The Dale Jr. Download - 461 - Richie Gilmore (Part 1) - The Best Leaders Are Born Leaders

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reunites with a major figure from his career as he and co-host Mike Davis sit down with former Dale Earnhardt Inc. engine builder Richie Gilmore. After getting his start working on his uncle Jim Landry’s supermodifieds in the New Hampshire short track scene, Richie found his way into the NASCAR Busch North Series garage, and eventually gravitated to North Carolina, It was there he found a position working for Bob Whitcomb Racing, and in 1990 with Derrike Cope behind the wheel, the small but mighty outfit scored an upset victory in the Daytona 500.The interview gives an in-depth look at that 1990 Daytona victory and how the Whitcomb team miraculously completed the entirety of Speedweeks with the same power plant, which Richie helped assemble with his mentor Keith Dorton. Richie also speaks on his time working with Keith’s brother Randy Dorton at Hendrick Motorsports, and how he spearheaded HMS’s engine leasing program to Joe Gibbs Racing, which resulted in Dale Jarrett’s 1993 Daytona 500 triumph. 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 Bojangles Studio. We've got a great guest today. Well, how you doing, Rhiz? I'm doing fine right now. This is every week, okay, boy? Uncle it. 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 back to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. It's Dellenhart Jr. your host and my co-host, Mike Davis is here.

How you doing, Mike? Doing well, man. Back here in the Bojangles studio. Things are going well, man. We had a great show yesterday. we talked about it. We got a good guest coming in. Can't wait. I know. I can't either. I want to thank Ally for bringing all of our guests to us every Wednesday.

And, hey, we joke about how they're all allies, at least most of them. There's a couple that might not be allies, but this one is. This is another ally. I mean, it's true. It's a great sponsor for this type of thing. Yeah. Richard Gilmore is our guest today. Richard Gilmore built engines in NASCAR for decades. won a lot of big races. We're going to talk about some of those races and memorable races.

But he also built engines and one particular engine for me driving the Bud 8 car. And I can't wait to talk about that. I've had questions about this special motor for a very long time. One quick moment before we bring Richie in the room. I want to give Lionel a shout out.

Lionel provides us with all of our die cast. They are the diecast experts for the NASCAR industry. They're making so many great. product, such a great challenge too for them with this new next-gen car and they knock it out of the park. They also have a new tool and a new car coming for our late model stock program. I'm so excited about that, man. It's a beautiful car. I've seen pictures of it. I've seen pictures of this new design. Can't wait to get one on my desk, a prototype in front of me to show you guys.

But either way, appreciate Lionel for everything they do. I've become this die cast collector in the last couple of years and it makes me appreciate them more. of work that they do. So thank you, Lionel. Glad you said that. Lianel's such a big supporter of this program. And obviously, you said that they supply us with die cast for this table. They supply everybody with diecast everywhere. And so, yeah, Lionel, big partner of ours, but also a big partner of yours. Thank you, Lionel. So let's get him in the room, Mike. Let's get richie in here and let's get started. Let's do it. What's up, my man? See, Mike. Get to see you. Get in here. Get in here, dude. We've been waiting for

for a long time. Your headphones. Man, I'll tell you, you look really good. I feel good. Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing. He looks exactly, he doesn't age. What's what? What's it?

This guy. He just, just like he came out of the DEI garage. We just had practice. Yeah. Dale Jr.'s fighting with Tony Jr. Just like the old days, Richie. Yeah. Put that microphone wherever you want.

All right. So how you been? It's been a long time. Yeah, I've been. I see you from time to time, but. Yeah, we run into each other in the garage. It's been a while since we sat down. Yes.

So, Richie, Gilmore, you've been in racing a really, really long time. You're probably best known for building engines. And I've never asked you how you got you start. But reading some of the notes, you had some, you know, you had some good fortune early to get involved in the modifies and the supermodifies and stuff like that. Your family was involved in racing a little bit. Tell me about that. Yes. It was kind of a little family business. My Uncle Race Super Modifieds. Where at?

Up in New Hampshire, Star Speedway, Lee. With Bentley and them guys? Yes. Man. That must have been an experience. What a bunch. Like Bentley's a superhero in my eyes. He's an incredible driver.

So we're all up there, y'all were up there having a chance to race around and guys like that? Yeah. I mean, a lot of legends came out of the Northeast, you know, like Bentley. Doug Heveron, a lot of them guys that made some great history and a trip down to, down to the south, you know, and then the modifies with Richie Evans, Greg Sacks. Wow, really? Yeah.

That was probably the- You worked on those cars? Yeah, that was the time when I got in the Modifieds was, you know, what Greg Sacks was probably the, in the bushyards, or probably the time frame when I got into it. Whose car were you working on? I worked on probably the big ones I was around was, you know, I went down when Doug had Ron a little bit, Greg Sachs was probably the big one that moved to the south and the bushyards. Kenny was the big one I worked with.

So were you a mechanic for these guys or what were you doing? Engines? Engines and mostly mechanic work at that. time. So you'd go at every race. You're working on the car and, and, you know, tuning and timing and all that stuff with the engine. Are you a paid mechanic for the team? Or are you working for your family business? Back then it was mostly volunteer work. And then I worked in on a fan for my uncle. He had a mechanic shop. So I was a mechanic at that time. And he built motors. And so. Am I right?

Yes, he had a... That was what his shop did? He had a salvage yard and a repair shop was the main part of it, and then the engine stuff was on the side. Was the engine stuff motorsports, but the other part of his business was just general, salvage general, you know, like a junkyard, right? Yes, and probably the, really the only engine stuff he would do was for my uncle.

Oh, so it was a customer engine shop for regular cars. Yeah. Street cars. And you work there. Yes. And so that's where you learned your first, you know, bit of knowledge about motors and build motors? Build the motors. Working on street cars, hot rods.

