The Dale Jr. Download - 318 - Hank Parker Jr.: Let the Feathers Fly!

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

Good times and loads of laughs! That's what you get when you bring longtime friend and former NASCAR racer Hank Parker Jr. to the table for a conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. They were born days apart and both had famous fathers, one a world famous Champion Fisherman, the other an icon of the sport of Auto Racing. Their father's friendship led to theirs and its one that has lasted all of these years.Parker and Dale chat about the good ol' days, and how their father's first time hanging out, of course, involved fishing and racing. Well, umm, maybe some cheating too! The two friends share stories of hunting, fishing, childhood mischief and more, including an unforgettable tale of hunting with Dale Sr.How does a famous fisherman just up and decide to get into stock car racing? Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis find out the real answer and uncover some classic stories of what led the Parker family down the racing road. They discuss Hank's early days in Late Model racing and how he got started with some of the hierarchy of short track badassery, like Gary Balough and Freddie Query.Dale Jr. and Hank Jr.'s bond grew stronger when both were racing wheel to wheel in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. They discuss an early tangle, the highs and lows, and how lending advice and shocks led to some fast times for Parker. After DNQ's, race wins and injuries, it was a tough conversation with car owner Jack Roush that actually led to Hank hanging up the helmet for good. Mike Davis reads an unearthed column Dale Jr. wrote about Hank Parker Jr back in 2000. The story leads to discussion of the trouble they would get into as youth, and the road to getting married and having children. Parker shares what his latest projects are and how some trips to Mexico and Haiti led their family to adoption.Before Hank took a seat at the table, discussion got pretty intense as Dale Jr. laid down his real feelings about the yellow-line-rule that dominated the headlines after a crazy weekend at Talladega. Dale, Mike and producer Matthew Dillner give their opinions as to why NASCAR may want to re-think the out-of-bounds infraction.Leah Vaughn thrills Dale Jr. with a slew of questions from fans and an Xfinity driver in AskJr presented by Xfinity. From a shocking statistic about Short Tracks in the Cup Series, to a bold new idea, the segment got the fans in the chat room as fired up as the host!. Should their be a NASCAR division in the 24-Hours of Daytona? Or, even bolder, a 12-hour NASCAR race that includes all three major NASCAR divisions racing on track at the same time? It's a must listen.Dale shares a story about a famous NASCAR racer who once had his racecar repossessed on the starting grid in Odd History. At Last Call, the DJD gang learns about a drinking phobia. Dale unwraps a gift that leads to discover and imagination that brings him into the Earnhardt garage in the 1970s. Last but certainly not least, Dale closes the show with the most special of thoughts.. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. The sanctioning body for Grand National Racing is NASCAR. That's short for the National Association of Stock. And he's the man from NASCAR who keeps us on us. Our auto racing. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Good to Dale Jr. download.

I am your host, Dale Jr. And with me is my co-host, Mike Davis. How's it going, Mike? It's going well. I think that this building is about 20 degrees colder than what it's supposed to be. I wonder if we're paying the heat bill around here. But other than that, we're fine, Dale. Matthew Dillner's here.

Leah's here. We've got a great guest for you today. Hank Parker Jr., some of those people are going to remember that name. Maybe you don't. But me and Hank Jr., we are best pals. Yes, you are. We've got a lot of stories to tell you. It's going to be a ton of fun.

I'm looking forward to this like you can't imagine. So let's get the show started. All right. Let's get right into the open segment here, Mike. You know, pretty awesome race weekend at Talladega. I'm sure, let's just go ahead and jump right into that. I had a blast in the booth. The race was action-packed.

We stayed busy. I had some people that were watching the race on TV, and they're like, man, how was Talladega? And I was like, well, we still were in Charlotte. And they were like, couldn't tell. Couldn't tell. Seeming like you guys were right there on top of the action, and we were. It felt like we were there.

Pretty incredible race, a lot of intensity from the drop the green flag. I know there were probably more wrecks than most of us like to see. Some very hard crashes. But as far as working by design, that's really what this race was. NASCAR has moved Talladega into the playoffs. It's a lottery, sort of a wild card event. And it leads into another wildcard event at the roval. But it really, you know, the drivers haven't quite figured out, you know,

you could say Denny figured it out, but the drivers haven't quite really figured out how to approach this race just yet. It seemed like when the green flag dropped, they were all kind of in a panic mode from that moment on. And pretty awesome. I really enjoyed it. And even, you know, I said, so this seems to happen every single. time we go to Talladega or

Daytona and NASCAR and this isn't a bash on them. I'm just telling you, this is such a funny thing for me. I'm just going to tell you what happened. All right, I'm not bashing or picking anybody's side here. NASCAR made a call on

I believe Joey Legano for blocking the 21 car Matt de Benedetto below the yellow line on the back straightaway. Typically they rarely black flag or penalized the guy that forces someone below line. They rarely do. And I don't,

I don't really, I'm not going to get into why that's rarely done. Maybe it's such a tough judgment call that they just, you know, if they can't make a call, they just don't. They don't really try to, you know, try to guess on what the drivers are doing in there. But if it's obvious to them or they, they obviously put some thought into the decisions that they make. And, but anyhow, Now, this seems to happen every single time we go to Daytona or Talladega. They'll make a call, whether it's at the early part of the cup race, or if we're in speed weeks, it's during the truck race, or during a qualifying race for the Daytona 500.

Whatever they do, they make a call, and it sets the precedent. And it kind of puts them in a position to have to make that same call every single time this comes up again, because it's going to, right? They made the decision to Black Flagg Joey when he got, when he pushed someone below line, and I thought in my head, I said, all right now you've opened that can of worms every time somebody is forced below the line you're going to have to black flag that guy that does it which is something they they don't commonly do now they now they have set a precedent and boy they had to do it

every time somebody was forced below the line they had to go well we we black flagged joey we got a black flag this guy and we got to i mean at the end of the race they were black flagging people and rescinding black flags and right they forced uh they black flagged flag the 17 de benedetto the nine I don't know I mean there were so many guys got got penalized before you know by time the race was over with and then I think they took the nine's penalty back and gave him his his position back but I guess you know and and per the way the rules are written I can't argue any of the calls they made what I will argue is that we

we shouldn't have to deal with, we shouldn't have to deal with this sort of mess that it creates. And you made the argument on NBC Sports broadcast right after the race. Yes. Which cracked me up. Is having, is having, is taking away the yellow line rule the best thing for every, for every occasion? Absolutely not.

I mean, it was put in play for a reason, but it, I think that, act of having it has caused just as many wrecks, maybe more, the act of having it has caused way too much controversy and disgruntledness and frustration and confusion amongst industry, amongst broadcasters, amongst people on pit road, crew members, crew chiefs, drivers, and most importantly, the fans. When they walk away from a race and everybody is so divided and frustrated on what they just saw, we cannot have that. We can't go back and recreate.

We can't have anything that's going to result in that type of reaction from our fans. So if we can't, after decades of trying, seem to come to a real nice place where we can live with this rule, let's get rid of it. Let's get rid of the rule. Let the drivers police themselves. If somebody does something stupid, goes 10 car links below the yellow line to do something ridiculous, let that garage police itself. We've got tough drivers in there that hold people accountable.

That'll tell people they're stupid. That'll tell people not to drive like that again. Or you're going to get a knuckle sandwich. You know, let that sort of play itself out naturally. That's why I say get rid of the rule, because I hate to walk away from what I thought was such an entertaining afternoon and see so much confusion, frustration. uncertainty, anger out of the fan base over the result.

And did this guy deserve to win? Well, no, he did this. Well, did this guy deserve it? Nope, he did that. And, well, I guess Chris Busher should have won. Well, I mean, everybody was making an argument for basically every car that was on the lead lap should have, for winning that race. And so, you know, that's, I don't think that getting rid of the yellow line rule is a perfect scenario, but it's certainly better than this,

certainly better than having this thing, this sort of nasty, you know, bad taste in your mouth after such a great day, pop up at least once a year. I don't know, maybe it doesn't pop up that often, but it's going to happen again. We're going to have this again. Well, it could be a Daytona 500.

What if this was how we ended up, our biggest marquee event, the Daytona 500, what if this was the result? in the ending conversation after such an important race. I mean, this was an important race, but wouldn't you feel like you need to protect the integrity of... Yeah, but wouldn't you put that in the hands of the drivers who know the rules going in? That's a great argument, you know, but I don't...

You know, I'm trying to hesitate in saying that NASCAR is inconsistent on the calls. because that would be the argument then for the driver is, well, you know, they don't, you know, they black flagged this guy for forcing someone below the line, but damn, I could give you 20 examples in the past decade there, where they didn't black flag that guy that forced, that forced someone below the line, you know. It's like the pushing rule, you know, same example, you know, because, you know, you've seen them penalized people from people. pushing and then you see, you know, another race, you'll see somebody push somebody for damn near half a lap. That's a great, it's a great example. People's, what I've learned, you know, is people's interpretation of the rule is going to be different.

Okay, let's go and dive into some weeds here. Who's up there in the booth calling the shots? Well, you know, you got a bunch of guys up there that are going to be a community on what, what they need to do when somebody blocks or somebody put somebody below the line. Well, who's at fault here and all that? all of those guys are going to interpret the rule in their own way. What is blocking? Well, me and you might have a different opinion on what blocking is.

What a block is, what a dangerous block is, what a clean block is. Forcing someone below line, I might have a different opinion of the same event than you have or that Mike has. So that's the only thing is the human interpretation of the rule is different. for everybody. That's why all the fans all didn't have the same opinion when the race was over with because everybody interpreted what they saw their own way. All right? And my way, I'm not sitting here saying, hey, man, my way is the right way. Everybody should see what I saw and agree with me. I'm just saying that's impossible, right? That's impossible for me to anticipate the fans and the industry to go, hey, take the rule away and I'm right and this guy deserves the win and everybody should agree with

that. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying let's try to avoid all this by just not having the rule. If we can't have the rule and have it live in a good space and everybody be good with it, let's get rid of it. Let's get it off the table. And then we can complain about how reckless the guy was that went below the yellow line. But he's not breaking any rules.

We don't have to argue about who won the race or who deserves the win. Let me ask you a question. Would you agree that in the rule book, there is a significant amount of rules that are enforced by judgment calls? Yeah. We are a sport of judgment calls, right? I mean, no, no, we are. I mean, drivers are making judgment calls on how they race. NASCAR officials are making judgment calls on how they enforce it.

We are unlike any other sports, whereas, you know, on baseball, you got a foul line, and there's a clear line that if you hit the ball on the left side, going down the first ball, baseline, it's fair. If it's on the right side, it's foul. And there is no, you know, you may disagree on if it kicked up chalk dust, but you know, you get my point. We got to remember that this sport, you could take away that rule, but that doesn't eliminate all the judgment calls that NASCAR is going to have to make during the course of one single race, especially at restrictor plate tracks. Yeah. I mean, people will dispute, fans will dispute pit road speeding penalties. They'll dispute, you know, here's one where the loop, where the loops are. When, you know, when the

caution comes out of what position you were supposed to be in and then NASCAR's forced to make a judgment call. I don't disagree with anything you've said about, like, I don't think there's any data that suggests that the rule prevents wrecks from happening. There are plenty of crashes. So let's not even argue that. But I will say, I can't find myself committing to, uh, to, to the point of just eliminating the rule because one, I'm not convinced it's, it's a regression. I think. think that I would almost want a solution to replace, I do think drivers, when you give them, you know, the capability to act like a moron, they'll do it. They won't let you down in that. Somebody will. And I think the consequences, especially at Talladega and Daytona are way more significant for a bunch of other people that might be racing right. You know, 20, 30 other cars can get wrapped up in one idiot's move to go race down there. So I'm not disagreeing with yet, but I just, this sport is judgment calls, man. I don't. envy the position that you have to be in if you're Steve O'Donnell or whoever else. And I also like your point about if you make that call early in the weekend, you're going to

have to make it all weekend. You know, you're setting a precedent. Well, that's, I would rather them enforce the rules consistently with the understanding that enforcing the rules means that they're having to apply their judgment on most of them, to be honest with you. And it's no easy task. No easy task. I don't know.

