The Dale Jr. Download - 352 - Jerry Nadeau: Racing Was My Life

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Two racers, two head injuries. One that ended a promising career. This week on The Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr sits down with former NASCAR driver Jerry Nadeau.Nadeau answers Dale's curiosity about how he even came on the NASCAR scene in the first place. From racing go-karts in Connecticut to racing overseas, it is an unlikely path and a very sudden arrival into NASCAR. From living all over Europe with a suitcase full of foreign money to becoming an unlikely American speedster at Brands Hatch, Nadeau eventually made it to NASCAR and quickly to one of the top teams of the sport, Hendrick Motorsports.His time with Hendrick was short but had flashes of brilliance. He reminisces about the time he beat Earnhardt and got the ultimate post-race gesture. From wood chips in the springs to fast cars, there was no doubt he was at a place that wanted to win. Unfortunately, the success was few and far between. Conflict arose and Nadeau was let go from his ride.The very next year, while growing with a brand new team, it was over. A horrific crash at Richmond International Raceway ended his career and nearly his life. The brain trauma he suffered caused immense life change. Where would he go? What would he do? Nadeau opens up about his rehab, recovery, and struggles to find purpose outside of racing.He doesn't remember much from that fateful day. What he does know, he details with Dale and co-host Mike Davis. Jerry reveals a seat adjustment that he made that may have impacted his head injury in the 128-g accident.Dale Jr shares his own personal battle with concussions and connects with his former competitor on head injuries and how to move on from them.Before Nadeau arrived at the studio, Dale Jr had the entire room in stitches. He details life at his vacation home and how he had an epic battle with rats that included traps and, of all things, soap. What happened at the beach, doesn't stay at the beach. In what Amy Earnhardt called "life-saving" Dale Jr. talks about how an almost unthinkable act, took away all of the pain from a jellyfish sting. Oh, and if that wasn't enough when Dale got home he had a battle with a pack of angry wasps that took residence in his daughter's playhouse.During AskJr presented by Xfinity, Leah drops a wide variety of questions from getting Dale's take on the potential of street courses in NASCAR to his only motorcycle. Then, in a surprising turn, we find out the incredible resolution of the great boat debate.That and much more on this episode of The 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.

A moment to play. To try on a new pair of dogs. To listen to the advice of the man. And the time is all gone. And the next 500. Each man will be driving a precision racing machine. To win. To win. To win. To win. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. My co-host, Mike Davis is here. Matthew Dielner, Leah, everybody's in the house. We got a great show for you today.

Jerry Nadeu is coming through. I'm not going to tell you. I'm not even going to tell you what Jerry Nodoo's been through. If you don't know, you're going to be in for a treat. He's got an incredible story, tragedy. Man's pulled his life back together. I had a little experience with some of that. So it'll be interesting.

interesting to compare notes. But Jerry Nudu is going to come in here today. It's going to be a lot of fun and talk about everything that he's been up to lately and learn a lot about it. You know, he just popped onto the scene. You know, I don't know where he came from, what his career was like before he came to NASCAR. I'm anxious to learn. Yeah. So we're going to learn together.

First off, though, a couple things that I missed on last week's show. And I really regretted it. And I've been patiently waiting on the opportunity to get back to this table to be able to tell you. So we had a couple of weeks off, right? So everybody was on vacation. And I had a couple of fun vacation moments. Oh, okay. All right.

All right. So we've got a vacation home on the coast of the Carolinas. Amy was there the entire month of July. I was flying to work and back to the vacation home and here to podcast and driving back. You know, I was doing, I was moving and shaking, right? Back and forth. Back and forth. Trash day is Tuesday, right?

You got to get all your trash, put it out on the street. Trash guy comes by, takes care of it. Everybody knows all about this, right? Yep. So I am here podcasting on Tuesday. I probably could have called Amy and give her a heads up. She didn't put the trash out. So when I get back there Wednesday, we got a week's worth of vacation trash.

All right. And Amy had had some friends over. And if you're a man that's into sort of you got your responsibilities at your home, right? You keep the floor of the garage clean. Whatever it is, right? You got your own, you got things that you control. You're in charge. of nobody else messes with and you have systems.

Yes. All right. I got one trash can from the, from the, from the trash company that doesn't have a lid on it. The lid is broken. All right. So we can't put food in there. Mm. All right.

We put a, we put regular dry waste in there, just, you know, plastics and whatnot. We recycle. Mm-hmm. So we do tons of cardboard and lots of recycling at this, at this location, this vacation home. Anyways, I went to the store and I bought other trash cans that do have lids on them. They work great. That's where all the food waste and so forth, all that goes, right? Anything that something's going to want to get in there and eat, we put it in these with the lids, right?

Well, well, nope, this didn't happen while I was gone. All right, and now we've got a week's worth of vacation trash, and I can see that something's been in this trash can without the lid on it. Now, you know, I've got these poops on the ground. They're big poops, might. These are up here in North Carolina, where I live, we're used to field mice, right? They're maybe two inches long. They're tiny little cuty guys, right?

You know what? I don't even catch them on a sticky tape anymore. They're so cute. I don't even kill them with a regular trap, right? Struck you in the heart. You don't want to get them stuck. You know what I get now? What do you got?

I got a bucket, five-gallon bucket, right? And it's a plank. They walk up this little ramp after some peanut butter, and they walk toward the peanut butter and plop into the bucket they go. They walk off into the plank, kind of lever action sort of. plank, right? So I walk down, you know, wherever I got the, I got a few of these buckets on my property. And I go and I look in there and there's a little mice looking up at me. He's like,

hey, man, finally you came. And I'll take them down to the creek, turn them loose. We could spend a whole podcast just on that topic alone, but I know you want to move along here. Yeah. So anyways, these poops that are on the ground at this vacation home are not from mired. They're big rats. Okay. All right. And I ain't never seen a rat. You ain't got buckets for rats. I've never seen a rat. I've seen mice. Well, you've never seen a rat. Never seen a big rat. Right.

Except for when we remodeled the Key West house. There was a dead one in the wall. All right. So I think that thing was very deteriorated. So, I mean, still, I haven't seen a rat. I haven't seen one. Sorry. Sorry for all you people out there.

They're so awesome to see all these rats. Like Mike Davis. I mean, you got a barn, so I know you're like a fricka pro at seeing rats. All right. I don't know about that. Well, you give me this look. Anyway. This is fascinating.

Keep going. All right, so the rats, not cute. They're getting their ass whacked, right? So. They're not cute anymore. All right, so I got a big sticky pad. Throw that down there. Come down the next morning.

Sticky pad is thrown all over the place. Sticky pad's got rocks and gravel and hair, everything on it, but a rat. The rat, like, played with it all night or something, right? So sticky pads out. Got to get something more. This is a big boy. So I get a rat trap, a traditional rat, rat, trap, right? And

come back down next morning. That thing's tripped, upside down. No trace of a rat. Food's gone, right? Put a little peanut butter on there. He had him a good time. He's not intimidated about this. I go to the hardware store and I find this box and it's electrical,

put batteries in it. They walk in and it puts them to sleep. That's the way I like to put it. Wow. You mean. It electrutes them. At least her sleep. Yeah, yeah. So that's what we say when we wake up in the morning in Iowa, let's go see if we got one sleep. downstairs. Got it. All right,

because that's what they look like they're doing. So I go down there, sure enough, yes, got a big giant tail sticking out of this box. Cutting outsmart this one. Holy molly,

it's a big tail. Uh-oh. Like besides my pinky, dude. All right. So I got these little plastic gloves. A box full of them, right? To just do work, right?

Anytime you want to do anything, you don't want to get your hands dirty because I'm handling my kids and all that on vacation. If I'm doing the trash and you got nasty trash or something like that, I got these gloves, right?

So I put the gloves on. I pick up the little box rats in it. I take it out to the curb where there's some public trash, dump the rat in there. I don't know where I'm supposed to put this thing, but I put it in the public trash, okay? All right. All right. Whoever came to that trash can next. Off the beach was in for a hell of a surprise, right?

Yeah. So, all right, get a couple more rats next couple days. I'm catching them. Like one, I mean, there's only one fits in the trap. I don't know how many are down there, but I catch three rats in three succession. and, you know, three days, three nights. Patrick. That trick.

So, we have a nanny. She's more family than anything. She's, I wouldn't even consider her a nanny. She's kind of like a grandmother. To Ila, her name's Tammy. She's worked for me for a decade or more. I mean, like a long time, 15 years, something like that. Crazy.

She says, yeah, you should put some Irish Spring soap out. Yeah. We used to throw that all over the place. I'm like, what? Irish Spring soap? Oh, yeah. rats they don't like the smell of it so knee-jerk reaction i order you know jump right on my phone amazon 20 bars of irish spring soap and i got it in my mind man i'm gonna get i'm gonna go one

step further i'm gonna get a cheese grater i'm gonna spread this shit everywhere oh my god this is war this is war on the rats so i get the bars come the next day cheese grader bars all right so i got this vacation home and it's the first floor is is on the second floor, right? So the main floor is raised. Yeah. And underneath it is it's slatted off and it's gravel. And there's indoor garage tube bay, but it's all gravel.

So I can walk the perimeter of this house underneath with the bars of soap and the cheese grater. And I'm just cheese grating, Irish spring soap into the gravel all the way around the perimeter of this house. I'm like this, perfect. If they don't like this, they're never going to come around. side note, fucking smelled amazing down there. I was going to say, your house office

that smells like an Irish spa. It feels amazing. People are going to come up for their massage, their stone bath at Dale's vacation house. Oh man, smelled so good. I mean, it smelled so good.

I got a little utility closet where I keep some tools and pool cleaning utilities and whatnot. I set a bar in there. Grated a couple bars? Nope, just set a full bar. Just grading.

I can see this. You can't have the grated soap on the concrete. Anything that smells bad. His shoes, he's going to grade a couple bars into the shoes. It's like the guy does with Windex in my Fat Greek Wedding. The next thing I do, I go upstairs and it dawned on me. Damn it, this is bullcrap.

I'm going to go on YouTube and I'll see all kinds of videos where this is a myth bust. Yeah. Right? Like that fake animal that people tell you to go hunt, like snipehammer? Snipeckhuntin. Snipecobra? Chippocabra. Anyways, I go on YouTube and sure enough, man.

there's 100 videos on there with rats tossing this Irish spring soap all over the place. Playing with it, loving it. It's an attractive. Oh, yeah. Not a deterrent. They walk up to it. And they're like, what is this? Nibble, nibble, nah, don't like it.

Moving on. But they don't, they're not, you know, they don't, they don't move away from it. They kick it around, play with it, turn it over. So now I've got Irish Spring soap everywhere. It does smell good. which I was kind of happy about that. And within about three or four nights, the little shavings kind of disappeared.

They kind of, in the heat, in the humidity, they kind of go away. I ordered some wood last year during the wintertime, and they gave me more than I needed, and they admittedly brought more than I had ordered, but they're like, hey, we're not taking it back here, leave it. So I stacked it under the house. I got a freaking excess amount of wood.

This is amazing. I have wood for all kinds of... I have wood for... for next winter and the winter after that. I got a wood pile. It's about 10 foot long. I'm glad you can appreciate that because I do too. And maybe other men do.

But like just having wood. My wife asked me why now I got all this wood. Like I'll take somebody's, they're throwing out their porch. And I'm like, I want that wood. So I go down there. It's good wood. I'm always piddling. Yeah.

All right. When I'm on vacation, I'm piddling. I got to hang this up. This needs to be hung up. This needs to be moved. This needs to be cleaned up. This needs to be fixed. This needs to be done better.

I've always peddling in my little garage. down there. And I didn't like the way I had my wood stacked. So I wanted to stack it all in one line in between two stone center block columns. I had it all stacked fun. So I'm going to go restack it. I get over there and I'm like, it's a little potent, it's a smelly.

Some t-tee in here. Some poop maybe? Yeah, there's some rat poop. I'm seeing rat poop. So I'm picking up this wood, got my gloves on. I'm restacking this thing really nicely. And what do I find at the bottom of the pile? The family. The rats.

The soap. The soap. They took it in there. They took it in there. Yeah. So when I'm cheese grating this bar of soap to keep my knuckles from getting into the cheese grater, you know, you end up with about an inch of soap that you kind of just toss over your shoulder. Get another bar.

Start straighting again, right? When you get down close to getting them knuckles chopped off, you toss that little bar of soap off into the corner, right? Because you can't grade anymore. You're right. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Well, they took those pieces into their nest that I thought was my awesome stack of wood. You're not only getting rid of them. You're housing.

I'm so pissed off at myself. You're securing future generations of rats. And they're going to be the cleanest rats ever. I still feel like a novice in home-owning. Yeah. And I have lessons to learn. And I like learning them. I like going, you know, I tell Amy, I say, look, if I'm going to fix something around here,

I got about a 70% success rate, okay? So just understand that it might work. Probably should work, but maybe it won't. Right. And that's okay. And I like the trial and error. But, man, when you really make a mistake that bad that you attract these big giant fist-sized rats, it pisses you off.

What was your conversation with Tammy? I mean, surely you have had a conversation. Absolutely, I'm not. No. You didn't want to ask her why? No, no, no. You can't do that. Really?

No. I feel like you can. She's an elder and I respect her. You can do it cordially. I don't even feel comfortable saying she's an elder. I mean, I'm not going to go to Tammy and go, what the hell, Tammy? No, no, no. Say to Tammy.

I thought that's what you wanted to do. Hey, I'm going to help you out. Damn it, Tammy, we got to sit down. I mean, it was an option. But I'm not saying that you have to. It's not your only option. You could just like, hey, I mean, because she said that that's an old trick that they date back even when she was a kid, right? Okay.

You could tell her it doesn't work. Nope. It might work. Maybe it just doesn't work on big giant rats. Maybe it works on field mice. Maybe it works on certain types of animals. All right. Later on in the trip, have you ever seen,

well, I don't even know how to tell this story. So I shared this one with some friends, and now this has been cleared by Amy, to be clear. Okay. This has been cleared, no pun intended. But I shared it with some friends, and some said you shouldn't tell it, and some said, why not?