Probably was more street rods. And probably the big first experience was we did a lot of custom Volkswagen. Beetle engines. Really? And would ship them out to California. What was so custom about it? They did sand drags. And we did a lot of those.

But probably most of the stuff we did was Volkswagen Beetle engines and things like that. And then we got into the racing stuff. Yeah. So when you went to work on these modifies, were you trying to, you know, did you have like this path in your mind of where you wanted to go or were you just loving to being at the racetrack? You're volunteering. You're, you just want to go racing. It was mostly just loving, being around racing. And so how did you ever, I guess, how did you get sort of tied up and ever finding your way to NASCAR, right? Was it through Greg Sacks? Was it through people that you were working with at the time? We started, you know, racing.

and it became a passion. And the Northeast started really getting in the Northern Modifieds. And then the series that really grew up there was the Bush Grand Nationals. Yeah, the Bush North. The Bush North. And Oxford Speedway really became, you know, they had the 250, and that became a big race. Well, the Southern guys and the Northern guys would race.

And they started that summer. challenge where your dad came up, Richard Petty came up, and I think it was between the Pocono or the Dover Race. And one of the guys we work for. So let me ask you, I've never, I don't, this was 1987. Yeah. And so I don't remember anything about this. So, so these were like Bush cars. Yes. And they would have Cup guys come up and drive some of the Bush regulars backup cars. They were some of them with their primaries. And this was in a race with the other Bush regulars? They would have like a shootout.

A match race? Yeah, it was like an all-star race. And how many cup regulars would be there? They would bring like six of them up and they would race with the locals. And they would bring guys from other series. I think there was some drag race guys. And it was like. the start of the Archer series almost.

Really? And your dad came up, Richard came up, Petty. And I was trying to think, I think who else came up? But there was Richard drove Arca, Petty. And we had it all painted up, STP colors. And it was good for us because it gave us some extra money to run the whole season. And Bobby Gahan was our driver. and probably the coolest thing was they brought some mechanics and crew cheese up along with it

and Stevie Bird came up. Oh, yeah. And he was fun to work with. And the king, I think King wrecked our car three out of four nights or two out of three nights. No driving fool. Yeah. I think your dad probably had something to do with him wrecking. What do we know about that?

Oh, man, it was like... What happened? I think, you know, those two were really putting on really good show. And I think your dad turned him both nights. And, you know, growing up from the Northeast, I was, you know, a Jeff Bodine fan. Oh, yeah, 1927. Earnhardt was the enemy. Yeah.

And so it was like, man, you couldn't like Earnhardt, you know, cheer for Jeff. But growing up from Northeastern. you like, you know, you like Kenny Bouchard and Ronnie and Jeff. But to watch them guys come up and Bobby Allison was the other one. Yeah. I mean, Bobby worked on his car and just to watch him, he was the man. But them guys put on his show and it was like, man, and talking when Stevie and them guys, they're like,

you guys ought to come down, you know, because they watch this work. on this car get tore up and you can make a living down there I was like really you get paid full-time do this this is pretty cool yeah and so I waited probably another year and decided my my cousin had moved down and was doing PR work for Richard Childers and so I decided to take a trip down into the the Lanna race and that was probably my first experience coming down south to visit and I got the bug and I said I'm gonna I want to make this move and Kenny had run for rookie the year Bouchard. Yeah with Wood Woodcom. Yep. All right. So so that was your end. You knew Kenny and you went first off I want to want to say that dad and Ron Bouchard were very very close. Yes. I know you know this,

but I remember them two being very, very good friends. And dad, Ron used to put on sort of a similar thing with a track up north, maybe a couple different tracks. I think Stafford was one of them. But they did it a couple years in a row where dad and some of the guys went up there, some of the cup guys went up there and ran some races and had a great time. But I remember Bob Wickham's team. and me and you might remember this.

I didn't know who you were at the time, but you probably saw me nosing around in the trailer. We got to talk about one thing. I got to make a note. But I got to be really good friends with Mike Wickham. And I still talk to him today. I will text back and forth and see what's going on in each other's lives. But he was asking me for tickets to the 600 other week because he had something that fell out.

But I got to be really good friends with Mike. Like, you know, if you were a son of anybody or a daughter and you're all around the same age, 15, 16 years old or whatever, we all kind of gravitated toward each other, hey, you want to hang out? You want to go do something? Ride to go carts or whatever in town. Every track, every stop on the circuit had a pay-to-ride go-cart next to the race track somewhere. But I, so I remember this team, and Ken drove one year and then got replaced by Derek Coe. Was it mid-season or? Yes.

So you come down and you're working when Ken's driving the car? Yes. And so, you know, and Bob, where did Bob make his money? Paving business. Okay. And so he's going to get into racing and he got him a little race team. They ended up getting pirulator as a sponsor, which was, I thought, wow, that's, that's, that's been around forever. That must be a great partnership, right?

That must be a great sponsor. How good was that sponsor for the team? It was at the time, you know, we were. We didn't have it, Bob was putting all his own money in. Yeah. And when Derek came over, it was. He had the pure later thing? He had the pure later deal.

And they were just renegotiating. And I remember at the time, it was a million dollar sponsor. That's a lot. And it was like, boom, you know, we're rich. We're going. And it really turned out to be a, you know, a good sponsor for us at the time. Yeah. And we got.

Buddy Parrott. Really? Which was... How did you get him? You know, Buddy was in between jobs. And, you know, we were just a bunch of kids. And that was probably one of the... Probably one of my big breaks, too, was to get to work for Buddy Parrot.

I mean, you learn so much from... You look back at your career and you look at people you got to work for it. But he was... He's a legend. I mean, he taught us. We were like the bad news bears. We called ourselves. And with him leading us, we left the shop every week believing we could win a race.

