The Dale Jr. Download - 294 - David Allen: Untold Earnhardt Stories

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

Never before stories of Dale Earnhardt. Special guest David Allen surprises Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis with tales of working with the 7-time NASCAR Champion. Allen dives into the wildness of the Wrangler days from being hung up on by The Intimidator and people thinking Dale would be a one-hit-wonder, From heart to heart meetings under the Talladega grandstand, to secret clandestine meetings in a Greensboro hotel, it's a peek behind the curtain that few have ever had. Did Dale Earnhardt almost end up driving for Junior Johnson? Was he a no-show at an important dinner meeting with GM? Did he regret not spending more time with his children when they were younger? David Allen had a unique first hand perspective of it all. Allen, a marketing master and longtime friend, also shares the hilarity of how Wonder Woman got NASCAR and Teresa Earnhardt a little peeved at Martinsville, We also learn about the day Dale Earnhardt liked Jalapeno Poppers a little bit too much and how one Atlanta Braves player made The Intimidator angry with some homemade mud. AskJr presented by Xfinity gets Dale Jr. to reveal his wishes for the Washington Redskins upcoming draft and to open up about the news he and Amy are having a baby girl. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. We got a special episode today. The guest today is a man named David Allen. He's a friend of mine for, I don't know, two, three decades. I've known him forever since the early 80s. He worked with my father side by side along the Wrangler deal and as well throughout the Goodrich days. He has a lot of behind-the-scenes stories that I've never heard. I've got to talk. to David over the last couple weeks just checking in on each other. And I thought, man, this would be a great idea to get him to come on here, tell these stories. I'm hearing on for the first time. And so are you. So you're going to love this. He's got some great stuff, some funny stuff, some real interesting behind the scenes, things that we never even knew existed. Mike, you haven't heard these stories either. Mike Davis, he's with us today. I can't wait to hear

him. I cannot wait. All right, Matthew, you have read these emails in the notes, and you can vouch. But these stories are legit. Oh, yeah, and they are good. I can't wait. All right. Leah, you're here with us today again. We're going to be doing an Ask Junior Live later on our YouTube channel presented by Xfinity, so looking forward to that. All right, y'all, let's get the show started. Mark Dale Earnhardt and car number two starting 10th as a rookie to watch in this race. He didn't come up and try to speed me out twice.

I didn't take it. Earnhardt has won again in 1987. everybody does such a great job of supporting you all the time and you win the race and get all the credit get all the glory but there's a lot of people behind me and a lot of people behind these guys work on this range car and win this championship all right everybody this is the guest I'm really excited about let me talk to uh let's talk to David Allen David Allen uh is here with us today and David I want you to I'm going to sort of explain how I met you and who you were to me And you can give us a little more professional explanation of your relationship with my dad and your working relationship with him as well.

But I remember being a little boy back in the very early 1980s. Dad had a sponsorship Wrangler that everybody's familiar with. In my mind, you worked for Bluebell or a company that was hired by Wrangler to be the PR firm or you own the PR firm that would manage dad at the racetrack, the motorsports side of this. You were what people might know is Mike Davis or J.R. Rhodes to Dale Earnhardt. And I remember going to, we went to Bluebell one time. I'm a little boy. I didn't get to go to a lot of these things with dad.

He didn't drag me around during the day too much. But he took me to your office. I don't know what y'all were going to talk about, some business, just normal stuff. But I remember you took some boxing, clear boxing tape. It's probably about four or five inches wide, clear tape. And you pulled off about a 10 inch piece of this tape and welded it together and stuck it together. And you handed it to me.

When we first got there and said, hey, if you can get that apart, I'll give you 20 bucks. So I'm, you know, the whole 20 minutes you and dad are talking. I'm sitting there trying to get this thing taper. heart and I'm working my guts out trying to peel this apart. Don't want that 20 bucks. So bad. And I got it apart, right? And I think you gave me the 20 bucks. Lesson learned, though, once I became a father, I realized that you really just gave me that piece of tape to keep me busy so that you and dad could handle the conversation you all needed to handle because I was I was like any other kid around that time, probably 8, 10, 12 years old, annoying his head. But that was my first real interaction

with you and I got to know you as a guy that my dad really, really trusted. And you, you kind of, you know, helped guide him in a lot of ways on the business side, the sponsorship, PR side for many years. And even beyond that, you just remained a friend, a friend of me, a friend of my sister. And the reason why you're on this show is because you just literally just reached out to say hello and check in and I said you know what I think you'd be great on this podcast because I'm sure you got some stories about dad that I'd never even heard and you do so we asked you to put together some notes you've you've you've come on to the show I haven't read any of these notes all right you emailed them to me and I said you know what I'm not going to I'm not going to read this I want to I want to

hear this for the first time right now Mike Davis made the same decision so we're going to have Matthew, sort of choreograph the conversation, helps steer us where we need to go. But going back to your relationship with dad, David, tell me more about that and give us a real good rundown of how that all worked out. Okay. Well, thanks. It's great to see you. Yes, sir.

All of you guys. So in 1980, I'm working for the pro rodeo cowboys in Colorado Springs in Colorado Springs. and I get an interview with some new guys from RJ Reynolds that had moved over to Rangler to take over running that company. And I knew them from interaction with rodeo. And so I interviewed for the job and they hired me to come to Rangler in the beginning to start a rodeo marketing program. And the ironic part is I'm sitting in Colorado Springs in 1980 on Thanksgiving Day. or not that but late November and I'm watching a NASCAR race because it was storming outside we couldn't go anywhere and there's this young guy racing Kale Yarborough for the championship as I

remember it was a long time ago and I think it was Ontario and I might not be right yeah and he had to finish so high in this race and he was going to win his first championship and the guys like 28, 29 years old, what was your dad? And three months later, I'm hanging out with him a little bit because I've gone to Wrangler and it was so weird and what a small world. So I began at Wrangler in Rodeo. I was there about a year and a half and I got promoted to run or manage all of their special events, which NASCAR was one of them.

So that's how I started. So in the very beginning, I was a Wrangler staff. I was responsible for their sponsorship interactions and whatnot. And then later on, obviously, with Goodrich, then I was hired by Goodrich, and my firm was to manage their sponsorships of Dale and yourself and Schrader and Hornaday, Skinner. We had quite a little stable teams going at that time.

But anyway, my beginning was with Wrangler. I started with this guy, Dale Earnhardt. Who'd have thought? I mean, I grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I'd never seen a race in my life except kids in my senior class drag stripping out on Strawberry Hill or something. You know, I didn't know anything about racing, but there I was with Dale. And, I mean, it was quite the ride. It was unbelievable.

And everything I have today, I would say, is directly or, indirectly related to my time with Dale and Richard. It's just incredible. David, when did you actually meet Dale? And what was that first meeting like? So I remember, I was just doing the rodeo program, but the guys on the race team and the guys that were doing the race marketing for Wrangler said, well, why don't you come to, and I think it was Charlotte. Okay. And they said, come on down to Charlotte, we'll set you up with credentials and, you know, just come on down for the weekend. So that's great. So I go down there, I don't have a clue where to go sign up for garage passes or I don't know anything about that. I had a box of Wrangler racing hats in the backseat of my car when I went down there.

true story, I use those hats to bribe my way to the garage area. I mean, nowadays, you'd have to have a note from the FBI. But in those days, I literally, to a highway patrolman to two or three rent a copse, I got all the way to the garage area. And I found, Dale, or remember Bob Janelle, who was on the racing marketing program, and he took me and got the garage program.

So that was mid-81. So it would have been the May race of 81. Okay. When I first met Dale, and of course, you know, he is, you know, he had just won a championship, and he was kind of wild and reckless at that time. You know, I mean, he was, his star was starting to shine. And he was friendly, but he wasn't real warm.

and fuzzy and okay. I didn't expect it. But we got along pretty well, pretty fast, just because both of us kind of cut to the chase and there wasn't a lot of BS involved and whatnot. But that was my very first experience with racing and ever meet in Dale. I remember that. The race you watched in Ontario was the first race where Rangler was on the side of Dad's race park. That's right. Yeah. In 1981, so you made him around May before he went from Austerlund, which was bought by J.D. Stacey over to Richard Childers.

And that was a really tumultuous or difficult time for Dad. J.D. Stacey comes in, buys the race team out from Austerlund. Dad really felt comfortable at Australon's, but Rod was getting out of the business. And J.D. Stacey had been in NASCAR for a few years. and had Neil Bonnet drove for J.D. Stacey for a period of time. And I believe it is Neil Bonnet who tipped Dad off that this might not be a great relationship or a situation for Dad.

And in a relatively short time, dad had organized and out to leave J.D. Stacey and go over and drive her at your children's car at the middle of the year. Do you remember sort of how all that was going down? And what, if anything, about that, that you remember. Well, so yeah, I ended up in some of the fallout of that as it turned out. So you're right. He started the year with Austerlund and Austerlund was in construction or development or something like that as I remember and something happened in his business and he had to sell the team

and get out for business reasons or whatever it was. And Stacy, I believe, owned a bunch of coal mines or something like that. And he had quite a bit of money for those days and was way ahead of the curve and there's multiple teams. And, you know, he wanted to have this six-pack of drivers. And so he had your dad, and I do believe Neil was there for a while. And then he got Richmond. He got Tim in a car.

And right about the time Tim got in one of the cars, and your dad was not liking it at all, as I remember. He didn't want to be part of any multiple thing. And so I think that was about the time Junior Johnson had been talking with Richard and telling Richard, look, you need to make the move now to be a team owner while you're still relevant in the sport and you're at this point. This would be a great time for you to make a move. Start as a team owner, get somebody else in your car, et cetera.

et cetera. And so your dad went there, I think probably for about the last half dozen races of that year. And at the end of that year, Richard came back to your dad and said, we're not ready for somebody like you. We're just can't put the equipment under you. You need to go get in somebody's car that's, and long story short, he got in the 15 and drove for Bud, which, you're, which Bud was running fords and and you know Bud more had a long legacy and a great land. Benny had been in the car the year before. And so he got in. I think that's probably what, 82, 83, something like that.

And that's about when I came in to being involved in the racing from the Wrangler's point of view from work. And so, you know, things took off and, you know, we're sponsoring your dad. in the 15, they had a hard time as well, putting cars under him to finish races. I mean, they would either run really well and finish high or they'd blow up fast and fall out or whatever. And it was a very frustrating time, I remember, for your dad.

And so the second year in 83 is when I remember him calling me, Oh, it was before the April Talladega race and saying, we need to talk. Like, oh, oh, this can't be good. And I said, okay, so I went down and met with him, and he's like, this is just not working. It's, it's, I'm frustrated. I don't want to lose Wrangler. He recognized early on because Rangler was one of the first sponsors, non-indemic sponsors to come into the sport, you know, that weren't in the,

the automobile business or whatever, and it was like a big deal. He did not want to lose them. They had their ad campaign, one tough customer built around him. He couldn't have been a better representative for that. He did not want to lose them. And I said, well, let's get you with my boss, who was head of advertising, Mike McAllister was his name. I said, we're going to be in Talladega, let's sit down at some point in time during that race and let's talk. And so we did. I'll never forget sitting under the grandstands in a rental car at Talladega. Something was going on on the track and your dad was free.

