The Dale Jr. Download - 389 - Tony Eury Jr.: Bud 8 and Beyond

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

Tony Eury Jr. is more than a cousin to Dale Earnhardt Jr. He's a brother. Dale Jr.'s former crew chief comes to the table of truth to discuss their best days together in racing and the hard truths of the controversial breakups that made the headlines during their careers.From their two years of winning the championship in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Dale Earnhardt and the Eury's took their success to the NASCAR Cup Series. Tony, Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis talk about the challenge of growing together as a team and a family. Dale Jr. wastes no time asking Tony about "creativity" he used on their racecars and how other's in the sport were talking about how fast they were. Tony and Dale laugh about re-gaining their mojo by drinking more. And yes, it worked. They also tell the hilarious story of a test session that ended in Dale Jr. doing donuts in the garage area.Eury details how the 2001 death of Dale Earnhardt impacted he, Dale Jr and the entire Bud No. 8 team in their approach and future trajectory. As many triumphs that the team earned, there was also tension and arguments. Like there typically is with family, the cousins didn't always see eye to eye.The tension led to a severing in the relationship and the first split between Dale Jr and the Eury's in 2004. Tony Jr. and Dale open up to each other about their feelings at the time and the regret they have to this day about the situation. The cousins discuss the Charlotte 600 impromptu presser by "Pops" Eury and how that lit a fuse in the media. Tony Jr. shares a never-before-told story about how Teresa handled the situation in the shop that week. They also open up about Dale's departure from Dale Earnhardt Inc. and how thinks could've been much different.The Hendrick years offered so much promise to Dale Earnhardt Jr. But just like at DEI, there were wins and painful losses. Eury talks about Dale Jr.'s mindset and lack of confidence through the trying times as the two detail the second split in their crew chief-driver relationship. He also brings us inside the Hendrick Motorsports dynamic to share the challenges and struggles within the organization during this period.The table discussion brings the relationship from Hendrick Motorsports through the Eury's next stint with the Earnhardts and Jr Motorsports. Tony Eury shares his thoughts on being Danica Patrick's crew chief and how there were similarities between she and Dale Jr. DIRTY AIR presented by FilterTimeBefore Tony Eury Jr. came to the table, Dale and Mike discuss: Dale Jr's high-pitched excitement in the broadcast booth at Atlanta The 2022 Ross Chastain Aggression Tour Corey Lajoie's near-win at Atlanta.  ASKJR presented by XfnityHannah Newhouse brings fan questions to the podcast for Dale about: Ryan Ellis' tweet about stealing sponsors from another driver. Favorite Atlanta Braves players. What was miserable about being a driver and the worst part of being a broadcaster? Would the Xfinity Series benefit from an identity shift to V6 Motors or electric? 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.

There are some headlines to this event that are truly exciting. The Tony Stewart story today and the future starts now for Dale Earnhardt Jr. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey everybody's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download with me as usual is my co-host, Mike Davis. How you doing Mike? Doing well, buddy. We're in the Bojangles studio. And yeah, I can smell those biscuits.

Yes. They're across the room. We're so lucky to have such a lot. a great sponsor that we can actually enjoy while doing the show. That's right. Man, you guys line that up perfectly. Matthew's here, Hannah. Everybody's in the house.

How's everybody doing? It's got my mouth full. All right. Yeah, doing good here. After a busy weekend, obviously, with Atlanta. But we'll get into that here in a minute. That's right. So we got a great show.

Tony Urey Jr. is the guest. And we've had Tony Uri on the show before, junior and senior together. We talked about a lot of things, but there were some things that we didn't get to. We're going to get to those today. Yeah. And I think we'll hear maybe a little bit different version of the story, having them separated, the URIs. Because they might not tell the whole story when one's in the same room.

But anyhow, we really want to know what Tony Jr. is up to today. I see him everywhere. And so really curious as to how he's spending his time, and I think everybody's going to enjoy what he has to say. But anyways, let's go right into Dirty Air, sponsored by Filzor Time. Dirty Air. You got it. Dirty Air is brought to you by Filter Time. There's no better way to deal with Dirty Air than with a filter subscription service that takes care of the hassle and takes that out of buying air filters for your home.

They're delivered right to your door. So every time they show up, you know when to change them. Go to FilterTime.com and subscribe now. But this is our dirty air. So let's go. Okay, man, so let's get right into it. Atlanta. Mike, you watched the whole race.

I was there as a broadcaster. And first off, we're going to Atlanta for the first time since they reconfigured it. We know we had the race there in March, watched that one on the TV, but hadn't been there in person. And one thing I need to let everybody know is that, yes, they reconfigured it. You can see that, obviously, when you're watching the race, if you've been watching Atlanta for years. but when you go see it in person it you just it looks incredible and what I mean by that is like the steep banks

and it's just this awesome ribbon of asphalt wrapped around this infield and it looks better in person right so you know people always say when you're watching sports game man yeah that was exciting what a great energy can you can hear the you can hear the fans cheering and but when you're actually there in person, you feel it.

Yeah. Right. You, the energy, you become part of it, right? And so I guess that's what I think I want to encourage everybody because this is an incredible racetrack. They made some really cool changes. The track's going to continue to improve to provide better and better racing as that surface continues to age.

And it's already providing some pretty exciting racing now. But I think I really want to encourage everybody to go see it. Like go see it in person and get you a ticket, parking space in the infield or a grandstand ticket so you can see these cars going around this track. We were sitting there with about 20 laps to go in the Xfinity race. And before I knew it, it was the white flag. They are going around this racetrack as fast as they go around Daytona and Talladega, but it's almost a half a mile to a mile shorter.

Yeah. So the visuals have to be insane. Well, the lap is like quicker. Yeah. And so it's like 18. 19 to go, 18 to go, 16 to go, 17. It's clicking all. It's, it's, it's 19, 18, 17, 16.

It's happening, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And before you know it, like, it's 5 to go, then it's 1 to go, and then it's over. And so what's interesting about that and why that matters is that the intensity is higher while you're watching that race than you've ever felt before, ever, ever in a race. So the constant energy, the constant energy, the constant. intensity in the pack and behind the wheel is way higher for a steady, consistent amount of the race. And so where there are lulls, like think, let's talk about some other races, okay? Dover, all right, Pocono, right? Great races. We go, you'll watch it, you'll go, you'll visit, you have a good time. You'll see a good race probably. But there's moments where, you know,

you can get up, go get you a hot dog, you don't miss too much. You might come back. A couple cars swap positions. At Atlanta, man, you can't take your eyes off of it. You can't. You're going to miss something. Literally. I do this. I knew you felt this way because you were giddy that entire broadcast.

Like when your octaves go up like you just did right there, that's when you know you're having fun and you're loving what you're watching. And it was like that from the beginning. Like when you got, when the broadcast came on, you were on a 10 and you never came down to a 9 or 8. But it's consistent with what you're saying of what you saw on the track. Like you could not come down. You could not take it easy. The energy was just always there.

Yeah, it was a good weekend. And so we got there and rain washed out qualifying so we didn't get to work the qualifying shows and kind of get – it kind of is a great way to get warmed up and just sort of, you know, settle in for the actual race broadcast. We get up there for Expendity race and nobody knew what we were going to see. No, the drivers knew what we were going to see. We didn't know whether they were going to be in side-by-side pack for, you know, 10 rows deep. we didn't know what was going to happen.

And they start the race and everybody's really, you know, everybody's uncomfortable and loose and out of control. They were getting, you know, there were packs were splitting up and, you know, there were people coming and going and it was good racing. So one thing that I, to be quite honest about it, when they reconfigure this track, a lot of the drivers were very, you know, critical of that decision. Atlanta was great.

But just repave, you know, if we've got to repave it, just repave the current track. that don't change anything, right? Everybody was worried. And rightfully so, there was a good reason to be concerned. You know, there's been a bad track record with reconfigurations, like the term one and two at Texas, and maybe, you know, some people not really in love with Bristol.

And so there was some concern that they were going to be a mistake made here. Anyways, we thought we were going to see Daytona and Talladega-style racing, you know, two by two, three-by-three, all the way. way through the very end of the pack, super easy to hang on to the draft. It was going to be all about the draft and making the right move at the right time. Handling and all those things wouldn't be a factor. Well, that was wrong because this weekend in the Xfinity Series and the Cup Series race, handling was terribly critical.

Drivers were on the radio screaming about their cars being uncomfortable. And it really made the racing exciting because, yes, there was the, the drafting super speedway element, but the drivers had their hands full. And man, when we can watch these guys on the edge and almost busting their tail and sometimes doing that, sometimes spinning these cars out, we don't want to see these guys just spinning out all the time and wrecking, but to know that they're being pushed to the limit or challenged and on that ragged edge, to know that they're going through that and experiencing that as we're watching them go around the track, makes a viewer appreciate what they're seeing.

And so, and the Xfinity race was incredible. You know, there was some good excitement there. Austin Hill is a great race car driver, especially when it comes to racing at Talladega and Daytona and Atlanta. The new Atlanta seems to excel really well there. So, you know, pretty cool. And then obviously Sunday was a whole, Sunday. it was a different race. Oh, yeah.

There was some, you know, there was more, the cars were a little more packed up. They have different arrow and horsepower and so forth than what we would have on the, on the Xfinity race on Saturday. So, of course, it looked a little different. But still, one of the things that freaking stood out to me right away, and I think the reason why I got right up on my toes at the start of that race and stayed there was when the race started at stage one at a plate race. Usually, stage one at a restrictor plate or a, I call it a plate race,

we don't really run plates anymore, but at a track like Daytona Taledega, that first stage is pretty tame. Nobody wants to make any big mistakes. Don't want to have a big crash, takes a lot of cars out. Whatever was going on, that was, you know, in that first stage, that was not happening. No, lap one. I mean, Kyle Larson about why did it up on lap one. Well, he hadn't had a lap in the car, was just shocked about, you know,

some guys are going to miss it, right? So his team missed it. Cendrick's guys missed it. He had to work all race to get their cars more competitive, which they did. They did, yeah. But what I was really surprised by was when somebody had a run to pass the leader, they didn't just shove him and stay in line because it's the first lap of the race or the third lap or the fifth lap. They went past him.

Yeah. Sometimes the drivers, me included, are like, you know what, I don't need to pass the guy, I'm going to push him. And that sounds like a great idea because I'm being smart and I'm going to be in a better position at the end of the race because I'll still be here because I didn't do something stupid early. But now when I'm a broadcaster, I hate when I see a guy not, you know, have a good enough run to make a move to the front and not take it. It drives me crazy. It because I'm a viewer and a broadcaster. I want to see action. I want to see passing.

and I saw a guy with a chance to pass, not pass. That pisses me off, right? But, you know, as a driver, I totally am on the other side of it. So right from the start of the race, those guys were, if you could get the lead, they took it. I know the clean air was so important, and that's why. When they wanted to be in clean air because it was way more comfortable. And so every time they had an opportunity to pass for the lead, they did. And multiple times in a lap at times.

I was going to say, you would take it. the lead and then you better watch out because there's a slingshot coming every time. Nobody took the lead without it being contested in the next corner. That's right. And so it was, that was exciting throughout the race. There was also, you know, the drama with Ross and, and of course, the car he ends up getting into was Denny. I mean, there was a couple things there.

You had Ross in the 19. So, you know, we talked about it on the broadcast. Ross and Truex had had a little bit. disagreement at Dover. And, you know, and it wasn't really settled. You know, Truex still pretty annoyed with the guy and thinks he thinks he hadn't, you know, not going to change the way he drives. Truex doesn't really appreciate the way he drives, and Ross doesn't see a problem with it,

right? So they go into the corner, and Truex is not comfortable. Even after this, you could see when Truex got back to the front, when he was a lead car, and he guys, he was a little slow. whether it was drag or whatever his car was a little slow and so the guy behind could get to him so easily and would push him

and he wouldn't get pushed out it wouldn't create momentum for Trux so they'd push him and go down in the corner and he's still on their nose and so now they're going through the corner literally bumper to bumper and Truex is out of control but the guy behind's going damn dude I'm trying to push you and your car isn't going anywhere

and so now they're in the corner and Truix is sideways So I saw this afterwards, so I knew Truex's car was a big reason why the thing with Ross happened in turn one and two. Ross pushes him into the corner and Truex has to lift because his car's out of control. He's lifting, lifting, lifting, lifting. Ross is like, waiting, waiting, Ross is lifting too. Ross is like, I'm trying not to hit you, trying not to. But at some point, like, I can't stop my car, right?

Yeah. And so finally he ends up getting, you know, Martin turned around and they all spin out and crack. and crazy that some of those cars could return to the track, right? Amazing. Like, we talk about how vulnerable these cars have been all year, but they showed some durability this week. I agree. And so like.

Joe Lugano and airborne. You're right. I just can't really say that. So, you know, it's, I think it's great that those cars were able to continue and still be competitive. And, you know, there's a balance that's important to find between making the cars durable so the drivers can beat. and bang so we can you know they're not scared to touch each other or the wall we used to have

you know with the with the sheet metal cars they they were scared to bang in each other because it was such a critical uh it would it would um hurt the arrow of the car so much they couldn't be competitive anymore so you better not touch anything well now at least they can be more aggressive with that so that's good to see but uh i think there's still some areas where they can you know the cars are so rigid the impacts are a little bit tough some of these some of these impacts are kind of tough and they're working on that. And they're trying to develop new stuff to make that better. But they're learning a lot as these cars are getting crashed.

So we learned a lot during the race in Atlanta about wrecking these cars and what they like to see in these accidents and what they want the cars to do and how they want the cars to deform. So it's not as the driver does. It takes so much of that impact. But, you know, we saw the three-car, Austin Dillon, and hit the wall a ton. Oh, man. I told him, I said, y'all need to slow that down.

Show that angle of him getting into the wall right there and slow it down so we can watch that safer barrier deform. Wow. Yeah, it was a great shot. And then Austin gets out and says, hey, wasn't too bad. You know, I've hit the wall. That was a hard hit. But I expected him to get out and say similar to what Harvick did at St. Louis. Harvick got out and said, you know, when he blew his rotor into turn three and hit the wall, driver's side,

he's like, that was hard as I've ever hit. That was one of the hardest. That was not fun. But then when Austin watched it, I love that moment of the broadcast when he watches it. I think it's the actual replay that you're talking about because he's not in the shot. You see everybody else wrecking, and then all of a sudden the three comes, and he's watching it on that little monitor right by the camera, which he's being interviewed on. He goes, wow, that was a big hit. Yeah.

So that was some moments like that where I thought we really did a good job as a broadcast. and, you know, just the race, we had a lot of content, a lot of things to pull from, a lot of things happening that helped us put on a great show. But I was really proud of the job we did. You know, I know a lot of people are thinking that we were heavy on the Chase Elliott stuff, but we leaned into that because we were in Atlanta. We were in Georgia. That's, Bill Elliott is from that area.

That's their home track, and that race means a lot to chase. We leaned into that early. Yeah. You know. That could not have worked out better. for you guys. Or worse. Why? Well, a lot of people think that, you know, we, we set the whole thing up. It's a big fix. But he won't, 2001. Do you lie Daytona? Well, look, I'm sorry, but I thought myself, I'm like, okay, we're doing the live hits from the Dawsonville pool room. Okay, this could be a little,

this could end up being a little hokey. But at the end of that broadcast, when they're hoax, when they're hoaxing up the, uh, the car battery to the sirene, perfect. That was amazing. That's like, who knew that's how they used? I know. That was the most rednecky this result of a situation. I mean, I could not have imagined that that's how they did that. And that's exactly how they did. I love that. It was a great moment.

I always envisioned, you know, they talked about this siren since Bill Elliott, you know, in the 80s. And I always envisioned this big giant, like, air horn, sort of, you know, like the horn off of a train. But it's this tiny fist-sized, you know, Amazon $4 siren. I, dude. And it's on the top of this pole. the pole's like five, six inches around.

It's like, and this tiny little sirens smaller than the diameter of the pole. And then they hook it to a car battery. Somebody has to pull it up. Oh, my gosh. Pull up that Camaro so we can get this thing going. And that makes me, I got to say, man. So I've worked with Rupp before. He gets a hard time.

And I know people don't really understand what his role in the show is. A lot of people in the past have sort of had. I think they have a hard time like breaking away from whatever we're doing, whatever happening in the race to talk about what Rutt's doing. And Rutt's trying to show us something, right, fans, activities at the racetrack. This year, I think they have him in absolutely the perfect role to complement our races. And I absolutely believe that what he does, especially this year, complements our racing. So they're calling it Rutt City View.

And so if we haven't picked up on it by now, when Rut is at the, you know, when he's on the race track on the weekends with us, he might not be there every weekend. But when he is, he will be in a local area around the town, around the racetrack. And he'll connect the city or town to the track, right? He did this with Nashville, which was obviously a super easy connection. Dawsonville with the racetrack and Chase and the family history. So every time we go to an event, Rutt's going to tell us why that track matters to that community or a community close by, right?

