The Dale Jr. Download - 363 - Shawna Robinson: Bye-Bye Boys

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

She may not have been the first, and won't be the last, but she is undoubtedly a pioneer in Motorsports. Former NASCAR racer Shawna Robinson sits down with Dale Earnhardt Jr and co-host Mike Davis for a fascinating conversation.Robinson's start in Motorsports didn't come as most people would predict. It wasn't behind the wheel of a car. It was behind the wheel of a truck. And we're not talking your everyday truck, we're talking about a Big-Rig going up to 160mph. Fresh out of high school, the small-statured Iowa girl got her first chance in competitive racing in one of the largest race vehicles possible. Her father, a man they called Lefty, and her brothers, were a part of a traveling circus of Big Rig Racing and entertainment. It was a series her dad founded and the family promoted. Sliding an 8-thousand pound truck around fairgrounds tracks sprinkled throughout America, people took notice of the young female phenom excelling in a sport full of rough and rowdy men. When the Great American Truck Racing series hit the big tracks, people took notice of Robinson. She became the first female to ever win on a superspeedway, winning at the Milwaukee Mile.Success and an unwavering work ethic created a path to NASCAR. There, Robinson went from the biggest vehicle to racing the compact stock cars of the NASCAR Dash Series. Just three races in, she made history becoming the first woman to win a NASCAR Touring Series race. Her climb to the NASCAR Xfinity Series came with some success, but some heartache as well. She was the fast qualifier at the Xfinity race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1994. In that race, she didn't make it around to complete the first lap. She was wrecked. Was it intentional? Other drivers and a commentator told her it was. Shawna shares the story.The ups and downs of racing intersected life and the start of her own family during one phone call. It was her best opportunity yet, but one she had to turn down. She shares the emotion of turning down a ride due to pregnancy. A few years later, Shawna found herself trying to qualify for the 2002 Daytona 500. The Cup Series rookie became the first driver since Janet Guthrie, in 1977, to race her way into the Great American race.Shawna's racing career didn't pan out the way she wanted, but she's someone who will always be remembered. For Dale Earnhardt Jr., she will also be remembered as a woman who stood her ground. The table conversation gets interesting when the two drivers talk about an incident that stemmed from a practice get-together, continued into the race, included a middle-finger and an angry Robinson going to confront Earnhardt in his hauler.Shawna opens up to Dale Jr. and Mike Davis about some of the challenges she faced throughout her career being a female in a male-dominated sport. She also shares her thoughts on the females who have gripped the wheel after her career and what advantages they have in creating opportunities. But her biggest challenge came outside of the racecar. A cancer diagnosis and rigorous chemotherapy and radiation was just another hurdle for her to jump. Shawna discusses the day she found out the news and how she got through it.Before Shawna's arrival, the DJD gang talks about the big moment for Formula One driver Daniel Riccardo getting to drive his father's famed no. 3 car around Austin, Texas' Circuit of the Americas. Dale Jr. reveals just how much the gesture means to him and his family. Dale Jr. breaks some news on this week's podcast, announcing which NASCAR Xfinity Series race he will drive during the 2022 season.AskJr presented by Xfinity was "the funnest" segment of the day. Dale talks about his upcoming NASCAR Next-Gen test at the legendary 1/4-mile Bowman Gray Stadium. He also gives fans a peek behind closed doors of what it is really like inside the NASCAR hauler when you are called to the principal’s office. Dale shares some hellacious times during Halloween that were both risky and mischievous. 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.

The following podcast is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, welcome back again for another episode of the Dill Jr. Download episodes 363. Ooh, well, 363. That kind of rolls out of fun. We're live. Yeah, from the Bojangles studio here. I'm Dailenhard Jr. Mike Davis, my co-host. Our guest today for the podcast is Shauna Robinson.

All right, Sean is going to be amazing. She raced in a lot of different series, to be honest with you. and I race against her a little bit. It's going to be great to hear about her story and what she's up to now. All right. She had some difficulties and challenges in her life. We're going to hear all about that. Matthew, Leah, they're here as well for a great show.

We're going to have Ash Jr. coming up later presented by Xfinity. And let's get into it, man. Open segment. So Daniel Ricardo gets to drive Dad's 1984, what they used to call the Blue Goose, I think, RCR race car. It's owned by Zach Brown, who is with a lot. McLaren and he set it all up for for he kind of made a bet with Daniel earlier in the year that when I guess when Daniel got his first podium that he would get to drive this car and Daniel's a big Dillanard fan he's had the number three for a long time and he's had this you know he's he's had number three

even the same font number three on his helmet and he's came to cup races we exchanged helmets he told me all about how big a fan of my father's he was and anyhow He gets to drive the car this past weekend at the U.S. Grand Prix. I was so happy for him. He was genuinely happy and excited about it, and it was all over social media. The one thing I just couldn't think about was what Dad's reaction would be. And it's not difficult to understand that he would have been very humbled by the idea of an F-1 driver being a fan of his, appreciating his career, appreciating his talent,

appreciating his, you know, intimidating his, you know, personality and all those things. And also I think he would have been humbled and very proud of the attention that Daniel brought to him and the attention that came from all of that because this content was on F-1's,

like F-1's own personal handles. So the entire series sort of embraced what Daniel was doing and for a mere moment, you know, dad was being celebrated, if you will, and by a very big entity, right? You know, with the F1 being so global, such a big, huge motorsports industry. And, you know, we're very proud of NASCAR, very proud of what we are in NASCAR and what NASCAR means to us. But, you know, that's, it just, it's comparable for me to learn. about how big dad's scope was when he passed away. The day that, you know, when he passed away,

there were news outlets and personalities and people talking about him that had never, you know, talked about him before. And there were people coming out mentioning how impactful he was in the sport or how they might have been fans and so forth that I never thought I would hear talk about my dad. It was just really crazy, you know. And it really, you know, we think we,

know I thought I knew how big a deal dad was, but I underestimated it. Anyways, of all the bad things we were going through and all the sadness we were going through that time, that was a thing that made me feel good. Oh, yeah. And so this also does the same exact thing. All these years later, you have this F1 driver, one of the most personable guys in the in the F1 industry, one of the most, you know, he's the kind of driver and the kind of person that everybody wants to hang out with. It just seems like he has a good time everywhere he goes,

just a respectable guy, and, you know, celebrate it. I just thought, you know, I don't want to overstate it, but it was a cool moment. If you're an Earnhardt fan or a relative of the man, you know, that has to make you feel pretty awesome for someone on that stage to, to do that. So, got to give Daniel a lot of credit for that, a lot of props for that, and also to F1 themselves

for not ignoring it, I guess, and celebrating it as well. You know, you just never know how there's some underlying competition amongst F1, NASCAR, and all the things. And even in the fan base,

there's one's better than the other kind of thing. There's certainly the crowd that, you know, enjoys them both. But man, F1, for F1 to promote that, you know, it was pretty cool to see.

So I thank them as well. So for Earnhardt family, it was a pretty cool, pretty cool moment that came out of nowhere. Didn't expect anything like that. Well, can I understand one more thing? Is that the magnitude of the gesture

was felt by me, at least on how anticipatory this thing was. Because when I don't know the exact date or the location where Daniel got his podium, but I remember the soon as that happened, I started getting text and you guys started getting notifications and they're like, hey, this car thing now is going to happen. And I remember going, well, I don't know what they're quite talking about, right?

And then you find out about the bet, you find out about this stuff. This had to be at least a month ago, right? And so people have been building up to this. And this has been kind of a news item over the last month. And wow, what a way for this thing to really manifest in front of an audience, I might add. It was huge in audience. Boston at the circuit of the Americas. Huge audience.

And the look on his face, this is the most personal guy out there. I mean, you're learning so much about Daniel Ricardo. Boy, what a fun guy that guy looks like, right? I mean, you want to hang out with him. And so, yeah, I do. I thought it was amazing, right? And I bet you, you, I could imagine how proud you were of it. Very proud.

So, you know, when you, we, yeah, I've always felt like the F1 drivers were on another level. and the effort it takes and the determination it takes to get to that series and win is unlike anything that most race car drivers experience. And the personal dedication they have to their craft, their health, and all the things, you know, they have to be perfect. And I have a lot of respect for that. And I think, you know, Michael Schumacher, when he was racing, even today, to me, he is the top of the mountain. and he's not an NASCAR driver. But that to me is the top of the mountain in terms of talent, dedication, focus, and devotion to what you're doing and driving race cars and being great at it.

And so I still hold that same, I still feel like, you know, the F1 series and the drivers in that series hold that same standard. And so when they share with us who their heroes were, it will make anybody they mention feel great, right? And this so happens to be Daniel's hero, and that's my dad. And I would have never a guest in all these years that an F1 driver, you know, getting to that level would turn around and say, yeah, my hero was Dale Earnhardt.

It's just really cool that any of those guys would ever consider, even just a NASCAR driver, much less my dad, is one of their heroes. So again, man, I just can't thank Daniel enough for shining a light on dad for a moment and he's in such a great, genuine way. Yeah. So, and good job by everyone at F1 for supporting what Daniel was out there doing and how much fun he had. Man, it's awesome to have Chevy on board with us, and as many of you probably know, I've owned a few Silveradoes in my time.

I own two now. That's right. Got your new one. Yeah, I got a 2,000. Two, and then I have a Hurd to Know 4. And then I have a brand new. Silverado. I just sold my 17.

I know. I can't believe. Had a red one. Love it. I always wanted red trucks. I said, you know what? I'm going to try something unique. And so I bought, yeah, I bought a white truck, and now I'm just going to decal it however

the heck I want. That's a good idea. It's pretty fun. I've yet to get the bill on the wrap. So maybe it's not so much fun. You know, it's like thinking, man, you know, if I get tired of this cool little design that I've put on my recent brand new Silverado purchase, maybe after a couple years, I didn't change the design. But if it's, I don't know, what wraps go for these days. Well, if it's per color, if it's a dollar figure per color, you're getting a big bill.

Because you've got a lot of colors on it. All right. Well, and, you know, with Chevrolet and my connections, they could probably loan me one to drive a little while, but I can't decal the loan. No, no, no. That would be bad for them. Can't decalalator. Bad for them. Yeah, can't put a super cool stereo in that. No. And then have them take it back a year later.

Yeah. Right, or whenever. No, they don't want to, they don't want your personalized customized. I bought it. Yep, I bought it so I can do anything with it. And I'm probably going to hang on to this new truck for a few years and have some fun with the, with the, with the, with the wraps. But anyways, that's blown away. This is all new ZR2.

It really does take it to the next level with a chassis and suspension calibrated. specifically for off-road performance, 33-inch off-road tires, steel front and rear bumpers for added durability, and there's clearance too, man. Plus much more off-road functionality. The first ever Silverado ZR2 will take strength and capability to new heights.

Be sure to visit Chevy.com to learn more. We got a big announcement to make. Let's move on to the next thing. The worst kept secret in the Bojangles studio, I'm be honest with you. I mean, I think we've announced this, but I'm going to announce it again. All right, let's do it officially. Maybe we unofficially announced. This is the official announcement.

So for my Xfinity race next year for Unilever, I'm going to run at Martinsville, the very first Martinsville race. I think it's in April. I'm not even sure. When is the date? Let's look at the message here. It's unofficially in April. That'll be our second place of the announcement. I don't see a date on here.

Officially unofficial. It sounds right. Anyways, you know, I've wanted to, I love short tracks. People ask me all the time, what was your favorite track? Oh, man, I thought you, I thought you'd say Talladega. I either say, you know, Martinsville or Bristol, given the kind of car I have, you know, you know, Martinsville is a blast, but also Bristol is equally as fun, depending on how the car is driving. I've had some tough days at Martinsville where the car wasn't exactly there, but when it gets down to it,

What type of racing do I love to do? It's short track racing. It's bumper to bumper, half mile, trading paint. And I'm going to do a little bit of that. Next year, did you get the date, Matthew? Yeah, it's April 7th through 9th is the Big Xfinity Series weekend. Okay. And for Martinsville.

Isn't there a cup race? Yes. Okay. So the... I'm sorry. The way you mentioned it was it sounded like it was a big Xfinity series only show. Yeah, they'll be Saturday. Okay.

So the Cup guys are running. and Sunday. Xfinity is on Saturday. Exfinity will be April 8th. It will be the specific date to see you down. See the Xfinity stars. It feels weird.

Anyways, you know, Martinsville, if you're going to buy a ticket, get one for both days. The races at Martinsville are a blast. If I'm a ticket buyer, I'm going to get me a ticket and I only buy one for the year. Martinsville would be in that top three.

