The Dale Jr. Download - 371 - DEI Days: The Rise

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

The meteoric rise of a Motorsports empire. Dirty Mo Media and The Dale Jr. Download present a special look behind the curtain of Dale Earnhardt Inc, as told by drivers and key members of the team. This episode focuses on the growth of Dale Earnhardt's racing team from a part-time effort in the NASCAR Xfinity Series to a winning three-car team in NASCAR's elite Cup Series. Drivers Ron Hornaday Jr., Steve Park and Michael Waltrip share their experiences in getting to know the Intimidator and how he pulled them under his wing and into DEI.One of the key members of Earnhardt's team, was Ty Norris. Norris wore several hats at DEI, but we learn his most important was being one of Dale Earnhardt's top "lieutenants." Norris shares how Dale Earnhardt took him from a public relations position to helping him operate his beloved race team.Steve Park was plucked from the open-wheeled Modified ranks of the northeast to be the driver to build the program around. After some time seasoning, Park was Earnhardt's choice to race in the Cup level. This paved the way for Dale Earnhardt Jr. We learn that his first opportunity came on a suggestion from his uncle, the late Danny Earnhardt Sr. Dale Jr. proved he was a winner and joined Park. The trinity was completed with the arrival of Michael Waltrip who was tabbed to pilot the NAPA Auto Parts ride.The formation of a third Cup team didn't come without sacrifices. Ron Hornaday Jr. describes how he was let go, in an unorthodox meeting with Dale Earnhardt.The vision for DEI was clear: get the best drivers, build the best cars, and do it all from within. 2001 was to be the start of a new era. Unfortunately, with the death of Dale Earnhardt in the season opening Daytona 500, the new era took on an even more significant meaning. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, so Mike, over the past couple of years, we've had some amazing guests on our podcast, and we've got a great idea coming up for all of our listeners. We were thinking about trying to categorize some of these interviews, and one of the big parts of my career, obviously, was the DEI Days. We've had several people come in here and be interviewed and discuss their experiences. We thought about maybe packaging that into one podcast, sort of a best of, but not generally, a best of all the Dale Jr. Downlands, but the DEI days.

That's right. I mean, if you think about it, if you take like the Michael Waltrip episode and the Steve Park episode, a lot of their experiences and vantage points intertwined. And so we have this idea. Let's get the, you know, the stories at Michael, the best stories and the best part of Steve Park and maybe Ty Norris. And let's get them together. and maybe it can just give us another appreciation of all of these remarkable stories and experiences that we've listened to on the download of the past several years. Well, today we want to share that with you. We're pretty excited about it. Looking back on some of the great days in DEI, some of the struggles, some of the maybe not so great days. Right, right.

It gets deep. Those DEI years are deep. And Thai Norse especially comes to mind on that. So, yeah, this is our idea. I'm eager to hear how people respond to it if you appreciate it. Let us know. I know. I think it's going to be a cool little deal that we got going on here.

All right, here we go. The DEI days on the Dell Jr. Download. This episode is called The Rise. This is Steve Park. You drove for DEI for two years in the AC Delco car. I remember that team when Dad drove for it. I remember that team as dad's sort of home family team with Tony Senior, Rick Boss, eventually Tony Erie Jr.

Jeff Green got put in the car, had some reasonable results, but the team was still sort of growing, understanding how to run a full schedule because Dad never ran a full schedule with the team. You get in the car, ran two years, got them to Victory Lane. He went to Nashville. Yeah. And you built a lot of the cars.

You worked in the shop. This is a period of time back then when you worked. You spent a lot of hours during the week working on the cars, right? Yeah, yeah, all the time. I mean, my background came from building my own race cars He's been racing up in New England. The Modified Tour made its second stop of the year at Thompson Speedway last Sunday. Bullsitter Steve Park took command right from the start.

You know, so we used to work till 5, 6 o'clock at night, have something to eat, go to the race shop, work till 12, 1 o'clock in the morning every single night. That was just a routine that we were used to. And when I actually moved down to Charlotte and went to work for your dad, I thought it was pretty amazing because, I mean, I was like, man, It was like my dream job. I can just get up in the morning and go to the shop and work on race cars. And this was awesome.

And I think I told you, Dad, I said, you know, I just need enough money to live and a bed. Just put a bed in the shop somewhere and give me enough money so I can feed myself. And we'll go racing and win a lot of races. And, yeah, obviously, I guess, like that in me. It's so long ago, I know, I already remember. But when y'all first came to North Carolina, y'all lived on Irvin Road in a house near where I grew up. right right around the court when I first came here I came in in 94 this is Ronner Day Jr because you know you I got I got hired from Dale Earnower for $60,000 a year

but the first time he called me up you want to hear the whole story sure yes I don't know if I can I might have to cry you won't be the first one that's cried at that chair you run a southwest car yep last race two songs no not the last race second last race Penny Parsons said you're going to be getting a phone call after this race. I mean... He said that? Oh, yeah. He knew.

Well, the truck series was starting. Nobody knew it out there. Oh, oh. Yeah, nobody knew with, you know, what the super trucks and all that stuff are coming, and people were looking for drivers. So I guess, I think it was seven weeks or eight weeks in a row we raced out there. It was all televised, and I was fortunate enough to drive Wayne Spears' truck, Southwest Tour, Winston West, and I'm an IMCA.

modified stuff. I won a lot of races out there. Very fortunate. And Benny said you're going to get a phone call. Well, long story short, every time I race, remember Larry Nasten. He passed away. He was with mechanics work. Yeah, yeah, he was in mechanics work. He was an announcer. Radio type deal. Every Monday morning. Ron Hornet, this, Richard Petty. How'd you do this wagon? You know, it just sounded sound like he was, you know, like Richard Petty.

