The Dale Jr. Download - 564 - Elliott & Hermie Sadler: Virginia Is For Brothers

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes longtime NASCAR competitors Elliott and Hermie Sadler to the studio on this episode of the Dale Jr. Download. After growing up in Emporia, Virginia, the accomplished brother duo picked up their father’s interest in racing and entered into the go-kart ranks. They explain that their father owned dirt cars that competed on the short tracks of Virginia and North Carolina and were maintained in their family-owned Chevy dealership. Hermie would win a World Karting Association national championship for dirt karts in 1988 and would graduate to late model stock cars with the support of his parents. Hermie explains that after initially struggling, his father tried to convince him to give up his racing career in pursuit of something new. In what was supposed to be one last attempt behind the wheel, Hermie would win his first-ever late model race in Manassas, inspiring him to continue onward.When Hermie graduated into the NASCAR Busch Series and found early success by winning his first race and the Rookie of the Year title in 1993, Elliott followed him up the racing ladder, occupying the now vacant family late model seat. Elliott would keep the Sadler name in victory lane by winning the 1995 track championship at South Boston before making a splash in the NASCAR Busch ranks himself. Elliott tells the story of getting a call from the Wood Brothers to drive the famed 21 NASCAR Cup ride and how he scored an emotional victory for the team at Bristol. Meanwhile, Hermie struggled on his path through NASCAR and would eventually settle into the broadcast booth, where he became one of the most known on-air personalities in the sport. Elliott takes listeners through his journey from Yates Racing to Evernham Motorsports before moving back to the NASCAR Xfinity ranks, where he’d finish up his career at JR Motorsports. 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. It's the ally guest segment on Wednesday. And we have the Sadler Brothers coming on, Hermie and Elliot, ran into these two guys over the past couple of weeks, and I'm excited to bring them into the studio and talk about their lives, how their two careers compared together and how they may be different. What's going on with them today and what's important to them? It's going to be a lot of fun catching up with these guys.

It's been too long. So I'm looking forward to it. This will be a long one. We've got two guests. Two full careers to discuss. Let's get started. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download.

The ally guest segment today. Elliot and Hermes Sallow on Dale Jr. Downwater. It's two or three things that happened in my life that I'm really still bothered about in racing. We make it to the Final Four. I have been chasing a NASCAR championship for 20 years. I wanted to break his jaw in three places. All right, back here at the Dirty Mo Media Studio. I want to thank Ally for this guest segment.

And Ally does it right. They do it right across the board in so many different things in NASCAR. And they support us heavily here at Dirty Mo Media and the Dale Jr. Download. And I'm a great partner of theirs. And they're bringing us some great guests every single week this year. And two more allies at the table today with Hermie and Elliot Sadler. And so we want to bring them into the room. room. I want to make sure everybody realizes what a benefit ally has been to Dirtymo Media,

and we're thankful for them. The Sadler brothers have drove five hours from Emporia, Virginia, to be here today. So let's get them in the room, get started. So Hermie and Elliot Sadler on the Dale Jr. Download, thanks for coming. You must have gone really to the bullpen on the guest with it. Oh, man, we are out. We're out of ideas. No, I'm kidding. So this is actually, you know, of a idea that came to me because I know you both really well kind of and in different ways and we can get into that a little bit and then ironically man kind of ran into y'all I was telling them on the show yesterday how I went to race at Langley and just I was just going to call Elliot and say hey drive it through your neighborhood how you doing just checking in he didn't

answer because he's at the beach I'm at the beach cooking so I don't have my phone with me and so I called her me the grill master and them. We were quarter a tank of fuel and going to stop and you were like, hey, I got some fuel, come get some fuel. So we pulled in his gas station. He just worked perfect. And you're Palet's partner of Junior Motors. That's right. And we partner with Palet at all of our travel plaza. We have five truck stops and we're a dealer operator for Palet. But you have to say when you called, because normally you and I text once a month or so. When you called me, I'm like something's wrong.

I didn't, because I, you know, when you get called from people that you normally just text with, but you were, hey, man, we're 58, you know, and I walk out there, you're driving the dully and it looks like y'all having a ball. We did. We did. Yeah, we did. I had a lot of fun. That was a good time.

Yeah, you came out to the race track. I did. You know, I called you back after I finished cooking, and then they had sent me the picture where you took at the truck stop with all the go-crock guys. And your cardboard stand-up. In my cardboard stand-up. That thing has not aged well. So I'm like, man, what are you doing?

Like, why are you in Emporia? And you're like, I'm going to Langley. And I thought you meant as a fan. Oh, man, I'm going to drive. Going to Langleyman's drive. Come down. So when I told Wyatt, my son, who's, you know, he's a Dale Jr. fan, it's like, dude, let's go watch. So I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed it. It was a great race. It was cool. How many people were there? And, you know, we were pulling for you. I thought you did good. Man, you didn't fall out the seat or anything, man. I didn't feel like.

I was cooked. Where you cooked? It was hot. I just got to say one thing about the picture we took with the cutout. You, of course, that was early 2000s. You were skinny. I was. You're still skinny.

And I look like a beached whale up standing beside y'all. You've got to suck it in sometimes. I mean, I'm going to tell you. I used to only suck it in on certain pictures now, all of them. All of them. Just in case. It just got more. I will say this for all your fans, though, at Langley,

my son on the way home was like, Daddy, he just talks to so many people. He just, he signed so many autographs, talks to so many people. And I'm like, dude, that's him. You know,

that's him from, you know, day one to, you know, I want you to look at that and see that. You know, kind of how he's representing himself and the sport and all those things. But I thought it was really cool on,

you know, you being there for the fans, you being there for the drivers. I mean, how many different eyes were on it and put on a good show too. But just let you know my 14-year-old son, who already looks up to you,

was noticed how you treated everybody and signing and so cordial and personal with everybody. So that was pretty cool. Man, that was neat. I had a great time talking to him and was thankful that you came. And I've been teasing you about racing, and I know that you got a little left in the tank, and we're going to figure out a way to get you in a car.

You said you want to go test somewhere, which is totally understandable. I'd definitely take you somewhere where we run some laps. Yeah, I don't want to. embarrass myself. You say that. What do you mean? You ain't going to embarrass yourself. Do you know? I walk in the shop this morning. I get here early and I walk in to see some of the guys and Danny Jr's here. I said, Danny, man, you know, he's the car chief on the aide. He used to be my car chief when I drove the one. So I'm like, Danny, I mean, how's it going? It's the same. The car's the same. The setups. He said,

well, you couldn't drive them. There's no more skew in the car. You would be loose in. So I'm like, as soon as I get here, I get undercut. So that's what I'm. scared of. I don't want to be that bad. You know, so I want to, you know, I don't want to embarrass myself. You did it all your life. You know, when you get in a junior motorsports car, I think whether it's a Xfinity car or a late model,

you can't bring up the rear. You don't want to get in. So I want to get in your car. You want to get in something mid-packed so you don't embarrass yourself. I don't want to come on. You got to have a pressure. I don't want the eight on the side of my car. What other number you put on it that they still know it's your car and I'm

you know, I'm a moving chican. So I just want to test, well, that's one test. All I asked for. I tested because of the same reason. See, you test it. There you go. I know. So the same reason.

We'll get you a test. Thank you. But I was really thinking. And I'll spot so somebody can understand what he's saying. Yep. And he can understand. Yeah, that's right. There you go.

So I know. You all do have y'all's own language. So I wanted to learn a little bit about both y'all. what I know a lot about Elliot but not everything what's the age difference six six years six years that's a lot

why six years Elliot depending on the day if you ask my mom if he does good he was a surprise if he messes up he was an accident okay she's honest about that they weren't trying no really

y'all have brothers and sisters One older sister. Okay. That's Elliott's sister. Her name is Missy. All right. She's nine years older than me, so she's three years older than Hermie. Okay.

And she runs, she rules the ruse. She does? Yes. All right. What was she involved in y'all's careers at all? She was very helpful to me early on. She did. My first opportunity in the full time in the Bush series came.

I ran a few races with Tommy Ellis. in late 1992. I got my first full-time opportunity in 93 with Don Beverly, racing and Virginia's for lovers as a sponsorship. And my sister jumped right in. She did fan club activation. You know, the things that you all do today on a much bigger scale. We were trying to build a fan base one fan at a time back in those days.

And she scored, you know, back in those days, we had manual scoring when we started. And she did that and ran the fan club. And I would have to say when Elliot came along, too. She's always been helpful and supportive, but was really involved early on with me trying to build that fan base. Yeah. And so y'all born and grew up in Emporia. What racing, what was going on that introduced y'all to racing? How did that happen? My dad owned dirt cars back in like the 70s. Really? Yeah. Why did he want to, why did he do that? He didn't, I think he might thought he won't

to drive, but I think he figured out he couldn't drive, so he was better just as an owner. So they raced it like Wilson, North Carolina and Shantilly and some, you know, small little dirt tracks in North Carolina, Virginia, and he owned dirt cars. So it was kind of in the family. And he also owned a Chevrolet dealership in Emporia, Virginia. And I think that was a way to keep all the mechanics kind of hanging out together and doing stuff, is, you know, after 5 o'clock when the shop shut down. The race car was there? Race car was there. We started working on the race car. You get some beer from the store and come down and kind of kept the camaraderie going. And then when Hermie got to be, well, you're 13, I'll at least tell this story,

when you're 13 or 14, you started doing the go-car stuff. Yeah, we had a guy that, first thing, going back to my dad, if you don't know him well, he is ultra over-the-top competitive. It doesn't matter if you're racing, selling cars, selling fuel. He's always been, you know, way competitive. if it never understood, you know, like in a go-kart days when we needed to get a go-kart, we would go the guy who won the race, if his cart was sale, we'd buy that cart because he was a no-excuse kind of guy.

But the carding thing started actually through the racing deal in some respects because Danny Wyatt, who was a guy that, I guess Elliot would give him credit for getting him involved in racing too, has worked for my dad. Danny's probably 65 now since he was 16 years old. Back in those days, he worked in the service department and did maintenance work for the oil company. He worked on the race car, but he was big into go-kart racing. And back in those days, my parents were gone a lot on trips, like shell petroleum trips. So we stayed with Danny a lot, and that was how we passed the time.

I used to go to the go-kart track with Danny to help him. then I had to have a cart and so we I started going to Danny to race and that's ultimately how Elliot started you know we started all through Danny Danny was babysitting and getting us going and racing all at the same time you started at 13 yeah and so you're seven I'm seven and he he got to go cart first and then I'm like wait a minute I'm a younger brother you know I want one too so they they bought me a go card and the first race that I ever raced in the go cart we show up at our local little track on a Friday night. How old are you?

Seven. There's nobody there in my class. So they let me run in Hermes class. So they're like, look, you got to start in the back and run in the back because you're not even supposed to be in this class, but we're going to let you run it. So I started last where I'm so much lighter than they were. As soon as we took the green, I floor it and I try to pass everybody and I hit the tires on the inside and just flip bottom up as that was my first ever race.

So I'm in the wrong class, racing against my brother, and I flipped the go-cart down the front straightaway and ruined the engine and bent the card. And that was my first time. Yeah, that was my first time. You did? First race. I ended up clipping somebody's tire and flipping off a two and flipping out. Yeah. It's a great way to start, isn't it?

They don't tell you that that could happen. That was never in the brochure. Somebody told me it flips. I remember that I came around, and because Elliot was crying. and I remember asking, is he okay? He said, no, he's just mad because he broke the header off his engine. So he wanted to get back on there and go again. How long did you run go-carts?

I won the World Cording Dirt Championship in 1988. WCA. WCA. State, national? National. No-brizz. For what class? Briggs modified.

Damn. Yeah. I mean. How much were you traveling to accomplish that? A lot. A lot. You know, we started out. There was a racetrack in Brits.

Broadnax, Virginia, which on your trip last week through Virginia, you got off 85 in South Hill, and when you drove to Emporia, about right in the middle of that is Broadnax. A racetrack, we used to call it Tanner Tain. It's gone. It's gone now. But we used to go there every Friday night,

and you would race and fight every Friday night. But when we went to the national level, we went everywhere from Ohio to Georgia, Florida, all out in the Midwest. It was a, I'm on memory, but a 10 or 12 race national series that we ran, and that was big time. Yeah.

What were you doing? I was racing go-carts too. We were racing on the state level for Virginia State Champion a couple years, and then ran WK a few times. All the road course asphalt stuff was fun. And then once Hermie moving on the late model, after winning the WCA stuff, I ran like Carteret County Speedway when that was,

big back in the day. Driving what? Go carts and stuff. Really? Asphalt go carts and stuff. On that big old track? They re-ed it. It was different.

Same guy. Bobby Watson. Okay. Who ended up building Carter Rett County Speedway, the one that's there now, put his heart and soul and life into that property for years. And unfortunately, he passed away a couple years ago of cancer. But back before he built the car track, you know, Junior Johnson was really helpful to him trying to get notoriety and stuff for the car.

car track, but way back in the 80s, that was a go-cart track. It was dirt first, then they paved it, and you go down there on Memorial. That's where everybody went. Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend at the beach. It would be 12, 1,500 carts there every one of those times. And those classes he won back in the day. I mean, there's one year that him and Danny won about everything down there, and it would be 120 to 150 carts in the big classes.

And it was big time. You missed by 10th. You missed the show. Yeah. So you win the WK national championship and your dad's like, we're going moving up. He was kind of indifferent about it. I wanted to move up.

To what? I wanted to try some late model racing. We also, in addition to my dad's owning some cars, our uncle, my mom's brother, Bud Elliott, raced late model sportsman back in the 70s. He raced with Sam Art. And he was a, you know, shoestring budget kind of racer, but they loved it.

