay, but this was a good thing. I was talking to somebody, a manufacturer and got told I was too much of a gamble and like stuff

that really lit an extra fire under me that I needed. And was like, you know, what? I'm going to prove them wrong and make them eat those words. Respectfully, they're great people. So that helped. But yeah, I had nothing. No clue. And just working and getting a lot of nose. So they called you and eventually said, hey, man. I was pushing and calling them. It's when Casey retired. Bob laughs. He was like, it was the first person to walk straight up to me at the racetrack that weekend.

And it was me. I go right up to him. I was like, you need me driving for you, Bob. I will come in and we will build this and we'll help. You know, you've put a lot into this sport. You've spent a lot of your own money. Like, you know, let's build this and improve this team and program and all this. And yeah, I wasn't first option. They were talking with Daniel Hemrick. And that was, I think, an option for him to go there.

And it was, I think, almost done. And I'm like, oh, and I was pushing so hard, blowing them up every day, all of them on the team. Every person I could, you know, Jeremy Lang, the general manager, Michael Levine, competition director, Bob, I mean, anything, emails, text, phone calls, all of it. Meeting with him. I met with Jeremy. And he was nice enough to finally, I bugged him enough to sit down with me. I was like, just let me, you know, go to lunch with you. What's your, what's your spiel? You're going to lunch with the. Oh, yeah, what's your pitch? Yeah, what's your pitch? It was a history of going through every organization that I've been with and explaining how much I live for this stuff.

If you take me on, you have a driver that lives this stuff 24-7, that will reflect on your entire team and organization. I will make my whole team bleed for this as well. And that's what creates a team where you go out there and you kick some ass and you make the most out of what you have. And then giving examples of each organization I've been to. I was like, I haven't had the opportunity. I've been lucky to have those opportunities, and it's taught me everything I know being in, you know, subpar equipment and with family teams, and it's been great. But I need that opportunity to let me go and show and let's do the same thing at a higher level.

And I pushed in Bled, and I still felt like it was not going to be enough. I was like, man, I'm not going to get this deal. I don't, and there was no other opportunities I'd gotten basically knows everywhere else. And I was like, man, is this going to be it? Had they said something to you that made you think that you were, a really good candidate for that? I mean, like, or did you feel like you were going to get let down? Or were they completely honest with you about this?

Because it sounds to me like, I mean, it was pretty clear that they had other options that they were pursuing. And people had been honest with you. Are they giving you a false read on this? Oh, actually, I'm glad you said that. So during this process, I'm talking with them. I knew they had other options, like with Hemrick. and then Bob called me, because Bob's a straightforward, super honest guy. And this is something that I respected, and you can respect, you guys can respect, too,

is I'd rather get told no and give an honest answer than nothing, or blown off. Bob called me, and he told me, hey, man, I think we got this other option done. So we appreciate you reaching out and your enthusiasm, but, you know, good luck. And I was, like, devastated. Another one of those times where I relied 100% on my wife Taylor to keep me just going mentally. I was burnt out and about done. And I couldn't even, I was at the racetrack and I felt bad because I was mopey and miserable. And I'm like doing everything I could to be.

I'm always want to be very nice to fans. I just had nothing. I was like a zombie walking around and I'd sign and be like, man, thank you. But I just, even Taylor could tell like, man, you've got to pick yourself. up and I kept trying, kept pushing, but I just was not myself at all. And then about two weeks later, two, three weeks later, I got a call back from Bob and said, hey, that thing fell through. He's going to RCR. And I was like, can you come in the shop? And I was like, oh, okay. And so desperate. He was like, when could you be there? I was like, I can be there in an hour. You just tell me.

That's freaking awesome. That is good. All right. So, and then what was the deal then? Tell us the deal that and sort of give us the context of what your expectations were from that point on because this is stuff that we've had conversation now and we're getting into like the things and the people that debate one what was the expectation when you then got that right um well i had to go in there basically for a real i don't know interview i is the way that i looked at it but i knew i was meeting with uh bob jeremy and michael levin so i went in there and i and i knew that i think i knew and picked up they were still looking at another option i still wasn't like uh this is is it. I think Ross may have been on the list. Ross Chastain, per my understanding. And I think there's

still other options. So I'm like, I don't have this deal. Like, so I went in and I dressed like real nice and, you know, nice pants, shoes, shirt tucked in full deal. Like I'm like, okay, I'm going like, I'm going to a job interview. And I went in and afterwards they told me that that, just little thing like that, something like that impressed of them. They're like, hey, you don't need to, you didn't need to dress up as casual as like, no, dude, I'm interviewing. I want to drive for you guys. I'm trying, I will come in here, and I was very confident in my, I'll call it interview. When I went in there, I was like just extremely confident in that really meant a lot to them. And that's what got me, I think the opportunity, because there were still other options.

I was like, let me drive for you guys. I promise you to be the best decision you make. I'll come in here. I'm going to help, going to build and improve this organization. I don't care what you guys need. If it's two in the morning during the race season, whatever, I don't care. I will do it. I live for this stuff.

You're not going to have anyone more dedicated to me. and I was very, very confident in my interview and desperate, too. Desperate 100% and it worked out. Did you think it was a one-year deal? Yeah. So when y'all sat down and talked about it, Bob's, did y'all even talk about link to the contract or? That was funny too because that was real quick.

It was, yeah, I knew it was a one-year deal with the second year option. Okay. His option? Yes, their option. So, and I'm like, you know, I'm used to these types of deal. This is normal. For me, I'm like, all right, go out there, prove myself. That's what I do every year.

And I knew the situation. I knew Toyota was pretty full on drivers, too. So I knew what I was getting into. Okay, so even at the start of this year, you knew what potentially is happening now was a potential outcome. You've known this all year long. Yeah. Okay.