Oh, yeah. You know, you can see the whole race track. there's going to be drama. There's going to be every lap there's beating and banging that the cameras just cannot even cover. You miss a lot of it when you're watching it at home on TV. You miss 75% of the contact that's happening out on the track. And we just can't show everything because there's a lot of times multiple things happen

at once. Anyways, it's a great weekend. They've got great camping there. You can park your camper up on top of the back straightaway now. right next to the racetrack and look out over the racetrack. When I went to test there, the last time we had a test at Martinsville, I took my airstream, and I parked my airstream on the top over the back straightaway next to the, you know, so when I was sitting in my dinette, I've got like, I've sold this airstream since then,

but it's like a 21-foot tiny airstream. And I sat in my dinette in the evening as the sun was sitting. We were the only one or two cars there testing. So I'm looking down in the track and there's nothing. A couple haulers. Cars covered up in the garage. Not a sole there. And the sun setting over the racetrack.

It was so cool while I was eating my pork and beans. Hey, you remember the vivid details of that day? I do, man. I did a little, I had a little. Was it time's rough? I think it was, no, that was my side. Okay. Got it.

Yeah. So I did a little grill of some chicken or something like that, right? I got you. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I'm a minimalist. You are? Yeah. I believe that.

I believe it. That's accurate. Yeah. I don't take much to make me happy. Hey, I've got a recommended advertising campaign for you on this. It just hit me. Okay? You're ready?

It goes something like this. If you thought I ran into a lot of people at Richmond, wait until you see what I do at Martinsville. Yeah. How about that? Pretty good? I like it. I was told by some of the Xfinity drivers that they're all going to try to run into me

because they want to get on the show. Hey, Matt. Oh, to get on the show. Yeah, because they're like, is that all it takes to get on to Dale Jr. Download? Because I'll just run into you at Martinsville. The remorseful Dale Jr., but I don't know. That's what Jeremy Clemens said.

Is that right? He's like, man, I need to boost my career at this moment. He wants to be on so bad. He's like, I'm going to run into you next race you run. It's not the way it works. You have to be run into. You can't be the runner. You've got to be the rune.

Exactly. You know, because you've got to untap the remorseful, the sorry Dale Jr. Not the pissed off Dale Jr. He don't let people come in if he's pissed off at you. Yeah. Yeah. So just make yourself available to be run into. You'll get to come on the ballot.

I'm excited about it. Be the victim. I'm looking forward to it. I am too. That's going to be cool. And Unilever's been a great partner. Mike, the campaign for this race, the marketing, the sponsorship strategy, and all those things rolled into one.

It's kind of called a campaign is around food waste. So one of the things that Helmand's really been focused on is reducing food waste. Something like 40% of all foods in the U.S. end up in a landfill, 40%. Goodness. That's a lot, man. It is a lot. Helmonds has developed a campaign called Fridge Hunters.

All right. And it's to encourage people to take food that they might otherwise throw away so others can make something tasty out of it. They want people to post their meals with the hashtag fridge hunters. Fridge Hunters. Hashtag Fridge Hunters. Got it. They want to try to save a million meals from the landfill.

That'd be awesome. Yeah. What a great idea. All right. It's a fantastic campaign. Hashtag Fridge Hunters. All right. So, yeah, I mean, I need to know more about that.

That's pretty incredible. 40% of all foods. Oh, yeah. Roughly 40% of all foods end up in a landfill. 40%. Think about that. Right. It's a lot.

You could really combat world hunger in a big way just by reducing the wastefulness that we have. All right. That's a great campaign. I like it. Guys, John is here. Do y'all want to let her in? Let's do it. All right.

are driven by 29, big, tough, very competitive men, and one young heroic girl. Did you know the girl was coming, charging behind you? I was looking at car numbers. This could be the only other driver in NASCAR racing with a ponytail and an earring, just like me. Here you are on the pole that it landed, possibly the biggest race of your career. One woman has raced from the Daytona 500. It was Janet Guthrie the last time she did it, 19. 180. Shauna Robinson, you're close on speed, and you race your way into Daytona 500. Awesome. I'm so glad to be here. Okay, so what do I do here? Just get my headphones on.

Yeah, put that headphones on and move. Yeah, I bombarded Matt with like tons of pictures. I didn't know if you could use of or not. I loved it. Yes, that would be very helpful. Even silly ones. I know. Like me with big plastic ears on when I was bald. That's good. We love silly. Silly's good. Silly is good. It gets you through it. A lot of work goes into trying to dig into those pictures and find them for the TV version of the show. So that'll be extremely helpful to those guys trying to put that together. So a lot of our guests don't do all that work for us. Well, I'm excited to be here.

I've watched your podcast near the table and all the discussions. Does it look like what you thought of it? Yeah, it does. I just didn't know it was here. I thought it was a shind. Somewhere else. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So, Sean, I've always been fascinated by you. So you started racing Xfinity Series when I was. was a little boy and going to the racetracks. I was a teenager, but it was a female race car driver. It was incredible. I had heard about females in and out of our sport over the years. In the 50 years, you know, we had been a sport.

But here I was watching one. Eventually, I got to race against you, right? Yeah. And we got to duke it out a little bit out on the racetrack. But I, and reading your notes, learned or was reminded by where you got your start. And I think that's incredible. And I want to learn about that.

I don't know anything about that today. So I want to understand, you know, first off, how racing became a part of your life. I know your dad was a racer. Yes. So when you were born, you know, you're three, four, five, six years old or whatever and starting to pay attention and, you know, the memories that you still have of your childhood, is race cars around? What kind of race cars are we talking about?

We were talking about late. model stock cars ran at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. They ran in Boone all over the Midwest. I'm born in Iowa. Is this dirt tracks? Yeah, dirt. And then my dad ran USAT in later times. So Pocono.

But, I mean, I grew up as a little girl that was in the infield every weekend with, you know, the mom and the cousins and the aunts and uncles. And later on, my dad started promoting at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and got into the whole promoting thing. and my brother still raised stock cars. How was he? He was, well, I'm the youngest. So he was 10 years older than me.

Oh, that's a lot. Yeah, so he was 10 years older than me, and then I have an older sister that was 15 years older than me, and then I have two that are right, the three of us are right together. But we all grew up, like, there was the race car in the garage, and, you know, they'd be changing the motor and doing this. And, of course, at 10 o'clock at night, they would be like, just got the motor, and we've got to try it out.

so they're going up and down the street. My mom would be like, you guys, I'm getting us in trouble. Do you y'all have neighbors? Yeah, we weren't like way out in the country, but it was pretty not at that time. Later on, the developments came left and right, but it was pretty. You could kind of get away with it? Oh, yeah. Okay.

They knew who he was, lefty. He was like, he would always kind of figure out how to do things a little bit different or maybe not always follow the rules, but just, but we grew up with snowmobiles when we were little, I had one of those little kitty cats when I was like three or four years old, a Honda 50, my sister had SL 70. It's just, that's what we did. We were just like that. And my dad was, his other business was selling trucks, truck wholesale. And he would always go, like, to go pick a truck up that he'd bought. And we were 13, 14 years old. And he'd be like, yeah, big semi-trucks. But no trailer, just the tandem, single axle. And he would be,

I think I was 13. Stephanie was 14 or 15. Stacey was 16. And he'd be like, okay, which one of you is going to go? Because I need to go pick this truck up. So we'd jump in there, one of us, ride with him. And then we would drive back the truck that he drove in. And so I knew how to shift at, you know, 10 gears when I was before, I was 15 years old. Really? So. And then when it came time to get my license, I actually drove to the DMV in my first car. And, got my license. I'm like, well, I know how to drive. So then when I lost my license from too many speeding tickets, I still drove because I'm like, well, you don't forget how. My dad was like, oh, it's all right. You'll be fine. My mom was like, okay, come on, seriously. But that's a funny story because I got hired by an oil company to race trucks in the Northeast. And my license happened to be, this didn't happen all the time. I wasn't a bad kid. But my license had been suspended in Iowa and then I moved to Pennsylvania and the people that hired me dried

an oil which I see now are kind of getting back in the sport but the guy that was my boss is like so is there anything you need to like fill us in on or I'm like well I mean no I mean you guys pretty much checked me all out what about your driver's license and I'm like oh well it's in Iowa and at that time you could get another license in another state and get away with it so he was like okay, we just hired you to be a race car driver, so I'm not going to penalize you too much for the fact that you had a speeding ticket for 86 and a 55.

So it wasn't that big of a deal and they kind of let it go and it came right back after that. 86 and a 55. Yeah. Well, now that's nothing. Yeah. Are you sure? Well, it feels like to say. Yeah.

Feels a little fast. Yeah. So, yeah, I grew, just the whole growing up, my brother raced and then my brother, when my dad's promoted, then he decided that, he needed to bring in a different kind of crowd. And at the time, Smoky and the Bandit was going on,

and they had created this truck series. It was called Gator, Great American Truck Racing. And we weren't at that level, but my dad's like, well, I'm going to bring the trucks to the Iowa Speedway, which was a half-mile dirt. And so he did the stock car race, and then he did like a heat race and a feature with like 10 to 12 trucks.

Because he thought it would bring in, you know, the truck drivers, it was kind of people of the different kind of thing. And then because he wanted to add more to it, he decided, well, no one's ever jumped a semi-truck before. They did the monster trucks and all that. So my brother, they did this Peterbilt and did eight cars, figured out the, by doing laps, they figured out the speed he needed to get up to, and he jumped ramp to ground at the finale of the race night.

Okay. So then they got at a motor. home and decided, well, let's do this. No one's ever done this before. So then he jumped, this was in Florida, I think. He jumped the truck through the front windshield of the motor home. They'd gutted it. So it just kind of went, you know, the crowd loved that kind of stuff. So he was kind of like a circus of the circus leader, and that's kind of how it happened. So your dad was the promoter of all these races, and then he started the truck series. And he started the truck series, and I was 18. Had you drove anything competitive?

competitively at that point. No, I hadn't. No, I grew up around it, and I probably, well, you know, we used to pack the track all the time at the fairground, so it's like you'd totally be sideways, and it's just kind of a thing that I adapted to. So I was 18, getting ready to graduate high school, hadn't made, like, complete idea of what I was going to do.

Basically, so my dad's like, why don't you take the summer and travel with me, and I'll teach you media, give you a budget, you can go by radio TV spots, because we would travel now to different tracks all around. Some would be half mile dirt, some would be quarter mile asphalt. So it was all different. Well, our first race was Toledo Speedway. And so I went and I just jumped on the, in a truck,

and they were unloaded them from the flatbeds. Because my dad would bring like seven or eight, and then you'd have local drivers go into some of them, my brother and other drivers that were with us. And then other trucks would come in to compete. And I just like backed it up. just went ahead and pulled it into the race truck. It was Toledo Speedway asphalt.

And I'm just zipping around there. Now, this is an old international. I think it was a 76 international. Yeah. So there was no power steering. There was this, at this point, was not modified. Just had the single axle on the back. And I'm zipping around there.

Well, my dad knew me. And he's like, oh, he was watching. And he was kind of like how I was on the throttle, off the throttle on throttle. And he's like, oh, if you got out there with the other truck, it's scary to death. Well, he knew if he dared me to do it. do something. So I race that night. And this was, this was in 83. So race that night, I finished third in my heat race, and I think third in my feature. And he had a videotape of it.

And so that's how he told my mom. So we had the, you know, the beta tapes. Yeah. He would, he put one in. He's like, I want you to watch this truck right here. What do you think? When y'all got home? Yeah. And he's watching it, not knowing you're in it. Yeah, she is. I'm sorry. Yeah. She is. So she's like, well, I don't know, he seems to be doing pretty good. He's like, well, that's your daughter. And she's like, what? Her rule was, don't ever let her drive a sprint car. Because she grew up with the no-wing sprint cars.

And Don Lamberti with Casey's General Stores, a very good friend of my dad's. And he, you know, did a lot of sprint car stuff. And with Knoxville, of course. And so that was the one thing is my mom's like, don't let her in a sprint car, but she can, well, and I used to horses were kind of my first love. So it's like I kind of went from horses to more horse power, and it just became a... The first year was just a fun traveling, learning the business. So at that point, I made like a little media kit, and so I would go purchase 30-second spots

and have like a budget to do that with the... I'd get into a city and look at the two newspapers, three television stations, and a couple of radio stations, and I would go to sell the time, purchase TV time, commercial time, and then I would ask for the sports director, and I would go back later and say, well, hey, this might be interesting, but I'm a driver, and pretty much all the time, they're like, oh, that's kind of cool, so they'd do, like, little interviews, promotions,

and did that for like a year, and then I got a better truck. So then I went into the Great American truck racing, which Atlanta was my first race. All right. So, all right. So your dad's truck series is racing short tracks, and he's bringing most of the trucks to the racetrack. It's kind of similar, I guess, to what maybe Robbie Gordon's doing with the truck series

that he has those stadium trucks where he builds them, brings them in. They get a bunch of guys to drive them and have a blast. Yeah, pretty similar. And then you would have local people come and enter their trucks. But, again, they were right off the streets. So they weren't. They weren't race trucks. They weren't race trucks.