So he and I and McAllister alone sitting in there. And your dad just pled his case for about 45 minutes about, I know we can do better. know, because your dad was getting a lot of media at that time about he was a one-hit wonder, and this guy's way too rough around the edges and blah, blah, blah, and it's like, you know, he's never going to make it long term. And he didn't like it. I know he didn't like it, but he didn't want it to take Wrangler down.

He didn't want to lose that because he saw the big picture with that. and I'll never forget him saying, and I can just hear his words specifically. He turned and looked at Mike and he said, this is racing. It's a race. I'm here to race. He said, I don't know why they keep criticizing me.

You're supposed to race. I mean, it just wasn't in his nature to run eighth or tenth or wait till the last 25 laps or whatnot. He was here to race. And that's what motivated. him and I could just see the passion in him. And so that put everything into motion to go back to RCR, which is what the game plan became.

And it's like, okay, I'm going to go back to Richard. He'd been running Ricky Rudd for two years in the three. And so, you know, that was going to be the next play. But Rangler had two years left with a contract with Butt. and so now what do we do? Well, the first thing we have to do, we got to tell Bud. And, you know, we wanted your dad to tell Bud. He didn't want to tell Bud very bad because he really liked Bud.

I mean, Bud was like, I think, kind of like a big brother or a dad to him in many ways those first years. He was really good for your dad and everybody respected Bud. but I remember it going on for a little while in a couple weeks, and he hadn't told Bud, well, I'm starting to get hammered by the executives at Rangler, like, hey, what's going on here? We got to tell Bud, we got to move. These guys were used to the business world. We got to move.

We got to go here. And I'm like, Dale's handling it. He said he's talking to him. And then I'd go get a hold of Dale and go, hey, where are you at? I'll handle it. I'll handle it. It's like, okay. And, you know, he, he, he, he wasn't great to, you couldn't pressure your dad very well. I mean, I don't know if you ever knew that, but it just went on too long. And the president of the company, Bob O'Rear, caught me in the hallway and said, what are you guys doing with Bud? And I'm like, well, Dale's going to talk to you. He said,

yeah, you've been telling me that for a month. You said, if that doesn't happen by the end of this week, you're going to Spartanburg and you're going to tell butt. I'm like, okay, all right, well. So we didn't have cell phones a lot or all that stuff. And, of course, your dad's clearing land at what is now DEI and, you know, what they ended up living. And that was his escape.

And he's on the caterpillar and he's doing whatever. You could never reach him. and then I'd get him at night, but if you got him very late after dinner, he was in that recliner at the lake house, sound asleep, and there was no conversations when he was like, yeah, right, okay, and that was it. I mean, it just wasn't happening, so I had to get in the car and drive to Spartanburg. I remember stopping at a pay phone, which nobody uses those nowadays, and I stopped at a pay phone to try your dad. one more time. No luck. Oh, wow. God. So I get to Spartanburg and I walk in.

I'm unannounced. Well, Bud knows this isn't a social call. And I said, I need to talk to you. And we go in his back office. And I said, I just need to let you know that we're going to be making a switch at the end of the year. And Dale's going to get in the three. And we need to work out with you. what and you know after he vented for a while and that damn boy that boy that boy i mean you know he was frustrated but he also i think in bud's heart understood that your dad needed to go

somewhere else because it just wasn't working and so now it's decided and everything's out in the open he's getting in the three so now what do we do with the 15 because we got two years left on the car and there were no two car teams in those days and whatnot that I remember um and I was really close with Tim Richmond and and Tim was you know right around your dad's age and he was a stud or becoming one and uh he knew that your dad was getting in the three well he wanted in that 15 because he wanted to be in the second Wrangler car and we could be marketing together and It would have been awesome. It would have been.

It would. Oh, it would. But unbeknownst to us, the president of Wrangler had some type of social relationship with Carolyn Rudd, who was Ricky's sister. And she was in marketing. She had her own firm. She brought tied into the sport.

And she was a very bright lady, very smart, savvy. And long story short, Ricky got that right. which turned out to be fine. I mean, I love Ricky. He's a great guy. He was all class, but we didn't get Richmond in the car, and, you know, that's how all that went down.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy. To imagine Tim Richmond going into that car and how that would have changed things. We had Ricky on the show. I watched. And Ricky was, yeah, he was, I had no idea how much that had bothered Ricky that dad went in and kind of pride him out of the three car. Ricky had this feeling in his heart that he had helped Richard get to the point to where they were competitive and dad came in there and just stole it from him.

Yeah. And he was relegated in a sense to the 15 car. And I think he took that and used it. Now thinking back to those races that dad had with Ricky while Ricky was driving for Bud, it makes a lot of sense because there was a lot of aggression there that continued, even into the 90s when Ricky was driving the 26th question. Now all that sort of makes a lot more sense. Ricky was pretty upset.

The Wilkesboro race cost your dad the eighth championship. I'm convinced. If he hadn't have been so hard-headed and would have just let Ricky go, I think he was going to run second. Second. Yeah, he ended up losing a chunk of points that day. David, I only have a million questions, so I'm going to try to get to them one at a time. You have just unpacked a lot there.

Let me see if I can prioritize. Yeah. First of all, for contextual purposes, who was it that decided to sponsor Dale in the first place? Were you the advocate to Wrangler, or did Wrangler come to you and said, we want to sponsor Dale? And the reason I'm asking that question is because I'm trying to see whose butt was on the line when things were starting to unravel a little bit and when you guys were waiting answers. Who was the one that had the success of this partnership kind of on their, on the record for them. So back to 1980,

Wrangler had gone and hired two gentlemen from R.J. Reynolds, who were two of the driving forces that created the Winston Cup and got Winston set up in racing and all these other special events. And it was Bob O'Rear and Jack Watson. and those two guys, especially Jack, who came to Rangler as a VP of advertising at that time, Jack was the one, he was Ralph Seagraves's boss at R.J. Reynolds. RJ, yeah. And so Jack was very well aware of who Dale was and what, you know, he was an up-and-coming guy.

And he was, you know, he was a diamond in the rough. Jack's the one that really made that decision in the beginning. And that was about a year before I got there because Dale was already driving for Rangler when I got it. Okay. That's good to know. Because so now when we got this situation where you guys, the visualization of you guys in a car and Dale unhappy is amazing.

I've never heard that in my life. And that's something. So why was Dale stalling? Why could he not, was he literally just, like, was that conversation just so tough with Bud Moore? Yeah, I believe. Did he couldn't do it? I believe so. He just did not, I don't, I believe he did not want to hurt Bud and didn't, because Bud was a great guy.

I mean, he was, he was, you know, World War II veteran and all that. Bud was tough enough to take it, but he was just a great guy. He was a genuine gentleman. Everybody loved him. and yeah, I believe that because it just kept going on. I'd ask Dale at the track, have you talked about? No, I got it. I handle it.

If he told you, I'll handle it. You better just drop it and let it go because he didn't want to discuss it anymore. Like, okay, all right. Oh, trust me. I mean, like when you're talking about that, it seems to me like you telling Dale Earnhardt, what directions, you know, how we're going to unlock the gate, and how, you know, those things that everybody that's been on our show

told him, no, this is the way Dale, he organized how things were going to work out. And so my last question, though, for this, though, David, is, what did you want? You have influence in the matter. You sat in the car with Dale Earnhardt and your boss. And you also had a relationship with both Bud and Richard. Where were you? See, I didn't even really know Richard at the time. I knew who he was because Richard people were driving.

Bud was the first car owner that I really knew or had any interaction with. I like Bud, but I really like Dale because you could look at Dale and in conversations like we had at Talladega. This guy was motivated. You can tell, and I'd been around enough rodeo guys and other people that he was focused. He was there and he knew why he was there. And, you know, I was three months older than Dale. So we were the same age.

I could relate to what he was doing. I knew at that time I had found out a lot of his background. I mean, here's the guy that never, you know, finished seventh or eighth grade. He threw it all out there to do what he wanted to do. And, I mean, it's an incredible story. What was his reaction to you going down there and doing that? of him. That was good reaction.

Oh, that was, that was, so I leave Spartanburg after talking to Bud for however long and get back in my car and I'm driving back and I'm going, oh, God, now I got to tell Dale that I've told him. And I know how that's going to go. So I waited until I got all the way back to Greensboro. And by then it's probably about seven o'clock or so at night. hoping that Dale's at the house and whatnot. And his recliner. Yeah, yeah.

And I did get a hold of him. And I said, well, I just need to let you know. I was down at Spartanburg and I had to tell. But David, I told you. I mean, you know, he was hot. He was mad. And I said, Dale, you just gave me no choice. You kept telling me you were going to do it.

And, you know, I got O'Rear and Watson. pounded on me every week, I had to do what I was told. And, you know, so it's, that part's done. So he hung up on me as I remember. Oh, hung up on, hung up on by Dale Earnhardt. Oh, I probably got almost as many butchewans as junior did in my time with him

over here. I bet you got more. I got some severe ones. I know that. But, um, Yeah, and I'm pretty sure he called Bud right away that night, but I know they talked before the next race, whatever that was. And so, man, that night I was like, I think I slipped back into my old college days,

and I might have self-medicated with cannabis or something just, you know, like, wow, I can't, you can't, you can't make this up. I got, you know, it just, there was no win to it. And then I had to let Richmond know. He wasn't getting in the car. Oh, how'd that go? Yeah, how would that go? He wasn't happy, but, I mean, he understood.

He, you know, I just loved him to death. I quite honestly, I think if he would have gotten in that 15, and if we could have got him and Dale kind of paired up as a marketing concept and whatnot, the relationship, and they had a good one, but I don't know, and maybe this is just me dream. but I think we could have maybe changed or altered the future of Tim, you know, because he just, he wandered off the path later on. But, man, he would have been great for the sport.

You had Davy Allison, you had Tim Richmond, you had Dale, and those guys were incredible for the sport at the time. Yeah, I don't think it's out of the question to imagine, you know, the possibilities there, David, for Tim. Tim. And I say that because as a little boy, I remember, dad used to have these lake parties every summer. And I mean, they made T-shirts and gave them out. It was a big deal. You don't, you don't think of Dale Earnhardt like that, you know, that kind of guy that was

partying and having fun and making T-shirts and having all his buddies over. And, but he did and uh ricky rudd and tim would be there uh all day hanging out and uh so the relationships were genuine and they were real but uh they wouldn't be on the racetrack for sure yeah yeah i got shot in the back with a roman candle at one of those parties by your dad of course you are okay you can't go past that you got to tell us yeah yeah who shot you with the roman camera god dale did oh of course oh man you know you should have called bud i mean he You had to teach you a lesson. Okay, hold on.

So for Tim Richmond to wander off the path, it means that he had to have been on the path first. So was he on the path? Was he, had he reached all the stuff that we know about Tim Richmond? Was that how he was at that time? Well, the Tim that I knew, so he came over from IndyCar. I think he had been rookie of the year at 500 a year before. And I don't remember, that must have been about 83 or 4. or somewhere in there.

And the Tim that I got to know, that I came to know, he was very much a fun-loving guy, but he wanted to race and he wanted to beat Earnhardt. He wanted to beat everybody. I mean, he wanted to win too. He just had a different style about him. He was a media guy's dream. I mean, you didn't have to dress him up or polish anything.

