The Dale Jr. Download - 447 - Robbie Reiser - I Earned My Way Everyday

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reconnects with one of his fiercest rivals from his NASCAR Xfinity Series days, former crew chief Robbie Reiser. During Dale’s 1998 and ‘99 Xfinity Championship season runs, his main competition was fellow up-and-comer Matt Kenseth, for whom Reiser was calling the shots. Dale and co-host Mike Davis chat with Robbie about his family’s history in racing the short tracks of Wisconsin, where his father John was a champion dirt late model driver. Robbie recounts a hilarious story of how he came to be behind the wheel, thanks in part to wrecking his sister’s Ford Pinto in a street race with a friend. After quickly rising through the local ranks in Southern Wisconsin, Robbie and his father John took the plunge into the world of NASCAR, moving their operation to Denver, North Carolina. After nearly losing everything due to a lack of funding, a series of events led to Robbie putting his former rival from home, Matt Kenseth, behind the wheel. They immediately found harmony and became contenders in the Xfinity Series, where they impressed the likes of Mark Martin and Jack Roush. Before long, the Reiser operation was absorbed by Roush Racing, and they took on the superstars of NASCAR Cup, where they would win a championship in 2003. 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.

Calling 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, Dellenhart Jr., the Mojangles Studio.

You've got a great guest today. Well, how you doing, Rhiz? I'm doing fine right now. This is every week, okay, boy? buckle in. 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. Welcome to the Dale Jr. Download and another episode. It is Wednesday, May the 10th. And we've got a great guest coming in here today for our guest segment.

ally is sponsoring the guest segment and as they do every week and we're very thankful for everything that ally has done for us here at dirty moe media in the bojangled studio and everything that they do in NASCAR in general they they support our industry across the board sponsoring race cars and all sorts of things and so we're thankful for them bringing us another ally this guy is an ally. Robbie Reiser. Robbie Reiser has been somebody that's sort of been parallel in my life for many years and

had a really chance meeting with him before we ever cross-pass in the Xfinity series when he was crew chief and Matt. But our, we were kind of always one-up in each other throughout many of the early years in our NASCAR careers. He had a great relationship with Tony Uri Senior and Mike it's going to be fun to talk to him. him. I've never sat down with him

and rehash some of the stories and memories from our own career, but I'd also like to know more about his driving career. And his experience at Roush and what he's been doing ever since. Well, you about mentioned it all the way, but he was the crew chief of Matt Kenseth. Matt Kenseth being,

you know, as he was coming up through the Bush series and you were coming up through that, and then obviously y'all's splashing a cup. So that's where the parallels were. I watched you guys at the Matt Kenseth Hall of Fame banquet, and I remember going, my gosh, Robbie Reiser is completely different than what I had pictured. Like, I have these crew chiefs that sort of ornery, sort of just kind of like, you know, stay away from me.

I just want to talk about cars. But Robbie Reiser was this ball of energy that I didn't think you guys were able to keep him really cage. He was just all over the place, and I'm like, yeah, I could tell you on that stage, we're thinking, I need to book him for the Dale Jr. Down. So fortunately because Ally Robbie Riser is here today. Yeah, the funny thing about being with, being with Robbie on that stage is celebrating Matt's championship, his career, his Hall of Fame career.

I, you know, we want, we beat them in the Xfinity Series. They got the rookie of the year title over us in 2000. They won a championship in 03. We should have, you know, we could say we should have won in 04, but we didn't, you know, I made some mistakes. and what have you. But either way, like, Robbie knows that he has that over my head. And so sitting on that stage, I knew to behave myself because, you know, anytime he wants to pull out that championship ring, it's there. It's there. So anyways, he's a great, great guy. And I'm thrilled to be able to get to know him more. Let's celebrate him today. Yeah. Robbie Reiser on the Dale Jr.

Download. Robbie riser, my gosh. Are we starting this? Yeah, we're here. We're doing it. You're rocking and rolling. Gear up. So I saw you at the Hall of Fame induction of Matt Kenseth, and you were riled up.

I was excited. Yes, you were. And you were great. I think that that must have been a pretty cool experience for you, considering, you know, you know, Matt as well as anybody. and y'all race together and everything. But when he gets inducted into the Hall of Fame, I know we're happy for Matt, but also that must say something about your own career.

You know, as a crew chief and the road to get to that point, right? You've got a guy in the Hall of Fame. You know what I mean? I tell Tony Jr. and Littart, I'm like, man, I'm in the Hall of Fame because y'all, like, y'all put me in a car that was fast. and if that doesn't happen, you don't get in the Hall of Fame. Well, I think Matt was really thankful. Yeah.

And I was really, we didn't do this for any reason but to win a championship. You never thought about any of all this other stuff. You look at life through the windshield, and you're trying to get everything done and you're trying to do all these things as you're a young guy and you want to go places and do things. And that night meant a lot to me. I mean, for Matt to get inducted, I mean, he deserved it.

I mean, all the things that we did together kind of flashback, you know, it was kind of like, wow, I can't believe all this is happening, you know. And I was really excited for Matt. I could see it all, you know, he's a different guy when you're alone with him than when he is in front of everybody. You know, he always puts on the big professional, you know, face or whatever, you know. I need you all to actually both explain this to everybody because I know what you mean by that, but I don't know how to articulate it.

Oh, Christ, that kid don't, he's a kid. I mean, in his heart, he's a kid, and he does kid stuff. I mean, he's just, you know, like, I'll tell you, after the Hall of Fame, then on the next night, he had a little get-together at his place, and he invited me and me and Tracy over, and I walk in the door, and he's hiding back somewhere, and I walk in, I turn the corner, and I'm walking in, and it's full of all of our friends, you know, all the friends and crew members and stuff that were worked on the car,

he comes running out of the back and jumps on my back, and I carry him across the room, you know? I mean, that's just who he is. I mean, that's how he is. He's hanging on me, hanging out. I mean, you know, it just, just, that was where our relationship was. It was always, it was always, he was the kid. I, you know, he was just always doing stuff that I would just like, like,

God, kid, grow up, you know. So, let's talk about your racing career. You were a driver originally, you know, and I mean, there's some people that do remember that part of your career as many years ago as it was, but what got you behind the wheel? Your family was involved in racing, but how so? Well, my dad raced dirt modifides from 1958 to 1970, and then a local track in town, or I shouldn't say in town, but the track that he ran was Hales Corner Speedway and Cedarburg Speedway. That's a hell of a name for a track. Hales Corner. Love it.

Yes, Hales Corners was just outside of Milwaukee. And that was Dad's favorite track. And they switched to Dirt Late Models in 71. So dad, my grandpa and my dad, kind of like my dad and me, it was a family operation. They raced together. And they built a late model, and they went to Hales Corners in Cedarburg. And in 1973, my dad was area champion at Hales Corners in Cedarburg. And do you know who the rookie of the year was at Hales Corners in 1973?

I'm a boy away. He probably does. I'm a boy away. Who? Alan Quicky. Bull crap. Wow. Alan Quickey was a champion.

He was a rookie. Damn, I wasn't even born yet. No. So what got you, what's this Pinto story that gets you behind the wheel? Oh, well. You know, I grew up in a racing family. I didn't really, I would say that I really wasn't interested in, racing when I was 16, 17, 17, that era.

You weren't? Not to drive. I mean, I was... You're helping your dad? I was working... Well, my dad had retired in 76. And he was working... He worked on a pit crew for the Miller brothers.

Shit, out of random weight. Why did he stop driving? Huh. You know, my dad... My dad worked with my grandpa until 1974, and his... My dad's sister got sick with cancer, and... And they sold the car and went and took care of the family. And at that time, dad was going to stop racing.

So it was 74, and he was going to stop racing. And Mike Milius, who was racing dirt at the time, was running for the Miller brothers at a random lake. And he had a family situation where his father got hurt on the farm. And he had to go take care of the farm. So Millers were looking for someone to drive the car, and they called my dad. And my dad said, okay, I'll drive that. So he went and ran their car for 75 and 76,

and they ran a lot of dirt races. And they actually ran a series that was called a Triple Crown in Wisconsin. That raced against a lot of the Iowa dirt guy. So when I got interviewed for this, I was talking to Bobby, we were talking about a lot of guys from Iowa and the different racers back then.

But anyway, Dad went out and ran that. And then the Millers were getting involved in USAC and they were wanting to run bigger racetracks, and my dad didn't have any interest in running anything, anything that was bigger than a half mile. You didn't want to go that fast, is what he told me. He said, Robbie, I don't want to go that fast. I'm going to just stop.

I'm going to help them. My dad was probably 35, 36. Yeah, he was younger. And he, so he started working on a picture and helping him in the millers for the next couple of years as they ran at USAC. And he did, so he worked on cars and, I mean, toward the end of, you know, his career in racing, he was a, you know, he was a manager, shot foreman over at your deal, at Rouse, right?

So, I mean, he stayed, he stayed in the sport throughout. Yeah, my dad loved racing. Yeah. He loved it. I mean, he, he grew up at a right time because it was all about building and being involved in it, and he loved dirt racing. I mean, he, I know my, my career went to asphalt and where we went, but deep down inside, you couldn't, if dad saw a great dirt race, he would, he would,

He'd be on his, you know. How do you explain your lack of interest, I guess? I don't know. I just, you know, you're growing up at that time. You're playing baseball. You're in school. Yeah, you're wrestling on the high school team. You're doing all these things.

Racing is really not in my mind. But, you know, how my racing career started was I was after school one day. I had a friend in town that had a Dodge Duster and I had my sister's Pinta when we were coming back from school, and I was on his bumper, and he was racing me pretty hard past the local elementary school, and it goes down, and it's got a real sharp corner, and I went down in there, and I dove inside of him, and I don't know what he did. He got up on the gravel, and he spun the thing out and clobbered the door, and this was on a Friday, and I was going to, I was supposed to leave for Trenton, New Jersey, with my dad to go out to an USAC race that he was working

with the Miller brothers. So I had to go home and tell him I wrecked his car. And you got to realize I have four sisters. So my oldest sister, this is her car, and she was not happy. And my dad didn't, all he said to me is that car, you will fix that car, you'll buy whatever parts it is and you'll get that car fixed. Well, I go away for the weekend and come back the next week, and a guy in town, a local kid rolled over his pinto, and all that was good on it was the door that I needed. So I bought the door for $150, or I bought the whole car for $150. And I took it down to shop, fixed her car, everybody's happy, car sitting in the front yard, wrecked, you know.

My dad's like, where are you going to get rid of that car? I'll get rid of the car, Dad, just settle down. So we went to, and so in high school, I went to Slinger Speedway, hanging out with my buddies on a Sunday night. And they come out with this new class, the mini stocks, four cylinders. Yeah. Hey, I got one of them at home. Right.

You know, so, and my dad was never a pusher. He was never a guy that said, Robby, you got a race, or, you want a race, or he never. never, ever said anything to me. And I came home and I said, hey, dad, I was at the Slinger Speedway last night? They got these mini stocks that running down there. We could take that Pinto and beat that thing out. We could put a rhobar cage in and go race that thing. Well, I didn't have to say no more.

And the car was in the shop and it was getting, and you got to realize at that time, my dad was just starting his trailer business at Triton, and there was really no money. And my mom didn't want nothing to do with this car. She didn't want me in the car. She didn't want me working on it. we want nothing because there was no extra money for nothing. And oh yeah, so we were down there secretly building this car. And secretly as you can, I guess.

Because our house was on the top of the hill and the garage was down below. So the garage, mom stayed away from the garage down there. It was kind of a deal where it went on all summer and we got down to the last three weeks, I think at Slinger. And I got a chant, or we got the car done. And we brushed painted it and we taped the number on the door, which was 71, which was my dad's number and we we tried to go up and tell my mom that we were going to go to the race track and dad was basically thrown out of Dallas because he had built this car and we were we were off

to we were going off to slinger to go race that car that's all my that's basically how my career started do you remember the drive to the track and like I mean you you grin at her ear to ear your dad's probably pumped up so you bet you banging all kinds of questions off of him like what are we doing what do I do here what do we do there what's happening we got the station wagon that the gas tank is routed out of it. So we got a boat tank in the back, and we got a field line that runs through the car, and that goes up to the motor.