Why not tell it? Amy seems to be fine with it. She's the one that said I should tell it. So we're out on the beach, all right, and I got this umbrella thing. We're under it. We can easily fit under it. We got a little cooler, a little wagon. We got Isla's toys, and we got these little low chairs.

You know, picture it. If you've seen a family on a beach, that's what we're doing. Ila and Amy are down by the water. And Amy acts like she steps on something. I'm watching. I'm having a 55. A couple of 55s, actually. And so Amy comes hobbling out of the beach up to the umbrella.

And she's like, I got stunned by a jellyfish. Steped on one. Stung. That hurts. Yeah. I didn't step on one, but I've had it sting me. She's in pain. Okay.

Bad pain. I'm nervous about this. Her idea. It's her idea, Mike. I'm still, even though it's her idea, I feel like this probably shouldn't be told because I think, I don't know, keep going. Well, you can imagine. She was in bad.

bad pain and she said, do you think that'll work if you T-Ted on it? Oh, God. So right there in the middle of the, you know, we got, there's people on the beach, right? There's probably a little family about 15 foot to our right, and there's a couple, about 10 and 20 foot to our left, and down the beach there's more people, but not right on top of us, right, but close. And so we kind of maneuver a lot. lot of our stuff, so we're not in their line of sight. And she, her words, I quote,

saved her life. So this is it? She was in so much pain and she said it worked immediately. Can I ask questions? Yeah. Is this a question? Is this a Q&A? Who peed on her? I did. You peed on your wife? Yes. On the beach? Yes. In front of everybody. Yes. She was hurting. No, I got it. No, no, no, no. You can't understate the pain of a jellyfish stain. Got it. You're a hero.

In her eyes. Her words. And she, hey, I quote, saved her life. That's what she said. That's a superhero right there. I mean, I'm telling you, what's your name? We want to throw out some names for the new superheroes? You're a man.

We were very creative. So she comes over. We have these. We have these chairs. A piss master. New episode. We have these chairs that are flat on the ground, all right? And so I dug a hole in the sand in front of me.

She stuck her foot down in it. I didn't even have to move. I peed on her foot. What? And then I filled the hole in. I even have to move. Hold on. No, no, no.

I'm letting not just me, but the listeners just really process all this. Yeah, we've got the vision here. Did anybody see this? I just want to also say... Superhero doesn't wait for people to... He don't care what people think. Superhero, piss man. Oh, no.

No one saw anything. No one saw anything. We maneuvered all of our things around to where there was not anybody in our line of sight. And so, you know, we're so... I mean, I'm literally sitting almost ass on the beach. I mean, we're low to the ground. Uh-huh. We're not...

Our chairs are... Our chair bottoms sit on the dirt. Okay. So you don't... even stand up. No, no, no, no. I'm sitting, and she just puts her foot right there in front of me. And you just piss all over. Not on her foot. I mean, I could, not all over. Like, I peed where it needed to go. Did you giggle? We're laughing like hell. Yes. Yeah. Well, I was probably laughing a little more. Amy was hurting, but laughing. She was hurting and laughing. It worked. It worked. I've

never done it. Never tried it. You hear about it. Just saying, if, you're in a situation, I promise you, you and your wife, someone gets stung by a jellyfish, you're going to consider it. I'm going to call you. You want me to pee on her. You want me to pee on you? What the hell? Why would you call me?

Don't freaking call me, Mike. If you can't handle. You're like the plumber for jellyfish. I'm not available. I'm not available for house calls. All right. So if, if Amy happens, you know, if anyone. I ain't pissing on my wife.

Yes, you are. No, I'm not. I don't even think I could. It's not that hard. Isn't that the vows? Not to? Everybody's shaking their head like they'd have no problems. Are you telling me on a crowded beach, you could just sit there and piss on somebody?

A lot of heads nodding. Yes. Y'all are some sickos. Wife and pain. Wise and pain. Her words, quote, saved her life. Instantly? Instantly, it was gone.

Let's talk about the actual physical. For sure, that's a great point. So here we are, Ila's playing. Tammy has Nicole at the house, so we're getting a little moment to, Amy's getting a little moment to have some, you know, she's having to, every day, every hour she is carrying Nicole around. I mean, here is a moment where we're at the beach. Luckily Tammy's there to watch Nicole. Amy can go down to the beach. Isla's pretty much self-contained.

She's playing. They're having a good time. That could have ended the whole thing had she needed to go back to the house for a remedy. The fact that we could end it in that moment, like, I mean, snap your fingers, it's gone. The pain's gone. Amy was back to playing around and enjoying the beach. Didn't miss the beach. Good for you.

Also. You got that aloe piss. You got that healing. I got that Bud 55 Pete. Is that what it is? Yeah. That's what it was. That's super clear.

That was the other thing. The alternative positive effect of drinking Bud 55 is... Oh. You piss like hell on somebody if they need it. If necessary. Just go at it. Sometimes, you know, when you break the seals, what they call it, when you're drinking a lot of beer and you break the seal,

it's like, damn, I didn't have to pee for an hour and a half, and now I got to go every 15 minutes. Well, in that moment, it was good to have to go. Not going to run out of medicine. Yeah. All right, so... I'm proud of you. The final open...

The final story. You have something else? Oh, yeah, there's one more. Oh, my Lord. And this one, you guys are going to. What you're freaking love? Do you get on somebody now? You guys are going to love this one.

This is a treat for everybody. Complements of me. I mean, I really, you know, you normally don't tell stories about yourself, but this one's too good. This is classic. You guys are going to love this one. How do you top that? We're back home.

This happened just a couple days ago. I still have the boo-boos. Another kid word. I still have a big boo-boo from it. So I love... Hey, hold up. Is it something you can piss on and fix? No.

All right. Carry on. So we're... Don't make me regret sharing all this shit. I don't want you to regret to do this. Yeah, keep going. I don't mind what anyone else says, but when you come at me... Me? No, come on.

It's fun. I'm going to get enough shit from everyone else outside of this room. It depends. Let's see what you... Where do we go? Where does this one go? So we're home. I'm on the couch in the, in the morning, goes out to her play set.

We haven't been home for, she hasn't been home for a month. She comes back in, and Amy's with her, and she comes back in, and she's like, Dad, I can't, I can't play at my play set. There's a wasp. And she learned what a fly swatter was while we were on vacation. We had to go fly swatwaters, we're swatting flies, and she learns what that is, right? So she goes, can you get a swat swat swat, right? So she goes, can you get the wass water?

Can't even say that. Wassaater. So she's saying that as a three-year-old. You can imagine, very cute. And I'm like, well, honey, I'm going to have to do something else. I got to think about this. I don't have any spray. And I'm thinking, I can't, I'm trying to think, you know,

it's going to come to me how to take care of this problem. All right. Amy's like, it's pretty big nests. All right. So I forget about it. The next day, Ila comes back in the house. Dad, the wasp. still there you didn't fix it

the nest and I'm like oh yeah I forgot to come up with a plan so let me think think hard here and she wants to wass water again and so I'm thinking I got it I'll get a little I get a little like a one gallon bucket and I'll put it over the

nest and then I'll slide a sheet of aluminum or some thin kind of metal and that'll clip the nest from the roof oh got it'll fall into the bucket now I've got the nest the wasp, everything contained, and I'll come out of there with

this bucket and this lid, you know, this little sheet of aluminum or whatever. Got it! So I walk out there and I don't, and it's in the corner so I'm like, all right, I can't do that. That's not going to work. It's big as my hand. It's big as a fist. And there's about 20, 25

wasp on this nest. So we keep this long-handled extendable sort of dust bunny thing out there. And on the end it's a ball. It's a ball. And it's kind of bristled. It's not fluffy like indoor dust bunnies. It's kind of like for outdoor

corners of your deck or something. You get those little spider webs and stuff and you can reach way up there and just kind of run that thing around there and get all this stuff out of there. So we've got that because we get a lot of spider nests or spider webs and stuff around her playpen and I just use that thing and leave it out there. So I'm thinking

all right, I'm going to get them out of here. I was there and I'm like, Alie, you got to back up. You got to get way back. She's like, why? I'm like, they'll sting you. She knows what that means. So she's like, okay, so she's backing up. She actually goes over to the house, which was a good thing. Yeah. She's thinking. She's 150 yards away. I go up there with that thing and it's extended and I hit that nest and I thought I knocked it down. I back up about 15, 20 foot and they're swarming around that plate set. I walk back over there. Dang it, the nest is there still.

I didn't knock the nest down. So I stick that thing up in there again and I'm going at it, right? And I finally see that nest fall down and I got it. And I backed up. And I backed up. And I I mean, I was 25 feet a good distance away from this thing. And I'm standing there looking at it, and they're flying all around this place. They're mad. And just in that very moment, it's like slow motion. One of those wastes flew right at me and stung me in the nose. Oh, landed right on my nose and stung me right on the corner of my nose.

Oh, it hurt. I bet. I yelled. Yeah. a sound and I fell. I was like trying to back away, trying to start to run backwards. I could see it coming at me.

Like when it was just like three feet away, I'm like, oh, you know, and I start running backwards and I fell down. I scratched my ankle all the pieces, lost my glasses. Oh, wow. It's like one of those zero planes just coming in here and attack it. I'm on my back and it hurt.

Like I fell down hard as hell. Ila and Tammy are watching from the house. Ila is about to cry. Tammy, on the other hand, is having the opposite reaction. She is about to split her sides. She's laughing so hard. So I get up.

She's like, he bought that Irish spring thing. Now look at him. He's just a big dumpster fire of this guy. My eyes are watering. It hurts so bad. My whole head was stunned from this sting, and it hurts so freaking bad. And my eyes are watering, and I'm headed to the house, and Ila's going, Daddy, you okay? Daddy, you okay?

And I'm like, I'm fine, I'm fine, fine. I go in there. Amy's got this little thing that sucks. The bug bite thing. Yeah, a little bug bite tube thing that sucks either, you know, bee stings, any kind of pilt poison or anything that might, you know, be in there. It can suck all this out. And it really works good. it before.

Wow. With different things. Never heard of it. We've used it on splinters. It's like a splinter right out of your hand. But where that bee stung me right on this edge, it won't seal. Right. And so I can't get that damn thing out.

Is that what I'm seeing it? Is that it? You still got a little bit of a visible mark on your nose? I mean, maybe. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, because how long. Quit looking at it. We're going to diagnose this.

Stop looking at it. I mean, it's on your nose. What am I supposed to do? Stop looking at. Stung on your nose. it's hard not to see it. So, man, I finally go in the house and I'm, I, you know, get some relief. Amy's, Amy gives me some kind, she puts like a paste together,

bacon soda and something, and I put that on there. And man, that really worked pretty good. And then I'll, uh, dressed up my boo-boo. Mm-hmm. And then we called the bug guy. Hey, um, to come take care of it. Which should have been the first thing. Jesus.

Or just gone about, by the spray. Yeah. There's something about this. You know, this happened a week ago. I got stung by a European. hornet on the top of my head. Dang. Oh, yeah.

And I'm saying in this head region and nose certainly, like, I think that the pain does amplify by two or three. Like, if a hornet or a wasp stings you on the arm and stuff, it sucks, right? I mean, you don't know that I get stung by a was. Man, on the head, it felt like my whole head was on fire. Yeah. I was complaining about it to Leah two, three days later. Because then it goes into the itching phase.

Amy said that, terrible. So Amy looks at me and she goes, well, where's your glasses? I'm like out there on the sidewalk. And so she goes out there and she comes back in and she says, this is flashbacks of like Ralphie in the Christmas story. Remember when he shoots, he loses, breaks his glasses. Oh, that's right. They have to go back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. He didn't want to tell his mom that he's shot. Right. Yeah, that is funny. He made up the story about the icicle. Yeah, that's funny. She went out there to pick glasses up.

Right, and you're still crying. I'm in the house. Yeah, right. Hell of a damn. Hell of a couple weeks. Have you taken a moral of the story? The moral of the story is what? Like, what did you come away learning?

Just don't go pest or a wasp home? Yeah. I mean, they don't like that. Just spray them, kill them. Don't have compassion for them like you do the mice. See, I didn't want to spray the, I didn't want to spray Ala's play set because I don't want the chemicals on the play set. Okay. You know, I don't know what's in that to, you know, what she's going to be doing around that.

Play set. I'm trying to avoid that if I could. I got it. Okay. Just because of it being a kid's play set. I'm like, I want to spray a bunch of wasp poison. In hindsight, though, probably. Well, you know what?

Okay. To my defense, we call the bug guy. Bug guy shows up. What's the bug guy got in his truck? A bunch of extendable poles with dust bunnies on the end of him. And he comes back. He goes over there, treats this play set, and he comes walking back with my.

tool and he goes hey man here i found this over there you had the right tool i got a bunch of them in the truck you had the right tool just not the right person hold in it the identical same freaking thing i was using okay the but guy's using all right that may it feel a little bit better yeah i take it back yeah i just didn't have to spray i was trying to avoid spraying them but i'm gonna tell you right now 25 feet is not far enough away if you go on to mess with them wasp you better be moving a little farther the next time we have a two week break we send a camera with Absolutely. That is what happens next time.

You have too much going on. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, thank you for sharing. Okay, Mike. Are you ready? I'm ready. All right, let's bring Jerry Nadu in.

Lepani comes, tries to come to second. That was just over 24 hours ago that Nadu driving the 01 car crash, the practice session, the 32-year-old driver from Danbury, Connecticut 6th. Jerry Nadu wins the fire race on ESPN. Yes! He's in critical condition. It's being treated for head, lung, and rib injuries of medical college of Virginia. It is his first Winston Cup win in his 103rd race, the fourth, first-time winner in 2000.

There he is. Hey. What's up, man? It's good to see you. Again. Again, yeah. What were we doing at Costco? I was just doing my thing at Costco.

We weren't wandering around, you know, like everybody else. Yeah, I was there with my wife. Obviously, I was pushing the carriage. Costco is amazing. I love Costco. Yeah. I love it. I didn't even know what a Costco was, right?