I did. I think I was partly lying to myself a little bit, like if I'm going out there and just performance, I'll take care of it. Yeah. Like, if I go out there, we compete for, for wins. Like, we did Bristol and get these top fives, top tens, like, it'll take care of itself. And then as it was going on, I'm like, uh-oh, it's not taking care of itself. We're running really well. Right. But I still might be in the same situation. My goodness. So how did you find out? I mean, did you and Bob, have a conversation, obviously. Yeah, so my contract had a deadline, which I was very appreciative for, if August 15th of they had to give me an answer, if they're picking up the option or not.

And they were, you know, working on whatever they're working on. And they knew pretty clearly, like, the thing I feared of more drivers than seats than the Toyota camp came true. And Bob spent a lot of money, you know, of his own money. He's got to do what's going to help keep his team going and be the best for them as a business decision. So yep, Bob called me again and said, hey, he's straightforward. He's as honest as they come and told me, we're not going to be able to pick up your option. And he explained the reasons why. And you could tell in his voice, it was really, really bothered him. So that's why I've tried

to tell people on social media. Like, hey, cut him a break. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, hey, if only people knew how much you could tell in his emotion, it wasn't like, hey, man, we're not going to be able to pick up your option. Sorry, it was like very heartfelt of you could tell how awful that he felt. And at the same time, how appreciative he was, that we together have built this team and improved it. Yeah. Who's going in the car? Do you know? I actually didn't ask. I think I would assume. Christopher? That's my assumption, but there's still a couple pieces, I guess. I guess. I wouldn't be surprised, I guess, if, I'm not sure where Jones and Bell rank in the ladder over at Gibbs and whether Jones goes in there or Bill goes in there. Yeah, I always.

go with the less I know the better so when I get asked I don't know if all right so how do you start the process all over again what is what is I think you were saying somewhere that you're not going to do what you did last year you're not going to go and hammer away and knock on every door and bug the shit out of people again uh is that right or are you still sort of bowling over your approach for this all season I think I'm trying to find a happy medium now because I've been lucky enough to have the stuff and people. You have a resume now. Yeah.

To do more of it on track, which is really nice. And you still got the rest of the year. Yep. So you're hoping that you're going to get more runs that are going to prove to people that, man, I'm a great race car driver and good equipment. I can do it anybody else here can do. What are you, like where do you see your opportunity? Everybody wants to see you succeed.

right and everybody loves your story they love your drive and they want as bad as this is for you to to not be able to continue what you're doing at the 95 team as frustrating as that is because it's progressing and there's more there and there's more that you could do with that team to continue to get better um they want to see you keep trying right and so I want to see you keep trying I do too all right so tell so tell me something that's going to give me hope Tell me something that, tell, like, Be our Taylor, make us feel better. Oh, man, it's, it's been another one of those tough situations.

One thing I did, I wanted to get my statement out there right away, so I asked permission of the team. I think they would have preferred. I waited a little bit, but I was getting hammered at the racetrack every weekend by every media member alive of, what are you doing? And I'm a real bad liar, or I'm just open book with people. And I was like, guys, I can't.

Like, I'm going to get asked this weekend. Hey, you're going to be with the 95? I can't be like, oh, I don't know. I mean, hell, they'll probably be able to just tell by my lack of enthusiasm. Or my, yeah, my emotion. So they were like, okay, and I sent them my statement. I just wrote it. I got on my phone and wrote the statement that I released.

What was that? Was that last, or right before Bristol? Right before Bristol. weekend you had that big long statement yeah yeah so i just wrote that on my phone right from the heart and was like i want to come for me and boom here it is sent it to them and and they let me put that out so i wanted to get that out and known right away and and i really emphasized in there winning i don't know if you kind of picked up on that that it was like i'm here to win i've worked my whole life to to win in the cup series and and basically the one thing i look at for hope like you're asking

that I bank on is every single time in my entire life, when we look at things that have devastated me, every time when a door's closed, a better one's open. And I hate to bank on that, but I believe in fate, and I believe things happen for a reason. And I'll continue to believe that.

But every time a door's closed and I've been through so many devastating times where I couldn't get out of bed and do those things or I put on a front and all that mess, it's always open to something better. and I look back years later, I'm like, man, I'm so glad that happened. And I'm hoping and feeling like this is another one of those. Some doors, though, might not even look like better doors, but they could be blessings.

You know, Martin Truex. Look at his situation. I mean, like, yeah, I mean, there's a bunch of drivers that have unfair things happen to them in this sport because this sport ain't fair. And they ended up better off. And I think that, like, I feel like that's where your story's going. I really do. And to answer Dale's question, I think what Dale's trying to say is the same thing I would echo and that is don't don't lose that um that emphatic selling of yourself now because that's

working for you man and we want to know we want to see that matt de vinedetto out there that's believes in himself and you do have the resume now i mean and i don't even know where it can i don't like explain bristol to us how did that happen how i think i think taking that same approach that you took to get that 95 car coupled now with these good performances Yes. Is a way easier sale. Would you take opportunities in a reasonable, decent Xfinity ride over racing in the Cup series? Man, I don't know.

I think I'm at a point where I just, you know, winning would be a priority. Over anything. That is. And beggars can't be choosers. And I have to trust the path. And there's a lot of things that happen out of my control. So I feel like I'd be a little silly looking back in my career and be like, I'll only do this. be like I have to so much has been out of my control.

There'll be fans that are curious. Taking it, take an opportunity on an even smaller underperforming team in the Cup series. I think that, just looking at my career and what I've learned, I think if I take a step backwards, it'll be real detrimental to my career. I'm a big believer in continuing to climb the ladder. And I feel like if I take a step backwards, I'll have nothing else to, to, to approve there and it'll just be real rough on my career.

