The Dale Jr. Download - 377 - Cathy Watkins: The Undefeated Earnhardt

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

There's nothing like the bond of family. This week Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes in his sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller to sit down with their Aunt, Cathy Watkins, for a peek behind the curtain of the Earnhardt story.From V8 and Sedan street in Kannapolis, NC a motorsports legacy was born. The King of the dirt tracks, Ralph Earnhardt, was tearing up the circuit feeding his family with race wins and working on racecars. Of course, in 1952 came the birth of his son Dale Earnhardt, regarded as one of the best stock car racers of all-time. But before there was a Dale, there was a Cathy. Aunt Cathy wanted to be one of the boys. She loved washing parts in Ralph's backyard racing shop. But soon came womanhood and she was removed from the male-dominated garage. That was a tough pill to swallow. Ya see, Cathy was born into a true passion for racing. A few years later, Cathy was able to show her racing worth in what was then known as "Powder-Puff" races. The all-female races were an added bonus to a local short track racing program. But to an Earnhardt, it was a chance to win. In a span of decade, Cathy went ten-for-ten in Powder Puff events to become the only undefeated Earnhardt.Cathy gives a personal look into what it was like to grow up in the Earnhardt house in Kannapolis. She details the unrelenting strictness of Ralph Earnhardt and what was expected of them as children. She also reveals that Ralph Earnhardt did more than just work on his own cars, he worked on liquor cars for legendary racer and moonshiner Junior Johnson. Watkins lets us in on details about Ralph's health and the heart attack that caused his untimely death in 1973. She explains how seeing the shop door closed behind the house was crushing.After Ralph's passing, Dale Earnhardt used his iron-clad work ethic to create opportunities to race. He was a self-made racer that eventually made it to the pinnacle of the sport. That success on track came at the cost of his family life. Two failed marriages and drama created an inconsistent childhood for Dale Jr. and Kelley. The three Earnhardts talk about the complications of family dynamic. They share memories of the fight between Dale's mom Brenda and Dale's wife Teresa and more.Cathy's racing life didn't end after her ten race wins. She developed a relationship with one of Dale's crew members, Mike Watkins. She shares how they kept the relationship hidden from Dale Earnhardt for a while. The sneaking around led to a long-time marriage and a shared life on the road working souvenir haulers at NASCAR tracks and on the road for the Earnhardt family. Working at the track, Cathy developed a true passion for conversing with race fans. Oh, except that one time they said ugly things about her brother. That's a story you have to hear! OPEN SEGMENTBefore Aunt Cathy came into the studio, Dale Jr..and sister Kelley chatted about about: The NASCAR Xfinity Series dust-up on track between JR Motorsports driver Sam Mayer and Joe Gibbs Racing driver Ty Gibbs. They detail the fight that followed on pit road. Dale's enjoyment back behind the wheel at Martinsville. What's going on with the Cup cars on short tracks?  ASKJR Presented by XfinityHannah Newhouse hits Dale Jr. with fan questions talking about: JR Motorsports Late Model boys racing with Layne Riggs at Greenville Pickens Having Isla and Nicole at the track watching daddy race. Noah's White Claw, getting to like beer and developing Sun Drop and Vodka drinks. Should Ty Gibbs have taken off his helmet to fight? Five tracks Dale Jr. would want to race on more than once a year. Including a cryptic North Wilkesboro mention. Hmm. 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. Dirty Moedia. They take their racing seriously in Canopoulos. Where the Green Flag is back out. Who better to lead the Carolina contingent than the driver of the white number three car, number three car, number three car, Dale Earnhard Jr.

Say your name, a lot of people kind of put this stereotype on you while you're this way or you drive this way because you're an earned hard or you drive like your daddy or something like that. It's just a two-way deal, something you have to deal with. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. Welcome back again to the Bojangles Studio for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. And we've got a pretty interesting show for you today.

I'm going to change it up a little bit. Mike Davis is out on vacation with his family. I'm a little jealous of where he went down to the southernmost point, if you catch my drift. But we have something special in the store. My sister Kelly is going to dust off her podcast and hat and come in here and co-hosts with me today. Kelly, thanks for filling in for Mike. We couldn't have a better co-host to do that. I'm so excited. This is like the biggest thing I think I've done in my career. Oh, come on. So you've hosted your own podcast and you kind of know the drill. You and your daughter Carson

had a little run there. Fast Lane family. Fast Lane family. You can still find it out there somewhere. Yeah, it's out there. So you know what's going on. But we also, and we've got a guess that kind of fits, you know, Fitz who's sitting at the table so far between me and you. Our Aunt Kathy's going to come in here. And we've had our family on from time to time as guests, and they've done a great job of sort of helping us understand a little bit more than we knew about growing up in that household with Ralph Earnhardt, Martha Earnhardt, dad, and everything else that entails.

But the other thing, too, about Kathy, she raced. And what was called at the time, and I guess still called today, Piterpuff races. She ran multiple, like 10, 10. 10-12 races never lost, won every race. Undefeated. She loves that title. She does. So that's pretty incredible.

We're going to hear about that a little bit, and I've seen one of those races. There's video her actually driving on YouTube somewhere, I think. Really? I think so. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Anyhow, she's going to come in here in a bit, so I'm excited about that.

We got a lot to talk about because we raced to Martinsville in the Xfinity series this past weekend. We saw the cup race, and that was a bit of a struggle. So there's a lot to unpack about all of that. But anyways, you know, you're my partner. We're owners in Junior Motorsports, the car that I drove this past weekend. We also got to talk about Sam Mayer, you know, and everything that he got himself involved in at the end of that race. Kickboxing lessons.

He needs some. We got a lot to talk. We got a lot to talk about. We want him kicking? My boy needs some lessons on something. Yeah. I don't know about it. kicking but we can just give him some regular boxing lessons yeah i just i i heard that part of the

toyota program was like kickboxing and whatnot so that just like well so the the rumor uh is that when when noah and burton harrison got into it i guess at kentucky went wherever that was they brought in kickboxing lessons into the into the you know into the training that these guys are all doing now i don't think that the veterans got that so we were inspiration for this. I guess. Twice apparently. Apparently. So I think that the younger guys that are in the Toyota pipeline may be getting that type of training. It was very impressive. The accuracy of the punches that I saw tie throw. He didn't throw one and look and what, you know, so a lot of people when they throw a punch, they kind of look and see if they, you know, how the punch. Did they, yeah,

did they make contact? Did they make contact? They kind of admire or, or, or, you know, they, look and see if they, you know, how the punch. or wonder, you know, what they just did. But he was already throwing his second punch. And so I'm not an expert at throwing punches. No, not you. I went. Oh, did you see me throw punches? Not really.

No, that's why you're not an expert. So I went to, I got a buddy of mine, Arturo Gotti, is a boxer back when I was very young. He showed me how to throw punches. We used to have a boxing ring. And me and my buddies used to all get in there and fight. What did he teach you? He showed me that a lot of people, do throw a punch and kind of take a beat to see what they did, right?

And kind of watch the reaction to the person that he just swung on, right? Whereas in the boxing ring, he's already throwing his second punch before the first punch is already back home, right? So he showed me how to throw a combination literally three punches in the time that I was actually going to throw one. Yeah, it was really, really impressive. Yeah, we've got to work on that a little bit. We're instituting a new training program.

It's going to be led by L.W. Miller. Okay. Will that work out? Sure. So they're all going to be very ill-tempered. Short-fuses. No, they're just going to, no, just the fighting part. Short-fused.

To learn how to throw punches. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they don't need to do that. That was, they don't need to learn how to, they need to learn to protect themselves, but we don't need, like, full-engage contact fighting, I don't think. I don't know. I mean, Noah walked up to, uh,

Hemrick in Atlanta swung and missed, swung a couple times in missed. Sam got popped twice before he ever got going. So we got to do a little something. We're going to work on it. Yeah. Hey, Dirty Mo Media fans, do not skip this because we've created a once-in-a-lifetime event just for you called the Dirty Mo Media Ultimate Race Experience. I am here to tell you that we have packed this thing with so many perks and accessories and

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Look at those eyes. I love seeing the intensity of these drivers trying to put down a 20-second lap here on the paperclip. I had a great time driving the car, got to the racetrack, had some hot dogs. Everything was good about that. We got a little practice in the day before, which was nice. I thought that the practice was going to be super short.

I was already frustrated about the lack of practice before I even got to practice. and it turns out in that little 15 minutes that we had, we had plenty of laps. And I got to a point where I was like, all right, I feel pretty good about this. This is more than I anticipated getting. So maybe practice is just right in terms of how much they're getting. Feels limited, sounds limited. But yeah, I got a lot out there, but that's a short track where you can run multiple laps

in a very quick period of time. I know when those guys were at Kota and they had their 15 minutes or whatever it was, I think Josh said he got three laps and none of them were clear. So when the race started, he still really didn't know how, you know, he still was multiple seconds off what his pace could be if he had a couple, you know, a couple hours to practice. You know, maybe every track, my experience wouldn't be the same. Anyhow, we were good in lap time. We pumped our tires way up to start that practice, which is going to make the car coming faster,

which is going to make the laps faster. So I think we kind of tricked ourselves into thinking maybe we were better than we really were. in speed the car was tight we made a couple changes didn't really make any gains so we undid everything that we changed and just started the race that way when the race began the car was really bad really slow real tight wouldn't turn wasn't going anywhere and we made a lot of changes all night long and actually got the car reasonable and if we had really long runs which you don't have in the xfinity series we were going to be okay took me about 40 laps to get going and then we were a little bit faster than we run top five lap times on 40 lap tires, but you don't get those 40 lap runs in that

in that series. The stages are really short. And that's the only downside to running that race, or most the Xfinity races, is you don't really get to showcase. If you're good on old tires, which I always felt like I was, you don't get to showcase that. You know, the stages are really short. And then in the third stage, when the intensity picks up, there's more cautions typically. So you still get those short runs, even in that. that longer stage. But otherwise, your drive in Martinsville is a blast. You look like you had a ball.

And I was going to ask you, but I think you just kind of explained it. Like, I just saw this change kind of mid-race. Like, you got very racy, you got aggressive, look like you were having fun. You were putting yourself in places that I was like, whoa, go down. Because we were there watching. But I do have to ask, do you have a recollection of coming through that little hole, T.J. Oh, yeah. And I've watched it multiple times.

Yeah, I've seen the video over and over on. on social media. And, you know, so TJ is on door bumper clear the week before, just dogging the heck out of how bad this experience is going to be and how hard it's been spotting for me over the last couple years, how hard on him I am. And his, you know, Brett and those guys are giving him a lot of ammunition and agging him on. T.J. would never want to admit in front of him that he was looking forward to it, right?

Or that he might enjoy it or that we're a great friend, right? He's going to put up a front. So I made a point to not say one negative word to TJ the entire weekend. And so I was overly nice throughout the whole race and everything. And we had a great time. Yeah, that sounded fun. It was. You know, the last two races that I've ran, the balance of the car for me has been really tight.

We've not had practice. We raced at Richmond, and then we raced at Martinsville this year. And in Richmond, we run 15th, I think, and just weren't good. And I couldn't figure out why because, you know, my teammates, some of them were pretty good. Some of them were kind of struggling, but they all got better as the race went on. And we didn't this past weekend again. Most of my teammates were pretty fast, and we struggled. I struggled.

So I don't know whether I need to free my car up or what. I'm a little perplexed, you know, as to where the pace is, why I can't figure out how to get this car to roll the center of the corner like my teammates can with the same setup. The lack of track time certainly plays a role. I thought that, you know, with all my experience and years of racing, that I could just jump in this car at the tracks that I know really well and jump, go right to, you know, into the top five and compete for top tens relatively easy. It would be just pretty simple to sit around and run fifth or sixth or seventh. And that's not been the case the last two years.

So I don't know. We're going to keep digging and show up again next year somewhere and give it another run. but the last couple of races I've been wanting to find a little more pace than what we've had. Still having a good time, though. Otherwise, you know, that was pretty much my night. We got a couple of the drivers tweeted at me that they wanted to have a cold beer or something after the race. I said, if y'all's serious, I'll have a cooler ready. Race is over.

Moffitt was one of them. He fell out and he apologized. He sent me a note and said, man, I went home. I don't blame him. Yeah. I told them. I said, if I fall out earlier, I miss the race or whatever, I won't be there for beers. Jeremy Clement's come over.

I gave Ryan Seig a beer, and he would have had more, but he had to go out and get in his hauler and bring his 18-wheeler in to load up his stuff. I mean, that's pretty. Yeah, no kidding. Hard worker. And then. Where'd you get the white claw from for Noah? That wasn't mine.

I know it wasn't. That didn't come in my cooler. Noah went and found that somewhere. I saw the picture he posted. He said beers with the boss. I all over the comment was, you're not a beer. So he came over. I offered him beer.

Didn't like what he saw in the cooler left. came back with a white claw. I was, you know, I know I wouldn't drink a white claw, but I admire the determination. I admire my I'm putting it out there. Yeah. I admire his efforts to find something that he wanted to drink and come back and join us. Yeah. Even the winner, Jones, come through and had a beer.

I saw him down, down pit road doing some interviews after Victory Lane had cleared out, and he'd come over and had a beer with us. You stayed down there quite a. Ryan Vargas, got him over and had, you know, hung out. It was great, and I think more drivers had they known it was going to happen. Might have come through for sure, right? So you started this whole new, like, post-race party, man. Well, I'm picking.

