The Dale Jr. Download - Danny Lawrence: The Goodwrench Shirt is Better Than a Tux

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

As Dale Earnhardt Jr. begins a new season of the Download, he welcomes longtime Richard Childress Racing employee Danny Lawrence into the studio for an in-depth look at the past. Having recently celebrated his 40th anniversary with RCR, Danny currently holds the post as vice president of the team’s technical alliances and director of their O’Reilly Auto Parts Series program. He first came into the organization assisting his friend Bobby Moody in the body shop, and before long, he was hired full-time, assisting Lou LaRosa in the engine department. Danny explains that when the team expanded to a two-car operation in the late 90s, Dale Earnhardt Sr. expressed that he wanted his own, separate engine shop. Danny was promoted to Chief Engine Builder in 1998, and his first attempt in the position was the historic Daytona 500 win. Danny had a unique perspective on Dale Sr. and is full of incredible stories and firsthand accounts about the Intimidator. He shares anecdotes about Dale’s attention to detail and knowledge of a racecar. Dale’s leadership drove the RCR team to operate at the same meticulous level, which made them virtually unbeatable in the late 80s/early 90s. The interview also talks about RCR’s current-day O’Reilly Auto Parts team, and how much of the team’s preparation and approach hasn’t changed over the years.Real fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇shop.dirtymomedia.com/FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. 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 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. 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.

You were going to tell another story. So Andy Petrie shows up at RCR. He's going to be the crew chief. He comes in and he's been there for about a week and he says, okay, now show me all stuff. What are you talking about? All your tricks, your magic, your, all the things, all the cheating stuff that y'all did.

So Will Glenn grabs a hold of them, carries them over there. See that seat right there? That's where all our magic is. The guy sits in that seat. Following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey everybody, it's Dillon Hart Jr. And welcome to the R.B. Studio for the new season of the Dale Jr. Download. This is a guest segment.

And we have a pretty incredible guest coming in here. I'm pretty excited about this to kick the season off. It's one of my favorite people that's in the industry today, Danny Lawrence. Danny Lawrence was part of the RCR Black No. 3, Wrangler number 3. He was part of that group, part of that team. one of the engine builders at the track, working on the car. He's been in my life and a part of my life and an influence on my life for decades. And even today, he's one of the few guys that I still see around that was part of that team.

And I see him every time I go to the racetrack. He kind of runs the Xfinity program for RCR and a lot of the partnerships. But there's not a moment. if I see him that we do not talk, that we do not, we don't walk by each other and wave and nod, none of that. Every time I see this man, we stop and we shake hands or we pat each other on the back or we say,

hey, how's it going, you're doing all right? And I love it. And I love that relationship. It's important to me. He's meant a lot to me. Still does today. And I wanted y'all to get to know Danny. and hopefully we do a good job of that in this show.

So excited about it. Let's bring him into the room. All right. Danny Lawrence is here, and you've been working for Richard Stilters forever. Currently, you manage the Xfinity program, am all right? You got other responsibilities? Yeah, I look after all of our technical alliances. Gotcha.

We have a lot of those. So it's a lot. Yeah. But you've been, you were part of the three team. and we'll get into all that. But the reason why I was excited about bringing you on here is over the past couple of years, I had Kurt on here and it was a lot of fun to talk to him because back in those days, you know, I was just in all of you guys.

You know, it was so I knew it then and it still feels, it's one of the things in life that never, that's felt exactly the same. saying today as it felt been my dad to me, and you can appreciate this, my dad to me was like a superhero and just this crazy, crazy cool special person, you know, and he was made that way more so because of the people that were around him. I remember when, you know, he was driving for Budmore and I knew he was rough and tough and tough as leather and no, bull's shit, but he really didn't get to become who he truly wanted to be until he found all of you guys and y'all found him.

You know, and the match of him and y'all and how y'all went about y'all's job and how y'all looked at y'all's job was as perfect as it could be. And, you know, y'all strengthened his, his bit. his ability to go out there and really put his foot down, you know, and push people around and be aggressive and stand his ground. And nobody was, not many people really were willing to push back. And they knew it wasn't just Dell they were pushing back against because y'all had a reputation as a team, you know, the junkyard dogs,

the flying aces. And it was a lot of fun as a kid. y'all were almost like you know he rose in a comic book almost um so you got to live that yes very very very fortunate yeah and i'll tell you part of the reason that it you're right it was it was for us it was also your dad used to say all the time we're making history and we'd win a race and we'd be in victory lane and he would be like all right let's go let's go that was all about, he wanted to win everything that, everything he did, going to the restaurant. I mean, you know, you know, all every, everything.

And when he got to the racetrack, it was strictly business. And so I heard the comment one time of, of you say, them guys were kind of mean to me a little bit. Well, we knew everybody had a responsibility. You got to remember back then that we not just change anything. engines, you know, practice, like we'd go to Daytona, we'd show up with a practice engine. And it's the same guys that were the pit crew guys. I mean, and the garage stayed open for 11 hours.

We would show up, put a practice engine in, all right, we're going to make a qualifying run. All right, pull that out. Not just that you have to put the gear, the transmission, the head, you know, all this and that. Go make a run. Pull that engine out. I mean, we worked like junkie our dogs. Yes. We did.

Dale never let us down. The neat thing was is that he knew the car's really good. We would go to a test, he hated it to test, and he would go, oh my gosh, man, tell me how fast we need to run so we don't have to test anymore. Give me a number. If I can run this fast, can we stop testing? I mean, it was, it was, and he would just about do it. He ran at Talladega that, Mike Thomas's wife wanted to ride. And back then, you know, you didn't have a... In the car.

Yeah. He got a helmet put on her and he went out. And he ran within two tents of what the pole was with her in the car. She was holding on, scared screaming like crazy. Not melted in to nothing. My God. How many people did that? But he...

Did you ever go for one of those rides? I did not. I did not. I did not. But it was like, he was in control of every situation. I mean, even when you go get on the plane, you sit here. Oh, yeah. You sit here.

I mean, it was like, I've got a picture of my truck I want to bring to you. We went fishing in San Salvador with him. I know I'm getting off base. That's fine. But that's the first time I'd ever see anybody eat sushi. We caught a tuna. And it was in the live well for about an hour and a half. He pulled it out.

I got a picture of him full. laying this thing and him eating it raw and I was like this was you know this was 30 years ago sure before it normalized yeah yeah and uh I'm like you're gonna eat that with it without being cooked he goes here takes something like nobody all of us were like no yeah like he was very misunderstood he was bad he was bad ass and determined and he knew how to um he knew how to make stuff happened. Everything from the souvenir side to the race side. People misunderstood him because he was really brilliant. He'd come out there and go, hey, these hats aren't selling. Y'all put these hats on. And then the next day he goes, all those hats are sold out. I mean, he knew how he knew how to,

oh, yeah. He knew how to work every deal. Yeah. And it wasn't just on the right, but he wanted to win everything. Yeah. I, you know, he was intimidating. People, people would maybe wonder what he was like as a dad. He had this person on the racetrack with his competitors and in the marketing and so forth. And his fans tuned in to watch as the Intimidator, the man in black. And he certainly earned it. And I thought it was a, I loved the way he drove and wouldn't have changed the thing he did. But he was exactly the same way at home, very intimidating. You know, and I think he, he wanted to have that type of control over the situation because he wanted you to do what you were supposed to do. He wanted you to do well in school. He wanted you to have initiative and want to try hard and find something you're passionate about and go after it. And he felt like having that control of that intimidation was a way to sort of hopefully keep you in line. and so he was really similar at home as he was on the racetrack. Now, he had moments where he would soften up a little bit for sure,

and y'all certainly saw that. And I would go to the racetrack and get around y'all, and I saw you guys in the same way I saw him. And I don't think that I mean, I don't think that I felt like y'all were mean to me, not in a way like y'all were rude or like, get out of the way, kid, you know. that went on. You know, y'all were, y'all, y'all were, y'all were just so, like I would stand, if I was standing around, you know, y'all were, y'all were going to get that other engine,

or y'all were pulling another motor out, or y'all, y'all were always doing, getting the car back to tech and going back through tech, and there wasn't, back in those days, there wasn't any standing around or waiting, and there was a job to do all the time. And so it was kind of like, when you would go to the racetrack back in those days, the majority of the time it felt like you're standing at an intersection of a busy street. You know, it was just people moving all the time, and y'all didn't really have time to be nice. And y'all, y'all did have your, y'all were really like Uber-focused on the prize,

you know, and the responsibility to go win the race that weekend. There was no, there wasn't a ton of joking around. I didn't really see you guys, like, mucking it up with each other. and being silly like some of the other teams, you know. And so that was kind of what I meant. It wasn't so much. I loved being around y'all. There's videos that we shared with each other on our phones of, you know,

canned stuff of us standing in the garage and me kind of being around and going, holy, I can't believe I got this shirt on. I got a damn Jim Goodwin's shirt. I'm hanging out with the boys. And y'all are fine. That was how y'all were. Y'all were just, you know. So one of the things about race weekend was,

We never had a list of who was responsible. Everybody knew what they were responsible for. Richard, Dale, or Kirk, and nobody ever told us, all right, we're going to be there at this time. We were always early. We were always the first ones in the garage. When we got there, you know, it's so much different now. You had to unload tires off of the, where the lounge is now.

You had to unload the toolbox. You had to set everything up. We had, it was a, I'd say, well-orchestrated machine. It's like you didn't sit there and go, okay, I'm going to do this. We did the same thing every week, and each guy was responsible for the same part. So there were not a lot of talking or playing. You knew what you had to do.

You absolutely. And then during practice session, Earnhardt would call for a lot of stuff. Like, I need more gear, I need less gear, or this or that, or what. and why he was coming in, we would be getting the gear off truck. We would be ready to go. And he drove us to a lot of that because he was always prepared.

He was always ready. He always showed up ready to go. And so we, you know, we just pushed really hard with him. And we were a real team. We all felt like when you won a race, you felt like you contributed because everybody had a part in it. The next thing I was thinking was you're still,

you're the reason why, like I love you, man, I got to take it. I love you too, brother. I love you. And you're like family to me, and I would do anything in the world that you asked me to do. Like you, you're one of those people that when I see you, I know that your reaction and you're glad to something. see me as genuine as can be.

You care about what I got going on. We compete, right? We compete against each other. I got Exfinity and you got Xfinity and sometimes we, you know, our cars bash into each other. You, there's, you know, that's never changed the relationship between you and me. And you've always been one of the few people that always say, man, your dad, be proud of you. you're always going out of your way to tell me those things and make sure that I'm in a good, you know, headspace with those things. You know, that's just your nature.

