The Dale Jr. Download - 344 - Jimmy Spencer (Part 1): Clearing the Air

Episode Date: June 16, 2021

After 20 years, it's time to clear the air. Dale Earnhardt Jr. invites former NASCAR driver and TV personality Jimmy Spencer to the studio for an interview to discuss animosity that had been under the surface for years.In the first of this two-part interview, Earnhardt opens up about the critical comments that Spencer had after Jr.'s 2001 Daytona win that raised a lot of eyebrows in the racing world. Spencer, a polarizing figure in NASCAR, opens up about his pathway from a junkyard in Pennsylvania to the pinnacle of American Motorsport. He shares never before told stories of his family roots in racing and a special relationship that led to an early peek behind the curtains of America's top racing league. Spencer reveals details about his relationship with Bill France and how he once gave Spencer 10-thousand dollars to not race at Daytona. The former NASCAR Modified Champion talks about making it to the big leagues and how big leaguers like Buddy Baker and Bobby Allison shaped his successful career. Jimmy also talks about run-ins and good times with Dale Earnhardt.Dale Jr. and his co-host Mike Davis talk about going in together on a pontoon boat, a recap of a JR Motorsports family yard sale, and their recent family camping adventures that ended in soggy memories. Ask Jr presented by Xfinity is back and so are the fan questions. From SRX to RFK, the fans spur some interesting thoughts from Dale Jr.That and more on this edition of the Dale Jr. Download. 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. Dirty Mo Media. Here's that we have a new leader, Ralph Earnhardt in car number 50 in the league. Dale Earnhard grew up in the town of Canapolis, North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte. They take their racing seriously in Canapolis. Who better to lead the Carolina contingent than the driver of the white number three car? Dale Earnhardt Jr. The Big Time.

Now, Dale has rivaled the ultimate measurement of success in America today. This is how we do. A Dirty Mobian. The Green Flag is back out in the race. The Dale Jr. download. Right, and there you see. The two cars in the lead right now. Ralph Earnhardt in 50.

The download starts now. Number three cars. Number three cars. Number three cars. Number three cars. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. Welcome back to the Dale Jr. download another episode with my co-host, Mike Davis. We got producer Matthew Dillner back. He's back.

Yep. He's back. He's back in the studio. Leah is here. It's going to be a great show. We got Ask Junior, presented by Xfinity. And we also got a special guest. Jimmy Spencer, Mr. Excitement, is on the show.

I said he'd never come on this show, but he's going to be on here today. That's right. You had said that. You had a change of heart. So, Mike, hey, have you ever on the podcast? Ponto? No, I've never owned a pontoon. Would you like to? I would love to. You want to go in on havesys? They're not that expensive. Expensive in Dale Jr. World or expensive in Mike Davis world? What does the pontoon cost? I figured it cost about 100,000. Wow, really? I thought it was about 20 grand. There ain't no way. Maybe like one pontoon, one float. You had a pontoon. You don't know how much it cost?

Well, that was a houseboat. Oh, so you're saying a one-layer pontoon. Yeah, yeah, like the cheap guy. I don't know. You found one that you like? You got something that... No, I did. I had a houseboat and I sold it, and me and Amy have been...

You know, we're driving to watch Wyatt race at this dirt track the other day, and we crossed a couple bridges on Lake Norman, and, I mean, there's everybody that has a houseboat out there riding around, a pontoon, sorry. Everybody's, there's a lot of pontoons, and we're like, man, that'd be nice to be out on the lake riding around. Well, let's go find one, see how much it costs, and yeah, we'll go hazy's on it. All right. Let's determine a budget together. Okay.

And see if we can fit in there. Hey, if we have room on the pontoon for branding, we can just make dirty-mo media pay for it. Yeah. I like to be the company house. I definitely decal it. Wrap it. Wrap it. That way it can stay, you know, it can park at the lake house, and you and your family can go use the lake house and take off on your pontoon.

I like where your head's at. I already like where your head's at. We just had my daughter's birthday at the lake house. See, I'm probably going to use the pontoon. Once. No, I would say max three or four times a year, a year. So I don't need to buy the whole thing. I just want a part of it.

Understood. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Maybe we could find some other investors in our pontoon. I like where your head's at. Let's do this. I've been wanting a boat. Yeah.

I got rid of mine, but I'm missing it. I know it was nice to go out on the lake and just cruise, you know, five mile an hour with your family just for a day and afternoon or something like that or take a couple friends or whatever so i definitely need that we live right here at the lake you can't not live here around lake norman and not have a boat or access to a boat i mean it definitely feels like you're insignificant in this uh community because i that's how i feel i don't have a boat we live around we'll look we'll look we'll establish what each of us is willing to put into the investment we'll see if that is enough if not when we take on enough

other investor. Add a partner. Yeah. What else you want to go partner in on? Let's talk about this. You want, is there like a, is there a grill out there that we want to go have these on? I got lots of grills. Is there a car?

You need a grill? I mean, no, I don't need one, but we're not talking about things we need. We're talking about things we want. I got a lot of, I get like a new pellet grill sent to me by some brand or company every probably five months. You got a hankering for a bouncy house anytime? I got a bouncy house. You do?

Yeah. So I went, when Ila had, uh, there are a lot. That's not that expensive. Bouncy houses? They're about five or six hundred bucks. Which is probably what you're going to pay to rent one. It is. Right? That's what we need to do is get into Bouncy House rental.

Because one rent of a bouncy house and you've made your money back on your initial investment. They're probably more expensive than what we think. But I think you could do a couple. No, I bought one. I know what they cost. Where'd you buy it? Amazon. It came right the next day.

Big one. Yeah. You know? And I thought, oh, this thing's going to. rip apart the seams and all the redding's going to come right out of it, right? Because I bought it on Amazon and it came the next day and it was cheap. But it's still going. All right.

So let's go in on bouncy houses on a rental. I like that idea. You don't need me for that. You already have the bouncy house. What else can we do? The rentals can actually help fund some of the boat. I like where you're heads out. I don't like that.

I do. Now we've got too. Wait a second. Now we've got too many things relying on too many things. Too much depends on what's cool. But that does seem like something you would come up with because you don't like to ever pay for anything out of your bank account. If we're going to buy something today, we're going to sell something. That's the way I live.

I live by if I'm going to buy something, I find something else that I'm going to sell. What are you going to sell for the boat? I got a old. I actually just found three items I'm going to put it up for sale. One of them is an old. It's not that old, probably about early 90s token. slot machine. I think it's Japanese model, but it's a rate, it's called Champion Cup.

It's like a racing themed slot machine comes with the coins or the tokens. I think that thing's probably worth about, I'll probably start it a bit about 350. Okay. There's a bouncy house, maybe half a bouncy house. I've got two air compressors, the vintage, it's a vintage gas station style air compressor. Got like a minute, got like a slim, down model that you pull up or maybe just check your air. I think that's what that one is.

And the other one's the compressor that would be beside it. And it's a little bit bigger. And they're like new. And they're probably about for the pair of $2,500. I'm going to sell that. This week on the Dale Jr. swap shop. Yeah, man. This is where we call in.

Call in. Tell us what you got. You got a toaster of them? Got a lamp? You want to get rid of? Just give us the number and the price and we'll help to send it out there. I have been in the sort of selling mood. Oh, yeah. You had a junior motorsports yard sale out front.

So if, you know, if you're a business owner, you've got to have these sort of, you know, company events or moments where everybody can do something and build morale, right? We have these company events. It's quarterly luncheons where we get together and talk about how everything's going for all the departments. And family day where maybe we have all the families bringing their kids out. We have all kinds of activities. So, yeah, we had a – I followed up an idea. my only, I think, ideas that I've came up when it comes to company events and is the yard sale. And it was good.

Man, I brought a truckload of stuff. I heard. Oh, yeah. And got rid of 95% of it. We had about 18 other employees also get involved and bring stuff to sell. We all had a couple tables, a little space. The, you know, the public could come walk and just, it was nice. And things I didn't know about, you.

yard sale is they're the early bird crowd there's no you don't yard sale in the afternoon get it before the sun gets out yeah like that that at least this is what i'm being told is like if we're going to yard sale you know it starts early get out there early and man when we got there they they is it just people in the community like this was this was open to fans it wasn't just employees buying your stuff no no no that's weird is it weird i mean it's any less weird than or any more weird than you having a yard sale? I don't know, man. I guess I think Forbes might need to go adjust their total net worth total they have for you

because, I mean, the yard sale, I'm sure they haven't factored in. You selling 90% of the stuff that you had. So there's a couple positives of yard selling, and one obviously is the extra cash that you put in your pocket, but also the space that you're creating at your house. that is uh you know you you accumulate right you got if you have any kind of storage a garage attic any kind of loft or anything like that you're going to fill that thing up with all kinds of stuff right if you're a family

you got baby toys strollers all the things right that that you just accumulate it's got a little value you just don't want to throw it away but you dang sure ain't using it no more and so the yard sale is perfect for that did you have to autograph anything there was a couple of couple requests, but most people really looked at items and went, I like this, I want it. I don't really need your autograph on it. They wanted it for, because it was a cool item. I had some pretty cool stuff. I had a margarita mixers.

Somehow I got like a three-jug margarita mixer. It was this big universal unit, and that went real quick. I had a hot dog, you know, kind of. The bun toaster? It's either, I guess it could toast buns, but it was a hot, it was like an industrial gas station. style hot dog cooker heater, roller, big boy. Yeah.

Would that go for a good? Yeah. I mean, I was like, people would walk up, my favorite line to use was, I'd never really priced anything, and people walk up and go, what do you want for this?

And I'm like, you name your price. I don't want to take it back home. I want it to go home with you. Wow. And they're like, okay. And then we, you know, you figure out what you're comfortable with. It's fun.

I'm like, it ain't going home with me. So you tell me what you want to pay. Hey, I'm going to, I know this isn't good podcasting, but I'm going to text my wife right now and tell her that you and I just went in and has these on a boat. Let's do it. See what she says. And we can move on with the podcast, but I'm going to, I need to know, I need to see her reaction of this.

So we're going to have Jimmy Spencer on the podcast today, all right? And I think it might be helpful if we tell some people might not know about the Jimmy Spencer connection. So you worked with him. I did. All right. my first driver I ever worked for. So you were a PR guy for Jimmy, so you've got a connection,

you got a relationship with this guy. Y'all know each other. Absolutely. So that's a unique, in my mind, man, that's a unique situation for this podcast that we rarely find. Usually I'm talking to somebody in that chair that I know really well,

but this will be a fun, this will be a fun experience for me, I think, because I'll be able to watch you converse with this person and tell stories about things that y'all experienced together. Does that make sense? It does make sense. But you and Jimmy have a history.

There is a history. I said he'd never come on this show, and it was because of a comment after the 2001 July race to Daytona. We just went to Daytona. Dad had been killed there in February, and I went back, and we won the race, and it was this amazing storybook moment in my life. I still look back at it and can't believe it happened.

and I mean if you're going to make a movie about NASCAR it's the perfect storyline too perfect for Jimmy Spencer and so we get you know he gets out of his car at the end of the race and says that car that eight car it's something fishy I don't even know what the quote was but it was very clear that he thought

that we were illegal and maybe that even NASCAR was in on it I got the quote if you needed go ahead Jimmy said I knew that the eight car was going going to win the race, something was fictitious, and he was really fast the other night. They were down here in February. It's not ironic that the eight car would win with what happened here in February. There you go. That's awful.

Yeah. I mean, he put himself on an island when he said that. You know, he was on this island. No one else was on it. You know, I hadn't heard anyone else, even if they thought it, I hadn't heard anyone else openly say it. And that's the thing about Jimmy. If he thinks it, he says it.

