The Dale Jr. Download - 527: Bobby Hillin Jr: No Stone Left Unturned

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with longtime NASCAR competitor Bobby Hillin Jr. to chat about his journey to becoming one of the youngest winners in Cup history. After growing up in the oil industry of Texas through his family, Bobby was exposed to auto racing when his father purchased a sprint car and began competing with legendary drivers Jan Opperman and Bubby Jones behind the wheel. Bobby would find his way into racing through the mini stock division at his local Odessa Speedway. He would attend Buck Baker’s Driving School at Rockingham Speedway, and it was there he’d meet the legendary Harry Hyde.Bobby explains that it was Hyde who convinced his family that he was destined for NASCAR Cup competition, and he would make his debut as a junior in high school. Not long after, he’d make the move to Charlotte by himself in the middle of his senior year, and upon graduating he pursued stock cars full-time. Bobby would make NASCAR history when he won the 1986 Talladega 500, becoming the youngest winner in NASCAR at the time. Unfortunately, due to hardships at the Stavola Brothers team, Bobby would never be able to return to victory lane and spent the rest of his career searching for a consistent, competitive ride. 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 in the Bojangles studio here on Wednesday. We got a great guest for you for the ally guest segment, Bobby Hillen Jr., coming all the way from Texas. This guy had a career in racing from back in the 80s. I raced against him in the Infinity Series. We're going to talk all about that. Let's get started. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Everybody is Dale Jr.

Dale Jr. Back again. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. Boog Daniels studio. My dad made me run through a wooden fence, and that's how I learn how to hit heart. All right, so Bobby Hillen, why Bobby Hillen? I mean, of course, you know, I love to talk to these guys that have some good history

in the sport, especially some of the drivers that raced in the 70s or 80s. It's always exciting to dive back into the nostalgia. And also, I got to race. with Bobby Hillen. We dueled really heavily at Dover one year in 1999 for the race. He would have won the race if I didn't win it. And I

thought he had the faster car there at certain points of the race. The last set of tires or whatever happened there at the end, his car just didn't have the speed. But I remember him being quick at times in that number eight car during the Bush series in 9899 and it was just

so cool to race against him, Phil Parsons. These guys that raced my dad in the 80s. I really, really enjoyed sharing the track with those same people. So we're going to get him in here and talk about his career, but also what's he been up to? Always love to hear how these guys decide to end their driving career. How does that go? What's that process like? How do they move on? How are they, or are they successful after their racing career is over? Let's find out. Let's get Bobby Hill and Jr. in the room. Give us some time today.

I'm glad to do it. Yeah. Glad to do it. So Bobby Helling, I am thankful that you're here. I've been thinking about you, wondering what you've been doing. Okay. And, yeah. So the great thing about having this show is I can try to get y'all, y'all to come in here and sit down, right?

So we can have a real conversation. Otherwise, we probably never would. Right. So I'm very thankful. And you're still living in Texas. That's right. Right. So what has got you in this area?

What are you doing? Well, really come to see you. I mean, we've got still some close friends that weren't even involved in racing, so we're always looking at the time to come get with them and see them. And so when your guy texted me and said, hey, Dale, want you to come be on the show, we thought, well, we can go down and see our friends, Bob and Linda, and hang out. We're going to go by, and Chase Briscoe is going to show us his shop. Very nice.

But Jeff Gordon gave me, like, gave Jamie and I, like, a two-hour tour of Hendra Motorsports yesterday. No kidding. Like two full. I mean, it was great. I couldn't believe he gave us that much time. It was awesome. Yeah. Well, very good.

Well, I'm glad you're able to make the most out of the trip because I know coming, I got my wife's from Victoria in Texas. Wow. I'm getting ready to go out there to Victoria for Easter this weekend. That's awesome. Yeah, so I got really lucky. Great family. Y'all need to come see us on. like Travis in Austin, not too far from there.

Okay, that's right. We'll do it. So let's get to it, man. It's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to this. From Midland, Texas, born in 1964, your dad or your grandfather was in the oil industry. And my dad. And your dad.

Yeah. All right. So when you're growing up, what is your childhood like? What's around you? What is going on? Well, you know, football. You play football. And that was it.

Yeah. You know, we, you know, I grew up in the oil business, learning a little bit about the oil business. But these guys, these guys brought a sprint car to my dad one day when I was 10 years old. And he ended up buying the sprint car. And I was climbing on top of it, inside of it. And they ended up keeping the sprint car up in Indianapolis. So when I was 10, 11, 12, I would live up there during the summer and travel to the races with the mechanics.

Wow. And then I'd come back and do my thing in school and did that until football started. And all through that, I started racing motorcycles and go carts and mini stock cars and, you know, just kind of went from there. Yeah. And then dad ended up having a race team and an indie car team. Right. And so just around it. And, you know, I was, you know, I can remember I was telling somebody the other day, you know, my dad would be on the phone at night.

And he would be talking to, you know, people about the oil business. And he'd be talking to people about the racing business. and I was just a little kid and I'd sit at the foot of the bed with a legal pad and I would listen to everything he said and I would write it down and we got out the phone and say

Dad now when you were talking about this tell me this and tell me that and he would teach me whether was the oil business or whether it was a race business that's what I was learning man that's crazy so what was how far did football go

well it only went through my senior year because I wanted to race and I had already won the championship were you good enough to do football I got a letter from like Abilene Chris Christian or something. But, you know, I was captain of the team.

Position. What position? Defensive end. Okay. Yeah. So when I was early on, I didn't know how to hit very hard. And so my dad made me run through a wooden fence. And that's how I learned how to hit hard.

Just once, right? I had to go all the way through it. Yeah. And so it took me several tries to break the wood and to get through the fence. That's a good lesson, man. That was my, yeah, that was my deal there. And, you know, but I already won the local. championship and then

where at Odessa, Texas, in late models. In late models. So late models, super late model, fiberglass body, offset chances, all that. So 17 of 22 races you won that year?

Something like that. Yeah. So I had no, you know, like a lot of guys, right? I don't know, I know you from what I saw when you came and raced on Sundays, right? But I don't know where you got your start. And so Odessa Speedway,

is that a paved or dirt racetrack? It's a paved track. It is. And that was close to home? How close? It was 20 miles. 20 miles. So my schedule was football in the morning, school, football in the afternoon, get in my truck, drive to Odessa, work on the car until midnight, come back home, repeat the same thing.

Football at 7 in the morning. Yeah. I did that all through spring training. What number was the car? 11. And what color? It was white with blue numbers. Man.

Yeah. All right. So you went to the Buck Baker driving school. Is this Rockingham? I imagine. That's right. At 16 years old. You were thinking about getting into IndyCar or going that path, right?

That's right. Because your dad on the team and all those things. But what steered you toward NASCAR? Well, Harry Hyde was at that track. He was at the school. He was at the school. And he was in between jobs. It was kind of right after his old Stacy days.

Yep. And he convinced my dad and my granddad that I could run cup, you know. So he built the car that and so and my grandfather actually said to me, I probably can get you started for one more season of something, either some more late model cars or something. And so he said, but only one year, that's all you're going to get in terms of financial help. And it worked out good because then after we ran those, I'm skipping ahead, but after we ran those five races, my granddad and my father went broke. Totally broke. And so, but what happened was I ran those. five races. They were supposed to be five short tracks. We ran North Wilkesboro, Pocono, Michigan,

Daytona, Talladega. And then I went back and started my senior year of high school. And so it was kind of crazy. And then when football was over, my senior year, my dad said, what do you want to do? This is going back to this Indy car question. I said, man, I love the stock cars. You know, we're racing 30-something races a year. They race close together. They're bumping. It's just exciting to me. and he said, well, so where are you going to do that? I said, North Carolina. He said, when are you going to go? I said, I guess I'll go after I graduate high school.

He said, why don't you just go now after football and you can just finish school up there? And I said, you'll let me do that? He said, yeah, so I literally moved to Charlotte. Mid-year. After football. During my senior year, after football, and one of the mechanics at Harry Shop, living in a mobile home over by the Speedway, and I split it with him, And I did my high school through correspondence.

I'd mail my lessons in. No, shit. And then I went back in, like, April, did a final exam. So then, and the way it worked back then is, remember, I didn't have any money. So this is the cool story about your granddad. Harry, all during this transition, Harry Hyde was asked to start Hendrick Motorsports at his location where I was driving. So your granddad built my first car, and right there with Harry and his crew.