But the, and your, the kind of, the question I wanted to ask you was, I saw Will Lynn the other day. And, and Kirk's been on the show, and we know where, you know, we know what chocolate's been up to. You know, and unfortunately, David's passed, and there's a lot of guys that were part of that program that are off doing, you know, or gone. And, but you're still boots on the ground. I see, I see you on pit road, pre-race, you know, managing, overseeing, shepherding. What is the motivation for you where these other guys, right, have, have, have, sort of decided, you know, that part of my life is over. Like I saw Will and he comes into, he was over by the drag strip where our late model

program is getting something for old hot rod he's working on. And the person that I kind of threw another person said, hey, tell Will, stop in if he wants to. Sure enough, he come walking in a shop about 20 minutes later. And I'm like, what he'd been doing? I'm just working on hot rods. He's like, I don't have nothing to do with racing, nothing. He's like, I'm doing this.

this is what I do. And I, it's unbelievable for me that that person, even with Kirk, like that person that I saw so rooted and welded into the industry and into those roles is completely separated from it today. while you have remained as, you know, kind of involved as ever, that's, for me, that's emotional. For me, that's, it's like, you know, you never, I, I never want to see my heroes retire and one, you know, go off into the pasture, right?

Right, right. I don't, you know, but they do. And that's something I think we all learn in life, you know, we go, we have heroes in sport where, you know, they retire and you're like, I remember when the guy got drafted, It feels like yesterday. Now I've seen his whole career. How in the hell did that happen? But, you know, how has that been interesting to you?

And why do you feel like what drives you to kind of still want to be so involved? You get that feeling when you win these races and you make a difference. When you know that you had something to do with it. and you, how hard is it to see your friends, you know, not have that feet. You know,

I've got a buddy, you know, you might have a buddy one day walk up to you and say, man, you know, I'm going to go do something else. And you're like,

why? We're having fun. Why do you want to go do that? You know, and, but that's what they need to do, you know, and you kind of have to,

that's one of the things you learn early in life is like people are going to kind of come and go. And it's out of your hands. One of the things that Kirk and Will both, One of the things that changed their lives, I believe, was the grandkids. Will told me that he is having such a good time with the grandkids. He's being a grandpa. And the way that we had it and the way that we are, you can't halfway do it.

You know, Will or Kurt, neither one were going to sit back and just sit in an office. Our world's changed 100%. And that's why I'm not in the engine. shop no more because our world's changed. Back in the day, we would order six camshafts and run them across the dino and then actually lay everything out, look at everything, go, okay, this one looked a little like, then we'd order three more. Now everything's done on the computer.

And the engine shop got to be where, just be honest with it, they didn't even want my advice. In 98, one of my claim to fame is that your dad wanted his own, he wanted his own engine shop. So Richard separated Skinner's engine shop and his engine shop. That's crazy. And he had his reasons because Skinner liked different engines than your dad liked and this and that and whatever. And I got named Chief Injibilder 98. And our first race was the 500. And meaning we worked me and Bow Nance and Greg Ginell, we worked night and day to make sure we had the best

engine that we had. I have a picture in my office that, uh, where your dad has his arm around me and we're looking at the engine. And we went down there. We'd run good in every race and we put the race motor in for last practice. And the race motors for the 500 are always brand new blocks, brand new that cause you, you don't want to have an issue. And it was a little off. And he's like, it's 365 days before I get a chance to win this race again. I can't win with that engine. It's not good enough. Well, we have one on the truck.

It's got roller camberons in it. We've never raced it 500 miles and this and that. He's like, I'd rather blow up leading than I would be. So we put that engine in, took out 119 and put in 122 and ended up winning the 500 with no practice. And that is your dad's like, it's on me if something happens. But it's a year before I can win this race again. And people come off, I show him that picture all the time

because it's absolutely, he's got that look on his face like, what are we doing here? And, you know, you've been down there for 14 days. You had a lot of practice, you know, and he just went around about three or four laps and said, boys it's not good really he knew he was so amazing in the car i know i'm getting off side i got so many so much to tell you that's what this is all about he we broke a crank at michigan and practice one time and he shut it off and didn't hurt anything it he felt it he would

call out on the radio flywheel just broke and he was right every time not just that we were at Bristol one time he said there's a 716th snap on wrench and turned three up against the wall and there was I mean it was like like you talk about details he knew he knew all the details

but but getting back to the question so when I moved over to to do the O'Reilly's Exfinity you know whatever you whatever you want to call it got to go to the wind tunnel and see Chevrolet developed a new car.

This was in 2018. Got to start doing stuff, got to start doing stuff that I'd never done before on the car side. You know, we're testing brakes. We're testing transmission gears. And it revitalized me because I felt like I brought some of the engine stuff to the car side. Back then, we, you know, in 18, we measure everything with a tape measure. And we started using micrometers. And, you know, now you know, you know,

know, you're setting these things up with Roma arms and this and that. And it revitalized me because I felt like that it was making a difference. And we go win these races. And then when we, you know, I've never had a, you know, never had a thought of when am I going to retire? I'm going to do this until I can't do it no more. I'm going to go down swinging. Yeah. And one thing about your company here is we do race like crazy we race hard but Mike Bumgardner and you and all your guys we've got deals that you don't even know about I'm sure the just an all guy two years ago wrecked at Chicago and we we were there to get your car off the truck because the trucks are so far away and and there's been times when all right bumgarner I need a transmission and if I need a transmission

during the race and goes well there'll be one in the hallway of the seven truck if you need it you just go down and get it and we've got we got a deal if you if you use a backup car too you can have our backup car i mean it's like we will we've got deals because i love seeing you win i love you know we're part of the chevalet family and and um we had a lot of drama at martinsville and and you guys won the race and both of our cars are wrecked and neither one of them made it to the playoffs So I'm like, you know what? Wasn't their fault. I'm going to go over there and congratulate Bum Gardner and Justin and Pullman and all that.

So I go over there. And I hear Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny. I'm like, look. And it was my high school sweetheart. My high school sweetheart was actually she's Algar's nanny. Oh, crap. And like I hadn't seen her in 30 years. I hadn't seen her in 30 years.

And I went over there and talked to her and her husband. I've known them forever and ever and ever. And I'm like, they're doing great. They got grandkids and this and that. And I'm like, man, it's a small world. I'm like, oh, girl, how come you didn't tell me? And he's like, I knew about it, but I didn't, you know, whatever. But we have, we're family as well.

You know, if anything, you know, if anything ever happens. The, back in the day when Richard said, hey, Del Jr. is going to drive our car. I'm like, everybody was so excited. And I heard you made a comment one time about that was the easiest thing. We put in a lot of work because we, Richard said, don't embarrass us. Oh, shit. So built a brand new car, did all the stuff. I mean, we had two or three things we needed to do, and we rolled with it.

Oh, yeah. And when you got, when you won 10 races last year, we loved it because we are part of the family. Yeah. And I feel like that we do so much stuff together. I mean, Mike Baumgartner is one of my best friends on the road, and we don't, we help each other. Yeah. And it's because of the relationship we have with you and your family. and it's an extension of RCR.

Yes. Richard loves you like a son as well. Yeah. Yeah, I've had the same feeling about Richard and the RCR connection is more than just the relationship. Dad and, you know, had with Richard and the success they had on the racetrack. Dad and Richard were like brothers.

Brothers that fought from time to time. They did, of course, and that's perfectly natural. Um, that'd be a problem if they didn't. Um, and so I've always maintained in my mind that, you know, while we do compete on the racetrack, the, that, that is so small and singular compared, you know, compared to the history and relationship we have and the, the, the trust and, you know, that, that is a bond that would be very, very challenging to break. Um, I will say this, though, the, um,

Going back to driving the car, I raced the Oreo car and the Infinity race at Daytona. I was pretty excited because I knew that, you know, y'all had good stuff and that was going to be, it was kind of going to be nice to see some of the, you know, some of the familiar faces that I would run into, work, driving the car. I'm over there running my cup deal. It's the Daytona weekend. You're kind of back and forth. and it was a hustle from one garage and next so i go over to the infinity garage get ready for

the first practice and uh y'all were like um we're just going to go out and make a run and uh come in and check something and then go make another run and i was like all right so went out ran came back in ran another run 15 minutes we're done still another hour of practice left but we we're done and then we had happy hour and I went out there and ran and I was like you know it's pretty good but it's it feels like it's got a lot of wheel in it

and it's a little tight especially off term four and we would always, that was back in the old bumpy Daytona days and if the wind was blowing in the door off of two or four wherever the wind was blowing in the door and made you tight and y'all were like oh we can fix that and so I believe

I never saw my own eyes but I believe that y'all had a pan or the radiator pan, y'all could open it up. And so, it was just maybe, I don't know,

I'm just guessing maybe like a five by eight hole, that y'all just opened up. And it would create like a vacuum and sucked a nose down in the racetrack. And golly, it fixed all of the tightness and made that car pin to the corner

on exit where everybody else is kind of struggling, tight off, tight off, and that was going to get worse as you made the right front mad. We didn't have that problem in the race. That was literally the only thing we did. And again, like in Happy Hour,

happy hour is the last practice, your last chance to make sure everything's right. We ran 20 minutes of an hour and stopped. And I'm like, you know, this is how Dad did it? You all, y'all always were covering y'all's car up early. You know, if y'all, y'all were always messing with the competition, putting the cover on the car 30 minutes before the end of practice.

And I'm like, man, this is neat. It was like I was kind of seeing it through the lens of what Dad, would experience with y'all and we went out and ran the race and it was effortless the car was he knew what he wanted just like you did well speaking of car covers 87 we go to daytona and that's back when baby was was the crew chief and they uh back then i'm not we did we never cheated and i want to tell you the andy's petri's story right after this but so but we pushed everything to the end of the rules And back then they had, you know, a long template and a side template and this and that. So at Daytona, you needed a totally different car and you needed at Talladega.

Really? You needed the racetrack was rough. It would get hot, this and that. So you needed a car to be able to handle for the long. So the back end of our car was four inches longer. The spoiler and all, the back deckily and all that stuff was longer. So, and our car looked different. And they came over the speaker and they said, at 12 noon, anybody that wants to see the templates put on the three car.

What? Because we were the champion, so we had the first stall. They said that over there. All these people came over and they put all the templates on the car. Everything fit perfect. So we're covering car up at the end of the day and the car cover won't fit because the car cover is made off of a regular car. We couldn't get it over the back. It was like, oh, well, this is one thing that we missed on it.

But it was, it was, it was fine. It was, it was, it was good. But we weren't the only ones. There were, there was, some of those cars look alike. I know that, like, Daryl knows guys. You can go, there's a, there's a Waltrip car in the museum at Talladega. And it's like four inches narrow. Yeah.

The junior Johnson bud car. You go in there and you can look at it and just tail. It's like super narrow. And so, yeah, they were playing some games before, because we, at that point, I think around 85, 86, you didn't have. You had the long tip of that was it. Yeah. You know, they weren't measuring the width. All right, everybody.

The 2006 NASCAR season is officially here. And you know what that means? It means new rides, new paint schemes, and another year of unforgettable moments out on the racetrack. And if you want to bring all of that action home, you've got to check out Lionel Racing. They're the official diecast of NASCAR. They've got the largest selection of officially licensed NASCAR diecast.

From race wins to the newest cars hitting the track this season, they've got it all. They're incredibly detailed with the same paint and the same sponsors and same attitude that you see on race day. There must have for collectors and fans alike. And right now, to kick off the season, Lionel Racing is offering free domestic shipping when you use promo code download 26. That's free shipping just for the fans of the Dell Jr. Download. So head over to LionelRacing.com. Make sure to grab your favorite driver's latest diecast,

and start the 2026 season the right way. That's download 26 for free shipping only at Lionelracing.com. You were going to tell another story, Andy Petrie. The Andy Petri thing. So Andy Petri shows up at RCR. He's going to be the crew chief. He comes in and he's been there for about a week and he says, okay, now show me all stuff.