So we got a J, what is it? We got a JBs. What is it? BJs. BJs. So when I was, this is so random, but when I was in like the fifth grade or something, my teacher took the class. We had a small, 12, 13 kids, took the class to one of those wholesale places, right?

I'd never seen one in my life. And I'm like, what? you can buy everything in bulk they let you do that where i mean i didn't know they even let you do this right this sounds crazy where is this place been right and now they're you know obviously everywhere but yeah so you guys saw each other at costco we saw ran into him at cosco's and so my so matthew was like hey man who you want on the show this week and i was like see if jerry can do it no way yeah see see just go to cosco find jerry that's where you find him that that is so cool yeah you're doing your grocery regular grocery shopping yeah i was

I was there with my wife. We're doing our thing, and obviously I was looking for popcorn. Yeah. Because I love their skinny popcorn. Yeah. I go through that. God. How long have you been married?

Nine years. Nine years. Yeah. Got a little seven-year-old. Really? Yes. Boy or a little girl. Okay.

How's that? It's... It's... Yeah, I mean, she's a girl. But the problem is I'm too easy. Yeah. I'm too gullible. I can't do...

That's fine. That's your role. Yeah, I know. But it's... Like I know the hill I'm talking about. I got two girls, but I mean, I think it's okay. You know, the mom's, you know, the mom knows what needs to be happening. Yeah, my wife, my wife's really tough.

She's a great, I mean, I love her to death. It's just that she's the one that, she's the one that lays the rules down. Yeah. My wife. I can't. I fold on there. I give up. You know, my daughter, Jordan, she'll, she'll want to play hard with me, you know, where, you know,

My wife, when she says stop, it's stopped. Me, she won't stop. She'll just keep going. Does she manipulate you? Because mine do. They know. They know the way and they know where your soft spot is. They learn it, really.

Yeah. They're awesome. They're all awesome. I have Natalie, you know, she was actually just born before I got an accident. You know, she's my first child. And she's 18 today working out back. Is that right? At exit 25.

So she's moving on. She's doing good. She's going to go to, she's bringing our grades up at CPCC, and then she's hopefully moving to UNCC. Okay. So, all right. When I think about Jerry Nadeau, I think of it. I finished second to you.

Well, yeah. I mean, you did a lot of things. But when I think about Jerry Nadeu, I think, man, where did you come from? Because the first time I think I'm probably going to learn differently and be reminded of a few things. but the first time I really remember seeing you was driving that 13 car. And I don't know where you came from. I don't know where you started.

So that's what the show kind of is about when we talk to you guys is what was that moment? What was that first moment where you saw a race car? You were introduced to racing. Was it a family member? Was it the location where you were at geographically? You know, everybody's got their own little story about how they kind of got introduced to motorsports, right? Yeah.

So how did it start for you? Obviously, I came from my mom, you know, in Connecticut. Oh, you're going way back. Yeah, well, the beginning. No, seriously, because I remember, I literally remember a crawling on the floor in the basement when my dad was working. My dad was working on as Modified. Okay.

So your dad race modified? Yeah. Back in Danbury days. It was at the Danbury Race Arena. And literally... What is the Danbury Race Arena? That sounds amazing. That's where La Joy's came from.

Okay. Randy LaJoy, Don LaJoy. His father, Don was like a ten-time track champion. Randy won a bunch of championships there in sports. What kind of track is that? Flat. Tiny? Like this, like this table.

And it's tiny. It's short. You can only fit two cars wide on the shirtaway. That's why they called an arena. Oh, God. I'd never heard a racetrack named Arena. Yeah, and I don't remember, but they used to race boats in the middle of the infield. They used to fill it up a water and race boats.

Okay. But yeah, I was a big Danbury. I mean, literally, I remember going to Danbury when I was three years old. What was your house like? What was your house like that you grew up in? Okay. We were living at 58 Marlbrook Road in Danbury, Connecticut, right alongside a machine shop. Taylor, it was Oscar Taylor Machine Shop.

And then behind him was Harrison Asphalt. They used to do all the asphalt for roads and stuff. So our house was old. My dad was paying, I remember, $250 a month to live there. Dang. And, but my dad was making good money. Yeah. He was roofing houses like crazy in the, back in the day. So it was like, you know, after a while, you know, my mom put her foot down and says, you know, we can't do this all the time. We can't live here. I mean, this house is about to fall down. How many are in the house?

Shepherds. But yeah, it was just, I was literally, I remember going to school and I used to tell the, I used to go down the road because I was embarrassed of my house. I was embarrassed. I mean, it was run down. It was sad. I mean, so yeah, I used to go down the road and let the bus pick me up there and said, and even when they dropped me off, I'd get off a bus somewhere else.

Yeah. But I, listen, I love the way I'd grown up. I love how my mom and dad were tough. And my mom was the sweetheart. My dad was a tough one. You know, when the belt came out, that was it. Yeah. You know, you had to do your stuff.

Did you ever, when the belt come out, did you ever take off running? No, but I remember kneeling on the ground and put my nose on the wall. I remember that for a long time. That was the way it went down. Yeah, back then it was like that. Get in the corner. Yeah. Boy, getting it.

My name was boy. It wasn't Jerry. It was boy. So your dad was tough. He was tough. My dad had the heart of gold. Yeah. Had the heart of gold.

And he was just a tough guy. But I could, you can understand. My dad wanted me to race locally, you know, kind of like be a local hero and not, and run his business. He wanted me to roof. He literally stuck me in the roof at eight, nine years old. Eight years old. Yeah. You know, you're 30, 40 feet in the air.

I mean, that was my dad. I love, you know, I love them pieces, but, I mean, I can't imagine sticking my seven-year-old on the roof. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is how I started. Yeah. So it's a different lifestyle, especially today. You can't, the kids, I don't know, it's different today.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean, talking about whoopens, I don't, I couldn't imagine, you know, given my child. I have two girls, so I'd never even cross my mind. But even if I had a son, I couldn't imagine giving. giving him a spanking or a whooping. But dad would pull the belt out, and that was like, boy, things are as bad as they possibly

could be in this moment. But finally one time, I beat him to the door and got out the house and went and hid in a field for about six hours. That works? And it worked. Never got another whoopin. Well, you avoided it? Yeah, I told this on another podcast.

I don't remember this. Just recently. I don't think that. That's why I asked you if you ever took off running. No. What was the one? I mean, did you just grow out of? Get in the bell.

Yeah, I never, you know, I don't know if, I don't actually know if my dad actually hit me. I don't know, but listen, my dad was scary. I, the voice and his sound and stuff. And I looked up to my dad so much. My dad was everything to me. And, you know, I remember coming home. And my dad was like, he'd be home at 5.15. He'd eat and be in basement in 10 minutes.

Dang, right. That was my dad every day, every day. To go do work on his car? And my mom would cook. My mom would have everything set ready to go. When my dad walked in, it was like, eat, wouldn't say hardly anything, and go right in the basement. Was he a good racer? He wasn't a Don LaJoy.

He wasn't, you know, I mean, those guys were winning. And my dad built his own stuff. My dad literally built. He welded and he bent this bar and he, that was his deal. I remember Don LaJoy tested my dad's car. He says, boy, this is the fastest. car I ever driven, but it won't turn left. That was part, that was my dad's deal. His cars didn't work. You know, he thought and never, it wouldn't turn left. When my dad got in a really good car,

he got in a Chastity Dynamics car, and I think he finished fifth, his first modified race at Thompson. And that's the car that I drove one time, and I finished third behind the Christopher. So, you know, if my dad had good stuff, yeah, I can see my dad being somewhere, but my dad was all about racing. He was working roofing houses. He was racing go-carts and then finally he bought it. He built a modified back in 1967 and then went on. So how did you get to race? My dad, he put me in a go-kart at four and a half years old. Literally just popped me in and we were living next to a machine shop, Taylor machine shop, and the parking lot was a good size, you know, probably the size of your building. And we'd just do circles. And that's it.

Yeah. Every day. After preschool, I'd tug on my mom's dress and she'd pull the cord, and I'd just go round and round and round. And then I just, my dad put me in a race at, I think it was called Nutmeg, Nutmeg Cartways, and that was it. Was it an oval or? Yeah, a little dirt oval.

Okay. And so you started racing dirt go-kart and did that for how long? Oh, God. A while. Yeah, a couple of years. I did that, and I went into, I started doing big races, national races. Then I got into road racing on asphalt.

We ran at Cuddybackville on Saturday night, dirt track. And then Sundays we'd run the asphalt track. Which was a road course? Which was a road course. Same cart? Yes. Back then, yeah. Yeah, because we just changed tires.

Yeah. Wow. And just go out of it. And then I met people. I remember meeting. Well, actually, I did this on my own. I ran up a big, big national race. at Cuddybackville and I won the race.

I couldn't, I mean, and I, and it was scary because these guys run, these guys run the series and I show up and I run the race, but then I got thrown out. Oh, for what? For something with the motor. I have no clue what it was. And maybe the head or something was mild or I have no clue. But I remember Bill Bonsignor came to me, says, if you, if you race for me, that would never happened.

And that's what I drove for him. So he? For three years, I drove for him in carts. In carts, yeah. Bill Bonson, he was from Deer Park, Long Island. And we had Marguays, we had Briggs, we had Brickstone tires. Was that your first win, though, the one that got thrown out? You'd been winning on it.

No, yeah, yeah. Okay. Nutmeg, okay. My first trophy was, I was seven years old in 1977 at Nutmeg Cartrack. That was the first trophy I ever got. I have it in my daughter's room. What was your dad's reaction to that? Like, did you sense that your dad was proud of that?

Was he, did he, did he change, did it change the dynamics between you and him? No, not really. I mean, my dad was tough. And, you know, dads are, dads are just tough. They, I kind of memorized my dad. I loved it. I mean, he just, he would, the way he was, bully, he'd work so hard roofing, come home, he'd go downstairs.

He'd be in, down, he'd be literally downstairs till midnight. And then he'd be up at six o'clock working the next. day. But would he go to your races? Yes. Yeah, he was there. Yeah, I never missed it. My dad, I don't think my... Yeah, my dad never missed a race.

My dad was always behind me. Always, yeah. He wouldn't just let me go because we did things tight. We're really tight. I mean, it's like we couldn't spend $10. Yeah. You know, we, it was like, this is our way and you had to make the best out of it. What were you doing personally to raise any money to go racing?

Oh, I mean, what jobs did you have? At 14, 15 years old, I made my own press kits. Oh, wow. Are you roofing? Yes. Well, I was roofing my dad during the summer, but I'm going to school. I'm still a teenager. I was a little kid.

So I was going to school, and during the summer, I'd work all the time with my dad. And obviously, that's why I made some money. You know, I'd make easily five, 600 bucks a week, you know, working for my dad. But that's hard work. You don't want to go out and have to work. You have to work with my dad, you know, all those hours. So yeah, I made my own Prescott's. I worked with Effinemone Electric, Carlin Auto Body, Art Regan, Phil Seminor, the Rizzo's, all.

You know, that was my life back then. You know, it was like I remember I just talked to Phil the other day. He says, don't tell them about being the fastest forklift driver. I was the fastest forklift driver. I would get deliveries out of the truck on the ground. You know, I would do all that stuff really quick. That's cool So that was my life

I mean I did that And I did delivered papers I had all kinds of different jobs Everything everything I think my first job When I was 14 I was pumping gas At a shawl gas station

You know for the Rolos My first job was a gas station Yeah Yeah And it was It was a full service side And self service side You know I think about today

I didn't have any problems Back then Like there was no Crazy stuff In today's world I don't know phone more work at a gas station. You know what I mean?

Yeah. You see a lot of crazy stuff. Yeah. On, on. I imagine, yeah, imagine you see a lot of stuff at a gas station these days. Yeah. Back when I worked at the gas station, I was too busy trying to steal cigarettes and eating Waffle House because there was a Waffle House out back.

It was the greatest thing ever. Chicken melts every day. It's the one just a few blocks from here, right? Yeah. Still there. Yeah. You were into smoking, huh? Yeah, I smoked cigarettes.

I did too. When you ran second to me, I was smoking about a pack a day. Oh, you are? Yes. That's why I saw that smoke. He was a chimney. Yeah. If you'd look over at my bus, Matt Kidds, that used to park next to me about every other week.

And he'd be, he would just be sitting over there shaking his head because I'd be, I had this fan. And I cracked a window open sitting on my couch, and that fan would suck this smoke right out. And so I thought I was clever. But, meanwhile, the other drivers are laughing at you because you got to the, Well, Jerry never noticed. Smoke billowing out the bus. Jerry never noticed. No, I didn't know.

You keep bringing up this race where you finished second. Where was this? I think it was Dover. Yeah. Was it that 2001 race? It was right after the 911 deal. Yeah.

Where are you flew the flag out? Yeah. But yeah, I kind of lucked in that second one. But the race I thought about was the one at Charlotte. I love Charlotte. I don't know what it is, but me and Charlotte. I just got along with Charlotte so well. And that one time, I think you won the 600.

I won the All-Star race. Matt won the 600 the next week. Yeah, but I remember the 600, we had such a dominant car, and I think it was a 25 car, twice. I mean, we just had a good car, but then something happened. Oh, it was actually, it was 30 to go, and the rain came, and we were praying that it was going to get rained out, but then they went back racing and I dropped the cylinder, and that was off.

