The Dale Jr. Download - 390 - Dale Earnhardt Jr. & Friends: Bad Blood & Rivalries

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

The success of sports is often built on rivalries. Auto Racing is no different. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis bring their favorite rivalries from the table of truth to this special episode.In the late 90's the NASCAR Xfinity Series was a hotbed for talent but also a series full of hot tempers. One of the great rivalries of the era was between an out-spoken northern driver, Champion Randy Lajoie, and an aggressive Georgian named Buckshot Jones.Dale Earnhardt had several rivals throughout his storied career. Most foe were created by physical contact between two racecars. Dale's rivalry with Ricky Rudd was personal. Rudd reveals how their shattered friendship lead to some legendary on-track altercations.Ron Hornaday Jr. is still not over it. In a 2011 NASCAR Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, he and Kyle Busch made contact on the track. Busch proceeded to wreck Hornaday under caution. NASCAR may have parked and suspended Busch for the actions, but it was Hornaday who suffered the most. The incident cost him a shot at the Championship. It's a wound that isn't fully healed to this day.Some rivals start as best friends. Some, under the same roof. Jeff Burton and Ward Burton open up about how their different personalities and upbringing, created bad blood between one of Virginia's most beloved NASCAR families.Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt were great friends behind closed doors. On the race track? Far from it. The two giants of the NASCAR world battled each other relentlessly, resulting in a library of contentious moments and altercations. Rusty opens up about it and we find out how it played into a rivalry with a young Jeff Gordon.Dale Jr. says that if there is a Mount Rushmore of Motorsports rivalries, the Geoff Bodine / Dale Earnahrdt rivalry would be on it. Bodine details his side of one of the sport’s most talked about feuds.Last but not least, a colorful Jimmy Spencer gets down and dirty about his distain for Kurt Busch. How did "Mr. Excitement" get so mad that he punched Kurt Busch?ASKJr presented by XfinityBefore the rivalry talk Hannah Newhouse brought fan questions to Dale Jr. about: What track should host the Championship finale? What dream racecars would Dale Jr. like to test at North Wilkesboro? The mysterious red left front tire at Daytona in 2004. Lugs Harvey or Harry Hogg? 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.

He said whatever creates discord, breaks up unity, destroys pattern. The diabolic. What is this fallout anyhow? Nature will come not just from planet. So the hostility mount and a solution is farther away than ever. Now the best way to handle the disagreement is to calm discussion. Yes, this does mean you. Live and live.

learn because you are the America of tomorrow. Hey everybody, welcome back for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. I'm your host, Dale Jr. and my co-host, Mike, how you doing, Mike? Doing great, buddy. We are here in the Bojangles studio, Matthew, Hannah, everybody's around. We've got a pretty cool show for you. On this show, there's been some great recaps and first-person opinions and versions of rivalries and feuds.

some that, yeah, I mean, the guy telling the story or the guests that we had come in here, they'll tell their version and it'll be like, well, I didn't really see it that way. We're going to kind of encapsulate some of the best. We're going to talk about them, and it's going to be a lot of fun. Dirty air. Let's get right into some dirty air, guys. Brought to you by Filter Time. Obviously, there's no better way to deal with dirty air than fresh air filters.

and you can get those air filters through a subscription service and the best one out there is filter time there's no hassle, it shows up at your front door and that's your reminder to change it. Set that reminder whenever you want, every two months, three months, six months. It's your call. There's no contracts cancel when you want.

Go to filtertime.com, subscribe now. But this is our dirty air. Dirty air. So Hannah, yeah, we've got a lot of cool rivalries we're going to talk about. Let's get right to them. Yeah, of course. So for dirty air,

just kind of a synopsis of the guys that we've had in here, like you said, a lot of them giving one side or the other. And the first one that we're going to kind of dip into here is Jimmy Spencer and Kurt Busch. Yeah, that was something that I see a lot of people talk about on Reddit and so forth. Jimmy Spencer's come in here and talk to us about Kurt and didn't hold back. You know, it's like it's as fresh as the moment it happened. And you lived it. I was there.

And it is still fresh. That is, you know, these times, these years, you know, things start to get spotty for us memory-wise. You know, you don't remember everything in detail. That I remember in detail. And I think Jimmy does too because it was such a prevalent moment, you know, gosh, certainly in 2003, but also in Jimmy's life. And then, you know, when we brought him back here to talk about, you know, his career, there was several things that we wanted to talk about. That certainly was one of them. The one thing that stands out to me is that Jimmy is just as angry now, just, just,

dislikes Kurt just the same. Whatever he felt back then is as strong now. After all these years, I mean, gosh, usually, I think 75, if not even 90% of the time, these kind of issues get sorted out, right? You're going to run into these guys at some point somewhere down the line, whether it's a Hall of Fame function or some sort of NASCAR event and get over it. But, um, not over it. Jimmy didn't like Kurt then and Jimmy still doesn't like Kurt now.

And it's mutual, I believe. Oh, I'm sure. I think it's mutual. Yeah. I can absolutely, I can, I could probably see you reconciling with Kurt before I could ever see anyone reconciling with Jimmy Spencer. That's for sure. Well, you did. So that you are, you are the exact.

I think you did. You had him here. I mean, like that we had Jimmy here to talk about other things. And, uh, you certainly. had stuff to bring up. But you know what? Listen, Jimmy being here was a good thing, and people are still talking about that interview because, listen, it was a...

For a lot of reasons. For a lot of reasons. That's right. It was a two-parter, as a matter of fact. So... Our mistake. Anyway. Come on, man.

Are people talking it? I didn't know that. Yeah, Jimmy was tough to follow. And his version of events were, let's say, a little. Oh, we can't be digging on Mr. Excitement that bad. No. I don't know. The modified guy of me is...

I forgot this is a very soft, unopinionated podcast. He absolutely has his versions of stories, but then again, I don't think he's the worst that we've had at this table. We should probably hold back. We should probably take it easy. Yeah, that way we don't, like, move any needles. We don't... Jimmy didn't deserve... Only on episode 390 is when we decided to hold back.

Let's wait until that. Timmy doesn't deserve any harsh treatment. Ever. Ever. He never laid a bumper on anybody. Maybe you're not over it. I think you are the one that needs to be. I am not. I am not 100% over it. We talked about it. It was good to hear his words.

But he never apologized to him. We're not talking about that robbery. Let's go on. I don't know. I think we want to talk about that one. I was going to say, we have some high-level rivalries, obviously, and then added the culmination of being brothers, one of the other ones we're going to talk about is Jeff and Ward Burton. Didn't know this one existed. Me neither.

Didn't even know it existed. That's right. And I want to say, you know, you can listen to what they talk, you know, you can listen to what Jeff talks about. Ward discusses a little bit. You can listen here. But also, we had the Burton continuum where they discuss a lot of that as well. Well, the Burton continuum was seated specifically from Jeff Burton's conversation at this

table on the Dale Jr. download because I did not know that. he and Ward had such animus towards each other until then. And then after that, I don't even know if we're supposed to say this, but I just remember like after that show aired, Ward texted us and he's like, that ain't how it happened. And it's like, oh my gosh, there is this riff. And so, yes, the Burton Continuum. We must do a podcast. So the next one, of course, is also your dad and Ricky Rudd.

Yeah, and this one was something else, man. I mean, I knew that Dad and Ricky had some on-track incidents, but we learn. a lot about how Ricky, so I remember being a kid and Ricky pulling up on, on his boat to the dock at Dad's house, like any neighbor coming over and just saying, hey man, it's Saturday or whatever,

or it's a great day on the lake, and we're just, we see you're on the pool, it's just a normal thing. And, you know, obviously to me, I'm going, dude, that's Ricky Rudd, dad, cool, racers are here, you're a racer, these are racers. I only see this at the track,

but now they're coming to our house. How cool is that? Tim Richmond, all kinds of people. And then we learned that they had a nasty falling out, very personal falling out that lasted a long time. Like, I did not, and Ricky was pretty honest. Yeah. Sorry, but I just want to say, like, he's in,

he's on my podcast, my show, my dad is the topic of conversation and I felt like I appreciated that he didn't sugarcoat it. Yeah. Considering the variables at play. More than that, I felt like for the first time, and there's not often that people tell stories that are going to let you consider the side that was against your dad, right? Like, I mean, you're going to always be for your dad. For sure.

And that was one where it almost felt like Ricky was right. Yeah. I mean, I absolutely listened to Ricky's side of the conversation was like, I could I can't blame you for the way you're feeling. Exactly. But I had no clue that it was beyond the racetrack. I had no, I didn't have any understanding of what was happening beyond the racetrack. And there's also the rivalry with Rusty, but the common denominator between the two is the dislike for Gordon. Yeah. So I always felt like that Dad and Rusty were kind of like competitive. competitors off the track. You got a plane, I'm getting a plane. You get a bigger plane? I'm getting a bigger plane. You get a bus. I want a bus. My bus is going to be more expensive. My bus's going to be bigger. My bus's going to be longer. My boat's going to be bigger. That was dad and Rusty. And I don't know whether it was dad as much as it was, you know, I think Rusty was the one that was just trying his hardest to. 100 percent. Compete, right?

100 percent. That's the way I saw. That was all. Rusty had a complex over that. He did. And he had, he made it obvious. He said it. Right? Yeah. Interesting how Rusty was open about his feelings toward Jeff Gordon when he first came in. Another moment when the table of honesty really comes through. All these years later, these guys could walk in here and go, oh yeah, we were all great. We were all friends. Yeah, you know, he was the new guy on the block. We tried to race him hard. It was so fun. No. He was like totally honest about his feelings of Jeff and how there was some animosity, jealousy, and that, you know, things didn't quite work out as Rusty had planned in one particular incident. And Dad was part of that. They had some run-ins.

I remember in, you know, the year Rusty wins the championship. There was some close battles between him and Dad, even resulting in contact. Dad got spun around at Rockingham with racing Rusty. Somebody comes through and rips the whole back end off Dad's car. I mean, it cost him a ton of points. And I felt like there were some moments during that year Rusty raced Dad. kind of dirty. You know, if you're Rusty Wallace fan, it was absolutely not dirty at all. But it was borderline. It made me, I was frustrated. So when Rusty goes and wrecks Darrell at the

Winston and got booed, I wasn't too, I didn't feel too bad about that for Rusty. I kind of like seeing that happened to him. But anyways, moving on, man, Rusty and Dad, they were a friendly rivalry, we'll say. And of course, there's the rivalry with Bodine as well that we all know so well. Dad and Jeff Bodine to me has to be like on the Mount Rushmore rivalries in NASCAR. This one was without a doubt the most genuine. Yes. It was true hatred across both sides. The owners were sparring in the media going back and forth at their drivers,

respective drivers. The teams did not like each other. and didn't mind showing that or sharing that animosity toward each other. Not the only rivalry, but one of the few that really got Bill France Jr.'s attention. That's right. Man. So, you know, the moment in Days of Thunder where they, you know, Bill France or the head of NASCAR brings the drivers in for the meeting. I mean, that's where that moment came from out of the reality of the situation that Dad and Jeff Bidiam are going through.

I hear from Rick Hendrick that dad comes in the meeting and he's like, you know, this, I'm going to tell you my side of it. And Bill France said, y'all are going to sit down and not say a word this whole time. I'm going to tell you how this is going to go. You, Jeff Bouda and you, Dale Earnhardt, you're going to race in my series. You're going to do what I tell you to do in terms of straightening up. You're not bigger than the sport. The sport will be here long after you. and it's your decision on how you want to proceed going forward.

I mean, it was pretty matter of fact. I don't think there's anybody that could put Dad in that type of position and hold him to that other than Bill France Jr. But again, going back to that hatred and that pure just, I mean, Dad would lose his mind. Dad would go out on the track and no longer was he worrying or thinking about the checker flag or winning the race. It was, I'm going to wreck that car in front of me.

I'm going to wreck Jeff Bodine as fast and as quickly as I possibly can. Knowing that it was going to result in five-lap penalties or they invented a penalty box during the middle of that rivalry. And they put dad in it. Yeah. He dared them. And they did, you know, put him in that penalty box. And funny thing, man, when we had Kirk Shalmers down in here, Richard Chilters,

Even when dad was basically just kind of throw in the race to be able to teach Jeff the lesson he thought he needed to teach him, Kurt and Richard had his back. That's right. They were like, yeah, man. That's right. Whatever he was willing, whatever he needed to do, he's going to handle him. I mean, everybody in the moment was like what needed to happen happened. That's the rivalry that still keeps on giving, especially for us doing a podcast,

because we've had five or six people that all had some sort of role. in that or at least suffered the recourse from it. We've had the owners on it. We've had Chocolate Myers has been on the show. We've had, like you just said, Kirk Shelman or Dene. Everybody had a perspective about that, including Jeff this year. So like, we have had people weigh in on that. And that has been what's so fun. It keeps on giving.

That is a real feud. And, of course, we usually only hear one side in these rivalries, but one of the best ones that we've been able to hear both sides of the rivalry is that of Randy LaJoy and Buckshot Jones. Yeah, I know this is one of Matthew's favorite. but, you know, Buckshot was great to talk to, and obviously anytime you can talk to Randy, it's awesome. And they both still haven't sorted this out.

That's right. You know, there's some, like I say, man, there's some rivalries where they sort of, you know, come to a common place. But Randy and Buckshot never were able to sit down and come to some terms. And I feel like if you put them on the racetrack right now, they would have a hard time not running into each other.

I almost want to get them back in the room together. That's the one thing. We had Randy with Corey and we had buckshot, but man, like that felt unsettled. And I'm a better way. I don't know. Do we need a boxing ring? Do we need, what are we going to do? I loved it.

It's a good idea. I think two chairs side by side right there, both of them, and let it rip. We're going to just, we're going to just talk it out right now. That's right. I think we have to. I think we have to. All right, guys, it's time for the best part of the time. 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. Brought to you by Xfinity. Let's take a look at the questions that have been sent in to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. So first one here comes from Jan Foster. It says, which track would you like to see get championship weekend? Oh, man. I want to say this reminds me

of something I saw on social media, which was a really, really good idea. They should take this Atlanta race and everything we've seen this weekend

and make it the cutoff and move Daytona back to July 4th. But I heard that the city of Daytona does not want the race back on July 4th. Oh, I didn't know that.

What? They can fill the hotels with that town with July 4th folks without a race. and that race fills those same hotels on another weekend. And can we get the hotel prices to come down then? So the town gets a double bang, you know, double bang when the race isn't on the fourth, right?

You understand, Mike? I understand. So, yeah, unfortunately, now that they've learned or realized that, I don't know that Daytona would ever get back to the fourth. Boy, this Atlanta race is a cutoff would be something. It would. God, oh, my. No, I will say that I do not think that Atlanta, Daytona, or Talladega should ever. host the final race of the season to crown the champion nor should any road course.

What is the perfect track? I don't know if Phoenix is. I almost miss how, you know, are we really, really excited to see this next gen car race at Homestead? And if it's a good race and the cars look fun to watch, there's some good, I would love Homestead to go back to being the race at the end of the year. It was a great weather. I know we had some, We'd have rain from time to time. It was in a great part of the country during that time of year. And typically we would come in early and go down to the Keys or a lot of teams would go to Miami. So there's a lot to do in celebration pre or post race.