Because there had been racing truck series like in Atlanta. I've seen all that stuff. So you went into that next. So before we get there, your first truck, what did it have to do with the movie Smoking the Band? Yeah. The movie Smoking the Band is what the Gator Series came from. So when I had that old international, it was time to get a better truck. So my dad got a truck from a driver that was running that series that was modified.

fiberglass, they moved the motors back. At that point, they had the eight wheels in the back. Okay. Now, later as the series progressed as I was running in it, we ended up taking the back section off, so it was even lighter weight. But, I mean, they had twin turbo injectors. Atlanta, they would run like 170, 160.

Wow. And they weighed a lot more. So Atlanta was my first. speedway in the truck and Dick Trickle actually loaned me his earplugs because I didn't have any, which is kind of disgusting now when I think about it. But at the same time, I'm like, well, I needed some earplugs. So it was kind of like moving up to that next level. I raced the, my dad's series from 83 to 85 and then I got into the, well, I got into the gator in 84. And then I moved to Philadelphia and race for Dryden in the Gator series.

And rookie of the year and winning and... You moved to Philadelphia. Yes. How was that? Okay. Had no car, because I flew there and they were going to provide me with a company car. And I had to go to oil school to learn about consistency of lubricants and heavy-duty lubricants. And I had to basically do what the salespeople do because they were hiring me to represent their product.

So I had to go with this... First time I got there from Iowa, I mean, I traveled, but Philadelphia... it was like there were cars on the side of the road with no wheels on them and and just it was totally different. I had to, I didn't have a house. We got an apartment. It gave me a company car. And then I lived there two years and at the end of that two years I had been like, I was an experienced cheese steak orderer. I was like, knew what to do. But it was definitely different to just go there and just, you know, start a job. I would travel the Gator series, which we ran like Middletown, New York. Lebanon Valley, Syracuse.

So it was the experience that my dad gave me from running, you know, basically not great equipment, but running one weekend on a dirt track and then one weekend on asphalt, you had to basically go there, practice, and you race that night. So there's never like, I never did that run for a championship every week at, say, Hickory Speedway. Yeah. It was totally different. but I feel like when I transferred to NASCAR in the Dash series, I was going from an incredibly heavyweight that went fast to a little lightweight car.

And it was like, is this as fast as these things go? But then you had to learn to draft and a lot to learn from that point. But I think the trucks made me feel the seat of the pants, because as the trucks were modified, they were race trucks. They weren't like just a big truck you jump in. They were literally race trucks. How much would they weigh? Let's see.

I go, I went from 8 to 12,000 pounds. As they got more modified, they were more around 65 to 7. Got it. And you would use the tire grover. Your tires were this big. But you would heat that up. And for the dirt tracks, you would get to carve your tires out. How does a semi-truck drive around a dirt track?

How does that? Oh, well, I'll tell you, Flemington was my favorite track when it was dirt. It's gone now, which I hate. But Flemington was kind of a flatter, wide dirt track. And at this point, I had one of my best trucks, which was a Kidworth shell. But the engine was moved back. I had a power steering. You know, like you had a real stock car steering well.

It wasn't like you had this. Okay. But so it was more that you were literally in, like a real race seat, and they load them to the ground. And I'm telling you'd be sideways. in the corners. You were, but dirt, talk about dirt, like in the smoke. So usually when the green flag dropped, it was like, you better make it to turn one because you can't see anything until you get through that.

Yeah. Okay. I probably know the answer to this, but we're talking big rig trucks. Was there ever other females out there at all racing these things? No, not in the truck series. Right. With others, but they were never any. So you were the first?

Yeah. Okay. Now, there were females doing the, monster trucks and all that because somebody that approached us to do for me to go into that arena and my dad was like, let's just stay focused where we are. So was that a benefit or a curse to you?

Like I, like, yeah. I was, you know, started at 18, 19, when I went to the Gator Series, I was 19, 20. And there were some big, badass guys that did this. I mean, they were like truckers in the industry, but then they were also racers

that were cool. So there were the ones that liked being the ones that didn't. And I think that taught me it doesn't matter who does or who doesn't. You kind of learn who your friends are, and who you want to trust for a question, and you know who you don't want to do that with. But I was not intimidated by that at all. But that was just kind of how I learned. I didn't know anything different.

I'd never raced against women. I'd only raced against these truck people. And then I had opportunities to do some modifies and some light model cars, but not on a consistent level. And then Paterson approached the dried and oil people. I had done three years with Gator and finished third in points, Rookie of the Year a couple times, most popular driver. And Pat Patterson approached my sponsor and just said, you know, I think we need to move her to stock cars. Paterson. Pat Patterson, Radio Pat Patterson?

PRN Pat Patterson. PR and Pat Patterson. That's cool. So he's the one who kind of set me up with David Watson racing. He was a great equipment running in the front. This was after Davey Allison and Michael Waltrip had started in the Dash series. So that was kind of the ARCA of now. So it was kind of like go to Dash and then you could go from there either to Bush or to ARCA.

So I got in really good equipment. My first race was Daytona. We got the pole, but we got disqualified because they said I had a legal carburetor. So they took the carburetor away, and we had to run the second day, and I went faster. Was it illegal? No, not that I know of. Because, you know, we admit it here. Oh, no, I know.

No, I'll tell you what, as far as, no, I mean, they took it off. They said it was a little smaller than it was supposed to be, but it was. They gave us the other one, and we ended up going faster. So anyways, Jan Smith was my engine builder, and he's like, I promise you, we didn't rig this. So I ended up finishing third at my first Daytona. Wow. And that was even losing. I lost first and second gear.

So on restarts... They just drive away. It just, yeah. So, but still finished third. Who was the car owner? David Watson. Okay. Out of Boone, North Carolina.

All right. And, you know, it was Doesmore, Casey's General Stores and Doesmore from Iowa, Des Moines. Don Lamberti is who kind of sponsored me from going from Dryden into NASCAR. He was the reason why I had that opportunity. So you had raised the big rigs. around Atlanta Pocono, Atlanta, Syracuse.

What is it like? Okay, so driving down the front straightway Pocono in a stock car or anything really is kind of terrifying to have to slow it down and get into term one. What's it like in a... You can't... First thing, I, Toledo, when I was just messing around

doing that, you can't, you cannot stop one of those quickly. Right. Well. And then we did this thing where he set this thing to blow a tire. So you had to run down the front straight. It was an exhibition, you know, like the jump trunky, jumping the truck. So it was basically you had to, you're running down the front straight away and then tire would

blow and you had to control it. That was just something to show. Something to show what y'all can do. But, yeah, the first time at Toledo when I tried to like stop quick, it was like, you can't do it. Yeah, just hopping all over the place. But, okay, but going back, like at Pocono, where do you start breaking? like the flag stand?

Yeah. Well, it is, but they were more modified at that point. And then at one point, Allison, Detroit Diesel Allison, were doing some stuff where they wanted to try to automatic transmission. Well, it worked good at like a Pocono because it would slowly shift the gears.

But they were just, you know, trying this thing out. But I think it was Toledo. And when it was dirt, I was going into turn one and that thing kicked into like first gear and it was like, blah sideways. It's like,

this is not good because you would, when you shifted, you knew what you were doing. How big is Toledo? Half mile. It's a half mile. Okay.

It's dirt? Now it was dirt at that time. Got it. And it's asphalt now, I believe. Got it. And I raced arca there when it became asphalt. But yeah,

they weren't. But they were fast. I mean, at Pocono, you really, when you came out of a triangle turn and you were going down, you could feel the injectors

like, just kick in. And it'd be like, whoa, this is crazy. I have race programs, and man, there was a series way back in the late 80s called in. They walked away, and there's a lot of crashes in that series. And I used to watch that as a young kid and a lot of truck and big rig wrecks and stuff and that. But I was always, I've never talked to anybody that ever raced those. You know, you're the only person I've ever been able to talk to that race those.

and it was such a fascinating. It really was. I feel like it helped me to cross over. Because most people came from go-carts or little mini-sprints and then go, so they're going from light to heavy, where I went from heavy to light. And I felt like it was a great adjustment. Yeah, a good transition.

Yeah, good transition. To get in a dash car, like you say, and have such little power and tiny little car, you felt like you could be aggressive. You just learned to draft because if the trucks, you really didn't, well, you could get behind. somebody but it really wasn't like you could lift on the throttle and go with them you had to kind of keep it going it's just so much heavier yeah all right so you go sometimes yeah you make it

into the dash series and um so you know beyond daytona how does the dash experience go oh i won in my third third race in asheville speedway which was so cool because david pearson was there elma langley was there um and it was just it was it was awesome and my dad was always always like, you need to be the first. You need to be the first. And I'd be like, stop it. That's putting too much pressure on me. And I just need to, I need to be competitive. But when I did win that race was the first, I got it. I got what he was saying, because it did make a difference. And you, and then what it was is I had a good car owner. I had a good equipment. So, I mean, every time we unloaded, we were going to be a threat. So that puts you in a whole different position for drivers

to work with you and to go with you. Whereas moving into the Bush series, I was very impatient, wanted to move, probably moved quicker than I should have. And, you know, equipment was not as up to par and limited series, where if you're not running full time and everybody else is,

but they expect you to run as good as they are. And if you don't have the equipment, it's a hard thing to do. Yeah. Who's helping you, like, for example, when you go to Daytona, the dash car, who are you talking to for advice? Like what person was probably the most supportive and giving you like drafting advice and things like that? Davy Allison. Davy.

Yeah. What, that was with Polaroid? And Polarade somehow had some kind of a dinner with Davy. And I mean, I knew who Davy was. But it was more like he was just so, like, helpful, like doing like in the corner like this. Try this, try that. And then he would spot, not spot, but he would be on the radio. Yeah, on the radio with me.

Yeah. So he just, I felt comfortable to be able to go and ask. But I mean, a lot of you guys were that way. There were some that weren't that way at all, which I could say Mike Wallace did not like me being on the track. A lot of the dash guys, some did, some didn't. But you kind of live in Unilern. I think one time at Darlington,

I was talking to Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson, and I was in a Polarid car, and I'm like, I just can't seem to get into through three and four. really good. So they're like just carry it in a little farther, you know, lift and let it roll through, this usual stuff. Well, so then here I go, DM. I carried in a little bit

way too far. And they were like, we didn't mean that much. Did you write? Oh, I, you know, I slapped the Darling to the Strait. Pretty damn good. So, you know, I wasn't afraid to ask, to learn. You know, you got to learn from all the other people. Oh, yeah.

But how did you and Davey, what, What started the Davey part? Because, like, that's interesting. I think it had to do, well, I know Davy was with Raus Sheates. And later, when Polaroid kind of met him, and it was like, okay, you know when you go, you're in the bush garage, but you walk over to the cup side, how it used to be. And it was always very intimidated to walk over to the cup side because I didn't really know who to talk to. And when Polaray had kind of built a relationship with Davey, I'm not even sure what it was,

I don't think it was a sponsor thing or anything, just that he was just very helpful. I mean, he was just somebody that was like, what do you? I mean, I kind of felt like he was talking to me on the same level, not like, you're an idiot, and I can be able to tell you that. He was just super nice. And I think Jeff was with Raus Sheets when Davey was killed. I met Jeff through Ernie Irvin, just.

Jeff Clark. Yeah. So. Oh, big Jeff Clark. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I think it was a little bit of that that Rouse Yates and then Davy and then Ernie.

Those are just people that I felt easy to talk to. And you know, like the worst thing to be in a garage area, especially after you're not driving is you don't feel like you have like a place to be. I hate that. I hate being at the track and not feeling like I have a space, like a freezing to be there. What am I doing? And I think with Jeff, I at least always know that I could always go to the

Ralph Shade's trailer and I felt like I wasn't just somebody hanging out. Sure. It was, I was there as, you know, supposed to be there. Yeah. I felt the same way. When I retired, I was like, I need a reason to be there. I want to go. Yeah.

But I don't want to go and walk in a garage and not know where I belong. Right. Or if you're accepted or if I, yeah, people are. That's why I think a lot of, you know, drivers and retired drivers and even mechanics and so forth, when they leave, they got that you never see them. I know. Disappear. Because where do you go?

It's a huge point. I didn't even realize it. They don't want to go to the racetrack and walk in and go, why I'm, what am I? I need to be needed. I need a purpose and a reason to be here. I need a job. Yes. Yeah.