So I'm just bringing it back. This was kind of the way you did it, you know, when they were racing the short tracks in the Xfinity series, when it was a sports and series in the 70s, and when the race was over, everybody stood around their car on pit road and just chatted it up for hours, right? And then, you know, they were loading up in the wee hours of the morning and easing out of there.

And so I told somebody, I said, I don't know why I didn't do this after every race. This is pretty fun. This is how I should have ended every race. Anyways, I wanted to, you know, get your take on Sam and Ty and all that and how that went down. I know when, you know, they've had a history over the years. They don't like each other.

And Ty has been really aggressive, you know, runs his teammate up the racetrack at Richmond. And if that is, if he deems that, that okay and fair racing then he's got to be able to take it when it's coming his way and he certainly put himself in a situation where it's coming and so sam who already doesn't like him is in position to give him a little bit of his own medicine and does yeah and then when they cross the checker flag tie went up there and showed his displeasure and run in the back of the one car after the race i thought all that was okay you know i really didn't have a problem with that i think tie was a little Ty's got to be able to take that.

I know that the person doing it being Sam, they don't like each other. So he reacted based off of that past relationship. Right. I think if it was A.J. Amadinger or someone else, maybe he doesn't get kind of crazy after the checker flag. But I was laughing. I saw him doing it on the back straightaway. And I keyed the mic to T-Jen and I said, oh, he can't take it. He can't take it.

Everybody was waiting to see how Ty would react when he got the same, he got race the way he's. has been racing guys, right? Yeah. Everybody's waiting on to see how he would react. And I expected it to be imperfect. He's young. He's not got it all figured out. And he's learning some hard lessons and he'll learn some more. All the drivers are.

Sam's learning hard lessons. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I thought the hole that Sam made was, there was nothing wrong with it. It's Martinsville. The tap, you expect that. They're racing for $100,000. That's true. So that's a big deal.

Sam's racing, you know, for his second $100,000. So that's even a bigger reason to go after it. And the taps afterwards were fine. And then, I don't know, the fight, none of it bothered me. I mean, you know, the arguing, the whatever. I was trying to figure out like, okay, who started this, what happens? One walked away. One turned their head, this, that, the other.

But the fact that it commenced as long as it did was like, whoa, because, like, there were people trying to get Ty off. And I don't think anybody was trying to, like, I couldn't see any of our people, like, helping Sam or do whatever. But Ty got some good hits in. Yeah. They just don't like each other. I think that's why it kind of went as far as it did, because that's sort of, that has been boiling over for a long time between them two.

Yeah, the other series, I guess, that they ran. Bark and so forth. I talked to Sam the next day. He said that he is over it, that he's fine, he's going to move on. He's going to, they had a meeting in the hall or after the race. Total man, y'all don't do anything stupid. You're not going to be foolish and misrepresent the sport or be unprofessional. And that's when NASCAR kind of steps in.

when they feel like you're making a mockery of things. Yeah. And so I talked to Sam. He's like, man, he can handle this however he wants. I can't control that. I'm going to stay focused on trying to do my job. And if he does something on the track, I'll handle it as it comes. But otherwise, I'm not going out there to try to get back at him or try to keep going,

try to keep prodding him. Now, you know, he says that when we get on the racetrack together and maybe Ty cuts him off or Ty does something that he thinks is not okay, it's going to happen. Yeah, but I think that's going to be like Sam, to me, is like going to protect and defend himself. He's not like a spiteful person. Sam's not an instigator. Sam's not the guy that starts it.

No, I think that if there's something that's going to happen, he's going to respond, but I don't think he's going to start it. He's not going to be the guy that makes the first move. I don't think so. He will be the guy that reacts to whatever he thinks is. I know. So I think that Ty, I think that it's inevitable that this will continue. even if they both at this moment are ready to move beyond it.

I just feel like that the way they don't get along and the way they can't, they are completely annoyed by each other, that the way Thai races, his body language, his actions on the track are going to continue to annoy, right? And vice versa, I think Sam may annoy Thai. It's going to escalate again. Now, I could be completely wrong. They might end up six months from now being best friends. don't see it but I don't see that happen.

Crazier stuff has happened. Crazyer things have happened. Some of the rivalries in this sport tend to go that route. Guys, you know, they butt heads and then they find out, oh man, you know, we got a lot of common. I kind of like this guy.

I know it sounds crazy right now. Yeah. But it's really possible. I was a little, I mean, honestly, the race, the meeting, our Monday morning meeting, I was a little concerned with. L. Deb and I, you know,

watched the race from a suite the whole night and had a radio up there. And, you know, in all honesty, everybody, all of, everybody but you, you were the only person that wasn't mad about anything. You know, Noah was upset when Sam missed the shift and caused the issue for him. We had Josh get into like a breaking contest with somebody. I forget who that caused you to have a problem. Clements, Jeremy. Yeah, Clements.

So there was action all over with pretty much everybody, I think. Oh, yeah. I mean, you're going to, you can't escape it at Martin's deal. Yeah. One thing I wanted to say, if you don't. mine. I was up in the stands, which I don't have that perspective very often in a NASCAR, no, Xfinity or Cup race. And the fans were mad. But then like after I took my junior motorsports like figuratively hat off of it, I was like, man, you know, Ties kind of putting

himself out there. It might hurt them, but I'm like, man, that's kind of good for the sport, you know, in a way, you know, it's got everybody talking. Talking. And I kind of, I kind of like it. When I take my, you know, this being in this building hat off. you can wear that hat and still feel that way. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It's, you know, I mean, I thought back to Kyle Busch. I thought back to my dad. I mean, gosh, many of times I listened to booze as a kid, you know,

to things that people didn't like. But, you know, I do think that's where, like you said, the personalities have to shine through for these guys, right? So that's a good thing, especially in the Xfinity series, because they're kind of building their mark and building their brand and building who they are and what they are. So, you know. I hate controversy.

I hate conflict. Yes, you do. I run from it. I don't like the negativity and the, I want to have a good time. I want to have fun. I see that type of stuff as it's not enjoyable. But I love when I'm watching a race, when I'm a fan in the stands, I love it. I love seeing it.

I think there's a way you can be respectful about it, though. And I think that's kind of the difference between like the conflict and the controversy. And like you can have that. You can have those actions on the racetrack. you can have kind of that argument, but then it can go too far. Yeah. But sometimes when it goes too far, it has to go too far sometimes. It can't always be.

Be able to be pulled back, I guess. It can't, yeah. Like, to find, like, it's like going out on the racetrack and trying to find that limit of where you're going to spin out and how fast you can go right. So, yeah. Yeah. So sometimes it needs to go a little too far to keep us all honest, I guess. Yeah.

I'm with y'all. I think it's great for the sport. Even if one of our guys is involved in it and we might have certain. personal opinions and we we we certainly have to move and shift into a position to protect Sam and and he's our driver but as a from a 40,000 foot view it's absolutely awesome for our sport to have drama. Genuine drama these guys weren't you know these guys are really getting after it and really don't really don't like each other and while that might not be so fun for them to be rolling around on pit road, it was the best thing that happened at the racetrack that weekend

in terms of, you know, starting conversations and getting people talking all the week long. I know that people were talking about the cup race, but not for all the right reasons. Yeah, I was getting ready to say it was the best race and best action all weekend of the three races. So the cup race, you know, Kelly, you are an owner in Xfinity Series, and the Cup series race race race, you know, there's a lot of variables, I think, that played into the way that race went and why it was, for lack of a better word, to choose boring. You know, the cars, we could sit here and list the issues that are going on with the car or what people think might need to be fixed or adjusted.

But from an owner's standpoint, I think it's important to know, you know, the drivers are going to have their opinions. NASCAR is going to listen to them, listen to the owners. But there's a little issue, I think, in terms of trying to get parts and pieces. and it's not only affecting the Cup series, but it's also affecting the Xfinity teams to be able to get what they need. The manufacturers aren't able to deliver or produce as much as they were in the past for whatever reason.

So you can certainly speak on that. But whatever needs to change, all right, if the drivers and the teams and all, everybody gets together and says, okay, we've got to stop shifting. So we've got to build new gears and gearing and so forth. whatever else needs to be changed isn't sitting on a shelf somewhere that you can just go grab it and put it on the car, right?

That's going to stall the process, I suppose. So while we might know what to fix or what to change, actually getting that done and making that a reality isn't as easy as it might have been two or three years ago, right? Yeah, definitely. I mean, so I watched a little bit of the cup race from a fan's perspective, really, because I don't understand the new car. I don't understand, you know, the mechanics of how it works. And I was reading some of the comments after the race just trying to wrap my mind around it.

But the shifting thing and I think the tires were a couple of the big situations, right? Well, everybody knows there's shortages on tires. It's affecting, you know, every kind of racing out there. So imagine trying to build something new, figure out what. I hadn't even thought about that. Compound is necessary. I'm so, I am, you know, I was a and could be. in the future, I don't know, a Goodyear spokesman, right? I've worked with them in the past.

Yeah. And they are the only game in town, right? So we have to take care of them, but I've been critical of them in the past as a driver. I think it's like, hey, just change a compound. Yeah. Hey, Goodyear, just bring a different tire. Hey, Goodyear, just this is, here's the fix, make it happen. But you're right. I didn't even think, okay, if there's, if there's material shortages when it comes to composite bodies and other things, they're certainly dealing. with the same issues at the Good Year plant. They can't just sit here and create batch after batch after batch of tires to figure out, okay, this is the one that this is the magic combination that's going to make racing better at the short tracks.

Yeah, I mean, that's a, you know, I don't know what other, I don't know all the different series and who has the tires between Goodyear and the Hoosiers of the world and the Burris of the world. And I'm thinking through our little goat cart, you know, that we run with Wyatt and what we've been facing. But I see it with USAC, you know, they're facing tire shortages. They're canceling races. They're, you know, we're limited at our local track here on how many tires we can buy instead. So I imagine that the same thing's happening for a good year of the world. There's massive issues.

Massive issues everywhere. At the short tracks with the Hoosier tire. Yeah. So, yeah, it's not that easy of a fix. And the other issue, too, is probably that they've already produced X amount of tires. What do they do with those, right? You can't run a business successfully by just continuing to manufacture and shell. and never using half of your inventory.

Yeah. Right? If this tire is now obsolete and unnecessary, what are they, you know. Yeah. And I imagine, I mean, it's just like with this new car and anything else that's new in your world, you haven't come across every scenario that there is to figure it out, right? So, I mean, Martinsville was another one of those scenarios on the short track with the racing that it normally produces with this new configuration of the entire car.

The shifting thing, explain that to me. What are we talking about here? Well, basically they have, it's my understanding that they run the same gearing and basically show up to the racetrack. And if you only run third gear or only need third gear or fourth gear, that's all you run. They didn't shift into fifth gear at Martinsville. They didn't need it. And did they used to do that? No.

Oh, okay. Never. Okay. No. So there were always four gears in a cup car, just like our Xfinity cars are now. Just like the late model. Now there's five gears? Just like the late model that you race.

Yep. And it was an H pattern. Yeah. And now they have a sequential, so it's like a motorcycle. It's all forward and reverse. And you just go, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Okay. And now they have five.

They might use fifth gear at some of the bigger tracks, but at Martinsville, they never even needed it. So they were running, you know, some were down shifting to second or third gear in the corners and then going back to fourth on the straightaway. And so. And would you have shifted at Martinsville in the past? Never. Never.

Never. Never. Yeah. So this was. Yeah. And they wanted to, they wanted to avoid that. They would make sure that we were running the right gear. that would not present that as an opportunity.

Because shifting is not good at a short track much less, it's not good in an oval. Yeah, it seemed like you would take too many seconds, which are... Well, no, basically, no, it's actually better to shift. So if I can shift, right, and you can't, but I got a gear that I can shift. You're going to bog down, yeah, if you don't shift that. If you don't shift, not only are you bogging down, but if every little mistake that I make, I can recover so much easier with the gearing that I have.

And so, I think, you know, it was kind of a perfect storm between the track temp being really cold. That raises the grip. They had a wider tire, much more comfortable tire on the racetrack, a lot of grip there. So they kind of performed like a modified car, Mike, where it rolls through the corner really fast with a lot of grip, right? There's down force and all the things working on the car, the undercarriage, create downforce. So this car really got through the corner really well. And then with the shifting, any little mistake of driver, might have made by sliding the tire or pushing in the middle of the corner or slipping on the

throttle they could recover pretty quickly the guy behind them wouldn't have a chance to gain on them on the straightaway to be able to make an attempt to pass in the next corner and so we saw very little passing due to all the grip and the shifting I think that you know like I was with you I was reading I didn't drive the car I wasn't at the race I don't have I can't I don't have like this perfect solution, but I was reading all the driver comments, and it's all over the board. And there's some great information there.

If you weed through probably 100% of the comments, you probably find about 50% to 60%, you know, reasonable ideas to try. Harvick says, car's fine. Let's get rid of shifting. I can agree with that. Denny says we need a whole new redesign. That's not possible. That's never happening.

Well, I mean, Denny had his worst, Martin's will probably ever. I mean, but he also won the week before at a short track in Richmond. True. So while Denny, Denny may be technically correct that this, you know, a totally redesigned car would perform much, much better, like, but it's not happening. Yeah, right. What's, what's really the solution when a total redesign is off the table?