Yeah. Were you the one that had the quote after the road course race that you're racing for your life? Yep. Would you agree? What is your reaction to the statement that you're a better race or when you're racing for your life? Yeah. So I always say so I'd have this chat with, so my wife has to, for lack a better term, talk me off the ledge all the time.

I have to do that with my folks, my parents. So my father was very, very. very, very down of the dumps. Take where I was, and he was even worse. And I was like, man, that's bad. So, and this was just last week after the, I got the phone call, the dreaded phone call. So I told him, I was like, hey, as a race car driver, he's like, I just wish I could have given you more and more opportunity. I wish we had the funding.

And, you know, I wish I worked harder, younger in life and was smarter, blah, what I was going on. I'm like, dude, no. I was like, if this whole thing failed tomorrow, I would not change. a single thing of my path to get here because that's what's made me a better race car driver. I couldn't, if I went and had an easier route, just especially for me, I wouldn't appreciate it. Just the way I am, I wouldn't appreciate it as much. I wouldn't be able to appreciate as much. I wouldn't bleed for it as badly, and I wouldn't be as good behind the wheel and learning all these aspects of NASCAR that I would have never known, like, how hard these small teams work and, you know, the hours that these guys pull and just,

having to work so well and make these teams like a family to try and keep everybody going when they're busting their tails so i was like no i wouldn't trade it for the world this is the path that i was meant to take regardless what happens your performance at bristol is there any other explanation for it i mean listen it's not it's not dogging you by saying that you haven't been contending for a win all year but you were up there contending for a win and almost won that race does matt de benedetto who's not racing for his life almost beat denny hamlin and win that race uh that is a good question. I got asked that and I was like, I wasn't driving any different. That racer didn't have any different outlook. I've learned years ago and through this whole process

every time I strap in a freaking race car, I give my 110% and never, if I slack off for one lap, I won't be able to sleep or live with myself. So no, I didn't drive that one any different or have any different mindset. I got good advice from my friend A.J. Almondinger who is everybody knows like my brother. He said, don't go out there and try and drive any different than you ever do. Don't go out there and try and prove yourself. He's like, I've done it before I've made those mistakes. He's like, you're a wheel man. Just go do your job and don't. And I did. I drove the, that's just one that we have circled off. Bristol seems to be one of those where we as a little bit of a smaller team can can overachieve a little extra at those. We'd been running top five and

top 10 at a lot of races recently. But that one's just one, I think. And at the first race, we had good speed and this one was even better. They felt our car was going to be better. So I didn't drive any different. I've been racing, I've been driving for my life for years. That wasn't just that one week. That's been basically most of my career. So you had a little contact with Ryan Newman there late in the race trying to get around him and get him lapped. And that did a little more damage to your car than visually. You could, you could see there was a little bit of damage, but it probably, you could explain how badly that made the car handle. Yeah. Have you ever had trouble passing Ryan Newman in your career? There's, I was, we were talking, we were talking, um, we were talking, uh, we were talking,

coincidentally on the show last week about how everybody seems to be driving a lot more like Newman these these days. Everybody's making themselves a lot harder to pass, but him in particular has a great reputation for that. Yeah, for sure. So I'm catching Newman. It's amazing the things you process when you're out there racing, especially at a place like Bristol. I still are leading the race. And I wasn't like, people like, are you going crazy? And I was like, no, I'm just, I want to win, whether I'm in a go-car or a cup car. I was just focused. So I'm running my lap's just like, like I always, other than this past week, and put my main rule is just stay disciplined all the time.

Just running, making no mistakes, clicking off my laps, had a good car, and I see us catching new him, and I'm like, oh, man, this is not what I'm wanting. Everybody else we've been flying through lap traffic real well. I get to him, and I process too, I'm like, if I win this race, I'm going to be in the playoffs. He's on the bubble. He's extra going to not want me to win.

You're thinking about that while. Yeah. Oh, crap. Yep. So I'm catching him, and I'm thinking this. through. I'm like, oh, he's going to make it even harder on me. And he's on the lead lap. I mean, he's running, I think we were lapping him for like 11th. So I'm like, he's going to, he's going to be racing me real hard. So I catch him. And I'm like, I see, I see Denny coming. But when I had some

clean racetrack, we clicked off the same laps. I had even a couple of faster ones. We maintain. I'm like, if I can get my new one and get that clear racetracking from them, that's it. That's going to be the move. That's going to win us the race. I got to make quick work room. Get right to him. Get under them a couple times, you know, like, man, that's going to be tough to pass him, then he's going to catch me. But then I saw his lines start moving down where he's running kind of the middle-ish and cutting down real quick on exit. So then I'm like, if I can get to his outside, get to his right rear, like clearly there and keep that momentum, keep a wound up on the top, get around him, and drive past, oh, man, we're going to be good. So sure enough, you get right to his bumper,

gas it up in the middle of the corner, get to his right rear tire, and I'm like, I'm there. not you know you got to be careful if you just stick barely your bumper there and it's questionable i was like i want to make sure i'm there and i did gas it up and we had a huge run off the corner i'm at his right rear tire and he just came up anyways and i listened to a spotter to see like hey did a spotter i always give people the benefit of that out before i just start a war or something i'm not going to do that you try and gain the respect everybody listen to his spotter i think jason jared i believe and he he was like 95 coming outside outside outside outside outside outside outside outside and I'm like okay

now this spotter definitely called it I think he was just I'll ask him this week oh you'll go see him yeah and not about racing you don't ask Brian Newman about racing hard he's gonna race he doesn't discriminate

that's just him but the stuff in me part so then long story short that was uncalled for but yeah when he stuffed me I was like oh man you gotta be kidding me so that checked me up big time

and then we get around him my car immediately the next corner there was actually a hole in the left front fender and was still bigger at Bristol than you were thinking. Even I thought, I went the next corner. My car went from handling about perfect, maybe a tick tight, almost nothing. It was really good to eight out of ten tight.