What are you talking about? All your tricks, your magic, all the things, all the cheating stuff that you all, did. So Will, Lynn grabs a hold of them, carries them over there, set up plate right in the middle of the room. And he goes, see that seat right there? He goes, yeah, that's where all our magic is. The guy that sits in that seat. We don't have no nitrous. We don't have no movable this. We don't have no, we weren't doing any of that stuff. It was all, it was all basics. And that was, the truth. And Andy was like, you don't have no tricks bowlers or no trick cows or no

way to move the fenders or take lead out. I'm like, no, we don't have none of that. You don't have any, you know, five-speed transmissions or, or do, what, no, we don't have, we don't have any of that. You don't have any aluminum panels or any way to cause a caution or, no, we don't have any. He goes, oh, my gosh. Yeah.

I'm like, and he couldn't believe it. He could not believe it. Yeah. But so, um, Andy's thing was. We're going to have some of that stuff. And then Richard's like, Andy, you embarrass us, and it's on you. So I don't know if Andy had all that stuff, all the other places he ran and, you know, he didn't this and that, but.

He brought that damn spoiler from the skull car. Yes. I have it with the wires and the retractor where the spoiler laid down. He said they used it in qualifying, and they're scared to do it in the race. Imagine you could see it if you were behind him. But I kind of always wondered, we talk about that all the time on here with folks about ingenuity and cheating and all that stuff. And I got this big old lead radio right here that Gary Nelson. He brought that over.

That's from like 1978. Got you. DiGuard, Darwater. That thing, it's tungsten. It's not lead. But, you know, I was telling, I was. in Nashville yesterday speaking at the cattlemen and beef association

and telling them about the Darrow Walsop story where they had the lead shot in the frame rail and it come out to jack stop and every every time NASCAR would go look for it they couldn't see the hole because the jack was jacking the car up on the jackstop but so y'all never you know I mean how do you believe how do you get people like I this is my question to you is I believe you

I believe when you tell me that you wouldn't bull shit. But in a garage that is like cheating or bending the rules or whatever is rampant. I mean, it was like a badge of honor. Everyone in the garage felt like they had one over the next guy. They don't know about what I'm doing here. And every guy in the garage. You'd look in the eyes of all of those crew chiefs back in the 80s. and all of them had something they were hiding.

And it's hard for me to believe that you guys were 100% up and up. So there's a picture floating around to your dad with his foot underneath the front of the car. That's nothing. That is. And people are like, that's how he won all those races. I like it. I like he would, there's a, that picture, I see it every now and then, probably every six months on social media. And that picture makes me think.

You know, I kind of do want people to think dad was smarter than the technical inspectors. I kind of like, because he was, you know, he thought he was smarter than everybody else. And that's, that's an image of him in his mind. But what he's truly doing in that picture, and y'all aren't weighing the car. I mean, that would be, you know, lifting the car with his foot would go against the minimum weight. Yeah. You know, one of the things that dad did that a lot of people don't realize is he walked around, like, back. back in the 80s and the 90s, the front valence height on the car was critical to speed

and how competitive your car was going to be. And he would walk around and he wanted to, if he could, take a tape measure to every car out there on the grid or in the garage, right? But instead of doing that, he'd walk over and slide his foot under there and see what shoe laced because he had them racing shoes on that laced all the way up to the end. and he'd see what shoe lace that valence hit. And he would then walk off and go, well, that went up to the seventh shoe lace.

That's a little higher than the last one. That's exactly what he would do. That's what he's doing. And that's what he's kind of doing in that picture is like measuring the valence with his foot. And that was kind of his way of kind of seeing if he was where he needed to be and where the competition was at.

You're exactly, exactly right. He knew a lot about those cars. And when you and Kelly and Carrie and all were going to start driving, he came in a truck one day and he said, I'm going to make them work on those cars or they're not driving. I want them to be able to realize what it takes, what you guys go through and what it takes to race. And I know he made you,

I know he made you work on the cars there so that, so you could appreciate what it is. It doesn't just happen. Yeah. And how easy you can tear one up. You know, weeks and weeks and weeks of work, and you can tear one up in just a minute. Oh, yeah.

He was, when you were winning all those races, he was so proud of you. He'd come back in, you know, he'd beat like. Happy hours right after our races in the Bush series. And I didn't get to see him. He might pop into Victory Lane. We win over, right, 98 or something, I think. He pops into Victor Lane.

He's got a suit on, right? Because he's getting ready to get in his car. And he's there for, like, a minute. hug, high five, slap on the forehead, whatever, right? That's about what you were going to get. Then he's gone. I'm like, damn, I wish he was hanging around. You know, we're going to take all these pictures.

And I want to hear, I want to, in five or ten minutes, if he had hung out, I might actually get to hear what he's thinking, right? Yeah. But he'd be going to jump in his car because he had to be first out or one, you know, it was a competition. He was back in his mode. Yes, 100%. 100%

but tell me what he would do when I would win races in his finish series he would come back and he'd go get you some of that Dale Jr.

And he would say stuff to us like that you didn't think about until later on he'd say we're making history or this or that or let's get our picture made he'd say that all the time

and you could tell like most of the time when he walked to the car he was strictly business he didn't you know It's time to go to work. And you know as good as anybody.

A lot of people out there don't know. He wouldn't get out of the car. He would just lay over there and take a little nap. Even if it's for five minutes. It's like he was focused and dedicated to try to make that car as good as it possibly could be. He'd go out and run one lap one time and go, can't drive it. You know, put a shim in the front or, you know, change of rear springs or this. or that.

I'm like, how do you know in one lap? The tires aren't even warm, but he did. He knew what he, he knew what kind of feel that he wanted. I mean, he, he's an amazing race car driver, and he also knew the car is really good. Yeah.

Mechanically. Oh, yeah. Like, he could build a gear. He could build a transmission. He could build, you know, it's like he knew how to wire the car. I mean, he knew, you wouldn't, you wouldn't bull-h-h-him on anything.

No. Because he knew what, was right and what was wrong. Yeah. One of the things I wanted to throw out there was he was the best ticket to anything that ever happened. So he would come up like, hey, George Strait's going to be here in a little bit, hang out with us or, you know, or this guy or that guy, you would go, hey, man, I want to go see

the Eagles. It's no, no problem. He would call anywhere. He could get you tickets anywhere. he could get you into anything. You're like, these are Earnhardt's boys, and they would put you backstage.

I mean, it was like an open door. He was bigger than life. For anything that you, I know you, I know you know what I'm talking about. It's like, whatever it was,

he could get you in. Yeah. It was really amazing. Will Lynn used to say all the time, that good wrench shirt's better than a tuxedo. That good rich shirt is better than, I don't know. know why you want to go back and put on a nice sweater or anything you leave that good

red he said that right there is the ticket yeah I bet so um all right so you were born in clemens north Carolina graduated high school 1980 what drew what was how did you get into racing all right so this is crazy this is really really crazy so back when I was a little I took the telephone apart the teeth. I was a tinkerer. I always wanted to. Did you get trouble taking a little? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I had to get it. My mom was soft. My dad was tough. You're like, you better get that. He was going to be here. And if you're a minute, you better. I was just a tinker. And then so in 1969, I got Honda 50.

And it wouldn't go. It was a three speed. Wouldn't go fast enough. So I worked on it. And I ended up messing with it, you know, worked on the carburetor. Just, just sell. tall and then I got a SL 70 and that thing would go it was four speed and then you know worked on it and this and that and then I got to be where I hung around some some guys that worked on engines and this

and that and I started tore I had a 70 Camara that I tore apart at my house and there's a guy that works for GM now he's the lead lead engineer for General Motors he's in charge of the Formula One and all Patrick Canuck but lived on my street oh so Patrick said, oh yes, Patrick says, you know at 3 o'clock in the morning, my mom and dad were not happy with you because I would do stuff and I'd run up and down the street, you know, open headers. Checking your shit. Yeah, yeah.

And they knew it was you, by the way. And I'm like, I laughed about it. So I got to be where I started tearing engines doing. And then I had a friend of mine that raced back in 78, 79, he raced at Korn. careway and he wanted to run a Buick V8. And so I built this Buick V8. That was my first race engine. Bobby Laboney was down there learning how to drive and this and that. And that kind of got me, I got intrigued by it, kind of self-taught. And then I was helping Bobby Moody at RCR. How?

In the body shop. I'd come in. I'd go to school. I'd come in at nighttime. You're in what grade? And I was senior. All right. So they let you just start coming by. Bobby, Bobby was a friend of mine that he worked at Modern Chevalet when I did, and he was the paint guy. At a Chevy store. Yep.

And he got hired by RCR. Yep. Bobby was from Mount Air in North Carolina, and he was painting body guy. And so Bobby worked all night long. And so I would get out of school and I'd go, Bobby's like saying this or this or that. I just kind of got to helping him. And then helped him for about two years. And then...

When you were helping him, do you know where you were? Were you in all of being able to be around those cars? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is what year is. So this was 82. 82. So dad does not... It's Ricky Rudd.

Yep. It's the white... It's the white Piedmont car. Yeah. So then 84 comes around and Richard says we got some funding and we've had some issues in the engine shop. can you help tear engines apart? And I'm like, I need to finish my school.

And I had a record back then. My dad bought me a record. You're going to Technical College? Yeah, I'm going to Forsyth. It was a Forsyth Technical School, taking business administration, and I ended up going to Davidson Community College as well. Did you finish? And yes, I did.

And I got business degree, and I got an auto mechanics degree. And so at the end of 84, Richard was like, I want you to come on full time and work in Tear Down. So in 85, I went to work there. This is my 41st year, RCR now. And tore engines apart for Lula Rosa. And there was three people in the engine shop. And clean parts and this and that.

And then Lou is like, okay, I'm going to teach you how to fit bearings. Okay, I'm going to teach you how to fit rings. I'm going to teach you how I learned how to cut pistons. I learned how to bounce cranks. I learned how to. But I did that for seven years. And then he let me start putting a few engines together. fine engines and practice engines and this and that just kind of progressed as it went back then

you remember when you had how might have you felt when the engine you actually had the most involvement in putting back together when went to the racetrack yes i do remember that what was that like i was scared to death yeah because so a couple of engines i put together we used them on to dino to run cams and cylinder heads and we beat it was a good way of yes yes and some confidence up and seeing your motor on the dino, not blowing up. So while Lou was there, Lou never let me build a race motor. He built every one of them.

But I built a practice motors and some qualifying engines. And then when Eddie Lanier came in, I mean, me and Eddie built them together. Eddie, Eddie was incredible as well. Eddie, he pushed everything to the limit.

Before, when Lou was there, Lou was a great engine builder, but the main thing was make sure they don't blow up, make sure they run all the race. But he, you know, and to his credit, he had come from the 70s. Yes. And that's when you were breaking lots of engines.

