The Dale Jr. Download - 428 - Ricky Stenhouse Jr. - Welcome To The Daytona 500 Club

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

The Bojangles Studio was filled with Daytona 500 winners this week as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis sat down with Cup racer Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ricky started the 2023 season off with a bang by capturing the win in the 65th running of the Great American Race. The interview takes a look at how Ricky came from humble beginnings in Mississippi, working on his father’s sprint car team to becoming a back-to-back champion in the Xfinity Series and winning the crown jewel event in stock car racing.After a stellar year in the dirt racing world, Ricky was propelled into the mainstream racing scene when he signed a development deal with Roush Racing in 2008. He fills listeners in on what his time was like with the organization and the story of his unexpected departure after the 2019 season. He also provides insight to what it's like being on a single-car team at JTG Daugherty Racing in the NextGen era. 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.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. There he is. Come on in here, buddy. Have a seat. Hey, everybody. Glad you tuned in. It's time for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Mike Davis, Del and Hart Jr.

The Mojangled Studio. We've got a great guest today. Well, how you doing, Rhiz? I'm doing fine right now. This is every week, okay, Bob. Yeah. You died on that hill. Your career died on that hill and you were hardheaded.

You were a bigger idiot. I didn't even think about it. You thought about it and didn't ask it. That makes me the bigger idiot. I think so. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again. Another episode of the Dale Jr. download.

If you listen to yesterday's show, we let you know that Ricky Stenhouse would be our guest today, Mike. And I'm excited to get him into the Bojangles studio. Ricky won the Daytona 500 earlier this year, but his path to get there has been a unique one. Dude, it's like a meteoric rise, that guy. You know, goes off and wins a couple of Xfinity championships, and I think he was set up to be the golden child and the future of Rouse Racing. But as they often do, careers take a turn, go a different course than what you expect. And so I am very compelled by Ricky's path. And I've been eager to have him on the show, and I know you have too.

We had him at the Daytona experience a couple years ago when he won the poll for the Daytona 500. We got to talk to him a little bit then, but we've never really had him in a sit-down, long-form setting like this. Well, he's a, you know, he's a guy that I've been friends with pretty much all the time we've been in the sport together, at least at the Exfinity and Cup level. Ricky's just been a guy that, you know, always been friendly, easy to talk to. I've never had any problems with him on the racetrack and any disagreements. I can remember. And so he's been an ally for a long time. We want to thank Alai for offering to support our guest segment each and every week.

They are responsible for us having this show on Wednesday and be able to bring such great guests into the show. And we want to thank Ali for everything they do, not only for us here at Durnimo Media, but everything in NASCAR. They are a massive supporter of this industry. And as partners like that, that keep the sport moving in the right direction. So thank you, Ally. and let's get Ricky in the studio and get started.

Thanks for coming today. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah. I watched a lot of these. Have you? Yeah. See, that's interesting to me, man, because I... I like, y'all have a lot of good things to say, so I like...

Well, maybe not good things, but interesting. A lot of people don't think our... Yeah, a lot of people don't love our opinions. I'm trying to think if we've said anything about Ricky. Have we said anything that Ricky? Never. Have we ever done anything that's fish you off? No.

No. It takes a lot to really... make me mad. It does. I was just talking about that. I was like, I've never had any problems with him on the racetrack that I can remember, no disagreements of any kind. Yeah. There was one time I thought you had a disagreement, but I think you were just pumped up and we were drafting somewhere, and I thought you were mad at me, but I think you were just like, I don't know, we were running up the outside somewhere or something. Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's slow down here. What did he do that made you think he was mad at you? Well, because like he was pretty animated in the car when I looked over to the right,

but what was he doing? He was just like, Like head banging? Yeah. Maybe just a good song. Yeah. Cheap. Okay. Stowing a tantrum probably?

Yeah. I don't know. He wasn't pointing at me, so I was like, all right, I think we're good. You're good. You're one of the guys that you would always have to, you know, race with up there at the front of those races. Luckily. Yeah. So it's like a, I, we don't talk about that as we get into the show, man.

But I wanted to, so you, I see this hat you got on a slide job. range, right? What is slide job range? That's my property. I mean, it's like your dirty mow acres. That's right. So, you know, growing up in Mississippi, like, I always, my dad wanted to have like a piece of land and like a shop

and, you know, live in the shop. We never got that. But when I moved here, I was living with Brian Claussen at the time. I was like, you know, eventually, I don't want to live on the lake. I want a piece of property. And finally,

came across that in 2014. I bought my piece of property and I've since added to it. So, yeah, we love living out in the middle of nowhere. What kind of fun things you got on the property? I mean, he's got a western town. I'm not expecting to meet that. So when I got it, it was set up as an equestrian facility. So Ernie Irvin actually built the house.

What? Yeah. It's his original property? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure. I heard he had some pretty good parties over there.

I never went. You never went? No, but I'm sure he did. Yeah. I've got some crew guys that used to work for him that said that they had been over there back in the day. Yeah. I remember back in, that is a beautiful piece of property, and Ernie did an amazing job with it, and I remember flying over that a lot when we were going to Darlington or somewhere.

Oh, yeah. But I didn't know that was actually, I'm learning that for the first time. So my grandma, my dad's actually from Hunter'sville. Yeah. And my grandma, she was in like, she did like, she was a seamstress. So she did like draperies and stuff like that. And I remember, obviously I was been in racing my whole life. And I remember her showing us pictures of Ernie Irvin's house. She did the draperies in it. Well, it burnt down. And then she didn't do any draperies after that. He built the dirt track on there somewhere. It's not there. No, it ain't there anymore. I wish it was. Because if it was, you'd know it. Yeah. I think he had like a, it was some, at one point he had like a little dirt. dirt track carved into the behind the house or down in the woods somewhere. I bet I know where it was. I got a pit bike track there, no.

Dude, you got a lost speedway on your property and you didn't even know it. Didn't even know it. I think there's some cars in the pond, they said, but I don't know. I don't know. Dude, get the scuba gear out and let's go find those things. I don't know if they're still there or. Certainly worth looking into this. That's fascinating.

Yeah. Sucking cars. I know a couple of magnet fishers that can go over there for a nominal fee. There's something metal down here. Yeah. Have you ever done that? No. Magnet fishing?

Have you seen it on YouTube or anything? So people are buying these really powerful magnets and just dropping them off into the lake. So if you go to a cocktail cove or somewhere where people hang out and they lose their phones and shit. And you just literally, it's a magnet about this big around, and you just sit there and just kind of... It's not a bad idea. We did it. We did it. Did you find anything?

We found an anchor. A bunch of beer bottle caps. A bunch of down beer bottle caps. Dang. Just throw those in the trash. I know. Yeah. Nothing like a phone or anything really cool.

Nothing good. No, I found a broom pole. Yeah, you did. You did find one of those. We were hoping for like a gun or something, you know, down in the bottom. We thought it, yeah, nails, so many nails. Yeah. But then we didn't really have the attention span to go out into Lake Norman and really give it a good effort.

A good go. A hour, so. On YouTube, man, they're fine. I'll have to check that. Yeah. They'll make you, if you watch a YouTube video of it, you'll buy, you'll buy a Macon. magnet and fish my pond you probably will so um if ernie irvin was there there there's some stuff down there yeah i'm sure ernie put a car in that pond no he did yeah yeah we'll see yeah so um are so

you're so you have a house on the market is which house is that it's actually off the market right you took it off the market just for a second we we updated some things uh but yes it will go back on the market really pretty soon yeah so um You are selling, you were selling your house, but you're keeping part of the property. Yeah, so whoever- Buying everything. Yeah, so whoever buys your house is going to be your neighbor? Potentially.

Sort of? Are you? Potentially. I'm not. You don't know what you're going to do? Because the other property is just, it's just land. Land, I know. There's nothing on it.

But what, where else, where would you move? Well, you know, I don't know. You do know. You know. I can tell. What is your plan? Tell us all about your plan. Where you're going to live?

What's your phone number is going to be? Tell us all. Are you going to, would you move out of, would you move away from this area? No, I love Morsville. All right. Morseville's great. Would you just think, man, you know, do I need more property, less property? Right now, it's definitely a lot to take care of.

Yeah. It's definitely a lot to take care of. I've got, my dad wants to take care of some property at some point, but he's not here yet. Where is he? He's in Mississippi still. But you're moving him here? They will move. My mom will probably retire in like a year.

Okay. She's a nurse. She's been a nurse for 39 years. And that's what keeps them there? Yes. Yep. And so as soon as she can retire, you're going to have... She's been saying she's going to retire for years and years.

Yeah. But they are closer to be in here than ever. Yes. Yeah. That's a great thing, man. My mom and her husband, Willie, lived in Virginia. He was a fireman. when he retired, they moved down here.