Couldn't even turn the next corner. My heart sank. I was like I was doing everything I could, but at that point, all I'm doing is just trying to complete the corner because I was so tight. I pick up the gas, chatter the right front tire, plow almost at the fence off the corner. And then we lost almost at Bristol, you know. almost three tenths a lap. Good Lord. When I'd clean track, we were running 1570s,

and that's what Denny was running to, matching him, went to 16-0s, couldn't even turn. And then I couldn't even fight Denny. I'm like, I'll try and stay on his outside, and I could. And I grabbed the gas, trying to keep the momentum off the corner, plowed, goes straight toward the fence, he just drives by, and I was,

I couldn't even talk after the race. Yeah. You guys had a moment in Victory Lane afterwards. He said on the PA that he was upset, that he had to pass you, how hard that was on him emotionally, but he, you know, obviously he's glad he won the race. You had an opportunity to have a pretty emotional post-race interview yourself. But then y'all had some conversation in Victor Lane.

What were you guys saying off-the-camera between each other? Yeah, so Denny, I've had so much respect for him because he's actually helped my career in general, too. Back when I was at Go Fast, we were going into a race weekend that was unsponsored, and that's big, You know, our team was like, hey, maybe we should reach out on social media. Who knows if we just get a tire sponsor or something for the weekend, reach out to corporate America. And it, I don't want to say backfired, but turned out completely different than what our attention was. I reached out and was like, hey, if anyone, I'll short it up. Anyone, you know, wants to sponsor car for this week and we're on sponsor, trying to do all we can, keep on.

Yeah, you know, get what we can for the team help. And he, and so there was a, you know all about the help we got that weekend. and that was very cool and generous of a lot of people that helped. And he was one of them that jumped on. That was where they put a social media post out there. Refresh my memory on that. GoFast was going to Phoenix. Yep.

And needed a little bit of help. They basically just said, look, we don't have a sponsor on the car. Anybody wants to jump on. And so Denny and a bunch of people in the industry got involved. And I think Denny was maybe the first one to actually reach out. Yeah. So he kind of started it and it blew up. and I believe there was a logo around here on the race car as well.

Yeah, Whiskey River or something on there. Yeah, there was Whiskey River on the car. Yeah. But anyway, long story short, talking about Denny, so he was part of that. He kind of started that whole thing, and it blew up, and then everybody in Harvick and and Whiskey River was on the race car, and there's a lot, and DW was on the car. It started this whole wave, and it actually turned into us getting a six-race primary sponsor for the team, which was huge. Crazy.

Huge. So in victory lane, I went up to him. And the first thing he says, he looks at me. He's like, I am so sorry. And I'm like, what are you sorry about? We're racing. Like, you're trying to win. He's like, so he pulls me. He's like, if I've ever not wanted to pass somebody in my entire career for a win, he was like, it was right there. And I'm just like, dude, no, great job. You won that. That was awesome. And he was like, no, man, I believe in you so much. I don't get away everything he said. But he was just like, I believe in you. So, much. I've always believed in you. That's why I wanted help when you were even at GoFast and you're fighting a clawing. He's like, you're just keep doing what you're doing. You're going to be okay.

You're a wheelman. He went on this whole thing and I was like, man, I was already like emotional more than normal just because of the fight and the week I had and stuff that people don't know with, you know, my wife having to pick me up, all the stuff. And then when he said that, it was like, I was just like, oh, I can barely even get words out. It's just emotional time. Very neat. Well, man, we, we appreciate you coming over here and giving us a little bit of time to talk to you today. You're on a lot of people's mind. I don't know if you know it, but there's just, you know, there's a lot of people that are pulling for you to figure out what you're going to be doing next year. Regardless of what that is, everybody's going to be in your corner, celebrating your success this year and whatever

else is going on with you going forward. We're one of your fans. Absolutely. I appreciate it. I think, Yeah, I think that as hard as last year was for you to take that gamble, to get out of something familiar in the 32 car and be in limbo, as hard as that was on you, and as hard as this morning or yesterday was on you and getting over that mistake you made at the race in the Xfinity race the other day, we hope that you continue to fight and continue to do whatever you can and claw to. get these opportunities because we all love seeing you out on the racetrack. We love what you bring not only on the track but to the sport. Your social media game is strong. You really enjoy that. And you're one of the few drivers that show us part of your life and what you're involved in and doing.

You're just great for the sport. You know, there's not a, not every driver is as charismatic and is positive and brings as much to the table. So the sport is better for having you in it. and so there's a lot of people that hope that you're around for a long time. So we're glad you're here, buddy, and thanks for coming on. And hopefully we're going to have you back on here in the near future talking about some great things and good announcements, all right?

Absolutely, man. That sounds good. I appreciate you. Appreciate you guys having me in here. Thank you, Matt. Hiring is a challenge. We've said it before. There's one place, though, where you can go and hiring is simple, fast, and smart,

a place where growing businesses connect to qualified candidates. That place is ZipRecruiter. dot com slash del jr. ZipRecruiter sends your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards. They don't stop there. With their powerful matching technology, ZipRecruiter scans thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to apply to your job.

As applicants come in, ZipRecruiter analyzes each one and spotlights the top candidates, so you never miss a great match. ZipRecruiter is so effective that four out of five of the employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. Like right now, sign up. By tomorrow, you might have the person you're looking for. And right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at this exclusive web address.

