The Dale Jr. Download - 462 - Richie Gilmore (Part 2) - The DEI Days

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

In the dramatic conclusion of their conversation, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis talk to longtime NASCAR engine builder Richie Gilmore about his time at Dale Earnhardt Inc. Richie recounts the time at Talladega when he was approached by Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Ty Norris about coming to work at DEI, heading up the engine program for Dale Jr.’s imminent Cup debut. Once there though, Richie realized the grass is always greener on the other side, and work environment and disorganization almost sent him packing back to Hendrick Motorsports. It was then that he had an unforgettable meeting with Dale Sr. that would solidify his place at the organization for years to come.Dale Jr. and Richie have a vulnerable exchange about the fallout at DEI and the responsibility they felt for the way things unfolded. Richie talked about the transition from running the engine shop to running the team’s day-to-day operation when he was promoted to Vice President of Competition after Norris’ departure. Richie also gives listeners some insight into the 2020 merging of Richard Childress Racing and HMS’ engine-building efforts and the effect it has had on Chevrolet’s NASCAR efforts. 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.

What do you think? Didn't get them? I mean, of all things to say. What? Family picnic sometimes. You get you more than just to create a salary. Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh my God, that is hilarious.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. It is show three for the week, Thursday, June 15th. We promised the second half of the Richie Gilmore conversation, Mike. and we are, we're going to have more of that conversation coming right up. Part one was really incredible. Richie come into the Bojangles studio and told us all about how he got involved in racing, which was pretty interesting to me.

I never sat down with a guy after all these years with him, working with him to learn that part of his life. But it was cool to kind of get to a point to where we could break the interview. And there's just so much more that we need to talk about with, Richie, the DEI days and all of that, and especially the motor, you know, this engine that helped me win so many races, so many important races. I want to discuss that with Richie, and we're going to get to do that today. Yeah, listen, I think you and I came in, not really want to dive deep into the management of the Dail and Hart Incorporated years, but the conversation naturally went

there, and I think that you and Richie both sets of really profound things, and I think that the listeners are really going to, you know, enjoy and appreciate the candor that goes on at this table. So it is a necessary thing to have a second ally segment. This is part two of the Richie Gilmore interview. So you're coming over to DEI. Because they're going to go cup racing, I guess, right? Yeah. Parks going cup racing in the one car. Yeah.

Well, let's see. I talked to him. Now, this was 98. Yeah. So 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. Was the eight, not the one. Yes. Yeah, the one's going.

One is already. One's running. One's running already. Got it. And so. They were 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 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. Yeah. 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 cup side. 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? I got there and

the end of 80, let's see 98 and we were we were testing with the one car went testing and which worked out good I mean my main deal there

I started building carburetors and going testing with Steve and Steve Park and he's like man it was awesome and even built the carburetor for your dad, which then they said, okay, you and Bob Burrum

are going to build eight-car engines. So that basically went through Christmas into New Year's, and I got working on just your stuff, me and Bob, and I was like, man, I'm a very much a perfectionist and like systems in place. And Mark Isla was in charge.

And Mark and I are good friends now. And, you know, he works over at Hendricks. But he was going through a lot of stuff to, you know, not to blame him for everything was going wrong at the time. But he was going through a lot of stuff personal in his life. And he had just come off running him in Jim and Gamash, running a business. They built high-performance boat engines

And got thrown into this cup deal And they had a half-hour lunch for all the guys And you couldn't even go to somewhere and eat You know, at that point in a half hour Yeah And all the guys were like miserable in the engine shop And They were all like, man, a lot of them were going to leave

and I was like, man, I just came off a place winning championships and ran like a clock. So I was like, man, this ain't for me. What did I get myself into? I liked the idea of building engines for you. But engines were failing, you know, the ones for the one car. And I was trying to have. help, but I didn't want my help.

So I went to Ty and I'm like, man, I don't know if I can help you. So I said, I call Randy and Randy said, man, we'd love to have you back. Yeah. Just give them a notice and we'll work it out. So I went in until Ty said, man, I got to give you my notice. This ain't working out. And I said, I've never quit a job. It was just really bothering me.

Was this in the off season? This was in April. Oh, this is the, just kind of got the season going. Just got it going. And I've never left a team during the season. Okay. And we're coming up on the first eight-car race in Charlotte. Holy crap.

In May, at the end of May. Yeah. That's right. We count down to EDA. Yeah, we had it. Everybody was feeling the pressure at that particular time of year. So I'm like, man. and I said, I ain't feeling good about this.

So, so he caught, he said, I'm going to tell Big E. And so he was in Bristol. At the race track. And I'm like, this ain't going to be good. And I was living down Brawley School Road, you know. And we've been working like 1 o'clock every morning. You know, it didn't have a cell phone. At that point, I don't think I had one.

So I think I got a call. I think he called me at my house. And Brawley School Road, it took you 45 minutes to get down. Sure. At that point, he calls me, and he said, hey, meet me at the shop in 30 minutes. How's he going to do that? So he helicopters back from Bristol. So I meet him at the shop.

I pull in, and he had that, remember that orange painted truck? He had just got it, a brand new truck, and he had that big St. Bernard in the back with a shotgun and a 12-pack of beer. Let me say, just to set the scene here. Orange truck, St. Bernard's shotgun and beer. Yeah. God Almighty, I'm scared for you. And he just looks at me and he says, get in. And that tone, like, get in.

What that? I'm like, all right, he's going to shoot me and bury me out back. So I get in, we ride around the farm and he's like, man, tell me, why don't want to leave me? So I told him, I really don't, but, you know, this is what's going on. And I didn't throw a mark under the bus, but I just said, it's a different atmosphere. And he said, listen, I've been known this has been going on for a couple months. He said, I apologize. And I should have made a change earlier.

but he said I got some things I'm working on and I'm looking at somebody come in and take over the engine shop can you give me a month and I'm like well he said I'll talk to Randy tomorrow I'll work it out okay

whatever you need but this was like two hours driving around out back scared drinking beer you know I probably drank more beer and I'm two hours and I had in a long time. Well, he's going to shoot you. I might as well get a cross.

Yeah, I was scared of death. But it was great talk, you know, and I'm like, so I'm thinking I'm going to work, you know, a couple more weeks, three weeks, whatever he needs, and go back. So next day, or Monday, I come in, well, everybody's working normal. About 10.30, I'm working,

because I'm the only one, me and Bob building, engines for him to go to Charlotte and getting the engine ready. And all of a sudden I look around, there's nobody in the engine shop. They're all gone. So then I think Steve Eel come up and said, hey, you need to go upstairs for having a meeting. So I go upstairs and Biggie and Ty and Don Hawk were talking to the engine group. And he said, hey, we just let Mark. go.

