The Dale Jr. Download - 325 - Darrell Waltrip (Part Two): Cheatin' Stories

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Part two of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s epic sit down interview with NASCAR Legend Darrell Waltrip delivers never before told stories and more. Ole DW shares stories about NASCAR tearing down his Junior Johnson Racing machine, suspecting cheating. Some, may call it cheating. Others, call it creativity. DW says that they were not "rule breakers," rather, "rule makers" in their hey-day. Surprisingly Waltrip admits to using lead-shot and nitrous in racecars, as well as heavy radios and trick helmets. He details how they got away with some of their biggest cheats. Oh, and the time he inadvertently called NASCAR boss Bill France a "dumb ass"The driver known by some as "Jaws" for his mouthy, but entertaining nature, details what it was like to drive for noted moonshiner and NASCAR Hall of Famer Junior Johnson. How did he get from Junior's ride to Rick Hendrick's stable? It's a story that you'll never believe. Speaking of Junior Johnson, Darrell reveals how his car owner's stubbornness may have cost him a NASCAR Cup Series Championship.Waltrip talks about run-ins with Dale Earnhardt and his rough nature off track as a friend. He also admits how driving for Dale Earnhardt's team saved his career. From driving a forklift, to racing with Dale and Dale Jr in Japan, the stories are plentiful. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirtymo Media. Time. Leisure Time. Some of us put our leisure time to good use. The Dell Jr. Download. Some of us put our leisure time to good use. We're back again. Hey, everybody.

It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dell Jr. download. We talked about it last week. Darrell Waltrip was our guest. This is part two of the... That interview, so good, so many great stories. We're going to have to have him back, Mike. We didn't even get to everything that we wanted to talk about. We had him in here for about two hours.

But part two, man, it's some good stuff. Well, let's get to it. The crowd stands anticipating the green flag. Hansen and Walshub. Bear on a corner number four. Hansen gets... Walship goes to the inside of Hanson into corner number one. He holds...

Holtrip had installed some trick things on the first suspension of his race card that he thought would work to his advantage. Right side tires. Darryl Walchup looks like he's in control. Darryl Walchup has an extremely partisan crowd. I didn't want to give up that lead. I wanted to win this sucker and it's just a great day. It's fun to win at home, I tell you.

Dick Beatty would be real proud of me. He can pull that sucker out and she's stock as it is a day long. Eat your heart out on heart day. I got our job. This is part two of that interview. You know, for somebody in his first race that was so concerned about whether your car was cheated up, Junior Johnson, I mean, part of his legend is that he could, what do we call it, innovative? Yeah, creative.

Yes, we call Jack Gnows creative. Yeah. Were you still concerned about whether your car was legal or not at that time? Or had you come to grips with it? That wasn't my car. Now you're fine. A junior's car. You've learned to cope with it.

Yeah, well, Junior was, he was a pretty big fanatic about a lot of things. One thing about you could not run a big motor. I mean, that was, no, no, you could not do that. And we had a qualifying motor, and I think the limit was three, what is it, 358. And we won a pole somewhere. And they tore us motor, we won't poll, like in 81, 82, want a pole every week. They'd tear the motor down about every other week. So finally, about second year, we'd same motor over and over again.

They tore it down. it was 358.000 0,000. And they were, and they were, I mean, they were going to take, they were going to disqualify us. Because of that. And Junior, Junior talked them out of it. I mean, Junior had a lot of, he had a lot of cloud.

But that was the only time that I drove that car that I ever heard or knew of us being anywhere near over the limit. That was it. Now, there were other things that we may have. Like what? Done that were not necessarily. Like what? Well, see, we were not rule breakers.

We were rule makers. Okay. Junior had a roller cam. They were not legal. But he had figured out a way to take a flat tapet and put a ball in the bottom of that flat tapet and turned it into a roller cam. And so all these things were okay until I came along. When I came along, I said, hey, hey, hey, can't do that anymore. We had a spacer, this really beautiful piece of work.

I don't know who did it. Tapered spacer. No, can't run that anymore. Got to put that away. Everything that had made them special, different, creative, innovative, one by one they took away. Because of you? Because of me. Look, I had a tough time.

And I did it. Look, I did it to myself. I was a smart ass. You brought heat. And so when they said, you can't do that. I said, why not? or when they say, well, that's the rule, well, that's a dumb rule. I never forget, I called Bill France one day.

I said, Bill, there's some rule change he had made. I said, Bill, I'd like to know who the dumb ass is that made that rule. He said, you're talking to him. So anyway, I learned the hard way. You know, I'm a life experience. You called your jaws for a reason. Yeah. It wasn't because you were chewing up the competition.

No, no. Cali Yarbril gave you that nickname because of your interviews. Oh, yeah. I was bad to go off. Did you know you were bad at that? Did you know that that was incurring heat on you like it ultimately did? Did you put those things together? I probably did, but I don't think I cared.

I think you tried to use it for your benefit. Yeah, I did. The media. He played it up. He played it wrong. All we had was the media. We had to print media. We didn't have Twitter.

We didn't have TV shows every day. We didn't have any other avenue, any other venue to express ourselves. And so I made sure that I was really, really good friends with all the media guys. Tom Higgins, Steve Wade, any of those guys that wrote, you know, weekly reports or at the track every week, I was their buddy. That's astute. And I was their go-to guy. And you know what? It really made me feel good because it happened.

It didn't happen a lot, but every now and then Bill France Jr. and come put his arm around and say, you're my go-to guy on this, whatever the issue might be. You're my go-to guy. And, oh, yeah, that's right. I'm your go-to guy, you know. I'm your man. But you know what I love, and Dale knows this, they make rules for everybody. And a lot of times those rules don't necessarily fit what you're doing or your situation.

but they try to make rules that fits the entire field, not just one little guy, not one guy. One of the things that I heard that Junior and his guys were doing in the due car was lead shot in the frame rail. Yeah, that's possible. That's possible. Well, look, everything. I want to explain to Mike what that would mean.

So, you know, they put lead blocks in the cars to both that, then they bolt that in, right? Mm-hmm. And the car makes weight. And so in some cars, and this is not exclusive to junior, but back in the early 80s, maybe a lot in the 70s, they would feel the frame with lead shot, and then they would keep the lead shot in there with a putty or a soap

or anything that Mike could get hot and melt. Oh, yeah. And then once it came up to temp, or maybe there was a trap door to open or something like that, The lead shot could pour out of the frame. And then the car's hundreds of pounds lighter. Well, and here was the deal. And everything.

But the lead shot had to go somewhere. Yeah, they create, they would create situation for it. They never thought about unintended consequences. So the car, let's say the car had to weigh 3,700 pounds when it went through tech. So you made sure your car weighed 3,700 pounds when it went through tech. They wouldn't weigh them after the race. I was at Martin's where I said, they were going through this, go out of the way, I said, hey, everything about weighing these cars after the race?

