The Dale Jr. Download - 396 - Freddie Query: Hometown Hero

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

On this week’s episode of The Dale Jr. Download, Query sits down with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis to talk about that racing landscape and how he rose to prominence there. Dale prefaced the interview by describing Freddie as someone he both looked up to and was intimidated by while growing up at the Carolina short tracks. Query’s reputation as a hard racer and champion preceded him for many years. But like most short-track racers, he came from humble, quiet beginnings in Kannapolis. In fact, Freddie explained that he shared a first-grade classroom with another Kannapolis racing legend, Dale Earnhardt Sr. himself. The two even ran go-karts together in their pre-teen years on a crude dirt track a neighbor had carved out on his property. Ultimately, the two drivers had vastly different life trajectories, and their connection remained pleasant but distant.While finishing high school, Freddie had ambitions to attend college to be an engineer, but after getting married during his senior year his life changed direction. He began attending a tech school and taking trade programs, and when the local school district wanted to begin implementing trade classes on a high school level, Query found himself in a teaching position, one he would hold for 20 years. The go-kart he raced at age 10 was built from a bed frame rail and propelled by his father’s lawn mower engine. His mechanical wonder carried on to his teenage years when he began “borrowing” the family car to enter street races, unbeknownst to his parents. But his path in racing would have stalled out on the streets of Kannapolis, had he not started attending local races at the recommendation of a neighbor.After buying a new house as a teacher, he became acquainted with the folks next store, who were avid racing fans attending events multiple nights a week. He took a trip to Hickory Speedway with them and was hooked from the get-go, deciding then he wanted to be a part of the sport. The neighbor was one step ahead, installing a race shop in his backyard, and soon Freddie was out there with him every night of the week. The two built a street stock and took it to Metrolina on a Friday night, with the neighbor hopping in the driver’s seat. But the following evening, when they had planned to try Hickory, the neighbor was too tired from the previous night’s action and turned the driving duties over to Freddie. And while he ended up flipping due to an aggressive move to pass, the racing bug had bit him, and the course for his next 30 years was set.In the early 1980s he was a dominant force in the six-cylinder division, before moving up to super late models in '85. Freddie was recognized by his red No.6 hot rod which he drove to countless victories. When Concord received the blacktop treatment towards the end of the '86 season, Freddie was prepared to say goodbye to the track he had so much success at, but when Coors threatened to reduce their sponsorship, he decided to give the asphalt another go. Hence would begin the most dominant period in the track’s history.From 1988 to 1992, Freddie brought home 4 out of 5 track championships, while battling it out with the likes of Jack Sprague, Rich Bickle and Robbie Faggart. His success in the high-paying Big-10 Series helped propel him to bigger events, and in '93 he began running with the NASCAR All-Pro tour. He brought home major victories in the Myrtle Beach 400 and All-American 400, as well as the '98 All-Pro season championship before settling into a car builder/mentor role. He went on to assist the likes of Hank Parker Jr., Johanna Long, Harrison Burton and many more before retiring from competitive racing. Today, Freddie still dabbles in go-kart racing and car repair but basks in the glory of his storied career and the acclaim that comes with it.  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 Dirtymoe Media. Ty Gibbs is slipping in the corner. Byron goes wide to accommodate. They lean on each other in turn for. Elliot on the outside. Larson on the inside. They're side by side still. Rank two and on his bumper.

Clear, clear by half. Everybody's in the grass. They're thrones in the grass. It might have done the race right there. We'll see. No, Kempowski slower. Two final corners. of offers. A nod, a push. Can Ambrose save it? Who gets here first? Ambrose 9, Kuzlowski 2, final quarter.

Gonna push the 17 of Byron down into the breaking zone. Here comes Ty Gibbs, side by side. There's going to be contact. Here he comes. Woh-ha! Oh, to the inside! Wow! It doesn't get too much better than that. Kurt Hunt wins a wild one at the glen. Marcus Ambrose is going to win a win. and walking swim in a remarkable last-left turn of this. Fub cards go spinning. Fubcars are spinning out of the lead. Kyle Larson used up Chase Elliott coming into turn number one. It's going to earn him to lead before he gets to turn number two.

Congratulations. He did a great job. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. Back again, another episode of Dale Jr. Download, episode 396. and we have a pretty special guests. Mike talks about it all the time. We're going to have some people on this podcast that maybe aren't household names,

but it's somebody that we're excited to talk to and we want to know more about. This guy that we have on the show, his name's Frady Query, and everybody has that sort of local legend or the guy that sort of dominated the short tracks in their area or their neck of the woods. and Freddie was one of those guys here in Concord, Charlotte, in the Piedmont area of North Carolina.

And everybody knows Freddie. Sonny, you know, that works for me, my property manager. Sonny Lunsford, yep. Sunny was a student of his. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. I did not know that. Hank Parker, Jr.

And Freddie have a connection. Yeah, I remember Hank mentioning his name. Kevin Harvick and Elena Harvick have a connection to Frady Quarry. I mean, Frady Query has impacted a lot of. lot of lives and knows and has been in around and moved around the motorsports world. But he is a prolific short track legend in Concord, North Carolina, around the Canapolis area. And so I have never really had a chance to sit down and talk to Freddie Quarry. All right.

And I would consider him one of my heroes. Wow. Okay. Somebody that I was, you know, he's intimidating. He reminded me a lot of, you know, he has sort of a similar persona that my dad had, unbeatable and race the heck out of you, right? And he had a very long career successful from the late 70s, all through the 90s, until his final race, I think, which he won his final race in 2006.

So this is an exciting episode for me. we're going to have an opportunity to sit down with a guy that I have wanted to speak to for a very long time. I have crossed paths with him, but the conversations or the interactions were extremely brief. Okay. Well, that's most conversations you would have when you cross past with people, right? It was more because of how intimidating he was. Sure. And, you know, I can't wait to really get to know this guy.

This is exactly, exactly what I hope this podcast would deliver to me. That's right. Every week. That's right. And I could tell that as soon. Kelly Earnhardt, your sister, sent an email to you and I going, hey, have y'all ever had Freddie Query on? And the excitement you had from that email going, oh, my gosh, that would be amazing.

And I remember the name being mentioned on this show several times, some by you, some by guest. So I know he's a figure that is influential to a lot of people. but I don't know beyond that. And so when you got excited, I was like, this is what's up. This is what the Dale Jr. Downlaw has been built for. And we're going to get to meet somebody and get to know somebody that, you know, long time coming. Yeah. And I can't wait for Freddie to see the Bojangles studio.

Yeah. All the cool things we have in here. And he's going to have a lot of fun hanging out with us today. So that's coming up a little later in the show. Let's get to some dirty air. Brought to you by Filter Time. Dirty air. You got it.

Dirty air is brought to you by. filter time, there's no better way to deal with dirty air than with a filter subscription service that takes care of the hassle and takes that out of buying air filters for your home. They're delivered right to your door. So every time they show up, you know when to change them. Go to filtertime.com and subscribe now. But this is our dirty air. So let's go.

So one of a quick update. Last week we talked about magnet fishing. Yes, we did. I got an... All my kits that I ordered, the three that I ordered, are here. All right, so we need to go. We need to do this. Stop messing around, talking about it.

We need just to go do it. So I got a little time Thursday. Mike's going to look at his schedule. Yeah. Somebody wants to drag a camera along so we can document. But I have talked to some friends. I got a, everybody's like, everybody's like. We've got two camera guys in here right now that do not look excited.

They're staring at the floor, Mike. So far, it's going to have to be a bit better pitch than what we're going to. They're no longer making eye contact with this, Mike. It's awkward. Well, I just want to say, we can carry a camera. I can camera. You don't have to bring scuba gear or anything, guys. I can camera.

You can camera. Yeah, we can do it. I talked to a friend of mine last night, and he was telling me about some of the things that they had found. So I got a friend of mine that has done it. So now I know someone. personally. And he's like, oh yeah,

you're going to find stuff. It's awesome. Keys and all kinds of things. You don't know what they go to, but he's like, you know, we found some guns and all kinds of things.

Yeah. So it's, because I didn't know if we were just getting trolled by people on the internet that this really doesn't exist and people were just putting stuff to magnets and then dropping it in water

and pulling up one. We were not found. You were getting catfished, potentially. Get it? Possibly. I get it. So anyhow,

Now, we haven't done it yet. I just wanted to let people know. Sometimes we talk about stuff on dirty air, and then when we don't update it, that's what the timeline feels up with. Hey, did y, and y, and Z? Yeah. So anyways. Would you, let me ask you this. We have a Dirty Mo Media staff meeting Thursday morning.

Is this something that would... Could we do the staff meeting on the pontoons? Is that what you're trying to say? That might be the only way we get our camera guys there. I was going to say, I'm inviting myself to the staff meeting if that's the case. staff meeting on the dock. There you go. So Mike has a boat and I have a boat.

We could actually go out there like a major operation. That's right. Instead of piling everybody on the one boat. Like we're looking for a shipwreck or something. We have two competing crews. It'd be sort of like the, what is it, the catch, the deadliest catch. Right, yeah. Except we're just looking for keys and guns.

So a lot of things going on this past weekend. We had radio style at Watkins Glen. That was a lot of fun. As you can tell, it kind of got, frog in my throat because I had a little, you know, I'm not built for radio. Don't have the, I think, and it's got to be true, man, because it's no different than anything else or any of muscle in your body. Those guys that do radio, their voices, they're strong. Amazing.

And when you don't talk a whole lot and you're asked to talk all day for two days, you know, you end up walking away with, with a horse throat or maybe losing your voice. Everybody's lost their voice at some point from cheering or screaming or doing something to concert or a game, right? So anyways, I'm not made for that, man. I was starting to get a little raspy there during the cup race. And I thought to myself, man, I can't get really excited at the end because I'll start squeaking.

And that would be a viral. I do not want that out there in the world. I had to kind of make sure that at the end of that race, I didn't let it, you know, my emotions get the best of me and end up making a mistake. I mean, you did both races. Yeah. You did radio style from the same spot for the Xfinity race

and the Cup race. So that is a lot of talking to your point. Yeah, it is. So, but I have so much, I enjoy radio style. I only enjoy it at the Glen. We've done it at other tracks. We did it. Pocono, indie.

That's right. Didn't like those. I don't like it at other tracks. I love being in the booth. I love being in the talk or look at the guys in the booth. And when we're doing radio style in the perch over there, I can't talk to Steve. There is a button. I can talk to Steve on air, but there's a button in the booth where I can mash it and I can talk just to Steve and just to Jeff, right?

No one can hear it. The show can't hear it. But you can't do that when you're in the perch. you're basically just only able to talk live on air, so you really can't share thoughts or, hey, man, I'm seeing this. What do you think about that? Or this guy looks like, you know, he's got a problem. What you think about that?

Or why is this happening? And so it's a little different, but it's fun as heck. Fun as heck at Watkins Glen. So I'm going to try to get through the week and get the voice arrest, and hopefully we're good to go in a couple more days. Two and a half hour podcast ought to help that. Yeah, yeah. So I'll try not to get excited and get over emotional on the podcast.

Try not. I'm screaming. Let's talk about Larson and Chase. Everybody wants us to talk about that. I was a little surprised by it because, you know, we don't know. We don't know how teammates are going to race each other until they're putting that position. And rarely do we see Larson and Chase kind of facing off, right? Now, they race each other every week.

But rarely are we, do we see them in a position where they're, nose to nose, right? Getting ready to go at it. And you, yeah, I mean, I don't think Larson, so I'm, I was thinking about it. I don't know if I mentioned it on, on air, but I was sitting there thinking the restart before, AJ was in the outside line. So to me, at the end of that race, AJ's the outlier. He's the, that's right. He's the threat. That's right. So when they had him in the outside line the restart before, I thought to myself, okay, this is, you know, you got him boxed in on that top. Now, immediately as we're starting to come down the back straightaway and cars are double filing up, and I see AJ's lined up now on the right side or the inside for

turn one. Right, behind Larson. I thought Larson is going to have to overdrive the entry. He's not, he cannot go into this corner with every, with the intent to, to, to, to, you know, to, he's going to, to make the middle, hit the apex, make, you know, he's going to have to overdrive it. Because if he don't, AJ is going to be on the inside of him. And so, and nobody wants that, right? And so, certainly not, not Larson. Larson doesn't want to have to defend hard to the inside and really hurt his line into term one.

and so his best case scenario is stay online, stay where he was, but overdrive term one. Not give AJ a chance to get on his inside. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, it was interesting that Chase took that outside. I think that Chase may have expected too much from Larson in terms of, hey, take care of me. I'm going to start over here, okay? so don't, don't use me up. I don't think that maybe Chase was expecting a little too much help from a teammate in that moment.

The teammate is with AJ on his heels and everything around him, late in the race, downhill, downhill breaking zone. It's a lot to ask from Larson, all right, to line up on his left side. And so they go down the corner and you can simply see the tire lock up on the right front of Larson. he cannot turn. The car is no longer turning to the right. When the tires are locked up, it's going completely straight, just like it would on ice or anything.

Everybody's had that little, you know, tire lockup on ice or slick roads or whatever, and for that moment, you no longer drive your car. You're long for the ride. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, once he got the tire unlocked, he made the corner the best he could

without giving up any momentum, and he also gave Chase enough room, on the on the outside of him to do some work right he didn't he didn't make chase have to lift to miss the fence like you know maybe a you know Denny and Ross he didn't have to you know chase he did have to run wide way wider than he probably wanted to run but he did have he did have room out there to operate um anyhow you know it to me it's It's racing. To me, it's hard racing.

It's the end of the race. It's the last restart. The guy is your teammate. There is some level of responsibility not to wreck your teammate, but you've got to race for the win. And Larson has an over-the-wall crew, a crew chief, mechanics that are specifically responsible for his car, that also want him to go out there and win. You know, it's not just Larson and Chase here. There's sponsors and all types of PRP.

I mean, there's a list of people responsible for that five car that expect Larson to go out there and not take care of his teammate and run second. They expect him to go out there and do what it takes to win. And it was at the expense of his teammate, and that's going to happen because you have two guys that are great, drivers, two guys that have great race cars, and sometimes that's going to make, that means

they're going to find themselves together up front. And I think Chase is absolutely frustrated. Can't fault him for being frustrated. I mean, he had a, I mean, I said it on the air. I was like, that was an awful half of a lap. When he caught back to the back straightaway, he'd lost four or five spots. Yeah, you did say it. And while the lap was going. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, this couldn't be going worse for this guy right here right right hey he he uh you know if you race long enough you're gonna be on both ends of that and i you know chase chase chase will just have to put it in the back of his mind remember when he's in that situation the next time that he has all the right in the world to to be as aggressive if he wants to be against larsen uh and and he will i think he will next

you know, if he's ever in that situation, in the shoes on the other foot. But to me, I didn't see like, oh, man, this guy did something wrong. I didn't see anybody do anything wrong that needs to be corrected or no, Rick doesn't need to sit down with one or the other. He might want to sit down with both of them and say, hey, this is the way I view this. And I can imagine what Rick would say. Rick's probably happy that one of his cars won. He probably doesn't have any real issue with the way it happened.

But he probably wants them to not make it personal going forward, right? Let's not let this get ugly. You guys are two great drivers. We've got great race cars, and that means at times we're going to be racing each other in these moments. And I expect y'all to race as hard as you can for the win without taking either one of you out. And that, to me, is what happened.

Now, if we can agree that Chase Elliott was being, sarcastic or overly cautious, whichever you want to call it in his post-race interview, but that he was clearly upset. My question then is, are you a little surprised that Chase was as upset as he was? No. Okay. Because he did have control of the race. So we'll never know this for sure.

But watching the last probably 40 laps of that race, I think Chase had a way faster car. and when Chase needed to, he could run quite a bit quicker than Larson. And so I think that Chase was not only frustrated with Larson, and that last little deal, you know, he knows that Allen expected him to go and get the job done. So he feels a big responsibility for not accomplishing the goal that Alan wanted him to accomplish because him, I think Alan, you know, Allen's going to give you the best race car, and Alan wants you to go out there, and your job is to win.