He was just like, So when he would get out of the car during practice sessions and whatnot, he'd go to the press room and hang out. That's what he did. I mean, but he did it for a reason. It wasn't accidental. That's crazy. You can't imagine D.I. is doing that. So looking at this story, and I know we spent so much time on it, but it's such a dynamic.

It's such an important part of Dale Earnhardt's career trajectory. It changed a lot of history. It did. Yeah. There was people, although people were. were kind of down on Dale as far as his over-aggressiveness. There was also a lot of teams that were interested in him. And I know you and I have discussed that a little bit. Who are some of these teams that were interested and elaborate on that more? Because I've heard things about that

Americana Hotel up there by Wrangler and Junior Johnson, a possibly a ripped-up contract. You've heard too much. There was some very clandestine meetings. at that hotel that T. Wayne Robertson was involved with because, you know, T. Wayne was, he was pulling a lot of strings in the sport at that time. He was my mentor. But Junior was involved. Junior Johnson was definitely involved. I remember wanting Dale Earnhardt, correct? Yes, yes, absolutely. There was talk about at that time a two-car team. and Dale being in one of juniors. And Wrangler just didn't want to go for that at the time.

They didn't want to go to Junior Johnson's team. They didn't want to go for a two-car team or a two-car team like that. They knew they had this commitment to Bud and they had to live it out. And frankly, Wrangler didn't have the budget for that long term. Even as cheap as it was then, you know, I mean, they still didn't have those kinds of budgets. But I also remember Dale calling me one time and saying, hey, I, can you come down to the lake? There's somebody I'd like to sit with and have you talk to about, you know, a new team cropping up and whatnot. And I'm, you know, I don't know all these players and whatnot, but I went

down there and we sat and there's this young executive guy who Dale obviously knew him. and we're sitting out, I remember sitting out on the kind of the back deck there of the lake and looking around and whatnot. And this guy's pitching his case for a brand new team that he wanted to start up and he wanted to build it around Dale. And it was Rick Hendricks. Oh, wow. At that time, Rick wasn't, as I remember, wasn't even a team owner or maybe he toyed with

it a little or something. but so yes there was a lot of interest in Dale. Junior was besides Richard, Jr. was probably the front runner, but it was ironic because Junior was the same one that was pushing Richard to be a team owner. And I know Junior was a real mentor to Richard becoming a team owner at that time.

Which ironically, I think he didn't, once the deal kind of went away with Wrangler and Jr. from what I've heard, it was Junior that steered. Yes. Richard and Dale. Yeah, he very much said, get with Richard. He'll do it right. He's a good, you know, he's solid.

And yes, you're absolutely right. Wow, that's interesting about Junior Johnson. I mean, like, that takes a man to do that. I mean, like not a lot of people would miss out, you know, miss out. It's like missing out on the hot girl and then just give, you know, then when she didn't pick you, then say, well, you know who you should go? My buddy over here. Well, they were that close to being, it was that close to being Dale Earnhardt and Junior Johnson, right?

It was close. It was very close. And Junior and T. Wayne, like I said, they were really pulling a lot of strings in the sport, especially from the marketing side and all of that. Obviously, the France's were running the sport, but from the marketing side of it, T. Wayne and Jr. were connected at the hip. And, yeah, it was an interesting time. And, man, I'm all brand new at this time coming in from a rodeo program.

I'm like, what the heck? I know. Who's on first, you know? Yeah. But looking back, you can see how it altered. So, I mean, things could have gone a lot of different ways. And who knows? Can I ask one more thing just to make this one,

one bit more complicated as far as all this. When, had you already started working with Willie Nelson? And when did Willie Nelson become part of the, the marketing campaign? Because Willie and Dale, and I guess Richard, right? Right.

And I believe you even might have toured with Willie Nelson because he was a Wrangler guy in the early 80s. Right. That was my pro. I did initiate that, but that didn't come until. Until later. Well, about a year later or so, I'm going to say 85 or so.

Okay. Something like that. Okay. Came along. And so, yeah, we, that was interesting because Dale didn't really like Willie in the, in the, in the beginning. He was. What? Well, I don't know.

I don't know what it was. I shouldn't say he didn't like him because he never did say that. But he was a little standoffish. And of course, Richard's right in there like, hey, Willie. What do you, was it, was it because Willie offered him a joint? Well, that did happen. Yes. That, that did happen, my meaning, but it was ever around Willie that probably.

Yeah, I saw Willie offered Ted Turner one once and never saw Ted again, so. Oh, man. But we were doing a photo shoot when it's probably that. you remember seeing where it's Willie in the middle and Dale, they got their hands up and Willie is holding trigger his guitar. During that photo shoot, you know, out it came. And, yeah, and of course, neither one of them, none of us participated at the time because it wasn't, but Willie didn't care.

It didn't stop. What do you think it was? Dad and Willie didn't click right away because that was pretty, you know, he clicked. with other people. Oh, yeah. From the music industry. I think part of it was, I think your dad was maybe a little apprehensive about,

is this going to take a lot of focus off of our race program and whatnot? Because months later, you remember the Balmans, Ed and Vivian Balman, and he was chairman of the board of Rangler, they had a party at their house where they had a bunch of people. and your dad and Teresa were there and Richard and Judy and Willie was there. And your dad and Willie spent a lot of time just sitting together talking and it was very casual and was a completely different demeanor.

So I don't know what it was for sure. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you because we got on the topic of some of those things with everybody in on Dale Earnhardt and then you had junior. you're in Hodgton and you had all these different rides happening, things like that, I'd be remissed if I didn't take the time right now to ask you, Americana Hotel, did it happen? Did the contract get ripped up?

Myth or fact? As I remember, because I don't think I was in the room at that time, but I think it did happen. What are we talking about? Y'all have to give us some more. Supposedly Junior Johnson had a contract. Yes, yes. Junior, as I remember the story,

had brought a contract for Wrangler and Dale to sign. And I think it was O'Dear, Bob O'Rear, because he was president of the company. And Bob was very much a type A guy. And, yeah, I think it just got down to, no, we're not going to do it. And don't, this is going nowhere. I did, I do believe that's true. I never witnessed it, but I heard the same version as you did. Who are y'all saying ripped it up, though?

Wrangler. Wrangler ripped it up. Yeah. Yeah, so it was that close to happening where a junior was going to have this was very close. Our team was public. This was very close because we were having conversations about it for a couple of weeks before that meeting ever took place.

And of course, this was, they called it the silly season, you know, and it's kicking up in the summertime in those days. That's when silly season would fire up. rumors are everywhere where Dale's going and you know junior was the leading candidate but Richard Mr. Cool Elvis Childers you know was sitting there you know taking his time and taking his directions from junior and he played it right and you know it ended up to I think the way it was supposed to wow unbelievable we have a lot more of these stories to come but first, Dale.

Your stories are incredible. They are. And you just mentioned silly season because that was probably one of the biggest silly seasons. I've already communicated with you. Dale and them don't know some of the stories here, and I'm curious to know which ones they know or don't know. Can you tell us about one of the silliest things that happened?

It wasn't silly season. There's a story about Wonder Woman? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so Dale's birthday was always around Martinsville, the April race. It was to be coming up here in a week or so. So, yeah. And as I remember right, I felt like I owed him a payback for something. I don't know what.

A Roman candle in the back. I don't know. Oh, there's something. And I got a hold of one of those singing telegram places in Greensboro. And I said, what? What do you have on your menu there? And I want to embarrass somebody a little. I didn't tell them who or what, but I want to embarrass somebody a little bit.

And I don't particularly want somebody that's real attractive even to make it more embarrassing. The guy said, I got just the thing for you. He said, I got this lady who does a Wonder Woman singing telegram. she dresses up in a red and blue costume with a red cape. And I said, perfect. I said, here's the deal. And so I had Joe Whitlock get her set up with a garage pass. So I didn't want my, I didn't want them to trace it back to me.

And real quick, Joe Whitlock was Dale, Dale's PR guy at the time, right? His PR right. Okay, keep going. Yeah. And so Sunday morning. You know, Dale kind of had a ritual, and this is in the days, I'll tell you how long ago was he wanted to be hung out in his van. He wanted to eat a peanut butter, mayonnaise, and banana sandwich, drink a sunup. Yes. God.

And take a nap. And actually, the sandwiches are pretty good. I got to like. What was that sandwich again? Peanut butter. Tell everybody. Peanut butter, mayonnaise and banana. Dang.

We thought Dale Jr. was weird just with a banana and Mario. Oh, Dale Earnhardt took it a whole other level with the peanut butter. Yeah, one more protein. He was thinking about nutrients, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. And then he wanted to take a nap in his van because, you know, everybody drove to those races then. And so we had made up a reason why he had to be at the hauler,

like an hour before the race. And you could hear, I knew when the gal was coming, and I told him, I said, don't get her there until about her. an hour before the race starts so that the grandstands on the front stretch are full of race fans. And here she comes. They walked her right up pit road. And you remember, well, he's probably still the same in Martinsville.

Pitt Road is really close to the grandstand. Smack in front of them. Yes. And she's got this gigantic array of balloons and a big sash, happy birthday, Dale. And the fans are going ape. And so she gets up there. We had a bunch of the camera guys tipped off. And so she sings to him and does a couple of things and puts the sash on him.

And, you know, he was pretty good sport about it. He knew who had done it. But Teresa was mad. She. I don't believe that. I got a pretty good butt showing from her about unprofessional it was and whatnot. And I said, yeah, you're probably right. And I'm thinking, yeah, but it was really funny.

Yeah. So the last thing about that is Dale wanders off. And everybody, and Dick Gazzaway, who was the sheriff at that time, he ran everything for NASCAR. He was the boss. He came over there and what the hell? who is we don't do that and I'm like man I hear you I don't know what happened

I don't know where that yeah I said Wrangler is so embarrassed we would never I got so I've got I collect all these pictures of dad and I've seen yeah Is that it? Oh is that it awesome

Yeah look at you group me I've got all kinds of pictures Yes yes Matthew's showing us the picture that is so cool. And so I did not, I've seen that picture for years, you know, and I had no idea that I knew it was his birthday and all that, but I figured in my mind that was happening like after practice on a Friday.

I was raceda. Wow, I can't believe. If you did that to Deller-Heart in 1998, he would have not been a good sport. No, no, no, no. Wow, he was a good sport. Well, so Mr. and Mrs. Balman were there, and she loved it. She was the best sport.

She was the chairman's wife of Rangler and Bluebell. And she loved Dale, but she was the best sport about anything. And so she was laughing. Dale had to laugh at the time. But Teresa was not laughing. It wasn't funny. I imagine. So what were prank wars like with Dale Earnhardt?

I mean, because you said you had to get him back for something. I mean, did he, did you expect retaliation in? things like that? Oh, what did he do to you ever? Sure, sure. I probably got it. I don't remember.

I mean, um, one of his favorite things to do is just walk up behind you and give you that pinch right under here in the fleshy part of your arm. And I mean, he didn't let go. He pinched you enough to where it turned green yellow for about two weeks, you know.