And Bill Gassaway was the inspector. He said, boy, let me tell you something. When that car goes on the line, it's legal. That's all I care about. Why would you plant that idea into their head to weigh the cars after the race, being that you were... Well, if they did. The beneficiary of it. If they weighed everybody, I'm okay with that.

Yeah, I got that. It's the top five or whatever, but they wouldn't weigh anybody. And we always knew. We had the lead shot into frame rail. That's just what we did. If they put, they didn't have scales like they got today. They had grain scales. So you had four of them.

And they had a place where you drove the car up on. They weigh all four wheels and then push you off. So if they put those scales in the truck, we knew they weren't going to weigh the cars when the race stole with because they don't load it up ready to hit the road for the next race. So that was an invitation to be creative. Empty the car out. Be creative.

That's so interesting. I wanted, you know, when I was working. Where did all the lead shot go? Could you see it? I just, I'll never get, so one. At a place like Martinsville or. Oh, yeah, no, let me take. No, you'd love this.

So Dick Beatty, he liked to walk to racetracks every day because he was, that was his exercise. So I'm walking to racetrack at Martinsville with him one day just for fun. We're walking around and trying. He said, you know, DW, something I don't understand. Every week I walk these damn racetracks, I see all these little be, little bee's laying everywhere. He said, I have not figured out where in the hell they come from. So you got, I ain't got a clue, Dick. I don't know.

Gosh, that's weird. Wow. Need to look into that. How long would y'all run that until, like, when does the lead shot come out? Yeah. Lamp on? Well, you had to be, you had to be care. You had to be care.

Here's, here's, look. Okay, so we dropped a little lead every now and then. But everybody did. Yeah. I mean, you know, when you go to Martinsville, Martin, just Martensville sticks out in my mind. Wayne Thornberry, he worked for Richard. they would take a wagon down to Richard's car.

They would take the car cover off of it. They would change out the radio and the helmet and everything else. And that wagon had come back down through there and he could barely pull it. It was so loaded up with lead and everything else. And so the tires would be, you know, squished down. And so it wasn't like you're the only guy that was smart enough to do it. I mean, there was other ways of heavy helmets, heavy radios, heavy whatever. Yeah.

But this is pretty cool. So you have a jack stop in the frame rail where you jacked the car up. So that's where we let the lead shot out at. And so I had a little wrench, this little T-handle, I'd undo that. I'd back that center of that jack-stob out. All the lead shot would go out that hole. You were the one that we had to engage the- You were the one.

In the car? You're like the wizard behind the curtain sitting there at the controls of the lead shot. We didn't do it every week. quit as dead every now and then. But anyway, so we're at Martin, we're at Bristol. And it was under caution. I didn't do it right. So undercost, I backed that screw out.

And all of a sudden, all that, I guess that lid had gotten wet or something, and it didn't come out. Oh. And so I didn't know if it didn't come out or not. I just did what I was supposed to. So we're going into race, all of a sudden, the damn lid all comes out at one time. And I, I mean, I'm in third turn.

I'm just, I'm about to spin out. And I finally catch it and I just shoot down pit road Well, Dave Marcus was on pit road. So I come down pit road out of control and they thought Dave Marcus was the one that was dropping the shot. So they're wearing

his car out trying to figure out where it came from. They ain't going to find it. So they're looking at all the cars. They're going to look at it. I won the race. They look at the car. They take the jack. So here's the jack stop. So they put the jack and they jacked the car up. So the jack is sitting on the hole.

Yeah, on the track goal. And they could look for a day. They could look forever. They're never going to find it. The jacket's got the hole covered. They covered a hole. That's awesome. So a lot of that was, I mean, I know that sounds kind of.

No, it's great. That's what I always believe that if your crew chief isn't trying, if that car is illegal, then he ain't trying hard enough. I agree. And that our job as drivers and crew chiefs and all the mechanics and crafty guys back here, engineers especially these days, it's their job to find holes in that rulebook. Like you say, not break the rules, make new ones. And it's their job as an industry, as an organization, to govern it. Yeah. Well, there were not a lot of inspectors. I mean,

you know, there were, what, five or six maybe at the most, and they had to look after all the cars, and so some of them were your buddies, and they had to look the other way about certain things. But we literally the things you've heard, maybe you haven't heard these. But if we had something on the front of the car that we were trying to get away with, maybe we had cocked the nose or move the nose or whatever, we would go to the rear of the car

and we would do something so blatantly obvious that the inspector would walk by and say, you got to fix that. We talked about this last week on the show. We talked about this very thing. You got to fix that. Okay, okay. Well, we'll fix it.

Yeah, no problem. It's just like the boxer. the ring that spins one arm and punches you to the other one. Yeah. We talked about this very thing. I'm interested because you just said sometimes they'd look the other way. So, you know, certainly I'm not speaking of the way NASCAR would govern the league today. But Junior had a lot of sway.

Yeah. And he also was very creative and innovative and stuff. And so there were things that he could get away with, I would assume, because, you know, The story that I was privy to was because I worked with Jimmy Spencer. Yeah. And he was telling about that 1994 season when Jimmy won his only two races in that car. And I believe he said something like that Junior came up to him and said, you know, you do a way better junior impersonation than I could. But boy, if you can't win in this car, you need to be bagging groceries or something like that, right?

Yeah. And I believe if I heard the story right, that NASCAR kind of was on to what they did. Yeah. But then they said, don't bring it back. Yeah. And they brought it back. Yeah. And they won again.

Yeah. You know. Yeah. Well, I know Junior told me at, I said 94, I guess when Spencer, you know, I love Spencer, but I wouldn't say he was the greatest driver I ever saw, but it's pretty, pretty, pretty, he could be, he could be an avidious some time. But so they won a couple of races at Daytona and Talladega. I think, well, I know Daytona and Talladega. And I went up to junior.

I said, Jr., what the hell are you doing anyway? He said, boy, we'll win every damn race until they catch us. That's awesome. Yeah. I love doing this because, you know, it kind of brings back memories, some good, some bad. But the sport today, people just have no idea what it was like when we started to the way it is today. If a guy walked in the shop with a briefcase, we don't even come in here, go somewhere else. because, you know, it had a briefcase and it had a computer.

Or a laptop, yeah. Laptop. We're going to keep laps and tires. Nothing, no, no, no, no. We got this handle. You go do something else. We're fine. And that was really my, it's probably my downfall.

Did you ever have any nitro in your car? Once. Really? Yeah, one time. Well, when I went to drive for Dygard in the first year, Donnie, Donnie and Mario Rossi, they've been running every week. Nitro? Yeah.

Yeah. And that's how they qualify pretty good. Who was it that said on, it was it, J.D. McD. McDuffie settled on the pole and wrecked his car and the nitrous fell out of the frame. It exposed it. It exposed it in the side of the car. That's possible. It wasn't that, it wasn't all that unheard of. Really? To have a little assistance. A little shot of nitrous. When you qualified. Normally just when you qualified. But I only got that one time, like me and AJ for it, he was, I was.

