The Dale Jr. Download - 286 - Rick Mast: Just Glad to be Alive

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Dale Earnhardt Jr. clears the air with Rick Mast about the driver's unknown start to a racing career and the carbon monoxide poisoning that forced his exit the sport. Mast opens up about feeling "like he was dying," and decisions that saved his life. He also reveals the moment that humbled Dale Earnhardt Sr. as well as the day Rick was going to shoot Jimmy Spencer. Mast also shares the infamous cow-sale that led to the purchase of his first racecar and how Elvira the bubble witch magically turned his performance around. The DJD gets real about Noah Gragson's tangle with Myatt Snyder and the softest bounty in the land. We learn that Dale likes the word "drag" and "quibble" during our ad reads and that J.D. McDuffie had to bet it all to make it to the next race. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is the production of Nerdy Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. We've had a great start to the season. We got another great show for you today. Rick Mast is our guest. We've got Asch Jr. and more. So let's get the show started. The Dale Jr. Download.

All right, everybody, man, this is a pretty eventful weekend. What do you want to talk about? Where should we start? I got a couple things on my list, Mike. I wanted to talk about Noah Grags and spinning out Mayette Snyder. Oh, I want to hear your opinion on that, actually, because I know you're pretty hard on your own drivers. That's right. I also want to talk about the cup race, a couple different things, and I noted them on social media during the race.

You know that late start time? Yeah. All right. Well, I'm watching the first stage of the race, plugged in, loving it, and then I had to leave and go eat dinner. Missed like almost all the rest of the race. But you got back for the end? I ended up getting back for the end. I really was enjoying watching.

Yeah, but I had to, you know. You had to leave. You had to do your thing. My family. Feed them. Now, that's a good call on your part. Plus, you can always go back and watch it again or something like that. But what did you, so what did you think about the cup race then as far as how it ended?

What do you do? Do you skip meals to watch the race? No, I don't skip meals for about anything. I definitely don't. How'd y'all do it? I kind of multitask during races. I definitely don't sit there and just watch it like a lot of people. with, you know, sometimes I don't even have the volume on.

Sometimes I'm out, sometimes I'm listening to MRN or PRN, you know, and doing other things. But you've got to multitask these days, man. But I was definitely, I had it all turned up and was plugged in for the end of it. You can hear it from the dining room? You know, while you're eating dinner. Yeah, I'm trying to think the last time I would have eaten in the dining room, actually. Well, I don't know. Where do y'all eat?

In kitchen? During a race? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll go through the way my house is later. out later but it's not normal that's going to be you on dbc next week yeah well but uh i don't know i you know we've i've had a million reasons to complain about the late start times and this one was just dawned on me i was uh you know i mean i don't like them has really been my main complaint for uh for for for up to this point but then i finally was like you know what i have a valid real

reason did not like it cut in the your dinner time. Yeah, well, it didn't cut into my dinner time. Dinner time cut into the race. Hey, all right, you want to look at it. Hold on. Big ass spoilers, late start times. What you hate more? Big spoilers. Ah, man. He hates those spoilers. I might be reversed. That's a good one. Good job, Mike. All right, so, also the Chevy's. Also, the Chevy's run really well. Shebby's. They finished, let's see, what did I hear? Well, they ran well. Six out of the top ten. Yeah, they actually did the best that they've done in a while. They have. And then the final. And then the final. PIN stop. You mentioned it to me earlier today that you you don't know why they all pitted.

Well, okay, look, first of all, I know it's easy to armchair quarterback and it's easy to hindsight, but I also won't let that stop me from doing it because I think that that's well within our right to say, what the heck were they thinking? I mean, I know that there's some, everything's situational and I know some tracks dictate that, but don't you got to, if you're in the lead, don't you got to stay out there. I mean, don't you know that basically from 11th on back is going to stay out because they're going to definitely better their position or better their chances for a better finish? Isn't that obvious or am I wrong?

Well, the, all right, so this is how this kind of works, and this is the fear of the crew chief who's leading the race. All right? If he pits, everybody reacts off of that. Sure. All right. Nobody has made their decision, well, nobody's really got a certain concrete decision until they see what the leader does.

And now they may be talking about it, you know, as they're rolling around the track before they get around the turn four, hey, we're going to pit, this is what we're going to do, or do what the leader does or don't do what the leader doesn't do. You know, they've got sort of plans. They're telling their drivers, but every crew chief is going to possibly reserve the right to jump on the radio right at the last second and say, stout, stout, or pit, pit, pit, or whatever.

So none of them really know exactly what they're going to do until they see exactly what the leader chooses to do. And so the leader in this situation, Pits, obviously, you know, Lugano's sitting there and his team obviously see this revelation. They aren't thinking they're going to, you know, win the race or take the lead. But boom, there it is in front of them right there. And in that second they made, you know, they made the choice to stay out. If the leader stays out, I bet you Ligano and those guys may be Pitt. Oh, no doubt about it.

Yeah. I mean, so it's all the, of course. Yeah. So it's, okay, we can say. man, the leader should stay out. But then he could be the only one or the only one of two or three that's a sitting duck. And he's not going to win. I'm not saying that they should have stayed out because they were going to win.

I think Blaney and Bowman were probably going to be screwed. They were not going to win. But they also weren't going to finish 13th. 100%. They should have probably maybe took two. They lost that race when, who was it that spun out? Oh, it was Ross Chastin, what, in the 6th. That was when they lost the race, unfortunately, for them.

But I still think you've got to stay out. Now, that being said, and you would know this. You made your bed. You make, you're, it's just the way the things happen. It's just the way it is. It's a situation you're in, just grin and bear it. So get the best restart you can get. At the same time, while I wanted to be critical of this decision, it's not lost on me that some drivers, most drivers, I don't think, are capable of winning that race on old tires like some of them are. Joey Legano can will the win.

Kyle Busch can wheel the win. On old tires, new tires, they can find a way to win. Kevin Harvick can do that. Most people, the mental game of being on old tires, knowing people are behind them with new tires, will absolutely not win that race. There is that, too. Yeah. And there's a lot of other things that factor into that decision, too.

And I think that sometimes they're the very minute details that can be forgotten. It's later in the day, which is, prime time for the group you know if there's you know obviously if you're racing at night that's even better but as from noon or the warmest part of the day maybe two or three o'clock from that particular time frame from noon to around two o'clock the track continues to improve in grip the shade creeps over the billboards in turn one and two bringing track tent way down it's all just kind of not plummeting but lowering itself throughout the day the grip's going up the track's getting better and better and better and better and on into the night it really improves but so and i know this because

every time we would go test at a racetrack everybody always ran their best laps if the test was from eight to five o'clock in the day everybody always ran their best laps from four to five o'clock in the evening right before we'd quit every test the track would do that any track all right now the car or the good year tire doesn't have a ton of tread of of rubber on it tread on it right it's very thin very small so when they talk about tire wear they're talking about like thousands of an inch right like not like you're not like wearing like when you look at your tire on your street car it's got look like three quarters of an inch of rubber on it they're not wearing that much rubber off their tires it's very very minimal amount and a lot of the grip loss or the fall off

is accumulated due to heat as well. All right? So there is some tireware and some fall off there, and you see those at places like Vegas, like even more so at Atlanta, Chicago, or, yeah, Chicago and Fontana. But some of it is temp. All right, so think about this.

If there is ever, ever a time to stay out on all tires in the best scenario, obviously if it's more than two laps, you're screwed. Right. It's at four to five o'clock in the evening at the end of the day. It's going to give your tires a chance to cool. You might fire off and be manageable in speed and comparable for a couple laps. It was the perfect storm for a team like Lugano or anybody in that sort of area in the lineup to stay out and get it done.

and now if this happens at one o'clock in the afternoon Legano is he's not going to be able to hit fire off he's not going to be able to get going he's not going to have the grip and the speed because it's hotter the tracks hotter tracks entirely in the sun and he probably would have had a little tougher time of it but in that

at that particular time of the day just to get a little temp out of the tire and ask that tire to give him two hard laps that's a great scenario all that kind of factors into what the crew chief is thinking you know oh man you know this this could work so kudos to those guys and even the others that stayed out and made the you know made some major gains and some great finishes

the 21 car the Benedetto yeah finish the second that's awesome oh yeah I mean he's he's got to be excited yeah be interesting to see how they performed throughout the rest of the season I expect they'd run inside the top 10 competitively many weeks in the season throughout the day. He got a great second place finished today or this weekend, but I expect to see them compete for one of those final few spots in the playoffs. Wouldn't that be awesome? To have to Benedetto and that thing would be so cool.

Without a doubt. I think he's making it. I agree. It's going to be interesting, I think, to see how that back side of the playoffs work out. I think it's going to be a tight battle. You're going to have guys, some of the rookies are going to be trying to get in there, Redick and those guys. It's going to be interesting to see some new names, I think, on the playoff list this year. We talked about Noah and Maya.

Okay, let's go over that. So, you know, I've talked to Noah a little bit back and forth in text message since this incident. Basically coming down in the front straightaway, Noah turns right and turns and spins Maid out. It's completely obvious that he turned him around. He turned right. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no way you can argue what happened there. And I reached out to know.

I said, okay, man. I was like, if you're going to spend somebody out, you've got to do it in a turn. All right. And you definitely do not do it when you're wearing a helmet cam, okay? Or any kind of in-car cam is preferable. No camera in-car. your car, on your car, on your head, pointing directly at the steering wheel so we can see everything you're doing. You know, I don't, I don't condone wrecking a guy. I don't condone spinning a guy out.

I don't think that, you know, that's not something that I'm going to, you know, tell my driver, you know what, it's okay. Just do it whenever you want to do it. I've done it, though, and so I'm not going to be hypocrital and say, you know, don't do that, don't ever wreck a guy. I can't, I'm not able to control what my drivers are going through in their car and they're and they all have different sort of, you know, breaking points and what they're willing to put up, you know, they got to learn from this experience like Noah's going to learn from it. He's going to learn how he should have handled it differently. Maybe he shouldn't have done it at all, all those things.

So I'm not going to sit here and lay out the law before the season and go, okay, man, these are the things you can and cannot do. I want to, you know, I think it's a good experience for Noah to go through this. and I gave you my opinion. I said, look, you know, you're best, better off, obviously, if you spend somebody out not to admit it immediately on the radio, don't ever give NASCAR any opportunity to react, okay, in that moment. But once you're out of the car or once you're a couple days down the road,

don't try to make up some story. Right. All right, don't try. It's obvious to everyone what happened. Just own it and say, you know, we were racing hard. Some other things were happening out on the track that a lot of, maybe you didn't see, or some other things that got under my skin that was going on between me and him, and he got the worst end of the deal.

You kind of have to take some responsibility of it. He feels like that there was some things going on between him and myatt that pushed him to this breaking point, right? And so he can include that in that conversation. You don't want to turn it into a back and forth between him and Mayet. You definitely don't want it to carry over into the next weekend. or whatever or be a problem going forward, but I don't see how you can kind of avoid that when it's so blatantly obvious what you did.

But we'll see. We'll see what happens between them going forward. If it feels like he needs to race him harder, I'm sure he probably will. But I gave Noah quite a bit of advice on, you know, what he did wrong and what he should, you know, what he should consider going forward. And we'll see how it works itself out.

Good, yeah. Nothing to add to that. I was curious your perspective on it because I know how, you know, you take that stuff and, you know, the optics of our company is important to you. Yeah. And, you know, that was one that I was curious on what you thought. Yeah. But I got a question. I just want to, I told him, I said, you know, the RCR guys are a tough bunch.

They don't, they're not going to. They're not going to mess around. They're not going to mess around. And they usually, you know, the whole my watch thing with. Oh, yeah. Pop Pop. Richard. I was expecting kind of one of those moments maybe after the race with Noah and his group.

Oh, well, if it had been anybody other than Maite, it could have been. Yeah. Yeah, don't you think? Maybe so. Yeah, they are a rough crowd. Here's my question. Do you feel an obligation in these situations to like, considering that Maite's dad is a colleague of yours, do you feel some sense of obligation to just reach out to him or no?

No, but I feel like, you know, there is inevitable that me and Marty will talk about it. But when, I don't know. I mean, we got a while before we start broadcasting together and doing all that. But I have the opinion of I let the guys on the racetrack do what they do. They drive the cars. And my crew chiefs, even Lattard always did that. When people come up and complain to Steve about something I did on the track, you go, he's driving it.

Go talk to him. You know, I'm not telling him what to do with the steering wheel. And I kind of feel the same way. Like, it's not to abolish me of any responsibility, but I don't coach them to such strict standards that I feel responsible for what happened out there. Noah's learning. All those guys are out there doing what they think they need to do. And I'm sure Noah looks at this, maybe not today, but at some point we'll look at this and go,

I couldn't have handled that worse. I couldn't have done a more terrible job at trying to spend somebody out, right? I don't know. You know, I don't feel like, I don't know what I would even say. Oh, right. To, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, or Marty or anybody in that situation, I would just say, look, man, a kid made a bad choice. He made a bad decision in the heat of the moment, and he has to work through it and figure it out.

