The Dale Jr. Download - 539 - Elton Sawyer: Tires, Hybrids & The NextGen Era

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer to discuss the current state of NASCAR officiating, the NextGen car, tires, and more - while also taking a deep dive into Sawyer’s own career as a driver. The conversation begins with Sawyer’s early days behind the wheel and the story behind meeting Elton’s now wife and former race car driver, Patty Moise. The two discuss his time racing in the Busch Series, along with his short-run racing in Cup. Sawyer breaks down the end of his racing career, and his transition to working on the competition side of the sport. Sawyer then provides a “peek behind the curtain” and shares what his day-to-day looks like as the SVP of Competition. Sawyer explains the role of a race director, how NASCAR evaluates penalties, and how the appeals process works. He also breaks down what caused the tires at Bristol to react the way he did, shares what they hope to achieve with multiple tire compounds at the All-Star Race, and reveals the potential of Hybrids breaking into the sport. 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 in the Bojangles studio. We have the ally guest segment coming today. Elton Sawyer. He's coming into the studio and Elton raced at the short tracks at Langley. And then grew up racing in the Bush Series in the 80s. I raced against Elton Sawyer in the Bush series in the late 90s. Had a lot of fun competing with him. Married to Patty Mouis. Maybe he'll let us know what Patty's been up to here lately.

And now he's working for NASCAR. So got to talk about that. So let's get this started. The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. Hey, everybody, Dale Jr., Dale Jr., back again. Hey, everybody's Dale Jr. back, back, back, back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. Boog Daniel studio. Hey, everybody.

Elton Sawyer. Adam Stern had some tweets about hybrids. Where do you think we are in that? It is conversation. We need a platform. that will invite new OEMs to come and participate. The one thing that they're not going to do is they're not going to build a V8 pushrod engine.

All right, back in here in the Bojangles studio for another day, bringing the ally guest segment to you every single week. I wanted Elton Sawyer on the show. I'm the one that takes responsibility for this guest. I get most of guests on this show, to be honest with you. Now, our team will come and say, hey, what about this? What about that? And I'll be like, nope.

Or I might be, hey, that's pretty good. But usually it's me. Usually I'm the one coming up with the great ideas. Stephen does a good job. He does. Stephen does a great job. Me and him work in tandem, bringing these guests to you every single week. Thanks to Ally.

Elton Sawyer raced at Langley way back in the day. I call him all stock cars. He's going to call them something a little different, I bet. but I still call it. I think it was kind of what a late-mile stock car is today. And I went and saw him race when I was a little boy. I didn't know he was racing at Langley, but my father-in-law, Willie and my mother,

they lived up in Norfolk, and I went as a little boy to Langley and watched, and I remember that blew 42 out there on the racetrack. And then he goes into the Xfinity series, and I would end up racing with Elton, which was a lot of fun. He was a clean racer, but good, very hard to beat sometimes. Drove for one of the better teams, maybe not the best team.

It was a full-time Bush team with no real cup affiliation, so that was a challenge. And he did really good with it, especially late in his career his last couple of years, top tens, top fives in the points. And then all of a sudden, out of racing altogether. Why? What happened? Why did he not compete anymore? Did he want to? Did he just, was he done? And then years later, he goes to work for NASCAR. Now, I know what it was like to get out of the race car and go into the broadcast booth.

And that was a big switch. Everything I believed as a driver changed dramatically when I got into the broadcast booth. All the things I thought NASCAR did wrong. All of a sudden, I started to realize why they made these decisions and why they did things the way they did. I want to ask him about that. And we're going to ask him about the short track package. What are they doing? We're going to fix it. We're going to get it right. Do we need to have hope?

What are some of the things that they're excited about? Because they're, you know, they kind of exhausted themselves trying to make changes to the car. They've went, tested, they put the work in. Nothing's came from it. So what are we doing now? So let's get Elton into the room here. Thank you again, Ally, for bringing. bringing this guest segment to us every single week.

Elton Sawyer, coming to the Eldjutor down. Well, I appreciate you coming, man. I've been looking forward to talking to you. Yeah. We was talking, I was asking you'd give me a hard time because you didn't bring Patty. That's okay. I hadn't seen her, and I can't remember how long.

What has she been up to? She's good. She's taking care of our property. We've got about 30 acres up there outside of Winston and the big metropolis of Advance. Yeah. And she's got two third-bed horses. We've got two donkeys.

So she's in eventing. She does like three-day eventing. And she went from multiple horsepower to down the just two horsepower now. So she does what? It's like three-day eventing. It's riding, you know, horseback, equestrian. Yep. She's doing that?

She does that. She rides herself? She rides herself. And like competitions? And competition? Really? So three-day would be. Dressage is like you walk into an arena and you know the test and then you've got to make all these subtle movements with the horse.

Then you get judged on it. I heard that this is rather expensive. These type of horses. Yeah, I'll tell you what it is. I've been known. I was told last week, like I got little girls right. And I was said, and they said, as long as they don't jump, they're fine. When they start jumping, they get way more expensive.

Oh, yeah. Well, and that's right. So she does both. She's backing off the jumping. As you get more birthdays, you want to, the falls become more difficult. But yeah, it's short track racing. So you have to have a barn or you have to have a shop. You have to have a truck and a trailer.

You have all the equipment. I tell people a lot of time, the difference in short track racing and the horse business is that if we tear our car up on Saturday night, you come back, you can back it in the garage. We'll take care of it on Monday, right? Yeah. With the horses, it doesn't work that way. You get back late, early in the morning. You've got to unload them.

You've got to feed them. I tell her all the time. Short track racing is easy compared to what you do now. And she loves it. Yeah. Does she keep up with NASCAR and all the things going on? She does. She was never a huge fan.

She loved to compete. Obviously a huge fan of your dad's. I'm glad he said that. I remember. So I was at Road America. or Atlanta. Rhode Atlanta that day. And dad did think a lot of her.

And I remember, because I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even known there was a woman in that race car. Yep. But dad was talking about it. And he did have a pretty high opinion of her, thought a lot of her. Yeah, it was funny. She tells the story.

So they were out practicing. Excuse me. Obviously, she was, she came from, she came from a road race background. So she was quick. Yeah. So outside front row. Yep.

Yeah. Outside front row. So they were practicing and your dad was out there and actually got around him through the S's. And when it was over, she goes, I'd say, I'd stay a learn hard. I got to go down and I got to rib him a little bit. So she went down and I can't remember who the crew chief was. And she goes, yeah, I was just looking for Dale. And I think that individual mentioned she said, yeah, Dale said you got by him out there.

But he's got a lot of horsepower in that car that you have. She goes, yeah, I do. but I passed him in the S's when you don't need a lot of power through there. So she was ribbing him a little bit. But I think the first time she went to Daytona back when we had open tests. And Cup guys would be there and Bush teams.

And your dad actually got in her car as small as that seat was. Got in, pushed himself in because she asked me, hey, well, you take it out, make sure this is doing what it's supposed to do. So I can only imagine what that this is obviously B-E before Elton. I can only imagine why that looked like him climbing through the window of her car.

Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. She went to Talladega with a gosh, what was the sponsor. She was that blue and pink white car. Amway. It was a good story. So they were down there testing.

and Mike Loughlin had built that car and the fenders were really tight obviously to go fast. So she was out running, blew her right rear, it turns around and it stands up on its nose and then set back down

and she tells the story like it was just yeah, not that big a deal, sits back down, we go in, they beat defenders out and go back out. Y'all raced each other 50-some times in the old Bush days. And in one particular instance, at least one got together at Orange County in 91.

So when y'all would have a, I'm sure y'all had moments on the racetrack where you did something or she did something and y'all'd have a conversation about it. What's that like? Because not many people are in competition with their wives, right? So like there's got to be moments where it gets a little tense. Yeah, it was that particular incident at Orange County. So when we got married, she still had her. her own team. That was her car. That was her guys. Ronnie Silver was actually looking after that.

I was driving for another team at the time. And I'll never forget, we're running. We go off in the one. I look up and there's a car that's sideways. And I look and it's the 42, which was her number. I didn't think about driver. I just saw it. And I'm thinking, okay, well, I got to go one way or the other. So obviously I took the wrong route, ended up in the left rear of that 42 car. So race is over. I think they got the winner for maybe 15 seconds of interview, like one of our T&T races there. And so we were the storyline of that. Not where we wanted to be, obviously, for a wreck.

But for the most part, she's, you know, obviously the single best decision I've ever made my life was getting married to Patty. She can also be my biggest critic. She'll tell me when, hey, that's not right. Even today. when did you decide that you wanted to ask her out and how did that work? So I was driving for a team out of Charlottesville, Virginia, Alan Dillard, which is Rick Mass's father-law. And Rick had drove for Allen for 22. 22.