Robert G. That's right, Robert G. And so Robert G says, hey, Harry says to me, hey, you need to leave. I'm starting this thing with Rick Hendrick. And so Robert G says, hey, you can come over to my shop. In his backyard. That's right. And so I went over there, and what we would do is just I'd be on the phone calling for sponsors.

And when I get a sponsor, I'd go to the race. and then I wouldn't until I got another sponsor. And he lived in the trailer still across the street in front of Speedway. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Grand Daddy shops right off of Turn 1 at Charlotte. That's right. Dad lived in that same trailer part or right around that area. Yeah.

Back in the days. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a lot of race shops on the front side of the racetrack and all the race shops on the that whole area was so different right around just exactly on the property of the Speedway. Some fun, amazing times, I guess, because you could just about do anything. So Harry, are you and Harry Hyde still friendly? Is this a rough breakup or any kind of thing like that?

It was friendly. It was just like. He said, I got this thing I'm doing and need you to find another spot for your car. I couldn't pay him. You had one car? I had one car. I had one box trailer. And, you know, I couldn't, I didn't have any money, so I couldn't pay him.

Yeah. And Rick Henry said, I'm getting ready to start Henry Motorsports. And so. Your car is, this is when you're. driving that red, yellow and black? No, that came later. Oh. This was just a white car or the red number eight.

Yeah. And, you know, the eight's an important number to you guys. Yes, it is. But at the time, you know, Ed Negree had that number. Norman DeGree was working on the car. Norman said you can run the number eight. Yeah. And so that started me up with car number eight.

And, you know, I think it was a cool thing because I think I heard a stat that the next guy to win a race with number eight was you after me in the Cup Series. So I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, yeah. So you move into Granddad's shop, and he didn't have a whole lot of room. No. Yeah.

Yeah. And he was doing some kind of racing, I'm sure, with his own late model stuff or whatever, he had all kinds of things. He had all the body work. He was doing the Bush series, selective races. That's right. And I think it was either your dad or Daryl racing, you know, here and there. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. That's pretty incredible. I didn't not know. I mean, I was over there as a kid many times, but I don't remember, you know, I was over there probably twice a year at the minimum, you know, as a kid. And I was looking through the notes here. Me and you met at my dad's house when I was seven. You must have been seven or eight.

That's right. This is right around the same time. It was not long. It was probably like after I'd started with Stavola Brothers. Okay. but like that first year, like the next year I was from your, at your granddad's end up,

starting with Stavola Brothers. And I'm over at your dad's playing poker. How did you get over there? He invited me. Really? And so. Who else was there? I mean, I can't remember,

but there were probably four or five drivers, two or three media guys. And he's just like, and some other mechanics. We're just going to play poker? It was poker, pig poker night. Wow.

Yeah. And you were there with your little sister or big sister, y'all were both there. Yeah, just running around on the floor. And I, I went and met you in the kitchen. You shook my hand and, you know, I'm like, oh, that's cool.

You know, and, uh, yeah. Damn. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. I can't imagine dad having, uh, poker night and having, I mean, think about that in today's like, like Denny Hamlin having poker night with like five drivers, some media people. I mean, that just doesn't happen anymore.

Yeah. But it was the media, I'm getting, I'm getting in the weeds, but the media people that were, they're weekly, the relationships that y'all had as drivers with those people was very, very close. Absolutely. Compared to today. I mean, there are some media people that have great relationships with the drivers, but you're not hanging out with them during the week, right? Back then, the media people and the drivers had a special relationship. You know, nobody was throwing anybody under the bus.

Yeah. You know, and not that I want to talk about on this show, but I remember the first time there was a media guy that came that really started up. And it involved your dad and me and the little thing that we got into. And he was really trying to stir it up. So, you know, it was kind of crazy. But back then, it was just, it was a lot better relationship. Yeah. So, all right, we're going to, you're working, trying to, you're trying to race 17 years old

between your 11th and 12th grade in high schools when you started making your cup starts with Harry, that you made those five starts that you mentioned. You graduated right before the 1983 World 600. I can't believe you're that young back in. I mean, when you won your first race, you were 22. Seems like you were older than that. No. You know, it's really strange because I look now,

it's pretty normal for guys to come in at 17, 18 years old. Yeah. But at the time it wasn't. And, you know, one of the things that I thought, we thought we were doing right was me coming up here by myself. I look back and say, I needed my dad or some other mentor or somebody that could really help me. Yeah.

You know, I can remember, I'm jumping ahead here, but I remember, you know, one Talladega in 86, and Kenny Bernstein called me to see if I wanted to drive for him in 87. I think that's the way the year worked. And I didn't give him two minutes on the phone. I just said, hey, I'm pretty loyal to the Stavola. Thanks a lot. See you later. Bye.

You know, where, and there were a lot of things going on at Stavola brothers that, you know, if I'd have been a little more savvy about what was happening, probably would have made the move right then, but didn't. So you talk about your dad and your grandfather's business, the oil industry, was that the entire industry, had a, had a, you know, how does that happen? Like, I have no idea. I watched Dallas growing up,

but that's about the extent of my knowledge of the oil business. Yeah. So, like, how does that happen? How does the industry have those moments? Well, it's just supply and demand. I mean, you know, world supply, world demand. And so it was just a period in the early 80s when a lot of technology was coming on worldwide. And just the production, just worldwide production just really, really ramped up.

So the price just fell out of the bottom of it. And so a lot of people, a lot of independence, a lot of people like my dad, my granite had a lot of debt to go out and drill wells. And so when the price falls out from under you, you know, it's just, it's not good. And that's happened, you know, four times since then. Right. You know. So how do you, so when, what do you remember about that time and how, how did your dad, how did your grandfather manage the challenge?

Well, I was already up here. Right. So I didn't feel their pain as much, but I know for me it was scary because, you know, originally, you know, I came here, originally had a little bit of financial backing, you know, and people think, oh, he's from Texas. Yeah. I got oil money in there. But that wasn't the case.

Right. You know, so I was just, you know, I was telling Jeff when we were going through at Hendricks the other day, you know, there's this one little office Harry Hyde had or this little front door. And inside the front door was a desk just out in the open shop. And I remember sitting at that front door just dialing for dollars. Yeah. And just trying to find sponsorship. And so it was a little scary, but I mean, that was just that. Yeah.

You were young. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You were like, you're in the middle of it. That's right. So you worked out of the shop over at Granddaddies. So when does that car, really the first car that I think kind of puts you on the map, that yellow and black number eight? What is the deal with that car?

Okay. So what happened was when I ran the first year, I ran Pocono. I met a guy there named Ed Bracefield. He worked for the Stovola brothers. But he was a part-time announcer at Pocono. So when I qualified, after I had started my first race, I was 17 at North Wilkesboro, when I went to qualify for Pocono, that day I turned 18. And he interviewed me, and I said, well, he said, how old are you?

I was at M-18. He just really started following me. And when I got back to Robert G's, you know, he was calling me, I mean, he was calling me at Robert G's. You know, there was no cell phones. He's calling me every day trying to help me get sponsors. Robert Gis, I had this guy's on the phone again. And, you know, he convinced the Stovolos to sponsor me the next year at Pocono.

What were the Stavola brothers doing in NASCAR before that? Nothing. These guys didn't even know what a NASCAR was. That's right. And this guy at Bracefield talked them into sponsor me. So we went to Pocono and Stovola said to me after the race, how much do I get of the purse and how much do you get? And I said, well, typically the owner and driver split it.

So if you were the car owner, you'd get 60 and I'd get 40. But I'm the car owner and I'm the driver, so I get it all. Right. And he looked at me and said, well, what if I became the owner? And I said, would you get 60? I'd get 40. He said, well, how much would you sell me all your stuff and I could become the owner? And I wrote a number down on a piece of paper and I gave it to him.

He looked at it. He scratched that number out and wrote another number down. He gave it to me. And I said, I went, you got a deal. What was the number? I think it was, I think I had written down 90,000, which was a lot. Yes. How much did you have?

You had the box truck, the car? Yeah, the box truck, the car, two Randy Dorton engines. Oh, man. That's like way more than 90 grand. A handful, yeah, a handful of gears. He wrote the number 60,000 down. Oh, wow. And I took the 60,000, and he became my car on her.

