The Dale Jr. Download - 358 - Danny Earnhardt Sr.: All in the Family

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

Racing has always been a family affair for the Earnhardts. Dale Earnhardt Jr. decides to sit down with his uncle, Danny Earnhardt Sr., about life as one of the most low-key parts of the Earnhardt racing legacy. Danny gives us a peek at what life was like growing up on Sedan Avenue in Kannapolis, NC as the son of a dirt track legend, Ralph Earnhardt. What were the Earnhardt children like growing up? He tells us about a path from playing in the streets and flunking fifth grade to working in the famed garage preparing Ralph's stock cars. Dale gets Danny to open up about when the family lost their patriarch to a heart attack in 1973.This family isn't a simple one. Danny and Dale Jr. outline how three racing families, the Earnhardts, the Eurys, and the Gees became one.It wasn't always racing for Danny, life at the Mill in Kannapolis was hard work, but a choice for the quiet gentleman. All the while, he kept weekends for racing, Danny was always there for Dale Sr. in his racing career from working in the shop, pitting the cars, to being his biggest fan in the stands. He tells a never-told story of Dale Earnhardt's first laps on pavement at North Carolina's Hickory Motor Speedway. When some third-generation driver named Dale Earnhardt Jr. came along, it was Danny who bent his brother's ear about the young driver's talent and promise.The story could've been over in February of 2001 after the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. But, Dale Jr, Danny, and the rest of the family carried on with the strength and grit that is known from this family. Nephew and Uncle talk for the first time about that day and how they spent the moments after the crash in Daytona.Before Danny arrives, Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis share their thoughts about the NASCAR weekend at Bristol that included a spectacular finish in the Xfinity Series and a post-race dust-up between Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick. What's their take on the fireworks between the two angry drivers? Also, Dale Jr. phones Xfinity driver Kyle Weatherman after wrecking his bumper in the recent Richmond race.In AskJr presented by Xfinity, Dale is asked if he's ever impeded the finish of a race. He also gives his hot-take on the 2021 NASCAR schedule and what he thinks about Bristol's return to dirt racing. Plus, what Lost Speedway in Wilkes County, NC should think about a dirt surface of its own. Dale and the DJD gang of Matthew Dillner and Leah Vaughn talk about their favorite racing destinations if Dale Jr. brought a Motorsports time machine to the Bojangles Studio.That and much more! 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.

Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, from Moorsville, North Carolina. Live, sweet tea from the Bojangles Studio. We'll be coming out of the new Bojangles Studio. The Dale Jr. Download starts now. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. I'm Dellenhart Jr. with my co-host, Mike Davis, also in the studio's Leah and Matthew. We've got a great show coming up for you. My uncle Danny Earnhardt is going to be on the show.

He's an employee here, works in the suspension room, pretty much works on all the rear-in housings and stuff that go into the race cars here at Junior Motorsports, and he's worked here for a really long time, worked at DEI for a while, had a 20-plus-year job at Cannon Meal as well. Carried tires from my dad and myself and a lot of other drivers throughout the 80s and 90s.

And I grew up in the household with Ralph Earnhardt, Martha, the whole family. He's going to tell us all about that. I can't wait to learn more, learn some new stuff. So we're going to get started with him here in a bit. But first off, let's dive right into it, man. We've got one thing coming up later as well in the show. Kyle Weatherman is going to join us, I think.

We're going to try to reach out to him and see if we can get him on the show. The bumper that I ran into at Richmond. He's got an idea of something cool he wants to do with that. So he's going to share that with us, I believe. Been chat with him on the backside. So we'll get him on the show here in the beach. bit. A lot going on this past weekend at Bristol. We had an amazing race weekend. Trucks, Xfinity Cup was wild. That finish in the Xfinity race, it's been a long time since I've

seen anything. I'm not going to say I've never saw anything like that where they come crashing across the finish line. Actually was involved in something just like that at Concord Motor Speedway in 1992 in a street stock. Me and Ray Hardard crashed across the finish line together. And he won. And I was the second. place finisher. But pretty wild weekend and a successful weekend. We're going to talk a little bit about Bristol the track and the Ask Junior portion of the show. But let's go right into, you know, what we saw on Sunday night with the, I mean, first off, the Exfinity race was amazing. I don't really have any problem with anything going on there. I thought they raced each other hard.

Everybody kind of did the same thing to each other. Nobody was more at fault than anyone else. and then we go to the cup race and this is what I always worry so in the Xfinity series those guys are trying to make a name for themselves they come in there and they drive their guts out and they're way over their heads and they make do make mistakes right

and it's it's great to watch when you go to the cup series those guys are more experienced they're more they're more level-headed they're less prone to mistakes, they're less prone to lose their cool, they're less prone to bad judgment.

And typically what we see, if we get a wild, crazy show on Xfinity series, the cup is a little more taint, a little more subdued, a little more organized, professional, whatever you want to call it. So I was a little worried that the cup race was going to really struggle

to live up to the hype and what we had seen so far out of the trucks and the Xfinity cars but it did not disappoint. It was an exciting race, and we had a lot of guys that got up there toward the front that looked like they had the car to win, and when it comes down to it,

we had a pretty, I don't know, controversial is not the word, but we had a pretty drama-filled result. Everybody knows about it. Chase Elliott leading the race, he's battling Kevin Harvick, who's trying to pass him for the lead. They finally get kind of bottled up

around the slap car on the back straight, away and dive down into turn three, three wide. Harvick committed to the corner, slides up into the door of the nine car, it cuts the left front tire of Chase Elliott's car and he has to come to pit road. Now Harvick's the leader. Larson's trying to chase him down, Kyle Larson. Harvick's probably going to win the race. Chase comes back onto the racetrack after getting the left front tire changed.

He passes about three cars and then passes Harvick. And then parked his car right in front of Harvick. He didn't try, you know, he appeared to me and to a lot of people to just sit there in front of Kevin just out of reach of Kevin's car, but in the way enough or in a position to make things a little more difficult for Kevin. At least Kevin certainly felt that what Chase did in those last few laps cost him the race. So Kyle Larson passes Harvick, wins the race, and then we had a epic meeting on pit road and the crowd

booed Harvick. I was a little surprised by that because honestly, I didn't see either driver do anything that was, oh, that's wrong. Oh, that's bullshit. I personally watching the race, can't go back and look at it and go, man, that's messed up what he did. That's messed up what this guy did. They both, you know,

if Chase wants to, pull out on the racetrack and make it difficult for Harvick and he's mad fine you know I think he he can do that you know he didn't nobody got put in the fence nobody got wrecked intentionally chase was upset with the way Harvick doored him and cut his tire and he came out and did what he wanted to do about it but I was surprised they booed Kevin over what over his involvement but I really liked seeing those two guys

upset and fiery and going to talk about it, right? Going to figure it out. It felt like old Bristol. It did. It really did. And it's exactly what we need. I know these guys can't, I know that they don't have the mental stamina and the energy to do this every single week.

But this is exactly what our sport was made on. Yes. And if we can't have that at some points throughout the year, we won't survive. We've got to have those rivalries. We've got to have those drivers button heads from time to time. And it's absolutely got to spill out into the media and be part of what draws people to the racetrack.

And so it took me a long time to figure that out. And so anyways, you know, they had the conversation. I thought it was good that they continued that conversation. You know, obviously they could argue on pit road and then go home and then maybe make a phone call or whatever or pick it back up at the next race. They decided to continue the conversation. I guess I don't know how who found who or who tracked who down, but they get back together and now they're having more of a discussion that ended up going into the holler,

which I thought was good, you know, settle it, figure it out. It was actually kind of mature. Man to man face to face, have the conversation, right? It's the hardest thing to do, but it's absolutely the right thing to do. Somebody told me a long time ago some great advice. When you have to make a choice about something, usually the right choice is the most difficult of the choices to make. Right. When it comes to handling a problem with somebody, you've got a disagreement, whether it's with your wife, your brother, your friend.

The best way to handle it is probably to go see them and have that conversation. That's probably the most effort that you're going to have to put into it. You could call them, you could text them, but is that really going to fix it, right? Is that really going to allow them to have the opportunity to see your opinion, talk to you, rebuttal, right? Yeah. Communication, right. So, you know, sometimes we try to take the easy way out.

But, you know, in this case, I think those guys made the right choice having that conversation and figuring it out. I don't know what was said up in the hauler, whether they came to an agreement or not. Maybe they didn't. I doubt. I mean, it's probably impossible for them to walk out of there going, yeah, we agree. We're good. Yeah, I doubt it.

I'm pretty sure they probably still don't see it the same. But, Mike, you, how do you feel about it? I mean, just on track stuff. Does anybody think somebody did anything really egregious? First of all, I think that as interesting, first of all, I did not think anybody did anything egregious until Chase Elliott introduced the thought that it was on purpose that Kevin did know that he was, cutting his tire down because he also says he did it at Darlington. Now, whether it's true or not, that's what Chase believes.

So Chase believes it was a deliberate racing tactic. And I was listening to Bianke's and Jeff Gluck's podcast. And Jeff Gluck also agrees with that. He says, yes, I think Kevin absolutely knows what he's doing, even in cutting the tire down. I would have just thought that was just a short track racing incident. Now, I think that that's where you're going to have the disagreements, whatever. I absolutely loved everything about this race.

absolutely loved the confrontation afterwards. I was sitting there, you know, giddy, giddie, just, you know, giggling like a little schoolgirl at the whole thing. And I also think that they actually showed that they respect each other by continuing the conversation. Like, I'd never seen respect like that out of two guys that actually wanted to kill each other. But you don't sit there and continue conversation with somebody. You don't care if they get or hear your point. But for some reason, it mattered to one of them.

if not both. If not both. To continue trying to communicate their side of that whole thing. I don't know where it ended up, but I'm telling you what, man, I'd been thinking recently, why have we not had any good old confrontations lately? Like, where's Denny? Why is everything happening off the track, you know, all this stuff? Why don't we having any on-track feuds?

And boy, did we get one this past weekend? It was beautiful. Well, the intensity always seems to ramp up as we get closer and closer to a side in this championship, and everybody's working their guts out, and emotions are high. And so it's no surprise to me that when we go to a short track at a key point in the season, I mean, we got the same thing a couple years ago between Denny and Chase at Martinsville. And we walked out of that racetrack that night, and I thought, man, if we could bottle this up and have this every night, We should try to strive to create this every night.

And we can only create these incidents. We can only create what we're having at short tracks. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so here we go to Bristol. And I felt the same way again. If I could figure out a way to create this every single week, we'd have, you know, we'd have the biggest thing going.

Jeff Gluck's good race pole, I think the top three are short tracks or Bristol or whatever. They're all Bristol. Yeah. Yeah. Right. The top, and it's, that broke a record

this week. Yeah, it's 95% right. Amazing, right? So, that's no fluke. No. You want to know

the funniest part of that whole thing? This is the part that cracked me up. Kevin Harvick, you know, completely tailgate a guy all the way down

pit road after the race. You get out, you slam your helmet down, nearly break your glasses. You cuss straight through a TV interview, but then you get mad because one guy's

going to hold up a camera. one guy, one media guys that's going to get you kind of bent sideways. You did this in front of 100,000 people. Yeah. But this one guy's going to hold up a camera and just going to, like, I just thought it was hilarious. Yeah.

You know, it's like going to the strip club and get a lap dance, paying for a lap dance, and then feeling violated afterwards. Yeah. Don't make sense. I guess, yeah. I mean, I don't know why they, they, I mean, Jordan is there to do his job and they're having that conversation, and this is the world we live in.

Yeah. Right? And so I guess, you know, I don't know. I just thought I was so amused. I was entertained. It's nice to be entertained by the whole thing. That part was funny. It was funny.

Wasn't it not? That part was amusing where they were trying to have the conversation. They were getting annoyed with Jordan. Yeah, and Rick's, Rick Allen's. calling it like it's an actual like a baseball play or something he's like now he goes over to jordan bionki bionki holding up a camera jeff burton drops in yeah he doesn't really want that happening right now i mean it was hilarious i didn't know they had their u sc fighter with them the cowboy god was that that was that was that no yeah you had that big guy with the guy with the flag

it's like kind of like uh getting in bionkies that was cowboy chrone i i don't think josh didn't say right i don't think i don't think that was i don't think that was i don't think that was i don't think guy was with them. I don't know. I think that was a fan. Who was that muscle guy? Really? I really don't think so.

That's the big debate. That's what door bumper clear was asking. But I honestly, Josh did not. Josh Jones said that that's not. Josh called you. Yeah, I talked to Josh Jones. What did y'all talk about? He's fine.

That's another funny part of that whole story. That part I thought was absolutely the most annoying thing ever is when we're standing there watching, when we're standing there watching Chase and Harvick, have a conversation. So, all right, Chase, chases out of the car, helmet off, finger in Harvick's face. Okay, hey, add-a-boy, Chase. Way to stand up for yourself. Harvick is more than capable of handling his own s'n't, right? We've seen him go after Carl Edwards and push Jimmy Johnson, push Brad Kislauski. I mean, Harvick is, yeah, yeah, put Edwards in a headlock. Harbick don't need nobody help,

but Josh Jones is standing there rolling his eyes after every... Josh Jones was like the girlfriend. Standing there rolling his eyes and everything Chase was saying. Oh, whatever. Whatever? Oh, really? Hey, you say what you want about, Josh. I think the guy deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

You know what? In a moment when two guys literally wanted to kill each other, it was because of Josh that they somehow found common agreement. And the common agreement was he wasn't really helping the situation at all. Did you notice that? Like, because Chase said, Chase finally comes off Harvick, looks at Josh and he's just like, would you just shut up? Yeah.

And Harvick kind of looks at him. He was like, you know, you kind of need to shut up. And I'm like, there you go, Josh. Way to go. Way to break. In no other situation. I can't believe Josh was doing. I couldn't believe Josh was doing that.

because Josh, you know, Josh is, uh, he's his manager. Yeah, he's a manager for Harvick. He also is part owner of the management company that they have with the UFC fighters and all the other athletes, right, Mike? Yeah, 100%. So he knows, he knows what stage they're on in that moment. Does he not know how silly he looked in that moment? Of course he knows that. And Josh, if he had it to do over again, he obviously knows he overstepped there.

he did not know there were cameras on him. I understand, actually, like we all... How does he not know their cameras? You don't think about it. You just don't think about it. Listen, I'm going to tell you something. I got a theory real quick. I think, I think you have to think about it.

Well, am I the only one? No, no, no. You're, no, I think you are with the majority. I mean, it's like, yeah. And Josh even, everybody agrees that he could have stepped back and been just fine, right? Even he agrees with that.

Good, good, good, good. Josh agrees with that. All I will say, though, is when I'm watching that unfold, do you know what's going on in my mind? I think it's actually a deliberate thing that Josh is doing to sort of almost like deliver a message to Kevin. Again, I think that he's overstepping his bounds. What message is he trying to deliver to Kevin?

Dale, in this role as a managerial role, we tend to do this. And maybe not in such a public way. I got your back. You're not alone. sometimes you manipulate the situation. So if you feel like it's going south, for instance, I mean, a good example would be if you came in here in a bad mood.

I think you're right, absolutely. I have no problems with Josh standing there and listening and even saying something if he feels like he wants to interject. But his body language and his physical eye roll, everything was like exaggerated to the 10th. He was like, oh my God. You know, he was throwing his head back. And I'm like, I was, I'm like, man, he is, it was like he, it was like, he knew there

were cameras there and he was, he was like exaggerating. It could be. You know what else it could be? I mean, and I also kind of understand this. This is the difficult and the slippery slope where you have your boss. That needs to be a gift, by the way. There's about five or six gifts there, memes. There's some gift potential in that whole thing, for sure.

But like, it's just where when you are close friends with your boss, and again, I can relate to that, that in moments where you're not really thinking fully, like you could get caught up in a moment. Again, everybody agrees that he should have stepped back. I could see you doing that. But I could see you, the physical exertion that you would put out, stomping your foot or going or throwing your hat down or. I could see you over. I was honestly trying to think back. Yeah.

