The Dale Jr. Download - 379 - Earnhardt Stories: Horses, Hunts and Hangovers

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

On this edition of The Dale Jr. Download, Dale Jr., co-host Mike Davis and special guests take a look back at some of the best Earnhardt stories of all-time.We reach far into the way-back machine to a couch discussion with NASCAR Hall of Famer Terry Labonte. Labonte was on the receiving end of one of the more famous shots from the front bumper of The Intimidator's No, 3 car at Bristol Motor Speedway. Just how did "Texas Terry" balance the awkwardness of being hunting buddies and fierce competitors during the peak of both of their careers. Dale Jr. and great friend Hank Parker Jr. talk about the relationship their father's had and how it helped their's blossom. It leads the table to learn of one of the funniest Dale Earnhardt hunting stories of all time! Dale Earnhardt's long-time car owner and great friend Richard Childress shares intimate details of a hunting trip that resulted in near tragedy. How did a campfire promise made on the trip keep Richard Childress racing after the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001?Last but not least, one of the most popular guests on The Download, the legendary Ken Schrader, shares the story of all stories. Dale Jr. calls it "The Trip," and boy was it a trip! When you mix a teenage Dale Jr. with dirt track veteran Ken Schrader, and add in nudie magazines, beer, hitchhiking and a strip club, you get quite the damn story. It's a trip that drew the ire of "Dad" Earnhardt. As for Schrader? He ultimately paid the price.OPEN SEGMENTBefore reminiscing on Earnhardt stories, Mike and Dale discuss something that has been on their minds leading up to the up-coming NASCAR Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway. The two friends share their real feelings about what has become a cherished part of the NASCAR season, what it may look like, and how the entire industry should approach it.ASKJR presented by Xfinity Hannah Newhouse brings fan questions to the table of truth. Who on the Dirty Mo Media team have habits that annoy me. It gets super-honest and hilarious. The Adam Petty shoes Dale showed on MTV Cribs back in the day. Racecar numbers slanting forward or backwards? Designing a racetrack from scratch. Plenty of time to pick on producer Matthew Dillner 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.

Oh, look, Mike looks much better. It looks much better. He's the man in black. Wait, you took off the sweater and went no logo? He's just complete black. Johnny Cash. Hold on. You're welcome.

That's what I should be saying to y'all because y'all should be said, thank you, so we don't look like a couple doofses. I brought a second shirt just in case. I have not said anything back here the entire time. Look at Mike. He's wearing all black. No, I brought a second shirt in case. You guys are so in tune that you wore the same thing.

It's hilarious to me. I don't see a problem with us wearing the same sweater. Oh, man. It's embarrassing. I think it's funny. People would probably make a big deal out of it. It would be probably great for our show and in our conversation. But no, you took that off the table.

It's okay. I mean, it's not like we're wearing a, you know, matching. He's feeling spicy today. Be careful. Do you remember his reaction when he came in and we both realized at the same time what we were wearing? I was excited. Oh, come on now. How do you know how I felt?

You were like, oh, man. My reaction. What was it? Dang it, man. That's not my reaction. I didn't see that. What did you tell him about the air marks? All right, Dale.

Camera right there. Let's go with liners. We got a lot of shit to record today. Thank you. Come again? Do it. Ask him again. What?

Huh? Let's delay. No. He'll spin him out. Hannah, this is a half. I got a good right rear. This is how it is half the time. Yeah, I was going to say, wound up.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. The download starts now. Welcome everybody to the Bojangles Studios. Another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. We got a great show for you today. I'm myself. Mike Davis is here. We're going to do something kind of unique.

We're going to compile a bit of a greatest hits. We've done this before with some DEI stuff. We're going to do it with Dad. That's awesome. There's enough of those stories. That's right. We can fill up a couple episodes. Yeah, so we're going to put together some of the greatest hits,

some of the greatest stories that we've heard at this table surrounding Dad and can't wait to show you guys what we think are some of the good ones. Let's get started. First, I wanted to talk about something I saw on the Internet. All right. Well, this is not to do something. Oh, boy, here we go. This is as random as it gets right here.

So, yeah, Matthew, he knows what we're. So the throwback. Darlington throwback Oh yeah A weekend, right? Okay, so Darlington has their throwback weekend And they've been doing this a while And boy, is there a lot of opinions about it

So if you I would, in my head, I compare it to like the NFL When they do a throwback Uniform for a team And they wear it for a game You see it in other sports as well All sports.

I mean baseball does it the NBA. They have some cool old-school looking jerseys that come back from time to time. I mean, you know, everybody loves it when the buccaneers wear that old orange. Yes. Everybody loves it when the Astros pull out that. The old rainbow-looking

thing. That's kind of the, when they started talking about doing a throwback weekend, that's what popped into my head. It's like, yes, this is our version of that. And every team has their own interpretation of how they want to use that opportunity, whatever they want to, you know,

there's no criteria, there's no rules. If you want to throw it back to a car, a team in the past, in our sport, that's great. That's probably preferred. Penske and Shell, I mean, they've done things completely outside the box, not even racing or NASCAR related. So, I mean, sometimes the brands themselves or the sponsors will want to do. just use an old throwback logo and there's really no connection to any one scheme of the past. So people have their own interpretation and that's fine. I think that's great. I'm not, you know,

there's no guidelines. I sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're not good. Sometimes I guess people's own regulations and the modern parts of a font or a number get in the way. But, But that's okay. Whatever. It's just cool that we kind of have a chance to celebrate the history of the sport. And I think that's such a great weekend. We don't do it any other weekend. We don't do it any other time during the year.

And we get a lot of the legends that come to the racetrack. There's events on Friday night, Saturday night at the racetrack where they have champions and past champions and legends of our sport that are doing Q&As and so forth with fans and the infield. I mean, there's all kinds of things that are involved in the throwback weekend outside of even the paint schemes that we'll see on the racetrack during the race. So it's bigger than just, hey, man, what scheme they're going to run this year? It's bigger than that.

The whole throwback weekend is more, there's more to it. It's a good thing. And it's something that thinks very necessary. And when we don't take it seriously or when we don't appreciate, you know, the idea of the paint schemes and trying to, you know, seeing what teams come up with, when we seem to, yeah, that's ran its course, or half of them are never any good anyways, we, you know, we lose the importance or we lose appreciation

for what the whole weekend's about. And so. You're saying it's a distraction from the overall, the point of the weekend. I caution people to not be so critical about whether they really care, whether this happens or not. Right. Right? Because what, I guess what sparked this was, Brad Kislauski and his team released their throwback, and it's a nod to Mark Martin, a legend, a Hall of Famer that drove for Roush. But the number has slid forward on this new next-gen car.

So for the throwback weekend, I wonder whether it's a rule that the number has to remain forward on the cars. like it is this year with the next gen for the throwback weekend. So when you do a throwback scheme, you can't run the number on the center of the door, like the original scheme, whatever you're throwing it back to? So did you find any news? I called up NASCAR and confirmed with them that the number placement will remain in the forward location for throwback weekend official. And now, I don't know for sure.

Now, I don't want RTA barking up my pant leg here, but the, I think that they have an influence on this. Sure. And so, you know, what I mean by that is don't go, oh, NASCAR, what about you idiots? Right. RTA sort of inspired the movement of the number in the first place. I believe that NASCAR was offering the idea to the teams, hey, put the number anywhere you want.

Just keep it between the tires. You can have it slid back. You can have it slid forward. You can put it anywhere you want. whatever works for you, whatever your scheme desires, wherever your sponsor looks the best, slide the number, you can move it anywhere you want on the door. And I think the RTA said, no, no, no, no.

We all want the continuity. We want the numbers to be in one specific spot, which is fine. So that they can have bigger logos for the sponsors. That was the whole point. Yeah. You know, more value, more, yeah. Yeah. And so that's, you know, I'm just saying, like, NASCAR tried to give them some flexibility.

and I think that they chose to have it in a specific space where all the cars, the number was in the same spot. That's fine. But for throwback weekend, come on, man, loosen up the guidelines a little bit. That's kind of, I don't know. I don't think that's very throwbackish. No, I don't think it's well thought out.

I think it's a little narrow-minded. And so a lot of these teams will be less. Obviously, it's going to hurt the visuals, the optics, of a throwback car the whole identity of the weekend yeah and so like like a caution is if we don't allow that weekend to be as creative as we can make it allow you know open up the guidelines and allow people to really have their own sort of freedom and interpretation whether it's the car the uniforms uh you know growing out some facial hair whatever it is right that makes sure you may You set you apart or shows how much you really want to celebrate this moment and have fun with it.

I think we lose the identity of the weekend, what it could be, how fun it could be, what it could mean to the fans that are going to show up and want to see what's happening, see what's going on, and see the creativity that everybody brought to the racetrack. I think this is getting in the way of it. You know what it's like? You know, and by the way, I'm not down on this hill either. I mean, at the end of that, I don't care. At the end of the day, I don't care that much.

But I'm not going to be, have my intelligence insulted as if that's a throwback paint scheme. It feels like, you know, you know, you got Goodfellas and then you've got the T&T version of Goodfellas. But that ain't Goodfellas. Goodfellas, you got to have the F bombs. You got to have everything. You clean it up. You go sterilize. You go, you know, that's not really the movie.

It's not what you pay for. It also is like, you know, these people will tell you, there's a. In this world, there's a vegan hamburger, a vegetarian hamburger. Now, it may resemble a little bit like a hamburger, and it may even, for a moment, taste a little bit like a hamburger for a moment, but by definition it is not a hamburger. I look at that paint scheme from Brachislowski, and I'm like, okay, listen, I'll go along with the throwback, but don't insult my intelligence and say that's throwing it back.