Gotcha. And holy moly, does it change things for the better. Yeah. Right. You get those home-cooked meals and the holidays are more full of, you know, people, you know, being a family. They've been traveling here. And my wife, Madison, her family comes down from Ohio. And we've been doing Thanksgiving Christmases already here.

And it's definitely enjoyable to have family around. So, yeah, we're looking forward to getting all of them. of our family here. Right. So on the current property, I think, is where your workout room is, right? Now, this is something this dude's serious. Is that right? Oh, yeah. So have you always been, like, were you always that into, like working out? Working out so damn hard. Like, y'all are too. You're crazy about it. I kind of go, I kind of do this. Oh, you can go in and out. When I was in high school, I started racing spurt cars when I was 15. And so when I was in high school, my dad was like, hey, you need to take it serious.

So I would go to the gym in the mornings before high school. I would shower at the gym and I would go to school. And then I would come home and straight work on race cars. That way, when I left school, I didn't have to, you know, work out afterwards. Yeah. And then, you know, this time working on the race car. They'll let you get. Yeah, so I did that, and that's probably where I started.

And then I played sports growing up. So I played football, basketball, baseball, golf. So I played all sports. Wait, you played all these sports in high school? Like you were a high school athlete? Till my freshman year. What was your best sport? I was average at all of them.

What position did you play in football? I was back-up quarterback. I couldn't see over the line to really see what was going on. But I was back up and I knew the place. And then I played cornerback. They didn't throw a ton. Middle schoolish error. And then when I played baseball, I pitched first and catcher.

Nice. Are you left-handed? I am, too. So pitcher and first base is where they usually put the left-handers. Yeah, for sure. Weird catcher, but there was a kid. But there was a kid that moved from California And nobody wanted to catch him

He threw pretty hard So I was like, well, I guess I will So you'll do it? Yeah And then basketball, defense. Defense, solid defense. All right, so you love this area. There's a likelihood that you build on this piece of property you keep

Or you may end up moving or find you another piece of property. But you're kind of up in there. I come move by you. Yeah, yada. Some man out there. Boy, slide job ranch meets Dirty Moe Acres. What do I do with that piece of information? Wow.

It's quiet out there. The redneckiest patch of land I've ever heard of. Yeah. All right. So you recently got married? Yes, in October 26th. How does that change your life? It's been great.

It's been awesome. Madison, she grew up. Her dad raced sprint cars back in the day. Did you know her? I did not. I actually hired her brother to work on my sprint car team through recommendations from, our driver, Sheldon, and some other crew guys on our team.

They were like, hey, I think this kid, he's been working on sprint cars his whole life. He's super organized, you know, OCD and just a great mechanic. Were they right? And they were, you know, 100% right. And so I hired him, and it was going into the 2020 season. I talked to him on the phone in the offseason and got him hired. And then Vegas. So we went Daytona, Vegas.

Or was it Daytona? Fontana. Daytona Fontana, then Vegas, and then down to Phoenix. And then, so when we were in Vegas, some of my crew guys were there. And they were like, I was parked next to, she was working in marketing at RCR at the time. And I was parked next to, I think, the eight car. And one of our crew guys that worked on the team, he's like, Ricky. Do you want to meet Nicholas's sister?

This is Madison. I was like, oh, hey, nice to meet you. And then I think we started talking probably after like Phoenix or something. And then, you know, just here and there. And then COVID happened. And then we talked a lot. And then we hung out a lot because there wasn't, I mean, there was nothing to do. So we rode four-wheeler's and camped out and, you know, did whatever over at the ranch.

So we got to hang out a lot. And we were like, all right, this is it. Nicholas blessed this right at the beginning or was he had a little bit of a problem. He probably had a little reserve. It seems like there might have been a bit of a code broken, right? I mean, like, you know. He doesn't work for me anymore. Oh, he doesn't.

He quit. Where to go? He's a, he loves trucking. So he, that's why he liked racing sprint cars too because he could drive the truck. Their dad was, had a little trucking company. So he went. So he's always been into trucks his whole life. And so he loved working on race cars and love driving the truck.

and now he just makes more money driving the truck. Damn, all right. He goes cross-country. Yeah. Yeah. But so what was the one thing that changed about, you know, what was the one thing, I guess, surprised you the most about being married? I mean, so for me, it was the rules about the toilet seat.

You know, it's little things like that. Like when we first start, when we first got together, she's like, hey, man, you know, could you put the toilet seat down? Yeah. For me, I'm like, yeah, okay, I'll learn to do that, and I learned to do that. And then when we got married, it was like, could you put the lid down? I'm like, wait, why didn't you just make the lid the first rule? We could have handled all this all at once, but it was like having to learn two sets of rules.

So Madison's super, like, clean, which is great and organized. And so she doesn't like, like, no shoes in the house. No shoes in the house. And I've always worn shoes in that house. I like when I don't want to carry my shoes to my closet. Yeah. You know, I want to just wear them back there. I'll stop before I get to the carpet and take them off.

And then, but yeah, she's. They're not piling up at the door. Definitely not. That's what I would have done. I'd have been like, okay, I won't wear them. I'll take them off at the door. Right at the door. Then I would be, then I'd be wearing shoes out of the house

and piling them up at the door as I come back in. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But no, everything's, everything's been great. Yeah. she definitely makes my life easier.

Yeah. Which is a huge benefit. Does she travel? She does. Okay. She does. She has FOMO. So like she talks, she thinks she wants to stay at home.

And then like when it comes down to it, she's like, I'm not, I'm not missing out. I'm going. Yeah. I'm with you. Yeah. Right, right, right. Because, man, those moments, you just, especially right now in your career and you're, you know, you win in the Daytona 500. I mean, these are moments that you just never get to relive, right?

You hope to win them again, but I'm saying is that everyone is special, right? Everyone is definitely special. You know, I think back in the Xfinity series, Nationwide series at the time, it was like, all right, you know, if we don't win this week, we'll probably get it next week. Or we'll have a really good shot at it. And then it was like, you get to cup and it's like, who, those times are few and far between. So I definitely cherished that 500 win more than probably any other win in my career. And obviously it was the Daytona 500, but I think, I mean, I look at another race that I win. I will probably cherish it just as much.

Sure, sure. That's one of the things that I think a lot of drivers disappoint me is how they celebrate a win, you know? And I think maybe I got better at it, appreciating it, you know, later in my career. And we started celebrating them harder every, you know, because you really start to realize like, damn, this is hard to do. You don't know that you'll.

We haven't really celebrated as a team yet just because I've been gone. I literally got on a plane this morning to get back here to do this, straight to the competition meeting and then here. So we haven't really had an opportunity. opportunity so we've been talking about that what we're going to do right i don't know maybe maybe a big bonfire at the ranch and just you got you know you have that west coast swing but i'm sure the moments that you did have between detona and the west coast swing they had your ass traveling all over to a media yeah i didn't i wasn't home at all which was great i mean i was

like hey i'm running on two and a half three hours of sleep every night like feeling could never have felt better. Well, had you not had to do that and be responsible, what would you have done to celebrate that Daytona 500? In the perfect Ricky world? We would have probably just gone, if we would have

had to stay Monday, you know, you got to stay in Daytona, so you're going to be. Would have flown home Monday and had everybody at the house and, you know, whether it be a massive bonfire all night and what are you drinking? Phone end, Dugger to, you know, come out play. You're going to have a

concert. Yeah, something, right? Like, you know, buddy, I got plenty of buddies around here that play as well. So, what are you drinking? What's your drink? Probably just, man, I tell you what, we had some, after the race, we had some sugar lands, which was great. But I don't know if I would do that all night.

No, I'd probably switch over to your vodka before. before two long because I'm a vodka guy are you? Yeah. I got to get you a case. Yeah. Yeah.

I've already got some. Well, I'll get some more, man. Yeah. Man, I appreciate it. So what happened does the, you know, in the years past, they would put the car that wins in the Daytona USA display,

but now with the next gen, did your car go? It's there. It's there. We had to buy everything else. They love. Normally you just build everything else yourself. Right.

And no, we... That's tough because part of it. I lost the whole car. Parts, parts, parts. Parts. Yeah. And it's a winning car. Like, I don't want to give away him a good winning car.

So, no, it's there. I mean, you know, like, you know, seats and everything. Till then, till next year. Yeah, till next year. Son of a bitch. Yeah, so it was, yeah, it's not profitable for the team that much to win. Yeah. That is something.

That is a great point. I mean, I felt bad. I felt bad. My guys are like, yeah, we got to order another car. I'm like. Especially, I guess your team wasn't immune to all the other. supply problems the teams were experiencing during the offseason, right? I mean, like, did you guys...

