The Dale Jr. Download - 387 - Phil Parsons: A Family Tradition

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

Phil Parsons has done it all. From being the little brother of a NASCAR Legend, a racer, a team owner and a broadcaster, the only thing he hadn't done was come to the Bojangles Studio to sit down with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Until now. On his 65th birthday, Parsons sits down with Dale Jr. and Mike Davis about his fascinating life.All he wanted to do is race. Plain and simple. From the age of five, watching his brother Benny in daring Figure-8 races through his older brother's monumental ascension through the sport, little brother just wanted to drive. When he got his shot, it didn't come easy. He took a Vega and some infrequent opportunities and made the most of them by winning races in NASCAR's Baby Grand Series, which was to become the Dash Series. He won at places like Hickory Motor Speedway, Caraway Speedway, North Wilkesboro and Nashville. It's a period of Parsons’ story not often talked about and a time that Dale Jr. came to the table with curiosity about.Parsons’ racing career hit rock bottom, when family money and opportunity ran dry. So, he humbly went to Humpy Wheeler for help. The advice led him to a "real job" working with Travis Carter on Hal Needham and Burt Reynold's Skoal Bandit team. The team's drivers were stuntman Stan Barrett and the legendary Harry Gant. The job created a relationship with U.S. Tobacco which blossomed into funding for his own chances back behind the wheel. The sponsorship sent Parsons on a course for Cup. At first, he was just trying to stick in NASCAR's Late Model Sportsman ranks (now known as the Xfinity Series). His rookie season produced success and an opportunity the next year with the Skoal Bandit team in NASCAR's Cup Series.Parsons is well known for a massive crash he experienced at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama which sent his racecar tumbling violently on the high-banks. He details the wreck from his vantage point and the pain it produced. Phil also experienced the jubilation of winning in NASCAR's elite series, when he captured a win, five years after his flip, at Talladega. He explains the Zen of having the perfect car that day and matching it with perfect strategy and drive.At the end of the 1989 season Phil elected to have cataract surgery. After the successful procedure, Parsons started in his next big opportunity, for the powerful Morgan McClure Racing team. But, only three races into his tenure with the team, he got a call saying that the team was going in a different direction. Phil opens up about taking that phone call and the decision that ultimately cut the growth of his Cup career. Parson's also reveals how false rumors about his eyesight then hindered potential chances in Cup.His decision to return the Xfinity Series was a family matter. He details the choice and how he built part-two of his racing career.Parsons goes into detail about his brother Benny and the wild repair job that netted him the 1973 NASCAR Cup Series Championship. He also talks about Benny's role as a television broadcaster and how his legacy lives on. Phil too followed in Benny's footsteps with a successful television career of his own, to which he still enjoys to this day.DIRTY AIR Before Parsons joins the show, Dale, Mike, Hannah and Matthew talk about: Dale and Amy's wild commercial travel adventures and their trip to France. The upcoming live DJD show at Nashville's Ole Red. Jeremy Mayfield and others winning after being on the show. The sport needing more short-track style road courses.  ASKJR presented by XfinityThe fan questions came rolling in about: What songs pump up Dale Jr. Road Course suggestions like running a green Sonoma or The Boot at the Glen! Dale Jr driving a V8 Supercar. Dale Jr. asked to Le Mans for Garage 56? and more Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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What part? Dale Jr. download. All right. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Dirty Mo Media. Download now. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download episode 387. Our guest is Phil Parsons.

Phil Parsons, everybody. Phil Parsons? Is that who? It's Phil Parsons. Phil Parsons. Phil Parsons. I'm excited about that. And we'll tell you why in a bit, but we're in the boat.

Django Studio. My co-host, Mike Davis is here. Hannah is here. Matthew is here. Matthew is always lurking. Paying attention to every detail. He is on top of the show. Knows everything we're saying. Yeah, as we would want the producer to be lurking. I'm giving him a hard time. Yeah, we would. It's been kind of a weird week. I feel like I've been gone for a really, really long time. I did go on vacation. but it feels like we haven't been in this room forever. We did the Jerry Mayfield two parts. And then we, what else happened? Then we had a cheaters episode.

There's been a little bit of time since we really been here and sat down and came together. That's right. That's right. It's good seeing you again. It is. Welcome. How long has it been since we were in the room? A couple weeks.

Two weeks. Oh, gosh, it feels longer than that. So, and you mentioned it a minute ago, Mike, when you leave the country, it feels like your vacations kind of double in length. Yeah. Because I believe it's like the traveling that you do to try to get to your destination. Feels like an eternity. Yeah, it is.

Yeah. I certainly experienced some big challenges in travel. So let's talk about that. It's time for Dirty Air. Dirty Air. This Dirty Air segment is brought to you by Valvalene. Since it's founding over 150 years ago, Valvaline and its scientists have been innovating, creating,

and reinventing formulas. Innovations include the first high mileage oil, the first racing oil, and the first synthetic blend oil. Valvalin, proud sponsor of the Dale Jr. Download. But this is our dirty air. So let's go. Yeah, I feel like that's a good way

to just go ahead and segue that, is you had quite a adventure within itself coming home from France. I mean, the airlines are crazy right now, but yours seems pretty entertaining. So I hesitated don't mention in any of this, because anytime, you know, there's a lot. So anytime I go on Twitter, I typically have a complaint.

Anytime I have a complaint that forms in my brain, my immediate reaction is to put it on Twitter. And I think that that's everyone's, that's like everybody's trash bin. You know what I mean? Great analogy. I got something I'm pissed about. I got to get rid of that thunk. I'm going to put it on Twitter.

Put in the trash. Yes. So I hesitated on. going there and really, I know everyone, I know everyone hates commercial travel. My wife has told me that she's never, she's never loved it, never had a great experience. And, uh, and I know that it's exceptionally difficult right now. I mean, it's almost, it's in the news that travel, air travel is bad. It's bad.

And, um, so I hesitated going and sharing my experience because everybody's like, oh, welcome to the club, asshole. Yeah. Right. So, but I was like, you know, this, I think this is an exceptional experience that I had. Well, you should tell, let's, let's be objective, everybody, and let's see if this is an exceptional experience that he had. I don't know it. I want to hear it.

Maybe this was just another Tuesday. Maybe it was. So let me try to remember everything that went down. It was a, we have a flight on Delta leaving Charlotte. and we're you know i i think i download the delta app i've got a couple other apps on my phone that that are helping me with our itinerary and our schedule i mean i'm prepared full dad mode you know when you mean when dad goes to the beach he's got everything with him yeah all the stuff yeah the it's it's a it's a tinerary day in a wife carrying a book and a hat uh we got everything wagon

all the stuff well that's the way i'm that's imagine me going to france i got all of things, phones full of apps, we're ready. Nothing, nothing's going to stop us. All right. I get literally a mile out of my driveway and I get an alert from Delta. I didn't even want to say the airline. I get an alert from the airline because I don't want to be like, they'll message you. Hey, sir.

Let them. Hey, no, no, no, I don't want to talk. Call them out. I'm fine, Delta. Don't come at me. I don't need any help. It's all in the mirror, Delta. Okay.

So this is over. And I will fly Delta again. So don't worry, Delta. And have we said where you're going at this point yet? Going to France. Going to France. Going to France. Went to Nice.

All right. So I wanted to do something from our wife's 40th birthday. Big deal. She blew mine out. So I was like, man, I want to make it big deal. So I really went overboard, you know, and made this as cool as I could. So anyways, we are mile out of the driveway and the alert pops up and it's like, hey, man, your flight is delayed.

Okay. And I'm like, well, I'm looking at the time and it says it's not delayed. It says it's leaving on the same time. And Amy goes, well, it looks like it's tomorrow. And I was like, holy shit, it is the date. They moved my flight from one day to the next. Wow. And I'm like, this is a major problem.

Yes. All right. So our trip to France is like five nights, and now it's going to be four nights. No. Right. I mean, everything I have invested in, I can't give up a night. Right. I'm not.

I'm not willing to to just eat the cost of that room and all that, right? So I'm like, no, we're getting there today. So I'm looking at, like, how do we get there? And there's nothing leaving Charlotte to get me there. Nothing. And, yeah, they just took our flight and just plopped it into the next day in the calendar and said, hey, man, here you go.

Hey, it's infuriating. At your convenience, we have rebooked you. I'm like, what? No, you have not. You just delayed me a whole day. And so now, I found a way. way to go from Atlanta. Okay.

All right. So I was looking at like what hubs could we fly out of? Because I can get to some local hubs with our plane. And so I found a flight. So we were going to leave at 3.30 from Charlotte. I found a flight out of Atlanta at 7 o'clock that was going through Amsterdam or 6 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 6 p.m. Going through Amsterdam and then to Nice. And we would get there around roughly the same time, a little bit later the next day.

We were going to land in France. That was going to be the start of our trip. We rush. I call it Joey, my pilot. Y'all know Joey, spotter, Joey. Yeah, Joey Myers, been in the sport forever. Joey, we've got a big problem. We need to get to Atlanta.

ASAP. He's like, no problem. Got you there. I'll get you there. Problem. See it there, port. We go take all our stuff, jump on my plane. We fly at Atlanta.

We have, he's got it all lined up. They're going to take us right to the terminal. We get to the terminal. Your flight's been delayed. The flight from Atlanta is now delayed. How long? From 6 o'clock to 10, then from 10 to midnight. So like we got to now we're, you know, it's midnight.

We're sitting in Atlanta airport getting drunk, me and Amy. We're like, well, whatever happens from here on out, what are you going to do, right? We're just stuck there. And so anyways, we finally get on the plane at midnight, and it took us through Amsterdam, which was cool, because I buy flags from every country. country I've visited and I hang them in this shop I have. And so now I get a new flag from Amsterdam or Netherlands, formerly or officially Holland. I don't know whatever. Whatever it is. So none of us now. So I am, so the only problem is is now that this thing's been delayed, we're going to

miss our connection. So now we've had one flight delayed entirely a whole day. The second flight delayed six hours. We missed our first connection in Amsterdam. Sure. So now we're on the second one, and it looks like we're going to miss it. Me and Amy are, I was on the plane flying to Amsterdam, booking the third connection in case we, because it was going to be literally the moment. Our bags were going to make it on the next connection.

So our bags were going to be delayed no matter what. So I was thinking, Amy, I was like, I might book us on that final third option to get the niece. And just in case, we hustle out of the, plane and in through the airport and we literally walk up to the check-in desk right at the moment they're starting to board or finishing up boarding for this second connection. All right. So we get on the plane. All right, we're on the plane. We're going to Nice. This is going to be good. Our bags will be behind us about two hours. We get to, uh, we get to, uh, we get to Nice and we had a little bit of a

drive to our airport. Uh, we had some people helping us to get our bags and we got our bags. Boom. We're at the hotel with our stuff. Well, I would have lost that bet. I'm impressed on that. Okay. You got your bags. Yes. All right.

We have our trip, great trip. Now the return home. Now I have to remember all this too. Oh, so there was an adventure coming home. Oh, yeah. But wait, wait, wait, wait. You're still having to get through customs and all that other stuff too, right? I mean, like, oh, gosh.

Usually when you're talking international travel, the delays and the problems are there. Yes. But that actually was the least of your problems. Yes. Okay. So you managed through customs. all that stuff was no problem. Yeah, I mean, it was.

It was probably slow, but it was, it was what it was. We went through the same process. The process of customs had no real hang-ups, right? No problems and no issues. All that went, all the, all the interaction we have with any employees at the airport or, or on the flight or all that was great. Okay. So we go to Nice to leave. We get to the airport.

The minute, the minute that I, so our flight. flight gets delayed 15 minutes. No big deal. That's 15.30 minutes seems to be like a common thing. Okay. That triggered without me doing a thing for Delta to book us on a different connection. All right. We're flying from Nees to New York to go home.

Because you would miss your connection, I guess? I suppose. We have to get off the plane in New York and go through customs. Go get our bags from the baggage claim. To be go through customs and all that, you've got to reach. check your bag to go to Charlotte for in you know at the New York right all right so they're thinking I guess on their app like not they can't make this connection so we're going to rebook them I didn't know this right I'm literally walking up putting my bag up on the counter at that moment when the lady is starting to print

my tickets Delta is changing our connection in New York and the lady looks at it and goes hey man where's your last final destination I said Charlotte she said well yeah this has you uh this has you landing in New York. And I'm like, yeah, we're checking, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, from Charlotte from Charlotte from New York is at a different airport. I'm like, oh, what do you mean? And she's like, well, you're landing in JFK and you're taking off from LaGuardia. Oh, for God's sakes. That that's sick. That's stupid.

So my, when they, when they book you on another flight at a different airport. So, yeah, that that's insane. That 15 minutes delay. triggered that. I did nothing. And the lady's like, I'm just at this point, like, she's like, hey, you got to check your bags anyways in New York, and you'll just have to get in a cab

and go to LaGuardia. And I'm like, oh man, that sounds really difficult. But, all right, so we get on the plane, flight home to New York is fine. We get off the plane, get our bags, go through all of that. There's a lot of people flying, a lot of long lines of stuff, but that all

worked out fine. We go out of the hotel. Amy gets an Uber. We walk over, get in line for the Ubers. We get in there, and he drives us to LaGuardia. We go into LaGuardia. We checked our bags. All that went pretty smooth. We sat down and had a bite, I think, and we got on our plane and got to Charlotte. And we ended up in Charlotte. All that worked the way they wanted it to work. But I was freaking out going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I got a New York City, you know, I got to get out of one airport and go into another one. Like, good Lord, right? Just trying to move around New York City's kind of, I don't know. It's not the easiest thing.

No. Oh, man. I was freaking out, man. I was freaking out. Mr. Non-traveler, not a lot of experience and all this. I was having some chest pains, I'll admit. I was having a little tightness in the chest. a little clench of the jaw,

some headache in this region. We got to go see Mickey Collins next Monday. It was tough. Well, I'm impressed. I've got so many thoughts here. One is I have never actually heard of that where they go change your connection flight, but you have to go to a different airport in the same city. That I've never heard of.

Never put it past an airline to do that, though. Now they've set a new bar. The other thing is, I mean, did it once? Listen, you've already said it here, so I don't mind bringing it up. But you said it at the beginning. You're not trying to get anybody's sympathy vote. You're just not a commercial traveler, and you were able to scramble the Cessna and get you to Atlanta. Did you think about scrambling the Cessna and getting you in New York?

I got a – Joey – this is how good Joey is, our pilot. He is following all our planes. I didn't ask him to. Oh, he's just tracking. So he's watching tracking our planes and he's going, hey man, see you guys landed. You know, if you have any trouble, let me know. Well, we'll come get you. And I'm like, oh, okay.

I was like, you know, I think we're going to just go through the process. But that, I probably, I guess I could have seen if that was an option or called Joey. But just trying to ask, you know, I hate to ask him to. hey man, give up the rest of your day and come fix this. But I try not to, if I'm going to use our plane, I try not to do any last minute. I would also say I think you encountered the same thing a lot of us encounter. At some point you have bad experiences of travel and then at some point you pass the threshold where the inconvenience, it's already happened.

The story is now good. Like now you go through the motions and finish it out because the story is going to be impeccable, right? Yeah. At that point, the story just doesn't land as well because if you got to go get Joey to come get you. But man, what a disaster of a travel accommodation. And I've got to be honest, I don't know, I don't pretend to know what it's like to operate an airline or I'm sure the economics offer a perfectly logical explanation to why they cancel flights. but from my seat with the little I know, it appears like a racket. It looks like a scam.

I mean, the way commercial travel these days, they charge you for everything. They upcharge you for stuff. Just thinking about taking a bag on a plane, they'll charge you an extra $50. You can get charged for everything, and then they cancel flights at will. It just blows my mind how they can get away with that. Yeah. There was some moments where I was thinking, wow, this feels illegal. And then there were some moments when I was thinking they actually did give me the most convenient option they could. So like the, even though the exchange from the exchange from one airport to the other in New York in the middle of afternoon to make a connection felt like it was going to be monumental, it actually worked out just fine.

And I got home. but you know in conversation with people that have been through similar experiences you know there's been there's been families that have had you know been had flights rebooked and lose their first class to have to fly coach eight hours and not get the refund of course you know there's no problem flying coach across the you know across the ocean but when you don't get a refund for that first class expense You know, just some stories that I heard after sharing mine was pretty incredible. Well, did you, how many tickets did you end up buying going out there? Four.

Did you get refunded anything? No. You bought four plane tickets. You're talking about how they gave you the best scenario ever. You bought four plane tickets and still had to use your plane. Well, I had. That's a total of five. There were two other people that were going with us and, hey, had to cancel because of an injury.

when I had an injury and just couldn't go, right? Their doctor said, look, you can't take this trip. So two people had to cancel, so I ate the cost of both those tickets both ways. Because I didn't buy the insurance. Even when my travel agent was like, you want insurance on these? I'm like, nah, no, I'm not, that's what I want that for. But it would have came in handy. I don't know.

I look forward to traveling commercial when we do. And because I don't do it often, I like, you know, You know, we have, I like going to the airports. I like shot at the stores and all the stuff that you can buy and all the, I just, I enjoy it. I enjoy flying commercial. And I don't mind some of the challenges and stuff. But that just made me nervous because this was something I wanted for my wife and wanted to be good. And it was like they were challenging me to complete the obstacle course.

And, you know, yeah. And I had all these apps on my phone. phone and they were like okay bud try this one and i'm like peep-be-b-b-b-b-b-all-right i see these flights okay we can make that one on the trip-ddip-d-dip-d-you know and so while we're flying across you know we're flying across the ocean i'm on my phone trying to figure out all right man can we make this connection no we better book some tickets on this flight you know just in case and all that stuff and felt like i passed the test man well yeah but you had to buy a ton of tickets just to just to get i mean like you did pass the test yeah uh

But it's still frustrating. Yeah. And be honest with you, you're right. Right now, commercial travel is a mess. You know, we've got a live show this weekend in Nashville. I'm, I was thinking about flying commercial to go to Nashville and I'm going to drive instead. I'm going to drive just because of the prospects of making, yeah, getting into the lay or something. You know, I'm not an expert at all, but I think, you know, our, you know, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you.

fly out domestic, I think it's not quite as bad as kind of trying to get across, you know, trying to get these bad. It depends on your connections, I suppose. It's pretty bad. It took me 15 hours to get just to St. Louis for Gateway Weekend. My gosh. Yeah, started at 8 a.m. and I, me and actors, me and Tony Hirschman, we were planed and deplane three separate times before they finally just went, well, we're not going

to take this plane and we have to find you a new one. Oh, my gosh. It doesn't matter if you're doing directs, one ways, where you're going. Like, I have a flight to Rochester on Friday for IMSA. I bet you're nervous. I'm so nervous because there's on track activity on Friday, but I wanted an extra day at home. And I'm not going to lie, my anxiety is a little piqued, just seeing everyone's, like, travel issues. It's not good.