For better or worse. Yeah. And anyways, I said he'd never be on the show. But he probably wouldn't be on this show if it weren't for y'all's connection. And I think that I think that I can, we have people come on this show that I've had problems with or don't particularly get along with. And we have a great conversation. We work it out and move forward. Kyle Bush is one. there's been others where we've talked about disagreements or moments Michael

Walter brought up a moment where he's like remember when we were talking to Michael and we're sitting here and he's like yeah around 2005 you said that I didn't belong at DEI anymore we were still teammates and you said that to the media and I'm sitting there going what the hell buddy you know and we have those kind of moments in this room at this table and I thought well maybe I need to have that moment with Jimmy and see what he says. You know, I don't want to not like Jimmy, right? I don't want to have, even though he said what he said. Are you looking for something out of him? Are you looking for an apology? Not really. I think that a lot, you know, I think a lot of people that are listening to the podcast will,

want to hear from him about, not about that particular problem or issue, more about like, what's he up to? Let's hear, he's a colorful guy. He has a, he has a lot of people know who he is. want to, I even wonder what some of these guys are up to. I'm certainly wondering what Jimmy's been doing. And that connection to you, I think also is important and bring, and as an important reason why he comes to the show. It's so that people that listen to this show can learn about you. Oh, well, that's...

No, no, no, no. So... I don't think that's what people would tune in for. Well, but that's... But I do have advantage point on a couple things that I think are unique. one of the good things about this podcast is the conversations that I have with the person, the guest, and reliving things. I think it'll be fun to watch you kind of have that, you know, do that,

and it'll be fun for all of us who are here and listening to learn. I mean, because you told me some things already in text messages and so forth that I think will be awesome to hear. And so, and I think that it will, you know, you're a co-host of this show, and it'll make, it'll help people understand a little bit about your past, which would be a good thing. And, you know, you always had those Jimmy Spencer cars up on top of the. I want to talk about this, honestly, because this is so interesting, is that I had Jimmy Spencer die cast in my office just because it, you know, it's kind of like, I don't even collect diecast, but it was, you know, the car that I worked with that year or whatever. And you would get so upset about that.

And I never knew why. I never knew why. For years, I never knew that that bothered you. And then, like, one time you came into my office and you were like, get that damn cars out of here. Yeah. And I was like, oh, he's just messing around. He's kidding.

But then I realized, I don't think I said it to you, I realized, oh, I think there's something, I think there's something there. I don't think he's cool about this. So I don't know that I ever took them out. I can't remember if I did or not, but I did. But that's when I first had a glimpse, and then when you and I did the appreciation tour videos, just so everybody remembers in 2017,

Dale Jr announced he was leaving. We decided for content, we were going to do these videos and go through Dale Jr.'s best memories of racetracks, each racetrack. And we were going to give these videos to racetracks to use however they wish. And we got the Talladega. And in doing research,

I was looking at the transcript in 2000, like I think after your, victory in 2002 at Talladega, which started a string of like four or five straight wins. You'll remember that. And the post-race transcript was so unlike you. I didn't know what to make of it. It almost seemed like it wasn't you. It was like you were being sort of like, you had this chip on your shoulder and you

were like, I hope people can sleep at night. I hope people can, you know, now that we won this race, I hope people can, you know, and I'm like, where is this coming from? And then I started putting it all together after you and I talked. And it was like, this was the first restrictor plate race after, I may have that wrong, actually, because you won the summer race at Daytona in 01. You would have gone back to Talladega in 2001 that fall.

But either way, this is one of the few first restrictor plates back, and y'all win, and that was on your mind. I was still upset, I guess. You were still upset a year later. And now I realize after the whole, you know, die-cast comments, you were still upset 15 years later. and 16 years later and you have made comments and people brought it up on Twitter yesterday they're like I thought Dale Jr. said Jimmy Spencer would never be on this show and my thought

was well apparently he's changed his mind and so we'll see. Well there yeah I can't help the way I feel about it but I think that also I have to you know it's a little bit childish to hang on to something so long or let even let something like that bother you is that much the best way for me to fix that is to use the show as a platform to be able to do that, you know, it ranks right up there with what Harvick said, and we go over that and we tell you. And I'm open to, you know, even having him come to the show at some point, whether he won't to or not, I don't know, but you can say what you want to say about that, Mike, but probably best I don't. It's funny, I know, it's funny for me that you're not over that and I'm getting over it. And,

But anyhow, not to, not to, I don't even want to get on that subject. But it, this is a, this is a way to, because those things, you know, this thing with Jimmy, it's in the back of my mind, whether I'm thinking about it or not in the moment, I carry it everywhere I go, right? I have, right? We've talked about it. I go up in your office and see the cars and go, er, Mike. And that's silly, right?

So I want to try to, maybe this conversation with Jimmy will make that go away. I don't have to worry about that anymore. We'll figure it out. It could actually just inflame it. It could. I mean, listen, if he's, if he's unpolgetic. Jimmy could very well say, I still think you were cheating. Well, the thing is, okay, this is important.

This is what I was thinking about on the way here. So I have questions about Jimmy cheating. Okay? And I thought to myself, all right, I'm going to get on this podcast. I'm going to ask Jimmy Spencer why he said what he said and be mad. I'm going to be mad. I was mad, Jimmy, that you called me a cheater. And then I'm going to turn around and ask him about cheating in his own career.

Like, how hypocritical is that? But if Jimmy were to say, if Jimmy were to say, hey, man, I think your car was illegal, I'd go, there's not a legal car in the field, and I hope my car is illegal. I've said it on social media many times. anytime we get popped at junior motorsports, I'm like, I want all the crew chiefs to be aggressive. If we get popped, we get popped. It's our job to try to push some boundaries,

and every once in a while we're going to get caught. And so absolutely, Tony Jr., Tony Sr., got everything they could get. Every race I ever ran for any crew chief, for any owner. We were as aggressive as we could ever be. If you wanted to spend a week looking at the car, I'm sure you could find something you didn't like. Right?

Yeah. But, and I, and I could, I mean, I could ask the same thing about Jimmy and his car. But what he said wasn't, hey, man, that car's illegal. You guys, you guys are, you know, cheated up. You, you know, y'all, y'all did X, Y, and Z to the car. That wasn't his indication. He made it sound like it was a bigger picture kind of NASCAR orchestrated this for the sport or for themselves. That's right.

A little bit different. It's way different. And also could be equally as hypocritical because that car that he has, and we're going to ask him about this in 1994, people thought the same thing about NASCAR turning a blind eye to that 94 McDonald's, Junior Johnson car that he won two races in. It was not 94. No, no, no.

I'm talking about 1994. I'm talking about 1994. How about that? Yeah. So I thought you were talking about 94 number 94. No, no, no. I'm talking about 1994 when he won those two races. Make a victory laugh.

That, go for it, Mike. Spike the ball. No, no, no, it's okay. But people thought, and I was reading about this, people thought that NASCAR turned a blind die to that car because it was Junior Johnson and they were trying to keep McDonald's in the sport. Yes, yeah. So that's the implication that Jimmy was making in 2001,

and the same argument and the same questions could have been asked in 94. And we, I think it's fair to ask him about that. Sure. Well, I think it's also, I think it's really smart for us to have a conversation to help people understand all of those things before we just jump right into it with Jimmy. So maybe. I will say this. There's a couple of the things I want to say. One is, I don't think Jimmy was the only one that had it in their mind. I thought Jimmy was the only bonehead to say it out loud. Sure. I think in that moment, I can, I think in that moment I can understand people being skeptical. I can. I mean, all right, all right, be skeptical. you have every right to be skeptical. There were fans that were skeptical. Like, people, this is too good?

It's too good. Too good to be true. This is too, right? I mean, sure. I understand you can think it. But for him to come right out and say it fresh out of the car. Right. I mean, me and Michael are probably still in the freaking infield standing on the roof.

Yeah. Yeah. Hugging, crying. That's the thing about it. It's that even if you feel. it. Could be it waited until Monday? That was a healing moment for America that just ended up causing a wound that was unnecessary.

Yeah, wait till Monday to ask that question. I noticed an article like Johnny Benson was quoted as introducing the concept. He's like, you know, I don't know. I mean, but then he turns it right around and says, like he's like, I don't know. I got to wonder, but I tell you what, this is just too good of a moment. I'm glad he won. Well, he criticized him. sorry to interrupt. He criticized based off of, man, that car could pass on its own. He never did

what you said about this fictitious thing. So Johnny's quote was almost taken out of context in a way there. But he introduced the idea. I don't think that that was unintentional. I think he introduced it, made it seem like that people were thinking it, but he rained it back in. He knew his boundary. And he's like, listen, I'm just happy. Everybody was happy at that moment. Yeah. And that was the, that was kind of the ultimate sin is for, to somebody come in there and try to denigrate something that was perfect and too good to be true. Yeah.

And why, why do that? Am I, I, I guess it's, I guess I feel, I feel this need to say that, like, do I think the car was bone stock to the rule book? No. But there ain't a car, I've never drove a car that was bone stock. if I did, shame on that guy for building it that way. You never won one with a car that was a bottom-old. I've never won a race with a by-the-rule book race car,

and I don't ever want to drive one. And so, I mean, when we go run these Xfinity races once a year, I talk to the crew chief. I'm like, hey, all the tricks, buddy, everything you got. I want you to do anything and everything. Be aggressive, you know? Yeah. Are we sort of giving NASCAR a heads up?

Why are you turning red, yeah? We're going to have a time time going through tech. It's one race. It's one race. What do you care? What do I care? Suspending for three days about it. Suspending for the next week.

Do what you got to do. I can handle a year suspension. But one more, a long time ago, I bought a few pop-up tents. Pop-up campers, right? So fun. aren't those things amazing? That's great. Yeah.

I mean, they're so nostalgic. I bought a couple of them, and I have, I think I sold you one. You did. And I kept one. And the other, Alice starts telling me, I want to go camping, I want to go camping. I'm like, I don't even, we don't camp. We don't talk about. We don't camp.

We don't talk about camping. Where is she here in this? What does she think camping is, right? So I say, hey, what is camping? I don't know. I don't know. I'm like, well, camping, I let you know, I explain it to her. And she's like, yeah, I want to do that.

And so I was thinking, I got an airstream, and I was like, man, I can get that airstream out. But that's a lot of work. So I thought, pop-up tent. Pop-up camper, I got one. Let's go see what shape it's in. I let a buddy of mine use this thing every year for the auto fair in Charlotte. He goes out there and tries to sell some old parts of stuff, and he uses this pop-up camper to stay in. Well, he's taking really good care of it.

I get it out. I park it in the grass next to the house. I plug it in. Everything works. Air conditioner's running. This thing's about 15 years old. Doesn't smell bad or anything. We proceed to get this thing ready to go for Isla to camp out.

Me and her are going to stay in it. Amy's going to stay in the house with the baby. And so I sent a picture to you. I didn't know you were in your pop-up. Wasn't in my pop-up. Wish I was in my pop-up. Okay, you were in a different. Sarah had the idea where you can go tent camping.

this weekend. Okay, so you're in a tent. Yeah. So I, you know, I'm like, hey, Mike, check it out. We're in this pop-up. You're like, I'm camping too. I wish I was camping where you're camping. So we're in one end of the pop-up and I unzipped one side of it to just have a little air, fresh air come in. The air conditioner is running on low-cool working perfectly. I needed to go use the restroom. So we went into the house and did that. And I grabbed it. grabbed a bucket of beer, and we came back out. And I got encouraged by my booth mates at NBC that you can't camp without beer. That's true.

They're right. I'm like, all right, it's about 9.30. Isla's bedtime. We're about an hour past that. But it's camping. I'm like, you know what? She can stay up as long as she wants. She's got her little iPad.

We don't have any internet. We don't have no phone service, no internet or nothing out there. And so she's watching all those offline videos, right? So she's sitting there content, happy, laying in the bed. I'm sitting in the dinette of the pop-up, drinking a couple beers, listening to some George Strait. Perfect. It's perfect. Except it'd been better if Amy was sitting there with me.

