The Dale Jr. Download - 398 - Jimmy Blewett: Racing for Acceptance

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Dealing with the adversity that comes from being a race car driver requires resilience and nerves of steel. For Jimmy Blewett, it was a mentality he was born with, following in the footsteps of his hard-nosed grandfather, father, and older brother. On The Dale Jr. Download, Blewett joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis to discuss growing up in a tough household, racing in the modified ranks, and losing a loved one in motorsports.Hailing from Howell, New Jersey, the Blewetts have long been known for their rough and tumble nature. Jimmy recounts stories of his grandfather John dealing with unruly customers at the yard. He also shares episodes from his childhood following his father John Jr.’s racing career, where they were “banned for life” from many of the east coast’s finest race establishments due to pit melees. Jimmy shares that initially his grandfather purchased a racecar for his uncle to drive, hoping that it would keep him out of trouble. But his father was so fascinated with the car that he ended up racing and became quite good. He would be a mainstay in the eastern modified ranks for decades, before retiring in the early 90s. About that time, Jimmy’s older brother John III was beginning his own impressive chapter of Blewett family racing history, and it would help pave the way for Jimmy to get on track as well.After getting into go-kart racing at the age of 14, he eventually wanted to build a street stock to run at his home track, Wall Stadium. But Grandpa Blewett disapproved, claiming that his running a street stock would embarrass the family, and one night the car disappeared from the shop, a mystery still unsolved. Through his brother’s help, Jimmy got the opportunity to test someone else’s car, and he was hooked.The story of how Jimmy came to get his first modified is epic, involving a failed effort to get a loan, having to bring his grandfather on as a co-signer, and winning a car show without an engine. Once he was able to scrape together a functioning race car, his challenges were far from over. His grandfather wanted him to start at the back of every race to gain on-track experience. This helped develop his driving ability, and before long Jimmy was a modified race winner. In fact, in his first two full seasons in modified competition at Wall Stadium, he brought home back-to-back season championships.Jimmy speaks candidly about his relationship with his grandfather and father, and how he felt he spent a lot of his career seeking their approval. He also speaks about the mentorship he received from his older brother John III, and how he helped raise Jimmy in the aftermath of his parent’s divorce. The two developed a healthy on-track rivalry, always racing each other for bragging rights of the highest placing Blewett. But as time would tell, no amount of conditioning or hardship could prepare the Blewett family for the loss on the horizon.In August 2007, the Blewett brothers were in competition at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut when Jimmy’s right-front tire was punctured, causing a head-on collision with the wall. Mayhem behind him ensued, and John and several other cars piled into Jimmy’s wrecked modified. Jimmy was knocked unconscious from the impact of the crash, but upon coming to he heard his brother’s screams and jumped out to try and save him. Unfortunately, John’s injuries would prove too critical and he passed away that evening at the age of 33. Suddenly, Jimmy’s entire life had changed and he had an insurmountable tragedy to deal with.DIRTY AIRBefore Jimmy joins the show, Dale, Mike, Alex, and Hannah chat about: Isla and Nicole’s first day of school A weekend magnet fishing excursion Dale’s late model race at North Wilkesboro  The exciting NASCAR weekend at Darlington ASKJR presented by XfinityThis week the fans asked questions about: If Dale has a love for pixie sticks like Mike Davis Staying focused in loud environments Favorite dishes for grilling out   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.

Welcome everybody back to the Bojangles Studio for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download, episode 398, closing in on 400. We've got a great guest for you today. Mike, glad to have you back, as usual. Good to be here. Yeah, man, thank you. What you? Crimson Tide. You got your Alabama hat on. They must have won.

They did win, but it's more about what's coming up this week. They got a big game at Texas. Then they shut out the team they played. Utah State, yes, they did. Yeah. Yeah, 55-0. Yeah. I remember back when the last NCAA football was out on Xbox.

2014. Utah State was like the lowest ranked team, man. I used to create a player. I used to create a player for Utah State. Like a 99? Somebody, like a stud? Dale Jr., man. Oh, is that who it was?

Quarterback. That's right. And just run amok. Just plow right up the rankings. Tear them up. Right. You know who I think went to Utah State? Chris Cooley, tight-in for Washington.

Going to need a fact checker on that one. Checked up. Utah State Chris Cooley. I think he did. Anyhow, we got a great guest. Jimmy Blewett is going to be in here. He's a modified racer from up north, and he has a really incredible story. A lot of people encouraged us to bring Jimmy on.

So I've seen him race. Obviously, he came to North Wilsonboro and ran. and I heard a little bit about this guy and what he's been through. So we think that it is exactly the kind of guess that we get excited about. And also, you know, we've been doing a little short track racing. We're trying to, you know, we had Fred of Query, and we've been kind of tapping into our short track routes. And so I love it, man.

We're kind of bringing some of these guys into the spotlight, whereas typically we have, you know, the Cup veterans and guys from the past and then the current NASCAR drivers. So Jimmy Blue is going to come on here and tell us a few things about his life. That's going to be great. Yeah, man. Second most wins at Wall Stadium. I certainly knew Wall Stadium.

That place is legendary. It is. So, yeah, he's good. Let's get right into dirty air. So this morning had to get up and take on the challenge of getting two kids ready for school. First day of school for both Ila and Nicole this year. Everybody was excited last night when we went to bed. man we couldn't hardly sleep and got up this morning a little still cited still excited but

the house the house reminded me of like a busy sidewalk at about 730 in the morning in New York City man there were people walking everywhere stuff having you know there was a big water spill in the kitchen that we had to clean up right midway through the preparation of getting the kids up we were trying to thaw some dog food and overran the sink and so that threw a little challenge into the morning that's a big water Oh, yeah, there's a lot of water. And, you know, getting the bags packed, getting the spare set of clothes in the backpack, getting the food ready, not for one, but for two kids.

Nicole has no clue. She's one, almost two. She'll be two next month. But Ila is very aware. She's been going to school two days a week. Now she's going to go four. Man, we got to school standing in line. She's excited.

She's seeing some of her friends. Things are good. We're walking down the hall toward her classroom, new classroom. room and I said Ile you know where you remember we came in there for orientation we was just there two weeks ago I'm like I'll you know where you're going yeah I know we're going going we get right to the door

and she turns and buries her face in my in my legs you know like that don't leave me I don't want to be here move that the kids make and I was like no and she wanted me pick her up I picked her up I'm like I like Ily you know trying to talk to her about it You know, we're going to go to school.

I'm going to be here for just a couple hours. We're coming back to get you. And she just spiraled out of control. And the teacher's like, look, I'm just going to take her. This is how it's going. I'm just going to take her, and you're going to go, and she'll be fine. And so she's trying to pry out of me. And Ila is how to hold of my shirt.

Oh, God. And just, like, out to here with my collar. And she was not, this is going to be the way. I look for the rest of the year doing this podcast, baking collar. Yeah, because it's been stretched out. It got its morning stretches in. And so, but that didn't work. She started screaming really loud.

And so I try to walk her down the hall a little bit and console her and say, hey, man, you know, this is just how it's going to be. I got to go to work. Mom's going to store. We're going to come back. This is, you know, you're going to school. There's no choice. We're not going back home. And finally,

let me take her into the classroom and sit down with her for a minute away from her her classmates so we're sitting in the classroom and I'm trying to talk to her and get her comfortable with the room and sure man almost had her almost had her buy-in and then right again she started realizing I was getting ready to leave oh man and she fell apart again a second time and the screams were louder screams were more intense and the I said I looked at the teacher I said let's just do this and so So I just handed her to the teacher. The teacher's like, yep, this is how it's got to go.

And man, that sucks. That's how you love her. Walking out of the room. Screaming. Like, so angry. And like, looking at you like, how are you leaving me? Right? Oh, man, it's awful.

And I walked out in the hall and I stood there and a couple of the moms were like, yeah, I've been there. I know what's going on. I think we've all been there. We've all been there and it's not easy. I mean, listen, I think you're. if it was as difficult as I remember it, you're handling this well. I mean, to be honest with you. Well, okay, so I get out of the classroom and I was like, I can't leave because they might, you know, in a minute or two,

they might come out and say, look, you've got to take her home. Right. Because that's how, that's what they tell us. They're like, stay close. First day. If the trade-offs not really going well, stay close because we just might ask you to take them home and we'll try again tomorrow. And so I was standing there. Amy had went to the store across the street

because we forgot to get them water bottles. And so I'm standing there and I'm like, man, I can't leave. But then, you know, I called Amy and she's like, I'll be right back. I'm just going to get water bottles and forgot to give them, put bottles in their for their lunch, for them to drink. And I said, okay, I got to go podcast. So I get in the truck and a couple miles down the road,

Amy sends me a picture of Island floor playing with the kids. Like everything's fine. And the teacher's like, look, she's good. That's right. And I'm like, okay. I bet it wasn't three minutes after you left. I think it was just, you know. It's so difficult.

No, it's hard. But I think you did the right thing. I mean, to be honest with you, you got to just kind of like cut bait and let it happen, let it play out. Because then they realize their reality is that they're not going home once they realize that. Oh, no. If you take them home. No. You'll never be able to get them to go to school.

Yeah. I knew that that was what had to happen. It's just so hard. and I think when Nicole, I mean, we might have that kind of situation at some point, I'm sure. Nobody. There's at least once in a child's life where they scream like bloody murder, don't take me to school. I don't want to go to school. I don't want to, you know, like staying at home was a real option.

I know at one point I was probably like that. I was like that all the way up through middle school. Really? Man, you were difficult on your parents. To be honest with you, though, was Nicole? this was her first day see now that's supposed to be the harder part right she was oblivious to what was happening

no no not her it's supposed to be harder on you it would have been had I been able had I would have been able to think about it Illa had us all nuclear meltdown you had to focus on yeah so maybe Ila did that for you she helped you out on I debated even talking about it on the podcast

because I don't want that to be like a Oh, I was going to. Yeah. I was going to because Amy sent a text to me that she said. I was thankful she did. She said, Ila had a meltdown at school drop-off, so Dale is sitting in class with her playing with slime for a minute. I said, and now we have our dirty air.

Yeah. All right, so went magnet fishing finally. We did go magnet fishing. That's right. I call Mike, and Mike's like, you know, Mike's got a busy schedule, a couple kids. He's busy running them here and there, soccer and all the things. We had a morning, a couple hours.

We were able to make it work. We took Sunny with us. We had three kits, three magnets, bought them from Amazon, brand new, anywhere from like $60 to $100 a piece. And we drive out to a place called Cocktail Cove. It's where I've hung out many times and drank plenty of beer. A lot of the people tying up there over the past several decades.

So we figure we go find some stuff. We go out there and we park right. we kind of throw, you know, throw our magnets right into the water, right in the middle of this Cove. The interesting thing is you really don't need a trolle motor. You don't need to anchor. The magnet is heavy enough that whichever way you throw the magnet off the boat, and as you're pulling the magnet back in, it kind of takes the boat in that direction.

So if you kind of want to stay in the middle of wherever you're at, just kind of use the magnet to really kind of control the position of the boat unless the current is obviously a little stronger and you're not you're in a different situation than we were but we could kind of control where the where the boat was in the in the cove with literally pulling the magnet across the floor of the because there's iron and i don't know if this is normal in all lakes but it certainly is in lake norman and we didn't know this but i mean there's this metal ore in the uh actually in the ground of lake norman and so when you throw your magnet down there it's not like it attaches and you can't get it off but you can feel that pull you can feel that bite if you will and it'll pull

the boat. So we found a lot of bottlecats to be expected in the drinking area or the the local bar area or the cove that everybody hangs out. So, you know, we didn't find anything else. We were, we spent about 45 minutes throwing multiple times each piece off all directions of the boat, just bottle caps. Some different bottle caps, but Anheuser-Busch is pretty much the main, the main bottle cap you're going to pull up at cocktail cove yeah that's right anheiser bush products and i'm talking all of them right next to the cocktail cove there is a pier system probably about five six slips and there's one slip for the sheriff's office so we go over there and we're we're thinking okay this is probably good a place people drop all kinds of stuff trying to get into the boat and whatnot

um we found a lot of nails there lots of nails old screws i mean obviously this slip this boat uh this this dock has been fixed repaired resurfaced multiple times so We found a lot of screws. Some didn't make it into the dock. They could all be displayed here in Isla's toilet, but we didn't have any place to put them. You know, listen, at this time, the caps and the nails were the only thing we had to show for our metal fishing, our metallic fishing excursion, and so we put them in Isla's toilet and brought it here with us today to show and tell. Business picked up at the dock, so that was pretty fun.

And we did find a broom handle at the dock. Now, when we first got, when we first attached to this thing, we thought, man, this is something else. So I think it was stuck down in the ground quite a bit. This is metal. Oh, I was going to say, it looks plastic. Yeah, so I think it was down in the ground a little ways, and that's why it felt like it was heavier than it was, because we pulled it out of the mud and the muck. Oh, yeah. We thought we had a Volkswagen. All right. So another thing we learned during this process. So on the lake, all the,

this stuff sort of settles down in the sediment. And I bet a lot of things are in this lake, but they're down, you know, many inches into the muck, all right, where a lot of people throw over, cast off of bridges of creeks and rivers where the water is constantly moving and kind of keeps that sediment clear off of the top surface. So a lot of things that you're going to find are going to be relatively close to the surface. They're not laying right on top of the rocks, the bedrock of the creek bed. So I think obviously casting off of a bridge is going to probably net you a little bit more of an experience.

But since the lake and that water kind of sits still in those coves, it's just a muddy mess down there. And really all the stuff that's been there or that you might find is kind of buried. Anyways, we go over to another place called the sandbar. and it's where I spend a lot of time as well, drinking a lot of beers and tying up. And certainly many, many times we've been out there and we've known either we've done it or someone else has done it where you lose an anchor, right?

There's a lot of stumps and stuff at the bottom of the lake and you get an anchor tied up underneath the stump and it's just not coming out. You've had a few beers. It's time to go home and they're tugging on that thing. And you can't, you know, if you could move around, you could probably get that anchor out. But, you know, with all the boats around you, you really can't do a lot of maneuvering to really kind of get any kind of leverage on prime that anchor loose. And so a lot of people either lose the anchor or cut it loose.

So I'm sure there's a few anchors down there at Sandbar. And we ended up pulling one up. And it's in relatively good shape. I wouldn't be able to guess how long it's been down there. But that's how it came out of the water. We were wondering about the strength of our magnets because we hadn't really pulled anything up. And I was thinking to myself, you know, when you get a bottle cap on the magnet, it comes off pretty easily. So we're thinking, man, well, this thing really pick up anything strong.

I buy some cheap junk. And then here comes Sunny pulling this anchor right out of the water magnet attached firmly. Right as we were about to leave. Yeah. I was ready to leave. And then finally we yank that thing out there and that saved the day. otherwise we probably wouldn't even be talking about magnificent if we hadn't

to pull this anchor up that's probably right yeah yeah but this was the catch that saved the day and to be honest with you it motivated us to go back in and try to get some more I felt like when we got the anchor okay we got something let's go this weekend we got something to talk about oh no Mike and

Sonny are now invigorated we were ready we're going to get 20 more cast we're going to cancel that meeting and we're going to go cast and find something at the same bar Listen, there are stuff all over that place. We know that. It's just a matter of, you know, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. But if you've got the time, you'll find it.

I think we need to get into some high current areas where the sediment's a little cleaner or a little more, you know, in the coves, back in the coves where the water's little steel, you know, the muck is deep and all that stuff. Anything that, you know, keys or anything of weight is going to settle down and further and further and going to be harder and harder for you to really pull it up. I actually did take it back out this past weekend. So I did let Mike take one with him, and I knew that he would have some fun with his girls, and so you've already went back again. Yeah. Have you look?

Nothing. Man. Nothing. But we did it differently. I mean, like, you know, we were on the lake. You know, obviously we were doing the tubing thing and all that stuff, and then we got to a point where we were sort of just trolling through one of the coves, and I'm like, hey, if we're going to just sit here and troll, let me go grab one of these magnets and just drop it down there and drag it, right? just drag it and see if something picks up. That was not the way fishing we did the other day, right?

And I wanted to see if it worked. That did not work. And we tried to, I tried to drag it along piers, you know, because we found out that peers are, you know. Pears are good. That peers may be good, right? And I've certainly dropped stuff at piers before. So this particular cove, I did it for about, I don't know,

45 minutes or so and just didn't really bring up anything. But also there was no, you know, specific area of high, activity that we were looking at, right? And so I think that I think the bridges is something we should go do next. And also you got an idea that I don't want to say, and you probably already forgotten, having you. Remember really like next time we go, we should go to this one particular place that you're familiar with, up on the other side of the lake, up north of the 150 bridge. Still not ringing a bell? You might have used to live there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm not going to say anything about it. Why not? I mean, I didn't. It's your, I love that idea. So, yeah, we used to live on the lake. And back in the 80s, dad bought a house in 78 on Lake Norman.

And we thought, man, we'll go to that pier. We'll take our boat over there and see what we find there. I know there's some Christmas trees underneath the pier. Because we used to throw them in there for crappy fishing. Yeah. But we may find something. I was surprised at Cocktail Cove we didn't find keys, glasses, or phones. We did actually find the band of glasses.

We did find a band to some glasses. We sure did. Anyhow, Magnificium, we did it. Said we would. Finally did it. Wish we had more to report other than this used anchor. We went to North Wiltsboro. What a great night.

What a great night. I don't even know how we talk about that. I got questions. Nothing about nothing we could do? I mean, nothing we could talk, nothing we could, we could not do this justice in just a conversation. Well, let's start here. Let's try. Well, first of one, one thing I want to do is, first thing I want to say is about North of Willisboro. Look, we're going to do our best to try to talk about this experience and we're not going to do it.

We're not going to do it justice. Mike, you put together a thing called Roots and Revival. That's right. The Dirty Moe Media team did. Yeah. And so you had an idea, and the Dirty Moe Media team edited and produced and filmed and recorded a five-part series, all right, on Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page. So if you want to relive it or if you want to see it for the first time, it's a five-part series.

These are, you know, five to 15-minute clips of each, you know, sort of the progress of getting this track back, going out there and witnessing some action in the mod races and so forth, and then going back as a late model driver and running in the race itself. and it showcases really the track. Obviously, I'm in there a good bit, but it highlights a lot of the drivers. It highlights a lot of the fan experience. It's a fly on the wall kind of deal.

I loved it. I thought it was so well done. One of the things I'm most proud of that Dirty Moody's created, and we have created some awesome content here of late, especially. But please, go check out Roots and Revival on our YouTube page to see everything that went on from the start to finish, finish at North Wilkesboro. But we went out there and basically the crowd was twice as big as I expected it to be.

The racing was more fun than I expected it to be. The vibe and energy. It missed all the marks. It went beyond anything that I could have ever imagined it being. And I'm, I think that I will probably, more than likely, you know, 10, 20, 30 years from now, I've got an easier answer now when somebody says, what's the coolest thing or the greatest thing or the biggest thing that you've ever been a part of in racing?

