The Dale Jr. Download - 523 - Jefferson Hodges: How To Make It In NASCAR

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reconnects with a figure from his past when he sits down with Team Penske NASCAR team manager Jefferson Hodges. After growing up admiring his Uncle Dale Lemonds’ racing career, Jefferson found his way into the racing world through Rick Townsend’s late model stock outfit in the Richmond, Virginia area. From there, he’d make his way onto the NASCAR Cup scene thanks to Tommy Baldwin, who was working for Junie Donlavey Racing at the time. When the Donlavey team began to slow, Jefferson returned to Townsend and found his footing as a team leader and crew chief. Jefferson would play an integral role in the progression of JR Motorsports from a late model stock team to one of the leading organizations in the NASCAR Xfinity roster. Jefferson had found success in the late model ranks with driver Mark McFarland, and after taking home a NASCAR Whelen All-American Championship, the two were destined for Charlotte. Through a driver-switch up, the two found themselves at JR Motorsports, and when success in late models led to the possibility of expanding into NASCAR’s secondary division, the number-88 Xfinity ride was born. Fan Duel Disclaimer: Availability subject to regulatory approval.21+ and present in NC. Bonuses are issued in non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire 30 days after FanDuel accepts its first real money sports wager in NC. Unique user identity verification required. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. 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.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here on this Wednesday. Our guest segment brought you by Ally here in the Bojangles studio. Jefferson Hodges is our guest coming up next. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, Dale Jr., Dale Jr., back again. For another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Boogginger Studio. Hey, everybody.

Jefferson Hodges. Get up on that mic. We're going on for a ride. All right. All right. We're ready for our guest segment. It brought to you by Ally. Do it right. We're going to talk about why Jefferson Hodges,

this is probably not a name that you recognize, but I always get asked about how to get involved in NASCAR. And I think Jefferson's story about how he was able to get involved in the sport and all the different paths that it took him down is really compelling to me. But he also literally helped us get junior motorsports off the ground. Back when junior motorsports first started, we were solely a Lake Model Stock team. He tells the story of how we grew into an Xfinity race team, and he was at the controls of getting all the operations going.

So I'm looking forward to reliving some of those memories and also hearing just the sacrifices that Jefferson had to make to be able to get into this sport and stay and make it work. So I appreciate Ally and everything they do. Let's get right to it and get Jefferson in the room. How are you? Good. You have pretty good.

All right. Get up on that mic. All right. We're going for a ride. All right. Jefferson Hodges is here on the Dale Jr. download. And I wanted to tell people this is the way I've been teeing up this show. It's like I know your story and it's a great one and we're going to hear it.

but I get asked all the time how to get in racing. How do you get in racing? How do you getting racing? What do I do? And I think that you're a great example or story of this is how you do it. This is the sacrifices that you're going to have to make. This is, you know, your path is not going to be perfect. And it will be with challenges.

Everybody thinks you turn in a resume and they call you and you show up and off you go. Yeah. Not quite that easy, is it? No, I've got one from Penske that said thanks, but no thanks, 20 years ago. Yeah. And now you're a big player over there at Penske, helping them have a tonic success. But before we get there, I wanted to say thanks for coming in. Jefferson saw you in L.A. a couple weeks ago, and we got to talking, and I was like, man, I think it'd be great to get you on the show and talk about where you been and your story.

And plus one thing that's unique about you is you helped us get Junior Motorsport started. Yeah, I like to think so. Yeah, you did. And so you were a massive, we leaned on you when it came to putting our program together. I want to talk about that as well. But first off, man, from Williamsburg, Virginia, a lot of late model stock racing happening up and around that area. But what was your original connection to motorsport? So I'm from a semi-racing family.

My uncle raced growing up, not anyone in my immediate family. So kind of grew up in and around Langley. Was a huge Elton Sawyer fan when I was a kid. And, you know, his cars were always beautiful and clean, and he raced clean. And I just thought it was, like, pretty interesting the way he did it. But, you know, just kind of kept up with my uncle a lot and has his career progressed. And I got a little bit older. You know, I could start driving myself to the race shop.

and helping him a little bit. And, you know, I'm sure some of it was he was just being nice because he was family, but, like, he really started kind of leaning on me. And, you know, I remember the first time he took my advice and tried something, and it worked and was like, dang, this guy's been, you know, winning my whole life. Do you remember what that advice was? Yeah, we were, he was, he was letting squaring up a rear end mess with him, you know, just because he had struggling to figure out, like, why he couldn't get it square.

And so, you know, it's like back then it was a three-step process. and each step would mess up one of the other ones and you just kind of had to keep getting it closer and closer and I just that gave me that sense of like I can do this yeah like I can do this better than somebody else so I'm gonna do it so um you're helping your uncle and going to the racetrack and getting introduced to racing um did you ever want to drive no no um you worked with uh so was langley sort of the only track you went to there for a while did you go to other racetracks? Yeah, I went to Southside on Friday nights. They'd run and that was before, you know, Southampton came along, but that was like after I'd already started kind of doing it for a living. But Langley was always home. You know, it was where my grandparents lived really close to

it so we could kind of like go down there and, you know, spend the weekend. They lived on the bay, on the water and you could, you know, you could do a little boat and do a little racing at night and kind of just it all went together. But that's where I got the first, you know, taste of it. It was Like my dad took me to Southside every Friday night. And, you know, Langley was like the rabbit for behaving. If I was, if I behaved and I was good and my grades were where they needed to be, then we got to go there and, like, you know, see some better stuff. So Rick Townsend is a really cool dude that me and you both know really well.

I think we'll learn how big of an influence he was for you. But I always thought he was such a great guy. how did you meet Rick? Rick is a, Rick as we would understand him, or at least as I would know him, was a chassis builder. Yep. But he was more than that.

So talk about Rick and getting to know him and how you ended up over there. So Rick was a legend in Virginia in all the late-mile stock car world and, you know, kind of had like this whole other path even before he came to Virginia. He was, you know, him and Mike Beam were with Butch Lindley when Butch was just tearing up short track racing all over the place.

And he had this idea to build these what was called a late-mile stock car. And, you know, they started in 1982 at Old Dominion Speedway up in Manassas, Virginia. So there was really, at the time, there was two people that built him, Emmanuel Cervacus and Rick and his partner, Ricky Dennis. So, you know, just kind of growing up in that area, it was, you know, you either had one or the other. You were either a Cowboys fan or a Redskin fan, like you couldn't be both. Right. And, you know, just through coincidence, one of the cars that my uncle had when I was younger, Rick had built.

And I kind of just always remembered it. It was just better looking than the other ones. Like, you know, the welds and the detail and the little things were nicer. And, you know, he would wreck it and it would go to Rick. And when it would come back, it looked better than it did before you wrecked it. Right? Right. So I graduated from high school, went to college, stayed close to Richmond. It wasn't really the plan. I had all intentions of doing a semester close to home and then

transfer into Virginia Tech. And in the meantime, I found Rick's shop. It was close to school. And like just pure coincidence drove by it, saw the sign and was like, ah, that's where I belong. So I went in and introduced myself. And I'll never forget it. I didn't actually meet Rick the first time I went there. Ricky Dennis. And I told him who my uncle was, and he said, man, I'm sorry. He was kind of just, you know, the way to break the ice. And I asked for a job. And I offered to come in at night and clean the shop and empty trash cans and do whatever, you know, just for that opportunity. And they said, well, man, we're not going to make you do that, but we are looking for somebody. And they needed someone to cut pipe, notch it, bend it for these roll cages that they were building

around the corner. And, you know, looking back on it, I've been better off emptying the trash cans. It was tough work. But, yeah, they gave me my start. And they were both, Rick and Ricky both were just as adamant about me finishing college as my parents were. I still lived at home when I was doing this, and that was kind of the deal, like, you're going to finish school. So I worked part-time for them for quite a while until I finished, you know, and graduated. And then once I did that, it was game on. Yeah.

So, you know, what kind of person was Rick? I like to talk about him because he was a special guy. Yeah, his story needs to be told more. Rick was like one of the coolest people you could ever meet. He was brilliant. Like there was, bar none, one of the smartest race car people I've ever met my life. There was nobody's car that he touched that he didn't make better, right? Like he made people that raced winners and he made winners champions all over the East Coast.

but there was something about him that he wanted to share all this knowledge where a lot of these guys, especially back then, they might have known everything that Rick knew, but they wanted to keep it close to their pocket, and they didn't want to share it, and they were afraid that, you know, the next guy was going to replace him or outdo them, and Rick was just wanted to share with whoever would pick up the phone and call him.

You need even have to have one of his cars. Like, I mean, that was his way of selling stuff was making, somebody else's race car better. But he didn't care. I mean, he obviously cared because he had a business and he needed to pay the bills. But making money wasn't why Rick was in it. He just loved racing and he loved helping people. And I never really got a straight answer out of him.

What it was about me that he latched on to. But, I mean, it was unbelievable. And I wouldn't be anywhere without him. So you worked there for about four years. at the same time, you started calling Tommy Baldwin. Yeah. Right? Who's working at Junior Dun & Levy's team.

How did you get his number? So there was, you know, like in Richmond, there was three games in town, right? You either work for Rick, Emmanuel Cervacus, and if you went cup racing, you worked for Mr. Dunlevy. And there was two guys that worked with me at Townsend. they were great fabricators still very close friends of mine and they both left and went to work for junie and honestly it really hadn't crossed my mind at the time i was still pretty young i was like 19 years old barely 20 um and i thought if they can do it i can do it i just need a chance just need someone to give me a chance so looking back on it the fact that tommy we went on

break at Townsend at 945 every morning. And every Monday morning at 945 I would call Tommy Baldwin and ask him for an interview. And I'm still to this day convinced that the only reason he gave me the interview is so I would stop calling him. But think about it now. There was no private planes back then. Junie was barely flying commercial back then. And this guy was at work at 945 on Monday mornings, no matter where they raced. And like now that I look back on it and think about it, it's like, that is more impressive than than even, you know, my opportunity, just the work ethic that that dude has is crazy. And he still has it. But yeah, went up there and it kind of turned out to be a funny story.

