The Dale Jr. Download - 320 - Chase Briscoe & Josh Berry: Defying the Odds

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is pumped to bring a double-dose of guests to the table. And not just any two guests... two of the hottest young racecar drivers in America, Chase Briscoe and Josh Berry.Fresh off the news he is moving up to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2021, Chase Briscoe details how he learned of his dream opportunity racing the #14 for Stewart Haas Racing. The reveal involved some anxious moments, and joyous tears, all brought to you by a heartwarming Tony Stewart prank. Briscoe paints the picture of his life-changing moment.Through failures and struggles, the 3rd generation driver tells us how he went from the dirt tracks of Indiana to the epicenter of stock car racing in Charlotte, NC. Sleeping on couches, volunteering on teams and breaking into racetracks, Briscoe did what he could to get his name out there. Constantly knocking on doors and having chance meetings created an unimaginable opportunity for the young driver. Briscoe opens up about the journey that can simply be referred to as the result of his faith and fate.His dream opportunity comes during the season most drivers could only dream of. The 2020 NASCAR Xfinity Series title contender has nine series wins and the season isn't even over. Like his career journey, this year has come with its share of struggles. Chase opens up to Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis about the miscarriage he and his wife Marissa suffered, and the emotional race win, that days later, showed the racing world the real Chase Briscoe.The DJD gang welcomes JR Motorsports Late Model driver Josh Berry to the studio for the first time as a NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Division National Champion. Berry details how he got it done during his stellar 24-win season in Late Model competition. Dale Jr. gets deep about the meaning of the National crown, Josh's role in the team and what having involvement in Late Model racing means to him.Dale talks about his first week as a two-time father. He also returned to the track to call the race in person in Kansas Speedway. Joey Logano took the win holding off Kevin Harvick. Dale explains how the driver's in the Cup field may have created a bully-proof driver in the Penske #22.Dale Jr. answers fans questions in an ultra-fast edition of AskJr presented by Xfinity.That and more on a robust edition of the Dale Jr. Download. . Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Our national anthem. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. And they're away. Dick Good, number 81, spins into the guard red. Connelly Jones misses him by a whisper. Watch out! Johnny Rutherford, number 13, and the Chevy spins on the backstretch. Dirty Mo! Drapton is riding the guy's tail as close to six inches.

Actually, both cars will go faster, but the first car's doing most of the work, and therefore using more gas and saving gas for the hitchhiker. Real thrill. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. Me, Bill Jr. Mike Davis is here. Hey.

Matthew Dillner. Leah. Everybody's in the house. We got a great show for you. Yeah, Chase Briscoe's coming in. I can't wait. So Chase's got the news that he's going in the Cup series next year for Stuart Haas. So it's going to be awesome to get his reaction to that.

Plus, he's trying to win a Xfinity Series championship. So we'll talk to him a little bit about that as well. And hear some of his story. It's really a great story. And Josh Barry is coming in, too. I love that. This is going to be cool. Josh is now being recognized this week as the national champion in the regional series.

National. They used to call it the Winston Racing Series. But now it's the Advance Auto Parks Weekly series. It basically is a basically. comprises all of the short tracks across the nation and they race NASCAR sanctioned

NASCAR sanctioned short tracks across the nation their premier division all those guys are eligible and they competed this year they race for points and they decide a national champion and we won it this year

with Josh Barry. Pretty incredible accomplishment for him never thought we would win the national title So he's going to come on and we're going to talk to him about that. And the year he's had, 26 races, he's won. That's amazing. It's insane.

Pretty, I don't know, did you watch the race at Kansas? No, I had soccer games to be at. But I definitely caught up on it on the back end. I was camping with my kids. Yeah, we had family games. Leah, you know. No. I'm the only one to watch it.

But I did listen to Doorbunper Clear this week, and I did know how that race unfolded. and there was a, you know, some, I heard it was amazing to watch. It was a fantastic race. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. So do you have an opinion on the blocking? Yeah, he did what he had to do.

Right. Pretty impressive. I didn't think that he was going to be able to accomplish it. I thought that. We should say Joey Lugano. Yeah, Joe Ligano wins the race. He does it by holding off Kevin Harvick. And the blocking, yeah, I mean, he basically just kept taking Kevin's line.

And I thought over time that Kevin's car would get better. or Joey's would get slower, and it would become a point to where Joey just wouldn't going to be able to continue to hold him off. But Joey didn't give up. And I talked about that at the end of the race. Joey's attitude and his mindset,

there's only a few rare people. I mean, there's only a couple drivers, a couple in that field that would have stuck to it, stuck with it, believed that they could have crossed the finish line first. Like, Joey was just not going to give up. He was just not going to stop trying to keep the lead.

And I kept telling myself, like, at some point, he's going to, he's just got to take a breath. At some point, he's just got to relax. At some point, he's got to. Have a human moment? Yes. Right. It didn't come.

It didn't happen. And do you remember? remember when he won his championship he bangs Martin tricks out of the way and wins the race at Martinsville to advance in and then he went to the to the Homestead race and drove around Martin to win his title his mental sort of I know a lot of people don't really love Joey when I'm watching you know when I'm reading a little bit online he seems to be polarizing. He has his fans, for sure. A lot of people support Joey. But he also has a lot of people that don't like him

because of a lot of different things, a lot of different things that he's been involved in over the years. And so, I think that, I don't know, it just really,

there's something ingrained in his mental makeup, in his brain that sets him apart from a lot, most, if not all, the drivers in the series. and it's that he just isn't going to give up.

I know that's so cliche. No. I know what you mean. But he's just, he's almost stubborn to the idea or to the reality that, hey, man, you just don't got the car today. He's just stubborn to. And also, like he's willing to do things like he did at Martinsville to Turex without blinking an eye, without, and he'll get out and do it with a smile on his face.

and say, hey, this is for a championship. I'm sorry, you know, if you don't like what happened. I needed to do that to get my shot. And I said this years ago, when he was kind of pushing back against a lot of the things that were going on with him, he was getting a little more aggressive on the track, he was getting more aggressive with his blocking and his determination and defiance,

I said, this was all created by the drivers that pushed him around. You know, Harvick turned him sideways into, Turn three at Pocono. Him and Newman, you know, pointing each other, poking each other's chests. Yeah. Stewart. Stuart. I mean, you're talking about going up.

Many Hamlin multiple times. Yeah. Yeah, but, like, you know, Stuart and Newman, these are the grislies of the sport right here. This ain't the. You know, I think the perception of Joey, and I didn't really even expect to get on a Joey talk here, but the perception of Joey coming in was he was a daddy's boy, his daddy did everything, his daddy put him in every position. His dad was always there with his shoulder.

you know, everywhere, you know, his dad is going to fight his fights for him, right? He couldn't fight his own fights, right? And so I think the other, and the drivers looked at him as a pushover. Maybe not so much in the car because he's driving a third, you know, over 3,000 pounds stock car. But when you get out of the car, you'd think, oh, you know, he's not going to do anything. Joey, look at him. But, and they pushed him and pushed him and pushed him and pushed him and created this sort of individual that we see today. this guy that's not going to be pushed around.

He's like at some point he just had to say, you know what, enough's enough. And I'm not even, I'm going to be the, you know, I'm going to be the aggressor here. You're not going to be aggressive with me. I'm going to be the first one to make the move. I'm going to be the guy that makes the decision to go win this race instead of someone making it ahead of me.

He ain't getting bullied. No. It's, you know, the equivalent or the analogy would be, it's like if you want to know how rare it is, it's not cliche. If you want to know how rare it is, it would be the same as if somebody, hit the wall and then got faster.

Usually you hit the wall and you don't go faster. Now it's in your head. He seems to be able to forget or use whatever, you know, situations, negative situations, and he gets better from them. Well,

I just think, I don't know if he feels this way or he senses this or, he's probably oblivious to it. Probably oblivious to it. Yeah. But I felt like you're the word bully. He was bullied and we, I say we, the industry has created the person he is today as a guy who's not willing to be bullied and not intimidated by anyone and he believes in his mind that he, like Kevin Harvick, has been dominant this year.

Dominant. And he's right on his ass with the faster car and he knows it. How did he have the mental toughness and fortitude to just believe that he was, that he belonged in Victory Lane, that he was. going to win. And then he's going to wheel his way to win. How did he do it? Yeah. Mere mortals don't do it.

That was a very, very, very rare thing mentally that I saw, that I witnessed. It was impressive. And hell, he crossed the finish line and I just was like, yeah, I'd have lost, I'd have never won that bet that he was going to do that. And so I don't, you know, he won at Phoenix earlier this year. I know a lot's happened since then, and they've been winless up until this point since the COVID break. So I don't think he crowned him as a champion yet.

But I think Harvick was trying to win a race and win a trophy, but also trying to keep Joey from going into Phoenix because Joey is a formidable component. Yeah, you don't want him in the final four if you're in it. He is going to match up well against Hamlin and Harvick at Phoenix. That's probably one of the guys if they had to pick their other two to do. to join them in Phoenix. I don't think Joe would have been on that list. Something else.

Now, you guys were back at the track for the first time, right? Oh, yeah. And was it everything you thought of being more? I just got a text from T.J. Majors a minute ago. He said, I watched the last 70 laps of the race late Sunday, and then I got home, and I just watched the highlights again. And you can tell, man, you guys call stuff way sooner. Things like the 42 car wrecking down the front straightaway we saw before the cameras were on it.

And he's exactly right. You know, when we were at Charlotte calling the race, I'm basically just talking about the same thing that you see at home on your screen. I don't have, I have a few other tools, but I can't see cars wrecking before anyone else. I can only see them at the same time they're shown on the screen with you. Or anybody having any trouble. Or one of the best and most enjoyable things that we do in the booth is I watch two cars.

We're talking to, the camera's showing something else. maybe a battle for first, and we're talking about it. But I'm also watching the eighth place guy run down the seventh place guy, right? And he's catching him. And I'll say to Marv on talkback, I'll say Marv, the eighth place guy is about to pass the seventh place guy. Let's watch that. That'll be cool. And they'll go there.

And I can start talking about it. Even before we get there, he'll go, all right, I'm getting ready to go there. And I'll go, man, this is awesome what this leader's doing. But look at this battle here forming up for seventh place. and I know that sounds like something small and simple, but we cannot do that if we're not at the racetrack. Another thing, too, just like TJ mentioned, cars hitting the wall, cars getting in trouble,

cars having contact, a guy smoking, a guy with a tire rug, a guy coming to pit road unexpectedly. We can't see that at Charlotte. We can't see that watching the same screen you're watching. But at the racetrack, you know, I was able to talk about all those things that were going on and draw the camera to them. and take the audience there to be able to see, you know,

and it's just funner to call it with that energy. Man, one of my favorite things, I was talking with a friend about this the other day, one of my favorite things about, well, listening to races on the radio when I was a kid, is basically the race is happening. You got Barney Hall in his nice, smooth voice, calling the race, just steadily calling what's happening,

and then somebody from a corner goes, we got cars in the wall! Oh, straight up interrupts it, yeah. You're, you immediately, I'm a fan, right, of my dad. Everybody watching, listen to that race is a fan of somebody. Your mind immediately goes, oh, no. Right. Don't let it be dad.

Don't say, don't say that name. Right. I know exactly what you mean. That emotion is so real. Yeah. And I think that's one of my favorite things about calling our races is being that guy. I'm trying my ass off to beat, beat Jeff. Rick and Steve to the punch to call that.

Cars in the fence. We've got to contact. Trouble. Trouble. Trouble. I mean, there's that moment. All you know, there's trouble, you don't know who's in it. And you're waiting to see, either hear it or what that camera shows, you just hoping it ain't your car.

Visually, if you see a camera pan, that's it. Audio-wise, it's exactly what you said. That's such a fun moment. One thing I really enjoy about broadcasting. And the other thing that we got to do that we can do so much better live at the racetrack is talk about that battle at the end. I can see so much more live, even if we're watching the four and the 22 battle those last 10, 20 laps on a video, I can really understand a lot more about that battle by seeing it live. I look at the monitor, what you're watching at home, and then I'll look out over the race track.

track and watch. And I can see more live about how the 22 exited the corner, how Harvick entered the corner, whether he'll produce a run coming off the corner. I can see that better live and understand what it's about to happen and be able to tell you, hey, this, they're coming off a turn two, and at the end of this straightaway, Harvard's going to be right on his tail because of what he did in turn one. that's so much easier to do live. Yeah.

When I'm watching it on video, I can't see any of that. I can't do it. How could you? I mean, you can't tell what runs coming from where, and I can just only state the obvious visual that I'm seeing. Well, he's going, he caught him. He didn't catch him. He's trying to pass him to the inside.

He's trying to, it sucks. It sucks so bad. So I'm so much better, I'm so much happier about being at the racetrack. I'm going to call the Xfinity race at Martinsville. That's the only Xfinity race I'm going to call the remainder of the year. I asked to get off of the Xfinity races for a couple reasons. I want to be home with my wife with our new little baby. And I don't really like calling them in the middle of a championship battle when our guys are involved.

It's just not a lot of fun for me. But I do want to call the Xfinity race at Martinsville because that is one of the races that I'm looking at potentially running next year. So I want to be there in person to see it with my own eyes and understand. understand what all those guys are experiencing. So it should be a lot of fun. We've got Texas coming up this weekend. I'll be in the booth on Sunday. And yeah.

Give me your 20 second answer. Hold on. Give me your 20 second answer on how has the week been with the new one. Well, I can't speak for Amy, but I believe that, you know, Amy seems to be pretty happy with how Nicole's sleeping. And Nicole is really quiet. She hasn't cried once since she's been home. Goodness.

She's whimpered a couple times with a dirty diaper or she gets, she sort of gets impatient would be how I'd describe her mood when she's getting hungry. I wonder where she gets that. She does not cry. Well, I'm usually like, I would cry. Like when she was hungry, start crying. And it was different types of cries. She had a certain cry for a poopie diaper.

She had a certain cry for a wet diaper and a certain. cry for hungry. Just like we all have. You know, we have our poopy cries. Yep. We have our hungry cries. And so, but with Nicole, man, she's not doing any of those. She's just...

Well, good for you. Congratulations. It's remarkable. Tell that to Amy. I feel silly. I feel silly taking any congratulations over anything going on. Well, but... It's to both of you.

Yeah. So she, Nicole's been awesome. Sleeps a ton. I'm excited and looking forward to the process of her starting to develop. Sure. She's looking around. Good for you. Lots going on.

It's a lot of fun. I think it's time. Let's bring in Chase Briscoe. And from Mitchell and the first career wins, and it comes at the high banks of Winchester Speedway. Staying up all the night. Ace Brisco trying to hold off Wednesday. It won a finish. Never give up.

There he is. There's a man. Welcome. Congrats on the baseball, by the way. Thanks. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having.

Yeah, I called you yesterday. You were working. I know you've announced that you're going to go into the Cup Series next year. This is like a huge week for you. Y'all are also racing for Xfinity Series championship. And so you could. be you got a lot of things going on and I appreciate you in you know in five minutes saying yeah I'll be there no problem and you may it's early and I know you got better things

that'd be doing but did you have a suspicion that he was about to get this announcement when you called him yeah well not that not to I thought I think everybody knew this week yeah it wasn't a secret yeah yeah okay I thought it was coming out this week but I think we all kind of know the funny thing is is like we'll be up in the booth and we're talking about a certain car or a driver but hasn't announced their deal yet, like Eric Jones or you. And I'm sitting and Rick and Steve and all them are like dancing around the rumor. The rumors, right. They won't even mention it.

