The Dale Jr. Download - 334 - Dick Berggren: In the Pits

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Legendary NASCAR pit reporter Dick Berggren joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. for a conversation that covers Berggren’s racing career, rise as a journalist and pit reporter, and New England racing history preserver. It’s a special episode as Dale Earnhardt Jr. leads off the program with a big announcement, that includes Berggren himself. After sharing the exciting news, Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis reveal it’s a two-interview episode as Bill Lester joins later in the show.Berggren enters the studio as if he was fresh off of TV from pit road, wearing his iconic cap and all. He explains the story behind his hat and how Ken Squier influenced his decision to wear it. Dale Jr. first explores Berggren’s racing career. Hear how he got involved racing in his native New England and why it influenced him to get a PhD in psychology. Then hear why he pursued a job as a college professor and what happened when he brought his race car on campus once. As he transitioned to a journalism career, he details the phone call that led him to becoming Stock Car Racing magazine’s editor. He shares the story of how he helped it turn around and how it helped grow his career. Plus, he explains how he got his start in photography and what motivated him to write about racing. A magazine rivalry? Berggren shares the story of two rival publications from his early days in the sport. As the editor for the magazine, he talks about seeing Cup drivers read his work and why he took so much joy from working around his heroes in racing.One crash ended Dick’s racing career. He shares details of why seeing people everywhere while flying through the air made him quit racing forever. How did Berggren get his start as an announcer and reporting in the pits? He explains how he got his first announcing gig at Arundel Speedway in Maine and what the Easter bunny had to do with it. Then, find out which famous Daytona 500 marked his MRN reporting debut. Hear how he developed respect and gained credibility among the characters in the garage. In a conversation surrounding racing’s legendary voices, Berggren shares his Mount Rushmore of announcers and brings Dale Jr. to broadcasting school as Dick shares his approach to the craft and makes suggestions to help Dale grow. Did Berggren ever dread an interview? Find out his answer and why it’s a name you may recognize. After leaving NASCAR on FOX, Dick channeled his passion into developing the North East Motor Sports Museum located at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He explains why he decided to build the museum and how it all came together as a way to honor the region’s rich motorsports history.Afterwards, Bill Lester joins Dale Jr. to talk about his book “Winning in Reverse.” Bill shares his unconventional path to racing’s highest ranks, how he overcame obstacles and why he stepped out of his comfort zone in his Truck Series return last month at Atlanta Motor Speedway. In Ask Jr., Dale reacts to the rain tire test at Martinsville Speedway, Daniel Ricciardo’s special deal if he earns an F1 podium and what Marcus Smith and Marcus Lemonis may be up to.  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 Dirtymo Media. Now they're in the race cars. In the toughest league in the nation, NASCAR's Grand National. They don't anticipate any travel. Fighting a 4,000-pound, 650 horsepower automobile on a 500-mile journey at blistering speed. Everybody's in line and they're off.

Looks like nearly leads goes to mic. They're on the bus. It's almost a match race now. This is Victory Circle. The end of a seemingly infinite world. Paradise Time. A circle. The Dale Jr. Downland.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. Welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download with my co-host, Mike Davis. Leah's in the house, but we got a new producer. We do, a new guy? New guy. Matthew Dillner. What?

Matthew Dillner is in the house. Welcome. I'm a time listener, first time caller. Schultz is taking a break. Matthew is here and there's a special reason. That he's here? That he's here, yeah. Well, I'm all ears.

It holds some significance. All right. Yes. So what is that? We're here to announce that Lost Speedway, season two, is happening. Yeah. Lost Speedway Season 2 is back, which means Dillner is back. Yes.

We brought him back. That's right. Shultz has been in here doing a great job as producer of the show and editing the show, and we really appreciate all the hard work that he's done. But Matthew has been out working on this big project, and it's Lost Speedway. We're excited to be able to bring you a second season of that show. We were so happy with the response from season one. We enjoyed putting that together and exploring these racetracks.

We got a whole new batch of really unique. racetracks that we explore, some incredible experiences going to these racetracks, and I just can't wait for you to see it. So I don't know. When's it going to happen, Mike? When can people see it?

This summer on Peacock, peacocks where it's at. Don't assume you can see it anywhere else because it's a peacock original. We were one of the only peacock originals that debuted last year. We had some crazy circumstances, and then yet the fan response was overwhelmed, I'm coming. Can't say. It was a little surprised even to some degree. But it called for a season two. We knocked it out. I cannot wait. I cannot wait for people to see this new batch of racetracks. Because you guys, I mean, it was amazing. Right, Matthew? Yeah. The complexity of the stories in this season is what really, really, I think, brings this season to the top in my list. It's, it's,

It's, you know, the explorers are fun, but some of the stories that we've uncovered this year even surprised me. So, but the bit, I think the best explorer that Dale Jr. has ever been on. Oh, yeah. You speak for yourself here. Was it not the best that you've ever been on, this one particular track? I mean, Mike, when you say that to me, there's a couple shows that pop up. Oh, so, so you don't even know which one I'm talking about?

I don't, because there's, there's probably, I mean, all the explorers are fun. But there were, half of the tracks were really, there was a lot there, right? And that's my favorite part. Your favorite part, Matthew, are the stories. And I do, too, I do as well enjoy being surprised, finding out things that we did not know, which we did. You know, one of the fun things about Lost Speedway, and it's a bit, it's a bit of a side joke, but we rewrite some of the history on this show. We find out some of the things that we thought we knew to be fact

is actually not the whole story or maybe not even the real story. But we uncovered some really crazy stuff. There's a couple stories in the show that I was surprised weren't more talked about. There's a couple stories that are really controversial or crazy to think that actually happened. I'm surprised aren't more talked about. And maybe the show will be.

bring them back to the surface and people will start digging deeper into some of these stories but I remember right from the get up right from right from the first explorer there were two or three sort of factual things that we found to not actually be true like what we found out we kind of rewrote the history books if you will on a couple things they're right out of the gate and some of the we can't we'd love to tell you the tracks we want to wait hold off on that we'd love to tell you more details about it we want to hold off on all that, but just happy to tell everybody that, yes, there is a season two

of Lost Speedways. We've been working extremely hard. The whole Dirty Moe Media crew has been grinding away and making this show happen. They've done an excellent job this year. Matthew, you did a lot of great work as well. And our guest today on the show is in one of the episodes of Lost Speedways, Dick Bergeron. All right. That is cool. And that's the only guest appearance that we're going to disclose today. But Dick Bergeren, yes, he is in a Law Speedway. episode and it's just it'd be so cool to catch up with Dick Bergering to begin with right the fact that he's in lost Speedways is a is the bonus so man I can't wait to get him in here well he's right outside the door Mike let's go ahead and get him in the room and sit him down at

the desk and get this show started what's happening man hey have a seat right there why thank you he looks the exact same as we remember we've got the hat and all we've got to have the hat you've got to have it that's part of the deal you know yeah absolutely put those headphones on force. All right. That way you can hear. Well, I hope I can hear. I've got hearing aids in. Imagine that. Now, when you get to be my age for all the time you guys have spent around race cars, you're going to be in the same situation. What? Huh? What did you say? So the hat. Yeah. It's always kind of been your thing. Well, it wasn't always, but you're close. It's almost always. I had a skin doctor. I get skin cancers, particularly in my forehead and the top of my head. And I had a

skin doctor many years ago, they said, Mr. Bergman, you're a little thick-headed. And so I'm going to make this really simple and really clear for you. You can either wear a hat or you can die, which is it going to be? So I've been wearing a hat ever since. When I showed up one time on CBS with a normal hat, with the brim, you can't wear that because it shades your eyes. They all want to see your eyes. What are your eyes saying? What are they telling the world? So I shopped around, and I found one of these. And I started wearing them all the time when it was sunny. And one night, Squire and I, Ken Squire,

we were doing a deal at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and he looked at me and he said, where's your hat? I said, I don't need the hat. I'm in a booth and it's night. So there's no sun. I'm not going to get any skin cancer that way. Don't you ever be seen in public again without that hat?

That was Squire. My goodness. Long story. That's where it came from. So Ken Squire told you to never come back to the racetrack without the hat on. Yeah, he did. And when Ken Squire speaks, I listen. Right.

That's pretty cool. I've always wondered where that, I thought that was a personal choice. No, it was a life or death choice, quite frankly. And then, of course, Squire telling me whether it's day or night. So that's what I do. So I didn't know that you race cars so much. Oh, I did. So let's start there.

All right. Right. When did you get your first race car? How old were you? Oh, I was in my 20s, late 20s when I got my first one. It was a great car. It came with a spare tire. I paid $2255 for it. It was a 1953 Studebaker with a 1953 Studebaker engine in it. But it had a roll cage. So I was all set and ready to rock and roll. And off I went in 1966 to Stafford on the dirt. You were how old? I was in my 20s. at that point. So that, and that seems late to people today that it's not, that was. Well, I didn't have the money for a race car. Who's going to put somebody that never drove a race car in a race car?

So I knew I had to have enough money to buy one. And 220 was about what I could afford at that point in time. And I didn't have a trailer. I didn't have a tow rig, but we managed to get all that stuff together. And off I went. I raced it for a year at Lebanon Valley Speedway when they paved Stafford. Well, I wanted to race on dirt. so I didn't want to race on pavement at Stafford Springs.

So I went to Lebanon Valley. And there was a night there when I was in a consolation race. I was starting 25th, and they were going to take two cars and move them to the feature. And I'm sitting behind the wheel, and I'm thinking, this is not working well at all. And so we decided to build an asphalt car. Who's we? Wally Pettengill was the guy that was taking care of my stuff for me at that time. I was still in graduate school at that time.

So he built a late model for me. We went racing at Stafford Speedway, and then we went from a Ford to a Chevy, and then from there, I went to having to finish up by Ph.D., and I just didn't have the time nor the money, so I wound up having to basically park it for a couple of years, and it was so nice to get back. You know, there's just nothing better than sitting behind the wheel of a race car, and you hear the motor, and you feel the tires, and you just in, It's such an enjoyable experience. So you got a Ph.D.

Yeah. And what? Psychology. Why did you do that? Because every step of the way in my education, all I had to do was to get a little more educated and I could get a much better paying job. That meant better motors, more tires, and all the stuff that you need to go race. How have you used your psychology, PhD, in racing?

I don't. I don't. What were you planning on using that? for? I wasn't sure what I was going to do because there were a lot of choices at that point. I wound up as a college professor, which was, yeah, that was good. Nine years? Yeah, and what it did, I had summers off. Well, how perfect can it be? You've got summers off. It's May, and that's when racing starts, so off I went. When you're a college professor for nine years, like when did you start teaching college? How old were you? Oh, young?

Early 30s. Yeah, early 30s. Gosh, and you're racing, you're driving in the summers? Yeah. What are your students think about that? It's not what my students thought about it. It's what the president of the college thought about it. What he think about it? It wasn't a he, it was a sheet.

I was teaching it in all women's Catholic college. Oh, my God. Yeah. And there was a point in time where I was trying to run two different cars simultaneously. This is for a guy that's running on a shoe string, okay? So I had a dirt track center steer modified, one of those big block ugly things. and I also had a sprint car. And I only had one tow rig, so I had to borrow tow rigs,

and I had friends show up one Monday morning. I get up and I look in my driveway, and the only thing that's sitting there is the ramp truck with the sprint car on the back of it, with my name on it. I said, well, I've got to get to school to teach today somehow, so I guess that's what I'm going to do. So I drove the ramp truck with the race car to the college and parked it in the faculty parking lot.

Ten minutes later, here comes. the PA. Dr. Bergerin, report to the president's office now. So I get down there and she was a nun and she said, what is that thing in the parking lot with your name on it? I said, well, sister, that's a Don Edmunds sprint car. I don't care what it is. She said, get it out of here. I said, well, everything I have in the world is in that car. I can't just park it on the streets of Boston. She said, you take it wherever you want. I want that car out of here. So I want to getting in the truck and I parked it behind the cafeteria where it couldn't be seen. But I knew that was the end of my teaching experience that she was not going to bring me back the next year.