I'll say this if you don't mind. I know a lot of people make this analogy of the 79, 500. Dale, if you look at Donnie and Kale going down underneath that line, if that was present day, we'd be gone, well, you know, he pushed him down below the line, so this guy, but he pushed him down there, so he should get penalized, and that guy should get penalized because he was trying to advance his position. I'd rather the argument be, and I think this aligns with what you said, what an idiot, I can't believe he did that.

my God, that guy had so much gusto to get down underneath that guy, and that be the post-race discussion rather than about rules. Yeah, that's the whole point for me too. I am not here to make a better rule. I'm not here to tell you that I've got a better idea. It's my opinion that what we have doesn't work. We can't govern it consistently and where it ends with a result that everyone is pleased with or the majority is pleased with it creates a lot of frustration

across the board for anybody that witnesses it so let's remove it and it's kind of like like you said that's a great example we don't watch that 79 Daytona 500 last lap and you'll have you could sit down and watch that and we watch it and we show the clips for forever we've shown it we don't never have a we don't never enter the we don't ever bring into that conversation the yellow line right or oh man he went below the line you watch it you admire it you enjoy it as a moment that was amazing we celebrate it we use it to to market to sell to promote our sport and we would have that same exact example of something to celebrate Sunday without that rule.

Without that yellow lime rule, we'd all be watching that replay going, that was some wild shit. That's a good point. Matthew, that was a great point to be honest with you, because it definitely dilutes the excitement if you have to apply rule books and everything else, which has been my argument, to be honest with you,

if I'm being consistent, it's what I hate about the, you know, talk about rules package. Because it does not apply to anything that entertains me on a Sunday afternoon watching a race. Instead of us all sitting here debating on who was right, who was illegal, and who wasn't, we'd be sitting here going three of them some one's on the apron in turn four. Can you believe they made it back? They made it back.

It was incredible driving to make it back, and they went across the line basically three wide. Instead of celebrating an incredible moment or wild moment, some risky, crazy stuff, we're all frustrated and debating who was illegal and who wasn't. and we could just remove all of that from the table by getting rid of the rule. Fair points. Listen, all fair points. It also disparate us the complete dejection of having to learn that not only did Benedetto lose that, but then he got sent back to 21st or 22nd place.

No kidding. I'm like, come on, man. I felt so bad for Rick Allen in that moment. He's like, I hate to be the bear of bad news here, but the guy we just interviewed who was almost in tears. That was kind of the part that I've already been, I've been frustrated over this yellow line rule for a while now. I think when it was implemented, it had some great intentions, but it's kind of out, you know, it's kind of outgrown or become obsolete at this point. And as the dominoes kept falling and the piling on of what that one rule created in those last 10 minutes after the checkered flag,

It's just too much to take. It's just too much to sit there and accept, right? And you just get more and more frustrated. Okay, Hamlin wins. Hamlin cross the finish line, all right? Now which side of you own? Oh, yeah, I know your point. This is all happening in the moment.

Right, right, right. Which side of you own? You believe you should have won that or not? Oh, oh. No, he went below the line. Okay, let's argue that for two. Let's argue that for 30 seconds. And then guess what?

Matt's going to 21st. How you feel about that? Or no, not only that, but Matt forced people to blow the yellow line. Did he force people below the yellow line? Did he force anybody? Should he have been kicked back? I didn't even, it didn't even occur to me. It didn't even occur to me that he had done that until they announced the penalty.

And we're going to, I'm going to, I mean, there were like 14 arguments that popped up one after the other. And it's just like, all right, I can't, what are we doing? What are we doing? so and it's so silly to me that nobody like that nobody is you are I'm so pissed off that like NASCAR's not frustrated either like they're sitting there watching this race I don't know they maybe they are maybe they are frustrated yeah but they come on Monday

serious XM or whatever and they give us all the reasons why the rules there and all the reasons why they made all the decisions they made and who penalized who they penalized and gave Hamlin the win and it's like they want everybody to go, hey man, here it is, here's the rules, here's the decisions, everybody get on board. Uh-uh. Why are you on board with this? This is not okay.

This is not a great result. Even if I agree with you about the decisions that you made on who you penalized, who won the race, why do we like this? Why do we want this kind of result in this all this debate? Like let's just get it off the table, get rid of the rule. Why don't you see that? Why don't NASCAR C? Like, clearly, we don't need this rule.

Rules are boring. Racing's exciting. The thing that makes this somewhat unique for you to make this argument is that you're also a team owner. And so that's a little different because most team owners, I would suspect, makes the argument the other way around, right? And you know what it's like to lose all your cars in a single crash at a restrictor plate race. It happened this year. Okay. So the fact, I think it's, I was frustrated with this rule way back when I turned.

turned Brian Vickers on the back straight away at Daga. We're getting that rule. We're getting hit over the head with a hammer over that damn yellow line rule. I'm trying to get the, I'm trying to be the first car lap down. I got a race winning car for the Daytona 500. Brian Vickers is the first car lap down. I got a run off a turn two. I got my bumper underneath him and he forced me below the line.

That's right. And I said, you know what? There's a rule. And I'm not giving up this little, this couple of inches. I got on you. So I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going back up.

Right. You're in trouble, Brian Vickers. Your ass is going around because you tried to block me. Yeah. And that's wrong. That was it,

Daytona. Yeah. And I turned his ass. It wrecked the whole field. Look, whether I was right or wrong for doing that, it was a,

I felt like I was put in the position to stand my ground because he was forcing me below the line. And I knew, I knew that if I lifted, and got back in line, NASCAR wasn't ever going to black flag him for doing that. They weren't even probably seeing that happen.

You know, I was getting forced below the line. He wasn't going to get penalized for it. I wasn't going to get the position. The caution might come out in the next corner because we're all racing to rain. And there was a lot of intensity in the pack. And I needed to be the next car. I needed to pass him immediately to be able to get my lap back. Should the caution come out?

and I was getting blocked, and I knew they weren't going to penalize him for blocking me. So I turned his ass. Unfortunately. And took out about the field. I forgot about that, Rick. I was thinking Talladega, too. I'm so frustrated. It was at Daytona.

Vickers wrecked him and Jimmy Johnson at Talladega and won that race. I still haven't got over that one. That had nothing to do with yellow. No, it didn't have anything to do yellow on, but I did have to do with Vickers in wrecking. And then I had to call Vickers that week and get to. go, hey man, you know, that wasn't nothing personal. Oh, wow. But you didn't call it.

I apologized, did you? I called to tell him that it was, I totally did not expect him to destroy the field that way. I got you. That, you know, at best case scenario, he would have spun harmlessly to the inside. But I have been annoyed with this rule. I mean, we went below the yellow line into turn three underneath Matt Kenseth, him and Matt Kansas, Jimmy Johnson, side by side down the back straight away at Talladega coming to a few laps to go.

And I got a great run off the nose of Elliot Sadler down the back straight away. And I go to the inside and Matt and Jimmy come down the racetrack to block that move. And I went below the line, pretty much three quarters of my race car below the line. And there was this, you know, hey, is that legal? Is it not legal? And people still debate that today. People still debate that move today. How fun is that?

Like to have one of your race wins still debated because of a stupid damn rule. and then almost if you break the rule people don't apply the the heat of the moment thing they just almost call you a cheater you know what I'm saying like they question whether if yeah anytime you get questioned the legitimacy

of your victory or your result there's a presumption that that means you did something to take advantage of the rule yeah and that's not the case either you're making split the moment decisions I just trying not to crash right and I had such a damn good run uh

vickers I got a problems with Vickers, but maybe we'll save that for another day. Could have been here. No. Easy. We don't discuss our future guests on open mics. Yeah, whatever. It puts everybody in a bad situation.

Let's move on, man. That was a good open segment. I don't feel any better. I'm going to say I felt better. I do not feel better. Y'all may have changed my mind on it, though. I was struggling to come all in in the get rid of the line pool, but I agree. Like that's all I'm trying to say is, is, do you want to, do you want to go to Talladegger

Daytona next year and, and after the race, have a big old debate? Or do you want to not have it? Or do you want to celebrate some bad ass? I want to, I want to get us to a point, and I'll be consistent about this, about if I don't want to talk about rules packages as the story, as the main headline of a race, then it needs to also be about rules. Okay. So do this. We don't have to add this in, but yeah. Everybody watch the last green white checkered of that race

and forget about that yellow line rule. Take it all the way out of your mind. Imagine it's not even there and watch this last two laps. Yeah. And go, and then can you even do that, right? No. But see how much you maybe enjoy what you. you're watching as opposed to watching it and anticipating someone forcing someone below the

yellow line, somebody going down there, whether they were legal, whether they weren't, and then all the things, all the things that happened beyond the finish of the race. If you do that, you're then left with being amazed that the Benedetto didn't wad his car up coming into turn three and four. I can't believe he didn't wreck. And the way he was blocking was like a madman. I mean, like, that was a man. He was racing for his life.

You got that feeling in the last lap. That he is going, that hell bent, anything that happens, he is going to do everything he can to stay out front. And he did everything he could do and still lost. It was amazing racing. Incredible racing. It was. The only thing I'd say about Matt is I wish this is how Matt had raced at Daytona.

For the cut race. Yep. Show that little bit of desperation. You see it in any sport. You're watching your favorite team. when they show desperation when they're behind. Well, he raced his whole career the way he race Sunday. Yep.

Until he got in a tight bind for those last few spots to make it into the playoffs. And in that race at Daytona, he raced uncharacteristically safe. Safe. I agree. And it was so frustrating. As a fan of his, as someone who wants him to succeed, I watched that Daytona race and went, come on, mad, damn, go. You got to put it.

You know, there was a moment. moment in the race where he did start hanging it out. But Sunday was the great example of how I think he should have probably ran Daytona to get himself, you know, get him that win. Yeah. All right. Let's get this fired up. All right.

You guys ready? Okay, we're almost streaming. We're good. Whenever you're ready. All right, we're live? Yep. Hey, everybody. Hi.

Before we bring in our guest Hank Parker, Jr., I want to do my favorite part of the show. It's going to be tough to say that this week. I mean, there's so many great parts. You can have three favorite parts. But Ask Junior's Up. Brought to you by our friends at Xfinity Podcast Partner and Premier Partner of NASCAR. It's time to hear these questions that you guys have sent to Xfinity Racing. Leibald is here with those questions.

Let's have it. Our first question is coming from Paul LaMagro. Hopefully I didn't butcher that, Paul. What is your feeling on Chevy finally having one engine builder between RCR Racing and Hendrick? Do you think they should have done this sooner? since the other manufacturers have been doing this for a while? I think that, you know, the sport has, the money and the spending has gotten, like, out of control. There's no way to police it.

There's no way to really, you know, I've heard about, you know, cap rules and things like that for racing, but there's no way to really watch what people are doing behind the scenes and who might, you know, I guess, you know, I'm surprised they were even able to discern that. Hendrick had wind tunnel tested for 30 minutes too long or whatever the rules were. How in the world they know who has what hours in the wind tunnel is beyond me, but much less what they're spending on their books. With that said, I think that whenever we can consolidate down and make things simpler, that's better.

It would be awesome if most of the teams got the same chassis from the same. the same chassis builder, the same engines from the same engine builder, and that everybody paid a pretty flat, reasonable rate for all of those parts and pieces to really bring costs down, some of the major costs down in the sport. I think, too, just for, so there's a great gain in the monetary side and the spending side, but also, you know, if you're a Chevy fan, anytime these teams sort of collaborate, rate, it's great. We see that time and time again. So if you put your, you know, if you're an owner or a big organization, you're going to have a

giant ego. You just do. You're going to think you're the better team in the garage, much less the better Chevy team. And it's hard for you to sort of open up your books and knowledge and data to another organization. You don't know whether they're going to share equally. And so there's going to be some, sort of awkwardness, I think, at first of those two organizations coming together, but I think in the end it can benefit them because they'll both create great power together. They'll both be able to share in the rewards from that and go out there and beat the other manufacturers. And, yeah, so I think it's a great thing for Chevy to become more successful, more powerful,

get more power out of their engines. They can always use more power, all the teams do. and especially with the new car coming and whatever new engine configurations are coming down the road over the next five to ten years it could make that development a lot cheaper for that team or those organizations. So I love it.