Y'all don't want to be TMZ up there. Well, I'm like, guys, why don't y'all just say it, what everybody's already thinking? We all, we all hear about it all. Why don't y'all just say? They're like, we're not journalists. We're not newsbrokers. I'm like, you're just talking. But we're rumor spreaders, aren't that what we signed up for?

So it's kind of weird. I would definitely be up there spilling the beans. I would be for sure. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, Dale would totally be that guy. Anyhow, man, congratulations.

You're going into the 14 car next year. Clint Boyer is retiring. Awesome guy. I couldn't think of a better person to fill those shoes and go into that car. You have to be over the moon, man. You literally are, you've created this opportunity for yourself. It's pretty. unbelievable. You know, Tony's car was obviously the 14, and growing up, I was a diehard Tony Stewart

fan, like had the blanket in my bedroom, all of Tony Stewart stuff. Like, I would literally have this Home Depot uniform and helmet. I'd play my sprint car game almost every day. Like, I was a diehard Tony Stewart fan. So for me to, you know, when I got signed by Ford, I remember people would be like, so what's the dream deal? I'm like, well, the dream would be to drive the 14, but like, I don't really see that happening. And then now Ford doll come back full circle has been unbelievable. It is. You've had such an amazing year. How many wins now, nine or ten? Nine, yeah. Yeah, so that's, we've won more races than any Xfinity series regular in a season, right?

I think you broke the record of Sam Ardhat. I don't know. I'm not really sure. Because I think, I might be wrong. I think he tied it. You tied it. I thought, I'll clarify. I thought the Christopher tied it. I can't remember. Anyways, you won a lot of dang races. And this is a weird, I bet this is, because I can see in your your sort of reaction to it, you don't even realize really what you've done. You're just kind of grind and trying to get your opportunity, right? Yeah, for sure. You haven't been able to really enjoy this incredible season because, well, not only are you

trying to finish the season with a championship trophy, but you also have been worrying yourself into the ground trying to figure out how you're going to create this next opportunity. No, for sure, that. And honestly, I think a lot of it, too, is not racing with fans there. Like, you don't. Oh, God, yeah. Like, it's just different. Like, you don't, you win the race, but you get out.

it's like, it's not the same at all. Like Bristol felt like a win because we had fans there, but the other ones don't really even feel like wins. I know. Wow, that's true. It's so true, Mike. I haven't been to a lot of races this year, but the few that I have went to,

it's a weird, eerie feeling. Oh, it is. And the fans, we, you know, we always would make sure all through the years, anytime you ever did anything, you had a mic in your face, She always tried to mention the fans. But golly, now I think in this particular time,

and this year we really do see what they bring to the table. It's a totally different atmosphere. Like you don't realize how much that changes, like, especially for a win, for example, you get out and like, you know, you feed off of their energy. Yes. And you get out, and it's crickets. You don't hear anything. It's like you don't even really want to celebrate because you're not celebrating for anybody anyway.

So it's just definitely a totally different feel. Yeah. Dale had just said that you'd probably spent some of the season worrying about your next, you know, your next ride. And I know you said at the beginning of the year that you needed eight or nine wins to continue racing. Did I get that right? Yeah, I said eight.

Yeah. Okay. I would assume people thought you were nuts. Yeah, probably. But here it is you've actually accomplished it. So how much have you been worrying about the next step? You know, when I said what I said at the beginning of the year, like I tried. truthfully felt like we were capable of doing that.

Like as a team, like as a driver, I felt like at the end of last year, you know, the big three guys moving up, I knew that was going to create way more opportunities to win. So I felt like if we all did our job, like, we could go win eight and we won like five out of the first 12 and I was like, okay, this is actually going to happen. I didn't think we would win that many at the beginning. And then as it kept going and going, like, the whole eight thing got blown way out of proportion. Like, never a million years.

If you say a sound buy, if you create, that's one thing I think you've been in a for it a long time, long enough. But one of the things that you'll realize is that if you create a soundbite, we're going to ride that soundbite, especially if you keep winning. Yeah. Well, it's an amazing story. You know, if you take your, if you kind of put yourself in our shoes, you know, we're watching you create this reality.

This, this, you know, you went and said, man, I don't, I need to, I feel like, I feel like if I won eight wins, nobody could deny that I didn't deserve a shot, right? That was kind of what you were saying, is I'm going to put. put my, I'm gonna make it happen. I'm gonna put my, you know, put my wins out there. And how could they turn me down, right? Yeah, pretty much. And that was my whole thought process.

Like, I don't come from money. I don't have any of that. So, like, for Ford to take a chance on me, I have to go win races. If I don't win, at the end of the day, why would they hire me? So the year before, we only won one race. If I come back for the second year now,

I only win one race or even two or three, I didn't feel like I really proved anything. Like, I needed a big number. And it got to where it was a little nerve wracking. when I got like six and seven and I was like man what if I don't get to eight now like then what's going to happen and then now obviously to be able to get to nine it's it's worked out I think for the good that I said that but I definitely did not think it was going to get as much talked about oh yeah the talking points boy you know Dale junior said some things back

in 2004 that still stick to this day and like what let me see if I can get put myself back in the moment that don't mean daddy won here 10 times pretty good huh hey 19 1884, Samard and Ingram won eight. So you broke to see? Yes, I thought so. Yeah, you have a record, honestly, man, those are two amazing race car drivers that have held that record since when? 82? It says 84.

84. That record has been there since 1984. I think Christopher tied it. Christopher had the most rookie wins at six, I think it was. Okay, he didn't get there. I think I got seven one year. Seven. And so that's, you have a distinctive record that set yourself and put your name at the top of that list,

and it could probably be there for another 30 years. I don't know. Cinder's going to be tough next year. What's that? I think Cinder's going to be tough. He will. Like he's going to. Yeah, I mean, with you moving on and him with that confidence of going into the cup ride,

it's funny when you get the cup ride locked in, how you race. Yeah. And you race with so much more confidence. I'm moving on, man. I can just use you guys up. You know what I'm saying? He don't care anymore. Yes, you don't care anymore, and you still have this fast, amazing car.

And so that should, but anyways, yeah, it should be interesting watching him next year. It's fun to watch this Xfinity series because it changes identity every year, you know, with so many people moving in and out of the season, out of the series. Anyhow, tell us how you got the news. Like, was this, did you kind of hear rumblings yourself? This is a good story. Yeah. So, obviously, like, I knew that I was.

I was in contention for it, but it was back and forth. Like, it was going to be me or Clint for really about a month and a half. And I get a call from our marketing guy. And this is probably two or, I want to say, yeah, two weeks ago. He's like, hey, Tony's sending this plane down. He wants you and your wife to come and your parents are going to meet his at Tony's house in Indiana. So I'm like, okay, so I go out and tell my wife, I'm like, hey, like, we got to go to Tony's. I think he called on Tuesday.

This is on a Thursday. I was like, so cancel everything you got. Well, she had this heart doctor appointment that she couldn't make. and then like we're doing the fertility stuff and that was that same morning and she's like I don't know if I can do it like I don't think I'm going to be able to get out all this so long story short she ends up not going

so I get up there and our Verlanders is name the marketing guy he's like you know he's like high points still on the edge like we don't know if they're going to do this deal or not he's like we're flying everybody in and you know hopefully like Tony's going to put him on the spot and

this is going to be the deciding factor oh my gosh yeah so like this is like this is what I think's going on. So I'm like, okay, he's going to bring my parents up. Like, he's going to put him on the spot right there.

They're not going to be able to say no with all of us sitting there. Well, my Xfinity guys, they'd rolled a cup car into their shop and wrapped it with high point and 14 on it. So they're asking me all this stuff.

I'm like, guys, like, I'm telling you, I'm not going to that deal. It's not even close to done. Like, we're still working on it. I was like,

you know, I think this is the deciding factor. I got to go up there Thursday. Come to find out. this deal had been done for a week and a half and Tony was trying to like prank me and get everybody there to surprise me. So like we sit down and we hung out all day and, you know, I thought it was weird. All day? Yeah, like we flew up at like 2 o'clock and we were there until 10 o'clock at night.

But leaving you unknown of what was happening? Oh yeah, I had no idea. Like he didn't tell you at the beginning and then let you hang out all day. Like they had literally been lying to me for a week and a half because I called like almost every day. I was like, hey, have you heard from High Point? and Verlander's like, no, man, they kind of went cold. I don't know what's going on. It's a Stuart thing happens.

Oh, it gets better. Tony picks us up from the airport, and we get there in the high point people. Mike and Tom, the owner's already at Tony's house, and I'm like, why are they already here? I thought they were flying in, but I didn't really think anything of it. Well, then I started hanging out with them and talking to them. They'd been there for like two days already. And I'm like, why had they been here for two days?

because I thought they were flying in that same day. So it really wasn't clicking. Well, we hang out all day or whatever. We have dinner, we get done with dinner, and Tony's like, somehow the word chance got brought up. And he's like, so speaking of chances, and I'm like, oh boy, here it is. He's going to put them on the spot right here at dinner table.

Like, this is going to be the deciding factor. And he talks for a little bit and goes, we're going to give you a chance in the 14 next year. That's your car. And I, like, I didn't even know what to say. Like, my parents are sitting beside me. They start bawling. Like, the high point people are almost in tears.

Like, it was just a crazy moment. I got a picture of it, of me and Tony, like, fist pumping each other. My parents are crying right beside me. And Tony's like, by the way, we have hidden cameras here, here, here, here, here. And he goes, this is, you only get told you're going to cut for the first time one time. I wanted it to be special. I wanted all your family to be here for that moment. So he did an amazing job.

And then come to find out, the car was just there to obviously surprise me. And it was cool how he did it. So this was two weeks ago? Two weeks ago, yeah. Wow. And then you kept it a secret from us. Very good. I mean, everybody knew.

How difficult was that? Like, it was difficult. Who did you tell? You had to tell somebody. I just called, like, the people that were really close. Like, like, Briggs and Beth Cunningham, for example. They were the ones that literally gave me a shot in Arka. And I called him right away, and I was like,

hey, I just want to let you know, like, without you, that none of this would ever have been possible. And then I called, like, the people that I felt like had got me to this point in my career and just, I didn't want you to hear it from the internet. I wanted you to hear it from me. So I told a couple people. Okay, so your parents started bawling. Is that what?

I'm trying to look at the scene here. And I'm also trying to visualize Tony's house, which is, I mean... It's like Bass Pro Shops. It's unbelievable. Yeah, that's similar to what I've got in my mind here. All right, so your shit is stable. They start balling. All right, what...

How long did it take for you to process all this news? I mean, like, did it ever get emotional for you? It was, but, like, I was so in shock. Like, I'm still in shock, truthfully. I don't... Sure. It's crazy to think just because of how much of a Tony diehard I was and to get to drive the 14 car.

But even Tony was like, man, you're asking. was the same as you were when we sit down at dinner. Like, I think he was kind of caught off guard. Like, I didn't know what to say. I just kept saying, I think I said thank you 15 times in a matter of a minute. I was just, thank you, thank you. I can't believe this. Thank you.

Like, I was so caught off guard. That's amazing. So, like, I'm curious, maybe you know this. I mean, when did Boyer make his decision? That happened. Okay. So that happened at the dinner table. So Boyer's deal apparently wasn't supposed to get out.

So my phone, like five minutes before Tony tells me, my phone starts blowing up. I'm like, what in the world is going on? So my wife ended up not going. So I pull my phone out that I'm like, hey, can you FaceTime my wife and tell her? Well, all of a sudden, I'm getting all these notifications. You're going to the 14. Congrats. Congrats. I'm like, what in the world? So apparently, like, Tony had called Clint 30 minutes before we sat down at dinner and Clint was like, save all this stuff. Like, I signed my TV contract this morning. Like, we're all good. So Clint, I don't think, was supposed to put it out because it kind of caught SHR off guard, but Are you saying that Clint went and did something that wasn't exactly, you know, what the plan was?

No way. All right. Well, that's interesting. So I guess Clint had been really kind of mulling over whether to come back or not, right? You know, what his career was a bit. I just, I was curious on when the TV deal really materialized, even before they announced it. But it sounds to me like it all sort of unraveled two weeks ago for you at least, or not unraveled. Yeah, that's what I got told anyways.

But apparently it was done a week and a half before that. I had no idea. I was in the dark. Good at keeping secrets over there at Stuart Haas, aren't they? It's bad. They were all apologizing after they're like, man, we felt terrible. So how you already had a lot on your mind, you know, your Exfinity, you're trying to win the championship. You've got the best opportunity as anybody else out there to go out there and win the championship in Phoenix. And then you have, you know, you have this announcement, which is a great announcement, right? This is what you've been wanting.

Does that make, does that make things? harder mentally going forward or does that make does it not change anything can you compartmentalize and put it to the side i think like you said it just adds confidence like not that i'm going to go out there and race anybody any different but you know like i'm confident like i'm going cup racing like that's an unbelievable feeling to have so i i think it doesn't really change much other than it just adds confidence at least in my opinion so richard boswell yeah that's your buddy yeah he is um richard's been your crew chief for for how many years uh so we ran five five races in 18 and then the last two seasons.

Richard used to race for us, for everybody listening. Richard was a driver. His dad was a driver. I raced against Richard's daddy. Old Dickie. Yep. And late on all stocks. We actually got into us, well, I spun him out at Myrtle Beach one time.

I had a big old crash. But I probably raced him. That's the only time I remember racing him, but I probably raced him more than that. But anyways, I met Richard, you know, through music. mutual friends and bought a limited late model from him and years and years ago. And he was trying to race and trying to drive himself, just like his dad. And he ended up driving here. Yeah, Pro Cup.

Yes. Racing the Pro Cup, which was Hooters Pro Cup. Hooters Pro Cup. That's right. And we had, he raised late models for us for a while. And, man, he tried hard. I'm sure you and him had some conversations. He tried so hard to make his driving career stick.

But eventually, it got to the point to where I said, hey, man, You know, he's got a pretty good brain. Yeah, for sure. He's smart. Yeah, very sharp guy. Because he was an engineer here as well. Yep. I said, you could, well, he wasn't yet.

That's right. That's right. I said you could become a great engineer and kind of move up into a role, maybe on a pit box someday as a crew chief. If you really applied yourself and you kind of have to make that decision. And he did eventually, made that decision to get out of the car and commit to what he became today. You know, just tell us a little bit about him and how great y'all's relationship is as y'all continued to try to win this championship this year. Yeah, I think, you know, Richard could even tell you, it kind of started off rocky.

Like, we got to where, not that we didn't click, but, like, we were struggling at the beginning, especially the beginning of 2019. And, you know, I think a turning point was the first race to Iowa in 2019. That's, like, one of my favorite tracks. I love going there. Like, we had that one circled all year long as the one that we could go win. Well, we were terrible. I mean, terrible.

And I'm out on pit road after the race, and he comes down, and I mean, chews me out. What do you say? I can't even hear. I can't even see Richard chewing somebody out. It was big. I can. I've seen him mad.