And I don't know. I thought the energy there was always pretty good around the stage and around the celebration of the champion. You had the truck, Xfinity Cup, all right there going through that. that whole experience night after night. So it was a good vibe. I don't know what it felt like across the television or at home on the couch, but being there at homestead,

it felt like a pretty decent fit. Yeah, I don't, I'd have to toss up some other ideas. Vegas might be a pretty, pretty cool way to end the year. You're in Vegas. You could go right to the banquet. Literally days later, if you wanted to, Nashville, maybe. I like that.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So if you were in, you know, racing in Vegas, You could have a big, you know, you could celebrate. There's a lot of things in Vegas that you could be doing, and then on the way home, you know, you could stop into Nashville,

have your champion celebration, and then go home. Just have it at Nashville. The good one. Have the race in Nashville and... Yeah, and then have a media blitz, like a few-day... Yeah, a few-day media blitz. Then the celebration of the champion all in one. Does it get cold in Nashville in early November, though?

Like, I don't actually know, because I know it can be hot and cold here, so, like, could it be, like, pretty cold? Nashville Fairgrounds, man. There you go. It doesn't get cold at Nashville Fairgrounds. The action's so hot. If it was at a short track, you'd be fine being bundled up. All that body heat.

Yeah. Yeah, if people get on to the snowball derby and basically wear a snowsuits, I think they can handle Nashville in November. Next one here comes from Tim Sweetich. Says, there's been a rumor in my little community that you were once snowmobiling in the west upper peninsula of Michigan with Steve Park, and you stopped into the Mosquito Inn for a beer or two.

Two decades later, still talking about it. That this ever happened. It never happened. I think you'd remember a place called the Mosquito Inn. Yeah. Or someone building in the western Upper Peninsula. If he would have said that did happen, I would have been pissed that we didn't bring that up

when Steve Park was here on the show. I would have to think that something like that would have been brought up in the interview. I apologize that it's been a rumor for all those years, but it didn't happen. You have a doppelganger out there. This one comes from Arthur. It says if you had a chance to get behind the wheel of other types of race cars,

not in the race, but just to maybe take some laps at North Wilkesboro. Would you, and if so, what one would you like to consider? At North Wilkesboro only. I think it'd be fun to drive a modified around there. If I could have been there during the test when Bobby the Bonnie was there, I'd gladly jumped in his car and went for a couple laps. I've just never sat in a modified and drove a lap.

lapse in one, so I think that'd be fun to do at North Wolfsboro. Obviously, taking a next-gen car around there just to see how that would feel or drive would be neat. Any car, honestly. I mean, that's a fun track and worn out, slick, slow. That's perfect for me at this age. And so I'd have fun driving just about anything around there. And this last one comes from Wolfgang, and this just kind of runs along with the trend of, we always giggle that Earnhardt fans know more about your life than you do.

This is from Wolfgang. It says on the final run of the 2004 Daytona 500, you had a red left front tire. But in every other image throughout Speed Weeks, all of the tires are black. Do you know if another set of tires was bought from another team, or did the wheel just happen to be painted red? No, it came from Jeremy Mayfield's team.

Didn't it, Mike? I think so. It definitely came from someone. I didn't remember Mayfield. It was absolutely from Ray Evanham's Dodge's, and it was one of those cars, and I don't know if that, yeah, It was Mayfields, I believe.

So we, the handling at the race at that time with that track was really, really important, just as important as the speedier car. And we were getting spring rates about, you know, the tire sidewall had a spring rate that good year would measure, and we would get those numbers. And so you could basically, you know, you couldn't adjust stagger, but you would take the tires and try to keep the spring rates of the sidewalls all pretty much the same for every set. And we had, if you had 10 sets of tires for the race, you'd have eight sets that were really close, and then you'd have this, you know, a couple of tires you just couldn't do anything with.

And so that'd throw off one or two sets. And so when someone would fall out of the race, you'd go up and go up and down pit road and go, hey, man, you got a left rear with a 1,500 spring rate sidewall. Yeah, well, here, can we have it? and we'll buy it. And so we'll take it and put it with our ninth set. And now we got nine good sets, right? And so in that particular race, as we come down toward the last few sets of tires, you'd see some oddball colored wheels on some cars that were trying to match their sets more perfectly to keep the handling and the balance of the car similar as the set before.

And we actually do have one more for this week's Ask Jr. It comes from Dave Metz. It says, which fictional crew chief would you rather have on your pit box? Lugs Harvey or Harry Hogg. Okay. Lugs was in Stroker Race, and he was obviously Stroker Race's crew chief. Harry Hogg was in Days of Thunder, and he was cold trickles. I'd go with Harry because Harry seemed to have everything figured out. It seemed to be a good teacher, mentor type of guy.

Lugs was funny. I don't know that his cars were all that great. I don't know that he was much of a teacher or mentor. keep you in line kind of guy kind of more he'd let you kind of go your own way and that might not be the way you need to go Harry would hire you a stripper is this true that's true

if that means anything to anybody if that's in your wavering decision if that's in your contract oh yikes that is it for this week's Ask Junior all right so thank you for all those great questions for the Ask Junior segment X-Fi it's more than fast

It's also reliable, powerful, 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 lane 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. Proud premier partner of NASCAR.

Guys, I'm really excited that we have allies a part of this partnership and the sponsorship of our Dale Jr. download, they bring us our guest segment every week with that sponsorship. It's great to have allies in your life professionally and personally. But a couple of these people that we have on this week's show could have used a little bit of this insight because they went at it. They weren't allies.

They went at it. Sometimes you're going to have rivals as well. That's right. So that's what this show is about. That's what this segment's about. Let's get right to it. Here's some of the people, some of the guests have been on this show, sharing some of the great rivalries in NASCAR.

So let's get right to it. Bad Blood, Rivalries. You and him had a bunch of running. Oh, yeah, Bristol, New Hampshire. Why would y'all, why didn't y'all get on? I don't like them. Bad blood. Bad blood and rivals.

The Dale Jr. Downwood. Episode 327, Randi's Joy. I remember you and Buckshot Jones in Bristol. Now, this one might have been a couple years later, right? Probably. Yeah, yeah. And if I'm jumping around. No, no, that's fine. 98, I think.

When I was there. Tell us the story. I remember seeing it, but take us back through what happened. Through the course of the year, you know, Buckshot Ricky Pearson, that team being our motors, I mean, God, they didn't lack for nothing. I mean, the guy was a dart without feathers. I mean, all over the place. So, okay, we're running in the pylon.

What caution comes out. And I was probably fifth or sixth. and what happened? And you see a bunch of crew guys standing out, pit road, flipping somebody off. And they're like, I, I had Bucshot wrecked the guy. It's okay. Go another 10 laps. Caution come out.

Pit crew guys on the backstretcher flipping someone. Who did? Oh, a buckshot wrecked somebody. You know, he wrecked McLaughlin, and big guy was standing out there. You know, I was like, okay. And he's coming up. Double O's coming up to board. And I always told him, I said, listen, you don't, you don't mess with me and I ain't

going to mess with you. Well, he gets to me, jacks my left rear up. Okay, he gets to me, Jack. Well, he gets by me. Well, when he did, I picked him up at the start finish line, and I ain't lifted yet. I was going in one and carried him a little deep, and he wrecked. I mean, it looked like a gremlin. So, okay, the place went halfway quiet.

It was little loud when he wrecked. Well, okay, so I come around and spotter says, hey, he's looking for you. So come around, and I come out of two, and I see him down the backstretch. Car jopping. And I tried to pull alongside of Robert Presley to hide. He was in the 59, a lion's car. He wouldn't let me up. So I said, okay, so I backed it up a little bit.

And we get into turn three, and I hear Buckshot gasses it up. He turns, so I gas mine up. They tried to get out. And he takes a hard right, and he misses me and drives straight into the fence. The car shook when the crowd went, the crowd noise. It was like you taking a lead to Talladega. I mean, it went nuts. And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.

So we run third, okay? Come down, pit road, and there's people everywhere, bringing wanting to fight. So the state cops put us on the golf cart. Corey's there. I remember the wife's there. Yeah, we come up out of the tunnel and people throw on beers. Oh, yeah. They're throwing beers?

Oh, every day. Hey, you? I guess. Yeah. They're throwing somewhere right. Well, I mean, when Bucks I sold out of souvenirs that weekend. The PR people thanked me to next week. Yeah, you helped him out.

Yeah. You and him had a bunch of run-ins. Oh, yeah. Bristol, New Hampshire. Why would y'all, why didn't y'all get on? I don't like them. Yeah. Did you ever?

That usually doesn't. Did y'all ever talk about it? Did y'all ever figure it out? We're okay, I guess now. As long as I don't see him, we're good. I never really got to no buck shot. I mean, I don't think you missed anything. I mean, he had a hell of a gimmick, you know, with the rifles.

And, yeah, it was a great gimmick, and he was fast. You know, but he was just a dart without feathers, you know. Have a damn. Did you have any other people that you felt as, as love? lovingly towards in your career? No. No, he was the only one that... Buckshot was your guy.

Well, I mean, at Talladega, we were at Talladega, and I had a big push. I had backed the lineup, and he was in front of me, and I backed the lineup, and I said, I'm going to go around him coming out of going into one. He jumped up to block me. I mean, somebody was going to wreck, because I had eight guys pushing me,

and it wasn't going to be me. I ain't lifted yet. I mean, I get, boom. He goes down through the infield, wrecks. Okay. End of the race. run out of gas twice and I'm mad because it was the same year we won Daytona come back to Tao Degas said we're going to be good here we go run out of gas twice I said how do you miss it twice

so I wasn't happy you know so okay checker comes out I unhooked take my helmet off hang it up going down the backstretch he comes out of the infield T-bones me buckshot does but no helmet no I had nothing I was like you son of him so down in the infield well I there he is no farther than that car from me and I first gear. I said, oh, I better get out of the mud first before I hit him. So I finally got the thing out of the mud and he's gone. We come in, I pull in like, NASCAR wants to see you in the truck. Okay, not a problem. So we go in the truck, Ray Hill. I go up, Ricky, Pearson's in there. Birdie's behind me. We go walking in. Buckshot's in there. And as I went up the stairs, I tripped and I kind of might have hit him. Might have kind of hit him.

I was like, what the hell was that all about, you know? And old Ray Hill. he loved the guy and then he was just so calm he just randy just sit over there and just calm down yes sir ray so he'd say okay what the heck happened i and he said he wrecked me talladayga man you can't pull in front of somebody going 30 mile an hour and thinking you're not going to get wrecked so now that started it you know and then that's how it started yeah and then new hampshire we got into it and i wasn't there that day but when he got back he was laying in bed was that the left side left side yeah and he's you know i don't know no different dad just wreck, right? And it was maybe on a Sunday or Sunday. You know, I get up, dad's back. And I'd run,

hey, dad, jump in the bed with him, just smother him, right? I was probably seven. Like, nothing of it. Well, he's one arm throws me off the bed, right? And he takes the dang comforter off. And from his neck to his ankle is black and blue from, I'm assuming you hit the door barge or something. Big wreck. So yeah, I didn't know. Don't jump on that after a big left. Two or three times I've turned my body, black and blue from hitting stuff. Yeah. You know, it's okay. We didn't know any better back then.

Yeah. I flipped down the back straightaway with Dick Trickle in my first race at Daytona in 1998 and that was Buckshot. Was it really? He started that, a common denominator. You said you never had a relationship with him, or you never got to know him. I mean, just never had a conversation really more than just hey and what's up? Nothing.

Man. Yeah. No. He's a buckshot these days. I think I don't want to leave. He's still out there. I was in Nebraska. Two years ago.

I was out in Nebraska at the Sprint Car National. So I leave the racetrack, and I'm going back to where I'm staying, to Kaczynski family. And I'm listening to NASCAR radio. And I said, Claire B is like, I'm going to talk to Buckshot. I was like, huh? I was like, I was like, sure. Yeah. So I listened to the interview.

PTSD. Yeah. And I was like, oh, man, get a headache listening to him. So no sooner does he get off the thing. Because Claire B had no clue that we had a rivalry. Because somebody said, hey, you got a, she, you had a rivalry? Oh, me and LaJoy, we got in it all the time. No, soon as he gets off, my phone's ringing, Atlanta, Georgia.

Oh, there ain't nobody. Hello. It's great. Hey, Randy, Buckshaw. Oh, it's Buckshot. What the heck you want? You know, I remember seeing him a couple years later. He was racing at Concord, and they were doing autographs before the race,

and I walked up behind him, and I bent him over his rear spoiler, and I just kept pushing him, pushing, pushing down. And he's like, what's going on? I said, I'm going to cut you in half. This spoiler is going to cut you in half. He goes, we're all good, ain't we? I said, oh, yeah, we're great. Yeah, okay.

I'm like, look, the back of my car is black. There ain't no blue on my car, but there's blue all underneath it. And I said, your car is blue. I said, you hit us. Rivalries. Bad blood. Bad blood and rivalries. The Dale Jr. Download, Episode 354, Buckshot Jones.

I'd say that my only biggest issue would be the joy. I wouldn't say there's like this person that, you know, like racing with. I mean, just a few people, you know, you know, you had to be the joy. run-ins with. Yeah. So what was it about LaJoy? Was it just one of those guys, just like that guy at Lanier, that you just, you know, got off on the wrong foot and you never could, it never ended?

Made a long story short. I would say back then, a bunch of the teams had someone that, you know, always booked your hotel rooms. Yeah. We go to Talladega, something got messed up. So it was us, Elton Sawyer's team, LaJoy, someone else. So we always joked around with Elton. Elton's guys, and something happened with, like, fireworks. Well, I had a bottle rocket, and I leaned over the rail, and I threw it in, you know, Elton's room.

Bob's in there, too. That bottle rocket goes in, sets Bob's jacket on fire. Oh. So the next. Bob, who? Sutton. He owns the car. Yeah, him and Aiken.

He owns Elliot's car, yes. Yeah, Elton's Sawyer's car. Right. So that night, I had a Pontiac, you know, like, car. and they kept setting the alarm off. Well, get up the next morning, and my car's on jack stands. Yeah. So I'm like, man, well, I go out there and look, there's a big dent inside of my car.

So I was talking to his guys, like, man, who put the dent in the car? They're like, Lojoy. You know, he was beating up against it. He was the one setting the alarm off a lot. So I was like, that side, you know, he can pay for it. So we go. Is that the first? Yeah.

That's the first domino. This is what started it? Well, that kind of, I wasn't really mad. I'd just like, hey, he's for pay for it. Yeah. Well, we go to the driver's meeting. He gets up and talks and says, you know, hey, everybody needs to give and take. Where are you at?

Talladega. Okay. He goes, everybody needs to give and take at the beginning of the race. So it's like, good. Well, eight laps in. You know, he hits us, like, through the trial. And then Nimichick hits us. Well, me and Nimichick parked in there, and Nimichick come over and said a couple words,

and it pissed me off even more. Nemichick said what? Did he knew something was fixing to happen? Oh. I guess what was going on. He said, he's like, I knew something was going to happen in the race. Like I knew a record going to happen. No, he was saying at the very beginning the way some guys were driving.

Right. He's like, I knew that was bound to happen. And did you feel like he put that on you? Why did that push you off? No. Because, rainy. Oh, I got you. So it's like, all right, the dent.

So Nimich. So Nemechek fired you up even more. Yes, they did. So we get out there and run, cars tore up, and, you know, end of the race comes. And, I mean, I'm still pretty pissed about it. So we run out of gas. And I finally coast around, come in. I said, fill it back up.

They're like, man, race was only like one lap left. I said, fill it back up. So they filled it up. And I won't name the spotter, but he knew what I was fixing to do. and we took back off. And I guess we were in turn one. He goes turn four, start finish line, and Lejoy finally got up.

You know, hit him. You ran into his car? Yeah. Race over? Yeah. Okay. So it was just more like the anger, I guess, at the time. And, you know, like when you get upset, you do things.

Well, we all go in the NASCAR trailer. Did NASCAR come over and say, hey, man, you got we saw that you got to come to the trailer at the time nobody really saw what happened they knew something happened but they didn't know they didn't know what happened but no they knew something happened yep how did you get called to the trailer oh as soon as i pulled in the officials come up said you and your crew chief so we'd go in there and randy's like you know man i never touched you i'm like look the back of my car is black there ain't no blue on my car but there's blue all underneath it and i said your car is blue i said your car is blue i said you

you hit us. He's like, I never touched you. And that, I've seen the replay. Like, he flat run over you. Yeah. So, you know, when we went in there, I was never directly asked, did you hit Randy? Yeah. They just said kind of what happened. Well, I guess it was Tuesday or Wednesday. Mike Helton called, his buckshot, he goes, and he'd talk to you. Like, yes, or he goes. Did you hit Randy? I said, if you're going to ask me a direct question, I'm going to give you a direct answer. I said, yes. I said, but you never asked me in that trailer, you know, did I hit him? You just said, hey, what happened? And I told you.

And I said, but, you know, he wrecked us. I said, he goes into that driver's meeting. So that kind of started right there between me and him. And I don't know that we had any other issues until Bristol. So this was in 97. Hold tight. So what was the repercussions of that after Mike Hilton's calling you? Do you get fined?

Did you get dock point? I think I got $5,000 fine, 50 points. Okay. So did you regret it? At the time, no. But, you know, looking back on, you know, things, you know, when that race is over, yeah, I mean, I don't believe in really hitting people. I mean, some guys take their seat belts off, you know, or whatever.

But it was just you're in like the heat of the moment, I guess. And my last question about hearing you tell this story, was anybody trying to talk you out of it? You said your spotter was new about it, knew what you were doing, giving you, giving you at least info about where LaJoy is, right? So there's nobody else just saying buckshot, cool down, or whatever, crew chief, nobody. No. Okay.

I don't think they really knew until it was kind of. After the fact. Yep. Yeah. Okay. But no regrets. Even after Helton, all that stuff, you're just like, look, he had it coming. Yeah.

Okay. Then you go to Bristol. Bristol, you know, always look at it like this, you know, if you bump someone, you know, and you, to get on around him, if you've been on them, been on them, been on them, and they're not losing other positions. You know, it's short tracks. That's just part of it to me. And that's what happened like with Randy.

You bumped him. Barely bumped him. Past him. Yep. And that's it. He didn't lose a spot. He didn't lose anything. Go down the next corner dumps me.

but you know at that time after that race what's so funny is is he says hey you know he got a he got a run on me you know i'll let him go um we go down turn one and you know he checked up you know people checked up in front of us i'm like there ain't nobody in there in front of us and i mean he lifted us spawn us and yeah i was fired up right then because i was like you know i've had it you know you wrecked us at talladena now you wreck us here Why do you think that he was sort of had this agenda for you? Because Randy didn't wreck other people. I would say.

You and him seemed like y'all just couldn't wait to do it. We never had words like before. We never had any problems. I mean, nothing. Would y'all talk to each other at the track? Say, hey, wave, nothing. No. So y'all, there was no communication between any of these incidents, good or bad.

No. Yeah. Did you think it was over? after Talladega though? Like, did you suspect that it would carry on? Even if you didn't like the guy? No, I didn't. I thought, hey, it was just all right, it happened.

It's over with. Okay, so you thought it was over? Then Bristol happens, and now it's not over, and now you've got these feelings are all back. Yeah. So you get dumped, you're mad, and then he's like, I'm not sorry, right? That's even worse, isn't it?

I mean, when a guy does something like that and has zero remorse or intakes no responsibility. Yeah. That makes it even worse, don't it? Yeah. So now you're like, in your mind, are you thinking getting his ass back? No, I looked at it, you know, at Bristol, you know, hit him a little bit. That's over.

I'm not, I wasn't looking at going, you know, wrecking him, you know, somewhere else. I think we got together at Nazareth and, you know, destroyed his car. But it's like he said, you know, I think if I remember, we all went in to the one corner at Nazareth, and it got bunched up, and he got in the back of Patty. I got in the back of him. You know, he hit the wall. We did not give each other an inch, I mean, ever.

And I don't remember what race or what happened between me and him. I think we were at Charlotte. We got called into the trailer with crew chiefs and Harry thing. It was told, if you wreck each other, we're going to park you, you're sitting in a race. if you're in the same accident and neither one of you caused it, whatever. If you're both in it, we're parking you, and

you're going to miss the next race. We're not going to have it, you know, anymore. And yeah, you couldn't fit a piece of paper in between our car at times, but we didn't touch. I mean, I don't remember, I think it was

before that, we were at Loudon. It was faster than him. And finally, you know, got a run on them, got beneath them, hit, you know, he hit the wall. Well, I looked at it. I'd ridden behind you. I was faster. We've had problems.

You should have let me go. And I think Jeff Green was behind us. And we were on the plane ride home. Me and him were talking. And I go, what did you think about it? I said, you were there. I think you're both at fault. He goes, I think Randy should have given you the room because you were there.

He goes, but I look at it. you, if you had given it probably two more laps, you probably would have passed them. It wouldn't have been a problem. But you two guys have had so many problems together, neither one of you were given. And I think it was pretty much after NASCAR talked, everything kind of stopped between us. We may have bumped each other, but everything pretty much settled. And actually, I called him in 2009, I think, about doing my boy's quarter-migit seats. He's like, yeah, come up.

you know, no problem. And I talked to him one other time, you know, kind of quick. I thought, you know, hey, over, and then he'd come on here. And he started saying stuff. I'm like, man. Did you, oh, so you heard what he was saying on here? I ended up listening because I got phone calls. I was like, like, giving you hell.

And I'm like, listening to it. And I'm like, dude, you're telling two separate stories. You say one thing after the Bristol race. You come on here and then you say something completely different. What do you say here that got you so upset? That they did it on purpose. Reckis. Admitted it.

Yeah. But I mean, it's just like, hey, what happened back then the way I look at it. Well, I mean, I think you already knew that, right? Yeah. You already knew it, and you're just hearing him admit it. Mm-hmm. Made it made an old ruin fresh. Maybe it's because, I don't know, was it two years ago?

Nicole Custer at Darlington did like a throwback scheme. and I had to do like a few radio interviews. I didn't talk about it about Randy at all. I just say, hey, what happened back then? You know, hey, everybody, you know, has someone usually they don't get along with. But, hey, all that's kind of done, it's over with. So I just look at it, hey, what happened in the past, leave it. Then you come on, you're like bringing stuff up.

I'm like, all right, we're a bit we're a bit sters, I think. There's a little bit of that. Probably. And I do recognize that. that it sucks to have to explain Rex from 25 years ago. It probably does suck now that I think about it. But here we are. And I mean, this is what people remember.

I remember it. I remember you going after Randy and missing. That was a Bristol too, wasn't it? No, I got him some. No, I know you got him some. But didn't you try to recognize once and missed? No, he thinks I missed. But you watched the video, his rear quarter panels dented in.

Yeah. But I guess he knew, but the car was so tore up, you know, backing in the wall. Plus, you know, I was down on the apron, pulled back up. So, you know, hit them a little bit. But, yeah, I mean, it was just flat out, you dumped me. And, you know, I don't, and like I said, I don't think we had any problems from Talladega to then. But it was just like, hey, I mean, that passed is Bristol. There's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, early in the race, yeah. You know, it gets towards the end of the race. If you bump someone up a little bit and you're not causing them to lose a bunch of positions, that's part of it. Yeah, no, I agree with that. It was scary. I mean, fans were on the fence. I mean, they were trying to, you know, what little bit of security they had. It was going to you?

Well, half of them were yelling against me and half them were yelling for me. I mean, it was like a mixed crowd. It was a close thing to riot. Bad blood. Bad blood and rival. The Dale Jr. Downland. Episode 28. Ricky Run

Richard Childers calls up says Ricky I'm step back I'm not driving a race car anymore matter of fact your dad drove for him some six months prior to that and Richard didn't his equipment was kind of tired they didn't have time to get it all fresh

they didn't have any money Richard didn't have any money that's what he said so try to get it freshen up so anyway Dale his deal blew up so he goes to drives for Richard ended the season my dieguard deal blows up so Richard doesn't have anything. He did have Greg

Sacks was going to come in and pay him a lot of money to drive his race car. And so Greg was going to be the driver for Richard Childress and Greg goes to Daytona testing in the winter about kills himself. It takes a bad hit and he's in a hospital, yeah, big crash. So then I get a call from Richard and I'm not quite sure how it came together.

Matter of fact, it might have been your dad by the told me. I don't know if you notice, we stay at your house on the lake. Way back. You were like seven years old. Yeah, I remember. I got that in my notes. Oh, okay. So you and Earnhardt were friends going We used to be friends. We'll get into all that in a second.

But y'all started out. Yeah, I mean, Dale, Sr. He hit it big. And, you know, people don't realize about Dale. I mean, I worked in the junkyard. Dale, his job, he was inside a gasoline tanker trucks. His day job was he'd get down inside of his gasoline tanker trucks, weld up the cracks, get out, do that all day, get out, and then go work at his ex-fall-in-law's house, Robert G.,

work on race cars at night. And that's about the time we got to know. each other we kind of hit it all pretty good and when we were in town to save the hotel money we'd stay at dale's senior's house we'd stay three weeks at his house while we're racing wilksboro charlotte and we'd come hang out he was nice enough let us stay with him and uh you remember that yeah yeah did you ever try to talk did you i mean you were always so quiet yeah you just kind of stayed in the corner and he was he was always in trouble i said he was always doing he was he was always doing he was he was always cutting up nothing badger i mean he was always like but that's what you

remember. I was a mild annoyance. No, that is a good. I just remember he was a neat little kid. We went out water skiing one time. I think you probably learned how to water ski about that day. But anyway, he was a neat little kid. I remember Kelly, but I remember Dale Jr. And just thinking, you know, what a neat kid. You know, look what he's turned out to be.

You know, shame that happened, but I mean, he was a neat kid. But, no. So anyway, so the Richard Childers deal, we got to work for Richard. And again, Richard had a chance to beef up his arsenal. of cars and motors during the winter. So 82 comes along and Richard calls, yeah, I'm not doing any, Richard. I love to drive your car. He says, no, Ricky, I've got just enough money.

If we go to Dayton and do really good, we might be able to run six more races this year. Oh, my gosh. He said, I've got enough to run six races, but we should be able to run those six races really good. So I show up at Richard. So Richard's better than anything. I don't have anything else going, so I showed up and get the cars all fitted up and adjusted. And we go to Daytona.

I think we sat on the pole that year. Care Yarborough won the pole, turned his car upside down on the second lap. So we were really second fastest we got to start on the pole for the 500. So anyway, in about the time, right before the Daytona 500, we get a phone call from Piedmont Airlines. While I was at the shop hanging out. Anyway, that was the beginning of the money coming in. So it just unfolded.

It was very nice. I mean, it turned out really good. Yeah, you and you and Richard Goh and won two races that year. You won Riverside, I believe. We didn't win any of the first year. We won a lot of pole. We won a bunch of polls. Didn't win any race.

We blew up, like, out of 30 races, we probably blew up 25. five of them. God. We blew up a lot. But he was still, I'm sure Richard was just putting old pieces together, parts, and he was in debt of different engine guys trying to help them. And, I mean, cars were fast. They ran good.

They blew up. And that was, could be expected. You know, so you go and you race for Richard, and then there's a swap. All right? Yeah. You go to Budmore, dad goes to Richard, back to Richard. How did that happen? I'm still trying to figure it.

that one out. Oh, really? Yeah, no. That's kind of when the relationship kind of turns out. That's when the relationship got bad. You know, see, when we'd come through the neighborhood there, like Charlotte, Wellsport weekend, you know, Dale was, you know, especially when we ran really good with Richard, well, you know, how do y'all run it, how come the car is running so much better?

And so, well, we got Kirk Shelburneen is sort of, he's come on board and he's taken a, you know, he's learned a lot. Richard's got this guy, he's got that guy. And I'm, we're best friend. I'm just, you know, spilling my guts, you know. And, you know, they've got this other guys coming in the years out. He's got such and such coming as lead fabricator. And then, so we're running well.

This was at the end of 83 because we had won some races. We won on Riverside and Martinsville. So they were still stayed at your dad's place there. And so we're talking and I'm sort of spilling my guts, you know. And then 83's over and all of a sudden find out that Dale is going to come drive for Richard. And that kind of hurt, you know. That's what kind of bothered me. But, you know, hindsight, looking back, take all the emotions out of it.

I mean, I can see why Richard did what he did. It was just, you know, back then two card teams really didn't exist. But it sort of, you know, it didn't sit well because it was almost like a family saying, hey, we're done with you, you're done. You know, you're out of the door. And that's when it turned bitter. And it wasn't until probably six months where your dad died that we actually kind of buried to Axel. Unreal. I didn't know that.

I knew that y'all had, I didn't know that there was any kind of animosity over the swap until I did a little research here for the show. But I know you were coming around, y'all are friends, and then it just ended abruptly. Quit, yeah. And then y'all almost became, you know, you had a couple run-ins on the racetrack over the years, but it just, there was no friendship at all. No, it was opposite of that, probably, yeah. Sure.

Both sides. Why Del Earnhardt and not Richard Childress being the one that you would be more upset with? I was disappointed with Richard and pissed off that senior was I'm sitting there spilling my guts about what we got planned as if I'm, you know, part of the team. Yeah. And all of a sudden he ends up with it, you know. You think he, so he used that information against you. Well, yeah. But, you know, Richard and Dale were best friends. They hunted together. I mean, you know, they spent a lot of time in the woods and, you know, things I couldn't control. But, you know, disappointment. It was beyond disappointment. Yeah.

And anyway, so I learned a lesson now. And in our generation, after that, I kind of hate it, though, but never got close to any drivers the whole time, kind of isolated myself. And it stuck with me a long time. And I came from a background of go-cart racing where everybody was best buds. But when you went out on a racetrack, you know, you try to beat each other. But then race was over your best friends again. So I never really developed that. I mean, I kind of, I was always in the back of my mind.

Yeah, you, so let's talk about that. There was the 1988, North Wiltsboro. What was it, 1988? 88, there was a dust up with Dad. Yeah, what? In North Wilstboro. Yeah, 89's the one to everybody remembers. I get confused.

What happened in 88? I don't remember that one. I'm trying to remember. There's one came before the other one. Let me see. The 89 is when Jeff, but I won the race, and you and dad ended up backwards in the last way. The one before that, the 88 race. I remember that one well.

The one before that. was, what's his show rated? Can I, can I? Say whatever you won't say. All right. Well, the race was going on. I was at North Wilkesburg and 88. I'm pretty sure I was in the green car, the Quaker State car.

Merrickle McReynolds was crew chief, Bob Riley. I mean, that was a great little team there. But so we're racing at Wilkesburg, and Senior was, you know, he had to deal. I sort of accused him if he knew who was going to be really strong that day. He'd take that guy out early if he could. Really? So he didn't have to deal with him. So we're running along and I'm doing pretty good.

And we had cars doing great. And I come up on Dale. I can't remember who came up on who. But anyway, Dale bait, he just basically spun me. I mean, put his bumper on and spun me, turn me around. I didn't hit the fence. I almost did. Went up, got gathered back up.

Well, then I'm working like crazy. The whole rest of the race, this is halfway through the race. So I'm working the whole race to catch back up to him. So about still 100 laps ago, I catch him. We get up beside each other. And so I repaid a favor. And he didn't hit anything. spun him around.

And then the race is over. Come on, cars, come on down to garage, pulling into the garage area. And Bill France, Jr. was waiting at my door with my car when I get out of the race car. Really? And he's sitting there. Yeah, the big daddy. He's standing there. He's right there.

Him and I, we had daily conversations. I probably had three in my whole life with him. So he's standing at my car when I go to get out. And he looks at me and says, he says, what was, what was? What was that altercation about out there with the three car? What was that all about? I said, well, you saw it. He just took me out.

He just spun me out. Oh, no, and I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about later in the race. You came out and hit him. He says, what do you say about that? I said, I'm really disappointed in myself. And he looked at me like, like really puzzled. He said, yeah, I said, I'm really disappointed.

He looked at me like, that's what I want to hear. Well, and then I came back and said, well, I'm disaffold. the point that I didn't run that son of a bull. You said that? I said that to him. And he kind of like licked at me, kind of smirk, walked away. The next morning, that was before email. That was fax machines.

On my fax machine, $10,000. Just like that. Conduct, detrimental to the sport of auto racing. Unreal. That was it. So anyway, I mean, that's just a funny little story. Yeah. No, but that's... I laugh at it now. I don't think it's funny as hell now, but it wasn't funny that. And in 1989, I was

there for this one. Boy, this one hurt. You and Dad go down into term one. And honestly, I'm going to call it the way I saw it. It looked like you and him went for the same space. That was pretty much way. A lot of people say he came down on me. I went up on it. Basically, I couldn't have gotten any lower.

You used to have a little flat. You could actually use that flat to help get the car to rotate. So I waited to the reason I waited to that last lap because I knew he was going to come back and try to wreck me. So I didn't want to put myself on one of the, do it in a way and already made my mind up i wasn't planning on passing them i was going to one square to his door and i was going to run square down a backstrand i was going to run square in three and four you didn't want him to get behind you i didn't want him behind me so i was going to get down and and then and then

i had more car than he did at that time right so it wasn't going to be a question as long as he was on my outside so that's why i took the bottom yeah and i wasn't planned on like doing any like clear pass you had to think a step beyond that right so i you know i didn't thought it through and figured it all out what i didn't figure out is that he didn't want to give that space up you And how he got his car to come down as low as he did. And I couldn't go any lower. We got together. We hit the spun.

I was more mad that y'all let Jeff win back than anything. You know, the whole end of that thing. It was one of those deals that, yeah, he wasn't even a fact, you know. But our two cars, so your dad never really saw me all day because I had a flat tire I had ever come. Something happened. So I was never even in the picture. But the whole time, you know, McReynolds is a crew chief.

He said, you know, sit tight, just don't do any stupid. We got the best car. We got the best car. So anyway, when I caught your dad at near the end of the race, he, you know, he, he, he, he wasn't expecting it. You know, he wasn't, because he was the dominant car all day. And I can't, I think it shocked him that all of a sudden in the last 10 laps, he's going to, he's going to lose this race.

He knew it. Oh, yeah. What point of the year was this race? And what were the ramifications on the line that, I think that made this thing ratcheted up? Dad and Rusty were in the middle of the points battle, and Rusty and Dad, you know, had had a, I don't know if Rockingham came later, but Rusty and Dad got together at Rockingham, ended up ripping the back of dad's car off.

And just, dad was so used to winning championships, and here he was in the thick of a battle with somebody that he felt like that he could beat. And he lost. You know, he lost the title to the rest of that year. And when you lose the title, you look back at days and moments in the year when you think, well, there went 12 points, there went 24 points. And, you know, so the Wilkesboro deer was tough. Part of me wishes, I mean, I didn't, you know, you went down in the corner.

You didn't go straight up into the side of daddy, but daddy came down a little bit. You know, in my mind, I'm like, ah, you know, if we just could have ran second that day, even though second would have sucked, we wouldn't have went to Victor Lane. But damn, that was a lot of points we lost that day, and then a couple other events throughout the year.

But so, all right, after that, that was pretty interesting stuff happening in the garage area with conversations and dad. It was nearly a ride. I never come that close to seeing. Were you there? Were you there that day? I was there.

It was scary. Yeah. I mean, the fans were on the fence. I mean, they were trying to, you know, what a little bit of security they had, it was. Going at you? Well, half of them were yelling against me and half of them were yelling for me. I mean, it was like a mixed crowd. It was a close thing to a riot.

And I know that day, McReynolds, myself, I don't know if your dad did or not. We got out of the infield. We got out of the infield. We went to leave. I laid in the bottom of Larry McRill's van with a blanket over me. Really? And I was saying your dad might have done the same thing. Wow.

I mean, it was, it got nasty. Yeah. So after, you know, so you and dad had, that, that was probably. probably the height of y'all's frustrations with each other or were there others? That's pretty much it. I think it kind of, I think it was, you know, I look at it, it cost me a race, which is, which at that time was as important to me as his championship was. And I looked at him, so he could have given a little bit. I mean, I really, you know, of course, I'm seeing it my way. Sure. But I mean, I couldn't have gone to the bottom of track anymore.

And he had been, it wasn't like we were close. Those cars were on the radial tires at that time. And Goodyear hadn't figured that out exactly. on how to get those tires, not to be treacherous, getting into corner. It was a tricky time, and Wexbar turn one was not a, we both went in there. I didn't have to go in there hot. I mean, I had it, I got my car turn. And if it had been two car leans later, I'd have had to turn, I wouldn't, my car wouldn't have spun. But anyway, it is what it is, you know.

Yeah, you talked, you said a moment ago that you and dad worked things out. Yeah. How'd that happen? I can't remember exactly. We end up leaving a racetrack at the same time together. and as far as when we kind of buried everything would have been whenever the last race at Rockingham was I don't know what year that was so one of these stat guys could probably tell us

but we're leaving the racetrack and we're in streetcars because we don't have far to drive so we're leaving the racetrack and we're kind of back and forth into traffic flow and all of a sudden you know somebody's tried to crowd their way in it was and then you let them go and then you know still trying to get out of the infield so we get out of the infield

and then senior pools that was senior beside me so he He pulls up, rolls the winter down. Hey, what are you doing? I said, we're going to head at home. What are you doing? He said, we're going to go get a bike to eat. We're going to go to P.F. Changes in Charlotte on the way home.

You'll stop and go have a dinner with us? Yeah, sure, let's do that. So we did. As a fact, in that conversation, I had a piece of property. I was getting ready to build a shop on. And your dad said, well, at the dinner, we're sitting there just catching up. He says, if you need any help, he said, I got a bulldoze. I got a bulldoze and operator.

I'll send over there if you need somebody to move from trees and stuff for you. So, I mean, that's kind of how thoughtful. he was once you got you know if you weren't on the bad side you know but i mean so you had that whole ride home i mean you were leaving rockingham so you're going to go drive an hour or so to charlotte and uh were you were you thinking what in the world just happened because you guys have been harboring this ill will for a decade yeah i don't know i mean it was time you know and uh it was good we had a real good dinner you know it was just you know it's kind of like i mean it almost reminds you

have family squabbles you know you get squabble with your brother and sisters and if you're not careful you let that go on way too long you know and then you you you know eventually you get older you start cleaning you stuff up a little bit. So it was kind of more of that type of a situation, I'd say. Yeah. Did you feel good about it? Oh yeah. Yeah, no, it was, it was, yeah, felt how do we let that, you know, fester for so long, you know? Of course, by that time, you'd had bouts with Rusty and everybody else, right? Yeah, but nothing, you know, it was, they were, they were different bouts. They were? Yeah, they were different. How so? Well, they didn't have the, the, the, the,

personalized feelings involved, you know? Yeah, but you didn't let, because you, because you, because of what happened with Dale back in the 80s, right? Because you'd say you didn't let anybody get close to anymore. Well, I mean, you know, the deal with Rusty, I mean, I mean, he stole two or three races from me, you know, just being a jerk, really, no more reason for that. You know, we never really ran each other on the racetrack. I mean, had no, like, hey, I got a debt to repay, but a couple of times I had some races won, and he's being lapped.

He had a wreck or bad equipment that day and just would go from the bottom up to the top to turn me around. So, I mean, it's just stupid stuff. Yeah. Riverhead. Yeah. No disrespect now. We do talk occasionally now.

Did you give him that name? No, I think his dad gave him rubber head. Dad gave him rubber neck and you altered it. Oh, was it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know for sure. But, man.

But time heals everything. That's right. Now we're a bunch of old guys and you look back and laugh at it now. At that time, it seemed pretty serious. Yeah. Did you work out things with Kevin Harvick? I've not seen them since he was standing. You know, since he was standing on the roof of the,

no, he wasn't on the roof. I'm sure he was on the roof. He was on the roof. So was other people, but he was concerned about him. It was his big bodybuilding squad of crew guys. And no disrespect. I had the Wood Brothers, greatest people in the world, wouldn't harm a flea.

And, you know, not real, you look at where brothers are there 50, 60, and you look over there at the Childers crew. And they're all 18, 20, and it looked like they've been eating a ton of steroids. They're all bulked up, you know. And they're like to fight. It wasn't real hard to figure out. Pat Trison came up. He wouldn't let me get out of the car.

Probably saved my life that day, probably. I was trying to get out. They're still feisty. They're still ready to go. So you're not over? No, no. Rivalry. Bad blood.

Bad blood and rivalries. The Dale Jr. download. Ron Hornaday Jr. Episode 274. When I was telling a lot of the fans on social media about you coming out here, one of the things they wanted me to ask you about is the 2011 truck series season, which was really a great story. It ended poorly for you,

but you won your 50th career win of your 51 truck races, and you clawed back from like 9th in points at one point in the season to be 15 points out of the championship battle, winning races. Y'all had made some great adjustments mid-season at Kevin's to make your truck more competitive. You're 15 points out going into Texas, and you and Kyle got together. Kyle's, you got loose trying to get around a lap car.

Kyle was right on your door. Y'all get together, go up into the wall. Everybody's seen the footage. He goes down in the corner and wreck you. Under caution. Under caution. Everybody's dying for me to ask you about that experience. Took you out of the opportunity to win the truck series titled.

Austin, Italy, and then goes on to win the truck series that season. But amazing year up to that point. point. I mean, how did you handle that being wrecked intentionally under caution? How did that, how did you're a veteran? Like, what, what are your, what are your emotions when you think about that? You're trying to calm me down while you keep talking or you're going to take the fifth or go to a commercial break and I walk out. So you're not over it? No, no. I mean, I'm not over it the way it was handled afterwards. You know, NASCAR did what they had to do.

And I wanted to say my peace with Kyle at the time, and NASCAR pushed me away like they always do, and I got into the trailer. And I started changing my clothes, and I listened to his arrogance on TV about, because he's mad at everybody else, he wrecked me. And I got so mad, I started running over there, and I got all the way to this trailer, and I got grabbed.

And they said, well, if you do anything about it, we can't do nothing about it. Long story short, NASCAR made him call me. And I, like anybody else, you're the greatest there ever was. You could be the Dale Earnhardt. You could be the Richard Petty. You've got to just calm down and quit talking about other drivers. Talk about what you've done.

That's what Joe, Kyle? Yeah, and that's what I told him. I mean, we talked 15, 20 minutes. I don't know if he grasped it other than, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know. And like 20 minutes later, I got a phone call from NASA. Well, Kyle called me. And I said, yeah, but, I mean, what did that do?

I mean, they don't do nothing other than, you know, he knew what happened. I just done passing down his radio, and he got a draft back, and got up on the outside and got me loose. And that's the long story. End of the story. And we weren't hurt that bad. Our trucks just scrapped the fence. We could have went on and still finished first and second.

We're two fastest trucks out there. I think third was gone. And it kind of ruined. I mean, after that, I mean, my season was done if it wasn't for Turner. I mean, my career was done if it wasn't for Steve Turner. Yeah. So, I mean, it was tough. So that still bothers you.

I have a lot. Well, it bothers me because I see him today. He can't look up in the eyes. I won't over-grapulating when he beat my record You know, the most wins And he was talking to Mr. Hendricks And I shook his hand and said, man, It's a great accomplishment

At least races that you run To beat me And he said, well, thank you, I appreciate that And that's all we've ever talked about We go to the racetrack now, he can't look to me I mean, he's not, I don't know how you call it It's over with It's done. You want to become buds

Or you want to become enemies We can say enemies And I'll see you at a barcum day and kick your ass I don't know Sounds to me like, you're seeking, You were trying to see closure, but you weren't able to get it. I don't know if that. I mean, the kid's great.

I mean, he's unbelievable. Now, he's got a family hoping he'd calm down a little bit more. But, I mean, if you're watching, every time he got out of a car, he badmouthed his crew. He badmouthed a car. It was never his fault. I mean, you've got to take common sense. I mean, damn, I screwed up sometime.

Yeah. And just don't talk about it. I mean, you're a share of. People are watching you. And, I mean, he's doing great things. I'm glad to see him growing up a ton of helping a lot of kids. A lot of people with having babies now and stuff like that. I mean, great things are doing that.

I think his wife really pushed him to do that stuff. And look what he's doing with his race team like you. You're helping young kids out and getting an opportunity to go racing. So he's got a great heart, but he's got to understand. There's kids watching him with M&M's logo and all that stuff. He's got to watch what he says off the thing. Second place, they're not wrong with second. I mean, you can be humble sometimes.

You started it. I'm sorry. Well, I'm glad. The people listen to this show wanted me to. ask you about that. Because they still harbor resentment. I mean, the fact is that there are a lot of people that harbor resentment over that situation. I mean, people remember it like it was yesterday.

I'll tell you what, I'm no better accomplished right now. If you guys remember Rockingham, I'm not in the best equipment there was, and I got wrapped up by Bubba Wallace. And I got the old, you know, I went up to him and run the back of his car, you know, a yellow flag, and he did a whole different scenario because we're only going 35, 40. tires are slick and that and I went up to do him and then he swirved down and I hit him and he spun out and hit the fence

so there's no better no different I think right there and I tell Bubba this to this day that probably put a tattoo on my career of saying you've had the best career of your life and then you just blew it by taking Bob out of the old way yeah but you apologize

to him I hug him every time I see him I feel like the biggest jerk in line and NASCAR didn't make you do it well I mean and he comes a difference right and he come walking down or come running down after the race after I got out because I got to finish the race because it was a whole different scenario

and the guy's the cruise around me I said get away I deserve to get punching him out but get away I mean I wrecked him I'm the big idiot so let him punch me I deserve whatever I get and he just said some words and all that stuff and every time I see him I was like bud you don't know how bad that kills me that I've done that

yeah I mean you don't want to do that you get mad at people yeah he gets mad at me I read I've wrecked a few guys and it's still still in the back of your mind. Yeah. Because you know, you thought at the moment that you needed to do it or wanted to do it or whatever.

You know, it was a lot of tension there for a while. A lot of tension. Yeah. Between you and Ward or Ward and your dad? Yes. Both. Rivalries. Bad blood.

Bad blood and rival. The Dale Jr. Download. Episode 278. Jeff Burton. I always saw Ward really. like to race, right? Because he loved, he's extremely confident person, and he loves driving that thing in a corner deeper than somebody else and getting back into gas. I mean, remember we sat on a pole with Darlington. The next year we go back, right, and the track had lost some grip. And everybody's,

so he sat on a pole and broke track record, right? And so the next year we go back, well, hell, I mean, it's like all of the teams are watching, going to go watch him qualify because he's going to be in the gas. And he wrecked that damn thing because he saw it coming. Yeah, like, and because he, He didn't care of the track. It lost. Like last year, damn it, I broke the track record, I'm going to beat it. Right? That's just how he was.