And, you know, and we did. And we were very fortunate in 90, you know, to win the Daytona 500. Yep. So I won't stop you there. I remember the first time I ever saw you was on TV jumping off pit wall out across pit road when y'all won that race. Yep. I bet you have this etched in your brain. but that that was the first I didn't even know who you were but you stood out in that moment for whatever

reason for me you know we'd get intertwined and work together years down the road but I'll never forget that I was obviously disappointed because daddy that he had a flat tire on the back straightaway but um y'all ran second to dad literally felt like the whole damn race yeah it was wild um so who built the motor for that car uh Keith Thornton Keith Dorton how did you get hooked up with Keith Dorton. You know, we were a small team, and we leased engines from Rick. Rick Hendricks to run the big tracks. Who was, who were you getting motorists for for the other races?

From Keith. Okay. And Keith, son, Jeff, and I worked on the short track engines, and it was a great experience in my life to work for Keith. So we would work over there at night all the time, crazy hours. Yeah. Go back to Keyes. What was the name of Keyesville business?

Automotive specialist. Do you know that Uncle Randy worked over there? Oh, yeah. Were you there at the same time when my Uncle Randy was there? Yes. So you worked with Randy Earnhardt, and I'm just now putting this together, twice. Yes. You worked with him at the engine shop with Keith and then at DEI.

Yep. I didn't even think about that. So what was it like working with Randy back then before, you know, he's dad's brother. You don't, you have no idea what's going to become with y'all working together at DEI. What kind of guy was he to work with? It was great. All the time I always worked with Randy. We were really good friends because I think a lot of times at Kesee, he looked after me because I was a kid.

Yeah. But we were always good friends. Yeah. We don't get to hear enough about Randy, frankly. I don't even know a whole lot about him. Right. Was he anything like Danny and Dale? I mean, like, what was his personality?

He's a little different. He was, to me, he was always the happy guy, you know. Oh, then that would be very different. Yeah, he was different. He, Randy was always total opposite, you know, of them. He was always the happy go guy. He had that moment, though. He could snap on you.

Could he? But most of the time he was the guy that would do anything for you. And really nice guy. Sensible. Yeah. Very sensible. Yeah. Great parts guy.

Very good at memory. It had a great memory on him. New numbers. Super to work with. Yeah. You could ask him for something. He knew exactly the way it was and what you needed. He ended up run parts at DEI.

So what are you learning about motors? So the reason. why I ask this question is because from that moment when you when when when when Derek wins the 1990 Daytona 500 from that moment on I connect you to speed especially in restricted plate engines like for whatever reason I marry you to that quality and so help me understand like what are you learning yourself about motors, where are you finding power and what are some of the early discoveries, even some of the common sense things that, you know, maybe I wouldn't know even about motors, and where you're like,

you know what, this was an important part of the process when you're building an engine. This has to be right to be able to make sure that motor is going to do what it needs to do. I think probably the most, probably the experience I learned at Keith's was crucial to that. the detail that he spent on manifolds and cylinder heads. Marrying the two together. Yes. And so what are some of the mistakes that people make? You know, what are you doing when you're trying to take the heads and the manifolds and make sure that they,

because the way I understand it, once you did get a great combination, that combination went everywhere together. You never took that manifold and those heads apart or never split them up, right? You develop them out of the box to be together for life. And so why is that important? You know, I think that a lot of people looked at, you know, the plate racing. I always say it a lot. A lot of people can make a lot of horsepower. And Smokey Units said this, and it was really cool early for me to get introduced to Smokey.

And he said, Rich, you remember one thing that the engine is. It's just an air pump. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of, and now that's stuck in my mind for all these years. And just to treat an engine like an air pump, you know, you've got to get the air out of it to make power. And looking back at working with Keith, Keith, Keith,

Keith Thornton probably understood that more than anybody else, is how to get, how to make a restrictor plate engine run and get the most air out of it. And Robbie Yates, probably, you know, in that same category. Two guys that really understood that. Can I ask real quick, I'm assuming Keith Dorton is related to Randy Dorton. Brothers. They're brothers.

Randy Dorton being the legendary engine builder for Hendrick Motorsports. You know, I think Keith, Randy's older brother. Got it. And I think he's probably one of the best engine builders. I know I have ever been around. Kese always wanted just to own his own company and work on his own. Those are two different. Randy had his own company and got bought out by Rick and wanted to go down the path of, you know, building a company with Rick and trying to make a, you know, be the best in the NASCAR circuit.

Keith didn't want that. Keith wanted to build all different kinds of engines, sprint car engines, cup engines, but stay on his own, do his own deal. Keith, literally, I mean, how many motors were y'all building at the peak? There was, y'all had motors for, if you could name the type of, you know, series or whatever, whether it would be ASA, short track, super late models, stock cars, y'all are building them. And probably, I mean, anything you can imagine we were building. And probably every guy that's in NASCAR that's belt engines has been through Keith's shop. and that's the other thing people don't realize

especially the older generation engine builders has worked for Keith at one time that's interesting did you ever know Keith? I used to I went in there a time or two to we I think there was a couple times when we got an engine from from y'all for something I was either doing

with our late model program or I'm not 100% I don't remember exactly but I remember going over there and bugging Randy about things and I think I got one motor from over there at one point early early in my career. But their business, that was the outside of like a race team where like Randy would be, you know, you had head engine builders that were famed that worked at RCR and other race teams. But their business was like at the top of the mountain in terms of if you were, if you were a weekend racing

looking for one of the best motors their business was often mentioned you know is one of

the places you wanted to go and very well respected always no durability issues

but they made a lot of motors like how many engines were y'all building in one given year

probably over 600 yeah that's crazy yeah it's almost two day.