And he loved that. That was one of his favorites. Just, hmm, and just tweaking. it and hang on. Yeah. He was also put sardines under the seed of Rusty's race car doing stuff like that.

Well, we used to do things to Richard, Childress. Chilras loves to be dressed absolutely perfect. That's he loved him. And he would come in, we'd have all these different shirts made for him, and they'd be, you know, embroidered with the sponsor's name and all that. But we always had to get him a variety of colors because he had to have, you know, he couldn't just have one color. He had to.

Well, when he'd come in with a new shirt, Dale would be like, well, that's a interesting look for you, Richard. And then he'd leave. And while Richard would stand in there and go, what's wrong with it? what's and he just jacked with him all the time and put hot sauce in his coffee and race morning. You know, Richard came to me one time before a race at Dover and he's like,

man, you got any, anything for heartburn? He said, man, I'm tore up this morning. Well, his coffee had probably had,

you know, two thimbles full of tabasco sauce in it by the time he finished. it. But it just depended on, you know, Dale would, there was, as you know, there was a couple Dale's. And sometimes, when he was in a great mood, man, it was a lot of fun. When he wasn't, it wasn't a lot of fun. What would affect his mood the most? Oh, performance on the track. How you ran. No, close. Sound familiar, Mike? Yes, it does. I mean, it would affect the whole week. If we ran like crap, Dale Jr., man,

they're just like, God, this is going to be a terrible week. You know, but when we're coming off a good finish, good win, whatever, man, it was great week. Set the tone, boy, we were going to throw down. Yeah, that's all about the race. Ridskins did that too. Absolutely. Now, you look at times where they were pranking each other,

but then, and Dale was a good egg. But there's a story you have about a race. I believe it was Dover. Oh, yeah. Where Dale and Marr wasn't too happy. and it had nothing to do with the prank. But Richard Childress was involved, too. Tell me about it.

It was the last time we ever did that, I'll tell you. So this is the Good Wrench days now. And, you know, we always went out of the way to make, because Good Wrench was a great primary sponsor, and we wanted them to feel as close and as a part of the team as possible at all times. I mean, I think every team tried to do that. And so, and we always had some monitors and headsets for them to wear, and they'd be up in the suites, and they could listen to Dale.

I don't remember why, but at Dover, for whatever reason, they ended up with one of the actual team radios that. Oh, and I, yeah, yeah. No headsets, just the radio. And they took it to the suite. Oh, yeah. I know where this is going. Yeah.

And so I know that the spotters have a hard time seeing the track from both ends, at least in those days at Dover. So Richard sent me to the between one and two and get up in the very top of the grandstands and kind of be the backup set of eyes. So I'm not in the pits and I'm not down there around everything. Race star, I'm praying to God, nothing happens. that I have to get on the radio and say anything because you're going to get you. And Dover's pretty intense, too, obviously.

So race kicks off. We're going about 100 laps or more. And I don't remember. We weren't running great, but we weren't bad, whatever it was. They come in for a pit. The car changes somehow or another. And I think he was tight because he was on a rain. And Andy was the crew chief at that time.

Petey. Andy Petrie. And Dale's on the radio with him, you know, not liking things, but, you know, he didn't talk a lot when he raced. Race is going on, maybe 150, maybe two, where it wasn't halfway yet. And all of a sudden, across our radio channel, it's like we could hear this clinking of glasses and dishes and, and then we can hear two ladies talking about their grandkids. And, children. Wow. And then somebody's talking about their, an addition on their house and.

Jeez. Yeah. And they mean, yeah, Dale's out there making it at Dover of all places. And, man, I mean,

Richard! B.S. Richard, Richard. I mean, and Richard doesn't know. None of us having a clue what I thought somebody's

ham radio or something bled over on our, you know, I've heard that happen before. And it goes on for a while while J.R. was in our pits and he figured out that it was the radio the GM folks took to the suite. And they had keyed the mic open somehow. And I mean, I'll bet it went on for 50 laps or more. Wow.

Oh, man. Oh, Lord. They never got another radio, I can tell you that. Dale Jr., what was it that used to happen to you at Daytona? It seemed like every time we went there, there was some sort of bleed over radio. And I don't even remember exactly what they were saying, but it seemed like at Daytona in specifics,

that you would have that same problem while you were driving. Yeah, I don't know who's responsible for it at the time, but the sport got to where they were publishing the, radio frequencies of all the teams. Right. Which is really stupid to get. And so here's all the frequencies if you want to know what the, you know, and that allowed anybody that had a two-way radio to come on your frequency and communicate.

And so they didn't even have to be of the track. This might be somebody, you know, across the street or in a neighborhood downtown that had a strong enough signal to be able to, you know, communicate with you while you're, they They could be watching the race on their TV. And Daytona for like two years. Yeah. And it was not, they wouldn't come on there and talk the entire race. It would just be very rare, but so clear.

And it was obvious that they knew, that you knew, that they were trying to, you know, they weren't part of the team. And they were, they were like, hey, Dale, get after it, man. You know, or come on, junior, get up. on the wheel now buddy, woo. You know, they were just... And to be glaring, so you knew that wasn't pops. I know that wasn't somebody on our team.

But they knew that they were giving themselves away, you know, and they played into it. It was so annoying, but there was nothing you could do, but ignore it. So if you ignored it, maybe they would assume they're not getting through, you know, and they would eventually stop. But there was a race that, like talking about bleeding over, David, we were. would go to New Hampshire. This happened quite a bit. There were so many frequencies flying through the air.

You got TV sending signals everywhere to people on pit road and camera guys over here and there. Everything's waves and no hardwired stuff. You got people out in the souvenir rigs selling stuff talking on radios each other. Security guys. I mean, there's just, there's two-way radio communication happening. all across the racetrack during the race. And it doesn't even involve the race teams. And we would go to New Hampshire and people would be talking about the,

you know, the guys in the souvenir rigs be talking to each other about souvenirs they're selling. Well, we've run out of this hat, man. I don't know, we've got to run over to the truck and get to another box of them. We're out of those zero number two, three, five, six, seven, or nine hats. I just got a rejected credit card from, Jamie, Jamie Bowers.

Jamie Bowers, just cards rejects. She's trying to. It's just random stuff coming over the radio. There's nothing you can do about that. I can't imagine trying to focus on driving and that's in your. You give up. Yeah, you give up to, you just give up until they figure it out. I wanted to ask real quick how the good wrench deal even came about.

Like, because didn't you go, you left racing, right, David? You went to Chicago, and then you came back in the early 90s. Yep. Wait a minute. Yeah. You went to Chicago. What did you do? Why did you leave?

So I went to the end of the run with Wrangler, pretty much. When VF bought them out. Vanity Fair. Right. And they came in, they offered me a position. I could have stayed, but I had to go lay off like 25 people. Not because they weren't doing their job. it's just because consolidation that was going away.

And, man, I just lost all appetite for being around there. And so that was 88, 89 right in there. And obviously, your dad and Richard, they were the Oakland Raiders of the deal by then. I mean, they were hot everywhere we went. We won. And I mean, I'll never forget in 1987 year. It was like magic. week. Well, I just had decided that's enough of this. I had gone and talked to Richard about,

you know what we really need to do is, because it's going to happen, we need to start, a race team needs to have their own in-house marketing. That's what we need to start for you guys. Richard was buying into it. Your dad was like, no, I don't know. I'm not, so at the time he wasn't going for, so I got a chance to go to a marketing agency in Chicago. Frankl and company, they had all these blue chip clients. And I went in and worked in their sports marketing. But I stayed in touch with your dad. This is where McDonald's came from.

So Frankl did all of McDonald's's promotions and marketing. And I got an opportunity at a strategy meeting out at McDonald's to bring up NASCAR. man NASCAR is perfect for you guys the demographics stuff and of course a lot of the people in the room are like oh no you know you know they didn't they weren't into it well and I didn't even know this the president of McDonald's at the time was a huge race fan it was Ed Renzi and he ended up being a team

old Ed Renzi that Ed Renzi? Yeah yeah well long story short we got permission to develop this all-star race team promotion for McDonald's. Yeah, I remember the little baseball cards and everything. I called your dad immediately and said, hey, if you can do this McDonald's thing, the game's on, he's like, I'm in. So we got him, as I remember, it was him, Mark, and Rusty were the first three.

But then you could vote at your McDonald's on next year's All-Star Race team and you got souvenir cups and you got this and that. So that kept me connected with Dale and with Richard from my Wrangler days. And then Richard called me and said, would you come back or be interested in coming back if you had the good wrench account? I said, oh, man, I'm there tomorrow if that's the deal. And he said, I'll get back to you. And he did. And so I ended up going right back to Canapolis.

And that's when I got to start a champion sports group, which handled all of that stuff for, you know, Dale and Richard. And as it turned out, like I said, Hornaday Skinner, we did Trader. We did Dale Jr. It was a blast. What a time. AC Delco, right? You guys had the A.C. Delco, Papa Johns, Napa. Oh, it was quite the time. Wow. It was quite the time, but it wasn't always smooth. I don't know if these guys know this story, because this is a pretty obscure one. But tell me about the time where you needed Dale Earnhardt to meet with GM. And there was, well, there might have been more important things involved.

So this would, as it turned out, this would have been the last renewal contract that Dale and Richard did with GM. So it was late 90s. And Richard, you know, we'd go to Michigan twice a year. Well, for the first Michigan race, Richard was like, hey, we're going to be in Michigan in a month or so. I want to have a dinner with the GM folks and Dale and Teresa and let's talk about this renewal and whatnot. And as I remember at that time, they hadn't won a championship in maybe a year or so. And, of course, that was a huge dry spell for them in those days. But anyway, Richard was a little concerned about getting renewed and whatnot.

And so he said, let's have this dinner. Let's set it up. So we did. We get the place reserved and we get all the GM execs lined out for, and it was going to be Friday night after qualifying. Well, Bill Lovejoy was the head of GM Goodrich. He was the head guy there. And he was going to be in Europe, as I remember in Brussels or somewhere like that, that week all the way up to Thursday.

So he said, all right, I'll fly back Thursday night from Europe and we'll meet for a dinner with everybody else Friday night. well, Dale would never commit to the dinner. He would always be like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, right. And Richard's starting to get concerned a week or so away from the race. Richard's, and he came to me, and of course, he comes with one of those typical children. You know, when he clears his throat about three times, you know, something's coming. And he's like, well, we need to make sure. sure that we get Dale to that dinner and I'm like, we, well, he works for you. He's like, well,

I need you to talk to him and just get it confirmed. And like, yeah, right, okay. So this was a lot like the Budmore deal. I have to start talking to Dale. And he's like, yeah, I know about it. Yeah, I know about it. He would always say he knew about it, but he never said he was going to come. So Dale always rented a house not that far from the track at Michigan, but near that house was a big bass fishing pond. So you know what Dale did when he went up there. So I'm trying to get Dale to commit two or three times that week, and he hasn't committed, and Richards getting antsy.

So Friday morning at the track at Michigan, And I'm waiting at the truck for him to come in for first practice. And, you know, I get to jump on him right away about Dale. You know, Lovejoy's back. He flew back all night last night. What time should we pick you up, I'm going to go. I got something else to do. And I'm like, you think that's a good idea?

