The Dale Jr. Download - 341 – Kerry Earnhardt: Accepted or Rejected

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes his brother Kerry Earnhardt on for a long-awaited conversation at the table about Kerry’s childhood, meeting his father and living with Dale Jr.Along with co-host Mike Davis, the crew first discusses NASCAR’s inaugural weekend racing at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, and shares their opinions on racing in the rain. Hear what Dale Jr. thought about the lack of visibility the drivers faced, changes he’d like to see NASCAR make when racing in the rain and his reaction to what the drivers said afterwards.North Carolina’s governor announced a proposed plan to provide $10 million to Charlotte, Rockingham and North Wilkesboro speedways last week. Dale Jr. weighs in on his ideal vision for North Wilkesboro’s future, why it may have renewed purpose now and the shift in thinking on where NASCAR wants to race.Kerry Earnhardt then enters the studio and fills in the gaps about his childhood that Dale Jr. never knew. The eldest Earnhardt son details his family situation from a young age, when Dale Sr. left the picture and what life was like growing up with no knowledge of his other family. Hear how he found out about his Earnhardt side, how he met his grandmother and why it took so long to meet his dad in person.Learn how long it took Kerry to build up the courage to go out back of Mammaw’s house and greet his dad. Hear how the interaction went and what happened at the front door when Kerry went to see his dad and meet Dale and Kelley for the first time.Then Kerry details how his young adult life went, sharing about being too young when he first got married and had kids. He continued to grow closer to his Earnhardt side around the same time, eventually living with Dale Jr. in the doublewide trailer across from their dad’s shop. Find out what Dale did in the middle of the night that pissed Kerry off. Who caused the phone bill to be so damn high? They explain. When Kerry didn’t pay his share of a bill once, you won’t believe what Dale Jr. did and how Kerry responded. Stories about working together at the dealership start rolling next and we get both sides of the story about Dale Jr. getting fired. Plus, hear about their days racing street stocks and late models together. Find out how involved their dad was working on their cars and how much success they found on trackThen Kerry details how he ascended up the racing ranks quickly, going from Concord to Daytona. Hear the legendary story of what Kerry did at Daytona one time and how Dale Jr. was relieved of his spotting duties for his brother. Plus, a special story about Kerry’s Victory Lane celebration at Pocono.As Kerry then secured an opportunity to race at Dale Earnhardt Inc., find out how it all came shockingly crashing down the night of his father’s death. Find out what Kerry has been up to since moving on from his racing career, including details about the legal battle he faced trying to use the rights to his last name with his Earnhardt Outdoors brand. The guys then crack open some cold ones to end the show and promote the launch of Kerry’s new beer.In Ask Jr. Presented by Xfinity, Dale talks about convincing Mike Helton to run his 2014 Daytona 500 winning paint scheme and answers a question about how teams will cheat given the Next Gen car. 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 for another episode of the Dale Jr. Downlow with my co-host, Mike. How you doing, Mike? I'm doing well, man. We got Leah and Schultz also in the house. My brother, Carrie Earnhardt, is the guest for today's show. And you think I know everything about Carrie.

I think the best part about this show or when this show gets really good is when we have a guest on that I know really well. But we learned something entirely new about him, and I think we're going to dig into parts of Kerry's life that I'm really curious about. I don't know as much as I'd like to about what growing up was like for him. Right. It wasn't what you thought. And I'm sure we're going to peel back some layers

and discover some new stuff. So I'm kind of curious about that part of his life. And he's probably got some great interpretations of us being together and hanging out, probably a little different version of the story than I would tell. Right. So that should be a lot of fun too. So we're going to have carry on here later. But first off, man, let's get right to it.

We've got an open segment. Coda. Coda. We had the rain. Yeah. So let's talk about that. Cars have raced in the rain before. This isn't a new thing.

The Xfinity Series is racing the rain for a decade. And there's a lot of understanding and knowledge and what works and doesn't work. Now, the cup cars are a little different. They are, they have different, you know, they just, different as far as how low to the ground they go and probably created a little bit different spray off the back is I guess my point and we've never ran down a straightaway with that much water down the back straight away at Cota so anyhow it was a you know any most times when we get to a new thing a new facility any kind of new technology or whatever we're really excited about it and we're

push real hard to make it work, right? And so there was some excitement about being in this new venue. We wanted it to be great. I think that overzealous sort of environment pushed us in a little bit too far, having the guys run in the rain when it was that bad. You know, we were eager to see the race. We were eager to have the event. We were eager to have something great.

And we won, you know, there was probably some wishful thinking that it would be okay. and so there was a you know there was the cautions should have came out there should have been some red flags in some of those situations like the four the 19 bubble wallis

all those guys those wrecks shouldn't have happened right absolutely shouldn't have happened and a guy shouldn't be racing in those conditions where they they can't see now there's there's some things that can be installed

to the cars as far as like there's an external red light that the uh, supercars have a buddy of mine that races over there in australia was sending me some pictures and some stuff and he's like man this is what you guys need um i think there's a brake light inside the interior of the car right now of the cup car but you know that's on when the brakes on so um i think that they could have like a this is just me talking like i'm you know no he thought some ideas here

blow this out of the you know shoot this full of holes if you won't i don't care but uh maybe there could be a constant red light that's on the back of the car in those conditions so it's always on You always see the cars in front of you at distance. I think preferably we wouldn't be racing in that type of conditions. That's too much water. And I've been in 24-hour events where they've thrown the yellow flag in the Daytona 24 hours. I remember in 2004 we ran under caution for like three or four hours in the middle of the night because of the rain. It was too much.

They tried to get the race going again and it rained a little harder, pedal up in some spaces, and they'd have to say, hey, enough's enough. We can't do this anymore. We've got cars. Cars can't go fast. Cars are sliding, hydroplane, and everywhere. So, I mean, even the series, even those motor racing series and organizations that have really perfected racing in the rain have limitations, right? So we should, too, and we've got to find out where those are.

I applaud NASCAR and Marcus Smith and everybody for trying to give us a good show, give us a great race. And we're learning where those limitations are, and we'll figure it out, right? and it'll get better, but it is unfortunate that those crashes happen. They shouldn't have happened. The race, we should have erred, I think, a little more on the side of being conservative with that rain and that much water. It's a flat track. I don't know where the water's running off to, where it stands, where it can't feed

off the track. So it had been better probably, I think, for some of those guys, especially the competitors out on the racetrack down at back straightaway to, Have to not be in that situation, right? Running down a straightaway at 110 or 20 or 50 miles an hour, can't see 20 feet in front of you. That's not good. The visibility thing is not, that's the key there.

Terrified. If you can't see. Yeah. Being a race car driver is dangerous, but you don't have to be stupid, right? Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, like, I have this gravitational urge to say figure it out everybody because, you know,

the show has to go on. You can't have all these things every week just being, you know, plagued by rain or weather. but there, when you can't see, you can't expect people to be able to perform in that or drive safely at all. Like you can slow it down by half and, you know, but when you slow it down, you saw what happened to Truex got ran right into the back of. I mean, so I had this gravitational urge to want to go and tell Harvick to man up. You know, Harvick came out hot and saying this is the dumbest thing ever.

But I can't really disagree with him now. I mean, like, I think that he's probably right. Like, if you can't see, and the spotters can't see. Yeah. I'll tell you this. I mean, you know, Harvick gets out of the car. He's just, this is all just, he just went through that experience, right? I've been in this situation where something, like, okay, we wrecked it Talladega.

It's the first thing I thought about when you came out hot. I get out, I'm like, yeah, bloodsport. Bloodsport, right? Yeah, this is dang, this is dumb. I don't remember all the things I said, but boy, I went hard as I could go. Yes, you did. And you're in, if I wouldn't have gave that interview and you would ask me the same question three hours later, I'd have gave you a completely different answer and probably a little more sensible, you know, answer that had better points, right?

So I kind of get where Harvard gets out of the car and I'm sure he still feels the same way, but he probably would have put it a little more eloquently if he'd give, you know, if he'd give himself more time or not, you know, but right out of the car, you're damn mad. And it is foolish, right? And you feel like, hey, this is obviously. something that was avoidable. Yeah. And so, but I have to agree with him as well. Mike, I didn't even have him in my fantasy lineup. You know, so it didn't like, you know, so this really, like, I didn't really, I had no skinning again.

And that's really where the priorities land, clearly. I did have true X in my fantasy lineup. Yeah. You know, I was, I was wondering how many of these races have been affected by weather, and I asked Bob Pockras this morning, and like in 2020, 13 of the 36 weekends were affected by weather in some shape of, form. So far in 2021, of the 14 that we've run this year, four have been affected by weather. Daytona was, you know, big five-hour delay, Bristol Dirt Race, obviously, Martinsville, and Coda.

My point on this is, you know, I do think that there is a responsibility by NASCAR. Now, maybe for the next five, ten years, I don't know we've got a new car, we got all these things. And I think everybody's doing everything they can, but I think we need to reinforce the fact that if our sport is really going to take hold and really move us into the next 10, 20 years, we got to figure out ways to be able to weather the storm, so to speak, with, you know, with new engineering technologies, whatever it is. That's why when you say, hey, here's an idea, like shoot holes in it. I don't think there are bad ideas right now. And we got enough smart engineers out there that's like, hey, the tires, we know the tires, you know, we've got rain tires now. Well, now we've got to do something about the spray.

The spray's got to, and it's trial by error. So we're not sitting here saying like anybody did anything wrong. But I do think that this many rain dates, this vulnerability to weather is something that probably could be improved on. And I like what Marcus Smith said. Remember what Marcus was talking about, hey, maybe we put a roof over Bristol? Like, that's an outside the box thinking, you ain't putting a roof over, you know, Coda,

but I'm telling you that just some ideas on which to be able to have the show go on. We're still a sport of entertainment. Got to be safe, but we still got to put on a show. It's a very, it's a responsibility that, you know. I absolutely want us to try to continue to figure out how to race in the rain. I think it's, I love to watch the guys in the cars be challenged, right? For grip, be put in difficult situations, having them have any kind of vulnerability. So the cars are bulletproof.

But if you put them out there in the rain, now we've got technology that they're not familiar with, with wipers, fans, interior, you know, stuff going on in the cockpit. to keep the fog out of the windshield and stuff like all those things are failing and not working right like drivers drivers are struggling with the vision and all those things and yeah some of that stuff I like but um you know and there are some easy things easy solutions to fixing the spray as far as I could tell and from from watching the spray wasn't a problem on other parts of the track and there's a lot of that a lot of that you know because of the speeds right they're slowing down running at a different pace than they were on that back straightaway.

Maybe there's a chican or two that's added in that back straight away in the future. Maybe we never even had to worry about it because the weather never gets like this again in August, in Austin for the race. If we go back, NASCAR went to Richmond, I think, yesterday to test the wet tire. I don't know how that went, but they're trying to figure out if there's any way possible for us to race in damp conditions on ovals, short tracks, which I think is a great idea. The best thing, I mean, ovals, for the most part, have banking. They're going to wick themselves, the rain's going to wash away, roll off the banking.

So there's never going to be standing water to worry about, I believe, at most ovals in short tracks. So I think this is long overdue for us to find a way to compete. The other thing, too, is think about if it's damp conditions and changing and think about how they would move around to look for speed and grip and also keep the temperature out of the tire by trying to find wet track. It could really change the grooves and the way they drive these racetracks and really, really make for some entertaining stuff. So I'm excited that they're going to try to keep pushing forward, that they're not just going to shut it down and back away from what happened Sunday.

They're going to try to figure it out, fix the flaws that they uncovered and move forward. So it should be pretty cool. what's the other thing we talked about? North Wilkesboro, 10 million. So recently in the news, North Wiltsboro has been talked about, Marcus Smith was on the show several weeks ago and said, hey, we haven't given up on North Wiltsboro.

Well, we finally got some news on really what that means. It looks like the local government, the state of North Carolina, is going to put some money into the motorsports business in the whole state. So there's millions of dollars going to North Wiltsboro, Rockingham, Charlotte, and also money going to some of the short tracks in the area.

From what I could tell, from the information that I saw, some of the smaller regional short tracks are also going to benefit from some of this money. So I love it. I think it's great that the state wants to invest in the motorsport industry. It's been very profitable in a good business for the state. And most of the NASCAR industry is home to North Carolina. wouldn't that be a correct statement to say still? Absolutely.

And so I'm pretty excited about it. But back to North Walesboro, $10 million. That's a lot of money. That could do a lot of great work. They don't want to, from talking to Marcus and listening in to the conversations that I've heard, they don't want to just make this thing a monument or something to visit. They don't want to just go in there and slap a coat of paint on and cut the grass and say, hey, come check us out.