And one of the stories I want to mention about Keith is how hard they work. And the guys that went through that shop, the year we won the 500 with Derek Cope. And a lot of people are like, man, I think chocolate and them guys always bust on me about, man, that was like Buster Douglas slipping on a banana peel when you guys beat us. But I said, you know, we definitely, you know, we're going to finish. second to Dale because he definitely had the car to beat

but I always rub them into they finished to me second a lot so I get them back but that year Keith's son Jeff which is a really good engine bill it still works for his dad

and I worked on that engine and several people put a lot of hours in but Keith worked on them cylinder heads for hours. And Keith had, you know, still battles with MS. But he welded and welded to weld it on them cylinder heads to make them special. But we qualified for that race, ran the 150s at, they were the 150s at the time. And after the 150s, we and another guy, Joan M. Bailey, his dad was a famous race car driver.

H.B. Bailey, drove that engine back, swapped cylinder heads, and ran that same long block, and won the 500. So that engine, you know, now we run the same engine, but back then everybody ran three engines that week. Yeah, a practice motor, qualifying motor, and a race motor. And sometimes, like, a team like yours or a team like, a team, like the 41 car, the Kodiak car, they would get, like, the 125 motor out of Jeff Gordon's car, right? You know, those qualifying and 125 or practice motors

would be in the back half of the field. Yes. In some motor, in some cases. So when you would take it back and swap the heads, taking, so that goes against what I was thinking, so the heads and the intake

would be split up. And you have another set of heads. Purposely married to that same intake. And so you would prepare multiple sets of heads to one intake, knowing you were going to make these adjustments throughout the weekend. And so when you're saying you were welding on the heads to make them special, people want to know what that means.

So why would you need to do that? Well, back then, you know, the rules were a lot more open. Yep. But they had different valve angles and rules. so to get into the to make these these cylinder heads back then

like we do now you could get a lot more creative you could weld on the heads roll the valves over what does rolling the valves over mean get the valve angle you want so you literally would take the valve out weld up the whole thing

drill a new hole and change the angle entirely of the valve and you'd have to build a hole new seat and everything for the valve? Oh yeah, you would get very creative. But practically speaking, if this can be done, what does changing the angle of the valve do? It gets everything more in line, so it helps the airflow. Okay.

So it's just, that's interesting. Pumping air. It's big air pump in it. So with air, when you're getting air out, right, you're doing everything you can to get air out, how are you trying to get more air in, right? So you're trying, you know, right? You're trying to increase airflow. So the intake, right?

You had ability to get up there and get creative inside of that. That, though, would come with its own challenges because tools to be able to get into those spaces, right? Do you cut the intake in half? What do you do to get in there to work on it? I would say in 1990, we probably had the most creative manifold. You could imagine. There was, you know, there's an open plundum. but Keith was probably the

first one to ever come up with stuff inside it that floated to make the air get through there faster right? Absolutely. And so was, I mean, obviously making that valley and the air, the space in there larger was a way to do that, right? Creating more space. But didn't you guys get,

wasn't there sort of like a, a balance between getting that space and that area big enough, but also not getting so thin that it would collapse on itself. Yeah. Wasn't there some issues at sometimes where y'all were like getting so aggressive, like the actual intake itself would just, I don't know what the word to use to describe it, but it would break. It would break.

Yeah. Interior of the intake would crack and break and collapse. Isn't that crazy, Mike? It's insane. I mean, just give us the master's class. I'm wondering, I mean, like, this is back in the 90s. I'm just finding myself wishing that we were back in these days. I mean, like, it feels like we've been deprived and stripped away from all these ingenuities.

It was so innovated back then. It was so much fun. It's amazing. Getting the ports from the intake to the head to be perfect, right? How do you ever shut that off? So if you're, if you're a perfectionist and you're looking at this head and this intake and it's on the table and you got a couple days left, for you got to have this thing together and going down the road in the hauler. You know, how do you ever decide, okay, I've done all I can do?

There's got to be some much self-control there for you to finally say, you know what, I can't, I can probably make this better, but I got to, you know, how many times have you sort of had that battle with yourself to where you're like, I need to quit fooling with this thing? I think we back then we would work until the car had to leave. And so just always trying to get it better. Get it better and better. And you're dinoing this thing on and off on and off the dino, right?

Yeah. You ever put it on, have you ever had it where you're like, oh man, I'm sure I made a great adjustment here. I'm sure I've made an improvement on the motor and you put it on there and it didn't do it? Yeah. And what do you do? I mean, we would I mean, we would always want to make one more pull. And, you know, and like you say, sometimes you make that one change.

And oh, man, we just lost something. Yeah, you got to go back. Yeah. I mean, you know, and I mean, that's why we'd eat lunch, breakfast and dinner there. Yeah. You know, because you'd back up. Were you with the team when you guys won Dover?

Yeah. But Derek, so I was at that race, and I don't know how Derek won. So do you remember all of that? Yeah. So I'm walking around in the garage area. I think dad had an engine problem or something that day. He had some problems, so I'm kind of not really plugged into the race itself.

But I remember looking on the scoreboard and I'm going, holy crap, Mike's car's leading a damn race. Yep. And y'all led like the last 200 or 180 laps or something. We led the first part of the race. And we hired a. engineer, Steve Peterson. I remember Steve Peterson. He ran us out of gas, leading the race.

And we lost two laps. So we made one back up under green, and then got a caution. So we made two laps up that day. And then came back, like you said, we led the last 200 laps. But that's how good that car was that day. and so that so that was the great win for you everybody on that team the Daytona 500 was an insane moment for for everybody but that win at Dover I think was the one that said we're a great race team we're not just a restrictor plate fluke we're a race team that's that's good and can win races

how do you categorize the rest of that year I think we Probably two other races that year we had a chance of winning. And what stands out that year was your dad had a year like we had. He either won or had an engine failure. And the other one was Atlanta that year, and your dad ended up dominating it. But we were right there second again. And we had a Hendricks engine in that race. ran second to him and had an oil pump failure towards the end of the race running second to him

and the other one was Pocono we ran we led a lot of that race and him and Greg Sacks got together at the end of the race and wrecked but it was one of them deals we either won the race or ran really good oh we had we had a lot of engine failure and that was probably on us working with Keith, we didn't, Whitcomb spent a lot of money getting engines from Hendricks and then we didn't give Keith enough money

