The Dale Jr. Download - 324 - Darrell Waltrip (Part One): Ole DW

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

It's been a long time coming! Finally, racing legend Darrell Waltrip joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis at the table for a much anticipated two-part interview. Ole DW discusses his early days on the short tracks of Nashville and how an unknown driver made an instant splash in the big leagues of NASCAR, despite showing up with little-to-no tools.. DW talks about his upbringing and how he went from a house filled with four-letter words, to media-darling racecar driver and broadcaster. He was known by competitors as "Jaws," and as usual, doesn't hold back from honest takes on his life in the sport.Waltrip shares stories of racing with Dale Jr.'s grandfather Robert Gee, the genius he was with racecars and how he liked to eat steak and drink Crown Royal. The Gee years saw both Dale Earnhardt and Waltrip piloting the famed #17, a head-turning piece of shiny machinery. One of the most successful cars was a Camaro Modified with Volkswagen fenders.Waltrip's first Cup car was a famous one, but at first, he didn't know it. Crew Chief Jake Elder made the discovery and it had the young driver excited. So excited that year's later he bid on the car to get it in his possession once again.Waltrip talks of his early years with Bud Moore and the tumultuous partnership with DiGard racing. Was he really going to get replaced by Bruce Jenner?The Junior Johnson years brought forth some of the most successful years in his career. It also brought Tim Brewer and some shag-carpeted walls. DW discusses why drivers back in the 70's and 80's didn't want teammates. His Junior Johnson racing teammate Neil Bonnett was awarded the win after a controversial yellow-flag pass which led to Johnson protesting his own team! DW tells the story.Dale Jr. answers fan questions in the AskJr segment on the show. Will Lost Speedways go to Canada now that Canadian's can watch the show on History Channel Canada? 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.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. The Dail Jr. Download. Dirty Mo. Hey, everybody, it's Dail Jr. Welcome back to another episode of the DL Jr. Download. We got an amazing guest for today's show. This is an interview that was so good, so long, that we broke it into two parts. So part one, D.R. Walser is going to be a guest on the DL Jr. Download.

Finally, we've been looking forward to this for a long time. I've got a lot of things to ask D.W. Yes, let's get him in here. You know, I'd like to tell you what really happened up there. Looking back at the leader, Darrell Walton. But there was a little per driving number 15 to run over. Go, go, go. The green is out.

The Daytona 500 belongs to Franklin, Tennessee's. Darryl Walton. He's dived. This is the Daytona 500. You bet it. Oh, look at this. This is it. Get you on the headset.

Let me get over here. Last time I was watching this show, I think Hank Jr. was sitting here. Yep. Yeah. There's some of my buddies from back in the day. It's so good to see you, though. I tell you what. Darry Waltrop's in our studio.

Look at this. What about that? How are you feeling? You good? Oh, I'm great. Yeah, I feel pretty good. I stayed at the Ritz last night. And it's like a ghost town.

Yeah. There is nobody downtown. I went to a Fleming's and ate dinner by myself. there was one other couple in there. I mean, and the hotel was empty. I've never been in that place when it was empty. Yeah. You're a talker.

When you're sitting at a table by yourself, who do you talk to yourself? The waitress. The waitress. I sit down and have a glass of wine or something, you know, and we'll chat. So that car right there, that Nova, I got a picture of me when I was like, I don't know, 12 years old sitting in the car. And it's probably Darlington or Rockingham or somewhere like that. And I got a lot of the pictures on my phone of that car that raced. I got thousands and thousands of pictures of my dad.

I've collected over the years and many of this car. And I didn't know that it was the same car year after year after year back when he raced in the bus series. You ran. Yeah. He had the same car from 84. It was a blue Wrangler car. And he ran and he painted it good wrench at Daytona. And one Daytona with a blue chassis.

Yeah. The Wrangler Blue chassis was still there in the pictures. And then they put a head of Ventura nose on it. They put the Nova on there. Robert G. Jr. put the Nova nose on it. And I got pictures of a car in the shop, getting the nose put on it. And they painted a chassis orange in offseason at some point. When we sanded it and cleaned it, blasted it, we found the Wrangler Blue paint on it.

But anyhow, for like 20 years, I've seen. seen this car in pictures, different places, getting sold at Meekam and going overseas to that thing that. Goodwood. Yeah, Goodwood. Running at Goodwood. And I'm like, man, if it's over there doing that, those guys that on it must have done their homework, it might be the real deal. And so it came up for sale at the Barrett Jackson and I called Rick. And I said, Rick, might have to ask you to do me favor and buy this one car that's at the auction. So I called my uncle, Robert G. Jr., who put the body on the car originally. Yeah.

And I showed him some pictures of it from the internet. And I said, is this the car? Is this the really the car? He goes, hey, it's hard to tell. He's like, there's only one way to really, maybe I'd be able to tell as if you got underneath it. And looked at the drive shaft loop. Dad made the drive shaft loop in the shop. Oh, my.

And because they went to the racetrack without one, and they told him when they come back, have one. So he handmade it out of a strap. and I remember that. And so, sure enough, there's a drive shaft hoop under the car, and it's not painted, it's original, and it says on it, do not paint because this was handmade by dad and whoever owned the car knew better, right, than to mess with it while it's been restored two or three times. I still wasn't trusting that.

If you're going to spend that much money on something, I need more proof. Yeah, right? Mom was sick with cancer. We were up at her house, And just sitting there visiting her and me and LW, my brother-in-law, I said, man, here's some pictures of this car. I wish I had more proof than just that drive shaft loop. You could bolt that on anything.

And I got to that picture of me sitting in the car. And in the picture, so I'm sitting in the driver's seat, there's this radio box. And they mounted it in there crooked. And they got two rivets on each side of it. And one rivets attached to this roll bar, the A post rowbar. and the other two rivets are attached to this little sheet of aluminum that goes up from the roll bar to the doortop. And it's in there crooked, right?

And I said, LW. I bet all that paneling in there's original. And if we go down to that car, it's at my house. It was at my house next to Mama's at the time. I said, I bet if we see them property rig holes, that's it. Wow. That'll tell us. We ran down there and I walk, I mean, I'm walking in the door thinking,

it's either. This is it. This is the moment of truth. Well, it could be the car or I wasted all his money a lot. It could be that. Phony. Yeah. And sure enough, the root holes were there.

Be down. Yeah. And it was like, hallelujah. So. Did you pay a lot for it? Yes. If you bought it Barry Jackson, you did. And so Rick, I was like, you know, I'd already bought the car.

I was so thankful that it was the right thing. And we ended up restoring it over there. Robert G. Jr., put the body back on it. Yeah. Well, tell him about the hammer marks, too. Yeah, well, you know, Daddy beat the floorboard out of all his cars. Did you know that? Oh, yeah.

He beat the hell out of the seat. You know, that's all. He cut the bottoms off the seat. That's how we adjusted everything. You had to get a butler seat, and then you would just start banging on it and beating on it, too. You got it kind of where it fit you, you know. You didn't have those molds like they had the day you said.

No, you know, we had to beat the hell out of them. Yeah. And in the race sometime, you'd get them all bowed out like you want. Of course, he had to be able to lay down in there. Right. You know, he had that seat like a little rath hole right in the middle of where he said his butt. Yeah, he would cut the bottom out of his seats. Oh, yeah.

He was terrible. He put the pad on the floor of the car. No, he said the seat wasn't holding you in, the belts were. That's right. Look, I don't have to tell you. He had a theory about everything. Oh, he did. It didn't matter what it was.

He had a theory about it. So anyways, Darrell, thanks for coming all this way. You said you stayed in a hotel by yourself. You're doing all this just to be here for us today. I'm sure you're coming through town seeing some old friends too, so that makes me feel a little bit better. You've been coming all this way. No, no, I watch your show quite often.

You've had some of my best, you know, Kenny Schrader, and of course you had Hank Jr. on the other day, and you've had Kyle, you know, a lot of fun people, and I watch, and because I like to see what they're doing. Yeah. I'm in Tennessee, and everybody's over here, and so, you know, I don't always, I'm not in the loop so much like I once was,

so I like to know what everybody's doing. So it's fun to be here, man. I'm excited about it. You said you're in Tennessee. Where are you at? I live in Franklin, Tennessee. I got married in 69, so Steve and I've been married 51 years. And we moved down to Tennessee right after I got married and started driving for P.B.

Krell. I think you remember Chubby his son? And, you know, we built, we had cars. He bought all his cars from Bobby Allison. So that's how I got to be friends with Bobby Allison. And I started racing at the fairgrounds. And I won everything. I won, one, one, one.

As a matter of fact, the first cup race I won was at the fairground. So I moved there in 1970. I've been there ever since, in the car business, got five car dealerships there. Wow, five car dealerships. Yeah. Yeah, we have Honda, Volvo, Subaru, Buick, and GMC. If you got all them car dealerships, why was you in broadcasting so long? Because I loved it.

One thing, even today, and I guess I was fortunate when you think about it, because I wouldn't have been good with this COVID thing. Because I never liked to watch a monitor. Oh. For 19 years, they stayed on me all the time. Like, watch the monitor, watch the monitor. People at home don't know what you're talking about. I said, I don't care if they know what I'm talking about.