I sit, I falls asleep, and I climb in the bed, and we're laying there, and we'll fall asleep, right? Around probably 2 o'clock in the morning, I start hearing the sprinklers are. priming. And so my sprinkler system at my house, it kind of starts on one side and over time. So some will run, then those two or three sprinklers will stop and the next two will start, right? It ain't all sprinklers at once, right? It's a couple here, a couple there, a couple there, and then it's done. Right? So it's a process. So imagine there, I'm laying in bed, I was asleep and I hear off in the distance a couple sprinklers priming up. they're going and then they stop and then the next ones are going and it's getting closer and

closer and I'm laying there hearing this and I know what it is and I'm like I wish you be good it's gonna it might get a little loud if it hits this camper she's probably going to wake up and be like like what is that scared right that could terrify a three year old right if it's sprinklers hitting the side of this little tent it's going to be loud those things fired off right beside the camper. And one, I mean, it's like a water hose. It's, because they're shooting across the yard. Long streams, right?

So it's got a lot of water coming out of it. There's one that fired off and started making it sort of sweep right into the window, right in, perfectly. Perfectly. I mean, we're laying there. The open windows at our feet. this water comes shooting in covers us covers our pillows

head to toe covers us covers us and Alice sits up and I'm like Al it's a sprinklers it's a sprinklers because I thought she was going to be terrified

of the she's wet now it's loud the sprinklers are hitting this thing from all sides and then it stopped and she just plop back down went right back to sleep

you got to be a kid I'm soaked You on the other hand. I'm like, oh, my God. So I get out of bed and I flipped over the pillows and got a different cover blanket because the one we had was wet now and cold. Half of the mattresses soaked, it was just a mess, but I didn't care. She was fast asleep in the next, you know, 30 minutes, 30 seconds later.

But it was so funny. Let me tell you what is interesting about this. You send me a picture that y'all are camping. I appreciate it for about five seconds and then I get jealous and I start. start getting a little angry because I'm like, God dang it. I'm in this dang tent. And man, it's hot. Yes.

It is freaking hot. Okay? Then it starts raining. Now, this tent has got to be 20 years old. Me and Sarah used to backpack with this thing. It's been through the ringer. It's got a rainfly on it and a tarp. And yet, there is water coming through because it starts pouring.

Oh. Yeah. And we're in South Carolina, by the way. We ain't in the front yard. What part? It was called the, uh, it was called, uh, Hickory Knob State Park near the Savannah River

or the Georgia South Carolina Line about three hours away. Dude. And oh, it's a great state park. We had a blast. But then it starts raining and then the water starts leaking through.

Now, man, I'm going to tell you something. I like camping, but I better not get wet. Oh, you know, I better not get wet. That ruins it. And it starts coming through. And my thought was,

that bastard is dry. And I'm sitting here. here wet in this tent and I had no idea. He was wetter than I was. And now I feel good about it. What to hell? Victory life again? Well, we went to sleep.

We woke up around 6.30 birds chirping. And just awesome. So you didn't go back inside? No. You roughed it out. Yeah. I'll be dang. I'm impressed.

Amy comes in there with the baby. And, uh, y'all look like y'all, you know, She's like, oh, it's wet, mattress is wet. I'm like, yeah, I had to tell her. I was fine. She's dry, her little spot. I mean, it wasn't like a full soak.

It just kind of like a sprinkler, right? You know, it wet the surface of everything. But it was awesome, man. And then, God, I got to clean that thing up and wiping it down and then packed it back away and put it back up. Man, I'd just assume use that pop-up camper than staying that big old coach that we used to stay at the racetrack. You'd get past that in about a week or two.

Why? Because... I love the simplicity of it. There is that. Listen, I'm going to tell you something. Especially when you have kids, when we took ownership of that pop-up camper that you had, and I'm talking, this isn't even one...

This predates even the button, the electrical pop-up. Like, you have to crank it, click, click, click, click, click, at least the one I have. But when you do that, like, when you have little kids, they love it. Yeah. They love that. Yes. They love the clicking. They love the, you know, the...

The thing coming to life. Yeah. And then you can grill out. You've got your drinks. I mean, you can really have a lot of fun with it. And so we still go, in fact,

I got a camping trip coming up in a couple weeks for that camper. And we're going to go out there and, you know, take the girls and they love it. And eventually they grow out of it. I'm sure it won't be cool. Where are you going? Huntington Beach State Park.

Good man. You go to all the state parks, Mike. Oh, man. My wife hasn't covered. And it's fun. What do you do at a state park? There's a lot of hiking. We have kayaks.

We take our kayaks and go do that. This past week at the state park, there was archery, there was a skeet range. I played around a golf. There was a nice golf course in the state park. And there was the, you know, the kayaks and everything else. Me and my wife. Our kids are off at summer camp. Ah.

In the park. Yeah, in the park. They're off at summer camp. Oh, they're off at summer camp in Florida. You all went to South Carolina by yourself. Yeah. You and your wife. Ah, in a tent.

In a tent. Okay. Right. Interesting. I know. Man. Yeah. I don't think Amy would ever stay in a tent with me.

I don't think she would either. No. I don't think she's standing there. Now, Sarah just bought a new tent. We just haven't got it yet, and it's a custom tent. I mean, how much do you think you'd spend on a tent? Talk about going in hazy's and stuff. Which, by the way, she's replied on our text on our books.

I'm buying my tent from Target or Walmart, and it's a couple hundred bucks. I don't know. We just spent over $1,000 on a tent. Golly, what's the tent got? They better have. Like three rooms? It better come with a strobe light for all I know. I don't know.

But it, no, it's even smaller than the one because it's something that you, it's very light. And so you would pack it and put it in a backpack. You know, you don't want anything heavy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. That's the other thing I meant to mention on this tent. These tents aren't those big tents. These are these little tents that we're in. Side by side.

Yeah, yeah. Gosh. And not a lot of rain. And it's hot. Yeah. And then it got wet. And you're, it's, you're creating the heat in there. Your own body and.

And apparently, I'm a heater. I mean, like, oh yeah. What are you going to do, though? What are you going to do? So that was our camping experiences. Yeah.

Not similar, but then very similar. And the fact that we both, neither one of us stayed dry. Well, mine went good, and I'm looking forward to Isling me to do it again. That's cool. Last night,

we were hanging out at the house last night, and the power went out. I was on Motor Mouse for NBC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doing Motor Mouse FaceTime. And my power went out. I had to call back in. Power comes back on, flickered.

So I finished motor mouth. I was a little nervous because it, I was like, the grid's a little weak around here. But power goes out again later that night. And Amy's freaking out. Like, it's time for the baby go down. It's getting warm in the house. We don't have sound machine.

He's another, right? So we're figuring it out. We're going to go stay in, I got a shop, and we're going to go stay in that. We're going to sleep in that. We're going to go. just leaving the airstream, right? Okay.

But they restored the power right around, after about two and a half hours or so. Duke Power went out there and fixed it. I wanted to drive over there and find those repairmen and they'd be like, hey, thank you. You guys don't get enough credit. Did you have a storm? No, but it was a limb.

It was a tree limb. So the firewire, I heard of County Firewire said there was an accident, but then they corrected it a minute later and said it was just a limb. I'm telling you, between your water damage that you had a few weeks ago and then now your power going out, and it's maybe time for a new yard sale so you can. I'm just so thankful for, I am just so thankful that in the middle of the, you know, it's miserable hot yesterday, humid as heck, and it's after hours, and we have a power outage, and they come out there and fixed it.

And it wasn't five days, it wasn't three days, it wasn't two weeks, it wasn't 24 hours. I mean, it was back up in a couple hours. That's awesome service. Shout out to all the electricians who go out there, get on them lines, fix them right now. There's got to be one or two listening right now. This is for you. That's right. Shout out to you guys.

All right, Mike, he's here. He's waiting out there in the lobby. Let's go ahead and bring Jimmy Spencer in here. All right. Side by side. Here they come for the checker flag. Who's the one for me? Will it be Ernie Irvin on top for Jimmy Spencer on the low side?

Off of corner number four. Here they come. It's going to be a drag race today. checkered flag. Jimmy Spencer wins it. Boom, Brandy. Jamie Spencer. What's happening?

Here, put that, before you talk, put the headset on and get on the mic. I can tell your wheels are already rolling. You got stuff to say. I miss it. I miss owning a team. I miss. I miss the sport.

Yeah. I miss this. You have a lot of guys working for you that I work with. You know, yeah. There's a lot of people that used to work in Ultrammel. Motorsports. He used to work even, you know, back of the Yellow Race team. I mean, Donnie Tarantino's are shop foreman.

You know, Donnie was a crew member. Jeff Miles is? Do you know that's the best hamburger maker in the world? Jeff Miles is. Yes, he is. Without a question. The first time I saw him, we were there, and I was hungry for a hamburger, and I popped the grill.

He said, don't you touch them, you saw him a bay. And they're like three and a half inches thick. And I said, man, they ain't going to be done. He said, just leave him alone. When he was done with some raw onion and some ketchup, but it was the best damn hamburger ever, I said, Miles, I'm married. You know the heartbeat. I can't believe my good day was.

Anyway, Jeff Miles is one of our truck drivers, but he was a truck driver for Jimmy for a couple years. Buddy Baker. Yeah. One of your old team owners. He gave me my first ever ride. You know, I come down here, and I was sitting a workshop over at Herb Nabs, Patterson Farm Road.

What are you doing there? I couldn't find a shop there. We were driving from Pennsylvania. South with our nationwide car, bush car. And finally heard him, that ab gave me a shot. He said, I'll be in a shot for $600. Thank God. And so the first year I'm racing there, you know, the phone rings, 89.

I guess I would have been the second year. And this is early in the season. And, man, I had a bad day. It was like 11, 12 o'clock. And the phone rings and Al. There's only two guys in the shop, me and Al. And Al's working underneath the car. He said, go get the damn phone.

He says, no. So I picked the phone up. I says, yeah. He goes, this is Buddy Baker. I want to give you a ride in my car. They say, yeah, this is Buddy Baker. I'm the damn president of the United States. Yeah.

I'm just a goddamn hung the phone up. So I can walk out in the shop. I said, who is that? I said, Buddy Baker. He said, yeah, well, it could have been. He says, you know, I heard he fired Greg Sachs. I said, are you serious? Are you freaking serious?

So now what am I going to do, right? Thank God. Buddy calls me back about 15 minutes later. Jimmy, I said, yes, sir. He says, this is Buddy Baker. Do you want to drive my GD race car or not? I says, I'll be over in a few minutes. He says, bring a seat.

And that was my shot. I went to Dover. Incredible. And, oh, buddy, a lot. You've driven for a lot of people. And, yes, you have. I mean, Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker, Junior Johnson. I mean, you have driven for some big names.

We really have. But Buddy Baker, special place. And we got that picture of Buddy. Buddy Baker. That's what, Tray. So do you need to take in anymore right now? I mean, I know that you're about a half hour late already. I know. Let's go ahead. Take a little more time. My kids, my grandsons were talking to me. They're at the beach. And I says, you know what? I don't care about anything. My grandsons and my wife and I, we've been blessed, Pat and I, and they want to talk to Poppy. They were telling me they went on a kayak yesterday. It was awesome. Buddy Baker and your dad. I'm driving for Buddy Baker in a nationwide bush race. at Bristol. Me and your dad,

we would race one other pretty hard. I raced him at South Boston. He wrecked. I was there. He said I wrecked him. You did.

I didn't wreck him. You hit the curve or something. Actually, Dale, I was tight, and I loved your own man. God dang, I loved him. And he turned down, he caught the right front, and he totaled that damn car. Oh, yeah.

So I go back the next day, you know, Tony and all the boys were there. And I said, Where's Dale? Oh, you don't want to talk to Dale. I said, where in the hell is he at? He's up in his room.

So I go up. What the hell did you wreck me for? I said, Dale, I didn't wreck you. Well, your dad, you couldn't change his mind. Roll this thing ahead. Bristol, Night Race. I'm driving for Buddy Baker. This is the second year.

I'm driving for Buddy Baker. Five or six cars is on a lead lap. And I'm trying to pass your dad. Four or five laps to go and right. I finally get by your dad. Needless to say, He didn't forget. Boom.

Spins me out. I backed the thing into the wall. Didn't do much damage. Your old man, you know, he never would wreck you to wreck you. He just wanted you to remember. This is interesting. Your dad's hauler is into one in turn one and two at Bristol. Guess who's next to him?