That's right. I mean, it's six-hour drive to Nashville. I'm like, you know, just drive. The chances of getting delayed and all that stuff, I'll end up spending almost as much time in the airport. 100%. Or when you leave your house to get, and by the time you get to Nashville, it'd be about the same. Yeah. So I'm like, the heck with that. We'll just drive.

But how was France? Now, was France good? Well, yeah. I mean, the last thing, I mean, my heart goes out to anybody who has to struggle through that just for, you know, their job requirement has them in a commercial airport every day. A lot of, like I said, a lot of people reached out. And I posted on social media about my experience. A lot of people reached out, man. And it just, I don't know how they do it.

I don't know how people, I don't know how you can be on time for anything. with some of the challenges that they face. But going to France was, you know, something that we had been, so I'd traced my lineage to Germany. We went there a couple times, great trips, had a lot of fun. We were thinking I want to go to England at some point because I have some family genealogy there as well. But for Amy's 40th, we looked at a couple options.

I was wanting to have picnic lunch under the Eiffel Tower and the grass, you know. I guess you can do that. I don't know. but I was just trying to think of my head like something romantic or something cool that she'd enjoy. But she's like, you know, let's go to the South Mediterranean side, the beaches and all that and check that out. And so talking to Jimmy Johnson and getting some advice from him and Shanney and a few other people, we started to build our idea of what our trip would be like and we ended up going to Centro Pei and just staying there. Now, a lot of people were like, hey, yes, go to Nice.

Stay there a couple days in this place and this place and this place. And we just weren't interested in opening our opening and closing our bags and unpacking, packing and doing that every couple of days and checking in and out of hotel. So we just said, you know, Santropay, we're going there. We got us a great hotel. And the town to me reminds me a lot of, it's kind of a, it's a port, you know, beach town like Key West. But obviously it's France, so it's not Key West. but it reminded me a lot. When you walk down to the port, a lot of boats, big boats, fishing boats, yachts, all types.

People walking around, amazing people watching. A lot of great little bars and restaurants right around this sort of congested area that's pretty fun. And you walk up these tiny, tight little alleys and find these cool little bars and dive bars and so forth tucked in these little corners. The buildings and homes are, you know, they're old, lot of. of history that they've been there for a very long time and there's all these tiny apartments on these second third floors of these it's very packed and confined uh spaces that they're the road into town or through town is one lane really you have to have a small car so you can kind of get by each other that's right uh driving down the road into town uh and then there's these tiny little alleys

where everybody's just kind of walking to and from wherever they're headed tiny shops we got some neat clothes and toys for the kids to take home. We had some amazing food. And we went to these little, what people typically do during the day is go to these beach clubs and you'll show up around. It's one of the things that's interesting about there, that town of that area is they eat lunch around 3 o'clock and then they eat dinner at 10.30 at night. There's an 8.30 and then there's 10.30.

But a lot of people do everything much later in the day. They get up in late in the morning, and then everything's kind of much later in the day. So we had to kind of get used to that, you know, eating so late, not starving to death. But we had some great food. But the beach clothes were fun. You'd go to, we went to one called Club 55. It's very historic and been there for a long time. And you show up and you get this little beach cabana.

It was really reasonable. It's like $88 to have two beds on the beach, or $88 euros, to have two beds on the beach. or 88 euros to have two beds on the beach the entire day. And it was full of people where we went this little club. So imagine, you know, this whole beach with all these cabanas side by side, very close. You know, you're an arm's length away from the next couple or family. So they're kind of tightly packed on this beach. And you've got to kind of walk through and in between each other to get down to the water.

And it was really fun. A lot of different, lots of difference. accents and languages happening around you. You know, you'll hear a German couple speaking over here and a French over here and an English couple behind you. And it was just a big tourist town with people from all over the world in and around. When it was lunchtime, you could leave your seats at the beach and go into this big area tables and chairs, umbrellas.

and everybody sits down and eats together. And so all at once, everybody leaves the beach and moves to eat. And everybody sits down and they serve a big meal. And then everybody heads back over to the beach and lays back down. It was awesome. Sounds chill. Very chill. Very relaxed.

Great service. Reasonable prices. I was expecting it to be a bit much to swallow or to stomach. And it was fine, you know, it was good. So anyways, we had a couple different things. We had a couple different places we went to that were similar with the beach club vibe. And we had some great dinners. And we saw, you know, saw some celebrities and so forth out and about.

And it was cool. Did you engage with the celebrities? Or did you just see them? Um, had a conversation with a quick conversation with a few. There was an arrangement. I can tell there was an arrangement. No arrangement. All right.

What is an arrangement? I don't know. You're being cryptic a little bit. Well, I don't want to just, you know. You don't want a name drop. That's fine. But like, I didn't know. If Jimmy Johnson was your tourist guide here or your lifeline here, I'm sure he's like,

you know, just, you know, go see this person and go see this person. They're all, you know, A-listers. Yeah. So you know, okay, I don't want to say. Anyways, yeah. So, it was, you were just, you know, it wasn't the, you would be sitting at a bar and somebody would say, hey, guess what, man, Jamie Fox was over at this restaurant last night. And we, you know, we're going to eat there tonight.

Like, way, we were, we missed him by day, damn. You know, it'd have been cool to see Jamie Fox, right? You'd have been funny as if you'd just miss George Strait. George Strait had been there. On Amy's birthday party. That would be funny. Oh, boy. You saw him in France, but she didn't get to say.

see him in France. Yeah. Yeah. What if I'm, oh, Amy, I'll meet you there. And I run into Joyce straight. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that would be fun. So it was a great trip, though.

It sounds like other than the travel part. It was the most beautiful place that I can remember ever visiting. It was everything, service and food, and all of it was great. And it's a tourist town that knows how to take care of the people. that come there and visit and it is all walks of life i mean the sitting down at the port they have these kind of uh bars and a bunch of you know covered seating out front that's right up to the street and i could sit there and watch people walk through that town all day long it's like a trip around the world with the people that are coming through there and all the types of people that you get to

see and um we went to uh we took a boat to an island for for lunch one day um that was pretty awesome uh we just had some we had some really cool special and it was you know we did have our friends canceled so it was just me and amy which that was great me and her got to really you know for the last couple of years man she's been full mom mode i've really not gotten a ton of one-on-one time with her and we haven't been able to really just sit down and just just focus on each other and we did we really we had the best days, the best week that we've had together in a long, long time of really just kind of putting some time in to our personal relationship. And again, it made all that challenge.

It made all the little challenges that we had and hoops we had to jump through and travel absolutely worth it. No question. Sounds amazing. Go through it again. No problem. Dude. I mean, I think the travel wouldn't be a big deal if you kind of knew what was coming. Right.

If I knew that was going to be the process, I'd be like, okay, no problem, we're going to make it. Right. But we were so nervous if we're going to not make it, something's going to happen for keeping us. It was like there was going to be a barrier between us and our experience, and that was the only concern. Well, we know that Mike, you know, doesn't want to risk doing anything crazy travel-wise because there's definitely something a little more interesting also going on in Nashville this weekend. Of course, NBC kicks off coverage. But the Dale Jr. download, we've got a live show going on at Old Red there, Mike.

We've got a live show. Friday night, I think it's going to be at about 8.30 or so. I honestly don't know that. A lot of it depends on when Dale's able to get there because he's going to be working. He's going to be working this weekend. But yeah, listen, if you're in the Nashville area, come out to O'ReD, that's Blake Shelton's bar. Dale and I, Matthew's going to be there. Morgan's going to come.

We're going to do a live show at O'Read. It's going to be amazing, right? Do we want to say who's going to join us? No, we don't want to say who's going to join us. Surprise. I don't know. He said it's... You said it was a surprise.

Did I say, yeah. You had said that. But you can, hey, you can blow your own surprise. Let's not, let's not fool it. Yeah. Come out there. You have to come see it if you want to know who's going to be there with us. So that would be a lot of fun.

We really don't do many live shows, and we've kind of always wanted to see how that would work for us. So there would be a nice little experience to understand how our live shows might work in the future if we ever wanted to get to doing those more, right? Absolutely. Listen, and it's made possible by Ally. This is an ally event. And obviously they're a big partner of the Dell Jr. down low, but they're making it happen. And so, yeah, we're going to go out there. Just have fun, right?

I mean, we've got a lot of people that we've got a lot of friends. I didn't even realize how many friends that we got in Nashville, and they're all going to be there. So, yeah, we're going to have a good time. You know, Tim Dugger should operate, Grand Ole Opry, same night. He's a little disappointed. We're trying to compete with him. Listen, I did find out later that Tim Dugger was playing at the Grand Ole Opry, and I found out because I invited him to our deal, and he's like, yeah, we're doing the Opry. and I'm like, you win that one.

Well, this is his second trip to the opera. So your invitation wasn't way out of line. He could have been like, yeah, I've done the opera. Okay, I'll go. But he didn't. He stuck with his gig. I was joking. Yeah, I know.

I wish we could go to see that too. Well, I went to see the first one. Yeah. I went there with Tim and got to stand near the circle and pretty crazy. Pretty cool experience. So I hope people come out, see us. There will be people out there. At Old Red.

Oh, yeah. You've been Old Red. That whole place, that whole little Broadway thing is wide open. Wide open. Oh, yeah. All right. Be ready. We're going to be ready.

And stay hydrated. It's going to be hot. Yes. This whole week going to be hot. Yeah. Man, Wednesday's going to be a scorcher here. 95 degrees. Yeah, so that's another thing, man.

And one of the things that I'll be focusing on this weekend, we go into the NASCAR booth, NBC goes into the NASCAR booth, and worried about these drivers, man. It's going to be a hot race car. I don't know. This is a bit of a stretch run over the next two weeks, two months, where these guys are going to be dealing with the hottest temperatures of the year. Jeremy Mayfield came on the podcast.

We mentioned that. He goes out to Franklin County Speedway in Virginia and races in twin-50s for the Grand National Super Series race cars and won both races. One of both. Yeah. Their old cup and pro cup race cars still bodied, kind of from the 2000s. I've seen them race from time to time.

And, yeah, so I guess, you know, Denny Hamling came on the show, won, didn't he? That's right. Jeremy. Phil Parsons is going to win next week, whatever he races. Yeah, Phil, take advantage of it. Kitty go cars in Myrtle Beach. You've got an automatic win in anything you race. That's right.

When you leave here. It's coming. SRX race, Helio won. He was a late entry into the race. Five Flags, great racetrack. And so it's interesting to see those guys. That's all fired back up. Yeah.

The SRX series. How many races they got? Eight races. Eight races? I'm going next week. You are. This week. They're going to South Boston, right?

Yeah. All right. Did you see his crew chief was? Helio. Yeah. Who? Elio. Tony Yuri Jr.

What? No. I thought Tony Jr. was. He was. Well, Elio was a late entry. because he literally called Hawk the night before and said, if you have a car, I'll get there. He got on the plane that night, got there, and won,

and the conversation was that if Elia won an SRX race at any point this season, Hawk would find him a ride for the Daytona 500 this next year. So supposedly, that's got to start in the works. Hawk is putting Don Hawk is putting his, he's putting his clout on the line. See how much real leverage this guy has, right? don't know that anybody can just, I don't know anyone that can just be like, hey man, you got a ride. If you do, if you do X, Mike, well, listen.

Mike, if you close the show with a bang, they total 500, boy. Coming your way. I got your ride. He's doing the Humphy Wheeler move right there. It is. It's like, you know, hey, I'm going to get you a ride. Yeah, we'll see. Don Hawk, listen, whether or not he has the clout, we know he thinks he does.

Yes, no kidding. And I love him for it. That's good. That's good. Don Hawk, we, now, if you're. we're going to try to do this under the radar. Now we're paying attention. Hillio.

He'll get a Daytona 500 ride. You mean Elio? Hillio. Eleo. And he, you know, him and the Daytona 500 be great. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But I just, I don't know.

I wonder what kind of car he's going to get in, right? I think, I mean, if Don's going to start pulling some strings, I mean, there's a car that's committed to international influence with Trackhouse. They just launched that Project 91. They've got Kimmy in the car coming up. They've got. That might be the option. Yeah, might be the only good option.

Don's sweating it. It wouldn't be funny, though. What the hell if I did? Wouldn't be funny if Don't have come through it is a promise and it's like Rick Ware. I was going to say, I didn't want to say it. Yeah, Rick Ware or all DVC on. I don't think that would be much of a surprise. I mean, I don't know whether the cars he could get in.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, Gone always has that car, that beard, beard motorsports car that always makes an attempt. I know they're pretty loyal to Noah, but with Noah running Collie Cup stuff. Chicago Street course? Well, supposedly they're going to announce that Chicago is getting a street course, but that adds like what? Now we're up to like 15 road courses a year on the schedule, and so they're all trying to figure out what that would replace.

And right now, Road America is the only track that has not been, I guess, re-signed for 2023. So people are freaking out that Road America could be replaced with a Chicago street course. Yeah. Well, that would make the most sense, I think, if we were going to guess what track, You mentioned it doesn't have an agreement, Road America. And NASCAR probably doesn't want to add an additional road course race to the schedule.

I think that they want to trade one. And there is one small issue with Road America, and that's the caution lapse. We had a lot of, you know, we have a lot of problems with the length of the caution lapse in that race when we have stages and so forth. And everybody's, when we run that race at the end of the race, everybody's like, get rid of the stages. Good, good Lord. It's like a half hour long we had a caution. We literally had half hour long cautions between the stages that rode America, and that's problematic, at least on the network side for the viewer at home.

You know, if you're hanging out at the RV watching it from turn, you know, six, you're like, I'll just get a beer. I'm nothing good. Hey, let's check the grill. But anyways, so I think that I hope, now, you know, we ran a little street course, Chicago street course on ir racing. that was actually a virtual test for NASCAR and the officials in Chicago

to sort of see what it might look like get a little feedback from the drivers on this layout, this corner, and that corner. And there was some good stuff and some very not so good stuff about the track and the layout itself. Like what? Well, I don't remember which corner it was,

but there was one corner that was really wonky and too tight and small. But my hope is that, if we do do a street course, that we do a short track street course. Like a short course. Yes. Yeah. So none of this, you know, none of this long road course stuff like we have at the Glen and Sonoma,

if you're going to do a street course, you can really kind of do it however short and small you won't. So I think it'd be cool if it was sort of a quick, you know, very short course that felt like a kind of built up the intensity a little bit. Also, it'd be a little less challenging for the guys to sort of understand. navigate. It'd be less difficult to build. Just a short course. So one of my favorite road courses in the world is Brands Hatch Indy. And we talked about this, I think, a couple weeks ago.

And so I love that. Brands Hatch, the long course is great, a lot of fun, but very technical, very challenging. Indy, the Brands Hatch Indy course, really short and very aggressive. A lot of beating and banging when the British Tour car used to go there and run that. I don't know if they still do. but it's not too challenging, just a couple corners, and the cars are coming around the front straightaway, often. You're not sitting there waiting for a minute and a half. A lot of great things I think could come out of having a short,

aggressive, you know, beating and banging kind of road course in Chicago Street course. What would be the shortest road course that we have over here? We were just talking about, and we don't run it, but we were just talking about limerrock. Earlier today, lime rock being a good. great example of a short course, aggressive, elevation changes.

You can run, I mean, if they can run prototypes on it, that width is the exact same as as a cup car, so they can run them. That's a great example. That is. It's a very short course, very simple, not too technical if you take the chanes out of it. Yes. I wish we could, and I was beaming about this this weekend. I wish NASCAR

went back to Montreal because that thing raced like a short track. They did because of all the tight corners, a lot of aggressiveness opportunities for contact. Good point, Matthew. I think lengthwise I'd want it to be a little shorter, but I like that style of road course racing

is what we need to try to take to Chicago if we do a street course race. As always, we're super excited to have Ally as a big partner on this show. Ally brings us our guest segment each week, and this week's guest is Phil Parsons. So thank you, Ally. It's always good to have allies in your life professionally and personally,

and we got one coming on the show today. So, you know, Phil had a pretty interesting cup career. I raced against him in the Xfinity Series in 98 and 99, which was kind of neat because I'd known he was racing in the 80s and 90s with dad. And here I am competing with him and Bobby Hillen and all these other cool guys that my dad raced against. So we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about Benny a little bit and what he wants to share about his experience with his brother. and what that means to him.

What he's doing today, he's got a son racing in the Xfinity series. So I know that he's putting a lot behind that. He was a car owner, right? Had a race car out there, Josh Wise out there racing around the racetrack. And so this guy's done a lot. Also, continues today to be a broadcaster. And so, man, Phil Parsons is going to be fun to talk to. We had Andy Petrie on here, and Andy and him had a little, they crossed paths early in their

careers. So we'll talk a little bit about his experience when he got into the Bushra National series. working with Andy as well, which he had some of my, he had one of my all-time top five paint schemes. The one he rolled the Lamas Grand Dam, or, yeah, the Grand Dam,

the Lamas Grand Dam that he rolled at Talladega. He also put that paint scheme on a Monte Carlo at Daytona one time, but it's this, it's Colba and it's green on the front, and then it turns into flames right around the number, and then it's white on the back. I just, Timmy Hill ran a throwback of that a couple years ago. Yeah. And I just think it's one of the coolest paint schemes next to the Grey Ghost.

But Phil Parsons, it's going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait to get him in here. You know, Phil is one of the generally nice guys that's in the garage. I've always loved the guy. To talk about his race career will be fantastic. You know, his name propped up a little bit in some of our Andy Petrie episode because Andy was his crew chief back in 88, you know, running for Leo Jackson. So there'll be some crossover there.

But yeah, Benny Parsons, man, got to hear some Benny Parsons stories. That voice, man, just brings back childhood. and the glory days of racing. I don't know. Everybody loves Benny. So let's get Phil Parsons at the table. I can't wait. People often ask me if I get tired of being called Benny's little brother.

Well, who wouldn't want to be Benny Parsons' brother if they had the chance? Paul Parsons, the number 55 and Sterling. There he is. Oh, yeah. Happy birthday. Thank you, thank you. 45. Yeah.

Have you had a big birthday so far? Big plans? No, not a lot. We had a conference call this morning for the truck race at Nashville. about all I got done today. Did they say happy birthday to you? They did, yeah. All right.

Yeah, they did. We were hoping we would be the first. No, no. You guys doing good? We're doing good. So we just got to let everybody know you brought your son, Stefan, into the room and been getting to know him over the last year or so with him racing in the Xfinity series. You can make him leave if you want.

I'm that's up to you. I'm glad he's here, actually. Okay. So he can dispute what's being said. So, you know, this is, I've been looking forward to this. Always thought a lot about you. obviously your brother was an inspiration for all of us. And so he always said that he was our madden in the way that he kind of played the game,

but also then became a big way that we watched the game and being a broadcaster. But it seems so well-liked by everybody. Not many drivers come out of their career with that many people appreciating them, especially their competitors. Yeah. I tell people that I don't know that there's been anybody in the sport that cared as much about the fellow competitors, crew guys, officials, racetrack owners, fans. I mean, he cared, he deeply cared about everybody. Yeah, you could tell.