And he didn't really want to hear that. But he's like, David, I'll handle it. I got something to do. And I was like, all right, well, Richard, you know, kind of gets on me during qualifying about, he said that. He's not coming. He's not, you know, and I'm like, so I'm in between again, you know, and I'm like, you know. I said, all right, I'll ask him one more time after practice. Make sure he's not jacking with us or whatever.

So practice ends. Well, Dale tries to go out the side door of the truck. And, you know, he's wanting to go to his motorhome and get our, or not his motorhome to this house. He did have his motor home there, but he was going to stay at this house because there was fish in there. And so I'm two steps behind him and taking as big as steps as I can. I'm like, Dale, we got to have, you know, you got to be there. I mean, Lovejoy flew all night. I mean, I'm pleading the case.

He turns around, I'll never forget. He turns around and squares off and looks at me like, close. Clint Eastwood is like, David, I'll handle it. And he gives you one of those kind of sideways Dale Earnhardt looks. And I'm like, okay, I'm out. I tapped out. I'm done. I got no more questions from me.

Well, he didn't go to the dinner. Richard made up an excuse for him. The dinner was fine. Yeah. And we're all kind of like, you know. So the next. morning, the whole GM contingent is at the track during practices. And here comes Prince Charming Earnhardt from practice.

And he comes over and he's got his arms around each one of them. And he's hugging them. And he signs everything they want. He's laughing with them. And they're all like, isn't he the greatest? And he's looking at me like, I told you I'd handle it. You know, he never said it, but he's looking at me like, what are you worried about?

I got it handled here. And it's like, oh, my God, he got away with it. And he went fishing, you know. God, my palms were sweaty just listening to that. I was so nervous. I understand the dilemma. I understand it. This is the head guy, too.

This isn't some regional guy. This is the man. David, David. You know what's coming to my mind? on this when August Bush the 4th used to phone Dale Jr. right before the race. Yeah. Like right before the race.

And the Budweiser people are going, Dale's got to take the call. Dale Jr.'s got to take this call. It's August Bush the 4th. I mean, like this is the big guy. Right. Right. And we all know that the guy's on his yacht somewhere and he's just wanting to show off to somebody that I can call Dale Jr.

Two minutes before he climbs in the car. Yeah, no problem. Watch this. And it was just, and man, the anxiety that would ratchet up amongst everybody. And knowing Dale Jr., these guys, you know, they're trying to get in the zone. They're trying to do that. And Dale Earnhardt's case, he wants to go fishing.

But, man, it's so terrifying when those moments happened. Well, I mean, he was a seven-time champ at the time. He knew he. I'm sure he knew he was going to get away with it. But the next week, wherever we were, I remember him getting me in one of the little headlocks so he could talk in my evening. year and he's like, I probably should have gone to that dinner, shouldn't I?

That was it. And that's probably as close as he would come to saying, hey, maybe I'm sorry or whatever, but he got away with it. But yeah, that whole morning when he signed an autographs on me, he's looking over at me like, I got this, you know, I got them. And I'm like, you, you put me through all of that. Talk about that house in Michigan. He stayed there for a couple years.

and then by the time I started going to Michigan, I think the, I can't remember exactly. It was in 2000, this happened, I believe. Might have been 99 for the Xfinity. I was there for the Xfinity race, but I can't remember. We were standing that same house with the Bass Lake in the back.

And it was me, Ty Norris, Steve Park, Tony Jr., Tony Sr., you know, a good handful of people all staying in this place. We've been riding these four-wheelers. a little bit out in the woods and got kind of bored with that. And they had a, they had like this volleyball court, sand volleyball court out next to this, this bass pond, big old lake, pretty much. And we got to running them four-wheelers around that sand volleyball court.

And we actually had ran so much. It was no, Ty wasn't there yet. I was kind of the GM at the time at DEA. we'd ran around this court and threw so much sand out that the corners had become banked. We dug down, like we had removed, we had moved about four foot worth of dirt out of this thing and shed it off to the sides to where you kind of went around the corner in the bank and it had ruined this court. And Ty walked up.

And I came around the corner and he was eating slough out of a bowl. and I came around and slung some sand into his boat, and he snapped. And we spent, needless to say, we spent the next day fixing the golf, fixing that little volleyball court back. But I remember that house you're talking about, and that's what I think about when you talk about it, tell that story.

We got in big trouble that day. I think I remember hearing about that later. Yeah, it was a big deal. As I recall, I remember hearing about it. If I had been 13, I'd have got the belt. That would have been a belt. Oh, man. Speaking of that, what do you remember about a young Dale Jr.?

Oh, gosh. So I remember the tape story, and I actually did it twice because he did it so easy in my office that time. I can't believe the guy actually pulled that apart. Is money involved? So at some track, when he would come, And this was Wrangler days. His dad, you know, and I was the sponsor then, so I didn't really work for Dale

senior at that time, but I worked with him, obviously. But if you were around him, you worked for him. You didn't, that's just how it was. But he'd go to practice or whatever, and he'd say, keep an eye on Junior. It's like, yeah, right, of course. And it was easy to keep an eye on him because he'd always be around Jimmy Means' garage or pit is where you'd find him. Yeah.

But I remember him, it was kind of pestering me or pestering us or something or someplace. And so I took duct tape this time and put it together and said, all right, let's see you pull that apart. And I think I told him, if you can do that, I'll give you a hundred bucks. It was $100. And he did it. And I didn't pay him at the time. I think I actually finally paid you at Richard Childress's Hall. and NASCAR induction a couple years ago.

Gosh, that was just a few years ago. Yeah, I could give you interest? No interest, no interest, but I did finally, but Dale. He sat on that one for a long time. Yeah, Dale, I mean, you know, I don't want to embarrass him, but he wanted to be around his dad. Yeah.

What kid didn't, you know? And Dale Sr., he was busy racing, but I think there was a part of him. just didn't really know how to open up like that. You know, he just didn't. I don't think it happened to him. And so, you know, that's kind of what he knew. And I remember when you got sent to the military school, not far from Greensboro.

Yeah. Because I'd see your dad once in a while when he'd come over there. And I remember how that boss. bothered him. He said, I don't know what else to do. And he was, you know, but he was trying to race and he was trying to be a dad. And it was, it was some, it was some tough times. But I remember being around Dale and he was, his eyes were always wide open, soaking it in. He was, he was taking it all in. And he wasn't a bad kid at all. He was actually a pretty good kid. He just, he wanted to be one of the boys. He wanted to be around all of that. He wanted to be around the

race crews and, and I think most of the guys Will and Danny and those guys and chocolate. I mean, obviously, we're great out for him and loved him to death. David, you just introduced an element to this military school story that we have never heard. And trust me, we've unpacked this story a lot. But was Dale Earnhardt conflicted a little bit about sending him? to military school? Oh, I think so. I mean, I think he was, and look, I'm a parent when, you know, my boys are grown now, but I can relate to, you get to a point with a kid like, what am I going to do here? You know, what, and I think, you know, I don't know all the details. I just know that Dale was acting out some, and Big Dale was like, I don't know what to do with, you know,

I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm trying to race. And, you know, racing was really starting to come around for him is this was this was mid-80s if I remember or maybe early 80s I don't written something like that you know I was in Greensboro so it had to have been but I know it was it was frustrating him a little bit yeah and and you know he didn't know what to do but he is like I think this is the best for him and this I remember having that conversation about it and of course Kelly I think went too at that time didn't she yeah she did yeah she went about two two weeks it seemed really short like after I'd been going. Yeah, me and,

me and Teresa weren't getting along at all. I was probably 12 or 13 years old, and me and Teresa had had some pretty bad arguments that I think dad was at the end of his rope on what I needed to mature. And as bad and as scary as going to military school sounded and as tough as it was the first several weeks to get adjusted to being, away from home and around a bunch of strangers, it ended up fixing the problem.

So I was, yeah, I'd be honestly, he did. It fixed the problem. So I was just talking to Amy about that the other day. I was like, man, when I was in military school, I was, I handled my own mail, you know. I mailed, I mailed my own mail. I received it. I scheduled my own haircuts. I handled my dry cleaning.

You know, I cleaned my, my, You know, my room had to be a particular way. You had to have a finger, you know, two fingers between the toothbrush, the toothpaste, the comb. Everything, you know, everything had to be perfect. You had to have two fingers in between every hanger in the closet. Everything had to be facing the same way in the closet. Just the details, right, of what you had to be responsible for. Yeah.

It really helped me a lot. So. No, I'm just because I'm sure it did. I know all of us kind of felt for both you kids at that time because. Yeah. Kelly came because she missed me. She seemed to be all about it. Like she thought she couldn't wait to get out of the house, right? I never thought they's going to send me away.

Knowing Kelly, she probably ended up running part of the Military Academy. She did. Yeah. You damn right. David, with all that said, and Dale Jr., if you guys had the A.C. Delco as a client, And so you must have been very much part of when Dale Jr. got that ride in the Bush series in 97, 98. What do you remember?

That vantage point is always fascinated me. That story has always fascinated me because Dale Jr. didn't get the courtesy of a heads-up that he was about to get in that ride. In fact, I think he pretty much thought he was unemployed and probably a lifelong service station, you know, manager of some sort. But then he gets that ride. You probably have an interesting vantage point from that as well. Well, so yeah, as I remember, we didn't get much of a heads up either. It was like Dale, Sr. just kind of came out of left field at us. If I remember right, this was like fall of the year, maybe September, October-ish.

I remember not having a lot of time to, like, think this out. And Dale, Sr. came and said, I think we had to put Dale Jr. in the car. You'd been running down at the beach or somewhere, and we're like, great, you know, I mean, so we had to go to GM and we went to them. There wasn't much debate about it or anybody that I remember, because was Schrader running AC Delco races then for us? I can't remember. We had Steve Park in the car. in 97. And he was moving to the new cup car,

the new Penzo car. Yeah, okay. Okay, yeah. Trader had been running A.C. Delco, I believe, at that exact time in ASA. Oh, okay. Yeah, maybe the truck, too. Maybe he ran some with AC Delco. But. Thank you, right. Yeah, I remember Dale, Big Dale, coming and saying,

let's put Junior in that car. And none of it, it took all of us by surprise, but, you know, we're all like, man, that could be fun. I mean, marketing, you know, you got senior, junior, let's see what that's like. And so, yeah, so my company got the first assignment of, you know, babysitting junior in the, and I put Teresa Underdown on him. Perfect.

He came out of rodeo, and I knew her well, and she was used to handling Cowboys. and this was your first PR girl right yeah yeah PR she worked for you at champion correct she was assigned to Dale correct well and and senior was like yeah I like that put her with junior I mean he's like he'll she she won't take any crap off of him and she won't and she didn't and she they were fine together but she uh she was all about you're gonna you're gonna follow me son and remember and yeah but it was fun it was fun you saw the marketing potential but did you have any idea of what he brought to the table as far as driving talent oh i'd never seen him turn a lap myself

i mean he'd been racing down at the beach or wherever else maybe hickory a little or something i don't remember yeah he'd run a few bush races yeah but yeah and and you know if if senior wanted you in the I mean, that was, you know, that's kind of where Hornaday came from and, you know, steep arc and all of that. Yeah. Yeah. He had a pretty good track record. Yes, he did. Yeah.

