The Dale Jr. Download - 275 - Rick Hendrick: I'm Not Gonna Let Him Fail

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Rick Hendrick get together for a much-anticipated tell-all interview.  The driver and his former boss discuss Mr. H's beginnings in the sport, how Hendrick Motorsports nearly started with Richard Petty behind the wheel, the Gee family connection, the famed rental car ride with Geoff Bodine and Dale Earnhardt, and the meeting that changed their lives and Dale Jr.'s side-skirts forever.  They also reveal classic stories of the legendary Harry Hyde and how The Intimidator was so mad at Ken Schrader that he didn't speak to him for a year. DJD tackles topics like Tony Eury Jr's first doctors trip and the big announcement of who's wheeling the JR Motorsports Late Model at Martinsville.  Rick Hendrick sticks around for a special edition of Odd History that includes Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. 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.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Dirty Mo Media. The Dirty Mo Media. Dirty Mo. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. I got Mike Davis here with me. Matthew Dillner.

Leah is back. Welcome back. Everybody be happy. That's right. We missed her last week. Our guest today, Rick Hendrick. I mean, this should have been one of the first guests. You think it would have been, right?

Anyhow, going to be a lot of fun. We're going to dive in. Let's get started. All right, guys, well, we had a pretty eventful week. Went to Richmond for the race weekend. I flew with the race winner, Martin Trex Jr., there and home. Pretty interesting. That'd have been fun.

So, yeah, we're pals. And I try not, you know, when I'm watching the race, I don't play favorites. I don't pull for Martin to win. If that makes sense, I don't care one way or another who wins, right? that's great to see good people do good things and I like when Martin's happy whatever makes Martin's happy because I like him as a person but really what he does on the track makes no difference to me. Right. But it was interesting being on that side of it. So he wins the race.

I know, all right, I don't need to be in a hurry to get out of here. So I collected all my stuff in the booth, and I went down to the media center. And I sat in the media center and waited on them to finish whatever they did. So they go, I'm sitting in the media center, and here comes the crew chief and the owner, Joe Gibbs, Colpern. They do their media press conference real quick. And then here comes the race winner, and he comes in and does his. and Tyler Overstreet, who used to work with us

and used to help me host this podcast, was sitting in there, and I go, all right, where are y'all going next? And he goes, well, we'll go out, and they'll take their selfie that they take after every win. So I went out to the race car, and they're tearing the car down

and passing inspection. We heard there was some media gathering in the garage. And I said, so I went over to Bob Pockerson. I said, Bob, what's going on? He goes, well, the results on NASCAR car.com disappeared and that's usually a sign of some issues. And so they had found the problem with the 20 car, the rear toe on the 20 car, Eric Jones. And he finished what?

Fourth fifth. Fourth. Yes, that's right. It's one, two, three, four. And so he finished fourth, had a great run and needed a great run. My heart broke for that kid because they'd worked so hard. He had such bad circumstances two years in a row at Vegas coming into the playoffs and looked like he may get eliminated again in the first round with a team and a driver very capable

of going much further than that. So that was a little heartbreaking, but we're standing around in the garage while all that's going on, and then I got to watch the winning team take their victory selfie as they do, and then Turek said, you're ready to go, let's go. And I hopped in the back of rental land, and we headed on out. I got home, spent yesterday sitting around the house watching some football, which was fun for fantasy. I won both. of my fantasy football games. Congratulations. Thank you.

And so both of my team, yeah, I'm guaranteed to win, regardless of tonight's results. The Redskins play tonight. Good thing you're not paying on. But right about time this thing comes out, the Redskins game will be started. I do not draft Redskins unless they are worth drafting. So that's a damn sure way of being miserable in fantasy football is by drafting players on your favorite team. Yeah.

Even if they do perform. But, yeah, my teams are two and one, both of them. I got your beat. Where you got three and oh? Yeah. Except my main guy got hurt yesterday, Barkley. Yeah, I have him as well. It looks pretty bad.

Stressful. Yeah. I'm a little nervous. He was a number one pick for most teams. What happened? Most teams. He has an ankle injury. It looks to be concerning.

But, yeah. So we also have some other news. Do you want to talk about that? Tell, we don't know what you're going to talk about. Well, I've been wanting to talk about this for a while, and I guess it'll be out. So as of this conversation, as we're recording right now, it is not known information. So this is very exciting to me. When you hear this, though, you may know this already because it's going to come out while he's editing the podcast.

But Bubba Pollard's going to drive for Junior Motor Sports at the 300 lap late model stock race at Martinsville. Bubba raced there last year and had a great race, ended up finishing poorly like a lot of people did, but still performed well, ran well, and he's amazing short track racer in his own right, just winning races all over the place over the last several years. And he's agreed, and we've come to an agreement to have him in our car. He'll be teammates with Josh Barry,

who was leading the most laps there, I think, last year, and ended up getting knocked out at the end. But I know going into that, Martin's VIII. race that bad things can happen at the end. So I don't really ever get my hopes up, but I'm excited that Bubba Pollard's agreed to race for us, man. This guy is almost reaching legendary status as a competitor while he's competing. So to have him, have his story even minutely linked to ours is very cool.

I'm very proud. I'd ask Matthew last week. I said, you know, help somebody that doesn't follow a short track race and like myself as closely as y'all do, like put into perspective where Bubba Pollard is on the on the on the on the on the charts right now is he the best right now out there do you I mean there's we're talking about thousands but Bubba Pollard is a name uh that you hear because he wins so much to have him running for you in your late model with josh Barry that is a hell of a of a lineup that you were taking to Martinsville which is

you know one of the biggest races unique story nugget to this so um we were trying to fill in our second car and reached out to Bubba and we're having conversations with him. And then he had decided that he was going to go build his own, at least. This is the side of the story that I've heard. There's two sides to every story. So we were going to put Bubba in the second car and that didn't quite work out. So I called Johnny Sauter. And I had, me and Johnny had agreed for him to drive the car at Martinsville. And I was going to pay for it out of my pocket. And so that was going to be amazing. And then Bubba came back and said I got a partner and some sponsorship and would love to do the deal. So I called Johnny and I said,

hey Johnny, if I do the thing with Bubbo, I won't have to pay for it out of my pocket. And he goes, I understand that. But I did tell Johnny that I wanted to run him next year if he was interested. So for those fans that were really excited about that, really becoming a reality, I want to make it happen next year if Johnny's still on board. I think it would be amazing. I have Johnny Sauter in a late model stock car at Martinsville. He's great at Martinsville. and he's a hell of a race car driver and fun. It'd be cool. But yeah, for some people to what he said,

some people that listen to this podcast don't realize that you can easily list Bubba Pollard as one of the best short track racers in America. Today. Today, easily. Right. For sure. So exciting things.

When is that race, Matthews, October 5th. Very soon. Coming up. I'm getting nervous. I'm going. Yeah. Well, it's a hard race to qualify for. it's a hard race to run well in much less go in there to try to win how many cars will show up to

i don't even know but i'm not look i'm not putting our expect i'm not raising expectations for us i'm just thrilled to have the opportunity to put you know get bub out on track we're going to see how it goes hopefully it goes well and everybody's happy at the end of the day um i just want bubba to say it was a great experience so we'll see how it works out mike you have a did you see that you guys remember that segment we used to have on the show did you see that i did have a did you see that um you did have a Do you remember what it was? I do. We're going from Bubba Pollard to this.

This is a great segue. I just, I just, I wanted to get your reaction to this, Dale. This blew me away. Our friend Tony Jr., Tony Yuri Jr., okay? You know, I don't know if many people know this, but there had been some medical scares in the family, right? I don't know if we want to even get into that right now. But, you know, within the family,

not with Tony Jr. himself, but within the family. And, you know, it led Tony Jr. to do something. and I find this on Facebook. I find his girlfriend on Facebook. It posted some pictures of Tony Jr. At a doctor. And this is what it said. Today was a big day for Tony Jr.

Until today, he had never been to a doctor before. Ever. But after recent medical scares with the family, we promised ourselves that we would go to the doctor and get checked out. He was so funny. He had no idea what the nurse was doing when she put that rubber band around his arm just to take his blood pressure.

He had no idea. Now, how old is Tony Jr.? He's a year older than me, so 45? So 45, have you ever heard of anybody that had never been to a doctor in their 45 years of existence? No. And yet, here he was. And Tony Jr., listen, I don't think this is knocking him down at all. But, you know, he's not exactly running triathlons or anything. I mean, he's not exactly the bill of health that, you know, I could not believe that an adult had never been to a doctor before.

That is crazy. But there he was. he got checked out. He didn't. And now, because she continues, he said he now feels old because he's being referred to other specialists, bad knees, the bad knees specialist, all the things that you're, you know, all the specialist doctors, and he doesn't want to go, but he's going to do it. I couldn't believe it.

I was like, I'm going to bring this up because I wanted to see if not going to a doctor in 45 years is something you had ever even heard of. I hadn't. That's shocking. That's crazy. Yeah. I didn't go to a dentist for 25 years. years at one point, but I antelretentively took care of my teeth because I had a phobia.

Loud. I couldn't believe it. There you go. Did you see that? There was another. Did you see that? There was another thing. Do you want to give an update?

Because you have now identified dates on your calendar to go weed Wilkesboro. I'm not going to tell people. No, no, don't. I don't want you to. Exactly what those dates are. But the fact of the matter is that you are moving this thing along. We're doing this. This thing is happening.

Yes. After last week. I want, I want. eye racing to scan this track and build it. Yeah. Well, that was the thing. By the way, I talked to Steve Myers last week. Of eye racing. Of irasing. That's right.

And you had said that you wanted them just to scan it to have before it falls down. But he's been wanting to build it. And so that will be something that they do at ir racing is to build that track for people to race. Yes. So I reached out to Steve and said, hey, I just think you should at least go scan the track. How much, how expensive is that? He said, relatively simple process. And I said, you just need to get the.

the data, whether you build the track or not, maybe go grab the data that way you have it. And, you know, because building the track for eye racing is extremely expensive. Right. And, you know, I didn't anticipate them building the track, but I was like, probably smart idea just to get the data. That way you have it. Because a track may get demolished one day or whatever. You just never know.

It is fall, you know, it is, you know, dilapidated. Dilapidated and going the way of nature. And so we're going to do it. We're going to go over there. We're going to clear the surface so they can scan it. We're not doing a full landscaping job from, you know, corner to corner. We just need to get the surface clear. Yeah.

The surface of the track and pit road and some in the walls as well. There's some binds growing up the fence and so forth. But other than that, we're not doing anything else. We're going to leave the shrubs and stuff that are growing around the track. And we're not going over there to do a real bang-up job. so don't get to, for the people that are just purists and want to see the track taking care of, don't be, you might be a little disappointed. You're not getting an event ready.

Well, there was one other thing he added is that, you know, I asked you about, you know, when you scan it, it's going to scan the cracks and everything. But, you know, as they build this track, he said there are things that they can do to massage it and do things that, you know, they're going to get the characteristics of the track, generally how it was, and that they can massage it to where they can make Wilkesboro race on eye racing as it was, you know, pre-cracks. Yeah, in the 90s. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. That would be fun. They'll do a great job. That's awesome. I think the community will be thrilled. Yeah. So good job getting that revolution started. I'm excited.