Because, I mean, honestly, man, I mean, the winning Daytona 500 winning championships and and Xfinity series, amazing moments, so much fun, so much great memories. But there was something special about that that you can't recreate. No matter how hard we try, we would never be able to duplicate what happened there. And not to say that North Wilsonboro doesn't have a great future and a good value to the industry, it does. And I think everybody realizes it's probably better than people anticipated in terms of what that track could mean to the sport going forward. But that was just something else. I just don't even know how to put it into words because it was so unexpected that everybody was going to have such a great time and that everything was going to be just all right.

You know, we had a racetrack that the bathrooms aren't great. The facilities, the infrastructure, it's, you know, there was free parking, but the traffic was horrendous. A lot of people were, you know, late getting into the racetrack, lines, you know, a lot of people having trouble getting there. Some people that had tickets got there and didn't even get in to get to see the race. It was not perfect. But the, I think for the most part,

everybody showed so much grace in terms of you know look this this yeah yeah i got to go use a port of john that you know a thousand other people have used today or over the last two days it's in terrible shape but i'm okay with that for this for this night you know and i think there were a lot of things that the fans showed grace on and everybody was just so happy to see what they were seeing that it was okay and you know I think if anything happens at Wilkesburg going forward there will be a lot of improvements in terms of getting the race track where it can handle that type of crowd again now that they know that there's that much interest and they're going to fix a lot of things but yeah we'd never be able to do that again so the key there is don't even try like we should even try you're right

you're right because that's where people mess up yeah is when they go try to replicate something that's not it's just you're not going to go duplicate that anymore that's right the feeling the fact that you said the grace that people showed, that's 100% true because here's one, here's another example. There was no scoreboard. There was no way of knowing what laps we were on. Hannah and I were asking this all the whole time, you know? And it's like, I don't even care. Yeah. Well, you know what? He'll throw a white flag. You know when? We'll know it's one to go when when he throws that white flag. That's right. We don't really even need to know. And it's okay because everything's too perfect. Yes. And that's a great point. So the first, when we were there

for the mods, I was texting with some of the people that were managing the whole process. And I said, you know, it's tough not knowing who's where and what lap we're on. How many laps are left in the race? And people are like, well, use the app. You know, there's a timing and scoring app that you can get. And everybody, a lot of people in the industry are pretty aware of it. But the service is so bad there, it wouldn't work. No.

And so I'm thinking, man, how's this going to go? I was sitting there thinking about our race a month later after the Modifieds. I was like, we got to fix this, that, and the other. And, you know, it's okay. You're right. You know, it was, I remember being there in the 80s, not knowing exactly what lap it was. Yes, we had a scoreboard, but it wasn't always in perfect view.

Or, you know, and you didn't know, you'd be watching the race and not know whether we, you know, it was 100 to go, 200 to go, 300 to go, whatever, right? And that was okay. That was the way it was. It didn't get, you know, we didn't have this, you know, technology and, and we weren't catered to so much as we are today in terms of the fan experience. It kind of felt better.

It felt decluttered. It's like, you know what it was like, Mike? It's like going, it's like, you know, in this digital age where we, you know, I want to, I want to add this song to my library. I don't even have to pay for it anymore. I'm just going to go tell Apple, just put that in my library, and I'm going to listen to it. It's like going from that to pulling out the, going to your vinyl collection and

throwing a record on and just listening to a record straight through. Good analogy. Actually, that's right. North Wilsonboro was our vinyl collection, our field of dreams. A field of dreams. I was thinking, it's like in the movie Field of Dreams, do people go, you know there ain't no fence out there, it's just the corn. I can't watch this baseball game because there ain't no fence.

How do you even know if it's a home run? Don't know. There was none of that because you know what? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Appreciate the purity of the whole situation. And none of that stuff matters. And that's exactly what happened at Wilkesboro.

Everybody appreciated it. Now, we need to talk about this. Your performance. Oh. Dude, we left this room saying you were going to suck out loud. Yeah, you did. I was helping you out. I was getting your mind right.

And that there were too many great race car drivers. Bobby McCarty was out there. I mean, like, you got some of the greats. Dude, you qualified six. You finished third and you passed those sons of bitches as you were going. I mean, the last 50 laps you went from 13th to 3rd, and you had a chance to win. Yeah. You were too humble to sit there and talk about how awesome that was.

However, there's three of us that were also there, Alex, Hannah, and myself, that performance, the racing performance was amazing. And I've got to be honest. The crowd, the energy that culminated from that also cannot be replicated. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. You know, I didn't, to be honest with you, when the race started, we were, you know, we're not going to run.

We're not going to run super hard. We're not going to race guys on the outside. We were starting six, so we had to get to the bottom. The bottom's where I could save the tire the best. It was absolutely going to be critical to save the tire. If you ran hard as you could right away, you were going to fall back through the pack late in the race and not have any tires, no control of your car.

So we set out to preserve. Josh Barry told me he's like, look, I need you to kind of be near seventh. Let's not get too crazy and get too far back and give up too much. So I was sitting ninth and I was a little close to some of the guys in front of me and they got to racing a little bit and I had I kind of got checked up a bit behind them and a car got underneath me and it was it was Diaz that ran second. Yeah. Yeah.

Great kid, great family. I was like, man, he's going to go up there and burn it up. But he didn't. He ended up running second in the race. And another car, number one car. I can't remember who was driving it. But anyhow, I lost a couple spots. And I was thinking, okay, I'm getting a little too far back.

And so I started getting a little bit antsy and tried to make a pass. Minnie Tyrell had went up and led the race, and he was falling back with some issues. And a lot of us were trying to pass him on the bottom. Jared Fryer was in front of me. But Jared got pinned behind Minnie on the outside. But Jared was trying to get under Minnie as well. squeeze his way into underneath Mendi to pass him.

He was losing spots and not okay with that. Well, as I'm trying to pass on the bottom, Jared goes to the middle. So now we're three wide in the middle of three and four. Coming up off of four, I get into the left front of Jared's car and we're hooked down the front straightaway and it pushed a quarter panel onto my right rear

tire. And that starts rubbing. I don't really know that's happening, but now I do after the fact. Well, the car gets really loose, really loose. And so I told Josh at that point, I said, okay, I'm sitting 11th. And I said, hey, Josh, I'm running as hard as I can. I can't catch the guys in front of me. And I don't have any more. We're not saving anymore. This is it. This is all we got. And I got kind of sad because I thought, shoot, this is exactly what I thought might happen is I'm going to come out here and run as hard as I can and run 10th. and that's just how good these guys are.

And that's just a humbling, that was just going to be a piece of humble pie of, you know, if you want to run good in this, you're going to have to run a lot, you're going to have to put a lot into it. You know, I was just going to show up after 20 years and, you know, go out here and win. And so I was sitting there trying to,

trying to figure, you know, trying to come to terms with that. And then we came down pit road and Josh said the left side tires are war out. He said the right rear is in the fabric. We got a lot of damage. We're going to work on it. We need some time to fix this damage. So he's talking to TJ about the pace car and whatnot.

They fixed the right rear quarter panel, put two right side tires on it. And you could only put two tires on. So we had rights to put on. Everybody else did the same thing. But he said the left were wore out pretty bad. And we had Carson behind us who had led the whole race pretty much, and he had managed his tires really,

well and we had somebody to compare to like okay you know this is if carson's tires are like this it's pretty much what everybody's got or worse and uh we'll know kind of where we sit in terms of how how well we've preserved our tires for the finish of the race and josh said man to your left they're no good he's like compared to carson they're not that great so i don't expect a lot okay wow and i said okay he said just get what you can get but don't don't it might not be driving too good because the left rear is pretty cooked. And I said, okay. But when we restarted, it was like 40 or 50 to go.

And I said, okay, Josh, I'm just going to run as hard as I can. Smart, straight, not slide the tires, but I'm running hard all the way the end. And everybody in front of me was really struggling. They were struggling. Yeah. People that were good. The whole race all of a sudden were no longer good. Right.

Off the corner, they were squirting the right rear out and sliding. And I'm like driving right up to them. on throttle my car just went straight. I gas it up and it just goes straight. It wasn't trying to spin the rear tires or get loose. It's best at being all night. And so yeah, I start, I'm like, oh man, this is fun. Okay, we're going to get back into the top eight, top seven, top six.

Oh man, we're going to get top five. It's cool. And ended up getting to race with Bobby, which was probably the most fun. I enjoyed racing a lot of these guys. Me and Jared had the contact. We talked after and had a beer. He won at Langley a couple weeks ago, big race. So it was fun to talk to him, talk to his car owner.

I talked to Bobby's car owner before the race, and me and Bobby talked a little bit throughout the week. And then, so Bobby and me, we go down into turn three for fourth place, and Bobby just turns left into the door of my car. And we're rubbing tires and rubbing doors, and I was smiling. And I was like, you know, if you're going to get out here, and race with Bobby you want to real Bobby right because

we get out of the you know when we beat banged a few other straightaways and then and he raced hard but he never you know hooked me or anything bad and finally I got by I forget who we passed for for third well Bobby and I think Brendan Queen

Butterbean was we're both right there all of you were racing for between third and fifth and down the front straightaway butterbean off of four one time Bobby got loose and we door slammed it's flag stand. And then I got up underneath Butter Bean in O3 car, and something happened in the air pressure underneath his hood.

And so when I got next to him, we didn't touch. But I'm sitting there riding off a turn four race as hard as I can, and I can just see in my peripheral vision. His hood just popped up in the air, like he ran straight in the back of another car, but nobody was in front of him. His hood just popped up because the air pressure, he might have had a little damage from early in the race

that broke a hood pin or something in the center but something happened and so he couldn't see and so he had to pull off eventually with a couple laps to go he pulls in the pits because he couldn't see in front of him right but uh anyhow man it was uh we got out of the car and bobby and i he was like bobby was coming up to me he's like yeah everybody was just moving over for you i wasn't going to do that oh stop yeah he was like he was like everybody

uh i race the shit out of these guys and then when you come up through there they're like they're like go ahead dale part into the red sea and so when you got beside me i was like hell no and he turns and he's like gave me he's like i'm gonna we're gonna trade some paint and i said man i wouldn't expect anything less i was like if i'm coming out here to race uh and and get door to door with you i hope that i get the same thing you give everybody else yeah yeah that was that all right but but we got to also say this there was a caution late and then you guys had a green white checker restart that was double file restart and we didn't even know

Hannah told me she's like, you look, in the cars tour, they may actually start this single file. I'm sitting next to Hannah during this race, which is a great thing to do. Sit by Hannah at a race because you will know more about that than anything else, right? And so we weren't sure if they were going to start single file or double file, but we wanted you to have a chance to win. And so what was going through your mind during that caution,

knowing that you were going to have a sprint to the checker? And your race car driver, Carson Crople, is also leading the race. Yeah, Carson's leading the race. So my aggression was muted a little bit because of that for sure. I wasn't going to do anything to him that would jeopardize his opportunity to win. If he makes a big mistake, then it opens the door for me. But otherwise, that was the only way I was probably going to beat him. I was absolutely hell-bent to run second.

And so down the back straightaway, so the shifter in this car, the shifting is really old-schooled. It's an old-style transmission. And when I say old, it's like 2000s era. And so in the last decade, the shifting for me has been really short throws, like just very little movement to get from gear to gear. And with this car, you've got a little bit longer of a shifter, and the throws are much bigger. And so, you know, it's like swinging a hammer, you know, from, you know, gear to gear.

So down the back straight away, I'm practicing from third to fourth, third to fourth. You restarting third, go to fourth. And so I'm practicing that movement trying to make sure that I get this thing down. I want to make sure I don't miss a shot. I was really worried about missing a shift. And so I got a great launch. I had not had good resarts

all night. Every time we had a restart, I had a gap in front of me for the car on the outside to take. And so I was trying to really have a great restart. I launched perfectly with Carson. We take off. I'm right on his bumper. I'm going to go into term one side by side with Diaz. Right at the flag stand, I missed a shift. Went into went from third to fourth,

and before I got the gear, you know, got the fourth gear gate locked, I mashed a gas, and it wasn't in there yet. And so it was a short, quick rev, then back to get it into the gate and go, but it was a car length. And now Diaz is not, you know,

now we're not side by side. We go down in the corner, nose of the tail, one, two, three. I got up underneath Diaz, but he did a really good job of entering kind of high into three and turning down across the racetrack and basically cutting off.

my path. If I was going to be able to exit, the way I'd plan the exit, I was going to have to drive literally through his car. And so I, you know, I was just, you know, I'm sitting there thinking, let's not get stupid here and door this guy and flatten our tires or hurt me or hurt him and cost us a great result. Like, you know, we were sitting there before the caution came out, literally coming off a turn forward to get the white flag about four seconds behind the leader. And I'm in that moment before that yellow, I'm thinking, I'm really. I'm. thrilled you know and then we had the caution I had to kind of regroup and go well we got a shot a second miss the shift okay that was my shot let's just get it home and uh I was uh you know

Carson is racing for the points uh it's a great night for him not just because of the cars tore points but he he got to put his name in front of a lot of people that might not really have understood his talent and ability so it's a big deal for him big race for for him to win. We're trying our hardest to sort of, hey, this guy's good, y'all. Everybody up in the top three series, this is one of the guys to watch. And I think that race really did it for Carson. And, you know, I'd have loved to have won. That would have, I don't know, I probably would have just, I'd have probably retired from everything if I'd have won that race. Probably wouldn't be here podcasting today. I'd be down at the beach house. Find the double birds on the exit of Wilkesville.

I'm out. I'm out. The emotion with Carson in Victory Lane is captured quite beautifully by the Dirty Mo crew on that Chapter 5 of Roots and Revival. People want to watch that. But if you would have won, I cannot imagine you would have celebrated any harder than you already did. You brought the cooler of beer. You were drinking it. You are passing it out. And you were certainly in your element in Victory Lane with Carson and celebrating all that.

So I thought it was just, again, contributing to the perfect scenario. like I think everything was just right and impossible to replicate. I'm really learning how to enjoy winning as an owner. And, you know, and then, and so that for me was, that for me was a tough balance because I'd always wanted to win as a driver. I didn't know how to want to win as an owner for a long time. Now, I enjoyed success, and I love to see our company have success, but it was just such a different approach that it was, it was,

it was um it's just up i'm finally getting to a point to where winning as an owner has become equally as enjoyable that's saying as a driver good that took that took some work but um you know it i think it's just because for the for the longest time i dealt you know how you know how i am with not feeling deserving and all those things and i felt like you know when we were winning as an owner is like whoops you know we didn't we didn't deserve that you know and now I feel like damn right man we're kicking I mean look at junior motorsports this year 10 wins yeah like we're damn right yeah we deserve it we work hard yeah you know Carson deserves it I see him in the shop working his guts out and so when you climbed up there climbed them stairs you climbed it

with purpose yeah like damn right this is exactly where we wanted to be at the end of all this. And so it was awesome to be able to walk up there and meet the car coming up the lift and look out on that lift and Josh and Carson and all of them standing around that car. That to me was a cool moment because, you know, they do that in concerts where they lift the lead singer comes out of the floor, you know, and the fans are like, there he is, yes. We've been here all day waiting. Yeah.

I bought these tickets months ago. Yeah. You know, that was kind of like, it is. It's a moment. Yeah. And they come up the top of that floor and the car. The car's like a star, you know. The car's almost like the lead singer of the band.

Right. You're like, wow. That's funny. Again, Dustin on the Dirty Moe crew was on the lift as it went up. And then when it gets there, you capture it beautifully, Dustin. You get up there. And there you are waiting with your beer. Yeah.

And it's like, You know, like it's almost like it just, you went from a different element, and now you're in this other whole, you know, whole system of, of what, we're in Victory Lane, and it's just completely different. It's just everything about it's different. It's brighter. That was the other thing. Boy, there was pockets of that track that are dark.

I mean, like, there's some places that. All of the light was temporary. Yeah. I know. There's no fixed lights. Hannah and Alex, you guys were in the grandstands. Is there anything y'all have to contextualize that night? I thought it was...

I mean, it was cool. We made the point that we just got general admission tickets. You know, we were like, we are going to be race fans. And it worked out perfect that Mike happened to see us as he was walking up. And he was like, I'm sitting by you guys. So he came up and sat in general admission with us in the grandstands and watched the race. Well, I was there all day with the dirty mow crew. Okay, that's right.

We went up together. But then I wanted to see this from the grandstands. Did everybody in the grandstands say hey to Mike? Oh, yeah. How'd that go? I was curious about that. We, yeah, Mike was drinking beer with the guys down below us. They were like, here you go, Mike, and taking pictures.

Yeah, yeah, he was drinking beer with the guys below us. You got pictures too, my friend. Let's be real. Well, once they put it together, I think once Mike came up there, they were like, oh, oh, wait a second. Hold on. We got half the download right here in this section, right? It was so cool, though. Like, honestly, the atmosphere.

And, I mean, I don't, I wasn't super educated. on North Wilkesboro because the last race at Wilkesboro was the year before I was born. So, like, I never really even got to, like, watch anything from there. But everything from the concessions and the people, and, I mean, it was packed in the atmosphere. Like, you could feel it. And that's something that, you know, I've been to a lot of races and I've been to a lot of different disciplines. And, like, I don't think, I think you hit the nail on the head. You can't recapture that.

Like, it was one of those things that if they chase that every single time they do that, they're going to be disappointed because it was just incredible. like it was so cool and Dylan even Dylan was with me and Mike and I sat up there and just you just kind of had to take a minute even while the cars were on track you were just like look in both directions because every fifth shirt was the three sun drop shirt like you talk about paint the crowd green every fifth shirt was one it was super cool yeah that's what I was going to say like watching like the stands as you would make a pass or come around it was just green and everyone was waving and I'm just like oh yeah this is awesome it was like going to like a home like Sports team, yeah. It's just like Dale's, like, this is like Yankee Stadium. It's like going crazy. Alex actually brought his girlfriend, but he didn't want us to actually meet her. No.

He didn't communicate with us at all once he got to the track. Mike didn't answer me. He ghosted me after like six. I'm like, I'm going to be late, so I would probably be stuck in the traffic. You were. You had to park a long ways away. I had to park like a mile down the road or something like that, just on the side street and walked up. They opened to the grandstands.

The goal was to open the grandstands at four. And I was like, Dylan, we need to be like rolling on. property by like 350 just because it's general admission seating I wanted to go make sure we got good seats and the line to get in at four I mean it took us 25 minutes to just get to where we could park they already had people parking and overflow parking and it was slammed and I think they actually delayed the race start like 15 minutes to get people in I mean it was it was wild I mean like you said the infrastructure if they did it again I mean it took me 45 minutes to get a corn dog I ain't complaining.

It was probably one of the best corn dogs I've ever had. But nonetheless, there was people everywhere. It was wild. Best was the beer prices, though. I mean, you can get, they're so reasonable.

They're like, they're so very reasonable. See, we brought a cooler. So we brought all of our own beer in. Yeah. I was so thankful for that. The free parking, the cheap tickets. I mean, we, I think General Mission was how much? $15.20.

Yeah. And then we did, yeah. So there was the concession prices where everything was nostalgically cheap. Right. It was under 50 bucks for both Dylan and I to go in, have something for dinner, grab a soda or whatever, and I have our tickets. So it was under 50 bucks for two of us to go to a race, like unheard of.