I remember that time when that guy tried to take your hat at Michigan. Yep. That was one time where you went a little overboard. That's a terrible example. No, it's not. He went way overboard on this guy. Okay, guys, Lost Speedways. Season 2 is on Peacock TV.

Obviously, if you want to watch season one, it's on there also. So two full seasons, and we're really proud of the show and how it's grown over the last couple of years. There's been some great conversation on social media about the show, and obviously it's getting people interested in the history of the sport, and we're all learning new stories, and we want to keep that going. So today we're going to do a little exercise. We're going to give our answers. Then we want to hear your answers on social media.

Got it. Okay. We'll give our answers. On social media? Right now. Got it. And then I want to hear your answers, and you are going to use social media. All right, make sure it's on Twitter using the house.

hashtag lost speedways, but I'll also need you to tag at Peacock TV. That's right. All right. So there's two little pieces of homework when you're giving us your answers on social media. Use Twitter and use the hashtag lost speedways. And then you need to tag Peacock TV. And we haven't even got to the answers yet. Nope.

We just know what to do with our answers. Yes. Got it. All right. We have a motorsports theme time machine. Motorsports theme time machine. In the Bojangles studio. All right.

We do. You're going to get on this time machine and you're going to tell us where you're going. Go, Mike. Go. Time machine. So to be clear, it's a motorsports themed time machine. So you can go wherever you want. But like if you go to a wedding, you could be out of place, right?

Because it's a themed time machine. Meaning, meaning you go in somewhere in motorsports. Oh, so it's not just the accessory. Like it's not like the old Coca-Cola machine. Like you can do a Tony Stewart time machine or Dale Earnhardt time machine. It's not, it's more than themed. And it's not a hot machine. hot tub. It's not a hot tub, but it's

motorsports themed, got it. All right. Does a DeLorean count? DeLorean would definitely count. That would be a great time machine. But that's sort of plagiarizing. It's the best time machine ever. Where would I go in a motorsports themed time machine? Mike, damn. Yeah. We've had this homework for a day. You're not even ready.

I've put all my focus on what I want my time machine to look like. Oh, really? It was a motorsports themed time machine. I mean, I was thinking about the new car scent, you know, the mirror hang scent. I mean, I was thinking about all that stuff. We'll give you a break and we'll come back to you. Do you know one?

Do you know one? Yeah. Where would you go? I would probably go to the 1979 Daytona 500. So the 1975 Daytona 500 was the first race, flag-to-flag coverage on a major network. There was another race that was flag-to-flag, and I feel like I have to mention that every time because people are sticklers back in 1971. at Greenville Pickens. This was a big deal.

This was an important race. It was Dad's Daytona 500, his first one, I mean. And so, you know, they had to fight down in turn three and four with Bobby Allison and Kelly Arboral and Donnie Allison. The King wins. It was just a wild race. Okay. That's a good one. Come on, Mike.

What do you got? I've got one, but it's a race. Don't get mad. It's a race I went to. I would like to repurpose it again. 2000, Talladega. The one your dad passed a million cars in the final laps, the one we'd have fun with you about your race.

You remember the part where you ended up driving on the apron? Remember that one? And then you almost wrecked Bobby LeBond. Remember that one? Do you remember? Remember to tag Lost Speedways. I would want to go back and live that again because I watched it. Hashtag Lost Speedways and tag Peacock TV.

This is done. Oh, Leah, no. Leah did homework. That's okay. Leah did homework. Leah, can we move on to you? Yeah. Thank you.

You want me to tell you? Yeah, go ahead. I'm going to go to the 1984 Daytona race, and I'm going to eat fried chicken with Richard Petty and Reagan. I like that. That's a good one. I'm changing mine. I'm going to, I think, 2004-ish Michigan. Man steals hat from Mike.

Yeah. Fun, fun time. When was that? Over by the helipad. When was that? I don't know, 2004-ish. It was whatever the date is when we ran that old throwback Budweiser scheme with Ralph Fernhardt's old.

Might be right. I think it was, yeah. Probably 0.5 or 6th. All right, Matthew, I'm sure you've got, you're going to go, you're going to give us about a 15-minute explanation here. Go ahead. Wow. No, I mean, this is your thing.

I'm going back to, yeah, well. Popped up and teed for this. I am, dude. I've always thought the board track era of our sport is interesting because there's nothing really tangible to see anymore and it's hard to even fathom it. So I'd go back to New Jersey to the Nutley Velladrome, probably the 37, 38.

You know, I mean, it's like 45, 50 degree banked midgets racing on wood in like a stadium atmosphere. I think I just want to see something like that. Yeah. I think that's a great answer to this. homework. You did an amazing job. You get an A. And you know what? You got me thinking about board tracks. And maybe I'd go to the one. They had that one in Charlotte, me, and you talked about in the past. Huge. It's like a super speedway, dude. Yeah. How in the hell did they build a board

track? What were they, a mile and a half, two miles? All that freaking wood. I know. Crazy. Lumber. Wasted. Like, because they only lasted. The board tracks. They lasted. They decayed and fell apart. Miami Fulford was like two miles long. It was like such a waste of money. Tracks, Tracks wasted money? No. Well, they were... They talk about Bristol dirt wasting money?

Hell no. Think about the prices of two by four today. How much that track would be cost to build with today's. God. I couldn't even fathom that. Inflation. Crazy. All right.

Well, look, if you think you can beat Matthew's answer, please go to Twitter and use the hashtag lost speedways and tag at Peacock TV. We're going to get all these answers, Matthew. And we're going to, me and Mike will judge whether they have beat your dream. Your time machine dream. I don't think they can. Well, let's see. Let's see.

We'll be the judge. We'll do it. I like it. Bring it. Bring it. See if you can bring it. Matthew at his board track comes in and wins the day. All right.

So we got to racing in the Xfinity series the other week. And we had Josh Williams come on the show. and we had a lot of fun with him on the racetrack and off the racetrack, and Josh was great last week on the podcast. And we had another driver that we had some run-ins with, and it resulted in a really cool charitable initiative, Mike. Okay. Yeah, so Kyle Weatherman, he races in the Xfinity Series

and one of those guys that's grinding it out. So he races for Mike Harmon. That car didn't really used to run too well, and but they've improved and progressed, right? So they got the 47 and the 74. Anyways, Kyle's done a really good job on the racetrack, and now he's got that car where it's competing and running up front, and that was a lead lap finish for them at Richmond,

and they ended up finishing right with me, right? Me and him were side by side through three and four on the final lap. But anyways, on the racetrack, he ran me in the wall off of turn four. He said he was trying to, we'll get into all this. Yeah, good, because we need everybody to remember what we did here. But I want Kyle also to tell us about this, this bumper, and we're going to bring on the show. So if, can we call him up?

Can we zoom him in? Let's do it. See if Kyle's around. There he is. We made it. We made it. Awesome. Well, Kyle, thanks for coming on the show.

I see you race shop in the background. How's things been going for you the last couple weeks? It's been crazy. Had Dale Jr. on my back bumper last week. With Bristol, we had a struggle with our jack, our pit road jack. went a couple laps down at Bristol. This is actually the Vegas car behind me, so getting this thing ready,

and you guys just lost some power, so I actually had some time to put oil in the car real quick and get that going, but definitely a smaller shop. We've got six cars total for both teams, so three each, and we make it work. So I actually did the math before I got on here. The car that I've been racing most of the time right here is chassis 119 right here next to me.

Yep. It has ran 70%. of the races, which is crazy. I think we're, we've got one more race for sure on it. We've got to, I got to change the nose back on it and get it ready for Talladega. But other than that, I think we're going to actually transfer over to this car now, 580, which is behind me, which is a newer car, and get this thing ready for the rest of the, the races going.

But 119, which is the one that Dale Jr. got in the back of has ran 70% of the races, and it's just about war out. She's had a lot. So when several years ago, over the last, you know, decade, decade and a half, Mike's cars have kind of struggled, you know, and run toward the back of the field. But things have changed with this organization over the last couple of years, and you're a big part of that. You're having lead lap finishes, top 20 finishes, something that I don't know that any of us ever thought that would be possible with Mike and his team. So what do you attribute to, what do you attribute that performance to? I know you guys work hard.

How do y'all make that happen? Because you're out there out running cars that this organization really typically didn't outrun. Just hard work and dedication. I mean, I show my work and my passion in the shop, literally Monday through Thursday, Friday. And then it continues, you know, when I turn into driver mode at the racetrack. You know, we don't have a crazy amount of employees here. We actually have four full time right now, including myself, you know, so, but just just surrounding myself with good people.

and just keeping it simple, really. I mean, you know, the aspect of racing in general and stuff like that isn't hard. You just really got to minimize beating yourself and just maximizing when opportunities arrive. You know, so I feel like we've done that. We've definitely had our share of problems, unfortunately, this year with smaller failures and stuff like that. But really just maximizing every opportunity we get and minimizing, you know, failures and stuff like that. Well, when you race for a team like this, it's important. that you bring the car back in one piece so you can be able to turn it around and get it ready

for the next race weekend. And that in itself is a task just to be out of the – I was in the middle of the field battling just inside the top 20 and just outside the top 10 all day at Richmond. Every lap there was potential to be swept up in something. And I know you experienced that same thing in every race you run. So to be able to bring the car home in one piece, working with a lot of different drivers over the years, some of them could do that.

Some of them just couldn't understand that. They went out there and ran as hard as they could and they'd get themselves in trouble. So I like to give you a lot of credit for understanding, I think, what Mike has to do, what the organization needs to do to be successful financially, but also going out there and performing and getting the best result you can. So that's two different jobs all at once, right, to go out there and try to get a lead laptop 20 finish with this team. but also not have the car where you've got to put a front clip on it or anything extensive.

It's interesting to see how different people are on different agendas. And I don't think I really understood that very well until the last couple of years when I got in the broadcast booth. It's really helped me see the sport from a different perspective. But anyhow, me and you were racing at Richmond. We had a little dust up. We were coming up off turn four and you come up the racetrack a little bit and I got into the fence. You had some things going on underneath you. I didn't see what exactly happened, but I guess the 51 got spun out in that little deal.

But there was some beating and banging going on underneath you and you was trying to avoid that. And I got a little hot. Kasha comes out and ran into the back of the car. The bumper right there is behind you. And then me and you had a conversation on pit road afterwards. And then we ended up getting a picture made, which was pretty cool. Well, wait just a second. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I want you to explain it. Like, what happened to y'all? Because you had some pretty, I don't know, direct things to say to Kyle afterward. what you usually said on the podcast. So this sounded more like a dust-up. It sounded like that y'all actually were running each other into the wall. No. We both had new tires, and we're both sitting there with a great opportunity late in the race

with about 25, 30 laps to go, and me and him could move forward pretty easily on these guys that had the old tires. It was three and four wide. It points off of turn four and turn two, and when you jump on the outside of everybody, you're taking a risk. It's a great place to be, but if they squeeze you into the fence, which happened more than once, not with just Kyle. It's just a product of everybody trying to fit in one space. But they were running over each other in front of Kyle. I couldn't see it through the cars that were in front of me and

around me, but Kyle can maybe explain what he saw with the exit of turn four. Yeah, Kyle. What was your band for? Yeah, so coming off, coming off four, I mean, obviously it just gets really tight. They were spinning out in front of me. I think the 51 got spun out and just reaction, you know, is to go up. Spotter didn't say that that Dale was on the outside. It just happened so fast, you know, and obviously definitely as a mechanic in the shop, you know, weekend and week out, understand how important it is to, first of all, keep my right recorder panel on it. And it makes me look differently on on other aspects of even, you know, your equipment. You know, I guess you definitely said something in the last podcast of not respecting your equipment and stuff of that.

And I definitely probably came off a little wrong when I first came over and talked. I probably should have handled it differently then. But what did you say? No. What did you say to him? I walked up, I'm like, dude, just not. I'm a bumper off for no reason. Under caution. Like, I understand during Dreamfly and stuff like that. But on the other hand, I mean, Dale had a chance with new fresh tires to run really well and possibly win the race if it actually would have stayed green.

You know, and I kind of took him out of that opportunity. But no, I was a little, I wasn't heated. I just the first thing I came up to it and said, you know, I'm a bumper off under caution and stuff like that. But, you know, it's at the end of the day, it just happens so quick. off a four. The spotter didn't let me know you're there, nor did he really even have time to probably really even say anything. And first reaction for myself is to give myself a maximum room that I can to get away from the 51 that, just in case he comes up, or I think I had the three, or the two car on the inside of me, just in case he came up. You know, so it just happened all so

quick. And I do definitely apologize for taking you out of a chance to run good. But I really wish that actually the caution didn't come out. And it would have stayed green. I think we would have had, had some, you know, really good chance to, you know, get around some of those cars once it got spread out. But yeah, you ended up, you ended up 14th, I ended up 15th. And like I said, it was just so hard to pass, even with the fresh tires, uh, with those seven, eight laps that we had, I wish it would have stayed green for that, you know, 15, 20 lap run that we could have had, you know, had a top five, which would have been amazing for this team and yourself included, yeah. Yeah, that would have been pretty amazing to have a result like that

for you guys. Yeah, I think it was, uh, it was funny because, um, and we talked about all this on the podcast last week, but walking down pit road and seeing you guys, everybody's loading all their cars up and they were doing the same with their car. Kyle was standing around and all his guys putting their car in a trailer and they had rode on the back bumper. So I was going to walk over there. Were they right? Junior was here. So I was like, all right, all right. I hear you. So I was like, let's get a picture. Let's get a picture with this thing. And I'm glad we did this because, you know, you came up with a great idea to take this bumper that's sitting there in the background. I've autographed it, and I think I should maybe give that another shot because the pen I used didn't do a real good job.

But maybe before we finally hand it to somebody, we can get together, both of us put our autographs on there. That would be awesome. Yeah, you're going to auction this off to charity and give all the proceeds 100% to the Dale Jr. Foundation. So, man, when you told me about that, I couldn't believe it, and I can't thank you enough for taking something like this and turning it into a great positive. Well, that's the heck, that's the whole thing with life, right? I mean, take positive negatives and try to turn them into good, you know, and a lot of good come out of this. And obviously, I've definitely watched your organization and your charity stuff that you've got going on and you do great with it. I figured you wanted this bumper pretty bad, so I figured it turned into a charity auction and give it to somebody that would like to hang it up on the wall.

and donate somebody to your charity as well and try to do some good out of it. That's really awesome, man. And it means a lot. Absolutely. Yeah, because I think it shows a lot about your character, but it also shows that we can race hard on the racetrack and then when we get off the racetrack, we sort it out.

I really probably learned more in this race weekend at Richmond and appreciate the experience more than the past few races that I've had where we ran Darlington and Homestead over the last couple of years and had good finishes. But I think I got more out of this one personally running 14th, getting to know you and Josh through these conversations. And, you know, when I go into the booth, we try to do a good job of highlighting everybody that we can. But it's shown me a way to really kind of dive into who you guys are and get to know you guys so we can talk about y'all and help the fans understand who you are and where you come from.

Mike, you got anything else? I got one more question. All right. Kyle, going back to that night at Richmond, Dale Jr. shows up at your car and y'all take a picture. Now, when we were telling this story, when he was telling us a story last week, he wasn't sure if you were actually over it yet,

or you could have still been a little angry. And when I looked at the picture, it looks like Dale's having a grand old time, but your smile might have been a little forced. I'm wondering, were you actually still angry about the incident? No, I really wasn't frustrated, and I'm going to be honest, So I was doing my best to just play it cool, right?

I don't want to be the fan girl and to start freaking out because Dale Jr. is over here. It was honest, and Dan, I really appreciate the opportunity. And this is crazy and amazing that, you know, getting the opportunity to be on this podcast. I was frustrated a little at time. I just know how much work, even to change a bumper in the right reporter panel is. I mean, it took, you know, good, you know, half the Monday morning to get it changed and stuff like that. But all that aside, I was just doing my best not to fan girl, right? Honestly, I mean, it just at the end of the day, Dale, you're respecting the industry so much.