He's seen it. He gets fired up. Yeah. Oh, I know he does. He has a gear. I know he's capable of getting fired up, but I just can't see him chewing somebody out. So he'll do it. But so, this is for the record.

Like, I like, I like getting shoot out. Yeah. Because if you don't tell me what I'm doing wrong, like, I'm not going to be able to fix it, right? So, like, I like getting people being hard on me. So he comes down there, and, I mean, he reams me a new one. And I was like, okay, like, that's how it's going to be like, let's do this deal. And we went back to the second Iowa and won the race, like, total turning point.

And, like, I really felt like from that point on, our whole relationship changed. Like, that next Monday, we went to Chick-fil-A, we both wrote out a huge long list of what he thought I could do better, what I thought he could do better. And from then on, it's been great. What did he think you could do better? Just focusing more and applying myself more. to like studying and and just trying to be a better race car driver from behind the scenes not what you're doing inside the race car you know like this is before we had SMT but he's a he's a he's a diehard SMT guy like loves the SMT so like just studying SMT watching video which i already watched a lot

of video but just you know he really drilled into my head you know these guys have way more experience than you have ever you know last year i still didn't even have a hundred pavement races my entire career so just trying to you know close that deficit up you know he's just just You got to start studying and applying more. And I feel like ever since that moment, I've really tried to study more of what other guys were doing and just try to make myself everything. Yeah, for sure. What is High Point? So High Point's an IT company.

They have three locations. They're one in New Jersey, Spartan, New Jersey. Actually, I have one in Ballanty, North Carolina. Then they have one overseas. They're big deals banking. They do Barclays, for example, the IT, the infrastructure to the security of it. But, yeah, IT company. And this, so you won't believe the story of how this High Point deal came together.

So my dad is just randomly at SEMA. He'd never gone. I got him tickets last minute. Like the big show, like I don't even know how to. Like everything there is with anything auto. Yeah. Like it's unbelievable. So he goes out there and the CEO of High Point, Mike, is walking out.

He's there for some IT thing. And he goes to Buffalo Wild Wings that night, walks out the same exact time my dad walks out of this Mexican restaurant. They walk by down the sidewalk and my dad's wearing this Ford 98 hat and it's got a 98 on the side. And just so happens, this Mike guy walks on the same side as the 98, sees the 98, he's a big NASCAR guy, and says, hey, 98, Chase Briscoe. My dad, you know, turns around. They start, you know, chit-chatting a little bit. And the guy's like, hey, you know, my family's big NASCAR guys. We're actually, you know, big Colcuster fans, truthfully. But I really appreciate what your son does.

He's a big guy of faith as well. He goes, I just like what he stands up for. And if there's any, ever anything I can do for you guys, here's my card. So my dad, you know, hands. He's a it like sends me a picture of the car and I send it right away to SHR we'll kind of find out they were trying to get High Point to sponsor Cole like two years before and even a couple months before when he was moving up to cup and he's like man we're not we're not interested in the sponsorship deal we don't want to do it so Verlander the marketing guy calls me calls me back he's like we've actually talked to them and approached them he's like but it sounds like this might

be a little bit different so pretty much you know we call high our SHR calls High Point and they're like if you don't come on board he is not racing next year. Like, there is no way that Chase is going to race our car. And I think it came together the second week of January this year. Like, it was super last minute. Good Lord. And they, like, it was literally, if they don't sign up on this Wednesday, Monday, we're shutting down. Like, I'm not racing this year. So the high point guy, like, he was literally just talking about the other day. Like, he just feels like it's truly fate, how it all worked out. Because if he walked on literally just the other side of the sidewalk, he would not have seen my dad's 98 on his hat and all this

stuff. It's just been crazy. And now they're moving up to cup with me. This has actually been your whole life, though. I mean, I read a really good article by Jeff Gluck a few weeks ago. And it was basically, you know, he listed, I believe, 10 situations where you have just defied the odds. Yeah, like my career was over. Freak things. Freak things. This has been your whole life, has it not?

Yeah, pretty much, yeah. What do you attribute, how would I say this? You have, you routinely defy the odds. you have in this interview so far, we've only been here for 15 or 20 minutes, and you've said, well, this is a great story. So check this out. And this is a great story. Everything is a great story with you. And so how are you able to, how are you the recipient of such, I don't want to call luck. I'm just talking about like, what do you attribute this to? Honestly, it goes back to my faith. You know, I remember so many times growing up where, you know, we wouldn't have $500 go to the racetrack.

And me and my family would be like, all right, are we quitting or what? And we would just pray and be like, you know, if it's meant to be, open the door, God. If not close the door and we're sell everything. Like if it's not meant to be that next week, we get a $1,500 sponsor, a $1,000 sponsor. It's the same way now. Like, if I didn't get a ride next year, yeah, I want a race. But if that's not what God's plan is, then I'm okay with that. You know, not that I'm not going to try to pursue after it, but I feel like he's going to open the door if he wants it.

And I feel like, you know, that's kind of my path. in life is him to use me to maybe lead other people to Christ. So that's kind of my victory celebration too. I get down on one knee and just say thank you prayer because I feel like there's so many times he's opened a door last minute that, you know, perfect examples this year, the High Point deal. Like I was three days away from not racing this year and it all comes together and now they're going cup racing.

Because of a freak meeting after leaving a Buffalo Wild Ways. Yeah. That is just saying my dad didn't want Mexican that night. Wouldn't happen. That's so funny. You know, I think that. The reason why, I mean, there's a lot of variables at play when, when, you know, you keep sort of getting these extended opportunities and new breaks and new chances.

But I think it says a lot about, I think it has a lot to do with you and how you're easy to work with. You're a hard worker. I think, too, when you spend time around people, they want to help you. They want to get you to the next thing. I've been around you just a little bit, and I've become a big fan to see you succeed and progress and get new or better opportunities. So I can imagine how I feel and then to be a crew member or Richard or Tony Stewart, your family, anybody that's really spent extended time with you, they all just want to continue to do whatever it takes to keep you going, you know,

and get you these opportunities because you're very talented as a driver, but also you're an incredible person, you know, you're, you know, you're just an easygoing, likable, you don't ruffle feathers, not controversial. You've had some, you know, you've been aggressive on the racetrack, but you get out and you get out of the car and you say, hey, this is what happened. This is why I did what I did. I'm more than happy to go settle that or sort that out And you go sort it, you sort it out

Yeah, I'm not mad about hard race That's what we get paid to do Like perfect examples that the Talladega deal Like Noah almost like I was blocking I deserved it like that's he was doing what I was supposed to do Or what he was supposed to do or what he was supposed to do And I appreciate everything you said first off And I feel like that's one thing I've tried to do my entire career

Is just treat everybody how they should be treated You never know who that person might know down the road And says hey we need a driver and he's a crew guy and he's like hey you know i worked with chase he was his nice guy you know let's give him a shot yeah i just tried to do that my entire career and you know not cause controversy i'm a super relaxed guy in general i don't get worked up i don't get too excited and um you know i just there could it could always be worse is the way that like kansas last year i get crashed 12 to go right almost locking into the final four at the end of the day i'm still getting to drive race cars for a living

yeah it i have a great i had a great is it really that easy or does it take a little does it about 24 hours. No, like, I really don't get mad. Like, I've never, like, I don't yell on the radio. I don't cuss on the radio. Like, I think a lot of that goes back to when I was volunteering at the arc of stuff. Like, I was there from 6 a.m. to 8 o'clock at night, and when the driver's yelling and screaming, after you've been there all day long in 100 degree weather, working, you're

like, it's just degrading. You don't want to be, like, I've worked my tail off all day long and all week for you, and now you're complaining about how bad it is because we're running six. Like, yeah. It's not that bad. bat. Right. That's a great point. I texted with Boswell and I told Boswell, I said, you know, we got Chase coming on the show. Give me the most fascinating thing that you can tell me about Chase Briscoe. And Boswell said his humility is off the charts. And I agree with him. But I would

say that if you are, if humility is your greatest trait, how does one stay humble after they've just accomplished their dream by making it to come? I don't, I've just always been like that. You know, You know, I don't, it wouldn't be possible, first off, without everybody else. Like, I'm just one small key to all this stuff. Like, if I'm driving a car that's not capable of winning, it doesn't matter how great of a race car driver I am or not, you're only as good as the stuff you're in. So it's one small piece of this big puzzle, you know.

So I've just always been humble. I'm just grateful to be here first off. I don't think I deserve to be here necessarily. If you go back and look at my dirt resume, I won six sprint car races, I think, before I came to NASCAR. Like I just, I didn't race a lot. I didn't win a lot, but I've been able to get here. I'm just blessed to be here, and I don't, I'm just happy to be here.

Whether I win one race or 30 races, I'm just glad to be part of it. What do you think were the moments, though, in your career, you say that you, I had the same, not the same, I had a similar feeling about my late model racing. I got a chance to drive my dad's Xfinity Series car, and we went on and did some great things, but up to that point, I ran like 159 late mile races in one, two, or three. And, you know, but I, and so if you look at just the statistics, you would go, well, that guy doesn't belong in the next level, right? Or how is he getting that opportunity?

But there had to have been, just like when Bragg Haselowski ran, you know, almost won Memphis in the truck. Yeah. When he subbed for somebody in that two truck, like you were working for that team, might? No. Or you had been? With the ultra-motors sports, yeah. But, yeah, I had one.

Yeah. So anyways, I got my time in the wrong. But, so Brad, that was Brad's moment. Yeah. Right? You know, I had seen him race cars and they shouldn't run well and do well with them, but nobody was really paying attention. And but he goes out there and does that.

And so what was your moment? What was the race or the, maybe the race says, the season where somebody went, man, that guy, I'm going to give him a call. and maybe it was Brad's truck, I don't know, or the Arctean. What were the events that happened? There was a couple, but I think the one that really said it all in motion is, so when I was sleeping on couches, I was good friends with Christopher Bell. And he had this opportunity from Roush, and it was almost the Ford Development deal.

Well, he was already signed up at Toyota, so he called me, hey, you know, they offered me this. I'm not going to take it just to let you know, like if you want to try to pursue it. So here I am. I just walk in Roush's front door. I had the guy's name. I said, hey, is this guy here? I'd like to talk to him. And I don't know how I got a meeting, but somehow I got this meeting. And I walk in, like I said, I had won five or six sprint car races.

Like I had nothing. He was a USAC champion, all this stuff. And I sit down with the guy and I'm like, hey, you know, I know you guys are looking at maybe starting a development deal. I know Christopher Bell's name has been thrown around. I would love to just throw my name in the hat. Whether, you guys use me or not, I just want to have a chance. And I said, actually, me and Christopher are going to be teammates this week.

and I've never been in equal equipment. I'll just let you know how it goes. Well, we ran a $300 to win minisprint race. Like, met nothing, right? Yeah. It was just going up there to have fun. Well, I win, Bell ran second. So I called or I emailed the guy and I was like, hey, this is how it went.

You know, I didn't expect to hear anything back. Well, that same week before I went there, I'd went and met with this guy about maybe representing me. And he had called the Cunningham people and said, hey, if you guys ever go into another, like, test and have an extra car, I got this kid, his name's Chase Briscoe, maybe just keep him in mind. So this Cunningham team had heard my name from him, and then they call, Cunningham actually calls Rouse that following week and says, hey, we're going to take this extra car to test. Do you have any kids you guys are maybe interested in taking or anything?

And they said, actually, there's this Chase Briscoe kid. He was just here. If you guys are going to take another car, maybe, maybe try him. So this is like four weeks before all of it happens. Well, I've been down in North Carolina, and I haven't heard a night. nothing. I've been down here for three and a half years, I want to say, and I was over it. What were you doing? So just volunteering at different race shops. Working? Yeah, trying. I would walk up. A lot of them would turn me down.

Not driving. You were. No, I would just work. Yeah. I would just work. Yeah. So, like, the first shop I was actually at was Brian and Bob Keselowski's. And learning from Bob, that was tough. Like, it was intimidating. Yeah. And then to come back full circle, and I drive for Brad and then end up being the last race for them and all that. It's just crazy. I was all came back. full circle, but anyways, I'm driving back to Indiana to go run this sprint car race, and I called my mom, and I just broke down. I was like, I'm over it. I'm moving back next week. Like, I've been down here long enough. Nothing's happening. Two hours later after that phone call, I get a call from this guy named Carrie Scherer, who's the co-owner of Cunningham Motorsports. And he says, hey, Chase,

you know, we've heard your name throwing around a couple times from a couple of people. We're actually going to take this car to test in a couple months if you'd be interested in maybe driving it. What's the track? Nashville, Fairgrounds. Oh, nice. Yeah, so I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Like, I would love to do that. I'll be at the shop Monday morning. So I go to the shop Monday morning and, like,

I think they think I'm, like, coming there potentially with a paycheck. Like, they're showing me what I can, like, what they have and all this stuff. So right before I walk out, Paul Andrews, Quicki's old crew chief is the general manager. And I said, hey, Paul, like, I don't know if it means anything to you guys, but I'd be more than willing to just volunteer my time here, if that makes a difference or not. So he's like, yeah, that'd be great. So I showed up and I made sure I was the first one there, last one to leave every day. And like I would get there at 645, 7, 8 o'clock at night.

Like, it sucked. I'm not going to lie. So I'm doing this for a while. And it was like towards probably three or four months into this. And we're going to go to Mobile, Alabama for tests. And Tom Hesert's driving. Well, Tom had to fly back to Philadelphia like two hours before the test was over. So the crew chief, Chad Bryant's like, hey, take your stuff down there.

I'm not promising anything, but I might let you get in this thing. So at the end of the day comes. And, you know, he's like, all right, let's load it up. so I'm like, dang it. Like, I thought that was my chance. I was going to go drive this thing. And then he goes, I'm just kidding with you. Go put your stuff on.

I was like, okay. So I go put my stuff on. It was the worst 20 laps of my entire life. Like, he puts me out there on 100 lap tires. I've never really driven a stock car. I'm driving this thing so hard, roasting the tires down the straightaway. Like, it was bad. So I get out.

And he goes, so what did you think? I said, I just blew my shot, didn't I? And he goes, yeah, it wasn't good. I'm not going to lie to you. And I remember calling my dad. And I was like, I just blew it. This team. There's no way they're going to do anything with me.

So I keep volunteering, and two or three months later, we go to Nashville for the test, and they take a third car for me, and I end up being faster than there are two main drivers, and we go back to the race two weeks later, and the main guy sits on the pole. So they're like, man, like you were two or three tens better than him. Well, the owner of the team, Briggs and Beth Cunningham, started hearing about how I was working there and thought it was pretty neat that I was just volunteering my time, I'm not really expecting to get a race. And so they could say, hey, we're going to let you run a race in 2015.

So I go run an IRP and ran 10th. They didn't run very good. So how long have you been volunteering your time? Almost a year at this point. And I finally get my shot. So you're working there. Are you getting a paycheck? No.

