The Dale Jr. Download - 307 - Ray Evernham: Creative Genius

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

One of the most innovate individuals to ever grace the NASCAR garage, Hall of Fame Crew Chief Ray Evernham joins Dale Earnhardt Jr on the Download. The two-good friends talk about Ray's racing career on the Jersey Shore. Dale Jr. learns about the horrific crash that left Ray with a severe head injury and a unexpected new career path. Evernham discusses his time with the IROC Series, working with Dave Marcus and other Motorsports legends. So, just how did he end up as Jeff Gordon's crew chief? Dale Jr finds out as Ray details the dynamic duo's humble beginnings and the big move to Hendrick Motorsports. Does the statute of limitations apply? Dale Jr. attempts to get Ray to open up about the famed racecar named "T-Rex," and tell the real story behind its ban from NASCAR competition. Why did he just up and leave during the Hendrick dynasty? Evernham shares his thoughts on the move to start a team with Dodge. News broke last week that Ray and Tony Stewart are creating a new racing series called Superstar Racing Experience. Evernham gives us inside information on the intent of SRX in the motorsports landscape, the goal for racecar design and what types of racercar drivers will be in the exclusive field when the new series debuts.With Mike Davis on vacation, Producer Matthew Dillner steps in to chat with Dale about the much awaited release of Lost Speedways on Peacock TV and the overwhelming reaction after it came out. The two discuss their relationship and how an unusual hobby led to an unlikely television program. Dale Jr. takes off his broadcaster hat and explains Noah Gragson's run-ins in the Xfinity Series, and how he manages his expectations for the young driver. All of that and a bag of chips on a fresh edition of the Dale Jr. Download. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Where's Mike? The Dale Jr. Download. Dirty Moe Media. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Volume up. The Dell Jr. download in three, two. Hey, everybody. It's Del Jr. back again for another episode of the Dell Jr. download.

I'm doing this show solo. Well, not really. I still got Matthew Dillner. Leah is still here. The only person missing is our co-host, Mike Davis. Mike is on vacation. He really needed one, so we were happy to see him take it, spend some time with his family. Ray Everingham is the guest today.

I don't know why. It took so long to get such an amazing guest on our show, but this is going to be a great one. A lot of great stories, and who knows where it's going to go. Man's done a little bit of everything. All right, so let's get the show started. I'm Dylan Hart Jr. This is Lost Speedways. The green flag up.

Out of turn number four, we are racing. Let's watch them, watch them. I'm Dillon Hart Jr. This is Lost Speed. I'm about to embark on a journey. To see and feel the soul of my sport. Lost Speedway. Some great news.

I don't even know where to begin. Lost Speedways, all right. If you haven't heard about it, Lost Speedways is a television show created by Dirty Mo Media. It is a show about abandoned racetracks. Okay, and let me start by telling you how, you know, why would we make a show about that? I was into abandoned stuff, theme parks. I would Google online or follow handles on Instagram.

And typically what you're seeing in those type of posts or handles is, you know, just abandoned houses or theme parks, anything. There's a lot of stuff that was built in the last, you know, 80 years. Technology, big giant things overseas. Maybe they had to do with World War II or whatever. But a lot of that stuff, the technology obviously becomes obsolete, and it's just left there, some strange, huge structures that are built all over the country. And even, you know, even another example, okay, if I'm losing you, let me bring you back.

The railroad down to Key West is a great example of that. So I had a house in Key West for a while. I didn't know about that. I had a house in Key West for a while. There was a man, Flagler, I believe was his last name, a commission to build a railroad in the 1900s. And it took, you know, 10, 15 years, whatever to complete this railroad. It wasn't there very long because a hurricane came through in the 30s, I believe, and destroyed it.

But there's remnants of. that railroad and yeah the the original highway one to get down there was built on the same causeway you know and structures as the railroad until they eventually made a newer bridge and so forth but if you drive from homestead which i've done a lot to key west or back either way you're going to see a lot of that infrastructure from the original railroad that's cool to be i love history like that. I love finding it. One of the greatest

examples of this is the Titanic. I know that every time I bring this up to anybody, they laugh. Mike Davis picks on me about it. Tony Mayoff. But really, I think that the first my first

sort of what lit the fire, I guess, to create a show about Lost Speedways was when they were hunting for the Titanic. I remember back, you know, if you guys, I'm 45, I remember back in, I don't know when they found this Titanic, but I remember them looking for it.

It was such a mystery. You know, and this thing had sunk and nobody knew, you know, nobody, nobody knew anything else about, you know, the fact that it hit an iceberg and sunk. So they're looking for it forever, and, you know, nobody could find it. It was this really big deal. finally somebody finds it right this guy finds it and it's this huge story all across the country and now there's these artifacts and there's these museums and there's people going to look at this stuff movies the movie made about it all this stuff right so i think um you know i got really curious about sucking ships lost ships lost stuff right mysteries right um and then it became uh you know it

It moved from like the sea or the ocean to land. You know, there's a lot of lost stuff out here that's a mystery that people stumble up on and there's no reason or rhyme to what happened, right? There's a story, but you've got to uncover it and dig. Obviously, I grew up in racing. You know, it just took a long time, but the two past kind of two things, two curiosities sort of crossed. And so about 12, 14 years ago, I don't know. a long time ago, I created, I started pinning racetracks that I could see on a Google map, right?

So I'm on my computer at home. In between racing online and doing all the fun stuff, talking to my buddies, I would, you know, sort of, I had this book about, you know, defunct racetracks. It's sort of a history of racetracks that used to be. And I started looking at the coordinates and seeing if there was any remains of these racetracks. just for fun, just skimming the old Google Earth and all that. And if I found one, I'd mark it. And I started, you know, I started creating this map. And, I mean, you know, I worked on it off and on throughout the years

and would end up with about 250 to 300 tracks on my map. All the while, Matthew is doing the exact same thing. I know Matthew because he works in racing, but we're not like, you know, we're not communicating so much so that we would know that one or the other is doing this exact same activity. So you're creating a map during the same time frame as I'm creating a map. We hired you to come work here for Dirty Moom Media, and we kept telling each other, man, we need to do a show, we need to do a show about this, I want to show you my map. I didn't know whether this was enough of an interesting story for television. We were creating a lot of content for podcasts.

We were creating a lot of content on YouTube. So maybe it's a, maybe we do a little six, five minute blurbs on these tracks on YouTube. I don't know. Didn't know if anybody wanted to watch this stuff. It was definitely intriguing to me, but every time I would try to go show my map to somebody, I would get a, you know, I couldn't hook them. I didn't see the same fascination in them that I was having for this. experience, right? So it made me concerned about doing a show. But anyways, man, we kept talking

about it, kept talking about it. And I had a vision of doing the show where we basically just talk about making the map, how we made the map. We use a lot of imagery of Google Earth and Google Maps and sort of make it about us making the maps and discovering these tracks and finding new tracks, right, and understanding exactly what's left of these places, if anything. Because we're still doing that. Yeah, I mean, behind the scenes, I mean, me and you were on this, we're on this chat, we're on this chat message together with a few other guys that are hunters, you know, for these tracks and we're still curating our maps, right?

Well, how many tracks do we have now? Over 2,000. Now that we've came together, there's about six or so of us, we have a map that we've sort of merged all our stuff, and we have over 2,000 tracks, right? So we're still working on that Our passion for making the map And understanding where these tracks are And what's left is still happening

But my vision for the show Was real short-sighted And that's where my concern came in For whether people would enjoy seeing it When we plug you And Dirty Mo Media into The creation of the show It exploded

We went to You know, we picked We had eight episodes so we had to find eight tracks. COVID made that difficult. But anyways, we go to these seven racetracks, and you guys brought so much more to the show than I ever imagined was possible.

We were able to connect to the people that raced at these tracks. They're part of the show. We get a historian who's well-versed in that specific racetrack itself to tell us what the track meant to the community. So we get a real understanding of what the track, the impact that the track had on that area, which is important. It helps sort of bring the track to life so you can almost understand what it might have been like. Yeah, what it might have been like.

To go there and look at it today is a great, fun sort of mystery. There's a lot of beauty, sadness, all those emotions when you're walking around a track today that has been abandoned for many years. But you guys were able to get the stories and the people involved to sort of bring it back, to life so we could almost see what it would have been, what it, almost imagine and feel what it was like when the track was working and functioning, which I thought was, I didn't know would be possible to do. And that component is what made the show worthy of being on, on peacock, right? So anyway, as you can tell, I'm extremely proud of this project. I'm proud of all the guys at Dirty Mo Media for all the hard work. You would not believe how this show

came together and the work that was done and the effort that was put into it. The COVID put a lot of restrictions on our abilities and everybody went the extra mile. We crossed our T's and dotted our eyes all the way to the last second before we were to turn this all turn this in to Peacock. It was a really amazing effort. And so we're getting a great response. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to ask you, you know, we're getting a great response. You know, I know, I know you have to some reservations about doing the show initially and you saw how it started to come to life. So that was a pleasant surprise in a way. But this response...

I think the fear, too, was that this show, to do this show was our idea, right? This usually typically when we're, when we're, when we get involved in a show, it's somebody brings the idea to us and plugs us into it and says, hey, man, would you want to be a part of this? Well, this was our idea. And we were kind of putting our necks on the line. Yep. And a lot of people in the industry and with NBC and so forth put their necks on the line as well to help us make this happen.

What were some of the best responses you think you got? Well, you know, I don't know that there's any that's not a best response that sort of stands out. It's just the fact that it's universal. It's all positive. The only thing people are complaining about is wanting more episodes. And the funny thing, the thing that I love to do is show them our map and say, look, we got 2,000 potential episodes. episodes here. Because I take a screenshot of that map, and it's probably about six months old, so there's

several hundred tracks missing on it. But it still gives you an idea of, like, how much potential there is out there as far as stories. We did the first season on tracks that we knew enough about that we had confidence in. I'm so eager to really take some gambles on some of these tracks that we know nothing about and really go uncover some of the stories there. all of them have those stories. We're not going to go to a racetrack that is a dud.

All of them have tragedy and triumph and success and failure involved in them. You don't, you know, that's just part of racing anywhere you go around the world. These tracks have got a story to tell. Now with season one out, though, you know, you've been able to look at some of the episodes and whatnot. You got to come on three of them. I know like in the past when I was doing kind of my lost B-way's thing and you were doing your deal, you know, you'd get on, say, a periscope with me and be like, oh, man, what didn't you invite me? And it's like now you got to be boots on the ground on a few episodes. Like, of those explores, what really stood out to you?

Because that's a new experience for you. Well, you're right. I've been creating this map for all these years. I've only went to a couple racetracks. on that map. You have been to many, you know, and lost speedways has been something that you've taken a lot further than I have. You've really been more proactive than I have to go see these places and see what they

look like. And so I was eager, even before we started doing the show, I mean, before you even came to work here, you know, you were working out on the tour with us going to the racetrack when I was driving and I'd see you on social media. Like, hey, man, it just went to this track 30 miles from the race, you know, 30 miles from wherever we're at to this abandoned track. And I'm like, man, I would have went. I would have went.