And you guys handle it, however you feel appropriate on your end. And, uh, this is, happens in racing all the time, you know, it just happens all the time. People make mistakes or people make people kind of People kind of do things that they regret I've done a ton of things that I regret on the racetrack And you make decisions not to do them again, I guess I don't know I hear you I think that's that's admirable

What else we got here? Belaus bounty. Oh yeah, the bounty man Oh, the bounty so everybody knows about this We'll reiterate it just to make sure So Coblish goes out and wins seven in a row his last seven races reaching back in beyond 2019 and the truck series. He has won seven straight. And, you know, he gets to only run five races a year due to the NASCAR restrictions,

which is good. And so it's presented an opportunity. The restrictions have presented an opportunity. The fact that Kyle is dominant every time he gets in the truck has presented an opportunity. And it's kind of like what we talked about on the show. not the same. A bounty has been issued, and I would call it a bounty, wouldn't you? I did it first. Now what do you call it? A challenge? I don't know. It's sort of started... It's not a bounty? Well, listen, I don't... This may be the first time I've experienced a bounty.

I hear you guys talk about bounties at short tracks and all these, you know, you guys growing up. And man, when I think about a bounty, there is literal... Yeah, it's not the typical like a bounty hunter. There's anger, but no, I know that. But I'm talking about there's anger, like there's a bounty because somebody's taking the money, taking the loot, and you have to stop it, and now you're taking matters into your own hands. That is how I have visualized and almost fantasized about a true bounty. This got way too friendly, way too fast. It almost was like, you know, listen, I love charity. I love charity. I want to say that again, I love charities. But when it becomes a charity thing, it doesn't feel like a bounty to me.

it just doesn't again it feels like you know you know Goodfellas great movie but then the TBS

version of Goodfellas okay not really good fellas you know what I'm saying it just don't feel like you know yeah it's a censored version of a bounty

I guess I guess you're right yeah all right so Kevin Harvick posted on Twitter he said let's make this fun Leah you got the tweet

so it actually started from a quote tweet. Christine Ward said I started watching trucks because of Kyle now I watch whether he is racing or not. The trucks need more viewers and if any of the cup drivers compete, it brings more viewers. So he quote tweeted that. He said, I like this. So let's make it fun. I'll put up a $50,000 bounty for any full-time cup driver who races a truck and can beat Kyle Bush in his next four races. Hashtag game on. So I love that. Like I loved it. I got to be honest. I was like, oh my goodness, I like this. This is that bounty thing they talk about that I've heard so much about. Great. We

got a bounty because Harvick, he can't like Kyle Bush, yeah, but this, you know, I almost wish he'd open it up to all the drivers and not just, you know, the younger drivers, I mean, but anyways, now I understand why it was just Cup because of what the previous tweet was. So that was that. And then

what happened, then Marcus Lamonis and jumped in and they're matching it, which is okay. He jumped in and said, hey, Kevin Harvick, all that about that. And Marcus's connection to the series is for people that don't know who Marcus is. He owns Gander Mountain.

Yeah. Which sponsors the series. Which sponsors the truck series. Yep. So, okay, we got a match.

That's fine. But then it just started getting really friendly and there was a lot of charities. And I don't know if there's tweets to back that up

that you're looking at right now. Well, basically, Kyle Bush said, well, what's in it for me if I win these races? And so they're going

to take the money and donate it to Kyle's charity. Right? Yeah. Kyle asked, you know, what was in it for him?

And then it kind of goes back and forth. And then a fan suggested that they put the money towards the bundle of joy fund and then Kevin said I like this. No one beats Kyle Busch. We donate my $50,000 to bundle of joy

fund. There you go. And that's Kyle's charity that him and his wife, Samantha, started. And it's incredible what they do with that. Bundle of joy. Yeah. It's good. It's good. I don't mind it. You know, I don't mind the charitable angle as much.

I still think it's a great. I think it's a bounty. Anytime anybody puts money up for some you know money outside of the purse for somebody to get beat uh on the race track i feel like it falls under the bounty that i know or that i've heard of or romanticized for you know on this show about the you know how they used to do that in the history of our sport and a lot of short tracks and dirt tracks across the country um so we'll see how that goes you know i don't care you know i think i think that opening it up to everybody I think what Harvick wanted to do was challenge the cup guys to step down and bring another

cup guy into the series, at least if only for a race, right? Maybe a couple races, depending on how many cup guys can secure the sponsorship and the truck itself to go run. If you open it up to everybody, I then think that maybe the cup guys, you know, don't go after the prize, right? and it doesn't accomplish the initial thing that Kevin wanted to accomplish, and that's to get a cup driver to go after this bounty. So I think it's unfortunate for, you know, the truck series regulars.

And I can even see Xfinity guys chiming in, and why aren't they included, and why can't we make this an Xfinity thing as well? And they certainly, you know, could put that money to good use. you know, I feel like that Harvick, and I'm only, you know, I'm only assuming here, wanted to try to challenge the cup guys to come down into the truck series to see, to show them, to prove people just how challenging it is to do what Kyle does. A lot of people think that it's easy for Kyle to go out there and just run around and lead and win. I'm going to tell you, man, he had a fight on his hands in Vegas to get that win.

And it was fun to watch. You know, if he goes out there and is a half a lap ahead of everybody, then, yeah, that looks really easy, but it wasn't the case in Vegas. It was a pretty good truck race. As were all the races, I thought, throughout the weekend. The truck races. When I had to step away for dinner. The truck races in the first two races, you've got to admit, they race, boy.

I'm telling you, I don't know if it's, these guys are just going at it. Daytona was ridiculous, right? But then, yeah, this truck race was fantastic. Again, yeah, Kyle had to earn it. As he does in all his wins, people don't want to get. giving credit for that, they're crazy. Yeah. I think the trucks are, they race well because of the power to downforce to drag, all that sort of,

all that, their numbers on the drag, downforce, and power sort of have a great mesh. Yeah. It all works well together and how the trucks interact with each other. Yeah. Their windshield is a lot more straight up and down, creating a ton more drag on the front side of the truck or on the, instead of putting all the drag, whereas on the cup car with the big ass spoiler. Most of the drags on that spoiler in the back of the car.

And so, anyhow, I like drag on the front. I got you. All right. Hey, we could just all agree on this. I will watch those truck races. Now, I mean, those Ford races, I mean, like, if I wasn't planning on it before, I will now. So for Marcus Limonis and Kevin Harvick and Kyle and those guys, you know, this ended up in a big love fest, okay, but I'll still watch. So maybe they got what they wanted.

If, you know, I don't watch all the truck races. I don't get a chance to see every single one of them. But if there's, if this bounty's happening, I'm going to try to carve that into my schedule for sure. Exactly. To your point, Mike. Yeah. So, and I think, you know, I think it's a good thing. I couldn't have told you what Kyle Bush's four remaining races and trucks are.

And now we do know, right? I've seen a little bit of a response from Kyle. Have you guys seen any of it? Any of Kyle's... I heard an interview. His initial response in the media center was kind of pissy. Yeah. No.

No. But he also said that it could border on being dangerous. Yeah. So... He's worried about somebody coming out and taking him out. Taking him out. Getting aggressive with him. And as he changed his tone from what you can tell?

Based off the charity deal, probably. Yeah. I think that if I were Kyle, I think he was at first, if not still, we're wondering like, hey, man, what's in it for me? All right, I'm the one out here creating this, creating all this. And he said that. He said, you know, somebody asked him about what's in it for me. And he said, well, like always, probably nothing.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that he could probably think about creative, get creative and think about the opportunity how it's going to shine an even broader light on him, his truck. If he goes out there and he's the target or whatever he want, you know, whatever you want to label him as, he's certainly going to be the spotlight or in the spotlight. It's going to create incredible

opportunity for his manufacturer, for his sponsors, for himself. He's trying to create this new brand with this energy drink. I mean, there's just limitless opportunity for him to seize this opportunity and monetize it.

He wants some of the bounty. But it's not going to happen. Might not get any of the bounty there, Kyle. But it's a great opportunity to get, you know, a lot more eyeballs on what's going on with him and his truck team if this were to play out, don't you think? Yeah, that's just kind of where it went south.

I just can't see Gary Ballou going, hey, what's in it for me back when he's racing and all those bounties? But I thought your initial response, I love where your head goes as soon as you see things like this. You were like, immediately conspiracy theory, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Bush, they're going to get together, split the pot. That's exactly what I would have tried. Okay, so if I, and the reason why I felt that way, because I knew, I knew.

I was like, all right, there's no way that Kyle is going to get in his bounty. So if I'm Kyle, what am I going to do to circumvent the situation and get that money? So I would enter another truck and say, man, I'm pushing you. You're going to the win. I'm going to run second. I'm going to get first and second place money and the bounty. All right. And I'd have been in Victory Lane.

Clapping. Hey, Niddy Hamlin. Great job. on that truck race, everybody. So, anyhow, I, that's what I would have done. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you put that out there right away. I mean, that was funny.

Anyways, all right, good stuff. He's got gifts. He's got some die-ass. Look at this. All right. So thank you. You come bringing gifts. I mean, you know, very few people actually do this.

And, man, you are going to win the key to our hearts. Well, I can't give him away. So I got to take him some more. Don't put this right here. You can't give them away. I don't believe that. No, we actually give them things to charities a lot. I've got quite a few of them left, and everybody asked me, what are they worth?

I said, go on eBay, look up Rick Mass and see. They'll have them on there, you know. Yeah. That's how you'll know. That's good. Right on. Thank you so much. And did you just drive in from Virginia?

I did. You've been on the road this whole time? I did. I left home at 620 this morning. Where do you live? Rock Bridge, Baz, Virginia. Where's that at? Well, it's hard to explain how it.

It's hard. You got a helicopter, right? Your daddy went there one time in a helicopter. All right. Roanoke, north of Roanoke, about an hour north of Roanoke. Sanador Valley. Beautiful Sanador Valley. People always asked me when I was racing, they always try to get me to move down here.

All the sponsors, the teams, you know, and you would look at everybody's bios and the driver bios, and they put on there, you know, what's your dog's name, and what do you go on vacation, and what do you do? And it's not another. Mine, on vacation, I go home. You know what I mean? because I think Kenny Wallace pointed out on you guys one time it's kind of toxic around here as a driver to be here.

So it hurt me in that I was not available to do media stuff, you know. But that was also a blessing because you hear you got phone call, you're 10 minutes away from about to go do some gig. Can't turn it down. No, no. But when you're in Virginia, you just can't get roped into something right away. Our buddy Johnny Hayes bought the actual Bazz, which is a mile down below my house.

And it's a pool. It's like a 30 by 50 pool that warm water comes through, 72 degrees a year, right, out of the bottom. Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses Grant, Robert E. Lee, they used to stay in this place. And it cured everything that ill them, right? It does honestly work, guys. It cures bee stings and poison ivy, the mollure grows. But anyhow, I kind of finally figured it out. What we did the testing, the water is full of lithium, right?

You know, if lithium, it brings you back center from schizophrenia or manic depraised. You know what I mean? All right. And I think that's why everybody up there is just kind of laid back and things just don't bother. It's crazy. And these are natural springs? Yes, they are. They are.

You know, and they just heal you. They heal you, man. Right on. Maybe we need to go up to the team. Hill hemorrhoids. Well, there we go.

Long story about a hemorrhoid one time. The hemroid healing capital of the world. It works. It works. So. Yeah, you got no segue for hemorrhoids, do you? No, no,

I don't. Um. So when you, my memories from racing kind of began around 81 to 83. It's really cloudy around that particular part. And so in my mind, you came, you just, you just happened. Like I was watching a race and there was a blue 22. Right. Right.

And so I know nothing about how you got to that point. Right. All right. And I remember you as well respected, competitive, and I don't know, you just, you plopped on the scene, sort of almost like a seasoned veteran in a sense. Tell me how, all right, I heard, we saw on social media and I read about how you traded a cow for your first car, but is that true? That's somewhat true, I imagine.

It is. And if we get into Indy later. I'll tell you the rest of that cow store. All right. Note to self. We've got to get into India. Yeah. So, all right.

All these interviews get to Indy at some point. Your family was, they owned race cars. They had a car when I was real little, a little 54 Ford. They owned. The other guy drove it. And they were car dealers. They had a used car dealership. And then in 67, my dad and my uncle built a racetrack.

And that's a bridge speedway. Yeah. And it's still there. So I was a little boy out there working my ass off on this racetrack all the time. What was it called? That's a bridge speed wheel. way. Still,

they're still running. You've always been around racing. Always, always. But you didn't start driving until later in your life. Well, I started running dirt at East Side and Waynesboro and Natural Bridge. I was 15. Okay, so that's not too late. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, kids today start at 5. I know, I know. But back then, 15 was young. That's right. So that's pretty reasonable. I drove my first few races at 15. So you started driving a car at 15 years old. What was your, what class?

Like, what type of car are we talking about? Hobby. 57 Chevrolet, little two. Right off the street. Yeah, a 302 engine, right? The old boxy looking thing. I actually won with that car on my sixth race out.

And I'd use that money to pay the speeding ticket that I'd gotten for my learners permit. You know, so I go before the judge, the judge says, all right, you're guilty with the speeding ticket. And how are you going to pay for this? Here's your fine, you've got to pay for it.

I said, yes, sir, I'll pay for it. Well, no, you're not going to get it from your dad or family. You've got to pay for this yourself. You got a way of doing that. I said, yeah. He said, what's that? I said, well, I got a car raced out into racetrack. And he had these little eyeglasses on, you know, and I remember he looked up over those

eyeglasses at me, and I'm like, that was the wrong thing to say. For a speeding ticket. For a speeding ticket for not even 16 years old yet, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, that started. That was my humble beginnings. And so you raised this hobby stock car. I ran it. One year, we moved up to what we called limited sports from the next year, built the car.