I just told everybody you had taken over. Engine shop. Didn't ask me. Didn't talk to me about that. Damn. Didn't say a word. And he looked at his

watch, said, hey, I'm, I got to go to Napa for appearance. I'll be back tonight, about 7.30. We'll talk about it then. We walked back down, me, Steve Mill,

Hawk, and Tie into the trophy room. And he said, hey, you'll be. be all right. Then left and then Steve Mille said, hey, you know, everybody was good with it. And he said he's going to come back to 7.30 to talk to you about it. I walked back downstairs and they started running the dino and engine for that week, we started scuffing pistons on the dino. It was like the worst week. I mean, everything we did was...

That's not a good thing, Mike. Scuff and pistons was going bad. Yeah. So everybody's like, it was unreal. It was like a bad week, but it was a good week. It bonded everybody together. Because a week before that, I don't know if you remember, but Steve wrecked it. What really let it off, I think, why I wanted to leave.

We blew a freeze plug out, and I wanted to pin all the blocks to freeze plugs in, because of what we did at Hendricks, and Mark disagreed. He didn't want to do it. And we blew a freeze plug out going in the corner at Martinsville and Steve wrecked.

And I remember your dad coming over after the race. Looking at me like, hey, what are you guys doing down there? Yeah. And I'm like, well, this is what we should be doing. But, you know, I'm not in charge, you know, and didn't want to throw Mark in,

but I said, we got some stuff to work on. And then got back Monday and Mark's like, we ain't doing that. And then we're getting ready to go to Texas. And I'm like, we wreck a freeze plug there. We're going to hurt Steve again.

So that was all the stuff we were up against. But we started fixing stuff. And I mean, everybody there chipped in. And we had a really good group of guys. Oh, yeah, but wait a second.

Nobody's yet asked you if you were on board for taking over the engine shop. I mean, I can't get past this here. In fact, It's almost like Dale Earnhardt has some sort of force-sensitive powers over everybody to tell them what they feel. And it's like everybody's good with it. Well, what about the one person that they're putting in charge?

Is anybody going to ask him? Yeah. So did you ever speak up for you? He came back that night. I think it was about 8 o'clock, 8.30. You know, and I was still there working. And he came in and he goes, hey, you good with this? Okay.

And I'm like, well, man. I give you some time to think about it. How nice of him. I was like, man, I've never run an engine shop or people. And he's like, I'll tell you what, if you agree to do it, I'll be in here every morning after I feed the cows, and I'll help you. And I'm like, all right. And he goes, we'll find somebody.

And I don't think he ever looked. But he said, listen, and employees hired me a plaque, got me a plaque later for Christmas. and what he said, and he said it to all the employees later, he said, you can hire good leaders, but he said the best leaders are born leaders. And they all bought me a plaque that said that. It was really cool. Damn, that's badass.

And I always tell people that that's probably the coolest thing anybody ever said to me in my life, especially to come from him. Powerful. Yeah. Actually, yeah. I will say, I've been racing in the Xfinity series and with some pretty good power.

But in the Xfinity series, you show up with the motor you're going to race. I'd never drove a qualifying motor before. And we went to Charlotte for the May race, my very first race ever. You were nervous wreck. And I told, I think I told you this, when we put that motor in for qualifying, it was like mashing fast forward on the VCR. A lot of people don't know the VCR this is. Well, we do.

We're old enough. But I'm going to tell you right now, there was a lot of things, there's so many adjustments you can make on a race car, and it's just so subtle. You've got to really. And sometimes it's placebo. you don't know if you're really feeling it or not. But man, when we put in our qualifying motors, it was, it was,

it felt like you were literally going 10 mile an hour faster at the end of the straight away. And, um, they used to, I used to, I used to love talking to them about it because they're like, you know,

it's only got, you know, it's only got a dozen laps for it's going to explode, you know, it's like, that's the way it made you feel. Like, they knew how to make that motor just run as f***ing good as it could.

Yeah. But it, was only going to do it for that amount of time that it needed to run. And it was so fascinating, man. I felt like, you know, I felt like I was getting like some inside knowledge, right, or something, some special that I'd never experienced before. And I'll be honest with you. I don't know that I, I don't know that, you know, there was only a little, there was only a little window of time in my life where, I know the sport changed a lot, but, God, Almighty, man, we'd put the damn qualifying motor in, and it was like, hang on.

This some of a bit is going to be going into the corner a lot faster. And it was fun to tell them, and Richie's face would light up, but he knew that's what it was going to do. But weren't you terrified, though, that qualifying, is it got closer? I was scared. I'll be honestly with you. I was never more scared in a race car than right before qualifying. And it was not so much about the car is going to go faster. It was just because that was the one moment where no one was on that racetrack with you.

And every person at that place was paying attention to what you were doing. And it was like, you know, when you're in a crowded room and everybody in that room is doing the same thing, if you fuck up or you don't do it just quite as good as you could have or maybe you just make a mistake, it's hardly noticed because everyone else in the room is doing what you're doing. but when you're the only one doing it and everybody else is watching you you're like man i got to hit this just right and if you don't everybody knows it if you don't there ain't no hide no excuses everybody saw it oh yeah i saw you screw up um so there was a lot of pressure let me ask you this because again i remember there being this huge marketing campaign um i think even budweiser made

special cans and all this stuff i mean like they gave it a name and so there was pressure i'm wondering did you guys in the engine shop feel that pressure as well I remember how much time we spent on the qualifier for Charlotte. Just because we had to make it, right? Yeah, we had to make it. They didn't have a spot. Oh, that's right. Of course.

I'm going to tell you, that motor, I mean, if I remember this correctly, that qualifying engine for that race was so different from my race motor. I remember when we put it in, because we went over in. tested and we were fast, really fast. And we knew what we had for a practice motor. And this thing was bad. And we go over and we put it in just, we only want to run a few laps with it.

And we go out there, we were like maybe eight in practice. And Biggie comes over and he looks in this window, he goes, what's wrong? you know, because we weren't quickest on the board. Jeez. I was talking about expectations. And he had just practice in Exfinity, you know. And Junior looks out, and I was right next to him, and he looks over and he goes, man, have you ever seen that show Cops?

When they show the video cam how fast some things are going, he goes, that was me going on the backstress. Give me a minute. And I just like, hell yeah. To this day. The way his brain works, right? Haven't you ever seen that show? Cops, that? That is amazing.

Holy crap. Yeah. You know, that's a good point that you guys weren't even in the race. You had to qualify in. And there's so much marketing that it reminded me, remember that Dan versus Dave Olympic campaign that I don't know if it was McDonald's or whatever, but like they had the two athletes, like the best athletes in the world? and then one of them didn't even make the Olympics.

I remember that. Yeah. Yeah, they put all that pressure and build up. Millions and millions of dollars all put into this, and one of them didn't even qualify for the Olympic team. Yeah. Yeah. That countdown to you today was very nauseating.

I even get nauseous thinking about it now, but it was, it was, I mean, I wasn't quite as, I wasn't even that uncomfortable as I am today, right, about things like that. But, you know, we were kind of like, man, we're living a life. It was wild, right? this is freaking awesome. But it was, once we got up on, it's like walking up to a cliff.