How are you living? So I would go spot for Keselowski on a couple off weekends. And he would pay me like $350, $400 a spot. And then the couch I was sleeping on, was Ross Weiss and I told him up front like I can't promise you rent every month but if I have 50 bucks or whatever like I'll give it to you so I would give him 50-7500 bucks whenever I had it extra and then I would I would eat the old Wendy's dollar menu almost every day and so we go to irp I qualify fifth run 10th wasn't that great well then we go to Salem and I nearly win the

race I end up running fourth because of tires or something like that well I've never met this cunningham guy I called him right before the Salem race and I was like hey I just want to thank you like is this Briggs it was like a 30 30 second conversation yeah yeah this is him no problem bye I'm like great like this guy he can't do nothing with me right so come to find out he lives like two and a half hours from my hometown so I'm going to drive back home for Christmas and I was like hey I'm going to stop in and see you I just want to shake your hand and say thank you so I pull in there and he's 87 years old and me and him hit it off like I still talk to him every week to this day

and he drives me around his property and shows me everything. And at the end he goes, so what do you want to do next year? And he'd been in ARCA for almost 20 years, never won a championship. And I said, well, I would love to try to get you your first championship. I said, but if you run me in 10 races, five, one, I said, even if you don't run me at all,

I can't thank you enough and I greatly appreciate you letting me to run two races. I never thought I'd get to do that. Called me the next day and said, let's run for the championship. Wow. And then we won nearly half the races and won the championship. And then that got me my Ford deal.

And then that's when I went to drive for Brad. The Brad deal is supposed to be, two years it shuts down so then ford's like kind of thrown in a loop they put me in the rouse deal goes terrible obviously in the 60 car like it's just a nightmare yeah i i feel very confident i was going to lose my for forddd why do you think that that didn't go well i think it was just a mixture of three guys from three totally different backgrounds it's too much like you had cinderc who was a road racer you had me jessey who's a short track late model guy you had me who's just last year like it's It feels like it.

Yeah, it feels like it. 2018, yeah. I think there's 33 races that had 38 wrecks. Yeah. Like, those guys worked their tails off.

But, like, that thing, you could be 10 laps away from finishing, and something would, like, come out of the sky and hit it and wreck it. Yeah. Like, it was unbelievable.

Yeah, that was wild. But, yeah, I go to 2018, and, like, I feel like I'm for sure losing my Ford deal. I had one. We were running the 60 car. It was terrible.

I won the L-Dor truck race, but didn't really feel like that did anything for me. and I go to the Roval and I win. And now that following Monday, Ford's like, what do we got to do to make this happen for SHR next year? And they get all the funding put together and I go run. So then I go to the Roval the following year, which is last year.

And they sit me down and like, hey, we're good to go for next year. All good. Just focus on this playoff. And I'm like, okay. So I go to Homestead. I sit down for my like year of end meeting and, hey, we don't know. We don't know what we're going to be able to do next year. We don't know if we're going to have anything for you.

would you be interested in running part-time trucks maybe? I'm like, well, I really wouldn't want to. Like, I feel like we can go run good next year? I was like, can I go talk to other people? Like, they're like, well, truthfully, we don't want you to, but you got to do what's best for you. And like, I honestly contemplated even going and spotting. Like, I was just going to, I was like, man, what's my backup plan here? Wow, this is just last year.

Yeah, this is in November. And then January, I find out that high points coming on board, like last minute, and now we're sitting here talking to you. This is just so, I can't even. and reiterate how this just does not happen this way. And you haven't brought a dime to any of these kids, like the Cunningham team or whatever. I mean, Dale, you're an owner.

Like, how unprecedented is it that teams these days are just hiring people based off of not even, there's talent, but there's also, like, in a lot of these cases, it's just what people are saying about you or just, like, rumor. Hey, the fact that you walked into Rouse and got a meeting is remarkable. That doesn't happen. It's funny.

So I used to literally sneak into racetracks. Like, I would just sneak in and I had to go pass out business cards. And I remember this is probably 2014 or 15. I walked up and handed Jack Raus your business card. And I was like, hey, I'd love to have a meeting with you sometime. And he said, I don't do meetings. But I come back and I get a drive for the guy in 2018. But I don't know how I got that meeting that day when I walked in.

I did that. I don't know how many times. I would just walk in. I would somehow find the name of the guy. And I would go on LinkedIn. Like, you could always see their title. Yeah. And it had their email address.

Do you have a LinkedIn? account. I do. I don't really use it now. I started one then. You went to a two-week phase of LinkedIn and that's as long as it lasted. I didn't get any new jobs or business. You know, and he was just strapped. He had no way of making any money without that LinkedIn account.

My resume was awesome. This was just a few years ago, by the way. It wasn't like it was, you know, when he was 16 or 17. Of course, I didn't have LinkedIn back then, probably. The way you were able to just make things happen. I mean, I think you have a remarkable testimony. Yeah, for sure. I mean, and, you know, I think that as you put it,

as you go along the way and your trials seem to be, you know, moments that are purposeful and meaningful, even though you may not realize it in the moment, right? Yeah, for sure. And, you know, part of that testimony, I do feel like is, you know, even the miscarriage thing, me and my wife suffered this year. Right. To have that happened the day before and then going and went in Darlington,

like, I had never in a million years when I thought that would have reached that many people we thought about not even telling anybody and then we end up deciding last minute like hey let's just put it out there and the amount of people that reached out and was like man you have no idea how much is it's helping us you know people saying how they didn't even believe and how they do like it's been unbelievable the amount of people that that stories touch and i do feel like that's another part of our purpose as well that race him race and kyle wow yeah one of the most amazing things i've thing. I mean, like, that was an amazing race. Didn't even know at the time you'd been crying in the car. Oh, it was bad. I can't imagine what it's like to drive with tears in your eyes. I mean, and that was,

you know, a lot of the race. Take us back, though, through the race in itself on how you were able to hold off, you know, arguably the greatest. Yeah, so that race is obviously the first race back for two and a half months. So you get in and you're kind of like rusty in general. I remember the first 20 laps. I wasn't really there, obviously, emotionally and like in my head. But then also the car felt so foreign because we hadn't done it forever. And I'm like, this is going to be a long day. Like, this is not going to be good. And somehow, I don't even remember. We got the lead. And as soon as I took the lead, I started crying. It was like 70 to go. And I just knew that my wife and all these people were watching and that knew what we were going through. And it, like, I hadn't cried one time in front

of my wife because I was trying to be strong for her. And we should just say that week leading up is when you guys had found out the news that we had lost. We raced on, I want to say Thursday. The race was supposed to be on a Tuesday, I think. Well, I found out at the racetrack on Tuesday. I was on FaceTime with her. And then it rained all day long, so I had to sit there and wait to go home. And then we came back, I think, on Thursday and race. It was two days after. She had gone in for a checkup. Is that right? Yeah, it was a 12-week check-up. Yeah. Okay. So that was tough, just being at Darlington and seeing it on FaceTime, seeing her reaction, to not being able to do anything,

just knowing that you're stuck three and a half hours away. And then to go back down there on Thursday, you know, I was a head case. Like I didn't, I didn't even want to be there truthfully. And, you know, I take the lead. And like I said, I had to cry in front of her. Like, I was holding all these emotions in, trying to be strong. And then I take the lead, and it was like,

it all started slowly coming out. And then when we won, I mean, I broke down. I mean, it was bad. But it was obviously good because of why it happened. but I was struggling. Yeah, that was amazing to watch you go through the poise and the professionalism and just how you handled yourself. I think you endured a lot of people.

And I think that, you know, when the fans of our sport are always kind of looking for these, you know, different personalities, there's kind of a different driver for, Every fan. There's a, you know, there's all kinds of colorful personalities in our sport, but the fans have been kind of looking for that sort of self-made guy. Yeah. You know, that kind of blue-collar guy. And I've told, you know, I've told the fans that they're out there.

You know, there's several examples of guys out there. But you're one of them. It's pretty impressive. Just hearing your story, I didn't even know a lot of that stuff, and I don't know how people can't appreciate how hard you've worked, and, you know, how many times you almost gave up and sleeping on couches and pinching a dollar, and you actually worked, you know, you worked on other people's cars,

putting other people's cars together and helping them go to the racetrack before you ever got your opportunity, and those type of things really matter to people, especially when you get this chance to go cup racing. And now everybody's going to want to see that success. No pressure, but everybody's going to. No pressure at all. Everybody's just wanting you to win because they want you around.

They want you here for 10, 20, 30 years. They want to cheer for you. When people are fans, like you're a fan of other sports teams, I'm sure. You want them to be successful. You want them to win today. And you want to win to win 10 years from now. And you want to pull for them forever. And that's how people look at you as a job.

driver. I already was pretty excited for you, but just knowing that story, knowing how hard you worked in it. It all really just kind of played out in the last decade. It's all played out in the last five to ten years. Two, three years. Do you know how he got a stock car ride? Yeah, I was going to tell us about the stock car dream challenge. Listen to this. Yeah, so we're racing sprint cars and we crack. So first off, growing up, growing up, up, you know, Sprink Car Guys race 80 to 100 times a year. I think the most I've ever raced my entire life was 25 races. Like, we just didn't really have the means to go racing.

Well, it came down to where we were once again, like, didn't now I had the money to go racing. And I'm scrolling on Facebook one day. And I see this advertisement for this peak stock car dream challenge. So I click on it and has all these rules for submission with a video and all this stuff. I didn't read any of it. I just posted a video on there. It was totally wrong.

shouldn't even been eligible. Well, I ended up getting picked out of, I think there were 600 people signed up. I was one of the 10 that got picked. Oh. So I go down to Charlotte. And this dream challenge was basically a campaign from Michael Walter Pracey. Yeah. Where Ty Norris was kind of heading it up, and it was like giving somebody a chance to sign a rookie deal with MWR.

You got like a one race K&N in deal, pretty much with Bill McAnally. Yeah. And so I sign up. Never in a million years think I'm going to get picked. But like I wasn't racing sprint cars. was like we were done pretty much. And I get picked to do this deal. And I always wanted to try pavement racing,

just because dirt racing, like, I loved doing it. But I never really thought I was that. I always felt like I'd be better on the pavement, just because I don't drive how you have to run dirt. And so I get picked. I go down to Charlotte. I've never driven a manual transmission. Never ran on pavement.

Never driven a stock car. And I end up being the fastest in like seven out of the eight driving competitions. Well, I was terrible in the marketing and, like, reading the teleprompter and all this stuff. I'm just from Indiana. I never done any of that stuff. So at the end of the deal, they pick somebody else to win. And Ty Norris calls us up in his office, me and my family.

And he's like, hey, if you're serious about this, you probably need to move down here. So I remember my dad specifically asking me and my mom to leave the room. And he just asked Ty, he asked Ty flat out. Is my kid having or not? Like, if you don't think he's got a chance, tell me now and I'll go sell everything. Like, we're not going to keep pouring money into this. Like, he can go do something else for fun. and Ty told my dad

my son wanted to be a major league baseball player and I had to tell him he wasn't good enough he goes I truly think your kid's good enough if he can get an opportunity so that was the reason I moved down to North Carolina is because Ty Norris pretty much telling my dad that so Ty will be glad that his name popped up on the podcast well also like you don't hear many good stories

that are good outcomes that started with I was on Facebook but this is one exception my parents didn't even want me to race in general So my grandpa started owning sprint cars in 76. My dad raced for 22 years, but like they did not want me to race. Why? I don't really know.

Yeah, I don't know why they didn't want me to race. And the only reason I got to race was it's another crazy story. My dad was at the payout window one night. And this lady turned around and asked him, when are you going to let Chase start racing? And he said, oh, I'm not going to. She said, well, why not? He said, I don't really think he needs to be doing it. Like, it's not the safest thing in the world.

Like, I just don't really want him to. She goes, well, let me tell you a story. my son, he was like a junior or senior in high school and wrote this paper about how he was racing spread cars on the weekend. It was an A or B paper and the teacher gave it an F and said, I don't think it's right that you let your kid risk his life every week. So the mom took it to the principal and said, hey, read this paper. What do you think this should be great? And he said, yeah, it's an A or B paper. It shouldn't have been an F. So the mom went to the teacher and said, you know, asked her and told her the same thing. I don't think it's right that you let your kid race.

So he said, well, let me tell you a story. I know where my kid's at all through the week because he's at the shop working on the car. On the weekends, he's not out partying. He's at the racetrack. He's getting to spend time with his family, his mom and dad, his grandpa, all these things. And that following week, the teacher's cave got picked up for drinking and driving underage. And my dad, it just clicked with my dad and was like, man, it kept me out of a ton of trouble growing up that I was not out partying on the weekend and said I was racing. And he goes, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my dad.

And so that was kind of the whole reason I even got to go racing was, because it kind of just registered with my dad that probably kept him out a lot of trouble. And like to this day, I've never had a sip alcohol in my entire life. Like I never was the guy partying. I was always racing. I was at the racetrack doing something different. Polar opposites of the guy, the gentleman that he's taking his place up. I know, right?

You could think of anything opposite of Boyer. It would be Chase. What do you do for, so what do you do for phone? When you're not driving a race car, you got a weekend off? Um, so my wife's dad, my father-in-law has a boat down in Myrtle Beach. So we go down there almost every off weekend. We just go down there and hang out. He's got a place on the dock, and we just sit there on the dock all week and hang out,

maybe take the boat out, got two dogs, go to the dog park with them. That's about it. Come on. I watch sports. I like the Colts, but I won't be able to do that next year now. No. Nope. That's right.

That is not, that is one of the drawbacks. You don't get to watch football. Dale Jr. used to ask for Washington Redskins scores. Scores. Scores during like red flags and their cautions every now and then. Don't do that, though, because people question whether your head is in the right space during the race. Only at Talladega.

Also a place you want to have. Get away with it there. They're long caution. They're long laps. Wait till Road America. Those are like 10-minute ones. Oh, no. It's rough.

Thank you, by the way, for all your help on Super Speedway Race. Hey. What do you mean by this? It has been night and day. Really? Oh, my gosh. I appreciate you saying that. I mean, tell us.

What happened? So he was talking earlier about Boswell. Well, I'd never talk to Dale, obviously, and Boswell's like, hey, you need to call Dale about, you know, Super Speedway racing before we go to Daytona. This was last year. And like, not that I didn't run good on Super Speedways, but I did not like them. I hated going, did not want to go. It was a nervous wreck every time. I just would ride around and wait until they wrecked, and hopefully I wasn't in it, and I would run, you know, fifth through tenth.

So I called Dale. and, you know, he just told me all of his kind of mentality on it. And since then, I feel like it's been a light switch on how my plate racing has been. I'm no longer riding around. I actually look forward to going and doing it. I feel like I actually make a difference where before I just thought it was luck, and it's definitely not luck. The same guys went over and over again.

There's a reason they win. Yeah. It definitely is a mentality and you got to go, you definitely go to a plate race differently, mentally and emotionally than you go to any other race. you know, the racetrack and prepare. But I just told him that, and I don't get a lot of people calling for advice, so it was kind of nice to give somebody some advice and then watched him go try to apply it and didn't actually feel like that it helped them.

It meant the world to me. And I've shared this too with, I've shared this too before, and it's because I've tried it all these different ways, and I know the ones that didn't work for me and the ones that did. But, you know, going there and you try to lead every level, lap, and I know it's not physically possible to lead every lap, but if you're always trying to lead every lap, you're always trying to work yourself toward the front. You take every run you get. Obviously, if it's not a big enough run, you don't take it, but every run run you get, you take

and see what happens and learn and apply. But if you're always trying to kind of lead every lap, if you're always on that offense, typically that's going to keep you out of trouble. When you get passive or you're kind of playing defense or you're waiting or you're pausing, man, you will always get swept up in crashes. 100%. And Denny did sit in the back and ended up winning that cup race. And that does work on the off chance, you know, that you do those things. That does work sometimes.