Really? Yeah. Why? So explain that? Because that doesn't... I just, it didn't fit. I didn't fit being a college professor at an all women's Catholic college. As simple as that. Not somebody that gets money. But this is nine years. Amazing. I did that just because I thought they were going to throw me out long before that. I mean, they knew that I was racing, and they didn't like it. It just wasn't the right thing to be doing. And you say that, because so when we are doing, you know, I mean, I probably knew some of this before that, but when we started doing lost speedways in our first season, I learned about these tracks having so much difficulty with the communities. And a lot of the community leaders in some of these areas want to shut down racing at these racetracks and wanting

to get rid of the track. Like the tracks weren't seen and racing wasn't seen. as a boost for the community, it was seen as a place where bad people hung out. That's right. Bad guys. Yeah. Is that kind of the same vibe that? Yeah. Well, when I grew up, I'll never forget my dad.

When I started spending a lot of time hanging around the race car shops, he said, those are bad people. You keep hanging around people like that. You're not going to wind up doing anything worthwhile in your entire life. That racing stuff, you can enjoy it, but just don't get close to it. That's so wild to me to think that people, thought, you know, even like your parents or, like, racing's bad. Yeah. Bad. People that race are bad. That's right. They're not good, you know. I can't even think, I can't even imagine like a, you know, that they're being sort of being taboo, you know.

But that was a long, long time ago. You know, I graduated from high school in 1960. Yeah. So it's not that long ago. Well, it is in my life percentage wise. But things have changed. I think at this point, If I was racing and also teaching at the college level, I think it would be accepted. Of course, right? That's why it's so strange to me because you're saying, hey, man, I parked it in faculty park. I think there'd be a joke in the break room, right? Hey, you got your race car out there.

That's hilarious. And the kids might be like, oh, man, that's neat. Maybe not amongst the nuns. It wasn't so funny. Maybe I would say that the nuns today would joke around in the break room about it. Maybe. Back then, it was like, yeah, don't bring that back. you might not have a job.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's where it was going for sure. All right. So did you, so you were sure in that, you were sure about the, the fact that you were probably going to have to find something else to do. Yeah. And what were your options? I didn't have very many.

I mean, I was a, I was a psychologist and there weren't a lot of things other than teaching you could do at that point because in graduate school, I went kind of away from the clinical stuff more in the direction of. experimental psychology, particularly experimental social psychology. What's that mean? Well, basically, how do groups work? How do people interact with each other? How can that become more effective? And where are the mistakes as people interact with each other? A lot of that kind of thing. But I had another opportunity. I had tried for years to get the job as the editor of Stock Car Racing Magazine. And it was one day when I was just so fed up with the college thing and the way they

were treating me and just, I felt like such an outcast. And my phone rang. And it was a guy named Monk Reynolds. And he said, hi, I got a deal for you. I need an editor for Stock Car Racing Magazine, and I need him in two weeks. And you're the only person we know that knows anything about racing and who can type. I said, well, I got a problem. I've already signed a contract to teach one more year. And I said, I kind of got to do that. He said, how much are they going to pay you? And I told them. He said, if you're here in North Carolina, or in Virginia, in two weeks, I'm going to double your salary. I said, you just hired an editor.

And that's what happened. So I started as the editor of Stock Car Racing Magazine in the late 1970s, from 1978. Really? Yeah. So I spent the last several years collecting stock car racing magazine every issue. And I have them. Good. I have them all from start to finish.

I believe it started in 66. You're right. And it was not monthly. It was maybe every other month. Yeah. After a couple years, it started to pick up Steam. To me, you know, that magazine and that magazine and to an extent Circle Track were the magazine. Did you, I guess probably not right out of the gate, but did you realize, like that was kind of our Bible or that, you know, Winston Cup scene was kind of doing its thing or the Grand National scene or whatever it was called back then?

the paper magazine that was passed around at the racetrack, but stock car racing magazine was kind of the, that was the top of the mountain, right? That was the only thing that was really telling the story about what was going on in this little bubbling sort of sport that was going to explode. Did you sense what kind of important role you were playing at that time? Well, what I sensed was the role that I had to play that was most important was keeping the thing alive.

Right. It wasn't drawing much advertising at all. The expenses were high. And some of the people that were there had their hands on the money that was coming in and putting it in their own pocket rather than putting it into the business. So I was there two weeks. I'd given up my job. I'd moved out of my home, left my wife behind in the house that we owned.

That is like synonymous or that is so common in people that sit in that chair. Really? I left and my wife in another state. It's a racing story, in other words. We eventually, you know, got back together in the same house, but for a period of time, we were living in two different places. Like, that blows my mind. So I didn't know what was going to happen to me. Here I am in Virginia, for crying out loud.

And I've got an apartment that I've rented. I've signed a contract. I've paid for it, but I got no job. Now what? So what we wound up doing, they all wanted us to move to New York City. Well, that's not a good place for an auto racing magazine. It's definitely not a good place for Dick Bergrand. So we all just basically said, we're not doing that.

And they gave up on trying to move us. And they said, well, you're going to have to turn this thing around somehow or another. And the way we turned it around was we started realizing that the majority of people who were reading the magazine were people who were involved in local 39 short track racing. and they had to buy breaks and gears and pieces and parts and all the rest of that. So I started in what should have been my spare time, I started going out selling advertising. Terrible conflict of interest to be the editor of a magazine

and the only ad salesperson. But that's what I was doing. And I was able to bring it in. And by bringing in the advertising, all of a sudden now we had enough money that the magazine looked like it was going to not only survive, but it was going to thrive. And it did.

It was a wonderful job. Nobody told me where to go and what to do. All they cared about in the company was, how much money are you going to make? And I found that the more deeply involved I got in the sport with the stuff that was printed and the stuff that I did and the stuff I was involved with, the better it worked. What a job for a guy that loved automobile racing. The deeper you go, the better things work. It was a wonderful thing.

job. If you grab any issue of stock car racing magazine, like you're the editor, but you also write a lot of the articles. Yeah. You provided a lot of the content. How overwhelming was that? Because it seems like that would be a lot. It was a lot, and I was still racing. And my car was in New England, and I was living in Virginia, which is where the magazine was. Every weekend I would get on an airplane, fly north, spend a day working on the car, get the car ready to go, load up, race it, and the next day, work on the car some more, and then Sunday night head back down to Alexandria, Virginia, where the magazine was headquartered. It was probably not the most intense I've ever worked, but it was pretty intense. Did you have any journalistic background before you took that job at all? No.

Not even taking a photo at that point? Oh, I'd done a lot of photography, and I'd done a lot of writing. That's how they knew me. I was a contributor. I was a freelance contributor. So I would say, well. Yeah. So I would say, I think we need a story on this, that, or the other thing, and I'd go and do it.

And I would supply the photography, and I would supply the story, and I was paid. But that's where they found me. They didn't know anybody else. These guys were business people from New York City with an office in Alexandria, Virginia. Well, I'm surprised to hear that you're still racing at that point. So what was your mindset at this time? Are you still, are you trying to make a career at a racing or driving? Or are you now seeing you've got your doctorate over here in the corner? You've got this journalistic magazine publishing career going now and you found a way to sell ads for it, but you're still driving. Where are you thinking this is all going to net out and take you? I was just thinking that I sure must look like a juggler with all this balls up in the air and trying to catch them all constantly. I had no plan for where it was going to take me. I was just going to, I was doing racing, Mike. I was just, I was a happy guy.

That's all it took for me to be a happy person was to be deeply involved in automobile racing. I didn't ever expect I was going to make big money on it. I didn't think I was ever going to win awards for writing it. I didn't know where I was going. I was just every day. Just make the most out of it. Alan Kowicki's motto, make the most of every day.

That's what I was doing. You talk about photography, your family gave you a dark room kit. Yeah. What does that mean? It means you take photographs back in the day, way before digital, and you have film. You have to develop the film. So you run it through chemicals in a room that's totally dark, and then you dry the film, and then you put the film into an enlarger, and it shoots down light.

Photographers have dedicated rooms for this. They do. What's a kit? Yeah, yeah. What is the kit then? You don't have a dedicated room, but your parents got you a kit. Well, the kit basically wasn't in larger trays for chemicals and the tanks for the film. Where were you doing all this at?

What room in the house? Our house in Connecticut, my family's house in Connecticut, had a little pantry in the basement. So I sealed it off in such a way that it would be dark and I could do my photography. What were you taking pictures of? I started taking pictures of racing cars. How are you doing that? sitting in the grandstand. At what track?

Stafford Speedway, Riverside Park in Aguwan, Massachusetts, but the one I liked the best was Keene, New Hampshire, because you could go in the pits at Keene, New Hampshire, when you were 10 years old, and you could take pictures, and they wouldn't throw you out until they were getting ready to start to actually race.

Do you have any of that stuff? Oh, yeah. You still have all that? I've got what I still have. Yeah. My mom got rid of some things that seemed to her to not be very valuable. So I've lost some of the negatives. So photography, that was what got you into racing.

Yeah, that's where I made my first money was photography and then writing. And eventually I made a living out of it. Why did you want to start, what makes you go, I won't write? Does somebody come up and you say, man, we need a story written, you're our guy? In a way, I guess I'm a little like you in that regard. I'm so enthralled with it and I enjoy it. so much the auto racing. I want to tell other people about it. I want to share my enthusiasm for it with other people. If I can go and learn something and teach the same thing I've learned

to other people, so they enjoy the sport mall, that's what I wanted to do. And so the writing just kind of came along. Did you ever work any of your racing into your lessons as a teacher? because I know you love it so much. Not really. Yeah, not really. It had been so tifting to use your racing knowledge and understanding into your philosophy. Yeah, psychology.

I mean, certainly there's a racing story for psychology or an example, right? I had to kind of keep that in low-key. That's so interesting to me. Yeah. Like you're a undercover racer. Yeah, that's what it was. Undercover racing. Well-shed.

You had two lives. So tell me about. Stark Car Racing magazine, and was there a rivalry with Circle Track at any time? Oh, we hated them. Yeah, rivalry isn't a strong enough word for it. We thought they were bad guys, and they thought we were bad guys, too. So we, yeah, it was a bad deal. So you talked about the people that were reading your magazine

were the short track racers around the country that were enjoying this content. But obviously, you know, cup guys too, you know, the, that, that industry, you know, there's articles of cup racing in the magazine. They're going to be reading it. What was your reaction when you go to a racetrack and people at the cup level by the guys like Benny Parsons or David Pearson are telling or reading your magazine? Well, I was, I just looked up to them so much that to find out that they actually read it was a very special thing for me because they were, they were heroes. They were, they were, they were what I wish I could have been able to do.

I mean, I won some races, but I was no Dale Earnhardt Jr. or a senior. I really wasn't. And that became apparent pretty early on. So to be around people who could do what I couldn't do, but wish I had the skill to be able to do, that was the very special part. Not that they read the magazine. It was just the chance to get close to these people that I cared about so much. What was the moment like when you decided that you're done racing?

How did that happen? Oh, I had the crash that ended it. At one point in time, I was running around the country. People would call me up, and I was starting to do a little bit of radio, and so I was known for that too when I had the magazine, and the magazine had a pretty good circulation. So people that would have a special race would call, and they'd say, gee, we've got a car.

Would you like to drive it? Yes, I would. So I'd get on a plane and I'd go. There's a race in Boone, Iowa, called the IMCA Nationals. And at the time, it was drawing three and four hundred cars. And I had a ride in that thing. And there were so many people on qualifying night that they spilled out, so many cars, they had spilled out over the pits, and they were all over the back's direction.