I'm excited. All right, so Rick Hendrick, he's in the house. He's at the table. A lot of people excited about this one. I'm excited about this one. Thanks for coming, Rick. It's great to be here. Yeah.

I was wondering why you never asked me. All right, you kidding me? You're a hard guy to track down. You're busy. So a lot of places we can go with this. Yeah. But the one thing that I always feel compelled to tell people about Rick when talking about our relationship and going to drive for him and why I decided to go to HMS and all those things

is I feel like a lot of people don't know the family connection with Rick and my grandfather, Robert G. And so, you know, people just think that I know Rick from NASCAR and cup racing, but it goes way beyond that. So you and my grandfather, Robert, G, on my mom's side, he was a body man in business and Uncle Robert G. Jr. works here at Junior Motorsports, It's Jimmy G, his brother, my uncle also. Worked here as well.

All those guys were in racing. Y'all grew up in the same town. Yep, we grew up in South Hill, Virginia. And when I was 15 years old, I went to Robert's Body Shop, and he put a scoop on my 65 Chevel. A hood scoop. A hood scoop. What'd you want that on there for? Because it was cool back then.

So he had a body shop. How old was he then at the time? You'll have to do the math. I don't know. I mean, he was old enough to own a body shop, I guess, right? Well, it was called a flying A station, and a couple of the drag race guys were there, and Robert, and I was almost afraid to go in there to ask him, would he do this scoop on my hood?

And he did, and I met him then. Then when I moved to Charlotte in 1977, Robert was running a dirt car, and he came over, and he said, hey, I've got this dirt car. How about helping me out? And so we kind of rekindle that relationship, and I was involved in his dirt car. Why would you be afraid to go in there initially? Was it just in? That was a rough crowd, man.

Oh, was it? They were, no, I was, I was just younger than they were, you know, and there was kind of a little click there in the town, and you knew that that was he and his posse. He had a posse. That's where you got it from. The original Dirty Mo Posser, right? Well, all right. So I guess I don't even know how he did, but how did y'all get from South Hill down to Charlotte?

Well, I went, I moved to Raleigh. Why'd you go to Raleigh for? I was going to school. No, I was going to school. What'd you go to school for? I was a work study deal with Westinghouse. I'm actually a tool and dime maker. You didn't know that, did you?

Uh-uh. And I needed a couple more. You did what? Well, you know, what, tell us about this. What? A tool and downmaker, you know, it's kind of an engineering deal, and you design and make special tools. And I needed a couple more years to get my engineering degree, but I was peddling cars and working in a service station while I was going to school, and I thought I could make more money selling cars.

And I started working on them. I think I told you Dale, I have a $300, an opal story. I was working in a station and one of the professors said, hey, I need you to tune my jag. And I said, I did. And so a wholesaler comes along. He says, I got this opal I need to put a clutch in it. I said, I haven't got time.

I've got to go to school. He said, I'll take $300 for it. So I borrowed the money from the guy that owned the service station. And then the guy that owned the jag came back and said, hey, I'm looking for a car for my wife. And I said, I got this opal and it's got an $800 loan van. And I thought he'd give me $800 or $900. they said, I'll give you $1,200 for it. I said, okay, I need to quit working on to start selling them.

This was a professor? Yeah. So basically what I'm hearing is that the professor basically talked you out of school. No, he didn't. In a way, he did. He cut you, like the deal in itself made you realize that you can make money in other ways. Yes. From a professor, basically.

He has no idea. He had that type of influence on you. I hadn't called him either to tell him about it either. Call him and tell him. It's worked out fine. It's worked out okay. He might want some conversation for that. So you said in 1977, Robert reached out.

You had the City Chevrolet store on Independence. Independence. Same place has always been. Same place. The same city Chevrolet that was on the car and Days of Thunder. Everybody knows very well. So in 77, I've seen pictures of this car. My granddaddy Robert G had a dirt car, orange and white, blue 17 on it.

and dad had drove this car. Darrell Waltzrick raced this car and Snowball Derby and other places, but at the time, I think Haywood Plowler was driving the car. Haywood was driving it. Around Metroline and different racetracks. And so I seen the city Chevrolet on the door of this car. I've got several pictures of it.

And so you, Robert comes to you, go down to the dealership or something and show up in your office or what? Well, there was a guy that we both knew seeing Taylor, and he called me and he said, Robert, Robert wants to see you. So, you know, we talked on the phone first. Then I went over to his house.

Next to the Speedway. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And how'd that conversation go? He just, it was just old friends, and I was intrigued. What did you give him? I gave him a little money and some parts. Parts?

Made him in parts. How much money? And I don't remember. A couple hundred bucks. It wasn't a lot. And he put it on the, and that was it, one-time deal? No, no, we continued to help him. He'd call you up and he'd come over with some parts.

I don't tell me. I think there was a truck involved. Now we're getting the real. Yeah, yeah, there was a truck involved. But then, then I guess he talked me into the bush car. Right. And my first race, as partners with him, the first race, your dad won Charles. You got pictures of that.

I thought this stuff's easy, man. So that was in 1982, I think. Maybe 83, 83, 83, I think. So filling the gap between 77 and 83, y'all just running, he's just running that dirt car with City on the side of it. Yeah, and I'm racing, I'm racing boats. Ah, oh, that's right. All right.

What's the boat racing all about? Why did you want to race boats? Well, I grew up on a lake, and I always, like fast boats. So I got into drag boat racing at first with jet boats and then with hydros

and I went from 100 to 170 and I had a boat that held the world's record at 222. I didn't drive it but Jimmy Wright and Richmond drove it and he was killed in the boat. And so when he was killed I just stopped

and I was storing the boats over Harry Hyde shop and you know we were trying to find a sponsor and Max Muller was trying to help me with that. That's a familiar name. Yeah, he worked on the PSLs and NFL.

He's a great sports guy. And so he was trying to find a sponsor for the boats. And he called me one day and he said, how would you like to be partners with, you know, C.K. Spurlock, Kenny Rogers, and had Richard Petty drive the car. And I thought, what's, is a trick question? And because I knew Harry was there doing nothing.

they're doing nothing. And so we kind of put a deal together. The night that Richard got caught with the big motor in Charlotte, I was sitting in the garage area with Harry Hyde. And Richard comes over to the car and Harry says, what's the matter, Richard? He said, well, my motor's checking a little big. And so, and Harry said, well, it'll be okay as soon as it cools off. And Richard said, you can take that one to Alaska, and he'll go.

They ain't going to check. So that was kind of the start of, and I was in Germany for a Mercedes trip. Yeah. And he backed out. Richard backed out. Richard backed out. Dang. And so Richard backs out of this potential race team to drive for you.

And how, so what did you, what was the next decision for you? You had an opportunity, you had an out, but you stayed in there. Well, I was already building cars. Really? Yeah. And I mean, I think we had five people. Now, you're talking about how cheap you can start a team. I was renting the transmissions in the gears.

I was renting the equipment in the shop and renting the shop. Man. So I started with not a lot, but I thought that we were going to have STP with Richard. So we were too far along. To turn back. To turn back. All right. Wow.

Wow. You, I heard a story. So there's a picture of you and dad standing in the garage. Yep. At Charlotte Murray Speedway, Dad's in this plain blue uniform. Wrangler. But it doesn't have a wrangler on. It's just blue.

Okay. But it would have probably been a wrangler uniform. I don't know why it didn't have anything on it, but you're standing there with him. And he was testing your cup car. Yeah. So how did that happen? You call him up and say, I got a cup car, need some laps. Yeah.

And I knew him through Robert. All right. Okay. Yeah, because he drove your sportsman car, won the race. So when he wins a sportsman race, you're like, hey, man, what's your deal? You got a deal? Well, how did you get him over? Because he's kind of in between rides, not sure exactly what he's going to do.

He isn't with Richard Childers back. He's not back with Childress yet in 84. So what is he testing your car for? Well, we just asked him to come over and shake the car down. And so we started talking. And, of course, I wanted him to drive the car. and, you know, but it's a startup team. Yeah.

You know, no history, no nothing. Right. But at least we had a relationship. Sure. And if you see the picture, he drove the car, then I drove the car in a suit with a white shirt and his helmet. Really? Yeah. I've got pictures of that too.

I need those pictures. Okay. Because I've not seen that one. Okay. So you got in the car and drove it. Yeah. How fast were you? I don't.

A little bit faster than your dad. Bull crap. That's the way the story goes, right? That's it. Yeah. I'm going to stick with it, too. So you were trying to recruit him. I mean, there's no doubt about that.

Oh, yeah. You didn't know what would you say your chances were at? Zero. Zero. But you were going to try. But I'm a car sales one. I mean, I've got to try, right? Yeah.

I love that about you. There's been deals that you've made over the years. And even as recently, I remember when I was on the phone with you when Dale was out with concussion and you called and. said that Jeff Gordon was going to replace him for a few races. And I'm like, how did you do that? And Mr. H says, because I'm a hell of a car salesman. That's true, though.

But yeah, go ahead. All right. So I heard a rumor that you reached out to, so in the beginnings of your cup team when you're trying to build it and get guys, I heard that you'd reached out to Larry Pearson and David Pearson shut it down. Did you ever reach out to Larry to drive your car? I didn't. Maybe Harry did, but I didn't.

Got you. What other drivers have you tried? to hire or wanted to hire what kind of deals maybe that we don't know about it always came together? No, well, I've got to think now. You know, we're talking to Tim Richmond, and he didn't want to go, he put it off, give me an answer, and then I hired Bodine. So you were talking to Tim first?

I was talking to Tim, yeah, first. And he wouldn't commit. He wouldn't commit. What was he doing? I don't even remember. He was probably with the romance, I think. Yeah. So the way it happened is I said, Tim, I've got to have an answer.

So Bowdoin came in and he was sitting in my office. And I said, well, this was like 10 o'clock. And I said, I can't do anything because Tim's got a contract in his hand. And I've given him to 3 o'clock. And Jeff said, well, I'm just going to sit here and wait. So I was like, okay, well, I want you because if you want to do, driving. I want, God, he wants to drive. What was your sales pitch back then? What was your go-to point that you were trying to talk these guys into coming to race for you? What was it,

why should they go to race for you back then? You know, I don't really know other than I told them I was committed and I'd raised, I grew up racing, uh, modifies with my dad and Ray Hendrick and working on cars. I had, I was in drag racing and not many drag racing guys that've gotten into cup racing done very well. But I knew that I probably could hire, I try to hire the right folks, but we started with five people. And Bodine, oh, Jeff Bodine a lot,

because he took a chance. And, you know, we kind of established ourselves. We won three races that year. But if we hadn't, we were, actually we were going to close the shop after the sixth race in Darlington, I think it was. We wrecked, and I said, Harry, I can't go any further, don't have a sponsor, and I can't put my businesses in jeopardy.

