The Dale Jr. Download - 588 - Tony Eury Sr: Reliving The Bud Days

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

It’s a blast from the past as Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with longtime NASCAR crew chief Tony Eury Sr. to talk about what he’s been up to and their years together at Dale Earnhardt Inc. As the week kicked off with Dale Jr. announcing a Budweiser partnership to bring the iconic red, DEI-styled No. 8 car to the Florence 400 late model stock event, it was only fitting that he catches up with the man who was atop the pit box for the glory days. Tony explains that he has been working with his son Tony Eury Jr. at Fury Race Cars, where they stay active in late model and grassroots competition. They unpack Tony’s years spent behind the wheel as a driver at Metrolina and Concord before his family ran out of funds to keep competing. Around this time, Tony was juggling the decision to work on Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s car for a living or continue his career at Great Dane Trailers. Ultimately, after he put enough time in to receive some retirement benefits, Tony left Great Dane and headed over to DEI full-time.Dale Jr. was eager to learn more about the decision to put him in a full-time Busch Series ride, to which Tony was instrumental in making it happen. Tony recalls having a conversation with Dale Sr. about the hire, and Tony suggested that instead of spending money on other drivers he should give Dale Jr. a chance. They also talk about capturing back-to-back Busch Series championships and making the jump to NASCAR Cup competition. Dale marvels at Tony’s confidence that they would do well from the start, and Tony explains it was thanks to the team’s long track record of success with other racers. The guys reflect on some of their favorite moments working together and how they got DEI’s plate track program up to speed, becoming one of the most dominant forces in the modern Cup era. 21+ and present in North Carolina. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. We're back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download here. The Allied guest segment, got to thank Ally for everything they do for us here at the Dale Jr. Download, and they brought us an ally this morning, and it's Tony Uri Senior, my old crew chief. And I'm excited to see what he's doing, see what he's up to. I kind of know what he's been doing, but I'm not sure a lot of you know. And we're going to talk about the old days. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Hope he's in a great mood. Let's find out. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Ready, camera one. Hey, everybody, is Dale Jr. The Allied guest segment. Tony Erie Sr. is like a grandfather to me. We've had some tough times and we've had some good times.

Your download starts now. All right, everybody, back again in the Dirty Mode Media Studio here for the Allied guest segment. And Tony Uri Seniors out in the lobby is going to be here in a minute. I've been a little bit nervous about this. He's just an intimidating guy. but I'm excited to talk to him and learn more about him. Tony your senior is like a grandfather to me. Either way you look at it, he's like a family member and somebody I love very much.

And we've had some tough times and we've had some good times. And he's not the easiest person to get to know, to be quite honest. So I'm trying to be up for the challenge today to try to get to know him even better. There's a bunch about him that I'm intrigued by, and he's touched on some stories briefly over the course of our lives together. But, you know, he's not a guy that does a lot of bragging. He's not a guy that goes into real detail about stories. And he's not a big storyteller. but he's honest

and no filter and he's tough you're real tough and so looking forward to catching up with him usually when I'm around him it's him and Tony Jr. and it's us and some other

some of the other old team rarely are we in the room just me and him so this is going to be a treat for me and let's get him in here and let's get started All right, so we got Tony Senior here at the table, and man, I'm thankful to have you here today. I've been trying to, you know, trying to think of how I want to start this interview, but I still see you. And you're at the racetrack. You're at the racetrack this past weekend at Wilkesboro and still going to the racetrack and kind of helping Tony Jr.

with the Fury deal and a couple of cars that y'all got going on. But people want to know, what are you, what have you been up to? Well, mostly that's about what I've been doing. I've been helping them out over there at Fury a little bit when I want to. I play golf every Wednesday. Every Wednesday. Every Wednesday. Same people.

We have a group of eight. We play every Wednesday. So, you know, just kind of enjoying it a little bit. Help him out when it can. I've been going to the racetrack with them when they race. So, what, there's 11 or 12 races this year. I've been to, so. And I still help John bowling them out in Alabama a little bit, Pensacola.

Montgomery, but... They have a car in a shop up this way? No, it's all in Jasper. Do you go down there? No, they bring it up here. Yeah. Yeah, they bring it up here. They don't bring it every time.

If they got damage or we need to work on something, they'll bring it up. Gotcha. And so Tony Jr. Still over at Fury and running that whole deal, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so I went over there. I didn't know what it looked like, but I went over there.

and an incredible shop now mostly just modifies and late models left handers or just left handers? What's the projects these days? Well, mostly right now they're doing the northern modifiers or the modifiers they run in south. They do those. They're doing a lot of those. That's picked up really, really a lot. The late model program is still going strong. and they have a little road course car they build.

Yep. It's a Trans Am stuff? Yeah, it's kind of like a Trans Am car. They never could get it approved for Trans Am. They tried, but they never got it approved. So they got two manufacturers in there. They kind of got that lockdown. They don't really want anybody else in there.

But they do it for like a club car. Yep. They do that. So they don't sell a whole lot of them, but they got a few of them out there. But the modifies and the Lake Mall is keeping pretty busy. Who's Spencer Davis? Tony Jr. introduced me to him and said he was wanting to run a car around the house,

and that was the first time I met him, and him and his daddy Scott, they're really good people, and he enjoyed racing with them all year. Didn't he win the Wilkesboro race when they opened up Wilkesboro back? I think he did. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I never would have imagined that we would be both involved in a tour running grassroots racing at this part of our lives.

and that our lives would somehow still be sort of connected. Why do you want to still go to the racetrack? I mean, you're at this point in your life to where you could just kind of do whatever you wanted. But what keeps you coming back? Well, I'm not a person that's at home. I just got to find something to do. And I'm a very competitive person. Yeah.

My son's still involved in it. I get to be with him. Was there a point in your life where you thought, I think I'm going to dial that way back? Yeah, I did. How'd that go? Is it something you begin to miss? Well, yeah, I missed it, but I didn't miss it being going on every weekend. No.

I was kind of, I was over that. But I did miss that competitive part of it, and it just seemed like that was something I wanted to do. I mean, they race like every two weeks, three weeks or whatever, so it wouldn't be gone all the time. All of them is close to home, so that's why I got involved in. Yeah. So I wanted to, you know, had you and Tony did you. on the show back in 2019. So it's been a little bit of time.

We talked a little bit about your racing career. But since that time, this man came out with his book about Metralina, and it had a bunch of pictures in it. And it basically was a week-by-week count of the events, as good as this man could possibly do. And it gives you kind of a bit of an understanding about, like, you know, what kind of year you had or what kind of year your dad had

and what Ralph's seasons were like at Metrolina back then. And we talked about how you got your start in racing. But I want to understand your dad brought a car every week and you weren't a driver.

You got an opportunity to race a little bit and that convinced your dad to allow you to drive more, right? And so you, because what I'm, what I'm kind of asking you is, is like the starts for you were kind of spotty and chosen and not every week, right? Yeah.