And the people had to trust if this is what he wanted to do. Yeah, Teresa, Teresa Underdown was amazing. And I probably made things a lot harder than I should have at times because I didn't really have it figured out. But she was perfect, you know, and I think that when I think, think back over my career, the certain people that came into my career at certain times, the insight that, you know, dad and you and other people had to put Teresa in that position, and Teresa's, you know, personality and her professionalism to steer me the way she did really was a big, big help. I was, I, it could have went so many different ways. Yeah. It really could have.

putting her in that position was great. So I think about that. Yeah, Teresa was kind of a no-nonsense. I mean, like I said, she'd come out of rodeo, and she'd been around Cowboys for a lot. She grew up in Arizona, and she grew up around it. And she just wasn't afraid. And your dad, I'm pretty sure,

just gave her permission to, like, do what you've got to do, keep him out of trouble, and get him where he's supposed to be. and, you know, he didn't like to get up in the mornings and blah, blah, blah. No. I don't believe that. I know. It's hard to believe.

Gosh, almighty. You would be surprised at David, these days. Dude's up at crack of dawn, man. I mean, you wouldn't believe it. I was like, I'm first up in the mornings. With that, now the whole game changes. Yeah. I don't know how I'm doing it here lately with quarantine.

I've been going to bed at midnight and getting up at five every day. I don't know what's going on. It's got to run its course here soon. I'm just fall out. I'm living in Montana. We've got hardly any of this virus stuff, but, you know, we have to be cautious. I mean, we got counties that have more cattle than people, so we're pretty rural. And so, but I go to bed early and I'm up early.

Do you still watch racing? You know, I watch Daytona, Talladega, and Bristol. And I hate to say it. I watch them more because of the track than I do. And I still know a couple of drivers that are left. I don't know much, many of them, but it's just not the same for me for a number of reasons. And I hate what's going on with the sport. I hate the challenges.

I've known Steve Phelps a long time. I knew him in a whole other life before this. And I like Steve. I hope it works out because I love the sport. I love Mike Helton to death. I mean, he was a track PR guy and manager when I was cutting my teeth. And so was Eddie Gossage and Jeff Bird was that, you know, so I grew up with a lot of those guys.

But I sure missed what it was. Yeah. Now I sound like a little dinosaur, but. Well, but the reason I ask you that, though, is because you, you know, I do think as much as it's true. changed, a lot of us still benefit from the things that you, yourself and your teams did in the 80s in the 90s. And I was talking to J.R. Rhodes the other day, you know, just the way, the credentialing process. And you talking about hats. You know, hats are like currency in an ass car garage.

You picked up that on day one, right? And a lot of the ideas and stuff, I just, it's intriguing to me to hear your perspective on the sport today because so much has changed. Sponsorship climate's changed. The sponsorship model has changed. Yeah. And yet you brought, you were a sponsor. You were also the mediator between sponsors. You were the mediator between drivers.

And I just wonder, you know, what about today's sport do you think that is just the most different that you either could or could not even deal with today? You know what I'm saying? I think the personalities are a lot different. today. I think, first of all, they're a lot more polished, and I'm not sure that's good, and I'm not putting anybody down for it, but I think that was part of the charm of the sport, certainly in the 80s and 90s, it got tagged as a redneck sport for a long time, but I'd almost give up a finger for something redneck today. You know, it's too slick, it's too

polished. I think it's overthought too much. T. Wayne used to say more than anybody, just get into car and race. He used to say, they need to go back and make these cars square, make them push a lot of air, and make everybody race and be bunched up together and I know it's probably not great for the drivers, but the drivers aren't buying tickets. And, you know, this TV thing is going to be a whole. different world when they have to renew this time. You know, it's just going to be different. And I know I'm biased, but Dale was carrying the sport. And that's not a put down to anybody else. There was great, you know, Rusty was a big part of it and a lot of others, Mark and so on. But Dale was

carrying that sport for a long time. And I mean, I heard you talk on a couple of other of your show, about how he was kind of the enforcer or the sheriff in the garage area, he was. I mean, between him and Bill Jr., that's where big things happened or didn't happen, or, you know, it was going to do this or going to do that. But he was the sport on the track, too. I mean, he was the persona. And from February 18 of that year, and I've run into hundreds and hundreds of people, people over my time since leaving that have said, I don't think I've watched a race since.

Or that's about when I quit watching. It just lost, you know, it just lost something. And there isn't another guy like that right now. And the sport really misses that, I think. Yeah. The sport misses it, but there's also, you know, things to look back on. Oh. And the stories that you're telling here are incredible.

I remember, Bart. I want to. Yeah. If I could just say, I remember Barney Hall telling me one time, and this was in Wrangler Days, so it would have been in the 90s. And he kind of saw, he said, you'll be able to say someday,

we saw the best of this deal. And, I mean, it was pretty prophetic looking back now. I think we did. I mean, it was incredible, because we went from doing autograph sessions with Dale over at that Volusia Mall at a JC Pennings when he was signing for store clerks

and that was it and to where there would be you know lines clear around a dealership for two, three hours wanting to get into it just it changed that much that fast and I was

just so stinking lucky to be there at the right time and man I can't tell you how blessed staff. I was for that. And it was incredible time. It really was. Is it easy to talk about Dale Earnhardt or does it, it is not do it too much? It is now. It is now. And so when that all happened, my job that from that afternoon on for a while was to go back to Charlotte and start handling stuff.

And so it was media calling. And then it wasn't long after that. I told my wife, because my boys were really little. They were both born in Concord. And I was like, man, well, let me back up. I remember flying home from an appearance with Dale somewhere. And this will tell you about, I remember he either talked on the way home or he slept all the way.

who didn't depend. But this one night he was talking. And I had, my second son had just been born. So it must have been 98 or so. And he was like, David, you spend time with those kids. He said, I didn't do it. It's the biggest regret of my life. He said, I didn't do it right when my kids were little.

and I wish I had. And I'm sure he never told you guys that, but he felt it. And that stuck in my head. And when Dale died, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I got to take these kids home and be around their grandparents.

And we moved home. And it was because of what he said, that he's like, You'll never get it back. And, you know, I, you know, he regretted it. And that stuck with me. And so, but talking about him now, yeah, yeah, it's certainly time and heals a lot of stuff. But it was hard for a while.

It was, yeah. Wow. What a privilege this has been. Dale Jr. texted me the other day or called me. and he said, man, there are stories that David Allen has. I have never heard, ever heard. All right.

On a lighter note, David, we have to get to the Popper story. Let's hear it. You can edit out whatever you need, but that's an all-time classic story. I mean, it's, so we would set Dale's appearance schedule every year in January, and he would, we'd get all the requests from whoever, GM and everybody else, we'd get them in October, November, and we'd say, you've got to have them in because he's going to pick where he's going when. And a week after New Year's, it happened every year. We'd go to the Deerhead Shop, and that's what we did.

There was two appearances for GM dealerships, one in Mesquite, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas, and one in Kansas City. And he said, let's do both of those in the same day. He said, let's do Dallas in the afternoon in Kansas City about 6 o'clock. You know, with his plane, we can make him easy and blah, blah, blah. So we schedule it. We go to Mesquite, do the appearance. Everything's great. We jump on the plane and Collier flies us to Kansas City and we land.

We're like way early. And the dealer had met us and picked us up. And Dale says, man, I'm hungry. Can we get something to eat? And he's like, yeah, he said, I know a great steakhouse. I know the guy that owns it. I'll call him. We'll, you know, so we get over there.

It's like 4 o'clock, and nobody's there, but cooks there. They're cooking our steaks as we arrive. We get in a couple cold beers. There's probably four or five of us in the group, a couple dealer guys. Collier, this Mike is pilot, and I can't remember who was flying second seat, but anyway, we're all there and we're having beers and they bring out this big tray of jalapeno poppers stuffed with cream cheese and some kind of mint jelly or something. I mean, they tasted like candy.

They were like, wow, these are awesome. And Dale's hitting them pretty hard and, you know, enjoying his beer and he's talking to the dealer. And, you know, he was just really laid back. everything was great. So we have dinner and we head over to the next appearance is going to be at a mall. We come to the mall and we go in this

side door of the mall and you can see way down to probably six, seven, eight hundred yards or whatever the crowd that's gathered for the appearance and they're all lined up and waiting and we're headed down this long hallway and I'm trying to get

a little bit ahead of him just so I can kind of see how everything's laid out and make sure we're not going to get in a trap or something. And we get about halfway down the hall and he's like, Brillo. And my nickname was Brillo in those days. And he's like, Brillo! Brillo!

And I'm turning around and he's like, come here. And I go back there and he's trying to talk to me without talking to anybody else. And he's like, I need to find a bathroom. and you know I'm thinking now okay and then he says now and then he heavy emphasis on now and I'm like

whoa really and he said the poppers are working and now I get always like oh okay well not too far down the hallway before we got to the people there's one of these mall restrooms,

you know, men and women's aside. So we get up there, and I've clued one of the dealer guys in on what's up. And Dale, we get there, and Dale says, you better clear everything out, clear everybody out. And I'm like, yeah, like,

so we go in there, we're like, we need all you folks to leave for a minute. We have no authority to do anything, but we did to walk everybody out of the restroom. We need everybody to click. Yeah, yeah. And quickly, we need you to go.

Well, so on their way out, they see who's standing out there waiting to come in. And, of course, you know, they know who he is. And so, you know, we've got everybody out. He goes in. He takes care of the pauper issue. And he comes back out and he's got a mini autograph session that he's got a sign before we ever get to the big one. And I'm just freaking out now thinking,

this is going to hit him again right in the middle of the session or something. But fortunately, it didn't. It hit us on the way back to the airport. We had to make an emergency stop one more time. But, oh, man, I tell you, I never let him forget that. I laugh so much on the way home about the Popper, the great Popper incidents. He's like, I need a right. restroom now.

Yeah. Those stories are classic, and that's one right there is one where he got out well. Yeah, oh yeah. There was another one where he didn't fare so well. And that had to do with his Atlanta Braves, buddy? Why don't you tell Dale and Mike about that one?

So in my Wrangler days, I had met Rick Sutcliffe, who was a pitcher, for a lot of years in the bigs and mostly with the Cubs. He does ESPN now. And through him, I had met Jody Davis, who was his catcher. And Jody grew up in Delonica, Georgia, right down by the Elliott's one. So he's a big race fan. And Jody was all over me about, man, I'd like to go to a race.

So I started taking him a few times. He met Dale. And they became big pals. And they ended up deer hunting together a lot. They might have even had a deer leased together at one time. I'm not sure. But they hunted a lot together in Alabama, Texas, everywhere. Well, there was a might still be going on.

