The Dale Jr. Download - 399 - Real-Time Reaction to Kyle Busch News; Greg Biffle Reflects On Career

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

On this week’s episode of the Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis catch up with one of his longtime competitors from the NASCAR Cup scene, Washington’s Greg Biffle. After a successful career in NASCAR that spanned nearly two decades, Biffle quietly exited the sport following the 2016 season.Biffle originally hails from Vancouver, Washington, where he spent his formative years working in an automotive machine shop that was owned by his father’s friend. As he became a teenager, Greg discovered his love for driving and going fast and it wasn’t long before he found trouble behind the wheel. In an effort to focus his need for speed into something productive, his father Jack suggested they attend the local Friday night street stock races at Portland Speedway. After their first outing, Greg was hooked and immediately purchased a 1974 Ford Torino to convert into a racecar. Upon building his second street stock, Biffle began to have success at the track and along with it began getting noticed for his fabrication skills. This attention grew into a chassis fabrication business, and Greg went on to build over 50 race cars over the next few years. He also used his earnings to go late model racing and found victory lane many times at both Portland and Tri-City Raceway. The story of how Greg got into NASCAR came when he decided to take the show on the road: heading south to Tucson, Arizona to participate in the NASCAR Winter Heat Series. It was there that he met and befriended NASCAR Hall of Famer Benny Parsons, who was impressed with the unknown racer’s performance. As the story goes, weeks later Parsons was conversing with Jack Roush in the garage area at Michigan International Speedway about Roush’s NASCAR Truck team. Parsons recommended Biffle to Roush, and soon after he received a call from Geoff Smith, who was president of Roush Racing at the time. After a lengthy chat, a contract was faxed over to Greg and the next two decades of his racing career were in motion.Greg and Dale speak on the decline of Roush Racing and the factors that led to the team getting behind the competition. Greg explains that the team failed to progress with the direction of the sport and that it took them a long time to catch up once they were behind. The lack of winning equipment ultimately played a role in Greg leaving Cup racing in 2016, which he explains was a year earlier than his contract stated. The interview also touches on some of Greg’s rivalries over the years and the stories behind them. Greg details his dust-up with Jay Sauter at Richmond and the monetary fine and points penalty that fell on him because of it. As a result, when he and Kevin Harvick made contact at Bristol a year later in 2002, he knew he wanted to avoid a fight at all costs. They also discuss his famous feud with Boris Said at Watkins Glen in 2011, and how a perfectly thrown water bottle exploded into a huge blow-out. Since leaving racing in 2016, Greg has made use of his time by owning and operating a rock quarry as well as a humane shelter. He spends a lot of time outdoors fishing and boating. He has also made time for some racing, including his successful return to the Truck Series for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2019 and running in the 24 Hours of Lemons. While he still loves auto racing, he has learned to enjoy his weekends off and these days Greg Biffle is making the most of life.   DIRTY AIRBefore Greg joins the show, Dale, Mike, Alex and Hannah discuss: North Wilkesboro to host the 2023 NASCAR All-Star Race.  Dale blowing the lid off of NASCAR’s silly season The future of Kyle Busch, KBM, and Tyler Reddick Bubba’s big win in Kansas  ASKJR presented by XfinityThis week the fans asked questions about: Other track revivals Bristol walk-out songs What makes Bristol so exciting Live reactions to the Kyle Busch announcement 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.

Total. I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again. Another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Pretty excited about this one, Mike. Greg Biffle coming on the show, and a lot of people have been requesting Greg for a long time. And when we were talking about bringing him on the show,

boy, do you remember everything. He was into everything. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. And this is going to be fun because... It stirred up. You remember more than I do. Yeah, well.

So, yeah, I mean, listen, my fourth race ever in NASCAR history, my fourth race was at Bristol when Harvard came off the top rope choking Biffle. So, like, Biffle, I go back to the beginning with Biffle, but he was mixing it up with people. He was opinionated, he's scrappy. I like this. I like it. I can be sure that no one else's fourth race in the room is as memorable as that. Right. Yeah.

Jack Sprague, Jimmy Spencer, Kevin Harvick, Greg Biffle. You remember that race? Yes. Yeah. So we're going to talk about it. Anyways, he's going to come in here. And, yeah, so it should be a good show. We got a lot of things.

Ask Jr., all the good stuff. It's going to be fun. So let's get right into some dirty air. Dirty air brought to you by Filter Time. If you ain't heard about Filter Time, shame on you. So Filter Time is a subscription business where you can order filters online. Go to FilterTime.com. We'll send you air filters, and you can tell us when to stop.

Bet you won't, though. Well, I'm telling you, there's nothing more satisfying, to be honestly. I mean, we're beyond the ad read. To be quite clear, when I change the dirty air filter in my house, I feel like I've done a day's worth of work. Right. You feel like you've done your responsibility as a husband and a father? Oh, yeah.

You know, I can walk away the rest of the day, goofing off guilt-free. There you go. That's what this is all about. We're not trying to give you airfielders. We're trying to give you a clean conscience. Yeah. All right, so a lot going on in the sport right now. North Wiltsboro.

So we had an announcement about North Walesboro getting the All-Star Race. That, you know, in itself is a pretty incredible turn of events. You weren't lying. That was big. Yeah. You've been teasing it. Right. So I told you all there was some news and I couldn't tell you what it was.

And I held true to my word, did I not? On that one you did. Well, the news leaked out. I didn't leak it. Are you sure? I didn't leak that. If there's a leak, I just assume it was from you. I didn't leak that one now.

I leaked something else. Yes, you did. I just want to be clear, man. My man, Marcus, said, don't tell anybody. And I wouldn't even tell my main man, Mike Davis. Well, you would tell on the show to all of our listeners that you had news and you were going to hold it. So not tell anybody. So at North Wilkesboro, just so you know, too, we were sitting up in the grandstands waiting for the race to start.

And he's like, what do you think it is? And I'm like, well, what do you think it is? He's like, well, I have a guess. I think that they're going to run the dirt race. I think they're going to take the dirt race from Bristol and move it to North Wilkesboro. And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. But wait, wait, wait, wait.

Because the plan was to dig up the asphalt and they were going to make it dirt. And I was like, that would be pretty cool. And Dylan and I had been talking about it on the way to North Wilkesboro. And Dylan was the one that goes, I think this is really, really far-fetched, but how cool would it be if they brought the All-Star race to North Wilkesboro? And we said that idea to Mike. and Mike goes, that would be pretty neat. Yeah.

I mean, we all thought it was such a far-fetched idea, but we were talking about it in the grandstands at North Wilkesboro. I said, I hope you're right and I'm wrong, because that's way better. So when it came out, we were like, what? Yeah. So if you've been living under Iraq, the dirt races that were scheduled for October are now canceled. There will be no more racing that I know of at North Wilkesboro this year. All efforts are now into prepping the racetrack for an all-star race in May.

and there should be some more news coming out about that week and all of the things that will encompass the All-Star experience for the fans. You are going to be thrilled because it is going to be a big ticket. This is going to be something that you don't want to show up for on race day. This is going to be something that you're going to want to come in there, pitch a tent, get your camper, whatever, and hang out for the bulk of the week. And so you might want to be asked, you might want to be asked, asking the shop foreman for a few days off.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Because everyone has a shop foreman. Yeah. Also, well, or, you know, your shift manager, whatever may be. So, listen, the other thing, too, is we have, you know, it's pretty much impossible to assume that any improvements are going to be made in the ability to get in and out of that facility, traffic-wise.

That was a massive frustration and a challenge for a lot of people during the Cars Tour event that we just had there. There are two lane roads, one going in, one coming and one going, and there's really not a lot that can be done to improve that experience. Don't expect, don't assume that that's going to be a whole lot better this time around. There's just not enough time to be able to make adjustments and changes and improvements to the system itself or, or include new access or anything like that. That stuff, as we know, anytime we have, you know, new exit ramps and so forth put in. I mean, that's years-long sort of red tape and all that kind of crazy stuff, the states and all that has to go through.

So none of that stuff is going to happen in a matter of time to be able to help us for this event. And what I need you to understand is, so for a lot of the people of the car store race, it was a Wednesday night, and a lot of people were getting off work. didn't have the opportunity to come out there early. A lot of people were getting off work, hustling over there best they could. We had about probably, I would guess, 30% of the crowd coming in the last two hours before the race. Coming off work at 5 o'clock and trying to get there for a 7 o'clock event. And, you know, it was a bad situation for a lot of those people because they were stuck in traffic together.

So for this All-Star race, let's all just understand that, you know, we got a lot of grace and a lot of, understanding from the fans because of, you know, because of the Cars Tour race and the age of facility. Well, that's pretty much, there'll be some improvements now. There will be some improvements to what we had at the Carstores race. But try to bring some of that grace back. Yeah. And try to, you know, try to maybe plan a little bit further ahead for that event to be able to get there early in the morning. If you can't come, you know, and stay a couple days.

Great. If you can't, at least try to get there a little sooner so you don't have, you know, the frustrations of traffic. It's going to be The event's going to be really big And it's going to be It's just going to be bigger And it's going to exceed What you know

What that property and what that you know What the access can handle it There's no way around it Now there'll be some lessons learned by The last event And they'll try to make some improvements And as far as getting out of getting out of That racetrack

But man I just worry that everybody's going to come expecting this sort of ease of access that we have come to, you know, expected a lot of these races. And anyhow, well, listen, you're a warrior and you like to worry about things. I'm going to tell you right now the cool factor of having a NASCAR Cup Series event back at Wilkesboro as soon as 2020. Supersedes all of the worry or concerns that we have today.

It is an awesome piece of news. Let's hope so. And like I said, we're going to be telling you or sharing with you a lot more information as we get it about what's going to happen that week. and yeah, we're all about Northwestern. So do we want to talk about the new driver announcement? So when is Kyle Bush? Yes, I definitely want to talk about it.

I mean, you started talking about it last week on Twitter, so you might as well. Go ahead. I want to know about the tweets. That's what I want to know. Oh, yeah. All right. So, you know, so I put out a tweet about a Bush going to an eight ball,

which is basically Kyle going to the eight car. everybody's snickering in here I uh so this is I I regret sending that tweet you can tell 40 minutes later huh you can tell 40 minutes later by the second tweet yeah and so Kyle Kyle calls me and he's like dude

what are you doing and I'm like man I you know just everybody's speculating I'm just jumping into this conversation man and he's like he's giving me a hard time and I'm like so I'm right am I right about this and he's like dude wait till Tuesday. Why couldn't you wait till Tuesday to send that tweet? And he says, send another tweet.

Send another tweet. And I'm like, okay, what tweet you want me sent? So me and him came up with the basketball tweet to sort of throw people off. Good, because I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Yeah. He said, I guess, you know, at some point, maybe there was some conversations between him and 2311 about driving a number 32 car. Actually, he told me he's like, send a tweet with me going to the 4th. 45 car and I said, well, that's your brother's car. Let's not do that. And he goes, okay, 32, 32.

That was one of Michael's jersey numbers, right? That's right. Was it? 32? No, I think it's 23 backwards. It's 45 and 23 where his two numbers. He didn't wear 32 ever? I don't know. I don't know why that, I don't know why we came up with that number then. But anyways, he was like, let's do eight, then do a 16, then do a 32. And he was just coming up with all kinds of ideas. I'm like, yeah, no problem. So I'll send these tweets out. I couldn't never really find a good for a filter because I was going to do a leaf filter tweet to pitch him to the 16 car. All right. I see where you're going with that.

I mean, listen, maybe the golden rule is if you don't have an emoji to go with it, just don't send the tweet. I didn't. That's right. You didn't do that one. And so anyhow, I guess I was right about my original tweet. Well, you knew you were right. Oh, I did? Yes, you knew you were right.

Come on. Be honest. So I'm not the only one who knew about this? I know where you found out that news, and I'm pretty sure that person that told you did not want you to put it on blast. I knew that before that person told me. Okay. So, all right. I mean, I don't, you know, there's some things that I know about the process that, you know, probably don't need to be shared in public of how, you know, there were.

there were times during this signing deal where we thought he was absolutely going to Collegg whether this is all true or not we're not in the room with Kyle we're not in these conversations with him I'm not in the conversation with with you know with his his people and the teams he's talking to I don't know how far he got with colleague I don't know how far he got with 2311 I don't know how far he got with Richard all right but I do know that when we're sitting when we get when we get on the airplane right to go to the racetrack and I'm with Lathart, Rick Allen, we get with Burton, we're spending all week together with Dale Jarrett, Kyle Petty, when we're not in the booth, when we're not on TV, when y'all

don't see us on television, we're all together talking about rumors and stuff in the garage. About everything. Yeah. All the time. Because we get to, they get to the racetrack. I'm there, I stay there. Everybody's the racetrack for, for an eight to ten hour day. and in between shows everybody's talking and bouncing things off each other and so for the last I don't know how long this has been going on

four or five months longer than that this has been nonstop one of the conversations we've been having and there and whether it's true or not in our minds we had him going to colleague really really close it was almost done now I don't know if that's true or not

and then it got then it went away then it didn't happen and then there was some opportunity for him, I guess, to go to 2311 that I don't think got very far. And then there was some interest from Chevrolet and RCR, but I didn't think they had the money to pay him. I'm surprised by that. I still kind of curious. Yeah. Maybe they don't right now.

I mean, like, is the eight fully sponsored? Yeah. Are we sure it's going to? I don't know. I know nothing about any of that. So in my mind. I'll wait for your Twitter. In my mind, in my mind is all this is.

winding down. I mean, from the very beginning with Kyle, the idea was, where is he going to go? I mean, if he doesn't stay at Gibbs, where could he go? It seemed impossible that he would go to RCR. It seemed impossible that he would land at 2311. And so my, I just right ahead and I went ahead and put my name on the board for colleague a long time ago on this podcast. I said, I think he's going there. And so that's why. that's where I put my chips. We got about a couple weeks out, a couple weeks from, you know, we got a couple weeks ago, we found out the colleagues probably not going to happen.

2311 is probably not going to happen. And that RCR is it. That's like the last, that's it. It's 9.30 as we tape this. I think his press conference is in 30 minutes. So by the time, obviously, anybody hears this, the news is out. We're still speculating. Are we 100% sure he's going to RCR?

I mean, unless I'm 99.9% sure that when he gets in the room today and makes his press conference at the Hall of Fame that he's going to announce he's going to RCR. Jason Schultz said, wouldn't it be funny if he announced an NFT instead? I was wondering where all those jokes were. When he threw up his announcement on Twitter, I was looking in the thread for the NFT jokes. Everybody missed the mark on that. I didn't see any. They were just blown away by the fact that you were putting that news out. I don't think so, Mike.

