The Dale Jr. Download - 322 - Chad Knaus: Pushing the Limits

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

It's a Chad Knaus, few ever get to know. Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with the 7-time NASCAR Championship Crew Chief in a wide open interview on the Download.Knaus' journey to becoming Jimmie Johnson's crew chief started in the grassroots midwest wrenching on his father's Late Model racecars. That short track grind taught many valuable lessons that he took with him on an unlikely journey to the heart of Stock Car Auto Racing, Charlotte, N.C. Knaus speaks of the failures in his first attempts to get into NASCAR, and how it landed him back home, and far away from his dream of becoming a big-time crew chief.A bold phone call and an overnight stay in the Hendrick Motorsports parking lot finally opened the door for the journeyman crew member. Under the guidance of Ray Evernham, Knaus did it all. Then, he moved on. But why? The journey from team to team, including working for Dale Earnhardt Inc, wasn't always smooth for the Illinois native. But, it did include some memorable moments with Dale Sr., and a promise with Rick Hendrick that helped shape his future Hall of Fame career.Chad, Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis talk about management by strengths and how Chad Knaus' direct personality is off the chart in the Hendrick system. He also shares some of the incredible attributes of his seven-time NASCAR Cup Series Championship driver, Jimmie Johnson. Dale Jr. and Chad discuss what it was like working together, as two completely different personalities, on the Hendrick Motorsports team. Knaus' aggressive style landed him in trouble and Dale asks him about the "creativity" he brought to an organization constantly pushing the envelope.Dale reminisces about the time he dumped Knaus' driver Stacy Compton, and how a bloody-nose may have saved him from a confrontation with the crew chief.Chad Knaus will start a new role for Team Hendrick in 2021, stepping off the pit box and into a managerial role. He reveals what has him most excited about the future with a flood of younger talent rising through the organization.Aside from the interview, Dale Jr. brings a lot to the table... including a giant tub of shredded beef jerky. The DJD gang tries the unusual snack. Social Media guru Leah Vaughn didn't try the beef, but she did bring a ton of questions to Dale in the Ask Jr segment presented by Xfinity. Jr. breaks down Kevin Harvick missing the Championship 4 and shares his take on a controversial decision by Erik Jones' #20 team that helped Denny Hamlin advance to the Phoenix finale. Dale also shares why he became an iRacing executive and how nobody will replace Clint "Eastwood" Bowyer. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a good idea, actually. Giving time for Alla videos. That makes a day better than that. That'll reset. That's smart. When she laughs, it is really sweet. She's got the good giggle going on. She's got that really, yeah.

I got her. Thank you. Amy goes to that monster, she goes, yeah. I'm pretty scared. Listen to it. What's that? The boys are coming. It's a monster?

Yes. I'm foodie sayer. Oh, I love it. I'm foodie sayer. That's hilarious. Oh, my gosh. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr.

Welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. download. I got my co-host, Mike Davis, here with me. Leah's in the house. Matthew's in the house. We got Hall of Fame crew chief, Jack and Al's coming on the show. We got an ass junior and a whole lot more shredded

beef. Uh-oh. No. No. Not again. Shredded beef jerky. No. Shredded beef jerky. I got some for everybody. Let's get the show started. The Dale Jr. Download. I brought you guys your very own cat food. Let's see this.

Yeah. There you, Mike. It's like flavored sawdust. This. Yes. Flavored sawdust. Is that a good explanation? Matthew, will you please take her? Leah's got to have one. Oh, I think I think I'm good. So Dale Jr. is passing out. Future husband can try it.

He's got basically. Oh, no. He's obsessed with this stuff. So for those listening at home, Dale Jr., has a big tub of shredded beef jerky. The beef jerky is in these cans, like these little snuff cans. And now he's throwing them across the room.

One more. Good commentary there. So everybody has Jack Link's original. All right, everybody's got one. Am I right? Yeah, yeah. All right. All right, all right.

I'm glad. I still have like 25 left. Thanks, Dale. I hope this wasn't our Christmas. I'm so thankful. You guys are so welcome. Is that the tub that you have in your truck, or does that come from the house? This comes from the house.

Okay. I just wanted to share. Okay. So thoughtful. So kind. I can't wait. It's an unscrew? You got to stick, you got to take your razor sharp thumbnail.

and open it, cut the paper. Shred it. Shred the paper. I swear that sawdust. It looks like cat food sawdust. Oh my God, it smells awful. It smells like jerky. Hey, Dale, make it Dustin right now. Do that again.

Does Dustin do it? Dustin, it's good, eh? No, no, do what you just did. That's how you eat it. That's how you eat it. Like he's a chihuahua eating food out of a can. It's the easiest way to eat it. What's the point of just cut the middleman out, which is your hand?

Just go straight in. Your tongue in it or you dump it in your mouth. It's so dry. Well, yeah. Sreaded beef jerky. Look, there he goes. I've got a taste test coming. Matthew Dillner.

What do you think? It's weird. It's weird. Texture's weird. I wish it was wet. Gross. That would be really gross. Then it would seriously be considered.

A lot of dirty jokes being set out there in podcast land. That would really make the already chewed feature more realistic. As you get it. you get it, the mixes in with your saliva, it actually tastes pretty good, because I like beef jerky the flavor, so it tastes like beef jerky. It's just weird texture first. It is beef jerky. That's why it tastes that way. Anyone else?

Jerky chew. It says jerky chew. That's okay. That's different. Come on, Leah. Leah, are you trying to open it? No, no, no, I was just reading the label. Don't be silly. We're going to wait on you. Don't be silly. Just send it. I'm actually impressed that they're, you know, I can pronounce almost all the ingredients in here.

Oh, my God. It's good. Okay. Come on. Don't be silly to send it. I think I'll save this. I think I'll save this. Thank you. Oh, Mike. Yeah, Mike. Come on, Mike.

I got faith to you. Take your fingernail. There you go. Get in there, Mike. James is opening his. Camera people are eating jerky. I can't get through that. Oh, here we go.

Here we go. Jason Schultz hasn't eaten his. Shultz don't look like he's going to be eating his. It's tough to get into. Come on, damn, shults. Take your fingernail. He's a damn jerky. Go around in a circle.

Hey, while I do this, it should be noted. Jack Lings isn't exactly a sponsor of our show or anything. You have people that think that this is a paid deal. It's not. It's not a paid deal. This is all free. Although the Jack Links people did reach out to us and said, thank you. Oh, really?

All right. We like what we like. I like the Sasquatch. I'm going to pour it in. I'm not doing what you're going to do. Do it. Oh, gosh. This is awful.

Mike, think of the Jacklings, folks. I'm sorry. You just ruined the deal. No, I didn't. No. Think of the future deal. It ruined me. Freeing jerky forever.

No, listen, I love beef jerky. But this is sawdust, man. Wait. I'm watching it. How long do I got to wait? Well, you dumped a big pile of it in your mouth. Once it gets wet, it's good. I've swallowed it now, and I'm still waiting.

It's a good moist. No. What good is that? You might as well just... I'm just telling you. Beef jerky is good without shredding. Chewing it already. Yeah.

I like that weight also. He's eating his He's eating his In a very moderate pace Whereas Mike Tried to pile Stick a whole pile in it Mike Mike

What is Mike? What are you doing? You don't put the whole can in your mouth How could that be enjoyable In any way That would look like a huge bite You're talking to me like you're an expert And how much shredded beef jerky

You're supposed to go in No I'm not You have no idea I'm washing it down with the Twix What are you eating now? I'm eating at Twix afterwards Of course yes That's such a great thing

To wash it down with wash down well that's not everyone washes everything down with Twix bar you know ain't no chaser like a Twix chaser yeah

well the the second bite was better than the first maybe it was just my body going what the hell culture consistency is this yeah

it doesn't all right it didn't know very good um I wasn't sure about how you guys felt about us saying the word redneck. Doesn't bother me. They're bothering anybody?

We're sitting here eating shredded beef jerky in a table, and you're worried about what people might say if we say redneck. All right. So Will Cronkite, all right, Will Cronkite has wrote a book, and it's called NASCAR Redneck. I was a NASCAR redneck. He says, these are the recollections of the transformation of a Yankee Farm Boy to a Southern Redneck in the Golden Era of NASCAR and Beyond.

The foreword in this book is by Humpy Wheeler. Ooh. I have read some excerpts, I guess, was what you'd call them. And Dad drove a car for wheel in 1978. We had it right here on the table right here. Yep. Actually, I think I would credit this particular car and wheel for really giving dad the opportunity to show what he could do. We had a couple good runs.

And he was able to run multiple events in 1978 with Will. But I can't wait to read this book. I just got it today. I actually, I don't forget where I saw where I could order this, but I put my order in, and I just wanted to give Will a little love. Yeah. And a little sign postcard in here with him and my father. Oh, that's cool.

Even right at the page 317, my first race with Dale Senior. Did I tell you all about any of this? Didn't I read this? No. Hold on one second. Okay. It's a really cool spot in here that I thought was pretty damn incredible. Will talks about when they learned that they would be racing together,

that Dad came over to his shop, okay, to fit the seat. All right? It was, so he's coming over, Dad's coming over to Will's shop in 1978 to fit the seat in this car. Dad is getting the opportunity of his life. to race this car at Charlotte. One of the best cars that he's, one of the best cars by far that he's probably had a chance to drive

in the Cup Series. So I'll just start here. It was a 45 minute, it was 55 miles from Dale's house to my shop, and he arrived in 45 minutes. He arrived in an old blue pickup with a small boy sitting at his side. Oh, this is cool.

When we got out of the truck, he went around to the pasture side door, rolled down the window, closed the door so that the boy could look out and watch what we were doing. I was expecting to have to add some padding to make the seat fit someone who was clearly smaller than the man who drove it before, Buddy Baker, and maybe relocate the seat somewhat by redrilling some mounting holes or maybe add a bracket or two, something simple. Four hours of adjustments later, I'm not exactly smiling, as we had not only made all of the aforementioned of modifications, we had made a new seat frame, assembly, and cut and lowered the floor board in the car,

which resulted in the seat being both lower and further back. My nice new race car had weld and grind marks all over the floor, and my stomach was sore from climbing in and out of the car. Once in a while, as I was struggling with something, I would look up and he would display that Cheshire cat grin, and without speaking, hand me a wrench or climb in the other window to help. We both had worked up a sweat and had been, at it for more than four hours taking time off only to get a drink as Dale went to check on the

small boy who had kept quiet but constant who had kept a quiet but constant vigil on our progress and while all the while he watched his nose was running and because he was continuously pressed up against the grass there were a number of tracks running down the door glass I do not recall him speaking but he was always at the window when I looked over at him wow that was me wow wow Yeah, cool. That's awesome. That is amazing that he remembers that too. Yeah, right?

Daddy took me to, I guess Daddy probably had nowhere else to put me, so I had to probably go, but. I bet you don't remember that, do you? Hell no, I was four years old. What is so interesting is that when you get to be able to have this little glimpse at something you don't remember, but, man, is that not a cool little depiction of you at four years old that you otherwise would never get? I'm just glad that I was, I minded. Right, right. You didn't know how that story was going to end up.