And then we had an old trailer that we bowered that had just old wood planks in it. It was old wood trailer. And we put that car on there, and we headed down there. And it was, you know how you are. You're just so damn nervous to even go out there. Right. So I started my first race. Oh, man, I remember my first three-star race.

I was scared. So I get out there, and we finish. the race is a 12-lap race and I finished four laps down. So the funny part about it is I come back home and at that time I was working at the trailer company. So I'm working in there and all of a sudden it's a middle of the morning and my grandpa's standing, I'm well in a trailer together and my grandpa's standing next to me and he's like, Robert, or he always called me Robert. Go in and see your dad. Tell him we're going, tell him we've got to go up to the auto salvage.

and so I go and tell dad I say grandpa's here he's taking me and dad's like goes out and says something to grandpa and I'll say he comes over and says yeah go with your grandpa so we headed on up and we bought a we went up there and we had a settling torch in the back and we went out in the auto salvage and we

we cut out a rear end we went out and got a different gear ratio for it and then we went and found a different carburetor and we came back and we put that put all this stuff on the car and we went to Slinger to next Sunday night we finished 12-lap feature we finished one lap down hey improvement we're making progress yeah so the next money was the same way

grandpa shows up and he says you're out there running with those six-inch slicks they got 10 and six we got to go we got to go get some tires for this thing so we go buy that we go get tires from a midget we buy some used tires from a midget guy and we turn around and the wheels don't fit so obviously we got we got to widen the wheels out so my dad widens the wheels out. We didn't do anything to the centers of them. So we get down to Slinger for, this is the last night of the year, last night for Slinger. So we go down and get in the feature. Things are going good. I'm running third. But about two laps to go. Dale. And break the center at a wheel, go up, slam the wall, bend a frame. Okay. So we're basically

done. All right. So the Midi's got the Maystock Association calls up on the next, on Monday, and says, hey, we're going down to Lake Geneva on Saturday night. We'd like you guys to come along. Well, the car's bent, you know, all these problems. So we go and we chain the car down in the garage and dad goes and bowers the local track or the farmer's tractor and we pull the frame out on this thing and get everything straight on it. And we head down to, so on Saturday, we're going to go down to Lake Geneva. We get the car all straightened up, we're going to Lake Geneva. So now our tow vehicle is that station wagon with the rotted out gas tank. So I'm, we're going on the highway. I'd say Lake Geneva's probably an hour and a half away. We're going on the highway.

I'm in the back pouring five gallons of gas and that boat tank to keep the car running. We get down there. We get down there. It's probably, I don't know, two o'clock in the afternoon. And there ain't a soul around. There ain't nobody around. We drive in the track, we park in the pit area, and there ain't a soul around. Dad's like, hey, let's unload this thing and we'll make a couple laps with it. All right. So we unload it and we make a couple laps. Well, all of some people start coming. So put the car back up in the trailer, act like nothing happened, and we've got car sitting there. So then we get ready.

It's time to go qualify. And we take the car out, and I qualify, and I come back in. And this is really, really cool now that my dad's passed away. I think about it a lot. I come back, and I come to the trailer, and I, dad comes up to the window, and I said, Dad, how do we do him? And he's like, just wait, just wait, just wait. Last car's going through.

All right, we got fast time. And I'm like, we got fast time. time. And so we go out and we do the American flag thing and we do all that stuff. And in the race, we finished third in the race. And I went up and got my paycheck and I got $24 for the night. And that was it. The racing bug was in. We were going racing. I show up the next day we got the car home. We got everything put away. A guy shows up at the front door on a Sunday morning to buy the car. Bullse. Yeah. He saw it run at Lake Geneva. He came to the house and bought it. the car from us. Now, how much do you have into the car at this point? Like, you bought it for,

what, 150 bucks, you've got some tires on it, you've done some modifications. The motor, the motor was stock in it. I mean, it was a stock car. What, what can we say? 300 bucks, five hundred bucks. Maybe. And we sold it for 800. That's what I was wondering. You made a profit. Yeah. So we took, that, that was, then dad was, dad was bought in. We were going to build a, we were going to build this. This is a racing business now. Now we built a frame and we were going to, we went up to, The auto salvage that grandpa was taking me to, all of a sudden they decided they were going to put their name on the side of the car. And here we go.

That was the start of my racing. Was your mom bought in at any point? Did she, because she wasn't happy at first, but did she go to these races? She didn't go to any races. She didn't go to any races. You know, eventually got it worked out.

But we built this car. And then the really cool part about it was in, so this would be my senior year in college or senior year in high school. and we built the car in a second race of the year at Slinger. I was still going to school. I won to feature. I wanted to feature on the second night. And we actually, I was an 18-year-old kid, and I was racing against a 60-year-old guy,

and we banged across the finish line, and I ended up beating him, and he wasn't happy. And I didn't think much about it. You know, it just got everything put away. I went to school the next day, and I could not believe all the kids. that came up and congratulated me for doing that race. You know, I'm like, wow, this is really cool stuff, you know. And, you know, during that year, I ended up, we ran Saturday nights at Lake Geneva,

and we ran Sunday nights at Slinger. I ended up second in the points at Slinger, and I ended up winning a Czech championship at Lake Geneva with that car. And my mom actually came out on the front stretch after I wanted to feature at Lake Geneva on Championship night and took pictures with us and all that, and then Mom was bought in. Mom was in. You won the track championship at Slinger in 83? Yeah, in the new stock.

Yeah, and then you went to light models in 84. Yeah, then we started racing late models. That was kind of a slow process. You know, it was very expensive. And like I had said, you know, we had started the business and there wasn't a lot of extra money, but we raced periodically. Where did you get a car?

I bought a used car from Gary born up in Kekwana. Yeah, Kekwana, Wisconsin. I bought that from Gary. And Gary actually worked at Rander car, if everybody remembers way back, when there was a rander car up there and I bought that bought that car and we ran we ran you know here and there and did the best we could so you that's right so in 83 you leave you know after 83 you leave the many stocks you go raise late miles in 84 from 90 to 92 you won four

different track area and regional championships yeah the the thing that's interesting to me is like you say it was a slow process but you eventually like stuck with it like how was there moments when, you know, 87, 88, where you're kind of like, you know. Well, 89 was probably the toughest year. We had a, our shop burned down. Damn. What happened? We just, we had a wood stove in there.

The one in the backyard? Yeah. The woodstow got too hot and we burned a shop down. So, uh, we had two cars in there at the time. Me and my dad carried them out. The fire department was not happy. We pulled them out of there and we, wow, the fire's going on. Yeah.

They were mad at you. Did you save him? Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah. Priorities. Yeah. It was.

I mean, me and my dad, we aren't very strong guys, but we carried those cars out of there. So like, wait, wait, so there's a place literally a blaze

all around you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the firemen were up in the attic trying to put the fire out. We were carrying the cars out. Yeah.

How'd you get them out? We just drug them out. With your hands. You know, they were, at that time, we were probably halfway in the billing them.

Yeah. They were in Roller State. Yeah. And we just pulled them out of there. So they didn't get burned up. And it was a real mess. And, And I think, you know, the team that I had up there at the time was built by all the kids that we went to high school with.

You know, we played Little League in Allenton had 200 people in it, so it was very small. And all the guys that worked on my car were within probably a mile of a radius of the house. You know, and we were all friends, we were all the same age. And there were six of them that came down and worked on the car all the time. And, you know, I think in 89, everybody kind of got a little bit sick of it. You know, we were wrecking and not racing real well and blah, blah, blah, and all that. So in 89, I took the car down to where Matt Kinseth was working at left-hander chassis. Matt worked at the chassis shop?

Well, I don't know if he worked. He was there. Yeah, let's just say he was there. If you know, Matt, the working wasn't a big thing. I want to know more about that. No, we're talking about that. Keep on. Keep going on.

Anyway, that, so I took the car down by Wayne Lansing, and all I had was. was a cage. I mean, the front clip was knocked off, the rear clip was knocked off it, and I had a cage. And Wayne looked at that car, and he said, I'm not fixing that. You got to have a new car. I said, Wayne, I don't have money for that. I, I, if you could just tack the crunk clip on and tacked the rear clip on, I'll take it home, I'll weld it up. And he's like, it went on for a half hour, how stupid I was, you know. And he well, so finally he tacked it all together, and I took the car home, welded it up. And at that time, like I said, most of the guys are working the car were kind of fed up with it. So that winter, I bought a cheap old firebird body,

and I put this car back together, and I got everything ready to go, and I went down to an Arco show at Rockford to start the year, the spring opener. And that's where all the big guys are. You know, that was the thing, Wisconsin Arco Racing was all the superstars were there. And I went and I finished fourth in that race. And, man, I came back, and the next Monday night, everybody was at the shop and everybody was back. Coming out of the woods. And then my late-mile career really took off. What do you associate that to, the new front clips and rebuilding the car or what?

I think associated it to me understanding what this was really about. I think I was a young kid that didn't take it seriously. And when chips were down, I realized that I had to put the effort in it. It was kind of a change. You get to a point in your life all of a sudden. and sometimes you get the kid knocked out of you. Well, that was probably what happened to me, and I got the kid knocked out of me,

and now all of a sudden, racing was all of a sudden, racing was all about it. And I made sure that everything was done correctly every single time I went. You think that in 89, you realized how easily, like you were faced with maybe a reality that racing might not be in your future, and you said, I'm going to make sure that that doesn't happen.

You buckled down. That's a lot of it. And I think when I had to do it all myself, I understand the value of having, having those people. Oh, okay. And I think I realized what a team was about. You know, I think I got a real education there. And, and then the things started to really start to run. And then, you know, I got a lot of help on the outside. I had a great sponsor in Bob Fish Pontiac at the time. And I got, you know, a lot of people started to give me shocks and brakes and chassis and started

to help me. And then, and then it just, it went from there. 90, 90, I didn't win anything, but I was second and third in a lot of stuff. Yeah. And then 91, 92, and 93, especially 93, we raced all the time. And we ran, you know, won a lot of stuff. And, you know, the championship, the Wisconsin short track championship was a big deal up there because it was, you ran at two different, you know, ran six series race at two different race, or three different racetracks, actually. And you raced against the best of the best.

So to win that championship was a big honor. What are you doing for living? Racing? At that time? Yep. 90, I worked at the trailer factory all the way to 93. So the deal I had with my dad is I had to come in in the morning and get everybody up and running and then I could go about noon I could go down and work on the car.

And then we had another fellow that his name was Dave Richter. He helped me and he was kind of a full-time guy that I was paying at that time to help me run all these races because I was running from April to September. I ran 70 races. Yeah. You know, so I had two cars and. and so we were working together quite a bit. That's wild, man.

Oh, yeah. I mean, coming from the pento, you know, dragging it down the road, and now you've got two cars, one full-time employee, racing, you know, over 60 times a year. So after winning the Short Track Series championship, what's next? Well, everybody's pushing me to go ASA racing, and actually the award for winning that Short Track Championship

was an ASA ride that Carl Wagner had put together. Is it a good car? I didn't know much about it because I was, I pretty much had my mind up that I had, I was going to run Bush Grand National because I had come down by your dad, and I had purchased the car that I ran the first Bush race up at Milwaukee in 93. 93. So, wait a minute. So you went to the farm shop?

Where did you buy this car? Okay? Yeah, I actually came down here and I ran Concord a couple times, the Big Ten series. All right. And your late model? Yes. Yep. And then while I was down here,

what year was that? 93? This would be 92. Okay, damn. Okay, so you'll laugh at all this all got set up because Milwaukee came along and they were going to have the first Bush race. Me and Kerry might have had our little streetstock over there. Yeah, it might have been.

Yeah. And we wanted to run that race, and Bob Fish Pontiac was pushing pretty hard to run that race because it was a big deal in Wisconsin. So my dad called Alan Quicki. and said, hey, we would like to do this, how do we go about finding a car? And he got us with Don Hawk, which Don must have called Dale. And Dale had a car available.

So when we were down for the Concord, we swung by and talked to Dale. Do you remember pulling in there? Oh, yeah. You remember seeing Dad? Yeah. I remember when we were standing. How old are you? At that time, I was probably 28.