And you're obviously the biggest name in the sports still to this day. And, you know, just to have you in the presence is really cool, you know. So I was just trying to do my best to play cool and stuff like that. And I probably did come off a little whatever. But no, it's still at the end of the day. Just honored to have you involved and in the sports still and you're great for the sport and appreciate the opportunity that you've given me here. Yeah, well, we admire you and we admire people like you.

teams and organizations like you that y'all are grinding away. The racing is harder where you guys run in the field. I've experienced it. The work y'all do in that shop, y'all probably work harder with less than we even do here at Junior Motorsports. You guys have to get creative. You show up and you perform. And so we just want to make sure we give you guys enough, the credit that's due to you. I'll be honest, I've really enjoyed kind of getting to see a little bit more of who you are as a person.

You and Josh and a couple of the other guys, it's really helped me understand what I need to do to be better as a broadcaster so I can better serve you guys. And so that's been a great plus for me. So I'm excited to see what this bumper can raise, and somebody's going to, you know, put this up on the wall, and it's got a neat little story to it. But, yeah, I'll get up to Denver and come by in the next couple of days and get an autograph, get a proper autograph on that thing, and we'll be promoting the link as well in the show. So thanks again, Kyle, and have fun, man, and good luck this weekend. We certainly will be paying more attention and focusing on you and wishing you.

and wishing you well throughout the rest of the year. And we'll see you at the track, bud. Yes, sir. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks for the opportunity. We'll see you guys around. Appreciate it. All right, man.

Kyle Weatherman on the Dale Jr. download. Awesome to have him on. And it's a great thing that he's doing with the bumper there that he's going to auction off for charity. All the funds will go to directly to the Dale Jr. Foundation. And we'll get you information on how to find that link so that you can go and take a look for yourself. All right, y'all, let's bring in our guest, Uncle Danny Earnhardt. Took forever to convince y'all to have him on the show.

Took forever. 15 seconds. He's been on that list since we had a list. Yeah. Every time I'd bring him up, Mike, it just, like Mike's eyes just glossed right over. Really? Never did in the text message. I don't remember that.

Oh, yeah. But they glossed over. Maybe I was actually having a medical condition and you didn't help me out. Okay. Was I dying? Even in the text message this week. Do you think there's enough? Oh, yeah.

That wasn't me. What did I say? That was Matthew. That was Matthew. Do you think there's enough? Yeah. I mean, I didn't say that. He was Dale Hart's brother.

Is there anything there? Really? What could he have to tell us? I know. That's the way I saw him doing it. No, no. He really, yeah, you were pessimistic. And I'm going to tell him.

Hey, to be fair, Danny was even pessimistic. What the hell for? What the hell for? hell four. That was the greatest pitch I've ever had. Finally. It took you long enough.

It took you long enough. That's like four minutes to walk. Why do you want to sit there? You want to swing at him? You just like that seat better? Maybe. Maybe. Shoot, yeah.

He's coming in feisty. That's what I like. That's what I knew Danny was going to do. All right, Danny. He's the quiet type. All right, so Danny Earnhardt, your dad's brother and this is a full house that y'all had. Oh, yeah.

Dad, Randy, you, and then Kay, Kathy. That's, and who was the oldest? Kay's the oldest. Kay's the oldest, and she's how many years older than you, nine? Something like that. And so, y'all lived in the same house that Mamaw's in now, right? Right. And that house has been all remodeled when we're in the inside of it

and looking at the way the walls used to be. It's pretty interesting to me. But anyways, in the backyard, there's a two-car garage that dad used to race his late model out of in the 70s. Ralph raced out of there as well. So you grow up in this house. Mm-hmm. What was growing up on that block like?

Were there the kids around that y'all hung out with that lived on the block? Yeah, we had a lot of kids around there. We was always playing something or doing something at night, especially. At night. Yeah, a lot at night. Don't y'all have a curfew around there? No.

Back then, and you didn't. Martha's not worried about you? No. All the back doors is wide open, front door's wide open. What? Wow. Yeah. Slep with the doors open.

Never shut the door. It had a screen door. Yeah. Slept with a door open. Yeah. Did you have AC? Is that why you... Well, we didn't have AC back then.

Okay. I don't even know when we got AC. Yeah. Still don't have AC. Yeah, we got it. What did y'all play? freeze tag is that what they called it yeah one two three red light or something like that

what was one two three red light i forgot i forgot how to play that i don't remember how to play it oh come on now guys one two three red light green light you go red it's a race yeah you had to stop yeah stop it red go at green see who could get there first just just another form of race

something like that all right who was good I mean did you all get in fights no we got fights on Saturdays what Saturday Saturday night All right for a fight. Saturday fights. You're dead.

You're dead. And Randy and me, we always end up on a fight on Saturday. I don't know why. Y'all against each other? Yeah. They always got an argument or something. Not exactly a fight, but you know. Who was the instigator?

I don't know. Come on now, damn it. Who was the more, who was the smart aleck? Probably you're dead. All right. It's okay to be honest. Then we got in on it. And then we started chasing each other.

Who chased too? They all chased me. Wow. You being the youngest. They couldn't catch me. They couldn't. No. You being the youngest.

Right. How much older is Randy and Dale to you? Oh, three years or four. So they, and they couldn't catch you? No. Randy could get about this close. But he couldn't catch me. All right.

So what was Halloween like? Halloween, I don't remember going Randy and Dale, but I went to those other friends, and we just went wherever we wanted to. Went down to Eastwood next door, the next neighborhood over. And they had all the good candy and stuff. A little bit nicer neighborhood. But we just went out whenever. want to.

Mom didn't know. I mean, back then you didn't have a problem. You could leave the house. Did you tell them all where you were going? Maybe. On any given day? Maybe.

But it was just sort of like on TV that, you know, she'd say, holler out for supper time or something. You know when to be back for supper or whatever. And that's when we come back. What was school like? School wasn't no fun for me. No.

Where did you go? I went to Royal Oaks first. That was down towards Concold a little ways, halfway between. And then I went to A-Codod. I went to A-cock. Then I had to go to Carver for one year, I think it was, maybe two. Then I went to Cannon.

Then it burnt down, I went to L. Brown. Geez. Why so many schools? Are you just talking about, like, from elementary schools and just progressing through? You ain't getting bounced around from schools because you're... No, you had to change to different schools. So do you remember when dad was quitting school? No.

He was too young? I was too young to remember that. Did it ever come up later? People talked about it. You know, but he didn't have no education up to the eighth grade or whatever. Yeah. So he quit the eighth grade at 16. He had failed.

I've got his yearbook and his records. I've seen it. It's cool. It's pretty damn cool. It is cool. His report cards and stuff? Yeah, I think he failed the fourth grade or some. Like, how the hell do you do that?

Well, I don't hold it against him. I failed a fifth grade, so. Did you really? How do you do that? I don't know because I had a crush on the teacher. Why do you? The prettiest teacher I ever had. Oh, my God.

And she failed me, so I never got over it. Oh. Damn. And I can't remember her name. That's a bad part. You can't remember her name. I had to break your heart. It did.

So the question of the teacher, you couldn't pay attention to class and you failed? Yeah. You weren't trying to impress her by doing your work? Don't you think that would have been the route? Yeah. I usually just did enough to get by or something. Yeah. I was a C.

I was like a dad. I didn't want to do it. I don't guess. How come you finished school? I just did. Yeah. because I had to. All right, so when you're, you know, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade,

dad's racing. Yeah. He's starting to race. All right. Ralph's been racing. When Ralph was racing on the weekends, were you hands-on? Did you go to the track? Did you hang with?

Memmall? In the last years, we more or less went with Daddy, me and Randy both. You and Randy? Yeah, me and Randy both actually warmed his cars. up at Concord stuff. Dad was off doing his car. Well, yeah, with James Miller. Yeah.

So he wasn't helping Ralph as much. No. And so it was you and Randy. Yep. And y'all ride to the racetrack in the blue Ford? Yep. So they had this blue forward flatbed. And was Ralph bossy?

No. He wasn't bossy. Like hey, just matter of fact. Get this off. Do this. Do that. All right, time to get that. You probably don't know about it. I'm probably the only person that wrecked that truck. What do you mean?

We went to, I think it's Gaffney. Yeah. And I think it's just me and daddy in the truck. And I was driving. And I don't know why I was driving. I can't remember driving that truck that much. But anyway, me and this guy met in the same intersection and run into him. He had old beat up cars already tore up.

Never nothing come of it, but I run into it. No kidding. Yeah. I only heard Ralph talk one time, right? So there's this old video of an interview he does after race at Charlotte. I can't remember the year. But I'd never heard him speak before, right? And so he had a really country accent.

Would you say that's right? In that video, he did, but I don't remember that. You don't remember him talking? I think it was just because he was just on camera and he's nervous. Right. He seemed nervous. Was he wanting to get nervous like that? I don't think so

Yeah But what do you mean You don't remember You don't remember him talking like that Do you remember Do you have something specific in your mind That you remember hearing? I think he would probably sound like Danny

Like this I bet Talk kind of like y'all talk You and dad So You know he was really successful At the dirt tracks Right

When you and Randy are going And unloading his car Did y'all Did y'all realize what he was doing? Did you realize how good things were? Mm-hmm And y'all were pretty proud Yeah

when you unload the car and you're warming it up, is everybody paying attention to y'all? Probably. I mean, I knew he was going to finish first, second, or third or whatever. And he never really had to work on his car, ever. Didn't work on it at the track, at least. No, no. Now, he might change the jets or something.

He would do that. He'd check the car, do spark clothes and see if he needed to change the jets. He'd do that. But other than that, he didn't do nothing to it. Was that deliberate? I mean, you said he didn't have to. No, it was prepared already. He was already prepared.

Yeah, he didn't have to do nothing. nothing. Now, one time that, I don't think it was me, it might have been me that I warmed this car up, and he went out and run the heat race, and he made one lap and he come in. What's up? He said, jack it up. He said, take the gear cover off, took the gear cover off, and back then he got quick change gears, one's big, one's little. Yep. They were upside down. Oh, man. And he knew it. And I changed it at the shop the day before or whatever, but you did. I knew it. He knew it, just like that. Did he get, I'm sure he did. I bet that changed RPMs big time. He probably went out and won the race, so it didn't matter.

Did you get your butt chewed for that? No, he never said a word. Never. Nope. What did it take to get a Ralph Earnhardt butt chewing? Well, the only one I ever got was planning with fire. What does that mean? I was beside the shop when I was little, probably six, seven or something.

And you know how the grass turns white in the summer? Yeah. So I had stick matches, and I just lit it up. And he seemed to smoke come by the wind, I guess, in the garage. He was in the garage working. I was out there. I'd light it, put it out, you know. He'd come there and got me.

He got you. War me out. So I heard he give you a woman. Oh, yeah. What a bell. So, probably deserved it for that. I did. I was with my dad hunting in Alabama, and we had taken our preacher with us and his son.

And me and Mr. Cozart and his son, Brad, me and Brad pretty good friends. Me and Brad were out on the front porch of the camp burning stuff. setting stuff on fire and burning it. I mean, 14, 15 years old. We just, you know, just keeping our hands busy

thinking of what we're going to do next. And I had, I burnt this piece of paper or just lit a match or something. In like five minutes, he went by and dad comes out on the porch. And he goes, y'all burning something?

And we're like, uh, and he knew it. You know, he's like, and he chewed my tail. And, uh,

me and Brad were like, Like, how in the hell do you know? How do he knows everything? You can't get nothing by him. But... Little did you know that his younger brother taught him that trick a long time? Yeah. Yeah.

And I heard that he was maddered hell about that. But I heard that one time he snuck in the shop and drank one of Ralph's beers and then filled it back up with water and put the top back on it and stuck it back in the... I remember him telling that story. a long, long time ago, where he'd snuck back there and him and a buddy or two drank half a beer or something, and they got scared and put water back in it. I never hear that one. No, you never heard that one.

What would happen, though, if you drank a... Assume it happened. Does he react the same way to Dale as he did with you in the fire? I mean, like, if you drink Ralph's beer, what happens? I don't know what would happen. He'd be mad. He'd be mad. Don't mess with his beer?

Did he have a cool beer fridge? No, he had most sun drop. up the refrigerator. Oh, they were drinking sun drop even back then? Oh, yeah. I went every week to buy a sundrop by the case. Oh, for him, for his fridge. Yep.

How do you drink so many sun drops? We all drunk it. I know. You just said it was a house full of people, so it was all drinking it. How many sun drops did you drink in a day when you were 15? Just a couple, but I think I'd buy five, six cases a week or maybe every two weeks or something like that. If y'all didn't make, if Mamaw didn't make y'all lunch, where'd y'all eat? We went to the water burger sometimes.

there's a local restaurant. I don't remember what the name of it was, but she usually fixed something, sandwich or something. What was her best sandwich? Tomatoes sandwich, I guess. What was on it? Tomato mayonnaise.

Tomato mayonnaise, salt and pepper? Yep. Dad would still eat them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. They're good.

I didn't know if anybody wouldn't eat them. Tomato, mayo, salt and pepper. It's good. Now, people like different mayonnaise, of course. Like a BLT without the bacon. The lettuce. All right. Yeah.

How different is that house now? Is it like just even in detail? Like if you, when you walk into a manmaw's house, is everything still just like you remember it as a kid? No, it's all different. It's all different. Yeah. What about that shop? The shop, sent for the front that Dale put on there.

He put a metal cover. Oh, he did? The original shot is more or less the same. It's always been. Do you ever go in there? I haven't been in there in a couple years. Really? Yeah.

What's in it? all the junk just junk yeah none of his stuff's sitting there no no

your daddy your daddy took all that up to yours yeah yeah when you think back now

about where we are today and racing you know coming here to work I can't even

imagine what it must have been how cool it must have been to walk out of that house

into that shop and see Rouse you know Camero or is you know

Chevy sitting in there yeah in that shop, you know, when you think about those times, I mean, do you have a good memory of it? Do you have memories of being in that shop and walking out there?

Yeah, some of the best times you ever remember. You know? Like, it may be even Sunday morning, you go outside and be out there washing the car, the red dirt off the car, and, you know, that's cool. Yeah. You know, to see them doing that and all of it. But you don't realize you're living in that moment,

just like our whole race and career. Yours, just like you talk about Budcar and all that. Yeah. You don't even realize how lucky you got it. So what kind of dad was he? I mean, we talk about him as a race car driver, and we try to learn as much as we can discussing those stories. But when it came to schoolwork or when it came to getting ready to go to church

or, you know, when he was in the house being a dad, you know, what type of dad was he? Was he pretty easy going, pretty hands-on? How was he with the girls? I mean, what kind of father was he? I'm going to say he was just stern, you know what I mean? Just like I was talking about me and Dale and us getting in fights, mama would try to whip us for it, you know, for getting in fights.

But they would just say something. That's all he had to do when your dad gets home, you know, that kind of thing. He just kept us all in line. He didn't really, Mama was more the person for schoolwork and all that stuff. And so he was just How was Mamma with that? They kept failing. I don't know.

I think she sort of let us do it on our own sort of, but I can't really remember or set me down, helping me do stuff like that. In that house, there's an upstairs. Is that where everybody's I heard that they rented that out to people? So while you were living there,

were people renting upstairs? I vaguely remember it. Yeah. But not much. Yeah, because you go. upstairs. Yeah, you'll go upstairs in Melville's house and there's a kitchenette up in one room. And I'm like, there's a kitchen up here. It's old and very rough and minimal. But they said they used to rent the upstairs out to different people for various reasons. But so 1973,

Ralph passes away from heart attack. There's always this, a lot of people think that he, a lot of people like to tell the story that he passed away. in the shop, but he actually passed away in the kitchen. Right. What about that time do you remember? Where were you at? I was at school. What gray were you in?

Do you remember? I think I was in the tent, maybe. Do you remember coming home? Or, you know, did they come to school to tell you about this? I think they come to school and got me. Got you. And Kay and Dale and maybe Kathy were at the hospital. And my cousin Doug Earnhardt,

He, uh, somehow we got together and they wouldn't let me go to the hospital. So he had lost his dead earlier. So we just got in the car and we just rode, just went around, just drove around. That's bad. So when you come home, everybody's at the house. Right. And Ralph's gone. Right.