Well, they were going to go their separate ways. I'm living in Chesapeake, Virginia. Alan Dillard calls. It's my first opportunity to go drive for someone other than my own team. So I end up at AG Dillers. We changed the number of the car from 22 to 27, and we have different cars than our fleet. We have some Loughlin cars. We have some Hopkins cars.

So we're on our way to Lanier, Georgia for a Bush race. And Loflin is in Simpsonville, South Carolina. So the A.G. Diller team, we stopped off in Simpsonville just to see where a new car, we're getting it built. And Patty was driving for Loughlin at that time, and she happened to be there. So, long story short, smooth guy like me. So we shared a ride from Simpsonville to Lanier, Georgia. So we were going to go out that night. I get to my hotel, and I'm dragging, you know, dragging ass, and I'm not getting ready in time.

I told her I was going to pick her up at, say, 6, and I show up about 620, but she's not there. She's like, look, I'm not going to wait. So I already appreciated that about her from the get-go. She's a, you know, very independent, very strong-willed. And that's okay. I appreciate that. So I said, okay, I've screwed this deal up. But we ended up eventually having dinner.

And we both came out of eight-year relationships with other people. And our joke is that it took us eight years to figure out it wasn't the right deal and eight months to figure out it was. And we've been married for going on 35. four years now. Yeah. So. You race, primarily when you started racing, you were racing at Langley. You grew up around that area. I'm going to mention two names, Wayne Hanbury.

Yep. Right. Phil Warren? Yep. Do you race, Phil? I did. Those two names I know. My mom lived in Norfolk, worked at Dale Orr's automotive shop in town and was the receptionist

there. And right around the time that you were sort of. of getting near the end of your late model stock career and getting those opportunities to race your own car in the bus series. But I went to Langley. I saw you race. And so I went and would hang out with Wayne at his house.

His son was around the same age as me, and we swam in the pool and all that stuff and got to know Phil Warren around that time as well. And so just coincidentally, I kind of saw you compete. And then I at the same time saw your progression into the Bush series, right, driving your own stuff and trying to figure that out. You were incredibly successful at Langley,

went in track championships from 83 to 85. I might be going to race there this year, all right? I've never ran there. I've been there as a kid, but I've never raced there. And I know that, I mean, the Langley name is synonymous with late model stock. and short track racing in this area. What is the secret to getting around Langley? Ah, that's a, that's a, well, it's been many years since I've been there, but it looks the

same. It does. It's a flat race track. Yeah. It's, I think for me, it was, it's finesse, right? You got to ease it in the corner. You got to run it off the right rear a little bit, but you've got to have good drive off. You know, if you're too tight, obviously in the center, you're going to, you're going to have to

diamond the racetrack, which is not good there. But for me, it would just, it fit my style as I begin to progress and learn my racecraft early on. I never thought I was going to race. You know, that wasn't something that was in the grand scheme of things. Growing up, I played all the ball in stick sports. What were you the best at? I really, to this day, I still, I love basketball. Okay. I had the opportunity or a couple opportunities to go play junior college basketball, but I could also see that wasn't going to be my future. And my dad carried me to Langley. I was a junior in high school, sitting in the stands, and just like, and he had raced at a youngster growing up, so he had some background in

motorsports. And I watched it, you know, watched the king and those guys back in the early 70s, so I had some understanding of the sport. But once he carried me and I sat in the stands, It was like, man, this is what I want to do. And I actually got in a street division car. Back then, you had three divisions. You run 25 laps in a street stock, something you pull out of the junkyard, put a roll cage in. Limited sportsmen and then late model sportsmen, which has grown to be what we know is the Xfinity Series today. So first race out, we qualified like six, and they do a draw.

So you take the top 10 or top, I think it was top 10, the pole sitter would go in and draw a pill. He drew six. So when you invert, I put me on the pole and I'm thinking, man, I don't know. First raise, do you want to start on the pole? I don't have all this figured out yet. So my dad said, look, that's your decision. You decide what you want to do. We'll live with it.

And I'm, you know, I'm back and forth. And finally I said, well, hell, I may not ever get the opportunity again. So I'm going to do it. So we go off in turn one. I must be running 12th by the time we get off turn two. But we finally got it figured out and ended up third in that race. And it was like it started kind of putting all this together. And maybe if you put some energy to this, basketball had to work really, really hard to play at a high level.

Where this felt like, man, with a little more energy, maybe I can have some success of this. Plus, I loved it and had a passion for it. You'd work all night. You know, you didn't, my dad would have to run aside the shop at, you know, two o'clock in the morning. You got to go in the house. You got to get out. You had other relatives that raced Roger and Earl both raced at the racetrack as well.

And those, Roger was a younger brother of yours. And I remember Roger Sawyer and Earl. How was that in terms of competition? Did y'all, did y'all aid each other? was, you know. For the most part, Roger and I never actually raced late models together. Either I was

in a late model and he was in a street stock. We had a couple races, the old Richmond Fairgrounds. We went there. Actually, Roger said on the pole, we qualified six. We never actually ran the race because they got snowed out and they wouldn't postpone or bring you

back the next day into late models. But he had a great career. He actually turned out later on, his great fabricator. I mean, he can take a piece of steel and make anything out of it. But as far as actually competing against each other, very few races that we run against each other. Right on. So was the garage at the house full of race cars?

Yeah, I mean, that was the great thing about you. My dad was in the HVHC business, so we would work there in the summer. But at night we'd all come home. We'd go out in the shop. and, you know, family and friends would come by. And, you know, you really just, it's a family affair. And you got people supporting you in that area, sponsors. And, you know, we had, you know, a couple people that were in the construction business.

They'd be framers. They could be people that do drywall work or plumbers, whatever. They would come in and give us, you know, $4,000 or $5,000, which was a lot of money. A lot of money. Yeah. And then they would all. all migrate, they go to the racetrack with you and you get your fan base built up. And that's really what helped us get from Langley, which my dad and our financial situation

wasn't going to allow us to go to Bush Racing without some real support. So my dad said, I'll get the engines built, which back then they were running a 3-11 just before the V6 time. And there was five sponsors, five friends in the area. that we raised five of them, gave us $5,000 each, so we raised $25,000. And Rick Townsend built those our first ever, Pontiac Grandam, Bush Car, that we went to the old fairgrounds with. So that's really what kind of got it started. And back then, we would run Langley four times a year, Hickory four times a rear, South Boston. That's how you

need to schedule up. And the big races were Charlotte. I mean, when you went to Charlotte, because we didn't run Daytona back then or Talladega. Rockingham was there, but the big one was Charlotte. So when you got the opportunity to go to Charlotte, you know, that was a big deal. Yeah. Man. Do you have any physical mementos from those days? Like is there, you know, maybe a helmet or a driver suit, maybe a hood or a door,

any kind of physical stuff from racing back in the early 80s? Yeah. I think the three of my most... prized possessions, if you will. So back then, if you won a track championship, and it was the Winston Racing Series. Yes, the helmet. So I have three. I have a 82, 83, 84 helmets that are in my office at home. And then the way the NASCAR put the Winston Racing Series together, so there was five regions. And we were fortunate enough to win the 83, 84 Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship. We went to Nashville for the big banquet. So I have two nice trophies like the Winston Cup trophies that I'm sure

your dad and others have received and I have them in my office. So those, the three helmets, never worn them in a race, never put them on. They just sit up there. But I would say they're the three biggest. It's funny you say that because you never wore those helmets because they are, they are kind of like a trophy. But I do see pictures from back in like the 70s. The guys would Take them and wear them, like race with them. I remember we were at Martinsville, and the modified guys, the Richie Evans, I can remember Richie walking through there, getting in his car and putting in. And they would wear their helmets and then their bubble goggles.

Yes, their championship helmet. A lot like you. I love the history of our sport. I really do. People didn't matter. People didn't care about the helmets, whether they fit or not. I mean, it was a helmet. It was a helmet.

It was a helmet. I think Bell was the manufacturer. Yeah. It's pretty cool. I have Jimmy Means Winston Racing Ham. He was like the 1974 Tennessee champion or some champion that he got a helmet as well. And I had it in this room at one point.

So let's talk about you moving on into the Xfinity series, the Bush series back in the day. You ran your own stuff there, raced at Richmond in 1981 in what was the Sportsman series before they evolved. into the Bush series. You race for Emmanuel Zervakis, which is a well-known name in the short track ranks,

and he built cars that raced it, Martinsville and Richmond, and also ran a, yeah, had a cup car that I think a couple guys race, a Bush Lindley maybe. Yeah. So he's a well-known name back then and built great race cars,

and he drove your own ride all the way up until 1984. for how, you know, you ran a very limited schedule. You didn't feel out, you know, you didn't run a full schedule. And that's by design. I mean, what's the whole process? So my dad had kind of laid out. We were having success at Langley. Yeah.

