The Dale Jr. Download - Jay Hedgecock on Racing Dale Earnhardt in the 70s

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with a pillar of the short track racing community this week, longtime racer and chassis builder Jay Hedgecock. After growing up in a family with rich NASCAR history and attending the local modified race shops with his father, Jay entered the racing world himself, racing a micro midget that he dug out of his uncle’s junkyard. The work he’d do to get the midget back into racing condition would begin 55 years in the field. He’d receive the education of a lifetime when he happened upon a job in Tex Powell’s shop, after sharpening some drill bits for the automotive legend. Jay had firsthand experience working on NASCAR Cup cars through Tex, and before long, thanks to friend Howard Stewart, he’d find himself behind the wheel of a stock car as well. After spending years building and racing late model sportsman cars, Jay would return to his true love in racing: the modfieds. He’d go on to win multiple championships with the Southern Modified Auto Racing Tour and track titles all over the heavily contested Virginia/North Carolina region. All the while, he continued his car building efforts and went on to build short track machines for Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Today, Jay remains one of the most successful and celebrated car builders in the country, supplying late model stocks to much of the CARS Tour field and NASCAR Weekly champions. 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.

He was the one you didn't want to your back bumper on the last lap because he was going to do whatever. Because he was, what I told somebody about your dad one time was he was not content to run second or third. I mean, he was going to win the race. If he could win the race. He didn't race, I don't think, for money. He raced because he liked to race.

The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour Did I want the best man at your wedding? Who was your best man, Dale? T.J.

T.J. You don't need a cool best for that race? What are you thinking? Get them, T.J. Hellway is starting a show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. here for the Dale Jr. download.

Welcome to the Arby's Studio. Arby's has got a new meat in three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meats. And today we have the guest segment. We've got a great guest coming in today that I'm really excited about. Maybe some of you heard this name, but maybe some of you have it. Jay Hedgecock is going to be a guest.

Jay Hedgecock is a chassis builder. There's a lot of cars in the shore track community. Builds chassis. We bought chassis from him for quite a while now with our late mall stock stuff. Josh Barry drove his cars and he has lots of cars in the cars tour. And across the southeast builds, building all sorts of stuff. But his story is pretty cool.

Started racing, building his own cars back in the 70s. My dad drove his cars a couple times at the short tracks. We'll talk about that. I've seen the photos, have no idea about the stories. He was a witness to some of dad's shenanigans on the short track courses around the southeast here when dad was trying to cut his teeth and get his break in NASCAR. Jay built cup cars for dad, Richard, petty, all sorts of people.

So it's going to be a lot of fun, learn about his story. This is a guy that loved to work on cars, loved building them, and has made his life doing that, doing just that. And I've seen him. So I bought cars, I bought hedgecock chassis for years.

Didn't really know Jay. Couldn't have picked him out of a lineup. Over the last few years that I've got into the cars tour ownership and been going to the track and competing and racing, I've started to meet Jay and see him at the track. And I wanted to know about this connection with that. And obviously, his story is as someone in the industry. So I'm excited about this.

This is my personal choice to bring him in. And hopefully you'll enjoy the conversation. Let's bring him in the room. Jay Hedgecock. I'm excited about this. I have gotten to, I don't know, well as I like. But I know who you are, and I know your name, and I've known your name for a long time because

you built some really great race cars for my race team at Junior Motorsports, and I recognized your name from some connections to my dad back in the day. Now, it made me want to learn more about you. So thanks for coming out today. Well, good. It's glad to be here. So Jay Hedgecock has been a chassis builder. For how many years now?

I built my first race car 55 years ago. Yeah. And I was 15 years old. Yeah. Your dad raced or was involved in racing and drove, I guess, the winning car, one of the winning cars in a feature to the Daytona Beach course and then drove it back home. Tell me that story. Yeah.

My dad used to hang around with Bill Blair, Bill Blair, Sr. Yeah. And this was before he got married. and had children stuff. But the year that he won the Daytona 500 is in 1953, and my father drove the Osmobile from High Point to Daytona, and then they got it prepped for the race. They changed it, took the headlights out of it,

and took the exhaust off of it, and put different wheels and tires on it. And they won the race, and then they put it all back together and drove it back to High Point. That's wild. The next day, I mean. Wow.

Things were quite different back then. So you, your, was your dad, your earliest memories, I suppose, of your childhood, your dad was involved in racing back then? Yeah, he knew a lot of people. There was a lot of modified racing around High Point, Winston-Salem and stuff. And there was some guys over in High Point, Ken Rush, Harold Rush, and Paul Walton, and they had repair shops all within 10 feet of each other in a little parking lot. And they all had modified cars.

And my dad would take me over there. And, you know, the one thing I remembered when I was a kid, we got home one night, and I asked my dad, I said, what was that in that 55-gallon barrel sitting in the shop? It had them in glass bottles. And it turned out was their beer bottles. Yeah. And that was the one thing I remember. But back then they ran coops and coaches and fuel injection and stuff.

And it was cool. I mean, they used to let me sit in while dead and impittled. Yeah. And so you wanted to build your own car. And you... I always wanted to build my own cars. and then I started racing midgets when I was 15 years old. Micro midgets.

Where at? There was a place at Union Cross Speedway. Yeah. Between Winston and High Point, I'd race there, and then I'd race something in Concord. Yeah, and you built this car yourself in? The very first one I had, I got it out of my uncle's junkyard. My dad and my uncle built it.

How did they build it? What do you pull out of the junkyard to build one and things? Well, back then it was, they hand-built it in their shop, but it was all like a round Cuban and made a sheet metal body, and they raced it around. Different people drove it. Max Barrier that used to race that recently passed away. He drove it, and Ken Rush drove it.

And they quit racing. They quit racing and went to the junkyard? Went to the junkyard. And I found it in the bulldozer junkyard, I call it, and drug it out. And I got it ready, and then we raced it. And eventually I built another one a couple years later from the ground up I built. Yeah. And so how long did you do that before you, you know, what was the next step?

Well, I raced those until I was probably from 15 until I was 19. And then when I was. What kind of race tracks are you competing on? It was like 10th and 8th of a mile, kind of like Millbridge, dirt. There was one in Concord. It was asphalt. I got you. We would go there.

And your dad's helping you taking you? Yeah, they would go with me. What were you all towing? We didn't towed. We put it in the back of the. pickup truck. Yeah. I had a 64 Chevrolet pickup truck and my dad bought brand new.

It would still have it. Yeah. And we put it in the back of the truck and go to the racetrack and get a couple people help unload it. And so it was good. So you turn, you get up to around 19. You were going to Davidson College.

Yeah, Davidson County Community College. Okay. That was. You were enrolled in the General Motors Institute? That's where I was going to transfer to that. I was going to take two years of college preparatory classes. What was your, what was your ambition where if in that moment you know where you thinking about going into automotive

service repairs what was it it's just racing I thought you were going to learn all that and then still go race right you got a job with Texpal right tell me who Tex pal is Tex pal is one of the smartest people I've ever met you know he he's responsible for me knowing a lot for folks listening if you're in the industry you hear Tex pal's name a lot over the years. So yeah, just try to help us understand the individual he was. Yeah, he was really obvious from Texas, and he came up here, and he had a shop in Ashboro, and I happened to be down there with a friend picking up some parts one day, and I'd been working after school at a sheet metal shop, I mean, I was cheap, but a machine shop,

and they taught you a lot of stuff about sharpening drill bits and stuff like that. When I got there, Tex was trying to drill a hole in something. And it was making a terrible noise and squealing. And I just told him, I said, I can sharpen that for you, you've got me to. And so I would sharpen it for him. And then he drilled right through it. And he said, can you sharpen some more before you leave?

And so I did. And then he said, what else can you do? I said, well, I can run your lathe and your meal. And he said, well, you want a job? I said, well, I'm in school right now. And so then kind of worked around to where I worked some. And then I just quit school and worked there full time. And that's when we was building Benny Parsons cars that LG DeWitt owned.

