The Dale Jr. Download - 574 - Travis Carter: Cale's Crew Chief During The Famous Fight

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Join Dale Earnhardt Jr. as he sits down with former NASCAR Crew Chief and team owner Travis Carter to discuss his past working with some of the most legendary race car drivers in history. During his two-decade-long time in the sport, he was a championship-winning crew chief with Benny Parsons in 1973 and was Cale Yarborough’s crew chief during the iconic 1979 Daytona 500. Over the years, Travis also worked with Bobby Allison, Junior Johnson, and Darrell Waltrip.  He also speaks on his time working for Penske, the teams who sought his employment, and the rise and fall of his team, Travis Carter Motorsports.Listen as Travis shares stories, including his friendship with Dale Earnhardt Sr., his start in NASCAR, and his complete exit from the sport.21+ and present in North Carolina. Opt in req. Wager requirements apply. Bonuses awarded as nonwithdrawable bonus bets or profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including bonus expiration. See terms and conditions at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download, and we've got a great guest coming in for you. Crew Chief, car owner, Travis Cardish coming to the show. 74 years old, he's seen a lot in this sport. Can't wait to get started and hear this conversation. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. Hey, everybody, Dale Jr., Dale Jr., back again, the ally guest segment today.

Travis Carter, crew chief, car owner, 74 years old, he's seen a lot in his sport. I can't wait to get started and hear this conversation. Y'all would battle for the title in 1980 all the way to the end. We threw it away. Multiple times. All right, so back in the DJD studio, and Travis Carter is going to come in here, and I've said it yesterday. I'll say it again. I've never had a conversation with Travis.

Travis is a crew chief that's won championships and Daytona 500s and lots of races. He was a car owner for over a decade. He worked with the Skoll Bandit. I mean, it's just, he's had an incredible career, but I've never said more than one word to the guy, maybe hey or wave. I don't know. I mean, I've just never had a conversation with him, but this is going to be exciting for me, see what this guy's all about and what makes him tick.

And so he's been a mystery to me for all these years, and we're going to get it started. I want to thank Ally for ringing us the guest segment every single week. They do a great job here supporting us at the Dale Jr. Download. They're a great partner for me. They're a great partner for NASCAR, and they're looking good on that 48 car on the racetrack every single weekend that Alex Bowman drives. We're thanking ally for everything they do in the sport. And they're bringing us another ally to the table.

Travis Carter. Let's get started. All right. So Travis Carter on the Dale Jr. Download, I have been really excited about being able to talk to you, Travis, because several reasons. And I just want to tell you real short quickly.

He seemed like a guy that don't like his time to be wasted. But I obviously knew you as a. the car owner when I was in the sport as a driver and a little bit before that in the 90s as well. But as I did a lot of work to learn more about the history of the sport, I learned also about your years in the 70s with Benny and all the other things that you'd been a part of. And so you having so much, you know, you having such a long footprint in this in this course, it's exciting for me. Last week we had Buddy Perry it in here and he had a similar sort of career, just a lot of ups and downs with a lot of different experiences, different

teams and so forth, but over many decades. And his role, how he got involved was so small and minuscule to become, to be able to do and accomplish what he did. He grew and excelled. And so I cannot ever remember having a conversation with you. I can't ever remember. remember us saying more than hello. I don't think we ever did. Most of remember about you. I think it was the time that your dad was driving for a bud, and I don't remember those years, but you must have been just an early teenager or something with blonde hair. Yeah, that's about 10 years old. And I remember you to hang around there and sitting on the bag of that truck all the time. Yeah. That's my first recollection of having seen you around. Yeah. And so, you know, I haven't

ever had a chance to talk to you. I admire you and people like you. the older I get, the more I appreciate the history of the sport and the more that I want to know about the history of the sport. It might be, you know, if I could push a button and travel back in time, I would want to go back to the early and mid and late 70s to see what it was like to walk around in the garage and know what the, I know the sport was simpler, different. It was a lot quieter in the garage back then. anybody that was in the garage was supposed to be in there. And man, I'd love to have experienced what it was like.

But first off, let's dive into where you're from. Where were you born? I'm from Albury, I'm from Elbury, North Carolina, which is near Rock and Ham. And I grew up on a farm, tobacco farm, and it's about probably less than 10 miles from that North Carolina Motor Speedway. Yes, sir. So did you, I guess in 49, the track wasn't there. The track, I think they ran their first race around 60. or something like that.

65. 65. Curliss turning one. Okay. 500 miles. When it was initially built, it had about half the banking it has now. Yes, sir. So you can imagine how long it took to run that race.

And when they finally were, the track was complete, prepared to run. I was probably junior, at high school at some point. Yeah. But I remember some of two or three of my buddies, we sneaked out of school, went to watch the first test session they ran there. Really? And, of course, eventually the principal, call me in a day or two later,

and we want to know where I'd be. Yeah. He knew, he found out what we'd done. So, we smoothed it over. So, um, you, you didn't get involved in racing until, uh, you, you were beyond your high school year. So what was it like being in high school, being young, hearing about them building this racetrack?

Did you know even what they were talking about doing until you saw it? Well, we, we kind of knew it. I remember somebody on a. Sunday afternoon or rainy Sunday afternoon, I was probably 13, 12, 13, 14, driving to Darlington to see that track. That was about 60 miles away from us. The first time I'd seen a actual seen a big event. I mean, we watched a little 3-8-mile dirt track locally in Rockingham races, but I was always intrigued and we would always listen to races on radio. You know, we didn't have TV broadcast, so I enjoyed listening.

So we were excited about that track opening near our home, and of course, we were able to go watch the first race. and, you know, 500 miles at that speed, you know how long that took to run 500. Yeah. It was a long day. So how did you get involved in racing? What was the first thing you ever did that connected you to it? Actually, it's interesting. I was not, I mean, I grew up on a farm.

Of course, you worked on equipment, etc., but I wasn't a mechanic or inclined person. But I was associated with, and knew a guy who was a crew chief of Mr. DeWitt named John Hill. And John Sears was driving at the time. And John said, why don't you, I'd go on to school. Actually, I'd go on a school over at Southern Pines at San Hills Community College for about a year. And I kind of didn't, I just wasn't into that. So John said, why don't you come up here and look around or help me or something? At the Ray Shop?

At the start, yeah, go out and Mr. DeWitt's shop. Where was his shop at? It was in Norman, North Carolina, which is just north of Albury. Yeah. Just a little community called DeWitt Junction. Mr. DeWitt owned farms, you know, trucking industry, tire business. He had a lot of stuff going on, in addition to owning that Speedway. So he owned Rocky Hill from the outset.

He did for the most part, yes. And he, John asked me to come, and I just started hanging around, and I went to a couple of races with them. And eventually in 1970, late 70 of 71, I actually went to work there full time. And so people would ask, how did you become a crew chief? Well, at one point, it was only Benny and me, because John Hill, and they parted ways. So it was only Benny and myself.

So that's how I was a crew chief. There was nobody else to be a crew chief. I wasn't qualified. How old were you? I was 21 or two. He won the championship in 273, and I was 23. And you were the crew chief on the car? I was, yeah.