What is the next, I mean, how, you know, when I, when you lose somebody like that, especially at a young age, I can't even imagine. what it must have been like for you. But, you know, and then you got, you got a house full of siblings. Everybody's obviously really upset about all that, right? How did y'all get through all that? Did y'all lean on each other? Did you make y'all closer?

I think we leaned on each other, but, you know, at that time, it was more or less me and and mama as long as left at home then. Everybody was married. Really? Yeah. It's just me and her. Okay, wait a second. So let's start with Dale.

Was Dale married already? Because if you were... Yeah, he was. You would have been a teenager. He was married to my mama. He was already married. Wow. So I didn't ever really process that.

Oh, so he's just married them all up at that time, right? So you and you and Mama are the only ones living at home. I said, I'd never even thought about it that way. Damn. Oh, man. Because I would have just assumed that, you know, the siblings get together, you know, one person kind of steps up, but that wouldn't have been the case. They're gone. Was you worried about memo?

Yeah, I guess I was. Yeah. And, you know, I think she sort of got upset when I decided to get married myself, so how old are you? Oh, you had to ask me. Well, I guess 18, 19. You got married that young, too. Just out of high school. Just out of high school. I got married 1976, graduated 75. You married Tony's senior sister. Right. So Tony's senior, this is an interesting thing and follow along if you can, but dad and Tony Sr. married sisters. Right. All right. Brenda and Sandra.

Yeah. And so Tony's sister, Sherry, is who you married. Right. I mean, I guess y'all all must have been hanging out. Well, there are no other families in Canapolis. Listen, you know, I can't even go into the stories, but Sherry, my wife. Yeah. She connected all your dad's wives.

She did. She introduced them? More or less. No kidding. Yes. How so? I can't. That's what I just said.

Oh, you can't, you don't remember how. I can't tell the story, but she can. Yeah. Oh, you can't tell us because you don't remember. She was friends with every one of them. Even Teresa? Not Teresa. Well, okay.

I didn't count her. All right. He said he wouldn't get married the third time. All right. But it did. Tell us a lie. So. I got a lot of questions about that, but we could back up.

the URIs. Let me ask you a question about their Uri's, right? So I always had heard that the Earnhardt's and the Uri's were friends, but also racing against each other. So this has been before, you know, we start marrying sisters and this, that, and the other stuff, right? All right. Was there ever any contentious moments with the Uri's? Like, because I always look at the Earnhardtarts and Uri's as being tight, a tight group. But I also know racing. I also know racing at the tracks that you guys would have been racing at.

So even with Ralph and even Was there ever any time that there was friction between the families? I don't think so They got along that well Mm-hmm The only thing that made Ralph At the time, Dave was building some of their motors He built Rouse motor too

And he would come over after he raced the weekend He said, you get me a sorry motor or whatever You didn't give me a good motor He said, well I'll tell you what, I got three motors setting here One of his mine, he said you picked the one you won't Who was building the motors? Daddy was Okay, and so the URIs were mad at him.

He wasn't mad. But just blaming him for not getting the good motor. He's like, you pick one. Right. You know, you could fight. And then he's going to beat you in whatever motor you pick, right? Ralph was a good driver, but, you know, he was just. Ralph Fury.

Second or third. Yeah. Oh, Ralph Fury. Oh, yes. There's that. They also name each other the same. There's Ralphs everywhere. There's Tony's and Ralphs and juniors.

And gosh, almighty, it is hard to keep up with. It is. Okay. So the URIs, then they start marrying the two G. sisters. What was the relationships with the G family? Sherry was friends with Brenda and Sandra. Okay. Somehow, no. I don't even know how. But in the racing circles, you guys didn't really cross past with Robert G.

No. Okay. Not yet. Not yet. I really never did. It'd take three. Yeah. I knew him, but I didn't. So do you think that I always kind of wondered why, so dad gets into racing as a driver, and Randy gets into, uh, is a mechanic. Anik has his own shop, but he's, you know, he's kind of into racing a little bit as well. But you weren't. You went into working at Cannon Meal. No.

We'll tell it. I went into, when I graduated, mom was dating a guy named Wilbur. And he worked for standard insulation out of Raleigh. Okay. And he gave me a job. Insulate and pipe. Okay. So that's what you did.

Right. I did that for several years. You did that for several years. Yeah, three or four years. Three or four years. Why wasn't racing something you got into? I don't know. I guess I just wasn't connected to do it at that point because your dad started moving on to other places.

So you was helping Ralph and you was going to the racetrack and you were doing that and then you just stopped? No, when your dad started darn heart racing with a sandwich man, whatever his name is. Yeah. It was a partner. Yeah. Yes, a partner. Anyway. They started Earnhardt racing.

I guess I must have been in 11th grade then. And I was working for Earnhardt Racing. At school, you got the vocational jobs. So I got that job at Earnhardt Racing. So the teacher would come down and check on me and all that. So I worked half a day, four days a week. Doing what? Doing what?

Whatever deal told me to do. So you was in a shop with him? Yeah. Okay. In the afternoon. All right. What's it like to work for your brother? It was hard.

Was it? Yeah. Did your butt heads ever? No, he was just more hands-on. Like, he would start doing something, and he'd end up doing it himself. You know what I mean? Oh, man. He didn't delegate very well.

No. Like, I pulled up. He used to work at Punchy's Will alignment. So he changed shots, done all kinds of stuff. So I pulled up one day, and I'm going to change shocks on my car. And I'm out there piddling around doing whatever. And he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm changing shocks.

He said, get out of way. So he just took it over. It doesn't the whole thing sell. and I was just taking my time. Yeah. But he wanted to do it better, I guess, or something. I don't know. Did you ever think about quitting?

No. No, I had a good job. I'm trying to figure out what gets you. I've seen you angry before. I've seen you angry, and I'll tell you why in a second, but I'm trying to figure out what gets you, what will get a rise out of you to where you act on something. I mean, because you're so quiet and cool-headed.

I don't know. I snap sometimes. I've seen it. I snapped a couple times in here. In here? See, it wasn't in that room over there. In the suspension room? Nobody ever sees it.

No, just one or two guys. So you started insulating pipe, right? Right. And you're pedaling a little bit, helping dad in the Earnhardt racing thing? Right. And then how did you end up a can of mill? Sherry Earnhardt. Wow.

She knew this gentleman that was over the shop, and she called him, and he got me a job. All had to do is show up at the employment office, and they gave me a job like that, and I went to work. What doing what? Insulating. Insulating what? A can and meal. Yeah. And you worked there for how many years?

I think it's like 27 years or something. You worked at Cannon Meals 27 years. Wow. And Dale Earnhardt has become a champion in the Cup series multiple times over. And Randy's working at Dorton's building engines at automotive specialists. Or Dave Alt. Or Dave Alt. But anyhow, you're a can of meal.

Right. But I started carrying tires on the weekend. All right. So when did you start carrying tires? I can't remember. Can't remember. Early, early. Early, earlier.

Let's try to pit it down here. Yeah, let's figure this out. Well, I know, I know, you know the orange card at Del Run at Martinsville that year? At that race, I'm pretty sure I was changing tires. Changing tires. All right, Rain, man, what year would that be? 78. And then, after that race, I think I ended up carrying tires because they figured out I couldn't change them.

Okay. Do you remember the story about that race? Run out of gas or something. Yes, we had the race won. Randy was figuring the gas bombs had it made run out with like three or four to go or something. So Randy figured it wrong? Yeah. But he was a smart one of the bunch.

You know, he was a mathematician. He should have had it, but he didn't. Oh, wow. I didn't know that story. I got, you know, I got pictures of you at Dad's races in 79 and 80 going to his Cup races. So dad's finally made it into the Cup Series. And you were, you were, you seem to be, I know the whole family kind of was doing this, but you seem to be like his number one fan.

I was me and Sherry and Mom. Like y'all were his, you were going to make, you were going to make every race you could make. Driving. Yep. And driving all of them. And I'm sure Dad appreciated that. So y'all had a pretty good relationship. Yeah.

It still doesn't make any sense to me. Like you and dad are close. You're going to his races. He's, there's all, you're carrying tires, but you worked at the Cannon Mill. I had a good deal.

I know. You stayed at Cannon Mill for 27 years. I had five weeks vacation at Cannon Mills. Yeah. I did the time. So I could fudge my days around any way I want to. Right. To go to the race track.

You made that choice. Yes. You didn't want to give up Cannon Meals. Now when Dale started. D.E.I. I did go to him. You went to him when he started D.E.I. Shortly after he started it. You said, I want to do something.

Yep. He said, just hold off. Hold off. Tell us if it's going to work. Got you. Okay. That's interesting. That's interesting. Because he wasn't sure. And I always wondered why you weren't wanting to work for a race team always, like

from, you know, early. But you had no desire? Did you guys actually think that there was a chance that Dale was not going to make it? Well, you didn't know if he was going to make it. But I guess when you didn't know if he was going to make it, but I guess when you start DEI, that's why I went there. I thought it was a good time. Yeah, but before that.

Well, you didn't know. I mean, how would you know? You would know, you would have gut instincts. Like, you'd see flashes of his brilliance on the racetrack. Did you thought, yeah, he's going to make it? Or did you, like, a lot of people looked at him race and go, yeah, he'll never make it. Yeah, I thought he would, but that's why we followed him. Did he wreck a lot?

Not that much. I mean, obviously he wrecked, but not as much as you, most people, I guess. Did he tear up? Did he tear up stuff? Did he look like he wasn't going to make you? No, I think he's more like Dale Jr. He was more safe? I think Dale took after him because I think Dale,

when he was working on his cars and having to fix his self at night, 24 hours a day, he wasn't going to tear it up unless he had to tear it up for some reason. He just didn't go out there and wreck people and all that. No. He did not do that? No. I wouldn't agree with that. Okay.

Would you agree that there was, he had a reputation? Well, he gained a reputation after the fact, but. That was by. That was in the Cup series. He didn't have that rotation when he was in late models. Everybody was rough. All of them were. We were at disavangering late models from the word go.

Why? Because we didn't have the money. I went to Harry Gansombe bought, wore out tires to race on. I kid you not. Go in the room back there and you take the depth thing and check the depth of the, they had holes back then. Check the depth and get the best ones you could get,

and we'd go race against brand-new tires and finish soccer a third or whatever. Yeah. For the way it was. What racetrack did you enjoy going to the most in the 70s? Like between Hickory, Concord and... I like Metralina and Concord. Metrolina?

Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd enjoy going to Metrolina. I remember the first time you're deady ever gotten an asphalt car at Hickory. Yeah. And anybody ever tell you about it? He crashed it, didn't he? No, he didn't crash it.

But, you know, I'm dirt when you go into corn, you pumping the gas and stuff and all that? Well, that's what he'd done when he went to Hickory. It's the funniest thing you ever want to care. because there wasn't nobody there but him. And it was like, rom, rom, right,

of course. It was funny. It was really funny. Because he didn't know. Yeah. He figured it out, I guess. He figured it out.

Eventually, you decide that, you know, you're ready to give up your, you know, you've made this, you've built this equity in this job at,

it can't a meal. And then finally, Dad had come to you? No. You went back to him again? He died. No, his, your brother.

My brother, he passed away before I went there. Bullshit. before you went to DEI? Mm-hmm. Sure did. Why did I feel like I had it in my head that he was there when he started at the I?

No. Well, okay, then let me ask you this, because I thought you were part of the story in which Dale Jr. got the Xfinity ride to begin with. Like, I thought you were part of- Carrying tires. Yeah, I was there. He was working on the weekends. Okay, but you, okay, now it makes sense. You weren't employed there.

You were doing it on the weekends. When I went there is when 2X and Bono started the chance to you. Yeah. That's when I started. Who called you? I had been talking to Tony Jr. and Richard Gilmore. Yeah. And Gilmore got me up there.

So what did they say you were going to do? I said I was going to work for Bono. And he taught me how to, well, Russell Simpson taught me how to do variants. You kind of all had a, you had a pretty good sense of like, you had. Yeah, I had common sense. Yeah. But I really hadn't mechanics and had done a whole lot. Yeah.

So you've been working on. rear ends and suspension ever since. Right. And you worked at DEI from, do you remember the year you started? About 2004, somewhere in there. Yeah. Holy crap.

So 04, and then when did you come to June Emerger Sports? 2007. Oh, so you really weren't at DEI that long? Dang, it feels like it was at least like... It does seem like it's longer. Yeah. Okay, I got some questions. I got some questions about this whole time.

Go back, I glossed over the story of Dale coming there. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, were you part of the persuasion of Dale getting the opportunity to get in that car? No. You were not. You were just telling us a story. Who was? Dale never knew he was getting an opportunity to drive that number three A.C. Delco car.

Well, maybe it's because I called his dead and told him he could drive. So you were in the car. No, I wasn't. Well, where are you? When he ran Myrtle Beach. When he was at Myrtle Beach and I actually seen him race at Myrtle Beach. In a late model. No, in the Bush car.

Bush car, that's right, that's right. He got cheated out of having a good pit crew, which that's a, you know, buddy kind of deal, whatever. I called Dale the next morning. I said, you better, that boy can drive a race car. He's, oh, you can't go by one race. What are you talking about? You know, I couldn't tell him that. Well, I guess the rest is history, so.

But you thought enough of him to make a phone call. I did. And tell him. But he said no. He said, oh, you can't go about that. I think it actually did, though, make a difference, don't you? Probably did. Yeah.

I just don't think he's going to let you know that. right what happens his idea not mine that's right that's right reminds me

somebody else I know hey he got cheated out of a pit crew how so oh I was just talking about Dale Jr. We

went down there and had Wesley Shirele and just buddies nobody nobody

really had any experience but we did all we just lost one lap yeah they were late

it was like it was like it was like it was like taking everybody in this room and doing it. Pit in the car. Yeah. Right, I got you.

It was a good idea to start with because I never dreamed did run that good. We never thought we'd run good. Then we qualified good and we race good. Here's my next question for you. All right. And I know this could be uncomfortable. However, man, especially knowing that you weren't

at DEI that long. You would have been part of the crew, the bud crew in 2004, which is also the time I saw you snap, by the way, after a pit stop. But then Dale Jr. and the Uri split. Yeah.

And did you not go with the Napa team? Did you not go with that other team with Tony Yuri? We didn't go. They just swapped us. They swapped. Yeah. Okay. We didn't go anywhere, so we just stayed where was that.

I know you wouldn't have said anything to anybody about anything of your feelings, but you had to have had a feeling about this. I knew it was wrong. By who? Who was wrong? The whole thing was wrong. They never should have split. No.

Did you say anything to anybody? No. Just go along with life. Let's keep on going. You and the URIs are tight. You never said a thing to the URIs? Like, hey, you guys are acting like knuckleheads? You know, quit being so hard-headed?

No, it was just a matter of fact. What was DEI like at that time? Well, like I said, I didn't know it, but it was a damn good place. It was a good place, but, you know, when Ty Norris and those folks were on here, they're talking about a lot of division. I mean, like, there was no leadership, right? We had that feeling, but we didn't really know for a fact what was going on upstairs. You know what I mean?

when okay so then the split happens in 2005 i say split they swapped it's the swap right dale junior and michael get together at charlotte yeah and was it the all-star race or maybe the 600 600 something like it okay this is a points race i remember that being um awkward i remember yury tony senior getting on uh you know in front of the cameras and making a big deal about it uh nothing from you you had no feelings no no thoughts to the situation what's I didn't like it. I didn't like it to start with, so I just didn't, I wasn't, like you said, I wasn't that forward to say something, so I might have said something to my wife.

Do we need to get her on here to know what you were thinking? Yeah. Call up Sherry. She can't get on here and tell you what she knows. You won't let her? No, you couldn't put it on here. Yeah. She knows too much.

Yeah, she needs to sit down in private and tell Junior, actually. In private. And she can tell him a lot of stuff he don't know. Yeah. Yeah, but I don't know. that's even that unusual. I mean, like, there's a lot of stuff that, I mean, like, y'all's family. I'm going to tell you something.

It's, it's, it's interesting. It's really, weaved around. And that time, I just, I was new to the, you know, I was new to the bud deal. And so, like, I was, I just was kind of sitting on the sidelines looking at it from it. But I always wondered about you in that situation. Like, I was just like, wait, Danny is over here and nobody's asking, you know, him. And he's not going to tell anybody. If you ask him, I get it.