to take care of our short track stuff. I remember, I don't know if this was the same year or not, but Dad and Derek Cope are, it was at North Woodsboro, dad and Mike would remember this, I think. And I actually talked to Derek Cope about this. I was like,

hey man do you remember this um and Derek remembered it he's like really pissed off about it but uh in the middle of the race something happened they were racing each other hard dad didn't like a way Derek was racing him and they went down the back straight away and i was standing in the infield watching this and they come up off of the turn and down the back straight away dad is on the inside of Derek and had his momentum going by him right and turns what turns right and i mean from between between the tire you couldn't have painted it blacker. And I was like, your dad either race the shit out of you

or you dumped you. He never would, he never laid the damn tired of somebody all the way down and then drove, you know, it just was a really weird moment. Where is this? Wiltsboro. And I was like, what in the hell?

Damn, Derek must have pissed Daddy off. And I asked Derek about it a couple years ago, And he goes, oh, I remember that. And he had a little, he had something to say about that. He was not happy. Do you remember this? Yeah, oh, yeah. I remember.

Were you also not happy? I remember what Dale, he come, because Derek, I think, went over and said something. Yeah. And I remember Dale's, because I was like really good friends with Derek, because we were close. I mean, it was only like six of us on that team. And Dale said, Dale said, boy. Your eyes are too close. Your eyes are too close.

Oh, that is hilarious. Oh, my God. It's straight for the eyes. Your eyes are too close. Is he right? He might be right. He might be right. And I remember right.

I love a picture of Derek Coke. That is hilarious. Did y'all give Derek a hard time after that? I bet you did. Get the measuring tape out and see, you know, you may be a quarter inch. Derek is like a fireball. He is. And so every time him and Buddy will get fighting about the setup, Buddy would pull that on him.

He's what are you talking about, boy, your eyes too close. That's classic. Hey, Richie, let's go back to Daytona. That was too much of an epic race, not to unpack it a little bit. You kind of mentioned that you guys were just at peace to run second that day. But let's take it back a little bit more, maybe even to the week before. Like when you guys, were you optimistic going into that race? Like where did you think Derek could actually be in this thing?

Was he a top five, not the day of the race and maybe not in the practice? But I'm talking about maybe even in preseason testing or when you're building, when did you know you had a piece that could win this thing? You know, leading up to Daytona, like I said, Buddy Parrott was ultimate motivator. But we had run Pontiacs up to that point. And that was the first time that we had built. built, you know, the Chevrolet. But I don't think there was no fluke going down there that we knew we were going to run good.

Because, you know, first we went down and tested, we got the Hendrix engine. And we're like, man, we're going to win. We've got a Hendricks engine. So you go down at that point in Daytona, you could switch engines as many times as you want. And that whole winter, we worked hard at Keese on, we're going to build a better engine than Hendricks. and the other side of it, Buddy Parrott was really good at Speedway cars. So he went over and built the body. And I related to stuff we did at DEI with Tony and the guys that we had.

And we built, Buddy built that body with the G-boys. I mean, the G-boys in the days were like, you know, if you had that, man, you had it. And the G-boys really worked hard on that car for. buddy and because they they were with hendricks and then they were went back on their own and they built this car for us so buddy said man we've got the best speedway body down here we're gonna whoop everybody so we felt really good about our car and um so we went down there we were fast so i kept telling buddy i said any way we can put our engine in he goes why we've got a hendricks engine in.

But he also thought the world of Keith and knew how hard we worked and we pulled it out. We put our motor in and it was faster. And buddy goes, well, you think this thing's going to live about it? Because we did have some trouble the year before. They were expired? They were. We had trouble with them. I said, well, I feel really good about our Speedway stuff.

I worked really hard on reliability this off season. So we put it in and it was better. and I remember Randy Doorton coming over and he's like You guys change motors? I'm like yeah He goes That one seems faster And it was like the night before qualifying

But he goes yeah we're going to leave it in Qualify and run the 150s And we qualified good and ran good in the 150s Would you qualify? I think we qualified And for us I mean, I think we're top 10 Top 12. Yep.

And then ran good. I think we finished top five in the 150s. So we're like, he goes, all right, we're going to run it. And so we brought it back, like I said, either swapped heads of freshen the heads up and decided to race it. And story goes, because I, you know, I was still at Woodcom's working for Keith,

Randy never told Rick that we were running our own. So Rick came over. That's his motor. So he thought that all through the race. And come over and graduated us after. So he really thought we wanted to race with his engine. When did he find out?

It was like a couple weeks later, or a week later, after all the hoopla, and it was kind of, you know. But he wasn't happening. Wasn't happy about it that, you know, because he didn't know, I guess. But it was probably six months later or something, you know, they wanted to run that engine at HMS. They wanted to dino it? Dino it.

Yeah. You know, that came down from Rick. He wanted to know what's up. Yeah. Yeah. So, Kese, and you can dino it. I'm good with it. I got two more just like it.

I'll send them over. his the bill. Ah. So he sold them to him. He sold them to them? Yeah, he sold it. Before he di-oed or after he di-noed? He said, if you want to dino him, you can buy him.

Oh, shit. I say before he dinoed, I mean, because you don't let somebody else take your motor over there, do you? I mean, now they do it. Okay. Wow, that's so interesting. So Keith said, you know, because Keith and Randy had a little part. They were competitive, right? They were very competitive.

Okay. Simple and rivalry. Yeah. Wow. See, that's the gold stuff that you just don't know about that 1990 Daytona 500. If there was competition between the two of them, was Keith not concerned with sort of maintaining that advantage? I think Keith knew at that point that it was going to get.

