The Dale Jr. Download - 395 - Michael "Fatback" McSwain: Racing is Sacred

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

At the end of the 2007 NASCAR Cup season, Michael “Fatback” McSwain suddenly departed from the garage scene, leaving a void once filled by one of the most colorful personalities in the modern stock car era. On this week’s Dale Jr. Download, McSwain joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis to discuss the decision to leave the sport, as well as the path he traveled to get to the top.Coming from the humble home of a phone company worker, McSwain did not grow from racing roots. After graduating from high school with no real direction, he decided to travel to Nashville to attend a diesel mechanic’s college. It was during this time that he became familiar with racing and upon returning back to North Carolina, he wanted to give it a shot himself. He and his father built a demolition derby car for the Cleveland County Fair, and had so much fun in the process that they embarked on six-cylinder racing at Cherokee Speedway.But the further they got into the racing, the more expensive it got, and soon McSwain was left to find solutions to subsidize his own on-track endeavors. He began working on other people’s race cars, ultimately finding a spot in the Robert Gee garage where a local racer was working on a NASCAR Sportsman Division ride. McSwain explained that working under Gee was very influential and taught him a lot in a short amount of time. It also helped him realize that he wanted to work in auto racing full-time.McSwain recalled driving to many different race shops and turning in applications before finally getting a call from Lake Speed’s racing operation to come and work as a fabricator. This would be his first experience working on a Cup car, and over the next few seasons he would bounce from operation to operation, spending time working under legends such as Harry Hyde and Cale Yarborough before finally ending up with Ricky Rudd at Rudd Racing Enterprises.In 2000, Rudd inked a deal to race with Yates Racing, and McSwain assumed he was once again on the job hunt. However, a few days before his honeymoon he received a call of a lifetime from Robert Yates offering him the crew chief position. McSwain explains he cut his honeymoon a few days short because he was excited to get to work in a real, full-time race shop. The Rudd/McSwain duo delivered “Fatback'' his first Cup victory in June 2001 at Pocono Raceway. McSwain shares a story of how the car came together after a mad scramble the week of the race, and the result was a completely dominant performance. He also shares a hilarious encounter with Kevin Harvick during the waning laps of the September Richmond race that same season, a situation that may have landed him in serious hot water had it come to fruition.When the decision was made to release Rudd and bring in Elliott Sadler, McSwain jumped ship and headed to Joe Gibbs Racing to man the pit box for Bobby Labonte. All was far from well though, and rising turmoil amongst the team would leave McSwain without a job. The conversation deals a lot with driver/crew chief relationships and dialogue, and McSwain offers up stories of disagreements he had with Rudd and Bobby Labonte over the years. He explains that driver attitudes over the radio during a race can affect a whole team, and when the situation reached a breaking point he felt inclined to intervene.Finally, the interview covers McSwain’s seemingly abrupt departure from the NASCAR garage scene following the 2007 season. He explains that having growing children at home influenced his decision, but now that they’re older he is open to a return to the racing world.DIRTY AIRBefore Michael joins the show, Dale, Mike, Alex and Hannah discuss:•          Magnet fishing•          Wild world of TikTok•          Chris(topher) Buescher•          Roots & Revival ASKJR presented by Xfinity:•          Racing on dirt•          Are drivers retiring earlier?•          What FOX scheduled race would you like to call?•          Bingeable television shows 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.

Following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Time to check my social media. Pretty much everywhere I go, I'm trying to start drinking. Frankenstein was made from many different things, and he turned out looking pretty weird. Pretty much everywhere I go, I'm trying to start drinking. And he turned out looking pretty weird. Start drinking, trying to start drinking.

The Dale Jr. Download. The Dell Jr. download. Time to check my social media. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. This is episode 395. My co-host, Mike Davis is here. We are in the Dirty Mo Studio, also known as the Bojangles Studio. And getting ready to kick off the show.

We got Fat Back McSwain coming in today. It's going to be a lot of fun talking to him. I hadn't heard from him in a long time. And apparently, so looking at the notes, his entry into the sport is pretty traditional, but unique in his own way. We're going to learn about how he got involved in racing. and he was quite a popular character when he was in the garage, especially when he became a crew chief.

Always kind of giving a good sound bite during his interviews and so forth throughout the race, working for different drivers, Ricky Rudd, Bobby Labony. And won some races, and then he just left. He got out of the sport for whatever reason. We're going to find out why and what he's up to today. A lot of people have been asking for McSwain to come on the show, so we got him today. Anyhow, it should be a lot of fun.

Let's get to some dirty air. brought to you by filter time. Dirty air. Dirty air is not great for everyone. But this is our dirty air. So let's go. All right, so something I've been listening or something I've been seeing on my social media here over the last several weeks or even more, I guess, is this magnet fishing. Has anybody heard about magnet fishing?

Never heard of it. I've never heard of it until, yeah, until you fired up the group text. So, yeah, it's pretty, it's kind of these. These videos would show up on my Instagram, and I didn't know if they were jokes, parodies, or what, but these, I mean, some of them are, but there's this one guy in particular. I can't even think of the handle,

but he films himself. All you really see is him pulling up something, which is either a knife or, you know, traditional things, right? Every day, whatever you might find in a hardware store, all kinds of items. But it'll come up and he'll, he'll say it'll be a butter knife and he'll be like look switchblade you know it's he he just says these funny things right and um it's pretty funny honestly um to be honest with you but

i was wondering watching the video whether i thought uh if it was real or not like is magnet fish i'd never heard of it till recently and i was wondering if magnet fishing was a real thing like you could really throw it and apparently it is right so i started watching more videos the magnet is as big as your phone it's not very big very powerful though they have different magnets like different power or different types of magnets as far as

what it will pull up the the strength of the magnet but they also have magnets that just have just are going to magnetize on the base then they have magnets that will magnetize on both sides and then they have these other magnets that are kind of shaped like a

paperweight that is 360 right You can buy all types of magnets to do this. You tie it to a rope. You throw it over a bridge, a boat. Wherever you think somebody might drop something in the water. Fridges would be a good start. Fridge?

Bridges. Yeah, a bridge. Yeah. Right. So wherever you think somebody might drop something in the water. And people apparently pull stuff out, like bikes even. Like if you, in, I guess around, they have this in New York City, or any other place where there's canals and whatnot,

where people might be riding bikes close by, all types of things fall into those little waterways. Yeah. And so they're, and those are everywhere. And so you never know. I don't know. I bought a couple kits.

They're not expensive. I mean, I know I'm probably buying junk off of Amazon. Not the real good stuff, but. Some people were, like, they were tweeting out that you can find, like, you know, like old, like, bombs and, like, like, military stuff. Yeah.

So there's some, uh, looking further into it, yeah, I've seen some guys that have quite the collection of old rifles and all types of things that they pull off the bottom of these creeks. A lot of people do metal detecting in creeks too, like underwater metal detecting. So, especially in areas where there might have been old battles and whatnot, battlegrounds and so forth. A lot of times a lot of the land has been searched pretty thoroughly, but rarely do people actually go through the trouble of getting down in a creek or something, a creek bed, where somebody might have rested or to get some water or whatever and left something behind. So anyhow, that kind of stuff, I think for me,

that kind of stuff has a connection to the abandoned, lost speedway sort of mystique thing that I'm kind of crazy about as it is. So anyways, I got a couple kits. I'm going to go get on the pontoon. I'm going to go out there and throw the damn magnet in the water and see if hopefully my knots tied really good and maybe I pull something up. Probably going to go over to the sandbar at the lake and I looked it's legal. It's not illegal. There's no like federal regulations against magnet fishing other than trespassing. I figure that hell I've been on boats where shit fell off at the sandbar. So I know there's some phone sunglasses, all those traditional things that you might you might think you might drop or lose at the lake.

I was going to say between the sandbar or Cocktail Cove, you could probably find Cocktail Cove would be a good one. You could probably find some crazy stuff there. Probably pull up a case of the clap if you ain't careful. Cocktail Cove has been around. Is that magnetic? Which one I think has been around for longer? The Cocktail Cove, I think. I think, yeah.

So maybe that's where you would find some of the older flip phone stuff. There you go. That'd be cool. Next tail walkie-talkie? Yeah. We're going to get into that. I think that Morgan Overstreet here at Junior Motorsports and Dirty Mo Media is going to go with us. Maybe we'll make some creative fun social media content out of that. I just joined TikTok, speaking of social media. So I was, I joined it literally just to observe the dirty moe media content that we're creating over there.

I've not had any interest whatsoever to join TikTok otherwise. My wife is on there. and she talks about how it's easier to create reels there. You know, you create the reel at TikTok and it's a lot more convenient or easier to create over there. There's more tools that you, I don't know. I haven't experienced it, so I'm just going off of her advice. Is she on TikTok?

Yeah, she's got a TikTok. All right. So I, she says it's easier to make the videos there and then you just ship it to Instagram when you want a reel. But anyhow, well, I was over there. So look, man, I'm not naive. I know that my niece, Carson, is, you know, quite the crazy girl, has a lot of fun, goofy

and has a great group of friends. She loves dearly. I see a glimpse of that kind of stuff on, and she'll love that we're talking about her, but I see a glimpse of that a little bit on regular traditional social media, boy, but on the TikTok, things get a little more thorough. Things are a little bit heavier over there. So I didn't have, so I get this handle and I didn't have any friends. So I just started following.

I followed like the people that popped into my head at first. And it gave me some suggestions and she was one of them. And she was the first person to follow me back. And she texted me and she goes, what do I get for being your first follow on TikTok? And anyhow, I was like, maybe you can babysit one night. That'll be your reward. But you still feel that way after seeing the TikTok? Hey, you're right, that's a good point.

But watching her TikToks, I'm like, goodness, gracious. Why come that's all, why come the wild crazy side of everybody's on TikTok? It's like there's, you know how it is. It's like Instagram versus Twitter, Instagram versus real life. They need to do a TikTok versus Instagram. Because Instagram's like church compared to TikTok. TikTok's like spring break. At least Carson's is.

Yeah, well, that's true. I text her when I saw your tweet. I just sent a screen. shot and she's like dude straight up called me out and I was like what was your intention on that by the way like when you tweeted it were you wanting to draw people to her TikTok? No I was just being completely transparent with my thoughts and emotions in that moment it was hilarious I had the same sort of I mean Kennedy you know her sister mother niece they're she you know they make the videos where they're voicing over like a audio yeah like a

Megan D. Stallion song or something yeah I'm like man you see a little bit of that on Instagram. And and, but they got, they, they, they put little effort in over there. It's like a production. Right. They might as well incorporate. There's choreographed dancing. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah, they might as well go ahead and be like a dirty moe media, you know, dirty, dirty moe media north. That's right. Yeah. Well, dirty moe media got on TikTok. See, I don't even know anything about it. And so I just know that we were supposed to be on it, right? And so I think we got on it last year, but you're right. I was sort of, of curious on what's going on the dirty because the stuff gets a lot of

a lot of hits that's true too our stuff does yeah and they'll be like uh you know your video got a million hits on tick talk and i'm like god maybe we got to go check out and see why it's getting a million hits but then you go see all the other things and you're like this is why i tell my kids are not allowed on tic talk yeah i wonder why that i did not think uh i was i'm shocked at the number of views that stuff gets over there. The algorithm that TikTok has is incredible and I think it's something that like we've lost in Instagram and honestly Twitter as well because my TikTok is so catered to just things that I like and I watch. So if I watch one dirty mo video, all of a sudden all of your stuff,

even if I don't follow you is now in my page. So if someone watches a NASCAR content, now it's going to make the connection to dirty mo and it's going to filter all of the dirty stuff onto this person's page. TikTok's algorithm is very content creator-friendly, which is what I think pushes those views. I mean, because it's so, the algorithm is so based just around, like, it's scary because it's watching your every click and watching how long you're watching videos and what you're skipping.

But, like, it's incredible. It's very content creator-friendly. Yeah, I was a little bit surprised by the number of views over there. So if you're curious, you've got to go figure out what's going on. So where are you right now and whether you will ever post it? a video to TikTok. Yeah, I got no problem posting a TikTok, but it's just like your first tweet.

It's got to have some purpose to it. You just can't be you walking around the house. So we'll see. Maybe it'll be magnet fishing. This weekend at the Xfinity, or at the cup race, there was no Xfinity race, which I was disappointed. What they'd let them guys have a week off for? That'd have been fun watching him go around, Richmond.

Richmond was awesome. We ran the Sunday Cup race during the afternoon. The racetrack got really wide. We had cars right up against the wall all over the racetrack, which was so fun to see as opposed to watching those guys get pinned to the bottom at that place, which is really annoying. We had cars all over the place, and we had some comers and goers guys on different strategy.

I really enjoyed watching that race and being there in person to see it. And I had a little fun. So I started calling Chris Busher or Christopher Busher. This happened a couple weeks ago. Maybe it happened. Maybe it started at Michigan. I can't remember. But for some reason, my mind took Christopher Bell and connected them together into Christopher

Busher. And every other time I mentioned Chris Busher, I say Christopher. I don't know why, but old age, a couple wires crossed up. I'm not sure, but anyhow, I just went with it and started thinking, man, wonder if I can, I was standing there in the booth doing it accidentally at first, and then I started doing it more purposely trying to see if maybe Rick Allen, who's in the booth next to me, would accidentally have a slip and call him Christopher as well. But you know how you hear that over and over and over, maybe you would.

It's happening. Yeah, it would get into your own brain. 100% And anyways, it was kind of fun to see everybody have fun with it. Christopher, Chris came home, changed his Twitter to Christopher. It's hilarious. I'm sure he's going to change it back, but that was great that he's playing along. Man, what a great run he had.

So I remember losing the Xfinity Series championship to him at Homestead, I believe, when he was racing for Roush in the 60 car. and I thought that was so impressive and he was such a quality, respectable, you know, individual. Comes across, no, has no, he has no baggage, no controversy, never says anything out of line. I mean, he's just all you'd ever want in terms of if you were an owner, he's a great driver, you know, and works hard and he's going to say all the right things.

But he thinks about what he says. You know, when you're watching him getting interviewed, he's trying, he's saying what he means, what he feels, right? He doesn't have this, you know, sort of collection of stock quotes to spit out. But I just think the guy's great, and I'm glad to see him run well because I think that, you know, he's been around a long time and it's sort of overdue to see him have some good success. But anyways, it was cool that everybody was playing along. Of course, NASCAR hasn't picked it up and had a good time with it.

but um you know what else chris pusher is he picks up a weed eater and comes out to the wilksboro that's true he was i think the only regular driver maybe that was out there no i don't want to discount anybody else that showed up i know you don't either mike but um i do remember like basically just throwing it out there on social media hey we're doing this if anybody wants to come yeah and dammy he showed up he did and he showed up with his own equipment and everything and went went to just walking around wheat eating like crazy and um I don't even know that he's all that much of an irascer. You know, I think he was just there to be there, right?

Right. And that says a lot about Chris Bisher. I think maybe, so I have a friend Christopher Allen's his name. He's a buddy mine. I used to work here at Junior Motorsports as a car chief. He's now in real estate out there making his own way, but we used to hit, we called him Tofer. And so I wonder if I can figure out how to get us over to Tofer.

Tofer booster? Yeah. Tofer. Tofer Bell. Tofer Beal. Tofer Bell and Tofer Bell. You know the sport needs some good nicknames right now. Well, I think Christopher Busher said that his friends call him Tof. See?

Just Tof. Someone said that was his MySpace or like it was alias. Yes. Yeah. Right. So I don't know. Maybe we can find our way to get all the way to connect it to Tofer. Hey, we'll call him Tof on this show.