But, like, I always. I always wondered if you had any deep thoughts to it. Because, you know, we were on that crew, and we stayed together as a crew as far as a pit crew or whatever. And my job was in that shop, so I just kept doing my same job. Your sense of loyalty was to the job. Right. Not to anything other than your job, while you're there.

Right. I didn't want to go down to the other shop or anything like that. I stayed together as a group. Yeah. And it worked out. They did get back together, didn't they? Yep. Did you make the phone call for that too?

No, I didn't. So do you remember the first time you went to the racetrack? Probably not, right? No, probably not. What's your first memory of the race track? Concord. Going to Concord. The original track.

Mm-hmm. Off 73, right? Off 73. Do you remember when they were taking that place and tearing it down? Yeah. What did you think about that? I don't think it was a good idea. Why not?

Because it should have stayed forever, I guess. Yeah. What was good about it? I never, I only have heard y'all talk about it. Well, it's just a hometown track like everybody else got. What was it? Like quarter mile, half mile? A half mile.

Half mile. Yeah. Had long straightways. I can see Daddy going in the corner and out, throwing that thing sideways. How old and mail. Who was his toughest competition? Stick Elliott, Billy Scott. Don Bumgarner.

Who was the guy that he got into, who's the guy he didn't like to race? I don't know if he didn't like to race. to race anybody. Who's the guy that you didn't like watching him race? Billy Scott probably. Why? Because Billy had a really fast car and it was fast down his railway so when he got to the corner he'd slow down more and there's daddy and he was right up his butt and he would find him the whole race and then that last lap there's daddy and he'd come down and he spun out. Every time? Not every time but a lot of times. You know I didn't I didn't like it when dad and Bowdine

got around each other. No. So, but Ralph probably didn't have a, have a Bowdine type character that. Well, Stick Elliott, you know, ended up driving for Daddy when Daddy had heart problems, but probably with Stick was the kind of guy. He was like a Deller and heart. He was like, he would knock you out of the way. Really?

Oh, yeah. Did anybody knock Ralph out of the way? Not many times I remember. They couldn't catch him. Yeah. This would have been before you time, probably, but we told that story at Columbia Speedway where Bobby Isaac and Ralph had to, quite a bit of a rivalry and they got mad at each other.

And in the newspapers, Bobby Isaac, declared open war on Ralph Fernhard. Yeah. Do you have any recollections or anything about that? No, I don't. I just heard stories for years about Daddy going to Hickory and being, what, 10-time champion or something? And they finally barred him. The only time he could go back there was to run the championship race each year. The only reason he could go there because they barred him in the track.

Because the fans quit coming because they won every week. That's fact. Being too good, get your band from a track? Yes, it did then. Did they ever do bounties on him? Yeah, they did bounties on Dedy all the time at Hickory and Metramana. They sure did. When you were a kid and Ralph was racing, a lot of the racers would come to the house?

Yeah. Eat dinner? Well, not really, but sometimes. They come to Dedy for parts and stuff and help. But he didn't help that many people. It sounds like he did. No. He didn't really help us. Yeah, it was more selective, I think, for him.

What was it about those drivers? He didn't mind, just like Ralph Urey, he didn't mind helping Ralph. I don't know if he could say it was because he knew he could out drive him, maybe. I don't know. But he didn't mind giving him eco-equipment, you know what I mean? Yeah. But as far as anybody else that I remember, he might help him, but he wasn't going to go overboard. What did you do to race car to set it up to go race the dirt in the 60s?

I have no idea. Like you was, when you was helping Ralph with that car warming it up. Yeah. What would the, you don't know nothing about, setting the car up? No, I just warmed it up. Did you watch him work on it? Yeah. But he's just done with his thing.

What was his thing? Leaves Springs was big back then. I don't know. I remember having to go pick them up at the Leaves Spring Place and a certain truck or springs that he wanted in that car back then. You didn't have Coal Springs. You had a leaf spring. Yeah.

And they had to be just right. And that's what he won with. Okay. Will did, was it just regular maintenance otherwise? Yeah. Like packing barons? More or less. It's regular maintenance and motors.

He rebuilt them probably ever three or four races or something. Wow, really? Yeah. What else was he doing supplement income? Well, in the winter, he worked on some people's cars, just a few cars, not much. It wasn't like other people. He just do odds and he has. and he works at Uncle Dubb because he worked at turf shop in Charlotte.

Uncle Dubb did? Yes. Okay. Is that his brother? No, that's Mama's Mama's brother. Okay. But they had a turf shop and had them big lawnmowers. I don't know what you call them.

They had like blades going way out. Yeah. So he got in this deal about taking those things in the wintertime and he had a drill press over there and he'd drill them out and put brass bushes in those, all the mower things and put them all back together or whatever. And that's what he did in wintertime. Really? years. When you're carrying tires all these years, so you carried tires for Dad's Xfinity team or his

Bush team all through the 80s. They didn't race every week yet. When you carried tires for Dad's Xfinity team, what do you remember about that group? Why was that group so special? You're causing your dad. Why? Just because it really didn't matter about pit stops, usually. Didn't matter ever fast?

No. What about the people, though, that were on that team? They were all good guys, and they were more hometown guys, you know, not no athletes or nothing like that. Buddies, people you knew. Yeah. Anybody we would know? Any names? Yeah.

Mike Harmon, he knows him. Oh, wow. Mike Harmon and Rick Balls worked for you. He jacked, actually. I guess you knew that back in the day. It was a funny story about him jacking. Tell it. I think it was at Rhode Atlanta, and the radio went.

out in Dale's car. And we had a pit stop, and I think we changed, maybe we changed the left or whatever. So it was going to pit again. And we said, we're going to change the rights or whatever. He said, oh, what's the way y'all going, but I'm going on the left or something like that. So it was funny. You had to be there to appreciate it. Yeah.

Then at Shaw at one time, he about got hit on a pit stop. So the next pick stop, we all got over and changed tires, and Rick ain't nowhere around. He'd come around behind the car because he didn't want to get hit. That's funny. That's probably by his last jacking job. I bet. Yeah. Rick did things his way.

He was his first employee, drove the truck, all that stuff. Yep. Been around a long time. Rick Boss was dad's first employee at Earnhardt Racing. Hired him in 76, I think. And he worked until he retired from here, pretty much. Yeah, he's hired. When you say that group of guys was a fan,

what kind of, you know, no athlete. I look at that team as a bunch of buddies, like Rick, you know, Rick boss, but also like some of Tony's buddies, family, relatives, you, cousins and brothers and uncles and all that stuff. And that team stayed intact pretty much all the way into the cup deal when I started driving. Which is kind of remarkable considering when you look at race teams today over the wall teams, all athletes. But what was it like, I guess, to go when Dad stopped driving the car and y'all went full-time? Did you think about, were you still going to do it? Did you have any thoughts about maybe not going full-time, going every single week? Because when Dad raced, y'all ran 12 races a year.

12 races. Now you got, you know, Jeff Green's going to drive the car. No, they just let me keep doing it, so I just kept doing it. You were happy to do it. Yeah. How much was it paying? I think when I started, I was making maybe $75 or something. A race?

Yeah. We might not even got paid start with. I don't remember. But then it was probably like $705 or something like that. And then later on I was making $400, $500. A race? Yeah, $5,600 maybe. At the end?

Yeah, and I still wouldn't make them tire train was making. Oh, God. No, of course not. They're making stupid money now. A funny story, though, your daddy, the first time they run New Hampshire when they built that track, they went up early, I guess, checked in and everything. So we got there the day we need to be there for Pits,

crew. We walked up there and the guy that used to do tickets, I can't, Marvin, it's a Marvin? We walked up, Marlin. Marlon. Yeah. He said, hey, Dale said he's got y'all's tickets. I already took care of. I said, do what? He said, yep. He said, I know Danny Earnhardt ain't going to have $20 in his pocket. So he went ahead and paid for everybody. I think it was $45 or something because he knew I'll have enough money to get in. That's funny. So after that, every week, we'd go get our tickets back then, and he had to go in the office, get them. I'd say, Marlon and Dale's done took care of it. He's on him start. Yeah. That ain't true.

So I was talking about earlier, you and dad had a pretty good relationship. Describe your relationship to me. I mean, he wouldn't, he told you to hold off on hiring you at DEI. Yeah. If you're his brother and you come to him and you're like, hey, I want to do this, why didn't he do it? Why did he make you wait? I don't know why. But he's your brother. Why didn't you tell him?

Damn it. I didn't get around. I just didn't get around to tell him again. because I was still carrying tires, and my job at the mill, like I said, had five weeks vacation. I just sort of done what I wanted to, and it just didn't happen. How would you describe your relationship with him?

It was good, but, you know, all of us is sort of like a race fan in the way because he was traveling, gone all the time. He was gone. You know what I mean? So actually people he traveled with at the racetrack or seen or talked to or went out at lunch with, they knew more about him than I did

because we didn't see him, but maybe once a week if that. Even if I was going to the shop, or practice pit stops and stuff you might not see him, you know. Right. So I had a good relationship, but it wasn't buddy-buddy.

I didn't hang out with him to go hunting and all that because I had a job. Yeah. You told Dad that you thought I could drive a race car after the Myrtle Beach race. I appreciate that. I didn't know you did that. I didn't know you did.

But so when we're going to go race in the Xfinity series full time, what did you think about that? I thought it was great. Yeah? Yeah. Are you talking about when you went? Yeah, when I was getting in the car?

Yeah, it wouldn't be no other solution. That'd be great. You thought it was good. Oh, yeah. Had, uh, when we went and flipped Daytona, and then I think we'd run crappy at Rockingham, um, our best race, I guess, was the next one at Vegas. I think we're in second. But it didn't take long, you know, we kind of got going pretty good.

Yeah, we did. Did the relationship with dad change at all? I don't remember it changing any, because... Didn't think you saw him more? No. No. We saw him more in Victory Lane. Yeah.

Which is the best moment, the first couple. Well, I mean, there's some times when there's some Victory Lane stuff, when I watched them all races. He would, you know, he would always see you. You would always see him in Victor Lane. There was always a moment where you and him would backslap. Yep. I mean, he wasn't like that with everybody. No.

I mean, I guess I just didn't realize it. or whatever, but you had your nephew running for you. You guys are so interesting because Dale Jr. shows up. Everybody has an opinion. Did you ever guys, did you guys ever have conversations as, you know, nephew and uncle? Or was it literally always a team in a professional relationship? You know, it's hard to believe, but we hardly talked. It's not actually as hard to believe.

I think it was our mentality or something. I don't know. So nothing. Even when Dale Jr. shows up with his hair dyed or anything, you don't have a single reaction. No, it's cool. Whatever he wants to do. Yeah, they thought that was all right.

Yeah. I was all right. I got you. What was the dynamics between Tony Jr. and Dale Jr.? They were buddy-buddy for a long time until he wasn't. No, no, yeah. We're not going there. We're going like that year, the first year of the, you know, 98.

They were almost like buddies, I would assume, right? Yeah, we're close. Yeah. What about Tony Sr.? He was more like a deady figure in a way, you know, He's the one to come down on him. Did you think that he kept everybody in check? Pops.

Yeah. So like this is the thing. So we go, you'll remember this. Atlanta. Y'all are, I think Jeff Green's driving for y'all. When did you come in? Did you travel just race days? Mm-hmm.

You never came in early Thursday night. Only when we did would be, like if later on, we were doing special bus carls for. something and we'd go like I was a tire guy a lot of times for that or whatever yeah we'd go early what happened in Atlanta I don't think he was there we got it was a situation where we went we go to the with me and carry oh I meant I was there yeah okay so so we're me and carry somehow me and carry are going to go with the bush team they're doing uh they got green David David or Jeff Green driving for him we're going to go with them just to go

and we rode with them in a 15-batchervant all the way to Atlanta. And they were saying as we get closer and closer to the hotel, they got a great bar in this hotel. We're going to go in there. Since we get there, we're going in there. We're going to get, you're going to drink. We're going in that bar. It's a great bar.

And me and Kerry are hearing that. We're like, man, it sounds fun. We're going to go upstairs and put our bags in a room first and settle in. I'm not a drinker. Carrie wasn't much of a drinker either. we get to the hotel and as soon as we get to the hotel we walk in the lobby they set all their bags down against the wall in the lobby of this hotel and walked right in a bar and left their bags i mean a pile of bags right didn't even check in maybe they checked in but didn't go upstairs me and carry like well i ain't leave my bag laying here in the middle of the lobby all day so we take her stuff upstairs come back downstairs and they're in that bar and we sat in that bar and drank all night and then carry threw up and i threw up and Kerry had some kind of You said like a spleen problem?

Spleen, yeah. He had something taken out whereas whatever separates alcohol in your blood. He had an operation. He wasn't really supposed to drink a bunch. And he passed out and I was worried about him.

But I could hear Tony Sr. coming up the hallway and laughing and carrying on. I'm like, Tony Senior, you got to get in here. I think Kerry's dead. I remember that. Yep. And he walked in there.

He goes, he ain't dead. He just drunk, passed out. So we went to sleep. Me and Kerry threw up all over that hotel room, and Dad got the bill, and it was a big trouble. Uh-oh. Yeah, because I drank the little bar and all up too, did. We drank all of it, yeah.

Anyways, so when y'all were with Tony Sr. and all that on the weekends like that, was he strict on all the guys, or just me and Tony Jr.? Probably just you and Tony Jr.? I was wondering. Yeah. I think the rest of them just sort of done what they wanted to. I know Clark and Scott Daniels then, they went on some adventures. Yeah, they did.

But they didn't. He didn't stop them. No. It's just if you hadn't showed up. The next day. There are stories about them, too, like, was doing a 12 race deal and going to Daytona for freaking eight days or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, they have fun, I'm sure. Pops and Tony Junior stories, too, like laying up the top of the hall. Sleeping? Oh, you're trying to get over the night before. Oh, I bet. They ran hard. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

We had one guy when it was he never, we missed him for days. Who? Pickle. His name was pickle for a reason. Yeah, it got him. He didn't survive it. No. Yeah, he'd go with us and he'd be gone.

I don't worry about it. That happened to somebody else. Was that the one story you're telling me where you were in Vegas, I believe, and somebody, was it maybe your bus driver or they just showed up? That's not the same story, is it? It is. Okay. I guess with y'all's crowd, it wasn't that unusual for somebody not to show up for a couple days at the racetrack.

It was a little looser back then. Yeah. The racing was. All the things were. I mean, if you got a 12 race schedule and Dall and Hartshire driver. Oh, yeah. You can show up drunk. Yeah, that's one of maddest pops ever got when he went to Dayton.

And I think he maybe run to first practice, but then they had another one or something. And Dale said, I ain't run it. He got so mad at him because he wouldn't run it. You know? Oh, so, okay, talk about Pops and Dale. They had a run in? Was that common? It wasn't common, but it's just one of them things like, you know,

Pops being competitive. He wanted to be on track when there's a practice. You wouldn't go out when there's a practice? You've got to go out. Where did they get into it at? Like, for that one? In the garage? Yeah, probably at the hall or whatever.

I don't know. Nothing public. Nah, he just got a man. But what does Dale Earnhardt say to Tony Sr. when he goes after him. He just tells him what he's going to do, and that's what I see it. You ain't got moving little leg to stand on.

I don't know. There ain't no argument, I'm going to tell you that. Really? Because I feel like Pops could hold his own in an argument with just about anybody. I don't think a kid was Dale Simon. I don't think so. You can ask him, but I don't think so.

Who could go toe-to-to-toe with Dale Earnhardt in an argument? And he... Mamaw? Maybe Mamma. Really? Maybe. But no. That's the other thing when Dad died.

We more or less, Adele, when he started being popular and everything, we was a race fan, of course, being his brother and all. But it was almost like another father figure in a way, to me it was. Because we all looked up if you needed something, you know, whatever. It was him. That's who you looked up to. But he didn't seem to, you know, in the 70s, in the mid-70s, he didn't seem like he was that responsible.