And so let's run one more race. And as Harry said, Bowdoin's good at Martinsville. He went up there and won the race. What was a sponsor on the car, Northwestern? North Western Security Life. What is that? That's an insurance company. I did business with him in the automobile business.

Yeah. Why are you chuckling? Well, because a lot of his deals are, you know, he's very good at business to business. Yeah. Yeah, which is critical to today's the market. Oh, yeah. Trying to, you know, your sponsor giving them real value. So how much money were you spending a race back then?

You wanted to, you were going to shut the team down? Well, I think we ran the whole year in 1984 for $800,000. Yeah. And that was a lot. That was a lot. Yeah. That was a lot. A lot to me.

Yeah. Yeah. But I had five people. Yeah. And Harry was making $500 a week. Was he happy with that? That's what he asked for. Really?

He wanted to raise that bag. How did you get Harry Hyde to settle down? Because that guy was like suitcase Jake almost. He was moving around from team to team. Of course, he did stay with a 71 car for a while in the 70s, but he was kind of cantankerous, right? Yeah. How did you and him get along?

I know he didn't quite get along with Bodine in the end. He ended up going and working with Tim, which that was a great marriage. Yeah. What made Harry Hyde happy? I think when he finally got Tim, you know, he was, Tim had so much talent. So did Jeff, but they kind of locked horns. Personality.

Yeah. How bad did it get? Like what was? Oh, I got real bad. Okay. Yeah, I got, so we were like halfway through the season, and I had already hired Tim to run the second car. So I told Harry and Jeff, I said, okay, we got to get through the year.

We've got sponsors. So you guys need to get along. You can do it. So I got all the team together. And I said, and Jeff said, well, Harry, I'm going to do my best. We're going to get along the rest of the year. And so Harry said, but I'm a prick and a prima donna. But I love Rick Hendrick more and I hate you.

So I'm going to try to do it. And I said, whoa, Harry, wait a minute. Let's go outside. We've got to start all over again. That's not the good first step we're doing into salvaging this. That really wasn't after an hour of me, you know, trying to sell the team and tell, hey, we've got so much to look forward to. You know, we can, you know, just, we just got to hold it together.

And, I mean, I'd spent a good hour, you know, putting a love on them. I could just see Mr. H at the time when he goes, you're a pricking of prima donna, and Mr. H. is going, I mean, like, The things that these drivers and crew chiefs put you through over the years, it's amazing you even come up. I mean, this is one good example. It's torture. It's really torture. You're a counselor. You're a therapist for everybody.

You know that, right? Exactly. That's right. Right around this particular time in NASCAR, that dad and Jeff were running over each other every week. How did that, I mean, how did that not become worse than it was? Like, it's, I've watched races even recently, and where a dad would wreck Bodine and, and, and, and they put you on camera and you're like, we got to figure this out.

These guys got to figure this out. Can't keep tearing race cars up. And then if you think about, a lot of people look at Days of Thunder and there's a particular part in the movie where they're tearing up the rental cars and Bill France brings the drivers in to have a conversation with them in his office and all that.

That was sort of taken a little bit out of context, but from that story of Dad and Jeff when they were running over each other. Now, they didn't tear up rental cars. they actually had to ride in the car together, right? That's right. Who made that? So NASCAR, Bill France said, y'all going to straighten this out.

You're coming to Daytona? We went to Daytona. And you're going to ride in the car together. He made, who did that? Well, we were having a meeting, and it was a short meeting. In his office. In France. What did he say?

He said, boys. Who's in the room? It's Richard Childers and me and your dad and Jeff Bodai. and so and Bill France and he says I've got videos here and we can look at tapes but you two monkeys are not going to blank my show and he said so here's the deal

if he looked around the table he said now Rick you can go back and sell cars or Richard Richard you can I don't know you can go back to doing whatever and he told Jeff he could go back up north and he told your dad and he said I don't know what you do

make a living but you know if y'all gonna be in this sport this is what's going to happen and so he said now we're gonna go eat and so your dad said he said I can't I've got plans and Bill France said there's a phone change of plans

so and then so he said now Richard, you and Rick ride together with me and Jeff, you and Dale ride together. And they didn't wreck. Yeah, yeah. Did they protest? Did they? No, nobody.

You knew when you walked in there, you didn't have any options, and you didn't get to speak. Well, Dale Earnhardt tried to get out of it. He tried to get out of it with his other plans, but that got shut down. That shut down real quick. He wasn't going to protest, though, riding together with Jeff. No, he didn't. I think he could tell when the situation was, getting kind of edgy.

Did you or RC go ask the drivers, how did that go? I mean, did y'all talk? I mean, like, what happened? Did you and Richard ever get together before that? Like, hey, how do we sort these guys out? No, we'd look at each other when it would happen and say, hey, we weren't driving a car. Really? Because, you know, both of us would get upset.

And I told Jeff O'Don one time, I said, listen, you don't pick up a snake and shake him by his tail, let him go. If you go, you know, you go rub on him, then he's going to wreck you. So why don't you just quit? But they just couldn't, couldn't do it. But the bill said, okay, the next race, if you guys even get close to each other, I'm going to have to park the cars and come down out of the tower and inspect them because something must be wrong with them. And it might be the end of the race because I don't know if I can get across the track. Oh, wow. It was pretty cold. That's a threat. That's a big. Well, you know, he didn't, he had, he had enough.

Yeah. It was getting out of control. They were wrecking each other in Exfinity races and each other's cars and Granddaddy's cars. So Dad and Jeff got along? That was it. That was it. I guess the car ride thing worked. Yeah.

I mean, man, I would have thought they'd come to blows inside the rental car, but I guess not. So you talked about driving the car to test with Dad, but you actually ran in some cup races. Yeah. I think when Tim was sick, you got in the car at Riverside, right? Yeah. Did you run more than one? I ran too. I ran a bush race.

Where did you go to bus race at? And road Atlanta. You wouldn't dare go to them ovals, would you? No. Why not? Well, I'll tell you what. One day. Did you think he is a good road racer?

No, well, I was decent. I qualified my guys. Didn't you run into the Southwest Tour? or something? Heather, it was leading by like three seconds, and they threw a caution, and a guy by the name of Ron Hornet Day. He was on the show last week.

He spun you out. Yeah. And then I gave him a truck to get him in the racing one week. He told that story, actually. Yeah, you really kind of helped him out later in life. He didn't talk about the time he wrecked you. It's funny how they just forget those details. He acts like he had amnesia.

Are you driving that car? Yeah. You were driving that car. So you ran Southwest Tour race at Riverside. You ran a cup race at Riverside. Were you nervous going into the cup car? You're into big boys. You're the owner like the owners aren't supposed to suit up.

Not really. Actually, I was. That to me is so interesting. Well, I qualified 13th, I think. Yeah. And then everybody pitted and I stayed out, so I was leading. And then when they got ready to restart, it was all packed behind me.

And I thought, I mean, that's when I got nervous. Yeah. But I guess one of the things that I remember the most about that race is Richard Petty was right on me. It went into turn nine, and he got under me. But then when you come off a nine, you go to the flag stand, it goes back to the left. So if you're on the outside, if you don't give the guy room, you know, he's going into dirt. So I didn't give Richard room, and I looked in the mirror, and he was doing donuts through the parking lot. I don't know.

I haven't told him. I don't know if he remembers that or not. What do you want to apologize to do it for that? This is the time to do it right now. He put Richard. He's put Richard Tillis in the dirt. Richard, I'm sorry. I really am.

He's coming on the show here a couple weeks. He is. We may or may not bring that up and see if he remembers. Well, he and I've talked about what if he had, you know, started racing with me. But it's just STP and curb records, I think. Yeah. But I did. I did.

another story about your dad. So they used to give you $1,000 for the fastest time in Charlotte in the Bush series and the Cup Series. So I went over there in your granddad's car. And I put a 750 carburetor on it. And so Bobby Allison and your dad and two or four other guys. And I won top time. I was fastest.

So I'm feeling real good and I go out again. And I go into turn one, I look, and all I could see was your dad's eyes and I could see his face like it was, and I pulled right over and came in. And he said, it came in. After that, he came in over to him. And he said, what happened? Why did you quit? I said, I'm not stupid.

I was getting ready to get, I was getting ready to get dumped good. You felt like it was coming, huh? I felt like it was coming. Yeah. They used to give away cars, give you a car if you won the poll, I think at Charlotte. I don't know if Tim was driving for you when this happened, but they'd give Tim the car for winning the pole. And the guys that don't, the promoters, like, I guess Humpy and them,

had been driving this car around for like four or five months and smoking in it and burning up the day. Got all kinds of burn marks in the interior and stuff. And Tim's like, I thought I was getting a brand new car. He was so ticked off. They would award their car. They gave him a huge, basically a rental. It smelled like a pack of a car.

Marlboro's. Well, Schrader got a, his deal wasn't that good. So I told Schrader, I said, look, if you win the pole, I'll give you a truck. And so Schrader won the pole. And we had this four or five hundred dollar truck, rusted out, smoking, just a junker. And so we brought it over to the track and gave it to him. And that was, that was funny. You remember, I don't know if you remember this, but when we always cut up a lot with Schrader. So I put a sign in the back window to the race car. Driver wanted a million dollar guarantee. And so Rusty Wallace and all the guys were, of course. It was kind of, it was funny. Damn, I had to hurt his feelings a little bit.

We were just cutting back. It wasn't, it wasn't like real serious. It would hurt my feelings. I mean, you know, listen, we've had drivers in this seat. The old drivers that have been talking about times their teams, they felt like we're, you know, wronging them or something. Dave Marcus was talking about, you know, how he had to quit at a post-race press conference. And they're sensitive.

You had, you guys are so sensitive, way more sensitive than we ever thought, right? But you don't understand. Schrader was adopted by my mom and dad. And he, they loved him. Oh, just not for real. Not for real. I thought we were getting breaking news here about Schroeder. But they absolutely loved him.

Yeah. So we cut up and played a lot. He was like a brother. He was like a brother. Yeah. So one race you ran in, I remember, was at Topeka Kansas, the Arca Race. I'd been with Schrader for the whole week. Oh, I remember that one.

He's coming on the show to tell that story. You're willing to go into details about this story. Well, we're going to save it for the Schrader interview. But we will talk about, I've been with Schrader for the whole week running around in dirt races all over the country with him. And it culminated with this final race of the week in Topeka, Kansas, Arca Race. Dad's running, you're running, aren't you running? Yep. And Trader and Darryl Waltrip.

Yep. And so Dad showed up on race morning. Like he's going to start in the back. Right. Not qualified, not practice or nothing. And I was not feeling good because I'd been with Schrader for a week. I was sick as a dog. But Rick comes up.

I'm standing. I'm hanging out at this motor coach that was kind of home base for all the Schraders bunch. and so I'm hanging out with him and I haven't even seen dad yet and but Rick comes up and says hey I want you to sign let's sign I want you to sign a lifetime contract and I was like yeah no problem let's do it yeah and so he got he grabbed a napkin and wrote like a short little two sentence contract and we both signed it and we should have kept it I wish I wish we had kept Yeah. And he wanted to give, he wanted to take it and show it to dad.