I was super nervous. Like, went in there and like, you know, it's cup racing, man. It's like the coolest thing in the world. And we sit down and we talk for a little bit and we go in the back and he said, I'm going you a welding test. And here's the deal. If I can weld better than you, don't ever call me again. Yeah.

If you weld better than me, then you got a job. So we go back there to the welder, and I had my welding helmet, my glove, and like, if nothing else, if you welded for Rick Townsend, you're, you can well better than anybody, bar none. So I knew it. Like, I had it in the bag. Had it. You got you.

I got you right where I want you now. So he, you know, he made a valid attempt. And then I, you know, then I did mine and I got my job. Yeah. It was cool. Damn. Yeah. How long did you work there? About a year and a half.

Yeah, so I worked there all in 98, half a 99. How's your driver? Dick Trickle drove in 98 had Highlight Myers. It was the last year of that. And, you know, at the end of the season, the Highlight Myers Company ended up shutting down very soon after that. And Trickle went on his way. And after that, it was kind of like, you know, they had the Duke's mayonnaise deal, the Sowers Company. And Hutt Strickland drove it.

Hutt was a great dude, and he was a ton of fun. but you could kind of see the writing on the wall. You know, everything was pushing towards Charlotte, and there wasn't a line of sponsors out the door to come, you know, sponsor the 90 car in Richmond, Virginia. So kind of looked around, and you got 30 really talented guys, and they've all got cup racing on their resume now, and there's not a lot of other people in Richmond that do,

and it was like, I got to beat these guys back to work for Rick before the floodgates, okay. and this place shuts down. You needed to go back to Rick, Townsend's, because you thought there'd be a heavy competition for that. Yeah, and I knew there would. They were all going to have, you know, the sun might move to Charlotte to try to pursue opportunities there.

And Charlotte, to me, still wasn't in the conversation because even though I was pretty well-rounded from working for Rick, it was still at a late model level. You know, we built some Xfinity cars, some trucks and stuff like that. But, like, my niche was late model racing, was short track racing. and working for Junie, you get to do a lot of things. I was a shock builder, changed front tires, set cars up, was a fabricator. But you come down here and you start telling people in Charlotte that in the late 90s,

and they're going to be like, yeah, right. Because everybody kind of had a thing that they did. And I didn't want to be that guy. I didn't want to move to Charlotte away from everything I knew just to put rear windows in a stock. car for the rest of my life like as cool as it would have been so I made a little attempt at it I talked to some people down here like you know Ricky Rudd was obviously local legend knew some people that knew him came down here and talked to him and waddo Wilson at the time and um applied at penske just because it was Penske and and um you know either didn't get what I thought was right for me

or didn't get anything and went back to work for Rick yeah um and that was kind of the deal with the him and I is like I want to be able to do this stand on my own two feet and that's what we did what do you remember working with with Dick Trickle he was a pretty interesting guy like I mean he was you know he was kind of the guy that would which it was a little bit different back then it wasn't you know the drivers weren't as private they were you know they stay at the hotel with you and they kind of ride around but he just wanted to be one of the guys in race um you know a lot of the you know like a lot of the rumors you hear about the briefcase with the hard candy and the extra cigarettes like they were true yeah they're real um but the the coolest dick trickle story i have

1998 was the 50th anniversary in ascar right so they changed the logo for like the first time now they do it all the time but now that was the first time we had ever seen a massive logo change and it had the 50th anniversary and the gold and the last race of the season he had two different fire suits depending on whatever the uh paint on the car was one was solid white and one was was black. The white one he gave me after the last race. Like took it off, balled it up, handed it to me and said, here, thanks. And it's like, I still have it to this day. It's just cool. Like, it's got the little zipper, you know, where the cigarettes and the lighter lived. It's got his name on it. It's 50th anniversary. And like, to be that young, 98, so I was 20. And to have that

did you have the lighter inside the car? The lighter was in the car. What was the immediate reaction when you got, when you went to the race shop to work there the first time? And somebody said, yep, got the checklist. Yep, got the lighter in there. Like, no race, no other, that's the only race car in the history of NASCAR. Yeah. In those days, at least, that had a lighter in it. Yeah, and I don't think Mr. Dunleavy was a huge fan of it.

So it was kind of like the unspoken thing you did for trickle, right? But, yeah, it was true, you know. And I'd seen people that had taped gum on their dash or different. little things but yeah that was uh it was real wow um you know obviously there was places that he didn't use it like a road course where he had his hands full or something but um didn't think about that yeah open face helmets and and he did actually convert to a closed face helmet for a couple races like later in that year yeah and it it kind of caboshed that but um it was real it was real that's awesome yeah i got to hang around him when i was young we uh one of my friends dad worked on

the 66 tripotic car that he drove for kill Yarbril and he was so nice i mean a couple punk kids you know 13 12 14 years old being in the way he couldn't have been nicer um and in the he had the briefcase with underwear and and cigarettes and racy cups yeah i was going to leave the underwear part out yeah you can yeah and a pair of white tighties in there that's right um are you there till the last day no no you left before done living sure i did yeah junior shut down yeah And you went back to Rick's. I did. Right?

So when you go back to Rick, are you, you just slot right back into where you were? You got a better position? A little bit of both. And one thing about leaving Junie's, Tommy Baldwin left at the end of 98, right? And it was nothing against the people that came in after him, but they weren't Tommy Baldwin. Yeah. And I felt like for a year, I was drinking from a water, like a big garden hose, like just learning so much. So it wasn't just about leaving June.

or beating the mad rush that I did see coming. It was also, I was too young to not have anyone to look up to, not have anyone to learn from. And by no means am I saying that I knew everything. I was just surrounded by a bunch of people like me. So I knew, yeah, I'd go back to work for Rick and just go back to learning. Yeah. So you go back to work with Rick and, you know,

You worked with Robert Powell. Yeah. So I'm surprised with that because I grew up racing Robert at the beach. In 93, 456, Robert raced at Florence and the beach every week. And his dad ran Somerville and Florence Motor Speedway. And Robert lived around that area. How is he? And I know he did in the earlier 90s or late 80s around a bush racer, too.

So I knew he got out of that little bubble down there in Myrtle Beach in that area. But how does he end up driving for Rick? So he only ran two races for us. But it was a really good record, the two that he ran. So what happened was whoever he had driven for before he had lost his ride. But he owned the motor. So he came to Rick and Ricky and had a motor and wanted us to build him a car to go to Martinsville.

Just like that. Just like that. And truth be told, it turned out really well, so he might deny it, but Ricky Dennis wasn't a huge fan of it. Ricky was the one that made sure we all got paid every Friday. And it's definitely something looking back on it. And him and I have talked about this. I didn't understand how hard that was to do when you own a small business until I had

to worry about, you know, paying people. But Rick and I were like, yeah, we're going to build this. car we've only got like two weeks to do it we'll work all day we'll work all night and like i just thought the world of rick like if i could hang around it for 23 hours a day like i was going to do it so we drug the metal out of the rack and and that was kind of the deal ricky made with us was like you can't take anything out of production you can't take anything off the shelf if you're going to do this build it all like everything else is already inventory and has a place and you know at the end of day had a price tag on it so we built this car and we barely make

it to the racetrack. Went to Martinsville and the thing was lightning quick. What was so special about it? It was a, there was a guy named Lee McAllister had come with Robert and him and Rick had kind of, Lee was like brilliant when it came to short track racing. And he and Rick put their head together and redesigned the whole front clip. It was like nothing that you had ever seen. And there were so many attempts at what the right heights were that we all

ended up like welding washers over all these slots in random holes because they kept working on it getting it better getting it better and there was no pull downs or anything like you know you're talking plum bobs and chalk on the floor and it was like when it got all done you know we welded washers around all these slots to like make what would be the hole on the final product yeah and um it just worked and it was it was new and it was awesome and the car was beautiful and you know we had you know over there trying to build this thing as fast as we could and weigh in every part that we put on it and just kind of just super conscious of it and got a lot of buying from some of the other guys in the shop and you know when it was all said and done it was like the morning before you used to go there and you'd park your trailer like the day before and you'd have to be in line the day before that and it was a whole event and we didn't leave to like the night of yeah drove all night to get there and you know it was awesome parked in the back and parked in the back didn't have anything we had to borrow jack stands and a jack and danny edwards junior like it It was a thing.

And you've won to race? Yeah, beat him bad. Really? It was impressive. Yeah, he started ninth. He, uh, he raced up front, you know, back then they had to invert. I got inverted back to seventh. It didn't take him very long to get back to the front and just, you know, just ran away

with it. Um, and then past tech, which back then was really hard. And Rick and I didn't know a whole lot about the motor at the time, you know, it was like Robert Powell had brought it and, you know, it was like, you know, Robert Powell kind of wasn't necessarily always distraided. shooter in the tech shed so it was like where you ran another race with him where was that mortal beach 400 oh yeah and probably that's his wheelhouse yeah yeah it was his wheelhouse yeah he probably yeah he ran really good there what year was this 99 yeah yeah so like i did the world 600 with junie

and that was the last race i ran with him and then kind of went back yeah and and and we started working on this little project the two races with robert foul man yeah that that i love when that name comes up in in a conversation because I spent many years chasing him around the beach. He's a beast. Yeah. He was good. I ran, I have the car that I have, I have a car that I raced in 96 that I'm going to put back together. It's won one race.

Like who restores a car that's only one, one event? Right. It ran 16 races at Florence in 1996 and ran second to Robert. 14 of those races. I believe it. You know, when he was, and so that we won a race, I come home, walk in the shop, put the trophy up on top of the Lance Cracker Machine. First thing I want Dad to see when he comes home, comes in the shop that morning.

