The Dale Jr. Download - 467 - Matt Kenseth - Mr. Consistency

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

The Class of 2000 reunites as NASCAR Hall of Famer Matt Kenseth joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis in the Bojangles Studio. Matt catches everyone up on what he’s been doing since retiring from full-time racing and reflects on whether he misses the week-to-week grind of being a NASCAR Cup racer. Matt also touches on his 2020 return to Ganassi Racing during COVID, and his experience and future plans with SRX.Dale and Matt had a lot to catch up on, and wound back the hands of time to when they first met coming through the NASCAR Xfinity ranks. Dale explains the impact that Matt’s first Xfinity at Rockingham in 1998 had on his perception in the NASCAR garage, and how it made him regarded as a legitimate contender in the rising class of drivers. The two old friends discuss the strange sensation of being happy for each other over the years, all while being partially jealous of one another’s success and how it motivated them to be better behind the wheel. 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.

Happy 4th of July, everybody, from the Sandy Beaches of South Carolina. I hope you are enjoying the holiday. And everybody is out of office, and we are too. So we have something pre-tape for you. A great interview with my friend, Matt Kenseth. That's going to come out today. So tomorrow we'll have a live call in with me and T.J. Majors. We'll be doing Dirty Air and S. Jr., as we usually do on Tuesdays.

But that's tomorrow. Today, a great interview of my buddy, Matt Kenseth. It's a production of Dirtymo 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? Buckle in. You died on that hill.

Your career died on that hill and you were hard-headed. I'm not 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's Dell Jr. back again for another episode of the Dell Jr. Download with my co-host, Mike Davis, here in the Bojangles studio.

We've got a great guest coming in here today, Mike. It's an old friend. we haven't really talked to at the table. Matt Kenseth. He's recently inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. We got to go celebrate that with him. And I'm always curious what Matt is up to today. And we're going to get a chance to talk to him about that.

Yeah, listen, I'm looking forward to it. Listen, ally, you know, again, we say it every week. Ally presents this guest segment, and these are allies that we have in your life. Matt Kenseth fits that. Bill, right? You and him started together. You came in and, you know, y'all been friends ever since. Me and Matt did become really good friends early on for whatever reason. I want him to share that in his own words, but it was unlikely, I think, that we would become friends, but we did. And our careers paralleled in a sense. And one of the things that we always did was bounce information off of each

other. The perfect description of an ally is someone that you can lean on, hey, I got a question. I'm facing this. What did you do in the same situation? He would come to me. I couldn't believe it. He was asking me all these questions about finances or buses and things like that, things that drivers are considering or contemplating early in their career. And I would do the same with him. And even on racetrack stuff, you know, things you were dealing with with your race cars and so forth. So yes, Matt was an ally for me. Thank you, Ally. for everything you do for this sport. Ally supports the Dirty Mo Media brand

and everything we do in the studio. But they do so much more for NASCAR as a great partner across the board. So thank you, Ally, for bringing our guest segments to us every week. Let's get Matt in the studio and get started. 15? How long are you?

10.15. Wait, are we suggesting that Matt Kenseth just showed up and is prepared to give a shit for something? What do you think? It's not like him. It's not like him. Why do you got to swear at all? way.

Look at it. You don't have to, but you should. Did you clean him since the last guy wore him? Yes. Who was the last person we had in here? Are you OCD? No. You are?

You're a little OCD. I don't even know what that means. Oh, yeah. Look at him. I know for the next hour, Matt Kenteth is just going to play sarcastic and just try to give... He's not going to give a serious answer on anything. Why can I start the show with all the costume?

This is the custom, Matt. Last time I've seen you was at church. You're like, hey, man, I'm good to see him. I see him at church and I show up and he's just cussing up a storm and start a joke. He's a deacon. Yeah. On Sundays we're back to our old cell. The NASCAR comes out in me.

I see Matt, we're picking up our kids in line for the child care class. And, you know, Matt has about 47 kids. He's got, the whole church is populated with Matt Kenseth kids. Is that right? That's five. Five. Five girls. Four girls and Ross.

Oh, yeah. Don't call Ross a girl. Sorry. He's getting mad about that. I'm mad about that. So when you see Mike at church, do you try to go the other way? No, because he usually either ignores you or he really doesn't see you. He's usually in his own, like, land.

I usually have to say hi to him. You should try texting him. Boy, he'll really fish you off. So, no, I don't. That's not true. You know, I say sometimes McMurray's over there. When they have the old Raus group over there, when they're like, they ain't paying attention to nothing in that.

service. I look over there and they're just sitting there talking about setups or something. There's a rous group of church? Okay, he's been there twice since I've been there. That's right. Is this going to get better? No, no, this is it. This is it. This is it. This is it. I was wondering, like, I've been waiting like half hour in the lobby for this. Have you really been sitting out there?

Yeah, I was told to get here at 1015. 10.55 right now. At least you're in here working. If you just would have came walking in because you just got up, I would have had to give you the old speech. Yeah. Yeah. I had to give the car one time. Did you have to give that to Carl? I didn't have to, but I did. What did he do? Well, he's just, I was late.

Carl? Yeah, he was always late. He's the last guy in the room all the time. Really? I was just fashionably late. And you told him. Hey, man. I was waiting for him.

Yeah. What was the situation? I don't know. I don't know. I'm just saying. Yeah. You're portraying that your time is more important than the person waiting for you. Yeah.

So like for the last 40 minutes, that's what I've been thinking about. We've been in here. I'm just kidding. You've been working. How hard were you to get to book on this show? Are you going to edit all this? We will. This is really bad so far.

We're taking out all the bad parts. It's going to be the whole thing. You're like, hey, Matt, see you, and that'll be the whole podcast. When do you even do good interviews? I mean, come on, be honest. Like, what do you got? Nothing but time on your hands. Yeah.

Could you send him on an errand or something? No, no. Could just be you and I? He came in. He came in ready to go. So, Matt, what's you been up to? You know, not a lot. Since I saw you, I guess, in Darlington.

Oh, since. Darlington. Yeah. Like what's your, what's your daylight? Just really busy with the kids, honestly, you know, they're all really busy with sports and just doing stuff around the house hanging out with Katie. Is it different sports? Is there a predominant sport? Kaelin's really in a basketball and she's in the travel ball and she plays at school as well. And then this year, she's going to be going into eighth grade next year. And a high school team asked her to train with them. So she's been training with them all summer and doing camp and going all their games and stuff like this month. So that's been pretty fun.

So she really likes that. The other girls are all in the soccer. So travel soccer. So, when you're going to these games with them, what is your, what is your emotion about it? Do you really get into the, you know, successes, the wins, losses, their ability? Are you just kind of hang until it's over? What's up? Yeah, I mean, I get into it. I try to limit my cheering and screaming and yelling as years go by. I'm getting a little bit better at that. But yeah, I mean, it's really fun. It's really, really, I mean, I'm very competitive. Katie's more competitive than I am, as you probably know.

And Katie really knows basketball, so she really gets into that. And we're learning soccer a little bit. I don't really know much about it when we started. But, yeah, I mean, you love to celebrate your kids' successes and kind of go through the defeats with them. And there's a lot of good life lessons, I think, in team sports. So there's a lot of good things. And the parent, both. Yeah, most of the kids, yeah.

So travel ball. I mean, how far are you guys going? Well, Kaelin, how far did we go this year? So she, her last tournament's in a couple weeks in Orlando. So it's down in a while. So, yeah, it's a travel around. So Matt Kansas goes to Orlando for how long? Well, that's a tough question.

So Ross is coming down with his kids. We're bringing all the kids. Everybody's going to Disney for a few days after the tournament. So the tournament's a four or five day tournament. And then we're going to be down there three or four days at Disney. So I'm really hoping to survive all this. So yeah, that'll be kind of tough. Surviving Disney's tough.

Yes. We'll talk about it. So, so when you go in for this tournament, you're just, you're, y'all, y'all get a place stay a hotel or whatever nearby and you're going to the games every day. Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much just stay at the team hotel where all the teams are staying at. You're just a driver. You're the limo driver. Pretty much a dad. Yeah, I spent a lot of time driving. So driving back and forth to school every day and all their practices. And honestly, that's probably where I spend a good portion of my day is driving my kids around.

To some event. I'm asking all these questions because I really feel like this is my future. Well, you'll just hire somebody to do it. You'll just have Mike do it for you. No. That was a joke. Was it? You didn't live? Was Mike really going to do it for it? No. I'm doing it. Right now I'm the driver. Yeah, I spent a lot of time driving around, driving to school. I really enjoy it.

So I got to the point kind of when I stopped driving. And kids around the bus and my youngest kid was ready to get to go to school. And, you know, older kids, mixed with younger kids in the bus. A lot of different things happen there. They learn a lot of things. Maybe they shouldn't. And I was like, you know, what do I have to do? That's really more important than, you know, raising my kids and spending time with them.

So a lot of people would be like, oh, man, he got driving to school. But honestly, some of the best, not really the best times I get to spend of them. But I learn a lot driving with them. I get to read their emotions before school, after school. I get to learn a lot about what's going on. I don't always enjoy driving back and forth all time, but I really enjoy the time I get to spend with them and the things I get to learn about them in their days

and everything that's going on. So I wouldn't be able to do that if I was still racing. So that was the, I guess, the good thing about the way that Katie and I did that is we were married for, I guess, nine years before we had Kalin, and I was getting toward the end of my career, and we started having a kid. So once they got old enough where they're so busy in their sports and school and all the stuff was the same time where I was getting ready to not race anymore.