Yeah. You were going to keep on racing, so, right? Yeah, yeah. That's how you justified it. That's right. So he becomes a car on. and he owns the stuff. What changed? Anything? Well, we went and found a shop, you know, and he bought some property,

which became the Stobola Bo's shop. You know, I helped find it, you know, just looking around. And who is helping, is anyone helping you besides yourself? Like is not really at that time? Who's the crew chief? Well, we didn't really have one. It was just, I was talking to different people. I can't remember, but at that time, and I can't remember.

but at that time, and I can't remember why, but me and Norman degree were kind of buttonheads a little bit at that time. We had it had something, and I can't remember what it was, and we're friends today, but I hadn't talked to him in a while, but I think somebody said, you need to go hire Frog Fagan. I don't know if you remember that name, but he had worked for Austerlund, and so he was kind of the first guy to help kind of organize, and he was the first crew chief, and we just kind of built from there. Okay. Just me trying to meet people and just trying to, you know, like pull it all in.

Yeah. Yeah. And so Stavola Brothers, that's how it began right out of the, you know, the sale of the, your, your car, your team, buying the shop. You were going to, how long was the relationship, how long was the contract with Stavola? Well, there was no contract. No contract.

No, I remember one time. I tell this funny. When contracts were becoming a big deal, we were at Bristol one day. It was a rain delay, and Stavella said to me, hey, he didn't remember he's in the concrete business and he's in the rock business. He said, hey, you know, we don't need a contract.

He says, if you leave, I'm going to put a contract on you. He was joking, but, you know, you're always kind of wondering. So, yeah, so we didn't have a contract. And, yeah, and that's how that worked. So how do you explain, So you start the Stavola Brother Race team. Bobby Allison joins the team, right? Is that 1984 or five?

86. Right. So you're there. The team's kind of building itself around you. Yeah, we were in a limited schedule in 85, and then he came on in 86. And so now there's a teammate, which wasn't too far. And I know, so back in the day, we talked about it on show. several times, you know, Darrell Walchrop, dad, dad even in the 90s, like, hated to have a

teammate. Didn't you thought, why would I want to share the focus and, you know, the drive of this team and the goal of this team with another driver? It just, was it the same way, I mean, I'm sure it was the same way for you and Bobby. You got to remember, yeah, it was no two-car team. Right. It was Savola owned two race teams. Yeah.

Had one sponsor, but they had two race teams. And, you know, looking back, you see things a lot differently. at the time. But, yeah, it was very difficult. It made things more difficult for me. And, yeah, it was just a tough situation. Yeah. So what were some of the challenges?

I know Bobby has years of experience, and he brings a lot of great things to the table. But I remember just watching some stuff here in the past about documenting Stobola brothers and so forth. There was a lack of communication between the two teams. they weren't even really almost in the same property. Like they were, like you say, two separate race teams. Yeah.

How did, yeah. How did, so you were in the original building. Yeah. Bobby's team comes along and then they're in the whole other shop. Right. Was it miles away? No, no. Hundreds of feet.

Yeah, hundreds of feet. Yeah. And still. Yeah, cross the parking lot. And why could you not, why could you not get the level of communication you were seeking for? What was the reasons because the teams? Well, obviously, everybody's competitive. Bobby's competitive.

His guys are competitive. You know, what was frustrating was that our guys, and this time nobody's really doing this, but our guys started building the car from scratch with their own pickup points and all that stuff. So Bobby was still using Lothlin chassis. And so it was just, you couldn't, there was no comparison. Yeah, yeah.

And so we just really struggle with that for, you know, a few years. Yeah. And, you know, everybody starts losing confidence. And it just, once you start losing confidence, I mean, whether it's a driver, whether it's a team, whether it's kind of everything. It just kind of goes down, you know, goes downhill from there. Yeah. Before we, you know, before we go through that, I wanted to ask you about that 1986 win at Talladega. Yeah.

You know, 22 years old. I'm obviously one of the funny things that dad told me. me when I won my first race, he came in and stuck his head in the window of the car and said, make sure you enjoy this. He was like emphatic. Yeah, that's great. He was like trying to shake me out of the moment to get my attention and go, hey, enjoy this then. You don't get to do this tomorrow.

That's great. You know, it's over. That's the best advice he could have given you. What was your day like after you, you know, you crossed the finish line? I mean, I enjoyed it like for a few hours and then it was it was it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you go back to the shop, is there a change in the morale? Is there, everybody's pumped up. Everybody's pumped up. Everybody's everything.

For me personally, though, it was like, okay, you know, I got to, you know, I got to go. I got to do better. I got to do, you know, it's just there was, I didn't really enjoy it. Yeah. I was, I was just too intense. You know, it was just my personality. Sure. Yeah.

And so how does your relationship with Stavola sort of unravel? How does it come to an end? Well, you know, we just keep struggling. You know, you go through 87, you go through 88. And then, you know, by this time, Harry Hyde's leaving Hendrick. Yep. Or however, they're divorcing. Yeah.

And we get him to come over. And it was good, except it wasn't because it was the introduction of radial tires. And so, you know, everybody was struggling with that. But with all that said, you know, I probably had my best year in 1990, and we were running competitive. You know, your dad and I were over half a lap ahead of everybody in the Pepsi 400, and that was before speed, you know, pit road speed. Yeah.

And he pits, and they say, well, we're going to keep you out to lead a lap, which I didn't want to do that. I want to pit with him. And so I'm out there by myself for a lap, and I'm thinking, well, I'm not going to let him beat me down pit road. Right. So I come flying down. pit road and a lot of the thing we were trying those new thin rotors all these things with

the brakes it didn't work so when we got to we didn't realize this until the right until i went down pit road that first time all i had was rear brakes oh shit so i'm coming out every time i hit the brakes the car does this so i'm on and off the brakes the car's doing this all the way and i finally get to my pit stop i had no choice but to loop it around yeah and so then i had to drive around again long story we didn't like finish fourth in that race yeah but uh but yeah so that was kind of like my best year, but also the year I got hurt. So I, what happened? We were running forth in Charlotte, hit the wall head on with equalized tire,

sever my long thoracic, or sever my long thoracic nerve back here, broke my shoulder blade, and my neck was never same, never the same after that. And, you know, it's years I struggle with that. What kind of issues does that give you? What kind of, what kind of, can you describe sensations or symptoms? Yeah, like severe headache, can't turn your neck. That's just two. I mean, you know, severe headache and can't turn your neck.

And that's just the nerve damage? And it would happen, what would happen is it would happen to me. And I'd go to chiropractors. I'd do all these different things. I went to see Dr. Petty again. They couldn't find anything neurologically. Sure. But, you know, after maybe three weeks, it would kind of all of a sudden loosen back up, you know.

and then I would do something, you know, a month later, and it would happen all over again, and it would last three weeks or a month. Yeah. And that just kind of kept repeating itself. So you did start an Xfinity team. Yeah. And so in 89, or 88, 89, you started an Xfinity team.

You would pick up a couple wins driving this car, right? Right. Right. Y'all hired a driver. So explain that team to me. Well, so my good friend Ted Condor, who really, I met Ted when we first started

the Stovola brothers and he walked in the shop one day just curiosity and we became great friends, he became a spotter. He's the one that brought All Pro Auto Parks in the Chuck Ryder into the sport and as a matter of fact, we had Chuck on the car

we won Talladega. Chuck wanted to be the primary sponsor in 87. And Stovola said no, we're going to stick with Miller. And Chuck was willing to pay as much or more than Miller. But Stavola wanted to stick with Miller. And that's when Chuck said, how I'm going to start my own race team.

And he did and hired Michael Walter. I remember that Bay All-Pro sticker on the quarter panel. That's right. Yeah. And so anyway, fast forward, you know, Ted just became like a second father to me. And when we're struggling Stavola's, Ted said, I got a guy that can help us financially.

we can if you can get you know Buick GM to supply some parts you can get if you can get Stavola Bros to build the engines you know we could I got a guy that can help us start a race team it was Felix Sabatis wow so we it was me Ted and Felix and we started

we started the High Line racing team High Line yeah and Todd Bobine that's kind of how Todd got his start and there's a lot of stories around all that you know Was this car number 81? Yeah all right yeah and so and it was an old mobile Cutlass. No, it was a Buick. Buick. Okay. That's right. Yeah.