Yeah. What did y'all say? Well, we were in the shop looking at the car. What's the car look like? It was a black three. Yeah, but was it, I guess in 93, it was probably Illumina, like a square aluminum? It was a Lumina. Yeah, cool.

And it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a little Hopkins car? Sorry to Keith, he didn't have Jeff Green, he didn't have hired drivers. This is his car. He drove this car. Yeah. Yeah, so he's selling a car. This was before a Jeff Green thing. Yeah, he's driving his Bush cars back then. Yes.

Damn, dude. So I walked into the barn and had all the deer heads. Yeah. And Tony Sr. was there. And the thing was we were looking at the car, and all of a sudden, this big, tall man came walking to his Dale. It's like, holy crap, what a presence. He said, you know. Were you expecting to see Dale at all?

Or were you thinking that you were just going to go in and look at this car, maybe with people? Tony made it clear that Dale was making the deal. Okay. This is to be, I'm scared to death for you. And this is years ago. Yeah, so we ended up making a deal. What was the deal? I couldn't, I don't, it was a fair, it was a fair price.

Was it a trailing arm car or three-link? It was a trailing arm car. Yeah, okay, because he bought a three-link from Rusty that he got from, when Rusty got rid of all his stuff that Kenny Wallace was driving, right around that same time, and he bought this three-link gray chassis that he drove at North Wilsonboro, but I didn't know if you bought that car. They said a orange chassis in the line yards. This was a real deal.

Yeah, this is a real deal. Yeah, so we bought that car from him. and that was all part of getting going. How was the car? It was good. I ran my first sports race at Milwaukee and I finished 17th. Yeah.

Damn. How cool is that? Where did that car go? Well, actually, Matt Kinseth killed it. Matt Kinseth drove a car that Dale Earnhardt drove. That is amazing. I love, like, connecting chassis. I got one for you.

What happened to that car is the throttle stuck at Milwaukee and he hit the wall with it. and we destroyed it, and that was the end of that car. What year? That would have been 97. Yeah, okay. 97. And then where we had our shop there in Denver, North Carolina,

we were doing our Bush Grand National stuff, across the street was Hank Parker. Yeah. And Hank bought a bunch of stuff from Dale. Yep. I ended up buying a car from Hank that was one of the Dale's old cars, and I turned it into a pit stop practice car that Matt Kinseth tried to kill every day out in pit practice area.

That's pretty cool. So you got your bush car, and now, like you said, you had your mind made up that you're going bush racing. Another massive step, right? Another leap in expenses and costs, and how are you getting supported to be able to go do this? We should never did it. I mean, me and my dad were naive to this. We should have never came down and did this. What we did first is we went in Denver, and we found four acres of land, and we put up a building.

and along with the building, we also brought the trailers down. So we started a distributorship here for five states down here with the Triton trailers. And then we were going to go race to cars. Yeah. We're going to run. You bring your late models down and all that? I brought the late model down, but I didn't race late models here. I used it to go back to Wisconsin to race some.

I went back and ran the openers in 94. I actually won both openers at Madison and Slinger. Traveling from North Carolina. Yeah. And then we ran like 10 races that year with your bushcar. With your bush car. And why do you say you shouldn't have done it? Because we didn't understand.

We were naive to how many people it took first. I mean, we came down with two guys. You know, we showed up at our first race with me and two other guys. How many would you have needed? Well, you know, you probably need six guys at that time with truck driver and engine guy. And, you know, we were running the V-6s. We knew nothing about them. knew nothing about the little bit we knew about the bush car was what we got when we bought

the car from dale and and what we were doing at Milwaukee. Yeah. And so our first race was Rockingham. And we were just out to lunch. We didn't know what springs they have in the car or anything, you know. And it just, it was a total disaster, really. We should have never, like I say, looking back on it, how this all worked out, I don't even know, but somehow it worked out, but it shouldn't know.

Yeah. Well, I imagine you learned a lot of that. Who was helping you? Nobody. Yeah, but I'm sure you were walking around in the garage going, hey, man, I'm struggling today. Who are the people that you could communicate with? There were certainly some people from your neck of the woods in that bush garage. Well, not so much at that time.

You know, we got some help from Mr. Labani because they were tied in the Carl Wagner with the engines. So he kind of gave us a little bit of direction. You know, and we got little tidbits here and there. but it's basically I couldn't afford it hiring anybody, so we were doing it ourselves. Yeah. And it was, it was really difficult. I remember that. So I, this is a really fun moment.

One of them things, this is fun for me, I bet he didn't, he didn't think nothing of it. But I was at Myrtle Beach. Yeah. I remember talking to you. I had my lake model there and I was running some laps and it was a day before the race and he was there testing his car. We were the only two cars at the racetrack that I remember. And it's like a Thursday or Friday, right?

I'm going to run the feature for our late model program later Saturday night, and I think the Bush race was either that weekend or the next. And you had your car there, you were there, you were driving it, and you had your big 18 wheeler hauler and just packed full of parts and pieces. And I had a, I think I had a, issue with a carburetor and we didn't have the part. And I'm like, I'm going to go ask Robbie, and I was so nervous. And you had this look on your face all the time back then.

And the look on your face was, this is hard as hell. I'm grinding my ass off. I'm working my ass off. And I'm not getting any traction. You just had this look on your face. of man, you were, you were really frustrated. And it was hard to approach you. You know, you were not the smiley, happy guy you are today.

And you're kind of, you know, you're intimidating. So I was like, all right, all right, I'll go ask him. I'll go ask him. I'll go, I'll go, I'll go. And it's like me and Wesley Sherrill sitting standing there and we're like, who's going to go ask you? So we walk over there and I'm like, hey, man, I got my carburetor and I got a problem. I didn't know if you had it.

And you're like, oh, we might got it. We might have it. We might have it. You go back in the truck and you're digging through stuff and you come out with something. And I'm like, oh, thanks. Man, that's so nice. And we chatted for about five minutes. And I never knowing, you know, that like, you know, we would race together and against each other and have and be sitting here today, right, having this great conversation.

But, and I don't know why that little moment was so brief, but as brief as it was, it was just kind of an interesting thing, how, how, how. we were put in that place on that, you know, on that day to have that conversation or have, you know, and I learned, like, I really, after that day, even before you got with Matt, I was like, man, that was so nice that as tough as things were for you in that moment for your program and you were probably thinking, damn, what do I got to do to get this thing going? You're working as hard as you've ever worked, and visually it appeared for you to say, yeah, I got you. I got a part over here. I figured there was 50% chance you were going to say,

I ain't got time of that shit. You got, you know, get the hell out of out here, kid, you know, but you didn't. And I really appreciated that. Time out. Do you remember this? And also, did you also know that you were that unapproachable? No. My feelings are hurt.

No, I just, I think back then, Dale's right. I mean, I was trying, I really was trying to make the dream happened you know i was really wanting everything to to work out uh you know i i was we were way in over our heads we we didn't you know like i said from beginning we shouldn't been there but uh really really wanted to make that work i really wanted to be a part of what this is down here i really you know like a lot of young kids you know you just uh you wanted that dream but you had you had to earn your way and i think that's the Probably the word behind my name is you earned it every day to try to get there.

No shit. I mean, if anybody ever earned it, it was you. Hey, Dirty Moe listeners, this is Dillon Hart Jr. It's May, and you know what that means? The Indianapolis 500 is just around the corner. Thankfully, we have Speed Street with Indy Car Racer, Connor Daly, and comedian Joey Molanero. They're going to get us ready to go.

Follow Speed Street so you never miss an episode and get ready for the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indianapolis 500. You had a big crash in 95. Talladegh, you airlifted out of there and you had some injuries. Was that, how difficult, I guess, was that to go through? How serious was that situation? You know, I think it was pretty serious, but I didn't know how serious it was.

You know, back then people didn't talk about concussions and head injuries and all that type of thing. You just dealt with them, you know, and I think that probably throughout my career, I probably had it a few times, but I surely had it at that time after, after Talladega. And I, I, um, I didn't talk about it much, uh, you know, I had gone, seen Doc Petty and Doc Petty gave me the okay to continue on, but, uh, there wasn't, there was things that were, weren't right, you know, every time I would, you know, if I put my head in a certain position, everything would go, uh, circular. Yeah. You know, and it was, you know, 10 days later after that, after that wreck, I was up at Bristol racing, you know, and it just, um,

probably should have, you know, looking back on it, probably should have stopped, but we weren't stopping at that time. I mean, it was just, you know, that was your lifeline. You were going to, if you want to race, you had to keep racing. What was the deciding factor for you to stop driving and get somebody else to drive the car? Money. Right. You know, what happened was we ran 95 and we ran, you know, we ran okay,

but we never ran good enough to get any interest. And I shouldn't say that. There were some interest for me to drive for somebody else, but I had my own team and I had my own car, and I had, you know, guys that had moved down here with me, and I just, I turned them down. What opportunities? Well, I had two chances.

How about that? Two chances to drive for somebody else. And I just never, I never chased it. You know what I mean? Do you remember who they were? I remember who they were. Who? I'm not going to talk about it.

Come on. No, I'm not. It's just the route. took. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I think... Answer is this. Are they notable? Yeah. Yeah, one was really notable. I just, it would have been, it would have been an opportunity for me, but I don't know at the end of the day if I would have ended up with the ride. That's why I'm saying that. You know, they had just come talk to me about it. Yeah. And I was, I was, you know, when Dale says

I was unapproachable, I was a little unapproachable at that time because I wanted to make my own thing work. Yeah. You know, I, you know, and, you know, and, and, and, you know, and, and, and, I was, you know, and, Inside my heart, I was going to make it work. I just, I just, we were so naive to what the finances of this whole thing were that, you know, at the end of the 95, we just, we couldn't make it work anymore. We pretty much had to park everything and go sell trailers. And, you know, the two guys that had moved down here with me, one of them stayed, which was, which you know real well, Ross Strupp, who ended up staying with me the whole time. Me and him in 96, we worked in Lake Norman putting piers in. I put Peers in for Ricky Rudd and Buddy Parrott.

Holy shi Spencer. And that was my, that was my, you know, that's how I was trying to put groceries on the table at that time. And then I was trying to help Dad with the trailers and keep going. And, you know, Dad, you know, at that time we were going to run a couple races. We were going to run Dover. We're going to run Milwaukee, you know. And that's, that was in 96 when all this was happening. So you had a part-time season in 96.

Well, I ran two races. That's it. I ran Dover and I ran Milwaukee. And what's this thing about a truck deal? You're supposed to get in a truck. So, yes. In 96, I got a chance to drive for the Miller brothers out of Random Lake, Milwaukee. I qualified fifth with it, and then we had a break issue during the race.

And I was going to go to IRP. And Tommy Miller called me and said, hey, Robbie, I got a little issue here. Chevrolet would like the support us at. IRP but they want Tony Stewart to drive the car. Well, I had an attitude. You know, I was like that. Why him? Yeah, why are you doing this? You know, and Tommy was like, well, dollars and cents why this will help us and we can go, I'll guarantee you, I'll let you run it at Richmond and Phoenix. If you do the IRP thing with Tony. And, you know, I went home and I was frustrated. My dad's like, Robbie, this is part of the way it is, you know, you're going to have to, you're going to have to learn

to do some of this, you know, and you need to call Tommy and tell him you'll help him. And I was going to, you know, I wanted to tell Tommy, I ain't helping, you know. But so my first cruise chiefing job was for Tony Stewart at IRP. Yeah. And we ran good. I mean, we were running in the top five and he's slammed the wall with it. He gets on the radio and he tells me, boy, that was stupid. I'm thinking to myself, yeah, that was stupid. We're running 50.

You know, we ended up finishing the top 10. and, you know, that was a little bit of start of what I was going to do. But really what changed the whole thing was in the middle of July, I got a call from Fred Wanky from Virtue Racing to do a five-race deal with Hutt Strickland as a mechanic. Okay. So Russ and myself, we at that time didn't have jobs, so we went off and did the five-race deal with Virtue Racing.

And during the time we were doing this, Kathy kept talking, Kathy Virtue kept talking about this Kraft Foods program she had going into, in the 97. And with the program they had with Hut, things didn't work out at the end. And they had to close that down, and she had no, she was going to take that Kraft Foods and put it in that program. So I made a comment to her as we were leaving the last night.