And I could have stayed there forever, you know, because when you're winning, you just like, you know, you don't really want to do anything else. We could win there. We were fortunate. We won a couple races at South Boston, big races. We'd go to Manassas every now and then, never really had great success there. But my dad said, no, we can't stay here. We got to move up.

So to do that, we raised $5,000. And he called Emmanuel Savaccas, who at the time was a well-known car builder, built late-model stock cars, also late-model cars. But he also had a Bush Grant National car at the time, late-model sportsman that Sonny Hutchins had drove. the 01, Southern Oxygen, light blue car, and then Jeff Bodine had drove for a manual. That was the white 99, I believe, yep. So new manual knew what was going on, and Dad had laid it out where we could run the two

Martensville races. We could run the two races at the Richmond Fairgrounds, and we could run the two at Langley. So that would kind of give me six races, kind of get my feet under me and kind of get it figured out. And first, we go to Martinsville, and back then, you would qualify everybody, which would be, you know, 80 cars. I mean, it was crazy. And they would lock in the top 10. Now, never forget, we qualified 13th. We started on the pole into third heat, and we finished third. So we started the race, I think 18th. And we run along there, and we ended up getting And then, so it's funny, so Eddie Falk, who was from the Tidewater area, and Diane Teal, who had

raced at Langley as well, and she was in the race. And all three of us go down into turn three and run into each other and knock the or cooler off of it. So we, you know, I was out of the race early, but it was a great experience. And then from there, that's the story I was telling about getting our first bus car ourselves. Yeah. That allowed us to continue to run Langley, carried our own car to Martinsville.

run second to Morgan Shepherd. I felt like, okay, I got this thing figured out now. We just need to get money and get cars built. We can run the whole deal. But it's still that learning process of only running six races, as you well know, and young drivers and then trying to put a 30 or 33 race season together. Financially is one thing. The other part is the mental aspect of that grind of trying to get that figured out.

And that took me a little while to kind of understand that you got the ebb and flow of the season. You know, you've got to put last week's race behind you and you just got to keep looking forward and getting better and, you know, as a driver as well as your equipment. Yeah, that is a great point. I think I don't know what it's like for the drivers today. They get so much information to sort of help with that exact thing. But back in, when you were kind of starting in the Bush series and even when I started, there wasn't anybody really telling you how to play it mentally, right? and like the ebb and flow and putting something, putting a mistake in the rearview mirror

and not repeating it the next week or doubling down, right, and making it even worse. Yep. And so that was, I think that was probably one of the toughest things to learn. I would agree, absolutely. I think today, if you use the comparison, I mean, our cup guys, and I'm sure even your Xfinity team and your drivers, they're so mentally and physically and emotionally prepared for every event. Yeah.

And then their teams and their cars. I mean, that's why the races are where they are today. And, you know, you think back on it, it just, that wasn't, that wasn't there at that time. You know, I thought leaving the racetrack and having a recorder to flip it on and just talk through, okay, here's the things that felt like I learned. Then you would go back to that race and you would put it back in, okay, restarts, you need to do this. You thought that was high tech.

But the way they're doing, you know, simulators today and the training, I think it's just, It's a real testament to our industry, our drivers, and our competitors. Yeah, they find it every advantage. Sure. You went and signed a deal with Lewis Motorsports to run partial schedule in 1985. What car was that? That would have been the 42. Okay.

So Ashton Lewis, senior. Oh. So his dad, it was Bill Lewis Chevrolet. So he had Chevroly dealerships in the Tidewater area. He was a huge race fan. So we're running our own car at the Richmond Fairground. Mr. Lewis is sitting in the stands. And we're on everybody, that's when the, actually your dad was in that race.

I remember that's when the V-6s were coming along. And Dennis Fisher was building Chevy V-6s. And we're on a V8 engine at that time. We're running decent. And Mr. Lewis is watching and he gives us a call the next week. and we go sit down with him and he buys us three Dennis Fisher Chevrolet V-6s. I'll never forget there was $17,500 a piece. I thought it was like this is the best sponsor in the world.

So that kind of got us going and that relationship built. We formed first-team motorsports. He was, and still to this day, a great friend, just a high integrity individual. I mean, if I need some real, real advice, there's a couple of. of people, and he's on that very short list that I would call and get from. And then his son, Ashton. So did you influence his career? Having that connection? Ashton worked on our team. Okay. As a young boy? As a young boy, as a picture of us, we won Loud in the 99, and Ashton is working on the team, so we got that picture at home. And it did. He and his other son, Charlie.

They formed Lewis Motorsports, and they had the 46 car. He ran great. He did. He was. You know, a family team. I mean, it was literally just their deal, right? Exactly. Pretty cool. I didn't even know that connection. So you attempted most of the races in 86.

In 87, you finally run the full schedule. And so I wanted to know around this point, when did you decide I'm done with my my Langley car, my late model stock, I'd call it.

When did you decide that that was no longer going to be part of what you were doing? I think it came down about that same timeline. How to make a decision there? Well, I think just to focus on one part of it, right? I mean, the Langley era for us is a family and personally, I mean, just had great success. One raced championships, but you've got to kind of move on. and I couldn't do both. I could, after running a partial

budget schedule, I knew early on that, man, it's going to take everything you had. Again, the late model stuff, if you give it eight-tenths, then you were going to win races. It was going to take 10-tenths, everything you had every day,

every week, every race. And that just was going to get you to the race, get you in the race, and then you're not necessarily going to be a front-runner. So at that point, it's like, like, you got to, you're going to have to really focus on bush racing and put the other stuff kind of behind you. So when you, when you walked away from Langley,

that was, you never went back. I went back a couple of times, you know, it was running some bush races, and then I would go on off weekends and run. But I will say it became really difficult to do that because those guys do it every week. I'm doing that now. Right.

And you show up. I commend you. You show up once and you're like, holy molly. Yeah, butt kicked here. Yeah, and I remember just backing up last year, when you went back to Bristol and did what you did, I mean, I tell people a lot of time, I say, that's hard. Yeah. And you know firsthand, but it was difficult for me to go back and just everything I had.

And your way you drive those cars are so different than the way you would drive a car, Bush car with a little more power. Yeah. I mean, late model cars, you got to kind of drive them off the right rear a little bit. And you start doing that in the bush car and you can burn the tires off. And then you get to the next level, it's even worse. So I just decided that, you know, it really wasn't worth it to do that. So from, like, from 87 to 89, you're running with the help from Lewis Motors, you know, from the engines.

And so then you mentioned you went to A.G. Dillard in 1990, right? That A.G. Dillard car, the 27, would eventually become the car that Ward Burton would drive. if you keep on going down the line, I mean, it's it becomes Casey Atwood's car. I mean, it's different people who are getting involved in the team, but it's really a team that lived on for a really long time.

But you win your first poll at Martinsville with this team. But they started struggling with sponsorship issues? Well, yeah, Mr. Dillard, he put his own money into it, and then we had sponsorship from Smithfield Foods, which is, you know,

with Eric. They're still around. Yeah, still around. And they used their Gwaltney brand hot dogs. Back in that day, I think we got $250,000 to run a complete season. They got the whole car. We had some success, as you said. We said on the poll at Martinsville, first race out at Daytona.

We finished fifth. So we feel like, okay, we're starting to kind of get this thing figured out. but a huge learning curve for me driving for someone else. When I was the one signing the bottom right-hand corner of the checks, although the money side of it was difficult, you have full control. No, I want to do this. I want to do it this way.

I don't want to wear this uniform. I want to wear these shoes. I want these springs. When you drive for someone else, that's not the way it works. And it was a learning curve for me to – and it took a while to kind of get comfort level of like you're the driver just get in there drive hard give good information the rest of it is kind of someone else's responsibility I mean I'm there to help but that's that's not me and that was that was difficult and then we

went through a stretch where we were wrecking cars and and mr. Dillard decided you needed to make a a change and that's when Ward a great race car driver Ward ended up getting in the car so how would how did you manage that I mean that's kind of probably the first time that you've had to deal with any kind of rejection or anyone really kind of having a negative opinion of the job you're doing, right? So what was your next step? So the backing up to, obviously, Patty and I were married, and she's a great support on this. Like, look, it happened. It's in the rearview mirror. You've got to pick yourself up, and we've got to keep pushing. And I did that. End up going to work for Bill Davis.

working on the baby Ruth car that Jeff Gordon drove. As a mechanic. As a mechanic because I had the, you know, I worked on my own stuff so I could do that. That's crazy. The opportunity to drive wasn't there. Called Bill Davis, went to work for Bill on the baby Ruth car that had very Abraham there. So it was a great learning curve for me and the rejection of it. I look back now. It's probably the best thing that ever happened.