ZipRecruiter.com slash Dale Jr. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash Dale Jr., D-A-L-J-R. ZipRecruiter.com slash Dill Jr. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. That's nice. I want to go hire somebody. Yeah. We all need a helping hand.

All right. This is, of course, as the music would indicate, this is now time for the DIY Valvaline question of the week. Dale, a lot of people, this is a good talking point in our studio, is this, this roof you got back, this car roof behind us. And you love talking about it. It's like the ultimate little man cave thing to have, and you have a way of doing this. I mean, the story of this roof, it didn't actually come off of a real race car. You went and recreated one. Tell us about how you did it and what you did it and what you're.

you recommend for people that want to do something similar? Okay, so if you see the roof in the studio and you think, man, that's cool, I would love to have something like that in my man cave, you can. And it's not very expensive at all. So, and I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. Okay. All right, because I have now since made another roof. Oh, right?

Yeah. So we have the roof here, and it's basically circa 1979, 1980, Dale Earnhardt. It's off the roof. It's a Monte Carlo roof. I also have the roof off of a Pontiac, and it's basically the 1981 ride-a-no-two roof. And I'm thinking maybe of making a roof for every sort of different car dad drove throughout his cup career

and having all those roofs. All right. All right, hanging them in my shop. This, to me, could be the focal point of any really serious NASCAR man cave. Okay. It's perfect. It's not racing.

used, that's true, but that type of stuff is very expensive to obtain. But it's beautiful. And what you do is basically go down to your local junkyard and find the car that you're looking for. In this case, it's the 1979, 1980 Monte Carlo roof. Cut that roof off. All right. And it's going to be relatively inexpensive to get that obtained. So you get the roof and you cut it off. we will box in where we've cut the roof. We'll box that in with a little bit of spot welding and clean and grind and clean up where that's been cut and that roof's been removed so that it's smooth and nice on the other side.

Nobody's going to rub it a hand across that edge and cut themselves. But you clean it up a little bit. It takes a little bit of grinding, a little sanding maybe. Clean up all the windshield glue and goo off that thing and sand blast it. Or just hand sand it if you want. want to get it nice and smooth and clean. All right. And then you acquire the paint code colors and you either get a local body shop or a buddy of

yours or whoever to paint the roof. All right. You got to spend a little money maybe on decals and you can go as far as you want. In this case, we have the roof number, obviously. We have the red pinstriping and the name on the roof, Dale Earnhardt, and also the decal for the race team itself, Austrolin Racing. Now that decal for Austin and Racing, we had to do. remake special because those aren't around on eBay or anywhere.

I've been looking forever and haven't found one. That's not necessary to make. But maybe the roof number, the pinstriping, and the name Dale Earnhardt would be something that would be necessary to have on there. That stuff as well is relatively inexpensive, maybe $100 or a couple hundred bucks to have those made. In all, I think you can get this roof made for around $15,200 bucks. That's something.

Looks so good. You got a nice piece. And I'm only saying these things if you're really particular about the cost. people can be. You can go on there. You could say on Twitter, it was $200. It didn't cost anything,

and you're going to get your ass chew because $200 is a lot of money to some people. Sure. So I'm just trying to say that whatever you put in it, it's not going to depreciate and value. It's only going to become worth more and more, especially if you take care of it, keep it indoors and so forth. But man, I mean, it's just, for me when I walk in here, of all, we have items, all types of items.

We have a driver suit or for real Dale Earnhardt, 1984, driver suit, the comet, the chicken pits, all the things in here, my eyes always go to that roof. It's bright, it's colorful, it's beautiful, and it's just an awesome piece to be hanging there. And so again, I'm a little frustrated why

I didn't start making these sooner because I'd like to continue to make a roof. I need to get a Ford Thunderbird roof. Do a old number 15, Budmore roof that Dad drove. Maybe even get the boxed for Thunderbird and the round one. Do both. Because he had

you know, they changed bodies in the middle of his ride with Budmore, and then I'd have to go into the Wrangler days with RCR and get some roofs for that, old Monte Carlo's and do those. And I would just kind of make roofs, man. Make me a roof. It's just a matter of finding the car and a junkyard, right? That's what's cool because back then they drove stock roofs. Yeah, they had stock roofs on the car, so that's why it looks so realistic.

That's a good point. That is cool. Yeah, we've yet to see anyone try to mimic or emulate what we've done here. to see fans try to do it. I'd love to hear how they did it, how much money they put into it, and if it could encourage other people. Because I really think this is a way to really create some history. And that race used sheet metal is awesome. But there's not a lot of that stuff available from the 80s, right? And if it is, it's not in very good shape. So kind of recreating something like this, I think, is a win-win. It's an awesome DIY project.

You do DIY projects. That was one of one that's anybody can do. So thank you for giving us a story on that. From high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wear film to new engines that have carbon buildup, head over to Valvalene.com slash Dell to find the product. Expect for your engine. Hey, everybody.

It's Dale Jr. at the Dell Jr. download. This is the Ask Junior portion of the show, sponsored by Nationwide. Appreciate everybody for tuning in on our YouTube channel. Make sure you tell your friends to subscribe. to Dirty Mo Media's YouTube channel. Follow us on social media on Twitter and Instagram for all kinds of great content.

Leah, you're going to hear her voice. That's our media expert. She's going to be repeating your questions that you guys are sending into us, and you might also hear Mike Davis as well off camera. But let's get started, Leah. All right, first question comes from James Maples. He wants to know,

how would you all feel about NASCAR adding an endurance race? 24-hour indie road course sounds kind of interesting. Love it. You know what I think would be a great idea for NASCAR to do is for MPSA and NASCAR to do together is for the 24 hours of Daytona, they should introduce and include a stock car class. And they should have one car from each organization. So you would have one car from Gibbs, one car from Hendrick, one car from front row, one car from, you know, each team to have a rail. reasonable field of anywhere from 8 to 12 vehicles to compete in the stock car class. And I mentioned this actually during the broadcast of the 24 hours of Daytona on NBC this year. The only question we had really, I think, was whether the engines could be prepared to sustain 24 hours of racing.