I feel like that's such an alter ego too because he's just so like. chill and non-confrontational. But when Tof gets out. You let Tof out of the bag. Yeah. That's his... It goes down. That's off weekend, Christopher Bush. Yeah, that's off weekend. Toff. Toff. You know what? I understand this mix-up. I get the CB names mixed up in our sport. I do. He's one of them. Christopher Bell's one of them. And the other fella, Chase Briscoe. I get

Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell, mixed up all the time. And I don't know. Is that just me? it's the dirt kids is that what it is and the c b's i don't know well they'll added another one to the you know the christopher busher thing listen i think it's going to stick i think it's going to stick unless you go make it a tof thing what do you're calling what did the sir christopher busher come from did you say that so i said that so i think the first time i said it at michigan ralsh said oh he's been knighted oh he's now sir christ for money it's really funny so um before we before we move on uh we did have a great response on Twitter. I reached out and said,

hey, what do I need to know about magnet fishing? And boy, did Twitter come through with some great comments. Brandon said, man, you already been on TikTok too long. Not funny. Well, I'm trying to follow it. In response to magnet fishing. Yes. Oh, he's saying, okay, he just says you just got caught up into a, you know, a trend or whatever.

He's in a warm, warm hole. Black hole, yeah. Rouse Racing says, I don't know much about. about it other than I've heard there's some positives and negatives yeah that's fine that's a good dad joke that's a good dad joke uh Jeff Burton so we've been taught we were talking about magnet fishing in the booth this weekend I've been talking to Jeff and Steve and them I bring every week so they're really dedicated and focused job focused all day every day talking about numbers stats crew chiefs cars whether this that strategy this strategy that and so I always

kind of try to bring some nonsense into the booth. And this is just in between shows or like before we go on air or whatever. And this weekend's total nonsense was, hey, y'all, we should go magnet fishing together. And so Jeff Burton is privy to this conversation and followed up on Twitter saying, number one, after I asked him, what do I need to know about magnate fishing? We need a generous amount of beverages. Number two, be prepared to call the local authorities. at any point. And number three, a designated driver captain will be required.

Number four, keep your expectations very low. And number five, maybe I shouldn't assume I'm invited. So he is invited. Why would he assume that? I don't get it. He'd be a great one to go magnet fishing with, wouldn't he? Yes, he would. I mean, yeah.

For some reason, I just think just because he's Ward's brother, that he's just automatically graded everything in the outdoors. Even though Jeff Burton doesn't come across as a guy, spends a lot of time in the woods. It just automatically has that in his jeans and his makeup because of award. My favorite response was from Jorcef. Keep it away from your balls, but Mike will be fine. Wait a second.

That's my favorite one. Wait a second. Why do balls got to come into this? I don't know. All right. Jorsif. Jorsif. All right.

Thank you, Jorsif. Hey, something's got to anchor our boats. that's where mine come in. Oh, God. That's funny. That was quick. Adele, what did you think about the Roots and Revival episode one dropping? Oh, man, it was great.

I enjoyed it, and I really enjoyed the feedback that we got from it out of the gate. Typically, when you put something out there like that, you hope that it really connects with people, and it seems like this first episode of Roots and Revival it's a little six-part series that Dirty Mo Media has put together about the return to North Wiltsboro and the just the immediate response and comments on Twitter were really cool.

It was exactly what we were hoping for. People like it, love it. It gave them, you know, I guess the Dirty Moe Media crew just did a really, really good job of capturing exactly what it feels like to be there at that racetrack during some of the key moments that are going on right now with the racing there in August and again in October. So anyways, we went to test and we just captured a lot of footage.

We've been gathering more and more footage over the last several weeks to be able to create this little series and it's short. It's kind of easy to watch. Gives you a great understanding of what it would be like or feel like to be there or exactly kind of what's happening. And Mike said it best. I think it, you know, it's kind of like a puzzle that will be pieced together as you see. These, each chapter come together.

It's going to give you more answers to the questions that you have. So it'll be a fun little watch. And again, like, it's really short, really easy to consume. I think people are going to enjoy it. You can find that on our Dirty Moe Media YouTube channel. So if you haven't subscribed to our Dirty Mo Media YouTube, I mean, that's where really most of our best content is. Everybody's always asking for full video versions of the podcast,

but the best you're going to do is go over there to our YouTube page and be able to see all the clips. We kind of chop it up and give you really the best stuff anyways or some of the high marks of each episode of the Dale Jr. download, and that's a great way to consume that as well. So anyways, Roots and Revival. It's a little series. Go check it out at Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page.

I also want to add on to that that we're going to follow the series is going to follow all the way through Dale's race at the end of the month. And Dale, thank you. You're going to let Dirty Mo Media sort of tag along and sort of give a very personal, you know, glimpse into what that race and return to the late model will be. So that's something to look forward to. And also, I got to tell you, we've got chapters dropping every week, but we also have bonus content dropping. We've got two pieces of bonus content coming this week.

So just keep an eye out. You're right. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Roots and Revival will be dropping stuff for the next month. I was wondering, Mike, if it would be okay if we had like an extra credit episode or a final, you know, sort of a final part that might be able to quickly encompass what that place looks like when they turned into a dirt track. Because when October rolls around, I'm telling you, man, some of the most popular stuff that we're going to see on social media is them digging that racetrack up. some of the most interesting and curious things going on in the sport one of them will be turning wilkesboro into a dirt track and i'm going to go to some of the

races so why don't we drag a camera with us and just give people a glimpse of what what's going on in october so you got to tell me twice i love that idea yeah we got our guys in here right now actually so yeah boys the conversion to dirt track more work for you guys do it roots and revival season two it's coming next month What's up, Dirty Mo Media fans? This is Indycar driver, Connor Daly, and comedian Joey Mulanaro. And we're Speed Street, Dirty Mo Media's newest podcast.

We dive into the latest happenings in IndyCar, NASCAR, and F1 every week, as well as life, on and off the track. Speed Street is available now on all major podcasting platforms. And make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Speed StreetPod. So we're excited about this, man. We got a great ally coming into the studio. Fat Backman. Wayne. So look, I got to be honest. I didn't, I don't, I don't have a relationship with him.

I mean, I saw him at the racetrack. We'd say, hey, but we were friendly for sure. But Tony Jr. probably knew him pretty well. I mean, this is, you know, he was around back during the bud days, and then he just left the sport. And he had a reason. I don't know what it is. We're going to find out. But it's going to be great to catch up and see what he's been up to. I've seen some, he's popped up every once in a while over the last several years. and he's out there doing his thing. But it should be a lot of fun catching up with Michael. Yeah, I don't know him either.

I've never met him, but I know that characters from the 90s and then, you know, into the early 2000s, that's what I really kind of think back to the height of NASCAR. And he was right there with it with the top teams. And seeing him win a race, he was so emotional. That's what I remember, you know, watching races on TV. So I can't wait to get him in here. Well, everybody's been asking about getting him on the show. So he's finally here.

Let's bring him into the studio. of Fatback McSwain on the Dale Jr. Download. He's a great guy when he comes down to coaching you on the race on the racetrack. We talk great on and on the radio seems like. The big news in Bobby Labani's camp this week is Michael Fatback McSwain has been hired

as a crew chief for next year. Last live trauma at Homestead, Bobby Labani wins the Ford 400. Never over till it's over. Fat Back McSwain is going to get to do a victory dance for us. And Fat Back just about broke the pit wagon Coming off, high five.

I told him with five to go. Bobby, he's got a little bit quicker. Don't give up, don't give up. You don't never know what's going to happen. Only one practice. He killed it for the point. Well, have you, man. He wraps.

He won't win. 21st. Winston Cup victory. Michael McSwave and Linda Rutt climbed down. Easy fan back. Don't hurt you still, buddy. Let me get easy. Look at your head back.

All right. Celebrate the good time. Michael McWain. Your first win is a crew chief. What does this mean to you? It means the world, man. It's been a long, hard struggle. And this is for all them boys.

It's for mom and dad at home, my wife. Woo! Hey, man. What's up, man? How you doing? Good, man. Good to see you. We get to bleep out anything we want.

Michael. Yes, sir. Thanks for coming. Yeah, man. Thanks for the invite. Where did you come from? A little town called Dallas. Dallas.

How far is that? About 45 minutes. It's near... That's not bad. Between Gastonia and Lincoln. Yeah. Kind of over there. And what are you doing?

What is this... What is this parts business you got? So I got a retail tire, automobile repair shop. And then because of my connections with parts companies and stuff like that over year, we started selling a few parts. It started out as a few. Turned into a few more. So we got like half of our little showroom and some warehouse space in the back.

What kind of parts? Mostly dirt racing cars, too. Oh, okay. Yeah. Where is Lattimore? You can't get there from here. That was where he was born. That's where, actually, I was born in Belmont.

Okay. My dad worked for the phone company, and then I moved there when I was three. Three years old, you moved there. Why'd y'all move there? That's my dad's hometown. Okay. Yeah. I lived on McSwain Road.

I didn't come from a background of racing. No. When I went to Nashville Auto Diesel College in 1985, 86. Had you been to a race? No, never. So you was out of high school going to diesel college? Yeah, I couldn't even change oil. And you hadn't been to any racing?

No, sir. Okay. Well, no, no, no, that's not true. Let's see. I went to some dash races. Really? With a guy named Floyd Weaver, Scott Weaver. that was at the end of high school

So that was my first exposure Scott Weaver And that was my first exposure to racing Who's Scott Weaver? Raced Daytona Dash, man His dad Floyd was probably there The whole time almost That's why I know that name

Just from the dash He didn't do it, Scott didn't do anything else He's a fabricator by trade now Okay Because I heard that name Scott Weaver And so you go to a couple dash races Yep

And then graduated high school I had no idea what I was going to do. I'm like everybody else wanted to play football. How was football going? God didn't give me all them gifts. So you played football in high school? Yeah.

All right. Yeah. What position? Center. What was cool about it? You got to hit people, man. You didn't get in trouble. I would imagine you were pretty good.

I did pretty good, man. Like I said, I was either too big for my speed or too slow for my weight. Which is the way. But it was good. times. Yeah. But I spent a long time as 1980, sure,

yeah. So what made you want to go to diesel college? Why diesel? Why call it? Why cars? So I didn't know what I want to do, man. I had a few buddies going to the military. I definitely knew I didn't want to do that because I don't like people tell me what to do.

That is evident late in your career. We'll talk about that more. That's a blessing and a curse, man. I had a couple other buddies going to diesel school and I had a couple of buddies doing nothing. Yeah. And nothing didn't really sound like fun. So I went to diesel school.

Where was this at? Nashville, Tennessee. Back then it was like a, you went straight through like 18 months maybe. And took off for Christmas. That was about it. Didn't really know a lot about cars. I mean, I knew a little bit from just being there, but I didn't really know. And I went to school there and they taught you in detail and everything.

And then when I got out, I came home and me and my dad built a, demolition derby car, man, for the fair. Why? Where? At the fairgrounds in Cleveland. Oh, the Cleveland County Fairgrounds. You built a demo car. Me and my dad, built a demolition derby car.

Who's the idea was that? It was mine, but my dad thought it was pretty cool. Did you see something in Nashville? No, I just thought it would be cool. Just random. All right. So what was this car? Man, you're going way back, dude.

Come on, man. Oh, this is what we've got to know, though. Yeah. I don't know. Something big, man. Some big four doors. Just a big old four-door son? Yeah.

You just put a, you didn't imagine he probably didn't put a cage in it or nothing, did you? Oh, hell, no. Just getting running. I know. I'm just trying to understand what this car looks like. So we took it. I'll tell you, you know, you knock all the glass out. Well, roll them down and knock them out with a hammer, so they lay down the bottom of doors

and take the gas tank out of it and put a gas tank, a little boat gas tank in it and put the transmission on just a rod so it wouldn't hang up and just went and rammed the crap out of it. Yeah. Who drove it? I did. And that was probably the start. The start of being infected by the race. Yep.

When did you get the nickname Fat Back? In high school. Okay. The girl that gave it to me, she died now. But I worked for her dad washing cars at a car lot. And we called her a bad name. Okay. And then.

Was she calling you that out of spite? She was trying to be mean. Trying to be mean. God, she gave you a brand. She gave you a lifelong brand. She was a good person. Like I say, she died a few years ago. I had some stuff going on.

It was funny because it ended up being, it just stuck, man. And I carried it. And I really didn't tell that story until she passed away because I don't know. I just thought it was kind of one of those deals between me and her. It just ran. I ran with it. So you build this demo car. How did demolition go?

It went pretty good. I mean, you know, I think we got down. the last three or four something but it was just fun i've never been in a demolition before oh you need to do that bro you need to forget all about all this other crap and you need to go do that man why it's fun it's just fun dude it's just let me ask you something man how many times somebody pull up in front of your ass and you just want to fricking ram jack them right twice this morning that's what I'm talking about especially up here all right so you get to ram jack man no ticket nobody's mad they're expecting you to ram jack them this is a dumb question but I know nothing about demo races

but like is it just last man standing or is there uh is it i mean that's how you win that's pretty much it man and what and and i think years ago the things were bigger and they keep shrinking them because people getting hurt and all that crap so they just too much speed yeah too much they got the pits shrunk down and they wet them down and everything so you can't go nowhere real fast and then they you just ram jack each other man what do you win if you uh if you survive like a four dollar and 75 cent trophy and I don't know probably a couple of coupons for a hamburger joint next door or at the fair you know what I mean everybody knows you kicked their butt you know that's the best part about it so after you got done with that you built the car to run Gaffney yeah we bought me and my dad actually

bought a six-cylinder car we did that for a year or two and then probably about a year a year and a half and then we went to to Hickory and I raced there for a couple years running Hickory on asphalt that was that was fun dude what kind of card did you have for Hickory We just had a big spring, coal spring car. Back then, it was kind of in the middle of the Arock Camaros were still going on. I had a Grand Prix. It was a good time, man. We had fun.

And back then, the bushcars came. I think they came twice. But it was the real bushcars. I ain't supposed to say Bush. You say whatever you want. It was a bushcars. That's what they were. But they ran V6s in.

They were out. Oh, my God. Bristol, that's where it was bad. Yeah. Did you ever race those? I never ran a six cylinder. You never ran to V sixes. So the first time I ever drove the bush car,

dad flew me. I was working at a dealership, probably 16 years old, 17, and dad flew me to Talladega because they were testing the V8. They were getting ready to change to the V8. Regardless of that. So you raced at Hickory a couple years, and then why did you quit? Just no money, man.

Run out of money. I'm in Pops and I had more money. You and your dad was doing it on your own? Yes, sir. Who was helping you? Sponsor-wise, friends. He had a friend that had a little telephone business, like a private business. He'd give me enough money to buy a few sets of tires.

We had a guy who would give us a little gas money to go back and forth, had a corner store, and pretty much that was it. I had a couple friends help me around. You know, it was easier back then to get. Volunteers, yeah. You didn't have to pay them. No. What kind of grade would you get as a driver?

Six. Okay. That's better than average? I mean, it's a little better. I did all right. You're good. No, I don't know if I was a driver. good, but I was, I didn't run in the back.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I raced with Huffman when he was racing in. Robert Huffman. Yeah. Raced against him. You know, I hold him. Robert Huffman's son, Landon, was just here.

Oh, really? Yeah. I'm helping him a little bit. Okay. Yeah. But he's a, uh, I just talked to Robert on the phone of the day or yesterday. Yeah. I didn't know he bought the, um, the truck business up there.

Yeah, he is. Well, I was looking for a, I'm doing old truck for my wife. And what kind of? I was looking for a bed. I'm trying to find a, this will be great to get this out there, because I'm trying to find a blazer, a square-bodied blazer, anything from like 73 to mid-80s. Yeah.

And so he's one of them. My guy, he's somebody helped, but Roberts helped me. So if anybody's listening, both of these guys at the table are needing some stuff for their project. Yesterday I had Stefan tracking some guy down in, I think he's in Massachusetts, has this one. Is that right? One blazer I won't. There you go. He's kind of on the fence where they want to sell it or not.

wear a Robert Huffman shirt on the show last week? Robert Huffman, the Joyce Julius numbers, are skyrocketing on the show. It's how the universe works. Yeah, it is. It's way, way smaller and everybody thinks this. That's right. That's true. You went to, on your first playing ride, you went to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

That's right. For a chassis course. Yes. What made you even think to do that? So, I'm on those guys. I believe you never stopped learning. I wanted to be really, really good at racing, and I didn't know enough about it. I didn't know enough about it.

front ends and springs and shocks and all that crap and then when butch miller had this thing so butch miller's a great racer in aSA series ran some cup races but he is a legend he is and he's a very knowledgeable person so to double up it's that randy sweet's that randy sweet's sweet manufacturing sweet steering boxes oh okay yep yeah and so there's an opportunity to learn a lot really fast to go to this little seminar thing so i flew up there and that was my first plane flight how did you know that. It's on my notes, buddy. Who got the note?