That's awful. Yeah. So, you're racing go-karts, having a. great time having a lot of success working hard what was the first opportunity that you got to drive something else um how did you get out of carts i think my dad yeah i think someone that i met at the carding said hey i'm doing a race at limerock in my dots in nine 10 all right all right you know great so i got to ask you what um i'm sorry to interrupt you but um that's something that i remember when you come on to the cup scene people I remember people complimenting your road

racing ability right out of the gate all right and so I'm learning that your dad race to modifies your your true roots were oval racing through your family and then your carding but you got into the road racing with the carts and then you go your first big your first race in a big car is at a road course. Is that what you're telling me in Lime Rock? Well, no, no. That's where I, but you got to understand. My dad ran modifies. I think we built a SK modified for myself. Okay. So, when I was like 16. 16. So you ran SK modified? I did. Okay. A couple times. And I remember running, but the place that we ran at, it was a wreck hole. You know, Waterford Speed Bowl. Okay. It's a little tiny quarter mile oval, um, fast. And that's,

where I had to learn and and I think we were crashed every week, almost every week. Really? You know? So, and the problem is we had no, we didn't have the money to say, okay, let's have this guy build it or let's put it back together. I, I wanted to just keep my name out and keep doing other things. I met a guy, my, my buddy, Tony Petrucci, we built a dirt sportsman car in his, in his garage, which his garage was only six by eight. You know, we built a dirt sportsman car we went to Lebanon Valley

Orange County Fair Speedway and that's I kind of did that then I'd go back to them to modify when my modified car was ready to go then if something happened to there I'd go back in my dirt car but then I got into road racing from the I had a guy Frank Martinelli

from Woodbury Connecticut his son Jason was young and he wanted me to tutor him so I kind of helped him brought him on the road we did the horseman gold Cup races and carding and he's the one to send Jerry let me tell you some you're wasting your time doing the oval tracks off and crashing he said I'm going to put you in the skip barber racing school and I think you're a big fan to save lover stuff yeah so I got in that and that was it

I mean I literally I think the first 10 races I won nine of them really I just loved it I just enjoyed it it was like yeah I mean it was like it was like my thing I felt comfortable the limerock was my track so this is interesting this is the second guess in a row that went to the Skip Barber School because Joseph Newgard was telling us about that Skip Barber deal. Joseph, Joseph beat my record. I had the record, the longest record for the highest finish in American at the Brands Hatch Formula Ford Festival. Yeah. And Joseph went out there in 2010 and won it. We were going to win it, but we got wrecked on the last lap and we finished fourth. But I had the highest ever finished. I think it was Brian Herder finished eighth one year. He had the record. Then I went out there and I beat him.

And then it stayed. I had the highest until Joseph Nukkah. How did you end up there? Jeremy Shaw. Who's that? Jeremy Shaw. You know Jeremy Shaw. Everybody listening doesn't know him.

Oh, he's, yeah, he's, I don't know. He's a goofy guy. He looks like Boris said. He's got a lot of hair in his head. He's a writer for IndyCar. He does a lot of PR stuff. He called me. He says, hey, Jerry, we,

We want to know if you wanted to do this. What do you think you were doing that got him interested? Skippy stuff. I was winning in a Skip Barber stuff. Yeah. Skip Barber stuff. That propelled me. Sitchie.

Skip Barber Formula Ford propelled in my career. Wow. Took off. And I think if it wasn't for Frank Martinelli who paid for these schools, I don't think I would ever got there. It would have been too hard. You know, I kind of see myself as a roofer and racing at Stafford Springs. That's how my dad saw it.

That was what was going to be your life. I was going to be the hero at. Stafford or Thompson and roof houses. But I just said... And now you're at Brands Hatch in the Formula Ford Festival. With 248 other guys. And you're probably...

You're thinking, how in the hell did I get here? It was all. That was... I was telling... You're pinching yourself. I was telling your buddy the other day when I was having breakfast with him that those were the funnest and coolest days

of my entire racing life. Was being at Brands Hatch, there's 248 drivers there's ambulances there's crashes there's yelling there's fight and it's like and I'm looking around I said wow this is so cool

yeah I mean you're it was like blood those guys they drive so hard the Europeans yeah they they it ain't about sick in a wheel it's like it's my turn

you know I'm getting in there and you just have to either obey or you crash with them you know what I mean how hard it visit to run on Brands hatch. Describe the track for us. Y'all ran the full course. Okay, it's not the full course.

No, you ran the indie? Yeah, yeah, the indie. Indy is so much fun. I think that they should have cup race on Indy. It's like short track. Yeah, but those cars are too big. Really? I think so.

The cup cars are way too big for that track. They'd be boring, I think. Really? Isn't that short course? You won't get fast. You won't go fast enough. They're too heavy. They had soft tires on it.

I used to love watching like the British Touring Car Championship. race indie course. He's beat the hell out of each other. Yeah, yeah. So it was fun. So you're there and you had good success, right? Yeah, yeah.

I finished fourth. And then I got to test for Barry Green. Who's that? He owns an indie car? Yeah, indie cars, indie lights. And I think I did a test for them in Phoenix and I was obviously fast. But then again, it was all about money. And I'm living at my parents' house, not, you know,

don't have anything. You're still living at home? Yeah, I lived at home until like 19, 20. Yeah. And then I met the thing that helped the most was when I, when I did an interview at Sebring, I mentioned, I think I qualified Paul and Kenny Brack qualified second. And so they interviewed me and I said, you know,

my ultimate goal is to go NASCAR. Even then. Even then. Why? Why? Because of my dad. You still, so all... My dad was my hero, and my dad watched NASCAR races every week.

He was a big, your dad, he was a big fan of your dad's. Jeff Bodine, you know, those two obviously didn't have the best mixture together, but, you know, he loved it. So all the while, you're sort of on this path of road racing. But, and I think the money, the money thing deteriorated me. Yeah. It's like, screw it. I'm going to go try something else. And that's when I met Tom Cobb.

Tom is right here. I'm sure you remember Tom. I don't know that you do, but I know Tom Cotter from, you know, running that whole agency. Jerry thinks I know everybody. Well, Cotter was a big name. Yeah, big in racing. In racing, but he also ran like a marketing and PR, didn't he? It was called Cotter.

It was called Mooring Cotter, but back then it was called Cotter Communications. And I think your dad worked with him at one time. I think Daryl Waltrip was big into that. I mean, you somehow, Tom Cotter, somehow connect you're connected with him and i was curious on how that even happens okay that i did an interview and i said my ultimate goal is to go nascar and tom got a whisper of that because he was there he was at sebring and he said oh my god i got to go meet that guy so he came over he met me and he says you need to look me up when i'm in charlotte if you ever come to charlotte so you did

that so i did but here's my thing here's my story i called him and said and he's like hey jerry you want to have lunch tomorrow and i said sure So I got in my Cutless Oldsmobile diesel I don't know it was like in 1985 It smoked all the way down from Connecticut Down to Charlotte and I had lunch with them Oh you drove from Connecticut to Charlotte

For lunch for lunch Yeah so I had lunch with Tom and Todd And and And I'm ready to go back home after our meeting And he's like so where are you going I said I'm going to drive back home He says where do you live? I go back in Danbury He says you drove all the way down here

To have lunch with me and he thought that was cool. I'm right. Yeah. So I packed my bags. I came back. I lived at apartments. For what?

To work with Tom. Tom. He just said, I'm going to come out here and I'm going to work. Yeah, I'm going to help you out and try to get you to NASCAR. And what was his plan? Find me a sponsor and go do some bush races.

Okay. Yeah. Damn. So I think Cotter was pretty big. Yeah, yeah. He had a lot. I think Jay Gers came from Cotter too. Like a lot of people came from.

Yes, yes, yes. But here's the deal. I was still doing road racing. He was writing in NASCAR scene, and he was putting a blurb in there about me. Like when I was winning a Barbara Dodge race, you know, winning at Loudoun with a formula, you know, whatever. So people are always hearing about me in the NASCAR stuff. And then he wrote a letter to all the Cups, to all the NASCAR teams. And one team answered and called them and says, hey, I'll give him a shot.

And that was Richard Jackson. Okay. He was everything to me. So how did? He hired me for $240. I was making $240 a week. I was spotting on the weekends for Morgan Cheper, but I was working all week with Fat Back McSwain.

Okay. Michael. And I was sweeping, I was answering phone calls. So he hired you right into the shop to work, right to work. Yeah. And I was there for, God, three, four months. I'm like, God, I'm not. There's nothing going on here.

I'm not, there's nothing I'm doing. No, driving. No, yeah. But I was still racing. Your stuff.

Yeah, I was still racing other stuff. So I pulled NASCAR, I pulled Richard in his office. I said, Richard, I've been here for a little while. You hire,

you know, you have nine cup cars in the shop. Can I, let's, can we put, can you put me in something? You know, let's go do a sportsman race

or an Arca race. So he's rocking back in his chair. He said, Jerry, I like you. He says, I'll tell you what, you give me, you come up with $15,000. I'll put you in the Charlotte race next month at Lowe's, the Arca race. Yes. At Lowe's. And this was the same time as the, I think you guys raced Wednesday and what was Wednesday? Poll night. We ran pole night and we ran. Again. 600. Yeah. It was two times. So I paid 15 just for that one race on Wednesday. We finished fourth. The first time.

in our car and you know back then they had a lot right who's helping you with that car all the boys in the shop all the boys dive right in yeah because that's got to be a pretty fun deal because i just want to try to frame this up for everybody listening so you're in the shop you're working you came there hopefully getting an opportunity to drive you make you're making great rapport with everybody in the shop and then here's your chance so the whole shop dives in on that car to help you with this effort but it it was I don't understand it. It's a cup team. I know. But we had one car.

It was just a white car. It was a white car like that car that's sitting in your shop. And all we did was we decaled 01. I got Busman Fused to put up $5,000. And I called everybody but my mom and dad and got $100, $500, $500 from car land. F&M Electric chipped in $1,000 or $500. I can't remember. But I had at least 12 people, 15 companies, helping me out, chipping me in and they and they believed in me and they said okay go do the race and i it was like

it was so incredible you know running against all those guys we finished fourth wednesday night richard was like ecstatic i was ecstatic and then all of a sudden rich was like hey um you want to run saturday night and so we ran saturday night we finished second um i can't remember who who won it but we it was between me and him the whole race we were battling and I got second. And literally Morgan Shepherd went to Jasper, Motorsport, it's a 77 car. Yeah.

So Richard didn't have a driver for the cup car. So Richard's like, hey, you did a good job. This is my start. He said, you did a good job last week at Charlotte. You want to race Michigan next week. And he's, and I'm like. In the cup car? Yeah.

Wow. And that was it. Wow. And I go to Michigan in the number one car. I think it was some call. I can't remember the name of the sponsor. The phone card. Yeah, the phone card.

Yeah. And we were second fastest behind Gordon, first time out in a cup car. And it was like, so that was it. I mean, that's what kind of got my name on the map. And it's, uh, you know, then I'm meeting your dad. I'm meeting Jeff. And it's like, wow. You mean walking them around?

Yeah, meeting. Yeah, in the garage. And I had, I had a black suit on with a white pinstripe and a Winston Cup series patch. That's it. You're racing suit. Yeah, it was just a black suit. Is this going so fast, though, for you that you don't even have time to be nervous or to think about all that stuff?

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what was going on. I mean, I always thought about it. I always thought like, God, I need to. I got to get there. I got to get there. I mean, I would do everything out of the ordinary to do stuff. And that's sometimes what it takes.

You know how it is. You just, you can't quit. You know, I even say today, I still feel like guys that are that talented that, that, that, that want to get there, they can get there. I think there's a way that from them, I don't care if you sleep at their door. Yeah. I don't, that's what it takes. Relentless. And I, I was like the guy that, that bugged and you, you asked Tom Cotter. I mean, I, I can't tell you how many times I bugged him to, you know, get me, get me a deal or get me something. So I did, I did five Bush races in 95. 95. 96, I spent two years, I spent a year in Europe doing the Formula

Opel for Dan Partell. He called me up because I was, I wasn't doing NASCAR then. And he's like, hey, we need an American driver to run Formula Opel. And he's, and I'm like,

I'm there because I had nothing else going on here. What's that series like? Amazing. All right. How many races do they run? They run 12. And do you got to move to Europe? You're staying in Europe?

Long term? Back and forth. Back and forth. Sometimes I'm there for a month. Right. And then there's, there for two months. Where did you live?

All over. Yeah. On the road. I mean, I was out of a bag. Yeah. I mean, coolest. I'm fascinated with that because...

You're going to like this story. Because Dan Partel got me over there, and he's like, hey, you got a plane ticket to go from wherever, New York, to Luxembourg. Luxembourg. So I flew... He gave me a map. He had everything plotted out.

He was like the Bernie Ecclestone of... From Loeople. Good friends with Bernie. And so I flew to Luxembourg. I got a taxi, drove, got to his house. and there's nobody at his house, but there's a car and a suitcase. And the suitcase was full of different money. Because back then it was like you had to pay tolls.

You know, like every time you went into a different country. And so I drove from Luxembourg down to Italy and I went through, I think, three or four different countries to get down there. So every time I'm going through a booth, I'm like, which one's yours? Yeah. I'm showing them the money. I'm like, This one. Okay, here you go. That's hilarious.

So that's how, Dan Partel, I love the guy. I think he still lives in Florida. But that's kind of what I did. And then I did a test for F-3,000, which is one step below F-1. And it went super, but again, $750,000. We want you to come, but it's what's going to cost. And I had valve lanes going to chip in a little bit. And I'm like, oh, screw it.

I'm going to go back to America and go try to make a NASCAR. That's when I met Richard Jackson. Okay. And that's where I took off. So Jeff Gordon come up to you after qualifying. Oh, that was cool. What did he say? He said, dude, you made it.

Qualifying the top 20, you've made it. You're fine. You're good. I get it. I understand, but I didn't look at it like that. No, I bet not. No. I really wanted to do it.

And I went out there and I bawled the car up on fire and turned two in qualifying. Where's this? at Michigan. Okay. And the coolest thing is so, Richard probably doesn't remember this, but I came out of the infillicero center and I'm walking back to my car hauler

and Richard Childress puts his arm around me. He goes, boy, let me tell you something. I time everybody from the start, finish line and turn two, and you had the field covered by two tents, but the only thing is you were sideways. And I'm like, okay. You know what I mean? So I didn't think about it back then,

but yeah, it's like I, I did it and I told the car, I wrecked it, bowled it up, but I was second, I was second day fastest. Okay. Because they had two qualifying sessions. Got a backup car out? Well, it was our speedway car. It was our Daytona car and we bent the fenders out a little bit so you get more down for us. But here's it.

I want to relate this cool story with your dad. I'm running Michigan, first race, and your dad's lapping me. You know, we're in his speedway car. and your dad had a hard time get by me, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And apparently,

when you get close to some of you, you slow them down. You know how we do with our offenders? We race with them. We get away from them. Okay.