Right. And to be clear now, I think that they will race at Wilkesboro again, without a doubt. I think that everybody wants to know this, right? What's going on next? So, you know, I think that everybody needs to keep their ear to the ground. News on North Wiltsboro is going to continue to. to flutter out. It will not all come out in one piece. It never did. It never has. This whole process has been fluid. Ideas on the future and what it's going to be will change, be ready for that.

What might be promised one day may not be reality the next, but it's been an experience this past Wednesday really, really opened up the eyes to the people that matter. They already had a great opinion about, when I say they, it's like Marcus and the people that matter. NASCAR, everyone already had a pretty good idea that there's something here. There's something this track can be. Well, really, what is that? And that's what I mean when it's been fluid and it will continue to be.

But I think that that Wednesday surprised the hell out of them. these people, the important people. They thought it would be good, but it was way beyond what I think that they expected. And it has shifted everything into high gear in terms of, man, it's not, I think this place can be something. This place can be something, I'm sure of it. Now we've got to really put things into motion. Gotcha.

And so just, you know, keep your ear to the ground. The news is going to be coming. maintain patience, continue to show as much grace as you possibly can in terms of North Wilsonboro. I got to say thanks to all the fans for that grace that we had last Wednesday. I know it wasn't a perfect situation

in terms of amenities and so forth, but continue to try to show that patience and grace going forward. I think that there's some good things that can happen there. And we'll do everything we can with our opportunities and connections to keep the news flowing.

We're going to move on to Darlington, man. A lot of fun stuff happening there. Great Xfinity race. We had Noah come to the checker flag first. He was around when all the things went down at the end of that race and was able to get a very, very critical win at a difficult racetrack. The Sunday race was equally as entertaining. Had a great time broadcast in the second stage with Jarrett and Petty.

amazing win for the 43 team in Eric Jones. Dave Ellen's crew chief for junior motorsports. Now the crew chief on Eric Jones's car was able to pull off a win, and they've been really fast throughout the year. It's just a matter of time. An incredible job that Dave has done to be able to boost that program. Eric's a great little kid. We're trying to – I don't even know if you can call him a kid anymore,

but we're trying to get him on the show. We're going to book him. Yeah. He's coming. You know, there's a couple things I want to know about Eric. Eric loss his dad at a young age. I want to talk to him about that experience. I immediately connected to him when that happened,

and I feel like that he's handled it really well, as well as one could, and they were extremely close. I want to hear about this story and where he is with that. Also, y'all know he reads, right? Reads children's books. When he first started doing that, I thought he was trolling all of us. I'm like, I never really watched the whole videos,

and I'm like, is this like a spoof? but no, he genuinely loves to read children's books and promote reading, and he continues to do it today. I wrote a children's book. That's right. I would like to give him one in person on this show. That would be cool. And it'd be cooler if he took it and used it.

That's right. He will. In his promotion to promote reading. So, you know, I think he's fascinating. Yeah, long overdue. He's a little mystery. That's right. the guy. And now that he's thrust himself into the storyline by winning in Richard

Petty's cart, Darlington, so he's a great time to have him on. Plus, he's paid his dues and the fact that, look, he's lost a ride. I mean, he's not that old of a person, right? He's, he's quite young still, but yet he's, his career has sort of seen it all, I felt like. And then to go win his second Southern 500, I mean, his second, right? That's, that's crazy. That's a crown jewel race right there, right? He's won at Daytona and Darlington twice in the What an amazing talent, right? So, yeah, I think long overdue, but I look forward to having him on. One of the things about Eric is that you mentioned it, all the things that he's been through,

there ain't one sound bite of that guy complaining. Hmm. There is not one sound bite of this guy saying anything disparaging about anybody that, you know, anything bad about Gibbs. He's like, you know, I'm going to, you know, he's always took the high road. There's something else for us today. Like, hey, we need to get you to say something bad about somebody on here. Come on, let's just do it.

You've never done it. This is the first time. You'll ever do it. It'll be the last time, but let's just do it right here. Who do you want to save something bad about? Somebody. Who is that going to be? It could be about us.

One of the big, you know, we had, listen, the race Sunday was great, entertaining. A lot of problems for the championship contenders. A lot of problems. Understatement. True X's issues, which I felt so. bad for Martin he looked like he was as down as a guy could be at the end of that race in that in his interview after climbing out of the car and at breaking on him you know Kyle Bush and and Chase Elliott all these issues for all these drivers Kevin Harvick

and that's one I think we should probably pin on is what went on with that so I think think that there's a couple things going on obviously we've seen some issues with the cars catching on fire when a car comes down the front straightaway and harvick's got fire coming out from underneath this car you try not to jump to conclusions he might have broke an engine when we come on to the in car it wasn't running as he was coasting down into term one and so that was you know okay maybe the engine broke but you know the the opinion from the four car camp is that it was rubber buildup. Now, I don't know if anything's been learned this morning

as they continue to kind of investigate and tear this car apart. Everybody, you know, we had Labor Day. I'm sure they didn't do a lot of work yesterday on the car, but now they probably this morning had a little more opportunity to really diagnose what's going on around that. To me, you know, Rodney and Rodney and those guys, at the forecar, if they say it's rubber, I believe them. Rodney's not a liar. No.

Rodney wouldn't, you know, if there was a failure of any kind, he would say, you know, okay, we were wrong. This is why. But when you're watching that fire, I could watch it, and I was talking to LaTart on the way home. Me and Steve rode together to the track from town. And I was like, man, he was, he and I both were thinking, it just seemed like there was an accelerant in that fire. It wasn't like a, it wasn't like a rubber fire. Now, I haven't seen a lot of piles of rubber catch on fire, so I ain't sure that I know what that looks like either, but just

watching that car burn, it looked like there was, there was an accelerant there in the mix. What could that be, right? It's a full on fire. Right. And so one of the things that, you know, and somebody sent me a little note that has some inside knowledge about their cars and about the next-gen car as a hole. So, you know, we've had some issues with the steering racks, and they get hot and they break earlier in the year. They started making, you know, all the teams run like a steering cooler. And so maybe there was some fluid. Maybe at that point in the race, it was late enough, and that thing had cooked and push some fluid out or whatever, and it comes down the right side of rocker panel. Who knows what got down in there.

If it wasn't rubber, who knows? It could have been anything. And they're going to diagnose and dissect this car. I'm still not 100% ready to jump on the NASCAR. You've got a problem. You've got to fix wagon. Well, certainly not until you have more details, right? I think we need a few. Yeah, I think we need a few more days.

And it ain't going to take a long. It's like literally Tuesday or Wednesday. Rodney and them guys are going to know 100%. They already feel pretty confident in their argument that it was a rubber buildup that caused the fire. Rodney even explained it to detail on Twitter going, look man we got you know we we don't run very we don't run very tiny holes in the front grill a lot of debris and rubber can get in by that grill work it's wide open they don't allow you put any tape on it and whatnot and then you have a fan that is basic that so the air is coming back into the rocker panel

and then you have a fan trying to push air through that rocker panel that was in design that was designed to bring temperatures down for the cockpits because the exhaust and all that heat was getting into the driver cockpit and making it very uncomfortable so they put these fans in there. Well now that fan is also drawing that

debris into that box that rocker box where the exhaust is and you know rubber collecting in certain particular areas on cars particularly around the headers and bawling up and collecting and collecting and catching fire is not

a new thing. This has happened with the old car. We've had cars have small fires around the exhaust and the headers. They're small. They don't result in the guy having you quit or burning the wire and harness up or anything like that. It's not a significant fire, but rubber fires, rubber collecting and creating a fire around the exhaust on the old car has as something I've seen. So to Rodney's point, it's not absurd to think that that that could happen. I think he feels pretty much, you know, sure that that's what went on, and we'll know in the next couple days really exactly what caused that fire. And if it is a problem that NASCAR has to fix with redesign, it should be quick. Yeah, they'll fix it. They will fix it, but it should

happen quick as possible. Of course, because that's a safe. This is the problem. So this is the problem. This is what I think the problem is. All right. NASCAR is in agreement with the owners and RTA on cutting costs, keeping things reasonable to, they can't, NASCAR, I don't believe,

can go redesign an all new rocker box or a whole new system and then go and say, okay guys, this is what you've got to run. Now buy the parts. That's sort of the problem I believe with the rear clip

being too stiff. It's going to take a redesign to get this car to where it crunches, and there is some pushback against having to buy all that stuff. Yeah, but wouldn't Kurt Busch's situation move that along and saying, like, didn't he hit from the rear, didn't he hit from the rear side? Yeah, that's the whole reason why we're having, yeah, that should supersede any other concerns about cost, right?

That's the argument that Kevin's making is like, you know, this is a safety issue, this should get fixed, There should be no haggling or no red tape. There's no conversation about cost when there comes to safety, and he's right about that. There's no red tape, those new sign-offs. It doesn't have to go down this line of individuals to get checked off. But, you know, with the system that's been put in place to protect cost and protect the owners, there is a system of checks and balances before a piece can be redesigned or before the owners can be forced to change into something new.

but you know yeah i think that nascar's not ignoring the problem but i think if it is determined that that was a that was rubber collecting and creating a fire that you know that'll have to be addressed quickly naskar would need to get up on the horse and get going uh i was just shocked at how flammable the car becomes which is why you go back to your original point you think there was something that accelerated that. Right. And I don't disagree with that. I mean, it was a full on fire. I do know that I've not seen a carbon fiber car catch fire, so I don't know what that

looks like. Right. That's a good point. All our cars have been steel-bodied cars, and when they have a fire, whatever burns, but the body doesn't catch on. So am I watch, is what I'm seeing, the body get to a certain temperature and it ignites or it becomes partly flammable and contributes to the size of the fire? Is that what was going on with Harvard's car?

Is the rubber burns, it burns the composite stuff around the rocker box, and then now it's catching the side of the car on fire? As the door panels and so forth get to a certain temperature, they become ignited. That to me is, you can't, I mean, I wrecked that car. It's Texas. Hit the grass, okay? Hit the grass on the front straightaway early in the race.

out we race on Monday hit the grass broke the splitter hit the outside wall car caught on fire slid down the apron get out of the car the rear tail piece is entirely on fire i got the car in the graveyard so the paneling that that carbon rear tail tail tail piece that's on the old car at a certain temperature would ignite and burn and uh which is surprising i was like wow that i don't the body shouldn't burn right the body we don't need flammable bodies on race cars. That's a problem. So that to me is interesting. I don't know, I don't have answers.

I don't know what's, I don't know what to do, but I'm, you know, I'm sure NASCAR is listening to Rodney and they're probably looking at this race car and they're probably, they're on the phone right now, I bet you. Yeah. Trying to figure out what to do and how to fix it and how they alleviate the issues. And they, you know, we don't need, the one thing we don't need is to have a car not be able to continue because it caught on fire. Especially now in the playoffs and everything that's on the line.

Yeah, I can't disagree with that. All right, everybody, I'm super excited about this next guest. Jimmy Blewett has, you know, been a race car driver to short tracks for many years. Runs a tour type modified up north. Comes down here every once in a while to do some racing as well. And give me a chance to meet him at the North Wiltsboro race a month ago. He's got an incredible story. and there's been some tragedy and things that he's had to overcome.

Aside from him just being a solid race car driver and a great personality, a lot of great sound bites, I want to hear his story, how he's overcome some of the tragedies to continue doing what he's doing. So we'll call Jimmy an ally. We're thankful for allies supporting our guest segment and allowing us to bring guys in here. It gives us the opportunity to kind of bring in whoever we want, be able to talk to who we want to and get to know these people,

And we're thankful for allies supporting the show and supporting the guest segment. So let's get started, Mike. What you say? Let's do it. Straight from New Jersey, second most wins at Wall Stadium. Let's get him in. Good to you. Good see you.

He's doing. What's going on? Hey, doing. Come on in. Who are you bring with you? So, on the left is my son, James. Hey, James. It's my car owner, Ryan Fisher.

Hey. He became my car owner a few years back, and came really good friends. And on the right over there is my buddy Rob from back home. Good friend helps around the shop, the house, whatnot. You drive for him where? Explain that to me because I see you driving other cars. So he approached me about setting his car up locally for Saturday nights. In Wall State?

Yeah, and a guy near me was doing it for him. And I really didn't want to, you know, everybody kind of has everybody's back by us. You know, it's a local short track. I really didn't want to, you know, where I eat, you know, so I said, you know what? I don't want to touch it. I said, but if you really get in a jam, tell them I'll come over and I'll give them a hand, you know,

setting the car out. So that went on for a little bit of time. And then he called me one day and he says, I'm going to stop racing. And I said, well, we can't have that. We're losing cars on our short tracks to begin with. We can't lose another one. Let me set it up.

He said, all right. So we're going to have to bring it over to me. But if you bring it over to me, it's going to leave the other guy's garage and it's never going to go back. So we've got to figure that avenue out. So I really just, I knew him from being around the track and I seen the support he was doing at the local racetrack. And for all the local people there, he was doing a lot for a lot of cars at the track,

you know, and a lot of people. And he had a kid racing that wouldn't be racing if it wasn't for him. So with that said, he brought it over the garage. We got him going and he went from being a lap car to winning his first heat racing in a couple weeks. So that was special for him. and it was a milestone for him. Well, leading up to the Turkey Derby, he had said to me,

you know, I really want to have a modified and I want you to drive it. I said, you don't want to have a modified and you don't want me to drive it. You don't want to get involved in that. So he says, no, no, I want to do it. I want to do it. I said, well, it's a lot of money. And I never asked him what he has.

That's your personal business. So we were going back and forth, back and forth. And he finally says, I really want to buy a car. You don't think I have the money. you don't think I have the money. And I said, I'm sure you have the money, but I just, I know what this sport can do to somebody. I said, you can be in one day and out the next. I said, it's a lot of money.

So I said, but if we're going to do it, we're going to buy a used car, we're going to strip it down, we're going to build it from the ground up, and then we're going to go win with it. So we went, we bought a car in Pennsylvania. We got it cheap. We brought it home, rebuilt the whole entire car. And we went out and we won the turkey derby with it. And it was his first race as a car owner. And what year was that?

It was last year. Last year. It was last year. Man, you've been racing a long time. Long time. Your family got into racing how? That's a good story. One night, my grandfather was at the local water and hole by the house.

And this guy had a race car for sale on a trailer outside. So my grandfather, scrap guy, you know, having the junkyard and everything else. He knew of some of the racers. They would come in and get parts, spindles, you know, everything they would need. you know, so he went outside and checked the car out and he says, maybe this would be a good idea. I get this car, get my son out of trouble, right? So he went in, found the guy, made him an offer on the car and bought it.

Well, got the car, brought it back, told my uncle, good for a couple weeks, got to take you, run this car. Took him over to the track, started last, wrecked every car. That's the second. My grandfather said he fought his way out of the pit area. And he said, the only reason I think I see even survived that fight that night is because there was a junkyard that was directly next door to our house. You know, our yard. You know, there's two scrapyards in a row, you know, on our road, which we own both now.

But the guy, Clint Osborne, who owned the other yard, he was a big burly, crazy old man like my grandfather. And nobody really messed with him either. And he was doing the toe in there at a time. And he helped my grandfather head his back and helped them get out of there without losing their lives that night. but was hooked at that point. Oh, my grandfather was hook, line, and sinker. You know, he found the drug of his choice, the poison that night. Something new to be addicted to, right?

Yes, yes. So, you know, your life is full of tragedies and difficult things, and we're going to cover a lot of that. But you talked about how rough the first night at the racetrack was for your grandfather, and that's kind of been the storyline as I read through your, your history you guys and maybe that was maybe that was the way it was no matter who was at the racetrack everybody kind of raced and and fought their way out of there every night but your reputation is you're gonna you know you're you'll take care of business when you have to

yeah so you're blame your dad for that you blame dad for that we grew up watching you know everybody grew up watching your father you know and and and ultimately he was he was everybody's He was our hero. And, you know, you watched him growing up. And whether he was, he had the car fast enough to win, he won the race. Even when he had the car that was the slowest car, most of the time, he won the race. And I'd say, me and Freddie, I'd say 60% of them, we probably had the slower car. Yeah.

And we still won the race. And, you know, you grew up watching that stuff. And that's, you know, somebody gives it to you, you got to give it back. Otherwise, they walk all over you. Also, though, there's that junkyard mentality. You know, that was your family. business. I've dug around in the back of a few junkyards myself, and the type of individual that runs that type of business has to be pretty tough. We try. You know, it's, you know, most

mornings at our place when my brother was alive, it was a fist fight, you know, whether it was him and my grandfather, him and a customer, my grandfather and a customer, you know, I see my grandfather, You know, a guy come in when I was a kid, come in the yard and says, I need a windshield for this, this, whatever. So grandpa says, no problem. Going out, parts guy goes out, pulls the windshield, brings it back down front, gets it in the office. Now my grandfather that already told the guy earlier,

this was like 50 bucks, whatever. Guy looks at it, he says, I'll give you 25. My grandpa said, fix the windshield up, smash it on the ground, walks out the door. Well, this guy, this guy was big. I mean, this guy, I was scared. I was little. And that guy followed him out that door and they went out in that parking lot.

And I'm telling you, if they fought for 10 minutes, that was short. And they fought and fought and fought and fought until finally the guy was like, no more. And that's, like you said, that's the mentality. But my grandfather, he grew up in Linda, New Jersey. His parents, you know, my good current parents, they lived in Hell's Kitchen, New York. and he came down with a vision and a dream to have a scrapyard, and he cleared the property with his two brothers by hand and built that whole thing with his bare hands, him and his brothers.

And ultimately he was the one who took it to the next level, but here's a guy that didn't even graduate sixth grade, and he's a multi, multi, multi, multi millionaire just by working hard with his bare hands. And that's the difference. What is the Blewett reputation at a racetrack, though? Because it sounds like Dale was elaborating to kind of like what you guys are considered to be rough. Are y'all rough or y'all just like everybody else? Here's the thing.

Take us up there. If, and I'm sure your old man was probably the same way, if you run into the side of my car, okay, if you run in the side of my car, nine out of ten times, if the car's not good enough to win the race, the next turn I'm going to take care of it. And it's just my whole philosophy on it is I spend all this time away from my car. family in my garage working on his car and now I'm 22 years in on doing it if I'm going to put all that time and effort into it and you're going to clean that left front out in one turn I got to get something out of all that hard hard work and dedication all them late nights in the garage I'm going to have a good time whether I plant you in a wall off turn three or if I win the race either or when I get to

the bar that night we're going to have something good to talk about how often does that turn into an actual fist fight though? Not so more. Not so much anymore. I mean, you wish you could choke people or go over there and punch them in the mouth, but, you know, not so much anymore. And, you know, with my son coming up,

you know, you don't want to show them that path. You know, it's a lot easier to talk things out, and I'm right in the middle there. I could either go one way or the other, and all my friends and everybody listening, they know that. Like, we try to keep it right there. I can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

And I would always choose the best friend route. I always like to help people, as you can see what Ryan, you know, it's just, it's something I like to do. So sometimes your family's actions got them thrown out of racetracks, like completely thrown out? Like can't go back? Life sentences, upon life sentences, upon life sentences. Every racetrack I was ever at as a child, my father was thrown out for life. Wow. Why?