So that's basically most of my day is just really honestly spending time with kids. Katie, training. I ran some marathons the last couple of years. I spent a lot of time, you know, training for that and just kind of hanging out around the house, doing things around the house and land. Do you still go up to home back Wisconsin? I don't get up there very much. So we had a house up there until a couple years ago and we sold it. Yeah.

Your mountain house? Was it in the woods somewhere? No, there was one out by the river. Yeah, it's kind of out by Mississippi. River and we sold that a while back and bought a house kind of closer to where we're from because Katie's brothers all had young kids and her mom and dad were close just kind of be closer to everybody that we still knew around there and then kind of when the whole COVID thing happened we weren't really traveling as much and plus the kids are are busier and just harder to get up there so

ended up selling that so most of the stuff's around home and then we try to pick somewhere different to vacation every year so the last two years we did a month long road trip out west in our van we got this van I got this trailer kind of I'll fit it up so I get her bikes and all our stuff in there. Van. It just kind of went out west. It's like a sprinter van. Yeah.

Yeah. So we just, we don't stay in it though. No. No. It's not a square. It's not with the bed in it. No, not really. No, you could fold back seats out to a bed, but no, we don't stay in it.

So y'all drove a month. Yeah, last two years in row we did. So two years ago, we did, we did, um, the Grand Canyon, Mardi-5 in Utah, like did all that kind of stuff. Worked her way back home. She had a family vacation in Branson for her side of the family on the way home, did that. And then last year, we did more, Yellowstone and Dakota's and...

You get a little... Where do you stay? Katie takes her out. She picks out some pretty good places usually. Yeah, cool. Somewhere different all the time. She handles it. Yeah.

Man, that sounds amazing. Yeah, it's pretty fun. Yeah, I've thought about maybe... I'm looking forward to doing stuff like that where you can get the kids and get on the road, right? Yeah. Flying everywhere to vacation is fun, but what when you ended up quitting driving, right? So you still race a raced or two.

The way I understand it, it's not really like this sort of planned thing. You just kind of do whatever you want to do. How much do you, people ask me this question all the time, and it's a good question. Do you miss driving full time at any level? I don't. You don't. I mean, not anymore. So I have to back up a little bit, if we're going to talk about racing now.

And so when you're going to do that. say when I quit driving. So if I go back to when Gibbs replaced me in a 20 car, and then I didn't drive for a little bit, I really couldn't find exactly what I was looking for for the next year. But I really wasn't ready to quit driving. I mean, we won the second last race of the year. I felt like I could still be competitive. I felt like I could contribute to a team and be an asset. And probably the first couple choices I had to go. Well, Ann Gibbs, they didn't feel like that anymore, right? They didn't feel like I could. So with that being set, I wasn't totally done and then, you know, Jack had that thing where we wanted a little part-time help.

What were, can I ask you what were opportunities that were presented to you after the Gibbs thing? There wasn't any. That's what I'm saying. You said you had a couple of hours. Well, there was a few. I mean, I, you know, the Gibbs thing didn't happen. And then, honestly, like, you know, Rick fired Casey. You know, so I went and talked to Rick and almost groveled and be like, hey, I don't care what you pay me. I don't care how long the thing is. You know, and obviously, he made the right decision. Williams is doing awesome. But it's first year in Bush. I'll help him. I'll drive for one year. I'll do whatever you want. You know, I just want a chance to go and prove I could still do it. I was obviously extremely motivated at the time.

There was nothing I'd rather do than go, you know, kick their butt every week and felt like, honestly, I still could. You know, and that didn't happen. And then that was really about it. There was maybe one other one that didn't quite kind of work out. And then the rest of them, I had several, like, offers to go do stuff, but none of them were really, I knew none of them were going to be near as good as what I was doing. And I didn't really want to take a big step backwards.

Sure. So you ran, you didn't do anything for a while. Yeah. And did you, you know, maybe you're, you know, you don't know that you're going to get a chance to drive the six car. You don't know you're going to get a chance to fill in at Gannasi. So in your mind, are you, are you coming, are you trying like come terms with being done? Are you thinking, man, maybe I want to do, you know, I'm going to drive something. I just got to figure out what I want to, what that might be.

Yeah, so I'd say. So when 2017 was over, 2018 started, I was, I was fine with not racing. and I kind of came in grips with it. You know, honestly, by, in 2017, probably by, you know, maybe October. You know, I understood that there wasn't going to be something out there that I was really super crazy about doing that. I thought I could run very good and do very well. So I was okay with that kind of came in grips with it.

And then Jack called me a few times and kind of wanted me to help drive Trevor's car part-time. They were kind of struggling and kind of wanted me back there. And, you know, I know one of Jack's biggest disappointments was probably when I left there after my contract was up to go to Gibbs. And I felt like it was an opportunity to hopefully go back and help him leave on better terms. You know, without Jack, I would never be sitting here. And he did so much for me in my career. And I felt bad about how bad he felt when I laughed and kind of the way it went.

And it didn't really know what I wanted to do in the future at the time, whether maybe it would be stay, you know, involved in a team. Maybe it'd be a manager or some sort or do something there or be involved. Maybe not be an owner like what Brad ended up being, but maybe be more involved in it. So decided to go back and try that. and really glad I did because I felt like we left on much better terms. But honestly, just going back, it wasn't really totally about, you know, how we performed or didn't perform, but it was about being gone three days a week again and the kids not being able to come much and they're all doing different stuff.

And I'd be sitting in that dang motor home just wishing I was with the kid, with Katie and the kids, wherever they were, or whether they're in Wisconsin or their home or wherever they were. I just, I just, you know, yeah, I just couldn't stand it. I was ready to, you know, to get back with them. After 18 was over, and, you know, they offered me to the full-time ride for as long as I want to go do it. Really? Yeah, and I just decided not to do it just because I just couldn't stand being away all the time, you know. And then 19 was awesome. That was probably one of the best years of my life, honestly, that vacation we had.

Like, I just had such an awesome year. And then I was okay with it. And then honestly, in February, went skiing. And it was right before Daytona 500, and I was kind of getting itch again. And I kind of had it, you know, in my head. I'm like, man, I think I could. could still do this. Like, they're all racing. I'm doing this. And then shortly there after COVID hit. And then I was sitting at home with nothing to do and wasn't missing anything. The kids weren't there. And then, you know, Gannasi called for me to go drive the 42 and that stuff happened with Kyle. And it was actually perfect timing for me because I was kind of having an edge thinking I could still do it and, you know, all this stuff. I wasn't going to miss anything, right? Like it was

a one day a week, no practice. I'm like, oh, this would be a great opportunity. We went to Darlington and ran good. I'm like, that's where I belong. Back in a race car, I feel really good. And then, you know, a couple months later, just, uh, it was really good for me because it really, um, pushed the thought of ever being a full-time driver again out of my head. I realized I couldn't do it anymore. I realized that. Why do you think you couldn't do it? Uh, you know, any, I'm going to tell you something and you may or may not agree with this, um, but I think most drivers that get to drive almost as long as they want to, they come to a spot where they realize, are not as good as they once were.

And ones who are going to tell you they never came that realization or never knew it, even though they never too. But anybody else is probably not telling you the truth. So it's just, I could just tell. I remember Jeff Gordon telling me things about, like, when he was right, step away, he goes, there's just things that are different. It's hard to explain until it happens, you know?

And you can just tell, you know, like when you're at your best, you probably remember this, like, you know, you'd make moves. And before you even thought about making it, you already made it and you're in the right spot and the right hole. And you knew where, like a lot of times you weren't you look in the mirror. You just knew where everything was happening. And, you know, you were ahead of the car.

It felt like you're going 40 miles an hour instead of 200. And now we didn't have any practice. It was a different team. There's just so many different factors here. I didn't race for a year and a half when I got in this car. But it was just the opposite. I was always behind. You know, I was always behind the car.

By the time I was ready to make the move, there was already somebody in the hole. I felt like I was so far behind where the car was. I felt like we were doing 300 miles an hour instead of 170. It was just everything's different. You know, it's just everything that's happening so fast. and it's just hard to, it just wasn't as good as I once was. I can understand,

I can understand some of those comments. Like, when I go race the bush car once a year, I don't know where the corner of the car is. Like, you know, you'll bump into things and go, oh, I didn't know that, you just,

you know, those things, when you drive the car every single week, the car becomes part of your body. You know, it's like you buckle into it and you're, it's all one thing and you know where all every inch of this car is at at all times.

And I think, you know, like you're saying, you'll find yourself looking in the mirror going, am I clear? Where is this? Where's everything? Where's everything around me?

Because you just aren't, it was second nature. You didn't even have to look before. Isn't that more about repetition than it is age? Yes. But also age, one of the things that comes with age is your willing, your willingness to take the risks.

Or be patient. dedicate the time to it or just take the risk like he's talking about like sometimes we would make moves going you know yeah that worked and you know when you get older you stop doing those things you're you're more measured yeah i think there's a couple then i think you don't process things as quickly as you do when you're younger you're obviously probably smarter and you see more things and whatever you don't process as quick and then doing it every week's a big deal right like when you race all the time it's just so much easier and when i went and raced that year is like, like I said, there was no practice or something that.

