The Dale Jr. Download - 337 – Greg Ives: The American Dream

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his former Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Greg Ives are reunited on this episode to tell the story of how Ives made it in the sport and share previously unheard reflections on their time working together.Before Ives joins the program, Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis react to the weekend’s events at Talladega Superspeedway. Hear what Dale told race winner Brad Keselowski about tying his track wins record. As a known “big ass spoiler” critic, Dale weighs in on Joey Logano’s comments following his flip. What direction does he hope to see superspeedway racing go? The answer may surprise you.Isla Earnhardt will turn three-years-old this week. What birthday gift did her dad buy her that may have her making left turns soon? Hear what bug Dale may have been bitten by.Next, Ives sits down at the table and the former teammates go all the way back to his childhood. Learn about Ives’ family’s involvement in racing, when he first took an interest and how he snuck into the track as a kid.As he began racing more and finding success, college remained the goal for the Bark River, Michigan, native. Find out why he initially pursued medical school. Then he shares why his driving career didn’t work out and how falling in love with the mechanical side of racing quickly changed his plans.Dale Jr. is often asked to explain how someone can make it in racing and Ives serves as the perfect example for him to share. Hear the steps Ives took to establish himself and gain experience in the sport before getting to NASCAR.An interaction at a family reunion ultimately set Ives up for the rest of his life. He details what happened, getting a call from Hendrick Motorsports and his first interview with the organization. Then hear what he had to do to make it to Daytona in order to meet the No. 24 team during Speedweeks.Ives then talks about getting a job offer from Hendrick Motorsports and how once there, doors opened quickly and his willingness to volunteer elevated his career. He shares how he became Jimmie Johnson’s lead engineer during his five consecutive championship run and the influence Chad Knaus had on him.When Ives began contemplating his next career move, learn why he committed to staying in the HMS family and how he became a model for the working relationship between the Hendrick Cup program and JR Motorsports. Dale Jr. shares his perspective on the partnerships’ early days and where it is at today.Multiple victories and a championship with Chase Elliott later, Mr. Hendrick called Ives with his big break at the Cup level. At the request of Dale Jr., hear how Ives was selected as his next crew chief. Dale details the process behind picking a crew chief and what he was looking for after Steve Letarte left.Ives then discusses what it was like coming into the No. 88 team. When Dale suffered another concussion in 2016 and missed most of the season, Ives was thrown one of the greatest challenges of his career. He and Dale openly discuss the warning signs both of them saw and what Ives was thinking a year later when Dale decided to retire.Two weeks following Ives’ latest victory with Alex Bowman at Richmond Raceway, hear Ives discuss the ups and downs of the last three plus seasons with Bowman. They both applaud Bowman’s maturation process and the changed mindset that Ives believes is helping elevate the team.Lastly, Bowman will run a Darlington throwback scheme resembling a late model scheme Ives ran in the 90s. Hear the story behind the car, the races it ran and how Bowman shocked Ives when revealing it to him during a team meeting.In Ask Jr. Presented by Xfinity, Dale tackles topics including his thoughts on the current state of superspeedway racing and how drivers and crew chiefs study film.  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. The Dale Jr. Download. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again. Another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Today's guest, Greg Ives. He's going to come in and talk to us. We're going to start from the beginning, I think. Talk about his career, everything he had going on.

It's a pretty incredible story. It's really the American dream. You've got to hear it. It's going to be great. Mike Davis is here with me, my co-host. Hey, Mike. Hey, buddy. How are you?

I'm doing pretty good, man. Shelts is here. Leah's here. We got Asch Jr. coming down toward the end of the show. Always fun. I don't know if it'll be my favorite part today because I'm pretty interested in hearing this story about Greg Ives. Honestly, I don't know all of it.

So I'm going to be learning it right here in real time with you guys. I'm honestly pumped up about people hearing this because people ask me all the time about like, how do I get in racing? How do I get in racing? Listen to this story. we're about to hear from Greg Ives about how to get into racing. This is it. This is it.

There's no easier route. But let's go right into the open segment. Brad Keselowski wins and ties me and Jeff Gordon for second all time at Talladega. I text Brad. I said, hey, you can win more races than me at Talladega, but do not win more races than my dad. Joe Ligano, he flipped and had some comments after his flip at Talladega says that the big spoiler. is causing the big wrecks. David Reagan disagreed on Twitter saying the drivers are causing the big wrecks.

Neither one's wrong in my opinion. That spoiler is, aside from aesthetically ridiculous looking, it does absolutely contribute to putting the drivers in these situations. And there is an alternative, and that's really getting a spoiler way, way down on the cars to almost nothing, and just taking power out of the cars, like a smaller motor. Don't choke them down with a plate.

Let's just, you know, get less horsepower out of the cars at that particular track. You know, they build dedicated plate engines to run there. We could probably find a way to run, to have an engine that produce less power and just take all that, you know, spoiler and all that mess off. And just let these guys really go out there and settle it on the race track. Instead of kind of packing them together and seeing who can figure out how to make the right moves and not not destroy themselves just go out there and see you and build the faster car yeah kind of you know i know i made a lot of um my career at talladega in pack racing but i also appreciated

how the cars used to race in the 70s and the 80s when guys will just flat out be fast right and and drag two or three or four or five six guys away from the pack and drive away and you know if you're going to get around a guy, you had to really team up and work together, or maybe there's a way to bring the slingshot back. I don't know. But anyways, I don't like the big spoiler. I think it's a problem, especially at that track. It's really tall.

But David has a point, too. You know, the drivers have to understand how to take a little better care of each other. And sometimes, and I've been, you look, man, I've been in that situation where I've been the guy that's caused the wreck. And I've been in a few of those situations where I've been the guy. that's caused the wreck, and I know that I had something to do with it. It wasn't the spoiler. It was me.

So, you know, the drivers have some responsibility in what happens out there, but I think that spoiler definitely puts them in a tough position. It puts them in a bad situation. And because of why? Because is the close-up speed? Yeah. What is? Are the cars just too good?

Yeah. So this is what I would propose is, look, I understand. The overall global idea of the spoiler, is to create drag, slow the cars down, right? And create an opportunity for some closing rate, guys to pull up and pass and do those things. I wish that they would find a way to create that drag on the nose of the car, on the front of the car, in front of the firewall.

Take the spoiler off and find a way to create that same drag and closing rate, sort of whatever you're trying to do to disable the lead car. so that he is easy to pass, do that in front of the firewall, somewhere on the nose of the car. So that's hard to do. I mean, there's no simple answer there, but that's where I wish we were looking

is instead of just stacking more spoiler on the car, trying to do something firewall forward to make it to where, man, a guy gets a lead and he's pretty vulnerable, right? That, to me, would probably create some pretty exciting race. and maybe the closing rate wouldn't be unpredictable, I guess, for these guys.

And plus that spoiler, you can't see, I mean, I know it's Lexham, but it's still difficult to see around, especially when you've got several of the cars in front of you with that tall spoiler in front of you, and they're all moving around. I mean, it's hard to really differentiate on what's going on. Anyways, moving on. Josh Barry wins $30,000 at Orange County Speedway,

super proud of Josh, went over, had a terrible day at Talladega Racing. and in the Xfinity race because the race got ran short. He had a flat tire running second. Actually leading the, well, the cycle was happening. The pit cycle was happening. He had actually put himself in position to be in the top three once the cycle completed, but he had a tire come apart on the right rear.

He ended up getting a trap to lap down. Caution comes out late in the race. He did get the lap back, I believe, but didn't get to sort out where he was, you know, didn't get to move forward. He ends up with a terrible finish because the race ended under caution, under rain. He goes to Orange County Speedway the next day. Their program had also rained out. They had some heat and qualifying stuff going on Saturday.

He got rained out. Well, he goes Sunday to Orange County Speedway, qualifies and races and wins a $30,000 event. He also won the same $30,000 event the year before for the Cars Tour at Greenville Pickens. So great payday for Josh. And Noah Gragson won back-to-back Xfinity Dash for cash $100,000 prizes. The first one, he divvied out to his team.

I wonder what he's going to do with this 100,000. But maybe his owner. Chad Ocho Cinco is tweeting about the commercials during the Talladegh race over the weekend. I thought that was pretty funny, considering that I'm an analyst for a network. Yeah, and I'm not so sure you didn't have a point. There felt like way more than you agree, Leah? Yeah. There was a lot.

Yeah. But I assume there's a reason for it, and I'm not going to get into that. I mean, you're right. You're in the TV business, so who are we to criticize the people? I will say this. I thought it was funny. I will say that a lot of times if there's some green flag action going on, there is a number of commercial breaks that have to happen.

They're predetermined. If things are kind of running along and there's some green flag action, not a lot of things happen and they try to front load those commercial brakes and get them in as soon as they can to allow for less of those at the end of the race. Now, it doesn't always work out that way, but at least the producer and folks working in a truck are trying to do their best to give you the most important part of the race is with the least amount of caution breaks

or commercial breaks as possible. But yeah, pretty interesting to see somebody new watching our sport and having that be their takeaway. Funny and also, kind of disturbing. I mean, you want them, you want potential new fans. Chad's probably more than just a new fan, but you don't want that to be their impression. No.

Yeah, cleaned up my tree house. I saw that. Yeah, took a mop to it. So Ala's gotten to, this fun age where literally this week she started riding scooters, climbing trees, and wanting to go to the tree house and hang out. She's like turning into this person. I know, I said that like a year ago on this show probably, but now she's like walking and talking and doing and just telling me all about it, right? So fun. Yeah, I saw you, you were up there. She's turning

three this week. She turns three Friday. You got birthday party. Oh yeah, boy. We've got big plans. All right. Yep. I got her a couple cool gifts. I guess since she probably doesn't listen to podcasts, I can tell you what I got her. I got her a dollhouse. Nice. She's sort of getting into the dolls where she's, you know, she'll take the two dolls and they'll talk to each other and they'll play.

She's getting into that. She never did that before. Didn't care about dolls. Didn't play with them. Didn't talk to them. They didn't have voices and nothing. Right. So maybe dollhouse is going to be a cool gift.

I got her a, she wanted to do. a flute. So she hands me this she has this like a pen or something or stick or some toy that she has. She had two of them. She hands, she's got one in her hand. She hands me one. She goes, all right, daddy. And she starts

mimicking playing a flute. And I'm like, are we playing a flute? And she goes, yeah, we're playing a flute. And I'm like, do you want a real flute? She said, yes. So I got on Amazon and got her a flute. So we've got flutes coming. Amy not thrilled. Yeah. I feel it. Yeah.

The other thing I got her, and this super cool is an electric go-kart so the other day she said she wanted to ride her scooter she's never rode anything with wheels doesn't no balance or any of that stuff right so i put her a little helmet on and she's got this little three-wheel scooter with two on the front one center in the back and we went down the hill to the go-car track and we go by and she's like i want to go to the track so we go over to the track and she just rose around and around lap after lap ever lap and i'm like wins this tired when's this kid can get tired and she does like electric cars but she doesn't have one she has some hammy down stuff that it's all busted and broken and hardly runs and so i got her a uh it's this

little couple hundred bucks cheap electric go cart uh i think red rider makes it uh oh yeah throwing it back to christmas story i don't i don't know i might have that wrong but uh let me see here's my order amazon it radio flyer sorry radio flyer sorry radio flyer Yes. Red Rider. I was like, you got her a BB gun. No.

So Radio Flyer makes this little go-cart. I probably shouldn't even mention their name without them paying a little money for an ad read. Oh, man. I love where your head's at. Yeah. But TJ has the same one for his little girl, T.J. majors. And, yeah, so I showed that. So me and Amy have had this interesting debate about, I'm like, hey, man, we got girls.

We all got to worry about racing, right? Wrong. girls like to race, right? One of these two girls that I have probably going to want to end up racing a little bit. This is where it starts. Probably going to happen. Nothing that we, even if we did nothing, right,

to influence it. Their world is, they're surrounded by it. For sure. Yeah. And literally Isla plays with race cars. She goes over to my cases of my die cast and goes, I want that one, I want to play with that one, I want that one.

I have a shelf where it's just the less interesting diecasers hang out. and she's like, I want to, I'm like, here, play with these, play with these. These I don't care about. They're not in my case. She calls her my refrigerator. I have a, I have a boxed-in glass die-cast case, and she goes, I want that car out of the refrigerator. And I'm like, that's not a refrigerator, Isla. It's just a protective case, and nothing comes out of there.

But, so she's into cars and racing, and she sees it on TV, and she's definitely starting to pick up on it. It's inevitable, man. So, but anyways, I basically bought that without telling it, Amy, and. Yeah. Yeah, that, I can see why she would have questions. She wasn't happy. But I told her, I said, we won't put the decals on it. We won't make it look like a racing cart.

It would just be a cart. That's the difference, huh? It's just the decals. Slight different. But I was going to go around, we're going to take it down and go racetrack, man, let her run some labs. Okay, but as long as it doesn't decals. It's not a race. It's not a race track.

It's just a circle, paved circle. So, yeah. The funny thing is, is like, all of my friends, like Jason Burdett and Rodney Chilters and all these people, countless people have brought their kids to this go-cart track on my property. That's right. For them to start sort of running a cart or learning how to drive, turn, lift, and all those things, right? Go around in a circle. And they all were three years old.

Jason Burdette's son started running laps at my track. And he's still racing. three and he's still racing yeah and i remember saying to jason like he's three how does he know to what how does he not just drive straight off at the end of the straightaway into the grass right they're three how did they know to two i didn't know to turn left at 12 right but now that she's going to be turning laps you're going to start studying where she's turning into apex watch this is how it happens you're going to you're getting bit by the buggy you don't even realize it i'm just enjoying it sure you call it what you want but this is it you're

about to be a racing dad. Stay tuned. By the way. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with it. It's up to Ila. Stay tuned.

I'll let you know. She'll let us know. This is a different podcast series, I feel like. Yeah. There's your open. That's the open. Well, Greg Eyes is here, and I'm pumped up about this conversation. Great friend of mine.

Just get him in the room and get it started. Let's bring Greg Ives to the Dale. download. Greg Eyes comes over from the Infinity Series with the Chase Elliott. Chase Elliott wins in Texas. He's going to do it again. Back-to-back wins. Chase Elliott. That's what happens when we went races. Chase Elliott is going to become the NASCAR nationwide series champion. Good champions are made on me. Just think that Greg Ives and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Wait, you see what these two kids do together. Dale Earnhardt Jr., checkered flag of Talladega. You did a heck good job in there. I couldn't be more proud of what you

this week. Alex Bowman will win at Chicago. Damn, Greg, I'm. You are the fan. Alex Bowman comes to the stripe to win the Auto Club 400. And you saw the emotion right there, Greg Eyes. Alex Bowman steals one in Richmond. Oh, man, Greg Guy. Oh, man, 48 is pumped.

It's the man. Greg Eyes. Hey. Hey, Greg. Hello. Have a seat. put that mic anywhere you want and then throw them headphones on

before you say one word because we want to hear everything there he is everything wow I never thought this day was going to come what are you crazy you hadn't have known that we were going to have you on the show some point yeah were you wondering when it was going to happen

I thought I was going to be a little more gray-haired though I thought it was going to be a while well man this should tell you that you're you're having you're accomplishing a lot and we wanted to get you on the show before you, you know, before you turn gray. Yeah. Perfect.

So everybody knows Greg, guys. Me and Greg worked together for a couple years, and Greg was my amazing crew chief. We had a ton of fun. We'll get into that. But this is, you know, this is my opportunity to learn even more about you. We spent a lot of time together. I thought I asked you everything,

but we're going to find out if there's something about you maybe that I didn't know. Anyhow, I like to start at the beginning. So can you take me back to that moment where you first remember being either at a track around a race car? Like where is the racing connection for you? We like to find out where everybody kind of got plugged in and where they cross past, right, whether they're born into it or their family dad, race, uncle, uncle race, whatever. So how did it start with you? Well, my brother is 17 years older than I am.

What? Yeah, we have a big family. Stop, stop, stop. Stop. How big? So we have, I have six sisters and one brother. And how is 17 years apart? How?

It must be cold winters up in L, Michigan, upper Michigan. But, yeah. So my dad and my brother raced, you know, when I was born, basically. And being that biggest spread, I kind of looked at my brother as almost my dad figure. He would take me out in his corvette and ride me around. You know, kind of like I was his kid. And, you know, my dad, I was around all the time like my grandpa, you know. So, and that's kind of where my memory of cleaning race cars.

You know, I was a small kid going in the back. How many, whose cars are you cleaning? My brothers. He was the only racer in the family? Well, my brother, my dad raced. Oh, you did? But then when my brother started and could do it, he kind of backed off. What kind of cars are we talking about?

So my brother started on motorbikes and doom buggies, off-road racing, street stocks, and then started in a late model when he was 17 years old. What racetracks are we at? So we're at Norway Speedway, Cicano, Wisconsin, WRR, racing with, you know, Mark Martin and Dick Trickle and, you know, all those great short track names that you talk about. and, you know, I think he was down here last week talking about how him and Dick Trickle got a little scuffle at the Norway Speedway one night. Really?

Yeah, my brother is about 180 degrees personality from me. I'm kind of calm, cool, collected. He's quite opposite. So I did not take any of my aggressive nature from him, that's for sure. Yeah, I can see that. I met your brother and y'all, you completely don't even look like y'all are. brothers no not at all never know it I guess that's why there's 17 years gap must genes must change a little bit so you know you're cleaning messing around your

brother's car are you turning it are you becoming a mechanic what are you learning while you're working on yeah basically I had free reign of the garage whenever they weren't there so what's the garage look like it's a it's old barn so it's a old barn that basically instead of cows my dad didn't want to be a farmer anymore or at all so We built a little building inside of it, and then we had concrete the floor, and that was our race shop. So one part was where the race car and engines got worked on. The other part was where, you know, either the trailer or the tow truck or the plow truck sat in the winter.

Gotcha. But yeah, I just worked on them there. And then I really got my first bug for racing on quarter night. What is quarter night? Quarter night, you have, it basically kids have, you throw a bunch of quarters into sawdust, and you bring all the kids down from the grandstands, and they go chasing quarters and see how much they can pick up. You had probably more sawdust and quarters, but it was a lot of fun. And then we also had that same night, big wheel racing.

So, you know, I had my big wheel all hopped up, and you're supposed to go from, basically, basically exit a turn four to entry to turn one as fast as you can. And I decided to go all the way around the racetrack. And I had people yelling at me and I said, it's my right to make the whole lap. But yeah, that's where I got my bug. And if you look at my Twitter handle there, that's the picture of me. I think I finished second or third or whatever in that race. But ultimately, from there on out, getting snuck in the trailer, in the hauler, put throwing. on a cover over me and being in the pits, that's where I got it all started. How much does a pit pass cost? Free when you're in the back.

I know. Free when you're under the cover. I snuck in, me and Curry, when we race streetstocks, I would sneak in. We had a box on the front of the trailer and I'd climb in the box. Because a pass was 20 bucks. I mean, dang, we weren't going to get that racing in street stocks. No. Even if we won.

Yeah, 15 bucks, 10 bucks. I don't know. It was free that night, a few nights. They opened a door to the box. You just start handing them tools like you're helping them. Yeah. Like you're climbed in there to get it out. I was told to stay in one location, and that's where I stood the whole night.

Really? I got a perfect view of the track, and, you know, my dad didn't want me to get hurt or run over, but he wanted me to see the racing experience. So, yeah, I listened quite well. So when do you finally start thinking, man, I want to drive? So my brother, like I said, they were racing quite a bit, and then we took a break to start our family business. I've struck an auto repair, and I was 11 years old when I started there, and we were not racing at the time, just, you know, timing, financials to get a business started.

And, you know, my brother really wanted to get back into it. And I think I was 15 at the time when my brother went to the racetrack and started to drive for a fella and just to see if he wanted to get back into it. And the day I turned 16 or shortly after that, we were on the way to the racetrack. As we pulled in, my brother told me I was driving that night. What car? It was a super late model. Jesus. Yeah.

Never raced before in my life. So he said, he's like, you can borrow my suit. At this point, I'm about four inches taller than him. So, you know, good thing I had long socks on. That was his plan all along, I guess. Yeah, it was his plan all along. He just didn't tell you. Yeah.

I'm thinking I'm going to help him and he looks over and goes, you're ready to race? And I'm like, when? Yeah, I'm ready. And he's like, tonight. And I'm like, not ready. Not ready at all. How did that race go? I qualified pretty bad.

I didn't really know. Yeah. We had the two shifters, you know, rather than the regular H pattern. You had the two shifters for first, second and reversed. and ultimately I had a crash course on how to drive the car and I didn't qualify very well. I started in the back of the heat and for the feature I was like, Dad, I just, if I'm going to learn, I got to be with the guys and race with them. So I ended up winning the B feature that night and moved on to the A and I made all the laps.

I don't know how well or how bad I finished, but I made all the laps and, you know, I at least got one of my first pictures was victory lane after the B feature wins so that's wild I'm impressed I mean I mean gosh you win the B feature you I remember the last day I mean your first race man you're you're you're got no clue like you don't know nothing like zero what track was that it was uh Norway Speedway okay the fact that you didn't destroy it or run into somebody or crash it somehow because you have no racing acumen you know you have no don't even know how to race yeah I experienced it yesterday I had my wife run eye racing for the first time last night,

and it's amazing that she drives on the street, right? You know what I mean? And then Parker, my five-year-old, he's... Did you actually say that while she was staying there? Yeah, I did. And she let you... She said I was a terrible driving coach. Yeah.

There you go. Okay. I like that. I like... He's a cup crew chief, but a terrible driving coach. That's a reasonable return comeback. Yeah, I guess so. Boy.

I got better. I got better after I got. Yeah, I laughed a little bit first. Yeah. So you run that first race, you get done, are you hooked? Yeah, definitely hooked. Yeah, it was, you know, we really, like I said, we were driving the second car for our team. Wait, what?

We were driving, my brother was driving for a guy, but that was a second car. You had the second car. Yeah, and, you know, after that race, my dad's like, hey, you want to buy it? And I'm like. Buy the car? Yeah. And I was like, sure. So he's like, got half the money.

I was like, no, but I'll go go find it. And ended up getting half the money for the car. Where did you find it? Just savings. And we went, you know, brought some more cedar brush to the teal's tree farms and, you know, on the back of the escort and sold some more cedar bolts, you know. And went digging into sawdust for some quarters. Yeah. Yeah.

So. So you got to car. What's a car look like? It's a Monte car, or Camero, the old Camero looking body. It was fifth design how car, so it wasn't, didn't have a ton of adjustability in it, but, you know, it was a car that had an engine, four wheels, and turned. What color was it? It was red. Red with black numbers initially, and then I changed it up for the next year.

I put white numbers on it. Okay. You could tell he still feels real good about that decision, too. You could tell his eyes. They really popped. All right. So what track are we racing at? Norway Speedway.

Norway. And what's the next couple of years look like? How long are you racing? So I raced for eight years there. What? Eight years? Yeah. From what age?

From 16 to 23. So I graduated college. Hold on, hold on. Let's get too far ahead now. Yeah. Because you're an engineer, right? Yeah. So I want to understand what sent you to, what sent you in that direction, right?

Yeah. Because so usually a guy like you or a guy like me, when we get that driving bug, like college is like, oh, hell no. I ain't doing that because that's going to separate me from this, right? I want to race. I want to drive. This is how I'm going to make a living house somehow. I'm doing this.

And you'll give up everything. You'll make the most silliest decisions of, you know, derailing your college expectations and career. So I want to understand, like, you're racing and you're enjoying it. You race for eight years. What steers you to college, right? What steers you toward trying to get this degree? And why did you want to do that?

Like, why, you know, how did that remain important to you so much so that you were, you know, because that was a big part of who you became, right? When I was young, my dad told me he said, I don't want you to work like I had to work, right? And, you know, having a big family and having to provide whatever means possible, he said, I want you to go to college. I want you to become a doctor. And, you know, that stuck with me. I was kind of, I was pretty much whatever my dad or my mom said, I was, that's the path I was going to take.

I never really deviated too far from that, no matter what if it was a racing passion or not. So I already had in mind I was going to med school. I was going to become a pediatrician or a surgeon. So that was in my mind before racing ever even became a notion for me. So that was my mindset. As I started racing, I fell in love with racing, but not so much the driving part. I fell in love with the mechanics side of the car, adjusting roll centers, understanding springs and shocks and, you know, just just the basic maintenance behind it, setting up a program of,

of, you know, how to be successful. And that's what grew my passion, getting Steve Smith auto sports books and reading them, whether it was for dirt cars or goat carts or, you know, the street stock super late models, just reading those cover to cover. And when that one got wore out, reading another, the same one, it's cover to cover again, because I had, I already made too many notes in that one. So I realized early in my racing career that it wasn't so much money that wasn't going to take me to the cup level. It's probably a little bit of talent, too. So even though I did well enough at the track, I didn't travel enough.

I wasn't good enough in the seat, turning the wheel to make a living at it. But what I could do is take the passion of understanding the race car and apply it each week with changes and feel it myself. So that's, that was my true passion. And ultimately, you know, my, my doctor career, kind of took a left turn to, to what my mom told me I should be an engineer. Your mom broke that news to you. Yeah. Yeah, she did. And, and, and I, I definitely agreed with her. But I, that was after a couple years of premed colleges. Wait, wait, wait, so you went to pre-med college? Yeah. So, how was that? It was good, but engineers didn't need to take. organic chemistry so I was like dang it mom that was a lot of wasted time yeah so let's say you

still have this sort of started a foundation of yeah building that that med yeah I figure after I retire from crew chief and I'll go into medical finish it out some somehow somewhere for real yeah yeah I mean I've been to the nationwide children's hospital several times it's been fascinating to stay in touch with some of those folks up there and I'd love to go into and, you know, dedicate my life to the medical field as well. So once racing's done. Incredible. I did not know that. Yeah. Dang. But here's what confuses me. Is this true? Did you tell a newspaper that you wanted to work for Hendrick Motorsports when you were 16? Yes. Well, okay. Then if that's on your mind, it's 16 years old, and you went to college to be pre-med,

who goes to college to be pre-med and then gives to Hendrick Motorsports? Well, you've got to keep your options open. You know, when you're, when you're a, when you're a kid in the Upper Peninsula. I mean, I had 1,600 people in the town. I grew up, and I lived eight miles from that town. There was a quarter mile between me and the next person, dirt road. You know, the dream of being in NASCAR was as close as turning on the TV. That's about it. But the reality of going to school to be a doctor was there because my sisters have pursued that path. So, you know, that's, that, that was reality of my life is, you know, being, going to work for Hendrick Motorsports, that was, that was a dream. And that's, those were words. But becoming

a doctor was a reality to me. That's quite remarkable, because not only did this happen within 10 years of when he says this at 16, because who has that type of astute observation when they're 16 to know that they're going to go work there. What's more remarkable than that is that you didn't actually believe it then, right? It was. It was a dream. Yeah. You already had a course set, and it wasn't actually Hendrick Motorsports. It was pre-med.

Yeah, it definitely, you know, those are different paths, you know. And, you know, you definitely have to, you know, your A and B plan and sometimes C plan. But the way it all worked out, it was pretty interesting. So you step back to the racing real quick. What is your winning percentage? I want a lot more. B features than I did A features. When you win your first A feature, what's your emotion?

Controversity. Why? Because my brother was in that same race, and we were racing hard, and it was battled back and forth. Between you and him? Between me, him, and another guy, and just a lot of contact. With who? Did anybody rail?

Spell it out. Yeah, I think, you know, I was racing my brother hard. My brother was racing the other guy hard. once I got by, he made it difficult on the guy catching me or racing with me. So it was kind of like, hey, you did a favor for your brother. Otherwise, I would have passed them. So there was a little controversy there, but all in all, you know, I won the race, right? So it didn't matter.

I mean, when I won my first feature at the beach, I was racing in Erdell Beach, had been running there for a while. And, you know, we were ecstatic. everybody, you know, all your buddies that are helping you, who's going with you to the track? Basically my sisters. Okay. And, you know, later on in my career, it's just my friends. Right, your friends.

So, I mean, everybody's jumping up down, excited, pull into Victory Lane. So, I mean, did you have that sort of experience that night? A little bit. I would say I was definitely happy, but it wasn't, you know, it's kind of like winning a cup race. You know, you still have tech, so you're kind of like gut-redging. What? Yeah. It's just.

Wait, is your car not legal? He was nervous already. What are you nervous about? What's wrong? Nothing. Nothing. Oh, come on. I don't believe it either.

So at this table, we tell the truth. Right? At this table, the statute of limitations is past. It's gone. Way gone. Yeah, I mean, as far as the car went, it was legal. It's hard to win with a legal car. I tried for years in late model stocks.

Yeah. But when you became the more mechanically inclined that you became after reading and everything, did you ever start to experiment with the car to the point that it wasn't legal? A little bit. Yeah, definitely. One time I experimented so much that I didn't even know my brother was experimenting for me. So he changed out a carb spacer one night because he wanted to run.

His carb one fit under the hood with this carb spacer. And he, you're only allowed an inch, and he put an inch and a half one. He must not know the tape measure very well. And that night I set fast time on the fast. I stash in the feature, and they kicked me out. Yeah. You didn't even know that it was there until you too late. Hmm.

Did your brother laugh at the end of that one? Did he go, hey. He was not laughing because we lost a championship that year. You or him? I did. Dang, you're running well enough to be in the championship battle. Yeah. Well, that's pretty good.

Yeah, it is. It is good. Jamie Iverson and I always had it. Why are you understating you're driving? Thank you. That's just my personality. I know, we got to break that. We got to break that up.

Bragg a little bit. Well, you have to brag. You just tell facts. Yeah, I mean, I was always fast at Norway Speedway. Smooth driver. What kind of track is that? It's a 3-8 mile. It's got character stick to it.

It's really smooth. Off of two, it has banking. Off a four, it doesn't. So it gives different drive setups. You can really get on the gas off a two, but you can't off a four. So a lot of times, you know, just having that drive off a four. four gets you passes down the front stretch. Is it still around?

It is. It is. Yeah. Do you ever go back? I do. You know, my, up until probably five, six years ago, I would go back in the summer and either do a fan appreciation night where, you know, sign some cards for kids and let them know that dreams are possible like I was.

Outside of you, so outside of you, as anyone else came out of that racetrack and is in the industry? Yeah. you know, Dwayne Franklin, he's currently a truck driver, motor coach driver for Starcom on the double zero. Was he a racer? He, he raced street stocks, his whole family. I mean, basically the Franklin family racing, they grew up running street stocks. You know, I have a couple friends from that you came into sport as engineers and kind of went back home. You know, Doug Weichick, he was from the Minnesota area.

not too far from me and came down was our engineer for a while. I went back and I think he has 43 motorsports, which he does a lot of IMCA modifies and B-Mod shocks and setups and street stocks. So a lot of great young kids that, you know, their passion is racing. People always ask, like, I get that question all the time, like, how do I get, how does my son, you know, make it? How does my, how do I get into racing, you know? And I always, I mean, there's no, like, a place you can go, like, sign up. There's no college course to take.

It's just go to that local track. Go to that track that you were from or wherever your local track is and dig in, dig your heels in. Right? Find somebody that'll let you pedal. Work on their car. Go to the shop. You know, show up enough. Maybe somebody will hand you a helmet in a driving suit one night just like your brother did to you.

Yep. And, you know, keep digging and maybe you end up randomly be that guy from that track that ends up at Hendert Motorsports, right? Just like Greg Ives did. I mean, that's the story. That's the American dream. Yeah, that's the number one advice I give to anybody is go to a local short track. Find a team that doesn't have a lot of guys around it and say, hey, can I jack your car up? My fear is that when you tell somebody that, they go, oh, really?

Yeah. Like, that's a steep. But that's real, right? It's real, but damn. You got to volunteer and be willing to make nothing for years to be able to get the job. A little bit of an easier avenue, I think. Or we're hoping it might be an easier avenue than that, but there is no secret sauce, right? One of my guys, the first start of my pick crew, I was sitting next to his girlfriend at the time.

And he was like, are you Greg Ives, the one that races in the newspaper? I'm like, yeah, that's me. You know, and it's like, my boyfriend would really love to come help you on the car. And, you know, I was like, sure, be at the shop at this time and we'll have them do something. Well, the first time I hand them some rinse is, hey, go nut and bolt the car. He came back out and he said, every bolt is loose. And I was like, turn it the other way, you know? So, you know, it starts as basic as that, right?

Learning what a 9-16th wrench is. Yeah, so, you know, just understanding, but the want to do it is something that you can do something with. And I was able to teach him how to nut and bolt the car and jack the car up and, you know, give him confidence to even work on his own stuff. And that's where it starts. But you can have all the knowledge and none of the want and it doesn't help. Good point. When, I know we're going to talk about this Darlington Paint scheme, but this was a late model that you ran. And you were talking about running a red and white number car.

When did you start running a paint scheme that was blue and is that pink? No, that's C foam and grapefruit. Got it. I stand corrected. C foam and grapefruit. Just straight out of the Crayola box. Did it have this little highlight, this accent right here on the A-Post? So if you look at one of the side profiles of the picture, you see the roll bar.

And it has a red roll bar. So that's that's that's that's that's the accent of the roll bar right there right Dale. All right. That is. That is correct. Yeah. So what was the story behind that light model? So after the red and black and red and white car, you know, very, very distinct paint schemes I had there.

The car, like I said, was a little older, didn't have the adjustability I thought in it. I needed to be better or to learn about cars. I was thinking, how can I adjust the roll center on this fifth design? and how and Gene Coleman from Coleman Racing products and his son Dickie had this car and said that we just put it together. We're going to go a different direction with the car. You know, why don't you come look at it? So I went and looked at it and it's probably at that point the most impressive race car I've ever seen. You know, like rivets were spaced properly. Interior was nice and white, you know, it was a great-looking race car. And I, I,

wanted it. And, you know, my dad was like, hey, pay half of it and I'll, we'll get it. At the time, it was painted that color. Dickie Comen and I like different color greens and stuff like that. And at the time, he was like, just consider, you know, keeping the paint color. And I didn't really know what that meant. You know, I didn't, I wasn't quite sure. So we ended up buying the car and did you sell your other car? We kept it. You kept it. Yeah, we kept it. Just because. Yeah, We just didn't know. My brother ran it a couple more times, and once it got to the point where I was like, okay, we're moving on from that car.

We eventually sold it to a friend, and they raced it. How much did you pay for this guy's car? I paid $10,000 for it. That ain't bad. No. It's a good deal. Turnkey, ready to roll. What?

Yeah. Less motor? With motor. What? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Damn, that's a good deal.

Yeah. What would you pay for that car today? Probably a lot more. Yeah. The motor was, it was definitely worth. Motor alone is worth $10.000. Yeah, it was probably worth $15. But, you know, Gene and Dickie did a lot for my career.

And as far as, you know, giving me a start and never always believing that I was going to make it, but believing that I had had the right desire. First laps in that car, the sensation rolling center and all that versus the car you've been racing for years. Oh, yeah, much, much different. I mean, from a whole. Isn't that the best feeling? Well, it was more that the hymns were tight. Yeah.

Oh, so I had a late model stock car and didn't know anything about bump steer, raced it for a year, and somebody taught me how to bump steer it and sat down with me and did it, and I took it back to the track, and I was blown away by how much better it went through the, I never drove the middle of the corner like this. Yeah. And so, like, when you get a new car, if you're a driver, like, you cannot wait to go to the racetrack and roll the center or feel, drive the car through the corner. you cannot wait when you get a brand new car,

when you get a new crew chief. Same thing. Like, it may take, like, if you switch crew chiefs in the middle of season, it takes a little bit of time, right, for his ideas and his setup and his nose, his front clip and all that stuff to sort of transition into your car. But if you get a new crew chief in off season, which me and you started working together in 2015,

you, as a driver, you're like, heck yeah, this is going to be, he's got different ideas, new way of doing things, is going to drive different, right? For better or worse, it's going to be different, and I can't wait to try it out. So you get this new car and you go through the corner. How much better was it? What it feel like? Did you have better drive off? Yeah. So better left front grip. So the track I went to that first time there was WIR and it's a big half mile really fast, bumpy, a lot of content to it. And the last time I ran that red car was kind of the same spot.

So yeah, it was more or less just, I was heard a lot less noise. The throttle pedal was a lot smoother. The brakes had, you know, really good stopping. You know, they didn't have three inches of travel before it. It stopped because I had four piston calipers versus, you know, the GM1 piston. It just, I felt like I could just drive the car harder and it stick better. So, and then, you know, I didn't realize that I was developed skew. or moving trailing arms until I went from the red car to the seafone car.

Yeah. Because, you know, the trailing arm hymns were really loose in the right car just because I didn't know any better. I didn't know what a car was supposed to feel like. So it was a lot of fun to work with that car. And, you know, I was sad when I crashed it. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

We get to that. I got asked him about to skew. So skew and housings, are you saying that y'all were skew? and housing some back then changing to help out? Without me even knowing it, you know, the three-quarter himes on the left rear had had quite a bit of play in them. So didn't really need to skew housing back then, but it was a unnatural, unintended consequence of not wanting to buy a $35 hym. Right. So how does this car run for you?

How long do you race it for you crashed it? So I ran that paint scheme one year, that whole car two years. years and I ended up crashing it in a Mars race. It was a big race because the throttle hung on it. How did you run those two years? I ran fairly well. Had some fast times. Won some V features, ran mid-pack on the A features. I was not stellar in it, but I did learn a lot. That's for sure. Is it better than did it perform better overall? Yeah, it did. It performed a lot better than the right car. Had the throttle stick.

So I had a throttle stop on it, and the throttle stop came loose and rotated and caught the throttle. It's a common thing amongst all late models, streetstocks, modified is you know, you build a bolt with a pad on it. Never use a square pad, that's for sure. That's what I had. And it rotated down and on the back of the throttle where they were. resting they kind of mated with each other the wrong way and got caught behind the throttle. What happened? I went off the racetrack. I hit two foam blocks that were in front of two yuk tires and it shot me up in the air. I did a pirouette in the air and 360 landed on my

right front halo bar and back on all four with the engine running about 10 grand as I woke up. I shut it off. Oh. Destroyed? Destroyed, yep. What was it? The roll bar? Center section.

Basically, the whole right front corner of the car. So what'd you do? I called Kevin Beyer, who had just a bare frame of the same car that I had. It was painted pink. And called them up, picked up. the chassis and was racing the next week, stripped everything down, went through the motor, put it all back together and painted it and came out, raced it. How interesting is that today for you to, because so you got the chassis, stripped it down,

put this, put this car back together, new chassis, put the body on it, and we're racing the next weekend. I don't know. I mean, I don't run short track, so I don't know that guys do it like that anymore but we would you know i'd crash my my car and bend a front clip and we'd get we'd strip it down take it and get the clip changed and back to the shop and put it back together and be racing it i mean we you did it because you had it had to right if you're going to race that weekend that was your car that was your only shot how interesting is that today where you could to turn a car around that fast i mean we don't take cars we don't take the same car to the racetrack every weekend even if you really wanted to, right? Yeah, it was a lot of late nights, that's for sure. And now that's one thing about

the racing community, though, like whenever you have some hardship or, you know, they saw me as a young kid, you know, trying to make it and then a devastating crash. You know, we didn't have a ton of money, but we love to race. And you saw the community rise up. Hey, I got a chassis if you need to. hey, you know, if you want us to look at your motor or check it out, just have it out and down to us. And that's what I saw more or less out of the racing community, you know, from everybody at Norway to guys that, you know, I might have controversy with, they were willing to help. And you see that from, you know, grassroots racing all the way up to cup, you know. So you bought this car in 1998. Yep. I was racing in the Xfinity series.

Didn't know who Grey Guys was? Isn't it crazy to think about how, how our lives were in two separate, almost two separate worlds at that particular time. And you haven't even gone to college at that point, right? You were probably 18. That was done my next question. Like, when is college happening? So I graduated high school in 98. All right. So how much, are you racing and going to college? Yep. Yep, I'm doing both. So, and working. And working at auto store. Yeah, working at my parents. And when I was in school, I was working at either a UPS, as a mechanic.

I was the primary mechanic or contract. UPS delivery? Yep. You're working on trucks, the brown trucks? Yep. So that was my night job from seven to four in the morning. So it was a lot of work. You worked from seven at night to four in the morning.

And then what did you do during the day? I went to school from eight to five. And then when did you sleep? I rarely did. On weekends, I guess, Sundays. Would you drink coffee? I mean, had you? No, I didn't drink coffee.

I didn't think you were a coffee drinker. No. That's crazy, man. It's just, I don't know, I guess when you're young and have some type of thing you're going after, it's easy. You talk about the Upper Peninsula. What, describe what that is? The Upper Peninsula, you know, like I said, a lot of small towns, a lot of close-knit communities. And, you know, it's almost like Earnhardt to the NASCAR community.

It's kind of like Ives was to Bark River or the Rays. You know, you have a lot of last names. and a lot of people that represent that last name in these small towns and communities, and your integrity, your character is easily either, you know, spread in a good way or a bad way. And, you know, I grew up in a very Christian home with morals that you didn't disobey. You listen when you were spoken to and spoke when you needed to. And so that's, I would say, best represents the Upper Peninsula and the town I grew up in. What's the nickname for the people from the Upper?

Upers. What is that? Because you told me what that, you started, you're the first person I ever heard used that nickname. And I don't, where does that come from? Yeah, just UP is the acronym for Upper Peninsula and then Uper's. I don't know. Interesting. things.

Like Finlandiers or, I don't know. Finlanders. I googled Bark River, and the things that come up when you Google Bark River is hunting, knives, and off-road racing. Yep. Is that basically it? Were you O for three on all those as far as interest? Basically.

Well, we did hunt, and we hunt for food, right? Yeah. Not for antlers. And my mom reminded me several times. opening day if we didn't come home with the deer she couldn't eat the antlers so um you know we processed our own meat and and you know we had had a garden processed our own you know vegetables and all that stuff too so we had a big picnic table not the size of this but close that hey when it when it was time we we're uh processing deer so he is a uper then i just i didn't know if he's a uper now

i can i can tell yeah so when do you start to um what how help me understand when you start to the driving part starts to become like how do you decide that you're not going to drive? I think it really comes down to, you know, the effort level to drive, to work on it, to go to school, you know, to put yourself through college. You know, I'm proud of the fact that I left college with zero debt, never took a loan out, paid it all myself. And, you know, that takes a lot of hard work. And ultimately it comes down to a decision to grow up. And, you know, my driving career was okay, but I couldn't go to WIR or Plover or these other traveling tracks and compete for wins. So I came to a realization that, you know, I have to do something different.

I can either continue to put money into racing and driving and stay in my hometown and not venture out to be a doctor or to be a great engineer. engineering jobs around Bark River weren't prevalent and you know ultimately I knew I wanted to get into racing at some point so yeah and I just made that decision when I graduated and I lost the championship that year that it was time for me to kind of move on so you came close to to winning the track championship right or you're you're having that that type of season decided that at the end of that year you were not driving anymore you stopped driving no more driving? No, I drove one, one time a year, maybe. One time a year for how long? About three, four years. Three, four years? Yep. And whose car was that? Just different people's cars? Yeah, so the guy actually

lost the championship to Julie and Jamie Iverson, they gave me opportunities in their car. Just to scratch the itch? Yeah, just to scratch the itch. What did you do with your blue car, your green car? Your seahorse car. Well, that one was gone. That was, I sold that one. Who did you sell it to? The pink chassis. Um, his name was Art Custle. What do you do with it? He ran it for a while and then, and he sold it. So, yeah, just, you know. Don't you want to know where it's at?

Not really. No? Really? God. Man, I wish I had everything I ever touched, right? I mean, I wish I did too, but I got too much other things to think about. Oh, where your late model. I do, I do have my, uh, late model that I almost won the championship.

When you're a, when you're a practicing surgeon and you've got a, you know, 15-car garage. Yeah. You're going to wish you had four of those with race cars, your old chassis stuck in here. Yeah. Like I said, the one after this car, I have sitting in at my house right now, just ready to get redone. What? Yeah.

Say again? I'm waiting to get it redone. What car? My late model. Your last one? My last late model. Really? So you have that car?

I have that car. That's quite cool. I think you showed it to me. Yeah. basically that way it came off the racetrack. Yeah. It's in your basement. Yep.

You decided you're done driving. Did you finish and you still got some school to finish? Nope. You're graduating at the same time. So finished racing in September and graduated in December. And you graduated and had, did you have a plan? Yeah. What was it?

I had a plan. So it really started my last semester in college. college, my family had a family reunion at Shaky Lakes. My girlfriend at the time, which is now my wife, Jessica, she's like, let's go to a family reunion. I'm like, no, we got to go up to college and I got to get my, you know, stuff ready to go. And she's like, you must be embarrassed to show me off to your family. I'm like, I guess we're going to family reunion. And when we were there, my dad's cousin was there and his son-in-law was the front-end mechanic on the 24 car. His name was Paul Christman and they called him Roley. I gave my resume to my dad's cousin Ken, Leeson, and what was

on it? It was basically my racing career, you know, how long I raced and how well or bad I did, however you want to put it. The fact that I worked at my dad's shop since 11 years old, So I was a mechanic and then ultimately my college education. What was your, what is, what about your college education was preparing you to work in motorsports? The fact that I had a paper that said I graduated as engineer, I'd say. Yeah. So what type of, so if I go take your, if I go through your course, like what are you learning? Well, you're learning 3D modeling.

You're learning different types about materials and, and just the basic function of organization. and setting up your day and planning and those type of things. Ultimately, me being a racer, I think, was attractive to them wanting me to come down in some fashion. You know, engineering was great, but I think the racing side of me really prepared me more than the engineering side. So you got the resume to the guy, right? Does the phone ring? Do they call you? Yeah, they did.

Right away? Yeah. Well, not right away. It was probably October, a month, month and a half later. Oh, okay. What year did you graduate? College was 2003. So your phone rings.

Are you home? Do you get the call? I did get the call. It was at our shop where we had the mechanic business. Who was it they called? Brian Weitzel. Yeah, Brian Weitzel called. There's Greg Ives there.

Sure. I talked to him and he said he was interested in me coming to work there. at Hendrick Motorsports. Hmm. I almost hung out the phone. Oh, why? I just, you don't know what to say at that point, and asked if I could be in North Carolina.

Like when? Could you be a interview? Yeah, like tomorrow. I was like, sure. And I just drove down and interviewed with Brian and Chad and Robbie Loomis. I think I got about 10 minutes with each, all of them. Individually? No, altogether.

Oh. Oh. You sat down and talked to him for 10 minutes. What'd they ask you? Just, you know, what my background was, you know, what makes me better than some other kid's resume. What do you think helped land a job for you? The fact that I had a mechanic ability, you know, that I could come in at a lower level and work my way up versus, you know, thinking I needed to be in there as an engineer. I think, you know, my whole goal was, you know, give me an opportunity.

I won't let you forget it, you know, or regret it. Did they tell you what you were interviewing for? They, no. So you actually didn't know? Didn't know. They're just interviewing. And, you know, obviously, potentially, I think it was just an interview. Like, I think Brian looked at the resume and saw, hey, here's an interesting.

Yeah. There's three check marks that we like in this kid. And let's get him down here. And if he's a, if it's a joke, then we won't talk to him. So the interview is, you know, last list. and a half an hour. You walk around the shop at all or you go back to your car? Just went back to the car. Then go home. Drove back home.

So, drove back home. 17 hours. Jesus. So you were there in town less than an hour. Yeah. And you drove all the way back home. What are you thinking on that drive home? How cool that was. Really? So you're in a great spirit. Yeah. How cool it was. Just a, you know, like I said, 16 years old, I said I was going to work at Hendrick Morrisports. And here I am driving back or two. to an interview, you know?

I think over the period of a 17-hour drive home, I would have had and lost a job about 17 times. I'd have been like in a roller coaster of emotions, calling friends with excitement, then calling my sister or girlfriend crying. Because it's not going to work. Luckily, I didn't have a cell phone until I got the job at Hendrick. Oh, Jesus.

And how long ago did they, when did you get the job? It wasn't until, middle of March. You didn't have a cell phone. Middle of March. You just glossing right over that one? It's 2003. I guess you're right, right?

By now at least you have one of those big old block cell phones, right? Everybody's listening to this is going, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, cell phone. Wait, wait, forget the job. You didn't have a cell phone. No, I didn't have a cell phone. Just didn't need it. Didn't care to want one. Yeah, I didn't care to.

I mean, back then, they were just, like, push to talk was about the coolest thing about it. Yeah, pushed a talk. Well, I mean, that was about the only thing going on in 2003. It wasn't like you were had, there were no apps. No. It was, Pr, yeah.

That's not the coolest thing going on with cell phones. All right, so you drove home. How do you, what's the next thing that happens? Phone call again? So I just continue to either go back to school or work

and kind of, you know, send some updates here and there. What do you mean, send updates? Like email Brian, hey, you know,

like just want to know if, you know, getting ready to do, start interviewing with engineering companies because I'm going to graduate in December and I'm going to, have to pack my car up. Am I moving home to live with mom and dad or and work at the shop or am I am I going to Hendrick Motorsports, you know, and, you know, Brian was gracious enough to always

email me back right away and said, hey, we're definitely looking at opportunities, but we just don't have openings right now. Wow. All right. So when did the fact, when did they finally? So, um, did that change? Well, Daytona 500 came weekend. Speed Weeks in 2004 came. Brian called me and said, hey, if you're going to be in Daytona, why don't you come meet the team? Were you going to be in Daytona? No. Not at all.

Why don't I even assume you were going to be in Daytona, I wonder. I was working at the shop or UPS. Hey, man, why you're down here in Daytona? Swing on by. Yeah. So he's like, yeah, if you're down here, just swing on in. I'll get you in. You guys can, you know, it's easy, easy day.

It was, I think it was a Thursday, you know, it was going to be a qualifying day or qualifying week, you know. So he's like, well, if you're here, we'll get you in. And I wasn't there. I was in Upper Michigan, Barker, the Gladstone area. And I went to my brothers, took a shower, put on the cleanest clothes I had, and drove 24 hours straight to Daytona. Jeez. So I showed up in, and meanwhile, I didn't have Google apps or directions or I was, had the Atlas. this and printed out the directions and drove straight to New Smyrna Speedway.

I figured if I got there, I would at least know somebody, you know, that was racing and slept in the parking lot. What? Yeah, slept in the parking lot in the car. When the gates opened at New Smyrna, I walked through the pits, and I came across Ryan Matthews, hauler because he had a Wisconsin plate on it. I said, hey, I'll be down here for a couple days. If you need help, I'll be here to help.

And I did go to a Nextel store, and I bought one of those push-to-talks because I was like, how are they going to get a hold of me if I'm down here? And I called Brian on that, and he's like, hey, want you come on over to the Speedway? Mary will get you in, you know, past the guards, and you can come meet the team. So that's what I did. So you go over to the track and meet the team? Yep, it was the 24 team. Steve Berg told me to get out of the way.

Yeah, I imagine that. You know, Stevie was the car chief, and Jeff Mendering was the front end mechanic, and they just, they're working on the front fender because as Jeff was leaving the pits, Casey Kane was coming in, they made contact, and they were trying to work on the car. But, you know, everybody was gracious to say hi, and I was there for about 15 minutes and left. Did you meet Jeff? No. Did you care?

I mean, when you were talking about Hendrick Motorsports when you're 16 years old, but my assumption is that you are a Jeff fan. I was a Jeff. That would have been about 1995 when he's won in a championship. Yeah, I was Jeff Gordon fan. I have pictures of me with a, you know, a DuPont shirt. Okay.

In the pits at Michigan Speedway. And, you know, I was a Jeff fan, but I wasn't a fanatical fan. You weren't a fan boy. No, I never got his autograph. Never cared. Before you leave the track, are you hoping that gets something out of Brian?

that tells you that this might be? Yeah, I was kind of hoping for maybe a little more, but he was kind of like, hey, I want you to meet the guys to see if they like you, right? Oh, really? Yeah. You know, it's more than just what I think. It's about what those guys think. And ultimately, I talked to some of them.

They're nice. I answered questions and left. And then you went and messed around Newsom Mernah for a couple nights. Yep. And then you went home. Then I drove straight back home with my car packed from college. I wasn't moving home. I was going somewhere.

So where'd you go? Well, I went back home, but, I mean, eventually. You weren't sure at that way. I wasn't unloading the car. Right. And then what happened? When does Brian finally stop this madness? It was March 19th.

It was a Friday. It gave me a call and said, hey, we like you to come to work. Where are you at? I was at the shop. Yep, working. So we're talking about roughly a month later, right? Yeah. Okay.

And he said, We like to come to work at Hendrick Motorsports. It's not an engineering position. It's an entry-level post-race mechanic. It doesn't come with much pay. And I said, great, I'll start tomorrow. He's like, whoa, whoa, that's Saturday. I was like, okay.

Maybe Monday then. So you've made the decision. You're going down to North Carolina. Yep. Got your car packed. What do you tell your girlfriend? I told her I'm going. I don't even know if I called her.

Well, she's your wife. You did something right. Yeah. Yeah. So how does she, we'll get to that, I guess. So you don't, you just, you're going. I'm going. Did you go down there Saturday?

Yep, I got down there about 1 o'clock Saturday afternoon. Went to the dry apartments over in Concord. Said I need an apartment. They said they only have the studio apartment for X amount. So great. Perfect. Perfect. So that's where you were.

That's where I was. Start work on Monday. Start work on Monday. Day after Jimmy Johnson won Darlington. How was working there right out of the game? gate? It was, you know, it was definitely different because, you know, being more of a introvert myself and not, you know, I kind of kept to myself a lot, you know, and just head down and digging. I didn't, I didn't really know any other way. It kind of ruffles some people's feathers that, you know,

I would just stay working, you know, hey, man, it's break time. Hey, it's lunch and, and I just keep working, but I didn't know what to do, you know, and the post-race department, you know, had Charlie Langenstein and Wade Servantston in it, and they helped guide me a little bit on, you know, hey, put the wrenches down and, you know, go talk to them or, you know, like, get some personality, you know. I know exactly what you're talking about. Who was your boss? Like, who's your actual immediate boss at that time?

It was Charlie Langenstein as far as in the post-race room. Okay. Yeah. and then who did he report to? I think it was Ron Thiel. Okay. And then it was Brian White'sold. And then eventually to White's him.

Yeah. Like you weren't reporting to a crew chief. No, no. No crew chief at that point. I got you. So now he's in the door at Hendrick. That's pretty, you know, I wanted to go through that so detailed because that's, that's like everybody's dream, right? That's like everybody's, if you're a mechanic or, you know, outside of being a race car driver, that's sort of how it works.

Right, that's how much you have to dedicate to making it happen. You got to spend the nights in your car. You got to drive the 17 and 24-hour trips just for that 15-minute interview or that five minutes to talk to the guys at the track. And it's not easier for anyone, right? That's the route. We were sitting right next door to the NASCAR Tech Institute where there's hundreds of kids over there going through those classes

thinking that somehow they're going to find that opportunity, right? And even with that background and technical assistance and knowledge, there's still that want to, right? That passion that you talk about where you really have to be willing to do whatever, right? And it's so impressive to hear that story from you. And I think a lot of people can appreciate it and appreciate you. So I didn't know that you started. that low down the pipe at Hendrick.

You know, when we first started communicating and it was over fantasy football, we had a little league in Henry Sports, and you were the lead engineer, I believe, at the time for Chad. Yep. So how do you get from tear-down post-race guy to lead engineer?

Yeah, definitely a lot of doors open really quickly. Really? You know, post-race was a really great foundation for me to understand the race cars. And just to go about the knowledge of these cars were so much different than the super late models. I had idea of racing the same. So I really enjoyed that. But, you know, I started to just volunteer my time on the setup plate for the 24 car. And with Robert Dearing, who now is the lead guy in scheduling at Hendrick.

But key thing there to take away from that is you volunteered your time to this other position, right? This other place to be able to learn more, right? Yeah, when, you know, basically hours were done, I would, you know, Robert would still be working on the plate. And I'd go over there. And the first time I went to help him, he's like, what do you want? I'm like, I want to learn how to set up cars. He goes, I don't have time for that. I'm like, well, I'll just watch then.

So I'd just kind of stand over and watch and look at the car. All the guys that do that work, that type of work, like the setup plate, the guys that don't travel, the post-race guys are typically quiet, grumpy. They're in that position because they want to be in that position where they don't have to mess with anybody and they don't have to have this, you know, blooming personality. It feels like Robert G. Very similar. So he, I must have really warmed up to him because he started to let me take notes for him. So, you know, he's like, well, if you're going to. to be here bothering me, you might as well at least help me.

You creep. Yeah. So I started to take notes for them, and then I knew I really made it when I set the center line of the car with the string and the plum bob and all that stuff. I got to do the front, and I was like, I made it. Yes. Yeah. That's like an entry into the room.

So. Room of trust. But from that point, like, you know, he accepted me to help him more and more. And the next year, he was, they wanted. me to be a setup assistant for the 24 and I was supposed to help Robert because I grew on Robert and he kind of liked me and uh but what they didn't tell me was Robert was moving up and I was taking over for him and that kind of that was a surprising meeting when they announced it in the in the break room so yeah I was like now I go from set up assistant to the man setting up Jeff Gordon's race cars going to

Daytona 500 the Las Vegas test you know all that stuff then I started reporting to Robbie Lewis. So how was that experience working with Robbie and working on the Rainbow Car? Yeah, Robbie was a pretty chill guy. You know, Steve was, LaTart was our car chief and all the guys were great. They like to joke and make fun, but they also wanted you to succeed. So I remember the first time I talked to Robbie were going to the Las Vegas test, and he had me set up like six different spindles and geometries and all that stuff.

and I had everything, you know, buttoned up where all they had to do was look at a sheet and bump steered and, you know, made it so easy for them. And they came back from the, did you guys try anything? No, we're never going to try anything. We always run these spindles, you know, so it was a lot of fun, though. So where do you go from there? How do you end up getting an engineer seat? Chad kind of saw some of the, that what I've been doing and working. So Chad is that kind of guy.

Yeah. Like, and maybe I look at it differently. You know the organization much better than I do. But in my mind, Chad, when he was a crew chief, you worked under him, you worked for him. You tell me where this is right or wrong. But Chad would assemble his team

and always thinking, right, always thinking, like, I got the best guy right here. I got the best guy right here. And he's always outlooking for better guys. And he would, like, seeing, like, Greg's pretty good. I need him over here. This will be an upgrade for this spot. I'm doing it.

and he'll take Pete, you know, he would take from anywhere that he thought he needed to, you know, if it was going to be an upgrade and an improvement, he would, he would take that, you know, like take you from that spot without thinking about it without thinking about. That was, he was so, like, tenacious. Yeah. As a crew chief. And the year before, they asked me to be the 24 engineer out of post race. And I told Brian, I was like, Brian, I'm not ready.

Like, I was like, what do you mean you're not ready for? I was like, I need to know how to set these cars up. I need to know the guys better. If you put me on the road as a race engineer, it's not, I'm not sending myself up for success nor the race team. But yeah, I feel like after the two years of being in the shop and growing with the guys, I felt I was ready. And that was the same thing.

Chad was like, hey, I want you to be a race engineer for me. I was like, great, where'd assign? You know, because I felt like that was my next step. Were you the lead or? The lead, lead guy. Yeah, there wasn't the second, third. They didn't have them then. They had one guy, you know.

And I was like, great, where did I sign? He was, don't you want to talk to your wife first? I was like, nah, she'll be good. And I got home and she was crying. I was like, man, somebody already told her the news. And I was like, I have great news. She goes, I have news too. And I was like, she's like, what's yours?

And I said, I'm going to go, travel with the 48 guys as lead engineer. I was like, what's yours? She says, I'm pregnant. Wow. Same day. Same day. Same day. Her news was bigger. Yeah, her news was way bigger. Yeah. Obviously, you know, I have a great wife who understands the path that I was on. And, you know, I always tell them that I was pretty selfish with my career. But y'all have a fun relationship. Yeah. You know, spending time with y'all, you talk about how you're the introvert and the shy guy and don't like to don't like this you know brag on yourself

too much and she's sort of the one that picks up your slack yeah yeah yeah she definitely has a little lightning bolt yeah his whole family's funny because they like I always used to love when you worked here I love how your family would be your hardest critics yeah and if you did not if you came home and you had not won the race your kids especially yeah would be like you know what was the deal yeah and and and and so I always just got a kick out of that has that changed at all? No, not at all. They're still very hard on me. Yeah, especially Peyton, the oldest one, she doesn't... I was always nervous around her. She was going to be too hard on me. Yeah. Well, she really? Well, she's just honest. Very honest. Very honest. Honest and I would, yeah.

You won a couple weeks ago. So did you get some praise from Peyton and the fam? She texts me, did you pass tech? So even the kids are worried about tech. Maybe she's exiled? Yeah, she texted. Yeah, she texted me. And then I said, yes, she goes, okay, good job. Yeah. I can, that's totally, that's not that tough, actually. No, I don't know.

It's not. I don't know. I want to hug. Everybody's nervous about tech, Mike. Even the kids. Yeah, but by that point, when they're having that conversation, he's past tech. Yeah. And still, just a good job.

That's it. Yeah. Well, I think I was more proud of you then. Yeah. Yeah, the kids were definitely proud, but, you know, Peyton keeps it real. Everybody kind of, not everybody knows everything else that happened beyond that point, but you worked as the engineer for Chad.

Y'all won, I don't know how many championships with Jimmy. Five. Yeah. Together. In a row. In a row. Right? Something I believe, something that I always say will never be beaten.

You know, we thought that three in a row by K.O. back in the 70s wouldn't be topped, but I'm pretty sure that Jimmy's five is going to stick for. ever. If anyone were to break that, there's probably some serious parody issues in our sport at that particular point. But I think that you got an opportunity. How did that happen? So refresh my memory on how you got the opportunity to come to junior motorsports to crew chief for Chase? And how did Chad take that conversation to Chad with him about coming here? Well, you know, it was 2006 was my first race with Chad. My last one was 2012.

So there's a lot of different contract options that come with that. The first year I was just kind of on a, hey, you're going to trial period, right? Yeah. And after that, I got some contracts. And my last one, I kind of mentioned to Chad, like, hey, you know, I'm looking to go about my next venture. you know, being a crew chief, wherever, you know, Hendrick Motorsports, Junior Motorsports, Hendrick affiliation allows me. And obviously, crew chiefing is, every time you try to take a step, you have less opportunity, right? So I knew it was going to be difficult and I was going to have

to probably wait. But I wanted him to train me like a crew chief, not train me like his engineer. So letting him know that, and the goals. that I had in mind allowed him to, you know, for us to do it the proper way. About middle of the final year of 2012, you know, there was sense that I was really wanting to do the crew chiefing deal and didn't know really where to look or, and I think it got out and a lot of people were contacting me about crew chiefing. And my number one thing is I work for Hendrick Motorsports and I will until I retire. That's my ultimate goal. And that's what I'm always wanted to do. So I'm loyal to him, number one. And that was my main focus. Like,

hey, if I got to wait two years, have to wait three years. And Chad was wanting to keep me on board with Hendrick Moore Sports and offered me a contract to do, like, head up to engineering department. And I really didn't want to not travel. I wanted to be a crew chief. And that kind of was a little rough patch for us. Him potentially thinking I wanted to leave and maybe not trusting me enough in my

real goals. So it was a little tough for us for probably a couple of weeks. And finally Mr. H and Chad and I just sat down and talked about it. And Mr. H is like, so you don't want to

leave Hendrick Motorsports? It's absolutely not. He said, well, would you sign that contract saying you're going to commit to Hendrick Motorsports. Absolutely. I signed it. And after we broke from that meeting, I went to Mr. H. and said, I will, you know, I'll stay loyal to this company. And I want to be a crew chief, but it's not worth leaving Hendrik Motorsports. And he said, I appreciate that

honesty and, you know, we'll work on something. So how did the nine deal with Chase Turnip? We ended up, I was here in 2013. Right with Regan. We're at Regan. Oh, that's right. Before Chase. So, you know, there was, you know, some movement and, you know.

How did that happen? Regan? Yeah. I forgot. Well, I mean, go ahead. You answer it. Well, it was surprising to me, too, you know, because one day Mr. H calls me into his Oval Office, and I either think I'm getting fired or something else is going on.

and he just said, we like you to go crew chief for Regan Smith at Junior Motorsports. Just like that. Just basically as easy and simple as that. Wasn't Greg one of the first of the crew chiefs to start coming over here? I mean, like that, we started, we had the affiliation with Hendrick Motorsports that was primarily drivers and maybe a few crew members. But this was the first of the era in which crew chiefs they were going to start sending over to see if they had, you know, size them up again, see if they had it. The way I saw the relationship was we benefited far more from having the relationship with Hendrick Motorsports than they benefited from the relationship. We were getting chassis, engineering support, and we were sort of a place where they could farm their drivers.

So we were getting these good talent. And that in turn, that in turn motivated Hendrick to make sure the motors had good power. right keep up with the Joneses on that side of things and so we were benefiting a lot because everything that they everything they were doing was helping our performance where we were really repaying that favor equally we we you know they were able to run you know over the wall guys through our through our through our operation as far as getting them reps on Saturday or trying a new jackman on you know on our cars that might potentially take over on the cup side as the sort of, you know, the A and the B squad started developing in the over-the-wall

stuff. So when I told Kelly at one point, I said, we really need to figure out a way to be a bigger asset. I always felt like, now this is just me talking, you don't have to come out and comment here, but I always thought that Chad didn't like the connection with Hendrick Motorsports and Junior Motorsports and felt like that we were, we were. sometimes maybe even a nuisance, a bother, right? Chad's always looking at the big picture of like, how does we win cup races? How do we win championships?

How does HMS be the dominant force in that? And that's what all that mattered, right? And this Xfinity team that's sort of tugging at the pant leg, me, hey, daddy, I need this, hey, daddy, I need that. That's kind of the way I felt like we were looked at by Chad and some of the more critical or important people in that organization. And I was like, we got to find a way to where we are an asset. And how can we turn ourselves into something that HMS sees value in, right?

And so, yeah, you and you as a crew chief coming down and being a place where they could keep you in the family, right? But let you do that, have that experience was amazing for us. It started, you know, after you, there's been several other guys, Jason Burdette and Ken, Kevin Manderin and several other people that have came here, Travis Mack, they don't always stay in the family, but this is an opportunity for HMS to keep them in the family while they try to get more experience as crew chiefs until that opportunity at the cup level at HMS opens up for people like it did for you.

Yep. And they've starting to see the value in not just drivers, crew chiefs, but engineers, every part of the race car, right? The relationship for HM. This is we really become more of a farm team. at least that's the way I feel like things have changed and involved for us but you were kind of the beginning of that so you come and work with with regan and had good success yeah um reagan i always thought he was a really really hard racer i always appreciated the effort he put behind the wheel and always

i thought he was a great talent um we were i felt like we were lucky to be able to get him so you come in here and and start crew chief and but first off you how did chad chad kind of saw it come and y'all worked through. It wasn't so it wasn't a shock to him, surprised to him. No, it wasn't, you know, ultimately in the end, it was, hey, help me replace you. Right. You know, in a good way. So that's kind of what we went to work on.

And, yeah, he always knew I was always going to be, I was always going to put them first as far as, you know, giving them information and being a lifeline to them. So I think repairing and mending that relationship and being. a big cheerleader for me was a big deal. And like I said, being able to keep that connection was big on his mind because he knew what I was potentially capable of. And, you know, just wanting me to get my own thoughts and ideas to kind of push up to the cup teams. How long was your rough patch? You call it a rough patch.

It was not very long. Weeks, months? It was like a couple weeks, maybe. It was just more over the time frame of when I wouldn't sign that one contract. They just were questioning what your commitment was. Yep, what my commitment was. As soon as you signed your commitment and they were clear on that, then that fix that. Yeah.

You get with Chase two years with him, right? One year. One year with Chase and then I pulled, then I was like, you're coming up. Yeah. So all this is so blurry to me. So you had a great year with Chase. Y'all come out, you know, you win Darlington, you win a championship, several other races.

Where is your mindset at this particular point as far as, everything's going as planned? Are you starting to look beyond crew chief at the Xfinity level? Is where these cup opportunities going to come from? Yeah, I mean, each year I made a change from Regan to Chase was almost a little surprise to me. I wouldn't say that wasn't, that was not necessarily on my agenda. Yeah.

You know, I felt like, like you said, you know, Regan and I had a decent year. I think we finished third in points and had two wins together. And, you know, I felt like things were starting to move smoothly in the shop. And I was gaining respect of not being, you know, the HMS guy, you know. And so I felt really good about it. and then Chase came along. I was kind of shocked. I got moved to Chase.

And, you know, being a young rookie, I remember Mr. H. The first time Chase was at Daytona, he was like, just stay on the bottom, you know, don't get any, you know. And then we go and win Darlington, and it's like we're winning championships. And how many more races are we going to win. Sure. It wasn't just that he wanted. It was how he wanted. Like, that restarted.

And the number of cars and who he passed at the end is still one of the most amazing, you know. It's a great little sequence. Yes, it was. It was a good sequence. And that whole few races was, you know, and Chase being as, you know, he breaks about himself all the time and how, you know, he's just so humble about himself. You know, he was always like, man, I don't know what I'm doing out here. And, you know, we finally built that, like you said, we had to build that connection of, hey, man, you know what you're doing. I'll fix the car.

You just tell me what's doing. and we got to that point, and we're running races. And, you know, we go from, you know, just stay on the bottom to how many races we're going to win championship. And that one, the pressure really got put on, which we always put pressure on ourselves. But we won Chicago, I think it was. No. Texas. Darlington, Texas.

Back to back. And then Chicago later on. Right. And I'm sitting over here at the restaurant eating lunch. and Mr. H calls me, so I go outside. I feel like he's going to congratulate me on the wind, right? And I'm like, that's nice Mr. H to do that. And it's like talking to him and he's like,

I don't even think he mentioned anything about the wind. And he's just like, you know, I like you to crew chief of Dale next year. And I'm like, what? Is this real? And he's like, yep, it's real. I want you to think about it. And, you know, there's some stuff. stuff happening and, you know, I really, really want you to think about it. Keep this, you know,

quiet and, and stuff like that. And I went back in and I couldn't finish my meal. I was like, I was, you know, kind of blown away, to be honest with you. So that's kind of how those last two, three years went where pretty fast. It went really fast. And, you know, I knew I couldn't take the opportunity to be like, hey, I need to stay with Chase one more year. I, you know, need to spend time. I knew I needed to make that jump. All right, now hold on. So pause right there because, Dale, what do you remember about that? Did you go to Mr. H first?

Do you know? So I learned that Steve was going into broadcasting and was leaving. And had known that for quite a while, actually, several months. We were able to run our whole. I think we had that all decided and sorted out even before we started the final year in 2014 together. So I think so I don't think I I think I learned about him

going into broadcasting and then we ran the whole last year Yeah I mean I remember you saying you were kind of hurt By the way you found out Yeah I did Right but then you sort it But y'all had plenty of time to sort all that out Because it was early enough in the year

And yeah so you start thinking Okay Well I had this really good thing with Steve right We had When I started working with Steve The coolest thing about what he did was this ain't a dig on anyone I worked with before, but he, when we didn't run good, he would go, I got to get the car better.

I'd never heard that. I'd race for 12 years, and no one had ever told me that, right? The hurries? No one. Yeah, right. Like, they'd tell you what you did wrong. Well, they'd be disappointed with me. We'd all be disappointed together, but no one ever came to me and goes, we've got to get you a better car.

This car ain't good enough. I'm like, damn, right. Let's do that. Let's get a... I love a better car, you know. If you can make one do more than this one did, that would be awesome. Yeah. Right?

Because no one ever told me that. But anyhow, he said, I was awful. I was awful. I was 22nd or something in points. Things were terrible. I'm thinking I'm not going to get... I'm not going to be at HMS much longer. I'm getting fired.

What am I going to do? And Steve came in and said, let's finish 15th. just do that, just finish 15th. We did that for like three months and finished 15th, right? Better than 15th brother. And then we moved it to 10th. And then we did that for a while. Then we moved it to fifth.

And we were literally going to the track, expecting to run in the top five and running in the top five, right? And then we got to win. So it was, I was, I'd never seen anything like that happened in my career where we set a goal and, you know, went up the ladder and it worked, right? Yep. But anyhow, when Steve says I'm going to go do something different with my life, I was extremely pissed off and hurt.

But then I'm thinking, how do I keep this going? I've got, I'm literally where exactly where I want to be in performance and everything else is all, everything's working right. We've got a great team. How do we keep that, you know, how do we keep this happening, right? And you were this sort of, you know, shooting star, you know, running up the ladder. You had this amazing history, those five in a row with Jimmy and all of that, which I felt like thinking in my mind, man, Chad really leans on his engineers. You know, Chad has his own ideas, but he definitely puts a ton of pressure on his engineers to produce performance and make things happen in the middle of the week weekend when they're struggling to find speed.

and fix the car. I'm thinking, man, you know, with the success that you've had, and then you went into the Xfinity and produced success, I'm like, I don't know, I don't know anyone else that could,

that, that, I feel like I would, if I, if I looked at any other direction to bring anyone else in, I would always wonder, what if, or you were going to end up with Chase,

right? When he, and he goes up the next year. Yep. And I'm like, I'm always going to regret this. If I don't do this, I'm going to do this. This is who I want.

And so, you know, I talk to Steve. I talked to everyone. And, I mean, you were the, you were on everybody's radar as a, you know, as the next guy. So it was a, it wasn't a hard decision, you know. I mean, I'd worked with Kevin Mandern for many years, really believed in him. But I think that, you know, I liked his path coming in here and working just like you did as a crew chief. I still think that he has, you know, I still think he has that cut potential

and whether he ever gets that opportunity or even wants it, I don't know. But, you know, we got together and we had kind of had a bit of a relationship, you know, just having worked together at the shop and you working here. We developed a pretty good friendship. It was really weird at first when we were in the fantasy football league because I didn't get his brand of humor and I don't think he got mine either. Yeah. Would he talk smack to or something? We tried.

And I don't know. It's the most awkward smack talk ever. Awful, awful awkward smack talk. I don't know that anybody got anything accomplished in that. It seems like both y'all have a story in mind. Y'all don't want to say it. Was there a particular thing that made it awkward? We just would try to smack talk and it was just a discombobulated.

awful like our comebacks were like didn't he make sense or my I'm just I'll talk I'll just talk about my side of the conversation like nothing I had I couldn't he would say things and I mean like I don't know what to say I don't know how to come back to that yeah it is yeah it was not

and everybody would I felt like everyone was laughing at me at me because of the way he had he would spin me out yeah with his with his comeback but anyways it was a very interesting relationship but to start, but, you know, when we got to work together, I loved it. I really loved it. And, you know, we, he's a, I mean, just, he's easy to talk to. We would sit in the

hauler, and I could, I felt like I could ask him anything. Never once in the years we worked together, did he ever say anything that made it difficult to communicate? You know, when you're in that cubicle up there it's free game man it's open and the engineers everybody can if somebody wants to go off the handle right somebody wants to

if the wheels want to come off they can come off in there right no one's ever going to know and it stays in there right but never once did we have any kind of argument storming out none of that right I don't remember anything like that I think there's only one time that you got upset with whenever our engineers

and that's it yeah because of that SMT or we're looking at some driver traces and you're like you're like won't you have him drive the car then or something you know but that's it yeah but I mean for me that was totally hear that but for me that was not like it was never about trying to change a driver it was always about trying to change the car yeah I loved working with you you know I love to see you and and Alex continue to have success you know I feel connected to that because of having been part of a small part of Alex's career as he's tried to get to this point and having the connection to you. I mean, it's hard not to want to see you guys succeed. And when you do, I text Rick immediately. You know, I'm like, hey, look who won today.

You know, congratulations. Yeah, that's what I most remember when, you know, Alex got in the car, you're probably our number one fan, right? Like, always pushing us, you know, to, you know, to communicate better or be better and always there to, you know, pick us up if we got down. That could not fail, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Having had so much, having had that involvement with you and working with you and had the same involvement with him, it's like, this is supposed to work, right? This has got to work.

You're a big advocate for Alex, you know, when others weren't. Hey, I've got to ask you, though, Greg, did when there was a change in driver from Dale to Alex, I think we both sense that there was a sense of ownership, I don't know, and how you led the team. Like you had the full reins at that point. Is that true? Yeah, that's true. I mean, you know, obviously when you're building a team, like I feel like I did when I first came over to junior motor sports, was able to handpick and get guys and kind of set your own tempo.

And, you know, that was pretty big as, you know, same as way Chad sets. the tone. You know, I know Jimmy, I was a great leader for the 48 and inspired these guys to work hard, but, you know, Chad set the tone on how he did things. And, you know, when Alex came along, you know, Dale and I worked great together. But I always felt like I came into Dale's team and needed to prove, you know, and continue on the success that he had. And when Alex came along, I saw it as another Chase, right, where Chase needed, you know, when he came in as a rookie, and I know Alex, well, he might have been a three-time rookie at that point. Right, right.

When Chase, he just wanted somebody that believed in him and didn't question his ability and get the team wrapped around it. And that whole time, I was trying to build the driver and Alex at the point of, at some point, it's going to be Alex's team. It's not going to be mine. And that's my goal, you know, with this now 48 team. And that was my goal with the 9 team of, at some point, if I'm not in this team, it's going to function because, you know, Chase is going to be the leader.

Alex is going to be the leader, just like Dale was and Jeff Gordon and all the great drivers. I like, I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I will add to there was a moment when, I was hurt in 2016, and I went to Phoenix, and Alex was qualifying the car. I hadn't really been around the racetrack much to that point. I walk out on pit road, and I put on a headset. The whole vibe and tone and conversation of the team was completely different than what it was like when it was me and you, and when I was driving a car. And basically, Alex hopped in the car, and you said,

I did this, this, and this, and this is going to go around the corner, just go down and drive it. Alex gets in the car, goes out there, runs. I think back then they had three-round qualifying or something. Car comes in. All right, Alex, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. Okay, I'll go, I'm going to go out there and run.

Alex goes out and runs second round. Third round. All right, Alex, I'm going to do this, that nether. Okay, you got it. And Alex just was like, bawled in, out on the track, and I think you guys qualified on the pole. And I was sitting there watching that, and I thought to myself, right away, it was apparent, like, this, like, I might have, you know, I don't know if I'm going to run the next year or not or what my future looks like. I don't have that in my mind right then, but I knew that, like, your future was with a younger driver who would listen to you and buy in.

I was critical. If you said, I'm going to do this. I'd be like, I'm going to tell you to all the reasons why that's not going to work. And, man, I don't know. And I don't, I don't, you know, I just, older drivers get to a point to where they listen less, they buy in less. They think that they have all the same answers that you have. And they butt heads with the crew chief, whoever that guy is, right? Yep.

and it's rare when it doesn't happen, but most times I feel like that I should have, I wish that if I could do it all over again, that I would shut up and just say, yes, we're doing what you want to do and let you go and let you learn. Knowing what I know now, it would have been better off if I would have just bought in every weekend instead of trying to either in my own way help you figure this thing out, or trying to tell you how I would do it or what I would do or how I would strategize or how I would prepare or what shock I would run or what I would do to the car. I was filling your head full of unnecessary ideas and information and steer it.

You would be going down this way and I'd go, no, no, no, no, don't believe in that. Right? And you'd be like, yeah, but this is what my mind, this is what all this is telling me to do, right? this is everything that I've learned is telling me to go this way. And I'm like, no, no, don't believe in that. Go this way. This is the way. And I'm like, yeah.

So when Alex hops in the car, he's like, whatever you say, and you're, you were so content and like, man, it's so nice to have a guy just get in there and just do it, right? Just not, not try to tell me why it's not going to work or why I don't need to do that and do this. Yeah, I remember that conversation afterwards, too, because I think it was with like break valves or something I told Alex, okay, We're going to adjust this, and I need you to move that one click. You got it? Got it.

I would have been like, why? Why do I want to do that? I want to move two clicks. We talked about this. We're going to move two clicks. We're not doing it that way. It's almost like I needed a rookie driver every week, you know? Like, that's how mine, mine worked.

You had had this with Chase, right? And then when you came to work with me, I made it very frustrating, right? Because you had to almost, you had to, you had to sift everything, every idea through me. or you just didn't even, you'd probably better off not even tell me. So you didn't have to deal with the argument. But then, you know, I knew it. When I saw that at Phoenix, I thought, man, whatever it, you know,

I came back and I ran a year. We had a, we had, it was a rough year company-wide. It wasn't like anything we were doing wrong. And I'll say too, I know this, you're the guest, and I'm supposed, you're supposed to be doing the talking, but I'll say even though that was a frustrating year from a performance standpoint, the morale and the attitude and the personality, you were a big part of that. Like if you don't do what you do, that whole thing sort of implodes and gets worse

and gets harder to get better, right, when whoever comes in behind me. But you were a big part of keeping the team's morale up. And knowing that we had a year to, finish. This was my final year. I kept telling y'all like, man, you know, I know things aren't going well, but I'm not going to get pissed off about this. I'm going to, this is it. I'm going to try to enjoy this, and we're going to go to the racetrack and race. And Alice is coming in behind me, and that's this thing for you guys to look forward to. And I really appreciate that. I appreciate how that year, that last year could have been much more difficult. But I think you were a key

player and making sure it didn't go there. Yeah, I think that goes along with, you know, your leadership of the team because you and I had a pretty honest conversation about this. I remember qualifying one time. We didn't qualify so well at the 600 the year before or maybe kind of fuzzy in my mind. And I remember driving to your house and we were sitting on the couch. It's like 1 o'clock at night. And we had an honest conversation then. And then we had an honest conversation going into 2000 the final year and I think we set the tone for that you know if we weren't on the same page I felt like it definitely could have went the wrong way and you always had my back and I always had yours and you know I think the leadership showed because the guys

were always ready to go the next week so it was a it helped me grow and as a crew chief and as a leader because not every race season, not every race, not every time we go to the racetrack is going to be easy and fun. But, you know, you want to, we set goals out there of just, you know, being competitive and running all the laps and at the end of the day, you know, staying on the same team, you know. Yeah. Can I ask you this? You know, I can't help you hear it when Dale explains that whole experience, it sounds like that

would have been miserable for you, but I know he's being harsh on him. as far as, you know, the way he would apply feedback. When he called you, I think Greg was the first person you called when you had made a decision to retire. I don't, I think you even called him before you called your mom. Do you remember that phone call? I do. And what was, what was your reaction to hearing that he was really going to retire?

You know, um, you know, initially you put some of the burden on yourself or responsibility on yourself because, you know, to me, I felt like as a crew chief I was supposed to, you know, protect them and not make certain decisions to put them in harm's way, right? And I think one of the crashes, I made the decision to take two tires or four tires and kind of put us back at Michigan and ultimately we got in a crash. So, you know, I feel at that point I felt some responsibility for it. So which, you know, you know, that's, that's what comes with racing is, and that's what makes great leaders great is that they put the responsibility and burden on themselves. And, you know, it was, it was tough for me to hear, and I appreciated, you know, him having that

conversation with me, but ultimately it was an understandable decision, you know, so. Oh, go ahead, Jim. I would, you talked about the first phone call was to Greg. I remember he was the first person I called when I was dealing with some vision issues in the middle of 2016. I remember standing in the garage area at Kentucky looking at the scoreboard. I have always had like 2020 vision, 2010, 2020, and super good. Like I've just, you know, just I don't anymore. It's awful.

But I used to brag about it and go get my exam, come back and be like, hey, buddy, it's still awesome. See like a beagle. Hell yeah. I remember. I'm standing there. into the garage area with a few folks. And I'm looking at the scoreboard. I'm like, is the scoreboard blurry to you guys?

It's like way over in turn one, right? And I'm like, I usually see pretty clearly, but it's blurry. Is it the heat or what's going on? Is it blur? Because of the heat, right, rising off everything. It was 100 freaking degrees in Kentucky every year. They're like, no, it's not blurry.

I'm like, man, what's going on? And I went to the, I went in the bus and I called Jimmy. And I said, Jimmy, I got something going on. I went and sat down and talked to him. And he said, we both determined we thought it might be allergies, right? Yeah. Anyhow, a couple weeks goes by, and we're getting ready to go to New Hampshire, I think, to race. And I called Greg, and I said, Greg, I said, I got this stuff going on.

And I told him all the symptoms. And I said, I don't know what that means. And I don't know why it's happening. And the last wreck was a month ago, a month and a half ago. I was like, it doesn't seem like concussions, but it's getting worse every year. other, you know, every day or so is getting worse and worse. And I don't really know if I can race this weekend. Like I'm worried that if I, it's Monday and I'm worried that by maybe Sunday, I might have to say in this final hour, I might have to break the news to you guys and go,

I can't race. What are we going to do now? Right? Right here in front of the whole world. And he, and he, he's like, I don't know, I was like, I think we need to get a driver on standby. And he's like okay okay okay okay I was like yeah we'll get Alex we'll get Alex and have him and we're not you know like we're planning this ourselves yeah it's the dumbest plan ever and I don't know if it was you at the end of the conversation that told me to talk to Rick yeah I was like did you call Rick yeah he's like you should probably call Rick and I'm like yeah yeah yeah that's a good idea I call Rick and Rick's like get your ass to the hospital get your freaking head checked out what the hell are you talking about yeah going to the

track like some patchwork plan. Quick going to Jimmy for your diagnosis. Well, so in the driver's meeting, you mentioned that you had some allergies going on in Kentucky. And, you know, I was, you know, concerned in Kentucky. I've never had allergies in my life. Yeah. So, and I didn't know that.

I was reaching. So, um, but Kentucky, obviously not a very good track for Hendrik Morrisports or us at the time. And I think we're passing Denny for seventh. And you went down on the apron at the start finish line, and you hit that bump. Yes. And we were like, we're like, yeah, we're going forward, cars fast, Dale's getting in his groove, you know. And you hit that bump. And I think we went back to 17th.

That's right. Passing for a 7th and a couple laps were back to 17th. And I was like, you know, there's something going on. So, yeah. I know you got out of the car concerned. but we didn't really talk about it. And I don't know if Loudoun was the next race or not. I felt like it was.

Yeah, it was the next race. And you called me. And that's when I was standing at the top of my driver pacing, you know, trying to come develop this great plan we had going on. And, you know, I called Alex right after that. I was like, hey, Alex, Dale needs a, you know, wants to make sure he has a backup driver just in case anything happens. Like, he's like for this weekend.

I'm like, no, no, not for this weekend, just for any time. You know, we never really had that. So I convinced him to come in. He sat in the car and I was like, you need any changes? He's like, nope, this is good for me. You know? That's pretty good. Now he's probably pretty critical.

Not really, but. Now that he's learned all of the things that he can change. He's probably like, yeah. I need to move to 16, though. Yeah. But, yeah, and obviously he had. no love loss for New Hampshire, but he got in there and did a great job. He did. He did. I remember Greg just being with you every step of the way.

Like, you know, you started going to Pittsburgh, and I thought, I didn't know if that was unusual or not. And I don't even know what you thought about it because he would go with you. It wasn't unusual. So with Steve, I had developed this amazing friendship. And I had it with Tony Senior and Tony Jr. We're family, obviously, right? So even with Lance, it was important that we had off-track time together, and Lance would come to the house. If I was going to hang out and drink beer, Lance would, I'd call him, and he might come, right? So I always felt like that the only way we were going to have each other's back

was that we really truly had to be friends. We had to have a real sense of we had to care for each other, right, and want the best for each other and wonder what's going on in our personal lives and want that to be good, right? And I think, you know, when we started, when we got together, I said, hey, don't know if you're down, but we're going to become friends, right? You got a new, you're going to get a new buddy here. Yeah. And I hope you're interested in that. We got one. That's going to be part of this relationship. It has to, I have to have that trust, that friendship trusts, right, is really important. And so when he was, you know, when,

so I would, you know, it was comfortable to call him, because I could call him. just like I was calling Sonny or one of my great friends and going, man, I got a problem and I really don't know who else to talk to. I could call him and know that he wasn't going to go run into somebody's office or

go upstairs to Rick or freak out, right, until it was time to freak out. And so, yeah, him going to the, I wanted him to be there, right? I wanted him to know exactly what was happening so he could go back to the team and relay whatever information was necessary

so that they weren't worried or questioning what was going on, and that he too knew how far out this plan was happening, right? I think some of the things that I included you right out of the get-go and didn't do that with Rick, right? Completely forgot to share the same sort of access for Rick. So for a couple months at least, I don't know how long it was, but when we got sideline in 16 and I had to get out of the car, I wasn't called Rick wasn't going with me

I wasn't calling Rick and telling him what was happening I was you know you were there because you were you know I don't know man it was it didn't seem I wanted him to be there I wanted him to I worried about the team I worried about their thoughts their assumptions on what was happening and also wanted him to

I felt like I was letting him down right I felt like I was I was making this he's trying to get this build momentum get this team stronger and stronger, and I felt like I was pulling the batteries out of this thing, right? Yeah, and it goes back to what I said about responsibility on my part, like him including me and me being part of it allowed me to get over that. Like it was just part of, you know, I learned more about your history of concussions and it wasn't just because of one decision I made at Michigan, right? So it really helped me grow as part of Dale and his history, but also, you know, understand the medical side of things.

And that all had interest in my head as well. But I think if it didn't go that way, I think my path as a crew chief could have went differently just because of, like I said, there's great pressure on us as a driver. and a crew chief combination that if you don't have that relationship, I think I could have went the wrong way and, you know, put more blame on myself. I say this, man, I can't believe that you even felt, this is the first time I'm hearing that you had any of those emotions. I don't, I can't believe that you had those emotions. Like, I never, I'll just say if this helps at all, I don't know,

but I never look back at any of my history and pinpoint specific things that put me in any situation. You know, if I look at a race and go to my notes and say, okay, I wrecked at Bristol. I ran into Denny Hamlin as he careened off the inside wall. And what put me in that, what put me in third? You know, how did I get there? Let's go back to the, you know, I don't, I never did that. I never walked out of that racetrack going, man, I wish Greg wouldn't have done X, Y, or Z.

Never crossed my mind. Yeah. You know, and I know that you look at it differently and you say, man, I wish I wouldn't have maybe done X, Y, and Z, but I never thought about it. Never crossed my mind one time to go, I wish I hadn't looked, I wish I wouldn't have been on the outside of that guy,

or I wish I would have done a better job on the restart, you know, to not be in that, position. I never, never thought of it. So it. And I think, you know, like I said, as, as you included in that, I remember, you know, you coming to my boss and us sitting on the couch and you telling me about your journal and all the, all the things that you go through from a race car driver. And, you know, from the smallest accident to the greatest victory, right? There's, there was a lot of things that we kind of work through together and, you know, in, in, the end, like I said, if I wasn't part of that going to Pittsburgh or part of the solving the problem that was created, you know, I think it could have been a little different aspect for me.

I think you were looking for people to believe you too at the same time. And I think you sort of hinted at it a few minutes ago is that you wanted your team, you cared about what your team thought. But as I remember kind of none of us really knew what the heck he was talking about. You know what he'd do? He'd do this thing where it'd be like, you'd be in my life. office and he'd be like well did you just feel that like did you like right there everything got that got dizzy and I would just be like the heck is he talking about like I mean honestly if you don't want to race just don't race or something like why are we going to these

theatrics but and I listen I feel awful being being that it's fair but I know when you wrote the book and I think that you were going through you needed people to believe you and and I still I kind of feel guilty that at first we needed convincing. In fact, it was Mickey Collins that actually the moment when we realized, oh, yeah. Like if Dale is coming up with these things, it's about to get exposed right here with Mickey Collins' doctor. And you were in the room with us all and we're all sitting there and Mickey Collins' response was, you should have been here a long time ago. You messed up by, you don't understand how bad this is. You can fix this, but you waited way too long.

And then we were all going to look at each other going, wow, man, it's been legit this whole time. I mean, all these things he's talking about. Well, another thing to add to that, in my short crew chiefing career before Dale, I experienced some of those same things of driver having a health issue or a question about concussions. And, you know, and they went to me, right? and I went to the like I had you know my sister is really my my education source for medical stuff and I was always you know like I said growing up wanting to be in the med field and you know I felt like I could help and a couple drivers did did do that before your incident and so it was kind of almost natural to to to believe. believe, right? Natural to believe that, you know, there's something going on and, you know, with my past experience. That's one thing. I never, I never felt like I had, I never felt like I had to go over on explanation on what I was dealing with with you. Like I could just say, hey, man,

I feel a couple things going on and I want to deal with them. And I never had to take, I never had to put in this big effort to try to really dissect the problem. And it was a couple of guys on the team. Also, I had that same connection with Adam, our interior guy. Me and him sort of had this great connection. And I got out of the car at Michigan, and he's looking at me, and I'm like, my bell is rung. And he's looking at me. He's like, you all right?

I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Stop looking at me, you know, like, because he could see it. And because I was just, I've gotten out of the car and I was standing, I think I was standing in the garage stall. And everybody's on the car, right, fixing the car, trying to figure out how are we going to fix, you know, we destroyed this. Get back out.

And he's standing there, look at me going. And I'm like, yeah, you got me. So there were, but, you know, that was a, I hated that we all had to go through that. I'll just say that. I hated that we all had to go through that, but I want to tell you that you were a great friend. You were amazing.

Even in those professional challenges, that is a massive curveball for a crew chief, puts you in a very difficult situation to have to keep the team going and keep the morale up. You're working with different drivers. You've got Jeff coming in. You got Alex coming in back and forth. They don't want it.

They're running every other week. you don't know what I'm going to do I asked you guys to take me back for another year some of you guys I don't know maybe we're looking already to the future on what might be next but you got me one more year

and y'all did it you know you never you never you never you never I never sensed once that y'all weren't down to do it right and I really appreciate that you know I'll be forever grateful for not only your friendship

which is still as strong today as it's ever been because we ever in the communications that we have i can just tell that that's very valuable and important to you as it is to me but i really really appreciate everything you did in those few short years we race together how all that went down and how you managed it and and your integrity and uh class is is is hard to be i appreciate that yeah you got alex and you guys are you know, winning races, probably not winning as many races as you want to, but it looks like the Chevy teams have got things turned around. The organization as a whole was way better than it was a couple years ago. We got new cars coming down the pipe and all that good stuff,

crazy things happening in the sport that you got your hands full with. Where are you mentally and emotionally in your career? Yeah, I mean, I feel like, you know, just as low as those times I spoke about, I'm just as high now. You know, I think I told somebody not too long ago, you know, when I was here at junior motorsports and on the nine car, there wasn't a, and with you in 2015, I didn't think there was a better crew chief on pit road. And that was the mindset that you have to have, right? That was trained in me.

You know, over the course of some of those years, you know, it takes a toll on your confidence and takes a toll on what you think your abilities are. And, you know, I feel like, you know, as arrogant and may sound or whatnot, I feel like we're getting back to that point. Yeah. That people are looking at us to perform on the racetrack. We have, you know, different strategies and setups and, you know, eyes from different people. And I feel like, you know, that's not only just from a,

organization standpoint, but something that we push very hard on the 48 teams. So, you know, I don't, I'm not necessarily saying it's me, but I think it is my attitude going to the racetrack, you know, thinking that I have a little more confidence and, you know, not only myself, but also the rest of the team. Alex seems like he has matured so much in the past couple of years. Yeah. You know, I mean, I know it's, it's some of the small things such as him taking his health more seriously and being just in better overall physical shape to drive a race car. But I remember when he first got into a cup of car and we worked together a lot, he had to sit out a whole year, you know, while I ran that final year.

I mean, me and him riding bikes communicating all the time. And he just would say these things every once in a while where you're like, man, come on, don't think that way, you know, gosh darn it. You know, just don't, you've got to get that part of your personality. rip that off and throw it away. And it seems like that he's finally there. He used to beat himself up or be very self-deprecating. But it seems like he's got really this new level of confidence.

Like he knows he belongs there. I guess he's less, because I mean there was every year he's racing not knowing his, not knowing his future. Yeah. Right. No clue whether he's going to be there the next year. because I think, you know, his contract wasn't secure, but now things seem to be in a much better place.

Yeah, and I kind of touched on it earlier where, you know, whether it was Chase or any rookie driver, always tried to elevate them to feel like they're the leader of the team. That basically, what the driver does on the racetrack dictates the team's morale, right? and if the driver has confidence and some sort of swagger, so is the team. And I've always wanted to force, I wouldn't say force, wanted Alex to get to be that leader on the team. You know, and I feel like he's getting to that point.

Richmond, you know, we had a bad pit stop and his comments were, you know, we're going to go pass them all again. You know, it wasn't, you know, a negative comment to beat down on the team and change. that was a pivotal point of the race. And, you know, there's two ways you can go, and he chose the one that led us to confidence and led us to the fact of, you know, we're going to pick ourselves up and get after it. And like you said, two, three years ago,

you know, I joke with him, you know, quit being Eeyore, you know? Like, he was always down on himself, and he's not that anymore. No, not at all. That's exactly it. Like, I used to drive me crazy. with him and I'm like oh man I know you don't know what I know you wish you'd had a you know two three four year contract right now in your hands done but you got to get this you got to change this sort of mindset and yeah he completely yeah he's a

completely different person yeah and you know that that resonates through the whole team sure you know so I'm almost I'm almost got him where I want them it's a it's still a work in progress is what you're saying yep that's crazy Regarding Richmond, you said something in the post race that I just got to ask you about. You said that you did something regarding what you did on that final pit stop for that last few laps that you tried with Dale and it didn't work. Do you remember exactly what it was? Because I don't know that you did, Dale. So it wasn't really exactly what I tried with Dale, but you know, you always think you're smart at the end of there's races and leave fuel out or you pump up air pressures or you think that whatever happens.

we did this with Dale where we're running fairly well top 10 top five-ish and I think we're in the top five you're we came down for a late caution and restart and I did some things and you went out there and you're plowing tight and you're like you know Richmond always gets tight at in the last 50 laps and that always has stuck with me and um not saying I'm going to say it might be a contributing factor of what I did on on that day oh you said it you said it so I'm sticking with it. I'm taking that and running. I helped them. We even ordered a replica trophy, just so you know.

I did a good thing. No, it definitely was like... I influenced. You know, it was funny because, like I said, I remember like it was yesterday that, you know, that radio communication was vibrant, for sure. Oh my gosh.

This is your car. We talked about it. Yep. All right, in this podcast, the team, you know, the throwback stuff we do at Darlington is always really, it's always been important to me and I think it, you know, it's a great campaign that belongs at Darlington. It's been a lot of fun

seeing the teams get creative with it every year and what they want to do and it seemed to be very easy to come up with a lot of unique or fun throwbacks at the very initial outset of the campaign. But as throwback season happens year after year after year, the teams have to get more and more creative. And I think that

this one is one of my favorites. I'm sure it's absolutely special to you, but Alex and the team are throwing it back to that late model stock car that you raced back home in Michigan. Bright green, or what is that? Seafo. Seafoam and limes?

Green fruit. Seafone and grapefruit. It's a beautiful car. It really is. They unveiled the car to you at the shop. Yeah. Right. Did you know what was going to happen?

Zero. You had zero clue, right? Zero idea. Walk up, cars under cover, teams gathering, everybody's gathering around. Do you even know that you're the focus of this gathering? So it actually started, they wanted some,

they told me they wanted some B-roll of our team meetings. And for Ally, and they miced me up, Alex, and as they walk in, you know, Alex is like, hey, pull that, they unveiled it on a digital screen. So, and they're like, throw it out there, When I saw, I didn't really even know what to say. Wow.

So, you know, I've been, I was hounding him a little bit, you know, sometimes you need that with Alex. As, you know, like, hey, we got to get this throwback scheme done. You know, I got some ideas and, you know, that I wanted to push through that I thought was going to be special to, you know, the sport. And, yeah, he unveiled that. So definitely, truly special. You know, still, still in awe of today. And just the way that whole paint scheme came together, I always say it chose me. I didn't really choose that color.

I didn't choose that whole design. But how it came about, you know, was also honoring a fallen racer. Yeah. So Jim Pagel, ran this color back in 1993. He was a stock car driver. He lost his life May 2nd, 1997 following a crash during qualifying at Wisconsin. And you pay tribute to PAYGO after purchasing the car, like you said. Coleman family asked you to keep that color.

Yeah, and I didn't really know the significance, right? As a young, 18-year-old kid, I'm just excited to have a brand-new race car, right? And when I unloaded it, and I was down there at the Wisconsin track, a lot of crew guys and officials were like, man, I really appreciate that. That's a cool color. and I didn't really know what they're talking about, honestly. And they told me about Jim and him running that scheme in 93. And I did my homework and my research on it. And I didn't necessarily think that was the number one choice of my color for the car.

But it's so much more about the history of the sport and the people who paved the way for you. I felt to me it was in honor to be. able to run that color and, you know, be able to keep that story alive now 20 some years, 20 years later. So 23 years later. Yeah. So this is like how this is exactly what in my mind, the throwback, the throwback, you know, spirit is all about. Right. You know, throwing it back to your favorite driver, throwing it back to something that connects to you, right?

Not just, you know, not just something, you know, not just putting something on a car just because it's old. but it's got to have this, it's really cool, really special when it has a personal connection. And being able to put your story together here on this podcast has been a lot of fun for me. I think the people that are going to listen to this are going to love to learn all these things about you, but also when they see this car on the racetrack, right? And they're going to really understand what the meaning is behind this car. And so it's going to be a lot of, it's pretty cool to be able to tie it all together, right, Mike? That's right.