Our hauler. So your dad's, you know, immediately, your dad pulls down pit road because Dale, Robert Black, you know, he knew he was going to suspect, you know, kick him out. Who cares? He says it's three laps to go in the race. I proceed to finish fifth because I was the last currently lap

and the race is over. I pull in. I wasn't going to win the race, but man, a lot of the media people were there and I went, oh shit, there's a earner good. I can address this right now

because Bobby Allison used to say, this needs to be addressed. So your old man sitting there in the back of the hauler and I can't remember the haulers. They were like king of the road or what were? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I rode with that. I rode with Tony Yuri and Junior and senior one time for your dad up to Michigan. That's another story. That was awesome. I needed money and your dad helped me out. But anyway, so I said, okay, he's sitting there. So he's drinking a cold one. I go over and sit next to him.

I'm mad. I'm mad as a hornet. He puts his arm around me. Spencer. Now remember, look to your left and right. You see what we see, the media. And I'm looking. I'm like, holy cow, he's right, you know?

So we start talking a little bit And he says, what did I tell you about South Boston? I says, you son of a bitch, that's right. He says, well, it's all square now. I says, no, it's not. No, no way, I do it. I says, no, it's not. Do you know who the hell I'm driving for?

He goes, yeah, Buddy Baker. I says, and here comes that big son of a bitch. He's looking for you. And Buddy comes storming down through the end. You know, he was a big man. Here he comes. So I can walk whatever you. dad and I stand up.

And buddy goes, what? I says, oh, listen, buddy. Dale accuses me of bumping him at South Bar, oh, he said enough said. And Dale hands him a beer. And it was just, I would never, those memories I would never trade for all the money in the world. Never. Never.

Yeah. I got a way ahead of myself. I'm sorry. No, it's good. I mean, some people say that you're, you, you, you. you're kind of misunderstood and that if they knew your story and how you got going and racing and where you came from, that it would make more sense, right?

A lot of people that, so a lot of people, me included probably to a point, only know that Jimmy Spencer from your cup days. From the media more than that. Right, exactly, right? And so let's find out who you are, below that surface, right?

Let's talk about where you got your interest in racing. I quit playing high school football to race. My mom and dad raised seven kids up in Pennsylvania. My dad was a hell of racer. Were you good at football? Yeah, it really was. I actually had a scout from West Virginia. My best friend, Bob DeMette and me,

Bob went on to play college ball. He got killed last year. He was a good guy. Anyway, I quit playing nice school football because my dad said to me, you're either going to race, like you say, you're going to play football. And Mandale, you know, growing up, my dad and my uncle's all raced, and you'd come home in school and you watched them working on race cars. And we'd go to Evergreen.

That was the racetrack. Evergreen. It's still racing today. And, you know, my dad, through his career, he turned down to Indie. He went to Indy in the late 60s. I should say early 60s because I think my sister was born and dad got

he was driving for a Chevrolet dealer up in Pennsylvania they won every freaking race I was what six years old but my uncle told me the story and dad went to Indy got his car in the whole nine yards and they killed two drivers within two three days

and he said to the car owner he says you know something Fran's at home with seven kids I have a hell of a business what would happen to her and the kids and he never shot. And I think that's why Dale he followed me so devotely

in my career. You have six? Six of them. You have six brothers and sisters? Yeah. So how many other boys are there? There was four boys, three girls. My sister, Chrissy, you knew her, she died.

And then my two sisters are still, one Connecticut, Pennsylvania and my other three brothers run the business. And the business is what? This is the wrong word. It's a damn junkyard. I don't know that's the wrong word. I think that's part of the Spencer Stigma, isn't it?

It is. It's a junkyard. We buy junk cars and we sell parts off of them, but they're new parts. Yeah. Wait a minute. How does an old car have new parts on it? It's new to you. I like, yeah.

I can appreciate that. I've dug around in a junkyard. That's awesome. Yeah. It's fantastic. It is. So your brothers, so did any of them want to race? You know, my dad was racing and winning lots of races.

And we were all starting to get teenagers. years. My brother, Ed, I would have never made without him. God love him. He says, I want to race, Dad. When my dad quit, just cold turkey, and I knew why now. So Ed and I are talking to him. We said, hell, we got to go buy us a car. So we went to near Bedford, Pennsylvania, and we bought this. My dad sold everything. We're going through the summer months. Jesus, what the hell are we going to do, you know? So I went to the drag strip and actually almost won the drag strip, but that's irrelevant. I said, is boring drag racing. So I said, we got a race.

So we went and bought a car, $1,800. So we get to, we get it home, and my dad, we paint it and put some stickers on it, and my brother goes at a racetrack. Dale, you never in your life.

Never in your life. So I shake as bad as him. He looked like, I can't even describe as shaking. And his legs were shaking. He couldn't even get him on the pedals. And my dad says, Ed, are you okay?

Yeah, Dad, I'll be fine. I'm watching this. He goes out for C's to finish last. So we come back the second week. He says, Dad, there's something wrong with his car. And my dad worked on it. We set it all up second week. He does do decent.

He finishes like 18. He says, Dad, I'm telling you there's something wrong with his car. Well, that was the perfect scenario because my old man, my dad, He got in that car the following Saturday night. He tarred and feathered them. And they said, yeah. And then we went on, Dad won two track championships. With that car.

It would have been 74. No deal. Actually, it was a Ford, and he never liked a Ford. And he ended up selling that car at the end of the year. We went to Barry Kleinanced and bought a Chevy. Am I getting this right? You and your brother wanted to race, so your brother starts to drive it. It doesn't do well.

your dad gets in it and then your dad's back to racing again yeah and that year of 70s what's your brother do he was a he was a he stopped no yeah he stopped he's done driving the start of his mechanic career right there he knew that he says why did you get this ain't got out for me when did you get to drive well we ran we ran that's a cool picture your dad man you got a cool shop here a cool place oh yeah anyway my dad went on to win a bunch of races that year and my best one at the time my friend John Frank and I, he wanted a race and I want to race. So the old man, I never called him the old man, my dad. We had a junkyard and he had the car of the 64 Chevrovel sitting down in the back in the cover because we bought him a brand new Gary March chassis because that's what was winning. And he was,

he commenced the field. He just, he kicked their asses. And from then on, I said, to the following year comes. And I says, oh, dad, I don't want to go to the races this weekend. So we're going out. So two or three weeks goes by and he knows what we're doing so that would go to the racetrack Saturday we'd roll the car up there and work on blah blah blah you get it all done my mom never went to any races but she sat there so she probably told them so about three weeks goes by and my dad says uh i was i was wondering what happened to that car went down there and looked and it looks like it's ready to race you you you're ready to race and i says yeah we went got a motor out of a school bus put it in the car and i went and raced and i went and And he fought me.

He argued he didn't want me to race. Didn't want me to race. And the sixth race of the year, they wanted me to move it down in division, whole nine yards. My dad says he's either going to become a race car driver or not. Quick story about him. So same thing. Dad, this car ain't handling worth of a piece of crap. Really?

So I finished like 12th, 15th. You know, he'd win the race. Second week, same thing. He says, tell you what we're going to do. He says, you sit here and watch me drive your car. you take my car out, I'm going to get in your car. So I take his car out and I says, just ain't right.

You know, just ain't right, really? So he takes my car. He says, go down and watch me in the corner. So I trots down in the corner and watch him, and I said, hmm, I ain't driving that some bitch like he is. He'd drive it down in the corner. It was dirt, you know, he'd set that thing. And I said, hmm.

So he'd come in and I, you know, he said, what do you think? I says, it's sure in hell ain't the car. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's the worst thing that happened. It's like, you let him get in your car. and then he goes and does well. But then you knew it. Yeah.

You know, that's one thing about the older drivers. I didn't mind people getting in my car to tell me if I was feeling the same stuff. And, you know, then we went on to win a bunch of races. I never won the championship. My dad did. We won 19 races out of 21 races at Port World Speedway. Decided that that wasn't what I wanted to do. What do you mean?

I tell you why, Dea, my girlfriend, my wife, we had come back and we had won a race. And Jimmy Naves is a hell of a race for him and his wife from near Bedford, Pennsylvania. And he started on the pole and I started third in the 50 lapar at Port Royal. And I'd fall in and on and fall on from him. And there's a soupy hole in turn four. And he would hit the thing, you know, and I says, if I get that sucker right, I could beat him. Well, my dad's like 50 or six. I don't remember.

We had the radios, mirrors, nothing. And Jimmy Naves hit that hole just right coming off at turn four. And he bounced, lifted. I beat him to the line by two feet. Dang, that was awesome. I won. Pulled in the victory lane. And then people went crazy.

They thought of hitting. Full freaking beer bottle comes out of the grandstand. Hits my wife in the head. Girlfriend. Oh, my God. Excuse the French. Now you're fine. I said, you bastards.

You know, that was it. And, you know, they fixed her up. And I said, you know, I said, I'm done. Did you go after them? Well, all my brothers and, oh, Jesus Christ, Mike, they got the guy. They did? They got him and they arrested them.

But let me tell you what, the fans even retaliated then. Oh. Because they tried to get them because the fence, you couldn't get to the fence. But anyway, I said, I'm done. And Jerry Clark was the promoter of Port Rural Speedway. And there was three or four races to go in the season. And I quit. I said to my dad and sell my car.

I saw my car to a guy out of $3,800 bucks, complete. I said, I'm going racing. I started checking out asphalt racing. The following Saturday night, Jimmy Naves, and his wife gets up in front of the audience. My dad tells me the story. My wife and I, we're going dirt racing. We're going up.

We're going to actually weed sport up in New York. And her and her husband get on the thing, and Jimmy said, let me tell you guys something. That young man last week followed me the whole race. I made a mistake coming off the fourth turn, and he capitalized and beat me. He never touched me. You guys messed up because you messed up

with a guy that you could enjoy watch racing. I enjoyed racing with him. I thought that was a pretty honorable thing. And I went up and started looking in dirt racing, and then I finally bought an asphalt modified. And actually went against Breppo 979, one rookie of the year, Shangola won my races. And then from there I went and I started selling tires to make money to race.

What broke three times, I wanted a race. I didn't care what it cost. And won a bunch of modified races. I won the track championship of Maynard Troyer. God love him. man, helped me a lot. Ron Hunter. And Maynard said, Spencer, you've mastered a Wigo. And what you have mastered, a Wigo Speedway, New York, you could go anywhere and win. And baby, I did. Went to New England, Thompson, Stafford, Westboro, you name them. Got my name Mr. Seidman.

That's where it came from. Came from Stapford Motor Speedway. What was the story behind that? We were racing first year, the Spring Sizzler. So we go. there and you had to, they come out with this new idea, they were going to put this frickin McCurry tire or whatever on the cars, who's your tire? Hard sidewalls. And, I mean, if you slid wrong, you'd blow them out. Well, I just done spun out in the heat races like three times, you know, broke the brake line. And we were in the non-qualifiers race when I broke the brake line. Come in, my brother, I said, if brake line's broke, you

only got rear brakes, I said, ah, it don't matter, I'll still win the son of a bitch. come all the way up and blew another tire so now NASCAR's had enough of me, the track. This is how I meet Jim Hunter. So we're parked behind the at Stafford we're parked behind the press center and I pull up, get out of the car and pissed off

because NASCAR tells me I have to park my car. And Jim Hunter's standing up on this tower thing and he's whistling and yelling and he's waving at me and I'm like, what? And he's telling me to come back. out on the track and I'm like looking at him and he's just me to thumb up and I go he goes you know well now all I want the fans start stomping mr. excitement mr. excitement. Mike Julia said well Mr. Excitman's done for the day oh no he's not so now I proceed to go out

to the thing and the official stands there he puts his foot on the front bumper of the car the chrome horn he goes you can't go out I says there's two options you have lower the chain I'm going to knock it down he says Jimmy you're going to get in hot water for this don't give a damn. I said, they want me out there. Went out there, go back and got second. Needed to win the race to get in the sizzler. Two days later, I get a letter in the mail. Says that I'm not suspended.

I'm fine. Two thousand bucks. I ain't got two grand. I call Mr. France. Mr. France. Jimmy Spencer. I was expecting this call. I says, what the hell's going on? I said, your man, Jim Hunter, told me to come back out on the track. He says, you disobeyed an official. And I says, well, you know what?