That's not unless, unless, and you showed this, unless the actual throwback paint scheme, the original paint scheme had the number slid forward, which you had shown on your Insta stories a while back, that there have been plenty of cars that did that. Yeah. Now, I couldn't name you one. Right. You know, you could. I couldn't. But then it's a throwback. Maybe they do that. Maybe that's, you know, go look at one of those. There's enough of them, as I learned with your Insta story, that there's enough of them that you could, could do a throwback paint scheme with the number forward. Yeah. So for the throwback weekend, it's, I mean, everything we do is and always has been about fan engagement, getting people to come to a race, getting people to enjoy what they're doing, enjoy a race weekend. Fans beg for throwback nostalgia. And authenticity.

Yes. Yes. And you have the throwback, you have a little nostalgia, but zero authenticity here. And so, you know, you're going to have all kinds of fans that show up to the racetrack, in their old gear, their hats. They're going to be everything about the weekend is going to be on point, except for the freaking race cars. They're going to be nothing even close.

They're not even going to resemble anything that we've ever seen in the history of the sport. I'm just telling you, man, loosen up the guidelines, chill out, let people do what they want to do for one damn weekend. One weekend. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Drop the rules and the guidelines on the strict paint scheme criteria and see what happens. Amen. At the end of that, you're not going to fool anybody. So, like, let's not even try. Let's, you know, let's see how they handle it. I mean, like, if the teams come out and go, well, this is the throwback scheme that honors this, any other. We're like, okay, look, if you're going to go along with it.

We're not going to sit here and fuss. But don't insult my intelligence. Right. I think that, you know, what's likely going to happen if we are, if we go this route, is less teams are going to do it. Right. Especially, you know, less teams will do it. We'll probably still see some pretty fun.

creative stuff in the Xfinity series, but where the numbers are still in the center of the car like they have been for decades. But on the cup side, you're going to have less teams really encouraged by this guideline, by the rules of the number placement. They'll be less likely to try to come up with something. Or, like you say, it'll be a nod. There'll be something about the paint scheme that's a tip of a cap to something. It won't be a full send.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It'll be kind of a very minimal effort sort of way to sort of tip the cap to something in the past of the history of sport. But I just think we're missing the boat, man. That throwback weekend has kind of become the identity of Darlington. Darlington is a historic racetrack. When you think Darlington, you think nothing but history and everything that's went on there. And we have sort of made that the throwback place.

And if we're not careful, we're going to make that not what it's supposed to be or could have been. A lot of potential there. I think we're missing out on. All right. So, Mike, April 29th, that will be Dad's 71st birthday, depending on who you asked. Dad would say that he was born in 1952 sometimes. Anyways, he was not truthful about his age. It was 1951.

Every day we try to do our best to honor him and his legacy. We talk about him a lot on the show. obviously. We learned so much about Dad that we didn't know. And that's the great thing about doing the Dale Jr. Download is learning some of those cool stories that we've never heard. So we decided to start compiling some of the best Earnhardt stories that we've heard on the Dale Jr. Download.

We've got some great ones. Today, in honor of Dad's birthday, we want to share a few. Of course, this guest segment is brought to you by our friends at Ally. That's right. Ally. The guest segment sponsor is new this year and proud to have them. All right, some of the people you're going to hear from in this episode are racing legend Ken Schrader, dad's longtime car owner and friend Richard Shilders, my good buddy and former Xfinity Series driver Hank Parker Jr.

And the Ice Man, two-time Cup Series champion Terry Labani. So I'm really excited to have Ally helping bring us the guest segment each week, Mike. They're going to be supporting this show that way. And I know how important it is to be connected with great allies. I've done that throughout my career and continued to do that to this day. So let's get started. Let's do it. Terry LaBani.

From episode 229. Some of the finishes you had at Bristol, obviously dad was involved in several of those. You and him had a pretty good relationship. Throughout y'all's careers, I thought y'all were pretty good pals. Y'all hunted together. Yep. I think y'all even hunted together right around those Bristol races that were. We didn't go after that one race.

He didn't go. He was a trip got called off? Yeah, he decided he didn't want to go. We were going to my place in Texas And he said, I don't think so He didn't want to be around at you and guns Y'all had a trip scheduled for after that rest of it.

We had really talked about it, you know, but not, we didn't really have anything officially scheduled. Now are we talking about the time he wrecked you in 99 or we're talking about the one Tommy wrecked you in 95?

Because you weren't the one of 95. Yeah. I wasn't too mad about it. He sent you packing across the finish. Yeah, I wasn't too mad about that one. He helped you. He just eased you across there. So he canceled a,

So he canceled the trip. I would have canceled it in 909. Well, we just... That is probably best not to be together. We just didn't go. Yeah. A few weeks. Okay. Yeah, forget it.

Let me ask you. Like, he mentioned something about the Rattelus Cage. Like, and I was looking at that the other day, you know, prep and knowing you were coming, watching that interview. Back then, did you believe him? Be honest. Yeah, you can be honest. That he didn't mean to wreck you, but he meant to rattle your cage. You know, I told somebody that, and he looked at me and he said, you're the only person that believes that.

But I will tell you the whole story, though. I was sitting there wrecked on the back straightaway, and my car was nose in the wall, and I thought, dang. So I put it in reverse, I had it running, and I seen him coming down the back straightaway here, and I thought, you know, all right? That number three is going to Victor Lane, but this number five is going to be stuck in the side of it when it comes by me.

And I had a time perfect. I mean, I had a time perfect, and I sat there, and I popped the clutch and that car moved about a half inch and tore reverse gear out. Oh, no. It didn't move. It just kind of let all the win out of the wind out of money.

That would have been iconic. Oh, I know it. And so I just, oh, well, got out and just walked to my transporter. But that's how it ended. So it's probably a good thing that reverse gear tore out of the car. Yeah. So if you guys didn't go on it, when do you go back and talk to Dale Earnhardt about a situation or an incident that happened.

Like, do you give it a week? Does it two weeks? Y'all are buddies. So that's got to come into it. Well, I don't know. We just kind of, I don't know. We just got over it. But it was funny the next weekend.

We were at Darlington. And we seemed like we started like 7th or 8th. I mean, we started right close to each other. That's how it works. That's always how it works. You know, we're a driver introduction. So we kind of both walk up there about the same time. And John Hendretti is standing there and he looks at me and he looks at me and he looks at

down. He says, I'm in the wrong place. but I think that kind of broke the eyes right there you know so just racing one of those deals made some cool highlights and I wouldn't trade it for anything what do you remember about you know maybe what do you remember about your relationship with dad or even even other drivers in the 80s like when you were trying to really kind of get get some traction and you're winning that first championship what was it like hanging out with those guys you know you really didn't hang out that much with the other guys you know and of course a lot of the guys were kind of older than I was too, you know, that you're racing against. But you didn't really hang out that much with anybody. You know, your dad and I would go fishing and hunting some. And we made a couple trips out to New Mexico, elk hunting,

went down to the Bahamas fishing and things like that. You saw them with the racetrack all the time. Yeah. So it's not like you spend a lot of extra time hanging out with them. Dale Jr., I'm curious. You know, you talk about noticing Terry in 84 when you would just go watch the race, but when did you actually know Terry? Was it when you got the cup?

When did you guys get to know each other? I never, I mean, Terry's pretty quiet and I'm pretty quiet. I'm real shy, especially around, you know, the veterans, the guys that were older than me. There's the guys that were my dad's age and so forth. I kind of, you know, just kept my mouth shut. Do you remember going out to eat at New York? No. Well, there was a couple times.

We went to eat up in New York City. We're up there for the banquet, and Dale had these reservations at this fancy restaurant. You can't even read the menu. It was so fancy, you know. And so Kim and I and Dale and Teresa, and you were there. And so we're sitting there eating to this restaurant. And I remember Dale Jr., he was just sitting there. He didn't say nothing. He just sat there the whole time. And your dad asked you about something. He said, I wish we could have gone to Burger King, you know. But that was really the first time I'd been around him, I think. Yeah. And you were very old, you know. 10, 12 years old, I guess.

Terry Labani. Winter circle Jerry Punch. Well, Dale Earnhardt climbs out with his ninth victory of Bristol. And Dale, that's what Bristol's all about. Take us to those last couple laps. Well, we knew we didn't get tires, and I didn't know who got tires behind us. All I knew is I needed to protect that bottom and try to go. And Terry got into me in the middle of three and four,

and I was going to get back to him and just rattling him. I wasn't going to wreck him, but I got to him and he turned. He didn't mean to really turn around, meant to rally's cage over. I'm going to go to Bristol, some hospitality stuff. How many times? What's the over-under on how many times the rattle the cage will come up? Ten times, 20 times, you think? A couple times, I'm sure.

People remember it, just like it was yesterday. You rather them remember the 95 went. Yes, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I got wrecked that one, too, but at least I won. He won that one. But the 99 one, though, like the thing that was so special, I just started, you know, as a cocky little camera guy.

The thing I'll never forget is the fact that it was like, man, it was like, you know, the deal happens, Erunhardt climbs out in Victory Lane, there's some booze. And then it's like, we're waiting. I run to your trailer, my brother and I, and we're going to interview you. And we had to wait a little while. You did a cool down, which is smart. Yeah. And still 15, 20 minutes afterwards, the fans were still there.

Yeah. And it was packed, and it was raucous. And you just don't see that in many sports, let alone our sport. We're 20 minutes after a race, it's like, last time we saw that was Martinsville last year. Yes. I mean, it was insane. It felt like the 90s.

You talk about what we're missing or what's missing. That's it. Like when we were Martinsville after that race with Denny and Chase. With the down with Denny Chase, yeah. I'm sitting there going, wow, this is just like the 90s, man. This is exactly what the sport was like in that moment, that energy from the crowd. I didn't like it. I didn't enjoy it that much.