Like, for life. Doing what? Beating people up. Ask Jimmy Spencer. Next time you see Jimmy Spencer, asked Jimmy Spencer about to blow it. Jimmy Spencer, they became good friends,

you know, after the fact. But in the beginning, he'd come down from Pennsylvania, and, you know, Jimmy, he don't take no crap from anybody either. But he met his match with my grandfather. Oh, so Jimmy fought your grandfather. I don't know if they necessarily fought,

but the rumor has it, from what I was told, is they were going back and forth. and neither of them would give an inch. You know, Jimmy, you know. Hard-headed. Jimmy's brothers are the ones I would be more worried about. Well, they would all come down.

And my grandfather, being my grandfather, had heard word on the street that they were going to wreck my father the next week and that they were going to do this and do that. So when they pulled in the parking lot, my grandfather just met him there and said, let's just do this now. Like we're not going to wait. We're just going to get it over with now. And it's been going to win.

I think after that they kind of had a little bit of an extra respect for each other. and went on. But, you know, over the years, you'd see my father in the pits. I remember being a little kid going to Riverhead where Freddy's from. And my father getting into a crash on the track, coming in the pits, get into a fight with somebody. But then they end up there fighting a whole other group of people, which ended up being great friends for me today.

And I'm looking, and now I'm sitting there. Imagine being, I don't know, nine years old, standing there. I was waiting to go into the pits to go home, and here's my father and his whole crew, and then all these people having a giant altercation. And what ended up happening was is my brother was in the grandstands. He got into a fist fight in a grandstands, and he was only 15, 16. And I guess he got hit by an adult. So then the adults come in, and all hell broke loose.

All hell broke loose. Yep. So name me a track that the Bluets are not allowed to go to. Right now we're good. Okay. Right now, as of the moment, knock on wood, we're allowed everywhere. But we've been thrown out of Stafford, been throwing out a wall, thrown out of New Egypt. My dad was thrown out of Riverhead, throwing out of Islip.

So that's five. I know right off the top of my head. So when you get told not to come back to this track, I mean, did that push y'all south? Where did y'all go race? So we went to Freddy's home track, which was really. Riverhead Raceway. That was the closest one in Long Island. But before that, there was Ice Lips Speedway, which had closed down. So we would go there. And it would like, you wouldn't even skip a beat because my father ended up being a track champion there. Initially, though, does

like the, like I imagine like the people that race there regularly, see y'all come in. They're like, they know their story. Oh, shit. Here they come again. Right. They know like, man, they got ran off from the other track and they know the story. Everybody's told it, whether it's the truth or not, that's embellished and whatever. And they're like, oh, man, they're coming here. Yep, yep. And you had that vibe in the stands. Like you said, here's my brother, 15 years old, getting his ass kicked by some

drunk guy with a Budweiser in his hand, you know, we're 15 years old, you know, it's, you know, we kind of still get that to the day, you know, like, I would be racing dirt. And then when I stop racing dirt, and I go over to my local trackball stadium. As soon as you walk in, you can see him all like, he's back, you know. But you get that when you, you get that when you, you get that. when you win too. Yeah. You know,

it's not so much the rough and tumble, but that, it is. They know, everybody knows there that I'm not going to take anything from them.

So your grandfather, grandfather raced, your dad raced, when did you decide you were going to be a race car car? Well, grandpa only raced one time, and this is a good story. Okay.

So grandpa, my grandfather got the car from my uncle, that all went by the wayside. Right. So dad was working at the scrap yard, and he kept walking by the car. He was,

you know, he was working every day. and it was in the back room. What kind of car is it? It was like a three-stock or? It was, yeah, it was more like, I think back then they might have called him a modern stock. So my dad would walk by it and look at it, touch it, he fixed it, fixed all the dance, cleaned it up. My grandfather said, you're not driving it, it's your brothers.

You're not driving it, it's your brothers. Finally, one day, you can drive him. Okay. Took my dad to the track. My dad did really, really well. So my grandfather says, not only, I'm not only, I'm not. I'm here doing this. My son, he's actually pretty good at it.

And that's basically what started my father's career. You know, my father, his career ended, I believe, 91, I think is when his career ended, just from just being in too many accidents. Yeah. You know, it got the best of him. And my brother was starting at the time, so that's when he started to carry out. What kind of injuries did your dad have? Had injuries.

I remember just being a kid and him just not coming home sometimes after the races, after a bad wreck, you know, end up in the hospital. And, you know, then they don't have the, they didn't have the avenues and the ways to figure out exactly what type of injury he had and what was causing it. You know, it was just he was sick, sick, sick, sick, sick,

sometimes into bed for a few weeks and then go back to work in the scrapyard like an animal and then go back to the track and race and fight and do it all over again. Yeah. Damn. What was the one situation in which your grandfather raced? That's a good one. So my grandfather was,

was always a hauler driver. He would drive, he would drive the car to the track. So him and this guy, I think he said his name was Sal. He used to own race cars and was a good friend of my grandfather who owned a place by us called West Park Auto Wreckers. Him and Sal were bringing my grandfathers just bought a car from Charlie Jazambach. Oh wow. And they called this car Jaws. It was like one of the baddest cars that Charlie ever had. Grandpa bought the car and they're bringing it to New Egypt, and everybody took the car out for a hot lap. All the crew guys. Well, they kept telling them, you got to take it out. I'm not taking it out. I'm not a driver. I'm not taking it out. I'm not a driver. Well, the story hasn't. He got in the car,

went around on the backstretch. He said, I stepped on the gas. The front of the car came up. He says, I couldn't see nothing. He said, had no helmet on, my work boots, cut off sleeve shirt. He said, the last thing I remember was, I woke up and I was in the pick gate, and the motor was stick it up in the air like that, brand new car, ready to go to the track. So I said, what did you do? He said, I told him, get me out of the car. Can't have him come here. I have nothing on.

We're not even supposed to be here. He said, on the way here, there was a motorcycle down the road into garbage. He says, bring me down there, lay that thing on the side of the road, lay me next to it, and then call the ambulance. Good Lord. He brought his ass down the road, laid him next to it, call the ambulance. For real. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Yep, totally fell off the motorcycle. And listen, you've mentioned Freddie a couple times. Obviously, you're talking about Freddie Kraft. What's your relationship with Freddie Craft? So everybody knows it's listening. So when I first started, I raced at Wall for the first three years. And Eddie Partridge, who I had drove for for a number of years,

who hired Eddie Freddie to spot for the first time, had a car that raced at Riverhead weekly. He had SK cars, and he had modified tour cars. He was kind of left with no driver. his one driver was getting out, wanted my brother, ended up taking me. Well, when I went to Riverhead to drive his car weekly, Freddie was the guy in the announcer booth, you know, kind of like kid announcer, announcing and whatnot, and they said he was spotting a little bit here and there at the time,

had no job, had no nothing, and here's us racing Thursday nights. We were going to start racing Thursday nights, Friday nights. We started out racing Saturday nights, Riverhead. Eddie found him and said, Freddie, Jimmy, Jimmy, Freddie, here's your new spotter. basically the rest was history. I mean, Freddie and I were, I mean, he was with me at the Turkey Derby last year when we won that race because we got a lifetime contract. You and Fred.

Yeah, Freddie and I, I'd say mid-80s, probably 80-something wins together on the radio. Freddie's very talented. I'm very happy. I'm proud of him, and I'm glad to see he got the opportunity to do what he does down here and got to be friends as well, you guys. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you for saying that.

You bring him up enough. I just wanted to make sure that we know how deep that relationship does. I mean, most people call them F and Freddie, but we all do. But we all have our own reasons for that, too. Yeah, yeah. You started racing go-karts. Is that right? Yes.

What kind of go-kart did you race? Do you remember? Yeah, I raced a flat cart. It had a U.S. 820 on it. It was an invader. Pro Works was the name of the go-kart. And I raced with tricks. Yes, Martin, a friend of yours, friend of mine.

Did y'all know each other before? Did the families know each other? Yeah, yeah, from the racetrack. You know, when Martin and I were little, we would all run around a hundred grandstands there, play football, the Frisbee. Yeah. You know, do the things little kids do at the racetrack. And then as we got a little older in our teens,

I didn't see him as much at the track. You know, his dad was running the bush car and whatnot. So we really didn't see each other. His dad would show up every one once in a while, one of the badest pieces you've ever seen on the planet Earth, chromed out, big motor, beautiful haul or everything, you know, in True X fashion is what they did. and would just pop off a win, you know?

So I got to be, I'd say, it was about 15, and I really wanted to do the racing, but my dad was always so busy. My dad was one of them guys. I felt like every time I talked to him, I was bothering him. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, how do you approach a guy like that?

Junkyard guy, right? Yeah. You got a junkyard guy. Fighting with everybody. My father, my grandfather, and my brother would literally beat the shit out of each other at at 9 o'clock in the morning and we eat lunch at noon. Oh, my jaw, I can't chew. Oh, my eye.

Oh, my nose hurts. But that's just how the type of people they were. So for me, as a little kid, you see all that. And you're like, man, I got to figure out how I'm going to do this without getting yelled at. Right. So I asked and just fell on deaf ears. and I don't think it was because my dad wanted to be mean to me. It just, he couldn't handle much more on his plate.

My brother was just starting racing, you know, working at the scrap yard. How much older is your brother than you at this point? I mean, is he two years older than you? I was 27, six years. Six years? Yeah, I was 27 when he passed and he was 33. So he's probably, how long had he been racing when you're like 15? How long had he been running?

So I was 15 and he was 6. years older, so he was racing for, he started when he was 17. Yeah, so he's kind of getting, he's got a little base, you know, and he was the guy. Yeah, he was that winning guy of Flemington. I mean, he won the race of champions. Yeah. My grandfather, he was, he was young. My grandfather bought a craftsman truck when the series was first starting. You know, he had a lot of recognition at an early age. At that time, when you didn't get recognition, being younger and racing. You know, back then it, you know, it was, you know,

Mike Skinner, Jack Sprague, Darrow Waltrip, your father, this guy, that guy, it was, it was the more you had on your resume, the better you were, which now it's kind of like the complete opposite, right? Yeah. So I'm trying to figure out why your dad wouldn't want to, you know, say, hey, okay, this is, so my dad was kind of the same way in terms of like, Every time I talked to him, it felt like I was bugging him. I felt like I, you know, I was hassling him, taking him away from his train of thought.

And but eventually, you know, he would do, he would shock me by, you know, throwing a newspaper on the table and saying, you and your brother ought to try to run this street stock division they're talking about. You know, so, you know, I'm wondering. It was tough. See, my parents got divorced when I was a kid when I was four years old. So you've got that. Same here. got that going. You got that going on. Mom's trying to be the best mom can be. Dad's trying

to be the best dad, dad could be. But you still have those little bit of button heads. And you don't know what he was thinking if he didn't want me to deal it because he didn't want my mom getting involved. You know, obviously at a young age, mom's going to be there. Dad's going to, you know, how is that all going to work? Well, how it ended up working is I was saving some money at the time for my car insurance. You know, I started saving early because he licensed 17 New Jersey, start saving your money. And I had a little bit saved. I took that money.

My dad helped a little bit. And we went and bought a cart. But my brother ended up being the guy, the mediator. He's the one who took me racing. And my brother was more of my father, you know, in my life than my father. You know, my father knows that. You know, it is what it is. It's something you can't change.

My brother was the man of the house when my dad wasn't around. And he was that guy. He was that rock that my mom had to fall. back on because he was a little bit older. You know, I do have some sisters, but he was the guy. He was the man. And he was that kind of mediator in the family. You know, my brother was more like, my brother was calm until that fuse popped. And then it was, you're getting your ass kicked, or you're going to hear it. One or the other. It was only two things. It was no in between. Yeah. You know, but my dad did help. And when I started earlier in my career, he helped, you know,

with the motors and what he could, you know, but like I said, it was a generation thing for me, you know, when I had talked to your guy before where I come on the show, it was a generation thing with the Johns. It was, you know, obviously my grandfather didn't race, but it was John Booth Jr. and John Boot III, you know, and my father would always tell me, oh, don't worry about racing. You know, you don't want to get involved in this. You don't know the headaches, the ins and outs. Maybe he was trying to warn me.

Yeah. You know, obviously, 22 years later for me racing and racing everything and anything. And I'm still the guy that goes in the garage and stays in the garage until 3 o'clock in the morning, 2 o'clock in morning, 1 o'clock in morning. Whatever hours it's going to take me to get to victory land or get to speed out of the car. That's what I do. And maybe he was trying to warn me about putting all that time in for a plastic trophy. If I'm hearing you right, John and your father would also fight. each other? Is that right?

If so, what caused that? Was it over racing? One wanted wedge in the car and one didn't. Okay, exactly. That's what I'm wondering. So they're kicking their ass outside, you know? It was kind of tough being a kid to have kids over. The kids would come over by me. And that was the toughest part when you want to invite

friends over and they get over and just a great night out in the shop. And next thing you know. Yep. Fireworks. These two are kicking their ass over. the stupidest thing on the rain, painting the rear end tube. One night they kicked each other's ass so bad. Over painting the rear end tubes,

my brother said, black, my dad, paint him silver. He just said, why did you do that? You did it just to annoy me. And all as it took was one little thing. Who had the shorter fuse? They were both, they were both nuts. And then when you threw grandpa on the equation, then it was even worse.

Because he was the one, he would like, he would come back from a hard day's work, the junkyard, he'd get up three o'clock in the morning, drive a load of scrap, then come back, and my grandfather owned two bar restaurants at the same time, owned two scrapyards at the same time. This guy ain't got time to listen to you two shi-you-out here fighting over what color tubes the rear end are, right? So you'd see grandpa, he'd come strolling in or he'd already be in the house and grandpa, like, slept in the basement. So he had like his whole setup down there, and he'd come up and come out in his boxer shorts. And if he'd come out, all hell is going to break loose.

There was a few times he'd come out and a couple times, a couple of them ended up in the hospital. Jesus. In fairness, Dale, there's been times when somebody got the pinstripe or something wrong on the car. I thought that would lead you to fight somebody over if it was the wrong color in a paint scheme. No, really, that's really what your priorities were. Or if you're saying that.

Or if, you know, for a photo shoot if somebody had jacked up the car and then in the front ends off the ground, right. See, it's already. You can never have a race car. When you unload a race car, that thing's got to be sitting. Like it's the fastest thing on the planet Earth. That's right. If it doesn't, if you don't stand back, I often wonder how people paint a race car and look back at it and go, that thing's bad ass.

Look at it. I'm like, the number's going upside down. Like, the thing looks like it's doing a wheelie. Right on my wrong. He's got to be fast. You're talking right to his heart. Gotta look fast. Gotta look fast.

Gotta look fast. Got to look fast. I take the wheels off still, like a little kid. I take the wheels off when I get there that thing's polished to the prim. I put it on the jack stands, let it idle. They look at it. Nothing bad to the bone. So tell me about your streetstock car.

Streetstock. So I was always with my brother, always with my brother's friends. Everybody was always really good to me. You know, even from a little kid. But you're hanging out with an older group. Hanging out with an older group. And they knew the parents were divorced and everybody kind of kept an eye out for me. I felt like because I was the baby, the baby boy.

So we decided that it would be a good idea if we could find somebody to practice their car. So my brother's like, just get somebody to see if you can practice car. You see if you want to do it. See if you're capable of doing it. You're going to practice someone else's car at the track. Let's just start there. How in the hell do you get that?

I mean, I've never walked into a track going, I'm going to practice someone else's car today. Right. And they're going to like it. Well, so I had a lot of friends that race. So let me get some laugh. This is, this is that you're going to. I like this one. So NASCAR, when did the first computer game come out?

96. The Irish? Yeah. 93, 95, 96. So that came out and I was, nobody could beat me on it. Nobody. Not my brother, not one of his friends. Nobody could ever beat me on that game. So I would always say, wait did you see me get in a car? I mean, it's over. Just blow right by you. You can't even race this video game. Just talk and smack as a little kid. They'd all giggle and laugh. Well, a lot of them believed in me before I even got in a car, and it was crazy. And my buddy Ryan Flores, his cousin, Keith, was always a really big supporter of mine along with my brother.

And he had his head of street stock at the time. Another friend of ours, Kevin Ayers, goes to a lot of races with my buddy Stewie Freezing, had a streetstock truck. So we're all talking one day, and Kevin's like, hey, I'll let you take my truck out, get some laps in it. You can do it. I know you can do it. So I said, okay. I got to get a suit, got to get this. And Keith says, you can take my street stock out.

So I'm like, here we go. Like, I'm chomping at the bed. I'm at my brothers. I'm digging through all his suits and found myself a suit, got myself an open-faced helmet, bad-ass pair of bubble goggles, and I'm going to just set the, I'm going to break the track record the first time I go on a track.

That was my feeling. Well, we did pretty good. I went out in Kevin's truck, and I was the fastest of the trucks that were there. So we came off. and on and off two or three times. Keith had the streetstock sitting there, warm it up. Now, this is a winning street stock.

He probably won two or three races that year. It was sponsored by the local rock station, 95-9 at Rat. So the number was 95-9. All the badasses were working on this thing. So you're like, man, I'm like, I'm driving. This is the street stock. So I get in the street stock, a guy that wins a week before sitting in line. So they said, go out behind him, follow him around.

He knows how to get around here. He won a week before. I said, that ain't awesome. So I get out there, following this guy around. He said, this guy going to go? So I'm going high. He's moving up the track, go to go low. He's going low.

You get him a couple shots. Layed iron to this guy. So I laid iron to him, move him up the track, drive by him. We're down the whole straightway next turn. I drift up, go like the video game, drive on off. I'm gone. Caution flag comes out, coming to pits. He slams in the back of the car, come off the track.

These guys are throwing now at that time the pits were dirt And it was like gravel They're throwing rocks dirt everything at us My brother and them guys thinking they were just gonna kick their ass They just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed Go back out go back out And that was it I was hooked But then when I went home that night

I didn't have anything It set in like the next couple days And everybody was talking about how great it was But then you didn't have nothing So my brother was like And he knew it. And all the other kids were racing. Martin was racing. This guy was racing. That guy was racing. All the kids were. My brother just kept saying, don't worry, don't worry, you'd be all right. So I said, let me get their street stock. Because I was at that stage in life where if I didn't go

racing, probably wouldn't be sitting here with you today. That's the first thing. I might have just went down a real bad path. I was just, I wanted to be accepted. Yeah. You know, and that's a tough thing, You know, and family accepted by dad, accepted by grandpa. And I felt the only way for me to get accepted was to be a race car driver. You go in my house, look, all you see is racing in here. I'm sure it's the same in your house, you know, growing up. There's no kid throwing a baseball or kicking a soccer ball, really. It's all racing.

And that was the key to everybody's heart. And my whole family, every weekend, everybody went to the track. So I went to the local place that was building the roll cages, laid back roll cage for the better cars, got a rolling car out of the yard, started putting it together. And I came to the shop one night. It was probably, I'd say, just about halfway done with it. The cage was in it, down bars now. My buddy Keith Flores and called him. I was supposed to meet him at the shop.

Got there. Doors locked. A look in the door. My car's gone. Wait a minute. I'm trying to get in the garage, trying to open the window on the side. It's not my shop. It's the other guy's shop.

Getting nervous. Finally, somebody answers the phone. He says, listen, not building that car no more. I said, why? He's not getting... He's talking to you. Keith. He says, uh, grandpa says, no, on the street stock.