There's a lot of life lessons that were learned from that. And then later on, as I worked for Bill around 92 and 93, when Bobby the Bonnie came in as a rookie contender in the Cup series with Maxwell House was still working as just a kind of car chief back in the day, if you will, just working on cars. And Bill, it's a long story here, Bill and a guy by the name of Bob Sutton. Bob used to be a shop foreman for DW. And Bob came to work for Bill Davis. Bill put a bushel car together, and we went to Richmond, which kind of got me back in the driver's seat. So how long had you been out of the seat?

Full time, probably two years. Two years. Two and a half years. Did you think that you were maybe never going to get another shot? You know, that's a great question. I had, in my mind, I could still visualize. I'm going to get another opportunity. I could see that. I didn't know when. I didn't know how long this would be, but I could see it. And it's like, just you got to be ready. When you get the next one, you got to go. It's got to work out. Yeah. And so you get an opportunity. They put a car together and y'all go back to the racetrack. So how does that develop into this long-term ride with Atkins Sutton, which would be the one I think you're most probably memorable. Yeah, exactly. So my relationship with Bob Sutton meeting him at BD's,

he had a relationship with Brad Aitken's, who is a Ford dealer in Winder, Georgia. Very successful. At that time, they were selling like over 400 units a month. I mean, just incredible. And Bob and Brad form Aiken Sutton Motors in 1994. Ford dealership had the connection with Edsel Ford and Ford Credit, and that became our sponsor in 1994. Yeah.

And we start out at Daytona. I don't think it didn't go all that well. We're a due team having some engine trouble. We finally kind of get all that, get the ship righted, and we finally go off and we went our first race at Myrtle Beach in 94. So you end up getting in 95 a call to replace Loyall, Jr. Who owns that car? Who owns this car?

So this is the 27 Hooters car. So Bob Brooks, who is the owner of was. Obviously, we lost Bob four or five, ten years ago now, but he was the owner of the Hooters restaurant chain. He had worked a deal out with Junior Johnson to basically buy the 27 car. He and Junior were still connected, on the ownership side in Mike Hill, who had been with Junior for years and years,

lives right up there in the hollow right beside the, used to be the 11 and the 12 Budweiser cars. He was the crew chief on the 27th. They had gone to, I think it was Wilkesboro. And actually, Jeff Purvis was driving to 27. They missed the race. So Mike called me. It was an off weekend for the Bush cars.

The next week he said, hey, would you like to drive this car? Never driven a cup car in my life. Right. Would you like to drive the cup car in Martinsville? So I said, sure. I said, I'd like to go shake it down somewhere if possible. He said, how about Hickory?

So we load up this same car, same engine, everything they just went to Willsford and missed the race. We go to Hickory, same seat, I get in it, and go out, run about 20 laps. So, okay, this will be fine. Let's go. We go to Martin'sville and we qualify eighth. And I thought, okay, well, this is great. We run along there. I think we ended up about 20th in that race, which first time out. That was not too bad. Next week is the 600. We go there. We qualify six. And the little Schroeder valve on the right front of the Bill Steen Shock, we started the race and it was like sideways loose. It was like, man, I just felt like I was in a pretty good place. I just could not get, I mean, we run bad. Fortunately, we get back and Mike finds this issue with the right front. which made me feel a lot better

because they made. If this is the way these cars drive, I don't want to do this. I want to go back to my bush car. So, but that was kind of the first start with that car. So how long, what are you, are you splitting between that car and your, your, your, your, your, your, your bush car. Are you kind of doing both?

We're doing both for a while. I don't remember exactly how many. I think all in all, I ran about 27 or so cup races in my career. eventually we weren't having this success there that we needed. And a gentleman out of Baseville, Arkansas, David Blair had purchased all the equipment and assets from Junior and Bob Brooks. So he had taken that car and ended up putting Todd Bodine took it over for the rest of that season. And they kind of went away after that. They couldn't find sponsorship.

So was that pretty much all of your Cup experience was basically in that 27 deal? Yep, that was pretty much it. And you ended up coming back to Aitken Sutton and finishing out your career, the barbersaw car that you ran when I started racing in the Bush series. And you had basically your best stretch. A lot of great finishes in the points, always competitive every single week. I watched the Bristol 98 Bristol race, our fall race, no, our spring race from Bristol at 98. you almost won that one.

Elliot Salern I run up front and you almost beat us both. We broke a rocker arm with 20 to go. I felt that was one of them. You could tell the car is driving and there's no, we got this. And then I don't remember, come off two or something,

lose a cylinder and end up. Still had a great run. But you had a good little stretch there. You know, when you think about your driving career is that little, you know, window of your career, you're probably the most fondest.

I would say. say at the national series level, for sure. I mean, if I look at my, the chapter of Langley, that was, that's, that was an era for us that when we pulled into racetracks and you've been there, like, they're going to have to beat us tonight. That was really fun. The era that you mentioned with the Bush series, we were very competitive week in and week out. I felt like we were a top 10 team and we ended up fifth a couple of times in the points. But that was, I feel like I had a great opportunity there. At some point you just, you look at it and say,

these guys are really good. Yeah. They are really, really good. I know. But, all right, so you, you had an eighth place, a fifth place, a fifth place, a sixth place, and a fifth place in points from 97 to 2001. I know we're looking at this from a 40,000 foot view, so we're not seeing details, but you ended up, Aiken would sell the car to Michael Cranfus.

and then you would leave looking for opportunity. You filled in for Jeff Purvis when he was injured at Bruko for a couple races, and then you're done. Yeah, I think at the end of the 2001 season, we leave Homestead. We've run second to Joe Nemichick. Really felt like we should have won the race, and I was a big four-tire guy. Like, if we're going to pit, put four-tire. I don't put two on it.

Joe put two on it, and he won the race, and we run second. And we get to the airport, everybody's all excited, we fly back home. And we go in Monday morning, and Michael tells us, we got to get a sponsor in the next two weeks where I'm going to have to close the doors. Well, if we haven't found one in six months, I don't know that we're going to find one in two weeks. It just doesn't work that way. So that was really, you know, I do look at sports in general. I don't think every professional athlete, you don't get the opportunity like John Elway did in the Super Bowl.

Peyton Manning. It just doesn't work that way. And it didn't for me. So yeah, what I'd like to continue on, but just putting the programs into funding, it just wasn't there. How old were you? I was early 40s. And I was starting to sit in meetings with owners where you'd always been the young guy. Yeah. And when you get in that early 40s, well, you know, you're getting to that age, and I never heard that before. So the one thing that I had really resorted to from my driving, career was I didn't want to get an equipment that I was just going to be riding around. I just, that wasn't going to be

I never started racing for the money. Yeah. I race because I enjoyed it. You had no, so when I guess when you decided that your career was over, you had no concerns, no, because I I struggle with like giving up driving, you know, period, right? I always kind of have to have a tiny taste every now and then.

There was a, there was a period. of time that I would say, yes, it was like, man, I'm struggling with this. But, you know, I give Patty a lot of credit. It was like, you know, at that age and the money that you make driving late models and push cars, you're not going to retire. It just doesn't work that way. So, you know, what's the next step? You had to go to work. Had to go to work. And fortunately for me, I always like kind of driver development type stuff. And you look at certain drivers that, you know, feel like they have a bright future and maybe through their path, decision-making, and well, maybe I can, here's some mistakes that I made, maybe you can pass

that on to other drivers. So I actually was working on this driver development type deal, working with Greg Speckett Ford. We were at Daytona and Patty and I for the July race and bump into Ray Abraham. And he said, what are you up to? And I said, well, I'm kind of working on this. He said, well, I may have an opportunity for you. And he said, why don't you go back and see me next week?

So this was 2003, I believe. Long story short, went and met with Ray, and he needed someone to run his Dodge R&D program. It was a little race team within a race team. We would take cars and had like four or five people working for us, go to Kentucky, do engine durability tests, and had a, you know, a couple million dollar budget you had to manage. So that was my first introduction into, out of the driver's seat, how do you manage a little small team?

Yeah. And how did you enjoy that? I mean, you'd ran your own team in the Bush series. You're no longer, you know, you talked about, I guess, the struggle with driving for an owner, right, and understanding how to allow decisions to be made by somebody else and live with that, right, and move on down the road. Now you're in a position where you probably got some people working underneath you, but you still answer them to a bigger boss and have an objective to achieve,

and you've got other guys driving the car now, right? You don't get to turn the stairwell. You don't get to drive, you know, tell them how far to drive down in the corner. You can tell them all day, I guess. but, you know, how was that adjustment for you, you know, especially with sort of that, you know, a little bit of that hunger still in the background? Yeah. I think for me, it was easier.