There was only a dirt berm separating the racetrack from all those people. I mean, you could never do it today. I'm going into the third turn and I'm running pretty hot and somehow or another the guy behind me tags me and he gets the car sideways and it takes a turn to the right and I'm trying to steer it out of it

and I kept my foot in it thinking I'm going to steer out of this I'm going to steer out of this and I hit that dirt brim and what I did I looked and there were people everywhere and I'm flying in the air I'm not a religious person I don't go to church but I said a little prayer I said God get me out of this without hurting anybody

and I won't do this again. Car stopped. Guy stuck his head in the window. Are you okay? I said, did I hit anybody? How many people are hurt here? He said, nobody, you didn't hit anybody. You don't go back on a idea like that.

Yeah. That was the end of it. Man, that seems to be pretty emotional for you today, even. It is. It really is. The very thought that I had written so many stories about racing safety and had the chance to literally kill or maim a lot of people. I think till the day I die, when I tell that story, it'll be emotional.

It was one of the most important moments of my life. I'm just forever thankful that nobody got hurt. So how old were you at this time? Oh, golly, 30s, 40s? So you're... Yeah, I was pretty well at a point in time where I should quit anyway. The sprint car at that moment was pretty well done, and that's too bad because that's what I won all my races in sprint cars. I was not a very good stock car driver, but put me in a car with too much power, put me on dirt, give me something I can throw, and I did pretty good with that.

What were some of your biggest wins? I mean, is that, you being a winning race car driver. All at one track. Yeah, yeah. Well, the biggest win, of course, was the first win, and my first win was in the supermodified at a half-mile dirt track. Massachusetts called Lakeville, a car that was so scary. I mean, it was, I look back at that thing now, and I think, what were you thinking driving that thing? But that was 1972 when I won my very first one. And then next year I got the sprint car, and it took us a while to get it sorted out. But once we did get it sorted out,

we were off to the races and off to the business of collecting trophies and chartered flags. So you decided that you're done driving cars? You mentioned just a moment ago about doing some radio. Yeah. What kind of radio? MRN. For cup races? Yeah.

So how do you, again, like, you know, how do you, it kind of goes back to like how do you become a journalist? How do you decide you're going to do that? Like, what opens the door for you to get in, you know, people just don't walk into the MRN booth and start broadcasting races? Well, it was circumstance. I had already been doing a fair bit of public address announcing. At racetracks? At racetracks. Yeah.

Did you enjoy that? I loved it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, here we go again. Another opportunity to get close to the sport and tell other people about it. But I do want to tell you the story about how I got my very first announcing job. Yeah.

Because it's a good one. I was the track photographer at a Rundle Speedway. Yes. You know a Rundle Speedway in Maine. I was the track photographer up there. And one night, here comes Russ Conwood. who was the announcer, and he's got just terror in his eyes. He said, Bergey, you got to get up in the booth.

You're the announcer tonight. I'm getting out of here. They're trying to kill me. What is wrong? He said, I just got to go. I can't stay here. All these mothers, they're ready to hang me. I can't do it.

I just can't do it. I'm the photographer. I got to be in the infield. I can't be in two places at once. He said, you'll figure it out. Turned out what happened was it was Easter weekend. and on a Saturday night, a rabbit crossed the racetrack. One of the cars hit it, ran the rabbit over,

and Conway said on the public address system, well, boys and girls, that's the end of the Easter bunny. No Easter bunny this year. So all these children, all these children were in tears, and I became an announcer. So I'd be up there. Well, here's the results of the first heat tonight. Ali Silva was your winner.

Don McLaren was second, and I'll be right back with a lineup for the second heat. And I run down the grandstand steps with my camera, take a picture of Ollie Silver, run back up again. And now here's the lineup for the second heat tonight. And I did that for a summer. Then I got a job working at Thompson Speedway as the announcer from the Arundel thing. Guess who the co-announcer was, Mike Joy.

Wow. And so Mike Joy at the time was also doing MRN. And Mike Joy opened the door for me. And that's how I got to. to MRN. Your first race at MRN, do you remember where that was? Daytona Speedway. Yeah.

Yeah. The very first race I did was the Bush race on Saturday and the cup race on Sunday, which Richard Petty won. What year? It was his last win. Oh, 79. Oh, no. His last Daytona 500 win.

Yeah. Oh, wow. So 79. You did MRN for the sportsman race and for the cup race. Yep. Where were you located? Uh, well, I was on Pitt Road. You're on Pitt Road report.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was home for me. I was almost always on Pitt Road. There were a couple of years where I spent time in a booth. But I like Pitt Roe. You're right. You're there, man. You're where it's happening. The way that race ended, though, from your vantage point, the way that ended, what do you remember? Talking about Daytona 500, 1979. Yeah. What I remembered was the interview with Richard, because he was just so, he was pretty overwhelmed himself. That was the time. when he and Inman were parting ways and it was emotional for him. And I couldn't, I didn't know what was going on. They didn't know what had happened on the backstretch. Yeah.

I mean, I had an idea that there'd been a crash in a fight, but I had no idea until I came home and I watched the CBS broadcast. Oh my gosh, look at this. Yeah. So it's kind of common knowledge in the industry to be a very important. and easy to work with on pit reporters or anybody really in broadcasting or a journalist or whatever. For the most part, if you walk up into a hauler and got a few questions to a crew chief, he's happy to help you, happy to discuss it.

What was it like back in 1979? You're a new guy. You're walking up down pit road trying to get information from these crew chiefs or car owners or whoever you can get a minute with during the race, during the action. There's not a chance to introduce yourself really. I'm sure you did that throughout the week, but there's not a moment to tell this guy, this is why I'm talking to you, right? You just got to get up there and get it. They understood right away. Really? Yeah, they did. I mean, they knew who I was because I had the microphone. I was it for most of those races. One pit reporter. One pit reporter. Yeah. And that was early ESPN, too. I did, I did Talladega alone. Can you imagine the length of that pit road? And I covered the whole darn thing for ESPN. but I spent a lot of time in the pits.

Well, you know, I was always there. I was there when the crews came in, and I would stay there until they threw me out at the end of the day. I spent all that time asking questions of crew chiefs and watching what was going on, and they pretty much saw that this was somebody that was going to be with them next week, too. Somebody they could trust. Yeah.

Was pit road your request on that first assignment, or was it assigned? It was assigned. It was a sign. So you say it's your home or it would become your home and of course it would. I mean, that's your, that's where people knew you for years and years. But that wasn't something that you anticipated to be, to be where you would be doing your broadcasting for decades. No, I didn't know where it was going to be. I was just glad to have a job. So they said, go to pit road. You're going to be the pit road reporter. You're going to be the pit road reporter. And that's your responsibility. Good luck. Any suggestions as to how to do this job? Work hard. So I did. You had the opportunity through MRN to work with Barney Hall, who, I mean, a lot of people's opinions of mine as well was one of the greats. So what was that like? Barney was a bit standoffish with me. First of all, really? Well, first of all, I was from the north.

Let's start with that. Second of all, I really wasn't a cup guy. I was really a local Saturday Night guy, much more so than the cup guys. If you looked at where I started in Big League NASCAR, I probably spent 2% of my time in big league stuff when I got the job and the other 98% of it was flogging around dirt tracks and all over the country so it took me just a little while but I think the fact that I was there early in the morning I stayed all day and because I'd raced I was able to ask some questions that made at least some

sense and I could spot things as well I remember one day that I found Richard Petty's car in the garage Daytona 500 and the tie rod was ahead of the two ball joints in the car front stair. I'd never seen that before. And I put that on the air. And I think after a while, that sort of resonated with the people that worked on the cars. Here was somebody that had some idea of what this stuff is all about. I mean, I knew what a Vow Spring was as opposed to the spring that holds the wheel on the car.

But Barney Hall was a little standoffish from the start. Yeah. I'm not been in this broadcasting role long enough to look at it the way you do. So I'm kind of curious. I look at guys like Barney Hall and Ken Squire. I mean, you're one of the greats. You probably wouldn't put you on that list. But there's guys that, like Squire, like if we didn't, if Squire isn't part of our sport,

who feels that role, right? I don't know anybody that could do it like him. And I felt the same way with Barney. He had this velvet voice, right? He just had this talent that, I don't know. And I don't know if we even realized it when he was here, right? I don't know if we realized just how good he was till we didn't have Barney Hall anymore. Yeah.

But you could, I don't know, he had a magic. Did you feel like that about Barney? And did you, who's your, I guess, Who's your Mount Rushmore when it comes to? My Mount Rushore is Mike Joy, hands down. I mean, Mike opened doors for me. If there's another mountain we can talk about, it would be Squire because he opened doors for me.

Back when I was doing the magazine, I would make every effort to get home the night of the Daytona 500, so I could turn on the television whenever I arrived, 1 o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in the morning and watch that race, start to finish. Mike Joy on Pitt, road doing the incredible calls that he did. Squire in the booth, I mean, there's never been anybody

like Ken Squire from the perspective of magic with words. But Mike Joy has got his, he's got his own place and he's been with us for so long now. He sure has. Still as good as he was in the beginning. He hasn't lost any of his enthusiasm or his ability. We are so lucky to have had Squire, Barney Hall, Ned Jarrett, Mike Joy, Benny Parsons, you. I mean, we've had a lot of very, very good people talking to America about automobile racing, and that's made a big difference. What are some of the key things that make a great broadcaster or good in that role, whether they're doing MRN radio, whether they're calling the race from the radio side

or doing it on TV or down on pit road. What are the essentials? Like, what are the things? So if you're doing your job, I grade myself on everything that I say. I don't know if you ever did that, but like when I have an on air or when I have a comment,

I'm like, damn, I felt like I nailed that. I feel like I described that well. Or, damn it, I didn't do a good job on that. Even these, like every single thing that comes out of my mouth. But like what are, so I kind of work. I kind of, you know, I kind of try to improve based on in the moment experiences and mental notes and stuff. But what are some of the, like if you could say, hey, man, here's the key.

Here's the key things to being great. Here's number one, passion. You've got to love the sport because it's going to show through. If you don't love it, if you're just doing a job, it shows. And we've had plenty of announcers in the last few years who have come from other places and all racing wasn't their first deal. And I don't think a one of them has done as well as the people who really loved automobile racing right from the beginning. The passion for the sport is ever so important. Number two, the story's not about you. The story is about what's going on in that racetrack.

Never use the word I, if you can use the word they. Tell the story of the drivers, the backstories of the drivers. Who are these people? Why is it that they're not only willing, but enthusiastic about going 200 miles an hour when a sudden stop can be tragedy. Who are these guys? What drives them? What's it all about? And if you can find something on the day of the race that makes a difference that maybe a driver was not feeling well when he qualified, maybe he had an upset stomach and he took something

and now he's okay. or he and his father had been estranged and he's in the pits today for the first time in 10 years, any of that stuff that you can find by prowling around the pits, looking at things, asking questions, just rubbing shoulders with people. That's really important. Man, that's great stuff. How much preparation would you do? What day of the week did it start for you?

Starts on the plane on the way home. I carried with me on most of the races I did between 30 and 50 pages, paper pages of notes. I tried it with a computer. I couldn't do it fast enough with a computer. But I had everybody's results for the year so far. I had everybody's results for that race. I especially wanted to know things about them in particular. How many times have they been penalized for speeding?

Was it speeding in? Was it speeding out? Was it this track? Was it tracks like this track? Where's the wire in the road? Where did they pit today? Are they where they want to be in relation to the timing line on the road? Stuff like that.