I want a camera over here. I want a camera over there. And so it was, you know, it would have been hard for me to be in the studio and do the races. Because I've got to see it. I got to smell it. I got to feel. I got to touch it. He's the same way.

Yeah, I must, I know, you're just. same way, that way. Luckily for us, the way the booth works for us is, I've always felt like that if I thought something was interesting that I saw out the window, I'd just start talking about it and they're going to put a camera on. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's where I was.

Same way. And our producer allows us to sort of steer the camera to wherever we want. This is a great battle getting ready to happen. Let's go there. So when you were working in the sport, you didn't live in Tennessee. You know,

When you're driving race cars in a Cup series all those years, you didn't live in Tennessee. You were here, right? You were in Charlotte. Well, this was my second home. Right. I met Robert G. Your grandfather. Jake Elder brought my mercury, my 71 mercury over here, for Robert to fix the side in.

What happened to the side? Well, I got in the record in the Daytona 500, and Marty Robbins raked down the side of my car and pushed the whole side of it in. And I finished the race. I don't remember where I finished. Anyway, so when the race so with, and Jake lives in Charlotte, and he had worked at home in Moody, he had worked for the pitties, and he worked for Hudson Pagan, so Jake knew everybody. And he said, we're going to take this car back to Charlotte, and I'll get Robert G. to fix it. I said, all right, what's his last name? That is his last name.

Okay, well, so we go, so I've never been to Charlotte before. So they bring the car over here, and I come over here, and I, and like, Charlotte Motor Speedway seemed like it was way out in the country back in the day. It took, you know, land the airport. It took forever to get out there, you know, but we finally got out there. We stopped by Omo Langley's shop on the way because we had to pick up a gear, and I don't know, we did a bunch of stuff. So we get to Robert's shop and this little shop behind his house and their damn wrecked car everywhere, mostly dodges.

And we go down to the driveway into the shop, and Robert did a big guy with his eyes, and a cigarette hanging with ashes hanging off of it, you know. And Robert's welding, he's going, Pff! I'd say, we've got to get my car out of here. he said, what's wrong? I said, that man can't even weld. He doesn't know how to weld.

Because I'd never seen a wirewilder before. I thought you had to hit an arc, you know, and run a bead, you know. It's funny. He said, calm down, calm down. It's going to be fine. And so Robert and I, you know, came great friends. I kept my cars there. The mercury you're talking about is that that car,

is that the car that Mario Andrade wanted Daytona 500 with? I had no idea. When I bought that car, bought it from home to Moody. It was a 69 mercury when I bought it. It had been a 67. Fair Lane, then a 69 mercury, then I turned it into a 71 mercury, and that's kind of way chassis were back in the day. You didn't throw them away. You just updated them. So we were working on that car one day. Was it a frame from front of? Yeah. I mean, it was a whole car. I bought,

it was a guy named. How did you update cars back then? Because they had, they had a lot of, I mean, it was a stock shell on top of the chassis. You just cut the sheet metal off of them and, you know, you'd put another set of sheet metal on them. Wow. I mean, that thing started off brand new as a 67 Fairlane and of course it became a 69 mercury and and ralph stomlin bill france senior he liked to bring those kind of road racing guys over and this car ran at talladega that's the last time it had been raced to settle on a front row I think um anyway I bought the car and we're working on it who'd you buy from shop it's way back in the day you know who did you buy it from i bought the car from uh from hobbing the booty yeah you just walk over and I'm interested in buying a car

oh they wanted to sell it it was for sale and they wanted I paid I got the car with the engine in it, a brand new engine, 427 tunnel port, a spare engine. I didn't really know why I needed a spare engine, but after a little while I figured it out. They don't last very long and some tires and wheels and so forth. The first race I went to, I went to Talladega. That was my first race and everybody said, why do you go to Talladega? I said, well, that's when we got the car done. So I had the car to Hutch and Pagan. That's how I met Jake. And Jake was working on the car and he was up on the day. And he was up on the dashed ground and he said hey hey come over here he said you know what car do you know where this car came from

i said i got it from home and moody why he said this is mario's car how did he know it had a tag under the under the dash in the on the firewall under the dash it had serial numbers on it and jake had worked on that car and that's how he knew that was the chassis yeah i mean obviously it went through a lot of change yeah the body no wow i was i was so well i was kind of happy because you know it's a man i got Mario Andretti's car. Mario was, you know, he was one of my heroes back in the day. He and AJ. But anyway, go to Talladega the first race I go to, got this 71 Mercury's been over Hudson Pagan.

I'm ready to go. Man, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm at Talladega. And we opened, I got this, I got this Maxwell House coffee truck that my father-law bought from a Burek, a Oldeatheel dealer in Owensboro. Big box truck. Yeah, big old box truck. International. It wear you out, just driving it.

Got a trailer, got the car. Jake goes, I meet Jake at Talladega, we unload the car, we go open up the back door and he looks in there and he says, where's your tools? Where's your, where's your equipment? I'd been to Western Auto. This is no lie. There's Western Auto in Owensboro. I'd been to Western Auto. I bought me a little toolbox and I had some 9-16 inch and some, you know, some wire, some pliers and some screwdriver. A couple of wrenches, yeah. That's all I had. I didn't have jack stands. I didn't have air ranches. I didn't have anything. And Jake, I thought he was going to die. I thought he was going to turn around and go home, which later on.

Which that kind of was his thing, right? I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I was ready to go. That's what I had at the fairgrounds that worked already there. Why wouldn't it be okay for Talladega? It wasn't. So I ended up having to buy air rinsches. Oh, man.

I had rent air tanks. I had to go out and buy some jihad. I didn't have money. I had, see, that's one of the things that was kind of weird about my career. When I first started, everybody thought, because my wife, Stevie, her fall in all, was the president of Texas gas. So everybody assumed I had a lot of money. So they thought I'd come in.

I'm a rich kid, you know. I didn't have two nickels to rub together. I'd pay Jake and Robert and them on Friday and barry it back from on Monday. That's how broke I was. So anyway, I didn't have a lot of money to spend, but somehow, some way we managed to make it. Where do you go buy and rent all this stuff at last minute like that? Just different, you know. There's part trucks at the track.

Is that what you did? Yeah, there's stuff there. You know, Mr. Hurd. Back in the day, there were parts trucks that would park in the garage. I mean, two or three retailers, basically like anything you need. Pompestone, hush and painted, butch, Stephen, DSR. If that truck didn't have it at one next door did, and they would sit there and retail sell everything you could need. Sure.

If I wanted it or needed it at the racetrack, it was in that one in the parking. Oh, yeah. It's so different. I hate, he knows, because he was there a little bit, but the sport is so different today than it was then. I mean, it was just a few guys. It was a hobby. It was almost like a hobby. It wasn't a business like it is today. How'd you do in that race? Your first race? Well, it's kind of funny because Jake was notorious for cheating. I didn't know that. I mean, I like Jake. I didn't know that. We led that race. Me and James Hilton and had a heck of a battle. And I'll never forget, I came into pits.

And I had this rag-tagged, a bunch of kids from... You had to rent them to them. They all came up from Nashville. Oh, really? So they didn't know. They'd only ever worked on the car in Nashville. The first pit stop we make, or there's somewhere there in the race. I said, I've got to be cheating.

There's got to be something going on. I pass Richard Pettie, Buddy Baker, by passing all these guys. And I'm fighting with James Hilton for the lead of the race. Well, I didn't know. we had old tires. The tires came with the car. The last time it was run was at Talladega, so it had these old slick tires like that's what they had there to start with. And Goodyear had come this time with a brand new treaded tire. Well, those treaded tires would run 10 laps and just tear all the pieces. So all these fast guys were having tire problems. I wouldn't have any tire

problems. So I came down pit road and I stopped and we made a pit stop. And in my mind, I'm thinking, I know we're cheating. Boy, I'm going to be in big trouble right from the get-go. You're thinking that? I was. I really was. How am I? I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm leading the race.

You're passing Richard Petty. I pass by Richard Petty. So I come into pits and I make a pit stop and I'm going down pit road and everybody's pointing at me. I said, yep, they all know it. They know we're cheating. I didn't know that the jack was hung under the car. When they pitted the car and it didn't let the jack all the way down, it got hung up

under the car and I'm going down pit road with the jack hung up under the side of my car and everybody's, I thought they were saying, oh, he's cheating like hell. But no, they were just pointing at that jack. Hey, man, you got a jack under your car. That was a brand new jack. I think I paid $200 for it. He knows, but, yeah, cost you just bought it. Yeah.

But anyway, that was my first race. I could have won that race. You know what? I always think about, what if I'd have won that race? Your first one. Here I am. First race they ever been to. I'm a rookie.

You think I was obnoxious before that race? What would I have been like after? If I'd have won that first race, I don't know what they would have done. They would not have been able to deal with you. No, they would. They would have no idea what they were about to get. Jaws would have surfaced much earlier than his career. Jaws would have been a goldfish at that point.

They only know what kind of shark they were going to get, right? But it was that first, those first few years were amazing. I look back on them, I said, how in the heck did I survive? How did I make it? I don't know. It just blows my mind sometimes thinking about how lucky you. Your dad and I, I mean, we were buddies, and he's racing dirt cars. is, you know, Concord.