This off season, I think, was better than most, except for when they were redoing, you know, rear clips and stuff. And it was like... Like, the parts and pieces, I think, we're all kind of pretty good on, you know, the A arms. You know, you think about suspension pieces and stuff like that that we were waiting on, you know, last off season was not the big issue. It was more like rear clips.

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You know, what's been the motion or how has it, you know, affected you? Clint Boyer said that every time you go into a restaurant, you'll go into that restaurant as a Daytona 500 champion. He said that on air. That's true. I was like, man, that's hilarious. That is true. I was at the airport this morning, you know, somebody looks over and is like, hey, congrats.

And then like a couple of people were looking around. He's like, he won the Daytona 500. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. it's actually really cool but I think for me it was I cherished probably most out of it just being able to like

go and promote the sport because I felt like I did that a lot back when I first started and you know and went to Xfinity Series championships and you know staying in the Xfinity Series for another year afterwards you know and doing it again like

you promoted the sport a lot and probably took it for granted it and then, you know, now it's like you go a while without winning, and it's like you don't get asked to do a whole lot of stuff. And, you know, there's some stuff you probably still don't want to do, but there's a lot of stuff that you're like, man, I'd like to be out there, you know, promote myself, the race team and our partners, right? So I really enjoyed going to Chicago and New York and doing all that. Yeah. Did you go get a look at the street course? I didn't.

They didn't tell you by there. Wow, dude. I was slammed. Yeah. I figured that that would be a place they would take you to, though. The bus car would like, like, look at it. The gas car would be like, we're going to go there and have a moment. I mean, we were close, but, like, we didn't like, we should have just ran the street.

Yeah. But, yeah, traveling all around, and that was the exact same way I felt about it when I wanted in 14. You know, to be quite honest, when I wanted an 04, I was dreading that week after. because I was a son of a gun back then. I wasn't my best self. And in 14, I had a new appreciation for how hard it was to win in the Cup Series. And when we won that race, I was looking forward, oddly, to going on that week-long, you know, media deal. Yeah, like, I don't even think they had New York, like, planned.

And I was like, you know, we had Chicago planned, came back, and we had some stuff to do at the, shop on Wednesday. But like when we were in Chicago, I was like, hey, are we going to New York? And they're like, well, we didn't really plan it. We didn't want to run you all over the place. And I'm like, I'll go. Yeah.

I'll go. Heck yeah. They found some things to do. Dude, they lined it up. No kidding. Yeah, they did a great job. They're not used to drivers willingly going for a car wash media tour in New York City. Yeah, it was awesome.

I think you're actually unique in that. I think it's not as bad as you think. Really, you say it. No, I think. No, I think. think he is in line with most drivers opinions. No doubt. Is it because you're nervous or is it because you just, it's an exhausting day?

You'd rather just hang out with your team or like, hey home. You just didn't like it. No, not that you didn't like it. You just would rather be somewhere else. You don't want to travel. Yeah, I got it. You're going to travel for the race. You like being at home. Yeah.

I don't want to travel. Did you? I remember when Trevor won in 11. Dude, he went from New York, like Chicago. Like, he worked his way all the way across the, you know, I didn't go to L.A., but, like, he worked us all the way to L.A. And then back to Phoenix. Yeah, but the flip side of that is you guys should feel complimented that these shows will take you

because they don't always do that depending on who the winner is. Like, listen, when you, the fact that they could go book you, it's just, it's something we probably take for granted, but it's not a guarantee. That means that you, you know, people wanted to talk to you. Well, I feel like our, you know, I feel like our sport, we, we haven't been on a lot of, I mean, they're, I mean, and y'all's hey day, y'all are on every. show all the time. And I feel like our sport's not.

Yeah. Our sport hardly has, I mean, you know, our sport, I think, needs more weekly content, just around our, just around our sport, right? You know, like more robust race hub style, you know, shows and stuff like that. That's really the only one we got left. So I got reading some of the notes from your, from your past and your history man. the story about so your dad raced yeah all right and is it true that you tested his car outran him and he retired on the spot how did that go i don't know about outran him because so i was 15 and i was working at the time he had he had an engine shop so he built race car engines

uh sprint car engines for a living at the time we would go to a dirt track on friday saturday night around home and he would have 25 customers at the track and so he was always trying to work on other people's everybody's like hey can you come check the timing on my car and you know he's trying to race at the same time so he got to where he was not enjoying it that much but i was taking care of his cars and so i'd work on him during the week he would do the engine maintenance and then you know we had another guy that that worked with us and then we go racing on the weekend and so a new track opened up in Mississippi. It was a big three-eighths mile dirt track, high banked. And most of the tracks around home were always quarter miles. And we were on the way down.

I was driving the truck and trailer. And on the way down, he's like, you ready? I was like, oh, yeah, I'm ready. And so like I had gear to, you know, get in the car and run it. And so he tested half of the day. and then about halfway through I got in and I made 10-15 laps and he has not been back in one since. Really? I race the next weekend. That was it? So is it a winged sprint car? Wing 360.

I went from a five-horsepower go car to the 360 and then that was it. So help me understand how hard it is to climb in a winged sprint car, drive it for the first time. I'm prefacing, you probably saw this where Jimmy climbed in Bowman's car somewhere local. How hard is it to get, how hard is it figured it out? I don't think it's like, I wouldn't say super hard to figure out. You just, it's different, especially coming from the asphalt side, I feel like, because you basically run the sprint cars with the pedals more so. You can get a sprint car to do what you want with working the throttle and brake versus it's hard.

When your sprint car doesn't turn, it's hard to turn the steering wheel to get it to turn. Yeah. Because there's no weight on the front end anyway. So you use the brake and throttle a lot. But like going out there and just making laps, I think you should do it. Yeah. I'm curious. I drove dirt briefly.

and man, I did find it extremely challenging because everything your mind tells you to do, you do with the steering wheel, and none of that does, none of that makes anything happen. And so if you don't set the car into the corner and it starts pushing, there's no recovery. Yeah. You know, most of the time it's you, you're stabbing the brake or you're just, you know, in a sprint car, you're hammering the throttle most of the time. Which is exactly. You drive it harder.

Yeah, which is exactly the opposite of what you think you need to do if you're just an asphalt guy. Yeah. Right. If it starts pushing, you turn a wheel more and you slow down. And that does not fix the problem. No. And so that's what I felt like I had to learn a lot when I came over to stock cars. Yeah.

You know, I'm like, it's not turning. Sprint cars, you could just drive it. Like, if you have a tight race car and spur car, you can just drive it harder and harder and get more out of it. Interesting. So you drove for Carl Edwards. I didn't know Carl on the team. He didn't really. own it himself.

Yeah. His partners. Yeah, he lent his name out and they ran Ford engines and he raced for him as well. And how he did? Yeah, he ran their asphalt races for him. Okay. And some Silvercrown races. Damn, that's cool. And so how did you meet, he was instrumental a little bit and getting you all the way

to the Roush pipeline, right? Yeah, so it's kind of crazy. So there was a team that was based in Memphis called R.E. Technologies. He's a guy named Roger Johnson owned it. He's helped a lot of, you know, sprint car drivers and race car drivers around home, you know, get racing. And so he's, he had this team. And I'm not sure how Carl got involved with it. But anyway, they ended up running Ford Engines, and Carl put his name on it.

And I worked there during the week. And in turn, I got to run their dirt car. Yeah. And so, and I ran a, I think, one. one asphalt race forum at Lakeland in a Silver Crown car, which was an awesome racetrack. And so 2007 came around. I had been racing for my dad. Another guy that's been really instrumental in our career is Jeff Buckner, him and a guy named Shorty Chamliss that were all racers around the Mid-South area, kind of driving sprint cars for all of them. And then I

started working there so that I could run the Silver Crown car and just, you know, get some more experience doing something different besides, you know, sprint car racing. And so 2007, so I ran for them, I think, in 06. And then 2007, we were going out to the start of the season to Manzanita Speedway out in Phoenix. It was kind of the kickoff to the USAC season. And they had the copper on dirt. And they ran midgets, sprint cars, and silver crown cars. in the same night.

And I was just going to race the Silver Crown car because my dad had told me when I started racing sprint cars. He was like, hey, I'm going to kind of treat this like college. I'll give you about four years of all I got and kind of see what shakes out. And we were getting close to that four years being up. We were only taking one Silver Crown car out there in the trailer and they had room for a sprint car.

I said, hey, dad, can I take the sprint car with us and go race the USAC non-wing race at the same night? And he's like, if you can find somebody to help you out, you know, get you some tires, you know, or you got to buy the tires. And so I kind of went around town to some of our buddies. One guy owns Brad. He owns an automotive shop in town. He bought me tires. And, you know, so I kind of like drummed up some money for everything and took the sprint car out there. And we ended up winning the sprint car race and the Silver Crown race.