Yeah. You know, I think Goodyear can definitely come back with a softer tire that wears out. The tire apparently wasn't falling off at all, maybe a half a second over an entire tire run. So we need tires that fall off a second and a half, two seconds everywhere if we could get it, right? You want drivers really struggling to try to get the car off the corner and slide in the left front and all those things trying to get in the corner. The brakes are way too good for these short tracks, but you're not going to get NASCAR to redesign and spend the money that it's going to take for the owners to have a smaller, less, you know, go back to basically what we had in the past. You're

never going to get that. So that's off the table. So you're going to fight against. that at the short tracks, breaking too well, being able to get down the corner deeper. You're not going to get a smaller tire, I doubt. Good Year's not going to design a different tire. You're not going to get new wheels. And really, where else are we going where this will be an issue like Martinsville? Because, I mean, Richmond wasn't a bad race. See, that, that to me, Richmond was not a great race.

No. Yeah, not a great race. No. So both short tracks in most people's opinions were. I just didn't see as many complaints. That's kind of where I'm gauging my. Yeah. Well, they fell short.

Gaging my social media. So the problem, I think, you know, I think we have to fix it. We have to be diligent to fix it because, honestly, you know, we're losing short tracks. We're, you know, short track racing is entertaining, fun. If we can't have great racing at Martinsville and Richmond, it really pushes back against the argument of trying to get more short tracks on the schedule.

People aren't going to want more short tracks if this is the product. And so we're going to all, you know, if we're, We ain't careful we'll be running 36 road courses. I'm going to turn into something different. It will. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be a tough day.

We watched that race on TV, and it was incredible that last, like, 15, 20 lap run. They had so much grip, and they were able to just cut right in the center of the corner, and you never saw anyone go in and get loose, anything like that. I mean, Ligana, we were watching. And it was 10 laps to go, and he'd get into the corner, and he'd put that little extra wheel and put it, and it would just cut right to the bottom of the racetrack. And I was like, I mean, these guys were like slot cars on Martinsville. And that's half the allure of seeing someone go in there and get a little bit out the groove.

And you know, you pucker a little bit on the outside of someone. But they were stable everywhere they were. And it was frustrating to watch as Martinsville. Yeah. Even the back of the pack cars. Yeah. Even the back of the back cars, everybody went through the turn on the bottom, hooked. The same.

It was like everybody had the same pace. It really was. Yeah. Pretty interesting. But I'm certain that NASCAR is working really hard to try. to figure out some answers. They know that they don't want to go back and have something similar because then people will be like, hey, man, you knew you had a problem, right? They don't want the feet. They feel this feedback, all this negativity. They feel it. They hate it. They don't want

any more of it. So they're going to go fix it if they can. But it'll be interesting in what they try to do to make it better. Martinsville is fun. Honestly, Kelly, I think I'd like to go back to Martinsville next year. But I also want to try. I also miss homesville. man that's a fun racetrack you know I run one a year yeah I know you want to run more I didn't know it could let's negotiate right here well national television I don't want to run more if we're a fifth car it's kind of hard it is hard it is really it's hard on it's hard on the company and you feel the you can feel how stress the difference yeah yeah it's a little tough and it's up in there between Martinsville and homestead for next year opinion you know we're going to get some influence

from Helmonds and I'm sure you guys when I say you guys Junior Motor Sports. Yes, I got you. Anyways, looking forward to seeing what we can figure out, and the guys are going to Dirt Bristol this weekend. The Xfinity cars, not going. They're off. But we've got two drivers there this weekend in the truck series.

Oh, no, Cup Series. Justin's running the 77 car for Spire. Yep. And then Noah's running. Colleg. Oh, wow. Colleg car. So I can't wait to watch that.

I'm looking forward to it. They reprofiled the racetrack and seems like they got a better idea and what they need to be doing to make a good race. So it was real dusty there last year. So we'll see how that works out at Bristol. Kathy Watkins, our aunt, she's coming in here to the studio to talk about. She's nervous now. Oh, I'm sure.

Everybody that comes in here usually is, right? Yeah, I know the feeling. We'll have to break down that barrier real quick. You've got to figure out how to break the ice, Kelly. Okay, we can do it. Get her comfortable. All right, let's bring Kathy in here. Is that we have a new leader, Ralph Earnhardt, car number 50 is the leader.

and Bobby Allison. Earnhardt grew up in the town of Canapolis, North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte. The Earnhardt family home is at the corner of Coach and Sedan Streets. Out back was Dad's garage where father and son spent time together working on cars. But his favorite driver of the mall was his dad Ralph. My father was always the best for as I was concerned. Right, and there you see the two cars in the lead right now. lead right now. Ralph Earnhardt and 50.

There she is. Come on in. Look at her. I know she's prepared. She's got stuff. Stuff to look at. I got a picture this one. Oh gosh. Look at that. To my aunt, Kathy.

To my favorite aunt. We need more family reunions. Is that what I say? Is that what it says? This is a good one. I think I remember. Murder Beach. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Don't get too many of those. Nope. Picture of me and dad sitting in the recliner. Dale always sat as far away as he could. Yeah. Can we make this chair any higher? Yeah. I got you.

I got you. There you go. Take a deep breath in, Kathy. Oh, this is going to be fun. Yeah. You got this. Listen to her. Why are you so nervous?

I feel like y'all need to be right here. I would need a shot of high rock or something. No kidding. Do you have one? See, there we go. That's some really smooth vodka. Right. Man, I'm telling everybody.

It's my favorite. Yeah, we enjoy it. And now you can find it right here in Horswell. Yeah. Oh, they finally do have it. They finally have it. Yep. So Aunt Kathy.

Wait a minute. Before we start, I thought I was just going to be a filling for a slow week. And here I am following Robert Wiccans. Yeah. My superstar. I mean, he is an amazing man and I have to follow him. so yeah well you'll be fine we'll be fine people are going to be excited about it a benchmark i know i think about that every week i mean that it just they they never let you

down here on the download in terms of uh guest stars so you'll do fine and then matthes telling me about numbers and i thought well we might be an all-time low here no well you got to be somewhere right that way you got a way to work up that's right yeah so we uh our family you know we know life on V8 Street and sedan. You and dad and Kay and Randy and Danny all grew up in this house that we've been going to for years for family reunions. But tell me what's your earliest memory? What's your earliest childhood memory? And where were you?

Honestly, my first childhood memory, mom and dad, when they first married, lived in a three-room apartment on Universal Street. And literally, their bedroom had a bassinet in it for Randy. The living room was me and Kay and Dale. And then mother also kept her niece or my cousin, Rosemary, because her parents worked at night. And so all these kids in the living room sleeping, you know, you can imagine how hard is to get them all go to bed.

Yeah. And can you imagine having an eye love? and then a baby between Ila and Nicole, Nicole, and then another one after Nicole. That was Mama's range of kids for in a three-room apartment. One of my first memories was getting my butt beat by my daddy because I ran away from home at four years old. Where are you going?

Now, wait a minute. Did you know you were running away? Yes. Yes. Kay had got to go to Grandma Earnhardt's up at the big house And I wanted to go I remember vividly I wanted to go I couldn't understand why I didn't get to go

So I got a pair of my mama's red high heels And here I go and of course Sedan Street was a dirt road then And Rick Bossed I had to walk right by Rick Boss's house You know Rick and his family All were our friends growing up And here I was clomping in my high hills I was going to my grandmaws

So my mom and daddy didn't love me. So I got to grandmals, and she, of course, was panicking, wondering why I was there. And I heard the phone ringing, and I got into wardrobe and hid. I said, Grandma, don't you tell my daddy I'm here. Don't you tell my daddy I'm here. Kathy, I can't lie to your daddy. And, of course, the next thing I saw was the doors opened, and Daddy pulling me out of the wardrobe. I was going to use another word, pulling me out of the wardrobe, and whip me every step of the way home.

Goodness. Never run away again. He taught me a lesson. He was a firm hand when it came to discipline. Yeah. But then, you know, my grandma and heart, my grandpa was a good bit older than her, about 20-some years older than grandma. And he died of a heart attack.

And I was five at that time. But then right after that, we moved to the big house. Now, I thought we were in a mansion, you know, from that three-bedroom. apartment, a three-room apartment. That was a mansion to me, but it was Grandma and Mama, and four of us, kids' mother was pregnant with Danny when we moved up there. He's the only one that didn't live in the apartment. And so then I remember Kay starting school, me crying, wanting to go, standing on the front porch and wanting to go to school. But then Grandma met a man on Lonely Hearts writing Lonely Hearts letters.

Wow. And met Jesse Miles up in Bryson City. Oh, Grandma was around her. She'd find her a husband. I'm just laughing at the lonely hearts letters. Like, I guess it's been a thing. It just was written. Well, now it's harmony and whatever.

But Jesse Miles, a wonderful man, had never been married, lived with his old-made sister who'd never been married. So her and Grandma fought over Grandpa Jesse a lot. Wow. Who was going to wait, fix his tea or make his sandwich, you know? Yeah. But we loved going up to the mountains and visiting and staying with her. My first memory of going up there as a little girl, our first going up there was snowing. And, you know, Grandma looked through a steering wheel like this.

She was a little bitty woman like Kay. You know, Kay's built more like Grandma and Hart. And driving a big old Ford, I think, at the time, and sitting on a pillow, look at this steering wheel, and she'd just fly. Well, we went off the side of a mountain, and I thought. thought we were crashing but was going down their driveway. Their driveway was very steep down the side of a mountain. Me and Dale both was screaming. You know. But, you know, we had. And y'all were, y'all were, if I'm not mistaken, two of the more adventurous kids, right?

Del and I were probably the closest. Yeah. Yeah. How close are y'all in age? Okay. Mom and Daddy wanted a blonde hair, blue-eyed girl, and they got cut. I love this story Then they wanted a boy and got me 14 months later Then 16 months later They got Dale So he got my ride

You know She feels like she just got You know, left right out I suppose and I always wanted to be the boy I won't say I wanted to be a boy I wanted to be able to do what the boys did Go out in the garage or play in the dirt And I didn't want to be a girl

I didn't want to. You didn't want to do girlfriends. So I didn't take home egg. I wanted to be in the shop, you know. When you went out there, what did Ralph say? I didn't, when I was a little girl, I could go in the shop. I helped wash parts and learned about carburetors. Back then, how to put them together.

And I was pretty good at it. But then as I grew up and got close to my teen years, daddy told me one day I couldn't come back in the shop. And I didn't, at that time, didn't really understand why. But it was about... Becoming a lady. Being a woman. Being a woman.

And the fact that the men, you know, their language or their innuendos, they're joking or whatever, I was starting to understand. Yeah. And so, but it was the most devastating day of my life was not to be able to go in the shop anymore and be there, be part of it. And that's been my whole life goal is to be a part of it, be a part of something of the racing. That's why I drove the powder puff derbies. I was so excited about getting to do that because back then how dare a woman thinks she could race. You know, they call them powder puff derbies. That was probably one.

So how did that come to be? How did the powder puff come to be in terms of racing? Well, they just said they were going to have one. and then as a girl you just go around and say please can I drive your car please and so how did you go to well James Miller it dependent you know my first husband David the car he was driving he owned he let me drive it James Russell let me drive there once James Miller let me drive his once it just and then there's some cars that kind of blur in between till the last race and that one was the most I guess for me and scary because it was supposed to be on the same weekend of the Charlotte Fall Race.

And so because Sharon Hodgkin was coming and driving a Neil Bonnet car, she had been practicing North Wilkesburg and doing times as good as the men. And, you know, I'm shaking in my boots thinking because I'm driving a semi-modified. She's driving a late model. So we go practice at Concord, the new Concord, down the day. there and I spin out a couple times and they said that's where you know where your edge is now you know

what to do to keep from spinning out wore out a couple tires and they said now you can't do that we can't afford tires so it rained the race out that we again and so I mean Sharon came in down there Dale she had

the Neil Bonnet's team his whole race team a big truck a hauler you know they drove her car out of hauler my little car was on the back of a towed, a little pickup truck was towing it, and it was kind of, you know, very unequal at that time. So the rain did out, and so our Potterpuff Derby was the next week. Of course, Charlotte Race was passed,

and so they moved on, I think, to Dover at the time. And so I was disappointed. Dale wasn't going to get to be there, but in a way it was kind of, okay, that he wasn't going to be there. It's a little bit of pressure off. but I still had to race Sharon, who I knew was probably the most equal to all the women I'd ever raised. I'm not going to say that other ladies couldn't do it, but most of the time I'd lapped them, except at heatery on the asphalt. I didn't lap anybody up there, but I still won.

And so then we got that night of the race, okay? And, you know, we had heat races, and Sharon started on the pole. She won her heat race. I think I finished third or fourth in my heat race, and so I'm really in a panic. Oh, I'm, you know, I was nine for nine. Sharon's going to beat my record, all this kind of stuff. So here we go. We get started.

I don't even remember how many laps the race was, but we had probably more cars in that race than we'd ever had in one of our races. There was probably 25 or more cars, and usually there might be 10. So, of course, Sharon's leading every lap. I was passing cars, and I was catching up with her and finally got behind. under and there was one car between me and her, and it was the last lap, but I didn't know it. I did not see the white flag, but I went into turn one, and I saw a hole. And one thing Del told me, Kathy, just drive down in there under them. They'll move over.

He did. That's the only advice he really told me was just drive down in a, so I did. I hit that hole. I went under her in the other car, come around, and she got behind the steering somehow and hit the front stretch guardrail head on and broke her foot and I won the race just like that and I caused her wreck and she's behind me you know just like that and I have a picture of my celebration with my trophy but we'll take a picture of it yeah so I've seen the video of that race Sunbelt video Sharon hired Sunbelt video she hired a videographer we can thank her for We can thank her for the existence of it. She can thank, you can thank her that we even have a picture.