No, but he was still the only big brother we had to look up to you. You had Randy. Well, Randy, he, Dale was still all over the place, and Randy was married and, you know, down to earth, working a job. Yeah. Where did Randy work, actually? Because I know he ends up going to DEI as well. Well, he worked at Beezer Cross in the Parks Department,

which is in Canapas. It's changed names now. Bezacross. And then he went to work for, he might work for Dorton for a little bit, I think. But then he decided to go to work for Frank Davao at Marl Beach because his kids were having issues with the breathing or whatever. So they moved down there for several years when he came back up here where he went to work for Dale.

That's why he came back to work for Dale. Gotcha. I didn't know he was down in the beach. Yeah, he moved to the beach. Really? Yeah. He lived out there close to the racetrack, actually, when they started building them new subdivisions out in there.

I miss him. I'm telling him if he was here, he could tell you a lot of stuff. He was good remembering him stories. Oh, yeah. Maybe I got divorced, too, because you're a daddy. Why? Because they went to, I assume it was Hickery or somewhere, but they even made a whole weekend out of it.

They went from one track. They went, let's just say Friday night. They went Friday night and Saturday night, and they're supposed to come back home. But they decided to go to Coburn, Virginia, which must have been Sunday. Race on Sunday. There was three in a row,

and his wife didn't, you know, you didn't have cell phones and stuff back then, so she was really irate by the time he got. go home. Randy didn't tell her where he was going. No, I guess Dale just took him, you know. But he wasn't going home.

What was he going to do? He didn't have a car to get home. Yeah. So he got him in trouble. I bet. I mean, it seemed like that happened all the time every other week. Maybe.

There was some mess that he was getting himself into. I'm telling you're daddy. Just like you probably remember him turning over at Columbia. Is that any else lost a big of the store? He went down there on a Friday night and that Cheval, Bade Shevel. And he turned over. And they had a race Friday night at Metralina, and he'd come all way back home, probably by himself. And he worked on that thing all night and all the next day without sleeping, and then went to Metroliner and run the race.

And fixed that same car. Damn. And the roof was smashed on it. He fixed it by himself. He might have somebody helping. Maybe Pickle was helping him. I don't know. But he was probably running parts for getting beer or something.

He showed up that week. That's dedication. Pickle. Yeah, you know, it's pickle. Pickle. But that's the kind of life he was living back then and borrowing money. Barring money. Barring it from who?

Who earned it to him to bank? He had that one guy at the bank with loan him money. So he bar the money on Friday and pay it back on Monday after the... Whenever he could. After the race, yeah. I assume. So in one of our lost speedways at Metrolina, we talked with a guy who was there that day that Ralph and Dad shared a racetrack.

There's a picture of them, and we have. Everybody's seen it where Ralph and Dad are on the track together. Were you there? Yep. What, did that seem like, hey, this would be cool? It was a cool idea. Right? But we didn't know it was going to work out the way it worked out.

In what way? And Daddy pushing Dale. Passed the guy that really got mad. Okay, so they never raced each other before. I don't think so. They never raced each other again. Probably not. That was a particular weekend where they didn't have a high enough car count,

so they merged together to sportsmen and a modified series. Something to entertain the people. So dad's out there. He's in a slower car, and he's also not quite as good as Ralph yet. And so Ralph's coming up to lap dad, and dad's having trouble passing this guy, and Ralph pushed him by him, right? You saw the whole thing? Yeah.

And what did y'all think? I thought it was cool. who all was there? I don't remember who I was there. Usually being Randy and I don't, mom was probably there, I guess. Under Uri's were there. Were y'all working on cars?

Were y'all in the pits? Yeah, we're in the pits. Yeah, watching the race from that vantage point. Right. You said the guy wasn't happy. How did you know he wasn't happy? What did he do? Well, he protested or got mad after a race.

I don't remember exactly. Did y'all ever have words with another competitor after a race? Yeah, but we didn't. No. Back in when he was working for daddy, he just told us to stay on the truck. He said you can hit somebody on top of the truck better than you can stand on the ground.

So if they come up the truck, hit them in the head. Was he as, was Ralph Earnhardt as superstitious about peanuts as everybody said? Yes. What's that all about? I mean, I know that people say they're bad look, but he took it serious. Peanuts, green, all of it.

What about money? Well, that's different. But I heard that a guy had some peanuts around his car and he pulled a gun on him or something. I don't remember that. No. walked into Bristol. When we got the Bristol, I must have been on

whenever the race was, but walked in there and I walked up to your daddy and he said, hey, I said, what? He said, you see this $50? I said, yeah. He said, it's bad luck. He said, get changed for it. I said, okay. I never gave it back. You kept it. It was lucky for me. He never said a word about it. He must have

forgot about it. Yeah. But I didn't give him change. Yeah. The $50 thing, That was a real deal. Can I tell you something? Actually, I'm just reminded of it. You can tell me anything you want, Mike. So do you remember, obviously in 2009 or 2010 when you started going in that slump? Do you know that at the beginning of that slump,

Humpy Wheeler came up and handed us a $50 bill? Humpty Wheeler came up and handed us a $50 bill, and then you gave it to me and said, get that out. But that honestly was the beginning of the slump. Oh, wow. Call him up. He gave us some, he gave some. I think I always figured that was why I was.

I mean, because I, and I didn't know at the time why you would have given me a $50. I was actually happy about that. But you, but you, then I find out that they're bad luck. And then we go through, well, God dang, but two years without a win or something. And I was like, son of a pitch, it's true. It's true. Do you guys like money's bad luck? I don't.

$50 bills. Well, I mean. I wouldn't have thought so. Daddy says so, yeah. It ain't so. Who invented that idea then? Some idiot. I spend 50 bucks.

I don't know about you. I spent it to break it up. Well, your dad thought he broke it up too, but he never got it back. I don't want to carry it around in my pocket. Did Ralph Earnhardt drink beer? He drank beer, but not socially or anything like that. No, he's sort of like your dad. Don't mess with other stuff.

What do you mean? Del Arnard didn't drink beer? I don't know. Yeah, he drank beer, but he drank, he probably knows what he drink. Me? Yeah. He liked vodka and five alive. Yeah.

He mixed that a lot. But he drank beer a lot. They had still away from brown liquor. Yeah. Not good. It don't mix well with an Earnhardt and no. Don't really mix well with anybody, because of it. So, have you ever seen Ralph Earnhardt with a beer buzz?

No, I never did. I bet. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy that ever drink more than a couple. No. Hey, Danny, what does, so, you know, recently we had a kind of a throwback shirt day. And I threw on a shirt and it was an old Earnhardt, 90s, you know, one of those big gaudy, flamboyant things. But you came up, I mean, you don't really say anything to anybody. So this was why it took me by surprise.

And you went up to me like, good shirt, good shirt. I like that. And then he walked on by it. I was like, dang, Danny said something. Like, Danny talked. And it was about that shirt. It made me wonder, like, when you see stuff even today, day of your brother, does it evoke an emotion out of you?

Those threes on windows evoke emotion out of me. Say that, there's a good guy, you know? Yeah. If he got his three, he still owns winning now. Yep. For a license plate, you don't Earnhardt license plate. Yeah, you can't beat it. You can't beat it?

What is it about Dale Earnhardt that, in terms of the legacy of him, that you feel like isn't talked about enough, or maybe we even have wrong or misconceptions? I think most of us pretty much accurate the way it is except I don't agree with the intimidated I mean he intimidated people

I don't agree with the wrecking everybody said oh he'd wrecked everybody I don't I don't see that I really don't I mean if you look at his career he watched all his races and stuff he very settled him just run over somebody

yeah he was aggressive but he was aggressive yeah do you remember in 1980 when he won the championship you wrote 79 I did You did In 1980

There was a party at Sergeant Peppers Yes So let's see It works over there Yeah where'd it go We moved it It's probably It's probably been a

It's some We gotta put that back up So there's We have in here The homemade advertisement That was on the wall Or on the door Or whatever

Of the bar And it's like Tonight come here party Dale Earnhardt's championship celebrate he's got it right here that's it where'd you find that at somebody gave it to me

not open to the public you remember it says invite but not open to the public invite guests only what do you remember about stuff like that I remember going to it but I don't remember a whole lot about it there's a lot of people in there yeah dad was a rookie in 79

wins a championship in 1980 I mean were y'all kind of like man I'm not surprised or were you all like damn that was fast unbelievable. I guess we, I don't know, I guess we thought he was going to win the championship. Yeah, well, he was probably surprised. You were surprised?

Yeah, probably. Well, when we're standing in Bristol in the infield, when he won his first race, we were so it's surprised. You couldn't believe it? No, unbelievable. I left my chairs there, I ain't got over yet. You left your chairs there? Yeah, my brand new lawn chairs? Long chairs.

They're still there. We saw them this past weekend. Yeah, I bet. They're wondering who's going to come pick them things up. That's back when they had an infield, they had grass and everything. Right. He was right next to the winter circle. It was pretty cool.

That's funny. Dale Earnhardt gets his first wind there, but the thing that sticks in your crawls that you left the chairs there. Yeah. Things that happen. So the party at Sergeant Peppers was local, right? The Sergeant Peppers was a local bar? Oh, yeah.

Did you go to it all the time? We went to it a lot, but not over a lot. Yeah. Where did y'all go when y'all went out? We didn't go out. Bull crap. No, we didn't. We had parties and stuff.

Where? People's different houses. Oh, part of the houses? Yeah. We didn't have time to go out with racing every weekend. All right. And they got married when they were like 14, apparently. They had wives.

What does a hell raise-a-night look like, though? Is it really just going over to somebody's head, like going over to Yerries? You're getting too drunk to leave home? Yeah. Would you? Not me, not normally. Who would? Dale Jr.

Tell Jr. is the one that changed the whole dynamic. All right. I believe that part. So you have a son named Danny. All right. Danny Jr. Super athletic. I'll say that.

And I thought, you know, he wouldn't be interested in racing. I mean, you weren't, you know, hardcore about going into being a mechanic in a shop or anything. Hard driving. Yeah, it eventually happened for you. So I didn't think Danny Jr. was going to pursue it. I didn't either. And now he's the car chief in the Xfinity shop here at Junior Motors Sports on the 8 car and he's had cup teams come after him.

He won't go work for him for whatever reason. But what is what about what about that's made you, that's had to be a pretty proud thing for you as a father? Very proud. And I never dreamed because he wasn't ever much interested in cars growing up. You know, he had motorcycles and full-wheelers and stuff, but he just wrote them. He didn't have to work on them.

So when he came to DEI, washing cars, you know, and just kept going. And when he came here, he popped somebody in the interior man, and he just progressed right on to where he's at. And it's amazing. It's a hometown story. Yeah. When did he go to DEI? Were you there?

Yeah, he came when I went, several months after I started. Tony Jr. paid him out of his pocket. Jeez, how old would he have been then? He was a teenager. He's in school. He's 16 or 17. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. Tony Jr. paid him out his pocket for months until they hired him. When you go on vacation, where do you go? Myrtle Beach. Who goes? Tony Sr., my other brother-in-law, and me and my wife. Tony Jr.? Tony Jr., sometimes.

He goes once a year. Dan Jr. don't like the beach. But y'all, so at least once a year. Yeah. You're in Myrtle Beach with Tony Sr. And Tony Jr., and who else? David Lippard used to be a catchman on the Budweiser car. Yep. Cuts cam in back when they had them.

Y'all have a good time. Can you imagine that, man? Can you imagine the stories that get told? No, I mean, listen. You all sit around and tell old stories? We tell stories sometimes. Not so much about racing just other crap stuff. Yeah.

When you guys went to Darlington this year, did y'all get into some old stories? You, you too, both of you. Like, y'all went to Darlington. Yeah, I was telling him some stuff. Yeah. We took the Nova to Darlington this year. right for a lap yeah it was fun i was glad danie went i could see you enjoyed it i did yeah except i had to watch the race and away home because he wouldn't stay well what we had to get back

we had to get back oh wait a sake you're saying that del jr said we got to go and so you didn't get to watch the race i watched the whole thing on my phone l w and wyatt was racing somewhere that night but i had the option to stay there but being to die hard person i am i didn't he run I didn't want to sit out in a hot sign all afternoon. See? He didn't even want to stay. Getting too old. In fact, y'all probably wanted to stay a little longer.

He didn't want to stay, but he will complain about having to leave. Is that what gets him to talk? I guess. That makes sense. Yeah, we should have just, we should have agitated him. We could agitate him some more. Why do I need to ask you if you've got a Twitter? Because he does?

I mean, like, I mean. Why is that such a big deal? I don't tweet. I don't tweet. Well, you, I see you on there? Well, I might come on there and don't say a whole lot. Look, the reason why you asked it was because, I mean, does he seem like a social media user at all? No.

No. Who talked you into that? No, nobody. He's just checking out. I just checking. It gets his news. What they put on there. Yeah.

I'm one of them followers. You're a millennial. You're just like one of these young kids out there. Do you also have a Snapchat? I don't have Snapchat. I did have to get on Instagram because of Ernhart family ties or something. Yeah. Some really good pictures.

great pictures. There's some fan sites and handles on Instagram that post a lot of stuff about data. It's pretty awesome. They just keep putting some good pictures. It's great. I love it. See, that's the picture you look for, regular people that took pictures of him at racetracks. Because you don't have those. You'll never see them. No.

Hey, what's the coolest thing you got that belong to your brother? That's a good question. Yeah, you got anything cool that you're hanging on to that means a lot to you? Only a hood. You got a hood. What is the hood? A Good Ranch Hood. All right. Do you like that?

You like that sort of stuff? I'm not a collector. No, you know. Most of my stuff I've got rid of. Because it's in the attic, rotten. You know what I mean? It's just not good. You don't want it sitting around.

You want somebody to enjoy it. Right. Is it something you wish you had? Like an old fire suit or something? Not really. No? No. You wouldn't hang it out?

If you had one, you wouldn't put it out? No. You can put them out to show, right? I don't have that big a house to put them out. All right. It's just a regular house. I know, but even. Even a regular house can show a uniform all.

The best time I got blown to Del Jr. We got a tiny regular room with all this stuff in it. I know you don't want your house to look like this. Sherry probably has something to say about that. Yeah, she don't want to, she don't want to racing stuff out. She don't? The only thing racing much is what he'd give me. I got it.

What I give you? My helmet. From where? Do you know. What was the helmet of? The baseball car. Baseball car. Hit there.

it is. We were looking for that. That's hilarious. We just were looking for that, weren't we? But there's more to the story because he gave it to me out there probably on the grass before I went to the truck. And Victor Lane. He gave it to him.

You gave it away before you got to Victor Lane. So I gave it to Dan Jr. He's blevin or something. I give it to him and his base with him. He's carrying it around. So we go to the truck. Well, who shows up? The baseball people wanting the helmet.

Because I guess they were supposed to get it or something. Probably. Some reason. Wouldn't give it to them. So I assumed there's another one somewhere they had to remake or something. You got the real deal. I got the earphones and everything with it.

The actual. I mean, yeah. If he gave it to you the grass, it could probably just... There is. We were wondering where it was. I told you that before. I know.

They come asking me the other day, they're like, we're trying to find this one item. We can't find it. I'm like, what is it? They're like, baseball hell. I'm like, somewhere.

It's in a box. Somewhere. It's for the... Like, we were looking for items the Hall of Fame for his corner of the Hall of Fame when he's inducted. We might bar it. Wait a minute. I don't know if he'll let it.

Well, it's his. It's his. I know, but. You could donate it to the Hall of Fame for on loan. Look at his face. How long would it be there, Mike? I don't know, but I can tell you, one day he's going to be too many. One day's going to be too many.

Look at his face. Wait a minute. All right, all right. You don't have to, you don't have. There's plenty of other stuff. Oh, no, no, no. I want you to finish your thought here. What's thinking?

Is there, is there a possibility? Is there a possibility at all? Is there a scenario in which you would let the Hall of Fame on his induction ceremony for, you know, let's just call it a month? Okay. If Dale asks him, he'll like to do it. As long as I get it back. Yeah. It's Danny's, so he needs to get it back.