You're a good boy. The next chapter could have been the part where the boy was unruly, and that was the end of D'Elleranard's career with him because he didn't want to have that kid come back around the shop. He didn't have to get the belt down. Yeah, right. I felt sorry for that kid after that whooping he took. Right.

All right. Let's get on with the show here. All right, you guys ready to bring in our guest, Chad Canals? Yeah, how do you want us to do it? Well, we're going to open the door and he's going to come in. Like we always do. Great idea. It's not overthink this, David.

Jimmy Johnson through three and four. Big Rood, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. There's another seven-time champ. Man, I am so proud of you. So proud of you. You're a good man. You're a great champion. Now you're a seven-time champion, brother.

Hey. Hey, man. Come on in. Let's see everybody. This is like, you know, where we have to have our masks off. It's like we don't even want to leave these chairs. Right. We weren't even going to do a show this year,

but this is the part where you can take your mask off. So we said, hey, let's just do the show. Let's just keep doing this. 24-7. All right, so, Chad Ann, it's awesome to have you in the room. Man, glad to be here. I really am. How did this happen?

Like, the Jack announced from 10 years ago would have never came on my show because it's a Tuesday and there's work to be done. Well, it's a little different time, right? Is that true, first of all? Chad from 10 years ago, would not have come on the deal with your download He'd have said I ain't got time for that.

Well, I would have. I would have said maybe after work, but, you know, no, no. Maybe if you'd won the past Sunday, you might have done that. Yeah, it wasn't a personal thing, Mike. I can tell you that, no. It was just, man, we were working. We're working. There's stuff to do, you know, and there still is stuff to do.

And I don't want to downplay, you know, how serious we still are, you know, with the 24th, one more race, you know. One more race. Right, one more race. But, man, I felt like it was a good opportunity. And honestly, you know, the reason why I haven't done this before is because I was never asked. Oh, he turned it around.

He turned it back on you, I think. He does that. He does that. He does that. Yeah. Wow. So, Chad, man, you have a really awesome history with your family and how you came up through the sport.

And, I mean, most of people, I'm going to probably, I won't give them a lot of credit. I'm going to assume that they know you as Jimmy's crew chief and the seven-time champion. One of the best crew chiefs, let's just go ahead and say it. One of the best that's ever done it. But there's a lot more there. Right. And that's kind of what this show's all about. So talk to me about what's your first memory of seeing a car racing? What's the first time you remember going, oh, man, that's neat? Yeah.

Has it always been, were you born into it? I was, Dale, and, you know, not someone like you, honestly. My father, like you may or may not know, this, but my father drove late models and race cars up in the Midwest, and he was driving before I was born. So, you know, late 60s and I was born in 71, and, you know, I got really cool pictures of him with, you know, steel-bodied cars with, you know, the roll cage and the doors ripped off of it, and he's out of dirt track at Freeport, Illinois Speedway, you know, racing it up. And he was a guy, man, he was racing up there, and he was doing pretty good, racing with, you know, guys like, man, Dick Trickle, Tom Reffner, Joe Shear, you know, Larry Deachens, you know, I mean, just Junior

Hanleys and all those cats up there. I mean, cool dudes, right? And I can remember going to the racetrack with my dad. And my grandparents had an old Monte Carlo. And I would hop in the back when I was young because I would spend the summers with my father. My father and my mother were divorced. And, man, I would just trek along in the back of the Monte Carlo and go to follow my dad to the racetracks. One of my neatest experiences I remember is I do, I just popped into my head.

I can remember laying on my dad's creeper. He was on his back. And I was laying on his belly looking up. And he gave me a spray can. rattle can of paint and you just welded a bar on there he said all right go ahead and paint that man i couldn't have been four or five years old maybe and i remember i was like and i spray that and then it ran all over he's like no you're doing it all wrong and everything wrong for the next 10 or 15 years but what was your dad like oh man my dad we were starting from a point of knowing you yeah so if any type

of comparisons like uh from you to him help us understand who he was my dad my dad was a great race car driver man he was really good and, you know, his personality is very, very quiet kind of guy. I'm much more outgoing than what he was for sure. More of a reserved, very focused, very, very detail-oriented guy when it comes, especially to his race cars. He was really looked up upon in the Midwest in his heyday, a really good dude when it comes to that standpoint. Our relationship really wasn't, you know, the ideal father-son relationship.

In which way? Well, I really started working on his cars at a young age and being a pretty significant part of the team. And we kind of transitioned that way more. That was our element. That's where we really worked out well. I bounced around a little bit between my mom and my dad and whatnot. So with him, it was like, look, we're going to go work on the race car, and that's like our spot. Does that make sense?

You know, that was our comfort zone. And when you kind of got out of there, we were a little awkward. You know, still hard to this day a little awkward when we get out there, you know. So what was your, did you, did you drive? A little bit, not much. I went very good. Talk about that. It wasn't very good.

I want to know what, what was your first race? First race would have been an endurance at Rockford Speedway. How's that? Yeah. Number 189, baby. 1.89. You got a tattoo somewhere at 189. Don't lie.

Right on the right cheek. But, yeah, so that was my first one. No, no. Well, that was my first official. I subbed it in another one. I remember this. I subbed in another one, and it went a half lap. I was half lap canals.

So what they did, for a while, that was me. What they did is they'd run this Enduro around Rockford, you know, and the hoodies, right? You know, street stocks. And if it got boring, what they'd do, they'd turn the hose on coming out of turn two. You've got to get some action for the fans. And I remember I came out of there. I came off turn two.

I was like 13, man, you know, maybe 12 or something like that. Whoa! Right now. back straight away. It was awful. A half lap. But they turned the hose on. So that's, that's a little unfair for somebody in their first race. Still, still is pretty ridiculous. But anyway, so that was it. And, you know, some other small stuff, I really got into motorcycles, man. That was my big thing. Really? Yeah. What kind? Like street bikes or dirt bikes? No, like road racing. Oh, that's what I really enjoyed doing. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So how,

what do you mean got into that? What was your involvement? So we used to, we used to street race a lot. Like you were on the bike. You're riding the bike. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. I mean, I know you as a Creates. Yeah. Mechanic. Well, I mean, I was doing that, but I really liked racing motorcycles, and we would do it on the street around, you know. Illegally.

Yeah. I mean, don't tell anybody. I don't know. I don't know if you went to an official race. Well, I did some of that as well. Really? Yeah, man. Yeah, that was my deal.

Unbelievable. So I had a lot of fun. You had any pictures of you racing back then? Man, I got caught. Would you have the leathers and all that? Oh, yeah, baby. Oh, my God. Can you believe that?

That's pretty damn scary. Yeah, this is the crazy stuff. Yeah. Like the stuff that only your set of people. Only a set of people do this. I didn't know you were that kind of. I mean, I wasn't that good, but I did all right. I didn't know.

I didn't know you were that like the thrill seeker. Man, that's what I did. I loved motorcycles, man. I loved it. We used to race, man, I hope this doesn't come back to get me. You know what a clover leaf on the highway is? Yeah. All right.

So what we would do is you'd go down the highway and you'd race for two, three, four, five hundred bucks, whatever it is. And you'd be going down the highway, you know, tacking along at about 50. And you'd get to a line and both guys would go. And you'd race up to the clover leaf and you'd go around and around and around and around and around and back to you got back to the starting spot and whoever got their first one. That's how we all started, man.

How did you do that? How did you do that with, like, how did you avoid traffic and so forth? Well, we did most of the time of night. Right. Okay. There's still traffic at night. Probably not that much. You got evade, you know, that's part of the thrill.

That's another level of insanity that I didn't think that those bike racers could do, but he just did it on cloverly. Yeah, I've never seen him do anything like what? I mean, is there anything? Anything else, like thrill-seeker? No, I mean, I... That's pretty wild. I snowboard, you know, I do that.

I like that. Still. Oh, yeah, love it. So where are you with bikes? You don't mess with them. So here's what happened with that. So Ken Howes, who at the time was director of competition at Hendrick Motorsports, I sat down to sign my contract and I was like, man, I want to, you know, I'd like

to keep racing my motorcycle. I really enjoy it, you know? Wait, when you signed your deal at HMS, you're still messing with your bike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is so funny because we know Ken Howl. I can see this conversation coming. He's like, I'm like, look, if you guys don't mind, I want to keep race my motorcycle when I can.

And he's like, absolutely. And he's an enthusiast, man. He loves that, you know, motorcycles and Formula One and NASCAR and all that. And he said, he looked me dead in the eye. And he said, but you realize you get hurt, somebody will do your job. That was the last time I rode. Yeah. That was it.

I never rode again. I got maybe 15 miles on a bike after that. That's it. And I put everything into, just like what you were talking about earlier, is the race team, the 48. That's all I focused on for all those years. Well, help me understand when you, how you got from the Midwest,

working on your dad's car and all that to NASCAR. Yeah, so we were racing up there quite a lot. Up where? Up in Illinois, Minnesota. Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, all those places up there, right? And, man, a lot of great racers, man. The names are just phenomenal of folks we used to race against back then. And I can remember watching on TV, and I was actually at my buddy's house,

and we were racing at the Short Track Championships at Rockford Speedway, and I was staying at his house. And we were watching an old race, and it was actually, we were talking about your dad, and Kirk Showerdine and those guys, and I was like, man, I cannot wait to get the opportunity to be crew chief on a cup car. And he's like, what? I'm like, man, I'm telling you, I'm doing it. And he's like, no way. Really?

And I said, yeah. And he's like, I'll tell you what, I'll do whatever I can to help you. And his name was Jimmy Lauder. And he actually loaned me $1,000 to try to get me stable. So I get down here. And my aunt and uncle lived in Lumberton, North Carolina, which is just not too far away from about an hour and a half east. And I called him up and I said, hey, I want to get down to North Carolina to go racing.

You know, can I come down and stay with you guys? And they said, yeah. So they came up shortly after I graduated high school, only a few days. And I packed up everything I had in a little U-Haul trailer. We put it behind their Ford Taurus wagon and drove it down here. It was a motorcycle. Of course it was. A black and white TV and a basket of clothing.

That's really all I had in a little small U-Haul. Like I had eight-foot-long U-Haul. Like everything I owned was in that. I lived with them and I tried to get on with a cup team. And how did you go about doing that? Well, so like I had mentioned, we race with a lot of cool folks, Alan Quicki, Mark Martin, Rusty Wallace, a lot of those guys. And Mark was fantastic through this period of my life because I was doing, I just needed people. Like, I didn't know who to talk to.

I knew some guys that worked at a trucking company. I can't remember Barrett's or Barnets or somebody like that at that point. I knew that guy, so I was trying to use him to get some influence on a race team. But I would call Mark weekly after on a Monday. and be like, hey, you know, anything open over there yet? You know, you got any opportunities? So we were chatting, and he was passing me along to different folks. Alan Kowicki.