Your grandpa? My grandpa. He says, no, no on the street stock. It's going to be an embarrassment to the family. Why? I don't know. I don't know. So, me, I went home, cried, sat there.

My mom says, don't worry about it. Things will work out. Things happen for a reason. Maybe grandpa's got a better plan for you. Maybe he wants you to be a modified driver. Maybe he wants you to do this. Maybe want you to do that. But don't get angry.

Don't take that route. You figure it out. So when I was younger, my grandfather about said maybe 10 things to you a day when you got to that certain age. When you were a kid growing up, my grandfather's the best guy I've ever met. But he is the hardest guy I've ever met. And growing up, when you were a kid, it was like this guy was the guy. He bought you everything.

He brought you everywhere. He did everything with you. But then I feel like he felt when you got to that point in your life where you needed that foot in your ass or needed to be taught all those life lessons, he dropped the gavel. He was hard and still to this day, 91 years old. still comes to work in the morning, still yells at you, still tells you his opinion. You know, I felt like at that point, my grandfather wanted to teach me how to do it the hard way. Yeah.

You know, and ultimately he did, you know, so with that said, I went and applied for a personal loan. Where did the Streets dot go? Right. That's what I wonder. Nobody knows. Nobody answered me that. Nobody would ever answer that question. Even today.

Nobody answered me that question. Nobody would answer it. And in my grandfather's fashion, they knew better than to answer the question. You won't even ask him today? I don't even think my grandfather even knows. I probably just told them to get rid of the thing. If I hear about it again or see of it again, you're all going to pay the price. Do you have a theory? What do you think happened to it? He just sold it? He probably gave it to one of them or sold it or told him go put it somewhere, and later on, you guys can hold on to it and keep it. You know, street stock guys of Grandpa Blue,

it's going to give them a piece or a part or a streetstock with a laid-back cage in it, you know, who knows? I don't think it ever ended up at the scrap yard, but you never know what grandpa. So what happened next? A couple months went by, and I was trying to be better, and I was trying to get my grandfather's attention in ways. And basically, I was the tow truck driver at the yard at the time, and coming in the morning, yell at me about my truck,

yell at me about everything I do, tell me I was an asshole. piece of I don't know if you can say that, but yeah, say what you won't. And, you know, work harder, work harder, work harder, you know, the things that grandpops do. And, you know, he saw, he saw, he's, your dad probably saw your grandpa,

they knew the nights we went out, right? Yeah. They knew, they knew. Oh, yeah. They knew when we were out all night. They knew when we were out with our friends. But you also got to go through that period in your life as a kid, right?

Obviously, you're growing up. Me, I was just a guy I had the test of waters. See, you know? I went through that little bit of that stage, but that was behind me at that point with the car, and I just wanted to race the car. That's it.

Go out, drink, raise hell, but I wanted to race the car. So I said to one of my buddies, they want to buy a car. He says, why don't you just take a loan out? I'm like, man, take a loan out. Yeah, go down to the bank, apply for a loan. They'll give you the money, and you just pay it back. I'm like, I didn't realize you could really do that at the time.

I'm like, perfect. He's like, yeah, do like a $10,000 personal loan. I'm like $10,000, you know, you're like $10,000? This sounds like a terrible idea. This is all me. Yeah. This is all me. Yeah.

So, you know, I'm going to do it. So I went down to the bank, applied, filled out all the paperwork, waited a couple days to call me. It says, you didn't get approved for the loan. So I went in every Friday, cash my paycheck. And because I like the cash, going out, you know, instead of putting it in, I had to have the cash. So I went down. down there and a guy at the bank says, you know, you just got to build yourself credit. So credit card, cell phone, buy used car, dealership.

So I did all the above, everything and anything. But it ain't going to happen overnight. Yeah. Right? It ain't going to happen overnight. So I'm like, okay, I'm doing, I'm doing it, just not getting approved. But everybody on the outside in, they look and they look at the fluids and they say, how crap out of blue, he's made of money.

That guy's got more money than God. You know, they'll just put him in a car. and they'll do this. And they probably think the same thing of your family. But they're not going to give you that stuff without work. It ain't happening. It just ain't happening. So I finally go into the bank one Friday to get this, see if this loan's approved,

catch my paycheck. Loans approved. I'm like, this is great. I'm like, loans approved. I'm like, I'm my cell phone. Loans approved, loans approved. The guy's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, pump the brakes. He's like, it's one kick.

to this whole thing. I said, what? Your grandfather co-signed for it. I'm like, I don't know. I said, I don't know if I can do it. He's like, no, he said, you better sign it. You better sign the paperwork and you better take the loan. So I said, okay. So I took the loan. There they counted out. $10,000. I've never seen $10,000 like that in my hands of my ever in my life. I've seen Grandpa make a few deals on some cars and at the scrapyard and whatnot, but I haven't. I said, I know where there's a car for sale. Local guy by us, local pizzeria by us, had a car for sale. He just bought all new equipment. And I knew the car was good, and I knew what kind

of car was. It was 96 Troyer, and I remember it to this day. He was asking $3,500 for it. And he sold me the car, and he had to chrome on the side. And me, I loved Chrome growing up. My dad always drove this, my dad drove this 09 car for a while for this guy at, You might know Eddie Harvey and his father, and always had all the chrome on it. I was always into the chrome, and I loved it. You see True Access cars. They come out all chromed out, chrome headers.

I said, can I get that chrome set of wheels with it? And he said, yeah, take the chrome wheels. He gave me the chrome bars because he wasn't going to use the car again anyway or anything from it because the cars that you got were newer-style cars. So then I went from there, and I went around to everybody's shop I knew. I had a whole plan on my head. Everybody around me. that had a 96th drawer or had had one and say, hey, you got any old parks or 96 drawer,

I'll pay you cash for him. So I went around next thing, you know, I got all these milk crates, full parts. I got hubs, I got shocks, I got spindles, I got racks, and I'm doing all this stuff. And my grandfather still hasn't said a word about me buying this car. Or the mode or the money or not. He knows what's going on. He's stupid. He does his walks every morning and looks at every nook and cranny.

Any scrap guy you know that my grandfather was every ounce of that scrap yard. I'm sure you've been to a few where they know where every last thing is. I'm down to like, I don't know, I'd say 2,500 maybe. I ended up buying an open trailer for, I think it was like 15 or 1,800. And now I'm like out of money. Cars in the garage, no electric, no tools. Grandpa must have sensed it. Lunch time, next day, come down to my garage.

Let's see what you bought. Go down the garage, he opens the door. Which money he got left? None. All right. Took out a $10,000 loan. Just bought a bunch of shit. Now you're gonna be some superstar race car driver.

You're gonna be a... you're gonna be a superstar. You don't know the half of it, kid. You're a horse's ass, you're effing idiot. You don't have electric. You don't have tools. You don't have nothing. And you don't even really know what to do with it. Figure it out. I don't want to know. You're gonna pay that f*** loan back.

you're going to pay that loan back and you're going to pay the loan back starting to this week I don't care the loan's getting paid back every ounce you make with the car goes back into the loan if you even get it to the racetrack and he turned around and I had tears in my eyes and I was like I was hoping he would come and say all right he got this far yeah but that's grandpa little fashion that's how he does it you know so he turned around and when he turned around I can see my brother heated you know and he felt bad because he knew, you know, different road. You know, my brother was old enough when my parents got divorced and he was always around

and I was always kind of stuck at home. I had my visitation with my dad and stuff, but it was just he knew. He knew how hard I was trying. So my brother's thing was he would wink at me. You know, he's giving me a wink and say everything will be just fine. And he winked at me, relax. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.

So go back to work in the afternoon. I'm riding by in the machine. I was running the fork with that day. I was tears rolling down my cheek. Don't worry. It'll be right. First thing I just figured out how to get electric because the guy told you got no electric.

So there was a local electrician to come in a yard. You know, we buy copper, brass, aluminum, all that, all that, all that, you know, whatnot. So the guy'd come in and I said, hey, would you be interested in sponsor in a race car? I've never sponsored a race car. What's it going to cost me? I said, electric. I have a garage next door.

you know, I need to get power. Any power for a welder this next? People like junk welders at the time, you know. Some that still work just need a little bit of work. So I come in two, three times me handling them. He says, hey, let me take a look. So he goes down there and I'm telling him what I got going on. Didn't say nothing about my grandpa, nothing, just what I got going on.

So we did the electric. And I got electric. A few friends, guys that were helping me, you know, to get to the point where with the street stocks and whatnot, they all started chipping in a little bit. here and there. I would save it. People junk old toolboxes, light iron pile, tools, find tools in cars that come in. Like I said, you know, I got a toolbox, put a little bit of tools. And I'm building up a lot of crap. And I'm still going around and trying to pedal stuff from people's shops, bent rim that we could straighten or I could take and get a lip on it,

all that, all that stuff. So I get all that in the garage. Now, I say we're about six weeks away from race season. Okay. And they have Seaview Square Mall Show, local mall show they had by us yearly, which I would go to all growing up. Everybody see what the guy has the next year. He showed up with his new fancy car and this guy and that and that motor and, you know. So I said, I got to go to that show. But I don't have a motor. The car was just a roller. No motor or no trance. So me, being me, I got to get it ready. So we let her this car all up. I'm like, it needs to. It needs to to have more chrome on it. So I got the chrome bars.

I got the chrome wheels. So I'm in the yellow pages and I'm looking up plating and polishing in like plating, chrome plating. My brother comes into garage and he's looking at the car. He's like, what are you doing? One of his chrome on it?

You don't have a motor in the car. It's worried about the car. Like the motor, the transmission, not how the car looks. Please. Getting out of control with the thing. You still got to race it. So I said,

All right, all right, all right. Week away from this small show, but no motor in the same. I'm like, I can't go to the show. I don't worry about the show. It's worry about getting it to the racetrack. I got to go to the show. I got to go to the show. Took two pieces of eighth by one strap.

Put the air cleaner under the hood. Left the side panels on. Put a shifter handle in it. Every single person there thought I had a motor in. Still to this day, they thought I had a motor in. So we roll this thing in, right? armor all on the tires, everything chrome. There goes Grandpa blew its Cadillac.

Look at it going by. Look at all the money. They're just dumping it in on him already. Look, look, he doesn't have to do nothing. He said, meanwhile, nobody has an idea of how I got to that point. Or in my grandfather's defense, what he was trying to prove to me as a young kid, work for it. I'm not giving it to you. I don't care if I got $10 million.

You're not getting it for free. You're working for it. Well, we went there, stole the show. We won the whole thing, right? So they give it out an award. We're there. Everybody's like, hey, we'll see you in a few weeks. A few weeks, I don't even have a motor anything.

Are you going to see me in a few weeks? I don't have a motor in it. So now we're all sweating. Everybody, the crew guys, we're laughing. Our asses off, my brother included, but we're like, how are we going to go? So we found an engine. Where? But less than two weeks to go.

The guy by the name Dave Garfickel down in South Jersey, had an engine transmission for sale, $3,500. But you didn't have $3,500. But my buddy, Jeff did. Right? So Jeff comes to me and he says, let's buy the motor. I tell him about it.

He says, buy it. We'll go buy it. So we go buy the engine, right? Engine trans. Get it back. Dad looks it over. Make sure it's good. Put it on dino.

Adiata. Local guy, I assume to go through the transmission. put the trans in, get the motor set in it. My dad's warming up a little bit. Grandpa, a little bit. Little bit. My brother comes down, he says,

Grandpa wants a car up at the other shop. Awesome. Yeah, I'm going to drive it. I'm like, what do you mean? He said, I want to make sure it's safe. I want to make sure it's handled good. I want to make sure he wants to make sure everything is right on it before you sit your ass in that seat. And I said, okay.

All right. I'm upset, but you're going to drive me. my car? Like, so it's like, I'm the car owner. I'm thinking to myself, hey, I'm the, I'm the, car owner. I got to tell you, I'm the guy that you go. Grandpa says, let him, let him race at opening night and see how that goes. So John goes out there, starts in the back, right to the front. Finish the second, he's like this for the win. Now, that was against Martin's uncle, David, Michael. So now there's all these rivalries. Now they're already, now they're their first week. Everybody's getting her rivalries.

in like John's there, David's there, like all the old school heavy hitters are there. You know, at that time, even Martin will tell you, we had some lineup of drivers. You had Martin, you had other people in his family, you had David, you had, I mean, the list of guys, they're all like the Hall of Fame guys there, were all racing at one period of time, and you probably had 15, 20 cars that can win on a Saturday night. So after that night ended, get back and I'm going to race next week. No, no, no, no, no. one more chance.

We can win in this car. Well, my brother was raised in Flemington at the time, and Flemington didn't open for another two weeks. So me, I just was happy. I was like a part of the whole group. Dad was there. Grandpa was there. I was there.

I just felt like I was apart, and I wasn't going to say a word, right? That's how it started with my own car. With your driving. With my driving. So how long was it before you and your brother are racing together? I'd say three weeks after that, a car that he had sold to a guy, that he won the New Egypt Championship, went the prior year the guy just got done.

And my dad had a new motor and everything in it. And he came right out and started racing. So I was racing with him, his nights off of Flemington. And then the following year, I race with him. he went full-time tour race in the following year, and he would fill in at Wall. So he was probably there, I'd say, 60% of the time, you know. And my first full year at Wall, my grandpa's rules were even he went,

he told the whole place, the Pitt Stewart's, everybody there. This kid starts last. What? Every race until I say he can start up front. Because anybody can start in the front and stay in the front. But if you can start in the front, but if you can start in the front, back and drive to the front, then you're a driver. I don't want to hear nothing out of anybody, he says.

So he told the Pitt Stewart, and the Pitt Stewart knew, because my grandfather had knocked the guy out unconscious one time. And that guy knew after coming back from one of his four, five, six, seven life sentences. Right here, right, so, right, coming back to his life sentence is, you know, this guy's completely scared of my grandfather. So he started in the back. Yeah, John, no matter, it doesn't matter what, what happens. He's going to start in the back.

You want me to start on the highway out front? You know, basically just don't knock me out, you know? But I started in the back, and I knew the second I started up front, I could win. Four races to go, Grandpa gave him the green light. The first night I started on a pole, I won. And it was, you know, it was good. It took that giant weight off your shoulders. That was the start of it.

You still race at Wall Stadium. I saw y'all run there this year. You've got four track championships, 81 wins, in 20 years? Yeah. Talk about that racetrack. because that track's kind of been been through it. Yeah. There's been some times when it's come close to meeting it's in.

Yeah, yeah. And thank God it's still open. You know, me and that place, we had our ups and downs. You know, for me, I started out there, right? That's home. Dad, me, home. Raced my first year there, won the one race, broke track records at fast time. My next season, I went to that mall show again.

Going into that mall show, I met the owners of the track at the time. And I won that show again. Those guys I went to him, I made my own sponsorship proposal up. Typed it all up. My sister helped me. And at the time, I asked for $15,000. I put it in packages. Like, it was like some kind of superstar.

I'm like, yeah, his grandpa would say. So it was like the first one was like $20,000. You get like X amount of shirts, X amount of hats, X amount of back panel, quarter panels, front, this, helmet. At the time, nobody did that at short track racing. But I was watching you guys. I was thinking, big picture, big picture, big picture. I can do it.

So the guy took the proposal and was like, yeah, no problem. So I ended up getting this sponsor over the wintertime. From the owner of the racetrack? I'm the owner of the track. End up getting a sponsor from him and one of his partners, right? My brother and my good friend, Rob Hornsby, they redid my car. lightened this car up to no end. Everything you could pilot was lighter.

Brand new rear-end, new axles, lighter hubs, later this, whatever this, or that. Dad, here's money. Let's get the motor. My dad was already redoing the motor, but it was like, let's cut a few more things that were better. Trick her body, bigger spoiler. Anything and anything you could do in the rulebook,

you were going to do it. Well, you're talking about Wall Stadium and my history of theirs. I come out my second year. I won seven races in the track championship. Against Martin's uncle, David. who was another one of my guys you looked up to growing up. You know, you idolized. Well, David won all these races, right?

And I was beat him out for the championship, right? So I did that for two years, back-to-back championships, my second and third year racing, right? And I just felt like I had that momentum. I could do it anything I want. Call tomorrow. I could drive that. Yeah, I could drive that.

I could drive that. I would tell you, I'll drive anything. You got, I'll drive that thing. A wheel it. So going in third year, running for third championship. obviously this local guy. I'm not going to mention his name, so he's going to give him the opportunity.

So local guy, he's wrecking what my brother are ready, right? My brother's there on and off. So him and John are crashing, right? So on the point leader, this guy has been trying to win a championship from the time he was born and wasn't succeeding at it, right? And then his one shot at it, I was beating him, right? So, week prior, him and my brother go literally through the fence.

The week before, I'm behind this guy. I'm on the outside of the track. The guy's in front of me. My brother's on the inside. Coming down, you're looking down the embankment, right? I look down. I see my brother turn his head like this, and he just turns the wood. And they went through the fence, a wooden fence.

Off there, right? So John's screaming, yelling, putting stuff away in the trailer. everybody's outside. There's like, you know, security guards, everybody everywhere because they think there's going to be a brawl, right? But the guy wouldn't mess with my brother because my brother beat the shit out of him a few times, once in the bathroom at the banquet.

As you do. Yep. Because he beat his ass the week before, and then the banquet came and the guy needed it again, so he punched him out again. He needed it again. So that week, here I am in hot laps, warming my tires.

And the guy just goes, puts me right in a fence. So I said, All right, here we go. This guy just put me in a fence. As I'm riding around, it's boiling. I'm getting to my boiling point. Now, this guy's kid is out there racing with us. His kid likes running everybody, too.

So, as of right now, we are friends. Good. But his kid likes to run into people, too. It's dad probably telling you he'll run into them guys. Okay, no problem. So kids go around. So I'm going to pay. A whole deal is going to get settled right now because I'm going to launch the kid.

So I come on a radio. My dad's on a radio. My spotters and I said, listen, when the kid comes around, count me down. What do you mean? Count me down when the kid comes around because I couldn't catch the field. Now I'm a lap car. I am boiling. This is my car.

I'm wrecking this guy. I got to do it. My dad comes on. You're waiting on him, basically. You're doing lapsing on him. Don't you dare do it? I said, it's my car. I'm going to do what I want to do.

You're going to pay for it. No problem. Kid come around, counting me down, hooked the right, jammed on a brace, launched him. We all crashed. come in, had the big brawl, and I got thrown out. But what I'm getting at is from that point on, that third year, I only been back there two full years, my whole career. Yeah.

In the 22 years that I race there, and I have 81 wins there. Wait a second, though. Is the timing, and the way you told the story, is it just a coincidence, or did you get kicked out of Wall Stadium while they were sponsoring your car? Yes, I did get kicked out while they were sponsoring the car. There was mixed emotions. the one guy was more of, you know, I guess you would say more business. And he said, I wouldn't take that shit either.

And he said, so I'll give you the money. Go on the road. Go race somewhere else. He goes, even if it's my track, we don't have to race here. It doesn't matter. And John at the time, he's... John won the race that night. Did he?

Yeah. Yep. Well, that's nice. And we were actually, we were reading the article last night and we were laughing because John played it off like, I don't know what they were doing behind. I don't know what happened back there. Okay. I was just finishing where you guys started.