Road America, he did a great job there. He made me want to be in that bar drinking beer during the race, right? He made me wish I had went to Elkhart and hung out in that town. Yeah. because of the charm in that town. He did a good job showcasing what that was all about. And so for me, I am now looking forward every week to what Rutt is going to show us about, you know, Brooklyn, Michigan or Loudoun, New Hampshire, or whatever, right? All these, because I know some of these spots.

I know some of the things going on outside of the racetrack, some of the cool, the ice cream shopped down the street or whatever it is that everybody goes to after practice. the fans need to know about these places. The fans need to know about them because when they want to buy a ticket to these racetracks, now they've got some places to go enjoy some key locations around that racetrack that they know the story to and the connection to. So I think it's a great way to use rut. I know a lot of people giving them a hard time sometimes, but I'm so – I think we finally found like the great fit where the whole broadcast really works well.

and so I was yeah I had a great time in the booth man I just put this on my story on Instagram coming up the elevator to get into the booth to work Sunday we get to the elevator and they're holding it right for me and me and Jeff Burton and they're like hey man the lights don't work but it's the elevator's fine okay and I'm like wait it ain't are you sure because the light if the light's not on it's dark I'm like I'm gonna climb

I'm gonna walk in this elevator with just Jeff Burton and the door's going to shut and it's going to be pitch dark. And so I grab my phone and turn it on so I could video Jeff. So I'd have some evidence case anything happened in there. And so I pick my phone up and I start video him. He's got his phone out and he's video

and me. And it was just a funny little moment there. And the light, as soon as we start moving up and we almost get to the second floor, which is where the suite is that we're going to work in and the light pops on. There were so many little funny moments like that with Jeff

I love working with him. We do front of the grid together. So this season, the broadcasts will be much more uniform in terms of you'll see us in the same positions each week. Where in the past over the years, they moved us around. We'd be doing something different every week. I'd be at the front of the grid. Then I'd be up, you know, I'd be over on a mountain or whatever, right? Or I'd be atop of the grandstands or might not be there at all, right?

Or I'd be in the booth. So they have decided that, you know, you're going to have a role. This is your role. Me and Burton do front of the grid in one of the very first segments of the pre-race show. And then we go to the booth. And so me and him have a little hit at the front of the grid. We talk about whatever we want. We did that before the Xfinity race and the Cup race.

We'll do it every week. And I'm looking forward to that. The, I know I'm bouncing around. This coming weekend, we go to New Hampshire. You know what that means? It means you're going to eat lobster? No. It means you're going to the track where Jeff Burton led every lap.

I'll be doing play-by-play again. You're doing play-by-play this weekend? Yeah. Well, you might as well have done it this past weekend, if I might say. Oh, man. I mean, every time you were just, you won the word count award. Oh, yeah. No, no, no.

Don't apologize. Let's call it a rehearsal. Yeah. Call it rehearsal. I will just say, man, at Talladega, at Daytona, at Atlanta now that it's the way it is. It's hard for me not to speak because, I mean, every second I'm seeing something developed, something about to happen, somebody's doing something that's going to create something.

Dude, it was hilarious. My mind's going a hundred mile an hour. I love it. They throw it down to Marty Snyder for a pit report. We've got two tires for Chase Hill and Alex Bowman, and you hear in the background, holy shit, they spit it, and whatever. And it's like, oh, my gosh. And then you go, you know, Rick Allen's trying to work in some sponsor plug, you know, whatever.

Then you hear, oh, my God, look, he's going for it. And you've got momentum. And it's like in the background. And I'm just, I'm dying laughing the whole time because you're just going to, you're going to call it. I mean, it don't matter where you're at. It don't matter what's happening. You cannot not speak up. Yeah.

And it's literally, it's not like that every week for me. I'm certainly, you know, one to talk on top of these guys. and I don't I'm not really uh it's there's four guys in the booth and so if you sit and wait on an opportunity you'll be waiting there's times like even even Sunday if you really listen to the race there's some times where i purposely just sat there and let them guys go and i'm sitting there thinking man if i don't if i'm not aggressive i don't get in the conversation i believe it there was a race in polka no is like my second or third race ever right my first year in 2018 i think my second race and i the race starts and i literally said eight words in the first stage and the stage ends and i was so mad and i i was mad at myself

i was a little mad at the booth in my butt you know my guys steve and them and and i was just like i didn't know i didn't understand like what to do right and i felt like i didn't I felt like, you know me, man, I'm kind of, I'm not one to interrupt. I'm not one to barge in or interject into a conversation, I don't think. And so, anyways, off to the side, I said to Steve, like, during the break, I said, dang, man, I didn't get to say a whole lot. That was, that was frustrating as hell. I'm so frustrated right now. And Jeff and Steve both said, we ain't going to, we ain't going to wait on you.

We ain't going to turn and look at you and go, all right, what do you think, Dale? You're going to have to barge in. You're going to have to interrupt. You're going to have to be aggressive. That's what they said. And so from that moment on, you know, and there's races where, you know, you kind of lose your way. And it's interesting. You wouldn't even think about this stuff actually happening in the broadcast booth or in the mind of a broadcaster.

But there's times when you kind of lose your way a little bit or the strategy goes away from you and you're not quite. You really don't. You don't know everything, right? You don't know everything. You're not freaking perfectly on top of everything that's happening. And so there'll be moments where I just, I've got, I ain't got shit dad. Like, the strategy is so crazy that I just got to let Steve handle it. Right.

But that's what he's there for. You know, I'm not going to tell people what the pit strategy is. I'm going to go, hey, Steve, tell everybody what the pit strategy is. Even if I knew it, right? That's his role. That's his job. But I feel like, you know, at Atlanta this weekend, I feel like I kind of knew what was getting ready to happen or what was coming or and it was exciting.

It was so exciting to watch and talk about. And I wanted people to know that it was exciting. I feel like that if you're at the racetrack, it's absolutely obvious. The energy and the intensity, you feel it, you see it, you're watching it. But for the broad, you know, the people at home that are sitting on their couch, I think that they need, the broadcast has to bring that energy to them, right? I think the MRN guys, radio guys, are perfect at that. Yep.

They're high energy. and they make you feel like you can almost see what's happening. And I feel like that that's a big important role for the broadcast. I think it is. Let me just say, I don't even want to bring this up if you feel one bit of regret on the way you did that. I think it was so good because it was to be honest with you, it was Chicago Land slide job. Was that Chicago Land? Yes.

Yeah. Chicago Land Slide Job excitement. That was what it sounded like. And I think that that's intoxicating, frankly. I like it. But I do want to get back to the race in the second. Yeah, I do too. Let's talk about that.

I want to go back to Denny and Ross Chastain real quick. Did I not say that these guys are all talk? I said that a few weeks ago. We'll just say you said that. Well, I did. I said these guys sit there and they'll say in an interview that they're going to get them back. And that's the last time they got one coming. And I'm here to tell you, Denny Hamlin ain't going to do a dang thing to Ross Chastain

unless Denny is out of the playoffs and Ross is in the playoffs. And there's something to lose. I think Denny has too much to lose. I think Ross is not, he's going to race this way, and I don't think any of them guys are going to do anything about it. Unless there is literally, I don't think they're going to let him win a championship. But I do think that this just is all talk. Like, again, Ross did nothing different, nothing different from a few weeks ago.

I have to argue with that, Mike, because I think at St. Louis, Ross was more intentional. and at Atlanta it was a pure misjudgment mistake does Denny care? No, but you they're, so Ross didn't do the same thing in both races this race was just a mistake

albeit a terrible mistake you can't, one you can't make like you got to be a good enough driver to say I'm going to get tight here so I'd better lift before I hit the car beside me most guys got that figured out right? Especially guys

that have been doing it as long as Ross. At St. Louis, Ross really went in there to send him. Ross ran in the back of the 11 and 1 and 2 to send him. He did that. That wasn't a mistake. He hit him on purpose. He aimed to hit him. But since St. Louis has happened,

we were expecting Ross to polish up his aggression a little bit, right? Stay aggressive. Stay wilds, well, maybe, you know, my opinion. Stay Ross. but I don't know maybe I can clean it up a little bit and that was you know he didn't right he didn't clean it up I said it on the broadcast part of me wants him to change the other half of me doesn't want him to change at all

I think for Ross's long-term success does he have to change probably not but he better be able to withstand he better be able to handle all these drivers being frustrated with him and he has to be around those drivers all the time they're in and around each other everywhere they go dinners conferences meetings events drivers intros and if he can handle that if he can handle all these guys me mugging him everywhere then that's fine then ross ross is okay right a hundred percent okay because if that's the worst it's going to come out of it and i think that's it they don't like you they may not talk to you at dinner big freaking deal but my gosh man i mean like

all these guys you know austin dillon even took a little shot at him in his interview a couple of them i mean ross every week is going to take shots and he's going to get his shots in interviews let me and i think that that is just empty calories all right i mean i i can't argue with that you know it's easy when you got a mic in front of you to say something smart aleck it's super easy to do that and so and we do it right everybody does it but ross I think, you know, the 10 car. Al Marilla was annoyed with him. Talking about it on the radio.

Hope it don't see him. Food line. So. It's hilarious, by the way. I was watching them race, right? And I'm watching them, I'm watching them to go at it before. And I'm watching, Ross ain't doing nothing. You know, Ross is racing.

You know, just racing the 10. He's not slamming into him and cutting him off, running him in the wall or nothing. But he's racing him hard, close, side drafting, annoying. He's annoying him, right? But he's not racing him any different than, you know, a lot of other guys out there on the track that are racing him. I don't even want to name names, but there's some guys out there that side draft aggressively or race you, you know, drift up to track into your side and get close to you. Ross has the reputation now that just a little thing like that, that's a small annoyance, guys are quick or quicker, too quick, to jump on Ross.

Right. Be getting, you know, it's fucking Ross. Right. Sparks a bigger reaction. Oh, yeah. So that's something that'll be interesting going forward. And that's not a good thing for Ross, right? If Ross is trying to, this is the, this would be the problem or one problem with Ross's future successes in the immediate future to try to go for winning a playoff, right?

If it's that easy to fire up any driver out there, a guy like Amarola or anybody, then it's going to be harder for him to negotiate and navigate week to week going through the playoffs. Because he's not going to tiptoe around these guys. He's going to annoy him. He's not going to walk on eggshells around all these drivers. Oh, I'm sorry, man. I've been a bad, you know, been a rough over the past couple weeks. Let me show you.

I can race clean. can do that. If he thinks that they're actually capable of doing something back, which I don't think they are. Well, it's almost like, okay, there's a minefield out there, and you're going to go tiptoe around a minefield. But what if you've got information that actually those are all dummy mines? They're not actually going to go explode. You'll run right through it like a freaking linebacker sack and a quarterback. And it ain't going to matter. That's true. And that's the way I think these guys do. They sit there and talk. So if for the, if we could have taken a camera and put the camera just on Ross, you will also see that

These guys are taking swipes at him. Okay. All right. As he's going out there and annoying these guys, as he's in the back of the pack because of the 19 incident in turn one and two. He's trying, he's getting his car patched up, trying to work his way back through the pack. And every other car or every two or three cars,

he does something that annoys them, and they make contact. You know, they either swipe back at him or they get, you know, they try to stand their ground and there's a little more, there's beating and banging. And so I feel like that, you know if ross is going to have to i don't know man right i think that it's going to be a difficult path for ross because that is happening like as the race is going on we're not you know you

a lot of things that we're not all seeing right i know where he finished yeah yeah you're right dude i'm telling you man i people ask me like what's the deal what do you what do you think part of me thinks i want him to change another half of me oh i don't want to change at all listen i i don't want him to change i i don't want him to change i i don't want him to change I like what he's doing. I like having a guy out on the track to do that. It's great for storylines. It's great for fan watching.

I'm just saying these drivers. It's almost like hypocritical to me. So Ross gets out of the car and says that wasn't nothing like St. Louis. Yeah. All right. No real apology, right? Which is fine. He doesn't have to apologize.

That was interesting to see a different reaction out of him. I was curious if he was going to go, you know, all self-deprecating again. They said we got a Ross interview we're getting ready to go to. I was about to hit the, we got a talk back. to where we can just talk to the booth. So I can just talk to Burton, LaTartre, and Rick, and only they can hear it. And I about hit that button and said,

I wonder how many apologies will get in this one interview. And he didn't say nothing about that. No. And he's like, to be honest with you, I don't see it as the same way, which I thought was interesting because, no, no, no. Ross said, I don't see this as,

he said, what happened today isn't like the same thing that happened at St. Louis. So I apologize for St. Louis, but I'm not apologizing for this because this wasn't the same thing. Is that not what? I don't remember them. Again, I didn't want to know if we wanted to bring this up. But in the NBC interview with Ross Chasin, they didn't even bring up Denny. They didn't bring Denny up.

But he said that he didn't feel like that the two races were the two incidents were the same. I saw the Denny interview. I think Ross is fine. I thought the Denny interview. And Denny's like, yeah, is it. You know, he says, we're going to make it tough on it. Oh, okay, got it, Denny. No, you're going to make it.

Denny said, Denny said, I've been pushed to my limit. Pushed your limit. Okay, got it. Push your limit. Okay. I thought it was all right. Yeah, that's my point. That's, I get my support there.

I thought we were at the limit. I mean, was Gateway, if Gateway didn't get you past the limit. Now, listen, it's very possible that Denny's waiting on a moment in which it's not so obvious to take him out. I get that. Listen, I know that. But my point on this is that, I don't. don't think Denny can do anything to Ross until, because I think Denny has too much to lose himself. And frankly, there's too many people with high expectations of winning a championship,

getting to the playoffs, winning races, and all that stuff that where if you even run a little bit of a chance to take yourself out, you ain't going to do it. So I'm just calling it like I see it. Like, you know, after Gateway, these drivers are like, yeah, he ain't going to finish his next race or whatever they were talking big and bad. Chase Elliott was one of them, you know, but then, you know, here it is. Ross is still finishing up in the top five every week, and he's still doing the same thing he's been doing at Gateway.

Maybe different intentions, maybe one was an accident, one was it. But I just, you know. I think, all right, so this is it. This is it for me, all right. I don't want Ross to change. You just, you're bracing yourself. I know. Well, look.

All right, so 50%, I said, somebody doesn't, somebody does. I got to get off the fence, all right. as a broadcaster and a viewer, Ross makes them interesting. Makes the races interesting. Pick a side. I know. I got to pick a side here.

Kyle Petty. I'm sorry. The Frost's side of my mini wheat doesn't want him to change. Pick that damn side, you know? I don't want him to change because it makes our broadcast interesting and it creates storylines. I think that somebody will do something. I don't know if it'll be Denny, but I think somebody will, he'll be on the other end of this.

Everybody is, right? He's not a music. and he'll be he'll get turned around somewhere somebody will make a mistake or get into him or do something even intentional maybe and i'll be interested to watch his reaction and i hope that it's anger right i hope that it's frustration yeah right not i hope he doesn't go well i had it coming right right i hope i'm with you on that yeah and so i i guess that's i'm anxious to see that side of it and uh and i for dynie's sake hope he does do something Right? He's kind of been put in a position back against the wall where, gosh, you got to do something, right? Doesn't he? I mean, I thought so. I thought so. He did a little bit in St. Louis, though, you know, messing with him.

I thought what he did. That was kind of like just like a little feather. I know. I thought what he did in St. Louis was appropriate and perfectly dinty and funny. We all had a great laugh. but now we've had this moment and I think it it would be interesting to see what if then he presented with the opportunity what he chooses to do listen it's just simple

either Ross continues to push y'all around or he doesn't he's not going to stop he's pushing them around yeah he's pushing the veterans around that's what's happening I know we got a rap I want to say hey Corey LaJoy stand up dude everybody was pulling for that guy at the end of the race what an amazing show of class and professionalism in his post-race interview,

didn't toss blame, said it was grid racing, said it was a good block, said Chase was doing what he had to do, and he had done the same thing. I couldn't have been more proud of one of our drivers in a difficult situation. Then, dude goes to victory lane to congratulate Chase. I know he didn't win the race, but he did more for his career and for his future

and for himself in that moment by choosing that path and making those particular decisions in that post race. And so I just wanted to put a point out there to Corey and his fans and everybody who was pulling for him that day that I know he didn't get the grand prize, but man, did he do everything else that he could possibly do to leave that racetrack with his career and his reputation in a better place.

So good job, Corey. I've got one question. Matthew, don't yell at me. I'm sorry. I've been wanting to ask you this. In hindsight, in hindsight, what could Corey have done to win the race? I don't know. I was talking to some guys here in the shop that were watching the race as well, Josh Barry.

