The Dale Jr. Download - 287 - James Finch: Rednecks & Elitists

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

He has been described as "An American badass and a true redneck icon," and now Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with James Finch for a tell-all table conversation for the ages. The former NASCAR car owner shares the story of his daredevil beginnings, how leveling his home caused a divorce, being with Neil Bonnett until the end, and the colorful cast of characters who drove his racecars. Finch reveals why he once gave a check back to NASCAR, turned down a Toyota deal and how he splashed Crown Royal on Geoff Bodine during a pit stop. From sipping a red-solo cup to providing physical enhancements for lady friends, Finch doesn't hold back. The DJD gang also discusses the single lug nut announcement that sparked a social media frenzy and an interesting fan council question about paint scheme changes that piqued Dale Jr.'s interest. 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.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Brought you by Dirtymo Media. I'm Dale Jr. And with me, as always, Mike Davis. What's up? Leah, Matthew. I got a bit of a cold. So we're going to try to get through this without too many. Yeah. Any of those? You know, that kind of thing going on.

Sound like T.J. Majors during D.C. I feel terrible. Was he sick? No, he just goes every damn episode. He does that when he's healthy. Okay. Well, we got a really good show for you today. James Finch. All right.

So I know a lot of people do know who James Finch is. A lot of people don't. But I believe that this will be one of the most entertaining interviews that we will do at this table. So looking forward to it. Let's get the show started. All right, man. Open segment. Well, we got one thing to talk about.

You know, we had a NASCAR had a. NASCAR had a test at Fontana after the race on Monday and today. I think William Byron is driving a car. That's right. And I got a text on my phone about the fact that the car had a single lug on it and to be ready for that all to hit social media and create quite a conversation, which it did. NASCAR is going to a single lug, much like you would see on an Indy car for the new car, The traditional five lug pattern will go away in cup.

Now, we're going to have it in the Xfinity series and the truck series for the foreseeable future. I don't know when that stuff is all going to be transitioned out or if it will ever change, but we're unexpected on the Xfinity side to make that change at the same time as the Cup guys, which is nice. It will be a little bit of an expense on the front end. Anyhow, you know, it did create quite an uproar because a lot of people are like me. I mean, I'm a traditionalist. I like old school.

I don't like a lot of change. And, you know, most of the cars that you see driving around on the street do have more than one lug. There's not many single lug cars out there going up down the road. So there's a lot of people that feel like that, you know, they want cars to remain as similar and close to what you're going to see on the production room floor. And, yeah, I mean, I can see that argument because I would have totally been head on against this change, maybe five, ten years ago. I would be railing against NASCAR for doing this.

Simply from a tradition standpoint. Yeah, just because I don't want it to change. You know, dog, I want it to stay the same. I got you. Why are we changing something that's not broke? You know, about, and I've had the same conversation, but I'll have it again, about a couple years before the end of my career, particularly the last year. Something just happened, man.

I just got to where, you know what, I'm going to pick my battles, and I really don't, you know, don't want to, some things aren't up for debate they just aren't this is a change that is going to happen now do I want to sit there and waste energy complaining about it even though I can't change it right this isn't the hill you're wanting to die on

no you've got to pick your battles now I sent you all something on social media right earlier right in the weekend I guess NASCAR sends out these fan surveys which I need to get on that email is good Lord they probably have you lock from that list. One of their biggest fans.

Yeah, that's true. I am a big, big NASCAR fan. Would love to be on the fan survey email list. But they, you know, I get this stuff secondhand, apparently in this fan survey. They're asking fans about their opinion on where the number is located on the car, whether, you know, you're okay if the number's moved. And what I mean by that is take the number and slide it back toward the rear tire,

even put it on the rear quarter panel, make it really, really small. and place it all over the car, right? Now, that is a hill I'm willing to die on. Now, why is that? Explain that one. You know, if you said to me today, all right, you got two, you can affect one of two things, where the number is and what it looks like, or the single lug wheel, I could give a lot less about that single lug wheel.

I got you. I don't care about the single lug wheel. All right, and you know why? Because I've had wheels fly off my cars before. Sure. Now, this is not something that happens often. And I know that the single lug wheel is not foolproof, but if it is any safer than what we have, I'm all for it.

As long as it keeps a tire on the car, I went down into turn one on the restart and lost the left rear tire and spun out, took Jamie McMurray with me, hard, hard, hard crash. And I've had wheels, you know, in it. terrified me. Yeah. From that moment on, it terrified me anytime I had a vibration. Terrified that I was going to have a wheel come off.

Because, I mean, you cannot, you can't slow a car down without a wheel on it. Right. Right. Mashing the brakes, it just don't do nothing. Yeah. You know, so from that standpoint, if it's any safer, great. Single lug all the way. It's not, I don't watch the race to see guys changing five versus one.

It doesn't matter to me. Pit stops are going to look the same to me. You know, guys are. still going to have the potential to make mistakes, do it wrong, do it better, do it faster. And to be clear for anybody that doesn't know, that they're changing to an 18-inch aluminum wheel. And so the engineering behind that is to say that five lug nuts on an 18-inch aluminum wheel isn't going to be as safe as, I think they even had the numbers and percentages, like 30% less durable or whatever it is. But that being said, that's the reason. That's the logic.

Well, whatever it is. It doesn't matter. I don't feel like arguing over it. I don't feel like fussing over it and tweeting all about it. And you know what I do want to argue over and tweet about? The number. And argue, yeah. Like, and fight for is where the numbers located on the car.

Now, all right. Sponsorships change. They change weekly. Some teams have so many sponsors. They run a different looking car every week, right? Yeah. The one thing that remains the same. the one thing that keeps the identity of that vehicle is the number, right?

That is the one link, solid, consistent link to that driver week in and week out. And it's more important than ever now. Really, think about it. What you just said with sponsors changing. Oh. Yeah, he was, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't know if he had another additional, like.

Oh, I'm wounded on a few hills. I'm wounded on a few hills here, so don't mind me. You piped up like you had an additional... I know. I thought he was about to go on a soapbox. I've got a soapbox, but I'm keeping my mouth-tham mouth shut today. So, you know, the number, where the number is matters to me. I don't want it on the back of the car or on the quarter panel.

Now, sliding it back toward the right rear tire, hey, yeah, I'm all right with that. Keep it on the door. All right, so this is the reason why I am okay with them sliding it back, okay? Okay. It does have an old school sort of feel to it. but it also opens up, basically NASCAR took the contingency decals off the front fenders of the cars. That's right. Right. And they're trying, well, now NASCAR, the RTA.

In conjunction with that, they're trying to figure out how to sell that space. All right. Now, if they slide the number back, that certainly opens up a larger area for a nice, visible logo to appear. All right. Right on the door panel. Like big logo. Almost like as big as it is on the hood. Now the logic behind this is get a logo big on the same.

side of that car. Now that is the, that's the point of trying to take the number and putting it on the rear quarter panel is that now you have the entire side of the car to put a logo in a sponsor. Right. You know, and I get that,

but it's just too far, it's just too far away from tradition. It's just too far away from what I'm comfortable with to move it from outside of the, of the tires, right? Now, if you take the number and slide it back to open up a little more space on that front, on that side of the car to put a logo, that's great. Or just keep it where it is.

You would really be okay with that, though? I mean, like in your perfect scenario, you're saying don't change a thing. I want the number. But if they move it to the back. All right, so NASCAR has made rules. I don't know if they've relaxed these at all, but they've made rules on the size that the number can be on the door. Did you know that?

No. It's going to be a certain size. It can't exceed a template that they have so that the number's not just basically taking up the whole side of the car. which I don't like. I feel like that it sort of boxes, it puts everybody in the same box, you know. It just takes away a little bit of creativity

and setting yourself apart and whatever you want to do with the number of your car. You're limited now because there's this template that NASCAR wants you to fit into. All right, so I would have made the 88s on my car bigger, all right? Oh, wow. Yeah, I thought they were, they were just a little small for me. Wow, okay.

They've made that change. They've limited the size and what the number can how big the boxes can be for the number, right? I just think that the number needs to stay in between the tires. Like it can be slid forward. It can stay in the center or it can slide back. Don't take it off the side of the car. Did you find this on Twitter by chance?

Was that where you saw this? Okay. Reddit. I have to say that I found it through NASCAR Reddit. Reddit, okay. And so basically they had a graphic of how many options is this, six? Yeah. And then I saw your tweet where you're like,

there's really only two options. in your world in their of the six that they got right so you're not an official voice in this you know as far as the fangos you'd like to be i got it i i'm uh i'm still formulating my opinion on that you know where i struggle i struggle with wanting to be a purist but also you know i struggle with you know wanting to keep the sport going and keeping up with the trends you know in in the in fact that's that's how i you know i apply my logic with the the single lug nut wheel. Yeah.

Is it, listen, yeah, sure, I love five lug nuts. But, you know, if we're supposed to keep up with the trends and everything, there's a lot of the things that are more concerning to me than the freaking lug nuts, which I hardly ever think about during a race. So there's trends and street cars to have single lugs? I don't mean it that way. I mean it in the trends and the keeping our sport relevant in the future, you know, 10, 20, 30 years from now.

But my point is that lug nuts don't really fit that. and I don't know if numbers fit that for me personally. You know, I'm more concerned about, you know, the generation that has a little bit less of a passion in front of the automobile than their dads did or the rise of e-sports and that kind of thing. So I struggle from a purity standpoint and a traditional standpoint, but also want to, I got to want to keep the get the sport to keep up with the times too. And then here we land in the argument of money versus identity. And identity is super important. And that's your point. what do people identify with?

Because we think that we know that that's the key to your heart. You know, you got to identify and have a relatability to stuff. So you don't want to go jeopardize the relatability factor, much in the way the car tomorrow did. Yes. And you've got to have an identity. And so I see your point on that. I just don't know what the, you know, there's some things that NASCAR's changed that I thought would have bigger effect on the identity. But frankly, after the rules changed, I don't know.

I don't think anybody really noticed it after that, after the big overreaction for the first week, you know, or something like that. I hear you. So the COT, there was a point in NASCAR when you could look out across the racetrack and pick out a Chevy and a Ford and immediately recognize the models and the cars, right? And then we got to a point where that was very difficult to do. Almost gone. That was bad for us to lose the brand identity.

of the manufacturers and the manufacturers suffered for it and their ability to really get behind the sport and promote and invest in the sport became challenging because they couldn't get a return on it because their car wasn't obviously recognizable out there on the racetrack so we've gotten some of that back a lot of it back really to be honest with you when you look at the noses of the cars they are not as similar as they used to be they've got their own sort of markings and grills and character lines and so forth that set them apart, which is great. The more we can keep that identity, the better.

