The Dale Jr. Download - DJD Classics w/ Andy Petree: A Legendary Innovator

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Dale’s on vacation this week, so we’re throwing it back to a DJD Classic from 2021 with long-time crew chief, car owner, and broadcaster Andy Petree. This conversation is filled with epic tales about Petree’s rich history, innovative practices in the sport, and what life was really like as Dale Earnhardt’s Crew Chief. Petree’s path then paired him with Benny and Phil Parsons. Hear what tricks he had up his sleeve when he won his first Cup race as a crew chief with Phil in 1988. Andy was Harry Gant’s crew chief when he won four races in a row in 1991. Find out how the car was built differently than most. Hear what competitive advantages Gant had and the rulebook loopholes Petree attacked. Then, Petree goes into detail about his transition to taking the ‘premiere crew chief job in the sport’ for Dale Earnhardt at Richard Childress Racing. Find out how the first meeting with Dale and Childress went and the buzzword that motivated the trio. Once at RCR, Andy shares the reaction from the team seeing him walk in and the resistance he initially faced. Arby’s Meat & 3 box is available for a limited time at participating locations while supplies last. Prices may vary. Get your Meat & 3 box at an Arby's near you today. Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia Check out our merch collection: https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/ 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.

The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. You're Dale Jr. Should I say it? It's Dale Jr. podcast. I got to say it. Hey, everybody. It's Dellenhart Jr. here with another episode of the Dale Jr. download. We've got a classic for you today.

Andy Petrie, a crew chief broadcaster, team owner. He's done it all, and he's going to come in here and tell us about it. Let's get him at the table and get started. Brought you by Arby's here in the Arby Studio and their new meat in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby. be we have to meet. What's up, man? What's that happening, guys?

How are you doing? Oh, pretty good. Have a seat. Yeah. Have a seat. Just mine? Yeah, buddy. That's you right there.

It's pretty cool. Thanks, man. We've been looking forward to you coming on the show. Yeah. I appreciate it. I have to. I've been watching a lot of them. Have you?

Yeah. You've had some characters on it. We've had some fun. Yeah. Throw that headset on so you can hear us. And by the way, first guest we've ever had that flew a helicopter in, I guess. I think so. Yeah.

Probably. You and Rick. Hendrick. I guess there was that. He hadn't had chase on yet. Well, he, yeah, he would fly a helicopter here. He probably, yeah. So Andy Petrie is on the show.

It's a, it's awesome to have you in here, and I know that you got your hands full and you're busy working with RCR. What are you doing these days? What's your job title? Well, I'm just the, you know, the VP of competition over there, and kind of everything that's competition related falls under me. Got great people, you know, that handle all the things, you know, they're from the engineering. engineering to operations. You got Sammy Johns and Eric Kamenick and, you know,

just a lot of good, good strong people over there. What made you want to go back and go back to work at RCR? You had your own deal. You kind of were doing some TV and you seemed to be like you was settled into this sort of comfortable place. You didn't really want to work all the time. I was.

I was working hard. Look, it was great, right? I was working for ESPN. I was working in the booth. And life was great. I mean, it really was. And then ESPN lost the contract at 2, NBC, and then you took my job. And so here I sit.

We're all thinking it. Yeah, right. We'll go ahead and address an elephant in the room. No, just kidding. But after that ran out, I mean, I still do work for Fox, you know, on the race-sub show, which I really enjoy once a week or so during the season. But that's it, you know, and I was just, you know, peddling things in my shop. I was, you know, I'm obviously passionate about aviation.

And I, you know, I dabbled with, you know, I got my airframe power plant license to be able to work on helicopters and airplanes. And I bought a runout in Robinson, kind of like the one I'm flying now, and overhauled it. I thought, okay, that's a good way to, you know, make a little money. I can, you know, occupy my time. It was way too hard. Well, it was really hard work, and there wasn't a lot of money in it. So I ended up selling that helicopter, making a little bit of money. And about that time, I was talking to Richard about some other things, and we had lunch at the winery.

he said it, he's, he just wasn't happy with the direction of the team and, and, you know, what I thought and we talked about some things. And he, you know, what do you think about coming back over here? And it really piqued my interest. I mean, because I'm a super competitive guy, you know, I didn't, I didn't quit being competitive just because I took on other things and, you know, miss it a little bit. There's things about, about racing that I really love that you can, you know, lay awake at night thinking of how can I make this a little better?

How can we beat them this week? how come, you know, and so I really kind of wanted to do it, you know. And so it's been, it's been fun. This is my fourth season there. And I feel like that we've made some progress along the way. We won a few races. Oh, yeah. And, you know, won the X-India championship a couple years ago with Tyler

and now moving him with his career along. I think it's interesting. And, you know, Austin Dillon is sitting in this really good spot in his career where he's, you know, tons of experience, very talented, you know, I feel the pressure of being able to give him the equipment that he deserves right now. Yeah. And so it's been fun. Let's go way back.

All right. You got have to go way back now. We're going as far as we can. Probably further back than you can remember. That's the challenge to doing this show is seeing how much you guys can remember. I, you know, you call yourself a car freak from way back since you could walk. But what was your family's involvement around automobiles? What was the, what connected you to racing or to the car?

Well, it's a little different than your career, right? I mean, your dad was super famous all in racing when you grew up, but my dad was not. I mean, my family really wasn't interested in really had any connection to racing. And other than for cars, my grandfather was a car dealer, Chevrolet dealer in Newton, North Carolina, and Newsom crossed Chevrolet. So that's one really, I would hang out in the dealership and, you know, aggravate the mechanics like crazy. You know, John Settlemire was one of the mechanics in there. And he ended up being a five-time track champion at Hickory Speedway.

And I got, oh, man, that's really cool. You know, he got race cars. And he took me, you know, I had to shop a few times when I was a kid, showed me the cars. I just kind of got. The first real interest I got, though, my uncle took me to Hickory Speedway when I was 11, 12 years old. And I got there, and I heard those cars running from the parking lot. And I'm like, holy cow.

And I went running up that ramp. You know, that ramp in front? Just running. I didn't pay ticket, nothing. I ran on top of that. And I looked down at those cars. were practicing. And I knew right then.

That was it. I was done. I'm telling you, nothing else in the world mattered. About how old were you? I was 11 or 12 years old. Did you play any sports in school? Nope. But I built a race car when I was still in high school.

Yeah. From that point on, right? So you go to your first race at Hickory and hear that motor and get all excited about that. How long, where did you finally, where were you able to get, finally get your hands on the car and start tuning on one? Well, it was kind of crazy. It was like when I was still in high school.

And Dale Jarrett and Jimmy Newsom were good friends of mine. Well, Jimmy, actually, Dale wasn't even in the pitcher yet, but Jimmy was actually running the tire store there in Newton, had graduated ahead of me a few years. And I was trying to anything I could. I was trying to con anybody to help me. We didn't have any money. You know, we were poor back then.

But I was trying to find somebody to help me build a car. I want to go up and race. What kind of car were you going to build? Well, we started out. We built this Nova, a 72 Nova out of a 64 Chival Frame. we go buy all this stuff and and I don't like I said I don't have a clue about any of this right I'm just I want to do it I got this this want to but I don't have any real skills and I started aggravating John Settlemyer and Tommy Houston every like I'd kind of lay off one for a while and I go into the other guy to wear him out to help me learn how to build this thing from the frame I mean we started with this frame and then we built this whole car up and about the time we get it on wheels Dale Jarrett walks in and he it would his dad Ned. And off that's cool,

they can her check us out, you know. And I didn't know why, because Dale was a jock. He was a golfer, played three sports or more in high school. I just didn't see him. Even though his dad was a racer. I didn't see. Did y'all know him around town? Yeah, oh, we knew each other because we went to the same high school.

Yeah, that's what it was. Y'all were the same high school at the same time. Oh, man. And so they, basically the reason for their trip there was they wanted to drive that car. He'd heard we were building a car and Dale wanted to drive it. And I'm like, no way, man. Right. How did that conversation start?

Oh, yeah. That's right. Well, here's the deal. I had a deal with Jimmy that we'd take it to the track, and whoever was fastest would drive it, right? I mean, she already knew I was going to beat the faster. Yeah. I love that. So when Dale shows up, it's like, oh, man, this is not going to work out.

You know, this is not what I want to do. But Jimmy. So what, you're, but you're splitting sort of the responsibility and ownership of this car with Jimmy? It was 50-50, Jimmy Newsome and myself. And so when Dale walks in. Well, this is what happened. We didn't have any more money. We'd already spend everybody.

We had barred money and begged money from everybody. And we were at kind of a dead-in anyway because we didn't have enough money to buy an engine for it. And so Jimmy, you know, kind of reminded me of that. It said, if we want to race this car, we've got to do this deal. I said, okay, you know, I did want to race it because we put so much effort in it. And so I reluctantly agreed. And that basically set my career path as well as deal with Jarrett's. And so now we're actually, you know, three-way partners in this deal before we ever go to the first race.

And we called it D-A-J racing, which is Dale Andy and Jimmy. How good did the car perform? You know, what, too bad. It was kind of weird. I've told the story many times that we get the car ready to go to the first race. And I've got it sitting in this little garage we had a Newton and Ned comes by. And he says, all right, and I had it all kind of just sitting and making it look right. And, you know, he said, how much wedge you got in that thing?

And I'm like, holy cow, what is that? What is the wedge? I mean, really? I mean, I was 17 years. Sure. I'm like, I thought it meant how much tilt, you know, from left or right. I said inch and a half. He goes, perfect.

We show up the track. We ain't got a clue. I mean, you crossways have no idea, right? Dale starts in the back of 24-car field and finish night. First time you ever said it won. It's amazing. Yeah. Nice.

So what happens? Like, how, he runs a car a couple times? Yeah, we ran actually two Cs. reasons with that car. With Dale driving it? Oh yeah, and limited sportsmen is what it was. It was limited sportsmen division at Hickory.

And what about you driving? No, that was done. Like I said, once he came in, the deal was he wanted to drive it, and that was it, you know, so now my,

like I said, it set my path as being a crew chie. All right. Are you not upset? Uh, not really upset. I actually enjoyed that part of it, too. I always wanted to drive.

You know, I always kind of, you know, I always wanted to do it, but it just never, the opportunity just didn't come along for quite a few years. So y'all run,

y'all run that car, you're sort of, you know, learning the ins and outs and mechanical side of a car and how it works, and figuring out what wedge is and all those things. I figured it out,

like the third race. I'd gone to John Settlement, I'm like, man, you've got to help me with this. I don't know what it means. And he tried to explain it, man, he took a, you know, he takes, like a box or something.

He's trying to tell me, you know, put a little shim, put it a little shim, put it up, and now you see how all the weights on these two wheels. And as soon as he does, did that, a light bulb went on in my mind. And I'm thinking, I got it. We're on our way to Asheville Speedway to run a race up there on Friday night. And so he says, cars loose. I got it.

I got it. I got it. Put a little wedge. Bam, perfect. So now we're on the road. You're a wedge expert. You're a wizard. You have a wedge question. Here's your guy right here. Well, that's actually the core of all of the racing suspension, right? Once you understand then all the springs and shot everything you do then kind of relates back to that great point so yeah it was it was the base of it so you're traveling around to hickory ashville um and also now we're not making any money doing this right so i'm working for jimmy newsom in the tire store oh really maybe two hundred dollars a week or something so you after after i graduated this is so the first year we i was still in high school the next year i

graduated went to national auto diesel college for a little while and realized i didn't want to be a diesel mechanic. I was watching those guys come out of that stuff. That's not for me. Plus, I wanted to race anyway. Did Ned kick you all a little money or something? He did a little, yeah. And I'll take it back. I mean, yes. If it wasn't for Ned, we wouldn't have been able to finance it, but it was still thin, man. I'm telling it. We were so poor. Was it? Bush money? Well, little, but it wasn't. Just a little bit. What was the drinking age back then? Were y'all drinking little bush, bush beer?