Why? Like, because dad was the same way. You know, dad would run a couple races, like when they built the new Concord Speedway, which is gone now, but when they built that track and Ralph run there a little bit, but dad would run a couple weeks and then not be there the next. week. Why would y'all not run every single week? Well, when I first started, I just helped my dad. He had one car, and I just helped him every week. Well, then it got to where we'd go to the racetrack. When I got old enough to drive, when we go to the racetrack, he'd say, take it out there and warm

it up, get it ready for me. So I'd get it and go out and practice it. Like hard? Yeah. I'd just go out and practice it. And so I did that for probably a couple of years. So he'd say, just go out and practice it, get it ready. So I'd go out and practice it, and then then he'd race it that night. So that went on for a couple years. And then he decided he was going to build a new car. So he said, I'm going to build me a new car.

You want this old one? And I said, yeah, I'll take it. So that's when I started. They looked identical, except for one of those 40 and 41. 40 and 41. Both of them was orange. Did y'all take good care of them? Was this car that you were getting in really good shape

after a couple years of racing? Yeah. But the cars, then wasn't like the cars today. You know, everything was stock. Yeah. You went to the junkyard and you got your drag links and your spindles and all that stuff. You didn't make them or you didn't go buy them somewhere.

You went to the junkyard got them off the car. So the first year I drove, it was just like wreck after wreck. I just kept getting in wrecks, and he kept telling me, he goes like, I can't afford you. He said, you're running a junkyard out of draglings. And I don't know, it was just like, he said, every time I see you wreck you're on the brake. And we were dirt racing. And he said, every time you wreck you're on the brake, you can't drive it when you're on the brake. And I don't know, it just clicked in my head one day.

So they were wrecking in front of me one day, and I figured I said, well, I didn't hit no break, went right through it. It was just like it clicked then. Then I was fine after that, and I quit tearing stuff up. Yeah. But I was pretty bad to start with. So you'd bend it up and have to, you just, you know, wasn't in a rush to fix it. No.

Right? To get back. Your dad was going to race. She's had to get his car ready. Yep. We had a side on the wall. I took it to Tony Jr. here recently, but we had this old side of this car that belonged to Oliver. Was it David or?

David Dettie's car? No, that was Danny Simmons's car. Danny Simmons on that car, the 72. Yeah. I saw a guy, a guy did a model of this car on Instagram that I was sharing a couple months ago, but we restored it. And we may have talked about this on the show in 2019, but I kind of wanted to refresh my memory a little bit.

That was the very last car you raced. Yes. What did you drive that car for? Well, I had actually quit. My dad said he was done. He wasn't racing anymore. he says just cost too much it's too expensive so why were you done he said if you want to race you can race well i didn't have the money to race i was depending on him you know so i raced a few races there

and i said this i can't afford this why were you working at great dain yeah i was working at great dain then were you a dad yet yeah i said i did i can't afford this what did you do sell the cars And so we just quit. You sell everything? Nope. It was all still sitting there in the shop. Really? So we went like a, I don't know, a year or so.

And me and my brother-in-law, David, we decided we were going to go to Concord and race one night. So we went out there, we got it ready to go. Your car? Yeah. Went out there and got it ready to go. We went out and went to Concord, went down there, and kicked the rod out of the motor, and blew the motor up. So we said, we're done for sure now.

so Danny Simmons had that car and I don't know what had happened he had somebody driving it and they fell out or something and he called me up and he said come and see me come over and see me so he didn't live far from where I was so I just went over to his shop and walked in there he said I want you to drive his car and do you drive for me I said yeah I'd drive for you but he was pretty much in the same shape I was he didn't have the money to be racing either yeah So there's two of us together. We went in there and put the car together. It was a Pistone car.

I'd never drove anything like that. You know, it was the tube frame and all that stuff. All right. I never drove a stop. So he asked me to drive that car. And so I don't, I didn't really run it that many races. I don't know, maybe eight or ten. I think we won one.

Damn. We won one with it, I think. I thought you only drove it once. No, no. I drove it. I probably drove it eight or ten. 10 times. Yeah.

And I think we won one race with it. It had a wind sticker on the day. We had one, we won one race with it. And then we blew the motor up in it. And Danny said, I ain't got the money to fix it. I said, I ain't got the money either. And so it just sat there. And then I guess he had a balance with Tom over there.

And Tom come and represent. He told Tom, he said, I'll just get his car back if you'll wipe my bill off. so Tom thought he could just take it and just sell it and get his money right out of it and then he took it over there and he couldn't ever sell it. Yeah, it ended up sitting in a dirt floor barn somewhere and when we got it, it was below the frame rails in the dirt.

Yeah. And I remember when we brought that car to the shop, I honestly had gotten, we got about three quarters away restoring it. And I thought, I wonder how important or how even memorable this car is to Tony Senior, because we couldn't ask you. We don't want to ruin a surprise, and Tony Jr. wasn't really sure. Had your name on it, and they said it was the last car you drove. But what would you think when we pulled that thing?

Did you know what was coming in that garage when we opened that door? Nope, I didn't have a clue. What did you think about that car when you saw it? I couldn't believe it was back. I mean, I didn't ever really know what happened to it. Yeah. I had pulled up to your shop one day at the farm. Yes.

And Willie, Willie was in the shop. I don't even remember what I went over there for. And I seen Willie running to cover something up. Willie, Willie grabbed the cover and covered it up before I even got out of the truck. And I went in there, and I never had a clue that that was it. But that was it. He covered it up that day.

Yeah. But I almost seen it. Yeah. No, that was fun. You got you, you got a little emotional, and so I felt like, and we had the helmet and everything, but I felt like, I was like, I was like, it matters to him enough that he's, you know, you rarely did get emotional about anything. But that car is still sitting over in the North Carolina Hall of Fame or North Carolina

Motors Hall of Fame, I believe somewhere in Moorsville, if you go over, down 150, if anybody ever wants to go see it. Pretty neat little race car. The other things that we talked about on the show years ago was hanging out with dad when y'all were young. I was telling the guys earlier about y'all chopping springs in the car when y'all were cruising downtown and saw somebody with a different, with a better attitude, and y'all take the car back to the shop and chop it up. And just, you know, hanging out with dad when he was young and you and him dating sisters and ended up marrying sisters. and how hard or difficult was the decision to go work for him.

So, you know, you were still at Great Dane. Yes. Had worked there for years. You had all this equity and all this, you know, you, this was not like, oh, hell, yeah, I'll go work for Dale. This is awesome. Because dad's shop, his workplace was that little two-car garage of Rouse next to Memos. Now, he might have told you he had a plan for building a bigger shop,

but this is not as it cut and dry, easy as it sounds, I imagine. Yeah, really, when I went to work for him, it really wasn't even any plans to build another shop. I mean, you know, I'd work for him for, I don't know, three or four years while I was still working at Great Day. I'd leave work every day, leave Charlotte at 4 o'clock, and I'd go straight over there.