And that was the end of a, you know, you'd blow a motor and that would be detrimental to the shot it went in the championship. So he kind of had this sort of different, you know, he had a different, you know, feeling about, I guess. Mindset. Yeah, mindset toward the long, you know, the durability versus speed. We were, this is a little technical, but back then we would run the pistons five down in the hole.

What does that mean? So where the piston comes up, it would be down in the hole. Eddie gets there and he wanted to run everything at zero. And I'm like, Eddie, man, it's going, I'm afraid it's going to, if we miss a shift or hit really hard, he goes, we got 43,000th of gasket, we're good, we're good. And we'd come back at some of those races and pull the heads off. And you could see where they were basically clean, where they were,

everything was so close. And it didn't have any build up. Yeah, it had no build up. Yeah. And it was like. And that's more compression, more power.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Let's put a little safeguard in there. Yes. But that's going to cost you a little. But Eddie brought us a little power and it showed up. Yeah.

And so then, so I learned. a lot from both of those guys. And then, you know, Chevrolet was heavily involved with us. And being our automotive machine, Ronnie Rev. and Ken Bingham, they were doing, a lot of people don't know this. That's what started Hendrick Engines. And then Hendrik ended up taking it over.

But we were a small group. All the Chevley people worked together really good. You know, we developed camshafts together, not the camshaft itself, but the material it was made out of and this and it was it was in an eventor's time i mean it was they would there were always something new coming and you would there were there were there were there were times where you pick up 12 or 13 horsepower through the year yeah and now half a horsepower or it's crazy you're lucky you're lucky but it was it was amazing times it was it was it was great very very very fortunate to be in the situation I was in you know I had I was at the right place at the right time and for my job we work you know how hard we work and you know how hard you know we're down you know we get down on the ground and we whatever it takes but man I wouldn't have it any other way you also know the feeling you get when you go and you win these races that's why I continue to do it because I love

love to win. And your dad was the same way. He was mad if second place was nothing. He wanted, he wanted to win. I mean, there's a couple times when we had a 12th or 14th place car and he would end up fifth and he'd still be pissed off. And I'm sitting there going like, that's not that bad. And he's like, no, that sucks. I came to win these races. We won 11 races in 87. And he's like, it's not enough he never he never laid down yeah he wanted him win every single one of them i believe you when did when did you go to the racetrack so i said how did that happen 86 right of yeah early yeah early do you remember um the initiation on the road is there a you know was it what was it like being one of the younger sort of new guys in that whole group so mine was

totally different than everybody else's. So I've never had any alcohol. I've never drank nothing. Never. Never. Never. Never had a drop of alcohol. And they, they, they, yeah.

And they found that out. Why? So. Even today's still. Because, because they push me to try. Well, that was a personal choice. Yeah, yeah. Because my mom and my dad back in the day had a friend that got ran over by a drunk driver.

Yeah. And my dad told me, early on. He said, if I can raise you not to be a drunk or not to be a druggie, I've done my job. And I'm like, no problem. So I never smoked a joint. I never drank any alcohol. And then when we get into the racing thing, you know, we, we worked hard at the racetrack.

Partied hard too. How did you party with them guys and not drink? Yes. I was, I mean, I, I, I, I, I drove them guys around a lot. I bet. I lot. Oh, yeah. How hard, though, was it to resist?

I mean, I'm sure there were some moments where they were like, oh, you know, they really put you in the vice. Yeah, your dad is like, come on, man, just drink one champagne. We won the champion. I'm like, I'm not, not doing it. Even in those moments. Yes, I'm not. They push really hard.

And then, you know, hey, I'll get you a drink and you smell it. You got, that's not. They try to drink you. Yeah. Damn. But so we were really tight. We were never mean to each other. We had David, David was strictly by the book.

Yeah. David, I should say, David was very religious and practiced his faith often and was, which I felt like I liked that about David because it seemed like that y'all needed that. Yeah. Because as loud as y'all were on the track and off the track, it was cool that he was. a balance. Just like, you know, you had your big guy, chocolate, right? The big teddy bear. Everybody was terrified of him.

Yeah. But he was absolutely the, you know, the softest guy, the whole bunch. Yes. It was, I mean, I swear it was like cast for, it was like a cast for a movie. You couldn't have done a better job if you were literally casting it for a movie. Yeah, we had, we had the good, the bad, to ugly. We had it, we had it all. I mean, it's, and it just kind of happened that way.

Just by chance. And your dad was right in the middle of it. He was the ultimate team player. Your dad would come over, and every weekend he would give somebody else. It would either be me, chocolate will. Here's $500 to take the boys out dinner, you know, but don't tell nobody. And we, I mean, he always took care of. of us. He, um, I was at Pocono and he's like, what's wrong? Because he could read people

really good. What's wrong? I said, my grandfather's not doing good, man. Well, what's wrong with him? He got cancer. He goes, why are you here? I'm like, cause we got to win this race. So he flew me home to be with my grandfather. And then he had this pilot's weight. And the doctor said, your grandfather's going to be okay through son. He flew me back to Pocono. And I'm like, thanks, man. He goes, don't thank me, man. He goes, I can't believe he came back. I'm like, we got an opportunity to win this race.

But he's like, don't tell nobody. I mean, he did so much stuff for people and he didn't want people to know. And I mean, remember Lucky the pilot? Oh, I do. He's still around. Yeah, Lucky was like, I'm here for you. You just let me know what we're doing. We were at Martinsville one time and just mentioned.

like motorcross races in Charlotte. He goes, do y'all want to go? I'm like, love to go. He goes, take my helicopter. Like me and Will. I'm like, really? I have a car over there for you guys. So Saturday, we flew out of Martinsville.

He flew us in his helicopter. He's like, I'm not using it. We landed right beside a Charlotte Motor Speedway. And he goes, oh, yeah, by the way, me and Jeff Gordon on all that property over there. And like, we had no clue. they're a big lot right beside i think it's where 10 tents is now your dad and jeff on that together and it's like won't nobody say anything to you we own that we had no i mean there were so much secret stuff that he kept oh yeah and then uh he's like helicopter's coming back up here but i've got

y'all suburban there and like he just don't be late tomorrow i mean it it's like he made stuff happen i mean you you know what i'm talking about I want to talk about some of the the rivalries that dad had I suppose starting with Jeff Bodine in the 87 to 90 range there was I don't know why it was just Charlotte but they wouldn't hardly I mean they'd run each other like

but they wouldn't wreck each other until we got back home to Charlotte and for some reason I don't know whether it was because dad was in front of his family and I mean everybody in the family was at the race and Rick's got you know Rick and his businesses are in Charlotte City Chevrolet and all that my granddaddy Robert G that does the bodywork on that car lives freaking 150 yards off the term one at Charlotte

and for some reason they would get around that race and have problems and it'd be in the Bush race and it blend over to the cup race. And I know the answer to this because I've asked Kirk about it and talk to Richard and different people about it. But in all of those moments, there was one or two times where,

for example, there was one weekend. They ran into each other in the bush race. I think Dad spun Jeff down the backstretch off of two, running for the lead. And nothing happened. And I believe the next day in the cup race, they got running in each other and dad wrecked him in the middle of three and four.

And that's when I think he got penalized, brought into the penalty box. And I was sitting there in the, I'm just a kid, but I'm thinking like a freaking adult, I'm sitting there going, man, what are we doing? Like, dad, can you not like control yourself enough?

This is, this is, we're trying, you know, I'm always, I was, so consumed with him winning the race, but also the championship. Right. Like, we can't, you know, y'all broke a cam that year, Rusty, I think, beat y'all in a champ at Charlotte. Dover. Dover.

Was it Dover? Yeah. I mean, that was devastating for me. I know it was for y'all, too, I'm sure. But, I mean, I live this so damn hard. And when he gets, when he does that, I'm like, damn, we have to do that. and then they penalize you and I'm like crap dad you know this is

kind of your fault you know that and but he's you know he didn't see it that way did y'all did you I guess not y'all speaking for yourself was there ever a moment where you're like grind and your teeth going did we really have to

there's a few of those but but the thing about it was I believe with bow dine it was more personal it was so personal it was the It was the things that was said. Yeah. And the things that, you know, when he would catch Bodine from a straightaway back or whatever, he was all over the racetrack. And he, he's just like, you know what?

I'm not messing with you. Yeah. I'm not. And it just kept getting uglier and uglier. It was like an ugly divorce almost. It just would not stop. And yes. The answer to the question is yes.

We were at Bristol one time, and we got penalized, and Richard walked over to the NASCAR trailer and called up to the tower, picked Mr. France. Oh, how do you do that? He got on. There was a telephone in the NASCAR trailer. Yeah. And they chewed Richard's ass for that one. He's like, yeah, we won't do that again. But it was like, we were for our team.

Yeah. And there were so many times when Dale took an average car and won with it. And I mean, we had to roll with whatever. You know, we had the saying back in the day, you know, today people think, Dale Earnhardt wrecked everybody to win it. He did not. No, yeah. He did not.

He was rough. And I loved every freaking second of it. Yes. That was all. That was he, to me, I loved that, you know, he was physical. and he backed it up, he walked the walk. You knew what you had. If he caught you or if he, you know, it's what he was.

But we had this saying that he wasn't selective either. No, no, he wasn't. I don't know whose fault it was, but it wasn't his. That was what we used to always say. That was the deal. Like, I didn't see exactly what happened, but I know it wasn't his fault. I think about things like that, like I would have loved having all this opportunity over the last 25 years to reflect on on his career having a chance to sit at this table and

talk to so many people that we've been able to kind of relive stories that we knew but get a little more context and and even hear stories we didn't know and they're so i mean there's a god my pile i would love to just sit down with him and go man what was going on there why did you do that or how come this happened and what would you've done here if he if he was sitting here you know what was what is something that you would share with him or want to know or want to let him know your dad yeah me and him were really tight sure we had a um i can explain to you how he was exactly he's building dey and he's like what are you doing like come down here so we're walking through the place and the walls are up and he says i'm going to make this to show place i want to have the

engine builders boosts where where we can give tours i'm like hell you don't want to do that you don't want the engine builders need to be able to concentrate when they're degree in the cam and they're putting engine you don't want people walk by and talk to them he goes well that's what i'm doing i'm going to have these cubicles because i'm bringing i want the fans to be able to see exactly how this thing goes together i'm like you're opening yourself up for issue. And he goes, well, that's what I'm doing. So when he finally got it built, he had those cubicles, but he went in and put rooms right across from them on the other side. He never said he was wrong. So he's like, when they get to that point, they can take them in the room. So then he goes,

hey, I want to appreciate you helping me. Come back here to the deerhead room. And he pulls this gun out, and it's got a scope on. He goes, I sighted this in. I'm like, the thing's badass. He said that DE was a serial number. It was a Remington. And he goes, here, I want you to have this. That was a 280.

I want you to have this 30, 32. So it gave me two guns with the serial number started with DE that Remington made. And he had a whole, he had piles of them. And he wrote them down. And don't you tell anybody I give you those guns. I mean, it was like, all the nice things he did. He didn't want people to know it. Yeah.