And you didn't get that done today. You know, so there's a big, I think there's some pressure on Chase because Alan is a very matter-of-fact. You saw his interview on the pit box. Wasn't really excited to do any interview at that moment about that yellow coming out. He was frustrated that it came out. They were in control of the race. He gave, you know, he answered the questions, but you could sense in that moment this, that, that, how, how game-faced Alan was, right? And that's Alan.

That's who he is. And I think, so Chase felt that, felt that, felt that, not disappointment, but Chase felt like, damn, I didn't do what he wanted me to do. What am I going to tell Alan when I see him, right? other than I didn't get the job done. I think that, so if Chase didn't have such a dominant car and all that goes down, I don't know that Chase is quite as angry. He just got used up a little bit at the end of the race and finished third or whatever,

and he'd be frustrated, but I think the fact that he had the best car had the race in control for many, many times and didn't complete the mission, that was almost 50% of the frustration and anger. Not all of it, not half of it, almost 50%. The rest, I think, was definitely geared toward, you know, my teammate raced me. I didn't really appreciate my teammate getting into me and pushing me wide.

You know, and I think if AJ's not back there, you know, certainly if Byron is in, position instead of AJ Larson definitely doesn't go down in there over his head and sliding tires he's going to feel way more protected with a teammate behind him the whole thing changes but with AJ being AJ AJ is going he's one of the best road racers in the field no question maybe the best I think he's the best right and so he's aggressive yeah he's he's he's there to win nothing else there's nothing else for AJ to accomplish but when you got the most dangerous guy in the field on your heels going

down the hill one of the hardest breaking zones in the whole series and uh it was just a recipe that that had everybody in a very compromised position so but i was i i thought chase did a really good job post race i'd love to see i'd love to know exactly what he was telling rick that's the part i wanted to do we not get any mouth you know lip readers anybody come up with any kind of idea there's been some speculation but there's also seems to be what is it There seems to be everybody in agreement that he says at one point, we're not getting over this. I'm going to say. And I heard speculation that it was, what are we going to do about this? Like he went to Jeff and Rick and was like, what are we going to do about this?

Right. Yeah. And people were like, like, what do you do about it? And it looked like he said right before he walked off, we're not getting over this. Yeah. That's, I guess, what I'm asking is that, wait a second, we're not getting over this would suggest. Would suggest, and if you, by the way, Kyle Larson looked like a sad guy when he got out of the car after winning that race. He did not look happy. And so he looks sad. You've got Chase's, you know, we're lip reading his comments and speculating on what he said. You could look at Mr. Hendrick's face and it didn't look happy when he was talking to Chase. Jeff Gordon's face didn't look happy. So we're putting all this together. And you also got to add in Chase Elliott's

Media Center interview. He also was very Marshaun Lynchish in there. So now it's like, okay, let me put all these puzzle pieces together. It seems like, they they harbored this resentment before the race. Like this isn't something, these aren't two guys that seemed like they were starting clean at the beginning of the race. It almost like that there was something there before because that's, why else would you say,

we're not getting over this or something like that? That seems to put Mr. Hendrick in a box and in a corner and I have to resolve something. So if all of that is in fact true, and we're still speculating, but of all that's true, that's what I'm wondering, what, why, Kyle Larson's, didn't seem to do anything wrong. And I 100% agree with your point. A.J. Almonddinger changes things.

If you go into that corner on a 1 to 10 scale and you get 9 out of 10, if you're Kyle Larson, that ain't enough because AJ's going to get a 10 out of 10 on that corner and he will then get inside you. That's just a fact. And so I think Kyle Larson probably didn't intend to do what he did, but he had to drive it in deep and sort of let the outcome sort out as it does. And it did in his favor. I just kidding. I was a little surprised that Chase was, if he was, in fact, angry at Kyle Larson, to the point of we're not getting over this, what the heck?

What are we missing? We've got to be missing something, right? Well, there was issues with him in the past earlier this year at Fontana. Fontana. That's true. Yeah. You know, and that was mentioned a little bit, but I can't even remember what happened in Fontana. Well, if I remember correctly.

He put him in the fence, didn't he? I think Chase went to his outside. He was racing somebody else. Was it Legano maybe? I think Kyle was racing Legano and then Chase went to pass him and then he got fenced. Yeah. I do remember that and some comments on the radio about it and all that. But we can only speculate, right?

Chase didn't offer us any real information to allow us to come to any kind of conclusion on where everything is. and which was which was interesting I mean you typically it's really difficult for a driver not to have some sort of a jab or a parting shot or some sort of comment that gives everybody a little ammo or a sound bite none of that from Chase he's an interesting guy you know and it'll be interesting it'll be curious to me I guess how he compartmentalizes this and moves forward and what he really does if ever presented an opportunity to to to raise you. Larson, right, in a way. And so I think, though, you know, and I hate to say this, man, because I like Chase a lot, and he might, he probably wouldn't appreciate this comment, and maybe he doesn't feel this way at all, so I could be entirely wrong. But I wonder if the championship season with Larson and how Chase ran that year, which was not quite what Chase I think is expected affected Chase's point of view and feeling quite possibly

that may have I don't know how they are right behind closed doors I don't know what kind of relationship Larson and Chase have maybe it's fine right but I don't know for whatever reason something tells me that you know maybe maybe the the way that year went didn't sit well with Chase and so then it'd be normal it'd be typical human reaction to after coming off your own championship somebody comes in there and just dominates the whole season chase was the A guy and then then Larson's the A guy and I don't know I mean typically that wouldn't bother most people and maybe like I say I'm completely wrong here but maybe that something about the way that went didn't sit well with Chase

because I thought that when what happened at Fontana happened, the initial reaction to it, I thought was quite a bit, a little larger than you would have, if it was like the first sort of issue or confrontation between two teammates, it typically kind of gets, hey, man, okay. That's right. That's one mistake or one issue I have with you. Yeah, hard racing, don't do it again.

Let's not let it happen again. but there was a little more to it in the reaction of Chase getting fenced and their reaction on the radio and conversations made you think, oh, wow, those things don't seem very warm and fuzzy. Right, that's exactly how I felt this weekend. Is it like, wait a second, this is, they're bringing some baggage into this thing that we're not aware of. Yeah, and we can only speculate what that is.

Maybe there's, maybe we're wrong entirely, man. Could be. I certainly don't want to make something that's not there. but anyhow, I know that Chase was mad, but I really can't sit there and say that, I mean, if I, if I, somebody asked me on social media, man, if it was your two cars doing that. So the only thing that I could say would be similar

that pops into my mind is Charlotte. We had Justin Algar and Josh racing at the end of that race. And I'm only, I didn't get to watch watch this. I'm listening to it because I was in a production meeting. And, you know, they're talking. on the rate i'm listening a little bit to the audio of m rn or whatever and it's you know they're hitting they're they're they're you know in the fence and i'm sitting there thinking to myself i was angry at josh and justin because i thought y'all two are going to wreck each other

y'all two are going to hit the wall damage your cars whatever you're going to allow somebody to slip by you and lose this race but you know of course justin had a flag but one of them went on to win and so at the end of the deal it could have been Josh or Justin I was going to be happy so when you put four race cars on the racetrack or two you know that they might not finish all four all any car you put on the racetrack could crash could blow up could wreck whatever but if you're an owner you could have three cars blow motors or crash or whatever but if one wins that's that's successful day all right you have every ride

to comfortably go to Victory Lane and celebrate this win, and you handle the rest, the frustrations and the disappointments and what-ifs with the other teams later. That's right. You have to compartmentalize it. So if that had happened to me, I would have went to Chase and say, look, man, we're going to talk about this this week. We're going to sit down.

We'll get everybody in the room. Let everybody do it the way they want. Talk about it. Let it all out. We're going to come to some conclusion. some understanding, and we're going to move forward. I'll see you then. And then you go to Victory Lane,

and you celebrate that win like you'd celebrate any win. You know, because, like I say, you're going to have a moment on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, where you can get everybody together and say, look, you know, this was great, but I don't want this to turn in anything that it doesn't need to be. And we're going to race hard. Y'all can race hard.

I don't want no team orders or anything like that. You know, you're going to have those kind of conversations, so that's what I would do with it. Alan Gufferson is the one that I think he may have to spend a little bit more time. He can get temperamental. We've seen that. And by the way, Mr. Hendricks not, you know,

is not unfamiliar with eternal, you know, disputes and conflicts. He's dealt with him forever. Alan is the type of crew chief that you don't ever want to have a run in with. That's right. But he is absolutely the type of crew chief that you would love to have. I mean, he is all about it And he worked so hard

And he puts so much into it That anything less than success Is a waste of his damn time You know, he gives that vibe He may not feel that way, but man I think the guy is insane In terms of his ability But I've had

You know, we had a race at Bristol Where I was trying my ass off to pass Jeff Gordon and just racing the shit out of me. And I'm racing the shit out of him, right? And I get up underneath him finally, and I didn't not mean to, man, but I barely touched his left rear tire on the middle of the back straightaway.

We just kind of barely touched. A little smoke. And it cut his tire and he wrecked. That's exactly what I have. Flat tire into the corner. He spun, hit the wall. Now, if I'm him, yeah. I'm mad as hell.

We had another 400 laps to run and calm down. But I went over there after the race into the holler and talked to Alan. And he was as fiery and as mad as if it just happened. And, you know, we had an argument about it. And then probably about two or three years later, we drank a beer and talked about it. I remember that. I was outside the holler. I didn't go in.

But when Dale Jr. came out of the holler, it looked. like he was leaving the principal's office and he had just been his tail was stuck yeah yeah it was like wow and he said yeah that that was we we were we were starting to second guess whether it was a good idea to go in there at that time yeah and hash that issue out yeah it probably was not no hey listen that that was you did a great job this weekend um and by the way we should say that the guy the guy that won that race uh we can't say he did anything wrong because he also won us our ninth uh exfinity series race the day before so Kyle Larson you know a junior motorsports contributor can't say a bad thing about it so so the races there I'm over in the bus stop um byron and Gibbs are coming at us

racing for the lead and I know that Gibbs is going to hit byron in the door the way they went into the corner and the angles into the bus stop I'm like the the 54 is going to slide to the right there's going to be contact now and So, and they wrecked, and then, you know, Kyle had to hold off AJ at the end, which it was pretty nerve-wracking, so hard to be perfect in front of a guy who's perfect. And we crossed the finish line, and I thought, man, I want to be in Victor Lane so bad. Because I, there was a time probably about three or four years ago when Larson was running some, off and on Exfinity races for Gannasi. And I had it in my head.

Now, this wasn't anything that happened with, Kelly had nothing to do with this. There were no real conversations, but it was in my head that, man, why does Ganesi want to mess with this? Why don't they, you know, just let Larson run our car. We got some open races and, and, man, I'd love to have that guy in our car time or two.

I had so much fun when we put McMurray in our car. He won Atlanta. Oh, yeah. And when Tony Stewart drove Chance two cars, and there are so many guys that have raced our cars. And when, you know, it's just awesome to have like Clint Boyer or Cup guys come down. Elliot Sadler did at a time or two. When Cup guys come down and they're freaking the, they're Cup guys.

They're elite. They're awesome. It's amazing for our company to have them. It's big, I'm very proud of it. Yeah. And so if, so Kyle is one of the greatest drivers in the sport in motorsports globally, one of the best at it right now. And I never thought that we were ever going to have an opportunity that would,

where it would align to have a him in our cars. And so much less him, you know, I mean, every time he suits up and gets in a car, he's got a shot to win because of who he is. but it didn't look like we were going to win that date. And so when he wins the race, I've got to stay in the perch till we're done, until we're off air. And so by time they let us go, and I climbed out of the perch and got on the golf cart, I run all the way.

I'm on the outside of the track, so I go all the way down the back straight away, the opposite way, right, all the way into the tunnel, and through the maze to get the victory lane. And I go into the media center, and I thought I probably missed. Victor Lane so I'll just sit in the media center and I'll see him he'll come in I'll congratulate him thanking and they said you want to go to the Victor Lane somebody in the media center said you need to go I said yeah show me how to get there so they showed me and he was just wrapping up like taking the final few pictures so I jumped up there I said man I need a picture of this can I just I'm going to take

a quick photo him in the trophy and he's like oh yeah and he's like he's driving the car again this year in Darmington and he's like we're going to get a win there I'll like all right have an argument from you. That was cool. And you did a great job. I texted you this. You had to call that radio style, and they spun out and that all happened right in front of you.

And so there it is. You're taking the handoffs from Mike Bagley, who's like the greatest ever. And then the action happens right in front of you. And it's your car that's the beneficiary. I mean, like lots of opportunities to fumble that up. And you did a pretty good job. I mean, I was like, wow, I was impressed with that. You kept your compover.

but it was the excitement of the action was uh was evident so the uh to to in case people don't really know for sure the 88 car uh we had two cars out there that looked identical the 17 and the 88 bairn in the 17 and larsin in the 88 and so the 88 car is straight out of this shop at junior motor sports. It's a patchwork of engineers and shop guys and so forth to get the fifth J.R. Motorsports car to the racetrack. That's a full J.R.M. effort. The Byron car is one of, it gets put together and finished and built here, but then sent to Hendrick

where they can run, you know, they can change the shocks or springs or set the thing up however they won't, really. And it's ran by their guys. It's finished and prepared and loaded and taken to the track. It's an HMS effort at that point. And so it's good to have that kind of, it's good for us, I think, is Junior Motorsports to kind of see, to be quite transparent, Mike,

when the 17 car goes out on the racetrack, I'm very acute on watching what kind of lap times it runs. Because I know that that is basically the same equipment, but they take their approach, right? And if it runs faster, which at times it has, and it certainly was this weekend with William, I think it's good for us to see that we can find more. We've had nine wins this year, but it's been a great thing for something out there to show,

for our own car to be out there and for us to see that we can even be better, as opposed to us sitting on what we're doing and saying, you know, we're as good as we can be. And, boy, we hope we can sustain this through the playoffs. Well, from what I can see is we can sustain this, but we can also get, faster because there's a car out there with all of our stuff on it and it's built by us and set up by us our body everything going a little quicker yeah and so um i think a lot i don't know that everybody knows exactly the relationship or the influence or the involvement of junior motor sports per car um but i was i was super proud of our guys i mean that team that's the team i've ran with and i haven't haven't had uh haven't had great runs with them the last couple times but when they work with byron or larsen

and those guys that are racing every single week. They got an opportunity to win, and it was good to see those guys go to Victor Lane. But anyhow, and like I said, I mean, I checked a big box for me, went a race with Kyle Larson. Pretty damn cool. That is awesome. It may never happen again.

We may never get many opportunities going forward to have him drive our cars, but we got to say one time that he won a race in our stuff, and that's pretty cool. Anytime you can get one of the greats to, to win a race in your car. It's a pretty great day. There you go. Can't disagree with that. Dirty Mo Media fans, this is IndyCar driver, Connor Daly. And comedian Joey Mullenaro.

We're here to tell you about the most honest, unfiltered, and informative IndyCar podcast on the market, Speed Street. Connor and I break down the weekly happenings of IndyCar, our lives on and off the track, and talk a little NASCAR and F1 as well. Dirty Mo Media's newest show is available now on all major podcasting platforms. And be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and Instagram, at Speed Street Pod

Buster's trip to Victory Lane It's a children's book that I wrote with my wife Amy and it is releasing on October the 11th. I think that changed. It did change, yeah, yeah. It was delayed a month.

Supply chain issues. That's right. That's right. But anyhow, I've been signing placards and books and so forth to get ready for that release. So October the 11th is when the book is released and you can pre-order it now.

That's right. You can pre-order right now at Dalejutor.com slash buster. Dalejutor.com slash buster. We're only one week away from my late model stock race at North Wiltsboro. There are a lot of tickets sold to this. I think camping is sold out.