Anything that you can find that's a tidbit that helps people understand the event better comes from putting time into it. And I started going home. I would key, I did a lot of this. Finally, I wanted up hiring a couple of people who helped me and did a tremendous job helping me. But for a long time, I was key in the results of every. raised. Then when it just got to be too big, I'd have somebody key that stuff in, start position, finish position, and so forth. And what I was keying in on the plane in my computer was the other

stuff had a disagreement with the crew chief over the setup. This was the third time he'd run into somebody. This was whatever I could come up with. And I would put all that stuff in my notes, so I'd have it for the very next week. I'd work all winter long, getting prepared. So I had had the track stuff ready to go. I had all that finished before we got the very first green flag. It was a lot of time-consuming work, but by gosh, it was fun. I loved my job. Being able to stand there on pit road right where it's happening, and you can tell people why the driver you're talking about is going faster than he has been all year long. Today, he's got something unique and you know what it is because you were in the garage and the crew chief told you

or maybe the car chief told you what an opportunity that is to share that information and make the race more interesting for people at home did you ever have a time uh is it where there ever and you don't have to name names but were there ever were there ever times when you're like oh i don't want to go talk to that guy yeah your father really oh yeah oh yeah uh there's a crash i want to talk to your father. Go get Earnhardt. I don't want to talk to him. He's not going to want to talk to us. He messed with me. And the last time I interviewed him, he messed with me. I had just started with Fox. This was 2001, first race that Fox is going to do. So everybody's on edge. Nobody knows for sure whether they're going to be able to keep their job or not. This is the Daytona 500. This is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

your talent interview to see if you can really do it or not. So practice ends. And I've got Pam Miller in my ear. She was the pit producer. She says, we need Earnhardt. I said, he's talking to his crew, leave him alone. We need him now. We're going to go off the air pretty soon. I said, Pam, I can't, I can't. I can't bug him. I can't. She says, you got to get Earnhardt. You understand? You need an interview with Dale Earnhardt. We need it now. Go get it. And just at that moment, the conversation with the crew broke up. So I think I can get it. I hit my talk back. I think I can get it. I went over and I said, Dale, have you got a moment? What? Now? Right now? And I knew it was over. I knew he wasn't going to talk to me. Within half a

second, he had me by the elbow and spun me around. He said, how about now? So we got the interview. But I thought, oh my gosh, if I don't get this interview, am I going to be going to Rockingham next? week. Yeah. I got the interview. I was always, I was always curious about being a pit reporter and on pit road during the race. Because drivers kind of, drivers have, drivers know that they need to do interviews because

they got to, they got to promote themselves, their sponsors. And crew chiefs go about their job going, they ain't important to me. I don't have any, that ain't my job. I've never, you know, but during the race, you're the pit reporter. you got those guys are your source of information. And I imagine there were some of them that were harder nuts to crack or just almost impossible. Like it's not even worth going over than Maurice or some of those guys. There's a good one right there.

Maurice Petty, I imagine. But there were some, I'm sure, that were more happy and willing to talk to you. But others that were just like, I'm working, you know, don't bother me. Yeah. Well, some of them had gotten mad at me too. Yeah. Ray Everham is a good example of that. there was a time when qualifying for the Daytona 500 and I'm working qualifying and I mean that's when you've got guys out there and they're doing three laps and it just takes forever it's the most boring television possible so instead of hanging around on pit road I'm going in the garage I want to see if anybody's messing with their car and sure enough here's here's Everenham's car the Jeff Gordon car and they got the thing up on jackstands he's got four mechanics underneath it each one of them has got a hair dryer and they're heating the wheel bearings

in rear. So I put that on the air. Oh, boy. Everettam is ready to kill me. He said, I bet. Yeah, he was. He said, I work all winter long, looking for a little advantage in Daytona, and you come along and you tell the whole world. Basically, he threw me out, threw me out of the pit. And I probably had it coming, but, you know, if you're in news, that's news.

Did you have a conversation afterwards? No. We never, we never really did, but come to Daytona 500, if I had to talk to him, he would. It would have been over by then. But after that, he was always careful about where he let my camera go, whether he was going to let the camera in the garage itself. You know, I always asked. I never brought a camera in the garage when I'm asking the cruechie first.

And I could ask Ray Evern Hammond. He usually say, you keep the camera there. Just in the edge of the garage rather than letting it come in. This brings up an interesting point that I've always wanted to ask you. We're numb to the fact that, the crunch of a race. Like when it's crunch time, a pit reporter must go up onto a pit box and ask about their fuel mileage. Which I think is actually, if you think about it, it's kind of a personal question. Like it's like, that's information that I don't think that

crew chief is just wanting to tell everybody. And also, you are running the chance of looking like a fool. Like, yeah, yeah, Dick, we've got enough fuel to go the way and then they run out on the backstretch on the last lap or something like that. Did you ever not want to go climb a pit pit box and ask that question. Like is that question as personal and is, is tough to ask in that moment as it seems to be? It is a tough question, but it's one that has to be asked. And I think that the crew chiefs, certainly the crew chiefs, by the time I got to CBS, the crew chiefs were much more used to it, people climbing up on the pit box, asking them about things like fuel mileage and the car is going backwards now. And the engine doesn't sound just right. Is this something

you can fix on the next pit stop? Or is it something? something that's permanent? Are you about to blow up? Whatever it might be. They're more used to it now. And so it's not as, it's not as worrisome as it used to be. What used to be the problem, if you can imagine this, was dragging cable. I mean, even, even at play, oh, we, before we had all the wireless stuff, you had to drag cable up and down pit road. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And you'd get it caught in the tires and the crew chiefs would be, Harry Hyde wanted to kill me one day. because my cable got tangled up in his tires, and the guys are trying to sort tires and go over at pit wall,

and they got my cable, and they're trying to pull me over backwards. It was different back then. That would be one. I wouldn't want to climb up on his pit box. Harry Hyde? No. No. Everything we've heard about Harry Hyde, no.

It doesn't sound like that would have been a fun one. No. And I definitely wouldn't want to get him tangled up in my cables. Yeah, the guys that do it today and the women who do it today on Pit Road, and it's nice to see women doing it. It really is. They've got it pretty easy compared to what it was in the very beginning. When you dragged cable and you didn't have the kind of access that you've got now,

if somebody didn't want to talk to you, they didn't have to talk to you. Now they really feel as if they have to. And for just what you said, Dale, about for your sponsors and for your own future, you have to do the interviews. Apparently, some people and dad included told you that you take things too seriously. Yeah. You need to do it. Lighten up, boy.

Yeah. What's that mean? I did take it too seriously. I so desperately wanted to have it go right. I wanted to say the right things. I wanted to contribute to the sport in a positive way. And if you're too serious to be able to see your own mistakes and to see places where you can do better, you're making a mistake.

And more than a few people have told me along the line, that you're too serious. But to be where I've been, I mean, there was a time when I was doing television and editing two auto racing magazines at the same time. So I wouldn't take an afternoon off for six months, not even an afternoon, nothing. It gets pretty serious when you're working that hard.

It's hard to have fun as such. If you're just working, you get out of bed in the morning, you can't wait to get to your computer and get started. You can't wait to get to the airport to get to the track. You're driving too fast to get to the track. You're driving too fast to get that airplane at the end of the race. Yeah, I've been too serious.

There's no doubt about it. I wish I'd laughed more along the line. One of the things that I've always admired about broadcasters, Ken Squires, the best example of that is the vocabulary and the way he would take a complex situation on a racetrack can explain it in some term that anyone could know, right? And you had one example of that. What a pile of grit.

You remember when he said that? I don't. So dad flips at Daytona, clowns back in the car and comes down pit road. You're pit reporter. He comes in and pulls his car in. They start putting the car back together and taping it together. And you go, what a pile of grit.

Yeah. So when fans and people that are passionate about the sport, remember moments like that, Those key phrases are what they key in on, right? And I mentioned Squire, did those things come naturally? As a broadcaster, I would have to think that Ken Squire, I just want to think in my head that before the 1979 Dayton 500, that Ken Squire had a notebook of all the things that he might pull out of his hat.

Like, you know, a great... And there's a fight on the backstretch. They know they have lost. A freight train down the back straightaway. Just small little, like everybody's seen a freight train. Okay, I get it. These little descriptions, right, of the racing, he used them time and time again.

If you watch the 19th, 79-day-Tontal 500, that's my favorite thing, is listening to the Squirisms. Yes. As a broadcaster, and having lived and worked in that era, and having those own little, you know, quips of your own, right?

Right? Does that come naturally? Yes. Or is it? That's just part of your being and part of you, like, you don't develop that. You can try to develop it, but what you do is what I'm sure you do, which is to watch what you've done. So you go back and replay the broadcast. Really? And you see what you said. I can honestly tell you, and I'm kind of ashamed now, but since you said that, that I do not watch my broadcast.

And I haven't seen, I haven't purposely set down to watch my work. I should do that. You're pretty darn good at it. I should do it. Yeah, I think, I think. What am I going to try to understand, help me, send me to school. So what do I want to figure out by watching? In your mind, when you do that, you're liable to see something or hear something that you said,

that you might have been able to say a little bit differently, remember it for next time. I think the drivers that watch races on the tape, they go run a race and then they watch the race on tape, and they watch it a couple of times or three times. They learn stuff. Same reason. Yeah, same reason. Yeah, same reason that football coaches play the game back and show the quarterback or whatever it might be the receiver. I'm scared to watch it. I don't want to know what I said or how I sounded because it, you know.

you'll be surprised you'd like it you would think if I had you know all you guys y'all had you you were a photographer then a journalist then a track announcer and then you did some MRI in and then you know I mean you had you you built this foundation right and and and like Mike joy right same thing like he didn't just jump into a booth one day I guess I don't know I'm I've I've always been curious about that you sure that that's choir didn't have a book full of Spirements? If he did, I never saw it. They just had all that in memory?

Well, I think a lot of it just came out. Dave Moody has some of that in him as well. Moody can come up with some things I listen to him, and I'll say, where did he get that? It's some people, it's a gift. That is my favorite part of broadcasting. Madden, he had that. He had his own language, right? Yes, he did.

And you only got it from him. And if, you know, so that's my, I don't, I want to develop, because I don't know if I have that, right? Does that make sense? Maybe it starts with the gift of observation and, and really being tuned in with your surroundings. Because I don't think, see, I don't think Ken Squire go predetermines what he's going to say. Those moments happen in themselves. And so you have to have the ability to recognize and then be able to articulate. Yes.

Like guys would say. When a motor breaks today in a broadcast, guys will go, well, the motor broke, right? The engine blew up. Right. In 1980, he hand-grenated the motor. Like, what? That's amazing. It's way better than just the motor broke.

Or Chris Economacky and AJ Foote. A.J. Foyt pulls out of a race with a blown engine, and Chris says, AJ, what happened? and AJ says The motors busted Chris And Chris said The motor's not

busted It's broken Linda Vaughan is busted I don't think he's He wrote that down Ahead of time No no you didn't Wow

Wow Putting him into the amount Rushmore then Chris got back He goes right Just on that line alone Right See he's

The funny thing about Chris When I listen to when I listen to Watch Old Races now is he seems and I mean this with the most respect so out of place

because he sounds completely different than anything else going on in this whole broadcast and he talks his vocabulary is on a totally different it's somewhere else

like he's not he didn't have a racing voice right I don't know if there is one but you worked with Chris Gondomacki yeah describe his approach to his job. Well, he didn't have 30 pages of notes with him, I'll tell you that. But he had a lot of stuff in his head.

And I enjoyed listening to him. I thought he did a wonderful job, whether it was in a booth or whether it was on pit road. They never put him any place that he couldn't do well. Yeah, he was all over. Yeah, and his newspaper, my gosh, National Speed Sport News, when that thing would arrive on a Thursday,

I wouldn't take phone calls on Thursdays until I had read Chris's column in Speesport. This is when I was the editor of the magazine because I knew darn well that whoever was on the phone looking for me wanted to know about what Chris had written. What do you think about what Chris said about Daryl Waltrip? Well, I haven't read Chris's column yet. You can't do that.

I had to have read it. Is there a connectivity then with people that can write and people that make a living journalistically and conveying their thoughts through the written word that helps them go through it? a mental process, and this is what I'm asking for yourself, actually, because, you know, you're a lifelong writer, and yet you had a way to articulate. Is there something to that? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't have a good answer for it, though. I don't know.

Maybe. I bet you there is. I think there is. I mean, you may not have come up with some of your stuff, you know, you're saying stuff on the fly, but you have, you know, you're well tuned into articulating thought and telling stories and describing them in ways that's just not my my motor blue, you know, you have to somehow contextualize that, right? Maybe that's a writer is able to do that in a way that it translates well to broadcasting. Marty Smith, you know, I think Marty Smith, a lot of his talents is based off of his writing background. Yeah, I think so too.

