The Dale Jr. Download - How Dale Sr's Business Philosophy Lives On At JR Motorsports

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

What does it take to successfully lead one of NASCAR's top race teams? In this special Q&A episode of Business of Motorsports, Kelley Earnhardt Miller sits down with veteran NASCAR journalist Jeff Gluck to answer listener-submitted questions about leadership, business, culture, and the lessons that continue to shape how she runs JR Motorsports today. Kelley shares the biggest business principles she learned from her father, Dale Earnhardt, why she believes great companies are built around people, how she handles difficult conversations, and what aspiring motorsports professionals need to know about breaking into the industry. She also opens up about hiring, company culture, mentorship, NASCAR sponsorship, charter decisions, and balancing family with business. This episode of Business of Motorsports is sure to provide insight for anyone searching for an inside look into the day-to-day operations of running a successful NASCAR team. 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 Dirty Mo Media. Welcome to the business of motorsports. It is yours truly, Kelly Earnhardt Miller. You know, one thing that I really hope that this series does is open up people's horizons. I got in a lot of trouble and I got challenged. I don't know why you're coming here. You don't trust us. I said, no, it's not I don't trust you.

I'm running a business. A lot of people kind of feel like, well, we're. We're never getting back to where we were. Why do we ever get to where we were? There's so much more involved in decision. I mean, I want to rip somebody's head off every day. I'd say yes to me. Oh, you say yes on the phone.

Well, he made me say. This episode of Business of Motorsports is presented by Arby's. Don't forget about the Arby's new meat and three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. All right, welcome to Business of Motorsports. I'm Kelly Earnhardt Miller, and today we're going to do something just a little bit different. I've got the amazing Jeff Gluck here with me.

Jeff, thanks for joining us all the way from California. It's going to help run the show today. Jeff, I'm sorry to put you down like this, but you have covered NASCAR longer than some of our drivers have been alive. Hopefully that's a compliment. There's really no better to having the seat with me. I was excited that you were available. we've put the call out to our listeners, Jeff, to ask for business advice. You know, I've written my book.

And so we decided that a good business of motorsports opportunity might be to listen to the fans and hear what they have to say. So these are things that they actually want to know about business, about my career and how all of this works behind the scene. So great to have you on board. And so we're going to just dive into it. This is basically an Ask Kelly. No, I love that. And honestly, like, I've, I've wanted my own personal ask Kelly for a while because I'm always like, you know what, surely I'm going to run into it at the track and I have a bunch of questions for you. And I'd love to pick your brain sometime or like, I'm like, you know, some one of these days I'm going to like get to sit down with her and hear this stuff.

So like this is like the perfect excuse for me to actually just have an hour where he can do that. So I'm, I'm excited. So fantastic. So the first, yeah, as you said, like these questions have all been submitted. So we'll just start off and and try to go through them and see. you have to say the first one somebody wants to know what does a good day at the office look like for you a good day at the office is when you don't have any people problems right like like i think we always we're all dealing with people right relationships people and it's probably the hardest thing that um

you know that that you kind of come across in business because people are at the center of everything right So people are at the center of negotiations or contracts or expectations, getting things done. And so, you know, just when a good day is when those conversations, you know, go well. They're productive. You know, you're not hitting any roadblocks. You're not making people unhappy because people, you know, at the end of the day, I feel like make your business. You know, they make or break your business from all sides, right? So, yeah, so that would be, that would be my, that's my first answer.

But, you know, I love coming into work. A lot of people are like, you know, how often do you work? What hours do you work? You know, this morning I was here at 10 after 8. And I'm usually, I'm usually, I would say I'm a 9 to 5 girl. A lot of times I'm home this week by myself so I can get up and get after it early. But when the boys are in town, you know, I'm a little slower at getting out of there. And I live 30 minutes away.

so that kind of thing. So, but yeah, I love being in here. I love to be an example to people and, you know, setting an example for,

for all of our people that work here at junior sports too. Kelly, what is the hardest thing about what you do? People. You know, no. I mean,

you know, there are a lot of hard parts. You know, I would say that that just meeting expectations, making sure people are happy, thinking through the culture, you know, every day here, and making sure that your employees, you know, I want them to want to come to work.

You know, I want them to be happy to be here. And then that makes everything else easier, right? So that work isn't hard. But, you know, there's a lot of tough conversations that you have to have. I don't like conflict. You know, I don't like having those hard conversations. I can do it, but it's not pleasant. You know, no matter what it is,

if it's an employee that you've got to talk with for some reason or a sponsor that you've got to talk to about something that's going on or maybe something that you can't, you know, do that they've asked for you to do and those kinds of things. So, you know, that's kind of a hard part of our business is being able to be everything that you want to be to everybody and that you just have, you know, there's circumstances sometimes that don't make it possible. And our business is tricky, you know, in terms of timelines and deadlines and, you know,

all the things that you have to do with a lot of businesses is the same way. But, you know, being prepared for each weekend and the approval process that you have to go through to make sure everybody's on board with what you're doing and so on and so forth. So, you know, there's some aspects of it that can, they get challenging, you know. Well, along those lines, I've been dying to ask you a question of my own here. Because I see that on, on Instagram, you post about being a type 2, a neagram. And the type 2 eneagram, I don't know if people are into a neagram, so I'm very into it. I think there's a lot of truth in it.

And I'm also a type 2 as you. But the thing that strikes me is like, that is a, that is a, that is a, a person that is very empathetic, very worried about how others are going to feel about something, not wanting to disappoint people, sort of putting yourself at times maybe above what others need. But I see that could potentially be some problems with business person because in business, you can't really be too soft. I'm guessing, I'm guessing. You have to be, you know, you have to do what's right and what's good for your business and what's good for, you know, everything. So, Like, how do you balance the personality type that you have with the business acumen that you have to have?

