The Dale Jr. Download - 276 - Marcus Smith: Crazy Idea Club

Episode Date: October 1, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and good friend Marcus Smith get deep about big ideas for the sport, past failures and free-thinking futures.  Smith drops the bold idea of Bristol going to dirt and discusses the future of NASCAR at the Nashville Fairgrounds race track. The two share stories of childhood, Bruton Smith's rocky road to start Charlotte Motor Speedway, Roval resistance, daredevil pre-race shows, towing TV trucks and SMI's rivalry with NASCAR.   The DJD gang goes over the wild Roval race and a wet post-race confrontation.  AskJr discovers that Dale Jr. is not a member of the pizza police while Odd History uncovers a tale that highlights a high-flying "Possum."  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.

Where they come for the final time. Let's go. I want it out. Run it. Run it. Yeah. Run it. Run it.

Run it. Run it. Run it. This is a production of Dirty Mode Media. I want it out. Run it. This. Here they come for the final time.

Here they come. This is final time. Running. Who will win? The Daytona 500. Who will be? I want it out. Runny.

Threws the block topside. Threws the block downstairs. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Down Low with my co-host, Mike Davis. We got Leavon in the house. Matthew Dillner. Our guest today is going to be Marcus Smith. He owns a couple racetracks.

It's going to be a lot of fun talking about his business and everything he's got going on. I've known this guy a long time, Mike. And he's going to drop some pretty interesting stuff on us today. Good time to get him, too. I imagine he's probably still trying to. to decompress after the weekend. Yeah. Because it was, what a weekend it was.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won the Daytona 5. Running. It was pretty wild, but I expected it to be. The Roval was great last year. No reason why it wouldn't be good again this year. NASCAR threw a couple questionable cautions in that race. The spin in the back straightaway she came, the 47 car where he didn't even come to a stop.

the 17 cars spinning in the back straightaway as you cane they were trigger happy on that yellow flag but it wouldn't have we might not have had some of those moments had we not had those yellow flags how about

Chase Elliott getting into the tire barrier there and the tire barrier, man what a great tire barrier that is. Great tire barrier there in Charlotte. Tum's Heartburn Corner tire barrier

and then Chase the funniest thing man He goes and drives it down into that tire barrier and does a burnout. Perfect. It was perfect celebration. Yeah. And that's perfect. Chase Elliott, so remember like a year and a half ago, Chase Elliott was just the hardest interview to listen to?

So hard on himself. Yeah. So hard. Oh, I got to do better. I ran second. I'm awful. And I knew as soon as he won a few races, the real Chase would come out. And he'd be more comfortable.

in his own skin, and it's awesome to see. Well, when he wrecked out of the lead there with 45 to go, I thought we were going to get old chase back. I mean, because I felt like, oh, my God, if he beats himself up before, this is going to be brutal. He had an amazing race car super fast, and he drove a great race, and we got to see a very awesome celebration, funny in a way.

I love how he there. Yeah, because, you know, he does the burnout, and then he gets out on the car, while it's backing up. He emerges from the smoke. Perfect. It was just so good. Beautiful. Yeah.

So thank you, Chase Elliott, for entertaining the hell out of us at the end of that race. It was great. That's what you want. Perfect. Good job. Other things were also entertaining. Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman. So we didn't really get to see exactly why Bubba was mad at Alex while he's flipping him off.

So apparently, you know, you see Bubba get spun out in the back straightaway wall. Alex took him out, put him in the fence. Alex said that Bubble was flipping him off. whole lap. For three laps, he said. Yeah, for whatever. I don't know what Bubble was flipping him off for.

Bubba could probably tell us that if we got a chance to talk to him. He may tell the media at some point why he was aggravated with Alex in doing that. But it's sent Alex over the edge. And me and Burton had a little conversation about that. Flipping somebody the bird for some reason is a massive trigger for some guys. Really? Yes. So if you're driving down the street.

and you get flipped off, could you imagine anything more intensifying as far as your anger? Could you imagine anything that a driver could do on the highway that would make you more angry than to get a bird? I can't. Well, yeah, I mean, it happens so much to me that I just... All right. Well, imagine if you're driving to lunch and somebody flipped you off.

That's what I'm saying. Wouldn't you be so mad? You know, to the point that I would go. go wreck them? Well, this is the highway. Okay, maybe this is a bad analogy. I shouldn't have asked you. So, what would you think?

So the question that he has is, is flipping the bird the worst thing that can happen on a highway? No? You got another one? I get the bird flipped to me all the time, like Mike. And if somebody cuts me off, then we're wrong. No. You don't like getting cut off.

Or triggered. Right. Break checked. How about that? Flipping me off, I laugh. Break checked. What? I think it's funnier if you, like, give somebody the thumbs up.

That's more annoying than the bird because it's like super sarcastic. Like you're doing a great job driving. Badge of honor getting flipped off. I guess I'm more about the Kyle Petty approach. And Kyle Petty's like, God, it's a bird finger. Grow some skin. All right. Layers of skin, you know.

So there are some people that it doesn't bother. I know some drivers that I flipped off because when I started racing, I didn't think flipping the bird was a big deal because I flipped my friends the bird. And now everybody flips everybody the bird. No big deal, right? Right. And so there's a damn emoji, right? So I flipped off Rusty Wallace and he let me know that that was the worst thing that you could do to him and that not to do that to him again. That's like anything but flipping me the bird. Don't flip me the bird because that's serious business. You flip me the bird, we're going to have a real problem. And I want you to know it. Okay. So I think you bring up a point. I think who flips you the bird matters. When you're talking, yeah, the reason why the highway is a problem. bad analogies that you don't know them.

But Rusty Wallace getting a bird from you, the kid of his buddy or rival would be very disrespectful. There you go, buddy. I think you nailed it. So I did use a bad analogy. But your dad flipping a bird to Rusty, I mean, what's he going to, I mean, he may not like it. I can't speak for Rusty. Rusty's his own weird guy.

But the fact is, is that who delivers the bird might actually matter in how you receive it. There you go. That's a good social media question. Yeah, that is a good one. So the, you know, the bird got Alex up. set, it flipped the switch in his mind and he wrecked Bubba Wallace. They were around it. They were around each other a little bit, but nobody did anything else on the racetrack

till pit road when the race was over with, right? Right. So Alex is out of the car and he's tired, hot. The medical staff is checking driver to driver and there just happened to be at Alex while Bubba walked up and Bubba threw water on him. A harmless thing, not really a big deal. But it wasn't good that he did it while the medical staff was there. And I think the majority of the water went in her direction.

Am I right? I think the majority of the water, yeah, I mean, it wasn't that much water. But the fact is that the optics of it looked probably way worse than what the actual thing was. So if the medical staff was not there and it was just Bowman who was visibly struggling, as soon as he got out of the car, there was a great shot from NBC actually as he was climbing out of the car. And he sort of takes his helmet off and goes right to the ground. If he was there by himself, is it still, is it okay then? What do you think?

Was the presence of the medical staff the thing that made that wrong? It would have made him feel better, a little water, a little extra water. I know, right? He looked hot. Yeah. He didn't throw hot coals on him. That would have been something. That would have been way more offensive.

It's like a pillow fight. I think it's like, it's like, you know, it's like big deal. Yeah. I think people just want to give Bubba a hard time. Bubba's an emotional guy. We know that. Bubba is extremely emotional. And if you're going to get in the middle of something with Bubba,

or if you're going to have Bubba in a race and be a fan watching a show with Bubba in it, you've got to be ready to see some emotion. He wears it on his sleeve. So I think had we never seen anything like that out of Bubba or no emotion at all in him do that, you'd be surprised, taking it back. Absolutely. I wasn't. And, you know, I think.

He can apologize to this lady or anyone else in that area that may be offended by that at the moment, and that'll take care of it. I think he will. You know, I made a point on Twitter is that when he sees and he's cooled off and he realized what he did, he'll wish he had done it differently. And that might have actually played to his advantage because what I think he wanted to do was not deliver water to the face of Alex Bowman, but deliver something else to the face of Alex Bowman. and he was deprived of that in the manner in which he and in the timing in which he did it. I cringed when he did it, frankly.

When I saw him, I cringed, but I had a cool head and a lot of perspective and I wasn't overheating and I don't think Bubba Wallace had any of those things in that moment. When I saw it happen, I didn't have any emotion. And so I'm trying not to allow the popular opinion

sway me to going, oh yeah, that is wrong. You know what I mean? because my initial reaction when I saw it was, I didn't think anything about it. I was just laughing maybe. It was a little humorous, right? But now, you know, the majority of people are saying,

oh, that's messed up. Bubba's a jerk. That's stupid. He shouldn't have done that. And that person, you know, the people that were there trying to help Alex and Alex was ill, none of that ran through my mind, unfortunately. I'm sorry. No, I got you.

You know. Well, I mean, I think that Steve O'Donnell came out and said this morning that It was that presence of the EMTs, the medical staff, that made that not so classy. Sure. Yeah. And I can subscribe to that. But I also am not going to go jump off a ledge on that. If Bubba comes out of this and he just says, yeah, I wish I'd have handled that differently.

I will never think another second about it. Good enough for me. It would be fine. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to sit there and brand him because I don't think anybody wants to be branded for their entire life based off how they are when they're not in their most sensible. Speaking to Alex Bowman.

Oh, yeah. Let's talk about Alex Bowman. Okay. So, okay. Alex gets into it with Austin Dillon last week, right? He made a dive into Term 1 to go 3 or maybe it was even 4 wide. But anyways, he dove underneath the three car into Term 1 at Richmond. He told me that Austin had spun its tires or whatever on the restart. I'm not sure about that, but that's what his side of the story is.

They made contact down into Term 1. And, you know, you can hear over the radio if you have. heard it. Austin Dillon's team is imploring him to get him back. Get him back. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. And, uh, which to me, I don't like that. I don't, I don't want any crechees spotters or anybody on a radio telling a driver to do anything out of the ordinary. Right. And, uh, but they were like, get him back, getting back. So they're imploring, imploring Austin to retaliate, which he does. And it costs both those drivers because Austin turns the 88, then gets into the 88 and hurts his car.