Well, it'll be Danny Jr.'s a year later. But it's not even in a case or nothing. It's just sitting on top of the cabinet. How people do it at the houses when they have something special, they show it all. I can't believe you. you got room. I can't believe it's not in the attic. I can't believe you got room in your regular house.

I still don't have one of anybody can see it. Of course, I don't have many visitors either. Wait, you've got it out, but it's hidden away. Yes, in Dan Jr.'s old room. It's Nash's room now. Gotcha. Hopefully it's out of reach from Little Nash. It is.

Wow, man. Right on top of the gun cabinet. Yeah. I have Danny Senior's old dining room table in my house. Oh, you do, don't you? I thought you'd done sold that thing a long time ago. Shoot, no, man. It's your table.

I kind of can't hang on to that. I actually value the things that people, you know, belong to others. And I like to show them off. Anybody comes to my house and say, you know whose table that? It was the Danny Senor's table. You don't know about. So I don't want to end on this conversation, but I wanted to talk about that the dad's death in February in Daytona. So, and I don't even know that I want to ask you anything, but do you, me and you rode together to the hospital.

Do you remember getting in the car? Yeah. I don't. Do you remember how me, why me and you? Why not, why wasn't, do you? Well, it's weird how that happened because I went, I actually went back, I was in the pits, the Boboiser pit, tiring the pit down. Uh-huh. And something just told me, I think I asked, I might have asked you already, and you probably remember, I might have said, hey, is your dead all right or something like that or is dead all right or something?

And then you said something. I don't know what you said. went back to work and I was sitting there and I'm like something ain't right so I took off I started running and I ran to the garage and running towards the hospital I guess and there y'all come on a golf cart I assume and I got with you and then we got in a van and then went over there okay so um I always kind of wondered how how we found each other because it was you know I was I was in another I was I went to the infield care center and then um then I next thing I I was at the hospital, but you were with me.

I didn't know how we got together. We rode over to the hospital and a car by herself, and we got pulled up, and they pulled us up to the emergency room entrance, and me and you got out and walked in there. And as soon as we walked in there, there was that the room dad's end is like right there, and nothing stopped us from, or stopped me from walking in there and taking a look, you know, and looking in there. And, I mean, it was all just, I mean, there's a lot of people.

Right. I mean, there was 30 people in that entrance way. Either there because of dad or they had their own personal reasons. If another family member in that unit, whatever, right? There was, it was a busy spot. But I remember going in there and then me and you, and then the next thing I know me and you're in this room. Remember that? There's some kind of room with a lot of people.

A bunch of people in me, and you just sat there. A lot of all people. Yeah. And we just sat there. I don't know why. He's waiting for something. I don't know why because, you know, I remember going in there when we first walked in, the Tricia was there, I think.

Yeah. And I think she asked, I know she asked me, I don't what she said to you, but if I wanted to go in and I told her no. Yeah. So I didn't go in, but you did, I guess. Yeah, just for a second. I just remember picking my head around the corner and looking in there, but

you, me and you sat in a room together. A bunch of people came in and out of that room over the next 20 or 30 minutes and they're a while tripping a couple other people. And then they took me and maybe you into a smaller room and we sat and talked. Some man came

and it started explaining to Teresa in us, I guess, about like what next steps were. what the rest of the day would look like, what they were going to say to the public, right? Or what all was about to happen next, right? And Teresa is getting this information maybe from Mike Hilton or somebody. Or I don't know who it was.

But I got out there and back to you. And then I said, remember I looked at you and I said, you ready to get out of here? And I probably said, yeah. Because I don't remember even coming back. I remember getting back to the track. Yeah. But that's it.

I looked at you and I said, you want to get out of here? And you said, yeah. Because we knew Dad was gone and they just wasn't no reason to be there. I think I called Kelly from that room. Really? At Mama's house. They were all up there and told her. Everything you knew.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Bad bedtime. It was tough. We get in the car and we rode back and I remember we went into my bus. And Tony and Tony Jr. there. Do you remember that? I don't remember.

Yeah. We went back to the track and went in my bus and that's when Tony and Tony Sr. Tony Jr. Tony Sr. were there and we told them everything we knew. And then I don't remember anything after that. I remember getting on the plane.

I don't remember getting on the plane. I don't remember going home. That's a long ride home. It was. And then I remember then we all ended up at Mammal's house. I think it was the same night. You remember that? Yeah, I think so. Whole family was there. Yeah.

And we hung out a little bit. So you know, the one thing, I mean, we kept racing. We went, you know, we went back to the racetrack and we kept working.

You weren't working at DEI at the time. So you go back to the meal. What was that when you were, you? you're at the meal, I'm sure everybody that knows you's coming up to you. Yeah. Right?

And for a long time, too long. Yeah. Do you think that, I know you didn't get to DEI until 04, but did you have any thoughts about, like, did that make you want to be at the shop? Did that make you maybe think maybe not about going to the racetrack at all? No, I still want to go to the racetrack. because I don't know. I didn't know nothing else to do. I don't reckon, but go to the racetrack.

And that probably made it better. Being at the track. Being at the track. Yeah. With you and everybody else. Yeah. Because we were still a group, you know. I fit the same way.

I didn't want to be anywhere but at the track. No. Where would you be? Yeah. So did it make you want to go full time? You know, you're working. We've got to remember you're at this meal. You had worked there for 25 years, you know,

and that's hard to walk away from. Yeah, I wanted to get in full racing full time. Yeah. So do you think that when we went to, we talked about having the helmet, what was the moment, I guess, for you? I know what I felt like in different parts of the year and after that win at Daytona and all that,

but like as his brother, what was the moment for you where you, you felt some closure. That race at Daytona. Yeah. Like it was for everybody, I think. Yeah. What did Harvicks win at Atlanta do for you?

Did that make, I mean, I could, especially if you guys, if for you guys, it would be mixed emotions. I don't like, I can imagine I don't like anybody seeing, is somebody else driving that car. Yeah, it was mixed for me.

Yeah. And the other thing that's mixed, and I don't have really hard feelings about it, is putting three back on the track because Richard said he wouldn't ever do it. Richard told my money he wouldn't ever do it. But he did. Yeah. But that's fine.

It is. You know, I had an opinion about that. And thinking about Harvick's win, I know how the July win felt for me, you know, and you know how it felt for you. I imagine that win in Atlanta felt the same way for Richard and those guys, chocolate, all those guys. You know, all those people that were. were working and plugged into that car.

And so it was a weird feeling for me to see. We had just won, though, at Rockingham, right? We had just won with Park. Yeah. And we had just celebrated a win. And so it was like a continuation of that when Harvick wins. It was like, yeah, that makes sense. That's the next thing, right?

Park wins. Harvick wins. Richard Childers celebrates, Dei celebrates. But when Richard called and said, hey, I want to bring the three back, so if we're doing double digits, we're not doing triple-digit numbers. You can't really retire numbers. You can't retire the 43 and all that. And there's these kids that play sports, Austin Dillon.

Yeah. You know, he's wore this number three on the back of his jersey all through his childhood it and to deny him the chance to continue to do that, it means something, you know, to him, personally. So I kind of felt like it was fair. I thought they should have maybe changed the font. You know, they did for the eight. Yeah.

You know, they did for the eight. They could have. But anyways. That's one of the things that. Because now, like, like when I see the three in the window of the truck or the, or the, you know, the number three just by itself somewhere, I think, I want to think there. they're celebrating dad, but maybe they're an Austin Dillon fan, you know. And I used to know.

I used to be 100% sure on what that three was doing on that truck or what that three hat was doing on their heads. Now you don't know. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. But when your, you know, when your day started running an ex-finding, our bush car, it was an eight car. Yes.

Right? Yes. And I might have told you this, but back, it came a time, when he got doing something good in the three car in the cup series, it came time to change that number. And I got mad. I'm like, dude, that's your daddy's number. He's, yeah, we've got to sell souvenirs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they put a three on it. Oh, you didn't like, you got mad at your brother for changing that number. Yeah, because that's a daddy's number. You know what I mean? It was our reason to do it except for money. And that's why I did it. Yeah. There you go.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Would you have done the same thing? Probably. Probably. I still didn't like it.

I still didn't like it. It just wasn't right. So, you know, you came to work here in 2007. Right. Why did you do that? I wanted a job? Yeah, but you had a job. No, because the reason is,

D.I. I went in with, what's the name of that? It was a company that they bought out. Ginn? Yeah. And I went and visited that building. It was like a big old warehouse full of parts. And I'm like,

Ain't no way. I called your sister Kelly. And then they let me come over here. I wasn't going over there. What year was this? 07. It had been 06 or 07. 07.

Did this pre-day? No, Pops was here. The first of O7. Yeah, Pops was here. Yeah. He was involved in getting me here too. Yeah. And you've worked here ever since then.

Yeah. In the same position. Right. You don't want to change? Why, you got a job out here? Podcast knows. What do you want to do? I don't know.

You got something pays good. Yeah. No, I can work up here in the office. I'm doing something. You ain't going to want to do that. Why not? That requires you to talk. I might enjoy it.

If you're going to answer the phone and open doors, you've got to be able to, you know, conversation. I want that video. I want Danny Earnhardt, Seger, as a receptionist for a day. Come on. I could probably actually do that. Well, you won't. Well, you won't.

Well, you won't. All right. No. Wrong number. And off you keep adding team. I don't know that's long. I can keep doing this. I told Kelly we're going to try to get to 10.

You're going to get a bigger building and more people. You know what I wish. I wish we could have Junior Motorsports in the DEI building. Oh. That would be awesome, but it never happened. It would be amazing. I know it would never happen. I'm just saying I'd drop by it every day.

Oh, it could happen, but it would be a big price. It would be a big price. Astronomical price. Astronomical, yeah. How bad you want this building? She'd probably like to sell it, actually. I wouldn't doubt. I don't know.

I would think it would have been sold by now if you wanted to sell it, right? No, yeah. No? I can't even think about that. I can't even write my brain around having that conversation. Well, I just think it would be cool because, you know, even back in the bud days, you had to work at DEI to be allowed to go into that building, you know, and actually check it out. And I always thought of, I mean, I just heard so much about it.

I've never got to really see any part of it other than, The part they let you go and the part they rush you out real quick, and that was that. But man, I drive by it every day, and I see, you know, there's cars out there. They ran out that space, you know. Well, they still got stuff in there. Then there's that. Yeah. There's probably a lot of awesome cars in there, right?

Cars. And I'll never forget. My house got broke into in 1989. They stole all my knives and different stuff, you know, and posters and stuff. And so I asked Dale if I could possibly get replacement knives. and he's like, they might be some up there an attic, but Trees ain't going to let you have them.

Is it true that the deer... He was alive? Yeah. And you asked him, and he couldn't just take you up there? No. No, dude, you know that every poster they ever made, he had cases of them. Oh, yeah.

And put them in that, over that loft or wherever. You're talking about the loft in the deerhead shop? No. And over the bud shop somewhere in there. Or maybe over Chance 2 shot. Yeah. Somewhere. there was locked up.

Did you know, so we talked about the chance to, we talked about the deerhead shop the other day on this podcast. I heard it. And a guy made a YouTube video sort of almost mapping out the floor plan over our, over our discussion. No way. Using the conversation plus images and pictures that they can find on the internet. That's interesting.

Was it accurate? Yeah. As you remembered it? Yeah. I know what it looks like. Yeah, I know. So his, his, I just think it's interesting that that's interesting to them, to someone. It's interesting.

me. I actually, after we had that conversation, I went online to look and just see pictures of the deerhead shop and I found two. Two that just like, you know, and they were just kind of like interviews that Dale was doing. But I'm like looking at the loft and trying to look and see where the stairs were and all that stuff that, like even before the deerheads actually made its way up, you know. The stuff that's in there is not that remarkable. But just what happened, I guess, in that building. I'd like to know if she ever done anything up. I don't think anything changed. I mean, she shut the door, locked it, and nothing's moved.

So I'm kind of, I'm actually really good with what's gone down with that. Where's it going to go? Don't know by any nowhere. It just needs to sit there. I don't know. What's the alternatives? I don't know. Someday it's going to go somewhere when she's gone.

Well, I mean, Taylor will be in charge of it. She'll hopefully make some good choices. So what do you think about everything is going on here? here at junior merger sports. Do you think we'd ever do anything like this? No. I thought we'd be maybe three teams or something. Well, damn, I mean, that's pretty close to where we are.

No, we're far. Farther than that? Yeah. Do you think we'd win championships and races and all the good things we've done? I guess I thought we would, but I never thought we'd win this many if you think about it. You never thought it'd still be going after all this time? No, because stuff always ends. Yeah.

You know, we went through those years. We laid off people, and that was sad to see your friends go. and then you have to regroup, start over. That's what racing's all about, I guess. Yeah. Well, what's next for you? Go to the beach, I don't know. When are you going?

Sometime in October, I guess. Otherwise, you're going back there into that suspension room and build them rear-ins. Yeah. Have you had any failures? You just had one this week. What was it? That rear-ins still. What happened?

In the one car? Yeah. I could have brought it up here and showed you. What'd you do? I didn't do nothing. What happened? We don't know. That's a million-dollar question.

It was a really a million-dollar question? It failed. We don't really know. It's made of rubber, and the axle goes through the rubber, and for whatever reason, the rubber tore. Somebody must have tore it when they put axle in there. There's a possibility. Who put the axle in there?

I could have done it. Somebody else could have done it. Are you going to be on your toes now going forward? I've been doing this a long time. You do it the same way every time, but every once in a while it fails. We don't know why. That's tough. Are you blaming on grease, or you blame it on bad rubber?

Yeah. Or it is COVID rubber, so maybe it's the way they're manufactured right now. when they called and said Dale Jr. wanted you for something, which turns out to be this podcast where you're nervous a little bit? No, he was not. Because I never know what he wants.

Oh, Jesus. I never want nothing. Whenever I ever came to you and said, man, give me this, sir, I need that. I think that's his point. You never do. So when you do... Right.

You're desperate for something. That's bullshit. That's bullshit. It's desperate for something. You're right out of people to put on here. Oh, stop. No, no, not about that. No.

I'm just saying. like if y'all had a big failure this weekend. That was the reason? He got right down to it finally. Yeah, that was the reason. I'm surprised that somebody walked through here with it. We just figured we'd get a few good stories out of you before he gave you the papers, right? Right.

The pink slip? Yeah. No, believe me, I'll leave sleep over. I couldn't sleep all night. Oh, you didn't go to worry about that. I'm telling you. I mean, I bet you take it pretty hard. I bet you take it pretty hard.

but damn man i mean that's like the first one ever no it's not is it we had a we had a road course one fell this year yes thanks that eight cars my god that eight car they need to be better about putting their ear and houses in the car they're rough on them see that's the problem most of the time i do it i put the seals in of course in there in that room and then i a lot of times i put the gear and axles in there so when something happens first thing it's ankle what do i do yeah

you blame the car chief of it it's nice to be uh you know it's nice to have so much pressure so much on your back no it ain't no it's not it ain't fun going it ain't fun going through life without a little bit of pressure i don't know look at these guys over here they just standing over here no they got they got pressure what is it it's a different kind of pressure it's different kind of pressure they got a lot on them yeah yeah do you see the do you see lost speedways yeah they's a ton of shit ton of pressure on them to make that thing. Our rear end housing dropped out on a couple of them episodes.

I definitely didn't have enough Greek grease in my seal. My seal. Yeah, the seal kind of came apart a couple times. Who's the one person who's the one person that always comes to see you when they come in this shop? Yeah, Jr.? Yeah. Is that right? Oh, I thought that that would have been opposite.

He got to a habit now. He comes to the back door. He speaks to me. That way I only got to walk home. the way back there and then all the way back out of front yeah I always thought it was uncle Danny he's twice now coming and going so when so Danny's the youngest and the quietest they're all kind of quiet but um for whatever reason you're unassuming and quiet and you know you got dad who's the way he was and Randy was pretty conversational or

pretty pretty pretty you know always middle middle yeah he's right in the middle you've favorite dad a lot in your in your in your mannerisms and you know your features uh which always loved but um and you you know you always were like in his corner you know i got these pictures of that bristol race in 1979 and you're in them you know just fan you know just pictures y'all took with a with a roll of film and your family camera you know right hell you might it might have been your damn camera. But, so you being hitting his corner all the time was always something I liked. Randy was off doing his own thing.