Really? Yes. They were in there. They were in there. What were you all doing to them? Well, we put clips on them, whatever they needed, you know, help do bodies. What other business was he doing in that shop? He was starting to transmission and rear-in business.

That's what he was. That's what he's famous for. Famous for, yeah. Yeah. And he was doing that in conjunction with building race cars, too, repairing race cars. and stuff, but the big deal was just looking after LG stuff. Yeah. You know, and then we did some stuff for some different people.

You know, there was a couple people that we took Daytona and stuff that they ran and so. Oh, you'd take care. You build the cars or whatever and take them to Daytona. Yeah. For speed weeks and stuff. The, yeah, Texpal would become synonymous with transmissions, rear and gears. And, I mean, if you raced the cup in the 80s, you had his rear ends, you had his trains. Everybody.

ran his stuff. He was the guy. So you worked there for a while. That must have been quite helpful to be able to be under the tutelage of not only Texpowl, but all the other individuals. Who else was working there? Any of the recognizable names? Well, Steve Mill worked there.

Oh, yeah. He left and I was still there. Yep. And he went on to work at the Pettys and Jack Rouse and stuff. And a lot of the guys that worked down there, There wasn't a lot of us who worked there. It was like two or three at a time. And there was one guy we called him Zoomer.

And he worked in this racing since he left the Tex and Tex closed down. But he's recently passed away. But there was just a lot of people would come in and out. You would meet and stuff. Yeah. You know, Wadale Wilson used to come up there because he built the motors for LG back then. Yeah. So he had quite a bit.

You got hired to drive for Cliff Stewart. Right. Cliff owned a late model sportsman car. He owned late model sportsman and cup cars, or Grand National cars. Yeah, so. I guess this is in, you were 18? I was like 20 years old.

Okay. And this would have been right around 70. 77. 77. So who drove his cup car back then? I know eventually like he'd get the Gatorade deal. in 80 or something, he won or something. But he had Ricky Rudd,

I think Rusty Rossi Wallace drove his car for a year or so with the Algaard sponsorship. But who was driving his cup cars back then? At the time, Darrell Bryant was driving him. I got you. Darrell Bryant, he drove them. They were the number of 50 cars. And they had three or four cup cars

and two or three sportsmen cars. And his son was a friend of mine. We were within a couple of years of being the same age. and lived in the neighborhood. What's his name? Howard Stewart. Okay. He owned Stewart components where they make water pump, fuel pump, and stuff like that.

The Stewart logo that was on race cars forever. Right. Yeah. And so he came to my shop one night, and I was building a modified car. I wanted to race a modified. And Waddell sold me a 427 that they run the big blocks back then. And I was building a modified car. And Howard showed up one night, and he said, he said, you know, Daddy's got a race car.

And I said, yeah. He said, you want to drive them? And I said, yeah, you're all driving. He said, I'm serious. I said, he said, I'm going to bring one over tomorrow than if you want to race. I said, we're going to race. He said, we'll go to Carraway. I said, win, he said, this weekend.

Holy crap. Like, oh, God, you know, so he showed up with a 69 Chevelle, and we messed with it and got, I got more I get the seat in there, fitted and all. And back then it was kind of like when your dad first started, he had a muster distinct seat, put sides on it, and that's what was in the car at the time. And so we raced that car the rest of the year. In the very last race, we were running the thing, it got total loss at Franklin County. And so then we started building. It was a late afternoon race, and it was, you know, sun going down, and we were running, and nobody could see,

good enough to see that it was a car spun in the corner. And I went flying in the corner, and I locked the brakes up and slid up against him. And I was getting ready to put in reverse. And about that time, Tommy Houston, he didn't see the, he couldn't see for the sun. And he hit me wide open in the back. Man. And so that was, that little, that little fellow got there. What was the racing, um, what was the racing at the local tracks like Careway and so forth,

uh, like comparable to today? It was, it was a lot. There was a lot. there's so much people are able to watch TV that it's harder to get full crowds like you did back then back then we would have five six seven thousand people a night care away in places and um but it was it was it was the racing was kind of bit different back then that he was more i called gentleman like you know they want a lot of bump and runs you know if it was a a bump and run it usually got taken care of the next corner Yes.

You know, I mean, that's what your dad was involved in one of them in one of my cars one night. Yeah. It was just a lot different. You know, everybody, nobody was really making a living. I made a living doing it. They actually, I was fortunate if I got paid a salary and a percentage when I was 21 years old. What was it? Do you remember?

They give me $500 a week to work on them. And then I got 40% of what you won. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah, when you're- $500 a week back then, incredible. Right. What would you attribute in your life or career that got you that opportunity?

Just Howard and them, you know, just, I mean, Tex taught me so much that I knew what I was doing, working on race cars at a young age. Yeah. Were you working on their cup cars as well, prepping all that stuff and helping them with everything? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, at Texas place. Yeah. Well, when you went to Stewart's, Cliffs, when you went over there to drive for him, were you helping him? Were you driving for him?

Were you working there? Were you? They brought everything to my shop. Everything. We just took the sportsman cars. We didn't bring the cup cars. We just brought sportsmen cars. And we worked on my shop.

Did you have, was it just you driving his cars? Or did some other dudes drive it? The only guy that drove it besides me when I was there with a, now I drove them all there. And then Morgan Shepherd took over. And then the next car that I drove for a guy out of Lexington, I built two cars. and your dad drove one. Yes. And then David Pearson drove, the other ones, some.

Yeah. They'd do special events. How come you, how come, I guess, what happened with Cliff where Morgan come along? You know, he just wanted him changing other guards, I guess you'd say. The problem we had was that my cars were way better than my driving was at the time. I was, you know, a year into driving a stock car. And all I knew was you got to run as fast you can ever last. It looked good for three-quarters of the race, and then, you know, unless you could get tires, you know, back then, back then we could change tires whenever you wanted to.

I know. It's crazy. And then unless you had a good costume flag. How come, guys, so today we run, you know, the cars tour and late model stocks and you build a lot of chassis that compete in our series, you know, we run a four-tire race. You start to race, you run under 25 laps on the same set. Back in the 70s and, you know, when Sam Ard and. And Bouch Lennel and those guys were racing every single week up and down the East Coast. How were they able to A-a-Ford doing that?

Well, back then, the tires were $300 a set. Yeah, but that's all that. I mean, the month, it was still expensive for that time frame. Still expensive, but, I mean, back. And there were some guys had tire deals. Yeah, we had a partial tire deal, I call it. You know, I mean, we would, I don't know the whole extent to it. And then there were, there were multiple different manufacturers.

And Firestone was really good for a while. If you didn't have firestones, you weren't going to be a good win. Yeah. Things like that. Firestones were the tire to run at Fayetteville. Oh. Fayetteville was hard on tires. And that was the, when you went to Fayetteville, you had to have Firestone.

You know, went to Goodyear's when you carry away, hickory, places like that, you know, you was on the good years. But I was friends with Tom Parnell. It was a Goodyear deal. Yeah. And he, and so I pretty much stuck to the good years. Yeah. I mean, I just couldn't, you know, I couldn't kind of, he was too nice to us. You know, if they got a new tire out, they wanted somebody to try it because they didn't,

they didn't present nothing to no officials. They just said, hey, here's tires. Go run it. You know, and sometimes they say, you know, don't stack them all four high. Why? Because they might be two inches higher than their normal. That's their wider. That's hilarious.

So, um, you ran, with Stewart from 77 through 81. You had a seventh at the Cardinal 500 at Martin's Deal in 77. You had strong finishes of fourth at the 500, the Cardinal 579, and the Dogwood 500 in 81. Track Champions Chips at Carraway in 79 and 80. You ran a grand American race at Charlotte in 79.