The kind of car was that? It was a 68 Chival with a 57 frame. You know, we built the whole car. And that car won every race it ran except for two. The shifter fell off once and it ran out of gas once. Unreal. Every race it ran. How did you run out of gas?

I don't know. Drivers aren't that smart. My gosh. You know that. Did you know that one, this reminds me, like unexpectedly running out of gas. So we go down to Kerry, my brother, Carrie Earnhardt. We ran a street stock car together for a year and then Carrie went dash racing in the dash series. And we are.

I'm going with him. We're going down to Daytona. Daytona. We're going to run a dash car around Daytona. Kerry is going to draft 150, 150, whatever those things did. We are pumped. We got a good car.

Painted up like Dad's car, black and silver. Oh, wow. Oh, man. There's a lot of eyeballs on, Carrie. Yeah. Lots. We go out there. Was this before or after they started killing all those dash guys down?

This is right around that. Right. Okay. All right. We go out to qualify and run out of gas. We've got to put gas in. it. On qualifying.

Yes. Has anybody ever run out of gas for Qualifying? Kerry pulled out on the track and ran out of gas going down the back straightaway. Were you the crew chief? No. He was, but he ain't telling people that. Not in that particular moment. I was nowhere to be found.

We're like, whoa. We've been practicing all day, right? Never thought to put gas in it. Carrie had a start in the back. Oh, man. If there's footage of that somewhere, that would be classic. Would. So you ran, got built this amazing car that kicked tail.

Yeah, kicktail. So the third year, then we moved up to the... You ran three years. Two years, so then I run the third year of the top division, which was big block, big block modifies. Like, as we know them today? No, stock cars. Okay. Just a stock car.

It was a 71, Seville with a big block modified. And I ran that a year or two. And then we built, I came down here and Bill Funderberg. You know, if you know that name, all right, he was a chassis builder down here. You worked for some of the builders and bought a frame from him and took it back home in my shop. And we built the cage, all the inside sheet metal. We built the car from the frame, and we started running that in 70. That would have been 77, 78.

We go to Langley, I mean, we go to South Boston the first time on asphalt track. Then we go to South Side. And you're racing against Ellis, Tommy Ellis, Tommy Ellis, Ray Hendrick, you know, Sunny Hutchins, all those guys. So you started racing against those boys in the sportsman cars in the late 70s. That's correct. Okay. That's correct. And how was that experience starting out?

I tell you, the first race at South Boston, I'm running. fifth place, right? 200-lap championship race before the Bush series. And Ellis is, well, I'm fourth, Ellis is fifth, and he hits me like 20 laps ago and spends me out, right? And I know about Ellis. I don't know him because where I'm from is secluded from racing. You know, all the back in those days you had the Carraway group, the Asheville group,

the Richmond group, the Benassas, Maryland group, Birmingham, all these groups. And everybody knew what everybody was doing. Where I lived, it wasn't anything, just dirt racers. So anyhow, I knew about Ellis. And he's wild ways. Wild ways, man. And the fact, just maybe two or three weeks before that, he had blackened both the man who Vox's eyes, right?

So anyhow. And he's a little guy. Little dude, little dude. Ellis, Tommy Ellis. Really? Talented. God, he had to do it. Natural talent driver race car.

Now, so he spins me out. So the next week we go to South Side, and it's a 200-lap race. And we're running, and I'm not running as good in this race. Well, it's like five laps to go. He's leading. He comes up to lap me. And I learned in dirt how, and the way I did my so thing and I was taught,

he comes up to lap me on the backstretch. I pull down. We're going to turn three. I get way out of the gas. He gets to the outside of me. Going through three and four, coming off four, I just turn him. You know, I just hit him, spin him. Because that's what you do.

That's what we did. That's how I was taught. Well, you, it's barbaric, but that's the way I was taught. If he didn't, you get right, whatever you'd move up in the vision, you'd have to take care of yourself. If he didn't, man, you were just, did meet. So anyhow, the race is over. I come in, I get on my car, and it seemed like at that time, thousands of people around me, you know,

and I'm what it bounded to, all these people, who the hell is this guy from the mountain has come down here and wrecked Tommy Ellis, right? I'm standing there and I'm thinking, well, and about that time, I look way up, and it looks like a seas parting, right? And here comes Tommy, just waddling like that. And I'm like, uh-oh, here we go. See, the crowd's parting for him, and he's coming straight towards me. He's sweaty.

He's got these long hair. I'd see he's battering a wet head. So I turn around. I don't turn him, but I got my right fist cock because I learned two years before that a dirt event, not get hit first. Don't get hit first in these belies. It doesn't work. So about the time it gets to me, I'm getting ready to let loose before he gets on my head.

And he sticks his arm out to shake my hand. And I'm like, I know about this, right? So I take my left hand. do like that. And I've got this one ready to go. It's like a hockey fight. And he grabs it. Are we muted on this?

Can we come? Say what you want to say. He grabs my hand. He says, I don't know who the hell you are, but you all right. Turns around and walks away and me and him were buddies after that.

No kidding. From that moment forward, never had any problems ever with Tommy. Become one of my good buddies. Unreal. That same kind of deal happened to Jimmy Spencer, but I was going to shoot him. Tell that story.

Yeah, what happened? You were going to shoot him? We were linear. George, you ever ran Lanier, Georgia? A little small quarter of a quarter. I know if it's a quarter of a ball. I don't know if it's that big, but you run up right against the wall outside. 200 lap Bush race.

Houston's leading. I'm second. You know, those days, we run 200 laps on a set of tires. We couldn't change tires. About halfway, it started skipping the rain, right? So I started picking it up because the rain comes out. Whoever's leading, that's the winner of the race. So Houston picks it up.

So now we're running hard. Well, Spitzer had been in the pit. So he comes out running the bottom. and we come off turn four, he's on the bottom, but he run up right to my door every friggin' lap. And I'm trying to work Houston. He kept aggravating me. He'd even rubbed my door.

Then he hit my door. Finally, he'd come up off the turn and just hit me and spun me, right? And I'm like, what? Race is over. I go down there, and Jimmy had just moved down here, right? He hadn't been here very long. And I go up to him, and Jimmy's about this much bigger in everybody. And all his brothers and sisters, they're all bigger, you know.

And I said, Spetcher, why did you wreck me? I didn't wreck you bass. I said, Spenture, you. you reckon in turn four why did you wreck me well you come down on me spencer i didn't come down on you i was battling for the lead why did you wreck me well i was trying to get a lap back i said spencer you 63 laps out why did you wrecked me i'm trying to get a lap back why did you wrecked me so went downhill from there finally says we're going to try to whip my ass that's what you're going to do i said no i said i'm not going to do it because you and all your brothers are going to jump on me and

i'm not taking an ass whip it from all y'all people i'm going back my truck and i'm going to get my gun I'm going to blow your head off, right? And I turned around, and I, honest to God, said, I thought about this over the years. I walked away, and I got maybe 50 feet from him. Spitzer says, best. And I turned around, he goes, what the hell? Like that?

And I go, right? He just, he diffused me. Yeah. Your dad defused me like it one time. But, but, you know, and I often thought, he asked me one time, he said, Rick, if that deal hadn't happened, what was your attention? I said, Spitzer, all by mine, I was going to get my gun.

And I was going to come back. shoot you. And I said, maybe the time I got to the truck, got my gun, got settled down, or whatnot I'd have got chilled out, you know, but when I left you, that was the whole thing on my mind. And I knew I couldn't whip all you all. No, not the Spencer's. They're cocked ready to go even on their best day. And you know, the best part of that deal, after that, me and Jimmy never had a, we never touched bumpers for a decade on the racetrack. His mom and dad were looking after me. His mom was always cooking. She would always come over and make me eat with them. Whenever I had a little problem, and I looked,

up, all his brothers were behind me. It was weird. It was weird way that worked. What was the time when dad defused you? He had wrecked me. Were you going to shoot him too? No. By first year old school, and Dale, I'll tell you some of his stories later on, Jr.,

but Dale had helped me a lot in my career. Dale Earnhardt Sr. Never said no to Rickmast. He just, I don't know what, why or what, but if I went through him for something, he was always there. so and he knew the struggles I'd gone through in the series trying to get the cup anyhow we go I get my first big time deal of school we run Daytona I think we run fourth the next race I believe is richmond we qualify maybe 12th or 13th being him are close together we go in the third turn

maybe 20th lap of the race he hits me and spins me wrecks my car right so they bring it in and they got it up on jack stands and they're working on the car and I'm in the car and I'm mad and I was stuck their back and damn Earnhardt why did you do man I don't want to have to do this but I got to take care of this you know I got to take care of this but I'm only hold on what about what what year is this 91 91 okay so yeah this is uh Dale Earnhardt's best too right yeah oh yeah yeah yeah oh yeah okay so anyhow my crew chief at that time was Bob Johnson

if you remember that got that guy or not but they were working on a car and I'm on the radio screaming cuss and hurry up hurry up here up finally I looked down one time and all the crew guys leave the car and Bob and I look and they're sitting on the back of the truck. And I'm on the radio. I says, what are y'all doing? Bob says, we quit working. What do you mean you quit working?

What kind of? Bob walks over and he says, listen to your driver. He said, this is your first big time gig. This is a good gig. Everybody likes you. You're a good driver. You're going to make it here for a long time. I know what you're getting ready to do,

and I'm not going to let you go out there and do it. Right? That's all he said. So I get out of the car and I get up on the car and start beating on it myself. I'm only one, the guys over a watch for me. I'm beating on the car trying to get the thing and I never do get it, right?

So anyhow, the race is over. The next week we go to Rockingham, and I pull in the infield of my car, a street car, the first day, practice day, opened the door, and I don't work coming from, but I turned around, there's this butt staring at me. There's a person bent over with their butts staring up at me. And I'm like, what the heck?

I look around, it's Dale. I said, what are you doing, Earnhardt? He says, go ahead and kick it. I know you want to. Right? I'm like, damn. So we talk a little bit. He said, listen, man, I'm sorry.

I didn't need to do that. I hit the apron. You know, I didn't mean to do it. And on and on. I said, Dale, I get it. I understand. I said, but you know, you're the last, you know what I've been through. And how much you help me, you're the last person I thought would have done that to be.

Well, I could have bought him for a dollar then, right? And when he says, kiss it, he could have bought me for a dollar. So in hell. But I'm thinking, you know, I can't change up because this is my first gig. I run good at Daytona and everybody in the garage is watching. And, you know, I mean, in those days, it's kind of what you had to do. Yeah. When you moved up, you had to protect your territory.

What had you been through? Like you're saying, Dale, you know what I've been through. What exactly was? Broke. Opportunities going awry. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Struggling, doing all the work myself with these cars, not getting opportunities, you know, to get in rides and just scrapping, always trying to take two nickels to make a dollar to get a motor put together. How long had you known Dale Earnhardt up to that point? Do you know when you met him? I don't. It was some time after the right. Robert G. Deal. Robert G.

Did, and that's another story about your grandfather I've always wanted to talk about. Tell it. But he, that was back when

somewhere in that period, I got no devil. Let me finish the Earnhardt's story. So anyhow, Friday we'll practice. And Saturday, I'm up on the truck.

Johnny Hayes, my boss, the guy with the skull. He says, Rick has a bad deal last week. I said, yeah, he says, no, you don't need

retaliate to, today. I says, what you mean? He says, you don't need retaliate? I says, yeah, I do, Johnny. He says,

what you mean you do I says well you know it's it's like to me it's like eating it's something you have to do right you know you have to take care of this it's well done it for my whole life and he said no no you're not going to do that I said well you can't stop me he said you want to drive for us in school I said well yeah

he said well if you're going to keep driving for us you're not going to touch that boy and I was mad great God I got mad I'm like all right do what do I do so anyhow we ran the race and me and Della never had any problems after that at all but later on, maybe two months later at a racetrack, and Johnny said, you're still bad about that deal?

They're on hard. I said, we're not really mad. I'm just mad, really at y'all for not letting me do what I need to do. He says, Rick, you want to know the story? I said, yeah. He said, Dale come up and he Saturday morning. He says, Johnny, he says, you know that boy, you drive a Rick. He said, I love it boy.

He said, I've always helped him. He said, he's the last person on that racetrack. I ever wanted to hit. He said, I just screwed up. He said, I went in turn three too hard, hit the flat, which he did. you know, going in turn three at Richmond and hit the left front and shot the car up. He said, I felt so bad.

He says, but here's the deal, Johnny. He says, I know that boy. I know what he's going to do to me. He says, and I'm going to try my best win championship this year, and I don't need him taking me out. Could you talk to him for me? And that was that deal. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So that's kind of how that worked. I was wondering how Dad was so protected. Johnny, he's protected. He played the politics. Johnny Hayes protected him. That's something else. Yeah, he did.

But to your granddad, Robert, we were going to a Bush race in Hickory, North Carolina in 83. Yeah. Truck broke down on 81. Bupyar Sternho's off. Stop to the truck stop. Fixed it. Time we got it fixed, we weren't going to get to Hickory in time. We had a newspaper.

One of my crew guys had a newspaper, and they had an ad in their 100-lap race at Franklin County Speedway that night paying $100,000, or paying $3,500 to win a hundred-lap. We said, all right, we'd do that. So we go down there. win the race. Some of it noticed us, the promoter had set up a deal. If you win three 100 lap races in a row, it's a $25,000 bonus. Wow. So, and one to one month, one next month, and the third month will be the other race.