Him and my other two uncles, they worked on that thing, you know, day and night. And they were kind of one of the teams that show up at the track. And, you know, some of the bigger teams would run some of their tires and then give them to Bud to run later in the race. That's the way he did it. And so Bud, the first race car I ever drove, I drove my Uncle Bud's car. We went over to Orange County Speedway just on a Saturday afternoon.

and just rode. And so I rode about a half a day course I loved it. This was in the fall probably of 88, right after the go-cart deal. And Bud let me drive. And then when I decided we wanted to go race, the first late model stock car race I ran, we rented a car from Butch Savacus. Oh, yeah. Stock car products.

They had a blue 01. House car. It butch drove a lot. So we rented it and went to South Boston. and South Boston back in those days, I mean, you had David Blankenship, you had Roy Hendrick, you had Maurice Hill, Barry Beggarley.

It was Stacy, I mean, it was 12, 14 cars that could win. And we went over there, and so I did that a couple times, and then went to Martinsville later in the year with Butch to get my first taste of going there with 200 entries in a late model race, but that's how I got my start. All right, what are you doing?

So I'm running go-carts, but I'm also like a pit crew member for him. Yeah. When he started running his late model stuff, I was a crew member on the weekends that, you know, I was not racing my own stuff, which was fun. You know, we were always at the race shop together, and, you know, that was a deal. I had to finish my homework, and as soon as I finished my homework, I wanted somebody to give me a ride. I was going either to my Uncle Bud shop to help him work on his stuff or go help work on Hermey stuff. I just, I wanted to be at the race shop.

Yeah. And love being a crew member, and that was fun, being a part of that, and just learned a lot about it. but also kind of racing go-carts on the side as well. And one of the funniest stories, you know, talking about my dad being ultra-competitive. I was a pick crew member for Hermey and went to Marnsville. You know how hard it is to make the Martinsville race. So Hermey made the race.

Ran okay in the race, not great, but ran like maybe 13th, 12th or 13th. Well, after the race, we feel pretty good. We made the race 120 cars. My dad walks down now. Doesn't say anything to anybody, and he starts peeling his name off the quarter panel. Damn.

Sattler Chevrolet. quarter panel. He starts peeling his name. We're like, what, what happened? And he said, if y'all going to run this damn bad, I don't want my name on this race car. I mean, that's the kind of competitor he was. And we're just like, oh, oh, okay, we made the race. We made a hundred 20 cars here. We thought we did good. It's one of our first times here. So that was a, I'm glad at those times, I was a pick crew member and not a driver. I got to tell this story. The first late out of stock car race I won. It was kind of those weekends that could have gone either way.

I had been struggling. Hadn't won. My dad thought we should win right away. We went to Southside Speedway on a Friday night and went over there and I think I got lapped. I mean, just all over the place. I feel like a pinball machine. Finished a lap down. So my dad comes up to me after the races over and he says,

Hermie, I love you. but you need to maybe find something else to try to do. Let's do something else. This ain't working. So we load up south side speedway and go back to the shop in Emporia. We unload one two o'clock in the morning. Morris Johnson and Doc, same crew, Elliot ended up with. We're all there at the shop.

And my guy said, you know, this might be the end of the road. But if we're going to quit racing, we're not going to quit after a night like this. I said, what do you all want to do? they said let's put this thing back together and go to Manassas because we raced at Southside on Friday night. So my crew decided we were going to go to Manassas on Saturday night. Didn't tell my dad. So I said, okay, we're going to have to put our money together.

You know, we're going to have to buy the tires, do all that. So we did all that. And I don't remember if it, I think we may have had bag phones back in those days. But I remember stopping at a store Saturday afternoon on my way to Manassas and calling home, the landline that nobody uses anymore, called home and I told my mom, I said, I'm not talking to daddy right now, but just want you all to know that we're paying for it,

but we're going to race at Manassas tonight, and then we're going to shut it down. So we go to Manassas, and I won the race, first ever race. And I'm coming around to get the victory lane part, getting the flag, and all I could think about was, damn I wish my mom and dad were here yeah and as soon as I start my victory lane talk he'd come my mom and daddy walking across the track after I had called home and told them they got in the car I rang after daddy got mad yeah got in the car and drove to menaces

and stood in and sat in the bleachers and watched the race and came down damn and so then we moved on you know and really thankful that that was a turning point because not only to help me keep going and ultimately get a shot with Don Beverly, it opened up the door for Elliot, because when he came in, we had a team. We had cars. We had a team. We had people. We had a program.

And if we hadn't done that, that night, it all would have come to an end. What's a slip in? It's our convenience store chain names. So we've got truck stops that are all called Sadler Travel Plaza. And we have pilot and shell, pilot on the fuel side, shell on the gas. and then the name of our slip-in chains, we have 26 convenience stores, and the chain name is instead of QT or, you know,

Circle K, it's Slippy and Food Mart. And so when I was racing late models, and even before that, I remembered the, I don't even know what yellow that is. What do you call that? Canary yellow. What yellow is it?

224 Corvette yellow. Yeah, there's a lunar, lunar yellow. Lunar yellow. It's like a 19th. 1970s GMC yellow. Yep. Pretty.

With number 16, slip in. Y. 16? Butch Lindley? Yeah. Butch Lindley, who I never knew

personally, I just always, when I went with my uncle to watch him race, I loved his cars. He had, of course, read,

I loved the font of his numbers, and I loved the way he raced. And the chance I got to spend time around with him, I thought was, he was somebody that I thought did it the right way. What number were you in your go-kart? 22.

What number are you in your go-kart, Elliot? 0-2. 22. Why 22? Because that was the number of my dad ran on his dirt late models. Why O-2? Because 22 was taken. So when you went to late model stocks and you just kept the 16, Elliot?

Just kept the whole team and everything. Everything we had, you know, I was very, very fortunate in 1993 when Hermie went to run for rookie of the year in the Bush series. His whole team just opened up for us to jump right in. You get out of go-kart? Right out of go-karts, right into the lake model. And what age? That was 1993. So I'm, what, I'm 18, 17, 18 years old. So I was very fortunate. We ran South Boston, Orange County. We got to go to Martinsville. But it really helped getting into an established team that had a lot of success in 1992, winning races, run up front. So then it was just me getting in. And Morris Johnson was the right crew chief for me.

at the right time. Older guy, just kind of very patient. He said, you know, we win practice. He said, all right, you know, Elliot, we're going to raise the track bar. And this is kind of what you should feel. So go run. We go run. We come back.

All right, we're going to change the spring. This is what maybe you should feel. So he really took his time to kind of help me with that. And then the funny part about it, in like 1994, he took a job with Charlie Ford, got a really good job to go do like Hooters Pro Cup traveling and doing other stuff. Chris Rice, who was the same age I was, helped us build race cars at A&E race cars, stuff like that. We hired him to come be my crew chief.

So here's Chris 20 years old, and I'm 19, and we're trying to win the national championship together in 1995, which was great. It was a really good season for us, won a lot of races and had a lot of success, but both of us being the same age learning together with probably a lot of pressure on us was a lot of fun. Yeah.

school. That's how I remember you in the late models was with Chris. Yeah, that's right with Chris. And he was really into it. And he had worked for Jeff Burton for years when Jeff Burton's driving the old red number 12 car on the Bush Series and all. And he was the gas guy. Like, his dad and uncle had been around racing a long

time. So we've, the funny part about it was, is Chris lived with me at my house in 1995. And we get paid every Friday. I was working for my dad in the service department,

Chris was getting paid to work on the race cars. And we go to the bank every Friday afternoon to cash our checks. And Chris's check was that big, you know, the envelope and my check was this big. And we were working on the race cars. Like, man, something's not right. But he came and did a really good job.

We felt like we had a lot to prove and we wanted to prove because we were so young and kind of people doubted us. And I kind of went to my dad. I was like, I think we can do it before we put it all together. And that was a great. That was a great season to kind of put me on the map. But I also learned at the end of 1995, Hermie was having some really good,

he was rookie of the year. He won a couple races, always in the top in the Bush Series. And we were taking my late model results and taking them to team owners, like in 95 and beginning of 96, in the Bush series going, look, look at all these races we won. We almost won the National Championship, almost won the Mid-Atlantic Championship. And all they kept saying was, well, what can you do in the Bush Series? bush car. You know, the tires are different, the radials, they're not by a supply. You know, you need to run some bush races. So at that time, Hermey had his own Bush team, the DeWalt one car.

Yes. So Chris and I would get a car. Hermey would loan us a car with the engine and we have like four springs on a front sway bar and, you know, we went and, you know, made South Boston and probably one of the biggest accomplishments of my life, the fall 1996. Richmond race, we pull in on a flatbed trailer between your daddy's hauler and Mark Martin's hauler, just the way that we were parked at Richmond in the garage. Here I am on a flatbed between those two, you know, two great guys that have been a part of racing in a long time. And we made that race. It was like 73 bushcraws there. And we made that race in 96. And then that kind of got the ball rolling and kind of going, you know, kind of going in the right direction.

Before we move into that, Exfinity careers for both you guys, both of you name some of your biggest accomplishments or proudest moments in your late model stock. You know, late model stock car was, you know, it's where everybody started. And the biggest night I remember, and probably what gave me a chance to go to the time,

racing, as you know as well as anybody, timing has a lot to do with a lot of things. I didn't really feel like I was going to go anywhere because in the fall of 92, I tried to do a couple of bush races and I didn't have a lot of success. I had a bad wreck at Rockingham. And Tommy Ellis, nice, nice guy, but he was a little rough to work with.

But I learned a lot of life lessons with that. But the late-mild of stock car portion that gave me, which was a difficult thing to do, at South Boston in 1992, I won both ends of a twin 100 one night. And that night, after the race, Don Beverly, they just took a trip from their shop because they had Jimmy Hensley and Shauna Robinson driving for them. They had a weekend off. They came to South Boston after the race was over, Don and Bobby King and Johnny Cash

and all those people on 25, who I knew of but didn't know them personally, Don came down to Victory Lane after the race and said, man, we really enjoyed. And I never done that. I probably, I hadn't counted, but I guess I probably only won 10 late model stock car. I didn't run very long, but I ran only one about 10 late model stock car races, but I won two that night. Yeah. And Don came down and we started having a conversation, what ultimately gave me an opportunity to go full time with them because they were losing their sponsor. They had a fast fare on their car.

and that was going away. And Don was drag racing, and he was kind of scaling back from that. And these guys, so we went, put a deal together, and ultimately went and got Virginia's for lovers, which was a government tourism agency. How in the hell did you do that? How did you get the government? He's always been a politician. How did you get the government to support a race scene?

That's like... It's backwards, isn't it? We have a lot of friends, but Governor George Allen, whose dad used to coach the Redskins was... That's his dad. That's his dad. Okay, I know that. Governor George Allen is still...

You don't like the redskins, do you? Governor George Allen, to this day, is still one of my best friends, and he was the incoming governor of Virginia at that time. And, of course, I'll say this now, you'll laugh. But in 1993, in 1993, my full-season primary sponsorship from Virginia Tourism Corporation was $375,000. and in 1994 it was $425,000. I don't know if that's a good deal or not.

Yeah, sounds low. It was low the end too. But you had to take it and turn it into other things. And y'all did. We did. We had, and those guys were great. And then from there, I got a call from Hugh Miskill with DeWalt. Yeah.

The Don Beverly team, for lots of reasons, was just falling apart. The funding was falling apart. Don was less involved. And so Bobby King and those guys even came to me and said, look, this deal was drying up. We got to do something. So ultimately, DeWalt reached out to me, and I did a three-year deal with DeWalt and ended up buying a shop in Chesterfield in Virginia real close to where all those guys lived. And so we basically took pieces of the 25 car and made that.

the number one car for DeWalt that I had that sponsorship for three years. But that timing, I hadn't done anything to really set myself apart. Elliot was unbelievable to go into South Boston and win 13, 14 races in a year. I mean, the field was too tough. And I never, I never, but winning those races that night with those people watching and the way the races, it came down to a great battle at the end. and that really gave me the opportunity. What about you, Elliot?

I think that 1995 season for Lake Model, we won the track championship at South Boston. We almost won the Mid-Atlantic Championship. We missed it by one race. We were running Ace Speedway on Friday nights and running South Boston on Saturday nights. Then they took your best 20 starts. You could have 60 starts.

They took your best 20 finishes. And we won 15 races that year, but my five other races were not wins, and it took 20 that year to win it. 20 wins. Actually, Phil Warren, the shirt you're wearing, actually won it that year. He and I battled all year long. He was winning at Southside and winning at Langley. And he had a great season. And we were in the battle for the national championship, actually against a guy that I hadn't really heard of at the time. Greg Biffle was actually

racing in Washington at the time. And he was just winning races left and right and Larry Phillips and all this guys. So that was a cool year to learn and experience that. Well, we were racing. against Barry Beggle and Colan Engel and Todd Massey and all these guys on Friday nights at age trying to win. And then Saturday night battling against, you know, a lot of the big names too. And able to be successful that year. That was, that made me pretty happy. That was a good proud moment for Chris and I and our guys to be able to be that successful. It was fun.

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Check them out at Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok to see the latest diecast releases. Hermie, you go into the Xfinity series and win early. I remember that time. I remember the buzz around you. You know, from that moment on, it seemed like, you know, you talked about the struggles with the race team at Beverly's, and then you built your own deal. And your own deal had some high moments, but at the same time, it seemed like maybe you were taking on a little bit more than you could handle. Yeah. I made some bad decisions.

How would you? Yeah, let's talk about it. Yeah. I, well, in some cases, they were necessary decisions. So when I got the DeWalt deal, which I was, you know, honored to get, you know, when somebody reaches out to you, I didn't know Hugh Miskill. He called me after I finished second at Dover in the 25, and I got home that night and had a message on my phone. You know, hey, call me.