Bob was probably going to get all Hendricks engines. And by then it was like. Was Keith or y'all doing anyone else's motors? At that point, he was just doing Whitcomb at that point. Yeah. Some of our listeners might not know this, but our friends at Lionel Racing, the official diacast of NASCAR, have an entire line of cars and haulers that you can find on the toy aisle at a store near you.

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You'll find out everything you need to know there, and be sure to also visit lionelauthentics.com. Start that collection now, or add to the one you already got. So what was the reason why you would leave Whitcomb's? Is Wickham's deal kind of crumbling or grind into a halt? Are you seeing that yet, or did you just have a better opportunity? somewhere before that all went down. Because the Wickham deal, from what I remember, I mean, after 1990, it wasn't around that

much longer. No. You know? It was Buddy Parrot and him and Derek's falling out got pretty big. What happened? And a lot of it was Derek wanted to have a lot more input on the cars. And, you know, being friends with Derek, we're still friends. I think Derek regrets that now.

Yeah. And wanted to bring some more guys over from his old crew, the Dave Fuge team. And buddy just didn't want that. And so they had a falling out, and they made a change at crew chief. Wow. And that was definitely a lot of us that were there, didn't agree with that. Who was the crew chief? They brought in.

They brought in... I forget who it was. Gosh. He was at Kelly Arboros. Doug. Doug Williams. Yeah, Doug Williams. Was it Doug Williams?

Yeah, it was Doug Williams. Oh, me, so Doug Williams and had a son named Scotty. Yep. And me and Scotty and Mike Wickham ran around the track all the time. I got a video on my phone of us three joking around being kids, you know. And I forgot what Doug went there. Yeah.

So before we get off the Whitcomb deal, I got to remember. Because like you and Mike, you were friends. We were. And I remember we'd all, you know, that crew was so tight. And because we were like the little team that could. Like bad news bears. So we'd always go to these racetracks. And we'd go go kart racing all the time.

We'd always do stuff. Together. And like I remember, Mikey bringing this kid by, and my wife's here today with me, and we were talking about it earlier, that he brought this kid to the go-kart deal at Watkins Glen. He didn't have no money. Never did.

Kind of puny. He borrowed money from us to go-kart racing. So with interest now, I said, you came to collect. But my sister was, Laurie that worked with you guys and she has a picture of like this my head's in, he's got my head in this guillotine.

She's got this old picture of us that she's had forever. Holy cow. We were laughing about it. And we were at, we're at Watkins Glen with us, me, you, Mikey, all of us from that race. Oh my God. In 1990. Was that a Mikey story that you wrote down on there

that you wanted to remind yourself? Yeah. Have you already said it? Nope. Oh, you saving it? Yeah. I mean, I'm ready.

I want to hear it because like this is going back to those days. I'd love to see that picture. Yeah. I would. I remember going to the go-car. If there was a pay-to-ride go-kart track in town, there was usually, we were going to find our way there. Everybody in the industry, you know, they'd go eat dinner and then they'd go, everybody would, you know, you'd run into so many people in the garage at the go-car track. Just wanting to frame and bam a little bit.

I remember, and I don't know if you're still on the team, y'all had laptops and engineers and so forth before a lot of teams, especially dads. Dad's team was, the RCR culture was short track racers and we know how to do everything. And you guys and some other teams were some of the first teams to really like lean into data and information and, and learning that from the car and taking that into account on the decisions you make. And so I'm with, we're at Michigan, and me and Mike are running around, having fun,

and we get to the racetrack, and he's like, you're going to get on top of the truck, and watch some practice. Practice is happening. I'm like, yeah. So me and him get up there, and we're standing up on top of the hauler or the tin hauler, and there's a couple, there's a laptop, and it's on this little flat, right in the corner of the railing, right? And practice either ends or y'all's car comes into the garage and everybody on top of the trailer gets down.

And so me and Mikeers stand up there and looking around and I hit that freaking laptop with my elbow and it went off the top of the truck and hit the ground between the haulers. And I was like, I today, even today, I feel nauseous about that because the laptop back then. Oh, yeah. Not many people were walking around laptops.

No, Richie, I think he owes you more than just go-car money. And I don't know who that was or what was on it. It damn sure didn't work from that moment on. No, it fell off the all. I mean, I'm in, and I not only took out my man's laptop, but whatever progress, whatever they were learning about the car, whatever they were trying to figure out, whatever was involved in that laptop that day was,

that was the end of it for that weekend. Do you remember that? That had been Steve Peterson's laptop. I bet it was. Is he still looking for it? You know, what's funny is that we had Slugger in here just a few weeks ago. And Dale Jr. wreaked havoc on his toolbox that he just now admitted to and Slugger. They wasn't no hide in this laptop story, though.

No, no, I guess not. But I'm just saying apparently he was a little destructive as a kid, right? I mean, like, keep him off the day. We were destructive. We were. We were in, we were always in the way. We were always, you know, eating all. the canyon

eating Rees's peanut butter Yeah tearing up everything. We were in their hauler eating all the

Recy cups we were over it you know when Doug was working for Kell Yarborough or Dick Trickle driving that 66

car we were always wearing Dick trickle out and bugging him to death I never talked to Derek Cote much we didn't hang around

y'all's holler too much but I mean maybe we did I don't remember a whole lot but man I felt like a freaking idiot

when I knocked that laptop off I mean I'm only 16 years old. But I thought my ass was in big damn trouble, especially when dad finds out. Did he? I don't remember. You would have remembered it. I bet he didn't. It must have not been too profound because Richie doesn't seem to remember.

No, I don't remember it. I can't believe it because I imagine, who's ever it was was probably like, you know, hey everybody, you won't believe this shit. My freaking laptop's destroyed. This is why, you know. But anyhow, we had a lot of fun. And I was really, not to get off on my own story, but I was really disappointed when Mike's team didn't, when Bob's team went away. Because, man, Mike was my buddy.