I feel like that this is a similar situation to where if you take that number and you minimize it, you place it somewhere on the car where it's not as easily visible, you're basically taking the identity away from that car that connects it to that driver. Yeah. Okay, so when you think about Darrell Waltrop,

you think about number 11, number 17. When you think about Dale Jarrett, you think of 88. Think of the number. Right. You think of the number. You often think of the number before you do the sponsor. And that's even tougher now because teams have so many different schemes.

I remember in the 90s, it was crazy when a guy was going to run a different paint scheme. And they did that on select events. All-Star Race. It's like, oh, man, All-Star Race is going to be. He's going to have an orange car. Right. It's crazy. Dad ran a black car every year, week in and week out.

He's going to have a silver car? What? Yeah. All right. Now, that was crazy. Yeah. Now, I mean, guys are changing cars and colors and sponsors week and week out out of necessity. It's not a big deal.

It's not talked about. And I feel like that why is because that number is the identity, the link from the car to the driver. If you take that number away, if you minimize it. you minimize it, make it small, make it insignificant. How in the heck can you tell who's who, right? When you look at cars. With all the sponsors changing all the time. Right.

Who is it? Who are you what? God, it would be hard for the spotters to even know which cars is. Yeah. If I'm watching the cars on the racetrack restart, I don't know who's where, what the hell. That's a good point. Yeah. You're making your case.

So I just feel like that they've got to be careful there. And you know what? I've learned to NASCAR's credit. The survey is a survey. survey. Right. It wasn't supposed to be, it wasn't supposed to be a news item. It wasn't. Right. And this is not new, by the way. This has been talked about for a decade. Maybe that's why I'm not on the survey email. Right. Because I would make. I guarantee it. I would make all of the, I would make all of the selections public have such a, it's basically to get everyone's temperature on it. And I feel like that NASCAR is going to walk away with that information and, you know, make the correct choice. And so maybe I'm getting all torn up about it for nothing, but certainly. No, you give a crap.

I mean, you know, you care about it, so that's good. But if you look at the history of motorsports, ASA tried this in the 2000s, and it looked awful. Awful. I forgot about that. NASCAR, if you look at NASCAR's history, they've allowed it a little on the E-Series, but you got to go all the way back to like the 50s with. the Hudson cars that would put the numbers on the rear quarter panels. That was cool because you had the fabulous Hudson Hornet.

If you've got like, you know, just name some sponsor on the side of it, you're right. The identity is the number and I think that it should stay between the doors. I would, if the cars were, if, you know, if you knew that, you know, your favorite driver was going to be driving this paint scheme every single week, then you could probably make an argument that the number is not quite as critical. Right. Because you can recognize this car every time you see it on the track. But they're changing cars and sponsors and stuff.

So often out of necessity that the number is really the last link to identity on. Kind of a brand. It is a brand. When an entity loses or a person, when you lose your identity, what you want to be known for, what people can relate to, then you've really lost all of your equity, in my opinion. and all the stuff that you've built up because identity matters. You know, as far as this show goes,

you know, this show formed an identity over time, and we try to protect that identity. A lot of times, and we, you know, if there's a, you know, if there's sponsors on the show that, or potential sponsors, but it doesn't really fit our identity or Dale's brand, we turn it away. You got to be able to, you got to preserve your identity

on what you want your show to be. Otherwise, you know, those identities that, you know, just kind of ambling around and not really know what you are. It doesn't really work in the long game. Yeah. You make a good point. So if you go back to the five-lug route, you don't care.

Don't care. Matthew. Don't even ask me. Don't ask you? Come on. You're here. Matthew is a traditionalist. You are.

When I bring new people to a NASCAR race, okay, here's my argument. My initial argument was what you said about, you know, they're not on the street cars, so I don't want to see them on there. I mean, there's what? products, a Porsche, that's about it to have a single line. But I get you here. We got 18-inch wheel. They need the single lug for the integrity of the wheel.

It's a safety thing. They've made that clear. That's what they're saying. That's what they're saying. My whole thing with that is I bring people down. I used to bring people down to pit road. Hey, if you're here for a first NASCAR racing, you have pit passes. Stay till the first pit stop.

Watching the artistry of the pit stop, which won't change as far as them running around the car. But the skill level that's involved and hitting those lugs, And I know from a driver that makes you nervous because if you miss one, it's a little shaky. Which they do often. At times, started doing it on purpose. But it's an incredible process, the pit stop, the artistry of a pit stop. And I don't, I'm scared of losing that tradition. You know, a lot of things I've been wrong at.

I was totally wrong with the chase, the playoffs. I didn't like it at first, but by God it's awesome. This one I'm a little more scared of. But if they're not losing members. I'm sorry, Mike. You're right. If you had two dominoes standing there and said which one's going to take the sport down, all right, which one's going to be a negative, the playoffs or the single lug, and he would go with single luck.

No, I was wrong about the playoffs. I was like a hater of it, and I think it's great. Well, I mean, we all were, because it felt like a knee-jerk reaction to Matt Kenseth winning a championship. Consistency, you know, how dare he do that? That's a good example of people that love tradition and love the sport that you grew up on and then change nobody likes change and so but but we can also admit we're wrong but we can also admit we we want the sport to be around for a long time and so if if you know sometimes you have to just rely on the people that that run the sport to make decisions that they're obviously

in in the long game as well and um i just don't think the lug nuts thing frankly i don't i don't apply the lug nut situation to my definition of a stock car frankly i know why you it just doesn't occur to me in my mind you change a car a car or the side of the road. Are you hitting a single lug? Well, if we wanted to get real traditionalists, then the cars would pull off to the shoulder, pop the trunk, go into the floorboard, pull out a spare tire, you know, assemble the jack, you know, the four-piece jack thing and just wind that son of a bitch up, wouldn't they? But that's not what they do. So nothing that they do in changing tires applies to my life.

So that's why I guess I don't really look at it and define it as a stock car. Yeah. I mean, yeah. We are so beyond, I mean, it's decades. The stock and the stock car has been gone for decades. Sure. You know, and I mean, I'd love to go back to looking out across the racetrack and seeing what really looks just like a production car going around there, but we're so far removed from it. It's an impossible ask, and this is just such a small, menial thing

in the grand scheme of what makes the sport work and not work. and what we need to really concern ourselves with. Single lug versus five lug is a blip on the radar of what I think the real concerns are about the future of the sport and how we get better and how we improve. You know, this whole car, the single lug is a tiny, tiny fraction of so much change that this new car is going to bring in. Right. So this car is completely unlike anything. It's not similar at all, really, to the car they drive today.

It's going to be a huge, huge shift away from, you know, what we know as a stock car and what we know is a NASCAR stock car, you know. And so this, it's funny because people are making such a big deal out of a single look thing. But, I mean, there's, that's like a lot. There's a long, long list of things that are changing about the car that they drive. today and the new car coming next year or 2021. So, you know, I hope we don't have to have this conversation about all those items that are going to be different. But we'll see.

It's been interesting, man, because, you know, they said they made a lot of changes on the, I guess this is the third version that they're testing today. They improved the ability for the teams to work on the car, change sway bars and springs and shocks and so forth because it apparently was very very. difficult to change some of those items and I can't wait to really lay my eyes on one of these cars and I want to wait a while right I want to wait because it's so early there's some open tests later in the year and there's a lot of tests I was looking on I think Matt was it Matt weaver his he had a list of in on his social media he had the schedule for all the tests and there's a lot

of testing going on all year long with this new generation car and yeah it's going to make so many. I remember when the COT came out, it was so bad. I mean, it was obviously still bad when we were done for making it, you know, and then we began to race it. It was an awful car. But man, the very first few, you know, versions of that, a car were so freaking bad. Oh, that were being tested? Yeah, so slow and terrible. Oh, really? Drove like crap. I mean, it drove worse than it did when it finally got. Do you have a little bit of concern about the next gen car being, you know, such an abrupt change to what we're used to that it's going to be the wrong car? No, I don't, I don't feel like that it'll really look.

I don't, one thing that I think will be, the racing to me will not, if I had to bet, right, I can't, I can't assume anything. None of us can. But if I had to guess, the racing is probably not going to look different. I got you. The cars are going to be visually shaped differently in some ways. You can see pictures of the car on the internet. It's a little different looking, but, you know, when they're all out there together,

it's kind of look pretty much the same as it's always looked. The wheels are cool. Yeah, besides the single look. This guy likes the wheels. You know, some people will like the wheels. Some people will like this and that and the other. We still haven't seen anything yet as far as the different manufacturers. This is kind of like the same car they keep bringing with the same body over and over.

And I imagine, I don't know how far, you know, how much more change has to happen with that to make the cars unique from manufacturer to manufacturer because that's so important. We talked about the brand identity. But I think there's a lot still to be learned about this car and I'm going to sit back and wait. I'm not going to get too opinionated about what's going on right now. Yeah. That's all good. You are the most opinionated Institutional person

I mean I just made my case Single lug, five love Don't care I know you did But that's good That's good But man wait till the next change

comes out And who knows what it is What if they You know What if they got wings On the side of the new Next generation card No way they're doing that

All right Cool man I don't think we got anything We got Phoenix coming up We do All right You know what's going on At Phoenix?

One last thing for an open discussion What's that? Short spoiler Oh Oh, thank God. Get rid of that. Big deal now. With the single lug and all the other things going on in the sport,

this has kind of been overlooked. But NASCAR is going back toward a shorter spoiler for the short track package this year. This will be an important race for those people who are pro, you know, low down for us. Yeah. All right. So if we have a spectacular event, it's great for that. that argument, I think they should take the spoilers off entirely and see how that works. See how they drive that thing.

See if they can drive that. Boy, that would be some carnage. Yeah. So I'm hoping that they have a spectacular race and that this shorter spoiler is the answer to help these guys be able to get around each other at the short tracks. They're going to run it in all the short tracks this year, including some of the tracks that aren't short tracks like Phoenix. Oh, wait a second. I know what you just did there. I know what you just did there. Yeah, a little politician there.

Okay, it's time for a little DIY. Not just any DIY guys. It's talking about Valvaline DIY. And this ain't an ad read. We have a question for you, Dale. And really, let's all chime in here because I think it could be all of us here. What's the last thing you did by yourself, not having anyone else help, to one of your vehicles? The last thing you did, to one of your vehicles. Be honest. All right? Dale, you want to go first? Or do you want me to go first? I had a little small car at a vacation home down in Florida, and it would sit for a while between visits.