So both, it didn't work out for either one of them. It rarely does. And then they go into the media, Alex, you know, says, I don't take back anything I said about him being a silver spoon. And I'm not going to have to worry about racing around him anyways in this race. Which is a dig. So they're both digging back and forth in the media, which is great. Not a great look, you know, personally.

if I'm that driver, I try not to keep fueling the fire, because especially if you're Alex, it's like focus on the playoffs. You've got bigger things, yeah. Right. Don't worry about this driver and this car. Go forward.

And don't even mention, don't continue to mention it. If somebody asked you a question about it, divert, you know? And he gets in, okay, so Alex messes up in practice, final practice 30 minutes to go, backs his car into the tire barrier,

and I'm like, God, what's going on? He qualified on the front row. They had to try to get stage points. They were in great position, like their teammate, William Byron, to get top 10 points, some points somewhere in the top 10 in that first stage, and that was going to set them up for a pretty good day, and it continued to do that throughout the stages. And so now that he's going to a backup car, he can't do that.

He has to start in the back. Stage 1 points are not an option. He almost still actually came close to getting some. But anyways, he has to now look for stage 2 points, figure out how to position himself to get toward the front in that particular part of the race, and yet, again, finish well. So he's got a very challenging task for his crew to manage as far as strategy goes. He's got a backup car that didn't have a lot of speed at the start of the race.

And now he's out there wrecking Bubba Wallace, right? After he had spun out himself, yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, he got in a couple of altercations on the racetrack. I think the one in turn one, not really he was doing. he was kind of one of the dominoes in that crash. Right. But he spun on the back straightaway at the start of the race. Misjudged how much checking up there was going to be going in that first chicane.

And just a mistake on his part there for sure. But then later in the race, here he is. Like when his mind should be on, I got to help my team. I got to help. It's easy for me to say in the moment here, I'm not in the car in the heat of moment. But here he is. Similar to messing around with Austin Dillon, now he's mind's on Bubba Wallace. And why is that? Right? He's trying to get into the next round of plows. And I was so frustrated personally with that because I'm thinking, man, this is the wrong,

this is the wrong spotlight to be in. If you're not going to make it into the next round, you damn sure don't want to be in the media or in the highlights for this. Right. All right. As soon as that happened, the next run on tires, his car had really, really good speed. I wasn't driving the car. Alex was, but it didn't appear to have great speed all day long. He couldn't pass anybody. He couldn't move forward. But then somewhere in the middle of that stage, that final stage, Greg and those guys gave him an incredibly fast car. And he was driving up through guys and passing guys and moving forward. And then that presented an opportunity to come get tires and put himself with an advantage on tires and a restart. I don't know where he was, 12th or 8th or something like that. But very close to the top 10.

And I'm thinking, all right, time to mention this. So we're coming to a restart. And I said, guys, look where Alex Bowman is. He's got tires. He's had great speed over the last run. This is pretty interesting. I thought he was out of it. Right.

But he may be back in it. And sure enough, man, the kid drove all the way back up to second place. I said he needed to win. He didn't. Once the sixth car missed the backstress chican and was penalized, it took him out. Yeah, but nobody, everybody was thinking like you were, including myself. There was no way that Alex Bowman was going to point him way into that. No. Because you just didn't, I mean, he had to win it. Yeah. But just in, as disappointed as I was in the theatrics of, in the, in the, in the choices and decisions of, of Richmond to, to, to, the first half of the Roval.

Dang, man, he dug himself all the way out of that hole. And now is going into the next round with racetracks where he's run well at. I think he finished second in races at all those tracks. So I don't know whether I need to apologize. But what, I mean... No, I don't think you need to apologize. Much like in a way, like I need to apologize to Ryan Newman because I didn't think he could run in the top five at Richmond, right?

I didn't think he could be that competitive. Then he goes to Richmond and he freaking had one of the best cars there. But I was down. I was selling my stock on Alex. I was getting rid of that. He was not going to move on. He was not going into the next round of playoffs and came out of nowhere. It's what's great about sports.

It's that sort of redemption, that shock and surprise. And he was one of the guys that delivered that. So I know that I have a history of that team. You can say what you want about how I cover that particular race car driver of that team, but he was part of the story and he's still part of the story. Impressive job by Alex. Impressive job by Chase. You said you had a question, Mike.

When we first brought up Alex, you laughed and you said, oh, I got a question for you. Well, the thing about Alex was that, I mean, you kind of hit all over it, all over it. I mean, and as good as his drive was, you know, the thing that I left with was, was that interview with Greg Ives right before that restart. And I think it was Marty, maybe, or Kelly. I can't remember who interviewed him. And Greg, in the most Greg way possible, was like, yeah, well, we're, we know we need some help here.

We're just going to focus on what we can do ourselves. And I admittedly and wrongly thought, Greg, you're setting yourself up for major disappointment, even if Boyer gives him that position, which, you know, thought that might be the smartest thing for Boyer being that he needs to point him way in, too. And he was sitting really well. he ain't going to pass all of them. And by the way, God help the person that has to have your playoff life hanging in the balance on having to pass Ryan Newman to do it.

And so that was, you know, the situation behind them. I just thought we're going to have a losing situation here. Bowman's going to finish fifth. That was compelling. My God, man, he got aggressive, not right on the restart, but boy, coming into those chicanes and stuff like that, he started moving people out of the way past, because Lowski passed. And I was like, man, this is the drive of his life.

coming in the same race, which he was acting like a bonehead at the beginning. Right. And I couldn't believe it. And then knowing how exhausted he was and how dehydrated he was, I was even more oppressed. I want to ask you, I do have other questions. One of the things that blew my mind was Amarola's pit strategy. And the crew chief left him out there on old tires and not pitting him for tires when everybody else did it. That blew my mind.

And I'm like, well, then that just cost him. Did I see that right? or did, was there other factors that you knew of? Hindsight. I mean, it's easy in the... In hindsight, yeah, it's easy after the fact to say, oh, they should have done X, Y, Z, but that's what we do is broadcasters.

And, yeah, I think that's what fans do as well. He was sort of hemorrhaging out there. You didn't have speed. He didn't have, you know, he had top five speed in most of the race, drove up into the top five and drove, you know, was very competitive and running a very smart race. And now he's out there running in the, back half of the field on old tires with no advantage, can't be on the offense, and can't move

forward. And so I think in that moment, you just got to keep putting tires on the car and keep trying to give your driver the best opportunity to make something happen. And that's what they did with Alex. They gave him tires, and he had better tires. That's how he got up there. That's how he drove the second. But they did put tires on the 10 car eventually, and he really couldn't do much with it.

Well, that's true, because he had to pass Newman. Newman's out there driving a tank. His car looked like one of those 1990 Thunderbirds. And then, you know, look, I thought the race in itself, it felt like after it was all said and done and you could go, wow, unwind. It felt like one of those races that if it were a movie, people would accuse it of being unrealistic. Oh, yeah. You know, like the leader, Chase Elliott, the most popular guy is going to, he's going to win. But let's just have him crash out of the lead, running the tires with 45 to go and then have him come back and win it.

That's, and people like, oh, yeah, right, like that would happen. He just, you know, it was just such a good race. All right, I want to give a quick shout out to a friend on Twitter, Jose Gonzalez. He's the guy that actually sent these two models, the number two Wrangler car that we're, the Monte Carlo that we're renovating, and also a number three Wrangler Monte Carlo from 1986, 87.

Thank you for those models. These are some of the best models I've ever seen. I mean, the detail and perfection is impressive. and I saw them on his Twitter feed, and Jose Gonzalez said, I'll send them to you, and he did. And I can't even imagine how many hours he's got into these things, but he does some beautiful work.

If you go to his Twitter handle to see these, they're not diecast, they're models, they're plastic models. He has built a bunch, and he showcases his work, so go check that out. Before I bring in our guest, I want to take a second to tell you about other podcasts that we have, one in particular, door bumper clear. Boy, is it a good one? It's got a couple spotters on there that like to run their mouths.

It's got a lot of momentum, too, and there's a reason. T.J. and Brett, the spotters that I spoke of, are wide open and very honest about the sport. They also dropped some hints and news and rumors, which is probably the most interesting thing for me about the show. People are listening at all levels of the sport from fans to many people in the upper ranks of NASCAR to see what T.J. and Brett are going to say next. The spotter stand just gets all the rumors before anybody else. This week they have a very interesting guest on the show, journalist Jeff Gluck. And what's interesting about the combinations when you put T.J. and Brett with another journalist, the journalists also have these rumors.

They also have rumors, and they sort of mesh their rumors together to find the truth. Listen to the show, you should. Good stuff. I listen to the show, you should too. All right. Hey, let's bring in our guest, Marcus Smith. Hey, Marcus. What's up?

All right, so in the studio, Marcus Smith. How's it going, man? You had a busy weekend. Yeah, it's going great. Yeah. Had a great weekend. Enjoyed it. Yeah. I'm usually not up this early after a race, though. Will you sleep in after a race? Yeah, I usually sleep in after a race. What is sleeping in for you? I mean, normally I get up real early and work out in the morning, but after a race, I usually sleep in until, you know, nine or ten. Not bad. Yeah. Not bad. Yeah. So, man, what's your position like? What would, if I would have a to say, here's my friend Marcus Smith. He is, finish the sentence. I mean, my title is, is president of Speedway Motorsports. And, you know, when I describe people what I do, I feel like

I'm kind of like a host of a party. And we always, we're planning for parties, we clean up for parties, you know, we're having a party. And, you know, I'm always just thinking about, is everybody having a good time, you know, and I just want to make sure everybody's having a good time with all the races and all the events we put on. And, you know, I'm a dad and a husband, and I like to, you know, to spend time with family and friends, your regular stuff. So the party is the race. Yep. Right. What's, what has been the transition, I guess, as your dad's got older for you? You know, when I've known you all our lives since we were teenagers. Kelly had a pretty close friendship with you and still does today. And your dad,

you know, created this business. What's been that transition like for you into the role you have today? It's been, you know, it's amazing to think about all the time when I was, when Mike asked me about coming on the show, I thought, man, what's he going to ask me about? And I, you know, listen to a few of y'all's shows. And it's great because I love to think about. you know the the history of the sport and I think about you know for me growing up and in it and I I really didn't have any intention of being in the racing business until I first worked at the Speedway on an what I call an inside job I'd always had a an outside job and you know mowed grass and painted walls and pulled weeds and

a lot of jobs like that that are important to the speedway, but I really didn't get a chance to see the business of it until a freshman year in college in the summertime. And that's when I really fell in love with the business of the sport. But before that, I was just a kid wanted around the garage and behind the scenes and got to go to races with my dad and brothers. That was kind of it. And so you started getting into the business side of it as a freshman in college. What were some of the first roles that you had within that business?