At that point, I actually had an opportunity to go to work with him. And it was great. It was going awesome. I was like, man, this is a shot with Alan. But what happened was he lost Xerox that same year. So when you go over to work at Allen's. But I didn't. You said you never made it.

Never made it. He lost his sponsor. and he called me up. He was like, look, I don't know if I'm going to have a deal next year. So I don't have anything for you. So that was pretty painful. So I lost that shot. And went on and on and on.

And I kept on sending, this one's funny. So Larry was at King Racing, Larry McReynolds. I had sent him a letter and a resume and all that. Roaned me back, which I still have the letter, said, sorry, young man, you're not qualified to come to work for us. Did the same thing with Hammond. He was at Sabco. and he said, no, no, we don't need you.

You're not qualified enough. And I got both those letters still. But the least they replied. They did. They were the only two that really replied. What were you wanting to do? I mean, probably anything. But like you had to have like an expertise.

You had to have like this is where I'd love to get. I'd love to work on this piece. No, no. Not back then, man. Back then it was that you did it all, right? You did it all. He did everything. You did body work.

You painted. You mechanic. You changed tires. You welded. You drove, drove the transporter to and from. You know, you did it all. That's true. And that's what I did, and that's how I learned with my dad.

And my father and I, we were very fortunate. We won a bunch of championships up north and a bunch of races. And he taught me the regimency you needed to run in a weekly series and be competitive year in and year out. And so I did a lot of stuff. But ultimately, what ended up happening, Dale, is the company I was working for in Lumberton, they gave me a choice. They said, look, where you're at right now? And I worked in the factory, man. We were building corrugated pipe.

advanced drainage system. You know that black corrugated pipe with the green stripe? Like I worked in the factory building this pipe. Loading trucks, just, I mean, hard, hard work. Like, these guys worked their butts off. And I didn't want to do that. They said, look, we'll give you an opportunity. You can go to Ohio and be an engineer.

Or you can go to Georgia and learn how to be a plant manager. And we'll take you through the system. And, man, you can be a plant manager by the time you're 20, 23 years old. And for a guy from Rockford, who doesn't have a lot of money, never had a lot of money. being a plant manager sound like a pretty cool deal but i'm like i just don't know if i want to do that so i took the engineering role and moved up to ohio cleveland and i did that for about six months and i wasn't an engineer i was self-taught but what i benefit what i gave those guys was i had a mechanical

mind but i had the hands where i could build things so i could take them from concept to paper to prototype and then handed off to production which was kind of a neat thing so it worked for a while and i was there for about six, eight months. And look, I'll be honest, man, they kept on, the engineering department was growing and growing and growing and all these folks that were coming in. They didn't draw like I did. I mean, I drew with a pencil and a piece of paper, and they were all drawing on computers. And I was like, this isn't going to be good for me. And honestly, I didn't really like it. So I moved back to Illinois. And do you think your race, your career pursuit of racing and NASCAR is over at this point? Or are you just saying this is just a pitch stop? I'm going to get back. I was thinking at that point.

when I took that job that, man, maybe the racing thing isn't what I want, but I knew I didn't want to work in a factory. I didn't want to go back to Illinois and work in, you know, Bowman bolts or Rockford Screw Products. So we're going through a process of elimination. Yeah, trying to figure out what I'm going to do. So I went back to the Midwest and I was working with my dad and some other race teams up there. Things were going pretty good. And then I got a call from Bush Hilton, who I'm sure you guys know him. He's a crew chief in the truck series, did some Xfinity stuff, some cup stuff. He was working with Stanley Smith. And so Butch Hilton was there.

Joe Shear Jr. was there. And I knew both of those guys from racing the Midwest. And I got the opportunity to go down there. And what an amazing two years of my life at this point. Yeah. It was, man, you just, I mean, we raced. We raced everything, right? Everything.

Cup. What was then Bush Grand National, sportsmen, late models. We did it all, man. And there's like six of us. But the crew that we had is what's amazing. I mentioned Butch and Joe. We had Philippe Lopez. We had Ronnie Crooks.

We had Todd Foster. And I know there's another one that I'm forgetting right now. But we had, like, everybody that was on that team ended up coming to Charlotte and being pretty prominent people in the series, which is really cool. And that was how I got down here full time. So you're working with them. What was the team after that? What was your move from? So.

So I went to the 24 car right after Stanley Smith's. Really? Yeah. Was that after Stanley's accident? No, that was actually the last car that I built for Stanley was the one that he crashed at Talladega, which was awful, awful. So we went to Atlanta in 92, and that was a big deal. That was Gordon's first race, the King's last race, and the 24 was actually parked right

next to us. So I'm with the 49 car, Stanley. Man, these guys show up. And they got this hot shot kid driver and all their equipment's brand new. And, you know, their toolbox is brand new. And all these guys are high and tight. And, man, I'm a, I'm a grease ball racer doing whatever I can to get, you know, the 49 car to make the race, right?

And I was like, man, one day I'd love to work on that team, right? What a cool deal to work at Hendrick Motorsports. And we went through the winter and started racing again. And Stanley started to run out of money. So, man, one day at lunch, I went home at lunch. I was living in a single wide trailer on Stanley Smith's property. This is where I live, man. Where I did the body work on our race cars, hung the body, did the body work,

was in my garage at the single wide trailer. Wow. And we used for the heat was a propane heater. You know, the little turbo heater guy, I can tell you how many times I would roll out of there sick from body filler dust and the kerosene fumes and all of that. It's a wonder I didn't die. But nonetheless, you know, I went home for lunch one day.

I'm just going to call. I'm just going to call. So I called Hendrick Motorsports. And they pick up. Nice lady says Hendrick Motorsports. And I said, yeah, may I speak to Ray Everingham? And she said, hold, please. And I was like, you're in a way this going to happen, right?

And next thing I hear is, this is Ray. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And I said, hey, Mr. Everingham, my name is Chad Canales. I work with Stanley Smith. I'd love an opportunity to talk to you about coming to work on the 2014. And I don't know how many folks really don't rate that well, but he went through a lot of employees and teammates at that time. And he said, well, it just so happens, I fired a guy today. When can you be here?

No kidding. Story to God. True story. So I was like, I said, tomorrow? And he said, all right, I'll see it at 7.30. It's noon in Talladega. We were living in Chelsea, Alabama. It's noon there.

And I'm thinking, all right, how am I going to get to sharp? for 7.30 a.m. now, and I'm working for Stanley. Yeah. Um, we only have my girlfriend's car. She's in college. I got to some, we didn't have cell phones, right? I got somehow get a hold of her, get her back home so I can get the car. And then I got to figure out what I'm going to tell Stanley that I'm not going to be at work. And so I went and, and I feel really bad about this. And I love my grandmother to pieces and love her to death. Um, and I, I walked back into work. And I said, uh, Stanley. I said, look, man, I got, I got to go back to Wisconsin. Johnson. My grandmother's not feeling very well.

And he's like, oh my gosh, go. And he said, are you flying? I'm like, no, no, no, I'm going to drive. And he's like, that's a long time. You sure? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I got it. So I got a hold of my girlfriend. She was actually working in a donut shop at the time. Higott left school, went to the donut shop. I called her. And she came home, and I took the car, and I drove, got there at about midnight,

maybe one o'clock in the morning, slept in the parking lot of Hendrick Motors. Wow. Wow. Wow. And I remember, you know, I didn't sleep a bit, right? I'm in the front seat of a Ford probe, right? Probably looking like you just, you know, like a piece of laundry. Man, that's awful, right?

Just awful. And I can remember the sun coming up the next day, and I'm watching all these guys pull into Hendrick Motorsports. I'm like, man. I'm watching my watch. I'm watching, like, 725. I'm like, all right, all right. So I grabbed a shirt that I had thrown in the back and made sure I didn't wrinkle up that

shirt, right? I put it on and I had a cup that from a fountain drink in the cup holder and I took the water from it. Put that through my hair and tried to look reasonable. Brush my teeth a little bit and I walked in and I got to meet Ray and sat sat in with him, man. And it was a great conversation. You know, he asked me what I could do. And Dale, I told him, I was like, man, I can do a lot. I don't know that I'm great at anything, but I can do a lot and, you know, kind of went through my background of my history and back and forth. And he said, well, he said, look, I like you. You know, he said, I like where you've been. I like your background. I like your, I can see your intensity. He says, where do you want to be in five years? And I just looked at it. I said,

in five years, I want your job. Ooh. Ooh. People don't usually like that very much. And straight away, he said, you're hired. And that was it. And now I was pretty far away from his job when I walked in the door. Let me tell you that. When I started, I was a body shop assistant. So I worked in the back room in the body shop, sweeping the floors and painting and taping up cars. Couple things here. One, they beefed up the security at Hendon Motorsports a lot since then. You can't just call and get the crew chief, nor can you sit and sleep in the parking lot either, can you? Two things that we can be sure they do not let you do anymore. That's true. That's true. Wow. That's really, you know, it's such a great story, but it's even more unique now because of your

promotion. Yeah. And going into the manager role, which everybody probably assumed was going to happen. I doubt you had any assumptions. But, you know, everybody just assumes, like, if your success there and your ability to sort of put people, the right people in the right places, that's kind of what the guy at the top needs to be doing and what he needs to be good at. But to be able to basically stand in a prominent manager role at Hendrick and tell anyone that

walks in there, look, this is the commitment that I made. This is what I did to get the first opportunity here. Do you have that? Right? Do you have that? Because a lot of guys will ask you to work hard, but when they tell you what their story is and, God, that guy don't know how to work hard. Right. Who's he at? Who's he telling? He telling me? Yeah. Well, people come from different backgrounds and, like, mine was, you know, my path was unique. It really was. You know, when I first moved to Chelsea to work with Stanley Smith. I was, I slept on Butch Hilton's sofa. Like he had a two, like so many people help me get to where I'm at, man. And it's the honest of truth. Like, I literally, so Butch had a two bedroom apartment that says he and his wife and his two kids

in the two bedrooms and me sleeping on his sofa. And he drove me back and forth to work every single day, you know, and we worked, you know, sun up to sundown, man. And we piled in a duly with a trailer. We, we drove a race car from Chelsea, Alabama to Phoenix, Arizona with a duly pickup truck and an open trailer to go race. Yeah. Right? And but I guess what I'm saying is like there's just been so many folks that have helped me get there that it, you know, yeah, I worked really hard, but man, there's so

many opportunities that came up. So you worked at the 24 car for how long because you didn't stay there? No, I didn't. Started in middle of 93, left at the end of 97, right after you. Well, your father. Your father, he, uh, Philippe Lopez, whom I worked with at Stanley Smith's. He approached me when he was going to be crew chief at your dad's place for Daler and Hart Incorporated. So this was middle of 97.

