The Dale Jr. Download - 356 - Jade Gurss: Behind Driver 8

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Behind nearly every superstar is a publicist. For a young Dale Earnhardt Jr, the man behind the public-machine that became the Dale Jr and the Budweiser number-eight was a man named Jade Gurss. Not many will know the name, but he was a major player in the growth and trajectory of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Hall of Fame NASCAR career. For the first time ever, Jade and Dale Jr sit down to talk about the good-old-days and some that were far from it.While doing public relations for Budweiser, Jade was the man managing Dale Jr behind the scenes. From at-track interviews to magazine articles, to appearances on major television shows, Jade Gurss was making things happen. Gurss and Dale Jr talk about some of the biggest things they did together, from presenting at the Video Music Awards, being on the Late Show, to Dale Jr hosting an episode of MTV cribs, it was a publicity path that brought Dale, and NASCAR, to areas of American culture that most drivers never went. Just how did some of it come about and how did the introverted Dale Jr handle being thrust into the spotlight on such a stage? It wasn't always simple. Dale and Jade even joke about sitting between Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore at the VMA's to a blundered appearance on David Letterman's show. The print about the second-generation driver didn't just come in racing publications, the exposure soon rocketed from Sports Illustrated all the way to Playboy and Rolling Stone magazine.This conversation isn't just a two-way street either. Co-host Mike Davis, a long-time employee, and friend of Dale got his introduction and big opportunity getting hired by Jade Gurss to fill in for him on the Bud-8. The role grew Davis' public relations career to new heights. They reunite and tell stories of what it was like managing a young and difficult driver during years that saw everything from major parties to major appearances. They also put it all out on the table about Davis' decision to leave Gurss and take a full-time job with JR Motorsports. Takes of boxing ring black eyes with Arturo Gatti and rock-star-like bandana coverups highlight this insightful conversation. They also get deep about Dale's Mike Wallace interview and how Dale Jr believed his father pulled him from the burning Corvette racecar at Sonoma. Jade opens up about writing the book about Dale Jr., Driver #8, and the meeting with Teresa Earnhardt and Ty Norris right before it went to print.Before Jade showed up, Dale Jr and Mike Davis chit-chat about a cute video of Isla, that hints at the desire to be a racecar driver someday. Was it just cute or does Dale take it seriously?They also talk about the coming-of-age process of Jr Motorsports driver Noah Gragson and how he's developed relationships with sponsors that have helped him grow in his career.AskJr presented by Xfinity delivers some tough questions for Dale, including one about the role of the flagman that gets him thinking about something he's never paid much attention to. He shares a story about the first time TJ Majors spotted a Cup car and might've exaggerated the green flag call by a few corners. Dale discovers that he'll be racing against his great friend Josh Berry at Richmond this week, as Dale prepares for his lone time behind the wheel of a NASCAR racecar in 2021.The DJD gang poke fun at each other, mainly at producer Matthew Dillner's expense, and have a great time during this packed episode of awesomeness. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Welcome everybody back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. This is episode 356. I'm Dillon Hart Jr. And with me is my co-host, Mike Davis. What's up, Mike? Hey, man. We have Leah in the studio with Matthew Dillner as well.

And today's guest on the show is Jade Gersh. You might not have heard that name, but Jade was my PR guy. basically he was in charge and making sure I was where I was supposed to be at all times of the day, every day, during the bud years. So we got paired together when I became a rookie in the cup series. We even wrote a book about that rookie year called Driver Number 8. Jade has some incredible stories about that time in his life, and we're going to talk about everything else he's been involved in. The guy has been involved in racing in many different forms. Mike, he hired you.

That's right. Right? Yeah. That's how we got to know each other. I did not know you until Jade Gersh hired me. That's right. So, I mean, both of us really know this guy well and have been influential. I love when we have guests on the show that both of us have a history with.

So that should really be a great conversation. We can't wait to get Jade to get in here and get to see him just to say, hey. I mean, I haven't seen the guy too many times over the last 10 or 15 years. We spent so much time together in the early 2000s. I was, every day, and I'm sure, you know, we had a lot of fun, but then there were, you know, as you know, there were the tough times or difficult times when maybe things weren't going well on the racetrack or whatever. But, or I'd party a little too hard. I mean, would you agree that those weren't your easiest years of probably handling and getting you to places on time?

Not at all, not at all. So we will, we'll talk. I can't wait to get him in here, man. I really want to spend some time digging into that. But so open segment, man. You guys got some topics today to toss into the open segment, Ben. We'll sort of tear them apart. I am wondering if you are willing to bring up something that you told me in private.

Sure. All right. Do you remember what you told me that Isla said while you were driving? Yeah. It was off in South Carolina. I got a video of it. You got a video of it. Do you want to play it?

Yeah. I think I, didn't I send you the video? No. Okay. riding in the car and oh yeah I think this is it okay here we go

what did you just tell me you want to drive a race car when you grow up what makes you want to do that yeah does it look fun but it's loud it's fun but it's loud

is that all you got to say about that and that's all I have to say about that Oh, gosh. So you're driving down the road, and Isla just out of the blue says that she wants to be a race car driver when she grows up. Yeah. She loves the movies, cars movies, and we watch, you know, she has the toys, Lightning and the Queen toys. She's kind of into, you know, cars and monster trucks. She likes Blaze the Monster Truck.

And she's a girl and loves dolls and dresses and all the things. you know, that you would expect when you have a daughter, you're like, okay, these are the things that we're going to be surrounded by. We're surrounded by all those things. But she also likes that move, you know, the cars movie. She sees pictures and images. I think, you know, I have models, a die cast around the house. There's cars, right?

There's probably more racing around, like she's been in this room. Look at the studio, right? There's more going on around her than we even realize when it comes to racing. been through this shop. She's hung out in Kelly's office and spent the morning up there during podcast tapings and looking out the window across all these race cars at Junior Murder Sports. So it's absolutely, she's been to the races to see Wyatt race. She knows what that's about. So we took her to Daytona this year to the, sorry, I want to say July race to the final race the regular season.

Yep. And she got to see, you know, cars going around the track. And so, yeah, I mean, she's just, she's three. So hearing her say those words made you feel what? I'm pretty, I'm not too, I think if she was saying this at five, six, is she still saying that if, you know, six, seven, eight years old? I think I'll start to get a little nervous about it or a little anxious about it. But, I mean, she's just a three-year-old.

This morning, right, taking her to school for the first time since they've been on break. So she's going to a new class. You take the little chalkboard right. Oh, yeah, three years old, new class. I'm Ila and I love this and I love that. and take a picture of her on the front steps, right? On this chalkboard, it says, I want to be X when I grow up.

And we're like, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? And she doesn't say race car driver. You know, she doesn't say, I want to be a racer. She doesn't have that right to pull from out of the file cabinet right away. So, I mean, I don't know where that came from that day. We had just gotten in the car and we're driving down the road. And she just said it. So I grabbed the phone and started recording it, and I said, what did you say?

And then I sent it to her mom. What did Amy say? She's like, you know, she wants her to be a doctor or lawyer. She wasn't impressed. She wasn't impressed. Yeah. Listen, I can appreciate that you're trying to underplay this, but this is actually breaking news for Earnhardt fans right now. Ila has decided she's going to be a race car driver when she grows up.

Listen, I'm not saying she's going to be. I'm just saying the thought is in her head and she's three. I don't think it leaves her head when she's four. I'm just saying. No, I don't either. I think you're going to be building her a go-kart within a month. I think he's going to stop his projects, his truck and all these things that he's been having fun doing,

and all of a sudden he's going to be a racing dad. What do y'all think? I mean, it's very possible that, you know, I would be surprised if one or both of our little girls don't have some kind of an experience of racing in their, in their youth, you know, and I'm ready for that, and I have to kind of figure out where that is, where that happens, what kind of car, what kind of vehicle this is and what I'm comfortable with. And, you know, I don't know that I'm 100% on board with putting my kid in a car at five years

old or eight years old or 10 years old. I don't have anything against it. You want to do that, and that's fun for you and that's fun for your kids. That's great. But, you know, I think I'll just have to see what feels good when it's, when you're cross the bridge, right? I'm not planning nothing. No, no.

Listen, I can vouch for that, by the way. Well, what I want to say is, is like, I think what the tendency might be is for people to daydream about what that looks like, right? And start going, oh, it'd be cool if we, you know, you start playing, you know, start imagining your child in whatever card or whatever it is, and you go into the track and cheering that on, right? And I'm not even doing that. Right. Right.

So. Yeah. No, I'm not doing it. I know. Like I'll, when I, you know, we'll go to, we'll go to the race. I mean, it's not going to be as romantic. And I'm watching Kelly and LW. You know, they enjoy it, taking Wyatt.

Yeah. But it's competitive. They get competitive, you know. And a huge commitment. It's a huge commitment. Yeah. It's not this glorious, you know, sort of movie-like experience.

True. But you do create some great memories. And one of the things I will say that was very positive about Kelly's girls racing, Kennedy and Carson, they learned how to lose. They learned how to win,

but they also learned how to lose. I remember when Carson was racing this one individual and that when that person won and most kids probably do this, they didn't have how to deal with that. They either throw a fit, they cry because they either disappointed themselves or think they've disappointed their parents. They just don't know how to handle, you know, not being the best or not going out there and it just being easy.

And so I think a lot of kids initially, when they start racing, they get really emotional about the result or how it goes or they get scared they crash i remember when sunny took austin sonny is sunny is one of my good friends sunny sunny took his boy to the racetrack and austin flipped and he's like i don't like that yeah i don't want to i'm he was scared crying yeah you know and wanted out you know and so you kind of just got to be ready for anything but i do know that it It really helped teach Kelly's girls fundamentals, you know, about life and just dealing with failure and rebounding and getting back going and all those little things that you want them to learn in the classroom or learn in everyday experiences. You can learn at the racetrack. You can get that fundamental, you know, common sense and morals and all those things that you want your child to have.

they can be learned at the racetrack. And so that was one of the things that it kind of surprised me and makes me less, you know, concerned about my kids racing because I know there's some benefit from it, right? Because that's all it is. When you're taking an eight-year-old to the racetrack, you're wanting them to, A, appreciate what they're getting to do, and you want them to handle it responsibly

and make you proud, not proud because they, one, proud because of how they interact with the other kids or how they interact with other adults, how they treat people, how they react to, you know, success and failure, all those things. So that's what I think about. Maybe I'm thinking about it. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much. But I ain't daydreaming of trophy rooms and, you know, her standing on top of the car one day in Victory Lane. It's more about, is this going to help her, you know, is this going to help her personally to continue?

continue to progress as a human being growing up and being good. Do you think if, okay, and I can appreciate it, and I'm going to acknowledge it one more time that you have never pressured. You've always taken the stance of, look, I'm not going to sit there and feed her ideas on what she wants to be. It's certainly in racing. If she finds racing, she'll find it on her own, right? Sure.

Do you think if she does that, do you think Amy would be receptive to her racing? Sure. I mean, you know, Amy probably is not, you know, Amy's probably hoping that that doesn't happen, and I can understand that. Amy want, you know, Amy probably doesn't want to go spent. She spent 10 years or more with me in a bus and parked her own life and everything going on, you know, all the things she loved to do, sat on the sidelines, and she's ready to do all the things she wants to do.

She doesn't want to be back at a racetrack, you know, parking her stuff on the side, the sidelines. Right. You know, and that's probably what we'd both be doing. We'd both be setting aside all the things to be at, because it is that big of a commitment. Yeah. For a mother to have to worry about your kid. I mean, they're going to do that naturally anyways, but I imagine that as a racing,

you know, the anxiety that a mother has is probably way more than what we can realize. Yeah, I think so. I don't know how Amy really honestly feels, but I know that if it's something that Illa really wants to do, that Amy's not going to stand in. the way of that. I got you. I don't think any, I don't know any, I don't know who might, you know, who would do that, who would stand in the way of something that your child wanted if you could do it,

if you could, if you could deliver it to them, right, Mike? Yeah, yeah, listen, I don't mean to overcook this situation. I'm just having more fun with it than anything just for Isla to come out and blur it. And I think that's what you were doing too, because you wouldn't have put out your phone and started videoing it if you didn't think it was amusing. But just for, for Isla to just kind of say, Hey, I want to drive race cars when I get big and tall. Wow, that's kind of cool, right?

I mean, there's a little element of cool that we can all just acknowledge. We don't have to go overreact, but, hey, it's kind of cool. I think so. Maybe. Maybe not for Amy. Maybe not for you, but it is for us. Yeah. So, well, all right.

Well, I didn't know if you would even admit it on this podcast, which you did. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting that she has those, you know, that came out of nowhere, her saying that. So there's something there. but yeah we'll see how it goes i mean i worry about it watching my sister watching my sister try to compete working with danica and and seeing up front the you know the the things that she had to deal with it is just difficult for a woman to it's difficult for a woman to really gain the the amount of respect and credibility and all those things that that they need to succeed

and there's so much frustration that comes with that. So I think I worry about that too. So if my daughter wants to go do this, then I know she's going to experience some great things, but also some frustrating things that I never had to experience. And so I'm not thrilled that she's going to go face that. Right. You know it's a tough road.

I know it's a tough road. And I'm like, man, I'll tell her that that's going to be. be the case and they have you know but just you know they're going to have to go learn it sometimes you have to burn your finger on the stove to know it's hot yeah yeah so i worry about that a little bit too but i mean hopefully you know a little bit more progress is made in that that that regard as far as how you know how women drive you know women race car drivers are viewed and respected and appreciated but you know when when you have a daughter you and you're in a racing family you've got to think about those things you've got it you can't help it

You can't help but not let that cross your mind. Hey, speaking of your kids racing, Noah Glaxen did all right this past week. He did. Yeah. My son, Noah? Yeah. He's such an interesting guy. I've said this before, you know, you've got to kind of let these guys at their, you know, you can't micromanage them and you can't treat them like you're, you're their dad.