And I'm trying to keep a car together to go to the next race. And I got all these, I got Ray Fox Jr. and Robert G. and Larry Reagan. I got all the guys from the 71 team when they closed the doors over there, Harry Hyde, they came to work for us. They came to work for me. And so I had a really good bunch of guys. Did you know it? Did you know how good they were then?

No, no. You're talking about legendary names. They're just guys, you know. I didn't know. Harry Hyde. Oh, man. Well, Harry Hyde was from Louisville, Kentucky, and I knew who Harry was. He and I were kind of buddies.

I always said, if I got in trouble and I had to go to court, I want Harry to be my attorney because he was so he could talk his way in and out of anything. Could he? Oh, he was great. I loved Harry. The car that we're talking about, I'm a big Jimmy Means fan. Yeah. In collecting photos of Jimmy over the years, there's a picture of you and him with your mercury,

the T-boned at Daytona and the 300-mile. What happened there? Well, that was the last time I ran that car. Right. You were there running a cup race in another car. Yeah, I was driving for Diagard, I think, at the time, yeah. And you still had that mercury and peddling with it. I had what was left of it, yeah.

When I hit Jimmy, it pretty well wiped it out. But anyway, and what was funny is Jimmy's from Alabama, you know. Y'all do each other. There's something about Tennessee and Alabama. You know, there's just some rivalry there that we just could never seem to get over. but anyway, I knew Jimmy from racing at BIR and Huntsville in different places, and he swore, and he was mad at me. He might still be mad at me.

I don't know. Did I hit him on purpose? He swore that, you know, he got sideways in front of me and I teabone him. I what am I going to do? I got no, you know, I did the best I could. And he was mad at me for, he may still be mad at it. I don't know. He was, what?

He thought you teabone him on purpose? He thought I did it on purpose. I said, I'm going to tear my car all the hell just to hit you in the same. side of the door, he said, well, you were trying to kill me. I said, I really wouldn't. I just said, it was an accident. I promise. That's wild. I know. That sounds like there was some animosity there, more than just a Tennessee, Alabama thing, right? Well, I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but DWs went in the

track title at Nashville, and then when DW went on from the fairgrounds, Jimmy won the title the next season. Yeah. And the 1974 Winston Racing Series championship. Somewhere back in there. I won the track championship in 70. It was abbreviated season. Yeah. And then I won again in 73. I drove R.C. Alexander's. Yeah.

Mike Alexander. So this Mercury, you crash it. That's the last race it runs. Yeah. How does it end up being restored and back in your hands today? I love the way cars do this. How does that car? Where does it go?

Yeah. So we take the car home and because it just killed it from the firewall forward. I mean, it was done. It was dead. And so we took it home, and we took everything off of that car, oil tank, spindle, anything that we could salvage. And that's how we built the Camaro. The little Camaro I have that we won the modified race at Daytona in in 78, we took everything off to Mercury and put it on the Camaro. The rear-in, housing, and just things that we could salvage.

We took the body from the firewall back and put it out behind Robert's house and covered it up with a tarp. well that's where it's set forever and then hugo came through wow and hugo came through and blew a tree down onto the mercury oh so there it sits with a tree laying on top of it and robert calls me he says darrell lee he always called me darrell lee he said darrell lee i'm taking this car to the dump i said what you can't do that robert he said it's killed it's no good you don't want it i said all right, I'm going to come over. I'm going to check it out. So I went over. We get the tree off of it. And I had a shop at the time at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. In the Good Year buildings up there, that's where my little bush shop was.

And so I took the car up there, what was left of it. And I said, someday I'm going to find somebody, sorry to say this, dumb enough to fix this thing. And sure enough, oh heck, what was that kid's name? It worked for Joe Rutman, his crew chief and got hung with him a lot. He came by one day and said, what are you going to do with that old body? I said, I want to fix it up. He said, I'll fix it for you. So he took the car. He took what was left of it.

Took it to his shop. He bought a cadaver car from California and brought it home and put all the kind of parts from that car onto that body. Fixed it. James Hilton, who was a great friend of mine, he helped me set. He put the 429 motor in it. Kenny, Kenny, whatever his name was, at Home of the Moody. He built me a set of stainless. stainless steel headers for it because he still had all the templates.

So slowly but surely I got the car put back together. And today I have it. It's got a 429 hemi in it, which are kind of rare. And it's an amazing, it's an amazing car to have. Yeah, that's crazy. So you just talked about the Camaro. This Camaro, I talk to people all the time about Robert G. Oh, yeah.

And how good a body man he was. Oh, yeah. And how creative he was. And so one of my favorite things to sort of tell people about that he did was with that Camaro, the front fenders. Oh, yeah. Made him out of Volkswagen fenders. Oh, yeah.

Did you see that happen? Oh, yeah. So he's, Robert's a perfectionist. And Robert was the funniest man I ever knew in my life. I mean, he could be dead damn serious and crack you up. Really? It's just that southern Virginia, South Hill, Virginia, accent he had, going to hips and going to the Bills and going to the beach. and let's cook a steak and he drank.

He loved Crown Royal. He kept all of his really important stuff in those little blue bags, you know. He kept all watches and rings and anything he had collected. You know, like a bank money bag. Yeah, yeah, that was why he kept everything in those blue bags, you know. He thought it was good enough for the bank. Oh, yeah. We've been there working away.

Look, we've been there working away on the car and he'd say, well, Daryl Lee, time for us to eat dinner. And he said, I'm going to cook a steak. you go up to Concord and get me a fifth of Crown Royal. And I'd come back and we'd drink Crown Royal and cook steaks and work on cars all night. Best steak you'll eat. Oh, man. I've heard that. He would sit there on the grill while it's cooking and just drizzle.

What's just your sauce on them? Oh, yeah. Just a little of time. And it would seep into that meat, man. It was so damn good. Tony Jr. is the one that first told me about his steaks, which I guess were legendary. Apparently he cooked a million of them, too. Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's what you ate when you went over there. Every night. He'd eat for breakfast or dinner, you know, whatever. He would work all night and sleep all day. I mean, it didn't have to. He kind of remind me a Dale Jr. when he comes back, you know. It's in the blood, I guess. I guess.

Yeah. The Volkswagen Fender, so it's crazy to think that, I mean, you needed clearance. You needed tire clearance. Oh, yeah. This thing was, you know. Yeah. So how did he, how did that come up? It's two in the morning.

That was his working hours. you know, probably from about eight to two or three in the morning. Call me at two o'clock in the morning. He said, and he would about probably, he might have been a little high. I don't know. He says, Darryl Lee, I figured it out. I said, what did you figure out, Robert? I figured out what those, what, I went to the junkyard.

I bought some Volkswagen fenders and wait till you see this car. Wait to you see what I've done with these fenders. And so he had built fabricated stuff to go, Because the car sat real low and the tires were higher. Yeah. The tires were actually higher than the motor. Yes. The way the body was put on the car and everything.

So you had to have these big fenders. Right. And he had to, it had to be. And see, he had worked for Harry Hyde, so they knew a lot about, they knew quite a bit about aerodynamics at that time. Wow. And so he called me, that's, yeah, look at that. And he called me that night at two in the morning.

He said, I finally figured it out. I got me some Volkswagen fenders, and I put those on there, and they are perfect. I bet in your mind you're like, what the hell are you talking about this? Right. I don't feel good about this. Your imagination would have never been able to. I don't feel too good about this.

But I'll take your word for it because, I mean, I knew he was so good. He was absolutely the best. That looks amazing. I can't believe it. The craftsmanship. But you know who else is pretty good. I know. He's the one that told me about them fenders.

And I'm like, how do you think in your mind? You know what would work? It's some Volkswagen fenders. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But you know what's funny about that car? So I paid for everything on that car. We spent about $25,000. I got a motor from Junior Johnson.

So I basically, I felt like it was my car. But when Robert passed, they had an auction at his garage. And they were going to auction off the car. I called his daughter and I said, hey, you can't auction off that car. It's mine. She said, well, do you have a bill of sale? I said, no, I don't have a bill of sale. You bought it.

I said, you got a canceled check. I said, I don't have anything. I said, but I paid for all that. Robert built it, but I paid for it. She said, if you don't have any proof of you own it, we're selling it at the auction. So I said, okay, great. So I go to the auction that's over at Robert's house. Oh, yeah.

And I said, the car comes up for bed. And I started, I've been $2,500 because it wasn't all that. It wasn't together. It was a lot of pieces and parts. You had to put it back together. So I was $2,500. Somebody bet $3,000. Where'd that come from?

I bet $3,500. And somebody said, $4,000. I look around as Butch Stevens, because Butch had helped work on that car, too. So I went over there. Butch by him and said, look, Butch, we can jack this thing up to $10,000 if that's what it takes. I'm going to buy this car. So you can, because we were kind of buddies. I said, you can either bail or you can jack the,

price up to unreasonable. But I'm going to buy this car. I'm going to buy this car. So I ended up buying the car back for $4,000. Wow. And then I had to put it all together. I had to buy a motor for it. And all this stuff was in the little garage behind, little, little storage room behind

Robert's house, the headers and pieces and parts that went to the car. But that was, I had to buy it back at auction. Well, yeah, but I understand that you still own it? You still have it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we got it at the shop. Oh, man. Yeah. All the cars I have, Ray Everham, that's the only one he ever said, if you ever want to sell that car, I'll buy it.