So Todd would drive it some and you drove it some? Well, Todd didn't drive it until really later. So what happened is when I was looking to put that deal together, Jerry Kennan was my crew chief and Jerry said, we need to hire Todd Bodine. So I went to talk to Todd. And I said, hey, can you come build me a Bush car? And he said, look, and he was real serious. He said, I'll come help you. He said, but you need to understand. I am a race car. car drive. He said, I'm going to be working on my career. Yeah. And so I said, I'll make a deal

with you. If you do this, I will figure out how we can get you in the car to test and to maybe do some races late in the year. And that's ultimately what happened. I don't remember how it all went down, but that's ultimately what happened. And so, but all during that also, Rick sold his R&D team to Felix and Ted. So Sabco, the name Sapcoe stood originally for Sabatis Condor. Ted, the original guy that helped me get all pro and so forth. And so they had already started that team. And so when we kind of, hold another story, but we were racing at Nazareth and we started to race on Hoosier tires.

And it was obvious they weren't going to last. So your dad had crashed out early in the race. And he gave us all his good years. So we ended up taking his good ears, going a lap down. That was the rule. You remember he had to go a lap down. Okay, and we came back and won the race. Yeah.

With the tires your dad had given us. Yeah. Okay, fast forward to Charlotte. We're racing Charlotte. I can't remember where we're running, decent, and the motor blows up. It's in the bush car. Yeah. And Jerry Kenning comes on the radio and says, hey, or no, I come on the radio and

say, hey, get up. Okay, another thing. Okay, another thing, same tire was running in the bush and the cup that weekend. It wasn't always that way, but that weekend just had the same right side, same left side. And there was a shortage. So I came on the radio and said, hey, get all my tires down to the Stavolos number eight Winston Cup car. Yeah. And Felix Sabotis comes on the radio and says, no, no, no, take him to the 42, Sabco car. Oh. And I'm still cruising out of the back straight away with a blown engine. And Jerry Kenning comes on his radio and says, no, no, no, we're taking these tires to Earnhardt to

the Children's Creek team because he gave us the tires that we won Nazareth with. So we're fighting on a you know and so you know it's just a big blow up and so I went to Felix's office and I knew I was in on my head with Felix so I went to his office the next week I said look I want to keep drying the car the rest of the year but you need to buy me out and he did so he bought me out of my third of the race team and I drove the rest of year and then and then that's where Todd and Kyle started both having the opportunity to drive I got you yeah so that was the end of your involvement in the Xfinity team for for the time being yeah That's interesting.

So you would leave Savola Brothers in 1990. I was actually at that race in Daytona and remember you and dad coming. It was going to be between you and him. Yeah. And you were in that Snickers car. That's right. And they had that huge wreck on the first, like, second or third lap where Sax was three riding in the middle to the tribal.

We were all lucky to get out of it. And that was right when the movie Days of Thunder came out. Yes. And Mike Helton, or I think it was Mike Helton in the driver's meeting, he said, listen, before the race ever started, this is not days of thunder. We don't need, y'all need to, you know, give and take. That was always a give and take. And lo and behold, on the first lap, that said the drop of the green, everybody got wiped out.

Everybody was able to put the rear spoilers as low as they wanted. So Sacks had his laid down and set up on the front row. I think qualified first or second with that. That's right. Yeah. And somehow he got shuffled back and he's, by time they're coming through three and four, he's in the middle of three wide with the king and somebody. Maybe I think it was Brett Vodon.

Yeah. And boy, through the tribe, maybe it was it. Anyways, they come through the tribal and it's, he's losing this. He's getting behind further and further behind. I mean, it happened in like a football field, but he got so far behind on that car, right around on him in the middle there. It was kind of humorous until it wasn't.

Yeah, yeah. But anyways, in 91, you go to Daytona, with a deal with Moroso. Am I right? Well, sort of. Yeah. I had nothing going on. You had nothing. And I'm driving somebody's Bush car. I can't remember who. And Moroso is after his, he had lost his son. And he had, I think it was Sammy Swindell, one of the sprint car drivers. And they were, they were going to run the Daytona 500. And they were struggling. And, and they were struggling. And so Dick came over and just snab me up and said, I'm going to get my backup car out. I want you to qualify it.

Okay. And so we went and qualified with a time that was fast enough to get in on time. And the car was just wasn't prepared to race. And so we ended up pulling out of the 125. And they just worked on it the whole time. And then we ended up coming back and finish in the top 10. I came up like seventh or something. Wow.

And so then Dick wanted me drive for him out to that. In the Daytona 500. That's right. Yeah. So what a story. Yeah. I always wondered why Mr. Moroso continued to race his team. And not that you would have any insight, maybe you do, but when he lost his son, I thought

that any, I thought that his racing team was motivated by his son's quest to become a cup driver. And when that was gone, I was always kind of surprised that he continued. to try to keep his race team going? I think the race team was kind of his holding on to a son. Yeah. Like wanted to honor him. You know, we had Rob Maroso on the car at a couple races. Wow.

You know, so he was, that was kind of him, I think, honoring, kind of holding on to Rob's memory. Right. Yeah. So you get the, you get offered the full-time ride to drive the car? Yes. And how'd that go? It's just so-so. It was the first time I'd actually ever been fired.

See, I didn't get fired from Stovolus. Right. That was, I left there on my own. And so that was a real, that was just really tough on me. What was the team missing? Because you would, another thing about Moroso is you would think that he would under, you thought you, I expected, okay, if there's real effort behind this team, they should succeed because of his knowledge of motorsports and their involvement and his son. son's involvement, that somehow, if he puts the effort in, that race team should become a winning program.

So what was missing? Well, I mean, at the end of the day, I think the easiest way to say is they didn't have the money that everybody else had. Really? Not even close. Wow. And it's one thing for Dick to spend money on a son. Yes.

Another thing for Dick to spend money on somebody else. Yes. So, you know, it's just kind of like anybody that's going through a traumatic event that's just a lot of chaos. and a lot of confusion. Uncertainty. And so there was just no, I mean, he never really had the people after that. He never had the, he had one guy that's a really good engine builder guy, and that was kind of it was loyal to him for a long time.

But in terms of the actual cars and the operations, it was nothing compared to like all the other teams at that time. Got you. Yeah. All right, so where do you go when you get fired? What was that moment like? You get a phone call? What was it?

But I'm going to tell you a cool story while I was driving for Dick. His wife came in the shop one day and was all excited because your dad had dropped off a bunch of hay for her horses. You know, without her asking, without any, that's kind of stuff he did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was just, I thought you'd like that. Yeah. Yeah.

I hear the stories from time to time. Yeah. The, you know, you, one of the, you. one of the things it says here is you drove after you get let go there you went and drove a little bit for jimmy means and substituted for kyle petty at team sabco and that's right um jimmy was i was always a big jimmy means fan yeah brad his son very good good very good friends you probably saw us running around in the garage yeah kids but uh um you know that must have been while you know that must have been a bit of an experience to to go drive for jimmy and to see his operation and how

he got to the racetrack and you had to gain some appreciation, I guess, for just how, you know, you already kind of knew how tough the business was, but that certainly had to be eye-opening. Yeah, and the interesting thing is so the only reason I was driving for Jimmy is because when Kyle got hurt, there was a road course race or something. There was a reason they were going to put somebody else in the car for a couple of races. And so Felix and them said, why don't you just to keep busy go race? for Jimmy for a few races and then come drive the 42 car. And so, yeah, it was great because I remember, like, in practice, we were just flying at Dover.

And everybody in the garage area knew we were fast. And it was pretty cool, but we couldn't really ever back that up in the race. He didn't have the tires. He didn't have the, you know, but it was really cool because he got the most out of what he had. Oh, yeah. You know, and he was really easy to get along with. I really enjoyed building the relationship with him because I really know him that much other, you know, racing his team. and so I thought that was pretty cool

and just, and to see what he did was so much less than anybody else. It was also pretty impressive. Another thing that you got to do that I thought was really neat was drive for Team Ireland. I remember that car, the Black 31. Yeah. You know, what was that experience like?

What is Team Ireland? I mean, literally all businessmen from Ireland. One guy. One guy. One guy that wanted to come in an NASCAR. And we were running a limited schedule. And now that was a year that I ended up in one of the races that I wasn't racing, I didn't driving for Kail Yarborough. And Kail wanted me to drive for him after that, but I had the contract with Team Ireland, so I couldn't go drive for Kail, which I really wanted to.