There was a moment, I guess, with two to go down the back straightaway. There was a couple times when Corey had the lead. Maybe he could have been a little more aggressive with his blocks to slow down some of the moves that were coming from behind. It was going to be hard to keep that nine car behind anybody because he just had a lot of speed. So maybe Corey will relive some of the final laps in the race thinking about some of the ways he might have defended the lead,

as difficult as that would have been. I really don't know that he could have done anything different getting into term one. He faded toward the bottom and Chase did the exact same thing. Chase faded to the bottom to take away any real move there and then as soon as he saw Corey go to the top, which he knew was coming, he goes up the racetrack to block that. And Corey's, I initially, when I first watched the moment happen,

I thought Chase ran him in the wall. When we watched it again, I see that Corey bounces off the back end of the nine car and never actually gets up beside Chase. And so Chase's block to me was pretty fair, albeit late, but I mean, all the runs are happening four times as fast in that race than they happen anywhere else at Dayton or Talladega. So every block's going to be a late block in that situation. But it wasn't an extreme block.

Put the guy in the fence. Corey bounces off the back corner, gets loose. Into the fence he goes, and that's the end of the race. Well, I'm super excited to have Ally support our podcast. They bring us the guest segment of the show. And more times than not, this guest is an ally. It's important to have allies in your life professionally and personally. This particular guest, Mike, was both.

Yes. He's a cousin. We grew up together, played together, and then we worked together in NASCAR, Tony Urey Jr. He was your wingman, man. And boy, did y'all have some success together. I mean, but it wasn't all great. Like, y'all had some tumultuous times as well. We felt like brothers, you know, publicly on the radio, and neither one willing to back down.

And it would. And then you'd get out and go, hey, man, no hard feelings. Then, you know, nothing personal. We're going to be fine, slap each other and then back move on down the road. We're going to talk about all that today. Get into the Cup Series experience with him at the Budcar and at Hendrick Motorsports. Obviously, Tony Jr. has been going and doing all kinds of things since those days. Can't wait to hear everything about that and what he's got going on now.

So let's go ahead and get him into the show. Tony Jr. on the Dale Jr. download. The fans are going absolutely crazy. Hill Earnhardt Jr. comes to the checkered flag and wins the 2,000 running of the Winston. He made some breathtaking moves inside, outside. He had the car to get it done, but he also had the driver ability to match the equipment he had and he pulls it off tonight. With two tires, so I said, we got to put on four tires. We didn't come here to run second or third. We came here to win, and that's the only way we was going to do it. Tony and the guy's done a good job. Made the right calls night. We made some guts of calls. Oh, with a new tires, Budweiser, Chevrolet, it's bad.

This is more common for us to start to season off like this, and it's very frustrating. Who takes the blame for the failed junior-junior relationship? Is it the driver's fault? Is it the crew chief's fault, or do the two share the blame? When you're dealing with family, and I know Dell Jr. and Tony Jr. have a great relationship, but that can be one of the most difficult things. So obviously this has permeated the entire Hendrick Motorsports organization. This is more common for us to start to season off like this, and it's very frustrating. Yeah, I've never seen two people, you know, get after one another and argue more and be able to hug and make up at the end of the day more than those two.

It's really, really hard to, you know, break up that relationship. If I shake it up a little bit, everybody will stand up a little bit, and I think we'll try some new things, we'll try some different things. Level of frustration, is it on a scale of 1 to 10? What would you put it at? It's a team. Yeah, look at this guy. Come on in. Hey, it's a safe place. Don't worry.

Don't be nervous. You got one? You like that? You bought a friend. Oh, yeah. We got to go set up a dirt car here just a little bit. Is that right? We've got to get ready for tomorrow night.

Well, tell us who this little guy is. This is Peyton. This is my oldest right here, like four years ago. Yeah. I adopted Peyton and his little brother, Eli. So it's been a blessing to me and to them. Like, I've had a blast with them. It's, you know, that's one thing that me and Tanya talk about now is, like,

she asked me, you know, during our career and everything, she said, if there anything that you would ever change. And I said, you know, I said, I raced my whole life. I said from the time we were 18, it was all about racing. I ain't doing nothing else. You know, I didn't want, at the time I was married to Amy, and she didn't, you know, I didn't. You know, I didn't want her to be a single mom, and I didn't want to have kids.

And the older you get, the more you realize that, hey, I'm the last year. This is it. And I told her, I said, you know, I said, if I had anything to do over again, I'd have kids. I said, you know, that's my only regret, you know. And it's like a year and a half later, these two boys show up. They need a home. You know, they were in a meth house. And, you know, I basically saved them and they saved me.

So it's been, it's been a blessing both ways. I mean, I can't, you know, to go racing with him. Eli doesn't really care about the racing too much, but Peyton here, he loves it. He just eats it up. So it's been a blessing. It sure has. Yeah, that's good to hear, man. Yeah.

I didn't know that it had, I mean, I know that you were, you know, 100% committed and it had been something, a decision, a life change that you had made. But to hear that it has impacted you so personally is something profound. Yeah, I mean, it's great. I mean, I don't know what I do without them. You know what I mean? It's like, we, you know, I just look at it as like, hey, man, it's like, you always look in life and you're saying, okay, well, what have I done? We've won Daytona 500, we've won this. But at the end of the day, that's just something wrote down on a piece of paper.

It's like, what did you leave, you know, behind if you can help people, if you can give people direction in life to make them better or whatever. But I've got a chance to make two kids that didn't have a life and give them one. And that means more to me than anything. And I mean, it's, you know, everybody has issues. Everybody has problems. But it's like when you can give somebody a chance to live a better life, it's so cool, you know. We should let all the podcast listeners at home know that there's four people at the table right now. We got three kids and then the adult here.

Peyton is playing with the cards on the table. And I just say, man, have at it, bud. I mean, if you've got to have toys in here, might as well have to play with them, right? Oh, yeah. Look at it. Hey, Peyton, if you want, at any time, there's a chair, those chairs, you can go back there. There's water back there if you want.

You can have anything you want. This is your place. You want to say hi? Do you want to say hi to anybody? Do you want to talk to anybody, buddy? He likes that wing car. Oh, yeah. Yeah. White.

So last time we was here, we had your dad on the show. Yes, sir. And I don't even, I don't even remember where we ended up. Who knows? I remember, I think you guys were the first interview we had in this new studio at the time. I don't even think we had a door on this wall back here. It was still under construction. So that's how long ago it's been.

But who knows where we went. So basically, I want to kind of dive in around a lot of, so one of the things, we'll get right into the creativity part. So one of the things that we've started talking about with a lot of people that come in here is some of the things, that they did creatively to their race cars. And most time it's best to ask crew chiefs. Some of the drivers, like DW, was pretty, pretty, you know, transparent about putting all the buckshot in the frame rail and, you know, pulling it drop out of the jackpost.

He told the story. He's like, yeah, they were looking for that buck shot, and they were trying to figure out where it was coming from, and they put the jack under car and jacked it up. And when they jacked a car up, they basically sealed off the hole where they were going to be able to find it because the jack post is on the jack right and he's like they and so he loved to steal that story but and a lot we did a show with Spencer about the 2001 july race and he said that our car

was fixed remember that oh yeah pissed off we were yeah i don't know anything specific or i don't remember if i did know anything specific about our cars but i know that you guys we're smart right and y'all got y'all were pushed by slugger in the 15 group and by everyone else in the garage to to try to be as good as you possibly could be when we go to the plate races so you know if there if there's anything you want to share it ain't going to bother me but i mean we want to know about the ones you didn't get caught with by the we know about the one at darlington well i know we had a little thing we'll talk about that yeah but uh so i like richie was great at building motors. They had a, they had a really great intake. They were good at matching

intakes with heads and all that and just spent a lot of time making sure everything was perfect. Yep. And we had this one specific engine that we insisted was in our car. Yeah, that one engine, one intake. We wanted that every time. And they're like, well, we got one better. And I'm like, I don't care. I'll take that one. Right. And so, and we ran and won a lot of races and I still got that motor. And so at least that, you know, the most of it, whatever they, when they put back together. I guess it's still the intake and all that. Yeah. But a lot of people just find it hard to believe that we won all that stuff pretty straight up. But, I mean, for the most part, listen, I mean, for the most part, I know we pushed

boundaries, but they weren't nothing on that car that was crazy. Like what we were doing, you know, in like in 2012, we were moving the rearings around the, which wasn't illegal. Right. You know, it just was till that, we made NASCAR ride a rule for that. Well, that, I mean, that's what you do. It's like, you have a car and you sit here and you fluff on it and you're pushing here and there you know and it's that's been in NASCAR racing for for years and it's just like what your job is is to put take that thing to tech put it on the very edge of it and that official has to decide when you get in there is that right or wrong or is that close enough well close enough I win you a lot of races yeah you know and there's some stuff

like you you you always look at the procedures on how they do it I mean it's like a fair they're, hey, we're checking 25 templates on the first day. Well, if there ain't checking by 15, well, the other, the other eight, I'm looking in that area. If I can, hey, move the quarter panel in a little bit, hey, can I pull the fender in a little bit more? That's the things that we always looked at. But, you know, at that time, I mean, I remember in 2000, we went down there to Daytona, and we were terrible. Biggie E was terrible. We were terrible.

and we put on 15 bodies. We went to Talldegan, tested for three days, come home in four days. We put a complete body back on and went to Daytona. We were determined to get our speedway program up to speed. You know, and I tell people all the time, I was like, during that year, I learned so much just because we were doing bodies.

We were moving noses up and down, making them wide, airflow, everything. We put in food coloring on the car so you can see where the air was going. And it was like, all this stuff we would go to yuma it was a five mile oval that gm had and we would go out there for three days and we would have pages of stuff and one day is nothing but the airbox just what's going on you know just with what the airbox is going because every time you change a cow panel and you change some kind of deflection or a ring inside the air cleaner it changes the it it leans the motor in richens it or leans it so richie and then would keep up with that so as we made changes to the cow

well we would let them go back and tune it to it. That way you had a true, is it running or is it not? Yep. It was thorough. I remember we were not only changing cow parts, but we would have to go out there and put the car in the perfect situations. We'd have to see what that cow did leading. Then we'd have to see what that cow did behind the car.

And we'd get close to the wall and see if the wall would change the pressure to cow. Yeah. And so you're testing variable after variable. and nothing like he's talking right now. I don't know many teams that were that thorough. Yeah. You know, in terms of like, you know, okay, they're not checking template 12 and 15, so I'm going to go over to the car and try to take advantage of that opportunity.

Other thing I'll tell you about Tony Jr., remember when we had those wicker bills on the rear spoiler? Yep. The whole, so there was a template that fit in there that was the size of the spoiler that went under that wicker. And so from the time we got to the racetrack, till the time that car went on the track to race, Tony Jr. was slowly moving that thing down, that wicker tighter and tighter, until that template got to where it barely go in there.

And then there was a length on that wicker, and we'd show up a little fat, and Tony Jr. would have a foul on him all weekend long. Every time I'd go over there, he's over there, filing on that wicker. just looking at, I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, well, just getting a little closer. Getting it a little closer.

We still get, we got a little bore we can take off. And I mean, when the car got there, he wasn't done. You know, because once the car gets there, it's, we put templates on it at the shop. But then the car gets there, now the templates going, now the NASCAR is putting their templates on it. And so he's got, he's seeing some other areas where, where, man, we could push a little here, we could push a little there. And if he could grind a 30 second off of that little wicker, he did it. And I didn't see every other team up down the garage doing all that.

And a little 30 second here and a tiny little 30 second there. And all that adds up, you know. And that's one of the biggest things is like the one thing that Dale Senior always told us is like, if I ever catch you cheating, I'll fire you. Is that right? Yeah. So it was like it was a deal to where you couldn't go blatantly just do something. You know, we couldn't. You know, so you didn't want to take that chance because here's the other part of it is the minute that you do cheat,

every win that you have is discounted. Like nobody believes you've done that, you know. If you're working within the rules and you're working with an official or whether he wants to determine whether, hey, that's right or wrong, well, that's on them. You know, it's like, you know, I used to laugh a lot of times because, like, you know, not, you know, Chad would always have to be at the top of the sheet, qualifying, yep, practice qualifying race. You don't think you and your daddy were like that? Yeah, we wanted to be. Yeah.

But like, we talked to you one time and you're like, I don't like starting on a pole. It's less fun. Remember, that's how we come up. We had to put Wilson in a car. So you'd have somebody talk to. But it's like, but it's like. He says, I don't like starting on the fold. Yeah, he said, I don't like that.

He said, I like passing cars. I want to start in the back. And I'm like, well, it's a whole lot less work on Sunday if we can start towards the Friday. Let's pass like five instead of 36. Oh, my God. But that was just one of the things that would kind of go around. But it's, you know, at the end of the deal, you know, our speedway cars, like, we would go out there and we'd qualify 14th, you know. They weren't super fast.

We had one time I had trouble getting through tech. and it still irks me to this day because, you know, when I was here with Danica, you know, I told her, I said, I've won everything down here but a pole. I sat on the outside pole, Jeff Green won it. I had trouble getting through inspection. They kept me in the garage so long that when we come out of the garage, it was time for him to qualify, and we were on the five-minute clock. So I never had a chance to heat the oil up or anything.

I was running down beside pit road, beside the car with it running, trying to get heat into the oil just to get it. We pulled it up there. He strapped in. He went out and we qualified second. If I would have been out there 30 minutes earlier, had the oil plugged up, we'd be sitting on the pole for Daytona.

You know, but, you know, so we went down there with, we know what Danica, I sat on the pole. I was like, you know,

she knew it was a big deal to me because it's the only thing we ain't ever done. I said, I've sat on the outside pole, but I said, you never set on the pole. And it's just like, but you just go there and you just kind of like,

I mean, it's just like you say. You like, you have that spoiler with that wicker on it. Well, at the time, they were not checking spoiler angles when they put that template on it. So you just roll the thing back. Yeah.

You can make it fit. You know? It's like, you know, and then you go up there and then the guy's like, okay, we're going to set your spoiler angle. Okay, great. You know, you set the spoiler angle. Well, now if they put the temple in and right that point, it ain't going in. Yeah. But that was everybody in the garage could do it.

You know, Chad was, I think he got thrown out of Daytona because he was running the track bar brace up. Yeah. You know, and blowing the back. glass up. They had an F3 that went across the windshield down the back glass across a roof. Well, we all went and bought these collars and put them on the track bar deal. So NASCAR would say, you can't have but three inches of split in your track bar. And you're like, okay. So you set it at two and a quarter, a rake. And you put your collar up against the little tube on the back glass, and you let them put all their templates on. You go over to the last station, which is set the heights.

And they're like, oh, your track bar is not three inches. Would you like to have it? I said, I would love it. You sit there and go, it runs it up, and it's pushing the back glass up like three quarters of an inch. God of bloody. You know, and I think Chad did it qualifying, and they bust him. Well, they come down through their looking where everybody's, everybody's underneath their car, taking them off. And we're like, sorry about that, Chad. You had to take one for the team there.

You know, but it was stuff like that. It's like people drilling holes and the window bolts. Like that 10-30 second, you're just trying to bleed air out of it and you drill it. And so what would that do? it would just try to help get air out of the inside of the car to pressurized, you know. So why would that slow the car down if it was pressurized inside? Just the way the air is, you're pulling the air out of the A post over there. You know however, we put the Nacaduck, we'd shove it up as far as we could on the right side

in the right side window because it would suck air out of the car and not put it in. Dane. And he's like, I'm hot. I'm like, I'm sorry. He's like, there's dust particles. They're not moving inside the car. I'm like, they're not supposed to be. So, dude, he's not, he doesn't, so we don't, he don't, we don't tell me, he's like, man, we're doing this because of this and be ready, you know, this is how it's going to be.

I get to the racetrack and I'm driving down the back straight away. And I'm literally like, there's butt, there's, I can see dust particles floating around in here. How is that possible? I'm going 200 mile around the track. There's no air moving inside the car. That's literally impossible. And I said, y'all, it's hot as hell in here and the air's not moving. I can see the dust.

He's like, I'm sorry He's like, perfect. It worked. One of the biggest things that he always hated was like you get a brand new car, you know, and it'd be great. You know, they'd paint it nice and everything. And first run,

the exhaust would cook the paint right off the right side rocker. And he'd come in, coughing, carrying on, he's like, you're trying to kill me. You're trying to kill me. We're like, no, it'll be gone in a minute. Just chill out. Just take it. Just breathe.

Just breathe it for a bit. I'm like, why don't you just not paint that part? Like tape over it and just don't paint it, maybe. We're like, don't look as good. Hey, it stunk. You talk about how thorough they were with the test and all that stuff. And I was just sitting here thinking, it's a good thing you had somebody just love test sessions, right?

Oh, yeah. Just showed up to them ready to go and ready to be thorough all day, right? Yeah, well, I think we've talked about Darlington before, you know, with the whole deal. He's doing donuts with the tires, yeah. Yeah, he comes in. He's like, I don't like, I don't like, this set of tires junior.

I'm like, well, they ain't got a 30 laps on him. You've got to run 80. So we ain't got up a two more set. You can't have another set. Well, I want another set. You're not getting another set. I mean, pops a kill us if we put them on. We're not happening.