Did y'all's racing ever sort of parallel at any point? So Ward's six years older than I am. And Ward... I didn't know that there was that big of an age difference. Yeah, yeah. So then... I look older than I am and he looks younger than me. So while y'all were growing up,

y'all probably didn't have a very close relationship because of that, right? Because of age. He's doing different things. Yeah, I didn't understand. And, you know, I watched some of the things he was doing, and it looked like it would be fun, but I was too young to do it. I'd have gotten in trouble. And so we weren't as close. And then the racing actually kind of drove us further apart.

Really? Yeah, because, well, so my father was, bluntly, my father was helping me more than he was helping ward. And that didn't help anything. You know, that changed later, but early it was like that. And, you know, my view of that was my father was helping me because I was showing how much I wanted it. I was, you know, I was working on race cars and doing everything I could. And, you know, Ward hadn't really done that yet. But then Ward, once Ward got going, then it changed.

You know, then, okay, now Ward had something to focus on because, again, here's parents looking at their oldest son. They're oldest and their youngest. One wants to figure how to make a living, living in the woods, and the other one wants to make a living and working on race cars. Like, how the hell is this going to work out for you one of them? I'm pretty sure they thought they were going to be supportive. us for the rest of their lives. Yeah.

Yeah. But, you know, there was a, there was a lot of tension there for a while, a lot of tension. Yeah. Between you and Ward or Ward and your dad? Yes. Both. Well, tell me about, tell me about Ward, like, how he acquired, when did he race late models? How, how long had you been running late models at this particular time?

So he, so Ward started racing with, uh, another team. Carl Long. Oh. Right. Yeah. They were running, they were running, um, uh, Volkswagen, bugs, you know, at Orange County. Holy cow. And that, my recollection is that was Ward's first ride.

And then I, so, Ward didn't realize they were just out there, you know, it was, you know, they were just all out there having a good time, right? Like, you know, and it was, like, hell with that. I'm here to win. And I remember one of those guys being really mad at Ward because the exhaust comes out of a Volkswagen engine out the back. And if you hit that thing, it can bust a head open and all that. And Ward was in there digging.

And they weren't. They were riding around. I remember the guy coming down there, man, we can't be racing like that. He's heads. And Ward's like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, we're here to win, right? Yeah. So, yeah, so that was Ward's first deal.

And how did he get into late models? So there was a guy there in South Boston that had owned late models for forever. And Ward started driving for him. Who was it? You recognizable? Oh, God. What's a car? Give me a minute.

Those guys still probably do it. But somebody... You know me. I don't remember names very well. Some guy had a car that'd been running for a while. That's correct. They stuck him in there. Put a ward in there.

Were you running late models in time? I was running late models. So y'all eventually competed head-to-head. So now we're racing against each other. We raced against each other forever. It sucked. I bet. It sucked.

It's why I will not... Harrison's been on my ass for forever about racing in a race with. with him and I won't do it. Wait, wait, wait, what? Well, yeah, I won't do it. Harrison wants to. Racing and race with Harrison? Yep.

Well, I almost have you convinced to run an Xfinity race. The key there was almost. Well, I thought we still, I thought we were still negotiating. Damn. Sounds like somebody got buffaloed. You would love it. Why would you not want to do that? Because I, because I experienced.

You done thought about this and you've made your mind up and you haven't had the heart to tell me. Tell us what's going on here. I mean, you. So I have experienced racing against your brother. My brother. And we never were on the same team. We were never in a situation where we could work together. And growing up in a small town, you know, two guys running cup,

running late models at South Boston in Orange County, running Exfinity cars at South Boston and Orange County, running cup on television, people constantly compare you. Yeah. No matter what, they constantly compare you. So every day, every day, everywhere you went, you know, in South Boston, the conversation was there, which was cool because people cared, but it was bad because people cared. And when your brothers, they're always going to compare you.

I don't give, they're going to. Yeah. And it wore on our relationship. And we had to learn to get past that. Like we had to learn to co-exist in a sport that's cutthroat, right? Like, you know, you're racing for your job. You're racing for your livelihood. And, you know, on those days, Ward and I finished first and second, I think, three times.

And I finished first all three. And I was excited in all three of those, but I was also sad in all three of those because, you know, in two. of those I passed him for the win. So, you know, I took the win. And one of them, we had a better pit stop and Rockingham. And I was just, the run was just long enough. If it goes five more laps, he beats me because he was so fast on long runs. But, you know, I took those wins away from him.

And there was this, damn, I just won another cup race. That's awesome. But I took it from Ward, right? And I knew how much it was hurting him. So it's so hard. So how did y'all get past? You said y'all had to learn to coexist. How do you do that?

Well, one of the big, he and I wrecked together at South Austin. Even today, we will disagree on whose fault it was. The bottom line is we were both faster than the guy that won. I had started in the back for some reason, don't even know why. He had driven up through the field. He was hounding the leader. I got to him and I got to go and we wrecked. and we showed our asses after and gotten each other's face.

Yeah, on the front straightaway at South Boston, right behind the trailers, which, by the way, they should have paid us because the next week I think the place sold out. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, they should have paid us. So that was the moment where my mother stepped in, you know, and said, look, this will not be tolerated. So that was a key moment. And then as adults, and we became just more mature, we just, you know, we just had conversation. You know, listen, man, like, you know, we got to pool for each other and,

and we just had a, we just had an adult conversation. Did that come to blows or were y'all just yapping at each other? Uh, you're not, not, it's, you know, rarely the fights actually happen in racing, right? Typically, yeah, it's a lot of shoving and that kind of stuff. Rarely do fights ever happen. Did that embarrass you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you didn't like the way that looked either way. No, most people don't like the way it felt. Oh, yeah. I didn't like the way, I didn't like, listen, there's a couple things in my career I regret, and some of them are around that. You know, getting into an altercation with my brother at South Boston Speedway,

although now is kind of funny at the time, it made me feel bad. Yeah. So you, y'all know everybody, there's no perfect family. Rivalry. Bad blood. Bad blood and rivals. Adele Jr. Down there. Episode 3.43.

Ward Bird. You and your brother are so different. All right. What is the deal? Like why you and him don't seem like brothers to me? But y'all did. Y'all were together a lot. Y'all spent a lot of y'all's, you know, y'all race together in South Boston.

I don't know what y'all's life was like around the house when you're teenagers. But why are y'all so different from each other? Well, look, I'm going to tell you something. And I talked to Jeff last week. if I think of something three or four times, I'm going to deal with it. I'm going to think about how I'm going to deal with it. I knew that you and I were going to be talking about this today because I saw a little bit of the interview with Jeff that you all did last year.

And I called Jeff just because this kind of spurred it a little bit. And we had a great conversation. First thing I told him is I didn't feel like I'd been a really good older brother. Really? And I told him I loved him. and I do and I love my brother Braun also but we we had the greatest parents in the world I mean back in the 70s you know when I was growing up and even in late 60s had a lot of freedom you know my freedom was staying in the woods and you got envision my mom was got a

Brian is three years younger than me Jeff is five and a half so you know with mom taking care of those to that gave me a lot of freedom to go out and just be a kid in the outdoors but jeff's uh growing up was a little bit different than mine you know i took the hard road so i got sent away to a bunch of schools during the summer school during summer i got what kind of schools reading speeches uh writing english you know and be honest with you if i was sitting in a classroom i was interested of what was going on outside outside of the woods, not in the classroom. I just didn't get it, and I didn't realize that I needed to do what was expected of me and then take the easy road.

I took the hard road. But anyway, Jeff, Jeff and I just had a different upbringing, and I had some grand old role model, So I was really close with one of my granddad's and my grandmamas. My dad, you know, we spent a lot of time together in the outdoors. But I had some other older gentlemen, particularly C.R. Sanders, that taught me a lot about land stewardship and just taught me a lot of lessons. So he was like a second dad, a granddad, and a dear friend all at one. That started at this tall.

So my roots were really deep. And when my parents separated, man, and we all... How old were you in that habit? I was in college. So mom called me and told me she needed me home. I knew it was coming. But Jeff is 16. So you, y'all know everybody, there's no perfect family.

My mom and dad were perfect parents. And I still feel that way today. But when they split, it obviously affected Jeff a lot more than me. And so, you know, when I... I was brought up, I was made to go work in construction, because that was what my granddad found it, my dad run. That was, it was like a family farm, you know. What do you do at a family farm?

You go work and pull your weight. Well, I realized real quick when Jeff got to that age, dad did not make him do that. So it gave me a little bit of an attitude. Why the hell does he get to stay, you know, do something the other than work? But Jeff, uh, Jeff worked really hard. You know, his racing career. You know, dad gave him the opportunity.

I think a lot of the reason that dad did what he did for Jeff at that age and not Brian or I is dad felt guilty of why the family split up. And, you know, and then as later Dale, later as when I got in the street stock and, you know, I went to a race to see how they were doing in my career. You know, it wasn't, dad wanted to see if I was focused. And after a year or so, he realized there was nothing else that was going to come between me and that race car after work. But anyhow, you know, I'm proud of Jeff and, you know, I've got two great brothers. And we just had, we just had different upbringing, man.

Yeah. In the same house, but different. Wow. So. Why the hell do I talk different? Jeff said I was from the southern end of the house. I don't know. He did say that.

You started racing after your brother raced. And I know I'm not trying to think. y'all were in a competition or anything but you win you won a race you started after him and you weren't in late models as long as him and you go out there and get in that car and you you show yourself as a winning driver like you can do it are you thinking in your mind uh i know you're probably not thinking about cup racing and and and how far you're going to go in this deal but you've got to be pretty proud of yourself uh maybe a little bit you know look the minute i got in that street stock the 77 streetstock

I drove the wheels off that damn thing they were tough enough that I could bounce off the wall and not even knock the toe in off that really and I bet you Jeff would admit it right now because they were floundering in Lake Model

when Jeff saw me going out there and started winning races in this streetstock and all it got his program up I think it helped I think me getting in there helped Jeff get more motivated and more aggressive as a driver because

I was always the most aggressive and Brian was the best between us both and Jeff we could get to the end of the race at the same place right I'm wanting to lead the first damn lap Jeff was fine to take his time and get there at the end kind of like

you know the old like what you always hear about David Pearson how good he was versus some others of you know rivalries Bad blood Bad blood and rivalries The Dale Jr. Download.

Episode 242. Jeff Gordon. Listen, I'm still mad about Japan because we went there. Y'all had that one. We had that thing. Well, we were so good. So good. You know, what stands out to me, a couple things about Japan, this was when me and Russie kind of had a little bit of a rivalry.

And you might not know a whole lot about that. But the way it kind of worked out is in 95 when I broke out and had that championship year, me and your dad, went and battled. Rusty kind of looked at it as, this is my place, right? I'm the guy that's going to go up against Dale Earnhardt, and I'm the one that, you know, hopefully will come out on top, and my career is going to go, and then all of a sudden, who's this little punk kid, you know, that came along. So Rusty had it, you know, a little bit of a rub with me, and me and him got racing so hard in Japan that it ruined it for us, and I think your dad ended up winning the race or Rusty won the ride.

I can't remember. I think it was your dad. and I was so pissed up at Rusty because he was like, no, no, you're not going to pass me because I'll do anything to keep you from winning this race. I don't care if Dale wins or anybody else wins, it's not going to be you. Because there was these huge moments in the sport at that time that were just standout races, whether it was the Brookyard 400, whether we went to Southern California in Fontana or Japan, that you just felt like, man, if I win this race or if I stand out in this race, this is going to elevate not just the sport, but me and my brand or, you know, my place

in the sport. So Rusty and I, yeah, we laugh about it now. If you want to find friends, buddy, you better find your neighbor because if you think you're going to have a pile of friends, you know, that you've got to race against. But when you get on a racetrack, they're trying to steal your money, too, man. And they're trying to whip your butt, and it gets pretty tough. At least for me, it was. Rivalries.

Bad blood, Bad Blood and Rivalries The Dale Jr. Download. Episode 249, Rusty Wallace. You talk about dad and you having a friendship. We wanted to get into that at some point, so I guess we could dive right in. When I was a kid, obviously I was going to the racetrack and watching you guys for a long time.

I remember, you know, I was at Bristol, you won your first race and was around throughout the entire process all the way up until you went in a championship and then racing against you myself. And it seemed like your relationship with dad was just always kind of hot and cold. Like you guys could bump into each other and be upset for a while and then maybe friends again. Could you sort of help me understand, I guess, what that process was like with him and how it could go from good to bad and back to good?

Well, first of all, I'll tell you, my relationship with your dad was really, really good. and we were exceptional friends off the track. You've noticed the stories probably. We spent a lot of time into Bahamas. We spent a lot of time on boats. We spent a lot of time vacationing. I took my oldest son, Greg, out to the old farm, and your dad grabbed a hold of his arm,

set him down and taught him how to shoot a gun. You know, and I was over at your dad shop one night when it was over in Canapolis, and we're sitting there, and he's building a brand new bush car back then. and it was called. And he's building a brand new for Daytona, and it was beautiful. And he was really bragging about it.

The whole time he's doing that, he's sitting there drinking some Miller lights. And yeah, back then he did drink Miller Light. Okay. We're going to be friends, but here's one condition. You're going to have to drink Miller Light. He did drink Miller Light back then. And so we're sitting there, and he's telling me, and out of the clear blue, he asked me to come over for some reason, I don't know what it was. And out of clear blue, he says, hey, man, I want to show you this new bow and arrow I have.

I said, okay. I'm like, dude, I don't know about this stuff. So he takes me outside this old building, and you know what it looked like. And he takes this thing, and he pulls this arrow back, and he shoots it. And it goes right through the building, and all of a sudden I see his eyes get real big, and he's like, oh, crap, you know. And he says, come on, he runs inside the building. And that damn arrow went through the side of the building and right through his brand-new oil

cooler for the Daytona Bush car. And he blew his oil cooler out with a bow and arrow. And he's like, aye, yeah, yeah. And I tell that story now and then because it's kind of exciting. because that's an off-track picture of what your pop would do, you know. But we were really good friends. We spent a lot of time, like I said, in those Bahamas. And then I'd be down there, and I'd come back to the boat.

You know, I'd rent, and I'd go down and stay in the bedroom down there. And there'd be a case of Budweiser. He's always screwing with me, you know, always doing stuff like that. And then one day, I was winning all them races of Bristol and doing real well. one of our next races to come up was Bristol. So we sit down, we're drinking beer one night in the Bahamas, and he goes, he said, hey man, I need you that, I haven't been running too good at Bristol.

Give me that damn setup you use. I said, I'm not giving you know, set up, you know, you're crazy. Come on, come on. And I said, and I thought to myself, self, you know, every time I try to help somebody, I give them the setup, but they only use like 70% of it so you can give it to them, and it's not going to do them any good because it's going to get filtered out by some crew guys

or some engineers or whatever, because they're going to say, oh, no, that's stupid, you know. I said, all right, so I got a piece of paper, I wrote it and I gave it to him. And I, to this day, stand at this desk in this desk right here, I gave him exactly what I'm run. We went to Bristol next week, and I won to race. And I think he finished third or fourth or something like that. And I said, you use that whole setup and goes, no. I don't know what to tell you, man, you know, but I was honest with him.

But he did a lot of stuff for me, too. You know, when they started the merchandise business, he got me involved in that, and it made some good money. And he was a good guy when it comes to that. But we spent a lot of time off the track. But on the track, we had to race each other. And sometimes it got controversial. And sometimes it was like accidental conversation.