Why didn't you, you got to let me know when you're going to those. And I'm sitting there going, dude, you're like Elvis, man. I'm like, really? What? I'm like, I didn't think you'd actually do it. I thought we were better friends. Honestly, you know, and so I was extremely envious of the experience that you were having to see these tracks.

You know, so now that we're doing a show, I'm telling you. I said it before, and it's truly genuine. I'm the it's selfish my the reason why I love being a part of this show is selfishly it gets me to these racetracks

yeah right yeah we're creating a great show and people are loving it and and and I want to I want to do another season and just keep digging but selfishly yeah I mean that's the best part about it for me

I love the stories I love hearing about the drivers the community and all that but honestly I just want to see it I just want to see it today. And you know me, I love to look around on the ground and explore and find what the... For the Magellan.

Yeah, well, it's obvious. Like, if you're standing there, there's a guardrail, and I can see the banking. And I want to find more, right? Well, you're finding crap that, I mean, I was shocked at, I think it was Okunichi where we were at. And it's like, you're there for like two hours. And you're just like, boom, I found this. Oh, I found this. And I'm like, what the hell, man?

Yeah, we found beer cans that, you know. A bottle. So we, the cool part, so that's a great example. So we're at Okanichy. The place closed in 1968. We found this big, we found this big jar that was buried. I'm saying intentionally, absolutely. There's no way that thing just sunk down in the ground like that.

It was about a 12 inches tall and probably about 8 to 10 inches in circumference. And somebody had dug a hole and put it in the ground. And there was a little. on it and I don't know what was in it, maybe nothing, but somebody had put that there for a reason. It had nothing to do with racing probably, but it was interesting to find

that. Like a time capsule or something. Somebody was hiding money in that or something, who knows, maybe drugs. Who knows what was in that, right? Somebody in the 70s or 80s might have been using it as a secret hiding spot. But we walked on the interior of the racetrack.

We were walking probably about 50 yards from the back straight away. So I'm 50 yards from the actual race track backstretch and there's a fence line and apparently that's the original fence line where spectators had pulled up, would pull up, back up, whatever and

watched the race. And so imagine people lined up on that fence with their arms up on the fence and sitting up on top of the posts and all that stuff right? Just watching. Well that right there is where you're going to find a lot of stuff. We found beer cans, just fans discarding whatever, right? Because when

they closed the track, they walked away. Nobody went in there and cleaned it up. Supposed that they left the programs and all the stuff. Nobody picked trash up or anything. It's just all laying there, right? Underneath the leaves and so forth of, you know, 30 years of weather and nature. We walked, so we found some stuff on that old fence line. The fence is no longer there, but the posts and a couple of, there's, you know by looking

on the ground that that's where sort of the boundary was for the spectators to the racetrack. A lot of stuff laying right there. We walk up into the grandstands where the wooden seats were, not the concrete, but where the old wooden grandstands were, they're long gone. The studs and posts. There are stumps over there where people would sit. Well, all that's still there. We found tons of bottles, old liquor bottles.

And we could date those bottles. Well, yeah. First, we didn't know that. And then I'm sitting there. Dale all of a sudden fades out. and like you're off over here and I'm like what is he doing and I see you're on your phone so I figure you're texting Amy or something next thing you know you're like ah yeah I got it like look at the bottom of the bottle so yeah the number's on the bottom of the bottle tell you the manufacturer what was in it and when it was made when it was bottled and so that bottle right there was left last race and it was dated 1968 it's crazy but you didn't get to go to three of them so you went to Okunichie you went to new ashville with me

and you went to, Metroline, of course, the first episode. Yeah. Then the three other episodes, you didn't get a chance to really lay eyes on those until we did the production. Yeah, not fair. You know, I know you wanted to be there,

but now, like, looking back at those ones, what one stood out for you of, damn it, I wish I was there? Well, you know, all of them. I want to go to every one of them. There's not something in this that stands out as far as tracks I missed or wanted to go to. I mean, I want to see them all.

I want to experience all of them. Yeah, because you had Jungle Park, Inchliff. I mean, all of them. To be honest with you, there's not going to be a track that sort of is this king of the mountain or top of the leaderboard for me. They all mean something. The curiosity is sort of pegged for each one of them, right? Because you just don't know what you're going to see and find. but man I love it

I'm so glad that we're able to finally put this out there and it hit people are happy I'm feeling confident that we might get to keep working on it God I hope for a season two I'm feeling confident that we might get to do that so I'll be real surprised I think if if it's not an opportunity for us you know I feel confident

that we could create it and people would want to see it and now that we got our legs underneath us man we did that in we did that with a lot of limitations. Yeah. All right. You know.

And plus it's like the first show even, like you and I going on to explore, we'd never explore to track together. You guys could tell you guys all in the room here. Yeah. Could share real particulars about what the limitations were. But for people, you know, trying to create a show and shoot a show, you see it. I mean, all across, if you're watching TV, nobody's making original content right now. Everybody's playing reruns.

Yeah. You know, because they can. It's hard. It's impossible to get everybody in one room to do this work. We were able to, you know, do this properly, safely with a very small staff. And, you know, really everybody had to do a lot of different jobs. It was kind of like people think we're the New York Yankees, right? Because we're, you know, involvement with Dale, like this big empire.

But it's like to me it felt like everybody thought we were a big stacker trailer. and we were really towing in there with an open trailer and a tire rack and kicking their ass, you know. Well, the talent on this team at Dirty Mo Media is evident when you watch the show. I was telling Mike that. So I saw the episodes as we were putting them together, but when you watch it on TV, man, this looks like it was done in L.A. This looks like it was done, you know, by the best of the best. The sound, color, everything.

I mean, obviously the content's really cool, but the editing sound. cuts, all that stuff is just so well done. So super proud of that. I think industry people across the, you know, if anybody that's in this industry of production and television watches this, they're going to really, really come in the job done. Lost Speedways, man, it was a, it's a good, it's a good show. I'm proud of it.

Peacock TV, man. Check it out. Yeah, that's right. So let's be sure people understand this part, our most important part. and we really didn't know this until it came out, or we'd have told you. It's on Peacock TV. That's the streaming service from NBC.

So you can go get the app. If you have a smart TV, Apple TV, iPad, which I have. Whatever. Yeah, your phone, get the app, and you can stream our show for free. You know, a lot of the stuff going on this week, this past week at the Texas Motor Speedway. this might run a little long on open segment. We have the All-Star, too. Well, we did have...

I know, but I wanted to talk about Noah Gregson. Oh. All right, Exfinity. I was wondering if you'd want to go there. Yeah, sure. So we had a pretty... I thought the racing was great this weekend at Texas. You know, the Cup race, I got a lot of opinions about that

and what could have made that show a little bit better. But I think that they did a good job as far as the track and the industry, NASCAR. Not reapplying that traction compound. I'm kind of over the traction compound right now. I think that we're overdoing it a little bit. It's okay. It's an experiment. I'm not harping on anybody.

I just hope that everybody's sort of taking note of exactly what's happening and we're making adjustments because I feel like maybe we're overdoing it a little bit. It's not something maybe that needs to happen everywhere. When you look at Texas Motor Speedway and how much that track has aged, the color of the track, really graying out. And I haven't been there to put my hand on the surface, but I imagine if you could take that traction compound away, Goodyear could be a little more aggressive with the tire.

The tire is really good. They didn't need to change the tire because it wasn't wearing. Well, the reason is because the tire is bulletproof. Why did Goodyear bring that tire? Because they can't take a risk on bringing anything less or anything too soft or that might. wear too fast because of the traction compound. They have, the traction compound is such a moving target that Goodyear can't take risks, right?

Goodyear really can't understand where the goalpost is. And there's a lot of people, just to clarify for somebody that's listening that doesn't understand, you know, I was listening to DBC yesterday. And people mistaken a bad tire and a good tire. And I think Goodyear gets a bad rap there. Oh, yeah. Because they're making such a good tire that sometimes it might not be the best, racing tire as far as the product, but it's a good quality

tire. Right. They're going into these racetracks without any testing. There's no tire testing. There's no practice. There's no laps. You show up and you race. All right. I want to put everybody that's listening, you're the CEO of the tire company, right? You own the tire company, all right? And you make racing tires, but that's not your main business. Your main business is selling tires to residents to the public, right? You're selling tires and you're making millions of dollars. But you do this racing thing on the side to help promote your business, okay? It's not a big moneymaker for you, but it helps you, you know, stay relevant.

You're the, man, you're the CEO of this business. All right, I'm old, all right, I need you to show up at Texas and give me a tire that's going to not give me any problems. I don't know how fast the cars are going. I don't know how much load they're going to get in the corner. I don't know, you know, I don't know anything. I don't know. I can't give you any information about what the cars might be doing around that racetrack.

You're going to probably bring me something really conservative. I would expect you to bring me a tire that's absolutely no question going to be able to, you know, handle the things that it might face. And so you're going to shoot high, right? And I think that that's the box that Goodyear's in. And I think until we, sort of dial back this traction compound usage. I don't know that it's

even necessary anymore at Texas. They can't even use all of it, right? They put that traction compound all the way to the fence in three and four. And as the guys are running on the bottom and running in that first lower groove of traction compound, they're throwing marbles up the racetrack. Well, that stuff the traction compound is real sticky, and so the marbles don't just go to the

fence like they used to. It sticks right in that outer groove. So now just outside the groove super dirty. Treacherous. It's like getting off line on a road course. Everywhere, but in the groove is dirt, you know, and marbles. So the guys can't really move the groove up like we used to at Texas.

I'm telling you, if they didn't PJ won the track, right, those guys will be running a lot higher on the long run, really using that racetrack up, but you can't because it's too dirty. And anytime anybody would step outside of that line, man, they would just spin out or hit the wall. We saw it a couple times. I went a little further on that than I won. wanted to. But I hope that everybody is paying attention

and we're making some adjustments because I think we kind of went a little far on that. Noah. So, had a little situation. You know, Noah's been aggressive this year. I don't really tend to tell my drivers how to drive. Obviously,

him and Justin get together. That's never great when the teammates are going to crash. But if you're going to race in the Xfinity series with two to four cars on the racetrack every single race for over a decade, they're going to hit each other every once in a while. I don't really get bent out of shape over what happens on the racetrack each weekend. It's more big picture for me.

Are we making money? Are we sustaining our business for our employees? Are we consistently finishing well in the points and championships to be able to sort of meet our budget? Things like that. If we're tearing up race cars every single week with one particular driver, that's when you kind of step in and say, hey, man, we're just, spending a lot of money here.