I think that was a distraction. I think you're making that a bit bigger than it really was. Well, Kyle Busch called you so it can't be that small, right? We'll talk all the time. It's not rare. You and Kyle, best friends, anybody ever had, right? I mean, I'll say. Hey, can I, no, okay, let me say, let me speak my piece on this and then I can let it go.

Well, let me say this. I think I'm harboring something. It's not the first time we've talked this week about, and we don't talk just about, you know, him signing his deal. We talk about other things. but you're not going to tell us that well it pertains to some news down the road i can't talk about right i know i do know that yeah yeah so there you go here's the funny thing about dell i'm just to tell everybody right now when it's information that you need to get from him that is just

common normal business type of information he gives you the bare minimum and might not even answer Give me an example of that. I mean, it's anything. Well, like if I were to say, hey, I'm placing an order at a sushi restaurant, what do you want? And you might reply, love sushi. By all of them. Give me everything on the meeting. He might just thumbs up it.

And we'll look around him like, you know, he didn't even answer the question. That's fun for me. Right. You know, I think Stephen last week sent you a text about guests. and he asked a very specific question and you answered everything except the question he asked oh so you're aware of

he's like hey he's like hey man would you rather have this guy or that guy and I go yeah that's exactly what you do I was going to say I sent a text in our group and said hey when we're coordinating this who should he reach out to and the question still never got answered

never got answered so what we should do is Stephen should ask about guest you should ask about the dirty air or whatever you're asking about on Twitter what do you think people that are listening We should just say, we should say, Dale, whatever you do, don't tell anybody what you're wanting at the sushi restaurant. Alex, what do you think that everybody's listening right now wants to know? Where Kyle's going?

Where Kyle's going? We said, he's going to RCR. Yeah. So the other thing that he called me about. What's the point of that? It's fun, fun information. So I think I can say this. So he calls me later and he goes, hey man, I saw your tweet if there's a,

a late model stock race during the all-star event next year. Can I drive one of your cars? Are you just, are you about to announce the thing you just said you weren't about to announce? I put a tweet on the internet that said, hey, if there is an all, is if there's a late model stock event during that all-star race week, what cup guys would you want in it? Well, Kyle called me and goes, can I drive one of your Chevroletes? So you're saying that he put out these breadcrumbs to lead us right into the news? I said, wait, you're not a Chevy driver, Kyle.

Are you? Are you? Did you do the wink emoji? Right. Hannah, were you about to say something? It seemed like you had something on this. I had speculation, too, and heard that he's actually not going to an 8. He's going to a 51 at RCR.

Dude. And that they bought the Ware Charter so that he'll be in the 51 because the 8 is still technically contracted with Tyler Reddick. So 311 would have to buy out Tyler Reddick. I'm so glad you brought that up. Yeah, I heard that they're speculet. they bought the 51 charter and that he'll be in the 51 RCR it'll be a three car team so there's been a lot of

conversation on the internet about him in the three what people would think about that I've been surprised by how positive a lot of people are about that even Earnhardt fans like I went to Reddit there was a little conversation about it and there was some people like man I've been in her own heart fan all my life and I'd be good with that and then you know that's a another conversation. But then I said, in my opinion, with the three and Kyle, I just, I would really appreciate if they would retire that font, that trademark. Retire it. Nobody runs it.

Austin, nobody. So a long time ago, Richard was like, hey, I'm going to run a three again. He called Kelly, called me. And we're like, great. You know, Austin should be able to do what he wants. It's your car. You own the number? We were all for it. One thing I didn't think about was is now when I see a number three, flag in a yard or a license plate or whatever, I'm like, I'm just, I'm only 80% sure that's a Dale Earnhardt fan. I'm 90% sure. I'm only 80, 90% sure they're cheering for dad and I kind of feel okay about it, but not 100%.

And, man, I used to ride around going, hell yeah, man, there's a freaking Earnhardt fan right there. Woo, buddy! Want to high five this guy, right? Right. Every time you saw it, you're like, damn right, man. Keep it alive. Keep the dream alive. And so now, you know, I'm not so sure.

So if, you know, Kyle starts driving that number, it even dilutes it even more for me. Now, this is a selfish, selfish point of view from one person, right? No one else would ever feel this way. I don't believe. So it doesn't matter. But so that's why I would say, hey, man, let's just take this number and let's put it away. Right. Now, trademark a new font.

whatever you want to do and change it up a little bit and that's you know and move forward that would be what i'd do even if collie isn't driving at number three i'm just ready for it to go back to dad's 100 percent right 100 percent dad's ownership of that number when i see it out in the world i want to know immediately that that is somebody saying i'm i love the elearnhart right and so i may never get that back that's fine not a big deal uh him going to the eight i think is is cool if it's the number eight I think that's great because it's not the same font or anything

that you would have run because it wouldn't have been it's not even same team but I'm saying is that you don't have to worry about those feelings yeah and so and I guess I am curious if other drivers have that same sort of feeling like they're territorial toward their legacy that they added to something but

I saw some people posting about the 51 and there's a picture of the 51 Exxon Lumina testing at Charlotte back when they were making days of thunder. And somebody said, if it's not in anything like this, they are really screwing up. And I thought to myself, oh man, if I am Kyle Bush, Routy, I am absolutely saying, here's my shot. I am fit.

You know deep down, that's his persona. He created that. Yes, he did. He, you know, he's, the rowdy thing is his. He's got the drink. he runs the 51 on the truck that's his own personal persona that he that's underneath that

that number 18 candy shell yeah right yeah when you break when you get when you get behind the curtain of that M&M's 18 car that black 51 is is Kyle and here here's his chance to live out you know that that persona in real time at the top level of cup of cup if all those things actually happened oh man if they if if if and i could see how this could happen like wow how hard could it be to get the 51 and well there's an answer to that i mean

listen charters we've been having charter conversations i agree and those things have gotten charters are expensive but i don't think you got to buy charter to get the number i think you can a couple hundred thousand dollars and you got a you got a damn number Hannah what you said that is speculation that they bought the wear charter bought the wear Well, the reason why that is is because, you know, Reddick's been walking around for the last couple of days going, far as I know, I'm still at RCR next year. I really, they don't know. Where I'm going.

I mean, more than likely it makes most sense that he goes to Denny's car now, right? If Kyle comes in and RCR has two charters, then Reddick goes somewhere else and why not go on, you know, go on do what you're going to do. And so, but if they are really, going to have three race car drivers next year, one including Reddick, then they are going to have to rent a charter. They wouldn't run an open car. They wouldn't put Reddick in an open car. If they're really going to run three cars, they would have to rent a charter.

But to get the number itself, I don't know that, I don't know you have to buy a charter to acquire a number, change numbers or... Listen, my questions are the questions it will never be answered or will never be privy to the answers. And that is the business sense of all this. One, affording Kyle Bush and meeting his salary demands, two is if there is a charter to be rented or bought or whatever, the number, all of that stuff all feels very pricey.

And Richard must have been, must have had a good wine year. I don't know. I mean, those grapes must have grown right. I was so confused how he ended up at RCR. Because, like, you think of people that just like take the risks and spend big money, you think of a colleague in a 2311, I've always just kind of viewed Richard as kind of like the little bit more

conservative, play it safe, knows what he needs to do, and then like to all of a sudden just slap a checkbook on the table and be like, what do we got to do to get Kyle Bush was not really in the wheelhouse? I think that it's a missed opportunity for colleague. I know that they'll be successful. I know that, you know, they have great drivers

and that they're going to build an amazing program, but I felt like this could have got them there quicker. And he's going to spend that kind of money anyways to get there. not go ahead and go out there and get one of the best guys behind the wheel. And so, you know, either way, they're going to be fine, but I was surprised that that didn't not happen. The other thing, too, the other part of this that will be interesting to see how it plays out

is what does this mean for KBM? KBM, the truck team, his shop, all that stuff. It's right over across the woods from us at Junior Motorsports. It's a massive asset to the truck series, to develop in drivers, to develop in crew members, crew chiefs. It's a great program that a lot of drivers have been through. and we even have drivers like, you know, William Byron started in our late models,

goes over there to run the truck, comes back to us in Xfinity, so, I mean, it's been a program that's benefited a lot of people in this sport, including us, and it'll be interesting to see what this does, how this changes KBM, what becomes of KBM in the next, you know, three to five years, because I don't know what type of support they will be getting from Chevrolet and, you know, compared to what they were getting from Toyota to be able to put that program on the racetrack. Yeah, good stuff there.

I mean, I got other questions about that, but I don't think we need to tackle them. I mean, like, I don't know enough about the truck series to know. What does this do to the Toyota truck program? Yeah. Because I know the trucks are a big deal to those OEMs. Well, that's a huge loss. Yeah, that's a huge loss to the Toyota pipeline

because that's where you shuffle them. You know, they have them in the late model program, send them to Venereini usually for their ARCA. And then it was to KBM trucks. so now that leaves Hallmar Friesen and Thor Sport as the only truck teams that are Toyota and there is no turnover in the Thor Sports. The whole truck series is Chevroletes.

Yeah, so the whole truck series is now Chevy. It was Nees, kind of what was their development group with POSVAR? So now it's all Chevy. So where's Toyota going to send people? Yeah, that's it. Like as a TRD driver, to be quite honest with you, that would be very discouraging to like see that opportunity just come off the map.

Yeah, I would assume that that they'll find some other program to be a part of. But yeah, that's a good question. It's surprising to me that you never can tell what these manufacturers are going to do. You know that they are all in on the cup stuff, but when it comes to Xfinity and Truck, the messaging points, but the activation at all doesn't seem to line up. So anyways.

That's an understatement. Do we think really fast? Do we think Ty Gibbs is going to the 18 next year? I think Ty Gibbs absolutely goes in 18. Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a win, though, for Gibbs. I mean, God. The kid proved he's. I think it's a win for kind of everybody. If, in fact, all this stuff materializes like we think. I mean, man, Childress and Kyle Bush, that's a very compelling situation that's going to make that whole program better, I would think. And man, what a nice answer to the news that Reddick was leaving, you know, which, you know, but judging by the response, it's like they were caught off guard by that. I will say one thing. One last thing about this, I think, that buttons it up.

When RCR learned that Reddick was leaving, everybody, I think, felt like, well, RCR's doomed. RCR is how, you know, I got a comment from one of the guys at RCR that said, we've overcome much worse than this and we're still here and talking about dad's passing right that they lean on that is like hey man we can we can overcome anything and they'll over they you know in their mind this was not going to well slow them down but from a from our point of view on the

other side of the fence it's like how what who you're going to put in there well yeah and I think our point of view I think you're true you're right about that but I also think it was fueled a little bit by the way, they've responded publicly saying, this caught us off guard or it couldn't have come at a worse time. That was their words. So they informed our opinion about that. Yeah, and the fact that Reddick's winning and taking what we thought was, you know, taking their equipment and running better than maybe we perceive their equipment to be.

You know, I judge their equipment by how, you know, where Austin runs and, you know, Reddick's outperforming Austin this year at a lot of races. And so you're thinking, okay, Reddick's one of those rare drivers that can take a car and make a 10th place car or fifth place car or a fifth place car or first place car, right? And so he's a hot shoe, man, and they're losing him right as he's just about to peak, you know. And so what are they going to do? What is going to fill this void, you know, and damn it, if they didn't answer the bell. They answered it.

Yep, that's right. You know, say what you will about Kyle Bush and his. you know, his perceived markability or lack of it or his antics in the past. He's as good as they come behind the wheel. And I think, you know, compared to a decade ago or 15 years ago, he's much better behind the microphone or behind the camera, you know, in front of the camera. And so maybe, you know, this is, if you're going to hire, bring Kyle Busch in, this is the Kyle Bush you'd rather have as opposed to the guy from a decade or two decades ago.

Leaving Hendrick. Yeah. 100%. Right. I'm not, that's not to say he's great. I mean, it's not to say he doesn't have his moments. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I think that he's...

I think that this would be interesting. Yeah, it will be interesting. So we ought to keep tabs. If Hannah, if you could just kind of like... Yeah, I have an eye on it. I've got it open right now. The other thing, too, is, is Joe Gibbs, they do things a certain way. Kyle has been used to that as whole life. or most of his career,

they have a vibe about him, a perception, right? RCR are racers. The guys at RCR and the RCR are up at Welcome, they are old school mentality racers, and they,

I love the, I love the mental approach that they take to putting cars on the racetrack. That, to me, is going to be interesting to see how Kyle fits into there. I think you'll do fine because I think Kyle's sort of the same, way. He goes, you know, he had his super late model stuff for a while. He goes and runs these dirt

cars with his son. He's not afraid to getting his fingers dirty or his hands dirty. Not afraid to getting down in there and working and grinding away at a short track somewhere. So, you know, and he has his truck series team. I think that it'll be a good fit. I wasn't so sure. But, you know, that's a whole different culture, way different. Probably more appropriate for Kyle's brand than it Maybe so. Gibbs, right. Maybe so. Well, Kyle go in there and go, oh, this ain't the way we did it.

Now, that could be a little bit of an issue. Well, that's not going to work out then if he goes with that mentality. I mean, you better be receptive to the place you're going. They're not going to change. And boy, have we not had examples of people that left Yates and went to RCR? I mean, RCR has a way of doing things, man. And, you know, certainly Kyle is mature enough to know that he's not going to go in there and throw his weight around.

Certainly hope he would know better than that. But listen, if he goes in with an open mind, they fit better, I think, than what the culture is over it gives. That'll be fun to watch or interesting to see as far as how they do get along, right, and how they move forward together in next year. I mean, it's going to be wild seeing him in a co-eastern. different race car compared to what we're used to for all these years driving that 18. All right.

It's like Brad islaski out of the two into the six. I mean, that took some adjustment. Yeah. I say Daytona's always the hardest race of the year when you're standing on pit road calling pit stops and everyone changed cars over the off season. You're calling people in different cars and manufacturers. It's going to be an interesting Daytona. Bubba Wallace went in his second career race in the Cup Series of Kansas was a big deal.

Bubba just spanked him, man. kicked their butts. That was fun to see. He had a fast car. You know who said he was going to win that race? Dale Jarrett. Dale Jarrett called it. When I was telling you, we all hang out and sit around BS.

He was sure that Bubba's going to win that race. I knew Bubba had the pace, but Noah Gregson wins the Xfinity race. Kind of fell into it. He had a great car, fast car, but in the right place at the rice time. Just like, you know, the week before, darling, two wins in a row where this kid is looking more and more like a cup ready talent. Yeah, dude. I mean, he's getting it done.