But it is a miserable way to race. I have way more fun being aggressive. Yeah. I honestly look at it as like a rental goopart. I'm just like, if I'm just like, if I'm just like, if I'm just, if I'm I wreck, I wreck. And it's a totally better situation every time. Yeah.

I feel like that's definitely the case. You know, a lot of guys, I don't know, they go in with that same attitude of, I really don't want to have to do this, even though I'm going to do this. And I'm going to, I'm not, you know, a lot of guys, if you're out there racing, just watch the pack, right?

If you're watching the pack kind of go around, there's a lot of guys just kind of following the person in front. of them. That's all they're doing. All day long too, even at the end. All day. They're just kind of, they don't really, they're just waiting, waiting for the crash, waiting for their fate,

right? They're waiting for whatever's going to happen to them to happen. And there's only a few guys out there that are like, screw this, you know, I'm going Joey, Brad, Denny, all three. It's the same guy. They all got the wins to back it up then. That's interesting. I'm curious, when do you recall

first noticing Chase as a driving talent? Well, obviously when he got teamed up with Richard, I'm a big fan of all the people that kind of come through our system or have ever been a part of our shop. I kind of like to kind of keep an eye on them and see where they end up and what they end up doing. And, man, I never expected Richard to have the opportunity that he's got to crew chief for you. and man, I just wanted it to work. I wanted him to succeed because I know how much it means to him.

Yeah, he works his tail off. Yeah. He's going to be really pissed off that I'm going to tell this story. And maybe he's told it to you, but probably not like this. He lived with me. I knew that. Yeah, so True X had come and lived with me for a little while, and he moved out and,

and I had this room, and Richard moved into it. And he's, I mean, just down the hall for me, and we'd see each other about every day, and he's racing late models, and it's going okay. And we're running the Pro Cup, and it's going okay. We're not setting the world on fire. With our sponsorships and things were changing, we had a really good program with Champion Spark plugs.

We had a pro late model car sponsored by champion spark plugs. Yeah, it was sweet. It was one of the coolest sponsors ever, you know. It's like an epic, like iconic sponsor. But anyways, the sponsorship stuff was kind of shifting around, and I was ready to move on to something different. We'd worked with Richard for a while, and we were kind of getting the same results.

And, you know, I weren't, I didn't give him every single tool and every single resource that he needed to succeed. I didn't hire some smart engineer, you know, top of the line, overqualified crew chief to come in there and put that car, you know, on the fast lane on a rail every weekend. He was pretty much the guy, and he drove it. And so he was grinding away as hard as he could trying to make it work. But anyways, I mean, it was the day I had to tell him that we were going to do something different. And it was the, I had to tell him that not only were going to do something different, but maybe he should think about doing something different.

That'd be hard. It was awful. Because, you know, you just don't tell people that they probably should give up on their dream. You know, you can't just, you can't tell people that. I don't know how you do that. But it was in this, we were, we had went to the end of the road. and we were going to have to stand there and make a decision. And so I walked into his room and I said,

Richard, I don't think we can run next year. I said, I don't think, I said, I know we can't run next year. We're not going to run next year. And I don't know what I'm going to do. But I think you should consider making a change in your life and trying to apply your engineer degree in the shop for one of these teams. and seeing where that takes you because I think you could go you could go pretty far and he cried and it was the hardest thing I had to do I mean it was just awful you know he's in where you know he's living in my house and he's in his bedroom crying you know it'd be hard yeah it was awful um and so again I think when you asked me why how I noticed Tim it's keeping up with the Boswell because I after all that I mean oh I told I told I kind of, he didn't make that decision because of what I told him.

I didn't push him in that direction to go be a crew chief and become one one day. It's where he ended up by his own work and his own ethic, you know. But I want it to work because I know that how bad he wanted to drive into work and I know how tough a decision that was for him to make that shift in his life. But he made it and, you know, I want to see him continue. It's funny you said that because when I was talking earlier about how, we had that big coming moment. Yeah.

He kind of hit on that. He's like, I see a lot of myself and he goes, I want this so bad. Like I wanted to be a driver so bad. And you're so close to making it. He said, don't throw this opportunity away. So it is kind of cool how it's all worked out, especially Richard.

He's done an amazing job this year and even last year. And he's a pretty dang good crew chief. And it's nice when you can have a crew chief that drove to. I think that's a huge advantage. I agree with you. So, and people will, a lot of people know why, but I think that if a spotters drove anybody, like anybody... A spotter's huge.

Yeah. Because when you're, not only do they know what you're doing, trying to do, what you're dealing with, struggling with, frustrated with, trying to accomplish. They know it because they're, they've been in that situation. And they can see the car. Like, they get where you're coming from. Yeah. One of the things, I don't know what you always fight, but in my career, I didn't like the car to roll over, right? We even would tilt the seats and tilt the inserts and everything to sort of give me this sensation that the car never rolled over.

Yeah. But try to explain that to somebody who's never drove a race car. Oh, they have no idea. It's so frustrating. Yeah. You know, trying to get somebody to understand the sensation that you're trying to get rid of. But when somebody's drove a race car like Richard or somebody, you know, drove a race car that spots like T.J. Majors, you know, when you tell them, man, the back's swinging. Yeah, they get it. They get it.

That's been my struggle is coming from dirt race, like Richard even. Like the first five, ten races we ran, I'm always like, man, I need, like, I have no right or stick. Like, I'm saying all these sprint car orders, like, I've no side by, like, I field laid left, and he's just like, why are you talking about? But now we've got to where he understands, but that's been one thing that's hard for me is a lot of these guys don't have dirt background. So just the lingo I use three years ago, I didn't even know what lateral meant. And now I've had to kind of change my way of kind of how I didn't explain the card. so them guys can understand kind of what I'm looking for more. I asked you about what you spend your time doing when you're not racing.

You run on eye racing a little bit. Yeah. You run VR virtual reality. He puts a headset on, Mike, where you can look around and you're inside the car. You've got damage on the left room. You can stick your head up the left side. Look, it's wild. That's a level I didn't even know existed.

It's cool. When's the last time you mess with it? Right before Talladega. Do you have... I always get on there, Super Speedway Week. What headset are you using? Pymax is the VR. and then I just have a Logitech headset.

But I actually got on there last week. I ran a lot of dirt stuff. The dirt stuff's really good on there. So I do a lot of that. You think the dirt, they did dirt right on IRA. Yeah, depending on what car you're in, I think it's really good. And then there's this road course.

I don't know if you ran it on there. It's called Subbaca. Yes. It's so fun. It's the best. I was running it last night with Skippy. Yeah, I ran the Ferrari GT3 deal. It's like a little bullring.

Yeah, you're getting after. It's so fun. I ran like three or four of those. That's over in Japan, I think. Somewhere. It's like the best road course. It's pretty cool. It's like Bristol for road courses.

Wow. It's awesome. That is cool. Well, man, you've got a heart out. So we're going to let you get going again. Chase, good luck to the rest of this season, going for that championship. We hope to give you a run for your money here at Junior Motorsports. You guys are going to be tough.

Well, we're big fans of yours either way. And again, fans, I gave him a call yesterday to come in here with everything going on between his Xfinity series. his championship chase getting this new cup ride he's got so much media that he's actually going to do here yes he's going to go upstairs and do a zoom call right stay out of our shop chase busy busy busy man and he is he's made time to be on this show he's such a great guy thank you chase yeah thank you thanks for having me big fan of the show as well thanks a lot man hey let's bring josh berry into the studio i've been waiting for this all right so we got Josh Barry in the studio.

Josh Barry drives for Junior Motorsports in the late model stocks, and you've been doing that for 10 years. What are we on year 10? Yeah. Or 11? 10. Have you got the watch yet, the company watch? No, I think that'll be.

That comes in January or February? Wow. So he's about to get the company watch. Yeah. That's a big deal. So it's been amazing, man. You've raced, we've had you on the show before. You've raced just a quick little get everybody up to speed.

You raced legends cars around the Nashville. area back when and I met you racing online on i racing you said hey what do i got to do to get a get a you know get get another opportunity outside of this legend's car i'm doing can't do this forever and uh you and your dad were doing it together and um i was like hey i'll give you a couple races in the late model won't just come down and run a couple races and that went really well we ended up teaming up you moved down here you live with my mom and willie for a little while You got LW used to LW who's married to my sister, who now is a big role player here at Junior Motorsports,

kind of was the crew chief and overseer of the late model program. You and him became extremely close. But anyways, you know, and you've cultivated this late model program. We basically were winning a couple races a year maybe before you got here. You've turned it into a program that went and won everywhere. Let's talk about that. Let's go through the... I wanted to tell people where you've won.

So, Southern National, Motor Mile, Hickory, Myrtle Beach, South Boston, Langley. Do you have a Josh Berry photo album on your iPad there? Is that what that is? Yeah, yeah, Orange County. Hairway Speedway! I think he stalked my... Concord. Is that what he did?

Yeah. Concord. I could have just asked. Anderson. Who goes to race? there. Anderson, South Carolina. Anderson, South Carolina. I mean, Martinsville.

Martinsville, and you won the biggest race of the year, the 300 at Martinsville. And when you went to Martinsville, you won everything. You got the pole, you led the most laps. You did, if they were giving away a check for it, you got it. And I'm sitting here looking at a picture of you holding a $44,000 check

from Martinsville Speedway. I think the race paid 25. 30? 30. 30. Just over 30. So you won 44 in a race that paid 30. That's how you do it right there. Yeah. I've watched you get married, become a dad.

Just really been amazing to see you, you know, turn into the person you are. And, you know, all those wins, did I leave any tracks off, I'm sure? Probably. Ace, left Ace off. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's so many racetracks that you went to and won at. And so we talked with the last time we had you on the show, we had just raced it. Am I right?

Now, the last time was Martinsville. But y'all talked about it. Oh, we talked about it. But you didn't have me on because you said it would be too biased. It would be biased. I don't want to see biased. He didn't want you both. Yeah, he was worried with the other fellow might say.

So let's, yeah, so we started the season out. We've been racing in the cars tour for a couple years. We've won track championships at Motor Mile, I think, back in 2012. Hickory, track champion, anywhere else? No, that's it. we went and race the cars tour, which runs all over the place, won the championship there. So we started the season again, going for another cars tour championship. We get to Ace Motor Speedway, and you and Bobby McCarty had kind of had some dust-ups, and it came to a head.

It was like, hey, enough's enough, and you parked him in the fence, and got penalized for a race, so you didn't get to run the next one, so you had to sit out. And so there was a couple weeks later you texted me and said, hey, man, I, I, I, I don't know, but we might have a shot at the national title. At what point between Parking Bobby and that text message, what went on? What, when did the light bulb come on? Because I think, in my mind, I'm thinking, how in the hell did that happen? You're running into the cars tour, so how do you become a player in the national title so quickly?

So I guess, so that was right at the beginning of June was the Cars Tour race at Ace, and then the following week was Cars Tour Race at Hickory, which I was suspended for. And then their next race was supposed to be sometime in July, and it just got, or postponed. I mean, they just sent an email and postponed it until later date because of everything with COVID. So their next race wasn't until August. And to be honest, we really weren't fully confident that there would be another race. So, but Hickory was racing every week and, you know, we needed to fulfill our obligations with our sponsors and Connor Mosaic and his sponsors. So we just started racing.

And the first night, I think I won both races, twin races, had plenty of cars. And then we went the next week, one, one. And then with over the next five or six weeks, we kind of said, you know, that's when I talked to you. We kind of said, we were going to see how the next, you know, a little bit went. And we felt like we won enough that we were in position to kind of go out. after it whenever the car store season started back up. So that was whenever I reached out to you and said, hey, I think we need to forego this. Do you remember where you were in points?

Did you have an idea where you were in the national standings? No, I think because honestly, I caught some flak for it because they hadn't actually updated the standings because normally it takes a couple months for them to start publishing the standings. But whenever we decided to go for it, they really hadn't sent it out yet. So everybody is telling me how dumb I am for doing that. But I guess that much out. I think we need to explain exactly what the national.

NASCAR Weekly. It's the NASCAR Advanced Auto Parts Weekly series in the national standings, because it is somewhat confusing for anybody that's starting right now. So what is it? How does it work? So I would say that you take all the NASCAR home tracks around the country. I mean, everywhere, their feature division is considered Division 1. So around here at Slate Model Stocks, and the northeast it would be asphalt modified,

you know, all over the country is different. So they score points in a national title. And there's things considered are like starting position, car count. It takes 16 cars to make a full field. So basically you have to race wherever a full field. So you can't run against five cars and count. All right. Yes.

That's a huge part of it. As well as, like I said, the starting position deal. And you take on a normal year, I think it counts your best 18 races. This year was 14 just because the season was a little bit shorter. but that's pretty much it. You kind of just put everybody into a hat and see how it shakes out. So it's got to be a NASCAR sanction track, which Matthew, how many of those do you think there are? I mean, across the country, I mean, they're all over the place and there's different regions and so the premier division at each one of those tracks could be modified, could be anywhere, but they are in the NASCAR advanced auto.

And you can win a region, but the division won, what he was going for is the national title. So the better the car count also like you said. So when you say that there are standings, weren't updated, that would be hard to have a weekly updated standings based off of all of the factors, you know, you're talking about all the tracks and all those things. I mean, like, that would be somewhat difficult to even keep track of where you are in the standings. Yeah. But to Dale's question, you had an idea that you were in contention at least. Yeah. Yeah. No, I felt like we were and, you know, we just like so, we felt like we had won enough and was in running well enough

that it was an opportunity to try to go for it. And we knew that at that time we were racing just mostly at Hickory, but there was some other places that were going to start racing, and we knew that we could go there and be in contentioned, so we just kind of went for it. This is where it gets interesting for me. Dale, you called me, and you were like, look, do you know that Josh is actually in the running for this national title?

I said, yeah, but I didn't know exactly what that meant. And when you're saying go for it, this is where it gets interesting. How do you go for it in the last two months? You just got to race a lot. You know, you can't. I mean, that's really it. I mean, we raced, I mean, we race Saturday and Sunday a lot of weeks. Southern National Motorsports Park raced a bunch of races on Sunday.

And we would go, so we would race Saturday night at Hickory and load up and sleep a couple hours and go to Southern National early Sunday morning. So, I mean, that's really it. I mean, you just got to, there's a number of things. That was part of it. And then, you know, once the points started getting more updated. and I was figuring out our situation. You know, towards the end, we basically was just qualifying bad intentionally. That way we would start in far than enough back to be able to collect the bonus points if we won.

That was part of it. That's awesome. And we did that a number of times. And that was a difference maker. That's really what I didn't. That's kind of what I learned throughout it, that you got four extra points if you started ninth or worse. and those made a huge difference in the end. I think if I'd have known that from the beginning,

I think I would have done things a little bit differently, just knowing, you know, because it counted my best 14, and I won 24, so that means 10 wins didn't count, and those were all wins from the poll. Who have you been racing against for this title? At Hickory, we raced mostly against Ryan Millington and Sam Butler. We were all pretty close. We had a lot of good races together,

and then every way out. Peyton Sellers ended up finishing second. We went and raced him the last. month pretty much just went wherever he raced and just tried to go beat him so that to me is probably the coolest thing about this whole um national title and it's been that way for decades uh as it whittles down as it unravels to the very final few events uh for these local tracks typically it comes down to two or three guys that are neck and neck and they there'll be one that is going to have the better crowds there'll be a driver that's racing at a track that's got a good field.