They throw you in there and you never race those rules and you could never really work through things. And it was hard. You know, I was starting the middle of the pack and those cars were so bad era wise. You couldn't qualify. So there's a lot of things stacked up against me, not to make excuses. But in a way that was good because it kind of got out of my mind because I knew it was time for it to be over anyway. And that really solidified because I ran so terrible. And I always said that would never sit and run that bad to get paid or go do whatever, right?

and I just tried as hard as I could to make that thing happen. I knew Chip needed that car to run good and a lot going on with COVID sponsors and everything else. So I wanted it more than anybody to make that work and go run good and win a race or two, but it didn't happen. When you get behind the wheel of a late model, a super late model at Slinger, do you feel like that comes easier?

That's more comfortable? That fits you better? I mean, I was comfortable in the cars when I raced them. The last year I raced them. I just wasn't as good at it. So I don't know. I ran a couple of eight-mile races last year, and I didn't run very well. I was comfortable in them.

You know, that stuff all changes, too. It's hard to beat those guys that do it every week. Those cars feel so different now that they're on bump stops and everybody runs all these different sets up. Like, it's just different, you know, than I think if you could do it every week or run 20 races a year instead of two, I think it could probably do better. I used to be able to show up and run two and win them. I mean, last year I couldn't. Yeah, last year I couldn't. Yeah, last year I couldn't.

I think we ran fifth or something in Slinger. We didn't run great, but I'm going to go try again this year. But then we ran those couple S-R-X races, and we ran really good at Nashville. I probably could have won Nashville if I'd have known what I was doing just a little bit more. I think we finished second or third, maybe we finished third. But we ran really competitively there with those guys that were all racing, and I felt good about that. That was a lot of fun. And then other two races were dirt tracks, which I'm not the best at.

Yeah. So you are planning to run another late-mile race this year? was how do you decide that you're going to do that? So, yeah, I'm going to run Slinger and I'm going to run El Dora in an S-R-X car for fun because I'm so good at dirt. Why do you choose to do dirt? It was the only race they really had available, to be honest with you. And you really enjoyed the series that much? You know, it was pretty fun.

I was planning on trying to run them all this year, but then, you know, Hawk kind of picked some different things. I think a lot of current drivers wanted to go race S-R-X from NASCAR this year. for whatever reason. I know they're on Thursdays, but for whatever other reasons. So there wasn't a lot of races available, and I like going up there, so I forgot to go try one more.

And then as far as Slinger, so my friend Joe and Jason, they own that Pathfinder Chassey in Wisconsin. So they'll build a house car a lot and come and ask me to drive it, and typically when we can go there and run good, it kind of helps her business. Plus, I'd love to see those guys

and go racing with them and stuff. So that's the main reason I do it, and go see some fans. And when a car runs good, Slinger is really fun to race. It's one of the most fun tracks you can drive at when your car turns decent.

It's really fun. What track do you have the most personal connection to from your super late model past? I don't know. I mean, Madison was closest to home, and we had a couple really fun years there. We first started running good in the late model. Slinger is probably one of the most fun tracks you can race that, so probably one of those two. Yeah. Is Matt Kenseth going to race super late models for a few more years?

You're in really good. You're in really good health. Like you take such great care of your stuff. self and you're sharp mentally you're I can't I asked a lot of people that's come to this table this question because I'm kind of battling it with it myself at this moment it's like how should I be racing how much should I race do I need to race is it really what I need to be doing you know I'm sort of in this weird place where I can't figure out exactly what to do I love driving my late model stock car but do I need to try to drive it more is that really am I going to

regret that decision or just is it that not that big of a deal you know you drive you enjoy you know especially when you run good um do you think you're doing it enough for yourself or that's a good question i mean i don't know i don't really have a good answer there for you i mean last year i kind of felt like doing more racing i felt like i was i was needing to do something i feel like that again this year a lot of times i'm like i need something you know professionally or whatever to go do And so at times I feel like that, and I'll go up there and do that. I don't know that's necessarily the right thing or exactly what I need to be or want to be doing. It depends how we run.

You know, like last year we didn't run well at all. So honestly, if I go up and just run an awful lot of track that we usually win at or can run in top three every time we go, probably maybe figure out something else to or not go to do it anymore. I don't know. How does Katie feel about you doing that? She doesn't care. Yeah, I mean, she's. What are your girls thinking about it?

Did they go? I don't think they care either. Do they like to see it, though? because you know your girls haven't experienced a bunch yeah you know last year was fun so nashville when i went and ran that first srx race was fun because uh yeah because uh ross and and amber came um with her two kids and then all my kids were there and katy was there so they all got to come and see me race and a lot of them have never seen me race before um which was really fun um so that was cool um you know it's funny as time goes by it's hard hard for me to tell like

they're not really the kids aren't really around anymore. We're rounded every week. They kind of understood it and everything, but they all went with the Darlington this year, which was kind of fun where I saw you down there. And they kind of, I think, maybe it appreciated a little bit or looked at things a little bit. But I don't know that they really think about me racing much, really. What about Ross? Where is Ross with racing? Because I know he was very competitive, had to sort of, you know, was doing it a lot. Yeah. What's going on? Yeah, he's not racing at all anymore. So he raced, last time he raced was a, as a Pensacole,

It was either Snowball Derby or there was one of the race he ran on there a couple years ago. Did you and him ever have a conversation about it? Like his racing, his future, did you ever sit down with him and say, man, you know, don't have to do this if you don't want to do this? Oh, yeah, we had a lot of conversations. I mean, he started driving my cars and drove all my late model stuff for years, you know, the stuff in Wisconsin, the Big Eighth stuff, and then the super late stuff. And I had a team down here for him, and then, you know, we got to run those couple bush races and then that truck race. And so yeah, I mean, we had tons of conversation about it, you know, and try to give him as much advice as I can.

So where's he at? Would he ever race again? You'd have to ask him that. So Ross just turned 30 the other day. Yeah. So he's certainly making his own decisions about whether he'd do again. So I think, you know, with him, I think he loves racing, but not as much as he loves his family and being dad. Yeah, he enjoys, he's got a really good job.

What does he do? He gets to work from home. He just started working for Stanley Black and Decker here a few months ago, and he works in their corporate accounting team. And he gets to work from home, which is really great. Like I say, loves his family, loves his in-laws, lives around them, and loves being dad, which is really fun for me to watch. So I think he's really content, so I don't know what it would take to make him race again. I remember reading him for the first time. I think you had just won either a race or your championship, and we were at a restaurant.

Do you remember that? No. Yeah. We were more specific, but. I can. I wish I could. Been to a lot of restaurants, a lot of races, but. I don't know. I was, how many times in your career was I with you after your, not very many? After celebrating something that had happened on the racetrack with you. Maybe never.

Right. So this was the occasion. Except for that time I gave you a ride home from Darlington and Katie made you sit in the backseat of the Mustang. What happened? I don't, I don't know. I don't remember that. Yeah, I was getting ready to leave a racetrack. And you walked up, you're like, hey man, I need a ride home. I was like, okay, jump in. you remember that? No.

Was it after race? I kind of felt bad for him because, yeah, it was after race. I drove you all the way home. Itchiker. Those you remember this? No, I felt bad for him because we might have been maybe our first year in cup. Maybe. Oh, no, it wasn't.

It was at least 2002, actually. And because I remember the car was driving. And we stopped at this, I don't remember what restaurant it was. I know you got all these sponsors, so I'll probably have to tell you it was a bojangles or something. But I don't think it was, but it was something like that. It was a fast food restaurant. We got out. We went in to order and you got mugged by so many people were bothering you that we had to go in a car and go through the drive-thru.

Like we didn't even order. It was terrible. I was like, man, much as everybody thinks it would be cool to Bill Dale Jr. This sucks right now. He can't even order a sandwich. Yeah. You don't remember any of that idea. That's crazy.

That's 22 years ago. I remember it perfectly. Well, I remember we were at a restaurant. You had won, I think it was your Cup championship because or a race or something. We had planned to go do this. and you asked me to come along and Ross was there and he was a kid. I remember when he won his first race, big race, I guess, and you showed me a picture on your phone of him sleeping with his trophy.

Yeah. Remember that? Yeah. And I was like, man, this is crazy. Because me and Matt kind of came up together and I always felt like we were sort of the same age, even though we might be a little bit different. But he had this son. He had this whole other, you know, part of him.

that was like I was immature as hell I didn't have any kids and I don't know I felt it I felt it was interesting that we became friends like we did because you had you had things that happened in your life that had matured you right and you still like you know still working on that maturity part yeah I don't know you're pretty mature when you came on to the scene do you remember the first time we met I don't yeah the very first time we met I think we were at one of the races in 97. You drive in the craft singles car.

I remember going to Nashville. We talked about this with Robbie. I remember going to Nashville and you running really well. That was like the race where you ran top 10 all day. And I was like, dang, that's pretty good because that car had, they'd struggle with that car. And then we start the next season. we go to

we go to Daytona and y'all don't have a sponsor and y'all go to Rockingham and get Likos on the car and you win the race and I mean it's so funny to talk to you

because you probably see this completely different but in my mind you went from man this guy might have a pretty this guy might be worth kind of paying attention to they might have a couple

good runs this year to firmly on the map like the way you moved Tony Stewart out of the way. I never even touched him. Well, the way he moved out of the way. Because Tony Stewart moves himself out of the ways. The way that went down, right?