I think I was on poe. He was outside or fights first. I don't remember which. And neither one of us had run worth the dam all day long. You know, like we're 25th in practice, but we end up qualifying on the front row. And so it's kind of like, what did y'all do? I'll never forget.

We take that car in there, and Rossi was a crew chief. And he had put the nitrous bottle in the petty bar. So it's about that long. And it's mounted and covered up in the road cage. And all I had to do is stick a little wrench in there and open that baby up, and that thing would take off. I mean, I've never done it. I've never done it before, so I was excited about, wonder what this is going to do.

Yeah. It wake that baby up. I'm telling it. What did it feel like? Oh, it took off like a rocket. Put you back in a seat. Oh, I don't know that, you know, Daytona, you didn't necessarily feel it, but you could tell it was going because you're like, you've been turning $7,000.

Now you turn 7,500. I mean, good, three. When would you do, walk me through the process then? When exactly would you do this? On the straightaway. I mean, you know. Yeah. While you're running?

Oh, yeah. While you're in. You'd go out of the pitch. and get up on the bank and get on and start down the back you had this little wrench you had it between you and take that little wrench reaching up and that slot and that thing go and it take off I mean that's awesome go crazy you're doing that while you're driving at speed up to speed qualified I mean right still I can you imagine how many people wad it up just like what were you doing well I mean I had to rent I mean I had to wrench that thing I mean you got to open it up I was I was pretty busy in my race car for a lot you know we had we when we go through tech you're right you're right side had to weigh so much. So we'd have a block of Mallory that was bolted to the frame on the right side to make the right side weight be right. So when we'd get ready to, then put me in the car, they'd undo that. They'd give me a piece of just tube and they'd put the tube for the, where the Mallory was, and I'd take the Mallory and put it over on the left side to get the left side weight up.

So it's just, I bet the worst. But listen, This sounds really bad, I know, but it's not, because there wasn't a lot of people around to watch. I had a helmet. It weighed 50 pounds. I never wore it. But it hung in the car. I had a radio. I'll never forget this.

We're at Charlotte. And Dick Beatty. And he comes, me and Rusty and Dale and all we're sitting there talking one day. And he walks up. He's got this radio right here. And I said, Dick, is there something wrong with your radio? And he goes, wham! He throws that damn piece of Maori down.

wait about 50 pounds. He said, it ain't my damn radio. He said, you want to know where we got it? I said, I think I know. I was going to say, I bet the worst day of your life was when they introduced in-car cameras. That would have changed the game for a lot of people. Yeah, you're just hard to get away with stuff like that. Yeah.

The playing field has been leveled. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it truly is. Nowhere, nowhere to hide things hardly, is there? No, not that I'm aware of. Let's talk to me a little bit about driving for Junior Johnson. And what led, so you seem to have found your home. Yeah.

You seem to love the relationship that you had with him. Yeah. Almost kind of like a father, son kind of thing. Y'all were so different. You all kind of balanced each other out. Yeah. And you had incredible success. Oh, my, yeah.

I'll never get when I went to drive for junior, he said, you keep that mouth shut, I'll do the talking, you do the driving. I said, okay. And I was going to move to Wilkesboro. Junior was really big on leaving his legacy to someone. And he and floss, they couldn't have children. And so that really bug, Jr. He wanted to have someone to leave his legacy to. And he and I became really, like a father and his son, really. And I loved him, and I think he loved me.

but what muddied the water was Rick. I mean, he didn't like Rick at all. They were adversaries back in the day. Rick was the new generation owner. New money. Yeah, well, it all came to head when one day we had a set of a cylinderhead was supposed to come from Rear Morrison, and they went to Hendrick Motorsports instead of to Junior Johnson.

And somehow, some way Jr. found out about it, and that kind of tipped him over the edge. But so Rick had called me and said, it was in my, it's not 86. He said, your contract's up with Rick. I want you to come drive from me. I said, are you kidding? And this was when Rick was still pretty new. They were B&R were doing their motors and they were still hairy. There was just a lot of things that were not quite complete.

And I said, Rick, I just, I don't think you're ready for me, buddy. I said, but so what's the deal? He said, well, I've got this company. and they want to get in racing and they want you to be the driver and I'll pay you $500,000 that was three times I went to drive for junior in 1980

in 1981 he paid me $150,000 I was still making $150,000 a salary I'll pay you $500,000 blah blah blah blah I mean painting this I said oh my God and I said what's the name of the what's the sponsor he said tied

I said really well I'm driving for Budweiser tied. Anyway, I think I'm, now I'm just, my mind's all confused. I'm messed up. So I think, well, I'm going to go talk to Junior about this. And this was when Junior was having it. Things were just, Warner Hodgner to come along and Neil,

and there was just a lot of things going on. Junior didn't, wasn't really happy about, but it wasn't a whole lot he could do about it. I'll never forget, I walked in his off head on a pair of little half glass, he's looking at something. I said, Junior, I need to talk to you about something. What you want, boy. and I said my contracts we hadn't talked about my contract yet and I said but I just got to

Rick Henry called me and I saw I laid it all out of what Rick had offered me you know and he he never looks up junior he just keeps looking down finally he looks up and he says let me tell you something boy you need to go take that deal well that wasn't what I wanted to hear I mean I wanted him to come back with, well, I can do this, I can do that, blah, blah, blah, blah. Counter. Yeah, no, no way. And I mean, he never even, he just, boy, you ought to go take that deal. Wow. And never, and that was the end of it. So anyway, I walk out and I go and I say, well, I'm, I guess, I'm stuck with what I got. I'm not going, I'm not going, I'm making ways. I like, Jr. always told me, I can't pay you a lot, but you'll win a lot. And that was kind of the balance. A couple of weeks go by and I'm down to shop.

I got a new car we're working on and I come in. I want to get the seat and all adjusted. And the whole team, 12 of them, they all come around the car. And they say, I said, what's wrong, boys? They said, why didn't you tell us? I said, why didn't I tell you what? Why didn't you tell us you were leaving? I said, am I leaving?

Because I hadn't made the decision. I hadn't made any, I hadn't made any, I hadn't talked to Rick. I hadn't. So they said, junior came down and said, said this is your last year. He won't be driving for us next year. Well, man, you talk about panic. So, and this is for cell phones. So I had to find a payphone fast. So I went and found me a pay phone. I called Rick. I said, hey, Rick, I've thought it over and I'll take that deal. And so that's how I ended up driving for Rick. My gosh. And it wasn't one thing that happened, and I don't know if this is true or not, some of the guys,

Mike Hill that worked there and some of the guys. We go to Atlanta. That's in 86. And we got a shot at the championships. Me and your dad. And we got a shot at the championship. All we really got to do is outrun him and we'll win it. And we were pretty good at Atlanta at the time.