Okay. He's pissed. Put one in that up. Goes out and he runs like 10 laps. He comes in that garage, goes over there. When he comes around that, the garage part of it, he just starts doing a burnout like he won to race. Just,

Bha-Han. Jimmy Finning and Mark Martin, you can't see them down They start walking our way, and they're like, what was that? And we're like, he wanted a new set of tires because he comes rolling in, he cops and he's going to net. He says, I guess I'll get them tires now, won't I? Oh, my God. I was only like that because of them.

I was not like that until I met them. Y'all are killing me already, dude. Oh, I bet we could do, we could fill up a whole show about test sessions, right? Just stories that happened at test sessions. Like, I always wonder. Oh, wait. Yeah, there's one we've told on here, but I don't know. We were at...

I'm thinking Iowa. No, we were at Homestead. Oh, yeah. We're in the A.C. Delco car. And so we went, there were a, you know, if we were repeating what we did on the last episode, you'll have to forgive me, but we went to Homestead. I'm driving the A.C. Delco car. We have a pretty decent first day, and then we all went and got drunk.

All right. So we go out to eat and then we go to the bars and stuff at night and we got drunk. I mean, furniture in the hotel furniture in the pool was drunk. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. It was wild. And so we get up the next day and I'm telling Tony Jr. and senior, I'm like, I can't drive.

I am sick. I'm about to throw up. They're like, well, go throw up. Go do it. Now, I'm going in the bathroom every 30 minutes trying to puke so I can start feeling better, laying up in the lounge of the truck and air conditioner. They're all out of the car just finding things they do. Finally around 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, Tony Sr. comes up in the truck and says,

we got to test. Like, you've got to fucking pull it together. And we got to run some laps. So I'm like, all right, I go out there and I ran and I come in. And Tony Jr. is like, dude, you were two seconds slower than you were yesterday. Tony Senior ain't even got to the car yet. Tony Jr. is like, you're... I was like, man, I don't know, man.

I don't know what I pulled in. I said, I don't know what to tell you to do. I can't tell what's going on. It don't feel great. He's like, yeah, you're way off. And so I said, let me try again. So we go back out there and run. Slow.

And we test the whole entire day. And we're like, we can get within three quarters of a second of what we did the day before. It's way off. And everybody's scratching their head and Tony Senner's getting angry. and everybody's wondering what's going on. And of course, you know, I'm thinking it's me. They're thinking it's me. I'm thinking it was you.

Everyone's thinking to me. And we get home, and I go over to the shop in the next day, and I don't know how we y'all figured it out. Well, Fuller was our tire guy, Rob Fuller. He was our tire guy at the time. And, I mean, he's hitting there going, he goes, I'm telling you, he goes, this thing is evil. He goes, when I go down to pit road, it turns to the right.

He said it's almost like the staggers backwards. So I go over, there's a stack of tires sitting there. I just took a tape. Now there's an inch of stagger. And he's like, okay, well, maybe that ain't yet. I mean, we're putting rear bars on it, all kind of stuff. Well, so Monday, I think Rob left, flew to Phoenix, and we had blistered some right-side tires.

And he goes up to the Goodyear guy, and he's like, hey, man, I just, you know, what are you going to do about them 30s out there? I mean, we blistered them. He goes, blistered them. What, he ain't supposed to have no tire problem. like he said yeah he said well them 30s on the rights they just blistered up and that guy goes you had the 30s on the right he goes yeah he goes well you had them on backwards them's the lefts oh and so immediately rob calls me he goes hey man I know pops is going to kill me he's going to kill me but I

I didn't know and I put them tires on I had them marked backwards so all day we run with an inch of staggered a wrong way and the bad part is we made it turn we made it turn like that so I walked into Pops's office, and I mean, you know it's going to, you know how bad it is, because you're just like, I don't want to go in here to Pops, because this is not going to end well for Fuller or us. Going to end well for me? So we're sitting there, and we're like, oh, my goodness, this is going to be. I sat walking in there and I said, Pops, you want the good news or bad news? Well, what's the good news?

I said, we have got a car that will turn absolutely on a dime at the homestead. And he goes, so what's the bad news? I said, Fuller had tires on back around. I'll see you later. Bye. And it was like, more, I don't think he lasted much longer after that. But it was like stuff like that. I mean, it's like he said, we, I remember in 98, we won the championship.

And I mean, we partied all the time. You know, it was just no big deal. And Pops is like, I feel like Uncle Jesse, I got a bunch of kids here to six-pack. And all y'all want to do is drink and party and stuff. And I'm trying to win a championship. I mean, you got that lecture all the time going to the track. And, I mean, there was nobody over 23 years old. Pops was the oldest one.

I think Quinn might have been a little bit older than the rest of us, doing the shocks. But so we won the championship, 99, we're like, you know, I'm going to quit partying. Like,

screw all this. I'm not going to drink anymore. I'm just, I'm going to focus. I want to win this second back-to-back championship. So we go, we wreck like four out of the first five. Just terrible.

You know? And we're like, what is going on? Our luck is done, you know? Yeah, we didn't win until like mid-season. So we go to Dover, and I told the boys on the plane,

I said, you know what? When I get there, I'm going to the Sheraton, and I am getting tore up tonight. I said, it's going down. I said, we ain't done nothing since we stopped drinking. I said, we're going to start drinking again. And Pops is like, well, you always get the best setups when you're drinking a beer. You know, because he says, you're going to bar,

you can listen to everybody else talks. So we go to Dover. I remember the lights coming on, and Ty Norris was there, and Slugger was there. Slugger handed me a... At one point, I was dancing with Ty's wife, and I had a picture of Budweiser, in the other hand, on the dance floor,

and I was dancing, and the lights come on, and I'm like, why is this place... Why is the lights coming on? Pops ain't nowhere to be found. It's 3 o'clock in the morning. I tore up. I'm like, oh, oh, this... And I room with Pops all the time,

so, you know, I'm like, I don't want to stick the card in the door. So I walk up there, sit the car in the door, as soon as I walk in, he's like, What are you doing? You know what time it is? I'm like, I said, you left me.

You left me there. That's why I'm like this because you didn't stay with me. He should stay with me. I blamed on him. He's like, shut up, get in the bed. I laid, and I remember when he woke me up, I was sitting on the bed, feet still on the floor, laid straight back. Oh, boy. And he comes by and kicks me.

First thing in the morning. It's six o'clock. Kicks me. Oh, wow. Get up. You want to act stupid? You're going to have to get up. I'm like, okay, I'm up.

I'm ready. I'll get my stuff on. I get my stuff on. we practiced at 8 o'clock. So, 8 o'clock, you know, we're in there firing the motor up. We were having a, I mean, we're still all just ramped up for the night before. Still drunk. Still drunk.

Just still going. And it's like, go through tech, go through everything. And I'm like, that feels good. I was looking for my sun drop and my, what do they call them, them little white donuts, little sweet 16s. Yeah. That's like speedy dry. Soak it right up.

That's all you had to do is eat some of them. I'd eat me some of them. We went out for the first practice, P1. Oh, my God. Top of the sheet. Tye comes down to pit road. He comes there. He goes, I had to come down here and make sure it was you.

I heard you on ready. I ain't no way it was you. I'm like, we ready today, buddy. So we went. I think we qualified top three or something. One to race. From that point on, it was game on again. Was that the first win that year?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Wow. Who knew? Y'all just needed the drink. That's it. We just like, we was taking it too serious. just make just do your deal you know yeah but it's like if you just we went in there so serious and

it was like we were causing our own problems basically it was like going there and relax and just do what you do and you can make it happen you know and everybody gets along better I mean it's like is that right is that how that works yeah I mean at the time I mean I mean they wrote books about us and everything else back at the time it's like they call me eeyore now because it's like there's so many years it like we were fighting or we were like two brothers oh the sky's blue. No, it's a little bit darker than that. It's a little bit purple. You know, it's just just a little bit, but we're still trying to do the same goal. Yeah. And it was like, you know, he's like, well, I don't think it's me. And we're like,

well, we don't think it's us. And it was like, it doesn't matter about all that. It's just like, we were all so competitive and wanted to win so bad that we were putting too much pressure on ourselves to do it. Yeah. I mean, ultimately that was it. You know, I mean, it was like, you know, that's why Pops was so great being in the middle of it because he was like, if we got to a point to where we were too much. He'd just come there and stomp his foot and say, no, that's what we're going to do.

And everything just stopped and, okay, let's focus. Let's go do what we've got to do. Yeah. But, I mean, Pops didn't go there to,

Pops is milled out. I mean, when he was here, I told him he's like a teddy bear, you know, he was so much easier. But it was like, when he went to the racetrack,

he was your tagging house. I'm going, I won't practice, I won't qualify and I want to race. And there's no other excuse. If something fell off the car, you would just walk, just walk home.

you're better off. Yeah. You know, but it made us all better at the end of the day. You know, so, I mean, it's just, I love the memories of it, just everything that we were doing back then. But it's like, it was hard. I mean, there's no doubt it was hard. So the 2004 season was one of good and bad.

We won six races. I look at Victor Lane's celebration at Phoenix. you know, toward the end of the year and we just won the race and we're all happy. And then we went to Homestead and literally couldn't even have a conversation during practice.

You remember that? Yeah, I mean, the whole deal was, it's like... And I mean, this is the way I pictured them four years. Your memory's way better than mine is. Oh, I can't remember why we were mad and how even... Because that's what happens to me. I'll look at Phoenix and go, damn, that was just weeks before.

And then at Homestead, we literally can't be together. Yeah, I think it was, I look at this as like, all right, 2000, like 98, 99, we already had all the setups laid down. We just told you, said, don't hit nothing. Yeah. Just go do what you do. Don't hit nothing. We'll win this championship. We did.

We went to 2000. It was like, we went to a lot of tracks in the Cup series that he had never been. We didn't have notes. He didn't have notes. and those were the weeks there were struggles, you know, for us. Well, then in 2001, the accident happened, and it's like, you know, I remember going to the bus, and he's like, okay, it's up to us now. And I'm like, okay, well, if he's, that's, that's his attitude, that's going to be my attitude, you know.

And so we just kind of, like, we were the, like, we had to hold the torch. We had to do it, you know, and it was like mine and, I think mine and pops, I'm speaking for pops, But, I mean, when I looked at it, I looked at it as like, Dale Senior was like a second dad to me, but it was like, I'm going to take care of Dale Jr. Whatever it takes, whatever I got to do to make sure that Dale Jr. is successful. That's what I'm going to do, you know, because that was my main focus. Because I think, well, that's the only way that I can celebrate him, you know, is making sure that you're successful.

So that's what we did. But in 2002, I think you were even sitting there because, I mean, I look at it, too, because you and your dad were just starting to have a relationship. You know, I mean, it forever is like you didn't have a relationship with your dad. I was lucky. I was getting to have one, you know, but I didn't move in with my dad until I was 18. So I'm sitting there watching you and your dad have a relationship and you're getting the attention that you've always wanted. Well, then it got ripped from you.

So in 2002, I don't even think he knew if he wanted to race. You know, we just kind of floated through 2002 and it's like, okay, we're at the racetrack. Maybe today we'll race. Maybe today we won't. But it was like he really didn't know if he really wanted to do this. because there was so much damage of his dad being gone. And it was like, you know, just figure out what you want to do. And I think it was mid-2003.

I think is when you really decided, no, I got to grow up, I got to do this. I want to be a race car driver. And I think we won three races towards the end of the year. If not, we run good in a lot of them. And then when we come out of 2004, all we did was fix everything that we screwed up in 2003. If there was a race to where Atlanta, we had it won. the TV deal cut the brake line. We come back in 2004, we won that race.

We should have won it the year before we won it this time. Went to Richmond, won it. They just, all the races that we were screwing up, we got. Well, we go to Atlanta with three to go. We're running third. And we were like, setting really pretty in the points. And we're like, hey, man, don't do nothing stupid. Just finish this race out, finish third.

You know, and he's trying to do all he can do. And he just slips up and gets in front of Edwards, and he hits us, and we hit the inside wall. So now we don't have a points lead, we got a deficit. Well, we all knew we were going to Phoenix and win. Like us at Phoenix was just like us walking into Daytona. Like this is our racetrack. We're here.

We'll take care of business here. And that's think that's why we all went to Phoenix and we were like, we've done exactly what we said we would do and we won the race. So everybody's just happy. But I think when we went to homestead, it hit us that we just give away our championship. So you think that's what happened? Honestly, that's what happened. I mean, because the whole team was just devastated because if we had just finished third Atlanta, went to Phoenix.

It didn't matter what happened at Homestead. Yeah, we had a – it was that the same year where we had like a rear-end yoke brake or something on the car at Martinsville, like five races to go? Yep. And we lost a chunk. Oh, it was a bad – yeah, bad finish. Something broke. It was a weird part that shouldn't break, it never breaks. Yeah, I mean, it just happened to happen.

But that whole year was our championship year. And it was like everybody got to Homestead and we were just like devastated. We're like, because it ain't like today. Like you got this little chase deal right now, who's good at the last 10 races? You know, back then it was like every race, every lap. I mean, everything counted.

And now it's more like, okay, we'll just get you a win, get through the year. And the last 10 races will be really good at those tracks. And you got dock points after Talladega. Yeah. All that happened in the. same time. Yeah.

That was my fault. Well, no, no. I'm just saying like it would have, what Tony Jr. is saying is that all of a sudden the reality hit, right, going into Homestead. Instead of it being after the race, it happened. That was a crazy, crazy sequence of weeks. It was. When I was at Homestead, I wasn't that devastated because we'd had won six freaking races.

Like, I was sitting there going, yeah, this sucks, but damn, man, we're fucking good. and then practice started and the car we weren't fast and I had a hard time of homestead no question and we weren't running the wall then you ran the bottom and that the transition and that progressive bacon I couldn't figure it out I could not run I couldn't run good there and we ran a couple practices and a couple I smart it off he smarted off and in five minutes neither one of us wants to say a word to the other one don't want to even look at each other and it and it stayed that way. The rest of the weekend.

We go into the off-season, and then I go into Gilmore's office, and he says, I think we ought to make a change. And I was like, I'm still pissed off, so what kind of change you won't make? And so, worst decision, we talked about that. Worst decision I ever made in my career. And I've said it here at this table

with Tony Senior and Tony Jr., and I set it outside this room. It's my biggest regretting racing was that decision. If we had just figured it out, patched it up, or slept on it even. Stayed the course. Yeah.

So, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I remember I was sitting at home, at your home. And I said, hey, man, I was like, Richie's like, hey, man, we got to talk and we got to do this. I'm like, why are we doing this? You know, all we needed is a breather. Everybody just was devastated.

to let's like we're on a roll now like there wasn't a racetrack that we didn't walk into that we didn't think we could win you know like we were the threat you know we wasn't worried about nobody and so at that particular time well when it all went down we went and sat in the office and it was like i think they said they were going to put Pete with you and they and they said we're going to make pop's general manager and we're going to make you a crew chief for you know for true x and i'm like well have you talked to bono about this because bono had been doing the chance race and they're like, yeah, yeah, we've talked to him. And I'm like, okay.

I'm like, well, if you want to do that, that's fine. I mean, we'll take Truex. I like Truex. He's great. You know, if that's what makes him happy and that's what he wants to do, then that's what we'll do. Well, within 30 minutes, Bono's on a flight coming back from Massachusetts because he doesn't hurt about it because nobody has talked to him about it.

You know, so he's upset. So now we've upset the whole company is an uproar. And, I mean, I even made a phone call and asked a, a cut another cup owner. I'm like, hey, you want a race team? Because, I mean, we were the hottest thing there. I said, I'll bring all 25 people. Like, we'll all come.

You know? And it was just like, he said, man, if you'd call me one day earlier, I'd hire everybody that's in that shop, you know? And I was like, okay, no problem. So that's when I told Pops, I said, just tell them to give me Michael. I said, I'll take Michael. I said, give me one year with Michael and find me a young driver that we can just, I don't care if I go back.

Xfinity racing. If I got to come all the way back up through it, I said, well, do it. I said, but if that's what he wants to do, if that's his decision and we want to do it, let's do it. So ultimately, that's how the whole deal. We went in there and it was like just a team swap. At any point did you talk to Dale? Or did they'll talk to you? No, we never, me and him never even talked about it and it was just like. Did you want to? Well, yeah. I mean, at some point because you still, you're like, well, I want him to be happy. but at the time me and him was too immature to deal with it.

That was a problem. It was like, my attitude back there and his attitude back then it was like, it was just the wrong attitudes. Just put it like that. I mean, but it was like in 2005, I'm sitting there and I just told all the guys in the shop,

I'm like, look, we're going to have Michael this year. What we're going to do is we're going to make our race team better. We're going to do our own parts. We're going to make quality control. We're going to be a better. the race team now because of this. That's all we can do. If we go win a race with Michael,

we're king. Like, that's all we got to do. We've got to go win races with Michael Watcher. That's what we got to do. That's still our job, you know. So we go into the season. Well, that was the year that we started coal-binding. We actually went to Daytona and started coal-binding.