I didn't like Dad getting booed. I could tell he was uncomfortable with everything. that had happened. I thought Terry was a gentleman and a professional and how he handled it in his interview. Yeah, you would have been, so you would have run in the Xfinity race the day before. It was awkward. Yeah. You know, as a son, it's like, just like when you're on in a car an Xfinity series and when your guys goes and wrecks somebody, you're like, oh, darn, you know. Now I'm kind of guilty by association here. It was a, it was a weird deal. But I remember y'all talking about having, you know, y'all were going to go hunting or something and that not working

out. And I didn't know all the details. But. Can you settle something for me about this hunting? Because to be honest with you, and I've said this to a few people, it seems like everybody went hunting with Dill Earnhardt. And I'm like, I guarantee everybody you meet, if they knew Deller and Ruff, they were hunting buddies with him. Everybody was a hunting buddy with Dill Earnhardt. How many hunting buddies did Dillardt actually have?

I don't know. But you were one of them. And was he like Rambo in the woods? I mean, like I've been hearing all these tales. He could just wrestle a bear down with his very head. hands and this time. What was Dale Earnhardt like as a hunter? Not really. It was just, you know, a normal guy, you know. I mean, I remember out there in New Mexico, we're in New Mexico with this hunting little tent thing and that a, we brought these horses in for like four hours to this camp thing. Wow.

And these guys had like, you know, 14 pack meals. They had hauled all this stuff in, had the camp set up. What? And the guy, the guy met a cook out there. And the guy was cooking. He was nervous. And he said, I'm just nervous. I said, why are you nervous? He said, well, I've never been around Dale before. I said, well, you don't have to worry about anything about doing anything wrong because you can tell you how to do everything. Would he do that to you? Seriously, because that's what I also hear, Dale, you sit there, you sit there.

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was just, I was riding in the car with Jeff Burton after the race and walks in Glenn and we were riding in the airport and he's like telling me this whole story about how when Jeff and his wife were going to the car. the Bahamas, dad had basically met him at his bus, made him at his bus on Saturday night, laying in the floor of his bus on Saturday night, reading out the itinerary that dad had prepared for him for his whole week.

You're going to eat at this place. You're going to call this guy. You're going to have a reservation for this place. You're going to see this guy at the dock, and he's going to help you get your boat over this marina. And it was just, he was always that way. Yeah, like a funny story. After the Bristol deal, the next spring we were done.

down in the Bahamas, and we were in a motor yacht, and we pulled into this marina, right? And it was your dad's boat, his Sunday money, and the intimidator. And so we pulled in there and parked. And so I walked over, and I think the guy's name was Terry, Captain Terry, I think. And so I walked over and talked to him, and he got on the phone, and he called your dad and told him that we were there.

And he was coming down the next day, and something came up, and he couldn't come down for another day. And so we were leaving and going to some other island. And so he said, we all take the fishing boat out and go fishing. That's okay. So we got on the fishing boat and we went out there and went fishing. And so we're coming back in. And I told the guy, I said, hey, pull up there to the dock.

I'll put fuel back in it. I get the fuel. And he looked at me and he said, that's okay. I think he owes you that. Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. It's on the house.

Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it. Well, that's good. That was the easy trade-off. You lost the car out of that and lost the race, but you didn't have to pay for his fuel. I didn't have a fishing trip out. There you go.

Was a fishing trip? Was it any good? No, we didn't catch the thing. We didn't catch nothing. Oh, man. Well, that's great. That's good stuff. We got a great guest for you today.

Hank Parker Jr. Some of those people are going to remember that name. Maybe you don't. But me and Hank Jr., we are best pals. From episode 318 of the Dale Jr. Download. My dad and your dad were friends. Yes.

And your dad was an awesome outdoorsman. And, you know, he loved to hunting fish. And, you know, I think I could see a lot of the connections. I mean, I grew up. My passion was. Our dads were so similar. Yeah. I loved hunting fish.

I was going to be just like my dad. My dad was my hero. I loved fishing and I loved hunting. And I'd stay up all night long with my dad and help him build spinner baits and, you know, put new line on his reels. My dad's a very dedicated person. Like when everybody else is sleeping and rest of. and he's getting his stuff together and he's not playing any games.

He don't stop. You know, when it comes time to fish, we don't drink, we don't drink drinks, we don't eat crackers, we fish, you know. And so I could see that connection in racing. It's a lot of work, but it paid off. We can all assume that they met because of their love for the outdoors, but do you recall the first time that they met and what the occasion was? I was pretty young.

I don't remember exactly what the deal was, but the first time I remember meeting Dale was, was they had some kind of a fishing tournament on Lake Norman, and then they had an obstacle course where you raced boats. And my dad and Dale were partners. And I can't remember how it all worked out. I do know there was some cheating that went on. I know they won the obstacle course part,

and I think it was pretty crazy. But cheating on the racing side, not really the fishing side. Yeah. It was good. So we had a Remington deal. his dad on the left Remington rep on the right Phil. Phil Murdoch. That's right.

And what was the, Primlin? Yeah, Primlin. The funniest thing that happened that day is we went up there to go on a pheasant hunt and Big E thought it would be appropriate and which was very wise to separate us too. We'd been known for getting in trouble. It was so pissed off because we went to two different fields.

Oh, yeah. Because I was like, dad was like, this is an appearance. Like you're going on this hunt. Yeah. Get your ass up and be ready. Early in the morning. Yeah. And I was like, hey, can Hank go?

I'd love it if, this would be fun for me. If Hank goes, I wasn't into this shit. Right. I don't like to hunt. And I certainly wasn't getting up in the morning and going, you know, hunting. But he's like, yeah, he can go. That'd be great. And we get there and they're like,

All right, Hank, you're going with them, Junior, you're going with them. And I'm like, wait a minute. That's not the deal. And he got to go with Dad. I wanted to hang out with Dad and Hank Jr. And their two asses are going to a different field. I got to hang around these Remington guys. We get up on this hill and we meet Dale Jr.

And Dale Jr. is at the bottom of the hill. We're kind of standing up a hill. And, you know, the rule is you don't ever shoot around another person, obviously, for safety reasons. And this bird, for whatever we're sitting there talking, this bird jumps up. And he flies right in between us and Big E goes, no, like this. And he gets about 10 feet over his end. Del Jee goes, bha, out, and smokes him. And all these feathers are coming down over Big E.

And he's about to get mad. He's about to get mad. He goes, Del Jee goes, yes, I finally got one. I could not stop laughing, which got me in trouble. And I didn't even do anything wrong. I was laughing. Oh, man, that's hysterical. Don't shoot it.

Boom! Yeah! They're celebrating. Pretty funny. Oh, my goodness. That is hysterical. The idea of the feathers falling around that is he's turning beat red in anger. Oh, man.

That is hysterical. And I'm humbled and honored to be inducted in this NASCAR Hall of Fame. Richard Chilis from episode 251. So y'all, so y'all, so y'all, became great friends after even before 81 when he drove for you because i know that i know you uh you and him met at metro or got to know each other in the mid 70s so y'all had become great friends and even hunting buddies before 84 when he began to drive for you and and get on that big run yes and you know we knew each other we'd talk at the racetrack and man you i know i want to tell you something else

most people don't know my brother was at caraway and he was the uh chief's or whatever they called them. And he called me the one Sunday morning. He said, if you ever looked for a race driver, this was back in the 70s, I guess it was. He said, you've got to look at this Dale Earnhardt. He said, last night him and Butch Lindley was racing at Carraway. He said, he'd come up two wheels on the wall and two wheels and beat Butch Lindley.

He said, he's a race driver. So that's the first time. This must have been 74, 5, right in there. Dale had just got started running some of the late. You probably raced against him then, right? Yes. Oh, yeah. I've raced against him.

You raced against him one time, beat him one to race at. Metro Lama. Metroline. I got pictures of that. Yeah, that was a, I never forget. Both of us had a long, shaggy hair. And, you know, just young guys having a blast doing what we were doing. And after the race, Kiel and I wrecked going into turn three and four,

I think I said I lost my brakes. But I beat Dale back to the line. He'd come over later that afternoon. and on the old trailer, we pulled our stuff with a trailer and a pickup truck back then. And I sat back here having a cool one. He'd come over and he said, you know, he'd grab you on the collar and he'd say, next time I race with you, I'm going to beat you. And whoever knew what the history would come from that.

That might have been 76, maybe. That was 1976. So you talk about you and dad becoming great hunting friends. I know that dad, you know, drivers today have to kind of be careful on what they're doing outside the race car they got to take care of their bodies they got to you can't break their legs skiing and doing silly stuff like that fooling around on the lake or but dad would go hunting and you and him would get into pretty precarious situations that a lot of us didn't even know was going on and one time y'all fell down the mountain or he fell down the mountain yeah what what happened

we had ran rockingham i think it was and we left rockingham and we were headed to phoenix and so we took off we stopped in new mexico to hunt And we, right in the middle of the night, we got in 12, 1 o'clock at night, and we took off up the mountain. On a horse. On horses. And we stopped at the camp. Next morning we got up, and we headed on up the mountain. It was icy, and you'd hold the horse's tail in front of you and, you know, hold your reins in the horse.

And I had Dale's horse, and he had the guide's horse up our guide had actually had a mule. And we was going up this real steep hill with ice on it. And Dale's horse started slipping. And myself and the horse went off the mountain. You? Yeah, and I flipped over and over down through there, and I got up. Man, he was as white as I was. I think he thought it'd kill me.

And got back and got to the up there. I killed an elk with his gun. It broke my gun. And he first thing he said after he's seen it, I was alive, he said, why did you pull my horse off the mountain? You know how you did. I said, hell, I couldn't pull it off. I couldn't hardly breathe.