Nice. There's only a few tickets remaining in general, the general admission grandstand tickets. There's only a few left. So they're pretty much at capacity. Wow. So if you want to try to secure one of the last few tickets, I don't know that there will be much of an opportunity as a walk-up attendee to get a ticket.

Well, there you go. So you might want to get those pre-ordered. If you're thinking about showing up to buy, you might want to go ahead and see if you can pre-order now. Go to northwiltsboro Speedway.com to see what's available. I think there's some seating left in turns, one and two. They weren't going to open up the grandstands in one and three. They hadn't been this whole time that they've been racing at Worksboro this month. But I think for this race, they're going to sell a few tickets over there, so there may be some remaining.

There you go. And then I guess if you're unlucky and you don't get to buy a ticket and it's sold out, then you can also pay-per-view it through RacingAmerica.tv. Is that it? You're right. Racingamerica.com. You can watch that race, pay-per-view. So it's going to be awesome. Roots and Revival Chapter 2 dropped this morning on Dirtymo Media.

YouTube channel. So Roots and Revival is kind of like a little glimpse into just the experience of Wilkesboro and what's what's been going on there. The second chapter of that, I watched it last night. It is awesome. I can't stress how much I want y'all to check this out. And can I note, Mike, that in the second chapter you will not see me in it whatsoever? That's probably my favorite part of about it that's untrue you are in it where what you know you're right yes yeah there's a little sit down talking yeah all right so i'm i'm barely in it you barely in it it's well this is what we can say yeah it's not about you no that's what i like it's not about you this chapter's not about dale other chapters will be about dell but this chapter uh is not about dell but del is used to to tell a story and also give some background teed it up a little bit yeah so um anyhow i forgot

I forgot I was in the front half of it. But it really is great, and it's so well done, man. I'm so proud of it. So all the people at Dirty Mo Media, our crew is churning out so much content, so much different types of content. I don't know how to keep up with all of it, but the effort is A-plus,

and it shows in Chapter 2 of Roots of Revival. I hope you go to Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page and check all that out. I promise you you're going to enjoy it. There was one more thing. Oh, I can't say anymore. But beyond, so there's racing at North Walesboro this month on the asphalt. And then in October, they're going to rip the asphalt up and they're going to be dirt racing for the month of October.

But I heard a little nugget about the future of the track beyond that. Oh, you going to tell us? Nope. Just tease us? That's what you're doing? It is insane. All right, blink twice. No.

If it, I heard. They can't even play the blinking game. He can do this to us. That's not fair. I guess for me, Wilkesboro, I just didn't know really whether there was a genuine opportunity beyond this year. Right. This is going to go well, right? The race this race next week is going to sell well.

It's going to do well. People are going to be excited. Hopefully people have a great experience while they're there. And then the dirt racing, I think, will be a very entertaining. experience for anybody that goes, but really, truthfully, what can this place be beyond that? What I heard this morning is insane. Okay, will you tell us who you heard it from? So I just want people to be ready.

Keep your ear to the damn ground, because when this news drop, it's going to be massive. We're all looking at each other. Yeah, we're all. I got three things I throw out right now because I don't think Dale is capable of keeping this in. But I don't want to exploit that weakness. We're moving on. If you happen to be listening to dirty air

and you happen to sign up for filtertime.com, Blake, my partner at FilterTime, might drop a coozy in your box. Just keep an eye off with that. That's cool. I need to sign up for FilterTime.com. Who bought a house? Need to get those filters? Dude.

I my filters man certain never mind certain parts I got filters right

you got filters and returns in different parts of your house right have you noticed man like some side

like one side of your house gets way dirtier in the other because of how much activities in that spot I don't have that much

house to where I can look at my air filter I'm serious I've been to your house you probably have more than one

filter one more than one return you probably have one okay you probably have two or three at the most like i do i got three returns i got two downstairs and one upstairs yeah i got two and so the the one the return next to the door that we come into and it's no it's near the you know the living room filthy freaking dirty fast and then the one near the one at the other end of the house where we're rarely using it's is a it's just interesting These the things, the shit. You learn.

Messing with filters. You've got dirty air near your door. That's what you're saying. Yeah. Hey, Dale Jr. fans, listen up, especially if you have kids. Or if you know somebody that has kids,

if you know kids, this is for you. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is teaching children to face their fears with his upcoming children's book, Buster's trip to Victory Lane. Kids will follow Buster, a rescued race car who navigates new challenges and learns to never give us. up. In Buster's trip to victory lane, Dale Jr's flair for originality, humor, and fun

shines through as Buster the race car teaches kids to face their fears. And when Coach Chomp rescues Buster from a failed racing team, Buster has to figure out how to race with new teammates. Learn to keep going even after he makes mistakes and he tries with all his might to make it to the finish line before the other cars. You're going to love it. Race fans, your kids are going to love it. You can pre-order Buster's trip to victory. lane right now. Here's where you do it. Dale Jr.com backslash buster.

That's Dalejr.com backslash buster. Go get it right now. Pre-orders available. You will love it. All right. I'm really excited about this guest this week, as I've told you over and over in the show. And I want to thank Ally for helping bring our guest segment to you guys every

single week. Ally is a great partner of ours and has been doing some great things in the sport so we love being with them it's important to have allies in your life professionally and personally so let's get right to it fredi query on the dale junior download there it comes freddy coming he will put that buffer to you oh there he is dude i got to see you some pictures i bet you got some cool stuff well and and maybe you need to edit that a little bit before you uh if you plan on show any of that stuff because uh i brought some pictures of a party at your house one time Oh, my goodness.

Let's see it. Let me see it. I got to see it. I think they're kind of mixed up, but right on top. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. There's a bigger one in there. I remember that night.

That was like a New Year's Eve. That was New Year's Eve. And they had just, Harvick and Delaney had just met. Or that was our first date. It was. Delana, I had a little Bush opportunity, and she was my PR girl. And I'd gotten it on Kevick, and my wife knew that they were perfect for each other. She just had a few.

Yeah. Kevin Harvick told that story when he was on the show not too long ago. I saw that. Yeah, he did. Yeah, that was good. That's out our back door. Holy shit. Yeah. That was a long damn time ago. And I just grabbed these up at random. My wife filtered a little bit, but uh... Look at this right here now. Now we're talking. Yeah. Yeah, that's good times. We're going to have to ask you all about these things because I don't know how much he'll remember, but I bet you remember some of the stuff. And so between... I know that night happened, but I don't remember. It was all pretty foggy. It was for all of us. We had a limousine. Yes. And we had a pretty good party before we got there. Yeah. And then we came around through the yard and went in your basement.

And it was on. It was on. Yeah, we had the smoke machine running. Oh, you had a pole in there, I believe, the best I can remember. Yeah. Well, you had a smoke machine and a pole. No pole. It wasn't a pole in there?

No, it was a wooden rail that separated the dance floor from the carpet. Okay. And there was two poles in that. Maybe that's what I was thinking about. I remember sitting at that, sitting at a table. right up against that rail and talking to y'all. And y'all came over and you were like, Harvick's here?

Yeah. I was like, hey, damn. And then talked about in Delano and all that. Yeah. So I didn't recall how much our pass had crossed. I'll just start out from the top of me. I wanted to say one thing. So the way I've been presenting you as a guest is,

so everybody that listens to this show, wherever they're from in the country or wherever they're at, there's a local track and there's legends at those local tracks, right? Right, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's guys that just, they made a name and everybody in town recognizes that name when you say it. And to me, you're that guy. There's a few from this area, and you're in that conversation.

I was always really intimidated by you because I never raced against me. No, you didn't have to be on a racetrack with you. You just had a really, you know, you're always. You've won. You were great. You race so hard. You weren't dirty, but you race people. Man, you raced hard in a great way.

You know, it was very incredible. And I just always, I never really got a chance to ever sit down and talk to you. Right. We didn't. We never have. Never did. Nope. And so I've, but I know that a lot of, you know, I just always admired you, and I know that a lot of people in my own life that I know have crossed past.

with you. So you were a school teacher, Sonny who is my, Sunny Lunsford, who is my property manager. Me and him have been great friends and worked together for years. Long time. It was one of your students. Right. He was. And so, you know, you worked with Hank Parker Jr. Yep. Another person that I just think the world of. Right. You know, your connection to Delana and Kevin. And, you know, so you've sort of had, you've sort of just, you know, always kind of, kind of, being around and in some way somehow connected to people of all types, you know, for various reasons. And I've always wanted to get to know you better. I really just always want to do it today. Yeah. So today's the day. Yep. You were born in Canapolis. Right. When did you first like unrealized or

have this interest in an automobile? Like what age are you like, you know, you had a go cart when you were young so I mean four tires and a steering wheel came early yeah why was that well the go-car didn't come as young as I'd like for it to my parents were uh they they were not I was like a black sheep I don't know how I happened I had one uncle in my whole family that was kind of a gearhead guy but throughout the rest of the whole family nobody was but I I loved getting my hands dirty getting my hands into something fixing stuff it didn't matter what it was and so I I don't remember what great it was, but pretty young. I was still going to Royal Oaks Elementary.

And I built a go-cart out of a bed frame and actually took the motor off my daddy's lawnmower and put on it and made it go. And, in fact, after I got it done, had another neighbor that scraped the track out in the field beside the house there. And your daddy actually came down and rode on that track with us a couple times. Really? Yep. Did he have this?

So Daddy had a go-cart that Ralph made. Is that the go-car that he brought down there? I'm sure it was. I don't think there was ever but one. Right. But, you know, it's like I tell people all the time. Dale lived in the neighborhood beside mine, but we weren't connected like neighborhoods today.

There was a path through the woods that horses ran on through there. And he would ride that go-car through there and come down and ride on our track, and then I would ride through the other way and go up and we'd ride the streets up in the neighborhood up there. But that was about the extent of our young friendship is what we did on his go-cars. We just knew each other. We just knew each other. And I knew what his family was doing. One year apart.

Yes, he was a year older than me. Yeah. I love telling that. And just to be clear, are you saying that y'all are kids or teenagers when you're doing this go-karting? Oh, no. We weren't even teenagers yet. Not teenagers. No.

No. So you knew Dale Sr. Early. Yeah. Early early early. Yeah. I knew him, and I did and I didn't. My first grade photo has Dale Senior in it and myself in it.

Your first grade? My first grade. Oh, my good. And when we went to Royal Oaks Elementary, there were two first grades, and he was repeating the first grade. Already he was struggling? Yeah, and he was in my, and when I started, he was in my first grade class. And we both rode bicycles and parked them in the same bicycle rack there,

but we never got to be buddies or nothing, you know. Why not? I think maybe he was a little more, a little bit of a loner, and I think I was too. You know, we kind of had our heads, fogg, I wanted to get home and do what I was doing, and I'm sure he probably did too. And our time at school was like, we've got to get this, This is what we've got to do today so we can go home and do what we want to do. And we never got to be, never got to be buddies during that time.

I got pictures of dad in school. A couple, you know, it's from the yearbook or the great book, and there's a picture of him. You can pick him out of the group of kids. Somebody standing in the corner of the classroom taking a picture all the kids at the desk. Yeah. And I got the school superintendent that retired, and he brought all of dad's school records over here. Oh, I can't imagine. Yeah.

He was an awful student. Now, there were some times when, like you could see, he applied himself. Yeah. But then he would be absent for dozens and dozens of days, you know, not going to school. And I don't know how, knowing Ralph is stern as he was, how he let him get away with it. And then he, you talk about him having to redo the first grade. He had to redo the fourth grade. I mean, he was 16 years old and eighth grade.

when he quit when he finally gave it up. Yeah. But 16 years old. Yeah, but I'm going to tell you, he wasn't by himself. There were others. We came from a mill town. And most everybody lived for the day they could get a job in the mill at 16 years old and by a car.

Yeah. And your dad, I think at the first grade, he knew what his destiny was. I mean, he was totally focused on that from day one. I'm sure if we'd have had a conversation in the first grade, he'd have said something about a race car. I know he would. Did you know the Uri's?

Oh, yeah. Even that age? No, no, not at that age. Okay. My first experience getting to know the Uri's was when Ralph raced. Ralph Uriest. I had a second cousin named Gary Galloway that raced, dirt, and I think at that time they both were semi-modified racers at the old Concord in

Metroline, and they raced against each other. And I would go to family reunion, and I always wanted to hang around Gary Galloway. He was older, but that's some guy I knowed stories, and I wanted to hear him, and he drove a 63 Ford that was bad, and I got, you know, I'm like, I got a little bit of his blood in me, and I knew it before I was a teenager. But I would hear stories about him and Ralph Urey back then. And, of course, I didn't know who Ralph Uri was, but I knew the name. And then as time went on, I figured it out, knew where they lived,

right by there and look at their shop, you know, and stuff. I always wanted to. What number was Galloway? Remember what his car looked like? Oh, no, no, it's way before my time. at going to any races. I don't remember his number, and I feel bad about that, but I don't. So you got married your senior year of school?

I did. What was school like for you? What were you like as a student? You turned out to be a teacher. You probably didn't know that was going to happen to you. No, I didn't know. So what kind of student were you? Well, probably my grades maybe made me look like a better student than I really was.

School was pretty easy, kind of, you know. I was on a college-bound path. For what? I wanted to be an engineer. Well, a little bit I knew about it. I really didn't know. I mean, you're confused, and I think it's the wrong thing to make a kid make a commitment to seventh grade what he wants to be. But I sure didn't know.

I tell people, until I retired, I didn't know what I wanted to do ever. But I just did what came. But I played football and I wrestled. I read about you playing football. Yeah, and those were big interest. You know, those were the guys I hung out with. You went to A.O. Brown. I went to A.O. Brown.

So you got married in your senior year of high school. I did. Was that common? Oh, you're young. It is. You know, and you can imagine the story behind all that. What happened that I did that because that wasn't a plan. But it was happening to quite a few of my good buddies.

And it changed our lives. I mean, our plan changes. All of a sudden, now I'm going to have a family. I got to support it somehow. luckily my parents helped me a lot without it it would have been really a struggle and it was still a struggle

but I went to work but I knew that and my father-in-law at the time knew if I didn't stay in school I didn't know what was you know without an education back then the thought was you're not going to be

successful. You got to get education. So me loving to work with my hands and doing things I got encouraged to go to Roe and Tech and I went up there and took their trades and the HVAC part of that program up there and then the electrical was what I kind of excelled in. And then just almost within six months from the time I graduated,

Rowan County decided to put in vocational education in their schools, which already had a little bit like brickland, but hardly, you know, no other real trades other than brickland. They decided they're going to increase their vocational program, and they needed some coaches at South Rowan high school. So I got offered that opportunity. And that's how I got started. I had to go back to school at night for three years to get a teacher certificate.

But that all worked out. That's how it happened. When would, what time did you run your first race? Boy, I'm telling you to dates when I was talking to Bobby the other day. I mean, it kind of all runs together and I struggled at. But so in about 1974 or five, I bought a house in Canaples. and my neighbors were race fans. And from the first conversation I ever had with them, we talked racing.

And I wasn't entirely tells you enough about racing to talk it, but I loved it, and I knew it. And especially I was already driving some kind of hot rod street car and street raced. That was my love. I heard that you would take your family car, your mom and dad's car, and go street race it. You would change things on it to make it go and then. come home and change it back. Yeah. So your parents didn't even know.

Never knew. My day was in his 80s for I finally told him one day. Stuff we did. You won like dozens of trophies in these little street races? Yeah, Morseville. What did you do with these trophies? They're still in the attic kind of box. How did you keep them from your parents?

I wouldn't take them home or I wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't be around. And so what did you do the car? Well, the biggest thing I did back then, you'd just tune it different with timing and the carburetor. I mean, it started out turning the air. air cleaner top upside down, you know, make it sound good. Yeah. Different exhaust.