And Michael passed you off of four coming to the 125s. and the two shops were at war, the whole place. I mean, it was funny. Christmas time, all the Napa guys wore red and all the Bud guys wore blue because of Napa and Bud. It was like the whole facility was segregated at that time. Oh, but you don't mean Napa wore blue and Bud guys wore red. Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Just showing that they were going to the other team. Right. Swapped. Yeah, just because they swapped. Because they swapped. That's right. So we were sitting there and we go into the season or whatever. and I think it might have been Richmond. Like we went and run second with Michael Rolf the bat. We had a chance to win the 500 with Michael,

and it was like motor blue with like 25 to go. And it was like, I was so mad at Daytona. Because, I mean, Richie come over to me. He said, man, I got a motor. Put in your car, you're our best shot for the 500. I'm like, I don't want it. Give me the motor that I post a run. He said, I promise it won't blow up.

I'm like, I'm telling you, I don't want it. Just if there's anything experiment, at all do not give it to me. I want my regular motor because I can win this Daytona 500 with Michael. And it was like, Michael, at the time these two, they're not, like everybody's so split. I know he ain't going to draft with me. And Michael ain't going to draft with him. So that kind of hurt the whole company.

So I went to Stewart. Stewart was starting front of us. I was like, Stuart, do me a favor. I said, will you draft with Michael? I don't like Michael. I don't care if you like him or not. I said, you like me? Yeah, I like you.

I said, you like my team? Yeah, I like you, boys. You're cool. I'm like, well, draft with us. He said, I'll tell you what. I'll draft with you, but he's got to push me all day. That's what he told me. I'm like, no problem.

He won't leave the Home Depot on your bag bumper. So if you go back and look at the race, Michael's out there and he never leaves a 20. It was just like, that was the new eight. And we pushed the 20 all day. And he's like, Tony, I'm running half throttle behind this guy. Whenever you want me to pass him, you just let me know. I'm like, you don't move. You don't move.

I said, you stay right there. We come in for the last pit stop at 25 to go. And I said, all right, Michael, game on. Do whatever you want. He goes down into one, pulls high, drives right around him, pulls down in front of him when he's three more laps and the motor blew up. God. I was so mad.

I got in the rental car, drove home. I would not get into plane with him to drive home. And it was just, that's my attitude back now. You wanted that race. You wanted it at a spite. Yeah. You know, it was just you had so much anger built up in you. He's like, man, I won't, you know, I want to prove something.

Yeah. You know, and it was the wrong way to be proving it. And it was like during that year, I think he was having a terrible year. It's awful. It was awful. That speed weeks even wasn't that great. I think you finished third, Dale, but honestly, I remember that race started. The race was awful.

Wow. Yeah. 30th. And I'm like, I can't even go. I can't stand the gas. Can't go to where. Right. This is going to be the worst race ever.

I don't know how we got the car better. I mean, honestly, I mean, I'll say this right here at this table. like it bothered me so bad that we split up and sit there and watch him race with somebody else and me not racing with him i would go on dale junior what it was there's a dell junior pitstop dot com or something oh yeah the website i would go on there and read what people are saying and how bad they hated me and that would just fuel me to go to the next race they're like he told his to he took his cars they're i don't know why and i'm like yeah i got them good and pissed off now because i lived I lived off that, and it's stupid at the time.

But it was like, that's how I was feeding myself to go to the next race. You know, and then it's like, I think Richmond, I come up into your bus. And I think I, I think it was first Richmond. You were running bad. And I walked up into his bus. That's the first time we'd really talk. Richmond? Yeah.

Which would have been like with a race 10 or 11, right? Well, I mean, we'd walk by and say, hey. Okay. Yeah, but a meaningful conversation. Meaningful conversation. And I walked up into his bus. I'm like, what is your problem? I said, you're a better race car driver than what you're driving.

I said, what is your problem? I'm like, I'm tired of watching you run 25th to 30th. Like, you're going to lose your career over this if something don't change. And that's when he says, man, I just made a mistake. He said, you know, these guys, they don't like, they don't listen to me. They got their own ideas. And he says, and I can't drive their cars the way to do it. And I just screwed up when I made this decision.

And I said, well, fix it. You help create it, like fix it. Well, how do I fix it? I'm like, the only thing you got to do is go tell Richie, you want your old team back. And I said, but the first thing you got to do is go over to that team because Michael, when he come in, Michael's just like, thank you guys. Man, y'all are the greatest.

He's a kid in the candy store. Yeah, he's loving us and he's feeding us with just, y'all are the best, man. Like, I can't believe I'm with a race team this way. And I just told him, I said, you got to go over and apologize all this. guys and tell them you want them back. I said, that's all you got to do. I said, because it was like a family. I'm like, just say, hey, you screwed up and let's go.

And ultimately, that's what he did. And we got back together, what, 10 races to go? 10 races to go in the season or something, they put me with the napatine. Bullshit, I don't remember that. Yes, sir. I remember going, I remember walking up to you. I remember walking up to you and having a conversation at Talladega in the garage. And I walked up to you and I said, you want to get back together?

And you said, let's get back together. Yeah, let's do it. I remember asking you in that moment at Daga, I remember you coming in the bus and telling me that. But I don't remember sinking into my head that I needed to, that I could get y'all back. Yeah. It didn't dawn on me in that moment. Like, okay, yeah, I'll just go, I'll just go tell them to swap it all back. Right.

And I went up to you at Talladega and I was so nervous. And I wanted to, I wanted us to get back together so badly. And I went up to you and I think I remember asking you if you wanted to get back together. And I remember sitting there about to throw up waiting on you to answer me. I mean, you answered me quickly, but I didn't know what you were going to say. Right. You know, do you remember that? I do remember that.

I remember sitting there talking, but after the Richmond deal, I was just like, well, it's just got to make, we just got to make it happen. Yeah. You know, and then I think it took that long before it to happen. And so you came back, you came down to the Napa car? Yeah, because I honestly, they put me down there with like a couple races to go at the end of the season. And it kind of, I started working like we put Gibson with the A car bunch. That's right. I left Gibson up here.

I'm like, Gibson, you can handle these guys, handle them. Okay. I went to the Napa shop trying to repair the friendship and the company because I was like, man, all I've done is the damn company separated. Well, you know, there was guys down there on the 15 car that were great, you know. I mean, I'd go down there and talk to them, so I went to the last couple of races with them. And they're great guys. You know, there's just always, there was something going on down there.

And I felt like, I think after that year is when I went to Richie, and I told him, I said, look, you got the one shop over here, you got the eight shop. here and then you got the 15 car down the street it's a chicken coop it's a chicken coop i said they're they're like outlaws down there like they feel left out and all i said what do we got to do to put the whole thing under one building i said you know so we moved the fab shop moved the one car beside the bud shop had a central um suspension room where all them guys had to work i said to have one break room where they all got where we all have to go into the break room together it's the only way you're going to make team have chemistry between the two teams.

And I think we did, well, we did 2006 there, 2007, 2008, we went to Hendrick, right? Yeah. So 2007, we had a good year. We just blew up so many motors. But that was the biggest deal when I went to Hendricks was like, if I look at Hendricks Motorsports to DEI, Entero Motorsports has got more engineering. They had to see them and more engineering than DEI. as far as people that worked in the building and the heart to race,

I'll take DEI. But if I want to be on the computer and be ahead, and even Rick told me that, Rick's like you being at DEI, he said it's like Duke playing Davidson. You can play a good first half of basketball game, but in the second half, I'm going to blow you out because the depth of Hendrick Motorsports is so much more. You know, they got five guys in the lineup.

You know, it would be like Alabama going against, you know, or Mississippi State or something. You know, it just ain't got the depth that you got. Let me go back. I'm trying to still put the timeline together on 2005, okay? Because you're right. I forgot about Tony Gibson. And also we're forgetting about Steve Mill.

Yep. He was in it. So, like, if I remember correctly, and anybody jump in and tell me where I'm wrong. Okay, so we started off the year with Pete Rondo. You guys are going with my, you guys got Michael and the Napa team and all for running. And you guys were pretty. You could tell a difference already with the way Michael was running. He just had a pep in a step, too.

I mean, like he glowed. And then after, I mean, God, it wasn't but a handful of races. He was about 10 races. 10 races. Pete's gone, and they put Steve Meal in, who I think was your spotter at the time, if I remember correctly. He was kind of in a... Something.

And what was his role at DEI? Like, he was a director of something? He was like a director competition. He handled the chassis shop for us. And it was kind of like the middleman trying to keep everybody. together. Okay. So then at some point we get to Charlotte and there was a big feud. Yeah. And I would have to think Steve Mills, our crew chief at that time, because I think that would have

been on the back end of the Rondo switch. And so the wreck between Michael and Dale, because I just, I have just snapshots of memories of that. Yeah. And the snapshot is Tony Sr. I remember when Dale finally pulled into the garage, I said, hey, get to the get to the holler. I got to tell you a lot of things. I got a lot to tell you because you guys didn't finish the race after that wreck. Was that the 600 or the All-Star race? It was 600. It was 600. And that would have been where things were really boiling over, right? There was a lot of animosity between the two teams. Yeah, me and him, I'd already went and asked him what his problem was. Okay. So you had already had the conversation at Richmond. Then Charlotte happens.

Then Charlotte happens. And then we're like, and the whole time that this is going on, just a little backstop, is like the 15 team, which is me, we're starting coal binding. We're starting to do that kind of setup. Okay. Well, we're not telling anybody anything about what we're doing. We're keeping it all top secret because we're like, we don't need this to get out. Because I'm looking at it as after the first 10 races, I'm looking at it as half the people that are on the eight cars.

down there are probably going somewhere else at the end of the year. Okay? So I don't want to get my secret out of what I'm doing because then it'll be in every Yeah, Penske. It'll be everywhere. Everywhere else. So I'm trying to keep it boxed in a box. Don't tell nobody.

Put the springs up. Don't tell anybody what's doing. Well, there was engineers that were down there on the eight car and they were like, oh, we know what they're doing. Like, what does order? So I've got the spring company calling me and saying, hey, I know you don't want to tell everybody what you're doing, but you're. buddies at the eight shop just called and ordered $50,000 worth of springs, and they're not right.

Do I just send them? Oh, wow. So at that time, I have to make a decision. I'm like, send them. I'm like, screw it. I'm not giving up my secret. I'm like, just send them what they want. Yeah. You know, and the guy's like, okay, well, it's not right. And I'm like, I can't help it. I'm not giving out my secret. So, and so we're going through all this. We'll go to 600. And all it was was, he was trying to swap, Michael was trying to get out of his way, and they hooked. It was that simple.

You can be angry when you're up on a pit box or whatever, but at the end of the day, two of them went for the same spot. They hit together and they wrecked. But I've got 15 guys in the pits that just, you might as well throw a grenade in the middle of it. Like, so everybody's pissed, you know, because they're like, he wrecked us on purpose.

You know, and I'm sitting there going, well, I don't think he'd do that. you know and I'm just like I'm just going to leave it at that but it was on the straight away well you know it was on the front it was on the front but still they were going to the same spot and I was just like keep trying to keep my emotions and check because up to that point I've been a nutcase pops didn't take the same approach well you see you chase me up in the truck I think it was you jr and there was somebody else they come running up in the truck and they're like are you okay I'm like I am fine just leave me alone I'm gonna get my book bag get my

car in my truck and I'm going home. And I said, if I got a problem with him, I'll go talk to him at his house. I mean, that's what I said. Okay. And I, and you looked at me and you go, so you, you, you were like, are you sure? Like, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you okay? And I'm like, because your dad had just held court. No, you were standing there and you were like, are you sure you're okay?

I said, yes. I said, Mike, I said, your biggest problem that you have right now is you don't know where Pops is at. That's right. That's what he said. That's what he said. And it's all hit me, but it just came back to me. Because as soon as he goes, your bigger problem is pops.

And as soon as I turned around, he says, where do you think he is? I said, probably in the middle of them lights. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. Those lights went ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching. And it's like, you saw this, like, bigger than God person standing out there. And his arms are doing this. You haven't seen.

And he was evangelizing. He was, like, the Holy Spirit had got a hold of him. And he's sitting here and just carrying it. own and I'm like oh god this is this is where it all unravels right here yeah and sure enough you're just out there racing and and we're sitting there doing all that and then when you came in this was this was so funny because you would have been gone by then Dale comes in you know how he is like you can't like you can't have a secret without him going well tell me you know or something it's like hey come into the hauler and he's still in the car I said before you do all these

interviews because there's going to be there's a ton of people now surrounding the eight car because pops has just held the press conference of the century out there right and and dale's like why and i said just come into the holler i got to tell you why and i'm like get in the holler you know like come on get like seriously get in here and he's and i mean of course it so i'm like pops just absolutely ran you under the bus and they are here to ask you all about it and that and that was it that that was it that was it So, like, that was like, to me, I felt like that was the bottom. Like, that felt like the bottom. It was.

I mean, I remember, I told all my guys, I'm like, do not say a word, don't walk by their pits, don't say nothing, just go load our car up and get out of here. Don't nobody say a word. And, I mean, they're, they're like ready. Well, I think the worst thing to happen was somebody took 250 lug nuts and threw them on your lift gate when they walked by or something. And I figured out who that was. Who was it?

I think it was Troy. I think it was Troy. Troy Prince? Not Troy Prince. Man, he's such a nice guy. I think it was Troy. Everybody loves Troy. He didn't work in here.

I was like, Troy, Troy doesn't have done that. So we went back to the shop. And I remember on that Monday, one of the funniest things that ever happened was we come in there on Monday. And they're like, okay, we're all going to talk about this, you know. And we're standing in the Bud, our, it had been an apple shop to him, but it was old Bud Shop. Standing there, Trisa comes walking through the door. Her and Jim Bow. and they come walking through there.

And me and Pops is standing there talking and she comes through. And I'm like, oh, hell, this is going to be big because she don't come around. And it's like, all this stuff just happened. And she walked through this door, this probably going to be a butt chewing coming right here. You know, so I'm like, okay. She comes over and she says, tells Pops. She said, you've got any tape? I need some duct tape.

And Pops is like, sure, what color would you? She says, it really doesn't matter. Just any kind of duct tape. And I was like, okay. Oh, damn. So she walks up. over there and she says how big a piece you need she says i need one about that long right there about three four inches and he goes okay and he rips it off and he goes here you go what you need that

for she says can you she goes puts it right his mouth she says i just need you to be quiet to stay off the tv that's hilarious and i busted out laughing because that was the first time he goes yes ma'am i probably shouldn't have done that and it was like but it's she was the only one that could like trump him yeah you know but it was like but i think it was after that it was like you know i think i think it was polkineau steve was doing everything steve would come up there and steve was like man we got to have both these cars a lot identical i want your suspension components i want your drag link i want this i want that i'd handy my setup sheet well still at this time i'm still holding my secret okay so i'm just putting down what my

springs are so I'm putting down like 425, 450, 200, 1,200. You're fibbing. No, that's what's in it. Oh, I know, but that's the rates. That's the rates of them. But it don't say nothing about what the heights of them are or nothing. And so we go out there and Michael sits on a pole. He's like, man, I said on a pole in 14 years.

I said, well, that's the year I graduated. And I said, well, we'll just congratulations. I mean, he's still jacked up, you know. And so we're sitting there. I think you run was running terrible and uh I got lapped yeah well they lapped you twice in the race because before the race pops is like you got to stop this stuff and I'm like pops I'm not giving away my secret I'm not doing it I said I've worked too hard to figure this out I'm not going to hand it to them where they can just take it and just throw it everywhere he's like well it's just

got to stop like we got we got to we got to help fix that kid and I'm like well I can do it I said, you just put everything back like it was, and he'll be fixed. Like, you know. And I had one of my springs that I'd been running all year in the cabinet. And he goes, and I remember Steve coming up in there, and he goes, I know you're not telling me everything. And I'm like, Steve, you go over and look at my car. Everything, you can measure anything you want to measure.

I don't care. And he goes, well, we're going to put a 425 and a 475 in the front of this car. And it better run like yours. And I'm like, okay. And he walked out, and I told Popson, I said, and they ain't going to. And Pops is like, well, you're not going to get him hurt, are you? I'm like, no, I said his teeth might hurt a little bit

when it goes there and bouncing off the crossmember a couple of times. I said, but I said, it's not going to get him hurt. But I said, he's going to have a rough ride for a little bit. And Pops is like, damn you. And I'm like, okay. I said, I'll tell you what, Pops. And I reached in the cabinet and I pulled the spring out, and I said it on the counter.

I said, when it gets so bad that he can't drive it, Take that spring, put 51 and a half rounds in it, and I said, and it'll go. And he goes, for real? And I'm like, yeah. I said, you can just put it in there. And I'm sitting up on the box, and we're running, we led a bunch. We were sitting there running second or third. We had lapped him twice.

I mean, he's terrible. I turned around and looked behind me and pops is going down pit road with that spring, carrying it. And I'm like, oh, hell, here we go. This is going to be it. In the middle of the race. Mill the race. They're down there up on jack stands,

changing the right front spring on pit road. Unhook the front shocks, and they've changed the spring. And so they unhooked the front of shocks, and they're like, all right, go around. You know, don't, pace car's coming. So I don't know what they're done. I don't know what they've done under the hood. I just know they lift the hood and then shut it.