No matter what it is. Yeah, exactly. Or a place to feel like you're not in the way or place to do. Yes, because that's how you feel. You feel like you're in the way. Inconvenancing people or something. Yeah, I don't like that feeling at all. That's true.

That's totally true. Yeah. So until you met Jeff Clark, did you feel like you were a bit on an island? And you're just kind of, is it fair to say, just looking for people that you could, you know, seek advice from or at least just have a conversation with? Or were you, was that a hard thing to find? No, before that, and I mean, I pretty much tell it all, but when I was driving for David Watson, I lived in Boone, and I think I was driving for him for a year, year, almost two years. I started dating Eddie Pearson. So the Pearson's at that time, Larry was Chadniggichu, Bush champion. So Eddie and I got married, we were married for almost three years,

no kids. And then, so I was already kind of going into the Bush series was, you know, there. I knew a lot of people and felt more comfortable from being, I think the Dash series, I really earned respect. So the Bush series was more difficult because of not having that consistent ride. But then when I got Polaroid, it was one of the higher-end sponsors, started out with Don Beverly, and then went to Mike Loughlin. So it was kind of like changing teams. And Ed Farrie, that was still the hit and miss of not being full time, but I had a good deal and we were moving along.

So I knew a lot of people. And Eddie and I divorced, and I kept racing. I was still running in the Bush series. And then I ran, well, then later, I don't want to make this too long of the story, but it's funny. We can make it long. That's what this is about. So I would always go, you know, I was in a part-time Bush ride, and at the time, James Finch had Purvis. And Mark Reno, I knew from.

just knowing people. And I would always go over there and be like, if you would put me in one of your cars, I'll show you, if you would just give me a chance. Because, I mean, every time they ran in the arcs, they were good. His stuff was one of the best team owners in ARC at that time. And so that was 94 that I would be in the garage area.

I was running limited. I got to poll at Atlanta. So, I mean, we were making some progress, but it was like if you just really really not that I was in a terrible car I mean I did get the poll and and then we were second at Rockingham the weekend after Atlanta but I constantly was doing that and Jeff and I married in 2004 in 95 limited schedule he had a limited schedule kept knocking on James Finch's door just you know give me a chance give me a chance give me a chance well mid 2005 I was really just sponsor hunting didn't have a great deal you know I was

30, and I knew I wanted kids, and so I had Tanner in 96. And pregnant with Tanner, Mark Reno calls me, getting ready to go to Daytona testing. All right? So he's like, hey, we're putting Purvis in the Cup series, and we're going to take our Arka car and thought maybe you might want to come test for us and see if you want to run the arc race at Daytona. I didn't say anything. I hung up the phone and said, let me call you back.

I wouldn't want five pregnancy tests. You want to be sure. Yeah, five more. And I'm like, and, you know, it was early. You just find out you could have done it. Nobody would have known. But there was just, so I called him back and I'm like, all right, listen, you know how bad I want this. But, you know, it's just been a year since I've really had a lucrative deal.

And I'm going to have a baby. And I just can't do it. It was dead silence. Well, hell, that's the first excuse I've ever heard from a driver. I'm like, ah. But here's what happened. So I had Tanner in 96 and Samantha in 97. And in 99, I drove for James Finch in the Bob Evans car

and finished second at Daytona under caution. And I'm telling you what, Mark Reno was, you know, going into it. He's like, well, we'll see. We'll see how she does. We'll see how she does. Yeah, that's a tough crowd. And I'm telling you what, if I had a green flag, finish, I would have won or crashed.

There's no question. I know that. Who won? Bobby. It wasn't Frank Kim. Well, it was Bob Gerhardt. Yeah, Bobby Gearhart. Yeah, Bobby Gearhart won.

But coming from that is when Michael Cranifis approached me. At the time, he was Penske-Kranifice with Jeremy Mayfield. I got a ride full season with Cranifice in Arcyseries. So that's what came from that Bob Evans race. Dang. That is a story. It is a story. And, you know, people said, and this is the, you know, the female side of it that you don't hear a lot, but there was some criticism of how can you do that?

Like, how can you go get in a race car when you have two little kids? Like, well, the kids came to the track with me. My mother-in-law came to help. And at this point, I had like a motor coach or an RV to where it was not like, I want to teach my children to don't ever give up on your goals. If I was a mountain climber, if I was succeeding at climbing a mountain or being an Olympian in some way, because I had children didn't mean I was going to stop doing that. I kind of wanted them to learn that part. And Jeff was in racing too, so it was just kind of a thing.

But there were some people that were like, how can you do that? From within? Industry? Not really, no, it was probably more, not necessarily fans, because I always had a really good fan base. But yeah, a little bit within, a little bit within, like maybe some. moms from the, you know, maybe, you know, but it's something you got to decide to do. And I felt more comfortable doing that than driving on the interstate. They didn't know your speeding ticket history.

You're way safer in a race car. Exactly. So it was something to where you kind of, you know, dealt with some stuff. But at the same time, I felt positive. Jeff supported me. And the kids were great and they are great. And the reason I got out of it in 2005 is because I didn't. didn't feel like I was in safe equipment in a good situation and it wasn't worth it.

If I wasn't out there, I wasn't a starting park and I was ever going to be a starting park. I walked away from the Vassarret car to Jeff Green got in it. They were going to Talladega and I had said to the sponsor, I don't, I just don't feel like it's safe. Well, he ended up getting the roof flaps were rigged and they literally parked that car. like in front of inspection. He didn't get to run the race because it was when they just started with roof flaps, it was like 2004, 2005, 2005.

And no, four maybe. And I didn't feel bad about that. I'm like, I don't, if I'm not going to do it right or be in a good thing, I'm not, I'm ready to walk away then. And, you know, my kids were in sports. And I didn't feel like I was, I wasn't ready to really say I'm quitting.

Quit was never a word. But it was kind of like, I'm not doing it that way. So if there was another chance, maybe I would have, timing would have been perfect because 2005, 2006, 2007, things totally changed. There was no social media when I raced. I mean, look at it now. Look at Haley Digan and how she definitely, well, so many drivers, William Byron, they're all

really good on the keeping their fans and talking, and we never had that. Yeah. So it's a different world. You can't ever say, what if, what if, what if? I don't regret it. I kind of had to visually close the garage door. And then I felt like, well, I can open another one. So that's when I started decorated.

I think you hired me to do Whiskey River. Oh, no, I did here. I did this. I did Kellys. I did yours. So there's me up on a scaffolding, paint and squares. But it comes from my mom. My dad was eraser.

My mom was kind of the antique artist, artsy. So I got a little bit of embo. So, hey, a person that can have two passions in their life is a pretty lucky person. You mentioned Mike Wallace. You sat on the pole in the bush car at Atlanta. And, I mean, this is right as soon as you got into the Bush series. Yes, 94. Which is, I think a lot of, I remember when that happened.

I think a lot of people were like, that's impressive, you know. And you were probably thrilled to be able to go out there and show people that you had that kind of speed. Absolutely. And so what happens in the race? So we were, you know, the whole key for me was just drive smart, hold your position best you can, but be smart. And so we go into turn one. Joe Nemechek was on my outside. I was on the inside.

Carried my way pretty much through one. And Wallace came in between us and hit me. I went out, Neimancheck went out, and it was just like heartbreak. You know, and that's all I was thinking of at that time. It's like, you know, you have a chance, and then it's gone in before the first lap. And you know how many people had bets on that they'll show crash before. I don't remember if it's turn. I think it was turn three.

So we got through one really well going into three, and that's what it happened. But here's what happened is after, you know, I'm just heartbroken and just like you just want to redo. And then Kyle Petty was commentating. and he came up to me and he said, I just want to let you know. I just got to an interview in Nemechek, and he is hot as hell because Mike Wallace told him he's taking you out on lap one.

Well, what happened is he took Nemechuk out too. So that's why Joe was like, that's the story. And I'm not going to say, that's just what Kyle Petty told me. And then, you know, then the microphone's in your face and I'm just like heartbroken. You just want another chance,

but too bad that something like that had to happen. and we didn't really get to see where we were. Because my goal was to finish that race up front. Obviously, your goal is to win, but at that point, you're young, and this is a big deal, and you've got the media. I would rather not have any media until I'm winning races. Then you want the media. But it was a lot of pressure, but I don't think I screwed up.

There was a lot of pressure. Yeah. That was a lot of people talking about you coming in a series, being a female, and then you go out there and sit on a pole. I mean, that amplified all of that noise. Yes. You know, and so we're standing on, you know, standing on pit road before you climb into your car. I mean, you imagine you're feeling tons of pressure.

Oh, yeah. But it goes when you get in the car. Disappeared. It goes away. Isn't that great? Yes, it is. Then that's exactly what it felt like. And I felt like the girl that was doing my marketing had come up to me and she grabbed my hand, like right before I put the window and it's like,

I feel your dad. I just felt him like come through me. He's here. And my dad had passed away in 93. So I lost him in the midst of before he could ever see that Polaroid trailer with my name on the side. And so she's like, I feel you. But I'm telling you, it's all that stuff and the cameras and all that. You're focused when you get in there.

And then it's like, and then later when I went into the CUP series, it's like I had to really learn. And when you get in that car to pull through that garage area, you have blinders on. You don't care who's looking at you, what they're thinking, who thinks what, just go and do the best you can do. And it was always easier when you had the helmet on than out. So the way you're telling the story, it gives me a sense that while you were having your kids, your driving career was on hold, but it was kind of pretty sporadic up in that point anyways. And so this breakthrough run with Finch reignited interest in your career, right? So you go run the full time in the Arcus series.

Yes. How does that go? Oh, back to that time to where you feel like when you pull in and you unload your factor and you gain respect, I did that in the Arcus series. Didn't win. Came close. Did I think third in points, third in points, rookie of the year, most popular driver, all that stuff, but didn't have a win.

had the pole at Michigan. Pinsky had brought Ryan Newman for his first arc race. And we were in practice, blew a motor. So Michael goes over to Pinsky's, and to Ryan's, like, we need to borrow your backup motor, because you could do that then. So put the backup motor in. I qualified on the pole. Ryan qualified second. Oh, with his motor. Yeah, with his motor. So great, great story there. Mid point of the race, I think I was running third, fourth, blue right front tire, hit the wall, broke my ribs, broke my shoulder, flew off in a plane.

Next thing you know you're in the emergency room and they think you have collapsed lungs and all that stuff. But I had broken shoulder, broken ribs, got in the car at Pocono and started the race, but Michael made me get out. I didn't want to get out. Because when you're hurt, you're not hurt. when you're in there. It hurts to get in and it hurts to get out.

Once you're buckled in, it's kind of like I'll hold you. It's all holding you in place. And I met, Michael had called, I think he said maybe you or Bobby Labani had broken a shoulder

and this guy named Al Schuford who was a trainer for the Panthers. Michael called me up and he's like, I'd just gotten home. It was from the crash in Michigan. So it was like Monday or Tuesday. And he's like, you need somebody to get you in the car.

and you need to drive there and you need to go, he's going to do physical therapy with you. And this guy was like super like, I met Panther Stadium in their training room. And he's like, I had wrapped, you know, all the ribs wrapped and he's like, when you grip a steering wheel, I'm going to have you turn in it left by the time you leave here. And they put me in that wave pool,

taped stuff up, worked on the shoulder, worked on the ribs, and I drove Pocono. And that's how I met Al Schuford, who he was the one who said, said you need to be absolutely not concerned about what people are saying, what people think. When you drive to the garage area, you have a right to be there. And that was going into cup because it wasn't really my plan. It was my plan with Michael, and we ran my first cup race was Michigan.

And I finished, the first 500-mile race. I don't remember where, but I know I finished. And then things started, Michael was bringing his son in and trying to figure out what, we're going to do. We tried to, Tropicanna came in, we tried to make some more cup races, and that's when Bam approached me to run full cup season. And I'm like, I understand, but why don't you get like Ted Musgrave at the time, I think, didn't have a ride, but he was always a veteran driver. Why don't you put Musgrave in your cup car? Because a brand new team, brand new manager, brand new crew, brand new everything. And you want me to go and do the cup series. And I had driven

Michigan went to some others and I felt like hey if it's the opportunity I'm I'll take it what was their answer to that they wanted uh they had the money to start the team and they wanted the marketing value of me and I was running ARCA I'd proven myself I'd run some cup but they wanted a female is that and it was a female owner and yeah a little bit it was kind of like here's my thing put me in the Bush series. It full-time right. And let me go from there, and then next year, let's look at doing that, or the following year. But why like this? Well, that's,

well, it's your only opportunity. If you want it, I didn't, we weren't going full-time with Michael, and that was what the hope was. We were so close to having a specific garden. It was, I can't remember the company, but a huge company,

and it ended up falling through to another team. And so we, kind of were still searching for sponsors. So when BAM approached, then that's where I went. And we went to Daytona in 2002 with no sponsor, a brand new manager. Eddie Sharp was my crew chief and basically rookie team. And we made the race on time and finished 23rd, my first cup race. The biggest thing was making it on time. Like I qualified for that race. I didn't make it. because of points or I made it on time. And then I think the incident with you was at Atlanta.