Well, driving home, you know, we didn't have cell phones back then. We were stopping to get fuel. We'd call up the shop. I said, we got a phone call. He said, yeah, Larry Nasson keeps calling. He'd be telling me's Dale Earnhardt, and we kept hanging up on him. We said, we're so busy trying to get this car done before you get back to the shop. I said, well, I heard Dale's supposed to be calling.

He said, well, he called three times. I hung up on. I'm sorry, so they always thought it was Larry Nasten. So we finally get home. It said eight-hour drive from Phoenix to where our shop was. And I pulled in there and say, Dale's on the phone, down. I said, give me a favor, tell him to hold on. I go to the bathroom really, really bad.

I just drove eight hours, so I put Dale on hold again. And he says, Hornaday, this is Dale Earnhardt. I said, yes, sir, what can I do for you? He said, you want to drive my super truck next year? I said, I'd love to. He said, all right, I'll see you tomorrow. I said, you're coming out here? He goes, no, you got to fly out here.

I said, I can. I said, I got one more race. I mean, there's only me and my brother along working on my cars. He said, well, if you want a job, you're going to be out here. I'll have you a ticket overnight. Wow. Tuesday morning, or Tuesday morning, we got a plane ticket, I was flying out Tuesday night, and he picked me up at the airport.

Long story short. Remember your dad's poster of the good year tire in his tuxedo with his seven championship trophies? Your dad had that black truck, a cab and a half sitting there with his foot up on the dashboard with his trophies in the back, three in the back and four in the bed of the truck because he went and did the photo shoot for that with his tuxedo. Oh, really? Wait, when he picked you up? At 9 o'clock in the morning. This is what he was dressed like with a touch.

He's a trot? You know? You knew where he was because there's 30 people in line waiting for his autograph with his foot up there and just signing everybody. The first time Earnhardt picked me up. I know him because I talked to him with track, shook his hand, not knowing, you know, how you know, Mr. Herrador? You're shaking like that. But wow. What are you doing with those?

Showing them off. Yeah. You know, that's what I'm thinking. But, you know, just driving out. I got a little backpack because I'm only staying for a couple days and I've got to go back to, you know, two. on and he started driving up the road. And instead of going the interstate, he takes the old backroads. Going by Schrader's shop, showing me this, show me that.

You know, your dad is. He likes to show you this around me. But we're not going 45 with the speed limit. We're going to 70-80, so he's passing cars. And so he's going up at the time. I didn't know where three was, Hottle Creek, highway. Going up that thing, this black dully pulls in front. Your dad gets another run, goes around it.

About the third time, your dad goes up there and runs in the back. of the black dula, I'm like, oh my God, and this is a brand new Chevy truck. Your dad's drive. Guy turns in the street, we go up two blocks, turns back in there. I said, what was that all about? That guy's date, my daughter, I don't like him. Whoa! It was your dad's other truck on the ranch.

I didn't know. So this is the first time I got with Erdardt. So we drive in a little, that wasn't even a gate. Yeah, it was that sliding gate with a deer hit shop. He had the haybell barn over there. So he drives there. drives out of you. There's a race car shop right there. It's like, wow, my shop's bigger that.

You know, he drives in the back. He showed me all his deer. He showed me everything. Never got out of the truck. He just drove around this whole ranch. Pulls back up. There's, hey, your crewchees and there, Doug Richards. Oh. And that was it. Let's hear from Pine North. How did you create that relationship with dad? Yeah. I've thought about this, obviously, a tremendous amount because of what he has meant to me personally through my whole life.

And I remember, so I started in 1990 and remember Dale won the championship. I was there at RJAR for almost five years and he won the championship 90, 91, 93, 94. And so as the champion, I was the representative for Winston. And so about a year and a half, we'd go up to, like my first time I went up to the Waldorf. Yeah. And stayed in the presidential suite. I didn't stay there, but I went to the presidential suite and got him all doing all his media stuff. And that's what I was my job.

It's not like getting point A to point B. And he just kept saying things to me like, I really like, you man I like you I didn't know why I mean he's much older he was 14 15 years older and I was like I'm not sure why he likes me that's fun and so he kept telling me like in 1990 he told me she gonna come work for me we were because I remember it was specific we were in a limo with got him Jody Davis the catcher oh yeah he was his buddy and he was just like me he was like man I'm gonna hire that guy what do you think and he was like I don't know and I looked down I said you can't

afford me yeah I was knocking out 30 grand you know like you can't afford me and he was just like he and he just kind of laughed and we joked about it for years. Dale came to me in fact Dale came to me at Dover and he said he came and pulled me off the side and he said you learn everything you can learn and I'm gonna come get you when it's time. Wow. And I was like okay. This is Michael Walter. I don't recall exactly why we became buddies but I know now what I what I believe was my big brother, he gave me a last name, but he didn't really give me anything else. He didn't. He never let me drive his cars growing up.

He just, you know, he told me to figure it out if I wanted to figure it out, but he was busy. And I figured it out, and I'd made it to not only winning on the Bush series, but nearly winning in the Cup Series. And I think that your dad just thought, well, you know, he got here. He did it. He made it. And nobody handed him anything. and he appreciated that.

And he raced with me on the track and he thought that I could win if I had the right opportunity. Now that you know a little about the characters and how they got to know Dale Earnhardt, this is the part of the story where Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated, really starts to take off.

The year was 1996. DEI signed a young NASCAR modified ace, Steve Park, to drive in the Xfinity series full-time in 1997 taking over for Jeff Green. This Long Island native was tenacious in his driving style and his work ethic away from the track. It was like the first day or second day

I was working full time in this dream job and it's like 4.30 and I'm seeing all the guys going to the bathroom and I'm like, I asked Tony Yuri and said, hey, what's everybody doing? Oh man, they're washing their hands. They're getting ready to go home. I'm like, man, it's not even 5 o'clock. And then I'm thinking of myself, If everybody leaves, what am I going to do in a shot until 1 o'clock in the morning?