You know, and the other thing about Ken Squire, one of the things I loved, when I started following racing, Ken Squire was not the booth play-by-play guy, but he would be an essayist during the race. Yes. Oh, yeah. So he would write that stuff on the fly. And I know that because, like, I remember specifically, I think it was a Daytona 500 where there's a rain delay. And so during that one of the rain delay fillers was an essay that he had written all about that rain delay.

And I'm like, and of course, it was beautiful. It was amazingly written. And I'm just like, wow, that he just did that on his own right there probably with just a pencil and paper. Yeah. Yeah. Now, maybe it's a way with words. I don't know. But, yeah, he could do some incredible things, couldn't he?

Out of all the roles you played in your career in racing, what was your favorite? Driver. Yeah. Really? Driver when the car was right. Yeah. Yeah. Not necessarily when the car wasn't right, which was most of the time.

But did you find the same sort of competitiveness, though, in broadcasting? Like, not against, you know, your fellow broadcast? but against yourself or? Yeah, against yourself. Try to do better the next time around. But there's just the sprint car that I drove, the way we had the chassis set up when it was hooked up, the left front wheel would pop up in the air.

And somebody once asked me that if I could redo any part of my life, what would you want to do? And I said, well, if the Lord came down to me and said, Dick, you got about maybe 30 more seconds to live, what do you want to do in your last 30 seconds? Just let me get in that car. I want to see that left front pop. And I want to pass cars.

I want to pass them on the outside. I want to pass them on the inside. I want to pass everybody. That would be it. That was the most enjoyable part of everything I've done by far. You made that choice to quit racing. Did you ever think, have second thoughts about it? No.

Never. No, you can't back up. I mean, you say, dear Lord, get me out of this. And then back up on it. You can't do that. Even if you're not a religious person, you can't. You talk about your working with Fox. You were on a pit reporter for them for 11 years.

How did that end? Well, they came to one day and they said, we've really enjoyed having you here. That was the end of it. Really? Yeah. But, I mean, it was time. I didn't look good on camera anymore. I mean, I'm going to be 79 next month.

You cannot, cannot be doing announcing with your... face on camera at age 79 in today's world. You need to be in your 20s, you need to be in your 30s. And I had gotten to the point where I just looked my age. And I'd also gotten to the point where just trying to physically do it all that I was doing. It was just so demanding. The amount of time I was spending, I wasn't getting enough sleep. And it was hard. I mean, I was pushing myself really, really at the end harder than I should have had to push myself. And if I had done the same amount of pushing

when I was 30, I'd have gotten it done a lot easier. So how did you walk away on your terms? I think I walked away on my terms. The departure was just wonderful. My last race was at Dover, Delaware, and everybody was just so nice to me. They took me for a ride around the track and the pace car and waving at people

and that sort of stuff. It was just a big day. It really was. Jimmy Johnson won the race and in Victory Lane after the Victory Lane interview, essentially was over but not quite. He threw his arms around me. At the same time, I threw my arms around him. It was pretty special.

The day was special. Chad Canouse, at one point I came up to ask some kind of an interview question and he had had a little logo on the back of his clipboard that day. that had the thing that they'd come up with that little drawing of me with. I remember that. Yeah, me with the hat. How can I ask a question? I mean, you saw that.

It was very, very special. Did a dinner for me and gave me a $10,000 check to the museum. So Fox was good to me at the end, and the timing was right. What were you doing outside of the pit road reporting? What else were you? I mean, I know you're trying to build a museum. You got a museum? Raise the money to build an auto racing museum.

So when you're building this museum, is this where your mind's going? So is this your future? Is this sort of your nest egg? What you want to go spend the rest of your days doing? I don't think I really felt that way about it, but I wanted to see the museum get built. So when I formed a board of directors, I started telling them, I'll do what I can to get it built.

Not sure we're going to pull this off. Nobody believed we could actually get this done. A bunch of short track local people going to put up a building that's going to be a museum to auto racing. Nobody knew that we were really going to get it done. But by golly, the auto racing connection made a huge difference. People knew me. And so when I walked in with my handout looking for a donation or looking for a bulldozer we didn't have to pay for or whatever it might be, it went a lot easier because of the TV. What all were you, what was your responsibilities when you were wrapping up your work with Fox?

What other things were you doing? You talked about how much you had on your plate? Well, I really was getting the museum going and trying to come up with the money for it and trying to find the land for it, trying to figure out how to do it. Why did you want to do this museum? Because a guy came to me at a vintage car show and he stuck his finger in my chest. And he said, Dick, New England is losing its auto racing heritage. People are dying and nobody knows what to do with Grandpa's photo books or they throw them away

because there's no place to put them. People are cutting up the old cars because nobody wants them anymore. They're being sold and put into private collections. We need a museum. And you're the guy to do it. I don't know if he went to 30 people that day. And I was the dummy that said, oh, okay. But that's what started.

name was Vick Urarty, and he cared a lot about the history of auto racing in New England. So that's what we wound up doing. We built a museum that captures the history of auto racing and motorcycle racing and snowmobile racing and racing and racing on ice. And all the rest of it. Yeah. All motorsports. All of it. Where's it located?

It's located right at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Yeah. We're right on Speedway property, which was a wonderful gift from Bruton Smith. We've got the, we have the land. We lease the land for $1. year for 90 years. Pretty awesome. Yeah.

Well, it was a three, it would have been $300,000 or more for the land. Right. And we didn't even have close to that amount of money. I mean, Bruton was a huge help. Bentley Warren, who said, I don't know what I can do to help you, but I'll do what I can. He did all the site work at no cost. You imagine what site work is like on two and a half acres of land.

Dug the holes for everything that had to be planted in the ground, filled them all up. And then fundraising was. and going so well. And Bentley handed me a check for $40,000. He said, I hope this helps. I said, it's going to help a lot. Bentley's a very private person, and I expected he didn't want anybody to know,

but the next thing out of his mouth was, you tell everybody. You tell everybody what I just did, that I just gave you $40,000. And I said, this doesn't seem like you. Why do you want me to tell people? He said, you'll see, and he was right again. What happened was, I started to tell people, you know, Bentley Warren's behind this museum.

He gave us 40 grand. Two weeks later, we had a $25,000 donation. Now I could talk about Bentley's 40 and the 25. And then we got a 15, and then a 20, and then a 25, and it all came. That was because Bentley had a reputation as cheap. He doesn't spend money if he doesn't have to. And he's an incredibly good businessman. So if Bentley Warren believed in the museum, it's going to have.

happen and I'll contribute what I can. Hey, explain to a new generation of race fans and maybe even racers, you know, who may have short attention spans. How would you describe and where would you start saying who Bentley Warren is? Oh, Bentley Warren is one of the best super modified drivers the world has ever seen. He's America's oldest teenager. He's 80 years old and still riding his motorcycle with his engineer boots and cut off pants running the most successful biker bar, New England has ever seen. Sells more beer in a weekend than any other restaurant in New England. Started with one of the largest tractor trailer, sand and gravel operations New England has ever seen. And he's fun to be with. He is really fun to be with. Just don't try to keep up with him

if he's on his motorcycle. I've tried that. I can't ride near as fast as he can on the highway and get away with it. And you may or may not. It's hard to say C. Bentley or Warren or Dick Bergeron in an episode of Lost Speedways because we have announced today, Dick, that Lost Speedway Season 2 is coming back, but we can't get into too many details on what tracks. But you're here, and Arundel we've been talking about, so we can say Arundel is one of our tracks on Lost Speedways, and you were there with Matthew,

and what an amazing experience that was. I want to tell you we appreciate your participation in that. Oh, I had such fun that day. I really did. I mean, Bentley being there and Matthew, and he was as excited as I was to wander around. And I mean, here we are in the woods picking up debris. Whoa, it's a light from the pits. Yeah.

Well, that was exciting to Matthew. It was exciting to me and it was exciting to Bentley, too. We just kept finding stuff. I mean, the old starters box pieces of that were there. Yeah, that's a good one to watch. You'll have a good time watching. You'll have a good time watching all the Lost Speedway shows. I had a friend of mine give me a magazine.

I knew nothing about the classic or much about Oswego. I had zero about Nolan Swift or Bentley Warren or any of those guys. And a guy gave me a magazine years ago of the classic. And all of every race from, there's a book where basically it tells you the very first classic. And it gives you a little blurb, kind of an article about the race and how it went and who pictures and everything. and every other classic after that, right? All the way up until pretty much present day. And I read the whole book over, I've read it multiple times.

And I learned who Bentley Warren was. Like you talked about him and described him well. One of the things that I was most impressive was he did other things outside of the classic. I mean, he ran in Indy 500 and won a lot of races outside Oswego. But he won his first classic. He won it seven times or nine times, something ridiculous. number, but he won it over four or five decades. It was crazy. Like he won his first one maybe in the 60s and then his last one in the last 20 years sometime. And he wouldn't run every,

he wasn't a regular weekly racer at Oswego or running every year at the classic. He just showed up and would win it just because he was Bentley Warrant. But there were times when he did run them all. I mean, he won half a dozen championships at Oswego. There was one year where he won the Sandusky, Ohio Speedway Classic. He won the Star Speedway Classic and he won the Oswego Speedway Classic in championships at three different racetracks all in the same year. He was he was just so phenomenally good in a supermodified good in the stock car too, won a lot of stock car races. Yeah, his last win at the Classic was just so improbable, I guess. And just like you said, he wins the race. Everybody there is shocked but him.

Yeah. He drank, he had a couple beers and got on his heart. Charlie and left. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be it. He'd ride that motorcycle from Oswego all the way to his home in Maine. And I'm going to tell you what, that's at least a nine-hour drive. And he'd be on the interstate highway doing that in the middle of the night. He does things nobody else does. I wanted to go back on the museum because your role in our Lost Speedways episode was justified in that you are the perfect person to be preserving history, especially in New England and in the northeast. That's why this museum, I mean, I don't,

Your legacy is going to have so many parts to it. But if your legacy consisted of nothing more than that museum, wouldn't you be enough? Wouldn't you be? No, got to do more than one thing at a time. But that thing right there, if it's not you telling the history of that racing scene, which was prominent,

especially with the super modifies, modified. I mean, like today even, when we go to New Hampshire, we're looking for modifies to watch, right? So, like, if it's not you, who's it going to be? In fact, is I agree with whoever it was that said, hey, you need to do this. Because I don't know who else can do it the way you can do it. And I think that that is one heck of a thing for people to remember you by. Well, I'm 79 and somebody else is going to have to do it pretty soon.

And we've got the guy to do it. You're recruiting him? Name is Tom Nicherson. He's a down-in-the-wall race car guy. I mean, he likes to get Saturdays off from the museum because his brother, races is a super modified and he's part of the crew. How could you say no to a thing like that? So when his brother's racing, he's at the racetrack, turning wrenches and keeping track of tire temperatures and all the rest of it, measuring the stagger in the back end of the car.

We've got a board of directors of 28 people and they're all very focused on the museum. We've got a huge number of people who have contributed what they can. Some of them contribute a dollar. Some contribute grandpa's scrapbook. This is a huge operation. from the perspective of the number of people who are involved in it and care about it, care deeply about it. So this is not a Dick Bergeron Museum by any stretch of the imagination. This is a lot of contributors. So where are you, where you spend most your time now? Winters I spend in Daytona Beach. This is the first time I've spent the whole thing here. What I have been doing in the past before the pandemic was I'd spend three weeks in Daytona,

then get on a plane, fly north and spend a week at the museum and then go back down again. We're only open one day a week during the wintertime, so I didn't have to be there that much. Yesterday was the first time I've been on a plane in 14 months. Yeah. And I got to tell you, it was frightening. The lobby was full of people. The plane is full of people. And I've managed to avoid people for the last, well, since COVID started.

It's a scary proposition. But you're just spending most of your time with the museum. Oh, yeah. And then... Well, even down here doing that. I mean, working on proposals for grants, writing things up, writing a copy, all those little...