It was everybody was like, oh! And from that moment on, you became, you were entrenched into the series. You probably still felt like you were working your guts out just to make it. But what that race did for you, I don't know that it can be put into words. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So to go back to 97 Nashville, we went there.

It was my first race with Robbie, and the guys I was supposed to race a late mile up in Wisconsin. I told Jerry Gunderman, I was going to race his ASA car all year. And then when Robbie offered me that car, I quit. I moved down there and took it. And I had several people who I kind of trusted, told me I was dumb, and the car wasn't running good, and I need to stay up and win races in ASA. But I also knew I wasn't getting any younger.

and I've seen a lot of younger guys having success like Elliot Sadler, people like that, and I just didn't think I was ever going to get a chance if I didn't do it. So I really went down there without any promise or guarantee of anything besides going to run Nashville. And we qualified third. Robbie and I right after our first practice, I knew it was going to work really well together between the both of us, you know, because I worked with,

I used to do most of my own stuff in my late miles cars. I'd build my own shock, set my own cars up, build my stuff. I'd do all that. But then down here is different. See, I was at a crew chief, right? And the first crew chief, I read my first push race was like everything I would tell him. It's just like, well, that's not the way it works in these cars. No, that's not what you're feeling.

No, that doesn't make any sense. Like, it was really bad. And I was like, ugh. And when I started working with Robbie, it was the opposite because he came out of the driver's seat. So we understood both sides of it. And he'd listen to what you'd say. And then he'd tell you his experience. We kind of worked together.

It worked really well. So we did run well that day. We're actually around third or fourth, and Jeff Purvis spun me out. And we didn't hit anything. And we came back and finished 11th, I think it was or something. So, but yeah, fast forward back to Rockingham. I mean, that was the biggest win of my career, you know, by far. Yeah.

And, you know, one of the most memorable races and days that I've ever had in racing. Like, nothing could ever top that or replace it, honestly. So we, like you said, we didn't have a sponsor. We didn't know if we're going to keep racing. You know, a couple other people that would call and want me to race. I'm like, no, I told these guys I was doing it. We're going to do it. I'm not going to mention them.

Oh, come on. like Robbie. No, see, Robbie didn't tell you either some of those. Were they other Bush teams?

Yeah, it was actually, it was actually your dad. You wanted to replace it. You wanted to replace it with somebody a little more experience and I was like, I can't do that to Dale Jr.

I never want to tell you that, sorry to break it to you on the show. He's diverting. And, we'll just start naming some people. What is it going to do? Piss Robbie off? No,

I just, I don't know. Why can't you name? Well, just they have drivers and stuff. So? It's like, yeah. It's like 27 years ago.

It's more than that. It's 26 years ago. So we ran that race. We weren't sure if we're going to have a sponsor. And then, you know, Mark Martin was helping us at the time. Rosh was helping us at the time, kind of like Robbie all covered all that. And, you know, but they didn't, but, you know, risers paid for it all, you know. And to be able to win that race was just, I mean, it was, it was, it was awesome race.

It was really, really cool. It was just, you remember at Rockingham, how you could grab that line in three and four. and if you hit it just right on the left sides it would like the car would do that and you could run the cold car's a M.A. Power right and as soon as it yanked like that you could floor it and if you missed it it was like two tenths slower. Well we went in three that last lap and like somebody

doesn't race probably wouldn't really see it but Tony missed it by about four inches and when he missed it he didn't really get way off the line but he wasn't like sucked down to the line and my left front hit it and the car did that and as soon as it did that I just floored it and he was like that far off the bottom

and the air got just to his left and I I was just barely moving toward him, you know, and it just got his started moving his car up. And I was able to pass him the line, which I still don't know how that ever happened. I really wasn't expecting that. But, yeah, that was a great race. Yeah, it's fantastic. So why do you think me and you became Powell that first year? You felt bad for me?

I don't know. I mean, I, you know. Who instigated the first conversation? Most likely me, because the only person I ever made. met that is more shy than me as you. Yeah. I was massively shy back then. Yeah, and me too.

And so I think we had that in common. And, you know, I think both starting at the same year, I kind of understood for whatever reason in a way. I don't think anybody can only ever totally understand it if they're not in your shoes, but the massive amounts of, like, pressure you were under and scrutiny and people looking at everything you did and said and, you know, how you drove and like all that stuff. Did you like, Dad? You were a Daly-Hart fan, weren't you?

Yeah. So I thought that was cool. And I thought that was like a good end for me to like, hey, man, I can talk to this guy. He likes my dad. He thinks that's cool. I only have a couple of funny memories about your dad and you, you know, in your race. Well, I have several because I'd kind of always be by you, especially like our rookie year, right?

He'd come walking up and tell you stuff or even in the Bush series or whatever. But, man, he's tough on you. Do you remember that night after qualifying Atlanta? We were going to go do that QVC show and we went to your dad's motorhome? Do you remember that? Nope. We got to hear this. Go ahead. I remember that. I felt bad for that day. So we walk into motorhome, and the thing I, not that I really knew your dad that well,

but the thing I, you know, you said a million times, I always commanded the room, right? Like, he told everybody where to sit, what they were going to eat, what they were going to, like, tell you, right, like the whole thing. Like, you know, so you walk in and start taking your shoes out, leave your shoes on. Carver's cheapest thing in my motorhome. Sit down over there, you know, I tell you all that, you know. And we're on the pole at Atlanta, and that was with the bush cars, and you could, we could, you could run wide open most time. And he's like, he's like, man, good job in a pole. I was like, oh, thanks. And he's like, did you run wide open?

And I was like, I was like, yeah, I was able to make her on their wide open. He's like, Dale Jr., do you run wide open, you know, and he looks at you, and you started doing that, you know, you started doing that. And I was like, oh, that's this tell right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was kind of, you know, yeah, yeah, pretty much. He's like, did you run wide open or not? You're like, yeah, I mean, you know, you're doing all that stuff that you do.

And he stops you, and he looks. started out. He was, did you run wide open or not? And you're like, well, no, I didn't quite make it through one and two wide open. Well, that's why now you're not in a pole and he started chewing your butt about it. That's why you weren't on a pole because you couldn't hold it wide open or whatever. And I was like, all right, how about those Packers? Yeah.

Change the subject for quick. It was funny, though. Yeah. Man, QVC, we were talking about that. Yeah, because we were doing that QVC show that night or something, and somehow you guys got me where I could go on there with you guys or something. I can't remember. That was probably 98, maybe 99. It feels awkward.

I mean, like, knowing how awkward, I mean, you never really loved doing QVCs to begin with, but then no one at, I got my ass chewed right before we went on one. And now you get chewed right before me. He wasn't really chewing it that bad, but it was just, it was kind of funny. He made me, uh, yeah, made me want to wish I'd run wide opening. Yeah, yeah. Like, man, I showed all the wide opening racked. I mean, who knows. I noticed you didn't say, well, if he'd have gave me a better car, I could have.

Oh. You know, you didn't say that. Oh, yeah. No, I don't think that would have been thinking. I knew that was a sorry-ass excuse. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, you have a couple.

Dale Earnhardt stories, that's a good one. What else? Like, that's all what I'm telling me. Oh, but do you know of some, do you remember some Dale and Hart stuff? You're not telling the truth. I don't know. That was just the one I was thinking about. Yeah. Do you remember when the first time you met him? You know, yeah, I think, no, I'll just say no. I feel like the first time I met him was probably at Dover when I drove Bill's car in the driver's, in a driver's meeting. it was probably there is either that one

or it was the next one I ran in a rowish car but I remember he came and sloped me out because that was one of our only wrecks that we had together. That was that weekend. No, I won a bush race that weekend when I drove Bill's car. So it was a earlier race. It was a different race, but I must have been running a cup race next day because I remember I'm

seeking me out the driers meeting and did his whole arm around me thing and, you know, he would never do that intentional. That was like, you know, laying all up. We wrecked somewhere else besides Dover? Yeah, so it was the next day are in the cup race. He saw the next day at the driver's meeting. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, the infamous Dover story. Yeah, right, right, right, yeah. Yeah, so it's funny. Can't get put his arm around me and was

Yeah. We talked about that one. Matt had the best car. We had a restart somehow or another. I'm on the inside and I'm like, man, I'm going to try to pass the man. We ran side by side for like three corners and I finally wasted my ass. Yeah, that's true. I'll tell you those cars were, I mean, all the people that don't do it anymore, the older guys probably all think that their generation of stuff was like not the best or whatever but those cars were really fun to drive so you can still pass there's no really arrow deficiency behind somebody it almost hurt the guy in front of you when you could pull up to them bumpers didn't line up if you need to move somebody um they were really and you could drive them so hard remember how hard you drive those things that over you drive

him so hard and it was you remember at places like michigan and charlotte the lead car would get loose yeah and we would often there were a couple races where it's like no no no no you lead You lead. No, no, no, no, you lead. I'll run a couple laps up in front. No, no, I'm too loose. You lead. Yeah. You race super hard to get that five points for that lap lead. And then if you weren't good enough to hang on, you're like, ah, I'm going to slow down. You get behind them and start building the right front for a while, right, and get tighter and then try to pass them back.