So tell me, you know, kind of what your life was like when you were young. When you were, you know, what's your first memories? Where were you living? What was going on with you? And like when I go back to my first memory, I remember my fourth birthday and then kind of six, seven, eight years old. And, you know, what was going on in your life around that time? I grew up in Detroit.

Okay. My parents moved to Detroit after World War II. My dad worked in the shipyards in Baltimore during the war. And then both my parents grew up in Wilkes County. And they came home after World War II. And my dad said, you know, we need to somehow earn their living. So he said he told me that it was either go to Detroit to work in the automobile factories, which were obviously booming.

they're in post-war, or go to Pittsburgh and work in the steel mills. And they picked Detroit for whatever reason. So that's how we end up in Detroit. And so I was born and raised in Detroit. And my earliest recollection of anything is when I was about five years old, that's when Benny started racing. I don't remember anything in my life that doesn't involve racing and going to races. So why did Benny want to race?

My dad was a huge race fan. Again, grew up in Wilkes County, went to Wilkesboro. Oh, okay. Yeah, so my dad was a huge race fan. So when he moved to Detroit, you know, we had a lot of racetracks that ran weekly up in Michigan. We had a racetrack in Mount Clemens, Michigan, Flat Rock that still operates today. Toledo, Flint, you know, Grand Rapids, had a lot of racetracks. And my dad went to a lot of those races.

And after the races, they would all hang around the beer garden, they called it, you know, and all the drivers that raced would come out. So all the big drivers in that day would come out. So my dad got to know them. and we had a gas station and Texaget business in Detroit. And one day one of the local racers was going to run an Arka race out of town. And he came by my dad's gas station on his way out of town. And Benny was there working at the gas station and said,

and they weren't doing much. And they said, hey, Benny, do you want to go with us? So this, I don't know, this probably would have been about 1961 or 62, maybe something like that, probably 61. Benny, a teenager at this point? I mean, like, he was born, 20. 20? Yeah, because he was born in 41.

Okay. It's probably 20 or so. And so he jumped in the truck with him and went to a race. I think he said it was maybe an owner West Virginia is where the Arka race was. Oh, yeah. We've been there. And then they started going with them and started helping them. And there was the guy that owned that car, guy named Dick Gold.

He also had a, we had a pure oil station. He also had a pure oil station. And he bought Benny a car. He said, here's, Benny wanted, shown a desire to race a little bit. So he said, here's your race car. What type of car? It's a 54 Ford. What was he going to rate?

And he paid $50 for. Yeah. Figure eight. It was going to be a figure eight car. Oh, my. Figure eight. Very scary stuff. And I remember now, so this is, this would have been wintertime, 62, 63.

I was born in 57. So I'm five. So the age gap? Yeah, 16 years. What's with that? Well, I guess I'd have to ask my mom and dad. But Benny was the oldest. Yeah.

Then had another brother, Steve. And unfortunately, passed away. He was 12 years older than me. then my sister Patty is five years older than me. So there's a bunch of kids? Yeah, we had a big family. And we also lost, my parents lost a child in between Steve and Patty. Okay.

But I, more than likely I was an accident or a mistake or whatever, but they were stuck with me, whatever the case may be. Okay. But I remember many welding a roll cage in that car at our gas station with a torch and coat hangers. And so, and that was before he had ever run his first race. and then he started racing locally figure eights and stuff like that in 1963. Did he destroy this car in his figure eight racing? Oh yeah.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Without a doubt. There's some figure. If you watch the original Herbie the love bug, Mike, there's some figure eight racing in that. And it's dramatic. Like figure eight racing today, you know, the cars are kind of like, you know, late model stocks modified.

Yeah, we're limited. Yeah. And they stop at the intersections and so forth. and wait and then they go and then there's contact but it's a it's they try not to try not to do too much damage to their cars because they were kind of expensive looking but back then man it was just they were flying through those intersections just like oh just nobody slowed down you know nobody waited for the other cars whoever had the most guts it was all guts yeah yeah totally was there ever any big collisions that you were just like worried about benny oh yeah oh yeah

for sure yeah because i mean you know we know what the safety was back then and it's not Zero. Exactly. Yeah, you've welded his cage in with a coat hanger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that probably wasn't much of a row cages it was. Right. My gosh.

What would Benny have done without racing? Like if they had never come through the service station and taking him to an arc of race, was he just going to be working at the manufacturing in Detroit? You guys, you guys, have you ever heard of Deerburn Steel tubing or DST Industries? That was a big, it was a big outfit in Detroit that would do a lot of, a lot of anxiety. They would build presidential limousings. And we knew the people, or my parents, my dad knew the people that owned that and ran that place. And so Benny actually worked there for a time.

And they would, you know, they had a little dabbled in racing a little bit. They, I know back Ford contracted with them to build some comets. And they had an endurance run at Daytona. And Benny went down there when he was working for DST and worked on that. And a guy that actually ran DST was a guy named Hammer Mason. And he owned that. Do you remember the 63 Ford that Curtis Turner won the late model sports from racing Daytona number 87?

You may have seen that. Hammer Mason actually owned that car. So anyway, they were involved in racings. But what he would have been, I had no idea. I don't know what he would have done. He didn't have any kind of big aspirations that all of a sudden reversed horse once he got bit by the racing bug. No.

So at what point when did you ever have your first idea of becoming a driver? When I was five. You were five years old. happen? I don't want, other than the fact that, you know, Benny was racing or whatever, and this probably would have, that's all I ever want. I want to be a race car driver. Went off, five years old. Yeah. But, but the next year he moved up, he really went from running figure eight in 1963 to running what we would, like late model sportsmen or whatever, locally. Bought a car from actually the guy that gave him his first car. He bought the 56 Ford that they

were running around town and guys name you may not remember but Wayne Wayne Bennett and Homer Newell and people like that who were stars in our area growing up yeah had driven that car so my dad bought that car for Benny I think he paid $1,500 for it and and he immediately started winning races wow immediately really yes I mean just wherever he went he would he would win and he he won so much locally obviously the manufacturers were were in Detroit that he got an opportunity that year, his first year out of figure eight to race a factory home and moody car at Asheville-Weaverville Speedway. What? As an evaluation program, they were looking for another driver.

So they had Benny and another driver go and they both had home and moody cars in Asheville in 1964 to run and whoever did the best would, you know, would get an opportunity with Ford. What happened? The other guy was Kale Yarborough. Wow. Yeah. Who had been racing for years, you know, Kail had been racing, you know, for years, literally Benny didn't start racing until he was almost 22 years old,

and he'd been racing one year, and Kale performed better at Asheville-Weaverville, and four people said, well, we like you, but go back and get some more experience, and then we'll, you know, we'll talk later. When did you get your first opportunity? I never, I never, really, I never race go-carts. My dad was always busy working the gas station and the Texacabre And Benny was busy trying to race. So I didn't really have anybody that I could lean on to help me race go

Corkarts. And I didn't know enough about it myself just to do it on my own. So I never race go carts, never race quarter midgets, never raced anything on my own. But I always wanted to race. And I'm trying to figure out what direction to take. And NASCAR at that time, or when I was 18, 19 years old, had started that Baby Grand Division. Yes.

That division actually started in North Wilkesboro on the, on the, They had a road course around the drag strip in North Wilkesboro. Really? Yeah. And then NASCAR took it over, and then they started going to other places. So I said, man, that... The dash, what is we know is it, the dash series? Yeah, turned into the dash series.

It was Baby Grand back when I started racing it. And I said, that looks like something that maybe we could afford. Still didn't know how to do it. So I went to Tex Powell. Tex had been a lifelong friend. He actually, when Benny got his first cup opportunity, run full-time for LG to Witt, But Tex was actually worked on that team, and I was 12 years old.

And Texx always just took time to teach me and tell me and spent time with me. And so I said, hey, Tex, I want to build a baby grand car to do it. Tex had a shop at that time that he would build race cars and work. Actually, they built some of the cars that many actually raced at LG-E-2-Wits. The car he won the championship with, Texas Company built back now. So this is probably 1975. Okay. And so I bought a Vega in a junkyard in Detroit in Pontiac, Michigan, and took it down to Tex.

Were you still living in Detroit? Yeah, I was going to college then. You were in college? What college? I went to Oakland University. What was your major? Business management. Did you finish?

Well, that's another story. No. And the short answer is no. When I got, after my four years, I was still about a semester short because I had started racing then. So, you know, college kind of took a back seat. That's right. So I was about a semester short, and I was working in Savannah and I'm getting, but anyway. What are you doing for a job in Michigan throughout your teenage years?

Working on my dad's gas station. Yeah, just like Benny had and my brother Steve as well. And are you at all traveling with your brother while he's racing? I would not really travel with Benny, but I would go with my dad. So you get there for the race and see all that happening. Yeah. And so what was the catalyst to get to move you south? Because I knew that's where I wanted to race.

You knew you had to get down. I wanted to race NASCAR. You knew you had to get South to do that. Yeah. But the Baby Grand Series would have forced that, right? I mean, like, was the baby Grand – you said it started in Wilkesboro. Yeah, primarily the South, but we would also run Dover. Okay, so it was moving around.

Yeah, but it was mostly the South. You know, Wilkesburg would run a lot of races, Hickory, Carraway, and then Rockingham, Darlington, you know, so most of it was moving around. Most of it was in and around Charlotte. So you buy this car in Detroit. Yeah, $250. You take it to Tex. Way more expensive than Benny's car.

That is expensive for a car out of the junkyard. You take it to Tex, and he's going to put a cage on it and turn it into a race car. Help you're going to build it? Well, you know, I didn't really know enough because I never had been around long enough at any time to really learn that much about it. So most of what I knew about it was taught to me by Tex under fire. Texas and Mike Powell, Texas son taught me a lot. And so we built the car there, but I was still going to college.

Yeah. So I would, every time I would, every time I would get a day off or three days off from school, I'd come down south. We'd work on it. But Texas had other stuff to do. And he wouldn't, he didn't work on it if I wasn't there. Right. So it took really a couple years to build that.

Really? A couple summers, yeah. Wow. And so while you're building this car, you're not driving anything. Mm-mm. But there's this end goal. And so it took you a couple years to build it. So you finally finish this car.

Yeah, we finally finished the car. Texas shop was in Ashboro, so we go over to Carraway to test. Literally my first time on a race car. Yeah. And so I go out there and Texas goes with me and I go out there and I'll, Benny may have come for that too anyway. Boy, I hope. Yeah, I spent out two or three times.

But before the end of the day, I was running under the track record. Okay. So we had some speed. You figured it out. Yeah. So then there was a race coming for Carraway, which would have been my first race, right? So we go to Carraway. Lance Childress was a series director there.

You know, Kipp is Lance's son. Yes. So Lance, he didn't like our car. You know. Why? Well, he said it was cheated up, too cheated up. Was it? Well, I didn't think so, but.

Could have possibly been? Might have been. I mean. Do you remember the specifics of what he had a problem with? Well, you know, you had to have windshield braces. Well, my windshield braces were made of 32,000 aluminum, you know, two little strips or whatever. And they don't do anything anyways. Yeah.

And my engine, you know, was moved back a little bit. So, I mean, all the things that you're supposed to do to a race car, and we did it, and he didn't like it. So, but they had, we had, Lance, they took 16 cars that day on speed. And then they were going to start 24 cars, so they took eight cars via a qualifying race. So Lance said, I'll tell you what we'll do. If you and Tex will sign a sheet saying that if you finish in the top eight, you're not going to race. I'll let you run that qualifying race. So I started last in a 15-lap qualifying race.

I started 19th in a 15-lap qualifying race and finished fifth. Wow. But they wouldn't let me race. So anyway, we wouldn't let me race the feature. Okay. So then we go back. You've got to be kind of a little disappointed. Hugely disappointed, yeah, for sure.

I mean, I literally This is 19... Built two years you built this car. Yeah. And waited from the time I was five to do it. So anyway, we don't get the race. And then we go back and fix all the stuff that Lance made us fix, which I didn't agree with.

But anyway, and then we go, then I go back to the racetrack to practice again and blow an engine. So that sets me back. I didn't have another engine. So I had to take the engine back to the engine builder. And that sets me back again. And then we go to Nashville, which would have been the fairgrounds would have been my first race

and blow an engine again. Oh, no. In practice. So, again, I don't get to race. So long story short, end up being Rockingham, which is probably two or three months later, is going to be my first race.

So Rockingham was technically the first race I ever ran, other than that qualifying race at Wilkesport. Pretty big track. Yeah, yeah. Those cars had probably, maybe 175 horsebar ran wide open around there. Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

We ran wide open to Bristol with those cars. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Was just the instability of the engine, or were you being all the inexperience that you had because you have not really had any seat time? Were you doing something that was causing these engines to blow? I don't think so. I didn't think so.

So you just needed to get to the race. I mean, like you're just trying to get years taking get to the race. Get me to the race and let's see what happens. But it's just like one thing after another keeping you from that couple of engines expire. Yeah. And again, it's only twice this happened. Right. You know, but by the time we repair the engine or whatever,

it was a stock vagan engine with steel sleeves. How long does that set you back? Weeks? Oh, yeah, weeks at the time. Yeah. Were you at Rockingham and Benny one? Oh, yeah, for sure. Do you remember, so that's such an iconic moment

because of the way they repaired the car, right? Do you remember details of the day? Oh, yeah. I was probably, I was 16 at the time. Yeah. Were you down in the pits? Oh, yeah. So when he's in the crash and he brings the car, they bring the car in the garage and you're like,

oh, Lord, this is it. It's over, right? But as far as preparation, you know, at that time, the point system changed a couple of years after that. Yes. You got awarded a small percentage of a point for laps completed. Yes. So it wasn't just finishing position.

It was laps completed. So they were as prepared as you could possibly be. I mean, they had other rear and house. Every single part. They had everything. Every single part you could put on the car. Back in 1973, they brought everything they could bring to like a modern team would do. Yes, exactly.

So is it true that they took that roll cage out of a different car that had fell out of the race? Yes. Without those people knowing it, too, by the way. Tell me about that. It ripped the doorbars completely out of the car. I know you've seen that you guys have seen the pictures. It ripped the doorbars completely out of the car, ripped the rear and out of the car. So they was and Tex, Powell, and Richie and Les bars,

they've had such a huge history in the sport, worked at Homer Moody and the Pettys and whatever. Richie and Les were terrific. They actually had built that car originally. When I said that Tex built some of the cars that been erased, that car was one of them. So they had everything to do, but so what are we going to do for doorbars? I mean, they didn't bring a pipe bender and couldn't bend up doorbars.

Well, Ralph Moody, his company, had built the engines for that car. Wadale Wilson worked for Ralph at the time. He eventually went to work for LG DeWitt and Ellery. And Ralph said, sent some go down there and get that car and cut the doorbars out of it. It was a car that they had built or had something to do with, but the owners weren't around. It was Bobby Mosgrover's cars, who it was. The owners weren't around. He said, go get that car.

It's just sitting down the garage because it's broken. Because they fell out of the race or whatever. So they went down there, got that car, and they whacked the doorbars out of it, Tech's welded the doorbars in and put a new rear in housing and all the front suspension. You couldn't believe how bad it tore that car up and got that thing back on the track. That to me is the ability for them to be able to do that type of work in such a short period of time and be able to get out there to complete the lapse needed to be completed to gain those points. I imagine there was a bunch of damage to mounts and so forth where the rear end was yanked out of the car.

Oh, yeah. But they had welders flying. Oh, man. Yeah, and not only, I mean, Travis Carter was the crew chief then, not only did he have, you have Tex and Richie and Les and Travis and all of Travis's guys, you had guys from other teams want to help to. That's what they say. Yeah, yeah, it was amazing, really.

That's interesting because I feel like that when I think about that time in the sport, it seemed to be there wasn't a, there wasn't like a brotherhood in the garage or didn't feel like there was, or, I mean, I wasn't there, but when I watch a lot of things about the history of the sport, but that, I think, was that a mark on Benny's character that all those people came to help? Yes, I think so because, and that's, you know, it's so different now. I mean, just like, like my, but they were, he was, they were fixing his card to beat kale. Yeah. And Junior. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You don't want to do anything to get on Junior's bad side, right? For, for 30 years, nobody wanted to do it. Right. Yeah. And I just wonder if it were a different

driver or a different team had would they have gotten that type of you know community support in such a dire moment yeah and i would guess not and everyone loved lg to wit too and it was you know lg started racing with john seers and they raced for years and and then benny got the oprish john left and did his own deal and bennie got the opportunity and the reason bennie got the opportunity to drive for lg is is lg actually hired a driver by the name of buddy young and he crashed hard at riverside at the beginning of nineteen six 70 and got hurt and couldn't drive. So James Hilton actually drove Elgy's car at Daytona,

and Benny drove his own car at Daytona, the same car that he ran the Arca race with, end up driving at Daytona and actually finished in the top 10. But while he was in Daytona, you know, Benny was helped by Ford. That came full circle, and Benny was helped by Ford. Ford pulled out of racing while they were in Daytona and said, you can continue to run Arka, you can keep all this stuff. If you're not going to run Arca, you need to give all this stuff back.

So Benny on his way home from Daytona stopped in Lerby and talked to LG to Witt and LG basically hired Benny to drive the car and that's how he ended up. That's a great story. Yeah, racing in the Cup Series. All right. So your first race in the in the Dash, the Baby Grand series is it Rockingham? And it's there were, you started 27th and finished 16th? Yeah.

There were 27 or more cars? Oh, yeah. That's a lot of cars. They used to have a lot of cars. Yeah, they would have a huge fields. I didn't remember where I started. I knew I finished around 15 to, because I cut a tire down is why I finished. So, I actually ran better than that.

Yeah. And then in 78, you ran half of the, half of the schedule? Yeah, but maybe a little more in half. I think maybe 15. Still going to college. Still going to college. Still going to college. And quite honestly, couldn't necessarily afford to go to some of the other places that we went.

Like a member, I missed a race. Langley Field because we just, I just couldn't afford to go. And again, I had college, although college. What is the expense? Just tires and fuel and travel and. And you're trying to handle that. Okay. Well, my dad was trying to handle that.

He's helping. Yeah, for sure. So, but in 78, you, you win at Hickory and then you follow that up with three other wins, so four wins and 11 starts. Yeah. So. Actually, I made 15 starts at you. Okay.

Yeah. When you win your first race, I mean, I mean, we asked this question a lot about, to a lot of people. And when I won my first race, I mean, it was just, you know, I don't know that it really, it didn't kind of like, it wasn't the catalyst for this vision that popped in my head. Like, okay, here's my path. But when you're winning your first race in Baby Grand, I mean, you're literally only, I don't know, a couple, you know, several hundred laps into your driving career.