And we'd work 10 or 11 o'clock at night and go home and take a shot. and go to bed and go to work and do the same thing next day. Yeah. Well, I had a really good boss man over there. He loved racing. And so I just go in there and tell him, so we're going to race. I'm going to be gone Thursday and Friday or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whatever. Okay, go ahead.

He didn't care. Yeah. Because he loved it. He said, hey, you're doing what you love, go ahead. And we were getting ready to go to Daytona, and he said something to me the year before, going to work for him and I said I can't do it right now he says why are you going to stay a great name and rest of your life and I said no I said I got to get my 15 years in I said I'm at

14 a little over 14 and I said if I don't go to 15 I said I got a little little bit of a retirement deal that's going on there I said if I work 15 years I get a retirement fund and I said as long as I don't go to work at another trailer place. And I said, I can still go to the races. I can work. We just need to make this work. Yeah. Okay.

So we just kept on doing the same thing. And, you know, Rick was there all day. He'd run and get parts and he'd have everything that we needed by the time I got there. So I think I went, it might have been two years. So that may have been in 84, I guess, when he said that. So I think we went two years like that. So I had 16 years in at Great Dane. And still had no intentions.

He hadn't mentioned it again. Well, we was getting ready to go to Daytona. The car wasn't done. Well, him and Teresa went to St. Thomas. And I think it might have been her honeymoon. Yes, sir. It was her honeymoon, I think. So they were in St. Thomas.

and he calls me up. He had that bag phone. He was out on the beach with that bag phone. Some bag phones. Satellite phone. Yeah. And he calls me up and he is sitting on the beach and he won't know if that car is done. I went like, no, it ain't done.

And he goes like, well, you're going to get it done? I said, I don't know. I got a job. I have to work every day. And he says, you just need to go to work for me. and I said, well, we'll talk about it, but I said, right now I got to go to work. He goes like, well, you just need to go tell Blackman, because he knew Blackman, my boss, because he had worked there, you know.

He said, you just need to go tell Blackman, you got to take a week off because you got to get that car ready. And so I went to work, and I told Blackman, I said, hey, he's all over me because that car ain't done. I said, now he's wanting me to go to work for him and all that. And Blackman said, well, I don't know why you don't. said that's what you love anyway. That's what you need to go do. And I said, I don't know. I don't know if that's what I'm going to do or not.

So I took a couple days off, went over there and we worked. We got the car done. And he comes back. And he says, you just need to go in there and quit. Just go in there and quit. And I said, no, I ain't going there and quit. I go in there and give him a notice. But I ain't going to walk in there and quit.

So he says, that's what you need to do. I said, no, I ain't going to do it. I'm going to give me a notice. So I went in there and I walked in there and told him I was giving them a notice. Black said, you ain't giving me no notice. Get on out of here. So he said, go on. I said, I said, I ain't want to burn no bridges.

I might come back here someday. He goes like, just go on. Don't worry about it. Yeah. I remember going into the shop. This feels like the first day you were there. I got, I would beg daddy to take me with him and I got to go sometimes to that shop over at Memols back then. And we walked in there and you and maybe Rick boss,

but you and someone else is underneath the rear end of this brand new car. And it might have been that blue one from, I guess, 82, 83, I don't know. Or 84. But y'all are underneath the car and dad walks in. What's going on? You know, what's going on? Y'all were talking about something with the rear end. or something, trailing arms or something like that.

You know, you know, y'all, y'all sorting it out, figuring it out. And I remember asking Dad, um, who's that? What's he, who's that guy? He's like, that's Tony Senior. That's who's, he's here. He's come to work. He's our, he's coming to work here. And I just remember that very, I don't know why that day sticks out in my mind,

but I remember it being like the first day that I saw you in the shop during the daylight. You know what I mean? Yeah. and how was that transition for you? How did you and dad handle the, he's hard, you're both authoritative, you know, people. I know you knew him, you grew up with him, but in a work environment, it changes a little bit. You have a strong opinion about something, but he does. too. How did y'all manage to make it work?

I don't, I don't know that we ever had a problem, you know. Yeah. We worked pretty good together. I mean, there was one way to do something, and then it was Dale's way to do it. You know that. Yeah. I mean, uh, did he win out most time? He would win most of the time.

He might have to wiggle it a little bit. I mean, you know, he'd respect our opinions and stuff, but I don't think he ever really wanted to admit that he used something that was our idea or whatever. But we never had a problem. We worked good together. He was a hell of a nice guy to work for. I mean, really, he had a heart of gold. I asked him for a raise one day.

He gave me a pickup truck. He said, I can't afford to get you a raise, and I gave you a pickup truck. That seems backwards. He said, you need a truck, you ain't got a truck. So he gives me a truck. You had that little, what was that Toyota? Yeah, that was it. God almighty.

Yeah. Yeah. Some of the best times for me back in those days was at 5 o'clock, especially when the big shop got built, the Deerhead Shop. You know, you guys would be in there. Dad would be doing whatever he was supposed to be doing, whether he might even be on the property or somewhere working on the farm or whatever, up until 5 o'clock.

And then at 5 o'clock, it's like everybody, gathered around a picnic table. Might drink some beer, might drink dad, might make them a five alive and an absolute or something like that. And you just bench race and talk. And so in my mind, those are some of my favorite memories from back then, even though I was kind of just an observer and a young kid about it. But what are some of your favorite memories from that era when, you know, kind of the

transition of dad moving out of the Xfinity car y'all but right before Dave you know right before Jeff Green comes to drive the car um when y'all had a couple race cars in the shop and you know the far in big DEI buildings they weren't built none of that was there what's some of your favorite memories from those days well I think the most the most races we ever ran was like 14 and those were probably running when we were still at Martha's yeah uh after we moved out there, he started wanting to scale back a little bit. He didn't want to run as many. He said, we was running like 10, 11, 12 races.

He always wanted to run to Rogganham. He always wanted to run Darlington. He said he had a, that was a timing deal. He said, you need to work on that. He said, it don't matter what kind of car you're driving. You drive Rogganham, Dalton. You drive it the same way. He don't matter what car you're driving.

So he says, it gets me in a rhythm for Sunday. So we always had to run Rockingham. We always had to run Darlingham. We always had to run Darlington. and so we all we had those four and then whatever else he'd picked he'd get somebody to give me some money to run or whatever but the best part about it was is he never really tore anything up I mean so we just come back and serviced it so in you know a couple days cars ready to go again so we'd end up farming yeah I mean we pulled barbed wire fences we oh yeah hey well I mean

whatever needed to be done That's what we did. When the car was ready to go, that's what we did. We enjoyed it. It's fun, you know. But the five o'clock deal was, is he was going to work on that farm all day on Monday because that was his Saturday.