So we go back and we win all those races, right? He gives me the check in winter circle. He says, don't cash his check because it ain't good. I said, oh, so I go to the bank, put it in, of course, non-sufficient funds. I still got the check. Wow. Still got it in my trophy room. But he did that he spent the next year.

he'd drive from frank county to lexie to my office and he'd bring these two big old socks of money fives and tens and ones and twenties you know he'd dump about on the table you know in that period of a year he ended up paying me 11,400 of that and i reported every bit of that r s guys too every dime was reported so anyhow i took that money went to banjos and bought a chassis from banjo right i called up robert g didn't know him from adam although i knew at all these racetracks, Robert G's car, when you go to Charlotte and Darlington

all those places, his stuff was always fast. So I called him up. Went down and met him. Got to talking to him. Well, a steak and a bottle of half of liquor later,

he agreed to do my car. Right? It's sitting there all night long, listen to that man, right? And he first thought I was Ricky Dennis. He thought I was Bill, he just from Virginia, he was confused.

He thought I was Bill Dennis's son, Ricky. Then he finally figured out, Well, I don't know who this boy is, right? But anyhow, he took a liking to me. And I told him, I said, Robert, here's the money I got left to finish this car. Everything I got ahead for it. Can you help me?

Yeah, Podna. Yeah, partner. I'll take care of this. I can't carry you, boy. Don't you worry about it. I love everybody's Robert G. Set out. Everybody has one.

Set out here, partner, and let's have a break a lecker. And I'm going to fix you a big old steak. So anyhow, we do. He goes to the junkyard. It was old Milwaukee car, Sammy Swindale, maybe some Hendrick stuff and I mean real fancy high dollar stuff you do it all new sheet metal stuff sitting there he goes junkyard gets all the sheet metal right oh he does it himself yeah puts that thing together i go pick it up and uh i say okay i appreciate it i pay him and darrell cruise i don't

if you remember darrell crew oh yeah he was his crew chief he said cruise yeah that boy's gonna take that car over to the racetrack he's talking about charlotte next race next week or whenever he's take that car off the racetrack, tell that boy what put underneath that car. He said, he said, all right, I forget he had a name for Robert. I forget what he called him. See, for some. Anyhow, he said, all right, he said, well, we go over the next week. He says, you make sure that boy don't mess that car up and you help that boy, right?

So, you know, I do that. And that, we go to Charlotte and I qualify good. We bust the valve cover gas. And I'm running good. I've never been on a big track. Yeah. If you're wanting to be a cup driver in those days, You win all the hickories you want to,

but until you get on a big track and show what you can do, it doesn't matter, right? So anyhow, we go over and do that, and we run good. And the next race, I think, was Darlington or somewhere and run real good. We were, actually, I was looking up at that race. I never seen Darlington before. It didn't know what you're doing.

I mean, you've done it. Don't have a clue what you're doing. You just drive it. Because really, in those days, run those big tracks, you go get your huts chassis or a banjo chassis, try to get Robert or somebody like to put the body on and whatever money got left, the best you got with the motor and just get after and drive hell out of it because everybody's

pretty much the same stuff you know still monroe shocks no shock dinos all that so you could kind of compete more personally with the guy other than competing against a cup team like today so uh we go to darlington he's like 20 laps to go i look up man i'm lead to this race right and harry gans second behind me and i'm sitting there thinking the whole time why don't he why don't he i'm looking in the mirror and so why now he'll pass me you know what's he doing what's he doing what's he doing one with me, right? And I remember coming off turn four at that time. One time I looked in the mirror, and I seen his hand do that.

And I all said, it hit me. He said, he can't pass me. I'm outrun his ass. Right? Yeah. And then they had a caution. Everybody pitted. I didn't pick because I didn't have any tires left.

Right. And we finished seventh or eighth at that race. And that was the race. Then I knew this is what I got to do. Yeah. Because the guys I struggled with on the short tracks, Jack, Sam, Tommy, you know, all those guys. I didn't see him on these big tracks.

I was struggling with Dale and Darrell and Timmy, yeah, and Jeff, and Neil. Those were the guys when I go to Charlotte, Darlington, Dover. Those were the guys I ever mixed it up with, not the other guys I was used to mix it up with on the short tracks. So that's what I'm new. That's what I've got to do. So go back to the late 70s.

You built your own car and you're going out there running the sportsman races. It's short tracks at Langley and so forth and all around the mid-Atlantic region. Alan Dillard, Jr., A.J. Dillard, A.G. A. G. Who are those guys? Alan Dillard Jr. is my father-in-law.

What? Yeah. He was a race car driver, man. He was bad, bad-ass good driver. He won all the races around home on dirt, you know, all the races. But he wasn't a, didn't he own a business? Yeah, he wasn't a racer first, was he? He was in the Air Force, come out of the Air Force, started his little business. About the time he started his little business.

the mid-60s, he started his little construction company, paving. Construction company, that's right. Paving. That's right. And then he was racing the whole time. He was getting that business going. He finally flipped that car one night at East Side. I remember he went to the shop next day, and he was picking the grass out of this

helmet visor. I remember he looked at Big Ed Madison. That was his crew. He said, Ed, I think I'm done with this stuff. Man, that was it. I think I'm done with this. I got 80 people working for me. I got to make a decision.

So anyhow, I married Alan's daughter. Sure. When did you marry? 78. She met her at the National Bridge Speedway Award or year ending awards banquet. Really?

We got married better than 73, 74, 73. Yeah, we're still young punk teenagers. So, when were the Dillards involved in your cars? That started in the mid-80s. Wow. He would start helping me some.

He started out, but his company had radios, right? Two of the radios. He started out, the first thing he did for me, he'd give me two of his radioes. And I had to buy the harness and do that stuff. And then throughout the years or the next two or three years, he would fund some to us, just kind of enough to kind of keep us going.

And what really happened at the end of 87, I was out, out of money. You had been running your car. This is basically that blue 22. Yes. We saw, you were behind that entirely. Yeah, totally. And funny story about that,

how you get sponsorships. I couldn't get anything. I talked to everybody, all the manufacturer reps, everything. Everybody knew me, but I couldn't get anything. I went to Dover and win that race. The next week, I go to Martin'sville and win that race. Two weeks later, I got me a Boater deal. I got me a pro-shock deal, and I got me a good year deal.

So winning. I'm like, oh, you got to win to get this stuff. But that was like 85 or 86? 87. 87 when you won in the Bush Series then, the Bush Series now. And you won it for Dillard. No.

That was big. That was you. Got it. Okay. So the end of 87, end of 87, I was out of money, right? Well, whatever went on with the Thomas Brothers car, country ham car. Yep. I forget who was driving, what, not.

They called me about driving that car the next year. I would have to move the caraway to do that. And neat part of that story, somehow another Dale Eman got in the middle of that, right? And went to the racetrack, Dale come up to me, said, look, Rick, you're going to do that double zero car, ain't you? I said, well, probably. He said, well, listen, we've already checked. He had a paper, and he had it to me. here's the school where little Ricky needs to go to and he said right to this area.

There's a couple houses right here where you can live and I thought this is cool man. Dale him and right. I don't know these guys. Sure. So ended up, me and my father-law got together and we decided to do a team together then. So 88 and 89 we formed dealmast and we race this car out of Charlottesville. And so we did two years of that pretty successful at the end of 90 or at the end of 89 we separated. I went back home to my old shop, put the deal together with Raven boats to run all.

all the races. He went on with Elton Sawyer and ended up getting Gwaltney, I think. And then he parlayed that thing into the cup deal for Ward. Yep. Right. Oh, yeah. Wow. And then that's how he got that deal.

Unreal. I had no idea. Yeah, that's how that all worked. And then I, you know, of course, did my deal, you know. So how did you transition from Xfinity or what was then the Bush series to cut? I was one of the guys, as I told you before, at Charlotte or Darlington at Dover. on these Saturday companion races. That Blue 22 was one of the cars

that was always up there with a crew chief's driver. Be it Travis Carter's Harry Gant. You want to be? Or whoever, right? And how are you able to do that? Like, what was the secret? I don't know. I worked a lot

with geometry, believe it or not. I learned that through the Chrysler, right care of Larry Rath Gap. I used to take a big piece of Celetex, four-bait cellotex, and I would have the pivot points of the front end on that cellitics with attack pins, right, and strings. And I would move the A-frame location a little bit, right?

And that would move the string, and I would see if the moving to roll centers and, you know, the Canberra gains and Castor games, I always worked on bump steer. I did all that stuff because I didn't know anybody. Nobody could tell me anything because we weren't around anybody. Everything we had to do with the race car was self-top. And the biggest thing I learned through all that stuff, especially on the short tracks, I should have just forgot all that and figured out how to cheat. because I didn't realize how bad I was getting cheated against to after.

And that's when we go to these big tracks when the different specter rules happened. That was one of the things that happened because then I would be outrunning these guys who were kicking my butt on the short tracks. I mean, that wasn't all of it. Sure. But anyhow, so. I remember the first time that I bumped steered my late model stock car. I'd ran it without bump steering it for a couple years. And then I put a bump steer gauge on it.

And I was working it. Blown away by how the center of the corner got so much better. Yeah. Couldn't believe it. Yeah. I'll tell you what doesn't work on a rear stair car, run zero bump steer on both wheels at Darlington. You can't get out the pits, man. Don't do that.

I'd take all it out there, but it worked at Dover. Oh. So anyhow, in 88, Buddy Baker got hurt. And he called me, asked if I drive his car for two races. I said, yeah. So I got in Buddy's car at Bristol first time and Darlington the second time. So the first time getting in a cup car. I never forget, man, I got in that cup car at Bristol.

Joey Knuckles was a crew chief. I love that name. Joey Knuckles? Yeah. He was a lot of fun. That's his real name, right? Yeah. Even better how he used to change tires.

He was really theatriced. Oh, really? Yeah. He'd sling the hose like unnecessarily. But he would, it was his way of separating himself from every single person on pit road. He's a, he's theoretic into bars, too. Oh, was he? So anyhow, I go out.

out and I get in the gas I'll turn 4 and I remember the thing sets me back in the seat right and I'm used to the V6s and I'm like it reminded me in my big block modified dirt car with the torque and the way it acted and I said God all right so I remember

going to turn one I turn the steering wheel and it doesn't do anything it just it goes up like that and I'm like what the hell and finally gets to the apex and gets turned and I get it straightened out and I get in the gas that does all this crap and what to spin the tires and I'm doing this I'm doing this I ran about seven and eight laps trying to get used to it.

I'm like, my God, this thing is awful. I come down to pit road. Joey comes, takes the net down. He said, Bub, is what he called people, Bub. What you think, Bob? I said, Joey, I said, I ain't never been in one of these cars. I said, but I'm going to be honest with you, man. This is the worst having them piece of shit.

I've ever said in my life. He said, really? He said, yeah. He said, what's it doing? I said, well, you're going to turn. He won't turn. You just got to stop and wait and wait and wait, and it finally turn. When it does get turned, then when you get in the gas,

you got to act like you got an egg between your foot and the pedal with the gas and the steering wheel at the same time you got to work everything I said he said what would you do to fix it I said dude I don't have a clue this thing's so messed up he says huh he said what would you say if I told you's fourth fast as fat of everybody right now I'm I sitting there I said are you kidding me he said no I'm like all right I'll adapt I'll just adapt yeah this is at Bristol yeah so anyhow I run there and I run darlington and Darleyton in those days rookies couldn't qualify the first day. You had to wait the second day.

We were like fourth fastest at Darlington practicing. So then we had to wait the second day to qualify. And, of course, we were the fastest blow a tire in that race. Hoosier deal. In those days, they would take second round qualifying all year long, the fastest second round qualifying, put those names in a bag. Go to the Waldorf. Somebody would get pulled, you'd pull out a name,

and that name would get added to the Bush Clash. Oh, yeah. Is that right? Yes, sir. That's the way it worked. It was all the poll sitters and one wild card for second round qualifying. Yes, sir. It was neat deal.

Oh, yeah. Well, I would have imagined you'd have tweeted that to try to bring that back. They don't have second round qualifying anymore. I know, but you could go to the hotel and get somebody an extra entry in. Way to hell. They pulled Rick Mass, right? That's particular point, Mike. Everybody's eligible.

Yeah. That's true. I know. It's sad. It's sad. We have enough time, guys. We can make it. War to help you with all that.

So anyhow, a bunch of people called Mr. Hendrick calls. Because the Bush class in those days, it was a big deal. I mean, it was a big frigging deal to be in that Bush class, right? Mr. Hendrick called, and a couple other teams like him called about running me into Bush class, you know. Heck yeah. And Travis Carter called. And he said, Rick, and all these guys wanted me to do just run the Bush class, that was it. They were going to pay me good and all that.

Well, Travis had just split up with her again, right? Bill Edwards had bought into the team with Travis. He promised me to go to Daytona, run the Bush class, run the 500. They could run the next three races, right? I'm like, cool, that's what I'm going to do. I mean, it's like it was yesterday. So anyhow, we go down there, and the car is just badass fast. I mean, that thing, even at the end, we had the left side cords hanging out.

I could still hold that thing wide open Dale. And it would start at the bottom and it ended up at the wall, but it wouldn't do this. It was a craziest handling car. But it was being your dad and Trader all day running. up front. And we all pitted and Darrell back our best round, he won the race on fuel.