Right. Because back then, your phone didn't take pictures. You didn't have the camera on your phone. And so, yeah, yeah, thanks to Sharon Hodgkin, we have video and pictures. Yeah. I look for the picture of me with my bubble, my bubble visor. Mike said, oh, Mike Della loved that one. But I couldn't find it in my short time of looking.

So you found it, Matthew? Yeah, Connie Goodman gave us some good ones. Good old Connie. Wait until you see those videos, Kathy. So I was looking at your first race was in 75. You ran 1 in 76, 77, 82. I got the page upside down. 72, 72, 73, 73, 4, 5.

So this 10 race career, right, was a span of, 10 years almost. Yep. Why weren't there, was a powder puff like a, it wasn't a regular month, right? Yeah, it wasn't a regular event. And they called a couple all because they didn't have enough cars. You know, the girls running around, please,

some of them had cars, some of them wanted to race, didn't. After that race in 82, it should get Concord, your final one. Was there ever another chance for you to drive? Not that I, no. It just stopped. Interesting. You know, what would Danny or Randy say about your skill level? I won't ask you a dad because he was hard-headed,

but what would Randy and Danny say you had in talent? It never really was discussed. It was always just, yeah, you're the only undefeated or in heart. It was just that kind of cheering and carrying on. Have you ever thought, though, in your mind, like, you know, what it might have been like? Had you been afforded sort of what the opportunities are today? Today's day, if I was here today at that age, oh yeah, I'd be right there all in it. Yeah.

I'd be right there all in. I was always so jealous, not jealous, proud, and excited for Kelly, because I saw her as the next generation that's going to be able to race. And when we went to Merle Beach that time, and I think when she got out of the car, she had five pounds lighter because it was so hot. Remember, you were just drenched. And I thought, I don't know if I'd be able to do this or not. but, you know, just having the resources. I had baby early in life. You know, I was 17 when Stacey was born.

That created a lot of decision-making in my future and what I could and couldn't do. What was it like being at Metro-Lina and those places in the 70s? It was, you know, we always had trucks in the infill, Earnhardt's, Uries, Oliver. The Smarks. Well, the Olivers and Earnhardt's were kind of together

because I was married to an Oliver. But it was always that competition. Well, then Danny was dating a Yuri. And so we had personal relationships. We had to be careful with, but our dads were serious competitors. Even though they were somewhat friends, they were serious competitors.

There was men at night that, you know, on the other track, that damn Earnhardt, you know. That was a pretty common thing to hear after one of Daddy's races because people would wreck. He had nothing to do with it, but it would always be his fault because I think I was telling Matt one of the most fun and interesting nights was at Metro Lina. Daddy was leading the race and Carl Smart was behind him. But he was like on his bumper. Right on the front stretch, Daddy goes to the wall and Carl ends up head head. on in the wall.

And he was behind Daddy, but they said Daddy wrecked him. I can't imagine. Can you? He did drive him right in the wall because Carl didn't have enough sense to know that and prevent it. He'd raised Daddy a lot of times. He knew what Daddy's skill level was. He knew what he was capable of, huh?

He just wasn't capable of preventing that wreck. We were coming out of the grandstands that night and people were cussing Daddy and threatening to kill. him and oh he's a dirty driver and me and my friends I have my kids and we're walking up and she said how do you do this how do you listen to what all they're saying and not get want to go after them you know to the throat I said it's my daddy would beat my butt if I was mean to a race

fan he he respected him he said that's what pays for your dinner and your food, you're never to be ugly to a race fan. And that's from the time we were real little growing up. And this time, I've got kids. And I would never go against that because it was, it was true. We respected, I love race fans. So one of the things about Canapolis that people know and the town's known for is the Canapolis Mill. Cannon. So everybody worked there. Well, my daddy they said worked there about six months and then he went to work with burlin Ellerman. What is Bertel?

What is that? Berlin Ellumann was the garage that he worked on race cars and junior Johnson and their liquor running cars. Really? Daddy would work on them and drive them to North Wilkesburg and show them how fast they were and then bring another one back and work on them at Burlins. And that was one of his first jobs other than. in that little bit of time in the mail. That's news. I didn't know that.

You didn't know that? No. Oh, yeah. Ralph, he was building liquor cars for junior in them guys. He would never probably admit that. It was a fact that Berlin's garage there on Cannon Boulevard. Worked on their cars from North Worthboro. So did you work at the meal?

I did. I worked in the mill. I always worked in some type of textile type. I worked in a hosier meal. I worked in at Terry Products where you make baby clothes. But when I went into the meal, I made the best money ever made in my life. I've always been kind of a leader, a trainer. I loved my job.

I enjoyed doing it, and I learned all the little things that you needed to do to make it better and to be faster and to make better quality. And so I went into training in the way. meal. I worked there probably 25 years. But we went to 12-hour shifts and I then worked extra days. And so I was working six days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day. And Mike came to me one day and said, I was making good money. It was hard. This was a hard decision to make. I know you were like a leader, like a manager. I was like a supervisor on the first shift and it took a lot to get to the first shift, much less to be a supervisor.

I was manager over a training department to teach older people how to acclimate and change to the newer, faster equipment. I really love that, love helping people. And Mike came to me one day, and he said, all right, our marriage is important. I think it's time that we make a change. And I said, doing what? He said, let's go sell souvenirs. I said, are you crazy?

our friend Bobby Wagner's brother, Rocky, on Creative Design Sportswear, which was a NASCAR license. And NASCAR wanted to have a souvenir apparel trailer on track side. I think Rocky's logo was NASCAR, America's number one motorsport, was his patented logo,

everything we sold. The only thing about being on that trailer, you had to be nice to all fans. not just Earnhardt fans. In fact, they'd really rather me not tell them I was a Earnhardt. Over the years, you know, fans found out. They know other people's other trailers tell them, and it was never a problem until one time at Indianapolis.

I love Trachside. I love race fans. First, let me tell you about the first time of Daytona, you know. Now, when did you make this shift? Like what years are we told us? Okay, all right. 1995 and we go in to the NASCAR trailer and we pull in down at Daytona and it's like okay I know how to work a weaving machine but what do I do now Mike was great at displaying the walls he was perfect at doing

that of course he kept the truck trailer and I kept up with all the money and so we pulled in down there and you know Rocky and Bobby were showing us what to do well here come Dale him in his truck and there's always somebody with him. You know, he was never alone. I think it might have been JR at the time. Pulled up down there and, well, I see y'all made it down here. Are you having problems? No, ever got down here? Okay. He said, Rocky, come here. So they walked off. The old had got out of the truck and they walked off and I thought, oh, hmm, it's ought to be interesting. So Rocky come back and his eyes as big, he said, well, I just got to come to Jesus meeting and, you know, that's my sister, you better be careful with her. So, you know, that was probably the one time that

Dale actually stepped up for me and, you know, all that kind of thing. We loved it. I'd never been west of the Mississippi. I'd never been really South Carolina and Virginia, maybe, Georgia and Florida, but had never been anywhere and just loved the different demographics and learning the race fans and how the people in Loudon always stood in front of our trailers because they love to hear talk. And then we'd love to hear them talk as well. Michigan was always an eye-opener because the people up there are really loose with their language. California was fun. We went to Indy. The year your dad had to get out of the race car. You know how emotional was for him. It was emotional for us all. You know, we were just family, but our emotions ran parallel with Dales. And so we had actually

actually some people in front of our trailer. Well, there's these two guys. One of them was really mouty. Of course, we had the race on the radio. They're making a big deal about Dale getting out of the car, Mike Skinner getting in, and how emotional or Dale was, you know, and this, blah, blah, blah. And this guy was in front of my trailer.

All that woozy ass, you know, that, you know, was running his mouth. I said, let me tell you, you step back from my trailer. and he said excuse me I said I said step back from my trailer he said what do you why do I got what do you mean and I said that's my brother and let me tell you you don't understand the emotion you get away from my trailer and his buddy said come on come on she's right you're being because he had been very ugly but everybody around was cheering you know

because I had actually stood up and I wasn't going to allow it I won't allow somebody to say ugly things about dealt ever there's been a lot of times i had to bite my tongue but most of the time i have something to say back you know that you know me i have something to say i'm going to say what was your first memory being at a racetrack in columbia with daddy as a little little girl I can remember sitting and I think it was not caught no ones but anyway

one of the wives had boiled peanuts Daddy said if any one of y'all would eat one of those peanuts you're going to get whipping Why? Because they were bad luck We couldn't wear anything green I never owned anything green in my life So the rumor is that Ralph was

He believed all of the tradition racing superstitions. Let me tell you something, honey. I heard he pulled a gun on somebody for bringing peanuts near his car. I've heard that same rumor. I wasn't there and didn't witness. Did Ralph Earnhardt have a gun in his truck?

Ralph Earnhardt carried guns, yes. They were usually hunting guns, but they served the same purpose. It needed. He sent my, you know, Daddy wore these canvas slip-on shoes to race in back in the day. And he sent Mama to buy him some shoes

and they were black. black canvas shoes. I ain't wearing them damn green shoes. And Mama said, what do you mean green? Ralph's shoes are black. He said they had flowers on the insaw with green leaves on them. He would not wear them. She had to go back and find something different.

And I know that for a fact. I was there. Yeah, so at Columbia, he's telling you not to eat the peanuts. Yeah, we were little kids then. I wanted the peanuts. We didn't have boiled peanuts at my own. So dad carried some of those same superstitions, too. He didn't, he was, $50 bills.

$50 bills. Even like a, and there's, you know, there's good luck things too, you know, a ladybug. You find a ladybug put it in your race car. That's good luck. I learned that probably around 98, 99. So you remember going to Columbia. Ralph had some good success down there. Columbia, Greenville Pickens, Iceful, Great Smok Mountain, Speedway.

In fact, I got a picture here for Matt. I mean, we're little, we're like 7, 8, 9 maybe, men, Cains. We're so close to nays, mom dressed us like twins. She had gone to camp at Ridgeway, which was a church camp up in Asheville, somewhere up around Asheville. And she had been there the week. She cried every day wanting to come home, but she'd been there the week. And Daddy was going to race at Great Smoky Mountain Speedway.

So when we left, Mary and Tommy Young were with us. And we stopped and picked Kay up, and it's the first time I ever stayed in a motel. You know, we never traveled overnight. We never went on vacations as a family, ever. Never been on a family vacation with our whole family. No, no, ever. Daddy raced all summer, six days, weeks, mostly. But we picked up Kay.

We stayed at this motel, and I've got a picture of Daddy, me and Kay, and we're dressed alike on each side of the side of. did it at that motel is the only picture I could find or have, and I don't know who gave that, because Mama didn't on a camera. But me and Mary sang the song on top of spaghetti. On top of smoky. Yeah. Yeah, it was on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese.

When you meatball fell off and rolled away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. Over and over and over. My mama said, if you don't shut up. I was getting ready to say, no wonder they didn't take y'all on family vacations. But that's the only time, and I don't remember Del going to that race with us because he was yet, you know, smaller.

So I don't remember Dale being with us in that race. So let's talk about dad failing his fourth grade year. We got his records. So a fellow come through here a couple. months ago and gave me and Kelly his record so we could see some of the grades that this guy was getting, man. It was rough. But anyways, he comes to, I mean, I'm assuming he comes to Ralph one day and says, I'm going

to drop out of school. He's in the eighth grade. He's 16 years old. He's done failed to fourth and the seventh grade. And do you remember all of that? I do. So, I mean. Mom and Daddy would not sign at that time.

What do you mean? Your parents had to sign for you to give a driver's license. Oh. and so you get a driver's license at 16 with the parent's signature they would not sign Dale was 18 years old before he got a driver's license I didn't know that I'm not saying he didn't drive son sure he did not because when he quit school in the eighth grade he was like 15 or 16 he was 16 yeah he was 16 yeah and daddy said you know you on your own I'm not going to help you you know you don't go to school I don't help you you don't um you don't get your driver's license you when you get them

when you're 18, but he did continue to live there, but, you know, he... I mean, was it not completely awkward? Yeah, you got to tell more. Some days, some days it was just awkward, period, living at that house. Why? Because Daddy was strict. He was very, very strict, you know, you get up in the morning and say, there's a pot of coffee percolating before sunup, and that coffee percolates all day long,

because he drinks coffee all day long, smokes his cigarette, and his, you know, Daddy never had credit. He bought everything with cash. If mother needed a washer or a refrigerator, he went and bought it. She never got to pick it out. And it was just another story to show you how Daddy's mind worked. Dale and all the boys in the neighborhood played marbles. You know, you draw a circle, and Dale was really, really good at it.

Well, there was a little boy down the street. They were playing that day. His daddy called him, and that little boy grabbed up all the marbles and ran, and they were Dales. Dale had won the marbles and ran. They were always in a bag, you know, a sack with a string. And so during that era, you didn't lock your doors. Well, they went off. They called Roger home because they were going off somewhere, and Dale went down and went into their house

and got his marbles. And all of us, mother me, I don't remember Kay, but we're in Randy, were standing in the hall behind, Del and Daddy were behind closed doors. And Daddy was whipping the child with a belt mercilessly. Mercilessly. So we were all talked about with one lesson.

That was Dale's first, I think, that he got a real beating. My first was at four years old, and Daddy whipped me with the switch every step of the way home. I remember having to pick your own switch at my mouth. You had to go pick your own switch, as you did. But when Mama whipped you, that wasn't a big deal with Mama. Mama whipped you every day for something.

But Daddy was just, when he came in the house, you got quiet. Everybody sat down at the table at the same time. You ate your food. didn't talk during the meals. And I'm not saying that Daddy didn't have, didn't talk a little bit. And I am not saying that my daddy was really mean, but he was just really firm. He taught us from a young age, you're to be seen and not heard. When we went to visit people, you weren't to ask for anything.