He called that his Saturday. So he worked on the farm all day on Monday, and he said, don't y'all leave, I get back up here. So if it was six o'clock or whatever, we had to be there when he came out. Because he wanted somebody to hang out with him. So that's how the Monday deal started. Well, everybody got to figuring out that we was hanging out on Monday, so people's leaving work.

They'd stop it. So the next thing you know, picnic table ain't big enough. So everybody got to stopping, and, I mean, crew cheese from other teams and, you know, just all kinds of people coming in, hanging out. Yeah. I mean, Rusty would come, Michael would come, and Kenny Wallace would come. I mean, there was all the time somebody different, you know, coming in. just to hang out.

I have my beer and before they go home or whatever. Some of the better memories I had was one time we was racing the streetstock cars. I had my street stock car and Kelly had, Kelly wasn't racing yet, but me and Kerry were sharing a car

or had two cars at one point. Todd Savage, who was dad's carpenter, had an old Ford that he was racing. And that one time, one time dad walked by and shot the gas tank out of that forward i think dad asked todd where is todd had the trunk open and and dad asked todd where the gas tank where's tank like safe tank was like the plastic you know the good racing tank Todd said i ain't going to put one in it and so he shot a hole through the quarter panel and through the stock fuel tank yeah so that he

would put a safe tank in it. The funny part about that was is Todd was up inside of the car. Scared the shit out of it. And he was welding the back fire. He was spotting the back firewall in. So he's up in there. He don't even see us.

He's got his helmet down. He's in there. He's spotting that firewall in. And he walks by and he shot through that thing. Yeah. And Todd thought the gas tank it blew up. What happened? It scared Todd did.

I remember we wrecked, We were racing at Concord. Tony Jr. had a late model stock car, beautiful car that he had built. And he had built out of nothing. And so y'all were up on the, y'all were out on the weekends or at the farm shop, either messing, you know, getting his car ready or whatever.

But I had ran, we had a double header or something. We raced Friday night and Saturday night at Concord, and I got in a wreck, knocked the damn horns off my car. And I remember you helping me pull it straight with a porter power. And I got to say, Tony Senior, you were intimidating guy back then. And you, I was always pretty nervous to be around you because I wasn't sure what you thought of me. But you didn't have to help me do those things, but you wanted to make sure that it was getting done, right? and I don't know that I was always as appreciative as I should have been or aware of how lucky I was to even just have a race car and be around you guys and learn what I was learning.

One time in particular that I'll never forget, and I wanted to talk to you about this, and I don't think we talked about this on the show last time we might have. I can't remember. I got some notes in front of me from our 2019 conversation, but. We were, I went down to Hargets to race, Gary Hargots. We had an old shop, old race car, and we didn't have nothing. And at least that's what it felt like. And Gary and I, I was tearing shit up and we was, we went through a bunch of, you know where I'm going probably after I tell you. But we was going through a lot of duct tape.

And I said, and Gary knew I was up around y'all's shop. And he said, get some ducats. duct tape when you're up there. And I was so scared to ask y'all for duct tape. And so I thought, man, I think it's a better idea if I go look for a used roll of duct tape, one that ain't even full. Y'all had some brand new rolls upstairs. And I went over to where you kept your crash card or your toolbox that would go up in

the hauler and found a half-used roller duct tape and started walking back across the shop, walking across the parking lot to my truck. And you met me outside and you told me that I did not need to take things. things from your shop. And do you remember that day? Oh my God. Boy, you ripped my ass. And, but I told, I told the guys here in the studio earlier today when we were talking

about you coming on as guest, I was like, man, I was so thankful for that. You, of course, dad, you know, dad was intimidating and he held, held me accountable, but he wasn't always around. and I was really lucky that you were you had you I was really lucky that you set that at standard and expectation you did that with Tony Jr. You held him accountable and he's you know he's who he is today because of that. You were his you were his main parental, you know, guidance in his life for all those years. and he was really lucky to be able to work side by side with you in that shop.

But I always appreciated, I was, I didn't, I didn't want to disappoint you back then. I don't know that I appreciated the accountability, but I do now. There's a lot of, there's a lot of directions that I could have went as a kid or a teenager, and I'm thankful for people like you in my life that, held me to a certain standard and expected certain things from me. And man, I was really, really lucky that we got to race together because then I got it every day

instead of just every once in a while. There's a story about when we, and I've told the story seems like several times this year, of when I found out I was going to drive your car. And so I've been running my late model car and I've been racing my little, you know, my race here and there in my little bush car, and you gave me a car to run at Michigan that I had a good day with, and we did a couple other fun things.

So I'd done something to get somebody's attention. I remember, you know, when I go to race at Michigan and run top 10, and then when I go to Bristol and set up on the front row and lead some laps, I know I wrecked early, but, so I'm doing those things during, that day, me and Wesley and Bono, you're watching. Are you watching and seeing what we're doing? Yeah. Did you think they, is that what gave you the confidence or the comfort to think maybe

I could drive your car? Because, I mean, y'all didn't, y'all could have put anybody in there and you wanted to go win, you know, you didn't want a damn project and, and you didn't want to have to damn, you know have you know you didn't want to put me in there me flame out and have a bad experience for all of us so i mean are you watching in those couple of events that i ran in 97 yeah because i mean nobody ever saw me race much in late models and and and there wasn't a bunch there wasn't a lot there to watch yeah yeah i mean we only seen you run the lake model a few times that uh like mirtle beach whenever the bush series was there or something you know that's that's pretty

much yeah and uh until tony junior got hit little lake model and we started playing with it some, but we really never seen you race that much. But, I mean, I think we all kind of knew it was going to come down to the day that he was going to put you in it. I never thought that I was doing enough. Yeah, I mean.

I didn't think I was doing enough, like, performance-wise. And I don't think I was certainly character-wise deserving of it. I mean, I was a little shit. I wasn't the worst kid in the world, but, you know, I hadn't really, earned its opportunity. But I was kind of curious. You had a conversation with dad where he was like,

hey, who you want, what you want to do? Well, it really wasn't a conversation. He, I think he added it in the back of his mind the whole time. Where were you all at when this happened? We was in the, in the, the bush shop at chicken house. Yes. I think the whole time his plan was,

was going to put you in that car. He wanted to be your idea? When y'all went to Charlotte and y'all wrecked that car. And y'all came home and went over and sat down. Yeah. I'll kill that guy. Oh, man. I'll tell you. He was so disappointed.

I mean, he, that ripped that man's heart out. I mean, I'm telling you, you was going in that car. But he, I mean, me and him had a conversation about it, and he was not happy. Yeah. Which you knew he wasn't happy, but he let you know he wasn't happy. Yeah. And he came back, I don't know, it was probably a couple weeks later. And that's, he walked in there and he says, what, what do you think about putting Dale Jr. in this car?