When do you meet my dad? I knew him from just racing when I started racing He'd bring his car around Gary Hargott's car He drove that around And I would see him then And talk to him some You know, and what was the opinion? Now, no bullshit

Straight up, you can tell me the truth What was the general Opinion of him Less, you know, in 77, 78, when he was carrying his short track car around Right before he got up into the cup deal? I mean, he was the one you didn't want to your back bumper on the last lap because he was going to do whatever.

And because he was, what I told somebody about your dad one time was when he drove my car and I know he was getting five, $10,000 to come race it. And he didn't have to take a chance, but he was not content to run second or third. I mean, he was going to win the race. If he could win the race.

And he didn't race, I don't think for money, he raced because he liked to race. Yeah. And that's the way. I mean, he was. I mean, he did whatever he had to do to get to the front. You know, I mean, he was driving my car at Martinville one time. And I was running. And I qualified in front of him. Well, he was back then they had restart. When you went into turn three, it was every man for himself. Leader could go. Would you single file so you would jump to the outside, whatever you're going to do? And that one time, I don't know if you know Ronnie Rebus, who was B&R engines. Anyway, he was my spotter. And caution come out. He said, Dale was making about five spots per restart on the outside before they come off the turn four. And then he said, so just be watch, he's about six cars back.

I said, he said, won't you jump beside this guy in front of you and see if you can pick up some spots? So I did it when they started in three. I jumped outside. And about time we started off the corner, Ronnie said, outside, outside, three wide. The guy was in my door pushing me, and then your dad wound up hitting the water. comes off the wall, messes up a rim, how to make a pit stop and come up. He, at the race, he'd come over, and he said,

I said, I tried. I said, I didn't think he was going to get that far up in that short of period of time. And I didn't mean to get you in the wall. And he said, hey, he said, I'd have moved you in the wall too. If he'd have been in the middle. So he ends up driving your car. I know I've seen pictures of this, you know, your car at Martinsville with dad's name on it and then there's a picture of him at caraway um is that the only two times

that he drove that that's only two times he drove it that was 81 no that was that was that was 1979 when he took over australine really 79 he did that had a yellow helmet yep yeah so he's got quite the reputation um having raced in the through 70s i guess you know 76 77 78 uh running all the short track races. I got I got so many pictures of him running his Nova all around chasing y'all. And like how does the conversation start for him to come drive your car or you, you know, did you call him? Did he call you? No, actually the track motor Russell Hack, he calls and said, hey, he said, I like to bring Dale down here and let him drive your car, your second car. If y'all were, you know, fine with it. But I didn't own them. I just built them, got paid.

and so they called the owner Bob Sweat and said, hey, you know, work out a deal, you know, and I'm sure, you know, $5,000, $10,000 drive it. And, you know, the night he drove it to Carraway, I mean, it was, it was a big race, you know, 200 laps, you know. And that night there, I had to race one. I was about half straight away ahead, and him and Sam were going at it like tooth and nail. People were, they wouldn't watch nothing but them to. and so it will come down about five or six laps to go and i spotter says you got about a half straight away just be careful and so i run another lap and come around i get the back straight

away gate and i look up to see where they're at and when i look back down all i see is three-foot wide strip of oil and water a guy blew a motor going into three no caution lights no nothing well i let go of the gas thinking please just let me do it well it just it's like it sucked into the line of the old, I hit him head on. Then the caution comes out. And so they have a restart with four to go. And him and Sam are going at it. I just watched the minute of it.

I thought, this is not going in well. Because one of them moved one in, the next one in, the other one next in. So comes down the white flag, and your dad's leading, goes into one. Sam moves him up the hill. They go down the back straight away. and your dad makes the bonsai move to move him. They both kind of spin, and then your dad tries to go to the outside, and Sam knocks it out of gear or clutches it and comes back up and clips him.

The guy running 10th wins the race. Oh, crap. And so when the race is over win, I mean, there was probably five, six, seven thousand people there. Yeah. And there's pictures of people standing up, and I'm talking to some of them. They said, you know, the flagman come down. about that time and they was talking to him and he said um i'm sorry about the no caution but he said i watched them i didn't watch you he said it was he said it was we knew it was going to be any

moment they were going to be into it and we was watching you never saw handsily blow a motor yeah and i said well you know i understand and you're there's a picture of my shop your dad sitting on the back of the trailer with me and he he's got him a solo cut and he's like and he's telling me he said hey, I'm sorry I tore your race car, but he started it. He said, if I couldn't win, he wasn't going to win. Yeah. And I was like. Was Sam the kind of guy to get upset?

No, I mean, he was in the car. He was, you know, mad, I'm sure. Yeah. But that was it. That wasn't no conversation. Oh, no. No. You'd think, you know, hearing stories about that and the way people act today,

anytime anybody has a confrontation on racetrack, you'd think that in my mind, when I hear this story, right of dad and Sam going at it tooth and nail and then eventually that ends up spinning them both out you'd think there would have been a crowd in the infield and a lot of insults and angry no i mean the fans were more upset well i'm sure yeah but you know because there was there was more dale earnhard fans there than it were sam hard fans oh okay you know i mean and it was so you know you just taken you listen to them but i mean as far as the drivers go yeah you know it wasn't like people were swinging and stuff, you know, it was just...

What kind of damage was done to the car? Was it all body damage? His car was all, you know, cosmetic, you know, lower and stuff. My car had that front clip. You mentioned being there at Carraway during another race where Dad and Butch Lindley got into it. Marty works here as crew chief on one of the cars, and we talk about our dads all the time. Butch Lindley was considered and still considered today is one of the greatest short

track racers in NASCAR history. There's a big push for Butch to try to get himself into the Hall of Fame. He's won over 500 races. The majority of those were NASCAR sanctioned events on the short tracks of tons of track championship. You're a witness to his career. You'd agree with how amazing Bush-Lenly was. Him and Dad apparently had a hell of a battle. I've heard a little brief comments about this, but not from anyone who was there.

Yeah, I walked racing then. was probably 16, 17 years old. And so it come down. It was another deal. You know, it was a big race, you know, two, I think it was a 200 lapar, and everybody had been putting on tires and, and it would come down to them to. And, I mean, Butch was leading, and your dad got underneath him right there to end the race, and they run side by side.

They come off forward to get the checker flag, and your dad was trying to get him to lift and, uh, and squeezed him. And, and Butch didn't, he didn't lift. And so they, he hit the wall, climbed. to wall and when he comes down he's on top of your dad's car on the roof and I mean they when they come out of start finish line sparks are flying and they're I mean there's people I have pictures of it somewhere I've tried to find them but a lot of time people barry pictures but they when they crossed the line like your dad's hood was about six inches in front of butch's hood and when they

stop they're still hooked together yeah it took them you know two records and you know 30 minutes to get them untangled and they get out you know they're okay yeah no big deal no big deal no big we we raced and you know you won yeah after your deal with um with cliff champion you went and you went and started running more modifies got into modified racing what was the what was your path well i took and i drove a few people's sportsmen cars and then they turned into bush series cars And then I was at Orange County for a race one night. There was a NASCAR tour race there. And I wasn't going to drive.

I took my helmet and stuff just in case. And there was a late model race and a bush race there. And just in case somebody wanted it, well, nobody said anything on Friday. So we went out partying Friday night. Saturday morning I get there, the racetrack at Orange County. I feel bad. Yeah. Bad.

The guy comes to him, he said, hey, my driver didn't show up. You're going to drive my modified car? And I said, I guess. I don't know. And he said, come on, get in it. I went over and went to the bathroom first and made sure if I'm going to throw up in the car. And so get in the thing and run a few laps. And the guy said, well, we're fast.