That's so cool. Yeah. Because we took it at Daytona. We were the only one there with a Camaro that first year. They ran the Modified on the Big Track. They've been running on the road course. They ran the Modifieds. They ran the Modified on the Big Track. And we built that camero. And we got there and everybody said, are you kidding me? Who ever thought about running a Camero like that in a modified race? What we did. And we won it. And that made that car very famous. Everybody copied it. Yeah. Yeah, the next year, Richie Evans had one, and Richie won the race. Because Robert went down to banjos. Banjo built Richie a car, and Robert went down to banjos and helped put the body and fix the car. Oh, so Robert built his, too. Oh, yeah, he built the pender for you.

Robert was special. Yeah. So talk about Robert's dirt track car. Well, you ran it also to snowball. Yeah. Camero. Yeah. One thing that I've always wondered.

again, collecting all these photos. Trying to put all this stuff in order as far as what happened first. When I'm looking at this 17 car that Granddaddy owned, that he ran at Metrolina, you drove it at Snowball Derby. Yeah. It ran. Haywood Plyler drove it after you and Daddy. But when were you driving it and when was Daddy driving it?

Because it kind of looks like the same car almost in the same year. but you, you know, talk about driving his little short track car that he ran around. Oh, yeah. And pull up the pictures. Yeah. So we took the car. Dale would run on dirt on Friday night, and I'd run on asphalt on Sunday. The same weekend.

The same car, yeah. Dale didn't tear it up, you know, but it's pretty bad. Yeah. They was pretty bad about knocking. I got to tell you this story. So Robert built this really brand new car. Snowball Derby. Yeah.

So Robert built this car, and it was really a pretty little car, a little Camaro. Yeah. And I went in a shop, but the nose was a little higher than normal. It wasn't down on the ground like it's supposed to be. And I said, Robert, I said, ain't that nose up there a little hive? He said, don't worry, Dale will erase it down. Wow. Hey, I let Dale take one of my, I had a brand new little Nova.

That's at the snowball. That's DW right there. Yeah. Look at you. Working on it. And now I know the inspiration for that, uh, that side panel there. Oh, yeah. So, so, uh, I let Dale take my little Nova to Nashville. He, when I met Dale, he was, he was racing dirt tracks and he would, we would sit and drink

Jack Daniels and he'd say, I got to get off these dirt tracks. I ain't never going to be anybody if I don't get off these dirt tracks. He's got to help me. And of course, at the time, I was a little bit better off than he would, but not a lot. That's the car he's talking. Yeah, that's the car. So I said, I tell you what, so time went by and I said, I said, had this little car I needed to finish. It wasn't all together. It wasn't finished. I said, I'll tell you what deal.

If you'll finish that car, you can take it to Nashville and race it. Because Dale was a good, he was a good mechanic. I mean, he was good at working on cars. So he and big crews and I don't know, two or three of his buddies, Harget and a whole bunch of them. They all got in on that car and they all fixed that car and they got it ready to go and they took it to Nashville. So Monday morning, I said, well, I wonder what happened.

I never heard anything about how he did or anything. Monday morning, I'm at home and I get my phone. call from about five different drivers from Nashville. And they said, if you ever let him drive one of your cars again, we're going to come to whip your ass. Because he proceeded to bring my car back in a basket. Dale was, what I loved about Dale and what I loved and what I, it's kind of love, hate thing about Dale.

Dale could do anything with a car. I mean, he could get it out of shape. He could put it in a hole. He could just, he could do, he had such great car control. He learned that from racing on dirt, you know, all that dirt track race. they did but he would do things sometimes that would absolutely make you you know kick you off you what the hell are you thinking and of course he'd had that that little grin you know that he always had and he said well you know guy was in my way and i need to move him and he wouldn't get out of the

way and so i had to move him for you know i had to help him out i help him out yeah i'm assuming is this around 1970 that uh in the 70s it was in the 70s right because he was running dirt and then eventually he made it to pavement. And I'm assuming that that's when Ralph probably around the time he passed away. Yeah, it was right after. So I think that was around 72, I believe. Yeah, Ralph passed away and then I'll never, again, it's another story. But Johnny Ray from Talladega, oh, look at that little car.

Isn't that beautiful car? We're just sitting here sharing pictures for all the podcast listeners. That car could be, that car could race today. It's beautiful. I know. And by the way. Look at you with your. your hand hanging out the window like you're on the first Sunday drive.

Yeah, you were cool. I learned that to Derry Drive-in. Hang that arm out the window and kind of, you know. We had no drive-to drive-ins back in the day. I had a 53 forward flat head. I'd pull the choke. I had a hand choke. I'd pull the choke and they go, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I go through the dairy drive. Hey, hey, how you doing? So you and Dad would sort of drive, you and Dad both were driving for Robert. You were, you know, y'all were also doing. and other things, but Robert's little car that he kept in his shop, that he went and ran the dirt tracks and asphalt tracks, a little short track races all over the country or all over the southeast. You're peddling with that a little bit, having some fun, trying to, you know, trying to get your Cup career, where your Cup career is started.

You're running in a Cup series. Talk about moving from driving your own car, your little Mercury, and get in that opportunity to race for Bud Moore. Yeah. In the 15th. Yeah. Well, I was 73. And I mean, I guess people in the sport could tell that, you know, if I had a good car, I could drive.

I mean, it wasn't a matter of, he's an okay driver. It's just, you know, I took a lot of, I took that mercury. I took everything that I got in and I made it competitive. I drove Junie Dunlevy's car. I ran up front. I drove the Diagard car, ran up front. So everybody could tell, this one's 73. Everybody could tell if he had a good car, he'd probably be pretty special.

Yeah. So Bobby Isaac was driving for Bud Moore, and Bobby quit. Got out of the car at Talladega. Said he heard a voice. That's right. Said something told him that after I drove for Budmore. I know where the voice came from, by the way. It wasn't even doubt about that.

Bud Moore. That was the voice to get out of the car. That's a legendary story. Real quick. And for those that don't know, Bobby Isaac's in the race. Is he leading? He may have been. And he said he...

That's the tail is that he had a big lead. But didn't somebody crash in that race that... Who didn't crash in that race? Everybody was right. We had 54 cars sometimes. Right. But did somebody die? It might have been tiny lawn.

I don't know. It could have been that. It was long that period of time. But anyway, he said he heard of voice. Yeah. And he just got out and parked it. And never raced again? Well, he raced at Hickory.

I think that's where he had a heart attack at Hickory. So you were the replace... So the Budmore ride, you were the next driver. But I were buddies. I was friends with everybody. You know, I'd have to, back in the day, you had to be friends with everybody because you had to borrow something. This is a big deal. Like, Buddy's car was a competitive ride.

Yeah. You know, you're, this is a big deal for you. Yeah. Well, here's the, here was what I kind of figured out as time goes by. Bud was running a 351 small block against. Yeah. God only knows how big those motors were. I mean, they were race against hemis and 427s,

and they were restricted to try to make the small block competitive. And at some tracks, that car may have had a slight advantage, but not at all the tracks. But I didn't know that. Hell, I'm supposed to win every race. That's all I know. That's a winning car. That's a winning car owner.

I'm supposed to win every race. But anyway, Bud called me, and it was kind of hard because it was 73, and I was just getting my act together. And I had Jake and I had Robert. Had a lot of stuff at Robert's shop. And Bud wanted me to drive his car. And I thought, man, I don't know. Do I want my name on the front of the check or do I want my name on the back of the check?

I couldn't make up my mind. But I figured the back was a lot better than the front. So I went and drove his car for eight or ten race and I wrecked every week. You did? I don't think. It didn't go good. It didn't go well at all. I went to Darlington.

I think I could qualify really well. Qualified front row at Richmond, wrecked, caused a big crash, big fire, went to Darlington. Why would you reckon? Was it you or was it a car handful? Way old my. Really?

I just didn't have a, I didn't know. You know, when you're a rookie, you don't know what you don't know. Well, if, I didn't realize that I had a small motor, they had a big motor and they probably were better than me, but if Bobby Allison ran at Richmond, for instance, If he ran an 18 flat, I was supposed to run a 1790, you know. And so that's kind of how I approached it, and I went at it all wrong. And Bud and I, I were really, I like Bud a lot.

We were good friends, and I was going to drive for him in 74. But George Former came along, and he had some money, and I didn't have any money. And Bud said, look, I got to go with the money. I got to go with the R.C. Coal deal. And so I was back to my car. So, yeah, and that didn't work out too well for Bud either. No, it didn't. Maybe the voice knew what was coming.

Maybe the voice actually knew a lot more about this situation than anybody else did. Hey, Bud was a piece of work now. I went to Darlington. The first time I drove his car, the Southern 500, and it's hot. Oh, it must have been 120 degrees. And tongue, he said, let me tell you something, boy, don't go in that third turn, which is the first turn now. He said, don't go on that third turn on outside of anybody. You just fall in line, get behind us.

don't go on that turn on outside of nobody. I said, okay, okay, okay, I won't. And so we start the race. I think I started fourth. Bobby was here. I was on the outside. We go down the back straight away, and I'm side by side with Bobby,

and I said, surely he'll let me in, because we're kind of buddies, not great buddies, but kind of buddies. I said, he'll back off, he'll let me in. He'll back off, he'll let me. He didn't back off. He didn't back off. He didn't let me in.