But he always appreciated everything. I would ask him that if he was sitting here. Why did you always say, don't tell anybody? Yes, yes. I mean, he did things for the churches around here and this and that. It was like, but also I knew when I knew when to talk to him and when not to talk to him. I knew, I knew, you know, you could tell. real easy what kind of mood he was in just by...

As soon as he walked in a room. Yes, yes. Like the room changed for whatever, you know, whatever mood he was in. One of the funniest things was, so GM comes in and they're like, okay, we're going to take you to the next level. We call it charm school.

They sent him to this deal to make him where he could learn how to talk to people. What year was this? This was, This was 86, 87. Yeah. And we want the crew to go, too. So they filmed him talking.

They said, okay, read this. I wonder where this shit's at. Yeah. And so they would show it to him and say, this is what you look like on TV. And this is, you don't say, duh, or uh, or this. You know, they're teaching him. Oh, yeah. We called it Charm School.

And it's like, I hate to hear myself talk. I hate to see myself on TV. I hate to. And it's the little guy that was doing the class is, is like, we're going to make you famous. And he said, I already am famous. I don't need all this. But he did pay attention to it because he never, he was good on camera. He was good on TV.

I mean, you know, but. In 1998, right before Daytona, they sent me to a same thing. I was, I don't know what you were. call it, but I remember it being in downtown Concord, and I was literally in a classroom, and there were people in there that were like mocking interviews with me, and we would go over, like, you know, a fake conversation, and they were like, man, you've got to work on stop, you know, got to stop saying, um, and, uh, between every four or five words. And we would do an interview, no mock interview, watch it, go do another one, watch it.

And I'm like, man, this is awful. And it was like two or three days. That's what that. So we called that Charm's still. He did one day of it. I got sent to it because I guess he appreciated it. Yeah, he did. He did.

But he took all the films and he did get a lot better. Yeah. He was, you know, but he didn't want anybody telling him how he needed to act or how he needed to talk or how he needed to do anything. Dude, I've got this video. We were talking about this the other day, but I got this video and I found it. I've got a ton of VHS tapes and I don't even know what. on half of them. But I was going through some of them.

And it's dad, and he's in the deerhead shop, and he's doing an ad for mattress, a mattress. And it's talking about how good asleep he gets, and he's in his uniform. And I'm in the shot off to the side dressed in the good rent ship, wiping the top of this car with a rag. And Rick Boston, Tony Sr., are off in the back, working on stuff in the background.

And I had forgotten, I had forgotten how he was. I had forgotten like the, I had forgotten like the real texture of being around him, right, in the exact detail of what his temperament was. And he is freaking miserable trying to read this. And he's reading off of cue cards over the top of the, the camera.

And Teresa must be, Tracy's in the background, and there's a bunch of people in the background. And he does about two or three reads, and he's getting pissed. He's messing it up, messing it up, and he's talking to himself,

and he's talking to himself. And he finally says, and Teresa says something like, well, it sounds really good. And he goes, hush. And I'm like, I'm like, I forgot that part of him, you know, that would just like,

you know, it snapped like a dog. And he says, everybody behind the camera. camera out. Y'all go outside, walk around. And so everybody leaves the whole damn room except for the guy that says action and the camera guy. And then

like 10 minutes later, he looks over at me and he goes, you want to do this? Like he's so annoyed at himself. Now he's like yelling at me. I ain't done shit. I'm just wiping the roof of the scarf for 50 minutes. And he goes, you want to do this? And I go, hell, I've heard it so many times. I probably could. And I'm like, holy shit. I've got this in my mind.

I've got this idea that I was always like, you know, oh boy, don't say anything around dad. You know, he was this tough and rough guy. I bet, you know, I must have walked around on eggshells. But there I was snapping back at him, being a little smart ass. And that little video, it's 25 minutes of him trying to figure out how to read this line and get it right, was exactly what it was like to be around him. Like 90% of the time, you know.

He was good at everything, and when he had, when he struggled with something like that, he would get. So annoyed. Yeah. Oh, he'd get frustrated. He didn't, he didn't like, you know, there was nothing he didn't know about. Yeah. I mean, he knew. He didn't like not being perfect at something.

That's it. Great. And, but he was good at a lot of stuff too. I mean, it really, really. Well, the finished product, I'm sure, was just fine. Yeah. Man, good. It was so funny.

And he also didn't want to do what he didn't want to do. He wanted to do what he wanted to do. And I'm sure that they're like, hey, you got to do it. He probably said, yeah, I'll do it. And then the time comes. He's like, I was supposed to be doing this. Exactly. That would be, that would be him.

Oh, yeah. I suppose we could move on and get into the Xfinity stuff. You know, you guys won a championship this past year. Y'all've had a lot of success over the course of the, I don't know, how long you've been sort of shepherding that program. Since 18. Since 18? Yeah. You know, y'all's, specifically y'all's speed and ability at Atlanta, Daytona, Talladega,

it's as nothing has changed for literally 30 years. Y'all take a ton of pride, I suppose, I'm assuming, because of how good your cars are, in running well at Daytona, at Talladega. Am I right? Yeah, we really do. And there's a lot of effort put in. And we're working on our short track programs now. And we're working on, you know, all this stuff happens on purpose.

Oh, yeah. It's a lot because the cars hadn't changed that much. No. Which is good. Yeah, which is, which is good. I love, I love these cars being able to have a little bit that you can do to them. Feel like you're doing something. Yes.

Even if you're not really, you do feel like, you know, you know what I'm saying. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I feel the same way. I've been around some shops and some people in the industry, and they'll, you know, when I, when I started racing with Tony Senior and Tony Jr., they, they didn't, I don't know that they emulated RCR, but they adopted the focus that you guys put on Daytona. they adopted that.

And I know it was industry-wide that when in the off-season, everyone probably spent three months on the Daytona car and a month or two weeks on the rest of the cars. That Daytona car, you'd go to test in January, you'd rip the body off, you'd put two or three bodies off on the car before you actually got to the racetrack and ran the 500. But there was just an ungodly amount of work put into that one single race car for that one race and Tony Senior, Tony Jr. and them guys were no different.

And so when we started racing in the Cup Series, same thing. We just, man, they just, they put everything into the Daytona car. And y'all were doing the same thing. So it was a lot of other teams in the garage. Fast forward to like 2014. You know, we weren't, I don't think industry-wide quite as, you know, focused on the Daytona car as we were. and I actually went to working with,

I don't think he'd mind me saying this, I started racing with LaTartre. And he's like, man, I can't wait to get you in our Daytona car and watch you do what you do, man, we're going to be great. And we go out there to run around a little bit and I was like, man, this thing's not good enough. I was like, we're, you know, I do need a car to kind of help me and I can't get it to be on the offense.

And here's a couple things I feel like I feel like, feel. And he was like, and we had a couple guys in the shop that loved the details in the arrow. And they were ready to, like, go to work. And they were some of the old school guys. And I was like, so we went and Steve went back and we went and made, we turned over every tiny little stone. It didn't matter if it was a, maybe just might help. we're going to pile it all on this car, right?

And it was remarkable. I'm like, all right, now we got it. I can do everything I want with this car. And I feel like that y'all still do that. I feel like that y'all still, that mentality isn't alive in every team, even in the Xfinity series today. You know, that same mentality and preparation that you have going to a plate track like Daytona or Talladega that you had 30 years ago.

That's still alive. and it's very evident by the ability that your cars have and what your drivers can do with them. Yeah, we do spend a lot of time, a lot of massage, a lot of, and, you know, Jay Bourne is our, he's our, he's our lead guy that hangs all of our bodies and does all of our stuff. And when we go, when we go to these races, he pays attention to every template, every, you know, so that, and we make a little. list, even if you win the race, we make a list of like, what can we do better? You know, where was our heights? What about this? What about that? You know, and you never stop working on it.

You just continue, continue, continue to work on it. And, you know, you know how it is. If you win the 500 or you win the 300, your year's pretty good. Yep. I mean, no matter, no matter, no matter what happens. And there is really something to that momentum to where you roll in, you start the season off, you go and you qualify 17th and you run 17th, it's hard to get it going. And you start to season, you know, everybody's their new stuff. You go down there and you look good. And you even get a feeling. I mean, I know you know how it is when your cars are leading that race.

You see them come by with all the fans, you know, all the TV stuff that's going on, you know, you have all your new sponsors there. Man, it's just very satisfying to be good. and we push as hard as we can push and we go as hard as we can go. And Richard and your dad both taught us that, that it's never good enough. Just keep going, going,

going. There's a couple times when we won, won races with your dad, and your dad would say, that car wasn't very good or this or that or whatever. I'm like, we just won the race, man. The mother wasn't good or this or that.

I'm like, but his whole thing is he wanted us to continue to be better. and it was never good enough. What do you think the Xfinity series looks like in a couple years? There's, so, you know, and I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not all knowing. So, you know, I'm going to be educated a little bit because you, you and Bummy and those guys are definitely on top of what's going on in the, in the series. But as I understand it, we are, you know, we're, our parts and pieces are harder to get, you know, And ever since the cup series sort of transitioned away from the type of parts and pieces that we run,

suspension-wise, and so forth, it's going to continue, I guess, to become more of a challenge. What are the, I guess, what are the hurdles in front of us as a series? How long can we sustain, you know, me and you both love this car. We love how this car works. when we look at it, it's familiar. How long can we sustain running this car? Is it not a problem? Is it going to eventually come to a head?

Well, what do you think the future looks like? It's a double-edged sword to start with. They would love for us to run what the cup guys are running. And it took them years and years to get the cup cars to where they are today. And they're still tweaking on them. They also do not want to put a bunch of teams out of business. That's right. And we need 30 cars there, 35, we need to have full fields.

Yes. The other part of it is they really need a single lug so that your pit crews on Sunday can do Saturday. That's becoming an issue. That's becoming an issue. And then when you do that, you know. There's less, I guess to explain it to the person listening, like, there's less five lug guys. There's less guys willing to do a Saturday car. there's less cup teams wanting to allow their guys to do the Saturday car.

They get confused. They can't be as consistent and as sharp on Sunday. It's getting too important to be perfect on Sunday, right? You can't. You're exactly right. And there's some old school guys that are decent Sunday guys that are very good, that used to be or still very good five-law guys, but they'll age out. There'll be a day, I guess, in five, ten years where everybody,

that's doing pit stops is a single lug guy. Yeah. It won't be any five luggers anymore. In today's world, you can get a really good athlete and teach him how to do a single lug. He can be on a pit crew in six months. The five lug thing, it's years. Yeah.

In years and years. And also with that, you have the bigger brakes. Everything's getting harder to get the rear end houses, the brakes. NASCAR's not going to have, they can't continue. to keep running what we're running, but we have input. Me, Junior Motorsports,

RCR, and all the other teams have input with NASCAR. What I would love to happen is for them to continue to let us build cars, but to their specs. Go to a single lug. I don't like the spec engine because I like knowing what's in the engine.

and but there there's we can't continue with what we have yeah and but we also cannot put the mike harmon's and the joey gayses we can't put those guys out of business we need them to be there if you if they came in to junior motorsports and they said okay this car's going to be 300,000 or 250,000 dollars it would be it'd be devastating yeah they'd only be 14 teams out there right? Yes, and we've seen that before in other series. So they have some challenges, but the one really good thing about NASCAR is, is that they talk to Dale Jr. They talk to Richard Childers, they talk to people like me, and they try to make a plan that everybody can get along with. It's not like it used to be NASCAR, like, all right, this is what

we're doing. This is it. So they do understand our back. titles, and that's why they haven't already went to what the cup cars have. I don't think, I think we'll have something that's close to that, but I think that it'll be, I'm not going to say a cheaper version, but a more affordable version. Yeah. I don't, I look at the cup car and I'm not, here's a couple things that, I guess, are, if you were to come to me and say, okay, man, you're going to, we got to make some changes.