He walks in, looks up there, sees a trophy, and the first thing he says is, was Robert there? And he was like, yeah, he wasn't there, Dad. He said, well, you didn't beat him. Was he really not there? He wasn't. He wasn't. He was there that night. And we won. Yeah, I, I, uh, Robert Powell, Charlie and, and that whole family, man, it was, it was, it was, it

taught me a lot racing against them because they were so hard to beat. So around this time, you get to work on Mark McFarland's cars. Yeah, so that was 99. And then 2000 is when, it turned out to be much more ironic than it seemed at the time. But that's when NASCAR's diversity program was all spread all over the country. There was different race teams that represented each one of these drivers. and at Townsend the house car we had an opportunity to be one of those through a guy named Sam Belneves that was a player at Roush at the time

and Rick came to me after this Martinsville race and said I think you're ready to crew chief this car and to take care of it and we're going to build it but we're going to keep it here and we're going to race it all season and you're going to be responsible for everything from the truck to the drinks and the cooler to the car itself and so that was my first real opportunity to do something like to crew chief something to be in charge of something to have something that was mine you know sink or swim and and rick didn't let me do it by myself he he was there with me um but it was kind of my deal so we had some luck with that we actually

won um at in jacksonville north carolina um it was the first race that program had ever won And then that lured Mark, the fact that we had these house cars now. Because Mark was kind of like at the time in 2000, 2001, he was like, he was going to drive for whoever had the hotlit car at the time or whoever was going to help him the most because they were trying, it was a family run deal and they were trying not to spend everything they made. And we never could get him in one of these towns and cars because that was like, that was definitely one of our things.

We didn't give anything to anybody. Like everybody paid the same price. Nobody was getting anything for free. like we didn't Rick and Ricky didn't feel like they had to give anything away to put the best in their cars. So once there was this house car program and there was a little bit more to it, that's how we got Mark in the Townsend car. And then Mark and I, you know, were the same age, had a, you know, really similar ideas on what we wanted to do with life, which was nothing but race. And we were both willing to do no matter what, no matter how much work it took. It was kind of unspoken.

It just happened, but he never left my side, and I wasn't leaving his, and we just won everything there was to win. Yeah, you all won the national championship together. Mark McFarland would end up driving for Junior Motorsports at one point in his career, and then he goes on later in his career as a really successful crew chief himself in the K&N series and working with Ty Gibbs and other drivers. Mark moves to Charlotte. he's going to go drive a truck. Yeah, so part of winning that Dodge Weekly Racing series,

which you got an opportunity to drive a Dodge truck. Right. And so he's going to take that opportunity, and he goes down south to do that. You go back to Rick's. I had never left. You never left. So the house car was there.

So all the time that Mark and I were racing, it was all, that's why I say we worked. It was all at night and on the weekends. I still worked seven to four. building chassis for Rick. Yeah. And so I bought a car from y'all. I've been racing y'all Rick's cars since the mid-90s,

but I bought a car from y'all because of my appreciation for Rick and Ricky Dennis and just the good quality cars that they were. We started racing T.J. majors. Yep. And we basically, so we built a street stock car for TJ. He ran that for a year at Concord. And then we're like, all right, it's time to go late model stock racing. We'll buy a car, Willie Jackson, my mom's husband was going to manage all that for me.

And we'd send them down the road to race. We had a lot of different people trying to help make that thing work, and we struggled. I didn't know much about how to get them to where they needed to be. and we would bring the car to you, and you would always kind of straighten us out. So help me understand where we are at that point. Yeah, so we built that car. I remember the first time we went and tested at Orange County

and had Timothy Peters drive at first, and it was like, TJ wasn't that much, that far off, Timothy. And at the time, Timothy was like the guy at Orange County. So we all kind of left with, you know, some high hopes. And it was, you know, I've described it before as it was kind of a cycle. We would get the car and kind of hand it off to you guys and T.J. go run third. And then he'd run fifth and then he'd run eighth.

And then the phone would ring. And we'd get the car back. And then he'd go run second and then he'd run fifth and then he'd run tenth. And then we'd get the car back. And, you know, T.J called one day. I'll never forget it. I had a wheelbarrow full of doorbars that, like, I was putting on the shelf. Because at the time, I had transitioned to, you know, building chassis.

I was also kind of in charge of a lot of inventory and dealing with customers. And, you know, now we have portable phones. And so, like, I wore one at work. And when the phone would ring and someone needed setup advice, like, Rick was, you know, overwhelmed. There was too many people calling now. Like, the business was really running. Yeah. So I was kind of doing parts of that.

And the phone rings, and I answer it as T.J. And he was looking for someone to come work on his car. And, like, there was a part of me that meant it. And there was a part of me that was just being a smart ass. And it was like, I'll come do it. And, and, yeah. I was like, didn't really think much of it. And he asked if I was serious.

And I said, yeah, sure. Like, you know, at that point, I felt like, not that I needed to cash in on the success that Mark and I had had, but Mark was down here in Charlotte and I wasn't. And it was kind of like driving me nuts because I, you know, I knew that we were capable of doing some great stuff, not just me and him, but like him and then me. so I needed to go. So like I said, part of it was being a smart ass, but part of it I meant luckily somebody else called me back.

Who? Your sister. Yep. Yeah. So Kelly calls you and y'all sorted it out. I mean, how hard was that decision? How hard was it to go tell Rick? What were their thoughts?

So, yeah, it was, it was interesting because, like, we had done a bunch of, not a bunch, but we had done quite a bit of testing with Kelly, right, to where, like, I didn't, um, It wasn't that strange to be talking to her on the phone, right? Like we had gone to South Boston and tested with her when she drove a couple of times. So, like, I knew her a little bit to where I was comfortable enough to, like, talk about all the things that, you know, concerned me. Yeah. And, and, you know, truth be totally, I don't have to tell you this, but you guys took really good care of me during that whole process. Like, I was married and I owned a house and, you know, made us feel like part of the family from day one.

the hardest part, even harder than telling my parents and my sister, was telling Rick. Like, I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. Oh, my gosh. Like, earlier, you know, in 98, like, it was the company, you know, I didn't have the position I had at Townsend when I left to go work for Junie. And the company wasn't doing, like, competitively. It was always doing well, but it wasn't doing as good as it was. the second time. I felt like I was leaving him and Ricky in a pickle.

And, you know, that was hard. Yeah. Rick is this bearded big. Big dude. He's like Santa Claus. It's like one of the elves telling Santa he's going to have to leave. He actually told me when I told him why I was leaving that if I didn't leave, that I wasn't near as smart as he thought I was, and then he would fire me.

So it definitely, it ended like, you know, relieved. but I'll never forget it. I sat in his office. He had a picture of him and Mike Beam and Butch Lindley down there shop in Greenville behind him. From the late. Yeah, from the long time ago. From the early 80s, I guess.

And it was like, it just, I don't know what happened, but nothing would come out of my mouth and like, you know, just tears. It was a mess. Like, I felt like I was leaving my own dad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The weight is over, NASCAR fans,

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That's promo code W-I-N-24 at Lionelracing.com. All right, so you come to Mooresville. Yeah. All right, what was your first impressions when you walked in the shop? I mean, you weren't unfamiliar with the shop, but... No, and I don't... It's hard to explain without sounding like, you know, just arrogant. You ain't going to hurt my feelings.

Forget I'm here. No, it's not about you. There was nothing about it that I didn't think that this was just going to be easy. Like, it's just a late model. It just had a different address, right? we were going to go to the same racetracks, we were going to race the same people. You know, now we're just going to do it with TJ.

And the car is orange and instead of red. But, like, it was the exact same car. I literally built that car. Like the chassis from the ground up, the rear end, every piece of it, other than the internal parts of the motor. I built it. So I knew it, like, the back of my hand.

You know, I knew, and nothing against anybody that had worked on it, but you get a bunch of people that are, you know, that friends and they all want to come help they've all got different opinions and you kind of mix it all together and it's just not going to work right it's like individually any one of them probably could have made that car go faster and that was kind of the opportunity that I had there was nobody else it was just me like I was in that room by myself me and Willie and you know Willie was like he was willing to do anything I asked to help but he wasn't going to tell me sure what to do on the car and he didn't which I really appreciated like and you know it probably didn't go appreciated enough

that he let people do their jobs but I changed everything and just put it back but I knew what was right like we had one car with races with those type cars all over the country so like it sounds arrogant but I didn't come down here with like there was not an ounce of me that was nervous I just wanted to go racing yeah how to go we went pretty good I think uh I think it was the fifth race we ran we went to south Boston for that was kind of the deal we made you didn't want us camping out at the racetrack so I was a little jealous when your late mall program progress and then you guys started camping out at Hickory and all these places. It was like, dang, we had to move all over the place.

So our deal was three races and then move on. So we went and ran our three at South Boston. And progressively, you know, better each week. I think, you know, T.J. got to understand me. And he was, you know, he was like that part of his career and his age where, like, trust was a big thing. And he was trying to figure out who he could trust and who he couldn't. And the second stop was motor mile. we went up there and and we didn't just win it was a they had it was a big money race they had a bounty on

frank denny junior which was like another richmond guy that like there was nobody better to beat than frank denny junior he's always you know barking and you know talking about great he was and and we won and took all his money and it was great like denny hamlin was in that race yeah yeah yeah so um you know the thing about tj you you mentioned it we went to we took that car brand new tested it orange County and ran third in his very first race in that car. Yep. And I was like, oh, man, we're going to be good. Third.

And TJ had, TJ did have real ability. Absolutely. Right? Did, he had it. The one thing that TJ didn't have was a filter and an ability to button it up his mouth when he needed to. Does he now? Yeah.

I don't think so. I don't think he's learned that. But he's got, he's earned the right. to be the way that's right. That's right. But back then we were like, hey, you know. And so I remember, you might remember it differently. I remember we're coming up on, there was an announcement that would be a late-mile stock

race at Bristol. And I remember thinking, damn, I don't know if TJ needs to go run that. And I was like, I think we need to, I need to tell TJ that he probably can't run that race. I don't know what we're going to do. And that pissed TJ off. And TJ really, really got annoyed by that. And then I got annoyed by his reaction to it. I'm like, well, this is my damn car,

and I don't think you're going to run Bristol. I don't want you to go up there and run it. Yeah. And we ended up getting a bit of a spad about it. And we called Mark, and Mark would end up getting in the car. Yeah. Is that pretty much the sequence of events? No, that's, yeah, I mean, I think everyone recognized that putting a late-mile stock

around Bristol at the time was dangerous, right? like the cars. It's not made for that kind. They're not made for that kind of stuff. And that race was originally, that was the old UARA Stars Tour. and that's what it was supposed to be was like the most elite late model drivers

in the country. You know, it wasn't made for the ones that were learning how to do it. So yeah, I mean, that's pretty much exactly how I remember it. And I don't know that I really ever knew what was after Bristol for TJ. Right.