Tore the whole right side out of the car on the first lap of the race. After you had been told. And it all went, It all went way south after that. It wasn't a good day at all. So what happens after you're done driving Bud's car, you get back and you got your own car, you keep running in it, right? You win Nashville, your first race.

What was it, 74 or 75? 75. Yeah. So how did you win that race? How did that happen? Well, I mean, I know you're good there. Yeah. Well, I always figured if you can't win it.

That's my home track. Nashville Fairground. So I don't care what kind of car you're racing there. I've ran a USAC race there. I won it, ASA, you know, I'd won everything. So if you can't win at your own track, how are you ever going to win anywhere else? And ironically, Keill Yarborough had the best car. I mean, kill was short.

What car are you driving? Where did you get this car? We built it. It was a Hutcham Pagan car. Brand new. Yeah, I'd say it was probably, probably a new car. Robert G. put the body on it. Robert did all the work on it.

In the Victory Lane photo, you talked about a guy named Daryl Cruz. Yeah, a big cruise. He's in there with you. Yeah. Your brother Michael's in there. Yeah, he's standing down the left front corner down there, curly hair, you know. Are you looking at it? No, okay.

Yeah, but that was my first way. And why it was so special, it was on Mother's Day weekend. And it was at Nashville, and so a lot of my friends, and, you know, I'm a local hero. Right. I beat all the big, you know, all the big guns come down. I beat them. And so that made me even a bigger hero. But what was special about that race in my grandmother, and she's in that picture,

Granny and Pappy. They were, the first race I ever went to when I was six years old, I went with my grandmother. And I sat in a grandstand with her. And she was a pistol. She reminded me a little banny rooster. She about five foot tall, smoke a cigarette and drink cup coffee, and cuss like a sailor. I grew up, it's a wonder of my language is as good as it is. I grew up around.

Some cussers. Well, in the garage. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, there's a language in the garage that probably wouldn't use anywhere else. And my grandmother and all they cuss like sailors, you know, and they could hyphenate any word. It's just amazing. Yeah, that's a talent. Yeah.

And so you won that race at Nashville Fairgrounds. Humor me for a second because Dale Jr. is basically the probably the biggest advocate that I know of trying to get a return to the National Fairground. So tell me real quick. Oh, yeah, there's the picture. Michael, right? Yeah. And granny's wearing the purple? Is that granny in the purple?

Robert G. Yeah. She's standing up there. Turn it around where the DW can see. Yeah. That's down on the, right behind Michael is my grandmother and my grandfather. And my grandfather was a deputy sheriff in Owensboro. And my grandmother and my grandfather really kept me out of jail a lot.

And so she's probably being profane at some sort right there in that picture, right? She's probably cussing somebody. That's what my grandfather. that told me when I was six years old, he called my mom. He said, can DW go the race with Granny? And mom said, well, why does he, I don't know if he, why, why do you want him to go the race for? He said, every week, Granny gets in a fight with somebody. And maybe if she, if he goes along, he can keep her out of trouble. Well, that's where I met G.C. Spencer. And that's how, I was a big G.C. Spencer fan. Like, he likes Jimmy Means. I like G.C. Spencer. And, uh, had

to fly in saucer. And I loved that car. And I didn't, I failed. at my job though. I was supposed to keep my grandmother out of trouble. It never did. What was it about Nashville Fairgrounds for those of us that never got to watch races there? Is it, you know, he's such a big advocate for it. Describe Nashville Fairgrounds driving there, you know, in a simple way. Yeah, I think what Nashville, it's a lot like maybe Richmond is today. It's fast.

It's a pretty fast racetrack. You have to have some skill to get around there. and I think those combination of those pretty long straightaways and pretty sweeping turns always felt like if you could win there you could win anywhere is that right it's just that kind of a hybrid racetrack it's a little bit of this a little bit of that and he had to handle he had to do this had to do that and you had to know how to get around that joint

so when you win your first cup race in the NASCAR circuit I mean that's a dream oh yeah for I mean are you things were so different back then it was such a different sport. It wasn't this sort of national sport. It was really regional and all. But still, you know, you are, you've been, this is your dream come true. Do you, do you, are you feeling that? While you're sitting in Victor Lane on the, in that picture, you're sitting on the hood of that car. Yeah. Are you thinking in your mind? I can't believe I just beat Kill Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Richie Petty. I mean, I am at my home track. This is comfortable. This is my couch.

Yeah. But I, I, you know, did you think, man, I'm, I'm, I'm, I made it. Oh, no. No. No, I didn't think that at all. Not at that point. I think what that did for me, it gave me some confidence that I could. I thought I could.

Yeah. I thought if things worked out, I could win a cup race. I could win in a cup series. What I was most proud of was that was my car. It was my team. You know, you see Jake, you see Robert. You see all my guys. Terminal trucking.

Yeah, terminal transport. My sponsor, my car. I come into this circus, you know, and I had no idea what I was getting into. And so when I finally was able to win with my own stuff, I think I was prouder of that than I was the accomplice. What's terminal transport? Well, at the time, terminal transport was, those big brown trucks ran up and down the highway, commercial carriers. They hauled all the new cars out of Detroit. They were owned by my father-in-law's company, Texas Gas.

Oh. Is that the same thing that was terminal trucking? No, no, that's different. That's completely different. Yeah, that's Rich Bickle and that crowd. They were terminal truck. It was a whole different crowd. This was a big company.

They were out over near Atlanta. Somewhere over there. I can't remember where. That's where the headquarters was. And they, like I said, they hauled all those new cars out of Detroit on they were called commercial carriers and they were the brown trucks that ran up and down the race up and down the road

you know why they paint them brown because you can't tell when they're dirty and they made me the first couple of cars I had they were brown yeah they were ugly that mercury and you remember this car of course you do you're rain man when it comes to the one you're talking about

with the terminal truck his first win yeah his first win yeah so but I the orange and white car Look at that body. Look at Robert G. Body. Is that not amazing? It's the prettiest car.

Did when you showed up to Daytona? That's it, Daytona. When you showed up to Daytona with that car right there. Yeah. I mean, they didn't have best appearing cars back then, but did everybody in the garage walk by that thing? Oh, yeah. When you standing in your garage doll. Everybody knew Robert.

Everybody knew he was going to have a nice car. But I tell my guys all the time, we got a lot of reasons to not be good, but we ain't got no reason for not look good. Yeah. And so I always... You know, Tony Jr. would say that about when Tony Jr. went to go work for Robert, his grandfather, obviously, they spent more time making it look good. I mean, he polished more cars. Oh, yeah. He wanted to look good.

Oh, yeah. So you run your own car. Why did you stop? You got to ride from... You got to deal from... Diagard. Diagard. Yeah.

Donnie's driving for them. Yeah, Donnie was driving for them. They running good. Oh, yeah. They ran pretty good. I most won the Daytona 500. Mario Rossi was a crew chief engine guy and Bill Gardner. This is an episode of my life that every time I look at my career, Bill Gardner, Junior Johnson, Rick Hendrick.

You know, they're all little stepping stones. But Bill Gardner on dieguard, and here I am a rag tag, one car operation, and I outran them a lot. Yeah. And this particular race, the 4th of July race to Daytona, I passed Donnie on the last lap to finish third or fourth. And it made Bill Gardner so mad that he fired Donnie. My gosh. He fired him that day.

And his brother Jim kind of ran the race team. And so Bill Gardner said, I don't know who, I'm tired of that kid out running me. I want you to hire him? And so Jim said, you want me to hire him? He said, find out where he is, make a deal with him. I want him driving my car. And so back in the day, we ran that race on Saturday, and Stevie's mom and dad had a house down at Vero Beach. So when the race I went to Vero Beach, spent a couple of days, and came back by Daytona, I wanted to pick up my check.

Because, you know, you needed that money, pay your tire bill and whatnot. And so I'd go back by Daytona headquarters, and they say, have you seen Jim Gardner? I said, I've seen Jim Gardner. He's looking for you. I said, why is he looking for me? they want to hire you. I said, well, that ain't going to happen. I mean, I got a better car and they got.

I got a better team and they got. So anyway, we start down the road, and Stevie says, so what were y'all talking about in there? I said, oh, those gardeners, I said, you know, they said that Jim Gardner, Bill Gardner, wanted to hire me to drive that 88 car. She said, what did you tell them? I said, I told him, hell no.

I said, I got a better car and they have, are you crazy? She said, you know how far in debt we are? You know how much money we owe? and you could go drive for somebody else. I said, well, I'm not going to do it. You will not believe. So we're going down the road.

We're coming back to Charlotte. We stopped to get gas at a gas station, and guess who's there at that gas station? Jim? Jim Gardner. Oh, wow. Wow. I mean, that's just. Yeah.