And every time I'd go down there, the battery would be dead, and I would have to replace the battery. So I think that's probably the last... Battery changer. I had a problem with the radio in my 48 pickup truck. and I did a little investigating, but I didn't fix the radio. Right. You had to go diagnose the problem.

Yeah, battery works. Yeah. Basically, you know what I did? So I got a power switch like a race car has on off. Cuts any kind of connection to the battery. And it's in the console of the truck. It's a little ammo box. Think about an old beat-up, rusty truck.

Consoles an ammo box. This is... Like an old... Yes. All improvised. And so it's got a little power switch down there, and I left it on. And I flew somewhere for the weekend, maybe Daytona was. I can't remember.

But I came back, the truck was dead. So I went to jump the truck off, and I hooked it up, hooked up the jumper instead of going to where the battery was, which is in the floorboard of the pasture side of the truck, which is tough to get to. I tried to jump the truck off from that power switch in the console, and I fried the radio. I had the radio wired directly up to this thing as well. so yeah i just put this it was like a little bluetooth boat sort of radio yeah transmitter or whatever yeah not a not a head unit but um it melted all that stuff it cooked it well almost kind of innovation i liked it uh last thing i did i mean i had a flat tire so i had to change a tire i mean i know

that's not a very sexy answer but it literally you're asking the last thing i did on my own is what it is you know and with those uh you know Chevy silver autos you know you got to get that thing up off the ground. Were you wishing at that particular time that this was a single lug? No, I actually, yeah, a single lug would have been great, right? But that's an ironic situation right there, isn't it, based off of the conversations this week? That was mine, too. That was off of 85.

You had to change your tire? Yeah, cold morning, but I was proud. Do you time yourself? I thought of, like, remember Christmas story where he gets out and he's like, you know, pretending like, here we go, here's the stopwatch, honey, tie me. Like I felt like that, but I had nobody with me to do it. It would have been fun, challenge. I time myself with everything.

Yeah. Yeah. You time yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Leah? That sounds like a Griswold kind of thing. Well, you know where it starts from? Clark.

Yeah, Clark's going to time himself. The very first flat tire I ever had, I was a teenager, and I was in our church parking lot and I remember a guy saying when I had I changed the tire and I needed help at the time because I wasn't this first time I'd ever done it and he said to me you'll never make it on Richard Petty's pit crew and ever since then I have that in my head so it's like okay can I get on Richard Petty's pit crew what's my situation on the shoulder of the road you know it'll be safe but I always think about that that's probably what you thought of since you're a big Petty fan yeah what about you Just putting gas in it count.

Oh, wow. No, I don't think it does. Yeah, I got nothing. You got nothing. Yeah. You know what? I mean, I take it to the dealership and get the oil change when it needs it, but I don't do that myself. Yeah.

And your boyfriend's a crew chief. If you did that stuff yourself, then shame on him. I watched him do something on Sunday. He fixed a battery cable in the truck that was bad. But I didn't do it. I just watched. So I didn't think that counted. Wouldn't it be something if you and Taylor are driving around and then, you know, he makes you change the flat?

I mean, like, what's up with that, right? If he would be that guy? They'd still be on the road. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we got. All right, good. A special thanks to Vivalene for sponsoring the D.JD and the DIY segment to find the right product.

For any engine, please visit Vivalene.com slash Dale. Valvaline, trusted for 150 years. There he is. Here he comes. James Fincher. is in the house at long last. Have a seat, James. This is a treat right here.

I can tell you already. I get up and shake your hand, but I got a cold, so. That's adult. Yeah, I don't want to. He don't want you to. Pass that on to you. Wow. Welcome, man.

How are you being? Man, you look great. You do. I'm hanging together. Yeah. Well, I have to tell you something. I don't know that we've had as much anticipation for a guest as we have this week with you. A lot of people are excited to have you in the house.

and man we are too so thank you for making it happen yeah where'd you come from panama city yeah when did you when did you get here last night last night how's panama city panama city is good but you had the hurricane come through there and blow everything away but yeah other than that they still cleaning up and getting squared away the beach is doing good is that right does phoenix construction have anything to do with that in the cleanup oh yeah yeah yeah and doing that and some road work how is the construction company is that good been good okay because that's where it all started right yeah work full time now Right. You don't have your, you're there for the weekends now. You don't do that. How's life after racing?

Man, I tell you what, bored is hell. Are you? Yeah. But you know, I've been going a few races and short track races and stuff like that. Yeah, like super late mall stuff and you still support some teams out there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So what came first? Construction company or racing. Racing. Why did you get involved in racing? Well, I was working at a service station. I was about nine or ten years old. And they had a little zoo out back and I'd have to feed the Bucky and the bear in the line and fill up the cars from the coming. A zoo at the convenience store? No, it was a service station. A service station. Had a zoo.

Uh-huh. Behind it. You had some snakes and stuff like that. As all service stations do. Where is it at? You know, used to when you come to Florida, you've seen the signs to see the monkey, see the advertising. Oh, I got you.

I got you. It's a long time ago. And so, we did that, and the guy that had a service station had a race car. And he got cranking that thing up and got to mess with it. totally meserized me and I've been screwed up ever since. Did you ever drive? A little bit. I wasn't very good at it. I had to go to work.

I didn't have no money. So that's how I got to be an owner. I was working in construction, you know, working out in Panama Canal around and I come back and one of my friends was racing my other friends. So I got to help him a little bit. So I went up on in the car. He quit paying and so that's how I got to be a car. And how old were you about then?

I was probably 23 or 4 years old. Okay, early 20s, that's your first time being a car owner. Uh-huh. And, boy, you were in the game for a long time and still are. Long time. Yeah, and because you, what do you own right now, like as far as cars go? Your son's racing? Yeah, he's got a little outlaw.

He's been... An outlaw. Yeah. Gotcha. Outlaw late model? Yes, it's a late model car with an 8-inch tires and a 2-barrel. Uh-huh. That sounds fun.

So we started that, and I took him. up to Cleveland to the All-Star game, the home run derby and all. So I went by Hudders there and said, hey, man, you got to build me a motor. Hunter, yeah, long time engine guy. Oh, yeah. Ron Hunter. Yeah. So, I mean, he was, I went by there and so he built me a motor and I got a car and so we got squared away. So you got a Hutter engine in your kid's car. Oh, yes. And what is it? I imagine that that does all right for him then. Yes, it does. I mean, Hutter was, you know, I I remember I was racing the Hutter Motors when I went up nationwide racing or bush racing back then. We were in Nashville and Tony Sr. come to me and says, man, says, how do I get in touch with Hutter?

He said, I just got an argument with Fisher here and Fisher said he's on the pole in California and I told him, I said, if he'll invert the damn field, we'll be on the pole here. So I got him, Hutter's information and all that and y'all started doing the Hutter Motors. Power. Torque. Oh, that's a torque. Great guy. He was, you ran them? I ran him in 9899.

He won the championship. Oh, yeah. Nasty. You had Hutter engines in the championship years? They were great. Hey. You had to. Yeah, Hutter was the man because he was winning.

Blue, y'all had Blue on here. When he went up to. Gary Ballou. Syracuse, Hutter did that deal. Hutter and Kenny Whale. Yeah, when he went up there with that ground effects car. That's right. He was two and a half seconds faster in the field.

He had about 200 cars. I mean, that's like Monday and Friday. Oh, yeah. That is. Yeah. But that was Ron Hunter. And Hunter built all of the modified driver that was so good out of Virginia. And he beat Jerry Cook all those times.

Ray Hendrick. No. No. No. No. No. Jack Tant. But it was a, he's in the Hall of Fame there.

And they were one of the first ones they put in Hall of Fame. He was modified driver. Richie Evans. See, Ron did all Richie's motors. Yeah, that's interesting. So he's been around a long time. He has. So I went up there and he was getting a knee operated on.

I said, man, he couldn't hardly walk. So he said, well, I got to go get this knee squared away and then I'll build your son of motor. And so he did that. Yeah. You mentioned Ballou. Ballou's from down in Florida. Do you race against him much?

Yeah, I raced against him, and then he worked for me and he drove for me. He did? When did he drive for you? Well, the first time he got out of school. Yeah. He'd come back. The first time he got out of school. In the 80s?

In the 80s. Yeah. Yeah, he was from down south Florida, and I was in North Florida. Okay. And he had a kid that was Jeff Gordon's crew chief who won two or three championships. Ray? No one to work with Petty over there. Oh, oh, Loomis.

Robby Loomis. Yeah. He was a golfer for Ballou. Oh, wow. Running around. No kidding. He's streaking through the garage sometime. You know, when the streaking was popper and stuff.

What, Robbie Loomis is streaking through the garage? Yeah. No kidding. Okay. I bet Lumas didn't know that that story would ever have. Yeah. Robbie did a real good job later on in life. He did. Yeah. Ballou finally got sorted out.

He was a lot of fun to have on here. You know, I read his book, and he came on here, and now he's doing some documentary. So it's been pretty interesting to hear about him. Yeah, he was something else back in the day. I asked him, I was like, so, all right, you got busted for smuggling, and then you got out. you're okay, you're racing, you're winning, and you started smuggling again. You had to have known that they were watching your ass. Why in the hell would you go right back to it?

And he's like, man, I was broke. I couldn't believe it. Well, I'm like, damn, though, dude, you're like, you were, like, you got a freaking bull's eye all over your back. Right, right. You got some heat on you. Yeah. Well, he was doing that when we were short track racing. I mean, everybody would mount up eight or ten tires, you know, and he'd mount up 40.

Yeah. Right. We've heard some great stories. I was at work one day, and his lawyer called me from South Florida and said, I'm so-and-so with so-and-so law firm or whatever. He said, do you know Gary Blue? I said, yes, sir. He said, he's giving me your name and was saying that you might help him get out on bond.

Oh. I said, what's he in for? He said, well, it's kind of like importation of narcotics. I said, you mean running dope? He said, I said, what did they catch him with or whatever? And he said, well, he caught him with two or three kilos. Two kilos. I said, well, he must have started with three.

Right, right, right. You know. I mean, knowing him, he'd see the Coast Guard and trying to outrun him, you know. Sure, sure. But he was a good guy. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you get him out? No, no, no.

You stayed out of that thing. Yeah, I stayed out of that. I didn't want to lose my money that way. Don't call James Finch. No, not for that. Not for that. So we called around asking some people that you know about some stories about you. And apparently you'd gotten hurt jumping motorcycles at a fair.

Yeah. What were you jumping motorcycles at a fair for? Trying to make some money. You were like a stuntman. Well, part time. Like a Joey Chitwood, kind of. Yeah, jumping cars. You know, they were going to pay $1,000 for somebody to.