We were going and battling for the championship with a 24 car. And Philippe and your father courted me and asked me if I would come to this new position, which was a car chief. There was no car chiefs then. There was no car chiefs then. There was like the head mechanic, you know, and the crew chief. That was kind of it. And they wanted me to come and help, you know, build the team and the cars and get the shops, you know, set up and running.

I mean, it was just an open building really at that point coming together, right? But what were you, by the time you were getting hired to go to DEI, what were you for the 24 team? Sure, yeah. So I started changing tires in 94. Okay. Got out of the body shop. In 94, it's a long time ago, bro. Yeah, I was just laughing, thinking about you changing tires.

I was actually. I mean, as good as the guys are now and as hard as he is, as a crew chief on the pit guys and just seeing him trying to imagine him running around who could you do it like if you could when's the last time you've changed tires at the pit stop practice in front of the guys oh years man it's been years did you bust one out tomorrow like show up just with your knee pads on and just be like hey i'm going to get in one of these i'm going to get him one of these i'll do one of these i'm going to get on this third four tire stop yeah check a break i give it a go i give it a go this why i tell my guys now i said look i can get

down there and change that tire I just don't know if I can get up. But I started changing tires in 94. Got out of the body shop. I came into the fabrication department, which was great and learned about bodies and wind tunneling and aerodynamics and all of that. And really took kind of a leadership role in that area for Ray for a while. And then started helping with setting the cars up and fabricating and doing just a lot of... So you're climbing.

I mean, you're climbing through as far as responsibility. Yeah, you know, I was very fortunate. I worked really hard. I had great, again, I had great folks that helped me. You know, Brian Weitzel, Aguzzo, Ray, they gave me opportunities. I should say this. I tried to put myself in a position to when an opportunity became available that I was the right guy for the job, right? And I worked really hard at that.

So, yeah, so that's kind of the stuff I was doing. Okay. So you've established a reputation. Now you're getting invited to come work at DEI. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That was pretty cool. I remember as I was going back and forth.

on this. Lopez is on me about doing it, and blah, blah, blah. And your father had me come up to his place up there. And I remember we got in a pickup truck and he's driving me around. And we talked about being intimidated. Like, it's, it's legit with your old man. I mean, it's legit. Like, this is Dale Arnardt, right? You know, I'm riding his pickup truck around his property. And we go to that pond, right? There's old wooden dock. And he's like, come on out here. I want to show you something. I'm like, all right. You'd already show me where all the buildings were and all that stuff, right? We're just talking at this point. and we walk out there and he goes out and he starts jumping up and down

and this cowboy boots on this dock and like you can see the water's starting to move what in the world is this and then he goes over and he gets this big container and he gets a scooper in this drum it just flings it out in the water and you would have thought it was piranha in that water man parana is it was boiling they just come jumping out of the water all of a a sudden or what the so dad would feed these catfish he had this pond stocked with catfish thousands of them half albino craziest thing you ever seen

so there's dark blue or whatever green gray but he had albino right am I so he would take this big shovel of dog food and sling it and evenly perfectly it was like a sprinkler

yes and the surface of dog food a dog food sprinkler yeah the surface the surface of the water just started just going just like a like a exactly like a hot tub when you turn on the lowers. That's exactly what it looked like all the way across the lake. And that was the catfish getting that. Just after it. Getting after it. Crazest thing I ever saw. He loved doing that. He loved that. He loves showing that to people.

Did he? Okay. So I wasn't the first? No. No, I thought it was special. Well, you were. I mean, if you got to see it, he thought a lot of you. But he loved that, he loved that visual. I'll buy no catfish is something part of the Dill Earnhardt legacy that I think needs to be more prominent. Like, why do we not get to hear about that? This is a lot. This is a little. This is. the first time hearing about albino cactus. The show does. The show brings that stuff out. So as soon as you saw the lake basically come up and become alive, that's when you knew this is where I need to work.

I said, I'm going to work for this guy. He can control the fish, man. Yeah, so yeah. So, yeah. So I shortly there afterwards, I went into work and I told Ray, I said, look, I've got this opportunity, Dale Earnhardt Incorporated. They want me to come up and be in this car chief role. I think it's... Did he go car chief? What the hell? Basically. Right.

He said, what is that? Made up a roll? They just, they just, they sold you. He's made that up just to get you out of here. He's going to be the car chief. Exactly. And the thing that was, the reason was, the reason was I just explained to him. I said, look, I want to be a crew chief by the time I'm 30.

I really, I want to be a crew chief by the time I'm 30. And the depth that Hendrick Motorsports is just too high. There's too many folks here. There's too many great folks here that I'm not going to get to that point. And he said, look, I get it. I get it. And, Ray was super cool about it, super cool, because he could have immediately at that point kicked me out and said,

all right, man, we're going to move on without you. There was still probably 12 races to go in the season. And we made a commitment that, look, we're going to go down and we're going to finish this thing. We're going to win this championship. And then we're going to shake hands in part ways. And we did. We were very fortunate. We got to get out and win our second championship with the 24 car. You know, the thing was probably the coolest for me, obviously, other than Ray's willingness to keep me on board there was Mr. Hendrick. And within a couple weeks of the end of the season, Mr. H comes in and he's having a chat with Ray. And they walked back out of the shop and Ray's walking Rick out. And they walked past me and Ray grabbed me and he said, hey, Rick, just so you know, Chad's leaving us at the end of the year.

And Ray said, Rick said, yeah, yeah, I heard that. Rick grabs me. He says, why you come outside and chat with me for a minute? So we walked outside and Mr. Hendrick and Ray gave me a loan to get my first townhouse, right? Back in the day. You know, gave me, you know, not a lot of money, but enough money, right? Enough that I had wanted to pay him back or I was going to pay him back. And as Mr. Hendrick and I were talking, I said, look, I want you to know that I'm going to continue to pay you, pay you back what it is that I owe you and I should have it paid up by the end of the year.

You know, I don't want you to think I'm going to skip out or I'm not going to be good on my debt. And he looked at me and he said, Chad, I'll tell you what. He said, if you promise me that if you go out there and you prove your worth as being a crew chief and I have a position for you in the future and I offer you a job that you'll come back to work for me you don't need to worry about that loan and i said deal and i shook his hand and that's a rick hendrick move right there i'm telling you man that guy's smooth i got smooth yeah he was already planning your next move yeah for you man that's pretty impressive yeah i was pretty pretty

lucky on that one man so you go and uh i remember seeing you walking around in the shop oh is that right yeah uh work i was uh driving the exfinity car and uh oh 98 steve yeah so steve and philip uh was a crew chief on the one car and I remember seeing you at the shop. How long were you at the eye? It's very brief. Yeah, not as long as what we had any of us had hoped, honestly. Through the winter up into Daytona. I don't know if you know this, but the shop wasn't built yet. So we built our super speedway cars.

We started them in the deerhead shop. And then we moved down to the chicken farm. I know that's where you were going. I didn't know that, but that's the obvious next place. Yeah. Yeah. Down there and that's a foulest smelling area. I've ever been in my life.

God, that was disgusting. That is so awful. But yeah, only through Darlington. And it just didn't fit, man. I was pretty high strung back then. I really was. And, you know, it was just different for me, right? And I wasn't in the right spot.

It wasn't in the right place mentally. I wish I could have made it work or had a different outcome, but it just wasn't right for me. Where'd you go? Man. So at that point, I was freelancing. Changing tires. a gun for hire at that point,

was doing some fabrication stuff on the side, just trying to find my way. And we had, Darrell Waltrip had subbed for Steve, when Steve got hurt in Atlanta. We had some really good races with Darrell. That's right. He actually did well.

Really well. A couple top fives. Yeah. For Dale at that point, or for Darrell at that point, that was pretty good. That was. And so he was working with Tyler Jet at the point in time.

And he asked me to come over there and help and work with those guys. So I went to Tyler Jet and I was hanging out over there. And then we ended up with Rich Bickle driving that. And David Green drove the 10-10, 3, 4, 5 car. Yep. And we took that car to, remember we went to Homestead. We sat on the poll at Homestead.

James Inns was the crew chief, Jay Guy, and I were primary caregivers of the car at that point. And then Everingham left in 99 from to 24 to start the Dodge Development Program. And Ray called me up and asked me if I would be the lead. on that and the crew chief of the Dodge test team and the development program for Everingham Motorsports at that point in Dodge. So you did that? I did. I did.

How did you end up on the nine car? So, well, the nine. Was a Dodge? Well, right. But so Ray bought Bill Elliott Racing. Right. So we were doing the Dodge and Ray bought Bill's deal. So we were starting to work with them on their Super Speedway program and a couple of cars.

and Eddie DeHunt was over there at that point in time, Mike Ford, and we were going through just kind of collaborating, so I worked with those guys a little bit, but I was never on the, I was never on the nine. What I was on was the 92 of Melling. That's right. How did you get to that car? Well, so doing the Dodge team,

was crew chief for Casey Atwood for a couple of races. You did? Yeah. It was like a third car or second car for him. It was Evertonham Motorsports car, kind of Elliott, under an Elliott help. with some people.

Is that your first crew chief? That was my first crew chief job. What was your feeling? Like you had, I know you're probably not sitting there going, I made it. No. But I mean, you're finally getting to make these decisions and do this. You're doing this job, right? I mean, is there this, is it like as exhilarating and as fun as you had ever dreamed it would be?

That job wasn't because all I wanted was for Everingham to leave me alone and let me do my job. He was still trying to be crew chief at that point. So, so just being the car owner, right? So that, that was a tough one. because, you know, everything you did was wrong. And, you know, it was like having my dad again. Really? Yeah, man, it was tough.

I love Ray. Don't get me wrong. No, no, no. All I'm saying is that we're at the racetrack. Why are you taking these tires? Why are you putting those springs in? Why are you doing that? I'm like, you know, he wants to run this spring package.

They ran the 24. I'm like, dude, that's old school. We don't do that anymore, right? Yeah. He's like, I'm only two years removed. I'm like, yeah, you're behind, bro. But, so, so no, no, no, it was great. It was fun.

It was awesome. and we did all that stuff with testing and Stacey Compton was driving for Melling and so he did some testing with them and Dodge was going to Melling and they needed a crew chief and they asked me if I would go to the 92 car and I was like yeah man let's give it a go

that's my opportunity and let's go full-time Cup racing with the 92 car and Melling racing which is you know iconic as we know so I wanted to go give it a go so how many years were you there? One year one year are you still high strong I am not near what I used to be now

At that time. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about it. Now you're a crew chief because I'm still kind of hung up on that. I was too high strung at DEI. I don't know what that actually means, but I know that it sounds like that maybe, let's call it chemistry.

Let's call it, you know, I see an eye to eye. And you seem, forgive me if I say, very opinionated and direct in your way is how it's going to be. Maybe even you don't have to have the title as crew chief for you to know a right way and a wrong way. Yeah, I rub people the wrong way a lot. a lot because that's the way I felt things should be done a certain way, no matter what position I was in, and other folks maybe just didn't see it that way. So I guess my point is, is if that's how it was at DEI, did you try to adapt or did you try to change your ways, or were you just trying to land into situations that would finally

give you the freedom to do it your way? More of what you're saying, yeah. That's why working with Ray, I think, helps because Ray is very direct, much like myself. And a direct person, all you want to be is communicated to directly. Right. And then there's really no, there's no blurred lines. Like, you know what's happening. And that's why Ray and I worked so well together.