And we had two engines. Brad Peirier built an engine that we ran all the time and they were bulletproof. You couldn't blow one of them up. Then we had another guy that Jeff Wilson, his engines were making more power, but they were not real. And I'll never forget. We're Atlanta and Junior comes in Saturday morning. He says, put that whatever engine that was, Jeff Wilson's motor in the car. He said, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, we're not going to do that. We're going to run Brad's motor because we don't, it may not be the fastest

motor, but it won't, we know we can finish. We finish. We'll, we'll be all right. I said put that motor in the car. Wow. I mean, it was like hamming them boys. They just took, took the motor and put his motor in. We ran 30 laps, blew up. And that's how we lost that championship. What I was going to tell you was some of the guys, and I didn't hear this until recently. Oh. Some of the guys said that Junior walked into shop and said, are y'all going to let him walk out of here with another championship? I don't think so. We're all going up to the mountains and we're going to pick cabbage. Y'all quit working on that car. You can

just quit working on it right now. And look, he knows that's the way those, that's the way it was. You were your best friend or you're your worst enemy. And you, you know, you could go from best friend to worst enemy overnight. But he's also, but it's his championship too. He's the car owner. He parked Bobby, Bobby Allison drove for him. And Bobby was going to win the championship in 71 or two when he drove for Junior.

All they had to do is go to the last race. start that race and Bobby would win the championship and junior didn't go. That's some kind of grudge. That's just, that's what mountain people, they just don't, they don't necessarily think the way you think they should. And I never, look, I've never heard that before and I don't know if it's true or not, but I do know that he bought that engine in that car and we all knew it was going to blow up. I mean, always did. Oh, man.

Do you hold, does that still bug you? No. No? I didn't know about it then. and I didn't know about until recently. I got you. Well, what year you were driving for junior when you and Dale tangled at Richmond, right?

Oh, yeah. So my question, I mean, that's obviously well documented and everybody, and I'm sure you're asked about it still today. My question to you is, was there ever anything that threatened the relationship between you and Dale? And if so, was that it? Like, did it literally have,

did it threaten a long-term relationship? Because y'all go all the way back to the early 70s now. Yeah. No, Dale and I were, we were truly friend of me. We were friends sometimes. We were enemies sometimes. And we kind of had a deal.

If I can't win, you ain't going to win either. Really? That's kind of the way it was. And that day at Richmond, we had a good car. And I loved Richmond. I won like six races there. And I'll never forget.

The junior comes on the radio. It's the end of the race. About four or five to go. And he said, Darrell, pass that car now. I said, okay. So I'm digging, I'm digging, you know, I'm getting down in there, and I'm trying, and about two to go, Junior comes up ready and said, Dural, I said, pass that S-O-B now. I said, yes, sir, I went down in the first turn, I dropped those left sides off in the dirt, and I body slammed Dale a little bit, moving him up the hill, and I'm, boy, junior, it's going to be so proud of me. This is great.

About halfway down the back straight away, like, yikes. Look, I will tell you. tell you this. Dale and I, we were up and down. We're all over the place. One day we were buddies, one day we weren't, but that cost Dale a shot at driving that 11 car if he ever wanted to. I was going to

ask, what did Junior think about Dale? I never forget, Dale came over after race, and he was apologizing. He said, I didn't mean to do that, and Junior said, boy, get out of my face. He said, I don't never want to talk to you again. Because Junior up to that point had thought about and wanted, kind of liked the way Dale raced.

Junior was rough, you know. He liked to, he didn't mind roughing people up a little bit, and he didn't mind ruffling feathers. And so he was really the watching Dale and kind of keeping an eye on him. And I think if that hadn't happened, Dale may have driven that 11 car. Yeah. But that happened and Junior, that was the end of that. And that's the way, people that live in that part of the, that's the way it is.

Yeah. You sever your tie. That's it. I'm done with you. Don't put some guy. Some guy came by the shop all the time. Junior's, I don't remember what his name was Bob. This is his name is Bob.

One day, I hadn't seen, Junior, I hadn't seen Bob in a while. What happened to him? He died. Really? What happened to him? I don't know. He died. Well, he didn't die.

I hope not. He didn't die. He just didn't come by there anymore. In junior's mind, he was gone. Anyway, that, look, I had some of the best experience. I learned from Bill Gardner. I learned about how. They learned about contracts, at least.

I learned about contracts. I did. When I drove for junior, That one sheet of paper, it said, you drive, I provide the car, I'll pay you this much money, and that was one sheet. That was the contract. It didn't have in lieu of? No, no in lieu of.

And we're sitting in a little dark office up in North Wilkesboro, and his junior's attorney must been 90 years old. You hear him back in the back room going, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat. You don't know a little type writer, you know. And my attorney, he's from, he went to Harvard, he's a smart guy, you know. And so we're on one side of the table. and junior is turn on the side and ed looks at junior he said junior we worked out everything here but what are you going to do for darrell if he wins the championship he said boy i'm going to tell you

what i'll do to him if he don't that's what in lieu of means in wilks county oh yeah yeah but i learned from bill about business side of it i learned from junior about the racing side of it and then i learned from rick rick was like put it all together he was the business side but he was a racer. Sure. So he understood. He had to have contract, got to have agreements, got to do things a certain way. So I learned something from everybody I drove for.

Yeah. Talking about the relationship with dad, I can't think of any instance before that race at Richmond where you guys, I mean, I'm sure y'all had some, you know, y'all used each other up a little bit. A dad was pretty aggressive. But before that wreck, there was really no big issue. y'all just raced hard yeah and dad would piss people off here and there yeah and um you were jaws yeah so uh but

then richmond happens and that was giant yeah that was a big freaking deal it was everybody in the sport was talking about it and everybody got fined yeah and then what how does how do y'all move on like how did how did the how did it go you got to be around each other the rest of the year yeah uh you got to race each other on the racetrack this year yeah you got to race each other on the racetrack this year Was there ever a moment where you and dad had a conversation after that? Never talked about it. Nope, never did. Even years later, when you come drive the Pensac car, DEI, never talked about it.

No, I just think we both thought it was probably better not to bring that up. Really? The thing about that day was, Dale was aggressive, a very aggressive driver. He learned how to do that on a dirt, so he knew how to put people in bad situations, and he usually had come out on top. But that day it was so blatantly obvious. I mean, you know, it just, it was, he hooked me, you know. And I really, I hate it because I wasn't smart enough to think about holding him outside.

Because all I had to do was stay upside, but alongside of him, pushed him up a little bit. I win the race. But I wasn't smart enough to, I was just thinking about, Junior is going to be so proud of me because I'm going by him. You had to pass it. You were going to pass him. But that time of wreck, so.

But. But there were times when, probably the only time that Iver confronted your dad about something he did on the track other than what he did other people, and that always kind of couldn't understand it, but was it the 95 All-Star race when we wrecked? Oh, yeah, I'll have turned for it. You know, people don't realize this, but that was the beginning of the end for me. I'd had some injuries, I'd overcome them, but I broke ribs under my shoulder blade, and I had to have relief driver, I had a bob, blah, blah.