Yeah. It was bad ass. None of that these days. People used to wave you by. Come on. I'll get you back later. Even the cup car in 2000 didn't drive like that. Yeah. You know, don't you remember? Did you think the cup car was similar to the Bush car back then? I mean, it wasn't too far off, but it didn't have the,

that tendency to the aerobalance leading versus following was quite different, I thought, in the cup car. A little more arrow issues. I remember going to, or going to, they had that five and five rule. Yeah. That sucked. Like a five-inch front valence. Yeah. Did we ever race?

That was like a 98 when it came up. I ran it. I remember if I raced that. At where? It's a Japan race. Ah. And it was awful. And I was like, oh, a cup sucks.

This ain't really no fun. The bus car is way more fun than this. Yeah. Were you really pissed off about that, Rick? Because you're going to win the race. You were. I mean, not that bad because, I mean... It didn't ruin our friendship.

Yeah, no, I mean, I've been mad about Rex, obviously. But not, I mean, not really, because really I knew in my heart that it was just an accident. I mean, you're still mad when you get taken out because you only get a chance to win so many races. Even when you're young, you still know that it's a finite amount. You're not going to race forever. You're not going to win 200. or races, at least something, you know, I wasn't. So, I mean, you always hate to lose races, no matter how it happens, but no, I wouldn't, I went mad. I knew you didn't do our purpose.

Is the maddest you ever were, was it Joey at Martin's deal? Is that the maddest? You know, I don't know. I've been mad after some. You really, you kind of get mad when it's not only intentional, you know, but that one was just different because, like, I felt like it was intentional. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but then, you know, it wasn't really that. It was all the comments after the race, the comments the next week, the race at Teledega the week after that when, you know, he pulled two carlinks behind me on a restart on purpose to drag my road back so I couldn't have a chance to win and get back in. It was all the little stuff after that, really. That was more than anything. So, so I don't know. I mean, I feel like, you know.

There's nothing worse. Jeff and I went at it for a little while. Jeff and Gordon, Jeff Gordon and I went at it for a while. Yeah. And which started from a 100% accident, which we still talk about this and laugh about it. And he still, I think mostly believes me. But it was 100% accident. I spun him out one time. And it was at Bristol.

Yeah. Where he comes to pit road. Yeah. So that was funny when he kind of grabbed my helmet and got all mad. So I'm leading this race. And we were really fast on a short run, but we would get too tight. And it was Kurt's – Kurt was always my teammate. And it was his first year with the two car.

with Penske. So we're leading a race. I don't know how many lapser was to the end. But it was in our window where we were going to win. And we got, you know, decent lead. And I caught Dale Jarrett. And Dale Jarrett was racing for Michael. And I caught up to him.

That's when Bristol was always on the bottom. And he was just cover up the bottom and stop. And you couldn't pass an outside. And he would stop so much I couldn't get it run off the corner. And I was like, so I'm getting a little bit tighter, right? The wheels here. And then it's here. And then it's here.

Kurt's getting a little closer and a little closer. I was like, it was just dumb on my part, so I was mad at myself because I should have just moved him. I should have ran into them, but I hate getting ran into. And honestly, I didn't like running other people. I had very seldom run back other people, no matter. I know there's highlights that show that I do, but very seldom. Like, if I didn't get hit first, very seldom would I hit anybody else to move? If I couldn't pass them without, you know, run into him, I just went past them.

Yeah. But this instant was really stupid. Like, I should have just, I just had so much respect for him. And I was like, I'm not running in Dale Jared. I've watched him race all these years. I'm not doing it, you know. I should be able to get by. him and we got about, I don't know, 15 or 20 to go, and I was getting so tight, and now it's

almost too late. I never did get by him. And I should have moved him. And Kurt caught up to me maybe 15 or 20 to go. And he got first corner got to me, punted me, didn't even give me a corner, just punted me and moved up the track, passed me, got to Dale, next corner, punted Dale, passed him, and then I followed him by Dale. By then the right front was burned off, and I got passed for second, and then Jeff caught me and passed me for third with like maybe two laps to go. And I mean, I didn't care if I finished third or fourth. I mean, what's the difference, right? And so I was fourth.

Jeff was third, and we went in the, and I came off turn four, and I was, I don't know, a few feet behind them. And we went into one, the last lap, took the white. And I was just like, I was really deflated, and I was just resigned to finish in where I was. And Matt got moved out of the way. And I was like, oh, man, this sucks. And, man, he stopped. He just parked it on the bottom and stopped. And I had, I was not ready for it.

And I was just late to see it, honestly, because I was just, just I had nobody behind me. I was just going to float in a corner and finish your race. And I wasn't ready for it and bumped him in the back because I couldn't stop quick enough and spun him out. That's why it looks so funny afterwards. Like we want to go fight? I was like, I was like, I cannot believe I just spun him out. I was like, I was going over there, apologize. I was never dreamed like he was going to be so pissed off. He's going to want to, you know, whip my butt, right? So I was like, so anyway, that was the start, kind of our feud. But we got, we got, and then he took me out of Chicago. We were leading the race. And, but we,

We worked it out, you know, through the years. It never really escalated too much farther. Yeah, you didn't have many, you didn't have many run-ins. I mean, a couple. I had a few here in there, but I tried not to have so many. Carl. Yeah, well, Carl. We didn't really have that many really necessarily run-ins. We just, you know, at times him and I didn't see I-dye.

We were just different personalities back then. We were very different personalities. So the infamous thing at Martinsville where you're getting interviewed. Fake punch. Fake punch. I felt like that was kind of the jerkiest thing. I'm just glad it was fake, man. I'd be dead.

You know, that was a while coming, you know. You probably don't know this about me, but I could be a little bit of a smart aleck occasionally. And Carr would get under my skin about certain things. Some of this is on both of us because neither one of us probably mature enough to sit down in a room and talk about it and figure out our differences. but things he would do and not do would get under my skin and things that I would probably do or not do would get under his skin. Like he was always late and got under my skin. Just bug me all the time. It was like we'd be a for a photo shoot.

No matter what we'd be doing, be 15 minutes late. I'm like, man, we're all here. You're just disrespectful to our time to, you know, everything he'd show up late. We'd always have that talk. I mean, I don't know why I'm bringing that up. I'd nothing to do with that fake punch. But there's just like little things. And so anyway, there is, we got into.

it in a bush car one time at Kansas. It was kind of, I kind of squeezed him in the wall. I didn't really mean to squeeze him in the wall, but there was a bunch of lap cars at then. I don't know what happened, and he got mad of that. And then at Martinsville, the whole thing happened. So he caught me with, I don't know how many laps to go and ran in the back of me and punting me out of the way and punting me out of the way and punting me out of the way and punting me out of the way. I didn't try to pass me. So I went into one and I hit him like twice as hard. He went up to the track. He didn't wreck or anything. He just went up the track, lost a few spots, and we finished the racing. It was over, and that's what that was all about. He was mad about it. He said I tried to

wreck him, which I didn't try to wreck him. Yeah. So, you know, Carl and I through the years have become good friends. I have a lot of respect for Carl. I really enjoyed seeing him at Darlington and I haven't seen him in a long time. And this will tell you something about Carl. Carl's one of those guys that would do, he, I hate to say do almost anything before, because I don't know about that, but he, you know, I think a lot of Carl. Like, he's a, he's a, he's a go-getter. Like, sometimes you make that, like, you probably have a list in your head. Like, if I was in dire straits, who are the first 10 people are I call?

Who are the last 10 people I call, right? Like, you know, everybody kind of has that in their head. Well, Carl's a guy who would help anybody out. He could be a stranger. He could be whatever. He's very smart. He's very, like I say, smart. He's very intelligent on things.

So, anyway, at Darlington, made me, you know, tell a little story, which maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't, but, you know, Sterlin was up on stage with us, and Sterling didn't look too good. Thinking about this right now. Sterling doesn't look too great, so I don't think his health is very good. And you couldn't, I couldn't communicate with him. Like, I couldn't really, I didn't really know what he was saying. Well, he looked panicked, you know, and he's like, he wanted to get off that float before

before it went around the track. But I didn't really know what he wanted, so I'm kind of sitting there. I'm like, well, Sterling, can I get somebody to help you? But he couldn't really, I couldn't really understand what he's saying, you know. Well, Carl jumps right up, and he's like, gets right in. his face is like, what? And he's like, okay, he goes, I think he wants to get out of here. He goes, hold on. So the thing's getting ready to pull away, right? Like all the rest of us, all the rest of us would have just sat there and been like, hey, man, you know, maybe flagged

somebody down, whatever. But not Carl, not Carl. He jumps off the back of this trailer that's about this high. He runs over, grabs this big stool, pulls it up to clamp there, climbs up on the trailer. He climbs up on the trailer. He's like, come on Sterling. He's like, come on strong i'll get you off here grabs them like fireman carriers them pretty much steps off the trailer off the back of a semi-trailer no stairs or anything with that thing there steps a back walks them over the wall gets them to where he needs to go and then jumps back up on the trailer go to the lap i mean that tells you a lot about the guy you know right there just to finish my carl story so perfect no that's that's pretty nice yeah to be honest with you because like they'll that that issue at martinsville

changed your opinion of carl and mine and i never thought of him the same it's like because that's what i think about with him and i thought that was kind of of a, that was kind of a cheap move. It was a bad look at the moment for Carl. Yeah. And Carl had a lot of, you know, people that liked him and a lot of people that thought he was. And the point is that these stories help us get back to what the true Carl is. He maybe had a little bit of anger issues when he was younger.

