The Dale Jr. Download - Bonus: Next Level w/ Ken Squier - Chapter 5: The 1979 Daytona 500

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

It took a perfect storm to propel NASCAR into quite literally the next level of entertainment in America. You needed heroes, villains, and above all, something for people to talk about. The 1979 Daytona 500 cooked up quite the storm, and left millions of new fans watching at home hungry for more. The two men on the call that day were none other than Ken Squier and David Hobbs. In Chapter 5 of Next Level, we’ll hear first-hand stories from both of them.Get ready to relive the legendary 1979 Daytona 500 with the two voices that kept all of America on the edge of their seats.  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.

What's going on, Download fans? This is Alex Timms. Hope you guys had a great new year and holiday season. But here on the Dale Jr. Download, we are extremely excited for 2023. We have a lot of great guests lined up for this year, some new segment ideas, and a lot of other cool things I think you guys are going to really enjoy. And speaking of new things, a brand new episode of Next Level with Andrew Curland is out now. Andrew sat down with legendary broadcaster Ken Squire to discuss his Hall of Fame career and much more. Make sure you go over to the Next Level podcast and hit subscribe so you never miss another episode.

But now, without further ado, here's the brand new episode of Andrew Curlin's next level conversation with Ken Squire. This is a production of Dirty Moe Media. It's all come down to this. Out of turn two, Donnie Allison in person. Where will Kail make his move? He comes from the inside. With what looked like a prepared finish.

How do you put together something and you bring Richard Pitty home first? So all of that played a part in giving you an Americana kind of finish. You couldn't have expected. Come back on stage for one more round and they really got after each other. And there's a fight between Kale Yarborough and Donnie Allison. The tempers overflowing. They're angry. They know they have lost.

It took a perfect storm to prepare. Pell NASCAR into quite literally the next level of entertainment in America. You needed heroes, villains, but above all, something for people to talk about. The 1979 Daytona 500 cooked up quite the storm and left millions of new fans watching at home hungry for more. The two men on the call that day were none other than Ken Squire and David Hobbs. Today, we will hear stories from both of them. As we relive the legendary 1979 Daytona 500 with the two voices that kept all of America on the edge of their seats. Hello, everybody. My name is Andrew Curl, and welcome to a very special edition of Next Level with Ken Squire and his booth mate, David Hobbs.

We will hear from both of them, as I mentioned. We're going to relive that 1916. Daytona 500 finished. That is all we're going to talk about today. So buckle up. This was recorded right at the beginning of day two. We had kind of started talking about the 1979 Daytona 500 on the first day. But if you listen to last week's episode, then we started talking about Susie the Bear and Kail Yarbrose stories. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, I highly recommend it.

So we regrouped and day two, I wanted to start with something good right from the get-go. So we jumped right into the 1979 Daytona 500. We had an iPad in front of Ken and we actually showed him the finish. So he got to relive it while we were watching it as well. And I'll tell you, I've been really fortunate to do a lot of cool things in this sport. That was up there for one of the coolest. that I've done to sit next to the guy. I mean, I memorized that call growing up as a kid.

You know, every February before the Daytona 500, I watched that finish. And the fight that happened afterwards, it's ingrained in my memory. And to pick the brain and hear firsthand from the voice that called the action was unbelievable. And then to get David Hobbs. I dialed them up on the phone, or actually via Zoom, and chatted with him about mostly the

1979 Daytona 500 to hear his perspective. And his perspective is cool because that final call is, at least the last lap, is mostly Ken Squire. And you're going to hear me ask David in our conversation a little bit, like, what was Ken's facial reaction? Because you hear Ken's voice, but I feel like only David Hobbs and maybe some of the other people, if there were other people in the booth, actually saw Ken Squire's reaction in the moment. And he describes what Ken's face was like calling that iconic race. And honestly, if I'm David

Hobbs, what do you watch more? Do you watch Ken Squire who's having this unbelievable call? Or do you watch the action that is just as good on the track? I'm sure he probably did a little bit of double duty there. But this is a really special episode. We have the booth from that race coming up. You're going to hear from Ken Squire first. Then we're going to cut to our conversation with David Hobbs. And that's all I can say about it. Everyone, you're in for a treat. I can't wait for you to relive the 1979 Daytona 500 with me.

This is the 1979 Daytona 500. The last lap, an important one. And I'll play you, you were on the call. Maybe you can walk me through it after watching it. Okay. Will Kale make his move? He comes to the inside. Donnie Allison throws the blind. Kail hits him. He slides. Tarrow. In the backstretch are the leaders watching for the leaders to go. They're still up in turns three and four. The leaders are up in turns three and Richard Petty is now. And there's a fight between Kale Yarborough and Donnie Allison.

The tempers overflowing. They're angry. They know they have lost. And what a bitter defeat. A couple of very hard men. So to watch that live, what's going through your head in that final lap? Well, to start that on CBS with what looked like a prepared finish, how do you put together something and you bring Richard Petty home first? Yeah. Who was the representative to much of America, and still today, the Petty family, get him in front and you've got that Darrell Waltrip right there young guy looking good and really trying

but behind that was the whole Allison story which is a family out of Florida originally and they moved up to Alabama and the Alabama gang was created out of what they were and are today So all of that played a part in giving you an Americana kind of finish. You couldn't have expected nor anticipated as it came out. In fact, A.J. was running fifth or six, below the front five. Yeah. And he called into his crew chief and said, where are we? And he told him that they were 56.