But I do remember his reaction and I remember thinking, I get it, but you're going to regret it. And, you know, it was a while. Like, it was a bumpy road there for a minute, you know, getting, you know, for TJ to understand. But I think there was, I always felt like there was a part that, you know, everybody's got a place in this sport. And I think, you know, maybe you had kind of started to realize that that might not be his place in the seat, but that there was something bigger for him out there. And obviously, like, he's founded.

It's awesome. So we called Mark. Yep. Mark was in between jobs. And we said, hey, Mark McFarland, come drive this car. We got this four race sort of schedule we're going to do in a solid month. Yep. I know Nashville Fairgrounds was one of the races.

Y'all didn't want to go there. Nope. But I was like, please go run that race. I want a car that can go win a race there. You ran three other places, and we got 40 grand in four weeks. Yep. Total. Yeah.

And then we were like, all right. Yeah. We're done. What do you remember after that? Yeah, so we went on that little tear. Yep. The Nashville thing always stuck out because they read a different motor rule there, and our motor was supposed to be not competitive.

And not because of who built it, just because of the rules. And I remember going, calling some friends at race there and getting lap times, and we had just gotten to see. new toter home, right? Like, it was, like, fancy and it was beautiful, and we get in it, and we drive to Nashville, and I don't remember what the lap times were. They said you were supposed to run, but we were, like, a second quicker, and I thought, these guys are lying to us, and we just kept working. And it was, like, Mark's like, no, they're lying. Like, we just work, work, work, all day we worked. That's all we did was work on his car,

slept in the toter home when the guys showed up the next morning, like, sign-in Saturday morning, like, there's these, you know, two or three bums from North Carolina that, like, slept in the parking lot. The thought of going downtown Nashville and like, you know, having a beer, listening, like, it never crossed our mind. Like, we were just racing. And, uh, they weren't lying. That is as fast as they could go. And, like, we had worked our fingers to the bone and were just lightning fast. And it was the one and only time that Mark and I ever had any, and it was comical, but it wasn't heated at each other. But it was the one and only time there was ever, you know, any animation on the radio.

He had such a big lead. All I could think about was that they're going to tear this thing down to the last nut and bolt and you're going to expect us to race again in six days. And it was like, dude, slow down. Like you've got to slow down. And he finally came over the radio and he was like, you know, if I go any slower, I'm going to wreck this piece of shit. But anyway, we won by a country mile, do the whole thing.

I got the coolest trophy. like it gave the grandfather clock at martinsville a run for its money like this big bronze eagle and we go to tech and like i'm sweating bullets like we're going to be there until the sun comes up like they hate us right and you know the guy comes over and he says is it legal i'm like yeah built it myself it's legal and he gave us a case of shafers oil and told us not to ever come back and that was it no so there was like no tech there was nothing we got this case of oil we got this cool trophy and a big check and and you know back to morseville we go But they told us not to ever come back. I want you to help me bridge the gap.

We do get to the Xfinity series eventually, but there was a lot of racing we did in between then, between the late model and the Xvenity series. So tell that story. Yeah, so after we did all the late model stuff, it was, you know, I think your exact words were, I'm not going to pay you two to go around the East Coast and beat up on these late mile guys anymore.

So it was what are we going to do? And it was the choice. There was the Hooters Pro Cup series, which ended up being like the coolest racing, still as day I've ever done. Really? Like maybe excluding the Rolex 24, the Indy 500 or something like that, but like just short track racing, like the people that did it were just awesome.

And it was so hard, mainly because Mark and I were clueless of what was going on. But it was just fun or Archer racing. And, you know, we decided to go pro cup racing. So we built a couple cars. Got them from Steve Levitt, got some motors. Oh, yeah, we did get Levitt's cars. Got some motors from... I insist if we get Levitt's car.

We had those in the cup series. I was running them on my cup cars on the front clip. That Levitt's clip was a new thing. And he was awesome. I remember begging Rick to build these cars. I had this pipe dream in my head that I was going to go back to Richmond for like a month. We were going to build these two Pro Cup cars. Just me and Rick is going to be like the good old days.

Like that's why our late model program in my mind was so successful because like I had built it with my own hands. I had never really at this point in my life I'd never raced a car that I didn't build. Like literally built, like not just assembled from the box, but like built the chassis. So there was a part of me that was a little leery of like how this was going to go down and I just Rick wasn't having it like he had built pro cup cars before He had kind of been burnt by the rule book like we had before I moved here like the most dominant pro cup cars there were and they changed the rule book and made him illegal So he was just not going to deal with it So he had kind of like seconded the vote to go to Levitt so that's how we ended up there Yeah had some motors from automotive specialists and he was just

The only real requirement you had was that we hired your uncles to put the bodies on, which, you know, I'll never forget. Uncle Robert D.E. Yep. So we go over to their shop over in Concord, and they're like. My gosh. We got a, you know, it was like, hey, they had a spec greenhouse and a nose and tail, and then the rest of it was like a free for all. Yes. And so go over there and meet them.

And like, I knew who they were, but I didn't know them personally, right? and like when you meet them, they're characters, right? They're a blast from the past. Oh, yeah. And they're really not into someone like, they don't want to hear my crap, right? Like they're going to do their thing and they don't need me and like, I'm just to fly on the wall. So I'm like, can you do this? Yeah.

Have you ever done it before? Nope. And I'm like, oh, listen to me. They're like, what do you need? A rule book. That's it? Yeah, just give us a rule book. How about a template?

Nope, just the rule book. Like, okay. So we dropped these cars off And one thing I did learn This process is you're not going to rush them Because they're not going to hurry up for you So we got this first car Like if we needed it a month before the first race at Lakeland

We got it like two weeks before And they really didn't see the problem with it or care So we put this thing together We go test it And it was kind of like the Nashville story all over again Like we went down there And you know You're racing against Shane Huffman

And Clay Rogers and Jay Fogelman and Bobby Gill and just like the who's who of short track racing. And like we were faster than all of them. And we're like, da, they're lying to us. Like, there's no way. Like, there's no way we're faster than they are. So we come back to, from the test and go back down there to race. And I never forget it, we rolled it through tech.

And there's like 60 cars which show up these races. And our car was wrapped and not painted, which was unique at the time. they pulled it out of the tech line. There's all these cars in the tech line, and they come through there, and they took ours out. It was like, what? And it looked a little bit different. There was a little bit, but not like a ton, but it was different.

And they're checking the body. They were convinced that the fenders were carbon or that, you know, it just didn't look like all the rest of them. But it was. And it fit, and the magnet stuck because it was like, everything was by the rulebook. It was just the G's interpretation of the rule book was better than everybody else's. So we ended up being like the fastest car in practice.

We sat on the pole. We're like dominating the race and the motor blows up. Oh, my God. The things you can't control. But it just kind of went on from there. And we had a lot of luck. I think we sat on nine poles and sat three track records. And we only won one race.

The whole pit stop thing was like throw Mark and I for a loop. Like we were used to late model racing and they dropped the green flag. And it's like, you know, you're on your own. Go race. I'm going to clean up the trailer and wait for you in texture. all these guys had come down pit road and they made their cars better like they understood about putting these tires and you know these radial tires in different sets to like adjust the stagger as the track rubbered up all these things that you know I learned later on in life but mark and I are

just like what the heck is going on like yeah and we're so fast and and we qualify so good and we kick their butt in the first half of the race and then we finish second finish third like every week we're second we're third we're leading the points we're doing all this stuff but like we can't win, and we weren't really used to not win it, especially not together. So that was difficult. But there was a big chunk of money that paid for leading halfway, so we just take that and go home. We end up, me and Kelly, end up, there's really, it's me, Kelly, and Steve Crisp and you for the most part. Mark worked there as well, a couple of other people here and there, but we got a call from Navy, and the Navy says, are you all interested in starting an Exfinity team?

We're looking around for a new team. They offered enough money for us to get something off the ground. And so we decided literally, like, just sitting here like this. All right, I guess we're going to do this. Everybody in favor? Yeah, sounds great. I don't remember where we got our trailer. I think we bought it from Nemichick.

We didn't have a trailer for the first race. We got the trailer for the second year from Nimich. So our first hauler, I guess, was Nimmechek. We borrowed one from somebody? We use our own. So the first race that we ran was Homestead. Yes. And we went and tested.

That was when you could go test. Yep. And Truex was running for the championship with their deal. We got the car from the 15 team. Yeah, the car was one of Paul Menard's Bush cars. That's correct. Yep. And we took our toter home to the test.

Gotcha. And Mark and I drove it. Like, it was just like we're going pro cup racing, but we're going to do it at Homestead instead of Lakeland. It's no different, right? It's going to be great. So we get down there, and we got, you know, Hovis and Mark's cousin Travis worked with us at the time. And we get there for the test, and it's like you kind of look around and you're like, well, this is not ProCup racing.

Like there's some big names here and some, you know, like beautiful equipment, fancy trailers and all this stuff. And like we're still doing our own grocery shopping for the TOTER home. So the trailer beside us was the JTG Bush team. and they roll their car out and forgot to put the chocks on the lift gate. Oh, shit. And dropped the back tires off the lift gate, and it landed on the exhaust pipe, and it was kind of just dangling. And I remember Mark and I looking at each other, and we're like,

well, we might be dumb, but we're not that dumb. We'll be all right. So we just kind of went from there, and we actually had a really good test. Like, we couldn't stop smoking the left front tire through the fender, and we had really no idea why it was doing it, like, until we got home and had some people with a lot more experience tell us what was happening. But nevertheless, it was fast. Like the car was, I think we definitely outpunted our coverage with that whole thing.