My daddy bought this car when I was 16. When I turned 16, he had a 195 Chevrolet, a four-door car. We needed something. He wanted, I wanted something a little sportier, you know, and so we went looking and he buys this Chevy, too. And it was pretty spiffy, three-speed in the floor, 327. It was pretty stout like it was. And if you did everything right, didn't spend the tires too much, you could, you could,

you could win on the street with it, pretty much. but I had another friend that had another one. He was older. He worked over here at Cardaleo Carter and pointed like it's over there. Right. The shop there. Yeah, I think where I'm at. But he had one and he had a real low gear in the rear end.

And one weekend he wanted to go to the beach, him and his wife, and I'm like, at that time I was probably 17. And he had like a 513 gear in it. He knew I can't drive that to the beach. So we swapped her in-houseings, and he drove his car with a 308 in it, whatever, to the beach. And I had all weekend played with this car with this 513 gear, and I had a lot of fun. But on Monday mornings, the deal was my daddy, he would drive myself and one of my neighbors to school, let us out at the parking lot. And then at the end of the school day, I'd walk up town, get the car, and mess around until like 6 o'clock when I had to pick him up, we'd go home.

So that Monday morning, we get in the car, and Daddy takes off up the street, and it's like, like, and ran, round, he's in third gear. We're going 35 miles an hour, and it's screaming. And something bad wrong with this thing. And he said, what did you do? I said, I'm not really sure, but just don't worry about it. This afternoon, I get out of school. I'll fix it.

I'll check it out. Well, he didn't, and he drove back home to lunch and drove it back to town. I get out of school that day, and what had happened, the boy that had my rear end in his car, they didn't get home from the beach Sunday night in time for us to change it. He worked at Carter or Carter, so we had lifts. But anyway, as soon as I got out of school that day, I'll take off up there and within a couple hours, we had the rearinghouse and swapped back. That's one of the stories.

Yeah. But that was a... When you told your dad that you'd done all that. Well, he was in his 80s forever told him. Did he have any kind of reaction to him? Now, he just laughed. Now, he wasn't a laugh then. I bet he probably...

Oh, he'd have been mad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That car was under warranty and, you know, whatever they spent for it in was a lot of money. So, oh, yeah. When did you first start teaching?

Was it, like, right out of... No, it was great out of... No, it was graduating class in 1974. Okay. So I actually started in 73. Okay. And that's right around the same time you got interested in racing. Just as soon as I bought that house, and I don't remember exactly,

but I'm talking probably within, I don't know, weeks, maybe months. Yeah. I went to a race with them. And they had been going to races. Back then you could go four nights a week. Yeah. And they were doing it. Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

And after I went to that first one, I knew I wanted to do it. Well, he did too. He had been wanting to do it. So we started talking it up, and he built a little garage in his backyard, and started building an old race car. And so I'm like, you know, I'm over there. So if I'm at home, I don't care if it's midnight or whenever, I'm over there. And we're building this old race car. And I didn't even know what we were building.

I'm just welding and cutting and doing all the stuff and helping him. And we get through this car and we go to Metro Lina to race on Friday night. What kind of car is? It's a street stock car. It was a fair lane, old 66 Fair Lane. All right. So we go to Metroline and he runs the thing and I don't remember anything about results, but we get home and night to Saturday morning and we're talking about going to Hickory and he says,

God, that wore me out last night. He said, do you want to drive it tonight? I said, heck yeah, I'd never been to Hickory. So we go to Hickory and we race his first race and this is like the second race on this car. And heck, I don't know, you know, anything about it. Just go as fast as you can, go around a circle and try to pass everybody. Well, I was trying to do that off the fourth. turn on the outside of somebody and I let the right side climb the wall and I flipped it

and slid down the straightaway up the side down there at Hickory on the front straightway. It was good. Your first race. My first race. And I don't know why, but that just fired me up more than maybe we want to do it again because I'd actually passed a couple people and I felt like I can do this. And so we went back and we fixed it. And that lasted, I don't know, I'll probably race five or six times and then the year ended and then the next year was kind of, it took me a while. I went through a divorce. It took me a while to get to get another car together.

But I actually went back to Hickory. Still didn't know what I was doing, but I jumped in to semi-modified. They called it limit to late model or whatever back then, six owners. And there were some heavy hitters up there. There was a couple cars that really could, I'm sure you remember, you know, it always was that way. You had the guys that were top of the game, the legends, whatever. I couldn't run with them.

And I couldn't figure it out. And I couldn't make it turn. Same problem you have today. Can't make them turn. It's always the problem. So I went over and seen Dale, you did it. And that's the first time I'd ever ask really anybody a question. And I said, I keep hearing this word stagger mentioned.

And it's got something to do with making them turn. I said, I don't know what that is. And he reached over and grabbed a cup off the, I don't know if it's a workbench or a filing cabinet. I can't remember. And he throwed it on the floor and gave it a little span and hit the floor and it turned. He said, that's staggered right there. You got the little end. You got the big end.

It's going to always turn towards a little end. And I'm like, hmm, yeah, that makes sense. All right. So you got to put the little tires on the left side and the big tires on the right and it'll go left. It makes a big difference. Where was this meeting? Did you go to the shop up there on sedan? I walked in over there.

Just walked in? I just walked in. Yep, yep, yep. I had a couple occasions over the years. I walked in and ended up asking Dale a question later on about something. And then I went over there one Sunday. I needed some parts for a motor I blowed up in my street car. and walked in and Ralph was in there, and he just unloaded.

And people told me you don't go over there, and you don't go over there with any kind of stuff like what you're talking about, and ask Ralph Earnhard. Well, I was desperate. I needed some help. Wasn't sure how to fix it. I'd already been told he might have what I needed. I needed a piston and a set of rings.

And it's on a Sunday afternoon. And I walk in over there, and he stopped. He was as nice as he could be. I told him what I had. He had actually built the motor for the guy for the car before I got it. He knew exactly what I had. He opened up a cabinet. on the wall, pulls out exactly what I needed, and gave it to me.

And I fixed the motor with it. Were people just intimidated by him? Absolutely. So he was the opposite of what his rep was, I guess. I guess he was just, they were taking his racetrack persona and applying that, don't ever bother him at his own race shop. Like I guess, I guess my point is, is, you know, what, you were desperate, but you still had to rack up some nerve to go into Ralph Fernharts because no, that's just not what somebody

did. Oh, yeah. That's, that, you hit it. That's exactly right. Damn. But when I did it, he knew I was sincere, I guess. I wasn't there to shoot the bull with him or nothing. I had a problem if you can help me, help me.

And he did. Had you had any type of relationship with him in the past? He didn't know who you were. Now, he'd seen me with Dale a couple times because I'd been up there with, you know, messing the go carts and stuff and all. But I'd never, we'd never spoke. He was always nose of a grindstone. Yeah.

And later on, I can relate to that. I can relate to why I had the persona about him that they had. because he was so, and your day was exactly the same way. If you're not dead focused on what you're doing, you're not giving it everything you got, and that leads to success, and they both were the best at it. And they respected you because you were like-minded.

Maybe so. That's a great Ralph Fernhardt story. I like hearing Ralph Fernhardt stories, especially like that. When you started teaching, do you know exactly what your responsibilities are out of the gate? is electrical, automotive, what are you teaching? I was teaching electrical trades. And out of the gate, the program didn't exist.

And it didn't exist in any high schools. So I had to write the program. And I had taken a full year of electrical at Rointech, had great teachers up there. I did well in it and loved it. And actually had done some work for six months for a company, so I had a little bit of experience. The problem I had was, in six months or less,

I could teach you how to be an electrician. And if you were, if you had hands and a mine, you could go make money. And I had students that did that. Started hanging ceiling fans and replacing switches and stuff when they were juniors in high school and making money. And so then they got hungry. And then my job got easier because they wanted to learn. So I could just, you know, anything I said, they soaked it up because they were already doing it somewhat. And I actually had two students that were national champions.

and we had competition through the vocational club in our school, state, and national level. I had two students that were national champions in that. Sonny told me that about once a month, on a Friday, you'd bring in a stack full of hot rod magazines, and that was the day's curriculum. You know, what was funny about that, that you'd bring that up, I did. And I wanted to relate. You know, you got, in a vocational class, you got some people, is interested. They want to learn how to do something.

But then you got a lot of people in there that the school doesn't have anywhere else to put them. They're not interested in anything. They borderline dropping out. So you want to try to keep their interest. Well, I had something that anybody, everybody was interested in. About as soon as I started teaching school, I started racing. And I never had a kid that didn't want to hear about that. Yeah. So I would, on Fridays, it wouldn't only be magazines, we'd talk racing. We would talk, I built my first car trailer in the shop. I shared the shop with the ag teacher, great guy. He had a complete facility there to build anything. So I built my first race car trailer in that shop.

And that was probably a little bit before Sunny's time. It was long about that era. But we, and then in the end, in the very end, the last couple of years I taught with the principal we had, he realized, and they started promoting teachers to relate to the real world out there, what's going on. You know, you ain't got to teach that kid about something that happened in 1795 all the time if you're a history teacher. talk about stuff today, get their interest, whatever. Well, I had something that would definitely get their interest. So probably the last five years I taught, I used racing.

I would talk, you know, if I'd get distracted and we get on a racing story, I'm going to tell it to the end. And at the end of the day, they're all sitting there like this right here. You know, they want to hear that. And then I'd sneak in a little electrical knowledge. When did you quit teaching? I taught from graduating class of 74 through graduating class of 94, 20 years. Wow.

Why did you quit? Oh, our principal that we'd had all that time retired. He was a huge sport advocate. You're also a coach. Yes. Did you coach the entire 20 years? No, I coached 14 years of it. When racing started really getting strong, when I was riding in the football bus to a ball game on Friday night,

and I'm watching race car trailers pass me with cars on them that I was beating on Saturday night, they were going to get my pot of goal. And I started, I couldn't live with it. after a while. I could make more in one race so I could make all season coaching football. So I started thinking that. So at the end of 14 years,

I got out of coaching because I had to race on Friday night and Saturday night. But then our principal retired, got a new one. Discipline was really getting to be a problem in schools. How so? I was a pretty stern teacher at the time. If you acted right, he was my best buddy. But if you didn't, I don't like that.

You know, you're, well, I got to put up with you being whatever, you know, not acting right. And then you go home, your parents don't know nothing about it and this stuff. So our principal for the longest time, he had a backbone. Teachers until proven wrong were right. Students in the fault. We'll get to the bottom of it. We'll fix it, blah, blah, blah. New principal comes in, teachers, they weren't necessarily always right.

Maybe you handled it wrong. Maybe you said the wrong thing. This one doesn't mean you hate them. This one might mean you love them. And you're just trying to do the best you can for them to make them be the best they can. can be. But that went away. And you can't teach like that anymore. So not only myself, but a lot of quality teachers got out and because there's very little discipline anymore. Had you, was it a time in your life where you could retire from teaching?

Yes. At the end of 20 years, you can get partial retirement. So when that time came, there was a situation right during that. And I called my wife from school one day. I said, hey, we've been talking about it. This coming May, this is going to be it. That was like in April. Yeah. So, yeah. So when you retired from teaching, was that a difficult thing to fill the void?

I mean, sure, you missed some of the things about it pretty dearly. Yes. So that was, how challenging was that? It was challenging. A couple things. One is, especially the coaches, had become my best friends. You know, we were tight. We had a great athletic program at South Rang High School for years.

It had weakened, and then I had gotten out of coaching, so I wasn't as tight with them as I was. So I walked away from that. But the one thing about being a teacher and coach during those years was I got paid every month. And it wasn't a whole lot of money, but it paid the bills. So when I went racing, as long as the racing would pay for itself, I knew I was going to be able to make my house payment, car payment, whatever, you know, during that time I could get it done. So that was kind of like a cushion. even though I had 20 years in retirement wasn't a whole lot of money

I got to what am I going to do now and I'm thinking I'm going to racing full time well I'm too old I was too old to start with ever really get into NASCAR and be getting into that that league you know and have that kind of income make that kind of money do that I'm a guy that's in the I've been called the big fish in a little pond a lot my dabbling in the upper leagues of racing all of a sudden I'm no fish in the big pond and that ain't good because the opportunities I had we couldn't and there was no way we was going to win

if you could just ride around all day long or make the race that was huge and that wasn't me I couldn't take it so I had figured out a way to where if I could win my share at least running the front with a few little sponsors I could make a pretty good living and my wife

was on board you know it's 100% she was always a big part of it and we decided we're going to make this work so there was a time in your life where strictly racing was your profession. Absolutely. You made a living doing it.

Yep. Do you remember pick any year? Do you remember what your, what the cost of racing was for you? In a year. Can't truly answer that because there was no way to have a budget back then. If it had it scared you to death, you wouldn't ever done it if you had any kind of sense. So I wouldn't never have a budget. And I, you know, another weakness I had, one of the weaknesses I had in racing, I wasn't a sponsor a hunter.

if they didn't find me I didn't find them you know if they didn't somebody come along say hey I want to be a part of this oh I couldn't knock on the door I couldn't go brag to somebody that I'd won 75% of races last year you know I just couldn't do that luckily some did come along but I couldn't I couldn't set up a budget I just uh it wasn't never enough money I drove every race like like is my last race and for a long time it was jacks bragging I have this conversation a lot that if we didn't make enough money tonight, this Saturday night, next Saturday night is going to pay the price for what I didn't make this week. I might not can buy the two tires instead of four and stuff like that. And the whole time I raced on dirt, basically, that's the way it was.

Not that we were buying that many tires, but I had to make X amount this Saturday night to race next week. And I remember when my wife, when we met and she first started going to a racetrack with me, she wanted some responsibilities. and so one of the first ones I put on her was you wait in the pit pass line and then you go by the tire storm right to check I said but don't look in the ledger because if I don't do good tonight Monday's going to be rough and it was that way for a long time long time yeah you talk about racing dirt you ran at um metrolina which is a track that we've focused on or premiered on our lost speedways. And Ben, I'd went over to Metrolina a little bit over the years when it was in disrepair.

I did go see a race there probably around 94 or something, set in the grandstands. And I imagine I was probably there as a little boy. Yeah. And don't remember it. But talk about Metrolina. You know, what did that track mean to you? What did it mean to the community? And that's kind of where you got the bug bug.

I think. Absolutely. Watching your career looking and reading about you. That's kind of where you really settled in to like, I'm going to be doing this every week. Yeah. And it was. The friends, the few people I had involved with me around me that helped back in the day, a guy helped with engine work, a guy helped what it is, helped that.

They love Metroline. Metroline was a good time. Had a big infield. There's lots of partying going on. People had a lot of fun. and Metroline was kind of like a super speedway dirt track back then. Long straightaway. Long straightaways.

I remember the first time I raced on Metroline and I'd take off down the straightaway and you had time to think about what you're going to do when you get down to the end. Other little dirt tracks I'd been on, it just happens. You know, you just do it. But, Metrolina, you had time to think about it. And so we go to Metrolina,

first time I raced at Metroline, and we had built this car from the ground up, go over there, and win the race. And that's just like, huh, gas on a fire. If I didn't have the disease, I got it bad now. And so we go back to next Friday night, and this guy that was winning all the races, his name was David Taylor.

At 15 right there reminds me, that was his number. And he was a heck of a racer. And all of us racing like our pants is on fire. You know, like it's hard as you can go every lap. And I always race that way, and I think this is what taught it. But he won one heat race. I win the next one second time out, and I'm on the outside off the second turn. and old guardrails used to have the post sticking up about that high above the top of the metal guardrail.

Well, I got up on top of it. Made a big mess I had the car. And luckily I didn't get hurt, but it took a long time to go back. And so when I went back, I went back with even a better car. And back then better just met lighter. And it wasn't long we started winning again. And so. But Metroline to me was just, it just suited my driving style.