He said, you want race it? I said, yeah. I mean, I will. It was like 40 or 50-some cars that we qualified fourth. with a thing and then got about five of us got wrecked on about lap three and and he didn't have he had a little fiberglass seat in there that was not made for me broke four or five real damn when it hit like so then then I started driving his car some and then I'll drive other people's cars too but I always like to modify cars what are you doing for a living now or then oh I was

building cars for other people yeah so you had started building chance and had gotten into a pattern of being or having regular customers. Right. What kind of cars were you building? Mainly, like, my sports, my cars. Yeah. You know, I built some Phil Parsons, different people, you know, just whoever come in there would want one.

What, you had a jig and built any car, anytime anybody want a car, you build one. Yeah, because I built two jigs whenever I was building the Howard Stewart's cars. Yep. And then the eight cars that I drove. How big was your shop? At the time, it was a, it was just a Quanson hut, like 60 foot long by 25 foot wide. Yeah.

I had my jigs where I could bolt wheels on them and take them outside because I kept two cars in there. And I had two jigs, and I would take and work on them, roll them out and stuff. And then I built. Do you have pictures of all this? Yeah. Oh, man. I bet it's badass. And now the, the big, the funniest thing is back, I know, you know, Jerry Kenon.

Yes. Okay. Jerry worked for me. He crew chiefs me. for a while and um we came out with the blue eight car and um we went to care away with the thing and we broke the track record the first time so then back then they wanted they liked the they like to bet on things and on my walls of my want to that's still there they took chalk and wrote we're going to everybody put five hours in a pot and bet and see how fast you can run this week yeah

and actually broke the track record three weeks in a row and they'd put a checkmark beside the name who won the money yeah and then that's That was, you know. That's all still there. Yeah. Still there. Yeah. What's in that building now?

Just a lot of stores stuff. Yeah. The storage stuff. Any old parts and pieces and things from the history? Yeah, I've got a lot of stuff. I've still got a lot of stuff in the other building. Yeah. Oh, man.

I bet it's cool to walk through there. Yeah. So you're building chassis and just kind of, you know, that's fun in your, that's how you're making a living is building cars for people. And you're still going to the racetrack and driving. You would end up finishing third at the track championship in 83. You had 10 wins at Orange County Speedway. You ran the World Series of asphalt at New Smyrna and had a win there, as recent as 1990.

You won a 150 lapar in 86 at Wilkesboro and all in modified stuff. Then you had a serious crash at IRP in 88. What happened there? Yes. We went up there for a NASCAR tour race. and we've been running there and you know how it is our RP you've raced our four you stay up top run momentum deal yep and uh we were coming about halfway through the race and the guy got into me coming off two and it kind of i turned it a little sideways and when i went to correct it

he hit me again and just turned it right and i caught the gate yep right in the middle of the back stretch yeah and then when he did it just like shot the car around and i'm going down the back straight away backwards and i can see i'm going to go for the wall and the last thing i remember was was hooking my arm around the head, the seat side rest from my shoulder or my ribs. And, you know, you didn't have a left side headrest back then. And I just remember thinking I needed to stop from getting into the wall here on my head. And it hit so hard that it shot the rear and out the right side of the car. And my head went out the window and hit the concrete.

It did. Yeah. And it was, I was unconscious for, you know, several hours off and on, you know, I never woke up until they got me to the hospital. Kenny Schrader come to see me because he told some of them, he said, I thought he's dead. You know, he was behind us, and he'd come to see him make secret sure I was all right, and they told him he'll be all right. I got a pretty bad concussion from the reccussion of the brain slamming back to the right side of my head.

When they got ready to leave the next day, the, I remember that we were sitting there and my buddies were going to carry me back. They didn't want me flying an airplane with a concussion. And I remember one of the doctor said, now you can't let him drive. And one of the boys said, well, if he could drive, we wouldn't be here. The doctor told me, he said,

look, he said, you damage the part of your brain that controls numbers. And he said, numbers are going to be a problem. And it may last a week, a day, a month, or a year, may never come back. And so I didn't. What was the, what do you recall about those type of symptoms? Like, you had severe headaches, you know, on the right side, you know, just anytime if you even try to drink a mouthful of alcohol a glass of wine or anything it hurts so bad you

couldn't stand it and uh but i i remember i got home next day the phone bill come in the mail and i was looking at and i was like you know well i remember paying the bill but they crossed in the mail so i needed to subtract the old from the new statement and i looked at the numbers and they were like look like Chinese. I'm like, this is not good. Yeah. And what you do for a living is,

you know, measurements and numbers. And it was, it was about two weeks later. I was, went to the restaurant, eat breakfast, I picked up a newspaper and I was reading it.

And it got to some numbers and I recognized. And I got the waitress's notepad and I wrote some numbers down and I added them up. And I asked the guy beside me, I said, is that right?

And he said, holy shit. Yeah, why? just check and just make sure and it just came back. Came back like a light switch. Yeah, I've learned the way I kind of feel about things like that in my own experiences. To describe it to somebody when you have a head injury,

it's like clipping some wires or some circuits. And those circuits have to fuse back together. And it is almost in a lot of cases like a light switch. Like you'll have these symptoms. They'll be what they are. They don't like ease away. They just are there all the time, and then you wake up one day, and it's better. That's exactly the way this was.

Yeah. And not everybody's experiences like that, but that's one of the ways that can be experienced when you're, when you're recovering from head injuries. Was that the only head injury that you remember having from racing? I'm sure you had plenty of times where you got dinged up. Got knocked out, you know. We crashed at Concord one night coming off a corner and turned my head on into a wall. And I remember when I come to, couldn't pick my head up, couldn't move my arms, and I could see light and people yelling and run around.

And they're looking at me yelling at me and I could move my eyes, but nothing else would move. And I thought, I'm paralyzed. And then I remember the roof come off of it and they're getting a backboard down me. And then all of a sudden you're like tingling all through your extremities and then you can start moving your fingers again. It's just a shock to what I guess the doctor said. Crazy. Yeah. Damn.

You built some cars in the in the Bush series. We started building some cup chassis. How did that process happen? You know, late model sportsman car obviously changed over the course of a few years. And how do you get opportunities, I suppose, to start building cars on the cup level? People just come to see you. I mean, they know me from racing with them like when the petties come. to see me, they want me to build cars for him, the 88, 89.

Yeah. Why did they want to start using your business? They just wanted something different. And they had Larry Rathgab. I don't know if you know the name, Larry Graf. He was an engineer with Chrysler. He's in one that did the kit cars. Okay.

They hired him, and they designed a car and worked with me, and that's what we built in 88 and 89 for Richard. And so they, you know, what was your, you know, there's some different, I don't know, I've, there's been different chassis builders over the years and all of them sort of come out with the latest and greatest idea, right? And so what are some of the things, I suppose, that you felt like that you helped usher in to the chassis builder world or what were some of the things that maybe you started doing earlier than other people that might have, you know, kind of set yourself apart? Well, I mean, we, we, text told me this, you know, try to make things

light as you can but still make it structurally sound and uh that's that's one thing we've always try to make a car safe you know i mean try to don't we use no light roll bars and stuff like that and and we just we wound up being able to build them and drive them helps because like when i built richard petty cars i would test them for him really yeah so i got luckily when they built richmond the new configuration i got to do the test entire test of for the good year radios. Damn. That was the first time they got tested.