If they offered it to you, you ask if it's okay. and then whether it's food or a toy or whatever. And some of the kids we went and played with, they had lots of toys we didn't have. So we would have the Wiggins were my best memories. Johnny Wiggins' house, Carl and Agnes and Johnny, their kid, Johnny. But when Christmas, Kay and I, now we were older. We were starting to be pre-teens.

And we had wanted the career goodman uptown. They sold the designer clothes, I guess you'd call it, Bass Weegens. and, you know, all these nights. And we wanted this certain pocketbook, Kay and I did. We didn't know, Mama, that's what they had bought. But when Mother and Daddy was gone, Kay and I opened our package to see if we got their pocketbook, and we did wrapped our stuff back up.

But Mother could tell that it had been wrapped up, and she was always an ark. She always told on us. And, you know, Daddy made her take those pocketbooks back and wouldn't let us have them. Are you serious? Oh, my gosh. Boy, that would hurt.

rough. That's how he ruled. That's how he ruled. That sounds a little familiar. It does. But his mother, my grandma Earnhardt, Effie, when we, you know, when we first moved up to the big house, she babysat us while Daddy didn't, so Mother could go to some races. I mean, daddy was racing six nights a week. He was gone all the time. So Grandma Earnhardt kept us a good bit. Well, then she started with the Lonely Hearts thing and found her a man and moved. And so we had a nanny bell that just lived down the road and they started letting k and me keep us that was a joke when they were going to be gone to races they'd be home that same night and so one of the memories i have of your dad coming in the house with this hand all wrapped up Kay's laying on a bed do i think

she's painting her fingernails and i don't remember what i was doing but del says i've cut off my face I've cut off my finger." Kay said, oh, Dale, shut up. You have not. So he takes the rag. He had wrapped it, and sure enough, he had cut off the tip of his finger, and you know the finger we're talking about. So we took him, we called Ann Annabelle, said,

Annabell, Dale's cut off his finger, we gotta go down, and Dr. Krell's just down the road. So we took him down there, took me, Kay, Annibelle, and a nurse to hold him down for them to doctor that finger and sew it up or whatever they did to it, just even giving them. He didn't want to dad in it. He just said, just do it, be done, you know. Yeah.

That was, and then when he protected us with the gun that night. What happened? What happened? Another night, Mom and Dad had left us there. We were, Kay was older then. We were a couple years older, and Del had started hunting some, a good bit with Daddy, and we heard, we heard something. We heard, you know, that big old house, we heard something, and we thought it was an intruder.

So Dale gets the gun out. Of course, we could call zero. You call, you know, zero then to call the police. Yeah, I'll call the operator to call the police. And so by this time, Dale's outside with the gun going around the house, looking for an intruder. The police get there and think Dale's the intruder, not literally, but he said, boy, you have to give me that gun. And if there's an intruder, we don't want no shooting. And so they took the gun away from him and got us all calm down.

But they never found anybody. So whenever, I mean, obviously this is all before Pop-all died in 1973. And so how old were you guys when that happened? And what was the shift like from those family dynamics to then? Because some of you were still young. Danny was the only one still at home when Daddy died. He was senior in high school. What's the total age difference between the five kids?

Okay, there's 14 months between me and Kay, 16 months between me and Dale, 18 months between Dale and Randy, and two years between Randy and Danny because Mama lost a baby between six years, maybe. I didn't know she lost a baby? She lost a little girl. Between Randy and Danny. I had no clue. Yep.

He had a miscarriage. How far into the marriage? I don't know how far long she was in her pregnancy. I just know that she lost a baby and that they knew it was a little girl. Dang. Did you know that, Kelly? Uh-uh. So mother was 17, 19, when she's 20, when Danny was born.

25. Oh, man. Yeah, that's crazy. That was a little lady by the name of Annie that helped Mama. You know, I always thought we were poor. But when I look back, you know, Daddy paid for a lady to come in to help mother. Mother never had to work. I never remember being hungry.

I remember being cold because there was just one heater in the house. You had to come down to it and put a heater in the bathroom to take a bath. But that was normal back then. But Annie would call Dale her little blue-eyed baby, and he'd cry to go home with her, which we went to her house some too. But he loved that woman. Wow. It was like.

I'd never heard about her. her. But mother, oh, Annie was a good soul. She, um, helped, you know, helped take care of the kids and help cook. Did, when Danny's living there and y'all are gone, with the way that you describe how strict Ralph was, was Danny having any, uh, was Danny having problems being there by itself living under such strict rules? I don't think so. Danny was the baby, you know. So he was the tree, because Danny was always, always. Was always. always, he never broke rules. Really?

He always did like he was supposed to. You know, him and Sherry, his wife started dating when they were in high school. So there wasn't any hanky-panky in around. I got you. Are you insinuating that there was hanky-panky before that with people? Probably. Maybe my dad? Probably between all of us, yeah.

We sat down the roof. Me and Kay, we used to go out of the windows on the roof. and sat out on the roof of the house to watch for cars to see if any of our friends were going by because daddy wouldn't let's go out that night. We loved to roller skate. Roller skating was a big deal when we were. I remember going to roller skating drink. On the highway up there. Well, down, the one that the only one that let us go to was Barbies down on 29 in Concord because a man and woman were very strict about going in, going out, and Ben Have. Well, Kay's way of learning to skate was really taking it easy

and my way of learning was going wide open I'd fall every lap and when I'd come home Daddy would literally take his knife and scrape the splinters out of the side of my leg where I had fell so many times oh yeah oh yeah I'd look like I had a beard on my legs where I had so many splinters

but that's the way I did that I'm just always wanted to be wide open do you remember was there any concern about Ralph's health before he passed Well, I can remember one time and I was fairly young that Daddy, I don't know if he had got sick or passed out. I don't know how it commenced, but he ended up having to be in the bed for a few days and drink this white chalky stuff.

That's really what I remember about that. But that was quite a few years before his heart attack. And Daddy had a heart attack in January of 73. and that was on the cusp of them doing bypass surgeries and stance and so that wasn't an option for him then. Wait, so he had a heart attack before? He had a heart attack in January of 73. They put him on medication.

He drove a race car maybe a time or two, but that's when Dick Elliott drove for him. It affected him physically. 73, it affected him physically. It just wasn't. Well, then he had a heart. heart attack and died September of 73. Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of, you know, for the longest time, people, you know, love to tell the story that he passed away in his shop working on his car, right? Because that sounds so cool. Yeah, that's just all about the movie things. But he passed away in the kitchen. In the kitchen. Who found him?

Who found me? There was a lady. Her husband, they ran the Waterburger down. I don't even remember what number was. It was a small one down across from the cemetery. Terry down on the boulevard on 29. And I think he, I think it was a drag car he had. And Daddy was working on parts or doing something for him.

And the story was told that me and mother had gone to take Grandma Earnhardt to the mountains by calm. So we weren't there. We left early. And according to timing, he died not long after we left. I mean, it was early in the morning before lunchtime. and the lady said she got there and daddy was going into the house and told her that he'd be right back so she said for whatever reason i just stood there at the base of the steps of the back door she said

he never came and i heard a noise but i didn't know what it was but he never came back out she said so i went in dead you know it's pretty common knowledge daddy had a heart attack in january so i went in and she found him in the floor in the kitchen floor he had a start opening a pack of gum a piece of gum that was laying on the counter and the water was running and so apparently he'd gotten hot, flushed

or whatever thought gum you know you put a piece of gum in your mouth that might help well she couldn't find a telephone so she ran across the street to the carter's house and they called zero I don't think 911 was yet and when the ambulance came

of course they said he was still alive but when they got him to the hospital they pronounced him dead Kay and Dale made it to the hospital I don't know if Randy and Danny made it to the hospital to see him to see his body or to see him but mother and I had gone to

Bryson City to take Grandma and Jesse back home because she wouldn't wait till the weekend for Daddy to take her back and they called the highway patrol who was supposed to stop us or catch up with us. And it was before lunch because we had lunch at Grandma's, and they said, well, they were supposed to come to Grandma's house if they didn't catch you on the interstate. We started back down the mountain and stopped in Canton

to see Hilda and Frank Presley, who did he drove for, the V8 car. And Hilda came to the back door. She said, what are y'all doing here? Mama said, well, Hilda, we just come to visit. it? Have you not talked to anyone at home? Well, no. Why? What's wrong? You need to call home. Del, you need to call your house. Del's at your house. You need to call your house. So I called, and all Dale would tell us was that Daddy had had a heart attack. They wouldn't tell us Daddy had passed. And, you know. What was Daddy? What was Daddy's state?

He just said, Kathy, you need to let Frank bring you and Mama home. Daddy's had a heart attack. He wasn't. Just calm as he could be. Just calm as he could be. My God. And I said, Dale, how serious is it? He said, just get Frank to bring y'all home. Well, Frank was on the golf course.

I wasn't waiting on his eyes. I said, we're going home. He'll just say, no, you can't drive her home. I said, well, hold your breath. I can too. Well, that was before the big interstates were built. You know, it was about a five-hour, almost five-hour drive up to Grandma's house, but Canton, it was probably a three-hour drive home.

We got home about 4 o'clock, and I just remember, cars been on both sides of the road, you know, the crowd of people that was there, that told us what it happened. And then Dale and Kay and Randy and Danny met us at the car, and we all went in Mom and Daddy's bedroom, and they told us, you know, what had happened and how it happened. And you just, you know, Daddy's the leader.

Yeah. I don't care how you interpreted his personality or his ways of discipline and his children. He was our leader. He was the person that taught us right from wrong. He was the person that gave us opportunity or not. And, you know, when the doors of that garage closed, it was like the end of the world. Yeah, he was the direction. He was our direction.

And, you know, I... We didn't see Daddy and even Dell as, wow, you know, racing was our life. And that was our life stopped right there. Even though Dale was, you know, tampering with it some. He just kind of been just getting started. Just getting started. And so everything shut down. You know, it was easy for us that were married to drive away.

You know, the way I dealt with my daddy. and your daddy's death, and even Randy and Danny somewhat, I could pretend they're not dead because I didn't live with them every day. I didn't have to be there in the mornings or in the evenings when it was time to go to bed and they weren't there. But when I'd pull in Mama's driveway, don't cry. And that shop would be closed was the most traumatizing thing of my life. So when Dale started racing, you know, he got all the race cars and all the stuff.

The garage doors were back up, and we were back in business. You know, you'd pull in that driveway, and the doors were up, and there's trucks and race cars sitting around, and you've got a new lease on life. And I think that's what kept our family from really just all going to pieces. just kept us from going to pieces because Del kind of stepped into that role. He stepped in the role of the leader of the family.

He told Mama what to do. He told all of us what to do. You know, he was the control freak. So that's how things went. I get that. I can feel that. So when we lost him, he had done moved out of the shop, of course, but when we lost him,

he was like, okay, what do we do now? You know, what do we do now and you know Randy and Danny just weren't the people to step up people expected you to step up when Dale passed they expected you to be the things that Dell was when daddy passed and that wasn't the way it was going to be and we all just kind of were in limbo because you know at some parts of our life there was Earnhardt's in Canapas and there was Earnhardt's in Morp's There was like, you know, at his funeral, we sat over here, they sat over there. It was just kind of awkward, as you say.

But we wanted somebody to step up because we needed that leader. We needed that clue. And my mama was a champion. She did. She's the one that carried us all through it and never floundered, never. You know, she grieved, obviously. but she as you all testament to during her passing that you know she was the glue for a lot of people she was the support for a lot of people and she got us through it so when when dad started how I mean it didn't seem like looking at some of the physical records from racing and so forth it seemed like that it's you know dad that didn't waste any time opening shop shop doors as you say.

And so I find it remarkable, knowing that he, you know, did so poorly in school and that he thought the best thing for him to do was to quit school at 16 years old in eighth grade. I mean, the decision making didn't seem like it was there. But when that moment game, I know he wasn't perfect, but I mean, he, he, he, he, He really, he took what was there that Ralph had created and Ralph had built. He took that and wheeled and dealed. And, I mean, through 74, 5, 6, 7, and 8, I mean, literally created his future. He sacrificed his family and kids for that.

Yeah. Yeah, he did. Well, let me, I want to say something. When you talk about Dale's grades, Dale was brilliant. Dale could or would not read something and comprehend it. You could read it to

him and he'd make a hundred on his test. The teacher told him that, she said if Dale would just do his homework or just try, he's brilliant. He's got a brilliant mind. Y'all both know what a memory he had. Well, that's not a reflection

of somebody with bad scores. You know, he was brilliant and he could take a little something and make a lot of something out of it. He had amazing common sense. Amazing common sense and that's what it took. Daddy was the same way. Daddy didn't have an education. Problem solving. Problem solving. Yeah. So like that was he he was amazing in the way that you would exhaust yourself trying to find a solution to something. Walk into his office and say here's what I'm dealing with and he would have you fixed up and ready to go out the door with us

with an answer in a few minutes because he just could he could step back and see the solution so easily he was brilliant Dale was very very intelligent and it's a shame his records well but it's true you know

I don't think that he was dumb I think that he didn't apply himself he didn't want to do the work he wanted to be at shop he had bigger options yeah he didn't want to do homework he wanted to work on the car He didn't want to go to school. He wanted to stay in the shop and help his dad.

Right. And so I guess what I'm saying is that, you know, one might tell you, one might say that, you know, that's not, you know, he needs, his priorities aren't in order, right? At that moment when he's trying to, you know, when you would think he was being encouraged to finish school. So I guess my point is, is that to put all that, put all that in front of dad in 1973 at the end of 73. it shocks me that he became what he became. It's not surprising, but how did he not screw that up? It's really, it is. As you're sitting here talking, I'm thinking about, like, being parents and how the things happen.