And he took everything really, really personally. Yes. You know, like, you know, any comment that somebody would make in the media or anything an announcer would say, you know, I think he would confront somebody if he ever said anything bad about him. Like he was very, very sensitive when it came to all that stuff. Very, you know, didn't like him. So I wrecked him off a turn or two at Michigan. And he comes, he hits me after the race is going to end there, Yeller.

Comes off Pitt Road and does it. He's smashing to me, yeah. Which is fine. I had my hand out the window, but I don't know if he saw it. I'm just going to assume he did. But then he came to your victory lane. but he came over to the bus lot hours later and he came up to me and apologized. Oh, I didn't know this.

What year was that? 2004? Five? Oh, really? 2004 or five? Yeah. He said, man, I want to know. I want to let you know.

I shouldn't have came into Victory Lane. I should have handled that differently. I was mad. That was nice. Well, he came to Victory Lane and also put his hands on you. Like he grabbed you by the, you know, like we're going to fight in Victory Lane. Made for good TV. Yeah.

I could have been a short fight, but it made a good for. It would have been a short fight. You would have loved this. It was the one time Dale gets in Victory Lane and he comes out and you can hear booze. You could hear booze. We got to boot a little bit. Yeah. They probably weren't for him.

Probably because they saw Carl and Victor Lane. No, it was before that. It's when he got out of the car. No. It was like. People weren't happy with me. They weren't happy. Yeah.

They didn't like it. They didn't like it. It's good. They didn't like it. It's a moaned volume. Yeah. It's when they don't care is when you got to worry. Yeah.

That's right. It's dead silent. They're introduced you. that's a problem. You're a pin drop, yeah, that's a problem. But those are good, Carl Edwards, I think that's the good side of Carl that we actually want to need to remember because, I mean, the Darlington thing, you were so glad to see him at Darlington.

You came back really just talking about how, in the funny Kyle Bush story that you told with. Yeah, we were sitting up there and Kyle gets introduced and everybody's cheers and Carl looks to me and goes, what hell is all that? While you were sleeping, he's been away, he's got to come back and Kyle Bush is everybody's Hero, right? Really? Really?

Yes. That's cool. Yes. Oh, man. That's funny. Yeah, Carl and Kyle almost fought once. That would have been a short fight, too. When we were at Gibbs.

Carl was a big boy. I don't know you want to mess with Carl. I don't think you'd want to fight with Carl. I'd be a real shot. I've never seen him fight. I know that Harvick had me in a headlock in the garage area, which I thought was pretty impressive. Harvick had him headlock?

Yes. I don't know. Harvitz bus driver had him in a headlock. Really? Don't you remember a cowboy? Remember Carl? goes over to the garage into Harvick's garage style, and I thought they wrestled. Well, maybe they did.

Maybe this is the same story. I don't know, but I just know that Harvick's bus driver, who was freaking strong, just strong dude, and he got Carl in place. That's the one person I know that actually Carl doesn't even stand up to that. I don't know, man. All those garage fights, you know, people talk about, like, when I charged Kozlowski and try to tackle him and stuff. All those garage fights and stuff. What were you going to do?

Well, here's the same as all the rest of you guys And Jeff Gordon on the road stuff, right? You glance over both shoulders And you see how close the officials are And your bus drivers and stuff You're like, okay, I'm only have three seconds I'll get them. Then they're going to tear us apart.

Like, I mean, you don't fight outside the track somewhere. Like, no way, I would do that. I know, but the video you're running into the alley In between those two haulers And then you kind of just football tackle him. It wasn't a great tackle. What was your plan? What was the plan in the moment?

I don't really have. one. So he, he, he, he, take him to the ground early. So I think this is probably the same year. So him and I were going to add a little bit. And, um, honestly, the reason I got so mad there was after the race. I had all my seatbelts off. I was hanging my helmet up on the hook.

We're down to turn four. And he comes and pile drives me inside of the car. And I'm like, man, you hurt somebody doing that. I mean, I don't tracks one thing, right? Like I get it. We're all driving on. Even if you're under yellow, everybody's buckled in. We're in race cars.

I understand it. But that's what set me off on that one, I guess. But you, were you thinking, man, take him to the ground early? I wasn't really thinking, obviously, or I just went back and changed and went home. I wasn't really thinking at all. Who hasn't had those moments? I forget Matt being in all these little.

I know, right? I think we got all of them, no. I think there was only three or four of them. We were going to talk about Hall of Fame stuff or something, you know? That's boring. That's all boring. So why were, what was your personality? Like, because, well, so I asked that question because,

I know we're all fucking out of order here, but, But when you were racing, I don't, I'm just going off of what people say, but because I don't really remember hearing about it much, but in the moment. But like when you raced late models up north, you had a nickname, Matt the Brat. Like, was that really? Just because it rhymed. Just because it rhymed. Come on.

There's other things that rhyme. Nah, I mean Matt? Like, wait. I heard, I heard your driving style. Matt the cat. What's aggressive? I mean, probably not one. So, Todd Baileying is an announcer at Slinger.

He's always an announcer up there. He started that at Slinger. But he had nicknames for everybody. Everybody went. Did you go up to him? For everybody. You know, Conrad Morgan's car was black and blue in 92. The black and blue 92 of Conrad Morgan.

He looks like, he had it for everybody. Did you go up to the guy and go, hey, man, can you change that? No, I didn't care. Well, I didn't really care, to be honest with you. and now I would never ask him to change it I mean that's the best way to get somebody not to right that's right like I tell my kid's that all the time right when you go to school and somebody says something and it bothers you

if you act like it bothers you they're going to keep saying it so it really didn't bother me anyway so you weren't truly a brat well I might have been but it didn't bother me so it didn't bother I don't I can't imagine you being I can't see you being bratty I can't see you being yeah I'd yeah no I don't I think honestly just kind of you're self-made like you say you worked on your own cars you did everything you know you know how you knew when i was racing you in the bush series

you were doing your own shocks yeah yeah i did them in the bush car i did my first year in a cup car too yeah i always like doing them gave me something to do and i go to the shop and work on them and try something new so uh i was scary i remember we want to dangerous we want a bush race somewhere especially the tie-down shocks yeah when uh so they made that rule in the bush series when you had to run those 3 30 000th bleed holes remember that and uh so i did all this research and i figured out the you know, obviously longer you make the hole, the less fluid that's going to flow through it. It takes longer for the fluid to get through it. You could put a bunch more rebound.

So Carrera had like the thickest piston. So I got some Carrera shocks and drilled them all. I drill them all by hand, so it probably wasn't super precision. Maybe we had a little drill press there. I mean, they probably were more than 30,000s. But anyway, it held the car lower and everybody else's when we won't race on them. So I was proud of that because I kind of figured out and researched all the shocks and found them and built those. I remember doing it.

That was kind of fun back in the day when you could always do that stuff and just kind of creative, but you didn't have to be, you have to be very smart, so you didn't have to have an engineering background or a college degree or computer simulation. You would just look at stuff and try it. That was fun. I'm glad I lived in that day in my career

because we, you know, Rob and I together we tried a lot of stuff just by, you know, common sense stuff or stuff you would think about or try and look at and not really something to come up with in a simulator. So I want to say that when we raced in the Bush series together, you were the toughest competition for me. I always felt like that I had everybody beat but you at all times.

You know, it was like, you know, it was going to be me and you. And we went to every racetrack we went to, it was, you know, there might be somebody that might run good, but you were going to be running good. And I liked, you know, I was happy with how all that went down because we won a couple championships. But we go to the Cup series, and you beat me in the, the rookie of the year. And we got a good start to the year and I won a couple of races. But for whatever reason, my second half was the most miserable, probably the most miserable season I could remember. And there were some bad ones. But for whatever reason, man, we just, I couldn't do anything right

the second half of the year. And your, your season was good. And I was jealous. I was envious of you when in the rookie of the year title. And then I was, I was envious of you went in the championship. I never won a championship. And I was like, man. You know, I thought, I thought, man, if he's going to do it, I want to be able to do it. But I always enjoyed seeing you have success. So it was a weird situation because we were friends, and I wanted to see you win. I want to see you do well. But I always sort of, I didn't measure myself against anyone else the way I did you.

And so, like, if you were running well or doing well, I thought. man I need to I need to what do I need to do to do that and so not that that's not that I'm getting anywhere or going to end up anywhere but I just and maybe you already knew all of this you know I don't think I've ever told you man I was really jealous naturally right jealous of your success but I also felt like that your success and your style I envied it I admired it I thought that you're your the way you drove race cars the way you you approached your job. It was very, I appreciated it a lot because it was really classic,

for lack of a better way to describe it. It reminded me of like David Pearson and some of the older guys that just really knew how to drive a race car and had such great racecraft. You know, a lot of guys that we've watched today, don't have a lot of, I mean, the cup guys, most of them do, but, you know, racecraft doesn't seem like it's as easy to attain anymore for whatever reason. But, man, you know, you had to have it back in the early 2000s. You had to have racecraft to have success because it was so competitive.