And he's the guy that probably looks like the favorite to win, judging by how the points are racked up. And the other two or however many guys that are in this fight have to kind of take it to him or go to him or find out where he's racing. You'll have Barry Beggerli racing somewhere every single week, and he'll have to go beat Max Presswood and Hickory, and he'll have to go down to where Max has raced all.

all year and beat him in his own track to win the national title. To keep him from getting Max points. To keep him from getting the points. It's really, really why. It's really how it's the best case scenario for, for racing and for fans when that's what's going to happen. And so that's what happened this year. It came down to you having to go chase after you.

It was funny that you were doing that because you were the guy that is kind of he should have been chasing you because you. you were the guy with the best points and the best situation, but you decided, you know what, we're going to go keep him from improving. Him being Peyton Sellers? Peyton. We're going to go win the races that he's in. Yeah.

Which you did. And like I said, when you're talking, like, we were in the position racing at Hickory. This was probably like the next to last race at Hickory. I believe we won. We started from the back and won, but we were watching, you know, the timing and it's scoring from Dominion, and we were just watching him win both races, and we were like, no. Like we're not doing this Yeah so the next week we skipped the season finale at Hickory and just went to

Devinion Raceway which where he was and went and raced him and and we were in a good enough spot too that you know the the deal with the starting positions and all that that I was talking about like that wasn't a factor like he had to worry about that you know he had to worry about where he started I just had to worry about being him and that was you know that's what we did so how many times did you purposely go to where Peyton was to race against him and try to win that race to keep him from getting max points. Really three times, twice at Dominion and once at Langley.

Once at Langley. Yeah, and he, we race each other at Southern National, but, you know, we were both, we had both raced there, some, it really wasn't, we were, we were going there regardless if he was there or not. And I'm assuming, I mean, you... We hadn't went to Langley all year. Yeah, I was going to say, like, your schedule now, whatever you had planned on doing, is it,

is it a situation where you just like, okay, scrap this? Oh, yeah, it's like on Monday morning, Josh and his guys would sit down and go, all right, where is he going to be? Where do we want to be? I guess we want to go there. All right, let's get our Langley stuff together. Yep.

And that's old school because, like, if you look at historically, like, you know, up where I'm from, Richie Evans, they would send a dummy car and trailer down the road this way, and Cook's guys would be looking to see where Evans is going. So this is like such a throwback harkened to the early days of the NASCAR titles. This is exactly how this was designed to perform. Yes.

And I remember before I ever started racing late models, hearing about, you know, or even when I was racing late models in the 90s, hearing about the guys traveling, you know, the guy that run South Boston all year long, he's up in, he's second points, and the guy that's running at, you know, Ace or somewhere like that all year long, is leading to points.

Well, the final couple races a year, the guy from South Boston has to go to Ace. Hey, man, you want this title. You got to come get it. LW mentioned that he was telling a story, about sending dummy trailers a specific direction just to, you know, somebody off. Yeah, create a ruse.

And I'm like, are you, this is seriously what's happening? You guys are like, it's a cat and mouse game of where you're going to race, which honestly, it's got to be hell in the family life, I might say. I mean, you got a little one at home, you got a wife, and you don't might, you might not know where you're going to race next week, right? Yeah, well, yeah, I heard that one a few times for sure. What would Amy say if you were like I would usually kind of mention it and then she'd kind of blow me off like thinking I was kidding. I'm like, no, hey, you know, we're running Langley Saturday and we're just going to drive straight to Southern National after that.

He texted me. I texted him Saturday. I said, where are you racing? Because I knew that Hickory had the fall brawl. And he goes, we're at Hickory. And I was like, all right, so I'm going to watch. And I watch the fall brawl and he wins that race Saturday night. And I'm thinking, you know, all right, he's, you know, he's just probably going to set everything in the shop floor until Martinsville.

And he texts me, I don't remember what it was, but you're like, we're on our way to Southern National. I'm like, you're crazy. Well, we really didn't need to, but there was some folks from NASCAR and advanced auto parts that was going to be there. And plus, you know, we just wanted to support the track. I mean, because they had been racing, you know, we didn't want to just like, oh, yeah, we got what we needed and be done. We wanted to run their last race, and we won both of them. That plan, you won both of them. How many wins this year?

Yeah, how many is that? 26 total, 24 counted towards the national championship. All right. 24. What are the best, I mean, the 14, the best 14, must have been pretty damn good. Yeah. I think, like, I want to say eight or nine of them were max points from ninth or worse, and there was a couple from the middle.

And then, like I said, I dropped, I mean, I dropped good many finishes that were from the pole. Have you heard from anyone at NASCAR? I mean, like, I heard that Steve O'Donnell has to, you know, officially declare you. Have you had that call yet? Well, he also sent along a little video. Let's see what he has to say. Hey, Josh. Just wanted to congratulate you on behalf of everyone at NASCAR and the France family

on an incredible 2020 championship to you. to Dale Jr., Kelly, everyone at Junior Motorsports. It's been an incredibly challenging year. You persevered. 24 wins. Heck of a year. A heck of a job. And we're really proud to have you as our champion.

Pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah, he called it this morning about, I was like 8.30. I was actually giving my daughter a morning bottle. As most champions are, you know, when you get the call, right? Yeah, I got her up. And then my phone started ringing it.

It was Steve O'Donnell. Congratulations us. What did he say? He said, good job. that's awesome and I'm sure he said more than good job yeah I mean pretty much what he said in the video about the same thing just great congratulations on a great year and um just to know it's been tough on a lot of people and just just like I said we told him that we've been racing a lot and we were tired but we're excited to be the NASCAR national series champion what's left of this year

besides martinsville well martinsville's canceled oh martinville's out so we're the defending winner for another year yeah oh my gosh yeah no 300 no 300 they I guess they couldn't have fans so they decided not to, which the cup race only has a thousand fans, I think. So is there any more race? Yes. So we're going this weekend to Greenville Pickens' last Cars Tour race. It's $30,000 to win. Oh.

That's a big deal. Yeah. You've won there before. Yeah. I forgot to mention that one. I've won in Greenville Pickens. It's not official because you didn't mention it. There's got, you probably have a list of tracks that you haven't won at.

That'd probably be the easier. Yeah. Easier list. What's a track you haven't won at the year? Most of them I haven't, I've only been to, like, once. Yeah. I think Kingsport was one. Wade County Speedway was one where Sam won the Cars to race.

I think that's about it. There's probably one or two. If you wanted a Carteret, have you won there? Yeah, he won a Carteret. Yeah, he's won't Carteret. Yeah. Of course. The National Weekly Champions, I mean, that list is esteemed, right?

And even the guy that you were racing against Peyton Sellers is, you know, a past champion. Is he not? Yes. Matthew. He's our, you know, all-racing historian, rainman guy. So, well, I guess tell us what does it mean? I mean, you weren't, you didn't start this year planning on going after this. Now you've accomplished it. It's, your resume is amazing. You know, you've got the Martens will win. Now you're a national champion. Tell us what this means. How do you process this? I don't know. I'm still honestly processing it. because I specifically remember us having this conversation about a year ago after we won Martinsville,

and y'all asked me, like, what was next? And I said, well, you know, really all that there's left to do really would be to go after a national title. And, you know, we've just never been in the position to go do that. And here we are, you know. So it's tough, you know, the hard part or the difficult part for me was, like, I wish I could have enjoyed a lot of the wins more. But, like, I mean, most of them, you're racing twice a night. When you win the first race, you're already thinking about how you've got to win the second one. Or if you win Saturday night, how you're going to win Sunday?

So, you know, a lot of times it's going to take some time to process it after the season's over with, you know, because it's all – I mean, even this week, you know, I wish we had a week off before that race this weekend, but we're busy trying to prepare for it again. And so we really haven't had a whole lot of time to process it yet, but I'm sure I will over time. This never happens without COVID. I mean, is that right? Is that fair to say? I think so, yeah, because, you know, the schedule got shook up so much, and it was just the timing of everything. with the suspension and the schedule getting shooking up and a shorter season. Right.

You know, just made it just more possible, realistically possible for us and all our guys and just financially to be able to do it. I mean, it definitely played a part in it. Well, we just have a running list of things that the COVID virus actually did good for us. That's the second thing that we've now come up with. Well, I tell you, I supported the whole thing that happened today is between you and Bobby, but, damn, I had no idea that it was going to send a. on this path.

Yeah. Now you're really glad he done. I am, man. Can you go back and just say, because how is that? I haven't even paying attention to Carr's Store. Have you, who's going for the title there? Jared Fryer.

Looks like he's going to win it. Really? Lane Riggs was pretty close, and he had a mechanical failure for the last race. It's kind of knocked him back. It's been a wild season for those guys. Yes.

A lot of players. Yeah, it's been a lot going on. They've had a bunch of different winners and a lot of kind of little things have happened here or there. A lot of destruction. Yes, a lot of destruction. Yeah.

Pretty wild. Yeah. Connor was really in the hunt for the championship, the majority of the year, and then he got caught up in a wreck in the last race that kind of put him out. But nothing that is doing. He was just in the wrong spot.

But yeah, it's been wild, really. So with our late mile program, you run two cars. We have your car, and then there's a second car, and that's typically Conner's in it this year, and there's kind of sometimes, you know, we've had William Byron

come through our program and Sam Mayor. Sam Mayor come through our program. Christian. Eckus. Yeah. Christian Ekes. Yeah. And you are kind of the tutor for those guys when they're in those cars, trying to

help them understand how they, how to drive them. Because trust me, you know, they are completely different than like a cup car or an Xfinity car. I tried to put True X in one and he couldn't figure it out. and you know it's just a it's not a very you don't just hop it's not a simple card to just jump in but anyways you've done you know you kind of played a lot you wore a lot of hats you know is that something you enjoy i know that you continue to mentor sam as he went into the k and n and all those things and you seem to enjoy that traveling and helping him i guess when you make a personal connection to

these people in a friendship you want to continue to see them do well but do you do you enjoy that part of it because you have to be you have to be that guy every year for these new kids that we're going to put somebody in the car next year that you'll have to you know you don't get to choose that personality you don't get to decide who you know you know whether you're going to get along with them or not it's happening right how do you manage that part of it now it's fun i i've enjoyed working with them and i mean we've been very fortunate to have a lot of you know just great drivers come through our program and go on to success i mean i think it gives a lot of credibility to what we do i think I think at times feel like, you know, it's just kind of me taking all the spotlight for him.

But at the end of the day, we're teaching these kids how to race. Look, they're not coming to us ready to be William Byron Cup Series driver. I mean, we're teaching him how to shift gears and start the car and restart. That's what we're teaching them. And people don't understand that, you know, they think, oh, well, Josh wins, they should win, you know, and it's a process, you know. And I think, and on top of that, late model stock racing is extremely competitive. Yes, you know, it's extremely competitive. So, I mean, it's hard for these kids to just come in and find instant success, you know.

So it's been, like I said, it's definitely a big part of our program. Yeah, you touched on the competitiveness of the series, and that's why I think this accomplishment that you've got this year with the national title, I don't even know how to rank the things that we've, I've been a part of when it comes to here at Junior Motorsports and Xfinity Series championships and wins. at different tracks and so forth and the track championships and stuff. But, I mean, I told you last year

that winning at Martinsville in the 300 might be the biggest thing that I can imagine ever happen to me as an owner because it's just such a hard, hard, hard race. It's harder to win than any race that I know over the Daytona 500 or it's just a hard, hard race to win. It always, you know, I remember going there and having a hard time just qualifying for it. And you went down there and just destroyed them.

I told you after that, that nothing will top it. But I don't know, man, this national title, I never thought we'd go for it. I never thought we'd ever try to win one. You know, it's something you imagine or you dream of and to be a national champion. So I'd have to say this one ranks right there with the Martin Zorro. ville accomplishment. Yeah, no, I saw there's some social media debate that I saw about whether the cars tour is harder, the national points is harder because of my deal winning this.

But it's hard to, I mean, it's just hard to rank stuff like that. I still think, I mean, that Martinsville win is just after, I mean, I had been there nine times and I don't even think I'd finish the race but like once. I mean, so to, I mean, that was a big, big deal. I mean, but this deal, like I said, it really hasn't said. in yet to where it ranks. I mean, we've had an unbelievable season. I mean, to go do what we've done and just almost, I mean, it has not been easy,

but almost make it look easy at times just winning as much as we have. I mean, it's just, you know, it was just. Talk about your team. Talk about your guys and when you see, we see the wins on social media. There's a big group of guys around you all the time, and it's the same guys. A lot of familiar faces over the years. So talk about your team and who's helping you. Yeah.

Brian Schaefer is like our main guy. he's been with us for a number of years. He's made, honestly, he made a huge change in just the direction of my career. I mean, he come in and, like, when he started working for us, I feel like, you know, I felt like I worked really hard, but maybe not in the right directions or just didn't know. And he just, he's just instilled so much confidence in me, and I have so much confidence in him, just how we run our program. And, I mean, it's not, he's really like a second father to me at this point.

I mean, it doesn't matter if we're talking. about racing or if I'm buying a house or anything I mean anything I go to him with I mean the answer it gives me I have 100% confidence in and you know there's Ryan Ryan V as we call him you know he's been with me since the start he was there when I made my first start in your late model and first win first champions he's been there the whole way and he's really busy owns his own business and but to be able to do you know the sacrifices he's made to come with us it just been a lot and And, gosh, Justin over here, he works in the paint shop.

He's been, like, my right-hand man, the whole way. And then, you know, we got a couple new guys. My spotter, Robert Arch, I think you probably have raced him on ir racing. He's good. Yeah, yeah, he's a weapon, but yeah. Oh, he's good. Familiar name. Yeah, he'll be, he'll text me, yeah, I raced with Dale last night.

I'm like, how many people did you wreck? He's like, I have a few. I don't think you can talk on irasin. I think they removed his privilege. He can't. It's to, to, yeah. It's better that way. If Steve Myers listens, they might just want to make that one permanent.

That's funny. But we got a couple of new guys Slim and Dalton and, like I said, Robert's been there forever. I want to, and another guy, David West, him and his dad, they're our motors. They're based in Raleigh. And honestly, he has been, I mean, he's another one that's changed to just change the course of my career. I mean, we used to always kind of struggle at places with grip. and I think part of that was our motor program, and he's stepped that up, and I wouldn't trade him for anything. He's been there pretty much all the way, and I just really got to thank all, you know, of course, my wife and daughter, of course, she got to, that was one thing that I did like about.

We raced hickory a lot this year, so they could come, and she could, you know, be there experiencing it, you know. How old is she now? Not just over nine months, and she seems to enjoy being there, yeah. Starting to figure things out. Yeah, yeah, she's fun time. Yeah, she is into some stuff now. Yeah, we're to the point where you got to, you know, she's got her little walker and she's ramming the blinds and pulling on cords.

So it's to that point. I can't imagine how it's the greatest part. The balance of life with all that you've had going on on the racing side and then a nine-month-old at home is. It's amazing. It's amazing. Well, the energy it requires. And a lot of the sleeplessness that you have, I mean, it's amazing.