And so I'm putting, Gary, he says, when can we get together? I said, well, I don't know. He said, we want you to drive our car. I said, really? I said, you want me to drive your car? I said, don't you think I got to, maybe you should be looking at driving, maybe you should be helping me with my car. But anyway, so we talked and we left there and we drove on down the road.

And Steve, he said, that's it. It's a sign. You got to go drive for them. So I got home and Bill called me and we got together and I signed a deal. And the middle of 75, I won Richmond. It was my car, but it had dieguard on it. So I ran my car a few races and I won. Richmond in that car that year. It was my car. And then we signed Gatorade. A Gatorade was funny.

Gatorade was my friend, let's see, my father-in-law's vice president at the company, went to school with Bill Stokely at Tennessee. So my father-in-law's vice president knew Bill Stokely. And this, these stories that could go on forever. But Gatorade was sponsoring Johnny Rutherford at the Dayton, at the Indy 500, they had on Indy car. Bill Stokely, he doesn't know much about racing, but he just wants to be on a car. They go to the Indy 500 Sunday morning. They won't let him in. He couldn't get his credential because he didn't get there in time.

And so his name's on the car. They won't let him in to watch his car run, so he left. And he was upset. So he called my friend and my fond love at face me, he said, told was telling him the story he said well why don't you come to nascar they won't treat you that way in NASCAR it said they'll let anybody yeah yeah yeah I mean look at pit road highly restricted area but look at but anyway so that's how we got to so I went to Indianapolis met with Bill

Stokely this one I still had my own car and and I realized right away this is much bigger deal kind of like when Junior Johnson went to RJ Reynolds there's a lot bigger deal than just sponsoring a car. This guy's got a lot of money, and he wants to be a big wheel. So I met Bill Gardner, I met Bill Stokely, and I got Gatorade, and I thought, I put this all together,

and maybe I can come up with something. And that's how we got Gatorade. That is really cool, because Gatorade, that becomes kind of an iconic car. Yeah, the Gatorade sponsorship, that was a big deal. What I loved about that car, Bill Gardner didn't know anything about racing.

Him and his brother-in-law, Mike De Prospero, that's where they die, to Prospero and Guard, dieguard came from. Okay. And they didn't know anything about racing. Mike was a race fan, and he knew a little bit about racing, but he didn't know a lot about racing. Bill didn't know anything about racing.

So it was an educational process. That was the only, when I drove for DiGuard, when I drove for Bill Gardner, I had a contract. I thought, what the heck? Nobody has contract in racing. Now, all the crew members had contracts because Bill was a businessman. Everything had to be in writing, and you had to see. sign it. And so his approach to the sport was totally different than any, than Budmore,

or Jim, anybody else in the sport at the time. And so I never had to deal with somebody like that. And it was, it was a tumultuous time. I started off great, but it started off good, you did, okay. Ended bad. Yeah. Ended bad. It ended bad. It did. Bad, Mike. Yeah. And how bad? Well, I was going to drive for Roger Penske. So I go. What year were you planning on doing that? That was 1980. So I was going to drive for Roger Pinsky. So I go to fly out of New York, get on Rock. He's not in the sport.

Like he's sold his car to Rod Austerlund. He had the Matador. Yeah, but he sold his team. And then he was, he had a car. Yeah, Dave Marcus drove it. And then he sold all his cars and everything to Austerlund. So he was coming back in. So, yeah.

You might be right. You know you're a better historian than I am about some of those things. But I'm going to drive for Roger Pinsky. And I'm pretty excited about that. So I go to Roger's house outside of New York. I remember where it was. And we have lunch, we eat, and I said, okay, kind of made a deal. So we get back home.

And the next day, Roger called me and said, hey, tear that deal up. He said, the deal's off. I said, what happened? What's wrong? He said, Bill Gardner called me. And Bill Gardner said, if I sign you to a contract and you drive my car, and neither one of us will be in racing anymore. He wasn't happy.

He wasn't happy about that at all. You had a contract with him. I had a contract with him. Oh, that's where those contracts come in handy. So all the damn contracts were just getting in my way, you know. They're messing up everything. But anyway, so I finished out the year of 1980 with Dygard. And then I then.

You went to Junior Johnson. Yeah, Keill Yarbril. I love Keel. He kind of reminds me of Robert G. really. But Keel came to me in 1980, middle of year, maybe somewhere along the way. He put his arm around me. He said, D.W. I'm going to tell you something.

I'm leaving juniors. I said, what? He said, I hadn't told anybody else. You're the first person I've told when I'm leaving juniors. I said, you've got to be out of your mind. He just won three championships. He went every week. He said, I'm tired of racing every week.

I just want to cut back and we'll drive for MC Anderson. He said, but here's what I want to tell you. Junior Johnson wants you to drive his car. Junior Johnson wants me to drive his car. I mean, that was like flattering. Because when I was a kid growing up, I was, I listened to Junior Johnson on my transistor radio. He drove that number three car, that white, Chevrolet and he was he'd been to prison he was a moonshiner he lived in North Carolina he lived

at Wilkesboro and he had the best car he he had the best car in the sport and he wanted me to drive it well I was I just that that floored me well but hold on a second before we get there you you seem to know it ended badly with Bill Gardner but you wouldn't have been privy to the information about the contract so like was there animosity so it was very public or so yeah Yeah, very public. So this is, you can, you can tell us, you can breathe, you can feel the gaps here. But by the middle of the year in 1980, you and Bill are not communicating. Not at all.

You're basically, I'm around, you know, I can't get out of this contract, so I'm going to finish my season with this 88 car. And then I'm moving on. Bill Gardner he couldn't have been Maybe he was serious But because you say he doesn't know much about racing or didn't Well he learned fast though He brings Bruce Jenner

And a guy and someone else I can't remember who else it was But he brought He brings Bruce Jenner And someone else to the Charlotte race Yeah in the fall In the fall and has them interview Bill and Bruce and another athlete.

Yeah, I can't remember him. It's an Indy car driver. I forget who he was. No, no, no. But I can't remember who it. I'm trying to pull it up. But they interview Bill and Bruce Jenner and some other athlete about, he's like an athlete in another sport.

Yeah. And about driving this car. Yeah. Hey, Daryl's leaving. But look, Bruce Jenner. Yeah. Bruce was, you know, a limp deal. Yeah.

He might drive my car next year. You know, DW's old news. No, DW's going to be sitting in the grandstand. Yeah. That's what he said. Yeah. That's what he held over my head. That I had this contract. It was irrevocable.

And you couldn't put a value on it when I would try to find out, what do I got to do to get out of this contract? You can't get out of this contract. You are a rare commodity, and there's no way to put a value. on this contract. And so it took some finagling to finally get around to what it took to get out of that contract. And my attorney, Ed Silva, and Peter Penzer was Bill Gardner's attorney, and they were talking on the phone one day, and Ed's pretty shrewd, and he was taping the conversation,

and he asked Peter, he said, just hypothetically, what would it take for, DW to get out of that contract. He said, well, he's got three years left. It'd take $100,000 a year at least. That's all we needed. I mean, that was, that was all we needed was a number. So it was $300,000 for me to get out of that contract. And that's what you gave them? That's what we gave them. Oh, I thought, I assumed that your contract was going to run out at the end of the year. Oh, no. It was a multi-year deal. No, I had just signed a new deal. Why did you do that? Well, I was dumb. I was really dumb. I was sitting in the car. somewhere. I don't remember where.

I don't know, Dayton, a Taday, somewhere. And they bring the contract to the car before the race starts. You must have just qualified on a pole or something really good. I was feeling good about myself. I'm feeling good about myself. But I did learn one thing. If somebody says in lieu of, you better be sure you know what that means. Right.

I found out right quick in lieu of, they had paid me 40% in my expenses. Well, my new contract, I wanted 50% and my expenses. Well, I got to 50%, but it said in lieu of your expenses. So I go to the shop like Monday or Tuesday after one of the races. He said, where's your credit card? I said, I got it right here. Let me have it. What are you want it for?

Well, we're not paying your expenses anymore. You're not? Why not? He said, well, you agreed to that. I did? Well, I didn't know I did. I didn't know what in lieu of meant. So I got 50%, but I lost my expenses, which was pretty large at the time.

You guys have an answer in the booth on who this. Leah brought up a social thing. You could read it. This is from NASCAR Man. In October 1980, Darrell Waltrip announced he was leaving Dygard racing to replace him. The owner sent telegrams containing offers to drivers like Mario Andretti, F1 Champ, Alan Jones, Paul Newman, and Bruce Jenner. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. Mario Adrian Paul Newman Bruce Jenner Who else? What's O.J. Simpson doing at the time? It seemed like things were going south throughout the whole team.

So, Matthew brings up a good point. The whole team was kind of busting up. Robert stuck around, though, didn't he? Robert Yates is working on that car for years and becomes a head engine guy. Did you know, Robert Yates was what he was?

Oh, well, I met Robert at Juniors. When I was buying used parts from Junior, Junior would run them 500 miles. Then I'd buy them and try to run them 500 more miles. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. But anyway, so he would, Robert Yates was working at juniors. And I lured him away from juniors to come to die guard. To fix the motor issues you were having when Ross was Rossi.