But I don't know, man, I just, I've always appreciated the friendship. I always thought that you didn't have to be my friend. Nobody had to be my friend. I didn't know being, you know, being this friend of Dillen Hart's son, probably button high on a lot of people's list. But I appreciated how, like, you know, from the moment we met in 97 or 98, right around that when we started racing the Xfinity series together, no matter what happened on the racetrack, no matter who won, no matter whether you won or I won or who was having success at the time

or whether we had run-ins together, it never got personal, it never got ugly. We always parked together at the bus slots. I really appreciated that. You could have said, hey, you know, I'm tired of parking next to this. I got a family now. He's still single and acting like an idiot. But we always loved that we had that connection. That was important to me.

And, yeah. So I guess, you know, that's why I want to see you still race a little bit, because I kind of don't ever want to see Matt Kenseth's not race. As long as I've known it, Matt Kenseth has race car. you know and and I'm sort of piddling and I want you to piddle you know piddle in the same races yeah well I appreciate all that there's there's a couple things I do really appreciate you saying all that and I feel the same way first of all I want to keep racing thing I think you own a bunch of race cars I do I forgot about that I

told you I'd put you in my late moan news you actually told me that when I was done a race and I could come around your bush car yeah and I called you on that favor and you told me no bullshit yeah I did I did I didn't say no Well Kind of did Wait wait Let's get anything It happened

Yeah I was talking to you It was probably the first year I wasn't racing And they were having a bush race El Cart Lake And I said hey I think I'll get a little bit Of a money from a sponsor

Probably not as much as it takes For you guys to go run those races And you're like Yeah I think I'm gonna get some I got that real race open But I think I'm gonna get Regan To drive that one Because we've got a sponsor

That once I'm going Well damn I mean You got told what's up Yeah There was no way I know just had I'd throw it up there

But anyway, it's funny you say that. So about 2000, I remember when he won Texas. And it was like, party was on, right? Yeah. And I believe I went up there and graduated afterwards. At least I hope I did at the racetrack. I'm sure I did. But I remember sitting on a porch in my house in Moresville and calling you that night.

And you answered a phone except I think this is how old we are. I think that's before we texted each other. I'm sure it was. So I called you. We had pagers. And I congratulated you. you and you're having a, you know, big old time. And I felt the same way.

I was like, so happy for you, but I was jealous at the same time. I was like, man, we got to. This was in April, April Texas race. I was like, man, we got to win. We can't have this. Like, we got to get running better. We got to, you know, we got to figure this out. And then we went to Charlotte and you won an all-star race.

And we ran, like, I remember Mark Martin was so mad. We ran so bad in an all-star. Like, we ran awful. I don't think we made it. and in the last chance race, we ran terrible, whatever it was. And we came back and read it,

like Robert read it everything in that car. We talked about how bad everything was. We brought the same car back to the 600. I remember Mark telling us how stupid we were. He was like, you brought that same car back? That thing couldn't run a lick. Like he was just chewing Robbie out.

And I was like, yeah. Anyway, so we ended up, we were running top three or four most time in a 600. Remember it's the longest race ever. You were dominating a race. You were going to win the 600. And you may or may not can say this because I know there's still sponsors involved.

But that was, that period in time where you could just change tires and go from a winning car to being so loose you'd run almost last. And you came in and got one of those sets of tires of like two sets to go. You're leading to race driving away because I don't know why I remember this. We'd go on a straightway and you'd just be like driving all over the place on the straightaway, just screwing around. I'm like, what's he doing? Like you're so fast. They go the next corner and you'd have three more car links on you and then you'd have three more of the next corner. And anyway, he came in and pitted and went to like way back. And it was after the rain, to be fair. So it might not have just been that.

And then, because there was a rain delay. And then we got faster after the rain. And I think you got back up in there somewhere, but we were able to, yeah, we're able to win that race. I feel like your dad maybe finished. He ran third or something. Third or fifth, somewhere in there. We're all right there. Because I passed Bobby toward the end for the win.

And so, yeah, we were able to win that race. And the rest of the year we didn't do particularly great as well. And like I said, I think that was your race to win as well without the rain and whatever else happened. And then, you know, how you said the rest of that year was bad for you. 2000 that was 2001 for me we came off that win i was like man everything's going good went to dover and ran second or third the next week uh just tons of confidence feeling good 2001 was awful like i couldn't have been more down after 2001 was a we ran terrible we broke all the time didn't win any races i don't know we finished in points i don't think we finished terrible in points

but just it was it was it was bad so that was my year 2001 nothing can go right yeah i remember the charlotte race and and i remember running great we had to rain to late I had a very fond memory where I sat with dad around pit wall, just hanging, talking, you know. And I was in this sort of, I just won that All-Star race. Things were going great. I'm leading this race, and I'm sitting there going, I cannot believe where I'm at right now,

sitting with my dad, whipping him. Like, he's coming to me going, how's your car feeling this? He's asking me questions, right? And it was incredible. And I was disappointed we didn't win that race, but I remember that being your first win and you, that wasn't hard. It wasn't, it wasn't hard to take. You know, I don't remember being that disappointed about like, oh, damn it, you know, we had that one. I felt like that.

I did. I did. That whole race was like, man, he's totally, totally race to win. I wonder how many other races people thought I should have won. But those are the ones that, but those are the ones that are like, you know. Yeah. You know, you kind of feel like everything's going good, and then all of a sudden, kind of out of your own control,

it just kind of goes other way. Those are ones sometimes are a tough take. You're like, I couldn't understand. Like, you always ran great at Dover, but I would go to Dover, and it was like, damn, it was like clockwork. Middle of that race, my tires were bouncing. Yeah.

Like basketballs. The first 150 laps didn't have that problem. 200 laps in the middle of that race, we had 500 lapers back in there. 200 laps in the middle of that race, your tires bounced all the way around the track, like somebody was f-dribbling the car. And then it'd go away at the end of the race. The last 100 laps or whatever, it wouldn't happen.

In every race, we had that problem, and I couldn't figure out like, what is this phenomenon that's creating this? How do I get this out of the car, right? I could not puzzle the hell out of me. But you ran it, you ran really good there. I had a couple of years. It's funny how we always run great at the track we run. our first race in.

Have you ever noticed that? Or the track you win your first race in becomes sort of this track you you always do great at. Sometimes that beginner's luck thing you wonder about, you know, because I ran Bill's car at Dover and we finished sixth. And that was like, and Bill is an incredible driver, right? And I think that was the best finish. That car had the whole year.

It was. It was crazy. That car had not run good all year and didn't run good after that. when you get in a car and take that car and run better than it's been running, right? Everyone in the sport takes notice. It is weird. You don't know why, but that was a really fun race, actually, because there was no pressure, and it was actually really fun.

And then my second race, I don't get credit for because he started the race, but remember when Bobby broke his shoulder of the Bonnie at Darling. And I drove the 18 car at Darlington. That was my second race. What happened? Well, what happened is I was driving. it. I qualified it. So we were on the backstretch. Remember the backstretch how bad it was pitting back there? So the race didn't have got rain short, but we ran like incredibly good. We should

have finished probably top five. And we would drive to, I don't know, make something up. We'd drive to sixth and we'd pit in a backstretch and come out 23rd. And we'd drive to seventh and we'd come out. So anyway, so we got back to, we finished 10th. It got rain shortened, but we finished 10th. But it was really fun because we ran really well there. That was a fun race too. Yeah. When you think about your career and winning that championship, right, in 2003, 1003, that happened so early in your career, right? You had so many other wins and amazing seasons and ups and downs throughout the rest of your career.

Do you rank that championship season as your best year? Or are there other years that have happened since then where you're thinking, you know, We didn't win the championship, but I mean, six wins or whatever. Yeah. That's a good question. You know, the one thing that's been kind of fun about being done with racing or, you know, even the Hall Fame stuff and all that is you can kind of look back, you know, and enjoy, you know, some of the high points or think about it more.

I used to never really think about it at all because I'm like, man, I don't want to be looking at a rearview mirror. You got to be looking out of the windshield. We've got to get better this week. We've got to do this. We got to do that. And I would always have a problem, which I still do. I still have bad feelings over certain races. you know, you wake up and, you know, think about the ones that you did dumb things and lost or

whatever, right? Like, you'd, you know, be miserable over the bad things more than you'd enjoy the successes, you know, you'd be stuck on the failures. But best race or best year, I don't know, that's a tough one to put. You know, I mean, that's a tough one to figure out. I think, I think 2003 was a great year for us. We only only won one race, but that was kind of when everybody's cars used to be a lot different. And that year, Ford really struggled pretty bad. Like all the Ford teams struggled that year. And we ran really, really well.

I thought we did really, really good with what we had. We made very few mistakes. We did have a couple of D&Fs. We broke a couple times, broke a couple engines or something, I think. But I always got the best out of the car. If we had an eighth-place car, we would somehow finish fourth or fifth. It was like one of those years. You know, you were like, I run about 10th to it.

day and race would be over and we'd be six. We're like, no, how do we get those four spots? You know, we just, we had a great pit crew, had good strategy. You know, so it was just, it was one of those years where I felt like I didn't make a lot of mistakes on the track and we didn't make a lot of mistakes off the track. The rumor in those days was that the, the, um, the Roush Motors were way down on power. And every, I mean, that was probably one of the things if true, I think that was probably most impressive about how you ran because.