Who done all the homework? Dale Jr. does. He tells us. That's good, good work, man. He does this. He's researching you while he's calling the cup race. That's in my book, man. I don't have a book.

Anyway, so, so needless to say, it was my first plane ride. And you can imagine how I felt when we came out of the sky and it was snowing like you ain't never seen, dude. Yeah. And I was like, we're really going to freaking land in this way? Yeah. They didn't even think nothing about it. But yeah, that was my first plane fly.

So you go to a chassis school, and Butch Miller's there, and Randy Sweet, he's kind of a unique guy. He is. A little wild. I was, yeah. Yeah. What did that teach you? Is that, I mean, did. So that was my first exposure to learn about true friend in geometry and what was going on with bump steer and all that stuff.

And did you go, so let me ask you this question. So you learn all this shit, which is cool shit. Like the bump steer stuff's critical. A lot of people didn't, I mean, back then, some guys did even bump steer their cars. They looked at you like you were crazy when they just set the toe. Yeah, man. Toes right. Somebody explain it real quick.

Bump steer basically is how the toes changes as the tires travel up and down. So if you go in the corner and smash the brake and the car travels, well, the tires can pivot in and out, then the toe can go crazy. You want that to stay the same, right? Or maybe bump out a little bit. You know more than I do. The biggest thing about you got to know what it is. Yeah.

Because depending on the roll and the squish and all that, you've got to know where this tire is and this tire is, so it can do different things. So it's way, it's somehow old school. Some of these guys out here probably don't know, but it can screw the car up. I mean, he can tell you screw the car up big time. Places like Talladega, Indie, I mean, sudden little changes in bumps to her toe. it's just like

I mean it's just crazy big bounce and we learned some things I mean we were up there we sat on the poll once there with Ricky and we were there to test and this is a funny story I'm jumping around with me

do it do it but we had data acquisition but it was antiquated then compared to what it is now he kept saying there's something wrong with the right front tire and Ricky had a hell of a feel

for for tires and what was going on and we kept making all these justice and couldn't figure out what it was so went down a circuit city and bought this them little mini cam right which was that big then we put it in the car and aimed it at the right front tire because we didn't they weren't no gopros and all that and so he

went out and made a couple of laps and come back in well what we saw was when he got right as he got ready turning to the corner the tire was fluttering like this right here and we made a castor change and put load in the steering wheel and it went away wow and so it No, that's, to your point, the bump steering, everything going on front end is just so damn crap. Yeah, I remember, so I had this old late-mile stock car from Bobby Wellman, and I ran it for a year, and then I came home in the off-season, took it apart, fixed it, put it back together, and I bumped-steered it for the first time, and I couldn't believe the difference the car made, it made for the car in the middle of the corner.

Like, I'd always kind of just been tight through the center and just thought that was just you drive through it. but man i bumped steered my car for the first time that's some of gun rolled the middle it was awesome and so i learned a lot about that and castor and camera gains and it was it was pretty cool and this was a conference not a school you went up to in michigan i would call this a i don't know like a weekend session or whatever you're okay so it was a weekend and the in the knowledge you took away that weekend was invaluable no no question and the big thing was man is it opened so I was looking in this tunnel, and now I'm looking at this big field.

Now I'm like, my eyes are just open to what's going on on a car. I'm starting to learn, and it's just, at that point, it's coming in bucketfuls, the crap I'm learning. Real quick, though, you went up there as a driver, though. You had been driving at Hickory, right? Yeah, but back then, you did it. It wasn't. No, yeah, you all worked on your car. That's true.

We did everything. That's a good point, right. But I guess the reason I ask is it, like, at some point, you, being able to set up cars and become a crew chief for a career and not drive, where did that end up following? That's the next step. I don't know if he's headed out. I don't know if he's headed that way or not. There you go.

That's really what I wanted to know, I guess, is where is the transition for you, way from driving? So at that point where the whole time I'm racing to help subsidize, I guess is the best word. I would work on people's cars. I'd build a fuel cell or I'd set up a guy, started setting up guys' cars because I had scales in front of. castor camera gauge and stuff like that people you're racing with well most of it was like not many people ran hickory so this would be like dirt track guys okay they didn't have sheet metal brakes and that stuff so i started doing that stuff and i had a welder so i started working on other people's cars to help subsidize my racing well then i quit my record job i started doing that full time

damn really hell yeah man i was ready to go man is making that kind of money no but i was living at home I was making enough money to pay my bills and I was racing. So then there was a guy there from home who was like a local dirt track guy and they started the sportsman series. He's going to go run the sportsman race. At Charlotte.

Yep. Yep. And that's about the time it all kind of evolved on its own. Does that make sense? I didn't just wake up one morning and go Cruachie. I'm on crew chie.

This guy, they didn't know crap and they were knowing somebody to help with their car and so I started helping them. And that's when I met Robert G. Okay. My granddaddy. Yep. And where'd you meet him?

At Robert G. At Robert G. What was you doing over there? So Worm, Jeff Collins, had an engine shop. He worked at Hendricks in the parks department, but he had an engine shop in the back of Robert G's. Yes. And who's laughing at, bro?

I love Robert G. I love Robert G. stories. And anytime you talk about it, like, I'm not laughing. You know that. No. His little dog. His little dog named Fatbacker. Yeah.

After you. Yeah. I bet on. I did not know that. But listen, just you go, you talk all about. No, no, no. No, no. Talk about it.

That's why me and Robert G. Go on. I love it. So anyway, you know, Robert G. He's just straight out, man, let you happen. Yeah. He made me look good, dude. Give us an example.

Like, give us, like, what was your first impression? What was when you first got baptized in Gisimmed? Well, we're going over there, and I think, we call a guy. worm his name's Jeff Collins but anyway Worme says listen man we go in here just go straight in go back to the motor shop don't stop messing up and don't do nothing do

I'm like what do you mean man he's like I'm just telling you just do what I said so we go in there walking the door worm what the hell do you want you the sorriest ass worthless pieces I ever seen

I'm like oh this is going to get interested So we started going down there And then the way I really got to know him Was we wrecked at Charlotte And back then I think we ran a couple of races Maybe one at the beginning of the week Yeah

And one at the end of the week Something like that I don't know it's hard to remember That's true yeah But we wrecked it the first one We didn't destroy the car But we know we needed to do some work or whatever And so we took the car over there

Instead of taking it back home So Robert G he wouldn't really work But he would sit over on his little stool And give guidance and I'd work as much as he wanted to work I was a sponge for knowledge

and he figured that out and once he figured that out he started opening up to me teaching me things showing me things and details and areas of the car I didn't know anything about aerodynamics other than what you learned at the racetrack

you know what I mean I didn't really know but he started explaining stuff to me and showing me things and that was my real education you know was working with people people like him.

Richard Broome would come over a lot back then. It's where I met Richard Broome out. Yeah, he worked at HMS, Sir Hendrick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And at the time, I think he was working for, who owned the Quaker State? Kenzer was over there.

Kenny Bernstein. Yes. Okay. The time, I think he was working at Bernstein. Gotcha. It's way for your time, bro. Now, I remember Kenny Bernstein. Really?

Really? Yeah. Yeah. So we were learning things. You know what I mean? I was learning tons of crap. Just straight flow. It's like he wanted to give it to me.

But I think it's because most everybody he worked with like at Hendrickson and everything, you know, they didn't want to listen. They didn't want to hear it. Yeah. They were all smarter than him. And they didn't want his knowledge. If I learned something once I learned it a long time ago, you listen to everybody, man. You take what you want, throw the rest over the way. But you just keep it, dude.

And that's what I did. Robert just, he just kept giving it. me stuff, kept giving me stuff, and I kept taking it. And so that's where we developed that relationship. That's when I decided I want to go race full time. We should see my dad's face the first time I told him. I'm going racing full time. I'm moving to Charlotte and go racing full time as soon as I find a job. You're going to go work into business. I'm going to work in the industry. What do you say? Okay. He didn't believe it. I didn't have a job. I just said I was. So I told you I was working for myself. So I got up, this is all true. I don't know if I ever even

told him by this part. All right. This might be some breaking news, shit, I would get up my little S-10 truck, and I would drive down here to the shops I could find, and I'd walk in the door and put in an application. And I did that over and over and over for, I don't know,

two or three months. Yeah. And then I got a call one day from Lake Speeds racing to. Yeah, the wheels. And we were only running part-time. Part-time, yeah. Yeah. I think we have Purex and wins.

You want a job. And I mean, it was like $325 or something like that. We want a job. We could use you. I packed my shit up and I was going the next day, man. There's no doubt you remember the people that rejected you or did not even reply. Am I right? Oh, yeah.

Did you race against those people not soon after? I mean, like you would have raced against these teams that you would have applied for, right? Oh, yeah. Did that fuel you? Oh, yeah. So even when I quit racing in 07, right? All the way up to that point, I was fueled by the people that didn't believe in me. Yeah.

Even if, I didn't even know if they believed me or not, but if I didn't think they believed in me, that's what pushed him now. But like Robert Yates used to tell him, people would ask Robert Yates, why? He hired me with Ricky, and I had no background. Nobody knew who I was. We had done pretty good everywhere I'd been. Why didn't you do it?

He'll outwork any sandwich in his garage. And that was my forte. And that's, that's, I believed, and that came, that did come from my heritage. I believed that I could outwork you. As long as I could outwork you. Because if I could keep working and you quit, that's, I had you beat, man. Because you give up. I don't ever give up.

And so, yeah, that pushed me. That, that fuel. How long did it take for Lake Speed to give the call? Like, did you hit the application circuit for weeks? Probably a month. Month? Okay. Yeah.

Fair. What job they give you? They hire me as a fabricator. What did you start? What was the first thing they said when you walked in there? So I walked in the door. And it was, they were changing noses. Back then, a lot of times they'd do a body change, but it wouldn't be anything but a nose.

Mm-hmm. Because they couldn't change the whole car because it was a, it was a factory car. Stock car. The roof and the hood and the deck was stock. So they couldn't change it. The crew chief guy says, you put this nose on this car. Sure. I ain't ever done it, man.

But, I mean, how hard can it be? How hard was it? It wasn't hard. They had a couple temples. They only had one template back in, I think. Right. It's just like putting a nose on a short track car except it was made out of that carbon fiber mixed instead of plastic.

You just had to meet the templates to make it look right and stuck it on. And then, you know, I ended up doing every car in the shop. It just went from there. Like I said, I wasn't afraid to work. Lake ran pretty good. We did. Yeah. There was some moments where you're like, the hail.

We was hauling ass at Charlotte, broke a gear. Right. I mean, we were freaking. Flying. Flying. Norman Negree was doing our bodies back then. Oh, my goodness. He's over at S.H.R. right now.

Oh, really? Yeah. So he was our body guy. Now, we build a lot of templates out of Norman degree shop. And what I mean is we were doing things that they didn't have templates for that they ended up having templates for. one of the first guys, in my opinion, to really understand side force. What was going on with that? Did Norman, did he have his own business?

Yep. And so y'all take the cars to him? Yes, sir. How was Lake able to be so fast? We had good motors, man. We had good motors and good downforce back then. John Callis, we were a motor guy. Lake still got his shop over there.

You seen that shit on YouTube? I have, man. You see those cars? Yeah. Them some cars you worked on. Yes, sir. Maybe. Ford's?

Probably. Yeah, they were on. The big fords? Yeah. Where's his shop? That is, wherever the hell is shop? Over in Annapolis, man.

Is it in Canapolis? Yeah, man. That's close. Lake is a very emotional guy. Yeah. Yeah. What did you think about all that? We weren't really involved with it.

Huh? No, I mean, so he runs second in Daytona 500, right? Yeah. And he got out and cried. Anytime he'd run good, he'd get out. He'd get upset. Yeah. Yeah.

Sad about it. Not sad, but happy tears, I guess. Happy tears, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lake to me, I've always wanted to get Lake in here. Yeah. Because I want to talk to him about that.

So, because, listen, most race car drivers are, whether they are or not, they perceive themselves to be tough as leather, right? Yes, sir. Don't show no weakness. Oh, man, you know, don't push me around. Yeah. But Lake was, like, Lake was Lake. I don't know if he's always been that way. Yeah.

Or if it became, you know, when he was reborn as a Christian, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if that's when it was. I didn't know him prior to. I've always been fascinated with him. What happened to make you leave lakes? So we kind of run out of races. We were kind of us all in a,

we were not really working on nothing at the time. But. Lake was between deals? Yeah. So why he was between deals, Ricky Rudd goes into business for Ricky Rudd. Number 10, Tide? Yep.

Yeah. So he decides to do that and we build all his cars. Who? At lakes? Yeah. Built all of his cars? We built all of his cars. Damn, all right.

To get started. So. That's interesting. That was cool. Yeah. We're building all these cars. We don't have nothing to do. We're not racing.

But that kept us working. Yeah. And so we built, I don't remember if it was five or six cars for Ricky to get him going into the next year. And I'm sure the crew chief, whoever started out there. Tour them all part. Whatever. Or built his own. but he had enough cars to get started

for the next year. And then I think we did one more race somewhere, I don't know, where we were. Sure, Phoenix or Rockingham. But you started, you started thinking you needed to go somewhere else? Well, remember that first thing you asked me about my opinion or whatever? Yeah. Yeah, so. About you speak in your mind

or not taking direction? That might have been one of those first examples. Okay. Actually, the guy changed in the rear tire, dropped the lug nut, and we got hung in the pits and went from I don't know. We went from 11th to 25th or whatever.

He was a real young kid. I mean, like 17. Yeah. You know. And Selberg just come off the pit box and belittled him in front of everybody. And finally I just told him, I said, he got it, man. That's good. You need to go back up there, you know.

I mean, you can't belittle somebody so much. And this kid was, he was a young, very fragile kid. He's going to break him down. Yeah. And I said, look, man, he's got it. Okay? He's f***ed up. We went from 11th to 21st.

He's got it, man. Go ahead your ass back up there. Leave him along. And so he didn't really like that. He's the crew chief. Did he send you? Did he ship you out? We mutually agree.

Or you all just agreed. We just agreed. We weren't going to be able to probably. And it was one of the things where they didn't have no more money. Yeah. We were out of races. This, you know, he worked out for the best for everybody. So.

I didn't do nothing for about a week. I was trying to figure out what was going on. You know, it seemed like it was that time of year where things were starting to lay out. So, you know, Robbie McLeod, you heard that name? Yeah. All right, so he calls and he says, hey, man, Harry Hyde is moving all of

Harry Mellon stuff up here from Georgia. He's looking for some people. Cool. So I went over and met him. Hired me on the spot. That's when the, the Elliot's and Harry Mellon split. So everything got packed in tractor trailers and moved up here.

We first moved into Barbara Healy shop over at Raymock. We started out building cars and getting everything ready and set back up as a race team. Who's going to drive it? It's time they didn't have a driver. Higher Lake Speed at some point, didn't they? Yeah, it was later on down the road. But that's where I met Harry High. What was that like?

And then I got a couple of those guys. He's heard a lot of stories about him. He, it's another piece of information highway that I wouldn't take nothing for, man. That's where, I got lucky on a lot of that stuff, man. I got to meet some great people with a lot of knowledge, and then I was just a sponge for it. And that's how I learned. And Hyde was the same way. He was a genius on front ends.

I wonder who drove that car the first year. So I can tell you all the people who drove it, but I can't remember the order. Yeah. But when Harry was working on it, they made her drove it once. Rich Bickle drove it. Yeah. Phil Parsons drove it. Sand trucks in the desert out there.

PJ Jones drove it. Sand trucks in the desert. That was a good one, man. We went to Wilkesburg. Wilkesburg. Went to Wilkesburg to test. We're going to go to Wilkesburg and race, right? So we go to Wilkesper to test.

With PJ? Yeah. So we don't have a truck driver. It's a big Mike. He was a jackman. He actually was a jackman on your dad's car. He was driving a truck. We went through the middle of China Grove,

cutting through over there to get to the, and we take to them telephone pole out. Oh, boy. At like six in the morning. Right. We, well, we're good, so we back up. We're going to. Because if we're late, man, Harry's going to kick our ass, dude.