I said to her, if you guys are interested in this, I got a shop full of cars. If you got a driver, tell me who the driver is, and I'll put a driver in there, and I'll go run that craft food program, because at that time I was going to lose my whole shop and everything. There was no money to do any of this, and I was going to lose everything.

So I called my dad, told him what was going on, and he's like, well, you make sure you get a contract, make sure there's a tight business deal, blah, blah, blah. And so she all of a sudden one night, it was like 11 o'clock at night on a Saturday night. She calls me and tells me she would be interested in doing this if I was interested in putting Tim Bender in the car. Did you know who Tim Bender was?

No, not at that time. And I told her, sure, you know, make sure this is, you know, business. And so she said, well, I'm going to sign a deal on Thursday. I will be at your shop at 5 o'clock on Thursday with the contract, and I'll have a starting check and the way we go. All right. So I'm all lined up for this. Thursday night, I got everything clean.

I'm ready to go. Here she's going to come in. We're going to be, you know, we're going to be gold. Nobody showed, you know, no phone call, no nothing. What was up with that? So 8.30 at night, I'm at home. Here she calls. She says, I was delayed in the meeting.

I just got into Charlotte. I'm on my way. So about 10 o'clock at night, I met her up at the shop, and she had everything in order, and we put this thing together, and that was the start of the 17th and the Kraft Foods program with Tim Bender as a driver. Tim Bender raced snowmills.

Tim Bender raised snowmills, and he also ran a sportsman series. He did? Yes. Oh, the one that ran at Charlotte. Yes. That's right. Yes, and he was very good at it.

Yeah, he was. Yes. And Tim was a very good driver. It's just that when Tim came to drive for us, there was money to run the car, but there was money for an engine program and tires and stuff, but there wasn't money for a full-blown pick crew. So I ended up being the crew chief,

and I was not the right crew chief for Tim Bender at that time. Why? Because I wasn't experienced enough. For him to come out of the sportsmen's to the bush cars, it was no different than me coming from the late models into the bush cars. I just didn't have the know-how to make it work for what, for all the, for all the change that he was going through, I was not the right guy for that. Now, we did, we did have some success. We sat on the pole at Atlanta, you know, and we had, I remember there being

these little moments where you're like, oh, you know, that's good. Yes. It was, there was times, but it was, you know, Tim, Tim grew up running the sportsman series, which was on bigger racetracks. He had no short track experience or any of that. And it, it really, you know, I was, I was, holding him back for what he was trying to do there. He had a crash at Bristol that got him hurt. Yeah. What happened? In qualifying, he just spun it around, went up in the wall, and he got, you know, he hurt

his back pretty bad, and it was a point where I think at that time we had wrecked a few cars, and he was starting to question if he could do it, and he was hurt, and he took off and went back to Buffalo. Gotcha. On a Friday night. So NASCAR was really good to us that time, and they really, held practice for us to get our car out on track. And, and, because I combed the garage trying to find someone to drive it.

But at that time, if you had a provisional, they wouldn't let anybody in the top 35 in the Cups garage drive it. Because David Green was going to drive for him. Who? But David Green, but he wouldn't, he wouldn't, uh, they wouldn't allow it. So what did you do? I drove the car. You raced it.

I raced it. Bristol. So it, we had, we had wrecked so many cars. And this was only good car had left. So I ran it about 20 laps, said we had a fuel problem with it and put. in a way and we went back and we sat down as a team and we we we tried to figure out who was going to drive this car you know and um what ideas did you have besides what would eventually happen did you oh there was a lot of calling everybody a lot of different well we didn't call nobody

we sat down as a group and and and there was a lot of names that came out right and uh you know i kept i kept i kept i i didn't say much because i was sitting there thinking to myself man everybody that they're talking about already had their opportunity you know i'd rather get somebody that that's going to turn some heads here that i think could do this yeah and then the back of my mind was was matt and and and and and and and you have to go back in a whole other story about the relationship i had with matt but i want to do that okay so how do you know matt okay so in 90 when things started to go and matt was coming into the late model division and i was running really starting to run well yeah and matt obviously

I mean, just face it, I was the guy who had to learn how to race a car. Matt had the ability to race the car. And when he came in, he was a factor right away. I mean, he did things with the cars that young guys just don't do. And he was able to go out and compete. And, you know, in Wisconsin, you'd have to start in the back to, if you were a fast qualifier, you start in the back, and you have to drive your way through.

Matt would always be on the front two girls. You know, front two rows, and I'd be back in here, you know, seven rows, you know. Yeah. And we raced against him at Madison, which was his home track. He raced against us at Slinger, which was my home track. So obviously, he had two different fan bases. And, you know, he raced with his dad, I raced to my dad. And we did not get along.

I mean, when I race against Matt, Matt was very good at putting his car where you wanted to go, you know. and the only way you were going to get around them is you're going to have to move them or you're going to have to slide in there or do something to them to get by them and it seemed like every time we come, especially Madison, we'd come down the last three, four laps

and there would have to pass Matt to win this thing and I wasn't too gentle. I mean, I was forced my way in there and take it away. Yeah. And obviously that didn't sit well with everybody with everybody there. And Slinger was a little different because at Slinger,

you were to get. Yeah, I was just a little bit, a little bit faster, and I could put my car where I wanted to do it and get my thing done. And I wasn't so, you know. Did he ever move you? Well, did you ever fight? No. Did the dads?

Wait, wait. Well, no, there was never a fist fight. There was arguments. I mean, and we didn't talk to each other much, you know. I pretty much told him to get the hell out of way, and he told me to get the hell away from him. You know, so that was pretty much how it was, you know. And we just, and it wasn't like we were totally enemies.

I mean, it wasn't like we walked through the garage area or pit area and, you know, wanted to fight right away. It was just, it was just a mutual respect that he stayed over here, I stayed over here, and we went and raced, and that we loaded up and went home. And, you know, so when we were looking at somebody to drive the bush car, I could think, you know, I want to know, but you're off now racing the Bush car far removed from those days of racing Matt in the late model up north. Had y'all had any conversations? Had y'all stayed in touch? Yes.

And this is surprising because he came down here to run a Hooters Cup series with Carl Wagner, which was the engine builder for me. So Carl called me one day and he said, hey, Robbie, I know you're not going to want to do this, but I'd really like you to go down to Charlotte and spot for Matt in the bush race. I'll go down and help him. I'll go down and help him. Is it in the bush race?

In the bush race. He got, he had a, I'm trying to think who he got that ride with. He was driving somebody's car, and I think it might have been Joe Neimanchecks. I'm not sure. But anyway, I went and spotted for him. And then he had another, I think it was another bush race or something

that he needed me to go up to Hickory and get his Hooters' Cup car ready to go, practice his Hooters' Cup car, and I went up and did that. So it wasn't like we were, you know, fist-to-cuff type guys. We just weren't buddy-buddy guys. It sounds to me, now that you're not competing against each other on the track, it was the only place where you guys were really running into each other. Yeah, we were trying to help each other. Right.

So now. So here it is. In 96, yeah. In 96, he drove Carl Wagner owned the car number 55. Yeah, and I think it was somebody else's car to Carl Bowerd or something. I don't remember how they all put it together. I bet it was that car that Tim Fidelwell was driving, that old Ford, that big white Ford, 55. Yeah, and actually did a really good job with it.

Sure. I mean, who would have thought he'd be a hall favor? So, wait, y'all are starting, you know, y'all stayed in communication. This is why he's top of mind while you're trying to go through the. Yeah, so in my mind, I was. I was thinking, you know, I think Matt could do this. And if I did my part and he did his part, man, we could, I think we could do this. And I remember, I remember sitting at that room and everybody was talking and finally my dad

looks over and says, Robbie, what do you want to do here? And I said, I think, I think dad I'd like to put Matt Kinsett in the car. And I mean, my dad, it was a no. He didn't like that. He didn't like that. It was a head shaking, no. you know and I said dad I think he can do it you know and I think with what we got for a team and for what he could bring as a driver I think I think we could put this together and get this

going you know and and what a lot of people didn't know was was the sponsor craft foods didn't like the decision either because well because I was bringing a guy in that wasn't no one yeah they didn't know who he was yeah they didn't know who he was that's the toughest thing and and that was really hard because I was bringing in somebody that that that nobody knew. And even the guys on the team, a lot, you know, a lot of guys were from down in the south and only a few guys at the table from where we were from. So everybody was kind of giving me to, you know, this is, this is, you're taking a big chance here. And, and especially when I went against Kathy Virtue to put Matt in the car, it was, uh, it was not well received. So we headed down

to, we were headed to Nashville and, uh, Nashville Fairgrounds. Nashville Fairgrounds. I remember it. I had a little sickens car there Yeah Yeah And Matt ran Top 10 Yep We qualified good

And he ran He ran good And then the next week I was to take him To Teladega And I said to Matt Several times Man

If you don't want to go to Teledaga I'll get some Actually Brett Bodine Offered to drive the car Yeah And I was going to get Somebody else to drive the car

And Matt came to me And he said I want to drive that car All right You want to drive the car? drive the car. All right? So we had the Teledega, and I remember this.

I want to ask you, if we get too far, when you called Matt and asked him about this deal, yeah. Did he think you were wrestling with him? I don't know, you know, because after. I bet he had to mask his enthusiasm a bit. Yeah, because I had to argue with my dad. And then my dad's like, well, then if that's what you want to do, you give him a call tomorrow morning and get this set up.

So I call him. I call him at his house, and I get his mother on the phone, and she tells me he's racing in Rougemont, North Carolina. And I'm like, okay, perfect. Orange County. I'll give him a call. So I call the track, because this is before cell phones and all the stuff, you know. So I give him a call, and I tell the track it's an emergency.

I'd like to have Matt Kent's a call, and I'd give him my number. So he calls, and I could tell on the other end, it's like, what does he want? Right. You know? And I tell him what I want to do. And I mean, he's dead quiet on the end of the phone. All of a sudden he just says, Robbie, are you sure you want to do this? He knew, you know, inside my gut, I was like, I want to drive this thing.

But I knew this wasn't going to be right. You know, and I knew, here's the other thing I knew. I knew that everybody on the outside was looking at the Kraft Foods account with Tim Bender. And if you put Tim Bender off the side and you drove it yourself, you did this on, you did this, that you had you did this yes you did this and i knew it wasn't right it's your plan all along yes and oh man i it was never my plan no i'm just saying that that's what people would have thought yes people would have thought that yeah and i can't believe that you were self-aware enough to like not put yourself in that position well that's pretty i mean that says a lot about your character

i think because a lot of people would have said hell with it i'm driving it you know i don't care what anybody thinks? I think it was two things, Dale. I think, one, I wanted to make this work. And I knew that, I knew that if I controlled the team and I had somebody that I could understand as a driver, I could make this work. I think that was number one. Number two, I really wanted to drive it myself, but I knew it wasn't right. You know, and I knew in some cases that I wasn't quite right yet either to get over to what I had gone through. So this was the right thing to do. Yeah.

Time out, though. Did Matt, when he asked you, are you sure you want to do this? What is he exactly asking? Does he ask him because he knows you want to drive it? Or is he asking, do you think that me and you together is a thing that we got? No, he knew I wanted to drive it. So he's actually looking out for you almost. Yeah, maybe in a way.

I think he was making darn sure that the decision was for him to drive it. not for me to bring him along. Yeah, maybe saying he's looking out for you is probably not the exact way to write that. Yeah, he might have been looking at all for yourself, you know. Yeah, right. Like, yeah, are you going to try to muscle me out of a, but get me excited about this and then not just take over? You know, and from day one, we never had that conversation. You know what I mean?

We, he was a driver. And you were, yeah, you were running that thing. You know, and I was running a team. And that's how we went and did it. And, you know, there were times on the radio when he complained about the radio. I said, bring that thing in here. I'll just drive it myself. you know, in some of the laughs, you know, but that was how we, that was our relationship.

I mean, we were, we were, you know, the thing is we were like two brothers, you know, the big brother and the little brother. That's how it kind of was. And that, that's how we got going. I mean, when we went to Nashville, Dale, you'll laugh at this, we shared a motel room, me and him. Yeah. And we watched Days of Thunder before the race, you know.