Yeah, I think it was, I think it was the eighth race that I, had ever arrived. Right. Was this a big surprise? Was it a shock? What was Benny's reaction? What was your thoughts? I came down, I went to Atlanta that year, I think, and blew an engine.

So I was out of sorts and didn't know what to do. And so I went to a guy that, to me, the top engine builder in that sport was a guy named Richard Mash. Yes, I know. Perry drove for him. Yeah. And then Richard had been with Dean Combs. They'd been, you know, Richard was a great driver too.

And then had been with Dean, and they won just about everything. But they split up that year for whatever reason. And Richard didn't really have anyone that he was working with, other than building engines for. But I went to Richard and said, hey, would you build me an engine? He said, yeah, I'll do that. So he built me an engine. I came down.

We were going to go to Bristol, I think, was the first race that I was going to run with Richard's engine. And I'll never forget, I mean, I didn't have any springs. I mean, I didn't have anything. And Richard knew what he was doing. He said, well, let's go over this guy's house. We'll go over Harry Gant's house and see if we can borrow something. Harry yet. Yeah.

So we went over to, because we were in Taylor'sville, went over to see if we could borrow something from Harry. Did you know who Harry was? Oh, yeah, certainly. Okay. Yeah. And was a big fan of Harry Gant's true. And it was kind of surreal going to his house to see, you know. But anyway, he didn't really have what Richard was looking for, so we went to a junkyard

and got some springs and cut them off to the right. right length or whatever to go to Bristol. So Richard basically set the car up to go to Bristol. Which is a big help. Yeah. And then we ran really, really well, but ended up breaking a front hub at Bristol. I think it might have got in the wall, but not much damage at all. And so then I think maybe it might have been the next race that we went to, no, I think the next race we went to might have been to Carraway and finished second. And then when we went to Hickory, finally put it all the good, dominated the race. And my car was a little bit different than everyone else's. I had a Vega, but I had a Ford, eight-inch Ford rear-end in it.

And most of the Chevroletes had stock rear-ins, you know, and they weren't like an eight-inch Ford. You could know. So they didn't have the ratios that Ford had for an eight-inch four. So, but we just, we just dominated the race and won it. But, yeah, I mean, I'll remember to this day. It's like my whole life, my whole life work culminated me, and me going to Victory Lane.

I mean, this is what I dreamed about literally for, for 16 years. Yeah. Was your dad there? No, he wasn't there. But he's sort of, you said it. I mean, he's funding all this. Like, when you say I went to go get, you know, build me a new motor. Yeah.

Like the expenses on this thing. No, I probably, and I tried to go back and try to figure it out, but probably when my car was done, ready to go test it care with that first time, we probably had about $6,000 in it. Okay. That gives us a, yeah, okay. Yeah. So your dad wasn't there, but do you recall your conversation with him? I mean, like, you've had to get to this point with a lot of patience, a lot of perseverance, but also a lot of support.

Oh, yeah. People really kind of helping you out. And I would imagine your dad would have been at the top of the list, right? And there was another guy, too. When I started in 77, I ran three races, and I basically ran those out of Texas shop. Well, then I had to go back to college. So I took the car back home with me to Michigan and put it in our garage behind the house. But I didn't have anything.

I mean, it didn't have heat, didn't have anything. And I didn't know where to turn because the last race that I had run in 77, I hit the wall. And so I had frame damage and the car, and I had nowhere to go. Well, a guy named Odie Skeen, who was a lifelong friend, actually helped Benny get started racing up in Michigan, raced with Benny, started in the Arcuseries together or whatever. he worked at Chevrolet in the engineering department at the tech center as an engine builder, and he worked afternoons. And he just, he felt sorry for me.

He actually went to that first race at Rockingham with me. He felt sorry for me. He said, bring that car over to my house because he had, he had everything to work with, had worked on race cars, but hadn't done it in a long time. So he basically took me under his wing and helped me all winter long, getting the car repaired, getting a car repaired, get ready to go racing in 78. So when I got to a pay phone, we didn't have cell phones back in 78. When I got to a pay phone, my dad was the first call,

and then Odie was the second call to tell him we did it. What did your dad say? He was just proud of me, you know. Was he a man of many words? Like, what was your dad like? It's really funny because it's, and he did the same thing to Benny because I remember it, but, you know, I'd call my dad after a race. I'm talking about when I'm running the Cup series calling me.

He said, well, why didn't you pit that, you know? Or why did you only take two tires? no matter what happened, my dad would say, well, why didn't you do this? He did the same thing to many, but. That phone call, though, I mean, for it to be such a, you know, a quick moment in your life, though, that phone call would have been the world, right?

Oh, yeah. Like you were suggesting, Dale, I mean, it's almost like in the movie Rudy when he calls to tell his dad that he made the football team, the Notre Dame football team, and nobody really believes him, and it's like, wow, you actually made it. I mean, you just won. Yeah.

With very little seat time. Yeah. And that was, I mean, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it was a baby grand race. But it felt like the Daytona 500 to me. Right. Better believe it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

So that series back then is super healthy, a lot of really, really talented drivers. I mean, Larry Pearson, you know, Larry got his start there. Dale Jarrett. He didn't really get his start there. Michael got his start there. He'd raced at Hickory before he went to that series. But Dale ran it and, yeah, a lot of, and, you know, Dean won. There were some regular races.

Oh, yeah. That lived there in that series that was. were just impossible to feed. Yeah, I mean, Dean and Larry Hoopaw and Ned Combs and so many of those guys. And then Mickey York, who ended up, Mickey ended up, we actually built our cars at the same time at Texas shop. But Mickey had a whole lot of guys because he raced at Carraway all the time. So he had a bunch of guys that helped him.

But basically Tex built that car as well as our car. And we almost started racing at the same time. But Mickey was and still is a good friend. So in 1979, you had a big win. Fairgrounds in Nashville in front of the Cup garage because they're there for their race that weekend. Was that the first companion race weekend you'd ever competed? No, we'd done other ones. Yeah, before.

So to win in front of the NASCAR crowd? Yeah. Was that? It was pretty cool because Richard Mash had gone back and he and Dean were working together again in 79. And I was still racing out of Detroit. But then when I got out of college, I moved down, David Eft was Benny's Cruachie. By this time, Benny was driving for M.C. Anderson. Okay.

And David, you know, David offered me a job. So I took my race car and my one suitcase and moved down to Savannah. But I think Nashville was probably before that, before when I was still working out of Michigan. And I remember qualifying second to Dean. It was a 100-lop race. And Benny said, just, you know, just take your time. You know, you got a lot of time or whatever.

And I think I passed Dean on the third lap. And we ran bumper to bumper the rest of the race, Dean, right on my bumper. And so that was huge, especially to be, because Dean had helped me too. He gave me a lot of advice when I was first starting to, too. So it was a big thrill to be able to do that. Do you feel like, I think at this moment that when you went in front of that group,

in front of the NASCAR Cup garage, that, you know, certain people are starting to take some notice? Well, you know, that's the idea. I mean, obviously that's my end goal, is to move up. And at this time, this is obviously before the Bush Series started. But late model sportsman was essentially what the Bush Series is. now Expedity Series became. So, you know, this is my second year. And it's, I'm thinking in my mind, it's time for me to move up, but I'm not sure how I'm going to do that. How to do that, yeah. Because we talk about that car costing $6,000, but that next step is not going to be $6,000.

Yeah. What job did you take at the shop that David, David, if gave you? We did about everything, truthfully. There was only about a half a dozen of us. It was David and Tuchan, you know, you know Tuchan, and Pete, David Peterson and Eddie Thrap, and then they had a couple guys in the engine shop, Terry Ellage, in the engine shop, and Ducky Newman. So you did a little bit of everything. So you're working on your brother's race cars. So how long did it last?

How long did that situation last? Well, as soon as I got out of college, which would have been four years, so it's the end of June, I moved down there and still raced out of there, but went to the racetrack with Benny and race. Sometimes I would take my car if there was a companion race as well. And sometimes we raced on off weekends, too, so I went.

But at this time, and I started dating MC Anderson's daughter, Angela. I had two daughters, Angela and Andrew. And we were dating a little bit and having a good time. They were great, great girls. And it got time, September came around and got time for me to go back to school because I had one more semester to finish. So I was prepared to go back. back to school. Really? Yeah. Oh, man. And move back to Detroit to go back to school for one more

semester. And but, you know, but I really enjoyed working there and a good situation. And MC said, well, you know, if you want to hang around, I'll, you know, I'll help you take that next step to race. Oh, really? Well, that's, you know, that was a dream. That's all you need it. Dream come true to me. So, so. So what did that mean? Uh, then that I could, that I could, that I could make that move to late model sportsmen. Really? So, so what does he do? What does he? He, well, as it turns out by, by the. He, by the. He, he. Well, he's end of the season, Angela and I had kind of cooled off. We really weren't seeing each other anymore. So MC said, you know, what do you want to do? I said, I really, I really want to race late model

sportsmen. He said, well, I'll tell you what, if you get a car, I'll furnish your engines for next year. Okay. Which was huge. I mean, yeah. So I bought a car. You sell your dash car? I did. Who did you sell it to? Ronnie Hopkins. Yeah. And he takes it and races it? Ronnie Jr. Ronnie Jr. Rony Jr. is driving. Yeah. That's how he started racing. was in my old baby grand car.

Yeah. So, which that also comes full circle too. But so I end up, I said, yeah, I'll do that. So I called text. I said, hey, do you have room? Can I come up there? Yep, come on. So I came out and take my car to Texas shop to try to get ready.

What car did you get? Well, I bought a car from Richard Chilters. He had bought a Ventura. So I go and work on the car all winter long or whatever, work at Texas shop. And then I work for techs as well during the day to try to, to try to earn a little money and then work on my car at night or whatever and then start racing late model sportsmen basically. So I go from a from a 170 horsepower probably baby grand car to a 550 horsepower late model sportsman car and Richmond was going to be my my first late

model sportsman race. At Richmond. And so how did that first race go? Not great. We went up for practice And literally, I was essentially there by myself, and Benny was over there helping me. I mean, he aired the tires up or whatever. Really? Yeah. So I went on the road. We didn't have radios and stuff like that.

So I went on the racetrack, and that was the old Richmond fairgrounds. Yes. When they put the bear grease down. Oh, no. So, yeah, exactly. So I literally got a foot, a slow car coming out on the race track, literally got a foot out off the bottom of the racetrack and got in their bear grease and hit the wall in practice.

What are you all talking about? They put the bear grease down. Yeah, explain what bear grease. Well, we have traction compound. We have, we have resin, you know, PJ1. They had the opposite back then. Just to go really, just lick it up. Well, just to preserve the surface is what the guys was, just to preserve the surface. And they did it at Rockingham. They did it at Richmond. They did it at Darlington. It's like a sealer that you see put on the highway or driveways. I got you. But it's super greasy.

Yeah. As bare grease suggests. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, okay. So that caused a problem. Yeah, that's what you're saying. Yeah, yeah.

So most of the racing I did that year was Carraway. I ran Wilkesburg two or three times and went back to Richmond. Fortunately, had a little better luck than I did the time before. But most of the time was right around there, mostly short tracks. Although I did run Charlotte twice that year, which was the only super speedaway races that I had run to that date. How'd that go? It went good. Actually, they had an Arka race at North Warxburgh.

race they ever, Arka race they ever ran at North Wilkesboro. So I go to Wilkesburg to run the race. I sit on a pole and dominate the race and lap all but the second place car. Wow. Really? Yeah. And literally the next week is Charlotte, the May race in Charlotte. So between the Sunday race at Wilkesboro and having to be at Charlotte on I think Thursday, we went back and repainted the car and got it ready to go. Painted. Yeah, painted it. Yeah, because I had, by this time I had a black fender here and a black door there or whatever, so painted the car. So we go to, go to Charlotte. And this was a short track car. And so I didn't have any back window straps, right? So my first time on the racetrack, the back window blows out. Oh, no. Because it was just a plastic back window. It wasn't even Lexan, had no rear window straps. So I spent that first day, and the next day was basically, qualifying was my first lap on the track, day one qualifying. And I think I ran like 153 or whatever.

So that literally was my first lap at Charlotte was other than when the back window blew out, not even up to speed. That doesn't count. Yeah, and that wasn't fast enough to make the show, but we had a second day qualifying. So went back the next day and ran about 160 after a little bit of practice and made the race. And then was running really well in the race. And, you know, the hood was really light. And the hood hinge broke at the back.

and they black flagged me for the hood flying up. And I had to come in under green and fix that. And then still finished up at like ninth or something like this. So I had a top 10. It says here you were having some trouble. Finances broke. Humpey Wheeler comes in and saves you. So we go through the rest of the year, 1980,

and go to Charlotte again in the fall and finish in the top 10 again. So both times I ran Charlotte. And then at the end of the year, well, I lose MC support. He's not going to. Why? just decided, you know. He just ran its course. Ran its course, yeah.

But I was appreciative of certainly what he had done. So we go to Daytona to run the Arca race and the Bush race with the same car. Go to Daytona. I have a water leak, like a split a cylinder wall in first practice. End up finishing fourth in the Arka race. My first time at Daytona, basically. Oh, man. Yeah, and that's the race.

Tim Richmond won the race. Joe Rutman was second, Jim Van derby. was third. So I mean, this was quality people that I was racing with. I think Schrader ran his first race at Daytona that same race. He finished in the top 10 also. So then we're running the Bush race with the same car.

Again, same kind of thing bit me. Again, the only car I have, the bottom of the windshield was not backed up by the dash. The dash was down below the bottom of the windshield. So there was basically just sheet metal welded to the top of the dash and the windshield laid on that. And it was

glass. We didn't have Lexham wind chills then. So the wind pushing on that windshield kept blowing the windch, finally broke the windshield and literally the windshield's this far from my hands on the steering wheel and running good, running really well, running, drafting along with Harry Gann or whatever, and had to park it because, I mean, the windshield's about to fly out of the thing or whatever. Wow. Yeah. What's the story with Humpy Wheeler and how he kind of...

Well, I go to Rockingham, which is a couple weeks later, probably than Daytona. What car is this? What does this car look like? It's a Pontiac Ventura. Same one I bought from children. 28, 27 had different numbers on it. I got done with Rockingham. I had to borrow money from Benny to pay the tire bill, and I was out of money.

I'm completely broke, and no sign of anything. Right. So Humpy is somebody that I'd always admired and had talked to and it had always talked to me. And so I called him. I said, is there any way that you have time to meet with me, you know, essentially what I was trying to go to Humphie and say, I need a sponsor. And he said, sure, just come to my office or whatever. So I went to Humpy's office.

We sat down and I told them my plight and the fact that I, you know, I was out of money. And he said, well, you know, what are you thinking? What, you know, what are your options? I said, well, obviously I need a sponsor, but I know they're not that easy to come by. I said, I thought about just, you know, going and getting a job. He said, where would you do that? I said, well, the first place I would go would be to Travis Carter because they had started the Skoll team at this time.

And I tell people a lot of time, and I've never really asked Humphie about it, but he said, I think that might be one of the smartest moves you would have ever made. Well, you will ever make in your life. So I don't know if it's just, I really think that Humpty, I think Humpey was instrumental in putting Travis and Hal need him together in that Skoll deal or whatever. I'm not sure that Humpey didn't think, I'm telling you when you meet these U.S. tobacco people,

they're going to like you, and that may be a great opportunity for you. I think that, and I need to ask Humpy that. I never did, all those years later. And so anyway, I did. I went to see Travis. Travis wasn't there at the shot. I drove straight from Humpy's office to see Travis. Where was Travis's shot?

In Denver, on Highway 150. And Travis wasn't there, but Johnny Hayes was there. And I never met Johnny Hayes. Johnny was hired to be the team manager. And I talked to Johnny, and I said, he said, I know Travis, you know, would love to see or whatever. He said, he'll be here tomorrow, come back tomorrow. So I drove back the next day and talked to Travis. And Travis said, well, we're getting ready to, we're getting ready to add a second car.

We're going to run Harry Gant some. But this time, Stan Barrett is the rocket man, his driver. And he said, and I'll need some more people then. He said, we're a couple of weeks away from that. But I'll, but I'll, you know, if you want it, I'll give you a job. I said, absolutely. So I went to work for Travis. And I end up, you know, starting to work for Travis

and end up meeting the people from U.S. Tobacco, who are, I told them, they're the most benevolent people that have ever lived, honestly. You talk about the people that you meet in your path. Well, these are the people, this was my, I had so much help getting to this point, but this ultimately will be the break of a lifetime. Because they just took a liking to me.

I love them, you know, Lou and Jenny Bannel. Lou was the chairman of the board of Euse Tobacco, just one. wonderful people. Jenny, his wife, was just sweet as she can be. I think it was more Jenny, went to Johnny Hayes and said, hey, this boy, how can we help him? Johnny said, well, you can, you know, help him sponsor him a little bit. So she said, well, let's sponsor him. Lewis, let's sponsor him. So they sponsored me. I don't even remember what it was for for the May race at Charlotte. Yeah. So I hadn't been racing because I hadn't had

been able to afford to, and I was working full-time for Travis. So, so Travis, you know, had a couple guys helped me get my car ready. I remember Kenny Thompson, helped me, Larry Penn, helped me get my car ready to go to Charlotte. And this is back when, you know, your dad raced, Harry, I mean, all the cup guys raced in the late-mile sportsman race, too. You know, it's not like it is today. All of them raised them. And we go to Charlotte and qualify fifth against a stacked field. Yeah. What was ironic is Benny happened to be doing the TV for that race. I don't remember what network it was. Obviously, he's still dead in the middle of his career,

but he would do one off TV broadcast. So I didn't run all that well, qualified great, but probably running somewhere, I don't know, 10th to 15th and got into the wall or whatever, cut a tire down. I think I got cut a tire down, got in the wall. And Benny on TV says, hey, there's my brother Phil. He hadn't run a lick all day, and now he's hit the wall. That's what he said.

That's what he said. Yeah. I said, please don't help me anymore. Don't talk about me on TV. Ever again would you do it. But anyway, that's how the relationship. relationship with U.S. tobacco started. And again, it didn't race, but maybe two or three more times the rest of the year.

Went to Charlotte race. But by this time, there's talk they're going to create the Bush Series, 1982. And Johnny Hayes talked Mr. Bannel into starting a Bush team for me to run the Bush series the next year. Yeah. And so we end up, we're going to run Charlotte in October with this new Bush team, what we're going to have. So we bought the Speedway Pontiac Venturi from Leo and Richard Jackson. Okay. That Dave Marcus had driven.

You know, Dave won races, and it was great race car. So that's how we started doing that. That's how that deal started was we ran Charlotte in October. And then at the end of the year, then I quit working for Travis to work full-time on the bush car. But we didn't have every word of work on it. Yeah. So we worked on it out of Harry Gantz garage behind his house. That's where we worked out in all of 1982.

Yeah. At Harry's house. behind his garage. Would you go, you know, so you'd go over to Harry's house every day? And night. And night. Yeah. And you got to hang out with Harry again.