I had good people, Clyde Booth. I had a lot of good people that were working for me at that time, but because I couldn't drive, had to get, I don't know, Jimmy Hensley and different ones with great people. I love them all. But it just, the car didn't run, just couldn't get the car to run up front like it had been. And so they all left, went somewhere else. What did he do?

Busted his ass. He was on the inside of DW coming off turn four and just lost it. Well, we were going down the back and always Jeff Gordon, which, you know, when I started working with Jeff, I thought this ain't going to work. There's no way we're going to get along. But we got along. Jeff Gordon's a great guy. Good team player, good, good man. Unless you're racing against the mentality.

T player. There are moments. We all have our moments. All right. We all let our horns come out every time. Keep going up. So it's the all-star race, and we got a great car. I just run second in the second segment, and Gordon's on Poe, he won it, and I'm on the outside,

Dale's third, I don't remember who's fourth. And so I know if I get in front of Jeff Gordon, I can win that 10-lap shootout. So I'm coming off turn four, and I'm kind of turn four. And I probably took off just a little wee bit early, and I beat Gordon to pass the line and drop down in front of them going in turn one, and they threw the caution. Now, I don't know how many times in racing they've ever had a restart, but not any that I can think of. But anyway, they came on the radio and they said,

we're going to give you one more shot. You jump him again, you're going to the back. Oh, great. So we come off, come this time, and I have to wait, wait, and he gets a little jump, and I fall in behind him. No, we're going to turn one side by side. So we're going to turn one side by side. We're going down the back.

It's kind of bomb, pop, pop. and at the corner of my eyes see sparks flying. I thought, what the hell is that? And I look at it's Dale. And so here's Dale down here. Here's Gordon here, and here I am out here. Well, I'm in a pretty good spot because I'm going to sell that thing off into turn three and I'm going to take the lead and I'm out of here.

Well, Dale's got a whole different idea. He's going to sell that thing on the bottom and he's going to take the lead and he's out of here. So we go in a third turn and Gordon, smart as he was, he said, these two knuckleheads are going to collide. So he checks up. He's out. And I go in and Dale comes up and we slams into me. TV can never do some wrecks justice.

I hit that wall so hard. It knocked the breath. I thought I thought I was dead. Knocked the breath out of him. I couldn't breathe. I broke three ribs. I was a mess. And I'll never get.

So we go home and come back over on Wednesday. And so I went to find Dale. I said, I've got to talk to him. So I went, I said, what the hell, man? I said, what were you thinking? He said, what were you thinking? I said, well, I was thinking I was going to win that race. I said, what were you thinking?

He said, I was thinking, don't you ever going outside of me? Hopefully you learned a lesson and walked away. That's harsh. But that's the way it was. No, listen, he would call me every year at Christmas. Every year, Christmas Eve. And I would just expect it. one year he didn't call me

I thought well maybe I missed a call but anyway so we get to Daytona and I go up to him I say hey buddy did you call me Christmas Eve or did I miss the call he said I don't have to call you every year and walked away

and just walked away that's the Nellard hard a lot of people don't know he was I mean I just he could have said oh I'm sorry I was busy blah blah blah

Oh, he looked to me, he said, I don't have to call you every year. So do you think that there was something more to that? No, that was just... That's just him. That's just him on a bad day, maybe. He had this sort of part of him that could be is... He could break you in half. Calus.

Like cold and callous. Yeah. Just unnecessarily rude. Yeah. I mean, and you would think... That's what I do to do. What the hell did I do to him? I didn't do anything to him.

We were at, so we were at Charlotte, and we were running really, really good. And he came over to me and, you know, he put the R. Hey, blah, blah, blah. Hey, how much right front spring you got in that car? I said, I got a 16. All right, you don't have, if I don't know you're going to lie to him, I wouldn't even ask you. I said, I got a 16. I got a 14 and a 16.

Why? Ah, yeah, yeah, I got a 3,000 and an 8. Anyway, he left. So we're a few weeks go by, and we're at Indianapolis. And he's running really good. So I said, I'm going over. Hey, buddy, and he's got on a pair, you know, he doesn't want anybody to know he couldn't see. Half glassers looking at a practice sheet.

And I sat down beside him on a toolbox and said, hey, buddy, y'all are running really good. I said, how much right front of spring you got in your car? You know I can't tell you that. Is that all you wanted? I mean, like I was intruding. Yeah, yeah. Intruding. Some nerve to ask him that.

Out of here. What made him a good friend then? I don't know. There was, there was just two Dale's. I mean, there was the one you loved. My wife and he, tight. I mean, my wife and he were tight.

I, they got more, she got more pictures of him and her, and they do with me and her. So she loved Dale, and she witnessed to Dale, and she put scriptures in his car, and they were really, really good friends. And Dale and I, it's hard to be, it was hard to be friends,

long-term relationships. All the time, yeah. You know, when we were racing, all the time. If you beat me, you took meat off, you took bacon off my table. Or you did something I didn't like. Or, you know, and I think probably Neil and Dale were, that

friendship probably was, lasted as long as, and my brother, Michael, he and, and Dale seemed to work. They were good friends. Which still baffles me, by the way, because I can't think, well, explain that. Yeah, do that. It's pretty easy. So who was my biggest rivalry when I started?

Richard Petty. Where did my brother live? Richard Petty's. Yeah. And who was my biggest rivalry as we went through my career. Dale. Dale. And where did Michael live? Dale. He was Dale's best friend. And so my brother was pretty smart. He's shrewd. You know, they don't like DW, but they like me. I'll never forget. My brother called me one day, and he said, man, he said, I was sitting on the cabs talking to Richard, and we're watching a race. And I was telling Richard what was going on. And Richard looked at me. He said, boy, where in the hell did you learn about racing anyway? He said, well, I learned everything I know about racing from my brother.

And Richard looked at him and said, you don't know much, do you? Oh, my gosh. My goodness. It was so different. I mean, you know, we didn't have motor homes. And, you know, we had King Airs, and Dale wanted a jet, and he got a Lear Jet. And I mean, we was always trying to one-up each other. And it was just the way it was.

No. Driving that one car, he won't remember this, but we were at Texas. And I was driving the one car. The one DEI car. Yeah, the DEI car. the Pinsville car. And we're going to an appearance it's Sunday morning, and this one, he was just starting to cup.

And we're going over there, and he's giving Junior hell about his setup. He's got like, I don't know, a pair of of six hundredths and a two and a half inch bar or some in the front, something that unheard of to us. And he's telling him he don't know what he's doing. He'll get laughed, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah. And he is wearing him out. And I'm in the back, somebody. He reached, oh, he says, will you please tell him we know what we're doing? And I said, no, no, I'm not going to tell him anything. You tell him. I'm about telling him anything. But that was a great, that really saved me. You're talking about the right, set that up. Steve Park got injured, driving a one car.