So I take off down pit road, and the pit road, it's got these giant-ass hills in it. And that damn thing takes off up in the air because they got their fucking shock. on the front and the shocks just doing this under the hood banging all around and this thing goes flying up there and I was like oh slowed way down and I was like goodness gracious what did they done we're looking bad to worse and I drive around and then they jack it back up they put the spring in hook the shocks up we lost another lap and then but man I go out there lined up on the inside

and run with the top five the rest of the day yeah he made up like two laps and it's like he got back up there. I don't know what happened to us. I don't know if we crashed or something. Something happened to us. But he ended up making up both laps. And it was the storyline of the weekend. And then I go back, I open the Winston Cup scene on Monday. It says, Dale Jr.'s magic springs turned season around. And I'm like volcano. How would that have got? He must have talked about it. He got out. He goes, oh, yeah, they changed the spring. And it was awesome. like it was great and I'm just toe pops I was like so then I had to have a meeting of a meeting of a meeting of like exactly what was going on and then at that at that particular time you know I think

the ball was rolling to do the other deal but it was like at that time well that's when it run through the cup garage like crazy the spray stuff but but but it also sounds like you guys were now on a quick trajectory to get things right it right right the ship right like yeah getting y'all back together because I'd forgotten that. Can you believe after what I did at Charlotte that Pops took at spring on his own? You know what? Anybody else, I wouldn't believe it. But, you know, I mean, Pops never stopped loving you.

Isn't that nice to know? Yeah. I didn't know that either. But, man, I mean, I got to say I'm not surprised. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, you guys, y'all fought like family, but you never once lost sight of the fact that you're a family. And that was what, I mean, Lord knows how bad it got it, if that little element wasn't. there.

Yeah. I mean, it's like he's done what he always done. Anytime we were like in a dispute, he just put his foot down. That's what we're going to do. You know, and I think, and you've said it in here, and we've all said it. I mean, me and ties even sat down and talked about it, you know, about DEI and the way it was. And it was like, I think everybody at that particular time had a little bit of arrogance to them, a little bit of immaturity, whatever you want to call it.

I don't care. But it's like there was, that was a great place to be. it put too much pressure on him. Y'all acted a leader. Yeah. You lost your leader. Yeah, we lost our leader. And at that particular time, he wasn't ready to be a leader.

You know, he didn't want to do it. I even asked Kerry Dale, I'm like, will you just come over here and just walk around? Just be an Earnhardt. Just walk around and just act like you own the place. I can't do that. I'm like, yeah, you can't. Just play the part. I don't care if they pay you a dime.

Just go up here and play the part. I said, I just need an Earnhardt walking around in the building that acts like they care about everybody. I said that's all we need. You know, and then when the whole deal started with the contract and all that, it was just, then it took another level and it was like, okay, it's intimate that everything's going to go down. And when we went to Hendrix, DEI lasted, what, another year, another two years, you know, because I'd actually talked to Darien Grubb.

They were starting Stuart Haas, and I went to Darian, and I'm like, Darian, if you've got to start a team, go hire Gibson and that whole bunch, because that was my old race team. I only took four people out of that team to Hendricks with me. That's all that would let you take. That's all it let me take. But hold up. Go back because he just brought up something that you and I were talking about last night, Dale, and that was the contract stuff about where you kind of showed up at Speedweeks

and said that you wanted 51% of the company. Yeah. We were just kind of curious, like, what was your, like, what was your feeling and all that? Like when he's basically, now he and Teresa are going to go onto the battleground and fight over contracts. and now ownership of the company, where did that leave you with all that? I know you guys say,

well, we don't care if we just race, but seriously, though, you were in the middle of it. Well, at the time I was like, well, how's he going to come up? She's going to have such a number on it, that he ain't going to be able to come up with 51, you know. The problem is at that particular time, you know, I don't want to talk bad about Teresa because Teresa's done a lot. You know, she has issues and then she, and other things.

but at the end of the day, when she's sitting there, she honestly thought that the Dale Earnhardt legacy was so big that she didn't need Dale Jr. And for her personal deal, yeah, we want to keep Dale's legacy, but at the end of the day, DEI can't survive without Dale Jr. Every contract, every sponsor, everything is tied to him. At some way or another, if it's a sponsor going on to 15, car well they want somehow they want to be tied to dale junior they want to have something that's

connected to an earnhard name so you're sitting there looking at all that and you're like this this ship's taken on water you know and it's like in here and what i mean by not being bad to trisa is like here here's here's my whole thing on the trisa deal yeah she you know y'all have had issues or whatever but at the end of the day when i drove back in that place in 2001 from dale being killed she was in that guard shack and waved at every person that walked they pulled into that shop that little black glove come out and I was like well damn if she's here I'm here you know because we don't have our conversation and two is I look at it as okay she just lost everything that she had you know like Dale was her shining night or whatever why would she want to go

back to a racetrack you know it's like she just lost everything because of that, you know, and it's like, I mean, you got Dale and Kelly, but they're not hers. You know, well, she's got his tailor, you know, and it's just like, I said, why would she even want to go back to racetrack? For her to keep that business open for another seven years, and for her to have to go to the racetrack to where she lost everything, it's got to be hard on her. It's got to be. I mean, when you love somebody like that and you lose them there, you don't want to go back. I mean, you went down there for Daytona before we run that baseball car for two weeks. just to make sure that your head was right.

Yeah. You know, and it's like, I look at that with her, and I was just like, man, I kind of feel sorry for her in a way. You know, but it was always, we had Teresa Standard Time. You know, she'd done things on her schedule. And because she wouldn't show up to events, it's a DEI deal, it costs us a lot of sponsorship, it costs this and that. But at the end of the day, I can't blame her because I'm like,

well, you know, like, I think that's fair. You know, you know, I miss Dale Senior every day. Yeah. You know. I feel like it's funny you thought that she would, it's funny that you thought that she was going to put up a number and I would need to pay a number. Because in my mind, and maybe I'm the crazy one, when I said I'll stay with, I'll stay for 51% that I was going to get 51% outright for nothing. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We were all thinking, we were all thinking, like, this boy ain't got, I mean. I'm like, this boy ain't got that much horsepower behind him yet. He's good, but I don't think he's got that much. And it's just like, you know, at the time, it's just like, you know. She would have said deal. I'd have stayed. Right.

We'd have kept on digging, right? Yeah. But, and I really was ready to, if she, I was calling her bluff, if she's going to call mine, that we's going to do it. Yeah. So we go to Hendrick right out. the gate we go to a test at Vegas Jeff Gordon comes over to me and can't believe how fast the car is can't believe how good how good we're fitting in how you know that we've came and already made

made the company better they're out there chasing our car around the racetrack right out of the gate you know I went to the first test that what even our test made sure they saw I was serious we you had a great relationship with the guys in the shop, all the new guys that you're working with, you couldn't take everybody you wanted because of the no-compete clause. Yep. And things are going good. It took us a while to get to Victor Lane.

We had the thing with Kyle going on, which was a pain in the ass. And I don't remember when things started going downhill. Well, it was probably 2000. Sometimes we midway through 2009? I remember we went to a test. We were at a test. VIR.

Yep. Because that's where Tony Jr. And you said, you told me, going back, going to get fired. It was weird. It was awkward.

Yeah, I mean, it's like it, the first year, it was like, I come in there and it was like, I had all this simulation, and I was at the last 10 races of that year, and I was like, Darien was taking care of the 25 at the time.

It was the end of 07. Yep. So I'm sitting there playing, I'm like, this is simulation? What does it do? And I'm playing with all these. And they're like, well, we just use that for just using it for pit stops, changes. And I'm like, well, hey, go.

If I hit something like this, D.I'd be using it for a lot more than that. And I'm going to say, so I just started studying it. And I've always been one to where, like, I want to engineer, but I want to engineer too. I want to look at two sides of the story. If there's two people looking at it from two different angles, you can come up with two different options. So I looked at that. well I'd figured out the whole we went to Atlanta and run that five car the all-star car and all I was doing was learning about jacking like they had it where they knew what poundage

was what so I just done every kind of combination I could do I was doing one I would do my setup that I run an eight car and then I would do one setup that was like the hindricks because at the time that's who we were racing and I was like well why did they do that what made mine good and made theirs good like what's the differences what's why is this one one getting to here and this one's getting here and they're both going to the same place you know so i was really studying up really really hard on all that stuff and then when we come out we went to daytona and we won the bud shoot out right off the get-go and they were like and the things that i was doing to the speedway card are like well i can't you i'm like well why can't you i'm like you just got

to push the envelope if they make you fix it they make you fix it if they don't then you get away with it do 15 things if you get if they catch 10 of them so what just don't do something that's going to get you find or get you thrown out of the garage you know back to that hey there's an official make him make a decision you know so they I think we instantly made their speedway program better at that point right then boom fast all week fast all week you know and we were going to places like we went to Atlanta we were sitting there quick time and Latar it comes down and he said man what setup you got in this thing and I'm like this right here he goes out he sits on a pole we sit on an outside pole you know there was just different times like that that we were helping the company and and chad's like man

what are you doing i'm like i'm just using the sim i'm doing a bc well and then they started i think we went and set on the pole to texas xs super fast super fast i mean i walked in there and took me three minutes to come up with a setup we had a race set up was pretty good i went in there put some stuff in the sim and said okay i want to change this spring this spring this spring put this much wedge boom sent it out there went to top of the board like it was that simple well right after that they started seeing how much we were using sims and and they're like oh we got to start using this well then people started finding eras in it and they started changing stuff well every time they would change something the wedge number would change on the

sim so then we got to chasing it because i was like can you just give me the sim back that i had because it was i know things wasn't perfect but it was working for me you know i knew exactly where he needed to be race qualifying everything and we kept changing just for i mean we went from a sim like 12-1 and we were all way up to a 27 one. That's how many versions had gotten changed. Who authored this, by the way, just as a curiosity here? Was it just engineers that... Yeah, it was engineers that they had down there at the bottom.

I mean, Dave, Dave. I don't care about names. I'm just saying, like, but this was all Hendrick Engineers. So, in other words, other race teams, I know DEI didn't have this SIM, but did other race teams? I mean, I assumed this was something that Hendrik had an in-house Hendrick deal. Okay. You know, now manufacturers are.

They're doing, there's plenty of it out there now because all the manufacturers have got into it. But that particular times when it's starting to take off. So what you're saying is it's within the company, but then when others start getting involved and start sort of changing things, it starts messing up basically yours. Yeah, well, just for a simple fact of like I knew 52% of dynamic wedge in the center of corner was right for him. I knew he needed 54 to qualify. And then I just put the splitter at like 30,000s off the ground.

Like I had it where it was like I could put the whole car in a simulation mode and know exactly what, because as you change right rear springs, left rear springs, track bars and stuff, you change that dynamic number. Well, I was fixing it to that dynamic number and he'd go out. It'd have top down force go.

Well, as things start evolving and start changing in the sim, those numbers start changing. Well, now it may not be 52 and 54. Now it might be 50 and 52. So you're, then now you're trying to search for where you were at.

And I think at that particular time, like Jimmy was, he was running a different sway bar package at the end of that year that he really liked. Well, the problem is, Dale Jr. didn't like it. Dale Jr. has to fill the right front, left rear. And it was like that setup. Every time we ran it, we run like terrible. We could go over and say, hey, I want to run Jimmy Johnson's set up. Well, I'd put it in. He couldn't drive it.

It just didn't fit what he wanted. And then I started trying to change to make it for him. well now I'm on an island sort of like there's nobody going down this road and they're like well what are you doing I mean Ken house he he would come over and he'd be like so what are you going to darlington with and I'm like well I'm not sure I said the rest of the company's going like this we went like this last year and run third so I'm kind of up in the air I know if I put this in there he ain't going to run good so I want to go this way and Ken's like well that's what I would do and I'm like well I don't want to be on the island

because the minute we run bad, now it's like, well, why didn't you run what the rest of the company run? And I said, I feel like I'm getting pulled from both sides. And I said, I don't know what to do. I said, my gut tells me to do this, but for my job, it looks like, hey, I'm supposed to do this. Who's applying pressure to you to make you to run the company setups? Well, this is just the way that it's rolling, you know, and I'm just like, you know, and at that particular time, like, I'm easing down and I'm not trying to create any waves whatsoever. So I'm getting more and more laid back at this time as far as like, you know, it's just like,

I think we had one blow up at Michigan. Like you went out there and you run and he was mad at me and we changed something. And he goes, I don't like that. And I'm like, well, sorry, this is what we're going to try. He went out, run 42 laps and the engineer was up on the truck and I was called out lap times and the engineer's pulling on my shirt. And he goes, is he going to come in? I'm like, no, he's not talking right now.

I said, don't worry about it. And he goes, how are we going to get him in? I said, he'll be out of gas in six laps. He'll be in. Don't worry about it. And I think you got out of the car and you're like, it sucks. And you walked off. Well, that was the day we won.

That was the week. That was the first win. That was the first win. We won on fuel mileage. I'd never won one. But he got out of car. That's so crazy. That's crazy because LaTartre tells when you went back to Michigan

and won with him, you and him were at odds all weekend about that too. Like you were cranky about that weekend. But it's just, you know, it got to the point to where that was, and I think we had a really bad, let me start over. At Daytona in 2009, he went down there. He drove through the pit box, parked on the line, lost a lap. Oh, the 500. 500.

He starts coming back up through the field, driving his butt off. trying to make it up. And he's like, he wrecked Brian Vickers, tried to block you. And you wrecked him, and you wrecked like 20 cars. And everybody got out and blasted him and said, you know, you were a lap down. You should have been up there. You know, that was uncalled for. Well, we had a car capable of winning that race.

So we did deserve to be up there. You know, we just parked on the line when we got our tires. So everybody made a big deal about it. Well, then the media went after him. Well, then I think we went to California. was the next week, and something happened there, and we didn't run good, and then the media went on you again. Was that where, that wasn't the one where Mears spun in the water.

That was our first race together. That was in 08. Yeah. So I don't remember exactly what happened. Something happened at California, and we went to Vegas, and we come off the truck, and we were running bad. And I remember Rick coming up in DuCard, and they took us up in the truck, and they were like, well, what's the problem?

and before in practice, I'm standing out there beside the wall, and he's pissed off. And I was like, look, dude, we were trying to suspension here. Don't worry about it. We're going to put it back. We're going into qualifying mode. Everything's good. No, it's not good.

These un-b-breeches ain't on your ass now. They're on mine. And I'm like, and I looked at my watch, and I'm like, dude, this is the third race of the season. I said, if you're cranky now, you ain't going to make it. He goes, well, everybody's got a breaking point, and I'm at my I'm like, it's the third race of the season. You need to chill.

And he said, damn it. And he goes and qualifies bad. Well, as soon as the practice is over, Rick's there, do carts there, and they're like, hey, we need to have a talk. And we go up in the truck, and we're sitting there talking. And it's just a matter of like, they're like, well, what's the problem? Why are we running bad? Like, you know, these sponsors are paying a lot of money for us to run good.

And we, you know, you guys have had a bad year. And I'm like, well, I mean, Daytona, we got blasted because we didn't do that. and okay California I'll take that one on the chin. I'm like, but I said, I got to get my guys head back right. I said, y'all don't realize. I said, we're like two brothers. I said, he needs a cheerleader. I'm not a cheerleader.

I said, when Dale Jr. shows up to Daytona, he's got a full glass of water and ready to drink at all. But when he shows up to Rockingham, he's got a half a glass and there ain't nobody going to fill it up. I said, and I'm not that cheerleader. I said, but I said, I'm just telling you. I said, I've took your worst team at Hendrit Motorsport. and have won three races with them. I said, there was people over there.

I was defending him in the shop because people hated him because his dad wrecked Terriboni back in whatever day at Bristol. They're like, we don't like Dale Jr., because he wrecked us back in Bristol. I'm like, for real, for real, we're going to go back to Big E,

wrecking the catalog's chicken. You know, I said, if it makes you feel any better, I was happy he did it too. Wow, there were people in the shop holding animosity over that. You need to tell him to quit smoking. That's why he's falling out of the seat, You know, so I'm sitting there, oh, no, he ain't falling out of the seat, you know. Well, yeah, he is.