So one of my first jobs was to go around to all the teams for the contingency program. All those little stickers on the side of the cars. And so Jane Allen, who was kind of my mentor early on in the corporate sales department, she said, here, you go do these contingency stickers. And I said, what's that? She said, well, you talk to the teams, somebody who's in charge, and you tell them, you know, here's all the different sponsors that if you put these on the side of your car,

if you win or play second, you'll get like $200 or $500. And so I went down to the garage, and I was this young guy. I think I was 18, 17 years old, maybe. and I went and started at the beginning and just went down the line. And funny enough, I got to the Good Wrench team. And that's this big bearded guy who was chocolate. And I had no idea who chocolate was at the time, except he was this huge guy, you know. And I said, who do I talk to about this contingency program?

And he said, you need to see the man. And it was your dad. And my heavens. Almost pede my pants. And I went and out. asked him about it and he said we do this one that one can't do that one can't do that one to this one yeah he didn't mess with you at all not too bad i mean he was pretty quick and um no it was pretty good i could probably tell i was really nervous so this was during a real like a normal race weekend

yeah isn't that weird he was he was in a fire suit yes oh man yeah can you imagine i'm nervous what's the damn difference because i think he'd be more intimidating out of his fire suit no no because during the race weekend you sort of like trust me I'm speaking from experience you're right you're I'm sure you would know back then I don't think most of the drivers had motor coaches so they hung out at the truck that's a good point

and so that was that was where a lot of the drivers were at the time so why would the track be messing with the contingency I was thinking the same thing I mean looking back on it I have no idea why was it just a busy job just like give the 18 year old kid I think well I think we sold we sold program ads And part of the program ad was, you know, we'll go and do this. And so it was just optional, but, you know, a few extra $100 for every car was pretty good.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So, all right, so you started sort of at the bottom and worked your weight? The bottom was picking up cigarette butts out of the parking lot. Oh, my first job. You really did that. Yeah, yeah. Me and my brother, David, that was our first job was picking up cigarette butts. I don't think it's ever been done since.

Wow. Yeah, that's the first job. I mean, that's back in the Winston days. I imagine there were a few of those butts laying around. Inside and outside. I remember after we would watch the race from the condo when the race was over for the weekend, Saturday or Sunday, man, you just had this bird's eye view of the grandstands,

and man, there was trash everywhere. And it was, I remember on Saturdays looking at that going, wow somebody's got a lot to do before tomorrow morning. Oh, yeah. So how in the heck do y'all get that thing straightened back up for the next day? You know, it's amazing. You've got all these people, and at that time, it was a big deal to have the job of picking up all the cans. What about the bojangle boxes?

Because there were so many boxes of Bojangles everywhere, half eating. Bojangles and chicken bones and, you know, all that. That wasn't as fun to clean up. But people, the nonprofit groups would come in and pick up the, cans and the bottles and take that for recycling. And that was like a good way to earn money. So that was a big deal if your nonprofit group could come to the Speedway and pick that up and take it for redemption. I've heard Dale Jr. tell stories like, you know, he just wanted to be around his dad's team. And, you know, you've seen the little clips here and there. He just

wanted to be around. Were you kind of the same way? Were you just wanting to be around the racetrack? Were you wanting to be around your dad's business? I mean, I just really liked it. But it was more about being around my dad and I like being around the cars a lot. I didn't watch the races as much when I was younger. I don't know why I just, I wanted to get pins on my hat. That was a big thing when I was a kid to have like a cowboy hat or a, or a racing hat with a lot of pins on it from every driver. And so I wanted to get that and then, you know, get little die cast cars was a big deal. and then hang out with my dad. I remember going to Rockford Speedway when I was probably four years old and with my dad.

That's where my mom and dad got married and met and started a family there. Really? That was my first race. What were y'all doing at Rockford? He was, so we lived in Rockford, and he had a dealership in Rockford, his first franchise dealership. And, you know, he loved racing. and we went there and I presented the trophy a couple times and I just remember being there in the dirt and having fun. Is that where he started his promoting and owning racetracks at Rockford?

No, he actually started that in Charlotte. It was... At the Speedway? He was 17 years old when he promoted his first race at the Charlotte Fairgrounds. And at that time, the track was near where the airport is today. and you know it was I forgot what year it was he was 17 years old

he got together with some of his buddies and they said hey we should have a NASCAR race and he was the guy that sort of stepped in as the one that said okay I'll be the promoter and his other friends drove and he drove in the race yeah they drove in the race

and he's 17 and he's the promoter yeah isn't that cool? That is cool yeah what kind of track was that? It was a it was a track at the fairgrounds, Charlotte Fairgrounds. That's neat.

But he promoted races in Shelby, at the fairgrounds, all around the area. He promoted against Bill France Senior. He promoted against Sam Nunes. Sam Nunes was kind of his inspiration to be a promoter early on. When he went to races, his first race, he says when he was eight years old, he used to go to the races with his dad and brothers. and saw the big car that Sam Nunes had, and he grew up on a farm in Oakboro, North Carolina, with no money, and he said, that's a really cool car. I want to be like that guy. And, yeah, started promoting races when he was 17 years old.

So what was the first track that he owned? Charlotte was the first track he owned, but he helped build. Speedways, like Langley Speedway. He helped. What, really? Yeah. Yeah, isn't that cool? Wow. The guy that financed it was a shoe store owner, and he asked my dad to come help him build Langley, and he did. And he said that was one of the best speedways he ever designed. He really liked the shape of the track. Yeah, man, it's a great short track. All right, so Charlotte Mercer Speedway. way he starts building that racetrack how did uh didn't go in with uh Curtis Turner who was a

driver at a time this is before Curtis did the union thing that got him expelled right yeah yeah so he went in tried to form a union and got expelled from NASCAR but that was later so he's a driver and he's going to help your dad build this track and you know and so they both they both had the idea to build a track around Charlotte at the same time. And then they both had the wisdom to realize that they can't both do it at the same time. So they got together. Did he enjoy working with Curtis? You know, he has a lot of great stories about Curtis. I think he really enjoyed it. And they were a good combination because Curtis had a big name and the ability to help raise money.

And my dad had the, you know, the real tenacity to go in and get it done. And I think that combination worked out really well. They raised money selling stock and they they raised a million or so dollars to be able to get it done. And at the time, it was an impossible task. In fact, I was just talking to my dad the other day and he said, that was the hardest thing I've ever done. I don't think I'd ever do it again. Yeah. Really? Yeah. He said, you know, I mean, it was, he said it was so hard. If I knew how hard it was going to be to build Charlotte, I don't think I ever would have done it. Yeah. What made a, other than the odds? obvious things. It seems like a hard thing, but what does he say was hard about it?

I think everything was hard. I mean, 1959, and, you know, there wasn't the same kind of access to capital at the time where you could raise money and do things. There was no kind of, you know, computer-generated architectural plans that said, this is how you build a speedway, this mile and a half track and just problems lots of I mean everywhere you turn when you when you think about if you ever built a house remodeled a house how many problems there are when you try to do it in a big big scale he ran into rock he ran into weather you know snow and March and all sorts of crazy things yeah and this place Sharmer's video is built on a farm you were talking about that this weekend built on a farm it was a eventually

the region's first landfill. Yeah. It had a natural spring on it down in turn three and four that I didn't know about. I knew that gully was there. If you look at old pictures of Charlottlenmere Speedway from way back when it was originally built, the infield in turn three and four was like 20 feet down. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy looking.

People would like lay back on the hill and watch the turn three and four kind of looking up at it. Yeah. It is really. That would be wild. Yeah. Yeah. So you ever been, you ever been to, there's a Brock in Georgia where they have this sort of thing carved on it? At the race.

Oh, Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain. They do this light show. It's just, it would have been just like that. Laying on your back, looking up on a stone mountain. Yeah. Watching. Wow, that's some serious elevation.

So, yeah. And then term one and two has had the heel, which it still does today. Yep. And then y'all, they eventually filled that in. Mm-hmm. Yep, had a landfill. That was kind of necessity is the mother of invention kind of thing. There was nowhere to park on the infield.

So my dad had this great idea. Well, let's do a landfill. And it worked out. I guess different people agreed. And now that's kind of the oldest landfill in this region. So the track was there and the infield was filled in. As a landfill. Yeah.

While the track was there in operating. That's amazing. I didn't know that. One of the interesting rumors, I guess, for me when I was a kid, so Max Trading Cards comes out. The original set I think was made back in like 88 or 89, right? Right. And everybody wanted to get their hands on them. And obviously they're not quite as valuable today, but that first set's still rocking pretty good on the value train.

But anyways, playing cards had came out in 1988. That was a big deal. We didn't have baseball-style cards for our sports. Huge. Big business. And something happened to Max where they went upside down. And they went into the warehouse, and there were just shelves and shelves of the 1988 set, all the stuff they had, you know, 89, 90, whatever year it was.

Just all that stuff was put into track landfill. Oh, my God, I'll leave it. Yeah. Dad was, like, joking one day about going out there and digging it up. But to get those cards. Wow. Yeah, so there's, yeah, there's no telling. That's a set.

I wonder if there's any race cars in there. I don't know. There might be. We'll let you know if we find it. Old guys, the old, in the 50s and 60s and maybe in the 70s, some of the guys that raced old dirt tracks would bury the race cars because they didn't, when they would total their cars, there was nowhere to put it. So they would dig a hole and bury it.

That's what Richard Childers said he buried a lot of his cars out there. Richard Childers buried race cars. I've heard that. Why do they do that? I guess to get it out of the way, I don't even know. I mean, you know, everybody's got a farm back then or a little bit of land, and everybody's got a hole or a ditch or a gully to fill, and they'd shove stuff in there.