Those are the things I worry about. I don't really worry about, oh man, you know, you hit the wall, you screwed up, you stepped over the line. You know, guys are going to make mistakes. We can't get in there and micromanage what's going on on the racetrack. But I will say, this past weekend, I'm in the NBC booth doing the Xfinity race, and Noah gets into the back of that 18 car, and I was in a position where, hey, you know, I'm car owner, but when I get in that booth, I have to take that hat off, and now I've got to

call it straight. I can't insulate my guys. I can't take care of them. And sometimes I'm much harder on them than the other guys, just to make sure the fans understand that I'm not, there's no bias, right? Yep. And it sucks, but that's the way I got to call it. They put me in the booth. Fans, fans don't want nobody in there being soft and going easy or telling. Honesty. Yeah, fans want that. Absolutely. So, Noah run over. him. The 18's loose going up the track, checking up, checking up, Noah, you know, gets in the back of him. So I told Noah, well, I did have a conversation with him. I said, hey, man, I said, you're having a great year. I said, but think about it like this. Like, that happened on lap five. Everybody saw it.

I had to say, look, it was early. That was something that shouldn't happen that soon in the race. and I had to call it like I saw it, right? You know, I've since had some conversation with Noah and his crew chief Dave. They certainly feel like that we went a little hard on Noah, which I can understand. They have SMT data that they can look at on that 18 car and know exactly how much he dumped the throttle and all those things. But the kid never been there before, never been to Texas.

He's running around Texas. Riley Herbst. Yeah, never been there. Like, man, when you go to a track that you've never been at, it takes you maybe the whole week. There's no practice. Yeah, it takes you the whole weekend to figure it out. You know, you go out there and your first 10 laps in practice are way off.

You know, you're not doing anything right. So here he is just trying to get around the track. Poor guy. And, you know, Noah's like, I ain't got time for this. Yeah. And so it was a tough situation to be in, but I feel good about the way I handled it. I hate that if it bothered Noah or Dave or any of the guys here at Junior Motors Sports, I mean, that's just, if I'm going to be calling it, but I'm going to be calling it,

them races, I got to call them races the way any of them other guys in the booth would call it. And then I got to get out of there and then come back over here and put my owner's hat back on and say, hey, man, when I'm in that job, I got to do it this way. And when I'm here, you know, when I'm not calling those races, I'm the owner, you know. Can I ask you a question about that? Sure. Noah has showed a lot of speed and a lot more confidence this year, obviously. does this remind you at all in a way of Ernie Irwin? Wow, yeah, that's a great analogy.

Ernie Irvin came in, and a lot of people that are listening, may remember Ernie coming into the season, super aggressive, right? Yeah, driving for D.K. Oh, Rick. Boy, he took D.K.'s white number two and run that thing up in the front like it never been before. I remember him racing. We're at Bristol. He stayed out.

They had like a little short run. Everybody comes down pit road, and he stayed out. It's a white Pontiac, and he's leading to race. And, I mean, he's driving the dang wheels off this thing. He eventually got loose and fenced it off turn four. But that car, it never run that way, never run that good. And those were the moments that really secured him those future opportunities. What he was able to do in D.K.'s car.

But he was wild. Now when he gets in the fast stuff, Morgan McClure, the four car, he starts hitting everything. Yeah. Right. Big wreck on the back straightaway at Daytona and the 500. He got blamed for. They were on him, right? Like they are with Noah right now. Drivers were complaining about him to the media.

He was getting it from all sides. So it's very similar. And Noah's 22 years old. Yeah, people forget that. Noah is, he's got a lot going on in his life. And he's not going to be perfect, right? He's not going to be perfect. But what I said to Noah was kind of like that if you, what I think about, I'll say this.

What I think about that is, if that thing with the 18 happens with two to go, five to go, is it a big of deal? The people really hammer Noah is hard? It happened to the last five. That was the deal. And I told Noah, I said, man, I said, when you go into the chase, or the, I'm sorry, got to put a dollar in a jar. When you go into the playoffs, when you go into the playoffs, you're going to have to drive that way when necessary. all right if you want to win the championship

you might have to throw the gloves off right but if you you don't want that reputation all year long right it's just like that race it's not maybe the best thing to have that happened at lap 5

but if it happened at lap 5 to go two to go people are going to see it a little differently some people are still going to call it the same way but you get a little bit more of a break because it's at the end of the race time to go right so maybe think about the season that way

you know maybe don't be dumping guys at five races into the year. Maybe think, you know, man, I might need to be aggressive at the end of the season, so let me take a little vacation here and go easy on these guys, take care of them. And then when our chips are on the table, I'm coming there and take what's mine. So, but number one rule, right, if you're an owner of a race team and you've got to drive or doing this kind of stuff, the number one rule is you don't want to slow them down. No.

Right? So when you sit down and you try to have a conversation about it, you just don't want to slow them down. Because you've got to have those guys hungry and going out there and confident and driving hard. It's a really tough thing to try to tell somebody how to clean it up a little bit, but yet not take the edge off, right? Not take the speed out of them. So, you know, but again,

No, it's 22 years old. He's young. He's learning. I'm not going to get in his way. I'm going to let him keep on going. Keep on learning. Guy's going to make more mistakes. I'm going to promise you that.

Everybody's going to do it. All these guys in that field, I mean, look at him. There was three 19-year-olds in the field Saturday. There was one 50-year-old guy, David Starr. Nobody in their 40s in the Xenity race. Nobody in their 40s. The next oldest guy to David Starr was just, I believe at 36 years old.

You're kidding me. No kidding. Holy crap. Young. That's what that series is all about now. The identity has changed. I wish they had more veterans to race with, but that's a conversation for a... That is a great conversation for another day, and I'm going to be honest with you.

I was on team, get all the cup guys out. I was all about it when they were talking about limitations and all that stuff. And there's a lot of positives to not letting the cup guys run so much. But there's some negatives that we're starting to see, or I'm starting to see. These young guys crave it. They crave the opportunity to race Kyle Bush and Harvick and all those other guys. They crave it. But they learn stuff by racing.

We all know that. Yeah, they learn a lot, but they want to race them. And something that I heard from Harrison Burton. I'm going to end the open segment on this. Harrison Burton said in an interview, we were actually a conversation we were having with him, he said, racing against Kyle Bush, I learn a lot. but beating Kyle Bush can change my career. Wow.

So these guys, I mean, in a time where all these guys like Noah, Harrison, they're all trying to make their mark, right? They're all trying to land that amazing opportunity, that next opportunity in the Cup Series. Well, beating Kyle Bush puts them on the map. And so that stuck with me. That stuck with me when he said, beating Kyle Bush could change my career.

I was like, wow, okay. Well, maybe Kyle Bush might need to be out there a little more often than five races a year. Maybe these other cup guys, I remember the Xfinity races back in the day. I used to have 15, 25 cup guys in the race. You know, I don't know what the balance is. I don't know what the balance is. But that was interesting to hear from a young guy. So much wisdom from Harrison Burton.

All right, look at that. Oh, you put a new car in the background there. I like it. Yeah, we had to move some stuff around. I'll give a little love to the Woodbrothers. Heck yeah, man. Heck yeah. As promised, today's guest on the show is Ray Everingham.

Man, where have you been? Seems like you, I kept thinking in my head. I'm like, he's been on our show, but you haven't. This is your first time. And I feel bad because you're one of my good friends and you're a legend. You're an amazing storyteller. why in the heck haven't I had you on this show already. But welcome.

I love the background, all the fun things, quite the collector. So I don't even know where to start. You're a Hall of Famer. See your shirt there. You are now too. What does that mean? They send you a bunch of those polos? And you'll see.

You'll get to see here shortly. But man, I can tell you that it's been the greatest thing. in my life has been when you're honored by the people that you, man, you're just, you're so happy just to be part of it and they honor you with something like this. And as you stand up there on that stage, like I had to do that night, it's a, man, it's a fire hose of emotion because you feel so proud, yeah, just so humble. It's hard for me to explain. And the cool thing is I know that you're going to get to feel it soon. Then you get a lot of these really cool shirts, too. That's pretty awesome. So man, you've done everything. You've raced. You worked for IROC.

You worked for a lot of race teams over the years. And then you became the crew chief for Jeff Gordon. You became a car owner in a mega deal that brought Dodge back to NASCAR. You've been in television, creating your own shows. You have your own garage there where you create a lot of awesome, you know, you bring history back, which is a lot of fun. And I just recently have gotten to know you, you know, since I guess when they kind of brought you in to help a little bit at HMS while I was still there racing. And it kind of gave me the opportunity to connect with you. And we share some interest in, you know, history. And our love for the history of the sport is really pure. And you do a lot of hard work in that area. But it's all fun. But anyways,

it's created an opportunity for us to become friends. And I've always wondered, like is the person that you are today, is that who you were when you were racing? What was your personality like? How has it changed throughout the years? Looking at the videos of you as a crew chief for Jeff Gordon. You were extremely competitive, right? You had to be.

It was a very cutthroat sort of environment. You had to be sly and secretive and mysterious and tough. But as a driver, start from the beginning. You're charming, very happy, go lucky, friendly guy now. I know you couldn't have always been that way. What kind of race car driver were you on the racetrack and off the racetrack? Oh, man. Gosh, you know, if you talked to some people that raced against me,

I was probably fun to watch. I probably wasn't as focused as I needed to be. You know, I just felt like you just did it, drive it. I probably wasn't as I said focused. You know, I had a lot of fun driving. and got to race with some great people and the modifies and things like that. But I really, when I went to work for Jay Signore and Roger Penske, that kind of straightened me out about getting focused, you know,

and it got a lot more serious about my stuff and started to run the IROC cars and then run the modifies and do a lot and do a lot better. And, you know, I saw Matthew and them, you know, kind of laughing and shaking his head. Because when I was, when I was racing and driving, I was kind of a partier, I hung out with a lot of the guys. Really? It was about the after party. You know what I mean?

It was Saturday night was a good place to meet at the racetrack to have a good party afterwards. Did you party at the track? Oh, yeah, because at Wall Stadium, we used to run, you know, we'd run the feature. And then they'd leave all the lights on it. And we'd pull all the trailers and trucks around there, you know, and we'd all just kind of get our coolers out and talk about the night. And about two o'clock in the morning, they'd flick the lights on and off and let us know it was time to go. And sometimes we'd go home.

and sometimes we would just go back out in the parking lot and turn the headlights on. But that was our Saturday night ritual. You know, it was a lot of fun, a lot of camaraderie, but, you know, we certainly weren't thinking about racing somewhere on Sunday. You know, were you, was it your, I'm trying to understand, like, where were you going with your driving career?

What was your hope? My goal was to drive in Indianapolis. I wanted to run Indy cars. That's why I did, I was so interested. in the open wheel cars. I just, I had dream of racing an indie car at indie. And that's largely why I took the job at IROC and went to work for Roger Penske, because I just knew that, man, when Roger meets me and he sees me drive my modified, he's going to want to stick me right in his indie car. You know what I mean? So, you know, what I didn't know is that I was going to

learn so much from Jay Signoree and Roger Penske. And they did let me test the IROC cars a lot. Like, got to test the IROC cars everywhere we went and talked to several, um, several times with, with Mr. Penske about driving, you know, something everyone put me in an archa car. I begged them.