And a lot of times I stayed because when I originally moved down here, I actually lived in your dad's house in a spare bedroom for a while. And I can't tell you how many times it'd be 9, 10 o'clock at night and your dad walk in. And I'd hear the cowboy boots kind of marching across the floor. And I'd look and he'd be like, Park, what the hell you're still doing here? I'm like, Dale, we've got to race this weekend. I got to, you know, we've got to get this car done. And, you know, everybody left at 5 o'clock. And, I mean, your house is only right there.

I could buy a throw a rock and hit it. And I'll just walk home when I'm done working on the race cars. And he said, well, just, you know, you don't need to work all night long. You worked all day. So that's what I'm used to. Dale made everybody leave at 5. They got a family deal. They'll have been everybody.

You be here early? I don't care. But you're going home at 5 and have dinner with your family, Dale. That was always that way. And then we'd start working on his stuff. He'd work on his all day longer than it. Then we'd go over there and reinvent the wheel sometimes. Sometimes make it work, and sometimes we didn't make it work.

But we tried different stuff. That was so much fun, though, working in that shop and having Ron around back then. I mean, things picked up pretty quickly. After that, I mean, I ended up getting in the Xfinity stuff, and he was winning championships, and we all got very busy, and the late-maw stuff went away. Those late-model days, I wish I knew the fun I was having. I certainly would. I mean, I've always got the phone call from Dallas.

Get up here and see me Monday. How the kids do, because I'd go with him, or if I didn't go with him, might go Kelly. So the shop that the truck was in was a storage, was, you know, where they kept all the oil and parts and pieces and all the pit boxes. First it was a haybell building and they added the front onto it. Yeah, it was a haybell building and they closed it in and then started putting stuff in there. There was a paint booth in there and the truck was behind the paint booth.

So they pulled the truck in the shop and then park it in a bay that was right behind the booth. They sat there and built that truck for weeks getting it ready for the first race of the year. They were cutting the tunnel out of the truck directly across from them about 12 feet away. I had my late model car and I was doing the same thing with my late model. I was getting it ready for the first race of the season. I'd go over to that truck and watch them cut on the interior of that thing. My late model shifter tunnel was banged up and beat on and hammered and messed up. And I'm looking at that and I'm like, I'm not a fabricator. I don't know if I can tack in an interior, but I'm going to try.

So I cut, I basically watched them build the tunnel of that truck, the shifter box and everything for it and mimic everything they did to build the same sort of shifter tunnel in my late model car. And I ended up building a real good looking race car because I stood there and watched them build that truck. And then we went down to Myrtle Beach Speedway. I took my car to Myrtle Beach before the season started to shake it down and Ron went with me. You remember that?

Yep. I went to quite a few times. I was going to pop my follow-on and ram. So I got pictures of me and you with that late model, no decals on it yet. Just me and Ron at the racetrack. I think Ronnie was there and maybe one other guy. But it was me and him,

and we tuned on that thing all day long getting it ready. You can tell everybody. Hey, I was there. Jr. won his first NASCAR race, and he did it at Purple Beach Speedway, bringing home to victory. Gary Harton, this is field in wonders for his dad. These are some of the most important years in building the foundation of DEI. It was being built from a garage effort into something much bigger. But before the world was awakened to the powerful DEI machine, that was coming,

Dale Earnhardt had to wake up as drivers. He woke me up at 4.30 a morning every morning, and I begged Ty Norse to take me into a spare room in his house. So your dad wouldn't wake me up so early every morning because I'd work until midnight, 1 o'clock in the morning. And the way I was woken up, you know, a lot of people don't know is he used to kick. I don't know if you ever kicked your bed, but he used to kick the end of my bed where the bed would almost rise up off the ground and slam back down the ground. And he'd be like, Park, get up. I'm looking, I'm like, it's still dark out. And you'd be like, get up, you're going to sleep your life away.

He said, I got all these new deer. I want you to come take a look at it. So I was like, we'd have to go down on the farm, 4.30, 5 o'clock in morning. We'd go down on the farm, check out some of the new livestock he bought. And what are you thinking in your head when you're looking? I know you're probably going, oh, well, that's awesome, right? I mean, you're saying all the right things. What are you thinking?

Well, I'm thinking, you know, he's crazy for waking me up so damn early in the morning, first of all. And then I race cars. That's all I did. I didn't hunt. I didn't fish. He'd get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. Listen to Steve Parking. I mean, you'd get up 4 o'clock in the morning and go see what everybody's done and checking everything out and looking at cars.

On Twitter, one of the fans was talking about the red-headed stepchild, which is a race car that we had a lot of success in. And you said, ask Dale Jr. who built that car. I want to you. Maybe you could tell us. That's funny because that was one of the first cards that I built for DEI. And basically the story went to one of the big tracks. It might have been Charlotte. And then we were getting ready to go race at Hickory.

And we're taking the same car. And I said, if I know anything, I know how to get a car around a half mile because that was my background. I knew the car we took to, you know, a mile and a half track was not the car we needed to run a half mile. And so we went and we struggled. And I think Randy LaJore won with Steve Bird. I went to Dale and said, man, if I know anything, I know how to build a car for a short track.

I know we're going to Nashville next and let me have a shot of building a car. So we did. And I think we were using Hutchson Pagan cars at the time. And this car was built by Mike Loughlin, his group. And they built a car and we went and picked it up and we did dividing ourselves on it. And the reason why I got the name the Redhead Stepchild was because anytime somebody worked on the car, Now remember the past story. I was there 12 hours a day.