I mean, it was just that, that's kind of how the thing all. started. I think you're right, Dale. I think these guys, especially like, you know, whether it's Robbie or Rodney Childers, at some point there's this moment where they have to have a sense of humility or, yeah, they have to humble themselves to be able to make a decision in a phone call like that because that is actually way harder to do than what most people, you're probably not giving yourself enough credit on that. I think that's a hard decision. You know the thing that at that time, I don't think it even crossed my mind about myself. It crossed my mind about the team. You know, it really

It really crossed my mind of making this work. It's a selfless act, though. I didn't want to lose our whole shop and all our cars and all the things that we had built and the people had come down to help. I didn't want to lose all that. You know, and... That's fair.

You had a real opportunity with sponsorship. Yes. And here's a thing. When the Kraft Foods, you know, found out we went with Matt, Kinseth, they signed with another driver. Who? Two weeks later, Derek Kulp. they signed a deal with Derek Cope never told me.

Damn. So I ran, we ran the whole season basically, not knowing this, still about September that they weren't coming back. Damn. And that's the thing. At this time, you know, there was enough money to get this thing going, but there wasn't a lot of money to get this thing going, you know. And there, it was, it was difficult.

And the local bank in town, People's Bank, Danny Richards for some reason was supporting all what we had going on to get this all going because what a lot of people didn't know is that when Virtue closed, I bought Virtue Racing and married it and then I sold off all the parts that I wasn't going to use and that was kind of how we funneled the money to make all of this kind of work for the Kraft Foods thing. So then when September shined around and they weren't coming back, I had no sponsor going in the 98th. Yeah.

No sponsor. And the team was running well. I didn't want to give up on it. You know, I wanted to make this work. Well, then at that time, Matt got the opportunity to sign a contract for test driving for Roush. And he came to me and he told me about that and I said, Matt, you got to take that. I mean, that's test driver. Why wouldn't you take that, you know?

I mean, Mark Martin was pushing this for us to go there, you know, or I shouldn't say for us, for him to go there. Okay, we were on the outside. and you know I had no I had no sponsorship and then and then the thing was they came a couple teams came and talked to Matt about driving 98 and they were they were full-blown good rides and you know he came and told me this and I'm like you know Matt I don't have a sponsor work you know and at that time me and dad were doing we were doing the sponsor run you know Duralube was looking channel lock was looking some of these people were looking so we were going to all these companies trying to put something together. Yeah. And actually, Rausch through Mark Martin, had talked to Jeff Smith,

and Jeff Smith was looking for some stuff for us. And they came along in December, I think. We still had no sponsor, but Jeff Smith said, well, they think they have a sponsor. You know, I think this is all going to be okay. This is going to work out, blah, blah, blah. So obviously working with the bank in town,

we were shuffling this and we're carrying the team through the winter of 97 to get ready for 98. And it seemed like everything was going okay and everything was kind of lined up through what Jeff Smith had. And we went down to test. Back then, that's when he had the testing at Speedweeks down for Daytona.

So we went down to do a test, and we were like second or third. We had a really fast speedway car and really happy with everything. And everything was going, and the team was working nice, and Matt was doing a great job. And everything was lined up.

And I could tell on the, last day something was different with my dad. You know, I, when I talked to him, my dad is always, you know, the sun was always shining in my dad's world. No matter how bad it was, the sun was always shining. And for some reason, he didn't, he, it wasn't shining at that moment. And then he asked me to ride home in the van with him instead of going back with the team. So I knew something was up, you know. So we're riding home and he tells me that, that Jeff Smith had called and everything had fallen apart.

Holy shit. and there was no deal. And we were, I mean, we were devastated. And there wasn't a whole lot of money here. We just had carried this thing all the way through the off season and getting ready for 98. So, and Daytona was next week. You know, the start of the season was next week.

So we came back and we, we and my dad went down and sat with the banker. Danny Richards at the people's bank, and we told them what the situation was. and he took a look at all the things that we owned and said, you know, you guys, okay, we can probably sell this off and get all our money back. We're okay here. Let's go down to Daytona. If we don't go down to Daytona, then we don't have anything.

So we loaded up and we went down to Daytona, and we had nothing on the car. We had the car painted in a red and the blue and some of what where Jeff was taking us. And when that fell through, we just left the paint jobs on and we headed out. Do you remember what the partners were that were potentially? It was supposed to be lined up with the family channel. Okay. And so we So we headed down to Daytona

And we qualify, I think, fifth Are you driving? No, no, Matt Kins is driving. This is 98. This is 98. We qualify fifth. And Jeff Smith meets us in the

in the pit area and says, guys, we've got to sponsor for one race. But the problem is you've got to paint the car. And I remember going up. I remember going up by John Darby and saying, Hey, John, I got a sponsor, but I got to take this car and get it painted. Can I take it out back?

Oh, you can't paint that car in the infield. You can't do that. You can't do this. He says, I'll tell you what, line it up with an auto body somewhere around here. I'll give you an official. And you guys, you have to do everything, all the work in the garage area,

and then take the car, get it painted, and you have to have it back. I'll let you leave at 7 o'clock in the morning. You've got to be back by 12 o'clock with the car. Oh, my God. So we found this place called Speedway Auto Body outside the back of the racetrack. We taped the car up, we sanded it all, we took it to them. They painted it black.

We brought it back in. And they brought out the decals, and it was LACOS Internet search engine. Yep. So they put the Laco's sponsor on the car, and we finished fifth, I think, in the race, six somewhere in there. And we came back. I had a little bit of sponsorship money. I had a little bit of money from the race.

So I paid the banker a little bit. I paid the tire guy a little bit. I paid the engine guy a little bit, and we were heading to Rockingham. You went to Rockingham, though, with the red, blue, and all that? Because the Lycos deal was only for one race. Oh, really? So we headed to Rockingham, and had the car painted up in the blue and the red. And right before the race, we qualified 27th.

We didn't qualify very well, and we changed the whole car around, and we were getting ready to go through tech, and Dad says, well, what do you want to do with Lycos? I says, you know, Dad, they're the only people that are interested in, right now. Why don't we put them back on the car and say thank you for Daytona and we'll see what happens. And I, you know, when you when you tell this story, you don't know what the ending is going to be here. Oh yeah. You know, so all of this is just like I say, all the stars are lining up here. And we did not have money to go after Rockingham to Vegas. It was going to have to stop if this

didn't continue on. We're going to have to stop. And we headed to Rockingham. and we started 27th, and we started working our way through the field. And with about 15 to go, we're on the back of Tony, Tony Stewart for the win. And on the last lap, he pushes Tony Stewart up, and we slide through and we win. And we're in polo shirts and black jeans and we're just riser enterprise. I mean, a small little team, and we win this race. Yeah. And for God's sakes, I don't know why, but we had Likos on the side of the car, and it went all over everywhere.

It blew up. Yeah, everywhere. And so obviously it was a great win. All that, never experienced anything like that in our entire lives. Everybody on the team never won a race. I mean, not of this magnitude, you know. So we came back and on Monday morning we got a phone call from Lycos. And they would like to come down on Tuesday and negotiate out the rest of the year.

Oh, man, this is great. So Jeff Smith lines this up and we go over to Roush, and we get in this big room with a big long table, and there's people from Lake Coast here, and me and my dad and Jeff, and they're going back and forth. Jack around? Jack was not a part of us.

This was everything that we did with Roush was basically through Mark Martin because Mark was the driver on his whole thing. And so we're sitting in this room, and we're talking back and forth, and they have so much money, and Jeff's looking for this much money. And Jeff, finally Jeff says, well, he says, we won't be able to do this this year

because we can't sell it at that price. That's below the market value, and that's not going to work. We have to put a marketing plan together. We'll just set this up for next year, and we'll put a market. I'm thinking, I'm looking at my dad. I'm thinking, we can't go next week. How are we going to go next year? Right.

You know, so my dad's sitting there and you don't say nothing. I'm like, so I pipe up and I said, we'll take that deal. Yeah, because did it even feel like undervalued to you when they're proposing? Jeff's kind of speaking in a different level. Yes, they have a whole different type of company in what we had. Right. And this was our checkbook, not his checkbook, you know. Right.

And I spoke up and I said, I said, we'll take that deal. Jeff says, we'll stop the meeting right here. I have to see the risers out in the hallway. So my dad's giving me a look like, oh, my God, you just screwed this whole deal. So we get on the hallway and he says, he says, guys, we cannot undersell this program, but you guys are, it's yours, you go back in and negotiate whatever program you want, I will not be a part of it. He said, but if you guys can make it work, go in there and make your deal and I'm out. So, and, and Jeff, Jeff was right with what he was doing.

I mean, he had a different business planned than what we did and, and it was, it was all good. So we went back in and they talked back and forth and we worked, worked out an agreement. at the time it was a handshake. So we left the table and we went to Vegas. We had it out to Vegas and we got out to Vegas and my dad was still working back and and forth with Lycos back and forth and he was at the casino, working the fax machine at that time. And midnight, midnight on Friday night, they signed a deal for Lycos to run the rest of the season.

Good heavens. And my dad called me, it was one in the morning. He calls me and says, Robbie, you got me. got the deal all done, everything's good. He said, the only problem is you've got to paint the car in the morning. The car's got to be black. I said, Dad, Dad is not happening. We start the race tomorrow morning.

That ain't going to happen. So he called back. He made it all work out, and that was the start of the 17 Lichos program for the year. What was the numbers? I raced with Licholas for one year for $800,000. Wow. Yep. It's tight.

And so the nice part about the contract was we had an option on July 31st that they would renew for the following year in 99. When that option passed on the 31st, August 1st, DeWalt was standing there and signed us to the deal for 99. And by the time all the smoke settled and we got to the end of 99, I had all my bills paid, everything was good. I was back to square. I basically was back to square one. I didn't owe nobody. I didn't have my money, but I didn't own nobody.

I had everything paid up and everybody was good. And, you know, and then the DeWalt deal went from there. How much better was the DeWalt deal? I thought that the DeWalt deal came mid-season. I don't remember Likos, the Carbian Black Likos, a full year, and then DeWalt year two. No, it was pretty straight. Laco's all year. I'm sorry, Likos.

it was lycos full year than de walt the 99 yeah okay yeah it was really it was uh the the walled thing was was such a was such a great sponsorship i mean for all the years we had i mean they were they were such good friends and such good partners i got two questions let me back up that's a that's a fascinating story and you're right the way things are lined one is you say you don't know why lycos was actually on the car at vegas when you won like i mean like they rocky hand or i'm sorry when you guys won at Rockingham. Yeah.

I said Lycos was because something that turned them on, it blew up. Well, what I did was I put their decals on the car right before we went through tech. Why? Just to say thank you for Daytona because they were the only ones that were interested. Okay. So when we won the race, they were on every TV show, everything with their name on the side of the car. No, of course. I just like, that's fascinating.

Why was the decal on the car? Because you were just being nice. Yeah. Number two, why was Jeff Smith? It's interesting. I'm still a little confused on, you said Mark Martin was the one that was sort of brokering all this. Like,

because like I'm a little confused on why Jack Roush or Roush racing was even working with you guys at this point. At this point, I know they signed Mack Kinzeth to a test deal. Maybe was that the, that was the conduit. Okay. So then why was Jeff Smith even in their brokering deals for y'all? Because Jeff,

Jeff Smith is the one that made the contact with Likos has started all at Daytona. what was he hoping to get out of it then? He was hoping to basically nurture it, plan it with you guys, and then grow it into a Roush deal with Matt? I wouldn't know. I mean, that would be something you'd have to ask him.

I mean, at the time, I didn't even think about them as trying to... You're surviving. I was trying to put this all together. It sounds like he was trying to keep Matt Kinsis on the racetrack so that they're playing for Matt as a protege and a future for Roush would... I think they were trying to get Matt experienced,

so they could move them up to the Cup Series. And, you know, we were better than having them to have a build a whole team to make it work. So you drove Chevrolese in 98, 99. Yep. How did you manage that for Matt, who's signed with Roush? Was that tricky at all? It wasn't tricky because it was just a test deal, and Mark Martin was pushing it to make it all happen.