Now, trust me, we fought. Like, we bickered and fought all the time. That's what direct people do. Yeah, but we, man, we had some success, right? And being with Ray was a comfort zone for me because I knew his mentality was very much like mine. And that's why going to work with him again was a good deal. This was before the MBS surveys, by the way. How do you know about MBS?

Because you, let me tell you something, Chad. We have it here. What's that? It's sort of, it's a satellite. Yes, we're a Hendrick satellite. I just know you guys did it. Oh, yeah. Chad, I want to tell you to, and this is all part of this story. I don't want this to be a divergent because this is fascinating.

But I want you guys to know people listening. Chad, in this world is this program called Management by Strengths, MBS. And what it basically is, I'm going to try to minimize it to be, you know, to a very simple explanation. It, you take a survey and it's a personality. No. no, I'm getting to this point. Chat's showing us a picture. Because look at his line.

No, no, I've seen. So it basically breaks you down into four categories. One is direct, which is a red. And then there's like a green, which is an extrovert. And yellow is structured and blue is paste, I believe. And so we were introduced as a company to this program. And I say all that to say this. Chad canouse is an example that they use in the presentation to all the 150 employees.

They go, you know, this is. what you could be and nothing's wrong. This is management by strength. This is showing your strengths. Now that being said, let's show you what Chad Gannows is. And they throw up this flaming red. I'm talking the papers on fire, it's so red. There is not a shade

that the hue in itself was unprecedented. And then the line usually people can be a combination of a couple colors. Like I'm green, but I got a good bit of yellow in me. This fella is red. His second color's red.

His third and fourth colors red. And that line did something that I didn't even think lines do, which is all to say that there's no more direct personality than Chad Gannows. And it was proven in that. And so much so that they use that as an example. Now, knowing that you are one of a kind, this is what you're taking to Stacey Compton's team. Because you are what you are your whole life, right? I mean, this has had to been what you are.

And now we know who you are as a person. Now, how did that work out? It worked pretty well. You know, for my first time, we went to, we went to Daytona. And with the Dodge, for the first time, we unloaded down there as a manufacturer, and we qualified on the front row. We were beat. We qualified second, and Elliott qualified first in the nine, which really just torched my, torched me up. Race car.

Yeah, race car beat me. That pissed me off, man. I was so mad. But then we went to Talladega. and we qualified on the pole at both Talladega races. We qualified third at the second Daytona race. We qualified up front at a lot of racetracks. We didn't race exceptionally well.

We had some good races, not a lot. But I felt like that the qualifying and the super speedway stuff is things I could control maybe a little bit more. So I really focused on that. And I think that's what helped me get noticed. What were some of the things holding y'all back? Money, man. We didn't have any money, you know.

Mark Melling, I love him to pieces, still see him occasionally. he was just taking over his deal for his dad and the racing thing was getting more and more expensive and, you know, mailing pumps up there and all the stuff that they had going on. I mean, that's just a big taxing thing. Yeah. You know, they just didn't have that kind of money. So if you take that test now, are you still that same red, same line? You can't be.

It's a good question. It's interesting that you, that Mike brings us up. So we first took that test in 1996 and the guy comes around. He's talking to us about the structure of the lines and what they mean. mean and he's going around the table and he's talking about all these folks and we're like yeah man he he nailed him and that's all the guy does is talk he's definitely you know an extrovert man this guy definitely he's structured all he's got his paperwork all the time making sure he's got all this stuff you know he's going through it and he gets to me and he sees my little line on my my tent and he's

like now chad for instance look at him like he's a guy that likes to spend a nice day out on the lake fishing and everybody there's like wrong wrong wrong and he said uh-uh let me finish nice day on the lake fishing in a speedboat with a hang grenade. Yep, that's him. And that's the absolute truth. And so when I went back in 2002, when I went back to HMS, I took the test again because I was curious. I mean, we're talking, you know, six years later, a bunch of life experience changes. And it came back identical.

Identical. And it's amazing. Like, if you are true, if you are true with it, it comes back to same. But now you can adjust, right? You know, I've learned to temper my mannerism some. Well, you're a parent now. I am, man. I mean, like, if there's any explanation in retaking a test and it be different, it's going through the experience of having kids, right?

Yeah, maybe. I still think I'm the same because I have, I manage my emotions now. How? How'd you do that? So I've got this amazing boss. His name is Rick Hendrick. He's always been your boss. Yeah, he has, and he has been such a great coach for me.

He's taught me how to manage my emotions in different situations, when to and when not to, right? He's helped me understand where I've lacked in some leadership skills, and I've worked really hard on that. So it's a project of mine to try to make sure that I'm doing the things right. Can you admit where you might have lacked in leadership skills? Besides my speedboat and the hand grenade? that would be. But a guy like you that's like, you know, going back to being one of the best, I think you're the best crew chief. I mean, there's a couple guys in that conversation, but what were you lacking? My communication lacked, my willingness to... A lot of people,

though, would think that that also was a, like, part of your success. It is, but you have to use it at the right time. And, you know, needing to, I didn't, how do I say this? So when I started, I was doing everything. I was building shocks. I was, you know, making sure the body was right. Making sure the setup was 100% correct.

Running the simulation. I mean, man, it was just all of it. And I just told everybody what to do. You do this, you do this, you do this. And man, I'm not that smart. I came to realize pretty damn quick, right? I had to have a lot of smart folks around me. And once I started to see that and Mr. Hendricks

showed me how to work with those folks better and give people some rope and guidance as opposed to telling them what to do and allowing them to be a bigger part of the team. That's when we really started to be successful. And it took a little bit to get there because I was having a lot of success, working kind of solo and giving the direction as opposed to letting people bring direction to me and then making the decision. I got to be in that shop just for a little while, which was so fun, to be able to get like a real close up front view of what, you know, success looks like, what perfection looks like.

And all up until I got that chance to go into that shop and work next to you, I'd heard how, like, man, he's hard to, he's hard, hard to work with. Yeah. He's hard to work with. No denying the success. And if you want to win, that's where you want to go in this company. That team's going to win. but man he's he's hard he's cantankerous he's he's not personable he's not your buddy yeah and

when i got to go into that building i never saw any of those guys complaining yeah right and all those i would look over there go man i hear he's hard to work with and i yeah i mean he's not personable and he's nobody's friend he's nobody's buddy he's not here to have no backslap and that's right but looking at all his guys are all his little man Indians are going all over the shop, doing their jobs, perfection, cars are perfect, pieces are ready, cars are ready, everything's so shiny. And I'm like, where is this guy, right? I'll go one better.

I remember the first time we were in that shop and you and I went over there for a meeting and it was in the upstairs, like, it was kind of like a break room area. And I was thinking the same thing. I'm like, oh, this is going to be our first meeting with the Chad Canal. You know, the big they all said he is. Yeah. You must talk to my ex. No, no, no.

So, but then we go up there and it's like, I think that you guys were preparing for this annual soapbox derby contest. Oh, yeah, man. You know, you handed out the blocks of wood or something. And everybody's laughing. And they're cheerful. And it's like I look over there and there's Malik over there going, we're going to win. And everybody. And I'm like, this is not what I thought this was going to be.

I thought they were going to be scared. and everything. Chad's going to rain down the thunder in the soapbox. Even if we're going to do a soapbox, by God, it's going to be done my way. And he's like, you know, y'all have this much time to work on it. Good luck. It's going to be fun. I'm going to look forward to this.

And I was like, what is this? This is this happy time. What is happy time here? I didn't know they had this. Man, we worked hard. We worked hard. And look, I'm a big team guy. Like, I love it.

Like that soapbox derby stuff. And this, you know, the COVID experience is really crushing me right now because I like it in my guys and my team. my group and I love it. And look, to be honest, man, there's people that don't buy into that type of structure and people that don't buy into that type of a discipline. And those are the ones that paint the picture because those are the ones that squeak the most, right? So the people that left or didn't like working for me that either left on their own accord or we had to get rid of, they're the ones that they're the ones that they complained about the way that I conducted business and called me a . Right. I mean, that's just the truth, right?

but the folks that buy into it and enjoy it and like the direction and the aggressive style of racing and, you know, making sure everything's right. And, man, they loved it and lived it. And we had a great time. Yeah. We had a lot of fun. But your team is going to be easy. You get to basically pick and choose who's going to be on your team either going to work or they're not going to work, you know, and they're gone. What about though other crew chiefs?

What about other management and all that stuff? I mean, because that's the part where to me would be the biggest challenge in trying to fit in or, you know, or really work toward you're still successful. Yeah. That's what I've been working on for years. Keeping the cohesion. And getting that better and better. Yeah.

What was he like in those meetings? Nice. No, it was good. Yeah. It wasn't bad. I mean, look, I mean. There was not a lot of, you know, there was not any, like, animosity or it was a little competitiveness.

That was a good healthy competitiveness. I think all the teams kind of drove each other. But that was real good communication, like from crew chief to crew chief, engineer to engineer. It's way better now. It's amazing. Even better? Oh my gosh.

It's nuts right now. The way that Hendrick Motorsports is working right now, I'm so happy that I'm coming in to take on this position at this time because we are just blossoming into what I think we're going to be in the next decade. And, you know, it was different than we, I remember when you came in, I was like, man, I just don't know what's going to happen, right? I didn't know you that well, right? You know, we just crossed paths a few times and whatnot.

And, you know, you were always kind of with your crew and your guys, you know, the Uri's and your group and you and all those guys over there. And I was like, man, I don't know what this is going to happen when he comes over here because it's a little different. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Huge change. Are you talking about when he went to Hendrick Motorsports or when he went to the shop? When he went into our shop. When they made the switch of the shop.

Right. When he came over with Lartart and our shop. and I was like, I just don't know what's going to happen. And man, I'll tell you what, I enjoyed it from the word go. Like, completely different person than what I thought when you showed up. Like, you're, you joke and you laugh and you have a good time. Well, what did you think he was? I didn't know.

I'd never, never experienced it. Well, you must have assumed something if you were surprised. Well, you assume. No, I just didn't. Focus. I'll help you. I never saw his wit, right? Like, the way he's just like, I mean, you're pretty snappy, man.

Like, it's pretty cool. right you know when you're sitting in an environment i mean he's pretty damn quick and we we remember we had an event at your um it's your your your cowboy town and that's the first time you and i really sat down and we sat on sat on your porch there having a beer one night and all the guys were there and and you're sitting you're sitting there rockers and we just started chatting up and i'm like this dude's pretty cool like he's a cool dude and from that point on i just got mad respect for you oh thanks he's legit could y'all have worked together no way i don't think so could y'all have been the next driver cruiser Chief combo that's going to

I mean maybe now but but I'm not as good at crew chief now as what I was then Oh so you're painting that on you though What would be me? It wouldn't be him you said it wouldn't be because of him No it'd be me My But you said no right away too I'll say it

I'll say this like I think that had The opportunity presented itself When I was a rookie or you know Earlier in the first probably three or four years of my career, we might have been able to do it. Oh, okay. And I might have been able to, because I would have needed to make a bunch of personal choices, right, lifestyle choices that would have been able to.