So anytime somebody worked on the car and they put a bracket on the car and I thought it was too heavy, I'd wait from to go home at 435 o'clock, cut the bracket off. So everybody got mad at me that was working on the car. So everybody boycotted working on the car. Long story short, I finally got the car done. And we went to Nashville to test with Tony Urien Jr. and 2Bier and a couple of guys. And the car that we tested with for two days, was pretty fast and I kept begging them,

roll this car out, roll this car out. So to appease me, they rolled the car out and it was like a tenth slower and then one change and it was a tenth faster. So Tony Yure said, man, this car's pretty damn good, you know? So we took it back and they'll come in the shop and said every car we had was painted gray. The frame was painted gray and then had the blue and red

ACDL go white body on it. He'd come in a shop and he told the body guys. He said, you paint this car bright red, the inside. And so they did. And I said, why do you got to paint it red? He said, because when I'm sitting in my motorhome at one of the NASCAR cup races, and you're running around in the back and it's got that red frame.

I know it's like, I know it's that car he spent all that money on trying to think. I always wondered why they painted that fancy red. I thought you knew that. He wasn't know why. It was pretty funny because, I mean, he was so smart. he knew that he probably wouldn't be at the race, the short track race. And when he was sitting in the motorhome, he wanted to be able to see that red chassis. He swore it running the back, and I swore he'd win a race.

And, you know, thankfully, I was right. Well, Steve Park, boy, what about a learning curve? You get out of one of those modifies and win a race in your first season. Well, I tell you what, you know, I got to start off. I got to just say that this Chevrolet, this AC Ducko, Chevrolet, Monte Carlo was just flying tonight. You know, I'm real proud to be the first guy to bring the, the A.C. Del Cerely Mone and Carlo for Theresa and Dale in the Victory Lane. It's kind of emotional. My guys worked hard. Here's Tony Yuri, Mike Roochee, he did a great job.

His favorite race car, the one he won with at Nashville. He takes to Victory Lane at Richmond, Virginia. He called me in Victory Lane. He said, how's that Redhead Stepchild? I was like, oh, my God, there's the first time, you know, it was called the Redhead Stepchild, because I would always complain. I, we're not going to get it done. Nobody's helping me work on it. And he said because you keep cutting everything off that everybody helps you put on the car, you know. So anyway, just a great story. That is the car you won your first race with? Yeah, won the first race.

And you raced it too. Yeah, I won. In 9899, I think we won seven races with that car. I mean, it was everywhere we took it. We had the stepchild and then the step bomber, right? Yeah. Because we built another one, or Dale Jr. belt, had another one built from Mike Loughlin, and it was supposed to be the twin of this car.

They won a bunch of races with, and they struggled with it. I think we ended up looking at it, measuring it, sending it back to Mike. They redid the clip on and brought it back, and Dale Jr. ran it like 10 laps and said, all right, we're back. I swear Dale, and every deer head he had laying around the shop, it had a camera in it, because he knew it was wrong. But speaking of tunnels, I remember when we first won our first championship in Anjo, Graham was in there, cutting the tunnel out and doing some arrow.

He cut four trucks apart, did all this stuff, and they'll load them trucks back up and take them to Hutchinson Pagan. They were fast last year, put them back the same way. So he didn't mind spending the money, but you ain't going to do nothing unless you tell them. Yeah. The stories are endless, and I know I've told the story before about, you know, being with your dad. And he always had, remember he always had electric fences. Every fence he had garage door openers on his visor. He had like 15 of them.

And you'd come up to an electric fence. And we're coming down as dirt road, going back on the farm, and we're cruising along probably 50 miles an hour. And he's hitting all these clickers on top of his visor. And that fence ain't budget. And I'm looking at it. I'm trying to time. And I'm like, oh, we're going to 50 miles an hour.

I'm like, even if he hit the brakes right now, we're going to hit that fence. All of a sudden, boom, the fence starts opening. There ain't no way this fence is going to get all the way open before we get this truck through it at 50 miles an hour. So at the last second, I was seatbelted in and braced up. against a floor and if you know what I mean, tightened up. And I was like, I was like, I'm like, damn, we're not going to make it. And he looked at me as that fence was open and he said, you don't tell us seven times

Winston Cup champion how to drive. And we went through that fence and you heard, boom, and it knocked both mirrors off both sides and the truck. And I looked at him, he had that half mustache grin waiting for me to say something because we did make it. The things that didn't make it were the mirrors. Yeah. Oh, my God.

How much were you hanging out? but Dale. I think you were friends. It sounds like you were friends for a long time. And from the surface, I don't think you would take offense to this. I don't see a whole lot of similarities between like, you know, most people. There's age difference. There's that, but most people always have a hunting story. They're like, we were hunting buddies before.

I mean, I think that Dale had hunting buddies that even didn't go hunting with him. Yeah. If I may be honest. But you didn't hunt with him, did you? No, we would come to go to DEI a lot and go to the deerhead. head shop and and do target practice, shoot guns at targets, but I'm not a hunter, never was much of one. And I like looking at deer's walking by. I never think about shooting one of them. And so we certainly didn't have that in common. But we were buddies first. Like I would come to the

farm and he would show me how he put up a eight-foot fence and there's deer living in there and built this creek and this pond. And so I felt like I was a, I was a, I was a, I was a, was a Dale Jr., if you will. A lot of our great insight on the DEI days came from when we had Ty Norris on the podcast. Ty had several roles in his long tenure with the company. My memory of, my impression of you out of the gate was one of Dad's most trusted lieutenants, right? You definitely aren't overstating the relationship that you had with Dad, and he looked at you as,

as someone that was going to help him make this thing what he wanted to happen. And everything was going in the right direction. It was. And things were amazing. Your dad had the vision, and he just needed someone to execute it. And as a lieutenant, that's what I did.