And I said, Dale, you spent money on Jeff Green, you spent money on Speed Park. why don't you spend your money on your own kid I said why you want to go spend it on somebody else he goes he brings that Charlotte deal up I mean it's like they don't want to do this I said Dale their kids put him in it spend your money on him quit spending it on other people's kids

we'll go see yeah I said we'll know in a year I said we'll know in a year if he's got it or not I said, we got a good baseline now. Steve's got us a good baseline. You're going to move him on? I said, plug him in. Let's go. I don't think his mind was set to do it when he walked out of there,

but he thought about it for a little while, you know. So when I walked into the shop that day, it feels like it was in the middle of January. It might have been December. It seemed like Dayton was soon. And y'all was standing there. I might be wrong about it. I might be wrong about how this happened,

but I feel like I walked in that shop and you and Tony Jr. was standing there, and you told me to turn around, and I looked in there was my name on the roof of one of them cars. That was a cool moment. When I saw that, and I really wasn't sure to believe it at first,

but I looked at you and Tony Jr., and especially Tony Jr., in that moment, y'all were excited. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't believe. this is what it was getting ready to happen to me. I remember that day in the, at Charlotte,

there were two wrecks at Charlotte. I wrecked your black car. I ran four laps and crashed. And then, and I thought my life, my career, racing career was over when that happened. And,

and then when I wrecked that car at Charlotte that year, the one that dad was so upset about, I really felt like that my career was over. You know, Because so we're standing there and that car's wrecked. Y'all still have practice happening.

You know, there's still shit going on. Y'all, y'all are doing y'all's thing with your car. And me and Wesley are standing there like, what do we do? What do we do now? And I guess we'll load it up. I don't know what we're supposed to do. And it felt like that it didn't matter to any. This isn't to you personally, but it's like it didn't matter to anybody in that whole.

freaking track that that had just happened and we were we didn't have anybody saying all right load it up take it back do this do that and so and I didn't have the self-awareness to know what to do next and I really thought that like I wanted to be a race car driver so bad and that wasn't going to happen for me and it was really over and so I went home and was going to just be sad for myself and dad walked in there And I knew it was him as soon as this first step. I mean, you can hear him. When you hear him, you hear him. And I knew he was going to be pissed.

But we had a really good conversation. I mean, I know that he, that was probably the one thing that, that was probably the one thing that I hated the most about our relationship is that I couldn't, I couldn't do what I, I couldn't do the right thing in those moments that would, that would give him confidence, right? I was often choosing the wrong reaction, and often in a lot of ways,

and he would just go, man, damn, why do you think about it that way, or why do you choose this instead of that? And, like, he was right. Like, if he tore that car up, he would have been the one cutting it in pieces to fix it. He would have taken it home to his shop and be working on it, right?

And figuring out how to beg, borrow and still to get it back to race it again. And I didn't have that, I didn't have that, uh, awareness or that, that mentality. Um, and so that was a, that was a key moment though. I think that even though that happened, we, the conversation we had on the back porch was a good one that we had never had before. Yeah. And, um, and it, I couldn't, I just needed to hear it from him.

that, you know, we had some pretty honest comments, I guess, that I just, you know, you just never have, you don't have those conversations regularly, but I, um, we get in your, I get in your car and we go to the racetrack. We go to Daytona. And, uh, I think my first five or six restrictive plate races, I wrecked the car. Um, but we went to Daytona. and we flipped upside down. I broke the yoke on pit road off the rear and housing trying to get out of pit stall,

which is probably my fault. Because the gear is so low in first gear. But we have a really bad experience, and then we go to Rockingham, and we have another struggle. Rockingham was hard. God, I had some rough days of Rockingham, even in the Budgart. I think the only top five ever had at Rockingham

was the last race we were running. run there before they stopped going. We finally had like a fifth place finish and I thought the shit and finally figured it out. And then we went to Vegas, I think, and run second to Jimmy Spencer. That for me was the race where it kind of

I finally was like, I can do it. You know, when, I guess, when were you and the guys feeling like that this might actually work. I guess when did you kind of start to, because I don't know that you could have seen it in Daytona or at Rockingham. And I was in, I was in over my head,

overwhelmed and tons of pressure. I don't know that anybody there ever had a doubt. I mean, I mean, I don't know if you remember the conversation or not, but when you walked in that shop and me and Tom's Union were standing there and we told you, said, you can win this championship. Yeah.

If you don't blow it in the first six races. And it seemed like every year that we ran for the championship, we got so far behind in the first four or five races, and it was just like, you can't catch up. Yeah. So that was in mind. If we can just get through the first six races

and not get behind, we got a chance to win this championship. I love being with y'all because y'all, y'all knew how to have fun. Y'all know how to, y'all knew how to fun and still win. You know, y'all knew how to have fun and enjoy, look, it was a grind, but y'all had a good group of guys. Everybody had fun, got along. We ate it, you know, we ate together on the weekends on Friday night or Saturday night,

and everybody was together and laughing and picking, you know, you and Tony Jr. is going to always be keeping things like, but we would go and perform. We would kick ass. I remember being one of my, one fine memory that I have was we went to South Boston and tested. And we had his drop snout car, the redheaded stepchild that we were running. And we were practicing, we'd practice for most of the day and then near the end of the Today we were going to run some macrons. We were going to tape up the car and put some stickers on and make a couple of microns.

And they had just repaved this racetrack. And we went out there and ran and we weren't fast at all. And I told Tony Jr., I felt like the tires felt flat. And so he blew them up like 10 more pounds, and we went out there and hound ass. I mean, we had them inflated for qualifying already, but I was like, it just don't feel like there's not fair in the tires. And I didn't never really, I wasn't the kind of driver that would be able to say,

yeah, don't feel like there's enough split in the rear springs, or it needs right front compression, or things like that. I mean, I did learn over time with Tony Jr., some of the things that I appreciated in cars, like reloading the bar and stuff like that, that was always like my crutches. But I would always tell you guys, like, you know, it feels like it's driving through mud,

or it feels, you know, I always had these weird analogies to try to help you all, understand the sensation that's happening. And I don't know. It seemed to work. But I remember being, I remember we ended up sitting on the pole and winning that race. I watched that race on YouTube a couple weeks ago.

And I just always kind of, that was one where Jeff Green almost beat us at the end, but we ended up winning. I feel like I can, I feel like I was a good little race car driver. But I still, I'm amazed, I guess, by how much the car and the pace and the speed of the car helped make everything easier. Y'all had worked with Steve and you had gotten a baseline and y'all had good speed in some of your cars,

but the speed the car had in 9899 was better. We built some cars, some short track cars that y'all were developing with Park right at the end of that deal. That helped. but the number one car, remember number one car? We always took Atlanta in places like that. I mean, just to f***, just lights out quick. I wasn't a driver that felt like I really knew how to put a race together. If you give me too many opportunities to crash it or tear it up, I probably could do it.