So you left the telephone pole in there. Yeah, probably. I had to. I wasn't driving, though, just for whoever's listening. But then we went up there and tested. That's my first time at the racetrack with Hyde and Jones was driving. Him and Jones fall over the carburetor. I bet.

I bet they fall over everything. They did. The whole day. And it finally got to where Harry told him said, just put the sum bitch in the truck. What do you mean, Harry? We can't fix it. We can't make it where you're happy.

We just put the sum of it in the truck and go home. And that is exactly what we did. Damn. We put the smith in the truck. He said, we ain't got one carberry. What the hell you want me to do, PJ? What was your job at mailing at this point? See, Harry got fired.

Hide? I left. You got mad when they fired Harry High? No, I mean, the crew you came in and you know how that works. You're on your own business. I don't have to tell you, man. Yeah.

So, Kevin gave me an opportunity to, and to me it was a move-up. Shot for me. For a bigger team, had a good sponsor. At the time, we had Skoll. The next year, everybody left, and what I mean everybody is, Kevin went to RCR.

Rick went to Butchmocks, and all the guys kind of went with them. I was pretty happy where I was. You stayed? I stayed. Richard said, well, you stay? I said, will you pay me?

He said, as long as I can. I said, sure, I'll stay. So we got ready for Daytona. Who was going to drive? Mortgage Shepard. And we had enough money for like three races. I think it was Delcoe Remy that we had. White car with stars on it.

Yep. It was probably November or something, maybe December. We were getting ready. It weren't time to test, but it was close. And he says, you're going to be the crew chief. And I said, what? He said, well, you're the only guy here who knows how to set up a car. And the only guy here knows how to build shocks.

So you're the crew chief. Sure. Let's do it, man. So we went to Daytona, did all testing. We were okay. Had one car that he loved one car. He hated. Bodies were similar, but he didn't like the way one drove.

and older guys are even worse than the younger guys about this is the car yeah so um we went to Daytona this is a good story coming here man we went to Daytona and um back then you were there for two weeks we qualified pretty decent and we ran the 125s and we got in a wreck really late in the race and knocked the front nose off the car tore it up really bad we were over in the back then it was the garage was a lot different there was over the I called a dump yeah over on the back side we were over there parked you had a lot more room but nobody wanted to be over there because that means you were either not in the backs or 58th yeah so we were parked over there and we didn't have a garage like what are we going to do what we're going to do we're going

to load a backup car I said no we ain't going to unload a backup car what you mean I said he hates a freaking backup car do. We're going to run dead ass last if we unrolled the backup car. Well, what are we going to do? I said give me a minute and I thought about it. So we unload the backup car right? And we

cut the backup car right here on both sides. Cut all the bars loose from the frame. Set the whole nose cap off. Radiator, cradle, duck work, everything. Instead over here. Go to the wreck car and do the same thing. Take all this and put it back

on that car. Lined up with a template, welded up, make first practice next day. Damn. Wow. Yeah. And I got called all kinds of garage area crazy. I don't know where we finished, but I think we ended up finishing decent in that race. This went back to the work thing.

I'm out working. So then we, I think we went to Rockingham maybe next. I'm not sure. That sounds right. Rockingham is after Daytona. I mean, we ran good at first couple races, but then we went to Atlanta. Really freaking good. That's Morgan's track.

Yep. We ran frick. That's before it was changed. We ran freaking good, dude. Either third, I think, second or third. I don't know. Is that the story where you met Todd Parrott for the first time? That's when I met Todd Parrott.

Tell that story. You don't hear that? I want to hear it. And we are friends now, my disclaimer, going out through this stuff. I was a nobody and nobody knew who I was, but we were running good. And we pitted there with, I don't know, six to go maybe or something, less than 10. We took two tires. He took four.

I think first place took two. We took two. A couple of it took two. Now, it ain't like we'd been running 28th. We've been running like eighth. And we took two, and now we're either second or third. And he comes down there and he taps me on the shoulder and says, there's four fresh tires behind you.

You need to move over. I said, you've got to catch my ass first. Mother of a shit. And I think he passed him with like one or two. to go, but we finished. Dale Jarrett passed, yeah, Morgan. Yeah. But we finished, he was the second or third.

I don't remember, but it was a big deal, man, because everybody knew we didn't have no money. Yeah. We just barely had a pit crew. It was all we could do to pay our damn tire bill. And that's pretty much what, that race pretty much put me on the map, for lack of a better term, okay,

was that race right there? Certainly with Todd Parrott, right? I mean, because who's this guy who nobody knows telling me you got to catch me first? Yeah, I mean, what? I always. believed I could win if I went, man. I didn't think I was beneath anybody by no means. So that that deal didn't last the season, though, did it? It lasted for a while, and then Morgan

got put out, and then NADU came in, and they never really could establish sponsorship. And then we stopped getting paid, and, you know, that didn't, at that point, you got to make some decisions. So where'd you go next? I think that's where I went to Kales. To Kales. And they were kind of in the same boat. They were just hanging on. But they were racing a little bit, so I was like, yeah, I'm in, man. So you went to work at Kales during, right? I think Tony, I think he had left.

Tony Fleur left. Back in 98 RCA. Yeah. Yeah. And they were kind of hanging there, and Rick, but Rick Mass was there. Really? Yeah. And everybody was just, it was a bunch of people kind of looking for jobs, and they were going to run a few races.

Yeah. So kale got ripped off by a partner. Yes. What Chevrolet do with her guy? And he quit, he shut the team now. He gave me a call, man. Like a... Kelly Arboral.

Like a Tuesday. Right? Because, I mean, I was pretty much running the thing. They had a little office manager lady, but he says... Or she said, Cal said, go upstairs to the conference room, take this call. I'm like, what the hell? So I go upstairs and he says, stop the bleeding. I said, what's that mean, Cal?

Stop to bleeding. Can't be good. He said, shut it down. and send everybody home and lock the doors. That's it. What? He said, yeah, it's done. So the guy, I guess,

would give him some checks or whatever, and it never cleared and, you know, that same old down story. And so... You had to go down there and tell everybody the door? I had to go down there and tell them. First thing I went to, went to the motor shop,

those guys have been there the longest. Tony and Soda Bob. They'd been there the longest. I said, man, Kail just called me and said, and they just couldn't believe it. Right. You know, so we got everybody together. all 11 of us

and said it's over Kielsa taking a toolbox roll it outside lock a door and it happened like that man like you walking out there and doing it right now that's how it was done it was done nobody I mean did they understand? Well they weren't very happy about obviously yeah and so

what was that guy's name? Slick maybe his parts guy had been with him forever so nobody left but slick and the girl up front That was it They weren't leaving They stayed till the auction Kale was going to have to come They stayed to the auction

Kail was going to have to come To get them out They stayed to the auction I'm the Parson I'm the Parsoner I'm the Parson That's right So after that

You're back out Trying to figure it out Right Where did you go then? Oh that's when Okay So that's when me and Ricky Hooked up

Okay So we've been trying to hook up over years But things never worked out Like, he would call me and I'd be in the middle of doing something, be in the middle of the deal with, like, Richard Jackson, whatever. And then I'd be out, and he'd be fine. What car is Ricky driving?

His own. He's driving to 10. Still. And this is the last season of the 10. So nobody wants to go to work there because they know there's nothing. You knew it was the last year? Whatever, man. Did you know?

Yeah. Okay. Everybody knew. Okay. Yeah, that's why he couldn't get nobody. All right. But he got you. And he said, I went over there, and I said, hey, man, I don't have anything to do it.

He said, let's finish after a year. I said, why the hell not? All right. So we ran good. We didn't win, but we ran freaking good. Week in and week out. Every race, Daytona, short tracks, we hauled ass, man. With about maybe, no, I don't even think we had decided.

I don't think he had decided to drive for Robert yet until after the year was over. But we started getting motors from Robert Neme because he knew he didn't have enough horsepower. Okay. So they rented motors for the last. half of the year or however long I was there. That's a long time ago.

I mean, I can't remember. Anyway, so then we're really hauling ass. We're running good at short tracks and big tracks and Daytona. I mean, we're freaking getting it home. You got Yates Power now. Yeah, we got Yates Power and we were already running pretty good, but now we're really running good. And we finished out the year, man.

We had a great year, or the last half of the year. I had no freaking idea what was next. And then Ricky signed up with robber. To drive 28. Going to drive 28 to next year. That's freaking cool, dude. Congratulations. Lottie, da, da.

So nobody really ever contacted me. Ricky asked me if I'd be interested. I said, well, yeah, sure. We keep doing what we're doing. We got a little bit better stuff and a lot more money. But nobody ever really contacted me. So I got married that year. That was 99.

in the 99. So I got married that year. And after the race season, we went on our honeymoon. And I got a call, like, three days before my honeymoon was over from Robert. Oh, from Robert Yates himself? Yeah. Okay. Do you want the job?

Wow. I really think, I don't know now, Robert's going, and we'll never know. But I really think they were like after somebody else and couldn't get him. Oh. And finally the person, whoever that person was said, no. but he called and he said would you would you do you want the job do you want to go to work and I was like yeah you know it's my first it's my first real gig man right you've been you've been patching it together for a long time I've been learning and patching and working here and working there and

you know the whole time I was at lake I left this part out but the whole time I was at lakes and even um at mailing when we weren't racing I was at Robert G's I go to Robert with G's at night for lots of reasons to eat a steak and drink a beer um but to learn he always had something in there and I was learning crap man I was trying to learn all that did so anyway yeah that was my first gig man and so we left we we might have left honeymoon a day early to get home my wife's cool man I was racing when she met me she don't care I don't know even cool wives leaving a honeymoon early still feels like a big a big ask yeah if you got the right one man I'm telling

anyway so I came home and we went to work man I was like freaking stoked you talk about ready to go to work now we had worked in the old shop down below past darrell-Walter's shop down in the hole down there 88 was the only one in the big shop over in

Charlotte a lot of people don't know this either Todd I still love you man but I got to tell this part he told Robert that he couldn't win a championship as long as the 28 was in the same shop because he had to babysit them too Now, it could be true. I don't know. I don't know.

I wasn't there then. Sure. I just know that when I went to work there, it was in what we called the hole. That's where we started. Man, we had to move the cars in and out from the storage area to the work area. When it was time to work on him, you worked on him. When he's done, you put him over here in the storage area. Yeah.

You go out of the shop and go down the side of the shop to go to the paint booth. Yeah. But we ran good out of there. First year out, man, 2000. This is a bit of a culture change for Ricky himself. He's gone from being a race team owner. to now working for somebody. You're going from patching up jobs together

to working with an established organization. What was that transition like for both of you? Well, for me, I don't know. For Ricky, if I had to guess, it was a big old sigh of a relief for him because now all he's got to worry about is racing. Yeah. That's all I got to worry about.

Driving a race car, being prepared to be a race car driver. You know, obviously going to the autograph signings and sponsor crap, But, you know, on top of all that, he had driver, sponsor crap, business owner, all that crap before. Takes a tall. All that goes away. Me, I'm like, I don't have to go.

Yeah, we need these spindles, but we also got to have some oil tanks and we need a couple gears. So this other stuff will have to wait. We'll just get the gears right now until I go, hey, I need the spindles and the oil tanks and the gears. You didn't have to prioritize anymore. You could get it all. Yeah. That's awesome. You know, but I still race that way, and I think that's, I'll get to that story in a minute.

That's a car story, but I still race that way somewhat is I never just throw crap away. Like if the oil tank had a hole in it, some, but most people throw it away, and I'm like, let's fix it. Oh, you're a damn welder. Fix the oil tank. You know, it ain't just junk. So he appreciated that, too, because I didn't, I don't know, I guess it's because I came from such humble. again and said I just didn't I just didn't throw crap away. It's all you knew.

You run lean and you run, you know, efficiency. Yes, sir, absolutely. And you work hard. If I'm an owner, that seems to be a nice thing to have out of a crew chief. Yeah. So what was the first win, Pocono? Yes, sir. Right? Yes, sir.

So in dominating fashion. Can I put that out there? Yeah, you put anything out there. Y'all did dominate. You can put anything out there. So I'm looking at this. Y'all run, you all set on the pole, won the race. Look at the difference between the pole and second.

Does it show that? I ain't looking at that. They ain't showing me that. Racing reference has its limitations. Okay. Y'all beat Jeff Gordon. You beat the 88 car, Dale Jarrett, your teammate. Yep.

I remember that race. I led some laps, so I got to see that 28 car. Y'all was doing some different stuff back then. We were. So you. Might have been the very first or one of the first few guys to start coal-bying it. Am I right? That's right.

How did you figure that out? And what, you know, because I think y'all were the, so Bumpstots had come about and then they took those away. Yes. And we got them. We didn't know. I think Bump stocks were after that. After that? That's right.

Yes, sir. So how did y'all figure that out, though? And what made you go that route? Because I remember, I just remember that car that day. being on the ground and all the time down a straightaway into the corner everybody else's cars would get there in the corner but down the straightaway we was all sitting about four or five inches yep you were yeah so how did you figure out of that so we we um so rickie was a big front-end drive guy he liked to feel certain things his front-in so i learned early on with him that um

he liked a lot of camber he liked to feel that camber and he liked a lot of front-down for us So as we started learning that softening the cars up and getting them on the ground, he loved it, you know, and he could drive good. And then obviously it was fast. Aerodynamically, it was better. The whole world was better. Prior to that, we was, if you go back and look to some of the old videos, Larry Mack was already announcing at that point.

And he used to talk about how we used to smoke the right front fender at Michigan and places like that. Well, that was always our limit. That's how much spring we took out of it. Yeah. We got down to that fender. on the fender. Yep, that was it.

How many times did you have the, have the fender strap, wear a groove in the tire, lots. And he'll come in the garage and you look at that and go, holy shit. We need to go up a little bit.

We got to go up a little bit. We got to go up. We got to put around it or we got to. But back then, so back then, though, you only had to pass tech once, man. Body templates. So after the, they always call them Transformers.

Kevin Hamill used to call my car a transformer. So the fender temps only had to fit once. Now the overall had to fit every time you went through there, but the fender only had, the fender only had to fit one time. So you'd make it fit, and then you'd start stretching that thing, pulling it up and pushing it up and getting it all. More travel. Get more travel.

So then the limit was underneath the car. That's when we learned. We went to Pocono. We actually did some stuff accidentally. That's what really set the car on fire, and we didn't realize it. We didn't really realize it until the second time we went back. But we was doing some things with the rear sway bar, and we didn't really know we were doing it because we had it unhooked,

but it was actually working in full travel. So we went back the next time we weren't as good in practice and all that. And then I looked at Lil Raymond, and we were like, is it any way that sway bar was doing something? He said, I don't know, maybe. So we put it back on. Went right back. What was it doing?

In full travel, it was kicking in. So that was what was making this good in all three corners. Because it would prop the back up, keep the nose down? It would keep the nose down. Really? Yep. And so. But it was unhooked, so it wasn't doing no rate, no rear?

But it was just pinning the nose. When it was rolling, yeah. Interesting. And so we put it on, and we were actually leading the second race, and it had a flat with two to go and blew the right front tire. Destroyed that race car. Was it the strap? No, it was just something.

Yeah, something. Yeah. Ran over something. Yeah, that car had plenty of travel. Yeah. Yeah, but what we were doing with that car actually was we were running the car high through tech and then dropping it out. And so the car was high on the, actually wasn't high on the roof. And the quarters were maxed out when you went through.

But then once you settled it, the quarters were here. The quarters were high. Yeah. The car was a wedge. The car was a big wedge. Yeah. Yeah. And we were some of the, we were.

y'all were one of the first ones to really figure that out. Everybody could get their car down in the corner, but nobody could figure out how to keep it there on the straightaways. You know, that transition or delta in the movement on off throttle or brake or whatever, that was bothersome for a driver. But, man, once you got it to sit there the whole lap, it was gold. Yeah. As long as you could be there, be there.