Like, how do those two things go hand in hand? It's a great question, you know, along those lines. And I love it when you respond back when I share things because I'm so into it myself. And I mean, I feel like 90% of it is like spot on for the kind of person I am. And, you know, we're the helpers. We're, like you said, the helpers of people, we don't want to let people. We don't want to let people down. We want to help people become the best versions of themselves.

We, you know, put them before our own needs most of the time and different things like that. So, but on the flip side of that, you know, we, we do a personality test here that we, when we merged with Hendrick Motorsports that the Hendrick Automotive Group does called the Management by Strengths. And so you're color coded. And I'm a red and that's direct. and my introvert extrovert is also above the line high. So my red and green are high. And, you know, I think that's what helps me, right? So I want to please people.

I want to make people happy. But I also have this balance of, you know, you got to do the right thing. You can be direct about how things are going to work and that kind of thing. But it's quite a balance because in business you're negotiating. You think you're the hard-nosed, you know, it's got to be this way. But I've really learned and, you know, I talk about this in my book. There's got to be win-wins. And I think that's what I keep in mind for everybody.

You know, everybody's got to win. They should win in a situation, both sides, both parties, right? And if you don't, then, you know, it's not going to be sustainable. you know, maybe somebody comes out on top for the short term or vice versa, but someone's going to lose and that's just really going to upset the whole apple cart. So, you know, I really, I focus on kind of that win-win and, you know, have expectations. Like I want to help people, but people have to help themselves, right? Have that expectation of when you're being taken advantage of and when your just true personality of being a helper is shining through and that that's okay. So, I've, you know, I've managed in my business to, I've got a, I feel like I have a personality from a lot of people. I'm intimidating, you know, I do go in with being direct and all, but when people get to see that Intergram 2 side of me and that helper side of me and that empathetic side of me, you know, they, they see that come up out of, out of that intimidation.

Mr. Hendrick, I love his story that he, um, and he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, throws this in my face every time he can. But when I, when we were negotiating with the National Guard and for Dale's contract back in 2008, and I pretty much had had enough of what was going on at the table. And I just like closed my notebook and set it aside. And I just sat there like, I've had enough of this.

And, you know, those kind of things happen in meetings with me where it's like, I've had enough. You can take this or leave this. I love that. Um, your dad was famously protective and guarded about the business side. How much of what you know did you learn from watching him and how much did you have to figure out the hard way after he was gone? Yeah. Um, you know, I at the time with my dad when he was living, I had a really tough time with the way that he allowed us to be part of the business. Um, you know, and he, he allowed us to be part of things in a very arms. length way. So, you know, we worked at the dealership under, you know, the leadership there and,

or, you know, I worked at Sports Image at the time with Hank Jones back in the day that eventually came action performance. But we never got to work inside of Dell and Hart Incorporator, or I didn't, I should say. Dale eventually, you know, got there. But, and, but, you know, I think that, that was helpful in the way to learn from other people and not have to worry about those family boundaries that happen, especially when you're less mature, right? When you're a young, 20-some-year-old and you don't have the different experiences that I think are so important. You know, you have to be exposed to things in order to get those experiences. And I think that's what's really, you know, crucial about the way we go to work in business and that starting from the ground up

and things like that. But my dad, you know, even at home, you know, we learned from him in the way that he carried himself and the way that he did things and the business and all that he. And I got to learn that sitting on the opposite side of the table at Sports Image, you know, first, let's say, because I was, you know, involved in being an account manager for some of his sponsors. And so, you know, he was the opposite side of the table putting the pressure on us. on, you know, what their expectations were and things like that and how to live up to those expectations. So I did get to learn a lot from him. And, you know, after, I mean, it was 27 when he

passed. So I feel like I had a really good foundation of, you know, business and things to learn and do. And then, you know, I've said this too often. Once I came to work for Dale, you know, I really leaned on other people in the industry like John Bickford, Jeff Gordon's stepfather, and Mr. Hendrick and so on and so forth to really, you know, not reinvent the wheel and get good people around me that could continue to mentor and continue to teach, which I think is important. You know, one of the things that, and I think this kind of question comes up later is, you know, about our younger generation workers and things like that, you know, I think that a lot of our, um, um, workers, you know, they expect to come in making the most money right at the top,

that work ethic of start at the bottom. You know, you hear Steve LaTartre talk about it. I don't forget it. Sweeping the floors at Hendrick to becoming a crew chief. I'm sure you have similar stories, Jeff, of, you know, where you started. Caitlin Vincey working at her local short track to get involved and then make it to where she's at today, you know, and getting those opportunities. And that's, you know, that's how it works. You know, I I didn't, I didn't, you know, get to buy a fancy brand new car when I was 20. You know, I didn't get that opportunity until I was much older and had a career and had a job and those kinds of things. So you got to work for that and work for that experience as it comes along.

But, and take advantage of those opportunities to learn from people around you as you go, you know. Hey, this is Dela Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the, Imo drink some beer t-shirt that we've been talking about here around the office. Head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. So you talked about the things you've learned. What's something you've had to unlearn from growing up in racing that didn't actually serve you as you found out when you stepped into a leadership role?

You know, I don't know that this is really something I unlearned from growing up in racing. but one of the things that I have, that I struggled with for a lot of years is, is my own expectations of people and what I, you know, the consequences if they didn't meet my expectations, which are sometimes harsh, you know, like, okay, if you're, you know, why are you sick today, you know, can't you get in here and, and do something, you know, or whatever. Like I was a very high expectation boss of, you know, what you, what I expected out of you in my younger years. And I've mellowed out a lot. You know, I think a lot of that comes with, you know, having your own kids, family, all of those things that you have to start managing instead of being a single person.