How old are you at this point? That's about 20, 21. Right. He was going to pay a thousand dollars for a guy jump. eight or ten cars, eight cars, I think. And I was making about 300 a week, working on a drag line, totting fuel about a mile into the swamp, you know, and all that. And I said, that's me.

I said, you know, I can do that. You'll do that. Had you been riding bikes? No, well, not, but I'd ridden them off. So I had to go borrow a bike. So I went to barred the bike and sailed over the cars, you know, slid down, you know, and popped up, and all the little girls going crazy and all that. And I said, man, this is pretty good right here.

and made $1,000 in about five minutes. I said, I'm not going back to that drag line. Right. So I tried it a few more times, and so we went up to jump at a racetrack over there. It was a dirt track and sailed over the cars and hit the dirt and end over the end, all the mud up under the helmet and all, and it's about 30 degrees. And they come out there with a water hose washed me all off, and about 30 degrees. So I said, you know, I probably need to get my job.

job back. Yeah. So you ended up. Yeah. It was the mud and the cold. One night you got banged up and they took you to the hospital and ended up, your buddies ended up getting drinking and leaving in the truck overnight. Damn near died.

Right. How'd that happen? Well, they took me to the hospital and they loaded up everything. They come to the hospital and then I was up and I broke both my collar bones, knocked all my toenails off. Ouch. And over in. To toenails?

Yeah, well, had some. plastic shoes. You know, I had more, more stars and evil, you know. So when I went to end over in down the asphalt, the old plastic shoes just kind of blew up. Wait, all right. Well, first of all, getting your toenails ripped off, underrated injury right there. I never even thought about that. That would hurt.

Did you have a suit? Yeah, had a leather suit and all in it. I had the white plastic-type boots, you know, with a zip up and the side. So, so anyway, I said, let's get out. out of here. So we got a wheelchair. They rolled me out of the hospital and had a Dodge long van and we got in the back seat of the van and had a couch in there and had a 400 Yamaha'all two-stroke strap down in there. So I laid down on the couch and then I had my collar bones broke so I couldn't get up. So when they pulled up to the motel and they said, you want to go in? I said, no, I'm just

going to lay here. That was about two or three o'clock in the morning. Well, about 10 o'clock the next morning, it was about 120 degrees in that van. And that two-stroke was leaking gas all in the day. I was just about gas completely out, you know. So hell, they don't get up to about 1 o'clock, you know, and they come down there check on me, and I'm blue about that time. Wow, that's dangerous. Everything about it.

Yeah, every story I got here has got some sort of element of danger. I know. But that's what happens. So I got my job back. Did you? Yeah. There's one story in particular, but there's a lot of different versions of it. I want you to figure, tell us which one is the truth.

But you ended up, you bulldozed your house down. Why? And I've heard that it was because a girlfriend wouldn't move out. Then I heard it was because of a mother-in-law annoying you with her ideas on how to renovate it. That's where it was. And my wife at the time, and my mother-law was redoing the house, and they was taking a window out. We had rented this little bit of apartment.

I stayed in this apartment. I'd go stay in there for about a month, and I'd been in about four months, and they were still messing with the doors and messing with this. And so I go over there one day, and they go in the town to do something. And so I send the shop and get some dump trucks and a big 966 front end loader when they get back. I pushed the whole house down the swimming pool out, and we load it up, and it's going down the road. So my mother-in-law pulls up there, and she white-eyes and falls out in the road there. Really?

Yes, so they get the hamless to her. It wasn't long after that I was divorced, but... No. I can't imagine that. I can't imagine that happened. The outcome of this. So the house that... It was the house that you come in was the second time I built it. The next time the storm come in, got water in the house, and all.

So I was cleaning up the storm all for the county and all. And I was late getting my house redone, so when I pushed it down again, it started up. You'll bulldozed it a second time. Second time. So every time a diesel. truck had come through the neighborhood, everybody get shaky there for a while. Yeah. Right.

You had to bulldozing houses. Yeah. You know what? It does sound fun. I've done that. Yeah, you got the loader out there and started knocking down house, but that was a plan demolition. That was the plan.

He just, on a whim, just decides he's going to just knock it down to make a point. Yeah, I did that on one of my rental houses, too. Well, had married. Well, yeah. I had a rental house there, and I couldn't get them to pay the rent, you know. So it was in there. So I went over there, and I cut the water off and turned the power off. Well, they just got them a bunch of blankets and sat on the couch.

They didn't teach them. They wouldn't do nothing. So they called a law to me. So the law come around there and say, hey, man, you can't do that. And I said, what do you mean? I can't do that. They're not paying or, you know, whatever. He says, well, you can't do that.

I said, well, did you bring the rent for them? He said, no. I said, well, I'm going to take care of this. So he left. So I took a 400 crawler hole over there, backhoe, and I stuck the bucket in the top of the house and shook it a little bit, and they come out like a bunch of rats. Wow.

So I just pushed the whole damn house down and solve that problem. That was the end of that. When did you start not giving a dam? Long time. Were you born that way? Pretty much. Like, does somebody tells you you can't do something? Does that ever work?

Well, I mean, you can't do something. but if you're on the house, you can push it down if you want to, I think. Sure. But it's the fact that it even crossed your mind as an option is what makes you definitely unique. Well, I couldn't get them out any other way. Being nice working getting it, you know what I'm saying? One might think that you would just, you know, divorce the wife first before you knocked down your house. But it went out the opposite way, right?

You knocked down the house, then it led to the divorce. But hey, this is what makes you you. Yeah. I just try. I fight my own battles, but never have I thought the ding, just go mow the house down. Right. So, okay, so you mow your house down. What other crazy stories did you hear from? Randallet Joy. So I text Randy and asked Randy if he had any good stories. He said in 1997, he is going to drive down to Daytona, and he had this brand new chop-top, supercharged work truck. Just beautiful truck that he'd been working on that he just finished and he wants to drive it all the way down Daytona. He drives it to Daytona.

You got your Archer team there. You're in the garage with the Arka Garage with your hauler. He's the driver in Xfinity Series, but he parked his truck next. He parked his little work truck next to your hauler in the Archer garage. He goes over to the bush garage to practice. And he came back and he said, you'd been feeding the seagulls all day long around his truck, so they'd be it all over. Well, I was chumming.

There was a lot of seagulls there, you know, around the pond at Daytona. the lake there. So I started throwing up some bread to get a few of them there. Well, at a few minutes, I had 2,000 theirs, and they just covered the truck. What was the Joyce thing? That's a great idea. Oh, man, he liked to have. He was upset, but it was purple and silver.

I remember that truck. It was crazy. Yeah. But anyway, they repainted it. Those seagulls did. But you and Randy, he was pretty good friendship. He drove for you for a while. Yes.

In the Xfinity series. He won two races, I think, for me, Nashville and Daytona. That's right. That's right. Was he your first wins in the Xfinity Bush series? No. Who was? Purvis.

Pervis was. Pervis was somebody you latched on two long time ago. Maybe one of your first. How did you and Purvis actually get together? At a racetrack. I raced against him. I had a guy named Buddy Boutwell that drove for me, and we were racing against Purvis. And me and him got hooked up, and I hired Purvis.

Okay. And he drove for you a long time. About 12 years. Wow. Mostly in dirt cars? Dirt cars, yeah. I got some, I brought on to show you a few minutes in the dirt cars. We won a lot of races in the dirt cars.

Yeah. And that was in 84, 85, somewhere in there. We'd won a bunch of races, and hell, I had free motors, free cars, free tires, free wheels, free everything. And I said, man, I need to improve on this. go asphalt racing. But we were at the World 100. It'd come about a five-inch rain there in about two hours. Couldn't even get out of the track.

So somebody crawled on their stomach across the track and took a rope over there and tied it off so we could get out of the track. Oh, wow. So when we got in the car, the motel was probably 30 miles down the road, and we were just covered in mud and all that. And I said, you know what? I said, next time I go racing, I'm going to hear them high heels popping on that asphalt. That's why you win an asphalt racing?

Yes, I mean, I hadn't. But Purvis, we'd run six years at Oro 100. He won at three and run second at three. So that was pretty good deal there. He was a shoe. Yeah. Especially in a dirt car. He was a deal.

You worked with him, though, when you went asphalt racing, he went with you. He ran your arc cars and so forth. So what made you want to get into Xfinity racing full time? I don't know, but. Well, I'd got a short track race for so long. Yeah. And I'd done pretty much everything I'd do in short tracking. And so we went to run the Arca race at Daytona.

We won the Arka race. We sat on the pole for the Bush race and qualified 12th for the Daytona 500. We had five employees back then. Yeah, that's right. What was the secret? I don't know. I mean, we worked hard, but on the Bush car, we sat on the pole, We were running really good.

Larry McClure was a good friend of mine, and Runt was building the motors in the Kodak car. So he built me a 9-to-1. They had never built on 9-1s up there. And Hutter built me a 9-to-1. And so tuck it up to Runt and run his motor. And I never forget it. He pulled, run at 2 or 3 pulls,

and had 409 horsepower with a stricter plate and all that. So we put the Hutter motor on there. In the first pool, it was 427. And so he runs, you're going to run this one. Yeah. So we did that. And we sat on the pole and we had to, they started putting the windows and the right windows in the deal. The second or third lap, it flew out.

So they black flagged us. We come in four or five laps to get another window and all that. So that really messed that up. We didn't know what we were doing. In which race, when did you get black flagged? The bus series race? Bus series race. Because the window, right window, come out.

But the car was really good. And so it was us not knowing what to do, how to secure the wind and all that. It was a learning curve. Yeah, but boy, when you learned it, boy, y'all learned it big time. I mean, because you guys go to Daytona. And you're right, you would take almost every kind of car. If they had a race at Daytona, you took a car to enter it. But no additional employees.

No. And I was talking to your longtime crew chief, Mark Reno, and he said that, you know, we would take an archa car. We would take the Bush car. We'd take a cup car. And, you know, I'd say to James, you know, we could use probably another employer to to help us get this stuff. And he's like, I don't know why. Y'all already going to be down there anyway.

What's your problem? That's right. But you guys were known for running all those races with the same five, six guys the whole time. We love Daytona, you know, and the speedways. And, you know, we had a lot of success at Richmond, you know. Richmond and Daytona, yeah. Yeah, Richmond. How'd you get hooked up with Mark?

Mark was a well-respected guy in the sport, pretty sharp, crew chief, and manage your program for a real long time. I was dirt racing, and me and Purvis, and him and Ernie Irvin come from California. Yeah. And so Ernie was running the six owners, and we were running the late models and Mark and the whole deal. And then we started running against each other at Concord, swerving Irvin. and so got hooked up there and me and Mark got together and went from mayor. You know, like, you know, Mark, he's been around a long, long time.