And when you got down the straightaway, see, all that drag went away, going down a straightaway. And so you made so much down force that you could actually, we would qualify with the spolers way back like 40, 45 degrees because you were making so much, I'm sorry, making so much overall down force that you give up a little bit. You give up to drag from the spoler. Yeah. And so that's why we started.

And then, you know, how the garage area is, everybody's side by side. So it didn't take too many weeks and everybody was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm figuring out what we're doing here. Oh, it did. You and Tony Jr. had a pretty good relationship. We did. Yep, and I think that Tony Jr. was one of those guys that could look across the garage

and figure out what was going on? I think y'all had good good, good, we did. Y'all seem a lot, y'all seem similar in the fact that y'all were, you all were science, y'all were kind of using the old school science to figure out the new tricks. I agree with that.

I would say that we, we were quiet innovators of a lot of things going on, me and him, and we had an understanding. I wouldn't even say we were ever really friends. We worked against and around each other, and we had a mutual respect for each other that if we needed to talk,

to each other we could and we both knew that. I think so. I'm glad you brought Tony Jr. up because as you guys are talking about coal binding and stuff, we had Tony Jr. in here just a few weeks ago and we were talking about that 2005 season when you guys had split up, you and Dale and Tony Jr. And then wasn't coal binding, correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't coal binding sort of like his secret into what was making them faster and while we were struggling? Wasn't that sort of it?

It was a type of spring. So it was a type of spring, right. and are you suggesting here that like that Michael here had got onto this coal-binding stuff this would have been three, four years before that. It was either coal-binding, but he was, his platform was different than everybody else's. Okay. And more consistent and low, like sealed. Like we'd go in the corner and our cars would seal a little bit on the right front, but it'd rock on the right rear and pick the left front up a couple. You'd look at pictures, you know, you can see the left front on the ground just perfectly.

So we were running two Everybody else was running So everybody else to go to Poconade to run a inch and a half bar Maybe inch and three eights in the race We was running two inch bars Big end two inch bars At that point Nobody else was running.

We were bringing them in And it looked like other parts Like axle bags and stuff like that It was actually sway bars And we were running them Big ass bars Even at Martinsville I mean I can't tell how many times

We were both in the tear-down shed at Martinsville. It seemed like that was every time we went. But you and the eight? Del Jr.'s. Dale and Ricky or Dale and even Bobby. Got it. We were in the tear-down shed together almost every time.

We were doing it then. We just learned some things, man. And later on, everybody figured it out. But we were, what got them so low was we were taking all the spring out of right front and using a big bar to hold the car up. Right. How privy was the 88 to this information that you had? Zero.

You guys didn't share anything. Well, they set the platform. So when we came in, they, They set the rules. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. This is how it does.

They had enough to kick you out of a shop and, you know, they wouldn't be the rule setters. Yeah. Exactly. They set the platform. Yeah. So other than the engine stuff, there was no. No transparency. As a matter of fact, the car from Pocono came out from the dumpster at the 88 shop.

So y'all went out there and got it? What? Yeah. So we were over there. We were over there chassis dino. We had this favorite car that we run at Richmond and Martin's one place like that. It's back then you had to do things differently, but we bought most of our cars from Ronnie Hopkins.

But they are already building their own cars. The car. The 88. Yep. And you laugh. You've heard that before, right? The car. I tell you, anybody uses air quotes to talk about a car?

Then you know. So we were a chassis dino, which was behind the shop. The only time we got to go over there was the chassis dino. So we were a chassis dino in our favorite big track car. And we're over there, and I look. and this car sitting there by the dumpster where the scrap man comes. And I walked over there because they were chassis down. I didn't do nothing.

I was just there. I don't run a chassis down. So I look and I look at the chassis number. And back then Ronnie Hawkins was stamped the frame hikes in there. And I looked in there and I was like, and I took my tape measure and I measured the roll cage and all. And so then I called Robert and I said, hey, Robert, there's a frame out here by the dumpster.

What's the deal with it? He said, he said, well, Todd don't want it no more. I said, really? I said, so can I have it? He said, yeah. So it's a raised rail car, right? Yeah. So what we was doing back then, we'd take a raised rail car

and we cut the clip off of it. We lowered a car back down, put the clip back on it. So what we were doing was we were creating a drop rail car, but everything was dropped, dude. The roll cage, the halo, the dash. So everything was an inch to an inch and a half lower than if you just ordered a drop rail car. If you ordered a drop rail car,

your roll cage was tall and you had all that extra weight. But if you did it this way, it was a raised left rail. If you did it this way, now you had a low ref rail and a drop right rail. Right. And so we took it and we built it and we mirrored one of our older cars, the car I told you we liked.

And we built it. That was this Pocono car we were building. Right. And so, this story is good right here. So we would race somewhere and we're in Watkins Glen testing. Now we had worked our ass off on this car, man. Like this, low this, slick, tricked up body. I don't know how I'm going to get the damn thing through tech.

All, everything, you know what I mean? Tony Jr., I tell you about that. I get a phone call from, we called him Uncle Pete. Pete was the setup guy. He says, man, we got a problem with this car. I said, what? He said, well, when they put the body on, They went off the frame heights stamped on the bar, not the new frame heights.

I said, so what do you mean? He said, so the car is an inch high. I said, yeah, we got a damn problem. You're right. And so he said, I don't know, what are we going to do? We can't take this car. I said, we're taking that fucking car. I don't care what we've got to do.

We're going to take it. And so he said, what are we going to do? I said, I don't know. I'll call you back in a minute. So me and Robert was up there. And actually Todd was there. And Todd kind of helped us think through this thing. So what we decided to do was

Is we cut the We cut through the firewall Cut the rocker panel off Cut through the rear package tray Right Drop the frame back down Patched that stuff back up Put it back together

Took it to Pocono The rest was history Yeah It was on a rail too Oh my God So the funniest part about that whole story is Robert Robert's the greatest guy I've worked for too

By the way I'll put that out there so Robert comes in that morning and this wasn't uncommon for him to have these deja vu moments or whatever but he comes in and he says I had this dream

and me and Doug looked at each other like yes sir and he said we're going to win all the practices and we're going to sit on the pole and we were like well I hope so and he said no I had the dream says

that's what we're going to what's going to have and it was freaking on a rail dude the funniest part about the whole thing was Schrader was hauling ass that day too. And Schrader would set fast time and then Ricky would just set faster. And Schrader would set fast time and Ricky would just set faster. It's like it was just how fast you want to go. And he would just keep going faster and faster and faster.

That's just one of them weekends that just don't happen, bro. You know, your post-race interview is one of the most memorable things. This is when I felt like Michael Fatbacked Missile. Wayne was really now known by everybody because you gave an emotional speech or interview as you would. It was your first win, right? Yeah. But hearing everything you're saying that just went into that car and hearing that Robert Yates had a dream, I don't know if all of that stuff is sort of in your mind as you're sitting there getting interviewed, but I just know that that's when we realize that you wear your emotions on your sleeve and the introduction to the world of Michael

fact back McSwain was here, right? That's when I remember. It was cool, man. And, you know, that was 2001. 2001. Yeah. So I was 34 years old. Dude, I've been told for, I've been told, you know,

he ain't big enough to play football. You can't do this. You can't do that. We don't have a job for you. You ain't good enough to work here. I had applied at Roberts before. Larry Mack wouldn't hire me. I knew it.

You're the kind of guy that remembers who doesn't hire you. I got one better now. Who else? And this one I will never forget. I was called for an interview and it was scheduled. And I went for the interview. And then the guy wouldn't interview me. He let it like his car chief interview me.

And he gave me like 15 seconds worth maybe a minute worth of time and sent me on my way. His name was Ray Abraham. Oh. That pissed you off. Matter in hell, man. Wow. I mean, like, you can't even freaking describe it, dude.

You know, so I was beneath them. I mean, that's the way, you know, so when people treat me that way, I mean, they treated Robert G. that way. Rick didn't, but, you know. Yeah. Lots of people. Co-workers and such.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I didn't have a pedigree. I don't have an engineering degree, but, um, so it was a lot of, lot man when that day happened it was just like it was a lot then you took that car back the second time and blew the right front and destroyed it yeah uh that was heartbreaking because we took it to

indy for the test and it was in between oh god it was flying so you're you're salivated to take it back yeah so um talk about the run-ins with harvick during that period of time you know rick and Harvick had a couple of spats with each other, particularly at Richmond, kind of boiled over a little bit. That was, um, the rooster liked to, if I could get him there, and he used to call it, he could smell it. If I could get him there and get him pissed off,

we had a shot, man. Yeah, I'm telling you. He would drive pissed off. God, I might of he drives a shit up, man. He was prior to me, and I think, I think Richard Broome was his crew chief. He was running Darling Darlington back in the day I don't know if it was at Hendricks

Might have been at Hendricks But the pit crew kept sending him back He'd come in running fourth or fifth or second or third Or maybe even leading and lose five spots And this went on and on and on What a caution came out was like 15 to go And Broome says pit

Brood says, fuck you I ain't pitting What you mean? You got to pit, you got to have a tire I'm not coming in you didn't send him my ass back to the back again but he ended up winning that race he just had to hold the hell on for yeah six laps or eight whatever it was you know and it might not have been that many laps on the tires but whatever it was he said no I'm not pitting but he was he was just that way man if I could piss him off but here's my thing man is it so I look at different because I'm not from this world does that make sense I don't have a pedigree

I didn't have a pedigree and I didn't have a background I didn't have a history I didn't nobody told me nothing. I had to learn it all. So I always looked at it like I was the coach, man. And I don't care how hard you push you, your dad. I don't care the greatest, whoever you think the greatest driver ever was. I don't care how hard they push, they can only get, in my opinion, 90% out of theirself. Because you won't scare yourself if you don't have to.

And so my job was to find that last 10% whether I had to piss you off, whatever I had to do. I had to figure out a way to get that last 10%. And I always took that approach with everybody. Crew chief, I mean, crew members, body guys. I always figured out my thing was I would push you to your limit. And when I saw it in your eyes, I would back up a couple of percent. Because I didn't want to break you. But I wanted to get everything I could out of you.

And your brain, your body, everything. And so when I figured that out, that's the one thing with Ricky. I really figured out was I could figure out how to push him to that line. Man, if I could get him to that line, he'd get the rest of it. How would you do it? It just had to develop, man. We had to keep him there. If he thought he had a chance, then we had a chance.

Sometimes you had to do two tires. I mean, you just... But the great thing about him was, is I didn't have to be the best race car. That's had to be close. We could work on it during the race, get the rest of it, and then he would give us his part. If he thought he could do it, man, he was freaking... Just like the one, a couple of times we run good at, or the last time we run good at Martinsville and him,

we had a really good car that day and we qualified good. And on the first lap, the guy had left a brake leader loose, lap one. So we pitted. We were a lap and a half now. We pitted. And we finished second. And one of them we made, and we almost made the whole thing up. It wasn't like come on by.

It was like, yeah. He drove back up there. but we had that good of a car, and he could drive that good when he was on. But what happened with him in Harvard at Richmond? So we had a good car that day. We ran good all day long, and I was getting toward the end of the race.

I don't know if it was the end end. I think it was close to the end in, and we were leading. I was running third in this race watching all this. Oh, you had the best damn seat in the house. So except for the one in my pits, because you're like this part. So coming off of two, man, Harvard just knocks his ass out of the way.

And that's pretty much. I mean, you had a bear seat to me. He just knocked his ass out of the way. And he had an opportunity. But I don't get me wrong, disclaimer again, if you drive from me, that's what I want. I want you to knock their ass out of the way. I get you close. You do the rest.

So we had a little short NASCAR official name, John Muzzarelli, was in my pits. So I got down off the pit, and I walked over to John Mosere. and I said, come here. He'd come over with the piece. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was always nervous. And I said, you call up to the tower and tell him to meet me in Victory Lane. He said, why, why?

I said, I'm going to kick Harvick's ass as soon as he gets out of a freaking car. I'm beating his f***ing ass right there in Victory Lane. Because you're assuming he's going to win. And so just he doesn't, he ain't spared an ass whoopin just because he wins is what you're saying. That's exactly right. So I get in and I walk back up my, my, um, Get back on top of the toolbox, right? And it goes around.

I don't think it took, but like two more laps, maybe three. And Rudd just schools his ass over there in turn four. So I got back down off toolbox, I went back to everyone. I said, hey, Maserrelli. He said, yeah, yeah, what? I said, disregard that first statement, man. We good now. I went back up there and we won.

Me and Harvard's friends, man, and out of all the people, there's only a handful that I've been able to stay in touch with that either won't give me the time of day answer my calls or Harvick Newman that's about it yeah is that right I call them yeah it's a brutal sport man if they don't need you they don't need you man I can see it you bothers you oh a big time yeah yeah yeah well you mean you give you life to something yeah you know but I can't fix it what happened between you and and Ricky that ended up getting y'all to split When we were at Yates, we had a really good year in 2000 and a really good year.

Won a couple of races in 01. In 01. And then in 2002, we started out a year decent. Not really. I think as you get better, the expectations get higher and higher and higher. You know, the pressure starts multiplying. We won the race at Sonoma. It really started as a misunderstanding, but we wanted to race at Sonoma.

I think he went on family vacation maybe. But I had moved into a new house in Morrisville when we had a little picnic. kind of it's kind of a moving a new house picnic celebrate a wind picnic well I didn't invite him because he was on a family vacation so it

either upset him or his wife I don't know which one and it just kind of started a it caused an argument in Daytona and kind of created a riff a rip in a relationship and and then and then

it was a lot of stuff going on that didn't didn't really surface until later because, you know, it wasn't but a month or two later that he told Robert he wasn't coming back. Where was he going to go? Is that when he went to Wood Brothers? Ain't that right? I know. It sounds crazy to think that you would ever leave Robert Yates to go to the Woodbrothers.

And so. I mean, you know. No, I'm with you, man. At that point in time, I mean, Yates is powerhouse. We were rolling, man. Now, we had run into an obstacle, obstacle right there. Yeah. So there was a, at Richmond in 2002, right, he's complaining about the engine and one of the motor guys confronted Ricky after the race.

Yes. That's right. And there was a confrontation. And so, you know, I know that you have a lot of respect for Ricky, but it felt like at the time everybody was being real hardheaded about the whole thing. I don't have any question about that. But as a crew chief, so when the race is over, right, the driver is usually the first one back to the hauler. crew cheese usually the last gather up on my crap on pit road and all that right by the time you get back to the hall by the time of crewchee gets back you're usually dressed you're either gone or you're fixing to go so by the time i got back it was over so i have no i had no visual no i don't know anything i still to this day don't really know what happened but i do know there were some high tensions rudd had become vocal on a radio uh at that point so things were done deteriorating slowly and piece by piece by piece.

Yeah. You know. And that's the bad part, man. Didn't have nothing to do with the racing. It was all personal. Personal. Personal stuff. Yeah.

Rudd's going to go over to Woodbrothers at the end of the year. 2003 as I look at it right now. Did you go with them? That was an unexpected decision. I think Robert had, so my whole career, I always tried to make decisions based on performance. Never. So if you offer me $100 and you offer me $101, I'm going to go with whoever I think can win. So Robert had, I think Elliot Sadler was coming to race there.

And then I got a call from Jimmy McCarr. over it gives. Yeah. And he says, I'm not going to crew chief Bobby anymore. We'd like to talk to you about possibly crew chief. I'm like, sure. So they come to my house and we met. Because, you know, everybody had a job in.

It was the middle of the year. Nobody needed to know what was going on. So they came to my house. We went up and had a few beers and talked about the future, for lack of a bearer term. And me and my wife talked about it. and figured this was a positive move. Bobby had already won a championship, and they had everything you could ever want over there,

and there was a good shot to win a championship, and I just didn't feel like there was a good shot to win a championship. I didn't feel like I was ready to do a whole rebuild again at Roberts. Not taking anything away from Elliott. Sure. I didn't know him good enough to even know how he could drive. I knew where he came from. He probably didn't have the best equipment or the best motors,

but at the same time, I knew we could run good. I went and told Robert he got kind of out of. That's the only time I really got mad at. He got aggravated. And so I left actually before the season was over. Oh, that's right, because it says like 33 races. Raymond Fox or somebody was the crew chief the last couple races. And you went and ran, you did Bobby's car of the final three?