Well, I always stayed close to your dad. And your dad was, and I literally saw your dad's hand come inside my car. Like, dude, get off my fucking door. You know what I mean?

And I didn't know what I was doing. I'm just hauling the mail and trying to get, you know, trying to get to the end. So that was, That's, I was a cool story. But the cool, the, the, the funnest story was, you know, we looked up to your dad.

Your dad was like God. And it's like, the cold, the last race I ran or ran with him was at Atlanta and I won it. You want it. And he came up and he gave him, banged my door. And he's like, that was like the coolest moment for me when I won that. And your dad getting second. It wasn't close because I ran away. I took golf and hit.

You were on it. I remember that race. Yeah, a lot of races we did. It just weird. It all got put together, though, in that race. That's where everything came in place. Yeah, everything came together. But even the race after that, we had a 13-second lead, but we ran out of fuel.

I don't know why. Yeah. Maybe I was just going too fast. I was on throttle too much. So when I remember you, it was in the 13 cars. So how do you go from Richard Jackson? Richard Jackson to this new opportunity. That's when Bill got a hold of me at the track when I was doing the Richard Jackson stuff.

the guy that ran the PR department for Elliott Hayes. I can't remember who it was. But anyway, they contact me and they say, hey, we're thinking about doing this deal. We want to know if you're interested. And I talked to Bill. I think I did a test for Bill at Atlanta. And I put his,

I took his 94 car and I bowled it up on fire and turned three. And we signed a contract. You must have done something before you wrecked. I don't know. Must have run a couple good laps. Well, maybe, but yeah, I don't know what happened. It's just... You bawled up a couple on fire there early on.

I know. Well, you know, it was a make or break. Yeah, it's like I was hungry. I was like, you got to be hungry. I mean, to make it these days, I can't imagine how hard it would have been if it was me today. Yeah. You know, growing up with no help and no sponsors, no money. It's like, it's difficult.

I can't imagine how it is for the kids. There's so much talent out there. Yeah. That 13 car, oh, go ahead. So did you, did the 13 car run out of Dawsonville with Bill? Yeah, yeah. All that out of his same shop? Well, Bill, no, Bill was somewhere else.

I think he was in Morrisville. Okay. But they ran that out of their stuff in Dawsonville. Yeah, they had the engine shopping. I just recently went there. Huh? I just recently visited Dawsonville for the first time and saw that whole layout. Did you see the airport?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's where you were with the 13. Yeah. In Dawsonville. Bought a house, did everything. You bought a house down in, Georgia. So how long did you live there? Not long. Yeah. Three, four months. Really? Yeah. Well, they, they let go, they let me go in, I think, like, 12, 13 races. Into the deal. Yeah, there was a lot of bad stuff going. I'm not sure if it was

financed. I don't know if it was sponsors. I don't know what, you know, maybe my, my driving, I don't know. Wasn't this the deal with Dan Marino? Yes. So Dan Marino and Bill Elliott are the co-owners of the 13 car. I I remember that very, that turquoise, Dan Marino 13 car. Set on a pole at Sonoma. And the only reason why, I mean, I was an Elliot fan, not a big one, but I was more of a Marino fan. Okay. Dude, I loved him. He was my hero in football.

How involved is he with this operation? Not much. Just show up, show up and go to race, Daytona, you know, big races, Vegas. Yeah. So you set on a, didn't you set on a pole at Sonoma with that car? Well, outside pole. We should have been on a pole, but Earnhardt. Gordon.

Okay. But I beat him. You beat him in a turn one. I had to. But I didn't make it. I didn't make it. I went through the wilderness. And as we went through the wilderness, we still came on the track and third.

But we bent a tie rod. And as I went through the wiggles and the backstretch, the tie rod broke. And I went head on into the dirt bank. And it stopped so damn fast. I bit my lip. I looked in the mirror. blood on my face and I went to the hospital for a slight concussion. Jeez.

So what, how do you, what do you, what's, like, did they call you up? Did you know it was coming to an end? How did you find out that that deal was going south? I think with his, Chris, or Chase's mom. Okay. Cindy. Cindy. Yeah.

She was running our deal. I don't remember. Yeah. It might have been Cindy, might have been Bill. Um, but it was, it wasn't long before I got into something else. I think Lake Speed was leaving Melling. And it was like a perfect time for me to go from that to the smelling. And we did, we were off the bat.

We hit a, we ran our first race at the Glen. And we, we finished fifth. Those are like the, if I had all the money in the world, I would have stayed there. Why? I don't know, because I loved everyone. They were so good. Mark Melling was the best. Jeff Bice was running, doing the crew chief.

And all the guys were great. It was a sad deal when I went to Hendrik from them. It's like I felt close to them. They loved me. I felt comfortable, you know, and it's like... Felt wanted? Yeah. You know, they just enjoyed you.

No matter if something went bad or good, it's like, you know, they were just good people. When I went to Hendrik, that's when it got different, it got tough. So you went to the 36 car for MBQ? Well, they were only, yeah, and I think they were doing that because Rick won. wanted me to run his cars. So you were, that was a stop gap. Yeah.

Rick, you were going to Hendrick. They wanted me, they wanted me out of the Ford. They wanted me to do the Chevrolet stuff to get me ready for, uh, the, the 25 car in 2000. All right. So you drove the 36. Yeah.

Ryan Pemberton, who works here now as a GM is your crew chief. And I wrecked a lot of cars. I love Ryan. Yeah. Well, what happened though? Like, I mean, Oh, I don't know. We, we were fast.

Again, it just took time. You know, here's a guy from Connecticut road racing and go-carts, and now we're in these massive 3,600-pound cars. I can't even imagine. You know, I never grew up around it. I never got to spend time with that. I never, you know, I did a couple tests, and I'm right in there. But the only thing is, is, Jerry, now you're right, man,

you had these moments of mistakes, and failures that, you know, but only because you didn't have that climb up the ladder, like trucks, Xfinity, and all that experience, and you didn't make the mistakes there, right? You go right into the Cup series. But you also, I mean, to your credit, you also were doing enough things

that people could see the potential, the glimpse of what you could become, right? And I think that's why you end up in a Hendrick car in 2000, because you don't get into it. You don't get to a Hendrick car without somebody, Mr. H himself, believing that you could be the real deal, right? So in these moments, like qualifying second at Sonoma,

in that 13 car that nobody knew what that car was capable of, nobody gave that car second chance of being anything good, right? It's a very new team. You know, you're having these moments throughout those years that are, you know, wow, this guy get polished up and get, you know, figure it out. he could be something. Are you feeling that as you're getting closer once you get in, you know, get into HMS car 2000?

Are you feeling? Because I was on my own. Like, to be honest, I would wish I would have had somebody to polish me up. I wish somebody could have been helping me, okay, don't worry about this. All I want you to do is worry about this. You know what I mean? I was trying to deal with everything. And it's like, it was awesome.

You got to understand. I am probably the only guy that Hendrick Motors. ever had that was dedicated to their team that would go there every day that would take him out to lunch that would hang out with him that would laugh with him just walk around and be normal because i'm a normal guy you know i'm a normal guy that somehow made it uh to the cup series but i think you know i think if i just had more help more guidance yeah you know i think i don't know if people were scared i mean i'm an easy guy to to get along um but it just uh they had a lot of tough luck with the 25 car and they couldn't figure out why and I got in it. And we still had tough luck, but we still had good runs. You know, turning for was amazing.

Hell of a chassis guy. Oh, dude, the funnest part was Daytona. We were the slowest car in practice. It was all the 100 cars were slow. And somehow we qualified outside pole. And I can't remember. remember what happened, but they somehow put some wood chips in the springs to keep the car up in the air and you know what I mean, tech line. And then all of a sudden I get out of the track. And it drops like,

boom, you know, and I can't see where I'm going. Yeah. And so that's kind of the stuff that we did. But the cool thing about Tony is Tony will do anything. Oh, yeah. I love the guy. I love the guy. So we had so many fast times, so many fast cars, Chicago, you know, Martinsville. We were just fast at a lot of places. Even the O-1 car, even the O-1 car when we had the Army car. We were just starting to come on. We finished fourth at Taladega,

or not Tal'Daga, but Texas. We get to Charlotte. We're doing the test, and we're the fastest car by two-tenths, and then we go to Richmond. We qualify 10th. We're the fastest happy hour, and then we crash. And that was the end of my career.

But I had fun. I wouldn't have changed anything, anything on how it went. I mean, I enjoyed it. I had fun. My life's a little different today. And now I got my two kids to deal with. Well, what was that experience like at Hendrik, though, for those two years?

And what would you do different? What was – because I want to give you credit. Now, you had the speed, I think, you know, a couple more years in that deal, and it might have ended up getting to where it was neat. You know, you wanted it to get to, right? But what would you do different? Keep my mouth shot. What do you mean?

I don't know. Maybe not. I don't know, because I was tough. I was hard. I think it might have been the way I was brought up. You know, I was a bit hard. But I was so, I was such a good guy, nice guy, and I would treat guys very well. I would take him out to lunch.

I would do stuff. But I think I probably should have just kept my mouth shut at a lot of times because I was there. I was making money. I was having fun. I was raised. at the top level. What were you saying? I don't know.

And to who? I think me and Tony would fight and argue a lot. Yeah. And I think I was, I don't know. I don't remember the scenario, but I think back when I ran out of gas, why did hell, I mean, I only lost by a half a lap. Why didn't somebody tell me to slow down

or save fuel. Sure. It's so easy to save half a lot of fuel. I mean, we had a 13 second lead over Bobby Labani. It's like, but I think we were just, I was hardheaded. And Tony Furr is amazing and he was hardheaded. And I think when you get two hardheads together, it just didn't match. But I wouldn't pick, if it was just a one night, a one day show, I would never pick another guy than Tony.

Yeah. Guy super can prepare a car better than anybody else back then when I was. doing it. You got sent to the, the 01 car, right? Yeah, after. Well, I got let go. We had a tough deal.

I think after me and Fur had a bad fallout and then Tony got let go and then I got let go the next week. Because it was in the middle, like y'all had run 10 or 12 races already. It was right away, yeah.

We finished third at Atlanta behind Harvick. We're running good there. And I think we just had some bad luck and we're fighting or, you know, we're, and I don't know, I was probably just too hard. I wish I probably would have not said anything enjoyed my life, enjoyed that I was there and not, and just went along with everything. But what's interesting about that is if I

remember correctly, you would know better than I would, Dale, is that, like, you know, that 25 team was sort of in a limbo situation as it was. I mean, didn't they have, like, you had, Schrader running it, and then you had Craven and then you had Dalling back. And so they, like, they We're always trying to, and then meanwhile, you got Jeff Gordon, you know, ruling the planet. So, like, I was a big Tim Richmond fan, so I don't think that at 25 had anything to do with Betty or nothing. You know, I just think it just didn't go right, whether I wasn't the right guy, right person on the team. But I think a lot of it. You got let go out of that car in the middle of year?

Yeah. Yeah. During the season. Yes. So you get, damn. I mean, I mean, you know, things got to get pretty bad to make a change, head to season. So what does that do to your,

what does that do to your confidence? Like, what does that do you personally to be fired from that? I always believed in myself. Always. Even, I didn't. You walked out of that door or hung up that phone after that phone call or whatever. And you're like, I'm, it wasn't nothing new. I'm going to land on my feet.

Yeah. I mean, guys, I came from a cutlass, Oldsmobile Diesel. I smoked all the way down from Connecticut just to make it in racing. I chose racing as a life. Yeah. I chose it. I could have roofed.

I could have been a hero at Stafford or Thompson, but I chose racing as my career, as my life. Why is it? Because I was too lazy to do roofing, just like you were with rear racing. You decided that race, you know, this is the way to go. I just chose it. I felt like...

What did you do after that? Like, what was the next step for you? that's when I think the 01 or you ran some races with Petty no yeah

right so yeah I did I ran for well we ran at Sonoma yeah we didn't I think we qualified 18th and we were

gonna win it and we broke through a ring gear the plug came out I was wondering why my car was loose because I every time I I would slip in the oil yeah and but anyway

We broke the gear. And then I went to go to Martinsville, and we were all excited. And my buddy calls me up and says, hey, I got a go-kart race tonight. You want to come at his house. Oh, you know him. Oh, yeah. You know the guy. No.

No. No, you know him because he has, he does T-shirts. Kenny Bingle. Okay. Is that who it is? No. Well, he was there. I know what shore you're about to tell.

but go ahead and tell the story. Okay, well, anyway, I show up, and there's like 10, 12 go-karts, and he's got this little dirt. It looks like little Bristol. And I go in there, and I'm battling, and we're doing the feature race, and I go to pass the leader, and I hopped his wheel, and I flipped. I took a nice tumble, and I broke my shoulder blade. And this was the night before qualifying, and I get back to the motorhome, and Vigie. You know Viggy. and he calls Kyle and Kyle comes to my bus and it wasn't a good it wasn't a good meat.

I bet. What are you? Oh, I think Steve Brissom drove the car. No, what was the conversation? It wasn't good. It was like, what the hell are you doing? Kyle jumped in your ass? Yeah, I mean, it wasn't that cool. But I felt bad. I mean, you got to understand.

I went from the Hendrick and all of a sudden, We're about winning Sonoma, and we're getting ready to go to the O-1, the Army car. You already had that deal. Yeah, that was already going. That was already happening. It was with J. Fry. Yeah. Can you believe what J-Fry does?

Yeah. I know, right. Working for Indy. That is, that is a money. Came a long way. He's a go-getter. So you broke your shoulder blade. Yep.

And I'm out for the year. Done. I'm out for the year of 2012. I mean, the bone was sticking out of the arm. my shoulder and I couldn't move in. Yeah, I can't imagine driving one arm. Yeah, so my racing career was over in 2002 after the accident, the carding rack. God, I wish I knew the guy's name. I'd give him a plug right now because he makes T-shirts. He lives in Martinsville. Not clues. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. He raced late models. You do know him. He's talking about Chris Williams.