Casey Kane had his cars out there. Tony had his USAT cars out there. but after that win I had just signed with motorsports management at the time and they had been on me

all year of 06 because we had a really good sprint car season in 06 running the all like a lot of all-star races and stuff up through Ohio and ended up signing with them at Chili Bowl

in 2007 we went and won those races in February I flew over MMI flew me over we met with Max Jones at he was a he was the gym at ralch at the time met with him and I'm like hey what do I need to do to you know get an opportunity to come over he's like well just you know win some races this year and then we'll figure it out so I go back and ended up I was going to drive for jack Yaley after we won that race

um JJ's dad called and wanted me to run and so I was like all right and I think dad talked to him mostly I I didn't really do a lot of the dealings. I was, you know, 15, or no, I guess I was 18, 17, 18. Young. Yeah, and so dad was kind of dealing with it. Too young to broker your own deals. And back then I didn't talk at all. So I was super shy.

And so dad was kind of doing everything. So it was March. And I was up in Indiana. I was driving for a guy because Jack was coming from Arizona, bringing a sprint car. and he wasn't going to get there until April. So I was racing for a guy in March until he got there in April. So I'm headed down to pick up an engine for Jack. He's going to meet me back in a couple days.

I was driving down to pick up an engine and get a call from a management company and said, hey, Tracy Hans broke his leg, riding dirt bikes. and we're going to have you run the rest of the season for him and Tony's USAT car. That's sweet. You know, this is great. So I never ran for Jack. Went straight to running for Tony.

Our first race was, and I had never, I'd ran one, I think one pavement race. And our first race was Iowa Speedway and a sprint car in a midget. It was so fast. I had no clue what I was doing. Luckily, there was a midget race. the next weekend on dirt, and we won that one. And then we had a good year, but they were sponsored by Chevrolet. And so, like, before I took the job to run, I was like, hey, we got to tell Roush that, you know,

I'm going to run the Chevrolet car the rest of this year. And they were like, hey, go figure out, you know, you get some asphalt experience, that'll be good. And then, you know, we'll get you back at the end of it. And so we had a really good year. And then at the end of the year, I had to tell the sheriff's, had to tell the sheriff's, you know, Chevrolet people, I'm like, hey, you know, I got an opportunity now to go, you know, racing the ARCA series. Because at that time, you know, Carl had talked to him. Tony had talked to him.

We had a really good season. Won a decent amount of races and ended up October of 07, signed with Rausufant Way to run ARCA. So, 08, I was racing ARCA at Daytona. Is there anybody from Chevrolet or Tony Stewart that was trying to maybe find you the same opportunity on the Chevrolet camp? Do you know Ray Smith? Yeah. He was, I don't know how old he is now. He was fairly old then, but he kind of ran a lot of that Chevrolet racing program back in the day.

And he was trying to get me to call Mike Dillon. And I never did. I'm like, man, he's got kids my age. I'm not going to call him. Like, I don't want to get in that program. And, you know, he's got two grandkids. Or, you know, Richard's got two grandkids. They're really full.

I was like, they're going to be full, so I never called. Yeah, interesting. So going back to, you know, sprint cars and your experience in Silver Crown and all that, now you're a car owner yourself. What does that entail? So we have it set up really well now. So when I race for Tony and his sprint car team, I'd bugged Tony for every time I saw him to race a sprint car. So finally it worked out.

I thought, you know, once I started racing stock cars and I was like, man, once I get to Cup, I'm going to have a sprint car team and give back to somebody just like me. Like I always wanted to run for Tony and his sprint car team, right? So I was like, if we can have another team out there. And heck, there was four of us that had teams, you know, with Kyle, Tony, Casey, and myself. And so I was like, I'm going to have a team. And so I started a team with Matt Wood. Brian Claussen was going to drive it, actually, the year after that he, so 2017 was going to be the first season and got killed in 16.

But we had already kind of set it up like, hey, this is what we were going to do. And then when that happened in August, we were like, dang, now what? We went ahead and did the team. And so, yeah, it's still going. And Sheldon Honshild's a, you know, who drives it, Noss Energy drinks. is our main title sponsor of, and they've been with me since 2012, and they've stepped up in the dirt racing program. They sponsor quite a few different drivers and teams,

and then they sponsor the series as well. So they've really kind of taken a hold of dirt track racing, and it's been really cool. But for me, I talk to our crew chief and driver quite often. It's more of my job to get partners in. And then, you know, racing sport cars my whole life. I like to, you know, chime in when I can on things. And I'll race for them probably a few times this year.

Yeah, you still race. How hard is it to get into that car and go and be competitive? Running only in minimal time. Running minimal, it's tough. Yeah. Up until my cup season, I still ran 30 sprint car races a year throughout my nationwide series days and loved it. Well, then when I went to a cup, Jack was like, hey, can you take a few years off and like, you know, concentrate on, you know, cup racing? I was like, yeah, sure.

So I did that. But then every time I want to go back, it was like, somebody got hurt. You know, this happened. And then it just, so then I kind of quit asking. Yeah. And then, yeah, now I, dad has a, we have a car that dad takes care of. and I was like, I'll call him, hey, dad, let's go race. And he'll load it up and we'll go race.

That's it. Yeah, it's fun. It's really fun. How many cars does an average team have? We have, our sprint car team has five. Okay, five cars. They have three in the trailer. Where is it?

It's in Indiana, Brownsburg. Yeah, so they can get home. I mean, that's kind of super central for them. And then we have a couple backup at the shop, and then my dad, we just have one. And how many employees do you typically have? We got the crew chief, two crew guys, and the driver, so four. Yeah. It runs pretty minimal.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not like this. Well, no, no, I'm actually thinking about Casey Kane's shop up the road, right? Like, because I've been there. It doesn't look like that. It does not look like that. Okay.

No, he sort of got the Taj Mahal. Him and Tony's are nice, but Tony kicked his sprint car team out and put his drag race team in there. I think they just moved over to the smaller side of the shop. But, no, both their shops are magnificent. It's like, you know, your rule was the toilet seat. Your rule was the shoes in the house. His was put the drag racing. The drag race right.

Yeah. When he got married. Yeah. So, no, we ran a shop from Larry Dixon. Just like a big bay. The truck and trailer fits inside. And, you know, we're a single car team, so it's not like we need a ton of space. And they're on the road so much.

It doesn't really matter. Yeah. So what other, what other style of racing would you, want to do that you've not done. So when I was younger, I thought I wanted to be like a super cross racer. Like you never race trucks. Never. And so like is there any part of you that's like, man, I'd run, I'd love to run the snowball

derby once or. The snowball derby looks fun. Yeah. I mean, I've never, I mean, I've ran technically one late model race and it was Denny's charity thing at Richmond. How'd that go? And I felt like not great. Yeah.

Yeah. And I felt like Richmond was just way too big for it. It's a weird track for those. Yeah. And I don't even know what it was. Like, I don't know if it was limited. Oh, I got no clue. Right, yeah.

It's light mall stock. I just jumped in and I just ran it. But no, I would, I would, I mean, there's a lot of short tracks around here that look super fun. So, like, when I was, you know, testing the Arca Car, we tested, like, Caraway and all these tracks. I was like, we went to Greenville Pickens. And I was like, dude, these tracks are fun.

Yeah. You know, I mean, they were really cool, old asphalt, which I've always enjoyed. and, yeah. So is it, would it be fair to say that, like, you never got to go

experience those tracks because you went out of, you came out of Silver Crown dirt cars and all that right into an exfinite car, so you kind of like leaped over this sort of,

you know, asphalt short track. Yeah, so Arca racing, I ran. Yeah, you did run some short track. Berlin. Cayuga up in Canada. Yeah.

That was a cool track. But Toledo. Yeah. Really, other than that, I think that was about it. Yeah. I mean, because we were running a lot of, you know, mile and a half race tracks at that time.

Salem, Salem was pretty cool. But we tested a decent amount at some of the short tracks around here. Yeah, so like short track asphalt racing, I didn't really get to do. So Mike Kelly, it's a big part of your career early on, right? Yeah. And now you are back together.

So how did that happen? Because that, to me, is kind of a, unique story considering how long ago it was when you all are actually working together and a lot of guys don't a lot of guys that were around when he was doing that then they they aren't hearing there yeah right especially with the next gen car so i mean how does that happen yeah so mike i think just does a really good job in general um knowing his strengths right knowing knowing knowing for me Like with the next-gen car, we have great engineers that give him a lot of information, but he also gives him a lot of trust to do their job.