Oh, that's right. In fact, Hinky Enes, our fuel guy stayed mad to the day he died. Travis, he said, we had enough fuel to make it. We could have won that race. But anyhow, we ran, you know, we go to Rock and Hammer, qualify seventh, we run good,

run the next three or four races, run decent, you know. And so I talked to every owner in that garage area. How would you, Rick, 28, 20s, 9, whatever it was. Come back to see us when you're 30. That's what everybody told me that. Everybody told me that. Everybody I talked to.

Really? Yeah, yeah. Back then, everybody's opinion was that you, that was right when you would start to really come into your own was when you're around 30 to 40 years old. Yeah. That little window. And, I mean, you know, drivers today,

Harvick and those guys will argue that's still the window. Yeah. Right? Even though we're, you know, even though we're going younger and younger, guys are even starting, kids are starting at five years old and cup guys are coming into a series as teenagers in 2020, 21 and 22 years old. That's right.

That's the fact. That's the way it was. So any of the time, I got 31 or whatever it was, you know, I had three offers, and Skull was the one I took. They said,

we're beat around in cars. We're getting cars. It's just some of the space. So I got in, like, D.Ks, Bobby Jones, a lot of different cars and just, plus still running my book,

my full bus deal on my own, you know, and then in 91 I got picked up for Skull. And that's kind of how that deal worked. It's weird. It's weird. You almost won the Daytona 500, though. Yeah.

Is that true? You... They ran out of... But fuel... Yeah. Yeah. Us leaders, B, Dale Sr. and Schrader, we pitted. And maybe another car or two pitted, right?

Darrell didn't pit. He was lagging back like half a lap behind, and he didn't pit. Right. So he wanted on fuel. Gosh. And... He had a long fuel line that was probably bigger than everybody else's too. He held an extra gallon in that line.

Is that just... Is that just... your theory or is that a common mouth is no truth. Speaking of fuel, you remember the time they accused me of pushing Harry again across the line and wind? All right. So they could, huh? Go ahead.

No, no, I'm going to say, accuse you. I mean, like, that's kind of in your bio, isn't it? Well, I mean, yeah. Taladega. All right, here's the full story. So Richard comes on the radio, and we'd been in a mishap, and I was running along by myself. Harry was in a group. Everybody pitted.

Harry stayed out by his self. Then me and Harry got hooked up. They said, Rick, get behind Harry. he might run out of gas, but I'd have to help him. All right, so I get behind him. And sure enough, a couple laps to go, I see black smoke come out,

and I'll punch him, you know. I punched him, especially the last lap, maybe seven or eight times. But each time I'd punch him, the thing would light up and it would do that, and the black smoke would roll and I'd punch him again.

So now that he won the race, come in, I get out of my car. There's more people around me and they're around him. And I'm sitting there lying my ass off. No, I didn't help him. I didn't help him.

He's up on national TV. Boy, I don't know what I'd done. if Rick hadn't been there to help push me. I said, Harry, will you do? Anyhow, we get called the red truck. Right? So you go to the red truck, me and Richard Jackson, my team leader. We go to the red truck.

There's sets of Beatty. There sets to Darrell. And two or three others. Darryl just mad. Darry Walter. Darrell Walter. Mad. Because Darrell finished second.

He's wanting Harry disqualified. You can't push a man across? Rick, Masch, you pushed him? What do you got me in here for, guys? Bady. Rick, do you push him? I said, I bumped him a little bit. I didn't push him.

Look at the start, finish. I wasn't ordinary him. It lit up coming through the trial so I could get to get away from it. And anyhow, Darrell wouldn't let it go. He was mad, screamed, cussing, hollering, and just going on. About that time, the door opened, Jeff Hammond steps in. Jeff's his crew chief. He said, Darrell, we got a little problem.

He said, what's that? He said, you need to come out here. We've got a problem. He's coming out to our door. You tell him what the problem is. Well, a car's over an inspection line, and our spoiler is 11 degrees low. Jeez. That's a ton.

That's a ton. You know, in those days, the spoiler set, and we would sneak them sometimes. If your car could take it, you'd stick them down or sometimes up, right? Well, they'd snuck that thing down sometimes during that race, which made it illegal. So he'd left the door, shut the door left, and we'd all just sit there for a minute. Made it turn around and looked at Darrell like that. He says, what do you think, Darrell? Daryl sit there maybe 10 seconds.

He says, you know what, fellas? That Harry, he's a hell of a driver, ready? I'll see y'all next week. Out the door he goes. That's hilarious. This was in around 92, right? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because do you remember that race? Maybe 91 because Bob was by crew chie. You were there? Yeah. Okay. Right on.

He said all of them. I don't know about that, but he was... I was at most of them. I remember watching y'all and everybody was saying, I remember even leading up to that final lap, everybody was like, you know, he can do, he can push all he wants, but you cannot push on the final lap. and all of us are sitting there watching him and he's just bouncing off the back of him.

He's not pushing him. He's going dink. Dink. That's right. Dink. And he never literally pushed him. We never locked up. Never locked up. But every time I push a black smoke and rolling at light. And I think the last lap you pushed him or bounced off of him to the least. So where did you finish?

It was. It was. It was. Yeah. You got a good memory. I know, man. I don't forget that. Oh, you guys. All you remember is races, but you can't pay what you ate yesterday. The other thing, too, is that Harry Gantt was a, you know, a fan favorite.

92. That was his, yeah. Everybody loved. Oh, yeah. That's right. You know, he never crossed anybody.

That's right. But where did you finish? I don't know because when I went behind him, I was, yeah, something like I was lap down. You were a lap down, hence the problem. You're pushing the guy and, and my car was, my car was bad fast that day.

Just got mixed up in a wreck on the backstretch, and we got out of the pack because they were working on the front end, and I run by myself to that leaders caught me, and then they dropped off of them. But see, I ran the same amount of laps. Larry did too, or Harry did too. I didn't run out.

Would you consider that year, that was one of your best years with, though, wouldn't you say? Oh, 94. Okay. Okay. Okay. But you were really coming into your own. Yeah. And when Dale Jr. led this whole thing off saying that he always knew you as the most respected

or like very respected and everything you're saying, I mean, you got guys that are mad at you and it seems like they want to hug you. What did you do to make everybody respect you? Was it just that, you know, the fact you worked on the, the cars, you calate geometry and all this other stuff. What was it? Why are people respecting you? I don't know. I told Steve Burns once it takes as many muscles to smile as does the frown. You know what I mean?

And I tell you a lot of, I was just humble. I was always humble in the sport. I came into that sport humbled. And that stayed with me. That probably cost me in some areas. You stay a little bit too humble. Like what? Loyalty to teams that probably hurt my career.

I don't regret anything. Right. Although one thing I do regret, I wish we'd had social media when I was there. Man, I'd love that. You are out of state in so much trouble. I could have had more stuff stirred up because I knew stuff about everybody, man. But Reynolds said, but Reynolds used to save you. I don't know anything what's going on the garage area.

Go talk to masked. That's funny. But you were loyal, but you think that sometimes that wasn't reciprocated. It wasn't returned. No, no, it was. It was. No, that part was five. His loyalty made him maybe pass up on a couple of opportunities.

Yes. Yes. Oh, I got you. Like the Thomas Brothers car, I'm just assuming. Yeah. There's always kind of like, man, hmm, wonder how that might have worked out. Right. Right.

But he stayed with the, you know, his own team. I mean, I had a chance to go to 28 once. Really? Yeah. Okay. Had a chance to go to the four once. Mm. And you passed up those opportunities because of a sense of loyalty to your loyalty.

And then the last time I had a chance to go. I'm not going to say who it was. but everybody knows the guy the owner comes. I reckon I'll do a third team next year once you drive it, okay? I'm going to do it. But I ain't going to have the deal done

until right before Christmas. All right. That doesn't screwed up so many times. Yes, I'm doing this. The hell with this. I had opportunities to get in a couple good cars, and I let those guys go at Atlanta.

They had to have answered Atlanta. Week before Christmas it fell through. Right? So now everything's gone. So now I'm like... Oh, because Atlanta was the last race of the year. All right. The other rides had to have

answer but I was holding on for this good one. Yeah, yeah. Because I'd done screwed up before a couple times. And then it fell right. Like letting the 28 go by and stuff. I'm like, don't do that ever again. So the week before Christmas that happens and it goes away. And so now I'm scrambling. So I spend the next year or two scrambling.

You know, I got with AJ. No, this is right after AJ. I got with the 50 car. The Duke's, end up with the Duke's car finally. And we were working that thing. And when I when I was with the Duke's deal, I knew that thing wouldn't go last past Charlotte and Kyle came to me about the 45 car and he said I got to make a change here because

you'd be a willing finish year out in our car I says yeah what Kyle but when when how much longer is the head's Georgia Pacific how much longer is your sponsorship he said I got this year in two more years I said if you if I'll finish this year out for you if you give me the other two years too he said done deal so that's it took me a year and a half to start working my way back back up the competitive you know even though I hadn't won a race I still had some value somehow, some reason, and then I got sick, so it was over. Well, okay, then back up it. You're loyal to everything except the cow.

What happened to the cow? I don't understand. How does a cow get into a deal with a car? That damn Tom Higgins and Steve Wade. Tom Higgins, the reporter. Yeah, a long time. They found out about this deal sometime. I don't know how they did it, and they did a story on it, and they would always bring it up.

We go to Indy. We go to Indy, set on the pole, right? And I know every beat writer in our sport. Sure. They know their parents, their uncles. I know everybody, everything about them. What year did you sit on the poll at Indy? 94.

Okay, 94. So we go up there, and I go in the media room. I'm sitting on the pole, right? And this media room is huge, and it's full of people. They're all scribes, man. And I'm looking at them, like, I don't know any of these people. And some of them, you could tell we're not American, right? I'm like, how are all these people?

And all week long, I'd been reading all the stories. after we got up there that week, all the stories from our drivers talking in there. It was some, how can I say it? I was a little bit offended, but some of the stories I was reading. Our guys were not like our guys.

They were saying and talking like, I don't get this. What are you talking about guys? We're still the same people here, right? Not your daddy. He wasn't one of them. There was a couple of them. Rusty.

It got to be rusty. It irritated me. It just irritated me, right? So I get that in the media room. And I go on telling them about how great a driver I am, what a great, great lap I ran, and how great the crew is, the car is, do all that stuff. And I get finished.

Finally, somebody in the back, tell us about the cow. That's that Higgins, right? I like, no, yeah, you want to hear about the cow. I look back in Steve Wade. Both of them stand back there and want to know about the cow, right? So here's my chance. I said, all right, folks. here's the deal.

When I was 15 years old, I lived on a farm. My dad had some cattle. He was a used car dealer and different things. And I had 4-H cows, a heifer. And I wasn't the steer, was a heifer. And I said, I sold that heifer for $575. And I used that money to buy an old 57 Chevrolet race car that was wrecked. That's right, yeah, the 57 Chevy.

Yeah, that's how I got in. Your first car. First car. And that's how I got into racing. I said, that's the long short of the story. What was the cow's name? I said it was Ethel. And I looked, those scribes were looking at me like,

they didn't know, understand my humor. A lot of them, there was the guys that knew me understood, but those guys, I was sitting there thinking, I bet you Billy Francis is loving this right now. Oh, my God. I know his PR people are just, they're just dying. Right, right. But I didn't care.

This was my way to get back. Yeah. Our southern. That's right. You thought people were being fake. Yes. You made sure that we brought it back home. And I probably carried it the other way that went too far.

No, that's good. Well, that's good. Because I wasn't sure if you got money and then you used the money to buy the car or if you literally did a straight up trade. No, it wasn't a straight up trade. Which had been some cow for sure. No, that died. But that's also, who was it? You were telling me about like, you know, worked in a flying squirrel.

Yeah, Morgan Shepherd sold a couple squirrels or something. Yeah. Is that true? I mean, you know that? I've heard the story. Yeah. story. I mean, I haven't heard it from Morgan, but I have heard the story.

Maybe we've got to get him in here to confirm that or not. All right, so good. All right, so it was a good deal for the cow that you won the poll at Indy. 94, really good year for you. And, you know, the cow becomes part of your bio as well. It's part of your good year at 94. But how did you do in that Indy race? That was, in my career, that was one of the top five cars of Dirk Car, late Mauda Bush.

Cup, anything ever driven, perfect, friggin' car I've ever said anything. And you know what I'm talking about. But when you got one like that, it's like you can't put a price on it. The feeling you have as a driver, you just can't, there's nothing like it. There's just absolutely nothing like it. All through all the practices, the happy hours of stuff, there's just nobody could run with it. I mean, you just, you know, I don't know. And we had a little bit of weird stuff done with that car too, but not cheating.

Just some weird stuff. And, all right, we take the. We take your green flag, which me and your daddy was riding around on the pace lap, right, on the convertible. We came down the front stretch. He looked up and just the walls of people, right? Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah.

He looked at me. He says, Rick, I said, what? He said, you believe all these damn people here to watch us? I said, no, I can't. The intimidator was truly humbled in that moment. I mean, I saw it. It was there, right? Which you didn't see much unless you got to know him a little bit.