Every car has a storyboard. So here's what happened. Here's who built the car. Here's who drove the car. Here's an interesting... Yeah, I wrote it all. So I work on that stuff while I'm down here. I print a lot of photography.

We're in a process right now of printing photographs of everybody that's ever won at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. So Shannon Stevens, who is in the Speedway PR department, she sends down a bunch of stuff on Snapchat, whatever that thing is, where you can put a lot of pictures in one place. And I download them, Photoshop them, print them, put them in the book, write the caption underneath.

So I can do all that here. And I do it. Well, here, Daytona. Pretty busy. Yeah. You stay busy. He's horrible, I think. I mean, this guy's right.

I don't know if he's got any time for it. I don't think he does either, but he's somebody. I'll tell you what, if he's writing, man. Thank you so much, Dick. This was a privilege to have you here. Privileged to be here. I watched you from when you very first started to race. I didn't get a chance to see you much on the local short tracks,

but I was there when you got started with NASCAR second tier. And I first saw you and I said, this kid's going to be something special. Yeah, you had a lot of great things to say about me. I just told the truth, that's all. Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. You act surprised. You're like, he had nice things to say about me. Well, I mean, I don't know. He was just always, one of the things that I think a broadcaster has is a responsibility. In my mind is to lift people up, and you lifted, you always did that.

When you would work on pit road or do a post-race interview, you always try to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, you. highlight and lift up the subject of your interview. And so he was always, you know, if you came, I don't know, today, man, we, today, today it feels like it's a little harder to do that and, and controversy. People love, people love the controversy and when gears are grinding and, but back, you know, back around 2000, you know, the disposition, I guess, across the board was a lot lighter, a lot, a lot happier. and he did a good job of,

I always thought he did a great job of lifting people up. Thank you. Being a bright, being a bright moment. You know, when you come down to you, you're going to get a great story.

You're going to get some knowledge. You were going to get a bright story, a bright moment. Even in a difficult situation, you know, you tend to, you know, tell it in a positive way.

But I always enjoyed your work. You have your hands. You're connected to everything. You know, you're connected to so many different parts of our racing world. and your influence over it is, I don't know how you measure it.

But there's people like, I mentioned, you know, Squire and you mentioned Mike Joy. I mean, there's certain people, when we've had a few of them at this desk, that if they didn't have that passion and didn't have that willingness to do all that work and just grind through all those years, you're one of those guys.

You know, your role at Stock Car Racing Magazine is profound, the work you did on, you know, on radio and TV, on Pitt Road, for all those years, has impacted our sport and set a standard to, you know, for people in the future that do that same job. You know, it's people really admire you, and I hope you really know that. We're lucky to have you here today.

I appreciate being here. I appreciate your words. Thank you. Thank you. Dick Bergrand on the Dale Jr. download. Mike, I got a special guest. All right. don't be on the show today.

A buddy of mine, he's wrote a book and recently came back to the racetrack as a driver hadn't raced in years, six years old, Bill Esther. Oh, fantastic. This will be fun. All right, let's get him on Zoom here. All right, I want to bring on a guest on the show. A guy I've been trying to get on here for a couple weeks now, and he's an old friend of mine, Bill Esther.

Bill, how are you doing? I'm excellent, Dale. I'm doing pretty good. I've known you for probably 20 years. I think we met back in, actually, we might have met in 99, 98. I can't remember which season it was in my Xfinity career, but you popped onto the scene and drove Bobby Hillen's car at Watkins Glen. If I remember correctly, that was the first time I think I raced against you.

And everybody was wondering, like, who is this Bill Lester guy? And, you know, Bobby Hillam, I don't know how much a relationship you guys had, but I was really excited to be able to race with Bobby back then because I'd watched him in the 80s race my dad, and he was sort of this legend, you know, not a legend, but kind of a veteran that had been around the sport for a long time, and then you jumped in his car, which was a really good car. But we struck up a friendship, if you will, quite easily.

I think we ran into each other at the Urban Youth Racing League, one of their events as well around that time. But, you know, we kind of watched your career from that point on. You raced in the truck series, had some good success there, raced in the Cup Series, and had a pretty remarkable career. One of the things that I think is most interesting about it is when you started your racing career. And I know I don't want to get too much into the details there because you have now wrote a book that tells that story.

So first off, give us a little bit of information about this book, why you chose to write it. Yeah, so the book is called Winning in Reverse. And everybody's like, well, what kind of title is that for the name of a book? But it's because it kind of chronicles my racing journey, which is atypical from a standard racing, you know, driver's story. You know, most race car drivers start, as you know, at a very young age. they come up through the ranks. By the time they get to be in their 40s, they're pretty much winding down their career. So for me, I didn't start racing professionally until I became 40 years old. And then my career ended effectively around 50. And the last type of racing I did competitively

was in go-karts, right? So I didn't start out in go-karts, you know, in my single-digit years or anything like that. I loved seeing these guys, you know, running go-carts. And I would have loved to have done that. But my parents did not have... the wherewithal to get me into carting at that young age. But at 50 years, a tender 50 years of age, I finally got to represent Team USA in international carding competition was my first and only year of competitive carding, and that came at 50. So I named it winning in reverse because I got to live my dream of being a professional race car driver, but I did it almost atypical from the way a typical driver would do it. So the reason I wrote this memoir is it's not an autobiography, first of all. It's a

memoir. It's a motivational memoir. And it's because people told me that my story is inspirational. And I said, well, why is that? And they said, well, you know, you didn't come from racing. You didn't come from wealth. You kind of earned it. You did it the hard way. It took you a long time to do it. But you accomplished it. And you did something where you just completely stepped out of your comfort zone. you left a successful career by everybody else's definition but your own because I define success as happiness. And I was miserable being in the high tech industry. Now, you don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the tech industry. I think that's a wonderful occupation for most, but I believe that I should have been a race car driver.

But I left that, you know, that stability of having, you know, six-figure income and, you know, being responsible for a couple dozen engineers to do something that I didn't know whether or not I was going to be able to achieve it. You know, I had no guarantee that I was going to become a professional race car driver, but I took a leap of faith with my wife's blessing and support, and it effectively made it happen. So people said, look, you've got to talk about that. You've got to tell folks about your story, how you came from basically, you know, rags to riches in the sense of the word, and because it's something that people need to hear about. So what do I do? I get together with Jonathan Ingram, you know, a renowned motorsports rider, and we put my

story down on paper. Yeah, it's pretty impressive because when up until, honestly, to be on to to be clear, you just assume when somebody gets into the Xfinity series and I was pretty naive back then, but I just assumed that you had been racing in SCCA or or some, you'd been racing in, you had some sort of a catalog of, of, of a career in road course. I, you know, I don't know where I I don't know where I base that assumption from, or maybe that was a conversation going around the garage. Because anytime a new guy comes into the garage or there's a new driver, you're like, oh, what, is he good? Because we were, you know, back then the road course ringers were the big thing. And we, my first thought was, man, it must be a road course ringer. Must have a lot of road course experience.

And he's coming here to drive Bobby's car at Watkins Lynn. And even after that, I think I still held on to that idea that you had this long career of racing. So to read the book and understand really, truly, how you started your racing career and how late you got started is incredible. that you, you know, I remember that day when you went to qualify at Atlanta in the cup car. And even before then, your truck career was successful. You were able to showcase your speed and ability. And I remember all those moments and think back, like, now reading the book and knowing just how little of seat time you had. Up until those moments, it blows my mind.

And so there's one thing, I guess, that sets you apart from the normal people. And that's like the idea that nothing's impossible or that you can't accomplish this, right? I mean, if a normal 40-year-old or a 45-year-old or whatever it is, wherever you are when you're racing trucks or getting into the cup car, most people aren't going to go, you know what, I'm going to do this. I'm aiming to get there and I'm going to get there. And when I get there, I'm going to do it. Most people wouldn't even try, right? Even if they did dream to become that race car driver,

what is it that sets you apart that made you continue to push toward this really unlikely result? Well, man, it was just because I knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. And I just wasn't taking no for an answer. I knew that if it was going to happen, I just had to keep on trying to overcome obstacles. And that's really what the story is. It's just, you know, every time a door was slammed in my face, I tried to crack another one open.

And it was, you know, about networking, perseverance and persistence. It was knowing that I had a passion for fast cars and speed. And, you know, being a race car driver is a logical conclusion to those attributes. And I knew that if it was going to happen, it was going to be on me. I just couldn't, you know, give up. I just couldn't give up. I tried to turn my attention from race. for a while and you know it just kept on knocking at the door I just like I can't shake it

it's like you know how it is man it's it's it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a disease it's like when you get there's almost no shaking it and uh that was effectively what it came down to but you're right I mean when I showed up at that Xfinity race um you know and I was the first black driver to do that in 99 at the Glen I did not have a whole lot of road racing background you know I did have some SECA amateur racing I was rookie of the year in 85 and Northern California road racing champion at 86. And I made my first professional race in the IMSA series in 1989 in the IMSA GTO class in a Chevy Camaro. That was a quantum leap from the GT3 Mazda that I was racing and amateur racing.

I went from a 240 horsepower Mazda with rotary engine to about 650 horsepower in this Chevy Camero, right, without basically having, you know, anything but one test session to do that in. And so that was my leap into professional racing, but that was one M-S-A GTO race. And then in 90, I did two SCCA Trans Am races, right? And then I sat out of racing from 91 through 95, and then I came back and did four SCCA World Challenge races. So again, you know, only four races. And then wound up going back into high tech for a couple of years and then leaving the high tech in 98 to concentrate all my full-time and attention. to becoming a professional. And that's when I showed up, you know, again, at that Glenn race.

That's because Ed Renzi, former president's CEO of McDonald's who had his own, you know, as you know, Bush Series team, Team Renzi Motorsports, he wound up testing me. And I got to meet him through, you know, urban youth racing school where, you know, you and I got some time to spend together. And he tested me in what he called a heavy car. He said, hey, Bill, you ever driven a heavy car? And I said, well, it's a heavy car. He goes, a stock car. And so I thought he was going to give me this, you know, private exclusive test to see if I could handle myself in a in a circle track car because I'd never been, you know, on an oval before. And it winds up being a full-on arca race weekend, you know, with Kimmel there and Schrader there and everything. And he

got us out this primary, you know, backup car to his primary car. And he said, okay, Bill, show me what you got. So obviously, I, you know, impressed him sufficiently enough that that led to my debut, you know, Bush race in 99. But I'll tell you, I know, I didn't have a huge resume. long catalog like you were talking about, I kind of was the type that he was either going to sink or swim. You know, I was not professionally trained. I've never been to a, you know, professional racing school. You know, I just learned from the school of Hard Knocks. I learned because I had a very good mentor in Willie T. Ribs who at that time in the 90s was, you know, he was the deal in racing. You know, he was the first black driver to race in the Indy 500. He'd been very successful in Tran, Transam and I'msa in the 80s.

And he was down there in the Silicon Valley as well in San Jose while I was down there working in the Silicon Valley. And I spent just about every waking moment that I could when I wasn't punching the clock learning from him in terms of what to do in racing and what not to do in racing because Willie T and I cut from two entirely different cloths. Yeah. But I learned a lot from him. And if it wasn't for him, I don't know if I would have been able to make it as a professional because I really didn't know what to do and what not to do. I mean, you were obviously very fortunate to see what. what your father did and you see how other drivers in the garage area conducted themselves and how they got to beach, you know, where they wanted to go to. And for me, man, I'm like

in, you know, the city. I'm in, you know, the suburbs and, you know, city guy and, you know, racing was like foreign to my family. So it was really quite a, you know, baptism by fire that I was able to get there. But, you know, and I never thought, Dale, that I would wind up being in NASCAR. You know, growing up in Northern California, you know, NASCAR was at first of the same from my mind. I thought I'd wind up racing indie cars or maybe doing the Rolex 24 and sports car racing for my career. But, you know, once NASCAR came coming and I saw what a huge platform NASCAR was and a competitiveness of the sport and the fan base and, you know, just what the name that you could make for yourself, I was like, yeah, NASCAR is where it's at.