We just, we just can't sustain going down this path. And there's a, there's a, there's a shortage of, of brake parts or calipers and, and, and, and, and, and, spindles and hubs and this and that, another. Um, and so I would do everything I could to keep the nine inch rear in. Yeah. I would do everything I could to keep the trailing arm style, um, points, like what that arm looks like can change, but the points that. themselves, all the pivot points.

So I would leave the back of the car as is, but maybe you've got a new company that's the single source for the trailing arm or the rear in-house. Right. But it really is unchanged in terms of how it functions. The front suspension, I feel the same way. I would be very weary of, like, improving our braking performance. Right. I think that was a step in the wrong direction for the cup of cars to shorten breaking zones

and take away the opportunities to charge and beat people in the air. of the corner. If anything, I'd make the brakes worse. Our race is really good. It is. Yeah, like, I don't want the brakes to work better. I want them to be long braking zones and that'd be a tool for a driver. And so, and the underbelly.

Like, I don't want, I don't want any arrow underneath. Totally. No, diffuser and all that. We don't have. We don't need any of that. We don't have, like, there's. When you start doing that stuff, it goes very, very deep on the air dynamic side. We don't have but 15 hours of wind tunnel time.

And me and you share it together. I just don't want it to be part of how the cars operate and function on the racetrack. Yes. Like I don't want Oval racing, stock car racing to me is and diffusers don't mix. And so, you know, that's GT sports cars. That's left and right. That's a global part. you know, for sports car racing.

So I think, you know, I'm hopeful. I know that eventually we've got to accept and be ready to adjust and make changes and pivot. And to your point, I hope it's an affordable route for our teams so that we have very, you know, we've got teams that can survive. But I think it's simple, to stay simple and stay very close to how we're operating now and how things function physically, how literally the car's function is important. I am 100% with you on that because it would be really.

easy to miss our racing up. Yeah. And our race. I don't want the damn tires to change either. Yeah. I don't want that low profile tire. I'm with you. And if you don't put the brakes on it, you don't need the wheels, you don't need the

smaller tire, all those things. You know, because I like our tire. I like our sidewall. I like how our tires function. The, our fan base grew a lot last year just from the CW. Yes. And if you,

if you pay attention to what the fans are saying, the racing's really, really good. Racine's really good. Personality are good. Yes. You got a lot of, you know, a lot of excitement. You've got a couple of strong personalities in your team, Austin Hill. He's went through some things this past year.

Had some learning, teaching moments, I suppose, is the best way to put it. But, you know, what kind of person is he? We've had him in the room and I've had the chance to talk to him. y'all i know that like knowing you and y'all's track record and your loyalty and support like when he's going through those things you guys got your arm around him um so how do you navigate that with him to help him so so the he's misunderstood a lot like your dad was if you should if you could see him with his two daughters and his son he's an incredible dad he's a fierce competitor.

He wants to win. He wants, you know, and he's, he don't want to be pushed around. Yeah, I know. He talked about how he was bullied when he was younger, I think, and that was something that's kind of still sticks with him, and he doesn't like to feel like that's happening, and he wants to, and sometimes it comes off

as him being the bully a bit. I wish he would, like, listen, I love the bust his chops. I like to, you know, give him a hard time. And I wish he'd loosen up. Like, that was pretty big last year, and I know it was, and I'm not minimizing what he went through,

and I know it was probably, it wasn't fun for anybody, right? But it wasn't fun for y'all. It wasn't fun for anyone. But I wish he would loosen up a little bit. He will. He needs to smile a little bit. He's done great through the offseason. Yeah.

I don't want to look at him like, damn, you know, everything we're going to have to deal with with this guy is going to be problematic, right? I want to have some good races. We will. We will. We will. We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,

100% believe that, um, he's lightened up a bunch. He, he, he, he is, he is, he is, he is, he is, he is, he is, he is all about his family. they told him at work like okay you need to start growing your fan base he don't care about none of that all he wants to do is drive he wants to race hunt and race sounds like your dad a little bit and so you got to build your media platform and he's like all I want to do is race I don't care about that so it's probably his wife they've been sending a few pictures out of the kids, of the family.

He's like, I don't do anything unless I'm doing it with my daughters or my wife or that's, or I go hunting. And he's at Disney right now and he's probably kicking and screaming because that's part of the deal is, is he can go do what he wants to do, but he has to do some family stuff too. And I'm soon to do a Disney cruise. That's going to be. That's going to be something. Yes.

Yes. But so I think you'll see he has learned a lot from that. And, you know, in the heat of the moment, the heat of the situations, a lot of times you don't think about the ramifications and this and that. All track stuff, you know, I think he, look, what happened on the racetrack and what happened in the result of that, I personally am good with it. I think, you know, I'm not going to sit here and argue with you about what I think happened in Indy. I got my opinion.

Everything that went down beyond that, I felt like NASCAR handled it. I want him, I know I'm going to have to race him. Yeah. Right. And I don't want every experience with him to be a bad memory. It's not going to be.

Right. Because I want him to go out and win races. I want him race hard. I don't want him to not win, not do well, but I want him to, I'd just love to get out and go, damn, that was a good race.

And go slap him on the back on pit road and say, you got us. That was badass. That was fun. But Jesse Love. So Jesse Love, a lot of people don't realize you could almost throw a rock to San Francisco from where he was raised. Okay.

And he, you would think he was raised in Morrisville, North Carolina. Yeah. He absolutely loves it here. Yeah. won all those races last year. You know, he, and he's worked really hard over the wintertime because he wants to win 11 or 12. You know, Connor 1-10.

I love them both. They are totally different. Austin is, is the family man. He's a little more abrasive. He's not going to sugarcoat anything. Jesse is the fun-loving kid pretty, pretty much. I mean, he is, he's never had a bad guy.

bad day. He is living the dream right now. Jesse is, he don't even know how good he's got it made. No, he don't. He has, he has no clue. And so he called me yesterday and he says, I can always tell when he wants something. Look, I really, really, really need to stay for the Daytona 500. I'm like, okay. Why does he have to ask for that? Yeah, it was just rental car, room, this and that. Yeah, we're on a budget at our show. Yeah, I know that. I know. So, I don't know. So, I, I'm like, okay. No problem with that. So then he goes, I can sleep on the floor and Conner's coach if you let me stay.

And I'm like, all right, that's a deal. I'll pay for your rental car. You're not having a hotel room. And it's like, I can remember those days, but he's like, I'll do anything to stay. And I love that. Yeah, I love that. He wants to run, he wants to race everything he can. He wants to run every sprint car race.

He wants to run every dirt race. He wants to run every late model race. He wants to. And he just had that talk with Richard about, okay, I got a chance to run to some dirt races and some midgets and this and that and whatever. And Richard said, okay, just be careful. I don't know who, if you get hurt, who are we going to put in the car? Yeah. But Kyle Larson's doing it.

You know, all those guys are, all those guys are. are doing it. The opinion now is these days, it's more you're driving, the better you're getting. Yep. And Jesse does. He studies the craft. He studies the pit roads. He studies when to shift. He's been working on a, he's been working, you know, him and Connor. I think since kids. Yes. They've been talking about, you know, how are you that good on the roadcores? Help me be better. And they're not, they're not in go-carts to it. They're just talking about this is what I do.

This is how I do. And, and, uh, Jesse's like, I feel like I'm going to be way better. You know, and Connor's a good kid too. I'm really glad that they're friends because he could definitely be with a lot of worse people. But they're all about racing. They're all about, you know, and see those kids come up. I think you said it one time. It's hurtful a little bit on one side.

You get Jesse and you get Austin in and they're, you know, you kind of love up on them, but we're just a pass through. That's right. And you got to let them go like they're your kids and then hope that the next ones you get, you know, are respectful and can drive and this. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good, but we're trying to promote people to the Cupside. That's what.

Yeah. And my issue is I get really, really close to them. Yeah. But I mean, that's also one of your greatest attributes. Right. and as a person is your character and how you do care about people and i have noticed how some of your drivers how you have tried to promote them out of here how to get them really really good rides even though they were winning a bunch of races here and that's what we got to do you know we got

i can't we can't hold them back yeah i would love i mean i'll be honest it's a bit of an ego thing i love looking across the cup garage and seeing people that worked here you know i feel like if I can't, you know, if being in the Xfinity series is what we're going to do, then the greatest reward and the greatest success for us isn't winning the trophy on Saturday. That's nice. That's second or third. It's seeing your people go into the cup garage and be valuable quality

individuals and them, they spread the word. Yeah. J.R.M is a great place. to work. People start coming in that door. I was told this is where I need to be. This is the best place. My buddy, he's in the cup garage and he said such and such, you know, and we get a ton, you know, it's hard to find good people these days, but we, I think, have a better opportunity to be the most because of the reputation, you know. 100%. So your dad called me one time and he goes, you know, he always like, where are you at or what are you doing? It was never, you know. No. That's, that's what I

do. I call it W. And he picks up on. What are you doing? Tell what you doing. This was 92. I had bought a truck from Delaware and Art Chevrolet, 92 Chevrolet truck. And he had a truck. And he goes, need to come to Deerhead Shop. Bring your truck. I'm like, okay, you couldn't tell him, no. I showed up, pull in. He's got his truck in there, bumpers off of it. he was looking at something and he ran into haybell, or the third round haybells, and messed the bumper up on his truck. So we took the bumper off of my truck and put it on his truck.

And he's like, I'll get you a bumper. He said, Martinsville was the next weekend. He goes, I got to drive my truck to Martinsville. I don't want anybody to know that I, I mean, around the farm. That's crazy. Yeah, around the farm, he was amazing. it was like he knew every deer.

Oh, yeah. He knew every little bitty, you know, anything that went on, he knew about it. He, and, you know, he wanted to say he was a farmer. He loved the chickens. He loved this. He loved, he had a lot of stuff going on. I mean, he was, he was wide, wide. Oh, yeah.

And you talk about getting up early? Four in the morning, five in the morning, every day. I made a joke. They said, Hey, can you be, we want to start filming at 8.30. And I said, is Dale Jr. going to be up by the end? And they said, things have changed, brother. What?

Today. Yeah. Because it used to be, you'd sleep late and stay up all night. But your dad was always, man, it was four o'clock in the morning. And, you know, he was, I don't know what time he went to bed, but I know he always got up. His bedtime was all over the place. You know, if they were what, if the, they used to, at the deerhead shop, you know, know they'd work all day.