And your wife, obviously. Just run on adrenaline. It gets a huge credit for that. Come on, Mike. What? You say, make it sound so hard, miserable. No, no, not miserable, commendable. Commendable.

Yeah, that's right. Not miserable. Awesome. I mean, whatever opposite. It's phenomenal. All right, all right. Now I'm feeling the energy. Hey, I, listen.

Is there any way, no, you brought it down. I brought it back up. I brought it down. How many wins? Is there any way to put a number on how many career wins you have? We tried. We did it one time. Yeah, I think it's over 80 now.

What, wait a thing, you had 26 just this year? Yeah. I don't know that. I remember we were. Ron knows. When we got the 50, we had a little celebration or something. Yeah, it wasn't too. I know we hit like 75 or something.

That's like last year. And then that's been a few weeks ago. Keep out running for this national title stuff and heck, man. I know it. I just was curious. Like, you know, when you think of like some of the all-time great late model racers. You know, like, who is in those?

I mean, if you look at Dick Trickle, his 70 wins season probably goes on the top of the board. 70 wins in one season. But those guys, arguably, you know, Josh is going out there and like this weekend, he wins the fall brawl at Hickory. Then he goes to Southern National and you won the twins, I believe, there, right? Three wins one weekend, that's incredible, right? When you're talking about that era of late model racing in the Midwest, some of those guys were running 40. five nights a week. Yeah, they do.

That's insane. Sometimes six, depending on the period of the season. So it's... That's, that is, that's a whole league in the wrong. And stats right there. Right. Wow. That's amazing.

It's funny, though. We were really, like, I was like, I remember us talking about your 50th win. Mm-hmm. And so literally that was last year. Yeah, that was right. No, it was like two years ago, but yeah. You went and doubled your win count on it. What a remarkable

How many races did you run this year? Do you know? So I think Yeah, I think 37. So we were 26 for 37 I think is what we're So 37 wins

36. That's stupid. That's stupid. That's stupid. 306 top tens out of 37 races is what I tab. Oh, man. And that's

Is the one race the McCarty race? I might sure I counted that one. Yeah. I count that one. That was a mark. That was a landmark. Yeah.

I don't think he would say that. we're talking about him oh now we're now we don't care what he thinks we stood up for you time time heels all yeah we're good man I'm sure we'll be this

me and him will probably go to day this week when that happened when that happened and I'm assuming based off of what you guys said at the beginning of this is that y'all had a conversation because of where you were like

we're going to talk about this on this show but were you considering having Josh come on and at least explain his position on why he did what he did? Because you said to me, I don't...

I wanted him to and Dale was not fair, yeah. But Dale was against it. So I... Well, the one thing that I... It sounded like y'all had a conversation about that. No, not really. Okay. Did we?

I don't think so. Okay. No, no, no. I mean, it's just basically like he's got to... At this point, we're still racing in the car tour. Sure. We're not going for... We're going to get suspended and we're going to go back and keep racing.

I'm like, he's got to keep racing Bobby. He's got to figure this out. I didn't want to stir the pot and be like, I'm going to take this point. platform of this podcast and pile on. And he's got, he handles his own business. Like, it's his business to handle, right? Yeah. I mean, I agree with that. I mean, I like I said, I didn't think, I think, you know, you as an owner or you have your opinion of it and you had your right to say what, you know, your opinion was. And then, I mean, as for me, I mean, I, you know, I did whatever

media obligations that I had that week to, you know, I pretty much told it like it was. And, you know, I didn't really feel like there was any use in robin salt in it or anything or teasing him or nothing. I mean, I just said what it was. I mean, he ended up in the inside guard real stuff. He, you know, it was enough. That was it. I guess that was my question. Would you have come on to do that if Dale had asked you to do that?

Would you have come on and done it? Would you have been comfortable doing it? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Because that is what struck me about that whole situation. It was a deal where you owned exactly what you did. You don't see a ton of people do that anymore.

Be accountable for what they did. said, look, I had to do it. I had to retaliate because enough is enough. You said that after the race. You owned it. But I always struck me as like somebody that wouldn't be comfortable in that situation. And yet you were steadfast, man. You were adamant.

And then what's more of what shocked me that week was that Dale, who is typically not for that type of physical on-track altercation, if I'm right, I think I am. and yet he was emphatically behind you. And this is a year, like, when his drivers do something that he's not, he don't shy away from telling you that was screwed up, man, you know, ask Noah. So I just thought that that was an interesting situation. And, you know, I would have loved to have had you on that week.

But I understand the point that you didn't want to pile on and make that situation worse because it was handled. And look what it resulted you. I know. I think the late model program is just near and dear to my heart, because I don't go to the shop. I don't get to see Josh race much in person. I only think I've seen you race a couple times.

But I watch a lot of the races online, and it's where my – I just know how hard it is to race in that series, and I know how hard it is to travel, and you're – you know, you're not – get on a plane and go fly everywhere, and the truck's not already there and getting unloaded by a team. You do everything. and you got to you not only got to be a great race car driver you got to have you got to

talk manage with your sponsors you got to keep them abreast of how you're doing um you got to you know you got to keep them entertained and interested in what you're doing you got to be a people person you got to manage your people your guys you can't talk to them a certain way you got to keep you know they're there to like you said he's got one guy that owns his own business that keeps coming week after week after week. Well, why does he keep coming? Because Josh treats him right. Because Josh doesn't run him off, running his mouth or being a jerk.

And so, I mean, it's a not, it's a lot of, it's impressive. It's just really impressive what Josh has been able to do. But I love that roots of our sport. I love short track local racing. I love the idea that there's an entire community that, goes and shows up to race and fans that show up to that track that have been going there for years. And I love the idea that we have been, you know, all over the Mid-Atlantic region.

I call it the Mid-Atlantic region because that's what it was called when I race. I don't know what they call it now. But that's what they called our, you know, it was like Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee. Yeah, because you get those guys up from Hampton and all that stuff. Virginia, that wouldn't be fair to call it the southeast or nothing. So, but anyways, you know, it's just is, it's, it's really important. I love racing in an Xfinity series.

I love being an owner there, and it's been amazing being a part of that side of NASCAR as well. And there's a lot of, you know, we have a lot of great employees and a lot of people have come through this shop. But I told Kelly, I said, I don't care what happens. Where we go, what we do with our company, Junior Motorsports, whether we're Exfinity, whether we're cut one day, whether we're trucks, and we've been a little bit of all of them, we will always have late model cars. Whatever we need to do, whatever it is we need to keep in place or the structure,

I always want to be sending late model cars to a racetrack somewhere to compete because I just, I don't know, I just know what that experience is about. I think that I miss that a lot. I think, like Josh, talking about not being able to enjoy the wins, like, I miss my late model career so bad, and I didn't enjoy any of it. I was worried to death,

and it was the best time I ever had, driving race cars. And you didn't know it at the time. Didn't even know it. And, you know, I'd moved on to Xfinity, which had a great time in that and cup. but not as fun as late models. Because when late models, you're doing it with your buddies, you're doing it all yourself.

The reward emotionally and personally is so satisfying. I mean, what Josh has done, he could go and race an Xfinity car or a cup car and become champion, champion in those divisions. But he'll never have the personal reward of what he has done this year. he'll never match it because he had to be all things and he had to do it himself and he knows that um he'll no matter where he goes from here he won't wear all those hats right right um it's incredible

um and i i tell josh all the time and i don't know he'll maybe realize it maybe he realizes it now maybe he'll realize it decade from now but i'm so thankful for you um you when we when we were racing late models we had we were winning like a race randomly i mean when i got a call that we had won somewhere it was a shock it really was but you know and you know it was eventful um and i had a lot of different drivers come through the program but when you got here and teaming up with you has been the best decision we ever made for our late model program and the way you have approached it with you know, professionalism, your work ethic, everything about it, you have just been perfect. And you've turned the program into something I never imagined it would be capable of.

Winning, being a threat, no matter where you go, is only for a few elite drivers. And those names live forever. Max Presswood, Barry Beggerley, some guys from my people. past, Philip Morris, those names will be remembered forever and you're in that group. Josh Barry is now one of those names. People will remember you for decades and decades because of who you became and the threat that you are when you show up to the racetrack. I never thought in a million years, I never even, you know, I dream.

I had expectations and hopes, but never that much, you know what I mean, never that big, and you made it happen, man. And I'm just so thankful for how you've stuck with it, you know. And you've tried to create new opportunities for yourself. You race in a truck series, you race in the Xfinity series. And every young driver, and I still consider you young, every young driver that's racing in the late model cars carries that frustration with them

of knowing they're good enough and knowing they belong in that next level and knowing that they have to be patient to wait on that chance to come or never come, right? And you carry that frustration with you, but you hide it well and you keep on going down the road and being productive with what you have

and the tools that you have with you. And I just really appreciate it. man, I don't think that we'll ever do anything like this again with anyone else, and it'll never be like this again. You know, we'll win with you as long as we can go down that road, and as long as you want to go down that road, but it'll never be like this again with anyone else. And I can't overstate how big this accomplishment, really,

the Martinsville win and this national championship is to me. I can't overstate it. Yeah, I mean, I just never would have dreamed the amount of success we've had, especially the last few years, man. I just feel like I've just, we've just taken such a huge step with what we do, like the last three or four years, and it's just been incredible, really. I mean, just when I started, we've told the story, you know, plenty of times with, you know, us talking on irasin and getting the opportunity.

But, I mean, when I was, if I look back, on me 10 years ago. I mean, I was just, I just wanted to drive a late model. I just wanted to get to race. I mean, that was not an option for me. I mean, I was this, you know, this close to not racing anymore, you know, just because we just didn't have the money. I mean, that was it. I mean, we didn't have the money. I didn't, I mean, I didn't know what to do. I was just out of school. Like, do I go to school? Do I start working? Yeah, I worked at a bank. You know, I'm like, do I keep doing that. You know, I like, I wanted to race, but I mean, it just wasn't, it just wasn't going to happen. What did you do at the bank? I was a teller. I did that in high school.

It was pretty cool, actually. I like that, Mike. Yeah, I like that. But, yeah, I did that and worked on my race car. And, you know, I just, I mean, I never got to, I mean, all the racing pretty much I did. It was me and my dad. My dad helped me. And as I grew older, pretty much, the race car was my responsibility.

And I just learned that, you know, and I think that, you know, him, I mean, he basically just left it up to me to do it. You know, if I didn't want to put in the effort to work on the race car, we didn't go race. I mean, he did whatever he could to help me financially to get us there and all that. But, you know, it was up to me to do the work. And I think, you know, I wish I saw more younger drivers have that, you know, just desire. I mean, a lot of them just don't. The work. Yeah.

I mean, it's just what you got to do. I mean, if you want to, I mean, you just got to put in work, you know, to be able to do this stuff. And I feel like that that helped me, even though I think for the longest time, we didn't really get all the pieces in the right spot. like I think we all knew that something we were going the right direction just like I said the last couple years to accomplish all we've accomplished I mean I just can't I mean winning Martinsville and then winning this I mean that's something that you know you know when I was starting I saw Lee Pulliam doing all this stuff and I thought you know I mean God in you know we've had our run-ins but I mean he I have I mean he's probably the best race car driver I've ever seen and kind of

to see him do that and not make it. I mean, it's kind of like, so I feel like I'm approaching that point where people are looking at me saying, man, you know, but I think me and him both would say there's nothing wrong with being a damn good short track race. Listen, if it all ended tomorrow, and I want to be, if it all ended tomorrow,

Josh Barry's significance on a racetrack needs to be remembered as one of the great, one of the greats if it ended tomorrow if he never won another race if he never raced another race that's why i'm so glad to hear kind of what you're saying because i hope the people listening to this podcast uh it it resonates with them on the significance not just of josh's season which has been remarkable but of what he has done as a man as a as a as a part of a company and what he's endured and it's not easy it's not even easy for us to somewhat sometimes why in that when William Byron goes off and wins a cup race.

Yeah. Knowing, you know, or when Sam Mayer gets his thing and Christian Eckers, every time I hear one of the stories, I think none of them would be there without Josh. Yeah. And Josh hasn't got that break. And I don't want Josh to be defined by whether or not he ends up being a career NASCAR cup or a Xenity driver because his accomplishments, in my opinion, exceed all of those other guys put together.

Because of not just what he's done on the track, but what he's done for all of them. So I'm glad to hear you say that. And I just, you know, Josh, like, I don't think that you don't get the credit you deserve because of the level in which you've dominated is, you know, it just doesn't get the attention as much. But if we can do something about that,

I think we need to do a better job of that, frankly, you know? And Dale, to what you said, too, you know, mentioning some of those late model stock names, you know, what I think what we all agree about, not trying to, you know, blow you up here and pump your tires, Josh, is we all want, because we grew up with these heroes in the short track ranks that won every week. They were your guys to beat no matter where you went, you know. And when we talk about short track racing, so much of the industry is about, oh, who's the next guy that's going to make it to cup, you know, and do this. Right, as if that's what defines them.

Us guys in racing, look at those Bob Seneckers or, you know, Gary Sienamont, or you look at those grizzled veterans all over the place, you know, Herschel McGriff, those guys, and now you're in that fraternity now. You're entering that fraternity now that you're becoming a veteran racer and you're winning these titles and doing these things. You're now in that list of those short track guys that become your short track hero. Hero status. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. And I think it's amazing. Who else can make this uncomfortable for Josh right now? Anybody else want to take a pump your tires? I'm good. I'm just soaking in. Soke it in. I mean, like I said, I feel the same way about you.

I mean, I can't thank you enough for all you've done for me. I mean, just for you to say that, that it made it worth it. I mean, that's what it's all about. I mean, we're all in this together. I mean, we can't do it without each other. Well, it's been a lot of fun. And no matter what we do beyond this, it's been, it's been something that I'll never be able to equal again,

just the experience for me. I just know that I'll never be able to equal it. And that's great. Yeah, don't want to. No, I don't. Enjoy it. I think that I'll give you the same advice, some of the best advice that I ever got is enjoy it.

And I know you've got to get ready for a race this weekend. I know that. But when you do get that moment, don't let it pass. When you get that moment to celebrate it, don't worry about overstatement or over celebrating it because you should get everything out of it you can. You'll only be a national champion the first time one time.

We may go win another national championship. We don't know what's in the future, but this accomplishment is absolutely worth celebrating as hard as you want to celebrate it and feel as proud as you want to feel. And hopefully there's, You know, hopefully there's a lot more in the future. We'll just have to see where we go from here.

I don't know. It's always a changing landscape. We talked about that with Chase Briscoe in the Xfinity series, how guys are moving in and out of the series so fast and how the landscape and the identity of it keeps changing. It's kind of the same for you in your shop over there with who drives that car year to year and where you plan to go and race. But good luck this weekend.

It's going to be fun to watch that one. Yeah, that'll be a big show. Yeah, that'll be a big show. Especially since the Martinsville race is not on the table anymore for anybody, don't you think that you're going to see so many cars show up to this race because of the purse? I would think, I mean, I haven't, I haven't, I think they posted an entry this afternoon, but I haven't seen, I don't think it'll be, it's not going to be Martinsville. I think Martinsville just holds that prestige that, you know, if people come in.