I'll give you an example. We're at Michigan. Now, I'm going to back up a little bit. I'm at Richmond. And Gordon took me out at Bristol, knocked me up to racetrack. And the last lap, he wins. I finished second. I said, okay, to bump and run.

And I said, I'm not letting him get away with that. And so I rated three races. I go to Richmond, and there's Richmond, and I find myself a couple laps to go. He's alongside of me. I said, it's your turn, big guy, and I stuck him right in the fence. I tore his whole front end clear off his car. He was like, I said, we're even now, okay? And Navas said, he said, yeah, but I didn't wreck your car. I said, well, yours did. And so then the next week, we go to Michigan.

And I practice in Michigan, and your dad and myself found ourselves side by side and going down the front straightaway. I'm the inside car. I hauled off into turn one, and I got loose, and I got loose, and I slid up. up into him in practice, and I put him right in the wall. Holy smokes, I've never seen him that mad in my entire life. He come flying out of a car, and the first thing got ringing out of his mouth, I'm not going to take that crap like you did to Gordon at Richmond. That's the first thing he said. He didn't say anything about, you know, me and him reckon, I'm not taking that crap that you did to Gordon. What? Yeah. And then the very next morning, I'm sitting there, I'm dead asleep in my motor home

and all of a sudden, bang, bang, bang, bang. I hear something beating on the door. I opened the door. It's your dad standing there and goes, hey man, just blow that crap off from yesterday. I'm over this. I'm sorry, dude. I said, no problem.

Okay, that was it. But he was like that. But a lot of fans like, oh, man, those guys are in a big rivalry. It's not. But I would go to those short tracks and win a ton of short tracks and he would go to Daytona and kick our butt.

And he'd go to Charlotte and kick our butt. And he'd go to Michigan. And then I'd go to the road. road courses and I'd win. And I go to, we had these different stomping grounds that we wanted. And then we do crazy stuff like Wilkesboro. At Wilkesboro one time,

Mr. France Jr. got a hold of us. And we're talking about T-shirts back in the day. And we went on and on and on about T-shirts and merchandise and stuff. We were having a good time of this stuff back then. It was really all these different pain schemes and all these things was exciting. So we get in a race and I come off a turn two. And he bangs me in the back end. And I'm like, what?

And the world's going on here, you know? So we run like three more laps. And all of a sudden he gets a good bite off a turn two and bam, hits me to back in again. And so, man, I got hot. And I said, I've never done this to a driver, but I did it to your dad. And I come off a turn two and he hits me in the back and I slammed the brakes on. I just locked him down. And he had hit me in the back so damn hard.

It tore the grill out of his car, tore a whole friend off his damn car. I tore my bumper all off. And I went ahead and finished second race. and he had the front end tore off. And then old man, France comes down and he goes, what hell are you doing out there, man? I said, just sell a T-shirts, boss. And he laughed and went off, and we got over it.

But we do stuff like that, but I really respected him. He taught me a lot. He made me want to be like him. At times, he made me want to dress like him. Made me want to sit in a car all slouched over in a car. You know, when he would take his helmet off and come in after a plug check or something. ever make you want to shoot a bow and arrow right through your car no no no i didn't do that up to him though

i left because he was really but that was incredible watching it that night watching him shoot that dog on oil cooler out of his brand new car you know so you and dale were friends you met in 80 but when did you guys become like bahama friends i'd say probably the bahama stuff that was probably 90 Okay. 93. 93, I won 10 races that year. And that's when your dad and I, I don't know if you're going to, this one of your questions or not, but that's when we get together at Teledag and I go, you know, end over in there,

you know. He flipped you. I mean, you rolled. No, no, look. You rolled. I rolled, yeah, but I know exactly what happened. I mean, it was a big run. We're come to start, finished line.

I saw him coming. I went down to block. And when I didn't get down there quick enough, and I got my left rear corner into his right front fender. and I went, you know, end over in, and then he calls me in a hospital, and he says, hey, man, I didn't mean to try to kill you. I said, I know, no problem. Then the next week I show up at Sears Point in the big figure, hey, Rusty Wallace to the big red truck or to the red truck, or Rusty Wallace to the truck.

I said, all right, I said, what do I do wrong now? I didn't know I did anything wrong. And I go up, and Dale's in there with Bill Jr. And he goes, hey, we always go to the Bahamas, we want you to go with us. And I went, okay. Wow. I said, that sucker's trying to pay me. back for killing me.

But we did that for 18 straight years. Really? Yeah, it's cool. So, you know, the water bottle incident is one thing that everybody always remembers. And that was after, I guess, at Bristol, the dad got into you and turned you around and tore your car up. So listening to you talk, it sounds like that some of that stuff was, were y'all selling T-shirts?

Like, was that really what y'all were doing when y'all would go to the racetrack and have those kind of things going on? No. No. No. Like, so how did? It's just a byproduct of it. And the conversation is always arose.

We had fun with it actually talking about it. That's what I mean, yeah. We had fun with talking about, yeah, man, we're going to go sell some T-shirts. That was a slogan, you know. And then we get out to erase our brains out, you know, and the fans were really into it. And it was exciting. But no, man, we weren't just out there selling T-shirts. No, I hope you're not thinking that type of stuff.

But you got to remember, your pop was the leader of that. He was the one that started that whole business. and helped a lot of people. You know, myself, Dale Jared, Terry Laboney and Jeff Gordon, and he was the leader of that, him and Fred Wagonhalls. And so, yeah, yeah, a lot of conversation there. But I will tell you, you get on that dog on track,

just like you know, these guys, if you want to find friends, buddy, you better find your neighbor. Because if you think you're going to have a pile of friends, you know, that you've got to race against, they might be friends, you think. But when you get on a racetrack, they're trying to steal your money, too, man. And they're trying to whip your butt. And it gets pretty tough.

At least for me, it was. What was the water bottle the high point of any incident between you and Dale? Would you say that that was as rough as it got? Can I tell you how that happened? True story? I love to hear it. All right. I'm going to tell you how that happened, true story.

We're on pit road. Gordon has been kicking our ass. It's kicking your dad's ass. He's kicking my ass. and your dad was sick of it, and I was sick of it. And that particular day at Bristol, I qualified really well, I think, like, third, and your dad qualified, I think it was fifth. And Gordon was on the outside of us, I think, on the start of the race.

And he come, your dad come up to me, so let's do this. And I said, what's it? I said, let's just get this sucker out of way and check out and get gone. Because that was one of my good tracks, and that was your own man's good track. Not so much for Gordon back then. but he said, let's just punt this kid and get gone. He said, I'm sick of him. I said, all right.

And punt him, men, just kind of rough him up a little bit and kind of hammered. Because we could do that back then. You'd root him out. Yeah, root him out a little bit and get going. So I come up, we get about 10 laps in a race, and I come off a turn or two, and I get loose, and he's right on my tail, your dad is, you know. We're like bumper to bumper. Man, we were rolling.

We're not getting it done. You know, we're honking through that field, you know, and getting next lap we're going to lead the race, you know. I come off a turn four and I get loose. He hits me an ass. It wasn't his fault. It was probably my fault for getting loose because we were so tight. And I go spin it around and I hit the wall and then I get limp that damn thing around the whole race, you know. I'm frustrated and I get over there and my son, Greg walks up to me with just a regular bottle of water.

And I was hot and sweating. He gives me a bottle of water. I'm drinking the water and I start walking down. And you're a man, he was down there because him and Terry Labani just got into it coming on. off of turn four. I think Labani won the race. Dale's sitting down there and he's got a whole pile of people around him. And I'm mad. And I started walking down and what I was thinking was, we had a deal, dude. What are you doing? What the hell are you doing? We had a deal. You're the one to start of this whole thing, you know. You're sick of Jeff Gordon. You had it with him. Let's dump his ass and get

going, you know. And so I started walking down here. Greg goes, what are you doing? Dad, what are you doing? I'm going on her talking. Oh, come on, dad. Don't do that. Don't do that. I keep on walking down there. and I see him and he's about 10 foot away from me. I said, hey, no response. I said, hey, no response. I took that bottle, I went, I slung that bottle to get his response. And I met to hit him like in the shoulder, but I hit him right in the center of the forehead. I hit him right in the forehead and it was game on.

He just blew through that crowd and came over and said, what's wrong? I said, I said, what the hell's all right about, man? You've knocked me in the back and I've got to limp around, told him or crawl to hell. I said, I'll tell you what, I won't forget it. I won't forget what you did to me at Teladag either. And he goes, you know what? I won't forget it either. We're bad, blah, blah, blah.

Then the next morning, here comes the phone call and the talk. Hey, man, forget about that bullshit. I'm sorry about all that. Really? Oh, yeah. And that's how it went, you know. It's just that type of relationship. But at that particular point, man, you know, he had it.

He could not take that Gordon stuff, that young kid coming and kicking our asses. And he was. Jeff was just putting it on us, boy. And we were sick of it. You actually cleaned up that conversation because we were watching that video just the other day. that conversation had a lot more color in it. You did a nice job cleaning it up a little bit. Yeah, because you guys...

So you could tell that, right? Well, yeah, but like, you know, now, there were no punches thrown. No. But I want to tell you something. J.R. Rhodes was in between you guys. J.R. Rhodes being Dale, uh, Dale's guy. And J.R. tells a really good story from his vantage point where he said afterwards, Dale got on to him a little bit and he said, J.R.

Always leave me a hand. Because I guess J.R. was holding him back. and basically wrapping him up. Although Dale Earnhardt had, like, there was a couple of times where he kind of like tap, you know, does something on your face. I don't know, like, I don't even know if you, there was a big crowd, it was chaos. I got to go back and check that when I haven't seen him. Yeah, like he kind of goes up like a little love tap, not a, not a slap, not a head,

cheek. Yeah, kind of like that. Maybe like friends would do. But Dale Earnhardt said to JR after it was over, always leave me a hand. Just in case. You never know without Rusty Wright. Rusty may just swing one one time. So I got a picture of the car.

I'll show it to you. It's an awesome picture, too. Here it is. All right, Bahama friend, you had his number with a big X through it on your car. A week after Bristol. Now, that can't be a show car now. That's got to be your car. I don't know.

Honestly, I promise. I don't remember that. I don't remember that. I do know one thing. That would not have been something that I would have promoted and said, to do. Oh, man, I think it's really interesting that back, because I did that too. Like, and I had a, I had a Calvin pissing on this guy's initials on my car after he spun

me out the week before at Myrtle Beach. So, I mean, I thought that that kind of stuff was kind of commonplace. Well, the sardine story, that was you and Dale, wasn't it? I mean, maybe that was just a prank. Maybe that was just a, just a, fooling around type of thing. That's what I always took it as is when you'd see that kind of stuff. It was basically just jabs. It was just fun jabs between the teams.

I've never seen individual. Your dad ran in a pack. It never was him doing it. It was him with, you know, Kirk Schomerdine or Chalkler, all these guys in this pack, and they're all like doing this thing together. I'll never forget when I get in the damn car at Darlington, and I get in my car and it stinks so bad I can't see straight, you know,

and I get in and I sit down and I feel like I'm sitting in a big old mush and I get out. And I was like, what in the world? And I picked a seat cover up and it's full of sardines. And I back out and I turn like this. And it's not him standing there by himself. There's like a ad them behind him like a football team. You know, they're like a football team backing them up or look what we just did, you know.

So the sardine story is true. Oh, yeah, it's true. And how'd you get him back? I stole the steering wheel the next week at Bristol. When Bristol comes up again, we're getting ready to go. He's back to our holding court. And we used to stick our steering wheels on the roof of the cars. and so he's over there just going on and on and on and I just reach up and took a

steering wheel off his hood or roof his car and I just walked around real quiet nobody saw me nobody saw me tuck a damn steering wheel off a car I took the steering wheel popped off the well no we didn't have velcro then so I took just a wheel I put up my car and um you went out on track no I'm sitting there in pit and real getting ready to start to race oh shoot the race yeah we're getting me to start to race and I'm sitting a car you know and And they're all buckling down and all that. And I'm just looking in a mirror of the car and I'm looking. And all of a sudden I see panic going on.

They're all going apes shit. You know, everybody's going nuts and where's the wheel? You got it? No, I don't have it. You got, no, no. They're going nuts. I mean, it's just getting frantic. They're freaking out.

We're getting, say, gentlemen, start your engines in the doggone, Bristol 500. And damn Dale Earnhard doesn't have a steel wheel. You know? And he's just going to go crazy. And finally, I reached up, I took the wheel and I went, oh. And he goes, oh, man, you. got me on that one, you know. I said, no more sardines in my seat, dude. That's epic. That's epic. A true story.

Why did he put sardines in your seat? Just because? Because him and I are going for the championship, and he was just screwing with me all year long, trying to rattle me. Yeah. Holy cow. It sure was, yeah. Sardines in the seat, man. Did you guys ever apologize to each other for any one thing? Like, did anything ever go across the line that you're like, I'm sorry, that was wrong? The closest it came was when him and I got together at Michigan, and it's not a, hey, like you might do nowadays. It's, it wasn't a, man, you know what, I'm really sorry about that. It's just a poor decision. It's my fault I take to blame. His, you know, saying, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What about you? You? Hey, man, I'm over that.

You, okay? You okay with that? Yeah, I'm okay with that. Okay, bye. That's it. That's it. That's it. You're talking like three or four seconds, and that's about it. That's great. That's crazy. So we had Jeff Gordon on the show a couple shows ago, and he said that he felt like his early success that you had a problem with it. And you just, you know, I think you just said that you and dad both had a problem with his early. I had a big damn problem with it. Oh, really? Yeah, man, I was jealous. Really?

Yeah, because it was me and Dale. It was me and Dale winning all them races. It was, we were just getting it done. And all of a sudden here this young kid comes in and whole different style than us. I'll tell you that now. You know, Dale's. solid black clothes everywhere he went. I'm this kid out of the Midwest.

Got a big mouth going on, you know, and here comes Gordon. Making it look easy. He wasn't making it look easy. And I'm like, man, I'm not liking this, you know. You know, you could tell me I was supposed to be more humble, but I wouldn't, man. I wasn't liking it a bit, you know, and that's what it was all about. The Earnhardt-Bodine rivalry, how does it end? Hmm.

Rivalries. Bad Blood Bad Blood and rival The Dale Jr. Downer Episode 374, Jeff Bodine. The meeting in Daytona was Junior's dad and I. He swam me out in Saturdays race at Charlotte.

Then he wrecked me in Sunday's race at Charlotte and got the phone call from Rick Henry. Hey, meet us at the airport tomorrow. We got a little meeting in Daytona. So I all met there and got things worked out. That's when your dad realized you're where your dad was over here Rick Henrick and Children's, everyone's down there, and Bill France is there,

and he realized that guy was the boss. Right. Well, because he told us he was the boss. He told us how we were going to race, and the rest of that year we race that way. But your dad realized he needed to be his friend, and he became his friend, and I didn't. I was just old Northern boy. I didn't know what I was doing.

Yeah, to kind of tease us up. You and Dad had quite a few run-ins. You were on the bad end, a lot of them. Would you agree? There are so many. I was on the bad end of so many. After you spun me out Saturday, Rick Henry called me up, hey,

I'm tired of Earnhardt wrecking my cars. If you can't do something about it, I'll get somebody in there at will. Holy cow. Pressure was on, right? Yeah. We had a good car for the World 600, too. Oh, the thing was running good.