But anyhow, so he says, you know, I'm going to lead that first race, right? I said, yeah, go for it, big boy, you know. So anyhow, we lead the first lap. When I take, come by the start, finish line, I'm leading the first lap. I'm like, all right, got 150 and nine more laps to go. What have I got to do to finish this race? Because in that period, we'd had so many races, I just couldn't get to the end without something breaking where I have a shot at trying to win, right?

because we had done the right things. But anyhow, so come off the fourth turn of the second lap. Brix your rock arm. Dang. We run all day on like seven cylinders. I guess it never pushed the lifter up out of the hole. I guess they held it down.

And still finished like 18th. You know what I mean? Man. That's fair. It got so bad one time. I remember at Dover we were running good. I remember telling the guys, the guys, you keep your eyes out for them.

See, fours going over. I know one of them's going to drop a damn motor right on my race car here in any lap. You just get kind of, you feel like that sometimes. You mentioned starting to feel sick. Mm-hmm. You had to end your career early because of carbon monoxide poisoning. Still today, like I've never really dug deep into the, you know,

any kind of information about how all that happened to you. And so I'm hearing it for the first time across this table. What were you experiencing inside the car? March 24th at Bristol. Friday morning, get out of the motor home, right? I feel bad. Just feel bad. It just don't feel good yucky.

I'm like, well, I got a virus or something. So we get through the weekend. So we practice, qualify, run the race, Saturday, Sunday. You know, still feel bad every day. Monday, I feel bad. Tuesday, feel bad. We get the next week. I feel bad.

And it's starting now to get just a little worse. Every day. I just feel worse and worse. And this went on right up through Charlotte, the All-Star race. It got to when I got to the All-Star race, it was 40-lap race, preliminary deal. I ran to 40 laps. And it was all I could.

could do to get out of my race car and get over to the motorhome. I got, they got me over the motor home. I said, Sharon, let's get to tell you out. Anyhow, we went to the airport, hopped the plane and went home. And by this time, doctors were already running test on me. A lot of stuff, right? A lot of obscure stuff and a lot of bad stuff. And when I got home then, I laid in bid for 31 days. I mean, if I could keep a bowl of soup down or get from a bid to the couch, that was a good day. Dang. Right? It was awful. I mean, I was dying. There's no doubt. And each time a doctor called, Rick, I got good news. come back negative.

The last time he called me, some tests they did. Got good news, Rick. He's come back negative because they were checking for cancers and all the normal stuff. And I said, Doc, I appreciate that, but you're missing something. I'm still dying. Finally, there's an ER doctor with NASCAR that worked Mayo Clinic. So he got me in Mayo Clinic. I felt decent enough at that time.

We flew down to the Mayo Clinic. I was down there three days, I think, or four. When they were done, they said, we suspect the link to carbon dioxide poisoning. I'm like, I'm an oxide poised. Okay, now what? We don't know. All right. So my wife actually gets online or not online, but whatever the deal was.

And finds the foremost expert, Dr. David Penny in Warren, Michigan on this stuff. I get with him. Go over this thing with him. He sends me to a clinic in Colorado Springs that specializes in this and multiple chemical sensitivity and all this. I'm out there five days and they get it all figured out and all diagnosed and all my symptoms. and all the stuff I was going through and all the unanswered questions I had, you know what I mean?

It gets it all figured out. Basically, there's nothing you do for it, you know, because what happens? Carbon dioxide displaces the red blood cell on your hemoglobin, okay? You've got hemoglobin,

it carries red blood cells. When carbon dioxide gets in there, it throws that oxygen cell off and grabs hold of the carbon dioxide, and that's what pumps the body. Oh, gosh. That's why that crap so bad to people. Oh, man.

It's replacing. It's replacing oxygen with a poison. That's, yeah, it's problematic. So my deal was being exposed to it since I was a kid in shops and painting race cars and having cars running. So this was a lifetime of exposure that created this issue. Not like a race where you knocked a crush panels out and had some bad episode. No, no. And everybody's different.

I had Bobby tell me what I talked about, Lubana. He said, Rick, why is it? We run Bristol. Bristol's one of the bad ones. He said, it'll take me Wednesday before I feel like I'm overhung out of a hangover. And that affects carbon dioxide. And Tara would get out of the car and come with his hair and smiles. He'll say, what's wrong with you, boy?

He'll be in a wuss. And I said, well, I asked the doctors that. And they said, Rick, you take a set of twins. They're born one day. Put them in a glass bubble. They live in that glass bubble. For 50 years, one day they wake up. One gets cancer.

The other one does it. There's a lot of unknowns we don't have. And I'll tell you what was cool. A lot of older drivers would call me. Guys, I didn't even know. Like Blackie Wacky Wack. And some people like Edweds, and people like Edweds call me, thanking me for answering their questions. We never knew.

I never knew what was going on for me. I would feel like we just thought we're out of shape and all that, you know what I mean? For a week. And a lot of the lot, I surprised the number of guys did that. So you ended up having to make a decision to quit entirely? Yeah, yeah. Was there ever a conversation of, man, I didn't take a couple years off or? Dale, I was so deathly sick at that point.

You didn't care. I didn't care. Yeah. Yeah, I was just glad to be alive. And that's no joke. I'm telling you, it got so bad, I was just glad to be alive. And then I thought about doing the TV stuff. Pam, really remember Pam?

They kept trying to get me do TV stuff. And I said, just leave me alone, leave me alone. You know, she called me on a, in March, and they had a bush race in Nashville. And I forget who it was, couldn't be there. It was emergency. She begged that. I said, all right. So then I sold the airplane.

I sold the motor home. So anyhow, I go down, catch a flight out of run up. Thursday night, go do the gig, have fun at it, good at it, come back, get home Sunday night, about midnight. Next day, Ricky, my son, he's seven years old having a birthday, right? And I asked Sharon and I said, when the hell he turned seven? He was just born two weeks ago, right? Or he turned 20, I'm sorry, 20 years of age.

My daughters were running, and my twins, they were seven at the time. And I remember taking my foot and just drawing a line in the grass, and I'm not going by, I'm not doing this. I'm not going to miss the girls growing up. He played baseball like four years, you know, and I saw like two games. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So, you know, I forced by, if I hadn't got sick, I'd still be right here with you guys doing something. Right. If I'd just transition, I'd still be in the sport because it's my life. Racing is my life, my whole life. Yeah. Period. You got to a point when you were spending a lot of time at home that you realized that that's where you wanted to be. Mm-hmm.

Right? That's right. That's right. And you ended up becoming comfortable with that decision and happy with it. That's right. The only thing, I hear people ask me all the time, do you miss it? Here's what I miss. I miss when they say,

gentlemen, start your engines. And I tell you why, when I was so sick at Charlotte that day, I remember getting in the car, man, I was popping vinegar to what you shouldn't have been doing.

You know, it's a whole other deal that I tell NASCAR about and drug tests that they need to do. But anyhow, I remember sitting in the car and strapping in, it felt like crap.

I remember thinking, all right, I got to pass these two cars to get in, to transfer into the big race, right? And the race started, and I'm sitting there digging.

I remember when I got to a car, I'm thinking, you know what? That's exactly. same feelings I had 30 years ago or 35 years ago my dirt car. Oh. You know what I mean? Wow. So that part never changed.

It's kind of like when you talk about the demise of our sport, it's kind of like Ted Williams said that time, the great baseball player. You play the game for the game. Well, racing's the same way. That part doesn't change. I tell people this all the time. When you strap into that car, that part never changes. No matter what goes on outside of that car, everything is going on.

It doesn't matter. When you're in that car, it's still the very basic. simple thing you're doing. And that's what's pure about our sport. And that's why our sport will always thrive to whatever degree because of that, you know. And, but yeah, I didn't miss the travel, you know. I didn't miss the politics, although I got good at the politics.

Yeah. Well, there are all these years and never won a points race and still are viable. People still want you to drive for them. Yeah. I'm curious, though, how long after the diagnosis where you were able to put an identity on what it is you were feeling? how long did you go before you started feeling better? Because I would imagine if you're feeling sick, he asked, you know, did you, you know, regret it?

Well, you're not going to regret it when you're feeling sick. When did you not feel sick anymore, though? It was, it finally, it started easing up some. After there's 31 days, I felt good one day, right? Then it started easing up. I was probably out of 100% I was probably at 30% feeling good or before I was zero. Yeah, so 30% feels good. Yeah, that got me feeling good enough to go to Mayo Clinic and go to Michigan and go to Colorado Springs, right?

And then after did all that, you know, there's no way of treat. You do a hyperbaric chamber, maybe, but that's really when it stuff's in you to purge it out of you. But, you know, 24 hours of stuff's all gone. Oh, is that it? Yeah. So my body, and my body had used up its reserve. It's kind of like when Neil got killed, Dr. Petty told me one time he was telling him, Neil and Susan, his wife, don't get in the raise.

car again said, Neil Sousers could spike you beside the head and kill you. You know what I mean? Because you've used up your reserves on head injuries, right? That was his take at that time. You know more about it at me at this point. And, you know, Neil wrecked that day. It's kind of like Dale Seniors. It wasn't that hard impact.

But anyhow, my body used up reserves of fighting off the effects of what carbon oxide in my blood was doing. And that was my brain's way of telling my body that what your body's doing is killing you. So the brain shut your body down. That's why you get deathly sick, definitely ill, right? So anyhow, after a period of time, the next winter, you know, I remember sometime at fall, I woke up one day, man, I felt like 80%.

Right. Next day I woke up 30%. Oh, so it just was just hit or miss. Next day, maybe 50%. And then one day I woke up was like 90%. The next day I was like 50%. And this went on for about eight months. Okay, eight months.

And it just kept getting better and better and better. I went seven days in a row. feeling good. And like an idiot, I went down at a local deal up there. I went with Grand Mars on a parade and jumped on the back of a car. Oh, no. 60-2 Corvette in front of me, right? I'm sitting on the back of this converter when I breathe in that crap.

I'm like, man. What am I doing? What am I doing? I started to jump off the car. I think of crazy. So anyhow, the thing was over. I ran to my pickup. I ran home.

At the time I got home, I hit the bid, man. It was seven days. God, they got out of the bed. So you just, yeah, you don't have the capacity to actually deal with that stuff even now. Even now. Now I do. Oh, now you do?

Over time, I don't purposely go in a garage full of cars running, right? Sure. You know, but I can, for a time, if it got on my skin or if I breathed it, it would trigger my body, that quit. But now it doesn't trigger it, you know what I mean? No kidding. And I don't sit in garages and stuff like that with cars. Wow.

Well, that made that decision a lot easier, I guess. That's what I was getting at. Is it like, you know, I don't think it ever really gave him a chance to want it back. Yeah. Because if you're, even for eight months, if you're going like this as far as your recovery to it, that's not enough to give you that, man, I miss racing right now. And maybe that was a blessing, ultimately, because. Well, I tell you one of the cool deals came out of it. Out of all these tests, they did a colonoscopy on me, right?

We know what John Andredi just went through. 47 years of age they just did a colonoscopy trying. They did every test you can think of guys I had done to me, believe me, I had three stacks of, or four stocks of boxes of medical stuff. Anyhow, when the doctor was done, he said, Rick, I got to tell you, he said, I just took out the larger group of polyps I've ever taken out of any human being in my life, right? I'm like, he said, they're benign. They're all benign, but you're lucky. And I'm sitting there later on, I got to thinking, you know what? If I had got sick, I went ahead of colonoscopy.

And knowing me, you're supposed to do it at 50. I know me. I probably wouldn't have done it. I'd probably be dead. But now, now, now, did long ago because of that. You know what I mean? And like John Andretti's deal brings it more to the forefront. Sure.

You know, I mean, it's life, guys. Up and down. Deal what you got with. You got with Helton and NASCAR and helped them understand how to improve the situations for drivers going forward. Try to help me. I had a buddy who worked at NASA, and he called me and he says, Rick, I think we've got a product, something to help you guys. I said, all right, he explained it to me. So when I went to Helton and Gary Nelson was still there then, they set up a lab there.

over here at Concord at the NASCAR headquarters lab just for this thing. So basically what it is, it's a catalyst, is all it is a catalyst, like your catalytic converter in your car. And so when the carbon dioxide hits it, it changes it to carbon dioxide, which is nothing, at least it's not bad, right? So, but the catalytic converters on your car, they're set to activate at certain temperature like 900 or 1,000 degrees. So when you first start your car, if you're getting pure carbon dioxide until it gets heat in it,

then converts it. the NASA deal, the way they did it, they could, when they make that catalyst, they can make it activate it whatever heat they wanted to. Okay? So that's the deal I give to Gary Nelson, down to R&D Center. So they went to work on that thing,

and the first thing they come out with, the little box, or the electronic box, and they put it in that deal. And Smoke used it at Martinsville. And he called me that night after Martinsville. And he said, Rick, I'm going to tell you, he said, I've never felt this good after Martinsville.

This is the best. I've ever felt that because Martinsville sometimes could get that crap on you. Yeah. You're saying smoke is in Tony Stewart? Yeah, Tony Stewart. Yeah. Yeah.

And he said, man, this thing is going to be the ticket. And here's the neat part, guys. That particular system was only like 28% reduction. Oh. And that was that big a difference. So then after that, I think Wix and some other company, I can't think the name of, took that thing over it and developed where they finally get up to 99.