And you can't hover and helicopter. and Noah and Josh and all these guys, they got to go out there and make the mistakes and learn on their own. We just talked about that with Ila. If she ever gets into any kind of racing in the next several years, you can tell them all the things to be aware of and be respectful of, but they don't really appreciate that until they see it and feel it and know it and experience it. And so with guys like Noah,

He's going out there, and he's like a bowling ball and ball hitting the bumpers going down the lane, you know, and he's going to hit that strike at the end of the – but he's going to bounce off the bumpers a little bit. That's a great analogy. That's a great analogy. That's a great analogy. He's going through life every day. And – but he has so much passion and personality, we need it. Yeah. You know, we need guys like him in the sport.

his partners have really become so fond to him. So, you know, he comes in, right, and he's got a lot of family support, and everybody knows that. But he's really crafted out some relationships with Bass Pro Shops, and they have fallen in love with this guy. He made that happen. Yeah. All right.

I'm as kind of proud of him for that as I am anything he does on the race. track. I told Josh all these years working with him, I'm like, you know, the one thing that you meant, the one thing we're missing with you is that sponsor relationship. Right. He has the personality and the, in the, in the, in the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, and the, his championship. But I'm telling Josh, I'm like, you know, you've got to try to remember the focus you have on the race car and the effort you put into getting it ready for the race weekend. You have to have that same effort and intensity into the relationships you have with your

sponsors and the people on the side of your car. I've told him that for years. And so Noah has had a success story in that department, right? Yep. and now he has a business and a relationship with Johnny at Bass Pro and those guys that they want to be with him. They don't want to be on anyone else's car, right, in the Xfinity series. And that's, no one's their guy.

Yeah. They tell us that. Like, that's our guy right there. We're with him. Pretty incredible. Yeah. Because I don't think a lot of these guys that come in with that family support ever develop the understanding.

that they also, you know, the family support goes to a certain point. Then you got to get picked up. It might get you in the door, but you still got to stay. You can get kicked out just as easily. Yep. You have to find that partner and that sponsor and that commitment, that financial commitment from someone that's really wanting to do it. And, man, he's really helped make that happen and make that a possibility.

So pretty cool. he's got he's polarizing got fans that don't like him got people that do like him the fans that do like him are in his corner no matter what is going on in his career uh i read his social media the comments they are you know and that that's the kind of fans you need they're they're with you good and bad he's definitely creating a heck of a little fan base so uh we've been waiting on him to win this year it's been tough hadn't had the success that we were hoping for and he would agree with that but he goes to darling one of the toughest racetracks, a driver's track, coming into the playoffs, building momentum, and he goes and wins.

If you ever had any doubt about the kid's talent and his ability to put a race together, he basically took the ultimate test and passed it. I don't know of another track where, you know, there's no fluke winners at Darlington. And so pretty cool to see that happen. I was happy for Noah because he needed a little sharp. in the arm and needed a reminder of his, you know, because I don't know if he's doubting himself,

but it was good for him, I think, at this particular point in a year going into postseason. Oh, man, I mean, like, if you could think of a driver that rides their own personal emotions more than Noah, I don't know who that would be. But Moa, when he's down, he's down, and when he's up, he's up. And, I mean, like, there's usually a zero or a ten, and there's never in between. And so for him to win that race, man, if there's anybody that's capable of, he's able to of taking momentum and doing something with it, I think it is Noah because of how he rides those emotional wavelengths.

And so I'm curious to watch him now in these next few races and see if they start stringing some ws together. All right, so starting last week, we're doing these Lost Speedway Character Ritups on dirtymo Media.com. And on our other social media platforms, you're going to see these. Bobby Marcos and the team are putting together these super cool write-ups about all these fascinating individuals that sort of sprinkled out through every episode of season two. There's so many interesting people, and we really want you guys to kind of get to know them.

One of our favorite characters on the show that we spoke to this year, Bill Blair Jr. My wife, when she saw him leaning up against that car on the beach in Daytona, she's like, I love this dude. Yeah, everything that comes with him. Yeah. So he was pretty matter of fact, very sure about himself and his lineage, his history, his family's racing history. And really, you know, those are the kind of people that really make those episodes so special.

Yeah. Because they can come in and really give you what it was like, give you the history. So Bill Blair Jr., Mike, what was your impression of old Bill? Well, he had one of the most profound lines in the episode. Well, he had a couple, actually. One was very emotional. The other one was about him filling the air as he would stand on the side of the roads when the cars came by at the Daytona Beach and Road course. And I won't give it away what he said.

You've got to go to Lost Speedway Season 2 on Peacock to see that. But these character spotlights are designed to help accessorize your viewing experience on Peacock. And I hope everybody does that. But Bill Blair, one of my favorites, the coveralls, the old car, his dad's car, everything that comes with it. He's a package deal. and a lot of people loved it. He was a fan favorite. Well, there's a lot of incredible personalities

in every episode, multiple, and the team does a good job of really finding the key figures that can help us tell the story of these tracks. And Bill's certainly one of the ones that helped us tell the tale of the Daytona Beach course, so go to Lost Speedways.

Season 2 is streaming now on Peacock TV. It's easy to sign up. Just go to PeacockTV.com, and you can watch the entire season. You can watch all of season one, all of season two. It's all right there. We're going to make you another season to watch. So get it all done so you can be ready when season three comes out.

All right, guys, let's bring in Jade. Eyes are on 24-year-old Dale Earnhardt Jr. Grandfather Ralph, former national champion, they called him Ironheart because he gave nothing on the race. His father, seven-time Winston Cup champion, once dubbed Iron Head, and then the Intimidant. And how about this kid? And all eyes are on 24-year-old. His dad is here first. Dude, you look exactly the same.

I don't know if that's good or bad. Well, I mean, it's been 20 years. It has been. Wait, can we open the presents here? Can we see what you brought? I sell books now. You've sold books for a long time. I have.

So this is John Andretti. Yeah. racer yes and i need i still need to sign them so yeah you got to sign it yeah i need jade gertr very cool yes how many books have you written jade uh the the one that's coming out with alinser junior is my sixth okay so it's like being a veteran driver you sort of make it up as you go along and then after a few years you're like hey i can i can do this you know so uh i feel like i'm kind of hitting my hit my stride as a writer. That's cool.

What are the things you learn from like writing the first book to now like some of the new shortcuts that you've learned or some of the mistakes? Well, if you remember, I had to rewrite driver number eight because we went to Warner Brothers and they said third person books sell X amount, but first person celebrity books sell more. X amount. Yeah. So they gave us a couple of months, and I went in and rewrote the whole thing. The whole thing. Like in your voice with the bare bones of what I had started with. So I kind of got the rookie stripe off my butt early.

Early with that. When you wrote that book, so when you're at the racetrack during the rookie year, most of the day, but especially during the race, you had these notebooks. and you just wrote everything that got said, right? You've got one right there. I carried these suckers around 24-7. And you wrote down everything. Everything. Did you know when you were writing it that you thought,

man, we're going to do a book? Well, my background, my degree was in broadcast. So when I went to Budweiser to convince them that I should be the, you know, the PR guy for you, I sold them on this sense of history. and, you know, there'll never again be a first Dale Jr. Daytona 500. And, you know, we had no idea that you go out and win at Texas and win the All-Star. And so I pitched it as a documentary. Now, in those days, reality TV wasn't what it is now. Now I think we could have somebody write a check right away. But no one was willing to step up to write us a check. And after, I don't know,

half a dozen races. I had these things stacked up on my desk, and I kept thinking, man, there's something that we got to do with this. And nobody told us no. I think it made a great book because of the detail. When you go back to remember all this stuff, you know, 12 months later, I mean, the detail in the book, when I enjoyed reading it. I'm like, oh my God, that moment, You know, that thing, that little moment, that thing, I said, the exact words I used or whatever the interaction was or the funny thing that we thought about or, it was detailed. You could almost imagine the colors and everything happening in the moment when you're reading the book. I really loved it.

I mean, that's not the secret, but my, as a writer, like working with John or working with you, my role is to disappear. It's got to be your words, your experiences, your voice. I think working with you really enhanced my ability to do that when it came to John Andretti or Alentzer Jr. So I don't know. I can't describe it as a skill other than it's just something that I've learned or that I've gotten better at.

Yeah. There was another thing too. So was there a conversation? at one point was somebody about turning that driver aid into a movie? Not with me, but I would have loved that. Mike's nodding. No, I thought there was. I thought there was a conversation that somebody,

and maybe it wasn't a very important one, because maybe it was just somebody had a night, maybe it was us. Maybe we're like, you know what it would be good? The good is this was a movie. I don't know, but apparently it didn't. Yeah, I feel like I remember. I just heard like a faint rumor of it,

And it went and it disappeared. Well, let me tell you something. This is what's so fascinating about having Jade here. This was like 03, 02. Okay. Like right after the, yeah. You guys start at the beginning, and you said something I want to ask you about here in second, Jay. But the fact is that the way we remember some things may be, there may be three different ways of how we remember stuff in the old days, right?

Okay. Oh, yeah. Because we all have our unique vantage points. I'm so thankful the book exists because there would be three versions of the rookie year. Right. Right. If you wrote drugs, two versions. That's right.

That's right. I mean, like, we sit here and joke. I mean, we've been doing this, Jade today where it's like, you know, hey, Jade Gers is on. He's the one that had to take me around and get me to places on time. And I'm thinking, the times that you got there on time, which was not that often. Not always, yeah. But maybe. What did I used to tell you about getting there?

They can't start without me. That's right. Well, I think you learned that from your dad. One of my first things when I was hired by Budweiser is your dad was doing a photo shoot or a poster for Bush beer. and we booked it two hours photo shoot. And I think your dad looked at it and said, well, hell, I can do that in an hour. So he showed up an hour late knowing that he only needed an hour.

He only needed an hour. And I have a feeling you probably learned that from him. Because there were times when I'm like, come on, man, come on. Is there one that sticks out to you? Is there one? Because there is one for me. I'm curious if there's one that literally gave you. Because listen, let me stop.

eventually we sort of become, not used to it, but able to handle the situation. We would become good at stalling or doing whatever it was, coming up with excuses, getting the people that are on the edge to calm down or whatever because we knew that we would get there. But is there one that gives you, still to this day, PTSD? I don't know what year, but it was, you know, the old winter circle meant that the driver would agree to go to a market ahead of the race. So you were selected for first. Phoenix and we were booked on I don't recall how early the flight and I get to the airport and I check in and the flight's coming up and I'm like all right where is he where is he and so no word from me

I didn't hear back from me and I'm just I'm freaking out and the plane loads and the plane goes so I'm thinking what what do I tell the people in Phoenix and so I called them and I was like you yeah, we didn't make that early flight. And I think you had looked it up, but you knew there was a later flight that morning. And without telling me, without telling me, you decided we're going to take that second flight. And honestly, we had a great day in Phoenix. It worked out all right. But, man, I was a rough, rough.

I was a nervous wrecked there at the airport. So there wasn't social media, and there was, we were probably using those push to talk. Yeah, yeah. Nextdale. That's true. That's how we communicated back then. That's right. Yeah.

And nobody had like a, you didn't have like email instantly like in the palm of your hand. Yeah. You had to go log on to your, your laptop or your computer. Yeah. Home computer to check your emails. So yeah. That was maybe once a day. There's one in particular that I still can't get past.

I don't know why it was, but there was a Budweiser appearance, and I want to say it was in New Orleans, and maybe it was a convention of some sort. Yeah, that was a wild one. And, yeah, it didn't start out that way. It started out with you not waking up, because the time we were supposed to be landing in New Orleans or wherever it was we were going. Yeah. He's still in bed upstairs, and they're asking me, have y'all landed yet? Yeah.

And I'm sitting there in Cleveland, North Carolina, in the living room of this modular home, going, God, they're asking me if we've landed, and he is still not awake. It's an impossible. And he won't wake up. Yeah. He's not waking up. Yeah. I mean, he's waking up to say, yeah, yeah, I hear you, whatever.

I know he's alive. I know he's alive. Yeah. But he's not up. And so we are going to be obscenely late to this thing. Yeah. Yeah. There's late. Like the whole day's waiting.

I mean, like, right. And there's people, and I think it was one of those types of appearances. is if it was a bud convention, it's a speaking engagement more or less. There are people in the audience and they're thinking we've landed and we haven't even woken up. There are very high executives with the last name Bush. That's right. That's right. That's right.

There also was the meeting that you arranged for me to meet Dale Jr. That he didn't even show up to. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. You remember that? I do. I have a story about that. In fact, I got to tell you guys.

I was up last night for hours. because I had a thousand stories going through my brain. Like I just, everything came rushing back. So I had been a one-man band with Junior for the first four years. And honestly, I was just getting war down. It was seven days a week. And I decided I need to hire somebody to help me. And so I kind of befriended you because you were doing really cool things with Jimmy Spencer.

And I thought if this kid can do these really cool things with a, guy like Jimmy Spencer. What are you saying, Jake? I'm just saying, Jimmy was not in the top echelon of drivers, that I bet he could do great things with my company or with Dale Jr. So I kind of befriended Mike. I don't know how soon I kind of tipped my hand that I was interested in you, but at Indianapolis in August, that was one of the races I had off.

So I'm on my couch, and you call me after the race. Jimmy Spencer just hit her push. We're in the NASCAR hauler. What do I do? Yeah. Like you were freaking out. I called you. Yeah.

That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. So I'm on the phone until I'm kind of calming you down. But you came through that. That turned out pretty well. And I thought, all right, this kid's. That's interesting.

That's interesting because I don't remember that. But I always credit Jimmy. And in fact, when Jimmy was on the show, I said, I credit you for a lot of me being here because I don't think if you would have not hit Kurt Busch. I don't think that we make Sports Illustrated. I don't think we get into a lot of the publications. It also didn't give me an opportunity to handle the PR side of it and kind of like try to navigate the conversation the way we did. I mean, because Jimmy ended up looking like a hero. Yeah. And he's the one that bullied the kid. Right. You know, and so if Jimmy doesn't, if they don't

crash and do all that and go in the NASCAR hauler, maybe you don't get hired. I don't know. That's the way I sort of remembered it. Yeah. He's not here. Yeah. No podcast. This is crazy. All of this because of Jimmy and Kurt. Yeah. Thank you, Jimmy. Yeah. Yeah.

So, but if you and I had started becoming buds and then I would have definitely called you. You were, Jade Gers, people need to remember. Jade was the, like, with the stuff he had done with Dale Jr. Up into that point, which was 2000 to 2003. Rolling Stone. Was amazing. And you were like doing stuff that nobody in NASCAR had ever, never thought to do. Yeah.