And so it was just frustrated. All that time was just kind of a big frustration for me because I was wanting to get back and get solid with, you know, something that I could be competitive with. Yes. And again, Team Ireland, you know, he named any people. you know and and and you know I don't know how I built a relationship with Don Hawk but you know Don was you know like it or not Don Don was um he had the personality that we needed to come be team manager and Don you know he was working a dealership up in Delaware and I kept talking to him on the phone how did you meet him I can't remember how we met I just don't

remember but we just started talking and the more we talked the more I felt like I need get him to come down here and help team Ireland. And so we finally talked him out, between me and the owner, Martin Brayne, we finally talked him into leaving his job and coming down to North Carolina. He lived with us for two months, and he was a team manager. And what ended up killing that deal was we were getting our engines from Hendrick. I mean, excuse me, from Childers. Okay.

And we finished, I think, eight at Charlotte one day. And the motor was, you know, there's something going on with the cylinder head. and NASCAR wanted to draw a line in the sand with what was going on with the cylinder heads at that time. And so it was easy to bust us. So we got busted for, you know, one mill of thousands, whatever, you know. Yeah. And they disqualified or supposed to the back of the field and find Martin Brain. And he just, you know, and Childers, you know, it was Childersension.

and, you know, Bahrain got the fine, brain got, you know, all these things. And he just, he was beside himself. He just said, if this is, I'm out. That was it. That was it. That was the end of it, yeah. Wonder what he did with all this stuff?

I think he took it back to Ireland. He had a little racetrack in Ireland. And so it was just like, like he took it back to Ireland. Yeah, shipped it back. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that car. What did Hawk do when he left?

Did he go to Quikiki right away? He went to Quickey, and then he went to your dad's. Yeah. So you filled in for Davy Allison at Talladega, finishing third. Yep. You finally found some stability. You get hired to drive for Junie Don Libby. Yeah.

Right? How did that all come about? I mean, like the next day after Talladega, I got the call from Junie. So you go run Davies car. Yeah. And it was literally the first opportunity that came up. Yeah. And I jumped at it.

quick. Do you, you talked about the 26th, uh, uh, Bernstein call. Yeah. What other calls did you get in your life? That was it. That was it from, in terms of a good, good team. Right. Yeah, a team that was at the beginning of Larry McGraths career, you know, but nobody

knew Larry McReynolds was going to be. Larry McReadles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, yeah. So, uh, no, that was it. But with Junie, you know, I knew Junie was more along the lines of a

Jimmy Means team. But he had the Highlegmire sponsorship and everybody, you know, everybody loved Junie. Yeah. And I love Junie. Yeah. But everybody said, it's going to be different.

He's going to do it right and all these things, you know. What do you mean? Just like step up. Like he's going to change. Yeah, he's going to step up. He's going to have the money. He's going to spend him to step up and be a top team. And get his,

he was going to get his bodies from whoever at the time. That was when you had all these body specialists, building bodies, right? And, you know, I remember negotiating the contract. It's like, and had all this stuff in the contract. I'm like, this is just not. I can't sign this stuff. And Junie said, look, if you don't want to work here, you don't have to work here.

And so I said, okay. And so I drove until I didn't want to drive. And that's how we did it. And there came a day where I didn't want to drive. And I just said, I can't do this anymore. Wow. Yeah. No kidding.

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It was early in the early. You're just like, I mean, burnt out. One of the things that I always remember is you and Kyle Petty arguing on the front straightaway at Daytona. It could have been that year, that's right. And that made the Sports Illustrated issue, yeah. You lost breaks or something during all that. What happened was, this was little things people don't realize. Our car was so fast.

Yeah. And even after testing, we took that car to Robert Yates so they could try to help figure out why it was so fast. And we were the only Ford to pass the three car under green to take the lead during that race at some point. But anyway, later after some pit stops, Al Jr. took your dad out. and they came down and crashed me, ripped the right front off. Well, we only had a single master cylinder. So when you ripped the right front off with a single master cylinder, you don't have a brake source there.

So Kyle's back there wherever, and he comes along and runs into me, and I thought he's going to crawl up and say, You okay? Yeah. But instead he said, why didn't keep you, you know what, foot on a break? And I'm like, what? No! And so I jump out of the car and chase him down and we're arguing.

and, you know, it ended up being a big divorce. It's like we're cool today. Yeah, sure. Yeah. That was a funny moment. Yeah. You know, I know that you're tired of driving to Don Levy's. Looking back on it now, like, would you have told yourself to stick it out?

Did you make the right choice? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would have only hurt me more. To stay? Yeah. Yeah, that just would have hurt more.

I mean, now, maybe the, things I don't know about. Yeah, sure. But what did you do after that? Gosh, I can't remember. So there's a Charles Hardy? Who is that? Well, that's Bill Elliott.

That's the nine. That's the, no, not tonight. The Belling? That's the 94. Okay, so, so what happened was, Bill Elliott went to drive for Junior Johnson. All right. And he's driving for junior for however many years.

Hardy is supporting Bill to start his own operation again. so that's it was R&D while Bill was still driving for junior they ran a handful of races and you drove the car and I drove the car and that was my first that was my first that was my first ever brickyard was with you yeah yeah yeah that was great was a lot of fun stuff they were doing a lot of R&D stuff too but it was fun you know because they were you know they were spending what they need to spend and competitive car yeah and we ran good when we ran just you know things happened here and there with a part-time team but yeah But it was fun. And you ran a couple more races with Morozo that year?

I can't remember. You got the stats. I know. Well, you started the 95 season with Moroso and then left to go to Jasper in the middle of that year. Yeah, yeah. You were replacing Davy Jones into Jasper engine. That's right, yeah. And you would stay there from 96 to 97, and y'all would miss the World 600, and they would let you go.

That's right. You had a couple of attempts with triad motorsports. and then I guess around that time where are you on your racing careers because I did not experience this but I know some of my close friends have to where you know there's just points where you're like you know I'm not getting the opportunities I won't what is next and there's not a clear path forward right and so in 97ish you know right before you start this Bush team that I would race with you against, which I thought was a great experience for you. We'll talk about that. But where are you emotionally with your cup career? Yeah, well, I was pretty aware there weren't going to be any good opportunities.

So it was more or less, I'm going to have to create something if something's going to happen. And, you know, the frustration level is pretty high. And it was a real decision, like, am I going to really dig down deep and go after this again or what am I going to do? Yeah. You know, and so just had a lot of encouragement from friends. and different people. And so, you know, we got this idea. And, you know, part of things that I think I'd have been a much better car owner than driver, just looking back, you know, because I just have, I really wanted to try to do,

maybe it's my intensity level. I wanted to try to uncover every stone. Yeah. You know, I remember one team asked me to come test the brickyard for them somewhere in all this, and it was a new team. I don't even remember the name of now. It was some new team. And we got there, and it was just such a mess.

and it just, I mean, literally to a point where I almost felt unsafe. And so I went back to the room that night, and I took a pad out. And I literally just walked step by step, what, you know, what happens when you're testing and what each guy should have his role when the car comes in, you know, one guy's measuring shock travel, one guy's taking the, doing the jack, one guy's doing the hood, one day, you know, everybody had his role. And same thing when you're buttoning the car up back to go back out on the racetrack. And so I walked them through all this.

because it meant it was helter-skelter. And I went to the crew chief that next morning. I'm just trying to help. And said, like, like, walk. This is maybe how y'all could run this test and get a lot more out of it. And he looked at that piece of paper. And he said, let me tell you something.

He said, you worry about driving a race car? And he said, I worry about this team. And he just, yeah. So I'm like, oh, man. I mean, that's kind of, you know, you run into stuff like that, right? Yeah, sure. And when, you, you know, but, so anyway,

going back to the story, I just had some encouragement from some people that are hard. I'm going to go one more try at this Bush thing. Why the Bush series? Well, because it was just, you know, Cup Series was just going to be, there's no way I could raise the kind of money and, you know, hire the kind of people. It was just, I mean, you know, I didn't have a lot of money. Sure.

So, you know, had seven major league baseball players or five major league baseball players. How did that happen? How do you get involved with major league baseball players? Okay. So you remember. motor racing outreach, right? Yep. So in the early days of motoring us racing outreach, we did, our end of the year

conference was tied into pro athletes outreach, which had baseball and football conferences. So I got to be really good friends with Gary Gaiety and Danny Schaefer. And we stayed friends for a long time. And I went to talk to them about it. And they said, well, I think we can get Mark McGuire to put some money in and this guy to put some money in. And, you know, I ended up getting Ted Bud, who's now a U.S. senator, put money in. Robin Hayes put money in my car.