There was a big deer hunting thing that a guy named Jackie Bushman would do down in Montgomery, Alabama, called Buckmasters. And he would invite these celebs, mostly jocks. Bo Jackson went every year. And Dale and Jody went a lot. And country singers would go and whatnot. For whatever reason, Sutt got invited to go one year with Dale and Jody. And Sutt is the least hunting guy you ever met in your life. I mean, he just isn't a hunter.

but he'd go for the good time. He was always up for it. And Rick was one of the biggest pranksters in baseball. The stuff that he did to people is kind of legendary. Him and I can't remember the other guy, the old-time pitcher. Anyway, they go and Suts are, yeah, Suts down there with him. First morning out, Sutt falls asleep in his deer blind, and Dale catches him sleeping.

scares the crap out of him and messes with him and all of that. Well, so the game is on from day one now, because Sutt's bound and determined he's going to get back and get even and all that. About day three, actually after dinner in the evening, I think they had Jody's truck. They decide they're going to take a few beers and spotlight, and they're going to go out and drive around and scout for deer for the next morning. So they're out riding around and the Lord knows what was said.

I would have loved to have heard all the stuff that was said during that trip. But they're riding around and Dale's driving, of course, you didn't dare drive and let him ride because he was a miserable passenger. So you let him drive. He's driving and they're tearing around through these old country roads, spotting deer, you know, drinking beer and whatnot. And Dale's like, man, I think we got a flat or a low tire or something. So they stopped. Sure enough, one of the tires, I think it was a back tire, was low. And so Dale tells Jody, he says, well, get your jack out and get your stuff,

and, you know, we'll change it right now. So while Dale and Jody are getting stuff out of the back of the truck, Sut decides he's got a pee from all this beer drinking. and he goes over and he pees all over the tire they got to change. It's dark. And, you know, so Dale got the jack. He's going to change it. So he gets over there and just boom, he's changing and boom, boom.

And, you know, five minutes or so, the tires changed. And they're throwing the other one in. And he's got mud all over his hands. And he's like, where did we get the mud? Where did this mud come from? Because I guess it was a dry. It was really dry. Well, they finally figured out that what Sutt had done.

And so Dale runs him down and has a handful of the mud and, you know, down his shirt and rubs it all over him. It's kind of like, you know, National Lampoon goes deer hunting with those guys that trip. My gosh. Yeah, he got even with Sutt for that thing. I don't know. I don't think I could ever feel like I'd gotten him back. Yeah. That's pretty bad. Well, man, David, I appreciate you coming on.

These stories have been great. And I appreciate you coming on here and telling us about them and sharing with us some of your history. And you've been such a great friend to me and to Kelly and continue to, you know, as dad said, look after us. you kind of continue to keep an eye on us, and I really, really appreciate that. So you mean a lot to me, and I know that everybody that listens to this podcast is going to really enjoy these stories. They're going to have more questions probably than answers, but that's good. That's good. We'll try to answer them for them.

But I appreciate you, buddy, and I hope you're being well and taking care of your family. Well, I am. I got a great, like I said, everything I have is probably because of your dad and Richard, and I just love you guys. you and Kelly and Carrie and the guys have all done so well. Your dad would be so proud. And I want you to please tell your grandma Martha, hello. I mean, I just love her to death. She'll only know me by Brillo.

I don't think she ever did know my name. Where did that nickname come from, Brillo? So Walt Gerson, who played for the Dallas Cowboys, he's one of my closest friends. and it came from rodeo. And we had to go do an appearance thing at Cheyenne Frontier Days. They had a kickoff luncheon with a bunch of people in town. And in those days, my hair was really curly,

and I just didn't comb it. I just kind of let it go. So I had to. I remember that. I had my head. He got up and said something about Brillo's hair was done by wearing blender or something like that. And it just stopped from me.

there. Yeah. I knew you as Brillo for the first probably 15, 20 years, but now. Oh, yeah. I know. I know they're pulling in race. You cut the hair. Well, yeah, and it's getting thinner.

And, but listen, this has been awesome. I love you. Yes, sir. And I'm so proud of you. And I'm proud of the dad you're becoming and all of that. Yes, sir. All right. Well, I hope to be able to see you in person soon.

Yep. And I'm going to take you on an elk hunt with your bow before I die. I'm ready. We're doing it. Me and my bow are ready to go. We're doing it. All right. It's addicting.

I've done it one time already. I went with Kerry a couple years ago. I know. I arranged for that place, but I want to take you and we'll have fun. I'm taking Will Lynn lately, and it's been a blast. I'll have a blast. I bet that is fun. I'll go with you anytime you won't.

You let me know. And you guys do whenever you want to go. We're there. Yeah, I'll go. I've never been elk hunting. Aren't you the president of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation? I was. For 11 years, I was.

I retired. Okay. And now I'm just living here west of Billings, and I'm hunting and fishing and watching my kids grow up. Awesome. It's been a privilege. Thank you so much for coming on our show. It has been an honor to finally get to talk to you.

and man, Dale Jr. wasn't kidding. Boy, you got some stories. I got some other ones we can tell in the truck somewhere, but I would never tell them on tape. That's perfect. All right, David. Thank you so much, buddy. Thank you, guys.

We'll be in touch. Yep. Man, hey, Dale Jr. Dowellow, Brett Griffin here, and we have hacked onto this podcast to tell you all to come and listen to the best podcast in NASCAR, door bumper clear. What's up? It's Freddie Craft, and today we discuss Kyle Larson News.

team owners threatening to leave and had our own NASCAR draft. Hey, it's TJ Majors, and you don't want to miss us this week and every week. Listen and subscribe the door bumper clear on all major podcast platforms. All right, Dale, we are good. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again with the Dale Jr. download. This is a live Ask Junior portion of the show presented by Xfinity. They've been a great partner in NASCAR, supporting our support in so many different ways. They support this podcast, NASS Junior part, here on YouTube.

So Leah's going to help us cipher through some of your questions. Let's see what you guys got today. Yeah, first question is coming from all day sports. With the NFL draft coming up this week and your blubbed redskins with the number two pick, what do you think they do and what do you want them to do? I think they're going to draft Chase Young, the defensive line. And they want to, you know, everybody thinks it's going to go at number two. I think they're going to draft that guy.

And I kind of want them to. We got a defensive-minded coach coming in. Ron is probably excited to get a player like that on his team. We've also got a lot of other really talented guys on that defensive line to pair up with Young. So anyway, we had a lot of holes in the field. A lot of teams do. And it'd be nice to see what might play out if we were to draft quarterback

or something like that. But I think they're going to take Young and see how it goes. I mean, you know, defense wins games. wins championships. I believe that. We've seen in the past some very, very good defensive teams that have sort of a workman's like offense, not a dominating offense. But we've seen those teams have success and win championships. So if we want to focus on trying to make the defense the best we can and, you know, allow that offense to try to win the games that we can keep them in by playing great defense, I think that's a good strategy.

Liam is on YouTube and he wants to know if you could commentate any other sport, what would it be and why? If I would commentate any other sport or want to, I don't think I would. You know, honestly, I never looked at commentating as a job or something I was going to look into or be interested in. I never was, you know, something. It never was something that crossed my mind.

It was drive race cars and then, you know, we'll see what happens. I sort of admired some of the commentators in racing, and that's what steered the potential or the idea about doing some racing commentary and just to try it out and it worked, or it's working so far. And so I never even thought about other sports. So, you know, football, as big as Redskins fan as I am, I think that would be the only other area that I might have interest. But I couldn't do it well.

I don't know the sport as well as a guy who's played it like Torrey Akeman or Roger Stalbach or any of those guys that went into broadcasting. I wouldn't have the confidence to get in there and do it well. That would be really, really hard to do. I think the fact that I was a driver and I lean on that experience really helps me and gives me the confidence to go into that booth and do that. Jake Wilson wants to know. What did you think about using Twitch for the first time during one of the races?

I really enjoyed it, you know, and I've went back and forth with Mike for a long time about Twitch and streaming. And obviously, you know, this is kind of how all that went down. I love technology. I love building computers, fixing computers. If something about, you know, if something doesn't work, I want to know why and I want to get in there and try to remedy the problem. and I love the challenge that computers present in that area. So I've always kind of like that. And that's what drew me to,

I learned that from sim racing. I got into sim racing. I had to learn about computers to be a good sim racer. I had to learn about upgrading my computer, the hardware, software, staying on top of the latest and greatest and understanding how those things work.

And being able to install that stuff myself made it so much easier than to needing to ask for help here or take my computer to other places. I can just do it in my own home. So I really enjoy that. I like that a lot. And with quarantine, I needed a project. I needed something that got my hands busy and got my mind busy.

And so I dove right into figuring out what it is about Twitch. Why do people stream? What do people get from streaming? What do they enjoy about it? What hardware software is necessary? And I really learned a lot about it. And so I've been stream ready for about two. three weeks. I've gotten overlays and I've gotten the software and the hardware and

understand kind of how I want, you know, I got my system kind of set up. I've got a, I got my gaming computer, I've got a streaming computer that I run the signal for the video. Basically everything, the signal from the gaming computer goes to an NDI network plug-in. So there's no real hardware necessary for that. And I stream from another computer and getting the overlays and design and all the things that come along with it are fun. All the other drivers are sort of diving into this at the same time. Maybe some of them have a little more experience than I do, but Garrett Smithley, Lennon Castle, all those guys are streaming,

even on the IndyCar side, Connor Daly, a lot of those guys stream as well. And so we've obviously been using Steven Steffen as a crew chief and he streams and has experience with Twitch. So it's just really kind of been something that I wanted to know about, learn about, understand why people do it. What's the return? What's the enjoyment out of it? How to engage with people. I've been ready to stream for a while, but I've just kind of not went live. I just haven't had a had a, I've just not been ready, I guess. But it seemed like a good time. So fired it up yesterday morning. We ran that qualifying race, the last chance qualifier, stream that and then we streamed the main

event and might stream a little bit more here next there too. So I've enjoyed it. And there's so much to it that I still don't understand. I know a good amount about the software and the hardware and how to put together a package to be stream ready. What I don't know is all the things that are particular and specific to the Twitch culture, emotes, and interacting, engaging with fans and chat and all the things that you can provide those people that come to watch your stream and all that engagement that you can create through different things. So I think that's a whole new chapter for me to really open up and learn about and try to find, you know, find out what it is about the stream specific components that make that so much fun for people, you know, that keep them coming back,

keep them subscribing and following your channel. We're getting a lot of questions about your little ice cream run yesterday. Tell us about that. What kind of ice cream? Did you get ice cream or did just get ice cream for Amy? Well, Amy said to me, she's, you know, she said to me, she said, I don't want to cook today. So we're going to go out. I said, do you tell me where you want food? I'll get it. We also had put in an order at the grocery store to get, you know, pick up our curbside grocery.

So that was scheduled for a particular time in the evening. We decided both that we wanted to eat from Fresh Chef, which is a place on Brawley School Road here in Moorsville, great place to eat. And we got some food ordered there, pulled up. They were great. Gloves, masks, everything. We had that stuff as well in the car, but we weren't wearing it. And so anyways, they hand me the food through the window and we go on and we drive up

and we get our, go to the grocery store and we're sitting there and we pop the hatch and they put the groceries in the back. And, you know, I'm not planned on getting out of the car this entire trip. So I didn't wear shoes. and when I've been out outside the house walking around on the driveway or playing with Ila or downstairs around the pool haven't worn shoes I haven't worn I'm I'm got an excess amount of socks due to the broadcasting broadcasting job has really improved or increased the sock inventory around here so I'm

good with wearing out or wearing through a couple of pairs because I won't throw them away otherwise. And I just can't bring myself to go into my sock drawer and weed them out. So I'm going to wear them out. On the way home, we drove by the ice cream store and I said, do you want ice cream? You said on social media you did, let's go in here and get you some ice cream. So we pulled in there. She's like, no, no, no, let's not do it. I'm like, no, we're going in. We're getting your ice cream. We pulled up to the place and there's nine cars in the drive in. There's nobody's standing at the window. And so I said, I'm going to run over there and get it.