Did you ever show it to him? No, because your dad was so hot that morning when he got there because he heard the story. Because of what he had done all week. Who told him all about that? I do. It wasn't me. Yeah. Because I'm standing by the car before the race started.

Yeah. And he walks up to me, you know, hey, catch you by your chala like that when he's talking to him. Yeah. He pulled him. He got real close to me. And he said, I'm going to kill Sreder. And I said, I had nothing to do with it. He said, I'm going to kill him.

And I thought, I'm about 10th, and he's in the back. How long is it going to take him to get to me? Because I'm going to move over. But, no, it was funny. He really was mad, huh? I always thought he was sort of messing with Schrader like you were. He was hot. I mean, he was mad.

So him and Schrader didn't talk for probably a year. What? Yeah. He. Coincidentally dumped Schrader at Pocono the next race, Cup race they ran. Whoa. Yeah, as far as I remember.

I don't know who told him what went on, but somebody did. So, I mean, we'll get Schrader to go in more detail, but basically I just went and hung out with Schrader and did whatever his guys did. We drank beer, but I was only 16, I think. I drove my truck to the airport to get on the plane. I thought you were 14. I had my driver's license. Well, you couldn't go on a club.

I remember that. I know that. I couldn't go into particular clubs. Okay. But them old Kansas club. And I wasn't, I wasn't with them. Yeah. I sat out in a parking lot at the club and watched some guy sell guns at the trunk of Cadillac.

Yeah. I don't know why Diller and Hart was a big problem about this. Yeah. This is where he learned about the, uh, aftermarket gun sales. I was so hungover that I hid from dad for several hours that morning. Out on the pits. Yeah. Out in the pits, this guy was, I was.

sitting in Schrader's pit and this guy's glue and lug nuts on the tires and I'm just sitting on with him tires and it's sun's out and I'm feeling like crap and dad walked up and looked down at me and I looked up at him and he didn't say a word and I didn't say a word and he just knew I knew he knew and he walked away and I didn't think he'd be that upset about it I think that he I felt like damn you knew this was going to happen right I mean why are you surprised right Schrader right Shrader wasn't a mystery to anybody. I honestly believe that Shrader had asked if Kelly could go on the trip, and Dad turned that down and said Dale Jr. should go.

Kelly could Kelly come? Now, that would have been something. And so Schrader's like, all, fine. And, I mean, we went to like four or five. We went to a dirt track every night racing. It was amazing. And they drank beer, and I'd drink beer with them. But anyhow.

He bum rides, didn't he? Didn't he catch a ride? with somebody after the race and a pickup to get him to the airport or something. He was crazy. Yeah. It was a wild week, and that's just, that was an average week for Schrader. I know, right? But it was the funnest thing ever.

I mean. Was he more mad than what he would have been mad at Bodon? Like, compare the two. Schrader or Bodon? Who gets the worse of it? You know, I don't, I don't. That morning, I never saw Dale mad. Oh.

Whatever it was going on with them to happen on the track. But this was before the race. This was family. This is personal. I knew the difference between kind of playing upset and upset. Yeah, that was tough. Hey, let's take a quick break. We'll get back to Mr. H. in just a second.

But first, let's tell you a little bit about Dell Jr.'s past, and I mean, you're real past, Del Jr. Way back. Let's talk about ancestry and my own ancestry before Canapolis and Moorsville, North Carolina, the Earnhardt family made its way to North America traveling from Germany through Philadelphia. Then they migrated down to Salisbury, North Carolina, and here we are. I've done my own genealogy discovering all this information myself, and I'm excited to tell you all about ancestry. I'm a happy, happy, happy customer. They've provided such a great service for people like me to learn more about their family without Ancestry.com. I don't think I could learn much beyond

Ralph Earnhardt, who is my grandfather. I've been able to go back not only to my grandf, grandfather but almost 10 generations of Earnhardt's as I said through Philadelphia and from Germany I was able to detail the town that we lived in in Germany back in the 1700s and go visit that town and look at records with my family's names handwritten into the books of the churches they worship dad and so forth where they would keep those records so pretty incredible experience that I've been able to have all because one day I signed up for an account on Ancestry.com. That simple, simple choice I had no idea was going to take me on such an incredible journey. With Ancestry, you can trace your ancestors' journey

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For 20% off your ancestry DNA kit. Ancestry.com slash Dale Jr. So one of the funest parts, one of the funnest things that I like to, to talk about when is our first meeting at HMS. He likes this one. I love this one. This is so good. I'm going to let you tell it, and I'll see if you tell it.

And then you fix it. We've talked about it on this show before, and people were surprised. But I had, and you might not know everything, all of it, but you probably do. We had went to Joe Gibbs. We met with Joe and the owner of the Redskins, Snyder at his house, right? Yeah. And they showed us a contract. and I'd been making, I think my salary was $600,000 or something at the,

I can't remember it might have been twice that, but it wasn't, it was comparable to most drivers. It was in the lower end. So I was, but I thought that was a lot. You know, I'm like, man, you know, this is great. And then when I went and seen this contract that Joe's handed to me and Kelly, it like short-circuited my brain. Like I couldn't believe somebody was wanting to pay me this kind of money, right? And so when I went to meet with you, my heart was to drive for Rick.

HMS to me all these years had been this perfect, you know, opportunity and this best team. And they just won and one and one and one. And they had a really amazing reputation. Plus the family connection. I had I had been racing for family for all these years. That's such a security blanket. Yeah. And I'm like, man, I kind of have that same security blanket if I go drive for Rick.

He's like family. He'll take care of me. Give me the benefit of the doubt. And anyways, we go to the meeting and he's got that paper. And he slid that thing across the table. And I was like, I ain't looking at that. I was like, I don't even want to know what it says. You really said that to him?

I don't want to see what that says. He said it. And I said, well, okay, don't look at it. He loved my job. It was actually, everybody was a little nervous, you know, and I really wanted to drive the car. And Ricky had told me my son, he's going to drive for us one day. So I never thought it would happen.

And so I had labored over this contract for like, with Marshall for like weeks before I was going to show it to him, you know. And so we go in the room and sit down. and I said, well, here's, here's, here's what we can do for you. And he said, I don't care about that. And I thought, give it, no, it okay. Let me have it back. Don't look at it.

But he said, but then it was kind of funny because Marshall was in with us. And Marshall was kind of, he was kind of uptight. And so Dale, we were talking about it. And Dale said, I thought we had it. We were all done. He said, I have a couple of things that I want. And I'm thinking, oh, here we go. This is going to be big.

This is going to be real big. And he said, I want the skirts on the car, painted the same colors of car. And it took me about a second to say, what? It still blows my mind. Okay. And I think the helicopter, you won't helicopter for a couple of races. To Martinsville, Darlington, maybe, I guess. Yeah.

I was like, I need, I want a helicopter ride to Martinsville. Unlike any negotiation you have ever had. Ever, never, ever. I mean, don't care about the money. Don't care about that. Yeah. Somebody had to eventually look at that paper, though. But, yeah, well, I told, I said, you and Kelly sort that out.

Yeah. Whatever y'all agree to. I'd already had more money than I knew what to do with. So, like, money wasn't, money didn't motivate me and make, make me happy. You know, what made me happy was how my car looks. Side skirts. Well, if the side skirts aren't painted, it ruins the entire car. And I drive the car. I want the dang thing to look good. And then, and then. I never understood drivers that don't care about what their car looks like.

Oh, we had two sponsors hooked up, and so we were in a meeting with them, and we go through everything with them, all the big stuff, the numbers and everything. And it said, oh, there's one more thing. we got a hat. Dale's got to design the car. They said, what? No, we can't. I said, that's the deal. Dale's got to design the car.

That's a deal breaker. And I'm sitting there. We're looking at all this money, and we're going to blow it over. He's going to design the car. But you did, and it looked good. Yeah, it's all right. It's all right. I look back at, I remember sending him the paint schemes, and it felt frivolous.

Like sending Rick the ideas that I had. Right. I'm like, hey, Rick, you know, I want to be involved and I want to send you some of these and you can show them to whoever. And I felt frivolous. Because it was. I mean, like, it felt petty. Like he doesn't have something else in his life going on at the moment. He's got to sit there and mess around with paint schemes.

That was the most important thing. Well, in my life, that was at the top, near the top of the party list. Had you had problems with side skirts? I mean, did you ever get your? opinion sought out at DEI? Where did you get burned on this? We had black side skirts and then I think the last few races we might have started made them red.

Okay. So, you know, if you really need to know, the first time I ever saw all this done really well was when Rusty Wallace started his Xfinity team, he had a bright, yellow and black, number 66 car. And I think Hank Parker's brother, catfish drove the car. Billy Parker. and then eventually Rusty's son drove it

but this car had these side skirts painted on it and it was freaking beautiful and it looked like it was so low to the ground compared to other cars without side skirts I said I'm hooked never for the rest of my life I'm going for painted side skirts but well go ahead finish

well I was saying like I was going I'm the one out there driving the car I felt like guy that's kind of a good thing that the driver cares what the car looks like like, and it's a motivation. Like, if you like the way the car looks, you're going to want to take that car and do something good with it, you know?

I never understood drivers that don't have an opinion or a care, I guess, about what the car looks like. You know, to me, the design and the beauty of the car, like trying to win best-appearing car and trying to have good craftsmanship and trying to build a pretty race car from the inside out has always been something that was important to me. Well, you did, Jimmy did that. Yeah, my uncle Robert. Yeah, with Jimmy Johnson.

Oh, Jimmy Johnson did that. The ally car, yeah. He sent me. You worked with him on it. Well, I just gave him my opinion, but if you call a couple text messages back and forth working with him. But he sent me his, he's like, hey, man, I'm going to help design this car. What do you think about X, Y, and Z?

And I was like, this is what I would do, but maybe I rubbed off on this big time, seven time champion? Listen, you know, we learned from Kislauski a few weeks ago. that Mr. Penske is deeply involved in the paint schemes and the looks. It checks off on all the paint schemes. How about that? Yeah. Did you know that?

I did know that. I heard that. The question is, is, I'm not so quirky after all. Right. Well, so how much do paint schemes in the look of your race cars actually matter to you? It matters a lot. I like for the cars to look good. Yeah.

And there's some paint schemes I haven't liked, but usually between the driver and the sponsor. That's what they want. So you don't. typically get involved. Have you ever just absolutely killed a paint scheme idea saying that will never be on my race car? You have. I have. What was it? I'm not going to say. Do it. I wasn't going to ask, but I knew he would. I knew he would. Nope, nope, not going to happen. Was it reset? No. Was it Dale? No. Why can't you say if it was so long ago? I'm just, I'm not going. You don't have to say just nod. All right, just go start going to drivers. Well, I do know. I came up with the paint scheme for the 48.

the new one. You did? No, no. I came up with one, and they killed it. Jimmy killed it. Oh, no. He said,

that's too old-fashioned. Oh, man. That's too conservative. Really? And that's when you two were bouncing back for it. So I actually liked the one that came up with it.