My driving style was more on the gas than off And you literally at Metralina could get to the end Straightaway set the car and put your foot back down And then you just drive it until you get going straight again Man when I got my car working just right doing that It was just so much fun You know, he wasn't going in a circle You had straightaways

Both ends were a little different It always was kind of wet I always loved wet tracks And they always kept it kind of wet and it was just fun You were racing there at the same time That my grandfather, Robert G. and Robert G. Jr. had Haywood driving the 17. Yeah, they did.

Camero. Yeah. Did y'all race in the same class? You were still running semi-modified? I was. Not in the beginning. But, yeah, I knew Haywood and got to know them real good. And they would buy at least a new right rear tire every week and sometimes, you know, two or three.

And semi-modified, if you could find the right people to get their used tires, you could re-grove them and have success. I want a lot of races on re-groof tires that I'd gotten from Robert G. Really? Yeah. And during the week, if I had a chance to get out, I'd go around and see what I could find. I'd look at their pile of tires and find them that were re-groovable, and I want a lot of races on them. Haywood, Robert G. Jr. told me a story about Haywood. They went over to Darlington or track over in Darlington near the drag strip or something.

Said it was really, really hot. And Haywood was out there practicing, got out of the car and was like, man, I am burning. it up and I'm gonna I'm gonna go cool off went up into the sweets or something and jumped in a shower and turned the cold water on and it messed him up really yeah did something to his veins or something uh and uh he wasn't that was that was I think that he had some kind of what kind of issue that created for him but I think it was with him the rest of his life heywood had a heart issues and we called them plumbing issues you know not normally person either has a pumps bad or the plumbing is bad.

And Haywood, I think, had both. And, you know, at the end, that's what, that's ultimately what killed him. Yeah. He lived a long time after he probably should have been dead. Yeah. But he was just tough and. Oh, God. Yeah.

So, like, Haywood would not put up with anything, right? Yeah. And they would be some disagreements that would spill out into the pits. Yeah. And I feel like that Metrolina, to me, was that kind of place. Like, if you didn't cause any problems, everything's going to be fine. But if there was a problem, it was going to get handled that night. Right then.

Yeah. And even times between an O'Dad and Robert G and Robert G. Jr. was going at it at times. Yeah. You know, they race with each other, but when they didn't, they was competitors. Right. Do you remember any moments where you or anyone else had an, you know, an interesting night at Metro Lina? Well, the night that I got in that wreck, the second race I was in, It should have happened that night, but it didn't for whatever reason.

I don't know back in those days, really, not really too much. Here's kind of what happened during that era. It was from early 70s to late 70s, really. Cars changed drastically. Now in the early days of Haywood Pliler, Carl Smop, Billy Scott, all those guys back then. The cars they had literally, and I remember Ralph Urey Sr. telling me this one time, he said you got to build these cars to where if you drive them head on in the wall you just put it in reverse and back up and keep going and those cars were built that way they weighed probably 3,500 4,000 pounds and they had bars all over them they were just tanks and then you still make them go as fast as they can go but they could survive a battle so when haywood and those guys would have their wars I mean there's there's stories about haywood many times getting spun out or on the last lap and he'll bring out the caution six or eight times between the white flag lap and the checkered flag and win the race knocking everybody out of the way up through there to get to the yeah they

just keep throwing yellow yeah restart them again yeah mine of fans is going crazy and can't wait they but they go to get and pay more money i mean they love it right when i started one of the first cars i ever drove on dirt after during the time i was trying to regroup after that wreck i drove a car that was like that and and and then a tank it was a tank and it was fun cars had changed and i saw it. And I've always kind of been the guy that I'm not stuck where I'm at. When I need to change, I'm going to make a change. And I learned over the years, if you're not willing to do that, you're not going to keep up. You've got to keep up with the flow. So my first car was light, and then they got lighter. You barely do much more than serious rubbing and have a chance to win the race.

Ultimately, I had to have a chance to win the race. So I probably definitely have the reputation not being the cleanest driver out there, but I didn't. wreck you, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to race you hard. You race me hard. Yeah. But these cars are too light and too expensive, even back then to tear them up. Yeah. When you would try to lighten up a car, what was, what areas were you focusing on? Well, in the beginning, you could lighten them up so much by just not having all the bars for front and rear bumpers. And then long about that time, there was no need for right side door bars anymore. We straightened out the right side frame rail with not much of thoughts to save.

all the bars got lighter, you know, to where they were hard to well together. And burning through them. Burning through them. And sheet metal turned into aluminum inside the cars. And seats weighed nothing. And then, of course, it went on down to suspension. And then you started looking at everything you could do on the motor to make it lighter. I tell a picture of a wedge car in there that the first one, my first super late model,

with 30 gallons of alcohol in it weighed 1,750 pounds. What? racing changed you had to have a whole lot of respect for the guy around you and keep it all together so you'd have a chance to win the race so i remember now when i look at that red cores number six at metralina that was all in the early 80s yeah right right you got bit by the dirt bug and you go to concord metroina a couple of dirt tracks up until 84 i guess and so what made you want to switch to asphalt from dirt. Okay, so much success. 83, 84, great years on dirt. 85, I went super late mall racing just because I'm kind of looking at it like

you're moving up. There was a time back in the early 80s and 70s and before that. If you won the lower division, if you won the championship, you had to move up. Hickory used to be that way. If you won the championship... They made you.

You couldn't come back to next year and run streetstock. You couldn't come back and run semi-modified. You had to move up. Well, in my mind, that's the way it ought to be. You know, you ought to have to go through that progression. You don't start out in Super Late when I was like they do today. Well, I had won about everything for a couple years there. So, of course, they were with me then.

How did you get the Coors deal? Local friend there in Landis, the guy named Patrick Jones, on the Sandy Ridge, which was a local convenience store, bierce. Oh, everybody knows Sandy Ridge. Oh, yeah. A horseshoe pitching was really big back then and all, and Patrick was a big race fan of racing in general and in mine. And he said, hey, I want Sandy Ridge on the side of that car.

So he built the first dirt car and it put Sandy Ridge on the side of it with the horseshoes one up, one down. Is that it? That's the first one. It was a Maverick. They're the horseshoes. Yeah. So built that car and that lasted a year or two. And Patrick stayed with me.

He would have kept Sandy Ridge on the car until the end. But a guy named Ted Proctor, on Piedmont Distributors in Salisbury, big buddy of Patrick's. He was down there at Sandy Ridge a lot. And into racing, you know, he was tied in with the Bill Elliott sponsorship with Coors and all back then. They were coming to our area, and he hooked me up.

He's like, we need to promote Coors' beer in this area. So I became the Coors' car after that. And so that started in 83, 4. So 85, we go super late mall racing. and that worked out good, 85, 86. At the end of 86, they paved Concord Speedway. And actually, the last six races went around our dirt cars on asphalt. How did that work?

Oh, it was just, oh, my God. Everybody that's ever drove a race car ought to get to do that. 700 horsepower, 2,400 pounds, 14-inch wide wheels is a blast. No sway bar. It was a blast. So, yeah. And it suited me fine. I mean, I just fell in love with it.

But then at the end of that year, they're like, well, people want to see real asphalt cars. Well, up north, the Midwest, and all that already gone to the kind of cars we ended up running. And so that's where the rules went. Well, I'm like, I haven't got any of that. And I got a really good dirt car. I'm not even going to run Concord. I'm going to travel around. So I started, Fayetteville became one of my home tracks, Lancaster, Myrtle Beach, Gaffney.

Merle Beach? Yeah. Mertle Beach was dirt. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, good times down there. there and ended up with a chassis builder from down in that area that all ended up being good. In fact, that one picture, y'all got on, if somebody's got on Facebook, that was my first car there that I'd had from that builder down there.

But anyway, I raced dirt all year. And we're doing fine, except for the phone call I get late in the year that I'm going to lose my core sponsor if I don't come back around Concord because it's kind of a local co-op to deal. And, of course, that can't happen. Right. So last race of the year at Concord, Tony Furr had a car that he had different drivers in throughout the year, and he calls me up and says, hey, says, I've got a race left down here, wanted to go, and he said, let's see him to get together and you drive my car. I'm like, yeah, it sounds good to me. So I went down there, and we raced it, and it was 200-lap race, and most everybody makes pit stop by halfway.

That's kind of the way it worked. We knew we weren't going to make no pit stop because Tony didn't have a pit career. so everybody makes that pit stop and we take off racing again and with about i don't know a few laps to go jack sprag passes me in wins the race and i finished second but now i'm hooked on asphalt back on back on asphalt yeah so after after that just whatever i could do to have what i needed to race i did it a lot of these pictures have cords on it okay so uh in 87 88 i drove for tony for all year long. And Coors changed

to Coors Light. When Coors Light came to North Carolina, now we're going to promote Coors Light. Right, and I see that here. That's it. That was that car, that was that year.

I became the Silver Bullock car. And that lasted probably maybe two years. When you, well, you won the championship at Concord the first year with Tony.

And then Tony goes and works for Jack Pennington in the Cup series. Right. So Tony ends up becoming a crew chief in the Cup Series eventually. And you bought

the program. I did. And so now it's your program. Who's helping you? Okay. Another great story. A couple pictures here of him. Actually, it was an Earnhardt that helped me.

A guy named David Earnhardt. You ever heard of name David Earnhardt? Y'all like second cousins or they said, there's a relationship there. He was a neighbor, and he had helped the Uri's race on dirt some. It really wouldn't worry. He's a drag racer and an excellent mechanic, one of the best ever. He lived down the street from him. and I'm making the transition from dirt to asphalt,

and he stops in one day, and it wasn't like we saw each other every day. You know, we'd see each other occasionally, but he stops in after work, and he says, I hear you going to asphalt racing. I said, yeah, I bought this stuff, and I'm going to, that's what I'm going to do next year out of here. He said, well, I never did care a whole lot about that dirt.

He said, but I get excited about this asphalt racing. He said, I'd like to help you. I said, I'd love to have you help. And therefore, about seven or eight years, we were hooked. I mean, David, David was a huge part of my success. not only at Concord, but after we started traveling around too, he'd go. And, I mean, he was just instrumental in a lot of stuff I did. By being the person he was and the mechanic he was.

It was a tire change or two. And, of course, Alex, my son was a part of that all that time from dirt through the asphalt now. So pretty much my crew for the longest time was David and Alex and my wife Elaine and myself. That was us. You won the track championship at Concord in 88,991.92. So in 991.92, I'm assuming you're doing it yourself then. Yes. I started racing there in 91 or 92 with the street stock.

Yep. You were the man. I mean, you were me. And you won 31 races. Your main competition was Jack. You and Jack would go on on the race in Xfinity Series, truck series, well-known name, but you and him are still friends today. Absolutely.

But y'all started out sort of, you know, of course nobody starts out friends when they're racing against each other, but you would eventually have a race where you you know, you would race each other enough to gain enough respect. Right. Run clean. Yeah. Usually when you race somebody at Concord that much, it's a feud. It's not clean.

It's mean and angry. Yeah. And you had that with Faggart, right? Robbie. Yeah, we had a feud. Was it Robbie? Yes. And so Robbie still races a Legends car over at Charlotte.

Right. Do you still fool around with something? Oh, go cards. You and Sprag. Sprag. Yeah. So where do you run your go cards? We have a local track.

A guy named Tony Wilson, Jr. His daddy about 10, 12 years ago, was working for me in my shop when I was building a lot of cars. And his family owned some property close to me. And we just started talking one day. We need to get a bunch of go cards and go play. And so we scraped up a track down there and started playing. And then the stuff would sit for a year and we'd play and just different things going on in lives. And then his son comes along, Tony Jr., and his business is a business.

success he's got a little money and he buys all that property from the family and built a state of art go car track down there yep so it's uh it's right off unity church road over in inynecville okay uh actually it's where the unity church softball field used to be um back's and alan knight it works for you here it's in his backyard okay he's all he's all part of that family uh yeah and uh when we race we have we have a ball and it's a is it like you know is it open to it's official Yes. Yeah. It's just...

What kind of class is your cart? Well, we kind of have unique motor rules because policing motor rules, as you know, is a problem. So we wanted to keep it in the beginning to where you really don't have to have a tech guy. Our rules pretty much are visual and weight, and that's where I can fit in because I'm heavy. I always have been, and if there wasn't weight rules, I couldn't compete. So you still drive? I do. Sprag does too.

Yep. Oh, wow. Now, we're in different weight classes. Are you? So unless we're out there playing, we don't really have to race against each other. But I build his motors. You build his motors. I build his motors.

And that's my interest. I mean, that was my interest in racing to start with his building motors. Put something together. Yes, put something together. So you and him had a side-by-side battle 100 laps, swapping lanes one night during that little stretch of track championships in the early 90s. Yep. And from that moment, y'all had a friendship.

So I find that surprising, all right, because I've watched you race, and you'll race somebody in circles without ever really touching them. You don't mind leaning on people, but you give what you get. Sprags, I mean, I know watching him, he would put the bumper to guys, and he did do some things that were questionable and had a bit of a, you know, had a bit of a reputation, I guess, even as he got into the truck series, how did you and him develop such a relationship to where y'all could run so hard where you he never did anything to you that warranted getting his butt-whooped maybe that's why i don't know but uh jack and i both knew he worked at hamkees and we built in race cars building race cars he was he was hamke's guy over there and i didn't race hamkey cars to start with but because it was in my backyard and jack had so much success with him i had hal cars uh and Robert was such a great guy.

He didn't help anybody, including me when I was racing against them. I ended up running hamkey cars forever. So Jack built my frames in the beginning. But we both knew immediately that we're racing for the same pot of goal, but we both depend on part of it to be able to survive. We had to eat. And he did and I did. And we both raced a big part on what we won, still yet then.

And I don't know why. I probably caused more problems with Jack than he ever caused with me. from racing hard. He was better than me. He was an asphalt racer. I had to learn not to be a dirt racer on asphalt. And he was a big part of me learning that game. I couldn't drive off to right front.

I had to drive off the right rear. And I struggled off, I struggled at start with. But through him and just laps, I'm like, you know, I had to learn a different style. Yeah. And racing him so hard and he was such so good

and such tough competition that I had to learn. I mean, that was always my philosophy. I'm going to learn how to do this. And so I did learn how to take care of my stuff. And like you said, he was aggressive. I was aggressive. We both didn't care about anything but the checker flag.

And we had lots of nights that we'd race close. He probably over the years beat me more than I beat him. But that particular night, I had built 92, I think, I had built a Ford. And I'd always, on asphalt, been a Chevrolet guy. I'd been a Ford guy on dirt. Because you'd build a Ford cheaper than dirt, cheaper on dirt and the kid of a Chevrolet at the time.

I go asphalt racing, Chevroletes, because fours are more expensive, but I had a little deal and built a Ford, and it was a bad car. I still got it. I actually bought it back,

and it sits on the four-post lift and part of my shop, and I don't know what I'm ever going to do with it, but it's there. But Jack and I had a lot of close races, and this Ford, it was a bad animal. And this particular night,

we were both on the game, spot on. And we ended up, we actually went through the dog leg together side by side a hundred times. And it was the second hundred laps of the race, and I can go ahead and say I won the race. But I just happened to be in front of him at the checkered flag

because the lap before he might have been in front of me. It was just one of them kind of races. But after that, I mean, I think we hugged each other, and the fans went crazy. I mean, they were like, let's do it again, you know. And so it's just one of those nights. So you never would have, I'm hung up on this word feuding because you never would have constituted your relationship.

with Jack Sprague is having a feud. You had a rivalry but not a feud. Is that correct? Absolutely. So what was the deal with this Robbie Faggart? And then ultimately, what constitutes a feud? I mean, is there literally fighting going on or is it just wrecking each other? What's that all about? Well, that had kind of come from local peer pressure, a lot of it, I think. What do you mean, well, Robbie was a good race car driver and he'd go fast. You know, he was a fast race car driver. and he was driving for Robert Hamkey at the time. And I was winning my share of the races. And so it had kind of started, oh, maybe if I can hit you in the right front before the race starts,

and most you toe up, you're not going to have as good a car. Wow. Just stuff, you know, going on like that. That's 30. Yeah. And then under caution, come up and rub you, maybe tear your door half off or something. Why? Keep you from winning the race. That's crazy.