And I can't wait to see it. Greg, one thing I want to ask you real quick. Yesterday I saw, I was driving around and I saw Nova. And I said, that looks like Greg Ives Nova. But then I said, no, it can't be Greg Ives Nova because the family's out pushing it to a gas pump. That was me. Why were you running out of gas? No, no.

We had, I was full of gas. And so this wife, this lovely wife, they're out pushing this Nova. Where here? Parked up a hill. So funny, we're getting some remodeling done, painting and stuff. and the painter actually my wife's trying to sell this nova and i want this nova because that was one of the first cars my dad and i kind of connected on so he's like how much you want for that nova is he's like uh-huh i don't know yada yada yada yada so i'm like i'm bound and determined we're going out for ice cream

after dinner in the nova well it hasn't i was bragging on last time i started it started right up battery wasn't dead nothing it was good to to go, well, I go to start at this time, batteries dead, won't start. I finally get it started. And I think it's all good to go, drive it to the gas station. I had half a tank, but I wanted to fill it up. Well, I go to start at batteries dead. So not bidding, she's like, she's like, the price is going down on this car. So ultimately, yeah, that's what I love about my wife, you know, she grew up a farm girl. And when I asked her to help push start this car, she has zero questions. And so we, I strategically placed it on, at the gas station, down a hill

so we could push it off and make sure it started. So that's what we're doing. That's hilarious. Cut winning crew chief, just one two weeks ago out, push start this car. So we, we went and had ice cream. They all wanted to go get a different car and I was bounded and determined. Nope. Nope. So we went and got ice cream, and I found another hill to park it on. And after the ice cream, we waxed her up as far as on the hill, and then we got it and proceeded to roll down the hill. Pops started it and drove it home.

There's your guy right there. There he is. Yeah. Have you done? Have you fixed it? I got the battery charger on it right now. Well, let's just put a new battery in. Because I didn't have one.

Yeah. So I will. You can get one from pep boys. Oh, Lord. Or Advance Auto! That's right. We were just doing an ad before you came in here. Isn't Pep Boys a silly name for our auto party store?

Pep Boys? I was telling everybody that, like, this weekend we won that, or Richmond, we won the Toyota owners and we're a Chevrolet. First win we got together was Geico with the nationwide car. My wins with Chase were the sports clips with the great clips. sponsorship or co-sponsorship and then Navakar with the O'Reilly. That's right. It was the O'Reilly race in Texas that he won with the Napalore. Yeah.

That's right. So what's the sponsor? Why are we so competitive? Like we take sponsor competitiveness even seriously. I mean, I don't know. You're banging on Pet Boys name. I mean, why are you doing that? I don't know.

It just feels like natural doesn't it? Nothing better to do that now. I'm going to regret it, I'm sure. Yeah. We have a sponsorship proposal on Pet Boys. Well, they're probably going to eat meals. live on Twitter for some reason. This guy's giving us, may have the record.

Yeah. May have the record. It's probably not all the things we can talk about either. Yeah. That's what's fun. You get to come back, you know. Oh, yeah. He's going to come back when his kids, I mean, he's got two kids racing now.

That's right. We didn't even touch on that. And they're running the box stocks. They're out there running against like Boyer's kid and Larson's kid and everything else. And so whenever they make a make time. And they're at all those places. Six years old, I think I'm going to have them running. and 50 times this year.

Jesus. And that's all he loves to do. Yeah. Let him eat. Man, let him go. One time he told me he didn't want to go, we didn't go. And then you realized, like... Man, I really wanted to go.

The alternatives are just not nearly as good. Yeah. We're going next time. We're not doing. Yeah. Don't let me say that again. Let me talk about that. Just like any kid, you know,

if they want to do it, they're going to do it. That's awesome, man. Well, we're going to have a lot of fun watching you continue to season. Can't wait to get to the racetracks. start calling some races and get down in there into the NASCAR garage bubble and saying, hey. But thanks for spending some time with today. I know crew chiefs rarely pull themselves away from the shop. So I appreciate you dropping in and giving us some time, and fans are going to love to hear this story.

Well, I appreciate you guys having me on. Like I said, it's been fun. I never thought I'd be on it, to be honestly. Great gives on the Dale Jr. Download. And then we're time for the best part of the show. Ask Junior, brought to you by Xfinity. How about we get into these questions, Leah, that everyone has sent to Xfinity racing on Twitter. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. at the Dale Jr. download.

This is the live portion of the show. Live TV, Mike. Man, it's on your toes, buddy. I hope they have some good questions. This is the Ask Junior presented by Xfinity. Xfinity is a proud premier partner of NASCAR. We've had a great show today. Greg Isles was in here.

I say it a bunch, and I think four or five times on this particular podcast, I get asked all the time, how do I get into racing? How do I get into racing? You're going to hear how to get into racing through the words Greg Isles telling his story. There's no easy way. There's no easy route. Somebody might get lucky every once in a while, but there's a ton of sacrifice. And usually it's hard for me to give the person the answer because I don't think they're going to like it. But Greg guys is going to tell you. So anyways, you guys presented your questions to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter. And I followed my timeline and see some of the stuff you guys got on the top of your mind. And I'm looking forward to these questions today. So Leah's got them teed up. So let's get started.

Our first question coming from Michael Krause. How did your ride-along go last week with Brandon? Did you get above 120 miles an hour? Sure. Yeah, we did. I borrowed a car from Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick has a two-seater, and it's really well done, and it's basically ready to rock and ready to go fast, and you can push this thing pretty hard. So we ran, I don't want to give away too much because those guys are going to take that film and content

and create their own content with it for the, I guess, the I Am Athlete podcast. So I don't want to tell you everything that happened. It was a lot of fun, and everybody got in on the, the act. And I think that they came away with a new appreciation for what it's like inside the car. So I'm looking forward to seeing the footage, right? Because they were pretty entertaining. Our next question coming from Jamerson, what are your thoughts on Brad Kozlowski tying your record of six wins at Talladega? I text Brad after the race. I said, you can tie my victories at Talladega

and you can even beat them by going and winning next year, but do not do not tie. or beat my dad's 10 victories. Right now, not too much of a threat, but Brad's got some years left. So he could definitely get up there and get within reach a dad, but I won't dad any of his records to stand. So I'm always pulling for that. Matthew Cobb asked if you could improve speedway racing,

how would you do it, and what era do you point out and say that was the best on-track product we had? My gosh. I loved it all. That's the problem. So for me, like, pick any race. Pick any race at Talladega, and I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to watch it in all.

Whether it's from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, when I raced in the thousands, all of it's, I can be entertained by any of those. What I'm not entertained by is the aesthetics of the spoiler. I don't like it. It's giant, ugly, and seems frankly unnecessary. And, you know, the plates that we've ran over the years, didn't care. Don't know, put whatever plate. I don't see it.

So it doesn't bother me. You know, I just don't like the look of that spoiler on our cars. I think our cars shouldn't have big giant spoilers hanging on them like that. Things is this, I don't know. I can't say enough how ridiculous I think it is. just looking at it, right? I'm not even talking about how it makes the cars behave. But in a general sense, I understand why they put the spoiler on the car.

I know they're trying to create drag and closing rate and passing and all the things. I wish that we could find a way, I don't know if it's even possible, but I wish that we could find a way to do this firewall forward, working at the nose of the car, somehow to create that drag, create that vulnerability for that lead car to where he is easy to pass and he has to be smart to figure out how to keep the lead. And then we wouldn't need the big spoiler

that all the guys are trying to look through and the guy looking through the mirror can't see what's going on and at the back of his race car and all that. So I imagine, you know, those things get dirty and, you know, just trying to see through multiple, you know, if you're pushing somebody, you used to not be able to see

when we did tandem, you didn't see nothing. You were looking at the back of a race car. You couldn't see around that car. You're pushing him as hard as you can go, and you don't know whether you're driving him right up into a crash or into the back of somebody or whether the track, you know,

whether they're three or four wide and he has nowhere to go. You can't see it. I imagine it's maybe similar, even though those spoilers are Lexan, I imagine the vision isn't really ideal. And maybe that's why we see sort of that deal we saw with Ligon on the back straightaway where a guy is pushing somebody up into another car and another car and another car and they get squeezed out of their raft and turned around.

So I think if you knew you were shoving a guy into the back of another car, you'd lift and let off. Your spotter is giving you that information. You certainly don't want to drive him into the car in front of him and create a problem. So I think that there's certainly a better way, right? I'm not in charge. Don't take my, you know, I'm not trying to, you know, make a big complaint here. But there's, this isn't, this isn't the best we can do.

D. Kaelin asks, her, it says that when you ran Restrictor plate races, you took every run possible. Nowadays with the current package, there's always a run, would you still run? would you still race with that mentality? Yeah, you know, I think that if you're always on the offense, I think when you get on the defense, if you're protecting, that's when you crash. That's when you get crashed.

That's when you put yourself in position to be wrecked. I always felt like that if I was trying to move forward, trying to go forward, always trying to make something happen, then I got wrecked less. And I found myself, if I felt like I always knew what to do, and I'm going to go about this in a very methodical way, and I'm going to always be going. I felt safer.

I felt like I was in control of the race, my race, right? And, you know, sometimes circumstances you're getting crashes that you have no way of missing, no way of avoiding. But if I was in defense mode, that's never fun. And it typically ended up with me being upside down or crashed. I didn't flip that often, actually, but it typically meant that we were going to end up in the mess. Our next question coming from a fairly new NASCAR fan, Peter Kinzel.

He says NFL coaches look at a ton of film, the same for quarterbacks. How much film of races do crew chiefs and drivers watch? Crew chiefs have been watching every race. Crew chiefs are watching races as we speak in their offices up on the TV. They'll have those races from last year or earlier this year, always playing and listening to sort of to remind themselves a bit about what each crew chief chose for strategy, what two tires, four tires, what positions they put themselves in for the end of the race as far as taking fuel and things like that. So the crew chiefs have been doing that for years, even back when I was driving, I'd go into the office that. Letarts or Greggs, and there'd be a race. Last year's race playing on the TV.

They might play it, loop it, you know, let it run and run and run. And they watch that same race several times during the week in case they miss something. So I think it's, and I noticed then what a refresher that was, right? I'd never watched races and I'd go into the weekend and just be like, look, man, this is a weekend. It's going to play out the way it plays out. But then I started seeing my Creeches watch races. and I thought, man, at least you kind of remind yourself of what to look for.

You remind yourself of how the tire behaved, what kind of grip it had and how long, how many laps it had that grip. You know, if you've got a track where you move around a lot, you run the high line or go to the fence, when do you go to the fence? Is it lap 10? Is it lap 20? When do you start making time up there? When did those guys start doing that in the race the time we raced here before?

Did they go to the top after lap 4 or was it lap 20 or did it? happened in the last 10 laps of the run. So, because you know, you want to be making time all the time. You want to be as fast as you possibly can be. So if you're, if you could be making time at the top, you want to get up there and do it. But you don't want to go too soon. You let you remember those things by looking at that film. I think drivers now watch the same, you know, do the same thing the crew chiefs have been doing

as far as just watching those races over again, especially if you can get a hold of in-car footage for a driver. That's really helpful. to see how the car's handling and how the car drives, even if it's not your in-car footage. I always like to watch the in-car stuff. Chris Smith brought up Josh Barry's win this past weekend in the cars tour. Did you see the battle between him and McCaskill?

I did. And Deke and Josh have always had a very good relationship. If I'm Deke, I still think I'd take Josh and run him a little bit harder for that $30,000. but Deeks are pretty straight-up professional, and so the way he raced him, I was not surprised. Josh said he didn't have the best car, but was able to go out there and get it done. Josh ran on Saturday and Exfinity at Daga

and then went to Orange County on Sunday and qualified and raced and won the $30,000 win Cars Tour race. He won that same $30,000 cars tour race at Greenville Pickens last year, so this is two years in a row. he's gotten that check. And, you know, Josh is not making, you know, Xfinity money. You know, not even making truck money. He's a short tracker.

He's working week to week, paycheck to paycheck. Those race winnings. I say this because a guy said, heck with the money, the trophies forever. Well, no, the money's pretty important to Josh. That's a big, big bonus for him and his family's got a little girl now that. that he's trying to provide for us. So I was pretty pumped for him to be able to get such a big payday. All right, guys.

That's it for today. All right. Great questions. You guys always come through. You know, it's interesting. A lot of your questions were some of the potential topics for our open segments. So that's just how on it you guys are. Thanks for that.

This is a great part of the show that I really enjoy. We get to interact with people that support our show in the moment. and I think that's pretty special. So I hope you guys have a great week. Well, we always say it, man. It goes by too fast, Mike. Why does it go by so fast? Well, I mean, I have a couple ideas, but I'm going to say it's probably because you're trying to keep up with the speed of Xfinity X-Fi, Del.

Well, speed isn't everything, Mike. You know that. X-Fi is also reliable, powerful and secure. Now, that it is, Dale. That it is. With X-Finity X-Fi, you can do more of what you love with faster internet. You and your crew, you know, your crew, can stay connected with Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers a speed your devices need.

Lord knows you've got a lot of devices need that speed. Remember everyone, send your Asked Junior questions to Add Xfinity Racing on Twitter. And before we hit the road, thank you to Xfinity. Proud, Premier Partner of NASCAR. Great show, everybody. It's a lot of fun. Greg Isles was great, man. Really enjoyed that conversation with him.

Good job, Mike. A lot of fun. Yeah, you had some great questions. Boy, the guy has some experience now. up through the ranks. It sure does. Good grief. I didn't know that he put that much into it just to get the opportunity that he got at HMS.

Pretty incredible. The drives alone. Think about the miles, yeah. The miles. The Dale Jr. download on NBCSN is Thursday at 630 Eastern. Thursday, 630 Eastern, the Greg Yves episode. There's a new episode of Door Bumper Clear, the Post-A-Ladaga episode of Door Bumper Clear is out now. T.J. Brett, Freddie.

They're joined by both Jeb and Harrison Burton. Man, that's pretty cool. Big family reunion. Plus, they debate Super Speedway Racing after Joe Lugano's flip and his comments, Joey's comments. You'll hear about Brett's win with Jeb Burton and how Brett feels entirely responsible for the success of that day. And Reaction Theater keeps getting better, guys. One of the parts of the dirty-mo media content stuff that I've always enjoyed, I wish it was part of our show. but we'll let them have it.

Door bumper clear, available on all major podcast platforms. There was a song somebody wrote recently on Reaction Theater where basically told them they all suck into the only real podcast is the Dell Jr. download. That's hilarious. It is funny. It's good. We should listen to that.

All right, everybody, I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did. This was a special one for me, having that relationship and friendship with Greg Ives. And I really appreciate how he felt like it was a great, it was great to be on the show. You could tell that he really enjoyed being here. that's what makes this show special, man, is having some great conversations like that. You guys have a great week, and I can't wait to talk to you next week.

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