I qualified 16th in a cup race. That was huge for me. It wasn't the same car that I qualified in. Of course, when I went into turn one, it was not. Brings in the back, everything was different. Are you talking about Atlanta? We were at Texas. It was Texas.

Yeah, Texas. I'm sorry. I'll tell the story. It's pretty funny. So I was a little sh-h-h-ha-ha-ha-ed. So I'm driving the bud car. got all this attention and probably maybe some of it was going to my head. But I go out on the racetrack to make a qualifying run and Shauna was on the racetrack in front of me.

I don't know if I pasture or whatever, but in my opinion, Shauna had bothered my qualifying run, my mock run in practice. Back in practice, we used to take the grill off and go out and make a run, right? And if somebody pulled out in front of them, you're like, what did you get? It happened every week. And I did it sometimes, pull it in front of people. But anyways, I flipped her off, which is if you are kind of by the old school of thought, like her and myself and even my dad's generation, the bird is not okay.

That's like personal, right? It's often used now, but that was like a bad offense. You know, if you're going to flip someone off, you better be because they did something really, really bad. Well, she come, it's like after practice and correct me if any of this is incorrect, but she comes into my holler and I'm standing there doing something pacing around I don't know getting some snack or something and she comes up and goes you're not going to do that to me and I said well you pulled out in front of me she's like I don't care you're not going to flip me off you're not going to treat me like that and she was a lot more she was a little louder than that no she was I had a tendency for that she was ticked off and I was like I understand I understand good for you and I told sunny I'm not sunny but I told Tony Currie senior was is my crew chief and I told him and I said uh I said this is what happened the race starts and I don't remember what point in the race it was but it was Sean was on the inside and I was on the outside on restart and I went down in the corner and she came up track came up yeah and we hit and I crash and

I get out of the car and I thought I thought I was like man she's still mad oh I was like I thought it was over it was just a bird finger I thought it was over after the hauler conversation and she's still mad about it and I go over to Tony senior and he's like like, it's your fault. Yeah. No, I'll tell you, I did not do that intentionally. I couldn't, I couldn't keep it down. And the last thing I wanted to do, but I mean, obviously.

Yeah, it was. Oh, yeah, but hold up. Yeah. Let's not move on passage. Maybe. Maybe it should have changed my story. Okay. Did everything he say, is that how you remember it first?

Yeah. Okay, so he did, all right. Secondly, do you remember what his reaction was after you went into his hauler? Because going into somebody's hauler is, that that's a bold, courageous, You don't know how many people are in there. You don't know. There's a lot of uncertainty. So you do it.

Yeah. I think my adrilling was probably so much like I'm got for, you know, I had a decent car. And I didn't, you know, I just don't do that. But I think he didn't react in it like, get the heck out of my trailer. You know, whatever. I was like, sorry. Right. I was like, oh, sorry.

She was so mad. Because you don't like confrontation at all. I was really uncomfortable. But she had came to my hauler, it was important to her to give me this message. And I had enough respect for her that I was not going to, and I'm not that type of person to be like, oh, shit, get out of here or something. You know, I was like, yep, I got it. I understand.

Yeah, and then I was. Oh, wait a second. It just occurred to me. Are you still with Jeff Clark at this time? No, no. Okay. No, we're great. Our kids are older now.

No, no, not now. I'm talking about at the time of this. That was 04, 05. No. Okay, because I don't know that we've even said it. I think everybody assumes it, but Jeff Clark was Dale Jr's gas man. Yes.

And Jackman at one point, like Jackman and Gasman on the Budweiser team, the number 18. And that's the Jeff Clark we're talking about. You married, had two kids with. Yeah. Okay, in the 90s. But you were not with Jeff at this time, because that adds another whole layer to the story.

It does. No, we, I think it was two, that we had divorced. Okay, okay, fair enough. 2001. So, but he was still, he still had my back. So I was, you know. Sure.

Jeff was always a good one to have on his side. He's a sweetheart. You damn right, he was. He always was. He's a sweetheart, and he's Goliath. We called him the Universal Soldier because he was. Yeah, and he's still like that. I mean, he's still like.

And, hey, my kids are amazed. I mean, my kids are, but they're both 6'1, and they have his bones. and all right but that that doesn't plan the story so then you mistakenly not on purpose take out Dale was there anything after that like did you go say something in the media or whatever that I don't know I probably probably was snarking not happy yeah and I know I got some comments for taking Dale Jr out you know that's yeah that wasn't a good thing and people like yeah yeah but I imagine you probably dealt with just anytime you're in an incident you probably dealt with that Like you had to deal with, you know, the comments.

Am I wrong in saying that it probably never left you? Like people saying, just always having a comment or something? No, it does leave you because you can't carry it around with you. Like it was a bad situation didn't mean for it to happen. But if I carried it to the next track, then to me, something else is probably going to happen. You're going to do something stupid. So you just got to let them go. But I was very well trained on drivers not happy with,

me or didn't like the fact that I was out there. Even if I didn't do anything. They just, I mean, I had one of the truck guys, you know, you need to have an apron on and be in the kitchen. And we were kind of pretty competitive and my owner was a little sassy. And so he put bye-bye boys on the back of my fuel tank on the truck. And then this other guy, yeah, on the big rig. And the other guy put bye-bye bitch.

So, you know, I kind of created that situation. But that's kind of how they were. Oh, my gosh. That was one that was like, yeah. Did you follow that, Mike? Yeah. The other competitor had on this truck? I got it.

Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. It's such a different time. Yeah. It's such a different time. Right. Was there anybody, even going back to trucks,

was there anybody that you felt disrespected by that ultimately, though, in the end was redeemed and came to when they either got to know you or, you know, whether it just took time? Is there anybody like that that you? that y'all learned to have a mutual respect with. Yeah, I think in the dash cars, Larry Cottle was really competitive at that time. And I was running real well at that time. And we had a couple incidents and, you know, bad words were said or, you know, just it was kind of like we were always kind of there. There would always be kind of something where is he going to take me out or I'm going to take him out.

And it came to be to where he approached me at one of the races, and he had come up and he's like, you know, I think it's pretty cool racing with you, and you are a racer. He's like, you know, you start out with the situation. There were very few women in the sport. There was another girl running in the dash series at that time, but you kind of come in there and it's all show, it's all media, da-da-da-da. Well, let's see if she can prove herself.

and he's like, yeah, you gave me a hard time, I gave you our time, but I respect you as a driver and you're one of the best ones out here. So that was a pretty cool thing to happen for him to say that. Yeah, I was riding home on the plane with Dale Jarrett, and he thought that you were extremely talented. He was the one who told me I made the Daytona 500. I didn't even know I had made it. Bill Jarrett?

Yeah. In 2002. He came up and, yeah, came up and, you know, pad me on the back and said, good job, you're in. And I'm like, we were, we had, I hadn't even, it hadn't registered yet. And then my media girl at the time took me straight across the street to the mall to do an autograph thing and didn't even take me to the media center. So I had just made the Daytona 500 and they didn't take me to the media center. So I was like, what? And I didn't know, you know, you have the people telling you where you got to be and what you got to do. And,

Hey, that stuff at Volusia Mall, though, was no joke. I mean, like, Volusia Mall, everybody did that stuff back in the day. PRN had their big deal. Benny, Benny Parsons had his big show over there. I miss all that stuff. I know, right? We dreaded doing it when it was happening.

No, no, you did. You dreaded. How does racing wind down for you? You mentioned earlier where you kind of just stepped away and liked the car. You weren't feeling safe. But emotionally, like this is something you've done all your life. It was who I was.

It was my identity for so long. How did you manage the emotions of doing that? I think one thing that I started this, doing the decorating thing, and then when I, and I was doing that when the kids were, when they were little, and when I was pregnant, I was doing the painting and decorating, because I wasn't driving, and then I got back into it, and then when I did decide to just, I got a step away, I had never, this is Facebook just started, and I didn't, I'm not a real good tech person. So a friend of mine had said, you need to do Facebook, but I was doing Happy Chair.

So she's like, you need to create a Facebook with Happy Chair. What's a happy chair? It's where I created furniture, custom, vintage, really fun, funky, and I was traveling around. I created all these sofas and chairs, and then I would sell them at different venues. Like, I just came back from Texas. I'm not doing Happy Chair anymore, but I'm doing design now more. But Miranda Lambert bought eight pieces from me at one of my shows. Whoopi Old Goldberg bought one.

So it was pretty cool because I was doing online sales and creating this furniture. Well, so we started this Facebook page, and there were no happy chair people, and there was all race fans. It was like, where have you been? We loved you so much. And next thing, I know, I had 5,000 friends on Facebook, and it was all. And it kind of like gave me this whole, like, you know, you can't go with what if, what if, what if. And I'll tell you, it wasn't easy when Danica came in. I supported that 100%.

But for me to see all that media about it. about her being the first one out there and then the first this. And I'm like, like I didn't ever exist. And but I mean, I supported her. I'd met her prior to. She was, you know, up and coming. But it was hard to kind of see all that. Like, but it's a different time.

And that's where you've got to look at it. And now I've done, I'm on the appeals for NASCAR. So I'm still apart. And I do decorating pretty much for a lot of people that keep me into the sport. And so I don't miss it. don't like going to the track unless I'm there with someone or doing. When's the last time you went to the track? Let's see.

It was probably Talladega last year. And then Texas, I went with Boyers, Lauren Clint, because they were building. And we went all over and bought all kinds of Texas stuff. Gotcha. Big stuff and Texas stuff. And so, yeah, I went to Texas with them. And I didn't go to Charlotte. this year just because I just did I can you know I've got a card and everything but it's like you got to go by yourself then unless you really know or you can obviously you're going to see people but it's dwindling down to those in the garage area who remember my time frame there's a few but now it's so different it is so different so let's talk about your health scare yeah a little bit um which I can't imagine uh how difficult that was for you so how do you find out about your cancer

I found out I had made an appointment with my OB because I wasn't feeling right. Like I didn't have any suspect of anything. I just felt like my emotions are out of whack and, you know, it's probably hormones. It's just like I'm crying at a minute or I just feel weak, like weaker than I've ever felt. And the night before that appointment, I felt a little pee. just a little balk, but I don't know why I felt it then. Didn't even have fazed me, really. It's just something I had never really felt before.

And so I told her, I'm in the doctor's office, and I'm like crying. I'm like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I think my hormones are messed up or I'm blah, blah, blah. And then I said, oh, I did find this little thing. And she's like, oh, well, so she's like immediately made a diagnostic, what are they called? Mammogram. Mammogram. I'd slip like.

So that day I went over and did the mammogram. And then I remember if I had to come back. No, it was diagnostic. So my mother-in-law, Jeff's mom, went with me. And, you know, we waited, waited, waited. And then they put us in this little room. And the nurse came in and then the doctor came in. and they had the things, and they're like, well, you know, we found something.

It's transferred from your breast to your lymph nodes. So basically it's right at a stage three. And so then it was like, wom, wom, wom, wom, wom, wom, you just didn't. And Sue is why she had her little recorder so we could kind of go through. And then at that point, the next thing you know, they give you your cancer Bible and all your stuff. and they're like, don't get online, don't just, just, you have like a person that they connect you with, that's like your guidance counselor or whatever. Don't dig around.

Don't dig around. And then the next step from there was to go to a surgeon and get an oncologist. You know, it's like all of a sudden you're on this path. And everything, nothing else matters except getting this figured out. So immediately I'm like, just let's do it. Let's do whatever. We just cut them off. Let's do whatever we're going to do.

And so after my blood, then it takes forever. Then there's like a week that goes by before they figure out because they have to do your blood work. They've got to do all these tests. So like waiting for the surgeon to call to say, here's your surgery. It's scheduled. Well, after the blood work, the OB was like, we're going to go a different way. We're going to start you on chemo. And then we're going to do surgery.

And then we're going to do more chemo. and then radiation. We're going to try to get this. So first chemo, I had a reaction after. Like we were leaving, and I was getting in the car, and I just got really, like, dizzy. I felt like my chest was, like, I couldn't breathe. So went back in, and they basically put me in the ER and checked everything,

and I had had a reaction to one of the, because it was strong. It was a strong dose. The first time I, chemo, I'm saying, so what exactly, What's with my, when's my hair going to fall? Because that's the thing she's thinking about. So she's like, 12 days. I'd like, 12 days. Yep, 12 days.