When you say fall off a mountain, though, How long? Come on now. It was going on in my head. Yeah. We flipped down this real steep ravine, probably 50, 75 feet. What? What? A tree caught me.

It busted my spurt, sternum, whatever you call it. And you were probably more upset that it messed up your gun. It was. I ended up using his, both of us got elk and got back to camp at night. That's another thing. Probably what kept me in it after 2001 was, I was at Bill France Jr's house and

sitting around on the mountain. That night go back to the story that night after the, Dale and I used to call it the Great Horse Wreck. And it was. And we got there and got back to the camp that night around the campfire. And I said, Dale, you know, if I didn't make it off this

mountain, you'd have had to went to Phoenix and raced. He said, if ever happens to me, you got to race the next week. And that's the reason I was in Rockingham in 2001. Wow. That's another part of the story. Yeah, I've always wondered, you know, we all dealt with dads lost our own ways,

and I always kind of wondered how, I'd heard you say that before, but I always kind of wondered how y'all got, you know, the team, you know, getting the guys together, getting a team together and talking about how you're going to, how are you going to go forward? How did you organize all your guys and your company and what was that process? over the next couple of days to get to get yourself to Rockingham, to get there and know that you were going to continue. I mean, I know once you got to Atlanta and won the race with Kevin,

that was, that had to been storybook. Yeah. You know, that night I got back home over in Florida, and I told my wife, I said, we're getting out of the sport. I'm done with it. I'm selling everything. We're getting out. And had my mind made up to do that for the next two days,

I think it was like on a Tuesday. I was walking at Bill Francis' house and walked around, went out on a dock, thought about that story from Dale and I had out in New Mexico, and I knew then what I had to do. And so I went in the house. I called Bobby Hutchins. I said, Bobby, we're going to Rockingham, have the guys paint the car white, call NASCAR and get the lowest number they got,

the lowest number they had at that time was 29. and I said tell Kevin Harvard to be at the office office should be there 10, 11 o'clock tonight. We brought deal back. And so as soon as I got back, I went to the race shop, pulled everybody together, and sitting there and talked to Kevin, put the deal together that night, and headed to Rockingham with a white number 29 car, yeah. But you said that you went two days, though, thinking you were going to sell everything. Was it the memory of that mountain that then made the...

That kept me. Yeah. That kept me in it. I had a promise. Yep. And he would have did the same thing with me. If something would have happened to me, he would have had to keep on racing. That was a deal we had.

We talked about the healing process in 01. And, you know, Steve winning that race the very next week at Rockingham helped us all heal. I felt like that Atlanta win helped us all hill too, in a big way. I know that you guys were trying to heal. And then him in July. I think those three moments were three big healing moments. Watching Dale Jr. win at Daytona, where we had lost Dale, was probably one of the better healing moments for me

because I know that we were all doing what we would, Dale would want us to do and what we all needed to do. Wow, wow. So when you came in here earlier, started talking about us, 1984, we was talking about this uniform on the wall, and got you talking about 1984, 1995, 86. You had Willie Nelson sponsoring the car, and there's an old story that I've been wanting to ask you about.

They had Red-Headed Stranger on the back of the car, and that was Willie's – Willie had a tour and a movie or something going on. That's what that was called, and Dad was mad when he saw it thinking that you were pulling a prank on him. Yeah. That's another story. I won't go too deep into it, but it is funny.

I mean, it's really funny. But, you know, he didn't see the car, and he walked in at Daytona and seen the back of it. And like you say, Willie had some kind of tour, and Rangler was sponsoring Willie at the same time and sponsoring Dale at the same time. And so he come in and he's seen that red-headed stranger on the back of there and he come over to me, grab me about what?

Is that doing on the car? I said, man, wait a minute. I said, that's, Wrangler wanted that on there. So we got it sorted out. But that was funny. That was a funny story. The legend is that when dad and you and went to meet Willie that Willie offered Dad a joint. Is that true?

I think that might have been 85. I'd been up in the Yukon hunting and I flew back into San Francisco. I never will forget that either. It's funny how you remember certain things. You can't remember what you was doing yesterday. Yeah, we were waiting on Willie Dale and I was sitting in the limo that morning waiting on Willie to come. And I got the pictures of this shot. I ought to send you one of them.

And we were waiting on him. So here come this guy with a ball cap on and a member's only jacket, a black member's only jacket. And I said, I was expecting Willie with his cowboy hat or something. And he gets in the car and sits down, leans back in the car. And he says, what's the morning? How you doing? Rose out of joint there.

And he says, y'all won't fired it up. Y'all won't want it. No, no. we'll drink something later. But that's the true story. I was wondering if that was true, man. There's just something mind-blowing about Willie Nelson and Dad and Willie offering Dad the joint.

Now, you said, and I don't even know if we go down this road, but I mean, like, Dale Earnhardt had to answer this too, right? He had to... Oh, he did. He probably answered it before I did. Okay. No, no. He said, no.

We'll have something to drink. I might have said we'll have something to drink later. You know, Dale brings up a point. there are a lot of legends and stories of Richard Childress and Dale Earnhardt over the years. I don't even know if they're true anymore. Like, we were just, you know, because a good story. I mean, like, these are the kinds of stories that you hear when you know people are sort of making stuff up, but just to tell a good story.

But I've got a feeling they're all true, you know. You guys, y'all lived. Oh, yeah. We, you know, I'm so happy that I was able to enjoy those many great years before. social media, before cameras. You know, you could go have just a good fun evening or you could go do something, go hunting, go eat together and do what you wanted to.

And I didn't have to worry today. You're on your toes every minute. So another one, you know, we've got a few more of those stories that you're going to have to tell us whether they're true or not. But you once drove the number three good wrench car at India to test.

Oh, yeah. You had, you had, how did that come about? Did you say, I can run X, I can run X time, and they doubted you, and you said, well, I'll get in the car and go do it? Or did Dad say, you should take it for a lap? Well, how did that all happen? We were at St. Elmo's one night. It was one of the early tests. We'd left Loudon and then came down there.

And we had, I'd have a few glasses of wine, all of us, you know, just having a good time. And they were running like 50s. 53 something, low 53s. And, you know, I had another glass wine. And all of a sudden I could run to 54s. And I bet him, I said, hell, I can run to 54s. He said, I'll bet you you can't run to 54s. And so I didn't say nothing to anybody.

And I had Kevin Hamlin working on the, our old Loudoun car, had a real quick steering box on it, not real quick for Dale. He never drove him. He really quick, but it was quicker than the other one. And I said, Hamlin, get that car ready. I don't ever and seen Bill Simpson, got me a uniform, barred one of his helmets. And so the last day, the last hour of the test, on like the fourth day, it was a four-day test. I'd get over and put on my uniform, come driving out in that car.

And I said, I'm going to run to 54. So I put four, no, it had just regular tires on it. And I wasn't going maybe 56 or something. So I had Hamlet already lined up for four left side tires. Which the lefts are stickier than the right. Yeah. So, and Dale still says I didn't, but I got the paper that says I run a 50, 480. So I ended up winning the bet, and I ended up getting this big bottle of wine from St. Elmo's and charging it on his card, and I took it out of Skinner's check because he was in there.

So I got paid for going fast. No kidding. So did Judy appreciate you taking the car out on the race track? No, she had a few words with Dale next time she seemed. Oh, she was dazzled. Oh, yeah. So your wife was mad. Yeah, she wasn't proud.

She should have been proud. She was mad. Yeah, she should have been proud. I lived through it. But, no, she got on to Dale about it. Don't you ever make him get another race car? Well, so you said that the big magnum from the magnum bottle of wine that's $3,500. Yeah.

You gifted that to yourself? Yes, I did. And actually, this is true, when we won the 98 Daytona 500, we had a little get together in the shop and I opened it up and I still got it where he and Skinner signed it. Wow. So I still had the bottle in my. Celebration, yeah. We drank it there. That's cool.

That's cool. Well, that did pay off well, didn't it? Yeah, it did. Well, I wanted to see. Did anybody know, like, you got Hamlin to get you the car ready. But when you came out in that fire suit, did anybody else know you were about to do that? No, I don't even think Dale knew it at the time. Hamlin and I kept it pretty quiet.

That would have been. Because we was over at piddling with that old car when he was out running, so we got her going. Was there a camera anywhere? I know our producer Brian over there, and the TV's already trying to look for footage of this thing. There's no footage of this, is there? No, and Rusty Wallace come out there, and he tried to mess with me while I was driving, but I put the softer tires on there. And I went like the second lap, I think I went in the 54s.

He says I didn't. He says he had his stopwatch, and he was timing with a stopwatch, but he was a little slow on a stopwatch. I told him he was. Yeah, of course he was. Oh, that's so good. Those are fun days, man. I tell you, I got so many of them great fun memories like that. Hey, everybody, that's amazing stuff from Richard Childerson.

Just wait because Ken Schrader is on deck. That's going to be fun. First, let me just take a break from these Earnhardt stories and tell you this. This is probably going to be the last time that you hear from me about the Charlotte Dirty Mo Media race experience because the tickets are almost gone. So I've got one last opportunity to tell you if you want to buy a ticket for the Dirty Mo Media experience for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, do it now. This is your chance. Hear me on this. They are almost gone.

It's not just a ticket to a great race. You get a chance to hang out with the Dirty Mo Media personalities like the Door Bumper Clear guys, Jordan Taylor, myself, we're all going to be there. It's not just an appearance. We are hanging out, having a good time, getting to know you. It's relationship building The Whole Works. Plus, you get to watch the 600 from a luxurious suite. You've got the cushy chairs, the air conditioning, nice bathrooms,

all you can eat and drink, and tons of prizes. The Dirty Mobe Media Experience also gets you a pre-race pit pass. Listen, the pre-race show at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600, the best on the circuit. No questions asked. There is no close second. That is by far one of the best pre-race shows you'll ever see. Also, listen, we're going to throw in an opportunity for a private tour of Junior Motorsports right here that weekend.