You're right. There was some good fortune that reigned upon him, if you will. But the fact is is that he's clicking him off, getting him done. What a crazy year for him. I mean, he went from the mistake at Road, America, where he intentionally wrecked somebody and took out a bunch of cars. It looked like, oh, man, this kid's got a long way to go, a lot to learn. And just in a few months, he's sitting there doing things that make you think,

Okay, yeah, he's ready to go. Ready to move on to the Cuppland. Yeah. Right? Good for him. Now, listen, he's on door bumper clear this week, so I hope he doesn't go take a couple steps backwards. If you hang out with those guys, you're certainly at risk.

That's right. You know, Freddie was probably feeling right. Freddie looked terrible in the promotional stuff on the internet that you guys put out of teasing the show. He looks wrecked. I was going to say, I know they had a late night because we're neighbors. with Bubba. You live in Bubba Wallace's neighborhood?

Look at you, Big Dog. Country. Out in the country. Yeah, we're out there. And Dylan had a red eye from home from Laguna, and he said as he was pulling into our driveway at 6.30 in the morning,

there were people leaving. That's good. So you know they had a long night. That should be how everybody celebrates a win. You don't get many wins in this league. And if you ain't celebrating them, you're doing something wrong. Here was my observation, and they're random, about Bubba.

One is, do you remember when Todd Gilliland won that 2019 truck race at Martinsville, and he crossed the line, and the first thing out of his mouth, which should have been elation and celebration, was this resentment at the time towards Kyle Bush, his owner? And I'm listening to Bubba Wallace, you know, in the incarnation, he's like, take that, haters! And whatever. And then even in his post-race interview where I thought he was going to probably lose it

and cry. I sensed that there was some resentment and all that stuff. Not to say that that's wrong, by the way. I'm not suggesting that's wrong. This was authentic reaction, but it also sort of telling to me that the, you know, his road is not the easy road. It is quite arduous because if you're instinctually going right to that chip on your shoulder or that resentment of haters or people that disparage you or whatever,

it's just telling to me that that's the first thing that comes to your mind when you when as you're crossing the line. I think it's unfortunate. I don't think it's wrong. I just think it's a moment of honesty and candor and elation, but I'm telling you, man, he even said it in his post-race interview with you guys, Dale, like, you know, just, you know, he's hoping this is quiet a moment. You know, he even did the finger thing. Like all of those little things just kind of reminded me of that Todd Gilliland where he was like, stay in your motor home, MF, you know, whatever he said about Kyle Bush, you know, his owner at the time. Do you know what I remember that?

You know, one, I keep thinking of Kyle Bush. You know, Kyle Bush gets out after a win and, you know, rubs his eyes like, you know, everybody's crying over this and or, you know, he can't, he can't, he doesn't feel like he can get out and be happy and just have a real genuine reaction. He has, he feels like he has, he feels like that he's getting out. into a place where he is not appreciated. Like when he climbs out of the car on the front straightaway, this is Kyle.

He feels like he gets out, you know, he's walked into a room where not everybody in that room is glad to see him. And so he gets out of his car and he'll have that reaction. It is, it does, it does suck because you were like, you want Kyle or anybody to go, Come on. You know, just put it, put all, can you not put that away?

Right. Put it away, man. Enjoy the moment. Yeah. Right. This is a good thing. Be happy and do what you want to do. Right.

Right. Right. And acknowledge the things that you want to acknowledge in the moment. But they feel so, they've, I guess that they are such a witness to so much. Right. Time and time again, every single day, whether they're looking on Twitter or wherever they go, they face this frustration over. people's opinion than them and the reaction to them, right?

And then my response to that would be stay off Twitter, but I think it actually fuels them. I think it actually fuels Kyle Bush for sure. Listen, I think he wants to be, he's listening for those booze. And in Bubba Wallace's case, you don't think so. No, Kyle Bush wants to be loved like anybody else. Kyle Bush wants to pee, Kyle Bush and anybody else, everybody else wants to be celebrated, put on the shoulders.

walk down the fucking Main Street with the trophy and the flags and all the things. I mean, every driver, including Kyle Bush, wants to be thought of as Dale Earnhardt or David Pearson or Richard Petty, the man.

Nobody's going, God, I hope they give me some shit today. I'm going to be motivated. Well, okay, use it this way, though. Maybe they think they're a better race car driver or a better competitor that way. Michael Jordan does. Remember, Michael Jordan would convince

himself that that person by not saying hi to me as I cross pass with him in a restaurant, that is a personal attack and I am going to go pour 50 on him tomorrow night. I mean like he would do that. Yeah, but then he would come out, but then he cried when people thought he was an asshole and that kind of sold Michael Jordan, like in the documentary thing. And I thought that kind of meant that he felt he had to do that for himself, but he kind of felt, yeah, he didn't like that part of him. Deep down in the soul, everybody wants to be loved and appreciated. And that I think that if Kyle gets out and says that motivates me, I think that he wants it to, and I think that that's something that he's heard from Michael Jordan or somebody else is a way to,

you know, take that kind of negative energy and turn into something positive. But I don't truly believe that it actually works. And I don't believe that he really genuinely wants it to be that way. Well, either way, listen, and none of us are saying that Bubba goes seeks out the kind of venom that he probably is exposed to. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is instinctually when those moments were happening and he was showing that he has this, he carries this, you know, resentment on him, this chip on his shoulder. And I'm like, man, I wish he could just sort of shield himself away from it somehow. And we all know, like, we go through spells where, you know, I know that when people sit there and are going to talk crap to you, I know where to go to not be around it.

And, you know, I feel like maybe there's places like that, but I'm not so sure that it doesn't make him a better race car driver at the same time. I do, I do feel like that when Bubba got out of the car, I felt like that he was in a, and he was in a bit better place. Now, I know it was because, I know some of that is because he legitimately went out there and beat them, right? Warm out. But I didn't really see, like to your point about the haters and all that stuff, I feel like that he wasn't quite as bothered by it as he might have been or he had been in the past. He was kind of like, yeah, this is helping me, helping me a lot. He's raising with so much more, he's carrying a confidence about him that I have not seen him carry.

But, you know, back in the past, and not that long ago, Bubba walked around and looked for a little fragile. Like, you know, the sensitivity would break. I mean, just at Michigan, you know, he had the little bit of got emotional after the end of that race. Yeah, I mean. Exactly. Well, that was a moment where you're thinking, holy smokes. Yeah, this kid's feeling a ton of pressure. He did well that day.

I know. Yeah. And he still broke down. Yeah. But I think that told us all how much pressure he feels. Like it's more than we thought, right? But since that point. I think he's had some more good runs.

He's starting to build some more confidence. And then they go off and do what they did at Kansas this weekend. And everything's going in the right direction. And I think after Michigan, I bet his phone was slam full of text messages from all kinds of people in the industry. The Dale Jarrett's, all those people, the Brad Doherty's. Hey, man, you need to be happier about that result. You don't need to put that pressure on you.

That should, you know, let's think about all the good things. going on. Let's think about the good direction we're going in. Let's focus on that. And then it seems like that that's what he's been doing. So when he wins this race, he gets out and goes a few haters, and he had, and he celebrated. He was happy. Goes to Victor Lane. He's happy to see his guys. Everything's the way you would expect in terms of being able to have good enjoyment and a great experience. He was allowed, I felt, to, he allowed himself to enjoy that moment. I'm proud of him and I like it. I love, I love the performance. I think it's crazy that we've got two non-playoff drivers that start the playoffs with the, you know.

There's so many crazy things that came out of that. It's crazy. You're right. So the 43 and the 45 win, you know, with the petty history of those two numbers is insane. And 18 different winners. Right. And the year has just been unpredictable and it will continue to be. And man, there were some disappointing.

people at the end of that race in terms of like Alex Bowman, Truex, a couple of people that thought they really had the car to beat and didn't get it done. It needed to get it done as far as Bowman. You had to trouble with Harvick getting in the wall. Golly. It's just Bristol. Bristice is being nuts.

Yeah, you're going to Bristol. You got about four or five, six guys sitting there within ten points each other at a racetrack where that can swing any minute. And then you got Harvick going to must win. you know, hopefully bowling through the field to make it happen, right? Oh, man. His comments were like, yeah. I loved his comments.

Yeah. Heard on Twitter the last week has been fun. Yeah. The night race at Bristol to me is the most exciting race that we have. The energy, the feeling when you're sitting there at that place on a Saturday night and to throw all of this into the mix is just gasoline on the fire. And with 72 of our, you know, best friends going to be at the day. Dirty Mo Media Ultimate Sweet Experience.

We will be there watching this all unfold right there live and being comfortable when it happens. We're going to have fun at that ultimate sweet experience. Man, I'm really happy to have this guest come in here. He is a true ally. Greg Biffle will be the guest on the show. And we were talking about it, Mike. He has a lot of run-ins with a lot of different drivers. A lot of interesting things have happened in his career.

But I don't remember ever having a problem with this guy. So I guess we can call him an ally. Yeah, you can. Yeah, that's right. But I'm interested to hear maybe he has something. Maybe he remembers something that. Yeah, I'd love to hear that. Well, we'll try to pick his brain and see if he's got any problems with me.

We'll straighten him right out. I can't wait. Either way, he's walking in an ally or he's leaving an ally. Hopefully. All right. Yeah, you can't hold me down. Yeah, how you like me know? You won't beat down have a call.

It's like bleam blout. Hey. You know, I always said Greg Biffel was a good guy, but he's about the most impatient thing. I'll be waiting when he comes in here. And this is Kevin Harvey going after. I'm more upset with Greg Biffle. He's the most unprofessional little scaredy cat I've ever seen in my life. Come off the corner.

Sure looks like Greg Bipple gets in the back of the 43 car, Jay Sauter. So someone texts me his address. I'll go see him Wednesday at his house and show him what he really needs. He needs a freaking whooping. I'm going to give it to him. You have to see Bipple was trying to move the Granger Ford. It would not move. Here we go.

He's hot. Yes, he is. This is going to get interesting. You ran out of gas? I ran out of gas. What was the last time you drove the boss hog limo? Oh, God, it's probably been, it's probably been... Too long, I guess.

Too long. And you got in, pulled out, and didn't look at the... Yeah, I've done that. So... Does anybody put gas in your car or you do it? I do it. You do it. So full disclosure, all my cars, I don't keep a lot of gas in them, because you don't drive them a lot. Yeah, it's bad. So I put gas in it every time I drive it. Or not every time, but every other time. And I'm coming up perth road, I look at the gas gauge,

a little under a quarter tank. And I'm like, perfect. I'll get a little gas on the way back. I'm coming down Cornelius, and she's, mm, mm, mm. So I gave her the, I gave her the NASCAR shake. You know, get a little sloshed around in there. It picked up. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to make it. I'm going to, I just trying to get in the top of the race park, you know, so I can, so I can get a little gas in her. So what did you do? You ran out.

Then what happened? So right as I started running out, I grabbed my phone and, hey, Siri, call Roger. And my guy at the shop, Roger's answer the phone, I said, bring me five gallons of gas. I'm going to be at the top of the race park. And he knew I was coming over here. Yeah, good deal. Anyway, mobilized quick. We were back on the road.

Yeah. He scrambled Rogers. that's when you know what's up. That's right. And he wins the cool move of the race award because he got you here. Thank you, Roger. That's right. Right on time.

So where were you born? I was born, actually born in Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon. Yep. When did you move away from Portland? So I moved away. How old were you? So these are quizzes, aren't they?

I should have my stats. Just give me a rough estimate. So when I moved away is when I first started in the truck series. So 1997, 98 was my first year of the trucks. So you were quite, you know, you were in your early mid-20s. Right. What was life like in Portland? So I grew up in Vancouver, Washington, you know, right across the river from Portland.

It, you know, it's not the hotbed of racing. Right. You know, so I grew up, my parents owned small steel construction company. I worked for a guy that my dad was buddies with that owned automotive machine shop. So he built engines. And so when I was young, you know, in high school, working for him after school, tearing engines down doing all those things. He had oval track cars.

And that's actually how the connection came. I ended up, you know, over the racetrack on Friday night. They raised a Portland Speedway. And my dad's like, hey, do you want to go to the track on Friday night? And I think it was more to try and get me to go do something constructive instead of getting trouble out street racing or speeding tickets. Were you troublemaker? Doing all that.

In the car, I was, right? So we were, you know, I love driving. So I'm out messing around all the time with my buddies. Doing what? What was the trouble? You know, we were street racing and, you know, doing, you know, just doing kids stuff. Do you get arrested? I probably got arrested maybe once.

Really? Doing what? Yeah. Speeding or? I don't remember. I was probably. How do you not remember what you got arrested for? I probably got arrested once means I definitely got arrested. I guess it three times or more.

Yeah, three times. I like that. I like that. No, I think I got arrested for driving without a license. Why did you not have your license? I got too many speeding tickets. So you lost your license from speeding. Yep, for 30 days.

And then they rested you. In a small town, right? Like Moorsville, I grew up in. Of course, they see my car sneak by, and they're like, he doesn't have a license. They knew you. Yeah, they knew me. Yeah. When did you decide that you wanted to drive a car?

You know, I, so anything that burnt gas and had a steering wheel. So I got my first motorcycle when I was five. And I loved riding motorcycles. And then, you know, I'm at my dad's shop. I'm driving the forklift. And then he'd be like, pull that truck over here. And I get to drive the truck. And then we're at home.

We had eight acres. And my grandmother lived at the end of our property. And so he'd be, go get your grandmother's car. We got to jumpstart the tractor. So, you know, I'm like running up there. So I go in, get my grandma's keys and driver car down there. I just love driving, you know, anything that burnt gas had wheels on it. Man, I was all over it.

So I just enjoyed that. But how did you get behind the wheel of a race car? So after I got in all that trouble probably out screwing off, you know, on the street, my dad's like, let's go to the, you know, Portland Speedway on Friday night and watch. And we went and watched like the hobby stocks, street stocks. and I'm like, oh my God, I was hooked, loved it, you know, because of the competition, you know, I played sports and wrestled and those things. And I loved competition.

I loved cars. And it was something I wanted to do. And we went home that next week, that next week I bought a car and started stripping it apart. I bought a 74 Ford Torino. From where? Oh, man. Out of the newspaper. 74 Ford Torino because my dad was a Ford guy.

Okay. So we tore this car up. part built a street stock car you know everybody's like oh you want a full frame car and we wanted a ford so it was like the natural monte carlo type of yeah what year was this or roughly uh so that would have been probably 80 probably 86 87 so you put a you know you all put a roll cage four point cage in it you know and you rebuild the engine yep did the roll cage did the did the motor and uh showed up on friday night how to go it went okay and uh got got better and better and better at it and then we decided my dad had this bright idea that we should go run uh the guy I

worked for ac nutter we should go run his tour car which is like a tour car so tour car is like uh southwest tour southwest tour okay so a step above a late model so yeah yeah you know would have been like a big 10 car or something like that so we went and ran some of those races about half a season quarter season we really didn't have the money but that's when I really got my skill and understood what a car was, castor, camber, you know, the whole thing, wedge, the whole thing in and out. So we come back, can't really afford that. So I built another street stock car for myself. And now without that knowledge.