That's the thing. So when you and your brothers, you know, were racing together, a lot of times y'all finished each other's businesses. You mentioned it earlier. You know, how many, I know you probably don't remember how many times. So every time you're out on the racetrack with your brother, you're all pretty hyper aware of what the other one's going through. Yes.

Yes. And ultimately, when my brother and I raced, it was just for bragging rights with each other. Right. And we, we raced each other. the best we possibly could. You know, first of all, I wasn't wrecking him because they didn't want my ass kicked. Whether I'm a big guy or not, my brother would kick my ass. But you were watching, you were watching what his night was going.

Yes, you know, we always looked out for each other. I mean, that second year, when I won the points there of that second season, the first three nights we won. So everybody goes to the local bar afterwards. So it was first three nights by the fourth week. There was nobody there? We did the same thing at Samarana went here. We won all the nights between me and him. We won every night.

At the speed week. At speed weeks, yeah. And we showed up a pub 44, you know. And nobody would. There's nobody there. They didn't want to hear it no more. They didn't want to watch it. They didn't want to hear it.

They were tired of us. I didn't believe anybody who was tired of going to the bar. I was ready. I was ready. Even if I lost, I'd still go to the bar. I like your style. That's like the best part. So you're getting opportunities in the, you know,

mid-2000s. you're getting opportunities to run into Tormod. Yes, and that's where, back to that story, I told you about Freddie and Eddie. So John was getting out of his ride, and Eddie had approached John and said, hey, I'm, you know, I really want you to drive my car. Partridge.

Eddie Partridge. Yep. So Eddie and Connie Partridge, the nicest equipment on the planet Earth. Really? There couldn't be enough chrome on it, Freddie. That was my guy. They had a lot of chrome.

Chrome. He was the first guy to show up with a cup hauler. Yeah. Mike, I need to tell you. So he's talking about putting all this chrome on his car. Me and Truex built a late mile stock car when Truex moved here. And we just decided we just wanted something to do at night. And we didn't even have anybody that's going to drive it.

They were like, let's build a car. Let's just build a freaking race car. And so he chromed all the suspension. It was fucking awesome. That's awesome. I never had a car with chrome suspension. We didn't do that down here. But I knew that I'd seen it on the modifies.

And Truex has helped me build this car. And we cut holes and everything. thing you could cut a hole in and we chrome. People don't realize that Martin is one hell of a fabricator. Yeah. Is that right? Well, him, he had to work on his stuff. Yeah.

You know, he wasn't a guy. He was another guy. It didn't just, there was no platter that came out of the seafood truck. It was like, oh, here you go, Martin, there you go. Literally, right. You know, he was, he worked his ass off and and he's a hell of a fabricator. He could build a race car. What did y'all build? What kind of car? It was a late-mast car. And who raised it?

No, we ended, where is this thing? I'll drive it. We didn't. So we didn't, we just needed something to do. Right. And we're like, let's build a car and we'll figure out the rest. And so maybe he would drive it, you know, whatever. And so we built it.

But yeah, we coated the, we coated the trailing arms and uppers and lowers. Awesome. And it was cool. And we painted the chassis sat in black. And then the body. So you guys were in before all that stuff was even in, honestly, because now we all paint our stuff. sat black. Did you build this in the dirty dome?

Yep. Is that right? I didn't even know about this car. And then we sold it. Wow. It's beautiful. Called it black sunshine because it was a sat in black chassis with an orange body.

Have you ever seen in some of his family's cars? Like some of the stuff they had? The one is uncle, they had on the cover of Circle Track magazine. Unbelievable. Everything was always hand painted. Beautiful. Chrome everything.

Heathers enclosed most of the time. If not, they were chrome. So when you get the chance to race in the tour mod, is this, tell me like, Compare that to something else. Like what would compare it to something that we would all understand when you're getting an opportunity to run, you know, in the kind of big leagues, right?

This story here, this one you're going to like. Is your brother-in-law here? LW? Yeah, probably. Can we get him in there? I don't know. Is he a possibility to get that guy in here? Let me find it.

Because he's in this story. They're in, they're on the West Coast. Oh, that's right. They're racing. Microes. Well, I'll apologize to LW ahead of time. We are friends now. he, you know. Oh, you, you ran into it with him. Oh, I smoked him. I can't wait to hear this.

I smoked him. Tell it. Let's hear it. So. In the tour mod. In the tour mod. So before I went with Eddie, I had, like I said, went to Shimon. It opened up an avenue for me. Yeah. Because grandpa had had an old tour mod sitting there that was sitting for like three years. Okay. The motor wasn't the latest 18 degree motor. It was a 23 at the time. But it would be something that you can actually go race. a modified tour race. That was the first thing that my grandfather let me do with him. He said, there's a tour race coming up at Chamon. You want to drive the old car in the back there? You can drive it. John will get it ready.

Perfect. Well, me went in there, I knew the track. So I went, I qualified, I don't know, top 15. White Flaglap, my spotters on the radio. One more spot. You can get a top 10. Come on, one more spot. One more spot.

Well, that one more spot was LW. Miller. And I was driving this car. Chassie was a racework chassis. These things were like an eye beam. Like you could hit a brick wall with this thing and it wouldn't even bend the front bumper. Right? I went down in turn three and I gave him the shot hurt around the world. I hit LW and he went in a third lane and how he didn't hit the fence. I have no idea. And I drove off. I got my top 10. Man, you know. But he fights. He was pissed. He's scrappy. He wanted to fight too. And he knew we fought. and he come down and asked me, I said, I was just trying to get a top 10, you know.

He was screaming and yelling, hooting and holler. We laughed after, you know, gears went by, bought an engine from them and whatnot. There's no way y'all didn't throw hands at that point, right? No, we didn't. How is that possible? I don't know if he, he was friendly with my brother. So, you know, maybe he was, let my brother handle me. I don't know how that all went down, but he, no, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't fight.

I'd have lost that bet. Yeah. He don't need much. He will. He will. He will fight. He will fight you. Yep.

So, okay. He's fault. He's fault recently. Remember Atlanta? He's about to get into it on the front of the road. On the Xfinity race? After. Yeah.

Oh, was it? Daniel Hemrick. Yeah. He's one of those. He's one of those smaller guys that you don't think will punch your right of mouth. He'll do it. But didn't he also get it?

That old modified racer back came out. Didn't he also get Wyatt kicked out of a track? A couple years ago, like at that one of the, that little mountain track? He still pops off with the mouth. I think he might have punched the official scorekeeper somebody. He's no longer physical. I think he's always got it in it. He just gives you the verbal warning.

You better get it. That's funny. All right. Now, did you ever race him again? Did you guys race a whole lot? I think shortly after that is when he moved down here. It might even have been that next season. He wasn't around him where he moved down here.

How much? Okay, so now you're in a tour mod, though. My first time. Yeah. And I just felt like I was on top of the world, you know, at that point. I bet. You know, and for me, my whole racing career, I only wanted to race that car, a race car, to show my grandfather and prove to my father that I could win one race.

I never thought for the life of me that I'd have 150 plus wins, track championships, wins here, wins Martinsville, this, and be sitting here today talking to you guys. You know what I mean? Like, it was just to win. one race and say, Grandpa, Dad, look, I did it. Yeah. For my brother to say, I told you so.

Yeah. I told you he could do it. You know, I don't think they ever doubted me, but as hard as they are, they wanted me to learn a hard way. And because of it, I think is because you're, is why you're so successful at it, right? I mean, come on. Just that no quit attitude. Yes.

You cannot, you cannot quit. If you ever go to a racetrack and you ever think that somebody else there is better than you, or you cannot win that racetrack, that's a. tell you hang the hand on, you just don't go no more. That's right. Don't ever go. That's it. Go help somebody or whatnot, but don't ever get in that car.

If you never think you can do it, if you think, oh, well, Joe Blow, he has that nicer car and he has that better. And he can kick my, I'll beat you in a pile of a shit if I feel like it. Okay. So if we can all agree, and I think you're right, that you did this, racing for acceptance, is really what you were doing, right? Yes. And for me, yes. What was the closest that your grandfather and maybe your dad came to verbally.

or showing some sort of affection or approval or recognition that you're even good at what you're doing like did they ever come close to just verbalizing that it took till late late in my career with my grandfather i mean he told me a good job no he gave me the old good job good job jimmy i mean that's a lot that's i love you is what that that's that's good that's good my grandfather's not a not a got not he's i've been telling my grandfather i loved him my whole life he doesn't say it back he's one of them guys okay he has his reasons. I don't know why he does that with people, but that's how he is. Okay? Um, it was always, you just did a good job. Good job. Good job. Um, after I lost my brother, that's when we

started to come together. We clashed in the beginning when he, when, when, when John was no longer with us, it was nobody, nobody said nothing, but it was just, our whole world crumbled. We lost the glue the whole, held them all together. You know, once we started racing together as a family again, and I was his driver and I was his guy, he told me all the things I ever wanted to hear from him as far as how proud he was in me and the man I become and whatnot, you know, that I got that out of him. Wow. You know, and it's only been in the last, I'd say, eight years, you know, took my whole life to get to that point. How did that make you feel?

It made me feel good. It made me feel complete, you know, as a person, you know, that I was able to prove my worth to him. You know, I know there's still some things that he doesn't agree with, you know, at times, which we all don't agree on everything everybody does. But he's always my biggest fan and he's always behind me 100%. You know, if I called him right now and said, hey, I'm down here and you're going to go buy a race card on a road, I see we can be a little better for next week. He said, tell that guy I'll get up some cash next week, you know, and he'll do it, you know. But he was the one who really truly pushed me to the point of getting here, you know.

So you lost your brother in 2007, and y'all were racing at the same racetrack together on the same race. You had a flat tire and gotten to the wall. How did all that happen? So us, we're going to go back to the throwing out part. Well, Eddie Partridge, I got thrown out of Stafford one week. Guy kept running into me, running into me, running into me, running into me. Freddie and I were at a driver's meeting one night. I told the guy, solicited you run into me again.

We're wrecking. Well, come off turn four, a guy drove me up on the wall, came down, hooked him in the right rear, sent him off into turn one, got out and said, how'd that work out for you? Threw me out. John ended up being the fill-in driver for me. Well, John goes the first week wins in my car, right? The next week, he gets into it with the local favorite.

Now, they're in a heat race riding around two miles an hour because the local guy won't go around him because he knows John's going to put him right in the fence. So now they're like, man, we threw him out. Now we got in Freddie Spot and they're like, when we brought this guy in, this guy's crazier than him. you know so john ended up being my teammate after that in the skays because eddie really enjoyed watching us race together we pushed each other we you know skays at thompson you drafted a lot so

you get each other to the front you know so that night we were on the front row for the sk race and um worked our way up there now i had the dodge motor he had the Chevy motor richard petty if you're listening that dodge was better than the Chevy don't lie to everybody Okay? This dodge was a flame thrower. But I really wanted John to win. They had a bad wreck and it was a bunch of speedy dry right in the restart zone. And they didn't get the fucking clean.

He was all over the fricking track. They throw to green. He steps on the gas. It's right front. It hits my left front. Now we do this. The whole field comes in. Cars are destroyed.

I'm nervous. He's going to freak out because I know how much he wanted to win. Well, I get out of my car. I'm starting to walk. He comes up. He puts his arm around me. He says, what's the matter? I said, what's a matter?

We just wrecked. Oh, it's wrecked. We don't have to fix it. Don't worry about it. We got a whole other race to go. I got on the gas. I got a little loose. It wasn't your fault.

We got into each other. It is what it is. Don't worry about it. We got another race to race. We'll win the next one. And we went out. We went out in the next race. And I don't exactly remember where I started.

But we both started. I'd say middle pack. Drove up to the front. And we were swapping to lead. back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I'd say we must have swapped the lead somewhere upwards around maybe six, seven times at that point at Thompson. He'd drive it down in there, I'd check up, drive back by him, vice versa. We're way away from the field.

We're just racing each other, right, at that point. You know, when you get in that zone, whether it's with your friend or with somebody else, those guys, they were just sitting ducks. The rest of them were just out there on the racetrack with us. We were definitely one of us was winning that race. caution came out, we come in and pitted. We went a couple more laps after the pit, and a red flag come out. So I pulled up next to him, and he said, what do you got?

Told him what I got. The car was a little tight. He said, listen, one of us is going to win, all right? One of us is going to win. Don't let these fucking guys win here tonight. Let's go. I said, all right, no problem. It's exactly how we said it.

No problem. Right? No sooner did I say that. Freddy Kraft come on a radio, and he said, fire it up. It's time to go. fired it up, you looked over at me, you wore a helmet like you wore, the Voyager. When we went to full-face helmets, we were like, which helmet do we choose? We chose what you guys did.

My brother always said because of the iPort, you could see more. You could see more. So we always had that big iPort helmet. So pulled the helmet down, looked over at me, winked, and went like that. And that was the last time that, you know, we talked or, or said anything to each other. We went back racing. We swapped the lead, I'd say probably another close to 10, 15 times maybe.

I know exactly, you know. It was never a video of it with all that stuff, went by the wayside, which, you know how that goes. But we swapped a lead back and forth a bunch of times. Croshen flag come out, and there wasn't much really left in the race. And I was cleaning my tires. I had had the lead at that point. I just passed them back.

And Freddie, come across the radio, and just your clean the tires up, clean the tires up. So I started cleaning the tires up. Right front was sticking real good. You know, when you get that feeling, man, right front is really gripping. Sometimes the size and all of a sudden it's sticking. I mean, this thing's good now. Car's perfect.

Stick. Well, the reason why I felt that was because the tire was low. And I didn't know a tire was low. I had no clue. So I was getting good restarts. You know, it take him a lap or two to get me and then make that move on me. Took off on the restart. Stayed ahead of him.

We were one lap. I had them probably about a car length. And I come down to front stretch. And just as I got about three quarters away down the front stretch at Thompson, my right front tire went, rolled off the rim. The modified you could see it. And I went straight. And I, in my mind, I thought that was the end for me. Because how fast I was going in and when I went in.

And I went in and I was knocked unconscious and came too quick. You probably know that routine. Okay, Thompson. Okay, what the hell happened? And I heard a scream. And I heard a scream than I've heard before. It was from my brother. And I said to myself,

this guy's going to kick my ass. But I didn't realize he was screaming because he was asking me to save his life. So, I got out of my car, not knowing that he was hurt. And I climbed down. When I reached in the car, I looked in the car, I knew right then and there that there was no saving him. It was it. It was his final time.

I grabbed his hand, grabbed my hand. I told him I was there. He squeezed my hand. He squeezed my hand. He squeezed my hand. And he tried everything he could to get out of that car. And he could not get out of that car. And my brother still to this day,

probably the toughest man I know on earth. And he didn't even go out without a fight, you know? And that was the end for me, you know. That was for everything I knew. I felt like everything left me that day. You know, how do you go home and tell your parents? How do you tell your mom? I tell your dad, how'd you tell grandpa?

Grandpa was in the hospital, got a knee replacement that weekend. You know, how do you go home and deal with all that? And ultimately, it was all because of I ran something over on the racetrack. There's nobody's fault. It wasn't, you know, people, it's like your dad's accident. Everybody's going to point their finger. This guy shouldn't have touched that guy. that guy shouldn't have touched.

This guy did that. This guy did that. Listen, we were having a good time racing each other. And that's what we did. We raced as brothers. Might have rubbed a little bit, but it had nothing to do with the accident,

you know. And I waited. I waited, you know, that night I had to go to the hospital. You know, it's like, like I saw you at Wuxparall. It's like, I've always wanted to just say to you, I feel for you. I can't tell you.

you I know how you feel, but I feel for you because you and your family went through something that my family went through. And we have that thing together, okay? And like I said, I saw you, it works for I didn't want to bring it up, but I just wanted to tell you that I feel for you, you know, because I never knew I would ever get the opportunity to tell you. I just want you to know whether it went in one ear and out the other. I'm sure a lot of people tell you, but my situation, I feel like it, you.

It was for a reason, you know? It's like when I flew here, I was telling him, I don't know if I told you your guy. My flight was number 766. We were in group three. Got here today. It was 76 degrees. I don't care what anybody says.

They're watching us. They know. You know? But it, uh, back to the story. It, uh, it's terrible. But for me, I wanted to know why. why it happened. I don't know. Why? So I sat home, probably about three, four weeks, and got a call from NASCAR, from the Tech Center. We're going to bring the cars back.

I couldn't sleep until these cars got back to our garage, find out what was going, what really, I need to know myself what happened. As if it was me, if it was, but I rubbed this car or something, or my rim was bent, or I gouged the sidewall of the tire, I don't know. don't know. I don't know if I'd be sitting here. I don't know. I might have just sure. Yeah. Went off somewhere. Because seeing what your family goes through, still to stay, you know, so got the car back. My car, his car, you know, both come back to my shop, because that's where they would, they went and obviously got his out first. And we all just kind of did our thing and looked at it and said a prayer, you know, moved it off to the side,

put a cover on it, got mine out. Well, my car, first thing I did is I said, I kept telling everybody, my tire went down, my tire went down, my tire went down. And then you have the people, he's rubbing tire, he ran into his brother, he ran into, he killed his brother, he did this, he did that. It's the last thing you want to hear when your best friend, Your father figure, your work partner, the guy told you everything in your life you could do, right? You just held his hand when he took his last breath.

And then you got all these people saying, oh, he did this. I still get it to this day. People. Really? If you go out there and beat people and there's nothing they can do about it, they'll go to the bottom of the barrel to see if they can get to you. But me, don't work that way. It's a complete opposite.

You say that stuff, now I'll build a new car. I'll work harder. I'll get a better motor. Well, you got a new motor two weeks ago. I don't care. We'll see if we can find more power now. You know what I mean? It's just how I do it.

But we took that tire off. Keith and I, Keith Forrest, was there, Ryan's cousin, and mounted it on a new tire, our new rim per se. And as we were taking it off, there was the stem of an 8th. inch rivet through my tire. Now, that never was looked at, obviously, when it went to the tech center. That was something that wasn't looked at.

I needed to know how it started, right, because I knew tire went flat. Well, once we've seen that sticking through, we knew ourselves. Keith and I, he put his arm around me, started crying. I said, see this? You know, obviously I was mad. I didn't clean his shit off their car and it got on the track and I ran it over, but you can't, you can't, any of us probably have done it at times. It happens, but it's crazy to think that that one little thing can change your whole course

in life. It changed the whole course of my life. At that time, my grandfather literally handed us his business with open arms. We would just give them the money at the end of the week. Whatever we needed, we got. We gave it. we plan on building house together, piece of property together, this together, that together. Ultimately, the next year he was going to, he was only 33.

But in his lifetime, he went through a lot. A few years prior, he had dieticulitis, his intestines burst. He went septic. He almost died. You know, so he had a whole avenue, new outlook on life. And adopted a little boy, his wife and him. he was just going through a whole different feeling in his life with a near-death experience. So just to think for me that that one little thing changed it all like that, like in a blink of an eye.

And we put it on, we blew his eye up, and we watch it. That little, little, little tiny leak. And I know now myself. You know, I've seen what happened with the cars, you know, with the Nerf bar. you know, what happened was is he had that big iPod helmet. Okay. Would that have changed the direction of the whole thing? No, it's back when window nets used to flap around.