Oh, this ain't nothing. We're good. You get up there and you look down and you're like, holy shit. This is, we're high up. That was like race day was looking off the edge of that cliff going, holy shit.

Yeah, I guess it's nothing like having the calming, soothing, peaceful voice of Tony Uri Senior reminding you that you ain't crap if you don't go turn a certain time. You know driving. A son of a fucking you. Yeah.

All right, so then y'all qualified and made the first race. Then what happened, Richie? After that. Then we were going to Richmond, I think it was, and we were down in the old shop, the lower shop, chicken coop shop. Oh. And we got down there and we built the motor and we put it in. And we had such high expectations because Charlotte,

we put the engine and it didn't run as good as we. thought chassis dino outside eating pizza and pops is like man this thing I should have run better and I said yeah it ran good on the dino so about that time big E pulls in what are you all talking about I said man this thing don't chassis dino like we thought it would pull it out it's probably 8 o'clock at night night full we're going to leave so we pull it out he said you got another good one I said yeah we got another good one we might even got the Charlotte motor and changed manifolds and put it in so all the guys were down there were all like pumped up you know changing motors and so we changed motors and ran good and this one of my one of my probably one of the defining moments where I understood like you said the nervous side of Big E2 so he tells me he He says, listen, because when you go to Richmond, it's an impound race, and you qualify,

and then you're in pound so you don't have any more practice. And they were running the Xfinity race, so they were going back and forth. So he says, you're my, you know, you got to come talk to me and keep me posted. If we're going to make this race or not. I'm like, all right. So I go over, we run like five laps. And we're like third. So Tony said, all right, go to the exfine garage.

We're not going to practice anymore. So I go over and tell Big E, you know, because if he sees us not practicing, he's like, you're practicing. So I go over, and he's like 30th, Big E, I'm practicing. So I walked back to the three truck, and Danny Lawrence is standing there. I've known Danny forever. I said, hey, see Big E. he said yeah he's up in the lounge so I'm going to go tell him you know we're not practicing

because we're fast and they're going to go back to the Xfinity side so I walk up into the three-holler and he you know remind him he told me to come tell him you know so I walk up in the three-holler and he said well What are you doing? I said, I just going to come tell you, and I get it half out, and he's like, get the hell out of my trailer. So I'm like, you know, a little bit of the Yankee comes out of me. I'm like, I walk out, I go back over to our car. I'm just in the vows, getting all my stuff done because it's an impound race.

He comes walking over about 45 minutes later wanting to talk to me. I ain't going to talk to him. Yeah. Hell with him, you know. I don't give a shit. So he's like trying to talk to me, be nice. Nope. I ain't talking to him.

What are you just not even responding? You just ignoring him, a silent treatment? I got my shit to do, you know. So he's like, you know, poking me, trying to be friends. I'm like, no. So he, we end up, you know, we go right in the race, you know. So he comes in Monday morning. What the hell is wrong with you?

I said nothing he said man I was trying to talk to you a night and you wouldn't talk to me I said man I come over your trailer and you told me to get the hell out he said man that I was doing my job that's my job when I'm in the three car haul that I'm the three car driver

I said you don't remember telling telling me to come tell you how we were in practice you didn't want to miss that race oh yeah he said I did tell you He said, but you can't walk up in the three-haul, Richie. You've got to get them to come.

Tell me to come to the back. I said, I get it. I was like, man, he's a three-car. Yeah, and there was optics involved that he was probably paying attention to, yeah. Driver. And I said, you know, that's how when he puts that damn fire suit on, he's that guy. Yeah.

That's interesting. And I use that. I tell a lot of guys that, you know, they were like, how was it working for Dale? I said, one thing about it,

he was probably the best boss I ever had. But with Thursday, he walked down that hallway with the cowboy boots on. He was that guy. He was a three-car driver. Yeah.

And he had that switch. And they said, well, you really? wouldn't pay him any attention. I was like, no, I gave it right back to him. And I said, that's a respect we had. But when he came in Monday morning, he was like, damn, he liked that.

I gave it right back to him. Yeah. Listen, this is the perfect time then. I don't want to jump around, but you have a story from 2001, though, where Dale was walking in the DEI shop. I'm looking at these notes about stretch. Yeah.

And wasn't he wanted to look? Like, tell the story about what he was wanting to. And Stretch, I have to tell the whole story about them. Like we were talking about manifolds and heads. When I first went to work with Hendricks, Rich was a cylinder head manifold guy. And he just retired this year from ECR. So he's been with me 30-something years.

But he was the first guy every night, every morning, every night at D.E.I. Turn the lights on, turned them off. He was special. I mean, he did our manifold, salient heads. and they loved him in death. But he worked on our heads and our manifolds on all our plate winds. So we were working late one night, all right, 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night,

and getting ready to go down to Daytona. So we were doing some pretty interesting stuff to the manifolds. And Big E was just walking around, and we had some shop rags over the manifolds. and he was picking the shop rags up looking at the manifolds and as he was picking them up Rich was walking behind him covering him back up and Dale looked around and he goes

I ain't nobody in the shop but three of us what's he doing? I said covering him back up and he said why and I said you need to ask him he looked over stretch he said why are you covering this stuff back up and he said you don't drive for us competition hey it works both ways doesn't it that's right

you don't drive for us doesn't even mind that he's the owner of the thing right but uh i mean i always assumed that that was a you know a team almost as close to a teammate situation rCR and dei but that's a good story and both of those stories just suggest that there was there were boundaries yeah i guess there were boundaries right I would have assumed it was open door policies but I guess it wasn't necessarily

and I think that might have been just a respect factor right it was you know we worked together we had the RAD program oh yeah with Andy Petrie and Richard and D.E.I. All the notes was shared on the bodies and the wind tunnel data

but I think you know listen to Slugger the other day and Steve Mill we all shared the wind tunnel program, but I think even in our walls, that was probably one of my toughest challenge when I found out when I got put in charge to the car side,

to get to share the data just in the shops was, you know, guys, we need to race, but we don't need to race against each other. Was knocking the walls down within DEI was probably the toughest battle that I had to learn. Yeah, and I know we just, that's a, there's several years there between that you get put. What was your job title at that point?

I went from running the engine shop to the vice president, executive vice president of competition. Yeah, and did you want that job? No. How come you had to get put in that position? You know, I really enjoyed working with wood tie. and I think, you know, the tie in Teresa's relationship went bad. And he, so he leaves, and you basically filled that role. Yes.

So, you know, we've had a lot of people coming here from DEI, and we talked around and around and around about that time. And I sort of have, you know, I have some, you definitely, you know, we all do. I have some mixed feelings about it, right? Especially knowing what I know now about life and being a professional and being accountable and who I was back then and all the mistakes and missteps. I will say that I love hearing how much you enjoyed working with Ty. I always, you know, always felt like that you had really level head.