But, you know, as we're cruising through that first year, and we really were getting in position where it looked like we had a shot to win the championship. How did you guys have that much confidence that we could do it? Because I didn't even have that confidence in myself. I certainly didn't have it before Daytona. To tell me, hey, man, if you don't screw it up, we can win a championship. I'm like, I just want to make it. I just want a damn win a race.

You know, I always thought if you won one race, you could be a driver at least the rest of your life. But like when we're getting on in the year and y'all were sitting there with a shot that went in the championship, I mean, I don't know, I look back on it now and I have a hard time believing it happened. Well, I mean, we had good cars.

We did our own bodies, you know. Ron Hutter was doing engines in. And whenever Steve was there, we only had one Hutter engine. Right at every handful. We just run it at a mile and a half track, So everywhere else we went, we run Jack Tants or Dennis Fischer's or whoever's we had. That's a big difference.

And it was a big difference in those. And I mean, nothing wrong with Jack Tamp motor. Jack Tant built some good motors. But it just seemed like that one Hutter motor we had was just so much better at the mile and a half stuff. So the following year, then we got all hudders. So, I mean, that was a big difference. Yeah. What do you remember, if anything, about conversations that you had with that around that time frame?

Like when, I mean, you know, he would come to Victory Lane. I always talk about this. He would come to Victory Lane and he wouldn't stick around. You know, he come in there, high five you, hug you, tell you something. You know, I'm proud of you. But, I mean, are there moments during the week or back at home where y'all, you know, he's like, damn, you know. I mean, y'all going to win the championship. I remember him, I'm asking that because I remember him reading articles about him in 1980

when he's sitting there driving Austin's car and he had a, he got mid-year and he went, I might could freaking actually do this. Like I'm having a great year, but I really think I could win a championship this year. Like it had never, he'd never had that opportunity to even have that occur to him. And so I'm wondering maybe when it might have happened. in that time frame in 98 or 99 when we're sitting there racing for a title, because I swear, man, I mean, 12 months before that, the middle of 97, I'm, this ain't happening, right?

Right. And I'm, he's wondering where the hell I'm going to end up, right? What I'm going to become in life. And so I'm wondering if y'all had any conversations around that about his excitement or surprise or. well I mean he was the leader and every Monday morning when I walked in the shop he'd be sitting there waiting on me really and he would make his comments about what he thought about the weekend and then I'd tell him what I thought about the weekend we just had a little discussion for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and then okay I'm the farm he'd be gone yeah but it was I mean even up through the

Budweiser days, he was in the shop on Monday morning waiting on me. Really? And, I mean, just a little debriefing, I guess you'd call it. Yeah. But, I mean, he was our leader, that's for sure. Yeah. Hey, NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel, America's number one sports book.

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the official Lionel dealers, and Walmart and Target stores nationwide. I do want to talk about the Bud Days. I was always amazed by y'all's confidence. You and Tony Jr. Y'all were a package. And we raced in the Xfinity Series in 9899. We'd go to the racetrack, and you and Tanya Jr.

thought that that car should be at the top of the sheet in practice. It should win the pole and it's winning the race. And it was a, the car you loaded up to take, send of the racetrack was supposed to do that. You know, we get into the cup series and y'all's, y'all's attitude about it didn't change. You went into that cup garage to, with the same. thought about how you all should perform. And I mean, you knew just as well as I did how completely different those two garages were.

Why did you think you could go into the cup garage and just do whatever, you know, do it as well, I guess, as you had been doing it in an infinity garage? It didn't matter who was driving. We'd always did good. I mean, we were brought up with your dad, you know. He expected, that's what he expected. So, you know, we was a young,

group, cocky group. I mean, we just all had it in our heads that we could do it. We can do this. And like you say, we won those two championships and then we went in that cup garage and we got awakening. They woke us up and we got over there. Oh yeah. We went in there just as cocky as we was when we left Homestead in 99. And we walked in there and we're going to be king over here. Well, we got woke up real quick. So we had to go to work. Yeah. But I mean, it worked out. We worked hard. We had a round group, loved to work.

All of them, like you say, they all got along together. Lunchtime, the van doors opened. Everybody got in. Yeah. And everybody wanted to be together. You know, they all worked together. Everybody knew each other. Just a good group.

We had very little turnover. So, you know, we kept us, kept the main guys together all the time. I think that made a lot of difference. Yeah. The other teams we had over there were revolving doors. They were just, the equipment that we had when we ran the bud car, it's just like when Tony Jr. went to Hendricks and interviewed for the job when y'all left DEI.

He come back, and he walks up to me, and he says, pat me on the back. And he's patting me on the back the whole time. I said, what? He says, we're patting each other on the back, because you won't believe what I just seen. He said, I want you to know. you won't believe what I just seen what we've been racing against

and we beat them and he says we don't have nothing we don't have nothing here he said I'm telling you he said man we beat them but the way we beat them is we tested yeah we did test we didn't have sim

we didn't have simulation we didn't have none of that we had a very very small engineering group and that was just something that never never got developed. Your dad talked about it. We got to do this.

We got to do that. And then after he was gone, and every meeting is, we got to do this, we've got to do that. But nothing just never happened, you know. So the only thing we could do

was work hard and do the best we could do, and that's what we did. Yeah. We had some really fast cars, man. I, um, you know, we were talking about our favorite victories

and it's hard for me to really have, like, the 2001 July race, the Daytona 500, No 4, Dover. Is it easy for you to pick one? Definitely the Daytona 500, but the Winston at Charlotte and the Texas first Texas. I mean, most of the end of, I'll never forget to grin on that man's face when I seen him coming up in there at Texas for that first one. And that made every bit of it worth it. I mean, when I seen him walking up through there with that big old grin on his face,

and he grabbed me around the neck. It been worth every minute of it. Yeah, yeah. But that Winston race, as bad as we were, I mean, we had, what, a seven-lap car, six-lap car, and it was gone. Yeah. And they ended up winning it. We run third in the first segment, and I hit the wall.

Remember, we run second or third in, like, the first couple of segments. I know a lot of people know about this. but, and maybe everybody was doing it, but we were testing the week before at Charlotte, and it was dark, and we was getting ready to load up, but we had about an hour to go. And Tony Jr. said, I'm going to take all the fuel out of it, and I want you to go out and run it for 10 laps,

and we went out there and flew. And I said, man, it drives perfect. It really does. I was like, if you don't run out of gas, you know, if you don't have a lot of cautious or something, I was like, this is really nice. And, you know, so that was, I guess that's kind of how we strategize to put ourselves in the best position to be more,

you know, we had third place car, I think, in that race. Yeah. But when we took the fuel out of it, and I'm sure some other people were trying to do that, too. I don't know. You might have, you'd know better than I would. Yeah. But, uh, and we did put tires on with eight laps to go, but the damn thing flew. Yeah, we was out of tires.