I had all I'm going to take. We talked for a little while and one thing leads to another. Them sons of bitches, they knew what they were doing. Hunter's in there on a speaker phone. Hunter says, Spencer, I was waving you telling you were doing a good job. I said, Jim, you were motion. No, he says, you misunderstood my hand signals. Them two sons of bitches started laughing on the phone.

It was amazing. I never forgot as long as I lived. And I said, Mr. France, what am I going to do about this fine? He says, what fine? That's nice. So that's why I got Mike Troy gave me the day, Mr. Excitement. And it hung, hung on.

How many questions you got now? Well, I guess, I guess, you know, so you're, in that moment, you're privy to a bit of the show, you know, that NASCAR is an entertainment business. So in that moment, early in your career, you saw behind the curtain of what France and those guys, what their objective was, right? Without a doubt. And so, you know, anybody. I guess another driver in the same situation who doesn't know that they're doing all that

and they're trying to be that way would have been like, oh, they're out to get me. They're out to screw me. NASCAR's bad. They're jerks. A lot of guys said that deal. A lot of guys said, you could race other tracks up there and they would ask me why I would Wall Stadium was a great example. Wall Stadium was an outlaw track.

Pay big money. Hour and 20 minutes from my house, but I would drive two hours. to New York, to a Wiga, New York to race NASCAR. I'm proud. I have an 83 helm. I have my memorabilia from NASCAR was special. And yeah, I wanted to race the big cars. I saw my dad pass it up. I heard the story. My dad was damn good. And the assurance that I had from my dad was pretty cool. And I'll tell you what sparked my interest. Your dad won rookie the year, the Gatorade deal.

and I did and we came to Charlotte to a shindig Brigadeer, became good friends with your dad and the only reason why my wife

loved your dad so she says make sure I get to meet Dale so I went over there and he says Dale he goes yeah I says

you're one of them crazy guys drive them modified I said yeah he's not heard about you and I says my wife loves you I said she wants to

well get her over and he gave her a big hug And she just always liked Dale. And from that, I never forgot that day. And from that day on, you know, when I first moved down, I'd go to see your old man. And he was the same way. Your dad was special because he didn't know when to quit.

And I think most of the drivers didn't. But getting back to that, you know, the thing that I felt like the future for me was you could make a hell of a living in Modifights. I made a lot of money, Dale. I made, you'd win 10 grand, five grand. and win 100 lap races. Yeah. You could go all over the northeast.

It was strong. It was strong money. And my God, back then in the late 70s, early 80s, you could make some serious money. So what did, I remember you brought, you got to Blue 24 Bush car. Oh, yeah. And you transitioned out of the Modifieds into the Xfinity series or the Bush series. What was your, how did you do that? Why did you do that?

I know that you were trying to get into NASCAR. car trying to get into stock cars right i was they i you know what i won a lot of races won a lot won a lot of stuff and i said you know what i was going to go bush race and whatever it was so i go down to j hedgecock we build this car you got a brand new you built the brand new affinity car worked my ass off my wife and oh my god go to detona and bill france calls me to the office because i spun out at rockingham in this fall race four times it never hit nothing ran out of tires, no bullshed. And at the time, that's when a lot of drivers were getting hurt and killed.

They didn't have the rules they had now. And you're, you know, I go to the office. We're on the back straightaway at Daytona. I'm excited about being at Daytona. I've never been. I've been in the grants that I told my mom one time, I will race here and I will win this race. I will win at Daytona.

And he says, Jimmy. I said, yes, sir, Mr. France. He says, no, call me Bill. He says, you're doing really good in the modified and this and I know you want to run in the nationwide. What the hell was it called? The Bush Series. The Bush Series. He says, you want to run the Bush Series.

Would you do me a favor and not run that car this week? And I'll take care of you. I said, Mr. Francis, I spent a lot of money. He says, Jim, I just think you need to do it. He slid a check across for $10,000 to me. So not run the Daytona opening February race? The Bush race. Yeah.

The Grand Bush race. Were you in the cup race? No, no. This is my first. This is your race. This is before I became the national champion in the modified. God. Because that's what, you know, I think Grant, I don't remember Grant.

I remember we lost some guys at Michigan in the cups. Sure. We lost a lot of drivers. And, you know, inexperience. I remember the rookie meetings, they laugh, but I remember Dick Beatty and Keill Yarbrough, when that sonbush turns, turns, turn that thing to the left and lock it down, it's going to stop. Yeah. And it does.

You know, it does. My first experience at Daytona was that way. I was like, holy shit. It does work. So I decided not to race the race. You took the check. I took the check. So I go back on the back stirre.

I says, hey, guys, we've got to load everything up. I'm not going to run this race. Well, Mike Laughlin says to me, what the hell's going on? I says, you know what? And Bill said, don't say nothing to nobody. Loved your dad. Love Bill France. Love Mr. Hendrick.

So anyway, one thing leads to another. And I said, we're loading it up. Mike says, no, no, we've got to put a driver in it. So your dad was driving. That freaking number of eight, black car. and I got the number 28 blue and yellow Apple House trucking car we put Ronnie Bouchard in it

and he's picking on this car it's like pushing a I didn't know because we made it slick but we made the frontiers big you know in the whole nine yards but I saw your dad's car and I went to and I was talking to those guys and talk to Bobby Allison and Bobby said well if you pull the front of front of him

but he says I'm going to tell you well and on old tires that car will flat fly around this racetrack so we didn't know so Ron gets in the race and he doesn't believe my brothers we took all my modified crew and we're going to win the race so we don't have to pit for fuel no more and guess what ronnie and your daddy were good friends yeah and he finished first and i finished third because your your dad decided to pit late and guess who follows him we're not ready for a pit stop here comes ronnie i said you dumb son of a bitch we told you not to pit don't get don't get don't let the eight car get ahead of you well the eight car got

ahead of us. They proceeded to come through the field and your dad won. Jeff Bodine got second and we got third. And that was my last hooray as a car owner because I said, that sucks when you build that good a car. And ironically, I went to Mr. France the next day and I said, Mr. France, he says, you should just keep that money because he says, you're going to be with me for a long time. And I was. Why did Bill France take such a liking to you? I never lied, Mike. And honest to God, they know. They need. knew if they called me in that thing. I got in trouble with Ford. Ford was kicking everybody's ass.

Me and Dale went in there one day, and we were talking. I went to your dad's shop, and he said, you tell France, so I went in there, and that's when the Ford's had come out with a tourist body, and they won like eight or nine races in a row. They did annihilate them. I said, the bill, I said, when the car's getting y'all, they pick up down force, they can't beat them, right? And Dale says, what they tell you.

But that was just me, Bill and Dale in the building. And Dale would say some stuff about stuff. Bill trusted people. If you, you know, I remember when Richie got killed with the 390 rule, Bill called on me to be the guy that. Bill France was concerned about his drivers. He was concerned about the sport, and he wanted to see it be good. And I used to say to him when I was, the longer we got into it, he goes, something's wrong. with these fords and I go why he said he says well Dodge is complaining Chevy's

complaining but the four people never come in some bitch knew I mean he knew what was going on but when he had all three of them complaining he said I got it where I wanted but but he was he was awesome you know I remember uh in 2003 and I doubt you remember this but NASCAR Illustrated was doing a cover and I'm working with you Jimmy at ultra motorsports bill France Jr. was going to be on the cover and they were going to do a photo and I think we might have at Martinsville. I think we were in Martin'sville. And he asked for three drivers to be on the cover with him,

Jeff Gordon, Dale Jr., and Jimmy Spencer. I got a picture of them. And the three of you guys, that's the first time, actually, I think I might have even been around you, Dale. And that was, you know, in the back of the hall or something. And there's that, and I remember then that, you know, Jeff Gordon, ruling the sport at the time. Dale Jr., obviously coming in three or four years,

most popular. And Jimmy Spencer, that's who Bill France Jr., asked to be on the cover with him. So that's when I knew that there was some sort of relationship between you guys. Bill had the jaws. Do you hear the Jaws deal? I don't know if you Dale ever got it. I don't think your dad ever got the nitted it you.

Well, Sterling got it, Bobby Labani got it, you know, all this stuff. Got what? I got the jaws. He had a set of damn shark jaws when he used to go fishing. Oh. He used to go fishing with Rick Hendrick, all those guys fishing on the boat. You know, I never was a fisherman. Good care of less.

I want to fish? I go to the grocery store and buy it. Anyway, I get in trouble, which I've got in trouble because I speak my mind. You do? Oh, man. So one day, they called me to the trailer. I got this piece of paper. So anyway, one thing leads to another, and Mr. France goes, you gentlemen leave us.

So I get up to leave, you know, with him. He goes, oh, no, no, no, you sit right over here by me. Shut the door. I shut the door. I come over, and Bill always had that chair. know that, and did you remember the Winston Hall or read? So he takes out a piece of paper like this. He told your daddy the same story. Your old man told me his story was awesome. He draws a circle. I looked at it and I went, hmm, circle. He draws another circle inside of that one. That's two circles.

Draw some grandstands. I said, that looks like it's a racetrack. He's a race track. He's said, good deal. We're on the same page. Draws a building over here behind the thing. He looks at me. He goes, what do you think? He says, well, Thompson's pitch shack is in the

fourth term. Stafford's pit shack is right there. You keep with me, and you'll be back there racing. I got a message quick. Damn. Yeah. Got the message quick.

You talk about one nervous man, that was me. And that's how quick he could end your career. And I shouldn't have said that cuss word, but he said it, looked at me point blank and said that. And I never, I never forgot it. So you claim your words is that you like to speak your mind. I try to speak the truth, my side of the story.

Okay. Have you ever been wrong? Yeah. All right. Do you ever have any regrets? Hmm. Son of a bitch. Wow.

Lots. Okay. Name one. Come on. I mean, look, I went on YouTube and I searched Jimmy Spencer disputes or fights or whatever. The video is 44 minutes long. I didn't know they made YouTube videos that long. But you go back, I'm telling you Mike McLaughlin, 2001 Talladegh, Todd Bodine, your teammate.

You know, you had these things. So you're saying that there's nothing, like you wish you just had to take that back. You're like, oh, I shouldn't have said that or anything like that. Oh, yeah, Mike, you know, but you know my mom said never look in the past, move on. So what are you supposed to do? You know, you regret it? I regret it, man. But why bring it up?

I got you. Why, there's mistakes that I made. If I made better decisions on the motor builders, if I made better decisions on moves I made on the race track, if you question yourself all the time, Wow, I don't want 10,000 races. No, you can't, you can't look, you can't. I guess, you know, it's instilled into you. I remember my dad, you know, like, I regret.

I went to New England and I won some races and I told him, you guys are upset because I'm kicking your heroes' ass. What a dumb thing to say, right? Because now the fans hate me. I'd go there and I'd beat them. We'd go in and beat them. In fact, Richie Evans gets killed and Duet, concrete, super guy, Mr. Duet, is going to put me in the car. He's going to give me the same deal of Richie got because Richie told him, I was a hell of a race car driver.

Richie and I race for the championship in 84. I beat Richie if it wasn't for Jerry Cook saying I had an illegal carburetor on. But that's irrelevant. You can't look back. Got second to him. I also went broke. Richie got killed in 85 Hudder calls me up he says

Spencer Mr. DeWitt wants to talk to you It's okay Hutter puts the whole deal together I'm going to drive the BR Duit car What a great deal I go to freaking Thing I get the phone call That Hutter says

He ain't gonna bleed this He says Gene's son says That he doesn't want a Pennsylvania guy any What's a New York guy in You talk about getting your freaking heart ripped out. I says, holy shucks. One thing leads to another, and George Kent goes in the car, in DeWitt car.

I get Frank Cici. Well, Hunter says to Frank, he says, the best driver there is Spencer without a question. He won the championship hands down. So one thing leads to another, Frank calls me on the phone, takes my resume on the over the phone, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we go to the racetrack. We can't get the cars done. So I've driving one of Frank's cars that Ronnie kept prepared. So I'm leading the race in this car.