If you're here in advance of that Sunday's race, come see us at Junior Motorsports. I'll show you around the shop, maybe even the studio here at Dirty Mo Media. So hop on board, come have some fun. Go to DirtyMohmedia.com to buy your ticket right now for the DirtyMohmedia, Charlotte experience. That's dirtymomedia.com. Really, the time is now. Do it.

Tickets are almost gone. I cannot wait to see you guys there. We're going to cap off this show with, I think, one of my favorite guests of all time, Ken Schrader. When I was a kid, Dad, let me go on a trip with Schrader. Oh, yeah.

Right? And we've never really told that publicly until we came on the show. And we got all the details. And it's a good one. It's got Bibles. Yes, it does. It does.

Dirt tracks, beer, kebabs, hitchhiking. Well, I forgot about that. I know, right? And strip club. That's right. Even though Dad didn't know any of this was happening, he was extremely unhappy when he found out about all these details. And he was mad at Schrader,

and this deal kind of went on for a while, and Schrader's going to tell it to us. So here's the story. From episode 288 of the Dell Jr. Download. Kenny, I think we need to talk about the week. The week. The week. What are we talking about when we say the week?

Does anybody not know? I figure it's going to take a lot of our time, a lot of our time. So we might as well get to the week. Did you think we were going to talk about the week? I figured it had to come up. Yeah. I got some pictures show you. But no, good.

I got a picture of the following week. Oh. Of Ron Pigram, your dad and I. all arms around each other praying for the start of race. I didn't know he was praying for my safety because he was going to dump me. But the week was good. We didn't do anything stupid. You know, I'm honored that I've heard you say it was still one of the best weeks ever.

It was a right of passage. So it was. So for me, we've talked about it on the show. We had Sharon Redina on here. my dad's guys didn't talk to me much. You know, they allowed me to be around, you know, hang out in the pits, and I would try to stay close with dad or whatever, run off with my friends or whatever. Not many of the guys from his time or his generation interacted with me.

And so when you asked me to go on this trip, I'm like, this was extremely way out of character for me. for anybody in dad's generation. And, I mean, I wasn't going on trips. I was just trying to get to the racetrack when I could with dad. And I was going to school and staying in trouble, right? Yeah. At home.

So for Schrader to reach out and go, you know, I don't know how it all went down, but I'm going to go on a trip. All I know is I'm going to get on a King Air to lead Statesville Regional Airport and I'm flying somewhere to meet up with Kenny Schrader. and I'm going to be with him for a week. We started out in St. Louis. I was 15 years old. Is this 16?

16. Yeah, that's right. You drove a truck up there. I promise you. For whatever reason, I have no clue why. Like I said, I was always in trouble. I'd started reading the Bible. And literally, like, a day or two before.

And God led you to Kinstrader. A day or two before I got on this plane to leave. I had been reading the Bible. And I got on the plane, and I'm reading the Bible. All right. in this king air flying to meet Kenny. And if I remember right because I was already... It's important. I was already

knowing how we know this trip. We were on a plane by yourself and then had to turn around go back because we had to pick up Tim. Tim Chris, the banker. Yeah, because we took off without him. Oh, shoot. Wait, whose king air was this? It was mine. So you sent a plane to...

Well, it was already here. And it was coming up. Hangered it stays full. And so you're telling Dale, get on the plane, come with us. Yeah. Well, we weren't on it. It was like him and Tim, I think. Meet up with us. I got you. Is it true that you asked Dad to take Kelly? No.

The next year. No, the next year. Okay. So what did you do? Did Dad come to you and say, take that damn boy with you somewhere? No. No. We were just talking.

And I said, we'll take Junior on a trip with us. We'd just go racing all week. And he just looked at me. And I said, racing. And he knew, you know, and I also heard. He knew what? He knew what was going to happen, which nothing bad happened. Nothing happened that no one's going to jail for him.

No. But it was life-altering. But he knew what was going to happen. So you've talked to Dale Earnhardt about taking Dale Jr. on the trip. You've got him on the king air with the banker. And you guys fly in. St. Louis. And you're probably excited. You're excited because you're on a trip.

Nobody's ever invited you stuff like this. I met a lot of people on this trip, but me and Tim the banker would end up sort of being in lockstep for the rest of the trip. I didn't know Tim. Right. But we became sort of my guardian in a sense because Schrader's in and out of cars over here running some laps and climbing in this car. Well, we had a cast. We had a four, five, six people.

Tom Grady, lawyer, Tom, and Walter Hannah, the tile contractor. So you're on this plane. It's just you and Tim. Yeah. You're reading the Bible. You brought your own Bible because it's not sitting in the plane. We couldn't find one that was in the plane. And the Bible disappeared.

And y'all land. And then where do you meet up with Ken? I don't know. St. Louis. St. Louis. We ran Grant City, Illinois, the first night. Because we got pictures of us because we won that race. I remember.

The only thing I remember about that, I remember watching from outside, couldn't really see great um but i remember watch y'all remember y'all running around you had a little bit of a match race maybe or no i don't know but we wanted to feature yeah and the hauler nobody they didn't really start loading up or hustling to get out of there everybody else is kind of leaving a little bit of time and before you know it it's just kenny in his truck and 30 people maybe is a lot of freaking people it seemed like just it was a big cooler yeah standing around drinking beer yeah and i was standing there with and and I said Kenny's wife

I went up in maybe I went into the to the RV for to either pee or to get a drink or something we were geared up we had to holler and a motorhome and she says you want a beer and I was like oh I can't drink a beer and she goes

yeah you can and I said well I don't want anybody to know I'm drinking a beer she goes well you can just pour it in this cup and so she poured me a beer in a dixie cup She was the bad influence. And so then I drank a bunch of beer. And then I walked over to the racetrack, climbed up into Flagstand, and just looking around, checking the track out. I mean, it's like 12 o'clock at night. It's midnight.

They'd still left the lights on them. It was pretty cool. It was really a unique, I'm standing there, you know, with Schrader, and I ain't no danger. And we are just grassroots and drinking and a beer. Yeah. We still do that every week now. Yeah, every week. And then about 2 o'clock in the morning, Schrader goes, all right, we should start heading on to the next place.

And I don't know where we went from there. I think we went to Mowberley, Missouri. And race the next night. Yeah. And then we went to Topeka to practice on Friday. Okay. And then Friday night we went to Belleville, Illinois. Yeah.

That little. So Belleville, that's how you said? Belleville, Belleville, Belle Clare Speedway. Bell Clare, right. So we go to Belclair. This one I remember specifically because by this time, I mean, drinking beer every day all day, it seemed like. I wasn't. Yeah, he wasn't.

I was racing. Yeah, he was racing. But now I'm taking, now I'm getting my own beers after a few days, right? And me and the bagels. We don't have to ask anymore. I'm comfortable. I know where the cooler is. Real comfortable.

Yeah, real comfortable. Right, right. Now, I got a couple of nudie magazines. The Bible's long gone. your dad stuck his head in the camper at Topeka. During his practice. Yeah, and he says, junior up there. He's fine.

And he's like, you know, he's got a magazine and beer cans besides the couch. I'm good, dad. Yeah. He didn't see that? No, he didn't. He didn't take notice of anything awry at that moment. I didn't even know he did that. I don't remember that.

Wow. So I remember Bill Clinton. We go to Belclair. I walked into the infield and the tiny racetrack, Mike. And I walked over to the rail in turn three. And I'm literally standing in the infield. And what I feel like was only a 4x4 or a 2x4 wooden rail in between me and the racetrack. No, yeah, it was probably 2x6.

Yeah. And on the outside, around the grandstands, and I think it's pretty much still the same today. I mean, it's like wooden. It feels like this is an historic track out of the past, man, that really, I mean, it's a great place. Kenny still, you still go there. Yeah, we go there. Wallace still goes there. But I just remember how old school awesome it felt.

Outside of the track is an old kind of a fair. Fairgrounds. Right in the middle of town. Yeah. And I remember we were, there's heat races going on and everything, and I'm hanging out with the crew, four or five of us. You met Nick Gomrick. He was explaining a lot of stuff too. We were like, are you hungry?

I was like, yeah, I'm hungry. Let's go outside. So we went outside and we had kebabs. The best freaking beef kebob I've ever ate in my life. And then we saw these two hippies and two wheelchairs fighting. Yeah, I don't know. I just sticks in my mind. I missed somebody.

He was in the car. He was in the car driving. But I remember two guys in wheelchairs toppled over and both of them had a hole to each other's hair. Not one was wanting to let go of the other. And they were upset with each other. Oh, my God. But, and I remember we were into King Air a little bit, flying to a couple things. Well, we qualified Saturday.

We flew to Topeka. And then we had King Air back to the dirt stuff. Yeah, we went to watch the races at Belleville, Kansas. The midget races at that real, real. And I met Sleepy Trip. Slipp, met Sleepy trip. Yes. You were quite impressed with Sleepy.

Well, he has an amazing name, but also, you know, you told me he's like the best favorite. Hero, Hero, Heero, Yusack. Midget racer, I don't know how me. He's all-time winning us to me. He's just, he's the guy. And this track, too, had a fair. It's like the tracks plopped down in the middle of the fair. Huge, huge dirt track.

It's like five-eighth mile dirt track. What's it called again? Belleville Highbanks. Oh, Belleville, okay. Giant Circle. We went, we go inside and I'm watching the, I walk in. I literally set my eyes on the car going around the track, and I'm waiting on him to go into the turn.

And he never did. And I'm waiting on him to lift, and he never did. And he's just a big circle, and they're just like, what? Front's like... Front straightaway's maybe 80 feet long. There's a place where the wall is straight for 80 feet. Yeah. Wow.