Had to do something. So I bumped your dad coming off of two and got next to him, going down to three, he forgot the turn. Every in a wall. So, yeah, that's how we. while you had the meeting, but it was a good meeting. But hold on, where did that start?

Where did the thing start with you and Earnhardt? We were buddies. When I first got in, do you remember my boys, Matthew and Barry coming down and racing riding your go-kart? Yes. Yeah, they go down to the lake. I didn't ever went down to the house, but they rode go-carts. And one weekend, your dad came up and hit me in a shoulder.

He loved hitting people. Yeah. With a car or with his hand. Hit me in a shoulder. You owe me a hundred bucks. I said, what are you talking about? your boys were down there riding Dale Jr.'s go-kart, and they wore the tires out.

You want me 100 bucks. Well, we want the dinner and all that, but as soon as you win, it doesn't matter if you're racing, basketball, football, it don't matter. Once you win, beat the other guys. Things change a little bit. So when was that? When did that start?

Okay. You're saying your friends, you're friendly, and then at some point, that had to turn. Well, I won Marlinsville, and first time winter, a lot of people, like it but when you start running good then you get more competitive and you're running with the best

he was one of the best so you're getting bumping and it goes from there you know when you and dad were beating button heads what was I mean what was that experience like for you so for me you know watching it was

a bit tough for me because my grandfather Robert G. worked on your car he worked on your sat he owned a part of your Saturday car with Rick, him and Rick on that Nova together. And especially on Charlotte Race Weekends, you might know this, you might not, but my mom would come from Norfolk down and stay at Roberts, my granddaddy's house, which is right next to the racetrack.

So I'd be in the condo with Teresa watching y'all race, and then when the race was over, me and Kelly would be over at Roberts with Mom. You know, I was kind of in the middle a little bit, a little bit, you know, but, you know, there were times when it was like, yeah, you know, cool, dad, you know, rough, yeah, don't take no shit, nobody. But then there were times when, well, damn, dad, that cost you five laps. Now you're in the penalty box. I want to see you win.

You know, there were times when dad would do things, the result of the day was secondary. He was so caught up in making sure you knew he was pissed that, damn, he threw the wind right out the window. It didn't even matter, right? I was like, I never understood that part, you know, but... Me neither. How did you... No, I know why.

I know why. You know, a lot of drivers, and you had Mark on here a few weeks ago, whatever. Love Mark Martin. He wasn't happy to beat him for a rookie to year. I don't blame him. You know, Mark was a smart racer. He'd see your dad come on or somebody faster. He'd just move over.

He knew there's a lot more racing to go. He didn't have to race right then. Me, on the other hand, I'm a hard-headed Yankee. You know, I'd just start racing. racing harder. Yeah. Well, you know, sometimes you get bumped when you do that. Channel's a guy, you're going to get bumped.

And that's how it all started. Yeah. I was just a hardheaded guy and didn't want to get out of way. And so how did y'all, and I know there was the meeting in Daytona with Bill France, Jr. In the movie Days of Thunder, you, you know, there's two guys tearing rental cars up on the way there. That didn't happen. Y'all rode in a car together, though. I heard that y'all were told y'all were going to go to dinner.

Yeah. And y'all had to drive in the same car together. Well, Bill threw me the set of car keys. You two guys need to ride together to work this thing out. So I'm following Bill and Rick and Chilers are in the car ahead of us. And you and dad are in a rental car together. Right. And you're driving? Yeah.

And your dad waxed me in his shoulder. What? Give him a shot. So I'm driving. I said, what? Wax me again. Give him. He wanted me to hit him.

Hit him. and get in trouble again. Your dad was a smart son of a gun. He wanted me to hit him. I wish I had. You did? I wish I had. I said, no, I'll tell you what.

I'm not going to do it. We just got our assitude out. I'll pull over and let you do it. He said, no, no, just keep going. He knew what he was doing, but he just wanted me to get in trouble. But I wish I had. It would have been something really to talk about. There weren't cell phones.

You weren't, you know, you and dad weren't able to text back and forth. there was probably little to no communication between y'all during all this, right? So you're, you know, you and dad are running in each other on racetrack. There's zero communication outside of that. You aren't, you know, nobody got in anybody's face. Nobody confronted each other. You never had, there was no moments outside the car where y'all said your peace or nothing. Your dad was a big guy.

I'm a little guy. Well, so, you know, we were told how to drive that year, the rest of that year. By. Phil Jr. said. At the meeting? Oh, yeah. Okay.

So when you go to the meeting, right, or you walk in, when you walk in there and sit down, that's the first time that you're in the room together with dad. You know, I'm sure you were like, hey, man, I'm on the, I'm on the bad end of most of these deals. Didn't say that. Y'all didn't have any conversation like that? You all just sat down, he said. He had, you know, back then had all these VCR. quarters he said he laid a tape down he said I got the tape of these races this last weekend I know

we're not going to have to look at them because we'll work it up so here I loved your dad but your dad goes Billy goes uh what happens Saturday's raised Dale but man Billy you know we pitted he didn't pit which I didn't and I just come up behind him and trying to get under him off a two and hit the apron and just slid up into it. I just made a mistake. Hmm, okay. What happened Sunday? Damn, Billy, going out of backstretch.

He's outside of me and I went in the corner. I know you can't go in the corner underneath the guy. You're going to get loose. I just went in there and got loose and I screwed up. By now, after this, I looked at your dad and said, Dale, for somebody's supposed to be so damn good. You make a lot of mistakes. I said, Billy, I think we need to look at the video.

The video showed he didn't hit the apron. He just ran into me in your granddad's car. Oh, yeah, we're looking at it right now, actually. Look above your shoulder there. Yeah, that was. He spun me out in the beginning, and that's why he tagged you pretty good there. Yeah. And he's about to get you again here.

This Sunday. Oh, that's sun. But we both blue tires and wrecked after that. Yeah, we both blew tires and wrecked in the Saturday race. But Billy goes, Dale, looks like you didn't turn when you got the turn three. Looks like you just went straight. He said, you're messing with the way I make my living, and I'm going to tell you how you guys are going to drive the rest of the year.

Bois-down, if you see that three car coming, just move over. Don't be faster, just get out of the way. Earnhardt, you see that five car comes, just get out of the way. If those cars touch for any reason, you ever hear of Chinese fire drill? The vegetables go over there in the Chinese port, and they might sit there for a week, maybe a month, maybe two months. By the time they get in and figure out what they are, they're pretty rotten.

said we're going to have a little Chinese fired rail you're going to come in there because we know something happened to those cars we're going to find out the brakes failed steering failed it might take a lap or two and it might take 30 minutes we don't know but we're going to figure out so you got my point and the rest of year there were no problem with anybody and y'all would pull over for each other I mean like that's how oh hell yeah oh man that's still kind of hard to do right well the boss told us to yeah so on the on in the car ride outside of him telling you to run into their car. Did y'all have like a truth?

Was there a moment where you and dad like had a, hey man, sorry it's all happened, let's put it behind us. Or y'all just never even had that kind of comment. Y'all just took direction from Bill and went on. I've hit my head a lot and racing, so I don't remember everything. I remember telling him I wasn't going to do it because we just got our assitude out. I think it was pretty quiet the rest of the way to. The restaurant.

Did y'all, so I do know that, like, I think when there were some more run-ins. Not that year. Yeah, but, like, after that, it started, like, it still didn't fix it. I'm driving Budmore's car. And, you know, by now they have scanners and stuff. People can listen. Everyone's listening to what you're doing. And your dad had a flat tire at Bristol, so he lost a lap or two, and he's back out there with fresh tires, and he's fast.

Quick he's leading. the late, great feeling quickie. I'm second. So I'm trying to hold him up, and I say, what the heck am I doing this for? I'm just going to, you know, I'll let Aylan hold him back, keep him down the lap.

So I moved over and boom, coming off turn two, I'm spinning out. Bud Morris car. Richard goes on, what happened over there, Dale? He just did my way. I took him out. Everyone's listening to this. Oh, yeah, there was more.

The story was never over. Yeah. What was your role in any of this? I mean, like, There had to be in the time. We're catching a lot of Dillardt taking you out. But there had to been a time when you retaliated, right? Never?

No, no. You were clean as a whistle. That wasn't my driving style. After he spun me out in the Saturday race at Charlotte, you know, we got going and we ran side by side. People were on their feet. They knew I was going to do something. We go, I slid him high a couple times just to let him know I wasn't happy. Never wrecked.

We never wrecked, touched or anything. and disappointed a lot of people, I think. They thought I was going to retaliate. But no, no, this wasn't my style. You know, I, no. Did any of that have to do, if I may back up a little bit? You know, you're coming from New York. I'm wondering, I didn't even ask you,

how were you received when you got into NASCAR? And did this, was there a disrespect to northern drivers, and did that play into any of this? No. I really surprised my wife and I said these people down here like me. Up north I got booed because I'd beaten all their regular heroes. Down here they really, when I ran late miles, I won all the time. They liked me.

It was crazy. And I said, wow, this is great. Never had this before. So you were accepted in the sport. And so, I mean, because you're dealing with some pretty strong personalities between Harry Hyde and now you're having these run-ins with Earnhardt. I'm curious about Rick Hendrick, and did he give you advice on how to find some sort of resolution?

He said, take care of it. I'll get somebody else that will. No, you know, Rick used to go around with Jack Tant and Ray Hendricks. They're not related, but Ray was a great modified driver and late model driver. And they, he used to see, Rick and I are the same age. So he'd go to races with those guys when I was racing there against Ray. So he knew me for a long time. He used to watch me race, Trenton and some big race, Martinsville.

So, yeah, it was kind of strange when I learned that. He said, yeah, I used to watch you race. I was with Ray Hendrick and Jack Tan. He didn't give me any advice, you know. Gotcha. So the Earnhardt-Bodine rivalry, how does it end? Hmm. Yeah, how does it end?

Where were you? When dad passed away, where were you and my dad in terms of y'all's relationship? I was in the announcer's box. I don't know if I was doing TV or radio that day. Yeah, that was a bad day. How did it end? Man. I already had my crash in the truck race.

When I left, I had a 17, we ran good. I don't think we had any trouble back with the 17. Y'all kind of stopped around that point when you became owner of your own car. Bud Moore was the last run-in. Yeah. Yeah. So it was 17? It was just, yeah.

There was just really no relationship. Well, things changed. Racing changed. More Gordon came in and a lot of other guys were running, and it just wasn't your dad. Yeah. So he had to race against everybody. But, yeah, it was good.

I mean, it was good. I don't know if because he was getting older. He got a little milder or what. Maybe. He did have Taylor around that time. And that's a daughter. That changes. Calm down.

Yeah, that changes. I have two boys, Matthew and Beller. Matthew's worked for DGR, David Gillen, great fabricator. Really, they love him. Barry, this is going to be shocked at a world, is working for Richard Childers racing. Wow. And they love him. They love him.

He's smart. He's meticulous. He's been around racing all his life. So they really love him up there. And so thank you, Richard, and everyone up there for putting Barry to work. But, yeah, they love him. Does everybody up there appreciate the irony in that? Because that's sweet irony is what that is, right?

I don't know. Barry doesn't say anything about it. I'm sure he does it. But I mean, that's cool. That's a kind of cuts full circle, right? Yeah, I guess you could say that. Well, Barry was certainly old enough to remember the entire rivalry. Oh, yeah.

When all y'all were doing that out on the racetrack, the kids were running around the infield being goofballs. Did you hang with him? Yeah. I spent some time around Barry. Like he said, he came over. rode go-carts a time or two. More of the tires out.

And we would, we would, so all the kids, they were crew chief sons, Doug Williams and Boy Scotty, Brad Means, Jimmy's son, Bob Wickham's son, Mike, Brett's daughter Heidi, his son, Barry. All of us would find each other. You know, that was our, as soon as we get the racetracker, go, who came? What kids came? Who of my friends came? And you'd walk and kind of wander through the garage and, you'd, you'd walk and kind of wander through the garage and go up in each holler and hey, Barry here this weekend or is howdy here.

And we'd all hang out all the way up until we were, I don't know, 16, 17 years old. So would you and Barry have felt the tension between the dads? Yeah. And did you ever talk about it? So when, well, yeah, because when dad and him got into their feud, you'll think this is hilarious. So my cousin, Tony Jr., worked on. on Robert G's sportsman car,

which is the car he drove on Saturday. That's it. That's at the house next to the Sharmer Speedway. I'd be over there. Tony Sr. worked on dad's sportsman car. So you got my dad and Tony Sr. on one side. And then you got Robert G. and Tony Jr. on the other side. This is combustible.

And I'm kind of floating back from one to the other, right? and I'm floating back toward dad's, I'm floating back to dad's house or the shop one day. I've got on a number five Levi-Garrett hat. And they took that hat off. Dad saw it and goes, you know, a few choice cuss words. What are you doing wearing that hat? And I'm like, well, ma'am, you know,

I'm not smart enough to articulate this, but in my mind, I'm thinking, I get it. You know, in this moment, you cannot hate this man any more than you do. I know that you and Bowdoin aren't cool. But this is my granddaddy's car. And so, but they took the hat off my head and set it on fire. And Tony Jr. Tony Jr. came by the shop after the Saturday race in his Levi-Garrett crew shirt.

Oh, no. And they took it off Tony Jr. and set it on fire and threw it on the ground. And Tony Jr. had to go home without a shirt on me. You think it was deep? You think that's true or deep? It was so real. Yeah. It was so real.

And so, you know, and what would happen is to get your question, Mike, is in the infield, you got really weird between me and Barry, even Heidi to a little bit, because I didn't know where, you know, they're all the bow dyes, right? They're all here. They're all here. They're all here racing. And so, I mean, you know, and then when they weren't wrecking, we'd all, hey, man, we're, cool. again you know we're for our friends again but then when they crash each other on track you're like well I'm sure they're just as mad at us as we are at him right and so we wouldn't we wouldn't communicate but I remember when oh man I'll be this is hard to admit but I'm a huge I'm only human

but remember Wilkesboro when Brett won in the 26 car yeah so we're all sitting on top all the kids are all on top of the comfort coach vans in this little parking lot there's a small parking lot next to the winter circle. All the drivers had these comfort coach custom conversion vans. And we'd all climb up on top of them, watch the race. And that, damn, Brett led the whole damn race, it seemed like. And Heidi and I think Barry and all of them were on top of her van, and we're about 20 feet away sitting on top of ours and just grinding our teeth going,

don't let Brent win no you know and then when dad and dad and Rudd spun out at Wilkesboro and you rolled around on the bottom and win the race

I'm like oh no everybody knew that was going to happen Rick Hanry on a restart I was running third he said they're going to wreck they're going to wreck stay back they're going to wreck I said yeah I know it sure enough they did

went around on the inside one to race. Yeah, Dad and Rudd had a really rough relationship, you know, around that. And the Rub was super, we've had him on the show,

and he's, like, super upset about how dad pried him out of that three car. When Rudd got to Piedmontville, Piedmont deal, he got Richard. Rudd feels like that he sort of primed that whole program to be successful, and then dad come and shoe hoarding him out.

Yeah. And took it back. And so Rud was bitter about that for a long time. And much like you, you know, Red would come over and they'd water ski out on the lake together. And then that happened and they were, you know, they were a bit of rivals. It was over. Yeah. Yeah.

And so that was really an interesting situation. So the rivalry wasn't just on the track. It was in the infield with the kids. Yeah. That's how intense it was. I mean, the whole family got involved. I mean, I loved Robert G. Golly, I loved that guy.

So Robert is my mom's father. A lot of people really know my dad's history. but Robert, on my mom's side, one of the best fabricators in the business, right? Oh, yeah. I didn't really intend to, you know, I just bitch slapped him. That's all I did. He ain't a man because he couldn't take a punch. It was just a little backhander.