And that's the way Dale was. He would kick your butt one day and hug your neck to next. You just didn't know. And so when he called me, wanted me to drive that one car, I first I thought I don't want to do that that's no good because they were struggling Philippe Lopez and they were just getting D.E.I. going

and they were buying old cars from from different people and they didn't have what they needed and had some good engine people but there was just a lot of loose ends. But anyway I thought about it and I thought, yeah, that's probably the right thing for me to do

because I just sold my team to Tim Beverly and he would shut the team down while they did some rebuilding and I was kind of didn't have anything really going on. And so it worked out really well for me. And it was the best thing that I ever did for our relationship. Because we did get a chance to kind of mend some wounds and talk about some old times and things that had happened.

And Dale paid me more than anybody ever paid me before. How many races did you do? What did I do? 12 maybe? Yeah, eight or 12. And when you and Dale had chances to, you're having conversations. with him that otherwise you wouldn't have. What would you go out to the farm?

Oh, yeah. When did you find moments with Dale? See, I worked at garage ma' hall. That was my job. I was a greeter at garage ma' hall. That's what I said I did through the week anyway. When fans would come, I'd show them around. No, we just, it was just a, it was kind of a fun time

because you're starting something new. A lot of new people. Every day truckloads of parts and pieces and equipment was being unloaded. and the floors were shiny and everything was brand new and the rails up to his office were heated and the elevated the elevator where he put his car when he went nobody there. It was just gotten that deer, I mean, just a lot of fun to hang out with him

and ride around the back back there where the pond was. And I don't know, it was kind of fun. And like I said, he paid me well. I mean, I was hurting because I'd spent all my money on that race team that I finally gotten out of. And so I needed the opportunity to kind of revitalize my career a little bit and put a little money in the bank, and Dale did all that for me.

He and Ty North, they both said, if things had been a little bit different and things that worked out, I would have stayed there. Park would have come back, and he would have drove the Penn's Oil car, and I would have probably driven the Napa car. But it just, the timing wasn't right. Yeah.

Napa wasn't quite ready for Cup. They came along with Michael later on. That's right. And they were with Hornaday, but this timing was a little bit wrong right there. So I end up driving a damn Kmart car. Yeah. That's right. So this would have been about, what, 96, 97, something like that?

This would have been 1998, 99. Yeah. So you were then... I was racing in an acedoka car. That's right. Yeah. I remember... So y'all are sort of teammates.

Well, we were teammates at one time. Yeah. Yeah. But I'll never forget, he drove Ed Whitaker's car. I think he saw him Po at Bristol and maybe went to Rockingham. Yes. And I went over to Dale and I said, Dale. I said, what's your plan for Dale Jr.?

He said, what do you want to know for? I said, I'm going to try to hire him. He said, you stay away from him. Really? He said, you'll pay him too damn much money. He said, I won't be able to compete with you. He said, you stay away from him. I got plans for him.

If I'm you, I don't know whether that's a compliment or like you'll pay him too much money. I don't know either. What are you trying to get? All I know is he said, you stay away from him. I got plans for him. And I'll never forget he called me. He said, I just signed a $10 million deal for Dale to drive the Budweiser car. So that's a pretty good deal.

That's the biggest one at the time. I remember my driving lesson from DW. Okay. He was driving. I was running the Cup Series rookie year. I was... He had hit everything but the pace car, by the way. I was having a wild one.

The whole year was a learning experience. This is your rookie year, I assume, right? Yeah. I count Daryl. We're both a lap down or two, and I'm not running great. Daryl's not running great. And I called him and bumped him. As soon as I got to him, I bumped him up the track in turn one and two, I think,

and in turn three and four, he had me backwards. And I was like, I should have known that was going to happen. EW is like, I ain't a real good move. No, it wasn't having the best day. When I go to Martinville, I don't have a good thing. I don't have a good day or something wrong. Yeah. So that was kind of my go-to track.

I was like, man, I kind of knew that was coming, and I got spun out by Darryl Walter. That's like a right of passage. I was going to say, of all people that might take that as kind of a cool thing, you would be the one that was like, hey, I just got it. Oh, no, but he got the raft of his dad a few times, too. What about when we went to Japan?

Oh, yeah, that's an infamous moment. Tell it. And the I rock race at Michigan. Oh, yeah. No, wait a second. All right, go back to Jim. Do you have vantage points? I've only heard Dale tell these stories.

I've only heard Dale talk about the shoe coming at him. And do you have it in any of the site? Did you know after Japan? So you drove the Yates car. Yates car, yeah. Daddy and me were pitted side by side. And he's in Japan going through the motions. Yeah.

Right? They send some old heavy old junk car. Yeah. And he's just like, I show up, I'm Dalyardt, I do the Dallinart thing, and I go home. Yeah. You know, the 24 and the 31, they got their nice stuff, and they're out there running up front. I had this car, and I'm running my guts out, right? It's a race.

Yeah. So it's a win. Yeah. Remember like you said? And come down to the end, like a 10 laps to go, and Dad's got a set of tires in his pit. I don't. Tony Jr. looks over at Richard Nellman. and said, y'all coming?

And they're like, nope. He said, well, I'm going to bar them tires if you don't mind. I'm coming. They said, yeah, take them. I come down, pit road, put my tires on, come back out. I line up about two or three spots behind Daddy. And I'm, like, trying to get through as many cars as I can when the green flag comes out. We come off turn four, and I'm, dad's on my right rear.

I'm passing him. And I'm thinking, surely, I got to throw a lot. I got to get the throttle down, but I can't because he's right here. he's got to let me go we're both going to go down this straightaway slow as hell side drafting each other so I just gassed it and come up the track and slid over his headlight

up onto the grill of his car and he shoved me all the way down to straightaway and had the rear tires off the ground and the thing driving like a forklift until we got to the flag stand he let me go and I went on and passed a couple more cars than we get done and I'm like man this is great I finish like six or something

And you hadn't even been a cup driver at that point. You're getting a race with these guys. I beat Daddy, which is even better. Yeah. And I'm happy. And I don't think he, that's just racing. Yeah. Right?

That's a big deal. I go into those little trailers they had us sitting in. I mean, him sharing a trailer together, these little rentals. I sit down and I'm taking my stuff off. He comes in and I look up and I'm like, you know, look like he wants to talk. You can tell. I am sitting there and he sits down and starts taking his shoe off and I just at the moment that I bent down to untie my shoe, his shoe went right over my head. Oh my God.

Fast. Oh, yeah. I mean, he slung that damn thing. If it had hit me, it would have hurt. It would have hurt. And never said a word. Yeah. Somebody cracks the door open and goes, hey, junior, they want to interview you out here.

I'm like, that's perfect. I got up out of there as fast as I could. I'm out of here. I never had a problem with him on the racetrack. Well, I had a couple where he was like, Hey, tell you to stop doing X-Y-Z. We went to Bristol. You'll love this.