You know, built a 74 Nova, went out. First, middle of the season, I show up at the racetrack, qualifying the trophy dash, win the trophy dash, run good in the main. And what happens from there is kind of funny because after that, people come over like, who's this guy or who's this kid? they come over and look at my car and they're like, who built this? Who put the cage in it? And I said, I did. And out of that, a bunch of people wanted me to do roll cage work and build them cars. So here I am, you know, 19 years old or something.

So I started my own business. You know, I worked for my parents anyway. So I kind of start my own deal. I'm like, this is my thing. I'm an entrepreneur. I love to, you know, do that kind of stuff. And now I can do something I love. So I started building roll.

cages and building cars and bought a distributor from Coleman machine started selling all the parts and from there it just kind of escalated you know then I built limited sportsmen started building late model cars yeah and you built you you have how many race cars you think you built probably 50 wow yeah yeah we built about 15 20 late model sportsman cars a year wow something like that's really cool and then I hired roger and he was who works for you now it works for the same guy that just Got you here? Yes. They go way back.

I hired Roger. He was 16 and I was 19. So he's three years younger than me. And a fabricator like you've never seen before. And so we started building late model cars and then I got a chance to drive. And I had a tour car. We built ourselves a tour car, run a few races. And then I went back and started racing late models and had a lot of success.

Won a lot of races. Won a track championship. At Portland. At Portland. And Tri-City. He's five hours away. So Friday night, Saturday night. You won both championships?

You won the same year. Wow. How do you get a notice and get the job to drive a truck? So it's pretty crazy. So we sit at home like 1994 or five and watch this Tucson Winter Heat series on ESPN. Yep. And Roger and like we're going to that next year. So I think the next year was maybe 96 and or maybe the next year was 95.

so we plan to go to that and race that three-race series, televised ESPN. We go down there, qualify fourth, one. Qualified fourth again, won the second one. And then I finished, you know, third or fourth. This is in your late model. In my late model, yep. And so I go down to win the series, and I became friends with Benny Parsons.

Yep. And we came back and won the race. How did you become friends with him? He, you know him. He walks through the garage area. he talks to everyone, knows everyone, bigger than life kind of guy. You know, he doesn't sit up in the booth or sit in the TV compound. He's down there walking through the pits.

Because they were broadcasting the series? Yes. That's how he was there. Right. So they're televising this ESPN series, right? And so that's where the year before your father hired Ron Hornaday from that series. Yeah. So I come and race at the following year, and Kevin Harvick came out of that series.

So I go and race it the following year, and it was kind of a cool story. So I go a lap down, 75 laps, hot dog break, another 75. So the first 75 laps, I get lapped, right? You know, close to halfway. So I'm third on the grid, but lapped. We come in, I've got a flat right front. You know, I didn't know why the car just. got tight, wouldn't turn, got a flat tire. So go back out, they throw the green, I pass the

second place car and the leader, get back on the lead lap, come around and lap the entire field was, you know, in the 75 laps and won. And, you know, Benny was impressed and, you know, from there, I said, you know, how do I get the, you know, next opportunity? And he said, you know, it puts his hand on my back, he goes, I'll pass your name around, you know, I know a lot of guys and whatever else. So the story goes, Benny Parsons, again, in the garage area. It mission. Michigan talks to Jack Roush and Jack says, hey, I wasn't able to hire Tommy Kendall to drive my third truck team, whatever else. They're just BSing. He said, hey, don't forget about that kid I told you about out in Washington. He'll do a good job. He went back, told Jeff Smith to hire me. Wow. No test, no resume, no anything. They called me on the phone and hired me. That was it. Wow. On his word. On his word. It's unheard of. And later on, Benny told me, he said, I've only recommended two guys in this sport. And he said, one was Ernie Irvin and the other one was you.

Holy moly. And it's kind of a remarkable story, honestly. It really is. So that's how I got my opportunity. It's just like winning the lottery. So then you move. You move to North Carolina with a job already in hand. I pack up my stuff.

I got to wind down my business. I got six cars to build. I got to be in Michigan. you know, and I'm like trying, and this was in September. So I had till, you know, the end of the year to try and figure this out. So, and then the truck team was in Michigan for the first three years. Ooh, really? Yeah.

So I moved to Michigan. Oh. Yes. That's why. Not North Carolina. Not North Carolina. So I moved to Michigan. And then when I got to run the Xfinity series or the Bush series, then I moved here.

Okay. Did you know Rouse had as a truck operation? I didn't. I don't remember that. You never heard of that. But, yeah. It was in Livonia. What did you know about the truck series at that point?

I knew quite a bit about it because I was obviously a steward of the sport. So I really was watching it, paying attention to it. You know, I knew a lot about it. Gotcha. You know, talking about your racing career just right before the truck deal, in 1995 you had 27 wins, your second to Larry Phillips in Division standings, the Pacific Coast Division. You're racing just specifically at those two racetracks?

Yeah, just those two tracks. And I think the way it worked back then, Jr., is you were allowed to choose two tracks and accumulate your finishes, like, as a point standing for those two race tracks. So in 1995, you're running in the Winston Racing Series, and I was also in the Winston Racing Series on the East Coast in the Middict Atlantic region. You were in the Pacific Coast Division. I was in the Middictlantic. Right.

That's cool. You had a much better experience than I did. I did okay. hey. When you get the offer, so I imagine this is probably like a big shock, right? A huge shock. What is the reaction from your friends, your family, your parents? What is the reaction to everybody in this tiny little town? It's quite incredible, really. And I mean, sort of the way the phone call goes or the story goes quickly is, you know, we ran this small shop and built these cars. And it was like three of us. It was me.

Roger, have four of us, you know, and I had a parts guy. We're getting ready to go to lunch. And that's when Roger and I sit down still at lunch and we talk about business. And we talk about what we're doing and where we're going and kind of what we're working on. So we're getting ready to go to lunch. And my parts guy pages me, says, Jeff Smith's on the phone for you. And I'm like, I don't know who that is. But why did he give his first and last name?

And I said, I'll take the call real quick. Because you never know. You know what I mean? Tucson Winter Heat. So I answer the phone and I'm in there and Rogers kind of pacing around a little bit and five minutes later Roger's back to work. I see sparks and he's welding because he doesn't he hates to stand around. So like 20 minutes later, you know, I have a window in my office that looks out in the shop.

20 minutes later he's standing in the window like coming out here? You know, are we going? You know? And so I write Jack Roush on the phone and, you know, or on a piece of paper and hold it up. And he's like, you know, whatever. it goes back to work hour later, I get off the phone. I'm like, what a long conversation this was. It was, you know, because Jeff knew nothing about me. You know, send me a picture of you. It's like he, you know, there was really no, you know, internet and, you know, they couldn't like Google and see everything.

So it was, it was interesting. So they had a contract ready? They faxed me a contract. What was the contract? Funny enough, I don't have a fax machine. My mom does. And her, their steel yard was like a block away. So I walk over there and I get all my faxes from my mom's shop. So they faxed me a contract and my mom and dad are in their small modular office. And I'm on like page four of this contract. And I said, does it really matter what this says? They're going to pay me, you know, $70,000 to drive a car, race car, and I don't have to pay for anything. I said, you know, I just turn.

turned to the last page and signed it. Yeah. What was the deal? Come on. I think it was like a four-year deal. You know, so all Roush's contracts were fairly lengthy. So it gave them runway to, you know, sign another contract. And so I always signed contracts the year before I was in my option year.

Yeah. They would negotiate it, you know, because they didn't want me talking to other teams. So year before, we always negotiated, you know, the next three years or whatever it might have been. And you ran, you race for Roush. from that moment on until you retired. You didn't never retire, until you quit racing in the Cup Series full time. Yeah.

Did you ever get another offer from another team? I got offers, very thankful. I got offers all the time. Yeah. What were some of the most compelling offers that you were like, golly, this is a good one? Drive the 20 car for Gibbs. What year or what?

That was right before Lugano went in it. When Tony was leaving? Yeah. My gosh. Were you in a position where you could have even really considered it? or were you scooped up? I was, but I was on the run to win the title.

So you have such a good year. So I would have had to announce in my championship title run in my first time in Cup. I'm like, I can't do that. You know? I mean, this guy gave me a chance and I won a truck championship and Xfinity title, and now I'm about to win the Cup title.

And I'm going to sign with another team. So let me ask you this. So obviously you're in a great car, about to win a championship so it's not a you're probably like yeah the the the equipment's a lateral move right all that's fine yeah was the money on the gibbs side really really good it was about the same really really it it was about the same well i negotiated a new deal okay you know off of that yeah so what i was making then no the rumor in the garage for all these years with the rouse contracts were notoriously bad Well, you know, I know that I think that Carl got paid a fair amount of money.

And the days I raced and Jeff Smith was in charge, it was a fairly reasonable deal compared to, I could have made a little bit more money going some other places, but not a tremendous amount more. What was the perks about racing at Roush? What were some of the things that were like, and this is better, this is something the other teams can't offer. You know, I'll be perfectly honest with you. I honestly, I should have left several times, two or three times. I think I should have. Because later on, we just didn't have the equipment. You know, we just didn't have the equipment we needed. And I think I could have went somewhere else and won a lot of races and potentially a championship. But I was afraid. I was

afraid to end, kind of in my career, if you will. And I was just nervous about making that change. You know what's like switching teams? And I was just, you know, I just, I was nervous to do it. The other thing that was a big factor is I was really good friends with all of my sponsors, all throughout my career. And so 3M was my sponsor. And I was good friends with the upper management. I'd go do retreats with them and do stuff. And, and I was, and I was, you know, would have had to leave those people as well. Yeah. And so that was a, a lot of it was a determining factor.

So it's a three-way deal, right? Team owner, sponsor, driver. You know, that was a, but especially in the later years, I felt like, you know, when Carl left and then Matt left. You were like, hey, I'm not should have. Yeah. And so where could you have went? I think the, you know, opportunities then were RCR and still potentially Gibbs.

and, you know, I've got offers from, you know, other places as well. Yeah. You know, ownership offer and, you know, petty back when that one gentleman came in and bought part of it. And I was like, man, I don't know. You know, they're offering to the world. Yeah. But I've, and I felt an affinity to Roush.

And I felt like, you know, when you feel like next week's going to be better or next month or next season or next. How did that go, how did that happen, though? Because that's always been puzzling to me. Roush, Jack Roush to me is the epitome. I mean, he's a racer. He is a racer, but also a very sharp businessman. If there's anybody that could build a race program that would just succeed, it would be him.

And he did. He did. Absolutely. Built an empire. Where did it go the wrong direction? Technology. How? technology. He let, or we let technology pass us by. And, you know, Robbie Reiser is a great guy,

very smart guy. But, you know, Robbie tried to be, you know, we were really late to having a competition director. Gibbs had one. RCR had one. We didn't have a competition director. And Jack prided himself in doing more with less. We were way late putting Robbie in, charge of competition director. And then we left Robbie in charge way too long and didn't provide more support. Like Robbie should have been in charge of the shop floor, right? He was super good at that. You know, we should have had other people layered up for technology. And we just, we were just behind, you know, when it was the front bar and the driver and the crew chief, we were you know, Jackson gave us everything we needed.

We were unbeatable through some of those years, all five cars in the chase. And when all that started, I remember RCR has this seven post rig, and they got all this stuff, and they run terrible. You know, they weren't winning races. You know, and we're sort of like got our chest stuck out.

But eventually the table started to turn when they started figuring that out. You know how it was back when the engineer told you what sway bar you should run. They were a laughing stock. They're like, that's not going to work. Right. Because it didn't work then.

And I think Jack got in his head, that stuff doesn't work, even though he's kind of an engineering guy. Anyway, that whole simulation and aerodynamically and whatnot, we just stalled out there and kept the same people and tried to do the same thing over and try and reinvent ourselves. Yeah. And we were just stuck in the mud. Yeah.

Did all of this predate, like when you say Rouse peaked and started declining and getting behind on technology, did this predate the Finway partnership? I mean, I'm trying to get my timeline right and then kind of like remember how this whole Rouse trajectory went. Well, I think it was right around there. They came in right at when we were doing well, right, before kind of all that technology and simulation. and all that stuff took off and aerodynamics, right? I think we got beat pretty bad on aerodynamics. We had a few opportunities to compare ourselves to like Pinsky. For instance, I'll never forget this.

We blow the two car in the 16 car, and we're 90 pounds of downforce off. Yeah. So let me back up. When we merged with Petty, when Casey Cain drove over there, they had about 45 pounds more rear downforce than we did. 45, which doesn't sound like a lot. We go test Phoenix and they arrow matched the car in the tunnel. They put 45 on the back of my car.

We go to Phoenix and at 11 in the morning they put on whatever made 45 pounds of down force and the car is three-tenths a lap faster. All the side grip in the world coming off the corner. I just lay in the throttle. It was like, there's no way you're going to beat this. It's impossible. They take it back off. we have two more days of testing left, a day and a half.

I said, guys, we need to go home. There's no spring and shock. There's nothing to the toolbox that's going to fix this. So fast forward a couple years later, three or four years later, five years later, we compare our car to the two car. They're 90 pounds of downforce better than us. Some of the front, some of the back, 90 total. We arrow balance our car and create 30 horsepower of drag to get the same downforce as a two car.

Now we're 30 horsepower drag worse than the two by matching the downforce. We go test Michigan. And at Michigan, same deal. We put the arrow pieces on to match the two car. It was three quarters of a second a lap faster with the arrow map that the two car had. And you think the car's going to go. Remember the argument we down force will slow the car down, 30 horsepower drag. it was three miles an hour faster at the end of the straightaway

and five miles an hour faster in the middle of the corner because you didn't have to slow the car down and then re-accelerated. So we were off all through that, mostly arrow. I say simulation and seven posts and all that. It was probably mostly arrow. Anytime we did that and we'd recognize it and we go, oh no, and we'd go home to work on it and we maybe found like 45 of the 90 well that that only gets you halfway there you know so and another

trait that we had is in traffic we're really bad when we get out front we could take off you know because we could kind of overcome that that arrow part but when we got back in traffic or we'd get a bad pit stop we're done for the day we can't get back up there going back to jack rouse what is his response from a driver's perspective and I'm assuming you know you guys He's had, you know, a bunch of teams, and you have all the, I'm assuming you guys talk. And so it's like, what is Jack Roush's response? And I ask this question by prefacing this. We've never really had good conversation about Jack Roush.