Were you doing that to him? No, he's doing it to me. Got it. And then I kind of heard through the grapevine that he was led to do that. Maybe that wasn't totally coming out of his head that some people around him were persuading him to do it. So they'd have a chance to win a race. Of course, he had self-pressure on himself to win a race, and he had a lot of pressure around him to win a race. It just came to a head one night.

What happened? We don't have to go here, do we? That's what it shows about. So anyway, I just finally had enough one night. told him, I said, I'm not going to tear up my race car to retaliate against what you're doing. I said, I'm going to tear your head up if you don't stop. And so we ended up at just timing, you know, is everything. It worked out that night that we ended up in the bathroom at Shoney's at the same time.

We settled it. He never hit me again. In the bathroom at Shoney's. Yeah. My wife said, don't you let that story come up, but it did. Oh, come on. Matthew Dillard told us that. But to finish the story,

Robbie and I were somewhat friends, you know. And that year, when Christmas rolled around, he calls me up and invites me to his Christmas party. And I'm like, after the show of your bathroom is. Yes, yes. I mean, we went to court and everything. I had your probation not to hit him in the head anymore. What?

Yeah. So. He sued you? He took me to court. However, he went and took a warrant out for me. So I don't know if you call it, whatever you call it, assault. And the judge, that's what he did.

He just said, you know, I know what goes on at that racetrack. And we can't stop it. He said, but you can't be doing what you were doing either in public. I said, well, I didn't intend on it happening in public, but I can't put up with what he's doing anymore either. I race for a living. A door calls $50. You know, he's costing me money.

So when that had, so when that was over, next morning I come home from church and there's a police carm driveway, and we ended up in court. But a couple months go by, fast forward. I get a phone call and it's Robbie. He says, hey, he said, I'm having a Christmas party down. here at my new house so won't you and your wife come i'm like says a joke he said no i'm serious and so we went and we've been really good friends ever since that's good yeah that's good yeah the big 10 series at concord what is the big 10 series so he was henry first dream back then to have

ten races a year that paid more money extended laps than anybody else anywhere and uh and he started it on dirt and he had it for six cylinders and super laymalls and then it carried on over to asphalt You know, I was, like, in the beginning they'd pay, I think there was some, paid 20,000, but they'd always back in the day pay 10, 12,000, 200 laps, you'd buy two sets of tires. So I started realizing the points championship now, it didn't really paying that much. I've won it several times. I'm going to start traveling around. So we did.

Started going places and winning. I mean, I remember one of the first places we ventured out to was a Lanier down across from Road, America. and I go there and don't make the race. Damn. A little third mile flat track. I don't make the race. So after the race is over with that night, this guy Mike Love comes up to me,

and he was the track champion down there. And he says, you're struggling, ain't you? I said, yeah, I'm struggling. I don't really know what, why, what's going on. He said, well, I know what's going on. He said, you're spanning the tires all the way around the track. I'm like, dude, I'm doing everything I can do. I said, it's just so slick out there.

He said, yeah, I know it. He said, I'll tell you what. He said, I can't make a big ten at Concord. He said, I've been up there several times, and I can't get around there. I can't make it. And he said, I'll help you here if you'll help me up there. I said, deal. He said, well, what you got to do here is take enough gear out of your car that you can't

spend the tires. I've never done that. He said, really? I said, really. He said, yeah. And he gave me a ballpark where to go to. Well, I went back next time, one. I mean, it fixed my problem.

Wow. In 1991, you got convinced. to try the NASCAR Sportsman Series? I did. I did. How many times? Three times. Three times.

So the NASCAR Sportsman Series, they were old cup cars that old Monte Carlo's and forwards and so forth, mostly Monte Carlo's, with a two-barrele, what are two-barrel carburetor? Like a basically late-mall-stock motor. Yep. Really low power. Yeah.

Wide open almost or pretty much wide open around a racetrack. We drafted. Drafted. Yeah. So at Charlotte. That's right. Humphie. company put this together. That's right. That's your first ever real experience on the big track.

It was. What was that like? Awesome. Awesome. I loved it. I mean, we were, pole would be right around 160 miles an hour, 157, 160, right around in there. And then I can't remember what race speeds were, but drafting was huge. I mean, just everything you'd heard and seen about drafting, you could do it over there and do it in that division. And it started out really good. I mean, we didn't have the budget to go race. They raced at Pocono, a couple other places. And we didn't go do that. We just did, did Charlotte. But for the three races, I did it, I mean, it was a lot of fun.

How'd you do? I didn't win, but I was top five. I finished third one time. Yeah. Do you remember who you were racing against? Dennis Sessor. Is that right? Yeah.

Oh, good gosh. Oh, they had a forward motor, and they were forward people, and he was hard to beat. But I had bought the car from Robert Huffman. He had ran it in the beginning and had won some. I raced against Robbie Faggart. They were good. He won in that division. Robert's son, Landon,'s going to run a limited car over at North Wiltsboro next week with,

I got this high rock vodka that I'm part of. Yeah. Got some equity in, and he's going to run a high rock vodka limited late model. Oh, good. I hang out and talk to him a little bit here and there. Right. Yeah, that was just a lot of fun, and it didn't go anywhere. No.

But at that time, you kind of thought it was because it would be on Wednesday after Cup qualifying. In front of the whole industry. Oh, yes. Wow. Yeah. So you'd get, you know, you'd have a little bit of attention. Yeah. And I remember Neil Bonnet was the commentator over there, one of the races.

And actually, I was racing sets or second or third. And I came off fourth turn, and I passed him in the grass. I mean, I did it for Dale did it. So I got buying. And I remember listening to it on TV and Neil Bonnet went crazy, you know. And I think some others tried it and it didn't work out for him, but it's just a lot of fun. That actually reminds me to ask about. If you're saying that these sportsmen races would sort of piggyback with Cup series stuff,

are you still having a relationship? How often are you talking to Dale at this point? Like Dale Earnhardt at all? Hardly ever. Hardly ever. If he would be at a track that they were at or something, I remember one night I jumped in a truck with him and Teresa at Concord, and we sat there for hours and talked, but our paths aren't crossing.

But that's pretty special. I mean, having a two-hour conversation with him. Yeah. You know, a couple of Canapas boys. Yeah, catching up. Yeah. We had mutual friends. I'm sure.

In his neighborhood, some of the guys that helped him a lot, Clifford Cook, and some other guys over there in that neighborhood, we were mutual friends. So even though our paths didn't cross, our friends did, and we had stuff to talk about. Yeah. In 92, you went to the snowball derby? Yep. You would go on to be the all-time lap leader for non-winners at the derby. That's a heck of a record, I mean.

Had a good time there. Yeah, we did. Yeah. You convoyed with Kenny Schrader. We did. At Hamkey. Yep. What was that like to hang out with Kenny?

It's a blast. It's a blast. I've done it. I hardly survived it. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I understand. But the thing that stands out about that at weekend, back then, tire soaking was everything. Pentecost was war out.

And between Pensacola and New Smyrna, everybody at race there were master tire soakers. I mean, they had to prep. They knew the sign. So we go to Pensacola. Well, we unload, and Schrader and I, we're like, we're terrible. We're not terrible driving, but on the stopwatch, we're terrible. So we figured out we got to do our tires. Well, I had come from the world that if you soak tires, you're cheating.

And you get caught, you don't get any money, and you're blackballed and all this stuff. So Schrader, we're standing around talking. He turns to my wife of Lane. He says, Lane, I need you to run to a grocery store for me. And she thought probably gets some beer or something. he said, I need about five rolls of saran wrap. And she said, Saran Wrap, what's you going to do with saran wrap? He said, we got to soak his tires and I'm going to wrap them with saran wrap.

Well, she started crying. And he says, what's the matter? He said, well, if y'all soak those tires and you get caught, you're already a cup star. And, you know, we can't afford to lose what money we're going to make down here. We're going to get kicked out. We're going to be blackballed. And he said, oh, no, it's illegal here. And you start looking around and everybody's soaking right there on pit road.

and so that was funny I don't remember anything about how we ran but it was a good time Why would you soak your tires on a war out track like that? That's a very good question and my answer is and I got told this back in the day so if your tires are hard

they're never going to grip and you've got an abrasive surface so if they don't grip you're sliding across it all the time you wear them out fast but if you soak them and get them softer now they get grip you're not sliding as much and they last twice as long but now if you go out there

excuse me, you go out there and you're sliding around on those soaked tires, they're not going to last any time. Yeah. Like you used to literally soak your tires to qualify to an infinite level there. And you couldn't even make the second laugh. You'd be on the cords. Literally, yeah. Holy smoke.

Yeah. So right around this time, you get involved with terminal trucking. They were also helping Rich Bickle, who a lot of people remember that name. and me and Kelly and Carrie are racing our street stock. Do you remember seeing us over to Concourse Bway racing? I do. And I remember Kelly more than y'all because she'd talk to me and she would borrow my earplugs.

She would forget her earplugs and she'd borrow mine. And I had to be at her car when she got through because we'd race next. But I remember that for sure. I think it happened a couple times, but I know it happened one time. She had the unfortunate situation of using the car that Carrie and I had raced the year before, and it was barely. The front clip was about to fall off of it because it had been pulled straight so many times. But I can tell you what, she got the most out of it.

Yeah, she literally, you didn't know it was a girl in that car. You thought it's not some hot shoe because she literally got the most out of it. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. So you go and eventually you end up running the All-Pro Series and won the championship. Yeah. 1998. So what happens in your mind where you go from,

when you're racing at Concord every week, you've got a program, you've got an approach, you've got a plan, and that's the plan. Yep. Right? When does the plan change,

and you go on to run a national series? All pro series back then was massive. It was. It's a big deal. It was. You, when did, what happened, what came along that triggered the opportunity to go run the all pro series much less go there and be competitive and win the championship

um terminal trucking and a guy named bill booger who was instrumental in putting together the terminal trucking program uh about everybody around here that had come through you know come through concord and had moved on they had driven for terminal trucking air waltrut uh jack sprag mack pickle pickle uh Dave madeer I mean there's quite a few so they came to me and said hey I'd already traveled in a little bit myself, couldn't afford to do a whole lot. It came to me and say, hey, we want to travel all the time. Gene had his own airplane, the owner of terminal truck, and he wanted to take his people and wherever we could get to, go race against the best of the best.

And I'm like, well, I'm all about that, but I can't afford it. So he made me a deal I couldn't turn down. And literally, we built and kept the cars at my shop. My son worked for me full time and probably another one or two over that time. and we started chasing it. I mean, we went, I remember, I think, first all-pro race that went to with South Boston, and I had it won till right at the end,

and we turned around and went somewhere else and won, went to Lanier in one, and it was, you know, we were running as good everywhere we went as it was a Concord. What was the difference? Two cars. In the beginning, none. It was the same car, just like what we ran at Concord. Motor rules may be a little stricter.

My forward motor wasn't legal to run. run all pro. But everything else was. Now the motors, the terminal trucking on, they were automo special Chevrolet motors and they fit right in the roll package. That changed, but that's what it was in the beginning. You won the Myrtle Beach

400 over Jeff Purvis in 95. What's the big story there? Well, I'd raced at Myrtle Beach off and on some, on dirt and asphalt. Had limited success. There's a very unique racetrack as you know. struggle with low grip tracks for a while. So we go down there and test a whole day the week before, and I struggle.

And I'm struggling with the same thing. Over there in the middle of one and two, and I couldn't get across the bottom of, you know, he had to run across pit road coming off too. I couldn't get there. And so at the end of the day, the old guy had been out there using a weed eater all day long. He comes over at Tuming, and it was old, what was his name on the track then? Rough-looking character. I know you're talking about.

I can't think of his name. Golly. Yeah. Anyway, he comes over. That's him. He owns the track. He's out there wheat eating all day. It's 95 degrees.

Yeah. He comes over there and he says, Corey, I like you. I said, well, I appreciate it. So I'll like your racetrack. But I wish I could just figure out what I'm dealing with over there. He said, I'm going to tell you. So I'm going to tell you what you're doing with. And he told me what I needed to do.

But I had to make my car be able to do it. And so we leave. And we get about halfway home. And that guy Bill Bougar us talking about. He was with us. is he and I, Alex, my son. We get by halfway home and something goes off of my head. I'm like, I know what to do to fix that.

I told them, I said, we're going back. So we went back and we tested half a day the next day, and I mean, as soon as I hit the track, I had it as it. What was the deal? I needed more camber right there, but if I ran more camber, I was going to eat the inside of the right front of tire up. I needed a shorter right front upper A-frame.

Okay. And at that time, we weren't changing A-frame like it started about that time. You know, it was a common thing. You'd have a truckload of A-frames, but I had one, and I put it on, and it fixed it. So I didn't have to have so much static camber, but I had a whole lot more right there. And we go back to the race, while I was fast off the trailer, and if I didn't screw up, I'm going to win this race. It ended up between Purvis and I, and it was almost, you know, the whole race, I got to get there and not tear up, except there was a point late in the race, and my wife was my spotter,

and she was a big part of our race, and I depended on her big time. And she's up at the top of the grandstand spotting and then drops her radio. So for about off the grandstands. Off the top of the grandstands and the place is packed. And the spotters didn't really, they didn't really cut her any favors either, you know, because we were winning our share and they'd they'd root and gouge on her when I'd root and gouged and stuff, you know. So she drops her radio. And so for about 50, 75 laps, I didn't have a spotter.

And it was one of the tough times of the race. and anyway somebody helped her got it back up there she finally gets it back and comes back on and for the end you know the last part of the race i got her back but that was a challenging time but we pulled it off at a racetrack that i had struggled at and it was one of the biggest paying races i ever won yeah so it was just a good time was that so there was a you remember us running in each other in an elevator i wondered if you remembered that was that was that the same race weekend that was so i don't remember the elevator but i remember a different interaction that might have happened.

What was that? We were both heading to our rooms. We had been out that night. Where'd y'all been? I don't remember where we'd been. I don't know where he'd been. What were y'all doing? There was a lounge in the hotel.

That's what got me. Yeah. That's what got you? Yeah. Okay. Well. I was in trouble. Yeah.

And you were. But you also didn't have the confidence you needed at Myrtle Beach, and you told me that. Yeah. And so we had a conversation about that. And I can't remember how you did the next day. seemed like it did pretty good best I can remember but yeah that was that weekend tell them your memory of it oh my god

what do you remember so so yeah it was the day before the race yeah race was at night Saturday night so your race was night like it was a three day deal y'all raced on Saturday night we we raced on after during the day so this is Friday night yeah we get into the hotel after practice on Friday and they had a lounge over there, and I'm 21.

Like, it's 1995. I'm just now legal drinking age. So I go, we go up to the room and took a shower, and then we come back down, and there's me and a couple of my volunteer buddies that's helping me on the car. Hargett was with me back then, Gary Hargit. So me and the guys that volunteer boys go down and set at a table in the lounge. The lounge was nice. It was.

And so we're sitting at a table in there, and I get a jack-and-co. and I had about three or four jackingokes right there in a short period of time and by the time I realized that I needed to leave everybody was coming in everybody from the track and so I got up was walking out and I think I ran into you you did and I saw somebody standing in front of you and I think it was your daughter that is my wife your wife yeah really yeah are you sure positive I mean it's a long time ago I can't yeah but I started talking to tour. Yeah. And I said, hey, who are you? And you would come over his shoulder and you said, and it was you. And I was like, oh, shit. I was like, I think it's time for me to leave.

Yeah. Well, we helped you get on the elevator. And that's when we had our conversation about racing a little bit. Yeah. And then we went our ways. Yeah. Well, that took you to the show and his bathroom. About, yeah.

Daughter, wife, either one. He had that, he had that deer in the headlight. Look, I'll tell you did. Dude. That was the Jack and Coke probably. Yeah. Gosh. It's good.