They call it the JB3 Bardow that the manufacturers have put in place. You know, a NASCAR helped them, you know, figure out how to design to keep things safer for us drivers. But it was just, it was just crazy to think that that one little thing changed my entire life and everything. You know, because my brother, like I said, he was the mold that hauled everything together, you know. And coming here today, I just wanted people to know, you know, I mean, everybody knew how much John meant to the racing community. I'm sure you see it. I mean, you might not have ever met him, but Martin will tell you. You know, Martin, we'd go to the go-car track when we were kids. They'd open up the tailgates of the truck unload us, Martin and his father, and John would hop in with Big Martin, and they'd listen to AM radio and listen to the race and check on us every once in a while because Martin was a guy.

with the air condition in his truck, you know? Yeah. And, uh, and whatnot. But, uh, it's just, it's tough. It's tough to, to deal with. You know, I did, I think there's absolutely some similarities in the two stories. Obviously, you know, you had a personal experience with your brother in his final moments that, that, that I didn't have with my dad, but, um, which I can't imagine.

I can't imagine going through that, but the next week, the next two weeks, the next three weeks. The hardest part. Yeah. You can't sleep. You're sure you went through it. That night you go to the hospital. You were there in your fire suit. I was there in my fire suit.

You go there and you're like, what happened? You're numb. You're numb. Now I'm in Connecticut. That's a crazy part. I'm five hours. Four and a half. have five hours away from home. Now, we drove up there. Now, I would help him. He was driving our

family car, right? I drove his hauler there. He drove the custom motor home that my, like, we always wanted this custom motor home that would, we called the, grandpa would call it his bunk house, you know, that all the guys on the crew could stay in this thing, right? And we built all C-tech cabinets, made all the railings around the bunks look like the front bumper on a, modified. Baddest thing on, sweet. All this stuff's got to get home. All this shit's got to get home.

I don't want to leave my, like I felt like I was leaving him there. Now I'm there. That was such a, yeah. Half the hospitals are closed. And you're like, I went to, we went to the wrong place first. They told us one place he wasn't even there. We got there. Like, oh, we closed early because there was nothing going on.

Everything goes to the main one over there. So then we had, we rushed, we rushed down to there. and I knew he was gone. I knew. I knew it. I kept saying it. You know, I was, luckily enough, gentlemen, it was on my crew at the time.

My buddy's, a friend of our family, his guy, Steve Biddle, he was the chief of the fire department at the time. So he had his fireman truck. Well, this probably weren't supposed to take it out of state, but we had that and it helped with pull and getting in and out of everywhere and whatnot, but that ride home, that ride home,

driving the trucks home. It felt like forever. It felt like I didn't get home for two days, you know, and then to get home and break that news to your mother, you know? And at the time when something so tragic happens, nobody wants to hear why it happened. They just know it happened. Yeah. When you, and me, I just, I was like constantly trying to explain myself. And it was like, no, don't, like, but for me, I just, I just trying to.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't, I didn't do anything. Yeah, you needed to be able to share. Yeah. So how did you end up, how did you come to terms of that? Because, you know. It took me a while.

It took me a while. You've seen, I'm sure you've seen some pictures of me. I blew up to 290 pounds. Really? From, I was like 2.30 at the time. And because I couldn't sleep. And I, I didn't go after that. I didn't go out drinking.

Didn't go out partying. I didn't do nothing. I'd wake up in the middle of night and I'd eat. But I couldn't sleep. I'd eat, and eat, and that was my way of coping with it. Yeah. Were you, were you, did you have a hard time facing people? Yes.

Did you have a hard time facing with your family? Because it sounds like, my grandfather. Okay. My grandfather. Did you ever have chances to explain? Did the time ever come where you got to sit down and say, hey, I really need to get this off my chest? It's going to get off my chest when he listens to this. Yeah.

because he knows. He knows how bad. You know, like, after John passed, we didn't talk. Like, I tried to explain it to him, and he just, I don't want to hear it. Yeah. It doesn't matter. It's not bringing him back. I don't care.

I don't care. And John, like I said, he was that guy. My brother had, get this. 10,000 people went to my brother's funeral. I have the papers. I have the sign in. 10,000. I got there in the morning just to go in and see them.

And it was raining. So they started bringing the people in. And I stood there from the morning until every last person made their way through that door. I wasn't going to leave. And it just goes to show you, like how many people he touched. I mean, after this, obviously, you get a change. chance you see Martin, you talk to him and ask him. He was only 33 years old, my brother. And everywhere you go, you see that Roman numeral three, right? You see that on people's suits.

You see it on their car. You see it everywhere. I go to Samirna. I go here. I go, hey, and I think myself, man, how many lives does this guy touch in 33 short years? But everybody knew him because he wasn't only that driver, that rough tum. He was the guy that he was the helper. He was the guy that went over and scaled your car for you and a parent tried to pay. He said, no, I just ate some pizza here. That's fine. You know, he was the guy that you wrecked your car Saturday at Turkey Derby and it was another race on Sunday.

We brought up back to the shop and fixed it. You know, and he was, I feel, one of the pioneers with the later stages of these asphalt modifies. We were the first, you know, he, as soon as Wurig came out with a shock dino, he bought one down here and went to school for it. He could draw all the roll centers out. He could do all that stuff on his own where most people, I'm not a clue. But he said in order to be the best racer, you've got to be able to do it all.

And if you can't do it all, you're not going to be the best. What helped you come out of your funk? I mean, was this just like a slow, slow process? It was slow. I went back to the track. What track? I went back to Thompson. Went back to Thompson to where it happened.

My first race back was Martinsville. When you went back to Thompson, Did you go back over there to where the crash happened? Did you have, like, any kind of, like, the first time off into turn one or whatever corner it was? Did you have, like. Every time I drove at that track up until, I'd say it took me two years. Every time I would get into turn one at Thompson, I'd take my right hand off the steering wheel. And even if you were thinking about you said, hey, man, you know, you're a driver, right?

Sometimes we don't know half the things we're doing in the car, right? You're driving that thing, right? You're driving and get down in. take my hand off like that every time, every time I would go into the turn there. Thinking about. I don't know. It was just like about that turn. Yeah, yeah.

You know, but, you know, I got over it through racing the cars. How long did you go back? How long was it before you went back to Thompson for the first time? Was it within a year? Yeah, it was a couple months. It was probably like a month. We had went to Martinsville first, and, you know, I had won with Eddie there before. and we went to Martinsville,

and then after I said he was ready to go back, run the SK, say, yeah, so I went back there, and I was leading the race and took the white flag, and that guy that my brother had problems with at Stafford spun me out. Are you serious? Spawn me out. And your first race back?

My first race back. Yep, yep. And it is what it is. It's racing, but, you know, I ended up going back. I won a lot of races at Thompson after that. You know, it just, I never got the tour win. The tour wins the one I want. You know, it's just like Daytona feel.

I know, but damn, man, you've ever come so much. I know. I could that little, how could that tour? I know. I mean, I understand what you're saying. It's just the place. Yeah. It's just like, you almost feel like the place beat you, but it didn't.

If it happens, it happens. If it don't, it don't. I'm a firm believer. Things happen for a reason. Yeah. You know, um. I feel like. that our s's all kind of predetermined, you know.

100%? I don't know if I feel that way as like a, it's an easy cop-out, you know, but I just, I can't believe that we, you know, everything was right and then all hell breaks loose. And, you know, for no reason, right? No, there has to be a reason. It has to be a real. It has to be a real.

I'll tell you some, I'll tell you a couple things, whether you believe it or not. I had a premonition. before my brother passed away, we were working together. Yeah. And I was in the back of the yard. And it just overcame me. I was like, emotion, like, in tears,

I had this feeling of him getting killed in an accident. And I come back, and it was like a weird wave. I never felt it in my life. Never seen, even since, never. And I said, man, that's, it was crazy. I went right over and told him, get out of here. And he says, who cares if I go in my car? If I want to go

It goes if I go on my car It's the best way you can go Do you want to go working out here Something full on you Right I'm riding out of your car And you get broadside in You want to go man

You go in a race car His idol was Richie Evans You know my brothers You know all growing up Was my father But Richie was the king You know So he's everywhere

And he's like look Richie He's lucky enough He got to go doing something he loved How many people Can you count on your hands They could go out Doing exactly what they love

Yeah obviously your father got to go out doing what he left john got to go out doing what he loved you know and so i don't worry about that yeah and then it happened yeah i had a a dream that i won the daytona 500 i told this story in 2000 at the media it was either 2000 or 2001 one of those years and uh i dreamed the night before you know you'll you know this we rarely have dreams about racing I don't have dream. I'm a race car driver. I love it to death.

I've lived it my whole life, but I don't dream about it every night. When you did, it was unique. It was rare. And you remembered it. Yeah. And I had this dream that I won at Daytona 500. And I get up the next morning and I was like,

they're asking me in the media center. And I said, man, I had a dream. I won this race. We're at Daytona for the first race of the year for doing the media. I said, how I dream I won this race? I don't ever dream about racing. And they were like, really? That's cool.

you know, they love those storylines and they're going to take off with that and use it. And the guy asked me, said, where'd your dad finish? I was like, just then I realized, I was like, he was not in the dream, not at all. He was not in the dream. And everybody else was, Del Jared and all the other drivers were on the track.

And they were like, oh, that's odd, okay, whatever. And we went on down the road. And then four years later, or five years later, I won the Daytona 500, and dad wasn't on the track. What's good about you having that dream and whatnot is it gives you that thought of it's predetermined. There's got to be something else out there. There's no possible way.

Your guy's reaching out to me to talk to me and the temperature at my house is 76. You know, I'm just, I'm that numbers guy like that. There's just too many random things. You know, Tommy Paulin, he could have any driver he wants in his car, any driver he wants. He's got the hottest modified on the tour right now. Yeah.

Right? Absolutely. It lets me drive it. Well, I obviously believes in my ability to do it. But I feel like also him and I were put in our past for a reason as well. Because his father, you know, lost his life at Thompson a year before my brother. You know? So with that said, driving his car.

Going to, you know, earlier this year, my daughter became sick. You know, my wife and I, we went through a really, rough patch of a month with my daughter. She was in the hospital, in and out, just a complete nightmare. Here you have this perfectly healthy little girl. And then a week later, she's in the hospital, 104 fever, and the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with her. You know, so in that time, I had to give up my seat, you know, and I was gaining momentum with Tommy. You know, we were gaining on the car, on the setups. And that's where I feel like him and I together, we, we tune the car good, you know. I never say I'm the best driver. I'll do the best I can, you know,

but when we went to the Wall Stadium race, this amount of money at the gas pump, parking spot over here with this number on it, right? Everything lined up. My band number, 0576. My brother's two numbers, 0576. Yeah, that's what it was. So it's like, you can't make it up. For everybody listening, what was the end result with your daughter? She ended up with, it's called Kawasaki disease. It's curable, but you have to find it within the first seven days. So she come home, fever, normal kid stuff, right? So my wife takes her doctor, it's viral.

Okay, no problem. A couple days go by, some medicine, go back to the doctor. It's viral. It'll be out in a couple days. Give her more medicine. So, it was coming up to Mother's Day. And my daughter, you met her, right? At Wilkesboro there, a little peanut.

I want to go to 5 below, and I want to go to Target. I want to get Mommy something for Mother's Day. Okay, sure you're feeling up to it. Just a couple of days. Yeah, I'm feeling a little better. Okay, no problem. So I take her into Target with James. He says, Dad, you see, Kayla looks a little yellow.

So yellow. You mean yellow? She was jaunded us from this. It attacked her liver. It attacked everything. Kidneys. When I tell you, it's spiraled out of control. And that's the only thing that I looked up.

And I said, don't do this to me. You've done enough to me. You know, lost my mother, lost my brother. My mom died of a broken heart. And that's 100%. That can happen. And I watched my mom literally die from a broken heart from my brother. So Kayla, we got her to the hospital.

and you can't test for that. You can take, they can test for all this different stuff, but there's not one test that says, you have Kawasaki, right? So we're like, all right. So what do you do? Well, it's symptomatic based. And now this is one of like five different things she could possibly have.

So now we're like day five, I think, in the hospital. And she is, you know, she was 30, I think she was 41 pounds to start. Seven years old. And she was down like low 30s. You imagine what she was looking like. Yeah. Right?

So she had a couple things that were key signs of it. And the medical team at that hospital, at Jersey Shore Medical Center, right? And it's a hospital that that guy that we always had the problems with back home, right? The son that I wrecked, his wife's very high up at the hospital. I'm very thankful for them and their family. They made some phone calls for me and had the best team of infectious disease doctors

and everything else on her to get her figured out. But there's only that 10-day window that you could figure that whole deal out. And they got her on day seven and they gave her IV therapy, you know, IV intravenous treatment and all that stuff and whatnot. And, you know, she dealt with some allergies

a little bit after that. But as of right now, not come what, she's super healthy. It's crazy because that was a case that they hadn't seen there since like 07, 08. You mentioned your mom passing away. When did she pass away? Oh, now, my mom passed away. 2013.

Flores, you mentioned him several times in the interview, reached out and said that their story that he don't think is told enough is how you went to her funeral. and then race that evening. Yeah. Yeah. How do you do that? How I do some of it, I don't even know. Right. But you can't ever give up.

So, went to the funeral. We were all there. Everybody was around. Him, his cousin Keith, everybody. And I left the funeral to go to the racetrack. Now, when my mom passed,

my mom had gotten sickly after my brother died, and it was one of them deals where, like, I actually got to say goodbye to her, which was good. It was like, go in. She's not going to make it. Talk to her. Don't do this, this, this and this. Do this, this and this.

Please, for me. I'll see you on the other side. I'm all good to go. Your brother's waiting. Just like that. I got to get, she, my mom was funny. She's like, I got to get the fuck out of here. He's waiting for me.

Like, it's time. I got to go. So we go. We do the funeral. And another thing. life you're like man why so it's another one's gone you know that's another one out of that equation of seeing the grandkids holding the grandkids all that stuff and you're like all that's going through your mind you know the motion I pull out on the highway I got my crew with me I got rob with me over there

is this is his favorite story even though he was shton his pants I pull out on the highway and here comes this livery service car with New York tags on it this guy cuts me off jams on the brakes puts his blinker on like he's going to make a left and middle of a major highway. Almost wrecked the hauler. Now, that's it. I'm wrecking this cat. This cat's getting wrecked today on the road.

I'm going to run this guy down in my doly. It doesn't matter what I got to do. This dude's getting wrecked. I'm driving. Now, I got this guy, Uncle Nat with me. Uncle Nat, God bless you, Uncle Nat. You put up a lot of shit for me. He's still here, but he, uh, Uncle Nat's in the pasture seat.

Don't do it, Jimmy. Don't do it. Can't do it. Please, don't do it. You can't do it. Can't do it. Now, this thing's to the floor. Rolling coal, I'm down the highway. Well, this guy puts his blinker on,

like he's going to pull into the center media again. I don't know where this guy even thought he was going. I just drugged a trailer down the whole side of his car. I feel better. Start driver. He looks over at me. Now, Uncle Nat was at IROC. He knew your father.

It was at IROC from the inception of IROC, from the day it opened to the day it closed. Really? He was like the best worker, and still as he works for us now, is the best worker you'll ever find, right? Best guy, best worker. You got to stop. You got to stop.

What happened? I said, I'm not stopping. I've had, I'm at my breaking point. Right. That's it. It's over. I don't care. But you're going to get arrested.

It's real simple. You're going to ask me what happened? I had to wreck that guy, drive him off the road. It's real simple. You're not in a damn mood. No, I don't give a damn. It does not matter. You're leaving.

If I stop, I'm probably going to. punch him out and then keep going. Right. We get down the road, all of a sudden the car blows by us. It's hot bumper covers hanging off, the mirror's hanging off. He's in there, because I finally, finally, finally, I'm like to the point where I'm getting ready to pull over, and the car blows by us, he'll tell you,

stuff dragging off the side of it and it took off down the road. I said, don't worry about it. He's gone now. Nobody ever called me, nor you said nothing about it. So he'd get to the racetrack that night. and it was Bridgeport and it was the I believe it was friends of Mike now Mike was a guy that was avid fan and Danny Serrano who was a promoter at the time who isn't here with us anymore put on this race for his good friend that was a good fan in the grand stance called

a friends of Mike everybody showed up for this race because of Danny because Danny was, they called him the Allentown Pimp. He was a promoter. He would get races going. He would be at every race. He was like Pouch's biggest fan when we were growing up. Pouch, you know, in his hair, carved in his hair and whatnot. And that race, freezing him was there. Go down there. Old man pouch there. We had every heavy hitter there. And this is dirt racing. Now this is dirt racing now. Yeah. And that was something my grandfather. wanted to do after John passed, and he wanted me to be the guy. So we're dirt racing. Now, I go out

in a heat race. Now, Ryan never sees me race dirt. He heard about it. Well, he's down here. He's doing his thing, you know. So, go out to heat race. I'm bouncing off the wall, inside wall, outside wall, bounce off a guy. I dropped to the back. The caution flag comes out. I'm last. I drive back to third, make the redraw spot. Coming to Pittsburgh, and goes, what the hell happened? I go, I ripped all my tear off off on lap one. So when the caution came out, I wiped all the mud off.

And then I took my one glove, and I was wiping my visor with my glove, just driving it one-handed. Well, that night, I went out, and I won that race that day. And I got to beat Billy Pouch doing it. And obviously, I don't know if you read his book or you obviously know of him, he's like 7,800 wins in a dirt modified. And I remember lining up next to him.

And I had that thought in my mind. There's nobody here beating me tonight. It doesn't matter. This guy can have 8,000 wins. If I have one little shot of beating him, I'll beating him tonight. And I did. And I overcame it. And that's, you know, I use the racing as my medicine.

You go in my garage. It's like pictures of my brother everywhere. My brother and I. It's just like a whole photo album all the way around. You know, and I feel like I'm one of those guys. I feel like my brother's with me all the time. Like I don't, I don't know how you are, but I don't go to the cemetery because I feel like he's here. I feel like he's with me right now. It's just I always have that feeling like I'll go there once in a while, clean up, show it to people, people want to come and whatnot. But, you know, it's just, I feel like he's always with me. He's always watching over me, you know?

Yeah. Now, I know that feeling. Um, dad is in a mausoleum on a mausoleum on his property and I think if we really wanted to go to it we could get access to it but it's such a pain in the ass to do that anyways your dad's here right he's here yeah he's here he's

he's he's he's you know he's observing he knows he's looking at that Nova and he's you know he's everywhere we go yep and that's that's the same way I feel it's the same it's the same way It's the same way I feel it's... The final rest in place is like a physical thing,

but the spirit is... In the sky, baby. Yeah, the spirit is just out there. Yep. Hey, Jimmy, you know, you guys are talking about a lot of coincidences and things that, you know, you think having for a reason.

I'm going to give you one more, and I don't want to go trying to too deep in this. But I will tell you this. Listen into your story and also drawing the similarities between Devothia, and there are many. I don't think it can be lost that for a family that doesn't like to say

you know, I love you or not a warm, fuzzy type of family and there's plenty like that, right? The Spencer's come to mind as well, right? You and your brother were the exception to the rules, it seemed like. Not that you guys couldn't get in a fight, but I'm saying is that you had each other's back.