So I don't know who was the backstory as far as that, but he called. And so I put together a deal with DeWalt. I got my guys, but, you know, we're in Virginia. It's a little bit challenging up there. It is not the pool of people. I had a good core of people, but not a lot of depth. And, you know, I really struggled with trying to own, manage, book hotels, book flights, do sponsor relations. It wasn't fun at all.

and it, you know, as a driver, you start being overprotective of, then when you start not winning, then my focus turned to, I got to put people around me, they're going to support me. And that's not always the right decision to make on a performance side of it either. You start thinking about who's not going to talk about me when I'm not around. Yeah. Rather than who can help us run faster. There you go. But then, you know, talk about turning points.

The one race that I thought would have turned my whole career around probably was the inaugural race at Homestead. The first time the bushcars went there. It was shaped like a small brick yard at the time. So, and about two weeks before that race, I hired John Monson to come to Virginia. Yeah. Because I just needed a new set of eyes. We were doing things a certain way. And the other mistake I made, I don't necessarily want to call the name.

But when I started my deal with DeWalt, you know, we were transitioning to V8s at that time from the V6s. And instead of going with a well-known, you know, engine program, there was a guy that was very well-known in Virginia, building late model engines. He came to me with a deal. I'm going to build your V-8s for you. I got a sweet deal. Well, we blew up four of the first five races in 1995. blew up and so that's a bad way to start a deal but going back to homestead i brought john montsem up first time i ever ran olen shocks i never heard of them john brings him in we do that so we qualified

seventh ran the whole race i was telling ellie this story last night somewhere in the middle part of that race larry pearson was driving the 92 stanley car larry got sick came down pit road he got out of the car and i can't remember who they put in there but they put somebody else in they rode a while so I was running second. We had a caution with less than 10 laps to go. There's only five calls on the lead lap. Larry comes back down, pit road, after his sandwich and he takes a break.

Yeah, he gets back in. He gets back in, put four tires on. So anyway, coming off turn two to get the white flag, Kenny Wallace was driving the Red Dog, number eight. I pulled it up and passing Kenny Wallace down the back straightaway. Go in turn three. Larry comes in there on his new. tires and hit me in the ass and so all three of us and to turn one wall at homestead

knocked me out immediately really like that oh yeah i was cooked and that race really took a toll on me personally not only for the race team because we were you know you went an inaugural race yeah somewhere it can do you a lot of good and ended up really the momentum that we had, you know, going and building, you know, I finished second at Hickory about three times, and I finished second probably 10 times. Yeah. David Green and that damn slim gym call, I finished second to him a handful of times. Dennis Setzer was really good in the 59.

It was tough racing back, you know, but this is about winning, you know, and I didn't win. And it ultimately, you know, that's why, and we'll talk about it, I'm sure, at some point, ultimately why I've decided to take my sponsorship and go down to partner with L.A. at Diamond Ridge the following year because I just I didn't have the the know-how the resources and the people to the Bush Series in those days was really growing and you had to have it had to have it all together it wasn't backdoor you know backyard racing anymore yeah so what how do you get out of late models how do you get into the Xfinity car so hermi will let me have one of his cars right and we will put it together and go run and I went ran you know small tracks right

are South Boston, IRP, New Hampshire. But my breakthrough was 1996 at Hickory Motor Speedway. And we had a solid white car, no sponsor, no anything. Who owned it? We did. Yeah. Hermie on the car, 46. Okay.

Solid white with 46 on it. And Diamond Ridge Motorsports showed up with Engel. Bill Engel was the driver. Steve Grissom drove it. The crew chief. He was the crew chief of the cup car, right? Ricky Rudd. And then he would drive the.

Exfinity car for them on non-companying races. He was probably was not as fast as they needed to be. Anyway, they missed the race. Okay. So Keith Parsons, Benny Parsons, son who was Hermes... My roommate at UNC. Earlier in life

came to me and said, Ellie, we need to put WCW on your car to run this race. We have missed it. So they came and put Diamond Ridge Motorsports and WCW on my car to run that race. They gave me $5,000, I think.

But to me, it was cool that I had all this stuff on my car. So I qualified six and ran good that whole race. Well, the next week I get a phone call from Keith Barnwell and said, who's he? He was one of the head guys at Diamond Ridge Motorsports, kind of run like the Bush Shop part of it, and not the Cup series that had Robert Presley and Cartoon Network. Keith kind of helped do.

He said, we need you coming here. We want to meet with Gary Becht on Bill Engel. We want to talk to you about maybe running. a bush car. I said, okay. So we came in and I really appreciate it now how it happened. I said, all right, Elliot, we like what we saw, appreciate you running our sponsorship. We're going to do a test at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The biggest track I ever been on in my life at that time was Rockingham. Hermey let me go test one of his cars at Rockingham a year before. We're going to go run a test at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And if you run a 3250 or faster,

will take you to Michigan. I'm like, okay, so I'm excited, nervous, all that, so I fitted in the seat the following week we go to Charlotte and I do a test with the 29 WCW car. And I run fast enough. Do you remember how fast?

No, I did it like, well clear. Like it was real clear. It wasn't like by the skin of my teeth. It was like, we were pretty fast. He picked up a draft. Yeah, I had some help right. No. So we went to Michigan and I qualified 10th and finished ninth in my first race with them and I'm like this is cool. See that look very happy with it but look

next week we're going to go to Darlington and do another test and if you run a 29 20 or whatever the time was I remember 29 for some reason we'll take you to Bristol for the night race I said okay and we'll do Darlington we'll do both of them I said oh okay so went to Darlington and test and this is where my relationship and Dale Jarrett met. So I had raced against Dale Jarrett's son, Jason, and late model. We all did, right? We race late models against each other. The jet, Jason, the Jet, Jarrett. When I pull into Darlington Speedway that morning to test, it's like 488 cars there and like 328. It's like seven Yates cars there. They're trying to win the Winston Million. That's the year that they're trying to win the Winston Million in 1996. So he's down.

with all this computer stuff and here's my little yellow and purple 29 car now on my end and so i pull across i'm sitting there so actually i walk up to dale jarrott i was going hey my name's elliot satler i'm hermy satler's younger brother oh okay and you've raced against my son and i said anything you can help me i've never been here before anything you can help me with will be greatly appreciated come on get in the car so he put me in the right side of his car the race car and we wrote around with no helmets on, but he's talking running small speeds and just showing where we need to be at on the wall and like really took his time with me. And every couple hours, he would come check on me. Are you doing good? You got any questions? Everything good? You know, those kind of thing.

So I'm thinking myself, God, these people in racing are really nice and everybody's not like that. We all, you know, I find out later in life. But that's when Dale and I really, really hit it off. Yep, that was pretty cool for him to do that. I mean, he didn't really know me from Adam. So, you know, I ran fast enough, so they let me go to Bristol to run the night race. The throttle hung and qualifying. I had one of those mats. Remember, you used to run the mats in the floorboard that was padding for the heat. Buttoned?

Buttoned. Yeah. Buttoned in. And it got hung under and qualifying. And I was having to jam the brake in the clutch. And I qualified at 30 seconds. And then we damn lucky you didn't fence it. Right.

We bent the pedal back. They wouldn't let you go under the hood and all that because it was, you know, you qualify and you roll on. So we've been at, so anyway, I drove to seventh that night at Bristol, finished seventh. And then the next week they offered me a job. Because Steve Grissom, I think, was getting ready to get out of that car and maybe Robert Presley was coming in.

And something was going on above my pay grade. They were changed the . They were changing stuff around in a cup car. And I think that affected Steve Grissom's stuff. So that's when I got the 29 WCW deal in Diamond Ridge Motorsports at the end of the 1996 season like drove like the last 10 races for him and how'd that go he went great we ran they i'll be honest with you it wasn't a driver they had so much motor they had a bnr racing engines i

think was affiliated with hendrigan barnes i think okay they had so much motor it was stupid and it was and then when we started the 1997 season with them you know my rookie year with them i mean i sat on the pole five of the first six races and we had so much motor it's great jeff green was my teammate He was a great teammate. Really? Yes. I just had him on the show. I know you did.

Yeah. And he was a perfect teammate for me because he had experience, had knowledge, he was willing to share it. Only thing that I was really pissed off about being Jeff Green's teammate, he was a hell of a fabricator. And we had to work in the shop at that time. And he could fabricate all his stuff. He could do it all. And me, I'm over there like I got plastic toys trying to put stuff together. It's awful.

It's so bad. But he was a great teammate, man. It was a perfect fit for the right time. So there was more turnover at the cup level for that program, and that's where Jeff gets pulled out. So does that what presents the opportunity to bring you in? How do you get over there? I don't remember what was going on at Diamond Ridge.

I just remember. I think we talking to Jeff Green, he got pulled up to the cup car, and he was like, I didn't want to go. He didn't want to go. He was having a hell. Y'all were having a hell of a time with your. We were. And I'm going to tell you what happened.

We were both so fast, and Jeff had a legitimate shot to win the championship. And I kind of did, too. But they had a mess going on in the cup side. And they fired a bunch of people, fired the driver, and pulled Jeff up. When they pulled Jeff up, they fired a bunch of our guys in the Xfinity side, with the bush side. So we went from having a legitimate shot to, man, we didn't have the depth or the people, and we've lost all these things. And I felt so sorry for Jeff, because nobody wanted to get in that cup car.

No. Because I don't care who you put in it at that particular time. You'd rather win races at the Bush level than run 30th. Right, exactly. And be mad. Right. And just be mad and upset. So it really put him in a bad spot.

But they pulled him up, killed his chances to win a championship, and hurt our chances as well because we lost so many people. They fired so many people and kind of, I don't know. It was just tough for all of us. Well, the following year, you brought party, you brought your deal. DeWalt and everything. So how much you got from Duwalt at this point? My first couple in 800,000 to a million right in there.

That ain't too bad. We were growing. So now y'all are teammates. Yeah, teammates. Funny story, the first part of I remember, I don't know who, a may have called me or maybe Gary Bechtel or the guy that ran the business out of it, Larry Alby at the time, they called me to come down. So I remember being in an office with me and Elliot and Larry Albu.

being Gary Bechtel and we started maybe an hour meeting and then Gary and Larry got up and walked out and I looked at Elliott and I said what the hell did we just talk about? Because I, you know, Gary, San Francisco, Big and A guy, I didn't understand anything about what that meeting. Are we doing this or not or what are we doing? And, you know, Gary, different perspective of life. You know, I had worked all these years with DeWalt. I remember the first conference call I was on with DeWalt that Gary Bechter was on. He tells DeWalt basically, listen, y'all can come be a part of the team if you want to,

but we're going to race whether we got y'all or not. And I'm like, what? You know, it was one of those things that was just different. At the time, I thought that was going to be a tremendous break for me to let somebody else handle the performance. somebody else, build the cars, book the hotel. What did you do with all your stuff? Do all that.

I sold it. Yep. Sold it all of it. Sold it. Sell a shop? Mm-hmm. Sold a shop up in Virginia. Actually, I was in Chesterfield Airport for two years, and in the third year, I moved

my race shop to my car dealership in South Hill. I bought the Chevrolet dealership in South Hill, and we renovated the buildings behind the old body shop and put my shop there. So I was operating in South Hill. So I go there and, and, I go there. and I really thought it was going to be a huge turning point. It had nothing to do with Elliott, but I can say that it never jailed as a team.

We were in separate shops, separate buildings. Like I said, I want to stress again, it was never an Elliott thing. But people on Elliott's team and people on my team got so caught up in trying to outrun each other, and I'll just be honest with you, Elliot's guys told me from the beginning, and they didn't want, they had so much trouble dissolving and disintegrating the teammates

in the Bush series the last time, it caused them a lot of heartache and a lot of, you know, and they were focused on winning, and they were winning. And so I think from their perspective, it kind of was his team, we don't need this distraction. We got a good thing going, and I could just say from our, it just never, it never worked for me. You were there two years. Yeah. So at the end of that second year, L. it's moving up to the cup series.

Yep. And you are leaving. Yeah. Did y'all leave there on good terms? I left there fine with the terms. I think we were running out of sponsorship money on my car and I'd had some guys leave and they didn't know what the future of the cup car was. They had Jeff Green in it and it just didn't run good.

And I was starting to get worried because all the funding was being put in by Gary Bechtel, who was great to me. stuff he did for me, I can never repaying. But it was getting to the point that he really didn't have an obligation with any sponsor. He would just, if he wanted to, he'd pull the plug and walk out tomorrow. And we'd all be sitting there. And my crew chief, Sandy Jones at the time was an older guy, been around a sport a long time. He and I were very open with each other about that.

Like, man, I'm getting scared. I'm getting scared. I don't know where we're going. We're just firing people left and right. And we just didn't know where it was heading. But when the Woodbrothers called me, Where were you? I was at home, but we met at a Beniggins in Michigan for the Michigan race.

So the fall Michigan race, 1998, I meet Eddie and Lynn Wood, and they talked to me about driving the 21 car. And once they made that clear that it's mine if I wanted it, and Citgo had already signed off on it, that's when I went back to Sandy Jones and told him, dude, I've got to take this chance. And I understand that it's in Virginia and it's different and I get that. But from a security standpoint, I've got to go take this chance. I mean, that's my lifelong dream. And they're from Virginia and I'm from Virginia. So that's kind of how that worked in the fall of 1998 to set up for my rookie season in 1999.

Did you have anything else? No. Yeah. It was that. I mean, I had like another Bush car or something that. Which one? The 36 Stanley. Yeah.

Like Tauba down in this. They want... CC Welliver. They had talked to me about coming over there. 34 had like Gould's pumps and Mike McLaughlin. They had talked to me. You were going to get in a car that had a Hutter engine in it. Yeah, a lot of engine.