I went to bed. So the race, we get there the next day. This part, you don't know. We get up the next morning. This is a life lesson learned that day. We get up. We go to the racetrack. I'm sitting there 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock.

I ain't feeling good. I mean, I'm feeling drunk still. Yeah. And I'm laying there and I'm telling Gary, I'm like, Gary, I can't race. I mean, if this race was happening right now, I ain't no damn way I could get in that car. Yeah. But luckily, it all kind of, you know, it wore away, and by time the race starts, I was fine.

So we get in the race, and we're running along there. And I think that Dickie Boswell, I was trying to pass Dickie Boswell. And so I was trying to pass him. He kept cutting me off. And kept coming. Finally, I just left it in there. Yeah. And spun him out.

And they had a big old wreck on the back straightaway. And Andy Brown, who's from South Carolina, his car, he was a car owner, the guy, flipped over. and so it's a big damn wreck yeah and so they red flagged it and I'm sitting over in turn one and two and I'm dying yeah oh yeah oh yeah it's hot too yes it's miserable yeah and so I'm begging somebody on my crew to run some water out there and here comes one of the boys carrying two red dixie cups spilling half of it coming over the guardrail coming over to the car with two dixie cups Half full of water. Yeah.

And ain't nobody else ringing. Nobody else in water. And I'm sitting there dying of thirst. I mean, I'm going to burn up alive in this car, and I just caused about a damn 12 car. A truck car racing. Yeah.

On the back straight away. Yeah. And so we got done with the race, and we ended up, I didn't pass, I started 10th, and I never passed one car and finished 8th. A couple guys in front fell out.

Right. I lost a spot or two. I remember Elliot Sadler racing with him a little bit, but never passed, never didn't we ran okay but uh i remember that was like the moment so like for the rest of my life right like i did not drink a drop of alcohol like from wednesday on oh yeah there was not a damn no way right you's going to catch me out on friday or saturday night messing around town uh doing doing something i shouldn't be doing right i understand i mean my my thoughts on all that were uh myself was

I didn't know how much talent I had ever So I needed everything I could get when they throwed the green flag So I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't mess up at all Within 24 hours at least of a race Because I wanted to be as good as I could be During that time Yeah The first All-American 400 we won at Nashville

We sat on the pole And that was you know we that was in 97 we were Venturing out bigger and bigger And so we go there and sit on the pole Well after that's over with it from the time I got out of the car till sometime, it is a party. And we go downtown Nashville, and it's a big time. And the next day at Nashville, you got 16 tires for the race, 400 laps,

and you got to scuff them. If you try to go on a track on stickers, they're going to blistering like now. So you've got to scuff them. So the next day, I had to scuff 16, well, I had them before I'd qualified on, so I got 12, I got a scuff. And I don't think I ever got over 55 miles an hour scuffing those tires. No kidding. Yeah.

Yeah. Then we won the race. And the race ended up beating between me and Hank Parker right at the end. And I was doing Hank Parker's deal then, too. He had exactly the same everything I had. And he about beat me. But we were racing for the lead, and he gets into it with a lap car, and I won the race. No kidding.

Yeah, it was great. You won the All America 400 at Nashville back to back in 97 and 98. What's the biggest win of your career? The biggest win? Money-wise or that I remember? Your favorite? One that mattered the most. Either one of those two.

97 was fabulous we hadn't ran all pro all year long build a new car at the end of the year just because we don't have one and they'd change to perimeter cars and whatever so we go there in 97 and and we we had a fast car Alex my son was was just you know he'd really turned into a really good crew chief on those kind of cars and and we we had good piece so yeah so we win that race and but the next year we go back in 98 and we're racing for the points championship and I had the points lead but it was tight I mean we we we had a lot of good competition it's 10 cars I could have won it so we go there and I'm leading to points and it's a good thing because the guy that goes out in front of me to qualify he blows up and he oils down third turn through the middle all four down the front of straightway and they go out there and they

kind of halfway clean it up and now I got to go out and qualify on speedy dry I didn't make the race well I had I was leading the points so I got the provisional so I started 33rd or whatever And my goal was, I told my wife, so I'm going to lead to a hundredth lap. So I'm messing around. If I don't lead to 100th lap, then I'll be sitting in the pits. I led to 100th lap and won the race. So that might be one of the biggest.

The other one might be is they had an All-Prares race a year in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, that track up there. Do you ever race on that? So you know, that's a big place. Yeah, like a road course with all left-hand turns. And so we go there in 98 and run an all-pray race, and I won that. And that was a weird track It was

And it had a little dog leg But it wasn't like Concord's dog leg It was It was. And that was a big win That was a lot of fun So Yeah

I got a lot I mean dirt, I got I had some pretty good dirt wins That were big too But those probably stand out right there Hank Jr. One of me asked you about

When y'all When y'all When you almost broke your neck At Charlotte In a sportsman car No it was in a cup car Cup car Yeah

What happened? So terminal trucking They were you know I'd had quite a bit of success. Bickle had his, and both those had terminal trucking on our cars, and so they bought a cup car. And I don't know the history of where it came from or whatever and all, but Bickle's crowd, they raced, the team of his guys,

the four or five full-time employees, they worked out of Terminal Truck and building in Concord. I was at my house. They buy a cup car, and they go to make the October race at Charlotte. I don't remember if Bickle made the race or not. But now it's my turn. I'm going to get to try to make the $600. So we go over there to test.

And I don't remember. We just like the week before or something. We go over to test. It's an open test, so about everybody was there. And, you know, I thought, not knowing, not knowing, I thought we were really good. Yeah. And we might have been. But I ran off the bottom of the track down in one.

Hit the apron? Yeah. I hit the apron. And back then you couldn't do it. Uh-uh. And I hit the apron, and it turned me around, and I hit driver's side on outside wall. I did the same exact thing. That's horrible.

So in 96, I think I'd ran the Myrtle Beach race for dad in the bush car, my very first one. They took me to over to Charlotte. Yeah. And Jeff Green gets in the car, goes out there and tests, ran four or five laps. He comes in. It's good. I get in there. And I'd been around the track in Andy Hillenberg School cars.

One of them was a sports car. So I'm sitting there running that sports car wide open. Yeah. I can't believe. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, but anyways, I go over there and like the fourth lap, I hit the left front on the apron and that bit. Yeah. It was like a little boom.

Yep. And boy, it was over. Right now. Yeah. So I hit the wall and, uh, I, I, I, I remember my head being out here looking back at my body thinking this is the big one. Ha ha. I get to, I get to ride the helicopter. It's only time.

Thank goodness. And I go to Concord. And they check me out and said, well, yeah, what, what's happened is you're, you stretch, when you vertebrae and your neck stretched out when it came back together, it chipped the corners all. a bunch of stuff. You've got little pieces of bone floating around in there. So what you've got to do is you've got to wear a neck brace for a while. Let all that stuff find out where it wants to be. It ain't really nothing they can do.

And you wear this neck brace, don't move your head and all for, I don't know, six weeks or something. And I'll put that brace on. I go home well, that was on like a Wednesday. Might even been Thursday. Well, that Saturday night was an all-prere race at South Boston. And this was early. And, you know, we weren't around for points or nothing. It's a big deal.

We're going to South Boston. So I'm like, I can drive with this neck brace on. It ain't no big deal. So we go to South Boston. And all the NASCAR officials there, they knew I had this brace on, but I was able to get through qualifying, and they never said anything and blah, blah, blah. So we do all that and start the race.

And I won the race. But about halfway through the race, I took the neck brace off because I couldn't. stand it. It was driving me crazy. So I just took it off, threw it over there, and I won the race. And so I go to tech after the race. Well, then, of course, they make the pitchers, and they get all over the place. Well, then the next week, I get burned up with phone calls because there were people knew that I had been at Charlotte and with NASCAR's insurance to pay for everything. I'd got told to wear that neck brace, and I didn't. But nothing ever came

of it. It worked out. He talked about in 2000, you were hired to run Hank Parker Jr.'s program. Yep. How many years did you mess with Hank Jr.? About three, and that deal closed down? He ran. So at least three, a little bit before that, when his daddy was still trying to race, I was, I actually, when Hank Senior was trying to race, I actually went to a track

one time and they couldn't get around Greenville. And I drove down there and drove his car. Yeah. And just try to help him. And I can't remember exactly how Hank and I got hooked. up but I built him probably his first super late mall. Hank Juniors. Yep, Hank Juniors.

So what kind of driver was Hank Jr.? Hank was loaded with talent? How do you explain that? Because he had no racing in his family. No. He didn't tear stuff up and raced hard. Even when I saw him in stuff that wasn't good, you know, he would get the most out of it. And he always was smiling.

He loved it. He loved life. He was having fun. and that's contagious and it rubbed off on me. I just like being around him. I agree. And I got him hooked up with Hamkey, and they loved him. And they, you know, they always had Hankey frames during that time.

But one of the first, one of the first Alpro races that I did with them, I wasn't with them. And they went to Topeka, Kansas, and I'd run a road course race, Allpro back then. This must have been about 95 or 6. and set the car up. I leaned on everybody I could to find out road course information and this and that. Hank goes out there and wins the race. And then right after that,

they went to All-Prae race at Homestead. And we went down there and tested, I believe, but that's when it was square. And I'm racing. I'm racing every Saturday night somewhere, so I can't go. And we set this car up, and they go down there at a homestead, Hank wins the race.

So, you know, you fall in love with him, him, his family, Billy, catfish, he was part of all that. And it was just a good time. Yeah. Good time. You helped a lot of people in racing. You know, named some of the folks that you had influence on their careers or helped them get to the racetrack. Well, it got started at Concord.

The youth age, the youth movement started. And younger people coming in, you know, they had some experience, but they didn't have body around them that could make a cargo. And so I kind of started. I started getting involved in helping them make their cars go, you know, what springs they needed. I hooked them up with my shock program and just whatever. But then, you know, if you don't do the corner right, it don't matter how good the car is, you know.

So I'd start kind of helping them with that. And then it ended up a couple of the people that I was helping. I was having to beat them to win the race. And people saw that, that I was being truthful. I was giving them right information. And then just one thing led to another. and then probably I got, there were a few smaller deals that came along. I stayed busy doing that through, really, well, during Hanksville,

I was also helping some other people too when I was at his shop every day, you know, in 2000, started doing some other deals and then I got to think what came along. A kid out of Pensacola, Florida, Panama City, his name was Ryan Crane. His family, I helped them, and then I helped them run Alpro. Well, then when we had some Allprox, success, especially at Bristol that year. It started being some older people wanted that same help. Donnie Wilson was one of them and some others.

So we helped them, build them cars and give them the setup and help them, and they started having more success than they were having. Well, then Johanna Long came along. So I'm now helping a girl. She's 15, 14, whatever. lives in Pensacola. We started winning at Pensacola and at Mobile. Actually, ultimately, at the end of all that, she won the Snowball Derby.

But we won the championship at Pensacola and Mobile both during that time with her. And that really set everything on fire because now I've got a girl going. And they didn't realize the talent she had. She's talented. Yes, she's talented. And her family's a racing family. And they put together a little team down there and just a lot of continuity. It worked out really good.

And that led to Brian Scott. Brian Scott. Yeah, Brian Scott came along. He graduated from high school through a marketing company, MMI, I believe. it was then here in Morrisville. Through a marketing company they'd contacted. I got hooked up with them and put together a deal. He drove straight out here to Day of Raise Welcome High School and we went and tested a car

to next week and raced him nonstop for several years. Let's see. After that, let's see who was next. Kyle Benjamin was about that time, came along, 14 years old. We went to Speed Weeks. This is a phenomenal story here. We go to Speedweeks. He's 14.

And he'd race to pro late mall some, Craig Motorsuper. Yeah. And I'd started helping him with that at the end of the year before, ran maybe 10, 12 races. Actually won at Mobile. Success. The kid's just natural.

I mean, he'd say, he'd tell me, say, just make sure it don't get tighter loose. I'm like, well, that's what everybody would like to have happen, you know? I said, and I kind of taught him when it does get tighter, it does get loose, what you got to do? because you're going to deal with that.

It's going to happen. And he learned fast. And so we go to Speed Weeks the next year, and our deal is he's 14. We're going to go down there. We're going to miss the Friday night going into it. We're going to go Saturday and do the practice and let him get some laps. Probably Saturday night, same thing. And then come Monday night, they always took Sunday night off.

Come Monday night before Daytona, we're going to see if we can race. We're going on the way down there on Friday, and it's raining. And his daddy calls me. He says, hey, he says, it's going to rain him out down there tonight. He said, we're going to be there in plenty of time tomorrow for him to get full practice time and everything. He said, what do you think about racing tomorrow night? I'm like, sounds good to me. So we pick up our pace a little bit.

We get on down there, and we go out to practice on Friday, and the carburetor's got a problem. He don't even get a full lap. And we find out what it is, get it fixed, but he didn't get to qualify. He started 33rd, 35 lap race, finished 5th. Damn. I'm like, oh, my God, this kid's a natural. I kind of knew he was in a pro, but when he did that in that super at New Smyrna against that crowd, it was the best to the best. I'm like, holy cow.

And he's running a line nobody ran. So he comes in. I said, call, if I had a chance, I'd have stopped you from running that line you're running because you don't, that ain't the line here. I said, how'd you figure that out? He said, I've been I've been I racing here a lot. I said, really? He said, yeah. I said, well, don't change it.

And he didn't. We won four races that week, sat on numerous polls and won the championship in 14. Damn. Yeah, and it was on after that. I know you are. We put a hurt on them everywhere after that. You helped Jeff Burton and Harrison. Yeah, yeah.

So what was that? How did you meet up with those guys? So Jeff knew Harrison's coming. You know, he's young, 11. pushing 12, quarter midgets, Jeff's looking at the future. Well, you know, he's trying to figure where he's going to go, the stepping stones to make it to NASCAR. And he likes Super Late Moss.

And so he just calls me one day. And he says, I've been keeping up what you're doing with that Benjamin kid. I've seen a few other things you've done. He said, I want to get involved with you. He said, I want what they got. I said, well, what they got is what I built. I said, if we can't just go over here and buy a car, go over and buy a car. I said, you'll spend more money and I'll spend more time.

fixing them, then I will if you just let me build him new cars. He said, build me two of them. Harrison's 11. So I flew in there and I had a couple people working with me at the time. We built two cars pretty quick. And there's a pro-lake models, you know, a crate motor. And so we get through with one of them. We take off, go down to caraway to test first time. Harrison gets in a car and goes to drive off. Well, he never drove anything with a clutch or stick shift. And I had a little Nissan truck. And he and I got in that thing. And he and I got in that thing. And he learned how to, I still drive it every day. He learned how to drive a straight drive with that.

And, well, Jeff's still racing. He's driving for Richard. And he can't go. So it's just Harrison and Kim and I. And we had a couple guys that had helped them on quarter midgets. Jeff had kept them around. They were full-time employees for Jeff. So they became full-time employees on this little race team we were building.

So it was them, Kim, and I and Harrison, and Elaine when she could go. And it worked out really good. I mean, we started going to Florence. Florence, Oklahoma? Yeah, I think Florence. He took to it. We were winning and raced with him at 12. And people don't know he's 12.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, we went to Super Late Mall racing pretty quick. The first of the year, go back to New Smyrna. Harrison wins pretty quick in a Super Late Mall at New Smyrna Speed Weeks. And we were lying about his age to be able to get him to drive. and then it just kept growing. And they got him involved in K&N and stuff pretty young.

And, of course, when that started, that ain't my route. So I kept doing what I did. Why did you, and so after Burton, you kind of slowed down a little bit. Well, I did around here, but it didn't slow down. I had been involved for years with a West Coast racer named Garrett Evans. He comes from up in Washington State. He'd come out here and run to Big Tens. He started buying my cars.

taking them out there and he was many time Winston West, Southwest Tour champions out there whatever. So I started selling him my cars and then building cars and that lasted for years, many years, up until about two years ago, actually. But I got some attention out there helping and building cars and stuff. So my business took off out there. Now I'm going to the West Coast 16, 17 times a year. And I got involved with a couple people that there was some talent. But at the end, I got involved with a bunch that were just great people, had plenty of money. But their interest in running good wasn't the same as mine.