So, you know, it'll be interesting to ask you this, because in 79, Jake Elder leaves Dad's team, or in 80, actually, Jake Elder left Dad's team about a third of the way through the year, and they let Doug Riker become. the crew chief at 21 years old and they ended up being fine you know they didn't everything worked out well what was it i mean what was the crew chief how was the crew chief role so different that hey you've got this you're 22 23 years old you can do this well it was far less complicated you know it was just a matter of trying to get the car put together and get some kind of set up on it and get

the front wheels lined up you know so it kind of go straight how did you learn all those things just by doing. Yeah. You know, Benny was a pretty good understanding, knowledgeable about cars, and I learned a lot from him. You know,

working as close as we worked just two people, you obviously communicate about everything. In the early 70s, was Benny in the shop? Oh, he worked all the time. He did two-thirds of the work. Really? Yeah.

I did not know that. Yeah. So, let's talk about that championship in 73. I mean, that's right out of the gate. You've been working on cars for a very short period of time. now you're the crew chief. And Benny had a very, the one thing I will say about your race car is it was the most dependable, durable car.

A lot of the teams back then like James Hilton and some of the other drivers that were independents had to dial back the effort they put in the car during the race, to get to the end to ensure they would finish the race because they had no choice they needed to be able to get to the end of the race. But Benny had a car that would run with the front of the pack, but you guys rarely had failures. I mean, what do you chalk that up? Well, we just hard work and being particular, and I was always that way.

You know, I grew up. One thing about living on a farm, trust me, you learn how to work. And that was my greatest asset. I knew how to work and wasn't afraid of work. Because, you know, when I started work of him, I made $75 a week. I calculated we worked probably 90 to 100 hours a week, so that is 75 cents an hour. Now, in 73, I probably been making more than that. But at any rate, we just, we worked hard.

We were particular about it, very detailed about, you know, preparations. And he ran good, and then we actually won one race at Bristol by seven laps. Yeah. one of those days they'd raced at Daytona it's like a Monday or Tuesday maybe even later than that and we had to be at Bristol Sunday in the middle of July everybody's wrecking and stuff's falling off

and we're riding and going and Benny says I'm man I got to have some help so John Utsman came on and drove very you're talking about a gentleman driver that's John Uttoman so John ran for quite a bit and obviously all he had to do was finish the race to win and John told me on a radio, he said, you need to let Benny finish this race since, you know, so he can have to be the winner.

Yeah. So John stopped and Benny. So we changed drivers twice and still won by seven left. So you can imagine what attrition was like that day. Yeah. That was, you know, there was some interesting times very common for drivers to get relief. It was the, you know,

you didn't have very good insulation in the cars. You didn't have any good way to really kind of keep some of the engine temperature and the heat from the engine compartment and the brakes and so forth out of the cars. They probably weren't sealed up very well compared to today's cars. What else would you account for why those drivers were having to suffer so much? Just heat and, you know, Bristol stress and you got all the humidity in the middle of July. I remember in, I think it was 1971 at Dover, Delaware in June. 500 miles, green flag dropped the next flag with the checkered flag.

Can you imagine running Dover for no cautions? Bobby Allison won. He was the only guy that was in the car he started in. I mean, they switched like musical chairs. I mean, one guy would get out and if somebody else needed help, whoever was on the sideline got in that car. It was a strange day. There was no tunnels, walk over bridges,

so when a driver would have a failure, he was stuck in the infield. First, second lap crash, long day. Yeah, and you're just standing around. And a lot of times, I remember this, even in the 80s, a lot of drivers would stand around in the back of pits waiting to be called on. Yeah, waiting for an opportunity. Wanting for somebody to say, hey, you mind, we need some help.

So one of the most incredible things about that championship years, obviously the race at Rockingham where Benny gets in an accident early and it ripped the entire hole's right side off the car. Roll bars and everything. And I can't imagine how badly it might have damaged trailing arm mounts and all kinds of sort of things underneath that car to have that kind of a crash.

You can see in photos of the car just completely opened up the right side. And take me there. Take me when that car comes in on the record. Do you think you can get it fixed? We had the assistance of Tex Powell, Richie and Les Barr's, Jimmy Kovulchak, who had worked with the petties and had to help build some cars.

Actually, they were probably more responsible for winning the championship than Travis Carter in any rate. But we were there with a van with welders, cutting equipment, all kinds of, with anticipation. You brought all that. We brought stuff to be able to repair. that car. So they drug it in, you know, we kind of made a quick assessment, you know, this guy does this, this guy does this guy does that, this guy does that. Ralph Moody was there. He had brought a guy named Bobby Musgrove who did not qualify. For some reason, you know,

if somebody doesn't qualify for a race, they'd load up and go home. For some reason, this car was still at that racetrack in the garage on Sunday. So Ralph goes and cranks it up and drives it and parks it behind our car in the garage and said, cut the doorbars out of this car. Wow. So they did. And waddled them in, and then we, you know,

had to change the rear rear-at, rear-housing and all that stuff. And got it where he could run fast enough to get points. In the interim, Richard was the next guy in line, Richard Petty. So they had engine failure. You know, when he comes in, I thought, well, this is it. You know, Richard's going to win his championship because, you know, but the next thing in the things in the garage with the engine.

Maurice raises the hood. They think about changing the engine. And when he sees us start to repair the car, he just slams the hood and walks off. And they give up. And that's, but we were able to accumulate enough points to close the deal. I've been fascinated all them years,

wondering how you cut the doorbars out of one car and welded it. I mean, your cars, it's not like it's just going to fit right in because your car is damaged. Yeah, text somehow managed to do that. Text was, all those guys were. And NASCAR was like, yep, go on out there.

Joe Gousaway was there. don't know if you knew remember joe joe was there and i remember we got it finished and let him run and i remember joe climbing upon the running board of the truck when i was leaving because it actually the thing had like 29 000 had exhaust even in the right doorbars so joe called he stands up on the truck you know that old wisdom he said don't uh don't ever bring something like that back here the road bar the original row bars there were two were thin Oh, they were like 29,000 or something. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. And the truth is, when that car was built, I'm not sure I even knew that. Yeah. But you learned it. But we, I learned it after they were. No wonder it ripped the damn doorbars out of it. Well, that makes more sense. You know, did, what was Benny's, what was, I'm curious to kind of understand what

frame of mind Benny might have been in he's in the when you know when he when you bring the car in is he does he think that well he thinks it's over

but once he sees progress start and the effort being put forth and we even had best I recollection you know it's been 50 years ago I think other people offered to come in and assist

that's the story yeah so and that gave him encouragement the next thing you know he's encouraged and he knew he was in a kind of an untenable dangerous situation going back on on a race track with that car because it wasn't in the best conditions.

But he'd make it up his mind. He was going to do it. How many laps did the car run after that? I don't remember how many we had to run. But we finally, once they radioed down or notified us that we had enough points, he pulled in. He withdrew then. Yeah. So pretty incredible.

This may be my favorite time of the NASCAR season. It's when the on-track drama starts to ramp up and each driver fights harder and harder because each win might mean survival and a shot at the championship. And hard-fought battles on the track mean that this is also the time of the year when raced-win die casts from Lionel racing really tell a story. These authentic replicas capture a particular moment in NASCAR history like no other collectible does from each piece of confetti on the car, the tire marks, the tire marks, the artist Lionel do an incredible job making the raced-win diecast look just like the real thing. These diacasts are incredibly authentic. Remember when the trackhouse team put a giant taco on Daniel Suarez car at Atlanta earlier this season?

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And then you would go to Roger Penske's and work with Bobby in 76. How hard was this decision, I guess, to leave J.D. Or I'm not, I'm sorry, Mr. DeWitt, L.G. DeWitt. How hard was it to leave him because they had given you basically your whole opportunity up to that point? Well, I don't know. I went in and talked to Mr.