A lot of engine in it. You don't want some races in that. Yeah. So that was an option, but I was dead set on being a cup driver. I just thought that was cool in the way it all worked out. And so when I got... got to meet with them and they offered me to drive a 21 car that was um i had to take that i had to take that chance yeah so where did your career go from there you leave becktoll yeah um

one struggle to the next in a lot of ways you know i've always been this eternal optimist i can fix anything you know i remember putting a deal together with ron paulker in the 72 mGM nice man, nice family. But it was just a lot different than where I had been. And I drove that car for a while and I tried. And I drove some for George Depodar. Talking about Mike McLaughlin was a car. Him and Andy Santero were over there.

And I went over there and did that. But I got to a point, you know, when I was doing all this other stuff, my middle daughter, Haley, got diagnosed. with autism. Well, we knew we were struggling with her in the, you know, 2000 during the year, struggling with her developmental side of it. How old is she at that time? Two.

Okay. And it kind of hit me aback. We went to hotel this morning. I text Angie and I said, because I didn't know if we were going to talk about it. I said, when did we actually get the official diagnosis for Haley? And it was February 9th, 2001. What a month that was. Yeah.

And, but the year prior to that, I had, was going with, racing with Ron Parker and was talking to DeBadar, but I decided at that time to take a leave. Yeah. Get away. Because I had to go home and, because in 2001, autism was kind of a naughty word. Nobody knew what it meant. And so I was scared and angry and a lot of other things. But I needed to take care of my family and get to the, you know, fast forward to 20. 24, it's much more of a mainstream topic and conversation.

And when Haley was diagnosed, they said one in every 500 kids is diagnosed. Now it's one at every 40. So that's how more mainstream it is. So I needed to get back and do that. But when I came back from that, I had some one-off opportunities and ended up putting a cup team together, you know, to do some, didn't race all the time, kind of part-time deals and all that. and then already Kentmer gave me a chance to start doing some TV.

So from their own, really, I just kind of, you know, I did a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Right. But, you know, nothing ever came along, and I had accepted that part. And I was going to. How old were you and you when you kind of made this sort of revelation that you were going to? You were good. Upper 30s. Yeah.

Upper 30s. And by that time, I had, you know, during the course of when I was racing, you know, I built some convenience stores and did some commercial real estate and had some investments. And, you know, we joked for a while, you know, fast forward a little bit, you know, our family business. My dad, every year from 2000, I finally started helping him part-time in 2008-9. But back in 2008-9, you know, I was doing the truck races on speed. I was doing the pre-race show. I was doing the post-race show.

And plus I was doing that later when they came along with that direct TV hot pass thing they were doing. Yeah. I mean, I was doing TV, making some money. Yeah. You know, so I would joke with my dad and I say, when you can pay me, say I made $100,000 and work three days a week, I'll come work for you, you know. And but ultimately later, as my dad got older and we finally had the serious talk, is it, are you going to come run this business or not? you know, then I said, I've got much more of a future and I'm needed more there than I am at the racetrack.

But I still asked, you know, I started a cup team and then, you know, when Michael Waltrip started his, the thing with Toyota, that started off like a train wreck. You know, they were missing races and having a problem. So Michael came to me and said, put errands on your car because I had bought a car from Robert Yates. I met Robert Yates up at the Waffle House, exit 36. And got a car. because I was running out of career, running out of opportunities. I said, Robert, if I do nothing else, I just want to run in the Daytona 500 one time.

I can't do it without you. And so he made a deal with me. I went to Talladega and tested Elliott's car and Dale Jarrett's car at Talladega for them. Because that's, Talladega testing can be. Yeah, tough, boring. Boring. Yeah. But I'm going to tell you, I learned so much at that test with,

Robert and Doug and Gary Beveridge who did all the... So I did the test for them and I bought a car, speedway car from them, and they leased a motor from them. Hell, it was, I mean, didn't give it to me, but they helped me a lot. And I qualified, you know, probably the fastest car that wasn't locked in, you know, probably 17th or 18th overall. And I remember one, you had Kirk Shelmanian on here. He was racing in the same of Daytona,

500 and I was top 15 with 10 or so laps ago and broke but from there you know Michael told me to put errands on the car so there were a couple times when Michael was going to the races and not making it that errands was you know we had a car in the show for them yeah and they paid me a little bit of money only if I made the race nothing if I didn't make it so it was and I told elli the other night the stuff I did when I was 35 like when I was ran that Daytona 500 people look at the newspaper back in those days and said damn hermy you made $215,000 in the Daytona 500 i'm saying what spent 500 you know they don't have any idea you know what it all costs but i look back now and some of the times i went to the racetrack

and the risk i put my family in financially and and putting it all out there and i could not do it anymore today and so i once i transitioned into the tv and started doing that, then I started having more fun. I could do a one-off deal, run a truck race with Andy Hillingberg once in a while. I had a 22-year relationship with the Virginia lottery. So I was a personal service contract with the MS. So anytime I wanted to, I'd say, hey, I want to run a truck race at Morgon. They said, we'll give you $50,000, you know, and I'd go do it, have a ball, no pressure, no.

And because it is really starting to get to me in those mid-2000s when you really, you can see the door was closing and you're really trying to make it in my time it passed and I finally came to terms with that and once I did I said you know what I'm not going to be known as a great race car driver but you know I learned a lot I owned a team I did TV I was rookie of the year in the Bush series did a bunch of cool stuff and I've done a lot of cool stuff that only people dream of and and who would have thought with my accent I could do 15 years of television but I did it and I'm really and truly, Dale, I'm at peace with all of it.

I want to talk to you about your, I want to talk to you about wrestling. I want to talk to you about your work. Your boys in the shop were very interested in my wrestling. I don't know if we need to talk about the wrestling. I want to talk about why wrestling, why working with the state, why I'm trying to run for the state senate.

Yeah. I want to talk to you about those things. And I do want to talk to you about being the father of a child with autism and the challenges and successes of that. Back to your career, Elliot, you get in with the Wood Brothers. So I get in with the Wood Brothers, 1999. I'm a rookie. We have Citgo that's on the car.

They had Citgo before I got there. And that was a two-year deal, 1999, 2000. And we didn't probably run as good as I thought we were going to run or I would like to have run or maybe the Woodbrothers thought we should have run or wanted to run. I can't emphasize this enough. Eddie Wood and Lynn Wood are the best. They're good people. They are great people.

And I'll tell you, they did something for me that I have shared this story with so many young kids that I've coached over the years. So I just got the deal, right? So it's like January. Elliot, come on up to the shop. I need you to come. We go to introduce you to everybody and me and all this. So I get to the shop. It's Stewart, Virginia.

And I walk in, and it's not only the guys in the shop. There's wives there, it's kids. It's like all kinds of family members from every employee they had. And Eddie brought me in. I'm 23 years old, right? And he says, I just want you to see who you represent. This is who you represent. Pretty much the whole town of Stewart, Virginia.

You know, it's behind this race team, involving this race team. And how you act on and off the track, how you represent yourself, has a lot to do with these families and how they're fed and how they make their money and their living. And as a 23-year-old kid, dude, that was, that hit me different. And I mean, that really weighed on my mind. But it also made me conscious enough to understand how I needed to represent myself, you know, at the racetrack weekend and week out. So it made me understand how important it was to have, you know, different names on my jerseys at a young age. And then, of course I could kind of grow with them.

But him showing me that and understanding that, but also supporting me through the learning curves and things that we had meant a lot to me as a driver. So we get to the end of like 2000 and UPS gets on Dale Jarrett's 88 car. He had Ford quality care. Then he's got UPS. So now Ford moves over to us, but they go from the quality care to Ford Motorcraft. and I drove the red car. So I had that sponsorship in 2000 and 2001.

So at the end of 2000, Eddie Wood comes to me and goes, no, yeah, in the two, the give me to start 2001. He says, look, we need you to sign a long-term deal. He said, the reason we're doing it, the sponsor will match it. If you sign a four-year deal, they'll sign a four-year deal. And I said, Eddie, I'm sorry. I just, I don't want to sign a four-year deal. And at the time, we were in Virginia and we were having problems, maybe keeping people in the shop where Charlotte was growing and popping.

And when you have a job opening, 300 people show up. When you have a job opening in Stewart, you might get one person that maybe works at a, you know, changing oil down the road somewhere. And it was just starting to show that we were getting further behind. And I was scared to sign it. And Eddie said, look, please sign it. the future of our team depends on it, sponsorship. If something comes up, because I was starting to get calls that maybe I'll get a different guys in the sport.

Yates was. Of course, yeah, you end up at Yates. You end up at Yates. But who else? People like to think about like, Sabatis. Like the alternate, alternate universe where Elliot Sadler ends up at a different race. You know, like they had the 46 car. stuff at the time. Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah. So, it's just opportunities. You don't want to go there. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't you? You asked me, you asked me who I was talking to. What car is it? Click. So I said, Eddie, look, I don't feel comfortable signing the long-term deal. So we made a deal. He said, Elliot, you sign it. I promise you, I give you my word. If something comes up that you, that is like your dream deal, we will let you out. We'll make an adjustment accordingly. So we win the race at Bristol in 2001, which was great. We win the race.

We pull into victory lane. I'm crying. The Wood brothers are crying. They've never won at Bristol. They're like, hey, we've got to come back to the shop tonight. The whole town's going to be there. So we win the race at Bristol on an accident, by the way. I don't know if I ever told you that.

It's an accident. We won that race. We were supposed to pit. But you know what Bristol is quick. You got to make it your mind. Quick. Costi comes out and you're like, well, I need, I'm a little loose, I'm a little tight, you drove right by a pit road. And they're like, all right, look, we don't know whether we want a pit or not or do two tires or four tires.

We'll let you know. Well, as I'm getting to the commitment line, Pat Trison's the crew chief, he and I hit the button at the same time. And I'm going, hey, man, you want me to pit? And he's telling me to pit, pit, pit, pit. Well, I didn't hear anything. So I stayed on the racetrack. And they are screaming at me. You idiot.

You stay. We told you to pit. and I'm like, I'm sorry. And then Brett's my spotters. They're both talking at the same time. And we told you to stay off the radio. I mean, they're yelling at me. So, all right, I'll pit next time by.

No, no, stay out there. Stay out there. You want to stay out there. Yeah. Go ahead. Stay out there. They were mad. Very punishment.

Your punishment. Yeah, my punishment. You stay out of the end. And I'm like, man, this is bad. And what I didn't realize is how much clean air really meant. when my car got out front I was like oh this thing drives good and you know we were pretty good at Bristol

anyway yeah you were we were we know I was one of them the old Bristol was probably one of my best tracks like that I just knew what I wanted it didn't matter what I was driving we were we won some good races there so we win the race and victory lane the whole thing and we ended up back at the shop

that night in the town they had toilet paper at the shop they had toilet paper at Eddie and Lynn's house and Kim's house like it was it was so much fun, it was neat. And I didn't realize how much it meant to them to win that race so close to their shop that they had never won at Bristol. And that was a great, great feeling.

But then we move on to, I'll start talking to Mr. Yates. But the funny part of that story, I used to drive late models for a guy named Perry Light. And when I drove late models, he called me every once in a while and say, hey, man, this is Robert Yates. I want you to come drive my car. And I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's cool, that's great. Hi, hi, it's Perry. And so he could mock him pretty well.

So fast forward, I get a call one day, 2002, but halfway through the season, it was right about May. And beginning of May, I get a call from Robert Yates. I was playing golf. Hey, man, I'm too busy to mess with you today. I thought it was Perry Light. Oh. I thought I was, man, don't mess with me there.

I'm playing golf. I'm not in a good mood. We didn't run. I just call you back later and I hung up. So about two days later, I'm playing golf with D. Dale Jared, he says, oh, I just want to let you know, Robert wanted your cell phone number. He wants to give you a call. And I was like, when did you give it to him? He's like, oh, a week or so ago. He might have called me. And I hung up on him. I thought he was my old

late model stock car owner. So that's kind of how my first conversation went with Robert Yates. I hung up on him. But anyway, we met at the Golden Cross. Corral in Moresville to exit 36. And that's where he liked to eat lunch at. And he offered me a job that they were losing the Texaco-Hivalin deal. They were leaving, but they had M&Ms coming and they were thinking about putting the deal together for me to drive. So I went to Eddie, and I said, man, look, I need to do this. I want to do this.

This is a big deal to drive for Robert Yates with the engines and all of that. He said, no problem. I made a deal with you. I'm going to let you out. I said, man, that's so nice of y'all. So a week later, I get a call. Roush Racing handled all the paperwork for the Woodbrothers, so they didn't have to do it.

All the driver contracts, sponsor contracts, everything was through Rouse. Jeff Smith, who did like the business part of Rouse Racing, handled it all. So I got a call and said, we can't let you out your contract. I'm like, no. Eddie said.

He said, no, we can't. We're scared you're going to take DeWalt from us with you to where you're going. No, I'm not taking DeWalt. I promise you. I'm not taking DeWalt. Well, we're scared you are. We're not going to let you out your deal. So this went on like two or three weeks.

When then Robert's calling me going, look, are you getting out or not? I got to let M&M's know some. I'm going to lose this deal. So the window is closing, and I am in panic mode. So I went met with Jeff and those guys, and I said, I'll sign whatever piece of paper you got that says, I'm not taking DeWalt with me. They're not coming as a primary or an associate or anything. And he said, we just can't let you out. We just, it's going to leave Wood Brothers in a bind with money and this.

And I said, so I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll forfeit my winnings for the rest of the year. This is the week of the Coke Cola 600, because I just remember in May. Early. So I forfeited my winning. That's the only way they would let me up the contract. Damn. I forfeited my winnings for the rest of the year in 2002,

starring for the Coke Cola 600 to give me an opportunity to get in the car with Yates, the 38 car. So you get in the 38 car with Robert? Yeah. You got teamed up. Who was your crew chief right out of the game? Right at the gate, it was Raymond Fox. They had done a bunch of changes, and they had moved Todd to another division, and they had moved some stuff around.

Was Todd not still with Dale, Jared? No, they brought Jason, put Jason Perdett on that. They moved Todd to like a management position. They changed all kinds of stuff, and Doug was involved in like the racing part, not just the owner part, and trying to get it, excuse me, more involved. And the first year was a little tough, and then they figured out they needed to make some. some changes back, and that's kind of when Todd kind of came back, and we all started kind of working together. And, man, things are going great.

I absolutely love that team, love coming to the shop, which is right up the road from you. 2003 was a decent year. 2004 was our breakout year. We make the chase, the first year of the chase, the top 10. We win at Texas, which was the first win for M&Ms ever in the sport. We win at California for the first fall race at California. California that year, which was cool. We had found some new shocks that raised up the back of the car.

As the car ran. Yeah. Everybody was figuring them out. Okay. I don't know if we were late to the party or early, but when they, we were getting ready to leave, pit road for practice, and I went at and I'd rate some laps, and then I couldn't see up my rearview mirror anymore. You know, because it was up. I was like, I got to loosen my mirror so I can see. And so anyway, I remember. I remember. So you had them too. I got them at Dover. So we all went to Dover, and I'm driving my ass off to run forth, and all the injure cars are in front of us.

And when they passed me off of turn two, there's like six inches between the damn tire and the rear quarter panel. Yeah. And I was like, Tony Jr. You see this shit? Yeah. And he's like, we'll have it next week. We'll have it next week.

Next week. He's like, we see it. We'll figure it out. I don't know if you know this or not. I'm pretty sure you knew this because you probably had some deal with it. Did you know Tony Jr. would build my shocks when I was. I was the 21 car. So you were in the Bush series, three car, in 1999.

I was a rookie in the 21 car for the Wood Brothers. And every once in a while on certain tracks, he would help me with a set of shots. He would build them. And one of the races I ran at Tech, because you always hauled butt at Texas. He had a set of shocks with whatever piston in it he liked. And he would help me with a set of shots. You liked them? Loved them.

Yeah. We always ran them. Yeah. I didn't know if you knew that or not. I did. I was always just cool, man. I felt like part of the family back then. So I'm driving for Yates.

We have a great 2004. We have a really good 2005. You know, we got in a wreck in New Hampshire, had a mess in India kind of put us back in the points a little bit. And we get to like 2006. And that's when the Toyota deal happened with Michael Walter Racing. And Dale Jared is going to. he's leaving he's leaving and taking uPS with him and there's moments in my life and in my career

that i'll always remember and good and bad and i'll never forget robert yates calling me in for a meeting and bringing me in and saying look um i don't know what direction my team is going to go in dale juret's leaving he's taking uPS it's a big deal for dale right the whole toyota it was a big deal they first came out. This is the time when everybody was getting to four teams, right? Everybody was just had four. Even Roush, I think, had five teams. And here we're going to go from two teams to one team.

So it's like 2007. And he's like, I might have to sell my team. And he says, I might have to sell it to Jack Roush. He said, I already know how you feel about Jack Roush, because of everything that happened for me to come over to the 38th. So I told Robert, I said, I can't drive for that man. I'm sorry what we went through. Again, it had nothing to do with the Woodbrothers.

They were awesome. Yeah. This was a, I can't drive for him. He said, well, you know, we're going to try to work through it, and we're going to try to find another sponsor. We're going to try to become a two-car, stay a two-car team with the 88 and the 38, but I can't promise you anything. He said, the only thing I'll ask you to do, if you, please don't take M&Ms.

If you leave, please, I'm going to let you go. talk and look, but if you will promise me not to take them. I said, Robert, I'll promise you. I will not take that sponsor because UPS had just left. So that was the year where Ray and Jeremy and they were having different issues and mad at each other and stuff going with the 19 car. Casey Kane was having a pretty good season.

So once Ray had found out I might be looking, he called and asked me would I come drive the 19 car. So I went back to Robert and I told him kind of what I was going to do. I flew to meet with M&Ms and told him what I was going to do and that they wanted to come with me. And I said, you can't. I just can't. Please stay with Robert. They'll find you a driver.

It'll be good. He's a good man. But, you know, we already had the Dodge sponsorship anyway at race. We didn't need anything at that time. and I asked them pleased to stay. And they did. They were not happy with me for a while, Victoria and William and everybody that was involved.

But it worked that great for them because they ended up with, you know, Kyle Bush and winning all kinds of stuff. Yeah. So that was a tough part of my, when I had to sit down and have that meeting with Robert Yates and he was telling me that he was thinking about selling his team and kind of what was happening,

that was like, man, that was a punch in the gut. Yeah. But, you know, it led me to where I went and did the 19 car then with Abraham. How did that go? That did not go well at all. I didn't know what I was getting into with stuff that they had gone on personally. And then when the Gillette man came in and promised us all this stuff.

And I don't know how much people know or didn't know about that time, but, you know, they won't pay in their engine bills. And, you know, our trucks were getting barricaded at the shot. We didn't even, some of the races we didn't know we were going to go race out or not. I remember being Tuesdays and Wednesdays of the week, like going to Michigan and be like, well, we don't know if we're racing this weekend because we hadn't paid our engine bill or, you know, stuff like that going on. That was a very tough time for me. And I know it's tough for the team too.

I hate it for the guys, guys working their butts off in the shop and they won't getting paid. Yeah. And the owners are running around in a $300,000 brand new car. Like everything's cool. And that was tough on everybody. So I'm sure my attitude was not great at that time. But honestly, the 19 car for me, and I love the guys in the shop. I really do.

I had a good relationship with some of them. Some of the guys on the carpet, you know, the business guys we didn't always get along with too well. And, you know, kind of found out years later that Casey won't getting paid either. And Paul Menard was over there. He won't getting paid. And I won't getting paid. And I really felt like during that time, Dale that I was standing on the edge of a cliff and just wanting somebody to please just push me.

Just it was that bad because I was, I didn't have a family then. I was eating and sleeping and drinking. I was alone and I was eat, sleep, drinking, racing. And how did I get in this predicament? And, you know, when I was young, I didn't appreciate how much help the Woodbrothers were giving me. And when I was younger, I didn't really, I didn't understand. I didn't appreciate how much, how fast my cars were at Yates until I got in this situation. And I'm like, God, man, this is, this is not, you know.

It's not good for me. It's not good for me. It's not good for anybody. It was a really tough time for me to end my cup career, you know, like it did, the way that we drove and hard wrecks and stuff like that. It was tough. Speaking of hard wrecks, there were two races that I wanted to talk to you about. there's a the wreck at Pocono

in the 19 car where it ripped a motor out yeah there's this small cult group following or whatever that believe there's a there's a there's video evidence of some something nefarious I don't know really what they think happened or what they think where NASCAR's hiding from them

that there's just something that happen in that NASCAR doesn't want anybody to know about what in the world is that all right so with the Hokka no wreck, there is nothing that NASCAR is hiding. The reason there's not a good picture of the wreck, where I hit at is too far off the track. Like there's no camera angle for it. And what I'll tell everybody at home, if you've wrecked as much as I have, when you wreck, you know how hard you're going to hit something. So what happens is a wreck on the backstretched. I slow down. My actual teammate

actually runs into me and hits me and pushes me across the grass and I'm just sliding. And I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to sit on a nose off this wall here. It's not going to hurt. And so I'm just kind of bracing up a little bit. And all of a sudden, I mean, when it hits, it hurt. And I'm like, what, God? Like, I was not expecting that. I had no idea the fence made a V with the earth behind it,

keeping it where it wouldn't give any. And that hurt. Like, I mean, I was bruised up all over, black eyes. The weird part about that wreck that I would tell everybody, The day before, so that's the first weekend my son, White had ever been to a race. He was born that February. We were at, my wife and him came to Pocono with me in the bus. The day before was the day I actually sat on the pole and won the race in Kevin Harvick's two truck.

With G.T. Vaca as a sponsor that your sister got for me. Kelly hooked the deal all up. And we put G.T. Vocker on it. Yeah, that was great. Greg Sachs. Is Greg Sachs? Is Greg Sachs's vodka coming? But your sister hooked me up with that.

Anyway, so the day before we win the race. And then the next day with my wife and son there, I get in this bad wreck. When I get into bad wrecks, you know, I'm hurt. And I guess Amanda sees that I'm heard on TV. Well, Katie Kenseth, who's Matt Kenseth's wife, runs to my bus and watches Wyatt. Because her and Amanda are really good friends. while Amanda comes to the infield care center where I was. Nice.

So we go from a high, high, to a low, low. But there's nothing about that wreck that was, you know, guarded or censored anything from NASCAR. But there is a wreck I'm involved in. Well, what injuries did you have in that wreck? I was just bruised up. Yep. Just bruised up really bad, just hurt, you know, hurt ribs.

Nothing broke. Did you get out and see, oh, the engines over here? When I got out and saw the engine and I was just hurting so bad, I just kind of laid on the track and just waited for, somebody to come get me. All right. I was just out of breath. What is the wreck where there is some video evidence that NASCAR's hiding?

Okay. So in 2000. We're going to get in trouble with Big Brother here. No, we're not going to get in trouble. At 2000, I'm not going to get in trouble. I don't do anything anymore. At 2000, I wrecked at Michigan in practice. Yeah.

In Happy Hour. In the Woodbrother's Citgo car down the front street. How did that happen? Somebody had broke a piece. They say a piece of exhaust pipe hit fell off. I'm going down the front straightaway, and all I heard was a boom, but it blew the right rear tire. And when it blew the right rear rear tire,

the right rear quarter panel blew straight out like this. So it made it like a wing of an airplane. So when I went this way, it went straight up. And I was actually higher than the catch fence in Michigan. And that one hurt. You flipped and flipped and flipped and flipped. I flipped and flipped and flipped all the way down. All the way down the front stretch and landed into the, in the grass.

And Kyle Petty was the first one to me. What did he say? I don't remember. I just remember him being there because this is after Adam and all. So, and I just remember Kyle Petty being there. The next morning, I walk into the garage and NASCAR. Wait a minute. Did you remember getting out of the car?

No. No. I'm going to tell you what's really going to happen. I'm going to tell you the whole story right here. All right. So the next morning, it's race morning. That was happening. Are you going to race?

That's what I'm going to tell you. Damn, we can get through it. NASCAR calls me to the trailer, and we go in there, and they have a video of my wreck, and they show it to me, and they say, that'll be the last time you ever see that video. Because you're higher than the catch fence, and we don't really, we don't want to really just show that to everybody. Everybody don't need to see that. How much higher? The whole car length.

Yeah. I mean, I was nose down and I was higher than the whole catch. That's how high I was. So, we're getting ready for the race. Are you hurt? I have a headache. I mean, I got a red headache. And a guy comes in and they say, Ellie, we need to do a concussion test.

I said, okay, we're up in the hall or with the Woodbrothers. And Eddie and Lena up there. And, you know, we don't know if we need to have somebody on standby or what. I'm good. I just got a little headache. I'll be fine. So we do the concussion test. Will you do your hands and arms and all that?

Well, I fall out. You fell over. I fell over. And I'm like, what the, what was that? I'm like, dude, you got a concussion. And I'm like, I'll be all right. Once I get in the car, I'll be fine. I'll be sitting down.

I say, I'll tell you what, let's do the concussion test again. Sitting down? No, I was still standing up. I say, hey, let's do the concussion test again. All right? so I'm thinking I can do it this time because I remember how we did it well he does it a different way he screwed me he does it a different way well I fall out again now what do you want to do you know we got Morgan Shepherd on

standby well you knew back in the day you don't want anybody else to get in your race car right you want to stay in your race car so I drove that race the whole race in 2000 and I ran dead last and I don't hardly remember much of that race at all It was a bad concussion. And I tell you how bad a concussion was the Wednesday after the race, I'm at home eating lunch with my mom in a booth. You know, you're sitting at a booth at a restaurant. Yep, booth.

I leaned back like this to stretch and I fall out. Fell over. That was on Wednesday. Still didn't have your balance. Still didn't have my balance or anything. So that's how bad the concussion stuff was from that. And we didn't know as much about it then, of course, as we do now. I don't remember the year,

But I remember this like it was yesterday. Texas, you blew a right rear or a left rear tire. Left rear tire. Left rear tore my shoulder all the pieces, man. Talk about that. So nobody knows about this. How do they not know about that? Well, I mean, you never hear anybody talk about it.

Yeah. But this had to been the most painful. It hurts so bad. Because, and you drove for the tire strap. Yes. You drove the car to the garage. And what I want people to remember when they pull this up and look at it, you pull into the garage because everybody's like,

okay, you're going to get your car fixed, get back out there, whatever. You come out of there like you're getting stung by a thousand woths. Right. I have blood. I had blood going everywhere. Yeah. What happened? The left rear tire blew, and then it comes apart, and the tread is out,

and it's acting like a whip. So every time there's a revolution, it was hid me in the shoulder. And I'm like, ow, what? And it tore, you know, it tore all the aluminum and everything out inside the car. And I was like, so what I had to do was stop. loosen my belts and move out of the way and drive it the rest of the way in. But it got me about seven or eight times hard before I could get the freaking car to stop. And when I took my uniform, I went up in the truck.

I mean, I'm hurting. And it looked like I got whipped, you know, I still belted. And I had blood, I mean, just pouring off my top of my shoulder and everything. Damn. It hurt. God, that hurt. Yeah. That one of those things.