But I was pretty buzzed up when I met Sleepy. That was my only regret, because I don't know if he... Noticed? Noticed or not. Oh, no. He was... He said, that's really Dale's son? Yeah, he was...

That's the trip where we... When we got to Belleville, we didn't have no way to get to the racetrack, right? I don't know. Yeah. I know it is. Well, that's the only time I went to Belleville. That flew in there. Yeah.

Because we had to, we flagged down the pickup, and we all climbed down. Yes. Yes, we flagged down pickup, and then I gave the guy like 20 bucks, and Nick gave him 20 bucks. And, you know, it was like maybe six miles. And we had our beer cooler. Yeah, and we didn't, but we didn't have a way to get back after a race. I said, oh, we got, I got all kinds of guys. the racetrack. We'll get a ride back.

Well, they were loading up. We'd go back and run Topeka next day. They were loading up, and they were going to have a beer. So we went out in the parking lot and flagged down another couple of pickups and got back to the airport. To get to the track, I mean, are you like a step away from hitchhiking? That was exactly. That's what we were. We were hitchhiking. You know, like Dale's anger at the end of the week, people were starting to make a little bit of sin. Oh, no, no. We were just not at all angry about the hitchhiking. No, no, I got it. I got it.

But I'm saying, is it like, in the totality of the week, like, it's starting to make sense to me. So you're hitchhiking to the track because you don't have a ride. Where were we when we went to the Gentleman's Club? Well, we flew back from, we flew back from Belleville, Kansas, and we had to run Topeka where your daddy was coming in, and we were all going to rate, Rick Hendrick was there, and we were all going to race Sunday. So that's a Saturday night? Saturday night. We flew back to Topeka.

I thought that was in the middle of the week for some of the time. reason. No, the Pika was Saturday night. We didn't race Saturday night. We just went and watched Topeka. And Saturday night, you were in... Tuned up. You were tuned up. Yeah. So Saturday night, Schrader and them all organized a trip to the gentlemen's club. Well, it was between the airport I mean, it was a stop on the way home. You wouldn't have gone out of your way to the gentlemen's club. No, we had a van. I mean... Yeah, we're in a van. We pull up and Schrader is like, All of them are sort of talking. I'm sitting there and we're in this van pulling in.

And a couple people were like, they ain't going to let him in. Shraer's like, oh, they'll let him in. No, no, they're not going to let him in. It ain't no way. So Shrader's like, all right, we're going to form a circle. Junior, you get in the middle. Just don't even, just eyes forward. Don't say a word.

We're just going to go in. They're never even going to see you. It didn't work. It didn't work. So we get to the door and we tried to go on in. And the guy goes, hey, you can't come in. in. A little bit of conversation. I'm sorry. Just can't let him in. So, Shrader, I said, y'all, go in. I'm going to go back out to the van. Well, I went back out to the van. And another guy follows me. And he's like, and I'm, he had hung out with us a little bit, but he hadn't been on the whole trip. So he can, this, but I, so I know this guy. I'm not, it's not some stranger. So he's like, let's sit in the bed of this pickup truck next to the van. There's a truck next to the van. Me and him sit in the bed. We don't know who's truck. So me and him get the beer cooler.

We sat in the bed of the pickup truck and we're drinking beer, and we're just watching people come in and out of the parking lot. I'm hanging out with this guy. I know him because we've seen him, I've seen him a couple times this week, but he hasn't been on every single thing with us as we've traced across the Midwest.

So I'm sitting there talking to this guy, having a great conversation. I watched a gun deal go down. So, yeah, I watched a guy selling guns at the truck of his car. He's like an old 78 Ford Mercury or something, big old clunker wagon. And me and this guy are sitting in the bed of this pickup truck and two guys are standing at the back of this Mercury with the trunk open, just talking and looking in there and talking and looking in there.

I imagine it was guns. I don't know. I'm going to assume it was guns. Who knows what could have been in there. But anyways, we didn't say a word. We just sat there. It was amazing. Time goes by, right?

An hour or two, whatever it was. Oh, I'm sure it wasn't near that long. We wouldn't have been in there very long. I don't know how long it was, but I wasn't worried. Finally, they all come barreling on out of there. Yeah, that was a great time. You know, everybody get back in the van, and we get in the van and drive off, right? And probably about five years ago, I was sitting in the lounge for the driver's meeting for the Daytona 500.

Either Daytona, maybe it was a bus race, I don't know exactly what it was. but I'm sitting in, I got there a little early, nobody really filtered in yet. Carl Liddwards is sitting there with his dad. And I sit down next to Carl. Carl, weighs me over. He's like, hey, come here. He's like, you know my dad?

And I was like, no, I don't think so, man, how are you doing? He goes, no, you know him. He says y'all and him hung out. I was like, what? He's like, yeah, in the back of a pickup truck and then parted a lot of a shrimp club in speaking of Kansas. I was like, that was you? Carl Edwards' dad.

Back in 1991. What a small world. Yeah, right. No doubt. So you're back there. That to me is the best part of the whole trip. Well, yeah. I mean, so, but I always thought you made it into the club.

No. Was there another club? Well, you're leaving out part. What? We finally negotiated with the bouncer. Oh! Yeah. That's true.

How could I forget? Yeah. How could you forget? forget. There's a new best part to this story. Well, this is the better part. This is the best part. So, yeah. Well, it's midnight, one o'clock in the morning, right? Pitched black. They come out, right? Well, who comes

out with them? All the girls that are in the club? Yeah. I mean, how many? There had to be four or five. Yeah, I remember a little bit different, but yeah. Okay. Well, in my mind today, as I'm remembering it. All the strippers ever were out there in the parking lot. In my mind today, as I'm

remembering it, in about two minutes. They're like, hey, you couldn't get in there. So we brought the party out here. And there's... It's getting real now. There's strippers standing on the hoods of the cars around. Bind guns. There's guys carrying AKs around. And there's firing them in the air. We don't do that stuff anymore. No. No. I don't do that stuff anymore. So they were like, they're all just dancing on the roofs so the cars are all around. It wasn't really like that. But that's how I imagine it in my mind. I imagine it. I imagine it was, right.

Yeah. Wow. So the party, the strip club basically just emptied out into the parking lot for, I don't know how long. We didn't want you not to be included. Wasn't that nice of them? That's a good friend. That's a good friend. We were looking out of it.

I'm sure your dad would agree. I thought that they were sitting in there just having a great time going, oh, he's fine. Right. They were working the whole time. We were working the whole time. What's it going to take to get them off this stage and out there to the parking lot? So Sunday morning rolls around. I haven't really had a hangover this entire trip until Sunday morning.

Well, you would have had to quit drinking to get a hangover. So I did. We quit drinking. Why did we quit drinking? Because Dad was there. Dad flew in to run the race. Is this back at Topeka? We're in Topeka.

Okay. Sunday morning, race day. Mr. Rick's there. Rick Hendr's there. I'm feeling pretty rough, and I'm trying to avoid Dad. I'm at the RV. I gave you strict instructions that don't talk to him. Yes.

Don't breathe on it. Right. This is where the napkin story happened. We're at the RV, probably 9 o'clock in the morning, 10 o'clock in the morning, everybody's kind of showing up. Rick shows up. And he's like, hey, I think that was really the first time I'd met Rick. So he's like, I'm Dale Jr.

He's like, I'm Rick Hendrick. He's like, hey, I think it'd be funny if I signed you to a lifetime contract right here. And then I could, you know, it'd be funny to take that contract on a napkin over. to your dad and say, look, I got your boy under contract. Nothing you can do about it. And I said, you got it, pal. I'm 100% down with that. I'm hammered and I'm ready.

I was not hammered. I was hung over. But I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, this is a real damn contract. Now, for Rick, it was a joke. But I'm thinking, man, if I need to really lean on that one day, I'm going to do it. I'm going to try. Should have kept it. Yeah, no kidding.

So we wrote a contract on a napkin. him both signed it. He takes it over to Dad and plays around with it. We tell that story still even today. But that's wherein that happened. Okay. After that, shortly after that, dad is roaming around, right? And I went over to the pit road and sat down in our, in Schrader's pit stall, and they're gluing lug nuts. And I'm just sitting there hanging out talking to the guys a little bit as they're gluing lug nuts for the race. And I seen Daddy's boots coming across the floor. And, I mean, I got my head down, and under the bill of my cap, I can. see daddy walking up.

And he looked down at me and he goes, hey, and I looked up at him and he just turned around and walked off. I didn't have to say anything. And I didn't see him the rest of the day. Well, his day was sharp. Yeah, until after the race. He started in the back because he misqualified. He wasn't there to qualify.

Right. So he starts in the back. You qualified. You're running up front. He drives all the way to second place. And he gets the second and then missed turn one and back the car into the, into a barrier. Great little race car. Mark Reno built it.

And Tommy Kendall, I think, raced it in Sonoma. But anyhow, awesome, awesome car. Did you know, this is totally off out of, off the, the back of that car, the crush panels. Did you ever see that car how they had the crush panels were some kind of weird fabric or something? It was crazy. That turn one?

Yeah. We're out there testing a couple of weeks. weeks before, but like I'm not going to haul my stuff cross-country to test, but Rick's going to test. Yeah. So I go with them. And we were a little quicker in the car, but, you know, just, I mean, Rick, good racer. Yeah.

But, you know, we're just in the car more. Well, he's having trouble with turn one, so I hopped in with him. Oh, wow. I got helmet, uniform, gloves, no seat. I'm holding an arm. And he went into one, and wheel hop. Oh, We spun through that grass forever.