I begged them, and begged him, begged him to let me drive the Indy car. And, uh, it's just another reason it shows that Roger Penske's much smarter than me because he probably saved my life. He thought,

there's no way as wild as this guy is. I'm putting him in a, in an indie car, you know, um, because it's real easy as a crew chief or to stand back and, and preach about, hey, you know, you guys got to roll the corner,

you got to let off the gas where I was kind of wide open. I think that's why I always, I was good in the sprint car, you know, won a lot of racing stuff on the dirt with the sprint car because you could run that wide open most of the time. So what all did you race? What all was you ran a modified on asphalt at Wall Stadium, New Egypt, Speedway, places like that, Flemington, and then you ran sprint cars too on dirt. Yeah, well, I ran the sprint cars later on in my career,

but early in my career I ran late model. or we used to call them modern stocks, you know, back then, but I ran the late models. And then we ran a sportsman series where they were kind of like modifies, but we were only allowed 318 cubic inches. And that was the old NASCAR way of doing things. NASCAR, you know, like we'd run new Egypt and some of the NASCAR tracks, there was modified and there were sportsmen. And sometimes you'd run together. And if you'd run your sportsman, your 318 cubic inch car with the modifies and you finished like first sportsmen, you could get as much money as modified would win the feature.

and then they pay top sportsmen. So it was a pretty good deal, really. And then I went, I moved up to the Modifieds. And then I also ran what they call three-quarter midgets, like a T-Q midget. Ran those things and had a blast running around New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania with those. And then I read some dirt modifies, those big, you know, the big boxy T-C cars. And then we decided to run them things on pavement. And we ran them on pavement.

and then a bunch of us got hurt and I got hurt at Flemington and I always tell you. Oh, yeah, yeah. And if I hadn't got hurt in that car, I would never have met Jeff Gordon. So how did that wreck happen? What happened there at Flemington?

Oh, man, we used to run these down like 420 lapers. And when they dropped the, when they dropped the green, it was on, right? And it was like, it was a madhouse running these, these 20 lap features. And when, I guess on, I hated them for that. And when they dropped the green flag on one of them, we got, we made one lap, and I think we all got bottled up down in the corner.

And I got in the back of the car ahead of me, and I got a little bit sideways, and I turned the wheels to the right. At the same time, somebody hit me in the back, and it shot that thing across the track, and it was an ambulance gate there, and it went right smack into the ambulance gate sideways. And it was a good leg. Yeah, that hurt you pretty badly. Give me a head injury. And it was, you know, I was unconscious for three, four days, and it took three, four months to come back.

And as I said, that was one of the things that, again, I respect you for the most is you brought more attention to what we've got to do to keep drivers and safe and how serious a head injury can be and how much time it takes. It's a, you know, and I'll tell you, it was years, years before I was able to get my depth perception and things like that back. I tried to come back and get in a race car and gotten a race car way too soon and almost hurt myself again. No kidding. At that time, it was time to go find a real job. Yeah, that's so scary to knowing what you've accomplished in your life since then and knowing the person you are over the last couple of years that I've gotten to know. it's so scary to imagine you being injured that way. But like you said, it sort of turned you into a new direction.

You were already working with IROC at this time? Yeah, that would have been, I got hurt in 91, and I had worked. I started at IROC 83 and worked for them through 89. And then in 90, I went back out on my own. And I got pretty serious about my racing. I learned a lot. I had the dirt modified, had the pavement modified. had a midget and had an archa car that we were going to run.

Where were you going to run the archa car? We were going to run the archa car at Pocono. I had worked on it. I don't know that. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, it was that red coat steel tubing number 38. So we had that car all ready to go.

I was going to run it at Pocono. And I had done a couple cup races with a guy named Dick Johnson. You know, we rolled into Sears Point, I think, for the first race. And, you know, Dick was Australian touring car champion and whatnot. but he was uh he ran off in the tires yep and he uh he used a he used a couple um words that they didn't get to beep out on tv and it was funny because uh he called richard petty uh uh name that and then he uh he might have dropped an eph bomb on on the thing there and uh it was just kind of funny i'll remember that and we got more press over him doing that than anything that we did

for the rest of the time that we were together but but we had that car and we were We're going to do a lot of racing. And then, you know, actually had met Jeff Gordon even before I got hurt. And as soon as I got hurt, you know, I went, again, crazy, crazy stuff. You know, you talk about timing, but went down to work for Alan Kouicki. Alan and I had been friends and I've been doing some work for Allen. And he said, you come down and work for me. And I was like, ah, man, I don't know.

So I went to work for Alan and three days we were throwing. I mean, I mean throwing stuff like tape measures at one of them. Oh, no. Stuff like that. Yeah. And I quit the day before the Daytona 500. I was headed back to New Jersey. Probably remember Preston Miller from Ford.

Yes. Preston Miller said, where are you going? I said home. And he said, hotel. I said, no, New Jersey. I'm done. And he said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. And if Preston put me over at Bill Davis racing the next day.

And if it hadn't been for that chance deal, I mean, I'd have been, who I could have been selling frozen yogurt or something on the Jersey Shore by now. I don't know. It's crazy how things work out. Well, I've seen pictures of you, and you've shared with me working with Dave Marcus. When did that happen?

All through my Iraq career, you know, I wanted to see more about what was going on. And I said, Dave, I'd like to come down and help you. And Dave gave me my first shot at working on a cup car or a sportsman car. He said, look, I'll pay your gas to come. down from New Jersey. I'll give you a place to sleep and I'll feed you. And I did that with Dave would several times. And he taught me a lot about what was going on with the races and, you know, how the whole NASCAR system worked. And we actually ran good a couple of times, man. There were

sometimes we led some races. Like at Dover, I know we led to race there for a while with that Oldsmobile that he had. And we had so many spacers on the right front, you know, to keep the biased ply tire from rolling under and getting to the rear steer tire rod. Remember he's how to space them out. We broke some studs. And one time, man, we were leading the, it would have been a bush at that time at Bristol. And he was driving for somebody. We were leading that thing. I remember, yeah, and he pulled in and got out. Well, when we went to make a pit stop, they had never tried to do anything with their guns.

And all of the lug nut, all of the sockets wouldn't fit on the extended goods. And we couldn't get the wheels off. So Dave, we sat there. We lost, you know, three, four laps or whatever. And Dave just got out, walked away. know I was watching that race. I think they played it on TV here recently. And I was watching that race.

And Dave gets out and he goes, well, they wouldn't change the tires. They're like, Dave, you were leading and you're in the garage and you got out. Well, they wouldn't change the tires. Now we know the rest of the story. Yeah, we couldn't change the tires. That's hilarious. I mean, it was, I mean, it was those days, you know, they were fun. They were like, all right, you ever do this or you ever do that?

And it's like, well, no, okay, well, here's how you do it. And here comes a pit stop. So, you know, you end up working with Jeff Gordon and become this, you know, phenomenon dynasty. But working in Iraq, you know, you're a driver and you've been around drivers, racing it into modifies and so forth. But working with Dave or going to the IROC series and working with those guys, what did that teach you about other drivers and how to manage drivers, how to work with drivers? Did you have people's skills out of the gate? or did you have to hone that ability to communicate with those guys? I'm from New Jersey, so they don't teach us people skills there in Jersey.

We got kind of learned that. You know, one of the things I think that made the biggest difference is I got to work with the greatest drivers in the world at that time. You know, Foyt, Andretti, Unser, your dad, you know, and you learned so much from those guys. I mean, we had Yarborough and Petty and, you know, just they were so gracious with their time and they were okay with asking why. And I remember even like Rusty Wallace and people like that, I'd be like, why or how did you feel that? And, you know, I think that when realize working with that group of people that there's just certain things that they think about or that they are so comfortable in their environment that a moment in time, you know, like a second to me, and probably a second to you being a race driver,

and to Matt, it's all different, you know, and I realized that those guys were so comfortable in their environment that they were, where I'd be going around there at 150, just trying not to hit anything, and that's what I'm thinking about, and they're thinking about this and that, you know. And you start to realize that when you talk to other drivers, you pretty know quickly when a guy's giving you feedback,

whether, you know, what he's thinking about. And what it taught me was how to ask the right questions, over and over again to get that driver to really break that down in his mind to give you the information so you could fix the car. And, you know, that IROC experience valuable in my career, not just to the driver communication, but the organizational part. Yeah. You mentioned going to work for Bill Davis. What did they put you on as soon as you got there? They, you know, Bill Davis had a great program. And I will tell you straight up, that was the most fun that I've ever had in my life working on a race team because it was only five or six of us and we did everything we had

I think we had three cars but we only used to you know they immediately put me on trying to get the chassis sorted out so they had a really good motor program they had a good body program and they'd been sharing a shop with mark martin the number 60 car the wind dixie car and uh but jeff's cars were uh i guess they were um bsr cars billy has built them cars at that time and uh when i went there i said well where's this at? Where's that at? And, you know, they were good cars, but they hadn't really squared them up and they hadn't really gone through the bump and whatnot. And I knew a little bit about that stuff, how important it was from working at Iraq. And I just started to get the

front ends right. And I came up with a combination that Jeff really liked. And then we just worked on making both cars the same. And, you know, probably the biggest thing I learned at Bill Davis, those no matter how good your chassis is, you still got to have a good motor and a good driver because, you know, you got those two things. Those other cars are a lot easier to pass. When was the moment when you realized that Jeff had the talent? Oh, man, you know, Jeff and I met in 1990. Andy Petrie called me up and he said, hey, Leo Jackson's son-in-law is going to run this deal, run this guy. I need you to come down here and help. I don't have time to do it. And I was like, man, I'm trying to race. And I said, who's the kid?

He said, Jeff Gordon. And I had just seen Jeff Gordon. like on Thursday night Thunder or whatever, run smack over some guy, like run smack over them, go down the straightaway on two wheels and still win the race. I was like, man, I got to go see if this kid's legit. So Jeff and I met at, I guess, at a hotel in Charlotte right before this test deal. And I really liked them.

Like I liked, you know, from talking to all those guys, like I talked about IROC, like, I think of them. So, man, this kid's 17, 18 years old. He really talks about the car like he should be. And then we went to Charlotte the next day for Grand National Test, and Davy was there and Chuck Bound, a lot of good guys. And we had a Buck Baker school car and with a V6 Chevy in it, right? So we didn't have a gear motor in back then.

And Jeff, man, Jeff went out. I think we put Chuck Bound in it first, shake it down, make sure it was all right. Jeff goes out in it. And I got to tell you the story. I go up on top of the truck. Jeff gets in the car and he starts waving to me. He comes down. I'm like, what, what, and he's waving.

He didn't want to say it on the radio. He's waving. He says, hey, how do I start this? You know, because he used to get in there and push them off. Right. Now, I'm like, wait a minute. He's like, yeah, what, you know, so went through. I said, now you do, I said, you do, you do drive a clutch, right?