Come look at this monument sitting here. They want to make this place a functioning event space, right? For auto racing, concerts, festivals, and I think there is a demand for it. So my opinion, the days of building, you know, giant 150,000 seat racetracks are over for a while. and the days of trying to feel, you know, 150 to 200,000 people into a racetrack may be over for a while, right? Our expectations for a full capacity event need to come down just a little bit, and I think everybody's starting to understand that, right?

Yeah, they've been tearing down grandstands for the last five, six years. For a long time, right? So this isn't controversial. But to say, hey, man, we've sold out. We've got 60,000 people here. I think that's a good thing to say now, right? You wouldn't want to say that 15 years ago, right? But I think that it's okay to say that,

and it's okay to be proud of that. And so maybe these venues that are smaller like North Wiltsboro do now have a renewed purpose, right? Something that wouldn't have served us 10 years ago, Mike can serve us today. We'll have to wait and see. I really don't know any more details about what Mark's vision is for the future of North Wiltsboro.

if it was up to me, he spent, what, $2 million, I guess, is what I read, putting dirt on Bristol, right? Yep. If it was up to me, if he's going to cost him $2 million to put dirt on Bristol every year, right? And he wants to do a cup race, truck race, Xfinity Race, World Outlaw, the Dirt, Wedged Lake models, unmodifieds, and have all those guys coming through in a span of about four weeks,

so six weeks, right? I would just, you're going to, if you're going to make, if you're going to make North Wilsonboro a racetrack, if you're going to have auto racing there, you've got to repave it. The surface is not good enough. No, that's right. So in the corners of the racetrack, the asphalt's actually slid down the banking and it's wrinkled up real bad. You'd have to dig it up and pave it.

Right. You couldn't make the surface right now work. So I would dig it up and make it a dirt track. I'd make that your, Xfinity, truck, and and cup dirt track. And let Bristol be Bristol. Let Bristol be Bristol, and we'd go to North Louisville and run our dirt race. And then it can function, because it's in a space, it's in an area where I think dirt racing

can succeed. If you'd have weekly, every other week, whatever, dirt racing with local racers, you could succeed there. And he could have that big, you know, month and a half long, or he could have, you know, he could have the world outlaws there. He could have the big races, right? Then it can be that concert venue he wants it to be. And I believe he can do all that at that racetrack

without having to go through what he goes through at Bristol. So that's just my opinion about it. I think the $10 million could go to, you know, to fixing up the grandstands and suites and so forth. You're going to probably tear a lot of that stuff down. and completely rebuild new suites and so forth. Some of the framework may be okay. I don't really know,

but a lot of that stuff is probably not up to code anymore and would have to get redone anyways. So a lot of the infrastructure, I mean, a lot of that $10 million is going to have to go into everything but the track, right? Oh, yeah, man. I mean, it needs help. You're going to spend that $10 million and still not have touched

the surface of the track, the walls, safer barriers, or anything. You're still not, you know, and then you're, so if he takes this $2 million that he's putting into Bristol or if he's going to do Bristol again next year, take that $2 million and go to North Whirlsboro. Maybe only spend it once or twice, right? Yeah. Instead of every year at Bristol.

I don't know. How much would it cost? All right, you're talking about dirt. How much would it cost to repave a track? Do you have any, like any, like, if you had to guess, is it like? No idea. I wouldn't know. Wouldn't even know.

Yeah. It's got to be at least 10. Do you think that they have sort of, remember the stigma was that these racetracks can't support themselves when they're in these little bitty markets? And, you know, we were led to believe that Rockingham was like that and Wilkesboro certainly. And so they started building these tracks in big markets. But have we now come to a conclusion that that's not necessarily the case? Or do we, I mean, like, if they really are going to invest money in Wilkesboro, you can build up all the infrastructure you want. It's still in Wilkes County, North Carolina, which is around nothing.

Yeah. And I wonder if they have rethought and think that, yeah, even with the scale back grandstands. Yeah, I mean, I think that it cycles, whereas this venue wouldn't have served us a purpose 15 years ago when we were going to big markets and that was functioning and successful financially. But with the way everything's kind of reset, you know, you're looking at tracks like Chicago going away. You're looking at Fontana either getting smaller. Yep. Right? And part of that property being sold off, it just seems like that this might be an opportunity for this venue to step back in and have a role.

Yeah. Also, camping world is in conversation with Marcus Smith about putting a store on the property and investing money into the rebuild. not only putting the store there, which will draw some attention, but also putting money into the rebuild. When you're a track owner, Mike, that has to check a box as far as naming rights or some sort of a yearly annual agreement that's a monetary boom for the track.

Oh, yeah. With that happening, that's a plus, right? If you were, you know, so that aids in encouragement to, and with the state and the local government as well being really in support of this, they're begging you to come, right? They're begging you to get back there. And also, you know, people are going to keep it. If we don't mention this, people are going to mention it for us.

The Rockingham Speedway also is part of this conversation as far as getting money. That's right. And so, and Rockingham is a functioning facility, albeit, you know, they have the same issues with some of the infrastructure, the building, are old, a lot of the, you know, I mean, just, you know, there's some work that needs to be done to some of this stuff, the interior of the buildings and so forth, the garages and whatnot. They'd love to probably modernize a lot of that stuff. But they're having a race there, a car store race there later this year. So, I mean, that track is still able to have events. And it'll be interesting

to see kind of where, I mean, I really am all about, I see a, I see a great business opportunity for North Wilsonboro Speedway, if it wants to fit into that, if it wants to check that box as a dirt track for the top three series. But it'll be interesting to see where Rockingham falls in the line. Right. You're not putting dirt on it. Yeah. No, no.

I'm just saying, like, what is Rockingham's role? Where do they fit in the ecosystem here? Yeah. Do they get trucks, Exfinity? Right. I mean, I don't know. You know, who's behind trying to get them more auto racing. and they also are trying to be that complete event venue type of thing

where they have festivals and they've had them concerts and so forth and I think that that's more likely going to be what they're gear toward. I know they're not going to quit on the idea of having racing there but I just don't know where they fit, right? The location of that racetrack versus, I don't know, it's a difficult, it's a difficult sale for me as far as Rockingham. I can't find Rockingham Speedway when I'm in Rockingham, North Carolina. I swear, I can't ever find it.

I mean, it's hard. Maybe that speaks more to me, but yeah, that location of all things is difficult. North Wilkesport is on the side of an interstate. Yeah. I don't know. For some reason, for me, if I was to say, hey, you get to choose one or the other to bring back what you're going to do, I'd probably go for North Wiltsboro. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah, but you... I don't have a emotion. Yeah, you're, you never liked Rockingham to begin with. I did. I ended up with a great relationship with that track. We ran in a top five in our last race there. Oh, I remember because you just won the Daytona 500 the week before,

and you celebrated more for that top five at Rockingham than you did for the Daytona 500. So it tells you how hard it is to run good there. I don't have really a huge emotional attachment to either track. I just see maybe a better long-term... possibility with North Wiltsboro for some reason. I don't know. But anyways, I never, ever, ever thought that that track would have a chance. No, especially after we went there a couple years ago, the weed eat the place. The thing was done. I'm like, no, I've seen it. The garages are over. Of course, there's, you know, you could spend a ridiculous amount of money, you know,

but you'd have to bulldoze the place and then build it back up. And, but yeah, man, I mean, with the grant from the government, which is a big commitment to motorsports, which I love that part. Yeah, man, it's got life. Yeah, it's absolutely happening as far as the conversation's absolutely happening. What I thought we'd ever have. Hey, can we just say Marcus Smith?

Talk about wheeling and dealing and making things happen. I mean, between Nashville, Wilkesport, I mean, the dude, the dude has got irons of the fire. Good for him, right? That's why we've got to have Dale Jr. to be our Marcus Smith Insight. or give us all the stuff. Go get on a plane with him and make something happen, you know?

Give us a skinny on it. Who knows what's next for that guy? He's come up with some pretty awesome ideas here to Les a little bit. All right, Kerry's here, so I'm excited about this, been thinking about this conversation. Let's get him in the studio. There he is. What are you doing?

Thanks for coming. You brought stuff. Where do you bring us? Yeah, he's going to. That's a later story. He got some evidence, I think. I got back. that's not Kerry

because he knows I'm going to have a different story than he is oh yeah he's probably brought some evidence back up his story no well there ain't no evidence yeah I hear you it might be we destroyed the evidence yeah

thanks for coming Kerry have you ever been on my podcast no I have not alright so this will be good long time coming yeah he is a long time coming I'm like jealous because I think Kelly has

yeah oh god from WW I mean no LW has I mean, all right, all right. At this point. I mean, we lived together for how long? I don't even know. It's a couple years.

I honestly think that this is going to be interesting for all of us because of how you guys remember the past differently. Because I just bet you do. I bet y'all remember things differently and you have different interpretations on everything. I'm sure we do. Well, this is the thing. I wanted to talk about your childhood. I wanted to ask you about your childhood, ask you about what that was like for you and to start us set the stage we met for the first time i think i was around 13 years old

and you we were at a family union that's the first time we had ever met all right so you were how old actually you may be younger than that i might have been 16 okay because i'd gotten my life we'll get in that story but you were 16 yeah all right so you lived 16 years before we met yep before you We met Kelly Orman. We met the same day. Exactly. And that was at a family reunion at Mammals. Wasn't it?

Nope. We were at Mammals. No, it wasn't. Was that the second time we met? Yeah. Where were we at the first time? At your house. What?

What was going on? Nothing? Do we need to start from the beginning? I guess. We kind of lead up to it? Sure. I just curious. I really want to know what we...

Well, you know, I grew up, my mom and dad separated when I was three years old. And she met a guy named Jack Key. Was dad and your mom's name is Latane? Were they married? They were married. For how many years? Well, probably about three, three and a half years. Man, he was young.

She was young. Yeah, they were 18. Wow. Whoa. Yeah. They were 18. Yeah. But anyway.

No, that's great. I mean, it's cool because, you know, I had a great life. My dad Jack, my stepdad Jack. He came in and adopted me and raised me. So dad and Latane got divorced and then... Nope. No? Yeah.

They did? I mean, how would she get married if they wasn't let divorced? I'm spelling this out for the listener. So dad and Latane got divorced and then how long until Jack came into the picture. It was two years later. Two years later. Yeah, well, he kind of come in and hanging out and being friends and stuff. And then about two years later, they started getting serious.

And then when I was six years old, they got married and he adopted. me and what was he like he's cool yeah he was a big into golf love golfing and he had a pro shop where he built golf clubs and a driving range before you go hit you know golf balls practicing so it was fun times we you know done a lot of fishing and um golfing so I didn't know he did that golfing yep yeah I remember him as a GM for hardy's he they moved him around yeah that was after the fact it was after his golfing days had kind of dwindled down yeah all he big courses coming in buying everything. So they came in and bought the driving range that we were releasing.

And, you know, we had our shop there and everything building clothes or he did. And whenever that all happened, that's when he went to work at Hardee's, General Manager at Hardee's. So if you look at mine and carry street stock cars, they had Hardee's on the hood because we went to Jack. And Jack gave us $500. Oh, that's right. To put Hardys. That was a big sponsor. That went a long ways.

Yeah. So anyhow, so Jack is a great guy. I remember Jack being super awesome. What is your earliest thought about dad? Like, where in this whole process are you going, who's this other guy? Yeah. Well, I was in ninth grade. Ninth grade?

Yeah. Had dad been? Well, I knew there was something, but I didn't know what. You knew there was a man. Well, I just knew that I didn't know about him. They didn't talk about dad or tell me anything about that or anything. You knew nothing about that. Nothing.

into about ninth grade and I kind of, you know, started asking questions about because I couldn't find out I was adopted. You know, they told me about all that. How did you find that out? My mom, somebody,

I don't remember who it was, but someone had brought up the fact that, you know, Jack was her second marriage and, and, you started asking questions and yeah. Holy smokes. What last name were you going by?

I had, my name was Keye back then, K-E-Y. Yep. And, um, So in the ninth grade, I started asking questions about, you know, how, where he came into my life, because I was older than what they were when they got married. Yeah. So I'm like, I wasn't putting all this together. So I thought, maybe they had me and then waited to get married.

Yeah. And then, you know, Mama told me I was adopted and... How'd that conversation go with her? Was she emotional or... Yeah, yeah, she was emotional. You know, she didn't tell the whole story. She just told me there was rough times in their life and they got married early and, you know, things just didn't work out. And then she met Jack and, you know, they were kind of settled down and a little more mature than what, you know, dad and mom was back when they got married.

And so, you know, he adopted me and we lived our life. And then, and that's great, like I said, I started figuring it all out through conversations and started asking Mama about questions about my dad, who he was and everything. And so. How old? What year was this? Oh, Lord, man. I'm sorry, brother. That's what this podcast is about.

Yeah. Yeah, we got to figure all this out. So, like, if you were nine years old, you're nine years old. Ninth grade. We need to know where, nine years old. We need to know where dad was in his life at this point, like who he was. And when you're in a ninth grade, you're probably 16. No, no, no, no, he's got to be about 14.

Yeah, about 14 or 14. 13. 13. 13 to 14. Yeah. And so. So that'd be a much. Well, what year were you born?

69. All right. Well, anybody want to do the math at the table? 82, 83. So dad just, okay, dad. 83, he's winning a championship. Yeah, dad won his first championship, and he's a couple years into his cup stuff. Okay.

So you ask her about your daddy. Yep. Ask my dad, and she started explaining things to me and then who he was. And, you know, it didn't hit me that who he was at the time, how, you know, successful he's becoming and everything. You couldn't Google. You couldn't. Nope. I didn't even have a cell phone.

Yeah. Right. You know, we had a dial phone on the... Still didn't know anything. No rotary thing, you know. Still had nothing. No clue. And then, you know, I played baseball and football.

And I played baseball over in Jackson Park in the Beth Page area. And there was this lady and three girls there were there. I noticed they're every game watching. So after one of the games, I don't remember how many had they been to. I was out there and this lady comes. walking up and she introduced herself as Martha. Holy smokes. And she says, I'm your grandmother.

And these are your nieces. It was Stacy, Jennifer, and maybe Ashlyn. Your cousins. Our cousin. Yeah. Holy cow. That's something to throw to a guy about right before his baseball game. Well, it was after the game.

Okay. Still, I'm your grandmother? That's how that. Yeah, but it was really cool, you know, because. Were you really shy about it? No. I started talking. We really didn't get any conversation about dad.

We just started talking and, you know, how she enjoyed watching me play ball. And, you know, cousins wanted to get to know me and maybe get together and hang out some. Wow. So we only did that at the ball games. And I don't know if my dad, Jack, knew all this at the time. Okay.

I know he saw me talking to them and hanging out with them playing and stuff, but I don't think he knew who they were for sure. How do you think Jack felt about the curiosity that you had for learning about your? dad. Well, we kind of kept it from him for a while. Um, so after I found out who my dad was and me and Mama got talking more serious about it, she was good friends with Sherry Earnhardt, which is Danny Earnhardt's sister, dad's brother. So we had worked it out one day where I went to their house, me and my mom went to their house and we called dad and I talked to him on the phone for the first time.

My dad. Your dad. Our dad. Our dad. You talked to him on my phone. I'm just trying, I didn't know if you were talking about Jack. No. So. You talked to him on the phone for the first time. Yeah. And it was a... Wait a minute. So who set this up?

Sherry, Mom. And you're sitting there and you know that they're calling him? Yeah, I knew he was going to go and I was going to get to talk to him on the phone. For the very first time. Where are you, what's your feelings? Are you like... I was kind of nervous. Freaking, yeah, right?

How kind of nervous? Yeah. I wasn't sure how it was going to go to conversation. What was? going to talk about or anything like that. So what did he say? So when I called all he said, hello, I say, hey, this is Carrie. He said, hey, son. Hey, hey, how are you doing? We just got the conversation. I don't remember the whole conversation, but how was he talked about how we missed, you know, growing up in times him, he missed me growing up and I missed, you know, being with him and

that maybe we could work that out someday. My gosh. So. What did he, did you? After the conversation, I mean, after that phone call, I was at, I was kind of just relief. You know, I got to talk to my dad, and I knew who was now. Was he, did he seem sincere? He did. He did. Because he can be kind of awkward.

You know, dad. He doesn't know how to do it. He was kind of just easy talking. Yeah. And he would, I mean, at that time, I didn't realize. I don't know what's like bad or good time. You didn't know what to expect. Yeah.

Right. You didn't have a basis. So. You couldn't grade him. So after that conversation, you know, I kind of. you know, sat back and thought about what would be to my next step. Yeah. So I talked to Mamma at some of the games and, you know, about coming to see her and everything.

When you have a conversation with him, right, and you're talking about having these, you know, thinking about these next steps, like, are you able, are you hardly able to be patient? Like, I would, if I were in your shoes, I would literally be thinking about this every second of my, of the day. And I did, but I knew I had obstacles to go through with my mom and Jack. Oh, yeah. So. What are obstacles? Well, you know. Feelings?

It wasn't talked about in our household. You know, Jack wasn't for me visiting with him or being in his life, and that's why I was out of it so long. Was Jack, why do you think Jack felt that way? Was he upset with Dad? Because I don't know. I don't know, you know, because, you know, dad was starting his racing career when I was young. And, you know, he was all the time on the road and gone. And just family time wasn't an option.

Jack. He was, you know, outbuilding his career. And not saying that he didn't want to be with me or around me. He just was building his career. And, you know, sometimes whenever you have something to chase like that, you kind of forget things back at home. But I was wondering, though, Jack, I know, remembering Jack like I do, I can't see him being jealous.

I can see him more like. I think he was more about me getting hurt. Yeah. Like, why now? Right, right. What's his guy's intentions, right? Yeah, I felt that. He never did say that, but I felt that's what it was.

So after that conversation on the phone, you know, at the ball games, I was talking to my mom, my cousins, and talking about, you know, getting us come over and visit sometime. And, you know, I kind of talked to mom a little bit about it, and she said, I didn't go happen, you know, because Jack, he wouldn't be all for that. So I talked to my mom and told her, you know, the only time we get to see shows at ballgains until I get my license. So when I got my license, I could do what I want. And at all I promised her whenever I got my license, I would come over and see her.

And if there's by a chance that dad was in the shop, which is right behind her house, you know, I might go see him and visit him for the first time. Golly. So wait a minute, three years, the first time you talked about it? talked to him and you still didn't see him? Still didn't see him. For three years? For three years.

I did get Christmas gifts. Didn't you get pissed? What? What point of you? Like, running out of patience? None? I was kind of, I took it easy.

You were too nice. I was kind of being easy with it. You didn't want to run it off? Well, I just didn't want to stir things up where it could never happen. Right. You were worried about running it off. Yeah. Ruining it.

Ruining it. Who introduced the idea of arranging a meeting? Was it, was it Dale or was it you? Or is it the, or is it the, or is it, or is it, Like, Mamma. Well, I never arranged it with dad. I just, you know, we just talked about one day maybe we could get back together and just visit some. And it just never, nothing happened from that.

But that was something. And after that phone call, I never talked to him again. After that one phone call. Oh, my gosh. Like I said, I did get Christmas gifts from him every Christmas. And then. Oh, my gosh, man. I can't believe this.

During that time, I was, you know, talking to mom about it and talking to mom about it. And it just wasn't going to happen. I knew that she wasn't going to do it. The day I got my license, we went got my license, I had a 72-shunded. Chaville, and we got back home, and I told Mom, I was going to go just cruise around and, you know, just have fun driving by myself. So the place I went was Mamaw's. And I come in the back way and, you know, where you park in front of house and you still can't be seen by the shop. Yeah.

And I walked in the front door, and it was easy with Memo. I mean, I walked right in. We're hanging out talking. And our conversations are about, you know, what I did and growing up, my hobbies and things I enjoyed. and then we talked about, you know, I'll talk to her about going out and see Dad. Was he out there? Yep, he was out there.

At first I guess I asked if she was out there, yeah, he's out there. How long did you talk to Memo before you went out there? It took me about two hours. Whoa! What? Yeah, about two hours. He's out there just working in the shop.

Yeah. Oh, my God! And, you know, Dad, he could leave any minute. Yeah. You know, how he does, just jump the vehicle and take off. But finally, I built the courage up and walked out the back door, and the back door comes down and you're right there at the garage so I walked in the garage

and it was everybody laughing and clanging tools and stuff but when I opened that door it got quiet yeah I bet and I remember Tony Sr. was sitting there on one of the

suspensions of one of the cars and dad was under the hood and he just raised up when I opened the door and Tony turned around that's when things got quiet and it was like hey son

So hey dad how you doing? He said, good. So we sit there and talked a little bit and he says, come on, let's go riding. So we rode around town a little bit just talking about things. He mentioned about me coming to the house and visiting and getting to meet you and Kelly. And I'm like, heck yeah, we'll do that. So, you know, we set the date and I can't remember today or anything, but I came there. Was it shortly after that?

It was shortly after that. Yeah, it was like that following week. Let me ask you a question. So you have this, you've met him, right? When you're sitting in that truck riding around with him, is it like surreal? Are you, you know, are you fine? Yeah.

What's that feeling like? It was just like, it's like we hadn't been apart, you know. That was a connection? It was a relaxed. It was a magical. I just had to be a connection because, you know, I wasn't nervous after that or anything. Right.

After I walked in that shop and saw him, I was just kind of just relaxed after that. You go back to the shop. Did you go say buy to Mamaw? Yep, went back and said and buy everybody. What did you tell Mamaw? I told her it was really cool that we got to spend time together and got to talk. What was the conversation, though? Not with Mamma, with your dad.

It was just about, you know, things we did in life. And then he explained, you know, his life growing up and why he left and, you know, chasing his dream. And he regretted every minute of it. But knew that Jack had offense to us talking. or meeting so he didn't interfere with that he respected jack for that so we got done riding and everything we had that date set up so wait sorry gosh you i know well we got all day so um all right you get in your car right and you drive home yep did you what how do you man i was pumped i was excited i know but did you what'd you do when you got home had you had your mom not figure it out

Well, Jack was at work. So I walk in and I went to Mama's mom. I said, I got to talk to you. She said, what's that? I told you I was going to go riding around, just cruise around, get the field of driving myself. But I did go to Mammals. And she said, did what? I said, I went to Mammals and visited Mammal for a while.

And I said, and Dad was back there in the shop. And I went and saw him. What did you say? And she just started crying. She said, well, you know, what is it like? Was everything good? And, you know, we went through everything. I told her about all of it.

and she was relieved that things went as calm and easy as it did. What she think was going to happen? Well, she didn't know. You think about at times as we had a part from three years old to 16 years old. So you don't see each other, just talk to each other. One time on the phone, you never know what's going to happen. You know, I didn't know if I would be accepted or rejected. Yeah.

I felt I would be accepted because when we talked on the phone, you know, he told me he wanted to see me and stuff. Yeah, I guess when you're walking out that door, Memo's house and walking toward that shop door, there's that moment. Are you thinking about that in that moment? Yep. Of like, man, this is going one way or the other.

It's going to happen. You know, we'll figure out what's going to go from here. Damn. All right. So I pull up in the driveway and you're out in the front yard playing with a couple guys in football. Yeah. And Kelly wasn't out there.

It was just you and a couple of kids. Brian and Nick Stutz probably. I don't know. I was. But I walked up and knocked on the door and it wasn't dad that answer. It was someone else. And I said, hello? She says, hey, you can slam the door.

By I said, hey and slam the door? Yep. And then dad, I heard him inside, you know, a little loud and he comes to the door. And hey, son, so sorry about that. She wasn't expecting you and didn't know what was going on. So, yeah. Well, who was that? Teresa. It's Trisa.

Why you having a hard time saying it's. Well, I mean, you know, I just, everybody knows who it is. It could have been like a housekeeper or something, but I'd mean Kelly. I doubt Kelly would have slammed the door like that. And I don't know that a housekeeper would either. So anyway, Dad comes through the door and said, sorry about that, so we wasn't expecting you and everything. So come on in. So I walked in. And we went down in the basement and sat and hung out and talked for a good while.

Yeah. Yeah. The pool table in there. So we talked for a good while. Was that comet machine there yet, probably? He had that over in the corner with a barber's chair. I believe it was. I believe it was.

Do you know anything about Carrie at this point? Like, you have no idea you have a brother. Well, no. I've heard that we had a brother, but didn't know what that meant, right? So my first memory of meeting him wasn't at this house. It was at Mamaw's at a family reunion. And we'll talk about that later. And I expect he didn't think much about it because he's out there playing football.

And, you know, I mean, I wouldn't expect him to be watching for me. I didn't know he was coming. Right. And you had a route to run and the touchdown score. So, like, you know, you get your priorities. Yeah, you know, him and football how they are. Oh, goodness. But so we sit there and talk for a long time.

And I didn't, I used to talk to you or Kelly at that time. We had talked about doing some stuff and, you know, just kind of building slowly. our family and, you know, meeting each other again. And then like you said, the reason you don't remember that is because the first time we actually met was at the family reunion. Wow. And, you know, actually introduced each other and stuff. You and Kelly both.