That's why we run good and then the second, third race. So I'm sitting here dealing with all this BS going on in the shop. I won't, I'll never forget it. I walked over from the 528 or 5, it would have been 88, 5 shop. I walked out of that shop. I walked over to the 2448 shop, and I was walking in there, and I was looking at cars. I was just looking inside. This guy walks up to the other side of the window, and he says,

what are you doing? I said, I'm just looking at it. looking around. I said, is that okay? I said, I'm just checking your cars out. Yeah. He says, thank you. I said, thank you. Well, thank you for what? He goes, you're the first crew chief to walk from that shop to this shop in six years. I said, for real? He said, yeah, he said, that's a problem. He says, nobody from that shop will come to this shop. I said, well, if you don't mind, I'll go over and get all 12 race cars and bring them over here and put them in this building if you'll let me. I said, because this shop, it seems like it's run more like what I'm used to.

to with the eight shop. And I said, you know, I said, I love the way y'all do things over here. I said, over there it seems like it's a little bit of chaos. I said, but it can be all be fixed. I mean, we've got everything that you would ever need in this race shop if you can just make it go. So I get in that meeting with Rick and DuCard and they're asking me all this and I'm telling them, hey, I've done this with your team and like, I need some help.

Like, you know, I need this, I need that. And it's like, you know, I feel like I'm sitting out here on the island now. I said, I can promise you. I said, if we can get his head right, I said, he will show up here in the morning. I said, I'm going to go out there and put this set up in the car. Y'all okay with it? Yes. I said, when he shows up in the morning, we'll be at the top of the sheet.

Well, what makes you so sure of that? I said, because we've all sat in this room and talked about it. And I said, and he'll have a better head on his shoulder, not worrying about what the media is saying about him. And I said, and when he comes back here tomorrow, I said, he'll be at the top of the sheet. You really think so? well let's just see you come in the next morning we were at the top of the sheet

DuCart walked up to me and goes I don't understand it I'm like it's a mine thing he's if he walks down with his head down and he don't have the confidence he's not he's not Dale Jr. Like he's not like it's easy to beat him down

and it's like you gotta have somebody lift him up that's why when him and LaTard I think I even told you when you had Lance like Lance wouldn't lift you up like you and Lance was fighting worse than me and him. For sure. You know, and you can look at the end of the season.

The end of the season, they run worse when I left than they did afterwards. And then it was like, I think I'd come up to you at some point after that. And I was like, look, dude, if you're going to run good, you need to get out of that shop. Like, you need to get somewhere else. And I think it was in December something. They announced that Stevie was going to be your crew chief. Stevie called me up. He's like, hey, man, me, you and pops need to go drink beer.

I'm like, for what? He goes, you the two are the only ones that's been successful with him, and I need to know all the tricks. And I said, well, the trick is to keep his head up. I said, you're perfect because you're a car salesman. Like you pump him up. And I said, that's what he needs. He needs somebody right now. I said, he's so down on himself and so down.

I said, he's got to have somebody to pump him up. I said, he can drive a car as good as Jimmy Johnson. I said, but if his attitude ain't right, he can't. And I said, the biggest thing we've got to do with Dale Jr. is get his attitude right. And I think at that time you were building your house, you were sleeping up there in the top of your garage. Like, you didn't have a lot of things going on good in your life. Not good. Not good at all.

You know, and it was like, and I think, you know, when Amy come along, you're like me with the kids. Like you're at a different level. You're a different, you know, we've all matured. We've all gotten better. But that's what, you know, I hate it. What happened with you, the concussions because I think that you were just getting started. Because it's like the driving ability. is there. There's no question. It's just all about attitude when you come in. Did any of this trigger

memories now going back to 2009 when things started unraveling? What is your response to all that he just said? I felt more responsible for our split-ups than Tony Jr.'s letting on. I felt I feel more like when I can see like when we were at the test and you were getting a phone call, I could see look in your eye like you can control this, you know, and so, and there, I didn't really see it in 2005 or 06 when he was trying to tell me like, look, man, you can change this. But in 2009, I felt like he was, I was letting, I was not going to stop Rick from, you know, or Hendrick from making the change. And in my mind, I thought, I felt like if me and Tony Jr. went to Hendrick, man, with what we did, it, we could

dominate. We're going to have everything we need, everything. And their stuff is so good. We're going to be great. And then it's not working out. And I said, maybe I just need to step back and not be in the crew chief game and not be in the deciding

my fake game. And maybe I'll let these guys that have been doing it here at this shop all these years decide what happens. And they put me with Lance. And I said, all right, if this is what you think is going to make me go win,

that's what I'll do. I was wrong about that. Eventually, over time, you know, I didn't, and me and Lance, we were awful. And I didn't push back against that. I didn't go in there and say, Rick, I need something different. Rick, you got to change this. I just went on down the road.

I'm like, I was getting more and more miserable, but I wasn't going to go in there. I just was trying to hope that they were smart enough to know what to do to fix it. They're in the business of running race teams, right, and putting their right people in the right positions. And eventually they made the right choice. Actually, when they came to me, they said, we're going to swap you and Mark inside the same shop. Right. And I put you with Allen.

And I said, Mark's got one more year on his contract. and I said, knowing what I know about what I'm doing with this team I'm with, I can't move over to Allen, then turn around and look at Mark and go, hey, man, have fun with that. And then run the whole year and have to have to look across the shop at Mark. Mark would have made them better. Right. He would have. But I don't know that he, I mean, he would have definitely, he's won five races with Allen.

Right. And I couldn't sit there and go, well, man, I took all. something that you really loved and now you're where you are and it's my responsibility and so luckily Jeff heard about it and said whoa whoa I want Alan and I and they said would you go to the other shop well hell yeah I was like Tony I was like Tony Jr. damn right I'll go over there right I think if I think I can't get better here I can go over there and if I can get better the only place I can get better is next to Jimmy right and whatever next to Chad, next to Jimmy.

If they'll have me, I think I can perform better over there. And I won't have to worry about taking Mark stuff. That can be just fault. Right. You know, and that's what happened. No, and I mean, eventually, I mean, I think now they've got both shops in one building over there. Like, they've went down that path. And it's probably because of what they've seen with what we were doing over there.

But, I mean, it's like, you know, when I was over there, Greg Ives, that was the one engineer that was in the first. 48 shop, I could go over and ask him any question and he would take time. Yeah. Like me and Greg, from the day I walked in there, he's like I consider him a friend because I can call him up at any time and say, hey, man, what do you think or this or that? You know, so I think the world of Greg. And I mean, even Stevie.

I mean, Stevie's a, he's upbeat like he's, hey, this is. Yeah. Yeah. So we've had, we had fun, you know. It's like, so, I mean, I think everything about it was really good. How did you end up back here at Junior Motorsports? Well, when you walked out of the door, Hendrick, where did you go? I come straight here.

Yeah, because he didn't leave Hendrik right of way. Yeah, I went to the R&D's deal, and then I went down there, and that's when we had Brad. Yes. All right, so in the 25. And we were running five races. They were like, look, we're just going to put you down here in R&D. You and Lance are going to change spots. You're going to go in his spot.

Went down there. We had about five people down. there. It was great. Right down there by the chassis shop, like, I enjoyed it. Like, it was, I could have stayed right there. I mean, Kenny Francis, I think, is down there now, but I could have stayed right there in that little zone because it was all about, you know, developing stuff. You could run simulation. You were doing stuff with the chassis. You know, you'd go to test all the time, try this. Like, you'd sit there and watch what the guys are doing at the shop. And, you know, if Chad and him come up with an idea and like, hey, can you run this on your car at

Chicago? Yeah, I'll run it. I'll tell you everything. that happens to it. So that's what I started doing. And we actually ran really good. I think we had a chance to win Chicago, and Boyer put us in the fence on the back straightaway with like two to go with Brad. And it was just like, so I had a great time. And then I remember Rick calling me up and Rick's like, hey man, I need to talk to you. I'm like, okay. So, you know, I'm perfectly happy where I'm at. And he goes, hey man, I know it was tough on you with the Dale Jr. deal with the breakup and all. He goes, but he said, I've talked to Dale, and we appreciate you just being a team player through all that. You doing Brad's deal.

He says, I want to make you a partner in on Junior Motorsports. And I'm sitting there going, okay. Yeah, this is cool. And he's like, you know, we got still got this much on your contract. He says, I can, I'll give you 33% of Junior Motorsports. You can be a partner with me and Dale Jr. and then you can go up there and work with your dad, which I know you'd rather do,

and you can just, you don't have to be a crew chief, you can just be an owner. And I'm sitting there going, and at that particular time, I'm five years looking at five years, I want to get off the road, you know,

me and Amy was still married at the time, and I was just like, okay, this is, this is more like what I want to go. I've been doing this for 20 years, like, I'm ready to slow down,

you know, I'm getting more and more laid back every day. So we come up here, Well, as soon as I come up here, I'm working with dad. And I think Rick called me right before, and he's like, hey, man, we can't cut Kelly out. Kelly's been there since the start. I'm like, no problem. I mean, who cares?

Like, I'm good with it. He said it was going to be me, you, Kelly, and Delgado, and we all have 25%. I'm like, good. I'm cool with it. Like, let's roll. Like, I ain't about that. Yeah. You know?

I said, and so I come up here, and then we, then with Danica deal started. And they're like, well, hey, you got to be a crew chief again. And I'm like, damn it. You know, and I'm like, I really don't want to do this. But after I got to talking to her and all, I was like, I told Pops, I was like, man, I said, how many people have ever given a hundred percent to try to help a girl be a good racer? You know, I said, I'll just give it a shot. So I think me and Danica got a really good relationship because I'd seen what you went through and kind of lived it. So when she come here, I'm like, okay, this is what's probably going to come at you.

from the media, be ready for you. You need to be thinking about an answer. You need to be thinking about this. And so when we did that, it was like two or three things happened. And she was like, how'd you know that was going to happen? And I'm like, I've been doing it a long time. You've lived the circus.

I said, I've done it, you know. I mean, seriously, like California, she went out to qualify. What we figured out was, is like she was out there running. She'd never been on a two-mile in one of these cars. You couldn't test. She goes out there and runs. She would pick up almost,

two tents every time she'd go out. So I was like, man, I could sit here and let her run on a track for 35 more minutes, or I said, I could cool it down and make her run two laps. I said, I think I could get more out of her if I just do more laps. So I told her, I said, just keep running. Just come in here, think about it, go back out and run. I said, we're not going to do a mock run. Well, she went out to do a mock run.

Well, she'd run it just like a race lap. And so she qualified like 36. Well, she come in, and she pulls in the garage, and she's crying. I'm like, what's wrong? she goes, I've never raced, I've never been this bad in my life. I'm like, well, just chill. Just stop a minute.

I said, I said, first off, I said, there's about 35 reporters standing behind you. And if they see a tear, they are going to eat you up. I said, so I want you to just take a deep breath. I said, blame every bit of it on me. I said, just tell them that I wouldn't let you do a mock run, that I thought time was better than that. This is your mulligan, you're here for a year. this is all free that you're here to get experienced to race and you're looking forward to the race tomorrow

and i said blame everything on me i said 100% i said now just compose yourself and i said turn around and go do it she says okay you're you're all right with that i'm like i'm fine with it don't worry about it she spins around goes i go up in the truck she said it word for word the way i told her so she comes up in the truck she said how to do i said well you're not a southern guy so next time use your own words I said, you said it word for word the way I told you. I said, just don't let this stuff bother you. I said, that's the number one thing. I said, I've seen it with him.

I said, don't let the media bother you. I said, I let them, used to let them get to me. I said, Benny Parsons told me one time, if it bothers you, don't read it. You know, and I said, so just keep that composure. And I think we run that whole year or whatever, and we were here. And I mean, I was having a great time with all the guys here, you know, at the shop. but it was a struggle. We had some guys that had never worked on race cars

that were part of the team, you know, and we created something. Yeah. You know, we ended up running pretty good at some plate races. We had some good runs. You know, but it was a struggle. I think her biggest problem was closing rate. Like with the Indy car, when you get three cars away from a car, you're on them.

But when you're in a stock car, you've got to be on them. Like you got to be touching them, you got to move them or something. And that was kind of difficult for her to pick up. She had her struggles at the short tracks. You know, but if I took her to Vegas or I take her to Michigan where there's a big arc, oh, I'll take her all day long. She'd arc the corner. Yeah, she would arc the corner.

When you'd tell her driving straight, well, whenever you told her that, she'd do an arc like him. You know, like the Indycar guys just do this massive arc, and that's the biggest transition between them. You know, but it's like, you've got to tell her and say, like, just drive. in stupid like just drive it in straight and work on it but i think me and her had a lot of conversations like that just that helped her and she's like well i can't believe you figured that out or you know you knew that or whatever but yeah we had a lot of fun here with her she appreciated you so much that you were uh part of her final cup race at Daytona you came back to crew chief that car for her at Daytona when she ran the 500 at india and the Daytona 500 the same year so we're getting long on our

on our conversation, but I wanted to make sure we talked to you about what you're doing now. So I know that you went over to Fury. Yep. You did, you had, I want to get you back in here so we can talk about, you know, a lot of other things. But you went to Fury and walked into that shop. They built, I don't know what they're, I don't know what you got going now, but y'all built super's, super late models and modifies when you started working there, right? Right.

what all is going on now? What all are you doing? What are you responsible for? What's your days look like? Well, pretty much what we do is we got like 330 super late model chassises out there now. We're all over the U.S. We got them in California, Northeast, all around here. We've got 167 modifies out there.

We basically have won the championship in the modified series for the last five out of six years, I believe it is. I helped Burt Myers up at the stadium a lot, help him with his car. And then we built all the chassis for the SRX series. So we started a track day car to try to do some road racing stuff. We took Redick, we've took Ancrum, we've took Casgrawla, we take a bunch of those young guys and we go to places like Cota, Norlina, and we run a track day car to just give those guys laps. In the Trans Am series or just by itself? It's like an SCCA deal.

And it's like they got another class and it's like a GT4. So we can go run this car in that series. Is it competitive? Yeah. I mean, the problem is it doesn't get fuel mileage. But we can go run a 12-hour race where everybody gets three-hour stints. Wow. So it's just basically getting reps.

You know, I think it helped, you know, Reddick. I mean, honestly, he's gotten a lot better road racer and it's because we've went and done races like this. Yeah. You know, just to get them to ship. shifting gears, how to break straight, you know, all this little stuff. Okay. So we've got all that stuff going on.

And then the SRX deal, you know, it works out really well. So I go to all the SRX races. Every race. Every race. I was with Bobby when he won Saturday night. All right. You were the crew chief on the car? Yeah.

So we usually get, we got four crew chiefs. You get, I basically get four cars because we got 13 the last two races. So we have four cars. Everybody else has three. So like this week, I had Bobby, Bonnie, Newman, Waltrip, and Hunter Ray. So you get to work with all kind of people. It's like, so I won Pensacola with Castor Nevis. He was one of my cars down there, so I had him.

I had Stewart at Stafford. But Lubani, I've worked with him probably two or three times, and we ain't never really sealed the deal. So there Saturday night, it was kind of special because he's been so close so many times. It mattered to him. You could tell. Yeah. And it was like we, you know, and I told him, you know, it was one of them deals.

He's like, man, I don't want to screw it up. I've screwed up. many times at this deal and I'm like look dude we're gonna make small changes and I'm gonna help you we're gonna get this one we're gonna finish it and I mean he led all 705 laps and it was he was very happy after a race and it's like that was kind of special for both of us because we worked three or four times together now and we ain't never really fit because we're like you know we see each other the modified race I'll be like I got you this week you know and it's like so but you know how low key Bobby is bobby is great and this so we we're having a good time with that whole

SRX program. It's turned out to be a pretty good little deal. We go to the dirt tracks for the next two weeks at Peevely and it ought to be exciting. Shrader's going to race this week so that's going to be a big deal. So Pops was with you at Fury. What's he doing? Pops is just he's basically retired now. He does a little bit. We have a we helped Justin Bonnet and there's a John Bolin that run at Pensacola and mobile with a pro and a super late model. Yeah. So we go down there. Where's those cars at? We have them at Will Jones car over at his shop. Will Jones's shop. And so Tony Sr. goes over there almost every day?

Every day. And he helps pitil with those cars. Yeah, he pittles with them cars and Will puts on all the Xfinity bodies. Okay. So Pops builds for like Brandon Brown, some of the lower budget teams. So Pops puts all the greenhouses together for him. Okay. He puts the roof flaps in.

It's just something for him to tinker with. Something to do. You know, something to do. Yeah, all right. Didn't you, I thought you started Fury, Was that already? That was a company that already existed? Who started Fury?

Rob Fuller started. The same Rob Fuel Fuller. Yep, we put the tires on backwards at homestead. So we basically had a company called LFR. Full circle. LFR. It was LFR. I worked there for four years.

And then me and Fultz and Darius Graala bought LFR the rights to all the chassisies and stuff. And we started to Fury in 2016. So I've been there since 2016. So basically. You have equity in the business? Yes, sir. And Fultz does too?

Yes, sir. He's still there. I see him moving around. Yep. And so what's the future? What's the plan? What's the vision? Well, right now we're like, you know, our supers are our bread and butter.

So we're trying to really do that deal. But, you know, we've got the modifies basically take care of theirself. But we're just trying to be more involved in this SRX deal. Like it's been a really positive deal for us to people calling about track day cars. You know, there's been some other talks about doing some more stuff with SRX. So, I mean, basically, that SRX covers our summer months. And then we spend from September till March trying to build new super late models and new modifies for customers.