Nice. I tell you another story about that deal. a guy that was a you know this guy i'm not going to say his name i don't get him in trouble he was a crew chief and he was at hendrick for a long time he called me that winter talked to me about that he says rick you need to go over hendricks take cart take apart one of those cool boxes i said huh what's in it he said i'm just telling you go to hendricks and take it part i said to how to him i go go walk in and rick hendix shop they don't really let you do that he says i'm just telling you do whatever you got to do to do that so i go straight down there to gary nelson i said nelson

here's what the man just called and told me. I don't know what it beats. I'll check into that. He went over there. They had a system in that cool box, right? Crude, right? And what he finally ascertained was these guys over there,

how sharp the Hendricks guys are. You know, they're just sharp, man. And they're just phenomenal. But those guys had figured out that this was a driver performance issue at the end of these races with these fumes affecting guys. so somebody in that group had decided to come up with this catalyst

and they put him in these boxes unbeknownst to the driver unless Terry lied to me he had no clue he was in his car and it was you know what I'm saying so that's why Terry would get out and call him that's right that's right and his brother Bobby

Bonnie's over there sick I mean really do you think that's it like they were on to that it's very possible that's how Terry LeBoney won his championship 10 years later or what, 12 years later after the first one. Cool stories, man. It's like all these 50-year-old pitchers in Major League Baseball, man.

Just get that second life. Our 40-year-old pictures. It's weird stories in our sport, man. Weird stories. You know what? I'm hearing this. I mean, like, these guys racing today have you to thank, and they don't even know it.

I mean, like, maybe they do, maybe they don't. But I'm telling you, I mean, all you guys, racing has just been one big progression in safety and learning. And there was a lot of people. that, you know, learn the hard way. And that's just, that's not exclusive to racing, obviously. That's life and that's just, you know, technology and whatnot. But, man, you know, you had a pretty big price to pay to, you know, for people to wise up to it.

You had a big price to pay and the concussions and stuff. I mean, think about just in between the two of you guys, there's a lot of people that have to think, safer barriers, you know, after, you know, 2001 Daytona 500 and then the head and neck restraints. You guys, I mean, it's amazing how safe it's come. Yeah. And then you still have the situation at Daytona when you remember, oh, wait, we're still not. Yeah. It's still a dangerous sport, right?

That's right. In the 2001, did you, do you still watch races? Oh, yeah. And do you enjoy it? Yeah. And what do you like about today's sport? I like, what I like is that I know personally what the guys sitting in that car are doing. That's what I like.

Because I know the guy sitting in that car has got that damn thing on the edge. He's mad and he's fussing. He's trying to get it to turn, right? Oh, yeah. In the center. He's trying to get in the gas, right? He's fussing because he's, he lost two stops on that, or two spots on that pit stop. You know what I mean?

Those things don't change. That's what I'm talking about, the pure part of our sport. Do you become animated? Do you yell at the TV? No. So when those crew chiefs pit this past weekend, with, you know, we're going to have a green-white checker. What was going through your mind?

Oh, we're going to wreck. Oh, no, no. I'm talking about it at Vegas. Oh, at Vegas. In Vegas when they pitted this past. When he came in and nobody else did, I'm like, you poor sack. You just, you know what I mean? We've all done that and you're like, man, man, man, what do you do?

But what do you do? I mean, you felt bad for him, but golly, he pitted. They didn't. Yeah. If he does a pit, they all probably do. Yeah, they all probably do. Exactly. Oh, you know what else we wanted to ask him about the bounty?

The bounty, yeah. You hear about the bounty, right? Kevin Hart put a bounty out for. Oh, yeah. I heard about that. Yeah, what you think about that? I think it's cool as hell. Do you think it's a bounty?

You call it a bounty? That sounds like a bounty to me. I would call it a bounty. I don't, you know, might want to put up something for a regular to beat him. You know what I mean? Also. Maybe a smaller bounty for a regular.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a bounty on me one time. That Franklin County deal. Okay. The Franklin County deal. They put a bounty on that deal.

Oh, how much? 20, what's like 2,500? Okay. Nobody took it out. Okay. Settle this then. Okay. So they put a bounty on you.

What was your immediate reaction to that? Were you flattered? Cool, yeah. Did you ask, what's in it for me? I did not. Because it's a bounty. So my only thing on this, and we talked about it a little bit before you got here, was that I've never been able to experience bounties like all you racers have.

I mean, you know, I've heard about it. I'm hearing from Dale and Matthew back there and these bounties. They sound awesome, right? I wish it was bounties. But this got real friendly, real fast on social media between the participants on it. Now you've got charity and all that stuff. And I'm like, this isn't exactly what I had drummed up in my head. This wasn't as, like, I thought there'd be aggression.

And there's people fussing about it. But come on, guys. Mike, well, Mike feels like that bounties have a sort of anger, change of anger to them and some animosity. Yeah. But I'm wrong. Bounties, I don't know. You just said that when you had a bounty put on you, you were like,

that's cool. Great. I'm flattered. But nobody took it. but you didn't show up to the track and feel like you had to look over your shoulder because there was a bounty on you. Is that right? I did not. I don't mean a tension of anger from the person that the bounty's on.

I meant there's a reason why there would be a bounty in the first place, and that's because somebody's got to be pissed off that there's winning so much. You're taking all the loop. That's not always the case. A lot of times, majority of the times, the fact that the same guy keeps winning every week might drive away some of the people that are buying tickets and the promoters trying to find a way to keep those people coming to the track. Oh, there's a bounty? Well, then I might go watch.

See if somebody wins this bounty. It might not have nothing to do with the infield or the people inside, the drivers, the cars. Or none of that. It might be just something the promoters throwing out there. That's what Gary Balloon told us happened up north. The track owner put the bounties up. Like, man, you're winning too much. Right.

I can't take speed out of your car, but I can put a bounty on you. And maybe somebody will have tried a little hard. harder and beat you. Okay. I'm coming around. No one problem with a lot of times in those days when those tracks would do that, they would let competitors get by all stuff to get the bounty. Oh.

That happened in my deal. He let Mike Porter come over. We all run 311. Oh, Mike Porter. Let him come up a 355 engine with 311 weights, you know, trying to whip me. And I knew he did, I knew he was doing it for when he'd come up there. Guy didn't even told me about it. And I'm like, it don't matter.

I'm going to still get it. He still didn't have enough. Still didn't have enough. Speaking of enough. man. I went to, I don't know why this story sticks to my brain, but I don't know how much time we got. Plenty. That's right. Man, we're at IRP in 1990. And 1990 was a bad season, a bad year for me because I'd split from my father-in-law, and we were doing it with Raven boats. Raven boats left us high and dry in the middle of the year. I had, I had debts at

Goodyear, Jim Ruggles, and BSR, 50 grand, right? And then we go to Oxford, Maine. He rent a plane, the Raven Boats guy, rents a plane. My crew all flies up on this plane, races on Sunday night. They're going to all come back to work. I'm going to step up with one guy. We're going to drive our car down in New Hampshire the next week, right? My guys go back in motel or at the airport. He's gone.

No plane, no nothing. And to this day, I've never seen him. So, yeah. I owed all these people, and I called him. I called Butch Stevens, B.S.R. Good Year. Ruggles, engine people. I said, I hope 50 grand you people. I said, I can't pay you. If you want me to pay you, I can sell all my crap. and I can pay you right now.

If you'll let me slide at the end of the year, I think I'm going to have me a cup deal next year. I'm hoping. I didn't know, but I was hoping. I said, at the end of the year, if I get that, I can pay. If I don't, I'll sell my crap and, you know, pay. They said, no problem, Eric, don't you even worry about it.

So we go to IRP, and, you know, I'm wigged out at this point. This is getting later on the season, and, you know, we're basically broke. I pass, I think it's Chuck Bell, maybe, lead to race like 15 laps to go and all got to do is just finish and I win come off fourth turn lap car down in the bottom he but he flags me over he gets down I go beside him go and turn one he hits me right now I go on the wall tear the nose up on my car come down pit road the cars tore up I see him down there hitting in the pit road getting out of his car in the grass and I just take off and I hit straight to him I hit the grass and man about that time he jumps and I turn

the wheel and of course it's wet and it just slides through, right? I knew then I was over the top. I mean, I've lost you know, I can't, this ain't you, Rick. You stop this. You know, come back in, Grace is over. We got the car there. The guys were working on the front end try to get it, the bangled, fixed enough

to get it up on the trailer. This woman walks up. You've seen Elvira. All right. This had to be Elvira's twin sister. Looked just like her, dressed just like her. Cut down the ear, right? Cut up to here. Had a purse. She walks up to us, had to make up on the hair, the whole deal. Finally, she gets our attention and we're looking at her.

She turns around and sets down on the bar, the red air to support, and puts left the front of my car, sets her purse down. Unzips her purse, opens it up, pulls out this tube, like this long, about this big, pops the top off, pulls out another tube, screws the top off, reaches down in and pulls this thing out, vile out, like you know the kids, bubble blowers, you pick up. and you blow the bubbles. There was a wire with the thing.

And she put this thing up, took it out, turned around, and blew bubbles all over my car. I was sitting like, what in the hell is weird? What is this? She dips it against. She does it three times, right? Never says a word. We're all sitting there like, get off my car, man. We got to get to get to the shit later.

What are you doing? Puts it together, puts it all back in her purse, gets up, never says a word. She gets up and walks about ten steps. She turns around and says, boys. your bad troubles are over nothing but good times down the road and walks away right i'm like what was that well six weeks later i've won two races and have a skull deal signed god no way yes she was a good witch i get it in the funny part people always ask me well rick do you need to find her did you ever find i said hell no i don't know if she got if she could

put that much on you she could take it off of you i don't ever want to see her again i'll see her again And I was one year we were at Talladega And sitting in the media room And it's just, we're one of the conference We were just talking, media guys And I was telling that story Higgins and all that bunch And I all looked up there in the headlight look

I could tell I don't think they was Thinking I was lying to him, right? I'm a lie Well you remember Ed Scholl Ed Scholl was a Gatorade guy You always seen him Stokely Van He worked for Stokely Van Camps He always handed out to Gatorade

All the years of race tree He died I think a year ago But Ed was sitting in there And he said He's telling you all the truth boys They said, what? I was sitting there looking at that. I watched that.

I said, Ed, did you see that? I said, yeah. I sat there, watched that whole thing. I never could figure that out. I said, I couldn't either, Ed. I didn't know. That's crazy. Could have used her for a couple of them.

I'm telling you, man, it's, it's, it's. I've never, ever, ever figured that one out. I hear you. We're going to top that one? I don't think you'll end on that note. Rick, I appreciate you coming all this way. Oh, yeah. It's been an honor, guys.

I love this. The stories are amazing. They are. I love this. All our listeners are going to, they had to love this interview. And I'm telling you, we had a ton of people for the last, you know, 12 to 15 months, been begging us to get you out here on the show. Okay.

You've got a lot of people out there that love you and, you know, think about you. And obviously, you're visible on social media and a lot of fun to follow on Twitter. You are. Your social media influencer. I wish I had it. God, if I could only have the thing to dynies. Well, I've probably been five. I probably got fired.

I don't care. I'd have had so much fun, I think. People, people love to cling and remember and romanticize the history of our sport. And having you on social media is such a great way to stay connected to it. So we really appreciate how active you are. And thanks for, you know, coming out here and sharing. Shoot you, man. Sometime down the road when it's lull again, we're going to part two and part three and part four and part five.

I mean, I got more parts. Need write a book. You do. You do need to write a book. Yeah. Well, whatever. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

All right, everybody. It's Dale Jr. Welcome to the live Asked Junior part of the show. So we got some questions from Leah. Yep, we do. Hey, everybody on YouTube. First question is coming in. We actually just talked about this at length in our open segment, but I don't think you

touched on this. The first question is from Logan Weaver. He wants to know, who would you like to see take up the $100,000 bounty on Kyle Bush in the truck series? Oh, like what? Oh, I don't have a favorite. I don't, man. I've never, that's not even cross my mind, like who I'd like to see claim that money.

I'm just hoping that it happens. Like, I don't even know how, you know, if people knew how kind of tough it is to secure the sponsorship and the truck, you know, you've got to jump through so many hoops. If you're a cup driver, you can't cross manufacturers. That, you know, there's only a couple opportunities and it really narrows it down to maybe just one opportunity. And then they have to be interested. That team itself has to be interested.

And it has to be a truck that you feel like, well, it's capable of doing the job, right? Something that you're confident in. So I will be surprised, honestly, if a legit contender arises out of all this. I'll be glad because I want it to happen. But I'll also be surprised in how that all got lined up, like how it came together. you know, Denny Hamlin is a name that I threw out there about maybe Kyle putting Denny in a truck and going out there and Kyle running second to Denny so Kyle could get the bounty. But Denny then goes on social media and says, hey, I'm interested.

How do we find the money? You know, Toyota, you know, Coca-Cola. You know, so even for Denny, a guy like that, it's not just, you know, it's not just simply saying, yes, I'll do it. A lot of things have to come together. and so I'll be surprised and curious as to what real contenders come out of the woods to do this. Can I recommend somebody to pull for, though, if you've got a cup driver? Okay. Kurt.

Kurt Bush. I like it. All right. Well, he drives a Chevy. It has to be a Chevy truck, so GMS. Where are you at? All right. Next question from Andy Clemens.