I think it's a great deal. We'll see what happens. We'll see if they can maintain it. Sometimes those relationships work really well. Sometimes they fracture. There's a lot of disagreement and direction and they end up splitting up and doing it themselves again. So we'll see.

our next question comes from Jeff who's watching live on YouTube right now what's your opinion of the addition of all the road courses races for 2021 I was excited to to see some new tracks come on the schedule and their tracks that I think that a lot of people are happy to see on the schedule road America is from what I've heard I've been to the track and and spent some time there and it's beautiful it's a great place to go enjoy a weekend with your family camping just visually, a really awesome experience. Plus, you know, if you're a race fan, being at the race is a great thing. So there's a lot to offer a race fan at a place like that, much like Watkins Glen, man, when you go to Watkins Glen and I walk down to the Interloop to do the radio-style broadcast,

when you see that end of the racetrack or just anything outside of the garage, which we're all used to just seeing as drivers, it's amazing man and you really get to understand why those fans keep coming back because it's more than a race you know it's a great family experience camping experience you're out in you know you're in the outdoors it's just beautiful so I love the addition of that particular racetrack um I always believe that it's more about offering the fans something extra outside of the race itself the green, the checkered flag experience.

We need to do more before and after that, and those tracks can really provide. I was disappointed that we didn't have any new short tracks added to the schedule. I know they're going to put dirt on Bristol. I would have preferred they not do that. I would have preferred that they went to a dirt track that already exists, that has some amazing history for our drivers to try to tackle. And, you know, leave Bristol alone.

If you're not going to pave it with asphalt, don't put dirt on it. I would rather, if we're going to become, if we're going to include dirt in our series, I would rather us include some historical dirt facility that has, you know, that we, so we can tap in, like when we went to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, right? That was a big moment for our sport because we were going to wear, Indy car races, we're their guests. This is their home and it always, Indie will always belong to the open wheel.

And when we go there, we're, we're their guests. We're sort of fortunate to be there. And I would have liked that same sort of experience for us to bridge the gap to the dirt fans is to be a guest at one of their major facilities. And I know there's a lot of the hurdles to do. jump through when it comes to making a track what tracks would provide, you know, the facilities and the, you know, pit road and all those things that we need to have a cup race. But I would have loved it if we'd have went to a track that has, you know, that lives in the

dirt world and we could go there and sort of be a guest to them. But I've noticed a, I was sitting in the booth Sunday before the race and we got these stat guys that have just crazy stats and my buddy jimmy that works with us he's like they haven't there hasn't been a new short track on the schedule since 1971 um damn wow wow 50 51 years or no sorry let me go uh to that um it's like 51 years damn when when we yeah since 71 there hasn't been a new short track on the schedule and it was it was Myers Speedway in Houston, Texas.

They ran one race there and never went back. No track under a mile has been added to the Cup schedule since. The next new short track and will be a reconfiguration of, no, Bristol's not a new track, it's there. No, no, no, no, I meant before that. Yeah. Well, I'm saying the next one is going to be California.

That's right. Yeah. Right? Wow. 51 years. We've lost a lot of short tracks and we haven't had a new one. Wow. That seems a crazy sad.

It's hard to believe. But it's true. Like 50 years of missed opportunities. You don't count dirt on Bristol. You don't count the reconfiguration of Richmond. Nope. I think you might can count the reconfiguration of Fontana since it's going from a mile and a half. The only thing that's stand really is maybe the stands.

So that's crazy to me, man. Wow. That to me is like a red flag. Like, hey man. Right. We're missing opportunities here. We're missing some opportunities here, yeah. And now everybody, you know, now everybody, it's funny because like we went through

in the 90s, like build more mile and a half. You couldn't build them. Everybody wanted to build one. Everybody wanted to put them all over the country. And now nobody wants to do a mile and a half. They're the cookie cutters of like baseball for baseball fans. Yeah, it's like those round concrete stadiums. The 70s and 80s and 80s.

yeah yeah so anyhow thanks for that's a good question there great discussion there all right one more question coming from big fan of yours michael annette oh yeah yeah he says i think you guys have talked about the boss man's pronunciation of salmon salmon salmon salmon but can you ask him if there is an a at the end of mirror that i never know about mirror mirror i like that dude i have there There's like dozens and dozens of words that I twist and screw up. It's your own dialect, man. Signal.

Signal. Signal. Bucard that one. Signal. Like their cell phone signal. Right. Oh, signal. Yeah, that's what he is.

I don't say sig, no. It's sing-no. I don't know, man. I can't, I'm 45, I can't change it. Like, I'm stuck. How do you say, like, I got a friend of mine who I pick on about his dialogue. How do you say Michael? Michael.

Okay, you say right. Some people go, Michael. Michael. Well, I mean. But that's just applying a southern, that's just a southern accent. He literally does not pronounce the words, some of them, unapologetically, and so you shouldn't. If everybody sounded the same, what damn phone would that be?

Yeah, I guess. Well. Mirror. Mirror. Mira. I wonder, so we had some drivers tuned in last week. Were they sending in questions in advance? They're replying to the.

at Xfinity Racing, Twitter. That's cool. I really wanted to imagine them sitting on the computer right now watching YouTube. We'll work on that. All right, that's the next step. Yeah. Let's have one more. One more question?

Please. Okay. He loves this segment. This is awesome. Let's go to a question from Samuel Olish. How long would a race have to be nowadays to test the durability of engines and other parts? That is such a great question. And I'm glad, you know, and we've talked about this before on the show.

I mean, this isn't a, this is a, some people are going to think this is a bonkers idea, but I think it's totally legit. NASCAR should have a class in the 24 hours of Daytona. The stock car, the, you know, NASCAR should have a class. Either have a, no, NASCAR should have a class in the 24 hours of Daytona. Or our series, our sport should have a race that's maybe a 12-hour. race where just imagine it could be anywhere any short any road course but we could have the cup exfinity and trucks out there at the same time all in the same race at road america or

Daytona and it'd be a 12 hour race two four points localized cautions i can't all the all the rules like emsa and all that um so basically you're having a basically an impsa race but with stock cars and Xfinity and trucks. People's heads are exploding right now. People are for them. And Kyle Bush has to enter as a truck entry. Well, I'm just saying, like, you could do it either way. You could have an official NASCAR points race that all three divisions were in at once.

Uh-huh. So you could have cars that are varying speeds and so forth. And, or to test that idea and a potential of having that type of race, you could put a stock car class in the 24 hours of Daytona. I like that. And, you know, and allow like Gibbs to enter a car or hinder it to enter a car. And, you know, you could have outside owners, enter cars that aren't current owners. But if you had each organization enter a car, you'd have maybe eight to 12 entries.

That'd be enough for that first sort of test of whether this is viable or not. And I've talked to Doug Yates and he said, oh, our motors could do. do 24. Wow. You know, we, this would be, we wouldn't all break.

You know, they could, they could make some, some small modifications to make the motors just a bit more durable, but it wouldn't be this huge spend, I don't believe. Only thing would be kind of tricky is the headlights and those type of things, to be able to give them the opportunity to racing at night.

I think that would be a lot of fun to have a stock car class, and I'm surprised there's not one. They have ran stock cars before. in road racing at Daytona and at Lamas. The 90 car with Dick Brooks driving it owner. Junie Don Levy. They went to Lamont in the 70s with one of their Ford Mercuries and ran, they had a bunch of issues,

but went all the way over there with one of their stock cars outfitted with some headlights and so forth, and ran Lamont. I think that they actually, maybe it was David Pearson, ran a stock car in the 24 hours of Daytona. I'm not entirely sure about that, but I believe he might have. The Wood Brothers might have attempted to one 24 hours of Daytona with one of their cars. So it's not this really wild idea. It probably was crazy back then, but I think it'd be awesome.

So none of us, I don't think, want to sit down and watch 12 hours at Richmond or 12 hours anywhere. We almost had it at Talladega. Yeah, I mean, like that three and a half hour block is perfect for our races right now, but I think that if we got plugged into an EPSA race, that would be kind of cool. Or we could create our own multi-class event that happened once a year. That would be a... Of the two, that really would be awesome.

I think I like that more than plugging into the Daytona, the 24. Yeah, man, just seeing all of them out there at once. I've always hated the term crown jewel. I just don't like the term. Because you're a phobia of jewelry. Part of that. Part of that. And I just think it's a silly term.

But that would, I might allow, I might feel better, I guess, about crown jewel if, if, because that would definitely be one. Yeah. So that has a great question. I'm glad I, I'm glad I persistently asked for that final extra question. Way to go, Leah, to have such a great one teed up. Good on you. out. Amazing.

They're super excited about this. Yes, I am too. I've always liked this idea. And we talked about it during the coverage of the 24 hours of Daytona two years ago, live. And I asked Doug Yates right there on TV. I said, hey, could we, the stock cars run a class in this race and make, you know, could our engines do it? Could the cars do it? And he's like, oh, they think they could do it.

Yeah. He was pretty confident. Doug Yates, one of the most fame engine builders in the sport today. Mike, we say it every week. It just goes by too fast, man. It don't last long enough. Just like XFinity Internet fast. That's right.

X-Fi keeps me connected. I simply can't think of a better way to stay up to speed with NASCAR and DirtyMode Media. All right, folks, so don't forget. Dale is here at the table every week to answer your questions live on YouTube and on this podcast. Last week, you got some great driver questions. That was fun. Whoever you are, hit us up at at Xfinity Racing on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior for a chance to hear from Dale himself. A big thanks to Xfinity for being a premier partner of NASCAR.

All right, let's bring in Hank Parker Jr. He's here. He's here. All right, let's do it. It'll be checker or wrecker, either tow him home or go to Victory Lane. And Hank Parker Jr. gets victory number two at White's Beach. Now he can coast home and win it. Goodness.

Look at this. Come on in. Sit down right. Oh, he's bringing something. Oh. What are you doing giving away your helmets? Wow. Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Get on the mic. I want to hear about this helmet. Hey, cheese. Cheese nips. Look at him. Dude, I am so pumped. I don't know why. What?

You're crazy. I'm so pumped up, buddy. So, thanks for coming. Late notice. We jumped on you here in the last couple days, and I know you're busy. Yeah. Right. It's good to be here.

I'm glad to be here. This will be fine. Yeah. I think. I'm not sure. Yes. I'm excited, man. I always love to see you.

You always got a smile on your face. And you just always got a great attitude. I mean, are you ever in a bad mood? Yeah, what does it look like when you're mad about something? Well, that helmet is pretty scratched up. Oh, that all happened outside of the car. Yeah, I threw it over on the right-hand side of the car, and it rode around, got beat up a little bit, you know.

You throw it at somebody? No. Oh. No. I should have thrown it up myself, but other than that, it's pretty good. Have you ever been, have you ever wanted to throw a helmet or throw it, punches at another driver back in your racing career? Yeah, I actually, I actually got in a fight one time at Tri-County Speedway. And it was, it was pretty crazy.

Did you win? I don't really know. I got punched a lot. That means you did not win. That guy's face, I mean, that guy's fist looked really bad after my face a few times. How can you punch Hank Parker, Jr.? What kind of jerk do you got to be? What did you do to get in a fight?

Well, my brother catfish. He's racing against us. It says a lot, right? He decided to wreck Dexter Kinnite. You remember Dexter Kinnite? He was like the local hero, and my brother decided to wreck him. And then when he came down there to confront him at the end of the race, my brother blew him a kiss. And the next thing, you know, we're all in a big pile.

Boy, that's all it takes. Whether you want or not. Hey. Hey, and I've also helped break up a fight with killing Earnhardt. So I've been in a... Where was this at? That Concord Speedway. She had had an altercation with somebody on the racetrack in the street stock cars,

and somebody's girlfriend wanted to come over there and start throwing some punches. It was pretty wild. I remember she said one time she's at the pay window getting her money. That's it. She turned around and the girl popped her in the mouth. Yeah, that's it. You were there? Oh, yeah.

You're standing in the pay window? Yeah. To get your $25? Yeah. After spending $100 on tires. Was that worth it just to watch a Kelly fight, $25? Was she about to go after that girl? Yeah.

She put the fear of the Lord in a lot of people, and I'm going to tell you right now, I wouldn't mess with her. I wouldn't mess with Kelly. I'm going to tell you that right now. I love this. Already. I think Parker delivered. When we called you, we wanted to get you and your dad on the show together because there's there's something that I hope you can clear up since he can't be here.

Oh, boy. All right. So your dad, as I know him and I remember him, was the, Ultimate Fisherman, you know, Bassmaster, champion, had his on TV show, right? Big deal. Yeah, yeah. And what in the world was it that led to him thinking that he was going to drive a race car in competition in the Xfinity series, which was the Bush series at the time?

I imagine, all right, at some point in your life, racing's not around. Right? That's right. You're maybe watching on TV. on Sundays, but it's not a part of your life. It's not a part of your family's history. Was it the friendship with dad? And did he talk?