It's a statute of limitations right out. Yeah, it was 18. You're back in the same. What was the, what was the, take us back to the atmosphere at Hickory Motor Speedway? You know, it was kind of, I mean, this was back in the 70s, late 70s. And, you know, you had in the sportsman division, which I, you know, had a big passion for us still do. It was, you know, Butch Lennley and Tommy Houston, Jack Ingraham, John Settlemeyer, those guys were running in that division. We're running the limiteds. And it was, you know, it was starting to get a little more polished, you know. Everybody used to just show up in T-shirts and just, you know, it was just a redneck thing.

But, you know, one thing that Ned really instilled in us, he was always this, you know, professional, wanted us to, you know, show up the racetrack and clean clothes. So we, we had a, you know, consciousness about our image. And it was starting to change then. But, you know, 100 lap races for the late models, we ran 25, or 35 lap races and limited. And it was fun, man. Y'all working in the tire store during the day, so you get out of work and run right over to the shop where,

wherever the car's at? You had a little shop. We just ended up renting a little place there in Newton and say, yeah, we'd work there all night. I mean, it was just the only time you used to eat and sleep, work. Right. You'd get out of work, go over to the shop. Yep.

You, Jimmy, they'll show up. So, yeah, they'll work on it quite a bit. As a matter of fact, you'd be surprised how, he didn't know anything. He didn't know what a spark plug was when he started. And at the end of our end of that, and then his career as an owner. He can build a car. I mean, he really took on to it.

I mean, he knows a lot about the race car. You run that car for two years, and then what happens? Well, like I said, we went broke doing it. And Tom Pistone, I got to say this because if it wasn't for Tom Pistone, we would have never been able to pull this off. He had a parts store in Charlotte, and he let us have an open account there to go buy our parts and what it, and we weren't able to pay him. Like all year, the first year of nothing.

I mean, we couldn't pay nothing. Why did he do that? I don't know. I think Ned probably just because. of the relationship or something. And so at the end of the year, we had to, we sold that car and then paid Tom. Dang. Yep.

And I've always sank pissed on for that. I mean, without him, we never made it happen. So I hear that and I'm thinking, dang, I'd be so bummed. I got to sell my race, but y'all, what was the plane? Well, then we ended up, after the first year, we sold that car, and then we ended up generating enough money, was sponsored, whatever, I don't even remember, to do another one. So we built another car. Yeah, for the next year.

So that was the two years of limited sports. What was different about this car? It was basically the same, but we had a little more professional help building it. Like Carlos Johnson was one of the guys that built cars back then. He helped us, and we kind of knew a little bit more about what we were doing. Came close a few times. We finished a second. We never won with it, though.

Who drove that car? Dale drove it both years. Okay. And then he went on to run for other people and sportsmen and, you know, baby grand. What did you do? Well, I was, you know, I was working in the tire store and got married young. I got an offer from a doctor in Newton to run a service station. Dale actually worked for me there.

It was pumping gas, and I worked on cars in the base. Man. It was just me and Dale. But this was after our limited sportsman experience. So you ran a gas station? Just for a short time. And this is, like I said, an eye doctor in town. He got a real estate opportunity to sell that to the county to build a community center.

And so, boom, I'm out of work. I'm sitting there with a pregnant wife. I work a gas station. Yeah. It's fine, yeah. Not making much money, but... No. But it's fun.

What gas station do you work at? Exxon station up on Exxon 36. Still there. Really? Yeah. Do you pump gas or did you work in the shotgun in the base? I pumped gas. So you and Dale, you need to compare notes with Del Jerry because he pumped gas soon.

Who did it better? Yeah. They had a self-serve. Yeah. Again. It was a small, they had a cell serve and a full serve. And I was, so when they pulled. the full serve.

Yeah. Go out there and do it. We only had full serve back there. But so now I'm out of work. And I just bought a little house and, you know, got my wife's pregnant with my first son. And I was like, what am I going to do, you know?

And so I went to Ned Jarrett. And I said, Nate, I really wanted to be in racing. I wanted to work on, you know, in a cup team. That's where I wanted to wind up. And he went out on a limb for me.

He went out and talked to a good friend of his, junior Johnson and told Junior, that I was this great tire changer. Right? I got, because he, Junior, needed a rear tire changer. And so he put it in this, you know, big push for me. Keep in mind, I'd never change the tire. Did you know he was doing that?

No. Did you know he was saying that? I knew he was helping me get an opportunity. And I didn't know what he actually said. You didn't know what he was saying. But I know I showed up, met with Junior, Jr. puts me in the hauler to go to Texas World Speedway. And then from, what year?

1981. Sure. Daryl Walter was a driver. And it was. They were winning and everything. They were winning. They'd already won a handful of races. and we're leading the points.

Okay, I show up at Texas World Speedway with riding with Henry Benfield. That was a trip. That's another whole podcast. Sure, we talked about him on every punch, yeah. Anyway, so we get there. We qualify not so good, but we end up taking the lead right off the bat,

and then unscheduled, he comes down pit road. I don't have a radio. I just kind of queuing off the other guys, and I think, oh, God, we've got a flat tire or whatever. I mean, I'm so nervous. You can't believe. Comes down pit road, and there's water running out the pipes. on the left side.

So, motor's fun. I was like, oh, thank God, I don't have changed. I mean, that's kind of what I felt. So we go from there in the truck to Riverside, California, sit on the pole there, and we're running. Junior's jacking the car. Jeff Hammond was a jack man, but he had, that weekend had taken that off to go on his honeymoon.

He just got married. And so Junior's jacking. Caution comes out. He goes, four tires. Here it goes. I'm telling us. Here we go. So we went out there and changed those tires.

It ended up working out. We won the race. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, yeah. So you have, you changed tires the first stop, right? The first stop. When you got around to the left side or you're kind of looking at the corner of your eye if you're ahead or keeping it up at the front.

I had enough going on with myself. I was just trying to get it. I just wanted to finish. I just want to get it out. Yeah. You know, Tim Brewer was the front tire changer. I was the rear. Like I said, Hammond would have been the jackman,

but it was Junior Johnson jack in the car. Dang. What a freaking experience. And Junior Johnson thinks that you've been jacking, the expectations are high, right? Right. And so at that first stop, does Junior Johnson still think you've got all this experience

and you still haven't changed a single tire yet? I never told him. He never knew. I don't guess so. Yeah. Wow. They didn't figure it out either. But I really owned it, Jared,

because without him doing that, I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity. How did you fit in with that group, though, man? Not good. Not good. That's a good point. They're established. You know, they're kind of been together a long time.

They got their... It was not good. And the reason is the guy that was changing the rear tire was one of those guys, one of the established guys. And he had left a couple of them loose at a couple of races. And that's why he wanted to change it. Ah. And so I got...

He was still there. Oh, he was there in the shop. Yeah. It was kind of, it was a rough for a while. You know, I toughed it out the first, you know, through the whole year we won the championship. Did you work in a shop, any? A little bit. But it was.

you know, but it was, like I said, they wouldn't let me work on the car. It wouldn't, you know, they were all, it was just like pushing me over in the corner. It was just not good. So I went to talk to junior. I went in his office one day. And I said, look, man, I said, you don't need to be paying me to sit around here. They won't let me work on anything. What do you say?

And so, he said, I got to have you changing tires. I said, all right, you just pay me on the weekends. I'll keep doing. And so we finished the season out. And, you know, won the championship, went to New York, first time we ever did that. And it was, it was great. And then the next year, they gave the other guy a chance back on the rear. Yeah. So what happened to you?

That's when I met Johnny Hayes and Phil Parsons and the whole skull. Who's Johnny Hayes? Johnny Hayes was a skull representative but actually owned the team. You remember the 55 car that Benny drove, that Copenade. That was actually Johnny Hayes racing. But at the time, Phil was driving number 28 Bush Series car. It was awesome. It was. Yeah, he was good, man.

And so I was working on that team with him. You know, I was actually selling batteries. When I left full-time out of junior shop and still changing tires, I was selling batteries out of a battery truck for, I don't know, a better part of a year maybe. And then so I was doing that, and then I'd work on Phil's car at night at Harry Gantz shop in Taylorville. Really?

That's where they raced out of. Yeah. And so we did that, and then we kind of took that little core group at the middle of 1982 and made that little, that team that went out with the 55 and Benny Parsons and ran like five races that year. Yeah. And then the next year we ran.

and all the, you know, like the half-season, the big events. With Phil? No, with Bill. Oh, okay. Did you work on the car that Phil flipped at Dega? No, it was in our shop. I was actually on the team that Benny. Benny was in that race, too.

We were in that. And, well, I really, Matt, missed Benny up. At Rick happened, you know, and he drove by it. He was, I mean, he was a mess. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, you look at it. I mean, you look at that car.

I mean, good Lord. He thought it killed Phil. Yeah. And he was ready. We were going to let him get out, you know. But then all of a sudden, somebody comes, hey, Hey, feels all right. It feels okay.

And somehow we, you know, Benny pulled it back together. And we end up finished in second. I almost won in that race. What kind of working with Benny? What was that like? Oh, he was so, man. He was so cool. Everything you see about Benny is true.

He says everything, it's just who he is. He's such a gentleman. And I think he was one of the most underrated drivers ever. You know, he was really good, man. I mean, he was, he drove our car that year, that 80s. and then 83 full-time. I think in 83, you might have been

the last race of that year. 83 at Riverside. We went out there with him. And the big wreck happens off turn 9. It was Tim Richmond and Daryl. And it was coming to the caution for rain. Well, we were running third with Benny. And I thought, oh, man, we just won this race.

You know? And Leo said, hang on, it ain't over yet, you know, because I still had to run some caution lamps. Well, sure enough, they go back green. For half a lap, again. And now it's at the very end. And they're coming down the back stretch to come to the caution.

And there's this red-headed guy, kid that hadn't want to race yet, run a second. He drives in there and drives right by Benny. Bill Elliott. Bill Elliott. Go back to, step back to the 28th, exfinity car that Phil Parsons was driving. He won at Bristol.

Yep. Were you working on that car? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, Phil wasn't, like, His brother, Benny, you know, Benny, Benny's from North Wiltsboro, but a lot of people like to talk about his taxi cab driving up in Detroit.

Detroit. He was an ARCA standout, and before he came to the Cup Series in the early 70s, and then won a championship in just a couple years. Phil, what was his driving experience? Like, when he comes to drive that 28 Bush car, like, when you look at Phil, what kind of driver are you looking at?

All right. So Phil and our great friends still are. Sure. And we were back then. But he was so cocky. He really was. He thought he was just going to come in here, going to dominate everything.

And so he had all his confidence. And he had driven what baby Grand before that and a handful of late mall sportsmen races before the Bush series started. And so he was taking on this thing and then doing it right, you know, got skull back in it and had really good cars. And like I said, had a ton of confidence. We ran good, a lot of place, wrecked a lot.

and, you know, had speed, good speed. But had speed, but went to Bristol. Harry Gant set that car up. Really? How?