Rivalries. Bad blood. Bad blood and rivals. The Dale Jr. Downey, Episode 345. Mr. Seichael, Jimmy Spencer. You may disagree with me, but I've got a theory. I think that actually your dust up with Kurt Bush actually is why I got the attention. And here's why, hold on, let me finish, because I think you're already ready to disagree with me.

Remember we had... You're good at what you do, buddy. Hold on, though. We had the attention of Sports Illustrated that year. I know. Lars Anderson. Yeah, I know. And he was writing a story on you.

However, it was only going to be on... What we were told is it was only going to be on the website. He lied to us. No, no, no, he didn't lie to us. He didn't have any control over that. He's not an editor. He didn't lie to us. But he had come down and we'd done interviews.

And so us doing Sports Illustrator was a major deal. And I'd been working on that deal and we got the Sports Illustrated deal, but we didn't think it was going to be in the magazine. And yet, when the Michigan thing happened and you did what you did. to Kurt. And maybe we talk about that here. Oh, yeah, we're going to talk about it. But when you did that, that got us in the magazine.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, you agree. That got us in the magazine. Lars Anderson said, we ain't got to worry about websites now. We're in the big deal. I remember that. And so when that Sports Illustrated article came out, I think Jade Gers noticed. I like, how, you know, did we have any business being in Sports Illustrated, ultra-motors sports, Jim Smith, you know. Blown up every week.

Yeah, Struggan. We had one race. Pocono. Holy shit. Bristol, you let a bunch of laps, got caught under caution. That was the one thing. So I think, but here it is. I look back at several things.

Mike Eggie. How many motor? Oh, my God. Mike Eggie was a motor builder, yeah. But I think that that might have been unfortunate for you on how that all transpired with the Kurt Busch deal. But it certainly. I don't think so. I think that that deal at Michigan, then I come to realize how important I was to the fans.

Yes. Same as you. That was the best PR work I've ever done. Ever done. You remember you coming? I said, this is a setup, buddy. They are not going to let me race Wednesday. We flew to Frickin' Bristol. I know that.

We did because you had. I said, Mike, this is cut and drive. And I told them to their face. I said, you, son. Oh, anyway. Hold on, though. But remember, like, I don't think you actually punched Kurt Busch because of anything that happened on the track.

Let's get into the details. Okay, go ahead. First off, of what happened. So that's true. We should do that. Yeah. All right. Like, I don't know, and I'm sure a lot of people listen and don't know if he ever did get punched.

I don't know what happened. Oh, that's right. Well, he came out with a bloody nose, so something happened. Don't know how that happened. He hit the steering well. So what happened. So there's stuff's going on on the racetrack. 2003, Michigan International Speedway.

So there's stuff going on on the racetrack. Y'all are running over each other and banging into each other. Post race. You're in the garage. before him out of your car? What happened? Tell me exactly what went down. The year prior, he says I wrecked him at Phoenix.

Then he says that he took the win off of me at Bristol. He tried to wrecked me at Bristol. Moved you out of the way. And that was his first win. Yeah. And he's lucky that day I was driving for Ganesi because if I was driving for myself, he won the one. But you've got to do what your car owner says.

lose your job. And then the following time it was another track. Indy. He says, I wrecked him. I didn't even have a scratch on my car. Something broke on his car and he brings me. Anyway. You hit him in O.D. You touched him at Indy. You ran into that. Indy. Come on. You think I did?

Hit him. Yes, I think you did. Pretty damn good, wasn't it? They did not even know that, I mean, Helton come from him looked at the car. He says, Spencer, how the hell did you do that? There's on a marker in your car. because I says, Bobby Allison taught me how to do that. So let's get.

So you are admitting it. I admit it. I spun that some bitch out. So at Phoenix. All right. No, that was the first one. I'm sorry.

No, you mean Michigan. Michigan. Now it's still happening. Still going on. Yeah. Post race, you're out of your car.

Well, tell you how it happened, bud. So we were running for the win. Yeah. He was too. And we had a pit for fuel. Well, he says he ran out of fuel.

Okay. Long story short, you know how Michigan is. You have to come in the pit road. Yeah. So as we're coming, I don't know where we finished. Pissed off. Now, my car is here. That bastard comes down there, a 300 mile an hour

Revitus motor cuts me off. After the race. This is in the garage. This is before you get in the garage. Before you get in the garage. Yeah. Actually, Oh, I got you.

So now, as you're coming down in the thing, all the trucks are lined up, and he has to turn this way. And he pretends his car's not going. and he wants me to hit him. And I'm like, you know, I'm going to teach that some bitch or less. I am going to hit him. Well, Miles said, oh, no, no, no, no.

So he says, well, my car ran out of gas or whatever. So, you know, he blocks a whole line. He screws everybody. I get out of the car. Yep. He calls me to the car. Hey, you old bastard. That's what he said?

He said, hey, you old bastard. Oh. My friend, Bobby Allison says it needs to be addressed. So you walked up to his car. I walked up to his car. They're like this in the garage. I said, get out of the car, and let's just finally settle this. And I says, I'll put one hand behind my back and whip your ass.

You said that to him. Yeah. So he ain't going to get out of the car. This is what he does, Dale. He calls me to the car, sitting in the car, calls me to the car. I go up to the car. He says, you old decrepit has been, I know where your family lives. And he swings at me.

But he's in the car. He's in the car. car this is how stupid this person can be all right i went you stupid son of a bitch boom and i saw the blood and i went holy no you coward you know and he would not get out of the car he he is he is what did he what did he say when you hit him he he was shocked and i didn't i didn't really intend to you know i just bitch slapped him That's all I did. He ain't a man because he couldn't take a punch.

It was just a little backhander. I know what he said after he hit it. What he said? You're over, you're ended, you're done. That's right. That's what Kurt said when he got out of the car. You had it on tape. I also have it in my memory.

I mean, I know you leaned in there. So what he did is he parked in front of the lift gate. You couldn't pull your car up on the truck. And he parked in front of it and he kept you because y'all were playing those games. And then when you went into the – I just remember watching this because you go in and you're leaned in. and I just think y'all are having your conversations. I'd seen you go at Todd Bowdine a couple times. I know how these things worked.

But when he got out with the bloody nose, I was like, oh, he hit him. And then Kurt Busch is like, you're done. You're over. It's over. And he went straight to the NASCAR hauler. And we went straight to your car trying to get out of the track. You almost made it. All right.

We did almost make it. And what happened? Well, we were waiting for them to let the line go. And we're like, come on, let's get out of here. I said where? And then the NASCAR. I'm laying in the back side. That's right.

He was laying in the ass for a escape. Those are good important details for a podcast. So we were, he's like, Mike, get the car. And so we're getting the car. And then we're laying there and we're like, come on, let the crossover thing go, let you go. And then finally this NASCAR official goes. I said, and we're like, what the NASCAR official do? He pointed his fingers.

He pointed his finger. You like, get out. You're coming with us. I said to Mike, that's our ass. That's right. So y'all have to go to the hauler. Is Kurt still in there? Oh, hell no.

He's long gone. Who's talking to you? He's a coward. Who's talking to you? Helton said what happened. And I told him there's more of the story to meet the eye. Mike, are you there? Not inside.

I'm outside. So Helton says, I told you, I got to do something about this. I says, no, you don't. I said, that son of a bitch deserves what he got because he threatened my family. He threatened my family. And I remember growing up with my dad The boys would sit there and the girls would sit there And mom would sit there

And dad said if anything ever happens to any of these girls I'll kill you You protect them It's just the way my dad was You protected your family And who When he said that to me about my family That was the end of it

And I told him And Tom said you shouldn't hit him And he says Mike I didn't hit him He hit me first He swung at me first he missed. Yeah. I didn't miss.

That's it. That's in the court of law. And it didn't go to the court of law. That's in the court of law. In the court of Spencer, maybe. You, Mike, you swing at somebody. Oh, and I see what you're saying. Right.

I'm saying the record that never went to. They threatened. The reason I knew what he got. I know what he meant, but they threatened a lawsuit. Oh, yeah. They threatened a lawsuit. What? Yes.

That day. Absolutely. Jack Roush was saying we're suing him. Why? That's why I'm drawing distinction between the fact that this never actually made it to the court of law. That's why I'm saying. So Jack comes in. He's hot as a firecracker.

And I'm calm. One thing, you want to hear the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth. So Jack's sitting there and Helton's sitting there. And I says, there's more. So Jack,

I says, relax, calm down. So this needs to be told. So Jack sitting there and I tell Jack what happened. Okay. Well, Jack knows they have a run in. with them in the past.

Yeah. So one thing leads to another. Jack takes the car home and checks it. Jimmy Finning, ironically, is his crew chief. Jack, I'd take off Bristol. The fans make me a hero. Mike calls me on the phone. He's, you need to listen to this.

And they were raining and rave and Jimmy Spencer, Mongo. Remember, Mike, it was... You took off? Oh, no, no. I got kicked out for the truck race, the bush race, and the cup race. Yeah. For him hitting his hand on my fist.

So here's what happened. He got fined. Let me rephrase that for his face. So he was going to miss Bristol the next week. He did miss Bristol. We went to Bristol early to try to appeal it and lost the appeal. How did you lose the appeal? Could never have a chance.

Really? Yeah. Come on, Dale. Yeah, back then, people weren't winning appeals. I'm just so used to. Probably, yeah. Dale, you're used to win. winning appeals seems like pretty easy I'm just kidding I'm just kidding I'm just kidding he won an appeal just a few weeks ago so awesome

well I think I think I think I think NASCAR's changed some over the years but I believe in my I know from listening that hey they took the one up from me at Daytona I believe back there was they were either you were either going to get a target or not yeah you had a target on your back here's one of the things that a reputation but then everything that had happened between you Y'all. Here's one of the things I'm most proud of, though, is that, so you just heard Jimmy, and I've always had to see it. I've always been curious, but I always felt like the only reason you did punch him where he parked and the things that happened off the track. Well, I knew things that escalated, Jimmy. I get that.

But I'm just saying, like that day, because you and I, when we talked on the airplane going back, I was like, what, I mean, why did you hit him? And you're like, you parked in front of my truck. You see that, did you? And I'm like, is that really why you did it, though? I mean, that's it? I told Helton and them the same thing. I said, Jack was sitting in.

I said, first of all, he threatened my family. See, I didn't know that? And I told Jack, I said, you know what, cut both my hands off? I'll still figure away a kick in your ass or doing something about it because that's the way I was raised with my dad. And that got Jack's attention. I got you, but let me do this. I somehow got my hands on the in-car radio. Yeah, you did.

And it's Kurt Bush saying, I tried to wreck him, but I'm not, I guess I'm just too good of a guy. And he's talking to Jimmy Finnege on the radio. Now, this is before now. cars track pass and all that stuff and so you know I don't even recall how I got the radio but what I did with it is I sent it to Dave to Spain for wind tunnel and I said look you want to know why Jimmy wrecked him or why Jimmy hit him because he was admitted that he had to he was trying to take Jimmy out in the race that's why and I was hoping that they wouldn't ask any follow-up questions to me because honestly it was all BS because I did there's no

no way Jimmy could have known what Kurt Bush was saying on the radio during a race, right? I mean, certainly not at that time. But I put that to Dave to Spain. They play it. And, man, it was just sitting back and watch what happens because then you all of a sudden the fans became big time. Like, they, that's, Kurt was the enemy in that deal. And what hurt more than anything?

Mark Martin calls me on the phone. Thursday. teammates with Kurt. At your time of him. Yes, sir, Dale. And he says, Spats. He says, I needed to come to the motor. home tomorrow night. Okay. So we go to Darlington. Nothing happens. We totally didn't address.

It was over with because it was over. I missed Bristol. Had a chance of winning all three races. We miss it. Really missed it bad because I knew the truck was good. I knew the Bush car finishing the top five and the cup car finished in the top five. I was really pissed off because I knew it's way better than the driveway that was in it. But anyway, Jack Roush wants to meet me at Mark's bus. Oh. This is the two weeks after the incident. Jack comes in. He's late.

He comes in. Mark says, I'll leave you guys alone. I says, no, you can sit here, Mark. It doesn't matter. And Mark and I were good friends. And Jack comes in, he says, I'm sorry for what happened at Michigan. And I went, Jack, you know, I told you there was more of the story. He said, well, I went, check the car out.

He lied. He lies all the time. He lied to me. You know, one thing leads to another. And I mean, accept my apology. I said, we need to tell the media. I can't do that. Think about it from my side.

2,000 employees, whatever, all my sponsors, but you got me personally, you and I personally know that. I accepted it, and it hurts because the fans didn't know how bad that driver was. He's a terrible driver. He got fired from Roush, got fired from pets, got fired from everywhere. He worked. I mean, no truthfulness. us. Your old man told me one time.

If he fingers me one more time, Spencer, I'm going to break his hand off and stick it up his ass. He never learned. He never learned. He's a half a race car driver. But you know, Darrell Walter always says, you've got to learn how to race. You've got to learn. It's respect. He has no respect in the garage area. Your dad had respect, Rusty Wallace.

Jeff Gordon, you did. I mean, you had respect, and he never did. And when you look over his career, what happened? Well, Jack was the one that told me that. Mark, same way, and he gets fired at the end of the year. So, but then he gets, Roger Pesky comes. Jimmy, I said, yeah, Roger, Mr. Pansky, Roger. You and me are going to get to the bottom of this.

I'm going to get this settled. I says, until somebody says they're sorry, can't accept their apology. You can't, I'm going to get it done. He never did. I flew home with Roger from Atlanta. And he said, you know, Spencer, he's just not, he's a hell of race car driver, but he's just not quite the person that, I forget a Roger explained.

He fired, Roger fired him. Yeah, years later, or several years later, right? Yeah, he gets fired because he said, dumb, I'm not saying he can't drive, but he just, you know what I'm trying to get? You just don't. Has he gotten better? Did I wreck you because you wrecked me at Richmond?

No. So the funny thing is, is we actually ended up in a back of a pickup truck, the next week. Isn't that how it works? That always. Never fails. You run over a guy, you're going to be in the pickup truck for intros the next week.

Yeah. And I said, hey, Jimmy, I didn't have any breaks. And he's like, all right, don't worry about it. I was like, had some problems with my breaks at night. Got in the corner too deep, run over you. Nobody goes out there with the attention and wrecking anybody, right? I mean, in all truthfulness, you don't. I mean, it's where you raced.

Yeah. Hold on a second. Say that again. Nobody goes out there. I never went out there with the intention. To reckon him. Did you develop an intention during the race? No, after the race.

And before the, oh, yeah. I was taught that if you couldn't pass him, then you finished forever. But if he tried to do that or he bumped you, you bump him back. They give you a reason. Right. Yeah. Give him a reason. 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're, We are all better off with an ally. A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download of true ally.

Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. All right, episode 390, bad blood rivalries is in the books, Mike. It's great to kind of relive some of these stories and just compile them into one big, fat episode of feuding in anger. We like that. We like the animosity here. I do. And, you know, I can't wait until we can, you know, we talk about, you know, one of the things that we enjoy doing is talking about cheating on this show or some of the, you know, creative things guys do.

But maybe we need to start asking these guys also, what's your biggest rivalry? Dive into that one. You still pissed off at anybody? Slings some dirt. Who are you mad at today? Well, maybe episode two, Bad Blood and Rivals will come out next year and it'll be even better than this one.

We'll see you later. Episode 390 in the books. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. I'm going to tell me what you're going.