This question is, what are your thoughts on the news about Myrtle Beach? Speedway potentially being sold and maybe turned into housing. You know, that's something that I even heard about back when I was racing there in the 90s. It's always been sort of a rumor or speculation that this could happen to Myrtle Beach Speedway. And it's, you know, I don't know how serious to take these new revelations. But, you know, I hope that the tracks survives whatever challenges it's facing financially. the problem is the track could the track could any track like this could be doing amazing it could be very successful but if if that land is that much more valuable

which it probably is I mean if that land is is just so much more valuable than anything the track could ever create in revenue if you're the owner of that land and you you'd rather have you know tens of millions of dollars in your hands rather than running a, you know, the grind of running a successful racetrack that doesn't create that type of revenue. I mean, you'd rather put that money in your pocket. You know, some guys are going to want to do that. And so it doesn't really matter, or in a lot of the cases, it's not, it's not a scenario

of where the track's failing, you know, so it's just the land values go up where the economy is amazing right now. There's a lot of growth in the area that I live in. And imagine in Myrtle Beach, there's good growth. And that part of that particular stretch of highway, that land's always kind of been speculative of becoming, you know, development or strip malls or whatever they have planned to go there. So even for the last 20 or 30 years, it makes me puts an age on me. But yeah, I don't know. I hate to see it go away.

It's been there a long, long time, and I had a few laps there. So hopefully they can survive it. All right, question coming in from YouTube, NASCAR fan 4848. Will we be seeing any more collaborations with you and eye racing bringing old tracks to the simulator? You know, I'm always trying to get creative with irasing on things they can be brought into the service. And I've been a big part of working with them for a real long time. I was a beta tester back way in 2002 or 4 whenever they kicked off the beta testing. I jumped in on that, got lucky enough to be a part of that.

and they finally brought to Service Live, I think, around 2008, and I've been a customer ever since, and I've helped them. I can't even list the amount of projects that I've been a part of with them through the years. So it's been a great time connecting them with manufacturers, with organizations, racing organizations, government bodies, and tracks, everything that you could think of. It's been fun, and I plan to continue that relationship and just continue to be a part of helping that service and building their brand. And I love being able to help bring new content to the service because not only I'm selfishly getting to enjoy it myself, but I know I really have a great connection to the community there with Sim Racing, and I know how much it will excite the community.

and I know how much they'll love to be able to use the product. And so I'm excited to see North World Spurl pop up on my list of tracks that I need to buy. I'm going to click that button to go into my cart, and I'm going to go download it and have a lot of fun just like everybody else. Nashville is a lot of different tracks that Hickory. I'm in the middle of conversations with Hickory right now trying to get that track on the service. They're showing some great interest in being a part of the, the I-racing family. All right.

Next question from Bucko O'Branham. Was it true your sister used to kick your butt, I think he means, in the late models. That's some, yeah, you know, Kelly, when we started late models, Kerry ran at Hickory. Kelly ran at Tri-County. I ran at Myrtle Beach. I'd run at I-95 on Friday nights. We'd never ran against each other. But they would have big races.

We had, we ran one together. Hickory and, you know, I did the best in that one. We went to Myrtle Beach. I was running second, and a guy's tailpipe came off. I was running second to David Hider. It's a name a lot of people who haven't heard in a while. But a tailpipe came off a car, and I ran over it with like 10 laps ago and got a flat, and Kelly ended up beating me in that race.

You know, one time we raced it, we raced together at Myrtle Beach, and it was 20-50s, and my ignition box broke in my car. Kelly let me use her car in a second 20-50. That was pretty cool. That was always a good memory for me. But we didn't really race against each other that much. We went to North Wiltsboro one time. I think like a hundred cars showed up,

and none of us made the race. That was extremely embarrassing. We didn't run that much together. And I wish we kind of had, maybe it was best we didn't, that we all ran at different racetracks, so we didn't get too competitive with each other. We were very supportive.

You know, we'd come home, and I worked on Kelly's cars. So during the week, I built Kelly a car. I built one of her cars that she raced, and I worked on her cars, and I'd go with her to Tri-County and help her and unload her car and help her race it and take it back home, and then I'd work on it all the next week, and then I'd go race my cars on the weekends. My cars were down in South Carolina,

so I could only get to my car to work on it maybe once one night a week. I'd drive down there on a Wednesday and back. That was a lot of fun. I was pretty involved in Kelly's late mall program for many years trying to help her get fast. It's fun. It's tough. Tough for her. Next question from Richard Jenkins Jr.

What's your favorite memory with Mike Davis? He's been on the show for so long, but I feel like we've never heard that many glory-based stories. What's your best greatest memory with me, Mike? Mike, tell me your greatest memory with Dillner. I mean, yeah. You know, that's such a hard question. Is it a hard question? As far as our, I mean, we've, we've,

literally, see, 2004, do the math. It's like 15, 16 years. This is the greatest, one of the greatest memories that you have with me. I don't know. I'm glad the question went to you and not me, though. Yeah. I think the best thing about that was, the best thing with Mike was asking him to come work for me. So he had a great job and was already working with me and had a, he had an avenue, I guess, in my mind. I don't know if this is real or not, but to work in sports marketing through Budweiser and maybe increase that relationship with Budweiser and go that route. Or come work with me and hope that that went well.

But he came and took a job here. He's been just an incredible hire. I know he doesn't want to hear all this. but he's been so helpful in us building our company and stabilizing our business and growing our brand and all those things and just a great great personality with a great creative mind but yeah I mean we've had a lot of fun things that we've done to get I think going to South Korea to the winter Olympics was a great experience for both of us and we spent a lot of time together because we had you know we used to work around each other a lot when he was on the road and then he got all the road and we didn't do a lot of things together in the same place aside from this podcast but that was fun to be able to go on a trip with Mike for a week and see something we both had never seen before and experience such a unique culture we may have that chance again this year

Mike yeah to go to Japan to the summer Olympics so we'll see should be fun more memory making don't do that I was totally joking about that that was a jest I thought that was sweet going to be on the Hallmark Channel. All right. All right, guys, that's all we got today. Man, all right, I appreciate all the questions for Ask Junior from YouTube. All you guys, you know, we really are thankful for you tuning in and supporting our show. The Dirty Mo Media family is very thankful.

This is T.J. Majors. When you're ready to listen to a real podcast with real opinions and insight directly from the racetrack, check us out, a door bumper clear. We keep it real here, holla. We talked about Ryan Newman walking out of the hospital under his own power. We talked about T.J. getting love. and getting the front row on a late race restart. Listen to subscribe to door bumper clear on all major podcast platforms.

All right, Dale Jr., you got any odd history for us this week? I got odd history every week, Mike. Let's hear it. All right, man. J.D. McDuffie. Oh, yeah. Everybody knows that name. You're a NASCAR fan.

One of NASCAR's most well-known independence, Sanford, North Carolina native. He competed in 6503 races on a very small budget. 1983. All right. JD's small budget put him in a pretty bad situation, Mike. They were driving to a race at Riverside International Raceway in Southern California. Jeez. All right.

All the way to the West Coast. Yeah. The old 3.3 mile road course. Cup ran there all the way till I think 87, maybe 88. On the way, McDuffie burned out the clutch on his hauler around Las Vegas. And he had no money to repair it. No way to get to Riverside. So, J.D. took a gamble, literally.

He's in the right town. He's no stranger to gambling. According to Brock Beard's book about J.D. McD., he would often stop by Atlantic City while on the way to race in Dover. And he loved to play poker on the NASCAR Road. All right? It's always a good poker game going on in the driver's owner lot. That's right.

And I'm sure there was back when J.D. was around. Well, this time, with a burnt-up clutch, his next race, depended on it. J.D. took the team's tire money and walked into the Sands Casino and bet it all playing blackjack. Fortunately, McDuffie had a very good hand. He had a lot of luck, and he won $1,300 bucks. Using his winnings, he went to a nearby salvage yard. He bought a new clutch, I doubt it was brand new. He got it all fixed up, was able to go out on the road to Riverside and compete in the race. Wow. Wow. That's good. I mean,

I could end it differently. I imagine. If it didn't happen to JD, maybe it happened to somebody else. But I bet you there's a hundred stories where truck breaks down. They steal a part off the race car to get it to the next race or whatever, right? You know, we did that. Still part off the truck. Yeah.

My truck, we were driving home from Myrtle Beach back around 94, and the alternator went out on the truck. And the battery died. So we pulled the alternator off the race car and the battery out of the race car and got ourselves, I think it was like 10 more miles to the house, but we got there. Man, it was a mill and I. Everybody's dead, tired. Nobody was ready for that.

No bad time for that mess. Right. Yeah. It's climbing in on top of the... So the race car's into Gooseneck. Got to take the hood off, climb in on top of it. You can't even work on the race car properly. You've got to climb on top of the dang thing to work on it.

Yeah. And it was one of those Chevy van box trucks. Not a lot of ease to work in... in that space. No, nothing about that sounded fun. I'm sure it was tougher for JD trying to change the clutch. And you've got to pull the tranny, the drive shaft, all that, get to the clutch. No fun.

Probably took him 10 minutes. I doubt. It's J.D. McD. Well, the man had made a commitment to drive to Riverside International Raceway from the East Coast. Got all the way to Vegas, so it was no turn back. That's right. I don't know. I bet his hauler was comfy, though.

He probably had some Rumpel furniture. Yeah, he might have could have tucked that $1,300 and turned around and went on home. I know, right? I bet he would have had more money had he not went to the race. Right, right. Because I think the winner back then only won, like, 3-4 grand or Riverside, yeah. Right. All right, last call.

Last call. I mentioned it last week, but I'm going to do it again. We've got brand new Dirtymo Media gear. Check it out at DirtyMohmedia.com. You can also find it at the junior media. motorsports trackside trailers. That's right. During NASCAR race weekends.

Yeah. This is a brand new gear that I'm extremely proud of. It's nice and clean. It is nice and clean. Not too busy. Not a lot of crap on it. No imagery. Useless, pointless graphics.

Right. Just Dirtymo Media. If you like what we do and you want to support our podcast, you want to support Derrymo Media, pick up one of these shirts hats. Got the fantasy diecast. Yeah. Absolutely. You got the fantasy diecast out there as well to get your

probably already know this, but our broadcast is also on a TV. All right. There's Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern on NBC Sports Network. That's right. I noticed last week they actually aired two downloads in a row, did they? They did. Yeah, they aired the, you know, the episode last week, the Larson and Graction, and then all of a sudden at 6 o'clock they had a Humpy Wheeler on it.

You know why? No, why? Because people were tuning in to see the show. They put on, they're going to put on the network what people want to watch. So the reason why they ran back-to-back shows is because we got a lot of folks So, so tune in next week all around the clock. Dale Jr. download. Just wait for it.

My intention of saying all that was to compliment the people for supporting our show. That's it. Right. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in. That's right. Was that humble? Not the most humble thing, but is that?

Yeah, really? I really. Maybe I'm a . I just don't even know it. No, it's good. Am I? No, we've got to be proud of it. It's the first time I've ever heard Dale brag about anything.

I know. I want to. I know, right? No, no, no. Take it back. Take it back. Yeah, be proud of it. What a mess.

This is exciting. Our Dirty Mo Media crew hits the road tomorrow to get back to work on Lost Speedways. This is a show we are producing for Peacock. NBC's new streaming network. That's Peacock. It's a new streaming network. Download the app. Whatever.

Go online. Peacock. All right. That's where we're going to be. That's the only place that's going to have it. All right. Movies, classic programming, originals, late night shows, live sports.

all of that will be on Peacock as well as Lost Speedways. If you're wondering how to get this new streaming service, when it launches, go to PeacockTV.com. All kinds of information there for you guys. All right. That's it. Yeah, I'm excited about Lost Speedways. Man, we were just shooting around some emails over the last couple days about our intro.

Yeah. And we're getting all kinds of great. You know, can I even talk about it? Yeah, let's talk about it. So we're cutting in editing. You guys are cutting it. Yeah. A lot of people in this room.

that you can't see right now. We're putting it together and then we get influence from the bosses. The NBCPET. Yes, it's pretty cool. And the reason that's so awesome, and you know this,

because when we send it, we don't know what we're going to get back. It could come back going, you are idiots. This is trash. This is terrible. Start over. What are you going to do to our brand?

You know, I mean, and we would just be like, we're not putting this on peacock. Right. But they came back and they were like, this is good. Yeah. So it's been a lot of fun

It's been very I think Mayan's been fun I'm sure you guys are enjoying it And I can't wait to see What the fans think when they see it That'd be fun What else? What's next? What is next?

I've got a little bit of a break You do? Yeah, aside from doing the podcast Yeah I've got a couple weeks To hang around the family Hell yeah Good for you

Look forward to me Yeah, you enjoy that Yeah Might go skiing Snow skiing Would this be the first time Since South Korea? Yes

Yes yes Yeah Yes. So what was that? Two years ago? Two years ago. Yeah. So I might go skiing.

Mike remembers that. Yeah. I might go skiing. My doctor's. I might run an Xfinity race. I don't know. You got that coming up. Oh, yeah.

That's true. Yeah. Literally, what? Less than the month. Yeah. The 21st of March. Actually, I got to get up from this table right here and go into the shop and work on my seat and headrest. Hell yeah.

That's old school. Yeah. They asked me to come in and do that today. day. Awesome. All right. We'll wrap this show up. Thanks for, yeah, thanks for everybody to tune in. Matthew, great job producing and editing this show. Especially the editing, Matthew. Especially the editing. Great job. Just incredible. Just awesome job. Just so good. And thanks for tuning in, everybody. All major platforms, podcast platforms is how you can listen to this show. Don't forget about the TV show. We talked about

that. Thanks to Rick Mast, another great guest. Can't wait until next week. We'll see you. Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.