And it just helps whenever you, you know, I can cut a car up and on Saturday, go back to the racetrack and drive it and say, that's better, that's worse. Yeah. And that's kind of, I think that helped a lot, but me being able to drive some that I can tell whether it's better or worse myself. What are some of the things that a chassis builder has to be always kind of aware of? I mean, what are the things that you guys are, it feels like where we are today,

like there's no more things to learn, right? I know that's not really true because we're always, everything's always obsolete, what was good last year, you know, isn't good enough this year, everybody tweaks and twists things. I imagine back in the 80s and up through the late 80s, you know, there was still a ton to be learned

and improved on these chassis. really the front clip rear clip trailing arm system the front points all that stuff from back then it's very similar to what we're still using today very very close very close um but back then um you know i know that we were getting different chassis from different cars uh you know in the late model world we were doing you know we'd get a townsland car or we'd get a boltenheimer car and the front clips would be quite different you know and um and so there were a of different theories, I suppose. You know, it's kind of what, you know, what was it like, you know, going, going back and being a part of the industry back then, being able to be creative, being able to have, being able to know there's like a lot here that you could probably discover, right,

cutting cars apart, running them, driving them, changing them, fixing them, finding little things. How fun was that to be part of that creative process? That was, that was a lot of fun. That was, like, whenever we tested stuff, you know, I could always tell good or bad. And the big thing we played back then is like now, you know, we try to spend those, you know, back then when we ran the rear

steer cars, I don't think you ever ran a proper rear steer car. Yeah. You know, I had, Kelly had a rear steer, Boltonheimer late model that I drove a little bit, that we got from Robert Elliott. That's the only car I ever drove that was a rear steer. Right. And then we, you know, we kind of progressed away from the rear steer stuff to the Chival type. suspension because that's basically what everything was based off of back then was a 64 chival you know everybody just kind of took one of those and then jigged off of that and you made your points and stuff and then for a while you know it became the craze was a drop snout we did that in the bush series in the late 90s um you know early 2000s we were still running drops now cars um why was and that would come and go right but you know you everybody have an inch and a half drop and then everybody go back to

standard. And then everybody to go back to drops again. Why was, why? I think a lot of that is monkey see monkey do. Yeah.

But I mean, somebody, the tire change. The tire may determine some of that. I think a lot of it determined by the, by the tire. Yeah.

Because I mean, like the tire we ran this past weekend, Florence is different than we ran last year. Really? Yeah. It reacts different. And it just set up from last year that we, we led with didn't work,

you know, this year. And it's the same way. cut everything back then they changed the tire you know then drops now it's a way to go you know and and some drivers like the drop snout car i mean regardless of the tire right you know they just they felt more comfortable with that yeah we predominantly run the drop snout car at all the short track stuff i don't know that we were really taking drops now speedways but like charlotte even um but once you drove one and you're and you got it in your mind that that thing cut the

the corner better, you were convinced. Right. You know, and it took a lot for you to, to believe anything, believe otherwise, you know, it'd have to be a significant, you know, you'd be at a test somewhere with a standard and a drop, and that standard would have to do some pretty damn good stuff to convince you otherwise. Right. But the drop wasn't the way to go.

That was, when we had the Bush cars back in the 89, or the 98-99 season, the red-headed stepchild and all that stuff, the red chassis, those are our drops down cars and everybody was buying them because we were just doing so well with them. But you ended up, you talked about building cars for Richard Petty. You were the one that built the chassis for the car that flipped down the front straightaway at Daytona. Not the way you want to see that go, but you talk about building safe race cars. That was a hell of a wreck. And Richard's, you know, toward the back end of his career at that point, you know, those wrecks are harder to,

you know, harder to walk out of in his case. And you had to be pretty happy with how that thing held up considering all the things that went through during that crash. Yeah, because I was standing on pit road, you know, and when it happened right in front of us, I'm like, oh, no, this is bad. Yeah. You know, and when he finally stopped, you know, the flipping part wasn't so bad, but when he got hit in the left front and spun him so fast,

where Dale E. Dale, Winneman's on the radio going, you know, Dale, and Richard, you're all right, you're all right, you're right, never said a word, never said a word. Richard, you're all right, you're all right? And finally, he finally come on the radio and he said, yeah, I'm, I'm all right, I'm all right, but I can't see nothing. He said, my eyes aren't working. And when he, the doctors did when he spun it so fast that the blood vessels, the blood went out of his eyes. Jesus.

And he couldn't see. And then, you know, he was, the biggest problem he had was his knees and stuff were banged up sabbat. Sure. And so I was going to crew, a relief drive for him at Richmond. Really? The next race. They had me up there standby, and we was in the trailer the morning of the race, and he said, you're going to be all right?

I said, yeah, I'll be all right. And he said, well, I'll just get your suit on when it's the race starts. He said, if I feel bad, we'll just make a stop, whatever we do, lose lap, whatever we do. And the doctor coming there, and they started taking fluid out of his knees. And I'm like, there's no way he's going to run this race. and shoot back first cause to come out we run good and he said i'm gonna be fine he said i ain't i ain't gonna get out so i just went and took the driving suit off and watched you know you ran um you know you talk about uh being a a standby for him you had raced in the cup series

uh a handful of times but not many um you raced your your debut was at at North Wiltsboro in 93. You'd run a two starts in 94 at Wilkesboro and Martinsville, all short tracks. She had a bad crash at Pocono. Had an engine from Ernie Elliott running good in practice, made an adjustment, and got yourself turned around backwards and broke your ankle. We rented a racetrack, back when you could rent the racetrack. We were by herself up there that day.

And time-wise, I was slow. We had a motor that Ernie had given me to test with. and he said it's just it'll get you around the racetrack and so we kept working on it working on it and really didn't run fast and i called terry la bonny i said where do i need to lift going into one and he said well you need to live about you know number five or something on the board you know there he said where you live in and i said one he said you don't have no motor you know he said if it drives good you'll be fine so we come back and ernie sent us a new motor and we got the racetrack ernie said this thing is better than than bills. I'm telling you.

He said, it's going to be better than bills. So we were top 10 fast at the first practice. I had a guy, Dean Johnson, that was crew chief of me

and he'd come over and this is one spoiler, at a spoiler height rule, but you could put it whatever you want to angle was. And he said, can you run faster than that

on another mock run? I guess so. He said, I'm going to take some spoiler out of it. Wrong thing to do. Yeah. I get into one down there

And just before I go to third gear, it turns around backwards, and I hit the wall with the driver's door. Golly. And it ricochets off the wall and comes back down. And I remember coming back down, and the four cars on a mock run, and he comes by my nose at 175 mile. And I miss me as I'm sliding backwards. And the spotters on the radio yelling, are you all right? Are you all right? And I'm still sliding.

And finally, Ernie Gillette, he's over in the garage. I heard him yell at the boy with him talking to me and he said he still he said not through wreck and leave him alone. So you broke your ankle there? Yeah. Yeah, I got the adrenaline's going. You don't realize you hurt, you know. Yeah.

Get out and step and your leg folds up and then then my knee was dislocated where it caught in steering column. And so they just won him deals, you know, you kind of. You ran, that was, uh, wonder what you. year that was? What year was that? That was 94, I think. You ran the All-Star Open in 95 in a ride sponsored by Diamond Rio. Right.

How did that come about? Well, the Mr. Wilson owned the cars. He was vice president of R.J. Reynolds. Yeah. And he had... Who took care of the cars? We kept them at our shop. Damn, all right. And then we...

It's been messing with some people, the Blue Rhino people, the propane people. Yeah. They were just starting, and they wanted to be able to carve. And they knew some people in the music industry. And so they come by the shop one like Mr. Wilson did, and he said, I think we got us a sponsor. He said, you know about Diamond Rio? And I said, trucks?

And he said, no. And he said, country music. So he said, go get some CDs and listen to them. And so they're going to sponsors. And so it was a good deal. they were nice really nice yeah we went to several uh shows with them and um but it was i got in the middle of a divorce and the the racing was you know racing and with two young children you know it's kind of they had people come in to buy into the team and they wanted to change you know

because we went to went to richmond and i missed a race about two thousand of a second you know and And so they just kind of like went to other direction. Yeah. I was upset, but you can't blame them. You know, there's money and this sport. That was the end of your career, you know, in terms of cup racing and bush starts. You know, eventually you would build cup cars for dad. The car that dad wrecked Terry with at Bristol was your race car, your chassis.

At the time, Kevin Hamlin was the crew chief on the car. they had their own chassis shop but they came over to you looking for something different well they they were buying cars from Hopkins then yeah and so then

uh kevin them come into the shop and wanted they decided wanted to try something different what were you going to do different I don't know it was just my cars were a little bit going to be a little bit lighter

yeah like at the time I had bought a dye that the Plymouth tube company that makes robar pipe and they made us a dye that I bought and they would run a meal run of my robot tube and it was 90,000 plus or minus a half where everybody else was 95,000s, period.