He's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Same is on the column, but I'm, you know. the floor, right? I was like, yeah, yeah, you're good, man. He went out there, and I'm going to tell you in three, four laps, he's just sailing. I mean, over the bumps, down into one, just sailing, like, boom, like right on the board, you know, like probably top five at that time. And he comes off of three and four there. He gets a little bit low, maybe gets the apron, gets that bump, and, man, that thing just sideways. Sideways, brings all the way out to the wall, almost the wall, you know, down into the little quad oval there.

I hit the button on the radio. I said, hey, man, you're all right? He's like, yeah, why? I'm like, hey, why don't you come in here and let's talk? I said, hey, look, you know, you can't do that that much with a stock car. I get it. You know, your sprint car, you can slide. I said, but, you know, he'll turn that thing around.

He said, oh, wow, I didn't. I'm sorry, man. Like, I didn't even realize I was that sideways. That's awesome. So, you know, you guys got together and how does the move to Hendrick happen? Do you get, are you, are you, are you, how does that happen? Do you get a phone call? Is Jeff telling you what's going on?

Jeff got phone call. And see, when we went, our first win at Atlanta, you know, with the first few laps on tires, we really lose. And Rick Hendrick was watching it. And he sees, you know, he sees this number one baby Ruth Cargo just smoking the right rear and passes Mark Martin. He's like, man, who's that guy? He's going to wreck. I'm going to watch this. We go on win the race.

And Andy Graves worked at the five car at that time. And Andy said, Rick had said something around the five car. And he said, well, that guy lives with me. And he doesn't really have a set contract for next year. So they called Jeff and they talked to him. And Jeff said, look, you know, Rick Hendrick called me. And I was like, man, that's pretty big right there. You know, like those guys have got everything.

He said, I want you to go over and look at that place and tell me if you think that, you know, we can win there. And I'm going to tell you, I won onto that complex. And there used to be a team manager there. His name was Jimmy Johnson, too, Jim Johnson, right? So he showed me around, and I looked at everything they had. I went back to Jeff. I said, look, if we can't take the stuff that man has and win, we can't win anywhere because they have everything they need.

I don't know why they're not winning. But I'm telling you, everything we need to win races and championships is there. So Jeff accepted that deal with Rick. and he said, hey, look, I want Ray to come and I want Ray to be my crew chief. And I didn't want to be the crew chief. I was like, I don't have any experience to be a crew chief. I'm the chassis guy. I'll set the chassis up.

And Rick, you know, Rick Hendrick is such a funny guy. He said, well, nope, Jeff wants you to be the crew chief, and that's the only job we got. Take it or leave it. You're a crew chief. Oh, my God. So, Jeff, at this point, and it just has so much trust in you and y'all's relationship that you're the guy to scouting this out. Yeah, he sent me.

to, uh, sent me there to, to, to really look. He, you know, Jeff, uh, Jeff, stepdad, John Bickford. Yep. Really gave Jeff, you know, a lot of confidence. And Jeff's got a lot of confidence in John. And John always had a lot of confidence in me. And I think that that help ease Jeff's mind of whether we were not we were trying to do the right thing or whatever. And you, you, I don't have to tell you, you, you get with certain people that you're just, you know, you're okay apart. But the two of you are like make a whole better like stronger than you both could be and Jeff and I've always been like that and we're still like that on the projects that we are today there's just something that

you know we we've got the pieces that fit and uh when I said man we can do this he never questioned it or whatever you know and he put himself out there and and uh you know he took a lot of uh you know bed press and you know playing he was leaving Ford and all that but the truth be told he did not really have a contract for the next year with with ford and we actually went and saw some uh some ford teams and uh the four teams said no they didn't that you didn't one of the four teams told them look you don't choose your crew chief take you but we're not taking him and i was man i was okay with that because yeah jeff was the star i'd have just stayed at bills you know um but uh jeff said no no i'm you know ray ray raise with me and that to this day i believe that's one of the reasons he

chose to walk away from Ford and to go to Hendrick because Rick Hendrick welcomed me with open arms. Wow. So in the first year, all right, so you aren't even a crew chief and you get hired to go be the crew chief for Jeff Gordon. In that first year, I kept, I don't know why I retained this stat and it may be incorrect, but I think Jeff bent 22 clips or something. It's about that. Yeah, it was, we killed two or three cars completely. And I can't remember, but I think it's about that number of front and rear. You know, we, we, we, um, maybe it was ball joints.

Maybe it wasn't clips. Maybe it was ball joints, but I'm not sure. Oh, no, it was clips. It was snouts and rear clips. So going through that first year, you know, we, even today, I think, whether it, in any sport, we really want to see that rookie star, you know, produce right away, right? And in racing, look at Joe Lugano is a great example. Guy come in, everybody put so much praise on him, rightly so, very talented.

But it took the right combination. It took a while for things to happen. I feel the same thing has happened once the guys like William Byron. I think William is a true talent. It's just going to be a while before he really can produce. He's so young. look at the guys that are winning in a series now in their 30s and 40s. So when you're going through that experience with Jeff,

you obviously know what Jeff can do, but maybe you're only one of the few people in the building. And yes, there's good runs and success, and you're seeing the glimpse of the future. But was there any a point, I guess, in the season when anyone was sort of like going, man, is he going to get this thing where he can keep the wheels on it? I think, you know, it's a little bit of a different world back then.

So in some ways, we probably had it a little bit easier on us than maybe William Byron or some of these, you know, younger guys have now because the expectation was a little bit different. A lot of guys, like you said, oh, the guys winning now in their 30s and 40s. Well, back then the guys that were winning were in their 40s and 50s. And everybody kind of knew you had to build up that 20-year notebook before you could be a top. driver and I think that people could see the talent that he had and knew that sooner or later he was going to get a notebook on the tracks and he was going to figure this out and more importantly I was going to figure it out because you had a rookie driver but you also had a really rookie crew chief right you know I I only been working on a car with fenders for a little while and I felt personally

like our everything worked out good in the end because I think us both starting so young when we learned together, but had Jeff had a more experienced crew chief, he might have won earlier in his first year, you know, even though we did win the first race for Rick, I think, or first race at Daytona, but, you know, there was some mistakes I made as well, building the cars and like what? Like what? What kind of mistake? I think that I wasn't, um, sharp enough with aerodynamics at first. It took me really a year or so to understand how that really, how much effect that that really had. I think some of my race strategy stuff, I had to learn, because you know, you know, back then, without all the computers and out all the this and simulation and that,

you know, you had a notebook and it was like playing a multi-level chess game. You know, you're playing over here. And there were times I got playing these two guys and darn if we didn't get beat by this guy over here because he had a different strategy. So I think that all of us growing together and about the time we hit our stride, you know, we won the Coke 600. We that on a two-tire deal, and that was great in 94, you know. But then we went to Indy when the brickyard 494, the playing field was pretty level because nobody had a notebook, and we went there and won that. And then we were, okay, okay, we can run with these guys.

And that built a, it built a lot of confidence. But I do feel like, you know, Jeff had Jeff had a more experienced crew chief, he might have won earlier. But I'm not sure he would have won as much as we did. it later. Right. You built a car that's iconic and a lot of people think of this car is maybe one of the best race cars ever built. T-Rex. All right. I tried to get Gary Nelson to come on the show because Gary to me was just a really incredible crew chief, but also a lot of ingenuity, creativity, is what I like to call it, working in the holes of the rule book and so forth. And I'm sure that, you know, I've learned in my career.

career, how Tony Senior and Tony Jr. and Steve Littart and all those guys also found those pockets to work in. What is your experience with that? I mean, is there anything about the T-Rex car that you can tell us that was some creative genius that set that car apart from everybody else? Or is there anything else, even maybe not related to that car, that you and your guys understood or discovered first, whether it's bump stops, coil bound, or anything like that? Well, you know, I can talk about anything you want because, A, we're buds. And B, there's like a statute of limitations. So I don't think they can find me or I hope they can't kick me back out of the Hall of Fame.

I mean, that's, you know, I can tell you that the things that we worked on, Dale, were just what I thought, basic stuff. I did bring some short track stuff. But, you know, that whole light, low left, right? and, you know, and the unsprung weight and then understanding, combining that with aerodynamics and rotating, actually rotating mass. We worked on lightening up our driveline components. We worked on really hard on shock absorbers. Again, through my years at Penske, I helped develop the Penske shock absorber with Jeff Ryan. And so I knew about all the stuff that was going on with shocks.

We also did a large part of the radial tire development with Goodyear. So I had a good handle on what to do with that. And I looked at these cup cars, and man, they were built like undestructible, you know, indestructible. You just bash her in the wall and back her up and go. And where we started to build things a little bit lighter and paying attention to unsprung weight, to shock absorbers, to rotating mass, and then taking advantage of a lot of aerodynamic stuff. Now, sometimes I took advantage of some things that were a little bit outside, like the hub at Charlotte that night, was not tight.

It was not a titanium. But it was lightened up. It was lightened up a little bit too much. And that cost me a good bit of money. And, you know, we used to do some things. We'd get fined and tapped here and there, but show up with aluminum dry shaft and hollow axles and, you know, all kind of stuff like that. You know, lightening up the gears. But, you know, the T-Rex thing, I'm going to tell you, I've always told everybody, the credit for that car goes to Rick Hendrick.

Rick Hendrick got us all together. Got, you know, you know, how he used to have the meetings. You've been to them. Oh, yeah. You know, where Rick, get a turkey sandwich because Rick's coming, right? So we all sat around the table. He said, look, he said, we can't keep racing the way we're racing. We want to get ahead.

I want you guys to put all your ideas on paper and get with Rex Stump, who was a lead engineer at that time, brilliant guy. And Gary Aker, another guy, you know, right down here at Arodine, brilliant guy, give them the ideas and we're going to build our own version of the car. I want to build the Hendrick Car, stage two, three, whatever. So everybody had a bunch of ideas. man, we raised a floor pan and dropped the frame rails and, you know, to get under body aerodynamics. We made the chassis stiffer. We moved the shocks outside the frame rails. And, you know, it was a cool car, a low center of gravity and all these things.

Took it to the racetrack. Could not get it to work. Would not work. It was just wouldn't run. So everybody took it. Five car took it. We took it. Trader and them guys took it with 25 car.

One day we had it with us over at Charlotte. And, you know, Charlotte. at three o'clock in the afternoon, you might as well run your rent-a-car around there because the track's so slick. And you're not going to, you know, you're not going to learn anything. So I said, hey, while we're here, we had Blacker, one of our good cars. I said, let's see where we're at. Let's play with T-Rex while we're here. So it wasn't T-Rex then.

It didn't become T-Rex. I forget what we called. Probably not a name we can even say on the radio because they'd spent a bunch of money in time. It just wouldn't work. So we go out there and, you know, Jeff makes a few laughs. And it's about, man, it's about a half a second off of blacker, right? And he comes in, he said, man, I, I just don't know. He said, you know, I feel there's something there, but it just, man, it just ain't whatever.

So I said, all right, let's try this. Let's try something crazy. No kidding. I said, I want you to, I said, because I guess at that time we used to run like a 1200 on the left front and 19 on the right front. and, you know, like a 400 and a 350, you know, in the back. And I said, just put a, put a pair of 1,400s in that thing. Give me the biggest sway bar we got, which are inch and three-eight. They're like, oh, my God, what did you?