He was such a good kid. He was. Fun to be around. He was more mature than his age. And I really enjoyed being around him. And I'm glad we're still, you know, friends today and still talk today. And he's done really well for himself and his family. turned out to be a great family man and businessman.

I just still admire him today. So, you know, the Wickham deal, how do you get out of that? Like, how do you leave that team? After Buddy left, it was starting to go downhill. And we were, we started our own engine shop. Stop getting engines from Hendricks. They hired one of Derek's friends from the West Coast, Lloyd McClary

and we were working night and day and it got to be man I don't know if I enjoy the engine side of this as much not that I didn't mind working but it was it was

weren't having much success really and was at the racetrack one day and Buddy Parrott was there and he was getting his new dig he was over there with Jeff Burton and the 99 car. Great deal.

Great deal. And he's like, man, you ought to come over here. He's going to have to work on a Ford, though, where the distributors at the front. I was like, man, I never had worked on a Ford. Distributors in our own end. So I was. Is that right, though? Yeah.

That was distinction. So I always stayed good friends with Randy, Dorton. And he said, well, I got a deal. If you're going to leave, once you come work for me. He said, but it's not going to start to next year.

And it was the middle of season. And he said, I can't talk about it yet, but it's going to be a really good deal. And it was Joe Gibbs deal. Yep. Interstate batteries, Dale Jarrett.

Yep. So. So that was the deal that was coming. Man. And you end up going over there. Now we know that that was the other Daytona 500, that dad was supposed to win. Yep.

And you're to blame for that one, too. So, man, you know, Daddy's car was not handling really good that day. I remember going into turn three. He was out of shape, and he chased it at the top of the racetrack because he was going to wreck if he didn't, and the 18 goes right by. But y'all were fast. You know, y'all were driving right up on the back end, everybody going through that little pack there at the end of the race.

So was that as rewarding of a win as? the one with Derek Cope and Buddy in 90? I think they were all rewarding, but for different reasons? 1990 was just such a tight-knit group, and the effort we put in it was so, I mean, it was so special. Yeah. So did Rick like building motors for other teams that won races that he wanted to win?

No. I mean, it changed over time, you know, with Rick. But I think that one was so tough because we were just starting to lease engines to other teams at a bigger magnitude at Hendricks. But I think that one was probably one of the tougher ones working at Hendricks because Ray was so competitive. Yeah, Ray Everham. And it was, man, he would beat on Jeff. Like, we can't do this. And that was probably the start of...

He beat on Jeff. Gordon. About... About... You got to get with Rick. We can't lease engines. Oh, okay. And it was really, you know, that time frame.

So you're an HMS employee working on the property. Yep. But also, you're the guy that helped the other person. people beat us. Yep. So that was, that must have been a bit of a difficult position to be in. It really was.

Jimmy Johnson was the manager, the old, you know, the older Jimmy Johnson about the driver. Yep, yep. And it was, I mean, because we ran really good with Dale Jarrett.

Yep. Yeah, you not only won the Daytona 500, but he was a, he was competitive week in, week out for, you know, races and wins. I mean,

second year, we were battling with your dad and Mark Martin for the championship and it was definitely something the 24 bunch didn't like and it came down to I mean that's why Joe started

his engine shop and there was talk he was going to take some of us with him so that's how I got moved to the five they made sure you weren't leaving so they put you on Terry Lebonny's car.

Yep. And you're building, you're building motors for Terry, specifically? Jeff Andrews and I, I got, went to the five. And we were, we were, I was just on, I was on the road with the five. Tuning. Tuning. Yep. And what was your responsibility during a week?

Working with Jeff on. All motors. Yeah, all motors. Yeah. How do you not try to do a little extra for the five car as, you know, when you're working, I'm sure you've got an easy answer for this, but for people who don't understand it, myself included, you're working in an engine shop building motors for the entire organization, but you go tune on the five car and when that car wins, you go to Victory Lane. So how do you not,

like this carburetor's a little better? At that time, I was only working with Jeff on the five. Like me and Jeff were building for the five. I would help him. Y'all didn't build motor for anybody. Nobody else. Okay, okay. So was there, so each car had its own set of engine builders. Yep. And how did that not get difficult at times? I think that's... Again, you know, you're talking about Ray being competitive.

You guys go out and win a championship in 96. Yep. Was that just, you know, did Ray... Was the engine... Was there any competition amongst the guys building the motors individually? It was, and I think that's why they changed that in 97, where they started building the engine... pool.

Yeah, yeah. You're going to build 15 motors and everybody come and get one. Yeah. Interesting. You know, something else I don't understand if I might back up just a second is that one would think that if you're leasing out motors to the competition and they're winning, you know, the people that wouldn't know anybody would just say, well, then there must be a reason and it must be the paycheck.

But if Rick Hendrick also didn't like it, you would think that whose idea was it and how did it stay? Rick Hendrick didn't like it. Everingham didn't like it. Jimmy Johnson, the manager. Was it his idea? I mean, because it must have made great business sense, as the assumption. But I'm just thinking it also came at a competitive disadvantage. Yeah.

And I think that's why they made the big change in 97. Is it when, and that's why I left, to be truthful, Hendricks, it was in 90, you know, the, in 97 they came to me. I was coming off the road. And they said, you know, we're going to make you the head engine build a five car for Terry because Jeff Andrews was getting promoted. Okay. And I'm like, all right, love Terry. Love working Terry Labani. He's an awesome guy.

And so the middle of the 97, they said, we're going to start this pool where everybody just builds engines. We're not going to have, you know, no one on the 5-24. And I'm like, man, I was on the road, came off, I built all the qualifying. They started a new deal where you built qualifying engines. And they had another guy worked under me, Kevin Weber. We built all the qualifiers for all the cars. And they put me back on the road for Terry. Terry won me come back on the road.

So I was doing qualifying engines. and tune in for Terry. And Jeff came into me, Andrews. He said, hey, they're going to promote me, move me up, and we're going to start this pool where everybody builds engines, and then they just pick the best ones by the car, the highest in the points. And then the rest of them would just be given out to all the teams.