And it kept spinning around. We'd spin around, we'd see them jersey barriers. Then we'd look at one another. Then it'd spin around, we'd see them jersey barriers again. We'd look at each other. It stopped about 10 feet sharp. And I was like, raised my helmet up, visor up. I'm here for your partner.

But it was big. I bet. It was big. Oh, man. So, Beller-Hart wrecked in the race. Yeah, so he wrecks real early in the race. Trying to kill me, I think. Trying to get to me so he could kill me.

Yeah. We get, I remember we got on the plane and went home. I don't remember having a conversation with him about it. I don't remember. I think it was, I knew I was caught. I knew he was mad, and he didn't want to talk to me, and I didn't damn sure want to open my mouth and start anything, you know. So it was just silent treatment to the whole back.

Yeah. And he never said a word to me. Week goes by. They go to Pocono. This is where you take over. Well, he just... Right. Did he say a word to you?

No. No. He did. He said anything to you in Topeka? No. Not that I remember. But, you know, it took a pretty hard hit to the head there. Pocono.

But, no, he, I don't think he was... He knew. So did he wreck you on purpose in Pocono? He never wrecks anybody on purpose. No, you can tell it. No, he ran right over you. Oh, he ran right over me. I mean, he had to drive in three car links farther to get me,

but he got me and going in three at Pocono, bounced my head off the B post, broke the air ducts. We're on the left side, broke the air duct off the left side, get out of the infield care center, and Steve Burns, I'm holding my helmets, broke off, Steve Burns looked at me. Did you do that in a wreck? No, Steve, I was cutting grass the other day. neighbor was cutting the grass, threw a rock up, hit me, he said, dumb question.

I said, you know, but. Yeah, but I said, Dale said he was sorry. I said, well, that's what he always says. He dumped me probably three times. Ever. Oh, like all after that? One year. No, I don't remember if they were all after that.

Okay, okay. But one time he dumped me at Phoenix. Two Phoenix deals. He dumped me at Phoenix. I don't remember what for, or why, or, you know, might have been an accident. accident, doubt it, because, you know, he could make a car do about whatever he wanted. And when we get to Atlanta, Andy Petrie's in the lounge at my trailer, because one of the years he was racing for a championship.

He said, I know you should kill him. You should kill him. I don't blame me if you do, but can you just do it at the start of next year and don't do it this weekend, you know? You know what? You had to hear a story like that with Rick Mass. He told us the same story. Like his crude cheese.

Different race, different, different race. Completely different. Same conversation. Right. He was in the hauler. One time we got to Sonoma. He was in the hauler in the lounge, your daddy. And he said, I didn't wreck you're on purpose.

And, you know, it's a bull, you know. No, I didn't. But he was, you know, if he is there to apologize, you know it was on purpose. Yeah. You know? But text Tony Stewart. He did something. You know how Tony, I mean, he did.

does so many good things for people that you don't you know and everybody knows doesn't know about i text him a couple years ago i said man you remind me so much of a j foyt and dale senior why is that i said because you're a very sweet what your daddy was but it's just something about you know in the car he was just so rough let me ask this if that wasn't the only time he'd ever dumped you and if he never actually said a conversation to you how do we actually know that he was mad about the Kansas week well I don't think he was I don't think he was terrible so it next year I called him I said hey we're going to take that trip again he said well Dale Jr's not going I said okay that's what about Kelly he said well I think she'd

understand more about what was going to happen wow wow I don't matter if I got wrecked again or not Yeah. So your friendship with him, though, it was all intact. There was no longstanding type of feud over this whole situation. It was just kind of a front-in. And if there was, I don't. You wouldn't know. No.

I need a couple things about your daddy. Yeah. Let's hear it. I wrote that stuff. I mean, when I moved down here, I moved down in 86, in fall of 86, Bristol Week, when it looked like maybe they weren't going to send us home. You know, we might get to stay for a while. Your daddy rode me around places. Hey, this is punchies.

This is where you buy your tires. This is this place. This is where you do this. And he's just such a help. We built our place out on Wendy Road there. He says, you get a bulldozer and dam up that stream and put a pipe there and put this other pipe in and make a nice pond. He said, you get the pond done. I'll get you fish for it, I'll get you fish.

So I call him up and said, hey, this pond, it's looking good and it's probably, you know, a couple more days, it's going to be full. He said, okay, no problem. We're going to put a hundred catfish and 200 bluegill in there. And he said, I'll take care of it. So, okay. And he did. And two weeks later, they called, want to make sure we were there? And said, yeah.

So they came out. They were COD, but they came out. We had to pay for the fish. He took care of ordering them and stuff. And then one time when he was building the deerhead shop, you know, he was going to get it done before ours. And I said, no, mine will be done first. And he pulled in our driveway and shops all done.

He's got a gravel driveway. And I said, I told you it'd be done. He said, I had to drive on gravel to get here. I said, call up whoever does the paving. Just call them up and tell them to come do it. So he called them right there, and they came out and paved it. Now, I knew I was going to pay for that. Now, I might have got wrecked one time because we were in Deerhead Shop,

and daughter was really little. Taylor? No, my daughter. Your daughter. Yeah, which she went with Dea and Teresa and Taylor on the boat one time for a week. But my daughter was really little, and we walked in there. and she was Bambi. And I said,

Dale Earnhardt shot Bambi and the whole family. Yeah, he didn't think that was so funny. I bet he didn't. No. There's a lot of those stories, though, where Dale Earnhardt's taking care of a lot of people, as far as giving them advice on,

I think Michael Waltrop had sort of the same story when he bought his place out here in Carolina. This is what you're going to do. You're going to buy this and you're going to do this, And this is what. Yeah. I had him driving a car one time. And then there was another GM test car that we both drove.

I really liked it. He didn't. But at one time, you know how it is when you get somebody to drive your car. It's like, you know. But I was lost. You know, I didn't care, you know. If you go a second faster, go a second faster. I just get.

And we drove it. He drove it and came in and said, you're going to kill him. You know, you got to fix this thing. You're like, yes. Thank you. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or in the studio as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally. A friend, a partner.

My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download of True Ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. All right, it's finally time for our favorite part of the show. Ask Junior, brought you by Xfinity. Let's take a look at the questions you guys sent in to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Hannah's going to tee them up.

Let's go. Well, the first question here, we're going to go ahead and poke some buttons right away here. This comes from Mark Farve. Does anyone on the Dirty Mo Media team have a habit that annoys you? Oh, yeah. Just getting right into it. Let's just put it on out there. We're going to be clear?

Rip the bandy. Okay, so Matthew, when he has his mic open and you hear, or a, oh, yeah, or a, mm-hmm, or a, like right in the middle of your conversation. Like I'm talking with Mike and something else happens. happens out of the out of nowhere yeah where's me out we're just and then it's just you just just me just me but then if i'm quiet have you ever noticed if i'm quiet and i don't say anything he's said before like well you you don't have an opinion i didn't say that you've said that before it's okay mike mike i want to hear what's he talking about well i mean listen he can do that

as the host of the show dale can say hey does anybody else have an opinion he can ask that of me anybody else but yeah i mean so i i i don't think that that's a good to offense, Matthew, is what I'm trying to say. It's all good. I, Mike annoys me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he annoys me too, but hey, we're good.

Hannah doesn't annoy me. Not yet. Not yet. I was going to say, we are still young into this. I could probably, I could pick, I know it. All of our staff in here are very annoying, how quiet they are. Well, if there's an annoying trait, that's a good one to have. They're just like statues.

Super annoying. They just stand there and stay at you. They don't add no conversation. Dustin, no debate. Dustin usually knocks one thing over a show. I can't even get them to laugh. I mean, can't even get a smile. Can't even smirk.

Oh, wait, we got a couple. Yeah. They're breaking character. So Mike annoys a hell out of me. We walk in today wearing the same shirt. It's a dirty-mo media hoodie. I mean, he literally made these for us to all wear. And he walks in and goes, I'm changing.

And then he just changes it into an all black polo. Boring. It annoys me that he literally considers the idea for us to wear the same clothes, the same shirt, on the same show. See, this is a beautiful thing. It's the circle of life. I annoy him for wearing the same shirt. And he annoys me for wanting to continue it that way. It's like a marriage.

Yeah. It is. Oh, I got it. That's very true. Hey, I got another one. What's another one? Mike annoys the shit out of me when me and him are doing, me and him are doing the open segment, and he starts talking and starts like he's getting into his point, right?

We're either debating or agreeing on something, and he starts getting his passion on, right? And he starts talking to Matthew. And I'm like, we're at the table. I'm like, he'll do it a whole open segment and not once look at me during the time that he's, we talked about this, Mike. Yeah, I mean, this was a thing that, though, right? I don't know. You don't know? I'm just so good looking.

It's tough. Well, he'll get to where he's like, it's like he's having a conversation with Matt, where the conversation really started right here. Well, it's because I heard, uh-huh, I thought that that's my cue to go look at Matt, go, he-he-he-he. I got you.

Wait. That's not the thing that annoys you the most about me. What is it? You get mad when I don't text you back immediately. God, I hate that. Who doesn't get annoyed? I hate that. You're a hard person to get a hold of sometimes.

Mike is that way with everybody. Hey! It's not just you, Dale. No, it's not. When I first got brought on for door bumper clear, I remember I did the polite, you know, hey Mike, email. And it'd be like five days, six days a week. And then I'd be like, hey, Mike, just following up. And then I finally, they were like, dude, just call him. So I was like, okay, well, I'll send him a text, right?

I don't want to bother him. Nothing. And then I get a phone call and it's, hey, Hannah, sorry, it's been, it's been busy. and then it's usually like yesterday, about 15 minutes before he gets to the point. Right, when I finally talk to you. Yeah, then you're like, okay. So why I'm calling you is I'm like, nice to talk to you too, Mike. Thank you.