You know, when you're a single person, you pretty much can do what you want to do. You don't have these different things that you have to manage and balance like you do when you have family and things like that. So that's something that I've mellowed out in my expectations and grace that I give people. I didn't have a lot of that. And that's probably something I learned from my dad, I would say. And I didn't have a lot of grace for people either. You know, the expectations were high. And so that's something I've had to learn to like give up a little.

one, delegation. Delegation. Delegation was a really hard one for me, too, to delegate to people and to trust people, to get things done. You know, sometimes I just felt like it was easier to do it myself. Do you ever feel that way? Well, I, here's the thing. I think what I hear from your talking about this is that that's sort of like this high achiever, high work ethic mindset, right? Yes, absolutely. And the problem is for people like you that have that is when it's very hard, even, even there may be very good people. But to meet that standard that you see in yourself is very difficult to live up to. So it's sort of a balance that you have to walk as a boss where you don't want to like just let people get away with not working hard or something. But it's also not realistic perhaps to find an entire

company of people that are going to operate at your same level. So that's got to be such a tough balance and learning process for you. I'm assuming. Well, and you really don't won't all the same kind of people in your business, right? Like, you know, you want, you know, different, the different thinkers, you know, critical thinkers, problem solving thinkers, creative thinkers, outside the box thinkers, those that just do it by the rules. I mean, you got to, you know, you want all of it. You, to me, what's very important in our business is that we hire people that we keep our culture. You know, you. You know, there's that base and foundation of our culture that's important.

But we need different mindsets bringing different things to the table, different skill sets, those kinds of things. And I think that's, you know, that's one of the things I've learned is that we're all, like you said, yes, I want the high achievers. But if I, that would probably be calamity if that was the case because we need, you know, we need that roller coaster of people to work. we, you know, one, I'll liken it to this. My, when I went to college, I didn't know my roommate. She was from about an hour away in Gastonia, but I didn't know her at all. And we were like the perfect pairing because she was, you know, quiet, go along with the flow, this, that. No, she didn't, you didn't step on her toes, but I was like balls to the walls, bold.

And I'll, and we just, we made such a good. team, you know, because she trusted me to, you know, plow through wherever we needed to plow through. And I trusted her whenever, you know, it was when we needed her personality and skill set, you know. So it was, it's a beautiful pairing, you know, going into something where you're both very high achieving, high functioning individuals, it can, it can work well. L. W and I are like that. we on our MBS, we are almost exactly the same. And that can work well too, you know.

But I think that I found in business that you need a lot of different skill sets, personalities, that type of thing. And we all would get to the same place? I feel like if we all were like that type A red situation. Well, I mean, that's tough though because it's like, you know, I appreciate different elements of different people. But then sometimes there's stuff that could irritate you about the those kind of people. And I know at J.R.M, you know, you're, you're very much like, it's,

it seems to me as sort of an outsider that it's very much like a family type atmosphere. So how how do you build that family atmosphere at JRM with all the different kinds of personalities that you do have in the company and that you do have to manage? Yeah. You know, it's, I feel like that because we started as a. really small company. That was really easy to do with when you had seven or ten people. It gets harder. You know, now we have 140 people and kind of making opportunities available for everybody

to have the experience that I want them to have. I have to realize that that might be the experience. They may not want that experience, you know. So, you know, you have to be in tune to what people. won't. And I think that's one of the things that we do well that sort of create that, what we call family environment, is that we ask and we listen and we hear people. So, and we, you know, there's examples to our employees where we listened, you know, if it's, you know, some suggestion or some change or something that we have going on that they can see, you know, that we've got their

interest in mind, you know, I think is important. And I think that's kind of what, I mean, the family atmosphere is, it can be interpreted a lot in a lot of different ways. You know, to me, I want all 140 people to come to all the employee events. Well, that's not going to be possible. That's not going to happen. But that's what family is to me. You know, we all show up and we're all there for each other. But it's, you know, it's different for everybody what that might look like. And so we try to provide a lot of different opportunities for people to plug in. And where it makes them happy to plug in and not just provide that one opportunity to do that. We provide multiple opportunities, you know, to participate how you want to participate in your

company. If you're one of those people that just want to show up, you do the job and you leave, that's okay. You know, if you're one of those people that want to come in early and work late, that's awesome. If you're one of those people that want to come to all the events and hang out and have fun and whatever, then that's great too. And not really judging people based off all of that. Like, how many times have we heard, you know, the expectation is that we work, you know,

whatever the work hours are for your particular group, but let's say for the race cars at seven to four, you know, I remember times where we'd be like, that person just watching the clock, they left right at four. Well, hey, that's the hours. The hours aren't until 4.30. you know, the hours aren't until five. And then the person that stays till five, we're like, damn, that's a badass employee, man. He stayed till five, you know.

But so I think checking those expectations for ourselves is super important so that we make sure that, you know, we're being fair and we're looking at it, right? And that's one thing, like, I'll use our employee events as an example. In years past, we pretty much had like a season kickoff. We had a family event in the middle of the year. and then we had like some sort of Christmas event. And I noticed that especially after COVID, I noticed that they all come to the season kickoff because it's deer and work hours

and we make them make that a part of their day. A fair amount of people come to Christmas and celebrate. We give away stuff, so that always entices people. And then kind of the middle of the year got, you know, people were not taking advantage of our family day and participating in things like that. So we moved to one event per month. month, okay, which sounds like a lot. But I took that budget and I just kind of spread it out.

And now we poll the employees for things to do. So we go bowling. We have trivia night. We go, you know, the ladies go and do something, paint and sip or we go to GoPro track house to race goat carts or, you know, just all kinds of different things like that that that. That we have an Easter egg hunt, you know, and things like that. So you can dip in and dip out when it makes sense for you. your schedule allows and that kind of thing. And I think that's really fun for people to participate in that way. And now my expectation is not that everybody comes to everything. I love that. And I think that's really important.

But on the other, I mean, and this goes beyond just expectations of whether you participate in an event or not. But like, well, yeah. You've talked about, you know, trying to get people more grace in general and, you know, trying to let people be themselves. and understand the people operate in a variety of ways. But then on the flip side of that, what happens when you need to hold people accountable? Like, how do you make sure that they're not taking it too far or like they're still staying on task

and doing all the things that you were asking of them? Yeah, I mean, you have to create those boundaries. You know, I see this picture that I just saw on social in my mind of, I think it was Jay Shetty. I follow a lot of psychological people. And so there's this picture of the beach and there's, you know, 40 people on the beach and there's a little clip by each one of them. This person, you know, might have just lost their parent. This person just got a job promotion.