Really? Yeah. What was that like? It was cool. I mean, Harry's such a good guy. Yeah, of course. You talk about, you know, you didn't have the camaraderie back in the day like they do now. It was the same way then.

But, and I end up driving for U.S. tobacco for nine years. And Harry was there that whole time, too. So we got to be really close. I mean, of all the guy, obviously with many, but of all the guys in racing, I mean, I think it was, I got probably closer to Harry. And also Brett Bodine, when I talk about bringing my late model sportsman car to the racetrack with nothing to work on, Brett kind of helped me out because Brett had a legitimate modified organization.

And we'd run combination races with the modifies. And Brett felt sorry for me and would help me and whatever. So Brett and I got to be really close. But we didn't have that with everybody like, you know, like they do now. I mean, I mean, my son, Stefan hangs out. with half the people he races with. Right. You know what I mean?

It's just crazy because I just wanted to beat their brains out. I didn't want to hang out with them. I didn't want to do anything with him. But Johnny Hayes technically owned the car or did on the team. And we hired Gary. So it was Gary and I working on the car. But when we got to Daytona, we had got a guy to change tires for us that we knew was a good tire changer. And so he had another job.

He was working full-time delivering batteries. But it was Andy Petrie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he tells us about, he tells us in his story about teaming up with you guys. And I thought that was interesting that y'all had crossed paths. And did he also say that he actually didn't have that much experience changing tires?

Like I think he kind of. He said, you know, y'all said, y'all needed a tire changer. And he goes, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, I'd do that. Well, he might not have had much experience, but he was wicked fast. It was good. It was really good. Yeah, really good tire changer.

You know, that car to me, that's when I first saw you race was when you ran, the Skoll number 28 Xfinity car. Really cool race car, amazing paint scheme. One of my favorite next to the gray goes, it's probably my second and third favorite paint scheme in NASCAR history.

You wrote the same one you barrel roll at Talladeo, you had a Monte Carlo at Daytona with that paint scheme on it. Timmy Hill ran a throwback a couple years ago. Yeah, sure did. Just a really neat. Timmy Phil Hill. We called him. So, you know, I have to imagine that, you know, at that point in your life, going to the racetrack with a competitive car, a purpose team, you know, that you've got a foundation built underneath you.

You're still not at the couple level just yet. You will be there very quickly. But it seems like you're now, you've got to feel pretty good about your position and where you're going. And plus being able to sponge off of Harry again every single day. Oh, yeah. And that makes sense to your ascension being so quick, I suppose. Well, it was fun. We ran, you know, we started that Bush series. We go to Dayton, we have a top 10 finish.

Your dad wins the race. Then we go to Richmond as a second race. We have a decent finish. And then we go to Bristol, right? We're riding along there, and towards the end of the race, I'm racing David Pearson for the lead. And I don't know, 10, 15 laps to go. David slips up a little bit, and I got by him.

And before you know it, the races, and I win the third Bush race ever at Bristol. Over David Pearson. Over David Pearson. Yeah, who obviously is a huge, you know, hero of mine. Yeah. You know, so I mean, I'm in shock. I mean, where when I've won that first baby grand race, I mean, that was just my whole lot. But now I'm in shock.

I don't even know what to think, you know. So did David come say anything to you? No, no. Did anybody? Well, no. It was funny. It was supposed to be a day race, and it rained all day long, so we end up racing at night or whatever.

So I've got a picture in Victory Lane of me and my dad and Benny. You know, Benny obviously stayed around. What had Benz say? He was just really proud of me. Yeah. Really proud of me, yeah. Can you find those races on YouTube? Like, is there a copy of that race?

I've never seen not one piece of video for that race. Oh, that's so frustrating. Again, it was supposed to be during the day. I know that. Everybody left, you know. I know that frustration, because. because there's dad's first cup win at Bristol. There's just like five minutes of the car going around the track.

And I'm like, how is there not a race video of this race? And that's only three years later. And it's a late model sport. I mean, it's a bush race, not the cup race or whatever. But I've never seen a piece of it. Now, there could have been some local video, but I've never seen it of that race. I mean, there's just a few pictures because of Victor Link is David Alio, who was one of our longtime photographers forever, had some pictures and sent them to me.

Have you ever made a concerted effort to go try to find it, though? No, not really. Because I'm going to tell you something. We've got listeners here. Well, he has connections, you know, being in a deep business. He is, I know. You would think. That's true.

But don't you know, like in your old race club and all that stuff, don't you think somebody can go find that? It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. There's not, there wasn't a network broadcasting. I mean, it could have been somebody with a eight millimeter. That's what I'm talking. I know there wouldn't have broadcast.

Well, that's in somebody's closet in the middle of nowhere. We're talking 40 years ago, too. I get it. But 1982 still doesn't feel like, it feels like that's right on the edge of when these things would have started just kind of populating all over the place, right? So where are you with your confidence, ego? Ego is probably overflowing by this. Yeah, yeah. Probably not deservedly so, but probably overflowing, yeah. Are you, when you beat David, are you like, what is triggering like the real opportunity of, moving into a cup car and racing a cup car. Yeah. Haven't even broached that chunk at this point. Yeah, just trying to get it, you know, get it going or whatever.

Because at that time when the Bush Series first started, I mean, you know, we had a lot of races and we ran, you know, ran like we would run Hickory four times, not, you know, not two races like you would most places. Yeah. South Boston we ran four times. Whoever would take a race or whatever. We ran one time. We rained, we snowed out Rockingham.

So Rockingham probably was scheduled before that. Bristol race, but we snowed it out. So they rescheduled it for some time in June, I think. So we went to Rockingham on Friday, qualified, and then went to South Boston to race another Bush race on Saturday, and then back to Rockingham to race that race on Sunday. This time most people had, we had probably three cars at this point. So we went to Rockingham, qualified, went to South Boston, had a good race, finished third at South Boston, and then we went back in its raining race morning. So they take me and your dad and David Pearson around the racetrack and in the pace car to see if they think it's ready. I'm not saying anything because I'm riding around there

with your dad and David Pearson. I'm going to be quiet. It's smartest thing maybe I've ever done. David said, I don't think that track's ready. And your dad said, oh, it's good. We're good. So we start the race and I go and turn one and it's the wettest racetrack. But it turns sideways. But we end up, ironically, we end up. Pearson, that's the only Bush race he ever won, was that race at Rockingham. Your dad finished second and I finished third. The three guys they took around the racetrack finished one, two, three. My gosh.

You mentioned it over and over, and I remember that how consistent you were in that car. And so I have to imagine, like, you know, at some point you're thinking that you're going to get a phone call, some opportunity is going to materialize to put you in a cup car. And I wonder how, like, what was the first conversation that you ever had? I don't remember because it was really led by Johnny Hayes. Johnny would have been the one to do that. And most of the Bush regulars at that time really weren't that competitive on the speedways. And I'm talking about the Rockingham's and Darlington's and Charlottes and place like that with like your dad or Darrell or Harry, whoever would run those races.

But I always was pretty competitive on it. So I don't know if, you know, I felt like that probably contributed to the fact that maybe I got an opportunity to go, Cup racing. But anyway, Johnny said, hey, why don't we, why don't we, you know, see if I can talk to U.S. Tobacco into running you in five cup races in 1983. Really? Yeah. And then we'll run the full schedule for the Bush Series again, but run five races. And he did. I'm, lo and behold, he did. Whose car? Richard and Leo basically started a made a car. And that was that 66th, Alabama? Yeah. Well, Benny was driving for Harry Reneer. And Harry, they part ways middle of the year. Johnny said, okay, let's do something here.

U.S. tobacco was coming out with a new product, a chewing tobacco, which it was more oral tobacco, but they had a chewing tobacco called Weyman and Bruton that came out with. He said, let's have U.S. tobacco sponsor that car. He went to Mr. Bannon and said, why don't we put Wayman and Bruton on the car? We'll let Benny, you know, if he's going to finish his career, we're going to finish it this way. So what we did was at this time, you know, we were working on the stuff ourselves. Rich and Leo were always advised me. I would always call whenever I went to a racetrack,

I would call Richard. Whoever answered the phone at Precision Products, Richard O'Leo, and asked him what we should put in the car to go. And they would always tell me what's set up to use. So this is later in 82. Travis would get the car ready. By this time he's running Harry Gant full time, they would get the car ready,

and then we would get the car. My Bush team would get the car and go take it to the racetrack. Okay. But there were times when both of us would be racing the same time. So we would get, then we said, well, if we're going to get Richard to help on Benis's, why don't we get Leo, a Leo to help on Benny's car? Why don't we get Richard to help on my car? So Richard started going to the racetrack with us with the Bush car. So we go, we would go in our, my crew, we would go race the Bush race the day before.

And then my crew would actually pit Benny's car. And I would be part of the pit crew. I would carry tires on the cup car when Benny's. drove it. So I remember one time we ran, we had a race at South Boston on Saturday night, and then we flew to Dover, so then we flew after the race at South Boston up to, or Sunday morning, up to Dover to pit the car or whatever. And I remember falling asleep on pit wall, waiting for the, you know, all the races going on or whatever. But Benny, but every time we showed up with the car, Benny finished in the top five. First time we raced top five, top five, top five.

I think every, it finished eighth, maybe one race, whatever, but ran really, really well. and they decided U.S. Tobacco decided, well, why don't we, or Johnny talked U.S. tobacco into starting another cup team, kind of an offshoot of our Bush team, to run a limited schedule for Benny in 1980 and the five races for me in 1983. So we built a building over the winter in Denver and then hired people to, and that's what. when actually Andy got hired full time was to go into, he still delivered batteries all through 1982 and went to every race and helped on the race car.

Most of the time he didn't do a very good job delivering batteries. But that's how they all got hired. Scott Robinette, Andy and several other people got hired to start 1983 because we were going to have Benny run probably 15, 16 races, and then me run five races as well as my bushel. So Benny's got the 55 car, limited schedule. You're going to drive that 66 cup car plus your, plus your bush car

Yeah And where did you get your cup cars from Where did that Lamas come from? Daytona we ran as a Buick We had all Buick Harry had a Buick Benny had probably got Probably bought it from Travis

I'm thinking Benny's Buick was white Wasn't it that race? White number 55 yeah What was yours? What was yours? White and green with skull We had Skull Brother on my car

Okay But it didn't have that cool flame on it yet It had a primitive flame It had a primitive flame Not the cool one Yeah I'm just wondering because the Le Mans to me is a fascinating car because in 80 or one, Bobby used one for...

As a surprise. Yeah, Lanier, nobody knew. Nobody knew it. They show up and just dominate and they made them change the spoiler. But the car continued to show up periodically. Kale used it as a backup car when he flipped his hardy's car in Daytona. In 83 and wins the race with it. It was a show car.

They didn't really didn't carry back. backup cars back then. Gotcha. And Tim Richmond, you can see him in a few Le Mans, Panic Lamans when he was driving the old Milwaukee car. But I was just wondering if it was a brand new car, did you buy that car for somebody? I think probably got it from Travis. I don't think it was a brand new car.

Interesting. And so what happens at Talladega? Well, one of the most iconic crashes in the history of the sport. It is. And, I mean, it's in stroke race. Yeah. Remember when there's, you know, the culmination, there's sort of a crash developing was in the middle of race

and they use a lot of, they use some clips of him rolling flipping. The car is in Talladega still at the museum. Actually, that car... Where is it? It's the Hall of Fame here owns that car. Oh. Yeah. I don't think it's on display. Wasn't it? It was on display down there forever. For years, for years. And then they donated it

to the Alabama Deaf and Blind for an auction. Okay. And the fellow that bought it at that auction donated it to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Oh, no. And they had an exhibit one time. with like my car and Michael's car. Remember the one he wrecked at Bristol? So they had three or four how people survive these ranks or whatever.

But they still own the car. The Hall of Fame owns the car. Wherever those cars are. Yeah, they've got a warehouse where all this stuff's that. That's interesting. I didn't know it was, I didn't know there might have been a moment where I could have acquired it or I might have been trying to get in the middle there. But I had DW's car to flip down the back straightway.

Oh, do you really? So I went to the Hall of Fame and it was sitting in the parking, the loading dock. It was sitting there just over in the corner with a bunch of other stuff. And they were like, hey, you want this? And I was like, you're damn right. I want it. So I came and got it. And it just put it in the woods.

But I. That's how that happens. They just, it's sitting there and they say you want it. And so it's sitting, you're saying that car is now. It's in a warehouse that the Hall of Fame has got to be. They have a bunch of cars somewhere. Yeah. In a basement or something.

Ah, we got to go get it. Like the Indy Museum is the same way. They say, they say what's not on display at the Indy Museum. rivals what's on display at the end of museum. That's true. I've been in the basement at the end of the museum, and it's, it is exactly that. I mean, it's multiple times more cars than what they display, and there's some serious, serious history down there.

But anyhow, curious as to what you remember about that accident. What's funny is, you know, we ran Buick's. You were running good. We ran Buick at Daytona. They said, well, we saw how fast those Lamont's bodies were, and obviously on Kiel. So we actually bought the body off that car. Oh. They ran Chevrolet, so they couldn't run that Lamonts anymore.

They only ran it because they were in a bind. So we actually bought that very body off that car. Well, damn, all right. That's some cool history. Yeah, and Johnny Seiler and Claude Queen, you know, put that body on that same Buick. So they cut the body off a Kales car that he wins the Daytona 500 with, and it comes to you with probably some two by four framing, holding it together. And you literally set it down on a chassis. Yeah, yeah.

I think they pay $1,200. My gosh. Wow. And so that's the car we took to Talladega. And so you're running good? Yeah, running top 10, qualified top 10, running top 10. Yeah, we had a restart. And we'd already lap Daryl by this time.

Daryl was driving for junior. We'd already lap Daryl. And we were going in turn one, and I was probably running about seven, or somewhere in there. And I think Daryl had started on the inside. At that time, lap car started on the inside line. They lined up on the inside line, lead lap cars on the outside line,

unlike how we do it now. And by that time, we got to turn one, barrel had probably drifted back to me. And we were, we were close, and we end up getting together, and it turned me, turned me and him both sideways and went head on into the outside wall. My car was a little more of a direct head-on, hit his hit more of an angle, and he just rode down the wall. Yeah. Both very hard hit. Oh, really hard hit.

His in particular looked really hard. You were kind of obscured by a lot of smoke and so forth, so it was kind of tough to see exactly, exactly, you know, what was going on with you. Do you remember like when you lose control? Every second. That moment of, oh, damn. Oh, yeah. We're actually going pretty fast. Oh, yeah.

And I said, this is going to hurt. You know, you have time to think that. So we hit the outside wall and the thing sliding along sideways. And I feel the thing left up. And I said, well, no, this is really going to get bad. And the thing just, it just felt like it tumbled for 15 minutes, you know. I mean, it was, it was. And the flipping isn't bad.

You know, the flipping's not that big a deal. but it's the landing that hurts. And every time it lands, I mean, it lands hard. And it, you know, we didn't have near the safety apparatus that they do now. No head containment. The seats didn't really even hold you in. I didn't even have a left side on the seat. We had what we called a banjo seat that I know your dad raced forever and ever,

didn't even have a left side on the seat. And so every time the thing landed, I mean, it was excruciatingly painful. Because one of the, I end up breaking my shoulders. So one of those landings, I'm sure it slammed me into the, the door bars and it broke my shoulder. And then the thing finally came to rest upside down. And I never lost consciousness. I undid the belts, but it's not like I undid the belts and then fell in it. I mean, I was already laying on the ground because I think the roof was off the car too. Yeah, the road cage is crushed down right on top of you. So I crawl out the passenger side.

And when I get outside the car, then a photographer grabbed me and pulled me away from the car. I remember all that. Now again, my shoulders broke while he's while he's doing that, but I'm certainly not going to blame him because if there was a little bit of a fire, it knocked the carburetor off the engine. So there was a little bit of a fire. Not a lot of fire, but a little bit of a fire. When you look at this car, I remember

when I would go to Talladega and look at it, man, it's just, you know, when we've got a couple cars in the graveyard, we've got Michael a Wittal slip from Texas. Kimmel's, when a Kimmel's throttle stuck at Toledo, somewhere and he goes out to track into the parking lot. Yeah, yeah. And Cat, he does.

and catapults in over a few things. But when you look at, you just think that when you're, you know, when you weld those cars together, that that center four point thing just, it's, there's no way that it can just deform. But when you see, in those type of crashes, you're amazed at how badly some of this stuff can get moved around. Yeah, it really crushed that, like you were talking to the A post in front of me. Way down.

But back, the main hoop where I was, was intact. Yeah. So I never, never had any. issue with it whatsoever other than the break if it hadn't broken my shoulder you know other than been been bruised up or whatever i mean i would have raced the next week okay yeah benny would have been in that race right oh yeah where was he running it's really funny because Kyle Kyle got in the wreck too right okay so we're riding to the ambulance we're riding we're riding to the hospital in the same ambulance yeah Kyle and I are right and I'm in a lot of pain by this time with my shoulder or whatever

plus every other part of my body was hurting and so we're listening to the radio and the ambulance. And as it turns out, it comes down to the end of the race, and it's Benny and Richard racing for the win. And they're talking about Petty and Parsons or whatever. Richard won the race, Benny Finney finished second. I said, I've got Petty and Parsons right here. How can that be Petty and Parsons racing for the win? That's funny. Yeah. What is the deal with the shoulder? What do you got to go through? I was about six weeks. Really? Yeah, physical therapy and whatever before they would clear me. Yeah, you're Bush racing and all that's on the hole. Yeah. Yeah. So was there any moment when you thought, man, I might lose my opportunity

or even losing some of the momentum I've created? We have probably momentum, but not opportunity because, I mean, the people by this time were like family. I mean, Johnny Hayes was like a big brother to me. And again, the people from U.S. tobacco, they were just concerned about my health and me getting back healthier or whatever. That's all that was ever talked about. When you see that clip of that crash, what do you think these days? I wish I would have had a seat and a Hans device like we do nowadays in the head containment system.

And again, I'd have walked away. Stefan is here in the room. Why don't you go get the car, Stefan? Yeah, you should go over there. I'll go with you. We'll go try to figure out how to get a hold of it. I loved it because we would go. I'd go every now and then I'd go look at it in the museum at Talladega.

And there was a big sign to do not touch sharp edges. It's been a lot of sharp edges. It's like all twisted and mangled. You get your shoulder back, and when you get back to race and everything, what's going on? I think Orange County might have been my first race after that and had a good run or whatever. You know, didn't seem to. Shoulder healed good? Shoulder healed good, yeah.

And then what about the cup races? We probably ran Charlotte. Probably the next time we ran and didn't, let me think. It might even have been, I think it was Charlotte. We went to Charlotte or whatever, or maybe Michigan. We ran five races that year or whatever. And we never, Charlotte, maybe we finished top 15 or something like that. And we didn't really have great runs that year.