Green car, first time I ever drove a green number 11 at Shangri-La, we go New York. And Kent passes me in the B.R. DeWitt car. And my brother was furious. He says, my brother doesn't get freaking past leading the race. Something's wrong with that car. Well, the crew chief says there's nothing wrong with the car. My brother tracks it up. The housing was bent.

So, long story short, they're looking at the car in France. Frank says, that's a brand new rear end. And it says, brand new rear in my ass. He said, that thing's a piece of crap. He looked at it. Here, Kent stole the rear end out of the car, gave it back to Frank. Because DeWitt's deal was he would give you credit cards, buy your tires, buy you. You owned your stuff, but he sponsored you.

So one thing leads to another, and Frank Cici went over to Ronnie Kent. And Ronnie Kent says to him, get used to it. You can't beat us. We beat them by 200 and some points. of the year but frank i owe frank cc real lot because that's how we ended up 86 87 champion you raced um in the xfinity series um for him yep in the 34 y'all had three wins and your eighth in points and they replaced you in the middle of the year with randy lejoy buddy baker called me so that's how that happened yeah why did you not want to keep i come for one reason buddy i want to

and race a cup car man so how did you tell us frank he knew it i helped him so you couldn't do both no deal the way the schedule was you know you ran yeah you know you ran a bunch of tracks that would compete that was like i'm no airplane that that was exactly what you'd plan for yeah i was broke put put it to you lightly we we and two me an hour racing and you know it's funny when i first came down here i won the championship we won the champion my family my dad's you can't race You need to stay here. You're making too much money. You're winning too many races.

I said, Dad, I got to do it. Man, I got to go cup race. I got to try it. And I went down to food country, and the crew chief wouldn't hire me. I went down to... The 75 car. Yeah. So we come down here, nobody wants to put me in the car.

They go, you wreck. That was the word. I wrecked. I said, if I wrecked, how I went so many damn races and modified. I don't wreck people. and that was what the media did to me. They used that Mr. Excitin. Oh, yeah.

They could get away. Mark Gabor was the worst there was because I was racing in the Bush series and he would say that, oh, he's wrecking him. He's pushing him out of the way. And Frank Cici's wife would be home listening to it on the radio.

And Frank Cici would say, damn, Jimmy ain't even got a bump on his car. What are they talking about? So he went to MRN to talk about it and they wouldn't do nothing about it. He went to Mr. France. Because Dale, it was just, it was bad. They were painting your own.

Oh, my God. Were they painting? Dale, if I was so bad, right? How did I come? I remember this. The most, the most laps of anybody the first year here with me and one other guy. Yeah. Me and one other guy.

But anyway. How would you care? What was the truth then? You tell us the truth. What was the truth about how? Hardheadedness. Hardheadedness? Oh, God dang, man.

You know me, Mike. You know, you worked with me, man. I was a little bit of hardhead. So, so, but, but, but, um, but, um, but, but, um, but, um, but, um, um, Stubborn. Were you guys, would you call yourself aggressive? Yes. There was a way to pass somebody.

I never hit him. I raced them. Okay? You raced them. Now, if you held me up and I tried passing you three times inside or outside and you chopped me off, some bitch you're not going to know I'm there. I'm going to move you out of the way. It's the way we raced, man.

It's the way you raced. Because you, now, you would, if you were raised, I remember finishing second to Mike McLaughlin and the Wigo, New York, us, we go New York. I don't believe I was any faster. I don't think he was any faster. We had two equal cars. I could get to him. We could get, oh, fantastic.

But I never hit him because it would have been easy. That's not how you raced. You raced, you hoped the guy made a mistake going back to the dirt days with Jimmy Nave. You kept the pressure on Osama Bay. You kept him nervous as hell. You look at the five car today. what's his name Larson

Cow You look at Kyle Bush Those sons A bitch is dry Because they want to win You gotta admit That when you

When you want something That's what makes That's what it is It's not chocolate and vanilla That's why There's 31 flavors At Baskin Robbins Because

there's drivers out there That guy right there Kio Yarborough That was one of the most toughest drivers Ever meet Bobby Allen I drove for Bobby.

Take a quick story about Bobby Allison. Driving for Bobby Allison. Dick Moroso drove for him. We won those races and Bobby Allison, four races to go in the season. He calls me up. He goes, you need to drive my car. I said, okay, Bobby, I'll gladly drive your car. Bring your seat when we do it.

We go to Charlotte, finish fourth. We're going to win a race. Gonna win the first cup race ever. We're running third, get in the second. the second. Where's this? This is the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Catching a leader. And for some unknown reason, the car gets real free. I get close to the wall. I think I might have touched the wall. And it gets real fair. And I call the radio Jimmy Fenning, one of the best crew chiefs I ever had. It says, Jimmy, I says, my car's getting free right now. I think I got a

tire going down. Are you sure, you're sure, you're sure, you're sure. I relive it all the time because I didn't hit the wall. And all at once, I slow down. He says, slow down that speed. There's only 20 laps to go and race. We end up finishing fourth. And the next morning I'm taking the two kids to school. And Bobby calls me about 8 o'clock. He goes, Jimmy. He says, yeah, Bobby. He's, I need to come to the shop right now.

So I get my truck, haul ass over. And the truck arm was broke. Truck arm was broke. And I couldn't believe it. So then we went to Rockingham. I'm going to win the race at Rockingham. No question in my mind. Your dad knocked my bumper off

that day. I loved year old man. We were racing pretty hard, you know, and he knew I had a good car and I had a good and I might have went to turn and when he knocked the rear face off my thunderbird it made it about three tenths of a second quicker. It was

incredible. And I'm right that son of a bitch is flying, right? Last pit stop. The frickin' air gun breaks. That's when you were allowed two airguns on the right side and one on the left side. Bobo would and we finished seventh. to back out to Phoenix

we're racing the Phoenix going to win the race Davy Allison's leading race have bad pit stops all day I say to Bobby I go Bobby I know I said last pit stop we come out second 28's in front of us

Davy's leading for the championship I'm thinking well I've got to protect Davy I says Jimmy says how's everything I says not good whoa what do you mean not good Keith Ommamom I says you'll see in about 20 or 30 seconds coming down pit road had him open face salmon on

Mike Keys I look Bobby Allison Jimmy there's no problem there and I went I'm quiet he goes

now you remember you've done a great job this team has done a great job today we need to finish what we started out to do and that's when this race that car is just another obstacle in our way

and I'm like saying to myself this can't be true I cannot be hearing this so Bobby keeps talking Now he says, you remember, that car's racing for the championship. You race him that you know he's racing for the championship. Now you go and get him. And I got him.

And I'm passing him on the inside and the motor blows up. The lifter breaks. I end up finishing fifth. And then we went to Atlanta. Davey gets wrecked. Great memory. Alan Quickey and the Budweiser car, Jill Elliott. Bill Elliott.

So I got the car and I'm fast. I'm driving the best of December 12. And I can race with these guys. So I'm up there and I start messing with them and I'm like, and as the race progresses, I'm like, wow, I wonder what's going on. So what was going on was my fat ass was war out. I mean war out. So I come on the radio and I said, wow, I said,

car's getting a little tight right now. Okay. So the last 150 laps of the race or whatever, I couldn't race with them. I'm glad I didn't. You were falling out of the sea? I fell out of it. Not falling out. You fail out.

Oh, my God. You drop. I fell out. I ended up finishing fourth. Come in. I called him on the radio and I said, Jimmy, I needed to come up in front of this hauler. So Bobby Allison comes up, Jimmy comes up. And I said, you know, I could have spoiled that event today.

Bobby said, I know you could have. And I know what happened. And I'm going to help you. And my perspective from that race and the one before at Phoenix, I said, that's a hell of a race team. I'm staying driving for him. My phone was ringing off the hook. Rick Hendrick, Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, all of them. And I said, I'm staying with Bobby Allison.

Great race team. So you stayed? I stayed. I stayed, Dale. We were ninth in the points. We ran. No money. No money.

How did you get the call and finally go to juniors? Well, that's a sore subject because I was driving for BA. R.J. Reynolds wanted me to drive for them. T. Wayne Robertson. For junior? No. For Bobby? No.

T. Wayne Robertson wanted T. Wayne Robertson wanted me to drive R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Wait. Okay. I think that was something to do with your old man. Yeah. Okay. They were going to sponsor Bobby Allison. Bobby Allison didn't know how good a friend's Junior Johnson and T. Wayne Robertson was. McDonald's is on the 94 car, the Hutt Strickland driving it. So Jr. says, I'll put Spencer and in the 94 car for one year, and then I'll put him in your car from then on.

Junior was at the tail end of his career. He was ready to quit. Love him the death, man. Fortunate to get my wins with him. When we won a Daytona, Jr. put his arm around me and said, you're two or three years too late, bud, and I didn't realize that it was to the time. And then I realized. But they took that R.J. Reynolds to back a deal from him in 1993 when I race for Bobby Allison.

So we had Miningy on our car. 900 grand is all we had. I drove for little to nothing because I love that race team. Jimmy Finning, the Almond brothers, them sons of bitches, we had a hell of race team. Should have won some races.

And you regret? Yeah, I regret those guys never got a sponsor with me. That's what I regret. But Junior come to me and I waited as long as I could and I sit down with Bob Bilby, Jack, Bob Bilby and the guy from he owned the Hagerstown

Bob Bilby and Bobby Allison and they kept promising me we're going to get a sponsor. So Junior Barney Hall Barney Hall kept coming. Hey, you know the Hallo is waiting for you. The holla. You know the holla. Oh yeah, Juniors. The Holla.

And he says, Barney, I'm standing where I am. He's he getting a sponsor. He said, how do you know that? They knew. I mean, it was so So I went to Bill. And Bill says, I'll look into it. Bill told me. I went to your dad.

And I told your dad, I said, here's the contract. He says, tell him this is what you want. You go to drive for junior. I did. Earnhardt told you that. Oh, man, Earnhardt. So if he had said something else, you would have done something else? I mean, you really were to take whatever he advised?

I trusted him. Yeah. He said it's a hell of race team, but you can't beat money. You can't. I had a three-year contract, Jr., for junior for lots of money. Lots of money. I'm like,

and Daniel said, you just take that son of that. Let me tell you about money. So I'm hurting for money. I moved down here in Frank Cici and I, and I'm struggling, and I finally get my cup ride with Baker, and I'm broke.

And I'm always to your dad's shop. Your dad was struggling at the time with his team. He calls me on, he says, Spencer, I want to come to the shop. So I go to your shop, and Dale says, sit in that seat. So I sit in the seat, man, he said, need you to do me a favor. I want you to go to Indianapolis, practice this car,

the whole nine yards, because I got to go to do the Iraq race. I says, no, Dale, I can't do that. I said, that's an off weekend. I promised my wife and kids were going to carolins. He said, I promise you'll be at carolens. I says, Dale, what if it rains out? He says, I'll fly that damn airplane down to get you home. You got my word.

That's all I needed. That was the best time. I went with your Tony, you got, you had two good guys. Yeah. And you raised because you come to Richmond and kicked our ass in one car. I remember that story too. They were gunning for us and they beat us. But anyway, I went to Indianapolis in that car and I'm practicing in it.

And I didn't like the way it was rolling in the center of the corner. And I told Tony and they worked on in a little bit. Never told them what to do. Just drove the car. And I said, man, you guys fixed it. And he says, no, we got to do something. So they changed the a ham. Camber gains.

I said, man, tone, that some bitch is on the money. We got to qualify. The old man comes in. We didn't expense. I said, I got a dead neutral, if anything, it's a little free on entrance, but that son of a bitch comes off that corner. He got from the rear of the field to lead to race. Lug ranch, something broke. We end up, he ends up finishing third.

Never in my life seen so many people at a race and talking about fans. The night that being your dad directed South Boston, I never in my life. saw so many people on a racetrack. So now I'm standing there by the end of the hauler, and he says, leave your bag there. Come on, come on with me. So we go to get in the airplane here. We're in the van. We drive over, and I forget it was promoting the track, and here comes your dad out with a sack of, I know what it was now.

It's cash. And I get in the airplane, we fly home. He takes me home, we sleep. I fall asleep in anything. One thing, him and Teresa. So we landed in Spencer, we land in Spencer. We get up. He drives me home. My van, my pickup truck sitting at the shop drives me home. Teresa Hansbyn't, go and throw it on the table and go to bed.

Seven o'clock, I went, hey, hey, yeah. She says, do you know how much money's in there? And I says, no. She says, there's $9,000 in there. I went, what? She says, I saw he made a mistake. So, don't worry about it. We put it in the place.

We go to carons. I go back over there Monday. Your old man sent in her signing autographs doing his deal. I come in, I throw the envelope down on the thing. What's the matter? I said, you made a mistake. Straight as a thing. He goes, why, you want more?

I went, no, you can't be serious. He says, you did what you ever did. But meanwhile, your dad knew what was wrong on his race team. I said, Dale, I didn't do nothing to your race car. He said, you got a hell of a race team. He said, what's wrong? I said, well, you got to know what's wrong. He had Fisher Motors.

They were junk. They were a freaking junk, Dale. they were junk He complained about it all times Oh my God, they were junk But he knew And I You know, when your dad

done that to me That was pretty special Somebody else had a story Was it Petrie maybe That had a similar story Where your dad just handed over a cash And they're like Did you see how much is in that?

I can't remember I can't remember who it was either It was recently Get back to 94 what Listen, I don't know How much you've watched Or listen to this show But we love ingenuity

Right In racing Okay And Junior Johnson is known for saying, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, that car, that McDonald's car, there's, there's, there's, there's rumor, not rumor, the legacy of that was that Junior Johnson put his best ingenuity to it. What do you know? What do I know? I know that we had a weird car that day. That is, we, that is one of the best ways to describe it. I have, I have no

clue what was going on, but I tell you this. Junior said never lift. Whatever you do, never lift. You got to make that cart. Buddy Baker was another one. If you lift, you're losing time. I was taught by the best of the speedways. Buddy Baker, Bobby Allison and Junior.

Bill Elliott didn't like the car. But I had a banjo Matthews front, and I heard Andy Petrie talking about it. On this show. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That front end would travel, and as it would travel, it would never lose scrub speed.

I drove and tested for Bobby Allison the year before, and I got our car down to less than 40 RPS is all we lost around Daytona with a computer. And Bobby says, when that thing freeze up, turn back to the right, it's not going to spin out. Oh, it scared a shit out of you. Oh, God.

He says, get used to it. It raised your hair up. Then they started coming in with all the draft and stuff. But let me tell you about that car. That car was loose all day, long. And I kept telling them, I can't keep the thing floor down. It's a little too free.

And junior, junior career, God damn it, put a little spoiler in it. He said the tracks 175 degrees. So they did. Fixed it. And Ernie, Ernie's car was fast. And I said to myself, I can't pass him. You don't remember

to pass him if he loses me in the mirror. You have to get alongside of somebody. You had to get alongside of them. And I got alongside of them. But the key is, I remember you, you son of be you went at Daytona in the bush race and you never lifted and you took a whole you you almost lapped the god dang field you remember this oh yeah yeah holy i was like what you were like a half straight away in front of the second place he was gone because he never lifted it's like two thousand there's a catch to it there's a catch to it your old man was the best at it he i i raced with you

old man, I remember when Teddy Musgrave was my partner in the truck series, and he was driving my truck. He said, how the hell do you drive that truck? It's too loose. You're going to wreck. I was taught by Bobby Allison. You turn back to the right. It tightens the car, but puts wedge in the car.

We didn't have no engineers. And you would turn back a little bit. No, Mike, I don't know other than that car should have won all four races. I should have won Talladega, and his old man beat me in Talladega. That's right. That's right. That's right. I know he did. Yeah.

And for us to say they were cheating, I think they're full. I think they're jealous. I think the big, first thing anybody says, let me tell you, the first thing anybody says is they cheated. Honest to God they do. They're saying right now the Hendrous cars are cheating. Well, there's nothing wrong with that here. No, no, you're missing my point. What's your point?

Don't accuse somebody for getting hard work. When we ran our modifights, Mike, I used to fall asleep underneath my dang modified. working on them at 3 o'clock in the morning trying to figure how to make them faster. Yeah. I found out one night I was working in the modifies and this guy comes over to me and he goes, why do you guys got all this weight to the left side of these cars? And my old man, my dad says, you know who that is? And I says, Dad, I ain't got a clue.

He says, you know, Dutch Hogue? I said, yeah, he says, that's the guy that made Dutch Hogue win all the races in New York. Dutch. Dutch Hogue won hundreds of races. So he said, why do you do that? He says, the car gets loose in and tight off. And he says, because you got the car overweds. I said, holy shucks.

So we went there one night. And I kept working on the car, and I said, he's right. So I moved the lead weights. My dad helped me. We put the thing in the center of the car and took two percentage points. Made the right front wheel go from 490 to 530, the right rear from 490 to 530, the right front from 4 something. That son of a bitch went three tenths quicker the next week. I kicked our butts, man.

Talk about Spencer. We got flat track. It wouldn't work on a bank track, but that son of bitch worked on a flat track. And an old guy helped me do that just because he said to me, why don't you try it? You know, most everything comes from somebody saying, why don't you try this? Yeah, okay, okay. So you seem to be a little, you seem to be a little upset if people that if they accuse that you. We're trying to say, is that something you'd be proud of.

I don't agree with that. Don't agree with it. That it's not something to be proud of or don't agree with it that it was cheated up? I think what's happened in NASCAR, I don't call it cheating, Mike. Yeah, I didn't either. I want to call it ingenuity. My car passed inspection at the end of the day. Okay? So we won the race.

The downfall of the current NASCAR, if you want to call it a downfall, which I do, I think it was your car, C.B. Littard and Chad Canals at, I was doing TV at Sonoma. They suspended them for flubbing with the front fenders. Do you remember that? They suspended them two crew chiefs For flubbing with the front fenders And I'll tell you what I told them on my show And I got hot water for it

That's the darkest day in NASCAR And the reason why When you take a crew chief For messing with front fenders On a car To try to get a little edge And suspend them You're going down the wrong road

Bill Francis wasn't alive But if he was alive He'd have told him You boys have gone down the wrong road That was a dark day for me in this sport. Okay. I got to ask.

Because, you know, when you and I talked on the phone, and I told you that Dale Jr. had also not forgotten comments you made back in 2001. You accused of the same type of thing, right? I did. So I was frustrated. Oh, man. But you know what I realized?

How dang faster cars was because was he cheating? No. You're saying he wasn't cheating. I'll tell you why, because I thought back to when NASCAR, car took one of my winds away and you talk about regret i regret that and i went to them the next week in new hampshire and i told tony put them all together told you i'm sorry can't take it back but i'm sorry because those are the things i made miss my mom used to my mom would holler at me god rest her soul zip it oh my mom my i miss my mom i mean i do too my mom she was great my mom would tell me

man jimmy you know and but i you know it was frustration might i i mean i i was frustration might This thing about Daytona was something that I think been sticking with Dale Jr. for a while. I don't blame him. You don't? Yeah. I mean. I don't blame you one bet. Well, I think that, so a friend of mine texts me yesterday and was like, he's like, we bought the McDonald's car from Jr.

After y'all wrecked it, played the speedway car. and there was some stuff on it. There was some parts on it that were pretty cool. And he said, you ought to ask Jimmy about that. Because we talk about ingenuity and creativity and flat out cheating on this show. Because some of the stuff that the crew chiefs will tell you, or even drivers know about their own cars, is pretty awesome. And some of you guys that have been racing, some of you guys that don't race anymore,

Can you know, Statue of Limitations is a long past, and it's fun to hear about. I didn't know anything. If there was something, I didn't know anything at all. So anyways, I was thinking to myself, I said, well, I can't really, I don't want to flat out say that he won those two races by cheating, because then I can't have any anger or frustration over the comments that you had about me when in the one race being, you know, that we were cheated up. And, you know, we do this podcast, and sometimes we have guests on here that I have had some difficulties with or disagreements with or some that I maybe didn't get along with. And it's a great way for us to talk about those things. And I don't need an apology, I guess.

It's just, I guess, I didn't want to never have you on the show. I didn't want to sit there and go to the rest of my life and go, I ain't talking to him. I don't want to have him on a show. You know, Jimmy Spencer, you've done some awesome stuff for this sport. You know, you're a great racer. I loved racing with you. I wasn't sure I would until I got to. I don't think we ever got together.

Well, we did. I ran over you at Richmond. I lost some breaks in 99. Well, that's right. That was, oh, 99. Yeah, I dumped you into turn three. You were driving a 23 Winston car. Yeah.

I was out of breaks. My brakes were a week. came in to bleed them in the middle of the race and shot a flame out of the break caliber. And then we ran first and second at Vegas. That was a cool race. That was a cool race. You were a lot faster. I was good.

Tony, I had a Tony Jr. put a bet put a bet on us to win. I did too on myself. Yeah, we bet on ourselves. How much were your odds? I don't know, but Tony Jr. taped the ticket to the dash. no and after the race he goes hey why didn't you move him out of the way and i'm like well it's jimmy because you know if you want if i move you're going to move you're going to get back twice damn right i knew that much about you and i said he said damn ticket on the dash i put it on the

dash so you'd see it i'm like well if i maybe looked at that ticket maybe i would have tried it but um i remember that was you had a hunter motor in that day and i had a kevin blanks motor in yeah that's a cool day but i enjoyed racing you and then Then you become this media personality. You know, there's a quote in here. My people put this together. And there's a sound bite in here where you're trying to jokingly give me directions to Victory Lane. Yeah.

I was on a speech. Because I can't find Victory Lane. Yeah. And now that I'm in broadcasting, like, I get all that. I understand what your role was. I even liked. There were so many people that we would. get constant when we would have our meetings and nobody would ever talk about you and i said i can

handle it and i saw i give them directions and teddy teddy lukitis goes spencer that's awesome yeah and but you know what deal people that was who you were supposed to be i don't i think we did it for the fan i remember the crying towel was oh yeah the crying towel was great i thought that was awesome and i mean you were willing to take it yeah even as much as you were willing to dish it out brack his Lasky putting the pie in the face. I mean, you did, you were playing a role that you knew was a necessary role in the sport. The broadcasting team needs those kind of characters. You were a character, right?

Thanks. That's a compliment to me. It is a compliment. It should be a compliment. We need, I mean, people should be emulating that, those type of characters, what you did in the past, people should be emulating that today. And I told Mike before you came in here, I don't think I've ever drove a legal car. I hope I have it, and I don't want to. Really?

I want my crew chief to be as aggressive as they possibly can be. I don't think. I still don't think that's cheating. Well, I don't either. It's ingenuity's creativity. I don't think that the 2001 July Daytona winner was a factory legal by the rule book car. Because baby has had. Everybody had, you know, think back, Dale, when we were racing this stuff,

remember when they come out with the three-fives and the 200, you know? Everybody had to do whatever they needed to do to try to win a race. But I'm sure there was some great creativity in the car. And I wouldn't have had any problem with anybody saying, you know, questioning the legality of my race car. I just think it was frustrating because you felt, you made it sound like that it was a fix. from the top. I did say it that way. And now, I guess now, you know,

and hearing your experiences with NASCAR, right? You're talking about getting behind the curtain early in your career and hearing some of the strings that they were willing to pull and how they would twist and turn things for the show. I guess you were even at that time more privy to the shenanigans from, you know, like Richter throwing you out of a race. Or taking, you know, and admitting it.

Yeah, and admitting it. Like, I would have, I would have sat there in 2001 in July and said, oh, no, they're straight, they're up and up. Everything they do up there is straightened on the up and up, right? But you had a different opinion. You had a different experience. It bothered me. But it's good to sit here and talk about it, and it's good for me anyways. I don't know if it's good for you to sit here and talk about it.