And I got to choose the carbon rated and I wanted the type of tensile strength I wanted. And it made a difference. Yeah. And so we built, they come over and wanted two, they said, build us two cars, but don't tell nobody. Yeah. Don't tell nobody who they're for.

and I got them done and they come picked them up and that one evening after work and took them to RCR and the next morning I don't think it, it's lucky they still had the job. Really? Yeah, it didn't go over the way. It didn't? Why? Who was mad?

Yeah, I mean, people kind of over the crew chiefs were not happy. Yeah. That they just went out on their own and did it. Uh-huh. And they tested them, you know, started testing them, and they were always good, real good.

And then finally, they Pocono, Dale wrecked last practice after qualifying, and they carried mine as a backup every week, and they pulled mine off, and he started in the rear, and I think he ran third or something,

and he should have needed just a little bit more he could have won the race. Sure. That was, there was one, the car he loved was serial number 44, and he wanted to run that thing everywhere. We didn't run those speedways,

was all short track and Charlotte and stuff because we were they raced at Richmond one night and he got in a wreck down there and knocked right front corner off and smashed them do dot bottom two doorbars up and they called me and said look we got to be at Charlotte Wednesday we'll have a stature shop in the morning Sunday morning at 8 o'clock and we need it back by that night we had to call my guys said look it's shop we got to fix the car we put half front clip on it two doorboards They picked it up and they was at Charlotte with the thing Wednesday. Dang. And then that's the car he ran at Bristol when he rattled Terry's cage.

Yeah. That was your only cup career win as a chassis builder. Right. What was the decision, I suppose, to, you know, go the route you went, where now you're, you know, you're a, you know, household name in the short track? industry in terms of late models, late model stocks, everybody's, you know, everybody's buying cars from you. How come, you know, that opportunity and the success of those cars didn't develop into

something more long term or even other opportunities with other teams or? I don't know. A lot of it, most people didn't even know that we were building them. All right, yeah. No, I mean, I've got pictures. Do you hate, do you wish you had done that differently or could you? You know, the way I mean, I'm still satisfied with where I'm at. Yeah.

You know, I mean, yes, you could have built more of them. Yeah. But I built, I built some for Stovola brothers. Yeah. And, you know, Hamilton drove them. Yep. And stuff. And so, but, I mean, I built different ones.

But I don't know. I kind of like the short track deal. Why? I don't know. To me, it's just, it's a lot of fun, you know, on Saturday night. And I just like dealing with people, you know, short track race and stuff. And it's, the speedway race stuff is fine and all. And it's more money in it, obviously.

But I just kind of grew up, you know, with a short track deal. And that's, I just kind of enjoy that. Yeah. I still go every week. Yeah. So currently, you know, you build chassis for us at Junior Ridersports for our late models and other teams as well across the cars tour, across late model stock. What other chassis

y'all build? We do some super late models a little bit and I'm starting to build some modified cars again. Yeah. I've had people call me

and want me to build some modified cars so I got a new one started. It'll be a house car. Damn. Where will it run? We'll run that southern modified deal with who?

Probably Jason Myers. I'm going to test it some. Jason Myers works for me part time. Does he? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, he works UPS,

gets off of there, third shift, and then he comes over. He's a good dude. Yeah, he's funny. Where is your shop at? It's in High Point. High Point. Yeah. And it's been there all these years.

Yeah, I built. I was at Martinsville Racing in 1983. And I was at the hotel that night, and my grandfather, he loved racing, but he didn't really want me racing. Yeah. You know, and he had money. and he would always come up to the front of the shop, the Quanson Hut, and roll the window down.

He said, why didn't you win Saturday night? I said, well, you know, got outrun, Grandpa. But I was there at the hotel and the phone rang, and I answered, and then my mother said, your grandpa's here, and he wants to know how big a building you want. I said, what do you mean? And he said, he's going to build your building. I said, well, I don't know.

And he said, well, here's your options. He gave me the options. Well, I'm going to take the biggest one. I ain't going to take the smallest one. I get in the middle. Yeah. And he said, all right. He said, I'll have the bulldozer over there.

Tomorrow morning, when you get home from the race, start bulldozing trees down. I forgot where you're going to put it. So we built the first building was like a 60, no, it's 40 by 75. And then in 88, I added on. And it's now like 225 by 80. How many employees you got? Twelve. Twelve employees.

building how many cars a year do you think it just depends i mean the most i've ever built in one year was like 35 yeah you know but it varies from winter to win the majority of your cars late mile stock right this time yeah what do you enjoy about late mile stock racing it's just fun to work on them and just try to make them go faster you know you know we've got mason ds driving forth this year yep and he's he's really good he's a good dude yeah yeah he's a good driver he knows what he's doing yeah he's kind of been looking for opportunity over the last couple of years right yeah we had some pretty good runs with him last year set on the pole at a speedway with him and then got spun out and um but he he's he's really good and and it sometimes he we have

trouble qualifying that we've been working on that but he know he really knows he has his racecraft down good yeah you know he we would be in good Saturday night but you know they kind of jammed up We got turned around in that deal. It's just nobody's fault. Yeah. Just wanting racing deal. Yeah, for sure. What's that schedule look like this year?

How do you decide how much you're going to race your house cars? We're going to run every car to a race. No kidding. Run all the cars to a race. How did you decide that? That's what Mason wants to do, Mason. I know, but like you have to do, you have to make financial sense of it. Yeah, well, I mean, it's, he's got sponsored money.

Yeah. So it takes some stuff together. Right. He was frustrated a couple years ago trying to figure some things out. He drove our car. at Hickory one weekend. And I think he's a hell of a little driver. Yeah.

And he works hard. We know his dad owns Southern National for folks out there listening. And Mason, when Southern National is having their events, Mason works really, really hard running the program or helping the event come off well. So he's not afraid of hard work. No, when he runs that racetrack down there, it's like clockwork. That's right. I'm telling you.

It's whatever the schedule is, stays on schedule. and everything runs really well. Does he get by the shop? He comes by her once in a while. Yeah. And then he's supposed to come by. Here, we're going to go test here pretty soon.

Where? We're going to go to Southern National Test. Yeah, all right. Got to get ready for the car to race. Got to get ready for the lead off event. Yeah, I'm excited. I want to tell folks, your cars have won numerous national titles. The Advance Auto Part Series titles in 12 times.

08,09, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, and 24. Numerous Cars Tour Championships. 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25. So as a chassis builder in the late model stocks and, you know, the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, what is, you know, you've seen a lot of change. You've seen, even in the recent years,

our tires have changed a lot over the course of the past couple of years. The cars tours went through a lot of change and growth. You know, I sat down all the time and just contemplate, you know, what direction we're headed and are we doing what we need to be doing so that we can sustain success, right? And everybody, as long as we've ever raced, I mean, you can pull magazines out of the, out of the rack from the 80s, the 70s, it don't matter. Everybody talked about how expensive it was and it's always going to be an expensive hobby. But what are some of the things, I suppose, that you are concerned about? What are some things that you think, you know, as short trackers, as an industry, us all trying to pull this in the right direction? What are some of the things you think we need to be, you know, aware of, mindful of?

What are some of the things, you know, that you're excited about looking forward to? You know, I miss this idea. a couple of years ago, Landon Huffman made a YouTube video about how much it cost him to go race at Hickory. He had a weekly car that he ran out of his dad's shop, and he basically itemized his entire season down to about 60 grand.

And when me and Kelly and Kerry were racing our late models at Hickory, Tri County, into Beach, annually, I think our budget was around $60,000 in the 90s. That's a lot of money. but, you know, it is going to be an expensive hobby. I don't think it's going to get any cheaper than that. But we've seen cost rising. We've seen, you know, there's, you know, there's, you know, there's, you know, teams have full-time employees.