It's almost like he's a mystery man to this day for us. And so you are sort of our only insight into what this would have been like and what Jack Rouse is like. I'd love to have him on the show, as a matter of fact. But the fact is, is he's sort of a mystery. So what was Jack's response to this? Y'all were clearly off. did he just say we're not going to go invest in technology now or we're not going to go invest in arrow? He he he he he you have to people people win races people win championships.

It's about the people. My thing was is we weren't we we we were trying to to to reinvent ourselves with the same people and not even moving them around and we needed to try something different to get out. and get going. You know, I almost had Chad Canals hired. Really? I mean, I believe that. There was some moments when Chad was available. I was trying to get him to come and save Rauschenway in 20, late 2014.

Oh, wow. 2015, right in there. I was trying to get him. I said, Chad, you can be the guy. You can be the Ray Everham or the whoever. Set your own destiny, but you're the guy that it can. Can you imagine if he came over there and Raus Fenway is rivaling Penske and Hendrick and, you know, Stuart Haas, right now under his leadership? And it would have happened.

I think you're right. It would have happened. Yeah. And we were close, but it was probably, you know, people just didn't want a hand over the baton yet. One of the things that I find interesting about Rauch that differs from most about most every other organization. is how, and it may have started with Mark, is how Jack allowed the drivers to have, you know, to not only have an opinion about direction, but also sort of shape and steer. Now, I know it was probably ultimately Jack's decision on what happened and what y'all did,

but it felt like all these years watching you and Mark and, and other people in that organization, the drivers particularly, where in most organizations, man, like the drivers, you know, we got opinions, obviously. We've got a voice them. Sure. But we're never really making the choices. We're never really offering up massive solutions or big shifts or big, you know, culture changes and whatnot, whereas Jack kind of had y'all in the room all the time.

When there was conversations going on or discussions, you guys were always at the table. Is that the reality of it? It is. And it's unique that you have that, you've had that view and, and recognize that because I see it, I agree with it and disagree with it because I'm not a management and a people person and all that. But Jack's view was, let's let the best people decide, right? The driver knows. The driver has an opinion. He feels like the driver knows what he needs to win. You know, that driver really feels like, and he ran it as individual teams. Jack ran it as me, my crew chief, in our engineer. And we were kind of in charge of our own destiny. He would keep guardrails,

right? Yeah. But, but, you know, you guys are in charge of if you think you need a drop snout car, or you think you need this front suspension or this. And he would challenge the five teams. right to figure out what the best is and then if Matt's winning with you know this style of front suspension and this style of something he'll be putting pressure on us why are you not you know doing that and he felt like if you have four or five cars figuring out what is the best you'll end up out of 43 yeah you'll end up casting a bigger net and and and have unbeatable you know one of those cars will be winning and then the other four would be able to bring up the rear, so to speak. And so he believed in that structure and that structure worked for a long time.

Then when technology started taking over, we didn't really have, I don't feel like we had that management structure there like I talked about. Robbie was the only guy. Robbie's sitting in there sort of, right? I mean, there were other people. But I feel like, I feel like that, that you know, we could have guided that ship a little bit better and shaped it. When I think about your career, you know, I always enjoyed racing with you and felt like that, you know, I never had a problem or saw anything on the racetrack as far as, man, you know, why did he do that? Or that was a jerk move. We always had had, had, I don't remember ever. I don't either.

Ever having a problem on the racetrack. But there were drivers that you had issues with. Sure. Was this, when you think back to be quite transparent, when you think back to racing at the short tracks, going through the truck series even, what would you pat, what would you say you pattern yourself after? And do you have, do you remember like having, did you have conflicts at these short track levels? Did you, uh, were you, were you, you know, were you well respected by everybody? Did you get along with everybody? What was the? You know, I tried to. Honestly, I tried to stay under the radar, tried to stay out of the conflict because that only creates you more issues going down the road, right? Because that guy is going to pay you back, whatever else. But I'll tell you, Jr., the thing that every driver has to figure out in my issue all the way back from street stock to late model days and coming up is patience.

You know, not run that right front tire off, not run that right rear tire off, not overdrive the car. every single lap. And that pays dividends later on in life and in, you know, in these races is to, to have that those patients. You know, and I was probably overaggressive, you know, and I see like Ross Chastain. I watch him. I think he's got a lot, a lot of talent. But I see him overaggressive at some times that's cost him and may cost him later.

but he's learning his way. Yeah. Right? He's got to learn it for himself. And he's going to recognize that, damn, that didn't work out, you know. You can't teach somebody that. Yeah.

At the same time, you can't get a guy to go faster. You can't tell a guy to be more aggressive on the racetrack. That doesn't work. It's easier to tell a guy to calm down. Yeah. And so that's probably one of my traits that, you know, I was probably too aggressive and racing or I'll never forget when Sterling Marlin came over after the race at Michigan and chewed my ass.

Why? Because I wouldn't let him go. And I was racing the devil out of him, you know, lap after lap after lap. And, you know, maybe he's clear up beside me. We're wheel to wheel and I'd drive it down in the corner 10 miles and not let him, you know, not let him by. But I learned, you know, from those things getting yelled at from a few guys, right? Yeah.

You know, you have to learn that. but I tried to respect everyone as much as I could. So you didn't have many conflicts, but you had a notable dispute with Harvick multiple times it seemed like. Jay Sauter came into the car and threw a punch at you. Is that true? Vice versa. Yeah, vice versa. You threw a punch at him.

So, oh, that was at Richmond. Yeah. I remember that. Xfinity race. Yep. So I was being probably a little aggressive. And we had a full, we had the field stacked up behind us. full straightaway in front of us and he was holding everyone up. And I nudged him a little bit off

of two and probably the nudge he wasn't able to hold on to it and he wrecked. And so he went in the pits and said, I'm going to fix my car and go back out and wreck him. And that's what he did. Yeah. You know, we were running for a championship. He comes back on the track and just wipes me out off of turn four. That's right. Did that punch land? Yes. And did he have his helmet still on? He did. But there was no Hans, and I punched him right in the collarbone on the side of the neck, right under the helmet. I'm not going to punch him in the helmet. You found a vulnerable spot.

Yes, I did. I was upset. Yeah, sure. But did he, did y'all have a conversation afterwards ever? We did, I think, later on, yeah. But it was. I was looking around the infield care center when I was over there. I was still pretty upset.

Had you ever done anything like that up into that point? Had you ever punched somebody in a car and had you ever been in? fights out of the car. Not really. Not particularly. I mean, not at the racetrack. When Harvard come over the roof of the car at Bristol, did you think, were you shocked? I wasn't really shocked. So that punch, Jay Sauter, cost me $15,000. Oh. And Raus-Fenway made me pay for it out of my money. They penalized me points. So I got points taken away and a $15,000 fine. So fast forward to the next year When we're at Bristol

And I give Harvick the little nudge the bump and run And he you watch the video He overcorrects and just drove it straight And the fence to the right You know and I'm not going to say I'd have saved it Or he just saved it Whatever but it's you know So when I saw Harbick coming

And my crew guy said hey here you know he's coming down here Oh you knew he was coming Yeah Yeah And I said I'm not I'm not going to touch him I'm not doing nothing. I'm going to keep my hands to my side.

Because I would have, you know, if that wouldn't have happened, if I wouldn't have got fined and that, I probably would have hit him with uppercut, just knocked him out right as he jumped off the back of the car. You know? I mean, I would have. But I'm like, I just kept my hands to my side. I said, I'm not doing anything because I'm leading the points and I'm trying to win the title. And they took away. You still remember from a year ago where you had the points and the fine.

Oh, absolutely. And I got a stark lesson on no fight NASCAR then, okay, not today. NASCAR then was no bullshit. There's no fighting. There's none of that. What I can remember from that is that obviously the media plays this up, right? Sure. So the thing happens at Bristol and the media plays it up.

And, I mean, I don't know. We just now stop seeing that when we go to Bristol. It might actually come back up this weekend. I know. But it's funny. Yeah, so I used to hate that as a driver, but now I understand why it sells tickets. There was a lot going on. It wasn't just you and Harvick. Jimmy Spencer and Jack Sprague were also, Jack is running down the front straightaway. Oh, I didn't know that.

At the same race? Not only the same race, but that fight is about to happen because I'm working for Spencer. Jimmy sent Jack just hard into the wall, and they were all racing in the top three. and Jack is running down the straightaway after Spencer and that's about to happen. As soon as that happens, though, Harvard comes off and both of those drivers are now watching y'all. Y'all, if you want to look at the silver lining,

you did avoid another fight. That's good. Yeah, if that makes you feel any better. Because Jimmy now is up on the wall waving his towel, getting the fans excited because there's this big melee going on at your car. So, I mean, it's funny you say that NASCAR did not like fights because it all would have unraveled that day. Oh, and I think that later on, I think they recognized that that brings attention in fans.

And in 2000, whatever year it was, they didn't need any more fans and attention. They already had it. Yeah. But as that declines, you're like, okay, what can we do to make something exciting, right? But the rival, the thing with Harvard carried on a little bit. It did. I think we had to run in like at Martinsville one time in practice. Yeah.

You know, and he pulled out in front of me. were making a run or vice versa and then break check me or something like that. So I went down, had some words with him about that, you know. Yeah, I remember that. It almost just looked like a misunderstanding that you guys kind of handled civilly. We did. We did. You guys go talk. Yeah, I just walked down there and said, you know, did you mean to pull out in front of me? Didn't see me. Spotter didn't see you. I don't, I don't remember exact conversation, you know, but we we talked about it. And that was that. That was that. So for, and then you know, for the rest of, your cup career.

We got along fine. Got along great. Yeah. The situation with Kurt and the wives and girlfriends on the pit box, how did you view that experience? And what was, I would. It's pretty entertaining. I know. I would have, but I would have probably said, you can't do that.

I did. But I was in the car. That was on the TV. Right. Everybody saw you. What did you do? That's exactly what I said. I probably, if you would have had a tape recorder, you just said it.

I mean, and I think after the fact, she felt the same way, was embarrassed about it. Because she didn't do it for TV. No. You know, she did it because she was pissed and their friends, kind of were all friends. Yeah, everybody. And she was like, he's going to hurt somebody. What happened on the racetrack? He just, he was, I think he was pissed about something.

I don't know what. But it was the very end of the backstretch at Texas. And he just turned me. Just caught my bumper. I don't know if I moved up a little bit to get an arc down in the corner. But anyway, he just, you know, I don't know if he's pissed at Roush. Yeah. Whatever the case might be, right?

So it, Kurt's Kurt. And, you know, that's what happened. Was that the end of that? That was the end of that, yeah. So Boris said. Oh, yeah, I love this one. So me and Boris are friends. Yeah.

I'm friends with Boris too. I can't believe Boris being that mad at anybody. But apparently, you know, whatever happened on the racetrack, I mean, Watkins Glen produces some of the, some of those moments. Wackens Glen is kind of like the Madden Xbox game will make some of best friends hate each other's guts. Dale Jarrett was mad at you that day. Oh, yeah.

So it's a funny story because him and I, we had a, We had a little run in earlier in the race. He was a, I think he was a lap down. And we had a run in. And, you know, I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't significant. You know, it was, it was not really at all significant. We had some issue, a break issue, something in the race. So we're multiple laps down.

We had to pit and fix it. So we're green, white checkered at, at Watkins Glen. Y'all are near the back. I'm in the very back. Yeah. I'm not even in, I'm not even in. I'm not even in the race. Yeah.

He purposely, purposely hooks David Reagan. He's multiple laps down. David Reagan, I think, was maybe a lap down. Hooks David Reagan on the after turn one. That big crash. Hooks David Reagan. Sends him into that wall. He flips upside down.

Yeah. Comes across the track, slams into that wall. I slow down and I'm like, what was that for? I mean, like literally on purpose because, you know, we were all at the back.

They weren't even racing for position. Yeah. You know? And I have no idea why that happened. And so then I gave him, you know, told him he was number one. So you flipped him off.

The rest of the way back. And, you know, I don't know if I, what else I did, but I didn't wreck him or anything, but the rest of the way back. and all the way in the pits. Okay.

You know, I told him. And that's what got him fired up. Yeah. Was I was. So he came over to your. So I pull in, get out of my car. And I'm mad because my teammate just went head on into the wall and upside down across the race track for no reason. And so I'm just, I'm shaking mad at that.

A part-time driver comes in and does that to a guy for, it doesn't matter who it is. So my team guy hands me a bottle of water, right? I take the cap off, take a drink of it. And he pulls up, Boris pulls up beside my car. You know, we pull it behind our transporters. His transporter, he's over there. We're top five and two points or top ten of points. He pulls up and is flailing his arms and he's doing all this and, you know, doing all that.

And I sort of lost my cool. and he had his window net down and his helmet off and was trying to get out of his car and I took the water bottle and it was a really good shot from about 10 feet away I threw the water ball as hard as I could and just beamed him in the side of the head. Oh no!

Yeah. Yeah, okay. I was upset. Yeah. And so then I went running over there to the side of the car. He was still in the car. And I grabbed his steering wheel

and, you know, we were having some tug-of-war. So we were having some tug-of-war because I was going to beat him with that steering wheel. Are you serious? Yes, he is. What? Yeah, I don't know. He's a big guy. He's a big guy.

But he was still in the car. Yeah, you're trying to keep him in there. So. Taking a steering wheel. So anyway. We're going to wrestle, but you're staying in the car while we're doing that. Yeah. So anyway, then guys come in and break it up.

Yeah. You know. And he's hotter in hell. He's hotter and hell. He's hot and hell. He's hot and hell. He's a classic. And my guys got a hold of me and my feet are about that far off the ground.

You know, so it was, that was that was that. Did you all have conversations later? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You'll laugh about it today. Yeah, we laugh about it. He's a good dude. It's funny.

He is. So beyond that, man, I mean, that was pretty much all the conflicts you were in. You kind of had at one point this sort of little reputation. I think when you first came in in the Cup series, you people were thinking or maybe wondering if you were this over-aggressive sort of hot-head push push people around kind of guy. But then you really transition into, you know, a fast championship caliber, you know, well-respected. People love people love you. Even today, you know, when you do anything on social media or whatever, everybody's like,

oh, the Biff, man, yeah, we love that guy, right? It's funny. It is. And you've got to be excited. You got to be happy about that, I think, about how you were able to. kind of, you know, create this great, great respected persona. Yeah, I mean, you want to, that's exactly right. You want your legacy to be, you know, respect and you want to treat, you know,

my parents always taught me that, you know, treat people the way you want to be treated. And so I tried to treat people on the racetrack when I was racing you or I was racing anyone. I tried to treat them with, you know, I'm trying to pass you and do all I can do. and put a bumper to you if I have to. But I wouldn't do anything I wouldn't expect you to do back to me, you know, with respect. And so that's, you know, that's raced hard and tried to be respectful. Did it ever ever, you know, you coming into the truck series in your mid to late 20s? Yep.