We're at Rolling Stone. Yeah. Playboy, my gosh. So that's the stuff like you were, you knew, I mean, from a publicity standpoint, I didn't think there was anybody else that could do what you were doing. Wow. And so for you, so if I'm in a situation, yeah, you're my first call. So me and Jay, we had a motor, everybody else had a two barrel carburetor and we had a four barrel

named Budweiser. Yeah. You know, and Jade absolutely knew how to take advantage of. that. Jade's like, we're going to do Rolling Stone. And I don't know that my reaction was, hell yeah. It was more like, what? I'm just scared

to death, right? Remember how nervous I was at the MTV Music Awards? I was about to freaking vomit. Yes. Well, let's talk about it now. Let's talk about it. All right. That's how you remember it. Let's jot it down.

I want to know about the meeting that I didn't come to. Well, there's a quick story before that. So I actually, so I offered Mike a position, and then what, your team won the truck championship and your boss gave you like a $10,000 raise. So I was like, oh, no. Jim Smith would do that. And I didn't even work for the truck team, but he'd get hammered after just to celebrate a win

or something. He's like, race for him. I mean, I don't even know if he knows my name. And it's like, raise this for everybody, you know? And I'm just like, man, I need to really get along with these truck guys because they're winning. I mean, like Ted Musgrave and Leflin. I need to get a job here so I can get that raise. Well, it cost me a lot of money.

Cost me a lot of money. I had to raise my offer. Just to give you an idea. In 2003, whatever I started at and whatever ended was the difference of $50,000. Oh, man. Just salary. Yeah, nice. Trucks were just doing well for me.

So, yes, that cost me a little cash. Was that negotiating with you or something? Well, if I understand right, I made you an offer and you're like, you know, I just got a raise. Oh, I was bluffing. I couldn't wait to start with you. That's the truth. Damn. My poker skills weren't very good.

So I had made you an offer. Okay. And I think we agreed. And then you and I, a group of people, went to Atlantic City to watch our truck. Goddy fight, which was amazing. That's another story for another day. And we're waiting before the fight. And, you know, Willie Mays came over and you're shaking hands. And I said, man, you're going to be so excited. I got this really sharp young kid that's going to come aboard. He's going to really be a great addition to our team. And you're like, no, I don't, I don't want another guy. I don't

want another. You're my guy. I don't want another guy. So I'm like, no, really. He's going to do great. So your first response to Mike was, no, hell no. I don't want him to come aboard. Very close. Yeah, yeah, which I appreciated. But I don't think it took long for you kids to hit it off. Mike at, so the first event was Daytona 2004. And before the bud shootout, I think he were hyperventilated.

Well, hold on, back up, though. Back up, back up. Okay. You had arranged a meeting. for me to finally meet Dale, it was at DEI or wherever Kelly's office was at James 2. Yeah. And so it was that little building at the end, right?

Yeah. And so it was with Kelly, J.R. and Dale. And you had emailed Dale, you were going to bring food and lunch and you were going to bring pizza. So Dale even gave you his pizza order. So we thought, I guess he's coming. Yeah, usually that's a good time. I mean, we weren't sure at first. I mean, he's giving us his pizza order.

And so, but then he didn't. show up. And so, and then I was like, is it me? I mean, like, what, I mean, is this normal? And Jade didn't know you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Didn't, didn't know you. Yeah. I ain't showing up. We'll eat your pizza, though. Yeah. Oh, we enjoyed the hell out of that pizza. Right. So then, yeah. So that was, you didn't show up for the first meeting. And then we did meet at Daytona. I remember specifically the first time I met you was at the media day. You know, remember the media day was just a circus, right? And that's where I first actually met Dale. I was already hired. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, but like I say, I think you were hyperventilating before the Bud Shootout.

Budweiser put so much pressure on us for the Bud Shootout. Yeah, that's true. I mean, like, I couldn't even care less about the Daytona 500. I just, they, we had been in so many meetings and come up so many ideas to try to get people to come to the Bud Shootout. Remember there was that draw party? Oh, yeah, the ticket sales. That was on our bus. That's what was really on my mind then.

Goodness. Yeah. Yeah. You won the Daytona 500 made it all better. That was pretty cool. Except we had to go to do all the media that next week. Remember that? Yeah.

Went to New York. Y'all did. I didn't go. Didn't you have to race the next day, too, though? Yeah. The bush race. You couldn't party after the 500 because you had to run the bush race. And I remember Tony Stewart came to your bus and you were like, Tony, come on, just get in my

bush car. Why don't you just climb in? You were trying to finish the race. Really? Because you wanted to party. You just won the Daytona 500. Oh, my gosh. And so then.

we had to get up, you know, because you get, do the induction of the car into the museum and do the breakfast and then race. And then, yeah, I guess the next day we went to New York and we did all that stuff. Which I hated. You did not like it. I thought you did great. My memory of that was we were, we left the David Letterman show. That was our last one of the day and they're taking us in the car.

And Matt Kenseth called to congratulate you on winning. And you're like, Matt, if you have a chance to finish second, finish second, because they're going to make you do all this stuff. Look, I've been in New York all day. I haven't had a chance to enjoy it. And for some reason, that stuck out in my mind. You kept telling Matt Kinza, man, if you got a chance at the 500, just finish second, man. You don't have to go do all the stuff.

So, yeah, that was big fun. Yeah. That was a good time. I mentioned the MTV Music Awards. Yes. And being so terrified. and going up. It ended up good.

Yeah. Yeah. But I think I might have told you on the way there that I wanted to turn around and go back home. It took. We're literally in the limousine pulling up and I'm like, I don't want to get out. Yeah. It took everything to convince you to do it in the first place. And you were just like, yeah, that's just not, I'm not up to it.

I don't want to do it. So I kind of had to keep working on you because we had built a very good MTV relationship, cribs and then we did a few more shows with them. So I felt it was important, you know, this is, we got to keep this relationship going. And then you were dug in, man, you were stubborn. And then you finally said, man, I don't want to go there with a damn Mooresville suit. And I was like, what? I can't go up there and stuff my buying Moorsville.

So to me, Mooresville suit became like a huge, hilarious. comment so and that's why i brought this this is part of it so dale was in the sexiest man alive i don't know if you remember this men in the fast lane uh we'll we'll get some photos of this there it is yeah shot that at dover dover in uh leather pants and a brown shirt walking through the garage the middle the garage the woman who styled you for that was really cool so i said I'll call her. Sarah Parlo is her name. If she's still out there, hello. So she lived in New York, and that's how we got hooked up to go to her. We went wherever she was, and she had like a assortment.

And they dressed me. Yeah. And I think that sort of made me feel better. I think so. I think he looked great. There's some hilarious photos of you and I. You remember when we sat down in the bench, we sat down in the amphitheater inside the studio, and we were on the right side, not in the center. Yeah. And we're kind of like midway. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, man, you know, we're kind of, I don't know if this is good seats or not.

And then were you on my right? You were on my right. Yeah, yeah. Jessica Simpson and her friends sat next to me. And then on his right, so Jessica Simpson and one of her friends is on my left. What year was this? 2001. 20 years ago yesterday.

by the way. Really? Oh, your right was Mandy Moore. Yes. And whoever she brought. Yeah. And we're sitting there,

and obviously I am terrified. I say not one word to Jessica Simpson, right? Of course, I would have talked to her ear off and given the chance, but I didn't have the ability to do that. Yeah. Jade reaches in his pocket and pulls out a pack of Starburst. Starburst candy.

Mandy Moore goes, Oh, Starburst is my favorite. I love the orange. ones. And Jay's like, oh, here, take one. And so I'm sitting here going, I'm sitting there going, I don't even know what to say to Jessica Simpson, and he's over here talking Starbursts. Dale's like, I like Starburst too.

I literally was like, him. Here's my thought. As I'm handing her this, because the guy that had been our volunteer to help us said, oh, she's 17. So I'm thinking, I'm an adult man in an Italian. leather jacket feeding candy to a 17-year-old year. And I can't look at Nanymore the same ever since. Weirdo.

Want some candy? Oh, my gosh. I just couldn't believe it. It was. I thought that when we sat down, I'm like, we must be, you know, the stars are up front. Yeah. Yeah. And they set them two next to us, and I'm like, damn, we're right in the middle of this.

Yeah. Right? And so the next thing I know is they come over to, you know, like, Jessica gets up and leaves and goes and does her thing. And I'm like, okay, somebody must come get me when it's my turn to do my thing. So here comes somebody. And I'm like, I'm scared all over again. I go backstage and I'm terrified. And Jade might know this happen and might not know this happen.

But I had this thing I had to read into a prompter when I got on stage. And I was introducing Lincoln Park. And me and you rewrote it because it was stupid. did. Yeah, it was really bad. It was bad. So we snuck to the woman that did the teleprompter. Yeah, we wrote it. Yeah. Yeah, just two lines or something. And so I walk right before I go on stage, there was a tribute to left.

Lisa Lopes or Lopez, yeah, left eye. Yeah, yeah. And so Destiny's Child is on stage as part of that tribute. Yeah. And I'm coming to the side. They walked me over to the side of the stage. Yeah. And it's dark as hell, and there's a bunch of grips and guys and gals working, the ropes and the stage, putting it together and pulling her apart and doing all that.

And they're all on the side. I'm so scared. And I didn't know where I was in the lineup, and I'm like, oh, man, I'm going up after this big moment where everybody's, everybody in the crowd is sort of celebrating this woman's life and her memory. So it was this heavy moment. And now I'm going to walk out there and go, all right, guys. I like fast cars. Rev up your engines. And I'm like, crap.

I don't know if this works, right? This feels like a bad timing. So Destiny's Child comes off the stage, and I'm like two feet from them, right? And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm blown away, or I'm Starstruck and Beyonce, right, and all that. Before she was even, you know, this massive icon, I'm like, oh, my God. holy moly, it's them, you know. And I felt so small and so, so, so such a, I felt like the smallest, uh, important person there.

Yeah. Right. And so, uh, this grip walks up, like right before I'm getting ready to go on. He goes, hey, man, we signed my die cast. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that's, and so, and Destiny's child's standing right there. And I'm like, did you hear him?

You hear that? Well, they came out of. the woodwork. Yeah. I think they had hid like die casts and other stuff. Yeah. You went backstage and all the, you know, like all the union grips and all that were like, hell yeah, there's our guy.

So I signed this guy's die cast right before, him asking you that just kind of made all the nerves kind of fall away. They put me in this cylinder. So I'm standing in this cylinder that's open with the one side open. They're going to pivot me and turn me around and there I'll be exposed, you know, reveal to the crowd. Right. And as soon as they turn and I look and I see Sean Colms,

Puff Daddy. Yeah. Right. He did he. And I'm like, ah! Scared, I'm nervous all over again. Poop my pants. But I step off this thing and I read into the prompter and I basically say two lines

in introduce Lincoln Park and then a hauled ass off the stage as fast as I could. And then got back to Jade and I'm like, ah, it's over. I thought you did great. I hated doing those things. I know. Scary. I had so much. Nobody can't appreciate how scary that is.

I had so much faith in you in those days that I wouldn't have sent you to do something that I didn't think you could do. And sometimes it took a hell of a lot of coaxing or here's why this is good, you know, one, two, three. But all of those, once you kind of got there, you always killed it. We went backstage. There was probably 200 media, and you held court and, you know, got some laughs with the media afterwards. Yeah. Although you wanted to leave early, so we had to wrangle our car, and we missed, like, Michael Jackson. Oh, no. Yeah, we missed Britney Spears with the snake.

That happened at the end of the show. Oh, man. Because I thought you would have been more relaxed after your deal. Take it in. You wanted to get to Richmond. We were racing in Richmond that weekend. Yeah. But, yeah, I, I love.

Which way we probably won. I can't remember that event, but I had the time of my life, but I was convinced you were miserable. You were miserable, that whole empty. It is scary. Yeah. It was terrifying. Yeah.

Do you guys remember? That's sort of the balance. Like, sometimes, like with you guys, I'll say that. So sometimes with y'all, I'm like, they really think this is a good idea? they just want to go do it. That's a fair question, but yeah. But that's a great question.

And he still has anxiety over that stuff. Yeah. And be honest with you. Yeah, I never got over it. Yeah, you're telling that story. And it's reminding me a lot of the, there's a lot of similarities with the CMT or the CMA music awards that you and I did together. And you were back up there presenting and doing whatever.

And yeah, you didn't enjoy that either, I felt. You know, I mean, it's just like, you could not wait for it to be over with it. It made me nauseous, like so, so scared and nervous that I was almost vomiting. But in my head, I'm thinking, I know he feels this way. I know it's, but he's going to kill it when he gets up there. I mean, so you just kind of know that he's going to kill it and everybody's going to love it. And he's going to be the only one that's the critique of himself because people are your own, you know, your own worst critic, right? That's fair.

But Dale Jr. always never feels like he belongs. Never feel like he earned right to be on a, you know, tonight show. Never felt like he earned right to be in Rolling Stone. or over it's like no no look I'm telling you if you'll just listen yeah people are wanting this you always killed it that's the thing well like and I'm sure Mike and I really haven't talked about it what late show that we did do you think that was probably the best experience I thought the conan trip was I loved Conan yeah I always kind of felt some sort of weird do you remember going to do that was did you go with him to that no I'm not really sure well what we did we did

do you remember about it that was so great i just felt i didn't feel as nervous with him because for some reason he's he's he's awkward and nervous like me or he seems to have he his personality kind of is he's on my level yeah does that make sense yeah like i could i can relate to him in a weird way yeah he is very related how do you pronounce his name conan conan oh brian conan hey dude that's how he did do you want us i mean we got we got we can talk five hours about things i out from. I had a lot. I have a list right here. We actually had a whole chapter in driver eight. There's a ton of it on social media right now after this past weekend's race and Dollytony into the list there, Leah. I guess mirror. People don't like the way I say mirror.

So, Mira. I like it. Did you remember a late night show that you thought was particularly good? I thought you did well on all of them because we kind of did a hierarchy because I thought you would do great on the tonight show and you're like, man, I don't know. So we booked like some smaller ones, like some cable shows. That's the waters. Yeah, where it was a similar format, but it was not a lot of pressure. It was called The X Show on FX or something. It's a long defunct for good reason.