We had a bunch of car owners. Everybody put in a little bit of money. How much did you own? I owned, like, it was like one ninth or one eighth of it. I mean, everybody put in the same amount of money. Yeah. And I operated. Yeah.

So, but it was just a fledging operation. I mean, we really, we had some sponsorship, you know, not a lot. And, you know, the year that I finished second to you at Dover, yeah, that's really the closest we came to win in a race. Yeah, y'all had a lot of laps that day. It was me or you pretty much that day. And you spun out into the tires, and that's what caused, I think that's what caused the caution.

Is that the one that calls the actual last caution? You were still having to come back around. You know, we got the next set of tires on. They were just tight. You know, my car just wouldn't turn like it was earlier. Yeah. And you just rode right by me. I was like, oh, man, I was so, I was so, man.

I remember you run, I remember that car because I was getting into the Xfinity series as a rookie in 98 and then in 99, and I remember you having these moments when that car, was really, really good. Yeah. You had some, yeah, I don't know what your overall feeling is about that experience for you, but I thought from my point, my perspective, it looked like you were having a pretty good time. You were driving competitively, having the moments like you had at Dover.

You know, there were, it's always tough for everybody, but there, it was kind of nice, I bet to say, you know, under the right circumstance, chances, you know, I can do this. Well, yeah, there were some encouraging things that happened. For example, we qualified second at Watkins Glen, Tabor said. Yes. That's a race we should have won. And he kind of, I can't remember, I think I got pushed wide.

I don't know if it was him, some, but I lost a few positions, but then I was coming on strong and, you know, really should have won that race, and we had a problem with the engine. So things like that kind of happened. But then what also really happened that was encouraging is, we were trying to build our own motors to start with, and that was a nightmare. But we end up Bill Amick, we end up doing a deal of lease engines from Bill Amick. This is kind of like the last year.

And also, my good friend Lake Speed was retiring, and he came to be team manager. I mean, he just turned it around like that. Really? Let me tell you something about Lake Speed. Probably one of the smartest guys that's ever come through Cup Racing, ever. he is so smart. People don't have a clue how smart this guy is, how bright he is.

Whether you're talking about the chassis, the engine, the anything. You know, he was, he held the record for winning the World Go Car Champion, beat Alon Pro, Aaron, and Sen, all those guys. But anyway, he came in, brought some serious order to my team. I mean, I was so, I mean, think about it,

I was so stressed out, burned out, everything, yeah. And, I mean, we started qualifying good. We started running good. And it was just like a day late and a dollar short. And we just ran out of money. Yeah. And that was it.

I remember the Rockingham race is probably 99, might have been 98. Might have been 98. Mark came, Mark McGuire came to the racetrack. And you, that's right. And you had him signing boxes of baseballs up in the haulers and allers and all of us were able to get one. I remember going up in there, and I still got the baseball. That's cool.

That day that he signed for me. I was like, Mark McGuire's here because of Bobby Hill and they ate car and they say he's signing baseball if you want one. I was like, damn right, I want one. Where do I go? Well, you know, that was a pretty cool thing about that year because as he was chasing the record, we would put the number of home runs he had on the seat post of the car. Yeah.

And so that was actually a pretty good little marketing thing that we were doing. And at the end of the year, he had already broken the record. but we were still going to race at St. Louis. So the guy that was painting helmets at the time painted this double throw-down cool helmet with Mark McGuire, Roger Maris, and Babe Ruth. And so he did two of those helmets identical. I raced the one at St. Louis and then put it in the case,

and he's got the other one in the case. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. All right, so how does that deal come to an end? I know you said you ran out of money, but get into the meat of that. The nuts and bolts of it, yeah. So, well, if you remember he's saying we were trying to build the engines earlier in a year,

and we missed a few races. And so our deal with Kleenex was, you know, there's a certain amount of money, penalty, you get penalized for a missing race. So once we were running really good, I could see that, you know, we had to manage the sponsorship throughout the rest of the year. So I called the local, not the local, but the rep that was handling everything for Kleenex. and, you know, just said, hey, I know that I'm going to owe y'all some money. I'm trying to figure out the budget to finish the team.

Yeah. To finish the season. And he said, look, man, you're running great. Keep it up. Don't change a thing. You know, we'll figure that out because we're going to negotiate for next year. I said, all right, great. And we go about three more weeks, and we get our next check, and they had deducted everything already.

Damn. And I had, you know, this many bills to pay and that much money. money to pay it with. And I just called them and said, I can't go to the next race. I'm not going to do it because you told me this and that's not what happened. And that was it. That was the very end. Yeah. So I went and ran. I went and substituted for in a cup car at Bristol in the mailing team later that year, but that was it. For the most part, you step away from racing in 2000. I know you came back and had a couple one-offs in 0-8-09. Yeah, yeah.

But that was just for fun. Yeah. So what, how did you deal with? I've, I've, this is a question that's really personal to me because I still, I still don't have it figured out. But how do you deal with being a, I was in a conversation with Amy last night, my wife. And I'm, I'm like, it's hard for me to realize, it's hard for me to understand that I, I could, I was a race car driver and I raced and I don't know how to not be that. I don't know how to. Yeah.

I don't know how to. I race these late model races in an Xfinity race because I don't know how to not. Yeah. You know, when I'm when I'm raceless for a year, I feel less than. I feel I feel like I don't have a purpose. Right. So how did you manage? Well, first thing I'll tell you is that when all this was going down, I went over and Joe Gibbs gave me one-on-one, probably hour, hour and a half of his time. And I said, you know, here's what's kind of going on. You instigated this conversation? I did. I reached out to him.

Okay. And so I'd like to sit down and talk to you. And I said, you know, the truth is, the last 10 years of my life, it's just killing me that I can't be more competitive. And, like, it's just, it's just tearing me apart. and I know I'm not going to have any more opportunities. At that time, I really wasn't even wanting to admit, you know, the physical, my neck and all that stuff we talked about earlier. And I just said, you know, but I can't, I don't want to be a quitter. Like, I'm just worried that I'm going to be labeled a quitter.

And am I quitting? You know, I don't want to quit and, you know, leave too soon. You know, but the truth is, I remember your granddad. He'd say, every year I race, put two years. on my life. So I had been in NASCAR for 18 years. And I felt, I can tell you right now, I felt older mentally, physically than I do today. I'm in better mental, physical, emotional shape today than I did on that day.

And Joe said, look, Bobby, there are so many football players that came in and they had five, six good years. And they weren't going to be, they weren't going to be Hall of Famers, but they had good careers, but they also weren't to be starting the next year. And they weren't going to be, you know, they were going to maybe make the team, but that was it. He said, I encourage those guys to go on. There's so much life after this to go on and start that life. And that's just what I needed to hear.

I feel like God just kind of ordained him to say that to me. And he goes, that's what I need to have the confidence to step away and say, oh, I'm going to go back. And I mean, literally, you know, praying about what am I going to do? And I remember this company that was going to sponsor us at Daytona one time. They did a thing called vacuum excavation, which was crazy. I never heard of it. I put the video in and said, I think there's something to this,

to this big study. And I literally go and buy three books at Barnes & Noble's how to write a business plan. And I'm writing a business plan on my dining room table in Charlotte, North Carolina, before I even moved to Houston. And that was just moving all in my life right then. Right away.

Yeah. Yeah, so I'm in and around it all the time. So it's like I want to be in racing, but I got to figure out a way to exist. in it. Right. Right. And you walked away and left it. So when you decided that was your future,

you moved to Texas and was in racing as far as from that moment on was not a part of your life? The only thing that was a part of my life was I had a stack of invoices from vendors that I kept in my drawer. And when

I got the money, I paid them. Yeah. It was several years later. Right. But some of I couldn't reach, but some of them I paid. And I can't believe this, you know, and paid them back. Yeah. But that was, I mean, outside of those little one-off fund deals you did. So the whole thing to go racing in 2007 and 2008 was I was, there was a guy that had worked on my car years ago and lived in the Houston area, he was running the late model car in

Houston. He said, come help me set this car up. And then, you know, one thing leads in there, won't you race it, you know? And so we're racing. Did you? You drove it? Man, we're having fun. So wait, wait, wait.