He'd get up four or five, get out, feed cows, and get up an autograph room, sign autographs for a couple hours or whatever, and before everybody got there. And then when everybody got there, he's running around doing. And at five o'clock, they'd pull, you know, a fifth of vodka and beers, and they'd start drinking. Somebody would order some pizza, and they'd just bench race and bull, and talk about what they, you know, what they needed to do, make plans, you know. and with Tony Senior and all them.

And that might end at 9. That might end at 12. You know, whatever, right? And then next day, same thing. Four o'clock in the morning. You know, sometimes they didn't bench race after 5. But most of the time, you know, he enjoyed doing that. They always, that was something that I always appreciated was,

so they had that shop of, they had that bush shop back next to Mamaw's house. Right. In the 80s. And, I mean, he, they, raised a lot of hell. Yeah, they did. Back in the day. Yes. And when he moved that all over and even got, you know, the big cup garage and all that

stuff built and all, they still had that damn pal around five o'clock, happy hour, everybody come over. Everybody came over. The guys that were on the road crew that had real jobs for the Bush car, Scott Daniels and all these different guys, they'd come on in after they got punched. out. They'd start driving in. Some guys got a damn

bowl full of chicken wings and this guy's got this and this guy's got that and we just kind of everybody just start laughing and sitting around and drink a beer and having fun.

Those were the best times. Did your dad ever tell you why he does his autograph like he did it? Uh-uh. Richard Petty. So he told us I heard him tell the story

one time. He said that he used to sign his autograph where you couldn't even tell what it wasn't. And then somebody asked me, he goes, why do you sign your autograph like a girl? And he said, Richard Petty told me that the fans is what makes us, makes us or breaks us.

He said, so Richard Petty takes his time and he signs his, and Richard Petty taught me that they need to be able to read my autograph. So he changed it up. Early, early on. Yeah. And so he made it to where you could actually read it. And today, if you look at Richard Petty's autograph and you look at your dad's autograph,

anybody else's autograph, you can't even tell who they are. But the reason he did that is because Richard Petty told him, like, you, you know, he paid attention to stuff to all the details. And Richards R and your dad's D is, I mean, they're all. Similarities. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, dad had a lot of respect for Richard. And, you know, I was doing those 1979, 1990 podcasts around the Becoming Earnhardt kind of series. And that's kind of one of them deals where, like, if dad were here, I'd love to sit down with him for like 18 hours and talk about 79 and 80, you know. And when he was in the race, when he was in NASCAR in 7980, he was different. He was the young guy. He was the guy that Richard Petty would stick his finger in his chest at Martinsville and go, what the hell did you do that for?

You know, and, you know, Kell Yarborough and Bobby Allison, all those guys were mentors to him, you know, where in six years it flipped. He was the mentor. He was the lead dude. So it was kind of fun, I think, to go back and study and try to remember dad in a completely different, with a completely different personality almost and mentality and outlook on things. He wasn't the top guy in the garage, right?

And that was a lot of fun for me to kind of see him becoming who he would become. But, man, this has been a lot of fun. I didn't even look at these notes, really. I had a lot of stories I was going to tell. I didn't go. What you need to do is I want you to come back. and when you start do you use your notes app in your phone

so start a notes app for the next time you're on the show and we'll do it this year we'll get you back in here whenever you feel like you're ready every time you think of a story just put a little brief and bring those because I sit down here and God I'm driving for the last 24 hours I've thought about this show and I've probably thought about 12 things that I wanted to ask you

that I can't remember sitting here right in this moment and the way I prep for this show I should do a little better job but making that note we have a lot of stories that are non-racing stories that are really really really good I mean you'd be surprised at the music that your dad listened to I was surprised at the music that your dad listened to.

I was surprised a few times when the damn door he'd come pulling up and the door would swing open and black velvet and uh like that would be playing and i'm like all right we went to the store in at in detona one time he like faith hill yeah he he loved he loved faith hill and he would be in the classical section and getting this and he'd be over in the hard rock section getting i mean it's like and he liked delbert mcclinton which i didn't mind delbert but i wasn't like i wasn't going to pull delbert out and listen, put, you know, put his, he had, uh, I remember going on his boat with him, which freaking super rare. This is literally the only time I ever remember it be me, it was me and him

and the CD case. Yeah. Right. He had it a little fold open CD case and probably 50 CDs in there. And it's me and him and we're drinking beer. And I honestly didn't know what, how freaking badass I had it in that moment to sit there with him and bullshit. And he's like, plays music. And there was one CD in there that I would have played. If I was, if that was my case, there was one CD in that thing that I was like, yeah, I'd listen to this. It was Brooks and Dunn. And so we listened to a lot of Brooks and Dunn that night. And there is that shit. I'm like, this ain't shit. I listen to. He would, you know, he did Dale's Day off, which would, we had. The Lake? At the lake. You know, we had, he would have parasails. This is a T-shirts, man.

Oh, my God. Yes. Just for us. Yes. But there is a lot of. There is a lot of stories that we need, you know, stuff you'd love. Let's tell them. Let's tell them one day. Make a note. I will. I will. We got to get this shit on tape, so it lives forever.

I got you, brother. You've got an important responsibility. Yeah, I'm the old guy. I've got to get the stories out. I really do miss, you know, Kirk and Will and all the guys, you know, and talking about this stuff brings back all the memories. and we were, we were not just a team. We were a family, you know, Richard.

And I'm glad you were a part of it. I'm glad you were right there to be able to see all that because your platform reaches a lot of people. And your dad was way misunderstood. He wasn't just a hard ass that wrecked people. He was a badass. Everything he'd done. He was incredible.

If the people knew what kind of business person he was and what kind of, I mean, all the things that he did and all, all the people that he took care of. And that's why I said, I was proud of you, whenever he passed, a lot of those people he took care of. I know you brought him in,

and you looked after a lot, a lot of his people, because you know that would be the right thing to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tried to, I think I don't know if I do it as much today, but man, right after he passed for like the next five years,

I think everything, every kind of, you know, heavy decision I have. had to make, I always, like, chose the one I thought he would choose, you know, whether I wanted to do that or not. I, like, I better do it this way. He might be watching me or I felt like he was judging me, you know, still, because I've been, I felt that way my whole life, you know, like, you know, like, you know, he's a son,

like any child is, you feel like your, your parents always, like, watching you, you know. But, man, I told you, at the start of the show, that, you know, you've, you've always been so good to me and you you know people like you that have done that and went out of your way to check on me and and give me

important advice and let me know just by just in brief passing you say things and do things that are always like building me up and making sure I'm I love you man I mean we're we are family

I can't tell you how valuable that is for somebody like me. And that's so important. And that has really helped me. It really has. And so even today, even at 51 years old, seeing you on Pit Road is one of my favorite things. I love it too. And I will tell you what, the way that you take care of your girls and your wife, your dad would love that too. Yeah.

He, they'll love kids. I mean, you know, you have that picture of Chase L. Yeah, I know. That was not a photo op. No. That was a real deal. Yeah. He loved kids and he'd be really proud of you,

how you've taken care of your girls and all the things that you've done. He was teaching the stuff and we didn't even know it back in the day. Yeah. I know, yeah. That's a good point. Well, I appreciate it, man. I appreciate you too. It's been a fun conversation.

I knew it would be. And I want you to come back this year. Let's tell some more stories. I'm going to make my notes. I got my homework to do. I'll start making my notes. It's easy. We call it flagging moments.

Like when we're out and about, when me and Amy do our podcast, she's super nervous because we don't ever talk. What we're going to do on the show? What are we going to talk about on a show? I'm like, we'll sit down and start talking. But she's like, man, we need to flag some moments. So we got a little notes happen. When something funny happens, somebody says something silly or that makes, you know, something

we think everybody will get a kick out of. We jot it down. But go flag some memories. You've done an awesome job with this thing. I love doing it. with all of it. You've reached a lot of people. It's great.

I love bringing up the memories of the past because a lot of that is, a lot of that's forgotten. Yeah. Well, hopefully this is how it can kind of be remembered, you know, and I know it's hard for people that have never experienced it. There's a lot of people that never saw Dad Race, and it's hard to, like, put them in the room with you guys in the 80s, right?

It's hard to, like, help them understand what's standing around that garage door. at the racetrack was like watching y'all work, but it's worth a try, right? It's fun. This is a super rewarding thing that I do, and I'm glad that I found, you know, kind of this platform because I've been able to sit down with you. I would have never had a chance to really get down into it

with Shelmerdine, and I've had a chance to bring some people in here and apologize for things that I did, you know, that maybe I'm not so proud of, which is good, you know, and reconcile. some bad memories or tough moments. So it's been super rewarding.

I love it. Do you want to see what's in the box? Yeah. Okay. You're going to love this. All right. I'm walking. Oh, hell.

Here we go. Open face helmet. Open it up. All right. So Bristol 99, Bill Simpson and your dad were really, really tight. Yes. And Bill Simpson had been wearing your dad out about it. I want you to wear a white helmet.

I want you to wear a white helmet, blah, blah, blah, you know. Because nobody sees the black, I need to sell helmets. So your dad is like, I'm not wearing. He, your dad stuck those stickers on it. It doesn't even have the Chevrolet stickers with the 76. He put it on for 10 minutes in practice. Yeah. And then threw it out.

And he said, here it is. Your dad gave me so much stuff I kept it and it's yours now You know why I know that he wore this helmet

is because the front lobe is carved out because he would get you know back then they didn't mold helmets

to your head and he has taken a hammer and a little he's cut some of the phone right there because he would get

I just had my head measured the other day for a hat And this guy's like, I bet you when you wear a helmet, you feel a lot of pressure right here. I'm like, I do. And I was thinking, I was like, you know, Dad did too. And he would take a little ball peen hammer and just ever so lightly kind of tap in one little spot right in the front to get it to where it kind of fit better.

And you can see him. So that's the white helmet. He wore it at Bristol. It doesn't have a radio or anything on it because he won one practice. And then he told Bill, I wore your damn helmet. Was it a test or a race weekend? It was race weekend. It was so he gave it to him for his birthday.

So his birthday was the 29th, and that was on a Thursday, and then Friday the 30th we practiced. We won that race, actually. And so he gave me a bunch of stuff. The coolest thing that I have. I was going to just ask you, what do you think is your prize possession? And there may be a couple things.

It's very, very first Nike shoes. Oh, the black ones with the red check? Yeah. Or it had like a red. the very, very first one. Swish. Yeah. He, they made them for them. He practiced with them at Daytona.

He was like, these things are too narrow. They're junk. He threw them in a trash can, and I said, I'm keeping these things. So the very, very first pair, I got them. They say demo on them. Oh, man. I'll bring them and let you see those. I'm not giving you those.

I'm giving you this, but I'm not giving that. That's fine. But he wouldn't keep anything. You know, he's like, give these goggles to that little girl or this or, you know, that, you know, he, he, he made sure that he spreaded to love. I wonder how many pairs of bubble goggles he wore. Oh, my gosh. And he had this little thing he had to go through where he would tie him up just, they had to have not. Just the right about pressure.