Just making it up as we went along. I remember the race. I remember sitting on our pit box and looking down pit road and us, we had the smallest pit box of anybody. So it was all Schrader's stuff. That's to answer your question, that's where the trailer came from for Homestead. We borrowed Kenny Schrader's trailer. Wow. And some of his people.

Yes. His people were his pit crew on that truck deal. I forgot all of that. Yeah. Holy shit. And we just literally asked him. Yeah. Yeah, it was a buddy deal.

Yes. Holy shit. Yep. Oh, I forgot all about that. And so I just remember sitting there and it was just me and you on that pit box. Mm-hmm. And Mark ran like 20th all night. Pretty good.

I remember we run like 20th all night, but like the top, you know, 10th to 20th were like all on the same straight away. Like it was... Yeah, and the end result doesn't really show. He got a flat tire on the last lap and lost, like, I think he was running about 14th and finished whatever, 17th or 18th. I remember we were watching him race, and he kept, he would have, he had a habit at least that night of driving down the straightaway looking on the left side of the car in front me.

And I'm like, I tap you on the side. And I'm like, it's like a half a car length off the wall down the straightaway. And it's like he just was in the habit of like driving down the straightaway. like I don't know why. He wasn't used to having somebody in front of him. Yeah, right. He used to be able to see where he could go. Yeah.

I just remember that. And I was like, man, Mark, Mark, can you get up on the straightaway? Get up against the wall. Yep. But that was our introduction to the Xfinity series. We got to run. We agreed to do this deal with the Navy the next year, but we got all the equipment and forced ourselves to get to Homestead to run the final race.

That's right. It gave us this sort of underline. understanding of what we're getting ourselves into. Then you've got this off-season where you're going to build our affinity team, right? That was a plan. How'd that go? Not real well. Yeah, it didn't.

I don't think it turned out the way that I expected it to anyway. Yeah, we hired a bunch of people, and it was like that deal had been, it was a close-knit group of people, right? Like we had Mark's cousin, Hovis, who was like a really good friend of yours. And we had kind of done everything together. And now there was all these new people that had come in. And individually, like some of them were great. Like some of them were, you know, really good. But there was others that kind of, you know, they didn't necessarily want to listen to someone as young as me, right?

Like that was the roadblock. Like, you know, what have you done? Nothing. But we're going to do something. And it was you couldn't really understand to people that were coming from these big cup teams. You know, like Dale Jr. started an Xfinity team. You could get people from anywhere you wanted, right? like people were quitting big teams to come work there.

They didn't want to listen to a guy that had late-mile stockhart raced his whole life. Yeah. So, you know, it was tough. I remember, you know, I'd spent a lot of time with Robert and Jimmy because by then I had kind of gotten close with them. And, you know, I think they knew that I was serious and that I could do this if I'd just be left alone.

And, you know, there was some people that got opportunities, in my opinion, there that honestly didn't deserve them. And then it didn't take long to weed them all out. But I wasn't necessarily there for all of it. But they all, they weeded themselves out. The ones that belong there are still here. Yeah. Yeah.

So mid-way through the year, Mark gets hurt. Mark's driving the car. We're actually getting a little traction. You're starting to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. When Mark gets hurt, it was a big setback for the team. Yeah. What do you remember about? your final six months with junior murder sports so i knew that mark getting hurt was a bigger deal

than just mark getting hurt like physically he was going to recover for it from it right he had he had been hurt in cars or in life before and he was fine the problem was martin true x junior who was a two-time affinity champion and robbie gordon who would drive the wheels off anything where who was going to replace mark and the experience and the experience experience alone that they had was going to help accelerate everything, right? Like, maybe the fact that the cars weren't being set up correctly was going to get exposed. Maybe the fact that the crew chief might not have been the best person for that job, Truex was going to expose it, where Mark didn't know.

Mark didn't know what was right or wrong. Like, that's how him and I had raced. Like, we just raced and learned as we went. So all these things were going to get, they were getting ready to come out, right? Like, everyone that was pulling the wool over, their eyes and pointing their finger at Mark, which there was a lot of it. They were getting ready to get exposed and all this stuff was magically going to get fixed at the expense of Mark's injury, right? And honestly, at the end of the day, that's kind of what happened. Yeah. So why did you

decided to leave? What happens? I don't think it was 100% my idea. Yeah. It wasn't in the plan for sure um but you know once you guys had released mark there was obviously i took it personal right like it was it was um i didn't i knew what was happening in that shop probably better than everybody and i there was people there that wanted you know you to think that every day was sunny and that there was rainbows everywhere and that wasn't the case But they had a bigger voice than I did because they had more experience or a longer resume. When Mark got let go, I probably wasn't the best employee that you had ever had, right, like from that point on because I took it. It was hard for me.

Yeah. The saving grace of it was got to go pro cup racing with Johnny Rumley, which was awesome. So that went really well and I enjoyed it. But when it was all said and done, you know, there was a massive divide between me and ever. everyone in that Xfinity shop because I knew, I knew what had happened. And there was, to this day, I'm not going to pardon any of those people. They took an opportunity from somebody that's probably one of the greatest short track racers we've ever seen. So I think somewhere along the line, you know, in the meantime, my dad had passed away. So I was angry in general. I had never really

dealt with it is I went home for a brief amount of time and you know I had my sister and a mom take care of and I did that but uh I just wanted to go back racing and that was what was going to fix everything and now that was a mess and there was only one person that I would ever call they would fix it and I couldn't call him so it just snowballed right who your dad yeah so somewhere along the line the conversation came, we're going to expand the late model stock car program because it had kind of sat idle during the time of the ProCup cars

and the growth of the Xfinity. We were going to bring it back, get some new people in, maybe even have two of them, whatever, whatever, whatever. And I just remember thinking, like, I didn't move away from my family and not get to spend the last years

of my dad's life with him to late-mile stock car race for the rest of my life. Like, I could have done that in Virginia. I could have done it with Rick. Like, I didn't, I don't need, this. So I'm not doing that. Like the deal was I promised that we would win

late mile races and I promised that we could pro cup race and and in return I wanted to be a crew chief. Like I wanted to be a crew chief at the national series level. So I felt like that promise was being broken. I had held up my end of the bargain and now

I'm not getting what because my connection, I'm getting drugged down with what happened to Martin basically. So So yeah, it was a rough day. Yeah. Yeah. There's stuff I left at your shop that I never came back and got just because I didn't want to come back.

It's probably still there. Yeah. Those are not easy. Those are never easy. They're easy when people deserve it. Yeah. They're easy. It's a sense of relief.

But when they don't, it's tough. Yeah. Yeah. So after you leave Junior Motorsports, where do you go from there? So through the ProCup stuff, I had met Jeff Fultz. And, you know, I really didn't know what I was going to do. I was really good friends with a guy named Matt Miller,

who ended up becoming a pretty big player and some ARCA and K&N stuff down here. But he has a very successful business back home. And he was actually one of the first people I reached out to. you know had a had a young young son had a house like had never really you know found myself in that position and so like first box you got to check is make sure you got something right so it's like yeah come on home you can work for me but i didn't want to go home um so fultz had needed someone the very last race of the year for the pro cup stuff back then was at iowa and actually it was iowa

than Myrtle Beach. And he needed a crew chief. Whoever was helping him was no longer helping him. And I thought, you know, like I said, back, I was a different person back then. I was a little angry, had a chip on my shoulder, like, was just full of myself. And I thought there's no better way to stay in my ground than to go to these last two pro cup races and beat that junior motorsports car. Like, we're going to beat Johnny Rumley.

That's what we're going to do. And then I'm going to be able to walk away and feel like I've accomplished. something so we ran those two races Iowa that was the big tire debacle like no one could finish people were putting tires on Woody Howard won on a set of tires from the bristores like it was a mess it was fun but it was a mess yeah went to Myrtle Beach and Foltz took the white flag leading and Benny Gordon wrecked him in three and four and like we ended up fighting on pit road it was it was like it was really cool it was like great short track stuff but the I had checked the box I needed to check because we were

going to win that race and we were going to beat that 88 car and like to me that was all that mattered my car your car yeah yeah go beat it so through that at the time fultz was the setup play guy at mb2 on the o one car and mb2 was talking about starting an exfinity team so he introduced me to a guy named dug randolph yep and if there was anyone that could give a rick towns and a run for their money of somebody that's done the most for me in my career it's Doug randolph wow So he introduced me to him, and I'll never forget. It was like the second interview. He said he was looking for a car chief.

And I'm like, okay, I didn't even know what a car chief was. So I'm like, sure. And he asks if I could do it. And I'm like, look, man, I don't know. But I can do it all. Like I'm used to driving the truck, setting them up, building them. Like, I don't know what small percentage the car chief does. But yeah, it sounds easy.

I'll do it. And I don't know why, but he hired me. And so anyway, we went on a run. run together and put that Xfinity program together. Who drove it? Regan Smith and Craig Kenser, which was like really cool because I ended up getting to I ended up getting to Arka race with Craig Kinser and later on in my career Kevin Swindell. So like growing up watching Thursday Night Thunder, now I'm racing with like, you know,

Steve and Sammy's sons. And it was like, and they were both badasses. But what I didn't realize at the time was we basically, started your late mile program from nothing we completely started your pro cup car from nothing and we started this xfinity team for nothing and it never like the light bulb that maybe like crew chiefing was like maybe there was something else i was good at like on the business side but it i didn't want to do that i didn't want to hear that but mb2 started this exfinity team from nothing well there was one person that was part of it that had done this multiple times and it was me like the youngest kid in the room

So we started this whole thing and ran and, you know, MB2 became Ginn. Ginn became DEI and it was like, it was just this kind of whole thing. But that was, Doug gave me that chance. And he calmed me down. He taught me not because he sat me down and like gave me life lessons, but I just watched him. He knew how to treat people. He knew how to get the most out of people. He knew how to get the most out of his drivers.

He never yelled. He never screamed, even when things weren't going right. And I was like, man, but everybody worked, I mean, worked hard for it. So I was like, you really can get people to do stuff that you need them to do without yelling at him. Yeah. And so, like, it was, he's still, like, one of my closest friends. And, you know, now I think when there's that question that, like, I would have called my dad for, like, I'm going to call Doug now. And I think I'm on a list of a lot of people that do that.