So you move away from racing in 2000. but then you ended up going back and running some short track stuff? Just in Houston. Just like this. Yeah. I mean, like I'm at work. What kind of track? It's just as a one-third mile asphalt track.

And what kind of car? Just like a late-mallowed. Like a late-mall car. How many times do you think you raced it? Five or six. That's awesome. Yeah. Did you have fun?

Yeah, I was a lot of fun. Why'd you stop? I don't know. He went away. I don't know what happened to him. But he's the one that communicated. I mean, you know, it's easy. It'd been easy for you to go, all right, I'm going to get my own car.

I like doing this. It's fun. Well, okay, but here's the thing. My business wasn't quite ready for, I didn't have any money to spend still. So I was still building the company. Yeah. It wasn't until years later that I sold and, you know,

I was doing good. Sure. But, yeah, so I'm not going to put my own money in there race. Got you. Yeah, it's tough to do. Yeah. All right. So Bobby Helling,

the Bobby Hillen that I, the Bobby Hillen that I remember racing with in 99, went on about his merry way. One day, I don't know what year was. It could have been 2004 or it could have been 06. I don't know. I see you in the bus lot at Daytona walking around wanting to share pamphlets with information about a business. Oil business.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I got one of those. You gave me one. Yeah. So what was that business? Well, okay, so when I moved back, I started my own company.

Yep. But my father was still in oil business. So we made a deal. No money was going to change hands, but I was going to get a third of his company. And he was still struggling at the time. He didn't really have any money. And he was going to get a third of my company. So what his role was, was his role was to help me write all the prequalls that I needed to go work for Shell and Exxon and all the major oil companies to do service work for them.

Yep. my role for him because I had a little bit of a name is to go raise money for the oil business. So that was my role for him. And so that's what I was doing in Daytona. And I look back and I'm thinking like, all these guys that turn me down, have they had any idea how much money they would have made. How much money they would have made if they had gotten some of these deals with us. What was it?

Well, and the reason was. I was wanting to turn you down. A lot of guys did. Yeah. The reason was that at that time, there were still a lot of. a, you know, in racing, you call them snake oil salesmen. Yeah. Okay.

In the oil business, I don't know what you call them, but there were a lot of people, there were a lot of people raising money in the oil business that were not real oil people. And I knew that. And we knew that, but we also were real oil and gas people. We understood the business, you know. And so I tried to relay that to the drivers that I knew and like, this is, this is not somebody taking you for a ride.

Yeah. This is not somebody that's taking you for a big promote, you know, and, you know, And this is, you know, you're going to understand what you're being promoted and what you're not, and you're going to understand where every dollar spent. But nobody was buying it. Nobody, nobody, the oil business is so foreign to race car drivers. That it just, it wasn't, it just wasn't. So I end up raising money from just people that knew me in the Texas, Houston area.

Yeah. Yeah. And so what was the end result of all of that? Oh, we did several different deals and some were better than the other, but they were all good. I just remember that. Yeah, they were all good, yeah. I was thinking you were going to come in here and tell me I missed up on, I missed hundreds of millions of dollars, but it was still a good deal.

So what ended up becoming, what was this T-Rex engineering and construction business as you started? Yeah, so my company, the vacuum excavation business. What does that even mean? So what it was is you had these big trucks that put like a medium pressure water into the ground and sliced it like a knife. and you had this big vacuum and would vacuum the soil up. You did it for two reasons. One, to locate an underground utility so that it wouldn't be damaged by a backhoe.

Sure. The other thing was to excavate around, like if there was a big project and there were a lot of lines underneath the ground to just do the actual excavation around all that if they had to do a tie-in or some time of repair or anything like that. So, and when I went to Houston, that business was in its infancy. Nobody really heard about it. and I feel like I had to tell people what this business was all about. So it was a really cool growing process.

Business grew. It was great. I sold out to a company that's backed by a private equity company. But the last few years of doing that, it wasn't as much of a challenge. And so I met some guys that were doing, that were building what we call subsidy equipment. And so if you, you're probably not familiar, but in offshore oil and gas drilling, you've got the production. You've got the riser that goes down. And then you've got the wellheads.

They're sitting in the deep water. And we would actually build everything from the wellhead that connect to the riser. So we would. Manufacture all that. Yeah. So I ended up buying a, we had like a 30-something acre place on the ship channel. And we had a 67,000-quare-foot shop and tons of welders. And that's all the stuff we were building, you know, building in there.

And we kind of graduated from doing that to doing like shallow water platforms. And then we were doing a shallow water platform for. some company we had take it down to Peru and that's in 15 16 and oil price tanked again and they put the job on hold and that's when I kind of like gosh you know most of people that we're competing in it they're like public companies and we're just mom and pop kind of deal so we finished that job when they got it back going and and that's kind of when I just uh more or less just became like a landlord and so I'm slowing down business wise in terms of just doing my own thing yeah yeah yeah So all those things sound like they were very, you know, successful projects,

and you found this entirely new chapter of life beyond racing. So you're, so all of that, I'm sure, the challenges and the competition in the business world helped you move beyond any emotion you had about your racing career. Well, it kept me busy. You know, when I came back, all of my friends that I grew up with had graduated. graduated college and had really, most of them entrepreneurs. They all had been very successful. And I was always a guy they looked up to because I was one that made the money the fastest.

I was one that was, you know, whatever. And then it was a reversal. When I got back to Texas, I was broke. I didn't have an education. And I had a chip on my shoulder. And I'm like, oh, man. So I was just nose to the grindstone working, working. And, you know, he's still always saying,

Gosh, I'm the most unlucky guy in the world. All these things just didn't have, you know, my, you know, pitiful me, whatever. And I look back now and think everything and I went through, starting the different Bush teams, doing all the stuff that I dealt with, dealing with the people in the Cup Series, you know how that is. Yeah. You know, that prepared me to start my own business. Yeah.

And, you know, I didn't really realize how I was being prepared to start my own business, but it really helped, you know, and so now it's like, oh, good. when did you have when did you get married well i married jami 10 years ago yeah so uh that was one of the one of the one of the things going back to work and 80 hours a week you know we end up getting divorced my first wife and i didn't get divorced and and and it's a terrible thing for our family and and um uh just a bad time of life sure yeah struggling but you have three kids yeah yeah Luke, Stephanie and Joseph. Luke is the director of operations at Texas A&M University's basketball.

I know they just recently lost out of the tournament, but they had a good run. Yeah. Well, his technical title is Chief of Staff. Yeah. But anything off the court, you know, he's kind of in his, it's under his umbrella. That's got to be cool. Yeah, it is really cool. I'm really proud of him.

He's doing really good. He's always said he wants to be an AD or a GM of a pro team or something like that. And I can't speak for him now if that's really what he wants to do. But yeah, he's doing great. That's pretty interesting. So how old are you kids? Lucas 31, and we've got two grandchildren with him. Stephanie's 28 and Joseph is 24.

Wow. Yeah. He and Joseph works for, Stephanie works for oil and gas company in Houston. Joseph works for an investment banking firm called Hulahan Loki. Wow. Yeah. They're doing great. Yeah.

Luke graduated at him. Do you remember when they were three and five years old? Oh, yeah. So that's where I'm at with two. two girls. Yeah. And I'm terrified of every teaching moment that passes whether I'm making the right choices or not. It's chaos. I think you're going to do fine. I think you're going to do really, really well. You ended up doing pretty good. What's the secret? Yeah. What is, tell me, tell me, tell me, what is the secret to being a good parent? Yeah, I mean, you raise some kids that

that are productive and, you know, you might have to ask them if I was a good parent. Right. I mean, I think just, you know, we try to, try to teach them faith, you know. It's up to them what they want to do with later on in life. Right. You know, teach them all the things my dad taught me. Treat people with respect. Yes, sir, no, sir.

Don't get involved in nonsense. Yeah. You got to be wild every once in a while. Yeah. You know, that's part of it. Right. Yeah. All right.

Well, man, you know, is there, what's the fondest moment of your racing career that you look back on? I mean, obviously the win in Talladega. is a moment that you probably do think about often. But, you know, sometimes I have moments in my career. Like there's a die cast sitting on that shelf over there for the car that I raced at Martinsville that I finished fifth. It's one of my favorite races. Yeah.

Didn't win. Yeah. But, you know, when you're thinking about your career outside of that Talladega race, what are some of the great moments? So I'd say there are two. One of them was getting in Davis car and putting him back in the leading the points. And it wasn't so much what we did, but how we did it. You know, me and Ernie and Sterling left the whole field, I think, that day.