I can kind of see where you're coming from in terms of not really wanting to be in that position that you were put in to be the sort of the decider and the referee. But, you know, we have this great year in 2004. Me and Tony Sr. and Tony Jr. had a great year at least. You know, there was the rest of the company outside of that. We have a habit of just looking at it from my point of view as a drive. or the eight car. We had a great year, you know, and we get to homestead, and in about 48 hours, me and Tony Jr. and Tony Sr. went from a six-win team to not even talking. Couldn't even talk.

arguing any any communication between the one of us resulted in you know a bunch of you know just nastiness you know and I think it must have been broadcasts you know everything on the radio and it was just you know a bad deal we get into the I guess I don't remember if it was immediately after that or what but we I remember sitting down with you and going, I think I need to do something different. And I tell everybody, and I've said it on this show, I think my biggest mistake in my career was trying to think that I needed to be somewhere else or with someone else

than Tony Senior and Tony Jr. I don't know that you carry any responsibility yourself with what went on during all that time, but I don't think you should. You know, I felt like that for whatever reason in that moment, I thought I knew what I needed, and I was the last person that probably needed to make any of those type of decisions or influence any of that. Going Pete Rondo is a great man, very nice guy capable of doing a great job,

but he was putting in a difficult situation, and I wasn't mature enough to manage that. You know, 05 was a bit of a struggle for all of us, but I wasn't, you know, there's, I wasn't making the deal any better. I wasn't helping how things were going. But eventually I got, I regretted a decision and asked if we could get it all, you know, unpacked and put it all back together. And we tried.

You know, and the, you know, I don't know, I don't know, you know, the 07 season was a I don't even remember it all that much other than it being very frustrating there was a lot of issues

on and off the track but none of that had anything to do with you you know and I don't know where you are emotionally or mentally about all that part of your life I know that you know that took a toll on you and I don't know how I don't know how you feel about it but I don't know if you have

frustrations at me or toward me I know that you wouldn't ever you know we you're I know who you are and I know you wouldn't ever say a bad word about anybody but I want you to know man like I take a lot of responsibility for that period of time and being who I was and who I shouldn't who I should have been um I was driving for one of the best teams in the garage in 2004. We were winning races. We had one of the best sponsors. All the ingredients, the best, you know, everything was going well,

considering who we had lost and where we could have been. That company was kicking some ass. And I wasn't old enough and mature enough to see what I should have been doing or could have been doing to help us progress and continue on that path. you know and so I take a lot of responsibility for where the EI went from 2004 to 2007 and and I know that you do you you you you know we're a part of trying to keep us going in the right direction you know things things went where they went but they had for me man that had you know the decisions that I ultimately ended up making and going to drive for Rick were

rooted in other issues that I had, you know, outside of driving a race car. But, you know, we had some great times together. And I regret how that ended for both of us. But I will say that, you know, I don't, I really thought the world of you and appreciated how you handled not only the good times, but some of the tougher times. you're always a professional. I never ever, you know, in some of the worst times, you know, you learn who people really are

and you find out what's being said when you're not in the room, you know, and I can promise everybody that, you know, Ritchie Gilmore was as good and as true as anybody that I was dealing with during that period of time. I know probably not your fondest part of your career. I, you know, I really look back at it was we were dealt a bad hand. Nobody, nobody's seen it coming.

You know, my passion, my whole life has been engines. So when, you know, when Ty left, it was a tough deal for all of us because, you know, most days I went to lunch with Ty or Steve, Steve and Steve. probably you know one of my best friends in life you know is is what you know was experienced life and telling stories with Steve Meal and there's no better storyteller than Steve Meal yeah and probably one of my best friends still to this day is Steve Krisp is not a nice nicer guy than Steve Kris and having that time with them guys and even now I do business

and work would tie on a regular basis with track house. And we got a great relationship. But I think trying to run a company and still run the engine shop was the toughest side. I probably should have got more help on the engine side, you know, because trying to do that at night and not have the right help. And going up to ECR and taking that over and getting good help made me realize what I did wrong at DEI, because now I was surrounding myself up there with really good people. And we did, and you and I talked about it.

We try to get Bobby Hutchison to come help us and some good people like that. And that's the key to success. surround yourself with good people. You know, we had, you know, we moved Tony Sr. up and we had Steve Mill there. But at the unfortunate part of that was there was so much competition built into our company. And I think that goes way back to having your dad. He built competition into our management structure. which was okay when he was there.

Yeah. He was the sheriff. Yeah. But we needed more. The sheriff. Yeah, we need a sheriff there. And how I managed wasn't that way. I enjoyed a lot of, especially 2004.

Because you look at it after we lost your dad, everybody through 2004 pitched in. And, I mean, we, we, you look at it, we won more races than Hendricks, Joe Gibbs. We beat a lot of really, really good teams. And a lot of teams were worried about us, what we accomplished. You know, like you say, Pete Ronda was a really great guy, and I worked with him through RCR and Furniture Row. We just, Pete was, we throw him into a situation. and nobody can understand the pressure of the budcar. Yeah.

I mean, that is unbelievable pressure. And we looked at, you know, we looked at some really good crew chiefs for you, and we didn't pull the trigger on it. Definitely would have done things different. Who were some of the people that we looked at? Do you remember? I was trying to think of his name coming here this morning. He was Dale Jarrett's crew chief, and we even talked to.

to Dale and Dale told us not to get him. And he went on to beat Danny Hamlin's crew chief and won a bunch of races. Mike Ford? Mike Ford. Yeah. And it might have not worked out, but I think at the time, if we would have pulled the trigger on him, he would have been a better fit for us at the time. Yeah.

Because we needed somebody with experience. Because that would have, because I think the original lineup I had, I wanted to shake things up because I thought, you know, Bono was a really, really good crew chief for Martin and Xfinity, but we needed somebody more experience when Martin went to Cup, and I wanted to put Tony Jr. with Martin, and that was my first choice. I went to Tony Jr.'s house and talked about it, and he's like, man, you got to make sure Mono's good with that. And I really think that would have been the right move at the time, and I should have gone

more of my gut than what people's opinions were. Yeah. You say that you guys were just unable to pull the trigger, but there's also some things when you talk about wanting to hire good people. Were people not wanting to come to work there, or were you guys just paralyzed on the inside out, just being able to make these pretty big changes? You know, I had a lot of say on decisions,

day-to-day operations, but getting crew chiefs and getting things, like that. Offering salaries and so forth? Salaries. I look back at a lot of things. Like I tell Richard all the time up there, when he made me president

up at ECR, I would go to Richard and say, hey, I want to do that. He gave me the capability to spend $30 million over 15 years up there. I made the money for him. But if I need to buy something, We go sit down and talk about it, and he'll go, okay, Richard, pull the trigger.

And I'm like, whoa, what did you say? You know, you can make a decision. You didn't have anybody. You know, I had nobody to help me make a decision. And I look back at the times and read the emails that went back and forth between me and Kelly. I mean, I'm really grateful me and Kelly having the relationship we have now. but the money I held that I felt like I was held back on Junior and Kelly for a year at a time. You know, I was in charge of the company, but I wasn't in charge of the company where I could pay them what we owed them.