He was a little bit, a little more independent, not as a, not a teammate. You know what I mean? Right. Of course, he loved Eddie, but you were always hard to get to know when I was younger, and I'd see you at Famer Unions, and we just never could find a way to talk. Right. Wouldn't you say? Yeah.

unless it was about football. Yeah, well, that wasn't that much fun. You being a Cowboys fan and me being a Washington fan. We always gave each other a hard time. Huh? I'm just going to wear it in here without my shirt on, but I changed my mind. You should have.

And then one day, I saw you working in the shop at DEI. Yeah. And, man, I was thrilled. I mean, you'd been carrying tires and we had worked together in that way, but now here you were going to be a bigger part of our lives, you know, and that was something that I was super excited about, that, you know, we were going to see you more. And that meant we would some way, somehow, grow our relationship.

And then you came to work here. It's been amazing to do this together. Right. You know, I haven't looked up to you and admired you all of my life, it's been awesome to keep you close. Does that make sense? Yeah. Especially as, you know, we lost dad and Randy passed away.

It's nice to have your family close as you can keep them. Right. But I, you know, I don't know. I've always thought a lot about you. So I love to come in the shop, and I love you being the first person that I see. Right. I appreciate it. Uh, and when, when I started dating Amy, I come into the shop one day and he's got a picture of

me and Amy on his screensaver. And so, you know, dad never met Amy. And, uh, and, you know, I'll always be kind of looking for that approval. When I would go out with girls and take, uh, them, if I, if I did, rarely did I do this. But if I, if they ever did meet dad or dad was ever introduced. to him, he shot him down. You know, later on on the next day or the following week,

he'd be like, hey, don't like it. That's not the one. Don't get too serious about this. You know, he always just had an opinion and it was never a favorable one. And I think that he would have liked Amy. And so when I and I know that Danny thinks the world of

Amy and I think that's as good as it gets if I can't have dad's approval having Danny's approval is almost as good. And I know that we've never mentioned, I never mentioned that to you. I joked with you a little bit about it, having her on, having her, me on your screensaver and your computer at work here,

but I know it's not up there anymore, but, they're still rotating somewhere. Is it? I know that you, you know, I know that you approve of Amy and that means a lot to me because I did want to make Daddy proud and that's kind of

a big decision in life and I did want to do that one the right way and make a good choice that he would be happy with and I feel like I kind of did. You did. Because the way you feel about it. So there's, and you know, I don't know man, there's just ways that

I kind of lean on you and you don't even know it to pass, to get some approval on something, you know, get the okay. And I appreciate that and you mean the world to me. That's why I wanted you to come on here. So hopefully people get to know you a little more.

And I can't have this podcast and do all these cool, you know, have all these cool guests on here without having you on here too. I appreciate it. All right, buddy. Yeah. Well, I think we're good. All righty. I thought you were going, I always waiting on for you to do your,

now you have your signature sign off. Well, all right. Danny Earnhardt on the Dale Jr. download. We're starting the stream. So you start? I'll start. We're doing this. Start it.

All right, everybody. It's time for our favorite part of the show. Ask Junior. And that's presented to you by Xfinity. We're live on YouTube. And appreciate everybody in YouTube land for supporting our DoDermedia handles and our YouTube channel.

We've got a lot of great content. Always coming to you guys every week across all our podcast and everything else we've got going on. So we're taking questions. every week at Xfinity Racing on Twitter. And you guys have sent in some good questions. So Leah, let's get started. All right.

Our first question from Matt Gunjack, what are your thoughts on the 2022 schedule and the playoff track adjustments? Yeah, you know, I kind of like things changing up a little bit. And it'll be interesting to see how St. Louis does this time around, how that track races. I think we kind of know because they've been racing there for a little bit here lately. but I'm all right with it. You know, I think this Coliseum, L.A. Coliseum clash thing or whatever they're going to call it is worth a shot.

Imagine what racing at Bowman Gray might be like, and that's kind of what you're going to have, I think, when they go to the L.A. Coliseum. And should be some pretty good beating and banging. I don't think that there's going to be anything else like it during the year. We don't run on the track that small. We have it in forever. A good experiment, I think, to see how that works. move everything around, change everything around. That's fun.

But I think the key stuff is probably the last race of the regular season and the cutoff races for the playoffs, right? Are those at the right racetracks? You know, we had a great weekend this past weekend at Bristol. It's one of the cutoff races in the first round. We know that Martinsville is a cutoff race as well, and they deliver and do a great job. And so as long as we can kind of keep that intensity at those key moments in the season, I think it's fun to kind of experiment with the rest of the schedule and see what you can do and create.

So trying to match that intensity throughout the year is going to be difficult. But move things around, see what happens. I was hoping for some more, I guess. More what? More changes. More changes. Yeah. Less road courses?

No. More short tracks. I mean, I've been saying that for years. I'm kind of tired of even hearing myself say it. But need some more short tracks. Yeah. calls they're fun. Next question from Ben Durham.

Do we really need a Bristol dirt race? It's already amazing. Well, I'm great friends with Marcus Smith, who owns that racetrack, and he's going to be disappointed in my opinion, but I don't think we do. I felt like it was a neat experience and fun to watch the guys race at Bristol. I enjoyed watching that race. I know that there's more than just, you know, we got to remember that when they put put dirt on Bristol, there's more than just the cup race. You know, they have the world outlaws,

the dirt cars, the, you know, the modifies, they do this whole, you know, two month long thing where that tracks got all kinds of people coming to race on it. So it affects more than just the cup guys when if they don't put dirt on it. I mean, it, you know, it matters more than, you know, there's a lot more people affected by whether we dirt Bristol or not. In a perfect world, I think that you could try to do something a little bit different, leave Bristol alone. We don't have any short tracks on the schedule. We got Martinsville and Bristol and Richmond, and to take away, you know, to lose a race to one of those weekends is just kind of tough, even if it is a dirt track.

Just to lose a race from Bristol was difficult. And we saw this past weekend what that place can be like when it's, when we don't put dirt on it. When the trucks went and raced at Knoxville, this wasn't as, that didn't turn out as the way I thought or the way I hoped. You remember that race this year? Yeah, they didn't really. Just crash a lot.

Well, they just wrecked a lot. The way they should have. Yeah. That's why. It was one groove. It just was a rough deal. But I was thinking at one time, we need to go to a real dirt track, not put dirt on Bristol. We need to go to a real dirt track, like El Dorah somewhere.

But I'm not even sure about that now after watching the truck race. That didn't work as well. What about the truck races at Adora? They were awesome. Yeah, they were all right. They all ran the fence, and if you didn't... After the first year, they were awesome. You couldn't pass.

I don't know. I mean, I think, you know, I don't know. You know, get Kyle Larson here and here. He can tell us where we need to go and race a dirt race. But I don't like losing one of the short... We don't have any short tracks. We don't have enough. We need twice as many as we got right now.

To lose any date at a short track is difficult for me. So I'd rather them not put dirt on it. they're going to, they're going to keep doing that. So it doesn't really matter what we think and what we say today. Hopefully maybe there's an opportunity down the road for them to, you know, this sounds crazy, but maybe North Wiltsboro, you know, could be a dirt track. So if Wilkesboro is going to get refurbished, we don't know. But if it turns, if they do turn it back into a working facility, they have to repave it.

The surface right now can't be used as it is. So that's going to have to get dug up So why spend all that money on pavement And putting new payment down? Why don't you try to see how it performs as a dirt track Get some local series or some national dirt series To come in and see what they think about it And maybe the trucks can go there or something like that

I don't know to see if that could be your dirt track But I don't know It seems like to spend all that money to put dirt on Bristol Just I don't know It's expensive and we lose a date of a good short track. Next question from Corey McDermott. What is NASCAR's procedure on post-race inspection of a car that has been destroyed,

such as a case with the Exfinity race this past weekend at Bristol? I would imagine that the inspection is rather loose. You know, they're going to look for, you know, they're going to look for things in the suspension and all the, you know, they know where the teams go to try to find advantages in the suspension as far as getting things to move around and so forth, they're always going to be able to go there and look at the pieces. The only problem is is that the team, you know,

whatever infraction that NASCAR might see on the car, the teams can more than likely win an appeal because of the damage, right? Well, our car backed into the fence or we hit this or that, and that's created, how can you know that this didn't happen in the accident? So especially if you have a crash as bad as the one AJ Amadinger had an Xfinity race, there's no way to be able to prove or check that car properly, and that's just the way it is. So it doesn't happen every single weekend. I don't think that anybody feels like the integrity of the sport's been challenged,

or I don't think anybody's concerned about the legality of AJ's car. I mean, with the result of that race, it was pretty fun, and everybody's good with how that all went down. So, you know, if they had anything wrong on there, good for them. and, you know, they get the trophy and we'll go to the next race. Next question from Higgie. Have you ever impeded the progress of a driver intentionally after being on the wrong end of an in-rease contact? I think so. I can't remember ever doing that.

And I think, you know, it's pretty clear that Chase, he passed, he come out on new tires and he passed four cars and he got in front of Harvick and he kind of just sat there. And I didn't have a real problem with that. You know, I didn't, you know, I can't remember ever doing that. but I think I have. You know, I think there's been times when you are trying to block a guy or take his air away or go where he. But I was not in the exact same situation as him, like trying to block the leader so another car could catch him pass.

I don't think I've ever really done that. But I would. You know, and it eighth first, you know, we saw it earlier this year at Atlanta with, I think Ross Chastain kind of made things as difficult as he could for Kyle Bush and his brother kirk comes up there and passes him for the win and also earlier in the year larcen was leading in atlanta and legano i think kind of made things difficult for larsson and his teammate blaney was able to go up there and get the win and it's all fair i suppose yeah i think it's fine i remember a time he did it sucks oh you do yeah it not apples to apples

to this situation but when you went out there and were impeding somebody else's line just to be you know like what delivered message kirk bush your rookie year i was behind him but you're you're you were on it, oh, you were behind him, you're right. But they had to tell you to back off because you were. Yeah, not the same thing. Yeah, it's not. No, sorry, Mark. Yeah, so I remember racing at Fontaine and Xfinity Series one time,

and I was leading the race, and Kevin LePage was driving the channel-like car, and I'm like, oh, my guy. But, because he was hauling some, he was hauling the mail in that car, taking his line away and stuff like that, not exactly what Chase did. Next question from Ryan Johnson. How is your NASCAR playoff fantasy bracket looking after the first round? And what about your fantasy football season? So we don't do a bracket.

And what we do is this NASCAR NBC fantasy. Oh man, I got to tell y'all. So Mike, you'll love this. So it's called NBC Sports NASCAR America, and it's a fantasy group that NBC started on NASCAR.com. And there are 12,858 people in this. You start at the beginning of the year and you accumulate points all the way through the end, right?

Of the 12,8,858, I'm in ninth place. Wow. Wow. That's impressive. Nice. I'm having a kick-ass year. Anyways, and not only, so there's a little, we're competitive about that, you know, being in the league against everyone, but all of the broadcasters and pit reporters

and everybody's, we keep track of how each of us are doing. so there's even a smaller little competition happening. And me and Marty Snyder are kicking everybody's butt, and it's me and Marty are about 60 points apart, so it's going to come down to me and him. So I'm enjoying it. My NFL fantasy stuff is terrible, awful. So I'm over and two.

Not good. All right, that's it for your name. All right, y'all. Hey, appreciate all the great questions you guys sent in to Xfinity Racing on Twitter and for this ass junior. And we appreciate Xfinity for supporting our show. All right, Mike, that went fast. It did.

Not as fast, though, Dale, as Xfinity X-Fi. X-Fi is more than fast. It's also reliable, powerful, meaning everyone can do more of what they love with faster Internet. That's right. With X-Finity X-Fi, you and your crew can stay connected with Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers your speed. All your devices need. Remember, everyone, keep your questions coming in by sending them to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter.

All right, let's all give a big thanks to Xfinity, proud premier partner of NASCAR. car. All right, Mike, what's your favorite snack to eat with beer? Oh, we're going to start my favorite snack with beer. Probably like, you know, just bar food, snacks, pretzels, pretzels. This is last call, so you have a beer. Good time for having a beer. Yeah.

Potato chip. That's yours? Yeah. Yeah. It actually is because I like salt vinegar. So good. Yeah. So, you know, the potato chip was invented by accident, though.

I did not know that. George Crum. He was a chef and apparently got criticized because his potatoes were too thick. And so they were smart Alex and in response got in the kitchen and sliced the potato as thin as they possibly could. Then they come out of the friar, boom, they had a potato chip. And they liked it. People liked it.

People loved it. And then they started putting flavors on them. I wonder who invented the salt and vinegar chip. I don't know. You're hero. Yeah. That's a good one. Salt and vinegar.

I mean, what is everybody's go-to flavor? I wonder. What's yours? Barbecue. Barbecue? Yeah. Salt and vinegar. Barbecue.

Straight up salt or crab chip? Crap chip, salt. Salt chip and crab chip. Crab chip. You never had a crab chip? No. It's got like old bay on it. Okay.

Leah? Cheese and sour cream. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. All right, Mike. Glorious has a new podcast coming out. What's the name, full name again?

Okay. It is called glorious white-knuckled, God-fearing, spun out, and half-turned-over racing stories. Okay. And this week is a good one in 1990 at North Wilkesboro. A race I think you might have even been at. Yep. That's this week's story. It's fantastic.

Brett Bidown won this race at North Wiltsboro. There was a big controversy. I remember being there in the infield, watching it with all of the other kids. And a lot of competition in the infield. Is it? Oh, yeah. You know, all the dads' kids are watching. Yeah.

Their dad's run and, you know, somebody's dad's leading. All the other kids are jealous. Oh, yeah. Anyways, that's not what the podcast is about. Wouldn't have been a bad time to be an Earnhardt kid that day, right? It was not a good time. No, it wasn't? No.

And you'll learn on the podcast. All right. Doorbump are clear. All right. On last week's door bumper clear, T.J. had me for his What an Idiot of the Week. How you feel about that? My, What an Idiot is going to be.

Kyle Bush. Josh. I'm going to go with Mike's Vineyard driver just as I can for the week. Dale Jr.? Yeah, he's just an idiot this week. And everybody needs to listen to the Dale Jr.

Download this week to see what Dale says after. TJ has officially grown a set of balls and called out Doe Jr. on the door bumper clear podcast. This is an epic moment, Freddie. Yeah, whatever. I guess it's a free game. For some reason, we are still letting them

talk about us on their podcasts. I guess we will. I mean, if we're that important to them, of course, they didn't call me an idiot. They just called you an idiot. Well, it's a great way for them to stay relevant, is to associate with us any way possible. So I think every week they try to figure out a new way. If TJ ain't careful, man, he's just going to get phased right out of this show. Yeah.

Bumped out of the way. Because his takes are not very good. They're getting better. No, they're not. They actually are. He doesn't. He won't drink the fireball. Yeah, he knows that he's not.

He doesn't drink. Everybody brings Fireball. They're going to all drink out of the fireball bottle, except him. But that's when you have a couple of drunks as your coach. I mean, you're going to lose that. He's boring. Listen, if you would like to call TJ an idiot in retaliation, by all means, do it. This is the time.

Call him an idiot. No. I want to go on their show. Go on their show. I do. Call him an idiot. I don't want to go on there and call him. I'm bigger than him.

All right. What do you want to do? I'm just going to show up and listen. It's kind of like you did in the NASCAR meeting that they caused. Good point. All right. The Dale Jr. Download this week is on TV, NBCSN, as usual Thursday at 6 p.m. So tune in.

I guess Danny Earnhardt will be on. And any cool plans for the week? I have zero. I'm getting hair cut tomorrow. Yeah, I don't even know. I haven't even thought past today. Me neither. I got haircut.

And then we got Vegas this weekend. Yeah. All right. Cool. Good show. Thanks everybody for listening. Y'all take it easy. Hope you enjoyed Danny.

We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.