Yeah. Because he would have not put up with that I was doing. Right. I was really regimented, man. Right. No, I know that. And I don't disagree with you at all. But like, once you got to Hendrick, though, you changed.

You had to. Yeah, you did. I did. But he already had the greatest. one of the greatest drivers. Sure. No, yeah, yeah. You're not going to,

you're not going to consider that. I'm not saying that he's going to swap with Jimmy and me, but when you've had that, right. How do you do anything else? Yeah, it would have been different. Where,

how he was living wasn't where I was. Yeah. Yeah. No, I wanted to be. Don't give you wrong. It looked like a lot of fun. But, man,

I was just, just my mental space was just in a different spot. Like, the Jimmy and Chad time right there was just, man it was just the timing was just like on point yeah it just you guys were just it just happened man like that that just doesn't happen we were so fortunate that that mr h spotted that and got us together and gave us the freedom to do what we needed to do and jimmy bless bless that man i love him so much um him allowing me to to do to grow and learn and and become the guy that i needed to be was

just awesome you know his tolerance for me was really high that's interesting you know what's interesting you know like when we had Rodney Childers here and you know I asked him the question wait Rodney's been on here yeah before you I thought I was the first crew chief no you know what Dale Earnhardt took Rodney to the catfish don't take it personal no Rodney couldn't couldn't wait to tell us about those albino catfish Dale Earnhardt sent about 12 or 13 of him home with him too did he do that for you no no no no I'm sorry but we asked Rodney like you know how do you make it work with Harvard because Harvick had obviously developed a reputation of being, you know, quite vocal on radios and whatnot.

And it became clear in his answer that Rodney did all the compromising, right? I mean, like, Rodney's like, well, this is how Harvick is. And so the only way it's going to work is if I let him, and it may not have been too hard for Rodney because he doesn't come across his very, you know, vocal and everything, but he's going to let Harvick speak his mind. How much compromising did you do after you and Jimmy had that well-documented, you know, meeting with Mr. H.

Oh, the milk and cookies meeting. The milk and cookies meeting where you guys were arguing. But how much did you have to go compromise in areas to make that work? Because you got to a point that you guys couldn't lose. Yeah. A lot, a lot. But my compromise wasn't really with Jimmy. Oh.

No. No. Not really. No, if anything, it probably got even just the same or even more, more asking of Jimmy at that point. because what in my opinion, how do I say this? At that point, I needed to give the team some freedom, kind of like I was speaking about earlier. And when I did that, the performance really started to escalate even more. And we didn't necessarily win more races or, you know, but our performance man was there.

Like if we didn't win, we were there. And if we had a bad race, we came back. And, you know, if we had a battery failure, we changed the battery. We came back and we won. You know, like that's where this really started to come. So the ask of Jimmy was even higher at that point. It's like, look, man, we've got, we've got this ability. You've got to come with your A game every time and you've got to give a little bit more.

But man, he could do it. Is that important? No. If it is, you could take it to listen. If it was my wife, that's been funny. No, it's a conference room at work. That's good. Maybe that is important.

Yeah, it feels like it could be. Jimmy was phenomenal about being in a race car and me being able to push him to go faster and he could do it. Now, look, he'd say, well, because the car's capable of it, right? Because at different times, you know, he'd say, well, I can't do it now because the car's not capable or what have you. But, man, I'm just telling you, like, I could ask of that guy and he could do it. That's amazing. Yeah. It's just amazing what he was capable of doing.

And it was so dang fun, man, to watch it. you know, he'd be out there and running and be like, man, we need a 10th. And he'd get 800s, right? You know, I was like, man, okay, all right. And if we get a little bit of crossweight in this thing, we're going to, we're going to get it. And, you know, it's just just amazing. I remember one time we were at Charlotte Motor Speedway, we're leading the 600. And he's just ripping, man.

I mean, flying. And he's like, just too tight. And we got like an eight second lead on the field, just smoking everybody. And I'm like, hey, if you back up the corner just a little bit, it won't be as tight. You don't need to go that fast. Like we're like a tenth and a half faster than everybody on the racetrack. He backed up the corner and like we start going two and a half tens faster and everybody. I'm like, Jesus, man, this is amazing, right?

And to live through that as a race car driver and a crew chief, and I got goosebumps right now thinking about it. It was just an amazing time. It was so cool. One of the things that I think a lot of people associate with you is creativity. You think so? Oh, yeah. Explain.

You know, and this is, this is, this. This is what, this is something that really, why your dad hired me. Well, it's something that interests the hell out of me. You know, we talk to, we talked to Gary Blue, you know, was an innovator. Yeah, Gary Blue on here? He was one of our first guests this year or last year. Last year.

Yeah, man. We used to race against him. Loved him. But a lot of people that we've had on the show, Rodney and others, I mean, talking about, I'm not straight up calling you a cheater. I'm just saying, I appreciate that. Thank you.

You are innovative. You're innovative. Jeez, man. But you're really, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. No, you're right. I'm part of this, too. So, like, you know, because I told,

I would tell people, you know, when somebody gets busted for something or NASCAR finds something they don't like, I'm like, I want that crew chief. Yeah. If my guy ain't trying to get busted, then we ain't trying hard enough. You know, I loved an aggressive crew chief that was willing to sit at home for six weeks.

Yeah, you know. I did a couple times. Right. So, you know, I think, you know, what are some of the more creative things that you did to race cars to try to find speed? Yeah. Nothing you're doing now, though, of course. Man, I can go back a long, long ways, brother. Because I think that that was, you know, that's not why you're a seven-time champion.

being in the Cup series, but I think that one of the things that I always appreciated about you is that even when you did get your hand smacked from NASCAR, you never changed that sort of approach. Yeah. That you got to be aggressive. Yeah. You know, if you're not pushing the limits of the rule book and finding holes in it, every single day.

And when we would go, I mean, we'd go to meetings at NASCAR or we'd go to our meetings at the conference room, and that was my favorite part, was, when we were going to talk about where we could get creative. No, just where we could get creative. And you could tell, you know, without saying any names, you could tell who in the room was, like, eager to, like, explore opportunities where we could find, you know, ways to be creative with the rulebook and find holes in. You could see the people that were like, ugh, this makes me uncomfortable.

That's usually management. Yeah, for sure. You know, it's, Alan Gustafin just said this really well, and he said, to be successful in anything, you've got to be just a little bit uncomfortable. And it's the truth, right? I lived my whole life very uncomfortable, you know, going through technical inspection, making race calls, you know, designing parts and cars and all that, you know, always just trying to push the limits. And, man, we would have stuff that, you know, the rear end housings, we move in our cars. you know, an inch and a half. And we just got there and just whip everybody.

And, you know, NASCAR look at it. I'd be like, well, you can't do that. I'm like, well, why? Show me. We just can't. And then they would write a rule, right? And then we would, we were so fortunate back then that we would have, we would have things stacked up.

And we would bring them out. Okay, we'll run this for a while until they catch it. And when they catch it, all right, close that door, bringing this new item. All right. run that. You had a long-term plan of innovation, we'll call it. I don't want to directly call you a cheater. It's how we did it. And what we would do is we get to the playoffs and everything would come together. Like everything that we tried early in the summer or late in the spring or at this track and we'd bring all that stuff together and we'd hit the playoffs, man. We were at rock and roll.

Wow. Yeah. Pretty awesome. We didn't have a chance. Well, a chance. We did when we got in the same building. Yeah, that was like, yeah. It did great. You were writing a lot of good for the championship, man. There's a lot of good parts and pieces. Yeah, we had a lot of, I mean, we, so we'd have to bring the drivers in. I can't tell you how many times I'd lean in the window of Jimmy's race car and be like, hey man, you might want to sneak up on this one. Yeah. Don't really know what's going to happen. And, you know, he'd just rip it, right? This could be three kids faster and it might just crash. We don't know. We just got to see. But we would bring

the drivers in and be like, all right, guys, look, you know, this weekend, we got a little something going on here. Just, just make sure you're prepared and, you know, give us Good feedback. Don't freak out on the radio. He's vocal on the radio. You know, damn, Rhen housing's falling out of the car. And I'm like, LaTart, tell him to shut up, man.

Like, everybody's hearing this. Everybody listens to Dale. To be clear for everybody listening home, you're pointing to Dale Jr. being the vocal and not Jimmy necessarily. Oh, yeah. LaTartre never came to the window and said, Hey, man.

We've got to be a little discreet about this. We're trying to things. So Dale Jr. is basically blowing the cover. Oh, man. Shh. Keep it quiet, you know. We work on it. We get a little bit better.

We get it all squared away. And next thing you know, we're going fast. Oh, yeah. If it felt weird, I'd be like, I can't do it. You got to tighten all that shit up back there. Where do you all have back there? No, tell me on the radio right now what y'all've done. Get that inch and eight wrench and tighten that shit up.

Oh, my God. That is so true. That is exactly it. I remember we were going to surprise Dale with this, like, we were going to sponsor the Spire Car. And I had this visions of grandeur where Dale doesn't know when we have a car there and we're going to pull off the cover and it's going to have a dirty moe sponsorship on a cup car and he's going to be like man y'all got it oh it's so awesome and i'm like what is what am i think i think i'll never going to react the way you think he is he's going to go why didn't y'all tell me this

what i you know and it's like it in the moment's going to be gone no i got to tell him well in advance of it make sure he doesn't blow the cover that's so funny you said that it's true the true story but yeah man we we had a lot of fun back then it was it was great yeah it was fun it was a it was awesome to be able to get in the same shop and and uh so when i was racing and when i was at d i for uh for anyone in the sport at the time hms is kind of this perfect successful man i wonder what it's like in there wonder what they do and i finally get hired to go work there and i worked in in uh the 588 shop for a while and it was nice, you know, and it was definitely a different culture, but I still knew. And there was a huge difference between the cultures, not better or worse, but there was a different

culture in the 4824 shop. And I was like, dang, you know, it is cool being here. And I didn't get to see some things that I've always wanted to see and getting to have these conversations with everybody that works here. But man, now I really want to kind of be in that shop. Yeah. Which I never thought it happened, but. What do you attribute that to, though, the difference of culture. Well, I mean, it was so noticeable. It's Chad. You're saying it's Chad. Yeah. Is that true? I guess. I mean, I mean, I have to assume, you know, I mean, Dale saw it from the outside and lived both worlds. I mean, he can he can attest to it more than anybody else. Chad definitely ran, Chad sort of controlled the atmosphere and the temperature in the 4824 shop as far as my experience.