Yeah, I think it's a good-looking car. The ally looks good on the hood. What was a conversation like when you sat down with Lattart and told him that he was going to be my crew chief? Did you sit down with him? Yes. All right?

Yeah. He thought he was getting fired. Do you know that? No, I didn't know that. It's what he says. He thought he was getting let go. Yeah. So I guess he, because if you go back to that particular point in time in that career,

in my career and his career, when he starts to tell the story, I'm thinking that he's going to say that when he heard the news that he was going to be my crew chief, he was going to be a little disappointed. Like, oh, man, I'm going from Jeff Gordon to Dale Jr., and Dale's been struggling. This is going to be a hard, tough hill. but he was actually relieved because he thought he was going in there to get let go because he and Jeff hadn't done so well. I just felt like he would be exactly what you needed.

Boy, was he. And so, I mean, I think the day after I told him, he flew up to your house. He drove up to your house and spent the day with you. Yeah. So that's, this is, you're amazing. See, the Tart's amazing too. and like you said, when he heard that news, he went home and thought about it, and the next day called me and said, let's get together.

You know about this deal? We're going to work together. We're going to do it together. Because he felt like that it was sort of his last opportunity too, because he had kind of failed or this thing that he and Jeff had going on the ground to a halt. And he looked at me and he kind of said, this is both of our, this is both of our, final shot. You know, we're going to have to work hard and make it work.

I said, you tell me what you want to do. And I'll do it. You sort of felt like you were at the out of options as well. So Rick had delayed and delayed and delayed like you're sitting across the table and I don't want to put you in an uncomfortable situation. But I felt like that I had gotten a lot more leeway than a lot of guys would have in that situation. We had struggled.

We had failed week after week, year after year. and I was like, man, you know, I don't know how much further Rick can go with this the way it's going. I don't know where the sponsors are mentally over it all. So I felt like, yeah, when, and we, you know, we'd change things. We'd change crew chiefs. We'd change people. We'd move things around. But this was a big shift moving me from one shop to the other with an entirely new group of people.

And I thought, I thought, yeah, this has to work. or this will be the end. But it ended up working out. How close was he, in his assumptions of the situation, was he sort of out of options? No, no. We just, I believe, you know, we're all in the people business. And, okay, we're kind of business you're in.

It's got to be, it's got a mesh. It's got to fit. And you've got to get that right combination. And I could see it and feel it. It wasn't right. And I felt like Stevie could do it. And Dale told me a couple of times that that shop was never as good as the 48 shop, 2448. So I knew I had to get it in his head that he was going to be in that shop with that team.

And Stevie was already there. And so it just worked out. Yeah. And, no, but I never thought about this as the end of it. I thought about it. I'm not going to let him fail. You know, we're going to keep. going changing until we get it right.

Is it because there was a confidence issue going? I mean, he pretty much had lost his confidence as a race car driver, right? I mean, it was building him back up where he, you know, he used to feel like he was the best driver on the racetrack. When you don't feel like that, you've lost an edge. You've lost several tents, right? Yeah, well, we didn't give him what he needed, and we just, again, the combination wasn't there.

But because we started off with a bang. We'd go down off of Daytona. Like won everything it was. I remember we went to Vegas to test, and we were fast, and all the cars were fast. All of us were, but me and Tony Jr. were really good. And Jeff came over and said, dang, he's like, you're impressive. And I thought, dang, this is awesome. Like, it's working.

And then we went to Daytona and won a shootout and won a qualifying race. And, you know, we had a great season all the way. I mean, we weren't winning races, but we were running first and second in the points. You were running up in the points. Yeah, me and Kyle Bush were first or second. They were right together. And then he dumped it, Richmond. Yeah, but then we went on and won at Michigan,

and we had a pretty solid year. Didn't finish out in the playoffs very well or whatever. But it started out great. Yeah. It kind of went off the rails. Yeah. Why? Why did it go off the rails?

The me and Tony Jr. We're getting pretty hard on each other, especially on the radio. And I think so far, for me and Tony Jr., that was kind of normal. We did that all the time back in the bud days. But when Rick and them heard it, they were like, dang, this is bad.

These guys. I want, I want, I wonder, I don't know who won the race, but one of my cars wanted to race. And here comes the media. And I thought they wanted to talk about the race that we just won. They were going to talk about Dale and Tony Jr. going at it on the radio. Yeah. And I don't remember all of it.

It was just, it was so much focus on you, and everybody was expecting, you know, a lot. Yeah, DW said, and we're going to win six races the first year. Oh, yeah. And everybody was listening to everything y'all said. Yeah. So it was a lot of pressure. There was a lot of pressure. I know.

A lot of pressure on all of us. For sure. One of the worst, you're always doing a lot of great deals, but I think one of the worst deals you ever done was swapping that helmet for that race car after Homestead. I do think you got the short end of the step there. Why did you do that? I couldn't believe it. So he calls me up and he says, hey, I got a question.

He's like, after the race at Homestead, I want a helmet. I said, great, because I've been thinking about that car. He goes, that's a deal. It was like, dang, that was easier than I thought. Well, I thought you deserved it. And, you know, I'm happy with the deal. I got the helmet. You got the car.

So you collect helmets, but also you collect a lot of guitars. Yeah. What's the deal in the guitar collection? How many you got? And you're all autographed, right? By different. I got over 200 now. Geez.

Yeah. Why? What, do you just take a bit of an autograph by any singer? No, no, no. No. I love music. Yeah. And I can't sing or can't play, right?

but in 84 our race in Nashville we won Chad Atkins gave me a special edition guitar and then that was the beginning of it and then Tim Richmond was friends with Bruce Springsteen and so I'd go to the concerts with him and he gave me a guitar so that's how it kind of started and then we won Richmond

with the rock and roll 400 and that was a beautiful guitar and then through the the car collection, guys, you know, entertainers started coming. And now it's amazing the people that have actually played there inside the building, you know. Do you have a Huey Lewis in the news guitar? I do. Because Tim and Huey Lewis were pals. Yeah. I was listening to Huey Lewis this morning. Was you? Yeah. It's amazing you said that. Yeah, underrated. I wish he, I wish he was still touring. He can't. Something happened to his voice. Yeah. Where is the next batch of

cup owners coming from you guys you know you and penske and all those guys been owning cars for a long time where's the next group coming from you know i don't know i think it could be uh i think with it what they're getting ready to do with the new car it might bring more people in yeah and um you just never know i mean you think that somebody like maybe some of the drivers like Brad or some of those guys. At some point, my side they won't own a team. What happens to Gibbs, Penske, Hendrick, when you guys are gone? How do you position that company and who, you know, to continue?

In our situation, we've got a son-in-law as a president, but also Jeff Gordon as a partner, so he'll be there to take care of it. And you and him have us talked about that? You're like, I don't care of what you want to do. you're doing this if he wants to turn it into a boat racing operation if we get him to come to work so you think that why do you think the new car would create opportunities for new owners I think it's going to take it's it's kind of a it's it's a car that you're going to buy all the pieces from someone else yeah you don't need the engineering to build the chassis somebody's

going to build the chassis so no no 15 or 12 at 30 different chassis out there. And the body's going to be a flange-fit body, and the components will all be... Affordable? If it does what they say it'll do, and you can run in multiple races. How many automotive stores have you opened up with drivers?

You got one with me, one with Jeff, and Jimmy, Terry LaBoney. Terry LeBoney. Who else? That's it. Have you opened up stores with anybody else that would be... Oh, Boris said. Boris. Yes.

Yeah. You and Boris are pals? Yeah. Yeah. He came to you with an opportunity or what? And the difference between Boris and all your other guys. He never drove for you. He works.

He does work hard. I went out there one day and he's breaking down tires on a tire machine. So you're saying that Dale Jr., at Dill Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet down he's not breaking down tires and he's not. Yeah, he does go down and pump the guys up. He does. It's been a while. I'm due for a visit.

You are due. Yeah. You want to go? Yeah, I'll go with you. You want to go together? Yep. That'll be fun. What have you learned about eyeing talent in drivers since you started as an owner?

How do you find talent? What do you look at? Well, you know, I just look at raw ability and car control. And then, you know, have people tell me, hey, you can watch this guy. Yeah. Have you watch that guy? And James Finch was my talent scout for Chase. James told you about Chase?

They did. Yeah? He's watching Chase down there at the Derby in Florida. Called you up and said Chase pretty good. I needed to look at him, so I did. And there was a lot of guys that we. Who told you about Jeff Gordon? I saw him.

You did. Yeah. Where at? In Atlanta. In Atlanta. I was in Atlanta and just, I don't know why I was there on Saturday. And I was, you know, that was one track that had a pedestrian tunnel. So I'm going through the tunnel, getting ready to go up in the suite

because we had sponsors at both days. And I seen him come down the straightaway and go in the corner. And I thought he'd, you know, blown a motor because the tires were. You could literally see the smoke off the tires. And so I said, well, watch this guy. He's going to crash. And so they said, well, that's that Gordon kid. And I'd watched him on that Thunder Sprint Car show.

That deal, yeah. And so I went, this is the weirdest thing. I went to Motorsports. The next couple, I think it was Monday or Tuesday after the race. I walk into Jimmy Johnson's office, the guy that ran it, not the driver, Jimmy. And Andy Graves was sitting in there. And I said, that's a shame that Gordon kid's got a contract with Ford. And Andy said, he don't have a contract.

He had won the next day. But it took a chance with him because we had no sponsor, no nothing, and just felt that strong about him. You talked about how Tim was a little hesitant to sign the deal before Jeff came. How did you get Tim to come drive for you? Well, Tim wanted to come after the first year. And so he came, and, of course, he and Harry didn't get along the first half of the season. No, the move, the days of thunder, that story's true, where they went test.

And then they hit on it, and man, this second half of the season, I think he won either set. Yeah. It's first and second. What did it take for Harry Hyde to like you then? You had to agree with Harry. He had to, he had to. He sounds like Tony Sr. Yeah.

Like if you didn't have any talent, he'd tell you to your face. But Tim Richmond had talent. Jeff Bodon had talent. Harry was a better salesman than Harry could manipulate things. So he was slick. He was smart. But Tim didn't care. I mean, I remember at Riverside, Harry said, okay, this motor's fresh.

This motor's got 50 laps. This one's got 25 more horsepower than this motor. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. We'll put it with whatever we want in the car. Yeah. He didn't care.

Sure. Is that a good comparison? senior with Harry Hyde. I mean, because like we just, people that didn't know him, I just, I love the stories about Harry. And I'm still trying to figure out like what exactly. We've asked people that knew him on, on this show. Like, you know, what was Harry Hyde really like?

Well, I went over there when my boats were stored and he had this trailer, a house trailer, mobile home. And he had pictures all in and I'd go in and he'd tell me stories. He was a storyteller. And he told me, he said, I could build a car today. go to Charlotte and win the race. And I believed him. I mean, that's how convincing he was.

But Harry was, he built his stuff bulletproof. I mean, it was heavy, but he had helicopter coolers, oil coolers, and his stuff didn't break. Yeah. You, when I was a little boy back in 1987, I had a driver that I pulled for. I liked the underdog, and Jimmy Means was an underdog. and ran his own equipment and typically ran in the back half of the field.