The opinion from our side was you're doing what you're doing down a big chunk on power. Did you feel that way? I think we probably, you're going to get Jack mad at me again. We just got all friendly again. We got it all figured out. You know, we for sure were, you know, down on power somewhat. That's when I used to chassis down everybody's stuff and they would kind of give everybody a graph. They wouldn't really put car numbers on it.

but you could, you know, figure it out. But then I think 2004 was the year they merged with Yates. That was last year of the difference. Ah, yeah. Yeah, we went to the first open race and won. We won Rockingham with Doug and Jack's new motor thing. And it was like, well, we race, you know, Rockingham was the second last race of the year,

and it was the second race of the year. And I was like, wow. And then we went to Vegas and won again. We won the first and second or second and third race, the first two open races of the year. And I think we went an all-star race that year. But it was definitely different. It was different, but it, the thing about back then is it changed a car a lot too.

Like it was made the car. It just made the car drive different. It sounds dumb because you'd think that, you know, any common sense would tell you, well, if you do everything exactly the same in a corner and can modulate the throttle to exactly that, like it should all be the same, right? And then just the straightways would be shorter, right?

Like, you'd think it'd work that way, but it kind of didn't. But those first few years it were out, we had our cars working really good in the corner, whatever the balance was for arrow, chassis stuff, whatever. Like, we'd work so hard to achieve that perfect corner balance. And, you know, we knew we had to have it. And, you know, so that definitely made us better drivers, too,

I think. It made us work harder on our cars, you know, as a team. Do you remember, are you still a big fan of the Packers? I imagine you are. I am. Yeah. As die hard as you used to be? Maybe a little less.

I'm still a big Packer fan. I'd say since we had the girls, we used to go to games all the time. And since we had the girls and obviously live down here and stuff, we don't really get to very many games anymore. But yeah, I am. I really enjoy doing draft kings with my friends and doing some of that, doing some different leagues and doing fantasy football and all that.

So it kind of gets you in all the players and teams. You're still doing that. Yeah, I like doing that still. Who you do that with? What friends? I only got with three. Well, it's my dad and my son. Yeah, not a lot.

Little draft games, well, I'll add you out there. Can you afford 20 bucks a week? Oh, boy, that's the price. You think you can do it? That's pricey, man. I know you can afford it, but will you spend it as the question? I'm used to being in free leagues. There's no money.

So Dale Jr. is the only guy that when I met him was as shy or more shy than me. and also the only guy that's way tighter than me. It's like one of the tightest people I've ever met on Earth. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness. That is true. That's more crap. Broke's rich guy I ever met.

Oh, man. He's that guy who go to lunch with it. He's like, ah, man. I got no wallet is. I don't carry a wallet. I want money. I always have to pick up that Taco Bell brought through. I walk around everywhere.

That keeps me from spending money. I don't carry it around. Hey, listen, this is my... He's changing the subject now. I'll help this out. Don't, yeah, don't. I'm going to tell you something. The piddling in the races is a good idea.

And you run about three or four a year. And you also give yourself some test dates to make sure that you can be competitive. Doesn't that sound nice? Matt, I mean, listen, take it three or four. Because that's just enough, I think, to you can run with them. You don't feel like you're out to lunch on those things. Because if you did, if you felt, because those guys are good in the car store. But you don't feel like you're out to lunch on it because you get enough little,

test time and the stuff to make sure the car's good. That's perfect schedule. Yeah, I mean, here's the other thing. I mean, honestly, too, like you run more if it was like it was 20 years ago, right? Like where there's all these guys that own cars and like, hey, you want to come driving my car? Sure. Now it's like, you know, like, I had one guy asked me to drive at Wilkesboro. You know what is. He goes that. Dale Jr. told me that I should call you. He don't want to drive my car at Wilkesboro. He should call you and drive me. I was like, yeah, I'll go up there and drive it for you. No problem. He's like, okay, well, we need to get 20 grand. I'm like, I'm not paying you $20,000 to go drive a race car. You nuts?

Like, I haven't paid to drive a race car since I always paid for it and dad. But as soon as somebody let me drive their cars, I'm like, man, I don't have to go to work and spend my money on tires and do all this. I'm doing this. You know, so I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. So that has changed a lot. You know, there used to be a lot of even late model teams when I was younger, right? They just, they're looking for drivers. Yeah, here, come race.

You get 30% of the purse or something if you want to drive it or even if you drove for free, whatever. But now it's just, now it's just the whole thing has turned into how much money would you pay me to come and drive your cars. Yeah, but it's just so backwards. You know, it's drivers hiring owners instead of owners hiring drivers. Okay, but what we're saying is there's a situation that may not be that. I mean, we're trying to say, look, this is exactly what you need right there. It's a no commitment, just race for fun, do it with your friend. Yeah.

Feel good? Go ahead and sign you up. I got some, I got it. I get you to a race. Yeah. Drive a good car. Good car. I'll tell you this, the car doesn't win when I drive it, but every time Josh Barry drives it, it wins.

that's how you know it's good it's a good car I just gave it you can think about it man people would love that though he'll do it he would do it I talked to him in Darlington about it

and he said he'd come around a race I said man I got a car's tour I need you to come show up once it'd be fun that'd be so much fun pick what do you like the preference about the asphalt you're going to race on

bore out slick do oh I don't matter as long as he's going to race he's going to race everybody else That's all I am. He's going to go race dirt in a few months.

I think he cares. Well, we are, we're going to have to wrap this up. I've really enjoyed talking to you. I was going to come on here and just try to answer everything in two words. Just two word answers the whole time. Just for like an hour and a half and just see if I could do it. And then I just thought, I was like, I don't know. You might not think that's that funny.

Oh, dude. That'd be very me. For a few minutes. For a few minutes, that would be very easy. That's one thing people don't know about Madden. They may know now, but didn't know in the first. first probably 10 years of his cup career is his sense of humor. It's legendary. Usually the usually I'm the only one of things I'm funny. That's the way I feel. But I know that's not true.

Yeah, I think you're funny. No, he means that's the way he feels about you. You are the only one that think you're funny. Yeah, I agree with it then. Yeah, that's right. Oh, well. Well, man, I appreciate you coming. Give me some time, bud. Anytime. And I do want you to race. my late model stock car in the cars tour i'll do it it's gonna have to pay a lot uh where's my where's my payment for the show because you promised me a chicken sandwich and a sundrop that's right you did yeah i think so i said what's the show paid and goes i gave you chicken sandwiches i've got your chicken sandwich and a sundrop hey i've got a sun drop it's the same thing that elkhart that that elk cart race paid i knew i should i knew i should got it in our writing usually we

know that elk cart like was going to be like a negative 150 or something usually we had those delicious bojangled sandwiches here but they did not come today yeah that was just seamless teed it up for you you just hit it out of the park and i do have some delicious cold sundrop over in the refrigerator that's true you won't drink it because you're helping the yeah probably not yeah you're like oh it's 300 calories i can't do that yeah have to go and run a couple miles yeah you're still running and biking like crazy right i tried to once in a while don't you are you still doing any marathons anything try so iron mans yeah no no iron man's i don't want to swim so I don't ride my bike as much as I used to just because it's just, as you know, living around here,

it's just crazy amount of building expansion. And they like to build everything around here except for the roads. So they leave the roads the same as they were in 1960, but they put in thousands of houses. So riding on the road is not great. So I like ride my mountain bike, and I've still been running. I run with Katie a few times a week. Have you never crashed your mountain bike? Well, yeah.

But I've never been ran over by a car on my mountain bike. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the last big crash I had of my mountain bike is I was going to show Jamie McMurray wanted to get into mountain bike and so he's following me

and there's this big log coming up. I was like, all right, yeah, pull your front tire of this log and I kind of look back. I looked forward and it was right in front of me. I hit it, went flying right off the bars.

It was great. It was the funniest thing ever. So I want to run, so I've ran five out of the six world major marathons. I want to run Tokyo in March. And that would be the sixth out of the sixth. Then you get a six star award and it means nothing to anybody

except for the person that runs it. But I think I'm going to go do that. When do you've got to get started getting ready? Usually do 16 weeks. I'm going to try to run New York in November, so I'm going to start training for that pretty soon. And then New York Marathon then run Tokyo in March, which is, they're about 16 weeks apart. Who will go with you to Tokyo? I don't know yet.

That's a good question. Yeah. It's a long drive. It's a trip. I can't fly you there. I'm going to take the van. I'd go, but I can't fly you there. You have to ride commercial.

Yeah, yeah. You could use your boss's plane. I've always wanted to go back to Japan. Yeah. I never been there. So I don't know who's going to go yet. I will promise you if I go, I'm not going to be on the same diet as you. Yeah.

So I'll drink all the beer and eat all the bad foods. Yeah. That's why I need to stay after the marathon. Is that when the party happens? I don't know. Can't you what you want a couple days before and afterwards? You'll have your sixth marathon award and you'll be so excited. Yeah.

Yeah. Like I said, it won't mean anything anybody but me. Let's break out the celery. Everybody. this is a party. Sorry. All right, all right, we're going to turn you loose. All right, thanks for coming today.

A lot of fun catching up. And I'll be in touch. We're going to race some races together. All right, sounds good. I'm looking forward to it. Matt Kenseth on Dale Jr. Download. Man, I'm really excited to have Ally help us bring the guest segment every week. It's one of my favorite parts of the download.

We get to talk to so many different people in racing, outside of racing. But everybody that comes in here, I want them to have. had a good time. I want them to want to come back. I want them to feel like an ally to 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.