Yeah. And, uh, that caution come out. Rusty had fell out of the race, and they were pitted beside us. Well, everybody stacked our tires. up against the wall for champion to pick them up. So Rusty and them had their tires stacked up against the wall and the caution come out with our tires. Said, get them four over there.

So we stole four tires. You didn't even ask them? No, they were gone. They were all gone. So we just got four. Rusty's tires put them on there and won that race. And we was over there at the inspection deal. It was funny.

We'll stand over there. And I don't even remember which one of them was. One of the guys from the two car. comes over and said, what did y'all do? Soak them tires on that last run? We started laughing. Tony Jr. looked at him and he said,

if they got soaked, it was y'all because look at them and they had twos on them. Damn, that's hilarious. That was when Benny Parsons got on his race show talking about they need to limit tires, how many tires we used that night in that race, because we used a lot. We did.

felt like that the the Daytona race in July and the Daytona 500 I mean all the Talladega wins we put so much effort you know into you'd have three days of testing every January in Daytona and you had to do something

with your time and we filled it you guys would have 12 air boxes to try and 30 puffs on you know body panels and pieces and we had we'd go down there with a list and you wasn't even going to to finish that list talking about testing you know you guys made the most out of everything

we know that racing at Daytona Taldega was important to dad I mean did he have conversations with you where he's like hey these are you got to run good at these two places the first year in 2000 our cars wouldn't very good at Daytona Toulade well dad was let's say the first three races we weren't very good we went to Daytona and everybody was plowing dad was pissed off said the cars weren't right. He was mad at me. That would help nobody. He had that rad deal going between Andy and Richard and us, you know.

On Monday we were sitting at that picnic table. Everybody left this shop and we'd go over to the Deerhead Shop 5 o'clock, just like we always did. So we went over there and we're sitting at this picnic table. And we get to talking about Daytona how bad we had run it. Maybe it's Talada. bad we'd run at Taulda. Cars didn't run good. So he started talking about

what he felt in the car. And he says, I'm going to tell you why Richard Childress outruns these guys at Daytona Tadaldaegah. And he says, his cars don't slow down. He said, I've been in other people's cars and drove them at Daytona Tadaldaq. And he said, when you turn the wheel, the car slowed down.

He said, Richard's cars hardly lose any RPM in the corner. I said, well, how much you're talking? He said, maybe 300. They might lose 300 RPM in the corner, three or four. He said, other cars I've drove lose seven and eight. He said, and that's where we beat them. He said, that's where we beat those guys.

He said, you got to make your car run when it's in y'all. Okay. Well, I mean, he didn't know what they were doing to the bodies. He just knew what he did on the racetrack, you know. Well, we would look at them wind tunnel sheets, and then they would do that build sheet between all the teams. We look at them, and everybody's looked the same. You know, everybody's doing the same thing.

Put the roof to the right, the hood to the left, tail to left, you know, just all crooked. So we go to the wind tunnel. It must have been before the Daytona fourth race. So we go to wind tunnel working on car. we're trying to get it better. Well, they always turn the car to the right first. They turn it five degrees,

and then they turn it back straight, and then five, ten, fifteen. So when they turn a car to the right, it loses drag. So we're sitting there looking at it, and me and Tony Jr. and Tom and Will. And Tom goes, we just need to figure out

how to make the thing run to the right. So we went back. I think they cut it off. We put the thing back on there. I don't remember what all it did. We went back to the tunnel, and they took like half of it out of it. So it would turn to the right.

It would only lose like two or something, and then straighten it back up. So we went back. So we was having a discussion sitting there, a table talking about it. I said, well, it sounds to me like we just need to turn the whole car. I said, why can't we just take the body and turn it?

well you got to offset this this way and that way you know i said i ain't talking about doing the offset just built it straight and just turn the whole car i said just make the car run to the left i mean to the right and they're going i don't know if we can do that or not and keep all them templates fit and i said that's what we need to try to do tony junior went over there with them they went in that fav shop and they chopped that thing off and this was after daytona they chopped it off, put that thing back on there and we went to the wind tunnel. And when it would turn to the right

or straight, it stayed the same. It didn't move. It didn't change a bit. When the GM would give that sheet out, it'd be like 25 cars on. We was always right in the middle. Yeah. Somewhere around in the middle. Well, when they gave that sheet out, we went always at the top.

So that's the car we took to Talladega when Skinner running below the line. But Dale ended up winning. That was that car. They were going to go to the rad meeting. Well, Will comes over and he says,

I got to go to this rad meeting. I got to have a bill sheet all that car. He said, they're throwing a fit and want a bill sheet on my car. I said, they ain't getting a bill sheet on that car. I said, no. I said, take that one off that backup car. He goes like, they're going to know it.

They're going to know it ain't the one. I said, well, whatever you do, you don't give my bill sheet off that car. I said, we got to race them two. I said, that's the two we race every time we go there. That's the two we got to beat. So he takes a bill sheet, puts the car number on top of it, puts a quarter heights on it, roof high, stuff like that. And he goes to the meeting, and they ask that sheet in hand, there ain't no numbers on it.

Oh, they got mad. Yeah, mad. Well, instant they called. Dale up. He comes flying in the shop. He's mad. Oh, no. Yeah, he's mad.

I'm telling you, the friendship that me and him had, if we hadn't had it, I think I got fired that day. That's how mad he was. He was that mad. And he wanted to know if I didn't know who paid me. He said, do you not know who pays you? And I said, yeah, I know who pays me. He goes, well, do you not know who drives that three car?

And I said, yeah, I know who drives three car. He goes, well, I want to know why you can't give a bill sheet. to my owner for the car I drive. And I said, you know how hard we worked to get that car? I said, we worked really, really hard. He goes like, I don't care how hard you work. That bill sheet, they need that bill sheet,

because I want one of them myself. I said, why don't we just build you one? He goes like, no, you can't do that. He goes, we've got to be honest in this group here. So I said, okay So we never actually gave them the one for that car We gave them one close to it Yeah

And then they started figuring it out You know, it didn't take long I mean they're smart They wouldn't they wouldn't dumb But they figured it out after they seen that one sheet But And then that's the car we built for Michael So he came in there and he said

I need y'all to build Michael one of those cars For Daytona because we're going to run Michael's going to run here next year. So we built that car from Michael. So y'all had identical cars there. Damn. But I believe that's the maddest I ever made him. Yeah.