Did dad talk him into it? Did he just have the... No, this is your fault, man. What? Yes. This is your... No, no. Okay.

Your dad raised in 1994. Well, he went to... He had a 03 AC Delco sponsor Chevrolet. He did not qualify for the Spring Martinsville Bush race. I thought he went to Rockingham and ran. Yeah. He did not make the race. He didn't make the race.

Did he make any race? He said, no. He never made the race? No. Have you ever seen my dad? All right. All right. So is he out there?

Do you remember this as a kid? I remember all of this. Holy crap. Yeah, we can walk through all of this. Okay, well, let's do it. But let me just tell you why this got started, okay? All right, this all got started. We were on, you know, my dad and your dad were friends.

Yes. And your dad was an awesome outdoorsman. And, you know, he loved to hunt and fish. And we were down at my dad's phone. in South Carolina and is the first time I met you. I don't remember the deal, but they had me come pick you up, and I was like 16 maybe. And we went down there and we hung out.

And then you invited me to come to a legend's car race or streetstock race. And I was like, hey, man, I want to give this a shot. Well, when I told my dad that, he goes, yeah, man, I think you should. We'll do it together. It is your fault. It's your fault, man. It's your fault. So to pave the way, my dad, my dad started, we were started,

racing over. Your dad approached us at the shop one time and told me that you were going to sell your streetstock car. And I told him I'd love to drive it. I'd love to buy that car, but I just didn't have any money. And he's like, don't worry, I'll talk to your daddy. And I was like, all right, cool.

So he taught my dad into getting that streetstock car, and I started racing. So my dad got a street stock car. He started racing. Hold up. So I built this street stock. It was a I loved it. Good car. It was a good car. I could run top two, top three with it, and when you got it, you won races, right?

The first year. Yeah, I flipped it. You did flip it. You climbed the wall with the right front on the back straightaway and rolled it. Yep. It was awesome. So I never even knew your dad had a street stop. Yeah.

What kind of car did he have? A Camaro. He had a Camero. and yeah he wrecked a lot. Did he ever run good? I think he ran good in a couple of streetstock races. The thing about my dad was, is he has, there are some people that are missing that element of fear,

and he just, like to this day, he still does not have it. Like, he does not, he just, whatever, when you think, hey, maybe I shouldn't do that. Yeah, that little thing in the conscience, he says, all right. No. I mean, like, it's wide open or nothing for him. So he wrecked a whole lot. And I mean, and so he just, he just like started racing.

And then he got this bright idea to get involved with, you know, back then, you know, they ran the six-cylilners. Yes. And what's now the Xfinity series. And so it's, he decided he was going to give that a shot. We went to Martinsville and we tested and your dad was there. And I think Stevie Reeves was testing. And so I remember Tony Uri and all them were there. and my dad was trying to drive some car.

I think he bought it from your dad. I can't remember her. And it was bad. It was really bad. And your dad kept telling him, say, hey, look, you need to put that kid in a car and see, let's see what he'll do. And that was a lot of pressure. But anyway, make a long story short, he didn't make that race.

Martinsville is, you know, from late model stock all the way up back then. It was tough. And that's an easy track. There were 50 cars, 40 cars showing up easy for 36 spots. 32 spots to the Xfinity race. So he didn't do it. And then we went to Rockingham.

And he tried to make the race at Rockingham. And I remember. A hard track to make. Oh, my goodness. And so he was doing a qualifying run. And he spun coming off a turn two. You know how you had to hit it just right coming off of two in a qualifying trim? And he hit the inside wall.

And I walked up to him and his nose was bleeding. And I was like, what did you hit your head on? And he's like, nothing? I was like, uh, you might want to see this one out. Might want to sit this one out. We didn't have a backup car, so he was done, you know. That was the end of that. Yeah.

And then, you know, he still raced late models some. What? He kind of stepped that back and let me do it. Wait, wait, stop. Don't gloss over stuff like that. Yeah. He ran some more late models? Yeah. He would run, you know, so.

So crazy. At Concord Speedway, that's where I cut my teeth because, you know, that's where you race that street stock. I bought that street stock. And then they had a couple of different classes, but late model stock, I've never driven a late model, like a true NASCAR, model stock car ever. I've never even driven one.

But at Concord, they had something similar to that, but then they had the big 10 cars, like super late models. And so my dad did that. Supers? Yeah. It was an open carburetor. Yeah. Wow.

And I would run it. I would run a 390 carburetor, and I was very competitive, and I could win races. And my dad would run like an 1100 dominator. And he looked like a drag car down the straightway. And he wrecked every single week, like epically. Yes. I mean, are you being a little facetious, or did he literally wreck every weekend? I don't think he wrecked like, okay, my dad's a fisherman.

Right. We're still trying to connect the dots, and they're not connecting them. He wrecked a lot. I would say at least 90% of the time. Did at any point, y'all go, dad, let's just stick to the boat. Yeah. Let's get back on the lake. What's insane to me is that Hank Jr. developed,

real talent. Yeah. His brother, catfish, was a damn decent wheelman. Yeah. He's a good driver. Yeah.

But he didn't get it from their dad, apparently. Is that what you're saying? But I think my dad has some talent. You know, I mean, my dad, have you ever ridden in a bass boat

like 80 miles an hour? Is that? It's pretty hairy. Yeah. That's a good point. That's a good point. And so he did that all, I mean,

his whole career of, like, it was who got to the fishing hole first. You drive like hail across there. In tournaments, you got to get there, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, and my dad would keep a rag in his boat. And people ask, what's that rag for?

He's like, so I don't beat my teeth out when I go across the water because I'm not letting off. And he's serious. And so, you know, I mean, he just, hey, he could have been good if he would have learned how to lift at some point in time. Well, that is important. He never got that. So all this happened because Dale Jr. was a legends car racer on the day.

So y'all met, y'all were about 16 years old. Yeah. Because your birthdays are real close together. There's days apart. You guys have. Got one coming up here. Y'all do. And so they go to South Carolina.

Dale Jr. is like, I'm a legends car racer. No, that's not how. No, I can see these. How much do you lift? That's not what it was like. What do you lift? What do you squat? I'm a legend's car racer.

It was more of a street stock. I was like, I was like, this guy's cool, man. I want to be his friend. You don't come to my legends race? Yeah, yeah. It was just pretty much, you know, I think I could see a lot of the connections. I mean, I grew up. My passion was.

Our dads were so similar. Yeah, I loved hunting fish. I was going to be just like my dad. My dad was my hero. I loved fishing and I loved hunting. And I'd stay up all night long with my dad and help him build spinner baits and, you know, put new line on his reels. My dad's a very dedicated person.

Like when everybody else is sleeping and resting, he's getting his stuff together and he's not playing any games. He don't stop. You know, when it comes time, to fish. We don't drink. We don't drink drinks. We don't eat crackers. We fish. You know, and so I could see that connection in racing. It's a lot of work, but it paid off. We can all assume that they met because of their love for the outdoors, but do you recall the first time that they met and what the occasion was? I was pretty young. I don't remember exactly what the deal was, but the first time I remember meeting Dale was they had some kind of

fishing tournament on Lake Norman and then they had an obstacle course where you raced boats and my dad and Dale were partners and I can't remember how it all worked out. I do know there was some cheating that went on. I know they won the obstacle course part and I think I think it was pretty

crazy but cheating on the racing side, not really the fishing side but yeah. That's good. That's interesting too because you talk about that lack of fear that your dad had you sort of had that too and you have that and when you have that lack of that lack of fear falls over into any kind of fear somebody

might have of skirting the rules or getting in trouble with the official officials or the sanctioning body and I know that one time you what I don't remember where we were I don't even know if we were at a racetrack but we were in your trailer oh no I was in my trailer I can't we were in a gooseneck trailer to racetrack and I was there was bleeders involved and I was talking about what I was doing with mine and you were telling me some things that things that you did with the bleeders on your car that were impressive, and it made me really realize how innovative you were. Not only were you good at driving, this is probably back when you were racing an all-pro car,

and I don't know what you did to your Xfinity stuff when y'all ran your own team, but, man, you were creative. Well, whatever it was, it wasn't enough. Bull crap. I mean, let's talk about that. You won the Winchester 400 in 1997. You don't back into that, man. Yeah.

Holy crap. In 1996, you won at Louisville Speedway in Kentucky, in all pro series. Yeah. 1997 at Homestead and a late model. And you're going to Nashville, all the big races and doing great, running great, you're fast. You know, one of the top guys everywhere you go. And when we would talk racing, I knew I was like one of your biggest fans when it come to like your progression. hoping that you would get to where I wanted to go because we could be there together.

Yeah. But I was really impressed with how your mind worked. Well. In terms of setup, engineering, you weren't a race car driver. You didn't grow up in a racing family, but you could look at us, you and your brother both. You ran, like your brother ran them, barrel springs and stuff before the rail springs are cool. You know, and understanding how to travel a car and how to get more travel out of it, how to get it on, how to get it to set on the springs when you couldn't run bump stops.

You could look, you guys looked at the front of those cars and would see ways to make it work the way you wanted it to work. Well, so the credit I would give to that, and I think it's been a lifelong thing that's been helpful for me is when your dad told my dad, your dad made a deal with me when we bought that car. He's like, hey, you can do whatever you want, but you won't wear an open face helmet. Okay. But he talked to my dad a lot and he's like, hey, it's important. He gave my dad some instructions. It's like really important that Hank Jr. understands race car. And so my dad's like, hey, you can't, I'm not going to get you a crew chief.

You're going to have to figure this out. But here's what I'll do. I'll help you. I'll help you find somebody that can mentor you. And so at the time, Freddie Quarry was the legend at the racetrack. So I was at Freddie Quarry's house all the time. I wore that guy out. But he took me under his wing and he took.

taught me how to set cars up, how to hang bodies. I'm not a very good fabricator my brother is, but him and both Robbie Hamkey. And so... Unreal. I would be at the... I'd be at Hamke's race shop all the time. And working, fixing my dad's cars, learning how to do that sort of stuff. Tell me about

Freddie. You guys, Matthew, everybody's glowing here. Query and Hamkey are like two massive, massive names in super late model, late model racing in the Midlandic region, North Carolina. We just lost Robert Hanky. Yeah. And you were You were basically right alongside these guys for years, and they tutored you into becoming the man you were.

As far as the mechanic. Yeah. And the grit, trying to learn how to analyze and look at things. Now, Freddie Quarry, I would say this. I'm sure a lot of people could argue with this. But as far as people who never really got a shot to go after, I would say he's probably the best race car driver I've ever seen that never really got a shot. You know, he started late in life. A lot of people say that.

Man, that guy, that guy could drive. Really? And he's a driven dude. I mean, like, you don't play games around Freddie Quarry. He was a school teacher. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, he just, I mean, he just taught me. He just started teaching me all this stuff. And, you know, the first late model race I went to, you know who I went with? Gary Ballou. No kid. What? Gary Balloo. And no lie.

It was at Greenville's Pick and Speedway. His son, Brian Ballou and I were friends. We went to school. They had moved to our town. And we were pretty good friends. And I went to this race with him. And he's like, the only job you have to do is he had these big, like, syringes full of tire-soaked compound, and I was filling the inside of the tires and keeping them rolling until it was time to go.

The race wasn't in Cuba, was it? No. Okay, good. It was in Greenville Pickens. No, good. So you'd put that solution in there, and you needed to keep the tire rolling, so the solution was going around the whole interior of the tires. So it didn't soak through one particular spot.

And he won the race. He destroyed them, I bet. Oh, yeah. He killed them. Now, you talk about learning how to cheat. It was awesome. I was like, this is so cool. How did you even get linked up with Blue?

His son and I were same age, and they lived right down the street. His story is fascinating, dude. Yeah, it's a very fascinating story. And to be clear for people, I mean, obviously, if we're talking about rules now, and we're talking about, there's a big difference between, like, golf and fishing and NASCAR in the 90s, 80s and 90s. It wasn't really cheating. It's just like it allowed for creativity. How far can you go and still fall inside the bounds?

And where are they overlooking the rules? And I love that side of it. Because, man, what that made was, is it made it like this really cool team effort where you've got guys that are creative and they're doing stuff to race cars you never could think of and dream of on your own and you're collaborating and building these fast race cars

and learning every week. That was one of the things I really loved about it. Yeah. And in 19, around 1999, 1998 too, but you drove, y'all had your own team. Number 53, the bass car, BASS, one of the coolest cars out there, had a big old fish on the side of it. Who was helping you with that car at that particular time? All right, so I got to tell you a funny story about that car.

So we showed up to Rockingham. We're just going to try to run a few races, and we showed up for Rockingham. And all it said was BASS and had a picture of a fish on it. And Ward Burton comes walking up. You got to love this guy. Of course he does. He says, son, what's all your stickers on your car? I said, this guy's crazy.

Keep talking like Ward. In fact, do the rest of this interview in your best Ward Burton per se. I wish I could. But, you know, I don't really remember back then. I think... You ran good. Like, y'all had... This is your own car.

You run this out of... a shop near your home in Denver, North Carolina. You're not like the other teams, right? Yeah. It's a family run operation. You run sixth at Rockingham in 1998 toward the end of the year there. In 1999, you didn't make the Daytona race, which was frustrating, I'm sure. Yeah.

But then you go to South Boston in the middle of the season. You run third. Yeah. You run me, I was holding you and Jeff Green up at the end of that race. Jeff should have punting me out of the way. I thought he was going to it. I thought I was sitting in the right spot. You did.

You run third in 99 Homestead. One of my favorite memories racing with you. We both had great cars and you led 32 laps of that race and ended up fourth. Y'all should have won that race, but I think you had some pit road issues. Yeah. I can't remember all the details there, but we did have some pit road issues. But really, if you back up, I drove the Mark 3 car the year before and ended up getting injured at Texas and had to sit the rest of the year out. and then we started our own team.

Dave McCarty was the guy who was kind of at the helm right there, and who was the crew chief over that car? Dave McCarty. Dave McCarty. He was the 78 car, right? Well, Dave McCarty, if you want to go back, he worked with Darrell Waltrip's Bush team forever. Okay.

And he came over, and my dad ended up buying Darrell Waltrip's team. What was your injury at Texas? I had injury. Yeah. I wiped out. I thought that you had a couple. Yeah. Yeah.

What was your name again? Back then, head injuries were different. Yes, they were. You know, we looked at them differently, and you probably just, how come you had to stop? Like, was the injury, and, like, you couldn't function? Well, no. So here's how that happened. We didn't make the race at Daytona, and I was very bummed out about that.

That's one of the first times I had ever experienced that. And that, you know, that creates a hunger and a drive, right? And so we're going to run a limited schedule that year. And I go to Texas and had some water seepage over there and turn four. Yeah. It was super fast. And I remember I was in the top 10 in practice, which, you know, I never, that was not very common for me.

You started calling me right around because I've never pushed it in practice, you know. I forgot that. I had a bad habit of that because I never had a backup car. You know, I never wanted to direct one in practice. And so we're out there in practice and we're in the top ten and they're like, what can we do to make your car better? I was like, it's super loose. But I think if I hold it wide open, it'll be all right. Oh, man.

Yeah. I woke up in a helicopter going to parkland. So I sat out a week and then Dr. Petty, remember him? They made me go see him and he did a physical. And I went to Hickory and my throttle stuck at Hickory. Goodness. And I hit the wall really hard. Yeah.

Was that like weeks later? Yeah, like a week later. Oh, no, yeah. Whatever it was. Two big ones back to back. Yeah, he's like, all right. You went to Hickory is in a race or were you testing because of your injury to try to see if you were, okay, it was a race. Yeah.

Like you said back then, you're just like, oh, yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's crazy. So, you know what strikes me is that you guys both remember races where y'all are racing together. And, you know, that South Boston's an interesting thing. All right. So do y'all have any stories of literally racing each other on track, competing for wins, whatever, getting together, anything like that? No. Like getting into each other?

Yeah. Nothing? You might. Oh, I think we have. Yeah. Okay. So I'll tell that. And then we'll step back to South Boston because that's a good story.

We were at California Speedway. I qualified really good. and was running really horribly and I had a really tight race car and Dale Jr's leading race and we're buddies man and we hang out all the time that's my bud

if I can't win that's who I want to win and so I'm running around and you know you're fighting for everything you have you're fighting for the next opportunity every single lap and I see them coming and they're about to lap me

and I cannot go a lap down I cannot go a lap down and so I'm so tight you know I can't hardly drive this thing and Dale Jr.'s leading the race, and I cut in front of him, and instead of him wrecking me, he spins out. And I was like, ooh, that's not going to be good. And I was like, well, there goes, I guess we're not going to be buddies anymore. And then so after the race, I was kind of expecting it, you know, here comes Dale Jr. he walks up.

He goes, hey, man, what the heck was that all about? I said, man, I was just fighting. Stay on the lead lap. That was really stupid. I did not mean to do that. I'm so sorry. He goes, all right, man, don't worry about it. I'll see you home.

Okay. If it had been anybody else, they probably would have gone way differently. But, yeah, Judge Jr., just brushed it off. You do remember that now. I do now. Okay. I mean, I didn't think that was a big,

I was thinking had we ever had, like, dang together going, getting out going, you're dirt. Yeah, we never, we never, gotten a big, like, argument or anything. I was so loose and he was so tight. And I couldn't get back. Back then, those Exfinity cars,

you'd get on the inside of somebody, and you could not pass them. You couldn't use the throttle and they could just stay out there and stay out there and he was doing that. I think I busted my book. So what happened at South Boston? South Boston was really cool.

Freddie Quarry went with me there. I mean, he's a short track king and we qualified pretty good. Yeah, I'm just, I'm new. I'm really new at this, and I'm trying to figure it all out in that world. And so we get to run it,

and it starts to lay out, and Dale Jr.'s leading Jeff Green second. And we ran like that probably, for a hundred or so laps. And we're nose to tell all three of us, and we've checked out from fourth place. And I'm sitting here thinking, oh, man, should I wreck them or should I not?

Should I wreck them or should I not? And so we run like this forever and ever and ever. And it's on a little short track like that. You know, there's nine million caution. So it was just one of those races where you really plan out in my head, can I do the right thing? And I kept thinking now Jeff Green is about to lift him up. And I'm going to,

I kept setting myself up to try to be in that place. That was a real, that race, you know, being able to run with those two guys like that. That was a big moment for me because I was running on my dad's team, just trying to get by. And that was a really big opportunity for me. I agree. I agree. I was, I think the reason why Jeff didn't wreck me is because he had driven that three car just a couple years before that and had some much respect for Tony and Tony Jr. That saved me that day.

because I was slow at the end of that race. You were wheeling it, though. It was pretty awesome. What was a fun thing to watch? Yeah. So, let's talk about hunting. All right. All right.

So I was a very, I'm still sort of a novice hunting. Yeah, I got a picture here. Oh, okay. It'll help us get our mind right. All right. Let's see what kind of experience here. Oh, no. There's Dale Jr.

Feasant Hunt. Oh, wow. Look at this. And this is the most epic herdo I've ever seen a mile. Now, I'm going to, I've seen some mollets in my time. I mean, this is close to Billy Ray Cyrus right here. That's better Billy Ray Cyrus. I mean, this is right here.

And talk about Iraq. I'm telling you what, this is a bigot. Now, this is the one, what car is it? What car is it? Take a little. Chevy truck back there. Oh, it's a luminous. Sorry, your mind.

It's back in the day. Yeah. So that deer, where do we should do? Is that one of South? That's at Braco Hills. Sacramento? Yeah. I mean, that was good, man.

I thought that was awesome. Shot that here by yourself. Just posing with the head. We didn't detached it. That's how far we go back. Let's see that. All right. Here you go.

Look at this. Yeah. So that's Remington Hunt. That's right. So we had a Remington deal. His dad on the left, Remington rep on the right. Phil.

Phil Murdo. Phil Murdo. That's right. Yeah. And what was the? Primlin? Yeah, primlin. The funniest thing that happened that day is we went up there to go on a pheasant hunt

and Big E thought it would be appropriate and which was very wise to separate us too. So we'd been known for getting in trouble. I have so pissed off because we went to two different fields. Oh, yeah. Because I was like, Dad was like, this is an appearance. Like you're going on this hunt. Yeah. get your ass up and be ready.

Early in the morning. Yeah. And I was like, hey, can Hank go? I'd love it if, this would be fun for me. If Hank goes, I wasn't into this shit. I don't like to hunt. And I certainly wasn't getting up in the morning and going, you know, hunting. But he's like, yeah, he can go.

That would be great. And we get there and they're like, all right, Hank, you're going with them, junior, you're going with them. And I'm like, wait a minute. That's not the deal. And he got to go with Dad. I wanted to hang out with Dad and Hank Jr. and their two asses are going to a different field.

I got to hang around these Remington guys. We get up on this hill and we meet Dale Jr. and then Dale Jr. is at the bottom of the hill. We're kind of standing up a hill. And, you know, the rule is you don't ever shoot around another person. Obviously, for safety reasons. And this bird, for whatever we're sitting there talking, this bird jumps up and he flies right in between us and big egg goes,

no, like this. And he gets about 10 feet over his end. Del Jr. goes, bah, it smokes him. And all these feathers are coming down. Big E. And he's about to get mad. He's about to get mad. He goes, yes, I finally got one.

I could not stop laughing, which got me in trouble. And I didn't even do anything wrong. I was laughing. Oh, man, that is hysterical. Don't shoot it. Kaboom! Yeah! He's out there celebrating.

Pretty funny. Oh, my goodness. That is hysterical. The idea of the feathers falling around that is he's turning beat red in anger. Oh, man. That is hysterical. So you guys hunted. I mean, so, like, I would assume that.

Oh, there's a, go ahead. I just want this podcast be damned. I just want to tell you this. We used to go hunting at a place that he owned in South Carolina. And so you've seen Stroker Ace, the movie. Yeah, absolutely. That's right. The guy that made the jewelry.

out of bird's s' in the movie. He's real, and he really made bird shit. And that's where you killed that deer. On his property. On his property, I killed that deer. And Hank, so I'm going hunting with Hank. What year is this? I drove up there in my truck.

89. 99. I drove to your property in my truck. So, yeah. So, fill in high school. End over in. Yes. And had me come see it because you thought it was so awesome. Yeah. I remember that. Wow. So I get there and he's like, hey, I got

this guy. He wants to give you some jewelry. And I'm like, I hate jewelry. I'm like, I hate jewelry, but yeah, whatever. He's like, no. And he's giggling. And I'm thinking, this is some kind of joke. I'm going to, you know, Hank Jr.'s got some strange sense of humor and I'm just going to have to play along with this because I'm his guest on his hunting land. And he's damn bound and determined for me to meet this guy. Well, it ain't no joke. It turns out the guy really does make jewelry out of bird's And it's the guy from stroke race.

I'm like, Hey, Jr., do you know who this is? He's like, yeah? I'm like, well,

damn, why didn't you just say that? Right. I've been over there, I've been, I've been first out to the door of the truck. That's hilarious.

Yeah, you come across some interesting characters in this line of business, don't you? Both of you do. So, okay.

So, am I leaving anything out? No. That guy was, he was pretty funny guy. Yeah. He was, a guy that drove the old car and was running from the cops down the dirt road at the beginning

stroke race. Yeah, he's a good dude. Yeah. Good dude. I couldn't believe it. I was like, man. What other hunts have y'all gone on together? Well, I've got a funny story that I didn't get to go on, but this is pretty funny. So Dale Jr. calls me. He's like, hey man, I've got this land up in Ohio and got these big deer on it. And he sends me a picture of this giant deer. Without a, without, you know, an invite. But anyway. Oh, you were just bragging about the land. You were sending hands.

I wanted him to know that I was starting to lean back into it. Into hunting. It was cool, and I was all excited. I wanted to spend time with it. He's whispering. He's like, hey, man, you're not going to believe what just happened. I was like, what? He's like, I'm sitting up in a shooting house and a giant buck comes out.

And he spooked off. I was like, well, really what happened? He goes, well, when I opened the window, he took off the window. You're supposed to have the windows open already. With a bow and arrow, man. Oh, man. That's hysterical. It's pretty awesome.

That's hysterical when I open the window. Yeah, that'll do it. That'll do it. Yeah, that didn't work out too good. No. I was a little surprised when we called you. I assumed you guys would be hunting, you know, we're in the middle of bow season right now, at least in North Carolina.

So are you hunting right now? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't probably hunt as much as I did. Kind of took a step back a little bit from the hunting show. I mean, just the way that the whole world works. I've run a production company for about 10 years, and now I'm working for,

for a camp up in the mountains of North Carolina over in Andrews, North Carolina, called Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, and I spent a lot of time doing that. But my son, Boone, he's really into archery. And so both Boone and Cade shoot in this league called S3DA. And so it's like, you know,

they have the deer target set up out on the range, and they walk around shooting. So Boone's already shot two deer with his bow this year. He's 13 years old. So I'm taking them. I'm hauling them around and building new stories. Build new stories. I got to tell you.

So you have a big family. You're a big family guy. Yeah. And you, and it's amazing that Boone is 13 years old, by the way. Boy, does time fly? Yeah. So Dale Jr. happens upon this little column that he used to, that he wrote for NASCAR.com. Do you want me to read it or do you want to read it?

That's up to you. I can't remember what it says. He doesn't remember. All I do remember is, so let's pair, let's set it up. Set it up. So back in 2000, I was a rookie in Xfinity in the coming. series and I was wanting to become I wanted to try to write and I enjoyed writing and and just wanted to do it try it and get better at it and so my PR guy J. Gersh said let's write some columns and so I

wrote a series of about dozen columns one about my dad and one about various things and I wrote one about you and I called you I was driving down I 77 going somewhere and I said hey man you're like what I was like I wrote this article about you and I'm going to put it on NASCAR I just wanted to tell you about that before you so you don't read it and go or somebody sent it to you and you don't get weirded out. It would seem that there was an occasion for it. Now, first of all, do you remember this at all?

I do not. Okay, it seems that the occasion was you were about to get married. And that's my point is that you're a family guy. Well, this is apparently Genesis 1-1 of Hank Parker Jr., right? So here it is. Here we go.

This is by Dellenhart Jr. We ought to get some little, you know, some music for this. I'm sure they'll put some on. I'm sure they will. Yo, it's that time again to get a dose of my column. Better late than never, they say. It's like him anyway. All right.

Yo. You know when it starts out with you. Believe it or not, I had written a few columns for this month and canned them all. I decided to skip over the latest controversial topics like restrictor plates to tell you a thing or two about a buddy of mine. You all know him is Hank Parker Jr. Around here we call him all sorts of things, some that can't be printed. First off, Hank and I have been friends for years, way before he ever got the nerve to drive race cars. Second, he's probably one of the most impressionable personalities in the sport.

How about that? That's nice. Yeah. I met Hank on a hunting trip with my father. My father hunted with Hank senior quite often in those days, and me and Hank met on a few of those trips. If you were a few years, we would see each other, but it was a while before we got to be good friends. Hank and I had and still do have different outlooks on life. That's interesting. Yeah. We'll get back to that in a second.

Okay. I can't say that I could explain either one of them, but I know they are not too in the same. Hank was really into the outdoors. I, on the other hand, could take it or leave it. That's true. I actually was better friends with his two brothers, Bill and Ben. Me and those two were getting into trouble on the weekends while Hank was off with his girlfriend. Okay.

Write a note down. We've got to get back to that, too, because this wasn't part of the stories, I recall. One day at the shop, my father tells me that Hank Sr. wants to buy his, buy my street stock for Lil Hank. You got Lil, not Little, Lil Hank. That's my rapper name. Yeah, I got you.

Right, right, Lil Hank. This was good news because I always thought Hank was cool, and if he was going to race, we might get to hang out more often. So we sold him the car, and it wasn't long before I was driving in the BGN series, and Hank was getting offers to join me there. In those days, I tried really hard to help him on the racetrack.

I couldn't think of anyone else I would rather be banging doors with in my racing. future than my buddy Hank. I always thought he was a great driver with in-depth knowledge and unlimited ability. Before long, me and Hank were swapping setups at the track and club hopping during the week. Oh, boy. We've got to write a note. We've got to ask about the club hopping.

We spent the better part of two years doing that. Two years of club hopping, Hank? Is that what y'all are doing? My name was Little. Lil Hank, yeah. Were you the DJ? Did you have a job at the club at night, Lil Hank? No.

We spent the better part of two years doing that one week after the next. When I threw a bash at the house, Hank was the life of the party. When we went to the clubs, no one had a better time than Lil Hank. We spent a lot of time racing on computers, critiquing our driving skills and patience. Anytime we had a career decision to make most of the time, he would call me for some advice. He only took it half the time. But what the hell do I know? Phil Jr. qualifies that.

Last year, me and him, along with a few others, had the most fun on Halloween. Hank took us up to an old haunted hotel. Seemed like it was over 100 years old. It freaked us out pretty good. We did a little bird hunting that winter as well. Those were the times, I tell you. Well, a lot's changed, as it always does. Oh, Hank is getting married.

It's really no surprise to me. I joke with him all the time about it happening sooner. I try my hardest to make him feel like a deserter. You did a good job of that You did a really good job of that A deserterer, he says To be honest though This girl's won a hell of a catch

Almost like a female version of Hank Weird but true Not my cousin Yeah, right So close to Hank You think they're related No Even though we still look at the world around us

In a different way me and Hank still find time to chill out together, albeit not as often as before. Hank Jr. has always been a workhorse, but he still calls after every win. I get a lot of credit for being real. Well, this guy takes the cake. Congratulations on finding your bride, Hank,

and thank you for being my friend. Still single and loving it, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Not anymore. Isn't that funny? Okay, where do we start? I think we've got to go to the trouble, right? Well, let's go to the trouble because, I mean, Dale Jr.'s conflicted. We got deserter, Hank.

I mean, you're leaving your wingman, apparently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did y'all really get into trouble? Well, I will say this. He mentioned it in there. He hung up with my brothers more. And they got in a lot more troubles than I did. I've always heard that catfish was, you know, quite the hellraiser.

Is that true? He's pretty crazy. He's wild. He's calm down. He's married. We've all calmed down. Everybody's calm way down. We would, um, oh Lord.

Come on. Listen, it's the podcast. Yeah. What we got? Well, it seemed, for this story, we all, we, it doesn't feel right telling it without catfish in the room, but. Yeah. Or Ben.

They were two great guys and, um, just as nice and friendly and easy to be around as Hank was. And, uh, and Hank Jr. was more career-driven, more goal-oriented. He definitely put more work into his relationships with his wife. And so when I would come around, I'd be like, hey, man, let's go buy a bunch of eggs and go egg a bunch of cars or toilet paper

somebody's house or play mailbox baseball. And crazy stuff. And Ben and Bill would raise their hand. And Hank Zimmer would be like, I got to stay home. I got the dude, this, and that another. That's funny. I don't remember any of that. Bull crap.

his memory's impeccable up into this point now that was when we were younger yeah when i was just getting my license and just raising hill um but we got into going to you know we'd drink together and always had a great time and i knew that you know hanging around hank was always going to be good clean safe fun you know hank wasn't ever going to do anything questionable i wasn't i wasn't I wasn't either. And we were going to be wild and wide open, but we was going to stay in our lane. And I always knew when we were going to hang out

it was just going to be fun. But one of the most impressive things about Hank, and we'll tell you, anytime you come on this podcast, before we put it out on the air, if anything in here you don't like, we'll take it out. But one of the things about Hank

that was most impressive was his ability to puke and rally. He was a very, He was a puker. He was a puker. A puker. Now, not I have drank so much, I'm nauseated, and I probably should go to bed. But it just didn't sit on his stomach right.

I don't even know if you can explain it. I can't, you know, I think I've learned a lot since then. But I can tell you this. I can remember most after all the short track races, I would puke my guts out for hours. after races and I just pretty weak stomach. They didn't slow me down. I kept on going. Like we would have like four or five beers and he'd go, I need to throw up.

And he'd walk out in the yard and literally bend over and projectile into the yard and turn around, walk back in, grab a beer. Like nothing ever happened. And we ain't even got a good buzz yet. That's a champ. And I'm like, damn, you good? He's like, I'm great. Well, better now.

I'm like, okay, buddy. I will throw this in for disclaimer. Yes, all of that is very true. My life is a lot different now. It is a lot different. I'm super thankful for gray hair, maturity, and God's grace. I can tell you that. But that is, that was, they liked that.

They would, they would wait for that. Like, when's it going to happen? Oh. Is it going to happen? What was Dale Jr. like to hang out with? Just like he is right now. I'm not sure he's grown up in matured. Oh, I'm just kidding.

I don't believe that. No, you're just good. You know, just funny. Funny is all get out and have a good time. You know, it was always the same group of people. You know, there would be a lot of people sometimes, but there was always this core group, and it was always just a, you know, there was a time.

There was always this serious Dale Jr. at their racetrack, you know, where he's like really focused. and then there's just completely funny, turn it off, mischievous, crazy Dale Jr. And that's what it was like off the track. I mean, by now, I mean, gosh, Dale, you and I, we've been friends so long. I think I've heard about all the stories, but I don't, and I've definitely know stories where you got in trouble with your dad. But I don't recall any serious trouble with your dad's on anything y'all did.

I mean, maybe y'all kept the mailbox situation to yourself. Damn, if Daddy knew about that. Oh, yeah. Holy. That'd have been over. See, to wore my ass out. Yeah, you didn't play games on my dad either. And there was a time, man, like, you know, when you're talking, like, when you're 17, 18 years old and you're just young and dumb and doing stupid things, I was really trying to not lose the opportunity of driving a race car.

And so I think really I was a late bloomer as far as coming into being wild into my early 20s. And, you know, kind of when I first came onto the scene of the bush cars. But, you know, it's, it was, it was a tough road to get there, you know. And so you kind of always trying to stay focused and get these race cars ready. And, you know, you've got limited opportunity. And I kind of had a sight for that at that moment, but I kind of lost sight of it every time. You know, I'm curious. Dale Jr. says that he never expected to get that ride at DEI in 98, 98, right?

Yeah, I mean, and they didn't even tell him until, like, about the time they were loading up, it seemed like. Were you a shock that he made it in 98 and then became a champion? I mean, because you were with him back to 16 years old. He was a bit of a late bloomer himself. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I will say this. I was super thankful when he got that opportunity because I felt like he was going to do a good job.

And if you kind of, you look from the flip side of that, the pressure that he was under, you know, that was a ton of pressure back to them because you had an established team. And you had these guys who were used to, just a whole company that was used to winning. And so you put him in the seat and he performed. And it was awesome. And it was a fun thing to be a competitor and watch him do that because that was pretty impressive. That was a very impressive time to see him. stand underneath that type of pressure and win. That was really cool.

One of the coolest things that I remember that I really appreciate this. I don't know where it falls for you, but at one point in your career, a couple things hadn't gone the right way. Teams that you were working with were having some difficulties. And me and Teresa were starting up chance too. And we had a couple open races. we were kind of at this right around the same time looking at True X to come drive for us. But we had a few races open, and I was able to get you to come over there and drive that car for a couple races and ended up getting some good runs.

I remember being on the radio with you at Kansas and giving you a hard time. That was awesome. Yeah, but I felt like that that was an opportunity for you to show, remind people, I think, because you had. done already showcased your talent or shown your potential and who you could be in your own car and the Xfinity series and you won a couple of Xfinity races for C-C and those guys. But then it was like people needed, you know, it was a great opportunity to remind people like, look, hey, I'm a guy that can do this. And I think that you got the chance to showcase that in that car and ended up kind of presenting

some new opportunities to you. Yeah, I'll be forever grateful for that opportunity. It was a very pivotal time in my life right there. And so that was a really cool opportunity to be able to drive a car that good. And I remember going out to practice, I think, the first time in Atlanta. I think Bono was a crew chief of nice. I was like, is this thing legal? Y'all cheating?

That's awesome. But they were good cars. I had a good time. And you know what? You look back and it's, you know, when you get older, you're able to kind of view some things in a different perspective. And you look at the way that racing and just sports work. It's so much about timing. And so you can be a great driver.

You can have opportunity, but it all has to come together at the right time. And you see guys, you know, one of the guys who I felt like really took a huge advantage and was able to really showcase just extreme talent was Matt Kansas, the way he came into the sport with Robbie Reiser and those guys. And so I was just at a different place. And, you know, if I could go back, I'd do a lot of things different. but you know you give it your best and you look back at it now and just like the timing just I've developed a little bit of some bad habits from you know not having exactly what I needed at

the very beginning but at the same time man I got to drive race cars and I got to do something my dream to do and I got to do something I love and I got to to experience victory so man I look back on it with just like I'm just good memories and you know Kansas the funny You talk about my stomach at Kansas? I remember I was so sick before the race. And I was feeling so rough. And I went to the infield care center and they're like, we're going to give you a GI cocktail.

And they gave me like some pepto with aspirin and like, I don't know if it was morphine or whatever it was in it. You know, like what's that numb and stuff? They put Novakene. They put Novakene in that thing. I drank it about like a million dollars that whole race. Yes. How many races did you run for Dale?

It was like three or three, right? Yeah, I think three. And then I drove. Clarence Brewer's car that year at Darlington. So you finished seventh at Charlotte with Bono in the box. Finished fifth at Kansas in the fall. Led some laps. Finish fifth at Atlanta.

Those were great runs. And that team was brand new. I remember you in 2002. And so you guys both just alluded that you were wanting to give him a break to showcase his talent. What happened in between 2002 and 2003? Yeah, it's a good question. So there was some things going really good.

So I was driving for C.C. Welliver, and GnC was my sponsor. GnC. I was driving a Dodge. I'm like the first guy to win, Bushrakes in a Dodge. And I was doing a bunch of stuff with Ray Everingham. And so I was doing a lot of their testing. I drove a cup race at Rockingham for Evertonham. And so I felt like GNC was kind of in my back pocket.

We had a great relationship. And we were going to move forward. we were actually going to go to PPC where Jeff Green had been driving and PPC actually stands for Parker, Pollux and Campbell and that ended up I was going to take GNC over there and then we were going to run

try to make a run in their car for the championship and try to be competitive however you want to state that and then look at moving up into the Cup Series and I was at Homestead, Florida I was leading, I led some of that race and it was the last race of the season and come in at the end of the race,

and GNC's like, the government has banned a Fedra, we're out of racing completely. I mean, they were sponsoring races. They sponsored the Daytona race. They sponsored all these different races, and so here it is the very end of the season. They completely pull out.

My team shuts down, and I'm stuck at the end of the year without a ride. At the end of the year, no time to even plan another ride for 2003, right? So you were stuck. Wow. And here's a funny story. Maybe I should probably,

it would be better, but he can't defend himself. But Chip Gannasi offered me a job to drive that car. Remember that Jason Leffler drove the first year for Chip Gnassie? He offered me that ride. I can't remember which car it was. But anyway, he offered me a ride, and I was going to stay with G&C, and we felt like we're going to be really good.

And we talked and talked, and finally I was like, man, I'm just not going to do it. He's like, son, are you crazy? Some people say I am. But it kind of all fell apart right there. It just fell apart. You know. You had the Gnasi ride. Before I knew GnC was going to leave.

You turned it down because you had your plan set up and then the plans unraveled right after the homestead race. Completely unraveled. And then I went back to him. He's like, yeah, you already told me no, forget it. Yeah. It was a good life lesson. Wow.

Damn. And so when does Dale, when do you guys actually talk about doing the chance two thing? I mean, and where were you at in light? Where were you in your headspace at that point? Yeah. You know, I was, I think my wife and I just had our first kid. And so life was looking good. Then it all unravels.

And every phone conversation with Dale Jr. Starts the exact same way, the kind of way he did earlier. Hey, man. Yeah. I want you to drive my car for me. Okay. All right, we'll come over to the shop. That's all the details you need.

Yeah. Sounds good to me. Yeah. So that's how we did it. It worked good. So you got to race in the truck series a couple more years after that. You last start, you filled in for Carl Edwards

at Nashville in 2005. You got the pole for Roush in the number 60 car. And then you didn't race anymore. I didn't race anymore. I had a conversation with Jack Rouse ended my career right there. So this was a fun story. I was doing some testing for Carl.

He was back and forth. I wasn't sure where I was out. I was doing a lot of TV at that point in time. and not sure where it was going, but, you know, back then it was kind of popular to do kind of these starting parks, and I just weren't going to do it. And so I'm at the racetrack working on Carl's car, and Brad Parrott was the crew chief, and he said, hey, man, we really want to try something. And we don't know if it'll work, but will you be willing to try it? I was like, yeah, let's do it. It was bump stops.

And we went out there, and the car was bottoming out really, really bad. So they made a few adjustments, whatever it is they did. And I made like two more laps. I came out and said, put a car cover on it. Well, they all got really mad at me. Except for everybody on the team, except for Brad because I was like 15th in practice, you don't do that in those cars. And I was like, just trust me.

I'm telling you, this thing is awesome. And so when Carl gets there, he pretty much just laps of field dominates this race. But it really had very little do with what I had done. It was the fact that I was just willing to try what they were wanting to try. I mean, you can imagine the difference. It was new technology back then. Sure. And so after the race, Jack Rouse and Carl are standing there, and Carl says,

Jack, you need to give him an opportunity. You need to give this guy a chance. I think he could do it. He looked at me, kind of looked me up and then said, yep, he's too old and got to me bad habits. But I said, all right. And I sailed on down the road. I said, I've given my best shot. I've done all I can.

And I'm not going to go drive for a car that I know I can't win in. If I'm going to blame somebody, I want to be able to blame myself. And it just was too late. I'd pushed it too far. How old were you? 33, maybe 33, 34 maybe. I'm so young. Yeah.

Jack has put a lot older farts in that car than 33. God, I mean, do we need to remind about Mark Martin or anybody else there? I mean, well, those guys were established. And I get, I get his point. I get what he was saying. I know. I had picked up some, you know, some habits of driving cars that were different. different than his and hey I get it.

So that's what sucked all the oxygen out of you to not pursue racing anymore? I don't know. It was just that, you know, that was kind of, that was the straw that kind of, that unleashed the flood to go that direction. And then, you know, I started commentating races and started doing some stuff like that. What did you think about commenting? I enjoyed it. You know, the one thing is I'm a kind of high energy person and, and I'm tuned into things,

but I'm also a bit ADD, so by the end of the race, I'm kind of like, uh, all right. Don't put you on the 600 or anything, right? That's what you're saying. How long did you do that for? I'd say two or three years. Okay. Yeah.

Were you missing driving? A little bit, you know. You know, I wanted to, you know, you have to make up your mind of what you're going to do and where you're going to be. And my drive was, I want to have the opportunity to win, and I want to have the opportunity to be competitive, I don't want to just be there. I don't want to just go collect.

Being a professional athlete, I'm not there to draw a paycheck. I'm there to swing for the fences and go for it. And if I can't do that, then I need to go, I know how to use a shovel. I know how to swing a hammer. I can go make a paycheck somewhere else, you know? So this is a dream,

and you better go for it while you've got the chance. Yeah. So your life changed quite a bit since you quit driving. You've been married and you're having kids, but now you've got a giant family. Dale Jeter says that all the time. Well, I'm impressed. Yeah, no. It's an impressive responsibility.

Yes, it is. So tell us about that. Yeah. Well, you know, after I got out of racing, kind of started doing some TV work and kind of got involved and doing some different things with my dad. in the outdoor television programming. And, you know, just turn around and you've got three or four kids. And it's like, you keep adding to them.

And it's just been building up. And so over the last several years, my wife and I have been in the process of adopting a little girl from the country of Haiti. And after six years, we finally brought her home this March. And so that man was awesome. So she's number five in the Parker clan. And she fits in real good. And they keep me hopping. And my boys, I was telling them.

them I was coming to do this and one of them told me, said, I want to try racing go-karts. I was like, no, I think you'd be all right sticking to fish in and hunting. You didn't. Wow. Come on. You've got to bring your o'card over there. Yeah. That'd be bad.

That'd be bad. You know, street stock to sell? What's a day like in the Parker household? It's pretty wild, you know. It's pretty wild. My two daughters are driving, so that's kind of crazy. I'm always trying to give them instruction on, you know, what that looks. like and they don't think I understand what boys in high school think and do and yeah I keep explaining

to them and you know and threatening you know boys to come around you know my daughters and what that would look like for them my boys are really into horses and so they're constantly getting new horses and training horses and selling horses and playing on horses they're really into horses and the outdoors they they love doing that and so you know it's we live in a crazy time now so they've kind of like trying to do school with them and do all the things that they enjoy to do outside of that. You know, we talk so much about your dad. I mean, how's he doing? What is he into right now?

My dad's crazy. He's in Louisiana right now fishing. So every chance he gets, he's fishing, he's hunting, he's wide open. He has not let off the throttle, literally, I mean, at all. I'm going to tell you something that you don't know. I have told you before because you obviously, you're a, you're a veteran of the Dirty Mo Media podcast host. You know, you and Kerry were hosting Earnhardt outdoors.

But one time I told you this, in my time of racing, I've never been, I mean, we've met a lot of people. Celebrities coming out every week. I'd never been starstruck. In 2002, when I saw Hank Parker, Sr. walking through the garage, I literally was locking up. And you know why? Because my dad and I used to watch that fishing show, and we just were so into that theme song. gone fishing and it was a thing that me and my dad connected to all the time and we just loved it and I remember growing up watching it and so when I saw Hank who's the friendliest guy and I mean like

you I don't know what is in the water at the Parker household man but they're just so nice yeah I've always just looked up to you and your family and and Hank I just remember that in 2002 I was brand new in the sport working for Finch so trying to get my bearings and everything but then when your dad walked in and then was just so nice. I just was like, man, I've made it. This is it. They don't get better than this, you know, right here. Hank Sr.

Right here. But then I was obviously into your whole career and you were so good that year in 2002. I mean, you were fast. But I just, I liked, I've always thought a lot of your family. I then got to know catfish through your hunting show, you know, the hunting show y'all were doing. I didn't know catfish. and he also was driving for Rusty

Yeah, he did. And, you know, when RWI was doing its thing and you guys as a family and hunting together, it was just so fun to watch and you're good at it. And it's like, I'm like, man, you know, the legend fisherman is also just whacking them out there in the woods.

My dad's always, always hunted. He used to tell people he would go fishing to make enough money to go hunting. So that was always, man, and he could. do it he could do it on the in the boat too yeah he's he's i mean he's got a talent i mean he's i mean it's just incredible it's it i didn't get that so i go fishing with him like i don't quite understand what you're doing but it seems to be working pretty good for you but man he's just

he's an awesome dad and i've enjoyed you know the life lessons and you know it's uh it's pretty fun to just still hang out with him i mean he's still same old guy and we still go fishing we still hang out we still go hunting and same old guy and man I'm blessed to have him as a dad that's for sure and you got a production company I did uh yeah I do I don't I'm not as focused on that at this point in time I've ran a production company where we produced most of our hunting television show and we produced some other television shows we produced uh Greg Zipidelli's uh drop zone show and John Tate runs that now and I did a lot of a lot of different work for production companies right now my my main focus and what I do is I work at this camp called Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters up in Andrews.

And tell us a little bit more about that because I know you alluded to it earlier. It's a Christian camp that's primarily focused on junior high and high school students. It's a year-round camp. It's a high adventure recreation camp where we have all types of stuff from Whitewater Raft into aerial park, zip lines, all the fun stuff that kids like to do. But it's a ministry based, it's a gospel-based ministry that I, my main responsibility is try to get people to come to camp. And how are you doing with that?

I mean, you've already, I want to go to camp. I don't know. What's the age limit on that thing? Is it going to be one of those situations where he's going to be Jack Rouse? He's going to look at us and go, nope, too many bad habits and you're too old. No, no, no. We had a men's retreat last weekend where we had lots of guys up there. But it's going good, you know.

We obviously have come through a summer where it's been crazy with all the stuff, COVID and all that. but, you know, based on the rules for overnight camps, we were able to still operate at a reduced capacity, but we had a good year, and a lot of camps were shutting down and grid our teeth and pushed right on through and kept on going, man. Had a great summer, had a bunch of kids come through. You work with a lot of charitable initiatives, too, as well.

Any of those you want to speak about? Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that I would say as far as, like, charities and things, there's a you know we kind of bounced back and forth looking at different things my wife and I one of the things that got us on the track of adoption was a ministry called back to back and we were visiting different places and you know I'm just super thankful for the work that they do for orphan care around the world and to be able to go see different things and to have your mind shaped and changed by reality by going firsthand and seeing things have been something that that

that I had no idea existed before I met those guys and and started going to different places with them. Did you go to Haiti? I mean, had you gone to Haiti on a mission trip or anything like that? Because they've, you know, that country's been ravaged. Yeah, it's a crazy place. I mean, it's, it's obsessed, you know, in a lot of aspects. It's a very sad place, but there's a lot of hope there, too.

Sure. I'd spent some time in Mexico. My family and I would go down to Mexico every year, and we'd go to a home where there was quite a few kids, and it's kind of hard to explain, but there was a kid that we kind of fell in love with down there, and he didn't have any extended family that would come visit him on holidays. And so we would kind of go down there and hang out and spend time with him.

And we, you know, we actually thought we would like to adopt that kid. And, you know, just because he was in a pretty bad situation where he was at. And, you know, it just didn't work out. And the really cool thing about it is his family found him. And we ended up taking him back home. So that was really cool. And so in that process, we're on the back. side of this thinking, hey, we're a little crazy thinking about adopting a kid, but since we were

thinking about it, let's just see where it leads. And, you know, and my wife and I spent time just praying about it and seeing where we felt like the Lord would lead us. And Haiti is a place that has seen a lot of destruction. There's a lot of need. And, you know, there's a lot of things that you could go into when you start talking about orphan care and orphans around the world. there's some there's some different views and some different ways of looking at things but we here's one thing we did understand there was a lot of need and you know we're in an opportunity and a position that in our life where we could invest in that and so we started the process it took us six years and finally got her home wow six years crazy yeah man you are a special guy and i've always

felt like that but you continue to do things in your life and uh and you continue to sort of march that path and do your own thing. And I've always just been really impressed by you. And I appreciate your friendship and hope that one day we'll get to go hunting together and spend some real time. Separate fields. I want to make sure y'all are apart. I think it's about, I think, I know we both got lives that keep us pretty dang busy.

Yeah. But I think it's time for us to go off somewhere and do something where we can. can just hang out. I'm ready when you are. You need to hang out with, you know, the Maturedale Jr. I mean, I don't know. Do you have any experience in this? Because, I mean, like, this guy's about having a second kid.

I don't know it's nothing. It ain't been on a trip in a decades. It's been a long time. It's been a very long time. And, you know, right back at you, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate the opportunity you gave me. I mean, all the way through my career at any point, if I was struggling at the racetrack,

I mean, I can remember there's times that you guys would take shocks and just bring shots over and put them on my car. that right. Dover. Always, always helpful. I was like, I was not going to make the race at Dover. And Tony Jr. came over and put a set of shocks on my car. And I qualified like seventh.

Oh, my God. I was like, he's like telling me what his car's doing. I'm like, I know exactly what you need. I'm killing it in these shocks over here. You got to have these things. It's going to fix it. It was awesome. Wow.

Yeah. But it was like a, it was like your best friend down there. It was so easy to Tony Jr. and him were like, yeah, sure. I mean, shocks back then, that was like handing somebody your hard drive. That's right. It was. It's a big deal.

Yeah. But they were like, yeah, we'll do it. Because they knew that they would just go on that car and that was all they were, that was as far as they'd go. But I can't say enough about you, man. And I'm so glad that we've been able to get you on this podcast so the people that are listening to this show will learn more about you. They know your name and they know your history in the sport, but they're going to know you as a person now. and I'm glad we got the chance to do it. So thanks for coming on the show

and tell everybody back home. We said, hey, good luck with the camp over in the mountains. Still a deserter, by the way. Still a deserter. Once a deserter, always a deserter, right? I was so selfish. Actually, he's back on the team. I mean, he's married too.

He's back on the team. I was just thinking about myself. And I wasn't going to have any fun times partying. There it is right there. There's your copy of the columns. stuff. Thank you. I don't know if anyone else would want to see that, but yeah, you might, you might, you might want to, your wife might read it and throw it in the trash. What a jerk. I remember what a jerk he was. No. All good memories, good times. Yeah, buddy. Thank you. Thank you, buddy. Thank you, buddy. Thank you, guys.

Here are a lot of history. All right, listen up a little odd history here. I got to say NASCAR man has come up with some doozies. And Dale, I think we're going to all learn about this one because I love the history of the Hudson. and Horning and Herb Thomas. I'm a big fan, but this is one here when he brought it to us. I couldn't believe it. It's just something I'd never heard. This was called Repossessed. Many of you do know that Johnny Mance drove his number 98 Plymouth from Long Beach, California to Darlington, South Carolina,

and then bested a 75-car field to win the first ever Southern 500. 75 cars. There are a lot of big names in the field. Red Byron, Fireball Roberts, who ran second. The Flot Brothers, Buck Baker. One of the biggest names in the 1950s was Herb Thomas. Now, Herb became famous for driving the fabulous Hudson Hornet. And then the Carl Kiekhafer cars and more en route to his 48 career NASCAR Premier Series wins.

But in 1950, the Olivia, North Carolina driver, had yet to win on the big NASCAR circuit. At Darlington, Thomas was betting on himself, and the bet, well, it failed. You see, moments before the green flag, Herb found himself in a terrible situation. His number 92 car was lined up to start 29th in the race, but a tow truck had showed up to repossess his race car. Like many racers, Thomas bought his car without enough money to pay for it. He then drove it to the track and hoped to win enough money in the race to pay for the car the next day.

Unfortunately, the finance company wasn't willing to go along with the gamble and elected to repossess the car from the starting grid at Darlington. As the engine started, Thomas' brand new Plymouth was on the back of the tow truck. So if you always wondered why it says WD by Herb's name in the record books, usually that stands for withdrew. In his case, he's like, well, damn. Now you know the story of why he withdrew from the first ever Southern 500. Sounds like he got withdrewed. He was withdrawn. He was told.

Yeah. That's a good one. Last call. All right, last call. Does anyone in the room know what it means when you have this phobia? It's called synosilicophobia. Synosilicophobia. Sinicinocycophobia.

Sinosilicophobia. Sinosilicophobia. I'm, since there's a picture of beer next to this, I'm going with the fear of running out of beer. Yeah, the fear of an empty glass. Oh, did you guys look it up? No, is that it? Is that it? Look, my sheet's redacted, so I can't even see the...

According to the internet, it's a real thing. It's the fear of an empty beer glass. The word synodath is the Oxford English dictionary. It says, empty tune. All right, guys, enjoyed the show. Thanks for tuning. Sorry. Sorry, dude.

I left you hanging on that one. Speaking of beer, door bumper clear, likes to drink it. They sure do. They have synosilicophobia. They definitely do. Especially Freddy Kraft, who slept through the previous episodes. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, yeah, he did one. One episode. Yeah. But he came back this week. He came back. He slept through it from drinking beer or what? Well, he slept through it from a West Coast getting back from a trip. The whole cast is back this week, and for once, TJ.

is not the only one having to defend himself. Go take a listen to door bumper clear. They love beer. Have no fear. Mike Davis. Take over from here. Oh, by the way, guys, you know, our show will be at 5 p.m. Eastern Time this Wednesday on NBC Sports Network or television show, that is, with Hank Parker Jr. So, you know, we jump around a little bit here and there times. This week, it's at 5 p.m. Leah, you'll hit it on social.

I will. There will always be somebody asking. saying they didn't see it, but we'll, they do a lot of good re-airs too. So, you know, you'll be able to see it. This is an episode you'll want to watch on TV as well. The 10 Days of Giving, listen, this is interesting. This is the 10th year of the Dale Jr. Foundation's Driven to Give event. Driven to Give is open from now until October 10th, 2020.

Anybody know a birthday on October 10th? Yeah. Anybody? I don't know. Yeah. This year, it features online silent auction filled with some truly incredible items, such as a seven-day stay at Dale Jr.'s North Carolina Lakehouse, Mike Tyson's autographed boxing glove, Magic Johnson's autographed L.A. Lakers warm-up shirt,

a Billy Joe autographed piano man record, a Toby Keith autographed guitar, lots of NASCAR autographed memorabilia, and so much more. Isn't there an auction for the opportunity to come and hang out during a taping of the podcast? I think I saw that. Is that true? Yeah, it's a...

Part of a package. It's a Dale Jr. Meet and Greet package, correct. So it's up there. Yep. It's doing very well. Yes. Come in here and watch us do this.

Yeah, part of the package, you get to do a lot of different things in that, but one of them is sitting in on the recording of our podcast. You'd be shocked how many people asked to do that. I mean, a lot of people do that. Last year's driven to give efforts helped raise more than $400,000. And the need is even greater this year. Go to the Dale Jr.foundation. dot org slash

DTG 2020. That's the Dale junior foundation. org slash DTG 2020.

Through October 10th, you'll be able to bid on all these great items. On behalf of the children, families, and groups that benefit from this event,

we thank you for your support. Also, there are many great sponsors of this event. It's the 10th year we've done it. It means a lot to us.

That's right. It's a little different this year because of the pandemic, but we're going to make it happen. We're going to raise some money. If you guys can help us out, that'd be great. It's a birthday.

Happy birthday to you. Oh, really? Yeah, in the studio. Happy birthday to you. What? It's very special. Don't read the label. You can love it.

You can love it. Oh, my goodness. Dude. Let's see this. That's like high quality. Printed off. the original negative. Who has that?

I believe the gentleman on there, Al Sop, was the photographer. He just walked into Dad's shop and took it? Did he have any, he tell you about the day? No, this was what was sent to us. Printed off the original negative, it says.

And they wanted you to have it. It's gorgeous, gorgeous quality photograph. Describe it to the podcast listeners. Basically, it's a picture of dad torquing the head bolts on a motor in his shop, Ralph Earnhardt's shop. I imagine this is probably around 74 or 75.

And, you know, dad's just grease. Got grease stains on his shirt, sleeves rolled up, hands dirty, dirty old pants. It is a nasty old engine hoist or engine mount rack that he's got his motor bolted to with a bunch of holes drilled in it from all the different blocks. They've tried to adapt to this thing over the many decades that Ralph probably used it. A bunch of stuff laying around in the corner. It looks like I believe I see a Miller High Life. Oh.

Big, uh, looks like a 20 ounce. You're doing that. Yeah. Get her done. I'm going to talk this engine better feel good. It's obviously in the middle of the night. Get my buzz on. Because of the darkness outside.

It's just a cool picture. Some old head gasket's hanging from the rafters. I mean, it is the guy's birthday, so we had to bring presents back. Oh, man. This is more, this is in the shop. You love family history. I figured you'd love the hell out of this. They just must have painted this thing

and getting it lettered, building his engine. There's Uncle Randy. It looks like Mike Watkins, Kathy's husband. That's cool. Holy shit. They're working on the front end here. They're putting the screen in the front

of the grill. Uncle Randy's tightening down the windshield clamps. This old post in the picture I believe is the one that had the hole in it that Ralph would put all his change in when he'd get Waterburger or something. Man, that's crazy.

It's something of a gun looks pretty. They just painted it. It looks like they're like putting it back together to get ready for the upcoming year or something. It's wild. Dion. Did they name the car, Dion? Oh, look, you can see like the flowboard.

His seat. The thing's nasty. Wish we had some of these shots from Metro Live. I was just thinking the episode of Lost Speedways. I was just thinking the same thing. Beautiful. The refrigerator in the background, I remember that. The office, Ralph's office, still there.

Oh, man, the dash. Like a key ignition. Wow. Wild stuff, man. That's amazing. Thank y'all. This is the key ignition. I'm going to have to send this to...

That's cool. Braembridge. Brainbridge. I don't imagine the mood in there. It's kind of weird. so they're kind of well you know it's funny the dynamic between mike walkins and your dad

would have been interesting for me just to begin with like knowing mike and dad and randy they were kind of they weren't like warm and fuzzies nobody was right because like danny if if randy was anything like dandy i would have been like

did they even talk to each other like how does that work that's what i'm saying i bet there wasn't much conversation in that room and some guy snapping his pictures that's pretty awesome man And I am very, very thankful for the thought put in this. And I'm very appreciative. What a great show. Man, didn't anticipate, I mean, all our shows are great and fun,

but this one, to me, has been really unique. Yeah. Don't you think? I think so. Is it just me or? Nope, I enjoyed that immensely. I knew Hank Parker, Jr., somebody we've been wanting for a long time, but he delivered, man.

Yeah, he did. So, yeah, great show. Hope everybody enjoyed it. Hope everybody has a great week. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Leah. Have a happy birthday on Saturday. Happy birthday, buddy.

So, all right, before I do get off here, this is what I want to say. By time we do the next podcast, I should be a dad, a new dad, of a little girl. So I'm pumped about that. Obviously, it's my birthday, too. So we've got a busy week. And I'm going to be having a great time. We had a great time this weekend calling the race. So everything seems to be good in my world.

Hope everybody else is having such good week as I am. And we'll see you soon. See you, buddy. Yeah. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.