And I give Gray a lot of credit because he had kind of gone through a very similar career. I mean, he drove. Then that didn't work out as well. He went into being a crew chief, very successful. Then he went into the ownership. So I think watching him and how he. managed, all of that was, you know, it was kind of an inspiration for me to watch that. And I was actually enjoying that. You know, you still had the opportunity to go to the racetrack. You know,

you hear the engine, you smell the tires, you're involved. I've always really enjoyed team sports, even back in school, playing, you know, basketball, football, baseball, and then in racing, the same thing. It's, it is a team. I mean, the driver's the quarterback, but, you know, there, got to have all those other people around you to make it be successful. So making that transition and taking that same mindset of, okay, now you're more of a general manager. You're more of a guy kind of standing back and kind of setting the table and letting them go and do their job and be successful. With the NASCAR season well underway, it seems like the new die cast releases from Lionel Racing just keep on coming. You got Chase Elliott's universe throwback. That's a throwback to

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scroll to the sign up for emails box and enter your email. It's that easy. And for the latest die cast content, don't forget to follow Lionel Racing on Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok. Well, eventually in 2015, you get hired to be the managing director of the truck series. You know, I've been around the sport long enough to see people that are on people that are on one side of the garage, right, move into that role where they're working for NASCAR and like Gary Nelson and all those different people, right, that were crew chiefs and so forth, go into the competition side of it. What was, you know, I know that you, you might, you might

have seen this sport from a different perspective than me, but was going from being the competitor to working on the other side with NASCAR. I mean, was it kind of like getting to look behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz? The only thing I could probably compare it to was like leaving DEI, which was one incredibly different culture and going over to Hendrick. I'd never even been behind the door at that place, right? And you walk in there and you're like, this is like, this is how champions are made, right? And I could see the difference right away.

this is completely different, but when you, you know, when you take on a role within the organization that's the governing body, how unique was that to have that perspective? I guess like, you know, when I was a race car driver, I was very narrow-minded. I wanted this and this, and this was better for the sport, and this was better for the sport. And then I became a broadcaster. I was like, I was wrong about most of that. none of those things are important right this i know why nascar chooses this chooses that um and so what was that transition like i mean you've been out of the car for a little while before you made that transition so what what was that like to finally go into that office and now you're

working for the governing body that's incredible it is and i think all of those uh prior life lessons and working in the industry was tools in the toolbox that has, and to this day, continues to help me. But that first week, I never forget, I started on a, I think it was like February the 2nd of 2015. We're leaving in about a week to go to Daytona, and I'm the series director for the truck series, which is the national series, third most popular series in North America, and the water, is up to here. I mean, it's like drinking from a fire hose every day. And to your point, as you walk in there, it's like you don't know what you don't know. Today, I've obviously 10 years later have a whole different perspective. And I don't think, actually Mike Ford and Amanda

and I were talking about this coming over today, the things that go into putting a race on on a given weekend. I'm sure a lot of people in our garages, they don't understand that. Because to your point, they're focused on their job as a driver, as a donor, whatever that may be. But from the sanctioning body, we're in charge of all of it. So whether it's a facility that NASCAR owns or a facility that Speedway Motorsports or going into Pocono, that's an independent, when we walk in there, we have to make sure, first and foremost, the facility is ready to race. If the safer barrier is done properly, And, you know, you're making all your advanced logistics work around the asphalt and all your timing lines and things like that. We haven't even opened the garage and started parking trucks and inspecting vehicles.

So it, there was a lot to digest. I'll never forget one night I was leaving at Daytona year one. And I'm talking to Patty on the phone. I'm leaving the racetrack. She goes, what are you going to get for dinner? I said, I don't have time to eat. I said, I've got like 80 emails in my inbox. And I got to go, I got to still work to be ready.

for tomorrow. But fortunately over time you learn how to digest that it's a fast pace. And having great mentors along the way has been perfect. What about the, I imagine there is quite a bench to go to, like, you know, when I think about, you know, if I was in that position, like all of the individuals that work inside that office or side of that building to people that you can go to for advice and help. I imagine that that was extremely. helpful but when were there moments I guess can you recall moments where you still caught yourself thinking like a driver and you had to like check yourself a little bit about like because I I go back to when I got into the broadcast booth and I had all of these things that I thought I knew better

and all of the things that I thought that NASCAR was doing wrong and then when I got in the booth and I realized why all these decisions got made and why. And I wish I'd have had that perspective sooner when I was as a race car driver. But when, and again, you've been out of the seat for quite a while at this point, but where did you see your perspective and opinions of the sport like shift away from what you'd always believed and thought as a competitor? Yeah, absolutely. I think what happens is, and it was for me, once I got in there, and to your point, I got behind the curtain, and you could be in those meetings with Robin Pemberton and John Darby and Mike Helton, and they lay out how the sport, Mike is the best at laying out.

He said, we're like a little community. You know, we got people over here or have a gas station, people over here are selling shirts, and people over here are selling shoes, and that's how you look at our track promoters, you look at our team owners, you look at our drivers, our crew members, all of that, you know, we have to kind of work all together to make this thing work. And when you see that and then you see the incredible people behind the scenes, you know, Steve O'Donnell, Steve Phelps, and Mike, who have the wherewithal and have been around the sport for a long time to help steer that,

you can see why certain decisions are made the way they are. And it's much clearer to you. I'm totally with you. If I didn't know that as a driver, a lot of the times when I would get out of the car and say things that, well, basically, why the hell are they doing that? They should be doing this.

Well, now I understand why those decisions. But it's also, I enjoy the fact of being able to sit down with some of our competitors now in all three series and explain to them why the sanctioning body does things the way they do. And once they hear it, they have a whole different perspective and understanding of why we're doing what we're doing. Yeah.

How often is it that you're able to take competitors up into the control tower and have them see just what, you know, what a crazy, you know, chaotic sort of like to your point. There's so many things happening all at once during our race and so many roles up in the control tower. I always think one of my favorite things to do is to take somebody along with me because my friends say, man, broadcasting a piece of cake. How hard is that, right? And I'm like, well, come along, you know, let me show you some of the stuff that we go through and some of the things we have to do to prepare and have them listen in as, you know,

you got a producer talking in one ear and the race happening in the other, and these guys are all talking to you. I look over in the control booth that some of the races were at, and I don't know how y'all all can, communicate with so many people in the room, so many voices. Yeah, I think that's a great point. And getting drivers up there to at least see a stage or two is really important. This past weekend at Kansas, we had John Hunter up to start the truck race, and he was like, wow, just blown away. But I think a lot of it, this is what I really enjoy about our team in the tower. So you have a race

director who I equate everything to ball and stick. So that's your quarterback. And then you'll have your ESC, which is your emergency service coordinator, that when we have an incident, you know, caution goes out, which is basically a button that the race director will push. ESC will start dispatching all the recovery equipment, your records, your rollbacks. We've got our timing and scoring team that they're looking at a freeze of the field to get a lineup. We're getting ready to open pit road. Chad Little's getting ready to start officiating those.

We've got Devin Joseph who is doing replay that is talking back and forth with broadcast because they're going to go to commercial, okay, well, we're not going to open pit road yet because we want to make sure that our fans can see that. So to watch all of that unfold, and they're the expert and their feel. That's not – I enjoy the fact that we put a team together and sit there, and as long as it's going smooth, then my job's really, really easy. we've done something wrong, then that's on me. I'll take the bullets for that team.

But for the most part, they just execute and do a flawless job. You talked about race directors. How many race directors are responsible for the Cup series in a given year? So the way we have started out years ago, David Hoots and people have heard David's name for years. He was the race director. He was the guy. Yep.

When it came to Cup, David called all the races. But what that put us in a situation, very talented individual, but we needed depth. You know, everybody's, you're going to have things happen to you in life. You're going to, you know, you could have a wedding, you'd have a funeral. You could be a lot of places. Yeah, you could be sick and just be out. So it took us a while to continue to build depth in that department. So today we have just on Hamilton, we have Tim Berman, we have Chase Beshears, and we have Jesse Little.

So Jesse comes in, obviously very similar to us, had a driving background, very successful, but decided at our early age that that wasn't a path future. So he's been a huge asset to us. But on Sundays right now, we have Tim Berman and Jasan Hamilton, very similar to Exfinity and truck where you're training drivers and crew chiefs and crew members. We do the same thing with our time and scoring folks, our ESC folks, and race directors. So Chase and Jesse will call truck and Xfinity races. They're getting to the point that it's someday we'll put them into Call a Cup race. And so what, so with when, what is the race director's main responsibility? Yeah, the main responsibility is basically he's coordinating,

he's looking around the facility. If there's an incident, you know, he's going to, he's going to make the call to put the caution out. Okay. That's not a decision that you can have call timeout. Hey, do you want to put a time? You know, you want to throw a caution? You guys, what do you think? Yeah.

So, you know, we have debriefings just like race teams. Okay, should we have thrown that caution sooner? Should we have held it longer? And it's just a training. Yeah, we have a training process and a learning process. Okay, we probably should have just let that one play out versus we were a little quick on the trigger. But that person has to make that decision because, again, it's not a, it's not a, it's not group decision. So over time, they kind of learn our philosophy of where we are. And as you well

know, over, there was a time in our sport that was 25 to go. There's probably going to be a caution. Yeah. And we've backed away from that and really let the race unfold naturally. If we have to throw a caution, we will. But that's the main responsibility of getting the caution out. And then he's also communicating with the crew chiefs on pit road and their spotters. They're listening to the race director of where the lineups may be. Yeah. When when the pit road, so pit road and everything happening on pit road, that's not a race director's role and responsibility. You have an individual that manages everything between time and lines, right? And someone that's responsible for all the safety equipment and the race director's mainly just, you know,

sort of making sure the processes of the competition side of the race playing out properly in terms of absolutely yeah um when what is in your situation what are you doing in the booth so and i've really uh over time when it was uh maybe a bill gasway or even back to a gary nelson or a robin pemberton or or most recently a scott miller i think everyone has their different management style right and I've always felt like that other things are going to come up that I may need to be dealing with. For example, we may have something that from a broadcaster standpoint, I need to go down and explain to, but the race needs to go on. So you're available for that. So I'm available to do that if that needs to be.

But for the most part, they know how to run the race. You know, it'd be like, you know, a crew chief knows how to run the race. We have the same thing in race control. Now, if a major decision has to be made and something's happened, we're going to, you know, we're going to penalize somebody. We're going to take a race from somebody during the race, then obviously I'm going to weigh in on that. How difficult is that for you? I don't know that I can compare it to anything that I've experienced, but, you know, I found it challenging to even go into a broadcast and be critical of a driver that I was friends with or competed with. but you have to

handle it how you see it or tell the truth, right? When you know you've got to make a decision that's not going to be very popular penalize whether it's popular with a fan base,

popular with this race team, popular with this owner, penalizing a driver, for example. What has been, what has that experience been like for you? You know, you, history, your background, where you came from, I can't imagine you ever thought you'd find yourself

in this situation, right, to be making these type of decisions. And I imagine you can't let that affect, you know, affect how you move forward and how you do make that decision. But I think that would probably be one of the things that I least enjoyed about the job is being put in that situation to have to make a choice that you didn't really make that day. Yeah, that's a good point. I think that the number one thing is, obviously, we have a rule book. We talk about it all the time. It's like, do the right thing. Sometimes the rule book was written for a situation that really doesn't apply to the particular

situation we have right now. And yes, by the letter of the law, that is a penalty. What is the right thing to do for this particular situation? And we're human beings. We're going to make mistakes. I tell our team all the time that we're going to do our best. to do the right thing. And if we need to go back and we need to change some language in the rulebook, we'll do that. Yeah, those calls, you know, where you found something on someone's car,

you know, obviously calling Mr. Hendrick or calling Coach Gibbs and saying, okay, here's what we have. No, they're not pleasant, but over time, you know, you just tell them, say, look, our goal is to make sure that you feel like when you walk into that garage that you're playing on a level playing field. Yeah. And all I can tell you is you have our word that we're going to do that. You make a call to a guy like Rick Hendrick and I've made phone calls with Rick and I know how persuasive he could be. How do you stay on your ground? Because I mean, I feel like that it would be so easy for me to be, you know, because I know this guy has, he's, I know that Rick has, you know, we're just going to be hypothetical.

I know that Rick or Mr. Penske has researched their side. His whole teams came and said, hey, this is what happened. This is why this was the way it was. We're okay. We're not wrong here. And so he's coming with you with all this information. And he's this car salesman.

He could sell you anything, right? How in the world do you stay on your course in those scenarios? I think you just, again, you fall back and you look at what's the right thing to do. and you look at the rule book and we've had those cases and then that's why we have you know the system in place that if they feel like that they're they've been done wrong then there's an there's an appeal process and we go through that but I think the main thing is at least you show the industry you show the garages that they will react to this they will write a penalty and then again we will let the process take its course where do you feel um

that brings me to the appeals court or the appeals panel. That is, I know because we've had to run a few appeals here at junior motorsports through there, and I know that it's independent of NASCAR. And so how do you feel, right? If you've made a decision, you feel like you're doing the right thing, you're making the best choice you can make, you've got all the information. you've got, there's nothing there that's not available to you. And you go see it, go to the appeals panel and they lessen the penalty or change the penalty.

How do you manage that? Does that create any frustration? Or do you try to see the appeals panel side to things? How do you manage that part? Well, I think you learn from it, first and foremost, but we're no different. when we look at the rule, we look at we're going to write a penalty. We've done, you know, quite a bit of work to make sure that, man, this is the right thing to do. We've been consistent with this penalty.

We've done this. So we write it. And when you, for the most part, you know, I think this is why the industry feels like it is a good process. The panel is going to be fair. if they felt like it needed to be reduced, then we go back and life lessons, okay, we need to change some rules because we need to get this right for the industry going forward. So it's just lessons that you learn from that and you move on. And granted, we go in there, you know, a lot of times with confidence that we're not going to,

we're not going to lose this one. Yeah. You were a big part of the development of the next gen car, am I right? And so, is that correct? Yeah, I mean, the group there, the credit really goes to John Probst and all the folks there at the R&D Center, Brandon Thomas and Dr. Hik Jukuzi, and, you know, this car, unlike cars in the past, where race teams did all that design and develop and manufacturing.

Now the sanctioning body were heavily involved. I mean, there's three partners, if you will, in the process. You have us. You have the vendor. That could be an extract. That could be a BBS wheels. That could be your five-star manufacturer. And you have the race team.

So the three of us, one thing, not to get off this topic, but I think one thing that our industry does today that we're so much better than we have been ever is the collaboration between the stakeholders, whether it be our TV partners, our tracks, the vendors, and how we got to where we are today with the next-gen car. from the safety aspect and every bit of that and having everybody, it is different. The DNA between the walls at the race shops of what you used to do. That was fun. I mean, you could build your own stuff, you could change stuff, but that was not a financial

model that was going to be sustainable long term. So when you, with this next-gen car, it changed, it changed the whole process, I guess, around officiating. And I imagine for you, you've, You lived on both sides of it, right, officiating those cars that were pieces people created, and they would bring them and have to see if they fit everything. And now you got a car that you know should fit, right? When it rolls off the trailer, there should be no problems, right?

Does that feels like or sounds like that seems to have made things easier? Sure. Or harder in some cases? I would say easier. the challenge still is the race team's understanding that with this car and the deterrent model that was put in place to save the garage from themselves, it's up to us, as Mr. Francis said, we have to enforce the rules on this car. And the DNA within the walls of the race team has to adapt to the way this car has to be raced. When you start messing with stuff, you're going to

get in trouble. It seems like that out of the gate there were a few offenses and people were trying, you know, it found a couple things. But here, I mean, I can't remember the last time that we've had a car with an obvious, you know, go back to R&D Center and have an obvious trick, right? Do you see that culture changing? I do. I mean, if you think about it, we're in year three. Yeah. Right. I think year one, it took them a little while, the teams that get all the parts and piece, they're just trying to figure out how to bolt them together and go race. So last year we felt like, okay, they've had the car for a year. Yeah, they've learned a lot about what we're doing.

They're going to try to figure this out. But that really put us in a position that, and Steve O'Donnell and I and Steve Feltz had a conversation and said, I think we have got to write these penalties now. I believe, figures crossed, we'll get them to a place where everybody in the garage feels like, don't do that. Just stay away from that stuff. And knock on wood, I feel like the garage understands that that's the way we're going to officiate this car. And there's really two things that we do on a race weekend as a sanctioning body.

We inspect vehicles and we officiate the race. That's really the two things. And when we're hiring an official, you need to be a good official for the races. And you need to be a technical inspector and inspector. And they're doing three garages. You know, they're doing trucks or doing Xfinity and doing cups. So that task of understanding the rules and all the garages is important. But to your question, the next-gen car, there's a homologated part.

They're homologated parts and pieces that everybody has to run. It's like going to the grocery store and taking your cart and everybody put all their stuff in it and you go home and you just put it together and you cook your meal and you put your car together and you go race. Yeah. So in terms of what is your role in competition in terms of changes, right? So, and I'm going, I'm going toward the short track package, right? We've had, there's been a ton of, you know, there's been testing and a lot of things that have been tried.

There's been some things learned, but then we had Bristol happen, right? Which, you know, was a happy accident, whatever, whatever you want to call it. How involved, I guess, or how much influence do you have in any competition changes? Yeah, I mean, it's a collective group. I mean, our group at the R&D Center collectively is run by John Proppes. You know, all the R&D stuff that goes on the back, all the competition-related stuff that we go to the racetrack. But we set as a group and we talk about all of that stuff. And to your point, you know, we,

done a lot of testing with the rear diffuser. We went to Richmond last year and changed a lot of arrow bits, if you will, and never seemed to be able to move the needle. And that's going to be difficult on short racetracks, as you well know. I mean, the speed in the center of the corner from an arrow standpoint, and Martinsville, you're running, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 miles an hour in the middle of the corner. So to think you're going to move the needle dramatically is going to be difficult. But to your point, kind of a blessing in disguise, and we had been on this working closely with our partners at Goodyear was the tires. We never thought going to Bristol this last time that we would have had, we didn't go into the weekend thinking this is what it would

look like. We went into the weekend very thinking early on green racetrack, you're going to have some tire wear. Was this tire different? then I mean it was the same tire we'd ran at Bristol before what created that scenario I think think is do you look at the temperature it was much much cooler same same tire and for whatever reason still working through that with good year to figure out while the left side tires were not wearing a little bit different track treatment yeah than what we'd had in the past with the PJ1 versus the resin when you start putting all that stuff on the table and really dissecting what moved the needle that formula trying to you know box that up and keep it the end result is we feel like that's where we have to get with the tire that's why we're doing things at wiltsboro the all-star race with the option tire that is basically the wet weather rubber put on a slick tire and are all right so you're trying to go to Wilkesboro and y'all will more it's i guess is there is this would it be fair to say that

you'll be paying more attention to what happens to that tire versus whether option versus hard makes a better race or any of the strategies absolutely none of that it really it's really about how how does this tire handle that's right when we as we go you know we're preparing now right you get the tires laid out here's the sets you get we're going to have a practice session they get get one of each. We're going to have a qualifying session. But to your point, our focus, yeah, we want to see a great race.

But from the sanctioning body, we'll learn something. When we leave Wilkesboro that Sunday night, we'll have a data point. Hopefully it sends us in a direction that, okay, this is where we need to go. And based off other events, if you take, obviously, Bristol, great data point,

then we go to Richmond where we start the race on wet weather tires. The first 30 laps of that race at Richmond, it looked like Richmond of old. It was great. They were all over the place. So, okay, you take that and we start to see, we're not changing arrow bits. We're still at, you know, close to 700 horsepower. So, you know, the dialogue around we need 1,000 horsepower, you know, there's,

there's going to be significant cost to put 1,000 horsepower in these cars. It just is. I know there's debate back and forth, but it's going to happen. So if we can get to where we want to be with the tire working closely with Goodyear, and we feel like we can because we're right, we see it. So continuing to push hard in that area to get us the type of racing on the short tracks that our fans deserve and our competitors want to see like we just saw at Kansas last weekend. I mean, that place is really turned into a great race.

So I was, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around cooler temperatures creating, being a factor in what we saw at Bristol. And I want to hope, I want to believe, but is it, if we had 20 degrees warmer temperatures, we would have, we would have had basically the. Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. I think it's just part of the equation. How, yeah, how does Good Year? know where to get to. Yeah. I think that, yeah, that's fair.

That's the data point with temperature that was different. The other thing, as I said earlier, the difference was the track treatment, PJ1 versus the resin. And the reason, not to get off topic, the reason the track treatment was different is Bristol became a wet weather track. Yeah, we couldn't have that type. And you can't run the PJ1 and wet, I mean, it would be way too slick. It beads up on top of it, right? Exactly. So you start putting all of that in the equation, whether it's temperature, whether it's resin,

and you start laying that out to people that's a lot smarter than me from an engineering perspective and trying to get to that place. You know, if the testing at Wilkesboro with the tire that will be the option tire, if the testing what we've done and the results of those tests, then we're going to see some things at the All-Star Race that we're going to be really happy about. What did you see at the test? Well, it's like they're going to have to manage that option tire from the table. Take it easy.

Yeah, I mean, it'd be like years ago you go to Rockingham and Darlington. Dude, I love, that's the only kind of races I run in the late model stock cars where I know that it will burn or, you know, the tires off of it if you drive it like an idiot. And that's what we saw at Bristol. You could see the veterans. You could see Truex and Brad and Denny. It was beautiful. And Ty, Ty Gibbs did a great job. Had a fast car.

but you can say, okay, that's not going to work for you. You better start managing it. But I think to your point, that's what we need to get to. Yeah, no, that was great. I guess the only other thing I kind of wanted to ask you about was the Adam Stern had some tweets about hybrids. I mean, is that a real, you know, watching fan reaction to those comments? Most people are like, hey, you know, it's in other forms of motorsport

and it's on the highway. People think it's a big deal. It's not going to be a big deal. And I know that when they started developing the next-gen car, they developed it with the option, right, to be open to be able to add that technology. NASCAR wanted to be, NASCAR wanted to develop a vehicle that could accept that technology

if that was where we had to go, right? Is that something, I mean, I know we've heard, O'Donnell talk about different fuels and different, you know, researching and traveling all over the globe to try to find out what, you know, what the next step is. Sure. Where do you think we are in that? How heavy is the conversation around that? I think it's, it is conversation.

I think to your point, this car, a lot of thought and design went into it, not for just what we're doing today, but what are we going to do in the future with sustainable fuels and what are we going to do with hybrids and B-EVs and things of that nature? And new OEMs coming in. I mean, that's one thing that's really, I mean, we have great partners in Chevy and Ford and Toyota, and they've been with us forever. But we need a platform that will invite some new OEMs to come and participate. They love the next-gen car.

The one thing that they're not going to do is they're not going to build a V8 pushrod engine. So we have to continue to develop and look at different platforms and options that will be, you know, inviting to those OEMs. So a new manufacturer will not join NASCAR if it's a pushrod yet. That's the, in the conversations that our folks, John Proops and O.D. and that group have had, that's a deal breaker right there. where when Toyota came in, they actually didn't have that engine and developed it and built it for the truck. So, you know, kudos to them. That's just not the world we live in today. Wow.

What kind of motor do they want us to build? Well, you know, they're on a different, they're turbocharged, you know, so we've got to be prepared from the sanctioning body very similar to our sister company at EMSA. And how does balance the performance work? I mean, we've, for 75 plus years, we've raced the same type of engine. naturally aspirated carburetors cubic inches are all right there so from an officiating standpoint that's been fairly fairly easy to police when you venture into the balance of performance and you know torque sensors and horse fire and torque at the rear tire that's a different a different way to police your sport but we're going to have to figure out how that

looks to be able to, again, be able to get new OEMs to come out. Wow. Okay. I didn't think about that. So there could be a scenario where a new manufacturer comes in with a different style power plant as compared to another manufacturer. And then you would then do what you do similar in Imsla. Yeah.

You would have to look at how do you, again, how do you balance that? And everybody's. It reminds me a lot. It reminds me a lot of, it's different, but I would think it would be very similar to when Dodge came back in. And everybody, like even the Ford's had different spoilers than the Chevy's, and the Dodgers had different valances than everybody else. And other people, some had more kickout, were allowed more.

You had a bit of that balance of power going on with the arrow side of things back in early 2000s in the late 90s. Oh, that's a great point. I think the next gen car has helped us from that arrow side of it to keep all three in the same box. Yeah. Right. So we would have to venture in those steps on the engine architecture side to be able to do that same thing. And that'll be challenging, but it will take all of our partners on the OEM side to all kind of buy in to be able to do that. Wow. That's something.

Well, I appreciate you coming today. I've enjoyed talking to you. It's been fun. Thank you. I was asking our group to get you in here because I was really interested about your Langley days. and having been able to witness that as a child and race against you in the Xfinity Series, had some great runs, never had any problems. No, we didn't. You were a clean racer.

Well, I appreciate that. You know, when you own your own stuff, you know, the last thing, my dad said, when you come back and defenders are ripped off of it, you're going to be working just to put it back together. You're not working on it to make it better or faster or turn better. So figure that out and, yeah, it kind of worked out first. sure I did some things that made you scratch your head on the racetrack.

No. But I always enjoyed competing with you. Appreciate that. And I want to say this too. You know, I think one of the things that I pay very close attention to are the people that NASCAR chooses to put in certain roles. And you mentioned Steve O'Donnell and Mike Helton and there's been so many great individuals that have been in charge. of different parts of our sport and especially on the competition side. You'll be the guy, at least right now, that the teams go to when they have an issue with how

things are done at the racetrack and during the actual event. And having that person be somebody with actual racing experience and a racing background is important. But also having that person have genuine, you know, decent, common sense and someone who's easy to talk to is important. I find it I'm fascinated by, you know, the certain individuals that are in these roles as we, as this whole machine travels down the road decade after decade. And I think that the sport is very lucky to have you.

You're a huge asset with all of your experience over the years driving race cars and being a part of the sport. It's got to be a massive value to them. and they did a great job allowing you to have the responsibilities and roles that you've had over the years and we're in really good hands. So I just wanted to tell you that. I think a lot of you and I appreciate you and thanks for giving us some time today. Thank you, my friend.

And like you, I have a passion for this sport. I get up every morning loving what I do and to be able to be in the garage and interact with all the folks that you mentioned. And I appreciate those kind words. All right, buddy. Elton Saw, you're on the Dill Jr. a download. All right, so that was great having Elton Sawyer on the show. And I, you know, I guess I forgot, I heard that they weren't going to really toy with the car anymore. He talked about how they changed a lot of things and just weren't getting anywhere. And, and I'm, you know, I've read where

they're dialing back what, you know, component changes right on the car and they're going, more toward targeting the tire, which he said. And I want to believe that they can get there. I think they'll have to be aggressive and they'll have to be willing to flip over the line a little bit. Like, look, until Bristol, I had never heard about cool temperatures producing tireware.

And as that conversation is going on around, well why why'd that happen how'd that happen well it was it was it was unusually cool um wait a minute cold temperatures that usually is better for tires right less heat um but anyhow uh i hope that they get what they're looking for apparently they saw some things at the test at north wiltsboro that they were happy with i'm certain that if they take that that if they make that rain tire right and put it on a slick martinsville and richmond will be way better races, way better. The new asphalt at North Wiltsboro will be a bit of a challenge.

But, you know, I think as we talked earlier yesterday, that surface is going to age really rapidly. And so, anyhow, I think this off their tire hopefully is a direction the teams or the sport can go to find some improvements in our show. short track racing. Plus his answer on hybrids was interesting. I was also surprised by that. I guess what I heard was there could be a little overlap where new manufacturer comes

in with a different style of power plant, whereas the current manufacturers may be slow to get that developed and there could be a little overlap where there's a bit of balance of power involved like you have at EMSA, where they have. have control or try to even out things a little bit to, and boy, will there be debate over what, you know, whether that balance of power is correct, right? That is going to be, because I remember, and I brought it up when, you know, they were given, you know, the Ford's more spoiler or they were given the, the, the, the, the Dodges more kick out on the front or lower front valence or whatever it was, right? There was a lot of that going on.

back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I remember dad even talking about it. That was, every week it was debatable on whether a car, someone had an advantage. And you were never going to get that to go away. Nobody was ever going to leave the racetrack and go, yep, all the manufacturers are pretty even now. Boy, that error, all those arrows.

Because if somebody has more spoiler, you're going to assume they got better down for us, no matter what the numbers say, right? You're never going to believe if your car got left rear spoiler on it, that you're an advantage or you're even neutral to the other competitors. So if somebody's car has to be tamped down a little bit in terms of power, they're never going to be okay with that. and so especially when another manufacturer's out there running in front of them

I'm oh hey you know I've got to complain because I ain't got the power that he has boy I would but maybe that's not even what he was trying to say maybe he was he did say the last thing he did say was you know they're all going to have to buy in if we do allow this other manufacturer come in with a different style power plant there the rest will have to buy in does that mean immediately or will there be like a grace period of a year or two of development. I imagine there have to be some development time allotted. Does NASCAR say,

who can't come in until these other manufacturers have their stuff built? They're ready to build it and they want to, but it's going to take them six to 12 months. So you have to wait. Who knows how this plays out? But it seems like they're getting closer to understanding how to get that other manufacturer in. And it seems like that's,

that could be a reality. It would be a big game changer for sure. I didn't think it would happen. But it was fun talking about its career. I raced against Elton and also awesome to hear about Patty and what she's up to. And man, she was a tough competitor. And she was a lot of fun to race with.

So anyways, I hope y'all enjoyed that. I was kind of interested in the, You know, the conversations around suspending drivers and the appeals panel, race director, what's up with that? You know, we, that helped me a little bit because, man, I've had some frustrations over the decisions that are made, right? In the booth sometimes of what a caution should be or shouldn't. I like the fact that they go back home and they go, hey, let's all talk about this. Didn't really think we could have did better here. I think we should have let that play out.

I like that. I like to know that they're doing that. Also, I miss when there was a David Hoots in the booth. I miss when there was the same guy every single week, but he talked to us about why they can't do it that way anymore, why there's got to be depth, why there might be a different person in the booth for a specific weekend. And when someone else is the race director,

they see it differently. They think of, you know, they are going to call it differently. They're going, what, what deserves to be a yellow to them will be different than the other person that was in that booth the week before. And so that has been something that I've had to sort of come to terms with. Let's talk about this specifically. Going below the yellow line at Daytona or Talladega. Right.

We go to Daytona, and this used to happen quite a bit, we go to Daytona for speed weeks, and you'd have trucks in Exfinity and Cup in three days in a row, three different race directors and different styles of calls on blocking and going below the line. And so we would always say, hey, ma'am, well, you didn't, you know, in the truck race, you called that differently. And you get so frustrated. Well, it was because it's a different director. He made a different choice. He didn't think it was a block.

He didn't think the guy, he thought the guy was forced below line, so he chose to penalize this guy, right? And you had to go, well, I don't love that. I wish it was the same director. It can't be. But damn it, I hate when the calls sort of conflict with each other, right? And that was just between series, truck and Xfinity and Cup. And now there's a little bit of that from week to week just in the Cup series.

you'll see a little different style of what a yellow should be or could be or how race plays out. But hey, I do like that they go home and they talk about it. And there's a philosophy that Helton believes NASCAR has about that, that they're trying to implement and change and place in all of these individuals that are part of race control and race directing. So I don't know. I thought it was a pretty fun conversation. I think some people might walk away.

from this wishing we were, you know, oh, we were hard on, I wish we were, I wish they were hard on hell. Every time we have somebody in here from NASCAR, they weren't hard enough. Like it's got to be an interrogation? Yes. Like we're, like we're going to just make the guy have a miserable experience. I hope he's probably going to walk out of here and never wish he comes back. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're not doing that here. Anyways, uh, got to thank Ally for allowing us to have these guest segments every week and appreciate Ally for allowing me to have Elton on here.

And he was one of the people that I wanted to bring in. Because I think he does do a good job. I don't envy his position. I don't envy having to be. I would not want to be the guy that has to go out there and make the speech. Elton, as he progressed through roles in NASCAR, as competition director of the truck series and on and so forth. is now in the position where

when somebody's penalized, when something goes wrong, when NASCAR makes a mistake, whatever, he's the guy that has to step in front of the media. Not the job I want. But he does it, and he does it well, and I think they've got a great person in that role. And so I'm thankful for that and thankful for ally. No matter what you're saving for, whether it's race tickets,

a new car or a new home, we're all better off with an ally. It's time for the white flag. This is Wednesday's edition. so it's a little different than yesterday. Not much. Sunday night, the tear down, Jeff Gluck, Jordan Mionke,

they go over everything that went on at Kansas, trying to help you understand how NASCAR determines the winner when both cars crossed the finish line at the same time. Drop Monday, action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin, door bumper clear with Joel Edmonds. Door bumper clear guys,

always rowdy, and I think they were, Even more so with Joel. Even more so with Joel around. Denny Hamlin had some great comments and points about this past weekend at Kansas, the race car and the next-gen car and how it adapts and does so well at those racetracks. I think the drivers just had a blast this past weekend. It's refreshing to see.

It is refreshing. Our Dirty Air Show dropped yesterday and Speed Street with Colin Dredaily and Chase Holden. Me, I'm the guest. That drops today. Tomorrow, Dirtymo Doe with Steve LaTart, previewing Darlington, and DJD reloaded Carla in the Gangs back again. It usually kind of comes from something stupid, I said, on Tuesday. We'll try and pinpoint that's one stupid thing you said,

and that's our show for tomorrow. Well, that's our show for today as well. We'll see y'all later. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.