Right? It's not a big deal if you're thinking about, okay, you know, Dale Earnhardt didn't really get going in the cup series. is still about the same time in his life, right? Nowadays, though, you know, it cycles. You know, Jeff Gordon kind of got going in his mid-20s, then everybody wants younger drivers. I think it's going to eventually kind of cycle back to where, you know, a 25 to 30-year-old

is an acceptable guy to hire, you know, to start his cup career. But when, at any point in your career, did you ever have a feeling of, damn out, you know, I wish I'd have made it, I wish I'd have got here sooner. All the time. Yeah.

All the time. And I wonder if, Nick, when you were starting to wrap up that, you know, that final year, getting toward the, the back end of your cup career, was that, was that a time when you started to have some, some, I don't know if this regrets the right word, but thinking, man, you know, I wish this was. Yeah. I think regret and also, junior, regret that I didn't go somewhere else. I didn't try something different.

I didn't try something different. Damn it. You know? So that probably... I went and ran a petty car. I filled in for Jerry Nadeu when he broke, hurt his ribs. I drove Andy Petrie's car when he got hurt at Richmond race in the trucks. Gosh, dang it.

I'll think of it a minute. Yeah, Bobby Hamilton. So I drove those cars and was running up front in a cup race. Yeah. you know and I drove petty's car the same same thing and then I go drive the rouse cars and they're not anything like that yeah you know and I always wonder if I just got an opportunity to drive a good you know good car where I'd have gotten to that's and of course you always wish you to started earlier but it's funny it's sort of like when

I came in guys were it was unheard of to hire somebody to drive a cup car is under 25, 28. It didn't happen. And I'm not saying I started a trend because Jeff Gordon was younger than I was. But when Jack hired me and then Jack had that talent, you know, show or Gong show or let's find, he's like, how many more guys like you are across the U.S.? Out there, yeah. You know?

And so Jack said, I'm going to bring all these young guys in and see how many more there are. And I handpicked at Toledo, Ohio, I handpicked Kurt Bush. I said, they wanted to hire this other guy, I said, that's your guy. And we hired Kurt was like 18 or 19, you know? And so here comes Kurt in. And then we hire his brother. His brother is 16. We hire his brother 16 years old.

And all of a sudden it's going, shoo. And NASCAR made the age rule because of Kyle Bush. Yeah, yeah. They made the rule. He's going to race that truck. Fontana. Yeah. Tell me about your final full-time season.

Do you know it's your final full-time season? Yeah. I knew. I knew. Well, so I'll be perfectly honest with you. I, it was killing me inside to not be able to be competitive. And I told myself as a driver, the first time I go to that racetrack and get in that car and no, for a fact, I can't win, I'm not going to do it anymore.

I'm not going to race just to be on the racetrack. We love to race. Yeah. And I had a year left in my contract. And I was not going to race at Rausch another year. Yep. I wasn't going to do it. I couldn't stand it because we ended up that our goal was to stay in the lead lap.

We're trying to stand the lead lap. And I'm not going to do that. Sure. I'm not going to do that. And we're lying to ourselves. There's 30 of us in this meeting on Tuesday telling Jack and telling ourselves that next week's going to be better. And next week's going to be better. And so I had to make a decision that I wanted to get out of my last year, my contract.

And I tried and tried and tried to get released from my last year. so that I could go sign a contract. I was close to driving the 31 car. I was close to driving some of these other cars. And they kept telling me they're going to release me, telling me they're going to release me, and we'll bring sign at Phoenix. That was before Homestead.

And they waited until the season was over before they'd release me. And your opportunities were gone. And my opportunities were gone. So, all right. So at the end of, the contract with finally they release you you're released you're free to go at any no point in the next couple of years did a cup opportunity or any a truck or anything what was what were you

wanting to do i i wanted to drive for a team i felt like i could win with and win a championship so my decision was i'm only going to go to a team you can win with that i can win with and so i got lots of phone calls for opportunities to go drive drive drive cars. And Kyle wore my ass out to come and run the truck and run for a title. Why didn't you? Once I had about five or six weeks off or ten weeks off, I fell in love with having some free time.

I'd done this. But damn, the truck series schedule is pretty. I know. So then finally, you know, we're sitting around a campfire at my place in the desert. And he's like, are you going to run my truck at Texas or not? You and Kyle. Yeah. Doing a doom buggies.

And I'm like, all right, I'll do it. You know? And he's like, okay, that was in March. And so then the spring Texas race, I went there and tested. And then I went back and ran, I ran like 12, 14 laps. Then I went back in that, you know, July or whatever it was and ran that truck race for him. Aside from that, though, were there other operators? Did any cup teams at least reach out, just see what you're doing?

Yes. You know, what are your plans? Did you feel like that you turned down opportunities then? Yeah, I turned down about all. Obviously, I turned down all of them. Not winning opportunities. So if I made the list, it was going to be Stuart Haas, Gibbs, Hendrick, RCR, and none of those people were giving you opportunities.

I talked to some of them, but it never materialized. That's what I'm asking. How many conversations or how many actually led to an actual opportunity for you to decide on is what I was thinking? And I didn't pursue it madly, you know, because I was enjoying so much of being semi-retired, right? And I did it for 20 years and never had a Saturday or Sunday off, right? So you go run the truck race? You win. That didn't change anything.

Oh, God, it lit the fire in me. But damn it, you didn't go do nothing after that. I know. I was like, it lit the fire in me. but I felt like then, I felt like then I may have been past a cup opportunity. Yeah, but I mean, to do, like, so I guess if you love, you love to drive. I love to drive. You love driving.

Yep. All right. And I bet when you drove that truck, I bet when you walked in that garage, you went, man, this is nice. Yeah. No cut throat back stabbing. That's right. This is just, we're here to have some fun. We're here to have fun.

You went, you practice, no pressure, go and run the race, win the race. Awesome. And I think probably where you're going and probably my final decision is, you know, I've had a lot of head concussions. Oh. And it, you know, those, you know, days you get out of the race car, your ears are ringing and, you know, you're dehydrated for two or three or four days. And, you know, I'd already won a title in the truck, and it was so much fun.

But it's dangerous, right? You know, and plus the truck series, a lot of young guys in there doing dumb shit. Yeah, yeah. Right. Hook you in the right rear at Charlotte. I still remember when the motor blew up in that thing you were, that Hendrick car you were driving. I went straight in the fence behind you in the oil. Charlotte, I don't know if it was the 600 or Charlotte race. You blew up getting into three, and I just, I augured it in straight behind him.

Yeah, it was a... And you got concussed off that? Well, I wouldn't say I got concussed, but it was, you know... rang your bell? Yeah, rang my bell. I was sore for a few days. Yeah. But I thought about all those things, and how much I loved to drive, I was like,

shit worth it. Yeah. You know, and you had kids. I mean, isn't that right? Yep. Yeah. You would have had kids by then. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, so I was like, God, I want to do it. But I rather do it part-time than do it every week. So I race in the Xfinity Series once a year, but I only have a very, very short list of tracks I'm willing to race at. I will not go race at Texas. There ain't going to be no Atlanta races for me. It's Martinsville, Richmond, you know, Darlington, those tracks where you kind of got a little more control of your destiny. That's right.

And so those are the opportunities that you're still open to sort of, you know, considering if they come about. That's right. The other question then is you grew up racing, you know, late models. You grew up racing those types of, and you can go run at slow, fun, short tracks and dig around. And I know that you still have that bug. How come you haven't ever tried that? So it's funny because ever since I started racing trucks, Xfinity and Cup, I got my fill off of that, right?

That's where I got my deal. And then I started doing the desert stuff. And I'll tell you, I'm going to get your ass there one of these days. It's so much fun and it's so exhilarating that I have as much fun doing that is I do go into Hickory on Friday night or Saturday night. I really do. And I can go anytime I want, I can ride for 20 minutes or an hour. I can, you know, stop and do whatever. It's not 15 minutes of practice and this and that. But as I've been away from out of the car longer, I have had interest in doing that, you know, and going back and especially after this Wilkesboro deal. Man, I'm telling you.

You know? And I like doing fun stuff. Like, I wanted to run the Crown Vic race. I was like, I'm so jacked up. I love doing off-the-wall stuff. Like, no pressure. You went and ran the lemons at Virginia. Yeah.

Wasn't that the lemons race? Yeah, I ran a lemons. I ran a few lemons races. I went all the way to Pittsburgh and ran a lemons race up there and had a ball. That was our first race. And then our second race was Carolina Motorsports Park in South Carolina. and Kershaw. And that was an actual 24-hour.

Most of them were just a Friday, Saturday. Yeah. You know, seven hours, eight hours. So we went and ran an actual 24-hour race and ended up winning that. And it was the most fun, I'm telling you. I know. We've talked about it.

We really want to do it. The most fun I've had racing probably since I started my career. Because we built the car. You know, I'm the crew chief, the driver, the team manager, like putting all the stuff together and tires and wheels. And we kind of, not single-handedly, but sort of put this together. And I got four of my buddies that have never raced before, never race before.

And I said, okay, here's a deal. We're going to go run Pittsburgh to shake the car down because I'm serious about this 24-hour race. So we're going to go run this race and figure out what we're going to figure out the ropes. So we go up there and we have a bar. running this race. My other two guys spin out off the racetrack. You know, they're figuring it out. I figure out we need bigger brakes. So we come back. I put bigger brakes on the car. Think I've got it figured out. Up there we had fuel pickup problems, got the fuel cell figured out. We go down to Kershaw. And I know in about eight hours it uses about three quarts of oil.

So this thing makes 218 horsepower. I put it on my chassis dino. You know, it's a bone stock engine, like a couple hundred thousand miles on it. So I said, okay, we're going to stop at midnight, and we're going to put four quarts oil in it. We're going to change tires. And so we run, midnight comes, we come in, open the hood, put four tires on it, put four course oil in it, switch drivers. I mean, it was the funest.

Doesn't that sound fun, Mike? Oh, my God. It sounded fun when we were talking about it earlier this year, yeah. So how long do you drive when you get in the car? We drove for about an hour and a half, about two hours. And it's pretty easy because you're not, you, you, I tell people, you drive about as fast as you drive when you're in a hurry to get somewhere. Yeah, you know what I mean? You're not bald, you're not 100%.

You're not 100%. So it's easy driving. Yeah. You know, it's more strategy and. You're more just trying to hand the baton to the next guy. Yep. And the same shape you got it. That's right.

And we didn't get the lead until like 2.30 in the morning. Try not to break it. Right. Yeah. We got the lead at like 2.30 in the morning. And so I'm in my motorhome trying to sleep. I got the radio on the nightstand. You know, and I'm listening to them.

And I just can't, I can't sleep. You know, I had like, I was war out. At the end of it, yeah. And my brother's driving in the middle of the night. And my brother's like, I can't see. You know, my brother's two years older than I am. And some of these cars got bright light. And so we're just trying to milk it through.

And it's hard getting overtaken by, you know, these little four-cylinder cars that are faster in us in the corners. And we're trying to, you know, stretch out some fuel. And he's like, man, you know, I got to get out. You know, I'm just, you know, so I'm like, shit. I'm like, go wake up Ryan, you know, because Ryan's like 30, you know. Like he'll be able to see the better than all of us at night, you know. And so we go get Ryan, we pit. And the thing is when you pit, you lose three laps.

Why? Because you have to come down pit road in first gear. And the guy has to get all the way out of the car before. Y'all can work on it. You know, we can work on it, put fuel in it, get the guy back in. I mean, if you don't have to go, and you can only use a five-gallon can, you know, so you don't have fast dump cans. Yeah.

So it takes a little bit to do a pit stop. You lose two and a half laps. But anyway, we had a little bit of a cushion. So we brought him in, put Ryan in, and off we went. And then I'm going to stretch my fuel window, my final run. So, you know, son's coming up. I put my buddy in. He's going to run her to the checker.

And I'm getting nervous now because we got about a four-lap lead. And I'm like, I'm nervous because we barely have enough time to stop for fuel. and I'm like, Mike, you've got to go slower. I'm watching lap times. I'm like, you got to go slower. Short shift to fourth down the front. So I got him short shifting. He's just easing this thing along.

And, man, we made it. We made it to the checker without running out of fuel. But I was, it was fun. It was so much fun. I mean, I just, it's the most fun I've had in a long time. That's definitely on our schedule. Yeah, we've been talking about Phil Parsons and his son, I believe, brought it up, right? Mike Joy.

Was it Mike Joy? It was Mike Joy. you're right that's who it was but it does sound fun so explain then you're having all this fun you've run five cup races this year what what is that about well so that that really comes down to when i stepped away from the car in 16 full time i said i'll only come back for the right reason i'll only come back if i can drive for a team i think i can win races for or to come back and help an injured driver if someone needs help or an opportunity to use my 18 years of experience and skill or whatever to help someone you know and that was the right opportunity john cohen was

starting this team and i you know i talked Chevy called me and i knew rCR was building the car and i just felt like it was the right opportunity to hop in there and and make a go of it you know And it was that amount of time, I'm like, I wanted to be back at the track. Yeah. And no drivers got hurt, right? Thank God. You know, just the right opportunity hadn't come up. And he was wearing me out for about two years, about he's putting a team together, getting a team together, getting a team together.

And so I just said, you know what? I don't think there's any expectation of how good you're going to do or whatever else. I said, I'll go back. I'll just drive it. Yeah. Do you have any other plans to do more? You know, if he did a few more of them, there's like, like Junior said, there's a certain amount of tracks, bucket list type of places I like to go.

I like to run. So I would do some more races for him. You know, if he gets his deal put together. He's talking about Talladega, you know. You would do Talladega? I like restrictor. I love hate relationship. I like restrictor plate racing because it gives you an opportunity.

Yeah. You know, it's easier for us to win a Talladega or run. good than a Richmond or a Charlotte, right? And I don't love restrictor plate racing, but it's fun sometimes when you're not in the big wreck and it gives you an opportunity. So I feel like that would be a good opportunity. Yeah. Do you feel you were underrated, or people perceived you as underrated?

I thought you were always really good at restrictor plate. Oh, yeah. I like it. We had, we do. We do, we duked it out. Yeah, we did. We did. 2004, our 14.

That year I sat on the pole, I don't know. Did you win an 0-4? Yes. The Daytona 500? Yeah. You sat on the pole and you blew the motor or something. I freaking got caught speeding coming to pit road. I had that thing won.

What? 0-4? Man, I don't know. You're talking about the wall. Tony Stewart's up there contending. That's the one you got busted on pit road? I had a fast car that year. Really fast car.

Running with the first year with the Gates motors. Yep. running with all these guys. Oh. We all pit. We all pit. And I get caught speeding. Yeah.