And he just put his setup in it in the shop. I mean, he basically did it himself. Yeah. Would let anybody touch it. My favorite Phil Parsons' memory, he's driving the 17 car in the Cup Series. Yeah,

for Hamby? Yeah, has skull on it, and he broke in Bristol, and he's mad. But he gets, he pulls down, he pulls down, he pulls down the backstretched pit,

and he gets out of the car and, And he leaves a car sitting there. Somebody, I think Bobby Allison had a problem with his steering wheel. Oh, I remember something about this. Something. Yeah. And Phil runs over to his car and he's going to get the steering wheel out of it and give it to Bobby.

Who's over on the race. I think he did. Yeah, who's over on the race. But he didn't disconnect the cord to the button. And he grabbed that wheel and he's hauling ass around his car. he's almost turning for a flip it's just really funny moment oh my god i never forget it's like nineteen eighty five i think but uh that phil feels great i won my first race as a crew chief with phil in the cup series at talladaiga so we got some good memories about that race what year that was 88

yeah how did he win that like to go a car was go back he had the fastest car right he did no i know but what was in that car okay statute of limitations that run out on that one? No, it's run out. No, I don't think so. It's run out. No, because listen, I'm going to tell you. We had a few tricks back. Back then it was, you know, it wasn't so much, if you built a car by the rule book, you want to know where they went. Oh, yeah. So the, the way you race is how, you race to the enforcement. Whatever the enforcement level was, you were always snuggling right up and neck, right next to it. And that's the, the good crew chiefs were the ones that knew where that was. Like, you couldn't, like no new guy could come in there and figure it out. You

have to just keep working. You don't have to explain it. to us. We're all about it. We love this. We love we had a little advantage. We love the innovation. That's what we call it. We love innovation. Right. We had Chad Nouse pulling out all his tricks and everything.

Oh, I didn't pull them all out. I even had BW in here and admitting some of his because he's... Oh, you're talking about the lid dropping out of the shot. You know how prideful he is. He won everything fair and square. Oh, yeah. Right. But you were you were a genius on the

pit box and set the thing where did this come from i mean seriously because you you you are telling us that you didn't even know you didn't know what wedge was and now you're winning a race with phil parsons you are let's say applying some uh some imagination to maybe not imagination you're applying some of you know things that you can uh you know set yourself apart on this car where does this come from well a lot of most of it's want to right i wanted to do this i wanted to be successful so bad that I was willing to do whatever it took. And like I said, I didn't have an engineering degree. Back then, none of the critchies did.

But, you know, I was at least smart enough to know what I didn't know. And I would always seek out people that I knew that had more, you know, either experience or knowledge. And I was never afraid to do that. I mean, I did that through my whole career. You know, like I told you about John Settlmire and Tommy Houston. I mean, I aggravated to no end. I mean, they just got tired of see me comment because I just have a list of questions a mile long, you know, about everything.

And I just, I wanted it so bad that I was willing to use every resource that I could to get me there. Do you tell drivers, honestly, this could be a question for you. How much does a crew chief tell the driver what, what things they're doing or trying or in the car, the stuff that you don't want? Okay, so he knows a lot of things that were happening with this car. I'll go ahead and tell you that right now. He might not admit it, but he knew. about everything it was happening.

You don't, you know, one reason you tell the driver that you got, what, one reason you tell him a little bit, though, and you want him to know is you want him to think he's got an advantage. That's good point. Because that, that is usually worth more. Just him thinking he's got an advantage, it's usually worth more than the actual advantage. I used to race late models with Gary Hargott, and I told him, I said, what, I said, whatever you're going to tell me, lie to me.

So that, just like you say, I think that, man, This thing's going to fly, right? And if you're going to take a little wedge out, if you're going to change the right where spring, don't tell me that. Don't even tell me. Just don't even tell me. Let me go out there and tell you how it drives.

I don't want to predetermine idea in my head what it's going to drive like, right? Because I'm already going to screw it up. But if you want to tell me you put rocket fuel in there, by all means, tell me you put some rocket fuel in this thing. Some people reacted to that different. Like your dad. it wouldn't really matter to him much. Really?

You know why? Because he was getting 105 to 10% of that car every lap all the time. So you could, if you tell him that, it doesn't help any, right? He's already giving you more than you should be getting. But other drivers would. This is a good story with Harry. So we built this car. It ended up being the car that we won the four in a row with in 91.

We built it, and it built it super, super light. So we had a lot of ballast in the right-hand side that you, to make the minimum weight, I think was 1600 pounds. at the time. And so we made this little deal, you know, exploiting some of the rules where Harry had a little ratchet. We would take in the right side battery box, we didn't put a battery in it. We just put some lead of pieces over there. And then on the line, we were putting him in the car, you used to let the interior guy get in the car and help him, right? So they would swap this over. Harry would stick it over in the seat. So you'd make total weight, right? But they never really

looked at the right side weight. And so we put these pieces over there and make it left side hit. Well, shoot, man, Harry, you tell him, because he's just, he's, because he's, doing it. He knows he's got this advantage. He's not going to let anybody be. Well, by the time that four-in-a-road deal comes around, this car's been run, you know, quite a few times. And you know what happens? They get heavier as you run them. Well, by the time we did, the thing was already 1,600 pounds on the right with no weight, you know, so we didn't even have any ballast in the right side of this thing. And so the interior guy, Scott Robinette, says, you know, we still need to be swapping that lead, just so Harry to not lose that advantage. Right, right. The mental

advantage? So we were going to go. So we were going to be swapping. We were going to going like 40 pounds or 50 pounds over on the right with that thing in there and just switch it over here. Wasn't even illegal. Harry's like, I got more or less out of weight than you. I'm going to beat you. That's so awesome. Yep. That's perfect.

I don't even know if Harry knows that, but he does now. Dude, these guys are playing mind games. Yep, yep. That was the advantage. And then he had this in his mind that one certain car was better than the other one, so we just changed the stickers on the dash sometimes so he didn't know which one it was. Yeah. That really happened?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was always usually smart enough to figure out that, yeah, this is not the car because the pedals are something, you know, y'all know. You're sort of confirming what I've always suspected. Drivers are sort of mental, right? They're headcases. They're headcases, right? And you have to just to get them, sometimes just to shut them up, just drive the car, and you have to trick them into like Jedi Mind Tricks.

Do we want to talk about Harry Gant 91? Because that's, that was an amazing stretch right there. It was. It was something special. I still think we just try to pry out what was so good about that 1988 Talladega car. Okay, good. All right, listen.

Let's just say, listen. Your statute of limitations may not be up. Ours passed a long time ago. So it is assumed. You don't have to say. I can't believe I'm going to do this, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you what it is. All right. Let's hear it.

Okay. So we run the Daytona 500 in 88. We did. Well, what happened was we were, you know, we were pitted around the 12, I think it was a 12 car, Bobby Allison was driving, and anyway, I suspected they were sucking air under the restrictor plate. Back then there was- Bobby won the Daytona 500 that year, I think. Yeah, he sure did.

And I was suspecting this. I could hear the way it was idling, I could hear all these things. And, you know, then he obviously goes out there on Wednesday to 500. We ended up finishing third with Phil. And we just, even though we finished third, we couldn't even compete with them. I mean, they were like in another league. And so I went told Leo Jackson, he was going to be really mad when he hears some. but I went and talked to Leo about, you know, if we want to compete,

then we got to do what they're doing. I said, we got to figure out a way. They're finding a way to get air around that restrictor plate. We have got to figure it out. And so he said, all right, he was very reluctant. He didn't want to do it. But I said, in matter of fact, we got an argument. I said, okay, if you just want to go to the race and just show up, we'll do that too.

So he got mad, went to work, fixed a manifold. It's one of the most amazing pieces of art you've ever seen. I mean, cut it in pieces, made. it, put these holes in it, and it was, I still got it. You still have it? Oh yeah. Heck yeah, I got it on show. Like where do you keep?

I just keep it in my shopping shop somewhere. That's so awesome. And I guess I few things too, but so we put that thing on there and, and Leo did it right. I mean, it was worth a pretty good advantage. Yeah. And we don't sit on the pole, though. Apparently everybody else is doing it too. And so the last lap of the race, Bobby's trying, Bobby finished second.

it and we ended up winning and boy i was wondering how bobby was making that that front end on that buick run so good on the plate track because it was running it was what so underneath the front end was making it run the grill on the buick at that time it's like running the wrong way right it's like the opposite of what he was he was he was pretty good too he was after the race was over we're tearing the engine down i look around there's no leo jackson he went to me nowhere around that we got it through he did a really good job with it but i'll tell you what he did do this is the best thing he goes back to the shop and he makes this thing that will actually bolt on the engine,

pull a vacuum on it, and check for that and takes it the next week to the garage and gives it to the series director and he says, if I can't cheat, nobody can. This is what we need to be doing. So he showed them how to use it. That thing is still being used in the garage today. Wow.

That similar thing. Yep. That's why they protect them now. I know that I never heard that about Bobby's car. I know that I thought that that was the big rumor on the four car when it was winning all the plate races. I think it's probably more than a rumor. Yeah.

But they had drilled the... It had gotten so hard by that time, though. That's why you gotta give, I guess as Runt Pittman was building the engines and Tony Glover. You gotta give them a lot of credit because it was hard to get by with that back then. Yeah.

I heard that they had, they were drilling the studs for the carburetor. The carburetor studs. They were drilling holes in those down in there and then routing into the... You need to get Glover. in here. Put him on a hot seat. Make him come clean. Oh, yeah. It's fun. You've already got me.

Give us some context about Leo Jackson. You've mentioned his name several times. So like, who was he and what did he do? Okay. Leo Jackson was, you know, back in the 70s, you know, Bob Presley drove and won all those races. A ton of races at Red Number 4. That was, that was Leo and and Richard Jackson's car. That was? Oh, yeah. They built that. Well, I didn't know that. I thought that that was their family car. No, no, that was Leo and Richard Jackson. I got so many pictures of that car. And they won over half the races all over the country. Yeah. I mean, crazy how good they were. They were ahead of their time. And so he, he ends up going cup racing with Dave Marcus a little bit. And I was working for Johnny Hayes. And he went, you know,

with that 55 team. We're just kind of getting that thing off the ground with Benny. And he goes and gets Leo to come over and kind of be the crew chief and kind of abandoned what he was doing with his, because he was going crazy trying to do his own cup. deal. He said, yeah, I'll let somebody else pay for it. I'll go do that. And that ended up becoming Leo Jackson Motorsports a few years later when Harry Gantt came from Travis Carter over to drive our car. We still had a 33. Wow. So that's Leo Jackson Motorsports, and we called it Skull Bandit Racing back then.

And that was the team that I ended up buying after I won the titles with your dad. Yeah. And that's right. That's right. All right. So are we satisfied with the Phil Parsons explanation? I am. Okay, so then we go move on to the next recreation car. So I tried that. So I heard that y'all were doing that kind of stuff. And when I ran my late model at Myrtle Beach, the Allen plugs in the in the intakes.

Yeah. Yeah. I would drill a hole in the side of that Allen plug and then valley it into the intake. But then you could turn that Allen plug of, you know, a quarter of a turn and then seal it. Yeah. So nobody, you know, it wouldn't leak. And when you get ready to go run, you clock that thing back a little bit and open it up. It was good for, it was big on a two-barrel car, right?