I said, all right. I said, man, I just feel cheated. You know, I wanted to be Terry's engine builder. You liked your deal. I like my deal. So we're at Talladega October race, and everybody was bench racing. And Dale Senior was there and Ty. And Ty said, hey, we got, we're starting another deal.

How many, we got 19 guys now or 20 when you, how many more do we need to start another deal? And I said, it was me and Jeff Andrews. And we said, probably four. And your dad pointed out, so he goes, well, this too. And Ty said, would you guys mind, would you be interested coming over and talk to us? And I thought for me now, like, no. No, even though you were not happy with the way these things going?

And I said, no. And Ty said, why not? I said, man, I've been next to that guy, garage my whole life. I don't even like him. Dale Earnhardt. Yeah. I'm like, man, you know, he's been my competitor. Right.

Going all the way back to the 80s. And then we went back to the shop and we were talking about this deal. You know, me and Jeff Andrews were talking about deal, how it's going to be laid out. And Jeff goes, man, you really don't. don't like this deal, I might know. I said, I'm going to call Ty. So we called Ty, we went over. Oh, sorry. So you're looking at the HMS deal. Yeah, HMS deal. And you're telling him, man, you know, I just ain't feeling it. I ain't feeling it. So you decided then in that moment, man, I might call Ty, learn a little bit more about this. Yeah, I want to ride over there.

Let me ask you a question. We know that Jeff Andrews has had a great life. Yep. He is in a massive position on HMS. He's a, he's one of the best dudes that I I've ever met. Awesome. Great person. He was asked, and he never considered it. To go to D.I. He was pointed at, right?

Dad was like, here, you two, you guys are there. But Jeff was never considering it. He was 100% plugged in to HMS, I'm asking. Oh, no, we both came over. Both of y'all came over? He did consider it. Really? Yeah.

I don't know that. Yeah, well, he was, he still had a year left on his contract. And I didn't. So we both. But you both go over there. We both, yeah, we both stopped by Target or Walmart or whatever. Change shirts. Change shirts.

And Jeff was probably only halfway. Right. Consider it. Yeah. Because Jeff had a really good opportunity. Yes. ahead of him. Right.

You know, he was going to. Randy was moving up to take a lot higher position, and Jeff was moving into a really good position. And so he went and talked to Randy and Rick, and they said, hey, here's a path forward for you. And he called me. He was going to the banquet, and he said, man, I can't do it. And I'm like, man, I understand.

I want to do it. He said, man, he said, I understand, but we got this. You know, you ought to reconsider. And I'm like, so I went and talked to Randy for about two hours, you know. Randy was a hard guy to say no to. Randy Dorton. And, but I had my, especially after spending time with your dad. So talk about that.

Yeah. We didn't know what this meeting. What the hell was this meeting? Yeah. It was, you know, spent time. with Mark I. You didn't like him. You weren't a big Earnhardt fan at all.

I would say probably two coolest meetings I had with your dad was that one with him and Ty. And I loved working with Ty too. I mean, Ty was in meeting with Ty. He's a hard guy saying no to you. He's really good negotiated. But your dad was, it was a trip around the farm. You know, and he's like, he had, and I tell people they say, what do you think about? working for Rick and working for Big E.

I mean, there are a lot of like in a lot of ways because they know the next 10 years. And I tell people that all the time with like working for Rick, Richard, and your dad. But your dad had 10 years planned out. I mean, the engine shop, where he was going. And when he talked about what the future looked like, he knew it. It was amazing what he could lay out for you.

and there was no saying no to him. And it wasn't from intimidation, and it was how much he had planned out. And, I mean, he pretty much told me the first night, and I know what you're going to do for me and we're going. It was just really special, his vision. And we talked about things, and, you know, from plate racing to how,

he was going to build a speedaway program. I mean, he just knew where he was going. And so you left there pretty confident what you wanted to do. Yeah. No question. And so what year is this? 99. This was the end of 97.

So you're coming over to DEI. Because they're going to go cup racing, I guess, right? And parks going cup racing in the one car. Yeah. Well, let's see. I talked to him. Now, this was 98. Yeah.

So you're getting ready to start the eight car. Yeah. I'm going to run five races. Yep. And that's the other deal they're talking about, starting up. Oh, okay. I misunderstood that then. So the new, the deal that they referenced.

They needed four guys for it. Was the eight, not the one. Yeah, the one's going. One's running. One's running already. Got it. Yeah. And so.

They would just moving into the, big shop, the engine shop. The car shop was already in there. That is well in advance. If you're talking about 98, I mean, you didn't even hardly know you were getting the Bush Series right at the time and then you get that, you win the championship. But if what you're saying is right, then obviously he was looking in advance. He knew that there was a cup path that he was going to put Dale Jr. in.

He was just winning, going to win his second Xfinity championship. In 99. Okay. We're going into 99, though, and you're feeling some buyer's remorse. You're feeling like you want to go back to HMS. So in the spring of 99, this second deal that's the Bud 18 is in the middle of their five races they're going to run that year in the Cupside. I'm finishing up my Xfinity career full-time, going full-time next year in the Cups series. what was wrong?

Why did you want to go back? All right, everybody. So we're going to end the conversation right there. And there's a good reason for this. The discussion with Richie is a very long, in-depth one, right? Right. And there's parts, obviously, that we have not gotten to yet. Right.

And it needs enough room to breathe. Yes, it does. And it needs some space to live. So what we're going to do for our Thursday show is bring you part two. of the Richie Gilmore conversation. And obviously we're going to dive into DEI in all those years. And I'm really looking forward to that. So I hope you enjoyed this first half with Richie Gilmore.

He's an incredible dude. And tomorrow on the Dale Jr. Download, part two with Richie Gilmore. 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 to come back. I 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. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.