And then in the downtime, it's like you're traveling all over the country and going to these small tracks. And just like I go to every Pensacola race because I want to be. Yep, trying to help my drivers. I've been trying to get a guy to come run the snowball derby with me for a couple of years now. So I go to every Pensacola race and try to make good. You? Me? Yeah.

I've told you. I've told you. You know, I tried to get Bobby. We were trying to make it to where me and Bobby could run to All-American last year. And I was like, well, you might do Nashville. I don't know. I have to get permission slip from him. I am.

You know. It sounds kind of fun. But if you want to do one, we got a car where we can do one with. He's about to go enter a race at Wilkesboro. I'm going to run to a Wiltsboro race. I know. The car store. I almost brought me a judge.

today. I was going to stop up here at the top of the hill and get me one bring it until I knew he was going. Just to get you something from Wilkes County? No, that purple jug. Oh, oh, that ma'am jug. I thought you wanted some moonshine. Are you going to go to that? I'm sure I'll be up there for some of the races up there for sure.

Because you'll have cars up there, right? Yeah. Well, let's end on that story. So we were at North Walesboro, 1995, Tony Jr., Carrey. Kelly, me. We're all there together. And Carrie and Tony Jr. and Kelly all race out of kind of the same area in North Carolina.

My shop was down near the South Carolina line, so I'm kind of on an island. We do things a little bit our way or Gary Hargots way, and we had this purple fuel jug. And in the purple fuel jug was the special gas. And so anyways, Tony Jr. and his guys, they're there, and they need a little fuel for qualifying, top the car off, whatever. So all the jugs are kind of right there together.

All our trailers are together. And somebody went to... Sonny went to get the gas. Sonny McCurdy. Yeah. He was our truck driver for his finity team. And the war started. He went and get the can and one of my guys said,

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't have that one. He's like, why? What's it? What's the big deal? He's like, no, no, not that one. And they both. I've got a hold of it, bowling and tugging in front of the whole garage or the whole, everybody's like,

what's the hell going on? Yeah, we're like, what's wrong with them? What's, what's so special about that gas jug? So you're saying he needs to take one up there in August? Oh, it's just a, it's just a memory. Like, we always laughed about that. Hey, I'm with you. We'd sit there, we'd be in a race and be like, hey, we need a little more speed.

They'd say, hey, I need that purple jug, you know? It was like, if we ever needed a caution, it was like, hey, I'm getting. hungry. I need a slice of pizza. That's right. Wasn't that it? There was codes for everything. There was codes for needing the caution. There was codes for I need a cigarette. Yep. All kind of stuff. Yeah, there was a guy that raced a pizza hut car at Myrtle Beach and Tony Jr. come up there to race with me and he come up there with his own car and he's like,

hey man, he's asking me about the car, what it's going to do, I tighten it up, loosen it up, whatever. We go race and he says I told him the wrong thing. and there's this guy and the pizza hunt car pulls over on the back straightway in the middle of race and then the caution comes out and he cranks it up and drives a lake and he asks Target

he's like Hargut, what the hell deals that pizza truck? And Harge said, well, I had to order a pizza and he might get laughed. Oh, I never knew the backstory on that. So we had a guy down there and we get close to, you know, we need a caution we had a guy that slowed down.

That was awesome. I don't even want this to end, man. I know. Like, there's so many other things. We didn't even get you. That's the great thing about the podcast. We can have them come back. I love having you in the room, man.

I appreciate it, man. I'm glad to be here. Me and Mike got on the phone last night, and we talked about all the breakups and the get back together's, and we surmise that we are brothers. We treat each other like brothers. We love like brothers, and we fought like brothers, and we held each other kind of.

You don't mind telling me the truth and vice versa. And I think that's why we, you know, why we matter to each other because there's not many people in your life that'll be that honest, right? Right. And hold you accountable. And, but I'll tell you, man, I can't wait to have you back because there's so many, so many wonderful memories. Way back to racing around that number two car sitting outside of Mammals or Ralph Earnhardt's garage

in 1980. Right. And staying up all night in Robert G's house watching horse racing on New Year's one night, you know, back in the 90s, just doing stuff, you know, having fun being kids. But anyways, hope you're having fun and doing well and enjoying what you're up to. Going to keep our eye out for you. I see you everywhere doing something and I love it.

Great to hear about how these kids have impacted your life and how special that is. to you, giving you more purpose every day. Thanks for spending some time with us today. The listeners are going to love it. I appreciate it, man. And like I said, anytime, I mean, we could sit down and write a book sometimes. We could write a lot of stories about it. We sure. We'd have to get everybody together in the same room

so we could tell them. Yeah. All right. Now's a fun one. Tony Jr. on the 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, guys, it's finally time for the best part of the show. I'd like to hear what other people's opinions are about this, Mike. Is it the best part of the show? It certainly is for me because we get to include all of our listeners.

And it's the Ask Junior Part. It's brought to you by Xfinity. Let's take a look at the questions that have been sent in to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. All right, the first one here is from Ryan Gooddrum. And we're going to go ahead and jump into a pretty, I wouldn't say, a controversial, but a pretty interesting one. He says, Ask Jr., Ryan Ellis, tweeted a few days ago about someone trying to steal his sponsor. Are there any unwritten rules about this sort of thing? And if so, how do you handle that? No, there aren't any rules. Unfortunately, you know,

there's sponsors are so hard to come by. It really comes down to whether if your buddy has a sponsor and that sponsor is, you know, something that you could attain. It depends on how, you know, whether you can live with the fact that you have taken that sponsor and that opportunity away from your friend. Now, you know, maybe it's a, if it's a car on the other side of the garage, you don't know that owner, you don't know that team, but that sponsor comes to you and says, we like your operation, we want to talk to you about becoming a part of your program, we see what you're doing, we like the driver or whatever the reason.

is absolutely you got to entertain it and if you can make it work you make it work this happens more times than not in the garage a lot of teams and sponsors have moved from car to car throughout the years and a lot of times there's more to it than man this guy stole my sponsor a lot of times that sponsor might be reaching out or that guy might see something in that sponsor that he could deliver value to them maybe there's a match between the driver and the actual service that the sponsor provides. All those things play a role. So, yeah, I know when we lose a sponsor or anything,

if somebody hires away a mechanic, a crew chief, if we lose a driver to, you know, I want our teams, I want our guys to graduate to the cup level, but when we lose somebody to a different organization in the same series, I get angry. You get a chip on your shoulder, even though it might make sense, even though it's, you know, it's something that they wanted or that person wanted. It's hard not to be annoyed and competitive about it because in your mind you believe that you provide the best working environment and the best opportunity for these people to succeed, the best opportunity for the drivers, the best fit for the sponsors, the best marketing for the sponsors, the best impact. You think that your business and you can do that better than anyone. and for when, you know, to be rejected or somebody takes something from you in your mind, it's hard to deal with.

But there aren't any, there's no code when it comes to sponsors. Sometimes, sometimes with sponsors, but a lot of times with people, crew chiefs and tire changers, if they leave, they can't, they might sign an agreement, Mike, that they can't work for ex-competitor or there'll be some contingencies. Yeah, non-compete. Right? Non-compete. That's what they call it. And so where they have to sit on the sideline for a little while, you've kind of been in and on the middle of some of these sponsor deals. I think you just nailed it on the head there, that you take it personal. It almost feels like you're getting dumped, you know, like back when you're dating.

Like there may be other reasons. And you know what? That girl actually might like somebody else better than she liked you, but it's just hard to ration. That's why I understood Ryan Ellis's perspective and vantage point. However, I would also say, right. There are no rules. And also, usually when it feels like somebody stealing a sponsor, it's not actually stealing a sponsor. I mean, like you said, sometimes there's legitimate reasons and business reasons and money. It all goes into it, but it's not a steal. It just feels like a steal because nobody likes getting rejected. Well, I'm friends with Ryan and I don't know who it is, and I won't say, and he won't say, because he's respectful of it. But he has warned this particular person to stop doing this.

Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I don't know that situation at all. But it doesn't feel any better. I'm just saying that at the end of the day, people can poach sponsors or they can go approach to other sponsors all they want. If you offer a better opportunity in the competitive market, you need to stand on that. Give them a better, make them regret if they leave you.

You know, give a better return of value. That's what you just have to strive to do. and then let the chips fall as they may, I guess. I mean, you know, I hate it for Ryan, though. What Ryan did, as far as warning that guy, happens as well. Even at the very top, between some of the biggest owners and names in the sport, if an owner is in a difficult position or a vulnerable position, he might reach out to the other guys and say, hey, look, give me a minute here.

Don't come in here and tear this apart. Let me, you know, this is important that we, maintain this relationship. So they will communicate back and forth. Hey, I really like this guy. Don't take him. Maybe, you know, maybe an owner or a team has reached out to a crew chief or a management position type person.

And that person goes to that owner and says, hey, they reached out to me. They offer me this job. What, I really want to take it. They might, you know, they might call Hendrick or Gibbs might call a Penske or somebody and say, hey, we want to keep this guy. y'all we'd really love to keep this guy and so you know we don't want to let him leave and let's work this out so um there's there are some of those conversations i think happen behind the scenes sometimes yeah 100% on the next one here on the trend of talking about Atlanta and such

uh jan asks do you have a favorite braves player past or present oh man my dad and jody davis Jody was a catcher and they were hunting buddies and so I kind of Jeff Blauser and dad knew each other a little bit Dave Justice was kind of cool I mean there was all the names from the 90s from those teams I was a fan of

pretty much all those guys at that point and so but I would have to say justice was probably the biggest big name back then. I mean, you know, throw out some names. I was a big Mark Lemke fan

because he was like one of those utility players, always dirty, you know. And if you're a Braves fan and you don't love the moment where Sid Bream comes, you know, hobbling around third base in the National League Championship series for that heroic slide

into home plate against the Pirates. I interviewed him about that. Did you? Yeah, I did an interview with him back when I was a sports writer. Listen, if we're going to have this conversation, I don't even know why they're asking about the Braves. Are you a Braves fan or something?

I didn't know that. I was, so when the dad was a Braves fan, so I was a big Braves fan. And so when they had that great run in the 90s, Smolts and all those guys, Maddox, Tom Glavin, I was watching all those seasons, especially postseason, right? You'd tune in the postseason and try to figure out what was going on. Well, if we're going to have the conversation.

Chipper was definitely a big deal. We had him on the show, so I've got some baseball cards of his. We can't have the conversation, though, without somebody going on the record and saying Dale Murphy and then Rick Camp. Bob Horner from that error. Rick Camp was the relief pitcher that came up and hit a homeowner. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. YouTube it. It's great. All right.

So I'm not a massive Braves fan, but there you go. Next one here comes from Alan Bedgood. He says, what was your least favorite part of being a driver? And what's your least favorite part of being a broadcaster? My least favorite part of being a driver was being away from home, traveling. I like to be at home and would have projects and hobbies and stuff and having to plug in, unplug, plug in, unplug was tough. My favorite, my favorite part about being a broadcaster?

Least favorite. Or least favorite. Least favorite part about being a broadcaster is probably the nerves and anxiety. So, you know, I work hard not to let this happen, but I would probably, I could see this easily happening. I'll be so nervous about doing play-by-play this weekend in New Hampshire that I'll be a miserable SOB all week. And so Amy will be like, hey, what's wrong? I mean, like, nothing. She'll look at me, I'll be like, okay, I'm just nervous.

You're going to be fine. I know, but I'm nervous. I can't stop being nervous, all right? That's exactly how that's going to go. And then she'll, it'll be affecting her week. And I'll feel terrible about that because I'll be just so, I'll be so blah. When will that kick in? Wednesday, Thursday, something like that?

I don't know. Hopefully I'm trying to not let it kick in, right? I love it. He's 100% right. That's exactly those weeks. It's a week-long process there. For the six hours when we had it, I had an hour stint where I was by myself and I was so nervous leading up to it because I had to cover the whole pit road.

Dylan's like, are you okay? You're being distant. And I'm like, I'm just so nervous about this hour that I have to do that you almost get sick. And you just want to like hole yourself up because you're so nervous. So that's what I'll do this week. And that's probably the, that's the worst. That is probably the most least fun part about the whole thing. Just being nervous.

Yeah. I know I need to push myself to go into these spaces. Look, Rick Allen is insanely good at his job. And he belongs in that position 1,000 percent. But given the opportunity, I'm trying to push myself into that role in those rare moments, even though I know how good he is and how hard this job is to do, I got to do it. Even though I don't enjoy how anxious I get and I don't enjoy the discomfort,

for some reason I think I'll regret it if I said, look, I don't want to do the play-to-play ever. just put me in there as an analyst and I'm just going to do that I probably would regret that I didn't try it more because it is exhilarating like you you get in there once the race begins and you're on the broadcast and you've gotten past the on camera you're good you know you're gonna make mistakes you just got to laugh it off you got to tell people hey man I know you're you know as a viewer you're you're you get a third rate play-by-play guy here you don't have the top guy the A guy in there right now I understand that you don't have that and I'm just trying to make my way but it's fun as hell it's kind of like anything else you know you get asked to introduce Lincoln Park at the MTV

Music Awards sounds like a great idea yes I'll do it and then in that moment from that moment till it happens you want to throw up yeah and this is weeks yeah this is weeks leading up to it you're like why did I do this why did I agree to do this and and then you take out everybody that's around you too. And then you go do it. And after you're done, you're fist bump in the air. Like,

freaking out, did you see that? Yes, that was amazing. So fun. It's the, that's the weirdest shit. I don't know why we're like that, or I'm like that,

but yeah. All right, here's the last one for this week's Ask Junior. Comes from James Maples. It says, a few weeks ago, you said the Xfinity series potentially lacked some identity.

Would you consider putting V6s back in the Xfinity cars to gain some identity, if not what changes would you make to achieve that? Yeah, I don't know. I think that that's not a, yeah, it's silly sounding, but this is actually right on the money. I don't know if it's, you know, six cylinders are the answer, but the, the Xfinity series, the truck series, and the cup series have to matter to the manufacturer. The truck series matters to the manufacturer because, well, they're not.

trucks, right? They sell trucks. They sell trucks. The Cup Series matters because that's the elite top series and they they sell sedans, right? So the Xfinity series has kind of lost its purpose. What is its purpose to the manufacturer? The pony car thing was cool for a while, but it's, you know, the manufacturers obviously aren't married to selling pony cars every year, right?

And it doesn't, they can sell them regardless. You know, the Camaro or the Mustang or whatever, I don't think that the Xfinity series is having a huge impact on automotive sales in that market. There needs to be a bigger purpose for the manufacturers or some specific, you know, a specific purpose for the manufacturers to want that Xfinity series to be there,

whether it's a type of engine, like this fellow mentioned could be that. The electric car. None of us loved the idea of an electric series in stock car racing

and I don't think any of us really love it. No. Do you love it, Mike? No, absolutely not. All right. So, even though we don't love it, hey, we didn't love the number change,

it happened, even though we might not still love it. It's here. I mean, it is what it is. I don't like, I mean, the number move, didn't like it then, don't like it now, but I'm okay.

You hear me? It ain't go. outside of this moment. You hear me complaining about it? Yeah, but at least a V6 would make noise. All right. Whatever. Whatever.

They would make noise. But that doesn't, I mean, let's get back to the point, Matthew. And if you're a manufacturer and you build Matthew Motors and you're selling cars and trucks, you're pretty good because you got the truck series and you got the Cup series. But the Xfinity series doesn't really matter to you because what does it do for you, right? Let's find out what that series can do for Matthew Motors. Okay. If Matthew Motors needs to sell freaking six-cylinder cars, then maybe that's what the Xfinity series should be. Maybe it's four cylinders. I don't know, right? Whatever it needs to be. S-Uvies. I've heard NASCAR

throw that idea around. What? Yes. Oh my God. I know, right? Many vans with car seats. No kidding, right? Oh my gosh. The entertainment center in the back seats. Right. kids. I will never I will not have a shot full of SUV race cars. I will not. Oh man. All right. Well, that is it for this week's Ask Junior.

Well, those are some great questions. I'll be honest with you, man. Those were fun. And we had some good laughs. Don't take everything we say to heart. All right. So thank you for all those great questions for the Ask Junior segment. Expinity X-Fi. It's more than fast. It's also reliable.

and secure. That means you can do more of what you love with faster internet. That is true. You can keep your team connected with Wi-Fi coverage that delivers the speed that your devices need so your crew can stay in the fast land on race day. Remember everyone to send your Ask Junior questions to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Before we hit the road, thank you to Xfinity, a proud premier partner of NASCAR. All right, Mike, that was a great show. Tony Jr. was awesome to be able to catch up with him, see everything that he's got going on. And it was great to talk Atlanta. Man, I wish we had more time to do. dirty air brought to you by filter time but we just can't we could sit here and do a whole show on this race this weekend it was even a fantastic ass junior actually so like the whole show was a lot of one

of my favorite shows all right episode 389 it's in the books everybody have a great weekend check out dirty moe media on twitter facebook tick tock and instagram