So Roush wasn't really, you know, hardlining us. They were just glad we were doing it. Yeah. How much support did y'all get from Rausch in 98-99 in terms of no engineering support? No, nothing like that. Nothing. Nothing. That was all on our own.

Yeah. So you, y'all would, I remember going to, I remember where your shop was. And so, Roush, other than trying to assist in partnerships and so forth, physically had nothing to do with the team. That's correct. Right. Yep. The Riser Enterprise was on its own.

How do you, so what's fascinating to me, man, is that y'all for a hundred good. I mean, y'all, you know, you had two top fives in 97 with Matt, but in 98, 99, you win seven races, 17 and 14 top fives. What was the, what was the thing that got y'all to that point to where your cars got so good? You know, what was the ability to be able to, you know, hire more people? Heart. Hearts. You got it. But you got to build, you got the shock deal at that time.

You know, the shock technology at that time was critical. You know who did the shocks? Who? Matt. Yeah. I believe I remember that. Yes, because I was doing the shocks and I had one in my hand one day and I was, I was working. He was taught, I mean, that's what he did.

He came in and talked to me and would bother me to the point where I wouldn't remember something. And I tried to pressurize one and I blew the top off it and oil was all over the roof. and he was laughing. He thought it was so funny. I said, screw it. You start doing the shock stand. Yeah. I don't have time for all this.

Yeah. You know, so. Who was, who was navigating, you know, what springs you're going to run and trying to stay on top of spring technology? I guess me. There was all kinds of crazy shit going on with springs. You had to have this spring. Then this company started making springs.

It was our, it was just our team. Yeah. I mean, we, I didn't really have any outside help. I mean, I was from Wisconsin. It wasn't like I had a lot of connections. It was just hard work. I mean, we just worked their way through it and did the best we could with what we had. Pretty impressive.

It is impressive. Once the operation gets absorbed by Roush, how does that happen? What's that process? Well, what happened was in 2000, they wanted to go racing cup, and DeWalt wanted to go racing cup. My dad wanted to go racing cup. But we were, I had to have a discussion with him and tell him, Dad, we were so fortunate to where we are here. and then Vizine came along. You stayed with Chevrolet.

Yes, the Riser Enterprise car got its own sponsorship, and Matt stayed with the team and just kept running. Yeah, Matt ran a lot of races. Yes, and then... Even as a rookie in Cup, he still ran a bunch of Xenity races. Yeah, he wanted to drive that Bush car all the time. Anytime we had it, he wanted to drive it. And then Roush was pushed, I shouldn't say Roush,

Mark Martin was pushing for us to come over. So DeWalt and Roush got together and they put the deal together. And then Mark pushed for us for Matt to come over there along with me. So Mark's the one who came and said, Robbie, would you be interested? And I was, you know, I obviously was interested. I wanted to be a part of it. So who's going to manage your Bush team? So what we did was at that time we hired Gary Coswell to oversee the Bush team

and kept Ross and that group together. and then dad was going to help oversee the Bush program at that time, and I could go off and do what I needed to do by Roush, and then they would just use me when I was needed. It looked like in 2000 your Bush program, or at some point your Bush program was going to start developing new talent. You hired Clay Rogers, who I know really well, Jason Schuller, I don't really remember him. Jason Schuller was from Wisconsin.

He was kind of a Matt protege in a way. So what was that the intention? Like, hey, man, we've got an opportunity with these guys. We're going to start trying some young guys out. But then that was really short-lived. What was the process there? It was short-lived because of sponsorship. I mean, as soon as we took Matt out, then the sponsorship was hard to sell with the young guys.

And they were willing to do it when Matt would run more races, and we could bring in the younger guys. And our hope was that they would run well enough to attract something else. But at that time, we weren't able to put that together. Yeah. And so what was the future of the Bush team from that point on? I think it ran to 2003. Yeah.

And then Jack wanted to purchase it, so it kind of got away, you know, so it got out of our hands. Yeah, you're winning a cup championship at this point. Your head on focused 100% on. Yeah, he wanted us to be focused on what he was doing. and he needed some help up in Morrisville, so he was interested in my dad coming over and giving him a hand there. So he bought your whole team?

So he purchased a lot of the stuff, and then we sold some off separately, and then dad went over to help him with what they had going on in Morrisville. Did you still the shop? No, I have that today. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I have two buildings on it now, and the Triton Trailers was on one side. I ran out of the front part, and then I have my son who's got his landscape business running out of the old fab shop. Really? Yeah. Where is it? It's in Denver.

What's the landscape business? He's 21 years old. He's got a lawn care business. He started out driving around and cutting the neighbor's yards, and he's growing it to, he's got basically three crews now, and he's got three trucks that run out, and they do lawn maintenance. Really? Yeah.

That's pretty interesting. Do you need his number? I'm all right. I'm going to ride it down, my name. I got a lot of work. a lot of yards. Yeah. He ain't mowing it.

I ain't kidding. You ain't kidding about it. So, all right, so at some point, you pretty much are like, hey, man, that part of my life is now in the rearview mirror. I'm no longer an Xfinity series owner, 100% a crew chief in the Cup series. Let's talk about that championship year. You know, that was 2003. Y'all win the rookie of the year. You're having great success right out of the gate.

are you I mean I was living this with y'all you know but so I I don't know that you're all that surprised to be honest with you I just remember watching y'all

and you know with the success you had in the Xfinity series and the wins and then it seemed like when you won the championship it wasn't an upset by that point you know because y'all had been the upset team that was your story winning in Rockingham in 98, right? Your identity was now completely changed once you got into the Cup series. You felt, I could see in your face, this is what we're supposed to do. This is what we're

Rouse racing now. This is this success and this is what we expect. The goal was to stand on the stage at the Waldorf. I saw, you know, Richard Petty and Kelly Arbor, your dad. I mean, that's what you grew up watching, you know, and I wanted to experience that, you know, and I think Matt and myself are, you know, we were a good team that way because he wanted to win races and I want to win a championship. And I think in 2002 we won quite a few races, but we weren't able to get up into points because we weren't consistent. So in 2003, it was about being consistent. It was about, you know, not taking chances and making smart decisions. And, you know, there were some races we could have probably won if we would have stayed out on field or we would have

this or I did that. Well, I didn't do that. I, you know, the way the championship was set up was a guy with the most points, wins. So that was the goal. And to get the most points, that's what we're trying to do. And that's the way we raced all year. Back up, do we, do I remember this right? Was your first win with Madden Cup, the 600? Yes, in 2000. In 2000. That was a big deal, wasn't it? Well, Bill had won at Texas, so we had to come back and win a race.

That's what I remember. both of these guys their careers are sort of parallel with each other from the Xfinity series and then such a big deal made about that rookie season for him and then here comes Matt winning the 600

which was a huge deal I couldn't believe it Matt reminded me that he won Texas right away he won Texas so we're going to have to do something here we were very competitive and me and Matt talked a lot and weekly almost especially through

98-99 and we shared a lot of you know even in our rookie year Matt would come to me and go hey they're asking me to do this are you doing that you know talking about you know NASCAR and other other off-track requests and stuff like that and getting motorhomes and we'd go to each other's houses and hang out and party and we went to uh I won the all-star race the week before and uh and then we're running that 600 and we were running really good y'all were running good dad was running all right And they had a rain delay, if I remember correctly. Yes, it was a rain delay. You're right.

Yeah. And I get out of my car and I go over and sit next to Dad. And I think I'm, I've led some laps. I'm up front. I'm like, yeah, man, what you think about the shit you're seeing from this eight car, man? What about it, old-timer? You know, we won last week. I'm really feeling good about myself.

And we restarted that race. And I'm like, man, I might win the freaking 600 tonight. And we ended up running forth. And Matt smoked us after the rain delay. I was like, holy shit. You know what I did the rain delay? I went and got everybody sandwich and stuff because the race is so damn long.

Everybody was hungry, so I went and had sandwiches and all that brought down and everybody had a lunch. And I said, okay, now it's time to get back to racing here. Yeah, that was a long night. I remember, I mean, I can't say what it was like on y'all's side, but I do remember y'all's success was a good influence in driving force for Tony Sr., myself, Tony Jr. We all got along really well.

Yeah. But our successes, I think, pushed each other because we both, you know, we braced each other for championships in the Xfinity Series. We raced each other for Rookie of the Year title. And then we're going to, you know, there's a race to who's going to be the first to win a championship. Y'all actually did it. I never did it. We did skip all the way past the one damn time that we actually only on track accident we ever really had was at Dover when I wrecked us both. But otherwise, I mean, we just, we just.

always were like one-up in each other, if you will. It was a really great relationship. I mean, it was competitive, but it was a ton of sportsmanship, you know, and respect. Even at Dover? Even at Dover, I mean. Busted my ass. They knew I busted my ass. Yeah. We had some laughs over that, but, you know, and Tony Sr., I told the story,

but, you know, I think the real relationship between myself and Tony Stewart, Our Tony, senior, was when that Dover crash was, and we fixed the cars, and we were getting ready to go home. And I walked back to the truck, and Tony was standing there, and he brought me to the front of the trailer, and we drank a beer together. He had two beers sitting there, he says, let's just have a beer and have a laugh. He said, I'm sorry it just happened. And I didn't know, at the time, I didn't know who wrecked who.

I was just fixing cars and trying to get whatever points we could get out of the day, you know. what an amazing moment those guys were you know for all the years that we race together i i will say that i had a lot of fun racing my late model in 90s in the 90s i had a really really good time racing the bush series in 98 99 uh with with your group yeah you know with our team and our team and and even when we went cup racing we got separated a little bit because of the way they set up the garage and the points were but it there it was always it was always it was always It was always fun. It was always mutual respect. There was never a bad word. It was always a laugh. I still remember your dad coming up in our trailer all the time and getting my mom's cookies.

You know, my mom, you know, Dale's up, you're taking my cookies. You got to quit taking my cookies here. I got to make more cookies, you know. It was just a, it was a really fun time. I mean, Tony Sr. we had, we had so many laughs, and Tony would lose his mind. And Dale would tell you that. Tony would lose his mind. I watched them throw scales one day in the trailer, and I walked that over 15 minutes later. We called him Rosie because he'd turn red. He'd get so mad he turned red.

He took those scales and sailed them in that trailer because they were them wireless things, and they never worked, and he took and threw them in the truck, and I walked over about 15 minutes later, and I said, Tony, you're all right? Yeah, I'm all right. These damn guys around here, they think that works, and nothing works. I've never even asked you this,

and I've forgotten about it, but now it occurs to be. I got to ask, Dale, wasn't there like this magazine article where Katie Kinseth threw shade at you, called you like Silver Spoon or something like that? I think, like in the ESP in the magazine, like she was like mad at you for some reason. You don't remember that? No, I don't know the article you're talking about, but I made a mistake one time. I did not know. Apparently I did not know what the definition of homely means.

Oh, Lord. And so I thought that homely meant a very natural-looking, like, so I was trying. Beautiful without having needing makeup or something. Yes, like that, but also like, man, you, like the, like a very grounded, you know, I don't know what I was trying to go for. Whoops. Do you call her homely? I told Matt that. So I said, we were at Tallade.

and I said and Matt and her were getting really serious and we taught we we we Matt would share with me what was going on in his personal life and I would share with him what was going on in mine and he's like I was like oh man you know you're getting he really liked her they he was he was how they were how you I remember him coming and telling me about the first time they got to hang out and he went home for something a wedding or something yeah and uh he's so excited and I finally get the meter and hang out with her and I think by this point they were maybe even married and I was like I was telling him I was like man you've got yourself a great match you and her you and her fit really well she's so homely and he's like what and I was like yeah man

she's she's cool oh and I heard his feelings I didn't know what the hell I was saying and she he runs hell bill he he knew I screwed up and he runs and tells her and now she don't think it's funny she don't think that the little you know the misspoke miss she she knew I misspoke but she didn't it was very funny at all and she was pissed um and she and i profusely apologize because i didn't even know the definition of the word i was using but i do know now yeah but yeah she don't take no bullshit and she did get you back in an article i'll i'll dig it out oh let's not do that let's just let it all i'm doing it years ago man let it go all right we're back on the robbie story here i just needed to know look that the you know i stood up in his wedding no yeah are you kidding you spoke up as much when they

Just if anybody has a problem? If anybody has a problem, speak now, forever, hold your peace, you spoke up? No. Okay. I stood up in his wedding, you know, like one of the brides or one of the groomsmen. Oh, Jesus, yes, you were a groomman. That's a little. That's not stand up.