What was the difference for you driving the sportsman stuff or the Bush car versus the cup car back then? What was the, what was the, what was like when you got in a cup car? Like today they'll say, you know, it's just a whole other ball game and it's tougher and you're going to find. find out of the thicker field. Yeah. So when you went to cup cars and started racing cup races,

what was your, what was the realization? I think it was all of that. I mean, I think it was the same way back then. Obviously, you know, we certainly in the bushes had a steady diet of all the stars. I mean, all the stars would run, you know, more so than we get now. So you got to, you raced against them all. But that was, you know, there was heavier car, more horsepower. Would you get, when you saw Richard Petty for the first time in a car on the racetrack,

was that did you have a moment? Well, ironically, back when I first started running Let Model Sportsman in 1980, Kyle had had, they bought a car for Kyle. It was a grand am like mine. Well, they had, you know, Richard come over to do and basically to race at Carraway. And Russell Hackett, who was the promoter,

paid Richard to come over and had a, you know, overflow crowd, obviously, whatever. So I have a picture today of me and Richard racing together. Yeah. And that right? at Ashboro, 1980. We got to get there. Yeah, it was really cool.

So it was a thrill. And I think, and David Pearson would come race too. I mean, all those guys would come on occasion. And at that time, he was running that four car for Richard and Leo. Yeah. I just remember when, that's right. So I just remember when I would go, like I went to St. Louis to run in 97, one of my first Xfinity races. And I pulled out on pit road and they're getting ready to, you know, green light come on.

We'll go on the racetrack practice. And Terry Lebonny's in a car, like, I'm looking up there. I'm like, holy sire the body. Yeah. Thirl of the body. Yeah. You know, so I'm wondering if you had any of those kind of moments. Like racing your brother for the first time.

Oh, yeah. Do you remember when you raced him for the first time? Yeah, it would have been, it would have been the Daytona 500, 1983. Did you see him on the track? Because, I mean, there's times you'll race people and never see him all day. Oh, yeah, yeah. You went, you, did you think like? There is.

Yeah, I can't believe this. I mean, since I was five years old. and finally getting the opportunity to race against them. And again, when Benny started running the Cup series in 1970, I came to a lot of races. I'd spend the summer with them. So I was in the garage, you know, for years and years and years. So I knew a lot of the, they knew me because I was Benny's little brother or whatever.

So it was still surreal to race against David Pearson and Richard Petty. But I knew those guys or, you know, I mean, they knew me as Benny's little brother. Right. But I had known and been around those guys. It wasn't like it was my first time, you know, ever seeing them. You know what I mean. As you're starting to, you know, have success in the, in the Bush car, then run some cup races.

Did you notice your conversations start to change a little bit and you're no longer the little brother? Did you notice some respect and some people starting to, you know, ask you about, you know, or help? What I thought. What you thought, yeah. It's going to be asking them what they think. Yeah, a little bit of that, especially the fact that we always seem to run well

on the bigger race. I mean, and I'm talking about bigger from Dover on up. Yeah. I mean, my, this was versus the short tracks, but we all were always competitive. And then, so I, you know, then people would start coming to me and asking me for advice, even though I was still relatively new at it. Yeah. I haven't really hadn't been racing that long. No. You know, and when I, and I tell people all the time, I mean, you, you, you take your shot when you, when you get it or whatever. I may not have been ready to go cup racing when I did, you know. Chances are I probably, I probably needed more experience. but when the opportunity's there and you never know if you're going to get it again.

What'd you do in 84? That was our rookie year in 84. Full season? Yeah. Driving whose car? Well, basically full season. Almost full. About 20 races.

We were doing basically the same thing. Benny was going to run another limited schedule. We were going to ramp up my schedule to run more races in a half-hearted effort at rookie the year because we were racing against Rusty at the time, who was at Cliff Stewart's then. And he was going to race full time. And then they took your best 14 or 15 finishes or whatever. So we knew we were at a little bit of a disadvantage. But we ran probably about 20 races that year in 84.

And, you know, I had my first, I think I had three top tens or whatever. And my first top 10s. Same deal. What number is it? It was 66. Still? And this was when we had legitimate flames on it. Yes.

Yeah. That's a good looking race. Yes. Yes. Didn't Benny win that year? Yes. he won Atlanta.

When that his last win? Yeah, his last point win. He won that invitational race before the All-Star race in 86 at Atlanta also, you know,

the only year till recently that they had run the All-Star race somewhere else. The reason I ask, I mean, this is an interesting time because this is when you and Benny are able to not only race each other, but also race

with each other. As teammates. But you said something earlier that said, you know, hey, if Benny's career is going to wind down, let's do it right, let's do it, you know, your way. So my curiosity here is about Benny, he wins a race, but had you guys had conversated

like, what was Benny like as he's now on the downslope of what is a stellar career, championship career, you're racing with him, you're his brother, and you're having success now, but then he goes and wins a race. Was that win, did that come out of nowhere? Did it, was it somewhat expected, and what did that do for him? Yeah, I don't know that it was expected, but he, you know, when we started that deal in the end of 82, he's finished the top five almost every race or whatever. So he's still got it. Yeah, I mean, he's still got it.

And then 83 did the same thing, ran a limited schedule. I ran five, he ran 16 or whatever, but had chances to win, sat on polls. So he hadn't lost a thing. He hadn't lost anything. He hadn't lost anything. Okay, yeah. And then carried on in 84, again, really competitive most all the time because Richard, you know, Richard and Leo built the engines. and Leo was one of the best engine builders out there.

I mean, always had good power, had great speedway stuff. Same thing with Richard. And so Benny was always competitive. So it was not a surprise for him to win that race at Atlanta. So, okay, so he's going to race a few more years on limited schedules, right? Yes. So I guess my curiosity here is, was the end in sight, or was he already sort of like preparing for life after racing at that point?

Was that conversations that you guys would have, or was it just unspoken? I think he probably was. I mean, it was looking like that may be, you know, headed towards the end of his career. And, you know, he, at this time, he had a lot of interest in TV, you know, and he'd been doing a lot of, a lot more one-off TV shows and stuff like that,

but probably figured that he wasn't going to be, you know, full-time again because I was coming up, you know, there wasn't necessarily room for us both to be full-time or whatever because neither one of us were. we had the budget for both of us to run part-time. But again, he was competitive right till the very end. And we basically what, and we raced similar kind of deal in 84, 85, 86, raced both of us limited schedules out of the same shop.

Well, then Tim Richmond gets sick. I know we're skipping a few years, but Tim Richmond gets sick at the end of 1986. and what we were going to do for 1987 is that we were going to share the car, we were going to run every race. He was going to run half the races. I was going to run half the races. Then some of the bigger races, we would run two races. Instead of having two cars running full limited schedule,

because by this time there was more money involved in running all the races, planned money and stuff like that, it became more lucrative to do full-time versus part-time. That's when the Wood brothers eventually started going full-time after forever being part-time and stuff like that. So that was our plan for 1987. And then when Tim Richmond got sick, Rick Hendrick called Benny and said, would you want to fill in for Tim Richmond? So Benny did that. And that's what opened up the situation of me to go full-time,

essentially for the first time, was Benny went to Hendrick Motorsports to drive the car that Tim Richmond was going to drive. I don't think he had a promise that it was going to be full-time, but he was going to run that car until Tim, at least until Tim was able to come back, come back. That's interesting, but that's what opened the door for your full time. Yes. And then you win your cup race the next year, right?

In 88. 88, yeah. So I got to ask you, though, drop back to 85. Some rate, you're driving a full season, but you're driving some for Roger Hamby. What was that experience like driving for Roger Hamby? A lot of drivers drove for him, Sterling Marlin. Lake. Lake speed.

He was a, he was going to have a car that was going to run, you know, 15th on a great day, but 20th to 35th every week. But you wanted to run the full schedule, I'm assuming you had the opportunity to do it. But what was he like? He's the name that maybe a lot of people today don't know, but he was very prominent in a lot of careers and had a driving career of his own back in the 70s and 80s. Yeah, I mean, I raced against him back in the baby grand days too,

but Roger was a good guy. He was a businessman from North York Sparrow. He loved racing. You know, he advanced up. out of the baby had his own baby grand car and then decided to do a cup deal and as you mentioned had some really good drivers well we worked a deal i mean we felt like and when when we ran a limited schedule and 84 and you know i didn't go to all the racetracks we felt like i needed to go to a lot of the to all the racetracks to get experience and that was an opportunity that they they worked up with

roger and it really was in today's terms really inexpensive i think essentially we we paid for the tires and gave him just a little, maybe five or six or seven thousand dollars a race and to run those races. And then he had somebody else run the other races. He didn't have different drivers. Different drivers, yeah. So I remember even back then as a kid, watching when you would drive his car, it was a notable difference in performance.

Yeah. But was your approach to that? We'd just try to run all the laps and get all the experience and run as good as we could. I mean, we, you know, we never lacked effort. It just didn't, you know, it didn't. We didn't have the same engines that Richard and Leah would have or whatever. And I mean, Roger was doing all he could do. And, but, but I, I, I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed my time with Roger a lot and, and, and, and felt like I learned a lot. Yeah. One of the, one of my favorite moments of, of you, of that part of your career is at Bristol, Bobby Allison's racing. Your car broke and you're, you're on, you're in the pits. And Bobby's out there on the racetrack and had an issue with a steering wheel or something. The steering wheel broke. broke how?

The center broke out of it or whatever. So I mean, I fall on to the race or whatever, and I'm standing on pit road. We couldn't get out. We couldn't get on street closed. And Bobby hits the wall and rolls down and stops right in front of me. And I look over like he points it and the steering wheel's gone. There's no steering wheel. So my car's back, you know, 50 feet behind me or whatever.

So I run back to get the steering wheel off on my car. Well, I didn't undo the mic button. My favorite moment. Yeah, so I grab the steering wheel and I'm running and the mic and the mic court stops me in my tracks. It's almost like my feet keep going and I'm just. He looked like a dog in the end of the lease. Yeah, totally. So that I go back and undo the mic button or undo the mic button and take it and then Bobby puts it on the car and then finishes the rate.

Yeah. So what did he say when you get to the window? Nothing. Nothing. He just pointed at the steering wheel. Yeah. Yeah. Pointed to steering wheel.

Yeah. Or the lack of a steering wheel. That's pretty funny. So I reach in and help them, you know, get it, you know, had a quick disconnect. You were like the urgency and energy in your body movements during that whole process. Yeah, yeah. It's fun to watch. I've watched that race over and over because I got its massive collection of races. Oh, do you?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so, but I love watching some of that stuff. I mean, it literally stopped me in my tracks. It did. And I was at a full sprint. And however fast I could go in three or four feet, that's how fast I was going. which if I had a mile to get up to speed I wouldn't go very fast but I surprised it hung on I thought it would have just ripped it right out yeah it didn't it didn't so um you talked about your brother's decision to to go over to ricks what did he ever share with you how that experience went for him how he felt about that experience the uncertainty of tim what we knew and didn't know about his

health. And then Tim comes back and he ended up at time sharing the racetrack with Tim. And, you know, did he talk to you much about going through that process? A little bit. Again, I don't think there wasn't a guarantee of running full time, but he knew obviously how good that car was. So he felt like that was a great career opportunity for him. Again, on the downside of his career, not that our cars couldn't win, you know, but he knew. Almost felt like that he ran better in the 55 cars. than he did in Tim's car. I mean, there were some good runs, I'm sure.

Yeah. Well, I think he finished second three times that year in the Hendrick car. Second of the Daytona won the qualifying race, second in the Daytona 500. Yeah. I just remember not a noticeable difference, I guess. Yeah, it wasn't night and day. No. It wasn't night and day.

So it says a lot of think about that 55 team and where they were. Yeah. And so you become the full-time driver in that car. Obviously, you enjoyed your time with Roger in the 17, but no more having to, you know, change your expectations week to week. Now you can maybe, are you thinking you can mold this team to, you know, you as a driver, you're having to share this car with your brother. I'm sure y'all had different styles and different likes, different caster camber settings

that y'all appreciate it because the old man, the front and rearst of your cars had crazy castor settings that different drivers preferred. But speaking of, I mean, what kind of race car driver, you know, what are the differences, I guess, between you and your brother in terms of how y'all liked your cars to feel and drive? or did you adapt to his cars knowing that hey this is my brother I'm a trust what you know I did everything Jimmy Johnson did yeah right yeah if it did Jimmy you know moved all the gauges to the right side of the car I'm gonna put him over I'm gonna figure out how to do it yes yeah yeah so so how did you how did you and your brother compare I think our setups are very similar and you know when I was first starting out you know back in the day now I mean no two of us could get in any same seat but back in the day you had banjo seats so I'd go to the racetrack and and like kids to practice or whatever my late model car and Benny get in and driver for me. I remember I went the first time I went to Dover, which was in the 82. I mean, I'm just riding along there, come off turn four and the thing gets out from under me

and I spin down the front stretch and, you know, get into the inside wall a little bit. So I didn't know what I was doing. Your dad got in the car and drove it for me. I said, please get in this car just to make sure that everything's okay. If it's okay, then I'll figure out how to do it, you know. And he got in it and probably made some changes or whatever. But basically it was just me that probably pinched it down coming off a, four and spun out and end up finishing, you know, finishing like six or seventh or something

in the race that week and put your dad got in the car and drove it for me. That's cool. Yeah. So we did that a lot. Harry Gant drove cars for me before, you know, just to say, hey, just make sure I'm feeling what I'm feeling or whatever. But I think Benny and I's setups were similar or whatever. But what was different, it wasn't like I jumped in his car for 87 because we still had,

Leo did half the races and Richard did half the races. Really? Yeah. Leo had his cars basically that he had from the year before and whatever we may have updated. And Richard had like my cars from the year before. So they basically shared. We had the same pick crew. A driver.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. But it was the same team, same operation. Same operation, yeah. But it was, there was, that's interesting for what would later come, I guess. And we did it, and we did it again in 1988. It was the same situation.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Was there any concern? for your brother and his new relationship with Tim Richmond, did y'all know what Tim was going through? We didn't. Obviously being really sick, we had no idea.

And at some point, and I don't remember when, you know, Rick said, hey, even when Tim comes back, you know, we'll run two cars for Benny. So Benny was guaranteed a full season. Benny went decaf. Went decaf green, yeah, number 35, yeah. I'm just curious if Benny had any kind of like inside, you know, knowledge or inside stories or scoop on Tim because that's a really fascinating.

You know, Tim's story is a fascinating story of how he tries to come back and he's, he'd show up after being out six months and win. Crazy, crazy. Back-to-back races and then disappear again. Remember him, the All-Star race was his first race back. I remember he finished in the top five-third or something like that there. But the first point race he goes to, he wins. Yeah.

And then the next point race he goes to. He won Pocono and Riverside. Back to back. Back to back. Yeah, back to back. And then he was sick again. Yeah. And so I wonder if I know that there was a, no one knew what was happening with him.

Yeah. Your brother is in close proximity of him. Maybe were you like, hey, man, what's going on? I probably, I'm sure I did. Yeah. But he never. He didn't know, probably no more than anyone else. He either didn't know or didn't, if he knew.

And I don't, even after Tim passed away, I don't, he never talked like he knew what was going on. Right. Never did. It was a fascinating scenario. It really is. But it's amazing that there's no doubt that Tim had gotten really sick. Oh, yeah. But when he came back, he looked good.

Yeah. You know, we looked good and obviously could still wheel the heck out of a car. So Petrie, is he still with you? Because I know he's part of the team when you guys win at Talladega. Yes. Well, he was basically Leo's crew chief. where Richard basically acted as his own crew chief. So have you been working with Andy this entire time from the moment y'all got together in 81, 82?

Yes. But essentially he was on Benny's car when we both ran limited schedules, although we had the same pit crew, so he would always come come pit the car or whatever. But he basically was on Benny's car. But we were together in a shop, because I worked on the cars back then too. I worked every day in the shop, and we were really competitive. We would race bicycles in the shop, you know, and timing with stopwatches. We played basketball and, you know, just knocked down, you know, full contact basketball

on the asphalt parking lot, you know, so. You know, y'all get the Oldsmobiles ready for 1989. 88. 88, okay. So at what point does it go to just, you know, one team? Like when does? At the end of 88. 88 was my career year in the Cup series, you know, by far.

You know, I'd gotten better every year, but 88 was when we were competitive. You know, we won Talladega, 3rd in the 500, finished second at Wilkesboro. So we had a good top ten in points. So I felt like we were really positioned for, to keep that thing rolling. Well, they came to me sometime in the fall and said, hey, Hal Needham is going to get out. he's going to sell the team. He's still involved? Yeah.

With Harry's team. Yeah. With Harry's team. Okay. And Hal's going to get out. He's going to sell the team. And we're going to start, we're going to, Leo is going to start a team up in Asheville. He's going to build a building up in Asheville.

He's going to start a team. Richard's going to be, this is going to be Richard's team here. And basically they said, you know, you can decide which one you want to drive for. Oh. So, but before I ever made that decision, And I was told that it was Harry that was going to go to ride for Leo and I was going to drive for Richard. So Harry made the decision. Yes, for me.

Or they did. Or they did. You know, whatever the case may be. What was your, which way were you leaning? I didn't even have time to think about it because I loved them both dearly. And we'd had good runs with both or whatever probably have chosen Leo because Andy was there for one thing. And again, we went back to beginning of 1982. together.

So that probably would have been my decision at the time. But, but hey, I was 100%, you know, on board with Richard and doing it out of Denver and whatever. Yeah. What does that, I mean, I know we've just glossed over, or we just skipped over your win with those guys, but like you're talking about a pretty big change in the dynamics of all this stuff. You've got two separate teams now.

I mean, that couldn't have just been an easy thing for everybody to rectify. I mean, you're losing teammates. to Asheville. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Was there some soreness in this? Well, I don't know.

I don't, not that I know of. Again, I was. From you though? No, no. Were you bitter over? Not then. Not then. Okay.

Not then. Yeah, but when it happened, I was not, I was not bitter about it. I thought I was going to get to make the decision. Y'all are coming off the best year of your life. So I was a little disappointed that we were going to break that apart. Yes. That's right. Yes.

You're coming off the best year of your life. And everything's jiving you with Talada. Really poised to go on. Poised, yeah, to carry that on. And then all of a sudden, what should have been a momentum swing, you know, for the good, all of a sudden it falls apart, right? Yeah. Well, it didn't know it was going to fall apart.

I'm sure in your mind when you're hearing about this plan that you're sort of trying to figure out a way to get yourself okay with it and be like, okay, we'll make this work. Yeah. And this is going to work out, right? Yeah, totally going to work out. We're going to, we're going to, we'll make sure it's going to work out. That's right. Yeah. You know, you talked about running third at Daytona, so you knew you had a fast car when you went to Talladega.