In fact, how you say is you guys would finish what the other would start. My point on this is, I don't think it's a coincidence. And I think it's unfortunate that you had to go through hell because of this. But that he was not alone when he died is almost a gift if you look at it that way. Because most people, and you know, you talk about Tommy's dad. Tommy was at Michigan, you know, running cup stuff when his dad died.

I remember that very vividly. And most people don't get that opportunity. And to be honest with you, when I think about your dad, I mean, Schrader, was in that window net, right? And he was one of his, I mean, he was one of dad's friends, right? Yeah, he was a good man. I'm just saying, listen, when we all look about when it's our time

and when we're about to cross over, right? One of the things that is scariest to me is doing that alone. And your brother didn't have to. You held us hand. Brother, I think that that's something, uh, think that that's more than just a coincidence. I think that that's, uh, and you have to live with

that and that's not easy. But my gosh, man, if we could all hope to go that way, he was in a race car and he wasn't alone, you had his hand. Yeah. I don't think that's a coincidence. Yeah. No, I just listen, I think about it all the time, you know. There's a lot of people that say, you know, wish I had what he had.

I wish he had what he has. Wish I had what that guy has. You know, you don't ever want to wish for what he has. Listen, you might have all this out here. Okay. But the one thing that he wants isn't here. Might be here in spirit, but it's not here. And that's how I feel.

I give everything up right now. Cut off my right arm. Sure. Where's the chop saw? You know what I mean? And, you know, you get those guys even still, you know, for me, when people get to know me, they love me. But when they just see you on the outside, that guy, it roughs that guy up in the race car.

Probably like dad, his dad, rough him up in the car. You know, don't take no for an answer, maybe a little fight. Maybe tell this guy to go pound salt. They don't like you. But once they get to know you, you know. Yeah. But it's not an easy thing. Losing somebody close and losing them in an accident is nothing I'll ever,

ever want anyone ever to go through. If I could take somebody's place for them, I would. And that's the way I feel with it, you know. I believe that. I think, you know, you're removed, you know, I feel like in the last probably a handful of years, it's gotten a little better for me. I think for about 10 or 12 years, it was not good. Yeah, I was off track.

I was off. And it was funny because, like, it wasn't like, you know, it was just, you're just off. you know you sometimes your fuse is short okay you fuse is short you're maybe shouldn't be the husband you should be maybe you should you're not the grandson the father you're you're off and and it's we didn't wish for it you know it's just it's it's it's an emotion it's it's something that naturally occurs with with with with the tragedy that we we both went through right so um you know for me, you know, I just feel that I got to that point and I had to say to myself, really, like I had to say, you're better than that.

That's what I did to myself. I got out to the garage and I remember I was way overweight. And it was crazy because I was still winning races. I always saw a heavyweight champion of my. It was a fattest guy to ever win a race, hands down, I don't care who they got in the record books. I was the guy. I remember one time, listen, this is a good one. I led every single lap of Stafford and beat Teddy Christopher, right?

And I got out of the car and he said, I didn't really, I say, I said, good race. He goes, good race. He goes, fuck you. I go, me. He goes, you fat, he goes, I ain't going there. You got to go to the media center. He said, I'm not going to the media center. Do you see him?

I just got beat by that. This is what peak male performance. looks like, pal. And I went off to the media, I went off to the media center. But I got to my garage door one night, and I kept putting off things that I was doing because I was getting out of shape.

Wasn't just, and I just kept staying upset. And I'm the type of person. I didn't want to talk to nobody. I still, to this day, I don't. This is the, I talk to my racing family, I call it, right? Got a question.

I call Ryan, Flores, Tommy. I got guys. but I got to that door one night I opened it turn the lights on and I went to shut it and I swear it was like it stopped midway and it was like

look at you the little kids at the track look at you you're their guy they still go all these people go for me every week I'm I get amazed sometimes at the following that I have

and how many people really truly follow me with the racing it's crazy you know being just a short track guy, you know, not really having that coming here and stuff like that, you know? So it stopped me. And I said, I got to do it. And that Sunday, my wife, Katie, lover to death, she puts up with a lot of shit with me with these cars. You know, your wife went through it, right? It probably still does when you're trying to make business work, provide for the family. That next morning, she was away coaching. She was Division I, the cross player, and she ended up being a coach. So,

she was away coaching and I cleaned everything out of the house food wise and went out and I said I'm going to make a change in my life and from that point forward is when I did you know I changed my whole self and just try to be better all the way around I just feel like you kind of get to that breaking point yourself I don't know how it was for you but um one more thing I want to touch on with that is when I went to be weeks this year with Tommy Bull. I've had these dreams about my brother, right? You say dreams. I had these dreams.

We're like, you're trying to get to them, right? And you're going, and you're going. You're on this journey all night long to get to this guy, right? And the second I would get to him, to touch him, I'd wake up. The door would slam, right? The dog would bark. The alarm would go off. Those are the things that are like, there's no way that,

that that's not normal for the dog to bark, the phone to ring, the alarm to go off, there's no way every single time you go to touch that guy in a dream. And when I tell you, I probably had 40, 50 of them, I probably had 40, 50 of them. But this year when I went to New Summer, Ryan was with me, James was with me. My wife wasn't there at the time. She was getting things together. She was coming a couple days later. I went to sleep.

I had a dream. I got all the way to him. And he gave me a hug. And he said, everything's going to be okay. That's what he said to me. Everything is going to be okay. And I was like,

it's so excited when I woke up in the morning. I was like, I can't even believe it. When I woke up, Dale, I walked out of the bedroom. Ryan, what was on the window? The car. right where he was sleeping. Rob was out in the front room there. What was on the window?

The cardinal pecking on the window. And they say a cardinal, right? Right? It was pecking on the window. And then I went out on that beach and I cried my eyes out. And I walked that whole beach back and forth. And I called everybody I could. It was my sister.

I called everybody. Everybody. And it was funny part was my sister was with a psychic woman the day before. and didn't tell her nothing. And she says, who's this John guy? This is my brother. Well, he's with, you have a brother, Jimmy, Jim, James. He's with this guy in Florida.

Is there somebody in Florida or something going on in Florida? And my sister told me this whole thing the next morning, and I was completely blown away, blown away by the whole entire thing. Wow. But yeah, it was it's one of them, another one of them things where it's just like, wow.

But when you have a dream about your brother and is it like so vivid and real that you feel like you're literally getting to hang out with him for a minute?

Because that's one. Yes. Yeah. I have a dream about dad probably once a year. And it's nothing, the dreams are not unique in any way.

You know, we're just be somewhere, right? And he's maybe talking to other people. but it's so real that when I wake up I feel like I got a chance to see him or hang out with him. How do you, it's like this, it's like, how does that even come about inside of you? I know, right? In your mind? Like, like, you know, it's just.

I'm not overly surprised that I'm having a dream about my dad, but I think the way that makes me feel, because I don't wake up going, I'm missing more. I don't wake up going, why is my mind doing that to me? Right. I wake up going, I feel like I got to hang out with him. Damn. Like a gift. Like a gift. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I don't care what people think. I feel like he came to me to say, hey, man, just checking in. You're just checking in. And I feel, it's funny you say that, because it happens sometimes I feel on them times, where you might need that little bit of a, little bit of a pickup, you know. I guess we'll find out someday, huh? Sure.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'll assume again. We'll definitely see him again. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a blip on the radar, you know, in time. We feel like it's forever, but it's a very blip.

Man, it's been awesome talking to you. I know it would be, you know, having, knowing your story, and I want to thank you for being willing to tell it. It's a, you know, it's a difficult story to tell, it's a difficult to share some of these things, but there's people always felt like that, you know, when I went through what I went through, maybe you feel this same way. I always try to remind myself that there's a lot of people that day that lost somebody.

I was the only person that lost somebody that day and try not to feel too selfish about it. Yes. You know, and your story, somebody listening to this podcast is going to be helped by this story or consoled by it or, you know, soothed by it, whatever, it's going to help someone, just to have, you know, have someone that's went through the same thing or something similar. Yeah, it's with you saying that, you know, the last six years, I met a friend at work who had lost a young child, a baby boy, and we met through past, Just I seen an ad for his gym on my Instagram.

Just shot him a message if you ever want any tickets. Just do something different besides what you normally do on the norm. He was a former UFC fighter, right? This guy took him six months, but he got back to me. And that all goes to these things where things were meant to be. He used to go to the races with his dad when he was little to watch my father. Oh, wow. Right?

Gosh. How crazy is this, right? Well, to be my, you just go to watch my dad, and I reached out to him. And from that point forward, I mean, we're best friends. His daughter's my goddaughter now. And it's just another one of those things where you touch someone, you know, he's in my life now. And he's a huge guidance to me. Probably one of the best people you can ever have in your corner.

Yeah. You know, I feel like the last few years, I've really been surrounded by great people. You know, my buddy Rob, back home, Ryan, just all my local guys. But, yeah, I hope that this helps other people with their coping and stuff, you know, especially being down on yourself or being upset about it, you know, not saying people don't have to talk to others about it. Like in my case, I don't know how you are. But, you know, if you do have to talk to somebody, go talk to them, you know.

Oh, yeah. Whether it's a friend or a third. therapist per se, you know? Yeah, no, I agree with that, man. I think that we all get challenged, and there's some challenges, man, that are just unreal, you know, and you wonder why they're, right? Is that like, why keep getting, I feel like for me, I'm always that guy. Like, hear me out.

It's like, oh, yeah, there's, it's going to be 600 cars there. Yeah, the motor's got 1,200 laps on it. they're only taking six to qualify. Cole Jimmy, he'll drive it. You know what I mean? It's like, it's just always those things, whether it's at work, whether it's at, it's always like, he'll do it, he'll do it.

You know, but I don't mind doing it at times because I feel like the people on the outside or they're watching. It gives them that feeling of, and I know some of the younger kids I race with an hour like that, you know, I'm racing the kids that watched me do what I do what I do. Yeah.

And they learned a lot of things for me. And when you're out there racing it, you're like, wow, can't even believe it. Yeah. Don't you sort of feel like that that's, you're sort of responsible also for John's legacy continuing on and that you're living your life based off of that? Yes, yes. He put a permanent impression on a lot of people, but he also, you know, I try as much as I can. Right.

You know, and it's more so instilling the work ethic and the kids, local kids with the racing, teaching them how to set their cars up, working on their race cars, helping just being a helper. And I tell them what I learned from, and realistically, 90% of what I learned come from my brother. You're sharing it. And I share. I try to share as much as I can because there's only going to be so many, Dale and our juniors, there's only going to be so many jimmies. You know, there's only going to be so many people that are going to be able to give you those opportunities

to better yourself or to learn something. Yeah. Because in a few short years, when I'm done or I'm focusing on my son, hey, you know. So hopefully you touch enough people along the way. But I feel like John really touched a lot of people along the way and is continuing to do it. You know, and hopefully after this, a few more people will check out some of his stuff on the Internet. Yeah. Yeah.

More people will know him. Man, thank you, Jimmy. Thanks for coming all this way. No problem. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's been an honor. Talk to you. And you're still out there digging, still out there racing.

You mentioned your son. He's getting started, moving up the ranks, racing modifies. Got a chance to watch you for the first time in a long time at North Wiltsboro. I know you enjoyed that experience. What's next the rest of the year? Right now, just the local stuff at Wall. Tommy and I believe I'm going to do Martinsville with Tommy. I'm going to do.

One of that. See, it's the last race. the year for the modified tour. I'm going to do that. And do the Islis 3-Urhead Raceway, which Eddie Partridge, who he's strived for. He owned his wife, Connie. They own the Speedway there. I'm going to do the Turkey Derby with Tommy and do North South shootout with Tommy. There's a lot of racing left. Yep, going to bring James down for North South shootouts. It's going to be a lot of racing left. You guys are lucky. All the late mall stock stuff is lining down. You look good out there, though. I had a blast. I'm not done.

You cannot be done after that performance You cannot be done Too much fun I thought that guy when you rubbed him a little bit Was gonna come back and try to feed you the Cron horn Yeah We had a good old time out there

No that was great I Freddy said on the way in that they might not pave it Right and they might just leave it alone Where it is they might not Mess with this old surface I love it I hope they don't

Talk to our guys up there Maybe they'll help us out with that one I'm kidding All right Jimmy thank you man Thank you guys Jimmy Bluett on the Dale Jr. Download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or in the studio as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally.

A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download of True Ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. Live, yes. Hey, everybody, that's Dale Jr. Getting through a ass junior portion of the show.

We're kind of scrambling because we're running a little bit late. And thank y'all for certainly tuning in. I want to thank Xfinity for tuning in or supporting our show. we just had Jimmy Blewett come in here Jimmy Bluett's a modified race from up north he has an incredible story a lot of success but also he's went through a ton of tragedy

and he gets up close to personal with some of that you know and how he got through it and man it was just amazing to hear but let's get right to the questions you guys sent to Xfinity Racing on Twitter yeah a lot of folks already tuning in on the chat

but this first one comes from Tammy Borso it says hey Dale do you like pixie sticks as much as Mike Davis likes pixie sticks? No. Didn't you, the pixie stick? Yeah, when your daughter took over your phone and you died on a pixie stick? I hadn't had a pixie stick in a long time and you could tell. Well, there's no question.

Everybody knows exactly what that is when you watch Mike Davis try to eat that thing and start coughing up. It hits you. Dust. Goes down the wrong pipe. Everybody's experienced that at some point in your life. That's right. But I don't know, man. If I'm going to eat candy,

I'm not just going to dump pure sugar down my throat. I'm probably going to find something a little more enjoyable. My go-to, you know what, Kelly loves those caramel with the white center. Three musketeer? No, no. Like the cowtails? Yeah, it's like pre-packaged.

No, but it's just pre-wrapped. single serve like a little sushi, like sushi-shaped caramel, white center in the middle. It's exactly the same thing as a cowtale, but it's the old. It's the old style. I don't even know the name of this thing. But I ate the hell out of those. Kelly just had a birthday party, my sister, and she, it's her favorite candy, so they were everywhere, and I was just eating one after the other.

It's terrible. So good. And I go on to the dentist here in about 10 minutes. They're going to love that. Yeah, that'll be good. Don't tell them that. I won't. This next one comes from J.D. Wyatt.

He says, I was standing in the big crowd next to your car on Wednesday night, and you seemed so focused. How are you able to stay focused with so many people around you in a situation like that? That's the look of being nervous, not focused. I was absolutely nervous as hell. Nothing focused about it. There was, you know, as time was kind of dragging on, they delayed the start of the race, so we're just standing there, you know, and there's just people everywhere and got my family there. I'm worried about my kids.

I was a little overwhelmed by the busyness of it and trying to keep that all cool and comfortable. And it was just a lot. Just couldn't wait. That's the thing about driving is like when you get down to the car and you go through the, you go through the, you go through the, the prayer and the anthem and all of that. And you just want to get in the car.

And once you're in the car, you kind of can put your earplugs in. You can't hear any more noise. You can't hear any more chatter and conversation and random things happening around you. And you can finally just kind of take a breath and relax. But I don't know, man. Sitting in that, standing next to the car before you climb in, It's kind of like waiting in the waiting room at a doctor's office.

It's like you just can't wait for that person to come through the door and call your name. So you can go back there and get things going or whatever it is. It's tough. It's like waiting in line for something. You're like waiting in line to get on a roller coaster. You're like, oh, let's go. I'm ready to get this over with or get this started. And people are tuning in saying their caramel creams is apparently what they're called.

Thank you. You guys are so. They're on it. It's save our ass every time. And then this last question, and it's a short-assed junior this week. We'll make up for it next week. You know, Labor Day was this past weekend. Unfortunately, it was very crummy weather here in the Carolinas.

But, of course, the time that people like to grill out. People say that, or Dale and Hayes, as you remember, he remembers that you like to grill and barbecue. What's your favorite dish to grill out? I love to smoke brisket and ribs. Ribs are so good. The other thing that I like to do with ribs is flash fry. them.

So you take the ribs and you cut them individually and then you just flash fry them in a walk or something outdoors. That's kind of fun and good. And like you take, you get the barbecue sauce ready. You get the ribs ready. You flash fry them and right into the barbecue sauce and just serve them right away. You know, Amy's a really, really good cook as well. She's amazing.

We did successfully. I think if you followed on my Instagram, you saw we made a sundrop cake the other week, last week, and we shared that with about everybody we knew. LaTart got a couple pieces, and everybody up and around the house got some, and it was amazing. Now we're going to make another one of those. We have a lot of fun. I mean, grill and a steak. I mean, it's, you know, you can make that as simple or as intricate as you want in terms of what kind of seasoning you use and all the other things you want to do. smoking meat is pretty fun i mean it's like getting a race it's like getting a race car ready to go to the racetrack you got to get prep you got to prep a day before and and go shop and get you get your stuff and get all you tools out and and you go through this whole process and it's great to drink beer with which i love drinking beer so um i'm ready i saw a lot of people on uh labor day sharing photos with me about stuff they were they were cooking or grilling or smoking and I was a little jealous because I didn't do any of that I went we went to my

we went to our lake house my mom used to live in and uh washed it rained it rained like hell yesterday yeah poured so we uh but still had a good time kids had a great time and um we got a bunch of we got uh sandwich platters from Publix that so that was yeah we were underwhelming on that They're good. They aren't bad. I like them. Yeah, Amy didn't. Amy thought they were okay.

But, uh... I like it. Yeah, I thought they were good. But I'm ready to barbecue. I have not smoked on my cooker in a long time. It's time to do it. I feel like every time we get a nice, or like a weekend or a day off where I'm like, we're going to grill like yesterday.

It just pours. Yeah. Like we had all these plans for outside. And I was like, it better not rain all day. It rained all day. All day. Well, that is it for this week's Ask Jr. Sorry that this one was a short one, guys.

And the reason is. is because our blew it interview went long. The reason that went long is because I had a little tough time getting the girls to their first day of school this year. Ila was not happy to be there and gave me a little bacon collar. You know, don't leave, Dad. So he's late for getting here to record. The interview was great.

Ran long. They just walked out. I got to be at the dentist in 34 minutes. And we had a... another thing that we had to cut out, some sort of a little... Well, we're going to talk about that as soon as we wrap. Had something that I was going to do, but we'll do it later. We're going to do it later.

Thank you all for tuning in, and I appreciate y'all. Everybody, I know everybody that's on here has probably watched it, but if you haven't seen Roots and Revivals, there's five episodes, they're five to 15 minutes apiece. You can basically start from the beginning and watch them all together and basically go through the entire North Wiltsboro experience all over again. If you think that you know somebody that might enjoy that,

would you please share it with them? Because I'm so proud of our Dirty Mo Media crew and the quality of that production for the roots and revival stuff we have on our YouTube channel. I love people to see it trying to get it out there. Get more people to see it would be a great thing. And we're going to keep you up to speed on everything we got going on. If we race again in the late models this year,

We'll let you know. And otherwise, have a great week. We're going to Kansas this weekend. It's going to be a lot of fun. Kansas is a great racetrack, running against the fence. I can't wait to watch them do that. I hope you guys enjoy yourself, and we'll see you at the racetrack. Check out Dirty Mode Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.