So I remember at the family reunion you came there and I was excited about it, but Kelly hogged Carrie. Yep. Him and Kelly, she got it. We bonded. I mean, we bonded right out because she was a little older and, you know, closer to my age. Yep. She knew exactly what this meant, right? This, the Kerry coming into our lives, Kelly knew exactly what that meant and told, and she latched on to him. And they just sat, I remember y'all sitting in that middle room in Mammoth's house hours and a whole damn day. Just talking. Yeah. Just them two. Laughing. There's talking. There's 30 people at this very union and them two sit there the whole time and just figuring it out.

It was cool. I wish I had that conversations, our conversations, and everything on camera, video, audio, or something, just to go back and listen to it. Because I don't remember everything that we talked about. I just remember, you know, talking about what I did growing up, you know, just kind of filling each other in and what our likes were and our hobbies.

Yeah. Hey, you might have said this already, Carrie, and I apologize if I'm asking again, but I don't remember. So Dale didn't know anything about you the time you went over to your dad's house, right? Right. When did you know that you had a brother and a sister?

that first time I went to the house so you did not know you didn't know that there was a Dale Earnhardt Jr. or a Kelly Earnhardt at all well I knew there were some kids but I didn't know their names or anything I just knew they were some kids other kids involved and that was the day

and that was the day he told me about them and of course you know the pictures are in the house and everything so you see all that and so he explained everything and didn't want to I guess introduce us at that time to kind of stir things up kind of like I said you wanted to slowly

grow into it and I don't know what that meant or anything. Sure. I don't think he was worried about that person to answer her door getting along with it, but I think he was more worried about you and Kelly. Yeah, y'all were going to deal with things and accept things. We were pumped. I remember being excited because the vibe in that house wasn't all that fun. Mm-hmm.

And so the idea of like, man, what does this mean? What could this mean, you know, producing this new person into the whole dynamic could make things better. What's going to change? How's it going to affect? You saw how Kelly, like, didn't want to do nothing but talk to you that whole day because she was just thinking, man, this is got to make things better. Right.

And so you, so feel, let's fill in the gap from that moment in the family reunion where we all first got introduced to me and you basically living together being pals. and fights and yeah i don't remember any fights all that arguments i don't say fights arguments yeah i wasn't gonna fight you something about drums in the middle of the night i remember like one or two in the morning phone bills being 450 a week stuff like that but we'll get to that in a minute after the family family reunion what happened next like how how how much more did you get to see dad well i just started coming around to the race shop you know and hanging out and getting be around the guys and knowing them and you know y'all would be there in and now that

there some and I don't I didn't come and hang out at a house like you would think after that at the lake house so it was actually at after that visit at house it was that Christmas a fall of Christmas whenever I was invited back to the house he asked if I would come and stay tonight and I don't know if you remember that or not and I did and it was really cool to wake up and you know celebrate Christmas with you all. You spent the night on Christmas Eve? Yes. We were downstairs in the hall in that basement.

Was I down there? Yeah, your room was down there, wasn't it? Yeah. And I think Kelly was down there. And there was another room down there, and I stayed in it. And we got up and done Christmas that morning. I can't believe you don't remember this. Of course, yeah, you were younger.

But that's the only time I'd done Christmas as far as, like, staying in the night and getting up next morning. And so then after that, everything just kind of rolled and flowed right alone after that. And, you know, we got to talk and hang out and do stuff. And then I, you know, end up getting, let me think about this. I was, I ended up getting married at 18, had a kid, Bobby. Yep. And then two years later at 19 had another kid, Jeffrey. and I don't know if you remember them, you know, growing up or anything.

Oh, yeah. But then I separated from my wife, left her after Jeffrey was born. It was because it was like dad. My mom was too young. We just didn't jail after a few years. Things just wasn't right for us and wasn't good household. So I chose to end our marriage and, you know, give our boys the best life we could give. Because together it wasn't good.

arguing and fighting and bickering all time and things that she had gone in in her life it didn't fit for a family life too so we did that and then dad talked to i can't remember if he's just talked to me or if he talked to us together about us moving in together at this point i was 21 we talked about it and he had that double wide across the road from the race shop over on highway three and so we moved into there i don't mean if you know if you remember all this but us moving in together and getting a hang out. Yeah. We had that little console TV, the old style console TV, had the antennas.

Yep. You know, that had the rotary dolly twist and the antenna would turn. Oh, yeah. So we had a good time. You know, we did a lot of stuff together. And, of course, you know, living together, you're always going to argue or fight or anything over food or, you know, the mess we leave, laying around or whatever. And then I remember you got your set of drums. And I was working at a dealership.

And I would get up. at 6 o'clock in the morning and go to work at the dealership, get started because I worked in the service department. And, you know, I was a service advisor and took customers in as they come in. So I'd get there early to get the ones dropped off. I already checked in. So when the people come in to, you know, get their car service or whatever, I was already called up and take care of them. So like one or two in the morning, I start hearing all they like, hell. In a double wide, too.

In a double wide. Jeez, how obnoxious that. I mean, I've never seen these come. me and I thought, man, it's cool. You know, he's young. He's going to enjoy this stuff and everything, but I wasn't thinking at one freaking two o'clock in the morning. What the hell was I doing?

And I was like, got up, man, damn, dude, I got to go to work. What the hell you doing? He said, man, I'm playing drums. I said, not now. It's to do it earlier or something. I don't know. You was out running around with your buddies or before that. You know, you went home early to be playing drums.

You had to wait until 12 to a morning, whatever it was. But he didn't. He didn't listen. He didn't care. He kept playing them. Every night. And I was like, screw it. So finally, I just finally got used to it and just slept through it. This is a roommate from hell.

Oh, my God. See, I mean, find me one worse. Come on. I mean, I bet you can't. Somebody plays drums at 2 o'clock in the morning. And, you know, like I said, I was 21. So I kind of understood that he was young and enjoying life. You know, I've got two boys and I've got to grow up and, you know, support and have a family life with my boys. and I don't remember if you remember

I would get them on weekends you and the kids would be out in the yard playing and I'm sitting there and well we go hey oh really because he was younger to me and they gravitated toward him so they were out playing football

and stuff in the front yard playing around and had a lot of good times yeah we race the streetstock so we were over one day me and Kerry were standing over in the deerhead shop at the picnic table and dad threw down a piece of newspaper from Charlotte Reserver.

They were starting up a street stock series at Concord. Dad said, you ought to get involved in this. Here's a way for you guys to start racing. You wanted to race, I wanted to race. None of us, neither one of us were doing any... I'd never done any racing. I think you did some carts to them. I did some carts at 12 years old, like 10 races total.

Nothing else. So you had a friend. What was your buddy's name on that junkyard? Oh, gosh. Smitty? No, the only junkyard was Wayne's automotive, Doug Wayne. Smitty was a guy. He was like a backyard mechanic.

I thought he had a junkyard. Oh, okay. He was just, he built hot rods, and he knew about, you know, tuning the engines. He had a little pickup truck, and he used to have, he had a little, you know, small toolbox in the back, and he slung that toolbox all over the back of that truck. I don't know how in the hell. The damn drawers even opened up on that thing. But anyhow, I remember him being one of the guys always running around with that.

He would be at the racetrack with us. tuning on the car is helping us work on them and stuff. We got us a car. Remember, we went to Wayne's Automotive and had this Monte Carlo. It was a 78. Yep. So we brought it back and Dad's like, walks out and looks at it, man, this is really nice. Just don't mess with it while I'm gone.

He would go back at the shop on the farm. Him and somebody, I can't remember who it was with him. And we were looking at each other and he's like, man, dad ain't going to let us build anything at his car because he's, you know, got all the windows and lights, everything. I mean, it was complete, wasn't no dense or anything. It's a nice car. It's a nice car. And I don't even know why it was in a junkyard because it had that 305 engine in it and it ran because that's what we started out racing with that 305.

So I think we got worried about him not letting us race it. So we started like stripping things off of it and maybe busting the windows out. I can't remember what all we did. But I remember we started working on it so he couldn't like take it from us and keep it. You know, he'd come back up there and he's like, what the heck, man? Listen, we're racing, and we were afraid you're going to keep the car or not let us race it. He said, no, I was wanting to do some of this with you. He said, I want to help y'all work on this car.

And we're like, well, dang, we still got a lot to do, you know. Yeah. So we actually pulled it in the shop and cleaned everything up. And I remember cut the roof off to put the roll cage in. And started from there. You remember when he put the roll cage in it for us? So he cut the, he wanted to make sure as well to the frame real good. and it was safe.

So he puts the roll cage in it. Me and you had gutted the doors. We had the doors ready to well back on. And he put the roof back on it and tacked it on there. I come home from school or come home from somewhere and he is tacking the doors on. And his, the roll cage was so wide that we couldn't get the bottom tacked. The bottom wouldn't go in. The bottom wouldn't tap.

Yeah. Bottom wouldn't seal. And I threw a fit. I was like, damn, daddy, you put this road cage in here too big, too wide. Messed it up. Messed it up. And he was hot because I had complained because he's like, I meant messing with this car. All damn day fixing this thing.

You got to complain about that. I'm like, yeah, the door don't shut. You don't shut. We just got to oak me in the bottom. We had to make a patch or something. We took some metal and they strips and tacked it on the bottom. I was pissed. Yeah.

Your delivery was off, but you did have a point. Well, I mean, think about it. You have a big old gap down there. Yeah. He was going to have all that junk flying up in there on you. He thought I was ungrateful. Yeah, I would have. But you still had a point.

I was mad as hell. Yeah. But we had a lot of good times. You know, we race that thing, beat the shit out of it. How did you all decide who drives? I drove first. I don't remember why. I think I drove the first two or three races before Dale would drive.

I don't know if I had my driver's license. And at that time, you couldn't. I think that's what it was. You couldn't race unless you had a, you couldn't race in the series unless you had a real driver's license. They don't let them run 12-year-olds and stuff like that. Right. It was actually the first three races I ran,

and then you ran the fourth one. You got, it got to where when you had your kids, I think, I raced. That's what it was. Weekends, I had my kids. Every other weekend. So when you had your boys, I'd drive it, and when you didn't have your boys, I think you drove. We alternated.

One way or another. And then we eventually built a second car. So that's how we got started racing. As far as I remember, we beat, we all used to have. We used to burn the barons. Oh, yeah, we was always going through barons. We couldn't figure out how to keep the barons in the right front.

We'd smoke them out. Smoke them out. Every race. Every weekend. We ran about halfway through the race and slow down. So you'd say that damn thing, start slowing down, coming in the pits. I'm like, what's going on? Barons there, bairns there, barons.

Right. Wheels vibrating. Yeah, about to come off. Yeah. What were y'all doing? What did you find out? We were using stock stuff. Stock stuff.

We probably needed something beefier up there We just didn't know any better. Did you guys ever win? Nope. Nope. Come close? Coolest burnout show maybe when we spun out. We came across it. Getting back around.

Yeah. Maybe that. We ran in the top five couple times. Yeah, we had some decent runs. We didn't have, we didn't cheat enough. No, I think that's what it was because I remember them guys. They had some tricked out stuff. Yeah.

Had them, I have a mirror what model cameras. I had the unibodies on them. I never cheated enough. Yeah. That was my problem. Yeah. So when we, we're talking about sponsors. So me and Kerry went to Jack.

By this point, Jack is a-okay with everything going on. Yeah, he's kind of, you know, mell it out. So we went to him and talked to him about, you know, getting a sponsorship. He's like, well, let me see what I could do. He worked it out. I can't remember how long it was. He came back to us. He said, I got you all $500.

And you come by and get chicken because they'd done the box of chickens back then. You know, so you come by, get chickens before you go to racetrack. You get a box of chicken to take with you. So we did that every week. And so we had $500 all with Hardee's on the hood. We got $100. We had, I think, a week from Sports Image on the quarters. Yep.

And then we got free parts out of the junkyard from Doug Wayne's, put that on the back. There was a little gas station that gave us $80 to put their name on the back of the car, too. And remember we went and spent $80. On candy. It was good candy, though. I mean, with 80 bucks, what you could buy. And Kerry came to the house and spent the night in the basement with me, and we ate candy all night and watched TV.

Yeah. And that was like the first time that me and you really hung out. Yeah. We sit there and watch TV and ate candy all night and made her belly hurt. And then we got the, I remember when we were racing the streetstock. So the street stock car, if you won, I think you got 200 bucks. Yeah, it's 200. But we weren't winning.

We were running 5th or 10th or so and crashing every other week. I think we might have got 100 bucks one time. Yeah. Maybe. Well, it was even, we felt like it was really unfair because pit pass was 20 bucks, whether you raise street stocks or late mall stocks, right? Yep. We're a lower class, so we ought to be cheaper.

Yeah, our pit pass ought to be cheaper. So we had a box trailer. And we'd pull over about a mile from the track, and one of us would get out of the truck and climb in that box trailer. It was one of them trailers, you know, it was open in the back, but had a little box in the front. They had a tire rack on top. So the little box was probably three foot wide maybe.

And, you know, the length of the whole width of the trailer. And so every, it was ordinating one weekend I'd be in the box, and then one weekend he'd be in the box. How long would you be in? Just for the mile. We just stopped down the road. Just for a few minutes. Yeah.

We just talked down the road and jump in the box and take off. Right before you get to the track, you climb, one of you, you're climbing the box, and then the other one would drive the truck in, go get his pass, pull on in through the tunnel, into the track, into the track, and parking the spot. When you parked in the spot, you got out of the truck, walk to the box, open it up, the person in there and start handing his stuff. Start handing the tools out, yeah.

Hopefully it looked like he's just helping you unload the truck. Yep. Nobody ever seen anything. And we never got caught. Never. I mean, it was pretty cool. And we ended up having, I think sometimes we had two people in that box. Really?

Yeah. Try to push her luck. Because we just, you know, I think we had three or four people down there helping us on the car. Oh, yeah, who would those people be? Smitty was one. Walter Balls. Yeah, he was down there. I think Uncle Danny came some.

Maybe. I think he came down and helped some too. But Tony Jr. started raising his late model senior and Tony Jr. would be around. They'd be around. They'd be next to us. That's why you needed any serious help. Yep. That's funny.

And so, you know, after. Those years, we ended up going into, I actually went in the street, Dash. Goody's Dash car, and you went to a late model. I remember going up to your shop when you were preparing for Daytona and Taylor'sville, like going up to the shop. Because by this time, me and him are hanging out a lot. We've kind of gotten real close.

We're riding. You go on a shop. I'll go, we, you know. And so we're hanging out every day. I don't know if we're living together at that point because I was 16. I wasn't quite out of the house yet. I think we were. No, we weren't living to get in. No. I moved in. We moved in to the double-ed, I think, as soon as I graduated high school. Yeah, it was right after your graduation. Well, how did this, how did this street stock, though, end? Is it with that big crash? No.

Didn't y'all wad it up? No. Kelly drove our first street stock the next year. The 78 Monaco, calling. Yep. And then I sold my car that we built to Hank Parker Jr. Hank Parker, Jr., yep. There was no big crash. Yours was 81? I'm getting something confused then. I think yours was 81, what it? Yeah, Malibu? Malibu. You're saying your first, the Hardy's 08 car. Yep.

Yes. Y'all never wrecked that? Oh, God, yeah. A bunch. But, like, destroyed. No. Okay. So Kelly ended up driving it for about 10 races in the next year, and then it sits.

It sits over at DEI right now, out behind the farm. As far as we know. As far as we know, it's still there. I know why I'm thinking this. Just last week I was at your house when we were going through pictures, and you showed me a picture of that car, and it was wrecked. Oh, it looked destroyed. Yeah. It looked destroyed.

And I just assumed that it was, that was the end. It was still race it, though. I got it. It was in racing condition. Even then in that picture. I mean, it didn't have to be pretty like every week, these days, you know. No. We weren't cheaters, nor were we fabricators.

Nope. We could beat some stuff out, though. I remember we built, so the 305 motor that was in a 78 Monte Carlo, I remember rebuilding that motor in the shop. It has deerhead shop. And then we took it to the first race. And the motor started. missing and messing up.

You drove it to the pits up onto the trailer. We took the car home, pulled the motor out, and a cam was broke. Cam was in three pieces. Yep. And everybody thought that that was amazing that it was still running and carried up. You drove it up on trailer.

I still tell that story today. I'm like, yeah, we rebuilt that motor. Because people think we probably got us a two thousand dollar. Somebody built us something cool. But we rebuilt that old junk, 305, probably had the smallest motor in the field. Yep. and blew it up to first race.

Okay, so that reminds me, because you have said in the past Dale that you knew nothing when it came to cars or anything automotive, that that's where you sort of learned. Did you bring any carry, did you bring any automotive knowledge to this? Well, I knew how to, like, work on the engines and stuff.

So you did. Okay. Because I had a couple street rides that I had a, my first car was 65 in Pala with the 396-horse four-speed transmission in it. All right. So, you know, I had to rewire that one year because I wired harness burned up in it.

So I rewired that, put all new wiring in it, and then I had the 72 Cheville and a 70 Chevroville. I also worked on. Do you still wish you had that Street race deal? I wish I had that Impala. Oh, do you? Yeah, I wish I had that 65 Impala. Yeah.

That was something my uncle, my mom's brother, bought brand new off the shirving floor, and kept it in the family until I got it. And after I got the wiring harness all done back, I had this guy come by and offer, trade it even, the 72 Shevel, even for the Impala. So I called my uncle's, hey, man, so I got an opportunity to have a Chavelle that is ready to drive on the street.

I said, and this, and Palo needs a little work. I said, you want it back. He said, no, do whatever you want with it. So I traded a guy even. And I don't think my uncle talked to me. I think it was like six months before he talked to me. Yeah. After that.

Yeah. And I understand now why. Back then, I didn't care. I was wanting something to drive. And, you know, run chase girls and race up and down the streets. So it was an opportunity. take and go then we moved in together to double wide we raced street stocks a little bit you went and ran your dash car for a year i started running a late model with hargett and then we moved in together

moved in together when that when the uh sometime right in the end of that well i think it was 92 when i ran the goodies dash car yeah and then 93 we started uh late models and we was living together then so we had a double wide trailer uh played the drums late at night yeah yeah i did around 1994 papyrus came out with their first online racing game. All right, Mike. The I racing team that you know now, they built their first game in around 94, they came out with it. You could race online,

but you had to call Massachusetts. All right, with a modem. So I started doing that. Me and Kerry split the bills in half. We didn't ask questions. When it came in, it was 80 bucks. I got 40, he's got 40. If it was $69, whatever, right, we split it.

So this I started racing on internet And I'm calling Massachusetts And I know what I know I'm calling Long distance This is long distance Long distance called a Massachusetts

That would last From probably six o'clock at night To two in the morning Yeah Hours Sometimes Cary I started working a dealership

Cary would get up in the morning To go to work And I'd still be racing Yeah If he picked the phone up If he just picked the phone up It cut me off. But anyhow.

That's funny. And so the first month phone bill came. Oh, God. Our phone bill was like 20 bucks or something silly. And our first bill was $420. Some $1. Oh, God, almighty. Carrie come in there and threw that damn thing down.

And when we pay half. I mean, that was our agreement. So, you stuck to that. You still were going to stick it for half. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, we're just learning about bills and stuff. We didn't know about that stuff back then.

We just learned. But I knew whenever it jumped that high, I was like, I mean, I didn't have nothing to do with this. How am I responsible? You're not. How did we work that out? I don't remember. We ended up getting it worked out. Yeah.

I remember. Maybe I don't remember. And I think another, I think another, a couple more $400 bills getting me. A couple more bills coming in. I was like, yeah, this is done. And I think I didn't pay you one time. Yeah. And I had met this gal from Virginia and had her coming down that weekend.

And I don't know if you remember this or not, but she gets there and we go to the house and walk up, Kigo, won't, Kigo in, won't turn. The heck. Couldn't I open the door? Wouldn't I lock it? Somebody had changed the block or the doorknob. You don't remember that? And I ended up pulling the hood chain to my truck and pulling the back door off. You don't remember that?

No. I can't, no. And it wouldn't shut back after that. Was I still there? Yeah, you were still there. Was I in the house? I think you changed the lock. Was I in the house?

No, you weren't in the house because I went through it. Your truck was there. You had that little S-T-in truck, and it was sitting in the driveway. And I went through that house. His bedroom door was locked for a minute, maybe, by the time I kicked it in. And he wasn't in his room. He didn't gone. I guess he's out riding with a buddy or something.

Because I'm sure he knew if he changed that lock, I was going to be mad when I got home. And it was more embarrassing to have this girl down for the first time that I can't get on my damn house. Oh, my God. You chained a... I remember dad coming over there and we had that thing propped it. I can't remember how we had it shut. The back door, yeah.

The back door. And dad come over there and raise and... We like... Kane about this door not being, you know, shutting it out got broke. So we were little f***ed each other, but like, I mean, the next day it was not a big deal. We were no big deal. I know, but why did you change a lot? I don't know.

Probably because I didn't pay the bill. Probably didn't help me pay half of the phone bill. It's his bill. I'm just guessing that's why. There could be a million things. I remember if it was a bill involved. I'm pretty sure it was the power bill or a phone bill. It was something that I didn't pay.

And he said, you know, you ain't going to pay it. You ain't getting in. You are some roommate. I got in. You are some roommate, dude. I'm telling you. He ain't a damn angel. I mean, what did he?

What did I do? I got up and went to work. Right, he had two kids What'd I do? I don't know, you probably did something. You got nothing. I mean, you know, I brought the girl in the thing, wash our clothes and fold her clothes for us.

You don't remember that? That's what I did for you. I mean, how devil could that be? That's angel, man. That's angel. I was good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. We always had food into cabinets.

We did. So, where were you making money? I don't know anything I did? I worked a dealership. Like against you or anything. You didn't. You didn't do anything. I tried to think if I did.

Y'all both worked at the dealership at the same time? Yeah. Well, I did. He's supposed to. Well, he got, didn't he get fired? I'd get there. No, no. Go ahead.

Well, he would always come in about noon. Horse! It was. I would be 15 minutes late. No. 15, 20 minutes late. Man, by time you get off that computer, you would not drive an up there to be in. One or two days, maybe I came in that late, but not like, I wasn't doing that every day.

They were to fire the hell out of me. Would they tried? And they did. I remember that day. He come in work, and old Bill Kitchens was the service manager. And Jr. comes walking in, and Bill says, Dale, come here, I need to talk to you. He'd come in there and talk to him. And I don't remember what y'all's discussion was, but I remember saying, hey, Bill, come over here.

Let me show you something. He grabs him, arm runs shoulder and walks out. See that sign right there? He says, yep, that's about two letters from getting your ass fired. Remember that? I think that's when he was firing you. He was firing. It was.

Yeah. That's a good story, actually, because you told him. Two letters. And then you went, and then you drove all the way back, right? You tell the story. So we had, who was our line mechanic? What was his main? Oh, Tony Reed.

Yes. Tony Reed. He was the, yeah, the front-end alignment and all suspension guys. Yeah, they were married. This guy that we hired had been an employee at the Chevrolet dealer. He had been an employee there before and went away. Yeah. And he was coming back to be the service manager.

Carrey was a writer and my desk was right next to carry. My bay was right next to Cary's where I worked and changed oil. How's a Quigloop guy? So this new guy, Jimmy Kitchens, new service managers, coming in, he's going to turn this place around, right? It'd been a functioning shop doing just fine. Could have been better, but he's going to come in

and he's got all these bright ideas, right? So he's going to have us stay after to have a meet. at five o'clock. At five o'clock, everybody's going in the break room, going to sit down, he's going to talk to us and tell us about some things. Well, I'm standing back there with Tony, and he's going, it bull's, we ought not have to stay here if we can't stay clocked in. He wants us to clock out and go to that meeting. That ain't right. That ain't right. He's just prodding me, right? Pushing him. And so, of course, I go up there and I go, hey, it ain't right. Y'all making us stay. And I'm just repeating everything that he's told me. And he said,

well, you know, do whatever you want to do. I said, well, I got to go over to Canapolis. That girl used to cut our hair. I was like, I'm going to go over to Canapolis. I got a haircut. That's a long way drive. I'm going over there. I ain't going to miss it.

He said, you do it everything you need to do. So I left and went and got my haircut. Well, Tony and everybody goes to the meeting. We all go to meeting. Oh, wow. Even though they come up. I mean, Tony even comes to me. One has pushed him to leave.

Yeah. He comes to the meeting. I come back the next day and that guy, that service manager is like, you needed to go home and think about whether you really like this job on it. So I went to the body shop down the hill, the one in the back. And I said, I called dad. And I said, hey, I'm getting sent home. I don't, you're going to turn me around and send me back.

You know, we would. Oh, yeah. He'd see you and go, what day are you doing here? Go back up there. Well, that's 45 minute drive. We ain't got, you know, I'm making 150 bucks a week maybe. And maybe not even that. I don't know anything was that.

No. So, anyways, I called dad. And I'm like, look, he's sending me home. He goes, no, just go tell him you're staying. Tell him you're working or you ain't. And so I woke up there. And I said, hey, I'm working or ain't. I didn't tell him I called Dad.

Because that would just screw things up or weird, made things weird. And I said, I'm working or I'm not. And he goes, well, get somebody to help you load up your toolbox. And so I loaded my toolbox up and I left. Well, I came back to get my check. Yep. My last check. That's what it was.

That was the day. That was the day. That was the day he told him about the letter. I just remember you walking him out with your arm around the shoulder. See two letters, buddy. Yeah, he's gone. He was gone. You remember that guy when they hired that guy?

Do you remember me taking his, he had, they had a full page ad of him coming and becoming the service manager and I cut his head out of the ad and I put his head on the body of all these poses out of like a Rolling Stone magazine. Like I put his head on top of all kinds of people's bodies like in weird, you know. It's funny. I don't remember that one. Yeah. So, like, I'd take his head and put it on, like, an ad for, like, a jeans ad or something,

and then copy it where it was all black and white, and it looked almost real. And then I posted them and hung them all over the service department. I don't know how I don't remember that. That's funny. That's why he wanted to fire me because I was effing with him so bad. Yeah, I'm shocked. I'm shocked. It didn't work out between you, told me.

Do you remember when I filled up your arms of your jacket? You were a mechanic. He was a mechanic before he was a writer. Yeah, I was a mechanic. I just changed on, you know, just small stuff, belts and... So the glass... So the glass cleaner would foam giant foam up when you sprayed it. And I filled up the arms of his jacket full of that stuff.

We went to put his jacket on to go to lunch. Oh, all this stuff comes out the ends. We used to mess with each other all the time. Well, I think we've kind of like proven this point that you used to mess with me all the time. I don't remember messing with you. you. But it was fun. I enjoyed it.

I mean, I didn't get in fight over it. We just laughed about it. I didn't know how else to show my affection. I was mad about it, but I was laugh about it. I didn't know how else to show you. I loved you, man. Yeah. That was it.

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, if y'all did get in a fight, it would be probably validated. We never, you know, never got to. Never put a hand on each other. Never did. That day, if he'd have been home, though. If he would have been home that day, I don't know what I'd have done. Yeah.

I was mad. Like, I was embarrassed and mad. So that was kind of like double whammy. Oh, God. Yeah. I think... The cool thing is, though, that girl's still with me today. Yeah.

My wife. Wait, wait. That was Renee. That was Renee that you took over to the double wide? Yep. Yep. When the door was locked, when not open, it was Renee. Did you know that?

I don't remember. He conveniently doesn't remember the things like that, but he remembers the... I remember her daughter would come over there. Yeah, Blade. And, yeah, her... She was three years old. And she... Carrie says, they're all in the living room and talking,

and Carrie told me this later the day. And she's like, they're like, she was asking like, who's that boy in that room? Who's that boy in that room? And they're like, that's, that's, Dale, it's my brother. And he goes, she goes, him mouth not work. Him mouth not work. He didn't talk.

I forgot about that. That's funny. Oh, good. That's right. It's a weird what you remember. Yeah. Can I ask you this? Y'all mentioned you were going to run a Goody's Dash car.

He ran that for a year. How did these racing opportunities? You start running the late model. You start running a Goody's Dash car. How did these opportunities start? The stuff that Dad had worked with and lined up for us, Richard Mash was well known in the Goody's Dash series. And the guy from Taylor's Fool had a lot of success in the league in the industry.

and so he lined me up doing that. I don't know why he chose me going from Dagong Concord Motor Speedway Street Stocks to run and get his dash at Daytona. That's a huge jump. Yeah. Big difference. Cars, more power and more aerodynamic and all.

And so I remember, like Dale said, we were up there and we looked at the cars and kind of looked things over and worked on a few things. And I would always go up there every evening after work and work on the race cars and then come back home and sleep, get them and go back to work next day. I was still working at a dealership. And I remember we went to Daytona.

It was the Black No. 3 Goodrich Cavalier. It was a Chevrolet Cavalier that I raced in the Goodies Dash. And that was when they'd done the two-day qualifying deals. And so the first day, we went out to qualify. We've been practicing all week, and then things got 13-gallon fuel tanks. So we've been practicing, I'd say, all week, probably three or four days. You know, just qualified runs. And we go through inspection and everything to go to qualify.

And I'm like, Richard, so we need to get some fuels. And we need any fuel. So no, we're close on weight. So you're able to try to go out as light as we can. All right, you know what you're doing? So we go out there to qualify. I go out and, you know, off pit road and take off around. Get the green flag.

Come around, get the white flag. Go on in turn one, run out of gas. It's pretty embarrassing. Very embarrassing. I don't a qualified lap. So you had to come in and you come down pit road. I mean, I was worried about making it back to pit road because I'm going into term one when I run out of gas.

So we come all the way back to pit road and you have to get out of your car, kneel in front of your car to be pretty and take the pitcher. And, of course, it's hard to be pretty when you're pissed off. So I do all that. Anyway, we go back second day, qualifying, a qualified fast as the second day, which would have been on the pole the first day.

Oh. If we hadn't went in there, I guess. I remember being there with Kerry the whole week. And so you actually spotted for me during the race in the beginning of the race. Why did I quit? Well, I come up on this one car and I asked for clear and you never did answer. And then the next thing I know dad's talking to me on the radio. Oh, he must have grabbed it off my head.

I must have. So he spotted for me after that. I remember when we were. I ended up spending out because I didn't know if I was clear. I was coming up on this car pretty fast. I didn't want to hit it, so I ended up spinning out. And, of course, you know, put me back. I think we ended up finished out for that race.

Yeah. So. It's a good start. It's fun, man. It was fun. I went, I went down there with Kerry. I remember pushing that car around in the garage and just being a helper. And, uh. And I mean, I'm carrying the black and silver color.

Yeah. Goodrich car, number three. I mean, it's like dream country. How cool was this? It was. It was badass. It was. He was.

You run out of gas on the bar, I guess. Wow. And I remember that guy Tony Reggie, he made me a little trophy. Is that who made that? It has a block of wood, painted black, and put a gas gauge on it. Well, he made a gas gauge out of a bottle of a soda can with the gauge on it, and it was on empty. It says, what is the dumbass award or something like that? And that's what they give me from.

That's why you can go back to work? Yeah. Go back to work and get that, which is pretty cool. Yeah. So you worked at the dealership for how long? Oh, Lord. Well, until 1999. Yeah.

Until 1999. Actually, in 98, I'd started talking to, a guy named Doug Taylor with the channelock car number 40 and Kevin LePage was driving. And so I started going over there and hanging out. He came to the dealership and got the service done all. So he invited me to the race shop. So I started going over to a race shop and hanging out there in Denver. And, you know, just kind of tinkering with the cars and Kevin Lepage is in there and we talk a little bit here and there.

And then one day, Kevin was out there and Doug come out there talking. And, you know, Doug Taylor, he, I don't know how long he'd been in the sport, but he owned a book. his car and everything so he says duck you said you need to give his kid a ride give him a chance and i was like what he said yeah i think you need a chance i think we could do something so we go and hickory motor speedway and practice and kevin goes out when you know he's practicing and then when he gets done practicing he's going to let me take the car a couple laps so he gets some practicing i jump in and kind of take the car a couple laps and i'm not far off from where he's running speedwise you know in times so

In 99, it was 98 when we was working, you know, doing that stuff. And in 99 is when I ran my first race in the Bush Series. It was at Hickory Motor Speedway. And we qualified 13th and the Navisson-Chelock number 40 car. And we were up to 5th and the axle broke in that race. So everybody was all pumping, you know, doing pretty good. Kevin was actually moving on from that team to another. So he was kind of grooming me to be in that seat.

so in 2000 I started racing full-time I raced a few more races after that Hickrace but in 2000 I started racing full-time in that car and things didn't go well Doug actually sold the team out to a guy he was into Tennessee walking horses I think he was up in Florida or somewhere I can't remember his name

but he was kind of a business guy wasn't really a racer so he'd come in there and you know he changed a lot of things up and didn't go well and crew members he got rid of and hired you just didn't know a lot about racing really so we ended up not running too good and things kind of just dispersed from there I you know quit driving for them and everything and I remember going to dad and talking to him about my experience and how things happened and you know how crappy it was that things happened like that and I looked at him and said man said how about me getting an opportunity to drive for you

go-kart lawmower whatever I mean I just want to drive something just fun and so he said let me think about it and we talked about it and started working things out and that's when we put together the ARCA team yeah so we started running you know some races we didn't run the full season I think it's 10 or 10 races in arca um I won eight of the 10 races in Taldaiga and Daytona's the two I didn't win um we went Pocono Atlanta Charlotte Michigan I remember we going to Pocono the first time and you had downshift. I'm like, holy crap, what's this going to be? So we ended up having a good time. And I don't know, you wasn't at that test.

And we had a good time, and Tony Jr. Tony Senior was there with us and everything. And we were pretty fast. So we went for the race, and we left everybody but second place, and I could see him in front of me by the end of the race. I got one of the bodies off of one of your cars in the Juckyard. When you get out, say what was your favorite victory lane celebration from that time? It's going to be Pocano. And why? I got out and dad standing there waiting on me.

Yeah. And there's many of pictures of me standing on the door of that car reaching down to dad. And him just looking up with the biggest grin that just made my world. You know, the happiness I've seen in his face and had a proud he was. It was really cool.

You moved on from that and had, you know, you raised a lot of different teams over the years. Well, from there, we had put the schedule together with Dellen Hart Incorporated. to run full-time bush, some trucks, looking at practicing stuff in cup, just to get the feel of it and not race any. And, you know, of course, things happened in 01.

That's what was going into in 01. Oh, that racing with Delano Hart Corp. And still had some market races in there, too. And then things happened in 01. And so the evening of that day that things happened, Ty Norris calls me and says, hey, so I just need a call, let you know that. your racing schedule is no longer going to happen.

Wait, that night? You know, I'd ran an Archer race there in Daytona that weekend on Friday. We raced on Friday, and I come home. No, we raced on Saturday, and then I come home. I drove all the way back. No, it's Friday because I drove all the way back. And Saturday I kind of rested up on the yard and everything, and my wife comes running down.

Hey, if you talk to Kelly, I'm like, no, I'm mowing the yard, so you need to call her, and I call Kelly, and she's bawling. and tells me what all happened. So anyway, the story went, I got the call from Ty that things wasn't going to happen. That night? That night? That night? That night.

I mean, that someone's thinking of Nixon that program. You know, he got orders to call. It wasn't, he didn't do it on his own. So, anyway. Geez. The next, that Monday, you know, we go into the race shop there, you know, things are the way they are. And me and Thai sitting there and talk. and he says, I'm working on some stuff.

I've already made some calls and we're working on and put some stuff together. And that's when the Amando Fits and Terry Bradshaw team come about with the number 12 car in the Bush Series. So he got me set up and I ran that. And that went for a couple of years and I just kind of bounced back and forth with RCR and just some other teams just here and there just never fit. RCR was pretty good. Do you remember racing together at Talladega? Yes.

in the cup race that's pretty fun yeah and the big bass pro car yeah we got to draft a little bit yep yeah well it was me bumping you and knocking the back bump loose and you're going to the front

and me end up like fifth I think I was and then next thing I know I'm spinning around after somebody hits me it was fun for a moment though we had a good car

and we was fast and it was up front there and running I mean I'm running 5th for a while and then I think it was Jeff Gordon Michael Walter Michael got into Jeff and turned him and he'd come down and hit me. You ended up over at DEI working for a while.

Yep. What was you doing there? After I retired from racing, you know, Tracy had called, talked to me about coming over there and just working, being whatever, you know, kind of the messenger in between and filling the employees out what might need and just, you know, delivering the news or message to Richie Gilmore. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Richard Gilmore kind of run. He's the GM. The gym.

So I, you know, would relay messages to him about what employees would like to see to improve the place and all, stuff like that. And I think that was the time. I felt like that was time. It was an easy route to get me out of racing, which is good. I mean, I was ready to step out anyway because, you know, I missed my boys growing up and I had two daughters coming up and I didn't want to miss all that. So, yeah, I'd cut back races to like six races a year. And one, you know, I run two with children. And then a couple bush races here and there was sort of like Rick Ware racing or somebody.

So anyway, I went to work full time at DEI, and then things kind of started dwindling down from there, you know, selling this team or merging with this team and doing this and everything kind of just going away from Highway 3. And, you know, after that, it wasn't no job there for me. So, and at that time I had another opportunity that came in my life with Schumacher Holmes with me and my wife. So it was easy time to get out of racing and get into designing homes of all things. So what is that, Schumacher Homes? Schumacher Homes is the nation's largest custom home builders. They're in 14 states and 34 markets.

They're based in Akron, Kent, in Ohio. And Paul Schumacher is the founder of Schumacher Homes. And it's a very, very good business. They're more family-oriented. They're about customers. Whenever we went in to talk to them about doing their thing, they were actually looking for someone in the outdoor lifestyle to bring in the outdoor lifestyle living to their homes.

And they were looking at a very prominent guy with Michael Waddell who was in the outdoor industry. And I had an associate that Schumacher's knew that mentioned that they ought to talk to me and my, wife Renee. And so we met with them and Joe Hedrick, he was over at DEI doing all the stuff with that and everything. So anyway, he got let go. So we kind of took him over to help do our stuff. And we all three flew up there, met with the Schumacher's. They had all their books open and accounting and everything for us to look at, didn't hide nothing, give us several customers

to call if we wanted to call. And I mean, they even give us one guy that wasn't even happy with their build process and kind of find out he was a contractor himself so he was going nitpick everything anyway yeah um so it was just a good fit and we've been with them going on 10 years now and y'all still do these Earnhardt collections it's Unhart collection homes yeah and they're just designs and how many do you have in the Earnhardt collection we were up to 23 year and down to 20 now there's two of them we kind of phased out just kind of didn't fit good one of them we got a lawsuit against from I don't remember for it's Southern Living magazine or something. They said it looked like their home, but it didn't.

It just had a fireplace on the front porch like one of theirs did. And the rest of it didn't even look to saying so. But we just took it off just to keep from having issues. And so, yeah, we've been doing that for, like I said, going on 10 years now, and it's been a great partnership and good family to be around. Can we talk about the battle to be able to use that? We can. All right.

I mean, it's public knowledge. Why we can't? I don't know if you. So during that time, at the time of me, where's that at? At the time of me going away from the O'Hart Corporation is the time we started talking to the Shoemaker Homes. And when we got talking to him, we talked about, you know,

naming it Earnhardt Collection. And we've done that because we wanted to open it up to more than just homes, like maybe furniture or a little knick-knacks or something down the road. So we do that, and we go to trade market, and we get a phone call. or we get a letter in the mail from the lawyers. And it's Teresa's lawyers. So if we go continue using this name, there'd be a lawsuit.

So my wife being the strong-willed person she is, she says, fine, you want a lawsuit? Let's go. So we continued on and done our business with Schumacher Holmes. And we called them and told them what all was happening and given them heads up just so they'll know. And so long story short, eight years later, in this lawsuit.

We won a lawsuit, and she appealed it, so it had to go to Washington or wherever it went. And they questioned why the board that decided we win, they questioned why they come up with that, and they basically told them, you know, I was my name. So anyway, she ended up, she started out with the confusion of Del Earnhardt and Earnhardt collection,

being confused. Well, some of her key people have done depositions, even stated it wasn't a confusion. fusion. So then she went back to you can't trademark a surname, Dernhardt name. And so that's where it went and we ended up being that neither one of us won, but we continue on to do what we want to do.

And we could still do anything at Earnhardt outdoors. I got it and I got it trademarked. Why is that not a win for you? It is a win. Yeah. I mean, it's a win for NFL me, Del Jr. or Kelly, Taylor, any of us. So, and, you know, the key thing is she can't trademark it either. Tracy can't now because she's,

Showing it it can't be trademarked. She can't trademark the Arnhard name. So is the... Because it's a surname. You can't trademark a surname. So is all the legal back and forth over? Yep, the legal back and forth is over. Yeah, you move on.

Eight years later, but finally over. Yeah. We have. We continued on and now we're doing stuff at Earnhardt outdoors and, you know, trying to build that brand now. Yeah. So I went the other day to, what's the name of it?

Oh, the old dormer. Old Armor. Yeah. Old Armor. Beer company. Downtown Canapolis. Right near, right next to the ballpark where the cannon balders play. The cannonballers.

And that's where I grew up. That's where you grew up. That was my hometown. I cruised that area every weekend and, you know, rode bicycles up there sometimes. So you are now in the beer business. Well, I don't know if I'm in the beer business, but. Your name's on a beer, buddy. You're in the beer business.

You're working with these guys. Yeah. We have created a beer. It all started out. The dad of one of the owners has been a friend of mine for years. And he called me up, say, hey, my boys got this brewery they'd work with, and they're about giving back to charities.

I want to know if I had a charity to get back to us. Well, I don't, but I do work with a group from four years old, 18-year-old rodeo association. And, you know, then we got the high school association also that, you know, they do scholarship funds. I said, well, maybe we take this and do the scholarship fund for the high school. So we met, talked about that, and it ended up growing into creating our own beer. And so now we have.

There it is. Oh, he's got it cold. We got some cold winds, man. Yeah, it's have one. Hey, Shane. I even got a spare. I haven't drank it out of the cane yet. It's different than on tap, just like all of them.

So it's sort of like a bud in between a Bud Light and a Pilsner. I like that. Yeah. That is good. I thought it was kind of refreshing and something you could hang out by a Campfire, drink. Why have we not been doing this all along? Man, that would be great on a fishing or hunting trip, too.

Yeah, it's cool. Anyway, so that's what we've created, Earnhard Outdoors with Adventure with an Attitude. It's a Canapolis sale. And you can only get this at Old Armour Brewer Brewer and Canapolis, downtown Canapolis. Beautiful place. Yes, awesome.

I was a little bit. And actually, hey, actually Thursday, for the folks that are going to hear this before Thursday, we have at 5 o'clock, we were going to do a public release announcement, and I'm going to be there. I'm going to have some media there, people. This coming Thursday.

This coming Thursday. So that'd be the 27th. Yep. At 5 o'clock. 5 o'clock. In downtown canapples. Man. So anybody come out and join us, hang out.

Yeah, they'll be there. Even you and Amy come on. You and bring your significance. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm like, I'm looking on social media the other day and find out all you family are out there at Old Armor. Yeah, my significance. It's like it.

So what was this event? that y'all did the other day at Old Armour. I mean, because I'm seeing, I was at the ball game the night before. This goes away. So that was a friends and family event. And so. Yeah, my friends and family. I think I'd qualify in the first one, don't it?

Well, we go way back. I will say that. We go back well before Dale Jr. I know. I know. I remember one time you needed fuel money on flight home. So anyway. That's right.

So that was a limited seating event. So I got all the people that, but not that you're not important, but it's okay. You don't have to accept. You need to be there. You don't feel like, you don't feel bad about it. I know this coming Thursday, you can be there. All right. Everybody's welcome.

That's good. And we can have that place packed out and fill up some streets and stuff. I don't care. That's good, man. That's a great place to drink a beer. It's a cool little place. And like I said, them guys, it's a veteran-owned company. because whenever we first talk about,

I talk about maybe I invested in being part of it, and I'm not a veteran, so I can't. So Kyle is the co-founder and general manager, and then Stefan, which has got the biggest beard and really cool guy, he's the co-founder and the master brewery. Pretty awesome. Pumped about that, man. Yeah, I'm excited, and looking forward to Thursday and having a good time.

Yeah. Everybody needs to get out there. Come on out and celebrate. Well, buddy. So it's been fun. Yeah. It's been a good one. We got beer now.

We just going to start drinking. I mean, I'm done talking. We missed so much stuff. So one time, Carrie... There is some stuff we could go back and talk about. One time, Carrie, we were cruising downtown Concord with our pickups. And Kerry, there was a little... We were parked at the McDonald's.

And I parked on one side of the parking lot, and he parked on the other side. And in between us is a walkway. Seament walkway, probably four or five inches. Four or five inches. And you had your S-10. I had S-10, you had. I had... You backed into my truck.

Well, I wasn't in the S-10. I was in the truck. You're in a red S-T. Was I on the red S-10? He puts his car in reverse. Well, I can't remember what. Triggered that. You did something.

It knocked the grill out of my truck. And so I put it reverse and backed because when I was straight driving, he was automatic. We were horsing around. And I backed over that media and walked him. Yeah, see, he's doing some bad stuff to me. And then I put it in first gear and... That is one thing I did. I put it in first gear in two.

took off. Well, as I'm doing that, I look at everybody in McDonald's and their face is just like, you know, like, what happened? My grill's in like 15 pieces. He gets out. As I'm driving off, I see him getting out and walking around. I'm gone. Yeah, that it definitely goes on the scorecard.

We had to go to the junkyard and get a grill. Got another grill. We got one. Boy, that junkyard was an important piece of all's history. Oh, man, it's right down the road. It's so easy. I mean, three miles down the road. Me and Kerry would burn out the barons, and we would bend.

A-frames and stuff, and we needed springs. Like, we finally figured out, okay, we need a bigger right-front spring. Me and Kerry would drive our truck into the depths of that junkyard in the middle of the summer and scourgely. And crawl underneath these 1980 Cadillacs and Chevroletes in the middle of the dirt. No clue what no shoulders were crawling around. Didn't bother us then, though. We didn't care.

We didn't have to crawling with it. Yes. It was, I think about it today and I'm like, I don't know. I mean, looking back, it was like the time of our life. We were having a blast. It was fun. Well, we were in there every week trying to get apart. Yep.

Because we broke something. I think we actually just, if we didn't need something, we act like we did, and just to go there and crawl around stuff. Yeah. Check all the cars out. So, this is funny you like this. So we're riding, I might have told this last week, but we were riding to Darlington to take the Nova. Yeah.

And I had Uncle Robert Jr. in the car. he's telling all these great stories, right? And every story he tells about dad is, oh, your dad was this awesome thing. We did this together and it was amazing and he was awesome and he was great and he was tough and he was this and he was that, right? And never done anything wrong. And when Uncle Jimmy tells the stories about dad, he says that dad would buy, dad would go to the junkyard for a $3 part and look around at all the other stories.

stuff that he was going to come back and get later in the middle of the night. I believe that. Yep. That's the side of it. I heard that story. One time, you know, we have us gathering every year up in Pennsylvania with the LW. You may have been there one time, maybe not, but it's me and Robert and Jimmy and Seth. And, you know, we got sitting at a table when Robert was talking these stories, and Jimmy

were telling that story. I remember him talking about that. You hear some good times. I'm just trying to imagine Dad breaking out of a junkie. garden the middle of the night. Hey, was he sort of like, I always, you're going to get upset with me saying this. I always like, I always appreciate the fact that you're sort of cheap, right? Like, you're sort of cheap, you know, you don't ever carry any money around with you.

Was your dad that way? Was he sort of like thrifty and tight with his cash? Yeah, he was. Yep. I mean, if he's crawling around a junkyard, I guess he is. I mean, my one time with McDonald's, I had to buy with dad. You had to buy. Oh, yeah.

No, not McDonald's, water burger. He never carried cash. He never carried cash. He never carried cash. I remember, see, we went on an elk cut one time. Me and you. I got his first elk. Only elk.

Only elk. He didn't have no money on him for a tip or anything either. Oh, I didn't know he was going to tip. I mean, no, he doesn't. Dude, you invited me on the elk hunt. You should have told me this. I thought I did, but I ended up tipping him for you anyway. Yeah, Kerry's like, you got a tip money?

I'm like, what? He doesn't have carry any money. And that guy was so pissed off because you had left. and you gave him a pair of sunglasses. I don't remember that. All I got is a pair of sunglasses out of this hunt. It's really cheap, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Like, man, relax. Chill out. So when I got done, I tipped my guy and your guy. I got to be honest, Kerry. I don't know where, like, taking Dale Jr. He just didn't, he just didn't. Dude, it took me. He's going to be, he's not going to enjoy it.

How many years I try? I mean, I try to get him going on several elk cunts. Oh, I thought you meant how many years did it, you tried before you got your first elk? Oh, many years I tried. I got mine in the first two hours. I mean, rub it in. What, the first two hours?

Yes, it was. No one. The first morning. It was first morning. I'll give you that. It was like nine in the morning. It was early. How did that happen?

I'm good. It was the first time put it that way. And it was with a bow. That was really cool. I know. Yeah, with the bow. Oh, yeah. So I've been trying to give him several years to do this elk cut.

That's hard. And he's like, Man, I can't, Truitz is talking about how you got to run up these hills and huff and puff and out of there. And finally, I'm like, man, I've got this nice place in Colorado we're going to. He says, you need to come. All right, I'll do it. So, huh? So I called my connection and said, hey, said, we're going to do this.