And so I jumped out of the car and walked over the window. And they had these little splash guards, velcroed up there and stuff. And so I told her lay my order and got in the car and we went home. Yeah, it was vanilla ice cream with Oreo cookie crumbles in there. It's very good. Good choice. Yeah. All right.

Scott Hamilton, he wants to know a few. found the chance to watch the Formula One series on Netflix. And do you think NASCAR should do something similar? He says he found it interesting and actually piqued his interest in F1. Yeah, I haven't watched that. Yeah, I wish, I mean, I got, I still need to watch Ford versus Ferrari. I still need, you know, I definitely need to watch the F1 stuff. Last night, we watched Mr. Mom.

Have you ever seen that movie? It's basically like from the 80s, early 80s. Michael Keaton, I think, is the lead actor. Wasn't he Batman after, you know, some years later? But Mr. Mom, a great movie, especially I watched it when I was a kid and a couple times since them, but I haven't seen it as a dad. Seeing it as a dad is a really, and Amy never seen it, and she liked it. It's kind of old and early 80s sort of quirky humor, but not a bad movie, Mr. Mom.

We've been kind of nostalgic here lately for some reason around our house, and I've been watching a lot of older stuff. We watched a couple of Cheers episode this morning when I got up for breakfast to roll some cheers. That's awesome. I recommend Ford Worst Fri, very good. Yeah, I've heard it's been great. I just haven't got around to it.

Yeah, one more question. On the movie topic, Tyler King wants to know if you could create your own racing movie, who would you cast to play the driver, and what would it be about? Yeah, I don't know. You know, I think, when I think about movies and racing movies, I always lean toward the dirt short tracks or asphalt short tracks

and making a movie about someone that you feel like that could, that could be you or that could be your neighbor, right? Making a movie about an individual who's relatable, who seems to have the same income or the same style or, you know, it's a little bit harder, I think, for people to relate to some of the superstars, right? So making a movie about a superstar or about a big-time NASCAR guy seems a bit more challenging. Plus, getting the footage right, getting the in-car cameras and the racing footage of a fictional character is difficult.

You could see that even way back when they tried to make Days of Thunder and they had to have the cars incorporated into the race and just the hoops that they would have to jump through to try to get some reasonable, decent footage that would match the storyline. whereas if you were going to make a film about a hometown hero or, you know, your next-door neighbor who's got a, you know, got his family-owned business or is a plumber, who, whatever he is, right, that drives this old car to dirt track and is just going through the, you know, typical struggles of life, that to me is a little more relatable and a story that I would like to hear. So I kind of like the, you know, kind of like six-pack a little bit.

Remember six-pack how he was kind of this normal guy? I mean, obviously he didn't end up in cup racing, Kenny Rogers. There's no way Leah knows anything about six-pack. I know. I know what you're talking about, though, do. It's on our list. We have a quarantine movie list. I always loved six-pack until he got to the cup level because then it became too fictional for me.

Right? When he was at home running around driving his dirt car and they were stealing parts off the cars. That was, you know, they were going into the honky tonk at the hotel. Yeah. You know, I wish it would have stayed there. You know, I wish the storyline would have ended in that same era, around that same type of race. Leah, I got a question. Can I be the one to give the last question?

Yeah, absolutely. So, Dale, you revealed on Instagram this week that you guys found out the sex of your second baby. So after the camera turned off, what was your responses? What did you and Amy talk about now that you know that you're going to have a baby girl? Well, we have, so I'll say this, we have a name. It took us forever to figure out Ila's name. It was like the very last few weeks of Amy's pregnancy is when we finally decided on a name. But now we have a name.

And it came really easy and feel great about that. you know, I mean, you go through a lot of emotions about, you know, I know a lot of people were hoping that we were going to have a boy. And, and so, you know, you think about those things. And I'll be honest with you. And I know that a lot of people are going to, I don't know how people will receive this, but I was really not that, I was really not, I was worried. I'll say, I don't know, I could choose my words wisely here. I was super worried about, having a son. The expectations and, you know, people's hopes of who he would become or might become

were going to be just really unrealistic and challenging and, at times even unfair maybe. And so there was a part of me that was a little nervous about that, you know, having a son and being the focus of how I raised him and who he was and who he was going to be. and I'm sure I wouldn't over thinking the hell out of that. But there is a love and a feeling about being the father of a daughter that I just, I can't even hardly put it into words. Ila is now just in the last probably several weeks constantly saying how much she loves me. she's you know

she loves her daddy and loves to be up against her dad and wants her dad to put her in at night and there's it's just a most amazing thing and to have another to have another dose of that ingredient in the household

I'm all about it right and I can't and then so I love you know Amy's great Allah's great and we're going to add to that and we're going to bring more of that into our home. And I just can't wait because it's made our home so amazing. Me and Amy were doing great and having a blast, but Ila's been such an amazing addition to our home

as far as the love and the family atmosphere and so forth that we experience together. And we're just going to increase that. And the other thing, too, was, I don't know when it happened. Maybe you remember, Mike, but there's a point in the pregnancy where dawns on you and you're like, now I can't wait to meet this person. It doesn't start, like when you find out you're pregnant,

you don't feel that way right away, right? You don't start going, oh, come on, get here, get here, get here. I can't wait to meet you. I can't wait to meet you. Hurry, hurry, hurry. That's not what happens in the first few weeks or even the first few months. But at some point, it's just like a switch where you're like, all right, I'm out of patience.

Who is this person? What do they look like? What are they going to sound like? What are they going to do? And how are they going to be different? How are they going to look different and feel different and act different? You just can't wait. You start to get really impatient.

And as soon as we got that test and learned of that information, it became real. It became more human. And the impatience showed up. And, you know, now I'm starting to, you know, now I'm talking to it and trying to do all the things. Because we did that with Ila. I tried to talk to Ila while she was inside Amy's belly

and trying to, you know, if it matters, it matters. don't it don't but I think it helps if she recognizes that name because or never recognizing my voice because when she comes when she's delivered right she's going to go to this little table and they're going to start cleaning her up and I'm going to be there talking to her right and if she hears a you know she want her to hear a familiar voice when she's laying there going what's going on what is this so bright person so bright yeah so I try to talk I'm starting to talk to her now because all this you know that light switch happened as soon as we found out the sex.

It's like, oh, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a real human being, right? It's so cool. Man, well, listen, I don't know who I wanted you to have a son, but I, I could speak for myself. I was, as a card carrying member of the two-daughter club, I was happy. I was ecstatic when I found out that you were going to be in the club with me. Yeah. And so, I mean, nothing like it, man. and I'm so happy for you and Amy.

I'm happy for Ila. She's going to be an awesome big sister. It's just going to be fun, man. It's God. Yeah, it's God's plan. You know, it's what's intended for me. And I'm supposed to make sure that these two individuals become the best they can be. And that's my role.

And, you know, whatever the future holds, if we don't have any more kids or we do, I don't know. And that's that. I mean, I'm just riding the ride, man. It's been amazing. wait to like it just rolls right out as soon as I think about this little girl that we're going to have I just keep saying I can't wait to meet her I can't wait to meet her because I remember when I when I met Ila it was just the best feeling ever so good so I can't wait for that again and yeah that's awesome well I am in my 30s and I'm still daddy's little girl so that will never change

you're going to have that forever I'm ready for double of that right too that's awesome all right guys. That's it for today. All right. I appreciate everybody tuning in. Appreciate Xfinity for sponsoring the Asch Jr. portion of the show here on YouTube. Make sure you follow our YouTube channel and our social media channels at Dremod Media. Great questions today, everybody. Awesome.

Can't help but think of old brew walking in with rainbow stew playing in the background with this sport coat going to kiss up on the pretty ladies in the honky talk. Man, Leah, you got to do it. Got to do what? Go kiss ladies in the honky talk. Six-pack. Oh, it's on the list. I can't find it anywhere.

Last call. All right, y'all. It's last call here on the Dale Jr. download. I want to tell you guys about all the Dirtymo Media gear. Find all kinds of stuff at Dirtymodeia.com. Use the discount code DJD10. That's DJD10 to get 10% off. A lot of cool gear from Dirtymo Media.

at dirtmoimedia.com. The Dell Junior Foundation has a very cool event going on now, and I'm really excited about it this year. You know, the Wendell Junior's ride, we've been giving away Corvettes for the last several years. We've got quite the little cult put together with Corvettes, new owners, and they all get together and enjoy hanging out. But we've got a new deal this year.

Better. It's better. Better. I agree. It is better. Yeah. A 2020 Chevy Silverado, 2,500 HD 4-wheel drive

Crew Cab LTZ Get some of that. Plus. Oh, it's a truck. All right, it's a truck. But what the kicker is is there's a Keystone Outback Camper 300 series that comes along with it.

So basically, we're going to give you all you need to be able to go camping in style with a brand new truck, brand new Silverado. Go to Wendell Jr.'sride.com. All right. Also, we have a another initiative going on that is equally as exciting this year. You know the ride-alongs that we do

each year. We've done on at Charlotte Motor Speedway for several years. Last year we went to Darlington, which was a real treat running that fence. We're going to another legendary racetrack, and this one is one I'm really excited about. How about a ride-along? Imagine three laps with me at Bristol Motor Speedway. You're going to be in the cockpit on the passenger side, taking laps at Bristol Motor Speedway, go to ridewithdel Jr.com. Ride with Dell Jr.com to enter that raffle to get three laps with me at Bristol Motor Speedway. We're going to run some pretty fast laps around there, and I promise you, I'll give you a thrill. Also go to pledge it.org slash Dell Jr. Dash relief. If you want to win some signed racing gloves for COVID-19 relief,

we are halfway to our goal of $10,000. And if we reach our goal, I've promised to match it. That's pledge it.org slash dell junior dash relief. Pledgeit.org slash del junior dash relief for some signed racing gloves for COVID-19 relief. The I Racing Pro Invitational Series this weekend is at Talladega Sunday, April 26th at 1 p.m. I'll be driving the number eight, Walmart, Fight Hunger, Spark, Change, Helmand's Chevrolet. The paint scheme promotes Walmart's home delivery campaign,

which started earlier this year to shift focus to acts of kindness and donations during the pandemic. All right, so that'll be the paint scheme this weekend at Talladega, this Sunday, 1 p.m. April 26th. Also, the Dale Jr. Download TV show, we're back on air, man. NBCSN on Wednesday, at 4 p.m. Eastern. That's the last call.

I hope you guys enjoyed the show. I certainly had a lot of fun listening to David Allen tell his stories. Mike, Leah, Matthew, appreciate your guys' help this week coordinating, and Mike, you know, me and you, not reading the email. That's good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I enjoyed that. You steered the conversation really well. Leah, you did a great job with Asch Jr. Good show, everybody. This bit of bad assery was mad assery. He was made by Matt Ashery. Dirty Mo Media.

Dirty Mo!