And I finished 12th. Damn. God. I had to rewatch that one. Hey, so this is actually, you just reminded me of a question. What eats at you? Like, listen, you had a race where the championship might have been yours or it should have been yours, but you had a race at Texas.

Yeah. That, I think, did you blow a tire? No, we had left a wheel loose. Left a wheel loose. So that, out of anything, of course, over. my career, right? That eats at me because we lost the championship by three positions over the 10 races. To Tony Stewart, right? To Tony Stewart. And I was running third and we had a wheel loose at Texas. And I had to come back down and put a change the wheel, put a new tire on. And we got a lap down.

And we were in the lucky dog position every single time the leader. had passed somebody the cautioned come out. And I'm not going to say NASCAR played a role in that, but Matt won it in 03. Kurt won it in 04, and I was going to win it in 05. Wow. And I think, you know, I think that maybe somebody had, you know, deck was stacked against us a little bit.

But in any event, the changer right rear changer left the wheel loose, you know, or right side guy left the wheel loose. And so we finished 20th that day, went and ran a good run at Phoenix and won at Homestead. And I was less than 20 carlinks from Lap and Tony Stewart. He was like right there. And I mean, I'm foaming at the mouth. Cautions out. Debris.

And I'm like, oh. Where is it? Where is it? Yeah. And anyway, I ended up winning that day. And, you know, I needed three more positions. and I would have got the title. So that's the one that eats at you, and rightly so, I would say.

Yeah, it would have been, you know, back in 05, I'd have been, even today, nobody's won all three championships, but I would have got it done way back in 05, right? Do you mind also, I wanted to ask you, and I know this is jumping around, but, you know, you're always so, first of all, you're very thoughtful in your responses, but your vantage point, again, is so unique, is that we went through all the conflicts that you've had. We think they're all the conflicts you had. but there's a couple other that you would have had in a unique vantage point I want to ask you about

just what your opinion is. Carl versus Matt Kenseth, your teammates. Yeah. Remembering Carl? You know, like, fake to throw and punch. What's going on? What were those team meetings like?

They were exciting. I think, you know, Carl was a fiery person and, you know, Matt is real as a matter of fact, right? And they were, they had some, you know, they had some issue on the racetrack.

And let's face it, we're all, it doesn't matter, we drive for the same company, right? We're all, you know, passionate drivers. And they had some run in on the racetrack and, you know, they were not happy about it. And did that make it awkward for you? Did you just try to stay out of it? I mean, I kind of tried to stay out of it, you know, mediated Jack said, you got to smooth it over between the guys, you know. and Matt, Matt is a, Matt is a different guy. Matt's got his opinion, and that's it.

Yeah. And you're not changing his mind. Right. You know, Matt saw it this way. That's the way Matt saw it. Yeah. And probably rightfully so, you know. Next one.

When Kurt Bush sort of had his fall from grace at Roush, and it seemed like there was just this, you know, constant tension. But, I mean, Jeff Smith, I mean, like, he, when he, leave it to Kurt. When it ended at whatever team he was at, it was at, it was. big like it was a big fireball that you know went out the door so what do you remember about that time between kurt and rouse racing well i mean kurt was curt was definitely unhappy right i think you know performance driven or whatever else kurt kurt was unhappy and rightfully so we weren't we didn't have the equipment that that i think we needed and uh you know then he had

his run in out in phoenix with the DUI and he he didn't get a DUI, but they stopped him and there was some discussion about whether he'd been drinking and I think he was a real hold of the cops. Sure. And, you know, do you know who I am? And I think some of those things. And I think that, honestly, I think that Roush just took that opportunity and said, you know what? You know, yeah.

All right. You're not going to drive. Is it right? Also, and this is the last one I wanted to get your opinion on is that, you know, you've been talking about there was this certain moment when not. all of a sudden you guys were just behind on on a lot of things and you weren't competing. Is that why everybody started seemingly to leave? I mean, you had Jeff Burton, maybe there was some contract stuff, but you had Carl going to Gibbs.

You had Matt leaving. Going to Gibbs. Going to Gibbs. Yeah. Which is, by the way, now hearing kind of your backstory, it's how interesting is all that. Yeah, right. Right. I mean, one might say that y'all are all having conversations about the same ride.

or the same couple of rides. Anyways, that being said, that's why that was happening, right? Was it just people were just unhappy with the competition? Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, it was clear that, and what's hardest ever in your career as a driver is you're winning races and dominating or whatever. And now you're not, right? You know damn good and well, it's not you.

Or you sure think it is, right? And if you have to question yourself, okay, what am I doing wrong? So you're like, okay, timeout. I got to watch more tape and do this and do that. I got to figure out what I'm doing wrong. For the most part, you're not doing anything wrong. You know, it's just you have, and it's always like this. Look at Stuart Haas two years ago.

They were unbeatable. And then the baton gets passed to this organization. And then that, and then that. And it's always a battle. It's always a battle. And but what happened was we were dominant and then we slipped a little bit and then we never we never made that we never made that cycle again never not not every once in a while and we did get a win here and there okay right place right time but we had star what I'm going to say star athlete drivers an elite group of drivers and so they could win with a 10th place car fairly easily if you gave them a chance. right and so you know

but we just we just we just didn't quite ever make that that cycle again like some of the other teams you know some of the other teams did Hendrik down for a while and then they then they pull it back together and get back up there you know and it's there's always a jockey but isn't it also fair to say that

rouse never really when when elite drivers were leaving it didn't seem like he was replacing elite with elite. I mean, you know, like today, Kyle Bush announces he's going to RCR. Aside from Brad doing his ownership deal last year, like, you know, it just, is it not fair to say that Jack Rouse never really went

and paid for those elite drivers to come fill the Mark Martins, the Jeff Burtons, the Greg Biffles, and all the people that were, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, I mean, the list is endless. And, you know, it's no knock on Boosher, no knock on Dave Reagan. No, not at all. On any of those guys, but they're, you know,

of elite level drivers. I think it's hard to attract those guys if you can't provide them a winning car, like what I was saying. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of great teams out there that, but they just don't, you know, if they're going to win races, it's not, it's going to be by, you know, restricter played or they're going to get up there and win. I was so excited to see Petty win, you know, at Darlington.

That was great to see. It's great to see. this new car has provided some new opportunities for some more teams and these alliances they've made. But you know, you can't hire those elite drivers if you don't have, you know, race-winning equipment. Yeah. So it's a cart in front of the horse. You've got to get race-winning equipment.

How do I do that? If you had race-winning equipment, those drivers that still be there. So if those drivers leave, you've got to figure out how to get race-winning equipment and then get some other ones back. So what do you up to these days? Just hanging out. Running out of gas on the side of the road with my... You own a rock quarry?

I do. In Virginia. I do. All right. Why do you own a rock quarry? That's kind of a unique story in itself. But I loved running equipment and building trails at my mountain property all the years and doing all that stuff.

and I was building a big pond project on my property. I got about half done. And this quarry I was getting the stone from for the shoreline went out of business, went belly up. And one of the guys that was helping me worked for that guy. And he said, man, you should just, I tried to find the stone somewhere else. And I couldn't match it. So I'm like, I got to start over or I can take this place over.

So not a lot of money. And I traded him a little bit of rock. I got the mining permit for this place. He got the rock. And I thought, you know, I got an excavator and I got this and that. I got some equipment. I'll go in there and have a little bit of fun. And it was a way more undertaking than what I expected.

So after, you know, a couple million dollars worth of equipment, I felt like, well, then I figured out I was about halfway there to being able to mine this stuff. And I like challenges, you know, and I hired my brother to come and run it while I raced. And, you know, I sort of guide them and help them. How long have you on this quarry? I've owned the quarry for 10 years. Okay. So it's still going.

It's still going. Yep. You own, you like to fly. You had a helicopter. You still got it? No, I don't. I sold all my aviation stuff, but I love aviation. I thought you owned planes and stuff.

I'm itching. I don't. I own the hangar. Sold everything. I sold everything. I own the hangar at the Statesville Airport, which Victory Air leases. You lease it. Oh.

You're an outdoorsman. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. Man, I love it. I don't hunt that much. Yeah. Fish.

But I love to fish. Okay. Where do you go fish? I love to fly fish. I love to saltwater fish. So I fish a lot in the Bahamas, mainly. How do you get down the Bahamas? What do you got down there?

Anything? So I've got a boat. You got a house? Yeah, I've got a boat. I've got a house in Florida, and my boat's behind the house. Okay. And so I'll take that to NASA. I usually fly to NASA and then we leave there, do Exuma Islands or go wherever. And then I take my 32 center console off, you know, from the big boat. And the one trip I did a few years ago, I never, we were there for seven days. I never once

was on the boat while it was moving, the big boat. I was always on my small boat, out fishing, snorkeling on the beach, drinking beer, doing whatever, and the boat would move from spot to spot. You'd chase it with the fish boat. Just chase it with the fishing boat, hook up. I mean, those are the days I love. I really love that. Sounds amazing.

Tell me about the Lake Norman Humane Society. So Lake Norman Humane, we started that organization years and years ago. It started out as friends of the animals. And I grew up with dogs. You used to have this calendar. Every year, Biffel had a calendar. He asked all the drivers to pose with their dogs. dog animals or their dogs and other animals.

And so I knew about your position and support of all that for years. And now you're continuing that. Yeah, continuing that. So we merged with a group and created Lake Norman Humane. And then we built a building not too far away from here on Highway 21. And what happens there? We adopt out a lot of animals. We pull animals mostly from the shelter.

And, you know, it's got to find them home. Try and find them homes. So they, we, in the state of North Carolina, we euthanize, I'll use the proper word, a lot of animals. And most of these dogs, you know, cats that go to the shelter, that's death row. And that they have about three to seven days. That's it. Yeah. So they got to find a house fast.

You know, so we, we do our part and pull a lot of animals that are adoptable from the shelter, you know, give them proper veterinary care. and get them adopted out. We adopt probably, you know, 100 animals a month, 100 dogs a month. We do. So I went to a pound, or I don't know what you call that. Shelter? Yeah. I went, well, I went to one in Charlotte, and there's this one room.

They had a big room full of adoptable. Okay. And then there's like a different room where they're, like they can't. I was looking for a cat. Okay. Long time ago. And there's this room in the back where, I saw a cat and I was like, I want that cat.

And they're like, well, we can't, it's not adoptable because we can't test it. We can't give it at shots. We can't check it for this and another because we can't touch it. Okay. It's a feral cat then. And so they were like, you know, not adoptable. This cat will not be leaving this building. And that was a real eye opener.

Yeah. And so anyhow, you guys try to go to these shelters and take the adoptable animals that are finding themselves at those shelters. Right. y'all care for them and give them an opportunity a longer runway, I guess, to be able to find a home. Yep. And we have a lot of fosters as well. So people... Those are actual homes.

Homes. People will take the animal and, you know, and it's on our website and, you know, people are looking for animals. And it works really well now because they can say, oh, I like Lucy, you know, but so Lucy is with this foster. So this foster will bring Lucy in. and the people come and meet them and say we love them, we're going to take them. How do you become a foster? So just sign up at the shelter. Come by and we love more.

The more fosters we have, it expands our organization without spending any money. Yeah. So it gives us an opportunity to help more animals. And, you know, it's a great thing. And I love being part of the organization. What's the web address? I mean, people listening right now, if you've got them motivated to go, you know adopt a pet what do they need to do

lake normanhumane.com looked us up you know social media Facebook and that physical address is on highway 21 the physical address is I'm not good with no no but I'm right near Hoke Lumber yeah the new

right across the street from New Hoke Lumber here in Moorsville yeah and so I pass by this thing every day going to the house and coming to junior motors sports we were over there for the grand opening yeah it's amazing great facility and just wanted to really highlight that. Yeah, I mean, you're doing some awesome things.

You know, when we are in the throw, when we're doing the racing thing, right? We always align ourselves with some mission, right? Some charitable initiative. And I love seeing people like you that continue those things and even get stronger or get more involved beyond your driving career because it really shows your true character and shows that you genuinely, you know, that really is something that's part of your DNA, man. It was a lot of fun, and it was a direction for me because a lot of guys within the circle had children's charities or other things. And this was sort of a gap that I was passionate about when I was in the sport.

And, of course, keep following after the sport. So it's a community supports us a lot. You know, it just occurred to me. Did you not go to Biffle about your dog Killer? Isn't that where you got Killer? My dog Killer was a litter, part of a litter from Biffle. Is that right? Yeah, it was.

I remember that now. Yeah. So that was actually kind of fun because we shared, it allowed me and you to kind of share bond a little bit. Because, yeah, he would be like, hey, man, how's killer doing? And then he would bring Killer's brother and sister or parents by. And they would kind of, it was interesting to say. them when they would get together because they rarely saw each other but when they would get together

it was like there was a there was a natural yeah there was a natural sort of connection they had it's really interesting sold a lot of merchandise by the way kill was very popular back in the day yeah yeah you know what his name was before killer though no what is it it was beetlebug no kidding yeah i'd never heard that well i and and i think that it he didn't really have a name yeah but the foster that had him you know they they they i don't know where he killed up with that name, but anyway. I've had, I love my, I love my dogs, man, but he was a great dog. He was a cool dog.

Great dog. And you have Irish Settors. And I've Irish Settor now in a poem. So my, my family or my parents, they had Irish Settors. Yeah. And so I love Irish Settors. Beautiful dogs. And I see his dog all the time.

And I'm like, it just reminds me a home, you know. Yeah, I named him killer because dad had a dog with the same coat. when I moved into Dad's House in 81, he had a dog named killer that would bite the hell out of you. He was literally a killer. But he had the same white chest, dark coat and white chest. And I was like, when I saw my killer, I was like, that's you, buddy. Yeah, that's right.

Man, Greg, thanks for coming in today. This was a lot of fun. Great catching up with you. A lot of people were, I'm going to say, we say this, but we say it with truth to several guests that come on the show. you were highly requested. Okay. I love that.

And when we put this tweet out that, you know, or we put the information out that we're going to have you on, man. A lot of excited people about this. Good. People wondering what you up to, still care about what you got going on. And if we hope to see you behind the wheel again one day.

Yeah, man, I hope so. Yeah. Somewhere you might just pop up. That's right. That's right. Do your own little Northwoodsboro somewhere. Yeah. All right, man.

Greg Biffle on the Dale Jr. Download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or in the studio, as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally.

A friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment,

I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download a true ally. Thank you, Ally, for your, continued support of the show and the entire dirty moe media team. Oh, oh. They're panning out now, so they're setting the stage. I don't see a covered car anywhere.

Well, we are live, so. Are we? And we're, as you can guess, we're watching the RCR. We're watching the NASCAR announcement here for Kyle Bush. Yeah. Hey, everybody. Yeah. So this is a Ask Junior portion of the show for today's podcast.