And I did it for a couple years. And then that was the end. That was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back because there's lots of young people out there with family that can afford it. and there's a lot of talent, but then there's a lot of people doing it that don't have the talent. And I'm just not interested, no matter what. If we can't be competitive,

I'm not going to be happy, and so I'm not going to be able to do as good as I can do. When's the last time you went to a racetrack competitive? Like, you know, maybe you go to a racetrack to watch or maybe you go to see a race, but when's the last time you went to the racetrack with some skin in the game? As a driver or as a coach?

Anything. Well, so, that would have been that would have that would have that would go all the way back to uh Kyle Benjamin yeah really yeah he'd go back that far but that would now let me stop I said that wrong I did go out there when things kind of started moving that way with Garrett Evan's son we won a couple times we wanted the Idaho 200 at Spokane yeah yeah Idaho and then we wanted evergreen with him at Monroe so that yeah That would have been the last time I've been to a racetrack had skinned again.

Do you miss it? I like so many other things that I'm doing now. It makes it easy to say no. There's parts of it I do miss, but there's also a lot that had started going on then that I didn't like. I would tell people regularly, I still love this sport much as ever. I'm just not really crazy about the way we're doing it. Yeah.

And so I'm still that way. What are you doing now that you love? My wife and I do a lot of stuff. You know, we travel more than we did. We got the go-kart thing going on. I build, I keep one car normally going together for somebody, a classic car, not race cars, street cars. It is turned into full restorations kind of thing. And then a new friend of mine got the street, Jeff Starns, he's got me wanting to ride Harley Davidson's more than ever have.

And Sprague's got one now. and there's a group of us and we ride our Harleys around take up some trips they just went Sturgis I didn't go but you should do the petty ride I'd like to do all those rides you know I'd like to have done this one but physically I don't know that I'm up for that anymore and be the king yeah all those guys are still doing it yeah you're right you're right those pieces in his neck may still be looking for a place to settle down since he ripped that neck right not on wood that hadn't been a problem you know for a long time but I don't really want to be gone from home 14 days. That was kind of why I pulled the trigger or not doing this one. I didn't want to be

gone that long. But I enjoy that. And it's just like every day, it's something different. It keeps me busy. So let's connect the dots with the Harvick deal. So you tried to make it in the Xfinity series, back when it was the Bush series back then. You got a deal together and didn't work out real well. But not a great race car and had trouble making the races. But it did connect you to Delana. And she was her PR person. Right. And you're, y'all also knew Harvick. Yes.

And so you and your wife introduced them. Yeah. We've talked about it on the show with Kevin. The first, you, y'all came to my house on New Year's Eve, and that was Kevin and Delana's first sort of date. I remember it that way. I'm pretty sure that's the way it was. Kevin seems to remember it that way, too. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, I asked, Kevin, I said, when Delaney gets home, ask her if she's got any stories on you. And she said all that she has really is that she was scared to death to work with you because you had such a badass reputation on the track. Well, I don't know why she had been scared. She had developed somewhat of one herself. She said, you were nothing but a gentleman. You were nothing but a gentleman to work with. Yeah.

So, I mean, I think that to me, man, I think that's such an amazing thing that you have such a great reputation, a badass on the racetrack. You know, you race, I didn't never ever see you do anything that was questionable or dirty. You ran, you were similar to dad's persona in the way that you could race. You could trade paint, you could beat and bang, but you always seem to give some. somebody what they deserved you know it was always kind of a trade um you're never the instigator of the problem you know but and you won and damn you could like you say you ran you know you like you learned in the dirt car you ran with your tongue hanging out every single lap i don't know how you did that all those years but you were a gentleman off the track a lot of people have so much respect for you

i hear so many every i mean there's not a almost not a day that goes by where your name doesn't pop in a story that I'm you know that I'm hearing or somebody's telling and you have so many you know connections to so many different people in various ways you know whether you were there you know their teacher or you know they were your PR person or you were their mentor on the racetrack so I you know I just kind of got to know like how do you when you think about your life and your career in motorsports you know where it where do you uh where are you in terms of your appreciation or satisfaction with it? Well, first of all, that's some of the biggest compliments I've ever had, what you just said.

I mean, my respect for you and your family, for you to say that like that means the world. But my personal philosophy always was, if I could lay my head down at night and knew I had done the absolute best I could do, I could go to sleep. And to this day, I don't have trouble sleeping. Yeah. So I kind of live by that. Well, man, I tell you, it's been a pleasure talking to you. My sister is the one that sent us in text messages the other day and said, you should get Freddie on here.

Well, I appreciate it. You've been in our list for a long time, and we've wanted to get you on. Matthew Dillner, who you know. Oh, yeah. Is super excited that we have you on here today. Matthew's worked with us for years and has moved on to some work with flow. But there's a lot of people. that are excited to hear this podcast and just glad to know you're out there digging.

And thanks for bringing all these pictures by. We're going to be needing all this stuff to be able to put our content together. We are. We are. We are some great photos here. I grabbed some stuff in a hurry. And this program of yours is just awesome from the beginning. And the response that we've had with me,

have an opportunity to come on here, maybe the first super late model racer to sit over here. So that's a big honor. But also, I don't want to pass up the opportunity, knowing that there's lots of people along the way to help me get where I got. And I know I've mentioned a few, but there's lots of others that I know we'll be listening to this. Sure.

And I, you know, just a big shout out. Thank you to them for helping me do what I did. I mean, you know, as you know, like you said, you volunteer help. I had lots of it along the way. And it's just amazing that that, you know, one of the things that went away. And I hated it when that went away because they did it for love of the sport and love of you, or whoever at the time they were helping. And that's gone now.

And that's what's missing. Everybody's paid, and that's great, too. Everybody's got to make a living. But another big shout out to those folks that helped me along the way because there were lots of them in lots of ways that did things to help us be able to accomplish what we accomplished. Yeah, that's for sure. Well, it was guys like you racing at the racetrack. Like you say, the battles you had with Sprag would ignite the crowd, and they damn sure weren't going to miss what might happen or could happen the next week.

Absolutely. And there's only a handful of drivers that had that type of power or had the ability to really bring a short track to its promise and to really make local short track racing one of the most important things going on. and we certainly had that at Concord, and you were a big key player in that for many years in the 90s. Thank you. I appreciate you.

You give us some time to us today. We have a lot of people that come on this show, but as far as being excited about sitting down and talking to you, man, I've wanted to for years. So this has been a treat for me. Yeah, me too. So thank you, Freddie. Yeah, thank you.

Fred Aquiry on Dale Jr. Download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, as a driver or in the studio as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally. A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people.

They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download the true ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. We are live on YouTube for Ask Junior. Hey, everybody. How y'all doing?

Thanks for joining us today and everybody that's going to join over the next couple of minutes. Anyways, you set your questions to AdExfinity Racing on Twitter, and we appreciate it. Great questions every week. You guys just keep pulling your ear. end of the bargain and making this part of the show great. So let's get to them. A lot of people tuning in already via the chat and they're excited to hear, Freddie. Awesome.

The first one comes here from Wicked Mena and it was submitted via Twitter. It says, would you ever consider Mike Davis as a guest analyst in the booth during a cup race? And if so, Mike, would you be up for it? No. No, he's not considered it. No, I wouldn't be up for it. Would you be a guest analyst?

Is that what the question? For an actual NASCAR race? Is that what they're saying? I mean, that's what it's asking, but. No. Would you, would you want a career, would you feel comfortable in a career up in the booth like that? No. No.

No. And by the way, I think NBC would like to keep their audience, not lose their audience. So I think that's what, no, I don't think that would be good. That's not what I like. I don't even, I enjoy listening to the pros do it. I don't enjoy trying to, I don't sit there in front of a mirror in the morning trying to do a play-by-play for a baseball game or anything. I think we should mock up a play-by-play and let you try and call play-by-play.

Like mock up a race, radio you up. It just wouldn't be good. Just let you know. But I mean, the question was for you, not me. I went and hijacked it. Sorry. That's why you don't need me in the booth. I mean, I don't know.

I don't know. I feel like it would be pretty comical. Say no. That is the obvious answer. That is not good. Go ahead, do some play by play. No, I don't. Let's watch a little race.

You just do play by play. They go. They go. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, no. Oh. What the hell was he thinking? Idiots.

They all suck. Cut off. We're going to put the mute button on Mike. All right. Moving on from that question very quickly. This one comes from Brandon Verruzzi. It says, was your favorite late model race you recall running?

My gosh. Probably. It was some fun ones. The first time I ever went to Nashville Fairgrounds, so we went up there and Jeff Green went and helped me a little bit. We tested for a couple days or a couple hours one day. And I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I mean, Nashville Fairgrounds was like a super speedway. High banked, you're into throttle a lot compared to Myrtle Beach that I've been running.

And so the race starts, and we qualified okay. And I think it was Bobby Hamilton Jr. was there, and he wrecked really hard. He bent some wheels. His car was tore up. Big crash on the front straight away. We all kind of avoided it. And I qualified like eighth or tenth or something. They were like 30 cars.

So many cars. believe it it was like a big it was like it had a vibe and I just remember being there going man this is amazing I mean Myrtle Beach was great but it had the fairgrounds it was packed there was so many cars for every class every car looked great and as the race went on we we just never slowed down everybody kept falling off a little bit and I ended up running second to Joe Buford I think is name and he he was kind of a guy that was one of the few one of the few guys that was winning all the races there we crossed the finish

line side by side and he beat me about half a car length or something like that it was really close and I thought man I'm coming back here a lot I almost won the first time you know and we went back many many times after that never kind of repeated that same success but that was a that was cool that was cool because we drove eight hours to get there This was kind of like a Daytona 500 trip, right, for a young, new Xfinity team, right? We're kind of going to, we're going to Nashville Fairgrounds. What's going to happen? Probably going to get dusted.

We ended up hanging in there with them and doing good. So that was pretty fun. And I loved going back there. That was so much fun. We would drive all the way to Nashville in a goose neck with a Dooley. we'd stop halfway in the mountains, you know, and go to all those country stores and general stores and stuff and there's this creek and we'd pull in, jump in the creek and cool off.

I know, man, we made it like a deal out of it, right? It was fun. You had to break the trip up. It was so eight hours in a dully with, you know, four or five guys hanging in there and everybody grouchy and frustrated or whatever. You got to get out, you know, going to a general store walk around a little bit. It was fun.

I wonder if Joe Buford is related to Jade Buford. No. No relation? I don't think so. This one comes from our YouTube chat, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, then this is Nolan Void. But have you seen the viral video of the hot dog straw?

I have. I saw a picture. Okay, of the guy. It's a baseball game, the Yankees game. But yeah, this guy basically takes a straw, runs it through a hot dog, and then uses a hot dog as a straw. Yeah.

That being said, what is your favorite weird food combination? Well, a lot of people would say it's the sandwich that it's mayonnaise and banana. So that's probably gotten a little bit more press than I actually hope it would. They built a whole campaign on that. God, it was a rough, rough go. We got ratioed, as they would say these days. On social media you did, yeah. So, you know, I think my, I think the strangest combination,

I like to, it's not that strange, but I like to put Doritos on my sandwich. Make it crunchy. So, I mean, Doritos, I don't, I try to not to eat cheese. for whatever reason, dairy. But the Doritos kind of brings the crunch and the cheese. What are you laughing at? I'm laughing at how you say Doritos. Doritos.

Doritos. Doritos. Doritos. I love the way I talk. I was listening that song on the way over here. I knew that it was a premonition that I was going to get picked on for the way I talked. I didn't think anything of it if it means anything to you. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, if there's one single, if there's one single thing that I don't. There you go. There's other words that you butcher way more than Doritos. Hey, I got some words you never heard. That's all right. You get your own dictionary sometimes. That's all right. We all do. I, you know, I think the Doritos bring the crunch, but also the cheese back. If you don't want to put cheese on it, like, you know, if you'll sub your cheese. for Doritos.

Yeah. People are chiming in with weird things. Someone eats pickles and peanut butter. Shoo. Hark-core. All right. Last question here. Comes from Nathan Ackarley.

He said, with how well Kimmy performed at Watkins Glen? What other international drivers would you like to see NASCAR give a try that maybe haven't? Oh, man. I had, I hoped and prayed as hard. as I could that Michael Schumacher would one day drive a stock car back in the day. I wanted him so badly to know what NASCAR was. And when Michael was winning championships to me,

I always kind of looked at F1 as the, you know, whoever the champion in the F1 was was the greatest driver in the world, right? I love NASCAR, man. I love stock cars. But whoever wins the F1 champion is to me. me like the greatest driver in the world today and when Michael was doing it what he was doing I wanted him so badly to like acknowledge NASCAR and maybe even try it when Juan came when Juan Pablo came and raced with us I thought it was you know amazing that he was there

and he stuck around and he got good I wanted him to get good I knew that that would be at my expense because he would probably beat me but I wanted him to be great So maybe that means more F1 guys would look at NASCAR as an opportunity or something they want to be curious about. And so for me, it's that F1 champion driver. If he's got an F1 championship, I would love to see him give it a go. It's the same curiosity I think that I have when you see like Chase Elliott, NASCAR champion, go race chili bowl.

you know he might not win he might not have a you know a top 10 finish in the main but you just want to see them in there mixing it up and then get their reaction and so I always love when like the NASCAR stars would go down to the short tracks and run so Chase is doing some Nitro rally cross again this year too that doesn't do anything for me I know I'm sorry I mean I well they you know he went he he pulled a hell of a move and wins the damn race and they disqualified him for contact that pissed me off man i was like no i won't watch you're telling me you're going to go over jumps and slide around corners and you can't touch each other i'm so annoyed by that so i'm not sure i want to tune in yeah well that is it for this week's ask junior all right y'all um appreciate you all sending us some great questions. It's been a busy week. Busy weekend.

I'm still kind of strung out. But we've got Daytona coming up this weekend. And that is going to be a lot of fun. I know everybody's excited about that. Hopefully the rain doesn't really ruin the schedule too bad. But we can race Sunday. We can even race Monday.

But we cannot race Tuesday or Wednesday because I will be in North Wilson. That's right. I will call my ball. and I'm going to say, look, man, I know y'all want me to be here, but I got this other thing, and I really, we got to, let's talk, can we talk about this? So hopefully we don't get pushed back that far, but looking at the schedule, you never know in Daytona in August. What else we got, Mike?

Got Roots and Revival on Birdie's YouTube channel, and you feel really good about the latest installment, Chapter 2. You want everybody to watch it? I do. Chapter 2, Roots and Revival, if you like the first one, I think you'll like the second installment. a little bit better. Kind of captures a lot of the people that were involved in that first race, the modified race that Wilkesboro earlier this month.

So please check that out. I know you will. And thanks for everything you do for us and supporting us and sharing with your friends. Tell everybody about us. And thanks to Xfinity for everything that they do for us here. Xfinity X-Fi is great internet service. It gives you everything you need. At a great affordable price, it's reliable.

and it's powerful and secure as well. It allows you to do everything you want. I don't know how many, damn, I don't know how many devices I got connected to my internet. I wonder if I could see. But anyways, appreciate everybody, and we'll see you next week. All right, everybody, that was a great show.

Appreciate it, and hope you enjoyed listening to Freddie Query. Just an awesome guy and local. It wasn't hard for him to get over here. We've got a lot of great guests coming up throughout the rest of the year. I think you're going to be excited about. We're certainly getting pumped up as we wrap up this year. We're heading down to home stretch. And I hope you'll be with us every step of the way.

Hope you have a great week. Episode 3.96, Dale Jr. download is in the books. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.