But when Tim was out of the car there in the middle of that season, you put Jimmy in the car. How did that all come about? He ran the one race at Charlotte for y'all. Yeah. And he qualified, didn't he? Fourth, I think. And he ran really well.

I think he got down the wreck. There was a wreck early, big wreck. He got a bunch of cars. Dad was in it. It was one of those deals that we just wanted to give them a chance. But what did the, like just, hey, we need a driver. Who do you want to give a chance to you? Jimmy Means.

I just think we should give him. How did that happen? You saw him do something? Well, Harry thought he had talent. Wow. That's cool. That's a hell of a compliment. And then somebody told us, hey, this, he's really struggling.

Why don't you give him a chance? Yeah. I still give him parts and motors. Yes, you do. Yeah. For his exfinity cars. Isn't that cool? You know, that's a common denominator that we get a lot.

now that we've been talking to people in the sport a long time, is that there's always a Rick Hendrick helping me out story. Sure. It's really, it's been happening. I think it's a testament to what you've done for people in the sport, and you've got a lot of people drive for you at this point. I don't know who it was. It was Matthew or Dale, but listed all the drivers that have driven for Hendrick Motorsports

at some point in our notes, and I couldn't believe how many people that is. How many is it? Here. Jeff Bodine, Dick Brooks, Brett Bodine, Tim Richmond, Jim Fitzgerald, yourself. Jimmy Means Benny Parsons Darrell Walscher Rob Maroso

Ken Schrader Bobby Hamilton Tommy Kendall Kyle Petty Greg Sacks Stan Barrett Jimmy Horton Ricky Rudd, Hutch Strickland Cyril Vander Merv Jeff Gordon Allenscher Jr., Terry Labony Jeff Purvis Jack Sprague Tobadine Rackie Crayin Wally Dalinbach

Junior Randy Leight Jr., Jerry Nadu Jimmy Johnson Joe Nimichick David Green Brian Bickers Kyle Bush Casey Mears Mears Mears Meade Caslaske Mark Martin Casey Cain Riggins Smith Chase Elliott Alex Bowman and William

If my math is right, that's 45. Golly, I don't remember that. I don't even remember. But, you know, back back, I guess, in the late 80s and 90s, we decide that we want to run another car and put somebody in it. We do it. A lot of times, too, Rick, in some of those scenarios, there was some injuries. DW had got hurt at Daytona.

I think that's how Cyril Vandermer, I don't even have a half. Who is that? Cyril Van Damir. He's probably one of the road racer. The greatest rally drivers, and he drove the GTP car. And he could not be beat

until if the car broke. But he was good. Yeah. And that was an extra car, I think. Craven had some injuries that you had some guys fill in for. Terry had a few races he missed. You did.

Regan. I did. Yeah. I mean, a lot of those drivers are won off races, but still a pretty cool list. And I ask you all the time, and we'll let you go after this.

And then sometimes, I remember, we did the movie Days of Thunder. Yeah. So we'd have to take, like, six. I ain't counting those. You're not taking? No, we didn't count those. Bobby Hamilton. Bobby, well, yeah, Bobby's in there.

But I thought, yeah, Bobby Hamilton's in this here list. I thought, oh, gosh. Tommy Ellis also drove one of the movie cars there. He's not in the list. Is that just cup, by the way? Just cup. Okay, just cup. Yeah.

So we missed one. Tommy Ellis, I guess. That's when they put a $300,000 camera in their rear bumper. And I said, you don't want to do that. At Bristol. At Bristol. And so we got to have it. And I think fifth or sixth lap.

Somebody destroyed it. It destroyed it. So you literally entered cars to the race for the movie. Yeah. Had to. Yeah. That's amazing. There was a, two cars started at the back of the Daytona 500 that year.

And they were tasked to run just 40 or so laps and then they were going to pull in. But they were out there. on the track, just getting shots of them. And that's what made the movie so good, is the ability to be able to have real action. I think we went to Phoenix and took Bobby Hamilton in the

black 51 car. And I think he's had on the pole. That wasn't supposed to happen. That's hysterical. You know, speaking of Days of Thunder, it blew our mind that Steve LaTart had never watched the movie being that he's such a Hendrik Motorsports guy for all those years. You know that? I didn't know that. That was the one flaw in his whole tenure at Hendrick

Motorsports and he had never seen Days of Thunder while he worked at. He might have won a few more races had he watched that movie and known the connection in the link. It blew our mind because I mean it's that's basically the Hendrick Motorsports story even if it's fictitious in the movie it's it's inspired by you. And so as Dale Jr. can do, as a only Dale Jr. can do. He guilted Steve on social media and got Junior Nation behind it, forced him to watch the movie, and then he came on the show to give the

review of it. And he liked it. He liked it. So I know now you can rest easy knowing that Steve liked Dave... You were friends with Tom Cruz. You still are today. Still are. Yeah. Why did you get so heavily involved helping them make that movie? Because y'all had to help them...

Y'all provided a lot of race cars and equipment and y'all were advising and so forth. I mean, did you worry about losing a lot of money there? Well, the way that happened. I'd been a little nervous. I didn't have any money. Well, I did spend a lot of time building cars and so forth.

And we probably put too much effort in trying to help them. But Tom and I and Paul Newman drove together in the SCCA. Ah, Tom Cruise raced? Yeah, yeah. SCCA? Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be the odd history.

Oh, is it? Oh, awesome. All right. All right. We're going to hear that. I guess it's history. Yeah. And so one day we went to Daytona and just testing, playing around, and Tom was driving the bush car. Yeah.

And he said, you know, we need to make a movie about this. So the next thing I knew. What? Yeah. Hey. And so then Robert Town came to town and went up and talked to your dad. And Robert and I are still friends. Who?

Robert Town. So I was at the farm shop with Kelly when Tom Cruise walked in the door to sit with dad, and him and dad went into dad's office for about an hour and just sat. And the rumor is that they tried to talk dad into playing Rowdy Burns, the bad guy. I don't know that. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know that. We were hoping he would confirm that. Well, Rick, I was listening all, I was listening all those drivers, and you've been around this sport for a long time, and I asked you this all the time, why are you still doing it? Like, you got all, you could, you're old enough, successful enough you got car dealerships just cranking along day after day why don't you go sit on a yacht somewhere and just goof off the rest of your life what makes a guy like you or

penske or you know other guys similar to keep going what's the motivation for me it's the people it's the people at motorsports that have been there from the beginning and 35 years you know giving the guys their 20-year watches, and you've built something I didn't, but all the people together did that's special. And we've kind of built it one brick at the time from 5,000 square feet and five employees to what it is today. It's over 500 employees. 600.

God, you gained 100 employees since I was tired. Just that you got that money back. You got that money back. You were able to invest it to 100 new employees. I have to pay him so much. That's right. There was a reason he didn't want to look at that piece of paper. That was 100 employees' worth of salaries on that paper.

And I look back at like meeting Chase when he's 14, meeting William up here when he was about 14. And seeing those guys come along, seeing the young guys become crew chiefs, it's just special. I mean, to me, the reason to continue, is the people, being around them, watching them, not just exiting, you know, something that's been special.

Yeah. Yeah, I called him one time. I don't remember what was going on in the sport, but something was happening in the sport where everybody was a little nervous, and I called him one time and told him to take a million dollars off my salary if he needed to. That's right. No, wait, nervous about. Just there was some.

The economy was. I mean, yeah, back in 2009, 2010. I'll say that it's the only driver that ever I've been associated with in all my years that said, hey, I want you to take a million off of my salary and give it to the guys in the shop. Don't have to cut anybody's pay. I'll give up a million dollars. Nobody else ever. What was your response to?

Pretty amazing. I was shocked. I mean, I just showed. He was like, you're, you sure? It shows you the character he has. He was like, and his relationship with people. You're feeling all right. He was like a little, he didn't know how to take it.

But if those sideskirts changed, then that deal is off. I want my million dollars back. That's right. I've always been just fascinated by y'all's, the dynamics of y'all's relationships. I mean, you know, you told a story about, you know, the actual deal and, you know, coming to work for Hendrick Motorsports. But you have so many more. I love the story in the general's office, you know. Oh, my God.

You know, when we were up in Washington, D.C. Oh, golly, yeah. That was a rough start. I guess that's my point, is that you've always, at least to us, you've always sort of laughed off moments. None of the National Guard generals saw me. Well, tell them real quick what happened. How could they not see you?

He was sitting on the couch. He was sitting on the couch, and they were going through. You had a four-star general, and you had a, my bird colonel that was going through the charts and the program for racing and you started snoring you put your head down and uh and the general said that's enough of that crap we don't want to talk about that he was tired too putting him to sleep i was freaking out i thought this is it you one day on the show you have to get kelly and you have to get her to tell the story about her not going because she had a stomach problem.

And you called her and said, hey, Kelly, where are you? And she said, I can't go. That was to this deal. And you said, if I got to go, you got to go. And I'm listening to the end of it. And all of a sudden, he said, hello? Hello? Hello?

Oh, that's so funny. When Rick, when we sort of had agreed to terms on the deal or whatever signed a contract, Rick, I said, Rick, I said, now you know I ain't never tucking my shirt in. I'm not going to be like, you know, most of the drivers that you've hired. And he goes, all right, yep, sure, you got it. No problem.

I want to tuck a shirt in. We go to this deal to meet the generals in, at the, we're in Washington, D.C. You can see the Washington Monument out their window. All right. And he and I got my shirt tail tucked in, and I've got on some nice pants, and I'm walking into the,

building and I'm I'm just thinking in my mind like where's Rick and I turn around and Rick's behind me taking pictures that's yeah that's a moment he was like I need to document this yeah yeah he was the paparazzi at that moment he was he was real proud of himself he's like look what I look what I got done here y'all had a lot of fun I'd tell you what those years uh for all that we went through and you went through from a competition standpoint and then to you know end up with the tart the dynamics of y'all's relationship has always been fascinating. And listen, I'll go to my grave talking about how special you are to a lot of people. And, you know, we're definitely two of them.

Listen, I've watched one of the things that amazed me is we've always been real close. And so we're down in Key West. You know, he's a bunch of guys and having a good time partying. And then about a year or so ago, a year ago, I look up and he's coming down to dock. with a stroller and i thought man had times have changed you know i've seen it from the early days to uh growing up being a special father loving his little girl and so we're family and and i've treasure that and we'll always be you guys are special yeah rick and linda have come by the house i've took time out of the day come by the house at sea island she'll be here in a bit to say

hey to you cute as a button yes sir all right man well we're glad you came we'll have to get you back on here And maybe some time next year. We've got more stories to tell. More stories. Lots of stories. All right. Mr. Hendrick was a lot of fun to have on the show. He's a boss, so he sure knows about how to hire people.

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ZipRecruiter.com slash Dale Jr. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash D-A-L-E-J-R. ZipRecruiter.com slash J-L-J-J-R. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. We have a documentary coming out soon. Everybody has been seeing the teases on social media. It's driving me freaking crazy. I haven't seen it.