And I'm like, oh, I wasn't really expecting that answer. And that's how it was. It was like, so once they redid my, the formula that they were putting me on, the cocktail, as they say. So I did chemo, had surgery. They were able to remove the lump. I did more chemo, that they checked again to make sure nothing was coming back. And then I did radiate. I was getting ready to start radiation, which was going to be 28 days.

My chemo was extra. It was like two years because I had to do, so it was more than usual. Like usually you do it. You do surgery. Then you do chemo. Then you're done. And I was getting ready to start radiation. And Ray and Aaron Evanham called me about doing a remodel in their condo in Amelia Island.

And I'm like, well, you know I've been, and I've been going through it. I was still doing. Like, I would, every day, you just had to listen to your body. Every day that you knew that you felt good, then do something. Do something. And then there's days you just got to listen. And if you don't, there was a lot of Epson salt baths and a lot of nausea and a lot of stuff. But you just kind of had to keep going because you knew you're going through this path.

And so anyway, work was one of the things that said. I loved to be able to work. When I felt good, I worked. And so I ended up starting my radiation at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. And I went and remodeled their condo. I would go to the ferry and drive it over to the radiation every day, except weekends, and back. And then I worked with builders. I worked, picked out stuff.

There were days I didn't feel good. They totally worked with me and finished my radiation. finished the project, which it got me through it. And it did. I'll tell you, radiation was a lot more than I thought it was going to be. Kemo was hard because you feel like crap. And you never know how you're going to react to certain things. But the radiation was like meat.

It was like just, it burns you from the inside out. First few days or nothing, but you get into day 15, and then it's like, ugh, it's awful. But I was very lucky. So I didn't have to have a mastectomy. They got the lump and, you know, a little bit here and there, but... So you never did surgery? No, I did surgery. You did surgery.

Yeah, we did surgery. So they, you know, took part, but they didn't take it all. So, like, how long are we talking about it? Like, what kind of time span from the time you found out you had cancer to the time? 2014 through 17, I was in treatment. Right before that, like with less than six months, Jeff's dad had died from primary. prostate cancer. I ended up having the same oncologist and same, a chemo person in the same, that he did. And Sue, my mother and all was very, like, she had just gone through the loss of him,

which was very unexpected. And then less than a year after I was done, my son, 19 years old, got testicular cancer. And it was like, this is not happening. And his process was much quicker with chemo. Like, they did it in a three to four months period. He lost his hair. He was fragile, but they did get everything. And he didn't have to do radiation. He just had to do his chemo. And now it's been, I think he's going on year three, and I'm on year six. So to be cancer three. What's the process for you, you know, yearly, annually? Yeah, it used to be every three months. I'd have to have a scan. What's that? Like a mammogram scan, a diagnostic. Just to go in, a couple hours.

Yep. And there was another lump came back. They had to do the diagnostic, which means they'd go in there with a needle. And it was all fatty tissue. There was no cancer that was showing. So my last scan was just a few months ago, and they said, you don't need to come back for a year. You're looking good.

That's great. Good for you. Wow. I'll tell you, your sister. I had just found out, and I had some event at the Hall of Fame to go to, that she was speaking at it, and, you know, a lot of people in the business were there, and I had just found out, and I didn't even, I'm like, I don't think I can go, I don't think I can go, and a friend of mine is like, you could do this, you can do this, just do.

And there was nobody I would have probably approached, but I went up to her, and I told her, and I just had to. It's like you're holding it in, you know, know you can't hold it in, just let it out. And it didn't really know what was going to happen or what I was going to do because it was so early into that point. And she was, well, she's always been amazing to me. And even with, and the fact that she sent me a fax, that's the time frame, a fax. I think it was with action or the sports that she was working for, the action performance.

And I had gotten a poll, and she sent a fax to my shop saying, congratulations it's so cool she was always and I spotted for her a little bit when she drove the mom and pops late model car dang did you know that yeah no I did not know yeah wow wow at Hickory how be down she just came out with the new shirt going back to her oh I saw that that's impressive okay so then that that I thought your relationship with them probably started when you started doing the interior decorating and the designing because you did do Dale's western town you did this wall in here, you know, and I know a bunch of other projects. And did you, did I

catch this? You, this is your first, these were your first projects as it officially as an interior design or no? No, I think Michael at Buffy at the time was probably one of my first. Okay. Okay. Michael Altrice. Yes. I did their, no, my first

was Kim and Ernie Irvin. When they lived out here off 150 and the That house that burnt. Yeah, the house that burnt. I had done that house. And then I later did help for them. And South Carolina. So it was kind of that time frame. And I started out with like I was doing faux finishing and murals. This is what murals in kids rooms was like a big deal. I did Doug Yates, first son Lane. Lisa was one of my best friends. And I did Lane's room, Winnie the Pooh,

like the whole thing was like clouds in the sky. And then she had a little get together with a lot of the driver's wives. And so word of mouth, it was more art. And then it became more design and I did your house before you tore it down the first one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did that, did a couple little other places over there that I did Kelly's when she built the first time. So it was, it's all just been word or mouth. Here's why I ask. I'm curious, you're the only person on the planet that you can ever ask this question to is what is the reaction when somebody says, can you help design my western town? I can imagine you'd never heard something like that before. I mean, like, did you think he had lost his mind? I mean, what goes to your mind?

No, because he told me, he's like, I kind of want this Willie Nelson vibe, you know, whiskey river. This was before the bar actually opened and all that. Right. I remember that was before I did Kelly's. But we had worked a little bit together. I mean, not together because I rarely ever saw him. It was just more like Brenda. Right, yeah.

You know, Brenda, it was going through Brenda. I did Brendan Willys and did Kellys and then this had been my first shop. Then I did Casey's, Casey Cain's shop. and then Truex's. So I have three on the street. That's been a long time. You know how long ago this was? And I did Kelly's wedding.

Wow. Yeah, her wedding now. I did Wyatt's room. Now to see him in the car. That's pretty cool. I did Carson's room and Kennedy's room. So it goes back. Your fingerprints are all over this place.

All up and down, Cayuga, all around Morseville? Yes. That's really neat. And Truax I've done a lot with, and still. do. They're, they're, they're, did the shop, did catwalk for 10 years. This was my first catwalk that I actually attended and didn't, and that felt weird because I'm like, I need to be doing something. I need to go light candles or make sure the everything's set up right. It was like, no, I can just

be here. You've done that for 10 years? 10 years. I didn't know you did any of that. All that decorating. I did all that. Oh my gosh. The midsummer night stream, all the different themes, the bond. I created that. I'm, I'm at a chainsaw at my house. I bought huge marine foam blocks as big as this table, but thick. And so I carved out grooves in it, and I was making this big entryway. And then we would stack the stones because we had to transport them to the venue. And then I took pool noodles and the curves to make it look like roots, made all that stuff. That's creativity.

I was glad not to do this last one, though. It was kind of a relief to not go through it again because it was a lot. Yeah, sounds like it. fabulous to attend it as a guest was amazing what they do for those kids what you all do it's always an amazing event yeah and uh sherry and true x do that um i asked her i said i need the western town to look older than it is because when we built it it was like brand new the wood was all pretty much new yeah and i was like well now i need it to look like it's 150 years old and she came in and i mean inch from one plate from one end to the other like she was

was a lot of work. I remember, you may not remember this, but I remember. She painted a bunch of murals, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, murals. But the vents that were on the old wood walls, you know, they were white and just like, and I had done this aging on the wall, and I made it to where the vent just disappeared. And he's like, that's so cool. I remember you saying that.

Yep. She made the vent disappear in the wall. Yeah, yeah. It was impressive because it was a lot of work. Yeah. She did the whole town and painted every post board. Every exterior, a lot of interior work. Yeah, the saloon.

Man, one of those days I got a piece of that wood underneath my nail. Oh, that was painful. Well, I'll have you know that just this weekend, a friend of mine used that their location for their wedding. Really? Yeah. So, I mean, it's still going strong. That's so cool. There's not been much done to it since you last put your finishing touches.

That's so great. I'm so glad to hear that. That's like it makes you feel so good to come. come in here and see that it's still, it's grown with more names on the wall and more things, but you still see a lot of it. And you've got a go-kart track out there, too, don't you? I do. Yeah, that wasn't there when I did the town, but later on it was.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Yeah, my place. Yeah. So what are you doing these days? You just said you got back from Texas. Yeah, I just went to Texas for, I used to set up there for three or four years where it'd be,

we'd have like 15 to 20 pieces. My wife said it's this massive. It's round top. Massive get-together. It's like 30 to 40 miles of antique dealers, vendors. People that go like Tommy Hilfinger, the people that actually set the stage for like the Ellen show or any of these like Kelly Clarkson show,

that's where you go to get your stuff. I mean, you see everything there from games to like old game boards, old gas cans. You see front ends of trucks. And I've got tons of cool pictures. from it. And then you see furniture too, like just all high-end. What's it called? It's called Roundtop Texas. It's Texas Antique Week and they do it in the spring and in the fall. And that's the first time, the second time I set up there. And it's like 10 days. So you're literally, I had a 26-foot

box truck stuffed full and you do like, it could be just an empty room and you end up making it look like it's a store, you know, like a showroom. People, build stuff and it's clothes to cowboy boots to hats to salvage. So you filled up a box truck? Yeah, I had all my pieces. Then you get there and you got a set up. So you're there for like two days just setting up. And then you're there for 10 days selling. Who took all the stuff out there? I did. You drove it out there. Yeah. She happens to drive. You drive it back. She has experience in a truck. I did drive it back. And that's not as fun as driving there. Let me tell you. I figured that was the case. I didn't want to sue. No. No, I did. Yeah, the first year you kind of

you don't know what to expect. And we had driven, the girl that sets up with me went, the two of us drove, and it was like we didn't get in until probably two, three in the morning, because I like to drive at night.

We just drove straight through, but it was 24 hours. And so we get there and we start seeing all this stuff. It's like walking, what if you walked into a place and all you saw was race cars. Well, all you see is like antiques and salvage

and furniture and lighting and it's like we were like wide away. We were ready to unload the truck and start. But it's a long week and it's a lot of work, but it's very cool. It sounds amazing. It's a fun thing to do. Like they told you Clinton, Laura went to buy, that was in another place of Texas.

But no, they went there. They went to Round Top. You guys were racing and then we did Round Top. I took him there for two days. And they're like, I was sending them pictures and Justin Marks because they did there. They love all that kind of stuff. You know, the old, like you did. The stuff you can't.

Justin Marks with track house. Yes. Oh, man. I did their house in here. In North Carolina. In North Carolina. Then they moved to California and flew me out to do that house. They didn't even make it to Christmas on this house here.

And she loved it. But they ended up moving to California. So went out there, did their house. I had a built. I found a carpenter there, and I had all these little houses built. in the girls' bonus room. So they were little cabins. There's like six little cabins

that had little bunk beds and little, so that was their bonus room, playroom. Well, then didn't even make it through Christmas and they're like, we're moving to Nashville. So I didn't do the Nashville thing because I think they just kind of bought everything. They love. They move a lot then.

They do projects and they just move before they're done? Is that their deal? I know. They love Nashville. Yeah. They do love Nashville. I know that. Yeah.

So is your clientele? like very specific or like if anybody wants like how do you just take anybody that wants to have a big project in a remodeling or anything like that how do yeah i did some like stuff in charlotte and but when i moved out of charlotte and moved this way most of my clients were in this area and like i said i've never really advertised it's all word of mouth so it still seems to be that way because it's kind of like papus and you know you get like I used to race on the track with the guys, right, or the drivers. But now you get to know their home life and their wives.

And, you know, Amy used to be a decorator, right? So you kind of, it just kind of comes with it. And I just, I'm lucky to have a good group of clients. And most of them I've had for a long time. So I'm fortunate. I think just still design. And I, okay, what I normally do on a Monday, because I like to just not do anything on Mondays if I don't have to.

I'm on the lawnmower or a tractor. I love, we only have like three and a half acres of this little out in Catawba. But I love that. I'd love to like, I have five dogs. I want some goats and some chickens. But my man's kind of like, let's just slow down five dogs. We have five dogs. But yeah, eventually I would want to make it like wildflower.

I hope I can do that and slow down. But I mean, I still need to work because I still need to make money. But I'd hope to eventually. I can just spend more time in the yard and with my kids to their things. And they're not kids anymore. So now it's like 24 and 25. Damn. I know.