And if not for not having, we had an open rear-end gear on last pit stop and couldn't get off pit stop and that killed us. But it wasn't that as much as the relationship that I got to build with Robert Yates and Larry McGrathals just during that short period of time. You know, that was just really cool. and then the other was going to the brickyard with Bill Elliott's team. So we tested prior to that. It was the first brickyard. The car wouldn't turn, wouldn't turn, wouldn't turn, Bill got in the car, wouldn't turn.

They called me back and said, hey, we're going to bring the speedway car. And I'm like scratching my head. I don't know if that's the right thing to do. And they said, well, if it doesn't work, we'll get the backup car out. So I take one lap and the car feels like it's on marbles. And I'm radio and I'm saying, man, you've got to get to. that other car. This car is no way this car is going to work. And go to Gary Nelson, he said, no, no, no, you can't get the backup car out. He said, if you put that car on a wall on purpose,

he said, you're out of here. And that's exactly what he said to me. So it started raining. Next thing that happened was qualifying the next day. I was telling Jeff this yesterday, but they split the front nose on both sides and added about eight inches of material. It looked like the Batmobile, right, to get some down for us. Yes. But we didn't do anything to the back. So sure enough, in qualifying, I mean, I did everything but hit the wall. And this is when there were maybe 60 or 64 cars trying to make 36 car field with no provisional. So I think we were either 58 or something after that first round of qualifying. And I come in and shop the next day and they're bashing a C post in.

They race the back up like, I don't know how high, but way higher than it had to be. The nose was higher and had to be. So let just put a ton of rake in the car and went out qualified 30 second and made the race. race started, we drive up to like 13th in the motor blows. Didn't blow up, car ride or something happened. But that whole experience with those guys and going from being so let down to like, I'm not going to make this race in the first brickyard, which, you know, dad had cars that race to Indy.

It was a big deal to me. You know, I got pictures of me sitting on a side pot of Indy car getting pushed out before the Indianapolis 500s. I wanted to be in that first race. And so just going from not making that race to making it and in running good, all with this speedway car that they just hammered and modified to put some downforce in. It was just a cool experience. So those are my two,

those are probably my two favorite times. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I sure enjoyed racing with you. I will say that, you know, when I got in a bush car, even any time I got in a cup car and I saw like guys that race dad, like I remember going to St. Louis for 98 or no, this was 97. Yeah.

I was running like three or four races that year in the bush car. And we pull out for practice and Terry Labani's in a car up there in front of me. And I was like, that's freaking Terry Labony. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I was allowed to be in the same practice with him. Wow. And so when I went to the Bush series and you and Phil Parsons were racing in there, I mean, I've watched y'all as a kid. Right, right.

I mean, I went to all those races. That's cool. When you ran that yellow eight as a little boy. And then when you were competitive and we had that nice little race at over and everything, I was privately pulling for your success because I wanted, like with Phil, I wanted to race you. Yeah, yeah. That was cool for me. Thank you.

But I'm glad that we got to do that together. I appreciate your career. I appreciate you giving us some time today. Thanks for coming all the way from Texas to visit with us. people are going to love to hear what you've been up to and what you've been doing. There's not a day that has gone by that I haven't wondered if I had made a big mistake passing up on that investment opportunity in Daytona that day. Because, I mean, I went back and we were doing this homework and I'm thinking,

I believe all those investments worked out. Well, you know, look, not all of them work out. But, you know, if you're in the business consistently, you're going to have more that work out that don't. Sure. And that's kind of how it works. Yeah. Well, I always wonder, now we know.

Thanks for giving us some time, buddy. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. All right, Bobby Hillen on the, Dale Jr. Gallag. All right. I enjoyed that. I'm super into the old races, and I'm, you know,

I love watching the NASCAR, I love watching the old NASCAR races, and they just started recently uploading on NASCAR classes, on NASCAR Classics. So like if I just turn on my YouTube right, right away, 1981 Coca-Cola 500 from Atlanta, you know, there's just always a new race that's been uploaded or a most recent upload in NASCAR Classics.

And so having the driver like Bobby Hillen come on and be a part of this show is right at my alley. It's what I love to do. I told Bobby, I was like, you know, I don't know anything about you before you're cup racing. You came into the cup series and everybody, he were really young. But what did you do before that? Did you drive anything? And I was surprised to learn that he was successful at short track ranks.

But, you know, just for a very small, small amount of time before he went right into the cup series. And the fact that guys could just race like one year of short track racing in a late model and jump right into the cup level, and race at the Cup series. Skip, no, trucks didn't exist, you know, so he skipped the Bush series. That's wild, fascinating. And he didn't flame out, you know. He had a really long career, considering the, you know, the results. He had a long career.

I knew I'd get crucified if I didn't ask him about Kyle Petty, cussing him out on the frustrated way at Daytona, so I made sure to get that one in for you. But I just love talking to these guys. And some of the details about, you know, switching teams or moving from one to another or what it must have been like, the culture of the team or whatever, that's what I'm interested in. Any other thing they can tell me about that time frame. I love the 70s, the 80s, and some of the 90s stuff.

I'd say my main focus is probably the most I enjoy is probably right around when Bobby was in the middle of it, early 80s to mid-80s. 80s. And the fact that that, you know, I know he's doing other stuff here, but they come all the way from wherever to be on the show. I just, that still blows my mind today. I still have a hard time believing that's really true. But, uh, glad that Bobby did.

I remember vividly him coming up and knocking on the door of the bus in Daytona and saying, I want to hand you this pamphlet, take a look at it. It's an investment. It's a more business that I'm involved in. And I was like, I didn't have the bandwidth to sit down

and say, hey, who wants to look at this with me? And I just didn't think anything of it. And I was like, man, I wonder what happened to that business. I was dying to learn that today. So anyways, great guests. Hope you all enjoyed it. Thank you, Ally, for everything you do, supporting us every week and bringing this guest segment to us.

Ally, no matter what you're saving for, whether it's going to the racetrack, a new car or a new home, it's always better with an ally. And we appreciate them. so thank you and let's get to the white flag. So the white flag. For Wednesday, if you're under a rock and don't know nothing about the podcast

that Nerdymo Media produce, Monday we had to tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Mianke. They covered everything from Koda. I love getting their fresh perspective. They're at the track. They just watched the event. I don't know how you can get a better understanding of what went down than listening to the tear down with Jeff and George.

Jordan. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin drops every Monday as well as he comes home from the races and knocks that out. It's good to hear a driver's perspective on their opinions of the day. And then door bumper clear with Connor Zillich. Doorbubber clear. I, you know, I called NASCAR. And I was like, hey, talking to one of the officials, one of the top officials at NASCAR. And I'm like, you know, we're talking about rear ends flying out of trucks and all kinds of stuff. we started talking about the officiating of the curbs and the turns at Kota and I said you know I wasn't never really that annoyed by NASCAR's work that they did this past weekend I never sit you know never sit there and went ah it's BS NASCAR you're screwing this up never felt that way at all

and I told them I said you know my my feelings about the the weekend as far as NASCAR goes it's good man, I don't know how you could have policed it better. It's an impossible task. I said, I will probably have some comments on my show that you'll be fine with. I cannot control what door proper clear says. That was my parting words. And so, but anyways, whatever the boys got into, I listened to a little bit of it. It wasn't too bad.

They dropped that Monday. Tuesday, our dirty air show, that's out. We had a lot of fun, just kind of recapping our show. ourselves, given our own opinions about the weekend. And dropping today's Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden. Tomorrow, Dirty Mo Doe with Steve LaTart, previewing Richmond. Dirty Mo Doe is getting some real traction, folks. We're getting some great feedback.

A lot of folks, you know, tuning in, listening to the advice from Steve and the gang. And then DJD reloaded. Last week, Dillner and Freddie Kraft came on to debate the state of Short Track racing that continued to rage on through the weekend. I saw him going back and forth. You know, Freddie, he can't shut up, and Dillner can't lose an argument. That's what makes a good debate.

Putting those two in the room. It's never going to end, though. No, they're still talking about it. Good debates come to a conclusion. We need to move them in the hallway because they're still talking. Is it a good debate if it's continuing? All right. Either way.

Hope y'all enjoyed it this week. It's been a lot of fun. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirtymoe Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.