And he says, how much does that pay? And the guy gave him a number. and he said, okay. And he stayed there. A lot of people still think that A.J. Foyk could have won that race. And he was not willing to pull out and fool around with those guys. And you saw what happened to the two or the eventual story of the race. That was magic.

It was just magic. And it was the kind of thing that Bill France really understood. And there they were with an Indian. Annapolis champion, you know. It was fun to do, and it's always fun to see. I'll tell you something, the race was over, and CBS had spent an outlandish amount of money to put that on. It was the first time, and everything it could happen had happened.

And it had rained in the morning. We almost lost it that day. For two hours, we waited. We got it in. got it over and you have this lollapalooza of a finish right and then the principles in the story come back on stage for one more round and they really got after each other and probably for right for reasons but it made that story of that race and that as much as the finish at the very first face Daytona 500

was something that got in people's minds and they couldn't get rid of. You talk about a perfect finish and that first Daytona 500 being the photo finished, great start for Big Bill, and now the first flag-to-flag Daytona 500 finish ends like that. Are you thinking this is great? This is going to help propel the sport into a new level. You weren't. No, I was trying to stay ahead of what was going on. Yeah.

And what had happened was you had those top runners altogether. And there was another car out there painted with the same colors, Buddy Arrington. And when they lost the principles down the backstretching into the wall, the search was for the leader. And they started to pick up this car running by itself, actually several laps down. And so some of that call was trying to be a spotter to tell them where the leader was. Yeah. Because he was still, that was still a tremendous battle among those cars. And they got it right and they brought the right car across the line.

But that was a moment. And that's about all I thought about was, you know, you didn't want someone that wasn't a principal in it being involved. if he was. Nice guy, too. I heard they were going to take the blimp camera down in turn three where the accident was, but... Yeah, yeah. And I had a partner who went down as a spotter and worked in the truck, and he realized

what was going on. And he saw them searching. I mean, here you had five cars together running for first place at the end of 500 miles, good enough when it was three in that first time that we really got to know about Daytona. We got to the right cars, but there was a shaky moment in that finish as they were coming around, turn into the backstretch behind the incident that we were going to bring somebody across the line that wasn't in there.

We're still trying, but it was two or three laps down. But that's what made Daytona really work. That what we said that kind of racing could be was indeed what it was. Nothing more, nothing less. And that last step was just unbelievable. And what a way to start this Daytona image of American stock car racing. I think 15 million people or so tuned into the broadcast. There was a snowstorm up north that kept everyone inside their homes watching this race on television.

But before the race, Big Bill blacked the race out in a lot of markets. How many people did you think were going to end up watching this race? And were you surprised by the number that it ended up being? We didn't have any idea. Yeah. But that business of he sold tickets. Bill France. And the idea that something could interfere with that was in his mind. And he did himself a favor and gave us this incredible finish. And certainly they were contenders,

five strong toward the end of the race, got down to the two fighting for the and they had had had at it earlier in the day. So you just had a full. follow the notch. Let's now jump into my conversation with David Hobbs and hear the other side of the story of the 1979 Daytona 500.

Of course, as you know, it was an incredible, it wasn't a bad race until the end, of course, when Caleb Yarbron and Donnie Allison were leading by a long way, and they were just cruising around and front, pulling away from the rest of the field. Then, of course, on the

last lap, and Donnie made the move. kale shell him off and the next thing is they're down in the dirt then they're both in the up in the wall at turn to read and of course they spin down and then the fight starts meanwhile richard petty who is a very distant third comes home and wins the daytime of fire finder for the god knows how many times fifth six seven whatever uh bobby allison is like second or third so on the slowing down lap he goes around and he joins in the fray and Ken and I calling this to the boo

you know it's just Ken across it's just going berserk you know you can hardly get the words

out quick enough while this fight's going on and you know the story there was a big blizzard in the north of the east

and all across the northern tier and so we had a huge audience which because CBS weren't expecting at all we had like about six million viewers or something

beat everything else in sports completely so when So that put them on the map. And I stayed with them until 1995. You mentioned the fight and, you know, everything goes,

Ken goes crazy. What is your reaction at the time? Are you watching the fight? I mean, obviously you can hear Ken's reaction, but did you look over and see his facial expressions at all? Absolutely. I mean,

he would just lappy. I mean, he loved it because old Ken likes everything. It's controversial. So he just lapped this up. He thought it was fantastic. But it was a hell of an opening for CBS. And of course, for NASCAR, because, I mean, that race basically put NASCAR on the map.

And they've never looked back. I mean, nowadays, I don't know what we pay for the rights for the race, probably 50 grand or something. Now, you know, NASCAR get $4 billion a year from NBC. And $4 billion a year, well, 10 years, sorry, for. four billion over 10 years from NBC and four billion a year from Fox. So, I mean, they've never had so much money. And, of course, the teams lapped it up. Suddenly they got nationwide recognition.