You know, when I met Mark Martin, he was 15 years old, he was on the pole at Snowball Derby, and Larry Shaw was the car builder. Ray Baker was the engine builder. And later on, me and Ray Baker gets hooked up and, you know, and the whole deal. But Bill Davis was a gas man. Wow.

And so he goes back a long way, and then your dad was there. He was there with Darrell. And I think Eddie had a picture of your dad doing the valves on Darrell's car there at the snowball. No kidding. Yeah. Damn, I need to see that. He might still have that. He's here.

So Darrell is in the snowball derby, and you're saying Dale Earnhardt is working with him as a crew guy. He's over in the motor doing the labs. It's been Robert G's car. Oh, of course. Right, right, right. That's cool. Damn, I didn't know that. So with Darrell, first time I run into Darrell, he was there driving for Mike Alexander's daddy.

Okay. And an 84 Ford, number 84 Ford. Yeah. That's for Darrell went cup racing and all. Rick Hendrick was telling me a story. He's mentioned, I think, Richmond is where this happened. But apparently you're an affinity owner at a time and you all had a good run. and NASCAR sent you a check for $5,000 for finishing where you ran,

and you sent it back to them, told them that they obviously needed it more than you because... Well, that was partially true. You know, with me and Big Headed Spencer... Jimmy Spencer. And he points to me because my first year in the sport, it was with Finch's team, and Jimmy Spencer was our driver. That's right. And we won Bristol, and I think we got $16,000 for winning Bristol.

And I told them, I said, man, you know, an honest crook wouldn't even rob me leaving here no more money down here you know and there's 85,000 people up there I said what's that 20 cent a head 20 cents a minute so anyway Mike Hilton got on to me about it you know and then same at Richmond I went one Richmond and then you know NASCAR bought Richmond track

and the next year we won it was less money I said you know oh yeah that that one didn't slide by you had to point that out So, like, you guys started winning these races. Is this how you started a thing where you would just, if y'all won the races, you'd just pay the driver the full cut. Was that a consistent thing you did or was that just? No, I mainly was when we won the Talladega 500, I give Brad the whole check.

Oh, yeah. 2009 Talladega race where Kozlowski won. I just give them the whole check. And I said, listen, your mom and dad's had a hard time out of here for a long time. you take care of them. So, you know, a couple three weeks later, I'd run into him. I said, Brad, do you do something pretty good for your mom and dad? He said, yeah.

He said, I bought her maid service for a year. I said, I thought you'd bought her damn convertible. Right. He got her maid service. How much was the check? Do you remember? I think it was $219,000 or something. Okay.

So that's good money. Brad had been running for us for a while. He hadn't seen that kind of money yet until he won that race. Was it true that you were on the plane on the taxiway, getting ready to take off when he crossed the finish line? No, I was in the FBI, watching it on the TV. Okay.

And when that happened, everybody said, we just won that damn race. You know what I told me out? So there was a lot of confusion before they announced it, no. That's right, because of the wreck. Yeah. So then I was one guy trying to get back in and 100,000 people leaving. How does that work out? The logistics of that don't really work out.

It was pretty hard to get back in. You made it there. There's good pictures of you in Victory Lane, and y'all are celebrating. all. One of the most amazing races and, you know, underrated stories, upsets that I could think of. We had got in a wreck earlier in a race with Mark Martin. He'd come across us, and we'd clip the front end, and we'd had it patched up. And that was about 80 miles into the 500 race. And so I don't think we could have run good by ourselves out front, because, you know, when you get some damage

on the front of the car, it really hurts it. So he was pushing Carl Edwards. And I was watching on TV, and I kept saying, man, he's got to be 10 mile an hour faster than the field. I mean, he was really coming. I said, damn, he's going to push that forward to the damn win. And I said, I'm going to catch a little about that. And so he pushed him down. The race before that, I believe the year before, the Smith kid went down on the line. Regan Smith, right, man.

And they tucked the race away from him. well Brad wasn't going for that so when he tried to block him he turned him and then they all went up in the air and all and you finished second that race

oh yeah that was when the tandem racing started really kind of coming in wasn't it yeah well they've done away with it right after that for a little while pushing all the way around he pushed him three or four laps just hooked up

and I mean I think it was seven eight mile an hour faster and the world yeah what is a James Finch celebration a cup race celebration like after you leave the track. Well, we went on back to Panama City and had a pretty good time, but we celebrated every weekend for a little track.

It didn't make no difference. You own a bar down there, right? Yeah. And that's what it's there for. Yeah. He owns a bar. Where? Inlet Haven, the town I live in.

Yeah, you own a bar? Uh-huh. What's it called? Blue Moon. Blue Moon. How long have you owned it? Well, it was a yacht club, and we changed the name. I sold it one time or whatever.

Wait, you sold it and bought it back? and wound up with it back. I financed it, you know, got tired of it, and I got tired of it, and I let this guy run it for a while, and then I tuck it back. When did you first sold it? 25 years ago or 30 years ago. I got to go.

I'd pay all the guys, you know, I'd race so long. All my friends got tired of race, and they said, look, we're tired of this. You know what I told me? Year after year after year. So I bought this nine-bedroom old folks home, and I remodeled it,

and I started sharecropping, so I'd bring these guys in and put it. them in and started racing. Really? So I had people from everywhere, you know. Had people from everywhere going to racing, you know, because everybody else, it got so tired of going. That's why I'm not tired.

So he was important. Crewmen and so forth. Yeah. It's basically like a crewman or orphanage? They would live there. Yes. So, all right. So this brings up a great conversation.

Now, it's not unheard of since the Furniture Row guys won the championship. They were in Denver. but for decades everybody said you can't win unless you're in Charlotte unless you're in Moresville you can't that's to be competitive you got to be here but you guys balked against that for years you were going to race out of Florida you always did and that's how you did it you bought a place that they could live in right right yeah brought them a hudder's kid come down there man they come down there and uh it like a little university yeah it was like a crew member orphanage.

Yeah. You know, when there was, had time off, they could go spend the money in the bar. Yeah. I get some of it back. Yeah.

And the reason you had the bar, just to be clear, is what? You weren't trying to be in the bar, you know, business. It was just a place to go hang out. I mean,

I've heard that was your office, basically. Well, everybody needs a bar. They need a place to go to one. Yeah, you just been bought one. So, like, but is that where you would,

like, you know, you could bring sponsors, you could bring people like that? Just for, friends and all you know so just friends yeah so and in your crew guys i've been in that bar have you yeah tell me about it well you know in 2000 what's it look like inside it's it's it's i mean i it's uh you know it's a it's a perfect kind of like it's got a little it's not big no okay what is it is it's it's a nautical theme any kind of if i remember it's it's not too far from the shop is it's about a mile

yeah it's right down the road perfect well i'm the only one in town that has a whiskey license. That helps. Yeah. Because of the bar. I mean, you've got the whiskey license because of the bar? Yeah, whiskey license is pretty hard to get down in that area. Okay.

The whiskey license costs $1,500 from the state, but you have to buy one from somebody that has one. And so they're about $350,000 now for a whiskey license in that county. Wow. Hey, this is completely off topic, but people are going to kill us if we don't ask. you did walk in with your own Red Solo Cup. You're right. What's in it? Water.

Water. I got you. What was the drink of choice over the years? Crayon. Just crowned. And that's what it was in the Red Solo Cup all those years on Pit Road. Did anybody at NASCAR ever try to discourage you from taking your cup on Pit Road or in a garage or anything? No.

They knew better? No. Well, I mean, you know, I was a pretty good drinker. You know, I didn't get big or get rich or get famous or whatever. I'm out of my own business. and, you know, whatever. Some people take a drink and go ignorant and two swallows, and some people get mean, some people get rich, some people get pretty.

I didn't do any of that. I have seen you, though, throw it at one of your cars and drivers. Do you know what I'm talking about? I know exactly what you're talking about. Okay, tell the story. Because, see, you were upset at this. Well, I was in Daytona, and I'd quit running the 500, you know, I said, I don't need to keep doing that. It's too expensive.

So Ernie Ellick called me and said, James, he said, I've been working on these Dodgers for about a year as hard as I can do it. He says, I got four Ford motors up here in the back of my shop that's really good. He said, go get you a car and come get these motors. I said, Ernie, why in the hell did you call me? He said, because I know you'd go get a car. So I did. So I go to Daytona 500, qualify six or eighth, run third in the race. With Jeff Bodine.

So we get $760,000. Wow. For that race. I think we'd run fourth the year before with Mike Wallace, the year that Mark Martin almost won right there at last. Yeah. But we wasn't really into race, but we wound up fourth, which was a good payday. And so we take those motors.

We go back to Daytona for the 4th of July. The summer race. Summer race. Yeah. This is 2002, I believe. Right. Well, see, Jeff had had. had that bad truck race. He had a really bad crash. Oh, the bad crash. Right. And I thought he'd got

scared. Yeah. It would have scared me, and I would never get back in one of them. Yeah. Right. And he should have got out of it or, you know, whatever. But yeah. We sat on the outside pole with the car. For that summer race. For that summer race. Start the race, first lap by, he's last by about 100 yards. So, wow, what hell? They had a caution. Second lap, third lap. So here he comes down the pit row, so we gas and go and get him back out. He's out front again. The rest of him come in. One lap to go.

Here he comes down the pit row. Before they go green? Yes. He wants to drink water. Lap four of the race? Yes. He wants to drink water. It's a nighttime race.

All I got is a big bucket full of Crown Royal when he gets up there. I throw it right in his face, you know what all that. Oh, deal. unless if you ain't going to race, quit, you know? Damn. I have these just snapshot memories of that year. You were there? I was in the pit box.

And I don't know why, actually, because this wasn't the team that I actually, I was working with his Bush Series group. But I was there for some reason for the cup race. I don't know why. But I just remember, Bodine came in, Finch is on top of the pit box, got his red solo cup. I didn't know all that context, by the way, so you were already agitated. I just remember he'd come in, they're just giving him ice packs and water and whatnot.

It is hot, by the way. It is hot, okay? It's not as hot as somebody's roof on a roof during the day. Fair point. Okay, fair point. I won't even dispute that. And I remember they dropped the jack because the pit stop was over,

and he didn't go. He was, he's still like. Oh, he's still dragging. Yeah. And next thing I know, this old red cup and just stuff, just flying all over the place. It's raining on the crew guys and stuff, and that thing just goes right at the car.

And I was like, they said he doesn't give a damn. Now I've seen it. He don't give a damn. He would do his drink at the car during the race. Well, you're going to have a Jeff on the show here sometime this year. We need to. Yeah.