I didn't even know, I didn't know we carried anything that big on my truck at that time, right? And jam a pair of 450s in the back of that thing. So, you know, everybody's looking at me like, don't be, Craig, you know, don't get him hurt. He's going to hit the wall with that set up, right? So I told him, be careful for a lap or two because I have no idea what this thing's going to do. Well, he goes out there. I'm staying on top of track with Brian Wetzel, and he picks up speed and he goes by, you know, he's going by. And I click my stopwatch and I'm like, eh, same time.

Well, Brian Wetzel, he's like jumping up and down. He's tapping me, tapping me, tap me, tap me, and I'm like, what, what? And he shows me the stopwatch again. I didn't realize it was a second faster. Yeah. Now it's five-tenths of a second faster than Blacker. Jeff comes in, man. He pops the window net down. He said, what was that? I was like, I have no idea. But let's just think about this. And what we know now is, you know, drop the front, got that underbody aerodynamic deal to work. And, you know, we, I said, let's bring it back to the Winston. And we bring it back to Winston. And that's when you guys could come down pit road at 1,000 miles an hour. Remember that? Yeah. You know? Well, he goes by, he goes to hit the break. And he goes by our pit stall, all four wheels locked up. And, you know, he, you know, he, like still going 80 miles an hour and he's yelling at me on the radio the brakes ain't working the brakes ain't working i said

well the wheels were locked up when you went by so you know maybe you were going too fast we started last i think that night in the winston and came through we did not win all three segments like like everybody thinks that that was kind of an urban legend we did win all three segments in 95 but uh with with the uh with the uh with the uh te rex car we didn't and um they called it teore because it had that this dinosaur on the hood for Jurassic park but uh what didn't nascar tell you to not bring a car back you race oh yeah well yeah they worked with us they saw the car they knew the car so we win the winston we're up there you know i used to go up to new cal of 76 deal and have your toast and your champagne and you know we're up there in

the speedway club hobnobbing and doing all that stuff you know grabbing what's left over of the filet mignon's and stuff like that and come down and when we get down there cars going through inspection and they said Mr. France wants to see you. So Bill used to sit up in the truck there, and I love Bill. Like, I missed, what I miss most about the sport is my conversations with Bill France. And I thought Bill's just going to offer me a beer and we're going to sit and talk about the race and stuff like that, right? So I go in the hauler, and there used to be a beige-colored push-button phone sitting

right there. They'd plug in wherever they went. We didn't even have cell phones and all that stuff all over the place, no satellites, on that. So I went there and I said, hey, Bill, how you doing? He looks at me, he said, and this when he used to smoke, he said, you need to pick up that phone right there and call your boss and tell him that car is illegal. And I was like, what? No, no, no, it's past inspection. It's it's good. It fits all of the rules and it's legal. And he looks at me and he goes, it won't be tomorrow.

Just like that. He said, he said, you just can't, can't run it anymore. Don't bring it back. We're going to change all the rules on the frame rails. And they rewrote a ton of rules. And we tried to fix the car to new rules, but it never really ran the same. And by that time, everybody kind of caught up to us anyway. But the car still is over at the Hendrick Museum there, if you want to see it.

So I don't know if you can put this into words, me, why do you leave? HMS, everything's going good, winning championships, winning a lot of races. What made you strike out to go do your own deal? I mean, I know it was Dodge. I know there was a lot of opportunity and probably a lucrative situation. You had to been scared, and you had something comfortable, right? You were dominating. Yeah, you know, those decisions, you know, when you look in life, sometimes they're a hard.

hard, right? But I trust my gut a lot. You know, people go to all raise to organize. He's got a plan. He does this. Well, sometimes I got to tell you the truth. I said, well, let the story slip out. Sometimes I just jump and figure the plan on the way down. You know what I mean? Hope you don't go down too far. You just got to trust your gut that it's time. I've sometimes had a good sense of timing when it was ready to change. And, you know, at that time, I had the best job in motorsports. I could have gone and done anything I wanted to do in Hendrick. But ultimately, it still was Hendrick Motorsports. Jeff was growing and changing. You know, when I met Jeff, he was 18, you know. And now, you know, been through a lot. He was already a three-time champion. He had lots of stuff going on pulling in different directions. And I didn't feel like he needed a crew chief like I was.

And I honestly looked at the sport. And I started to look at that black boxes, little thing we're talking to right now and think, I'm not going to be able to beat that computer day. I've got to really start to think about where Ray Everingham's going next because at that time, I guess that would have been 99. So Jeff was just early 30s.

I'm almost 50 by that time, right? So this opportunity comes up, see if I could really do it. If I could really put a deal together like I watched Roger do, like I watched Rick Hendrude do. And boy, I didn't have my failsafe Jeff Gordon. I didn't have my parachute knowing that if I brought a fifth place car, we could probably still win with it. And all those things, I think.

And at that time, Jeff was things on his own, too. And the opportunity to build something from scratch, design a car, learn a lot more, be around people that I hadn't been around, it was really intriguing to me. And the hardest thing I ever had to do was go to Rick Hendrit's house and have that conversation with him. And as I said, you know, you will never find a more class person than Rick Hendrick because instead of blowing up and yelling and screaming and making it really hard on me,

he extended his hand. He didn't want him to go, but he also helped me achieve things I needed to achieve to do that. So I think it was really good for myself, for Rick, for Jeff, because it allowed all of us to grow. And the cool part is we, the three of us still remain as close today as, you know, you know, Rick called me back a little while ago, and if he called me tomorrow and said, hey, I need you to come over here, I'd be there. So he didn't try to keep you? He, I asked them, you know, to let me do this. And you know what?

It was really funny. Both of them were very respectful, but neither one of them wanted me to go. But I think Rick, I think deep down inside when everybody knew it was time. You know what I mean? It was really an ideal, but everybody kind of knew it was time. because the sport was changing and Jeff was changing, Henry growing, and it was, it was, it was just time. Like, we didn't really, we didn't really, you know,

we didn't really want to break up, but we, but we all knew that it was, it was time. You, you know, you start as brand new race team with Dodge. From all, from my vantage point, or from what, from how I saw, it seemed like everything was there, right out of the gate. pretty impressive operation just sprung right out of nothing. You tapped a couple drivers, Casey Atwood, Jeremy Mayfield.

You had a lot of success. Bill Elliott, you win at Indy, you had all kinds of great things happening. What was that experience like? How come Ray Everingham is not an owner today? I know you had fun. I know you had great moments and enjoyed it. But what happened? Why did it not sustain?

You wouldn't come drive for me. Oh, man, just kidding. I would love to have you drive for me. You know, I think we really worked hard and built a good program, and there's lots of reasons it succeeded in some things that it did. And one of those was my good friend, Bill Elliott. I would tell you that of all the guys I've worked with, I don't know that I've ever worked with a finer test.

driver than Bill Elliott. He is amazing, amazing guy. I know you've worked with him a little bit with Chase and stuff like that. And we were really doing well technology-wise. And I think what happened was I pushed so far ahead that we got a little bit ahead of where the sport was. And then we, you know, that started to hurt our performance a little bit. And when that did, there were some changes at Dodge, and there were, again, a lot of things going on in my life that all of a sudden I wouldn't have a good time. And I realized that I did that, no different than doing the IROC deal and then the 24th hour and this on, I thought, okay, I did this, and we've accomplished a lot. My only regret is I wasn't able to win a championship. We won a decent

amount of races. We want, I think, 15 or 16 cup races, five or six or Bush races, and we want some marker races. But in the end, I didn't feel fulfilled, and I wasn't, I wasn't happy. I love working on the cars. I love designing cars. I love building cars. And I felt like all I was doing was jumping from golf to golf, golf cart to golf, changing shirts, running the meetings. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. I couldn't even spend time in my own fab shop, you know, and I just realized, okay, what, what am I doing here? And I think at that time, I really started to feel like a little bit of a sellout.

Like, man, I'd sold myself out. And lucky for me, you know, a guy came along and made me an offer. And I got to tell you this, dude. Went back to my old friend Rick Hendrick, and I said, Rick, I just don't know. If I'm ready to get out, what should I do? And of course, Rick had the turkey sandwiches laid out on the table that we were down on Monroe Road. And he looked at me, he looked at the deal. And he said, Raymond, if you don't do this deal, you're an idiot.

He said, because you know what, in six months, the whole climate could be changed and the economy could fall down. And I said, okay. And I did it. And man, he was like Nostradamus because if you remember right after I sold it, the economy came down and whatnot. I was lucky enough that the folks at ESPN gave me a job. Yeah. You know, today a lot's happened since then, since you were a Cup Series owner. Today you're, what are you?

Give me a job description for Ray Evertham today. Oh, man. You know, there used to be a really cool Chevrolet truck commercial where they'd say, they said to the guy, what do you do? And he went, hmm, yeah. It's hard to say, man, you know, I'm a picker like you, right? You know, I enjoy finding the old cars and finding the old stories. And, hey, you know, just a plug to you guys all the way.

You know, the new show is fantastic, fantastic. You know, Bill flew me over in Middle Georgia one time with the helicopter. Yeah. They showed me the track and where the still and everything was. Really cool deal. But, you know, like you, I, I, I think the only way I can give back to the sport now is help preserve and protect and history. You know, our DNA, if you will, that's why I'm so proud to be part of the NASCAR Hall of Fame to be able to share in that.

You know, so right now we, at Ray Evanham Enterprises, we restore vintage race cars. We did a little bit of TV production with our show Glory Road and then Americana. and I try and spend more time with my family. I'm working on a better balance with that. And again, I see you doing that. I'm so proud of what you do, you know, what you're doing. So I guess right now I'm trying to copy Dale Earnhardt Jr. That's what I'm doing.

And of course, you know, we just announced the other day about SRX, which is to me, I'm going full circle. You know, to me, I'm like going home, you know, where it's not. IROC, but it's a lot based on IROC, and I can still have involvement with all of the people with NASCAR, with IndyCar, with whatever, and all of my car people and still do something that I love, you know, build and design cars and go to racetrack once in a while. So you mentioned at the SRX series, big announcement. You guys are you, Tony Stewart.