You didn't give us that impression out of the day. Yeah, well, I guess maybe that's a difference between southern and northern. But up north, you stand up in the wedding. You were a groomsman. He invited you to be in his wedding. Yeah, believe that? I do. Y'all were freaking tight.

I think he knew that you were that, you know, You're such an important part of his success on the track and his, you know, keeping him grounded and all that. He was my friend. Y'all were close. And you didn't call his wife homely. He didn't call his wife home. Katie was a great. Katie's a really great person.

She is. Had a lot of fun with her. She's amazing. Fantastic. All right. I've made my share of mistakes. We all have. We all have.

I will say this. It was a lesson learned, never to say a word that you're not too sure about the meeting. Right. Just keep that in your pocket. Winning the championship. You know, you've realized. this dream. And the one thing that I think is interesting is you clinched the championship in the

second and last race at Rockingham and classic style. That man, with dad, would win the championships. The race are too early. That was a real few minute moment, you know, like your middle finger through the rest of the Swiss series. Like, you know, we're a race ahead of y'all's ass. We don't even have to go to the last one. That was a real badass thing to do.

but you know NASCAR goes and changes the points championship and you know brings in this playoff format everybody knows that you guys influenced that and I wonder if you does that is that like a bragging point for you personally you wouldn't probably ever mention it publicly but among friends like is you know you ran you ran the championship system so well that you had you NASCAR to have to go change it? I don't think that ever crossed my mind for that part. No. I think, you know, I grew up, we grew up winning races and championships by the guy winning the most points, and I think that that was how you won them. I mean, I didn't know any other way. It's my favorite way

to win them. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know any other way to do that. That's how you did it in Wisconsin, you race from race one to the end, and you were to champion if you had the most points, and that's the way we did it here. I mean, I understand where they wanted to go. I mean, they wanted to manufacture more excitement and do all these things, but sometimes when you try to manufacture something, you're depleting another thing, you know, and I think, you know, if I look back at racing traditionally and be, you know, part of the sport, that was something that was, you grew up seeing, you know, and the big thing was, you know, at the end of the year, you always saw everybody go to New York and you want it to be a part of going to New York, you know,

to stand by your championship car down on Times Square and go to the White House and do all these things. I never, ever in my process throughout this would thought, all this would happen. Yeah. You know, it was just, you're looking out of the windshield all the time, trying to get this, trying to get that, do this, do that. You know, and I never really thought about the chase. I thought about winning the championship. And I guess the thing that winning the championship really didn't set right with me is when we won the championship, the team wasn't even in the same room.

I remember that. Yeah, the team was off in a different room. And I remember going to see my mom and dad and they were in the back of this room watching it on TV. In the Waldorf. Yeah, in the Waldorf. They're in a different ballroom. It just changed something in me. I don't know what that did to me that day, but it did something because to win a championship, it requires everybody.

I mean, it's a village to win, you know. I mean, it takes a full team and all the other people on the outside that are helping you to get there to do this and to be a part of this. And to have that separated really took a lot of, you know, air out of my system, I guess. It wasn't always like that was. I mean, I remember when Dad won the championships in the 90s and maybe, I think the first one I went to was in the early 90s. They were in the balcony. That's right, hooting and hollering. Yeah, hollering from the balcony.

But they only let them go up in the balcony for like 10 minutes. Really? Yeah. Yeah, and there was even, you know, I guess, you know, our guys had too many people and they even were going to take some people and push them out of the balcony. And Jeff Vanderbos to car chief, he said, no, we either all go or we don't go. Oh, I see what you're saying. You're saying that they were going to let your guys go up there for 10 minutes. But yeah, you're saying, yeah, I always remembered watching those things on TV and the teams

where you can hear them. Yeah, they were definitely. Yeah, only during your speeches, though. Yeah, I got you. The championship driver. They let them in there. Yeah, they let them in there. Otherwise, they weren't in there.

And it really hurt my feelings when my mom and dad weren't even in the room, you know. Oh, yeah. That's fair. Everything you'd work for and this dream you're realizing and something like that that would have been probably one of the most important things about the whole process. Yeah, I think that really, that, that was just something that I wish would be different. That left an impact. In 2007, you got a four-race suspension for failing post-qualifying inspection in Daytona 500.

You end up, your final race as crucci for Matt is at the end of that year. Would you win the race? Are you, I guess, are you, are you starting? to see a new, like a change. Are you feeling like, hey, man, it's about time for me to make a change. I see an opportunity in front of me. I want to, you know, to manage the program, get off the pit box. The pit box is a tough grind.

I think the biggest thing for me was that we won the championship. I didn't need to win 20 of them. I just needed, I wanted to experience it, you know, one time. And my dad had passed away in 2005, and we had done everything together. and, you know, 2007 came, and like you say, I was suspended, and I stayed home for a couple weeks and realized that my kids were getting older and things were passing by. You know, my one son had played football, and I never got to see him play a football game.

Up to that point. And, you know, my twin boys were growing up, and I was missing a lot of the family stuff. And I wanted to be a part of that, but I also wanted to race. but something had to give. Yeah. You know, and to do this thing, to do this thing and compete for championships every year, you got to be 100% in. You can't just do it halfway.

Yeah. You aren't going to compete if you aren't all in. And I just got to the point where there was so much going around that I was going to miss so much that I needed to be a part of. And I had a role model and a dad that was there for all, all us kids in our family. And I kind of look back and said, man, I need to be there for these three boys as they grow up.

I need to be a part of that. So that was a lot of what was with that decision. And you become general manager after the end of the 07 season, you become general manager, but you felt like that was one of your worst career moves. Yeah. So help me understand. You get an idea through the suspension of, hey, man, I'm missing some things. I got to make, something's got to give, got to make a change.

but you make the change and regretted it. What would you have preferred happen? Well, you know, you get put in a job where you end up with a lot of responsibility but not much authority. It makes it tough. And I think, you know, when I took over that job, I had a lot of vision to build things, change things. You know, saw it from a cruchist perspective.

I wanted to set it up so the other crew chiefs had a whole different, process and I wanted I wanted to do a lot of things that that not everybody wanted to do and I think that I didn't fit in as well as I needed to or wanted to that's fascinating man because you've been there almost eight years now want a championship you've got everybody well you know Dale it's like the first first thing I wanted to do is a you know pit stops at that today to say pit stops are still very important and you wanted to do something. At that time, you know, I wanted to have our own pit stop area with our, with everything we needed to have in it, you know, so. Which every team has today. Yes. And I went back and, and if you think about it, Roush was one of the very first ones to do that.

So I went back and I put this whole thing together and I gave it to Jack and said, here, here's what I like to do. And, you know, as soon as we, you know, he would come in on Tuesday, as soon as we started with the bulldozers and moving stuff around, Jack came in my office and flipped the game. basket that I was down there building this pit stop area, you know, and you'll laugh about it. I mean, he threw stuff around in my office and hollered, you know, and it was kind of like, this is the job you gave me, you know, I laid it all out, I showed you what it's going to cost. Here it all is, you okayed it, now you're not happy with it, you know, and it was kind of like, it's kind of like, what am I doing this for, you know, and to this day, if you drive by that,

if you drive by that pit stop area, it has riser way on it. because Jack put a sign out there that says Robbie Reiser gets his fucking way and that's why I put that sign out there you know and and you know and there were some things with the cars that weren't weren't right and we tried to

try to change and it was expensive at the time but we were also able to recoup some of that money by by selling parts off and changing things out and not everybody was happy with that you know and it was kind of like you know what do I do here am I supposed to be doing this am I not supposed to be doing this and I

just never really fit into that You know what I mean? I didn't really, you know, and a lot of it's probably my fault. I didn't take on the leadership role correctly, maybe, you know? In which way? In a way that I didn't incorporate everybody. I probably didn't use the team as well as I needed to. I probably just, you know, in some ways, you use, you know, like a whole bullhead.

You just go and do this and do this and do this, and this is how this will work, and you make that happen. And in a lot of cases, you know, this was a company. I was kind of in transition, too. You know, you got to look at it that way. It was driven by Mark, Martin, and Jeff Burton, and it was a hardcore racing company. I mean, and if you came there, you came there to race.

What was the big start of the transition? You know, I think when management, you know, one group of management retired and he brought in a new management, I think that new management wanted a whole different culture, than what was there. And sometimes you can't be what you're not. You know, and I think that that hardcore racing company was structured one way and the management seemed to want to do it a different way.

And obviously Jack was, you know, had gone through some injuries and I think, you know, medically he was changing a little bit too. and that transition at that time, I just didn't do a very good job of doing the right things and building a team around all that. I ended up doing a lot of it, trying to do it a lot of it myself, and you just can't.

One man can't make a big difference in a big company like that. How difficult was it to leave Rauch? Not that difficult. I had pretty much. much, I was, you know, I pretty much had my fill. You went from, yeah, from 08 to 16. You ran, you were the GM. I mean, eight years.

That's a long time. Yeah. And I appreciated all the opportunities and all the things that were given to me. I just, I just wish I could have did a better job. I mean, you know, I, you know, I had to live through Matt, not Stan. I had to live through Carl, not Stan. Did they have, were they trying to give? you any parting advice?

Well, I think Matt like, hey man, I'm getting out of here. No, Matt was not like that. And I think you know, Matt's situation, I'd rather have him talk for it because it's really his deal. But I think

at the end of the day, Matt didn't feel wanted. I mean, I think he would probably tell you that. You know, his contract was up and they just didn't, you know, maybe took it for granted. I don't know. But, I mean, I went to them three times separately and said, hey, we got to do something here. We got, you know, this is, you know, you got to pay attention to this. And it was like, you know, at the end, sometimes I think to my, you know, in my own opinion,

I think that they thought, I think they let them go. Yeah. I really do. I mean, you just don't let that caliber of driver sit, you know. Yeah. And so you end up going to work for Brad Kislauski. I didn't even know you did that. So you left Raus at 2016, Brad starting its manufacturing company, which is really going well.

Yes. He gave me a call. I'm going to have to, I think it was the end of 18. He gave me a call around Christmas. Yeah. And he told me. What did you do for a couple years? Well, he left me a message. He said, hey, this is Brad Kozlowski. I'd like to talk to you about a job. Give me a call. Yeah, but you said 2018 or so you'd been out of work. You left Raus and what did you just do? You just kind of hang out for a lot. I just worked on my own projects and did my own thing. And then, you know, somebody needed something, contract labor or whatever, I'd go do it and, you know, farm myself out a little bit like that.

But I never, nothing racing related. I just did fab work and concrete work or whatever, whatever was somebody needed help with. You know, if a little old lady down the street needed her chimney sealed, I'd go down and seal it for her. You know, stuff like that. And then when Brad called me, he left me that message. And I'm like, oh, there is no way.

calling him back. I do not want to do this, go back racing. Racing, yeah. And so he called me again a week later and left me a message and was more detailed about what he wanted to do. And I was like, well, you know, my background is all production building from the trailer company. Give him a call and see what he wants to do. So I went up there and I saw, you know, a lot of innovative stuff with the 3D printing and, you know, a lot of different materials, titanium and ink an L and all that type of stuff and the machine work that went with it. And it was really interesting. And I was like, man, I want to do this.