Let's ask him. Yeah. How many drivers have you actually had to ride for you? And NASCAR? In NASCAR? I think 75. or 80. More than the Woodbrothers.

Yeah, I can't imagine anybody else has more than that. I mean, a lot of them. And when you think about all those drivers that, like, which ones stick out, you know, for good reasons that, you know, you enjoyed having them in your race cars? Oh, we've had a lot, a lot of fun with them and all. You know, Neil Bonnet was one of my favorite guys. You know, we're real good friends. You know, Neil got killed in my car in 94.

and but he was something special to me yeah he had he had run with you before short track

and he'd been going to the races with me in years and him and Frankie Grill had a short track car place there

in Hueytown and Bobby see when Bobby was coming up you know around the short tracks I was short tracking

with them yeah Neil was driving some for Bobby he would he would go to Wisconsin and everything

run for Bobby when Bobby couldn't make it so back then he had a business going, showing up, racing the short tracks, and Bobby had two or three cars. Yeah. We have had Neil Bonnet stories a lot on this show because, you know, a lot of the people that sit in that seat were friends with Dale Earnhardt, and if you're friends with Dale Earnhardt, you're friends with Neil a lot of times, right?

So I just, I don't remember how that deal all happened. I just know he was coming out of retirement, right? Or he was coming out for a race. Maybe you know better, obviously, but. I mean, one race deal or something. It was just a one race deal, right? No, it was five races. Five races.

Okay. And it was going to be the Daytona's and Indy. Got it. That was the first year that we went to Indy, to the Indy brickyard. 94. 94. How hard was that to, I mean, I wouldn't want to not race anymore. You know what I mean?

How did you? Well, you know, that was real hard. Yeah. We were, I went to, I got back then, NASCAR owned ambulances. They had some more with Conaline vans and all. So when they got Neil in the van, I'd walked out there and I'd got in the van and Buster let me get in the van or whatever, you know, he was there. So we went to the hospital and I looked back there and they was working on Neal and was chest and everything. So we pulled up to the portico at the hospital and I got out of the front of the van and they were pulling Neal out of the back of the van with a stretcher and I seen it wasn't good.

So I just kind of sat down, you know, and they tuck him on in there. So they got me and brought me in a room in there. And so a little while later, Bill France Jr., some of them comes over there. And then here comes Bobby. And in that time, Bobby couldn't hardly walk. He was still from the Pocono wreck. Yeah. And he was a pretty bad shape.

And so I got a hold of the Caterpillar dealer in Birmingham. And I called David Bonnet and all of them. So I was able to, Susan was on the way down to Daytona. And she was supposed to get there probably in 30 minutes or so. And they were trying to keep it off there where she was going. But I was able to get Neal's kids down there about the time Susan got there. So, dang. And that was a bad deal.

So I had a country time, was sponsored. in our car, which was Procter & Gamble or whoever, it was a big deal. And they had Al Loser Jr. running the IROC deal. So the PR guy wanted to, he said, you got a backup car, so we get Al Jr. to drive the backup car. I said, no, we come here, we come down here with Neil. We're going home. If he's not running, we ain't going, we're not going to run. And so I withdrew and we went home.

Did that, and that deal went away? No, well, finished out the five races. Oh, you did? Yeah. Who drove the car then? Purvis. Ah, I put Purvis in there. And so we went to, we went to Indian.

They were 85 cars there. Yeah. First year. Wow. So, wow. We qualified 27th. Got in the show, and it was a big paying race, a couple hundred thousand dollars a star or more. And so we were able to make the race, and a rig mask, I think, was on the pole.

He was. Yeah. He was here last week and was talking about that race and being on the pole. He was there. Did they win it? No. Jeff Gordon won the first one. Okay. Yeah.

But you kept on racing. So, you know, Neil's tragic accident, as hard as it was. Well, you know, while we were getting rented race, we were at Talladega testing, and Davy comes in and kills herself on the. Y'all were testing when that happened? Yes. My God. Gosh, so that would have been.

before was that before the neil bonnet accident yes so yeah so you guys were testing at talladaga was davy why was davy coming to the track just to hang out just to watch a test yeah because he knew neil was testing so him and red farmer him and red farmer that that explains it davy was buying the helicopter from uh butch the parks guy mott you know uh the parche guy uh b h uh bsrr yes r yes yes yes yes but Stevens. There you go. So he was in Butch's helicopter. So he come in there and he almost hit the truck and he pulled it up and the tail hit the ground. And it flipped over and crashed. So Neil was on the track. So Johnny Allen had got red out of the car, pulled him out. When Neil comes in, he runs up there and grabs red and pulls him some more, you know, and he broke his shoulder and all. So they got David to the hospital and then Neil called me about five o'clock the next morning and they'd give Davies last riots and they were going to take his organs. Man.

While you've been through it, man, you've experienced it. This racing stuff, it's, it can be pretty brutal. I mean, for lifers like this. Well, you know, there was a bunch of them going through it at that time. You know, when Neil got killed on Saturday morning down there, I believe it was Peter or Rodney or Rodney or got killed on Monday. Yep. We was the Neil's funeral when that happened.

And I was on a Hoosier deal. And because my racing, dirt racing, I had a full Hoosier deal. Well, they pulled the Hoosiers out of the... Loyalon was on the pole on a set of Hoosiers. And they pulled out the Hoosiers. And so later on that year, Hoosier withdraws from NASCAR. Yeah. So that I went to have to buy tires.

Yeah. You know, we had a petty kid. We lost him right in that time. Yeah, 2000. And then I had a kid that worked on my crew out here at Charlotte when they were racing those. Humpy had a sportsman division. Oh, yeah. And his name was Bubby Phillips.

And he was in one of Terry Labonni's Oldsmobiles. Yeah. And he'd come off a four and it kicked up and he hit that post. And it took him off. And, I mean, it was worst thing ever happened at racetrack. I mean. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of bad wrecks in that series.

Yeah. But eventually went away. But they were going to run out of people. Yeah. Hey, guys, let's take a quick break from this conversation and have Dale Jr. tell us about an important partner here on the download. What other drivers, getting back to your drivers over the years, you had Neil Bonnet, probably your favorite, let's say. But, you know, again, there were years where you guys, you just had people. in your cars all the time.

And I was always curious the business model on that, by the way. Like, did you have a business logic and all that, or were you just going by your gut? Well, if I could just pay the bills, I was happy. That's how you're doing.

Yeah. But what other drivers stick out to you as far as being some of your good ones? Well, I'm going to see, I forget, I think he had six or seven Daytona 500 winters drive for me. All right.

Which is Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray, Sterling, Marlin, Jeff Bodine You and Sterling together You know a bunch of them And then world champion I had

What was the name From Canada Oh Villanue Villanue Yeah He drove for me And then Road Racers was

Magason Oh What is it Yeah John Magison That's right That's right Pruitt

Scott Pruitt Pruitt Ronfellos You had them Okay Sterling though Go back to Sterling All right

You and Sterling walk into a bar sounds like the start of a joke, right? Yeah. Like Finch and Sterling walking in a bar. Start of a good time. Yeah. Right. Well, that's the question. How does that night end with you and Sterling?

Well, Sterling, you know, if you keep him enough beer, he'd be fine. Yeah. He loves that beer. You know, Sterling's having a hard time right now. Yeah. He's got Parkinson's, right? And, yeah, and he's having a hard time with it. Great guy.

Still races. Yeah, he's doing that, but he's really having a hard time. Yeah, he's coming in this year. He'd be a good one. Yeah, we're looking forward to talking to him. You, um, is it safe to say that you had some involvement in introducing Rick and Chase Elliott? Because you were a little bit helping Chase with his cars. Right.

In Florida when he'd race Snowball and so forth. You know, I stayed on Rick about hiring Chase, you know, and all. and, you know, most of all this crew didn't want to hire Chase because he's too young, didn't have the experience, and, you know, and all that. I said, Rick, you need to hire this kid. I said, you know, I'm not going to bother you about it no damn more. I've told you what I think, and I said, he's a good guy, and he's never going to embarrass you, he's going to do what's right,

and he comes from a good family. That's what you like. I said, you know, he's the type guy that Rick Hendrick is. I mean, Rick Hendrick's one of the, I mean, I'd have to rate him as high as they are in racing. I mean, he's just a real good guy. When I was quitting, I told Rick, I said, I'm going to quit. And he said, man, don't do that.

I don't want you to go. I said, well, you're going to have to help me. He said, I will. Two or three years later, I said, don't help me no more. Don't help me no more. I'm going on. But he said, I'm going to hire him. I'm going to hire him next week because DuCard.

Some of them, you know, they were talking well, I don't know. So the first year he wins the championship, all of them got together. So we got it right one, didn't we, boss? Yeah. Yeah. That was a good call. All right. So you just talked about it.

Why did you get out? Why did you get out? Well, you moved to Spartanburg. Yeah. I didn't want to move to Spartanburg. A Buckshot Jones daddy called me up and said, James, said, I hear you might want to go to Charlotte or something. I said, I don't want you to look at my race car shop. I said, I don't know what I want to do yet.

He said, look, I don't want you to do anything. Do you look at my shop? I said, okay. And then he called back and says, I'm just going to come get you and take you up there. I said, no, I'll pick you up. I'm going up there, so I went up there. And he gave me a deal I couldn't refuse. I mean, he said, look, I've been racing a long time.

And he says, the only one up here is not trying to take advantage of me has been you. And so I'm going to make you this deal. And he gave it to me. And he said, I'm going to throw this $3.50 in with it at no cost. $350,000. Oh. Oh, you bought the shop and a plane? I bought the shop, and he gave me the plane.

Oh, that's a pretty good deal. guess. Yeah, I thought neither, but I bet that's a good deal. Billy Jones, hey, he's a good one, you know, but he did that. So we've... So that's why you moved to Spartan War? That's how I went to... You were looking to...

Were you looking to relocate? Because you were always the Panama City guy. Well, I was going to come to Charlotte, you know. Oh, you were? Yeah. Reno wanted to come. He had been driving back 14 down there six or seven years and living down there, and it was pretty bad, so we just had to do that.

So the team was going to move. You weren't going to move, though. No. Yeah, no. Yeah, no. Yeah, that's right. So it ends up in Spartanburg. Right.

And how long were you there? About five or six years. And then I sold it to Harry Scott. Unfortunately, what happened to him. Yep. So how was selling the team? Were you ready to get out? Were you excited?