But, I mean, I think they'll have a good field. And honestly, I know we've kind of made light of it, but, I mean, we have to say, you know, hats off to them for even holding that race with that kind of purse. All right. Let alone, they've changed events and moved schedules, but they've honored, you know, everything that they were going to do from the beginning of the year, and they paid exactly what they said they were going to pay throughout the whole year. The car store.

Yes. Yeah, the car store has. And, I mean, I think that they deserve some credit. Hats off to the cars tour for sure. We've raced in that series a long time, and I'm not going to put words in your mouth. But for me, it's been a pleasure to watch you compete into cars tour. And they run a great program, a great series with a lot of prestige. We've been very proud to be successful in it.

It's been a privilege for me to have cars compete in it. One thing they did this year that I really loved is they went to I-95 Florence Motor Speedway. I used to race there every Friday night in the 90s, and then we go to the beach on Saturday. But to see them go to a new track on their schedule that's an old track that's sort of rebranding itself and trying to survive in these times means a lot to me. And so, yeah, I'm excited to see you compete in the cars tour. again. It's kind of cool that with everything that did happen, that you were able to go and capture this national title,

but wrap your season up with a Cars Tour race where you've kind of been spending most of your years over the last racing last five or six years. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, a lot's been made out of us doing that, but I mean, really, for all of us, I mean, it was kind of like a bucket list thing to go after.

Absolutely. It was nothing against them. It's just an opportunity to go do it. Yeah. And, I mean, we did it. Where is this $30,000 race again? Greenville Pickens. Greenville Pickens. Very close. Yes, it is.

Driving distance. Yes, it is. They have fans. Yeah. And they have that tier on the backstretch where you can park if you're a fan. Is it a Sunday race or Saturday? Sunday. Sunday?

Oh, I can't make it down. You can park your vehicle on that tier. Ralph Earnhardt was a track champion there a couple times. He's on, painted on the wall. Yeah, he's painting on the wall. I think it's 56 maybe. Well, buddy. Good luck.

Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. I hope everybody enjoyed having you. are listening to your story and national champion. That's right. Josh Berry. Thank you. National champion.

What does that trophy look like? National champion. I just like saying that. It used to be like a bowl. National champion. Like a silver. Well, this year it's been, you know, rebranded as advanced auto parts.

So I don't, so no one really knows. Yeah, maybe different. Yeah. Well, when, you're doing a lot of media this week, right? Or today. When's this,

they're going to have like a banquet of sense? Yeah, that's the one thing that sucks. They don't have a banquet for it. You're going to have to throw a party or something. I've been thinking, man, about getting your, you know, you listed your guys and having y'all come to Whiskey River or something for a night. Well, that's what, yeah, we'll have to figure out once we get a little. Like I said, the banquet is virtual, so I don't really know what that's going to entail.

But unfortunately, for them, a lot of them, that was a big, you know, being part of that, that, you know, made it worth it. So we have to figure out something. You know, to. Well, I'm just saying, just us get together just even something like that. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. All right, man.

Yep. Thank you. All right. We can fire up as Jr. All right. You live? It is fired up. All right.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. Thanks for supporting Dirtymo Media and the YouTube page. We love you guys chime, tune in and interact with our show. I love the live sort of segment that we do here. Thanks to Xfinity. Where's our Xfinity placard? Where is our Placred?

Let's get our Xfinity placard. over here because they are a big supporter of our podcast. There it is. Spinity! Yay! They are premier partner of NASCAR and a great supporter of our podcast here as well with their X-Fi internet speed. It's very fast and it's going to go by quick, like this segment.

So I'm a customer of Xfinity. Now, you know, of course you get, of course you are. You know, you probably get all the free stuff. But actually, I pay for Xfinity service at a vacation home. And I just became a customer last year. I love it. So very, very dependable. I've had an internet service from other different companies and not so dependable.

But this one's been sturdy. Anyways, Leah's got your guys questions. So let's get started. Yeah, I do. First one coming from Philip Smith's. After Chase Elliott was having radio issues on Sunday, have you had any similar radio issues in your career? Yeah, I think there's been some problems from time to time.

push-to-talk buttons or things like that. And just like with Chase, they'll try to hand you some equipment in there and you try to do the best you can under caution to put it in and fix it. We had a great argument over between me and Jeff Burton in the booth under commercial. They're like, yeah, Chase is coming down pit road and he's going to get another set of earplugs. And Jeff and Lattart and Rick Allen are like, oh, that's impossible. How's it going to put them in? Impossible.

Can't do it. No chance, right? I'm like, what are you talking about? You just, I mean, is that a caution? Probably not the best thing in the world to do, but you undo the bottom of the helmet. You just shove it up a little bit. And you can get in, you can pull the other ones out and get in there and put the new ones in.

It's not impossible. It's not. Right? I mean, you're looking at me like, you know, I'm, I'm on your, I'm on your side on this one. It's not hard. Okay. They were like, no chance in hell can't get their plugs in. like the helmet made it entirely unreasonable to even think so.

So that's interesting that they were so adamant that there's no way possible. Boy, when Jeff Burton is made his mind up, you ain't changing it? No, sir. Well, did they do it? Actually, he ends up... Nope, it was impossible. He ends up pulling the plug on his... Well, they were like, we're going to give you some ear plugs.

And he's like, oh, okay, that's great. And they're like, we think that's what the problem is, is your earplugs. He goes, well, he pulls his earplugs in and out of his helmet, and it started working. Oh. Man, I sort of regret that. I wanted to see how possible that was. It is possible. You know why?

Because I've changed my earplugs without removing my helmet before. It's not like... That's hard. It's hard, and that's true, hard, but not impossible. Yeah. Next question. Next question coming from David, Martin. Dale, you're a historian of the sport.

Who did the first victory burnout or donuts? Do you know? Oh, there is a... Jack Sprag? In NASCAR, I believe it was Jack Sprague. Yeah. I don't know historically, but I would say my first recollection of one was late 90s, Alex Zanardi, doing donuts with the Chip Canassie target car.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think you're right. So we'll give it to the Zanardi. but in NASCAR, I believe it was Jack Sprags in the Truck Series maybe at Richmond. Yes, yes. Good grief you guys.

This is ridiculous. Both of you. Both of y'all have problems. Sometimes I really love you. Y'all are just disgusting right now. All right, next question. I'm going to ask you both, like, how old are your kids? And none of y'all are going to get that answer right, except you will remember stuff like that.

All right, Dale, number one, Steeler fans watching on YouTube. your dad ever race at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, South Carolina? I don't know. I think he, my. Cherokee, I believe he would have. Yeah. Probably for one of those, you know, like. It was dirt, right?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. He might have went down there. Yeah, he might went down there in the 70s with Robert G. running that orange and white 17. Not sure. Good question. Yeah.

Randy, the Texan, wants to know, what are some proposed or rumored tracks that were never built? I remember rumors about New York City, Denver area. and possibly a Pacific Northwest track, any other interesting track locations, or intriguing configurations. Yeah, me and Kelly got wrapped up in a deal of Birmingham's Alabama.

They were trying to build a motorsports park down there. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they were going to build like kind of a Richmond-style three-quarter mile oval. That never happened. The Alabama Motorsports Park. Yeah, I think the economy turned in 08 or something or something like that.

It just was an improbable. I did at that point, but yeah, I think there was talk, there's always kind of been talks about like Long Island or New York City. Do you ever hear about the Eldora one? What? Have you ever heard about the Eldora track that almost got built? Nope. They almost built a mile long dirt track about a mile away from Eldora.

Huh. And you could still see the outline of it. Oh, they started to mess with it? Started to. Yeah, it just never happened. In NASCAR? Uh, no. Yeah, I think that's what you mean.

Oh, it's the question NASCAR? I think so. Well, yeah. Just tracks in general, I guess. I got you here. I got you. I don't know. Um, I think, yeah, they've always talked about building one up in, um, northeast part of the country.

Um, trying to think. I think, I think of. I'm just reading the chat here. Somebody says Staten Island, New York. Staten Island. Yeah, there was, yeah. There's a lot of land there and, uh, garbage dumps and, and landfills and landfing. And landfills.

A.B. is watching on YouTube, and he wants to know what other discussions you and Jeff Burton have behind the scenes. I heard Rick Allen mention something after coming back from commercial. Yeah. Take us during a commercial. What do you do in? We got into another argument at Talladega. I love this.

He's like, well, he kept saying on the broadcast when the cars would tandem. And he keeps saying, now the lead car needs to. to be dragging the brake here. You got to drag the brake. He's dragging the brake. Now look at these two guys tandeming. The lead car's dragging the brake. We go to commercial and I said, hey, Jeff,

quit telling everybody the lead car is dragging the breaker. Needs to be dragging the breaker. The only way they can tandem is if he's dragging the brake because it's not true. Quit. He was like saying that over and over. And he goes, yes, it is true. You can't tandem without dragging a brake. And I was like, yes, you can.

You can tandem without, I mean, we're like arguing. Like kids. And he was like, I'm going to tell you right now. You cannot tan them unless the lead car is staying on the brake pedal. And I was like, that's not true. You can tandem without the lead car having to use the brake pedal. And so we got in a big argument about that. And his experience is when him and, I think, Clint did tandem and they won that race at Talladega.

And he's like, I was on the brake the whole time, whole race. And I was like, fine. You probably didn't have to be. He was convinced that that was the only way they were going to stay locked up. And he goes, all right, he says, well, if you're in tandem and somebody's side drafts the second place car, it breaks them up. But if you're on the brakes, it won't break you up. And I'm like, I don't know if I believe that. I know it would break, you know, that side draft does bust them up, but that's how you busted them up.

Bust up tandem, side draft the second place car. but he was like hell bent couldn't change his mind and then we went a few more segments and we got into another commercial break and Rick Allen goes man I really love that argument you guys were having that was hilarious and Jeff goes

yeah I was arguing with a six-time winner Talada I had a tandem draft which to be clear to his credit I hit I hated the tandem I didn't think I was very good at it didn't try to be very good at it because I had a bad attitude about it And you didn't drag the brake.

Damn, you didn't have to. So when Newman's, when I'm pushing Newman, the race bragg has Lasky wins in driving. Yeah, the car Edwards. Teledegger, yeah. Yeah. I'm pushing Newman. We're leading. And we're way out in front.

Yeah. And I feel like, I feel like Newman's all over the brake pedal. And I kept hollering over the radio. I was like, tell him to get off a freaking break. Tell him to get off the break. They're catching us. and I swear Newman was on the break, and we've never talked about it. So I'm all against that brake pedal if you're tandem.

If me and you ever tandem and you're the lead car, stelfth brakes, please. Anybody got any more questions? Yeah, we got. Ask him about Jeff Burton again. Mental note. Jeff Burton has a question. Evan Anderson wants to know. We've seen many F1 drivers racing NASCAR on I-Racing for years.

have you ever tried racing on any of the F1 games? No. You know, I don't, I'm exclusive to eye racing when it comes to racing simulators or games. You know, I don't, I just, I used to, Dirt to Daytona was great. I enjoyed that. And that was a while ago, but original NASCAR heat on the PC was pretty fun. But nothing, to me, competes with I race. racing and I just love that experience of triple monitors, my PC.

I love, you know, everything about it. When it comes to, like, upgrading my system, that's fun. I love the technical IT sort of side of messing with computers and working with them, trying to make them work. And then, I like, you know, I like the software. You know, I racing's got a great product. I was on there last night racing, so. but the F1 they do have an F1

they do have a lot of open wheel cars on there and F1 on there but I haven't messed around with that too much Speaking of which I noticed on the IndyCar series Has you as a contestant or a candidate for a fan vote Favorite I Racing guest In the IndyCar series did you see this? I have not Yeah

Do we need to go try to campaign for an award here? I don't think so I don't think we knew he was going to say about it. I know he's not I'm looking to leave We don't campaign No, no, you don't. This is our campaign right here. We know there's two things you don't do.

Campaign and drag the break, but we do. I ain't dragging a break. Yeah, I think there was a fan favorite guest. Yeah, that's the award. Yeah, during the virtual. During the virtual season for the IndyCar series. That's pretty cool to even have that. Pretty neat.

You can go vote for Dale. He won't say it, but he can go vote for them on social media. No, no, wait. Where can you vote? Hold on a second, Del. You can't interrupt. I know you don't want a campaign. IndyCar Twitter.

At IndyCar. All right. Add IndyCar Twitter. Dirty Mo Media might put it out later. Junior Nation, you have your instructions. All right, guys. All right. Well, hey, thanks for tuning in.

Hope you guys enjoyed Asch Jr. presented by Xfinity, the premier partner of NASCAR, and a great partner for this podcast. Thanks to Xfinity for all they do for our sport. Best way to keep up with NASCAR and Dirtymo Media all season long is with Xfinity. This is beyond Wi-Fi. This is X-Fi. And everybody knows this, but just keep your questions coming in to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter

and at Dirtymo Media as well, using the hashtag Ask Junior for a chance to have your questions answered by Dale Jr. himself. Shout out to Xfinity, premier partner of NASCAR. All right, guys, time for last call. The Dale Jr. download is on NBCSN this Wednesday at 5 p.m. Lost Speedways on Peacock TV, and I hear now Peacock is available on Roku. I inadvertently, unintentionally, ended up buying a couple Roku TVs. I was in need of a couple TVs, and I went to the store, and I just walked up to the shelf and said, those will do.

When I got home, I found out that they were Roku TVs. Wow, that's interesting. And so I am now a Roku customer. And it's a pretty damn neat little deal. Cool. Yeah, I like it. I like it. Well, guess what?

Now you could have Peacock on your TV. It's pretty easy. They got the app for your phone, and it's very controlled the TV through your phone. But, yeah, Peacock is now on Roku, and I hear that Lost Speedway is doing very well on Roku. That's right. Who knew? Listen to Doerb Up or Clear, one of our favorite podcasts here at Dirtymo Media. Probably the second-best racing podcast out there.

It's on all major podcast platforms. T.J. Majors, Brett Griffin, and Freddie Craft, your favorite. your favorite spotters are going to argue. Probably. Great, great show. Oh, we got some gifts. Is that right? Yeah, I got here.

What could this be? I got a Myrtle Beach Speedway. Let's see, Myrtle Beach Speedway. I helped put a period on history. And if you look at the back of it, you know, I sponsor it with Lost Speedways, but Mike Neff with the Racing Brotherhood wanted you to have them since you were a huge part of Myrtle Beach's history. Awesome. So we got one for you, buddy. And then Mike has a really cool one.

I think you're going to really dig this. This is cool for my buddy Jeremy. Whoa, look at is a custom hat made just for you with Myrtle Beach Speedway, authentic patch on it. And we figured it would be a really cool hat for you to wear. You love vintage hats, even though it's new. But my buddy with Gearhead there got it done for you. And one for Mike.

Mike. Is the Alabama one for me? Alabama one is for you, buddy. I thought of it for Dave. Awesome. I love that. I love it. Thank you, man.

Appreciate the gifts. That is awesome. Always fun getting some cool custom stuff. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you, Jeremy. All right, guys. Great show. Thanks, Chase Briscoe.

Thanks, Josh Berry. Great-ass junior. Great questions from all our supporters out there. Enjoy your week. Texas coming up this weekend should be a lot of fun. We'll see you next week. This bit of bad assery was made. by Dirtymoe media.

Dirtymoe.