This person, you know, just won the lottery. This person just found out that their child has an illness. And there's all these things. And I say that because I think that we have to be aware that everybody's going through something. everybody has something going on. And so we have to, and this is a line that people ask me to about like confidentiality and how do you do that without getting into people's business and all this. But, you know, I feel for the most part our environment here is one that we can have those

relationships with people. So, you know, I don't go in and be intrusive, but I go into people's offices or go into our social room or things like that, go downstairs. What's happening? How are you? You know, whatever. Or if I see something on social media, I'll say, hey, I saw your kid had a ballgame last night or I saw that such and such, you know, you guys went to the football finals for your division or whatever. And checking in with people, you know, in that relationship going back and forth, I think is important. But at the same time, you know, to your point about accountability, you have to do the same thing on the side of business.

So you have to go in there and check in with them for the day on. You don't just shoot the with them. Then you have to say, okay, what are you accomplishing today? What are you expecting to get done? How is this coming, whatever, and have those boundaries of when you have those conversations that are that family environment and that personal environment and that looking out for people kind of thing and then having those work, you know, conversations.

And just making sure that those, the expectations are clear of what you expect out of people, that you're communicating what you expect out of people. I think that helps you create that accountability so much easier when you set the set, set all of that up. You can't expect to hold people accountable if you're not telling them what they need to be accountable for, you know, and having those different conversations. So, you know, we've done a good job at it. And it's definitely something that, you know, is it always easy and you have to have hard conversations sometimes. And, you know, at the end of the day, you're, you're, you have a business to run and, you know, try to set ourselves up for future years, right? Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like you're really trying to get people to obviously stay and

buy into what you're doing and be part of the family and stay for a long time. But obviously there's, you know, generationally, you know, different generations want different things. There's a lot of younger people coming in now. So, and we've heard, you know, it's, it's hard to hire people and find people. So how do you fill the shop with hands-on young people who want to stay? And are there enough people, you know, younger people coming in who are willing to do the work that you're talking about? Yeah.

It's, it's, it's been different. And again, I go back to COVID. You know, COVID just changed a lot of. work style habits that it changed what you and I want out of life, right? It showed you a different side of life that said, you know, do we do we have to invest every part of our being into our career? You know, what else is there outside of life or outside of our career? So, you know, from the young people's standpoint, one of the things from our perspective at junior motor sports is we know that we're a stepping stone. You know, we know we're stepping stone

in this series in this industry to go to the cup level and to, and this is a place that you get experience, you gain experience, you come in, and you may leave. And so we kind of set ourselves up for that. We definitely, you know, have done that with drivers over. years that we don't get but a year or two maybe sometimes of different drivers that get the opportunity to move on. And it's the same with people. And so, you know, again, I think you just have to stay cognizant in, you know, what makes people tick, you know, what they're looking for, have those conversations when they come in, what's your end goal, where do you want to go, where do you want to get to and be? And, you know, I don't think that we,

I mean, I think we love seeing people succeed. So losing people isn't, I don't like to lose people. I hate to lose people. But I also like for people to better themselves and better their family and put those decisions that they need to make first in their life. You know, I think that's very important to do. So I think it's a little bit different in our industry versus like a normal business. I probably want you to stay forever because it's. it's hard to replace people. It's costly to replace people. It's costly to train. You want that

institutional knowledge out of individuals that they bring to the table and you don't want to see them leave. And so I think you've got to just always be aware of, you know, what the market looks like, what competitive salaries look like, what your benefits look like, what your culture is like and providing all of those different things that make them want to be a part of your workforce. And, you know, look, I mean, not everything is going to be successful or go the way you want in terms of initiatives you're you're doing whether for the company or you know some project you have going on after something doesn't go right after something doesn't go the way that you planned and it's a bit of a setback perhaps how do you then find the motivation to move on

after that or sort of to pick up the pieces and keep going for the next thing yeah i think that um you know you got to know going in that um you know it can go positive or negative, right? I tell people, you know, if you don't ask the question, it's 100% certain that you're not going to get an outcome that you were looking for because you didn't ask the question. If you ask the question, you at least got a 50-50 chance, right? You get 50% that it goes your way that you, you know,

that it bears fruit for what you're looking for or 50% that it doesn't go your way, but you got a 50-50 chance. I feel that you kind of have to understand, you know, we get more nose in this sport than we ever get yeses on things, right? Whether it's drivers that you want to come drive for you, whether it's sponsors that you want to come, that you're vying for, you're bidding for. And so, again, kind of checking your own expectation about what the outcome could be and, you know, finding a problem. place that that's okay. But it certainly doesn't, does it mean that you can't be upset or sad about, you know, a negative outcome. And, you know, a lot of people will say, okay, well, that's just going to make me work harder, you know, find ways to work smarter, you know, go through the process

and maybe try to identify why it didn't work out, you know, what was the negative impact, why it didn't work out the way you wanted it to, what didn't, what, didn't we meet and what can we change? You know, a lot of times we do that with sponsor opportunities because we'll get the opportunity to put in a proposal to a particular sponsor and, you know, maybe we lose the deal to something else. And, and fortunately, most people are up front with you to say, you know, the reason we picked this was because, you know, the TV ratings or the reason we picked this was because you're so, you know, we came with you because your social content is what we were looking for.

Or we went here to this team because of X, Y, Z. So, you know, you got to look at those things and understand maybe why it didn't turn out the way you thought it was going to turn out and what you could do to better it next time, you know, and where can we hold ourselves accountable for how we can have a different outcome. But we may not have a different outcome, right? I mean, there might have been not within our control at that point. So how about in terms of like mistakes, which is, you know, I always hate when people asking about my mistakes. But, I mean, obviously there are some learning lessons to be had in them. Some of mine are guiding principles for me now, right?