Dale wants to do it. He said, well, I got to tell you, you know, thing runs on generator and it cuts off at 9 o'clock at night. I said, they ain't no internet service, no nothing. Cell phone service, nothing up her. So I'm like, oh, so I called Dell back. say, man, I don't know if you'd really want to do this hunt. And he said, why? I said, well, there's no internet, no cell phone,

and power cuts off at 9 o'clock off a generator. What's wrong with that? Oh, hell yes. So we get there. Is there a beer? The first night we get there, we're out there hanging by the campfire and everything. He goes in the house.

And it's just getting dark, and the bulls start bugling. So I run in, say, hey, Del, Del. Every yet, he's in the room. So I go in the room, and he's in bed. It's like 8 o'clock, 8.30. I said, man, the bulls are bugling. Come on and listen. He's said, man, I'm getting up early.

I'm going to bed. So I never known him to go to bed that early. And he was. He was pumped about it. Lack oxygen up there. Yeah, I bet. So we get out the first morning. We go, and we get on this pack, and we got two bulls in it and a bunch of cows.

And we're on this road bed, you know, getting up to the meadow where to rip. And one of the cows busted us. Gone. Bill Jr.'s like, man, that was cool. What would do now? So we can find more. So we go up on this big hill and looking down, just glass and, you know, looking for them. And we see these two down in the bottom in this little opening, small clearing, just two bulls, no cows.

I'm like, I told guys, man, that's going to be some easy ones there. You won't get one of them deal? He's like, heck yeah. So he gets up like he's going to take us. We're getting a truck. We're going to drive to them. Yeah. So we drove down and got out of truck and before, you know, don't get right up on them.

But you get out of truck and go above them up on the hill. They're going up. and he gets up in there him and the caramane I didn't go with them but him and the cameraman they go up in there and get set up

and the guide and that that guide calls and that bull comes up the biggest one and he's 25 yards from you when you shot

and then after you shot he run right by you like the hill right by him he was out in front of me in this little clearing and when I shot him he ran right past me

probably about 10 yards that way straight up this hill and stopped Lay down. Lay down. And we walked up there, we quartered him right there on the hill. Well, yeah.

He carried him out. It carried him out. So, like, at 10 o'clock in the morning, I'm walking out with, like, like, 150 pounds or 100 pounds of elk on my back. Yeah. It was cool. It was like mad ass. I got down there just a expression on his face.

And, I mean, that was pretty cool. Yeah, it's fun. Just to hear to him tell the story, you know. It was going to be. But you ain't done it again I ain't good assed I have I don't think so

I did I said you're gonna get back I'm good got his one and done one and done I'm a deer hunter I'd go back I'm a deer hunter

I like deer hunt but it was cool he got one with the bow and I tried he left the next day and I'm like man you're gonna jump on plane leave and say we'll hang out by the fire

and drink beer all right so we did we drunk beer and I hung out talk down our little stories on the interviews and for the cameras

and stuff next morning he gets up leaves. And I'm chasing Elk for the next three days and finally end up using my guide's rifle to try to get one. I never did get one. Damn. Tough hunt.

Tough hunt for you. I didn't know it. But I was chasing. I didn't know what it's so disappointing. But I didn't have two. So I was looking to get bigger than what I got on the wall. You know, if it was my first one, I was going to shoot whatever. I had plenty to shoot at.

That's what I tell them every time. I didn't get no deer. This year, it was a big one, and it's not as big. You're not as big. Whatever. You got to control now. A shooter came by, but I let it go. You're out of control.

Oh, man. He don't understand hunting that well. All right, Kerry. All right, well, I appreciate you all having me on, man. This has been fun. We got to get you back here. We got a lot more stories we talk about. Yes, we do.

Some good stories. We can get into some debt, like emotional stories, too. Yeah, we should. We should have emotional podcast. podcast. Tell my whole life of growing up. You did a good job. You did a good job.

I about fell apart there earlier. It was pretty emotional. Well, I mean, it was cool. Way it all happened is remembering you in the front yard playing football with your friends that day I drove up the first time I ever saw you. Yeah. Yeah, it's really cool. Well, it's been an awesome being part of your life. It has.

It's been fun. It's been good. Being together and living together. Yep. Just getting to know each other and just like nothing's ever. happen now. Yep, I suppose so. All right, buddy. We'll have fun. Thursday. What's it called again? What's the store? It's Old Armor Beer Company.

Old Armor Beer Company. Yep. Inapolis North Carolina. West Avenue, Canapolis North Carolina. 5 p.m. Go see, Kerry. Cheers, man. Go see Carrie. Have a beer. Cheers. Cheers. Carrie Earnhardt on the Dale Jr. download. All right, it's finally time for you guess it. The best part of the show, Ask Junior, brought to you by Exfinity.

Let's hear the questions that you guys have sent Xfinity Racing on Twitter. All right, everybody. We're live here at the Dirtymoe Media Studios. Thanks for supporting Dirtimo Media on YouTube and across all our social media handles and tell your friends all about it. We got Ask Junior presented by Xfinity. Let's go ahead and get to your questions.

All right. Our first question coming from Dave Downey. Dale, your paint scheme guy. Have you ever had any that wouldn't pass NASCAR approval? That's funny. You asked that question. So when I wanted to do, I think it was 2014, we had those golds, they were spun numbers that had those little rings in them. I ripped it off of kind of like dirt racing numbers and font.

But NASCAR wouldn't allow any reflective style decals. So what I did was I went above and beyond, man. And so I had my paint guys at Hendrick mock up a square piece of steel about probably four foot by two foot. And we painted it and then we decouled it with the number and everything we wanted on the car would be on this sheet. And I took it. And I remember going to Phoenix at the last race of the year or toward the end of 2013. and I went into the garage area with this big thing carrying it, and I took it to the hauler.

I went over to the NASCAR hauler, found Mike Helton. I said, Mike, I need five minutes. He said, all right, we walked back over to my holler, and I pulled that thing out, and we stood in between my hauler and I think Jimmy Johnson's, and I showed it to him. I said, hey, I need approval. This is what I want to run.

And I said, here's what I think you're going to have issue with, So take a look at it. And we talked it out right there in between the haulers, and I got my approval to move forward. And, you know, it felt like a little bit unorthodox. But I knew if I went through emails and images and so forth, that it was never going to get approved. I had to get shot down by somebody.

So I made a piece, took it right to the man. And that's how it worked out. What car was that? 2014, Daytona 500 winner. Oh. Yeah, the National Guardway. Yes. Oh, that's right.

You did have those gold. Yeah. All right. Our next question coming from, Sean Marcus. Quite often in your interviews, you refer to cars as front steer or rear steer. Can you explain the difference? So rear steer is what most, you know, what all cars were up until the mid-80s. And a rear steer basically is the steering box mounted behind the cross members.

So I'll take this die cast right here. So the cross member kind of runs right. between the front tires and just runs right across here and it bottoms out on the racetrack but otherwise it kind of it's what the engine mounts to and all those things but the cross member is just a very beefy kind of piece of steel that goes uh across the car um the steering box uh in the early 80s and way before then even was mounted behind that cross member and so the tie rods and all everything like the spindles were basically mounted backwards and the tie rods and the suspension,

all the steering linkage was behind that cross member, you know, on the back side of the tires, right, closer to the driver. And so the steering box is right there at the firewall. And I'm redoing a 66 Nova wagon that has a steering box behind the cross member. It's a rear steer. Around mid-80s, they started. They moved the steering box to the front of that cross member where they are today. So now the steering box is in front of the tires.

In front of the cross member, that's a front steer. All the steering linkage is in front of the cross member in front of the tires. The spindle arms point this way out toward the front of the car and all the linkage mounts to that. And so that's just the difference of the two. It's really, really complicated and frustrating to set up. the geometry and the toe and all of the things that you do to the suspension on the rear steer car. It's just really old school and a lot of adjustments and moving parts. A front steer is much easier and a lot less pieces, a lot less adjustment, and it's pretty,

I would, I'd like to think it's straightforward as far as setting it up in terms of getting the toe ride and all these different things that are important with the car. that's the difference. So, yeah, a lot of cars, most cars were rear steer, street cars too, all the way up until the early 80s, they started transition into front steer stuff. Next question coming from Clint Chamberlain. After listening to Andy Petrie and past crew chiefs on the show, talk about their innovations of pushing the limits on the cars.

How far will teams and crew cheese be able to push the limits now that the parts are coming from outside sources with the next-gen car? So that's a great question. I think that they'll continue to. So here's a good example. So NASCAR, when the COT came around, if you guys remember if you were following our career, we went to Darlington and Tony Jr. got popped for some wing mounts

that we had taken. Those were mounts you're not supposed to mess with. NASCAR gave them to you, and you mount the wing on the car. Well, Tony Jr. took his wing mounts and messed with him at the shop. I don't remember exactly everything he did with him, but he made him in such a way that we got more wing angle. And we didn't get through tech with them.

I mean, as soon as we showed up and unloaded, they found them. And he got like a four-week suspension or something crazy, six weeks or whatever. You remember him sitting up on top of the camper at North Wiltsboro watching outside the track because you're not allowed to be inside after that. They made a rule about that too. Anyhow, I mean, if you're not trying to figure out how to cheat, you're not going anywhere. And with this new car, with new parts, new pieces, absolutely you've got to find an advantage. You've got to find an advantage secretly and keep it secret and keep it to yourself as long as you can before everybody catches on.

and for where it gets out or somebody sees the part, before NASCAR catches you, you've got to be willing to take that gamble that NASCAR's probably going to come down super hard on the first guy that gets caught messing with some of their stuff because NASCAR takes offense, man. They've gave you these parts.

They're trying to make this car the next great thing, and they're working real hard to have all these guys, all these vendors making these pieces, and it's just this big production, right? And you're going to go screw it up and cheat it up. They're going to be real upset about that. So get ready for them to come down hard on the first guy they catch. But if you're not trying to figure out how to take advantage and find a gray area in the rulebook or blatantly

break the rule, you're going to run in the middle of the pack or the back. So, you know, I don't know that I would want to drive that car. I want my crew chiefs to be aggressive and giving me every advantage they can. Next question from Rob Dallin. Who's your pick for Indy 500. I don't know. You know, I mean, that's a, I'd love to see Mark Ro and Jady have a great day. I went and interviewed him the other week. He's only running indie this year, and I know it's an important race.

Be like me going to run the Daytona 500 one more time. I'd want a good run, you know, and a good day, something to be heard proud of. So I'll be watching for that. I don't really know who I think might win. Rossi, maybe, I don't know. We'll see. It'll be a fun one to watch. It always is.

And one more question. This is from literally everyone on YouTube. Can you tell us about your shirt? Everybody loves it. Want to know where you got it. I just eBay probably. It's an AJ Foyt Oldsmobile. I just went through the rack this morning and saw it.

And I was like, that's the one. We got the N.500 coming up. AJ Foyt was amazing there. And it was an awesome stock car driver as well. And I don't think I've worn this one. So it smells good. So you never know. I mean, you get these shirts and sometimes they have the person's a smoker or something,

but this was a good one. So I thought it threw it on. Yeah, AJ. All right, that's it for today, guys. All right, y'all, thanks for some great questions today. Really, really good. You guys always come through making this show better. Take some pride in that, man.

You guys make this show better by being a part of it. And we really appreciate it. All right, my favorite part of the show is. over. It always goes by too quickly. I mean, that's probably, Dale, because you're trying to keep up with the speed of X-Fycidity X-Fi. I've told you that. Yes, well, speed is important, but it ain't everything, man. X-Finity X-Fi also is reliable. That is true. It's powerful.

And it's secure. That's right. With X-FINITY, you can do more of what you love with faster internet. You and your crew can stay connected with Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers the speed your devices need. Remember, everyone, send your Asked Junior questions to Add Exfinity Racing on Twitter. That's right. Thank you, Exfinity, the proud premier partner of NASCAR. All right, everybody, last call. This has been a great show.

Kerry was awesome. Thanks for him telling us some pretty incredible stories. And there's a whole bunch more there. We've got to get him back on here. Me and him living together. God, dude. I mean, the drums? We didn't get into...

The phone bill? We didn't get into a tenth of it. The candy? This version, with Kerry on the Dale Jr. Download is on NBCSN this Thursday at 530 Eastern. DoorBupper Clear has a new episode out. T.J., Brett, and Freddie are back after Coda. They talk about the challenges spotters faced at the new circuit and in the rain.

They also discuss what the key is to upcoming silly season in Brett's battle with mosquitoes. Doorbubble Clear, available on all major podcast platforms. All right, everybody. Have a great week. And we'll see you again next week. This bit of badassery was bad assery was made by Dirtymoe Media. Dirtymoe.