Okay, Chris Williams. Is it him? Chris Williams lives at Martinsville. Not him. He races late models. He He did really good. He ran Skip Barber Formula Ford. He built. Yeah, he does well. He does well. He did well. Anyway, that was all done.

So 2003, I did a deal with J. Frye. Army car. And that was it. So let's get to it. Yeah. So the accident. So you're racing, things in the Army car are going pretty good. Cars got good speed.

I loved Army because my dad. My dad was an Army guy. You're back with Ryan Pemberton. Yep. but things are your cars are pretty good yeah well we're just yeah we built this team and it's like we're just the first three four races wasn't the best yeah but then all of a sudden uh Texas and and and then we go to we go to charlotte and test we're great where we go to richmond well yeah richmond we were California we finished 10th or 11th and and we're just coming along right

um starting to see it starting to see the potential yeah and then you finish fourth it Texas, right? Yeah. Yeah, you're getting top five now. That is legit. No, I mean, we're getting there. Again, we're a new team, and Ryan's amazing, and Jay, you know, we're all excited, and then boom, I literally don't remember anything of the day. I remember, I feel like I remember a little bit of getting up in the morning. I have my oatmeal and toast, and I don't remember how or what, or what happened. I see the video and it's like, holy shit,

what happened? It went around so fast. I mean, dude, it was like I hit ice. Yeah. I don't know. I mean,

I know I was quick. I know I was good. I think it was me and Rusty Wallace. And we're past him. We had more laps than he had. And I remember he, he, he,

he's like, did they do put tires on? And I didn't put tires on. I was just, I had a line. I don't know. Maybe I was too high. Maybe I hit the soft spot, I don't know, or the marbles.

It happened. So you crashed. And what happened inside the car? What was your knowledge of what your body went through in that accident? From when I, who's the guy? He passed away from NASCAR, the main guy. The main guy at NASCAR, he did all the crash damages. but anyway

he contacted me I went to the NASCAR place and he gave me my stuff and he showed me the spike and I think it was 128 Gs twice in a millisecond so like it hit totally flush but it hit

one degree more towards the back so it went 128 128 I got you know what I mean so you just you know for everybody at home I mean his car spins around hits driver's side yeah on to the wall

and turn one or two right so you're hitting driver side at 128G. And you wouldn't think that. You wouldn't think that at that place because you're only doing like maybe 120, maybe. I don't know, 120. Yeah. Maybe in that turn.

But again, they didn't have, there was no safer barriers. The car hit. Everything did his job. The only thing I remember when I talked to Cook, who did my seats, is I like to bend my head going in the turn. and I couldn't do that with my car so I cut my headrest off, my left side headrest. You cut it off?

Well, I cut all the padding. Because when you go in a turn, you like to cock your head a little bit, and I cut the headrest off so I can cock my head. So when I hit driver's side, all that padding was gone. Okay, hold on, let me back up a second.

When did you do that? When did you do that? Oh, that was probably the first day I got in. No, we went there with a brand new cars. So I got in the car and I tried it and I think in practice. That weekend? Yeah. So that weekend you cut the, the padding off.

So like normally it's this big. Yeah. Well, it probably was maybe like that big. Yeah. Yeah. The left side. Yeah. And I hit.

The side you hit. Yeah. Yeah. But nobody could know for, you know, what kind of how that contributed to your injury. Well, yeah. It certainly didn't help. No, it didn't help.

I mean, I don't know if that's what was everything, but obviously I broke, I think I broke four or five ribs. I fractured a scapula, a fracture of sternum, I had a punctured lung, and I had a feeding tube. I can't believe he had all those injuries from that crash. I know. Yeah, I mean, it was a very hard hit, you know, but it's Richmond. It's a short track.

And I had the butler built seats. They're good seats. It's crazy. Yeah, that's right. You could get so torn up and something like that. I woke up three weeks later. Right. So three weeks, you woke up.

Three weeks later. I mean, like what would, what do you remember from that, if anything? I think the wheelchair. I remember, you know, it's a funny story. Well, not that funny, but I think I was more amazed on why there were so many people working and moving. In the nurses. Yeah. I was like, damn, stop moving.

Stop making noise. Stop this. I didn't like it. I couldn't believe it. And I remember the nurses stick me in a wheelchair and wheeling me in the shower. Don't get, don't get, don't think about it, a bad, but to shower to clean me up. Of course. And I didn't, I was, you know, I wasn't talking.

I was just like, just mesmerizing what's going on right now in my life. And I remember seeing my car on TV. So you watch a race and see it. Oh, yeah. And you're, so you're, you remember all this. I, bits and pieces, yes. Yeah. Like, I think I was at the hospital at Richmond because I was doing all the rehab there.

Yeah. I was there for, God, it seems. I don't know, it feels like an eternity, but maybe two, three, four weeks maybe. And then they took me from there and they brought me to Charlotte. So in your rehab, are you, you know, those were not good times. No. I was so upset because I remember the ladies like, what's your address?

What's your phone number? Yeah. How can you not know your phone number? I didn't know. I didn't know it. You didn't know. No, and it was pissing me right off. Yeah.

Pissing me. I was pulling my hair, trying to see, where, come on. Where's this information? Yeah, where is this all at? You know, his stories reminded me about when Ervin was telling us about being in the hospital and kind of, you know, coming out of his, coming to realization. And he saw his car. I don't know what it is about, like putting the car on a TV and you're seeing your car and somebody else. And do you recall, or have you been told who's trying to make sense of this four?

you at the time or is anybody going here's what's happened jerry i you were in a bad wreck you've been in a coma for three weeks like did who's helping you not really but i i do remember dr petty i love dr petty was like jerry petty um i i think the one thing he sent sent said to me it it killed me it brought it brought everything down in myself and i think it's just that he cared so much much about me as a person that he said, Jerry, I love you like a son. I think you should choose something else. How early? When did he, how early? When did that happen right out of the game? Yeah, when I woke up, when I remember he, he was holding my hand. And even when I'm looking at him, I couldn't, I said, why is my arm feel weird? I couldn't feel this. I couldn't feel it.

It was tingling like a, like a million mosquitoes. My whole left side today is like that. And it's like it doesn't change but um oh you still feel tingles oh yeah yeah oh really it gets cold do it gets worse at nighttime when at nighttime i can i cuddle up so much on my left side just because and they told me that it's because of the the blood flow goes really fast on the right side on this but it's really slow on this side so it gets cold it doesn't move so i'm a little bit i'm a little bit like mashed potatoes, like mashed potatoes compared to my, I was wired, I was ready to go back before my accident. Yeah.

So, well, I want to say, I mean, I'm not, I've seen you multiple times since that day. And you remember me calling you? Yeah. When I said, hey, you got work for me. Yeah. And you said, you need to be seen. You need to get out. So, but I feel like, you know, since I've, I've seen you multiple times.

since that day and I feel like that you have progressively gotten better. What would you think about that? Yeah, no. I'm, I'm, yeah, I think I'm better. I think I'm speaking better. I think my, I'm more alert. Yeah. I think my wife.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Having gone, so having gone through that crash and, and I mean, what an education you get, you know, as an individual about the brain and how all that stuff works, right? because you're going through rehab, you're asking a million questions. How do we fix this? How do I get that better? And why is this like this?

And I'm sure you went through all of that way much more than I ever did. But isn't it interesting or quite incredible that even years later you continue to improve? And that's a thing that's a little bit weird is when I talked to when Dr. Petty, Or Dr. Lewinsky, I can't remember, or Chesky, he was my main brain doctor. He said to me, he says, after two years, after your head injury, the two years is what you got. I don't know if that's true because I'm talking way better now than I ever have been. I know. So I know.

Or maybe it's because I haven't seen anybody. We'll explain that, though. No, no, no. I don't know how to explain it. I will say, I think that's what I would expect to is once you get to a story. certain point you plateau and that is that's who you are that's the new version of you yeah going forward and you learn to adapt and and accept and and move on right but it seems to me that yes multiple times years ago speaking to you i saw you struggle and i saw you know i saw you frustrated um and now to

like when i saw you the other day at the Costco I was like, damn. And I told you even, you look great. You know, I wouldn't, you sound great. I know that you know. Well, that a lot of, I think a lot of that, though, is because I have, I don't see anybody. Sure. I'm such a homebody.

No. I'm just saying, like, your, your thoughts are, well, you're putting things together. You're functioning. I'm just saying, in general function, you seem to be improving or have improved gradually over decades. over a decade, which is quite remarkable. Well, I've been with my wife for almost 10 years, so I've got to give her a little credit. She's amazing.

There you go. She's so tough. She's awesome. I love my kids to pieces. And, yeah, I mean, it's... But if you don't mind me asking, Jerry, we're talking about your improvements. But, like, I got to know, in the two years after this crash, are you even trying to get back racing? Yes.

I mean, take us through... Take us through this because you have changed now, not just physically, but like if it's affected your brain, I have to assume there's changes to you and who you are as a person. What were those changes and how are you navigating for the next two years? Well, obviously, J. Frye, so amazing, optimistic push. You know, you're our driver. We're going to get you back. We're going to do some market races. And then I had Jerry Petty on this side of my head.

No way. Yeah, don't do it. One more hit. You're done. And I had kids. I had my Natalie. Just born, right? Yeah.

And it's like, oh, God. And I'm hardest, hardest thing in my life. I struggled. I struggled because I always think I had dreams, like coming back and being amazing. Like, oh, my God, like, never lost his step. And then you have situations like Ernie Irvin came back and won. You know, yeah, that's the coolest thing. But then he got hurt again.

Right. And it really deteriorated in bad. And I don't want to do that. I don't, I feel like I can walk now. I can talk. I feel like and I don't need to race. But I feel like I'm, I need to, I could be something for somebody or even, I would love to run a race track. I would love to have a track

and make sure everything works great okay let's make sure that the yard's looking good make sure they pinstripe the walls make sure everything I want to make it nice for the fans you know for the people attract people and I'm all about racing now I am so my wife is snoring next to me at 10 o'clock

and I'm watching flow racing I'm watching late models dirt late models asphalt. Yeah, I'm a big race nut now. You used to sim race. I still do. I think I went on it. Last week I was on it, and what I'll do is I'll get on there for about an hour,

and I'll run a dirt late model or a dirt modified. And I'll go to Cedar Lake, or I'll go to Bristol, you know, on the dirt track. But yeah, before I get lost, somebody said that you like Formula Ford. Well, we talked about them on this podcast last week with Joseph. Okay. If there's any interest on you, let me know. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, no, but I mean, even to try.

I don't know. It ain't about being old. If you're not afraid, if you're not afraid or if you're, yeah, I've got a buddy of mine that has, that bought all the cars from Skibarb Racing School. Really? Yeah. So he has, he has a school. I think so I was, I was commenting, sorry, I was commenting. last week, I was like, that's the funest.

I've always been curious about what the car is drive like, because they're, I've, I've seen the schools happening at Daytona while we've been there. You know, you'll see them in the infield running around doing those, doing the, the schools, seeing who passes and doesn't pass, right? And, uh, and I, it's the funnest car on I racing service, in my opinion. Oh, yeah. So it's a enjoyable car to you, to run. They're, they're toboggans with wheels, you know, and they're long, you know, they're very

long, and you just got a, um, and there's not a lot of power. No. But they're fun. What are you proposing exactly? You want him to get just to test one? No, the guy said if you if you if he wants to do it, he's, he, it's all his. He can come play. Yeah.

So he's got a place in Nashville. Okay. It's the school. And he's got a track and everything. Yeah. So. So. And they have, they have racing schools there.

So nothing. But I do now I do the, the ride and drive schools. I work for EventLink, AMCI. Brad Funk, my buddy from racing, Barbara Sobs, he does a driving school. But these are different manufacturers. So there's one weekend I'll drive for Jaguar. The next week I'll drive a BMW for UD. Then I'll go like next week I'm doing Nashville with Genesis.

What do you exactly do, shaking them down? I just go that, no, I don't shake nothing down. I don't even get to drive the cars. Okay. Which is sad. I love to drive the cars. But no, you just, you're just a person, and you go there and you talk about the cars, you try to help them with their driving. They go around this little short track in a parking lot, and I do all the work.

I do all the chalking. I'm the Mr. Chalkman. I love chalking courses. Literally, Denver, last week, I was up at 4.30 in the morning. I'd get up, I'd go to the track. I would fill the chocker with chalk and I would go walk around and do all the chalk The reason why I did that is because it poured the night before

So all the chalk was gone So I got all the cones ready So yeah I enjoy that I like that I like to help people So yeah all right so is it fair to say that you are looking for what And you have been looking for ways to be involved in racing Are you just kind of like reacting to opportunities as they come

as they come. I don't know. I always think like something's going to happen. I've always said that to myself. Something's going to happen. I don't know. I mean, I don't know what I'm good at because I don't think I'm good at.

I'm not even a good dad at times. You know, I feel like I'm a heart of my kids. I love them to pieces, but sometimes I'm tough. And I think a lot of it's the way I'm raised. Love my mom the pieces. She's still moving and grew.

proven today and and uh you know we all have we all have our ways everyone has their ways and i i just try to live every day kind of like it's it's last i still don't know where i'm i still don't know where i'm going but i've got a i got a cool house i made my basement fun you know i built a little movie theater i built my a little sauna room for my my wife and she does nails and and pedicures and i have my racing simulator and I've got my workout room and I go do my ride and drives. I'm gone for the next month after this and I come back and I wait for the phone to ring to say, hey, Jerry, we need you for this place. Yeah.

I'm surprised. I'm surprised that people don't seek you out more to speak about head injuries. That's, that would be cool. I mean, I don't know. Like, I've dealt with the guy, the farms, the farms. it's a head injury place oh i've never heard of yeah oh god and we would we've babbled in the head injury space you want me look on my phone i'll find them we'll do that afterwards but like so what have you done with them i don't you don't but you're

saying you would be a good resource i did i did i went to a couple times i went to to to talk to the people that are there who are there all the time that's their home that's their new home after their head injury. Okay. And I went there to talk to them about my story. I told him I was a racer and got hurt and, you know, don't ever give up. Yeah. You know, try to be better every day.