You're talking about a guy that was, which you even, when you even alluded to the fact that he had his driver's license at 18, he had two kids at that age. He had two kids. He was a lousy dad. He was a lousy husband. He lost his own dad. I do want to say, Dale was a great dad until Latane left him. When he came home from work that day,

and she had taken care of Del and everything he owned out of that trailer and left him with a fork and a knife and plate and a cup and one sheet and one blanket and one pillow, Dale changed. Dale was never the same. Really? never the same well there had to be something that happens there's two sides to every story but give us your opinion of how all that went down why that happened well all and again all I knows what Dale would tell us he would bring he would bring Carrie Dale as a little one to the house to the shop and help Daddy on race cars mama would play with Carrie Dell and keep up with him when that went down we didn't she didn't have access to Carrie Dale her parents always worked in the mill and she said she didn't like the way they'll smelled like the grease on his hands or, you know,

his clothes would smell like cars and she didn't like that. She didn't like that he did that. She wanted him to work a job and come home and not come to Daddy's, you know, and that was all we were ever really told about that breakup. And so I just know that she left him. She left him and a couple Christmases, a couple of Christmases, Pat, after that, mother went to take Carrie Dell's Christmas present to him

and they wouldn't let her see them. They said you can leave the gift but you know Dell's we're divorced and she was marrying Jackie Key and then they told us that Carrie had all these problems and they wanted to change

his name and so Del was kind of in a corner pushed in a put in a corner and at the time it was kind of like the rest of his life he's sacrificed everything for his racing. He went down at Concord and did a tire test for good year.

I think it might have been Hoosier. I don't know, but he did a tire test and made $900 for doing the tire test. He gave her that $900 to settle the money he owed her and child support and signed over rights to carry down.

And so he meets mom. They get married. Has Kelly, has me. Now, I said he was a lousy dad, but he was frustrated. He was not a lousy dad. He was just an absent dad. Kelly? Yeah, he was absent.

Yeah, he was absent. Yeah. He was, when he was there, he was great. He was. He loved you, kids. I had some very small, I have some very faint memories of him being there, and they were good times. But I do know through stories of, from, you know, from different people, Tony Sr., Robert, G Jr.

Dad raised hell, drank, out all night, running around, goofing off, racing, you know, working.

Like, when the hell did this guy sleep? And that's what I'm saying as far as like, I don't know how he got it. I don't know how he made it happen. I don't know how he got that opportunity

that propelled him into what he became because people like Kerry Hargut He lost his dad He's like He's like, you know He just became this

He'd running a hundred mile an hour To speed of light going nowhere You know what I mean Just bouncing off walls Not figuratively Or not literally but figuratively Racing his ass off He was lucky enough to have good people around me

And he had a personality He was likable I mean he had a personality That just drew people to him Dale could sell his cell Yeah. Yeah. He really could.

He didn't have no money. Yeah. But I know he bought a car from Harry Gant. He bought an old Chavelle from Harry Gant. Well, that... Then they got the NOVas somehow. Gray London. Gray London came in the picture.

He's the one to actually help buy the car from Harry Gant. Really? Mm-hmm. And that guy there is the guy that's sort of the other part of the Earnhardt racing story. Yes. Yes. Which was a business. Gray London.

It was a business. And we were all part of it. Yep. We all, like, Kay and I were one percent. The original sort of Earnhard Racing, which has been a business. which has been, there's been some legal arguments and debates about, you know. They didn't involve us in that. Well, no, but I know that there's been a time or two where Gray's tried to come.

Well, Gray took it to a level. He wasn't, you know, that was out of line or illegal for him to do. And so we all had to go to court about that. But he came in and helped Del when he needed. Del seemed to always find. Who was he? Gray London owned Dany-made foods. catering trucks that drove around to workplaces and sold sandwiches.

Was that on the side of Ralph's car? Daney made food, yes. For a long time, right? And so he had a relationship with Earnhardt's before Dad. And so when Dad started racing, he continued to support. He continued to support Dale. And he stepped in and was probably think there may have been somebody else that would have stepped in, but he did.

And that really got Dale started. Yeah. And then people like, like I said, Gary Hargit and Eddie Gibson that had a trucking company. I remember Gibson being on the side of the car at one point. Those people came in with money and helped him to the next level, helped him the next step or help him get through that season, whatever. It seemed like.

Because in Dale's mind, if he could just show his talent, if he could just get the chance to get out there and show what he could do, then he'd make it. That was his mentality. I just got to show what I can do. Yeah. So he's running his little Nova. He's got a Nova or two, and he's running out all over the place in the mid-70s.

He's running Robert G's dirt car. Robert G. was another one. They helped him along the way. But at times the relationship with Robert would go bad. I know that one point, one time they were, well, I mean, to be frank, I mean, I don't know the story, but dad was going to go over there with a gun and you don't know that story? Kelly, you never heard that?

Was that when Dale and Brenda was having a problem? Possibly, but that's what I'm sitting here thinking of. I mean, you're talking about 74. So, I mean, I'm born in 72. You're born in 74. 74 is when our parents supposedly separated. Or 76. 76.

So four and two. Something had happened at the racetrack. dad wasn't driving Robert's car or something else was. They started being competitors rather than companion you know rather than... Something happened at the racetrack

and then dad went and got wild somewhere and then was going to go take care of business, I think. Mama had to stop him. You never heard that story? No, I never heard that story. See, I think I'm always the last one to hear these. I'm sure... I thought I was bringing something to the table

that you guys would know. I take it back to the boys versus girls. You know, boys would... You might have been in a group of men telling that tale that you heard had Kelly or me or someone else been in that group, they wouldn't have told that story. Mom told it. I thought mom

might have shared a little bit of that on her when she was on the podcast. I can't remember. But anyways. I loved your mama. She was we always thought she'd dealt a soulmate and it'd last forever. It was Brenda and I were really close when you kids were little. Especially Kelly

and Shelley, you know, when we moved of course they moved to the lake, Dale moved to the lake and you kids were living there. And then when I married Mike, we moved to the lake. You know, y'all played. You remember driving the red Volkswagen around the island? Oh, yeah.

Mike letting them little girls drive that Volkswagen. I think it ended up out on the farm, didn't it? So I'll tell you a story about Dad and Mom. So Dad, they were living across the street from Sharpera Speedway. All right, they had a trailer. And it had a tank on the front of it for fuel, for heat. Oil or whatever, yeah.

And mom said that dad would, he was working at Freightliner. Freightliner, right? He was welding. He's a welder at Freightliner. And he would work, he would race and skip some work. And so his money that he was bringing home was only enough to really kind of get them $5 or so here.

and there worth of oil to go in that tank. Mama said the tank was never full. Never full. They'd have enough for a couple days. But one time they'd had a good week. Something happened to add one or whatever, and he filled that tank up. And then he went out with his buddies and got drunk.

And she said he came home in the middle of the night and ran into the hitch on the end of the trailer, which pushed the trailer off the blocks and knocked a tank over. The tank rolled down the hill. And all that oil rolled out. I did hear that story. So that puts it in, that gives me like this impression of that is sort of this, you know.

And that's sad. Those are the stories that give the impression because he works so hard. Yeah. He did. Now those, when they lived over in the Speedway, I remember how hard he worked when y'all lived in the mobile home beside the shop. Yeah. Barely remember.

At Mamaw's house. Memos, the trailer of the shop and Mother's House. And I know there was a lot of days you got, you know, mother fed, you and things you know brenda worked at a bank i think at the time and she'd come home with her payday and you know del be not making paydays or no mama bought was buying tires at the time or buying gas at the time but um brenda was just doing her best to feed you guys do you remember when they were on outs mom and dad i do what was that what was going on in your mind you can give us you can shoot shoot a straight table of truth all i

knows that he met Teresa and there was a fight at Mammau's house. I've been told that. Well, and that so there are some, Ralph liked mom the best. There are some pictures. There's some pictures of dad with Teresa and it sort of overlaps, I guess, the divorce, right? So dad, mom and dad, mom and dad were arguing and dad was seeing Teresa. And then did dad get caught seeing? He would leave. He would leave. I was saying Mike at the time and that's, another story. I think he went back and forth. He would leave Brenda and kids and go to Hickory, pick

her up and go to the races. Yeah. Because your mom had to work. She had two kids take care of and she had two times. She had no responsibility. She could eat crackers and a Coke and get by and be everything because she didn't have two kids to feed.

Yeah. So he was two-time. It's okay. God, it was 1978. Ages ago. Yeah. Yeah. And So, yeah, there's a, so there's a, go ahead. No. There's a story that after they had decided that they were going to have a divorce, that Teresa or dad was, or mom was at, ma'am, I was on the front porch,

and I guess dad come by? No, they were swapping kids, you know. Ah, okay. I think, I don't remember if Dale had y'all, and was swapping them to Brenda or Brenda was dropping them off, and y'all was picking them up. And it was all. We were there.

We didn't even know it. Y'all were on the front porch. This happened in mom's kitchen. In the kitchen. Whoa. And honestly, when you say who won, nobody won that fight. You kids lost. And it's easy to say Brenda won, Teresa won.

But Dale. You were in the room? Dale should never have brought Teresa in that house at that time during that particular time. It was all. I mean, Dale just, that was one thing he wasn't real smart about, was managing his personal life and the effect to have on his kids or his family. Yeah. I'm not saying Teresa's writer, it was bad or good.

It was Dale that made the choice. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of young girls come after Dale. You know, you know how it is, how the women come and flock around you, especially if they think you're available. and I don't thought her for that. I don't know if she knew was really married or if she thought he thought he was separated.

I don't know. Right. But I know she loved Dale and I know Dale obviously apparently cared for her, but it was a nice to ugly time. And it was devastating to our whole family because that's the last thing we wanted to see happen. So clarify for me, like I have these memories of, because I have a lot of memories of like staying with you. obviously Shelley and I, your youngest, were best of friends. Tight. And tight, tight.

And we played T-ball together. So, I mean, this had to be 7980s, 81's time frame because it was before. But your dad came. Well, that's what I'm to say. So it was before, we lived with mom, but before we moved in with dad when our house burned down. And I can remember, like, leaving those ball games with dad. And dad would come watch and all. But, like, the dynamics of, I don't really even remember Dale being around.

I don't remember Dale being around that either. I don't. But I remember those dynamics. So what was our life like from your perspective of what was happening? It was just always like worried about the kids. Where are you going to be? Who was keeping you? Because we knew that Dale was flip flinting around doing his thing.

And God bless Brenda, she's working and obviously had to have a life of her own. And so did we have like routine visits with that? Because I only have like this one visit. I remember seeing dad. I have this one visit going to Teresa's apartment or an apartment in Charlotte. Over on Sugar Creek Road. Yeah, I have one memory there. I can envision the apartment a little bit.

But I don't really remember like routine visits, you know. See, the only thing I really remember is your time with Brenda. Yeah. I don't, I mean, Dale was racing and I don't even didn't even know. I don't remember a whole lot of that either. Yeah, from 74. Just mama worrying about you. 81.

From 74 to 81, I remember spending the night. I remember one memory. I don't have a lot of childhood memories, right? I mean, this is just a natural thing, right? It's not abnormal, I don't feel. But I do remember spending the night at Dad's Lake House. And we were, we were, Teresa wasn't there. It was just me and Dad.

Before they were married. And I had a weekend where I was with him and that was that, you know. And I don't know if we went to a race or what, but I just remember spending the night. And then I remember my fourth birthday. we were in Mamaw's kitchen and mom was there and they were telling me all day that dad wasn't going to make it or dad wasn't supposed to be there we were going to have a cake at mom we're going to have cake at mamma's house not dad wasn't going to be there dad wasn't going to be there and so we're in there we just got there weren't there long at all and dad come riding in the kitchen on a big

tonka truck they had those big metal ones yeah and uh I don't know that stuff with me forever that was my fourth birthday well that's that's that is a memory that you know he specifically bought that thinking of you yeah and that's you know through your whole life that's what you crave oh yeah is that you know even with my daddy and especially dale you never had a a private moment with them you never had a one-on-one ever ever that was always even he'd come visit Mama. There'd be always somebody with him. Always. There was a couple of particular times that the one that Dale drove into Daytona and specifically told Rocky, he better take care of his sister. But when he won the Daytona 500 and Jebko, Jack Stecker, got me on the golf cart and we flew down there

and I got into Victory Lane. And Dale turned around and all of those thousands of people, look me. right in the eye and said, there's my sister Kathy. And that to me was as if we were on the planet all alone, because that's what you crave your whole life. It's just for your dad, for Dale, Randy, Danny Kay, any member of your family to have that thought of wanting you there and you being a part of it because that's what you crave is. I just want to be a part of it. Y'all have allowed me to be a part of it now for many, quite a few years. You've included me and trips and cruises and you know always provided ways for us to be able to go somewhere we might not have been able to go that has meant as much as that moment of del looking me and the

onsen there's my sister and then of course said we won the Daytona 500 and that's awesome and and I've got pictures in here of us in victory lane with him and so I know what you mean that Tonka truck, do you still have it? No, no. I don't know where that ended up. You said earlier you wanted to tell the story about meeting Mike, and I know there's another memory that involves Mike that I want to talk about

Sergeant Peppers. Talk about how you met Mike. Well, when Dale, like you said... And this is frame up the year. This is like right after Daddy died. This is like 1976. Mid-7. Okay. And Dale had, Mike worked in the body shop,

Beasley Cross Chevrolet and Randy worked in the Parched Department. And of course, it was Earnhardt racing and we were all part of it. And Randy, Danny, go there at night and work on race cars. Of course, their wives didn't like that much, but they did. So Randy asked Mike, he said, man, we tore our race car up. Do you think you might come and help out? He was body man, you know. He could fix dents and paint.