Yeah, just the, and he'd take them off and he'd just be just exactly right. Yeah. One time he took and he goes, check this. out he took in and put underneath he I know it looks silly and I'm like that looks stupid he wore him like one or two races and he's like but he was not going to be wrong it ain't stupid yeah they're gone the next week yeah but so that is that's a that's a that helmet is from the 90s yes sir and this only time I ever know of him wearing a

white helmet and I'm like you know what it's yours now. I got the box, got the and I just figure that this is kind of stuff that needs to people needs to see instead of being in my closet at my house. We'll put it up here in the room. It's all my, you know, most of it anyways. You got some stuff. I got some stuff. Some old trophies. Man, I appreciate you, brother. I appreciate you.

Thanks for giving me some time today. I know this was a, we jumped through a lot of hoops to make it happen. You're a good man. Thank you, brother. Thank you. I appreciate you, buddy. Thank you, brother. All right. Danny Lawrence on the Dell Jr. Download. All right, so that was great to have Danny in here. And, you know, I hope that you realize or understand why he's such a special person in my life and a special part of the RCR Earnhardt connection. He was heavily involved in all of that.

And just one of the few guys from that era that's still heavily involved in around the racetrack today. So, you know, I said it once, I said it twice. maybe multiple times, but it's just, I love seeing that guy, and we walk up to each other on pit roads, always wishing each other well, wishing our teams well. I know we're competing against them on the racetrack, but I certainly want to see him succeed and RCR succeed because of the connection. So just great to be able to have him on here.

Hopefully all enjoyed getting to know Danny and what he's all about. All right, everybody, it's time for the Dirty Mode Doe segment, brought to you by Fanjul. we've got the clash tonight correct yes this show comes out today

the odds on favorite to win Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott both they're going to cross the finish line tied at plus 650 followed by Denny Hamlin at 700 Kyle Larson 850 and William Byron

at 900 I mean I'm not going to argue with that I think that's pretty accurate Chase Elliott seemed to dominate last year Ryan Blaney was relatively quick. I don't know. I feel pretty good about Chase again.

Yeah. He's pretty good. Him and Denny kind of ran the show, I thought, last year, for a little bit. Is this a dumb question? But with the race just keep getting postponed, do you think some drivers are just going to go out there and kind of go through the motion? Mail it in.

Or when they get in the car, does that change? I think you might. This is a very very, This is a personality question, right? This isn't, like, this is, not every driver does the same thing. Some guys look at this as like an opportunity. I bet a bunch of fools are going to lay down and not take this seriously. Here's my chance.

Other guys may go, hey, you know, this isn't even serious. Look at how we're, you know, look at how they're, look at how the weather's affected this. And now, you know, we don't know who's going, you know, not even that. that mean people's going to be paying attention. You know, you tell yourself whatever you think you need to tell yourself only really to suppress anxiety and nerves or like pump yourself up, right? I would get, we would get a rain delay and, man, I would be like, everybody's checking out, I'm checking in.

You know, that was, I was, I was like, man, we're going to be racing at midnight tonight. That's my time. I'm up. Everybody else is ready for bed at 9 o'clock. My ass is still going. I'm a night owl. So that's perfect for me. Even though maybe I don't know whether it's true or not,

but in my mind, literally, I'm racing around a bunch of guys that are like, I'm so tired, ready for bed. Right? Yeah, it's a mindset thing. It is a mindset thing. So that could play a role, I think, in how they act and feel leading up to the moment they climb into the car. I mean, as soon as you climb into the car and you buckle in,

your, your race car driver just kind of dominates your inner competitiveness. You can't allow yourself to like not lock in and go for it, right? So I think, you know, once the engine's fire and you kind of get to, you're like, all right, here we go, I'm doing this shit. So I think that the betters or the odds makers have it correct. I feel, I mean, yeah, Denny, Denny could be good. Then he could sneak in there and get it. But you guys, do y'all want to bet a winner?

I kind of just, with your mindset thing, Joey Lugano is, I don't feel like a guy that's going to roll over. I don't know if he was even good here last year. I don't have any stats for it. But he just seems like a guy if there's chaos and there's postponements. He's a guy that always kind of rises to the top. He's plus 1,000, so he's not on my list, but he's right there. It's not a bad bet.

No, it ain't. I don't know. I feel like that, you know, they went there last year, and it was their first try, and now they have notes, right? Now they have information. So what we saw, I guess I won't be surprised if we don't see a replication of last year because I think teams go home and they get smarter.

That's not really a very common style of racetrack they race on. They don't have a ton of, they have better understanding, I suppose, what they should have brought to the racetrack. And I bet you a bunch of teams have made some big changes and pivoted away from what they brought last year to try to be more competitive this year. So you could see, You might see none of these names leading the race.

Yeah. Might be someone out of, not on this sheet, you know. So I'll be honest, like Josh Barry was pretty good last year. Yeah. Kind of, you know, he had some great speed. But, and so I feel like that, you know, the Penske cars with Legano, Blaney, possibly Barry can get up there and, and make it a race. But Josh Barry plus 2,700. Yeah.

I mean, he was looking pretty good last year. but and Blaney had to drive from the back right I believe so yeah so if he doesn't have to do that is he got a better shot at it not having to work all the way from the rear of the field such a hard place to pass hard place to pass yeah had to use up a lot of race car to get there yeah we also have the season win total bets

Kyle Busch at over under a half so does he win does he not right that's the question yeah new crew chief Jimpolium over there dude, I feel like they could sneak in and get one. I don't, you know, not that the crew chief change is an upgrade. I honestly felt like you had a really good crew chief to begin with, but I just feel like that Jim comes with his own ideas to add to what they were already doing.

So I would be surprised if they didn't, like, improve some. And that might be enough to, like, put him in place a few days on the calendar year to grab a win. I would bet Kyle over. What's the odds on that? Do you have the odds by the chance? I think it was like $1.15 each way. Yeah. Okay.

Denny Hamlin at three and a half. I feel like he's motivated. Yeah. I think he's good for four wins at least. I think that the change in the point system has now given Denny kind of new life. Yeah. There's no secret that he didn't love being in the framework

that we had in the past. because his style, and he's just steady, consistent, he's a winner. You know, on an average year, he's going to win three races. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And so he's a little long game, and he can tool it together. And I think he's more motivated than ever to go out there

and point, you know, point, point, point here and there and win races and make it happen and put himself in that situation late in the season to be in the top three going into the playoffs or going into the chase. Minus 110 for the over for Denny. I'd take it. I'd go over on that. Ty Gibbs. I don't see him doing it.

No, me either. I mean, I want him to. I don't have nothing against the guy. I just haven't been convinced, so I wouldn't put my money on the over. William Byron at three and a half. He's so consistent, though. I have him over, but because of that.

Listen, Chevy's got a new body. Less drag, more down force. I don't know how you do that, but it's happened. I'm sure they're going to. going to improve engines. I would expect the Chevroletes to actually, I mean, if I'm hearing everything about the bodies, if that's all correct, I would expect the Chevroletes to be pretty good all year, better.

The body should better serve them, I guess, for all their drivers. So why not? Plus money. Yeah. Go for it. Plus money. We're going over on Byron. Bragg has Alowski at a half.

So does he win? Does he not? starting the year off a little bit. I don't love it, yeah. I'm going to bet the under. Chase Elliott at one and a half, I'm betting the over. That's over. For sure.

He was the most consistent driver last year. If you could get a alternate line, I would even go to two and a half. I'd go to three wins for Chase. That's a great bet. Connor Zillich, does he win a race? I would have fun with this. The lines at a half. I would bet it over.

I would too just for fun. Yeah, I don't know, but it'd be fun to do for it. you this would be one of them deals where you put you know put a dollar or five dollars something on something like that on this connor zillage and so every time there's a road course course connor's going to go out there and try to win the ovals too but every time there's a road course race you're up on it yeah like you're more invested because here's your you know you're pulling for this guy to come in there and cash the bet that's what that's fun about the whole process right so yeah i'd put i'd put money on that over um we got super bowl sunday uh half happening this weekend? What's your thoughts? I like the Seahawks. They've been blowing everybody out. They've been, they are, they feel like the most balanced. Like if they can't beat you here, they got this. Yeah.

If they can't get the, if this ain't working today, they got these two other things. You know what I mean? Yeah. They are defense. So good. All the whole units, the roster, they all play the same way hard and they're just going to punch you in the mouth. And that's hard to be. Let me ask you this to the intention, because there's a bet that in my eye. on. Largest lead of the game. Under 14.5 points, it's minus 130. I just don't see in the big game like this with good

defenses that Seattle's going to just go out there and, like, get a 20-point lead. Yeah, but I do think they're defense, though. Like, I have one of my fun bets is Seattle defense for a touchdown. Like, I think they could run a pick six-back, and they could dominate Drake May. Does that include special teams, or is it just defense? Okay. I feel like, you know, I've been watching all year. We do fantasy and all that stuff. Yeah. I didn't do a ton of betting in the NFL this year.

But, I mean, I was watching. Of course, trying to wish my commanders alone. There ain't enough wishing there. Drake May is in the same class as Jaden Daniels. And so there's, you know, you're watching. And I had Drake as a quarterback on my fantasy team. And I'll be honest, man. And I don't know how.

I don't realize. I don't appreciate how good the Seahawks defense is. But in every game that I really watch Drake and those guys play this year, they're good enough to go out and score 21 points, minimum. Right? Will that be enough? And against a very tough defense, can they go do that? So I'm seeing this as like, you know, Seahawks 28, Patriots 21,

a game similar, something like that, right? Yeah. You know, 31 to 24, 31 to 21. It's not going to be like edge of your seat close at the end, but I don't see it being more than a 10, 11 point margin of victory. I'm not saying that the NFL tells the refs don't, but you know the refs don't want to call. Call it a little looser.

They're going to keep the flags in their pockets, going to help the offenses move the ball a little more. Yeah. The Dirty Mo Doe segment is brought to you by Fanduil, the premier gaming destination of the United States. Man, it's great to have Danny Lawrence in the RB studio to kick off the season. I want to tell you all about something going forward as we move toward Daytona. There'll be a live show in Daytona on Thursday, the 12th.

We'll be down in the fans on. We've done this before. We've had a lot of fun. Dirty Mo Media, we're going to be live on Sirius XM from 3 to 4. I'll be on stage with Jeff Gluck, Freddie Craft, and Ryan Blaney's going to join us. Then from 4 to 430,

there'll be a little bit of a crossover show. Do we know who's going to be on that show? It'll be Jordan Bianchi and a slew of rotating drivers. All right. A slew. And then from 5 to 6, Sirius XM Speedway with Dave Moody, this show is going to drop on podcast and YouTube later that night.

That's the 12th in Daytona from the fan zone. If you're there, I hope to see you. There'll be some, I'm sure, some fan engagement during the show. We also have a new merch that came out, the new Dirtymo Media merch. I saw this post on social media yesterday. Hockey jerseys. Hockey jerseys. Yeah.

Well, it's pretty awesome. Go check it out. The Green Flag Collection is what it's called, and it's just dropped where we've also got a Valentine's Day line that's perfect if you're buying something for somebody for Valentine's Day. Maybe you're just treating yourself. Hoodies, T-shirts, flags, we're. got it all go see it at shop.dirtymomedia.com. Check out dirtymo media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.