Yeah. You were, I've heard a lot of great things about Doug. And he is well respected in the industry. Gannasi ends up becoming the owner of that whole program and you're still there. So you went through all of those changes from Ginn to DEI to Gnassi.

Yeah, I think one year I had four W-2s and never changed desks from all different ones. But yeah, so we, you know, I ended up, I ended up being Sterling Marlins Cup car chief on the 14 car before the original merger. Who T.J. is a spotter for.

TJ was spotting. Yep. So it goes full circle. Don't burn a bridge. That's right. And then when they merged with DEI, they put Doug and I on the 15 car with Paul Menard, which was great. Paul's great guy. Like, that was a lot of fun.

Definitely think it was the best way to baby step your way into the DEI culture because, like, there was a lot of lifers there. And they weren't really into this merger and who are these people? And I might have had a little bit of a leg up on some of them because, they recognized me from like working on your late model across the street. And it was a little bit helpful. But I think if, you know, you'd have gotten thrown to the wolves on that eight car, like, they'd chewed me up and spit me out. But we went, you know, did the 15. And then that ended up that DEI merged with Gannasi.

And it was like flashbacks to the Junie Dunlevy thing. Like, I knew we were in trouble. Like we moved to Gennassie's shop. The 15 disappeared. So now I'm the car chief of the eight. Eric Almorel was going to drive it, which we were like really good buddies and had lived together and, you know, had this whole like late model racing background together. And it was like, okay, this is going to be cool. Then you look around and there was no executives from DEI there, nobody.

We had no representation. And it was like, oh boy, we're in trouble. Yeah. So the eight car eventually shuts down and you got laid off. Yep. In April, after Texas. They're, damn, before the middle of the season. Yep.

So what you do then? So ironically, another somebody that works here with you, Jim Pullman, was he kind of was like the head of like the engineering group at Ganassi that actually did the work. You know, like nothing against the ones that are designing parts, but he was like the pull down guy and the spring guy. And he kind of made it reality. So when you would go to pull your cars down at Ganassi, Pullman and Tiffany Daniels, who also is here, were the two engineers that took care of that stuff. Wow. So Pullman had connections with Eddie Sharp and his Arka deal

and a guy named Steve Arpin, I think who also drove here, was going to start this archa deal. And he wanted me to go, Eddie had all Ganassi cars. So it was kind of like there are chassis, there are springs, I've got all the data, like go over there, this kid can drive, make it happen. So I did. So I went over there and like I didn't necessarily want to Arka race, right? Like I'm thinking like kind of, you know, cup car chief and things are going good.

And maybe I should do something different. But Eddie had a nice place. And Arpin was like pretty talented. And I just thought maybe this is what I need to do. Like I wanted, I still had in the back of my head I wanted to be a crew chief. And there is a path from being a cup car chief to a cup crew chief, but it's pretty narrow path. right so i said well i'll go do this for a while so i went over there to eddies and and um you know did that deal with the arc of stuff and then eddie decided he wanted to have a truck team and

steve park was going to drive it which was awesome like we ran a couple races with steve they put skinner in um took steve out that wasn't as awesome why not he's just tough his nails like mike skinner yeah like he still thought that like you know eddie's eddie's trucks like literally were the trucks that Aaron Crocker had driven, right? Like it was a startup deal. Like he's just getting it off the ground. Like he didn't have the manufacturer support. And Skinner was still expecting it to be like the Lowe's number 31 truck.

And it was not going to ever be that. So, you know, I ended up that turned into an opportunity to go crew chief and Xfinity car for Kevin Conway. Wow. Yeah. The extends Chevrolet. So you did that for one year? Did it for a whole year. Yep.

Yep, and then Billy Hess. Yep, yep. The deal with Conway, you know, it was over there at R3. It was like, it was perfect for me. Mark McFarland was my car chief. Like, we were back together again. Oh my gosh. Yeah, we were racing.

Like, we were having a good time, you know, expectations in reality were lined up with that program, which was kind of good for me. A lot of the cars came from RCR and the engines were ECR engines sometimes. and at the time Doug Randolph was crew chief in the 29 over their RCR. So like, yeah, I had somebody to lean on him. And everything was going really well until it wasn't. And then, you know, the extends money dried up at the end of the season after the last race. And, you know, R3 had a two-car team.

Like, well, his son drove the other one so you know which one they're going to keep, right? And I'm like, this is not good. So I went over to talk to Billy Hess. And Billy kind of reminded me to Rick. He was, you know, old school. And he was definitely a little. bit tougher. He was a little bit harder on people than Rick was, but a lot of similarities. And, you know, he said, well, I need some help, and it sounds like you need a break. So I went to

work for Billy. What did you do? Whatever he told me to. Okay. Like, we went late model stock car racing. We built a couple of those and did that. He was taking care of the beard oil guy that's now does the 62 cup car. He had an ARCA car that Clay Rogers drove. So we went and did a couple arka races here and there. Built a bunch of K&N cars for Ben Kennedy. Yeah. Before anybody knew who Ben was. Right.

Which, you know, it was fun. Just nothing, whatever. I mean, yeah. So how did you get to that point in your life to where, like, going back to the late model stock race to help somebody was okay? So it wasn't really necessarily okay that it just happened to be what we did at the time. I haven't got to that crossroad yet, but I did. I just needed. I was tired of change.

in jobs right like i mean you go from mb2 to gin to dei to gancy and never asked for any of it and it was like and then you finally get out of that deal and you're arca racing with eddie and he's like oh i want to run a truck and it's like this is not good like you're an arca guy like you have a great footprint here don't mess it up yeah like but we're going to go try to truck race and mess it up and that's what happened um so i was just exhausted like i just wanted to go have fun again so anyway while I was at billies the phone started ringing um

and and they were you know I didn't want to go be a car chief again right like nothing against them um I just I felt like I had done enough since I had done that that wasn't what I wanted to do and thankfully I had Billy Hess who was providing me an opportunity that I didn't have to right like

He was giving me a great place to work, and I was able to take my time and do what was right. But that's when, you know, that's when the whole eight-mile crossroads came when Max called back. So Max is Max Siegel, the owner of Rev Racing. Yep. So he called you and he knows you because of the DEI days when he was a general manager at DEI. Yep. he says hey man i got this general manager position at rev racing that's not crew chief um so what what was in what was enticing about that idea not a lot at first it's like they were in a mess like

they had themselves um so the super short version before that they started that deal almerola and i had a late model that we had built and we were going to do a little side racing with um We ended up doing too good of a job building it, and Timothy Peters came and bought it before we ever raced it. So we never actually raced it, but we had this deal going. This is when John Story and Max were going to put this rev racing, and if you go back to the diversity program,

being all over the country with different race teams, that wasn't working. There was no way to compare the drivers to each other because you didn't know what opportunities they were getting when they're all over the place, and even what kind of cars are driving. Someone would be driving a modify, the next person to be driving a super late mom. So Max had this idea to get it under one roof, and he had presented this idea at a NASCAR, and they agreed, and it was absolutely the right decision.

But in that process, they had asked for some budget help. And my responsibility with Eric was the late-mile stock car portion of this. So now Eric's driving the eight-car. Max knew from us working at DEI that I had a deep-rooted background and short-traveled. Racine and, you know, really probably is and still is where my heart is most of the days, um, that we put this budget together for him. And it was kind of like the first time we had ever done anything like this, right? So we go and we present this budget to John's story. And he was based here out of Charlotte. Max had moved back to Indianapolis. And John looks at it

and reads it and the number was higher than he wanted it to be. And there was a lot of no benefit for us to make the number what it was it just is what it is i mean late mile stock racing is expensive um and and i'll never forget it he said i believe the two of you have late mile race with a golden spoon in your mouth and i just remember like it rubbing me the wrong way right because that was kind of the deal with your car was everybody thought we were out dollaring them and we weren't we were out working them like we didn't have anything that the average person racing out of their two car garage could have we had one car we had one you know what we just worked So I always took offense

For a long time It was on your behalf of people that thought we were just winning races with your money Because that wasn't true But now you're like I'm telling you what this cost There's no benefit for this in me You're not paying me You're not doing anything for me

I don't work for you anymore I'm just trying to help Because I want to see this program succeed Because if you back up 2000 I've already won a race with this program And it has not had a lot of success since So they went and did their thing

and nine months later they were in massive financial trouble they'd overstepped everything they had and what they wanted to spend and what it cost were two different things and that's when Max started calling so he talked into coming over there to manage

the whole program it started with just the late model stock car program all right so how many cars are they running at times six oh geez yeah yeah they had six late models. Andy Santerra was running the K&N program at the time. So Andy had the late, the K&N stuff was competitively. It was amazing. They won their very first race with Darrell Wallace. I think they won maybe two more that year with Darrell. The other other kids that were running the K&N cars were all competitive. Now financially it wasn't doing as well. Like,

Andy, Andy raced it the way he knew it needed to be raced, and he raced it off the promises that were made to him, and they were expensive. The late model program was a different story. Like, it was just a mess. It was a train wreck. The cars were a mess. The motors were a mess.

Like, everything about it was just bad, really bad. But the debt was what blew me away. So anyway, that was the problem, was when it was like, okay, I didn't want to do this 10 years ago. I didn't want a late-mile stock car race for a living because I had all these things that I wanted to accomplish. But now I had kind of accomplished them. Like I felt like I had checked a lot of these boxes and maybe I needed to remind myself how fun racing was. And I knew late-mile stock car racing, I'd be able to remind myself how much fun it was.