That weighs on you. When you owe somebody the money we owed them and couldn't pay them. but in the end of the day that's your job you know you're running a company because what happened when I went from running the engine shop to run the company within three months

we fired the marketing group you know everything underneath me got gone all of a sudden boom I was hiring new marketing people from somebody that never ran marketing to all this was gone You know, what I had left was Joe Hedrick, which was a big help. Steve Chris, which was a godsett. But everybody under them was gone.

So we're hiring new people. And then Teresa was gone. I mean, her and Taylor took a sabbatical for a year, which was, you know, you look back at it. She was a mother and a wife that lost, you know, he lost their dad. and their husband. And I think that was the part for me, like Junior says, you never, I don't say bad things about people. But I was left with all that would no say.

I couldn't make paint scheme decisions. I couldn't make. Yeah, everything had to go through the process. Everything had to go through a process. I was running a company and couldn't make decisions. You know, I forget, I forget exactly where we all were, and how all of those things were really playing out. And it never is easy.

But I try to, what I concentrate on, Junio, like you say, I always try to think about the positive things, went in all them Daytona 500s. So you taking me of the world, Terry. I mean, those are great things I would have never experienced. Yeah. But hold on. It feels like that you put a lot of responsibility on yourself for the failure to get Dale to resign it.

Do I am I reading that right? Oh, absolutely. But is it, if there's two people on the planet that would understand your situation and what your inability to be able to get these things done, wouldn't it been Dale and Kelly? Like, they would have understood that, right? I didn't think that that was your responsibility. Right. To do that. I know you wanted to get it done.

Which is admirable. I'm not saying that you should have felt better or we would have been different, but I'm just saying is that to Dale's point, man, that it feels bad that you would have put that on yourself because that would not have been how anybody else would have ever blamed you if that's how you felt. And it feels like that's what you're saying. I think probably the one thing that was toughest on me was at that time,

everybody looked at me, the employee-wise, as the guy that ran the whole company. because they never saw her. And I probably spent most of my time working on that to work with Dale Jr. and Kelly. I think I spent most of my time really. I don't think there was anybody on the planet besides a lawsuit that was going to get your name back. Oh. And I remember, yeah, we were trying to get my name back.

And I didn't have the rights to. And explain that. Yeah, the lights. But he probably knows more than I do. My likeness and my name, Dale Earnhardt Jr., didn't belong to me. And it belonged to Dad and Teresa. It belonged to their business, right, on the rights to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. And we wanted it, whether we stayed or not, we wanted it, we needed it.

It was my name. but you know it was it was something that they you know Teresa was not keen to agree to you know and when we left we ended up leaving with just Dale Jr. that's why the name on the roof rail was Dale Jr. Damn yeah good Lord yeah and then that would mean if you don't know your if you don't on the name then like every that there's no there's no royalty for a die cast there's none of that like everybody talks about like the amount of merchandise it would have moved through those early bud years but you didn't if you don't own your name you don't get that cut i'm assuming yeah i mean it was it was i don't know that i knew much about that Kelly did Kelly did right i just thought yeah

that makes sense i should own the rights to you know to my own name um i didn't know that that's why dale junior was the only name on the on the car that that's i did not know that that that's interesting. Wow. Well, we just, you know, we wanted to be, you know, we didn't want to rough, roughly any feathers or do any, you know, want to create any unnecessary problems. There are already a lot of, you know, frustrations on both sides. And we just tried to, I'm like, man, you know, I just want to go over here and do my thing and don't want to have any more problems. This is going to sound like a personal question. I'm sorry, Richie. Because I really don't want to go talk about the ugly stuff, but if you're, you're, you're, you're not. You're, you're

negotiating with Kelly? Are you the one negotiating with her on behalf of Dale? Whether it's the name or anything else? Anything contracts? I think me and Kelly made a lot of grounds on it and then and I feel like I can talk about this now a lot of times gone by and then Max got involved and then it went downhill. This was ultimately going to be the question is that what if you're negotiating with Kelly, then where do you go to, are you reporting this up to Teresa? Are you reporting this stuff? It feels like you might, if you don't have the power to make the decisions, you're the middleman then. You're just the arbitrator. Yeah. And I think it went, we were making some ground on it, but honestly, looking back at it, it would have ever, it was going to be tough to ever get it

done. Yeah. It was too many, too many hard feelings. from both sides. And I look back at it now, you know, after spending all that time on it, thinking, and I don't blame Max ever for it going bad because I think Max was thinking, I'm going to first fix this and then solve it, and it wasn't going to ever get fixed.

And that probably was some of my problem was I was thinking, I think me and Kelly probably had the right angle is we're going to work on this, me and Kelly, and leave them two out. And Max wanted to get us all in a room, and that's when it went bad. I do. I remember that. Family therapy, but you just don't know. I remember that meeting when we got in a room. What happened?

That was when it was not good. Who's in the room? me and Teresa having Teresa Oh Well no That was never going to end well I don't remember

I remember I remember a meeting When it was me And Me and Ty and Teresa Yes was after Ty Yeah so Ty and Ty

We shared that conversation with Ty here I was in there Yeah And we had a conversation There And she blamed Ty for You know

And so I bet you couldn't wait To go back to work on engines. I mean, you know, we're talking about, hey, here's an opportunity to go work on engines. You're like, where do I sign up? Yeah. But I think the two things that when I decide to go back, you know, when we put ECR together,

back together, you know, Teresa gave me a decision to stay with her and keep her in DEI or put the ECR together. and she was mad at me because me and Judy spent, I don't know, a couple hours with her and I was probably the one that talked to her instead of going to legal battle on the name that was the only shot what we had to maybe get a contract with you was just to sign the papers and I brought them to Michigan on your rights to get her to sign them papers. So that was probably strike one.

She didn't like that. No. And that was probably strike one for me. Then the other one was when I decided to do the ECR instead of stay and do the deal with Chip and her. Chip Gnesty. Yeah. Yep.

I got to ask you if we can step back just a minute and maybe away from the, the deep whatever the hell this is the deep conversation of the so I won four million plus dollars

with this one engine we won three of the four in a row at Talladega with it we won shootouts and qualifying races and

the July race at Daytona I believe, maybe. I don't know. This race was, this engine was a very special engine. So much so that, from what I was told, Tony Sr., Tony Jr., when Daytona or Talladega rolled a way around, they expected that motor to come cruising on into the shop for getting put into the primary car. And they would even insist on it if it wasn't the one that came, right?

There was ever a time when y'all would bring a different motor in there, and they'd come over and say, hey, where's 11? Where's our motor? Yeah. Right? That happened. That happened. Eventually, this engine was in the car on Sunday morning the day we won the fourth

Talladega race in a row, and y'all found some, you all found an issue with a freeze plug. Yep. There was concerns that it might not make it. You fixed the problem, but wasn't totally confident to leave it in there. We changed engines that morning and ended up going in the race. you take this engine back and it never raced again. Yeah. Why do you think that motor was so special?