But he is really good at assembling a race team. And we didn't really do any reassembling of our race team, but I feel like he can get the most out of the team. Like he is... Where was he last year? So we were together in 2010, 11, 12. I begged for him to go cup racing with me, and at Roush, they were like,

I don't know, they wanted him to stay in the Xfinity series. So he stayed with Trevor in 13. They let him come be my crew chief in 14, which was the worst timing he could have had for, I feel like that was probably one of the lower points of our cup cars at the time. and it none of us ran that well and so yeah

we ended up he ended up going back to the Xfinity series and then I ended up getting another crew chief after that so it wasn't my doing so that's that's how our friendship has stayed

stayed strong and he's always believed in me and then obviously our success was awesome that we had together So then he went to front row and he was doing some crew chief in there. And then when I ended up at JTG, he actually came over as well. So he's been there kind of in a kind of looking over the this car, like on the build process. So like we were racing and he was kind of paying attention to order and

parts and like just kind of getting everything put together. So that's what he did. So it actually makes great sense. Yeah. So it was great for his knowledge of, you know, getting everything put together. And then he already knew the system. He knew everybody there. And so it just kind of made sense to put it all back together.

And like I said, the way he runs a team, I feel like is, you know, every crew chief has, has their way of doing it, right? But he feels like he still has a lot left to prove, right? So he is of the old kind of old guard, I guess you could say, of those crew chiefs and car chiefs that grew up in the sport. And, you know, he's won races and championships in the Xfinity series as crew chiefs. He's won cup championships as a car chief. And now he's like, you know, I want to win races as a cup crew chief. The next-gen car is kind of supposed to level the playing field for all these teams in the sport.

What's it been like for you guys as a single car team? I think at the beginning of last year, I kind of was like, man, being a single car team is not bad. We had no parts issues. We were able to, you know, because we weren't, you know, it's like the two and four car teams had issues, right? And so like, it was like we focused on, you know, one team. And I felt like that offseason, beginning of last year,

I was like, all right, we're in a good spot as we started running. it seemed like every other team was figuring things out so much faster than we were. You know, we go to Phoenix, we had a test or like a 50-minute practice session, and because it was like our first short track, and we ran a setup, we weren't very good, we tried to come up with something else for the race, we left there and we were still scratching our head, like, now what do we do? And I felt like we just kept doing that all year long, and, never really got a good grasp on it.

Yeah. So I felt like they learned it a lot faster rate than we did. So with the changing crew chiefs, it's a very small sample size at the beginning of this year. One of the things that I loved about changing crew chiefs was the idea that my car might do something it didn't do. My car might change the way it rolls the center. Now that was prevalent in the old style cars.

With the next year, probably not so much. But is there anything about the car that feels a little different, feels a little better? Is there a promise? Well, we've had a lot change this off season. So obviously Mike's kind of leading the ship and running the team. But we also got more help from the Hendrick side and from the Chevy side that we didn't have last year. And I actually went to our engineer, Tristan, I was like, hey, sorry I expected so much out of you last year. because I'm looking at the stuff that the tools and things that he has now.

I was like, I didn't know we were racing against all of that. You know, like he was like a kid on Christmas, just like loving all the new tools that he had at his disposal. Now that the other teams were working well with these. Now that we have more of a, I would say, proper alliance, you know, with Hendrick and with Chevrolet. So, you know, I don't think JTG has ever had a. massive alliance with with anyone i know they've you know bought cars from people they built their own cars when i got there and then you know bought engines or at least engines from hendrick and i know at one point they did an rCR deal and i think before that it was an mw r deal so

um we feel like we got something pretty stable right now and it seems like it's uh it's working for us that being said yes my car has has been better uh at phoenix um you know where we really struggled last year. We, now it took a while to get there. The third stage was good. We struggled at the beginning

of the race, but the third stage, I felt like, man, we had a, top eight car, you know, lap time-wise. We just got trapped a lap down and was in the back.

But, you know, practice session on Friday, we were seventh quick. And, I mean, we were 33rd quick there in November. I mean, just, scratching our heads trying to figure out.

Didn't drive good and had no speed. So I would say, yeah, it's doing definitely things different. Yeah. What's the, I think that there's some things that we have in common in terms of going through some struggles, right? And I always wondered, you've got a great attitude. You always been easy to talk to. every time I've ever seen you in the garage,

you bust a lot or whatever, you smile, you say, hey, there's not a person in the garage that you wouldn't say you're a friend or a friendly guy, right? And so having gone through some very hard years, right? In racing for Roush

and how that team sort of regressed must have been must have been impossible to go through because, you know, the Rouse had a reputation of being a winning team. Yeah. Now, you know, here's your great opportunity. And the team is not where you were hoped it would be, right? You had this dream of what things were going to be like when you got to the cup level.

You've had struggles at many points in your career, but you remain dedicated focus. all the efforts to keep yourself in shape, all that stuff is why you won the Daytona 500, right? If you don't keep this attitude, if you don't stay focused, you don't stay dedicated to your craft, you're not in position to win races like that when that happens. But I want to know where you find that determination and that strength, where you find that, you know, ability to stay on task. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's easy to sit back and say, yeah, we just, you know, the team's not. not where we needed to be. Like when I was at Roush, like,

I mean, that's a, that's a, probably a pretty long story, but, um, well, I'm here for it, because I'm curious about that, but go ahead. Um,

but as far as like, you know, sticking to it, it's, you know, the old saying, you know, a chip in a chair,

right? Like, if you, if you've, if you've got a, an opportunity, if you're, if you keep yourself in the game,

uh, you know, there'll be opportunities that you can capitalize on. And so, you know, And later at Roush, like, there was race tracks that I knew we had opportunities at. And I would have to make sure that I focused on those and really put a lot of effort in. Yeah, I wanted to get everything else better.

But, you know, realistically, like, these are our tracks. And so when I came to JTG, it was similar. They really struggled on the short tracks, you know, before I was there. And, you know, I would say we got them better. but we knew that the Daytonas were going to Talladega's, you know, some of the mile and a half racetracks that I seemed to get around really well were always going to be decent. And so, yeah, I just, you know, I think for me it was, you know, racing go-carts growing up, you know, we didn't ever have the best equipment.

I mean, we worked with what we had. And, you know, my dad has always done that his whole life. And so I try not to think about like, yeah, it's easy to say, oh, it'd be nice to be in one of the Hendrick cars, right? Like they have an opportunity to win every week. But, you know, I don't think that really gets you anywhere. You know, I'm super thankful for where I'm at. I love this race team. And ever since I came here in 2020, I've felt like, you know, dang, I've kind of found my place here.

Like, this feels like it. Now let's take this to the next level. You know, like, I still want my cup career to go further than what it has been, and I know the team wants it as well. And so we all kind of held hands and said, you know, let's focus on doing this. And so, you know, we picked up Tab Boyd as a spotter last year, which, you know, I was surprised he was on the market. You know, I mean, he's one of the best. And so, you know, I felt like where I was at Roush with Mike Herman Jr. as a spotter, he was, he's one. of the best, right? I mean, there's a group of them that are really good, and Mike's really good

at Speedways, and I felt like Tab Boyd was really good on Speedways, and so, you know, I knew that getting him, it kind of put those Speedways back up in the, you know, hey, let's go get one of these. Yeah, I just think it's interesting that, you know, if you just picked a year, like 2014 or or in a year. There's no Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Radio, YouTube radio clips of him just unraveling in the car. And, you know. See, my team, every team, like when I was at Rouse and then even at JTG, sometimes they get,

I've been talked to a few times about, hey, I need to be a little more positive on the radio, which I can get, I can get upset. But you're never on, never on. But I'm like, hey, I might get upset, but every kid out there can listen to my radio. You know, like, I, for the most part, I keep it together. You're cognizant of that. You're aware of it. What happened at Roush?

So I watched Biffle's episode on here, and he's got way more knowledge of, you know, he was there way before I was. I feel like I came in in in 2008. It was massive. I couldn't believe how big the team was. You know, we had, I think, six nationwide cars. Oh, yeah. He had like 75 drivers. Arka car, three trucks, five cup at the time.

I was like, holy cow, this is unreal. Right. It's a fleet. Obviously, it ended up, you know, kind of dwindling a little bit. And some of that was manufacture money, cutting the trucks out and, you know, just focused on, you know, the nationwide series. But then when we switched to that new car in the nationwide series, I felt like is when my career took off, you know.

because we ran four races, I think, that year in 2010. I struggled at the beginning of 2010. Went to work in the shop. Jack put me in the shop. I was there for three months. Get there at 6.30, leave at 5.30. Hour for lunch. Hour to work out.

And, you know, so that was tough. But we turned our season around that year and came on strong at the end. But those four races that we ran with the new car were, like, gave me and Mike confidence. Like, hey, we, when we went to the banquet in 2010 as rookie of the year, we were like, man, we're going to sit on that stage next year. Like, this is not fun sitting down here in the crowd for a banquet. And so, but we had confidence because every race that we ran, we were super fast with those cars. And so we won an 11 and 12 and everything was going great.