Who else is involved? George Pine, who right now has his own. a company Bruin Sports Capital and was formerly at IMG, was at NASCAR many years ago, and Sandy Montag, the Montag Group, who is a television agency in New York City. And CBS, CBS and Sean McManus are actually partner in this. So between the five of us, I think it's a really good team. You know something's good to happen. When all the team members are so different, everybody's got an expertise in a certain area.

and that's the kind of team that we're at right now. So putting this together with some input from the fans and making it, it's going to be a competition between some of the motorsports superstars, but not. But it is a made-for-TV, motorsports entertainment show for the fans. So what can you learn from Iraq? Oh, man. You know, the things that, what's going to be a little bit different,

preparing the cars identically at IROC, I think we did a great job for what we had to do in the 80s and 90s. But, you know, we didn't know as much about tires and about carburetors and about aerodynamics and things like that, how different that stuff would be or how much of a different, a little bit of driving style can make. So with these cars, we're going to keep very short tracks, kind of half-mile pave, half-mile dirt tracks, maybe a little custom kind of road course deal. so the aerodynamics won't be a factor. And we're, you know, now with the new electronic fuel injection and understanding where we're at with tires and whatnot,

we can make the cars much more identical. We're not going to rely on a bunch of error. We're going to have a very responsive engine so we can create passing and whatnot. But then more importantly, and you ran the IROC series, you come in, you draw for your race car, and you don't get into the race day. Here, you'll draw for your race car.

and then you'll also draw for a legendary crew chief, right? And you and your crew chief will have about a 20-minute practice to go out and say, okay, look, I'm going to, okay, yeah, I can make, we're going to give you a toolbox adjustments, whether that's a little shock or a little bar, a little bit of spring change, or you can put a little wedge in, or you can do this. Here's your window of adjustments, get a quick practice in your own car,

and then you get ready for the race. Are these just only retired legends? Are there going to be current drivers in any of these races? We are very aware. Again, we're looking at superstars. And right now there are many, many guys who don't run a full schedule. And girls and whoever, you know, we're going to be, you know, very diverse. But it wasn't like when the original IRA out came, everybody's running up.

They could run up until their 50. Well, there's tons of guys like you that are very young. And you can take that like you, however you want as an indication. That still want to do it, but they don't want to run 200 miles an hour. They don't want to run, you know, 30, 40 times a year. And we are going to talk to a lot of those drivers. We are very aware of the conflicts that IROC had, have trying to use current drivers. So we're really actively going to stay away from drivers who are full-time in NASCAR and, you know, IndyCar and Insta, you know,

but the guys that are either part-time or recently retired or, you know, former legends, are the people that we're going to look at. We're also going to be very aware of, you know, again, this SRX is something that we want to complement auto racing, not take away from compete with NASCAR or any car or any of that. We're going to be very aware of the scheduling. Our show will be on Saturday nights, 2021 summer, July, August,

and we're going to be very aware of the scheduling the other race series so that we don't have conflicts. I'm going to have driver conflicts, and we don't want to have scheduling conflicts. We really want SRX to get more eyes on motorsports as a whole for everybody. I couldn't sit here and not ask you when you're talking about the SRX series. You're talking about running it like a little half miles and having less mechanical and arrow grip and maybe more throttle, giving it back to the drivers. You know, all the talk about it, there's been a lot of talk in the short track community about where SRX, what SRX will be.

You know, you're talking about legendary drivers and crew chiefs. Does that model maybe include some short trackers? You know, the Doug Kobe's, the Bubba Pollards, you know, not to get specific on names, but those type drivers, where do you see that in the model? Absolutely. It does. And what's really cool and exciting about this is, you know, we're looking at about 12 cars, right? But now that may be just 10 full-time drivers.

And the other two cars may be made up of teams of drivers. We've got guys from some extreme motorsports and global rally cross that can't make all the races, but they want to swap out and run a couple. And then we want to maybe give a Rocky Balboa shot to a guy like Doug Kobe or, you know, the late model guys or maybe a sprint car guy, you know, David Gravel or Donny Schatz or whatever. So absolutely you will see some surprise guest drivers. And there may be some celebrities. We've had some celebrities call us up and say, hey, man, I want to get in this show. And some of them can wheel, and some of them may just be the caution we need. Who knows?

Don't forget the underdog. If you got an underdog, I'll be tuning in every time. That'll be pretty good. All right. Team is. They sent me some names. All right, buddy. All right.

So a couple quick questions as far as you're picking and collecting. What was the, what's the last thing you found? And the last thing I found. Well, I actually found a group of cars and one in that group was a car that we called Booker. It was we ran it at Daytona in 1994, finished fourth in the 500, eighth in the 400, wrecked it twice at Talladega. Go figure. I think the only time we didn't wreck in Talladega, we won. But it's a really awesome piece because other than pulling the motor out, I remember getting that car

ready and selling it. A lot of the bumper to bumper on that race car is just the way we ran it. And it's kind of funny because you talk about those gray areas. And I looked at that and thought to myself, some of the gray areas I looked at that car. I would get put right in NASCAR jail right now. I would get like, I look at the boiler on it. If I showed up, I'd be in handcuffs and they'd leave me right out of there. Where did you find it? It was in a Gilmore Museum in Michigan with a group of other cars. And the guy called me up and you said, hey, do you know anybody that wants this? And I was like, well, what is it? Where? And I was like, oh, well, yeah, I know, I know a guy. What else if he got, you know? So this guy bought, he bought some old sprint cars from them. And there's a

Gary Saint-a-Mont car that you probably can't see this on the other side of us, but it's one of his championship of cars as, as well. So we're, you know, Matt saw it today there. There's stuff out there. You and I still got a project. And, you know, can we plug, tell, hey, anybody wants to help us get our Bobby Allison car ready? We've been gathering parts and pieces, but we, you know, we've got a pretty cool Bobby Allison car. We do. That's what's neat. You know, you find a thing and there's just so many, so many stories.

Yeah, I think the Bobby Allison car is right over your left shoulder. It's on the second floor. That car ran second to Daytona 500 and won the Firecracker 400 in 1980. But wherever he ran at last, he got her Atlanta or something, got her up against because you still got a scuffed up right rear quarter pad along. Yeah, he fenced at Atlanta. Is there a car out there that you, maybe what to have.

Is there something out there that's not in your collection you'd love to find? You know, I used to say all the time it was the American graffiti car, the 58 Chevy from American graffiti, and finally got that. We're so proud to have it. But if he said, man, what is the one thing? I would love to find, you know, and I don't even know if they exist, but if you could find a car that Dan Gurney drove for the Wood Brothers, me, that would be, that would be really, really. cool stock car to have.

You know, one of the old Holman and Moody 121s. Yeah. They're there, and I know that there's people have built some replicas, but to me, you know, I've really been blessed to work with some great drivers, you know, and learned so much from them. But Dan Gurney, to me, was like the ultimate guy,

car builder, driver, and was fortunate to get to know him before he passed away. But to have, I've got one of his Indy cars. And a matter of fact, you sat in it. I got a picture of you. The car, Dan won his last Indy car racing that, and I've got a picture you sitting in it. But to have a stock car that he drove, that'd be pretty cool. Yeah. What's the end game for you on this?

The end game for me, man. I just, I think that if with this SRX series, if the fans say that was a good show and the drivers get out of the car and say, good job, those cars were good and we put on a good show and it really does add to all of motorsports, I think that would be it. You know, I really feel like my big break came, you know, my chance in life, my chance of professional career came because of IROC. So now to be able to reboot, start a series that's a lot like that and maybe be able to be able to, to work with a group of young guys like Jay Signore did with us and teach some of these young guys and get maybe the next, who knows, Ray Evanham or whoever involved in the sport, that'd be good for me.

But I just, I don't know, I always tell you about it, I think I got one more good one left in me, but I want to be like Roger Penske. And Roger Penske is 82, 83 years old, and he is at Indianapolis Motor Speed. way and runs around the world all the time. So I want to be like Roger. So I got I got 20 years to go yet. Yeah, I think you can do it, buddy. Well, man, I appreciate you coming on the show. You're an amazing guy, and I'm so thankful to have gotten to know you and become such good friends. It's really meant a lot to me personally. But again, thanks for coming on the show. Fans are going to love hearing from you, and I hope you have a good week, pal, until I see you again. All right. And again, I appreciate being on and great, great job. Keep digging the history, buddy.

Yes, sir. Same to you. All right. We're live, Ask Junior on YouTube. All right, everybody. Hey, it's Dale Jr. for the Dale Junior download. It's time for the Ask Junior segment of the show. Mike Davis is on vacation this week. So I'm here with just Matthew and Leah is with us as well. This is brought to you by Xfinity. They're a proud premier partner of the Dale Jr. Download and NASF. car you guys sent your questions into at exfinity racing on Twitter and i'm sure a few to dirty moody media lea what do we got today first question is from eric gunning um he wants to know what driver on the outside looking in do you think has the best shot uh to sneak into the chase my goodness

um look into your crystal ball yeah so the chase that's a dollar in a jar oh whoops i didn't do She got the dollar. Dang it, Eric. Eric tricked me. Yep, he did. The driver that I think is the best opportunity to make it to the playoffs is, are we going Xfinity or Cup? Let's go Cup.

Okay. Well, let's go both. Let's go both because I got the Xfinity stuff. So Ryan Sieg is in on 11th. He's the guy of crew chief that he's had for years. Last year he had a different crew chief that I thought the performance was a little bit better but I think when it so between Ryan Sieg Brandon Brown Jeremy Clements

Myatt Snyder I think is going to have a hard time getting back into that conversation he's now 38 points out I think you got to look at those guys they're crew chiefs look at the crew chiefs of those three drivers Sieg Brown Clements and look at the experience there I think that's really going to play a role in these final few races as we get down closer to the playoffs for the Xfinity series I think Brandon Brown makes it.

Really? Yeah, I think Jeremy comes close, maybe not getting himself in, and I think Sieg hangs on. He's got 57 points on the bubble. Brandon Brown, man, it's a cool story. Clements has been running great here lately. Third place at Pocono.

A couple top 15 finishes sprinkled throughout. On the cup side, oh, man, Eric Jones. You know, Eric is in a very different situation, but he made a lot of hay this weekend, gained a lot of ground on the guys at the bubble. It's a huge disappointment if he misses the playoffs, I would have to say. I'm assuming that's how he, I mean, he couldn't say it wouldn't be, right?

Couldn't argue that. Somebody's going to be super disappointed. William Byron, Jimmy Johnson. How bad is it going to be if Jimmy misses it? He missed it last year, first time in his career. He had to miss a race because of the COVID-positive test. Now he's only like two points to the good He's going to have to drive hard

They got to speed though William Byron, his teammate I don't think has as much speed as I've seen At Jimmy What's going to happen Eric Jones is trying to get his way in there The only problem is that Cole Custer and Austin Dillon have snuck in there in one races and locked themselves in

Two guys that I think that Eric, William and Jimmy could beat Now are locked in taking spots So that means some of the players that maybe would have been considered favorites to get into playoffs will miss. You also have Tyler Reddick sitting there knocking on the door, being a little antagonist, trying to steal a spot as well. And who knows?

You could have another surprise winner outside that top 19. You never know. It happened this weekend. We had a little surprise with Alston Dillon. I didn't answer the question. You know, I think Jimmy makes it. I feel confident that Eric can make. it. I really do. I think William might have, I think Williams might be the guy that gets beat

out. So there you go. I think Clint's in there. The great thing about a team that Clint drives for like Stuart Hawes, even Hendrick Motorsports to a degree, the Chevrolet's worried me a little bit. The great thing about Boyer is that he really has some speed out of his teammates, the 10, the four. Man, they can really lean on that. Company can start moving resources toward Clint to ensure he gets some better performance. I've seen that happen in Hendrick Motorsports, and it's effective. So that gives me some confidence on Clint.