So I went up and worked for him for close to three years as a production manager, helping him get the business started up and going. Yeah. And so why'd you leave? You're going to laugh at me. But when he came and decided he was going to go work at, you know, be part owner at Rauch,

I decided that I didn't want to be a part of that. I didn't, I already done that. I have worked with that group of people. Is his manufacturing company going to have any involvement with Rouse, though? Well, he started by telling me that it wouldn't. But I kind of knew how

things work, and I thought that they would cross lines. And I just you know, Dale, I just didn't want to put myself through that one more time. I just, you know, if people lose confidence in you and you aren't the guy, why do it a second time? Yeah, yeah. And I just thought. You feel like you're, Bob,

you feel like that your feelings is still a bit hurt by that? The fact that they, you know, they left that impression on you that? I think that I've sat back and watched them struggle for a lot of years, so I think my feelings aren't hurt anymore. I mean, I think that, you know, what I had said before, you know, that it was a hardcore racing business. I think that they should have stayed the hardcore racing business and kept doing what they were doing and to watch them falter like they did and have to go hire Matt or hire Brad to come in and

straighten things out. I think it's a, you know, you stand. back and you stand back and say well okay yeah maybe maybe you got your experience that you need now do you think knowing brad and having worked with him in the manufacturing business you think he's going to be the missing piece of the puzzle to get that thing going in the right direction i don't know as much as you do but watching it from my perspective i feel really good about brad's influence yes i i brad is is very good at getting getting the pieces and and uh everything organized to to operate and i think he i think he i think he i think think that Matt has a big, or Brad has a big say in the company because he does understand

the simulation and how important it is because in the machining business is very important. And it's no different than stocker racing. It's all married together. So I think the experiences that he's going through, he understands them. And he's able to take what they have there and direct it in the right places. Because when I was involved, the OEM was very involved in Rausch, more than probably any other racing business. And that's, that was the part I wanted to, I wanted to change. I wanted Roush to be its, its own identity in some of that. And on the outside, people didn't want to do that.

And, you know, that, that, I think Brad is going to be able to do that with what he's got going. And, and, you know, it was my decision not to be a part of what he had going there. I mean, I think he really questioned me. You know, we had a pretty good discussion. He really questioned me. And I said, Brad, I said, Brad, let me put you this way. somebody in the garage you don't like. He says, yeah, I don't like Kyle Bush. I says, okay, I don't like them. That's the way it is. You aren't going to do something with him. I'm not going to do something with these and that's. And we left on good terms. And he gives me a call every once in a while and checks on me, make sure, you know, that I don't want to come back

and work. Yeah, yeah, right. That makes sense. It does. I wonder, though, I wonder, though, Robbie, you say, you know, you would tell, you would tell Brad that you don't like and you don't want to go work anywhere in their vicinity, right? But they're part of your DNA, they're part of your story. And so at some point, right, you have to come some common ground for yourself, right? Because think about like all, if, you know, everything that happens for Roush going forward with Brad, the success that they're liable to have, more than likely to have, the resurges, right? there'll be, and there'll be moments when they'll have, you know, they'll celebrate their own past, which is you.

And you're going to, you're going to, if I'm there to, if I was standing in your house on the day of those moments, I would be kicking you in the butt out the door to go and be a part of that, you know, part of that memory. Yeah. I mean, so I think, I mean, you know, you don't have to do it today, but I think at some point you've got to figure out a way where that's comfortable for you. you. Yeah. I hear you, okay? But I would tell you that, you know, growing up in racing, being a part of racing as much as I was, and to do all the things he did for a company for almost, you know, almost 20 years, the end should be different. Yeah, sure. You know. Maybe it's not, maybe it's the end's not there yet. Yeah, maybe it's not there. But at the end of the day, I just,

you know, it just didn't end the way it should have ended. I'm with you, Robbie. I just don't agree with that. I hear you. And I mean, if I was Robbie, I certainly would probably feel the same way. But I think, you know, gosh, you can't go all the way to the, you can't go all the way to your deathbed with that harboring that. That's fair. But I don't know.

I look at it as almost like a marriage and if you have now at some point it becomes so personal whether it's a company or something else that it's beyond just the it goes beyond depths and I think that it was like a marriage that you got crushed

because it's almost like your marriage fell apart because it changed so much and now it's gone so far direction that now when somebody comes back to go, hey, can you come back and fix this marriage? Well, no. I was there to try to fix it, and you didn't want me then. And so I think it's just perfectly natural human tendency to just,

I mean, you can still want them to succeed and you can still want Brad to succeed, but I could understand not wanting to be a part of that. I think, you know, here's the thing. I think when we started over there, Mark Martin was a big part of what we did. And Mark Martin really championed us the whole time. And, you know, when there's change involved, you have to either change with it or you have to get out. You know, and I think in my case, I had to get out because it wasn't what I, it wasn't what I envisioned. You know, and, you know, everybody was pushing so hard that it was the evil empire.

It was so hard to work there and it was all this and all that. Well, hell, how hard was it to work there? I mean, you're running for a championship and winning races every damn week. I mean, it's what it is. I mean, you want to work somewhere where you're going to win. It's going to be challenging at times. There's going to be hard discussions at times, and you're going to have to get faced with things. I mean, 2008, when you look at that company, it had 14 race teams in it between trucks, Spinity, and Cup cars.

Plus, we also went and did cars for other companies. There was a time in 2009 or 10. I can't remember what it was anymore. But we shipped out 36 cars that week. 36 cars go racing between all of the backups in the primaries and all of that. So think about that. That's crazy. And that was every week.

That was every week you had. And that group is all the way back to two teams now. And they're smart by backing up and getting smaller because that way you can control it and bring it back. And that's a good thing. But I mean, this company was large. And I remember one guy saying to me one time he says, man, we seem to have meetings all day long. Well, when you got 14 teams, yes, you're going to have driver debriefs. I mean, from the truck race to the Xfinity race, the cup race.

I mean, it just snowballs. I'm trying to point back, though. I'm still a little unclear on what changed because there was this mass exodus and everything did change over time. But was it like the Finway acquisition? No, it was management. You know, a big thing was Jeff Smith ran it one way and the new management ran it a different way. And when the new management came in, they wanted to have a whole different culture than what the old culture was. And that was a driving force for a lot of things that ended up happening.

That had to been a Jack decision then, right? Well, I don't know. Did he make – I'm trying to remember. remember all the timeline, but he was in a plane crash. A lot of it gets pushed from up north, too. I mean, Roush is driven from Michigan. Detroit. Yeah, so it's got some differences than some of the companies that are down here.

Yeah. Wow. How old are you kids? Ryan's the oldest at 26, and Rhett and Reed are 21. What's their interest in motorsports? Ryan is, he graduated from Virginia Tech as a mechanical engineer. He works down in South Carolina for peer performance, which is a diesel aftermarket company,

and he likes to dazzle with the diesel trucks. So he has a diesel truck that he drag races with. Oh, nice. And it's a pretty cool truck. I mean, about 1,200 horsepower, and we built it from scratch. So it's been a lot of fun. They have very small amount of rules,

so it's really fun to work on. And then my other boys, Reed, he's a landscape guy. He runs his riser lawn care business, and he's got a couple crews, and he makes it all happen. And then, Rhett, he's, uh, Red was my dirt bike racer. He was racing dirt bikes, and now he got a little older, and he's, he, he's got a civil engineering tech degree, and he is working for a construction group doing some design work. You were inducted into the southeastern Wisconsin Short Track Hall of Fame in 2014, along with your dad.

You're both in there. That was something you're proud of. Very proud of that. One of the coolest things in my life that I got to do was accepted for my dad in 2011. You know, he was a special guy. He always said he was an average guy, but he was way above average guy. And it was the biggest honor probably of my racing career was to do that for my dad. I mean, family's strong, and I think, you know, the bond between a dad and a son is a lot, especially when you're an only son.

So I really, I really enjoy that that happened for myself. It is a real honor. And, you know, the cool thing is my late model is inducted also in there and is at that Wisconsin Auto Museum. So I think that's really cool. Yes. for the way things have gone. At least there's a little something there from driving. I want the Pinto in there.

Is it an original car? Yeah. Original car. Original transmission. I think most of the parts are original in it. It does have a 9-to-1 Wagner in it. And it could, if you want to take it out, it would make a lap around slinger. It's got a slinger setup in it.

That's all the match. It's got the right set up. That's awesome. I think the station wagon that pulled these things, the Pinto needs to be. in there. Well, you got to start somewhere, right? I mean, I tell my kids all the time. I said, you got to start somewhere. For God's sakes, my first race was a 12-lap race. I finished four laps down. You've got to start somewhere and not worry about it. I love that story. So you, you're 59 years old. You know, that's not that's not that old. I look like you

drive a car again. You look like, you look just like the day I saw you in Myrtle Beach. Less intimidating. Why? What's left in the tank? I mean, you know, do you ever think about, you know, being involved in anything motorsports related? And I imagine, obviously, maybe not even at the cup level or the top three NASCAR series level, but man, like, do you miss taking a car to the track?

Do you miss grinding through practice trying to get it to roll the center? Do you miss, you know, climbing underneath that thing in the middle of the afternoon trying to change your gear? I'll be honest with you. I do miss racing. I miss, I got to go to the cars tour the other week up at Hickory. Yeah? And, yeah, I went up in the pit area. I was there.

Yeah. What the hell? I saw Jeff Burton. I know. I didn't see you. What did you think? I loved it. Dude.

Come be a part of that shit with us. It was so much fun. I really like the short track racing. I mean, if someone came and said, Robbie, I got a really good late model, and would you like to drive it? Drive it. I would probably drive it. Yeah.

You know, I probably would try it again. I missed that part. I thought, you know, those guys work on their cars and not everybody, I mean, the pit areas changed somewhat. There's a lot of paid people in there, but it used to be all volunteer help and everybody worked like their life depended on it, you know, and going up the other week, and seeing that, it reminded me of that.

There was a group from Wisconsin that had come down. His name was Mike Litchfield, and he was running in the, I guess, the super late, so if you want to call him that. And that is actually the guy that owns that car is Annie Manke, and I race for the Mankees when I was up in Wisconsin. I ran their car a couple times. And so when Andy told me you're coming down, I went up there to meet them and see what they were doing.

And it was really a lot of fun to go back and see the old Hickory Speedway. Yeah, he changed much since the last time. A lot of friends, you know, a lot of friends. I was surprised when I ran up on Burton. I know it. So me and Burton and Harvick and Justin Marks all got involved in that Cars Tour series, and I'm having more fun than I even imagined I would. I get up in the morning thinking about the Cars Tour and I go to bed thinking about it.

And we're having a blast. But yeah, dude, we could use your help. Yeah, I would like to do, you know, I'd like to get involved in something. I mean, I'm not over yet. That's what I was thinking. I'm like, man, you're a little bit of fuel left here yet. But my oldest son, he has visions of maybe refiring Upriser Enterprise and doing some diesel truck work and that type of thing.

He's really into electronics and, you know, to feel injections and that type of stuff. And, you know, maybe down the road he'll look at wanting to do a business or something like that. And then I would probably try to get the old bush shop and everything going again. and maybe work a business with him too. You know, I would like to be with my kids and do something that they want to do. For sure. Well, man, hey, I'm going to tell you, we're at two hours, and this has been a blast. I want to say a couple things.

You're a hell of a storyteller. Me and Mike haven't had to do any work today. And I just appreciate you being so excited to share with us. You know, your energy and the, you know, the person you are and the character you are, it's fun to listen to. I remember, as I said, way back in the day when you were so intimidating and I was so scared to go over and talk to you at Myrtle Beach. And then when we raced against each other and I just try not to piss you off or do anything that was going to, you know, upset the relationship you had with Tony Sr. And me and Matt were trying to be friends. But you were always fun.

You're always so nice to me. You give me a hard time, but you always did treat me so well, you know. And I had so much fun being with you at the awards banquet or inducting Matt in the Hall of Fame. You hadn't changed a bit. You seem really happy. You know, away from the grind of the Cup series where we're all miserable ass. You seem like you're in a really, really good place personally. and I'm just glad that you came to share with us today.

Well, thanks a lot for having me. It's fun to go back in time and think about all the things because, you know, as you look at it, you never really look at the end of your career. You always think about the things you did through your career, and you never think about the things that you really did well. You think about all the things you did wrong, you know? And that's what makes you the person.

You know, at the end of the day, that's really what drives you, and you can't be afraid to make a mistake and laugh about it once in a while. And remember where he came from. You know, four laps down. That's where you came from. That's right. Well, man, we're going to try to get you involved in some late model racing, get you back to the racetracks so we can have some fun together.

Thank you, man, for coming on our show. Robbie Reiser on the Dale Junior 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 them to want them to feel like an ally to Dirty Mo Media. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the download and the entire Dirty Mo Media team.

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