Yeah, I was ready. And I'll never forget, Harry said, look, here's your set of keys if you come back. I said, I don't need them. I don't need them. He said, what about all your stuff? I said, I'll come back and get it, too, later on. and after what happened to Harry then the guys packed all the stuff up

and brought it to me but when I went out I just walked out and that I was pretty much through But there's an assumption by people that don't know or wouldn't know is an assumption with your identity being kind of like don't give a crap

type of thing that you had just had enough of the way the sport was evolving politics if you will that kind of thing is that true or not Well I thought it was I thought that, you know, the sport was going in a different way where, and Joe America was not going to be able to race. You know, I mean, it got so expensive.

And just like, I mean, way the sport's going right now, the car that they're going to have is a long way from a 65 galaxy that it started with. You know, all the rednecks made this sponsor, made this sport really great, and the lead is coming in, and they want to change it. And they call them when these anti-type cars with a Camaro body on them, and I don't know if that's going to be good or not, but it's going to be really expensive. So I think if you, I mean, when we went to 85 cars to try and qualify,

we used to qualify for three days at Daytona, qualify Saturday and start again Tuesday, Wednesday, qualify again, Thursdays, run the 150s, 1-25s. It was a big deal. And when they wanted to do the pit crew, you know, take one guy off, going to save the team's a big amount of money. And I said, that's not going to save the teams any money. I said, they're going to get better, and they're going to want twice a salary to change tires.

You know, and I said, first of all, if you slow the nozzle down, where it's 24 seconds to fuel up, then their brother will all change tires. Everybody come back racing. You know, if he wants to pull out and go lead a lap, go in and let him lead. He's coming back. I mean, that's why you save money. Yeah. So I just, you know.

You had had enough of it. Well, you know, it wasn't your racing. No, I didn't have enough. I just couldn't afford it, don't. more. I said, you know, I'm not going to run my livelihood trying to outrun Roger Penske. Yeah. If I had Roger and Rick's hand, I'd throw mine in, you know, but great guys and all that. But, you know, I don't think you ask the richest guys in town what the rules need to be. Wow. Yeah. You know? That's, yeah.

So. Because, I mean, you know, like, I love Roger Depp, 18, 8, 8, 8,000,000, hell he needs to try the Kentucky Derby. I think you need to try the Kentucky Derby, actually. I think you need to just do the infield of the Kentucky Derby. But, you know, I hate to see the racing when you pull up at one of the old shows and you look at Charlotte in 1985 or 4 and there's 100,000 people there and they're battling for the win. You know what I'm saying? Go back to those rules.

That's what made it famous. Boy, you and Dale Jr. could just get together and sit there and come up with the entire rules for NASCAR and how you do it because you're a traditionalist yeah and you're also trying to keep the cost down he's a team owner he's trying to keep the cost down well the worst thing that happened in racing my time was was the uh shocks you know when they got away from the bill steins and all that and then they went to the shocks engineers and all that now you got all the engineers trying to tell you how to race and you know I always I'm in a construction business and I fight engineers all the time and I got a joke you know there's there's three people sent us to guillotine it was a

contractor the lawyer and the engineer so the lawyer says look now if the contractor sticks his head in there and it hangs up you're going to have to let him go and they said okay so sure enough it hung up he goes so the lawyer steps up there says same for me if it hangs up I get to go so he sticks his head in there and it hangs up he's walking out the damn prison and he hears the engineer says I see your problem He's going to lose his head. I see your problem. So, okay, so you're saying Johnny Scott and Mark Reno weren't engineers, and when the age of the engineers started coming in and taking over,

changing the things, the shocks, that stuff, it just wasn't, it just got real expensive, and that wasn't for you. Well, you don't remember when they tore Roger Penske's motor down and put all the parts out there on the, for everybody to see. Yeah. You know, I always thought that if. If you stayed within the 358 inches, you do it any way you want to. Or, you know, whatever.

If you could outthink somebody, you outthink them or, you know, whatever. You know, now they got 550 horsepower to run out at California. I believe that's what they run this last week, 550 horsepower. I just had Petty put a Hellcat Red Eye engine in my pickup truck. 800 horsepower and it's $13,000 for the motor. Yeah. Now you're going to rent one of those. motors for 100,000.

So you know what Joe American does? He says, see you later. Yeah. Can't afford it. Can't afford it. Do you miss it? Yeah, I miss it. I mean, I love the sport.

I mean, you know. But you still are involved in short track racing. Yes. And that's your roots, you know. That's what you probably. Yeah. So who all are you helping outside of your own son? Oh, well, hell, I buy some tires about everybody around there.

Is that right? But, you know, in Snowball Derby, I have helped. Chris Bell and I've helped Eric Jones, Chase, you know, and Chase Elliott and, you know, a bunch of them, Kyle, hip and Kyle. But we've had a pretty good time around snowball all these years. Yeah. Are you still doing drag racing? Yeah. I got a, I got some fords.

Yeah. You got drag racing. I pretty much started, you know, drag racing. Like I tell you, that service station, the guy had a drag car. And so later on, we started match racing and all that. and then running, that was there, the Sox and Martin and all that, and when Ford did the fiberglass cars

and Chivalry did the aluminum cars, and I was there in the pit, you know, putting the Rawson down and alcohol, you know, for the burnouts and all that, and Sox and Martin from up here, and that's when I run into Keith Dorton was working for Sox and Martin. You know, and...

Inge builder, Keith Jordan. Yeah. Ronnie Sox from up here in the Carolinas, man, him and my buddy Martin. and Roy Hill and, you know, Petty was doing his stuff back to the end. Yeah. That was a long time ago.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a long time. And it was early 60s. I mean, Daytona, I think this. Daytona was about 51st year at Daytona. The first year I went, Mario Andrea, he won the race. He'd run out of gas three times that day. Yeah.

That right. When he won the Daytona 500? Yeah. I don't remember him running out of gas. I mean, I didn't really ever. saw the whole race. I think running out of gas three times. No kidding.

Do you still watch races? Do you still watch the cup races? I mean, I'm talking about NASCAR. Obviously, you still watch races. But, you know, when they run on Sundays, do you still watch it? Yes, I watched one yesterday, you know. Does any of them catch your interest? Who do you like that's running these days?

Well, I like, you know, Chase and, you know, I like all the young kids, you know, all of them, you know, I mean, I like the whole sport. You still tight with Rick? Yes. Yeah, so you probably got a little bit of a. Pulling for his Hendrick cars, right? Yes, sir. The 88 car did a good job yesterday. He sure did.

That's right. I got to ask you a question. So, do you remember recalling you in 1997? No. So I think I ran a race in Michigan and a couple other races. You run a seven car at Bristol. Yeah, I ran the seven car at Bristol, sat on a pole, I think, lay in the first couple of laps until I got wrecked by lap guy.

Ran top 10 at Michigan. but I had a handful, like four or five races that I'd run, and I sort of gave up my eligibility to run for a rookie year next year, but I didn't even know I had plans to run the next season. I was just trying to race and getting, you know, Ed Wicker calls me and says, hey, come run my car, so I come and run it. And you were swapping drivers in and out of your car. You had Dale Shaw in your car, and he just ran really good at South Boston, I think, somewhere.

Yeah. And you were trying to land on a driver to stick around with, And I was like, well, I know Shaw just ran really good, but Finch's got a new guy in his car every week. I'm going to call him see if I could run to beach. And you were like, I called, I don't know how I got your number, maybe Tony Senior or somebody. And I called James, and I was like, James, Dale Jr.

Yeah? I was like, man, I don't know if you got anybody driving your car to beach, but I'd love to drive it. He's like, I think I'm going to stick with Dale Shaw. He run pretty good this past weekend. I think we're going to stick with him. And I was like, all right, damn, because this is a good car. Just a dumb quick.

Are you talking about Murdle Beach? Yes. Okay, Myrtle Beach. All right. You're just talking about the beach. I don't know what beach we're talking about. Myrtle Beach. And he turns you down.

He did. Well, that's why you don't remember it. That was one of my mistakes. That's one of my mistakes. I doubt it. I wasn't very refined men. Well, I turned down Tony Stewart. That was one and another one.

Did you really? When did you turn Tony Stewart down? I had a long time ago when he was, he come up with Gary Stanton and then a bunch of them he was racing at Daytona down and trying to get into the racing. Yeah.

But Tony and Dale. Yeah, you just had one of your turnouts. Somebody said one of our searches for information drummed up that, that you might have turned down a Toyota deal at one point. I did. Yeah. What was that?

Well, you know, the Toyota deal, I went out to California. Went out there to the TRD deal and the guy from Rouse was doing the thing. I forget his name. He used to work for Rouse. Went out there, and the first person I went into at the Toyota place was Jimmy Elliott Senior.

Yeah. Jimmy was out there, Bill Davis had sent him out there and all, and they had a Ford motor and a Dodge motor and a shivalet motor and all. They were going to make a motor. And they had all that Formula One stuff back there on those electric dinoes and had two or three hundred people working,

in the engine shop. I said, whoa, God, this is going to be bad when they get in here, you know, because Ford had been given Junior Johnson and Chevlae been giving Rick some money and all these people are just piling this money on and it's fixing to get crazy. Yeah. So they wanted me to run the trucks and they would sponsor one truck and I had to put another truck in. You had to find a sponsor for that. For that one. Yeah. And I said, no, I'm not going to do that. And so I turned that down. Well, but why? Just explain that. Because, like, I mean, you were always, I always looked at you as getting sponsors when you needed them, and you were pretty good with the partnerships.

Yeah, but I mean, I just, you know, I didn't like the Toyota deal, and so later on, I had a deal to get in the Bush series. So Toyota's going cup racing in like October the next year in Daytona in February. Well, Robert Yateson, a bunch of them raised a bunch of cane, said the Toyota motors were illegal, something about the valve angles or you know whatever the deal was. us. So NASCAR made them rebuild all those motors. So they had about a hundred motors. So what are we going to do with these damn hundred motors? And NASCAR, so we'll just run them in the bus series.

So I didn't like that, you know. But I didn't do the Toyota deal. And that's probably another one of them mistakes. You know, I didn't. You think? Yeah. But I don't know. It didn't make no difference for me. You in manufacturers, is it always been a love-hate relationship? Yeah. Yeah, that was there was another. piece of information about how you would run different manufacturer stickers on your cars week to week and sometimes not even put them on there i didn't put them on there and uh when we run third in the uh dayton 500 i didn't have any uh four decals on the car yeah so they come raising hell about i said well i didn't know i had to put them on there you know and he said well you don't get any of this

extra prize money if you don't have them i said well i didn't ask you for a hundred and uh so but and then Chivalet, we were trying to get some parts to build a car for Daytona, and Chivalay would give Frank Cici all the stuff and the helps and, you know, building the Daytona car. So we won Richmond race, and Chivalet come running in the Victory Lane with all the hats and all sides run their ass out. Take your hats going down the road. That's awesome.