We'd put an engine in a car. We'd run 10 laps. It'd blow up. I mean, almost every week. Same problem Donnie had driving that car. Yeah. And I'll never forget. So we bought a.

all these radios, like $30,000 radios, which a lot back in the day. And Bill Gardner had a radio on big headset on. We run about 10 laps, I said, blew up. He'd come down when the race show, went through the helmet, through the radios, and it said, I could have heard that over the PA system. He said, I didn't need no damn radio. So anyway, but yeah, Robert, Robert was, cool. Robert was one of the coolest. Did you know he was as good of a motor builder? Oh, no. I just knew he, I just knew what he could do at juniors. I mean, I knew he built some incredible good engines up. I got to tell you this. So the first time I go to Martinsville and Jr.'s car, and we're getting ready for the race. And I said, so what gear do y'all

run up here? 567. What? There's no way you can run a 567 gear at Martinville. If you have a 454 you can. So, so that was in an era. Remember when Bobby protested Richard and at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Richard for having a big motor. Big motors were like pretty easy to get by with at that time. How? They, this old guy, Mr. Heider, I loved him at death,

but they pumped the same cylinder every week. I mean, he'd screw things, but, and that, you know, so they just paraphrining the cylinders or, you know, that cylinder would be right and the rest of them be wrong. Just all kind of tricky things that you could do because they knew that Mr. Hearder, you're going to do the same one because it's only get too real easy

with the headers and everything. Yeah. So that's how they ran. the big motors. And they ran them a lot. Oh, yeah. And a matter of fact, they tried to run one. Well, they did run. They won in 80, what was that, 83, when Richard had the big motor at Charlotte? Yes. They called him. And they caught him. Yeah. Mr. Hider wasn't on the, uh, no, no, on the business that I think. I think they put left, Barry Dotson was a crew chief, I think, and they put left side tires on the right. Soft tires. So they had the left tires on the, on the right. They knew that in victory lane.

And then I never forget, Chief, he's going down pit lane saying, I'm claiming 383 right now, 383. He said, you don't have to tear it down. It's a 383. And I never forget that. And, of course, that was another whole story. But Humpey Wheeler called me. I'd gone, junior mate, the junior would matter in hell.

Yeah. He made us load the car and go home, and he left early because Richard blew by me and won the race, you know, and he could not understand how that could happen. But he did. And so I'm at the hotel and Humpy Wheeler calls me. He says, stand by. You won this race. I said, yes.

He said, Richard had a big motor left side of the bobby. He told me all about it. I said, cheat. I knew he was cheating. I knew it had to be. He couldn't drive by me like if he wasn't doing something. So anyway, they'd come on and Bill Gasway, I think, was a, might have been Dick Beatty, but one of those guys.

And they said they were going to let the wind stand. And they were going to find him $30,000. Well, that's the difference between first and second. If I win, I would have gotten 30,000 more. But I didn't. I finished second. So they took my $30,000 and paid his fine with it. So anyway, that's another story.

So the 88 Gatorade team's kind of crumbling apart. They've got it back together and Bobby drives for them. Did you not tell Bobby when he goes to drive for Degard, what he was getting himself into? What was funny was so we go. Donnie, not tell Bobby. Donnie is the one that got fired before. So we go to the bank on Monday morning with, I had the $300,000, which is, they're talking 1980, $300,000, a lot of money.

So we go in, we sit down, we sign all the papers, and we get ready to leave and Bill and I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you owe me $25,000. I said, for what? He said, are you in the Bush shoot? Are you in the Bud shoot out? Are you in the Bush Clash? I said, yeah. He said, well, you'll probably win it, and I want my half now.

So I had to give him $25,000 more, $325,000. On the assumption that you were going to win and that was going to be the purse? Which I did, but he was right. But I've never heard that. I'll pass Benny on the last lap on the apron. Benny was hot. Anyway, I won that race. Anyway, but when I got ready to leave, well, Ricky Rudd followed me.

And Ricky Rudd was sitting in an outside officer when I walked out. And I said, buddy, you won't last two years with that crowd. I said, good luck. And that was who took the car. I think he drove it one year, maybe two. And then Bobby got in the car. And they won the championship. And Gary Nelson was the crew chief.

And Bobby and I became big rivals. And it was a mess. Bobby had the same sort of bad ending. You know, he got when they brought Sacks in trying to run a second car, and Bobby's like, no, I don't, this ain't what we're doing. No. And he ended up getting pissed and taking off. Yeah, he did.

Take it off. Gardner was shrewd. I mean, he was just, he was a business, man. He was shrewd. And so Robert Yates is the engine guy, and they're buying all this equipment for Barbara to have for his engine room. And Robert's got a really nice equipment, really nice engine room, and it's all at Dygard.

And so the deal falls apart, and Robert's going to send ever the movers over to get his equipment because they had been taking money from him every month or every so ever how often it was to pay for the equipment so robert had bought the equipment he owned it but when they went to shut the deal down the bank wouldn't let robert have his equipment because it was under it was under some big umbrella uh loan policy and so robert ended up with nothing and and that's when robert went and started 2018 yeah wow with uh and he and his son and, you know, they did really well.

Yeah. Talking about Bobby Allison, getting upset or getting frustrated with the sax car. So you were also, and dad, certainly, none of y' all liked the idea of a two-car team. Oh, no. Or a teammate. Why? No. Because, like, all of us, I'll just say this.

And you may have become this way over time. but me and a lot of the guys that I race with like teammates are a necessity you know you lean on your teams and try to make yourself better by watching them but back then in the 80s yeah junior Johnson is going to have a second car basically

Neil Bonnet yeah yeah Neil's going to be but y'all were more competitive with that team yeah than you were anybody else on the track oh junior was terrible Neil Bonnet and Tim Brewer would be down there, and he'd go down there and ral them up,

and he'd come up here and rile me and hamming up, you know, that rivalry. Oh, he would ral up the two teams? Yeah, he loved that, yeah. And what would he say to do that? Oh, he'd say, Neil's going to kick your ass. How do you figure that? So anyway, that's kind of how it went, you know?

And Brewer, you know how Brewer was? He's cocky, anyway. I got a brand new rollette, got a pocket full of $100 bill, got a pair of rock ports. I'm doing good. Shag carpet on the wall. Anyway,

that's all. Listen, I like shag carpet, but I never put it on the wall. Oh, no, we used to get in those hotels, like, to Pocono particularly, you get a honeymoon suite and have shag carpet on the damn wall, you know, with a heart-shaped bath of. But anyway, it was just, it's just so different. And the reason we didn't like teammates, because we didn't have enough parts. Oh. Like, you'd have one set of cylinder heads.

Or you'd have one crank shaft. Or you'd have one. The carburetor. Yeah, I mean, you had a trip carburetor. You don't want the other guy to have it. And so it wasn't like it is today where everything, you know, you build engines, you guess he gets out, everybody gets the same thing. There wasn't any such thing back in the day as everybody gets the same thing. You had something special.

I had a qualifying motor that was special. Well, where are we going to get another one? And that's why nobody liked teammates. You just didn't like sharing. You had all these ideas and setups and things that you did. And you don't want to share that with anybody. you don't want them to know what you were doing you don't want them to be equal to you if you had an advantage some way you wanted to keep it how would that get resolved well it usually didn't

okay but but rick Rick was a first guy probably that i remember when i went to drive for rick in in 86 uh and he set us down he set me down he said now look you're going to have teammates that's the way we operate around here. If you can't deal with that, then you need to do something else. But were you having to fight for parts at Hendrick Motorsports? Well, by then, things were starting to, there started to be multiple, you know, pistons were more, the parts became more and more available. It wasn't a premium back in junior Johnson.

But in the 70s and 80s, the early part of the 80s, I mean, you had things that were exclusively yours that you didn't want to let go of to let somebody else have that advantage. So there were times at Hendrick early on where the teammate stuff, you know, it was a problem. That, or I'd say dad, but Rick had to get him on the floor. What was the nature of you and Neil Bonnets? Cookies and milk. How were you and Neil Bonnet as far as a relationship then? I mean, competitive, yes.

I understand the teammate dynamic. But Neil Bonnet seemed like to me what I've seen is the most likable guy out there. Is that wrong? Best teammate you could have. Is that right? He didn't have any, he wasn't, he didn't have a big ego. He was just a, he liked a race. He was a racer.

I won, I mean, we ran, I won Nashville in 85, I guess it was, I think it was, or 84. And he passed me on the last lap of the race. You can't do that. Once you take the white flag, the field is frozen. And Neil passed me on. on the last lap and came back ahead of me, and they said he won the race. And this was, Junior, now one thing about Junior,

you didn't, you know, rules are rules, and he played by the rules. And he was pretty strict about that. But so they said, no, you got passed. So Neil won the race, you ran second. I said, no way, we're gonna protest. And Dick Beatty was the competition director then. Had the caution come out?

That was the, that was the rumor. Yeah. Here's what happened. We're coming off a turn four. Okay. I stayed out because I didn't have a second place car. Neil had the best car, but they pitted and they got two tires. Oh.

So I stayed out. And so I got by some cars and there was a little gap between me and Neil, but he was going to win that race if the caution didn't come out. But we're coming off turn four and the caution comes out. So the white flag and the caution come out together. We're not in the last lap. We're coming to go into the last lap, but we're not in the last lap. but we're not in the last lap.