And Mike said, man, I don't know about race cars, but I'll go give it a shot. So that started their relationship. He was technically the first employed because he never got paid, but unless there's a little extra cash they might hand him, but he was single. He didn't have a problem. But they had worked, you know, he worked with Dell quite a while. And he and I just talked.

I was divorced. He and I would just talk because Mike's six years younger than I. You know, he's just a baby at that point. I was married, two, divorced two kids, and I was out of work for some surgery. and one night my phone rang. And we didn't have cell phones at the time. And I said, hello, and it was Mike.

He said, I saw your lights are on, or are you up? Or would you like a little company? I said, sure. I'm watching the news. The girls are in bed. Come on down. I thought he said it shop. Come to find out, he had driven out to the Burger King

where there was a pay phone to call me. And when he came, he came in the backway. I had a circle driveway and some really tall hedges. And he pulled over here and parked behind the hedges. Come to the back door and come in. And I didn't know that until it got time for him to leave. So we sat on the couch and we watched the news. And he said, well, I guess I better go out the back door.

And he kissed me on the cheek. I thought he was going to fall down the back steps. But he went around the, I said, well, you're going? He said, my car's over here. I don't want Dale to know I'm down here. He won't like it. I said, whatever, we're adults, you know, whatever. So he did that for a couple nights, and then one morning,

I was getting the kids in the car, getting ready to go to work, which a couple mornings I was doing that, and Dale holler out the window, hey, can't you take the day off? I need some help up here. But anyway, Mike was watching me out the window. And Dale said, all right, boy, you better leave out alone. You're going to get in trouble. Mike said, man, it's too late. And he said, of course, he said, you, SOB.

But you know, Dale always, Mike's somewhat goal was to be involved in racing. But when Mike, he came to making decisions, that changed Dale's dynamic with Mike because he didn't want me to live that life. Because he knew how he'd been, flinting around and you go do in opportunities or the exposures with whoever, whatever, wasn't healthy for marriage. marriages. And when it came time for us to get married, they said, are you sure? He said, you know, Mike's wanting to be in racing. I said, I don't think he will pursue that for any long. Well, all right. Well, they told me we didn't need to move to the lake. And we did. We was there 37 years.

Mike and I are going on 39 years. So something worked out. But he, that's how, that's how we met. And Mike did continue to be involved in racing. He worked on, I know he told me, he worked on the gray ghosts. He worked on Buddy Backers when he actually thought he had a job at Austral and Hedale went there. But that didn't pan out for whatever reason. So he went to Renier Racing and Monaro, his last name, worked in the body shop. Mike worked with him. And so he worked on the Grey Ghost.

He was in Victor Lane with. that car. Yeah, and won the Daytona 500. One of Daytona 500, and Mike's got a Victor Lane picture. Of course,

he's got every Victor Lane picture he was ever in with YouTube. Yeah, Mike, so Mike, you know, just to explain, Mike became my driver

on my bus. Well, he, after the souvenir deal, he, after the souvenir deal, I came off the road in 2000. They had offered me a job

at action in purchasing, and so, my grandbabies were going up. I needed to be at home, So Mike said, you go ahead. So in June, I came off the road, and Mike stayed on your Budweiser trailer, which was the greatest time of my life, is that trackside selling your souvenirs.

I love race fans. And he said, I'll, you know, work with these new folks on the trailer. I'll finish out the year. And so I went into the office. And then in 2001, when Dale was killed, he was on the backstretch on one of Dale's trailers. and then John Bickford saw to it that someone got to him and got him on a plane with y'all to come home. But after that, Del had talked to him about a hauler driver job the next year.

And so Mike's things were falling in place, you know, because he loved driving the big trucks. He drove the Napa truck part-time Ford L. He drove, you know, some of the show car stuff for D.I. but after Dale passed they used him a couple times and then

Kelly called and asked about him helping you with the coach and it's something he loved and hated because 252 days a year for nine years

he was gone and talk about working on marriages it's tough it is tough now we weren't expecting him to not do that job

but after that all you know, changed over, and he started working part-time for Bobby Labani. And then Regan Smith, he was in heaven. It was part-time. He wasn't gone as much. He, you know, he's home so much more, and we kind of got used to knowing each other home again because, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but then you say, okay, any time for you to leave after you home for a while. And so the day Regan quit racing, he said, I just don't think. I can find anybody else I could work for that's out there.

They do part-time. And so he went ahead and took early retirement and left me working. Of course, I was working. Kelly called me in 2013. The radio place. And I worked at TrackScan. They rented and sold the scanners at the races. And she said, would you be interesting to come and running my retail store and wholesale?

And I said, Kelly, are you sure I can do that? She said, sure you can. And so I met Joe one day for dinner for lunch, and he went through this whole rigmarole, and I'm saying, whew, whew, all these numbers are going over my head, you know, percentage of this, and ratio. Okay, Joe, I can do that. And you did.

Because I know Kelly had my bike. And I did that until 2020 when old Corona stepped in, and at my age I was high risk, which they shut the store down. But I had already backed off in semi-retired. Working part-time because I love the race fans. I love talking to y'all to Earnhardt fans. They are the most loving, caring, passionate, loyal, they do not jump on and off bandwagon. They are die-hard and they will cut your throat if you say anything bad about the Earnhardt's.

And I love those kind of people. I've met so many of them. I just love them. and still get Christmas cars from a lot of them. Yeah. So what do you think, when you think about the Earnhardt legacy, you know, after all this time and things are, you know, things are sort of settled in for you in your life.

Where do you, where does your mind go when you think about racing or think about the Earnhardt's or does it go to Ralph? Does it go to Dad? What are you the moments you're playing to? Honestly, it mostly goes to Dale. Yeah. Yeah. because that was the

from my adult life and that's the most racing that I remember. You know, as a little girl, you don't remember as much about the racing. You remember a little about the people and the interaction, but I don't remember so much about the racing. Now as a grown-up,

there's a whole lot of things I put together. I thought, oh, okay. But, you know, with Dale, his racing as hard as it was on family to see what he was going to his family, it was still like, you got to win. Because that's, we just assumed he'd always win because Daddy had always won.

Daddy was always successful. If you don't think about Dale ever failing. Never, you never failed the most proud I was of you when you got out of a race car, honestly. And now I can watch a race without being concerned about anybody's health. You know, there's not an earn hard out there. I don't have to worry about it. I enjoy racing a whole lot more now. than I did because I was so nervous about one of you getting hurt or not doing well or people

talking bad about you or for whatever reason because we take it all very we take their own heart legacy very very personal very personal I do I do too it's hard it's hard to watch Wyatt like I feel the same thing like just like what you're talking about just in terms of fans and the pressure and the responses from people and the fact that there is this legacy to do well and when you don't what does that look like so i get it great insight for and watching you do broadcasting that has got to be one of the hardest jobs on earth no i won't i won't tell you a lie it's pretty easy i can't i just i can't even imagine because i have stood in my house and thought now if i'm going to be broadcasting how do you get the words out fast enough before they moved on to something

else well luckily there's three other guys in the booths that take up the slack you run out of things to say are you having a hard time getting your point across there's they they can tell and they'll pick it up we all kind of let you know we all kind of assist each other in there it's pretty cool we enjoy you as a broadcaster i enjoy doing it i'm so proud of both of you i just can't ever tell you how much how much i love you i mean y'all you have so much it's hard to show love to people that have so much you know yeah but you show love three words and actions i just i just think about you every day being proud of you and your kids and and even Taylor she's doing so well in what she does yeah and y'all always took care of things after your daddy passed you took care of mother

something I'll never ever be able to thank you for is how you took care of my mother but um the legacy's born and bred in us born and bred in you the blood in your veins yeah all of us I think I mean, you've said so many things here today that, like, just transcend the family, I think, you know, from just our personalities, our just what we do, who we are, what we're made of. You know, as a little girl, I remember laying up there, my bedroom was upstairs, and I was pretty small. I mean, five, six, seven, I don't know. And the greatest exhilaration I ever remember, you know, that old house, the windows would rattle when daddy would call. crank his race cars. Wham!

Ram! You know, just, and I jump up out of the bed. It's race season, you know, and fly out. And Dale would already be out there just the fact that their race car was, because during the wintertime, there was no race

car running. And when that happened, the cold chills and the feeling of racing, you know, it's race season. Oh my God. It was never about, do we have money because I never remember not having food or what we needed. Yeah, you know, the kids, mamas that worked in the mill got a pay day every two weeks and they went shopping for fancy clothes,

but my mama made me some nice things. I never felt slighted. Well, we have guests like you that come in here and that we know really well and we have relationships with, but there's never a conversation at this table where we don't learn something new and we learn a lot of things. And we learned a lot of things today that we'd never heard before, which were incredible. And that's why we love sitting down and doing this show. But you worried about coming in here and doing well? Look, she's got her notes. You did it.

You've hit a home run here. You're going to have lots of people talking, and everybody's hearing some new stories for the first time. So we're pretty thankful. You're not a superstar by now or are going to make you one. I'm just Kathy. and that's what that's what you know oh oh i forgot to say please say hello to my sisters in christ at watermark church they we have um wednesday morning uh sisters or whatever meeting and of course

when i started to church and this is way it is in any environment i go into that people don't know who i am and who i'm related to and i don't make a big deal out of it but there's what you're with some comments made throughout some of our club meetings over the last few months. And so most of them now know I was in Earnhardt. Well, this one lady, her name's Ellen, whose precious, precious lady, had been out, had been out of town,

and she came in last week, and she said, when it was prayer request, I asked her to pray prayers for your safety at Martin'sville. It's Friday night. I said, I'm going to the races. I'm so excited. I've not been in five years or longer.

We've not been to a racetrack. And we're so excited anytime Dale drives. So I ask for prayers for your safety. And so after we got through with a prayer request, Ellen said, Did you say Dale? Dale who? Do you know Dale Jr.? I said, well, yeah, honey, he's my nephew.

He's your what? Do you mean Dale Senior was your brother? Oh my God, I can't believe. this. I can't believe this. Can you get my autograph? Can you get his autograph? I said, honey, that's something that when we're together as a family, I never asked for because we had very little personal time with our superstars or whatever. And it's hard for those few minutes to say, hey, can you give me 30 autographed postcards for my girls at church? But they all send their best wishes. We'll take care of it. And I was afraid, I was about to forget.

that and I was going to be upset if I did because they have really helped me through the traumatic things our family's been through the last few months and especially in December. If that had been for them, I don't know if I'd have made it in the good Lord, you know, he's always watching over me and has I've been really blessed. Well, we're so thankful that you came in here today and shared some of your great stories with us. I know that we just barely scratched the surface in some of those but people are going to love listening to them and now we have them documented you know this is this is another good perk yeah this will be here forever so thank you Kathy and we love you all right I love you and I love you and I'm glad you were here instead of Mike Davis I know I think

I think the words were I'm only coming on there if you're in the room I'm pretty sure those were the room I came I went in Matt's office and he asked me and so I run to kill his office I said that's the only way I do it is you up there and Mike's not about that time I forgot Mike's office right across the hall. Here he comes in the office. What, what did you say? But we're friends, so he understands. It's been fun.

All right, everybody. Kathy Watkins on the Dale Jr. download. I love you. Love you, too. Just went live. All right, all right. So we are live on YouTube. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr.

And we're here for Ask Junior. I mean, you guys know that. This Asked Jr. segment brought to you by Xfinity X-Fi. Exfinity's done so much for NASCAR. They're proud premier partner of NASCAR, and I'm a customer. I really enjoy the service, and I talk about it all the time. But, yeah, it's bulletproof. We've had no problems since I became a customer, I think, two years ago,

two and a half years ago, no outages, no downtime. I've been pretty shocked, to be honest with you, because I've had Internet for a real long time, and you just kind of get used to there's days when it just kind of drops out. There's something on their end or something on your end, and I've never had to deal with that. with Xfinity so far. So pretty cool.

I need that in my area. I'm ready for that to drop from the satellite. Yeah, where you live. I live in the boonies. She doesn't have internet. I have three megabyte internet. So come on, Xfinity X-Fi. She doesn't have hard lines.

It's terrible. The way to get internet where she lives is through satellite only. And I've had that before on the bus. And it's tough. Well, one clarification. So we do have a DSL line. Remember DSL? Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, Lord is right. So good internet is satellite, but it's iffy. Depending on cloud covering so forth. Exactly, exactly. So, yeah. We need Exfinity. Yeah, I need Exfinity, fiber, whatever it is that they cast down to me.

Something good. X-5. Give me something good. That was a commercial right there. We love it. Hannah's got y'all's questions. Y'all been sending it into Ask Jr., Brett Griffin's a favorite part of the show.