But it didn't help me win, but still had to go through the corner better. So you talked about Harry setting up that car in his shop. And so you'd been around Harry for a while since the early 80s, right? Actually, I've been exposed to Harry Gant back in the 70s. You know, I first started going to Hickory. he was racing there and he was he actually he wrote mine i mean it was like it just doesn't get much better than what he was doing he was you know his coolest guy on the track and winter races and you know from my home track so how does the how do you how do you

end up crew chief and for him like how does why did you move from fields deal like how did all that happen well like i said i worked on bennie's cup team and leo jackson was you know the crew chief then the owner of that car and um And when we won in 88, Leo was the owner. And then in 1989 is when we kind of split that up with a 55 became Richard Jackson's team. And then we formed this new team that was, you know, Leo Jackson Motorsports in Asheville for Harry Gant. And he, you know, Leo had already made me the crew chief of the car that Phil was driving. But so he wouldn't know if I'd move up there and build this team.

And I didn't really want to move to Asheville, but I knew it was a really good opportunity for me. So I took it. Ashfield is awesome. It is, but it's just not where I'm from. I don't have any regrets, but just at that time I didn't really want to move up there. Sure. Cold. But wherever the work is, I'm going.

Build a team. Yep. So we built a team up there. Built a team. Yep. And we put it in the back of. Where'd you get cars from? Brand new?

Banjo. Yeah. Banjo. And we ended up, that first year, we ended up designing our own front clip over the winter. Me and Leo and Scott Robinette was. fabricator that built it all for us. We locked ourselves in there during the Thanksgiving week we were shut down. We built this thing, basically.

Why did you want to build the clip? Because Harry Gant liked these rear steer cars, right? He really liked, but rear steer cars were so out of favor because there's just so many things wrong with that. Yeah. And so we thought, again, we can maybe trick him a little bit. We can build the whole front suspension that looks just like a rear steer car, but put the steering box in front.

And so that's what we did. We just packaged the whole steering. you know, assembly in front of the axle. And so that's what we had. We had our own front clip. We just built out of that. And so what do the lower A frame look like? Just like the banjo car.

Strut. It was strut rod. Wow. Had the Ford lower controller. All that was exactly like the rear steer car. And when did Harry finally transition fully to a traditional front steer? Well, it was after I left. Okay.

Because we ran that suspension all the way until I came up to RCR. And you were probably absolutely the last guy running. and any kind of lower A-frame rear-steer stuff, yeah. Wow. Yep. And so I know we had a rear-steer late model from Robert Elliott we bought for Kelly, and I still to this day have no idea how to set that thing up, set the front in it.

It's a mess. Everything about it, like you just said, everything about it is wrong. It is. I mean, it's just, you find ways to crutch it to make it work, but it was all wrong. And once we move the steering box in front, it really, it was a good car. It really was.

And that's the suspension and snout that we ran when we won four in a row with Harry. Yes. So I've watched the video. Mike sent this video to me the other day of you showcasing that car in your shop. Yep. And you talked to,

I always knew about the Camberdhausen. We want to talk about that a little bit, just the ingenuity and creativity there. But I didn't know any of the other things that you showed us about that car as far as that front suspension. That's pretty incredible. You guys, I mean, that's a monumental

change. It's not like, hey, man, we're going to, we're going to trick up the, you know, the intake and we're going to try to camber this rear housing. That's like a half of the race car that y'all really reinvented. We did, yeah. Yeah, it was, you know, and that's, Leo Jackson was super smart. And so he, you know, with his engineering and machining capabilities, like I said, he, he had a machine shop that was in front of our race shop to make everything we needed. And so, you know, we just built it. And we didn't have any real engineering help, but we were able to make it work. That's what I was wondering, is that this is well before the, you know, engineering boom of NASCAR. And so, like, I'm just curious, where do these ideas see to that, right?

Like, and how, what is the flow of information? What, how drunk do you have to be to be able to say, hey, let's do this to a car? And everybody be like, that's a good idea, you know, and people not look at you like you're crazy. Yeah. That wasn't that far-fetched. I mean, like you said, the rear-steer suspension as far as the geometry was pretty well established, right? That's what most cup cars were up until the, you know, the Mike Loughlin-type front-steer cars came along. And all you're really doing is just moving the steering box ahead.

And it was kind of a logical thing, even though it took a complete rebuild to make it that way. But it wasn't that big of a stretch. You got that car in your collection that you won the four in a row with Harry, and you said in the video that you thought you might be letting it go? Well, I'm moving out of the building that I have now, and I've got that one, and I've got Jack Ingram's car, that Lake Model Sportsman car, that I'm going to have to find a home for. Why don't you want to keep them?

I don't have anywhere to put it. I'm going to downsize. I'm selling everything I've got in Hendersonville and moving to Lake Norman. I've got to just finished a smaller building over in Denver. They make lifts, you know, and racks and stuff. You can put them cars in the ceiling. I need to downsize my life. I've got too much stuff, man.

You can't get rid of those. I mean, what? Why don't you just give them to let the Hall of Fame store? Well, actually the Harry Gant car was in the Hall of Fame for a few of the time. But they got a building, they'll put them in there. Yeah, I'll figure out something. I'll end up probably selling them, though. Don't.

Don't let them go to the private collectors. Yeah. Yeah, they need to stay in the right hands, man. Yeah, it's a cool car. We took it to Darlington. Do you see that video? Well, you drove it, right? I did drive it.

Yes, I did see that. That was about, what, three years? Harry drove it too. He was 75 years old. I got a video, I'll show you. He's still getting a dad. done. I know, right. Yeah, how long ago was that?

That was in 15, I think. That's right. Okay. I took the Nova to Charlotte the other day, and I couldn't, I was scared to go over 90 or 100 mile an hour with it. Is that a rear steer? I don't think it is. No.

It's not. Okay. But that's a good question. I don't think it is. The last time of Clips put on it in 88. Yeah. But I was scared to drive it fast because I know how hard it is to make it look the way it looks right oh i know so i take this car out at darlin's i've never driven darley never

never laugh you know so i'm trying to get hairy to go out how it says stickers that goodier gave us to put on and you know go out there and he said i don't know man he'd already run pretty quick he said if i go out there again he said i'm going to try to hold it wide open through one and two and i don't want to hit that wall again he said if you want to go fast you drive it i said all right just tell him that the weight yeah i thought yeah i thought yeah i just hey let me move some weight and then go so i get in that thing and i pull off pit road and I'll, you know, get it in high gear. I'm, you know, flat-footed going down into three, you know,

I'm not going to, you know, pull around here, just go. I'll turn in just a little bit too early and clift the apron getting into three. And they start sliding like this. And I'm like, you, I was like, oh, God, no. No, don't hit that wall. I thought I'd killed it. Somehow didn't hit it. But then I kind of gathered it back up and got my heart rate back down and ran about five laps.

listen, I know we're supposed to talk about all your days with Dale Earnhard and and everything, but I still got one more I want to ask you about, okay? Because this stuff is fascinating. And I'm impressed. I was watching an interview

that Ray Evanham gave and where he was talking about this deck lid at Daytona. He's one giving that up? Well, I guess. I mean, it's on YouTube. Really? All right. What did you say about it? Well, the deck

pin the pins like somehow was it his no yours okay he said this was yours yeah where earnhardt could lower no wasn't earnhard it was it was harry gan it was harry gan it was harry gan i've still got it i've still got it is this on the same shelf as uh it's close to it he's got he's got a trophy case of all his most when it comes to selling your stuff i won't all those things i want all the i want you a little cheated up parts so listen if ray everanham's out there talking, he's on a PR tour to talk about all the stuff that's what the Hall of Fame needs is exhibit. That's right. They need an exhibit. Yeah. So what can you tell us about this deck lid? Okay. So we go to Daytona, they came up with a spoiler angle rule. I guess it was 89 or 90.

I can't remember what year it was. And we had always been good. Like I said, we won in 88 at Talladega, finished third, 500. So we're always good at speedways and exploiting all the rules. Well, some of that spoiler angle was some of it, some of it was heights. A lot of things that we but Gary Nelson came along and really tightened up every, you know. This is his first, going to be his first season as a series director. And so you've got to clean it all up now. We can't be cheating. They're going to check heights.

And so now all of a sudden we can't do our little things we were doing. And we weren't very fast. We were testing and we were really slow. Motors were off at that time. And I remember being on a plane coming back. I'm just in my mind thinking, what are we going to do? I thought if I could figure out a way to get that spoiler to lay down and get it back up, because they're going to check it post race.

And so I had in my mind, before I even landed, I had in my mind how we could make the hinge, you know, and conceal it and how all that would work. And what I didn't have was an actuator for it. And so I go, I mean, I go to work on it. As soon as we get back, me and a guy named Dean Jones worked in our shop in a little locked up room on this thing. Nobody knew.

And we get this thing all working the spoiler. Hinge is perfect. Everything's good. I've got the back plate of the spoiler. I do this little deal with silicone where it looks like it's welded, but it still has flexible, and it's, you know, it's all good. But I don't have any way to move it. And I'm looking at, back then, no internet, right?

So you don't have a way to go to search this thing. And I've looked in catalogs. So one night I took my car that we drove as a automobile, Delta 88, they gave us to drive, you know. So I'm driving it to the store, and I get to the store, get some groceries, and I pop the deckle, a boop pops up, you know, and throw the groceries in the trunk. I shut the deck lid and if you remember these cars they would click

and then they would have this thing and just pulled them down tight you know and so as soon as that happened like as soon as they went click and went yeah I was walking to the driver's door

and I went whoa wait a minute I popped that deck lid up I said where is that thing what's doing that? And so I take that thing right straight from the grocery store over to the shop

and I pop that thing out and I find that little motor and it is dead perfect it's got this little thing going up and down I'm thinking Man, this is perfect. And so I take it.

I go in there and fab up. This is like 8 o'clock at night. I fab up this little thing to like hold the deck lid down on this car, you know, and take that thing. And then I had to buy another one, right? Because I needed one on each side of the spoiler. Okay. So we start making all the little linkages and everything.

But it has perfect. Had a little limit switch and we could set it and we got it. And it was nice. Again, Leo Jackson, not one that wants to cheat. And so. How did you engage it? So, okay, that's the key to it. So we get it on the car.

I told him, I said, look, I wasn't going to do it without telling him. He said, he didn't want to do it. I said, let me put it on the car. If you can find it, if you can find it, we won't run it. And you know it's on it. We haven't heard that before. Okay. I said, if you can find it, we won't run it.

I'll give you all the time you want. I feel like we've heard, somebody had that same exact story. It was, it was the, the shot, the shot that would come out of the, out of the frame rails. Yeah, but he was like, if we, But they couldn't find the door. They were saying the same thing. Like, if you can find it, we won't do it.

Somebody else is uncomfortable. That's pretty good way. So we put that, right, I mean, because he knows it's in the car. You inspect it and see if you can find it. So we roll the car, ready to go Daytona. Roll it in there. Where was it? Huh?

Okay, so we had a radio box. Back then we had a different kind of radio system. It was an analog thing, and we put it in a box. Everybody kind of had on their aluminum box that would keep out the interference. And it's set on the tunnel, the way we had ours right beside the driver and it had some switches on it and dials to turn the radio up and turn it on and off so we just put a little extra switch in there a little threeway like middle and up and down on the radio on the radio box and so I wired all the stuff through the roll bars I mean the key to cheat is you got to do it

right and you got to really do the work and so we we spent hours and hours doing this and concealed it up in the hinged part you know and all the stuff in the car everything's ready put it on there check okay so are leo checks the angle it's 45 or whatever the number was and he goes in there, starts looking at switches and he's raising the deck lid, and he's looking at this, and he's looking at that. I mean, he's all over this thing.