I guess still I'll tell you this Mike worked with you all right and Mike had these die cast cars in his office your die cast cars

I didn't even have his in a junior motor sports office I had the serious in the yellow car you still owe me the gas bill for coming for your wedding that's another story that's true

I figured that as much as I was frustrated with you about that for years if Mike If Mike had a, you know, if Mike thought as much of you to have a diecast or two in his office, then there must be more to the story. That's such an amazing conversation with Jimmy, and we went for hours.

I don't think we've actually been in this studio doing a podcast longer than when we did with Jimmy Spencer. So it's so much good stuff, we want to put it all out there. So this will be a two-part podcast. Jimmy Spencer, Part 2, coming up. Here's a little sampling of what you got coming next week with Jimmy Spencer. Me and your dad had some falling out. Yeah, you have a junkyard. You get all these junkyard cars and you take the bulldozer and cut a dirt track and invite people over.

Chocolate rolled one over. Holy shit. Oh, my God. To the back. He said, come, I want to show you something, Spencer. So I go back to the barn. He goes, what? He says, look, I see something.

What day is that? Go get it. So needless to say, I jump over the fence. I hear Get out of there, Spencer, get out of there And here comes Winston, the boy Yeah Son of bitch

Everybody always wondered What made him that way Guess it never really matter Because the facts still remain He ain't taking no losses And he'll never run away That's the way that he thinks to this day You want to hear the truth

I'm going to tell you the truth I admit it I spun that some bitch out I don't think you actually punched Kurt Bush Because of anything that happened on the track Post race you're in the garage.

What happened? He says, you old decrepit has been. I went, you stupid son of a bitch. Boom. And I saw the blood. We are alive now. It's finally time for our favorite part of the show. Ask Jr.

Brought to you by our friends at Xfinity. We're live on YouTube. Leah has a bunch of questions that fans have sent into at Xfinity Racing on Twitter. So let's get to these questions. Is this a special edition? It's special because the fans are back. All right.

Fans are back. We had a driver's edition. That was kind of fun. But the fans' questions are just a little bit better. So glad you guys are back. And so let's get started. Our first question is from Curtis shoot. After comparing pictures of the before and after of the Nova,

I see minimal differences in the stickers. Wondering if there were obstacles to replicate the old stickers or was it more of a branding issue? Either way, the car looks amazing. No branding issue. We kind of do what we want to do and ask for forgiveness later. I'm kind of curious, a little bit curious. Maybe I don't want to know exactly the problems that this person particularly sees in the decals.

But there were several different ways that this car raced in terms of where decals were located. I feel like size-wise, you know, as far as the circumference and size of all the decals, they're really close, if not perfect. But yeah, this car raced with decals in different locations, depending on what race you're looking at in the pictures of the car. And we kind of did a, we kind of might have did a mix mashup of a few different versions of the car because there was a Wrangler decal on the deck lid at one point, then a Miller American decal on the deck lid.

And it was during the same time frame. And I wasn't sure exactly which one I should run. But we kind of went with what we went. We went a little close to what we have in the die cast here on the 10. table. But the die cast even wasn't perfect. The diecast really didn't match up perfectly with any car or any pictures of the car that we saw. So we kind of had to do our own version of it, if you will, and what I was going to be okay with. And that's what we ended up with. I love it. It's sitting right here. I get to get close to it every time we do the show. Next question from Barry Kane. Did you

watch the SRX race Saturday night? And what did you think of it? Unfortunately, I missed the SRX race. I saw a lot of stuff on social media. I was camping with Ila. So I didn't get to see it. But from what I saw, you know, I've heard different accounts of whether it was entertaining or not from different people, but from what I saw on social media, it looked like it was a success. So I really support anything that Ray Avernham is doing. He's been a great friend to me.

So Ray Avernham is a championship crew chief, done all these things with Jeff Gordon, goes and owns a race team. team work with Dodge and does all these great things with that. And when I was running my final few years at HMS, he comes back to HMS in a supporting role for Rick. And we developed a friendship that really exists because of him. You know, his efforts, I wasn't going to put that effort in. I mean, he's, I look up to him some of my respect. I was only going to talk to him when he talked to me, right? Spoken to, you know, I only speak when you're spoken to kind of thing. But man, he is been so cool to me over the last several years. And I had no relationship with him really up until

recently. I'm just so thankful for that and support everything he does. So I'm hoping that this goes well. So I know they got a lot of feedback on the cars, trying to maybe making the names bigger so you can tell who's who and things like that. So hopefully they follow the feedback and adjust, you know, based on the fans and what they want. Next question from AJ McGinnis. Are you feeling nervous about calling the races after not doing it for a few months. Terrified, man. I'm going to host the Countdown to Green with Brad Paisley. I've not a lot of experience hosting.

We do the podcast and aside from this part, it's not live. But the Countdown the Green will be live. And we're also, you know, you're kind of bringing NBC. NBC's coming back to be your home for NASCAR over the next several months. So I'm a little bit nervous about that. Not so much nervous with Brad. Brad's really easy to be around, easy to work with, but just wanting to be a good host, right? There's so many people that I know and have worked with and have done that type of job for this sport over the last several decades that really probably deserved to be doing that instead of me.

But they've slotted me into that role for this particular weekend, so we'll see how it goes. I'm more nervous about that than anything else. The race will, I'm calling a race or being a part of the broadcast in the booth is easy. It's fun. So I'm looking forward to that, but the hosting part I'm a little bit nervous about. Next question from Josh, do you think lower horsepower is the way to go? I feel like it takes all the woo out of what NASCAR was only three years ago. Yeah, everybody's got a different opinion about the package of the race cars.

Me and Rick Allen and Jeff Burton and Lartart literally were texting about what we think should be going on in the sport during the race, you know, and we all have different opinions. They don't think that my opinion's a good one. I don't know that, you know, I don't know that I agree with everything that Jeff likes or LaTart likes, right? And that's the thing about it. There's a lot of fans that want X and Y and Z, but not everybody wants the same

thing. When NASCAR, when the people that are important and going to make those decisions are in the room, I'm sure that they each have different opinions on what needs. to happen. I listen to the drivers. I drove race cars myself, and I don't know that all the drivers even agree on what needs to happen and what they need to be doing. So I have the opinion that we need as little a down force as possible. Jeff and Steve don't feel that way. Jeff feels like any time that he's ever tested for NASCAR as far as packages and so forth when when you'd peel down force off the car it was not better but until i i guess until i really see it proven out on

the racetrack i'm of the opinion that you can put all the power in it you won't or no power i don't i don't care i don't care about the power i don't it can be 450 horsepower 650 850 i have zero cares about the power. But I want to strip away all down force, all side force, create lift in the nose, just rip the down force off the car, but plow it full of drag on the nose, firewall forward, as much drag as you can. In my opinion of that, and I'm sure there's people already shooting holes in this, is that to make the lead car at a deficiency, it needs to have drag on the front.

So NASCAR is putting these big spoilers on the cars to create drag, slow the cars down, make the cars real draggy. But it's happening at the back of the car. And that's also hurting the car behind it and the car behind it. And further back you go, the worse the air is. Because of that spoiler, that blade is blowing all, it's pushing all the air up and creating, it's creating this giant wake of dirty air.

So the bigger you make that spoiler, the bigger that that big old mob of dirty air gets and the further back it goes for the rest of the pack, right? And so why wouldn't you want to try to trade all that drag that's happening at the back of the car with that rear spoiler and put it, make that happen on the front of the car with the windshield, stand the windshield up a little bit like the trucks, put a little, you know, put drag in the nose and the grill. Open the grill. Look at the forward, right? Open that whole grill up. Open the whole nose of that car up. create drag through the firewall or somehow on the front of that car. And that way you can take the rear spoiler off and allow the error for this following car to be a little bit better. I've always kind of thought that was a good way to go.

It's not the same opinion that Jeff has or Lattard has. And that's just to say that everybody's opinion is much different and what we need to be doing. So I, you know, I'd love to, I don't think I'll ever see. my ideas in reality on the racetrack, but that's what I would do. If I was trying to, I'd go to the wind tunnel and I'd try to figure out a way to make as much drag as I could on the front half of the car and take all that rear spoiler off the back, all the side force off the back. And that way when you, when you're in traffic, you're at, it's in, you know, the car drives

better than when you're actually leading the race. I think that would be interesting to see if that would work. All right. we got time for one more question. This is from Jake Keller. With the recent news, the RFK Stadium will be torn down, what's your favorite memory from that stadium? You know, my favorite memory from that stadium is the fans jumping up and down and the stadium actually bend the beams of steel and the stadium actually flexing and bending. There's some shots of fans back in the early 80s, you know, in the middle of a great game. game celebrating a victory or a lead, and the place is rocking, literally rocking.

It's a shame that teams can't stay in those iconic stadiums forever, but hopefully the next one's a good one. All right, that's it for a day. All right, Mike. My favorite part of the show is over. Yeah, it goes by fast, doesn't it? It almost goes by like Xfinity fast. Well, Exfinity X-5 is more than just fast.

It's reliable, powerful, and secure, meaning you can do what you can do what you. you love with faster internet. That's the truth. You can keep your crew connected with Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers the speed all of your devices need so they can stay in the fast lane on race day, Dale. Remember everyone to hit up Twitter and send in your Asked Junior questions to add Exfinity racing. Thanks to Exfinity proud premier partner of NASCAR. Last call.

This is Last Call. The Dale Jr. download is on TV again this week. We're so thankful. Thursday at 5.30 p.m. Dell Jr. Download, NBCSN, Thursday, 5.30 p.m. Eastern time. Door bumper clear guys have something to say. You want to hear it? Let's hear.

Let's hear. T.J. Major is here with a very important message for all listeners of the Dale Jr. Download. It's time you stop listening to this podcast and come listen to us on door bumper clear immediately. Like right now. This is Freddie Craft, and you'll want to listen to our show this week as we talk reactions to the All-Star race, no coolers allowed of Texas, and my buddy, SRX race winner, Doug Kobe, joins the show.

Hey, it's Brett Griffin. I got a hard card. Does that mean, I can take a cooler in? If so, man, I'm in. We got way more fun going on to the download, as you guys well know, available wherever you get your podcast. They say they are the podcast that has more fun than the Dale Jr. download.

Why are they always trying to attack us? You know what it is? We live rent-free in their heads. That's right. That's what it is. We obviously are better, and they know it and that's why they keep doing this. Yeah, they're insignificant to us. We don't, we don't think about them if they think about us all the time. They're trying to claim some of our credibility by just merely mentioning our names. They're feeding off of our credibility. That's right. And they don't even give you a thank you. Nope. Oh, by the way.

Uh-oh. Gift time. You know Matthew's back when there's gifts. Yeah. No, this is one printed just for you. Must be brand new. From Julie Stefaniac, Mike Stefano's wife. Oh, that's neat. This will be my second, our third. Yes. My third, Stefanic shirt. I remember this shirt when I was a kid. This is a beautiful one. Thank you very much for the shirt.

That's very nice. NBC is back, and we are back in Nashville. NBC takes over your home for NASCAR, all right? Going forward all the way to the championship, everything, NBC, NBCSN. That's right. All right? Yeah. That's where you're going to get all your content.

You bet to go to work. Yeah, I'm back in the booth, looking forward to it. heading out there Thursday. Can't wait to see some truck racing, Exfinity cars, Cup cars. It's going to be a lot of action this weekend, Nashville Super Speedway. Man, it's been since 84 since we've raced in Nashville.

I know. Everybody there that lives in that town, they're thrilled that we're coming back. It's going to be a lot of energy, a lot of cross-promotion between the music industry and so forth. So big things happening. I'm hearing that there's a lot of stuff going on at the track. I hope.

Well, you know, we go to these, I'm telling you, man, last couple of years we've been going to these racetracks. And outside of the race itself, the atmosphere around these tracks has, it's really gotten so dependent on just the race. But I'm hearing that there is quite the attractions. A lot of live music and all kinds of great parties happening around the racetrack throughout the weekend.

That is exactly the kind of stuff we need happening at our races and events every every week. So looking forward to what we're going to see. Great show. Thanks, Jimmy Spencer, for coming through. What a great conversation. Can't wait to next week. We'll see you.

This bit of bad assery was bad assery. It was made by Madassery. Dirty Mo Media. Dirty Mo.