It's crazy. Time is gone. I know. It is so crazy. When I take him to the racetrack, you know, I'd be holding Sam and holding Tanner by the hand. I remember Jeff would show us. That blows my mind because I remember specifically your son. Didn't he play football?

He did when he was younger. He got into big time gaming. Well, yeah, but so I'm going back, this is how long ago this was. Like, I remember seeing pictures of him as a, you know, as a football player. It might have been, I mean, he may not have been 12 years old. Yeah, it's probably like 9, 10, 11, 12s. Right, right. And so he's 25 now.

Oh, moly. Goodness. Yeah. Well, this has been a lot of fun. It has. I've really enjoyed it. You brought out some stories I hadn't talked about it a while. Do you want to throw a bird back to him right now?

Like, just for, send it back his way? Oh. You didn't know? Oh, yeah. No, I'm sorry. Hey, it feels good these days, doesn't it off? We had never talked about it. No.

Never talked about it. But this is where you talk about these things. That's right. So I just want you to know that I want to thank you for coming and spend us some time with us today. I've always been fascinated with your career. Thank you. And just always thought a lot about you. and you know it was cool for me when you got to when it was cool for me when we got to work together

on the western town and do those type of things and what you did here at junior motor sports and it was cool that that created a respect and friendship and beyond the racetrack so and to learn about your life has been a lot of fun thank you know the big rigs and i kind of knew i remember hearing about that when you first came into the infinity series but to be able to sit down with you and discuss it and learn more about it. Yeah, there's a lot to it that a lot of people don't, doesn't understand. Knowing your family and knowing your mother and time that I got to spend

working with her. I think went on a boat a couple times. Those things you don't, when you work, you just kind of like, I like to keep things professional, but you have fun too when you know people. And I'm just so glad to know Kelly and Brenda and your old family. Well, they think the world of you and mom thought the world of you. But anyways, I'm glad that you agreed to come on the show so we could celebrate you a little bit.

Yeah. I was excited. Thank you, Sean. You are welcome. Shana Robinson on the Dale Jr. download. We are live. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. I was looking at an email I got.

I got one of my eBay orders is delivered. Oh. So I got some door panel screws for a Chevy truck GMC, 1947 through 1950-something. I'm doing a little work on my 1948 Chevy truck and so one of the door handles was sagging like so you'd shut the door and the door handle

is like one of those of your turn like that. Yeah. And it was sagging down so I took the whole thing apart because I want to fix that and make it. And it was a spring broke in there and now I'm like oh I'll replace this. I'll replace this door panel I'll replace all these screws I'll replace this and this this and I'm just trying to and I buy everything off eBay very very cheap I'm pretty cheap.

But I'm having fun. Anyways. All true. Cheap and you're having fun. I love it. That's a good combo. So anyways, this is the Ask Junior portion of show. You guys are just now climbing into the YouTube channel at DirtyMo Media.

We appreciate all the support for everything you guys do for our social media and everything you do for DirtyMod Media, all the support of the podcast that we put out. So thanks for all that. Obviously, thanks to Xfinity. They are the ones that promote our support. this part of the podcast. The Ask Junior part is presented to you by Xfinity. They're a proud premier partner of NASCAR.

Try saying that three times fast. And their X-Fi is incredible. I'm a customer. I went and signed up, and I'm a paying customer, and before they even knew it, and I love it. So we appreciate everything they do for not only us, but the sport. They, you know, a big sponsor in the Xfinity series, and that's no small feat.

It takes a lot of effort to make those things happen. And so we appreciate everything to do. But you guys have been sending questions in to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Leah is compiled her favorites. So if yours doesn't get picked out, it is Leah's responsibility for that. Or just do better. Exactly. You can reach out, you know, you can reach out through Twitter to,

Leah and tell her, hey, I've sent in five questions in the last five weeks. Not one has been picked. I get that already. Well, don't encourage them. You guys now know that she sees your responses and she reads them and she chooses to either reply or not. It's her prerogative whether she really wants to engage. What? What am I doing?

It's true, though. I'm going to go delete my Twitter account. What? No, I'm just saying. Those are all true things, I just said. What? Hey, remember when we asked questions on this? I used to be where she was.

Oh, yeah. I used to be where she was this. Should we do that? See, listen, now we got a little personality. Should we get to that part? We're just trying to drag it out of us. Just trying to get you going. Go on.

I'm ready. Let's go. All right, we're getting a ton of questions about the next gen test you're doing tomorrow. Tell us how that came about and what your thoughts on. Yeah, so I've been wanting to, yeah, I've been wanting to test. the next-gen car whenever if that's a possibility at some point and just kind of keep my ear to the ground about what's going on with the tests and who's testing and maybe I could climb in this car or that car but I got NASCAR reached out and

asked me if I'd be interested in driving the car at Bowman Gray this is a test to try to prepare for that clash race they're having in LA at the Coliseum so all right they said sure I'll drive the car they call me again a couple weeks ago and said, all right, we've got Tony Stewart, you and Clint Boyer. Tony Stewart's going to drive the car and do the tire test, all the functions that they need, probably a couple 40-lap runs for a good year. And when Tony's done, me and Clint will jump in the car and drive it a few laps here and there. I'm just going to, I'm expecting to run anywhere from five to 20 laps max and probably no more than that. I'd really love to drive the car at Richmond

or a little bit larger racetrack to really get an understanding of what the car feels like and get a little more knowledge for me for when I go work to booth and things like that for next year. So hoping to get that opportunity and maybe this will create, you know, create some potential opportunities down the road for me to drive it. So anyway, I'm not expecting anything out of it. I'm just happy to go help out and maybe provide whatever feedback. I'm sure Tony's going to have all the feedback they're going to need. And it'll be great to see Clint.

It's always fun to hang out with him. I think the number one thing on my mind is I've never been to Bowman Gray. And not only am I going to get to drive around the track, and I'm going to just see this historical racetrack. I got a lot of respect for the place and the history and how long it's been around and have always wanted to go there. So this is going to be a great chance for me just to go check it out. Next question from Brandon Hall.

I just watched a video of you and Hank Jones trading bumper paint in the legends cars from when you were younger. That was awesome to see. My question is, did you enjoy cutting your teeth in the Legends cars growing up? So I did enjoy driving the Legends cars. It was a little frustrating, though, and I'll give you a little backstory on my car. My car was the third Legends car ever built. And the first Legends cars had 900-C engines.

The first one and the second one had 900-C motors. Mine got an 1,100, I believe. And then the fourth cars and everyone after that was, 200, 300 more cc's, like more power. And so the car I drove wasn't very good on the straightaway. And it was frustrating on the dirt tracks mostly because those guys would just go faster. When we'd go to Talladega short track and run, they were pretty much wide open, right? And they would just slowly drive away.

There's nothing I could do about my line or anything I could do in the corner to make up for the distance I was losing on just pure speed. So the car was a little frustrating to drive, but I ran it for a year. Originally, my dad owned it, and then I think Hank bought it. And when I was racing Hank and ran into him and won that race that night, Hank was the owner of the car. And it was my first and only win in a Legends race, and I was running streetstocks at the same time at Concord Motor Speedway with my brother Kerry. And so that night, we had a streetstock race, and I ran. And that Legends race walked over to the, you know,

drove the car over to the hauler, a Goosneck trailer where Hank and everybody else is at. Hank is mad. Won't hardly talk to me because he's trying to win his first Legends race. And he was sitting there leading that whole race.

And I said, you know what? I'll let you have the trophy. I said, I'm going to, or it was the cash, one or the other. Yeah. I think I gave him the cash and kept the trophy. And so,

And then we left, me and my friend Walter, who was with me, Rick Boss, nephew, we left and went to Concord to run a streetstock car. And those are some fun times, man, 16 years old and driving my Lestine truck around everywhere. But the Legends cars were, I think the Legends cars are a great way. They're expensive. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. They are not cheap. but they're a great way for a driver to understand power over weight

because they don't weigh much but they got a ton of power and they drive they have these little street tires I mean there's things that you can do obviously to the brakes and the tires and to manipulate grip into the way the car drives and handles I don't know exactly how tight the rules are these days but it's still hard to get that power down to the racetrack and they are a handful and I think that's great for a driver as far as trying to learn how to get you know get around the racetrack fast without

driving like an idiot you know just to you know using way too much power and and overbreaking and overdriving corners you're not going to be successful in a legend's car unless you're just right and i like that about it and teaches these young guys who get into the legends cars racing craft and driving and trying to stay out of trouble they don't have fenders and they run into each other and break suspension and uh it's a it's a it's a great way to you know if you can afford it it's a great way to you know teach your teacher teach young kids how to drive next question from justin bates what's it really like when you have to go to the nascar hauler after a race we've heard for years it isn't fun yeah but can you go into a little detail

what it's truly like me and letart del jarrant and all of us were having this conversation on the way home from kansas last night most conversations or all the stories that i've heard and my own experience it goes like this they call you to the holler you go up in there and Mike Helton walks in you start to open your mouth and plead your case and he says immediately I'm doing I'm gonna do all the talking and you can keep your mouth shut and and he's and when he's doing the talking it's intimidating as hell It's like, he's like the Dale Earnhard of NASCAR officials. So it's, it's kind of scary.

And you, all you want is to get out of there. And so Mid asked you, and you're like, I just can't wait until this is over. Does he raise his voice? Of course, Mike. So it's not a dumb question because, like, he always seems kind of calm and cool. Nobody knows what the intimidating thing is. I think that, does he, like, yell? Does he throw things?

Does he cuss you out? Yeah. All those things? Yes. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that is. Okay, it's intimidating.

There was one conversation that Dale Jarrett was telling me about how, you know, Jarrett said something that he shouldn't have said, and Helton slammed one of the cabinet shut and the door just flew off the hinges. Oh, my gosh. Now we're talking. This is the stuff we'd never had any idea of what's happening. Yeah. So I'll promise you, I wouldn't know what it was.

would be like today because Mike's not in that position anymore. There are other people that are tasked to handle those silly problems that we bring into the garage. But when Mike was there, you did not want to get called to the trailer. You were terrified of it and you knew what was coming. You knew you weren't going to go in there and convince them otherwise. And their attitude, which I always felt was a good one, is this NASCAR was here. long before you were and it'll be here long after you're gone and you can fall in line and do

what do it we expected you or you won't be around long and and they made that clear man even to me so um it was it was scary so and it was helton it was the main ingredient that made it that way i've been another haulers exfinity haulers and so forth where he wasn't part of that experience and it was a little different. It was a little less scary. But Helton really ran the show. Next question from Michael. Everyone talks about your father's most famous wins, but what's a race win from your dad that you think goes under the radar? Man, that's so...

Under the radar, Earnhardt win. Yeah, I guess the best way to look at this would be what seasons are kind of under the radar. So 1984, first year kind of back with Richard Childers, they had some wins, and I don't think people knew what was coming. I don't think people knew what that team would develop into in 1986, 87, and beyond. So they're winning a couple races in that, in, in 1984, and I think people were overlooking them. And his wins with Bud Moore were probably, you know, he had struggled in 81 and he went to you know he he he quit the team he was with and went to RCR in the middle of 81 and didn't then he was a backside of the top 10 guy

driving Richard's cars the remainder of 1981 I think people had not written dad off but I think you know he came in run wins a rookie year wins the championship in 1980 and in his mind he's he's here he's arrived he's there you know he's he's the man he's gonna be one of the men between you know he's right in the mix of Richard Petty, Darrow, Walscher, David Pearson, Neil Bond, and all those guys. And then he goes in 81 and has such a difficult year. And he's driving, you know, equipment that's not top, you know, top five equipment. And I think Richard Petty, Darrow, but all those guys that were a little concerned with him at first,

weren't worried about him anymore. And then he goes to Bud Moore's cars, which they won races, but they blew a lot of motors. Bud's cars were good, not perfect. They weren't Junior Johnson's cars. And so they didn't intimidate anyone. Those cars, the cars were good, but they didn't concern most of the field. So I think 83 and 84, those two years, there were some wins in there that I think are kind of overlooked in his career. All right.

Next question from Brian. Wiltshire, can you go by some of your favorite Halloween memories, both childhood and grown-up? Well, I just wanted to be a football player every year when I was little, so I got a couple pictures of me at six, seven, eight years old, just wearing the same thing. Like, I had this football uniform. It was a white helmet, white pants, red jersey, no number, just the generic football player. And I wore it like three years in a row. I was like, uh-uh, I don't want to be nothing else.

I got it. It's up in my closet. Football player. I'm going to be wearing this in the pros, so I don't know as well get used to it. So, yeah, I love being a football player. You know, walking around in shoulder pads, I mean, you know, it's a great excuse to walk in shoulder pads. You know, when I got older, I think my memories,

we always felt like we needed, this will be a great story. We always felt like we needed to be destructive on Halloween when I turned 16, 17, 18, 19, I lived across the street from DEI and a trailer with my brother Kerry. He moved out. When he moved out, I got, you know, my buddies would come around and we'd hang out. And on Halloween one night, I lived right across the street from DEI. Dad had 300 acres of property. And never on any other night during the year would I ever even think of doing this out of fear

and how dangerous it is. But on Halloween night, we got a bunch of eggs. and we jumped the fence to get into Dad's property. We walked all the way across 300 acres in the dark to the other side of the fence, and there was a roadway, jumped that fence and hid behind bushes and threw eggs at cars. Good Lord. Yeah.

What? You are suicidal. Well, I've had eggs thrown at me. No, I'm not talking about the eggs. I'm talking about the hop into the fence. I know what happens to people when they get on that property. I would have got out of whoops a man. So we were into that.

We were into egg and cars and playing mailbox baseball and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. So I was driving down the road one day in the middle of the night and an egg hit my truck and I just had to smile. That's a good shot. I really appreciate it. You had it coming. I was like, man, I'd deserve that. Yeah. But we did it basically to throw in the eggs at cars was fun for sure because, you know, you hit one and you got to go, you know, you run.

or you hide in the bushes or whatever, and you're scared that they're going to come back, you know, and find your, you know, what's going on. And then we had to get back across the property in the middle of the night. And you don't know, you know, what dad's got out there to detect, you know, what's happening on his property.

And I'm telling you, if you climb the fence to get in, and in two days he'd be going around asking, who's climbed my fence? Yeah, he'd noticed something. It's wire right here. Yeah. Somebody had their shoe in there. Is that where you get it from?

No, dude, I've heard that. That's amazing, too. Dude, he would know. Even if it was in the middle of the woods, in the corner somewhere where nobody would go, he'd be like, how do you know? How did you find that? It's crazy. So I was nervous after the fact, and we only did that one time.

But, man, I have, what an adrenaline rush, man. I don't promote it, and I'd be mad if my kids did it, but it was a rush. Imagine Ila. Egging cars. doing that. Oh, I'd be so mad. And then we played mailbox baseball a lot, not on just Halloween, but, and a buddy of mine cut his hand.

We were using a wooden bat, and the bat split, and half of it went into his hand, and that was in the mailbox baseball. We'd been doing that for several years. I had a, you know, the red plastic mailbox barn-shaped mailboxes? Oh, yeah, I did. I had the sliding glass door open on my, LOS 10. I was probably about 16.

And a buddy of mine hit one of those and part of that plastic came in and gave me a wealth on the neck. I was like, man, I deserve that. You deserve a lot more than that. What? Mailbox federal. That's just messed up. If somebody did that your mailbox today.

I've had people hit my mailbox. Really? Yeah. Isn't that a federal crime? Yeah. Sure. Okay. Oh, my God.

Is this past the statute of limitations? I hope. What? You know how he surprised you with your birthday a couple weeks ago? Today it's police officers. Here to arrest you. Well, yeah. I'll buy some mailboxes.

We weren't that good at it. I'll just say that. There were some strikes. Yes. One time... He missed. Yeah, one time me and Hank Parker, Jr., he missed the box and hit the bed of my S-10 pickup truck. At the end of the baseball bat.

Gave it a nice little dent. I mean, you know, you're going to play stupid games. Stupid things are going to happen. All right, I think that's it for today. You're going to end on the criminal? And on a high note. The criminal history of the bill? That's what we're going to end up.

I don't think we can talk about. Here, I got something we can end on. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We've sent. Another surprise. We have something. Do we want to say who sent this?

A fan from up there sent this. Okay, for a studio. You'll recognize it. What the is? Cross track. access permitted to this individual problem. This is hilarious.

This is the Pocono sign. This is the sign that Pocono put up after your whole deal. Oh my God. I love it. Yeah. So that's a good studio. It's a really good quality. You look good in that picture, now.

The picture is high-deaf. No pixelated J-pags here, man. You would think it'd be just thrown together. But man, they really scanned a nice little photo there. Yep. I love it. Yeah, I guess the backstory is. I had a little run-in with a gate guard.

And he wanted me to show my hard card, and it was buried in the bottom of my backpack. But he was like, he knew who I was. And I was like, well, you know who I am. Do I really got to dig for this card? But so we had a conversation about it. All right. Very cool.

Can we do one more thing? Everybody wants to see more of your shirt. Oh, I do. That's a hot topic on. There we go. Matthew, you can explain what this is. Yes, I'll get. Dale right now is showing off his beautiful.

vintage Cherokee Speedway shirt. Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, South Carolina, right near the Giant Peach, dirt late model track, very well known in the area, and it's badass vintage. There you go. To Dale Jr. I think Matthew got me this shirt. No,

you didn't. No. I got it some other way. I can't take credit for something that good. All right. Well, I love it, yeah. I was wearing it early this morning and ran into a guy. He's like, I live right next to that place, man. I've never seen more fighting in my life. And they let you drink beer. He's like, I've seen guys with driver suits tied around their waist walk up to the concession stand

and get a cup of Dixie Cuts or solo cup of beer and walk away. Mike, this place has a sign above the gate, like Dale's been there before, has a sign above the gate that says, the place your mama warned you about. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's cool. Go check it out. Cherokee Speedway. Anyways, this.

Oh, yeah, this is live. This was live. This was one for the books. Poorly. Man, we really came out of it. We came out of the shell today. Leah, great job, Leah. Good job, Leah.

Thank you. I'm glad we could finally get Leah to snap into it. That's a segment we'll do. And it could be presented by Xfinity, a proud partner NASCAR, where Leah, we just try to piss her off every week. I think next week we should just read her Twitter comments. Oh, gosh. Oh, no, not, no, don't bring that up right now.

About, yeah. No. She says she gets some feedback. A little bit. Last week was bad, but that was Matthew's fault. Matthew. What did you do? I sent you an apology.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, the F-bom and all that. I'm so sorry. All your listeners, I'm so sorry. My wife liked it. Thank God. If that's any, what is the word? If it's any solace.

Yeah, solace. I'm just glad I wasn't fired. And if it's any solace, a lot of other people did, too. Amy wasn't the only one. Unfortunately, we can't leave those. A lot of kids loved it. They learned a lot that day. Well, I don't know what they're doing on Twitter.

Thanks to Xfinity for supporting Ask Junior part of our show, and they've done a lot for us over the years and continue to do a lot for this podcast. So we've got to thank them. Lastly, we've got to thank all of you guys for tuning in and doing everything you can to try to raise awareness for our show and sharing it with your friends and telling people how much fun this is. So I always love doing this part of the show

because I know even though you're not in the room, I am interacting with a lot of real people out there that really care about what we're doing. And that's the funnest, that's the funnest part. Is that a word? It sounds good. Yeah, fun. It's the best part.

Yeah. It's my word. So it's the best part of the, it's the best part of the show. So thank you guys and we'll see you next week. Okay, Mike, it's the last call. Hey, last call, everybody. I appreciate you guys listening to this episode. A lot of fun today.

But I want to tell you a quick update. We've got a podcast here at Dirty Mo Media. Lots of podcasts. Door bumper clear is one of them. A couple of. I'd say more than a couple. A bunch of loudmouthed spotters. They run their mouth, good bit.

But they're fun to listen to. I like to listen to them. This is where I find out a lot of my insider stuff. Here's what they said this week. Hey, Del Jr. Download fans. T.J. Major is here. Come listen to our podcast, Door Bumper Clear, this week. This is Freddie Craft.

I finally decided to show up for work today, and we'll have a lot to talk about after Kansas. We'll cover Ryan Blaney getting wiped out, a tight playoff line, heading to Martinsville, NASCAR and F1 going head-to-head, cup race attendance, and a lot more. Hey, what's up? Brett Griffin here. You can listen to door bumper clear this week, and every week on dirtymobedia.com and all major podcast platforms.

We've got another show called Glorious White Knuckle Godfearing spun out and half-turned-over racing stories. Leah, I'm thinking about maybe a social media campaign to see who out there can send us videos that can say that without mistakes, right? Who can best deliver that? I know I screw it up. And I came up with the idea.

So if it's hard for me, then it's probably hard for everybody else. But it's called Glorious White Nuckle Godfearing Spun Out and Half Turned Over Racing Stories. A nostalgic journey filled with sound design, bring back some of the most interesting stories in our sports history. Rick Houston does a fantastic job. Love what he's doing there. We've got another podcast coming out. I had planned on giving a little teaser today. Oh.

Planned on it. But not quite ready. Not quite ready. Going to do it soon, though. May this week. week probably this week. Leah, I still think you're going to run lead on it.

Suspense. Yeah. I'm going to tell you something right here. Listen to this. And I'm not kidding. I am most proud of the podcast that we're going to come out with. There of anything else we've done at Dirty Mo Media, including Lost Speedways. And I'm quite proud of what we do at Lost Speedways.

But this one is, this one's kind of taking a big swing, right? Huge, yeah. Yeah. It's a huge swing. Yeah. I would say it would be our first podcast where we allow profanity. But last week, Matthew went ahead. hadn't got in front of that by allowing Dale Jr.

Download to be profane all throughout. Thank you for that, by the way. No, thank you for sticking up for me. We stuck up for a little social media lashing. It's okay. I'm just playing. You know this show's on TV. Y'all know that, right?

Big Ten 4. NBC Sports Network. Love that television show that we do here. It's a condensed version, but it's a great version. A lot of good stuff that the NBC sports producers put into that. It's going to be at Thursday at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. So Thursday, 6 p.m. Eastern Time, the Dell Jr. Download on NBC Sports. And I want to close up with this. We've got some new merchandise in the store. Kelly Earnhardt has a new shirt that she's

added to the Dirty Moe Original line. And I'm going to tell you something. A lot of people buying it right now. Also, you haven't seen it? Yeah. You haven't seen it? No. It's good. It's good. And so it's kind of a, I think it's a replica of something she had back when she raced. Correct. Her late model? Yeah. Yeah. Sweet. So did she race anything else? Streetstock. Did she run a street stock?

She ran that 03 streetstock that Dailon Carrier ran to. This would be the late model. Nice. So we also have new hats. We have new stuff in the store. It's also, you can find it at dirtymomedia.com. If you click on the store and the merchandise tab, you'll find all of our new stuff right there. And it's almost Christmas time.

And there's some birthdays coming up. Are y'all wear that? Yes. You know, like birthday. There's still birthdays that come up. Who's? Mine? And T.J's.

Who cares about T.J.? When's yours? Same day, bud. You and T.J. were born in the same day? That sucks for you. And Danny Sr. Not on the same day, just the same birthday. Oh, yeah. You're not that old. Yeah. What is it? November.

You work on that. Listen, I'm not going to tell you. No, tell the fans. No, no. Tell the fans so they can do the happy birthday. Mike Davis sucks. Can we talk about how you're a sports icon now? Oh, you're a sports icon? Stop. All right. You know what. Oh, no, no, no.

going to hear about this? No, everybody knows about it. I don't know about it. Everybody knows about it. I don't know about it. I don't know how you know about it. Everybody knows over the weekend. Dirty moiety.

Go ahead. You get the stage. No, I got, first of all, my Saturday morning, my power goes out. And the next thing that happens is I get a tweet notification from Twitter giving me an update from sports icon Mike Davis. Whoa. Listen, you should clarify. So, like Twitter does these recommendations. Yeah, it's a news update.

It's a news update. Yeah. And it called me a sports icon, which my reply to that was, if Twitter is being consistent with its own policies, it would ban itself for being false and misleading and potentially insulting information, which I know actual sports icons would be absolutely offended by that.

So, let's see if at Twitter bans at Twitter. That's awesome. I didn't know I was in the presence of an icon. It's not true. Two icons now. It's not even close to true, and we'll see what Twitter does. There you go. Somebody was clearly drunk on Saturday.

Right. Somebody at Twitter. But you mean someone other than me? Yes. Were you drunk? Saturday night it was. I've never seen you drunk. Well, Alabama beat Tennessee.

Oh, you're celebrating. Yeah. And he'd get drunk if Tennessee beat Alabama. Yeah, different kind of drunk. 15 years in a row, 15 games. Wind Street for Alabama over Tennessee. I hate Tennessee. See, I like Tennessee. Why? I like the orange. My cousin played in the band there. Oh, really? Clarinet? No, that's excellent. I love the state of Tennessee, but I am not a fan of the University of Tennessee.

But anyways, that's it. All right, Dale, close her down for us. All right, everybody, have a great week. Hope you enjoyed the show. We'll see you soon. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo! Thank you.