And Doug Yates, who builds motors for a lot of the Fords in the Cup series, said, yeah, we could do it. We could do that. That'd be a lot of fun. I think it'd be great for the teams to challenge themselves. It'd be a new challenge for organizations and teams to develop cars and equipment to withstand the grueling beating that a car is going to take throughout that race. You'd have to work out the headlights and all those things, and there would be some new technology that would have to be incorporated,

and it might be relatively expensive to do that. but if there's a way to do it, that would be probably the neatest way to introduce it. You wouldn't want to stand alone stock car only 24-hour race. If you had Joe Gibbs racing and you got four cars out there, you're going to need 16 drivers, something like that, 12 drivers. And getting in and out of the car is going to be a real challenge, trying to get the cars comfortable to where drivers can get in and out of the cars will be a real challenge for that many team. That'd be just way too expensive per organization.

So what I think is maybe one car from each organization included in what is already the Daytona 24-hour race. And that way, you know, Gibbs could use three or four of their current drivers for that one team. And it might be a lot of fun just to see, you know, I would be more interested really on how the cars held up and how well they withstood those conditions. And maybe it's a one-time thing. Maybe it's something that turns, I don't know how they could work it into our point-s-sit-old. to where it counted some way toward maybe just the manufacturer's points. I'm not sure how they can make it worth the team's efforts. But that would be a cool way to do it.

Matthew Cobb writes in. He wants to know, in honor of it being throwback weekend, what is a scheme that you feel like should have already been recognized but hasn't yet? You know, it's hard to remember all the ones that have been recognized in Darlington for our throwback weekend there. and even before that and other races. One of the ones that I see pop up from time to time that I actually wasn't a real big fan of back when it was around, but I had become more interested in possibly seeing this car out there

is the Bell South car, number 42, the bright, colorful neon green, red, and all that. I think maybe Kenny Irwin drove it. Joe Nemechek drove it, I believe. I'm not real sure exactly everyone that drove that car, but that would be a cool one to see for Kyle Larson. And every time we roll around toward throwback weekend or the months leading up when everybody's starting to announce their cars,

as soon as Kyle Larson starts to tease his announcement of what car he's going to run, social media starts to pour in pictures of this Bell South, number 42 car, hoping that this is the year that they're going to run that color scheme. So I would love to see it happen because, obviously, a lot of other people want to see it as well. That'd be one. Outside of that, I think it would be very cool for Austin Dillon and RCR to do the very first number three, 1981, Wrangler paint scheme. And they would have to use that correct font that dad had on his car,

which is a really wicked-looking kind of early 80s style number three. They used it in the back half of 1981. That number font went away. Obviously, Dad went to Budmore, but when he came back to, RCR in 1984 or 85 he had a different font for the number three. So this 1981, late 1981,

Wrangler number three font with the yellow nose, blue tail, I think that'd be a good-looking race car. Annie T wants to know are there any throwback announcers you would like to call a race with? Early in the show,

we were doing some conversation about that and Matthew Dillner, David Dillner, for some of you folks, said David, Hobbs, right? And so David Hobbs would be pretty cool. He was in the booth in 1979 for the Daytona 500 with Ken Squire. So maybe Ken Squire and Hobbs for a few minutes. Maybe let Hobbs and Squire go for a couple segments, a couple, you know, between a couple commercial breaks. I think my favorites are long gone.

You know, Benny Parsons was probably one guy that I have a ton of respect for. His ability to be a race car driver and transition into the booth. It was very challenging, and he did it with ease. A lot of people don't even think it was hard, but he made it look so easy, but he did a very difficult thing, transitioning out of the race car. And Barney Hall was amazing on the radio, just a beautiful voice, perfect for racing, and perfect for, he was just the only one that could do it just that way. And I don't know how to describe his style and the sound of his voice,

but I can't imagine anyone else doing races in the 80s better than him. But Hobbs would be cool to get back in. He does the F-1 stuff now and still quite prevalent and successful with that. And so it'd be cool to have him come in and do a cup race every now and then. Jimmy Baskin is watching on YouTube, but he's actually about to roll into Charlotte for the day. He wants to know what barbecue place you recommend here in Charlotte. Well, you can go to Whiskey River and get some barbecue there.

You know, I have a hard time. There's not a, there's, I need to branch out. Matthew might have some barbecue places that he could, he could offer, but my barbecue, I have a hard time of mitting this, man. I'm not a big fan of North Carolina barbecue. It's all right. Yeah. I love Texas style and, you know, Midwest, Kansas, Oklahoma.

But Matthew, do you have any places that you could send this guy out to? Yeah, if you want to go, if you're, if you're a race fan, You go to Lancaster's up here because of the racing history. But if you're a fan of all different genres of barbecue, in my opinion, you go to Smoke Pit and Concord, or you go down to Plaza Midwood, Midwood Smokehouse. They have a good selection of between. Those will give you a good cross-section between Carolina Barbecue,

St. Louis-style barbecue, Texas Barbecue. Okay, there you have it. I think that's it for today. All right, guys, I appreciate y'all tuning in to the Ask Junior segment of the show, presented by Nationwide. This ain't your average race recad. Unfiltered commentary and an abundance of opinion.

Mr. Nascar or Mr. Getsk out of my way. Like Johnny Cash, we ain't afraid to walk the line. List of the door bumper clear. Available on major podcast platforms. Door bumper clear. Keep coming, bud. White flag right there, white flag right there. White flag.