So what's one of the biggest mistakes you've made professionally? And, you know, I guess how does that mistake impact how you make decisions today? You know, I don't know if I can earmark like a biggest mistake, but I just think through, you know, maybe times when maybe I said things I shouldn't have said. You know, maybe I was very reactive emotionally to something. And, you know, I was, you know, Kurt or short or condescending or, you know,

those are things that I can be. I know, believe it or not. But, you know, in those moments of emotion, you know, there's things that pop up. And, you know, how, you know, You need to learn from them, right? A mistake is a mistake when you do it once, maybe twice. But then they're not mistakes after that, you know.

That's if you're repetitive about something, then there's something that you need to fix and look into a little bit deeper and harder. But, you know, I always feel like, and I wasn't always this way because this was something very hard. It was not really a problem. pride thing, but maybe I felt inferior, you know, to some extent. But in my younger days, but now I think it's super important to go meet the situation right, you know, head on, right? Go back to

say to that person, apologize, you know, let them know what was happening in the moment. None of it's still okay. And, you know, some people look at that as like, it was an excuse or something. but to go and have that conversation with somebody that you made a mistake with or you upset or something that went wrong, you know, I think is important to have that accountability back. And I encourage people to do that often. You know, one of the other things that gets under my skin at times, but I know that being a leader, this is just what you deal with, but, you know, people bring in you issues that they have with other people in the company. and, you know, if they're asking for advice so that they can go back and have a conversation with somebody, I think that's great.

When they're bringing it to you to them figure out how you fix it without them addressing the problem, then that gets a little cumbersome, right? So, you know, I think, you know, that's an important lesson that I think people can take is to try to work through the process because what I usually end up doing is getting everybody in the same room. I'll have a conversation with this person. I'll have a conversation with that person. And then ultimately, I bring them in the room and the stories, you know, maybe this story doesn't completely match this story. And then somewhere we get in there and we talk about, you know, what's our objective? What are we trying to accomplish here?

What were we trying to accomplish to begin with? And where did it get off the rails? And how can we, you know, kind of pull this back on? Yeah. My dad is always talking about crucial conversations. I think it's the name of some book that he read a long time ago. And he, you know, and it's, I'm sure it's as a, as a, manager or somebody that's trying to lead to the company and doing all the things you're doing

to then be brought in as the mediator when really these people could have gone direct themselves if they could have that conversation. It's not your preferred thing to spend the time. Yeah, but usually they don't, yeah, but that's where we get to come in and mentor because, you know, a lot of times it's just simply that they didn't have the tools to work it out themselves. They obviously they had two different perspectives, right, or they wouldn't be at odds to begin with. So how can we enlighten their perspectives? How can we open it up to get them to think about the other person's viewpoint? And that's what's cool about MBS is that it has tools in it that say, okay, Kelly's a high red and you are yellow. And that means that you like very structured,

da, da, da, da, da. So when you take something to Kelly, what are the things, where's the focus that you need to be? Because she thinks of it like this. And when I take something, someone to, you know, to a yellow or a blue or a green, Kelly, you need to think of like this, because they're not thinking about it like you're thinking about it, right? It just goes back to what we said about people being different and meeting people. You know, there's that book about love languages that I love to reference that, you know, how we all are motivated differently by things in our relationships, you know, whether it's gifts or acts of service or quality time, like what's important to all of us.

And, you know, I think it's, it's good to know those things about people because we often meet people with what we expect, right? Not how they want what they expect. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, look, I mean, as you mentioned, the topic of show, I've been around a while. I'm old. How many years have you been doing this?

You've been doing this is, I've probably a say, as long as I have. 2004 was my first year. Yeah. So 2001 in the business, you know, 2000, well, I mean, 1997, actually, so I'm older than you. But yeah, you've been doing this for a long time. That's why I was excited about you being a part of this because as a journalist and a media member, you know, you get to, you get to think about things in our business from a different perspective and, and kind of problem solve and try to analyze different parts of the business and what's going on. Absolutely. Well, and obviously we've both seen quite a tremendous amount of transition in the sport and waves that, I mean, it's hard to even describe. I love telling old stories to younger people. Like, this is how it used to be because it just blows their mind, right? But like, from a, from a business side, I mean, it's such a broad question. But like, how has the business side change the most since you started? I mean, from what it was in the late 90s, early 2000s, boom, to what it is today with sort of like, listen, I mean, I think it's not at a bad place right now, but it's more of a niche sport.

So what is the biggest change from a business aspect that you have to deal with? Yeah. You know, I think that one of the, I think the biggest thing that has changed is, you know, how companies are using, marketing and advertising, right? So you think about, and you think about this from your perspective. I see it in a big way how journalism and media has changed, right? So on our side of the race team, when a partner came in and we had a full year sponsor, you know, and I'm going to go back to, you know, my good wrench days and all of this, this was a way to advertise. This was a meaningful, financially prudent way to advertise in the sport, you know, through the race car,

through the hauler. You know, I don't forget us talking about you have a billboard going up and down the highways, you know. And I mean, we still tell people that. It's just not, does it have the same impact? Because there are billboards like a five by five on the side of the trailer with 20 other small billboards on there because, you know, we have so many sponsors. But, you know, marketing change, you know.

it changed because of technology. So technology changed the way we can go to market, the way we can advertise. You know, newspapers are out the door and we're content online, you know, social media, all these different things that, you know, technology is expensive, but then for the output of it, it's so much more reasonably costs than billboards and, you know, advertising the way we saw it on race cars. And with that, our sport has, you know, it's not become less expensive to do. It's become more expensive to do. So then there's not this balance in the economy of us being a marketing vehicle, you know, that sits within the sports

landscape. So, you know, I think that's one of the biggest things is that, you know, it's no longer really, it is an effective way to advertise. I'm not, but it's not the only way that companies can go to advertise. You know, back, back in the 90s, it was one of few ways that we could reach people and reach a mass of people, right? Now we can reach millions of people very economically through social media, you know, through serving up posts and serving up ads that get on my nerves all day. And when I talk in my, when I'm having a conversation, this conversation we're having, I'll probably have stuff follow up on my Facebook later about personality tests and all these things that my phone's over here listening to, you know. But that's a big change.