And I reported to him what was going on. He told me every day, and like, your dad would always be like, no first. I'm like, well, we're thinking about this. And he go, nah, I don't want to do that. And he's like, why? And he was like, well, because we want to do this. And he's like, okay, now let's do this.

do that. So he would, he'd make you think, or at least maybe made me think. I don't know if is that way for everybody, but he would go, okay, just kind of justify it. And so he taught me, and I always say he was the valedictorian of the University of Common Sense. And so he was just street smart. So, and then business savvy, of course, and listen, let's not all put him on the pedestal that he was, he was flawless. The man was not flawless. We all know that, and we all know that in a big way. But he had a vision. And, you know, he had a vision. And, He let you get out there and get after it and go get it done. Off turn for Steve Park comes to the checkered flag and win.

I tell you what, they said, hey, there's eight laps ago, you know, knuckle down, buddy. And I just did what Dale was doing, just got up on the steering wheel and drove this baby. So you had great success in the Xfinity series, and I think that that team was poised, whether I drove it or you drove it to win and do great things going into 1998-99. and I want to credit you to the success we had with that program in those two years, I watched you move into the Cup Series. And from my recollection, we built a couple cars, had a couple races. It wasn't really that great.

I was so apprehensive about how that Cup team was going to do. I knew, and I've learned since, how difficult it is to go from the Xfinity Series to the Cup Series and how tough it is to get good and competitive with equipment and people in the Cup Series. but y'all did it. You went out there in the first year and you won at Watkins Glen and then you went to Rockingham in 2001 and won right out of the gate.

Talk about that experience and maybe were you apprehensive as that cup team was getting developed and built and those cars were getting built. Were you nervous about moving into that cup level and against that competition? Well, you hit the nail on head because, again, you know,

spending the time with your dad, you know, I'd go to a lot of tests that were close, Darlington, Rockingham, Charlotte, and I would just go with him. And he just wanted me to wear a headset, listen to how the driver and the crew chief communicate because that's what you're going to have to learn how to do as you move from the nationwide to the Cup Series.

And it was so funny because I was just running my first year in Nationwide, and we were running good, and we were coming home from Charlotte Road Speedway, and I was driving, and your dad was kicked back in the passenger. seed and he out of the blue he just says uh he said if you were going to run a cup race where would you want to run it i says dale what makes you think i'm ready to run a cup race he says well what makes you think we're ready to build a cup car i was like i was like well you got a point there

and uh and it is it was that uh factor of realizing hey you know what you grow with us and we'll grow with you oh donnie if you have got yourself one-towned little boys sea park takes the flag. The sports changed so much, but those times, I mean, you can remember, Junior. Those times we used to have so much fun because we'd work hard, we'd race hard, and then, you know, we didn't travel in airplanes. We traveled in team bands and Sonny, who's no longer with us when we miss them dearly. You know, he used to be the truck driver, and he used to drive the team band,

and we'd get in the team band, and he'd have a couple six-packs of Budweiser sitting in there, so we'd all have something to drink on the way back to the hotel and stuff. So it's just different. It was more like, you know, we all had each other's back. Yeah. And, you know, nothing is more rewarding than to win races, not only from a driver's standpoint, but, you know, the Uri's and all the guys that were building the race cars and doing the bodies. And I remember, you know, when we moved into the new shop,

it was the nationwide car or the Bush car, and then Ron Hornaday's truck team. that truck team. Yeah, that's right. So we, you know, if you look at that shop today in comparison, you'd think, we ran, we ran a truck team and a nationwide team out of that shop. Yeah. Yeah. We found a lot of enjoyment kind of recalling how Dale Jr. even got into that Xfinity

series ride, Bush series at the time that he took over for you, basically. Now that I'm hearing, you had a lot of pride in ownership in those cars. So what do you recall of hearing that Dale Jr. was going to take over that ride in 98. It was excitement. I mean, how did you find out? How did you know? Dale probably told me. I mean, I mean, I junior, we're senior. You know, Dale was just like, you know what, we've got a brand new team. We're going to be building cars. You know, you're new to this. You're still learning. So let's learn with this new technology in the Cup series. And then we're going to take Dale Jr. Move him into the, into the Bush or Nationwide series.

Dale Jr. made his NASCAR Xfinity series debut at Myrtle Beach Speedway on June 22, 1996. Dale Earnhardt Jr., congratulations on your first Bush series start. What about it today? Can you run up front possibly win this race? Well, you know, we're sure going to try. We got a good. But it wasn't until episode 258 of the Dale Jr. download in 2021 with Danny Earnhardt, Sr., who we've regrettably lost a few months later, that we found out. there was so much more to the story of how Dale Jr. got starts at DEI that eventually led to a full-time ride in the Xfinity car. Correct me if I'm wrong. Were you part of the persuasion of

Dale getting the opportunity to get in that car? No. You were not. You were just telling us a story. Who was, Dale never knew he was getting an opportunity to drive that number three A.C. Delco car. Well, most cars I called his dad and told him he could drive. So you were in part. No, what? Well, where are you? When he ran Myrtle Beach. When he was at Myrtle Beach, and I actually seen him race at Myrtle Beach. In a late model?

No, in the... Oh, in a bush car. In a bush car. That's right. That's right. He got cheated out of having a good pit crew, which that's a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the buddy kind of deal, whatever.

I called Dale the next morning. I said, you better... That boy can drive a race car. He said, oh, you can't go by one race. What are you talking about? You know? I couldn't tell me. But I guess the rest is history, so...

down here in turns one and two. This kid can drive and I am not kidding you. He is passing guys on the outside, the inside. He's probably got a top five car here. If you can ever get rid of some of this traffic, catch a couple of cautious on the right spot. He may very well be able to get that lap back. He has impressed me immensely today.

He's really putting the hammer down, trying to get by, though, shouldering his way by 10 feet away there as the cars raised down into one and two. But you thought enough of him to make a phone call. I did. And tell him. But he said no. He said, oh, you can't go about it.