All right, I'm going to start this white flag. I mean, there's really no other way to start it. Guess who's racing this weekend, everybody? Everybody, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Oh, me, yeah. You had to think about that for me? Well, I mean, you know, you were talking as if I wasn't in the room. I know, right?

That's a little awkward, right? Dale Jr. is racing this weekend Saturday at Darlington, throwback weekend. Hey, by the way, you know what era they're going to theme this one? 1992 spring. Right. Spring of 1992 is the throwback era. Spring. So go to Darlington Raceway.com for your tickets.

Guess who else is going to be there? Leah, Marie. Vaughn and she's going to be out there handing out dirty Mo Media decals but I said to Leah Marie Vaughan that these people need to earn them they got to earn the decals they just don't give them out like it's currency don't give them out like because you know I mean we got a budget I don't want to just waste them so I suggested you know shotgunning a beer for our social media channels something cool I don't think Leah Marie I'm surprised that you suggested that Mike uh Leah Marie didn't like that she wanted to do something else what are we going to do to

give out decals. Well, whatever people wanted to do. Wait, you haven't thought of something? I thought that you were teeing her up. Well, I mean, no, she has some, we have some ideas. Are we getting beads? I wanted to get, my gosh. I forgot that I said that to you.

Thank you, Dale. I forgot that I said that to you. That was a terrible idea. That was funny. She was talking about throwback costumes and that kind of thing. I didn't know that people. Dress like you are. Daley. All right. You just have your throwback teas and come up, you know,

sport them this weekend. We're still going to work that out, but here's the point. You're going to have to earn it. And Lee is going to be out there all those days. Oh, you got an idea? Yeah, if they're wearing something from 1994 spring. The spring of 1994, wearing a shirt made. Right, right, right.

From that era. Yeah, from that era. If they could name Leia Vaughn and Dale and Mike's and everybody's middle names. Yeah. No. That'd be. I like it. Mike Davis is middle.

Mike Davis's middle name. You get a sticker. Right. But we're not going to say it now. It's Patrick. It's Patrick. Or we are. Well, that means they would have to listen to the show. That's right. That's right. That's right. That ties them back in. All right. So guess who else is going to be there? The Dirty Mo Media crew will be. They'll be shadowing Dale all weekend for a short film that will appear exclusively exclusively on the Dirty Mo Media YouTube channel. It's called Time Machine. Go subscribe to our

YouTube channel. You're going to have a lot of stickers left. Why? Because not a lot of people are going to get that. Patrick. How about you just ask them if they know who the two co-hosts for the show are? Well, yeah, the two, I guess it would be host and co-host. Easy enough. Give my damn sticker. How about it's just anybody that impresses Leah of selling human tricks? I mean, like, they got to earn it.

If they get it wrong, still give them a stick. Say, good job. Hand them a sticker. No. You like Oprah. No, no, no. You get a sticker. You get a sticker.

They've got to earn it and succeed. They can't just get, this isn't a participation trophy. Not my decals. Not my decals. an infield out of an after race before. So I don't know what to expect. Well, just don't be there at night. Like, where should the bar set?

Mike's really hanging on to these decals. I know I had to like beg him for a third one. I asked him for some and he handed me like he had a he laid like two or three. You got to do a stupid human trick next time. I've seen you shot gun of beer and it didn't get you any more decals. I mean, that's just you got to earn it.

Apple podcast writing. Oh, by the. but did I say? Yeah, go subscribe to our YouTube channel because that's where the short documentary that Matthew Dielnerner, James Rosan, James Rosan, known as the guy that you see in the cutaways of the Dale Jr. Down the TV show. They're going to be out there. It's going to be a good time. Apple podcast, reading and reviews, Jason Langford wrote this week. Back in 2002, I lost my cousin. Me and him were like brothers, and we shared the same passions, including being the biggest Dale Jr. fans. Listening to Y'all's podcast feels like I have my cousin right next to me, and we're listening to Junior, so thank you. Thank you, Jason. Alcatraz 51 wrote,

Dale, I've been listening for about two months now. I truly believe this is your calling. You have helped bring life back to the sport of NASCAR. Damn. Ain't that nice. Pimpin ain't easy three, you wrote. That's his name. I don't know.

I just read the names. Hey, Dirty Mo Crew, his podcast, this podcast reminds me why I fell in love with racing. By the way, Mike Davis, I'm a current student at Georgia Southern, and I have tremendous pride when I see you wearing a Georgia Southern hat. It's a reminder of why I go to college. To fund my racing.

I went to college so I could fund my student loans and pay it right back. Squatch 6888 wrote, I stopped following NASCAR in 06 when I joined the Army, but this podcast has linked the past to the present for me. Also, Dale Jr., thank you for your book, Raising to the Finish. It helped me come to understand my own brain injury

suffered in Afghanistan. Holy crap. Oh, wow. Man, is that cool? I mean, not cool that he had a... No, that's amazing to hear. Yeah, absolutely. I knew you would like that one, so thank you.

Yeah, I'm grateful. Close up with some foundation news. You got your ride with Dale Jr. day, that'll be a lot of fun. And also, don't forget, socket to childhood cancer. Buying socks at socket to cc.com. All proceeds go directly to the Dela and Amy Earnhardt Fund at

Nationwide Children's Hospital. And that's it. Let's hear some odd history. All right, we've got some odd history here. We have two for you today. Why? Because it's Darlington weekend. Why not? The first Southern 500 was ran in 1950. That's NASCAR's second season.