Well, I mean, there's that, but also there's the, man, I hate to keep, I hate to go back to this. We've had enough people, enough racers on this show who've been injured in a race car. And, man, I'm always just, I'm intrigued with these, when, how you respond to an injury that ends your career when you don't really, not only can't do anything else, like you don't have that skill set, you haven't been working on it your whole life, but you also don't want to do anything else. And so you're immediately, this is, the love of your life has been stripped from you. Your, your mental makeup and wiring has been changed. And now

it's like you're put out the pasture to figure it out. Yeah, I'm just here. And so like, Like, I think that there's a lot that you can speak to. It's a bit sad at times, you know, I think. And even when I, it's, I feel good, though, when I go to these ride and drive deals and, and somebody recognizes me or somebody says, oh, my God, that's the guy that beat Ernhardt, you know. In Atlanta. And I think that's cool. But I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing.

I feel like I've got, I've got a good foundation. I've got my building, rented out. I've got. and I just and I'm not fun. Well, but I'm fun at times. Like when I do sim race and I'll laugh all night long. We can laugh all night long racing Formula Ford's at some racetrack. But I'm not, but at times I want to get serious, I'm not fun.

You know, like I'm. Well, let's do this now then. Let's say like if there's young racers out there race that are coming up to the sport, I mean, you both here at this table have gone through some serious head trauma and are here to tell about it. and there's meaning in that. Like, what is that? What would you tell young racers that you wish you could have told yourself?

Have a backup plan. Right. I don't know. That's a good answer. And I did, I actually did. No, I didn't do. I did roofing when I was racing cup cars. I did, I bought a house on the lake and I, me and my dad roofed it.

And we made a show out of it. It was Michael Hologan. And so, but I, I, I don't know. I didn't see, I didn't think about any of that. I didn't. I'm sure you didn't either. I didn't know what to do.

Listen, I got, you got to understand. I'm in bed waiting, waking up to go to school. My dad's starting his race car in the basement at 1 o'clock in the morning. Almost every, almost all the time. So I knew. And so racing was my life. That was it. Danbury Fairgrounds.

I remember going to the tracks. You know, my mom carrying me there. And then, and then she dropped me. me off on the asphalt with my with my little car and I'd roll my car I you know we'd have races we'd fill up the front end with rocks and we'd toss it down the see who wins there's like five or six of us so that was my life it was just racing nothing else so I mean nobody would fault you for not having a backup plan how many people do especially growing up nobody you're just trying to work on your primary plan not a backup plan I mean you do well you do well and when you get

to cup racing, you get paid good. And I just wish I would have been a little bit more smarter after my accident on how I did things, where I could have been really good down the road. But I think for them is don't quit. There's no, I think a lot of it, anybody can get there. I've told this, you want to be the president of the United States. Not saying you want to, but, you know, if that, if that's a time. That's a tough job.

But, I mean, you can get there. If you have the drive and the ability and obviously the talent, anybody can get there. And there's so many good guys. I look at all the guys. One of my heroes, obviously, Kyle Larson, love the guy. I'm just so fascinated. I, you know, memorized about him what he does and how he does it and how he can jump into a dirt late model against 100 other guys that are,

10 times more experience than him. Yeah. And he just goes out there and makes it look so easy. He is the AJ Foy, Mario Andretti back then. Like everyone memorized about Mario, well, that's Kyle. That's Kyle Larson today. No doubt. I agree.

He's a once-in-a-generation kind of guy. Did you have... Dale, Dale's going to not be happy with me asking because it's going to be uncomfortable. But I'm curious when Dale, who was working at Hendrick, the same place you had worked in your past, And then he decided to retire because of the concussions. Do you remember, did you have a reaction to that? Did you have a... I didn't realize how hard he hit it.

It was at Michigan? Is that what really... Or no? Well, so my deal was I had this really, really, really freaking hard hit in 2012 at a tire test. Before that, I mean, I had concussions many, many times. I remember Dover. Well, yeah, I mean, O4, Dover. I mean, I'd had those type of...

Yeah, because you slapped hard at Dover. And Dover didn't have the safer barriers then. But, I mean, I'd had those kind of crashes and get a concussion, ring your bell, and then not even think about it. Get out and be fine. Two days later, you don't even think about it. But then we had that really, really nasty hit in a tire test in 2012. and everything I hit after that made me feel bad. So that one real bad crash,

I just never gave myself enough time to heal up, I guess. Dude. And I kept going, I kept wrecking and kept feeling bad. And I just, you know, and I did this like, I got like a dozen, you know, I got a lot more of concussions because my brain was still hurt. Yeah. Right. And I kept, I just kept re-injuring, hurting myself over and over and over.

And finally, the Michigan crash was just another crash. Should have been just another wreck, right? But I couldn't handle those anymore. And so the weird thing is that, like, I mean, this has all been pretty well documented, but maybe you don't know, but a month after the, a month I knew when I wrecked it, Michigan, I'm like, ugh, I'm sick again. You know, I could feel it in my head. I could feel the anxiety.

I could feel the emotions and the, I could feel all the problems that you typically have when you have a concussion. And they went away in a couple days. And I thought, all right, just put it behind me and go to the next race. I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this, but I'm going to keep doing it. And about a month later, I haven't crashed since, right? It's been a month. my eye just out of the blue my eyes started going bad i started getting blurry vision like at distance

i'd always had amazing eyesight you know i used to joke about it and brag about it every time i'd go get my physical every year i'd have 2010 and uh it was freaking awesome and all and so my eyes are going bad i started getting dizzy like you know dizzy turning corners walk a walk walk down a hall and turn into a room i'd get dizzy i'm like what the hell is I do that all the time now. I'm like, what the hell is that? That just started happening out of nowhere. And I didn't immediately think, oh, I messed my head up.

I thought, what the hell's going on with me? Did you do MRIs? Did you have – Oh, yeah. Nothing's showing up. Did you have a roadmap, though? Did you have a map up there? I had a roadmap in my phone.

I wrote notes every time I wrecked. Really? Yeah, I was just keeping them to myself. Yeah. I remember Dr. Petty when he showed me. me my my my blueprint of my brain yeah and you can see your injuries yeah this was the darlington wreck this was the one then when you were little yeah and you can see it was like all the blood splurts like all the spots yes so i had one of those um when i went in 16 they this so once

i started feeling bad i went to petty and he's like i need to send you this guy with the panthers so he sent me this guy with the panthers and in one conversation with him in 20 minutes. He was like, you're sick with a head injury. And I'm like, damn. He's like, yeah. He's like, this is from your Michigan wreck. And I'm ready my notes and stuff. Anyways, he sent me for an MRI. And that was the first time I'd ever seen my brain. And there was that, there's one spot in there from the 2012 crash or from a crash. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the guy's like, you know, your brain's great. Looks great. No problems. I'm like, he's like, there's just one thing. from in your past.

There's this dark sort of area. And he's like, otherwise, it's healthy. There's not... Did you do the hyperbaric chamber? You never did that. No. Why?

Never. Nobody ever... Was introduced to it. Really? Yeah. Dude, I learned about that, and I always said, God, I wish I would have done that

after my head injury. I would have loved... I mean, I were to try anything to get better, you know? Anything. But yeah, I always think about, you know, would that have helped me get better with your head? And I think about yours, you know, with your head, with your concussions, could that have made your head speed up better so it healed better? Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I don't either. Yeah. You know, I went to a doctor in Pittsburgh and they gave me all these exercises, you know, and I had like homework. And so I'd do this homework for about two to four weeks, and then I'd go back to him. and they would kind of run me through the anger, making me do all these exercises. And whichever one's triggered my symptoms, they made me do those. That was my homework again for the next four weeks. The worst part about what I did, I would know somebody, and I'd call them by somebody else's name.

And I didn't think about it until later, that's not Bob, that's George. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I do that a lot. I mean, even, I wouldn't say today I wouldn't as bad. But guys that I knew him and I'm calling by the wrong name and I'm thinking, why the hell did I do that? Yeah.

You know, even when the phone numbers, it's amazing what your brain does and what it says and what it remembers and stuff. What's crazy is that somebody could walk in here and hit both of us upside the head with a bat and we'll both react differently to it. Like you'll do you'll have different symptoms than I'll have with the same exact impact or injury and the the wiring in the brain is like infinity. You know what I mean? If you look inside a computer and all of that and you're like wow that looks complex or the brains you know is in an unimaginable amount of wires running in all different directions connecting and you know and how we injure ourselves

It's always kind of blow on my mind, but... It'd be amazing if we had airbags. Yeah, I don't know. You look, I just saw something on the motor, on the motor GP where when you fly off the motorcycle or get knocked off, your body fills up with air. Oh, the suit? Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Actually, it sounds pretty nice. I, you know, but I think, I swear, man. my wife thinks that it's some kind of weird sign or coincidence or something that you're on this show because we saw you in Costco the other day. I always thinking, what did I do? What did I do to make him call me? But when I saw you, no, no shit, man. I mean, I need to say this.

When I saw you, I thought, damn, he looks good, you know. And I wanted to tell you that. And I don't, you know, I think I can tell you that because I've been through something similar. Yeah. I think if Mike walked up to you today and hadn't seen it in 10 years ago, he goes, man, you look great. That'd be kind of a weird thing to hear from somebody. No, well, it was. Maybe it's because I took a shower that morning and I brushed my hair.

No. I saw your eyes and your alertness and I saw and I heard you speaking. And I remember the many times that I've seen you in the past and you're better than you've been in the past. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And that's a, that's a rare occurrence for people to. that have been through what we've been through, you know.

A lot of people do plateau after that. I will say, though, I miss it. I'm sure you do. I love it. Love the fans. It's so funny today, it's, even it's been 17 years. And at least I get, I don't get a lot. I don't get nothing compared to what you all get,

but I get at least three to four articles every week from stuff from fans, from people. Yeah. And it's like, oh, my God, why are people still sending? That's got to feel great. All the, no. feels good, but it's like amazing. It's amazing what what NASCAR did to us. But you're, I know, I know exactly what you're talking about. Like, you can't believe that your career continues to have any kind of an impact on somebody, but it was bigger than

we even knew it was, right? What we were doing, back then was bigger than we even remember. I don't know, I don't know. Again, I don't watch it. I don't get into, but I still, you know, my two drivers obviously are Larson and I like Cobbush. I don't know why. He just, he's a, he may be a wanker at times, but he's a hell of a racer. He's a hell of a racer. He can wheel. Yeah, he can wheel.

Well, man, I think it's healthy to miss it. If I hadn't I got married. Have you been indie? Yeah. You did? The 500? Yeah. When were you there?

I went last two years ago or something. Okay. Yeah. I worked for NBC and so, but it was my first 500. It was amazing. Yeah. Wait, I did it this year. Did you?

Yeah. For the first time? Well, no, no. Okay. No, I did it for the first time in, in 98, or 90s, 5 in with Tony Hemp, my buddy, in California. But we never made it. We stayed out all night. We had fun. We partied.

Didn't get to the race. No, we never, we got to the race finally, but it was halfway through the race. Jesus. We ended up, we were, we, you're probably not alone in that. Yeah, we had fun. But this year I did it again with Tony and some friends. We had some friends and all the spring car guy friends, rat and everyone in Sacramento,

all of Tony Hunt's buddies. We did that this year, which was a blast. But you talk about missing it, and a lot of people might think, and you talk about missing, and this was taken from you, your, you know, your career was taken from you.

I feel, you know, I feel like that I would erase longer, Had I got not gotten hurt, you know, hell if I hadn't had gotten married and had this new life with my girls and all that, I'd probably still be racing, right? Shouldn't be. But probably still would be. But I think, and I miss it too, you know, but I feel like that it's healthy to me. You should miss it, right? You should miss it. It should be important to you, and it should be something that you wish you could have content.

continue to do, and that's okay, you know? Yeah. I won't allow myself to be angry or frustrated about the, what was, what could have been, I guess, or what I, what I lost. Now, you lost a lot more than I did, you know, but I, I just wanted to share that with you. I think that if you, if there is a way to look at it to where the fact that you miss it is actually a positive thing. Yeah, I made it.

Yeah. I made it. I had fun. My dad was in La La La Land. He was amazed that his boy was actually running in the Cup series. Yeah, I mean, I had fun. I had a lot of help, a lot of friends, and a lot of people pushing me to make it. Again, I don't know if I would have been better to stay in the open wheel stuff.

You never know. Yeah, I don't know. But, I mean, you know, there was, I think. chose that route. I made a life in that route. You know, and I had a fun. So I wouldn't have changed, I don't think I would have changed anything in anything that I did because that was me. I mean, you know, I do wish maybe I had a little bit more help, a little bit more, a little bit more guidance. My dad had a guy named Joe Whitlock and that's what you needed. Yeah. You needed like a guy that had, it understood the PR and understood the business of NASCAR, right? You can help you kind of weave

through that because you did you got thrown to the wolves you ever jumped right in the fire man you know right out of the gate you need somebody to clean in here you don't need to be cleaning in here why not i do i do it at the at the riding drives dude i listen that that's what it excites me i love making people happy yeah and i think one of the coolest things that i ever did after my accident i drove for the petty school and i was and they I think Kristen or somebody asked me if you wanted to go do a thrill ride. And I didn't know where a throw ride was. But it was with Hellcats.

You know the Hellcats and Dodge Hellcats? Well, they invited me to go in Connecticut at the casino place. What's that casino place in Connecticut? Anyway, they had a parking lot with the Dodge Hellcats and the Corvettes and the Mustangs. And I was driving the Dodge Hellcats. and we're giving rides. And we're, they were the funnest, coolest things

and literally brought a smile to my face when I'm driving sideways at 50 miles an hour with somebody in the car screaming and yelling. That to me is fun. That is so, there's so much I get from that because I still have that instinct, that racing feel and that excitement. And that's what racing was to me.

So when I did those throw rides, it brought a tear to my eye. You know, when I got asked to go to Japan and do, and do, give hotlaps in LFA's, I was literally crying in my helmet. I was like, this is it. This is my home. And, you know, the sad part is that was the last job.