Can I find it? He said, I don't think it's on this car. I've reached in there to the radio box, went, and the spoiler goes, yeah. Holy crap. That would have been so good. I would be, where, did you have people in? So I would be, I'd be my pants.

if I was you because I was I was the whole time I got the track and you're like oh god I just knew they were going to catch us I mean I was I guarantee I looked so guilty I couldn't stand it they were all over that thing I'm like good Lord and we get we get ready to qualify rolls out there Gary Nelson is checking the spoil right the first day on the job head of director he is supposed to be stopping all cheating he is doing himself instead of having somebody he's at the right before you go on the track he's one putting it on your car so I had it up a degree or so just so I didn't have to mess with it.

He says, knock it down. I said, no, that's good. I was her own room. He said, no. He said,

knock it down. I'm like, oh, God. My heart's won't. You can see it beating through my shirt. I guarantee you. I'm trying to get it to go. It won't move,

man. It won't move, it won't bend. I mean, I've got linkages and everything. Finally, it goes down a tenth or something. And he finally says,

go. And I was like, so he takes off. And at the end of pit road at Daytona, it's right close to the track. and I'm standing there with my stopwatch. I'm going to clock area when it comes by. And, you know, Gary's standing right there in front of me,

checking the next guy's swallor. I look at that car coming by and I think, and I'm like, God. Visually. Oh, yeah. It was flat. Oh. And Gary didn't even look over there.

Oh, my God. I mean, it was obvious. Yes. Damn. So after that, I said, we got to get that deck lid off the car. I can't stand it anymore. can't do it. This is no way to live. Back then, they used to let you put the cars in the hauler,

and so we had another deck lid, and I had them get in there and chop them wire and put the stock deck lid on it. That way, I could breathe for speed. I couldn't do it for two weeks. Right, you only did it for qualifying. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. You know what was bad with qualified third.

Yeah. I found out years later, Junior's cars were on the front row. They were cheating more than we were. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. They wasn't a legal car in the lineup. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

I think it's somewhat of a coincidence that I find that from Ray Everingham because who did we have even told him? How did he know that? Well, that's what you got to sort out. But who did we have on here recently? And we said, like, who is the best, who is the most creative or whatever? They're like Ray Evanham. Like Ray Evanham was. And you and Ray were good friends.

We were really close friends, yes. We still are, yeah. We're good friends. So maybe that's how he knows, right? I mean, y'all are close friends. Damn. All right. So you, you know, let's transition.

You have to leave, you have to tell Leo, Harry, and all them you're going to leave. That was tough, man. How'd you do it? You catch on to the things that really matter, but I'll tell you, that was one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life. Because Leo Jackson was and he is to this day, like a father to me. I mean, he is, I don't have more respect for anybody on earth than him. And to do that, I knew, I didn't really want to leave. I wasn't looking to leave, but Kirk Shelmerdine had retired.

So here's the premier crew chief job in the sport is available. I didn't go looking for it. You remember Terry Satchel? He was an engineer back at GM that I used early on. I was one of the first ones in the garage to really embrace engineering, and I had him working with me. And then he ended up kind of transition to all of the GM teams, working with everybody.

And he was telling me, you need to go over there. I think you could help them a lot, man. I think you could. You need to go over there. You know, get that job. And I was, you know, we just won, you know, we're winning races over with Harry. Everything's going to good. But Harry is 52 years old now.

Yeah. I won't win championship. And I know this, you know, I actually tried to get Leo to hire Jeff Gordon. And he wouldn't do it. And so I'm kind of able to dead in on that. Jeff was just driving in the Bush series. And then, so this happens that Terry Satchel said something to Richard. And then Richard ends up calling me one day.

I'm like, okay. man, I guess I got to go, I just got to go see. Yeah. You know, so I take my two boys, they were young at the time and my wife, and we go drive down there on Sunday. This was after the season's over in 92. And I go and pull up in the parking lot, and there's two cars in the lot.

And so I walk into the, what's now the museum, but that was the main shop. And I walk over into Richard's office, and there sits Richard and your dad. He shows up on Sunday. to meet me. And that right there was like, that meant a lot, right?

You know, the best driver in sport wants me to come there. And enough to show up on Sunday. Yeah. So we, you know, we sat there and we talked

and talked and talked about it. And by the time, you know, I left the room, I decided to take it. And so, but I was, I said,

I really do need to talk to my family about it before I make the final decision, but I'll let you know. Feeling good about it. So I get out, I go love this. I get out of the car and start talking with kids

and we're driving a little bit. I said, you know, make sure that we're making the right decision here. I said, what do you guys, what do y'all really want me to do? And my son, Joey, he says, I don't care long as it's Earnhardt. You know, he wanted. That's pretty awesome.

Yeah, that's what he wanted. What was their best recruiting pitch? They were all about winning the championship. I mean, that's all that team was geared towards. They didn't talk about winning races as much as a championship. It came up, I mean, multiple, multiple times. And that was my goal. Trigger word for you, yeah.

Because that's what I won. that was on my list. I really wanted to win. And I knew it was my best chance, right? And so this is really cool. So how much you need to make? Sitting around this round table in Richard's office. And at the time, I think I was making $70,000, $65,000 a year working for him.

Yeah. But Leo knew we'd been winning races, and he knew that he was going to pay me more to keep me because, and so he said, I would probably be able to make about $100,000 or something, you know, the next year. So I kind of throw that number out there. They go, oh, yeah, I saw them look at each other. And they go, I said, oh, yeah, we can do that. And I'm like, dang it, I shot too much.

Should I ask for more. And so I recovered real well, though. I said, but if we win the championship, it's going to be double. And they're like, choked a minute. I said, that's what we've been talking about, right? It was winning championship. So it worked out the first two years. Yeah, it did.

So you go back to your shop. How do you tell all those guys there? Okay, so that was a tough part. Yeah. So, you know, go talk to Leo. He somewhat understood, but he was really disappointed, man, because I basically ran the whole company. Right.

You know, I was, he didn't even to make budget decisions, you know, if we could afford it, you know, I made the decision on what we could buy, what we could do. I mean, it was, you know, so it was going to change the way that whole team was operated. And I just couldn't, I had to go, you know. And it hurt me. I mean, it hurt bad. I mean, it was painful to do that. even Harry, it was just a year or two ago.

Harry tells me, I talked to him on the phone, and he said, you know, it really hurt me when you live. And I said, really? I said, you know, and I was like, dang, I didn't. He said, I would have paid you. I'd have paid you. I'd have paid the difference myself to keep you. Did they try to keep you, or did they know that this was too good of an opportunity for? I think they knew that it was already decided.

I don't remember us talking about it. Big difference in performance for that team after the fact. And it wasn't but a couple more years, Hill Harry retired. He retired, I think, 94. 95, I think, was his last year. No, 94 was the last year. Yeah, so a couple years. So your instincts were right about, you know, his career

and how much more he had left in a tank. But do you think about, like, what might have happened if you'd stayed? No, I don't have any regrets. I never really looked back on it. Because I just don't think that we – I know we couldn't have won't – we couldn't have competed against Sternhardt, in back in that time with what we had. So you go to RCR.

One thing that I remember is is jumping ahead of it a little bit. But I remember winning a championship and, or dad winning championship, y'all winning the championship. And being at the banquet. Yeah. And I don't think I'd spent much time around you

because I think I was peddling with racing myself, so I wasn't really going as much anymore. But I remember seeing you at the banquet. Yep. after the banquet, running upstairs somewhere. You don't know this part. So we stayed actually the presidential suite at the Waldorf's story is like a big, I mean, apartment.

I mean, got to be two, three thousand square feet, multiple bedroom. And so, you know, Dale convinces me and Patty to come up there. Come on up here, you know, come up early. Come y'all stay with us in our room for you, you know, this earlier in the week. So we can stay at the presidential suite with them, which is kind of cool. And we did. But then we had to move out because junior was coming up. Oh, yeah.

Moved me out. Kelly, too. Move me out. That's me. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's nice to know that I didn't get shoved in some room and down the hall. You were piddling around with late models, I guess, back then.

Yeah. And it might have been one of those, it's right in that time frame. I would run a late model race or two. Yeah. You know, when we'd have an off weekend. You did. I show up at Hickory. I think it's the only time we ever race against each other.

Was that either, I think, a hundred lap or 200 lap or a Hickory on a Sunday afternoon. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, you'll like this, Mike. So I sit on the pole and finish second. Me and Pete Silver had like identical cars and ran for the lead the whole race,

and he ended up beat me a little bit. But we laughed him. And so he, you hadn't been running Hickory long. Like, you've been running other places. And so I remember seeing him later, he says, he wanted a rematch. When are you coming back up there? He wanted to rematch.

He's like, didn't I laugh you? No, but he'd gotten good and started winning. Oh. So, so he wanted to rematch. Yeah, for sure. You got late models now, right? Yes. We won the national championship last year.

Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. You got two of them? Yeah. We got three cards. Oh, I see where you're going on this. I see where you go on this.

So, hey, if you go back, all right, so when you go to RCR, what is the culture change. Okay. From what you're used to. Larry McReynolds talked about this as his experience. I was wondering what your experience was. So I'll walk in the building and, you know, you've got banners hanging all over the walls. I'll look at it in your shop. I'm trying to find your winning band.

I don't know where you hang them. But the championship banners are hanging. There they're there. I'll see them now. But they have these, you know, all over the building. And it's like walking into the Boston Garden or something, you know. And it's a little bit overwhelming. And now you've got, you know, Will Lynn, David Smith, you know, all these guys that.

Flying aces. Been there for years and years and years. and I'm coming in there by myself. I'm not bringing any of my people. I'm coming in to lead these guys. They are looking at me like, I don't know who this guy is. You know, they're not,

they're kind of reluctant to really move in the direction that I want to move when I get there. But there's a lot of things that need to be happening. There were things that they had really got behind on. Like what? Everything. I mean, just the way the cars were built and packaged,

how heavy they were. Heavy. Holy smokes. They were super heavy. dude you look at dad's cars and hey you don't know how good so you'll love this part terry satchell the guy told you about that helped me you know get the interview with richard he comes in a few weeks later after i'd been there maybe two or three weeks he comes walking him's little clipboard they said well what do you think i was like oh

kind of rub my head and think what i'm going to say here he says he said something's good didn't he that that explains everything i could i couldn't explain it even better That's so funny. What were you about to say about when you reacting to that? Well, they put any kind of mount, right, whether there's a hood pin or anything. That ain't falling off. Oh, yeah. You ain't going to bend that.

So that's what I'm fighting there. And so we ended up fixing a few of the cars just, you know, as much as I could work on change or whatever existing fleet, because it was just a few weeks before we do the first race. We do. and, you know, we get all these, you know, cars kind of as good as we can get on. We go around pretty good. You know, we almost won the Daytona 500, won the Bush Clash, won the qualifying race. He wins six-indy race, and we come within just a little win 500. Del Jarrett beats us.

So it starts out pretty good. And then we go to Rocky Hand. I tell you this is a funny thing, too, you'll get a kick out of this. So the whole week at Daytona, he's, I'm trying to get in his lingo, you know, you're trying to learn each other. And he just keeps saying, you know, the car's neutral, neutral, is neutral, okay, so, you know, must be pretty good. So I don't really adjust on the month.