No, I actually went and helped Zippy. Okay. So we were doing some testing and we were race testing. What I called it is we would run stuff for them during the race. We'd make air pressure changes to help them. they knew what was actually working and what wasn't working. Gotcha. And we did some R&D for them and stuff like, yeah.

So that's kind of, we helped them. We went, I went to help them win the championship. Damn, man, I mean, you couldn't finish the season. It wasn't my choice, bro. Big Daddy. Yeah. It was him. He was so frustrated and angry.

I guess he just got mad. But there was all kind of shit going on, you know what I mean? Yeah. Because. The driver's leaving. The driver's leaving. Driver in one of the damn, this guy here was just a freaking guy working in the motor shop.

He wasn't even a main head guy or nothing like that. Just to... Well, he didn't have to come over there and mess with Ricky. That's what I mean. But what I'm saying is, it was just going on everywhere.

So Robert's like, I guess he was just like, I don't freaking want to deal with it. Yeah. So I want to be clear, man. One of the things that I learned, and it didn't take, it didn't, it took a while for me to

figure it out. The damn shop guys and the road guys, they don't want to hear the driver talk about. about the car. I got out of the car one day and Tony Jr. or Tony Senior 1 told me, listen, you got to stop saying the car is a piece of a shit.

I don't care if it is. You got to stop saying that. The guys don't want to hear that. Talk on that just a little bit about how a driver, you know, drivers, they get, they got egos, they got big egos, they behind the wheel. They think they're king of shit out there. You're right. And they get to run, they think that they can run their mouth about the motor, about the car.

I was one of them. So me and Bobby, one of the things that fueled our end was I kept trying to talk to him about that. And he kept beating the pick crew's ass on the radio. And so I don't remember where we had been and where we were going, but we were taking a new car. And he came, it's the only freaking time he'd come to the shot, but he came to fit the seat. So Scotty, Zippy Dele, is Greg's brother. He's my car chie. He said, hey, Bobby wants to talk to you.

I said, yes. I walked over. He said, there's two push to talk buttons. what are they for? I said, well, that's the one you always use, the one on the right. You hit it and I'll hear you, and we'll talk about the car, springs, whatever adjustment you want me to make, what's going on? You hit that button.

He said, what's the other than for? I said, have you got some useless shit to say about the pit crew? Hit that button because there ain't nobody can hear it. It's not plugged into anything. Because, I mean, I didn't know what else to do. I mean, but it's just useless. I mean, it does nobody no freaking good. You could have used one of those buttons.

Yeah, I mean, it's a little harsh, but it's... No, yeah, yeah. I used to call it. That's Robert G. Like, to say something like that, but be positive, man. Those guys, let me tell you something. Even if that guy sucks, man, he's still working his freaking ass off. It ain't going to make him suck less if you beat his ass in the ground.

If he can't carry a tire, if you beat him in the ground, how good you think he's going to do on the next stop? He ain't going to do it with a shit. So at least tell him, I mean, at least say, or say something like, come on guys, if you can give me another spot next time, I appreciate it. Let's do the best you can, but not beat them in the freaking ground. So Bobby didn't like that advice? He wasn't a big fan of it.

No. And so another in the midst, so you went and worked for Bobby in 03, and then 18 races in 2004, you leave. Yeah. How did that? I was distraught over that. What happened? That was Bobby's decision.

Well, we won a couple races. In 2003. Yep. Right? Yep. And then in 2004, we were running pretty good, actually. We never won. Statistically, you had five top fives versus 36 races in 03.

You had 12. So, I mean, statistically, it's kind of about the same year. Right. So we had this meeting. There's a big round table. You ever been to Gills? In the big round table upstairs? No.

So in the back of Joe's office, a big round table. Your average finish is actually better than the year before. Which leads into my story. So we, Jimmy says, let's meet upstairs. Okay, so Bobby's not happy. Why is Bobby not happy? So I knew he wasn't happy over some of the personal stuff, like me busting his balls or whatever, him busting my balls, whatever.

We got to be a little freaking tougher than that if we're professional at what we do. So, well, we ain't won a race all year, and he don't think we're running good. I said, so I don't know how many. times we finish second or third, but I said, we don't finish second or third. I don't know how many times. I can't drive a fucking car for him. At some point, he has to help. It can't be that my car is a half a second faster than everybody every week.

If I get you close enough to win, you got to do some of that driver's s' shit. You know what I'm saying? You got to lean on them or take the air off of them. I don't want you to wreck them, but you don't have to wreck them to get by on. You got to lay on them or push them on into the corner, you know, that driver's I said, I can't do that. And so the meeting went on and on. And then we had another meeting.

He said, well, Bobby don't want to work with you anymore. And I said, so you're telling me, now where were we in points? I don't know exactly where you were. I think we were sixth maybe. Overall, the ranking, overall I finished 12th in points that year, but I don't know how the rest of the season went. Fifth or six. Okay. And average finish was 13.A.

It was pretty decent. And I said, so this is the first year of the, um, re-alignment with 10 to go. And we're going to throw... It's right. Chase. I said, we're going to freaking throw that in the trash because Bobby got his feelings hurt.

Great point. And they were like, well, I promised JD I wouldn't ever tell his story, but JD's not here, so I'll tell it now. So that's why I'm telling it. I said, we're just going to throw it away. A freaking opportunity to win in Winston, we went to Winston in the next Tel Cup championship.

And we're going to throw it in a trash because Bobby Guy's feelings hurt. I said, wouldn't it make more sense to get Bobby up here and let's hash his freaking thing out and try to win a freaking championship? And Bobby wasn't interested. So, needless to say, that was the end of it. They didn't make the chase.

Wait, did you get fired that day? Well, I guess. I got paid, but I got fired. So, yeah. You went over to the Wood Brothers where Ricky. Rudd is driving. I went away for a few weeks. You went away for a few weeks.

And it was actually just like the damn Days of Thunder movie, I was in my, I had bought some property where I live now. And I was out there bulldozing that stuff. And here comes Eddie and Lynnwood. And I'm like, oh, my God. I'd done interviews from that bulldozer, like these kind of interviews.

And I was just clearing my mind, man, because it'd been a tough five or six years. And I was pretty beat up. So they walk up. Can you come over here? And I said, well, I don't know. Me and Ricky, I have to meet where Ricky wants to meet. Is Ricky, yeah.

Because we haven't talked since. Y'all ain't good. You don't know if you're good. I see it. Yeah. So he had a little office somewhere. Ricky did? Outside of Concord.

Ricky? A little strip mall, yeah. Okay. Or strip building or something. I don't remember where it was. Office in a strip club, maybe? No, it was one of the little strip mall type things. But anyway, so I never met him.

and we had lunch and talked about some what do you say? Lade some f***ed out and, you know, he's like, we do good together and I'd like to really like to have you to come over here and help me and I think we can run good. Did y'all clear the air on what the riff was back at Yates? I mean, like, was it really over a invitation to a picnic? It freaking really was.

And did he come clean on that? Did he just, did you guys get all that out in the open? Yeah, I mean, he, you know, he's pretty much, you know, He read it a different way than it was. But you know how grown men are. They don't fix it to the backside. They don't fix it on the front side. If ever.

Especially when it comes to high profile people. That's fair. That's fair. But you guys actually had a conversation and you go back to work together. Yeah, we did. Well, I had to get released from. Oh, that's right. From Gibbs.

So you could go, you had to get allowed to go get a new job. They had a, they had a, they had a, what is it? I had another year and a half on my contract. Yeah, and you wouldn't, even though they were going to fire you, you weren't able to, allowed to go work for another team. That's right. So you go to the Wood Brothers and their shops in Virginia? Nope.

No, where is it? It was in. Is it over by the dragstreet in Moorsville? It was in Rugg's old building. Yates used to have? Yeah, because he had moved over here. Okay. So now they're in Moorsville?

Yeah, they were in Moorsville. They eventually did go back up the Virginia, didn't they? No, I don't think so. So they've always been down here? Once they came, they've been here. I thought that they ran their shit out of Virginia for a while. Well, I mean, that's where they originally were. Yeah.

But I don't think they've been back. I don't know. It hadn't been racing up there. Yeah. But now they're dealing now is kind of like Indy car, you know, where they get the car from. They go to Penske. Penske. Penske supplies the team, the car.

Yeah. Yeah. They just sign every part of the sponsorship check to them or however they do that. I don't know. So you ran 04 half the season with Rudd after you got. released. We ran pretty good. Yeah. We did. No, you did. The car got faster. Yeah. It did. We ran good.

Did you enjoy that more? Going to a team that maybe wasn't a top A-plus team and making that team better? Did you enjoy that more than where you were when you were with Yates and Gibbs with, you know, championship? So here's

what, I don't want to sound like an arrogant ass or cocky or whatever. Tell us how you feel. Every time I went somewhere, they ran better. Yeah. I ain't trying to be a... I think it's a good point. Proofs in the numbers. Yeah.

And so I went to Yates. They were struggling. They had struggled. Kenny Irwin was there, and they didn't run good, and he was leaving, and we went over there. And then when I went to Gibbs, Mac Carr and Bobby, they'd won a championship in... 98. 98? 98 or 99.

Or 2000. Maybe it was 2000. But in 01, they ran like hammered dog crap. And they just fell apart, couldn't communicate. They were, and so I went there, and we were successful out of the box. We ran good at Daytona, and we ran good at everywhere, and then we went to Atlanta and won. Back to Atlanta was still, third race maybe, we won Atlanta. That's what I knew you could drive.

That was that real sick race, right, with the crazy ending? Was that right? Or did you guys have them covered that day? I'm trying to remember Bobby had that. We ran in the top two or three all day, but he had to drive by Gordon. That's right On the last It was one of them

Last five-lap restart or something But that's when I knew He could drive Because he went through Turn 1 and 2 flat out He said I never freaking lifted I said yeah I could tell Because he went through flat out

And we won the race And we ran better though When I went there Right And we ran good everywhere Martinsville All these different kind of racetracks But with the less resources

That you had over it Wood Brothers I mean I'm assuming that Did you have less resources? So I went in, they were on a deal with Rouse or whatever, and they had some. But what it actually looked like to me, hindsight 2020, was their cars were all like, we don't really like this car, let the Woodbrothers have it. We don't really like this motor.

Let the Woodbrothers have it. Hand me down. Yeah. The B car. Not the car, the other car. So we started working on the cars and changing them and making them normal, what I'd call normal. Better. I didn't really believe in crazy shit.

I was believing in the car. At that point, the car hadn't really changed in 15 years. And so, and we ran better. We were competitive, especially for the caliber team we were. And then he left. Was it end of that year or the end of the next? He left after 05. You ran Schrader in 06.

That pissed me off too, man. You're in 16 races. Pissed you off about Ricky. Leaving? Hell yeah, dude. Why? He brought my ass up here, man. And then left.

He freaking left. Where did he go? He went nowhere. for a year. He retired? Yeah, until Robert called him and he went and drove for him a little bit, remember? Bob a damn.

What was his reason? Him and the Woodburers, I don't think, could get on the same page on a, on contract. Oh, okay. But didn't he retire and then touch a little... He did. I was right, right?

Yeah. At 2006, in 2009, he ran no races, and then he ran 31 in 2007 for, uh, For Robert, in the 88. There you go. In the 80. There he did.

DJ left. Yep. Did you ever have a conversation with Rickie to tell him that you were not happy about him leaving? I called him when his dad died. When his dad died, I called him, you know. So, I mean, I would say it's just, it's a neutral relationship. Strader comes and drives a car for 16 races. Now you're back to part-time.

Yeah. Not, not, you ain't loving that. No. But, but also at that time, so when Rudd left, I was, I decided I was leaving. Because I had an idea what was coming. And so I had a meeting with Richard Childers and what's the Dillon boy's name is his son-in-law. Mike. Mike.

Mike Dylan. In the secret top floor room of the winery. Oh, yeah. I'm sure you've been there. You can come in the front door every day. There's a back door entrance to it to the Richard entrance. Yeah. But Burton was driving.

I decided I was going there. That's where I'm going to work. So I came back with my wife. That's what we're going to do. I'm going to go up there and get me an apartment during the week. And that's where I'm going. And so I came back and I told Eddie and Lynn, they're like, no, you can't go. I'm like, man, that's what I'm going to do.

We don't want you to go like that. I said, look, man, I don't, I can't do this rebuild thing again. And so it's the first time in all my years of racing that I made a decision based on money. When I tell you that, bro, every time. I always went for performance this one time. So they ended up making me like a crew chief slash manager of his stuff and the Shectar stuff. Tags car, the 47. Yep.

Because his boy was driving. He was a truck maybe for him at that time. Okay. Eddie's boy. Wood. Yeah, John. Yep. And so it was one of the things they made it hard to turn down.

Yeah. But that was not saying anything against those guys. I love Eddie and Lynn, but it was a bad decision because I picked money over performance. And it's just brutal mentally. I don't give a shit how much they pay you, man. When you run bad and you ain't got, there's no daylight, and you got mostly what you need and you've got most. of the people you need.

It's just a hard life to live. It's not happy. No. And we went through it, and I was crew chief son. We hired a crew chief. I remember that. You got moved sort of into the GM role. Yes.

Right there at the end. Yeah, and I didn't do very good at that because I was too opinionated. Yeah. I was supposed to work there through 2010, 2010. That's why old people talk. O-10. I supposed to work there through O-10. but um tad and i didn't see on tad tad yeah yeah yeah listen though is it fair to say that

gms are are supposed to be able to have opinions is is it the way you delivered opinions that sometimes would get you on bad terms with people or like what i mean because i don't think there's anything wrong with having opinions i just don't what would cause the riffs do you think Just people couldn't understand the way you approached it? I'm sure my philosophy are... I was just to the point. I think it was your delivery. Probably.

Yeah. You should have coach me, man. You had a great... I need a coach. He had the same problem, though. You had the same delivery as Robert G. And it was... It makes sense.

I mean, it makes sense. Like, all the people that... You mentioned it earlier. Like, you would... With the button with Bobby... Right. You know, Bobby got pissed off. He did.

And that was, and right or wrong, I mean, you knew when you did that, that was a good chance this was going to piss Bobby off. I actually, I intended don't piss him off. Yeah, and you did it anyways. And so that would be the same way. Robert G. is going to be like, hey, just like when the guy walks in. And he's like, you know good, what the hell you're doing? You know, when. No, that's the way he was.

When anybody walk in the room, Robert will tear you down. Yeah. Just on principle. You were getting it. You weren't going to leave. What do you want? What the hell you want? What are you doing here?

And then two hours later, he's making you a steak. Yep. You know? I have a family cookbook in a recipe in it is Robert G.E. steak. I had to send you a picture of that. I need that recipe. Yeah. It's probably just wishes our sauce.

Lowry seasoning salt. Lowry seasoning salts. That's it. I got some of that right now. That was a secret. All right. I need to give that to go. Yeah. Lowry's can't go wrong with that.

And so did you have any regrets on the way you would have handled any of those interactions or relationships that you had at that point? At the point of the Wood Brothers. Well, yeah, when it was clear that that wasn't also working out in terms of just being on the same page. It's easy to look back, right? Sure. And that's what I mean in hindsight. So the hard part is, man, to be over the top, run. 10,000 RPMs, work your guts out, hammer down, metal to metal.

To be that way and also be, how you doing, friend? Good to see you. Right. It's hard, man. I can never tell you something that I didn't believe. And so, a lot of times I would struggle with giving the right answer or delivering the right answer. If I probably would have stepped back, I wish I would have been more like,

Mike Helton's the best ever seen at it. If you ask him a question and it's not something he's comfortable with, it'd be damn silence, man. Sometimes for a freaking minute. I'm right, right? Dude, you're talking about it, man. That's awesome. It'd be freaking silence and you're like, a shit. I'd go, well, you see, the way we're going to approach this is, and that's how he would do it.

I probably should have done that more often. But the other thing you've got to remember, man, is you've got to remember. So my job was, right, to make these freaking split-second decisions in a five-hour day. If I made the wrong decision any time during that day, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, I either had to make another decision to fix that one or it ruined our day. You know what I'm saying? Some tracks you made the wrong decision. Some it's picks up a push or it's too loose.