But we kind of built up to it. We went to do the Leno thing, and he came back and said, hello, and all that. And I thought you did great on that. The one that you were maddest at was Jimmy Kimmel. Oh. We went and we have a lot of those actor friends, actress friends in Hollywood. So we had made plans after Jimmy Kimmel taping to go meet them. Then we get to Jimmy Kimmel and we learn that they have a nightclub in their building.

And there was like Boston Red Sox players and they were like all these hipsters that were staying for that party. You're like, damn, man, you screwed up. You didn't know about that. We should just stay here. And so I remember you being angry at me that I didn't know that we should have stayed with the Kimmel people to party afterwards. Oh, Dale. I think we still had a great time with our friends. But I thought that went really well.

I also think half of that audience was drunk, so it was really kind of raucous. So, you know, every time I've been on his show since, when you sit down with him, it's like, He may not, but he makes you feel like he remembers your last visit. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? He's good like. He is. And he'll make you, he's like, hey, man, you know, how you been?

What's been going on with you? And he'll say something from the last thing. And he'll be like, oh, you're like, oh, man, he remembers, you know. He's into this, right? When you get that feeling that they're into it, because the letterman, you know, you never knew. You couldn't tell what the first trip. You never saw a letterman. We were so mad.

That was the one I thought I was the most mad about it. We're like, hey, you're going to be in Lederman. And I never even thought to ask. And I'm like, awesome. This is going to be amazing because he's him and Lino. They're the top, right? And we get there and they're like, you're going to drive this. You're going to do donuts in this Corvette in the street.

And then I'm like, well, I hope I can do that. I don't even know how to freaking do donuts. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And you worried that you were going to crash it. And they're like, no, a guy that works here. It's his car. He would love it.

Yeah. And then we had, then they wanted me to parallel park the same. car. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And they intentionally made the space too small. Yeah, they're like, just smash it.

Just smash it. So I smashed the car into this parking spot. And I do the burnouts and I get out and I'm like, man, maybe I guess I'm going to go up to the couch. Right now we're going to do the interview or after the break. We're going to do the interview. And he's like, good job. I can hear him right in my earpiece and I can hear Dave.

He's upstairs. We're out on the street, right? Right. Right. next to the building, they're upstairs and, like, the third floor doing the show. And I'm like, all right, this may be just like an introduction and I'm coming

on the show after the break. And he's like, good job, Delve. Tell him what he's won. He's won this plate of deli meats and this lady walks over and hands me this plate of deli meats and I'm standing there looking at the camera holding deli meats going when do I get to me, Dave?

What's going on? And then they Then we go to break, and the lady, you know, one of the, you know, producer, somebody walks up and grabs a deli meat, says, good job. Thanks for me. Thanks for coming tonight. It's great. You did great.

You did great. And I'm like, damn, I'm not even getting in the building. I don't even know if we did. Right. And so I told you afterwards, I said something like, man, we're not ever coming back here unless we're going to sit down and get an interview because I want to meet Dave. Yeah. That's right.

I want to talk to this man. He's the man. Yes. And we never even got a foot in the studio. Yeah, that was weird. Do you also remember backstage, they have little tiny green rooms. And next to us, there was like, all this hoopla, like a film crew and all this stuff, and we couldn't figure it out.

Well, it was Lindsay Lohan. They were, like, following her doing a documentary. And at some point before the show, there's, like, this screeching shouting match. I don't remember that. What the heck is going on? Lindsay herself was shouting. Yeah, like, I don't know what. hell broke loose there, but it just, it was a crazy day from morning tonight.

Oh, gosh. Yeah. What is the media hit that you guys did that you're most proud of? That's a tough one. There's so many. There are. You go first and then I'll tell you what I think had the most impact. Yeah.

I thought that the one that I, there's two, there's probably Rolling Stone was my favorite, but I think that the cribs had the most impact. Yeah. You're 100% on. And we had booked the cribs quite a while back, and sadly your dad passed away. And so we turned down so many media. We just said, look, we're going to take a step back. But you said, let's still do cribs because my buddies will want to watch it.

And I just, I remember you saying that. I'm like, all right. So we were all into that. Yeah. You know, and TV back then. It's hard to understand now 20 years later. how impactful MTV was in that time. Like Cribs was the show.

Yep. Because MTV was the network. Yeah. Like all anybody from, you know, anybody from 12, 15 years old all the way up in the mid-30s watched that every day. Absolutely. Yeah.

They've had a full basket of content that you just watched it. Yeah. And the difference too, you know, if you go and if you're on with Letterman, it's great, and then it's gone forever. MTV would show it on its debut and then for months

afterwards would run it at 2 a.m. when, you know, certainly when your buddies were up at that time. And so it built momentum. You know, people, the word got out that everybody should watch. The one thing is, is people would be like, so at the end, you know, you got to have a thing.

Everybody that did cribs that would end their, they would end their moment with something, catchy and we're like man we're going to put a car in my garage right and we'll i'll be like all right well i'm taking off i'm gonna go to the grocery door and i hop in the race car right yeah open the garage door and there's not a there's not a must you know there's not a camero or mustang or whatever you might imagine so be in somebody's garage right uh is a race car yeah and so from that moment on everybody's like man you keep your race car in your garage you know the let the people that are

watching MTV, most of them were very casual motorsports fans, if most sports fans at all. And they'd be like, oh yeah, guy keeps his race car and his garage. Makes sense. And so, do you really do that? Like, oh, yeah, yeah. But we always had, there were a lot of things that would happen throughout that period of time where people would, you know,

people would latch on to certain things. Yeah. And you never, I'm like, you never thought they would latch on to that. Yeah. Everywhere you go, every autograph session you go to, you know. Yeah. But that was part of the... The lipstick commercial shoot was so badass.

For Budweiser. Yeah. So we went and did this lipstick and I was pumped, man. Yeah. You know, that was one of the few things where we're going to the West Coast. I don't like traveling. I don't want to go to New York. I don't want to go out west.

I want to be at home. I want to play video games. I want to hang out my buddies, drink, raise hell. It's always fought against that. We were always trying to get ourselves like a Super Bowl spot. We did the designated driver. Oh, yeah, with Ed Helms. And I got him to admit that that was him here recently on social media a couple years ago.

Yeah. Didn't know if he would want to own that relationship. That he spent the night in the passenger seat of the car. We did. We got in that car at 10 o'clock at night and filmed that commercial until 4 in the morning. Yeah. What year was that? 2000, 2001?

It was early. Some of those dates blurred together. Might have been, yeah. Because middle of the night, there's the catering space, and every once in a while we get a break and get out of that car. And like 2 o'clock in the morning, Ed, I think, comes up and goes, hey, this girl, she's got to be in Charlotte.

And she's going to have to fly back there and they're playing something happened. She wasn't going to make it. Mr. Flight or something. They're like, can you, can you guys give her a lift? And we're like, sure, I guess, you know. And so we ended up giving one of the extras a ride on the plane back home. I think we had to call to okay it or something.

I had to call to verify it. Because you would have been flying a DEI plane probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyhow, Ed turns out to be this major star, right? Isn't that crazy? That is, yeah. But I remember a couple times with that, and the lipstick thing,

there were a few things where I was willing and able, you know, and it's kind of excited about it. And I think we read the script to the lipstick thing and we both were like, that's cool.

Yeah. That's going to be a good one. Immediately. And we hustled out there and we had a good time doing it. I remember we were filming back in the day. I believe it was back in the day.

No, no. What were we filming? It was called any given day. Any given day. Sorry, it was a NASCAR-produced docu-series. I'm thinking the same thing.

but I remember getting off the plane back home and I was still sort of jazzed about this. I'm like, I can't wait for everybody to see this in the commercial man. They're going to love this. Right, because you had a kissing scene in it. And that, you, I remember that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You were like, I was so nervous. You told the camera, you're like, hey, go over there and ask her if she thought the kiss was good. I was so nervous. I couldn't believe it. I'm like, I'm going to have to kiss somebody. Are you all sure? What? One take Dale.

you should have screwed it up. Mess that up. A number it takes. That's weird. Somehow you don't know. So did, so was, okay, he had said Rolling Stone and MTV Cribs, you're saying that. I'm agreeing. Okay, so that same thing.

To this day, at least me personally, more people remember Cribs than anything else. Yeah. The Rolling Stone thing was great because it, it established you as like, the rock and roll guy, the new hip rock and roll athlete. Yeah. You know, it took us out of, as you described, you know, the twangy music coming in and out of NASCAR commercials, you know. So it played a huge role in sort of cementing your persona or your public perception, I guess.

Yeah. And did he care about that, by the way? Oh, yeah. Was he aware of, or did he know what his public persona even was? Let me go ahead. You speak to it. Well, when we first started doing souvenirs, you know, they were the full print shirts, right? And they come out with this one and my name's written in rope.

And I said, I was like, I don't ever want a shirt of mine with my name written in rope. And so, yeah, I mean, and Budweiser, we tried to do our own line of stuff. I think you remember. We did. That didn't go over very well. No. But I remember I was always sort of, you know, people would just be like, you know, they would just bottle you up into this little, you know, country boy, you know. And you're like, man, no, I love rock and rap and pop culture and all the things going on on MTV.

And I'm consuming all these other things. and the Rolling Stone and those type of publications were a great place to go share with people that there was much more to us, right? Absolutely. We're, you know, we're, you know, we love country and we loved, you know, NASCAR and fast cars and all the things, but it was more to us. Working with Toray on that article. Toray is an amazing writer. He goes and, you know, that article wins these awards, right? Yeah.

Won Toray some award. I remember him let me know how, you know, how I'm proud of that. he was. We spent a week together. So that's one of the things that I think people would find interesting is when they were going to do the Rolling Stone. Okay. Well, this writer Torre is going to come and he's going to stay with you for four days. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, wow, okay, that's different. You know, typically when you're doing an article, I'm thinking we're going to sit down for an hour or two hours or go fly somewhere. Maybe for Rolling Stone we'd go fly somewhere and end up sitting in a studio doing a lot of photos and all kinds of things and then sitting down with a reporter for a couple

hours and be done but tori was going to go hang you know and i think he stayed at the house i can't even remember but we were together like 24 hours a day yeah we stayed at the house but then we went to the race was it texas or las Vegas we got there late at night i took torre to josh schneider's apartment for a party as one would yeah yeah we went to uh my buddy josh was going to college in UNC Charlotte. And I'm like, hey, Toray, this is where I'm going and this is what I'm doing tonight. He's like, I'm here. Let's hear. But I mean, literally, we hung together and it was so much fun. And I still hear from me every once in a while. Yeah, I stay in touch with it. But we got to the track and we did a couple of laps around a dark track. Just talking. I don't know if you remember that, walking.

Yes. But you guys hit it off immediately. I think that was great. That was big. Yeah. If it was somebody that was kind of an assy. Well, he was young and I was young and we both, I don't know, yeah, his personality was easy and. Yeah. You're right. Yeah.

That would have been tough to do. I think I was probably pretty nervous that it would be somebody that would be difficult to be around four days and spend so much time with. And I was so relieved that it was Toray. Yeah. And he was who he was, right? Yeah. But he was there to, he was going to make it work.

Yeah. You know, regardless. Well. And he did a great job. Yeah, and you were in great form. That makes me want to ask you, you know, that this table, consider it, you know, very therapeutic. Yes. Maybe the things you've been harboring over all these years, if you wanted to get it out on the table.

Oh, boy. No, no, listen, what is some parts of that job of being Dale Jr's publicist, especially at that time that even Dale doesn't know, but it was not your favorite parts of the job? Like, you know, because I know that you and I would do a lot of things that would just make sure we keep it from Dale. Yeah. But even before I got there, like I wasn't there in the crazy years. Well, I got one that comes to mind, and it's nothing to do with Dale. It's that I had to be a poor man's bodyguard. NASCAR security now is vastly beyond what it used to be.

And there used to be thousands of more people in the garage. So here I am, Mr. Spindley with these, you know, skinny little arms, trying to get you from the garage to the car or from the garage to your bus. And that gave me ulcers. Really? Because I hated it. And I was the a-ha-ha-ha-helling, let him walk, let him walk, give him room, you know. That just, I was not suited to be that guy.

Yeah. And so I hated that, like Texas, you know, it was just insane. And I know we talked about it because you were worried about, like, a little kid getting knocked over at the front of that crush, and, you know, we wouldn't be able to get him up or somebody might get hurt. So, but I was always interested in kind of your feeling about that when you're in the middle of that, because I felt like it was my responsibility to get you from A to B in one piece. My feeling about that was that I was going to, I needed you to do exactly what you were doing, exactly what you were doing. But I was going to play the part of almost at times maybe even mocking you. And I think you might remember me doing that.

Good cop. I was bad cop. You were a bad cop and I would be good cop. So the fans, I didn't want the fans to think that I had the same disposition as you in that moment. Right. Because they want that access. I got to, you know, they want it. I got to give it to them.

And so there would be times where you had this, you had like a cadence and a tone that you use every single time. Let him walk. Let him walk. I hated it. And I would repeat it while he was saying it. I'd be like, let him walk. Let him walk.

Come on, man. Shut up. While I'm signing an autographs with people and smiling and the fans are smiling. So, you know, I didn't want it to be, he was right and I needed him to do it. And Mike, you've been in that situation too. And I hated it as much. Yeah. But I needed the fan to know that I was like, um,

not yeah you know what I mean I don't even had a not a not a yeah yeah I mean and that was that that was all understood that wasn't the part that was well I guess you hate you hated just no but like it was so much pressure say we're going to walk 100 feet we're going to get to an area where we can have a conversation maybe it's inside the holler I didn't want you to look at me and go hey I'm trying to help you man what the hell you do it right but y'all understood it's a good cop bad cop kind of thing yeah right you didn't like it moving around I hated race day

at the car between the time you arrive after driver intros to the time he actually climbs in. That 20 minutes, sometimes 30, and the crowd that would develop around the car was nightmarish. And I hated it every single week. I could not stand it. And I just could not wait for the race to start. I'm with you. The one that comes to me was at Daytona. I'm just like, get back, you know, give him space.

And then some guy comes up and whispers that that's Colin McCray. the rally champion called McCray. I'm like, oh, wait. Come on over, but I was, man, I was, you were backing him up? I was getting them the heck out of there. I had the same thing happened to me. I threw Linda Vaughn.