That one was painful. I know. I was wondering how bad it was because I saw your reaction. getting out of the car and I thought damn he's he's hurting but I didn't know if it was bleeding or if it was just like a big giant welt yeah but that must have been pretty nasty it was that one hurt yeah and I tell you one crash though it involved you it's um we were 2000 at the spring race at Bristol and oh yeah it was your inaugural we talk about this and your dad comes to me so first off we talked about this on the show

maybe a month ago, two months ago, and my group cut a clip of it and titled it. So later in the race, I adore Daddy all the way down straight away because I was like, sure a damn fault I'm out here having to ride around in the way 60 laps down.

And so he comes by and I just like, and I knew I'm going to get my ass beat for this. Right. And my team cuts it and says Dale Jr. adored his daddy because he laughed him. I'm like, no, no, no. No, that is not what.

No, no, no, no. So tell the story. So your dad comes to me at the driver's meeting. It was probably the fastest cup car I'd had at the Woodbrothers in practices and all. And your dad comes in a minute. I started seventh. You start at eighth, and your dad started at ninth. Bobby Labani started in front of me in the interstate battery's 18 car at fifth. But we were fast along. Your dad comes to me at the driver's meeting and said, boy, if you use your head today,

you got a chance to win this race. I'm thinking, wow, yeah, all right. Dude, that sounds good. I feel good about myself. So we take the green. We go in the turn one. I mean, we didn't go 100 foot and, you know, kind of stack up on the inside. So I lift not to hit Bobby.

I don't want to wreck Bobby that one. And your dad hits me in the back, wrecks me, and I take him out. He's been in front of me. I got nowhere. I'm like, okay, we're fucking. I mean, been all our shit up. And he's out. I'm out out.

I go into the garage and boys, they, you know, Tony. You don't get the 490 laps of being crashed. Tony him fix my shit. I'm out there, toe all fucked up. Fender's gone and shit. And I'm running around for 400 laps at Bristol in the way. So after the race, can I find each other? And I'm like, hey, your dad, man, this is, and you're going, yeah, here, me,

and all of a sudden, both of us get a neck pinch right on. I don't remember this. Yeah, both of us. We were like leaving the track going back to where the buses were. And we both get a neck pinch about. talking about, we shouldn't be talking about him. Like we would talk. Daddy.

Usual day. Oh, damn. Yeah, that was not, not good. But, man, we were both so mad at him. I swear. I felt so good about my car. I do it. I know it to take you out of it.

I'm so good. Thank you. I was damn glad he didn't cut no, cut his tire or none. Oh, God, if he would have went in the corner and wrecked, where did he finish? I don't know. Like probably fifth or eight. Some, yeah.

Wait, I don't know. I just, I always remember that day. And I hate that you got caught up in it. I didn't have that. But anyway, that was one of my, that's one of my cup stories. It's my, you know, we're talking about the 19 car and my cup career kind of coming to an end. And then I had to turn the page and, yeah. When you go back into Xfinity Series.

Yes, in 2011. And that sort of a rebirth. We did. Had a lot of fun. You and I have talked about this. And Kevin and Delana Harvard really kind of, I don't know if changed my life, but gave me a great second hour. opportunity and it all started with uh he and i was sitting in the at a driver's introductions on the stage one day before and i was like because he was having back issues at the time his back was hurting

and he was trying to do both races and said dude if you ever need somebody to drive your bush car or your truck so let me know i'd love to you don't pay me anything i just i'll just drive it i was i wanted to drive anything you know that was competitive and that kind of he put me in his truck at polka no and we and then he put me in his Bush car at Bristol for the night race. I qualified on the pole. That was the 33 ream car. And I finished third behind Kyle Bush and Brad Kozlowski. And that kind of rebirth my career going back to drive for Harvick in 2011.

You had, it's pretty interesting because you had this whole cup of life, right? You had this whole process of realizing your dream and getting a cup and winning. Yeah. Rending being successful. And then, happens next as far as how all that stuff went down with the 19 and the way your cup career ended a lot of people don't come back from that but you ended up driving for uh joe gibbs rousch rc rc rc here at junior motor sports yeah and being competitive almost another decade i know a whole

decade of it isn't it great it was so i you know but kevin and delana gave me that opportunity so we're at 2011 we're trying to win the championship we got close uh we finished second to ricky stenhouse junior and then it comes comes to 2012 and Kevin Harvitt comes to me and goes, I'm selling all my stuff to Childress. You're going to go drive for Childers. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm happy where I'm at and I love being a KHA and it's, no, you'll be better at Children's and they made some kind of deal to sell all their stuff. So here I'm at Childress at 2012. And I still had a dream of being a cup driver. This is 2012. And that winter, I don't know how many people know this story,

it might be the first time people hear it, Mark Martin calls me. and he was driving the 55 Aaron's car, and he needed me or wanted me to drive six or seven races in the 55 car that he wasn't going to drive. And they run good. Dude, Rodney Childers was a crew chief. It was fast, and I called Richard Childress. I said, Richard, listen, Mark Barnes just called me,

and I talked to Ty Norris, who was running, MWR at the time. They have asked me to drive, fixers five or six races. Do you mind? You know, I know Richard did not like the Toyoters and stuff. He was a Chevrolet guy. But he said, Elliot, you know what? Yes, you can do it. I said, man, Mr. Childress, thank you so much.

I appreciate it. So I go back to Mark Martin and Ty and go, look, they're going to let me do it. Great. We get the contract stuff straight. I sign it. We decide the second race of the year to make the announcement that Saturday. So Saturday at Phoenix is the second race of the year. And Mark Martin goes out Saturday morning, qualifies on the pole, Saturday morning on the errands 55 car.

I win the race in the two car racing for Childress. I think that is the best day of my life. And we made the announcement that morning. Really? So I'm in Victory Lane at Phoenix. And Richard Chiris comes up to me and says, you need to come to my bus. And I'm like, okay. I went from being happy to...

Why? What's going on? Yeah, right. Some has happened. So we finished all the pictures in the hat dance and the media stuff, and I go to Cheersers' bus, and I walk in and Brett's with me. And he says, I can't let you drive that 55 car. And I said, because we had made the announcement that morning.

I said, oh, come on, please. He said, I can't. He said, I just, we get too much money from Chevrolet. You're running too good. You know, you finish third at Daytona. You win the race here. And, you know, Chevrolet is giving me a hard. time for let me do it and i was like richard you you please you have got to he said i just can't he

said so you know you have a decision to make you either drive my car or you go drive that car six or seven races whatever the deal was yeah so that's what i had to decide what were they paying you to run that toyota hardly anything right so you're making your money and you're living from yeah making my money yeah i'm gonna do with rc rcr you had to choose that and plus in more but six or seven I didn't know how I was going to play out but that was my I felt like that once that door that was the door shut that was it on cup and then Vickers gets in that car he wins it like New Hampshire and he gets a deal and he runs you could have did that and I'm just thinking man but it was I understood I do I understand but they told me I could I'm really bothered by that

I'm bothered about it I'm bothered it's two or three things that happened in my life that I'm really still bothered about in racing. We haven't got to that part yet. I don't think we got to that. But so of course I did the deal with children and the hard part about one main financial having them as a sponsor and your sister lived this when I was here at junior motorsports. They can only do one year deals. So every year is a one year deal and it was tough and that's why we lost the deal. It's scary. We lost the deal with children just because of that and then we didn't get along with them very well at Gibbs, and we did the deal at Roush one year because y'all will fool that particular year. And then we, you know, we finally all ended up, you know,

together here, which, you know, and I'm not telling you this because it's just you or your sister, but it did a lot to my positivity in life to end up on a good note and high note to drive here at Jam Motors. Well, I'm glad we were able to be competitive for you. Dude, you will greatly competitive. I know, but it wanes, it ebbs and flows. You'll, you know, we win 14 races one year and then struggle to win three to next and you know how it is. But that's interesting. I'd forgotten about that.

A lot of people might find that interesting that we, you did go to Rouse for a year. We wanted you here. Right. And we had four full, you had two or three full time deals. Yeah, it was full. But it, um, and we, I remember going, right, he's going to go there for a year and we're going to have this sort of hope and gentleman's agreement that when that years up you're coming here yeah and which was great and I remember meeting with you and your sister and our friendship that we had from our early 20s and the fun that we had

and the times that we had like I took it personal that I wanted to perform when I came here because you know you guys were taking a you know taking a chance on me and I want to come over and I didn't want to you know mess up this opportunity and and coming to drive here though in the people you had and the vibe that's in the shop with the beer toast and Mike Davis is funny crap he had going on all the time. I actually had to bring a change of clothes with me every time I came to the shop. I just didn't know what y'all had going on. Y'all always had something happening. Really did a lot for me in my career, my family, my life, my kids, like coming here being in this environment changed the way I look at a lot of things.

It really did. The, I remember being, I remember talking to you about Kevin Meander. Yeah. And I remember being in my bus. A Dover. Yeah, pacing around. And he's like, he doesn't know Kevin. And I'm like, trust me, you're going to like this guy.

And he's like, I don't know, man. What I just, he had all these familiar names, right? That he knew. And he's like, what about this and what about that? I'm like, this is going to be the guy. This is the guy. And he's like, and he wanted his wooby. He did.

And I remember when. we had a discussion at Dover and your bus, and you were like, and you were telling me all these good things and what he had done for your career and your racing. And you hit a home run on all of them. When I met Kevin, and he was shy a little bit at first, and once we hit it off, but he was great for me. I mean, he made me look good because your cars.

Jesus, our cars were fast. You know, our cars are fast. We had great guys on the team. And that's what it led me to, you know, I come here to junior. Motor Sports to, you know, we want to win races, win a championship. In the first year, with Kevin as my crew chief, we make it to the final four at Homestead, but Kevin can't be at the track because we had a penalty with lug nuts at Phoenix. I didn't realize how tough it was going to be without him on the radio and there, but we still finished second to Suarez.

And that year, I was like, man, that's, like maybe a missed opportunity, but we won races and we compete it. And then we come back to the following year and we make it to the final four again. And honestly, this is kind of where my life changed. We make it to the final four and we make it to Homestead. And I think it's me, William Byron, and Justin, all three of us are running for the champion. And Hemrick. Hemrick broke. And I'm sitting on pit road going, it's ten laps or something in the race. And I'm like, I'm going to be a champion. at the end of the day. But who's it going to be?

So that race still is tough for me to talk about. Because what I don't think people realize, you know, my dad raced or had race cars for years. I have been chasing a NASCAR championship for 20 years, you know. And me and William Byron were battling. We were up front all night. Both of our cars were fast. and I had passed William with about 10 or 12 laps to go to now I'm the guy in position to win the championship

and we're running priests down and we are screaming on the radio, spotters are screaming to get him out the way because back then in Homestead, I guess you had to run up against the wall and my car was too loose, kind of too loose to kind of be on the bottom but as we were catching him,

I was starting to get arrow tight and I had gotten away from William a little bit, and the lap counts are going down, going down, and we're just screaming, please help, please help. This is championship, championship, and William's catching me. So here we go with like five to go, and I go into turn one and try to go under Priest

thinking he's going to let me clear him, and he doesn't. He gets right on my right rear, slows us both down, William passes us, and I lose the championship. and that to this day is still it's bad. I remember seeing you on pit road after that race. I wanted to break his jaw in three places. I mean, I really did because my guys deserve to win that championship.

You know, Kevin deserved to be on stage. Mary McDowell, who was the CEO of One Main Financial, had been a fan of the sport. I mean, her and her husband Kim come to all those races for all those years. You know, she deserved to be. on stage. Like there was so much going through my mind that when I got the championship just kind of felt like taken from me because of somebody not understanding the circumstances around

them was, I'm thinking, I've done this for 20 years for this one opportunity. This happens. And I don't know if I ever recovered from that. Yeah. You know, I'm like, I have chased my dreams for 20 years. I will never be in this situation again with five laps to go with a chance to win a NASCAR championship with, you know, one of my good friends as the owner and sponsor, you know, all these things are going through my mind that I just, I think I lost a lot of the fire after that night. Yeah. And people

that I try to explain that to them, they don't, they don't know because they don't, they didn't do what we did for 20, I'm talking about for 20 years. It wasn't just one race, one lap. It's 20 years trying to get to that moment. To get to this moment. And you don't know what I went through with the Cup series, with the 19, and kind of battle back through. And then two of my good friends from my early 20s are giving me an opportunity to do it again and be competitive.

But after that race, it was, I had a whole different, my different mindset was, I have chased my dreams long enough. That's what I have chased my dreams long enough. I'm going to go home and help, you know, help my kids chase theirs. And that's kind of what was my mindset after that. How old were your kids, I guess, when you decided to go home? So I can tell you the exact day that this happened. I was sending the bus at mid-Ohio.

Me and one of my best friends, the sheriff, who spotted for me on the road course races when, you know, non-companion road course races. And I'm sitting on the bus, and both of my kids are playing in all-star games for the state. Like Wyatt's playing All-Star baseball. My daughter, Austin, is playing All-Star softball, and I can't

be there to watch either one of them. And we're trying to get it on the phone app and listen to it and all this stuff. And I just, I looked at him and I said, dude, I'm done. I mean, this, it was, it hit me like that. Where were you?

I was in my bus. What race? Mid Ohio. At the road bus. In the last year? Yeah. And I called your sister the next week. It just hit me like a ton of bricks because my head was at the track, but my heart was at home. And that's not fair to you. It's not fair to Kelly. It's not fair to, it's not, it wasn't fair to anybody. But it just hit me to, you know, it had something to do with the year before with the priests and all.