DeWitt, you know, he was, I was from a big family. Mr. DeWitt was part of the community, and everybody, I mean, he knew my family, some of my brothers even drove trucks during the winter when they weren't doing other stuff for him. So it was, you know, it was like you knew that got well. But we went in to sat and talked about it. And truthfully, I think I probably convinced him. I said, you know, this is a better opportunity for you because you can get people that

are better than I am to come and run your race team, which they did. Jake, you know, they got Jake and Wadale went down there to build engines and stuff. He had been building engines, but he got him to actually go to working at his shop. So it was a better fit for everybody. I learned a lot with Bobby, and I certainly learned a lot with working for Roger. Yeah. So what was your role there? I was a crew chief of there.

And we had a miserable year. We could run good, Dale, but I'm telling you, we had engine trouble. And truthfully, it's to not make us too. longer story. After the season was over, they finally realized what was causing the problems with the engines the whole year. And we didn't win into races. Of course, he had two nasty crashes.

I wanted Rockingham and wanted somewhere in Minnesota with a little javelin or something hit the end of a wallhead on. And he wouldn't tell everybody how bad he was hurt, but he called me and told me about it, and his foot was broken so bad. And he got to Dover and he lifted his eye. He said they had to go in and put something behind my eye and push my eyeball. ball back out and and I fixed the first his eyeball was in to push it somehow they had to push it back out or some kind of way he told me but I was fixed the first bottom pivot pedal for him

because he said I can't slide my foot you know how the old can't use a hanging pedal and so we we made him a foot pedal like that to drive and he drove he drove all banged up half the year the the racket rocking ham we flipped that flip that car down the back straight away was pretty nasty That was bad. That did a lot of damage that he hid from people, I think. That was, Bobby was a, we talk about, you know, we've had a lot of people in here that's worked with Bobby over the years. And I've always had this opinion. I mean, Bobby Allison was one hell of a race car driver. But he was also his own worst enemy a lot of times he would get, I mean, if he had stayed with Junior Johnson, for example, early in the 70s, imagine the domination. that that pairing would have continued to have.

But he would, you know, he eventually did find his championship in the 80s, but he seemed like the kind of guy that he would get easily annoyed with a situation. And he would even rather go drive his own car, knowing it's lesser equipment than to have to deal with whatever it was that was sort of frustrating him in whatever organization he was with. I imagine, though, when he was with Roger, you know it seemed though I don't know you can tell me he dealt with the frustrations of that kind of upstart team new program he dealt with that a little bit better than some of the other situation he was well I think you know Roger had a knack you know I have a great admiration for Roger Penske for what he's accomplished in business and motorsports and whatever but I think Bobby had a good respect for him he was building a first class operation and of course the frustration and of course the frustration of not winning races that year, I think, got to Bobby.

And at the end of the year, Ontario, he had another problem with it, out of the race with an engine-related problem. And he comes in and parks and he gets out and tells Roger, he says, I'm not driving next year. And he gets on a bicycle and rides off into the infield. That was it. So, but I got along great with him. We liked him.

What was wrong with the motor? What really happened? They used an engine plate. bolts between the block and the water pump. So a Ford had this odd shape, how they match. Well, the guy doing the work just board a round hole. So Leonard Wood, at the end of the year, talked with Woody.

The Woody Woodard was the guy in charge of the engines. Talked with Woody and asked Woodard to explain everything about it. And so when Woody told him how he had bored a hole for the water to pass through that engine plate, from the engine block to the water pump. Yeah. Leonard said that your problem is you need to match the shape of that water pump. He said you're restricting the water. Yeah.

Because the engine would just build temperature throughout the race. And you'd take off running good and it'd get weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker. And then we did it the whole year before you found the problem. So that was, I mean, it could have been a much different season. Right. Had that been corrected earlier. So Bobby got out of the car. and then Dave Marcus would drive in 77.

And he only run like, we only run 10, 11, 12 races. Was y'all running a full schedule of Bobby? Yeah, yeah, you run all the races with Bobby. So why did you dial? He still finished like fourth of some of the point. Why did y'all dial back? I think Roger was frustrated. I'm not sure he had the money.

I don't know the details. And plus he had switched from the American Motor Program to Ford and Mercury in 76. Then he wanted to run some Chevolets. So we kind of ran Chevolets sometime. mercury sometimes and yeah so you moved up to Pennsylvania to do this right i'm telling people i might be the only guy that ever went from the south to the north to work in naskol yeah what was it like was it as difficult as it would be today to run a team that far away from the epicenter of the sport a lot of traveling involved but we we still managed to do it i guess okay how was it getting people

to come up there and help you you know we didn't have anybody up there that came from the backbone of NASCAR but he had some good people. I mean, he had good qualified people and good fabricators and he had a couple of engineers in there that they didn't, they didn't get involved in NASCAR much, but they were there available if you need them. Yeah. What was Marcus like to work with? I got along good with Dave. You know, Dave just, he was always a little different about, his driving style was a little different. You know, he was one of those guys that just wanted to bury it in the corner and try to get going again. And, you know, I think it had done, I think it had been better if he'd learn how to just, you know how you, sometimes you need to float it in and let it roll good.

Easy and hard off. Yeah. Yeah, I never really knew, I never really had anybody explain Dave Marcus's driving style. I figured as an independent, he was kind of very conservative, but to hear you talk about it, he was pretty hard driver. I mean, there were times, I always found it funny, and you might even remember this because it was so, it was hilarious. They go to, dad would go, this was in probably the 80s, and even, and even,

maybe the like 89-90 they had the luminos and Dave Marcus is driving his blue lumina. They go out to practice at Martinsville and Dad's out there running and Dave comes out on the track and Dad trying to pass Dave and Dave ain't letting him go and they ended up running into each other and tearing their fenders off their cars in practice. And I'm like and I was like, damn Daddy, you know, what are you doing? It's Dave Marcus. Why are you and Dave even near each other?

You know, just let him go. Him let you go, whatever. what is what both you too damn hard-headed and so it kind of makes sense because Dave Dave he come in here and did a show with us a couple years ago and I learned that he was very independent and stubborn right kind of hard-headed to a fault um but a hard hard working guy oh he worked he certainly worked very hard worker what was um so your time at Penske uh you felt like was pretty influential to your career it was overall I just learned a lot I mean I learned a lot from Roger.

The first time I went to New York, Roger had a Cadillac because he had a dealership there in eastern Pennsylvania. We got in the Cadet. He drove, he and I to New York City in that Cadillac. First time I went in New York City. So that was, I mean, you can see how he went from where he, at that point in his career and development to now.

So, but just the, you know, just talk, just talked about things and business and I just learned a lot from that. After that season, you'd move back south to work with Junior. Junior Johnson, how did all that line up? Junior Johnson had a ton of incredible talent at his shop. He did, but Herb Nab, who had been there quite a while, you know, and Herb went on to work for Harry and here in the new team they were developing. And Junior called me, and I'm very fortunate, actually, that they did,

and contact Tim Brew at the same time. So Tim and I kind of went at the Co-Crew Chiefs, yeah. But I remember we won the first race at Riverside with Kail, and we're on the way home. Back those days you were ready to big old wide-bodied jumbo jets. A lot of room, you know, they weren't full. But anyway, we were stretched out. We're in the back compartment.

Cells up in the front first class. So he comes back there and kneels down at me, and he's kind of tipsy, you know, but riding home at night. And he said, eventually he'd always call me TC, but he called me Travis then because we hadn't been together long. And he said, Travis, I got to tell you, he said, man, I was really worried going into the year here. He said, but I'm in good shape.

might feel good about it. Yeah. So he was comfortable that he had some people that could get it done. Yeah. Herb and Abb had worked with them forever up to that point. And then Herb would leave the team and go to Reneer and other things. But you come in as a co-crew chief. And so I can't imagine that happening today, right?