And race cars were going there, too. Yeah. So your dad helped build that track. I remember, you know, it's a very, very thorough, complex story about how they got the racetrack together and ready, and the surface came apart, and everybody's blowing tires. I think the guy that won the first race there was on flats. Joe Lee Johnson.

Right, he comes across the line with a big flat tire. Yeah, there's rock holes and big screens on the front windshields to keep the track surface from coming through the car. And it was a tough little deal. Oh, yeah. But then the track went through some financial struggles. Yep. But weathered a storm.

Richard Howard. Right. When I say Richard Howard, what does that mean to you? So my dad ran out of money and ended up, he was looking for more investors. And he had some advice from a guy in New York who said, hey, you need to file for bankruptcy protection. And my dad didn't know what that meant at the time. It wasn't something that you'd heard about. But so anyway, so we'll go back to North Carolina, get an attorney and file for bankruptcy protection, which allows you to reorganize the company and then, you know, keep going. Well,

my dad's attorney, I guess, had never done it either. So he filed the wrong kind of bankruptcy, which basically put the company in the hands of... a trustee who was Richard Howard. Really? And my dad hung around for like a year. He didn't like not being in charge. And so he moved to Denver to run a four dealership. Really?

Really? Completely removed. Well, it's kind of interesting. He moved away because he thought he was going to just move on. And but then some, and so Richard Howard's been charged and he did a good job, you know, just continue to run the speedway. under that court-ordered bankruptcy deal that puts the company into the hands of a trustee. And my dad was out there in Denver selling cars, and somebody called him and said,

hey, I've got these shares of the Speedway company that you sold me. I don't want them anymore. Do you want them buy them back? And my dad said, yeah, sure, I'll buy them back. I'll pay you what I sold them to you for, which at the time was a pretty good deal, because those investors thought that they were going to get nothing out of those shares. Sure. So he bought those back, and then Word got around.

Hey, Bruton is buying these shares back. And so other people called him. And he has a great story about this. He said he told some friends, you know, I think Speedway is kind of coming back to me without me realizing it. And eventually, you know, a few years down the road, he had moved to, Rockford opened up a car store there. And I think it was in 78 or 79. He ended up with more than 50% of all the shares in Charlotte Motor Speedway.

And he loaded up the family. We came back to Charlotte and he said, hey, I'm here. I'm going to run it again. And sure enough, he, I guess, learned a bunch about business and racing and promoting. and it was just at the right time because NASCAR was starting to get a little bit better and gain some traction and that all kind of worked out. What happened to Richard Howard? I guess he, I don't know if my dad fired him or if he went on.

I really have no idea. How does Humpy come into play? My dad hired Humpy. Right away? Pretty soon. He was working at Firestone managing their racing program. Humpty Wheeler. Yeah.

Kind of would have been like Stu Grant is today for Goodyear. Right. And he hired Humpy Wheeler to come and run, Charlotte, and they were a great combo for years and years. And that's how he and Humpy got together. Was there any crazy ideas that Humpy had that your dad went, no, absolutely not. I don't think so.

Humpy was like, you know, no limitations. Yeah. You know, when it came to pre-race entertainment or so forth. One of my favorite things, and maybe you have one as well, one of my favorite things that I ever saw during the pre-race was Jimmy the Flying Greek. Yes. You jump a bus into a pile of cars. And for a six- or 12-year-old kid, there was nothing cooler other than the race itself.

Absolutely. To seeing a bus dive into a pile of cars head first and just destroy everything. Absolutely. There's some great YouTube video of him doing that at Bristol as well, I think, in 1980, 79. Yep. And he jumps this bus at Bristol, and he's going to jump a ramp and land onto another ramp, right? And the front of the bus, the front axle catches the ramp on the other side, and it shears the whole front axle off of the bus. But the bus kind of slides down the ramp, just it lost the – cut the whole front – cut all the suspension out of the front of it.

The bus just kind of slides down the ramp and then up the racetrack, and it's like gouging big chunks of asphalt out of this track. Oh, yeah. It dug into that thing, Oval. It dug into the banking of Bristol Motor Speedway, and the cars are lined up to race. I'm like, wow, man, you almost destroyed the racetrack. So what's interesting to me is when you go back to the people that come up with the ideas

and the very creativity and all the things that, you know, the whole workings of those ideas, does Humpey and even your dad go, that worked or they think that didn't work. I mean, because in a way, they're already sort of twisted, right? Well, so what's really funny about this is when my dad tells a story about being eight years old watching his first race, the thing that he noticed other than the car of the promoter was the bus jump at that time. There was a big jump, and he thought that was the coolest thing ever.

And he just thought, that's the show. and he liked the racing, but he really loves to talk about the crazy pre-race act. Right. And so Jimmy the Greek, man, David the Rocket Smith. My brother's name is David Smith, but this other guy is the guy that jumps out of the cannon, get launched out of the cannon. We just had a guy get fired out of a cannon at Michigan this year. Yeah, it was him.

Same guy. Still doing it. Yeah, I think this is a junior. I think it's a legacy. One of the other things that was quite popular was the military sort of demonstration for lack of a better term. Oh, yeah. We would, you would, as a fan, you would get there at the racetrack and you could see in the front straightaway infield area, they would have these like plywood and shacks. Shacks.

Yeah. These are things that were going to get destroyed. And there's tons of power techniques around underneath that stuff to make it explode and look like it. And so they would helicopter in troops, and they're coming down the ropes off the helicopters and things are, you know, there's music playing like peril. Howitzer cannons. Yeah, perilous sort of music playing out of speakers and things blowing up. I mean, a big production. How close did you get to that?

Not very close. Yeah. But you did? Well, apparently, if you get too close, you can end up with a lot of splinters. Oh, I'm sure. You took some chracknel. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You can get a drabnal. Yeah. And, you know, with more plaintiffs attorneys out there and people trying to sue you on, like. Is that why that went away? Pretty much. Pretty much, unfortunately. But those were really fun. I mean, we had all kinds of cool things.

Did you ever see the one where they, all the troops got together and they like let this balloon up and the plane come in? And it's called something extraction. It's like there's an airplane with a big fork on the front and this balloon and all these troops get together like five or six of them and link each other together and the plane comes in and yanks them out. No. Yes. It is the coolest, most amazing thing I've ever seen in our pre-race shows, I think. When's the last time y'all did that? Oh, gosh.

It's been maybe 10 years. Is it time to bring it back? Oh, yeah. It is, man. I love that thing. so cool to see, but it makes you feel like something's bad, something bad is going to happen. I mean, it's really scary. One of the other acts are, I don't know, it's not really an act as an insult, but one of the

other things that happened at the Speedway that I'm sure you guys hadn't involved in was the old-timers race. Yes. Kelyarborough. Yeah. The original legends race. Yeah, right? So they basically, all the retired drivers, some very old retired drivers as well, Junior

Johnson was out there. Tiger Tom. Tiger Tom. The Stone. Yeah. They all were helped. They got cup cars, old cup cars. Some teams made cars for them, and some got their own cars and had them made.

But they got these old cup cars and raced on the quarter mile on the front of straightaway. Yeah. And destroyed these cars. I mean, just running over each other. And they looked like they having a blast. They were. Yeah. And just a lot.

That's on YouTube somewhere, the old timers race. Just so much fun to watch those guys because you're sitting there really watching, your heroes run. That was the original legends race and the original reason to have that quarter mile paved at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was for that, right? Just for that race.

And then came the Legends car idea. And you guys had a role in the Legends cars. Yeah. Yeah. Humpy and my dad and a couple of other people, the Allison's. So, had that idea. The Allison's. The Allison's are not, this is

Kenny Allison, Ronald and Don. Donald Allison, who are Donnie's three sons, they were tasked by Humpy and Bruton and that idea, that vision y'all had for the Legends cars. They were tasked to build them in their shop. And they also built and helped create cars for Robert Yates and Davey Allison. So I went to work there. I got a speeding ticket one day. And dad said, well, you got to get a job, it looks like, to pay for this speeding ticket.

And I said, all right, so I went over to Kenney's and introduced myself and he hired me and I helped him build legends cars and I could see also I could go back in the back and look at Davies Cup cars. And so that's how like I remember the very beginnings. I had the very, I had the third legends car ever built. That's the car that's the car that I drove. Really? Yeah. How cool is that? When I raced down the metal body.

Yep. Yeah. We raced on the front straightway quarter mile and you had a dirt track. off of turn three, which is now paved. There was races out there this weekend with Bandoleros and Legends cars as well. Right. Yeah. So all that was there back in 92.

Yeah. Jim France raced those. He did. Paul Newman raced those. He did. I mean... I might have raced against Paul Newman. Yeah, you did.

You did. Oh, shit. I forgot. How cool is that? I forgot that I was racing against Paul Newman. Yeah. Easy to forget. And Jim.

I remember racing Jim. Yeah. Isn't that neat? Yeah. Those cars were so much fun. They were. We're still building them there in Airsburg. So y'all still have a role in legends cars.

And they're all over the country. They are. We export more legends cars and banaleros than we actually sell in the United States. Crazy. We race them all around the world. Uh-huh. Yeah, pretty cool. You didn't know that, did you?

Did not know that. I did know you went to work for Donnie Allison because he's always quick to remind us that you. Well, it's Kenny I worked for, not Donnie. Donnie takes credit. I know it. Donnie would love to have you know that he's the one that hired me. It actually, it was Kenny, and I have my first couple of checks from working there. That's great.

Yeah, pretty cool. I set my clothes on fire one time with the torch. I set the torch on fire. No kidding. We would have to go to the, so the legend's car spindle came out of a four-cylinder street car, like a Toyota or something. And we'd go to the junkyard and get these struts, and then we'd take them home, and I'd have to cut the spindle. We'd take them back to the shop, and I'd have to torch the spindle off. and the molten globules dropping and dripping off of that thing

landed on the hose line and set the hose burn a hole in the hose. I'm sitting there torching and Kenny comes up and taps me on the shoulder and he says, look at the hose. And I looked at the hose and there's a little blue flame shooting out of the hose because I's got to burn the hole in it. And then I set my shirt on fire because I was working in the parched cleaner early in the morning and I got a parched cleaner all over my shirt.

And it went up. And so I'm sitting there, Corch and my shirt, set my shirt on fire. My whole shirt. Literally burned the shirt right off my back. He could have been a pre-raced stunt guy. Oh, man. You know?