That motor did a lot of things. And I'm sure there's been times in your career when you've had engines that just, you know, you build cars and some of them just turn better in the middle of the corner. They're the same damn car built on the same jig as all the other 10, but this one car is always better. I mean, is it that simple?

but what was it about that motor? Just every time we built it, and that was one of the, I think that was one of the first ones I built there at the I. And it was like every time we built it, it just was brand special. And, but it was, that was either the first and second one I built there. And we built it as an open engine and didn't run.

Not a plate motor. And it didn't run. I was like, wow. And we messed with cams on it, ran it on the dino bunch. It wouldn't run. And we're like, all right, we're going to turn this thing into a plate motor. Bam, thing ran really, really good. And it was like every time we built it, plate motor ran good.

Yeah, it was unstoppable. Yeah. Okay, but do you have a theory on what it's secret? What was the magic? Is it literally, is it just that simple as? you just happened to put the right intake with the right set of heads with the right block and all of that porting and all that flow and that air pump as you say just performed as perfectly as it could or because I mean you certainly changed a lot of this thing went through so many sets

of pistons in it's time I mean it's not it's got to be the main components I think you measure a lot of these blocks and you look at them and stuff and you know liftable and stuff like that are just lined up right. All the alignment of everything to take all the friction out of it are just right in it. We're talking measurements too small. Millions, yep. Yeah. And so do you ever try to recreate this motor?

Yeah, we did. We did a lot of stuff because we always would mention that thing. Try to find another one just like it. and we did what's funny is we we had that engine and the other engine was number 30 at michael won and uh and we never we only built that engine once and that engine was uh michael won it and we never built it again no kidding and uh because trace wanted to keep it in the museum so the motor goes stays in the car in a museum yeah and doesn't race again no she she wanted to keep it yeah because of that day Never got built again.

What do you, I connect you with super speedways. I connect you with the ability to build a motor that, as you say, pumps the air. And that's, you know, when you restrict the top end of that motor, that becomes even more critical. The ideas and theories that have been successful for you to set you apart from traditional or engine builders throughout the industry. Are those same, I know engines are quite different. days but are those same is that is the same is there like a set of values and and protocols and and ideals that you carry with you throughout your career at and if applied properly continue to produce the same results even decades down

the road you know that's one of the things that I think is most fascinating about somebody especially in our industry is longevity and we see crew chiefs that sort of just age out right the technology gets beyond them their ability to you know to people gets beyond them every everything runs its course right but is the ideas and theories of of you know making that engine do what it's supposed to do stay consistent enough and your ability to do lead, is that, you know, are all the theories and things that you're doing, the motors for me in 2004 that you did for Derek Cope in 1990, are those still the same ideals that you use today? I think so.

And it's like talking to a group the other day, it's, I think one of the things, hopefully, and I feel like I take a lot of pride in, is on building engines as a process. And I look at coming over to DEI is I felt like I set up a really good group and then put processes in place, even if I'm not there. And that all the people do the same way. It's a really good system. And then when I went to Richards, I felt like they built reliable engines, but they definitely weren't on the top of the power chance. and so I put a really good group together there and they won all

they win the Dinow War lot, ECR, make really good power and then when Richard and Rick talked in in 2020 we went down and put the deal together with Hendricks and now all the Chevrolet engines get put together the same and now you know Chevrolet's been on a really good stream of winning championships again and winning a lot of races. But now I feel really honored to be part of that group that's at ECR and the Hendricks group now.

They build all their engines the same. They got the same system. But I feel like a lot of that was born at DEI on them systems. And all that is now all the Chevrolet engines get that. That's interesting. Yeah. That's cool. Have you ever built a motor or had a motor as special as number 11 since?

No. But a lot of stuff on the plate stuff is carried on from that. Yeah. So pretty cool, no number 11. Dude, it's legendary. Yeah. It's like... Doug Yates hates that engine.

Yeah, I bet he does. He said it. He told us that. So let me ask you a question. told us. If the intake and the heads and the block are all the real parts of pieces. All the real parts, yeah. Just as it came off the racetrack.

Yeah, we wanted to keep all that special. That's like the secretariat of motors. Pretty good analogy, actually. I mean, like, I mean, you guys were on such a run. My gosh, man. There's not another engine in NASCAR that's ever won as much money as that one. No. It won two no bulls, I believe.

Yeah. two million dollar pay days well man um i want to say man we i told mike when we talked about when you're coming in i was like man we're not going to get into the dey shit and get all bummed to f*** out but uh i just wanted to uh i guess you know when i have somebody that comes in here from the i i just want you to know man that um you know i i've certainly grown up a lot since then and I think you know all of that. But I, like you say, man, thinking about all the good times and the quality people that were part of all of that, we were very lucky.

And I don't believe that another group could have pulled it together. No. Everybody knew Dad's vision. Everybody wanted to respect that and take care of that and protect that. and you and Steve Mill and Tony Senior and Ty especially. I mean, everybody had a great understanding of what needed to get done and how it should be done. I just want to say that I feel very thankful and lucky to have known you

to have got to know that guy that jumped off the wall at 1990 at Daytona. I don't know why that stuck in my mind, but I'm so lucky that I got to work with you and get to know you. And every time I see you at the racetrack. I see the same guy and the same smile and disposition. You're just always been so level, just a quality, quality person. And I appreciate you. Thanks for coming and giving us some time today.

People are going to appreciate this conversation. Happy everything's going so well. And you're excited about what you're doing. And you're continuing to make an incredible impact on the sport. You talked about Dorton and, Everybody that's came through his business and everybody's been touched by that, you know, that career, that man and that business, I mean, you yourself have a line of people that are responsible for their own careers and their connection to you in this sport. You've left a hell of an impact. And just thank you for coming today, Richie.

Well, I appreciate you having me and appreciate everything you've done for me. And I can't thank you enough. I'm proud of you. and you've got to follow you on Instagram, seeing your kids grow up. That's amazing. And like when your dad asked me to come over and work for this kid that he's going to take cup racing, I know how proud he would be of you being a great husband and a great dad. I appreciate that.