You and Brewer are sure to sharing these responsibilities, how well did, how comfortable were you with, idea, I guess. We got a long way up. We never had issues. I mean, we just never had issues. And, you know, I don't know that we, you know, we didn't always agree, but we'd always, if we had to, we'd go consult with Junior and he'd kind of make a call. And at some point, I kind of did go to junior and kind of wanted to be more of the senior guy in which he did do that, but it didn't change our status, quote our status. We were still co-crucied, but like if it came down, or are you going to put this way bar in it?

Tim may say I want this one and Travis may say I want this one. We put the one in Travis. That kind of, just that kind of final. Somebody had to have the ability to make a final call. Yeah. And that's kind of what we arrived at. Man, I can't imagine. How hard it must have been to get some synergy there without upsetting the cart.

You know, Junior's place is. pretty historic. Had you been familiar with his shop, I know he was up in the Wilkesboro area and you'd been with LG and then Penske up north, when you went into his business to go in there and work and saw all the ways that they did things, was it a bit of a different culture? A different culture, but the thing that I knew, I knew it had a win in history. And actually in 1971, Mr. DeWitt made a deal with Junior to run Benny at the last. race at Texas. Really?

So I went up and helped him get a car prepared at his shop. At his shop and drove with the guy going to Texas. It drove out there and back with that car. It ran good. He qualified like on the front row, but it had an engine troll or something. Yeah. And so I had been there. That's the only time I'd actually been in the shop.

Yeah. What was it like working with Jr.? Junior and I got along great. I mean, he's just a, he was no-nonsense guy. He never complained or fussed. but he was, you know, he was straightforward, laid it out. If you had an issue, just sit down and talk with him. He'd always listen.

So we had a great relationship. You'd win the championship in 78, and then, you know, as a co-crew chief, working with Brewer. Well, in the 79 Daytona 500, you were coming down the back straight away. I see you shaking your head. I've had this conversation with Donnie and talked about it with the king and Darrell Walchip and everyone else had been there. In my mind,

probably much like Donnie Allison, not one of your favorite memories, but in my mind, it was probably the most important race in NASCAR history because we had 16 million people watching. Y'all had an incredible race car. Kale was one of my, favorite drivers I loved his style I loved I loved I loved the way he approached his job

and you you feel like you put yourself in the perfect position to win this race right and the you know do you when you think about that last lap is it still as frustrating today as it was then it's like any disappointing loss yeah but the thing that to me is the most incredible is on the fourth lap you know the race was a little bit the track wasn't really dry but but they had live tv and and bill france was going to get that race underway so they started a race and the fourth lap david and i believe donnie and keel all spun out through that mud a black mud in the back so it missed the line the front end so he was struggling at one point is the slowest car on the racetrack and he got three laps behind so we would come in and uh brewer would just you know that

had those a-frames of the strut rods. Yep. Brewer would adjust the strut rod. I would look down through the bulge and looking at the kingpin angle and kept put more, pull more, we put more caster in it.

So we finally pulled more caster, worked on the toe in and finally got it where he could go then. He could drive it and he made those three laps up. And I thought, man, this is incredible. We're going to win this race. Yeah, but like when, so when they spent off a two, there's just some slight contact.

There's nothing, not that I could tell, I can't really recall there being real contact with a wheel. So going and spinning through the mud and doing something. Somehow it misaligned that thing. I can't drive. I mean, he was, I'm telling you, he was a slowest call on the lace track at one point. Yeah.

But the cautions were falling. You know, you know how it was, Dale. People crash more on a good surface, typically they do on a slick surface. You know, when you got really good grip, it's when they wreck a lot. and they were doing that pretty quickly. Y'all were finding yourself in perfect position drafting the leader when a caution would come out and Kail would be able to mash the gas and get a lap back.

That happened a couple times right at some very lucky moments in the race. Late in the race, you guys are sitting there basically is just between you and Donnie the last 20 laps or so. You've got yourself clear of the rest of the field. And every other race that's ever been run like that, especially in the 70s, the guy that's in second gets himself in position off of two, puts the run together, goes by the leader, and beats them back to the line. I mean, it happened over and over and over.

And so, but in this particular race, Donnie really threw a very aggressive block, put Kale down into dirt. You know, Donnie's like I had every right to do whatever I want to do. Well, he told people before the race Kail wasn't going to win that right. Yeah. Why would he even know, why would he, why would he say that? Were they already locked in? Somehow they had with odds. I'm not sure why. But for me, I never had a problem with anybody.

I mean, I never had one problem with any driver, other crew member in that business. Never in my life. The story, so the wreck happens and all that. The fight happens, right? Did you see Kail after that? After the hour. You know, I don't recall. I'm sure we did.

There was a, apparently with the snowstorm, just digging up a little bit in some history that I've done, apparently with the weather the way it was on the East Coast, a lot of folks didn't go home. They spent the night in Daytona and get up the next day and drive home. I think we did sad. That's what we did, yeah. Apparently, the guy that owned, they're on a blank, the guy that owned Donnie's car. Hoss Sinton. Hoss. Kale saw Hoss on Saturday before the Daytona 500 and said, hey, with the weather, I might need to ride home.

You're going by Timmonsville. Could I ride with you? Hoss said, yeah. They had a crash, saw each other later that afternoon, and Hoss said, I'm mad at you, but the ride's still good tomorrow. And apparently, Kale and Hoss Ellington rode home from Daytona Monday. and they were, there was a bit of a joke they told each other about trying to stay out of the grass on the way home. There was some, it was snow everywhere. And Hawth said, we'll be all right as long as you keep it out of the mud.

But that was the times back then and the little stories like that is what really makes it so fun. You talked about it being a simpler time in the garage, how people, were easy to find, right? Not that it's a bad thing, but the garage in the 70s wasn't full of autograph seekers and folks with die cast running every which way after drivers. Your drivers would walk in the garage and everybody that was in there was working. Everybody can't communicate. But you only had like four or five people on a team car and stuff like that.

It was just like one big family thing. That's right. And so, you know, you guys would end up putting it together and, you know, and, you guys would end up putting it together and still having a couple of good seasons in 79. You stuck with Junior and Kail in the 80 season, which is an important year. But I want to go back to, I want to get there in a minute, but I did a big research project on 1979 about my dad, and I know you spent a little bit of time with him around then between 79 and 80.

Dad's a new guy coming on the circuit. had a really good year as a rookie. What was your, did you even know about dad, I guess, before? Well, I knew he, I think the first race, what was it? Seventy-70, he ran the first race? He ran 75 for a degree at Charlotte. When did he crash that car real bad at Atlanta? That was 77.

77, okay. He was driving John Ray's car. Buddy Parrott that we talked to last week was the crew chief. Okay. Well, anyway, he, you know, he was a contender. Yeah. But I remember it was after the, around the August race in Talladega. I remember he called me and your dad did and he talked about me coming to work there.

So we went down and had that black transammy run around him. Yeah. It drove like a maniac. So we go over that old, what's that golf course there on? What's that thing? Mallard Head. Yes. We'd go play golf two or three times.

You're talking about somebody that fish out of water trying to play golf. Oh, I bet. It was pitiful. But anyway, I spent a time with him and enjoyed that. He was a terrible golfer. We both were, and I never have been able to play. But anyway, he ultimately I wound up staying with Junior, but, you know, I might have made a bad choice not going with him. And even beyond that, a second time when he was with Richard Childers, they called me and asked me about coming home for him.