Now, before that, I don't know. He was there quite a lot. while but um when i got there you know letart leaned on chad and that's the tart knew the opportunity he had to be able to work in the same building with chad and he utilized that and to his to success um entire success and we were moldy you know we we we would fit wherever we needed to fit uh in that shop and they were going to be who they were going to be and we we really just kind of leaned on them all the time you know and and tried to find ways to use what they were using to do what they were doing to make ourselves better and well you get you contributed a ton man you know jimmy got significantly better super speedway racing racing around with you uh we got a win because of you right you know

i mean there's caledaga yeah yeah when he pushed him yeah no i i don't remember that no junior fans don't remember that at all either no there's no way it's the only time you ever stayed behind anybody i thing. That was the suckiest part about the tandem stuff is that I was just good at push, and I would not a good leader. So there's, think about that. Think about, okay, so if you ever raced in the, well, you've probably not done it, but you've probably seen the chain races where they, the lead car has the motor,

and I think the rear car has the brakes. Yep. Like, I was good at being the pusher. And when I was leading, I'm like, I might as well have had like a, 50 to one steering box with a giant stairway. I'm like, I don't know where to go, you know. Oh, man. I'm trying to think.

I think that was, that race, that may have been one of my first races back after a suspension, too, that we won that race. So thank you. Yeah. That always, that always eases the pain, you know, when you come back and get away. I got to ask you a question back when you were driving. This is one of those, you might not even remember this, but you were working for Stacey at Sonoma. I wrecked y'all with like five laughs to go.

So the race has happened, and we talked about this on this podcast, and the bloody nose. Oh, this is good. Oh, yeah. This is a good story. You don't remember this. Oh, gosh.

It doesn't appear he does you. I can see you don't. So we're racing, and midway through the race, I get a bloody nose. Okay. And I'm, and I'm like, okay, carry, care. So I'm racing along, and I'm like,

this is, this is cool. I'm bleeding. and I'm tough right blood on me I'm racing like hell er me know

me don't learn heart yeah and uh and so we get we get down toward the last couple of laps and I'm I got a pretty good car but somehow my

strategy has me like 19th and everybody just starts wrecking everybody I come around a corner and there's a guy spun out and run about a half a lap and there's a guy in the tires

and I'm like I'm like I'm just start pushing people out of the way and Stacey was in front of me and we got down into like some turn with like three to go and I'm like boop spin Stacy around and I was like well that was just one spot I was thinking that'd be a lot more rewarding than than it was so I went from like 15th to 14th and I pull into the garage and I'm taking my shit off and I'm hot and sweaty and sitting there and I got old dried blood on my face and I look and you're walking up to the car oh no yeah you're

walking up to the driver, you're like, getting ready to give, you know, what the hell was that? You spun my driver out. I'm not happy. And you got like five foot from the window and you looked at me and I must had blood like, and you looked at me and you went and turn around and walk off. You never said a word. And you look, he's so puzzled. You're so puzzled like, damn, somebody beat me to it. Somebody got to swipe it already. Somebody else got here and hit it. You don't remember that? I don't. It was a long time ago.

I'll never forget it. Funny thing about that race. There was a lot that went bad there. So you crashed us. And so we were pitted on the island, right, on the inside of the racetrack for that, that inner pit road was. Impossible. Yeah. Where is this?

Sonoma. Sonoma. So when you would come into the final turn, they had, pit road wasn't long enough, so they had cars pit on the inside of the racetrack. So we had to move all your equipment to the inside of the racetrack, and you couldn't get out until the race was over. So we're in there. We bring our cool down units and toolboxes and, you know, stuff sitting out there. And we get crashed and obviously by you.

I remember that now. And so my crew member, he rolls over to the cool down unit that's full of water, doesn't want to push it all the way out full of water because it's heavy, pulls the plug, starts dumping the water out. The water started running across the racetrack. There's like four laps to go and there's like a stream of water going down into turn 11. And I'm like, oh, my God, NASCAR is going to be so upset with me. That's hilarious.

Yeah, yeah. We got, fortunately, I didn't get called to the trailer on that one. Hey, just random things that I had always kind of wanted to ask you. And I've always kind of wondered, you did allude to it a little bit about, you know, putting the people, the pieces together on a team. Yeah. Okay. Now, at some point, engineers, the premium on engineers really kind of seemed to take off.

Or am I, do I have that wrong? I mean, like, at some point, it was like crew chief driver. But now engineers all of a sudden started becoming the next crew chiefs. and started like, and I was always curious, what's better, hypothetically, an A plus engineer and a C plus driver, or an A plus driver and a C plus engineer? If you're the crew chief and having to pick. The driver. Get an A plus driver and a C plus engineer. Yeah, absolutely.

So there's still nothing beats. Look what Jimmy did with me. Well, but you're a good person to ask because you also had some phenomenal engineers. Yeah. I mean, like, notorious. Craig Ives happened to do well for himself, right? So I just, I was always curious what you thought. And is the premium steel, you got to have the wheelman and then everything else falls in place?

Or if the wheelman has a car that's innovative and crafty? It takes both. It takes both. The way that we always approached it was maybe a little different than some other folks. Just let me give me an example. Jimmy had certain racetracks he was really good at, Dover, for instance. I mean, guys just a master. Dover, right? Like you could drive a Chevrolet Tahoe around there and beat half the field.

We didn't really focus on Dover. Didn't need to. Yeah. Jimmy did. So what we would do is we would go focus on racetracks that Jimmy wasn't good and he didn't maybe have the upper hand and try to make sure that we took a better product to those racetracks until he got to the point to where he had the confidence and the ability to do what it was that he needed to do. So I think you have to have both to operate at the level that you need to in this sport right now. Because the driver came can't do it at every venue. You just can't. It's just not possible. And the team can't do it at every venue. So you've got to figure out how you're going to approach it. And that's the way we always did it. Talk about the new opportunity, the new position you're going to take next year. So what is this role? And why are you excited about it? Man, I can't wait. So it's called vice president of competition. Jeff Andrews has that role right now. Jeff Andrews is moving up to a general manager of Hendrick Motorsports, which is. an amazing opportunity for him. He has got a very, very, he's learned a lot being in this role that he's in right now about cars that he didn't before because he was basically an engine guy.

Right. And so he was thrust into this and did fantastic, huge fan of Jeffs. And he and I've worked really well together. We compliment each other really well because he's a very, very, very, not slow to move, but just calm type person, right? And as we've said, I'm not necessarily naturally that way. So I can use that as to my advantage. But he's moving up and then I'm taking a vice president of competition role. And basically that is what would be under my umbrella like Mr. Hendrick, like it's called, is just everything with the car to make the car go faster. So that's the manufacturing aspect.

That's the production aspect. That's the development and design, the engineers, the four car numbers. All of it. A lot. Yeah. It's a lot. And I'm completely overwhelmed. What part of that job are you most looking forward to that you don't have to do that you do

as a crew chief? The part I'm looking forward to is working with all the teams. I really enjoy working with folks now. I enjoy working with people more now than I do working with cars. I think just being beat on so much about the cars and going through all the changes and all that, it's taken a little bit of that excitement from the cars away from me. I'm not going to lie.

But I really love, you mentioned great guys, Cliff Daniels, some of the other guys that we've got that are coming up through the ranks of Hendrick Motorsports. I really enjoy working with these guys. guys and trying to guide them and get them into positions to where they can be successful. I really, really like that. So I'm looking forward to that. I've really enjoyed, so I told you we're in a position now at HMS, that we're just

starting to blossom with the way that we've got our structure now. And, man, I've really enjoyed getting to know and working with Alan Gufferson. You know, you talked about that competitive, that friendly competition between the card numbers. Man, we lived it because Alan was a D. Hart guy. I was an Everingham guy. Those two did not get along really at all. And Alan and I, not that we carried that, but we had that competition. He would win, I would win.

He would win, I would win, I would win. You know, and we would just, we would help one, not really help one another. We push one another. That's probably the best way to say it. And so we always just had a little bit of a coarseness between the two us. And man, right now, I love working with that guy. Like, he is so dang smart. He is such a good crew chief.

I think they got an opportunity to go to Phoenix this weekend and win the race and win the championship, which would be fantastic. So working with the folks is what I'm really looking forward. too. Well, I tell you this, if you're going to become a VP of competition, I can't think of a better lineup of drivers that I would want to start off our new role with than what you guys are going to have in 2021, right? Man, I'm so excited. What do you make of this? Man, we've got youth. We've got youth behind the wheel. We've got youth on top of the pit box. We've got, we've got youth on youth on we've got a lot of youth. And we've been in a rebuilding phase at Hendrick Motorsports now for about five

years, right? And man, it's looking good. You know, I mean, Kyle coming on board, that's just fighting. Chase is, I mean, he is so solid everywhere he goes right now. You know, you give him a good car and he's going to run up front. Alex and Greg have done phenomenal this year. Yeah, I mean, phenomenal. Like, this last series of races, I'm crushed that they're not going to Phoenix because they deserve to. They've done enough. Yeah. And, you know, it's, in William, man, I told William this the other day. I was like, man, and I said, no disrespect where you're at right now, but in four years, you're going to be awesome. He is going to be awesome. Yeah. And just because he's, he doesn't have as much racing experience as some of these other guys do.

But man, he's getting it in droves right now. So he's highly talented. So we're really excited about our lineup. Well, it's going to be a lot of fun to see Hendrik Motorsports sort of going forward with you in this role. And I think it's a very, very smart move for Rick to put somebody who has such history with this company and in racing. I mean, you have lived it your whole life. it's going to really be a benefit to the business. So we look forward to seeing how it works out, man.

Thanks for coming. It's been fun talking to you. We didn't get to everything I know, but we definitely love to have you back. Yeah. We have you a year or two in this particular role and see if you come back and tell us some more about that. So since you had a crew chief,

let me be the first VP of competition you have on here then. How's that? Perfect. That's fine. By the way, we can't close this out without, there was a rumor I heard about him. Oh, geez. About Twitter.

Oh, oh, man. Last person I thought I'd ever see. Is this true? Yeah. Yeah, I am going into the Twitterverse. It's time. It's time to get out there. Look, and what spurred this is there's like a bunch of like people like stealing my name and saying they're me and sending Jimmy and everybody tweets.

And, you know, I've always. always been away from it. I haven't done it. But I'm going to, you know, at Chad Canouse is out there now and I'm going to give it a go, man. I'm going to see what happens. That might be worth the entire show at a couple years. Oh my God. Can you imagine? Chad Kamau's tweets. Yeah. So I can't wait to see if he emerges as a blocker or a responder, you know, to people. Because, man, you know, people are going to step to chat. Don't forget you can mute. You can muting. He could be a mutter. I'm really curious to see what happens because there's been a lot of people that have called me cheater throughout the years and said bad things to me, you know, from afar.

I can only imagine what's going to be happening here. It'll be interesting to see. Are you prepared for this? Oh, man, yeah. I'm thick skin. Have you tweeted yet? No, no. I think we'll do our first tweet here.