And that's a big change in the sport, you know, just as far as marketing. And, you know, one of the things that I think about a lot and I think about towards this question is, you know, companies, A lot of companies utilize NASCAR now for that brand awareness and that initial brand awareness, that initial launch of, you know, a product or launch of a business or rebranding, you know, some new catalyst of a way to advertise. and then once that, you know, that brand awareness and they've increased that kind of thing, the way they want to go to market changes. You know, now they need to turn people into actual buyers of the product or whatever that is. And so I don't think, you know, I think marketing has gotten, we're so, it's so necessary. to turn people into customers, turn people into buying the product and all of that kind of stuff,

that it just, it changes. Like the way people are thinking about their company and advertising their company, they've got a little bit of a shorter plan because things can happen so fast under technology and social, right? So we can get that brand awareness now in six months where maybe, you know, back in the 90s because we didn't have social media and we weren't talking to millions of people and they had to see it on TV and they had to watch a show and they had to sit down and do all these things. It took a longer amount of time like to to influence people and all these kind of things.

You know, now you can get on TikTok and in two minutes you can be influenced to buy some new beautiful de-aging product, you know, that you might need or something. Well, now you just got that in your phone too. Yes. Yeah, I'm probably going to have a phone. That's something I need though. Oh. That's something I need.

You know, what's so weird. Kelly is like, I see what you guys do with race teams over the years, but I'm still so ignorant in so many ways about the business that you guys are operating. So, like, tell me what's one expense in running a team that an outsider wouldn't necessarily expect? Let's see. I was thinking about this. There's so many expenses. you know, our, we pretty much have three buckets that are the most expensive things for us for a team.

Obviously, salaries are first and foremost. You know, I would say, you know, of our operating budget, you know, salaries are probably 25, 30 percent of our budget, you know. And that's true for most businesses. You know, that's, that's, that's pretty true for most businesses. You know, for us to operate as a race team, travel, you know, is a really big one. And, you know, that travel, and I think this was a question, if I remember correctly too, on Twitter. You know, travel, we have a person full time dedicated to travel, books all the hotel rooms, books the rental cars. And we use Victory Air out of states full to fly, which is.

is a private charter business. And, you know, with the fuel prices and different things and inflation, the way it has been over the past five years, you know, it's expensive. That's probably a good million to a million and a half of our budget, you know, just to travel people around for our four teams. And if you think about that position, you know, there's, her spreadsheets are just crazy every week when she sends them to us. with all the people, you know, she's got to know who's going in on what day, what time they're leaving,

because sometimes we have employees that stay over on Sunday and maybe work freelance for somebody or our drivers might need to stay over and do some sponsor commitments, you know, so balancing that. And then our hotels, like we try to get started on that so far in advance just to find good rates and try to minimize the cost as it relates to, you know, our hotels. and sometimes, you know, we stay far away from the track. You know, at Daytona, we're 45 minutes, 50 minutes from the racetrack to kind of to make the travel budget fit into this P&L because it's super hard. It's super tough.

So that's a big one. Probably the one for me that I didn't realize. And if I maybe did the math on how many, but the cost of wheels, my goodness. Wheels. That's expensive. But so are the wheels for your cars. So probably if I had to do the math, like when I just see it sitting on the budget, I'm like, I think it's like, I don't know, half a million, $600,000 or something for wheels. And what do we get three sets of race or something to tires and stuff like that? So I'm going to look at this number and I'm like, oh, my goodness. But, you know, just it all adds up. And if I probably did it by the number and all of that, it would be a lot different. But, you know, we manage our budget. So with a fine tooth comb here. I mean, we're looking at everything. You know, we start that process.

Right now, we're already starting for 27, looking at what sponsors are renewing, you know, what driver situations we're going to have, what's available, you know, who's moving on, who's not, all of those kinds of things, and our partners and who they want to, you know, be who they want to represent their brand and all those kinds of things.

And then as that comes together, you know, we're looking at every line item of the budget, you know, and where we can. And a lot of those conversations, too, I think is what this is probably, something that a lot of people don't think about is that, you know, we, we want to talk heavily with NASCAR and rule changes and all of those things as it relates to our budget, because that's something that can, you know, hit a team like ours really heavily, you know, if there's going to be

a change that we need to anticipate for the future, for the, for a future year or something like that. And so, yeah, there's, there's a lot to it. We don't have a lot of era in our budget. You know, there's not a lot of era to make the wrong assumptions and make the wrong decisions. So it's something that we really cue into really heavily. You know, we got a lot of questions asking about, you know, career advice, working in the sport. And that's obviously something, you know, I'm sure you get asked all the time. You probably do too, I'd imagine.

Yeah. And so I understand fully that we could do. easily an entire episode on working in the industry. But in general, these days, the answer sort of shifted based on where things are going, social media and all this stuff, right? But like for someone that's trying to break into this business of motorsports now, not on the driving side, but just work in it. What do you think these days is the actual path in?