Yeah, it was absolutely booming just to ride it around that same time period when you came in. You talked about how you went in reverse. you will, through your career, you kind of started at a near the top forms of motorsport and worked your way down into finally racing into cart series, which is, you know, we chuckled, but when I started thinking about retirement from the Cup series, my ideal dream was to go back to racing late model stock cars where I began because I remember that being is probably the most enjoyable times of my racing career. Things are really simple, and I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I should have when I was there as a beginner. So I kind of wanted to go relive it,

but you did that. You got to go enjoy sort of how a lot of people get started in motorsports, but you got to do that at the end of your career where you knew how to appreciate it. I guess one of the things that I want to know is we know that you have came back and racing the truck series just recently at Atlanta. So there is a gap of time where you haven't been behind the wheel of a go-cart or anything. So that fire still burns, right? Why aren't you racing? Why are you not racing something, anything today on a regular basis?

Because I can tell that you still have that passion. So, you know, in answer that question, the fact is that I didn't know whether or not I was going to enjoy coming back and racing. You know, when I came back to Atlanta, I had two primary objectives. One is to give a little bit more longevity and some more legs and some more exposure to my memoir, to the book winning in reverse. You know, I wanted to promote it a little bit, and I was fortunate enough that I got some partners on board with my truck that believed in, you know, my mission and my book enough to support. me, you know, because as you know, I mean, getting, you know, financial support is everything these days as far as racing is concerned. So I was able to do that. But, you know, I wanted to see whether or not I could still do it, you know, whether or not I still had the patching for it, whether or not it was going to be a situation where I was afraid of speed or I was afraid of close competition. Because as you mentioned, you've got to remember that the last time I was behind the wheel of a truck was in 2007.

And the last time that I did anything professionally was in 2012. And so that's a long drought. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I've watched a lot of racing. And, you know, I guess I'm an iracer to some degree. You know, I dabble with it. I'm not serious. But I clown around every once in a while.

But I was like, you know, one of the things that I talk about in terms of one of the eight keys to my being successful. When I mean successful, I mean happy. I define successful as being happy. is stepping out of your comfort zone. You have to do that to get to a point where you're doing anything that really means something to you, that really challenges you and really gets it to the point where you will enjoy success. And so for me, I couldn't think of anything that would take me further out of my comfort zone than coming back and racing again at the professional level after having not done it for effectively over a decade.

And so put this program together with David Gillen racing and the partners that I had and showed up in Atlanta Motor Speedway, which I figured, well, look, at least it's my home. You know, it's my backyard in the sense that I don't have to travel. You know, always everybody's concerned about the COVID situation. And I couldn't believe the Fort Knox that NASCAR is now. Everybody's tested two and three times over. And I mean, it's like they got everything about your history, your background, your kids. I mean, whatever. Okay, so it was no easy task to get approved, but everything was fine there.

But I figured, you know, I've always loved the fast tracks. And so Atlanta fills that bill. Atlanta's close to home. I have a lot of, you know, support in the Atlanta area. So let's come back and do Atlanta. Now, the one thing that I did not really take into account is what it would be like to come back and race at 180 miles an hour with no practice, no company, you know, and what would it be like to do it in a, a truck that's different than what I left because when I was running the trucks and I left them in 27, you know, the manufacturers had their own engines. And, you know, we were spending them in 88,

89, almost 9,000 RPM, even though they later started to institute a rear end gear rule. But we were still spinning the heck out of these motors. And now, you know, with the Elmore crate motor, you know, these things are droning, you know, at 71, 700 RPM. And while they have a lot of torque, they have no horsepower. So if you get out of the loud pedal, once you go back, you, to it, it almost takes you a lap to get that speed back. I mean, it's really frustrating from my perspective. And then the other thing that's different about the trucks now is that they have a whole lot more downforce than they had before with all the underbody work that they've done. They're almost like flat bottoms, you know, sports cars. They're generally a lot of downforce.

So again, if you're not able to maintain that speed in the corners, you're going to struggle. And for me, it's unfortunate because while I make, you know, I achieved the two goals that were primary, which was, you know, again, get a little bit more exposure for the book, and to finish the race, which is first and foremost, I did not want to come back on the rollback. The competitiveness just wasn't there. I just had a truck that was just too loose, and that's, I think, a product of the fact that, you know, DGR and I had no history, you know. My crew chief and I, we just had no chemistry. There's no time to build any rapport. He didn't know what I needed, and I wasn't able to tell him because we had no benchmark by which to work at him, right? I didn't think about that. Yeah, you tell him on a scale of one to ten, you know, I'm a nine free or, you know, a two tight or whatever.

What does that mean to him, right? It means something to me and my former crew chiefs, but to him, that means nothing. Right. So, you know, I needed huge swings in the race. I needed, you know, the eighth, the nines, and tens in terms of tightening me up on entry center and off. And I was getting what I felt were like, you know, twos and three. He might have been making big swings.

but in terms of the feel to me, I was still too loose. I mean, I was turning right through the corners more than I was turning left. And, you know, for a 16-year-old guy, that's not a whole lot of fun. So, Bill, if you were looking to step out of your comfort zone, did this discomfort meet your expectations? It sounds like it did. Yeah, Mike, that was pretty uncomfortable for me. But again, you know, I mean, I'm glad I was challenged because it let me know that not only did I still love riding fast,

not only did I still like competition, you know, I could still do it. You know, I mean, I didn't prove to everybody that I could still do it. But, I mean, I challenge, you know, anybody to just jump in one of these things after 14 years of not being behind the wheel of a truck. Without practice and qualifying, they dropped the green flag and let's see how good you're going to be. You know, that was a tall order. It definitely got me out of my comfort zone, so mission accomplished. I don't, again, it goes back to that, some unique quality you have as an individual. and something in your character,

there's a tiny percentage of people that would have even done that, right? That would have said, yeah, I'll go do that. I mean, I get nervous having taken a year off from driving. I run one race a year in the Xfinity Series, and I'm nervous that I've had that long of a time to be away from how much has changed and what's the racing going to be like,

am I going to feel comfortable after just a 12-month break, right? and if I was presented with, you know, a 12 or 8 or 10 year break, I'd just say, I'm not, I'm not going to go run. I'm not going to do it. I don't want to do that. I'm too nervous about how much of a wake-up call I might be in for. But you just. I must be wired wrong.

You are. That's my whole point. Like you're wired differently. Let me tell you one other element that, you know, is in common knowledge. And it probably will be now. But, you know, listen, you can't just show up there. run the event and if you have an issue, not be financially responsible for it. So that's the other thing that was over my head.

While I had enough financial support to basically rent the truck, anything that happened to that truck in terms of it wasn't the same when I brought it back than it was when I took it out was on my shoulders. I mean, personally, financially. So in other words, I had a clause there where like, okay, you miss a shift, you blow the motor up, that's 40 grand. That's $40,000 out of my pocket. That's not $40,000 that my sponsors are going to help me support.

That was $40,000 over my head. So when I talked to my wife about, hey, hon, I got this interesting marketing idea to promote my book. Let's see if I should go racing. Will you support me in that? She's like, sure. And I said, oh, by the way, you know, this is one element that I need to tell you about. Anything that happens to that truck, once I take it out, is on us. She's like, you better not damage that thing.

Oh, my gosh. How did you deliver it back? Intact. Good. How did the wife feel about that? I bet she was pretty happy about that. Relieved. As relieved as she knew that my sons didn't have any interest in following their father's footsteps in racing. My wallet was happy and she was like, yeah, we're good. Yeah, that's interesting. I've got two little girls and my wife wants them to not want anything to do with racing. And I got some die cast around the house. And anytime Ila puts a hand on them, I mean, it's like, She just gets all nervous and freaks out. Well, where do you go from here? You know, you've ran this race.

It was obviously quite an experience. You know that, you know, qualifying a practice could come back. That's potentially an opportunity for you to come back and have a different experience and maybe a better experience in the future. But what would you like to do? Did you see that there's still some unfinished business. Did you see when going through this experience, did you realize like, hey, I'm not done with racing? What did you walk away with? Yeah, man, that's a terrific question. The fact is I really

enjoy it. What I did not enjoy was not being competitive. That really irked me. It still irks me. But, you know, I got to take it into the full context that I didn't have the opportunity to really prepare myself because of, you know, the COVID restrictions and such. You know, I did a little bit of simulation stuff, but simulation is not the real thing. I didn't get that opportunity to really build any rapport. Like I said, with the team. I would like to be able to come back and, you know, do maybe a few more races. Would I want to do a whole, you know, season and such?

Probably not. But, you know, I enjoyed the experience I had. I'd like to have some more of it. Would I feel unfulfilled? or would I feel disappointed if it didn't happen? Probably not. You know, I mean, the fact that I got that taste in my mouth, again, was satisfying to me.

And so I could leave satisfied that, okay, that was the last race. Is it the last race? I don't know. There's been talk about doing some more. So let's leave the book open on that. We'll see. But, you know, the thing is, Dale, I'm a real sports car road racer at heart. and I like to be able to go back and do a little bit

in sports car road racing. I mean, you know, you know what it's like to turn right and left. You've done the Rolex 24 and stuff. So it's a lot of fun. It's a different discipline, and I like doing different disciplines of racing. So it remains to be seen. But immediately, I want to continue to, you know,

get my book legs. I think there's a lot, no matter what, you know, background you come from or what you're trying to achieve that you can take away from in terms of the keys that I uncover with, this book that I will apply to anybody. And I enjoy public speaking as well. And so I'm doing more of that now. So I'm looking forward to that. That's going to be fun. But, you know, my oldest son is 18, and he's finishing up high school. He's about to go to college. My younger son's 15. He's going

to be a sophomore next year. So I'm enjoying being a father just as much as you're doing being a father with your daughter. So I enjoy that time. So there's a whole lot of things on the plate. And I'm fortunate enough that I can kind of pick and choose. What's the secret to not aging one bit in the last 20 years? I mean, seriously. So, you know, you're 60 years old running this truck. You look to me like you haven't changed a bit since I first met you. You got, you know, you have tons of energy.

You're full of life. You absolutely could go and compete in road racing at a successful level and with your health and everything the way it is. how sharp you are mentally. So what's what's the secret to stay in that way? The secret is not being labeled old dad. That's the secret. When my teenage sons keep challenging me, it's like, okay, you're not taking on dad yet. Now that, you know, listen, I've always been an athlete, not just a race car driver, but sticking ball athlete and that sort of thing throughout my whole life. So just being in shape is a normal everyday part of my life. I still work out like at least four,

typically five days a week. And I just feel good when I'm active and I'm involved and I make sure that I'm doing things that are, that, you know, just challenge me and what have you. And, you know, it's basically ages and number. That's really what it comes down to. And, you know, yeah, people can't believe that, you know, I'm 60 years old because I don't act like it. You know, my wife's like, okay, so when are you going to grow up?

It's like, well, it hasn't happened yet, so I don't hold your breath. Where can people find the book? You can go to bill lester.com. You can go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, books a million, wherever your favorite bookseller is. It's out there. It's available. Well, thank you, Bill. Thanks for giving us some time today.

It's great to talk to you about your experience at Atlanta. Winning in reverse. Bill Lester, it's a great book. I think people enjoy it. Best of luck going forward. Hope to see you at a racetrack. And, I mean, I'm doing M-Sin now, so maybe I'll see it one of those races as well. So I'm enjoying learning more about that right-hand.

and right-hand turns as well. So hopefully you have a lot of luck this year and get back behind the wheel. I appreciate it, Dale. Appreciate being here with you. Mike, good to see you as well. And again, I didn't mention this before, Dale, but thanks for the blur for the book.

Yeah, man, you supported me as well. So I appreciate you. Yes, sir. Always a good friend. Bill Esther on the Dale Jr. Download. It's time for a message from our great partner, Vivalene. Vivalene is the original motor oil.