We've all heard about the 75 car field that took the green under the South Carolina sun and how Johnny Mance took the win in a car owned by Bill France. But this was a tell very few know about, this particular one. Before the first Southern 500,

the longest NASCAR race ever held was only 200 miles in length. Because this 500-mile contest was expected to last over six hours, drivers didn't know how to stay hydrated during such a long race. And according to Buck Baker, one unnamed driver

brought a big jug of beer to drink while he raced. Baker later said, after the first few laps, that beer got to churning, and the suds began to spill out of that car like a washing machine overflowing. Meanwhile, Baker brought a glass bottle of tomato juice along in his number 87 Oldsmobile.

The glass shattered and spilled all over him when he crashed on lap 176. As glass does. Unhurt, but, Covered in red liquid, the first person, the Baker's car declared, this poor fella has done got his head. Cut off. That is some odd history for you.

Well, who was the beer drink? Who is the guy with the beer? I don't know, man. There's no account on who it is. I think it was Buck Baker. There's some incredible stories from those first few Darlington races about tires and cars. All right, odd history story number two for you. The 12th annual Southern 500 was running 9.000.

1961, Nelson Stacey won the event over Fireball Roberts. One year later, Darlington refused to call the next race the 13th annual. Why? Because of superstition, of course. Instead of using the unlucky number 13, the race had the clever title of 12th renewal. Of the Southern 500, the 12th renewal. The following year, the 14th annual race was held and advertised as such. back to normal. There you go.

That's interesting. Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you, NASCAR, man, for T and SACA. Car drivers and NASCAR, yeah, motorsports, race car drivers, even the industry folks are superstitious. NASCAR man, find out who was the guy with the beer in the car. My theory is it was Buck Baker saying,

I heard there was a guy with beer in their car. All right, man, great show, guys. Good. It's real good. Yeah. You sound like you really enjoyed it. Well, no, I was, I sound like somebody doesn't want to interfere with your read. Well, it says right here, react on what you liked about it, please.

I liked all of it. Are you kidding? Matt DeBadette, I like to look Steve LaCard. How about that one question you, Mike Matt answered to you? I couldn't believe it. You had a great question. I know. Frankly, I want to play it back.

Yeah? Yeah. Just, yeah. In fact, could you even recap what he said? I think you should just, where'd you get the idea to ask such a question? Where all my great ideas come from, Dale? He was sitting on the toilet. Okay.

Don't hit the stop button. Don't hit it. Don't move on to the next show just yet. Stick with us for just another second while we talk about Pristine auction. Pristine is an online sports memorabilia website where you can bid and win some amazing authentic items. They have all different auctions. Is that even a proper sentence? It is actually.

Ones that last for days. And then they have these daily ones. And yes, the rapid fire 10-minute auctions. That's right. That's right. This week we found a pair of Eric. Who is that? Eric Esh.

Esh? Oh. I didn't know that was his last name. Yeah, me neither. I thought his mom called him Butterbean. Signed USA Boxing Trunks. That's Butterbean, the famous boxer. Did he die?

I think Butterbean's dead. No. Somebody look it up. That's a terrible thing to assume. Yeah, don't announce that Butterbean died if you don't know. No kidding. It's Butterbean. It didn't happen yesterday, guys.

Buddy Baker sang about him. I know, but isn't it proper etiquette and nice to say that, somebody died and if you really not sure. The value of these trunks just went up. He is not dead. He's not dead, Mike. Gosh, that's rude. Old butterbean is live and well.

Eating butter beans and listening to this podcast. I'm so happy. He's still with us. That guy had a bigger head than me. He's still with us? These are some giant shorts, okay? They're signed and only on Pristine for $20. Go to pristine.orgion.com now.

It's free to register, free to bid, and of course, you only pay for the items you win. Remember, with Pristine, the Austin. authenticity is guaranteed. That's pristine auction spelled, P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-Oction.com. Come on, Junior Nation. Don't forget when you register, please select Dale Jr. Download podcast from the drop-down menu

in the How Did You Hear About Us section. That's really important. It lets them know that we're the ones that sent you there. I think I got it confused with Bam-Bam Bigelow. Oh, my gosh, man. Now you're saying Bam-Bad Bigilow. You're digging a hole, man. What if Bam-B-B-B-B-L-E.

Everybody's a lot. Could you search Bam Bam Bigelow, please? I haven't heard that. I think that he's only trying to couple this with someone that he knows is dead. Bam Bam Bigelow is dead. Hey, Mike finally got one right. Don't cheer. Okay.

So Bam Bam was 6-4 and 390 pounds, and Butterbean was 511 and 425 pounds. I can see how you get them confused, Mike. Big boys. Big bald boys. Mike is just backtracking here trying to save face. So he thought of someone who's dead. I think Bam Bam died recently. Abraham Lincoln.

Uh, 2007. I need a rather large fellow that was in a wrestling or boxing business that's dead that I can come. That I can say, oh, my bad, got them mixed up. He has a head tattoo. Who? Um, Bam Bam. She's going down the Bam Bam Rabbit hole. So she's going to be watching YouTube Bam Bam.

She'll be watching like, yeah, Bam Bam. And then she'll be like, wow, Randy, macho man, Savage is dead too. know where this is going to end her rabbit hole flintstone flintstone videos yeah oh that's right yeah yeah and and all of a sudden our social media feed is the flintstones and wrestling oh my goodness i feel like people would enjoy that all right what do we do what's next you say goodbye yeah that's it oh well goodbye people we'll see you hope you enjoyed the show matt was great thanks for steve latart for finally watching days

of thunder can't wait for next week can we even announce our guest right now sure who is it Do we want to announce it to Dale first? Well, we've been talking guests so much here lately. He used to live on your property. Brad Gisalowski is our guest. I knew he was coming up soon. Brack Heslowski, the man's got opinions. Let's ask him some philosophical questions.

Yes, please. Let's do it. This bit of bad assery was made by Dirtymo Media. Dirty Mo!