Like what would you tell a 22-year-old who would like to be where you are someday? Yeah. What I tell people, because I get asked this question, I would say at least once a week, if not more, you know, is, I think networking is super important. So how do we network? Can we show up? You know, I think the question was asked to like about, you know, do you need to be in this market? Can we show up at our local racetrack? Can we find some avenue in our hometown that, you know, has to do with a racetrack?

or race team or something where you can go volunteer, ask questions. I just had this past week, I don't know this person, but they're coming into town. Their son's going to be studying engineering. And they want to know if they could come by and talk to one of our engineers. Absolutely. You know, think outside of the box on how you can, you know, how you can learn and ask questions about something that you want to do by, you know,

sitting in with people or whatnot. But, you know, I go back to what I said earlier as far as, you know, Steve Lattard and Caitlin Vincey and these stories that have come through our sport of, you know, where they started and they started doing something for free or they, you know, showed up to participate in some way that then showed off their work ethic, showed off their commitment, showed off their dedication to then get them another opportunity that then continued to pile on to opportunities. So, you know, ultimately, you know, do you kind of need, do you need to be in an area where there's a prevalence of some kind of racing if that's what you want to do? Yeah, I think you do. It's kind of hard to not be. I think once you kind of, now, depending on how you want to participate, if you want to be on a race team and travel and work and do all of those kinds of things, you definitely probably have to be in the area. you don't live anywhere near Charlotte. But as a journalist,

you can. Yeah, first though. You put in 10 years here. Yes. And I was going to say that. You kind of have to have that. And then once you establish yourself to be able, like in journalism, being in the media or whatnot,

where you can do a lot of that remote and just then go to the events and travel to the events, obviously, you get that flexibility. You earn that flexibility. And that's what we're talking about, you know, is earning that opportunity to have that flexibility because you put in the work and you put in the years in a particular place. What would you say to that question? Because you have the same, you have experiences there. Yeah, I think to me, like, first of all, location wise, I think to your point, you can become established enough that you're valuable to a team or an

organization where they're like, you know what, you want to live in Texas and we just see you on the weekends or you work remotely. You are such an asset. And we've seen your work that we want you as part of a marketing team, even though you're not in the office, or you can only come in once a month or every now and then. Like that, that is something, but to get started, though, it's so to break in, I mean, you pretty much- It's difficult to do it that way. Yeah. Like, it's like you're going to break into acting, but you're not going to be willing to move to Hollywood. True. Like, I mean, absolutely. Or being a country singer, not in Nashville, you know, it's just- Nashville. Yeah. So. Yeah, very true. I was, I was just going to follow up to,

that internships, you know, I think are so important too. And a lot of teams and a lot of companies are, make internships available no matter whether it's racing related or in some other industry that you're interested in and go in there because so many of our interns turn into job opportunities because you get to evaluate the work ethic. You get to evaluate what value they bring to the table. And then when you have an opportunity or opening or maybe sometimes you create one because they're just that valuable. But that has, And we have a relationship with NASCAR tech here. And, you know, we've had a lot of tech kids that come in to washing cars.

And they're like, oh, all I get to do all day is wash cars. But depending on, you know, how well you do, the advancement can be anywhere from, you know, you can be in here washing cars for a week or you can be in here washing cars for a month. Or if that's pretty much all you want to do, you can wash cars here for years if that's what you want to do. But, you know, it's kind of all up to you at that point once you get your foot in the door. Yeah. And just to underscore two, I think, before moving on, like, just the in-person thing is so

invaluable. You can somebody can write a very, very nice thought out email or a letter or something, but you're somebody like you in your position or anybody in a leadership or, you know, hiring position of a team. You're getting so much of it. And the difference between that and somebody meeting you, making a first impress and you go, wow, this person is, they have energy. They know what they're talking about.

They're professional. okay, like, I'll keep them in my mind. That is so, you've got to be there in person or meeting people. I feel the same way about like video calls and things. You know, like since the era of COVID when we've turned really into, okay, we can zoom and we can teams and we can do all these things with video. But nothing beats that in person meeting because like you just said, in an in person meeting, you take a little bit more time to see people's personalities.

You know, you have the hellos, how is this, how is that going? You know, you have these introductions about who does what and all. When you get on video or teams, I feel like it's like all business. Like, it's like, you know, we have a time limit. Let's just stick to what we're here for. You don't get any of that outside information into people's personalities and things like that. They're mannerisms, different things that you just get to, take away from a conversation that you have in person with somebody, you know? And I think there's

brainstorming happens so much better when you're in person too than, than a lot of video or non-face-to-face kind of things. So I think that in person is so important. I'm going to try to squeeze in three more questions. I know I've been super chatty. So hopefully we'll have time for these. But one thing is that I know something that you probably get asked about way too much and is probably something that is like, oh, man, here we go with this again. But a lot of people would like to know about the charter situation. There was an opportunity at one point to get a charter for JRM. So what can you tell us about why you passed up getting a charter at the beginning? You know what? It's, I'm glad that this question came up because I don't really think I've ever

I've been asked this and got a chance to really talk about that. But, you know, when, so obviously the charters were issued to what the 36 teams at the time right and then they started trading but in our minds what what let's see what year was that we're going into this is the first year of news seven eight so are we talking eight years eight or nine years ago when the charters were issued because it might be a little bit longer yeah sevenish year I can't remember we just went through this well yeah it is a little bit longer because 24 is when they signs and out's 26 time flies But yeah, so let's just call it 10 years if that. But we were happy being an Xfinity team, you know, and we're still happy being an Xfinity team.

We love what we do. I think at the time when the charter started getting traded there and, you know, it was a million here or two million there, somebody was selling their charter for. and still that mindset, which we've talked a little bit about today, about that old school mindset, you know, the mindset was, okay, well, where is there money to be made? And how is this going to work? You know, my apprehension to the charter system the entire time was the fact that they weren't permanent. I just can't imagine wrapping my head about making this investment into something that didn't have permanency. So looking at it like an investment vehicle was sort of foreign.

you know, and it didn't make sense to me. And so when we started seeing these charters trade, you know, back then for what we thought was a lot, you know? You know, remember when some of those charters sold like $2 million, like, oh, my God, that charter just sold for $2 million. And you're like, you know, we knew what the finances of racing look like. And we just, you know, we couldn't believe that there were people that were willing to come in and buy those and start their team and do all the things.