I told her to get out. Oh, no. And Dale Jr. says to me, don't you know who that is, you idiot? And I'm like, no, she actually looks like all the rest of them to me. I mean, like, she really does. Well, except one. Right, right.

Not exactly, but, but, and yeah, so we all had that mode. But in those, in those, they're so crowded and then they would close in, and that's when I realized, oh, man, I must have some claustrophobia. It was awful. I couldn't stand it. And I didn't like being a bad guy. I don't think you enjoy playing bad cops. I didn't like it. And you know what?

This is something else I want to ask you. Did you ever think that you developed the reputation that was unfair, whether it is to media on having to say no a lot or whether it is to, fans that just remembered you maybe from an experience of where you were like, get out of the way, let him walk or whatever, and it wasn't that most endearing moment? It never was personal with fans. Like I didn't point somebody out and call them names or anything. The media, the fact that we built a good relationship, a good reputation with them over the years helped, which made my job easier.

I would say no, but I would always have a reason why. or we always knew that there would be a scenario where we would give them a chance at the right time because that was a lot of my role was scheduling things so, you know, so it's not a burden on you. So, you know, we would never schedule right before, right after a practice or qualifying. You know, we really made that effort to do it where we gave the media access. but the racing always came first. So do you remember, I want to give you a chance to tell all the stories that you had come to mind, so I want you to be able to do that.

And, you know, because you might have some that are important that you share. It's in the driver rate book when we won at Richmond. Yes. And we come in the victory lane. Remember that? I remember it very well. So I don't remember it as well, but I do know what happened because it's in the book. We win the two, we won, this is our second win.

Second, yes. We won it Texas a couple weeks ago. And I passed dad and Terry Labani, I think, or just dad, a past dad late in that race. He's got two tires and we got four. Stewart had been dominating the race, and me and him had contact on Pit Road that hurt his left rear tire, and he had to come back down pit road and lost the track position. We had to relate race to the finish, and we ended up winning the race and holding off Del Jarrett and Terry Labani.

very close they were closing in we get to victor lane we've won our second race i mean the maruki we're we're static everybody's bonkers yeah we've won at richmond before so this is a track that we were real happy with i get to victory lane and uh i don't even did i grab you and tell you who did yeah how did that happen you just you just went wide as a sheet so i didn't know what was going on but i knew something was going on and i think you kind of grabbed me and then joe glen from buddweiser was another guy that worked with us. And I'll let you. Yeah, so have you ever been driving down the street

and you need to be in, you need to get to a restroom immediately? Sure. Or have you ever, you know, say you're doing a podcast. And you're like, I got to stop. I've got to go to the bathroom. So I didn't feel it until I got out of the car. I get out of the car and like, I need a restroom now.

Yeah. This is happening. I think you did. the leap into the guys and then it was like, oh yeah. And then he laughed. Yeah. You're like, I can't, I can't do this.

So, yeah, so there's the interview that's getting ready to happen. Yeah. And the hat dance and all that. And I'm like, Jade, I got to use a bathroom bat. You got to find me one right now, right now. And Jade turns to a guy. Luckily, there was somebody really close. They're like, right around the corner.

Yeah. It was right around the corner to the bathroom. So I'd leave. and everybody's still looking at me cheering. Like we just got there, jumped out of the car, and everybody's like, yeah, and you're kind of in the middle of the focal point of what's happening in that, and I walk out of, and I can feel everybody watching me as I left Victory Lane. And I just left without saying a word.

And so Jade's standing there, and I don't know what did you do? I think I just said, he'll be right back. We'll be back after these messages. Like five minutes later, I come back. and bopping back in there. Yeah. Yeah, you were all good there. Fully relieved.

And we can do the hat dance now, everybody. We carried on. I think we had, we post-race interview and all that for TV and everything waited. I can't remember about TV, but I know everything else did. God, that sucked. You know, everybody was cool. Well, I'm just saying the feeling sucked.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What other things have you, you remember back at that time that you think fondly I mean, I think fondly of the whole time. I've worked with drivers through the years who are their only interest is racing. They only want to talk about racing, which is fine, which is cool.

But as a PR guy, that made my life rough. You know, what do we talk about? The benefit of working with Dale, every six months you had a great new hobby or a new interest. That hasn't changed. Hey, all right. this time he's building RC cars and so we could do interviews about that. Oh, he

got a boxing ring from Budweiser so we did interviews about that. That's right. You were always interesting and new and had interesting things about your life outside of you driving that Budweiser car. So it made

my life vastly easier. And so that comes to mind in retrospect. thinking of all the drivers I've worked with for years and years. And so I give you full credit for having an interesting life and being an intelligent guy that didn't only think about racing. Yeah.

So, hey, do you all remember when Dale agreed to be in some dude's wedding? And then the dude ended up being like a, like on the run from police. Really? And we got called from like the FBI. Do you remember this, Jade? vaguely. I remember it became bad news pretty soon. This should juggle your memory, maybe. You met a guy in a bar and he tells you,

hey, this is my fiance, we're going to get married and, you know, whatever. And you're feeling good. I don't remember what bar it is. Maybe it was at Daytona and you say, hey, you should get married at Atlanta Motor Speedway. That should be what you do. And so he's like, love it. Will you be in it? And you're like, of course.

you'll be my best man and you're like, I'd be honored. And so I remember at Atlanta, which would have been my, like this had been my fourth or fifth race ever with you guys, right? Yeah. And so there we are, taking him to Victor Lane. And here he is. I mean, there's a picture of it somewhere, and he's the best man of this guy's wedding. Flat fast forward a couple months, we were getting called from an FBI going, hey, or maybe it was this guy's brother or sister or something like, have you all seen him?

And we were like, no. And they're like, well, he's wanted. He's wanted. He's wanted by the police. And we were like, hey, look, no, no, no, no, keep us out of it. Do you remember this at all? I remember it vaguely. I don't remember the FBI necessarily, but in my time working with you, we met, I mean, talk about the widest spectrum of humanity. You know, we met future presidents. We met, you know, corporate leaders, you know, super-suffer. stars in boxing or sports or music. And then we also met like folks that are at the other end of that spectrum. It was always crazier. It was always you had to kind of be ready to be flexible at any moment because you never knew what was, you know, what was to come. That's a good way of putting it. It's like there's so much you can pack into one person's life that like even stuff that

you would remember if it was anybody else like this was just a Tuesday you know in this in this world right it was just something you got to expect anything right yeah and that was the way i remember that yeah and then mike wallace was it something i wanted to ask you about yeah so that was so now i'm working for you and mike wallace wants to come do a piece and much like you guys were joking with me how I cite Jimmy Spencer's punching of Kurt Bush as being a significant career step, right? Yeah, yeah. But like, in that Mike Wallace deal,

correct me if I'm wrong, this is how I remember it. We did one interview at Daytona. I don't remember if we had a second interview lined up, but he got burned in a sports car crash that led Mike Wallace to come to Mooresville. Yeah. Do I have that right? Yeah, that very right.

And, you know, something, thing that certainly was a negative situation, certainly for Dale where he's getting burned in a sports car crash, ended up being a huge deal when you've got Mike Wallace, you know, legendary newsman coming to Moorsville, North Carolina to spend, you know, several days, you know, with Dale. And somebody just recently referenced that. In fact, it was a guest. Jordan Taylor. Jordan Taylor last week even remembers watching that episode where Mike Wallace came out of the

bathroom and said, you know, dating for dummies. What can you tell me about dating, dummy? I remember him saying that. That was at the old shop. I remember that so vividly. First of all, you and Mike got along great. It was kind of like with Torre. It was like this instant, not relaxation, but you just kind of hit it off. But you got to talking about the crash and you got talking about the feeling of your dad being there. You had never shared that, certainly not with me. Right. So I, you know, most interviews, I kind of know where things are going. And that one, I'm like, oh, my, oh, my God.

To be clear, Dale says he thinks that his dad might have pulled him out of the car. Yes. To save his life. That's what you said. And nobody, and I remember, I'm sitting next to you. Yeah. And we were like, did you know that? I didn't know.

Has he said that to you? I know. Wow. Yeah. So that was one of the interviews where it was a moment where I was taking a back. So that was, I mean, it was really powerful. Yeah. You know, I remember that interview and I remember saying those words and I remember feeling pretty confident in my thoughts about that.

And I couldn't, for whatever reason when we had that wreck at Sonoma, I was awake and aware, but do not remember any of it. It's like this absolutely remember spinning out of control and hitting the wall. I remember looking down and seeing the fire coming up out of the seat. The fire come, it was like the fire came out from under the seat because the fuel tank was behind the seat, like right behind it. The left rear tire had went forward and broken some of the filler neck and all those other, and the fuel cell itself. And so I, it's like I look down and the fire comes up through my lap and into my helmet and like was in front of me in between my helmet and my visor. And I was like, holy crap, it's this hottest thing. thing ever. I mean, you know, you get next to a fire, you get next to a fireplace or a lit flame,

and you're like, oh, you think you get an idea how hot a fire could be or would be or how hot being on fire might be. And it's just, it was, I was amazed at that sensation and how painful it was and how it's like a million bees stinging you at once. And then I thought, I got to get out. You know, I started, it dawned on me. It took me like, it took me like a second to realize like, oh hell, how do I get out? I know how to get out of my race car, but this car, I don't know how to get out of it. There's a, the Winnonet hooks differently. I don't know how to get the door open.

And as soon as I went to reach for all that stuff, it was gone. Like the Winnonet was gone. The door, the Winnonet was knocked down somehow. And so I start pulling myself out of the car. And then that's the last thing I remember was like getting. getting like moving in that moving to do that yeah and then I don't remember another thing until I was in the in-field care center on the board and Max Pappas and Boris said are standing over the top of me with this nurse and she's sticking morphine in my leg oh man and I'm

screaming like it hurts and she's like I'm looking at it it's not that bad I'm like I don't care that what it looks like this is hurting yeah you got to do something and I'm I'm like grabbing them by the collars going, tell her. And Boris is looking at that lady going, do something. And she shoves, she sticks another needle in my leg, and I passed out, woke up in the hospital. But from the moment I get out of the car, or from the moment I try to get out of the car to the moment I'm on that in-field care center, I was awake. I was coherent awake, talking.

There's pictures of me sitting on a tailgate of a pickup truck. Wow. Having gotten out of the car, there's a picture of me sitting on a corner worker's truck tailgate, you know, 20 foot from the car. But I don't remember none of that. Wow. And I don't know why. Like I wasn't, I must have been some kind of weird shock or something. Yeah.

It was weird. And whenever the Bud car was on track, I was required to be there. But that was a Chevy deal. So I was at home. A friend of mine calls, first of all, he's okay. And I'm like, what? Yeah, we just airlifted Dale June. I was like, oh, no.

Yeah. It was a helpless feeling. So what's this card game on a plane? Oh, well, this, it's not even that great story, but it's... Mackey thought it was. You were so competitive about everything, about video games and cards and all that stuff. And so we're on a flight somewhere, and you taught me a new card game. and so I'm enjoying it, I'm learning,

and we get to the end and you end up winning, and I said, well, that, you know, that was fun, that was cool. And you're like, what? I said, yeah, that was fun. You lost. I'm like, well, yeah, but I learned a new game. How can it be fun if you lost? Like, you were really serious, like in my face.

Like, you know, you can't have fun if you don't win. And it was, that was always like, you'd, play video games and then you'd be like, here, come on, try this. And I'm not a video game guy. And you would laugh your ass off when I'd get just killed or whatever it was. I remember that. But you didn't believe me that I had fun learning a new game. Oh, my God.

Well, you had so much fun. It was a good time. I did. I was so weird. Yeah. You had your moments. I did. The one that you posted.

on Instagram, I think, was you and that bandana at Pocono. Oh, yeah. When you hurt your forehead. Yeah, hit the bottom of the pool. So that was before Pocono.

And I, you wouldn't even tell me what really had happened. It was hush, hush. You had this big bandage and then you'd put the bandana on. So we kind of didn't tell any of the media

or anything that you had a big scar underneath there. And we came back to the hauler one day And, you know, the hauler was mirrored on the back so you can look out, but people can't look in. And sometimes you'd stand back there and watch all the people. Oh, yeah. You were just in a hilarious mood, and you're, like, joking about all the other drivers. And then you're like, Dale Jarrett.

Look at Dale Jarrett. He can't pull this off. I look cool in this. Dale Jarrett couldn't pull this off. And you started listing all the other drivers that couldn't wear the bandana as cool as you were. And again, it's such a stupid story. but I just laughed my ass off of you, like, doing this comedy routine about how cool you looked. Do you remember my 30th birthday party?

Oh, yes. And coming back to the track with the black eye from the boxing ring? Yeah. Because I left, of course, we had the party at the club and then ended up at the house. It ended up at the house boxing. It was some Irish bar in Moresville. Yeah. And.

And. And. And. I've never been a huge party guy, so I kind of did my polite exit. Yeah. And so I left before the boxing began. Suddenly he shows up, this giant Shiner. Yeah.

And was it Ross Coleman, the Bull Rider that did it? Well, so we had, it was about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, and Arturo Gotti, the boxer's with me. And I was a huge fan of his, and I'm thinking, I always used to say, if you meet, if anybody a sports star ever comes to your house or you're ever around them, man, you get a chance to throw football with Dan Marino or something, you got to do it. Right? Because I was always checking out on things and I'd be like, oh.

So if I got a boxing ring and I get a boxer here, I'm going to ask for some lessons. So I tell, it's three in the morning. This is the bud talking, I think. Yeah, we're so drunk. And I'm like, Arturo, man, can you show me how to throw a punch? because I'm fighting my buddies and they're pretty good, and it's hard for me to, you know, I'm not doing too well. I was like, give me something that'll just take them out.

And I used to fight Josh Schneider, one of my best buddies all the time. And he went easy on me. He could probably destroy me. But I wanted to get in there and show Josh one thing, you know, just surprise him one day with a combination. And so he's like, yeah, I'll take you down there. We'll go. He don't know where we're going.

I'm like, I got this boxing ring in this shop. Well, Ross Coleman. The Bull Rider, he's championship bull rider, got a plate in his head. He's like, I'll go down there, I like boxing, I like fighting. He wants to fight everybody. Brad Arnold from Three Doors Down is going to go. And a handful of my buddies. And so we go down there and I learned a nice combination.