Maybe we'll do it with us. Yeah, let's do it. How about that? Let's do it. Social media, Leah, it's like, yes. You want to be number one tweet? Yes, absolutely. All right, let's do it.

Fair enough. Tonight, when the podcast comes out. Are you going to retweet me? I will. He's going to be keeping his out. He was already fishing for retreats. Yeah, but you won't notice any difference as far as the increase in engagement. But yes, of course I will chat.

I think you actually could be perfect for Twitter because, like, in the real world, there's only one chaggin'ouse. But on Twitter, there's a million of them. You know what I'm saying? Those people that just don't have a filter and they'll just say, you know, be direct. You know, everybody's direct on Twitter. Well, they can hide, right? Right.

I don't see how they know how to tweet. He'll never use the character limit. Right. Right. He'll never use it. He'll get his point across in the shortest. It'll be like, his tweets would be like,

da-da-da-do. Yeah. I can't wait. Very little use of emoji. I'm really curious about it. No emojis. I'm in a little bit better spot. Like, I don't have to worry about sponsorship quite as much now, you know?

Yes, you do. Well, not quite as much, right? I can throw a little dig out there and be like, I'm not going to get the call from so-and-so on that one, you know? So I got a little more freedom right now. Oh, my God. I can't wait. All right, man.

We'll have fun with it. All right, guys. We'll see you around. Thank you. Yeah, man. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. here with the Dale Jr. download, and we are ready for the, are you eating shredded beef jerky bike?

He is. He is. Yeah, I brought everybody some shredded beef jerky if you've been watching the show. You know that I'm a big fan. But this is the Ask Junior part of the show, presented by our friends, Exfinity, their premier partner of NASCAR, and I'm a customer, a big, happy customer for Xfinite. What's so funny, Matthew? Sorry, I was trying to lean down so he didn't see me

I was watching Mike. I'm sorry. I apologize. Because he's eaten shredded beef jerky making faces and I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. I tried to duck so he didn't see me. I'm sorry. I see.

Making bigger emotions. Yeah. I try. I'm trying to do something so you can't see me over here. Hey. I was trying to do this. I'm hoping you might not see me. Anyways, Ask Junior, it's time to hear the questions that you sent to Xfinity Racing on Twitter and in this chat.

So Leobon, she has those questions. Let's get started. Yeah, our first question coming from Diego Alvarado. He sent this into Xfinity's Twitter. With your new involvement in I Racing, what kinds of things do you want to see from the service in the coming years? So I have become a executive director at eye racing, and basically I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing for I racing for decades on and off. I've helped them create partnerships with tracks, organizations like NASCAR and manufacturers, brought them together to be able to talk to manufacturers trying to explain in the early stages of eye racing.

A lot of people didn't know what it was. A lot of people in racing and motorsports didn't know what it was. And I had to try to tell them, like, hey, this is going to be. going to be a big thing. This is going to be, this is where you want your car, your track. This is where you want people learning about it and racing on the virtual version of that track. So I've helped them sort of create some of those relationships. I've helped them under, back when I was a driver more so, I provided them with a lot of information as far as horsepower and drag and, and torque and just as much information as I could possibly. If they needed it, I tried to get it. And

I'm going to keep doing that to help them create the best sim. And the whole purpose and the whole focus or drive for me is just I'm a selfish customer. I just want to, I just want to race on the SIM, and I want that content on the SIM. So I can, I want me and my friends to be able to, you know, have fun with this new content. So I'm always out there trying to get them to scan this track and that track and build this car and that car. and I'm just going to continue to try to put the pressure on Steve Myers and everybody at our race. I know that the company's got such a bright future. They've already accomplished so much.

I'm excited to continue to be a part of it and more of an official role now going forward. But it's all a selfish sort of thing, a bit of selfish motivation because I'm a customer. And I just want to keep racing and keep having fun on such an enjoyable platform. and I want it to continue to grow. Kevin Grapes is watching live on YouTube. We want to know what your thoughts are, Harvick missing the championship after dominating the season. Man, that's tough.

We watched that happen. Obviously, in the broadcast booth, I was surprised, okay, you know, Harvick's move at the end, I think a lot of us would have done it differently. I'm watching it, I'm like, hey, he's got a, he's going to, he's going to hit him in the middle of the corner or entering the corner and just move him up the track into the marbles.

Once you send a guy up there into the marbles outside of the main two grooves at Martinsville, they're done. They're kind of sliding around. They're not going to be able to come back and get you, especially if you're just coming to the checker flag. So I thought, you know, going into turn three, he would just kind of, okay, Kyle, I'm just going to send you up the track. It's harmless. You're going to be fine. I'm going to take this spot. You're going to finish behind me. but Kyle went into the corner in the high line and he didn't chase him up there he just went to the bottom and then tried to hit him coming off the corner and spun themselves both out. Jeff Burton said to me he goes you know for people that don't wreck other people

on purpose a lot when they try to do it they do a lousy job of it and so that was his opinion and that was interesting but I thought man if I'm Kevin I send Kyle up to track into turn three and I just go by him. But he didn't do it that way. And so, you know, that was my kind of initial reaction to that. And we watched the 20 car, you know, just not passed Denny. And we now know that they had some radio communication about that and not to pass Denny.

But we're sitting there watching it. Everybody there that was watching it was like knew that Jones wasn't going to pass him. And so, you know, it was interesting to see how now. car handled that. I don't think that, you know, you can make the argument that Denny's like just running his car best he can run it. And, you know, that Jones and his group, as far as crew chief spotter and the driver, are responsible for what they did and that they should, you know, they should be imposed some sort of a penalty or fine compared to the precedent set in the past with Michael Waltrop Racing and all that. It's a little bit different, but still.

the same sort of manipulation to get a guy into further into the playoffs. But NASCAR chose not to find them. So that's what's happening. That's where, that's what's going, that's what's happening going forward. I probably would have, if I had been NASCAR, I guess if you wanted to ask me, I'm sure people are going to want to know my feelings about it. I probably would have fined or penalized the 20 or that group in some way. I don't know if I could, I would have had to think hard about Denny and doing anything

there because I don't know that Denny did anything. intentionally to manipulate the finish of the race. I would not probably add anyone back in or put Harvick or boy or anybody into the final four. I never liked when they did that with Gordon. And so that's, I just probably would be a little bit hard on that 20 team. And that would be it. All right.

Is that it? What was that? Two questions? No, that was like four or five questions. I mean, I can ask another one. One more. We had a Dreamsy. He's a Boyer fan.

And with Boyer retiring, he's looking for another active driver to be a fan of. Is there any other driver that might have a similar personality to his that I should look into? My goodness. He's one of a kind, right? There's nobody like Clint, honestly. Yeah, there's nobody like Clint. And, I mean, honestly, I cannot think of anybody that would remind me of him. and he's a colorful personality and a great guy,

and he's going to be amazing for our sport in the booth. It's exactly, I think, what that booth needs, and it's just going to be so much fun listening to him on race day, do some races, and I'm glad he's going to be a part of the sport going forward, but he's going to leave a void and personality on the racetrack. It will be field, and we have a lot of great personalities out there, but there's not many that come along in our sport like him. He's pretty real and honest and raw,

and I will say that the guy that's filling that seat, Chase Briscoe, is worth a look. No, he's nothing like Clint and personality. But as far as character, I put them both up there as a very, guy's a very high character. That's a tough question because, like, the crazy character part of it. Somebody said, Noah Gragson, we wanted to watch, feel like Clint, as far as color personalities.

Yeah. Corey LaJoy? Yeah, Corey's a little bit like Clint, but a little cleaner. Could be a little unhinged at times. It's awesome. Yeah. Well, we'll have to keep our eye out for the next, you know, the next Clint East, or Clean Eastwood. There's only one of those, too.

Clint Boyer. Clint Boyer's going to love that I caught him Cleanney'swood. If you could only see Mike in the background, We'll laugh us that off. Thanks for all the questions. Great stuff this week and every week. The segment goes by too fast. I'd love if we could do that a little bit longer, Mike.

I know. It does go by fast, just like Xfinity Internet does. Yeah, X-Fi. It keeps me connected with great speed. I'm a customer of Xfinity so I can speak from experience. There's no better way to step to speed with NASCAR and Dirty Mo Media. I mean, the best part about this is hearing the great, clever questions that people come up with. You think you've asked it all, but you have.

haven't. And so if you go to at Xfinity Racing and use the hashtag Ask Junior, send those questions in. And we love to hear what's on your mind. And Junior will take a stab and answer them. A big thanks to Xfinity for being a premier partner of NASCAR. Last call. Last call. I got something to say. Oh. All right. It's last call, Mike. What do you got to say? This is an acquired taste. You come around. Jeez. It took them a whole show. I've been eating this a little bit, a little bit. at a time by, you know, little nibble here, little nibble there.

It's a mess. You can't do it cleanly. But I started off the show not liking it. By the end of the show, I have. Ooh, you got a bonus. Anyone else like it so much? I'm going to bring it home to my wife. Anybody else want to go ahead and put an order in?

Anyone else? While I'm here. I'm going to avoid everyone. Hit me too. I'm avoiding everyone in this room for the rest of the day because I've learned about the side effects. And I don't want to be near any of you. It's also only 25 calories.

There's beef jerky flying all over this place. All right, everybody. Oh, you want another one? Man, I led you too, man. That was good. We've lost control. We've lost control. Jerkeys everywhere.

So there's no better way to end the show. Honestly, y'all are not going to believe this, but we do not have a jerky deal. We need one. I just thought Streddney's Pete Churkey was worth talking about on an open segment. And it has turned into quite the story. We had a great show. Chad Canals was awesome. And man, he's changed so much in his life.

So it's good to be able to catch up with him. And he was so happy to be here. I think he was. He was. He was glad to be here. And we got some great lines in the water for the remaining shows. we got one more show no and I can't wait to hear

about the lines of the water that you know about no I'm kidding yeah we got some lines we got a few lines we got some lines we got some lines we got some we're gonna end this season with a bang boom we've got I won't be here next week so you're gonna really have a good show three more podcast

not counting this week one more TV show right so next week's TV show but then we're going to do a few more podcasts and last year this time you were always trying to you know make me tighten up and do shows throughout the off season. I thought we needed some time.

But, like, you know, if we spring in here one time and just, you know, do a show just on a whim. What actually happened? I feel like that we should be doing at least a couple shows during the months of December and January to bridge the gap between during the off season to keep our listeners tuned into what we're doing. And so that, you know, they don't have to, they don't have to, they don't have to, kind of tune out and then tune back in. That's a big ask. I'm down with that.

And plus we always got YouTube content that needs posting, and we'll be able to create some great content that way. So everybody, if you like that idea, I think I've got them finally convinced. Mike Davis, it's nice you finally came around. Yeah. Hey, it just took a little bit of beef turkey. All right.

Everybody, have a great week. Thanks for listening to the Dale Jr. download on Dirtymo Media. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Dirty Mo!