Talk us through that race and I guess where you were emotionally or mentally as it's working down to the end. So there's a moment in a driver's, and for people listening, there's a moment in a race. We all start the race thinking, well, I'd like to win this one. I don't know how it's going to work out. And but then there's a moment somewhere where you, where there's a thing that has a thing that happens and you're like if I don't win this one it's my fault this thing is a we're this is all laid out in front of me got the car that things are working the way they're supposed to work I had that moment in practice really so I said if I don't if I this is this is my chance if I don't win this race something

the car was doing more or we get convulsed in the rack or what no I mean in practice the car's doing oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah I mean I I you know I I could pass anybody at will I mean I I mean it was it was drove great. I mean, I just knew that we, I knew, we qualified third, but I practiced, you know, we practiced so much more back then than we do now. I practiced around the people that I, I think Davey might have got the pole or whatever, and we know how strong Robert Yates' cars had been forever, but I could, I could run with them. You know, I didn't feel like there was anybody that had any better car, and most of them

I didn't think had as good a car as I did. And how'd the race go for you? It went great. We got out to the lead. fairly early. They had a relatively early caution flag, and a lot of people pitted, but we stayed out, so then it goes green, right? So we're coming down to it. We're going to have to put under green, and the people that had pitted on that caution flag are not going to have to pit. So we put it on, and I didn't know this until years later, but we pitted under green. I don't know that we even

put tires on it. We may have put two tires on it, but I didn't realize that Leo made the call to put one can of fuel in it, so we didn't lose so much time. And that time, that was the first year of the restrictive plate, but we're still running 200 miles an hour, basically. So I came back on the racetrack, running by myself, but in front of the leaders. And by the time when the leaders caught me, Kenny Schrader was leading the race in Hendricks' car. And then he was trying to put me a lap down,

and he was underneath me and actually spun out trying to put me a lap down. So that put me, that gave me my lap back. You didn't have any free pass back then. No lucky dogs, no free pass, no wave-arounds, no nothing. If you were going to get a lap back, you had to earn it. You hadn't be in front of the leader. Sure. So when Kenny spun out, then that gave me my lap back, but obviously lost all the track

position. So came in. Fill her up, fill her up, tires, fuel, or whatever. And then just methodically worked my way back towards the front. Again, the car was so good. I mean, I'd just pass them by myself. You know, I mean, they'd be lined up in a draft. and it's not like it is today.

You didn't have the pack racing back then, but the draft was still critical, but I could do it on my own. Did you have any close calls with the, was there any, you know, big ones as we know them today? Yeah, I don't think so. From what I remember about that race, my impression of the race is,

is what late, you know, when you did get the lead back and toward the end that you were untouchable. Yeah, yeah. Well, Jeff B.9 was leading, and I, you know, caught him, and I said, well, let me just get in line with him. I mean, we actually drove, just he and I drove out to like a 10-second lead on the rest of the pack. And then I had my mind that I was going to try to, around 10 laps to go, I was going to try to make my move to pass him.

And then he started like weaving down the back stretch or whatever, trying to break the draft on me. So then I just, you know, I just drove in the corner up against the wall, create a little gap and had a little more momentum and drove past him. So then he's, then I'm leading. running with me and we're running around and then the caution comes out. You know, we're, again, we're at least 10 seconds ahead of the field and the caution comes out in the last 10 laps. I think Ricky Rudd blew up. So then that's going to, it brings everybody else back into it,

right? So we get a restart and not with not many laps to go. And it's, it's, it's me, Jeff, and Bobby Allison. And Bobby had one Daytona that year. So Bobby's going for a $100,000 bonus if he could win any two of the big four, like Bill did in 85. So Bobby's got that $100,000. and the potential for a million down the road. So we're running along there, and I think maybe coming down to the white, Bobby had gotten by Jeff. So I hadn't raced with Bobby much that race.

So Bobby, we went in turn one, and Bobby went way high. So I went way high. I didn't want him to get the momentum like I had to get by, so I went way high. But Bobby still had a run. I ended up having to block him and was able to hold him off when he got to the line.

Yeah. That's pretty awesome. It's funny how you remember the details, even all these years later. There are some things in life that you just, it's imprinted in your brain. Is that another moment when you get out of the car? I mean, it's Talladega, which is cool.

Yeah. But you get out of the car just like that baby Graham win, just like that Xfinity win or that Bush win at Bristol where you're, you know. Yeah. I got to say this one was the one was the one though. You know, I mean, again, from five years old, I, you know, I didn't just want to be a race car driver.

I wanted to be good. I wanted to be great, you know, and this is, you know, finally after all this time, that I'm here. This is, this is, this is, this is it for me. I mean, you know, Indy Cars wasn't, I didn't want to write to Indianapolis 500. This is where I wanted to be. And to finally get in Victory Lane there, I can't even, I can't even describe the feeling.

You know, it's, it's, it's the best feeling you've ever had. Where's that trophy? It's at home. Yeah. It's at home. Yeah. It's in like a bookshelf or whatever. Visible, though.

Yeah. Yeah. Not stashed away. No, it's small. It's relatively small. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But I'm certainly proud of it. I didn't get that many trophies in my career because I didn't race that much locally. I mean, I didn't win like hundreds of races like like Jack. You know, people like Tommy Houston, people like that would have done. Sam. They were giving their trophies away. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

So I didn't have that many trophies. I didn't get that many wins. So they're all pretty special. Yeah. You talked about the experience in the four car where they cut you loose. Also, around that time, you had some eye surgery with cataracts. and I have to wonder if that that created unnecessary rumors about your, you know, you physically, right? Yes.

Some limitations. There were definitely rumors out there that there was something wrong with my eyes. And that was right about that time, right? Right at that time. The worst time. I mean, because you just come off the 89 year, you said it was the worst. Yep. And then you had the three races with Morgan McClure that didn't end well.

Yep. So what had happened with it? I had a, in 89, I had a. I still had 2015 vision with both eyes, but I had a cataract in my left eye. So I had it surgically repaired at the end of 89 and then started the 90 season or whatever. So there was a little question and maybe in Larry McClure's eyes there was a question of whether I could see. I got wrecked at Daytona, not of my doing or whatever, but with a really good car. So there was definitely perception that that there was something wrong with my eyes and it and I went so I went to

Humpy I said Humpy there's there's there's there's talk out there there's something wrong with my eyes he said well he said we'll figure we'll figure this out I'm going to send you to the best eye specialist that I know or that we can find and if you come back and there's something wrong with your eyes then you then you know and do something different but so so I went to the eye doctor and came back to absolutely nothing wrong with your eyes so so typically like if you want to keep a medical issue private, especially in those days with no social media and whatnot, you probably could have tried to keep that a little more of a private matter. Did you have regrets afterwards or going, damn, I should have.

I didn't think that was going to be a big deal. Yeah, and I didn't really, I mean, you're right, I didn't really think of that. I mean, I know we ended the season at Atlanta and tested the next day in Atlanta, and then I had the eye surgery the very next day after we tested Atlanta. I had a great test in Atlanta with the four car, you know, after the Atlanta race. Did you tell them you were going to do this? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And that, do you think that you probably should have not sold off?

I really hadn't thought about it other than the fact that probably wouldn't have been available to test probably in December, you know. I mean, so because this was probably the end of November or whatever. How long did it take you to get over that? I don't. It's just a few weeks. Yeah, it wasn't bad. And nowadays it should be hardly any time down. But back on the day, they actually stitched your eye up and whatever.

And then you had to go back and have the stitches taken out. When you guys say the rumors sort of were detrimental to your career at that point, are you saying is that what, did that rumor essentially end the Morgan McClure relationship or did it cause detriment moving forward on getting another job? I don't know that it caused the end of the Morgan McClure thing. I don't know that. But three races in isn't a whole lot of a sample size. But I definitely, I know for a fact that there was a team that was looking for a driver.

And my name came up and a PR person said, hey, you don't want to, you don't want to mess with him. He has eye issues. That's where we're getting out. Do you know what team or you want to? I don't want it. Yeah. So how did you learn that you were getting let go of the four car? They called me after the third race and said we're thinking about making a change.

Who? Tony Glover. Okay. Yeah. And that, we're thinking about any of the change and... So I drove up there. I mean,

we're to Avondon, which is, you know, you drove to the shop. Two and a half hours. Yeah. Yeah. Two and a half hours.

And they came out of there and said, now we think we're going to make a change. So I basically went home without a, without a ride. Golly. Oh, man. How hard was that ride home? Hardest in my life.

Yeah. Harts of my life. Yeah. I mean, I never, other than not having a good year in 89. That was your first bit, that was first rejection of your,

Rejection of your life. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah, as far as racing goes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. And it was right around Marsh's birthday, and I'd planned to have a birthday party.

So, I mean, I came, I drove home and had, you know, had friends over, whatever for her birthday. And, you know. Golly. So when you said that Humpey sent you to the best eye doctor and you're trying to sort of reset the record here exactly what the facts are here, you come back past the I exam. What then? Like, did you, did Humpey? I mean, like, I could see Humpy going around going, see everybody,

2015, you know, he's not, you know, because he's a showman and everything. But like at some point was that, I mean, at some point you're going to go, I've got no option, so I've got to start my own team. But that didn't really help the eye exam. And I didn't publicize it. I didn't call Tom Higgins and say, hey, you know, you know, put this in the Charlotte Observer or whatever that I took an eye test, but... Just because it's not you.

Yeah. You're not going to go to that. I didn't think of that. And I'm sure if anyone asked Humpey, he would have told them. And if anybody asked me, what about your eyes? I said, yeah, well, I had an eye test by a specialist. And he said there's nothing wrong, which is, you know, I could have told you that or whatever. But, and I, and I chase, and that's the hardest thing ever.

It's, I went around to a lot of the racetracks without driving or whatever, trying to be there. That felt like I needed to be there or whatever, which is so hard. Miserable. Miserable. Totally. If you're not there with something to do, it's so miserable. And basically, again, I had an opportunity with Gary Bechtel. The reason Gary got involved in racing, he lived across the street from Felix.

And Felix, they did this. Yeah, he said, why don't you do this? So basically, we got a car from Sabcoe and Bobby Hillens, Bobby Hillens' Bush team, basically prepared that car to race, and we raced a few times that year. and then Gary, you know, decided to go racing big time the following year. You got somebody else to drive or whatever. But, again, we remained friends, and he sponsored me back when I started my own Bush team a couple times. But, yeah, so that essentially pretty much.

Although, again, in 1993, I had an opportunity with Larry Hedrick and ran almost all the races with Larry Hedrick in 93, and that was essentially my last time. We're running out of time, so I'm going to have to fast try a little bit. but I wanted to talk to you about racing against Jen and Xfinity series. So, you know, you have this great career and then you decide to start your own race team and you're racing in the Xfinity series for a handful of years before I get there. I was telling Mike before you came in here, you know, as racing against you and Bobby Hillen and Mark Martin's some. And so it was a real, you being a regular was one of my favorite things about the series.

I'd watched you race in the 80s as a little boy. So just to know that I was competing against you every single week, and if dad walked over to you and said, well, what's he doing? You know, you were going to be one of the guys that, you know, was going to get that question. You were competitive. It appeared. I do not know.

I never dove into it or came to visit. But it appeared to be like a family-owned run, you know, moderate operation that was kind of like what we have here where we have a budget and we're running that budget, right? We're not going over. We're no risks. It's all, it's got to work, right? You got to know exactly what you're willing to spend each race and nothing more.

And y'all had a pretty good system going there for a while. Yeah, I think the biggest key to that is I had Gene Need, who's one of the smartest people that I've ever known. He's like a brother to me. I mean, I literally talked him four times a week. He could do so much with so little. You know, we didn't have a huge budget, but I told him if you think we need it, you get it and we'll and we'll figure out how to pay for it but i think what we were really lacking

in in that time we we raced together for four years was we never had had the very best pick crew and if i could go back retroactively i would spend a half a million dollars right now if i could go back and plug a good pick crew in you know for those races i think it would have made i think we'd have won several races over those years and we you know we got close we didn't win any but but that first year that you ran full-time when you won the championship, we finished second three times. And ran well, finished like sixth in points. And then we really fell off in 99. We missed the boat a little bit. Instead of going out and having somebody, we tried to do it ourselves, even though, and Gene was trying to do everything. And he was fully capable of doing it, but it was just too

much for one person. And I think we really got off aerodynamically in 99. But I think that like 96, 97, 98, they were some pretty good years and we had a lot of fun. I admire that process of, okay, you know, you worked so hard to climb up that ladder and get into that cup level. And I admire the person that can go back to, you know, their roots and go back down that ladder the same path. You did that and you had some good runs in the Xfinity series and you were wholly devoted to that.

Which also leads me to imagine that you still at that time of your life love driving race cars. When was the moment where you started to have to think and face the decision of stopping driving race cars? Yeah. Well, when we talk about the year we had in 88 and then we went to 89, when we split the team or whatever, it was a horrible year. As good as 88 was, 89 was that much worse. And so that's when I decided to leave that team and go somewhere else. And I went to the Kodak team. And we raced three races and they fired me basically.

Morgan Clure, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, whatever, fired me, didn't think I could get the job done. So that essentially ended my cup career. And I'm not blaming them for any of my cup career. I just didn't get the opportunities. I had a couple years later I raced with Larry Hedrick for most of the year. Hadrick for most of the year.

But that essentially ended my cup career. So I was faced with the fact, what do I do now? You know, and it was really Marcia's idea. My wife, Marcia's idea, she said, why don't we get a bush car? We'll race it when you can. So this would have been for the 1991 season. I bounced around in 90. That was when I drove from Morgan McClure.

Then I drove the first races when Gary Bechtel got into the sport, who's still a friend today. And then didn't really have anything going. And said, why don't we get a bush car, racing when you can, and we'll just go try to have some fun. So that's what I did. We raced five times in 1981 and then increased it in 91, increased it in 92 and finally got, you know,

we seemed like we were competitive every time we went. We end up winning Charlotte in our own car, you know, with a family team in 1994. And that just, they changed. They went from the V-6s to the V-8s in 1995. And I couldn't afford to make that transition then. So I went to drive for Bill Papki, kind of full circle. David, if it was a crew chief who gave me my, you know, my job when I got out of the college, basically.

David was a crew chief and he had me come over. Then we had a good year, but I said, I just want to do my own deal again. Yeah. And Gary Bechtel really helped me get a sponsor for 1996 with Channel Lock. He was very instrumental in me getting that sponsor. So then we started that team, basically, brought Gene on board who, again, he, you know, he was the key. I mean, I wish I would have listened to Gene Moore because he had a lot of ideas. He's very innovative, had a lot of ideas that were new to me and I was a little bit hesitant.

I guarantee if I had to listen to Gene more, I would do it today. I would listen to Gene anything you said today, but I think we would have been even better. So that's how I end up getting there. But I was perfect. I mean, I didn't feel like I stepped down or whatever because we were racing, man. That's all I ever wanted to do. So how did you, when do you face with the reality that it's kind of kind of end? Well, in 99, as I mentioned, we had a good year in 98.

99, we did not have a good year. Gene actually had left the team in the middle of the year and went to the Kerb-Aagaghanian team and built that team into a contender. And I just felt like maybe it was me, me trying to do too much, trying to own it, trying to operate it, trying to drive it. So maybe it's time for me to do something else. Tad, I had Altil for a sponsor, which was the best sponsor I'd ever had financially for the Bush series.

And really, Tad Gashector is the one that got the sponsor for me. They were an associate of his. He had, he had kingsford that he had for years. And he said, I don't think I'm equipped to run two cars right now. So he basically handed the sponsor off to me. He did the marketing or whatever. And I went to him. I said, Ted, I said, I don't, I'm not doing justice.

I'm not doing them justice. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm trying to do too much. The sports changing. Maybe I need to do something different. He said, well, why don't you, you know, I'm losing my driver. Why don't you come over here and drive for me for 2000? I said, well, I'll do that.

Let me do that. So I did that. And then, we didn't have a great year there either. I didn't, I didn't think that we necessarily had the right people to do it. But at this time, I'm whining. down anyway. ESPN's talking to me. They're really wanting me to maybe start doing TV full time or whatever. And I said, well, maybe it's a good time instead of trying to blow up Tad's team and say, hey, you need to bring in all new people or whatever. Maybe it's, maybe it's time

for me to start doing something different. So had you thought, when did you first think about TV? Was it your brother working on TV and stuff like that? Yeah, probably. But I never, I never said, hey, you know, when I get done, I want to do TV. I would, I had done some one-offs here and there, you know, over the years or whatever, but I obviously knew the people, because Benny had been at ESPN, I obviously knew the people well, and they said, hey, we've got the truck series, and we want, instead of having different announcers, we want to maybe try to dial in with one announcer,

and they were talking to me. So I said, well, maybe that's the thing. Maybe I should change directions, and maybe it's time. You did some one-off stuff really early. Yeah, I mean, I remember doing a race after I had crashed at Talladega, so back in the early 80s, I still had a sling on my, with my shoulder and then did a race at Dover, I remember. Yeah.

When you finally decided to quit, did you, like, was there ever a moment in the next couple of years where you thought, oh, I got to scratch that itch? Or, man, I'd love to run. Well, I didn't, I mean, I didn't really quit when I started doing TV. I didn't really want, I didn't even want it. I wanted to race some more. And I only got really one more chance. As I mentioned, Gene went to Kerbach-Gagian, and they had to run a second car due to a

sponsor commitment at Kentucky. And so in 2001, I went to Kentucky and drove one of, you know, Kiriaga Janie and Mike Kerb's cars. Yeah. It was really, it was funny. I wasn't a great qualifier, I didn't think. I mean, you came in and you always qualified good and really made me mad. I wasn't good.

I don't know where that kind. That was just such a fast race car. I couldn't even screw it up. But I, but I wasn't a very good qualifier. So I go to Kentucky and never been there before. It might have been the first race that we ever ran to Kentucky. And I hadn't been in a car in probably eight months or whatever. So first time out, I'm probably, you know, we had scoring monitors back then had two sides.

You know, you had like top 21 or two on the left, 22 on the right. And I may be, you know, midway up on the second right side. You know, then the next practice, I'm maybe at the bottom of the left side or whatever. And by the end of the dam, one of the fastest cars ended up qualifying fifth for that race. And it was really tight, kept loosened up, loosened up, finally got it. loose in and got into the fence, you know, get in the corner or whatever. But so that was essentially my last race that I got the race. But I didn't really want to quit then.

Yeah. But I just never had any more opportunities to get in the car. But then the TV career really kind of was taking up. Yeah, and I was doing TV full time. And I was going to continue to do that. I would love to have run, you know, a half a dozen Xfinity races or Bush races still back then. But it just, the opportunities just never, never came up.

What year did we lose, Benny? 2007. 2007. Yeah. I don't remember how the events sort of transpired with him. Like, was it well known that he had been diagnosed with cancer? Yes, yes. So was it for like several years?