We got Greg Biffel coming in here as our guest, and I know a lot of y'all probably know that. but also in the booth over there Hannah's watching the live stream for Kyle Bush's announcement so you guys are going to live this out with us right here on Ask Junior on Dirty Mo's YouTube page so as that develops we'll react but you guys have sent in your questions to Xfinity Racing on Twitter

and let's get to it. Well the first one here comes from David Peters it says since the announcement of the 23 All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro what other tracks would you like to potentially see review? in the near future? I don't even know. You know, I thought

Metro Lina would have been great, but they're never going to bring that one back. There's a building on top of it. I think, you know, I don't know what Rockingham might have left in the tank. I know a lot of people bring that up. It seems like when you talk about Wooksboro, a lot of people bring up Rockingham as well

is a track that could still offer something. And I know there's some efforts and some money, you know, from the state going to that racetrack and that facility. It's a multi-use facility, much like the plan for North Wilsonboro is in turn. And what I mean by that is they have festivals and concerts and holiday events and it really tries to do a lot of other things outside of racing. And so, you know, that's, that, that justifies, I think, the, the future of that facility and that property.

But always, you know, people are going to want to have racing there. It needs a new surface, and that would be rather expensive. And I think if it had a really, I think if it had really, really good asphalt, unlike North Wilkesboro, its asphalt has not survived as well. There's some bigger issues, I think, down into term one, especially. But, you know, if it had better asphalt or could get a repave, a real conversation could be had about what could happen at Rockingham. But, man, I mean, outside of that,

I don't know. I mean, nothing's popped into my mind about what track I'd like to go try to, you know, figure out how we can get something happening. If we're talking about tracks that literally are being overgrown but then brought back, which Wilkesboro was just about it, I would say Nazareth. Nazareth is not happening. Okay, but we thought the same thing about Wilksboro. No, no, no.

So the guy at Nazareth dug big giant trenches through it, so you can't even drive around it. Really? Yeah. Marcus could do it. Marcus would be our here. I don't like Nazareth. Well, okay. Okay.

We can only talk about tracks that Dale Jr. likes. You didn't like it because you didn't race well on it? What? It's a weird shape. It's like an accident. Not an accident.

You're talking about Andretti, man. This is Andretti's track. He lives close by. It's still his track. Okay. It's an Andretti track. It's a middle of nowhere, isn't it? What's that?

It's the middle of nowhere. isn't it? That never stopped NASCAR from it. It reminds me a lot of Watkins Lynn. It's kind of like there you know, but it's, you don't really think old man, I mean, when you're at the Glenn, you're like, this is amazing, I love where I'm at. Yeah. It's kind of the same vibe there, but

I don't know. I mean, yeah, I guess it was a weird, it was a fun I don't know, man, I don't think Nazareth's coming back. Too much damage. I need to say it's coming back. That wasn't the question, though. I don't think you could. There's a lot of things going on back here. Yeah, there's a lot of What's going on? Are you watching the press conference?

Yep. So Kyle's currently just sitting at the table. He welcomed, he opened the press conference to welcome to the press conference about the announcement that's already been made. Oh, that is a shot at Dell. And everybody else was talking about it. Why are you doing that? I don't like that, Mike. They still haven't been on a lone shot. They haven't shown anything. I obviously don't have audio on. There's all kinds of other people announcing it yesterday. Jordan Mionke announced it. well if we're talking about what was talked about yesterday you beat that oh yeah so once i get once i get a picture of the car i guess i guess right we don't know yet i mean really we're going to see we're

we're going to see yeah i mean he may be announcing an nfti we don't know roger pinsky did they send any other questions to exfinity racing on twitter yes we do we have a couple so in light of bristol being this weekend jake the snake peterson said what was your bristol walkout song usually and if you were to racing today what would your song be this Saturday? Oh my gosh that was always a tough thing like you if you so I think every

driver does this differently if some of them seem like they could give a crap list and they picked they just threw something back oh you know they just answered the email with whatever song right and then other people put a lot of time into it

some people cared so much or cared so little that they would let other people pick their song. I remember Jimmy and somebody swapped, like you pick my song, I'll pick yours as a joke. But man, I really wanted to put something in there that was going to either fire me up or sort of frame my mood for racing at Bristol.

So I always kind of went with something upbeat, fast, and with a lot of energy. I don't even know what I'd put in there today. I mean, I'd literally have to go in my phone, and dig through about, you know, 200 songs to pick one to use. Do they do themes like this year were doing like, you know, 80s or something like that? They never do. You could pick anything you want.

And man. Half the guys in the field anymore when you run in the 80s. I know. Me and me either. But, yeah. Some of them you were like, what in the hell? It just didn't match the person, right? Yeah. You'd be, because you make this assumption of who this guy is.

You're racing against him all these years and spending time around them. And then they walk out to a certain song. You're like, that's the song you'd be. picked. Okay. Like BJ McLeow walking out to Taylor Swift, it wouldn't match. Something like that. I was feel like people are surprised when they know Alex Bowman likes hardcore rock and like that kind of stuff because it just doesn't seem like that guy and that's always

what he plays. All right. We're still getting developments here, but the next one here comes from Matt Reed. He said, with all of these recent repaves aging like Kansas has, are we approaching the golden age of racing on super speedways or on the speedways? Well, yeah, I mean, the car certainly race is really good at places like Kansas, but equally concerning how it races on the short tracks, Martinsville was awful. I hope that there's some massive emphasis on trying to make that a different experience

for all of us who are going to watch that here in a couple more weeks when we go back to Martinsville. What are we going to see this weekend at Bristol? That'll be interesting as well. I think though Martinsville, you know, Martinsville and Bristol they're so different being one high bank, one flat. I don't expect that they would produce similar action. So I think we'll be okay this weekend.

I'm really worried about Martinsville when we go back there. And I think the drivers are worried about the super speedways even. As concerning as Martinsville was, I don't know that these guys really love the way the car races at Daytona and Caledega and now Atlanta. And there's some conversation about what's going to happen at Texas. Does it become a, do they kind of fix term one and two, just kind of revert back to where we were with Texas,

which would be probably a good choice, or do they try to turn Texas into Atlanta too? I think a lot of drivers are very concerned about that because nobody, they don't, I don't think any of the drivers are, or one another Atlanta. So there's a, there's a lot. lot of conversation about all that and some concern there, but the positive is, yes, this car is really good at the mile and a halfs, which has been the problem or the races we

typically have complained about in the past. Well, now we can react to it officially. Kyle Bush does announce that he's driving the eight at RCR, not the 51, which we had speculated. I was hoping that it would be the 51. because of his affinity for that number and what he could do with that going forward. But I guess that'll be interesting next year.

It's going to be hard to remember that he's not in the 18 anymore after all these years. I'm literally laughing at some of these things. First of all, Morgan up there is making fun of your now. She's actually, yeah, she's actually taking it. Listen, you called it. Let's just say you actually leaked it, but you called it.

Everybody knew this. I was not like way on an island out there with this idea. Well, so. You were way on an island on announcing it. I didn't announce it. The next part of the announcement is still that Tyler Reddick, who's currently in the number eight, still remains under contract and will drive for RCR in 2023, is what was just also reported. That is crazy.

Where's Reddick going? third car what's his number yeah so that was the next the next thing so now we can start speculation of what's going to happen to redick trying to wrap my head around this hold on hold on youtube give us a second here yeah i still think the door's open for them for them to for them to bring him to 2311 for a buyout i feel like that this is just just formalities and semantics and whatever they can't they cannot have this press conference today announce this with kyle and leave and say Nothing. That's right. You're 100% right. And they're not going to say, oh, and by the way, Reddick's going to 2311 and torpedo this announcement of Kyle's, right? Right. Right. And so,

I don't like it when people torpedo announcements for Kyle. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I love it because Morgan, Morgan's upstairs listening. I guess I'm not allowed to have any speculation whatsoever. Like, I live, Mike makes, Mike forces me to live under a separate set of rules and the rest of society. Oh, I'm the one? Yeah, you're the only. You're the only. You're the only. You're the only. You're the only. You're the only. You're one saying you're complaining about it. No, I'm not complaining. I'm having fun with it. Okay. All right. So, wow. Okay. Yeah. I think you're right about that, though. They can't go sit there and announce that. Richard just made a joke. He told Kyle to hold my watch. Oh. And then gave him a watch as a signing bonus. Nice. I like what Corey LaJoy tweeted. He said,

if Kyle doesn't start the press conference with, I'm taking my talents to welcome. Then he goes, I'm turning it off. I'm turning it off. I like that. Yeah. Perfect. Do we have time for one more? Yeah, one more. Alrighty. Keeping on trend with, well, on the Bristol trend, it says what aspect of Bristol makes it so popular with drivers? Is it the banking, the size, the atmosphere? And would there be a possibility that you think we should replicate it in another market, such as Los Angeles? Oh yeah. I've said that for a long time. So I think that the, I think that Bristol is badass. And for probably the last 25 years, I've asked why. they haven't tried to recreate this somewhere else, especially on the West Coast, where we've wanted to grow our series and grow our, grow our platform or our footprint.

And I think that if we, you know, you take the best product you have to those markets where you're trying to introduce yourself to new fans. And I felt like, so if you're going to buy a ticket, you're never into a race, right? and you're going to go to your very first race. I can send you to anywhere, and you were probably going to have a pretty good time, but I know that you'll love a Bristol night race. That's never going to fall short. You're going to walk out of there every time going where do I go next? All right.

Not I might go back or I might go see another one. You're going to be asking, what's the next race I need to see? That was awesome. and so I was wondering for years like why haven't we tried to take that that racetrack and that sort of build instead of these mile and a half we tried to take everywhere across the country

this is a smaller stadium like this is a smaller footprint it seems like this would be easier to take other places and but we you know we kind of we took the colise we had the coliseum right with the clash so we did get some short track racing and some beating and banging some physicality out there

in front of the West Coast fans. But man, I think if we took Bristol there, it would succeed big time. Perfect. Well, that is it for this week's Ask Junior. And like you guys have mentioned, we have Greg Biffle coming on, who's a limo actually ran out of gas on his way here. Yeah, he texted me and he said, should I drive my limo? I'm like, yeah, whatever, I don't know.

And he says, Roger is on his way. I guess that's the name of his boss hog limo. Yeah. But it's now out of gas. Wow. So he sent a picture. It's actually on Twitter as well. His boss hog limo is on the side of the road because he ran out of gas. That gives us time to give Dale another piece of information on this announcement. So I'm going to read Bob's tweet right here. Oh, great. Keep us live. You know, Randall Burnett is here as crew chief of the number eight car for Kyle Busch.

Wow. Wow. Our Togh says that he told Tyler Reddick this morning that he will not drive the number eight car and they still have a contract for next year. Yeah. So there you go. He said he just told him an hour ago, actually. Richard also called Brexton Bush up on the stage and gave Brexton a contract to eventually drive for RCR. Oh, wow. So whatever context that holds. That's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool. So, yeah, I've been good for Kyle, and we finally understand where he's going to be, where he's going to land, and what to expect from him next year. He's getting in a car that's been very good this year. Yeah. I think that he can take that program, make it even better. Yeah. And this all, I think, in a way, benefits Austin Dillon as well to have a great teammate. He had a good one with Redick.

You have another good one with Kyle to be able to lean on, to be able to have fast cars. So, yeah. Let's assume for a second that Tyler Redick is going to actually stay at RCR like Richard is saying. Okay, we'll assume that. A three-car team, Kyle Busch, Tyler Redick, Austin, Dillon. Pretty stout right there, man. That's not bad at all. That's a hell of a response.

by RCR considering a month or two ago they were like this is worse timing for this announcement that Tyler's leaving man that's a pretty stout team man yeah yeah that's gonna be interesting to see if that really happens if Redick stays and they don't end up you know he don't end up getting his deal done early and going a going a year early to 23 11th what an environment that would be though like I feel like that wouldn't be like personally as a driver like to get your number shuffled your cruise chief shuffled, you know you're leaving at the end of the next year, like you're now the third car on the roster. Like mentally, that can't be good as a driver, right?

I mean, let's just say he does stay there, and Denny says, I can't get you out of your contract until the end of next year. I think he already had his mind wrapped around that possibility because, you know, he was going to stay there and then, you know, they go and hire Kyle to come there next year. So I think he already had his, I think he already kind of knew. he might be there for another year, and that was going to kind of be what they call that lane duck year or whatever.

I don't think he runs a Daytona 500 for RCR and Chevrolet. I just don't think that they have interest in doing that now. Now that they've got Kyle and they can move forward, maybe they sell out the rest of his contract or something. I don't know. Interesting. Well, that is it for this week on Atts Jr. Yeah.

I guess like if you if I had if I just hired Kyle and you got Austin and I got a contract in hand to have Redick somebody's paying me some money for that contract. Oh yeah. That's right. Yes. Yeah. I'm not letting that might be helping fund Kyle. I'm not letting this guy walk away and just tearing up that last year. Somebody's going to spend more money to get that done.

That's right. That's just called leverage. That's what this is. Which would explain why you say that today. called business. That's business. That's right. Yeah, but don't give away that leverage. I mean, that's, yeah, you're right about that. All right. Thank you, Xfinity. Appreciate all you all y'all for tuning in. That was kind of fun, man. Maybe we could do some more stuff like that where we're kind of live during something playing out in the industry and being able to react to it in

live time. Thanks for all the questions you guys sent to Xfinity, uh, racing on Twitter. And thanks to Xfinity for everything they do for us, man. They provide us some great service. I'm a customer. I enjoy it. And I hope you will too. Try out there at Infinity X-5. If you have some issues with your service, that'd be a good one to switch to. All right, man, that was great. So Greg Biffle, awesome to see him again.

Great to catch up with Greg. Fun to hear his take on all the things he went through as a driver in his career. And what he's up to now. I mean, the guy, I see him out and about. We see him, you know, we take our kids to school. I'll see him there once in a while. and he's got this habitat for humanity sort of, he's got a little animal shelter over here that is near and dear to his heart that he talked about.

You know, a lot of times when these guys retire, or he's not retired, but a lot of times you don't see them. They disappear. They go do whatever they do. But I keep seeing old Greg. It's good. That's right. It was good to see him.

It was a good chat. And thanks to everyone for listening. And we're off to Bristol this weekend, Ultimate Sweet Experience, for a lot of our ticket buyers. And good luck this weekend in the broadcast booth. Yeah. Y'all got a good race to cover this week. Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun.

I can't wait. So we got a busy couple of weeks coming up and closing in on the end of the season. We got a lot going on. Stay tuned and stay plugged in to Dirty Mo Media for all your needs and all the information we'll keep giving it to you. Check out DirtyMov Media, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.