Well, then we get to Rockingham, and you're standing on the truck, you can see the cars, right? You can kind of see him. He comes through three and four, and he comes in, he says, I said, how's the car? He says, it's pretty neutral.

And I'm like, all right, man. I said, dang, that thing looked loose to me, but all right. So he goes back out there again, and that thing's sliding through. I mean, it's smoking right rear. And if I think it comes down. I said, what's that car?

He said, I think he looks really loose. He said, I told you it was neutral. What is that? Neutral? means lose. That's what he meant. You know. I did not know that.

What he, finally, I got his head a little bit. What neutral meant was like he has no, no, do not turn the wheel. That's what he meant. So neutral to me was not tight, not loose. Of course. Good. Oh, I said, okay, now we're on the same page. So we tied him up, you know, we end up finishing good there too.

Oh, my gosh. I told you it was neutral. Like that's something that's like that, you. You would think that dad was, dad being as good as he was, he was everything a race car driver is, but better, but he wouldn't have like backward terminology or,

it was just something he'd been used to say, and I'm sure Kurt Shelmerdine understood it well, but I did. Of course, yeah. Yeah, but who else uses the word neutral to describe a loose race car? No one. Like, nobody does that.

Right. Okay, so how was the relationship? It's not good. It's not good. We're butting here. With Earnhardt? Yeah, we are. We're really, we were a lot of like.

And, you know, I was pretty headstrong on what I want to do. And he, he was really headstrong and kind of, he was a real dominant figure, you can imagine. And it wasn't the way I was used to, you know, I was used to kind of steering this team the way I wanted to go. And he just wasn't. Why are y'all but in heads? If he's not being, hey, man, I want this spring. I know, I want you to change. I can't remember exactly what it was.

So a lot of it was on, like, pit calls and stuff. He was like trying to, you know, bull me around a little bit on pick calls and this and that. You know, I can't remember all the things, but Richard calls both of us in after about the fourth race. And he said, look, man, you guys got to go on the same page. And, you know, it was one of us come Jesus meetings with him.

And he said, he told Dale and he. Did Richard have, sorry to interrupt you. Did Richard have that kind of control over dad too? Oh, yeah. Like when they sit down in the room, Dad's a little bit. He had as much control over your dad as your dad would give him. So in other words,

but he knew your dad was smart enough to know that just matter, you know. And so what he's trying to say is that if you guys cannot figure out a way to communicate, and what his term was bond. Y'all got to bond. And so. How did you bond? Okay, this is this way it works. So we're sitting, me and Dale are sitting beside each other and then, you know,

on the other end of Richard's desk. And he goes from, reach over and grabs you, all right, he said, we're going to, we're going to bond this weekend. We're going to Darlington. we're going to bond. He said, we got this, Richard. So we walk outside.

He says, we're going to dinner. Me and Tracer going to be going to dinner on Saturday night or Friday night, or whatever it was at Darlington. And, you know, I've got some guys. I want you to go. You're going to sit right with me. We're going to bond. But I said, all right.

It's not going to work. It actually did. You know, it was we're at Darlington. And at that time, we had a tire, right-side tire that was really, you know, marginal at best. It was, you know, you could fail it easily with too much camber. and everything. So it was real delicate.

And so I told Dale that we were going to go. I told him at that dinner it was on, I guess, a Friday night. So Saturday was a practice session. I told him, we're going to run that tire until it fails because it gave you a good warning. And he's like, what? I said, we're going to see how many laps we can go. And then we're going to keep changing the car until we get extended and try to extend it. But you need it to fail.

Right. We need to know where it was, where the lap number was. Yeah, that is a little bit of serious. But it was risky, but I had him on, he bought into it. He's skeptical at first, but, you know, so it gave pretty good warning. It would give you a good little bit of warning before it failed. And then you could see it, you know, where it was failing on the corner. So he brings it in after 35 or 30 laps, and sure enough, it's failed.

So we take some camber out. We adjust the chassis a little bit for the balance, and we go back out and run another run. We extend it about five laps. And we do this, and we come through about three sets of tires until we really have changed the car quite a bit. And still pretty fast, but a lot better on the tires. well, we end up winning. And because we could go longer than anybody on tires. And I remember going up in Victor Lane,

and I look at it, he got an old grid. I said, that's how you bond right there. That was our first win. Winning fixes that stuff, doesn't it? I'm curious, though, like, if you go to dinner, did you guys plan to talk setups and stuff? And, I mean, I kind of imagine, what is Teresa thinking at that time?

She wasn't all that. Yeah, a big fan of it, but. Because y'all was. Well, because that I'd be. It was a group of people. there was like friends or whatever. Oh, was there. So me and Dailor sitting there talking about it.

And so I basically just wanted to tell him what my strategy was. Sure. I didn't tell him what we were actually going to be doing on the car, but this is, but he's like, all right. I'll try it. That's impressive. It is. You know, I mean, I go back and I think Larry Mack was talking about how he had to, you had, you had set the precedent.

Yeah, he came after me. Because he came after you. And so a lot of the similarities of, you know, he's going from Yates to RCR, are and so the culture change is so different and he's like you know everybody was used to you know andy petrie was one of the guys and you know shalmerdine one of the guys but it doesn't sound like that's the way it was certainly at the beginning no as a matter of fact the beginning was so bad and the first car that i got to build that was mine that i built i mean from the from the ground up we used a Hopkins chassis but everything i mean every single system on the car was different everything it was

way lighter it was you know had a lot of innovative things in it um and so we take it to it was it was was a road course car for Sonoma. And we didn't get to test it or anything. You know, you just got to load it in the car. And, I mean, that was like pushing a rope. Everything I want to do in that car. They were like, that's not going to work. It's not the way we do it.

But this is way we're going to do this one. Everything. I mean, this went on for months to build that car. This is your first car that's built that I built like I want. Right, got it. Okay. So we get to Sonoma with this car that's radically different than anything's ever come out of there. And I know my career's on the line.

You know, so we get, we were a little bit late getting through tech. I think there might have been a few little tech issues, but so we weren't on the track right, right when the practice started. Richard was up on the truck clocking cars and, you know, finally get it out on the track and, you know, goes out of sight and you know how they come down through there

and you kind of see them. And I've got to watch them clock and, you know, start before he goes into turn 11, comes around there and I'm watching them go up there, look, that look pretty good, you know. And I look down to my watch. My hands are sitting there shaking. Because I think, you know, if this doesn't work,

I'm out of here. And I mean, not just out of RCR, I'm out of the sport probably. And so it comes around there and I click the for the first lap, I click it. And I was like, and then I realized I don't even know what a good time is. You know, we go there once a year. I look over at Richard. I think I'm about in tears. I'm like, is that good?

He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. So we ended up sitting on the pole for Sonoma. Yeah. And then we should have won. We got banged up by some lap car the way it worked out on one of the call. where people stayed out and we were we led most of the race but ended up finishing the top five or six but yeah so y'all win the championship in 1994 yep um how's the relationship at this point oh it's great then yeah we were really i mean really about midseason of 93 we were

really clicking everything i mean there's times and i got really frustrated because he was getting so much attention so many other things you know souvenirs and all these things just pulling him away from what we're trying to do. But he was just so good on a racetrack. And, you know, it wasn't very good qualifier. We didn't qualify good, but it didn't matter. We'd figure out a way to be in the top five every week or win, and it was going really good.

Y'all, you drove a bushel car for dad at Martinsville. Oh, yeah, that was in 94. Yeah. So you've raced, you know, we talked about your... I drove for D. Yeah, before you did. Yeah. We talked about your driving career and how you said it kind of disappeared

when Dale Jarrett came in your garage and decided he was going to drive the car when you were 18. But you did have a career in driving. I mean, there's this picture that keeps popping up on my social media timeline of that yellow 5 car, that late model stock. Yep.

And Jimmy Hensley was driving the Bush version of that. What team was that? Okay. So we had advanced auto parts on our car back in, that was probably 87-ish. And somebody that owned my, I guess the guy that owned my team had a relationship with somebody at advanced auto parts up in Runoff. And it was actually a decent sponsor for us for a late model.

And we had it before Hensley and Sam Ard's team had it. And I don't know how that transitioned to them. But that was Sam Ard's car. That was Sam Ard's car. Yep. And so they wanted, that was one of those double races at Hickory. So we put them out there to do that picture. So you're working in the Cup Series but also racing?

Every now and then. Every now and then. Yeah. I never ran more than maybe seven to ten races a year, ever in my life. So why in 1994 do you want to go race in the Xfinity Series at Martinsville? Okay, this is how that happens. So we take a brand new car, RCR, up to Martinsville for a test. And we had broken a gear up there the year before.

And so we had come up with a different system of how we break in the gears. They break them in on a machine now, the ring and pinion sets. But back then we didn't have that. so we had to do it at the track. And it was meticulous to do it, you know. And, you know, your dad had been out there running. And he, you know, I said, okay, we're going to start breaking these gears in. And I knew he wouldn't like it.

He hated that stuff, you know. But I said, we got to do it. We have to get this done. Let's go ahead and knock it out. And he goes, I don't want to do it. You just drive the thing. I don't know. You know how to do it.

You just do it? I'm going to go fishing. Had that pond over there. You remember that pond that used to be out outside at Marksville? There used to be a pond right there as you come in. He said, I'm just going to go over and go fishing. You just do it. Oh, yeah, the duck pond.

Yeah, the duck pond. He said, just, I went in there and put my pit crew uniform on, you know, not get in the car. Put the thing, and the procedure was you go out there and run it slow for seven, eight, or ten laps. It was, you know, kind of a pain, but you do that, and then you let it sit for a minute, and then you go out there and run 10 laps hard and then take it out. You know, so it was kind of broke in. Yeah. And so I did the first one.

We did the first slow runs on two gears, and then we put them back in, and we did the, you know, fast run. So the first fast run we did, I put it in there. Your dad had been running about 21 flat, basically. And so I get in there, and I go run it, and I run it about 22 flat.

Like, he might have never even drove a cup car before. Right, yeah. And so, so he goes, what's wrong with you, man?

You're afraid to mash it? Why don't you go? You know, just aggravating a heck out of it. He said, I thought he was fishing, right, but no, he's right there at the window as soon as I run.

And so, I said, all right. So I got to go back out. So first laugh, I go back. out with the next one. I hit the chip coming down the front stretch first time, rent 2110 first lap. Nice. So, you know, I mean, I mean, it's out. I was like, check with it. I didn't want to wreck a new

car, you know, that's what I try to tell him is, look, I'm just taking it easy. It's a brand new car. But after that, I said, screw it. I'm going to go as hard as I can go. He challenged you. Yeah. And so after that, he's like, you know, I realized I actually could drive at Martinstville. And I said, you need to let me run up here in your bus car sometime. Well, it turns out he ended up missing a race at Richmond, a short track race. at Richmond. And he owed one. And he owed one back to him, the Good Ranch.

And I conned up this scheme to see if Goodrich, excuse me, would actually sign off on me driving the car at that Martin's Hill race, which was an off weekend for us in the fall. And so they agreed, and Earnhardt said, I'll tell you what, if we got a good point lead in the Cup Series after Charlotte, which is the last race before the off weekend, then I'll let you drive that car. So Rusty, I think, is who we were running for the championship for.

He has problems. we end up gaining a bunch of points. And I mean, before the white flag came out, I'm running to the hauler because you know how he is. He's gone. I get in the hall right when he comes in there. I said, I'm coming to get that car in the morning. He said, all right, come get it.