Tires have gone up. You know, you mentioned how the tires used to be 300-sset. I remember when we go to the beach and race in the 90s for it, they were 400 a set. They're twice that now. Those things are out of our control. there's a lot of things that we can't, you know, we can't control it. We can't tell Goodyear or who's your how much to charge for their tires. But, you know, what does some of the, what do you, I want this to last forever, you know.

I love, I don't, I don't even like to call it grassroots racing. I love short track racing. I love our local shows. I love our cars tour. I love super late models, pro late models. I love what's happening down in Daytona right now with New Smyrna. and speed weeks and all that good stuff. I love seeing what's going on at Berlin.

All the great successes across the country, what Harvick's done with the West Tour? What do we need to do? As a guy who's seen this forever, what do we need to do to be mindful that it continues? I think the way you're doing the cars tour, there's so much publicity. I get people in the local restaurant I got to,

you know, the farmers and people that have no idea about race and they just know that I mess race, They watch the cars tour races, you know, and there's so much interest in the cars tour stuff that it makes it easier, I think, for people to get sponsor money, you know, just because of the publicity that you bring and the whole series is brought to TV, you know, and I think that in itself is going to translate down to other short tracks, not necessarily the cars tour, but these other people see, you know, hey, you know, this, this cars tour deal, you know, you You know, it's a good deal.

Maybe these people that Carraway want some money, and we don't mind sponsoring them. Because TV is, TV, it hurts, in a way it hurts the grandstands, but in the long run, it's better because of the amount of people you actually get to see that are watching the race. Yeah. That's, you know, it's kind of a deal. Yeah, definitely a deal for sure.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, there's a balance to be cast between being, being a balance. a Turin series that's trying to succeed, profit, pay for, you know, we have a, we have a, we have a, we have a, we have a forecasted cost of how much it costs to run the series and

we want to be able to bring in break even. And, and the series has to be, has to afford itself. With that said, we have to be mindful of the, the local racers at South Boston, the local racers at careway. And the, the, has changed. Even

what our local tracks are doing, the feature car, you know, has some tracks gone away from the late mall stock and more toward a limited, which in my mind, I mean, the limited is the same car. Same car. Just a little bit less power, which I actually kind of,

I want to embrace. I like the idea of the limited car being the feature car, the primary car at some of these tracks, because it is more affordable. It is kind of, it's head, it's hedging back toward, you know, the possibility of that guy having that race car in his,

in his garage outside the house, you know, that we all depend on for the local show. You know, I've, I've always, you know, really enjoyed being around. I'm the same as you. Like, I would prefer, you know, to be standing in that pits at Florence during the icebreaker as opposed to the garage at a big event somewhere. And it's nothing personal. It's just I do know that all the people that are, for example, the icebreaker this past weekend,

the people that are there are there because they want to be. Every single person there is there because they are absolutely in love with it. Right. And it's really an interesting thing. and it took me a while to get back there. It took me a while to get back to it. I should have had opportunities to race my car and race with Josh

or do be closer to that whole deal and experience more with what Josh was doing in our late models, Josh Barry. But I was hesitant and I should have done it sooner. But it's been a lot of fun to get plugged back in to it. And you've been a witness to it for all these years. Obviously, you know, the engine builders, everybody's got very similar power.

There's not like a guy out there with a bunch of more power than anyone else. Whereas, you know, the chassis builders, you've got the competition in the chassis world you always have. You know, how do you navigate that? How do you stay competitive, still build a safe car? You know, you'll have people come in. I think a great example would be when Tony Jr.,

and those guys got in the Fury deal. And the Fury car was a brand new chassis, and they kind of took over some market share and was competitive with Hamkey and other builders. And all that ebbs and flows and builders kind of come and go. How do you navigate that and stay competitive? Well, the big thing is you've got to have good people driving it and working on it. But like I say, you got to win races.

You got to win races. For me to stay in business, I tell somebody's got to win, somebody's got to wreck. That's just bottom line. I get it. So you got to have a car crossing the finish line, and then you got to have one to fix. Right. So, but I mean, we work on stuff all the time.

You know, we have a pull-down rig at the shop, and we work on that, and my son experiments and we try different spindles and stuff. And, you know, you just got to, it doesn't take much to be 15th to first when you're talking about 900. And so if you come up with a spindle or a combination or a shock package that, you know, that works and picks you up,

900's then, you know, that puts you up front. And that's what we do, you know, I mean, and having people, you know, like your drivers, you know, with Josh and Josh, when Josh figured it out, Josh was impossible to be. Yeah. I mean, when he finally... Is that good for business? Yes. Yes.

Very good. Very good. Yes. But, I mean, that's, you know, and the quaffles are really good in your car. Yeah. Good folks, too. And they're really nice. And, I mean, they win races.

And that's your man Schaefer that looks after the deal. He and I are old school. Yep. And he and me and him get along good. And we exchange ideas and stuff. And that's what I got to do. You can't just sit on what you've got. You know, you got to keep working.

I mean, we come up with some things. It's winter that we did the cars. And, you know, and I think it's made them better. Yeah. And you're not going to, you're not going to build. the car and find a half a second. No. Days of that are over and done with.

You know, you've got, you've got to little by little creep up on it. Yeah. What advice would you give to me and Kevin and all the guys running the tour on how to make sure the tour is successful and the car is successful, the chassis

successful? I think about the late model stock car. It's a regional car. It lives in this bubble. It's not a national car. It's not like a pro or a super. I mean, I would love for it to become, have a bigger footprint, but that we own, it's difficult for our owners to want to travel farther than we're going some of these races. But, you know, what advice would you give to us as a tour to try to? I mean, the way things are going right now, I mean, it's on the right path.

You have really good people, you know, Carson, really good looking after things at the racetrack. And, I mean, everything me right now is good, like I told you, we get. so many people calling inquiries like my wife showed me emails this morning, people wanting to rent race cars inquired in the car store. Really? What is the, you know, I know that there's, I know that our owners, you know, balk it, you know, traveling further than our bubble. As a chassis builder, you know, is it, is it advantageous for you to have the car racing further out into the Midwest or up north?

or what would where do you does it matter does it make a difference to you do you want to see i mean it's the more they race you know a different place you know we had we had hinted about taking it down to new sumerner and trying to find a way to be a part of speed weeks just because we thought that'd be a great um showcase for our our series berlin is begging us to come up there and race uh you know but it's a it's a hall right long way to go um but these tracks are calling They're wanting to see how to get the cars tour. Their fans are asking for it. Our owners are absolutely not interested in it,

and I can totally understand that, and I don't want to do anything that's going to deter our teams from competing with us. So it's a weird sort of juxtaposition to be in, where I think, like, a guy like you, would love to sell cars more nationally. Right. And there's some of our owners that would probably benefit from the tour becoming a bigger, having a bigger footprint, but yeah I don't know how to I don't know I'm not I'm not really pursuing that

seriously but I'm just kind of curious as to like if you ever did want to kind of expand the tour how could you do it where everybody would be all in you know pulling the same road in the same direction yeah I mean I think before it's over there was I think somebody's going to present y'all with enough money to entice people to go yeah I mean I'm sure there's people just and working with y'all now yeah that wanted to be part of this deal and sponsor it. You know, like I sponsored the poll ward

since it was started for several years. Yes. And I mean, there's people with a lot more money than I ever thought about having that were, or wanting to get into your sport

just because of what it's become now. You know, and I think, you know, you start, you come up with a deal where somebody wants to sponsor the series and say, okay,

we're going to pay $25,000 to win every race. You're going to get people who drive their truck. Yeah. That far. So that's a great question. we're getting toward to wrapping up here

but I've so I don't never owned a series before didn't have any experience don't pretend to have all the answers or know exactly how to do it but we're working hard

and we're it is on our mind and we're working on it every day you know we're trying our hardest I have I've had an interesting experience trying to find out what gets teams excited

and about coming to the racetrack. And so I've had teams go out of their way to go race for big first place money in a race that didn't pay anything from second on back, right? And they

loved it. They're like, I'm going to run that. That pays this big check knowing that the odds of them actually went in the race, you know, were tough. But they knew, they knew that there was, you know, they were going to go all out and spend all the money and effort that it took to go do that.