I really do. He was not happy over that one. We also had an engine that I still have, number 11, I think. When it's all said and done, there's nothing different in that motor than all the other motors they built for that race weekend or any race weekend, Talladeg, Daytona. But you and Tonya Jr. wanted what you wanted. number 11 was y'all's motor um you know there was a couple instances i guess during the whole time we were there where y'all were like no that's that's what we're going to use y'all you know that's our that motor's going to go in our car how did that not become a problem right inside of

the organization's got a couple cars racing got a lot of employees getting bigger more people coming in you got other people coming in that don't really know the you know the culture is as you know it. But like how could you call dibs on a motor? Well, I don't know. We did, but I mean, Richie laughed about it. He thought it's funny, but you know, the engine shop, they were just like us.

They thought they could build something better. All the time. Yeah. We're going to build you and you and it's going to be better. So the whole time we kept Harvard that motor, they were making it better. I mean, they were just working on that one. But Richie just, you know,

So he laughed about it. He said, I can't believe y'all, you know. Yeah. But he called me over there, and I guess that's when it had a crack in a block crack on. A freeze plug. Yeah, something was cracked on. So he called me over and he said, she's gone. He said, she's gone.

You ain't going to get her no more. And he was showing it to me. And I said, dang. Y'all, what I got told was it pushed the free plug out and y'all could put it back in, but it was a risk. Like we could have tried to run it, but it was a risk. Yeah, he was telling me something about it had a crack or something. So he said, we're going to build you new one, and I'll promise you it'll be better.

But it got, we changed motors at the track, and we won the fourth Talladega in a row with out number 11. Yeah. But when we got so dominant, it's just like when you talk about that one car, it was just so much faster than everybody else. Richie called me over there, and he said, I'm going to show you something. He said, I want to show you what I got. He said, we work to get one, two, three horsepower.

He said, we work hard to get that. He said, it's very, very, very hard to get. He said, you get a plate motor that's three horsepower better. It's good. He says, it's a lot better. He's the only show you what I got. And he carried me in there and he showed me that motor. The dino sheets on it.

And that motor was 10 horsepower better. Number 11. It was 10 horsepower better. and it run like it too. Oh, yeah. I'm telling you. Yeah. And that's exactly why we hollered for it all the time.

Yeah. It was like there for a while you just do the, you pull out, do anything you wanted with the car. It was pretty, pretty easy, pretty amazing. Man, I've enjoyed talking to you. All right, I enjoyed it. Yeah. I hope that y'all enjoy seeing that bug car out on the racetrack, and maybe we'll run. If you don't get to Florence this year, might end up running it again next year one time.

somewhere and maybe we can get a picture or two or something like that out there next to it because we had a lot of great memories driving that car and working on that car and trying to figure out how to make it go fast a lot of stuff that i still don't know like i'm his i'm still talking to you today here new stories that you know going on in the shop and behind the scenes to try to make that thing go fast and it's amazing to me some of the hard work that you and tony the junior did to find an edge. Y'all were really sharp at it.

But I appreciate it, man. Thank you for coming today. I'll see you to short track. All right. Thank you. All right, buddy. Tony Sr. on the Dale Jr. download. All right, so that was a great conversation with Tony Uri Senior.

And, you know, fun to catch up with him. It's, you know, been interesting how our lives have kind of changed so much over the years and seeing him at a short track and involved and helping a race team or a race car get around the racetrack at that age makes me feel good. And yeah, he's quiet and he had some great stories,

some things that I didn't know, talking about the engines and the body on the speedway cars and stuff like that. A lot of the stories from how they were developing our team and getting our team better. I certainly wasn't around and listening to all those things happen in real time. But I know that he's packed full of those stories. Just trying to get them out of this guy can be the challenge.

But I just like being around him and appreciate him. And I don't know that he accepts, I don't know that he accepts, compliments all that well. You know, it's kind of, you know, if you ever, I don't know, maybe the people, maybe people listening to this show can, can maybe appreciate this because we all have relationships in our lives and whether it's an uncle or your father or, you know, your grandfather or your best friend. you know, really trying to get down to the root of the relationship and share with them how much you appreciate them can be difficult. And, you know, it is with Tony Sr.

You know, I think the world of him and trying to tell him that has never been easy. And he's not, he doesn't receive it. you know he's not interested in you know that part but uh i hope he appreciates it only he knows um so it's uh you know i don't know we'll we'll have to talk again we'll have to see if um you know he's got more short stories that he wants to share but it's like another lifetime it's like a whole another lifetime ago when when me and him work together on a race car and race together and I've missed those days badly and I would have to admit I daydream about what it might be like to go back to a racetrack driving a car that him and

Tony Jr. are wrenching on. I do daydream about that because I know how good they are and how much fun we had and how fun it might be for us to go compete somewhere and be competitive. but and it's not entirely out of the question, I guess, for that to happen now that we are kind of both playing in the same sandbox. I don't know that I'll ever race a super, but there's always an opportunity or chance to race a pro somewhere, especially with the cars tour next year or beyond. So maybe we figure that out. But I hope you enjoyed it.

Good catching up with him. he still looks like he's in great shape mentally and physically moving really well so always good to see I want to say thanks to Ally for everything they do for us here at the Dale Junior Download always great to have them supporting us

and they do so much in our industry obviously sponsoring Alex Bowman over at Hendrick Motorsports but they've been a great partner here at the Dale Jr. Download and we certainly can't do this without them. They brought us a great great ally on the show this weekend and no matter what you're saving for, whether it's race tickets, it's a new car that you're looking at or you're saving up for your first home or

a new home. We are all better off with an ally. All right, it's time for the white flag. Dropping Sunday after the race to tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jor and Bianchi and action is detrimental as well with Denny Hamlin. Monday, door bumper clear. Those guys got their show off and running. great recrap re-crap yeah that was crap

uh their show um a good recrap from Vegas and then uh dropping yesterday the dirty air uh we talked about Vegas as well

we had Joe Lagono call in and then Speed Street with Connor Daily and Chase Holden comes out today tomorrow DJD Reloaded with Ask Junior and more if you missed Asked Live on YouTube you can catch it up on DJD Reloaded and what else

is going on on that show. And Dirty Mo Doe! All the best bets for this upcoming race weekend from Tampa Tim's in the game. A new episode of Andrew Curlin went there from Corey LaJoy's Kickball Classic. That is on Next Level's YouTube page. Next Level's YouTube page. Go see that now. Andrew Curlin went there from Corley Joy's Kickball Classic.

Remember to leave us a five-star Apple review and we'll read it on the show. Tim sent us one. I didn't follow the driver until junior started and I enjoyed his whole career. I didn't follow much after his retirement. I started listening to the podcast a couple of years ago, and it sparked an interest in the sport again. I'm thankful for the podcast that keep the fire lit. That is a great review.

I mean, man, if we are helping people enjoy this sport, we're doing it right. I'll be honest with you. And I take that really seriously. I think there's sometimes when I may get a little off the path. I may do some things that might be in Denny Hamlin's Words detrimental to the sport. But I'll be honest, my hope is that what we're doing here is an asset

and a compliment to NASCAR racing. And I'm glad to hear that from you, Tim. Thank you. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.