Because I'm the only one that could do this. We went to Bristol, and he comes up to me and, he's starting behind me and Elliot Sattler. He's like, hey, you boys, Elliot's Young, new, I'm new, rookie year. He goes, you guys, it's a long race now, Bristol. You've got to be patient, got to be calm, you got good cars. Y'all be do good, y'all do good if you're patient. It's the track will eat you up.

First corner, he dumps the Elliott. He runs in the back of him, dumps him into me. Me and Elliot crash. I, I'm tore up. I ain't tore up. Oh, no. I'm behind the wall for 50 laps, come out with no damn fenders. And the first time I see him coming by, he, he's laughing me.

And I just turned left. and drugged the whole left front tire of my car down the right side of his as he's going by. Because I've seen him do that. Oh, yeah. He done that a million times of people. And so he got a little pissed off about that. I never have seen that side of him.

I've seen the, I'm mad at you because you didn't do your homework. Yeah. I never met the mean or heart race car driver like I'm old. Like you're taking food off my table, but in that moment, I think, in Japan, I kind of got a glimpse of what you guys dealt with every single week. Oh, yeah. Well, he was, Dale had a philosophy. It's pretty simple.

You hit me once? I'm going to hit you twice. Yeah. That was the way he raced. But that's the way his dad was. His dad was rough on those dirt tracks. And when Dale grew up on those dirt tracks, he was driving Robert G's car over here at Concord. And I was, I had a little hot rod shop called Walter Pracing Center over in Franklin.

And so I put my name on Robert's car for Dale to drive at Walter's Racing Center. We go over there, and Dale on the last lap going into turn one, he dumps like Billy Scott or Hayward Ply or somebody. He just dumps them and spins them out and he comes around. He wins a race. We're all on the truck. Yeah, we won the race. Hey, man, we're great. And we're coming down where the car is.

And someone in the other direction is the guy he's team that he dumped. Yeah. And they are hot, and they're getting ready for some action. They're going to be some fight right on the front straightaway. I'm running down there. I said, whoa, and I turn around. I say, I'm getting in my car. I'm getting a hell out of here because they were not happy.

But it was interesting to me to watch how Dale operated, because he knew what he was doing. It wasn't like it was an accident. He knew what he was doing. And he would do it anyway. He couldn't help himself. I mean, there was something about that helmet and that image and that intimidator and he had to live up to that. And he did. Yeah.

He did a lot. That makes me nervous when you tell that story and I know how it ends. I still can put myself in the room and him coming in. And when I hear I pissed off Dale on. We had a 13 hour playing ride home for us to get over. Oh, I can feel the anxiety in that. That would be awful. It was interesting.

Yeah. I knew, though, the only thing, but I think about this, though, Mike, the one thing I knew, though, is that somewhere in that angry man was a proud dad. Yeah. Even though I knew he was so angry, I knew in a couple days he was going to look back and go, that's my son. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that stuff. I drove him the way he drives everybody else. Yeah. You know what I mean? But you're assuming that because he never showed it to you, did he? Yeah. I mean, he knew about you. DW knew about the plans that Dale had for you before you ever knew the plans.

I mean, you didn't get that information until you got walked in and saw that your name on the car. Yeah. Well, yeah. But, you know, the thing I think about Dale, not think about him, it's almost like he's still here. Yeah. I mean, every day or something that comes up is like, well, what do you think, deal would think about that? I think Dale would probably be running NASCAR if he was still here, but who knows.

But we were at Indianapolis. quick story. We're at Indianapolis. We're going to go to St. Elmo's for dinner. And I'm driving. He's over here and just hand out of a car. We get to the exit, get to the street there, and you can't turn left. It's blocked. And I start to go. He said, where are you going? I said, well, I can't go through there. It's blocked. He said, just go between those two. You can get through there. Get through there. So I said, all right, all right. So I said, and so we're going down the street. And a light up, it's getting ready to change. He said, what are you slowing down for? down you can make that light you can make that light so i go okay hi so i go through the light what

you're doing in this lane get over in that lane over there move over there i said i pulled the car i said that's it i've had it you drive i said i'm tired of you telling me where to go what to do how to do it i said you drive he said just calm down it's just trying to help you and i think i think in his mind he always felt like he was just trying to help you he had an idea about how things were supposed to be and if they weren't that way then that wasn't the right way so he he was a hard guy

to get along with but he was he had a big heart and he was down inside of him there was another deal yeah but he didn't let that deal out very often he didn't want nobody to see that deal but there was a dale inside of him that was totally different

than one you saw on the racetrack yeah and he knows yeah all right DW I hate two wrap this up. Are we done? We are done for this trip. You're going to come back. We have to have him back.

We only got, you know, 30% of the whole story. But we'd love to have you come back. This has meant a lot to me for you to make this effort to come all the way here to sit down and talk to us. And I want you to know that there's a lot of people that are going to listen to this show on podcast for them and watch it on TV. They're going to love this. And they are going to be so happy to hear from you and hear the. these stories. So thank you. You mean the world to us. It's so great to see you. You'll have to tell Stevie that we missed her. And we love her. Enjoy your ride home. Hope it's a safe one. And we'll see

you again soon. Yeah, man. Well, you do a great job. I watch this show quite often because you have all my buddies on. And I always like to see if they're going to mention me or not. They do. There's always a DW story in there. But anyway, yeah, thank you for let me be on today. Absolutely, sir. Thank you. Daryl Walter. on the Dale Jr. Download. Yeah. It's rare we get a clap for Mike. Yeah, that's a...

Well, in all fairness, I mean, I haven't... No disrespect to any of our other guests. We've had some fantastic guests, but Dale Jr.'s been looking forward to this for a while, ever since we had it booked. And I don't remember Dale Jr. In fact, I've never heard Dale Jr. say this. I'm going to prepare all week for this interview.

I've never heard him say... We have a lot of good pictures. I will say that. Oh, I'm a picture. I love it. He'll have a picture of it. I love a picture. But it does mean a lot to us that you come all the way this way.

I've been waiting for, you know, we talked a couple of times about when you want to do it, when can you do it. Then nothing ever happened. And so I was excited to get to come because, again, I've watched this show a lot. And he does such a great job because he is well prepared. He knows what he's doing. It's a great host. Great host. And I guarantee I walk through this shop, probably a lot of those guys out there, I probably know.

Hell yeah. Better at this shop than I do most than the other shop. Robert Jr. and all his crowd, and I see those cars, and it's just, God, it's just great memories. I will tell you that if of all this, I would take the biggest compliment for you would be the fact that our TV show was supposed to end last week. They're playing, in fact, we kind of set it on the show like, all right, that's our last TV show of the year. When they found out we had you coming on, they changed their mind. Oh, wow. This will be the last TV show of the year.

That's good to know. We always got to end the season with a bang. You are the bang. You are that guy. We'll just make it a date. Every year I'll come over and end the show with it. Let's do it. Hey, we'll make you sign a contract.