I just, my heart was not where it should have been. So when I came to see your sister and talked to her about it, of course, she was great about it and she understood and we were very open about it with with each other and told I wouldn't leave her in a bind if she because I didn't last thing I want to do was after you know people get you know have to lose their job because I'm leaving and sure stuff like that but it just it hit me just like that you went home and became you know you dove into being a father yeah got into coaching your kids yep so yep I had been coaching ball about 20 years different

sport. And Hermie had been coaching a long time as well too, but I really enjoy it. My dad had always coached. I enjoy that part of it, helping kids, teaching them fundamentals, hopefully helping them chase their dreams, maybe going to play college, baseball, college softball, you know, those kind of things.

And it helped itch that competitive drive. And I think the best thing I did was after I retired the next year in February for the Daytona 500, I scheduled a travel ball tournament on that weekend. Yeah.

So I would not be just sitting at home. Yeah, you could stay busy. Oh, God. I wouldn't be sending home just watching on TV. I was there and I loved the strategy part and the pitching and the, you know, all the stuff that goes with it. That reminds me a lot of racing. Yeah. And it's really helped with the competition side.

It helped. Have you been able to keep the, you know, the voices in your head in terms of, of like, you know, the ones that make you think about racing. Have you been able to control all that? I have. And I tell you why. Our racing has helped. Yep.

I'm alive. Oh, yeah. I'm going to live eye racing. I love eye racing. I love running the telemetry and working on setups with the truck and the B car. I'm not good on A car anymore because it's different. But that helps me some. I got some guys that run in the Coke series in the past.

and that helps. And also, you know, I'm working in the premier go-kart shop now with Hermie and then putting go-karts together. And I like doing things that has a competition consequence. Like we're trying to – we're not just throwing stuff together. I'm not just cutting grass. Like, we're trying to put stuff together to be better and faster. And I just – that really feeds my craving for that.

What about the kids as they get older? And the – I mean, you know, the coaching and the sports. And your son's wanting to race now. Yeah. That's fun. I love the kids. Sometimes the parents are tough. And I think that's in all across all societies now and all different sports.

But I absolutely love the kids, the ones that want to do and I want to help them. I've had a ball with Wyatt getting into the go-karting stuff. He's extremely fast on irasing, like crazy fast. I think he's fast in the go-kart. He just got to work on some self-confident stuff and the fear apart. and those kind of thing. And hopefully that will come. I'm not going to push him.

Sure. Whatever he wants, we're going to do. But that's been great that we've been kind of growing together on the go-cart side. And then my daughter is just wide open cheering. She's volleyballing. She's softballing. She just has to be active. And she, man, she's a fireball.

She's a lot of fun to have around. Hermie, what did you get involved in wrestling for? friendships. You know, when you race in NASCAR through the course of time, you run into a lot of network, network, interesting people. I met and became in the early 90s, ran into Jeff Jarrett. And still to this day, just one of my best friends.

And I'm talking about, you know, you have acquaintances and people you know, didn't you have friends? I mean, we vacationed together. They came to my daughter's wedding, you know, that kind of thing. And so I met Jeff in the early 90s and started to go on trips. We became friends, all that. And then in the mid-2000s, Jeff was working for WWE and decided to branch off from that and start impact wrestling, T&A wrestling. It was called back in those times, him and his dad.

They called me. What did they want you to do? Bring mainstream, try to bring mainstream eyeballs and meat. to their just, you know, very, very young company. They were still competing with WWE, of course, all that. And so I came in, and first thing I did, you know, I got Sterling Marlin to go with me. He went to the pay-per-view with me.

We were trying to get NASCAR media to cover a wrestling event. What was happening, yeah. What was happening? You end up in the ring. I mean, you, it's like you. I took that friendship to the max. There wasn't anything you wouldn't. do. I did it. Well, I always wanted to wrestle.

Really? Back in those days. Why? I grew up a fan. You know, my dad carried me and Elliot when we were, you know, kids, we'd go to Richmond Coliseum or we'd go to Dort Arena, you know, and back in those days, I know, I mean, we're both friends with Rick Flair. I'm kind of living out a bit of a childhood fantasy. Ricky Steen Boat. Ricky Steen Boat's a great friend of mine. I was not getting in the ring. He tried to get me in the ring a few times. I did a run-in one time and hit somebody with a chair, but I saw. I, I, remember that. As far as I went.

But we did a storyline about three or four. Yeah. And I actually wrestled Ron Killings, our truth, they call him. He lives in Charlotte. And he carried me, I mean, great athlete. Sure. But I did a live pay-per-view wrestling match,

about a 20-minute match. Yeah. And then I ended up on the board of directors at Impact Wrestling. I was unable to, because of my connection with TV, I introduced Jeff Jarrett to Jacob Oldman with Fox, and they ended up getting weekly TV slots on FX back in the early days. And so, you know, just free and called on me and said, hey, I'm putting my personal money into this starting this corporation.

He is how you can help me, and that's what I did. When did you stop messing with that? Well, I'm still a fan. I'm not involved at all financially. I'm still not involved. How do you just stop? Well, I still go and visit my friends. For instance, about two months ago, Jeff called me.

They had Sting, had his last match. because Jeff is now working for AEW, which is Tony Kahn's promotion. DeKahn family owns the Jacksonville, Jaguars, and other entities, and they own AEW wrestling. So Sting was there, Jeff Jarrett's there. They got a great little promotion. They're on TBS on TV. So Jeff called me. It says, hey, this Sunday night we're doing Sting's last match in Greensboro.

Come on down. So I went down and spent the whole day with them. And as I said, I saw Steamboat, and I saw Arne Anderson. You know, back when I was in the car business, I sold cars to just about all these people. Really? I mean, I sold Stonecold Steve Austin, bought probably seven or eight cars from me over the years, and The Rock. You know, the Rock. We're actually in commercials with the Rock.

The Rock actually did my TV commercials for me. Yeah. I gave him a Cadillac. At that time, he was living down in South Florida. I gave him a Cadillac in exchange for him doing commercials with us. And I got Elliot and some of the commercials. And we, this was all back in the early 2000s. but I have lived some kind of life,

and I knew quite a few interesting people. Why did you want to run for any? Senate. Yeah, so you ran for, did you hold any position in local government before then? No. So how do you decide one day you're going to run for Senate? I'll tell you. People look at our family today,

probably in some ways like to look at yours. You know, you've got all this stuff. It won't always that way. You know, your dad, maybe your granddad, you started with humble roots and you build. And same way with my dad. People look at our family and our business and say, oh, look at the Saddlers. They've got truck stops. They've got convenience store.

They've got plenty of money, you know, yada, yada, yada. But my dad, his dad, which is our granddad, got killed in 1973. My dad was 30 years old. At that time, Sadler Bulla's Oil Company, which was my grandfather and his brother, some people think it's Elliot and I, but it was my granddad and his brother. Back in 1973, it was one gas station and a delivery truck. They delivered home heat and oil and one tractor trailer to haul fuel. So my grandfather gets killed before they even bury him.

One of the competitors, the people that competed with my dad and my grandfather came to see my dad and he said, we want to buy a Sadler butto's oil company. And my dad was like, look, we have to be. hadn't even buried my father yet. And to be honest, I don't know what he owns and I don't know what he owes. So I can't do anything. And the guy looks at my dad and says, well, if you're not going to sell it to us, I guess we'll just have to take it. So that motivated my dad at that time at 30 years old, just losing his dad, I better get on my

ass and run this business and go out and compete and fight and claw. And so from 1973 until I actually, you know, I helped my dad for years. But 2016 is when I really dove in and kind of took responsibility. So my dad says, okay, I've gone as far as I can go. You know, you and your sister, y'all. So I'm responsible for all these people, almost 300 employees, stores, and it's competitive. What really, and I believe in the free market,

I'm not going to have a political conversation, but I'm a free market guy. I believe people that, if they want to borrow money and invest and build things and put people to work, they should be able to do that. And I think people that have money, you should be able to go spend your money way you want to, pick and choose, capitalism.

I agree with all that. But what happened about five years ago, you know, we used to have at our convenience stores and truck stops all these little, skill games. Little, they look like slot machines, but they're,

they're a skill game. But truck drivers are spending 24, 48 hours. They have to be down, you know, for regulations. They, they could come play a game, make a little money,

you know, and we've done that for 30 years. Well, about five years ago, the Commonwealth of Virginia decided to, you know, we've always had the lottery. We've had lottery for 30 years.

But about five years ago, they decided, we're going to open up the floodgates to gaming in Virginia by allowing these people to come in and build casinos. So they built a casino in Portsmouth. They've been one in Bristol, one in Danville, you know, got one coming to Richmond, Petersburg area. Oh, that's fine. But a part of the process along the way, the casino people, the money people came in and said, we don't want these convenience store and truck stop owners to have these games. We feel like they're going to compete with us.

So they basically lobbied and paid our legislators in Virginia to give the casinos a monopoly. And my two games at my truck stop, 60 miles from Portsmouth, is not going, you know, I've always viewed it as two separate things. Why do they have to have a monopoly? Why can't we've always done this the right way legally? Let the truck drivers that want to play our games, play our games, and let the people want to go to casino.

know, but I wish I could say it a different way, but that's basically what happened. They came in and banned all these games. And take Hermey out of the equation. Sadler is not going to go out of business because we don't have skill games. Sure. But there are a lot of mom and pop operators that run convenience stores in rural areas all across the state. Did that one skill game in that three or four hundred dollars a month of income,

especially during COVID, was keeping them going? while we take it away. So now I'm in charge of Salibullah's oil company. The government comes in and says, we're going to take this part of your business away and give it to these casino people. They didn't come take it. I'm not losing because I had a bad cashier

or my prices were too high or my bathrooms weren't clean or anything. The government overreached into businesses like mine and said, we're going to give this to these casino people. And, you know, I mean, I know some of the people that are building casinos, in a lot of cases, they're nice people. But they're not used to not getting their way, you know, so they just kind of overpowered. So I took issue with the government picking who was going to win and who was going to lose in business. It'd be just like if somebody came down here in North Carolina and said, well, Joe Gibbs Racing is the only team that can build Xfinity Series chassis because the government says so.

you know, what about all these other teams? And so I just, that whole concept of government deciding. So I decided, you know, what can I do about it? Because this fight really wasn't for me. And it's really not about gaming. It's about the free market system. So I have a lot of people, friends of mine that are in government. And one of my best friends is Bill Stanley.

He's a Virginia State Senator from the Western Porter of the State in Martinsville area. And he said, in our area of Emporia, the purse string, in Virginia are in northern Virginia and in the beach. They got all the money, all the power, all the influence. Our little part of South Side Virginia always gets overlooked when it comes to to budget. Our roads need work, our schools need fixing, our bridges are falling down, all these things. But Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads get all the attention because that's where the power and the money is. But we got drawn, our part of South South Virginia got redrown, redistricting. It was going to be a new

Senate district opening up. So, you know, Senator Stanley and some of other friends said, Hermann, you'd be perfect for that because you believe in the same things that we do. We need a loud voice and a fighter that can bring attention to these problems that we've got in South Side Virginia. So I started the process. I started running and I have never been more disappointed in a process in my entire life, including, I found out quickly how dirty it was. Everybody's getting rich and getting helped,

except the people that need the help. The middle to lower class people are not getting any help, no relief, and the people that are in these positions are becoming millionaires, and billionaires and not doing anything for the middle to lower class people. but the most disappointing thing was was that people in the party that I was trying to represent when we got close to the time

it looked like I might actually win they're like Hermie how are you going to vote on this Hermie how are you going to vote on that? I'm like Hermie's going to vote on his principles but number one based on what are the needs of the people of my district and they want somebody in there

that's a yes man or yes woman that goes right along the line that they want and I won't going to do that. And so they ultimately all piled up and, you know, and put me in a bad spot, and I did not win my primary. But I don't regret doing it, but I'm disappointed in what I learned about government in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I'm sure it translates to the national level as well. A lot of people are doing a lot of things for the wrong reasons.

Would you do it again? No. No. So you're out of that. I am. I don't recommend you do it either. I don't plan on it. I'll give you a quick example.

One of the years we were in Vegas, we were having a sponsor party at the Belagio. We had people there, sponsors there. So when the night's over, I get hung with the tab for a short period of time. I got reimbursed. Sure. But I had like a $27,000 bar tab. So I call my wife, you know, it's 2 o'clock in the morning in Vegas time, 5 o'clock at home, you know, to get my credit card cleared because of the security. So I paid for this party, ultimately got reimbursed by all the people there.

Well, the girl that I was running against in the primary, first thing they do is they put out something like a negative mailer on me. And it says, you can't elect Hermie Sadler to be a senator in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia, he spent $27,000 at a strip club in Las Vegas. The 27,000 was at the Bellagio at a sponsor event that we had bottle service. And so that's to the depths. And this was supposed to be a person that is in the same party I was in. You know, and so that was the first one. And so it went downhill from that.

Good grief. Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't want none of that. So you're wearing an autism awareness t-shirt. And you're the father of a child who was diagnosed. I can imagine that was a life-changing moment, and the experience from that moment on has been a challenging and tough one at times. I'd like to hear about it.

I'd like to hear about, you know, how that's been to navigate. I appreciate that. Yeah. But my first daughter, Cora, who is married and now has my first granddaughter. We've got a nine-month-old granddaughter. Cora was born in 1997, January. She went to Daytona, her first race, about a month old. Haley, my second daughter, was born in July of 1998.

And, you know, you never want to compare kids. Sure. But you compare kids. You know, when it comes to milestones and things like that. That's right. Cora hit certain milestones. You know, she crawled at this age. She said, Mommy at this age, daddy at this age. And so, Cora, you know, went to Carolina.