By the time you get time to fix it, you're a lap and a half down. And you can't fix it and you ruined the whole day. So when you run like that, man, it's just hard to be, I don't say it's hard to be collected. But the other thing is, is if you piss me off, I am not mad at you forever.

And everybody needs to be that way. You know what I mean? I ain't attack you personally. I just told you, man. Don't treat you damn pit crew like that. They're your friends. They're going to change a damn tire, but they're going to do it faster slow.

If you piss them off, it ain't going to make them do it no faster. Yeah, I should have done it different, man. I should have done a lot of things different, but everybody can say that. But there's a lot of things I wouldn't have done any different. Well, you are who you are. I mean, listen, I mean, like, what is Tony Uri-S.

and you're going to change who he is? I see a lot. Yeah, at the point, maybe the sport changes, the type of drivers change, and you've got to coddle them a little more or whatever it is, because drivers are headcases, of course. And so, like, you know, I guess it comes down to how adaptable you're willing to be as a crew chief or any crew chief is willing to be

with the changing of drivers and the changing changes that just never stop, right? No, back to end it didn't. And I was never, every time I'd get settled, something to change. And that was hard too, man, because, you know, we were rolling at Yates, man. Yeah. There was no reason to keep going. So what happens that ends your involvement in NASCAR?

Take me to that day and that moment. So my daughter was born. when I went to work at the Wood Brothers that December. And that obviously, you know, you start looking at life a little bit different. Game changer. When that happens. But I was in Texas. I've been dying to tell this freaking story.

I hope this is freaking nationwide, dude. I was in Texas in my motorhome. And it was probably 10 o'clock at night. it's tag a shactor gets up my mother home hey what you're doing I'm like what the frig dude this dude ain't never been to my motor home ain't never really had a personal conversation with me

comes in and sits now and lays out this plan to me how he's going to take the little Debbie sponsorship from the Woodbrothers and he wants me to be crew chief on the car he's going to have a cup car

it's time he only had bush cars and truck Yep. And I'm sitting there and with my eyes about as big as that coffee cut right there. And I listen, I listen, I listen, I listen. And he said, well, what do you think? I said, well, I have to think about it, man. That's a pretty big deal right there to go after the Woodbrothers. You know, I was hired by them.

So I don't know. I'll have to think about it. So I didn't really talk to them about that weekend because we were racing. before I got there Monday he turned the story around to the Wood Brothers that it was me and that created this whole turmoil thing

so he tried to he started figuring out a way the way my contract was written they really couldn't fire me unless I did something bad you know made the company look bad or whatever and I hadn't done any of that so this went on and on for

lawyers starting getting involved and it went on and on for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two. Are you still going to the racetrack and working? We're still going to the racetrack and working. Yeah. That's what my lawyer told me, dude, keep going to race track. So finally, I just went to him and I said, look, dude, I'll make it easy for you. We'll amend the contract to the end of the year.

We'll all go our own happy ways. So that was 07. I actually had three more years on the contract. So that's what we did. And then I just told my wife, I said, you know, know, our second child was born at Dover that year, my son. And I said, maybe it's a good place to stop. I don't think it, I don't, hindsight 2020, I should have worked a little longer maybe.

It just worked out that way. But that's why I always refer back to that was the only time I ever took a job or the money instead of I believe racing is sacred I believe it's it's a way of life I believe that it's who you are

not necessarily what you do and if you are a racer that's what you are and those last few years over and over I kept seeing something that I thought you won't see me get emotional something that I thought

was pure and we did it all everybody did it for the same reason to win I kept getting shown over and over that's not why we did it we did it just to make a living and don't get me wrong it's nice to do both

but to me it was a pure it's just something pure man it was racing and that's why everything was so emotional with me when I won when I won I mean it's freaking we won man we kicked everybody's ass today we worked hard and we got paid back for and when I saw people who didn't see it the way I did and I realized that racing wasn't pure

it changed my outlook of it. Yep. So you went home? Yeah. Close. Yeah. I had already built my home there because it's kind of a neutral place for Morrisville, Concord and all that. But you quit going to the racetrack, cold turkey pretty much.

Yeah. When the next season fired up and the cars were going to Daytona, what were you doing? I was building my shop. For your business. Did you pay any attention to what was going on in the sport? How long did it take before you could pay attention? I'll let you know.

You still ain't paying attention. I've watched more this year than ever. I've raised some, I had some couple of days. dirt cars, race some, played with that. Recently. In the last decade?

Yes. Yeah. So you've made? I had some fun with it. Yeah. Yeah. Who was driving them? Just some local people.

Buddies and friends. Well, I don't even know if I'd go to that, just guys who could race and didn't really have money and race to Carolina, Gaffney. Local. Yeah. All right.

So you still have a competitive spirit? I'm a racer, man. You're still a racer. And so. So my daughter, graduates this year. And I'm pretty young man, I'm 55.

Yeah. My kids are starting to graduate. So about time for you to find the race car to work on? Getting close. Michael, the way you say that makes me think, at first I would have assumed that you wouldn't watch racing because of a resentment, but I think it's because you were hurt too bad and you're still, you don't want the reminder. Is that fair to say?

If you were an alcoholic, you wouldn't hang out in a bar, would you? Right. It's hard, man. When you're, it's hard to be there. Yeah. It's heartbreaking, isn't it? It's heartbreaking. If you don't, you know you can't, I can't do it right now.

I'm close. Well, my daughter graduates this year, so. Yeah. It puts me down to two. It's hard to do it. It's hard to go to a racetrack without a job, without a role, without a responsibility, without a part. Yeah, and see, nobody knows who I am now. I can't hardly get in a racetrack, man.

I don't even know how I would get in. Because everybody I knows. nobody I knows there, man. I don't have anybody's phone number anymore. I don't have any contacts. I mean, I know some guys here, but I don't have their phone numbers. You know, I'd have to either try to contact them on Facebook or something like that. Or most of them probably wouldn't.

Most of the time, they don't return any calls or your text, you know. Every time Kevin Harbock's won since I, I shouldn't say I don't keep up with it. See, I'm lying. I do look for the results. Yeah. But every time Kevin's won, I've seen him. Congratulations. every time Newman won

I always sent Newman some notes when he got hurt there in Daytona was that Dayton or was that Dayton or Tyler? Yeah. And, you know, those guys I've kept up with and smoke, he'll

I sent him a note, you know, congratulations. He's another one that will answer my, it's funny, the guys you would think wouldn't answer my text. Are the ones that would do it. Are the ones that are answering my text. And the guys that I like work side by side with stuff, they won't answer me.

Yeah, but you got the three names you mentioned right there are also probably the most notoriously genuine people that... They race, man. They race, but they are who they are, take for better or for worse. I don't think Tony Stewart's apologizing anybody about the way he behaves, or Kevin Harvick certainly doesn't. And I mean...

And I didn't really work. Just that little bit with Tony when I first went over. I didn't work with him. Yeah. I just helped him. I didn't work with any of them. Yeah. I understand the way you've,

feel about how you wouldn't know anybody but i don't think you realize how beloved you still are i have no idea you don't but i'm going to tell you something you're also one of the most requested guests we've ever had for real yeah it's a fact dude ain't no way yeah it's it's a well i wouldn't lie to you about that you were a character people really thought people you were a you were you had a personality that you know a lot of a lot of crew you know a lot of crew you know a lot of crewcheats aren't well known. I mean, you know, people know who's crew chief is who, but a lot of crew chiefs don't take on a persona

or a personality. You had a little bit of a, you know, you always had a good sound bite on the pit box, and that was great for TV. It was great for fans. The fans gravitate to it. And so sure, they want to know what you're up to, what you're doing. So my mom says, that's why Bobby was at, had

animosity. My mom, you know how your moms are. They look at things different. They're going to take it, yeah. They're going to be on your side. She said, that's why he had animosity toward me because right before it all stopped, I had started doing TV. Well, I started doing commercials for the sponsors. They'd ask me. Oh, yeah.

Didn't you do some TV or something? I did a Wellbutrin commercial with that little dog for Wellbutrin. They requested me. I do know that pissed him off. I did stuff like this I did, but I was doing more of it back then. And I did a couple little sound bite deals. I don't know if that's what you're calling out, where we were analyzing some races.

and stuff like it. That's right. People don't know how to take me, man. Well, maybe. I just race, man. Yeah, but I think that the things that might have been your undoing is also one of the character or some of the characteristics that why fans love you.

The sport misses me. I don't mean me, but it misses people like me. 100% man. There is no color. It's all vanilla. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And they don't, nobody throws a wrench or turns a toolbox over

or, I mean, in a lot of that stuff, maybe I shouldn't have done, but it was just, it was the passion from the racing. That's all it was. You turned the toolbox over? No, but I shook it and they thought it was in the general. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

You threw wrenches? Occasionally. Yeah. Just into the middle distance, right? So I want to tell you. Not at anyone, right? This is a story. Maybe.

No, no, no, no. Just in general. Yeah, you just do it anywhere. Yeah. Wherever it lands. Yeah. So. In 2001, in 2000 for sure.

That's the first time I got to go to New York. God, what a deal, man. Just imagine, man. We're flying on a freaking private jet. Landing one of those little airports. Get in a freaking limousine and drive down to the Waldorf. Me. Friken kid from Lattimore.

But I spent that whole season pitting next to your dad in the garage. Roger. And he was a, if, so you didn't ever know if he liked you, this is just my take. Now everybody's got different stories, but you didn't know if he liked you or sometimes you didn't know. He had somewhat of a Robert G. personality to people from, that didn't know him. But he would, if he started screwing with you, then you were okay. You were, you were, you got inside the force field.

if he started screwing with you. I mean, really, that's... And I met him kind of because of Kevin, because when Kevin went over there, you know, so he started screwing with me. And we were at Yates. And that first year, the first race we had at Yates, we sat on the, at the Daytona 500,

we sat on the front road, 8828. That was our first race. We won the 125. And then one to 125, and Ricky ended up on his top in the... The shootout, the clash. Yeah. But he wasn't running good one day.

Right. Now, this is the guy, a guy who, if you were down, he would screw you big time. So we weren't running good one day. He was sitting in his car the way he would sit when he wasn't running good. So that everybody had leave him the frig alone. And I walked over there and I leaned over in the window. He looked at me. I said, man, you run like shit, ain't you?

He just looked at me in one of those looks, man. I went away. but it was a great dude man for the sport. I got to know him, just got to know him there when we started racing against each other. But it was just good times, man, back then with Winston. And I was a kid, man. And we'd go to Waldorf.

And my first trip to the Waldorf were sitting there and all these guys around me were partying. It was big times back then, man. It was big time partying back then. When Winston was doing it. Oh, Winston. Yeah, man. Those parties are notorious.

Oh, yeah. That's the party of all parties, man. When you got all kinds of money, and they're renting out, you know, hotels and everything else. The whole thing, dude. Right. Like, I'm thinking, like, so which part of Waldorf were in? They're like, the Waldorf, I'm like, the whole freaking thing. Yeah, man, the whole freaking deal, man.

You'd go from party to party to party to go to the Good Year party. You'd go to the St.P party. You'd go to the Winston Room. You'd go to the whatever. You'd go there, man. Yep. That was good times back then, man. Yep.

I'm very nostalgic about it. So you left sport, went and started your own company. How quickly did you, what did you do for the first five or ten years? Like, did you start this business? So I quit in 2007, I opened this business in summer of 08. So you've been busy. I have. Yeah.

And you pedal with a race car every now and then. Yep. If you, your kid's graduation and all that goes well, and they're going in a great direction, and you're like, I've got time, and I want to mess with a race car. Yep. What's this race car look like?

What kind of race car are we talking about? If I was going to go racing and I had the money go racing, and I'd probably build another open-wheel car, open-wheel modifies. Okay. Yeah, I enjoy them. Really? Yeah, there's, um. The smart tour is around here.

Oh, that's the, that's the asphalt. Oh, you still, you ain't coming to asphalt? No, man, I'm going dirt racing. Well, I won't never see you because I don't go to the dirt track. I know, you got to come to dirt track, right? I need to. No, I would, those things are pretty cool. I haven't been around as much.

The smart stuff, yeah. Bobby's over there. Yeah, whatever, I don't care. Did Newman also? Did Newman also? Did you imagine? He runs around some too, yeah. Yeah.

He runs them. He won to Wilkesboro. Yeah. I see you working on a super going to the snowball. Yeah, I wouldn't mind doing that either. Because that's all about the platform right now. Yeah. That's your, that's you.

See, they're all into that. Tony Jr.'s messing with them Fury cars. He's damn, he's the super man. He is. I mean, he is. He's a super man, dude. He wasn't. All his life.

He just went to work on him. That's what you can do. That's what you can do. too. It's, there's a lot of money in that short track stuff, man,

I didn't, you should start your own team. Have them kids, having them kids' daddies pay for them. I need me a couple of kids' daddies. Yeah, that's where the money's at right there, man. But it's that way in dirt too. I mean,

there's guys renting two, three, those open wheels. They'll go to Volusia in the spring and rent two or three cars and just make money to it. I don't know what I'm going to do, man.

I'm, I'm getting ready to be back there. I'm good friends with a guy named Kyle Brown on Harris Auto Chasches out in Madrid, Iowa. Okay. Dirt's doing. Yeah, he, I'm his phone-in consultant. Okay. So I get to help him some.

That keeps my brain going. I like that four-link stuff where it's pretty much open rules on the suspension components. You know, I enjoy that because you can. Make things do things and get creative and stuff like that. I don't know, man. I don't know what's next. You know, the role of the crew chief is so different now. No, you don't want to go there.

And cup. Yeah, you don't want to go do that. And all that stuff than it was when I was there. Yeah, you don't want to go do that. So I don't know that I could ever fit that mold. No, no, no. Maybe on the truck side, they're about the same. Are they?

Yeah, the truck crew chiefs and the Exfinity Crew Chiefs are pretty much. I don't say the Bush cars, that thing still kind of. It's pretty much still like it was when he was doing cut. Yeah. So, you know, I may go into that. I don't know. I got to have something. I'm getting close.

You know, I've been out for a pretty good while. As much as I try to run from it, it's still what I am. I keep getting pulled back. I don't think you're at peace yet. I think you need it. I think it needs you too. My wife will tell you that I'm way at un at peace. Yeah.

My business is okay. You're not at peace? No. Okay. Yeah, but I think, listen. I mean, not in a bad way, but just... You got some unfinished business. It's just what I do.

It's just... You are. Okay, I'm a husband and a dad. And I'll never override that. But that's who I am. And, um... It's been a long time, though, man, a decade. It's a car, man.

I know, but... You know how many tires got on it? Yeah. Four. Same amount had on it in 1960s. Yeah, yeah. I ain't saying it's too later. I'm just saying, you far...

I'm just saying you were away from it for 10 years. How do you, I mean, why go back? You got, you did a decade. You can do another decade or two. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Or you could think, if I'm going back, I better get my ass back there because. I think it's, I think it's decision time.

Yeah. If I'm going to try to go back. You got to do it now. I got to do it now. I got you. I don't, I don't want to, how can I say this? It's got to be the right kind of thing where. Sure.

yeah we're not starving for money and no yeah uh and doing like that or i go do my own thing like you said you know start your short track program me a short track program and find me to maybe do some development um i got some i know some people that's doing some of that stuff and they're doing okay with it apparently i'm talking out i'm not i don't know this to be entirely true but i think that a person with your expertise and your creative mind and your history would have would be a massive uh in massive demand in the super late models

really yeah i think so so i'm not not to get out here and put a resume out or whatever like yeah but that's where i've been helping these these short track guys is is i at one time i did my own shocks and so i understand pretty much all aspects of the car so i can help with i can design i can pick what shocks I want, springs, bumps. I can do it all. I don't have to. Lots of people can crew chief, but they don't know anything about shocks.

Or they don't know anything about arrow. You know, and so my problem is I don't know how to market myself. Sure. I'm not a marketer. You know what I mean? And it goes back to the thing before. I'm just blunt to the point. I just don't know how to sell.

I'm not very of a, I sold by performance before. Now I'm not doing nothing, so I don't have anything to sell. Sure. I think, first of all, this podcast, is going to let everyone know that you are at that point of your life where you're considering getting back in and, you know, finishing what you never really got to finish before. And I think that's going to mean something.