Our cup cars were fast. I think Carl tied for that championship in 12. Yeah. Was that 12? I don't remember the year. Yeah, I don't remember the year, but I remember the race. Yeah, I think it was 12. He tied, cup cars were great.

Matt left. And we hadn't for sure said that if I was going to go cup racing or not, like I might have ran a third year or fourth year of the nationwide season. series. But when he left, it was like, all right, hey, we're going to put you in. So, and I found out probably the day that they found out he was leaving, I think I found out I was going to race it. So, you know, then I did that. And 13 wasn't terrible. I didn't feel like, but, um, in the cup series. In the cup series. Like, we won a poll at Atlanta. I felt like we could have won a few races, led 60 or so laps at Kansas.

And, you know, so like... Yeah, moments. Had moments. Yeah. And then, let's see, Carl left. When did he leave? After 14? I don't remember.

God, was it that long ago? 13. 13. 14. Because that was abrupt. That was just all of a sudden, at least for us, like, for people not on the inside.

Like, all of a sudden. I think it was, I think it was after 14. Wow. That's long ago. But I was flying with him. We were flying to Richmond or from Richmond. We flew to his house in Missouri. And then we flew to Utah.

So we had a lot of time to chat. He's like, hey, I know you're probably locked in. At this time, I was locked in. My contract was through 2019 and that I signed in 2007. It's one of those roused notoriously long contracts. Yeah. I mean, it paid off well for. I mean, I didn't have anything else to do.

So it worked out great. But he was like, man, this place is going down. He goes, I should have left last year. Or in 13, Matt beat me to it. And I guess he had an opportunity to maybe leave. But he ended up turning it down. And then Matt ended up taking it. And then I think he saw the success Matt had when he went over to Gibbs.

And he's like, this place isn't where it once was. and I think it's pretty far from getting back to where it needs to be. And I was like, well, Carl, I'm here. And then he left. And then so it was me and Greg and Trevor. So, yeah, he rolled out. And we kept grinding away. And I think the best part on the Rouse side for me was when Jimmy Finning kind of took over our speedway program.

Because at that point, I felt like that's when I became a better speedway racer because I had a car that was actually fast and could be on the offense versus, you know, the defense or, you know, just trying to get a good finish. I was like, man, I can go win with these things. And we obviously, you know, won and 17 both those races. But I felt like it was because, you know, Jimmy had taken over those Speedway cars and, like, put a lot of focus in on like, hey, we, if we're going to win, we got to win one of these, you know, and we kind of knew that. But also I feel like we had, there was a lot of expectations there that weren't realistic. You signed a new contract in 19 to extend.

So, yeah, and I don't really remember how that timeline worked. So we won in 17, and then we did this, and maybe it was 19, we did this big sponsor like contract, like, hey, the sponsors are, you know, fifth third, fast and all, Sunny D through 23. Yep. are going to link it up because technically they had options on my contract when i when i went to cup early like in my contract they added a couple years and they kind of shifted uh some pay around and so they had options through 23 and when we did the big you know announcement they were like

hey you're going to be you're going to be here through 23 but you know that's that was my understanding of it you know because it was on their side to pick up So 2019 is going along and up and down. And then I get a call. Monday night, I get a text, said, hey, can you, comp meetings are on Tuesdays. And it's like, hey, can you come here tomorrow morning a little bit early before the comp meeting? I'm like, sure, not a big deal. And then I had just signed with KHA.

So Josh Jones texted me. He goes, what meeting are you going to? I was like, dude, I don't know. And if you don't know, Josh, then... They just asked me about it. And I was like, yeah, I'll be there. I was like, you know, they randomly would tell me stuff like that all the time. We'd just show up and do a little meeting, you know, roll with it.

And he's like, well, all right, let me call him. So he calls him. He's like, hey, do I need to come? And they're like, it's not that big of a deal, just some contract stuff. I'm like, so Josh ends up coming. Of course. And then we're sitting. there and it was, I don't think Jack was in that meeting.

So it was like Steve Newmark, yeah, Jack wasn't in there. It was Steve Newmark, Kevin Kidd, Tommy Wheeler. And Josh was on that side of the table and I was on this side of the table. And so when they were running through, you know, obviously, hey, we're going to let you go. I'm like, there was a lot of emotions going on in my head. But I was like, what is going on? You had no idea that that was going to happen. Not one

slight idea because I again thought I was through 23 And this is in 2019 Yes Right after you had just signed this new deal Maybe later in the year They signed the sponsor deal They acted like they picked up my options

On my contract Because my contract was already technically done It was just options on their side And so we never formally did anything, but they were like, hey, we're going to link the sponsors through your contract, and that was the kind of the way it was promoted, right? And so, didn't really ever see it coming. If Josh wasn't on that side of the table, I'd probably turn it over. But luckily, he was on that side of the table, so I just... Oh, so when you say there was emotions, you got angry. Yeah, I didn't say a whole lot, and then I just walked out. And then I called Patty, and I'm like, hey. You're crew chief. Oh, Brian Patty.

Brian Patty. I call him like, hey, man, you're going to have somebody drive next year, not me. He goes, huh? He didn't know. Nobody knew. Well, then he ended up not being there, too. Oh, his meeting was coming? Yeah, his meeting came at some points.

Did he leave with you or did they let him go as well? There was people there that didn't like him as well. I got you. So maybe you didn't get it explained to you, but in hindsight, what happened? I mean, like, why? I'm still not 100% sure. Is that right? I know they still had BUSher under contract.

They had BUSH under contract. They were leasing to JTG, I guess. So I'm sure it was some cost savings. Switching that out pretty quick. And little bits I hear like there was a window maybe in his contract of the lease. because when we left there, Josh called JTG. It's like, hey, you're not going to have a driver in there.

They didn't. I don't think they knew yet. Josh called JTG because they didn't know. We were looking for me a job, ASA. Oh, yeah, but who was? Busher was in the J. Oh, that's right. That's right.

Yeah. You're not going to have a driver soon, JTG. That's right. And you're going to need one. How convenient, honestly. I mean, that's worked out great. So the, it was just, it was just, it's wacky. Yeah.

Let me, I remember one thing that was really fascinating about that whole thing, and that was Kevin Harvick, a competitor of yours, but owner, pardon, or KHA, vocally talking in the media, standing up for you. How did that feel? Super good. Yeah. Obviously, well respected. Now it's, you know, his last season.

And he really went to bat for you. He did. And so I felt like Kevin and I've always had a really good relationship as far as like, you know, when he had his team in the nationwide series, he raced a ton. And then he raced for you. And we battled hard on the racetrack. And we would get out and talk about it. I mean, he would run me so hard. But, like, you know, clean and we got out and we'd, you know, BS about it.

And so I felt like we always had a really good relationship. and, you know, ended up, you know, when my management thing that I was at was done, I ended up switching over to them. And, you know, I've always felt like, you know, the way Kevin's always ran all of his, you know, businesses, his career, the race teams, his management company, I feel like he's always done at, you know, top-notch, top level, and something I wanted to be a part of. and, you know, I had not been with them very long, and then all of a sudden we're doing this,

and it was like, sorry, guys. Yeah. But it was cool. Kevin, you know, he speaks what he feels like. He does. He does. I appreciate that. I'm curious, though, what was your confidence at this point?

You got picked up by this team pretty quickly, right? So it's not like you went, you know, months looking for a ride and wondering if you were ever going to get back. I mean, that part was removed. But, yeah, I had the first. With Josh, with, you know, Hank from Sunny D. Like, I had some really good people in my corner that were able to kind of help move all that along. And then obviously, you know, my partner in Nall's Energy Drink was able to go with me.

Like, there was a lot of people that, you know, kind of helped that transition, which was nice. So are you saying it never allowed you to start to have doubts into your mind about where you are as a race car driver? Um, yes and no. I mean, like I said, Josh was on the phone quick. Yeah. And y'all know Josh, super optimistic. You know, like, acting like, no problem. We got this, you know. So I feel like he probably helped keep me in a pretty decent place where I wasn't like freaking out. Yeah. And then, um, which was very beneficial. And then, yeah, then it was, you know, then I went over to Jay. I'm like, you know, once I, you know, ended up signing, I'm like, they got a lot of stuff here. That was my question. That was my next question. So when you walked out of Roush and went to JGR, where did you, or went to the 47th, JTG, what did you, what was your, was it relief? Where you were like, oh, they're, they got as much as we had.

Big relief. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. I showed up and I'm like, you know, because I didn't. I had been with Roush my whole career. You've never been in that shop. I actually had been in that shop one time.