And you've been sending them to Exfinity Racing at Twitter. So let's hear. All right. The first one, busy weekend for the Junior Motorsports. Group. This question comes from Ricky Hardin. What did you think of the Cars Tour race

at Greenville Pickens? Your two drivers putting on one heck of a show with Lane Riggs. It was super fun to watch. It was fun to watch. And Lane's been racing a while, but this year he's having a really competitive year, got his car handling right,

and he's wheeling it. It's been fun to watch Lane. He's Scott's son that used to racing a Cup series. Scott's prolific in late-mile stock ranks as well around the mid-Atlantic region. That's kind of where he cut his teeth. So pretty fun to see Riggs family competing, and teams like that and people like that make that series better,

make Lake Mollstock racing better. But, yeah, it was fun to tune in and watch Josh get him win. Carson Quappell's been running really well in our car. He's thinking he's leading to points right now in the cars tour. So that's pretty exciting for him. And it's been great to get to know Travis better and Carson and look forward the rest of the year with that game. Yeah, I think Carson said he had something,

for Josh had that. Now, we're not going to get into this, but their whole putting the person that calls the caution back in their spot and all that good stuff, Carson said he would have had something for Josh. So that had been fun to watch. It would have. But it was a good race.

All righty, next one. From Brian, what does it mean to have the girls watch you race, knowing how you felt watching your dad race as kid? Well, I think it's more interesting and more enjoyable each year because they're a little bit older and a little bit more tuned in to what's going on around them. The first couple of years that we took Isla to the,

affinity races that I was running, she wouldn't really bring in anything. You know, she wasn't creating memories for herself. She didn't know what was happening. She would see me in my suit, but not understand that I got in the car and was out on the track, you know, while the race is going on, she's like, mom, where's dad? What's he doing? Where's he at? Well, he's in that car right there.

You just saw him get, you know, get in. And she didn't quite, couldn't understand it. Put it together, yeah. And I think it's getting a little better this past weekend. I think she pulled a little bit more from it. So each year it gets better. And I guess that doesn't really matter that they don't understand. It's the images and the pictures that we have.

That you're creating, yeah. Yeah. So when they get older and when they're my age, right, and they're looking at these images, they'll be like, wow, you know, I can't believe I was there or whatever, right? They'll appreciate that. She does know because, like, we're playing race cars at my house and she says, my daddy is a race car driver.

Yeah. She's under, she sees. She does know. some of it but uh anyhow i made the mistake of thinking you know so i you know Nicole is one and a half she's totally not understanding what we're doing or why we're going where we're going right she doesn't know nothing about racing and way too young and i told amy i said you know we we could probably find a sitter to to to keep her amy's like no like why would you not want her there i'm like well i just you know i were thinking that i do i do

She could have a better time with a sitter. I do want her there. No, I just was like, I do want her there, but I don't know. You know, it's going to be a lot, you know. Yeah. And we, she was, Amy's like, no, she's going. She's going to get the same experience. She's going to be afforded the same experience and opportunities that Ila was afforded.

So I, when I hear it that way, I think about it like, oh, yeah, because when they are in their mid-20s, they're going to go, hey, wait, why wasn't I there? Yeah. You didn't take me? wait you took ila right and they're going to do that right so i quickly understood you know what what was so important about having them both there but she likes the race cars too yeah she likes the race cars yeah she was getting a little bit fussy though and amy didn't get to stay all the way till uh to the anthem or you know to the last possible minute on on the grid which was

tough but because she likes to be on the go i saw i was watching from up in the suite and like i saw amy put her down and i mean she just took off yeah yeah yeah she's been She's like sitting in the seat and doing the steering wheel and all that good stuff. And I always like seeing those pictures too of like the kids like your Chase Elliott's, your Blaney's, all those kids that are like they're little just in Victory Lane. It's like, you know, they don't remember them. Yeah, they don't remember them, but it's the pictures that always pop back up. That's right. Let's see here.

We kind of talked about this today, but this comes from Bert Macklin. How are you going to stand there and let your driver drink a white claw after the race? I ain't worried about it. That's one more beer for me in that cooler. You know, you can't, I was the same way when I was his age. I hated beer. I wasn't, you know, when I was that young, I wasn't, I didn't like much, I didn't like alcohol really that much, you know, it was kind of, I had to, you know, when I was at parties

and stuff, it was, I was really, really particular, like, I only want this one thing. So I kind of can't be too, you know, can't be too critical of him. I remember, and y'all laugh, man, when I went, so when we signed the Budweiser deal, right, was not a beer drinker at all. We were going to like a big steakhouse in Charlotte with the Bush family and dad. And I said to Dad on the way there, I said, am I going to have to drink a beer at this dinner? And he's like, you damn right you are. And he's like, you get you a bud, heavy, and you sit there and you drink that beer.

And I was like, man. Man. All right. And so I did. And, you know, but over time, everybody always used to say it's an acquired taste. And that's what it is. It sure is. I didn't drink my first beer, so I was 21. Well, that's probably pretty smart. No, no, no, no, no. I'm just saying. I know. Right. But I mean, like, wine coolers were, like, wine coolers or margarita was the only thing that I, like, could stand the taste of. So it took me a long time to acquire a taste for beer. When you're sitting at that dinner, do you have that better beer face where you just trying to hold it off? Right there. Yeah, of course it did. I held it off.

It, you know, it becomes something that I really, it took a while for me to get into. But, I mean, now it's all I'll. What you prefer. Yeah, I kind of prefer. But I was a vodka guy from the start, and which is nice because now we have, you know, high rock and that's been kind of fun to get back into vodka. I drank Boone's Farm. I did the wine coolers, Barrels and James.

Remember the Bartles and James? Yeah. Yeah, I was, I can't imagine. Think of, I mean, the options today, think about that one. Yeah, Boots Farm. Yeah, that just, kib-jee-jeeves. Now, I'm going to tell you right now. So, you know, I'm sponsored by Mountain Dew a long time, right?

But our family is always, you know, was, even before that, was a sundrop family. We had Sundrop, which is, if you don't know what that is, it's kind of a regional thing. But it's like a mountain dew. It tastes like Mountain Dew, Mellios, a yellow soda. Citrus, yep. That was regional to Salisbury, Canapolis, so our family, way, way back when that dad was young, they drank it forever. I used to mix it with Jim Bean, and we called them Jimmy Drops.

That was pretty good, but pretty rough on you. I never mixed soda with vodka before. I just, I don't know whether it was the vodka or whatever, but it never went with soda. Have you ever drank a soda with like a, you know, or a vodka with like Coke or Mountain Dew or anything? I never, yeah. I tried to mix. Usually juices. Right.

I tried to mix vodka and Mountain Dew years ago, and it just doesn't work. But with high rock, high rock and sun drop is really good, is it? Yeah. You had a lot of people going on that April Fool's deal. We're like, you put it out and people are like, this is so cool. And you're like, oh, no, this was a joke, but maybe we should actually look into that. That was absolutely. Backpedal.

An agenda there. Well, and the thing about it is there's places, Cabarris Brewing, I think, They've been making some, they've made a sundrop, sour beer or something. Yeah. You know, or something. So it's like, is this really coming down on the pipeline? Most things I do have like this agenda. They're calculated.

Always, yes. Especially if it's on, what did he used to say about being, talking to the media and now on social media, he's got an agenda. Calculated. I will say like I took a, Bradnam told me about a few years ago about the Jimmy drops. And I was out of, I was out of sundrop one night, but I did have. have the cherry sundrop and cherry sundrop and jim who have you tried cherry sundrop and vodka i was

good with the high rock that was i that was my first thought was i that would be a good i'm not just saying this but the high rock is so smooth it goes so everybody says that i i'm proud of it yeah if you ain't tried it you you don't want to prove me wrong go right ahead this is a bottle this could be a new a new segment a weekly a weekly mixer with dale it goes really well with with sun I'm probably most sodas, but I know it goes well, sun drop, which I'm very happy about. Well, we completely derailed that. That's how these go. What was the question?

What was it? Did we got white claw? Noah drinking a white claw. I was like, how did we get here? White claw would let us a real drink. That's what's great about podcast. It's like rabbit holes. So this is a question coming frequently from the chat here on YouTube as well as one that was submitted.

And again, we kind of talked about this. But what was your take on the tie and Sam Five? what should be done, and how do you feel more than anything about Ty not taking his helmet off? That was really the biggest criticism, I think, at the end of the night was from social media was about the helmet. And I don't know where I feel, I don't know where I land on that because, it's where, you know, this has never really been a debate in the past about, you know, the helmet. And it started, though, I'm wrong about this, but I know last year with Harvick and Chase. And there was another incident, I think, with a driver or two

that where this conversation about the helmet being on or off started. So I don't remember ever, I don't remember this conversation ever being important. Yeah, if it was on or off. In the 80s or 90s or 2000s, right? Kenny Wallace said that you always were learned to leave it on, right? Yeah, you were taught to leave it on. I guess to step back a little bit, I don't think any penalties should be given to any driver.

I didn't see anything that went over the line. All the on-track stuff, even after the checker flag, I'm fine with it. I think everything that happened on Pitt Road gets handled by the court of public opinion. The garage, polices itself around things like that. Nothing that I saw went beyond, went across the line into being a mockery or making the sport look bad. All the things that I saw going to create interest, going to sell tickets, going to get us in the news in a good way. and so and I think we should not, you know, we should not encourage Ty or Sam to go out on the racetrack and continue being, you know, being crazy.

We don't want to dial them back. We don't want to pull the, you know, we don't want to put them on a leash and say, you know, behave. But you definitely don't want to encourage that either. I think you kind of got to let them work it out and try not to keep them from getting too unprofessional. But anyways, the helmet thing, I don't know. I mean, I think that in the moment, in the heat of the, the moment when you're down on pit road, it's hard to, it's hard to be critical because things

down there are happening really fast. Things are being said that make a guy snap. Things are being done. Guys are making decisions on the fly. It's easy to say, oh man, Ty, you should have took a helmet off. Ty, you should have took a moment and taking your helmet off and squared up the fight, right? But in the moment, who knows what any of us would have done with, we don't know what Sam was saying, to make tie snap that way and you're getting pushed over and over and over. I mean, eventually you're just going to want to go, right? You're going to swing. In a perfect world, the guys would get out, pull their helmets off, and go toe to toe and fight,

and no one would get involved. No handlers would come around grabbing guys and no crew members would get involved, and they would just scrap until it was over, and they just got exhausted, right? And NASCAR wouldn't call them to the holler and wouldn't tell them, wouldn't hold their hand and wouldn't tell them to grow up and be good little boys. None of that would happen, right?

I have to wonder what would it look a little different, though, had Ty, Paul, took his helmet off, saturday days a race car, and then come to have his confrontation and, you know, fuss and all would the fight have escalated the way it did, you know? Because he had some protection in the long run. Yeah. Who knows? All right.

Actually, this is not a question, but it's been funny since we talked about sundrop. People are dropping in the chat saying that they have unopened bottles of sundrop with your dad's 1979 Rookie the Year logo on it. There's a lot of people that have that sun drop. Don't try that with it. It's probably not good anymore. That's the glass bottle. I can see it.

Exactly. Well, the stuff settled to the bottom. Yeah, it's like got this stuff at the bottom. Yeah. Don't open those. Yeah. That doesn't sound good. A question here from Lindsay Ward.

you all get five tracks that you want NASCAR to race at more than once a year, what would those five tracks be? More than once a year. You know, I'm going to pick the Nashville Fairgrounds. I'm going to pick, I'm going to pave Bristol and run there twice with asphalt, to be clear. And I'm going to seal or repave Richmond and run there twice. I'm going to go to Martinsville. I might even try to see if asphalt works in the corners there now that we had the technology.

There's four. And then I would make sure we ran at Daytona twice before somebody changes that for no damn reason. I just write yours down because I don't know. Sounds like a good. She's like, yep, sounds good. And North Wiltsboro when it gets rebuilt. Twice. Boom.

Twice. Like that, yeah. On cue. I was in a second. Heck yeah. North Wilkesboro. Good job, Kelly. There you go.

Y'all might want to keep your ear to the ground on some North Walesboro news coming. You heard it here. That's all we'll say. Well, dang. That made us all speechless. Just hang there like a cloud, like fog. Yeah, people are probably wondering what hand signals are going on behind the scenes right now. I'm like, what are we not to talk about?

Well, that is it for Ask Junior this week. All right, y'all. I appreciate it. Infinity supports the Ask Junior segment of the show, and I've talked about it. They are a proud premier partner of NASCAR. I'm a customer. X-Fi, it's more than fast. It's reliable, powerful, it's secure.

And you can do everything that you love on the internet faster with X-Fyx-Fi. So I got more than enough speed over my place. Bring me X-Finity X-5. I got everything hooked into that stuff. We're digging. All right, everybody. It was a lot of fun. Kelly, thanks for coming and co-hosting with me.

and helping out. I know you got other things you could be doing. Hey, this morning has been dedicated to you. It's been on the calendar. I've been excited. I mean, my whole career, my life is kind of dedicated to him, but you know what I mean.

These three hours, perfect. I'm excited to be here. Hope I did a good job. Hope I'm invited back. And all I wanted to do was make Mike Davis proud. Make him nervous. That's what we're doing. Yeah.

So, yeah. He said it was going to be hard to, to miss a week. But man, he's got to go get some, have some fun with his family. We're glad he did. You filled in masterfully. We appreciate Aunt Kathy coming on.

She was great. Her interview was great. A lot of great stories. Love being able to get her on here and the family to come in and tell us a little bit about what we don't know. And it's always fun to learn something new. Yeah, I always like that because, you know, you think that we can sit around and kind of find out these things and learn different stories.

But the time that we have together is usually pretty purposeful in terms of our family get together and you just don't have that much time. to share old stories. That's good stuff. That's right. Aunt Kathy, thanks for coming. Kelly, thanks for co-hosting. Everybody, have a great week. Dirk Bristol on Sunday, man.

I can't wait. Tune in and see how that goes. We need to bounce back after Martinsville. Let's go. We'll see you on the Dale Jr. download. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.