And then you'll have a race where it pays relatively nice on the front end, but the back end's boosted. And nobody seems to. I know. Recognize like you would think, like, hey, man, I'm old,

you know, if it cost you $2,200 bucks to just get to the racetrack and get everything, your tires and you're $2,200 in as soon as you buckle up to go practice. I'm going to, you know, if the back end of the purse covered that, you'd think that would draw a lot of interest, but it really doesn't seem to do that. I don't know if the late model stock bubble is as big as it can be. I mean, there's only, like I said,

it's only racing in this sort of small geographical area. There's only, if you had to guess how many late model stock operating late model stock cars, even at the regular shows, there's probably 200, 250, in that realm right right um they get 80 cars for the big race at martinsville that used to get 180 160 120

yeah um you know how do we get there how do we get there how do we when you put that you know when you when you instead of paying 1400 for last you have a race where you pay 2,500 for last where are the 10 15 20 20 cars that's supposed to show up how do we get there I like say I think that it's going to be come through they're being able to get more sponsors. Yeah. I just think that, you know, there's so many of the companies that are looking at this deal here now. You know, I mean, we talk to people all the time, you know, about it.

And then there's just, there's going to be interest shown that's going to present, be presenting people with money that's going to help them get to the racetrack, whether they can afford to or not on their own. Yeah. I just think that, because like I say, like I told you before, you know, the interest in cars tour, is right now is probably 10 times what it was five years ago. I mean, like I say, everybody. Do you think we need to do,

you think it would be in our best interest to do a better service to our teams in terms of showcasing their partners? Like, you're telling, what I'm hearing from you, and I mean, this is common sense, but what I'm hearing from you, I'm thinking more about the purse. How can I, what do, what strings am I not pulling with the purse?

to draw everybody there. It ain't the purse. They need the support on the front end from ex-partner or local business or whatever. And so should I, therefore, maybe put more of a spotlight on all of these individual partners on these race cars, right, that are coming to our racetrack

to make sure that those people are walking out of there feeling like they're getting a showcase. I think the sponsor deals, I mean, it helps whenever you showcase them on, you know, when you're doing the racetrack and you're on flow. Yeah. You know, like here's, you know, if you're to say Lowe's car or whatever, you know. And then because whenever I was, I drove modified cars,

Lowe's actually sponsored me before they sponsored Jimmy Johnson. Yeah. And we took in, uh, we won a race at North Wilkesboro in a modified car with Lowe sponsor on it. And they, we had a meeting up there. And they told me that the amount of air time that they got was equivalent to like $300,000 in money spent on a commercial. Right. And it was free.

Yeah. And that's kind of, I think a lot of these companies will see that, you know, because, you know, I don't know the exact fan base that Flo has for a car tour races, but I know, like, Wilkesboro and stuff is like good. Yeah. Really good. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean. Yeah, Wilkesboro is a great race for us. Yeah. And I just, I just think that it's not going to be what y'all are done purse-wise. I think the thing that y'all are doing is going to help get people's money just through other companies coming in and wanting their name on a race car. All right. Well, we can certainly do a better job there. I'm glad to walk out of here with some insight and some advice.

Jay, it's been a lot of fun talking to you, man. I'm glad you came here today. You're one of those individuals. Your last name is recognizable mainly through your success as a chassis builder, particularly in the local. you know short track scene but i wanted people to hear your story uh in full and and and kind of know where you came from because i too i myself wanted to personally know more about that um and i i like seeing at the racetrack i like you being involved um thank you for the impact that you've had on all these drivers over the years all the cars you've built for people all the supports you've

gay people. You know, you don't you don't really ever, you don't cross me as one of those guys that kind of sits back and reflects on much of that. But you've, you know, you've personally influenced tons of careers in all the chassis and cars you build

and all the racetracks you've been to and people you supported. I mean, you know, there's, in the short track world, if you got a guy building motors, you know, and he go to the racetrack, he's got five engines there up and down the pit road. and he goes and he tunes on them. He makes sure everybody's happy.

And I see you doing the same thing. Even if you have a house car there. You come by, you check in on us. You make sure we're doing all right. Got any questions, gun any challenges. And I appreciate that, that support. So just looking forward to seeing it to the racetrack this year. Glad you're going to be at a lot of cars for races.

And, yeah, we'll see at the racetrack. Well, I appreciate you. Have me on the show. It's been good, and we'll see you around to the racetrack soon. Yes, sir. All right, so that's Jay Hedgecock And great conversation Learned a ton

Man, would I give anything To have been a witness To some of the short track races That he saw Dad run at Carraway And other places You know, tangling with Butch Lindley Across the finish line, barely beating him

Wrecking with Sam Ard Just incredible I can't imagine what it must have been like To be there And watch all that go down But Jay was around for all of that and didn't know he built that car that Richard Petty flipped down the front straightaway. Did not know he built cars for my dad. The dad would drive in the Cup Series.

And so, yeah, I know he's been building late model stocks for a long time. And his cars have been around for quite a while. But hadn't a lot of knowledge beyond that. And so it was great to get him in here. and every now and then, you know, we kind of, I like to bring those guys in here because it kind of, I get this story, I get this question all the time.

There's some kids standing out here on the front porch of junior motor sports right now that are students over at the Technical NASCAR Institute and they want to know how to get into this sport. And there's not an answer. There's no easy answer, you know. They just, they would prefer that you would have an opening in this building and hire them into that role and off they go.

But sometimes you've got to be kind of like Jay Hedgecock and just create it yourself, right? Just Jay Hedgecock didn't start building his first race car thinking, man, this is, I'm going to make a live and building race cars. He built it because he wanted to race. He wanted to go to the racetrack. He wanted to build a car and go see it compete. You know, and he did that well enough that he started to accumulate. customers, people that wanted him to build cars for them.

You know, and that's just a process. It's a long, long road. But every now and then I love to get those guys in here because we get to hear like the genuine path of one of the routes now, you know, to get into this industry. Certainly was a different route than I took. I was kind of born into it, but not everybody's that fortunate. So awesome to learn from Jay.

Awesome to get some insight from Jay on the current. state of short track racing and some of the things that, you know, he likes about the tour and what the tour knew better. And, yeah, I think he enjoyed being here. So we got a lot of things to talk about before we close out the show. Just want to make y'all know that we will have a live show down in Daytona. Thursday, the 12th at the fan zone inside the racetrack. Dirty Mode Media will be live on Series XM.

We've done this last year. I'll be on from three to four. with Jeff Gluck, Freddie Kraft. We're going to have some others come on as well, Jeff Gordon, Ryan Blaney. From 4 to 430, there'll be like a crossover show with Dirtymo Media and Sirius XM. And then from 430 to 6, Sirius XM Speedway with Dave Moody. Our show will drop on the podcast and YouTube later that night. Also, we've got new merch out, Dirtymo Media merch for 2006.

It's pretty awesome. The Green Flag Collection has dropped. Also, we got a Valentine's Day line that's perfect if you're buying for someone on Valentine's Day. Hoodies, T's, flags the whole deal. Go to shop, dirtymo Media.com. All right, so I've enjoyed it this week in the Arby's studio. Thank you to Arby's new partner, part of our programming here at Dirty Mo Media. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box.

Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets. We're off to Daytona. We're in Daytona. We're live show in Daytona. We're going to have a lot of fun this week. We're going to try to win us an Xfinity race, try to get into the Daytona 500, and we're going to come back next week and tell you all about it.

We'll see you. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.