The other thing is I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the people that were in NASCAR that went back and started racing grassroots, Newman being one of them, and, you know, Tony Jr. being another, they seem a lot happier. Do they not? Kenny Wallace, ask him. They do. They seem a lot happier about their lives. And they've been in the muck, and they've found their way back to what makes them happy and what gives them fulfillment.

And I don't think that's an accident or coincidence. No, I don't, I think if that's, um. I think it'd be the best medicine, man. That's what you do. That's what you do. That's what you do. I think Dale's got a good idea. Well, if anybody needs any racing parts, you can call Fat Back at 704, 922 8083.

He also has a Gmail at Fatback's Race Parts at gmail.com. Hey, let me do a different Gmail. Just do fatbacks, fatbacks tire. Fatbacks tire at Gmail. At gmail.com. Yeah, if you want some racing parts, or if you want to critchie. You can call that. Dang, I hear you can.

Or if you want to drive for his new race team. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to get on this, if you got a rich daddy, if you got a rich daddy that wants to, you know, get, you know, fat back's got to have a race team. He doesn't know what car is. Apparently that's what we're doing, right? That's what we're doing.

You want a fast car. Yeah. Yeah. I got, I'm looking for something. I got to do something. I hear you. You know what I mean? It's, uh, I'm still young, man.

I don't want to die. So I got to. Keep your mind busy. Yeah. That's how you do it. That's how you stay good, stay in good health is to keep your mind working. Yeah, that's right. So it's, uh.

When your mind slows down, the rest of it goes with it. That's what they say. That's what they tell me to. Yeah. Man, fat back, I'm glad you came, buddy. I'm, I've been looking forward to this ever since I got to call, man. You don't, you don't know how much. how fun it is or how fun it was.

Well, we appreciate you sharing your story and I'm glad to hear what you've been up to lately. Yeah, well. Can't wait to find out how many people are going to call your phone and email you about even just coming to help you, help for a race or something. Help market you even. Get you out there, man. I appreciate it, too. We appreciate you, buddy.

You're a good friend of ours, and we're always in your corner. I appreciate it, too. Thank you. Michael McSwain. Thanks so much. Yes, sir. Michael McSwain on the Dell's, download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or in the studio as a

member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally, a friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I 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. We are live on YouTube.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. for the Dale Junior download here with the Asked Junior portion of the show. You guys have been sending in your questions to Xfinity racing on Twitter every week, and we appreciate them. They've been great. And this is a fun part of the show that we get to include in each episode of the Dale Jr. Download. So if you haven't checked out the Dirty Mo Media YouTube page, I mean, you guys are here. You might as well watch Roots and Revival to Six-Part series that we have created at Dirty Mo Media around the North Wales Burrell Speedway Revival and the race is happening there.

It's very easy to consume. It's really short. It's a lot of fun, but it gives you a great idea. If you can't be at North Wales Burrell, what it feels like to be there and what all this, what all is going on. So amazing job by the crew at Dirtymo Media to put together something. So fantastic, and I hope you'll enjoy it. But anyways, let's get to your questions. Well, the first one actually trends along with the North Wilkesboro stuff.

It comes from the Patrick family, and they said, have you ever thought about running a dirt race, but more specifically, the ones coming up at North Wilkesboro? No, I don't think that, I don't think I want to run any dirt racing. I tried to race dirt cars, or not dirt cars, I tried to race dirt in a Legends car when I was 15, and I just didn't, I don't know, man. I mean, I know that's really not a great example or any, I know that's probably not a great combination as far as Legends cars to be able to really get an idea of what it might be like,

but I think that if you're 47 years old and you've never raced dirt, that you're not going to be very good at it for a while. And everything that I've ever heard about dirt racing is, it's a hell of a discipline. Like you have to, you know, we had Casey Kane in here a couple years ago, and he was talking about getting back into racing his sprint cars. And he said, you know, I don't, I need to run every week. I go out there and I'm not even close.

And I can't, I won't, I'll need to run six months or I'll need to run for a long, you know, I'll need to run a lot to even get to where I can be competitive. and so you know I think that that that says a lot about how difficult that discipline is and how much effort and time it takes to be able to be good at it you don't just kind of show up and figure it out the tracks are so complex in the way they change and how the you know the moisture in the surface and the tire and all of the different things that play a role and the setup of the car alone I mean, there's all kinds of these variables that are critical to being successful at dirt racing and to not know anything about any of that, you know, I think it would be kind of very disappointing,

I think, if I went to run. I'd be frustrated more than anything about not knowing what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and how to get better. But if, you know, if I wanted to, if somebody like me wanted to run dirt, I think you'd call up a guy like Kenny Schrader or Kenny Wallace and say, hey, take me to the track unless it's a play you know just an algyar's got a car and you just go to the racetrack on a wednesday or something like that and just have fun and and then you know if it comes natural that's one thing but it probably won't and it's probably going to you're going to you're

going to probably find it to be difficult and a big challenge and then it goes back to what casey said like it's if you want to be good at it you got to do it every week i feel i sense that even with the exfinity cars you know every year that i race that i race and I do just one race, every time I go to do that one race, I fell further and further behind. And it's harder to go out there and be competitive each time it gets even tougher, right? And so you can't be good at anything unless you're 100% invested in it. And you can't do anything part-time and be great. So I think that that's a big track,

it's five-eighths mile, a little bit bigger and a half mile. Probably not the first place you need to go run your first dirt race on. Probably you need to go somewhere slow and without any walls because you're probably going to fly off the racetrack a few times.

You're going to spin out in front of people and they're going to need to be able to avoid you without hitting walls. And it's just going to, yeah, it's probably a bad idea to be heading there for your first dirt race for anybody. Yeah, that would definitely be intimidating. I mean, you would know better than anybody in the room, right,

about dirt racing and having your experience of going to those races and being around that, you know, am I off base? No, I tested a dirt late model a couple weeks ago at Friendship, and it was the first time in a dirt car. And I don't feel like, like, that team wanted to go to Fayetteville and race with me like a couple weeks later. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I need multiple more.

test days. I need to feel comfortable by myself on the track before you put me out there with cars. Because in dirt racing, I mean, they just, you hot lap at five, you get three laps. They roll you for qualifying at 6.30. You're running heats at 730 and your feature rolls at 9. And it's like you don't even have time to comprehend. How many laps did you test? I mean, how many do you think you drove? You said you tested it a few weeks ago? Yeah. We were out there for a couple hours. I mean, I probably did 40, 50 laps. Did you feel like you started getting the hang of it? Yeah. By the end of it, I mean, we were at friendship. And it was all. awesome. Like they, it rained all day. The track was great. You could run up on the wall if you wanted to, but that's not normally the case, right? Like, the changing race track was the scariest part of me is sometimes you'd have to run the bottom and there'd be a rut and then you'd move up on the track. And I just don't have like the knowledge as a driver in dirt racing to like how quick that track changes and adapts. Like that's what makes these guys good is they're looking for grip and know the difference between a slicked off track and a rubber track and where, where, yeah, it's mad respect for those people. Like,

There's so many more factors I feel like they play into dirt racing than pavement racing. That's exactly a great point and exactly why I think that it would be frustrating because, like you say, I mean, I would be learning so much. Every lap, yeah. Yeah, like, and I would be the last one to know everything going on as far as how the track's changing because, I mean, even on eye racing, man, I get on eye racing. and it's trimmed down as far as like, you know, it's for everyone, right? Right. You know, it's not as complex as the real world experience for sure. But the guys that run the dirt stuff on I racing every day will smoke you

because they know exactly when that track's changing and when to get to the top or when to move to the bottom. And you've got to be able to do it that lap. And you have no radios too. Like that's another thing is like there's no communication. No one's telling you, like, in a pavement car, hey, guys are starting to move up on the track, you should move up too. There's a thing called sticks that they run in some late models

where it's literally just two big sticks, and there'll be a guy standing in the infield, and they'll be like going like this, and that means move down on the racetrack, and then there's move up, and then they'll show you the gapage between you and the next person, but that's, like, the only communication you have with anyone. That's wild.

Makes... I'd never heard of that. Yeah, they run stick signals is what they're called, and that's the only form of, like, radio communication. That's fascinating. Yeah. This next one comes from Michael Erickson. It says it seems drivers are retiring way younger than they used to.

Do you think the media is forcing drivers to think about retirement earlier than they want to retire? The media? That's what it says. Well, I don't really know what that means. You know, I don't think the media is influencing guys to retire. I think that, you know, it's, I don't really sense that guys are retiring earlier. doesn't feel that way to me. I mean, name me a guy that retired early.

Name me a driver. I can't think of one. I mean, Carl Edwards jumps out to mind. I think that was sort of a weird situation. That was a unique circumstances. That's right. And so I would say to that, like, it's case by case. You know, Harvick and Denny and these guys are running their career.

I mean, if this guy, if we're talking about over the last five decades, yes because I mean you know Richard Petty Bobby Allison Dave Marcus I mean all these guys raised in their 50s Harry Gant but you know I don't think that for whatever reason you know I think the average retirement now is anywhere around 43 or 43 to 47 is kind of where I feel like most guys are considering hanging it up you know talking to some drivers that have retired there's some guys that wish they hadn't.

We know that Rusty Wallace fails like that he had a couple more good years left. But I've talked to other drivers that have retired that think they should have probably retired a couple years sooner. So it's really a case by case. I don't know that I don't feel like guys are retiring sooner. I think that if somebody retired at 38, right,

that would be early for me. Well, perhaps he's talking about Ty Dillon's announcement and then maybe even... Is he retiring? Well, isn't he saying he's giving him? up racing? Is that not right? I didn't see that. I know he's out of a ride, but I don't know if it's... I thought Ty Dillon and then Eric Amarola did, but I don't think he's going to retire either.

Eric's changing his mind. Yeah, he's changing his mind. Ty Dillon said he's still going. He's ready to keep going. Okay. I kind of took this as like I think kind of when you get to like Kevin Harvick's age, Kurt Busch, which isn't like necessarily the youngest, they kind of start bringing it up a little bit more than... I think it's family situations. Like I think you start having these kids that are going to school and Keelan's racing and, you know, Kyle just mentioned that he's going to race as long as he can. He's got like 10 years, but like you get Brexton racing, you get like the family. I mean, I don't think media like you said has anything to

do with it. I think a lot of, most guys are retired by something, you know, by the inability to find a ride or injury or whatever. They know not many of these guys, only a very, very small percentage of drivers are deciding that on their own and making that choice for themselves. I agree with that. And this last one comes from Curious George. It says, what is the last TV show or series you've binged? Hmm. Are you a binge watcher? Yeah.

If you find it a series, it's like, that is the series. Mike's like... He and Amy. They'll get caught on a show. Yeah, I will... And that's it. Amy's usually the one that's watching it, and I'll just start watching it with her.

There was this one, I guess the last one, there's a lady that time travels. back to medieval times and she has like a family there and a family in current times. Gosh. Amy has like, Amy likes this show so much. Anyways, Amy will start watching the show. I'll watch it with her and get wrapped up in it.

And then I'll, I'll, we'll, we'll binge it. And Amy likes this one so much that now she has went and rewatched the entire series a second time. Does anybody ever done that? Yeah. I thought that was profound. Yeah. My girlfriend would do that. It's like a comfort show.

They know what's going to happen, so it's like background music at this point. I'm trying to find this show you're talking about. I've never heard of it. I never heard of it. It's on Netflix? I think it is. What type of shows do you like to binge, Dale?

Outlander? Outlander. That's it. Actually, I've heard really good reviews about Outlander. It's great. Outlander was great. I'm kind of a sitcom guy. I used to be anyways, but we watch a lot of Southern Charm,

and Amy watches some Housewives shows. We're kind of really in flux right now. We're kind of like in between, like when we find something, we kind of stay. We kind of click, we kind of float in that genre a little bit. But me and Amy actually started a note that we, We want to watch what we want to watch, things to watch. Things to watch, note.

Yeah, like the Woodstock documentary, we heard it was good. We wanted to watch that. Amy's never seen the movie Misery. I wanted to, you ever seen the movie Misery? Oh, never seen it. Oh, man, we are so old. So, anyways, I don't know why that came up, but I think we should watch that together.

Oh, it's a scary movie? It is a little scary. Well, misery, yeah, I mean. It says horror thriller. Yeah, kind of. Um, it's aggressive. Part like a wheel. So that was the movie about Shirley Moe Downey drag racer from back in the 60s and 70s.

I guess it's probably made in the 70s or early 80s. I thought we should watch that. 1883 is on our list to start watching. We haven't started watching that yet. Oh, I love that. That might be the last one I've binged. Well, that just added to the list of things I apparently need to watch. Catchup.

But that is it for this week's Ask Jr. Appreciate everybody sending in some great questions. and I hope everybody's having a great week so far. And I hope we had such a great response to last week's podcast. I really appreciate that. You know, we had a little transition in our booth with Matt leaving, and things that went along smooth and seamlessly. And the podcast actually dropped a little bit earlier than normal, Mike.

Was that just? I don't know. We'd have to ask Alex. Alex, I mean, were you just on your game? I mean, we'll have to see if he can string two in a row. I was out of town. I was in Colorado, and I was looking at my phone. I'm like, dang, it's out.

The sun's still up. Anyways, man, I was. It's light out. That's how I tell time, man, is when the podcast drops. That's usually about 9 o'clock at night. Appreciate Exfinity for everything they do for us here at Dirtymo Media and the Dale Jr. Download and everything they do in the sport, man. And they've been incredible supporting the Xfinity Series.

And that's a big undertaking. And for them to continue to get involved in other things in our sport, it means that they really, really do care about it. So I appreciate them. Everything they do, I'm a customer, and I enjoy it. It's a great service. Still another week, no outages. There you go.

Another week. Add it to the list. I'll tell you when it happens. They happen yet. There you go. Send your questions to add it, Xfinity Racing. Keep this thing going. We love the segment. And so that's where you can submit your questions on Twitter. All right, man, that was a good one.

Enjoyed it. It was great. It was great. Hope everybody enjoy listening to Michael, and it's good to see him and what he's been up to. Good to hear about how he got started. Always love figuring out how people got into the sport. Because, I mean, there's no question that I get more out there in the world. How do I get involved? How do I get into racing? How do I get? on a team. How do I get a job? And so it's fun for me to, here's a great example of what it takes

and the sacrifice and the networking connections you make. But you make your own luck, you make your own opportunities, and I think that's how you get into this sport. And Michael's a great example of that. But anyhow, don't forget, racing at North Wiltsboro coming up here in only a few weeks, Tickets are still for sale at North Wilkesboro Speedway.com for the Cars Tour Race that I'm going to be running on the 31st.

There's racing as well for you guys on the 30th. I'll be there qualifying on the 30th, but there's a limited late model race. There's 45 cars signed up for this race. I think they might let them all start. There's 29 street stocks. They're both going to run 50 lapers. And so I'm not going to miss that. 45 limited.

And we got a little surprise. for you about that limited late model race. I got a little surprise for everybody on that one that we're going to reveal here soon. We'll be connected to that. We're going to have somebody to pull for in that race. Anyways, yeah, go to Northwilspirrillsbury.com. If you want to learn about what's happening over there,

a great way to do that is to tune in to the Roots and Revivals series on our Dirtymoe Media YouTube page. The guys at Dirtymoot Media were nice enough to create some amazing content around North Wiltsboro and what we're doing there. I don't think you'll find anything better to try to shape exactly what's happening and just some good stuff. I can't wait for the next chapter to come out. Anyways, everybody have a great week.

We're going to Watkins Glen this weekend for some radio style broadcasting. So I'll be up in the perch over just past the bus stop calling the cars as they come through that part of the racetrack on the Xfinity and the Cup broadcast on Saturday and Sunday. So it should be a lot of fun doing that. then I think we go to Dayton after that, right? Yeah, yeah. The final regular season race. And then on 10 more, 10 races left to the end of the year, guys. It's wrapping up quick, and there's pretty exciting storylines in the sport right now.

Anyways, have a great week, and we'll see you next week. Check out Dirtymo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.