No, just several months. Several months. Yeah. He was diagnosed in 2006. I don't remember what month or whatever. And he continued to do TV when he could. He obviously went through chemo and radiation. And he continued to do TV when he could and did most of the year through that year.

You know, I was just, I always, it seems like there's opportunities these days more and more to think about Benny. And when I think about him, I wish I as a race fan would have appreciated how great he was when we got to hear him. Because now you hear the voice and it's like, man, we've been without that voice. And wow, you know, I can sit there and go, yeah, my fandom of the sport changes without Benny's voice. Yeah, yeah. Like that's how profound it was. and it just makes me mad that I didn't get to, I didn't really appreciate it when you had him, right?

Yeah. Now, what is Benny's legacy? Like, especially now when people talk about Benny Parsons and you've got a generation of race fans that didn't get to watch him race and maybe now we're a generation of fans that didn't even get to hear him on every Sunday afternoon. Like, what is Benny's legacy? I think now that people nowadays just go back and look at it more so as driving career

than his broadcast career. the people that are younger now that didn't get to get a chance to listen to him but he i mean he was i think equally as important to our sport what what he did after he got done driving than then what he did and he had a great career i mean Daytona 500 cup champion went over 20 races two-time market champion uh i rock you know finished second i rock series one year won a race at detona and iroch and but but i think he reached more fans and especially you know with the the viewership blew up when when we the new TV era started you know Benny was at NBC so so many so many more eyeballs and ears got to listen and hear Benny back when he was

doing TV when when the new TV situation started so he was a I don't know I mean it's just you caught him the Madden like that's that that unmistakable voice and now man when you get those clips or when you get those throwback moments and you hear Benny on it it just you know there was a couple races I think he was in the you know, in the booth, there's a couple of Dell's wins. And, man, now it's like as much as Dale Jr. winning the race, Benny's voice in it is as equally important to the moment, right? Yeah, I love those clips on social media when they go back.

And Benny's, Benny and Ned and Bob Jenkins are doing a race or whatever. It just warms my heart. What a crew right there. What a booth. A strong booth, man. For sure. I, you know, I admire you and how you compliment. the Parsons legacy.

I will say that, you know, we all, you know, we all think what we think of Benny, and there are so many roots you could have taken being, you know, in his shadow at times. But I think the way you've complimented that legacy of his, I feel a bit of a similarity in trying to do that with the Earnhardt legacy. You know, when you, you're sort of trying to protect something that other people have added to, right? And I think you've done an amazing job with that. And I know you've got to be pretty excited with Stefan and his opportunities to race and how he's, you know, he's pretty much having to go through the same exact process that you are,

patchwork, grinding, hustling, work, work, work. And getting to know him, it's certainly helping him. have a defined appreciation for every little opportunity he gets. How are you handling that as a father? Because, you know, not only are you wanting him to be succeeding on the racetrack, but it's your son, right? It's your blood, and that has to be quite an emotional roller coaster to ride every week. Yeah, it is.

And I'm sure it was no different from your dad, too, for your dad. But I just, you know, I just, if when people, you know, people, you talk about Mike, you talk about everybody to love Benny. I mean, I don't think you could ever find anyone to say a negative thing about Benny. Now, well, they may say, there may be people that don't like me or maybe people that don't like you. But when people say, you know, boy, your son, you know, you know, looks like he has some talent. So, well, hopefully he took after Uncle Benny, you know, because he, Uncle Benny had all the talent in the family. But I just, you know, I think Benny instilled, and gosh, my dad, too, is just to work hard at it, you know, and that's what we always did. We worked hard at it.

When we had that Bush team, we were talking about back in the late 90s, we worked hard at it. We worked every day. We worked seven days a week, you know, just trying to make it go. And he, you know, he wasn't old enough to see us do that back then. He wasn't even born yet till right at the end of my career. But he knows how hard I work at TV. I mean, I enjoy doing TV. I work hard, try to work hard at it.

We have a great crew that we work with, just like you guys do. And so that's the only thing that I just hope he works hard at it. And if he's got the talent, which I think he does, then hopefully he'll get an opportunity. He'll have that break of a lifetime like I did, you know. Yeah. Well, he's got a great father that can, you know, help him make sure he's choosing the right paths, making the right decisions and understanding, you know, the wrong moves and avoiding all the pitfalls. But, man, it's been interesting to sit here and talk to you,

but to think about your life geographically everywhere you were. Yeah. But, you know, racing through all of the levels, the ladder, to get to the top, you understand and had experience as an owner in the sport. You've a massive catalog as a broadcaster and trying to, you know, groom your son. Thanks for coming today to talk. to us. We're glad to call you a friend and an ally. I appreciate that. But I want to tell you, I appreciate you, too. I appreciate that your love of the sport and the fact that your love

of the history of this sport, and you're kind of a throwback yourselves. And I appreciate that. And I just, I brought something, and this is something. I went to a New Year's Sea party at your house. I don't know if you were there or not. You were a little kid then, but your dad gave me this gave me this knife. And I've had it ever since. So this knife is probably 35 years old. And I just wanted to bring it in and let you let you guys look at it yeah I want to take a look yeah I mean I don't know I don't know anything special I don't know anything about knives but it was special to me because your your dad gave it to me that's all that needs to make it special yeah it came from earnhardt yeah my dad gave he giving a knife for him was like a very uh and it was a sign of

friendship and appreciation and it's something we do uh it's something we do with our gloves program like where all the drivers that participate, I give them a knife because that's something that dad really thought was a cool way to say, hey, I appreciate you and thank you for this. Yeah, that meant that life meant a lot to me. Yeah. Well, he's a... Oh, Frost Cutlery.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just sitting here looking at this box. You guys know more about knives than I do. Well, Frost Cutlery, that's Jim Frost out of Chattanooga. And they had always said that Richard, Dale, and Jim Frost, I used to live in Chattanooga. Oh, really? Yeah, they were all big friends.

And this is the first time I've seen a Frost Cutlery knife that actually had come from murder. I mean, I'd imagine that was true, but that was, sorry, I had a moment where I just saw that. And I was like, wow, that was true all those years. People said that. Yeah. All right. Well, buddy, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks for giving us some time today. Yeah. I had all, I thought of all sorts of stories or whatever, but man, we could sit here. I know it. For another six hours, probably. And we will have to have you back. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do it.

So where are you headed? Just back home. Back home. What do you got going on the rest of the year? Well, I'll do primarily most of the truck races. I think we have Nashville coming up. And then I think all but maybe Kurt is going to do. Kurt will end up doing like eight races.

And he'll do Bristol and I'll do the rest of the truck races. And I think we have four Archer races remaining that I do for Fox as well. When you're not working on the broadcast, do you attend races with your son? I do, yeah. I do like Nashville is our next race. I'll do the truck race, and then he's going to race the next day. Are you personally involved in the, you know, behind the curtain a little bit with him as far as trying to help him with his program? Well, I try to help him more for advice.

Yeah, that's it. But yeah, we put the deal together with Tommy Joe, really excited about that. We'll run another 10 races and so with Tommy Joe. And I go when I'm at the racetrack, Frankie Kerr, which is really funny, is Stefan's crew chief. Gene Need, is my old crew chief, is the one that used to work with Frankie and brought him down south. And, you know, Frankie's a Hall of Fame sprint car racer. And now he's Stefan's crew chief. So I'll sit on the pit box with Frankie and pester him a little bit.

Gotcha. All right. Yeah. Well, all right, buddy. Thank you, Phil. We're going to see you at the racetrack. All right, man. Thanks, guys.

All right, man. Appreciate it. Phil Parsons on Dale Jr. Download. 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 a true ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirtymo Media team.

All right, let's fire up Ask Junior. It's going to be a really good intro to YouTube. Ask Junior is live. Yeah, well, Ask Junior is now live. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. for the Ask Junior segment of the Dale Junior download. But you guys have sent all your questions into Xfinity Racing on Twitter, and Hannah is going to help us sift through those and hope they're good.

Well, the first one is very timely in the sense that you are back in the booth this upcoming weekend with Nashville. So NASCAR and NBC went ahead and tweeted us and said, What song gets you pumped up for Race Day? Yeah, I saw that. There's a – I was just reading an article. about the band tool. I was a big fan always over the years of that band

and their music and they have a song called The Pot which I think is pretty good gets me pumped up. I was watching, I was reading an article about them in concert recently and how they've sort of held on to their energy and still bring a great show and that was one of the songs

that was mentioned in the article about being something the crowd really was dug into. I'd love to see that live but any kind of like, I don't know, any kind a good, hard alternative rock or anything like that with a lot of energy is going to get me going. But I was wondering, what was the answer for the other drivers?

Do you remember, did you get any information about what the other drivers? They put out a clip, right? It was like, I just remember seeing quote tweets. They were like, wow, that was not what I expected. And then someone was ragging on trackhouse because both of them put pit bull. No, of course. Oh, they couldn't pick a different. That's unfortunate.

So, I mean, I like Pitbull, but I mean, they couldn't, I'm sure they both would have both. It was very T.J. of them. Yes, very, yeah. So that reminds me of when we used, when I used to go to Bristol, we used to do the intros. I picked some 41 once. Screaming Bloody Murder, I think, is one of the songs that I picked for them. So I would always pick songs that were songs that were going to get me pumped up, man. And it was always interesting because half of the people, you'd hear their song and go, really?

That's the one you chose? To be your intro at Bristol? You know, and I know sometimes it was pretty funny. Like Jimmy would have a bet with Casey Mears and they would pick each other's song. Oh, that would get really funny. But I took it pretty serious, man. I was like, man, I want something. I think I did the Who one time.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I was sitting here trying to remember what you was. Eminence front. I think was my Who song. Did you do a three doors down? I don't remember. I don't remember all of them,

but I remember Eminence front, that intro. That intro is sick. Gets me going. Okay, that's probably my number one. There you go. All right. Well, we've kind of talked about this a little bit. This one comes from Trevor Nickel.

It says, what road course on the current schedule and needs some improvement? It could be racing, amenities, etc. And what road course not on the schedule? Do you feel like the cup cars would put a good show on it? I

Sonoma needs to I think Sonoma needs to try to pick the the layout that it wants to run and stick with it but the other thing I think Sonoma ought to do is run when it's green you guys we all see the photos

of Sonoma when it's green and it's beautiful and you know when we go out there it's it's you know it's already kind of the grass is all burnt and it's all kind of

tan but the track can be so beautiful. You know, y'all seen these pictures I imagine, right? I had never seen it until this year. Oh, man. Gorgeous. Yes. With the sheep out there, like it's so pretty. I know.

So I think it'd be so cool to see the cars racing in that time of year. I would love to see them try the boot at the Glen. And the only issue of that is the same issue we have with Road America is the the length of the lap and the cautions, but they could possibly, under caution, cut using the current course at the Glen and skip the boot under the yellow. But what road course do I think would be cool?

I told you all that I love Brands Hatch. So I don't know. Donington, there's a couple courses. I used to watch the British Turing Car Championship a lot on TV. It's a big fan of Jason Plato, Matt Neal. And so a lot of those tracks that they ran on, the road courses, they're really no different than any other road course,

but that series was always pretty aggressive and competitive. It'd be cool maybe to go to Australia and race somewhere that the supercars race and a companion event. So that'd be, I think if we went anywhere, I'd try to do something cool. Like when we went to Japan, right? That was a pretty big deal for us to go over there and race. and I think we have the ability to take these cars and send them over there and race it in front of a different crowd.

I was uncanny timing in the sense that as you were talking about Australia, someone from Australia, Carl Hunter Hansen, asked if you've ever driven a V8 supercar, and he's chiming in from Down Under in Australia. I did, and I put it on YouTube. If you look it up on YouTube, there's a little clip about 2006. I drove one of Paul Morris's backup cars. They were testing with Russell Engel, and I forget the racetrack we were at, but it was a very small, pretty simple course.

And so they had a brand new car they were testing, a new Commodore, and I was driving their older car, and I spent probably four hours running laps. It was a ton of fun, and never really drove a car. I was racing, you know, obviously on the other side of the car, so shifting with my left hand and trying to learn how to do that. and I made a bunch of mistakes, but didn't break anything. And I had a blast trying to, because I'm such a fan of the series, especially back then. And Paul was nice enough to let us take a couple laps.

So you can see, I put that video out on YouTube way back then, and it's still there hanging out, so you can see that. We're just continuing the trend here of kind of road course discussion. Michael Van Voren said, if asked, would you consider running the Lamont in Garage 56th entry. I was asked and I'll be honest with you man I don't so I was asked if I would be interested in that by the by some folks that are involved and I think that they need to have drivers in that car that will devote 100% to the effort I wouldn't do that they're going to need a lot of testing. They're going to need their drivers to be willing to do a lot of

physical testing, but also a lot of SIM work, long days in the SIM, and a lot of physical, you know, meetings at the track, at the, at the shop with the car, fittings, promotions, promotions, production days, photo shoots. This is going to be whoever takes this on, will need to be able to commit a big chunk of their time to make it right and do it well. I would not be wanting or willing to do that, all that work, right? Driving the car obviously would be fun. But I also know that that car is going to be multiple miles an hour slower than some of the faster cars in the race. I am unaware and uneducated on the proper etiquette on what I need to be doing to try to stay.

out of their way and give them the best opportunity to, you know, complete a corner or navigate a chicane and what have you. They need drivers, I think, that run, you know, in MSSA or run in that style of racing who understand where they need to be and where they're supposed to be at all times. And I don't know that. And I'm not going to be able to learn that and adapt, I believe quickly enough to be able to not only do a good job for the car and the team, but also not impede everything else happening because you're really not competing against the field or anyone else. You're just out there racing, and the worst thing you can do is to ruin someone else's day or event. So they need, I'll tell you a couple of guys' names that popped into my head is A.J. Almondinger.

He races in Emsa a lot, and I think, you know, has a NASCAR background as well, would be a perfect guy to put in there, would know exactly what he needs to be doing at all times. I couldn't think of a better guy that would be a quick, competitive driver for that car that would keep them where they need to be. And Boris said was another name that popped into my mind. I don't know if Boris would be interested in that, but he's another guy that has NASCAR experience. also road course experience that would understand where he needs to be and what his objective is each time he gets in the car so those are and there's a lot of names out there there's going to be a lot of possibilities very talented guys they don't need to be NASCAR drivers that they could be you know via supercar racers that have some imps uh experience um or some indy car

experience or so forth though there's a lot of a lot of options out there but i think a j would be cool because he would be that one he would be that NASCAR driver connection that they were looking for they're wanting to have like a a Jimmy johnson or a Jeff Gordon name i just don't know that at least me and Jeff i don't think that we would be able to accomplish all of the goals and stay out of trouble jimmy might because he's he's driving the empson now but AJ'd be a good name and this is the last one coming from ask junior and it comes from our chat um from Josh sada said with of course NASCAR be or NBC being back in the booth with NASCAR this weekend. And I'm sure you've been asked this before. How difficult can it be sometimes to balance both car owner and the excitement that you have,

but also being in the booth and having to keep that neutral perspective? Yeah, that's going to be a, that's going to always be a challenge when you're an owner of a car on the racetrack and working the broadcast. It's always a challenge because it's not hard. I mean, it's easy for me to not cheer for my cars. I'm not going to, I can easily temper my excitement and try to, you know, try to shelve my emotion about performance. But when the cars say they're having a battle like Justin Algar and Josh Barry had at Charlotte, right, I'm not sure I would be able to, I would have a hard time really not sort of voicing my frustration over how hard they were racing each other. I know everyone loved it. It was a great race, but Justin ended up cutting a tire,

having to pit. I would have probably voiced some ownership thoughts, right? And then there's moments when they wreck and race hard and beat and bang with other drivers, right? There was a Justin Algar and Ross Chastain at Watkins Glen a couple years ago. And I have to call it down the middle and I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to say, oh, man, Justin wasn't at fault there if he was. I've told all my drivers, we've had them in this room at this table. Look, man, when I'm in the booth, you've got to remember I'm not your owner anymore. I'm going to call this how I see it if you mess up.

I'm going to say you messed up and it's going to be on TV and that's not going to be great for you. You're not going to love it. But that's my job in that moment. But sometimes it can get difficult. I think when there's some controversy, throw that into the race that involves your cars, you struggle. But the great thing about that is usually having me and Jeff and Rick and Lattard in the booth,

there's enough people up there that they can see I'm struggling, right? They can see that, man, I'm having a hard time really knowing exactly what I need to say or should say or want to say. Maybe those all three aren't the same thing. and Jeff is in the same scenario sometimes with Harrison where we can see that we need to take over for a second because this is something, you know, we can say what we think is happening with Harrison

and save Jeff from having to go through that and that difficult moment, right? And so that's kind of a, I think that's a good thing for us when we're up there working together as we all kind of can lean on each other a little bit. And that is it for that. this week's Ask Junior.

Those are some really good questions. I enjoyed that. Thank you all for sending those in. Got me excited about road course racing. That never happened before. So I appreciate everybody supporting our podcast. And sending these questions in is just a, it's almost like a big thumbs up to what we're doing here. So we appreciate that.

Your engagement and reaching out to us and helping us create this segment means a lot to me. It's one of my favorite parts about it because I feel like you guys are almost in the room with us as we're live on YouTube. And so it's one of the more enjoyable parts, to be honest with you, when we're sitting in this room. Thank you to Xfinity for everything they do for us, X-Fi. If you haven't tried their service, I've got it. I'm a customer. Happy customer. It's been very reliable for me.

Very fast. Does everything I needed to do. We got way more devices than I ever imagined we'd have connected to this stuff. having had one out is no delays, no problems, no need for a service call for two and a half years. So try it out, Xfinity X-Fi, it's awesome stuff. That's right, Wi-Fi coverage. It delivers the speed your devices need. And everybody, as Dale just said, send your ask junior questions to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter each and every week.

It means a lot. Thank you, Xfinity. They're a proud premier partner of NASCAR. Man, it's a great show. I hope nobody minds me complaining about my. air travel and if you are traveling today good luck and appreciate Phil Parsons for coming in here and sharing with us you know we wanted to know about his own career but he was happy happy to discuss his brothers as well yeah and we're lucky for that because

we all love Benny Parsons and what he brought to the sport and what he means to us today and feels feels happy to share that so thank you feel and it's cool to just see what he's been up to lately. Hannah, you talked about the questions for Ask Junior. They were great questions. I enjoyed Ask Junior segment today. A lot of great engagement. And couldn't be more excited.

I guess we're heading off to Nashville. Got a great race this weekend at the Super Speedway. And again, we have our special live show Friday night at Old Red. That's right. Downtown. What time is it? 8.30. I'm going to rush to get there because I'm coming right out of the booth

and then I got about an hour drive to the city. I'm going to get there as fast as I can. Live show, we're going to have real people in front of us while we're doing this mic. I'm going to get nervous, but hopefully we have a great show and we got a special guest coming. So looking forward to that, guys. Otherwise, 387 is in the books. Have a great week, and we'll see you next week.

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