I'm dying to see it called Time Machine. And that got me thinking, is there something that you guys would like to do? Maybe go back in time. Do again. Yeah. Let me think about this one here. To go back in time and do it again. Do any of you guys have something on top of your head?

Well, we did hit social about it too and got some interesting, very interesting response to someone we couldn't say. Yeah, some of them we couldn't say, unfortunately. That's social media. No surprise. I mean, I guess we can lead off with the most interesting one, Christina, so she's not buying that damn box of honey buns. I don't know what that means. but what that started in her life. We all have those moments.

Right. But a lot of people talking about races, they would go back and attend again, Hayward Parish, going to my first NASCAR Cup Series race. It was Darlington, 1976. Tyler Evert's 2014 fall Martinsville race that Dale Jr. won. Best race I've ever seen in person. Nice.

Kent Jordan says the final lapse, the 1998 Daytona 500, and the reaction from all the teams on pit road. And then another non-racing one, John Green, he wants to go back to college, but not the school part. See, I'm opposite of that. If I had it to do over again, I would have applied myself. This is really boring, and I wouldn't say, you know, podcast gold. But I wish I to try it a little harder in college.

I think, yeah. Well, I think that the choice here isn't to go back and change something. Just go back and revisit it. What in your life did you enjoy so much that you would relive? Well, college. That's one. I did. You don't get to alter it.

I got you. You just relive it. One day. Just like the documentary, Dale, going back to be a race car driver. Yeah. Can I, this sounds so cheesy. You know, my very first race with you was the 2004 Daytona 500. And I was so, like, I was so new with this thing that I didn't really.

You know what you did. I didn't know how to appreciate winning a Daytona 500. 500 like I did. And in 2014, it was in the middle of the night. You know, like the 2004, I would have loved to gone back and relive that again with the approach of not being so new with Del Jermic. Because it was such, let me just tell you something. The world around me was not like it was the year before with Jimmy Spencer. Okay. So there was a lot of pressure, you're saying? Probably self-applied pressure. But that was such an amazing moment. When you go back and watch that race again, it's just, I would have loved to live in that moment a bit better, you know.

That's one that comes back to my, you know. I would probably pick a victory lane celebration with Dad. So maybe the All-Star race in 2000. Maybe my Xfinity Series championships, something like that. Yeah, that would have been cool, for sure. You got anything? I don't know. I'd say probably like a family vacation over again, you know,

because I can't tell you the last time I went on an actual vacation. So it kind of sounds good right now. Really? That's inspiring. We need to help her take vacation, Mike. I know. That's unusual. I think it goes without saying, though, like family vacations are getting married.

I have like the next six vacations already planned. I'm just kidding. I don't know anybody that isn't actively seeking their vacation. I wouldn't compare your life to anybody else's. You're definitely in a different scenario than most people. But everybody gets some time off. That's true, but I'm saying is that... And Leah apparently needs a little inspiration on how to spend that time.

What are you going to... Okay, let's be real. You can't remember the last vacation you've been on? Really? Because you haven't even worked here that long. I know. But I never took a vacation, like, when I was in drag racing. There you go.

Wow. Because when you travel so much, like, my time off, like, I just wanted to be home because I was always gone. That's the way I was when I drove race car. So, yeah, it hasn't been in the last eight years. I wonder if it has something to do with being married and kids. Like, the family vacations mean more. Like, you got to, you know, when I was single, I wasn't going on vacations. Yeah.

Yeah. I really wasn't. My vacations were different back then. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, not for podcasts, but just for us sitting around the table. But one night, the last night, the one night I raced at Bowman Gray and a mini stock, like, I did pretty good. I went from, like, 14th to fourth, you know, used the front bumper.

a lot and it's like the one time that my dad was actually at a race. And like afterwards we had to fight off some people that wanted to fight us and stuff. And like 10 minutes afterwards, he just put his arm around me. You know, my dad's gone now. So this really means a lot. But he put his arm around me. He's like, let's take a picture next to that front bumper. I'm like, what?

He goes, yeah, look what you did. This is awesome, man. He used your front bumper. It's so good. So we took a picture and I still got that picture. And it's like the one time that my dad was like so proud of me about something racing, you know, because I'm, I wasn't a race car driver like, you know, you or nothing.

Look, I think you win the award on this. That's good. I know how much Bowman Gray means to you. So having your dad there in a picture from Bowman Gray would be awesome. All right. Are we ready to stream? Yeah, we've been ready. Matt, Matt, I was just going on and on about my own crap.

Right. Are we live? We are. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. With the Dale Jr. Download. You are obviously tuned in on the Dirty Mo Media YouTube channel.

Thanks for following Dirty Moe Media on YouTube and all of our other social media handles. This is brought to you by Nationwide, so we appreciate Nationwide for sponsoring this portion of the show. So let's get right to it. Let's get your questions going. All right. First question. This is kind of funny that this came in because we mentioned this earlier in the show, you did, Dale, but at Sunny Sherry 73 wants to know was suitcase Jake from the three movie, A Real Person? Yeah. So Jake Elder is the guy, suitcase Jake. He was crew chief in the Cup series back in the 70s and 80s and they called him suitcase Jake because he didn't stick around very long he moved from team to team he was very successful where he went always

improving cars making them better but I don't know whether he was hard to get hard to get along with or whether he just was restless and couldn't stay grounded or stay anywhere too long but they called him suitcase Jake because he was apt to be packed up and out of the door before you do it. I mean, mid-season. It was just crazy the things, you know, the teams he went to and moved around a ton. So, yeah. Suitcase Jake.

Josh wants to know what has been the biggest difference going to the racetrack every week as a driver versus a broadcaster? Well, as a driver, you don't have the, well, as a broadcaster, you don't have pressure to perform, right? I mean, obviously you can't be bad at broadcasting, but so you get a little nervous about going on TV and saying something. stupid. We said plenty of, you say plenty of stupid things during any

given weekend on the broadcast, and if you watch the race this past weekend, I'm sure that I said some things that were pretty dumb, but you know, we're human. So you're going to be, you're not always going to be right. But the one thing that's not there is the pressure to

perform. As a driver, the pressure to win and run well, whether you're, no matter who you are, no matter what car you're driving, it is immense, intense, uncomfortable, and it's hard, stressful, and, yeah, and we're in the thick of it right now with these playoffs, going into the Roval. It's, I mean, and as we get on into the further rounds, it's going to get more and more

difficult for these guys and tougher on these guys, and I do not envy the position any of those guys are in. I know driving race cars is glamorous and exciting and thrilling, and they get paid a lot of money, and it's just a great way to make a living, but this particular part of it is very, very tough. And you don't even think about those benefits and positives to it in those moments when you're stressing over your lap time and the balance of the car and communication with your team

and the success you had, or lack of success you've had over the last couple weeks, you forget all about the positives, and you're just, you know, this miserable person trying to succeed, you know, and it can make you pretty miserable. So I'm glad that that's sort of something I don't have to deal with anymore, or at least in the broadcast booth. It's just a fun experience. We have a lot of fun up there goofing around, having fun, calling these races.

Donkey Evo is on YouTube live chat, and he says that he has ran some modifies with you in the early days of eye racing. And he's always been curious, what is your favorite car on the service? That's a tough one. I used to really love the late model stock car on there, but I haven't ran the service really enough to to have a favorite on the asphalt side, the tire models changed a lot since I was running on a regular basis, and I'd have to run all the cars thoroughly to really pinpoint one. But I'm enjoying the heck out of the dirt side.

And running the modifies over there are a lot of fun, the sprint cars, the crate lake models and stuff like that. All that stuff is a good, good time on the dirt side. So that's been a – I got a rig coming here, in a few weeks and hope to get back on eye racing a little more regularly. David Solomon has been asking a lot lately on Twitter. Dale, where is your 2001 Pepsi 400 car located today? It wasn't ever raced again after that race.

Well, I got the side off of it in my shop at home. I think we did reskin that car and they cut the side off. They let me have that side because after the race down the back. back straightaway after we took the checker, Matt Kenseth come down the back straight away and me and him rubbed cars and it has donuts all the way down the right side of the car from that. And so Tony Jr. said, hey, I'm going to cut this off if you want it. I said, yeah, I'll take it. And I think they re-skinned that side and we took that car and raced it a couple more times. And I don't know whatever happened to it. I don't know where that car is today.

I imagine if it's anywhere. It's a shop at DEI. Jason M is on YouTube and he says, Jay Cole gave you a shot. shout out on his album. What life advice did you give him? Yeah, he he has at the back end of the album, he released several years ago, he said that he met me and I forget who else it was in an elevator

and he's like, man, what they said was so so powerful. I don't remember exactly how he worded it, but it was a joke. But it actually, so we never met, but it actually did connect us. Like we ended up, we ended up doing a shoot together for what was that. ESP in the magazine, which was a lot of fun to be able to hang out with him, talk with him.

We spent some time and he shot some basketball and stuff. Leonardo Ross once known, do you have a favorite beer? The coldest one in the cooler, I don't really have a favorite. Right now I'm drinking those Bud 55s and Bud Lights and Miller Lights and Korzlights lights and just kind of bouncing around on all that. I still got, you know, Budweiser is close to my heart because of the relationship we had, obviously, all those years. But I don't mind drinking, you know, a corse or a miller light every once in a while, too. Scott LaRock, he's asking for some fantasy football advice.

He says he's lost Breeze, Rothlessberger, and Cam Newton. Wow. Do you have any recommendations or a dark horse that he can pick up? That new, that guy for the Giants that played yesterday did freaking awesome. So, and honestly, I don't know how long he'll start, but the Keenum for the Redskins, he's put up some decent numbers. I think, I don't know, you know, it's so hard this year with fantasy football. The quarterback's dropping like flies out. Who's filling in for Rafflesberger?

I have no clue. I don't know this guy's name. Mike Gibson wants to know, what do you think about your dad's car being the pace car for Talladega? Yeah, I'm excited about that. So, dad's car that he won his last race with at Talladega will be. pacing the field. Richard Childers is going to drive it, so that'll be pretty cool to see. I'm excited to, that visually will be pretty emotional, I'm sure.

For a lot of people, me included, I can't wait to see it. And last question, Chris wants to know, what does your shirt say? You can't really see it here on our YouTube. This is actually a Talladega shirt. I stole the Pace Car. So in, I think, 1985 or 6, a fan jumped in the Pace Car in the middle, right before the race was getting ready to start. jumped in the pace car.

Somebody had left it unattended with the keys in it. And he took off around the racetrack. It was a Pontiac, red Pontiac pace car. And they had to create a roadblock off a turn four to slow this guy down and stop him. And man, did they yank him out of that car? Boy, did they manhandle this guy when he stopped and they opened him. So the funny part about it is when they got him stopped, they went up to the door to unlock it.

and he kept locking it back. They were unlocking it and he's locking it back. Oh my gosh. He's a little inebriated. Oh. But they drug him out. Wow. By like, yeah, his hair, it was softening.

But, yeah, I stole the pace car. So, yeah. Caledega's making a bunch of retro shirts kind of like this, and I like it. That's awesome. All right, that's it for today. All right, y'all, appreciate it. Thanks a nationwide for sponsoring the Ask Junior segment of the Podcast.