I think it actually did, though, make a difference, don't you? Probably do. Yeah. I just don't think he's going to let you know that. Right? It's his idea, not mine. Before the full-time ride, there were lessons to be learned. Both for the owner and father and for the driver and son.

So I'm driving the wrangler car in 1997 in Charlotte, and we're fast. We're like eighth on the board. We're going to tape it off and qualify. or go make a mock run in practice. We didn't know that we should probably put tires on too, so we had these 30-lap tires on and taped it off, like the recipe for disaster. And sure enough, through 3 and 4,

I'm going through the corner and it comes around, and I bounce in the fence. And we loaded up, and I think my career's over. Yeah. And I go, I had a friend with me named Punchy and another guy, and we rode over to my house. and grabbed a bottle of vodka and put it on this coffee table in front of me. And I got my cigarettes.

I'm smoking. I got a big old pile. I got an ashtray full of cigarettes. Punchy and the other guy. What a terrible was it? I don't think it was. Or sitting on the couch across from me as a love seat. And we got our shoes kicked off.

We're sitting there. And I'm just, no, we're not talking, not jovial at all. And I'm like, man, I don't know what I'm going to do. This sucks. I can't believe it. I'm not going to run the race. and I wrecked a car on the car I got. I didn't know it, but they had brought the car over to the shop,

and we're working on it. Yep. The guys that were helping me, now I'm 50 yards away from them, or just across the street, they're at the shop cutting the car apart to get it fixed. And you don't know that. No.

Oh, I know where this is going. Yeah. And so the door swings open, as a double-eyed trailer I lived in, and the door swings open, bam, slams against the washer and dryer. Yeah.

Clomp, clump, clump, boom. But, doom, doom, dad comes walking in. He looks there at my buddies and goes, get your f*** shoes on and get off my property. Yeah. And they grabbed their shoes and took off out the front door and, chum, drive down the road. And dad looks down at me and goes, what the hell are you doing? They're over there working on your car right now, fixing it, cutting the frame. I'm like, I didn't know they were there.

I didn't know they were doing that. Yeah. They're fixing it. Yes, they're cutting it apart. I'm like, we're going to, you're going to fix it? He's like, yes, we're going to fix it. I'm like, not for the race that weekend, but like, I just thought I was done. So we went outside and had.

We went outside on the front porch. Yeah. We went on the deck because I was with him. You were with Dale. I went on over there with Dale. Yeah. And so. What was he saying when he's driving at the driveway?

He was just mad. Right. At first, I think at first he was just going to check on you. Oh. And then he was mad as hell because you were drinking, hanging out with your buddies and the guys over there, you know. Working. Working. working so it pissed him off and then he went spike pissed you know like he so he we come through

we sit out in the front porch and then and i and this is something i i don't know if i should share but i'm going to share it anyway he goes he starts yelling at him about getting his together about getting his life together figure out what you're going to do i'm trying to do all this stuff for you and junior is the first time i saw him do this and he looked at him he said dad he didn't call him dad he looked at him he said and i'm going to use your vernacular he goes goes, I ain't been a pimple on your ass for the last 10 years. And all of a sudden, you can come over here and start telling me all this stuff. And all of a sudden, like, it meant something.

And Dale's face changed. And I don't know if you remember saying that or not, but his face changed. And I was like, that was one of those. I've had moments like that with my own son. And I finally told him one time. I was yelling at him one time. I was his room. And he looked at me and I stopped and I said, you're right.

And he was, what? He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do because I was always yelling at him. He was like, I didn't know what to do. And I saw Dale's face change. And I was like, this is a father-son moment. And I walked away. And I went out and stood out in the truck and let them talk a little bit longer and finish up.

Damn. Because you stood up to him. Yeah. It's the greatest conversation we ever had. Yeah. It was the first conversation, like first real talk we had. And he went from, you're fucking up. You're making all, you know, you got to get your.

in gear to, like, explaining to me, not like, you know, not like. He told you was building it for you. Yeah, he was like, hey. It was the first time he told you that. Yeah, it's the first time he really let me understand, like, this is for you, man. This is happening all this is, this is for you. This is, and we had a breakthrough. Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean? Yeah. But I'm glad I said that. Yeah. That's exactly what you said. I haven't been a pimple on your ass and all of a sudden now and I was like. Oh, shit. I'm sweating.

Just thinking about it. Oh, my God. All right, I'm going to come over here. I'm going out by the truck. Yeah. Here comes Earnhard. He spotted down the left than a car lift, down the back straight away. When does he get off the corner?

Because that car has been hooked up all day. We've talked about it several times. And right now is when it really counts. In 1998, Dale Jr. went full-time Xfinity Series racing. And Steve Park got the opportunity of a lifetime in the Cup series. That's when I asked a question, you know, do you think I'm ready? He says, well, do you think we're ready?

And the answer on both sides was no. I wasn't ready. You know, his team wasn't ready. But we both knew that we could develop that team into a team that was capable of winning races. You know, we were just hoping we had the time on our side because, you know, this sport is driven so much by the sponsors that, you know, we didn't have 15 years to develop a race team.

you know, we had three. So we, you know, we had to work hard. And one thing, you know, I've never shot away from is hard work. So the more of a challenge and the heart of the work, the more you dig in and make things happen. I remember sitting down with a couple of sponsors that we had, too. And as we started running in the Cubs series, I think, with Burger King on a part-time basis, he adamantly told some of the CEOs, he said, you know what? He said, you invested your money with me and my team, and we're going to win races.

He says, we're not ready to win right now, but when we are, he wanted to build his own cars, he wanted to build his own engines because he wanted to control everything. You know, not being controlling, but he wanted to, if that engine wasn't good, he wanted to walk in the engine shop and rattle some heads and say, why is our power not good? If our cars aren't good, he wanted to go in the fab shop. But once you get that winning combination, well, now you have it, you know, behind clothes, those doors. You're not buying it. You're hiring the people. You're putting the right people in place. And I just think it makes a wins that much more enjoyable. Your dad didn't go out there and pilfer all the

best people from all the teams. He was going to do that over a long, slow period of time. But anybody that he walked over, if he walked over to any organization and said to a fab guy, an engine guy, or anybody said, I need you. Yeah. He'd say, more than that, but he would tell them and they would come. We were going to have the best people. We had the best sponsorships, the biggest sponsorships. This machine was going to be

unstoppable. DEI's trajectory was rocketing. Steve Park was full-time in the Cup series. And Dale Jr., well, he took full advantage of his opportunity and he ran with it. 1998 and 1999. the coming out party for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

13 wins and two NASCAR Expedity Series championships in a row. And all eyes are on 24-year-old Dale Earnhardt Jr. And the one that everyone is talking about, his first Winston Cup appearance at 24 years of age, Dale Earnhardt Jr., number eight. His grandfather's number. With Budweiser on Ford, 2000 was Dale Jr.'s big break. All eyes were on him as he moved full-time into the Cup Series and the DEI number A car. Dale Earnhardt Jr. looking back to his father, but in the corner, two distinctive different lines through the race track. Meanwhile, Ron Hornaday, a two-time truck series champion with DEI,

was to slide up into the Xfinity Series seat with new sponsor, Napa Auto Parks. Hudson inside groove and now on a turn four. 42-year-old Ron Ornadee takes the win in the Econoge 200. Y'all had a lot of success together, won a couple championships, and you got an opportunity to get into the Xfinity car. And what was the difference, I guess, for you getting out of the truck and into the Xfinity car? I think you took pretty much most of the same guys from that truck team into that deal.

How was that transition for you? Well, the biggest transition was, how the shoppers growing, trying to keep building teams. Nobody knew what your dad plans were building a cup team. When I got the opportunity to go to Daytona in AC Delco. No, Napa. Napa. The extended he called.

Yep, that's what I called Bob Fisher from Palmdale Carbliners. Hey, we're going to Daytona, buddy. You know, and it was the coolest thing. I still have my fire suit and my stitches. You know what you ever seen when Michael drove the following year in Cup or later down the road? And they show the big wreck down there, the Napa. That was me in the nationwide at the time. Yeah.

Or Xfinity. And had it saved and flowed up and somebody runs in the back and you're now, you're flying through the grass and somebody's there and I teeboning, you know. It's like slide and slide and slide. Had my seatbelts too high. Had to wear a full face on it. Come down and cut my chin. That's what I got the scar from.

My wife, you've seen my trophy room. You haven't seen it lately, but, I mean, it's smaller now because I sold the big house. but she kept all the graffiti if you want. She's kept everything. Well, she's kept these stitches with my fire suit, stapled in plastic bag with the little drips of blood on there for my first race to Daytona. So this would have been 2000,

because this would have been you'd have gone to Cup. You had been running the trucks for DEI for four years, right? And then he goes to Cup as a rookie, and now you're in that Xfinity car with Napa. My question is, what was your ambitions at this time? I mean, did you go to DEI in 95 or 96 whenever it was when wanting to get to Cup, wanting to get to Xfinity, or were you just along for the ride? Sort of like your whole history in racing is you're just going to race and didn't really think much about the future.

Where were you at mentally in that state? I never thought of anything. I just wanted a race and this guy's paying me $60,000 a year to drive his truck. Hell yeah, I'm going on. I mean, I just loved racing. Yeah. It didn't matter what it took. I mean, I drove people's race cars what I shouldn't do because they were scary.

But, I mean, you learn. You learn by driving, that we call them. boxes or good cars or bad cars. You learn something every time you get in something. So, I mean, I just wanted to race. And then when I got the opportunity, I did. And so you would have brought your truck team to that deal because you basically took your Xfinity team

or your Bush series team and took them to cup, right? That's Pops, you know, the Uries and everything else, right? Yeah, exactly. So what was that year like running Bush? It was cool. I mean, big shoes to fill. Hornaday won twice that year, but the year 2000 had an even bigger milestone.

Telling you want to get everything they possibly have in their body, trying to get to a victory league. DEI's first cup win on August 13th at Watkins Glen International. Steve Park is going to win the global crossing at the Glen. His first NASCAR winters to come. It's just unbelievable, Jerry. I just like to thank God. I like to thank my family, my mom and dad. They're not here.

I wish they were here. It's emotional. I got to thank Dale Earnhardt and Teresa and Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated. And Penzo, man, I don't know what they said. They've stuck by us. You're thick and thin, man, broken bones and everything else. And we told them we'd bring them the Victory Lane and they stuck by us and here we are in Victory Lane.

It was also Steve Park's first career cup win and he did it in his home state. In the URIO is amazing. And you don't think about that stuff when you're behind the wheel of car and I try to tell people all the time. I mean, you know, watching Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart and and Mark Martin, and back in the day, Terry Labani, the ice man, he was hard to beat on a road course at times. And, you know, to put yourself in a position where you can win,

and when you do win, you know, what happens is you look back on it after victory lane, after inspection, after your home for a little bit, and you say, man, I just beat all these guys, you know? I mean, I remember as a kid, I just wanted a shot. I just wanted to have an opportunity to get there one time, try to stay there, try to chart my own course and try to win because if you do win, you beat all these people that were heroes of mine growing up, you know, back in the Richard Petty days.

And then in the era that I drove when you got Tony Stewart and Jeff Gorn and Mark Martin and Terry LaBani and all these different guys, just the elation came from realizing that you just became the best of the best. But you're only good like that for three days, I think, because. Because come Thursday, you're at the next track, and now you're back to zero. Back to zero scrapping. But it also was a comeuppet for DEI.

I mean, I mean, like that was the new, DEI's here. I mean, like this is legit. In 2000, DEI became winners on the cup level. But remember Michael Waltrip? Well, Dill Earnhardt didn't forget about his pal. He raced with me on the track and he thought that I could win

if I had the right opportunity. And the reason why I got to drive the Woodbrother, car in 96 was Dale towed Eddie and Lynn that he thought they should put me in that car. Really? Yeah. Do you not know that? Yes. And that's the reason why I got that ride.

So he couldn't put me in one of his yet, but he wanted to make sure that I had something good to race, and we were able to run well in the Woodbrothers car, and then eventually that ran its course, and I went to drive the seven car for Jim Smith, and we ran in the top five a few times and had a chance to win a couple of races. And it was coming to late 2000, like August, and we didn't have anything signed with Jim for 2001, but Jim wanted me to drive it. And I'm like, well, you know,

I just felt like I'd wasted so many years resigning. And I didn't feel it. I didn't want to do that. And one day, Dale at Richmond or I think, I don't remember where we were, But he said, have you got something for next year? And I said, yeah, I guess. He said, hang on. I'm working on something.

I like when I do, Dale, because I'm always yelling at me. You know what I said? Hang on. I got something figured out. And so he had Ty call me and said, come to the shop. And we talked about 2001. He said, I think I'm going to close my Bush team, and I'm going to have three cup cars.

I want you to drive one of them. And I said, yes, that's exactly what I want to do. And he said, all right, give me a few days. I'm going to work on it. So they went down to Atlanta and talked to Napa and called me back and said, we got it worked out. We want you to come drive for us as our third car in 2001. The addition of Michael Waltrip to DEI came with a major subtraction. How did the split end up happening?

You don't want to hear about that. Why not? I thought I was going to kill Thai North, but... You don't have a split. to throw anybody under the bus. Oh, yeah, I do. Okay. Oh, yes, I do.

All right. It was, I don't have to throw nobody on the bus. It was resign year. About going back up there, Napa was pretty happy. You know, a lot of guys, Napa guys hang out. Not the two bigwigs. You've had one year in the Xfinity series. You won two races.

Mm-hmm. And so we probably should have won three or four more than that. Pretty reasonable season. Yeah. I think so, but. Right. Didn't know what the expectations was. I had to go resigned my new contract, I thought.

So I got called up to definitely. He'll learn or say, yeah, get me an extension on there. Ty grabs me and takes me up there, and he said, Dad wants to talk to you, sit down in the chair right across the street, got across from your dad's office. And he says, you might have to look at your options. He said, what's that? He said, you might have to look at your options.

I said, I don't have no options. What are we talking about? He says, well, Napa wants to go a different direction. And you're not going to be the driver. And this time the phone rings. Hello. Hold on one second. I got to take this phone call. Can you step out?

I said, Ty said, you're firing me and you're taking a phone call? And Ty says, come on, honey, come on, go on. And I did the old pissed off at Ty. You knew what's going on. You didn't tell me the whole deal. And I took out down the, I didn't even walk down the elevator. I ran down the stairs, jumped in that truck. And I did a big little burnout and got to have a ready to start, stop and looked at the shop. I said, hey, honey, I called my wife. I said, I think I got fired. I got Dale's truck.

Do I take the truck back or do I go home? He's going to go home and cool off. Well, Tom, I got home, your dad called and said, hey, that was Mike Elton. I didn't mean to blow you off that way. Just calm down. Come see me tomorrow morning. So he wouldn't see them in the next morning. He says, hey, I'll help you out doing anything you got to do.

This is not my decision. This is, you know, corporate decisions of everybody we got to do to make our business better. I totally understand. But it threw me off guard because you took the phone call and it really made me mad. And that was part of it. But we've become good friends after that. I mean, yeah. And we never got to the point of Mondays, Monday night thunder.

If Teresa didn't call, oh, God, we had a hell of a time. Oh, hanging out at the farm? If you don't, oh, in the deer-ed shop talking racing. He wants to divert away from this sad conversation. No, it was sad. No, it was actually, and then he got me to ride with AJ Ford, and I got them cup racing. How did that happen? Oh, he helped you?

Oh, he helped me. Yeah, he's one of those things that's like, you can am-aff me, you can do anything you want to do, but he said, I can help you or hurt you in the series wrong. you know in NASCAR. I mean, he's a big influence in racing. And he's definitely helped me along and always took me. He treated me like a kid. And he said he got me into AJ stuff.

Without knowing any better, I would say that is it true, the situation was that Napa wanted to go cup racing? He was starting to cup the new cup team. Right, exactly. Did he put Michael in? And that was the situation, right? Exactly, exactly. Did he continue the Bush team or no?

Was that it? No, that was it. That was it. That was it. one, Dale Jr. with the Bud 8 and Michael Waltrip and the Napa 15 Chevrolet. Heading into Daytona in 2001, DEI hadn't just arrived. They were a force that had the entire garage looking their way. The sport was on this trajectory, and we were right at the front of that wave,

and we were catching, we were catching the Hendricks of the world, and we were catching the big teams of the era, and Rosh was kicking ass every time you turn it around at the time. and we were right there with them, and we were coming on their heels, and we were like, we were building something really special here. Your new home for NASCAR presents the 43rd annual Daytona 500. Names are here. Dale Earnhardt's won everything to win and speedwits.

Only once the 500. All right, thanks for listening to that special edition of the Dale Jr. download, the DEI Days. It's a lot of fun to really look back on some of the things. things that we've done together on this show at Dirty Mo Media. Really proud of that. And it's cool to be able to, you know, that we've interviewed so many people that we can kind of put together these cool shows around one subject matter or topic.

We'll be back as usual next week with a guest. Oh, he's a Daytona 500 winner. Dirty Mo Media. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.