Then Ross, the Bull Rider, wants to fight Arturo. And they got in there and fought three rounds hard as they could go. Oh, man. I mean, I've watched Arturo on TV in my eyes. in person and it was it was every bit as is intense and at speed yeah because ross is a big guy he had to have had a hundred pounds so he goes he yeah he goes after our they go start boxing and they got they get super competitive and they start going harder harder and harder and harder and there were one minute rounds and i had a timer and the timer goes off and ross comes back to

my come back to the corner i'm taking care of ross and arturo's got a buddy with him that traveled from from florida and they're over there and that other the corner and Ross comes back to me and goes he knows we're just playing right and I was like you ain't giving him that impression I'm like what are you talking about you try to take the head off he's just doing what he does you know and so they went and fought two more minutes and then Brad Arnold wants to get in there and uh with Arturo God that's a mismatch yeah and Arturo like it was boom boom and Brad Arnold's laying on the ground laying on the mat lead singer this band laying on the mat, blood in his teeth.

And I was like, you're done, man. He's like, no, no, no, I'm good, I'm good. I'm like, no, that's enough. This is getting out of hand. I went over to Arturo, and I was like, hey, he's my buddy, Arturo. And he's like, hey, he'd come at me. He walked to me with his hands up. What do you think I'm going to do?

And then I got in there with one of my buddies, and we're boxing hard. I'm like, keep seeing this shadow out of the corner of my eye. And I'm like, what in the world? And we're, I'm in the ring, you know, going at it with this guy and I'm like, hold up, hold it. I was like, what in the heck is happening? And it was my brow. It had swollen up and was protrude.

You know, it was out here like an inch. And that was the shadow like I was seeing. And it was like, I went and looked in the mirror. I'm like, holy shit. Like I got a swollen head. And turn my, yeah, my eye goes black and all around and we go to the race the next weekend. You couldn't put a patch over that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a picture on the internet. No, we got the picture. Yeah. I'm sure. It'll be in the TV show. It's cool.

It could be found. We had a lot of fun. Did you happen to listen to the Ty Norris episode? Yes. Well, I'm curious, actually, let me take a little bit more broad stance or framework here. Okay. When you see things that Dale does now, one, what goes through your mind? Like when you're seeing him as a broadcaster, because you have such a unique vantage point.

But then also I'm curious, like, when we have this episode with the Ty Norris where he kind of like really kind of, empties a lot of things he's been harboring over the years. I also am curious about your reaction to that. It was emotional for me because he had to deal with that stuff day after day. I only had to deal with it occasionally. So to hear him tell some of those stories was very powerful for me because it wasn't always pretty after your dead past. and there were some times that even, you know, kind of affected me.

So. In what way? And I don't know if I've ever told you this. Teresa technically didn't try to stop the book, but I was called to her office late on a Friday afternoon where she and Ty sat there and basically chewed my ass for an hour about the book, about, you know, why this was wrong and why this was terrible for Dale.

I'll never forget, because I was defending it. I thought driver number eight was a positive, you know, it had some rough spots, but it was a positive view of you as a human. And Teresa said, I don't know why you're making a big deal. It's not like you had to make it up. I was like, what? What? Like she was saying because I didn't, you know, because I just had to write down what had been happening.

Yeah. She couldn't understand why I, it meant a, a lot to me for this book to come out. And it just, it was just the strangest thing. And Ty, Ty was in the meeting. And he was sort of on her side occasionally, sort of on mine. He was kind of the mediator. The mediator. Yeah. But it was, it was the most contentious meeting I've really had before or since. Yeah, it was, it was bizarre. Was this before the book was published or was it, was it a publish it worked well it was everything was done except the contract but she had held the contracts for months she she wouldn't sign him and so this was late december the publisher was committed to january for

this thing to come out before Daytona so i guess she decided she was going to sign finally sign but she wanted to take a pound out of me for you know for my role in it and there were a few other things but yeah, hearing Ty what Ty went through, that was... Did it change your perspective of anything? No, it confirmed what I think I already suspected or the little things that I knew, how tough it was within DEI, because again, I worked for Budweiser,

so I was on the periphery, I could come and go. I wasn't an employee, so that gave me much more freedom than if I were an employee. What do you remember about the first time me and you met? Well, I got to laughing about this because I was in IndyCar. I worked for Mercedes-Benz, and my buddy Tim Schuller at Budweiser brought me into Budweiser to interview. We went through this whole thing, and they agreed to help me start my agency and take over doing PR for you.

But my contract with Mercedes went through the end of that race year. So I would go to the races with Mercedes and then you did the five races as a rookie. And so I knew somewhat about you, but I also knew you really liked a variety of music. So I thought, you know, here I am, you know, this Indy car guy showing up, you know, and I know that people are always after you're always looking for stuff or asking for stuff. So I thought, I'm not going to, I'm not going to hassle him. I'm going to be easygoing. I'm going to make him a mixed CD of cool music that I think he'll like.

So I brought you that CD, and then later I thought, geez, that's what you do for like your girlfriend. I thought, did he think that was weird that I'm bringing him this gift of mixed CD or whatever? And so I always laughed that that was our first meeting. And we really, it was like a PR event at DEI. So we really, it was chaos. We didn't really have a lot of chance to talk. But he showed up.

He did show up for that. That's good. Yeah, yeah, that's a good. Good point to make. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know why it struck me funny, but for weeks after that, I'm thinking, man, was that just weird? Did I ever tell you about the music? I don't remember.

We were occasionally competitive because you'd find a new song and you're like, yeah, here it is. And then I'd find something and you wouldn't always be so excited about it. But I thought that was a way we could, you know, relate. It was. Something other than just racing. So you wrote this book about John Andretti, Racer. Yes. And now you're writing your sixth book about Allenser Jr.

Yeah. I was approached to see if I would work with Al Jr. And I couldn't have said, yes, fast enough. Here's a guy that, you know, like you, has a very famous family, very famous father, famous last name to live up to. And he did. He's in the top 10 in all-time indie wins. He's won Indy twice, twice a champion.

He's won at Daytona. You know, that could go on. But he's also had a rough go. He's fought with substance abuse issues, and he decided the time was right to tell his story, to tell the things that the fans, you know, may not know or that didn't know. You know, he's had some arrest. That's been in the tabloids,

but this is him telling his story. So I was thrilled to work with him to be able to help him tell that. So it comes out October 1st. So really, really pumped up about what people are going to think because it's in-depth, serious stuff. Matthew actually even has an excerpt, I believe. Did Jade provide that to you? Listen, I mean, just to give you an insight of what he's talking about there,

This is in the voice of Al Jr., obviously. In the mirror I saw someone who looked like me, but with larger creases around his eyes and a puffier face. I was slumped on the couch, pushing aside what was left of a shrewsy, Salisbury steak, microwave TV dinner. My skin was clammy and pale. I had been sober for six months. I used to keep a gun with my snowmobile to fend off wild animals.

I felt the texture of the handle, then I picked it up. Slowly I raised the gun to my head. Tonight I was going to do. it. The gun felt heavy, very f***ing heavy. The tip of the barrel was as cold as my skin. On April 19th, 2012, I decided to kill myself on my 50th birthday. Jesus. Good. Yeah, that's not one of the happier moments. But it's a real, it's real, it's real, is real a look into a legend as it gets. Like you were open about your struggles with your concussions. He wants to share what he went through to help other people that may be struggling or have issues with drugs or alcohol.

So I'm proud of a lot of things I've done, but this is pretty up there. Talk like such a serious subject with such a great guy. Yeah. I think that I've always thought the world at Alinsor Jr. I've gotten to meet him just a few times, and I've always wanted to hear this from him. I think when somebody is brave enough to tell their truth, you know, it might be help a lot of people, but it also is definitely probably going to help him in some way, just shed some weight, you know, and I'm sure y'all talked about that.

Absolutely. But, and in most cases, and in probably my own case, I think it will give me a much better respect than an appreciation for him, you know, to have been able to get to this point to where he can come out and say these things. Yeah. because he you know when you don't share it you're harboring all of that you know inside and it's so painful for him personally so hopefully that's an experience that he has it's cathartic for yeah i'll tell a quick funny story from it that's a guy that you guys know rick hounderick

owl was sponsored by valeline and valvillian arranged for owl to drive a third hendrick car at duttona in 93 ken trader and a rookie named jeff gordon were his teammates So Al came down and Wadale Wilson was his crew chief And his car was pretty darn fast in practice And they went through inspection and they found a few things And suddenly his car wasn't very fast at all And Wadale Wilson pulled him aside and he said This is just for qualifying

We're going to do it in the race So apparently NASCAR had a say in making sure he didn't go out and qualify up front. So I think this bothered Rick Hendrick. Rick's, you know, he's such a good guy. So he calls Al the night before the twin 125 qualifiers. He says, Al, I feel bad for your qualifying, but you're fast enough to get in on speed.

So if something were to happen to your car, we've got Schrader's backup car that was second in the Bush clash. We think it's a faster car. Al's like, oh so Rick said, so if something happened to it in the qualifier, we'll total it out and you'll get in

Trader's backup car. And Al's like, are you asking me to crash your car? No, no, I would never do that. I'm not asking you, I'm just saying if we would total it and bring out Traders' backup

car. And Al takes off in the qualifier like a bad out of hell and he gets a tire rub and the tire explodes and he goes into the wall and he said before he even got back from the care center his numbers were already on traders back up car like they had planned it out and he ended up running great in the race ended up crashing to avoid your dad which again is a longer story for another podcast but uh well i just thought that was so funny to hear somebody like Rick, you know, kind of politely doing what he could to help this kid. Oh, God. Can people pre-order the book now? Like, where are you in that? Yeah, pretty much anywhere books are sold.

Octane Press is the publisher. If you go to their website, you can order it, pre-order it, and you'll get it before anybody else. If you use Unsurfive as a code, you'll get $5 off. Nice. All right. I like a good bargain. Well, I can't wait for my sign copy. Oh, you'll have it. Absolutely. me and Mike really got along great. We didn't get along, I don't think, as well as me and you did. Mike didn't put up with as much of my shit as you did, to be honest with you. Wow.

You know, I've worked with a lot of different people in that type of a position before. And, you know, I don't know, I've had some great relationships. And me and Mike formed an awesome friendship through our time that we worked together and since. but I don't know, man, you were perfect for what I was getting ready to do. What I didn't know was getting ready to happen, you know. I don't know how some things happen where the right person is in the right place at the right time in your life. You know, but you were. You had a temperament and an ability to deal with me and my version of reality.

Yeah. And you had a lot of patience. you know, you really had a lot of patience. And what's important is for people to know is that, honestly, man, if you aren't who you are and if the wrong person gets put in your role, it all doesn't work. You know, it falls apart. They're fighting and the potential for frustrations and arguments and distrust. And they're just a potential for a powder keg of problems, right?

Yeah. You know, being laid and being, I didn't want. want to do anything before noon, you know, every day. We tried to accommodate that. Right. And you did. And you worked for, you know, Bud paid your salary, and they were the ones that you needed to look to and take care of.

But honestly, man, when it came down to it, you really leaned on my side of things a lot of times. And I don't know whether that was strategic or what. Yeah. I'm going to tell you, I don't know that I can ever fully appreciate just how lucky, you know, I was to have you in my life doing what you were doing and with the responsibilities you had because it was, you know, it was just a lot going on. And a lot of things, like, you know, a lot of things might not have happened, the Rolling Stone and the thought that you had, you're just sitting here telling me about how you're actively thinking. thinking, we started this relationship with MTV. We need to keep nurturing that and watering that and growing that. Maybe everybody doesn't think that way.

They think, we check that box, cribs, yeah. What's next? You know, not to continue to grow that friendship or relationship for future things. You're just really kind of a special shooting star kind of thing. And, you know, the book was great. It was fun to have that document. you know, when you look back and I got girls now and they can read this and go, I can say this is exactly what it was like.

You know, and my version of it, my altered version of it or the holes that, you know, we no longer can feel in our memory, you know, she'll be able, you know, my girls will be able to learn a little bit about me from those little screenshots of life. So I just can't appreciate you enough. we don't talk as much as we used to. And there's a lot of people in my life. I wish I had a better relationship with or communicated more with. But I just want people to know how valuable and important you were.

And I think through this podcast and today, conversation, they'll learn a little bit about that. It's been great to put eyes on you, man, and just say, hey, and see you. But to relive some of these stories has been. Well, I mean, I can't. tell you how much that means. I feel with both of you, I kind of feel like an older brother me, and I can't tell you how proud I am of you guys and what you've done and, you know, watching Darlington and you're running the show in the booth and apologizing for Kyle Busch

saying the S word a couple times. That brought back memories. But so, I mean, to hear you say that means, I mean, that means a lot. That's more than money can buy. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, you were as important as Tony Sr. and other people. I mean, you were. You were the crew chief away from the car. You were. You really were. Yeah. And you had to, you did things, and Mike knows this too. You do things that aren't really in the job description. Yeah. You do. And the, and the really, really great ones get it done. You know, they're willing to do more than is expected of them, you know. And he covered my ass 100 times, a thousand times. I'll never forget it.

I don't mind admitting it. Thank you. I mean, I feel the same about you. It was the perfect sponsor, the perfect time, perfect driver. I couldn't have been luckier to be there. Mike, I'm sure you get some things to say about your former employer. Well, I'll tell you this. It actually pisses me off to see how most PR people do the job these days.

I don't know if you feel the same way, but like when I think about, you know, how PR and publicity is supposed to be done, I think back to the way you did it, right? I mean, you were my mentor. You were a lot of people mentor, but I don't even think you even knew it. I was talking about you earlier today before we started the show, and I said, you know, there are things that we do in this business. There's things that we're doing right now that Jade was the way. one that planted that seed. And for instance, I'd never heard of a podcast before you. Yeah. I'd never heard of a blog before you. Well, you got to be the first. You were the first in a lot of things because you were always assertive and from a publicity mind, strategic. You knew how to

generate publicity. There's a lot of people that think that anybody could do the job of being a PR rep. I even wanted to ask you this. Do you think anybody could do the job of being Dale Jr.'s PR rep in 2000? because I know what my answer to, I would have been like, hell no, because I know how much of that stuff you generated yourself. I'm just saying, I think that you don't get the credit that you deserve from a publicity mind that you get. And if this is the point 20 years, 21 years later, where people finally recognize all that you contributed to this Dale Jr. Budweiser machine,

well, better late than never. Wow. Well, thank you. I don't even have a response to that. I don't think anybody could have done it. Right. But I think I had the right temperament, and I had some of the same interests as Dale,

so we just put that into action. I know. I'm struggling now to explain it. Well, let me ask you an even an awkward question. Okay. To help move this along. Should I get a drink? Get a drink.