So I did fear that there's this whole thing. out of sight, out of mind element to racing where if I'm not present in the cup garage or the bush garage that I was going to get forgotten about, which I think is real, but it also forced me to be the best thing that ever happened to that program because I had no choice but to make it work. So I treated it like it was mine, not maxes. I treated the money like it was mine, not maxes, like and was determined to make this work yeah um and i was there probably six months when after the basically after the first season i might be missing it by a month or two but um andy had had enough and he left and then it was what what are we going to do and i just told max

like i got it you just don't worry about it you know he's he's got um a really he's really successful outside of racing. And he needed to concentrate on that because he was making some massive gains with USA track and field at the time. And so I just told him, you know, you go do your thing, I'm going to do my thing,

and I promise you success. So you ever saw K&N series or Reel and All-American series, late modeling their legend programs. How long did that happen? Ten years. Jeez.

Ten years. Yeah. You like the forest gun. Yeah, NASCAR. Yep. Ten years. It's like you lived 80 years already. I know.

I started when I was super young, yeah. And so rev racing, you know, it is a reputable, functioning, successful program. It goes to the racetrack. It runs well. Yeah. It wins races. Yeah. And it serves an incredibly important purpose in the NASCAR industry.

Yeah. I mean, they've won two. or three truck races this year and half the cup races with their graduates yeah and they're creating opportunities um so talk about that so as someone who has lived that program right talk about how important the purpose of that program is to give these drivers these opportunities it's everybody gets an opportunity right it's not just the drivers it's a it's a true development program and you know if you go back to 2000 that program gave me an opportunity to be a crew chief, right? Like, I wasn't one, and we got that house car at Townsend, and I became one

because of that program, right? So it's not just the drivers. I think, you know, whether it's the pit crew members or the people that work in the shop, you know, like Dylan Smith, Mamba, was he wanted to be a race car driver, and he could do it, but it just didn't seem to be panning out the way he wanted it to. But we knew there was a place for him in a sports, so we made him a mechanic and we taught him that and had him he he worked for me for years um and look at him now yeah right like it's it doesn't necessarily and that was kind of the thing i tried to explain to every parent and every driver that came through there your place in his sport might not be in the seat right and maybe that was something that i learned from tj but there's a place for everyone here you just

have to find it and depending on how hard you're willing to look is whether you'll find it or not how How do you make the decision to leave? It was tough. I had, so no intentions of ever leaving. Like I had, I had seen it go from in debt to debt-free. We won championships, we won races. Like, you know, along the way, I've been fortunate to win some cool stuff. but you go to South Boston

and you win a late-mile stock car race with a 16-year-old girl that Philip Morris and Lee Pooleum and Payton Sellers are all in that race and you beat them. Like, it's fun. Like, it's fun to know that you provided an opportunity

for somebody that was not there without the program and the people that work there. So I had started spotting more and more. Just I started doing it, even before I moved to Charlotte, but it was just here, there, gigs. And Joey Meyer,

somehow through our working together at DEI, he reached out and asked me if I wanted to start doing all the second spot and stuff with him. So it was with Brad, you know, Watkins Glen, indie, whatever it was. That kind of parlayed into the one-off Xfinity races for Penske.

So now I kind of had my foot in the door. Brad was actually really helpful with the program. You know, there was things he could donate that he would through his truck team and he was a big help. So like everything was going great. I was perfectly happy. Like I was getting to moonlight and do this stuff over here and I felt like I was staying relevant in those garages and never wanted to become a full-time spotter. So like I didn't really have to worry about like trying to push my way through that pile. And yeah, and it was just going well and um Travis geisler called me one day and he was kind of who like lined up the spot and stuff with um so you know I answered didn't think anything of it he wanted to talk and there was some

rumors going around that maybe Joey and Brad were going to go their separate ways and I was like oh boy like I really don't want to be a full-time spotter and I really don't want to upset Joey like I don't I would never do that. That was a tough conversation because Joey thought that I was, and he was pretty upset with me until he realized what was happening. But, yeah, it started out. Like, I'm not going to burn a bridge, right? I'm going to go have this conversation.

But this is not going to lure me away from Rev. Like, we're winning, you know, big K&N races. I mean, we're winning at Dover and Loudoun in, like, big places. It's like, so he asked me to come to their bus at Charlotte and the infield, which Rev Racing is right behind the speedway, so it was really easy. And I texted him and told him I was there, and he said, go on inside, walk straight to the back. There's an office in the back. I'll be there in a minute.

So I sling the door at my guy in the place. And RP's sitting there at the table signing champagne bottles from the ND500 win. I'm like, whoa, I don't think this is about spotting. Yeah. I don't feel like RP does the spotter interviews. So anyway, that's kind of how it came, and it wasn't about spotting. What was it about? They were looking for a team manager for their NASCAR side.

And ultimately there's three of us. There's an MPSA version of me. There's a NASCAR, and then there's an Indy car. And they were looking to, you know, hire somebody for the NASCAR side. Yeah. So that was kind of what it was about. and it was still surprisingly it was a very hard decision

because it wasn't you know it wasn't like every one of those employees at Rev which which Jimmy G was one of them right like your uncle was he he worked for me for five or six years right like those were people I hired those were people that I gave my word that you're going to get paid

and we're going to have fun and we're going to win races I can't control that if I don't work there anymore so like there was a part of me that I felt like I was breaking that promise to them. What would happen if you left? What would happen if I left? Max and I had a partnership that's more like a brotherhood, and it still is. He never questioned a thing I did, and I didn't question anything he did.

We just, we had a plan, we stuck to it. We had provided a lot of opportunities, put a lot of pick crew members and drivers in the national level, and there was really no stopping it. So it was a tough decision. And, you know, lots of people were like, ah, you're crazy. This isn't a tough decision. But they didn't know how emotionally connected I was to what Max and I were doing.

So believe it or not, I called Kelly. My sister. Yeah. And, you know, time heals everything, right? So, like, I remember who sat at the table. when I didn't work at junior mergersports anymore. But enough time had passed, and, like, you know, I feel like her and I

had had some good conversations along the way and, you know, kids that are similar age and just things. And I was like, I need to ask you something. And I know it's going to sound crazy, but, like, I feel like her place in this sport and, you know, her reputation for being brutally honest was like it's what I needed.

And I also know that she understands what it's like to be a female race car driver in this sport. Right. So if anything was going to, you know, tug on the heartstrings a little bit, it's that. So I knew I'd get the truth. So I laid it all out there. And she was like, are you crazy? And I was like, no, it's like, it's a tough decision. So I asked her, I said, let me ask you a question.

At the time Ryan Pemberton was here. like things were rolling good like everything was great and I you know I asked her I said if Ryan came in tomorrow and turned in his notice and you had to make a list of people to interview to replace him would my name be on that list and she was like no and I'm like dang thought we had a history like come on you feel he's put me at the bottom of the list right and she was like no like I didn't even know this is what you did like I thought you were you know like I didn't realize you were running an entire organization like for our sanctioning body like it was way more than just race

recent. Sure. The relationships with NASCAR were like the best thing that came to that program for me, really. And I said, all right, well, what if I take this job? And then we have the same conversation in three years. Would I be on the list then? And she was like, absolutely, top of the list.

Like one of the top three. No questions asked. Like anybody that comes from Team Penske is like, you know, top of the list. I'm like, all right, well, there's my decision. So I went home and was like, Kelly said I need to take this job. job. And he was like, okay, this is what we're going to do. So, yeah.

How long have you been there? This is six, six years, working on six. And what has all happened in the six years? God, it's unbelievable, man. Like two Xfinity championships. Like, so I think, you know, I think that you and I have gotten along from day one because when you would come to Townsend, you know, know you were Dale's son, right, to a lot of the guys that worked there. I didn't care, right?

I just wanted you to go home and say, man, there's this badass that works on late malls in Richmond, and he should be here. And maybe that happened a couple years later. Same similar story happened with Austin. Like, I had no idea who Austin Cendrick's dad was, none. I spotted for Austin at all the non-companion truck races. And we were at Eldora for the truck race and the dirt. And we were going to leave there and drive to Indy to ORP to go, he was going to run an Arka race the next night. And he asked me if we could take his dad to the racetrack, to Indy.

Sure. So we're riding down the road. It's the middle of the night, and he asked me what I do, and I'm telling them all about what I do at Rev, and, like, super proud of myself, and I asked him what he did for a living. I had no idea. Like, none.

And I think that's just, like, you know, who I was. Like, right? Like, I just, Austin was a good kid, and I wanted to be a part of what he was doing because I saw something there. He's extremely intelligent. I didn't care who his dad was. And I think a lot of people maybe did.

I didn't even know. They had no idea. So that, like I got to be there for, like Austin's first ARCA went, I spotted for him. Austin's first truck went, I was there. Austin's first Xfinity went, I was there. Right? Like, I've been, got to see that.

So it was like this still, this development leg that I've found this niche in. Yeah. But, man, since then, Daytona 500s, Indy 500s, Rolex 24s, like things that were completely unimaginable to a kid sitting in the wooden bleachers at Langley Speedway have happened. Yeah. I remember coming to the cup race and seeing you walking around in the pits wearing black slacks

and a button down white college shirt with Penske on it thinking, how in the hell? Mm-hmm. You know, like that is a long way from home. It's a long way from home. You know, your story is probably not unlike. a lot of people in the industry, but it's an easier one to tell. And I think it does answer a lot of questions for people out there who are young, people that are that kid that you were when you were working over at Townsend's

wondering, man, how am I going to, how, what is the path? Like, how do I get there? It seems impossible, improbable. I don't even know where to begin. And so I have such a hard time telling people how to begin, right, what to do. I mean, literally, man, I woke up and I was plugged in because of who I am. When you get that question, how do I get into this sport? What is your answer?

It's tough. I think the first thing you have to make sure of is like, are you really willing to do the work? or it's fun to talk about it's not always necessarily cut out for everybody right we're gone a lot it's a lot of hard work you're probably going to get kicked when you're down when you're vulnerable um and then when you least expect it the most amazing things in the world are going to happen but most of them i mean the simple answer is you know you got to go to a short track and you got to find somebody right like i was lucky i found rick you know rick introduced me to people like danny edwards junior and people that were just local legends and kind of they didn't necessarily

they gave me confidence, right? Like watching these guys. So that's, that happened. So that's the simple answer is you go to your short track. But nowadays, probably better start with college. Really? Yeah. I feel like those, you know, it's a pretty engineering-driven sport.