Well, you still have an impact on my life today. you know you're you're one of the people on a list that's that's it's important that I'm I make proud and so glad to see you again and hope you hope you guys to come over here and enjoy talking to us so richie Gilmore on the Dell Jr. Download man I'm really excited to have Ally help us bring the guest segment every week it's one of my favorite parts of the download we get to talk to so many different people in racing outside of racing but everybody that comes in here, I want them to have had a good time. I want them to want them to want to come back. I want them to feel like an ally to Dirty Moe Media. Thank you, Ally, for

your continued support of the download and the entire Dirty Moe Media team. All right, so there it is. I hope you understand, you know, how big that interview was and why we broke it into two parts. And I appreciate everybody for, you know, being patient and consuming all of this. I will say that when we brought Richie in, the intent for me was really not to go into the DEI conversation. For me, that is a really difficult conversation to have, and we've had it a lot, and I keep telling myself every time that is the last time I dive into the difficult details, it's emotional, and there's a lot of regret, and even after today, man, even after all these years,

I still have a lot of remorse for just my role and my shortcomings and how I influenced some poor decisions within the organization. I was glad, you know, but you can't help. You get to talking about it, Mike, and you can't help. But the conversation, I'm sitting across from Richie, and I'm thinking, damn, man, I feel like I got to apologize for my role. He feels so much responsibility, because he was at the controls or he was running the business.

But, man, I feel like he ought to know that at least I acknowledge I was, you know, probably not as plugged in as I should have been. I was young and not mature enough to be making some of the decisions I made. And so, you know, it draws me right into that sort of conversation. Either way, man, I'm sure you got some reaction on that, but I enjoy talking to him. Yeah. He's a quality individual. After all these years, still the same guy.

Not to overstate it. I just want to say this. And also not to patronize you and everything else. But I really do appreciate you. You're not loving the fact that we go back and we get to sit there and pick apart, you know, things that you feel responsible for a long time ago. If we all did that, if we all had to go pick up. part our past when we were not as mature or not as put together or not as responsible. None of us would like that.

And yet you're doing it a lot. And I think it's happening naturally. And here's why I think it's happening. I think that the players in that time, the Richie Gilmore's, the Steve Mills, the Slugger Labbies, the Ty Norris's, I think that they all look forward to having a conversation with you that has not been had for two decades or for however long. God, it has been two decades, hasn't it? And there is a bit of a therapy that goes on, and I think that they feel a load that comes off. And I think you's picked up on something that I don't even know if our listeners picked up on. And that is we're looking at Richie Gilmore's eyes, and you could tell that he was feeling some responsibility and remorse over something that he

felt like he did. And you picked up on it, and you jumped right in and tried to take that load off. I appreciate that you did that. I know that's not easy. I know he appreciates. that you did that. I think he's going to feel better about all of that now moving forward, and that's a good thing. But I think you're right. I don't know if we have to dive back into the DEI days. I don't know who else is left on the planet that was a part of it that has that type of insight. I think we just hit the last one. No, there's one more. There is one more. But I doubt that happens. Yeah, I do too. And honestly, I think that's also part of my hesitation to really talk about it in even more detail than we do.

It's because Teresa's not here to tell her side of that story. And in fairness to her, you know, sometimes it's, sometimes we start walking into that conversation. And I'm thinking, man, this just doesn't feel entirely fair without her side of it. And, you know, I don't know that we'll ever have that conversation. But, and I know I see it in my timeline. People wondering when that might ever happen. or that's one thing that they wish could happen. Well, nobody ever asked you this.

Do you wish that could happen? You know, I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind, I would want to sit in a room with her beforehand, you know, and talk to her about what I think we would, you know, what the conversation would likely be like or what I would hope would happen. You know, if she's, you know, that's a, that's a tough one. Yeah, you know. I get it. Look, man, I don't need to have a Dale Jr. download with Teresa, but I would love to have a conversation where we could find some sort of a closure or a way to figure out a way for us to just know that she's okay and fix anything that's not okay.

I'm glad to hear that because this life is too short to sit there and have that, you know, to carry resentment and remorse and that kind of thing. So I'm actually glad to hear you say that. I don't walk around with any of that. I don't believe in my heart. And I'm very careful to, you know, about what's said. And certainly I think I've measured on the remarks that I make about that time. In fairness to her, wouldn't you say? I mean, am I right about that?

You are way more reserved than I would be. or you, that's not the right word, you're way more considerate of her position on that than I think I would be. And I think that that's an admirable thing. And again, well, I think that she deserves that. I mean, a lot of people can, and I didn't want to get into this either. I know, you did. You know, here we are. Yeah. I think she does, she absolutely deserves it. And, you know, there's other connections in there too like you have you know there's there's there's there's Taylor and and whatever you know whatever relationship we would ever have going forward all of that exists in the same world man in the same universe and so you can't have it both ways right um you can't have you

can't you can't hold this at arm's length and want to embrace this it all has to happen together and So either way, man, you know, I think that was probably the final DEI conversation, at least for me. There's really nothing left to be had. Richie is a great guy. I want to say that, you know, Richie is a great guy, and he is the reason why, you know, if half of my career or nearly half of my career is success on restrictive plate racetracks wins at Daytona wins at Talladega 125 my qualifying wins shootout wins Richie is the reason why we had so much success at those tracks along with you know the bodies and other things but

I mean I'm telling you man I look at that guy and I go hey I know you were a big part of what I was able to do out there on the racetrack and and he's a great dude I want he's definitely somebody I never wanted to disappoint. And I appreciate having somebody like that in my life. You need people in your life that you don't want to disappoint. That holds you accountable. And so he was one of those people for me. Anyways, great guests, great conversation.

We got more for you in this Thursday show. But before we get to that, let's go to Short Track Insider with Hannah Newhouse. She's going to tell us everything going out there on the grassroots circuit. Welcome back to another episode of Short Track Insider. and thanks for hanging with us as we took a week off. And while we took a week off, let me tell you, short track racing, most definitely did not. Last week was hands down one of the busiest weeks in terms of midweek racing that we've seen so far this summer. So let's get you a quick recap of some of those races.

First starting off, the Cars Tour pro late models raced at Dillon Motor Speedway on Saturday, and history was made when Tristan McKee took the checkered flag. At only 12 years old, McKee is now the youngest winner in Cars Tour. tour history and makes the total of five different winners in six pro late model races so far in the 2023 season. The dirt late model dream also took place at El Dora this weekend as well and if you're unfamiliar with it, that's one of the biggest races in dirt late model racing this year, I mean, each year.

And at this rate, someone honestly just needs to hand the keys to Jonathan Davenport when it comes to late model racing because if it's a big race and money's on the line at El Dora, he is most definitely the guy to beat. A lot of the drivers though went from El Dora over the weekend. and just made the trip over to Kokomo Speedway and Kokomo Indiana on Monday for a $100,000 to win Dirt Lake Model Race with XR Super Series where the new deal, Hudson O'Neill, was able to hold off the veteran of B. Shet Braden-Chepard for the big payday.

Also, one of the toughest weeks in midget racing just took place, Indiana Midget Week, which basically takes place for 10 days. It was between USAC and Extreme Midget races. It was 10 days, nine races, all at different racetracks, and essentially these drivers accumulate points across those races each night having an individual win, but of course an accumulation throughout the week where one driver is named Indiana Midget Week champion. This year for 2023, Logan C.V. able to take home that overall championship along with a win at Gas City.