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Yeah, he's synonymous. He uses Valvene. So do yourself a favor and make sure you choose Valvene. Head over to Valvoline.com slash original to find the right oil for your engine. It's finally time for our favorite part of the show, Ask Junior, brought to you by Xfinity. All right, let's just get started. Let's jump right into those questions. You sent them to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter.

Let's go, Leah. Yeah, our first question is coming from James Daly. What are your feelings on NASCAR testing the rain tires at Martinsville? And do you think we'll see a day when we run rain tires at mile and a half tracks? For a second, I was like excited. And then, you know, I'd heard that they were going to do this. And I was like, oh, that's great. They must be some rain in the forecast or whatever.

And then I saw they were hosing track down, like on the front straightaway, and they showed some cars coming down. They didn't show them through the turn. I haven't seen any footage. Maybe it did get on social media, and there was some stuff out there. But the only thing I saw was a car going down the front straightaway on a wet, damp track that had been wet with a water truck. And I thought, man, it is April Fool's date.

Maybe this is all big joke. So I'm still apprehensive. I don't, I wish someone would explain. the technology to me because I feel like that we should have been racing on, I feel like that we should already have this incorporated into the sport, racing in the rain on ovals. And the reason why I don't know why we aren't doing this. Okay, drivers love high horsepower, low down force. Well, you know, if you get to wet racetrack, you basically have too much power and no, no grip, right? So that's kind of what drivers want is the more challenging condition.

And a wet or damp track would provide that. You definitely have to worry about your tires and taking care of them, which is another thing drivers enjoy because they think all drivers feel like they're the best at managing tires. And any kind of tire degradation is going to set them apart from everyone else because they will do it better than anyone else. And the tracks have banking, right? So the water has, the water will continue to run off. off the banking, right? And at a bank track, there's not going to be standing water.

All right. So I don't know why we haven't like tried to cross this bridge, but, you know, till now. We had a, I mean, somebody can, I'm happy, I'm open to being told why this has not happened already. And what the problems are and the hurdles that I don't see. All right. So if somebody knows them. I'm all ears. But for me, it seems like it's something we should already be doing. And, you know, if you've got a damp track, a little rain, a little mist, or whatever, you know, bolt these tires on the wet tires and let them go. Just, you know, and it's my understanding that, you know, we have the most elite drivers and we have the most elite stock car drivers in the country in the world

we have the best strategist in the world, the best engineers, crew chiefs, they will figure this out. You give them a good tire, you give them reasonable conditions, not a monsoon, and they'll figure it out.

They'll learn how to slow down. They'll learn how to find grip and run fast and win races and it'll be entertaining. So I would trust the process and let it. play itself out. If I was running a sport, we'd be racing in the rain a long time ago,

because I'd be like, yeah, throw them out there. Let them figure it out. Let's watch. This will be great. You know, right? But there must be some really good reasons why that hasn't happened, but I just hadn't heard them. All right, our next question coming from Alex Simpson. What are your thoughts about F1 driver, Daniel Ricardo, getting a chance to drive Dill Senior's 1984 Camero, if he gets a podium. I saw you tweeted about this. Yeah, so, yeah, Daniel drives for McLaren. and the Boston McLaren, he owns, he owns this collection. And actually, he at one time owned the Nova. Zach did, yeah.

And so, but he's a, he thinks my dad is a legend. I love that. He owns one of the blue goose, I guess is what they called it, whatever, whatever that 1984 Wrangler car that dad drove for Richard Childers. It originally, I think Ricky Rudd raced it when he raced for Richard Childers and they re-skinned it, and dad won a few races in it. So I think it's a legit car. And Daniel's a big Dellenhart fan as well.

And so if he gets a podium, the next podium he gets when it happens, he gets to test this car. And I'll be anxious to see what kind of test it is, right? I have this Nova, and I took it to Charlotte, and I got, I couldn't, I imagine maybe I went around 90 to 100. And that was fast enough, you know, with everything that we've done to this car and the fact that there's not a lot of replacement parts

and this and that and other, I didn't want to have a problem, and crash it. And it was hard for me to go any faster, even though I wanted to, and I don't have the proper tires or anything. So what will he be able to do with his car? Because it's, you know, the owner will want it to go one speed, and the guy testing it will want to go another speed.

Will they have come to an agreement on just how hard he'll be able to go? Our next question coming from William Bennett. Have you tried using V. in eye racing yet. I tried it several years ago with the original Oculus and tried it again just recently with the HP headset and to see if the technology had improved and it just isn't where it needs to be. For people that are in eye racing and VR or into that type of technology, like the clarity as far as the visual clarity is the size of a dime and anywhere outside of that is, the clarity is not there.

It's just technology is not where it should be. It's so much more enjoyable and triple screen. Plus you can look around the room. You don't have to take a headset off to do that. And, you know, using your phone if you get a text or have to make a call, the headset really makes it all that very difficult. But when the technology gets there, I'm down. I am down for a VR experience in iraicing,

but the clarity just isn't there in the full field of view. Mark Haynes wants to know if the comment pinball machine works. Yes. Oh, yes, absolutely. I guess we could turn it on. So the pinball machine, dad had that same style of pinball machine in the basement of the house. And when I moved there in 1981. So this is a comet pinball machine.

It's a roller coaster, sort of an amusement park style or an amusement park theme. and it's a lot of fun to play. I found one, but I remember Dad had that same machine in the basement of the house and he played it every night. And he had a barber's chair that sat in front of it

and he'd set in a barber's chair and play. Oh man, I mean, he was always trying to beat his high score. He played it a ton. I just remember that thing sitting there and no one else got to play. So I wanted to have the same pin-off machine because I knew that was one of dad's favorite things.

He didn't have many hobbies outside of racing, besides from deer hunting. But he played. played that pinball machine a lot. Aaron Schott says recently Tony Stewart has been posting a helmet from his collection and telling a story about it. Do you have a helmet collection from your past or maybe other driver's helmets? I have a couple.

I have a, me and Jimmy swapped helmets. I think I got a Rusty Wallace helmet from his career. I've got a few. I was actually a collector of football helmets, or still am, I guess, because I haven't, I don't have every one. I collect helmets from the NFL. NFL and college, and I've got about 22 NFL helmets or 22 different teams, and I think I've got about 65 college helmets. So pretty nice little collection, just all types, and I was getting

them, you know, you go to a race and a track promoter or somebody at the track would have you won. They're local college team. They knew I would collect them, and so I've gathered up a few. Jared Lyons is watching live on YouTube, and he says with content. Kentucky taken off this year's schedule and having lackluster racing in the past, what are your thoughts on potentially tearing up the track to make it a short track like Auto Club is doing? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think, I don't know what happens to Kentucky.

I really don't. Mike? I don't know about Kentucky, but you know what that, well, you know what that reminds me of? What we haven't talked about? So I'm going to throw an ask you your question is, is what do we make of Marcus Smith and Marcus Lomontas's conversation about Wilkesboro? Yeah. I don't, you know, I think that it's, I don't know what they can do to Kentucky, and I don't see them, I don't see them tearing that track apart to make another track. I just don't see that happen. And I don't know what happens to that track. And it's a shame that we built something in a market and it's not surviving. I wasn't a huge fan of the configuration, the banking, the transitions. Nothing about Kentucky to me was, was fun. But so, yeah, if I was, if they were going to keep racing on that, I would absolutely hope that they would change the track in some way.

And we definitely need more short tracks. But, yeah, so Michael, you bring up a great point about a conversation that Marcus and Marcus had on Twitter about North Wiltsboro. We'll just have to wait to see what they're talking about and what their phone conversation produced. But I haven't talked to Marcus Smith much about it. He said that the guys got some great ideas and we'll just have to see. Marcus has told us that he's always open to doing something with North of Westboro. It's not a closed door.

He wants to figure out a purpose for the property and maybe they'll find one between him. All right. One more question coming from Josh. Dale, whatever happened to the guitar you gave to Dave Grohl and have you listen to the new Food Fighters album? I haven't listened to the new Food Fighters album, but I will. But you can't not, Food Fighters comes out with a new album. You can't not listen to it.

Huge Food Fighters fan, big fan in Nirvana when I don't know why I did that, but when I actually sent that guitar to Dave before Dad passed away, I think I sent it to him in 2000. And I don't even know how I got, so like how do you send a guitar to Dave Grill, right? I have no clue. I don't know who found, I don't know what, you weren't around him yet, Mike. But I gave the guitar and I said, see if this would be something. I love Dave Grohl, right?

Drummer from, I love drumming. He's a drummer, my favorite band, Nirvana. He moved on to the Foo Fighters, created this great band there. I just thought the guy was great. And I had a guitar that Gibson made with the bud and all that stuff on it. And I thought, man, I wonder if he'd like this.

So I sent it. We had somebody see if they could send it to him. In my mind, it was probably never going to get to him. It was going to probably just not find him and end up somewhere else. right but and I didn't even know I never got a I never got any notice that he received the guitar all right and so dad passed away at Daytona I don't know how long after that but like a couple weeks or a month later I found a photo on the internet of him playing it and apparently he played

the guitar at a show the next day or the the next few days after dad passed away in Daytona. He played the hard rock in L.A. or he played somewhere on the West Coast, and he played the guitar. And he's a picture of him playing it. And I was like, wow, he has it, right? And then he was cool enough to play it

and with everything that was going on in my life, losing dad and all that. So he called and left a message on my cell phone. Wow. Very cool. And I actually went to a Food Fighter show probably about two or three years ago, and I walked up to him and said,

hey, we had never talked. And I was like, you call my phone, that was cool, and you played that guitar. And he's like, man, I still got the thing, the falling apart, but I still have it. He said, I played it a lot. So, yeah, it's really neat.

I gave one to the lead singer of Chavelle, too. I was a big Chavelle fan, and I brought one, two. I went to see them play at Charlotte, and I hand delivered it to him. I think that's the only two people I actually. gave that guitar I mean, I wasn't around,

I wasn't running around going, you get a guitar. It sounds like they'd probably stopped giving them to you because you just didn't give them away. All right, pretty good questions. That's some great memories to think about and appreciate it.

Again, all the support for the podcast and all of our social media handles, tell your friends to follow us and give us a look. We got a lot of great clips on our YouTube handle. And obviously the podcast, you can steer them toward that.

My favorite part of the show is now over. I don't like it, Mike. Is that right? Why is that? It goes by too fast. Like maybe like Xfinity X-Fi fast? Well, X-Fi is more than just fast, Mike. It's reliable, powerful, and secure,

meaning that everyone can do more of what they love with faster internet. I mean, that's true. That is true. You can keep your crew connected with Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers the speed your devices need so your crew can stay in the fast lane on race day. remember everyone to send your Ask Junior questions to Add Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Before we hit the road, thank you to Xfinity, proud, premier, partner of NASCAR. All right, everybody, last call.

It's been a great show. Thanks for the great questions on Ask Junior. Dick Bergeron was awesome. And Bill Lester dropped by. I appreciate Bill coming in, telling us a little bit about that new book he's got. The Dale Jr. download TV show, the TV version of Shortened. edited version of this. It will be on NBCSN on Thursday at 6 p.m.

Eastern Time. Doorbubber Clear has a great episode from last week, special guest Marty Smith. I saw some of those clips. Some great stories from Marty always. Marty, Brett, Freddie, and TJ all discuss that. Those guys took a break, though, this week. They're slackers.

They're tired. They need to break. Yeah, they do. While you're waiting on those guys to come back after Martinsville, go check out the latest episode with Marty Smith. Doorbumper Clear, available on all major podcast platforms. All right, guys. Great show.

It's been a lot of fun this week. I can't wait for Martinsville. Josh Berry racing this weekend. It's a track that he knows really well, and so I'm hoping they can turn their luck around. We'll see what happens, but it's going to be exciting either way. Friday and Saturday. All right, remember.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Well, Thursday. Modified guy here. The Modifides and the Exfinity and the Cup. You have Sunday off, folks. Have fun. This bit of badassery was badassery. It was made by Dirtymo Media.

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