In lieu of, in lieu of. Right. No, no, no, no, no. All right, ready to go live. Good, Diller. All right, we're live. Okay, it's time for my favorite part of the show. Ash Jr., presented by Xfinity Proud, partner of NASCAR,

this podcast. Hey, thank you for supporting our show all season. This might be our last podcast. I don't know. I've talked to Mike into having a year. He means. Not ever. I've talked to, I've talked Mike into doing more than we had planned this year. So maybe we can get something out in December. Yeah. It's time to hear the questions that you sent to Xfinity Racing on Twitter and in the chat. Leavon is here with those questions. So let's get started. All right, Dale, our first question is coming from Joseph Hutzler. I was asked, what sports broadcaster I consider to be synonymous with my childhood yesterday?

What say you? Eli Gold, Ken Squire? My favorite broadcaster, and I was just talking to somebody about this the other day, Ken Squire, he had these sort of Squireisms, as they're called, where he would describe the cars going around the track. a restart at Daytona as the cars come down the front straightaway and turn down into turn one, he'd say something like

an avalanche and he would use words that everyone knew to describe the action and he gave you a real sense of the urgency and the energy. He talked about things, you know, he talked about cars

as if it was a land rush to win the race. you know, and you can, you know, your imagination thinks about a land rush, you know, and he just had, he would talk about cars covering a city block in a second, and if you're living in a city and you don't know nothing about NASCAR and you're tuning in to the Daytona 500 for the first time, you would think about a car covering a city block in less than a second would be really fast, right? And I don't know, he had all these little squirisms that I really enjoyed.

When a car blew a motor, he'd say he's hand-grenated an engine, or that the engine's tortured, or the engine has expired, or it's gone up in smoke. He just had all these little ways, the fun ways to sort of make you feel it. Nowadays, I don't know that we take, well, but we put enough emphasis on some of those things

to really help people understand. the, you know, the urgency of what's happening on the racetrack. So Squires the man, Barney Hall, just perfect. He was perfect for radio. Yeah. I love, you can go listen to all that stuff on YouTube or anywhere to get a little bit understanding what I'm talking about. Barney Hall's voice was just velvet.

Oh, God, you ain't kidding. Yeah. Our next question coming from Jared Lyons, with Rockingham being added to the 2020. cars tour schedule for next year. Do you think Rockingham has the potential to make its way back on the NASCAR schedule? They're going to need to repave the racetrack. I think the surface itself is far too gone. I don't even know why they're running a cars tour race there with as bad as term one is.

It's busted up really bad. But, you know, they're just trying. I appreciate the effort. I appreciate sort of the idea to keeping that racetrack relevant. It's really important. If it ever does make it back onto the truck, Exfinity or the Cup schedule, if it ever does,

it'll be because of these little races like this Cars Tour race and the effort that goes into trying to have this race. It'll be a monumental effort just to have that Cars Tour race there. It really will. The people that are going to put that together, it'll be a lot of work. Credit to them, but I was a little surprised to see it actually on that schedule,

to be quite honest with you. Corey is watching on YouTube. When can we expect Bristol dirt on eye racing? You had any insight on that? I'm sure it's a matter of time. I mean, pretty simple to sort of turn one of them race tracks into dirt. But I haven't heard anything. I'm not that excited about that in the real world.

So it's not top of mind in the eye racing world. We're working on a few other projects with them, though. But yeah, it would be nothing for them to flip that switch, make a dirt Bristol. All right, one more question from Amanda. When will there be a DJD DBC show together? That's not up to me. So a door bumper clear, Dale Jr. download podcast together, I think it would be a lot of fun. And I've always wanted to do it.

It really comes down to just this guy right here, Mike Davis. Put it all on Mike. You laugh. But, I mean, honestly, Mike, the whole podcast thing is Mike's vision. It's his baby. and he keeps them separate for whatever reason. And he's created what you see with the Dale Jr. download is his creation. Same thing with Door Bumper Clear.

He's not chosen to mix them together for whatever reason just yet. I'll answer that. I've kind of trying to encourage him to maybe have us a year-end sort of get together. It'd be fun. I love the idea. We got to wait until when we're kind of clear out of this pandemic before we actually start cramming everybody into this. table. Yeah, for sure. And that's ultimately the thing because it creates a little bit of more logistical issues, camera-wise and stuff. We just got to get through the pandemic and then we'll

cram as many podcasts together as you want. Absolutely. All right, guys, that's it. Well, we talk about it all the time. This is, this part of the show is a little bit too fast and ends too quickly. I enjoy it because I feel like we're having a giant conversation with a lot more people than just the ones that are in this room. Fast. It's right. Just like it's internet fast. Xfinity X-5. That's the good stuff. It keeps me connected with great speed.

I'm a customer. There's no better way to stay up to speed with NASCAR and Dirtymo Media. That's right. Remember everybody, Dale Jr. is here every week to answer your questions in this segment. It's his favorite segment. So hit him up at at Xfinity 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.

We got last call. Mike, take it away. All right, buddy. You know, one thing I always like to do since it's our end of the years, I'd like to call people out by name that have been, you know, part of this crew that you don't necessarily see or hear on the show, right? And I want to start with my Dirty Mo Media team. I'm so grateful for Matthew.

Obviously, your commitment, and Leah, your commitment to this has been fantastic. But also, you know, James Broseon is behind a camera. Dustin Lee's behind a camera. Michael Caldwell is up in his office, but very instrumental in this. Jason Schultz over here, who produces Door Bumper Clear, is so in the weeds with us on Del Junior Download, too. So, Jason, thank you so much for your effort. And so that is a team that brings you this show every week. And so we're very grateful.

Also on the TV side, Mark Train is over here in the corner. I wish you could see him right now. He's got his headset on. Thank you, Mark. Kevin Dennis is over here. Justin Opeman. Justin Otman is here a lot of times, and then Brian Goodwin is the producer on this show that really makes it all happen. There's a lot of people up in Stanford and other parts that obviously have their hands.

I don't know their names, but I know that there's other people. So thank you to all the NBC people. And like Dale said earlier, expect us to drop in. There's no rules when it comes to podcasting. We can do stuff. And we'll drop in, you know, in December and in January. So there is no end of the year and there's no start at the next year. We're just going to, you know, take a little bit.

break here for the holidays, but we'll also check back in with you. So thank you everybody and fantastic year. And that's it, guys. Thank you so much for listening to the show. You, folks listening at home and wherever you are accessing your podcast, you mean the world to us. We do this for you. I hope you understand that we're going to continue to strive to bring you awesome content in 2021. And keep the feedback coming. Keep wearing out Leiavon. She's here to take in your feedback. Keep company this offseason. Right.

And keep the beef jerky coming. By the way, I got a fan that sent me beef jerky. Since you beef jerky. Yes. And Dale just hustled out here real quick. Oh. And if you guys want a piece, it's really good. Well, good job.

So he loses out. So keep the beef jerky coming. Listen, thank you again, listeners. We look forward to kicking this thing back up here soon. And take care. Have a great holiday season. We'll talk soon. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Dirty Mo.