That was the last thing ever did. I all now, I just do ride and drives. Yeah. But that, to me, is everything. That is life. That is fun. When you're driving the hell out of a car and you got someone in the car with you, that's fun.

Yeah. I love, that's why I called you years ago. I said, dude, you got it for me, you got anything for me to do. Yeah. I still feel like I can drive, you know. Maybe not race, nothing competitive, but I still, you know, I like to drive. Yeah. Well, ma'am, we appreciate you coming today. I had fun. Yeah, this is a good conversation. Yeah, this is cool. I've wondered what you've been up to, and I know a lot of people that are listening to this podcast are going to be thrilled to hear this story.

I always was curious is how you got to NASCAR. You know, and it was great to hear about that. And even better to see you doing so well and hope to run into you at Costco again in a very short. Y'all can meet up at other places, too. It doesn't always have to be, you know, the wholesale clubs. I know, man, that was a pretty cool, pretty cool spot. To echo what he said real quick, Jerry, you know, just last week, you know, there are people that will come over here to Junior Motorsports, and there was somebody that said,

hey, you know what? It was a fan, right? It's like, you need Jerry Nade do on your show. that we want to know what he's doing and what he's been in so you still have people and I mean lots of people we get it on Twitter you have it listen you had an effect on people and you know what after 2003 you know usually unfortunate the unfortunate part about people is that we really take everyone in each other for granted and usually when you come close to losing somebody then you realize how important they are and I think a lot of people in 2003 realize that Jerry Nadeau actually means a lot to

you and we take you for granted even Hendrick and But when you go and you have those flashes of brilliance, you go and you beat Earnhardt at Atlanta. And then in 2003, you're in a ride and you're, you know, it's coming together. And even other people in the sport, they're pulling for you. And when we lose you, even race fans, I think it had an effect on people. And to this day, I think, you know, I know firsthand people are asking about you and they're going to receive this podcast very well.

Oh, yeah. Because you, you know, you're special to people. The only thing I can echo on that is I wish there was something that, Somebody can just, after that accident, okay, here's your new home. Here's your new love. This is what you're, see, I had nothing. I didn't know where to go. I didn't know if I should try to come back.

I didn't, I didn't have that. I didn't have that guidance after the accident. And I think that's what, I think that's what I would say to somebody else, if this ever happened is, you know, make sure you get the right people around you to get gone. Because I even tried, I made phone calls to NASCAR. Is there something I can do? can they flag in the corner? You know?

I've got an idea. We'll talk afterwards. All right, buddy. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Jerry Nadu on the Dale Jr. download. Our live, Dale.

All right. It's my favorite part of the show, the Ask Junior segment presented by Xfinity. It's live on YouTube. We've got fans engaging in the show right now as we speak. Leavon is here, and she's got all the questions you guys are sent to Xfinity racing on Twitter. Our first question from John Biggerstaff. What did you think about the Indy Cars Racing in downtown Nashville? And do you think NASCAR could ever have a street course race?

I think NASCAR will have a street course race. They're working on trying to put one together for Chicago. And that should be coming in the next year or two. I don't know. I didn't get to watch any of the race from Nashville. So we were going to the airport, flying home, and by the time we got home, the race was over with. So I think that the town was excited, thrilled. it was a big party.

It was a weekend full of content and an entertainment concerts. No better place than Nashville to do that. So hopefully they'll have continued success going forward with that race. Street races are always kind of fun and unique, but I don't know what it would look like or feel like for NASCAR, and I'm game to try it. I'm game to give it a go as far as a fan and observer and a broadcaster. I'd love to see them do it one time to see if it works for us.

Next question from Jay Neal Patel. Would you like to see a double points event in NASCAR? I don't know. I don't know why we would want that. But, you know, I guess if we had some sort of issue, I mean, you know, the pandemic threw some curveballs at the sport, that would have been an opportunity to give that a try. Or we may have been forced in a situation to have to do that for a race weekend. So it'd been interesting to see how the drivers would react to that.

Would they race harder? Would they race more careful? Would they race more, you know, conservative? I don't know if it makes them race more conservative or more carefully and I'm not for it. But if it makes the racing more intense and if it makes some guys push each other around a little bit more and get more physical, I'm all for it. Next question from Robert Horvath. As a car lover and motorcycle lover myself, I know you love cars, but do you have any motorcycles in your collection? Nope.

So dad wasn't a big fan of motorcycles. I had, we had a, I just sold this thing. Around 2000 as a gift, Budweiser thought it would be a great idea to give me a buell, a motorcycle, it was a street bike. They're going to give me this bule as a gift. Nobody asked around, I guess, to see if I was a bike guy, I'm not. But, so I'm at Daytona for speed weeks for my first Daytona 500. This buell shows up at the front of the bus.

And it's red and it's got Budweiser all over it. It's got Budweiser on it in probably about 12 different places. Budweiser here, Budweiser there, Bud here, Budweiser. And under every single one, it said, drink responsibly. Whoever thought it was a great idea to gift me the bike from Bud also felt like it was necessary that there was that message on the bike as this is something you ride on the street and Bud is a beer. So it really kind of ruined the bike. to be honest with you, is having all that drink responsibly everywhere all over it. I'm not even a bike guy, so I really didn't care.

Dad is in his bus about 100 feet away, but he can see my bus. And he says, what's that? Bike doing there. He's talking to somebody, his people. He's like, what the hell is with this bike? Oh, Dale Jr., their bud's giving that to him. Well, no, they're not. I want the title.

And so dad got the title to the bike. and made it disappear. I don't know what happened to it, but he stuck it somewhere. And so I could never tag it, so therefore I could never put it on the highway. And which is probably smart because I had no business to drive it.

I'm not, I don't ride bikes. I don't know how to ride a bike, a street bike. I've ran dirt bikes and stuff here and there, but I have no business riding a street bike on the highway. And dad didn't want me to, and he didn't trust them, didn't like them. I can see why, you know,

being out on the interstate or on the road or on the highway, I can see they're dangerous. And you've got to be smart. If you're a rider, you've got to know what you're doing, how to avoid us idiots in our cars, right? So anyways, that bike set. I parked that bike in Kelly's office at Junior Motorsports. When it was at DEI, we had a little office over there.

And I parked that bike inside Kelly's office, and it's set there. It's kind of like a showpiece, if you will, for a decade. Then it came over here to Junior Murder Sports And it's set in this souvenir shop And it's been just sitting around right In a storage unit

Finally We got a replacement title And I sold it this past year Somebody came and took it off my hands The only time I ever wrote It was up down the driveway one time Probably about 20 years ago So there's your bike story

All right one more question And this one was probably the most asked question of the week probably because of your Instagram, but what was ever decided between you and Mike Davis on getting a boat? Hey! We've seen a boat on your Instagram. Yeah. What's the deal?

So I got a, I ended up getting a pontoon and a sun tracker. And me and Amy have been out on it a few times. We enjoy it, love it. Probably going to go out again Thursday. Mike, you tell your end of it. Can I? You can if you want. I don't know what's appropriate to this.

But I've been eager to actually say something. And I just didn't know if it was right, but this is now right. He's given an eager. Now is your time. Let me tell you about this guy. This guy got two boats. Yes, he did. And one of is titled in my name.

Aw, that's awesome. I'm telling you, and I'm going to tell you something else, just Sunday was the first day I had not been out on it. I've been, I am a shipboat captain now. I mean, I'm telling you, I love it. And he, he, he, he, he, He did it. I mean, and he called me.

And I was like, I was so moved by it. And it's every bit as awesome as I had hoped it would be. And I'm like, I don't know how to express this, you know. I mean, like he and I text back and forth all the time. Hey, I'm out. I'm doing this. You know, and he's texting me. And, you know, we were FaceTiming each other.

Because I think you might have been in South Carolina or something. But yeah, I mean, are you kidding? It's Dale Jr. I felt so guilty that we even had. the conversation on the podcast because I was like, did I guilt him into this? But I'm going to tell you, he did the most amazing gesture that just, you know, and I will be appreciative. I just don't know how to express it.

But I've certainly wanted to say it, but I didn't want to embarrass him. And he certainly didn't do it for this. But I'll tell you that. I'll tell whoever asked that question, Dale Jr., absolutely delivered the most amazing thing ever. So, yeah. If I'd have known you were going to react the way you did, I'd have got that thing years ago. Like right now, how I'm reacting now or when it happened.

If I'd have known you were going to react the way you did to receiving that boat, I would have got you that boat many, many years ago. Really? Absolutely. Because I have valued you more than you'll ever know and appreciated you. You've came in clutch in so many scenarios and you've helped us develop so many amazing facets to our brand and our business,

and you are well worthy of those type of gestures, and I should have done that. If I had known that that would have had that kind of impact on you personally, that is exactly, you know, what I would have done years and years ago. But yes, me and Mike got our boats. It's amazing. And it's so much fun. Yeah.

On a pontoon is a great thing. I love parking it. I love pulling it. out of the slip. We keep our boats at the same pier. So when I come to get on my boat, I go, hey, there's my boat. Yeah. And it's fun, man.

We're sending each other Amazon lists of, or like, you know, here's the accessories I think I should get, you know. I have spent more money on this boat just on accessorizing it. And most of it I don't even need. I just, it's just so much fun. I bought one of those little grills that mounts to the rail. Oh, I'm going to. It's just this tiny, little thing. I'm dying just to go

out there one morning and just cook, right? What the hell for? It's like so impractical. But just cause you can. I want to say one more thing real quick. I know. We're way over time. So like after the conversations that we had during those two weeks on the podcast of going back and forth about this boat

generated so much interest. I couldn't believe how many people were like now you're posting pictures or you're posting something completely unrelated, but people are always tying it back to the boat. Like I went to New York, and I'm in New York, and we're doing something around the harbor, and they're like, hey, is that your boat that Dale? Okay, so like, it was fun. Well, one of the people that really got involved in the conversation was Marty Smith, our buddy, right? Not publicly, very privately.

Marty was texting back and forth with me and Dale. And it was this thing, and I say that to say this. I didn't go tell a lot of people about this, but I did text Marty. because I want Marty who loves this guy, loves us both, be honest with you. Marty listens every week and he always gives us critiques on text every week and just tells us what he thinks. And I appreciate that. But I texted Marty. I think that Marty was more excited.

You talk about my reaction being something. Marty Smith, just reacting to when I told him, hey, look, I got news. That's what I said. I said, I've got news and I just sent him a picture of the boat. And man, he was so pumped about it. And so, like, it is something we're all having fun with. And, yeah, anybody want to go on a ride? I don't need much of a reason.

Let's just line up. Let's go. Let's do it. All right. Well, we can't top that. Yeah, all right. All right, we are out. Every week, it's over.

I don't even like it to end. Can we just do a whole entire podcast that's just asked you? Wow, that would be a big-ass junior. You know, it does go by fast. I will give you that. It goes by like X-Finity X-Fi. Yes. Yeah, Exfinity X-5 is fast, but it's more than that. It's reliable, powerful, and that means everyone can do more of what they love with fast internet.

That's the truth. You and your crew can stay connected like we do with Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers a speed. Your devices need. Hey, and remember, everyone, keep the questions coming. We love them. We love this Asht Junior segment. You send your questions to At Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Big thanks to Xfinity. Proud. Premier partner of NASCAR. Last call. where the term last call comes from? Last call must come from a bar.

It's got to come from a bar, don't know. It's got to. It was popularized at a bar, you're right, called Joe Sherman's Garrick Lounge in Chicago by jazz musician. Red Allen. Musician. Musician. Musician. Red Allen. It's like, you know what, a cow that plays a guitar?

A musician. Aw, that joke. He was playing at that bar in the 19th. boardies and he would often say on the mic, last call for alcohol, good night y'all. That's where it's, there you go. I mean, it hasn't changed. I mean, there you go. No need to try to improve on something that is pretty good to begin with.

Yeah. Good job, Red. Doorbopper Clear is back. Brett, Freddie, Casey, and T.J. Got back from their extended vacation and they got another podcast out. But, yeah, they came back. They finally, they finally got like a work. I didn't know if they were doing podcast anymore.

Well, you know what? Some of us kept the boat afloat over here. We kept on doing it through the vacation. We'll give them a listen to what they're doing these days. Wake up, Dell Jr. Download fans. This is T.J. Majors. Stop snoozing away, listening to this podcast, and come listen to us on Door, Bumper Clear.

We have way more fun on our show anyway. Freddie Kraft here, and today we talk Kyle Larson spinning Christopher Bell, winning and tying for the points lead, Chase Salyte falling short of the Walkins of the N3P and the Cup Series racing on the Indianapolis Road course instead of the Oval for the first time. Hey, what's up everybody? Brett Griffin is in the house.

Come join us this week and every week on door bumper clear, available wherever you get your podcast. The Olympic break is over and the Dell Jr. Download is back on NBC Sports Network, NBCSN. Tune in Thursday at 6 p.m. to see the Dell Jr. download on NBCSN. I'm going to Indianapolis for the cup race and the running the road course this year.

year. We've seen Exfinity cars on the road course now the Cup Series is going to run there. I'm pretty excited about it. Good. We had a good time in Watkins Gling doing radio style, so let's do it another week. I don't think we're doing radio style any more this year, so these are only two weeks, I believe. Good. Where are you headed, Mike? Where am I headed? Nowhere. I'm going anywhere. No camping trips. No hiking. No, just stay right here. Let's go. No pontoon trips. Hey, I do want to say one thing. Our intern, Logan, This is her last week. She's going back for a senior year at college.

So, Logan, thank you for an awesome summer. I hope we hadn't changed your mind about entering into the podcasting world. She was saying, I never was interested in the first place. But thank you, Logan, for all your work. Maybe, you know, she said she's going to graduate on time. We'll see what she does. With that psychology major. Dang, psychology major would work in this building, wouldn't it?

Maybe you should have had her read the better help. Yeah, that's right. All right, everybody. Well, it's a great show. Jerry was awesome and yeah a lot of fun. Hope you had a great weekend and enjoy the rest of your week. Dale Jr. Download, we'll be back next Tuesday. This bit of bad assery was made by Dirtymo Media.

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