I did not know it. But at the time, I didn't know it. When I ran for the Wood Brothers, they were in that shop. And then, yeah, so when I walked in, I was like, I've been here before. But when I walked in there, like, I didn't know. I didn't, I mean, I know who Tad was, and I know, obviously I know who Brad is. and but I didn't know like the whole core group and I really didn't know that many other owners either because like I'm in the nationwide series again not super talkative and kind of shy and

and for the longest time and then in the cup stuff like still I just kind of stuck to you know to our team and so I didn't really know a ton about JTG and you know so I didn't really know a ton about JTG and you know So when I walked in, I was like, man, they got everything you need to race here. You know what I mean? Like above and beyond what I had expected when I walked in. And so I was, you know, kind of pumped up right off the bat. Like, you know, hey, let's go do this, you know. And then Patty came over with me.

And then we sat on the pole at the 500 that year. I was like, here we go. That's right. That was cool. That was really cool. We got to talk to you about, I don't know if you remember that, but Dale and I were doing a show at Chevrolet experience, and we were going to have the poll setter, whoever it was, and it was you.

Yeah. Yeah, you came over, gave us a few minutes. But I remember that. That was exciting. That was really, really special. And, you know, everybody at JTG now with, you know, Gordon, Tad, Jody, Brad, I mean, they are, they're all in. You know, they're, especially now, right? Like, we were pumped to go there because.

we're like, hey, we're going to run one year of the old car, knowing we have this new car coming, everybody's going to be somewhat the same, you know, at least have the opportunity. And obviously, we ended up having to run, you know, another season

of the old car, which I felt like was kind of a bummer. I mean, like our cars were good, especially on the mile and a half stuff, I felt like our cars were comparable. We lacked a little bit on the short tracks on that side, but I do kind of miss the old cars. Yeah.

Do you? Yeah, they just feel totally different. Yeah. So, yeah, explain that. Is it the sidewall of the tire? It has to. I guess it has to be. It's mostly that?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. The tire patch is so wide, and at any moment you feel like you're going to lose. Your tail. Yeah. Yeah. Man. So going to Kota this weekend.

No stage breaks. Have you thought much about that? I know y'all probably... We talked about it in the competition meeting. What do you think we're going to see? I mean, I think eventually you're going to see some long green flag runs. You know, everybody's so good. I felt like last year, every race we had more cautions than you thought, right?

Because we didn't know where we needed to be on tire pressures. There was always like some little issues that everybody would kind of gather throughout that we created those cautions. Yeah. Now, like, we know how much air needs to be in the tires. We know, like, they know how to build and prep everything better. And I just don't think you're going to see many cautions. So that being said, you know, the long green flag runs, which I enjoy, let the tires wear out. And then, you know, people run a two-stop or three-stop.

It kind of brings that back into it a little bit more. Yeah. a lot more like your typical IndyCar race or your F1 style in terms of strategy and you can better be paying attention from the start if you're a fan so you're on top of- Which again is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Yeah. I mean if you get a safety car. Yeah. Then it might be interesting because I don't know.

We'll see. Do you like racing at Cota in terms of like, I mean. It's a cool track. Yeah. It's a cool track. The track limits thing is a bug for me. That bothers me that there's. this potential that somebody's going to crack over the radio and go,

yeah, man, you just exceeded the track limits through the S's back there. And you're like, what, which one where, you know. But you know. You know. Yeah, you know. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Don't you wish there was just some grass?

There was times there, yeah, that would be easier. Yeah, like you know exactly. But there was times last year that I was definitely close and I was like, you know, you're going like, you get down to around turn 12. You're like, hopefully nobody says anything. Kind of like when you know you spent all. pit road. Yes.

You're like leaving pit road, you're like, just waiting for them to say, hey, they got you. You know, that's kind of the same way at Cota. You know, you're like, you go through the asses, you're pushing. And when you're behind somebody tight is when it's difficult to see. You know, so you're like, man, I think I was good. But that's probably the only downfall, I guess, two Codas is, yeah, you know, you're at discretion of track limits, right? Do you look forward to going to that racetrack?

You know, I've never been like a massive, just, like, I really like road courses. Yeah, I hated them forever. Yeah, so, but I do, like, I enjoy them, and I enjoy, like, I really like to Road America. I like Sonoma, where the tires fall off a lot. Like, I enjoy that, but, like, when it's just kind of like Watkins Glen and Coda, just all-out speed. There's not a ton of fall-off at this. Yeah.

You would think there would be. Yeah. But Cota, I imagine, as new as it is or relatively new and how much of a... The first time we were there, it had decent track fall off. But, I mean, we ended up racing in the rain, but... Yeah. How much does the momentum from the 500 win help you, you know? So I remember when we won the 514, the relief of being locked into the playoffs,

even though you might talk that down. Even there's potential that that's not there. That's not going to happen. Like you're talking about, there's less issues, the races will be more predictable. And I think the guys... You've already seen, the fastest guys are there, right? Right. And so I think there won't be as many winners this year.

But now that you have, hey, man, we don't have to go chase this win. We can relax and you just go race. How much does that momentum happen to carry? you through the rest of the year. I think it's going to carry a lot. You know, I think for me, you know, beginning of those races when we're not running as well as I want, it's easier to stay kind of focused on just doing whatever you can do to make your car better, right, so that you're learning. But you already do have a win, which is nice. So you're not like just freaking out and overdriving, making mistakes. And so I feel like for me as a driver,

I feel a lot more comfortable in the car of, you know, we weren't great at Phoenix at the beginning. So I wasn't pushing it and, you know, going to make a mistake and, you know, plow the fence off of four because I'm tight and, you know, just stayed in the throttle, right? And hoping I made it. Yeah, I just like, hey, I'll take what it gives me and we'll fix it up next pit stop. You know, so I feel like for me I have a lot, it's a lot less stressful, you know, and I feel like I actually, you know, probably need to learn from it. It's like, even though we don't, if we didn't have that win, I still need to be like that, right?

And try and get the most out of our car. And I feel like we're doing that right now. What I imagine you're looking forward to Talladega? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, racing sprint cars at Talladega and the Cup race. Yeah. You're going to go to this dirt track?

Oh, yeah, Friday, Saturday night. There's a big race. There's a big late model race and they're running sprint cars at the same time. So, yeah, it's going to be a big weekend in Talladega. Have you ever drove a late model? I have not. That's surprising to me. I literally kind of like just stuck to

Larson's trying to get me to run his race, which I don't think I'm going to at Bulls Gap. What's the hesitation? Just, you know, it's just like anything else. You don't want to just go get in a car. Like you want to make sure the car's capable of winning. Because like back in the day, I went and ran some, when I was in Indiana, I ran some sprint cars of peoples

and even later in my career, I'm like, oh, I'll just go running. And then you get there and you're like, man, it's not what I'm used to and it's not like you look at it and you're like, this isn't like the nicest stuff here or like comparable to going and competing for a win. And so I'd like to get a few test sessions in.

I got some friends, one of our partners, the Frozen Farmer, Ice Cream, they sponsor a dirt late model team that races. And there's a big race Dover weekend up near them in Delaware. And so they're potentially could race a late model. There you go. I love that, man. I like seeing.

So I love when our, our cup guys do grassroots stuff, but do new stuff, right? Yeah. It's fascinating because it's like when Larson got in the dirt, you know, late model it was like hell yeah you know because yeah it was fun to watch it yes it was unreal and then chase i mean he i mean he went way out of his comfort zone to run midgets and right late models yeah i mean is it there an actual reason to run a late model race at maybe north wilksboro since there's a race coming up that weekend and then you know maybe you're talking about testing and so there's a yeah i mean i feel like some things are lining right here yeah i think josh

Josh and Kevin asked me about that, so we'll see. That would be fun. It's fun. Yeah. And there's no expectations. The trucks tested there yesterday and the cup cars tested today. The trucks had three seconds to fall off. That's great.

Isn't that fun? Dude, I ran the Archer race at Rockingham in 07. No, I mean, 08. That was the coolest race. Yeah. There was like 60-something cars there that year. Damn. Lugano won and finished third.

Because I don't know when we'll see you again, we need to go ahead and square this up. If Dale and I come fish your pond, do we get to keep whatever we find? Magnet fishing. Oh, ooh. Yeah. Sure.

Do we need to sign a contract? I don't want none of that rouse crap that you ended up with. This ain't no Sunny D type thing here. We got it just straight up. No, yeah, yeah. I'd like to see what's down there. I'm fine with you keeping it.

Are you fascinating? Actually, I should just call Ernest and say, hey, did you put anything down there? And then... That'd be the easiest. You're pretty good friends. with Denny. Yeah.

Do you think Denny, do you, what are the drivers all talking about with Denny and his podcast? I think his podcast is great.