Your average street cat. Unfiltered commentary and an abundance of opinion. Mr. Nice Guy or Mr. Get a f*** out of my way. Like Johnny Cash, we ain't afraid to walk the lie. I'll walk the line. Listen to door bumper clear. Available on all major podcast platforms. It burns, burns, burns.

Ring of fire. Door, bumper, clean. White flag. White flag. White flag right there. White flag right there. White flag. Dale Jr., you'll be going to the University of Southern Maine this Thursday for a speaking engagement with Dr. Mickey Collins.

That'll be fun, signing your racing to the finish, which by the way, did we want to talk about the jeopardy clue? Right about down. I mean, when did you find out that you were a jeopardy clue in racing to the finish? When you sent me, you sent me, I either... I didn't send you anything. I must have seen it on social media. Right. What is it like?

Did you not like that? I mean, that was pretty awesome, right? I mean, I'm not surprised by these things anymore. Do you remember? Well, that's funny because the clue actually was this junior of NASCAR probably never figured to be a New York Times best-selling author. I never figured to be a... But in 2018, he was racing to the finish. I never figured to be an answer on Jeopardy.

I don't know what to say about it. I mean, dang, my whole life's been some crazy dream. so what what else all right jeopardy awesome that was pretty cool did he say who is how would you feel oh i would i was i was god i was on cloud nine for you i mean like i was how would i feel i mean i was ecstatic because you were in it and the book was in it i thought that was awesome this is what i had is an emotion all right so when it come out that they were i was so glad for the book well yeah So, you know, I was, my emotion was freaking awesome, man. That book, I wanted that book to resonate.

I wanted that book to reach, have a broad, broad reach. And damn, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, exactly. Exactly. thought he would, that's how that worked. Yeah. All right. So that was fun. Jeopardy. That isn't the first time you've been a Jeopardy question, by the way. It's just been the first time for racing the finish. That's what it's all about. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, please.

Big week this week with Time Machine, as we said earlier. Behind the scenes, look at Dale Jr.'s weekend in the race car. Tuesday, which is tomorrow, as I read this, I'll be emcing an event Tuesday night called Brenda's Betts for Pets. It's a left-right center tournament. This was a big deal for Brenda. She loved those left-right center games. It's a left-right center tournament being put on by the Dale Jr. Foundation and Junior Motorsports employees to honor the life of Brenda Jackson and also raise money for animals and pets. Certainly something Brenda was passionate about. When they came to me and asked me to do this, I thought it was basically like the little group of Brenda friends in the office that she would have over at the pool every now and again.

There's like 120, 130 people go into this thing to raise money for Brenda's bets for pets. I'm butchering that thing. So that'll be fun. Um, love on the room. What's that? You coming? Yeah. I'll be there.

I'll see you there. You are going? Yes. Oh, man. I'm going. My wife's. Oh, everybody's going. I said, hey, honey, we're going to this thing?

I know she was. She goes, your ass is going. It's for your mom, damn it. Yeah. And I'm like, well, Mike Davis better be there. Well, I'm, I've got a job. So, yeah, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

Oh, you have a responsibility there. Well, that was what I said at the beginning. I said, I'll be emceeing an event Tuesday night called Brenda's Betts for me. You're in seeing it? Yeah. Oh my God. I know. And you know they have an auction.

I have a problem with the foundation right now because they want me to also be an auctioneer for a couple live auctioned. I said, no, that's not what I agreed to do. Right. I'm sure you have some experience. You look like one of those kind of people. What does that mean? What does an auctioneer look like?

You? Good teeth? It looks like you. I was going to say the teeth. You think you come compliment your own teeth? Well, they are pretty fascinating. If we all. stood against the wall, everybody in this room, and somebody had to come in here and say,

pick out the auctioneer. I bet more people would pick Mike. Everybody point. Yeah. I would pick the two guys that have the auctioneer out of the lineup. They'd have the glasses. Y'all look like auctioneal. Why do the glasses have, what do you have to do with anything looking like an auctioneer? You can't answer that, so I can just say, actioneers have glasses. If we're going to just, yeah. What? You have the gift of gab. Y'all better be careful.

We're treading in some dangerous waters here. We're all giving my shit together. You know where this ends up. No. On Twitter. No, no, no. You have the gift of gab. That's all we're saying.

You have a gift. Of gab. So that makes me an auctioneer. Yeah. All right. I'm going to be the quietest auctioneer tomorrow night. I'm just going to be like, there's an item. Sold.

Anybody want to bid on it. Go ahead and raise your hand. Okay, we have a winner over there in the corner. I'm going to actually pin it on Dale Jr. That'll be my gift of auctioneering. I'm going to be like, winner to the guy in the glasses on his phone, texting people right now, not paying attention. That's Dale Jr.

You're taking that home. See, he's going back at you. Okay, let me get through White Flag. Watch our TV show on NBC Sports Network. This is going to be 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Yeah, I just said that NBC Sports Network. Apple ratings and reviews. We had a few Jason and Waynesburg.

Pennsylvania said the Hornaday show was awesome. Dale, my wife wanted me to send you a big thank you for the event that you and Amy did with blessings in a backpack for the kids. You did that last week at an elementary school. That was fun. Rob from Texas writes, Dale, you've come a long way since being that guy who couldn't get up in the mornings. Now you're coming in and doing your podcast on four hours sleep.

By the way, I was at Texas when you won your first Bush race. We'll never forget it. And then lastly, J.K. McGlone writes, every week I eagerly awake. for the latest edition of the download. I love every aspect of it. But recently have come to Love the Mountain Dew DTO segments. Hey! You release certain parts each week as a separate short segment,

and I think this would be a great regular segment. I especially appreciated the Lee Langley DTO. Thank you, Lee, for your service and sacrifice to our country. And thank you, Dirty Mo, Media, Dale Jr., and Mountain Dew, for supporting him while he was in the service during his rehab and after his service. So there you go. I thought that was an awesome one to end on. Oh, man.

Hey, I just spotted something. Are you done with your white flag? I am done. Awesome. Well, you see across the table there, that car, the Wrangler blue? Yeah. That's new. There's a lot of new ones up there.

There's the John Force drag car, funny car. Oh, yeah. The Days of Thunder Car. And then, yeah, the number two Wrangler car. So can we talk about that for a second? You actually asked people to send diecast. Why? What?

Why did you know? Why are y'all making a big deal? Well, because we got a bunch. We got a bunch more. Oh, right? Really? Yeah, we're going to open up a die-cats story. Nice.

So look, that Wrangler number two, a guy was building this on social media, and I don't even have his contact. I wish I did, because I want to tell people who this guy is, but he sent it to me. I said, hey, can you do another one? I was willing to negotiate a fee or whatever, and he said, I'll just send you this one. And it's basically the identical copy of the car I restored. and decal. So now I have a die-cast version to the T. Perfect. You know what we discovered today, by the way? And the guy did such an awesome job. It is. It looks good. What do we discover? We discovered that the city Chevrolet one that got sent to us,

the cold trickle car, came from a smoking house because that thing smells like a pack of cigarettes. Yeah, that's a risky take. It's a risky take. It's a risky take. But anyways, thank you for everybody. Dale, are you wanting to say this is a model? Yeah, the same guy sent that one. Yeah. A lot of these are models. Incredible. You actually had said that people are building these cars themselves as models.

I'm nervous about that being around here because, you know, y'all moving on and off the desk. Yeah, it could be. We got a plan with a bin that we're working on. Yeah, we do actually have that. This thing's going to be in pieces in a couple more weeks. That's why I'm thinking that one's going to go up there. Yeah, let's get it somewhere. All right, guys, that's white flag.

All right, Dale, odd history. Mr. H has decided to stick around and be a part of this one, so this is pretty special. So, Rick, every episode we get a little piece of odd history, and these are always pretty fun. Most of these stories we don't know, and they are definitely odd. So we'll get this one started. Actor Paul Newman had quite the passion for auto racing. A lot of folks know that while filming the 1969 motion picture winning. He had gotten bitten by the racing bug, and he never.

looked back. It's well documented that he raced in various sports car ranks for years and even co-owned in any car team. So it was no surprise that when you, Rick, invited him to hop in a stock car, he accepted the offer. But Newman wasn't the only actor that would get lapsed during the test. On January 3rd, 1987, Rick had Newman and Tom Cruise at Daytona International Speedway to test the Bush Series Pontiac. But it's been a Ventura. It was a car that Darrell Waltrip was testing that day. Newman got up to speed quick, turning a lap over 190 miles an hour. Never having driven a race car before,

Tom Cruise's fastest lap was 178 before he lost oil pressure and brought a car back to the garage. That was his story. His excuse. The test gave Cruz the inspiration to begin a racing career, and he co-drove with Rick

in an MSA race at Road Atlanta finishing 14th later that year. In July 1987, Newman had just won an Oscar for his role in the movie The Color of Money. That looked to be the highlight of the year until this. It was announced that Paul would make his Winston Cup driving debut for Hendrick Motorsports in the upcoming race at Watkins Glen. He would drive the No. 51 Levi-Garrett Monte Carlo using a chassis that Jeff Bodine

led 32 laps with one year earlier. Unfortunately, two weeks before the race, he withdrews citing scheduling conflicts. What? While Newman never drove a cup race, he reunited with Rick to co-op. a team driven by Greg Sacks, which ran part-time in 1990. They planned to run the full schedule in 91 before sponsorship deal fell through. So Paul Newman was going to run a cup race. Yeah.

How could he not change his plans? I know. What was more important? Scheduling conflicts. I mean, it's not like the Watkins Glen Race crept up on him. I mean, I don't know. He was good. Paul was really good.

Yeah. I mean, he was a heck of a driver. and I think he would have done well. I don't remember what happened. Dang, that's unfortunate. It would be. That would be an awesome piece of history for NASCAR had Paul raced. You know, the coolest thing about all that is when you think back, you forget about some of those things that happened.

Yeah. But that car that Greg Sachs drove for you, that couple races, that 18 slim fast car, I think. Yeah, he's fast. So fast. Almost beat Daddy a couple times at Talladega. All right, buddy. I'm going to tell one more story. One more.

Let's do it. So we had a DJ, a Chuck Boozer, spotting with Greg Sacks, and he was running behind your dad. And he thought there was two laughs to go on the white flag. And he sat there and rode behind him. Oh. And didn't try to pass him. Because the spotter didn't know how many. Oh.

It was. Oh. Wow. That's. We weren't as sophisticated. They just right now. You always spread a little thin running that extra car.

Oh my goodness. Did he play any tunes during the races? That's what I needed instead of a spotter was a DJ. That was my problem. Yeah, that was your problem. That was the only problem. Yeah, I got it. All right.

All right. All right, man. It's a good show, Mike. It was a good show. It covered a lot there. Be fun to have Rick come back. and continue telling some more stories. It's hard doing these interviews with these guys

because they have such a history, but we can only get to a little bit of it. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Yeah, that's a wrap. Man, we're done. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.