So I go to the deerhead shop. I think he had a truck and trailer. Maybe I brought one. I can't remember. And the car is there. It's the car. He missed a race at Richmond. I'm taking to Martinsville.

The one that Dale Earnhardt didn't qualify. But it was an opportunity, and I'm going to go. you know it's a we get up there and it was a weekend off for his guys he didn't want his main guys doing it either right so i take it back to rCR i get a handful of guys to take our weekend off we take the cup hauler up there and you know everybody goes with me and i don't have anybody to help me on Saturday for qualifying so i get ray over and him to go with me damn yeah sure it did so i've got ray up there it's kind of my crew chief and um your dad wouldn't let me change so i was going to change the seat had a

Banjo seat in it. Nope, you can't change the seat or he ain't going to drive it? Going to drive it in that seat. I'm like, all right. And he wouldn't even let me put break ducks in it. He was not going to let me cut the nose and put brake ducks in it until I made the field. He said, you ain't going to make the field anyway, so don't even put, don't cut my front end up. I said, all right.

So I'd go up and then raise, helping me get qualified. And I'm really, really loose, you know. This is a funny story, but he says, how loose are you? We're on pit road working on it. And I said, it's pretty loose, man. And he says, and I look in my mirror in this. guy backs in the wall, boom, hits the wall right behind me. I said, turn around, Ray.

And he said, oh, I said, that's going to be us if we don't tighten it up. He said, oh, okay. I get it now. But we got it, you know, decent enough to make the field. I think we qualified to mid-high-20 or something, but made the field and cut the brake ducts in there. You know, I think we finished 16. Yeah. When you say you, you know, you convinced Goodrich to let you do it, I mean, like, how did that happen?

because it's like their alternative is Dale Earnhardt owes them a race. You can have the greatest race car driver to ever hold a wheel or his crew chief run at Martinsville. I think that they, you know, Dale had so much clout with him. That was his weekend off. He was in the Bahamas. He wasn't anywhere around. He just wanted it to weekend off.

Okay. That's all you had to say. That's all you had to say. I mean, because he didn't want to give up his weekends off. I remember. So I knew you were a driver. after all that. I didn't know much about,

I didn't know you'd really run any races. I mean, thinking back to 1994, 94, 95, or whatever. I didn't think, I didn't know that you had drove a car and then you go race dad's bush car. So then it's starting to dawn on me. Maybe you... You were probably mad.

You'd probably want to drive it. No. So I'm running like a late model or... I'm running a streetstock or something. Yeah. Dad calls me, I'm changing all the dealership. My brother Kerry is just a few feet away at the service manager's desk,

He's a service writer. He said, hey, get your helmet and your uniform, come up to the airport tomorrow morning and don't tell you brother. I said, all I remember this. What am I going to do? So I got my little late model stock uniform, sundrop uniform, and I'm getting on to King Air and if we fly out of Talladega. And I'm starting to get it, right? I'm going to do something at Talladega. This is going to be amazing.

So they're testing the new V8 for the Bush series. He had V6s back in. They had one of the RCR motors in it for that test. Yep. And dad and Dave Marcus have been driving the car a little bit. Mainly Dave Marcus was driving that car and your dad was driving a cut car. It was a pretty full test for us there. Gotcha.

So he lets me go out in the bush car and I matched Marcus's time. I was pumped. Dave's giving me tips about why, you know, why lap was good or lap was bad, like how you make a difference as a driver. and I'm feeling pretty good. And then right at the end of the day, here comes Andy Pidger, be bopping out of the trailer in his uniform.

Your dad says, you want to drive it? I said, yeah. He said, go get an uniform. I'll just you drive it. I was like, damn,

I want to drive it. More, right? There's like only 30 minutes left for and tracks closing. He goes out there and matched our lap times. And I'm like, you know why, though, right?

So I go and get in the car, and I know your dad says, now you can't run a thing part throttle now because you'll mess up Richard's motor. You got to make sure you don't run part throttle. Same thing. Okay. So it suppresses it to me.

And I'm like, God, I'm not, man. Tal'Daga. Yeah. You know, hold that thing wide over. So, all right. I can pull off pit road and I'll get wide open coming off turn two. And I'm looking at that straight away. I'm like, God, turn them poles.

I'm going to waw, whoa, whoa, blah, blah. I'm seeing that. In that turn, it looks nice and broad from up above. You're looking at it down the straight. That thing looks like it's dead left. I'm holding that throttle wide. I know he's got a stopwatch, right? So if I don't hold it wide up, he's going to know.

and I said man sure it would be nice to know how far to turn it you know so I just like you know I held it wide open first lap God it took my breath did you hold it wide up the first lap so dad told me the same thing we're in there did you have that same feeling going in that first time well he says to me he's like now you can't lift if you lift you're going to burn a pistol that's exactly what he told me exactly I know but listen to how he interpreted this and I'm listening to dad and I'm like he's only he's full of... No, he was serious.

In my mind, I'm thinking he's full of shit. He's just telling me this so I don't go out there and embarrass him, right? And go out there and lift. And, because lifting, in hindsight, would have been silly because it's such a, you know, it's such a big track and easy to run wide open. But he's like,

now if you live, you run part throttle and burn a piss and I'm thinking in my head, how am I going to get through the pits wide open? Yeah. So I'm a lot of it. He pulled out of the garage Like, just to move out of the stall Into the garage

And out on the pit road I'm like, Oh, that's funny stuff Yeah I didn't take him quite that little I didn't take him quite that literal, I mean literal I can just see it.

Oh my God And then you're right You're pull out on the track you're going down the back straightaway and you're thinking it's no way it's going to fly out of this place. I mean, yeah, you're looking at this turn. It's a dead left-hand turn at the end of the straightaway and you're going to 190.

You're going to fly out of here. But once you do it, it's like, uh, yeah, it's okay. It's like so much grip. It took my breath, though, first time. So I go out there and you're freaking out, right? You're going to hold this steering wheel. And I go out there and I ran just as fast as Dave, maybe a couple of tents.

It's like I was right there with him, and I was like, oh, oh, man, wait until I go get out there again. I'm going to run, and this next time, I'm going to light it up. Then you didn't get it next time I got to do it. No. I got back out there, and I let the wheel do whatever it wanted to do, and I was relaxed, and then I let it feed up off the corner and out, you know. How much you pick up? A second slower.

What? I come in. I'm like, dad comes over. What the hell? I was like, I don't know. You know, I kind of let the wheel move around. Don't do that. Hold it, hold that, don't let the wheel move at all.

I was like, well, you know, kind of. It was that much slower doing that. And I was like, I kind of let it come up off the corner. And he's like, what? Don't do that? And Dave Marcus is standing there. And he's like, yeah, you're just adding feet to the lap. Yeah.

He's like, man, you got to stay tight. I was like, man, I just, every other race track we go to, we come out and go out to the fence. He's like, you probably added 5,000 feet to this whole lap. He's like, no wonder, it's slower. I got a chance to get back in there. And, I mean, I'm holding the wheel. I'm like locked my elbows into my legs so the steering wheel wouldn't turn in the corner. Because in a turn in the corner, it's like the wheel's trying to do this.

All right. If you let go of it, it's going to just start going crazy. The track was really rough. Yeah. You used to jump around. It was. And I tied it off the bottom. Real awkward.

Feels like it's bogging it down, but it was faster. So when you see him come popping out of the hollow of the driver's suit, what was your field? I wanted to run one. I was like, I might get another run. I might get another lap. When he come running out there,

I was like, no. Everybody gets to drive today. No, I knew the deal. And I was like, all right. And then he went out there and his run as fast as I run.

And I was like, damn, I thought I'd done something special. But it was like, hell anybody here could get. Old mechanic. Anybody can get in there and do this. it'd have been awesome if you'd have been like you know that this is for taking my room at the presidential

yeah right yeah get out of the car kid so at martinsale race that i got to run in the in his exunity car so i hit terry labani like hard going in to turn three on one of the restarts the brake pellers went completely to the floor and you know i didn't and i ran all over i don't know how he didn't wreck that that proved to me how good he was well the next week you know terry is he's real quiet see him at the next race I think it was rocking him comes up, me and Dale were standing there and he said, hey Dale, yeah, it says, next time you want to do something for Andy,

he said, take him hunting. That's awesome. So you run that race. I mean, like, I know you've, I'm looking at your statistics here. You've had five Exfinity races, seven truck races. Two Ark and Menard starts, a modified start. Why?

So why do you do that random one-off run? I just like doing it. Just when you find an opportunity. I mean, I still love to drive. You do, too. You do the same thing. You know, you just never get over it. I mean, it's just, it's something I, you know,

I've never had a full season of doing it, but I always enjoy going and running a one-off. Like when we ran the late model race at Hickory, that was just a one-off that year. I hadn't driven in years and did it there. And then, you know, Schraders one, it kind of caught me into doing this whole thing. with the truck.

We, you know, he goes and runs all these Archer races. He's driving for me and he's got all, he's just all over the place. And I told him one time,

so I'm going to come show up one of them Archer races and outrun you, you know, just kidding around with him. And so about a month later, he comes out, hey, I got a good idea

on that Arca deal. I said, what? He said, come to DuCoy, Illinois. I'm like, what? That's a dirt track. And he said, no, man,

you'll be fine. It'll be fun. It's a Labor Day and Monday. Great event. You got to just take one of your cup cars. I'll give you the setup. You know, you'll be fine. It'll be fine.

I'm like, all right. It sounds like something fun, but I know I'm going to work good. Show up up there at DuCoyne. There's like 45, six cars there. And Schrader's there, Tony Stewart, all these,

you know, Kimmel, all those guys. And I don't have a clue. I look at this track. It's a one-mile dirt track. And it's, you know, you've seen it now in Bristol.

But it's just, I don't even know what I'm doing. And so get ready. to qualify. I go out there and I say, I'm just going to drive as hard as I can, you know, end up qualifying fourth. Out of all these guys.

And I said, I was telling somebody the other day, I'm thinking I'm a real dirt racer now, right? Race starts turn one, or turn two, I turn around backwards and then looking at all of them. So it was a little harder than, I ended up finishing ninth,

so I was respectable, but it was not, I wasn't as good as I thought it was. But anyway, so we get a rematch. He wants a rematch. Who? Or Schrader,

out qualified him. He qualified. like 12 and he's mad and he won't even talk to me and I'm like dang you know man my one of my best friends won't even say anything and so he's parked right beside me finally I go up to him I said hey Kenny I said what I said I know you're mad you know but I said if it makes you feel any better I got 20 minutes practice before even though it's my first time on dirt I got 20 minutes practice and it makes you feel better he gets so mad he said you wait to let race starts so you were with dad for what two years three years three 93 four and five

And you said by the end of the 94 when y'all had the championship, things were good. Why did you make a change? Why did y'all, what was happening? We were on a roll, and it was not the right time to move on, but it was the only time this opportunity was going to come up for me. Leo Jackson had come and asked me, he wanted to retire, he wanted me to come back and buy the team, and he was going to make it possible.

me to do that. I mean, how many opportunities am I going to get or somebody like me that can make that happen? And it was hard decision. I've got the best job in the sport. You know, crew chief for Dale Earnhardt, we're winning race as champion. You know, we came really close to winning in 95. But I had kind of checked the box, right? I won a championship as a crew chief, and this is here, and it's now. And so I took it. I mean, it was real risky because I had to get sponsorship lined up to and there's a lot of risk involved right but i thought if i'm ever going to do it this is the only time when i saw you at the banquet after um 94 there was something about you where if something like that wasn't there was you weren't that wasn't too big of a moment for you

to to to become a team owner right to to like you say go find that sponsorship um man i mean i think about moving our Xfinity program to Cup and it's almost an impossibility. How? Well, how, you know, but you bite, you bite a chunk out of that sandwich like there's nothing to it, you know, or you're willing to go for it. Yeah. I look back on it now and think, wow, that was bold to even think you could pull it off. Because, you know, Skull had been there for quite a few years, but they were kind of wanting to wind it out and not, you know, return. And so I had to go and convince them to come to sponsor me. And we were going to do these things.