We tried to get y'all to come. You know, she cheers some games, and we never could get that worked out. But she came and did great, very smart, bright. Well, Haley came along, my second daughter, and started to, at about a year and a half to two, started to hit pretty much the same milestones that Coral was hidden. There was a time when Haley could say mommy and daddy. Well, then right around the two-year-old mark,

we started to see some changes in her. And we thought, well, she's just a little slower. You know, we'll, you know. So, but the day that really made us realize that we needed to go, learn more. She had started to be distant a little bit, but on Christmas morning, when she was two,

Santa Claus comes. You know, I know you've had a lot of beautiful Santa Claus memories at your house. So Santa Claus comes. Cora walks in and Santa Cora's, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Haley walks out, looks over there at us

and walks right on by us and goes upstairs to the upstairs room and just sits in the corner and she's rocking. She's walked by us and didn't even acknowledge that we were there or that Santa Claus was there or that any of that was going on. Yeah. And it was heartbreaking and discouraging. And so we realized at that point, you know,

and she also had lost, she had regressed in her vocabulary. She could no longer say mommy or daddy. She would pick up a book. She had a blues clues little book. and she would just sit in her room and just flip these, this little book back and forward. Wouldn't say anything. She became violent with us a little bit,

frustrated, you know, and she would hit, pinch, bite, all that. So we realized pretty quickly there that we needed to go get some help. Artie Kempner, who I mentioned, who's been a director for NASCAR on Fox for as long as I can remember, he's really befriended me when he realized

that I had a daughter that I was struggling with. he's got an autistic son. So even back in those times, he was trying to help me, you know, figure out what to do. So we carried Haley to the University of Virginia. They have an autism research center. And ultimately, and I told you, Angie told me this morning, my wife, February 9, 2001 is when we got her diagnosis. And so then you, you know, go through a multitude of emotions. and but I look at it now and I realize how much of a blessing it has been because you look at it

then and you're like, why by child? You know, why me? Why this? Why her? And we started out. We put her on a school in Richmond. So I took some time off from racing. I was driving the 72.

I resigned. of that. I said, I got to go home. You know, we ended up getting an apartment in Richmond because my wife was driving Haley to the Faison School for Autism in Richmond. We live about 70 miles from Richmond. So it became a daily commute. So I ended up getting an apartment in Richmond and we were taking her and, you know, ultimately we got her out of that and transitioned her into public school and we had an aid that we, but we have, along with trying to help Haley, we've really tried to help the autism community by, you know, now to this day, 20 plus years later, anybody in South Side Virginia that has a child with an autism diagnosis, they call my wife.

They say, because you have to go to school, meet with the school, you have to get an IEP, which is an individualized education program, and the schools in the state are obligated to provide certain services, most of which they are not providing to these kids. Like for Haley, they tried to put her in a room with kids with all different kinds of disabilities. And we're like, no, she has this specialty need. She needs this therapy, this type of reading, this type of this, and this person is Down syndrome. They need something different, you know, and all that.

And through the course of time, she, you know, she's always going to be limited. She's going to live with me or live with us forever. She ain't never going to drive a car. She ain't never going to get married. But she brings so much joy. Hey, it'll tell you, she comes in my room and Angie's room every morning at 615 and just smiling. She's looking at us and we got a little routine. We take her to faux show, my restaurant, and she wraps silverware and wipes off all the tables.

Then she goes to the oil company where my office is and she takes all the trash. And as long as she's in her routine, she's good. You get her off her routine. And so it can be hard to go on vacations. and things of that nature because when she doesn't have her routine, you know, she struggles. But we have a strong family unit,

including Elliot's family. It takes everybody. Because everybody has to give a little something when you've got somebody like Haley in the family because there's only in certain places we can go eat. There's some places we can't. We sometimes, it's, and I want to give, if they listen to this,

give Cora and my youngest daughter Naomi credit because they have both sacrifices. since they were kids for Haley because there's always been things that we couldn't do because of because of Haley, but she has been a blessing and a joy. And in our eyes, she's doing good. I always look back down. I wish I could do better. You know, I always wonder whether it be racing or something with a kid, what could I have

done different? But our whole family has been all in to, you know, to help her. She turned 26 years old yesterday. And she, she's put a lot of things. in perspective for me, I can tell you that. You both are still relatively close to home. How often do you two see each other? Every day.

Really? Yeah. Because, you know, Hermie runs the business part down to the old company and the premier go-kart shop is in the same building. And that's where me and my son like to go every day. We go down, tinker with the go-karts and putting them together and meeting customers. and we go to lunch together about every day. So we see each other better every day, which has been great.

We're very fortunate from a family standpoint that we all have kind of stayed at home or around home. And we all kind of live close to each other. And we were talking on the way down here last night. His daughter is kind of want to all move out there where we're at. We all kind of want to be around each other in the same area. And we do a lot of dinners together, which is I think we're very fortunate for that. I feel so lucky. I've got so many friends my age that have grown kids and now grandkids,

that their kids and grandkids live five states away. And they only see them at Christmas. And I never have told my kids where to go, what to do, where to live. But our kids, both of Cora and Naomi, are both, you know, like for both of them, my wife, their mama is their best friend. they love doing stuff with us. They would rather get in the call and go to Elliot's house and let him cook on the grill than go out with their food.

They just really want to be at home. 30 years ago, I could care less. But now the fact that I see Cora every day because she works in the office for me, she was teaching school for a while, and she's the cheerleading coach at the school. And when she was in between jobs, I said, please come to work for me. me. So she does my payroll and handle some of my, and I see her every day, and she brings the baby to the office. And Naomi, I'm sure she's got one more year left of, she's played softball at Randolph-Macon, but she's already, she's been working in the office in the summertime, learning how we do our retail posting.

And I feel confident that she will end up staying in the area. And every time now that we have a family dinner, our mom makes us get around the table and hold hands. We used to think it was the cheesiest thing, but my mom always says, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that all my kids are still here. You know, because we probably had opportunities to go everywhere and do other things and do all that, but we're all kind of back in the area and see each other on a regular basis.

And the go-karting thing has been fun because I started doing that Robin Bradshaw 12 years ago just playing because he built our carts when I was racing. Never thought it would turn into a business and now we've got a full-fledged chassis shop, you know, and customers, and we've got kids coming in from

Florida, Canada, you name it. They're always at the shop, you know, getting their cart and it's been cool to see Elliot and Wyatt back there because, of course, people love to see him and he, Elliot's going to put my cart together, you know. It's been, it's been cool. It's been, it's been, it's been

fun. Man, it's awesome. Well, I, we broke the two-hour mark, had a lot of fun. Is that a record? No, no, no, no, it's close. It's up in the top five for this year. Long as we get a top five, though. This might be second or third. I got to say, man, I appreciate y'all's friendship. Ever since I met y'all, and, I mean, the very first time I ever met you, from that moment on, y'all have always been really great guys. If you cross-pass with you, You never didn't say hello, how you been, what's going on with you, when we're going to get together, when we're going to do something. And I love that your time here at Junior Motors Sports meant so much to you. Oh, it's the best, man.

I love that. I'm thankful that you have those feelings about it. And I, you know, just couldn't thank both of you enough for being such great friends of mine. and y'all are good people well you're known a lot of ways to a lot of different people for a lot of reasons but you know from the from the from the from the from the jump back from the you know y'all are good people always had me that's my that's my opinion of you as well and I think that's why we care to you know care to maintain and nurture our friendships and so just appreciate y'all coming together and sharing a little bit I learned a lot of new things and I will have to have you back on again

All right. I loved it, man. Thank you so much for having us. Me and Elliot, we raised a lot of hell together. And now we're two dads just doing this dad. I think Elliot would be okay with me saying this. We were talking about all this stuff when you're riding a car for four hours. And it said it's almost like I've lived two different lives.

Two separate lives. You know, and I've never seen him happier. And I commented to Elliot and to your people in the showroom at here before we started. When I ran into you at the truck stop, I said, I said, I've never seen him so happy. Yeah. Let's look how you were at ease, at peace, because I've interviewed you some over the years when I was doing Speed Channel

when you were like, you never said it, but you were like, Hermey Goo interview somebody else that's running better than I am this weekend. Yeah. But you never, you're always gracious and did it. But I, when I saw you at a truck stop, dude, I could just tell, you know, you were living and loving. You were talking about raising hell in the past. I will tell this short story for your viewers.

I, Wyatt and I were riding in the car the other day and limp biscuit came on. And I'm like, hey, man, me and Junior used to listen to this all the time and his black and pile of me. He had the speakers in there and it was so loud of me. Just car just, just, just jams and get you pumped up. He looked at me and said, did it, that song sucks. Yeah, we're not cool anymore. I was like, yeah, we thought we were something. No cool points at all.

Not at all. We had a good time. We had a lot of fun together. so many, so many great times. And just thank y'all for coming all this way. If you want to find these guys, you know where they're at up in Emporia. Just don't speed through there. They'll give you a speeding ticket.

I took your advice, man. We kept it underneath. Yeah, I don't want to get them. If you get stopped, don't tell them you knowing me because then they'll write you a ticket for no seatbelt too. Well, we appreciate you coming all this way. It's been a great show, man. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Elliot and Hermie Sadler on Dale Jr. Download. All right. So that's a great conversation with Elliot and Hermie, and it was just good to kind of catch up with them. And I guess what I liked about it was is learning a little bit about their careers because with the six-year age difference,

you know, they kind of worked up the ladder, handing down parts and pieces and full cars and stuff to Elliot, and they were in great shape and allowing him to compete him and succeed. and then they get to the extended level, eventually becoming teammates, which is something I think a lot of us forget about. And then Hermey having to process his cup career not materializing and how he had to handle that.

And then, you know, with his personal life and things happening in his personal life that needed his attention and how he, was able to put more focus there and sacrifice his racing career to an extent. And then to get into wrestling and promotion of wrestling and then running for office. And I always kind of would see him on social media promoting or talking about these things. And I'm thinking in my mind like, what is he doing? Why is he doing that? What does he want to do that for?

And so it was good to get some answers. and then I call him to, you know, just chat and catch up the other day because I was driving through his area and through his neighborhood and he's like, I'm at the gas station. You need some gas. Come on over here. This is where you can find me. We went over there and it's a pilot station that we have support from here at Juniper's

where I'm like, man, this is like the universe lining up all this stuff in the right way. And so it was good to, and every time I see Hermie, he's always in a great mood. and always happy to see you. And it was good to talk to Elliot and catch up with him. So me and Elliot partied together a ton. Spent a lot of time hanging out and away from the track. And he had a house on the lake. And, you know, we'd goof off on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between races.

And had a really, I had a lot of, you know, time invested in this. that friendship. And then he comes to race for us and we're able to, you know, have a good experience with that, luckily. And, you know, if the cars weren't good, it could have been a bad experience for him. And I would have felt terrible. But we had a good experience. And he, you know, kind of was able to, I think he was able to, you know, process how his career would end. and I knew that that race at Homestead where he lost the championship to William Byron bothered him. I remember seeing him on Pet Road and thinking it's going to take all offseason for him to recover mentally and emotionally from this to be able to come back and try to fight again. And it honestly took everything out of him and he, you know, midseason of the next year decided that he had enough.

and it was really hard to hear how much that bothers him even today. I have some things in my own career that bother me, but nothing to that extent, I guess. And so I've heard that a couple times at the table from different people where they have these moments in their careers that just too hard to get over. And still they carry that bag with them everywhere they go. and that's just tough to hear. But two great guys, great friends, and good competitors, and it's just fun to catch up with them.

So hope you all enjoyed it. It was a long conversation. I wanted to make sure we gave plenty of time and equal time to each brother and make sure there were definitely things that I didn't want to miss, and I'm sure there was some stuff that did fall through the cracks, but good conversation for me and I hope it translates to the listeners very well. I want to thank Ally for bringing us great allies every single week.

They brought us a couple again with the Sadler brothers, Hermie and Elliot, and if you're saving up for anything, whether it's a vacation or a new home, a new car, whatever it may be, the trip to the race, track we're all better off of an ally ally they do it right every single week here at the dale junior download and they do so much for the for the you know for the world of nascar and motorsports in general with so many different things so we're thankful for them and let's get to the white flag door bumper clear had a bonus episode that dropped monday they also had some rising stars

on the show with todd gillan jesse love and connor zillich A great listen. Always fun having some of the younger drivers come on to talk to some of those old heads at door bumper clear. Yesterday, our Dirty Air show had a special guest, my wife Amy. She's going to be on Dirty Air pretty much the first of every month. We'll bring her in, catch up on life and see what's going on. She always has a lot of fun things to talk about, and we always have a great laugh, and she certainly embarrassed the hell out of me yesterday. So you want to listen to that?

dropping today's Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden dropping tomorrow DJD reloaded and also on the Dirty Mo Doe YouTube page that's Dirty Mo Doe's YouTube page They're live all week watching the Olympics Making bets having fun It's a live stream you'll want to check it out every day this week And then don't forget about the dirty moe summer games

They're here Elimination Pong dropped yesterday That's the first episode Andrew and Dalton both competing in those games as well as the rest of the Dirty Mo crew. So tune in and check that out. That is on the next level with Andrew Curlin YouTube page. The next level with Andrew Curlin YouTube page

will be housing all of the Dirtymo Summer Games and heard it's pretty hilarious. Apple review for you here from Roger Terry. My dad, Lee Terry, was a Holman and Moody engine builder. Wadale Wilson mentioned my dad this year. year on the show, I was so proud to hear him mentioned. The stories made me laugh and yes, sometimes cry, as so many memories came back to mine. We love that.

Thank you, Roger, for giving us that review, and we love that people enjoy the shows that we produce here at Dirty Mo Media, especially at the Dale Jr. download. You guys have a great week, and we'll see you tomorrow on DJD Reloaded. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.