Yeah. And I thought, you know, I kind of want to have my own team be my own boss. I just don't want to do that because I'm not sure I would give them what they needed. Yeah. But anyway, I had a great respect for your dad, and I always thought he was a friend. Yeah. I thought he was a friend of mine. Y'all would battle for the title in 1980 all the way to the end.

And we threw it away multiple times. I remember I was thinking driving over here. I remember the 1980, Southern 500. Not doubt that we could have won it, but I remember that engine, when it warmed the engine up, you know, I always thought I had a really good sense of hearing that engine. and I got down and I listened to it while it was running and I told Junior and Harold, I said, I'm telling you this engine does not sound right,

but they didn't want to change it. Run about 20 laps and poof. I guess it had a broken valve or something that I was hearing. I mean, that's a race, and just multiple times. We threw it away, but your dad did a great job. I mean, Doug and Doug was a young kid, and I mean, they did a great job win that championship. Yeah, I know.

I did a series on 1970. and I want to do another one on 1980, maybe we'll get you to come, help us kind of pull out some of the memorable moments from that year when you were working with Kail. You lost the championship, but you had 14 polls that year. I remember in 79 you couldn't get a poll. Went the whole year. We did get won at Ontario.

Right at the end, the last race of year. So the Bush Beer has come on board to sponsor Kale's Car and the Poll Award. You went the whole year all the way to the end without winning. winning a poll. I remember Darrell Walscher had a bunch of quotes in the papers joking about Kael not being able to win a pole. But in, you know, 1980 it was a complete flip. You got 14 poles and almost half the races. One thing about it, three years running, row won an Ontario pole, never could win a race there. Boy, that was a disappointment for me. In 1980, you got a call from Humpey Wheeler. And Humpey was going to put together a team,

or there was a team getting put together, not Humpy, Humpy wasn't involved, but they were putting together a team, Hal Needham, and Burt Reynolds. What do you remember about that conversation? I remember him calling me. I said, I'll come down and meet,

went down and met with him, had a good conversation. I was really impressed with Hal Needham. Why would you leave this, you know, you almost won the championship in 80 with kale? Why would you want to go do something that was so outside the box? Somebody was money.

I mean, I offered twice the money I was making. You know, until a young guy, you know, those days you made $25,000 or $30,000 is what you made. That's the answer, yeah. And then, you know, if you start out making $65, that's a lot of money. Big time. But then Kail was leaving, too. Okay. You know, Darrell was coming in.

And I don't know. I just saw it a good opportunity to move forward and I guess just like a crap shoot, but I said I'm going for it. Yeah. So we did. So how Needham's going to start a team? Did you get to meet Bert? We only met him once or twice. Yeah.

So, but I think Bert more lent lent his name to the effort. Yeah, to some credibility, yeah. What did you know about Harry Gant? I'd seen Harry. Harry had raced a couple of, junior had, a couple occasions. He had run the, whatever the second division is. Sportsman, he ran to 300 in one of Kills, though. Yeah, we had some experience with him.

I remember Brewer wanted, they want to take all lead out of it. And I said, I'm telling you, it's not going to do. drive good. Well, we need to get it light. I said, I won't drive good. Harry begged them to put that weight back in that car. It wouldn't do it. And it didn't drive good.

You know, it's just out of balance. Sometimes being balanced is more important than how light you can be. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, so you would team up with him and Junior gave the blessing for you to go over there. Y'all were going to buy engines from Junior. Right. Which is probably a great decision to be honest with you with a new.

team. And this would become the Skull Bandit, an iconic race car and driver, handsome Harry. Y'all would race for the majority of the 80s together. Basically, like building this team from scratch. I mean, literally nothing. One of the things that I read about this team is, y'all are one of the first ones to start doing data, running data on your cars. Like, this was in the early 80s.

You had a big old clump of thing mounted in cart, Tidalega. Plugged into a computer, yeah. Plugged into a computer. Oh, man, we fought in that car forever. We're trying to get that approved. But I think that after the first race, it wouldn't let us use it anymore. But it was helpful. You know, Hal Needham had been associated with a land speed record,

which I don't think of the hell that made it official because you have to run it both ways and blah, blah, blah. And Stan Barrett, who had driven it, apparently told them when they made the first run, He said, I'm not doing that again. Yeah. And he wouldn't, so they just didn't. So how that association was some good engineering, aeronautical engineering people?

And you mentioned Stan Barrett. He was also the first driver for the team. He came to Daytona race. You know, this didn't dawn on me at the time. That guy never drove a race car. No. But he raced his first race at Daytona. Yeah.

And finished. No, he actually crashed on the last lap. But he went through that whole week and didn't wreck that car. Yeah. He did wrecks it practice and we repaired. but I'm thinking, holy cow, I don't know why I didn't seem just sensational to me. Yeah, it seemed normal. He just got in and drove it.

He raced about half the season or so, and then eventually Harry would become the full-time driver, and Stan would dial back entirely. You know, truth of the day, I never to this day, we went to Michigan, had two cars in the trailer because we used train and transport of a boat car. somebody told me that Stan wasn't coming and you wasn't going to drive anymore. To this day, no one has ever told me why. Yeah.

I still don't know. No why. Yeah. I met his son, become friends with him. Stanton? Yeah, and he's obviously raced in the sport a time or two over the years, but I've actually went out and hung out with him in L.A. many, many years ago, but a great kid.

Did you do any stunt work with him? Did he show you any stubs? No stunts. No, I don't want. I'm not interested in that part of the world, but not hearing all the stories that I heard about how banged up they get. But stunt guys are kind of like bull riders. You've got to be literally fearless. Hal Needham told me it had broken 53 bones.

Yeah, yeah, I believe it. So what kind of owner was Hal? It's terrific. Yeah. He just, everybody liked him. And, you know, his vision, this is entertainment coming from movie industry. He wanted to do something entertained. For example, we had at one point cheerleader girls come dressed up at cheerleaders.

We were running in an 84, I think the only year that Dale Lemon did not work with the petties. And they eventually beat us for the championship with Terry LeBoney at Charlotte in the fall. Hal has this Cadillac limo drive in. You know these guys down in the island that gets out this white stuff? He's a big old guy and they talk funny. I don't remember what they call it. Voodoo Man. He has a drive in the garage this voodoo man gets out.

Like a stunt. And Dale Anman goes berserk. Really? He goes to Nick Beatty, whoever's in charge, and said, you get this guy out of here. You've got to get this guy. I mean, this thing really shook him. Yeah, I bet.

But Harold was just, you know, he was a guy of entertainment. Yeah. You know, he wanted to add something, the entertainment value to it. So, you know, you end up kind of developing that iconic program. with the, you know, with the skull bandit and Harry Gant. And y'all had a lot of fun. Did a lot of good.

And won a few races. One a few races. A lot less than we should have. I know. Run second a million times, it seemed like. I remember that was a big deal, Harry trying to get that first win. And kept coming in second, coming in second. In 1989, you decided to purchase Mach 1 racing.

and start your own team. Why would you want to get into ownership? That was always my goal. When I was working for Mr. DeWitt, that was kind of my, I said, well, I can't be a driver. And I remember Buddy Baker told me early on, he said you need to do what you do because you're going to have a lot better career,

a chance to have a better career and you would a driver. So that was good advice. But anyway, I always wanted to kind of work the way to be an owner. What was the mock one team? Who owned that? That was the old school bandit team. Really? So Hal sold the team?

He sold it to you? He sold it, yeah. He didn't set with me. He sold the gun named Bill Edwards. Bill Edwards actually owned it in 89, and then I took over stuff in 1990. Yep. You got sponsorship help from Junior? Well, Junior helped us.

Kind of steered some people. Yeah, but Junior helped me get this banquet food sponsorship that came on in 1990. Gotcha. Junior would do things like that a lot. lot that people never would hear about. Right. He helped, you know, he helped kind of put Childress and Dad together. Yeah.

And kind of, he was always, it feels like that he was always sort of at the table, even though him and NASCAR were at complete odds most of the time. It seemed like that he was always behind the scenes trying to help things keep going in the right direction. Well, I mean, you probably know it, but, I mean, he's the one that took RJ Reynolds to NASCAR to be the series sponsored. I mean, they went to him talking about sponsoring four or five cars, and he said, you need to talk about sponsoring the series.

Yeah. And truthfully, between you and I and you probably know it, that saved NASCAR. Yeah. R.J. Reynolds is the sponsorship with Winston saved then. Yeah. So pretty incredible. You'd hire Butch Miller, an incredible short track racer from the ASA ranks up north.

guy won anything he got behind the wheel of up there driving those Camaro's and ran 23 races with sponsorship from Winn-Dixie how to come how how come that I've always wondered why Butch didn't work out I'm not sure I just think our cars were just too far off because I knew that guy could drive and I still think he you know I just don't think we did something. And later, deeper into the season, you'd start finding little problems with your car that you didn't know existed. Yeah. When you're the owner, are you still the crew chief? I was then. Yeah. Yeah. How difficult was it to manage all that? Well, there wasn't a whole lot to do. You know, you didn't have, you know, 10, 8, 10, 12 employees and things like that. And I always like

to work. I was one of those that's probably too micromanaged. I mean, I always felt like, man, if I do it, I'm going to do it better than the next guy. Yep. You know. You ended up putting Rick Mast in the car to finish out the year. Jimmy Spencer would be the driver in 91 with banquet foods. The team shut down temporarily. Yeah, we're just running out of money.

Yeah. And then you would go work with Bud Moore. Yeah. Budmore some, yeah. All right. Hudge Strickland and Camel's Cigarettes came on board 94. So you get the team fired back up? Well, that's a different team.

It's a new team. Really? Yeah. Brent, you created this whole. Well, between Wayne Robertson and Junior was kind of, they went to Junior and Juniorcept got them, you know, again, and he said, you need to maybe get Travis to come and do this team. And so we did that, and that's.

Were you part on her in that as well? I was, yeah. Yeah. And after a year, too, we bought, I bought Junior's interest out. A lot of people always thought Wayne on. Wayne didn't not on any of that team. Yeah. Everything was above board.

I mean, he was strictly a, you know, an SME guy that provided the money and et cetera, etc, but a junior, junior did own part of it initially, but I bought him out after two years, I believe. So Campbell cigarettes, an iconic race car. Jimmy was a driver. It seemed like drove forever for you. Winston would come on board at one point as well. You know, I thought that, you know, y'all had, y'all overachieved.

Had some really, really strong runs in those cars. But, man, we just couldn't win. The only race I ever won as a car owner was whatever that companion race is to the Winston, what they call it now, the All-Star race. Yeah. The only race we ever won as an owner. And me, I was disappointed because we had cars to win. We should have won some other races.

We just couldn't do it. Well, I mean, there were some times when that car really had good speed. That's what I mean. Yeah. In the latter years, after we came on with Carl Austin, I had C-Mart, we had some cars that would go. But we just couldn't win races. Yeah. So Jimmy Spencer gets replaced by Joe Nimichick in 2001.

Between these seasons, Kmart goes into bankruptcy that put the team in a bit of a bind. In 2002, right after we'd hired Joe, we get a call from one of the vice presidents. He called me first, and then he called Carl Hoss, who was my partner. And he said, we're going to have to stop. We can't go whatever. And then he called back the next day and he said, well, we didn't realize we'd paid you X number of dollars. You got to run the first four races for us. So that was kind of the end of the deal.

So before all that, though, you did have Daryl Waltrip kind of finish out his career driving your cars. And that was a, you know, that was kind of a, you had two race cars on the racetrack. Darrell driving one, I think, Tob and I. Well, actually, Jimmy drove, and then Todd. Todd actually took over for Darrell after Darrell left. Yeah. So Jimmy and Darrell were teammates. Yeah.

How does that work in out? They did okay. It seemed like a good parent. Well, they did okay. I mean, but Darryl was so different. You know, Jimmy would drive whatever you got him. And Darryl, we just never could get him comfortable or satisfied or whatever. We just, you know, he wanted that hired the people, which the dad had done there working with Steve Park and him to come up to work.

and that didn't work out. I mean, we just did everything under the sun. I told people we probably spent 50% more money on Darrell's team. We did, Jimmy. He said, you know, just trying to get him something that he could do. We just never could get it worked out. Yeah. And so Todd would take over, and Todd would actually be able to get some pace out of the car.

He's a little hot shoe driver. Every time Todd got into something, he seemed to go pretty fast. Well, he'd make it go fast. Yeah. I mean, he might hit something with it, but he'd make the darn thing go fast. And sometimes I think he'd try to do it. just to make Darrell look bad or something. And that's not a, I'm not criticizing it,

but that's not the best way to approach things. You know that. Yeah. Again, Joe Nimichick would get in the car, and then you'd have some struggle with the partnerships. You know, you had a lot of different drivers kind of coming and going. Todd and Jeff would split the ride at one point, and then Haas and Carter would merge with Sam.

How do you put? Well, Sam Bell-Navis. The hospital, Carl was out at the end of 2002. Yeah. And I've read Jimmy Johnson, who worked with Rick, and I'm sure you remember him, nice, super nice guy. Yep. Put Sam and I together.

Actually, Jimmy called and said, you know, this might be an opportunity because he knew I was in trouble and was out of business. Yeah. So anyway, Sam and I ran in 2003 and had an Army National Guard. And 54. Todd Grover. Yeah. And the reason of number of 54, if people don't know.

There were 54 guard units. Oh, really? That's why they wanted number 54. Well, that was a good, that was a nice sponsor, but, you know, and a good-looking race car, I remember that him and, gosh, him and Kenny Wallace having a hell of a wreck off too at Michigan. Oh, Lord of mercy. But you made one more attempt at, one more attempt at forming an alliance with torque speed.

Who's torque speed? That was a group out of Great Britain, didn't want her to do something. with it. He came over here and he wanted to do all this press conference and all this. And I said, man, we need to get somebody to put the money where the mouth is. And I didn't push that. And that was really all about much to do about nothing. Yeah. That's what it was. So I was done at the end of 2003 when the National Guard went to Jack Rouse. That was it. That was it. I said, you know, I said, I can't compete with these guys. You know, I think I'm probably done. And that's and that's pretty much it.

Man. So one of the cars, though, that I always, one of the, I think one of the races that I always think about when I think about you, is the Daytona 500, I believe, is 1989. The last time they ran the big Monte Carlo's down there, you showed up with a white car number 66. That was that Mach 1 car with. Yeah, with Rick Mass driving a car.

I think you'd had, I think y'all were spotulous. Right. And somehow went down there and nearly won that race. Had Darrow-Waltrop not had that extra gas tank or whatever, that extra five-foot of gas line in that tide ride, Dad or Rick Mass would be Dayton of 500 champions in that race. Talk about that weekend because I was, I would just want to say, man, I feel like, you know, for you as a car owner,

y'all were this, it became this Cinderella story that I, even as a kid or even as young boy, you instantly sort of pulled for that team because I loved Jimmy Means. I loved the independent. I loved seeing somebody do all they could with very, very little because I knew what dad had. I knew what was in his hauler. I knew what was at their race shop. And so I love to see these other people try to make something out of nothing. And you were watching a team go down there run up front with some of the biggest teams without a decal on the car.

And it was easy to want to pull for y'all. And Rick was a great story too, a really hard luck racer trying to get opportunity, finally getting him an opportunity in a couple of a ride. And so talk about that weekend. Well, first of all, we went and talked about. He tested with him, struggled, came home, did some work with the engine, went back and got it where he could run good. But we also had, we run on Hoosier tires was a little bit of advantage. But I always tell people of all the years I went to Daytona, and you know how stressful that week, those 11 days can be.

Yeah. That was the smoothest, easiest speed weeks I ever went to. Really? Yep. Qualified 11th with that car. It drove good, didn't have issues in red and good in the race. And if I'd really wanted to make a real serious gamble, we still might have won. But I knew it was going to be too close on gas.

And I'm thinking, you know, this is a big race. Rick has done an incredible job. Why would we throw away finishing pretty good with the risk of, you know, 30% chance you might win the race and 70% chance you're going to finish 25th? Yeah. So let's just stop, you know, get it done and make the deal worthwhile. Yeah. And how much did that performance that day help lure that partnership with banquet?

It helped a lot. It helped a lot. But, you know, one of the proud things to me, you know, Scholl had left and kind of left me hanging actually. Not in an ugly way, but that's the way it worked out. Yeah. You know, they hired Don Perdone, was driving for Scholl in Copenhagen, you know, at that time. So after that race, and drag race.

Drag racing. Don Perdom came and found me up in that transporter to tell me that he was impressed of what a great job we'd done and just wanted to congratulate me in whatever. You know, that kind of stuff really means a lot to somebody. Really? Yeah. Because, I mean, he took the effort to go find me to tell me that.

Yeah. Because, you know, I'd known him through the school days. Yeah. When you're, I guess in 2003, or after 2004, how much involvement in the sport did you have beyond that? Basically none. My son ran some Hooters Pro Cup races, and we ran Archer for a year, and he ran a few nationwide races or whatever they go.

I'd go around some. Yeah, I'd help them with some of it. And I always tell people, the most fun I ever had racing was at Hooters Pro Cup. Really? I just enjoyed that. But that's after that's all the race. It probably felt like what racing used to be back in the day. It was.

It was a one day deal. You just go do it's all in one day. But that's all the race. And I've kind of, I don't watch a NASCAR. I don't even keep up with it. You don't watch it. I don't watch it. I love Formula One.

I don't know why I'm so interested in Formula One. And I like to watch those indie cars. Yeah. That's a surprise. And I'm disappointed Max. It's struggling so bad with whatever. Yeah. He's all up.

Man, they're struggling. Yeah. So when you walk away from the sport, was it an easy? It's kind of, first of all, it's like you hit you a ton of bricks. Say, you know, I'm in business today and tomorrow I'm not. So, you know, we tried for about another year. We worked in marketing trying to find ways to put some programs together.

And Dale, you will not believe, and maybe you will, the nut jobs called you constantly. This guy, I'm coming. I got money and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it. Oh, Lord of mercy. We were inundated with that stuff for a year. Why not go work for somebody like you did with Bud Moore? Nobody ever asked me to. But I didn't pursue it either.

Yeah, you didn't. No, I didn't pursue it. Yeah. Would you, yeah, might have you stuck around if you had to take in a GM job or something at a place like Budz? Yeah, yeah, maybe so. Yeah. At one point, Roger called me when we had Winston and he had Marlboro and we knew that the back of companies were pretty much getting on the way out. And he said, why don't you just sell that stuff and come back and work for me?

And maybe I should have done that, but I didn't. man you continue to live close by I remember you know you had that shop up there on 40 right off you get off 707 and go a couple miles and it's over there on 40 now I think front row motorsports

is in there who's in? Well actually no front row released one of them for a long time some truck team is and a guy named Tim Self bought one of the buildings and he builds you know he's got like a factory of these air machines and I think there's some steel truck races goes on but I haven't

living up there in two or three years, so I don't know. You live in Denver with your family where you built the house back in 1986. Built in 86 when I was working in a house. And you don't watch a lap of NASCAR. I mean, if Linda, my wife would always watch it, I might walk by and see something, but I don't know. That's crazy. It's just, I'm just different.

Yeah. I know. You are different. You are. But I've never been a self-promoter, you know, just kind of, I always felt like if you do your job well enough, and if it's recognition, you'll get it. You don't have to go out and try to seek it. It'll come to you.

Yeah. Well, man, I, you know, always wanted to talk to you. Always kind of curious about, you know, how you viewed your life and your career. And, you know, you said it, your own words, you are kind of different. You are built a little different. And some people can, some people can walk away from something like that that they've been doing for decades without a ton of heartburn or heartache while some struggle, right, finding purpose or finding, you know, getting their second chapter going or whatever the next

chapter is. I won't say it wasn't easy or I won't say it was easy, but, you know, it's very frustrating, but I said, you know, that's the hand that's dealt. But you know, one thing that pops up to me talking about money and sponsorships, it was not until I was out that I realized how much money the manufacturers were putting into these teams. I knew we had good sponsors, but I told when I was partnered with Carl, I said, I don't know where the money's coming from, but these people spend twice as much money as we spend. And lo and behold, to find out the manufacturers are basically matching the sponsors in most cases. And we never had that.

So that's not an excuse, but we were operating pretty competitively on far less than the same. a lot of people were. Yeah. So I'm pleased about that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I would be pleased, you know, won a championship with Benny Parsons. I think everybody, you know, respected Benny as a broadcaster.

Benny was a better racer than a lot of people realized. I agree. I think people respected him. I think that they appreciate who he was, a gentleman racer, and a hard racer could win races, but raced as a gentleman. He raced within his limits. He did. And he did well at that.

He did. One Daytona 500 and crew chief KL took a couple of championship. I mean, your career is remarkable. Well, thank you. To be honest with you. And then to go into the car owner side of it, kind of when, you know, I guess in the 70s, when you got with LG and you wanted to, you know, you were aspiring to one day be an owner, that really looked like an achievable goal.

or the obvious goal. But there was sort of this big odd crossover. As you're headed toward trying to be a crew chief or trying to be a car owner, the idea of being a car owner is getting more and more challenging. Absolutely. The financial landscape. There was a lot of money going into the sport around that time when you bought your team and created your team, but it was the sport and the expensive.

of the sport was skyrocketing as well. So to do it like you did and do it as long as you did is really impressive. Well, thank you. Yeah. Well, I've really enjoyed talking to you, Travis. Kind of interesting to see what you've been up to. I mean, when you're, when you leave here, where are you headed? I'll go back home, probably take a nap, go for a walk.

If it's warm enough, I might go swimming. Yeah. What else do you do? I don't do a lot. You know, there's always something to do around there. It's something to repair or fix. I go somewhere. and, you know, I go grocery shopping and...

How did you put yourself at 74 years old? How did you put yourself into financial security? We saved, just like we built this house in 1986. I could have built a bigger house, but I saved my money. Yeah. Because, you know, this is... One thing about being in a motorsports business at that level, at that time, tomorrow's not promised to anybody.

For sure. And I said, you know, we'll save. And we had those properties. You know, we could sell those properties. Gotcha. Of course, we still had, you know, we had some mortgages on them, but we still made some money in the sale of them. Man. Well, I appreciate you coming all this way and talking to us, man.

It's been nice getting to know you. I mean, I can't believe one of the guys that's been in the sport as long as you have for us to have never really sat down. Well, I was thinking about, man, you must have run through them all if you've got down to me. Shoot. That ain't know. That ain't know way to think about it. I've always wanted to talk to you because, you know, I do know there's people in the sport that I've studied or that I've been around.

I feel like I know most of their career, but you're a guy that I didn't know. I knew you were different, and I didn't really know what made you tick. Kind of a more of a, I guess, introvert. Yeah. But you were successful in several scenarios. And I'm glad you came to spend some time. I want to say a couple of things about your dad. Yes, sir.

I think it's just a great guy. Everybody respect him. And I remember at Daytona, you know, they had to, the drivers would have to go to this little hospital thing for whatever check-in before the race, the season started. You know, it used to be a little way. Right there, right there inside the fourth turn. Yes. So he walks from there, and he comes brushing by me, and I feel something. And he just keeps going.

And I reach, and he slid a commemorative knife in my pocket. You know, just stuff like that he did for people, just because he was either like, liked them or appreciated them or saying hello or whatever. But that's a part of the Dale Earnhardt that people need to know who existed. Yes, sir. Yeah, he was, you know, it's kind of like Junior Johnson. There was always kind of something he was doing behind the scenes and he didn't need anybody to know about it. He just wanted to be doing what he was doing or thought somebody, you know,

deserves some recognition or saw an opportunity to be an assist to somebody. and the whole I think he learned that from the industry or you know people like junior Johnson and just being all those people sort of feeding off each other but he appreciated what he had and what he had worked hard to earn I think he really appreciated that he didn't want to flaunt it he just appreciated being that fortunate and it being in that position I think yeah for sure well man I hope you have fun the rest of the day thank you yeah thanks for coming and joining us this morning thank you All right, Travis Carter on the Dale Jr. Download.

All right, so we're wrapped up on Travis Carter, man. I'm going to tell you that was a different, that was definitely a different Dale Jr. download interview. You know, I can hear it now. Some of our critics on the Internet will be saying that this one was a little lackluster. But I disagree. You know, you might have to do a little homework to accompany with this podcast. go back, look at some of the statistics, go on racing reference,

maybe watch some of the races that Travis was a part of, to put yourself in the mindset of a guy like that. I've done that, right, so for me, that was entertaining. And he's under the radar, won't stay under the radar. Like, he's not going to, he doesn't, he's not, he's going to go home, he ain't going to do nothing. He don't need to do nothing. He doesn't need, like, I need.

racing. I need it. And he don't, he don't need it anymore. He don't, he's not mad at it. He don't need it. He don't miss it. We asked him if he'd sign the hood on the wall for, for us to auction off at the end of the year. And he's like, where can I sign it where no one will see it? He just doesn't want any, I'm surprised he come to do the interview, to be honest with you, because I don't think he, he asked when this show was going to air and he was disappointed to find out it would be soon. But Travis is different. He said it and I was glad he did because I didn't know how to say that without insulting him. But he's different. He's always had, there's been this sort of thing about him that I couldn't quite put my finger on. And he had been with some really good teams. He had done good things, won a championship, won lots of races. as a crew chief.

But he was like the least one, he was very, he was under-celebrated, under-acknowledged. Now, people like my dad, right, understood his worth because they would go to him and say, hey, I want you to come over here and work with me. I think we'll be better if you come to work with us. He got hired to go to Penskees and get that deal off the ground with Bobby Allison.

so I mean he was there's people in the industry that knew his value and knew his worth but he never really like like when his when his ownership stuff started sort of falling apart and the opportunities were leaving he didn't seek out another role like he could have easily been a a general manager or you know a shop foreman or something he would have been perfect because he knew all the in he knew all the ingredients uh for success and could have made a little money and set back and told people what to do. Never hardly had to lift a finger. And done that for a handful of years, probably managing some pretty successful teams.

But he didn't seek it. Didn't need it. Didn't want it. Had somebody called, he might have done it. But 74 years old. Kind of another version of one of the old heads from back in the day, just like last week's Buddy Parrott. We had a back-to-back sort of peek into the history of the sport

from two totally different personalities, completely different. And Travis wouldn't badmouth anybody. Travis had a great relationship with everybody. And I truly believe he believes that. I don't think, I mean, he did say that Tobinai was prone to hit things, but, you know, and that he might not have, you know, Todd might have been a little too worried about, you know, making Daryl look bad when he drove the car versus when Daryl drove it. But, you know, for the most part, he didn't get into a bunch of pissing matches or, you know, didn't get into any competitive spats with other crew chiefs or other teams or anybody of his, any employers. seemed pretty level-headed

but I wanted to talk to him never had and now I have and now we've checked that box and he goes into the library with the rest of them I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll do a little homework on Travis in his career and some of the teams that he was involved in

it's always fun kind of dipping back into the history of the sport and watching some of those races on NASCAR classics and just always good to peek back at that part of the sport and remember it fondly. But before we get to the White Flag, I want to thank Ally for bringing us the guest segment every single week. They do such a great job supporting us here at the Dale Junior Download, and we're always better off with an ally. Now that I've had a conversation with Travis Carter, I think I could call him a friend.

No matter what you're saving for, whether it's race tickets or a new car, a new home, we're all better off with an ally. Now let's get to the white flag. Dropping Sunday, and every Sunday is the tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi. You want to listen to that show as they cover everything they saw and experienced at Darlington this past weekend. And Denny Hamlin got the job done Monday. It was Labor Day and everybody else. At least the door bumper clear guys were all probably drinking and doing nothing.

Denny Hamlin was working, getting his podcast finished. Thank you, Denny. Action is detrimental dropped Monday. Dirty air and door bumper clear came out Tuesday. And obviously you're listening to this show, but also Speed Street with Connor Daley and Chase Holden. That dropped today. Connor got a podium finish for the first time at his new team, and a lot of excitement around him. He'll have some great guests with Pito Award and Scott McLaughlin.

And tomorrow coming out is DJD reloaded, not with Ask Junior. It's going to be Ask Amy this week. And then Dirty Mo Doe comes out. They're going to be handicapping the field and giving you all the best bets for. for the upcoming race at Atlanta. A new episode of Andrew Curlin went there. That's a new show. Andrew Curlin went there with guests Christopher Bell.

That's out on the next level YouTube page right now. If you want to go watch, Andrew and Christopher have a great conversation. We've got a five-star Apple review for you from Brett Hogan. Dale does a great job interviewing people who this casual NASCAR fan might not have never heard of. and it makes me want to go back and watch old NASCAR races and relive those great moments. Well, hey, that's what we were just telling you you might want to do. You know, Brett is right.

When we have a Travis Carter or Buddy Parrott on, as we're talking about these races, man, take a little note. Maybe I should watch that race. You know, I just heard the crew chief kind of talk about it for a minute and give me his perspective and memories on it. Now I'm going to go. I'm going to watch that on YouTube or whatever it may be. The 75 Daytona 500, there's probably a very good documentation of the 75 Daytona 500 in that race

and how that went out won out for Benny Parsons. So you might want to check that out. But I hope everybody has a great week. That's going to do it for me, but don't forget DJD reloaded tomorrow with Ask Amy. So yeah, I'll be on that show a little bit tomorrow. And then, yeah, we're off to Atlanta. We'll see you. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.