I think it helps a lot. I did not ever think that my college education was going to do anything for me, especially when I was hanging upside down in a roll cage welding it up at Townsend's. like what good is it there but I feel certain somewhere along the line somebody at Penske looked to see if I was college educated like so it did help it just took a lot longer than I expected but yeah I mean the biggest thing is you know it's the work ethic like the the people in this in this industry are the hardest working human beings in the country like it's it is unbelievable that the mountains that we can move like you look at the the way NASCAR adapted to

to the COVID situation or the way, like, thousands of people in the middle of Los Angeles never blinked in Iowa when they were like, hey, guys, we're going to race later today. Like, that wasn't on anybody's radar when we woke up that morning. Yeah. And move to clash. Yeah. And nobody cared. Like, it's just, okay, that's what we're going to do.

Let's go do it. So that's the thing. Like, you just got to be willing to work hard. Yeah. The sacrifice that you got to make, I love telling the story about a buddy of mine, Wesley with Cheryl who works over at Gibbs now, he wouldn't, dad wouldn't hire him. Dad, I mean, all dad, all I needed dad to do is give this guy a couple hundred bucks, right?

And dad would not do it. Dad said, hey, if you work here, if you're here long enough to prove that you deserve it, you might get the job. And he literally had to work for more than a month without pay. And he kept coming back every day. And I was, he's like, when do you think it's going to happen? I was like, I don't know, man, but don't give up. you're almost there.

I can't even give you an answer when this might go right for you, but don't stop coming to work. And eventually it just clicked one day. Dad walks in and goes, all right, you're hired, you know. Yep. And I know that's probably not the way it's going to go for everybody, but I mean, you've got to be willing to do something, do it for nothing.

Yeah. Not for the money, right? Right. I worked for three years for Rick for $6 an hour. Never got a raise, not a nickel. didn't think anything of it. It was just happy to clock in every day. I hired a guy at Rev who's still there.

Awesome. He was willing to do anything. And that came out of his mouth, and we were heading to Iowa. And I told him, I'm like, man, I need the help. And I think you'd be great. But all the plane tickets are bought and paid for, and there's no money left in the cookie jar. Like, if you want to go, if you want a job,

when we get to Iowa, getting that truck, I'll see you there. And he did. Damn. That's how bad he wanted to do it, and he's still employed there. Yeah. Well, man, I'm glad that you came to share today about your life and your career and especially uncovering some of the memories from junior motorsports and how that all got started. And it's not always easy to talk about some of the things that happen in our lives,

especially the breakup. I've had a lot of experiences here at this table with talking about some things that went down between me and Michael Walserp and a few other people where, you know, you're not always proud of the choices you made, but I'm glad that we are friendly and close enough that we can do that. Yeah. And I'm going to tell you, man, when I started seeing you and hearing about these opportunities you were getting, you have to know that you had a fan in me wanting to see you had that success and to know where you've gotten today is just incredible.

But I think that it's motivation for anybody who listens that the opportunities, if you're willing, like you say, to put in their work ethic are limitless. And don't be scared to go anywhere because there's not really many places that you didn't end up. Right. Right. And there's not many scenarios and working environments in the NASCAR industry

that you didn't find yourself in. and you know so that's pretty impressive I appreciate you your influence on you know I mean that junior motorsports doesn't exist without you having you know you having the ability to help us get that off the ground you've influenced us in a positive way even today we still ride the wave of of how you helped us get our stuff going in the right direction yep had a lot of fun won a lot of together and who know I don't I for some reason I feel like you're going to be at Penske you'll be a lifer there for for as long as you want and it'll be surprising I guess to see you know where you end up 20 years from now maybe running the whole thing

true 20 years is a long time man how old are you 46 46 yeah you can do it yeah yeah now I mean you see the rest of them guys around there you know they're old now. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's a great place to be, and I don't really want to envision myself anywhere else for sure. Well, you got a hell of an opportunity to make that something special. Yeah, and I do take a lot of, you know,

there's a small part of me that, you know, anytime one of your cars wins, no matter, you know, there was a little bit of time where when, it took a while so I did take pride in that, but it was a little bit of time where when you were winning all these late-mastaka races, it was like, God dang, I think I've been out done. We didn't win a national

championship over there, but we weren't allowed to race one either. But it doesn't, you know, there is a sense of pride that I don't, however many wind banners you stack in this shop, like there's still only one first one. So that's kind of cool. Well, I love the fact that you were part of our beginning. And it's interesting that you made the point to not burn any bridges because literally, like all the people that you came in contact with throughout your career that, you know, that you knew

some way somehow, TJ and Joey and. Max Siegel and you know every you've done a really good job of you know even though you've sort of you know you've had some unfortunate moments in your career you've worked in a lot of different places those people that you had those relationships with would at times call you right and and say hey man I know I know a guy that can do this job for us that says a lot about your character you know I know you were frustrated and angry at points in your life and had a chip on your shoulder but to be honest, I mean, you did nothing to ruin any relationships you ever created. That says a lot.

There's not many people out there that can say that. Yeah. Jefferson, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For everything you do for us.

Yes, sir. Jefferson Hodges on the Dell Jr. Download. All right, so Jefferson Hodges on the Dell Jr. Download, I really am glad I was able to sit here and hear that whole story about his career. I want to thank Ally for supporting us here at the Del, at the Dale Jr. Download and at Dirtymo Media, Ally does a great job, you know, in this industry and in our sport, and they're responsible for bringing our guest segments every single week.

And no matter what you're saving for, whether it's race tickets, a brand new car, new house, doesn't matter, we're all better off with an ally. And I would say that Jefferson Hodges is definitely an ally. The one thing that was, you know, not always easy is when, You are sitting here with a guest at the table, and you have to talk about something that maybe didn't go as well as you hoped. And certainly his, the final end of his tenure at Junior Motorsports was an emotional one for him. You could hear it.

He's still a bit, you know, disappointed by it. And I'm glad, though, that we are still friends today. I'm sure he wished I would have handled things differently. I'm sure he wished things would have turned out differently. I think that I certainly may have done things differently with the experience I have today, but knowing everything we knew back then, we were doing what we thought was the right thing to do. But it doesn't ever get easy when you're sitting here

and you have to kind of cover that part of the conversation. that part of the past. But Jefferson is a, he's a great example of just, you know, a grinder that eventually found his place. I meet drivers, crew chiefs. I meet people of all kinds of walks of life that come into this industry and they have this vision of where they want to go and who they want to be. And there are times when you know that,

that's not going to work out. You know that they're never going to achieve that vision. They may find another space in this industry where they can exist and make a living. And TJ's a great example of that. He had the talent to be a driver and it just all the pieces of the puzzle and the brakes didn't go that way, right? And he found a new lane. And Richard Boswell is another example, right?

Richard Boswell drove our Pro Cup car. and God, he wanted to be a race car driver so badly, as bad as anyone I'd ever met, as bad as I wanted to be one. But I knew that the, you know, the opportunities of that were closing and narrowing up, and he had to make the decision to lean on his engineering background and his knowledge and take a new role, and he's done that as a crew chief. And so, you know, Jefferson's story is a great one of trying to find, your lane and also not giving up but also taking opportunities maybe not the you know

maybe you're getting a an opportunity that feels like a demotioner feels like a step back but he took those and made them work and made them a success and um it's pretty impressive um and so glad he was able to come in today and tell us about that uh there's a there's a lot of guys like him in the industry that have those those kind of stories but it was a fun one for me today and it brought back a lot of memories a lot of that startup around junior motor sports the late model car the pro cup team a lot of that stuff man i was wide open with my own career um raising hell with my friends you know i wasn't in that shop every day seeing what was going on and so it was great to kind of be reminded on some of the things that we did and how things went um

And even my mindset on, like, where they should race and what they should be doing. But pretty fun. But let's get to the white flag. On Monday, the tear down, obviously, with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi dropped. Action's detrimental with Denny Hamlin. Came out as well. And door bumper clear. Yesterday, dirty air, that show is out.

Larson, Christopher Bell, and Connor Zillich, all called in. And today, Speed Street will drop with Connor Daly and Chase Holbrook. tomorrow dirty-modeau with steve with tart gambling is legal in north carolina i'm hoping that you know that maybe uh adds some value to dirty modo and people can find some more um value out of that show i think the the information that steve shares with us every week uh has been pretty incredible and uh they're going to be preview in the bristol race also don't forget our thursday show our episode of reloaded will be out always a lot of fun you never know who's going to call in or what these guys and girls are going to be up to.

A lot of shenanigans on that show. And I've actually found myself, when I'm not calling in, I'm actually finding myself listening just because of the entertainment value is pretty high. So, yeah, it should be a lot of fun this week on Dirty Mo Media. Also, one of the thing, I want to give a shout out, Dalton, I guess. Whoever's posting at the beginning of the week, it's sort of a J-P. peg of our week full of content

man I'm loving that it's like a TV guide thank you very much very appreciative it just helps everybody it's a reminder all the things we have going on plus when it's happening so people can make sure they're tuning in Buster's trip to victory lane also the board book

and I have this right next to me on the table I asked for this board book to be made I don't think they were going to make this board book but I got a three-year-old and she's not into the big long-form stories that Buster has been here in the past several versions. So I thought maybe we could get a board book for those toddlers out there. So that board book is you're able to purchase your copy today, everywhere books are sold. And also for the Dale Jr. Foundation, if you want a chance to spend seven days on Lake Norman in our family's lake house,

The Dale Junior Foundation's annual vacation at Dale Junior's Lakehouse Raffle is underway. Now through April 29th, purchase your raffle ticket for $10. You can win a stay at the lakehouse. There's boat rentals provided tour of Junior Motorsports as well. You're going to run into me at some point during this experience. The Dale Jr.foundation.org will give you all the details to be able to get your raffle tickets.

And you're just helping us raise money for the foundation. that does a lot of great work in our community and nationally. So thank you for anybody who purchases a raffle ticket for that. That's the Wednesday show. Looking forward to Bristol this weekend. Looking forward to everything else going on here at the Dirtymo Media. And hope everybody has a great week. We'll see you.

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