But it's something I've always wanted to know. I've always wondered. And I mean, really, always wondered it. And you have always been so supportive of my career. You've all, you have been so supportive. But I always wondered when Dale offered me a job, forget the part where I took it, but just the fact that he offered me a job, if I'm you, I'm a little bent over it. If I'm you. So, so I think I've wondered, if you certainly have never shown it, but did you have any feelings about it? I did. It wasn't easy. I knew long before you did that it was coming. You did? You

did. Yeah. How so? Dale and Kelly had hired some marketing people to work for JR Motorsports. So I was brought in and sat down and basically told, we're taking over, you know, you'll play a lesser role. We're going to do more for Dale internally. So we kind of worked through that. Budweiser wasn't happy with that meeting. From that meeting, it was clear that they had interest in bringing you in house. It didn't please me, but I couldn't stop you. I don't want to be that guy. You know, you had a great opportunity. You got to take it. So there was never personal feelings, you know, toward you or toward junior or anybody. I understood. And honestly, I could have continued with Budweiser. They offered to renew my deal, and I turned it down. I was burnout.

You turned Budweiser down, the continuation of that relationship. Yeah. Is it because Dale was not the Bud driver? Yes and no. I like Casey Kane. I think he's a great guy, but I didn't think he matched the Budweiser persona or the Budweiser branding that we had built with Dale Jr. I mean, I hate to say I was burn out, but. I remember we all were kind of gassed.

You know. It'd been a hard. Yeah. Long, hard little run there. Yeah. Yeah. I remember you being, I pretty worn down. Yeah.

I tell people I had my full head of hair and all ten fingers when I started, which is not true. It is not true. That is not true. He did have a full head of hair. He did not have the fingers. He did not have the fingers. I don't know. I can't say much about the hair.

Yeah. But I do remember the fingers. Well, it's pretty thin. Well, I appreciate you, answer. I've wondered it. And I wondered it in a way of, I hoped. You didn't have any ill feelings towards me or Dale, to be honest with you. But I understood if you did.

And to be honest with you, it was the fact that the writing on the wall was sort of on the Budweiser side, too. Like, you were, you were not shy of sharing your feelings about the Casey thing. Yeah. So there was some uncertainty on that side. Yeah. Which I think probably contributed to, you know, my decision. But you and I, and I've remembered this just as you're talking. We worked another whole year with me here and you on the Budweiser deal.

We had to finish that year out in 2007. Yeah. So, so that was, it was just an interesting dynamic after I have working for, you know, my mentor for three years and then going and working for Dale. And I just was always curious on what your thought was. You know, I was at Mercedes when Anheuser-Busch offered me a chance to start my company and work with Dale Jr. and my boss at Mercedes was like, go get it.

I'm envious, you know, take your shot and start your company. And I felt the same way. Because, again, I don't know what role I would have had for you anyway, you know? Yeah. I didn't know what came after the deal ended, so. I certainly hope we've made you proud. Oh, I mean, I can't even tell you how much. I mean, because it literally enters my mind all the time.

Like, what would Jay Dunn, what would Jay Dunn? do in this case or, you know, when I think about the publicity and the way we manage his brand, I do think of that stuff back in the early days. So I do, I do, your approval means a lot to me. I know it means a lot to Dale as well. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I get all puffed up because I feel like you guys have killed it. What do you think, Dale?

Yeah. I'm just glad to be able to see him. Glad to be able to talk to him. It's good. When's the last time we saw you? I see him at 24. Yeah, Daytoner, 24. I was working for Michelin.

You, I can't remember at Dale's retirement party maybe? Wow. It's been a while there. It's been too long. Too long. Yeah. Yeah.

Man, we appreciate you giving us a minute. Thank you. Thank you. It's been fun to celebrate you a little bit. Absolutely. Tell people how much we like you. I died. Like I say, I didn't sleep much last night because I was so excited.

The other thing that I think I wanted to say is, and it came up while Mike, you were talking about getting a drink of water. I think the one thing that I love the most about you was your sense of humor. Wow. Yeah. You see you see a surprise. Yeah. No, I mean, that's good.

Well, what was an example? Your sense of humor to me is, it's not the same old thing, you know? It's not, it's just something, it's not weird or quirky or anything. It's just you're, it's there all the time. Hmm. You are always switched on. Does that make sense? You were never really a moody guy.

You didn't, you didn't never come to work or, you'd never. show up for a thing and be quiet or or I got some stuff on my mind. Yeah. Or the day's been a tough one. You were always switched on. You should have come to my hotel after. I'm sure. After some days at the track.

Right. But you were always switched on. You always had a great smile on your face. And you were always kind of quick with a witty comment or some way to kind of keep the mood light. I think that was what was probably one of the things that helped us survive the, you know, the number of years together that we did. Yeah.

Did you never rip into his ass one time, though? Probably. Probably. You guys know my personality. I'm pretty laid back, so I don't remember ever, you know, screaming and yelling. He's not a yeller. Throwing stuff. But let's put it this way.

If I needed something done, I made it so that got done. I don't know. You knew how to do it. Yeah. Yeah. You know. When he got, I think there were a couple times where you broke character

and you said, hey, this is important. Yeah. This is, and this is really something you need to take seriously. Yeah. And I would be like,

oh, right? Yeah. Yeah. I see that. All right, man. Well, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. It's great to see you guys.

Great to be back. It's going to be a great episode. People are going to love it. I hope so. They're going to look at the listing and they're like, who? Oh, we prepared them. I think there's a ton of people that not only will be receptive to this, but it's probably a long time coming.

That's true, yeah. They've been waiting for this one. I appreciate it. Jade Gersh on the Dale Jr. download. By the way, this isn't for the show. But remember you called me out during Ask Jr. the other week with the Cal thing, which we're going to put up in two days. I'm calling you out.

You and Mike. I invited you guys to our Dirty Mo Media Fantasy League. You know, I get email. I get these, this is the most Matthew thing ever. All right. I want everybody, this isn't for the podcast, is everybody in the room. You get an email.

And it says, you've been invited to this fantasy football Yahoo League, dirty mofos. No context. Don't know who it's from. Don't know who's in it. Don't know who's in it. Right.

You're just going to join? You're going to click the button? Nope. It could be spam. Okay. Point taken. You're right. Point taken.

You're right. Three, four days goes by. You swipe, delete. Three or four days goes by. Another email. Same thing. Same thing. You're like,

hmm, somebody's trying to get me to come into a league. I don't know. Let's not be a good friend because if it's a good friend, they tell you about it. I'm assuming. I'm assuming that it. You're right. And so, yeah, if you would have said on the front end,

yeah, you're right. We got this league. We'd like you to join it. Yep. Then I would have got the email and went, absolutely. Yeah, you're right. But instead, I was like, what the hell is this? Who's this from?

Could be a fan. Yep. Could be some stranger and all of a sudden you're... Yeah. Now I join and I'm like, oh, I don't want to be here. Now it's awkward. How do I get out?

Give me out here. I wasn't here. I was never here. If you had to conversation with me, I'd have told you I don't do fantasy football. That's like getting a text from that. I figured you wouldn't. It's like getting a text message from a phone number you don't have saved in your phone. You're like, do I freaking reply to this?

Hell no. Because then they're going to know this is my number. Then that's going to. There you, man. I could admit when I'm wrong. That is the most Matthew thing ever. This was funny. You started this whole conversation as a way to kind of throw it back at us.

And here it is you're already. apologizing for something that you thought you had a leg up on. I'm taking it. You can't win. No, it's okay, man. Maybe you'll think again. Top five. Remember last week when you did this, I'm like, oh, we're about to be put in our place. Nope. We returned the serve right back over to Matthew. And he's apologizing for something else he's done. All right. All right. I'm glad to know where those emails are coming from. Yeah, does it change your mind? Now it's a blizzard relief that it's not some, random.

Yeah. But you're not going to join. I probably would have if it was ESPN. Or you could just quit fantasy football all together like Mike. Hell no. It's not cumbersome. It's too much fun. Mike doesn't like fun.

I like fun, but that isn't fun. I just never. Is it because you suck? I enjoyed it when we did it, but I just, I've never once regretted not playing fantasy football. So did y'all see Timmy Hills? Are we live? No. I'm ready.

Okay. So did y'all see Timmy Hill's social media posts where him and all his buddies are on a Zoom and everybody's dressed up in, not just in jerseys. Like they got on accessories. Oh, really? Like they are. Oh, for their teams? Oh, yeah.

And he's like, he scrolls the screen of everybody. And I'm like, man, I want to be in that league. Man, I'm in a league and I'm like, all right, guys, it's a pay, we pay money to be. I'm like, come on, pay you up. Everybody pays up. Yeah. Okay. All right, good job, everybody.

Everybody's paid up. Everybody ready to rock. Let's kick some butt. Let's have some fun. Let's get together. Whoever wants to come to. That's the fun. Everybody who wants to draft live?

Crickets. Damn, really? All the way up until like an hour or two before the draft. We get together. One guy. Just one guy. We're getting together. You got that one guy.

We're getting together, guy. I got a league that I'm in right now that I was wanting to get in for you. years and they finally invited me like two years ago because they get together they cater it they'll show up in suits and like have stickers made with their team logo they put out press releases just for fun timmy heels over there you're doing all that jimmy hill and his guys are all dressed up and i got the end of the draft i got one guy that texts love my team that's it that's it of all your leagues all of the interaction post draft of all your leagues how many leagues are you in one.

This one's been around years. Hey, are you the commissioner, Matthew, of your league, of this dirty mofos league? The dirty mofos? Yeah.

See, no offense. I don't mean this offensively, but I would say that that also would be a real. That would be maddening if you were the commissioner of the fantasy football league. Why? Because you, I mean, of all your great traits,

organization isn't the best. Oh, my Lord. The fact that you were surprised by that baffles me, actually. This is good content. Wait a minute. Look at the sheets in front of you.

Right. So we had one that had a typo. We had to reread it. No, that was not my typo, but okay, I'll take the blame for me. But you should prove it.

If you're going to take credit for it, then it's at least, I mean, if you're going to use it as a reason why you are the most organized person in the room. On today, the most, like, efficient day we've had all year. You're going to bring that?

This is, I'll just use this as an example. Until now. You went around bragging that you have a filing cabinet. You went around in an office area. I'm bragging, showing everybody. Guess what? Everybody. I have a filing cabinet now. No, I was just

happy. Oh, yeah, we're live. Oh, we're live. Yeah. I was just happy about my file cabinet. I know. But that ought to tell you, before Oh, so happy. Before your filing, everybody has a filing cabinet. You didn't. No, it sucked not having a file cabinet. So what did you use to file your stuff? Oh, I've got

these all the folders in there. No, no, no. We've seen them. They're all over your desk. No, no, no, no. He used the floor. The floor? The floor was his old filing cabinet. It used to be just boxes, but now I've got these little, like, binder things, and it's like I got tracks kind of in seasons. It's cool.

Anyway. Organization of the year right there. All right. Anyway. Matthew, you were having a little argument over. No, no, no. It's fun. No, no.

It is fun. And by the way, this should go for the podcast. Oh, God. Anyways, you guys guessed that you're witnessing the usual banner that we have in this room. We have a lot of fun giving each other hard time. But this is the Ask Junior part of the show on the YouTube Dirtymo Media handle. And all this brought to you by Xfinity, a proud premier partner of NASCAR. We love everything they do.

Not just for this podcast, but I'm particularly amazed at their commitment to the sport in the Xfinity series. They've been a part of many, many different things in this sport over the years. but heck they sponsor an entire series. So you got to appreciate those types of partnerships and partners in this sport that keep us going. Thank you, Xfinity. You guys have put questions in at their Twitter handle, Xfinity Racing.

And so Leah's going to go through those. Everybody knows the drill. Take it away, Leah. First question from Jake Wilson. Are you looking forward to racing against Josh Barry this weekend in the Xfinity race at Richmond? Oh, man, I didn't even know. I haven't even thought, like, who I'm racing against.

I've been waiting on the lineup to come out. So, see where we're going to start. So, yeah, is Josh? Josh. I don't even know he's in the race. He is. Is he? I think he's in.

Driving somebody else's car? Yeah. Jordan Anderson's band. Oh, great. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. I didn't even know that.

Have you raced against Josh before? Don't think, well, you've raced each other. So, I think that, this is crazy. You guys think I know everything around here, but. I think J.R. Motorsports is going to have five cars. And so Sam's going to be out there. I'm going to be – it's going to be full plate. So I'm looking forward to it.

I didn't know Josh would be in the race, so that will be fun to go out there and compete with him. And I'm sure he's going to do great. He has ran there before, so he's got a little track time at that racetrack. So a lot of these places he goes to his first time he's seen him. I'm a little nervous, watched some tape last night, and, you know, we're going to have a competition meeting here in a bit and just getting prepared and getting ready for it, man, taking it serious.

Buckling down. Next question from Andrew Shook. With all the technology and spotters today, how much do drivers pay attention to the flag man? That's a great question. I think the only time I really paid much attention to the flag man was, hmm. So when the spotter or whoever's telling you,

how many laps to go in the race. You know when you're coming to get the white, but you look just to, just, you know he's going to be waving this white flag, right? Or the checkered flag, you know, right? So you look. I don't think I look at all when there's a green flag. Wow.

Yeah. So we used to. Like spotters weren't, spotters have developed into having this major, like, you know, when I first started racing, we went, when the green flag was coming out, you either went when the car in front of you went or you looked, watched a flag man and you were going to go when he moved his arm, right?

You did all those things. The spotter wasn't saying, all right, man, all right, he's rolling. Go, go, go, go, go. You know, the spotter didn't do that in 1997, 98, 99. That really didn't start till just, I mean, some might have been doing it. I don't know. But yeah, it's amazing, to be honest with you, how spotters have changed and how they've progressed and the content and the things they say and what their role is and what they're responsible for.