Next question. Next question is coming all the way from Indonesia. Somebody in our YouTube live chat, phonics, RMF. Greetings from Indonesia. What international racetracks would you like to drive on? Brands Hatch. Brands Hatch, Indie, the smaller course.

So I've ran on the... So I've only ran on Brands Hatch in simulation, right? There was an old British touring car championship game, Toka, two. And I loved racing on the indie small short course of Brands Hatch. Pretty simple, small racetrack. A lot of beating and banging in that series back then. They still get pretty aggressive.

I love the British Turin Car Championship. Jason Plato and guys like that. Matt Neal, that was another one. He used to be an independent that I pulled for. I love the underdog. So I fell in love with that racetrack And I race it even the longer course on eye racing quite a bit The Skip Barber car is a blast around Brands Hatch

So I'd love to go there and check that place out There's I mean all the tracks over there If you're a race fan of any kind You want to check out what's going on in different parts of the world So Brands Hatch I guess is the one that pops up my mind first Next question coming from nowscar's biggest Van, what do you think about the comments Brad Kozlowski made a few days ago about demoting, struggling drivers? I think that there could be a better, maybe not demotion in a sense.

I think there could be a better ladder system. You know, we used to have, you know, used to have things that guys had to do to be able to get to a certain place. they wouldn't be cleared to run at Daytona unless they had done X, Y, and Z, and things like that. And that seemed to work pretty good. We stripped away and added things. Remember when Kyle Bush was trying to race in the truck series, he was too young, right? Matt, remember? Oh, yeah.

So, you know, there was some limitations, and they sucked at times, right? Yeah, because you wanted to see him in there. You knew Kyle was great and fast, and you'd be like, hey, man, guy, he's got to wait. You know, now you've got kids They're 13 years old Racing late models and things like that Where do you trouble on? Yeah, yeah.

I got you. You've got to make the kid race late models for, you know, ever. I don't know what the answer is, but I definitely think that for the Cup Series that there should be some There should be some things that you should accomplish or need to accomplish before you can go compete there.

Yes. I really do. To eat. Yeah, I do. I feel like that, you know, I'm not going to draw comparisons with other sports. There's the, there's the, you know, the urgency to, you know, habit to say, well, in this sport, what, does that happen? You know, take any, you know.

I think just, I feel bad for the guy in that double zero Quinn. That was a bad move. I haven't even heard what his side of it is. But you can't have that type of mistake happen. The guy's going to make mistakes and drive the car into the corner and get loose and things like that. But you can't have a guy not really knowing how to exit the racetrack to pit and cleaning people out. But this reminds me of an incident, I think, going back to New Hampshire many years ago where Morgan Shepard got into Joey Lagano. I think Joey was leading the race.

And Morgan got in. to him. Morgan was racing in the Cup series, a one-off deal, and he was quite a bit off pace in his mid-70s at the time, maybe. I don't remember how old we was. But he was up there. And, you know, honestly, I love Morgan and don't want to discredit his impact on the sport or anything, but, man, it probably wasn't necessary that he'd be out there. And he ended up creating a problem for someone that was trying to win the race or running up front, leading the race. And we kind of avoid that. think this falls right into that bucket for me. Maybe some accomplishments or something be put into place for a driver that, you know,

have to do X, Y, and Z a little bit more to get into that cup car. Next question coming from Jessica Watkins. We talked about it a lot last week before the All-Star Race, but she wants to know what was your final thoughts on the underglow lights? All right. I thought the underglue lights were awesome at the burnout. Burnout on the boulevard in Nashville. I was there.

I didn't know. All right, so I'm at the burnout on the boulevard. Everybody else is there. It's dark and cool. It's a great scene in Nashville. I didn't know that they were going to have a couple cars with the glow. But here comes the Ganassie cars, and they were glowing, and it looked awesome, right? Kurt Busch's a monster energy car had that green monster energy color glow coming out that was pouring out of everywhere, right?

from the bumper to from front to back bumper right just cool in the smoke it was hitting the smoke as the car's doing the burnout it's perfect in my opinion that's kind of where it belongs i really do i really feel like um that that's the place for that the glow in those moments when you know we have a burnout on the boulevard or or if cars are driving through uh through town or whatever for whatever reason that might be happening. He used to do that in Vegas, drive around town a little bit. I don't like the fact that the colors were designated to the manufacturer. You know, if you want brand identity, make the cars recognizable. They're getting better. They're getting closer to having some brand identity. I can look and more quickly understand

which one's a Ford and which one's a Chevy and so forth than I could many, a few years ago, five or ten years ago. So that's gotten better. If you're going to put glow under the car. I want to be able to match that glow to the paint scheme, make that look really good. And it needs to be from nose to tail. I'm wondering, I'm suspicious if the glow was going to pull too many amps,

and the teams said, hey, I can only allow, maybe the team said to NASCAR, look, I don't want to, I'm not taking amps away from something that's performance driven and giving it to this glow, right? So NASCAR said, give us three amps or whatever, right?

And maybe three amps only drove enough glow for the back. Just guessing. But anyhow, it was, if you can't do it right, don't do it. And I don't feel like that glowing just one part of the car is the way to go. And definitely having, you know, all the Chevy's one color and all the Ford's another color, really just, it didn't match up, didn't look good. Track was, is concrete. So that glow on that concrete looked funky. I think on a, on pavement it would look better.

But anyways, they might bring it back. I'm not going to complain if they do. I really thought the number placement was pretty cool. That looked even better than I could have ever imagined. But as long as it stays in between the tires, we've talked about that. Next question. That's it for today. Okay.

We talk a lot about champions on the track. But man, let's talk about community champions. Yeah, we're talking about folks who win at helping each other, helping others all year long, and our partner, Xfinity, is saluting them with the Comcast Community Champion of the Year program. I've heard about this. If there's someone you know in the NASCAR industry, giving back to their community, all right? Swing by Comcastcommunitychampion.com. Go to Comcast, community champion.com to nominate that person and learn more about the program.

Head on over now and nominate today. Three finalists will be selected for donations from Conquest for their. charities. And don't forget to let Dale hear from you too. Send your questions in to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Use that hashtag Ask Junior for a chance to have your questions answered by our future Hall of Famer. Exfinity has donated $600,000 over the years to highlight giving back to our great support. So this is an opportunity to help someone get acknowledged, Go nominate them now at Comcast Community Champion.com. Thank you, Exfinity.

Okay, odd history. So at Bristol last week, we all saw the video of the fan that climbed up on the catch fence. Well, that wasn't the most odd thing we've seen at Bristol throughout the years. Automatically, the two vicious wrecks into the crossover gate come to mind, one by Michael Walter and one by Mike Harmon in the Xfinity series. But there's a crossover that's lesser known. When Bristol was first built, the track didn't have a tunnel going underneath it to connect the infield to the outside of the racetrack. To enter or exit the infield, all traffic had to go through a gate in the outside wall.

If you fell out of the race early, you had to sit in the infield and wait for the race to end before you could leave. That had to be pretty painful to do. I've done that. As a little kid, yeah, dad would crash out or something. We'd be sitting there. I got that picture of me standing in the tires stacked up. with dad and his car in the background. Oh, yeah.

It's Bristol. Yeah. He wrecked on pit road. First race with Richard Childers. Tears his car up, and we're stuck in the infield watching the race all night. You probably liked it. He probably wanted to get the hell out of there. I don't remember it, but boy, I'm promising how I was having fun.

I didn't care anything about Dad being out of the race. I'm hanging. Hang with pops. Well, in the March race in 1969, Bobby Isaac started from the pole, and he was whooping them pretty good, leading 249 laps. With only 52 laps to go, the radiator hose came undone and caused the engine to blow. Isaac, he wasn't happy.

Without saying anything to his crew, he left the car on pit road and walked down to turn two. He waited for a break in the traffic and during the green flag, ran across the track with his helmet in his hands, jumped over the guardrail, and walked straight to his car in the parking lot, drove on. Yeah, during green flag at Bristol, that's insane. Goodness. Last call. Other podcast, door bumper clear. Frey to Kraft, he goes off on fan reaction

when Bubba was wrecked at Bristol. The guys share their bold opinions about the cup rookie Quinn and the accident at Texas. They let it fly, man. You guys need to listen to Doorbumpur clear one of the best shows on the internet. Second best show, call.

Yeah, second best show. I mean, they like to say they're the best... I love the competition. Again, I'll ask it. When are we doing a show? It is going to be in the works. I'm ready to debate these fools. Yeah.

Well, it's going to be tough to debate Brett. He knows everything. Let's get it. But I love him, though. Let's get in the room. Make a habit. Lost Speedways, don't forget, Peacock TV. Go download that.

It's free for Exfinity customers. You get the Premier Service. All right, if you're Exfinity customer, you get the Premier service. Check out the live YouTube chat that Mike and Matthew did last week. It's posted on Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page. They talk about how the show was made. Make sure you put in an Apple podcast review. Mike isn't here and hasn't done any other reviews for a while, but we may bring that back.

We like the good ones. Yeah, of course we do. Yeah, we get a chuckle from the others as well. Yeah, we actually had a really cool review come in. A lot of it's feedback, okay? Oh, yeah. And, you know, we like feedback. We love feedback.

And Hammer Wedge said the only feedback, less Dillner, less Davis, more, the girl on the monitor, Leah Vaughn. So somebody loves you. I didn't. I'm not Hammerwedge. It's not my burner. T-L-D-57. Paul Morris podcast was epic. He knows how to tell a story.

It was downright, entertaining. Definitely need more guests like him, which I like because Dale, those are the guests that aren't like the marquee names. And sometimes they're the best stories. One more real quick for you from J.R.E. 119. Mark Martin, finally, the elusive interview. It was everything we could have hoped for. Well done. This season has had so many great interviews.

Keep up the great work. Oh, that's a great review. I'm such a great compliment. I appreciate it. And the best component to our podcast is the TV show. Yes. Dale Jr. download this Wednesday, all right, at 630, on NBC Sports Network. You guys get to see how we do the show, a little bit of our guest.

Obviously, not the entire podcast, but you get all the good nuggets. And now it's time for vacation. Ha ha. Right. Going on vacay. But we're still going to have a big show for you guys next week. Don't forget. It's going to be a great show.

Can't wait for you guys to... Can we tell me who the guest is? Unless you want to announce it on Twitter. No, I don't. No. Tell them. Robbie Gordon is going to be our guest next week. We rarely introduced a guest for the next show this early.

So this is a little... If you've stayed plugged in for this long and you're still listening. You get a cookie. You will know. Yeah. Robbie Gorton is the guest for next week. All right, man, Ray Evanham, it has been a great year. Mark Martin, Ray Everton, a lot of the great interviews as well. Robbie Gordon come up next week.

Man, Dale Jr. Download is cranking them out this year. Awesome show. Have a good weekend, everybody. Enjoy Kansas. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.