This championship of first, along with a first national midget win for his newly formed team that he's running for this year, Abacus Racing. CV definitely excited for the milestone marker win. Here's what he had to say. Yeah, it's super cool to get Abacus. advocacy racing their first win and that's kind of been the goal all along when they called me to you know drive their car for this year was you know just kind of to get them going and you know try to get some wins under our belt and run up front and really just kind of kind of put them on the map you know they've been racing for a few years and they've had success and you know it's kind

of obvious that their their cars were fast but yeah it just takes so much for a for a team to to put every single piece of the puzzle together. And, you know, they lost their driver last year. And kind of called me not too long after they lost their driver. And, man, you know, obviously, I've been in midger racing for a few years now. And they just thought I was the guy that they needed to drive their cars. And we were able to work out a deal to make it worth it for everybody. And, man, honestly, we're just having a lot of fun, racing.

And that's kind of what it's all about. obviously we're here doing it as a job and as a profession, and they run the team very professionally, but we're having so much fun. I've raced a lot with Johnny Koffer growing up, you know, just being around them at the racetrack and Kirk Simpson, too. So we've all kind of meshed well together, and yeah, they come off this early in the season running this well is really cool. So I know the team owners, Brent and John couldn't be happier. And, you know, we talked about winning races all year, but you never really know. you know, if you're going to win or how it's going to happen or when it's going to happen.

So to get it out of the way early and to kind of put ourselves, you know, at the top of the standings here going in the rest of the season is really cool for not just me, but for Abacus too. I know that's a huge goal of theirs. And lastly, a little hometown shout out to my home track of Meridian Speedway out in Meridian, Idaho. They ran their super late model division with the Treasure Valley 125 over the weekend. Jonathan Gomez able to take the win over Kyle Telstrom and Zach Telstra.

Elford. All right, moving forward with what to watch this upcoming weekend. And again, there is plenty. Starting it off, though, with the Cars Tour in action, another weekend, but this time just the late model stock division as they headed Dominion Raceway in Thornburg, Virginia. Going into the weekend, Carson Quaple, still your points leader over Brendan Queen and Connor Hall. They race on Saturday evening for the Cars Tour 125, presented by Napa Auto Parts and Cheney

Enterprises. But another really cool thing is taking place this weekend, and it was an initiative that was put together by Minnie Tyrell. And he's organized for 12 pediatric cancer patients and their families to come to the races this weekend. They're pairing up with a driver for the race day, driver intros, the whole deal. Super cool, but I was able to catch up with Minnie prior to the weekend. This weekend at Dominion Raceway, my home track, on behalf of Minnie's mission in the Cars Tour

and Touring 12 program, we are hosting 13 families from Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. All 13 families have a child that is either battling cancer or is a survivor. On Friday night, we're welcoming the families to Dominion Raceway by having a dinner and a comedy show that all touring 12 drivers and their crew members will be at. On Saturday, the families will be participating in a chapel service with preacher Joe Lewis and with the touring 12 drivers and crews. And then they'll get a tour of the pits and get to walk out with the drivers for driver intros. I can't thank the Cars Tour and the Britt family with Dominion Raceway enough for allowing me to put this event together and donating so much of their time and resources. I want to give a huge shout out to all the people that have helped donate to this event and all the drivers in the car store that have stepped up without a question to make this happen.

It really shows what grassroots racing is all about. One big family. And in my team, this means a ton. And by team, I mean my family, my friends, and everybody at the race track. that has helped put this together. I think this is going to be an awesome event. My goal is just to make sure that everybody has a good time and have fun with it. Super cool deal.

Looking forward to seeing, you know, the socials and the pictures and everything that come out of this weekend. And, you know, what a cool thing that Minnie's been able to put together. But as always, if you're not able to make it to Dominion Raceway this weekend, all cars tour races can be watched on Flow Racing. USAC Eastern Storm started on Tuesday, and as this episode goes out, it will be Thursday, so they'll be racing at Big Diamond Speedway in Potsville, Pennsylvania tonight. And then on Friday, they're at Williams Grove in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Port Royal on Saturday in Port Royal, PA. And then they will wrap up on Sunday at Action Track in Cutsown, PA.

The All-Star Sprint cars are also in action at Atomic in Chilacothe, Ohio on Thursday. They head over to Eldora on Friday, and then they'll wrap up at Portsmouth Speedway in Portsmouth, Ohio on Saturday. And you've got the Lucas Oil Late models who are making their way down south. They're going to be at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Newark. Maryville, Tennessee, both Friday and Saturday evening. All-U-SAC, All-Stars, and Lucas Oil A-Late models can be watched on Flow Racing. This weekend, I'll be headed to Wisconsin with the World of Outlaw and Noss Energy Sprint cars doing some coverage there for them as they double down for a Friday-Saturday

show at Beaverdam Speedway in Beaverdam, Wisconsin, and the most rigorous tour in all of racing known as the Summer Nationals, but it's honestly known to Mung's Drivers as the Hell Tour, kicks off this week, a busy week starting on Tuesday or Wednesday at Peoria. And again, this is like 30-something races. I mean, it's back-to-back-to-back to back-to-back races for dirt late model racing. It's intense. It's rigorous.

It's all summer long in some of the hottest racetracks. You know, it's incredible. So if you get a chance to watch those drivers support them, you can watch all World of Outlaw stuff and Summer Nationals, which is dirt car racing on Dirt Vision. And out west, for all my West Coast friends, the Northwest Super Late Model

Series runs at Hermiston Raceway in Hermiston, Oregon for the Hermiston 125. Try and say that five times fast. And then you've got the SRL Southwest Tour at Kern County Raceway Park on Saturday. And of course, all SRL stuff can be watched on SRL's own streaming channel. But as always, guys, there is a ton of local tracks

now in action throughout the weekend. It would love your support, whether it's Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. There's usually a track around you racing. Some of those including Jacksonville Speedway and Jacksonville, Illinois. South Boston's got their regular NASCAR weekly series going as well as Langley, Bowman Gray,

All-American, Speedway out in California's racing and so many more. So please take the initiative to look up what's racing near you. Get out and support your local race track. And I'd love to see what short track racing you guys are watching this weekend, whether it's in person or online, tag me in your short track insider photos of where you're watching, as always, at Hannah Newhouse on everything. We'll catch you guys next week on Short Track Insider.

All right. Thank you, Hannah. That was great. Awesome to hear what's going on out there in the short track scene. Short Track Insider are a very important part of our Thursday show and catch that every week. Yeah, man,

this has been a good week, man. It's been a full week. Going into Father's Day, I'm going to take a little more time with my family before we go to Nashville. I hope everybody has a great Father's Day weekend to all the fathers out there. Keep kicking ass.

And if you're a father or you know, somebody that is a father, then you might want to just come join us in Nashville on Friday. It's coming up. We're doing a live Dale Jr. download at Old Red. It's going to be fun. Mike is worried that nobody's going to show up. No, I'm not.

I know people are going to show up. I'm worried that we're not going to entertain them. I am not worried about that. We're going to entertain. We're going to have a great time. Come see us. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.

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