But, you know, hindsight's 2020, and look what it's shown us. I mean, the charter values have continued to grow. They've continued to climb. Now they're permanent. And so, yeah, you look at those situations. You're like, what an idiot we are now. But we also were happy, you know, we're happy doing what we're doing. The only reason, I would say one of the reasons, not the only reason, one of the reasons, if you just lined up trucks, Xfinity, and Cup 10 years ago,

There's no different really being involved of any of them because none of them were that financially sufficient, right? So being in the Xfinity series, you didn't have to raise as much money. You didn't make as much, you know, they were all relative, let's call it. You know, so if you had a 10% profit line in Xfinity, you had a 10% profit line in Cup, and you didn't have to raise as much money and, you know, the expenses were more and so on and so forth. So we were happy doing what we're doing. We get that opportunity to bring people in, see them go off and succeed. And that's what Dale has always enjoyed the most out of the sport and being part of

Junior Motors sports. Now you see it like, oh, wow, this has real legacy investment potential from a cut perspective, right? And so you look at the opportunity different in terms of what it could mean financially. I don't know that the business model is that much different, you know, on the surface, but the opportunity to, you know, create equity in the charters and create a value for your franchise is there. And, you know, it's not sticking ball sport there yet, but it's there. I still think in the long run for all of that to be really valuable, the business model has to catch up. You know, I don't see the value to the charters continuing to.

increase if you ultimately, you know, can't get the P&L right and you can't, you know, you can't maximize that opportunity. So we'll, you know, to me, the jury is still out, you know, on whether, whether all that makes sense. But that's why. That's the why. How do you separate family and business in what is a family business? It's a good, it's a great question. And I think, I think it, you know, for me, it, it's hard. You have to create the times where you have business conversations. You got to create the times where you have family conversations. You know, L. Dove and I are married. We both work here every day. We both have the same vested interest, though, on what we want the outcome to look like. So I think that's a lot different. than just, you know, if, let's just say, you know, me and my cousin work together. Our goals are different, right?

And, you know, it's no different than what we talked about as people earlier. I think you pretty much have to create those boundaries. Sometimes the one mistake I think people can make is being excessive about it, like creating too much of a boundary. because then it offs the family versus, like, treat everybody the same. And I'll, you know, for example, you know, whatever the rules are working at junior motorsports, you know, they apply to everybody, whether your family or not family, you know. And so, you know, you have to enforce that and make that, make that a priority.

not create rules for family that don't make sense for everybody, right? Because I think you can alienate things that way too. And you can make people feel a certain way by creating too much of a boundary, you know? But Del and I, I just think it's all variable. Del and I do really well with it. But we've had this relationship since we were kids, you know. I mean, we had this relationship of looking out for each other and being there for each other. because of our family environment that, you know, I feel like it's just different.

And, but, you know, I think it's important for people to evaluate in companies for their family members and setting those expectations, you know, before they, they come to work because it sure can get messy after the fact. But, you know, I've talked about this a little bit with different people, not really in a public setting. but over the last year, I've done two different speaking engagements that one of them was a home building company, and they do not and did not and do not let their family members work for them. Children, anybody. And so their family will not be handed over, their business will not be handed over to their family, which I was just shocked and appalled about. And it really took me a bit to like, I still haven't wrapped my head around it.

But then I ran into this other situation where the company said, hey, we make our family members, you know, they go out, they get their education or they get their work experience outside of our company. And then we bring them in at a, you know, time that makes sense into a position that makes sense where they, then they can work, you know, their way up through the company, which I thought made a lot of sense, you know. One of the things I think is hard is to, and I see this happen from time to time, is when you have family members that you try to put into positions that they're not ready for, that can have an effect on your executive team or, you know, people that are in your business that have been with you a long time and had more experience and that have earned their work. way to where they are over a family member, you know, having a seat. You, you want them to have a seat at the table because that's how they learn. But when you give them opportunity to maybe make decisions or do things that maybe they don't have the experience for or put them in a position with a title, this just ends up being a title, you know, because they don't have the skill set nor the experience to kind of be in the position. You know, I think that can be very hurtful for a business. So I think that's

something that people have to watch out for in those family businesses too. Well, final question on a somewhat related note. What is something you had to tell Dale Jr. no to? No. Gosh. Let's see. Something I had to tell Dale no to. A lot of times with Dale, you know Dale very well.

He's very passionate. And when he gets an idea to do something, he really just wants to run with it. And so used to be we said yes to Del all the time. We really didn't ever say no to Dale. And so if, you know, Dale wanted to build an old town, we built an old town or whatever it was. But now I've learned, and it's become easier

over the last probably five, eight, so years, that I just give him as much information as I can on a subject matter to say, okay, if this is something you want to do, here's what I think about the pros and here's where it can be the cons, and then you decide. Because I've seen some of our yeses turn into things we didn't do, use. Not that they turn out bad. It's just that they didn't have the, maybe they didn't have the impact that he thought they might have or whatever, you know.

So, yeah, I'm sitting over here looking at the Bless Your Heart set, and it used to be two lovely orange chairs. If people watch, Bless Your Heart, you know, two beautiful chairs in this background. And now we have this old lawn chair over there because they said yes to Dale. They wanted the lawn chair. He didn't want the beautiful comfy chair. Those are the things we say yes to now. Pick your battles.

Have you ever used that with your kids? pick your battles. Indeed. But yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to think of something I said no to that he's probably, his memory is so much better than my memory about yes is and knows. But I don't even, I can't even, I don't even know that I can think of something. But yeah, we used to say yes all the time.

And now we, now I feel like we give him a lot more information for him so that we all don't end up in a pickle. Well, before you do your outro thing, I just want to say thanks for having me here because this is sort of like the luncheon I always wanted to go to and ask you a bunch of questions and I got to here. So thank you everybody for humoring me with that as well. And this is this was a lot of fun for me. No, I appreciate you being a part of it, Jeff. Really do. Appreciate you making time out there on the West Coast.

And yeah, we'll have to do it again some time. That's great. Appreciate all the fans too. is sending the questions in and asking a lot of great, having a lot of great conversation for sure. All right, Jeff, really appreciate your time today. Appreciate you guys fans as well for all the great questions. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Business of Motorsports in the Arby Studio.

Don't forget about the Arby's new meat and three box. Get Miller meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok. Thank you.