You're a hard guy to get a hold of sometimes. That's not true. I'm just not good at texting. I don't multitask very well, but Dale, it's not just you. It's a lie. He multitasked like hell. That's all he does. Every day he's a multitasking.

Not when it comes to, I can't multitask texting. Nope. No. Mike is not a great. communicator in text. No. No, but I have admitted that for years. I mean, I don't like texting.

You can walk into his office and get locked in there for an hour on a topic or conversation. Great communicator in that form. Right. I just don't like texting. First of all, because I'm so meticulous, I hate grammatical errors and texting is going to auto-correct everything. I'm full of that. And, right. It doesn't bother most people, but it's like.

I'm OCD about that, right? And then the other thing is, is that there's no tone involved in texting. It's like you go, is he mad? Why does he now? He didn't use an emoji, so he must be mad. And it's like, oh, wait, you know, that's actually not true. And so it actually gets you off course of points. I just don't like texting.

I'd rather just talk to somebody. You know what the classic mic move is when you're trying to get a hold of him for like three, four days? And then when you do get him hold of him, his first words is, man i've been trying to get a hold of you for a week i do that to matthew man we just poked some buttons with that question that was fun all right next one here is from jason fields i want to know if dale still has those racing shoes from adam petty he bad back in 2001 when he showed them on mt viz yeah i do i've got all that stuff uh you know i don't never get rid of nothing so we got a i got a warehouse full of bins full of things so for sure yeah so what happened was is we were at south boston

racing and I have no idea how or why but I didn't have any shoes and uh something had happened the week before where I wore my shoes home or they or they didn't get back to the truck what something happened to where I ended up taking my shoes to the bus and and then we went to south Boston and didn't have had the bus so the shoes were on it I don't remember but I went um I asked I guess he was maybe one of the first people I saw, and I was like, what size of you? He's like, I'm going to let him. I'm like, I need to borrow some shoes if you got them. And he had a pair.

This one comes from Josh English. He says, on an earlier podcast, you talked about how car numbers or talked about car numbers and how you want, you and dad thought that they should be slanted forward. The numbers on the JRM cars are now slanted back even when you drive them. Is that per sponsor request or just personal preference? It's a brand thing. So brand continuity across the board. is important, I think, and that's the approach that Junior Sports takes.

So this number leans the same way, no matter what side of the car you're looking at. So on one side of the car, the number's actually leaning forward, but on the other side of the car, it's leaning backwards, but the lean never changes no matter where you are looking at the car. Personally, I don't love that. I think that they do that at Hendrick. I don't believe, I don't know for sure. We got a die cast, maybe that I'll show, but. I remember I walked into, we had the car,

we had the numbers leaning forward on my 88 car, Hendonk Motor Sports. I walked into the shop, and it's like January, and my numbers were leaning backwards. My head exploded. Hey, line. I was like, and now, forgive me, I'm going to be a bit of a diva here,

but I was like, who in the hell leaned my freaking number? and I'm not going to find out about it walking into the shop and it's on the car. And so I got a whole, I figured out who it was. It was Mark, or Marshall Carson. He's kind of like the GM, right? And so I'm like, Marshall's a good guy. We got a great relationship. How in the hell did this happen?

Why would you hurt me like this, Marshall? I called him and I called him and I was like, dude, what's the deal? and he's like, well, we want them all the same, brand continuity, want them to be like the other teams. And I was like, my damn numbers are leaning forward. It's like, this is not even a conversation. And we ended up getting it changed back. But I couldn't believe it.

But I don't know what they do, I don't know what they do on the current cars or what they were doing on the other, my teammates' cars you know, when I was racing there, but they leaned back on one side, but I don't know if they did it, whatever. But the idea really is that my dad would say that when you run, right, when you take off running across the parking lot,

do you lean backwards? You run leaning forward. And that's what he like, it looks faster. That's the way you hit when you're running somewhere, going somewhere, you lean forward when you're doing it. And that's the way numbers should be. It's his opinion. And I feel the same way.

When I see a number leaning back, it's like, it looks strange to me. It just does. Personal preference. No right or wrong. I guess that the design of the paint scheme and graphics and so forth, that may depict on which way the number needs to lean. A leaning forward number on a car with certain types of graphics is going to look weird. A leaner in the back number might look better depending.

So anyways, like, see this Wrangler car right here. here, right? You got that blue and yellow strike. It's the same angle as the number. That works. If that line is angled backwards, maybe the number needs to lean back to look better. But Dad always wanted them leaning forward.

I do what Dad does. What Dad says is right. All right. Last one here for today's Oz Jr. It's from Blackford. If you could design a racetrack for the Cup series from scratch, what would it be like? Say again? If you could design a race track

for the Cup series from scratch, what would it be like? A racetrack. A design of racetrack from scratch. Yeah. It's hard to answer this question because I just want to bring back tracks that I liked.

Right? And I answer this the same way every time and I'll answer it again. But original Atlanta would be my mile and a half. So we need a mile and a half that doesn't have a dog leg. Mm. That's right.

And it has more turn than straightaway. So original Atlanta would be my mile and a half and asphalt, you know, 1885 Bristol would be my short track. So you don't ever have a fantasy in your head of like what you would build? Those are it. Those are it. I'd build them. You'd build them.

Yeah. Okay. Well, that is it for Ask Junior this week. All right. My favorite part, man. and it always seems to go by so fast, Mike. It's almost like we get through it at the speed of X-Finity X-Fi. There you go.

What was that? That was X-FINITY real fast. Well, X-Fi is more than just fast. It's also reliable. It's powerful, Mike. It's secure. And you can do more of what you love, Mike, with all that fast internet. I mean, dude, you took the words right out of my mouth.

I mean, you can keep your crew connected with Wi-Fi coverage that delivers a speed. your devices need so your crew can stay in the fast lane on race day. Remember everyone to send your Ask Junior questions to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter. All right, before we hit the road, thank you again to Xfinity. Proud Premier Partner of NASCAR. All right, I appreciate everybody for supporting our podcast, tuning in to our YouTube pages and handles to watch Ask Junior. All these stories are leaning forward.

This isn't even part. We don't even need this. That's why we're doing it. Yeah. You know what? These stories are leaning forward in. I hate when George does that. They put in that same thing as me going,

like butt head. Like butt head. I like it. I thought you edited that in. I got a funny story. Do we still got time? Yep. Do we get time?

Yes, of course. So last week while I was on vacation, I call into Wendy. who works on the brand team. And I said, Wendy, how's things going? Just checking in and all the stuff. She goes, everything's all right. It's, you know, it's going okay, I guess.

And I'm like, okay, I guess. Then what happened? Something's happened. She goes, well, on the download, one of the cameras wasn't turned on. And I'm like, one of the cameras was not turned on on the download. How could that be? And she goes, it's okay. And she goes, it's okay.

And I said, well, what happened? What camera was it? She goes, it was Matthew's camera. And I'm like, oh, Matthew didn't turn on his camera. Okay, well, then okay. Then was this a crisis to begin with? No, it wasn't a crisis. But Matthew forgot to turn on his camera.

And... No, I usually don't touch the cameras because the camera guys like me not to touch them. What hindered was Ask Junior. But we had a backup plan and we recorded her questions. We were good. Every obstacle has a solution. But we did not get the camera.

We didn't get your camera that week. Which is fine. It's probably for the best. And Aunt Kathy didn't sign the hood. Yes. That's a big mess up by me. Oh, she had to come through. Luckily, she's local.

Everything fell apart with Mike not here, except for his position. I would have made sure that the camera was on. Yeah. How was it? That is top of his checklist. Mike, how was it watching somebody else to drive your race car? Oh.

I don't like that. But I love Kelly. So if you're going to have somebody drive your race car, right. Is it difficult for you to be honest in this situation? You don't want to hurt somebody's feelings? feelings? No, no, I was honest. Well, you just kind of, you walked it back a little bit with, I like Kelly, though. I do, I would not want anybody else in the seat other than Kelly and maybe one or two other people.

Who are those people? I haven't really thought about it. So, but like, I don't know. It was a good show, though. I enjoyed it. I saw you went on DBC. Let's ask the question. Oh, God.

This will tee up today. No, no, no. Hey, I need a freaking public opinion on this, right? Oh, no. We need to get this out. Poor Mike. If I was to take a week off and we were going to continue to podcast, who would the public want to see feel this position?

It's the Dale Jr. download. Listen, people do it for Mr. Patrick. They do? Yes. I didn't think so. I thought they just do best ones. He'll have somebody come in. Every once in once in a while.

Look, this is once a year. I just wonder if there's a, nah, nobody. Let's not do a podcast. podcast or Clint Boyer or what, right, let's see what the public says. I just curious what they say. Yeah. Who? Who?

If there's one or two people that could, on the planet that could, the people would be okay sitting in Dale's seat, who would those people? Who would you want asking the questions of the guests? Right. Right. And be honest. I mean, or don't say something silly. We'll just weed out. We'll just weed the silly ones.

Yeah. There's, there can be some ridiculous answers. Yeah. They're like Pavarotti. Yeah. All right. Poverrat. Pavarati.

Is that paparazzi? No, no. It's the opera singer. Not the camera guy. The paparazzi. No, that's the people follow around you. All right, everybody, I hope you enjoyed that. You know, we compiled the greatest hits.

Some of the best Earnhardt stories that we've heard. We've heard so many. This whole room, it's all about Earnhardt. And so we're never going to have a podcast where we don't learn something new or, you know, it's kind of fun to see, to see. other people's perspective of dad, right? Yeah. And we've seen so many different versions of learn so many different versions about him

over the years that we've done this show. And we'll continue to do that. And we'll probably do another greatest hits of dad and down the road. But anyways, hope you guys enjoyed that. And I hope you have a great week. Take it easy. Check out Dirty Mo Media, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.