We're going to change the team. We're going to, you know, Robert Presley was driving. You know, I promised him that we would find a top 10 caliber driver put in there. And it's just no slight to Robert. We're good friends today. But it wasn't going good then.

Yeah. And so they were, you know, I was lucky enough that they bought in, you know. So we had a two-year deal starting in 97, 98, and I got somehow convinced Shrader to leave Hendrick and come drive for them. me. So how did you tell dad? Okay, so I told him early in 95. I gave him plenty of notice and told, you know, your dad probably first. So you gave him the whole year to try to talk you out of it?

It was a few months. It was quite a few months and he tried hard. And we went to, you know, I went to the boat and the Bahamas spent with him and he always had the drawings of DEI. He was trying to say, you know, come be a partner with now. You know, just kind of, you know, give you a part of this. You can be over here and do this instead of that. I said, that's tempting. It is. I said, but I said, nobody's a partner with you. I said, I'd be working for you.

I said, I want to be my own, man, I want to go out here and do this. And he understood, at that point, he understood. And so we go on, and we have a really good success, even after I told him, we win Martin'sville, I think it was one of the races. And we're in victory lane. He said, I come up in here and get you a pitcher. he said probably it's going to be last time for a while or something like that and I said what about next week because we weren't finished of the season he says oh oh yeah yeah

and we end up winning actually another we won the actually the last race of the year Atlanta yeah he won Atlanta there for man he was so good there I remember they gave away ski nautics to the winter and he he has a pile of them had a building full of them yeah and he he would it's very stingy with those very stingy Hey everybody, this is Dale Jr. And if you're looking for the latest dirtymo merch, check out shop.dirtymobedia.com. You'll find the newest apparel for all of our shows right here.

That's shop.dirtymohmedia.com. So y'all have the split, right? And apparently it sounds like it was a reasonable, everybody was respectable. So much so that y'all form the RAD program. And a lot of people today don't really know what RAD was. Certainly everybody that had to compete against RAD knew what RAD was. So talk about how rad and what RAD is and how that developed.

Okay. So Richard Childress comes to me at one of the races. And, you know, we're all spending money on aer development and went on time and trying to use all the resources that GM provides. But it's all these parallel programs. And it was his idea, Richard Childers, to bring all three of our organizations together and just do it collectively.

We'd have more resources. We could go hire somebody to kind of run it for us. I think he even came up with the, you know, as Richard, Andy, and Dale is what Rad meant. Right. And so we put that LLC together. And we kind of, you know, forced all of the arrow people and all three teams to work together.

Boy, they didn't like it either. They didn't want to do anything. I can imagine. Oh, they didn't. It was very reluctant buy-in from all the teams. And I was like, man, we've got to figure this out. We got to make it work. And I told my people, we are going to do this.

We are going to share every single thing. Don't hold anything back. And I said, we're going to move the needle on this. And so as they finally started buying in, it was real quick. It's like a wildfire. It just caught up. And it was like, okay. So we were making big time gains.

and the creativity of three different organizations piled into one was super successful. What was the first race where you guys knew that Rad was something, it was a force to deal with? I don't even remember. I mean, to be clear, this was like a restrictor plate because of the arrow. This is a restricting plate. Oh, no, it was all of them. It was down force, too.

Yeah, we did. We shoot it all. And obviously, it was really evident at the super speedways, right? Okay. You know, the DEI cars, you guys were winning everything. We actually won one race with APR at Talladega during that time. Oh, with Bobby Hamilton? Yep, that was part of that.

Yep. So it showed up a lot at those tracks, but it also showed up at the other ones. Yeah. We made a lot more downforce, too. I remember that. Bobby Hamilton was like laying on the ground after Victory Lane. It never had a caution. It was a hot day and they went green the whole way, 500 miles.

That was tough. I had to pick him up just for his victory lane. I got a picture of Joe Nimichick who's driving my other car. in that race. I think he finished in the top five or six, and he comes to Victory Lane to congratulate Bobby, and they're both just sitting down by the car. Right. Just like exhausted. Neither one I'm can stand up. Right. Right. So yeah, you guys had them covered at the restrictor plates. I mean, my goodness. I don't even know. Was it, was there a streak of wins? Probably. Yeah, I have to look back. I mean, between all the ones you won and I guess Michael and. How long did that last? Does Seat Park went any of those

Super Speedway races? No. So it's between you and Michael and Bobby won one. When did Rad go away? So in 2003, after the 2002 season, I lost one of my sponsors. Actually, both cup sponsors and ended up going and doing an Xfinity thing with Paul Menard and Menards for just a short time. So, I mean, I financially couldn't participate anymore. So I had to bow out, and it kind of, after that, just fell apart.

Yeah. Yeah. So what was that like? I mean, you, you, so in 96, 7, you know, late 90s your, your cup team's, you know, performing, functioning. Then the sponsor stuff, that stuff got harder, harder to find. Yeah. When, at what point are you, like, starting to realize you got to make a change? Yeah.

So it was 2001 was our last season running two cars. We had Joe Nimichick and Bobby Hamilton. And like I say, Bobby won my first race as an owner. I guess it was in April. And then we know that we're going to lose. We're not losing Square D. We're going to have them another year. So Bobby was going to run in 2002.

But Joe, we couldn't find a sponsor for the 33. And so we were looking everywhere. This was right after 9-11 and things were just really in turmoil. We go to Rockingham next to the last race of the year, I think it was. and we end up winning there with Joe. And so you're thinking, you're doing everything possible, right? We were on the brink, really at APR,

we were on the brink of really making that step to being, you know, to being on making it. And so we just weren't able to get over that hurdle. So I had to shut that team down going into 2002. So we only had one team. And that's just, it's really hard, man. When you're shrinking and, you know, your good people are finding other jobs

and it's just hard to hold it together. So what did you do? like um well we did the deal with paul minard and an ex finity uh kind of a combination under your banner yeah a p r yep yep we did all the engines and did the cars uh we ran a handful of races we won a arca race with him at talladaga and then did a few of those arca bush and then cut did a couple of cup races and then in 2004 we signed a deal with minars to run the full season actually i think it was a five-year deal we signed and uh it just wasn't going well we were you know, John Menard's a great guy loving,

but he was making me spend a lot of money on things I didn't really want to spend money on, and it was kind of telling me how to run the team, and it was probably going to be the first year as an owner. I was going to lose money. And I found out I got win through about half the year that he was going to take that and go to DEI, you know, even though we had a five-year deal.

Wow. And so I would, like I said, if I finished the year, I was going to lose money for the first year ever. So I was like, okay, this is my son. to, I need to shut it down and just, you know, do something else. Because I didn't want to, I'd made money every year. I just didn't want to put it all back into the, how hard is it to dismantle a program? It's hard. It really is.

I mean, it was, you know, it was just something in my life. At that time, everything, I tried everything to keep it going, right? I kept running into dead ends everywhere. You know, my wife tells me one day, she says, well, yeah, maybe God doesn't want you doing that anymore. Yeah. You know, maybe he's got something else for you. Mm-hmm. So he finally had to hit me over the head with the two before I got it.

And I went ahead and just, you know, auctioned everything off, sold everything. And what year was that? That was in 2004, the middle of the season. So for two and a half years, I basically was retired. I did that retirement thing backwards, right? I did it in 2004 and five and even six. And, you know, my daughter was playing softball. She's, you know, great.

I mean, I had some of the best years of my life doing that. so you're good into broadcasting. So I'm out there on a tractor one day and come up to get something to drink and the guy that, you know, the suspension rigs, you've got to, I think you guys have one or two here. Yeah. I'm building those.

That's right. So you were building a pull-down rig when you were the only one. Well, we invented it. Yeah, you invented a pull-down rig so that basically teams can take the car and put it into max travel like you'll only be able to produce out on the racetrack.

This was really, really amazing creative stuff when teams are, coil binding or not wanting to coil bind trying to create more travel. This was such a great way to figure out how to do that and to be able to do that so that you could hit the ground running when you got to the racetrack. And so you developed this machine. Did you make money doing that? I probably made, I mean, it ended up that we sold 33 of those units.

Almost every major team has one. Yeah. And so I had guys building that in the shopping. Yeah, I made, I mean, I did well. It was accidental. I really didn't want to get into it. It just kind of took off. I kept a couple of guys working on it.

It's kind of doing weird, odd stuff like that. Yeah, so I was like on a tractor. Come up there to get a Gatorade and walk up in there. Jeff Swan working for me. He said, hey, here's a note. Some lady called from ESPN. I don't know if she's selling magazines. I don't know what it.

Hands it to me with a number. And I was stuck in my pocket and went back to work. End up calling the number later. And it was Jill Frederickson, which is a coordinating producer at ESPN. You know, she was a big wheel. and wanted to know if I wanted a shot at this. I'm like, wow, I never thought of it. Yeah.

Had you ever done any TV radio? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. What do you do? So they had me. How do you go to practice?

They had me come to Charlotte for an audition. I think the first one I did was with Dave Burns. Yeah. And maybe it was Alan Bestwick. I can't remember who it was. We did a couple there. And you're an analyst. You know,

it's just a little easier to be an analyst than to be a real TV guy. That's doing, you know, that's hard. But for what we do, we're just talking about what we know. And just, you know, let your personality show. You do a really good job at it. I love watching you. So we did one of those there. And then did another one in Bristol, Connecticut with, I think it's Marty Reed, maybe some other people.

And so they offered me the job, you know. And I remember thinking the money, he was decent. Yeah, it was pretty good. But I thought, man, I've got to go back now and go to work. But I think I really want to do this. And so my wife said, well, don't let the money worry you, you know, just go do it. So I did it. Did you find it, you know, putting you back into the racetrack?

Was that fulfilling to you? I mean, is that something you realized that you were missing? Yeah, it is. I mean, it's definitely, it's better, you know, you haven't experienced the time where you just don't even have, because you kind of went out of the car, into the booth, kind of all that, but I had that time where I wasn't even anywhere near the track. Yeah. So, yeah, it does help. Quite a change.

It's going back and, you know, going in the garage and meeting and talking to the people. keeping up with the technology. Sure. You know, it was, I enjoyed all that a lot. Well, man, it's been a great conversation. I have looked forward to this, a chance to talk to you. And, I mean, I've known you forever. A lot like a lot of these guests that we get in here,

I've known you forever, but I don't know you. And this is such an amazing opportunity for us. And everyone else that listens to this show. I love this show. I learn so much, too, from these guys. you've had on here. And I think it's an honor to be on it. So thank you for asking. It's an honor to have you here. Appreciate your time. And just a great, great conversation. Great, great stuff. So again, thanks for coming. Thanks again for having me. Yes, sir. Andy Petrie on

the Dale Jr. Download. And this is brought to you by Arby's here in the Arby's studio. Arby's has the new meat and three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. Arby's, we have the meats. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirtymoe Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.