He could have been like... Kenny Allison would... I was the first driver to ever clip a front... Clip of Legends car, like bend the front clip and need it repaired. Oh, really? Yeah. So you're proud of it. Somebody broke a rear end in front of me on the dirt track behind Charltoner Speedway,

and I went straight into the guardrail. Oh, that's a hard one, too. Reese and bent the front clip. And so I came to work the next day and I said, Kenny, I got to get my Legends car clipped. He's like, we've never clipped one. I'm like, well, here we go. We're going to find out how to do it.

So I was the first one to ever clip a Legends car. That's awesome. First of many. Did you guys know each other at the time? I knew. Well, I'd seen him before. So when we had that condo in turn one and two at Sharp and Speedway, in passing, we'd run into him in the elevator or whatever.

And him and Kelly were very friendly. So they would communicate and talk and have a conversation, but I was young and even just being two years younger. Not the most social person ever. I wasn't social, yeah. I was just quiet and shy. We would run past each other a lot. We would. You know, in Atlanta. As we got older, we, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Gotcha. But I was 12, 13, 14, him and Kelly had a friendship, and I was just kind of an out. I was a loner. I got you. We're two years different. And you were busy. I mean, you were following your dad around, and I was following my dad around, and I was, you know, just, I don't know. We were both wide-eyed trying to figure out what we were doing in life. I was going to ask you that.

I mean, you said you weren't planning on getting into the business like this. Did you, at that time, have any idea what you were interested in other than just being around your dad? I thought I wanted to be a doctor. Okay. I was thinking about being a pediatrician because, honestly, my mom always. said, you should be a doctor. Does it every mom? I know.

But I think she was planting those seeds. And I thought, well, you know, I like our pediatrician. He seems like he has a pretty cool job. And I did some camp counseling when I was in high school. And I thought, that'd be pretty neat to be a doctor. And sure enough, I wasn't very good at chemistry or calculus. And that'll get you. Yeah.

You got me. Yeah. But then I kind of fell in love with racing. I mean, that was really what got me involved. So back to Sharpton Moor Speedway, you know, that track has been part of the backbone of our sport. But we come, you know, in recent times, the entire sports had some to face some realities. And that presented an opportunity. And you guys decided to create the roval.

Yeah. And what was the reaction when you first brought the Roval idea to either industry folks like NASCAR or the drivers or owners? Oh, man. So I was in my office and my office overlooks the front stretch. I've got a great view of the speedway and the dragway and the dirt track. And I'm sitting there just thinking about what we're. we're doing, you know, and thinking about how to make the race better. And at the time, there was a lot of discussion in the industry and among fans, you know,

like on the radio channel about, hey, we should have a road course in the playoffs. Yeah. And we've got too many mile and a halfs in the playoffs. And I thought about our fall race in Charlotte that, you know, it's a mile and a half. It's We've got the NASCAR All-Star race It's really special You've got the Coke 600

It's really special I need to do something To make the fall race even better And we had just Finished up Some improvements on our in-field road course And I just started thinking about When somebody said

We need a road course in the playoffs I thought we used to race Charlotte In the Camel GT series That was this sports car, kind of like EMSA series when I was a kid. And I loved that. It was always cool to see corvettes and Porsches and Jaguars and all those cool old cars race on the track. And I thought, yeah, I think we could make the Charlotte Roval part of the NASCAR season.

And so I called a guy Steve Swift, who heads up all of our construction and development at Speedway Motor. sports and said, man, I got a crazy idea. Could we make the Roval race ready for a cup race? And we talked a little bit. He said, well, let me call you back. I got a couple of things to look up. So he didn't think it was crazy right off the bat? No, no. And he's used to crazy ideas. Wild out there. And he and his team, they're the best. I mean, I can ask them to do anything and they can do it. And so he called me back. I mean, I guess he emailed me back within a few hours and said, yeah, we can do it. And so I called Steve O'Donnell at NASCAR. And I said, Steve, I got an idea. It's a great idea. The best idea you'll ever hear. Yeah, yeah. I said,

it's kind of crazy. So prepare. And I said, you know, I think we've got a solution. that is going to be really great for the sport. We can have a road course in the playoffs, and we'll take out one of the mile and a halfs in the playoffs, and the answer is running the Roval course at Charlotte. It's been done before. We've got a lot of updating and modernization that we've already done. We'll do more, but that's the idea.

And he didn't hate it right off. He said, man, I think that's pretty cool. That's, you know, we need more information, but that's pretty interesting. I'd like to learn more about it. So then I talked to Kevin Harvick about it. He and I had breakfast one morning. I said, I got a crazy idea. What do you think about this?

And he said, man, I think that's really cool. You should do it. Everything was going okay. Oh, then I talked to Sam Flood at NBC, and Sam said, I love it. He really liked it a lot. Jeff Banky liked it a lot. And I felt really good because Sam. Sam is just, you know, he's fantastic influence in all the sports, not just NASCAR,

and to have his support meant a lot. So then I kept working on it all the details. As soon as it got to the race teams, it was a hard no. There was a big brick wall. Did you suspect that to be the case? No, no. I mean, honestly, I thought such a great idea everybody ought to agree with this great idea.

And so when I started to run into the resistance, you know, there's a lot of challenges with the teams of that time. And I just, you know, so NASCAR had me come and talk to the team owners in Daytona. I think this was like four years ago. And Rick Hendricks there, Roger Penske, and Chip and Coach Gibbs and all the guys.

Well, Mr. H said, Marcus, I really don't think you need to do this this year. And he's like a, I know he's probably like a second dad to you. He's got that special place, you know, in my life. And when he said, no, I like shrunk, you know, six inches and just thought, man, I guess we're not doing it this year. So, but he said, I think you just need to give us a little more time. And so, so, Immediately, you know, I knew we were going to get done for that season and started working on the following season. We made it even better. We had Jeff Gordon come out, had Max Pappas come out, had Mario Andretti come out, test it.

I mean, we just went to work on making it the best road course, you know, among the world. And that's, and then before too long, we announced it on the schedule. What was their concern? You take probably the most familiar race course to every NASCAR driver is Charlotte. I mean, I don't know if there's anyone that any driver has been on more than Charlotte. And in the playoffs, and you throw it out and you bring in what now is a never raced on before race course and say, go, it's in the playoffs. That was really intimidating. And I get that.

but you know when it's when it's something where you're counting on it being a known entity and then you just go to the total unknown I think that was concerning yeah I think the fact that the cars had never raced around a roval before you got to you got to make sure you got a great tire yeah so safety was a big you know just not having it tested enough right well you got to have a tire that can go through the road course turn left and right then go around an oval yeah they worried about what you know how the tire would perform the left front and so forth if you're running positive if you're running camera you know to go left and right and then you're going to take that car with that setup and that geometry around the banked oval it could be a disastrous so just needed

a little more time i um do you remember when i called you about it yeah yeah you remember dale said no dale said i'd like to see it oh yeah yeah yeah yeah so i was racing yeah and he said it was the last year of my contract or like yeah last year of my my career and he said he said I'm thinking about doing this roe when I said I loved watch it next year right so you weren't even in favor of course you were just you were just trying to get to the finish line at that point right I just would know that was my genuine emotion I would love to see it yeah but you did not want to race it I was that interesting hey you know what he's been consistent with this too because I mean even this past weekend he was talking about man I'd hate it as a driver but boy it's fun to watch

Yeah, but that's what works. I mean, usually whatever the drivers hate is fun for fans, fun to watch. Yeah. We want to see, I mean, I don't want to see anybody frustrated or mad, but, man, we like to see the drivers in compromised situations. Challenge. Challenge them. Yeah, and not just by the facility, but by each other. You know, that stuff with Bubba and Alex this weekend, although, you know, you're going to have opinion about who is right or wrong or what the etiquette.

is there. Either way, it's what we hope we see in the end result is guys happy, guys frustrated. We want every emotion, right? And so as a broadcaster, I love it. As a driver, I hated it. I hated all the reels. Like, if I got in a crash, like the, for the perfect example is the Kyle Busch Richmond thing. I knew, you know, not only am I dealing with it in the moment and dealing with the crap for a couple weeks, they're going to run it the next Richmond. race. Right? It's going to be in all the highlights leading up, promoting the race.

The promoters. It's going to be in all of the, it's going to be the lead-in for the TV. And you can, Bubble Wallace, his crash into the chicane wall from last year has been rerun. Oh, man. Over and over and over. Yeah, yeah. So I hated that.

Anytime I was in part of those highlight reels. And I also began to hate it when other drivers were as well because I knew I wouldn't like it. But, man, as a broadcaster, run it. Run that crash from last year of bubblewax. All of stage. Well, that's a hip-toe, right? I am a hundred. I'm flipped like a pancake.

Yeah. Well, all right. So one of the things that I wanted to ask you about, and you were probably just kind of getting involved in the business back then, but the rivalry with NASCAR that you guys had. Yeah. How was, how did that, there was like a tug-a-war, you know, you guys trying to keep your momentum going and doing what's right for your business and NASCAR trying to do what they want to do. Right.

How do you guys, you know, how did you guys end up sort of smoothing that out and making the compromises and keeping the sport, you know, do what's better, what's best for, you know, everybody in mind? Yeah, I think, so my dad and Bill Jr. had a good relationship, but a very competitive relationship. And I think in hindsight, that has worked really well for NASCAR. And my dad always wanted to be the best. And Bill Jr. always wanted to be the best. And they both had some great attributes that I think benefited the sport immensely. Without that competition, who knows if they would have been pushed as hard.

So, you know, there was a time, I mean, when it was real nasty, there were times when it was totally fine. But, you know, over the time it's panned out to be really good. In 2001, Bruton committed to holding events at SMI tracks for an upcoming racing series that would possibly rival NASCAR called Track. Yes. Track would have franchises that represented the series, spec engines, composite bodies that never materialized.

You remember that? Yeah, Kelly Arbo was involved with that. Really? Yeah. Oh, man. Okay. Yeah. How realistic was that?

I mean, was that kind of a bluff? I mean, was there ever, did your dad, I mean, it seems like the tenacity you speak of, he's capable of playing cards that you don't know if he was actually going to do that, but he certainly got his way when he did it, right? Oh, man. The best thing to do, I mean, if you ever want to see somebody just, you know, run through brick walls or do anything, tell my dad no. I mean, he has this amazing ability.

to just press on, you know, through adversity. It's really admirable. But I don't think, I mean, for me, I was a younger guy just learning and soaking up everything I could at that time. And I sat in that meeting. There was one particular meeting I was in in Humpey's office with all those guys from track and we were talking about it. And I never really got it, you know, personally.

And of course, I didn't have the business experience that those guys did at the time. So I was just kind of listening. And the idea was, like you said, to kind of follow the city franchise concept for racing. And yeah, I thought it was interesting, but it didn't really capture my attention as a fan as much because I was watching guys, you know, that I know. knew on the track. Yeah. That was interesting.

And so this new thing, it was a big idea. It didn't go very far, obviously, and I was only in one meeting that it was discussed. But there was a meeting. There was definitely meeting. So they definitely were serious about it. They had, you know, pretty pictures and words. I asked Sam Flood, you mentioned him, I asked Sam Flood about this interview, if he had any information that might help me. Oh, my God.

He asked me to ask you to tell the story about threatening to tow the NBC TV trucks. I can't imagine you threatening to do anything, Marcus. I was merely a messenger. Oh. What was that all about? It was so the first time I think I'd ever met Sam Blood. And he was in the TV compound, and we had Lowe's as a sponsor of the Speedway. and Speedway is called Lowe's Motor Speedway

and we got word that NBC was not going to call it Lowe's Motor Speedway. They were going to call it the Charlotte Speedway or the Speedway at Charlotte and Humpey said I mean he kind of blew a gasket and he said

go down there and tell them that we're going to pull the plug if they don't do this and Lowe's was my sponsor, my customer, and I want to take care of them. Humpey is my boss. I want to take care of him. And so I had Lowe's kind of concerned about them not getting the proper recognition, and I had Humpey really upset.

So I walked down to the TV compound, and there was a tow truck hooking up to the satellite truck that connected the race to the world. And big tow truck and like 20 security guys. And I was sweating. And it was just, you know, one of those things. It was a standoff. What Sam say? He was not happy about it.

Sure. He just, you know, he said, go ahead and pull it. There's, you know, TV money will go down the drain and go. He and Humpy had a standoff. And it was, man, it was something else. So we finally got things worked out. A lot of, you know, business discussions that took place. With you, the mediator?

I was just an unfortunate go-between. You know, I was just, like I said, the messenger. But when you were the messenger or the unfortunate go-between, you're still having to play a role in this. Are you having to put on a face? of uh of i was trying to deescalate the situation so you were trying to my goal okay i got you you weren't trying to play play hardball i was not no i needed to deescalate on one side and the other try to bring cooler heads you know to the discussion and it was uh man that was tense that was a tense

moment and um we finally got it done um but it made for some great stories And we have pictures, you know, of the tow truck hooked up to the satellite truck. And when NBC came back in the NASCAR, and we hosted the whole NBC crew at the Speedway, you know, Sam was there, and I brought big picture of the satellite truck hooked up with the tow truck. And we shook hands and laughed and, you know, told stories about it. Your wife, we'll call it gassy girl. Gassy girl, yeah. She is quite the personality on social media.

She has a lot of fun. She does. Yeah, she does. And sings a lot of songs. Yeah. enjoys getting up early in the morning and starting her day with music. But apparently, and we see that a lot, she shares with the world a lot. But I guess she doesn't share your singing.

So you also like karaoke. Oh, I do love karaoke. Your favorite karaoke song. I would say, don't cry for me, Argentina. That's it. What? Yes. It's a great icebreaker.

Have you heard him do it? It's right in my notes. No, I haven't heard him do it. You haven't seen this. Oh, man. I was wanting. He got it right. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. Also, like, cool in the gang. Yeah, that's always fun. I don't even know that song. Don't cry for me, Argentina. It's like an opera. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Really? Yes. But like Madonna did it. When are you singing this? You all have like karaoke? On podcast, I've heard. No, no, no. Oh, no.

You all have karaoke night at the house? Yeah, we did. Every single day at your house probably Well, Cassie sings about every day But we have You know, if we have people over, we'll break out the karaoke. We've got, you know, just the regular

kind of TV room and we Have a couple of microphones and speaker and we'll We have a karaoke-consuming house. Yeah, it's fun. That's fun. It's fun. Yeah. We like it. I'm terrible at it and the way I kind of like to do it. Cassie is a pro And I don't know about you, but But when somebody, when you do karaoke and you get somebody who's a pro, it's like, man, how do you follow that?

It's harder to do. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll get up there and belt out. Don't cry for me, Argentina. I still can't get over there. And everybody can follow me with no problem. It's really fun.

Yeah. But how do you, I wouldn't want to follow an opera either. Oh, man. I'm not good. Trust me. It's just for fun. And I like Garth Brooks and, yeah, all kinds of fun. stuff. That's funny.

So most recently on social media, I challenged a friend of mine, Steve Myers, to scan. Steve Myers works for eye racing, which builds one of the best simulators for motorsports and NASCAR included. He has a lot of license with racetracks, yours included. Yep. And they have to sign an agreement with you to be able to go and scan the racetrack that they want to build for the game or for the simulation. the real the players the people that play our ira racing or own i racing do not like you to call it a game

but i will for this for the sake of for the sake of people understanding yeah for the sake of people understanding what we're talking about so anyways um you have a license with uh with steve meyers and i racing on several of your tracks one that they do not have in the services north willsborough speedway and me and you i actually called you uh all right i had the plane crash and i've been bumming rides trying to get to these racetracks so I can keep broadcasting. You were nice enough to give me a ride to one. The racetracks here recently. Vegas.

Yeah. And it was a nice long trip. And there's a couple things that I learned on this trip. One was I've been looking to buy a suit. I haven't bought a suit in a while. And so I needed a suit. And you were telling me about a particular brand. So I ordered a suit while I was on the plane.

All right. Did you get it yet? Yeah. A suit that you can have. mailed to the house and I was like, hmm, this doesn't sound like a very good deal. You know, usually I think you need to get measured for these kind of things. But he's like, nope, it's going to be fine. It's a good suit. And it came and it fits. And I just got to get it hemmed on the bottom. Yeah. Right. And, but yeah, it fits pretty good. Yeah, I wore mine yesterday. Did you?

Yeah. So I needed a summer suit, something that wasn't thick. Right. So that was great. And also, we were sitting there and I said, I don't even know how we got on that conversation. but I remember saying in my head, man, Steve Myers needs to scan North Walesboro before it gets beyond the capabilities of doing it, whether it's the surface of the track goes away or whatever might happen to this place before it goes too far, at least go scan it and get the data,

whether they build the track and release it to the service. And so I started to talk to Marcus about it on the plane. I said, Marcus. I said, and so I'm asking Marcus basically to give Steve a license. Yep. Right? To scan it. You said, hey, let's go scan it.

And you mentioned something about there being a lot of weeds and grass overgrowth. Yeah. And Mike Birch, who is on the plane with us, he works a lot with Steve. and I guess knows a lot about how they do the scanning and everything. And before I know it, you're offering your landscape services. Anything I can to get him to allow Steve to come scan the track and do the track. Yeah, they'll be fun. All right.

But you can be honest here. I mean, like, you know, because you're part of the crazy idea club. I mean, you've had crazy ideas, right? I like that. So when he's hitting you up with this stuff, I mean, there's got to be people that say and suggest things to you during the course of your day where you're like, oh yeah. In your head going,

idiot. I do it all the time. Right. So is this really something you were receptive and thought was a great idea? Or were you just like colossal waste of my time? No. So actually the way it came up is we were talking about the Ferris wheel. Yeah.

And so Dale and I were at dinner one night. And he said, man, I got an idea. He said, you know, it's really cool. when you see a ferris wheel on TV at the racetrack, and we've had them a few times in the past, but we don't do it all the time. And I said, yeah, it is pretty cool. And he said, yeah, it looks like something fun's happening.

And I said, yeah, you're right. And so I made a little note in my mind. And so now every race we have a ferris wheel that you can see from television, so it's Dale's Ferris wheel. That was your idea. Isn't that crazy? Yeah.

If I'd have known he was going to actually do something, I would have probably chose something different than Ferris wheel. Right, ask for something else. But it's really fun. It's really fun. Fans love it. Yeah, and it looks fun. Yeah.

So then you said, well, man, if I had known that, and you started bringing up eye racing with North Wilkesboro. And we were just up there. I was up there with a couple of folks maybe six months ago and checking it out. And it's, I mean, it just, it just screams history, you know, of NASCAR. And I think so many people, you know, like to talk about it on social media. I think using eye racing as a way to bring it back virtually is a great idea.

And it would be fun. Yeah. So that, you know, that was, I wasted two pretty decent ideas. And I could have went bigger, I guess. You got any others or you're holding back off? Yeah, yeah. So you asked...

Just wait to the next West Coast race, get a bunny ride. You said, does he hear all kinds of crazy ideas? Pretty much every time that me and him

are around each other, I'm telling him some crazy thing that he needs to do. I've begged him to pave Bristol with asphalt for years. I've begged him to do that.

I think it's a good idea, but I mean, I'm sure there's economics involved in that. Dale's idea was to rip up the concrete at Bristol and run a dirt race. Yes.

In Cup. The first Bristol race of the year, run the dirt race. Yeah. And then pave it asphalt. Wait, when did he come to you with that idea? It had to be after driving. No, that was on the plane to Vegas. Oh, before we got there.

Yeah, before we got there. Now that he didn't have to drive it, he's got all kinds of ideas. They do a boat race in the infield next time, right? That was Kyle Petty's idea. Oh, that's already been taken. If Cal wanted to fill it up and have a bass fishing tournament. Man. He doesn't like it.

He doesn't like the track. I got it. I got it. Man, you do hear some crazy ideas, and he's the reason. I am. I want to see Bristol asphalt. Before I die, I want to see Bristol go back to asphalt. Because I think that once it goes back to asphalt, it'll solve all the, you know, all the concerns.

It'll write the world. It'll write. In global warming. Yes. The other, all right, so if we're making a list, I'd like Atlanta reconfigured to its original configuration. That's good idea. Okay. Oh, come on.

You're not hearing that for the first time. There's no way. I may have heard it. I've heard it. You may have heard it. You may have heard it. I think you have. Yeah. All right.

What else? What else we got? Well, he doesn't own Dover. Nope. But I'd love to see you at asphalt too one day. When you're racing Dover, that's got to be. I know you and other drivers always said it kind of like shakes your eyeballs. Concrete just isn't a great, great surface, you know, as far as for racing.

But I don't know. I think that those two tracks. It would be correct. crazy fast. When was Bristol? They would have to make some adjustments with the cars and so forth. When was it asphalt? I think in 96 is when it went to concrete.

Oh, wow. I didn't know it was that recent. Ah, correct, yes. Well, at the time, asphalt would not stay up on the banking. Yes. The asphalt was getting torn up because of the heat of the day practice. In the heat of the day,

the Xfinity and the cup cars practicing on it would rip the asphalt up. But advances have been made in the ability to create a surface that would last. And now you guys know so much more about surfaces since you paved Charlotte and beyond. You know, the other tracks that have been repaved since Charlotte. A lot has been learned about what we need as a sport. So I think it can be done. So now when we pave, so we start off with regular asphalt and the heat would kind of pull the asphalt down because that's how you make asphalt.

You get it hot, you pour it out and smooth it out, and so then you heat it back up again. But then the next step was polymer asphalt, and that helped to keep it in the turns. But it also made the track so smooth, so perfect, that you end up with like three or four years of... Perfect race track. Too good.

Which is not great for great racing. Right. And so then when we repaid Kentucky a couple of years ago, my challenge to our guys, Steve Swift and others, was pave the track but make it old from the beginning. How'd you do that? That was a pretty cool thing. Basically, you know, when you pave, you have several layers like a cake,

and the top layer is like the icing on a cake. It's real smooth and doesn't have as much rock in it. But instead of doing that top layer, you just kind of leave it off and make it the top layer still has a lot of rocks in it and a lot of crevices that make it a coarser, more, I guess, grindy kind of surface for the tires. Yes, abrasive. So the tracks that we, and I say we, the tracks that most drivers love are the worn-out tracks like Atlanta and Fontana and Rockingham was like this. I remember going to Rockingham and when they would have the pit, the Unicow Pit Road, Pit Crew competition.

Yeah, so they had the Unicalf Pit Crew Competition and they would tell all the drivers to get in their cars and pull around the backstretch and stop. And when it was your turn, you would pull away down the back straight away and around turns three and four and come make your pit stop. So all the drivers would pull over there with their cars and we'd get out. And so I remember being on the backstretch and sitting there and rubbing my hand across the surface of the track and it would cut your hand. It was so abrasive that if you rub your hand across it, it would cut your hand. And imagine what it's doing to a tire at 4,000 pounds of load at 150 miles an hour. And so props to good year with that. And so what was making that so abrasive was those shards of rock.

As you wear away the tar and the asphalt material, what's left are the rocks. and those rocks have those broken edges and they become the abrasiveness of that surface. And so pretty awesome. All this stuff, I've been kind of keeping an ear to the ground as to what you guys have been doing over the years with paving tracks. And it kind of started with Charlotte.

You used a lot of rubber components in that asphalt. And so now it's like a tire on a tire. Right. The surface of the track is rubber in a way in a sense. It was amazing. When we first did that test, you could see it took about an afternoon where you took a chunk of regular asphalt and a chunk of the new stuff. And the new stuff after four or five hours in the sun didn't move.

And the other stuff, the classic asphalt, was melting down the track. So Charlotte was too good, right? The surface of the speedway at the time. Now it's gotten rougher and got a lot of imperfections in it. and it's a change now. But first, it was too good for too long because they paved it with such great technology. And now, like you say, you've went to Kentucky and other tracks and sort of developed this sort of asphalt that's got some coarseness to it and will age rather rapidly without you having to repave every 10 years. Right.

You know, the track that's going to last, service is going to last. I know another one of his crazy ideas he's been pushing. Yeah, what's that? Nashville. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, Nashville fairgrounds here and not even. Well, yeah.

You know, the Nashville thing has been a bit of a struggle, I think. Yeah. And I think, you know, the town and I can't speak, I'm not speaking for Marcus. This is just the knowledge that I have, which is probably less than what Marcus has. But the town and the community leaders there, you know, are I think in my personal opinion, they're much more excited about the soccer team and the upgrades that that's going to bring to that sort of facility there. They're less concerned about the future of the racetrack and what it could do for the

community. They're less confident in its future and what it could do for the community. That just seems to be the impression I get. Marcus, if you care to speak on it, you can. Sure. Yeah. So there is a lot of excitement about the soccer team. And everybody doesn't know this new soccer stadium is going right next door to the Nashville

Fairground Speedway. Yeah. And so that poses a challenge, but it's also an opportunity, and I'm kind of an optimist by nature, so I always like to see the opportunity in something. And we do have a lot of supporters in the community that want to see NASCAR back in Nashville and to see that Speedway taken care of. And we've got some great ideas to help make that happen. We've talked to a lot of people there on the fair board and the city.

and they have a brand new mayor that will be talking to hopefully pretty soon and be able to follow up on some of these discussions. Oh, so it's not dead in the water? No. Yeah. No, not dead. We're going to keep pushing on it and feel like we've got a pretty cool opportunity there. Yeah. I think if, man, that would be quite an accomplishment for you personally.

I think if racing was to ever return, it makes perfect sense because we are going. going there with our banquet and to celebrate our champion. Yeah. It's an amazing city. And we belong. I think that's a great match for us. Vegas was an amazing experience and a good run, much as New York City was as well. I've got great memories going to the Waldorf story with my dad and watching him win championships there in New York and made great memories in Vegas.

But Nashville is a great fit for us. We'll also have a lot of great entertainment right in our backyard or right in their backyard to be able to come celebrate. with us. It's just going to make for a really good experience for our champion and our drivers in the industry. So we should be racing in that town. And I wouldn't want to race anywhere else than at that fairgrounds. With the history it has, it's a short track. And it's very traditional and would be awesome. It's great shape too. I like that. It's perfect. The banking, it's perfect. Yeah, it is. All right, man. Well, what are you most excited about for NASCAR's future? You know, you had a big crowd at Bristol this past race.

Yeah. Big gains there. Yep. There's been gains on the television side. You're seeing gains as an owner in ticket sales. What are you most excited about? Oh, man. I think, well, when I talk to people now, I love that our TV ratings are up.

I love that our attendance is up. The racing is really good. I feel like we've got a lot of good things going for. And we've got a lot of great new young guys that are, they're excited and pumped up about racing. And, you know, really that's the core of what we do is entertain people with our competition. And that's no different than every other sport out there. I think that is the great thing, the great privilege that we have putting on races is that we get a chance. to deliver entertainment and memories for people.

I mean, we work in the sport, but the millions of people that come to watch what we do are doing this as a way to kind of escape the rest of their lives, the rest of reality of just, you know, waking up and going to work and the regular thing. Where they make their memories and their friendships is at the NASCAR races. And I love that.

That's kind of the really great, rewarding things. about what we do. And to me, I'm excited about the great drivers that we have competing today. The fantastic racing. I think the outlook of where we're going is really good. And I'm excited about things like Nashville. And who knows, maybe we'll have a dirt race at Bristol one day. Wow, dirt race at Bristol.

Who came up with that? Wait now. We can't leave right there. You don't really want to tear up the asphalt or tear up the concrete to do it, though. I'm going to call it the Dale Jr. Invitational. That means you've got to invite him to race in it, right? Yeah, there you go.

Oh, man. See, his temperature on it goes south immediately at the project today. I have zero dirt experience. Like, I do the last person to be... I think you race some dirt. You've got a little more than zero. I mean, I ran some legends cars. That does not count.

Yes, it does. It is if the invitational is a legends race. That's right. You need it. All right. See, we could come up with all kinds of ideas here. Just as long there's a ferris wheel

somewhere near by. I'm telling you there's, there's, I think I racing can build you a dirt simulated Bristol. Yeah.

And you could practice on it. Yeah. Is that right? They don't, they don't build fictional tracks. They need to scan the real thing,

Marcus. Okay. I bet you can get them to do it. Hint. They would need to scan the real thing. And once you're done with that dirt race

and everybody has had their fun, you can pave it. Yeah. There you go. All right. All right, buddy. Well, man, I appreciate you coming out today. It's been a lot of fun talking to you. I am, you know, you just have such a great personality. I love what you do and what you bring to the sport and everything that your family's meant to NASCAR, but also, more importantly, I love the person you are and the friend that you are.

I know I can count on you and depend on you for anything, and always great for some good advice. And just a great dude, man. Thank you, man. You too. you've shown that on the show and I appreciate you giving us some time today. I know it's been a busy, busy weekend. Like you said, you deserve some decompression and some time off and a little rest and hopefully you'll get that this week. Yeah, we're going to have some fun.

I don't know. I might play a round of golf this week. Yeah, yeah. You got to get ready for the drags. Yeah, they are. Are the drags coming? What's the dates? Yeah, two weeks.

We've got drag racing in Charlotte at the Z-Max Dragway and Christmas Light shows. will be in Texas first week of November, but yeah, got some fun ahead. Yeah, you got Texas coming up, some big races. That's right. That's the thing. Like when Charlotte's over, you know, you got another track firing up, getting ready for a race over here, and then another track over here firing up. Yeah.

It's a, y'all, I can't even imagine the responsibilities and strings you guys are pulling on a daily basis. Well, we're, you know, we're in the fun business. We want people to have fun and entertain people, make sure they're enjoying themselves. Well, it's working. Thank you, buddy. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you all having me. Yes, sir.

All right. Thanks, God. Hey, is that it? Yeah. Put your headphones on real quick. Put your headphones on real quick. He's doing his go-to karaoke song. Oh, is that it?

Be careful. I might sing it. He's getting inspired. Yes. Yes. Come over for karaoke. I'll sing it for you. Oh, I love karaoke.

That was good. Hell yeah, it was. I don't know if it was just because I liked the content and maybe not everyone will feel that way about it, but screw them. That was good. That was fun. We literally dropped they might do dirt Bristol.

Yes. Like that. And drop that Nashville is still morality. Yeah. That's going to make headlines. Big nuggets. Damn straight. Bristol dirt.

Yeah. And he wanted to ease that Bristol dirt out there. He could tell. That's cool. He was like, this ain't a bad idea to just tease it. Are you ready to this? Uh-huh. We are live.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. For the Dale Jr. download, this is the Ask Junior YouTube segment of the show. Presented by Nationwide. Thanks to Nationwide for bringing Ash Jr. to you. So we got Leah. Hello. She's laughing because I'm silly. She's going to be fiddling through all those questions you guys are putting out there and trying to find some good ones.

So send them on in. Leah. All right. First questions. from Joshua Doyle. After watching Bubba Wallace lose his cool last night, it got me wondering, what is the maddest you've gotten during or after a race?

Probably, it's several instances with Kyle Bush, I'm sure. I mean, anytime you get turned around and spun out, I was driving late model street stocks. Anytime you get wrecked, you can't get any more frustrated. And several of the things that me and Kyle did to each other. other on the racetrack several things he did to me upset me several things he said in the media upset me um so too many to list but yeah i i uh i always tried to think about you know my mom's

watching my mom's listening and try to you i know that's not reality she probably wasn't watching every interview or watching every practice or race but i try to imagine like what should i say in this moment without upsetting mom and typically that kept me out of trouble or else i probably could have gotten myself, I could have made myself look like a real... But, yeah, I think Kyle said something one time in the media. We were at Dover. I remember.

Ugh. Yeah. So frustrating. He said something about me having to switch a lot of crew chies. He said it's never junior's fault. It's never my fault, yeah. That one really pissed me off. So bad.

So, yeah. It was... Yeah. It's still... Still harbored a little bit of a bit of... I mean, we're probably not thinking of a few. I can think of one. I mean, just because I saw somebody bring it up on Twitter.

No, no, no. You know, Robbie Gordon or his crew member, Robbie Gordon after the race, there's that picture you flipping him off. Oh, God, yeah. He was a lap down and in the way. He didn't think he's in the way, but I'm thinking, get out of the way, I want to pass the cars in front of you because they're positions. And then we ended up getting into a shoving match on pit road,

destroyed our cars. And then that day, I wanted to be in, show my ass. I wasn't thinking about Mama. All right, what's the next question? Nicholas Lewis is watching on YouTube, and he wants to know, what did you think of Corey Lujoy's Ninja Turtles? That was one of my favorite things on social. Yeah, Corey sent me a picture of that and said,

hey, we're on a covert mission to have some fun out here with the turtles. And Corey just has fun, right? So if you're, think about this. Like when we're at the racetrack on the weekend, don't be surprised by Corey coming up with some fun thing to do and be silly. every single weekend. I was at Darlington going to run that Xfinity race,

and he comes riding up on his bike. I was at the track Friday, and he comes riding up on his bike. Hey, man, how's going? And we sat there and had a conversation. I was like, what's up, Corey? And then he said, hey, man, let's get some beers later. I'm going to come over to the bus. I'm going to come over to the bus.

We hung out for like 45 minutes to an hour. We've never hung out really before. We know each other. But he's just a spontaneous guy that's going to have fun. Didn't surprise me any, and he's going to do some cool stuff that fans are going to enjoy. I think it's great, great personality in a sport. Tony Rocco wants to know,

if you're forced to add an element to the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, what would it be and why? I don't know that I would add anything. I couldn't imagine that track is so challenging the way it is. There's not a corner on that track that somebody didn't have a problem with or, you know, it just really, I think, is the hardest, circuit or the hardest track and toughest test for the drivers that they'll face all year long. So I don't know that I'd change a thing.

I really wouldn't. I could think of other tracks that I'd like to influence. And we talked about that with Marcus Smith and our interview today. That track, that roval, man, I don't know. I don't want to get in there and mess it up. You know, it's pretty good. Jason M. When is Dale coming to the snowball derby?

I want to. I talked to Tony Jr. About going over the last couple years and just camping, you know, and hanging out and drinking beer and watching the race. Yeah, I want to be a fan. And I've tried to figure out a way to get my driver, Josh Barry, in a car. It's expensive to run that race, but I'd love to try to get Josh an opportunity just to say he at least ran it once in his career.

And all the great drivers have ran that race. My time has passed. I don't think I'll ever try to go do it, but it'd be cool to go see it one time for sure. We're getting a lot of robo questions. Cliff wants to know what is the perfect way through the chicanes? Are the best drivers hitting the turtles on purpose or are they just missing it by a few inches? You want to straighten that section out, you know, go through there as straight as you possibly can. So that definitely means using the turtles a lot, using a lot of the curb.

The only problem is that, you know, you can break your car. Those are very aggressive curbs compared to what we have at the other roadcourses. And they are, they beat the cars up and break things and break the suspension, especially the rear suspension. So it's sort of a trade-off. I wouldn't be very aggressive with those turtles early in the race, but late when you need to make some time and you're trying to create the best lap time you can

and catch the guy in front of you, you have to take that risk of climbing up on those things and using them up. Justin Cruz, this is kind of an off-the-wall question. Does pineapple belong on pizza? You know, you could put anything you want on pizza. I'm not going to be the pizza police. I'm not going to be the pizza police here.

I think that pineapple, if you like it, eat it. I don't care. Who cares? I like buffalo chicken on pizza. Not my favorite pizza. My favorite pizza is going to be pepperoni and banana peppers all day. Oh, interesting. E-X-R-C-I-S-T on YouTube.

What's your next series to run on Air Racing? I liked, you know, I was enjoying the dirt. My computer's been gone from the house because it's with the rig that I'm getting built, so I haven't been able to race. But once the rig shows up and I'm back on ir racing, I'm going to continue sort of building up through the ranks in my dirt career, if you will. And I probably won't run much asphalt for a while. But eventually, so I got this original account, Dale Earnhardt Jr. And it's, you know, I sort of retired it. And I got a new account, Dellenhart Jr.,

and I'm going to start from the bottom. Oh, that's fine. In the asphalt and dirt. So going back, because I haven't ran on there in so long, the tire models changed so much that I'm going to start this new account with how the SIM is currently in its state and relearn this entire simulation all over again because I'm trash. I am trashed.

on the asphalt. I'm so bad. Yeah, that's it. All right. Thanks, guys. Ask Junior, presented by Nationwide. I appreciate everybody that tuned in today to hear and ask questions. Thank you again to Nationwide and be sure to subscribe to Dirty Mode Media on YouTube.

Keep talking about it. White flag right there. White flag. All right, White Flag. You know we got a TV show, NBC Sports Network. We've got three airings on Tuesday, 5 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Eastern, and midnight. It's going to be a good one. Marcus Smith, this interview right here.

The B-roll and stuff is so good with that TV show. We just love seeing that. But this is a big week for us, guys. I mean, we've got the drop of our big, original short documentary called Time Machine. That is Dale Jr.'s in Dirty Mo Media's big project, where we really just kind of shows the emotions and really behind the scenes, transparency, candor, everything about the weekend at Darlington. and I think Dale Jr. fans are going to love it. I think that it's, man, it's emotional, right? I mean, it's, and so anyways, I'm looking forward to getting that out

and letting everybody kind of just consume that this week. You can only do it on our YouTube channel, right? It's only on the Dirty Mo Media YouTube channel, subscribe to it, watch it and watch it again. You'll want to. It's only 20 minutes long. It's a good 20 minutes that you'll find valuable. And that's coming this week.

So everything else, you know, Apple writing and reviews, all those other things. Look, we'll kick back on that next week. But this week it's all about time machine because I know that's been a labor or love for everybody in this room. Yes, for sure. And we'll see you there. And that's it for this, White Flag. Oh, wait, I was supposed to be saying that it's international podcast day. Shouldn't it be a holiday for podcasters?

Are you looking for some time off? Is that right? Is that where we're going with this? Show comes out tomorrow. All right, you'll just have to work Sunday. All right. That's it. Let's do some odd history.

On September the 30th, 1956, NASCAR's convertible series raced at the Asheville-Weaver Speedway. Weaverville, I always leave that off. I do, too. Asheville-Weaverville Speedway. We've mentioned this track a few times on the show. It was a half-mile dirt track in North Carolina. The race that day made some unusual history, or odd history. On lap three, Chicago's Bill Whitey, is that really true?

Yeah, man. Gurkin started the insanity by flipping his 155 Dodge number 155. Then Arizona driver Mel Larson, I've heard that name before, lost his gas tank and was sidelined. Cannonball Brown, his axle broke. This was only the beginning of the rough day that a crowd of over 4,000 spectators witnessed. Let's fast forward to lap 182. A multi-car pile-up caused the race to be stopped. Why?

Because it was only one car still in the race. All right, so they had a crash that took everyone out but one car. The big wreck started when Jimmy Massey and Possum Jones collided on the backstretch. Drivers said they were blinded by the sun and kept crashing into the pile of wreck vehicles. Possum was standing on top of his car when it was hit again. He was thrown off high into the air. He landed unhurt. Joe Weatherly ran from his car and escaped the carnage by climbing the outside banking.

With cars crashing into the infield wire fence to avoid the wreckage, the scene was an absolute. mess. Race leader Curtis Turner narrowly got through the crash before the track was blocked. Possum was treated for chest contusions. Massey? He was hospitalized for a minor back injury. Glenwood

suffered cuts and bruises in a broken nose. Art Binkley broke his jaw. Ouch. The dust settled and the race was called early and the lumberman from Roanoke, Virginia. Curtis Turner will declare the race's winner. The victory was the partying wild man's

21st checkered flag of the season in the convertible division. Turner dominated in that class. To this day, it stands at the only time in NASCAR history that only one car finished a race. Wow. All right. That's a lot history. That is. All right.

Let's close up shop, boys. And girl. And girls. Sorry, Leo. All right, guys, it's a great show. Thanks for Marcus Smith coming by. Pretty cool stuff. He dropped some...

I think some new news. He drops some... He got some things. Got some new stuff to talk about. Some new rumors floating around out there. I'm sure that Torbumpur-Clear is going to be all over and figuring it out. Getting to the bottom of it. Well, at least we heard it from the horse's mouth.

That's right. All right, everybody. Hope you enjoyed it. I sure did. Have a great week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.