So they wrote me a letter. Because they gave Frank C.C. all the parts. They didn't give you anything. And then they come in there and going to give out all the hats and all this. Take your hats and go on down the road. That's so funny. Yeah. And so they wrote me a letter and said, if I would do the decals on,

they'd pay me the $10,000 the next time I want to race, they'd reimburse it, retroactive, that $10,000. So I wrote them a letter back. I said, don't worry about that. I said, I figure if I get much help out of y'all, I won't never win another race. I remember in my one year with Finch was like, I'm pretty sure, correct me if I'm wrong, we ran a Pontiac sticker at Daytona.

On what car? Like what was the body? I don't think the body was different. I think, I think, I'm saying, was it a Pontiac or was it a Chevy? I think it was a Chevy that you ran in 2002, but you ran the different sticker on it? Probably. I don't know if somebody put on it. I just remember different manufacturer stickers.

And again, you know, like this is my first. year in the sport. I am, I'm completely green to it. And I'm just like, I know nothing, but I do think most owners keep the same manufacturer sticker on the cars all throughout the year. And this one does it. So there's something odd about that. Well, you know, used to, there was this lady and guy that when you showed up, they come to your car and they put the stickers on. All the NASCAR stickers was in the front of the door. Yeah. The contingency stuff. Yeah, all that stuff on there. So you had to put all that on there, run all. You had to put yours on the back half. somebody can come do it for you.

Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah. Do you remember that lady and old man that did that? I don't. Yeah. I don't remember them like having a crew that would come do it for you. Yes.

I just remember getting the packets and the tools would have to do it. Well, you could, me and as a kid, you know, running around trying to get them packets. Oh, to put on your own stuff. Trying to find my girlfriend. Had a little package. I want to show you something. Speaking of girlfriends. Uh-oh, speaking of girlfriends, this is going to be good.

Reno says Reno, Mark, this thing is came from. Reno. Mark Sids that your favorite quote was, I spend my money on racing, drinking, and chasing women, the other half I waste. Yeah, just throw the rest of it away. That sounds like something you said? Yeah. Yeah. That's about right. Hey, on that note, if we were to walk into schooners, okay? Yeah. And we see a plaque on the wall. And it says, Finch's Legions. Yeah, it's not there anymore, but. Well, if we had, if it was there and it had, what would we be looking at? What is this Finch's Legion's plaque? I think it was boobs. That was a plaque? Yeah. I was trying to explain this to my wife, Amy.

There was quite a few of them or whatever. Well, wait. You could get them for about a set of tires about what it was going on. So you could get... So I said, Amy, I got James Finch coming on the show, and I think he's bought probably maybe a couple hundred sets of boobs. A couple hundred.

Well, I don't think it's that many. Well, with a blowouts and all, it's pretty close. Really? How many do you think you've bought? I think it was somewhere around 78. My gosh. Okay. Well, this plaque apparently had pushpins in it, right?

Yeah. It had push pins, and the push pins represented a pair. Now, that's a great establishment. Scooters is still there, by the way, right? But you're saying the plaque's gone. Yeah. Did they run out of room? No, I'd give up.

Oh, you gave up. Yeah. Well. Clint Boyer dared me that I wouldn't ask that question. Here's a question I got to ask. You, Mark Martin, and Abraham. Yeah. When y'all picked out your glasses, did y'all go to one of them walls that had a bunch of them up there?

Our glasses? No. But when you come to my hometown or something, when you buy glasses, they got this big, huge wall. And they got two or three hundred sets up there. You got a selection. They didn't have that, you know. But Abraham and Mark are seen theirs. We're all wearing the same ones.

Same one pretty close. Mine are, uh... I think he's trying to ask you why you pick those. Mine are a spy. Are they really? Yes, they're spies. Oh. I don't know what raised.

He's got. Mark, Martin, you've seen them? No, I haven't. We all goddamn went blind. Yeah, we can't see. Hell, I got mine worked on. Oh, did you have eyes? They told me I couldn't get mine worked on.

Really? Yeah, they said the... Yeah, they took the Cadillacs off or whatever. The Cadillacs. He got his glasses at the same place. Landon Castle used to get his jeans. Yeah. How's that?

Landon. I mean, because if I could think of another driver that just didn't seem to fit the James Finch mold. Hannah's a good kid, but... Of course he is. I said, man, you look like he got a Christmas tree stuck up your book, you know? He had all kind of stars and stuff on the back of his pants. He had to be wearing a studded pants.

The designs and the embroidery. He said, man, did you sit on a dumb Christmas tree? That's funny. Oh, man. All right. You know, Clint Boyer now has lost that bet. He didn't think you'd ask it. You asked it.

Yeah, 78-ish. That's still a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. How did that part of your business start? Well, when it was my sister, she kept stealing my socks. I had to fix her up. You know.

Oh, Jesus. What? Hey, what? What? Is that true? Yeah. That's awkward. Yeah.

That's a little awkward, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, but hey, you know, nobody ever accused you a line. What do you think about that car? It's a good-looking car. We got to find your girlfriend because you said she brought something. How long has she been your girlfriend? She's my wife now.

She's your wife. Yes. Why are you calling her your girlfriend? She's upgraded. Yeah, I know what. God. Oh, she, I don't know how you get away with that. She didn't want to come in here?

Yeah, yeah. Pictures. I was going through some old stuff. This is congratulations, Jeff Purvis and Phoenix Construction Crew, 13 races, 11 wins and 2 seconds. It got better. That's pretty. Congratulations, Jeff Purvis and Phoenix Construction Crew,

33 races and 27 wins. Wow, that is improvement. Yeah. And where did you find? Did you just... That was some of the books I had there. Okay, so you were going through some of your books? Yeah.

So y'all was dominating. Did they ever put a bounty on you guys? Yeah, but I'll be we... Like if somebody would come in there and beat you, they'd get a little extra money? No, we did the traveling, you know. We didn't just run anywhere. We'd go out west. We'd run like 10 nights in a row starting...

Unreal. Arkansas and go through Wichita and Missouri and all out there. and had one it raced in West Virginia and we went to West Virginia it was a big huge track that paid 50,000 to win

and they had 203 cars or something and we won the race like 5 o'clock in the morning and they paid us all in ones and fives and tens and had like a 5 gallon bag 5 o'clock in the morning we blew a motor on the last lap passing

Freddie Smith or Duny Moran and we won the 50,000. So we've got to change motors and do all that. So we're at the racetrack 30 miles down the road the next day, Sunday, and they're paying $60,000 a win. And we lead in that race in about 85 laps, 100-lap race. They knocked the right rear down, and Larry Moore won the race.

But we almost won 110 that same weekend. And in West Virginia, Parkersburg is with 50,000. was 30 miles down the road. They didn't have any bleachers. They were all cut in the hills, you know, when I told me, I didn't have a creek through number one and number three. You go across the bridge and through the curves and the whole deal. We had a hell of a deal.

There's a lot of races. Man. Yeah. Go ahead. But that was, I think we won 58 features that year. Unreal. Well, man, pretty impressive. I appreciate you coming out here and telling us some stories.

We've been wondering how you been, and man, you look great. It's good to see you. Look like you ain't changed a bit in the last couple of ten years. Yeah, I haven't changed a whole lot. Just what's in that cup. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

About put too many laps on my liver. Have you? Hey, there we all. Buddy, appreciate you, James. Yes, sir. People going to enjoy this. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you.

That makes me thirsty. All right. Listen, Dale Jr. had to bolt. He was a little under the weather. We actually made him leave, right, Matthew? So I'm going to do this last call real quick. And I want to tell you guys about this. Ride with Dale Jr. Raffle. The ride with Dale Jr. now, I don't know if you guys saw this. It's at Bristol. Now, I don't know if you guys saw this Bristol. What? The laps that Dale Jr. does for the Dale Jr. Foundation every year, it's been at Charlotte. Last year was at Darlington. It's at Bristol now. Can you just wrap your heads around that? That's awesome. So every year, they hold this fundraiser. People take laps with Dell. This year, it's at Bristol, the number 88 good humor Chevrolet. And what's more is you can win a raffle for it. So if you go to ridewithdalejr.com, that's ridewithdalejr.com, the raffle tickets are $8.88 and $8. We're still hanging on that 88 thing, right? Everything we do.

$8.88. It's $8.88. You can purchase a raffle ticket. You can buy as many as you want, by the way. I mean, come on. Don't just settle for one, you know, increase your chances because it's Bristol. It's Bristol. It's Bristol. So if you, it's one thing to ride laps around Bristol,

it's another thing to ride with Dale at Bristol. So that's that. Again, the website Ride with Dale Jr.com. Our podcast is also a TV show. You might be aware of that. It's Wednesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC Sports Network. Also want to encourage everyone to follow Dirtymo Media on our social media

platforms. It's at DirtyMow Media. And also go visit DirtyModemoMedia.com. We've got our store there. We've got all kinds of new merchandise. You're wearing some swag. I'm actually wearing one, yeah. I like this sweatshirt. You know, Leah told me about this sweatshirt on how it feels.

It's not only looks good, but it feels good. It's something about the fabric. I mean, she said that, and she's right. It's like slicky on the outside, but super soft. Yeah, super soft cotton on the inside. Yeah, it's like that slick material. It's amazing. I should say that, you know, go buy these things at the Junior Nation or Junior Motors

Trackside trailer if you're at the racetrack, because they're all there. and we're going to work on this stuff. It's going to get more stuff into the store. That'll be fun. Somebody just came into the studio. This is when you know. Dale Jr.'s not here. Everybody just like the rules go out the window.

It's just like, oh, it's just Mike doing stuff. Let's just walk in. Anyways, that's it. So, guys, I enjoyed James Finch. I really did like having him here. It was especially meaningful to me, considering my very first year in the sport, my very first race was with James Finch's

team, they had told me about him. I was scared to death of him when they told me he's this kind of cowboy with boots and jeans and a big gut and he drinks and he just doesn't give a damn. And that's who your owner is. And I'm like, wow, that's intimidating. I love the fact that he rolled in with a posse. You know, he had fast Eddie Mercer, the former Snowball Derby winner who told me before the show, he was asking for stories.

And he said, his first quote was, he's an American, badass and a true redneck icon. That's right. That's a good description for James Finch. So on behalf of Dale Jr. And Matthew and Leah and Jason Schultz and all the people that make this show possible, appreciate you guys listening and we're out of here. This bit of bad assery was made by Dirtymo Media.

Dirty Mo!