Have you listened to it? Yeah. Do you think that he'll get his penalty reduced? I think he should. Really? I do.

All right. From Ricky Stenhouse Jr.' Yeah. I mean, yeah. People, people crash people

all the time. Thank you. Yeah. It's true. I mean, if you look at Denny, like, even if he doesn't, like, if he gets his fine taking back, he's still on the short end of the stick. Right. He's like from last year, just from one year.

Right. So I don't know. I feel like he's still behind. He's not even. Oh, as far as the whole Ross Denny thing. Right. If you're keeping score at home, the best he got Ross, he also took himself out, which nullifies any advantage you could have got, right?

Yeah, normally if you're going to do it. you can't take yourself out. Right. But that was more of like, hey, I know I'm finishing back here. You are too. Yeah. Like, I don't know. Yeah. But yeah, no, I think you will. Yep. Nice. You know one thing we didn't talk about? What? What? Levermush. No, we didn't.

I think it's because we've talked about it every time we. Every time I. I mean, I know you love livermush. So do I. Is that right? And I think we're probably only two people in this room. You are probably. Yeah. So my grandma would ship it to us in Mississippi. when she was living here. Yeah. And so when dad comes here, he stocks up. Every time I'm, every time there's livermush cooking in my house, I take us a picture of it to him.

Yeah. Yeah, we do it, vice versa. It's kind of our way of saying, hey. Livermush isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. Okay. But, but it is a bit of an acquired taste. No, it's not. I don't think so.

No. I mean, is bacon an acquired taste? Well, I think it's more like sausage. Am I wrong? Well, it's kind of like, it's kind of, it's a breakfast meat. eat and it tastes amazing. People eat salmon at breakfast. Like, surely you can eat livermush.

Yeah, I see the salmon laying there for breakfast, and I don't think I put that on the plate. Who eats salmon for breakfast? I saw it this weekend. Plenty of people. Future serial killers or something. I mean, like, what do you? You go to hotels and there's smoked salmon sitting.

It's all-inclusive. They had it for the buffet, breakfast buffet. Him and Dugger. Oh, yeah. Did Dugger get any salmon? He'll know. Yeah. I would love, y'all need a camera for y'all's vacations. No, we don't. Yes, y'all do. Hold on. Listen, I, like, I know we're just going to make this longer and longer, but you got to hear what Dale, what happened to Dale in a hot tub with Doug.

Oh, damn. Just tell him the story. Just humorous. So we're sitting there. We told it on yesterday's podcast, but Ricky is here. It's the third day. We're hanging out. We, you know, we're winding down, going home in the morning. And we're sitting in this hot tub, and it's a really big hot tub, and we're on one. in this other group's on the other end and the other group said this girl random group yeah okay this the lady says hey my son big fan of yours i thought man that's so nice tell him i said hey we had a great quick exchange right seconds later a guy from that group comes up and sits down and goes hey uh junior jimmy johnson won a lot more races than you did didn't he that was what he said right out of the gate

and i went he is a seven-time champion i didn't know what else to say uh you're correct yeah this isn't a game show Can you just see it? What was Dugger's response? That's what I wanted to know. Dugger stood there, and then when the guy got up and walked away, Dugger said, man, you handled that really good. And I said, I didn't know what else to say other than yes.

He's a seven-time champion. And, I mean, the guy didn't, Tim was like, yeah, you didn't give him much an opportunity to keep going. That was so funny. Shut him down. Shut him down. All right, next. Yeah, Dougger's, he's hilarious.

We get Dougher to tell that story. I'm glad he didn't say anything to the guy. That would have been. I know, his viewpoint of that is probably a little different. Oh, you know, it's hilarious too. At least the way he tells the stories, he's going to be great. He plops his ass in the hot tub, and then all of his sudden, he says, Jimmy Johnson got more wins than you do.

Yeah. Yeah, we were sitting there by the pool watching the truck race, eating cheeseburgers. By the way, was that your first time out of an all-inclusive place? No, why? Oh, I don't know. Did it get away? Did it look like a rookie? No, I just didn't feel like you went.

I had been to all inclusive places. I had been to one. Yes. I talked to him. I forget when, and we were talking about flying commercial. I don't remember last time I was a commercial. It's been a while. So I didn't know if you don't fly commercial, I didn't know if you went to all inclusive places.

I would, I have flown commercial to all inclusive places before. I'm into those. They're fine. They're good. Everything's right there. Everything's right there. You don't have been on a cruise. I have one time.

Long time ago. The junior cruise. Oh. That thing's infamous. Like that was one of the, I don't know if you called it the failed experiments or what? Oh, six. Okay, that was before my time. Yeah, it was like 04.

My first year with you. I've been wanting to go on a cruise, but Amy doesn't. My wife went on one. She was skeptical about it, and I kind of always wanted to go. and her sister and her husband were going to go on a cruise and I couldn't go. Well, then her husband ended up not being able to go. He's in the Air Force. So he ended up not being able to go.

So Madison went with her. And she's like, this was great. Like she would go on another one. So we're going to go on one at some point. Yeah. So I, but did you watch the truck race? Yeah. So Tim, did you watch the truck race?

You didn't. No. So, Mike, you don't know this. So Tim, we're sitting there by the pool, eating cheeseburgers,

drinking beers, and Tim videos us watching the truck race and sends it to Michael Waltrip. Michael Waltrip in seconds, puts it on the broadcast. God. Yeah. Seconds.

Seconds. Were you furious? I was like, you know, you wish that had not happened. I wish that had not happened. Yeah. Feel like a little, like there was a paparazzi in there

in the form of dugger. Yeah, Tim. He apologized. He didn't expect Michael to throw it up there. The one Tim Dugger... You can't send anything to Michael. You don't know where it's going.

The one video that I'll always remember is the Dugger Dale experience was when you guys went and got Manny's Petty's. Were y'all in Key West maybe? I don't think so. I don't know. Tim does that all the time, though. Does he? Yeah.

But they're sitting there giggling, and I'm just thinking there goes the brand. All the work we've done to built up, the brand is gone. It all went through one Tim Dugger video. A country singer is ruined it. Rest in Peace brand It tickles, man It tickles, man It tickles like hell

I've gotten one I've gotten one I've definitely I'll be getting more Because of my little girls But you know When you're a girl dad You're committed

Yeah, when you're a girl dad You're into that kind of thing You need kids Wait, you're a girl dad Mike I know Have you not went and gotten one? I've had

Dave done it No no no I've never got a professional Manicure, Petticure You should do that I don't even know Which one is the feet

Hold of your kids You're going to be disappointed, yeah And you still haven't Yeah Dang Really? Is it that unusual that I haven't got one? It's kind of a thing you probably should do Yeah

Like they've painted my coat bills yet But You know, he even Your kids were nowhere around when you and Dugger got that Quit bringing the kids into it This was a you and Dugger decision He said that he is going to do more of them I got it because of his kids

It's now a normal thing All right Yeah Well man Appreciate you coming today. I know we kept you on here a little long, but thanks for... I've got nowhere to be. I appreciate you.

I appreciate you giving us some time, and congratulations on a life-changing experience when Daytona 500, joining the club. Now, you know what, it'll be cool, and I'm excited about this, is every time they gather all of the living Daytona 500 winners together, I'll get to say, hey, to you and see you. I know, that's cool. We'll be in the room together. Yeah, when they...

Because there'll be things that we'll do for the... the rest of our lives. Together. That'll be around that Daytona win. Yeah. That'll be cool. That'll be really neat. I think that's special.

I'm hoping that like when I go back to race, it's just not as much stress, right? You've already won one. So maybe there's like, is that not real or no? I think it feels that way for like five years. And then after another five years, you're kind of like, man, I'd love to win that race again. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to win that one just one more time.

But I'm going to tell you, man, when you walk. where you wherever that trophy is you're it's going to be the one trophy that you always want to yeah have around you know there's a lot of i don't know there's it put it in perspective i saw tony after the race and he was looking at my ring he basically was like he would have traded one of his championships for it right so i'm like dang yeah that's yeah that's crazy that says a lot i like it man i mean that race is a special race you know and i like it to be held at a certain uh steam right It definitely feels that way. I'm glad.

I'm glad you felt it. Still feels that way. Yeah. Well, man, go have fun this year. Yes. And we'll see you around. We'll see you the track. Ricky Stenhouse on the Dale Jr. download.

Man, I'm really excited to have Ally help us bring the guest segment every week. It's one of my favorite parts of the download. We get to talk to so many different people in racing, outside of racing. But everybody that comes in here, I want them to have had a good time. I want them to want to come back. I want them to feel like an ally to do. Dirty Mo Media. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the download and the entire Dirty Mo Media team.

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