And that's what Beatty couldn't get through his head, is that the caution came out, but he didn't think about the white flag came out with it. And so I was already crossed the line when the caution came over. And the race is over. But then it was a big mess. Yeah. So that night, we protested,

and we went through the rule buck and everything, and Beatty said, I don't care what you say. Bonnet won the race. And Junior don't care because he got both guards first and second. What does he care? I leave that next morning to go to the first. Milwaukee to run a bush race and I get to the airport and there's a damn caravan waiting for me

and it's NASCAR people and they said look because I thought I was sue y'all I said I got proof and what helped me that night was channel 5 Hope Hines my friend there had a cameraman on the flag stand with Harold Kinder so they're filming the last few laps of that race and so you see me coming off turn four and you see the yellow flag and the white flag come out together and that's what made them change their mind or change that I did win that race. Evidence. Yeah. So we had, we had them.

We knew we had them. I said, I'm going to sue you. Well, there's three wrecks that whole coming to the white flag. Oh, it was a mess. I think the tower was confused because there was literally three different wrecks. Richard Petty, Bobby Allison. Tires blowing out. People running over crap, you know.

Cruise are getting into it afterwards. So that next day they said, we're going to change it. You won the race, but don't say anything derogatory or don't say anything. I had them all the time. I knew I had this one in the back. Let us, let us handle it. I don't care what you do as long as I get the trophy. That's all I care.

Oh, my goodness. So I bet that did wonders for team dynamics that week. But Junior was right. He was on our side. I mean, he said, you know, DW won this race. Really? So we're going to protest. And he wants to sue them.

That's up to him. Protest my own car. All right. Hope you liked part one with Darrell Walter. Remember next week on the Dale Jr. download part two of Dela Earnhardt Jr. And Darrell Waltrop's conversation. Let me tell you something.

It's a doozy. But hey, this show ain't over yet. All right, Ask Junior. Okay, it's time for my favorite part of the show. Ask Junior presented by Xfinity, proud partner of NASCAR and this podcast. It's time to hear the questions that you sent to Xfinity Racing on Twitter and in the chat. Darrell Waltrip has been our guest. He was in here for a couple hours.

Awesome stuff. It's going to be a two-part podcast. But also, remember to watch the TV show version. That's this Wednesday, right, at 5 p.m. 7 p.m. 7 p.m. Keeps changing, keep jumping around. Right before the awards show.

There's an awards show. So right before that. What awards show? NASCAR award show. That's the pre-show right before their show. That's cool. Where are they having that? Virtually.

Virtually? Yeah. Somebody's a living room. That's, that's, Nashville was fun last year. Can't wait until we get back there. All right, so you guys got the questions. I hope they're good questions. Let's go.

Yep, our first question coming from Kyle Lawler. He caught his first taste of Lost Speedways, which aired in Canada on the History Channel, and it got him thinking, do you have any Canadian tracks mapped out for future visits? Hey, just do me a favor and share with all your friends up there in Canada that we're now on the history channel with Lost Speedways. They've been wanting to figure out how to watch it.

there's your opportunity. What was the question? Did you have any Canadian tracks? Matthew, what's our hurdle? Number one, well, right now we can't go across the border right now because of COVID, but we had one that we wanted to go see. And that was the problem. That was the problem. So there are several in Canada that we're interested in. We have a lot of, we do log tracks in Canada on the map. I don't, I mean, Kyle Rizock, our boy in Canada is.

There's several hundred racetracks on our map that we will be looking at. We certainly want to get up to Canada and make that part of our lost speedways catalog. We had a track that we wanted to put in the show but couldn't get across the border to be able to do it. And eventually hopefully we'll be able to get to tell this story. It's pretty cool one. All right. We're getting a ton of questions about the next gen test that they had yesterday at Charlotte on our YouTube chat here.

So have you heard anything about it? Nothing that anybody else hasn't heard on the, on the, you know, social media handles. Kurt Busch shared quite a bit about how you felt the car was going to be great. Mark Tricks Jr. said the car drives really good. I think that that would make a lot of sense to me. It's component, suspension, and all the things that it has should make it drive better than what they got currently. I think Kurt Bush said they got about three seconds faster than what they were.

running there in the other car this year. But I looked at the back straightaway chican is a little funky because it's not quite all set up. So I think they're going through there a little faster than they typically would on a regular race weekend. But anyways, the car looks like it drives way better. Turning, steering, turning, changing directions. It seems to be more adaptable to a road course than the current race car that we have.

Our next question coming from Daniel Harper, Junior Motorsports keeps finding future champions and putting them in rides, who's responsible for finding talent? What processes do you guys go through evaluating prospective drivers? It's all chance. I'd love to take credit for all of the guys that we've developed, but someone puts a bug in your ear somewhere with Martin Tricks Jr., for example, Richard Gilmore came to me and said there's a guy that I think we need to take a look at. his dad was a racer up north

and I think this kid might have it so keep an eye on him you're going to be at a race he's talking to me he's like you're going to be at a racetrack where he's racing in the support series so pay attention to him see what you think and we ended up putting a lot of effort into Truex

and getting him going at DEI with Brad Zalowski I'd race against Brad and recognized his talent myself when he ran that truck for Jimmy, what was his name? The two truck. Jimmy Smith, yeah, I'm sorry.

I wasn't paid attention because DW and Robert G are right outside the window. That's hard to, yeah. I know. So with Kisilowski, you know, he drives that truck and I called Kelly right after that. I said, look, we're looking for a driver. This is the guy.

We got to hire him. Somebody else is going to be calling him in the next couple of days. Let's not lose this opportunity. So he struck a. as fast as we could. Brad didn't realize that we wanted him as bad as we did, or he could have played a little hardball with us,

but, you know, it's all different. Every situation and scenario is different, but it's fun. It's fun to bring in young guys and try to develop them, and sometimes they work out. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they just don't work out. I think most people who listen to the show will agree that this segment's too short. It goes by too fast, Mike.

Fast. It's right, just like Xfinity Internet fast. Xfinity X-5. That's the good stuff. It keeps me connected with great speed. I'm a customer. I pay for the service. I know how it works, how good it is. There's no better way to stay up to speed with NASCAR and Dirty Mo Media.

That's right. Remember, everybody, Dale Jr. is here every week to answer your questions in this segment. It's his favorite segment. Do it live on YouTube. So hit him up at AdExfinity Racing on Twitter using a hashtag Ask Jr. For a chance to hear from Dell himself. A big thanks to Xfinity for being a premier partner of NASCAR. All right, y'all, that's the end of the show.

Well, we got last call. Mike, take it away. I want to remind everybody that Dale Jr. Download on NBC Sports Network this week is going to be Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. That again is 7 p.m. Eastern Time this Wednesday. It's actually going to precede the awards banquet or the awards show, which is very cool for us. So hopefully, I know that the later start time is actually better for me to watch it. So I'm looking forward to that. rather than 5 p.m.

We're still working. But this is at 7 p.m. Wednesday, and it is going to be worth your time to watch it, because I know with the conversation with DW, I can only imagine what Trina and Goodwin are working on with the visuals and the archive footage and stuff. It's going to be fantastic. Wednesday, 7 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC Sports Network. Listen, door bumper cleared. Oh, after that.

Let's talk about after that, Mike. Did you see what's app? Did you look at the TV guide and see what's after it? After the show? After the banquet. After the banquet? Are they re-airing? No.

They are going to have on NBCSN a like marathon of lost speedways. Oh. So for you night owls after the banquet, man. Oh, yeah. I might drink some beer and watch these days. Do you think they're going to show the full season? It looks like there's like five, six episodes. I mean, if you're going to show five or six, you might as well go with all eight, right?

So if you haven't seen it, you know, on Peacock, which are the full episodes, the little cutdown episodes, are on NBCSN and will be after the banquet. So what a night. Dale Jr. Download, banquet and lost speedways. Wednesday night's going to be a good night for Dirtymo Media, because you got the DW episode airing before the banquet, and then after the banquet, you got Lost Speedways, just kind of picking them up and putting them down one after another.

Six episodes. Six episodes. Or till 1230 a. That's cool. That's very cool. And NBC Sports Network has been airing the crap out of those episodes, those Lost Speedways thing. So that's cool.

Hey, speaking to Lost Speedways, I saw this week where the history channel in Canada alone is going to air Lost Speedways, which is awesome because Canada, our friends in Canada, cannot access the Peacock Network. And so therefore, they haven't seen Lost Speedways, but that's all changing this week. Is that right? That's right.

The first episode aired Sunday night and our Twitter, blew up with people talking about how excited they were and how great it was. So there's more to come on there. Love it. That's going to be fantastic. So that's on the History Channel in Canada. And so that's it, guys. Thank you so much.

This will be a two-parter. We just had a great time with DW so much there that next week we will have a podcast. It will not be on the TV. It won't be a TV show. Next week, the Dale Jr. download podcast. Check your inboxes. And wherever you get podcasts, you will definitely, definitely, want to hear the rest of this DW conversation.

It is fantastic. And so that's it for today. Thank you guys for listening. We'll talk soon. This bit of bad assery was bad assery. It was made by Dirtymoe Media. Dirty Mo!