And so when I started my career, I looked at the flagman when he was getting ready to drop the green flag and anticipating to start watching the car around me in front of me. And now, yeah, we do listen to the spotter a lot and never even think to look at the flagman. The flagman, his role, while the spotter's role has grown, the flag. man's role and who's really paying attention to the flagman and what he's doing has has struck a little bit i never even thought about it till this question but wow yeah i mean i think we should have a flagman that does bring up a conversation of well is a flagman necessary right do you need if could you have something automated up there right could you have a big old screen that turns green or whatever right

you know that stuff's coming down the road there'll be a day where somebody's going to think that that's a better idea. But for me, you've got to have the traditional flagman out there waving the flag. What series thought the flag man should still belong on the actual racing service a few weeks ago? 24 hours, La Ma. Is that what it was? The flagman was almost struck at the

thing. And he almost got ran over. Yeah. Crazy. I was in the stands in Darlington on Saturday and I didn't realize like how much the flagman, like, he's flagging a lot. Like, he's got all different kinds of flags. Move over flags. And yeah, and I never realized that they, you don't see that. on TV. I will say that the move

over flag, while not as prevalent and used as much as it used to be in the past, I mean, the flag man, the black flag, he still has a role where there's moments in the race that he is telling you, like this is what you're supposed to be doing

in this moment. And so, yeah, there's still some moments in the race and instances where the flag man's critical to what's happening. So it's not really a official, you know, if you're getting black flag and you've got to come down and serve a penalty, a pass-through or something, not really official, until you get the black flag, right,

until you see the guy waving it and you cross under the finish line. Because we'll hear it on the radio. They'll be like, oh, man, they're black flagging us. And you're like, well, no way, tell them that's not right. You know, tell them not to, and you're arguing, and it's not official until you cross that finish. It's like, oh, he got me. It's like you're tagged.

You're it. You know what I mean? That's funny. Yeah. So there's that. I want to tell him a quick story. It's quick. The first time I ever put a radio on my head at a race was not in a NASCAR race.

It was at Birmingham International Raceway, and I was in high school, and we were on the hauler of Jody Ridley. And so I have Jody Ridley's radio. Again, this is at BIR. And so I'm hearing a spotter for the first time, and it's his son. And this is how his son called the green flag. Ready, ready, ready, ready? Fire, five, five, four, daddy, four, five, four daddy, four daddy, go, Go, go, go, go, go, daddy, go, daddy.

And I'm like, oh, so that's how spotters call a green flag. Fast forward to when I get into NASCAR as a career, and I put a headset. I'm thinking, oh, man, if that was exciting for BIR, I can't wait to hear how the professionals do it. And they're like, ready, green flag. And I'm like, wow, that's a letdown. I thought spotters are supposed to get them fired up. And now I realize, no, you shut up. We can handle the start now.

If everybody wants to give TJ a hard time, his first job as a spotter was at Dover for Matt Kenseth. Matt Spotter had an illness or a family issue and had to go home and right in the last minute, they're looking for somebody. And I don't know how we did it, but I convinced them to let TJ do the spotting. And so maybe possibly TJ had spotted for me at some of the road courses as our second or third spotter at Andy or something like that. and so he had some experience and so Matt Kenseth's going to be spotting

from T.J. in the Xfinity race. And so T.J. is on the radio. They're coming around, turn four, getting ready to start the race. And so T.J. is like, all right, get ready, get ready, get ready. And when the flagman weighs the green, T.J.'s like, green, green, green, green, green, green, green.

And he kept saying the word green until Matt exited turn two. Oh, my gosh. ring, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, I can just see Matt, too. That is half the track, because he's calling it out of coming out of four, right? Y'all can, I was there listening. You wish there was an in-car on Matt?

I'll never let him forget it. That was the last time he spotted for Matt, too. Is T.J. spotting for you this weekend? That was a question. T.J. is spotting for us this weekend. Thanks to, too. I need to. make sure that we give a special thanks to Penske, Roger Penske. Every year that I've ran a race,

they've allowed TJ to come over and spot for me. I know how protective these teams are of just their people, their information, and so that, and we've reached out to Roger in the past just directly, like to ask him. So it's been kind of cool because it's really the first line of communication I ever had with the legend, Roger Penske. But what's to ask him to let TJ spot for me. So thank you to Penske and everybody there that's involved in all those decisions to allow TJ to do it because, yeah, they could just say no. Next question from Cous Strickland. Do you watch any car restoration shows on TV? Yeah, actually. I mean, who does it? Right. I do watch car. I have gotten into,

everybody kind of knows that I pit a little bit with restoration and I'm working on this Nova wagon. that's a big old rust bucket, so I'm having a lot of fun patching all the rust and fixing that up and not really knowing whether I'm making a headway on it or not. It might just end up putting it together and it just rusting right back out. But I do watch a lot of restoration and I also watch a lot of YouTube. I mean literally if I need to know anything, how to do anything, I go right to YouTube. Isn't that crazy? I love it.

When YouTube came like five years ago, I'm like, why does everybody love YouTube so much? Why are we, why is everybody watching that, right? Man's addicting. Now it's like I don't even hardly, hardly even, like when I sit down to have lunch, I got my iPad and I'll set it up and just start watching YouTube videos while I eat. I do too. It's awesome. But anytime I need to know anything, I'm either Googling it or I'm looking up the video on YouTube.

So to patch the rust in this Nova, like I watched a bunch of videos. like I watched a bunch of videos on guys cutting the floor pans out of these cars and welding them back in. And I'm like, all right. I mean, even though I probably already knew all the steps, I just want to watch someone do it, right, before I go do it. And just to go, oh, yeah, okay, that's how I would, you know, all right, I'm not missing nothing. Or maybe there's an application or something that treatment or something that you can do or help the process. So, yeah, I've watched any kind of like home renovation or a home project or fixing a, a particular part, right?

Man, YouTube's got it. And so I watch a lot of that, probably more so than your regular television, you know, renovation stuff. I'm also oddly interested in home renovation. And I know we did the show, and that's probably why. We did that Key West House where we had a renovation show. But I'm watching somebody sort of renovate a house, an old, old house? it's kind of fun because it's pretty amazing the shape of some of these houses are in and how they're able to turn them around.

All right, one more question from Zachary John. So you know where your dad's pink K2 car has been some rumors online this week about it? No clue. I saw the rumors online as well about this pink K2 car that it still exists out there. I find that it's super hard to believe that it would still be around anywhere. And if somebody were to even claim any car was that original car, I'd have a original car. a hard time buying it. I mean, you know, there'd have to be some obvious physical edge of evidence from photographs that you'd be able to sort of link up and line up.

My goodness. If that car's out there, it'd be, I don't even know, would it be a big deal, right? I mean, it'd be cool at first to know it was there, but Dad, I don't know, he ran that car once or six times or a hundred times. I don't know. How many times did he race that car. And it belonged to someone else, and it wasn't really his or Ralph's. But it's people, if somebody finds it, that'd be cool. All right. That's all for today, guys.

Hey, man, a lot of great questions. Asked Jr., presented by Xfinity, has come to an end. It's always over too fast, Mike. Remember to keep the questions coming to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter. That's where Leah goes to find these questions, and she also looks at your comments during this live stream. So go there and keep it coming because there were some great questions today. That's true. And if you're interested in Xfinity service, their X-Fi is fast, it's reliable. I use it. They didn't even know. So, I mean, is this matter? I don't even know if this matters,

but I needed a house. I had, I sold a vacation home and got another one that's driving distance, right? I needed internet there. And so I went with X-Finity. And so I got there X-FINITY. And so I got there X-FINITY. And so I'm a paying customer and I love it. And, you know, if you've got security cameras or maybe you get some baby monitors or anything, whatever that you may be running on your internet, you know that you need that to stay up. And you hate it when it goes down. And so I have had this service for a year and a half and had not one day, not one outage, not one drop. We've been out of town.

Everything's working. security's working. Anything routed to that, anything routed to the internet there, has never went out. So that's important to me, especially with two kids in the house, needing to know what's going on with them while they're sleeping and so forth.

So just can't see enough about Xfinity X-Fi. It's great stuff. And I've owned several different brands and several different services in my life, but it's pretty dependable. So thanks for Xfinity and everything to do for NASCAR. They're a proud premier partner of NASCAR, a great partner of this show.

Last call. All right, last call, episode 356. Everyone's been catching up on Lost Speedways. Season 2 streaming on Peacock TV, well, good news for all you fans in Canada. Man, we get so many tweets from people from Canada. Wanting to watch, anytime I post about it on Instagram, Leah, you see them. Everybody. What about Canada?

Right. Well, we got your. you hooked up Canada, History Channel, the Canada History Channel, I guess. There's a Canada History Channel, CA. Yeah, History Channel Canada. Well, that's right. You can watch Lost Speedways now on History Channel Canada, just like last year where Canadians were able to watch season one.

Now season two is airing on that network. So that's great news for you guys. Check out your local guide and see when it's coming on. You'll be able to record it or whatever. I'm glad because I know we got tons of people up there. in Canada that support what we're doing. And it sucks when they're not able to enjoy the content we create. So here you guys go, man.

Let us know what you think. Not just that, but there's Canada tracks that we have on our list that we want to get to once these pandemic travel restrictions ease up. That's a great point. So, but please let us know what you think about season two. What you like, what you'd love to see in season three. Yeah, tell your friends, right? Point everybody toward the history channel so they can watch it as well. In 30 years of doing interviews, Rick Houston says this week's episode of the glorious white-knuckled Godfearing spun out and half-turned-over racing stories podcast was the most intense and powerful one that he has ever done.

He's done tons of interviews. Yes, he is. Over his career, 30 years. It's with Scotty Maxwell, who's the former Hendrick Motorsports Weekend Warrior. Scotty, though, he was on ground zero as a firefighter in September 11th, 2001 during the attacks there on the World Trade Center. Tower, so here's a clip. We get up to about as far as I get debris-wise, which is about less than 200 yards from where the South Tower is, and I'm looking up at the North Tower that's still burning.

Now the radio's starting to crackle back to life. Guys are calling for help. People are giving reports of what's going on. And I take my guys. Now I used to, you know, I used to do a little coaching back to the old days. So I get my guys off the rig and I got their backs to the North Tower. And as I'm watching the North Tower, I'm trying to explain to these guys what I want them to do. So I'm trying to tell my guys, okay, I want you to grab this equipment.

I know we're an engine company, but we have to go and try and help. We're going to see what we can do. I don't know who's still. Man, but, bah. And as I'm talking, the North Tower collapses. All right, guys, check out the download on TV.

That's right, the Dell Jr. download. 6 p.m. Eastern on NBC Sports Network. Is there a day that this comes on? Thursday. Oh. Thursday.

6 p.m. I kind of left out on Thursday. You left that out right here. Yeah, well, I'm glad that you're paying attention. Well, I don't want people to show up on the wrong day. Yeah, they're just waiting every day. 6 p.m. 7 o'clock.

Is this the day? All right, Thursday, 6 p.m. NBC Sports Network. So this weekend, doubleheader Richmond, I'm racing in the Xfinity Race. I know everybody's excited. We're recording this on Monday. I will get excited. I am not excited right yet. Oh, really?

No. I can't keep that at that energy all week. Yeah, I understand. Pace yourself. Yeah. I will get excited when it's time to be excited. I had a curiosity, when do you think that will be? When's the race?

Friday? Saturday? Saturday? That's when I'll be excited. Saturday morning. The race is Saturday. Just to be clear, you said Friday. So it's not like he's going to...

I just leave out days. I'm not good with this days thing. The race is Saturday morning, so that's the day I'll wake up and excitement will be there. All right. All right. So I'm going up after this podcast to sit in on a competition meeting so we can go over. We're going to watch a little bit of last year's race. race or earlier, or the race that earlier this year.

And get ready. Get ready. We're going to get ready. We're preparing. It should be a lot of fun. I watched a couple races last night. I woke up at 4.30 in the morning. And one of our littlest one needed a bottle, so Amy gets up and gets the bottle.

And I took the dogs out and then went upstairs and watched, you know, probably 150 laps or something of one of the races. Just getting it in my mind, man, getting ready for, because we're going to go there, no practice, hit the ground running. that's going to be great. I can't wait until a starting lineup comes out. When does that come out? It should be out.

But time you're listening to this podcast, maybe I'll know where I'm starting. Look forward to it, though. It's going to be good. It's going to be fun. We're going to be at the racetrack. We're going to have our family there. We're going to be on pit road. Ila, three years old, is going to see her dad in a suit and go, wow.

Because she knows who Lightning and McQueen is. She says sometimes she kind of wants to be a racer. She's picking up on all the little details. She's starting to figure this out and understand kind of what's going on, right? And I think that's going to blow her mind When she sees me out there And climbing that car and drive away She can be like, oh, wow, okay

You do this Yeah, I thought you just talked about this I think out of all of the things that might happen that day That part is the one I'm looking forward to Okay? Yeah So, but we got a lot of work to do this week Before we can get excited

Yeah, the work part of it's coming back Yeah, that's right There's a lot of going on this week, Mike. We will get excited later. Well, I do wish you luck, and that's in all sincerity. I hope it goes well, and you give them hell. We could get excited now, but there's work to do. Oh, no, no, no. We don't need to get excited yet. Will we get excited on Saturday? I probably will get a head start on you. All right. I mean, Friday feels like a good day to get excited. If you get excited first, don't tell me. Don't tell you? Don't tell me. You don't want me to exude excitement.

I'm planning. I'm planning. I'm. I'm planning to get excited Saturday morning. Okay. If you do it sooner, just keep it to yourself. I'll try. Well, you can talk amongst other people that might be excited. Can I send you a gift that just, somebody that's like, you know, excited,

but I don't say the word excited. Okay. I can do that. Yeah. All right. All right. Communicating gifts. Mike loves gifts.

Once you get excited, Mike, communicate that to me in GIF. Okay. All right. All right. I already know which one I'm going to send you. Okay. all right everybody enjoy your week i hope it's a good one for you we'll see you this weekend in richmond a production of dirty moe media check out dirty moody media on youtube twitter

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