And, of course, people like Darrell Waltrip really milked that through his career. And then, of course, afterwards on Fox. So, I mean, and I mean, I always say that CBS, I mean, that NASCAR should be paying Ken, you know, a couple of million dollars a year return. Because, I mean, he made, he made them. It was his tenacity. I mean, he just pushed and pushed and pushed at CBS until they finally, oh, okay, well, we'll send

class down to see what he thinks. And, yeah. And I mean, you know, the old rest of his history is a bit of a cliche, but I mean, it's absolutely true. You talk about how hard he fought. And, like, you know, his dream came true when you got that flag-to-flag race in 79. How hard did he actually push to get NASCAR in the map for C-V. for, you know, how many years?

Well, I mean, he was pushing when I first joined in 76. So how long he'd been pushing before that? I don't know. Because he was the CBS main sports guy. And obviously he'd been pushing for a long time. And because now Bill France, Big Bill, wasn't that key. He just saw it as losing spectators at the gate. and of course

one of the few mistakes he made because in fact after that I mean he had it blacked out in Florida he had it blacked out in Georgia it was blacked out in Alabama blacked out in South Carolina and he

he wasn't very sure this was just a good idea because we'd lose gait to tennis but of course it bumped gaited tennis at the next race enormously because suddenly anybody had heard of it I mean it made a hell of a difference

So, I mean, there are gates ever since then. I mean, going down a bit now, but I mean, been outstanding. You mentioned how he blacked out all the races in, like, a lot of prominent spots where you think there would be NASCAR fans. So with that, the race is going on. How many people do you think in your mind were actually watching it? Because you didn't know about the snowstorm until after, right? No, we didn't. We just assumed it would have sort of very peripheral coverage.

I think CBS would thought maybe if maybe a million people watch it or three quarters of a million it'll be worthwhile. The production cost was pretty hard by those days standards. We had a lot of cameras. I mean, they did a really good job with the, they had a good crew. The producer and director were Mike Fishman and, yeah, Mike, two Mike's Fisherman and Pearl.

Mike Pearl was the producer, Mike Fishman was the director. And we had high cameras and we had all sorts of stuff. But of course, we didn't have any in-car cameras. And obviously, after that race, then they started to really add cameras. And, you know, CBS had the rights for quite a while,

I don't know how it was a couple of years ago. And of course, people like ESPN, then TNT and everybody else couldn't wait to get a few races themselves. So, I mean, it really did make a hell of a difference in NASCAR. I heard on a podcast that you guys went to a restaurant around Daytona after the race. And that's kind of where you found out everything that happened. You kind of debriefed and kind of soaked it all in. What was that like?

And just talking through the day and really figuring out how significant the race you just called was. Well, every year we used to have an after-the-race party in Daytona. the first year we went to a restaurant down route one or yeah route one which i don't think's there anymore it's quite a nice restaurant we um found that we all got uh really uh into it and of course we're all slapping each other on the back and everybody's making speeches and uh you know mike pearl made a speech and mike christmas made a speech and i made a speech and we're all congratulating ourselves but i i don't think even then I'm not sure that obviously they hadn't had the overnights by then because it's still only like seven o'clock eight o'clock at night but I'm sure the next morning I don't

remember much about the next morning in particular in terms of euphoria and everybody said Jesus you see how many people watch this race but I mean I know Ken felt very very vindicated by it so there you have it the perspectives of both of the people who were there for that iconic 1979 Daytona 500 finish. There's so much to unpack. I want to go quickly to David Hobbs because that's what we heard more recently. And I think one of my favorite quotes from him is he says, you know, he loved it. He was enjoying himself because, you know, O' Ken enjoys anything that's controversial.

And I thought that was a funny David Hobbs quote. And it was a wild finish. And as a play-by-play broadcaster, those are the moments you live for. And boy, did Ken Squire capitalize on it. I hope you guys enjoyed this one as much as I did. And we will be having a video series coming soon, featuring, and you can see Ken's faces. He tells the stories that you heard, not only today, but the previous couple of episodes

and the next episodes that you're going to hear. And we're going to be getting everyone set for the 2023 Daytona 500 with those clips coming before you know it. But let's jump ahead and take a look at what is coming next on our conversation with Ken Squire. It's the birth of MRN. And this was a fun conversation because this came up a few times off air when me and Ken and his daughter Ashley were sitting and chatting.

And Ken was very excited to tell me what the first office of MRN in Daytona Beach, Florida, it looked like and it's a funny story and we did get it. Um, but it's not what you think in office is if you can actually call it an office. That's all I'm going to say. And a whole lot more coming next week on next level. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one. If you haven't listened to the previous episodes, also be sure to hear the full conversation because this is it. I mean, there is little to know cutting out of the interview that we had with Ken. I mean, honestly, the cutting out is when we actually had to just stop recording and

change batteries. That's all the editing I'm doing. You're basically hearing the raw interview in its entirety, and we're going to hear more of it next week. Thanks for tuning in. Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo!