The Dale Jr. Download - Mark Martin's Radical Idea To Fix The Next Gen Car

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Mark Martin's story of resilience, raw talent, and unmatched car knowledge defined the modern era of NASCAR drivers... and today, he sits down with fellow NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. to discuss it all! Mark details key moments that defined his career, especially turning down the Ranier Racing No. 28 car ahead of the 1982 season. From there, Mark discusses his long and complicated relationship with Jack Roush. Mark feared Jack, but a trip to a test track and an unauthorized plane landing helped Mark realize the true level of their relationship. In that same trip, Mark and his team got reckless and totaled a group of rental cars — and somehow, the story never got out. And Jack? He was none the wiser. Racing back in the '80s and '90s brought its own slew of challenges, and Mark details several such moments, including subbing out of the car at Pocono mid-race due to heat exhaustion. On top of that, Mark raced with a hand-operated clutch in his late model just weeks after suffering a vicious crash. After discussing Mark's new book, he and Dale Jr. discuss the current state of NASCAR racing, namely the points format that Mark spearheaded as part of NASCAR's Playoff Committee. Plus, Mark shares his potentially radical idea to fix racing with the Next Gen car. All of this packed into another can't miss episode of The Dale Jr. Download! 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.

So when we're getting ready to leave, I don't want to race. I don't want to do, you know, I don't want to act a fool. I just finally, you know, he'd be bumped me in a back bumper. So I floor it. All of a sudden I come up on a 90-degree right-hand turn and I am flying. And I slam on to brakes. And about the time I get to that turn, this is a Suzu Trooper rolls around there. And I hit him in the left rear.

Oh, no. And that thing jumps up in the air, turns around, and knocks the rear. and knocks the rear end housing out of it. Oh, my God. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. You're Dale Jr. Should I say it? It's Dale Jr. podcast, I got to say it.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. It's day number two of being back in the studio. I've been gone. And y'all been giving me hell. Sometimes a guy's got to get out, go do some stuff. I was thankful we didn't talk about this yesterday on, on the Dale Junior download but I was thankful that we had some folks fill in

that some drivers fill in Noah Brisco all kinds of great folks that pitched in to allow this show to kind of continue steamrolling down the road but we're back in the studio for pretty much the rest of the season kids start in school so I ain't going nowhere

no more beach trips but we're here today and I got my guest coming in here, Mark Martin in a minute. Mark has written a book, and he told me, he's like, I'm coming to the studio. Y'all remember for like years, we couldn't get Mark to come here. He was always with his motor coach out in Phoenix or somewhere, and he sent me photos of him on these resorts.

They have motor coach resorts. I mean, it's super nice. And he's like, yeah, man, not going to make it, not coming in. I'll let you know when I'm back in town it just never would work out but he's got this book that he's been working on for all these years. Matt, his son has been helping

and it's going to be an incredible read. Trust me on that. I know who put it together. I know how Matt has been passionate about working with his dad on this project. This book, if you're a race fan, you've got to have this book in your collection.

Trust me. The detail and the information, it's going to be unreal. Mark's going to come on here and just tell us a little bit about it. Obviously, anytime anybody comes in here with a book, they're careful about not giving too much away because they just want, they don't want to mess with the demand. But we're going to hear a little bit about the book. We're going to hear a lot about Mark's take on NASCAR today.

There's been some changes that he was an influence to. We'll see what his opinion is about, you know, the sport, the direction's going. See if we're still aligning. Me and him are pretty similar on our take of the last several years. So I'm looking forward to getting it started. Let's bring Mark Martin into the room.

This episode is presented by Arby's and their new meat in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arbys. We have the meats. All right, everybody. We're here with Mark Martin. Mark your third appearance on the show. I'm thankful that you're here.

You brought Matt with you, which is pretty awesome. I always like seeing you two together. He looks more and more like you every day. Yeah, he does, and he's the historian. It's hard for me to do these kinds of things without him because he knows a lot of the details that I don't. I've seen Mark is here to promote his new book, and what a beautiful book it is.

Mark Martin, never lift. There's a unique or a good story about the design of the cover. Yep. Harris and Emily Lou did the artwork for this and extensive work all through this to help us make this happen. Matt was real adamant that he wanted a really striking look that represented the heyday of my career. and I think they captured it. Yeah. I almost wish I could get Matt to comment.

So over the last, you know, roughly handful of years, I've noticed just from a distance in Matt's obsession with your career. Now, it might have always been there, but he has taken it upon himself to, to sort of tell the story again, right? Or put the story out there in a more forward-facing position. The book is obviously something you guys have wanted to do for years, but he does a lot of social media around your history.

What's the conversations between you two, like, around all of that? Why do you think he wanted to do that? How does that make you feel? Well, you can relate to this. You know, when you grew up going to the racetrack and your dad racing and all, it was just racing. It just, you know, it wasn't a big deal. That's kind of how it was for Matt. You know, he didn't really dive deep into my career at all.

And he started on me. He's a historian, very much historian in all kinds of ways other than racing. And that's just his nature. and he's a deep diver in the things that he's interested in very much like I am. And so he started on me about doing a book, and I'm like, no, no. And he knew the importance of putting it down in history, a lot of the details. He knows the stories, a lot of the stories and all. And so he started on me.

And finally, because he's so into books, that's one of his things, he collects. old books. He's got books that were, you know, were printed in the late 1800s. And so he's very much historian and very much into books. So he decides that he wants to do this. And through, once I agreed, he started doing all the research, the deep dive, the photographs. And now he can tell you, if it's 92 or 93, the uniform, you know, he can look at it. You know, he can look at a uniform. I can't do that. I can look at the 80s stuff and do that. But he knows, he knows everything. He knows who, you know, what year Dale won the champs chips. He can answer any of those questions because that's how he is. He went super deep down the rabbit

hole. So what was the hardest thing to put in this book? What was the one thing that you put in this book that worried you the most. It probably has to do with your dad in RC. Children's probably has to do with that 1990 because I don't want to cry. I don't want to whine. But you've got to tell either the truth or what you saw. You can call everything the truth, but not everything is how you perceive and what you know. So everything in this book is either 100% accurate and studied and researched,

or it's the recollection of what people have. Yeah. And so. Where there's some moments during the research where Matt had questions about your decision or you and you had to go, well, this is why things were done that way, was, you know, I imagine, um, if you dive back into your career, not everything is, not everything, you know, not everything is going to make complete sense to him, right? And so how, how was that?

I'm, I'm just imagining that you and him doing this together. Yes, it was. It's been such a bonding experience and so much fun because I'm not a big talker. And the reason I'm not a big talker is because I don't know a lot about a lot and I don't want to talk about something I don't know. I like to talk about what I do know. And so I know a lot about racing. And so his interest in that has been incredibly bonding and really, really fun. And we've had a lot of fun with it.

and I've told a couple of stories that are so embarrassing that I had never told Arlene or Matt. Right. And I put it in this book, you know. Right. And so. What were those conversations like when you told them them stories? They couldn't believe it. You know, and one of them has to do with wrecking rental cars.

And, you know, that's one of Matt's favorite things is, you know, telling the rental car stories. because in today's age, it's just ridiculous. It just probably doesn't happen. And so he loves, you know, he loves that story. And or those stories, there's multiple stories like that. But I think that, you know, when he's uncovered a few things and then I explain, like, I've questioned, I never questioned my Waddell Wilson. phone call in November

1981, Mark, would you be interested in driving the 28 car? Yeah. You know the magnitude of that. Yeah. That could have been life changing. Oh, yeah.

The whole course, the whole... And not only did I not even take a beat, I didn't even take a breath. I just said, no, what else? I'd rather do my own deal. Yeah. And so through our experience, I've questioned that more than I ever did before.

Question it. I've questioned that. But then... Was that, you mean, are you saying that you almost had to relive the frustration of making that choice, making maybe the incorrect choice in that moment? You had to write this book, you had to kind of go back and drum up some tough moments that weren't fun. Well, my failure after that, you know, I wanted to do my own. deal and I didn't have any idea what I was getting into because I'd only done five races spread apart and I had them. I mean, I almost, almost won.

Yeah. I read two races, set on two poles out of five with my own little guys. And so, so I thought I had them and I had no idea. I ran the full 1982 season with two race cars. Yeah. That's how unprepared I was to do it. destroyed your hauler. Yeah, that too.

And, you know, and the sponsor didn't pay and everything else. So I look back on that decision and I wonder, well, if I would have taken that ride, I could have possibly been the Jeff Gordon. Yeah. I was only 23 years old. Yeah. I mean, that would have been Davey Allison's car. That would have been Yates.

That would have been all of that. Yeah. It would have been, K.O. Yarborough won the 80s. You know, what, 83, that's right. And it went straight to Daytona and sat on the pole in 82 after I'd turned it down. However, so I could have been a real shit. You know, if I'd have taken that and had been able to drive it, you know, to the degree that they were looking for, then I would not have been a good person.

Really? No. I mean, I wouldn't know. I mean, I can't imagine that. But I can't imagine you being a guy never failed. A guy that everything he touched went gold. Yeah. You know, I mean, and just be the kid, you know, so.

But you worked hard for it. I worked hard for it, but I don't think. So getting back to that decision, I have to explain why. My first thought was, what do I do with David Lovindal and Benjo Grimm? and whoever my third employee was, I don't even remember because that one changed a lot. Yeah. But, and what do I tell Ray Dillon who was giving me free race cars? And what do I tell Ron Neal who gave me free engines?

I could not be a NASCAR driver and might not have ever been a NASCAR driver if it hadn't have been for Ron Neal. In 1981, I ran an Arca race and won at Talladega, five Bush races, five cups, five cups, up races, a whole bunch of ASA races and one and a bunch of late model races and one. And you know what? My engine bill was? Zero. I could have never, ever done it without Ron Neal and prototype.

And, you know, I didn't own any of those cars. Those cars were given to me and I raced them. I built them and race, you know, me and my guys built them and raced them. And then we gave them back when we were finished with them. So I didn't have the money to get to NASCAR. And I was like, what am I supposed to do? Say, see you guys. I'm off to the big time.

Yeah, yeah. Well, the book, you talk about some of the stories in there. And I don't want to, I don't want you to, you know, you can share what you want. But, you know, I'll definitely want people to want to go out by this book, or get the audio book. I'm assuming there'll be an audio version. Are you going to read the entire thing? That's always a question.

I can't do it. Will Matt do it? He won't do it. He won't do it. What the hell, Matt? That's what I say. Yeah, damn, do it. All this work.

Yeah, we need an audio book. I'd love to ask Matt Mike Joy to maybe do it because I think he would be great. But it's pretty complicated. Yeah. Matt has asked the question. The publishing side of it? Yeah, it's very challenging. Yeah.

What stories would you share with us today? That I haven't shared already, you know, in the past. I'd like to, you know, Matt can pop out a bunch of them, but, you know, give the whole bag away. Yeah. My relationship with Jack Rauch, it will be very interesting. I was really scared of Jack. He held my entire career in the palm of his hand.

No one else in NASCAR would touch me. And he gave me the chance. So I was very scared of him. And I think that, and he was very intimidated. And I think Steve was too. I can't speak for him. But as an observer, I felt he was. He was what?

Afraid of Jack. intimidated by Jack. We weren't given free hand to do what we knew. You know, Jack didn't trust us. He wasn't in the shop every day. I think if he had been in the shop every day, we would have been a lot more successful because Jack Rouse is brilliant.

He's a smart guy, and he would have figured out whose heart was there and whose wasn't. But him not being there, he was a little bit afraid that someone's going to take advantage Guarded. Yeah, he was very guarded. He didn't, he wasn't like overly rich. Yeah.

I mean, I went to sit down with him. He said, I got $4 million. My own money, saved up. I'm going to race two years. Sponsor or not. Build a team from scratch and everything. Now, think about that. That wasn't a crap load of money.

No. And so, you know, he was afraid somebody was going to come in and, you know, take his money and not deliver. Yeah. And so I was pretty scared of Jack. And so I'm leading up to one of the stories that I'd never told anyone. We were, 1989, we were going to do a test for Talladega. Instead of going to Talladega, though, there is a test track in Ohio that's like seven miles around.

So it's like a straightway. And so we were going to do real world drag testing. And so Jack had a Cessna 421. So Steve and I and all of us, we pile up in the 421 and we fly over there and just land inside this big car test center. Well, we've got it, you know, we've got it reserved. It's ours for the day. We fly in it. We're supposed to get authority today.

do it. So as soon as we land and get out, he got in trouble. Who? Jack. They come and ripped him a new one for doing that, landing that plane inside. Oh, without getting authority to land. Yeah. And I hate to tell it, but the truth is I loved it because I liked it. It was Jack was getting in trouble because I was the one that had gotten trouble. He made me cry, ball. before we ever went to our first race. Why? Because I was going to drive the Bill Davis bush car down there too. And he, you know, you used to smash exhaust pipes down underneath the frame rails.

Yeah. Well, he was smart enough because he's smarter than all the rest of us down here to cone the tailpipes so that when they were smashed, they still flowed the same. So you had to take a bigger pipe than your three and a half inch. or three inch, you know, and smash it down. And so I saw that. So I went over to Bill Davis and built a set for the bush car because it seemed like smart. And he found out about it. Oh, I bet he didn't like that.

Oh, my God. He tore me off. He tore my tail off. And I cried like a baby because I wanted to be approved of. All I wanted, you know, was to be approved of and to be proud of. And so it broke my heart. It crushed me anyway. So it was good to see him getting in trouble because I'd already gotten close to gotten in trouble anyway for other things.

And so we go and we do our test for the day. We have two rental cars delivered out there. And then Jack has a car. And Jack and the pilot, Zantop, they leave after the end of the day. And I stay with the guys because I'm riding with them back to the hotel. And we didn't drive in there. We flew in there. So when we're getting ready to leave, Robin is driving the car behind, and I'm driving the car in front.

And Steve's in the right seat. There's five of us in each car. And we're going down through there. Robin's dogging me. I mean, Robin was probably the least on the maturity scale in this way. Anyway, he's dogging me. Dogged me. And I don't want any part of it.

You know, I don't want to race. I don't want to do. I don't want to act a fool. I just, and he's dogging me. Finally, you know, he'd be bumped me in a back bumper, so I floor it. So we are flying down and we're still on the property, but we don't know where we're going. And all of a sudden I come up on a 90-degree right-hand turn and I am flying. And I slam on to brakes.

And about the time I get to that turn, this a Su-Zoo Trooper rolls around there. And I hit him in the left. rear. Oh, no. And that thing jumps up in the air, turns around, and knocks the rear end housing out of it. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I get out of the car and I'm like freaked out and Robin Parks and he comes walking over there and he reaches down and picks up the headlight from his car. So he hit me when I hit that car. And so, thank God we were on private property. This is 1989. It never got out anywhere. Unbelievable. Yeah.

And the guy was cool, and we did call the cops, you know, because we were on private property still. Yeah. Thank goodness. So it never got out. And then so we go call the rental car place to get another rental car because that one's totaled. And they said, you got our last two, the only two we have. So the rest of the other two days, we had to shuttle back and forth, 10 people with one rental car. Oh, my gosh.

to the track and back. I imagine Jack was not happy about the rental car. So I don't know if he didn't know. He had to know. He didn't act like he knew. Oh, my God. I didn't hear about it. But then when Robin, then we tore up a couple of rental cars at Dover at a test that year.

Doing what? So it rained. And so we were going to drive the track. So Robin was riding with me. And, you know, we were running around there. You could run wide open. Oh, my God. It'd run 110 ride after a drop down into turn one.

It'd run 110. We're out there running wide open around there. Rob would run with me. And all of a sudden, and I said, we just blistered right front. Oh! So we come in there and, you know, we'd chunk the right front, which that's not a big deal. But Robin took the other one. And you remember over by the garage area, there's that thing where.

it was like overhead you could drive under it and they would put probably that gravel stuff that went up in the horse track. Yeah. Well, somehow or another, he got under there and dropped all this stuff on the car and that messed the car up pretty bad. Damn. So that was the second one. But then on the way, you remember going from Watkins Glen to the airport from the track to the airport. You went through the back and all that stuff. Well, Robin, he ran off. Robin's involved in a bunch of these.

He's all of them. And so he hit the guide wire for, you know, it tore that one up. And so then Evan Lowe was the man, you know, he ran, you know, Roush industries up there. And the word come down, you guys need to take it easy on the rental cars. You know, no more trouble for me. You can guarantee that. So that's one of the stories. What's the story about the hole in the floorboard at Pocono?

Ronnie Thomas subbed the car because of the heat. Well, you know, back then we ran a hearse shifter and a hearse shifter boot, which is that rubber boot. Is this in the early 80s, I imagine? Yeah, this is 1982. Your own car? Yes, it was my car. I was running the full schedule with two cars.

And I'm out there running, and it's not a, it's not a, cool day anyway, but all of a sudden it gets really, really hot. And I looked down at the shifter and that boot is running, it looks like pizza cheese. It's just dripping. And a chunk, a chunk of the tailpipe had blown out right underneath it. Oh. So it's blowing straight up. Yes. And, you know, I had to get out. I mean, I just, I had to get out. Didn't you feel bad putting Ronnie in there? A little bit. A little bit. As long as I got out, I didn't care.

But I told Ronnie before he got in, I says, you won't last long. And he got in there. And I think the record shows that he did get back out. But I thought I remembered he finished. It wasn't very long to the end. But I do remember sitting on that old pit wall, which, you know, we're sitting there. Ronnie sat next to me. And he starts, his head starts going like this.

Oh, it's like up. down and then he just folds over and throws up. Oh, no. Yeah, it was, it was rough. Hey, this is Dellenhart 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. I was wondering back then in those days, you know, you drove the four car for McClore before they were really McClure. You drove, I think, Roger Han. Hamby's car a time or two.

You drove a bunch of different cars. And your own car. In 82, you struggled at times, right? I imagine. I'm thinking, like, I know you, and I know you as Mark Martin that drove for Jack Roush. And you went through the racetrack every week with a car that you thought you should have a chance to win the race.

You built the, it's prepared with the intentions of going and running really well. And I fortunately have been in the every car that I ever went to the racetrack with. But, you know, we had the same idea that we got a good enough car we should win. Now, I never was in a situation like you and a lot of the guys, Ricky Rudd all back in the early 80s driving, peace and deals together. Rudd did it. Morgan Shepherd did it. If you name them.

They got in cars. that they knew weren't going to win the race that day. And I'm trying to imagine what it must have been like to be out on that racetrack at Pocono or go to Talladega and put the pedal down and watch Harry Gann or Darrell Walterp or somebody drive away from you and there's nothing you can do.

How do you feel like you're doing the right thing? How do you not sit there and go, hmm, am I, do I need to be doing this? Is this where I need to be? So at the end of 81, everything I had ever touched was gold, including my final race for 81 was the Bush race at Charlotte that I ran second in. And it paid $15,100 to run second that day, which was more money than I'd ever won in my entire career. It looked like this was going to be easy.

I ran five cup races, led two of them, ran third, ran seventh, set on two poles. It's just, it all looks like it's going to be easy. like it all had been. So I made the mistake of hiring Bobby Jones for a crew chief for 82, and we were going to keep my Pontiac, the car that I'd sit on the pole and run the five races with, and going to build one car and built a new Hutch, a Buick, and Bobby dictated the whole thing. I didn't know what, you know, I didn't know what to do.

So we get down to Daytona and go through inspection first time and they run this thing to the left front rocker panel. Bam, it missed by inch. Bobby hung the body at four inches on the left front. And they had a five-inch rocker rule. And so we had to run the Daytona 500. An inch high. An inch high.

And the bush clash as well. Yeah, so the roof and the spoiler and everything else is an inch higher and everybody else's. We're junk. Yeah. You know, on top of that, you know, we're using prototype engine who had never built cup engines. So who knows where we stood for power?

I'm not saying it was great or not. I'm just saying if you don't do it all the time, you're probably not at the cutting edge. So we're inch high. That's not all of it. So we go, we're waiting Sunday morning. We're waiting Sunday morning for Bobby show up. The whole team's there. I'm there.

did go through inspection and get out on the line for the Daytona 500. No show, no show. So finally, we push it through without Bobby. Damn. And finally Bobby shows up, you know, after the car's out on the line. And, you know, of course, I fire him on the spot. Why did he? Alcohol.

Okay. And it was alcohol related. And so I had to fire him on the spot. Then so, and then we go out and we blow up. in the race in the race and i'm going to have to race off my purse basically i had a sponsor that never didn't pay and never paid so it was over we left the daytona 500 i mean i was going to be ill prepared to start with but that set the tone for the whole thing so after that yeah i wasn't going to win i was going to you know run as good as i could and that was hard

to stomach for a guy who'd never not, you know, think I could win every time. Yeah. But, yeah, it was a real challenge. And then, as you say, I went to Morgan McClure, and they weren't ready yet. You know, I mean, they were, they had one junk worse than, worse than the cars I had, they had a cutlass. And they had G.C. Spencer, who, you know, I thought I knew it all about chassis, and he thought he knew it all from the 60s. Yes. And we were oil and water. He didn't think I could drive, and I didn't think he knew nothing about, you know, today's race car.

And so at the end of the year, they never called me back, and I never called them. So we never said we're not going forward. We just weren't interested. Yeah. You got the opportunity to drive the two car. that had been in that car. It was a J.D. Stacey-owned car. I think at the time was M. was Enman still the crew chief? No, he had just left. It had won two races with Tim Richmond and Enman. And I had no idea what I was getting into.

I was just, thank God, I got a ride because it was Christmas and I didn't have a ride yet. And I had sold everything. I didn't even a hand tool. So when I got the call, it was like, heck yes. So I go up and I sit down with Stacy and, you know, we make a deal for 40% of the purse and I drive the car and we'll get engines from prototype. They'll, you know, pay for them. And so I've helped Ron out. And he says, well, get your lawyer and have somebody draw one up. I ain't got no lawyer. I don't need a, I don't need a contract.

Yeah. And that's not the end of contract problem. So I learned from that. And then I got a contract when I didn't need one. And then I needed to get out of it after one year because it was two years. So, yeah, I learned a lot of things. But anyway, Enman was gone. The money was drying up.

He was a millionaire broke, millionaire broke, millionaire broke. And he was on one of his broke spells. And they were going to run out the winner circle thing. So Robert Harrington was going to be the crew chief. Yes, Booby Harrington. Booby, and they closed down their engine shop, and basically I ran seven races and got fired. Yeah.

Said they wanted somebody with more experience. Tell me the story about you using a hand-operated clutch. So I ran Neil Pedals, which they made floor-mount pedals, dual master. You ran floor-mount pedals before anyone. else. Everyone else still had hanging panels. Well, I had that, and I had these in my late model. And the reason I put them in the cup car, first cup car

is because I got them free. Did NASCAR look down in there and go, hmm, what the hell's this? Well, the first race, first inspection, and it was Dick Beatty. It wasn't Gazaway. It was nice to me. Didn't treat me like an outside northerner. He puts his elbows on it,

looks down in there and looks at those pedals, and he looks at me, and he says, we don't run that indie shit down here. And like, I was like, oh, I get those freaking, can I turn. Turn upside down? And he said, yeah, I'd do it for next race. So I took it home and that wasn't easy. I bet that wasn't easy.

That was not easy, but I did it because they're, yeah. Oh, my gosh. But, yeah, that's kind of that story. Yeah. So, but you had a hand-operated clutch. Oh, yeah. So the Neil pedal. So I broke my left foot and ankle in July of 1980 with my late model.

How did you do that? Where was you wrecked? I was at Madison, Wisconsin. They called it Capitol Speedway, but, you know, they still race there now. High bank race track. Inverted 12 cars. I had fast time. I think I drove to the front of the first 50 to twin.

50s. You know, that's against trickle and solder and all of them. And I, and I, but my car, at Dylan car that we had designed, nobody had a chance. So I'm driving up through there. I think I won the first one. So they inverted us again. And I'm driving up through there. And I catch Jim and Jim, uh, we had an etiquette, driver's etiquette.

And Jim was closer on the etiquette. You know, everybody else, you know, Jim. he lived by the etiquette but he cut it a lot closer and I got under him going in and he cut down and of course I would not touch him you know so I spun because the etiquette was you don't hit people so I spun and I my door and Bob's Drake drilled me in the door and and so they yeah they stuck me in a helicopter crazy landed on the on the roof of the Madison General and Eric and Beth Hayden, the Olympic figure skaters father was my doctor on Sunday. Yeah. So he comes in and he tells me, you won't race again this year.

And I said, I'll race again in 30 days. I'm going to race the ASA race in 30 days. I'm leading the points. I'm going to win a championship. Then I'm going NASCAR racing. So he heard that. And so he understood it because of, you know, athletes. So I go back in three weeks for my checkup. He cuts the cast off.

He says, now get up and walk out of here. I said, no, no, I got a hand clutch. You know, I'll be fine. You'll heal faster without it. And I got up and walked out of there three weeks after. And so what I had done in the shop is I took that hydraulic floor mount Neil pedal off the floor and I bounded it in the frame rail next to me, and I cut the pedal off and that stub there,

and I take a piece of one inch round tubing, and I slipped it over there and put a bolt on it, and then I put me a bicycle hand grip on it. Yeah, you can push it with your hand. Yeah, and I right foot brake. I went to the 30 days. I went to Cuyuga, Canada, for the next ASA race, set on the pole.

Junior Hanley did beat me, but I got the pole and run second. And then that was on Sunday. And then on Thursday we went to Milwaukee. And I had an epic battle with trickle and won the race. But only had to use the clutch, obviously, on pit stops. Yeah. The rest of the time, I always shifted without the clutch anyway.

My gosh. Well, the book is full of stories like that. I imagine there were some stories. I mean, I've had the chance to write a couple of books or be involved. in the writing of books. In the last one that I had a chance to write, racing to the finish, I don't feel like we were ever sitting there

with a story that we decided didn't go in or couldn't fit in, right? But this book is your life. What, where, where, how hard, I guess, was the decision of like what warranted being in the story and what maybe, maybe doesn't make it in the story? So we put it all down. And then our biggest fear was that they would tell us it was too much.

Because it was going to be giant. And it is 500 miles, 500 text pages, not including the forward and all the other stuff. Was that intentional? No, that was a lucky deal. That was a lucky deal. But it's, you know, it's over 500 pages. The book is lucky for us working with Octane. We said up front, we want to have a lot of control on this and we don't want it cut.

So there's nothing, the only things that are left out of this book are things that I didn't remember to bring up or Matt didn't. But the interesting thing is Bones Bursier that's the author, you know, is a checker pass with Ballou. Oh, yeah. You know, did Richie Evans' book, so many great books, you know. Yeah. He was the only one to write this. All his books were my favorite books. Oh, yeah.

Bentley weren't all that stuff. And what he did in this book was way above and beyond. If you let me tell you a story. Sure. Okay. So in 1976, you know, I raced late bottled dirt, no asphalt. And, you know, if you caught somebody and you were behind them for more in the corner, you hit them in the butt and went on.

That's just what you did. That's a racing I grew up doing. And so I go to New Smyrna for Speed Weeks, first year on asphalt. And I go to New Smyrna and Speed Weeks, because I could get nine nights of experience, and that's two months at home. So we go down there, and I'm behind this car that doesn't look like a nice car. and I'm faster than he is. And so, boom, up off a four. Bam!

He hits the wall. Holy s**. And I'm a little kid. You know, I mean, I'm 110 pounds and 17, just turned 18 and looked 12. And at that time, that was ridiculously young. Yeah. And this guy turned out to be Bobby Brack. And as I, unbeknownst to me, he,

was a Florida superstar and he went to the hospital and was hurt really bad. And I, you know, I tried not to pay attention to bother me. And it did shape me going forward because that's my kind of luck. I kind of be dramatic when I say what you people say, well, and you bump and run because if I bump and run somebody, it might kill them. That's my luck. Everybody else just bump and runs and whatever. You know, this, I would live with that for the rest of my life.

For sure. It had an effect on me, but bones gets it all. Like I tell what I know, but this, you know, is injuries, how long it was in the hospital, what all the back from. So all the stories in this book are backfilled with all these facts. So it took him years to do this. This book is five years in the making, by the way. This is painful. You know, it was kind of painful for me, extremely painful for Matt.

Emotionally. Yeah. Just take so much, you know, pride and work. And Arlene, Matt and I previewed every single chapter. And usually when something's not right, it's, for me in the past, it was too much trouble to fix it if it wasn't too bad. Yeah. We fixed everything. We fixed everything that we knew to fix.

And so this, you know, that's one thing. It's historically accurate or it's from my eyes what I perceive. When somebody sat next to me might see something slightly different. Yeah. You had Jeff Gordon write the four word. That's an important decision, I think, when you're writing a book that's important to use. This one would be, how did you approach him to, and I'm sure it was an easy yes for him. How did you approach him by asking him to do that?

It was a little bit of a challenge to decide who would ask because you were high on the list. But Jeff had, he had an appreciation for me that not, that didn't come just common. And I think through the years Jeff understood that I had a chance. to do what he did. He changed the sport 100% because of his age. Before that, if you were pre-30, you weren't going to get a chance. Yeah. It wasn't going to happen.

And I had a chance to do that. I mean, at 23, I could have been driving that 28 car. Another story on that that I didn't say was Benny Parsons took the ride. He lasted seven races and got fired. So if I'd have taken that alienated everybody that got me there and then got fire. You know, so that's what I always harped on as well. Benny got fired. Do I think I could have drove better than Benny, you know?

And what I should have done really was I should have said, What else? I've got this problem. I got these guys, got this stuff. I'll talk to you about it. but I got this car and I know it's better than anything you have. And, you know, we've got to solve all these problems and I have to be able to dictate the cars, the car build and all that stuff.

That's the only way that I didn't even, I didn't even do that. Yeah. Well, I think that a lot of people are going to be excited to pick this thing up. And I'm thankful that you finally got it done. I know you've been working on a long time and we've talked about it over and over. I'm sure there's an incredible, awesome amount of photos inside this book that'll take everybody on. That's the best thing about a book like this is all the imagery and your imagination. 75.

You know, tying that, tying your imagination for what's happening, what you're reading into the images itself. 75 photographs, many have never been seen, you know, so it was hard work for Matt to drum them up. up. That's a whole story. What's next? Yeah. You've done this Herculian task of writing this book for your dad. I wonder what you guys are going to do next besides the run around trying to sell this thing.

Running around selling it's going to be a lot more fun. Yeah. You're going to do some book signings, stuff like that, I imagine. That'll be great. People always enjoy those. We're going to pivot, Mark, over to kind of what you've been doing with NASCAR. For the longest time, man, you kind of hung out in your neck of the woods. We might hear from you on an opinion of something or a thing,

but you weren't never really in the room in terms of NASCAR didn't really ever open the room up, right? They would say, and maybe this is absolutely true, but they would have said, well, you could have come talk to us anytime. but it's not quite that comfortable, that easy. But somehow or another, you and I both ended up serving on a sort of informal committee for the playoffs, the NASCAR playoff system and changing that and what would be the future of that. And we were invited onto a call early last year to start those conversations. And you were the one that was the most.

vocal right out of the gate. I remember sitting in that first conversation. This might have been, I think this might have been the first or the second conversation, but we basically had like an initial get-together. Here's what we want to do. We don't know what this means. We don't know if we don't know if anything changes, but we just want to look at it. And then we got down to having some Zoom calls and conversations got more intense. But I remember early on, there was zero chance that we were ever going to go back to a full point system. And there was not much of a chance that we would ever go back to a 10 race chase system. There was this idea early on that was, it wasn't really spoken, it wasn't really completely verbalized,

but there was this idea that we got to hang on to the rounds, we've got to hang on to elimination, we can't give up winning your end. There's all these things that just they were too, they were not willing to release. And I remember on one of the first calls, it was either the very first one or the very second one. I think me, maybe one or two other people on this call,

are biting our tongue, not really wanting to say what we want to say, feels like it's a waste of my time to really kind of get on on soapbox and talk about something that I don't think 85% of people in this call are interested in. Right. And you did it. You said, at the end of the call, you said, you went on this sort of five-minute rant. That was like, this is what we need. This is the only way.

This is the way to do it by and at the end of that comment, at the end of your rant, I think the, the NASCAR executives on the call said, all right, well, we know how everybody feels, a little bit of a chuckle. We're going to meet up again down the road. We had a couple more meetings. You may remember this better than I do, but we had a couple more calls and Zoom calls and so forth,

and you continued to pressure this idea. And I still didn't feel like it had much of a chance, but you wouldn't let it up. You wouldn't let go of the... You just were... You've said this over and over and over. You're like, man, I'm just telling me telling you all what the fans are telling me.

I'm just telling you all what the fans are telling me. This is what they're telling me. And you just would not stop. You had this conviction of, I'm just going to push this narrative. I'm going to push for this change, whether it's realistic or not, whether it's even possible.

This is what I believe in. And... I really truly feel that all of your effort is the reason why the chase is back. We got the chase, which I didn't think was possible, and we got as close to a full-year point system as one could have. And so, you know, now that we are in the back half of the first year of this new or old system, however you want to look at it. Where's your satisfaction?

Where's your pride? How are you enjoying what you're seeing? What's been the experience, I guess, for you? You know, first of all, I did it for the fans. And it's hard for the people inside to do that. It, you know, the worst thing they could do to me is take my hard card. And I had,

I don't go for very many races anyway. I love the sport, but I love the fans even more. Because I, the life I live today are because the race fans. You know, they're there,

they're more, uh, responsible than NASCAR is. Yes. They're everything to me. Yeah. And I wouldn't have, stood up for that for my and i never do try to really push for what i want if the fans really want

something i don't want i'll at least stay out of it if not back them up because i think it's about the fans and you do too uh but you know television and the broadcast stuff has taking over to the point that even if they don't say what they want, a lot of the people in the industry were backing it up because they believed that's what they wanted, which mostly what they want is for it to succeed. That's right. That's really what they want. But if they don't know our sport like we know our sport, then that's the problem with

a committee. You put the wrong people on the committee. you get the wrong answer. And that's all I'll say. You know, and there were way too many yes people and people that had to cover themselves and had to watch. Look, when I drove for Jack Rauch, I kept my mouth shut. You know, I didn't run my mouth. I could not have survived if I spoke like Tony Stewart did. That's why I love Tony Stewart. He said everything I already thought, you know, but I didn't have, I don't, you know, he had the talent that they couldn't fire him or run him off. And that's kind of the same thing.

If you're in this sport and your livelihood has to do with in the end the TV money, you know, then you're going to do what they want even if it hurts the sport from a fan standpoint. You know, I don't think, I just didn't feel like that anybody was in a position to tell it like it was. And I'm telling you, I was certain where the fans stood. It was an 80-20 issue. Oh, yeah. You know, it was only 20 won at playoffs. If you combine full season, which was stronger than the chase,

but you combine the chase in full season, it's 80%. And in the end, if you remember on the last conversation we had, I said, I will, I will go. get behind a 10, because I knew we weren't getting full, so it was positive. Yeah. But I will get behind 10 race chase. Yes.

But I won't. Anything less. You know, because I'm going to stand and squall like the fans, like the fans were. So I couldn't believe. I was shocked when they came back and said they were going to do it. I was too. Yeah.

Shock. And it's great. It is good. And when this, I know that me and you are huge fans of the direction we went. And so that plays into it. I'm sure there's a little bias here. But I have been from the drop of the green flag in Daytona glued to the point situation.

And now we got some really fun turn of events in terms of Denny Hamelin closing the gap and passing Reddick. But there's this idea. So there's a couple things that have been pretty fun to watch happen. at the start of the year the guys who were responsible for this system determining how much the winner would get

determining what the split would be from first to tenth in the chase determining all of those numeral factors the people that were responsible for that would run 10,000 simulations and of the 10,000 simulations the champion came out of the top 6,8 85% of the time.

So I go into my broadcasting window in the summer going, telling everybody, hey, you know, we can talk about the bubble and who might get in because that's important. If you miss the chase, it's embarrassing. If you make it, you feel like one of the people that got invited to the party. But our champion is going to be one of these top six. So we need to kind of be talking about who can creep into that, right? That's the new cut line.

we got about five or ten races into my summer stretch and I was talking to Christopher Bell and he said and that line's moved he's like we all heard the same thing about the simulations in sixth and top six and that's where you want to be he said that line's kind of moved because we've seen what Denny did he overcame the 100 points Blaney had this really cool run where he chewed into that points a bunch and made a big run Ligano made a huge leap into the playoffs or into the chase. And so, but Christopher Bell's like, man, that number might be eight. You know, you still might have a 50% chance, 50% chance of winning the championship being

seventh, eighth, and you're not out of it. And so that to me is what's going to be fun. And that to me is what's been entertaining. That to me is what keeps me watching the next race to see who falters. who excels, and then looking at that points at the end of the day and going, wow, he lost two spots. Yeah. He was in such a damn good position, and now he's not.

Yeah. You know, and now I'm here every Sunday. And another thing about that, too, and I know you'll appreciate this, if you're running 24th now, it's real important to run 23rd. Yeah. It wasn't under the playoff system. It didn't matter. Yeah, it didn't matter.

It just did not matter. Yeah. And so you see fierce disagreements over real estate and over etiquette and all these things way back in the pack. And we need that. We need it to not all be. That had disappeared. Yes. Yeah.

And another thing, the playoffs were all good intention, all of it. When in your end, it was great intention. And it was important if you won because you were in. but it also took away from how important it was to win in another way. You know what I mean? I mean, if you're going to hail Mary to win a race now, you've got to be willing to take a bigger penalty. There's no penalty.

So everybody was hellmarry. If everybody hell marries, it ain't a hell marry anymore. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's changed in a way that I approve of. I always wanted Bubba Waller. his brickyard win last year to be bigger than it was. All it was was he needed to playoffs.

And it just, it irked me because that's such a major, masterful win. And we didn't celebrate that, that he was such an incredible bad ass for winning that race in dominant fashion. And that was just, that's just one example of, you know, You know, I just think that it changed what winning meant in a way that I didn't like. Yeah. There's this idea that we had went, we had gone in this direction of making sure that we covered everybody. Now, this is important to do when you're on a broadcast.

We would always sit down and say, all right, man, we've got a 30 or 50 minute practice. Let's try to get as many cars on the screen as we can. Let's try to... And we got a list of all kinds of information about every driver. If you throw a guy on the screen, I got something I can tell you about him. And we had kind of taken that to the extreme where we were... It was a good thing when we were talking about the big three. It was a good thing when we were focusing on...

two, three, four guys that were up at the top. That's how we were making them household names, right? Denny Hamlin this year has benefited probably in recognition, name recognition, more this year from his competition and how well he's done than any other year in the past decade. Because we talk about him more this year because of the points and everything, how important it is, And so I guess I think that this system tends to make stars a little bit more so. We focus more on the guys who are out there truly kicking ass. And so I think there's a good, there's a lot of good benefits from it.

But I think the number one benefit for me is that I am here every week. There's a lot of other things, you know, that are going on in the sports. We talked about this yesterday on my podcast, stages, stage cautions. It's a complicated issue. Trying to shorten up the stage caution. And there's a lot of great ideas. I think that, first off, I want to start this conversation off by saying that I believe that NASCAR absolutely recognizes that this is a conversation that they need to have,

and they're probably actively running through scenarios about how to speed this process up. Cautions just in general if you're a series owner or running a series or running any race, cautions need to be as short as you can make them. You need to get back to racing. That's your best promotion is your actual green flag competition. The stages have made cautions longer,

particularly when you have a caution come out prior to the end of the stage. They run caution to get to the end of the stage. Then they have the traditional. eight or so lapsed stage caution. Now we're under caution for 20 minutes. Yeah. So, you know, I think there's a lot of great ideas floating around. That's probably the next challenge to tackle.

And if they do half as good a job as they did on this point system, I think that they'll have some positive results. Yeah, I do too. You know, I don't subscribe to shortening the races. one reason is because I don't think stages are going away and short stages really kill it for me. Yes. I can't stand on it.

It really hurts the truck races and some of the road course races. I have never ran a truck race. And having never ran one, I'm not going to go getting a truck at Kansas, right? I'm not going to go to Charlotte and race a truck. I'm going to go to Martinsville. but they run 40 lap stages. They knocked the shit out of each other, run over each other.

There's no tire fall off, and it just doesn't look like a lot of fun. And I remember when we were racing at Martinsville, I knew Jeff Gordon could run that track faster than me. I knew that Jimmy Johnson could run that track faster than I could run it, but if I knew we got an 80 or 100-lap run, I could do some things that would make me, better on the back end.

And, man, the stages at some of these races make it difficult for a driver. You know, now the tires have gotten better. The tires are, you know, wearing out and falling off a little bit. But managing, you know, a long run was a lot of fun for me. Yeah. Same here. And, you know, I understand stages. There are a lot of things about stages that I like.

There are some things I don't like about it. Right. But realistically, I don't see. why that should go away. The cautions, you know, need to be addressed, but shorten the races and keeping the stages like they are. That's so funny how the shortening the races conversation got started. So this literally came from a tweet from Scott Dixon, IndyCar legend, badass dude.

But he made a comment about how he takes a nap during some of our races. and I think it was in jest and just a joke. It ends up getting some traction in the media. They asked Kyle Larson about it and he goes, yeah, I feel like some of our races could be shorter. And so there's this snowball effect on social media. And the next thing you know, everybody's either for shortening races or defending shortening races

in like a week's period of time. I'm like, how did we start this? How did we start this? Why is this conversation even happening? I know. Like it's so unnecessary. Yeah. And, you know, everybody was saying that, oh, Wilkesboro, 450 laps, that was a long race.

It was over in three hours. Yeah, it was a good race. It was short. It wasn't a long race. If I was laying that race out, I wouldn't have made it 450, but I sit there and watched it, and I was like, it was okay. And I thought it was a great race. I thought for sure it was going to be a 400-lap race when they came back and said, 4-50. I'm like, well, that's odd, but no big deal.

And they had the race. And in terms of a timed event, it was. was landed right in the middle of all of our events. It wasn't long. Yeah. Most of our races, some are two hours, 45 minutes, some maybe three hours and 30 minutes. But I think that's the window. And we're in it for most of our events.

But we do need to clean up the caution thing. Yeah. We need to tighten that up, figure out a way. And with the smartest people as we have in NASCAR, they should be able to, you know, and I know they're working on it. One of the things that I thought that I'm sure, again, I'm not privy. Me and Mark are not part of the shortening up Caulsions Committee, but I'm sure that they're talking about everything,

including maybe we need to simply rethink how we split the field under caution. We really don't have as many cars a lap down in these races as we used to with the, you know, free pass and the ability to stay out and get your, get your lap back and wave around. A lot of these tracks, we don't really have a ton of cars that are lapped. And so, and with the efficiency and speed of the stops, either we pit the entire field. There's no more, you know, lead lap cars and lap cars and having to split them up into two laps. Or since, and you wouldn't do this at Wilkesboro or Martinsville because it's too short of a racetrack.

but at Charlotte or somewhere else, could the lap cars pit at the one to go? It's a nine-second pit stop. Could they come down pit road, get their stuff done, get back up out on a racetrack and fall in behind the field down the back straightaway and still feel like they're coming to the green prepared? Just looking at, just trying to throw out some ideas

on how to take one lap out of the process. You know, when cautions were quick and fast, we didn't have, we didn't split the field, we didn't close pit road. There's all these things, these processes that happen in today's NASCAR that didn't even happen when me and you were racing that add to the cautions

that I don't think they need to take away. There's a, you know, you do need to close pit road, you do you need to get the field together. You don't need to have cars running down pit road as soon as a caution comes out. There's a lot of reasons why we do the things we do today. I think one of the things that they also could do do is, and I don't

truly know the reason why the caution will come out let's say five laps before the end of the stage. It's an unfortunate situation, but NASCAR is now in the position where they have to finish the stage out under caution and then have the traditional stage process

start to play out. The stage break itself. Can they get to a point with competition, crew chiefs, race teams, the RTA, where everyone agrees, if we do unfortunately get a caution short of the end of the stage, that's the end of the stage. I don't know what hold up there is.

I've heard a lot of different things, and it's hard to know the truth. A lot of teams would say it completely destroys their computer's ability to understand fuel mileage. I don't really, I don't know. I don't understand. But surely there's something they can do. I bet that they make some changes this offseason. One of the problems that we all have, and you're really close to this, but they're still, and the fans are so far away, there's so little information shared with the race fans that they don't understand a lot of these things. Yeah.

Like, I know the fans, a lot of fans hate stages. Yeah, they do. And they really would love to not have a stage caution. If you leave them, no caution. And they need, a lot of times they need more information. to understand why we're doing it. Why we're doing it. And I'm not opposed.

The stages themselves with warding the points really makes extra different racing and strategy. It's not a bad thing. Yeah. I'm going to say something controversial. So when I was a racer and you were probably the same way, I was super narrow-minded. What do I want? What is good for me? What would be better?

What do I think is better for all of us? And when I got out of the car and got up in the booth, I started, I was like, oh, shit, that's why we do it that way. Right. And there was all of these things that I saw. And I went, damn, I was an idiot. I can't believe I was so stubborn to not see the reasoning for this process or the reason for this process. And now that I wasn't driving the car, I would go to NASCAR and go, man, why did y'all, why did y'all do that? Or I'd call them.

Hey, I'm going to get on my podcast. I'm going to say some shit. I want to know why you did what you said, you know, did what you did. And they would like, okay, man, here it is. This is the reason I go, man, that makes sense. Okay, all right. So in, if you, if we laid down 10 things that we were not, not, not, that NASCAR has done, decided to do processes they've done, a decision during the middle of a race, whatever. If you laid 10 things down here that we, we were, when we saw it, we were like, what the hell is that?

eight of those things, once I have a conversation with NASCAR with, I understand it 100% and would have done the same thing that they done in that scenario. Agreed. What they need is to your point, they need a voice that is telling people why things are being done the way they're being done. And they don't want to hear it from NASCAR. They don't want to hear it, unfortunately, there's some great, great people that work there. they don't really want to hear it from some of the folks that work at NASCAR

and they don't really want to hear it from like NASCAR radio. But so there needs to be a way for fans to truly hear some of the reasons why there are some processes in place and why things are slow to react. Like there was one great thing that me and you freaking, me and you will die on this hill, the number placement, right? I think you and I both feel like the best number placement's the middle of the door. Well, when they came out with this idea that the numbers were going to be moved forward, the reaction that I was a witness to was, man, how can NASCAR do this?

And NASCAR didn't do it. They didn't do it. They were like, hey, put the number wherever you want. Right. And the RTA said, let's have something uniform that we all do the same. same. They had their reasonings. But it wasn't a NASCAR decision.

NASCAR really was going to let them put that number anywhere between the tires that they wanted. Buy it. Want to push it back? What to push forward? Wherever you want. If you pushed it back and put the sponsor on the front, you know, up toward, it looks good that way too.

It did. My Miller car looked great that way. I've seen a lot of race cars with the number placement all over the side of the car. And I've liked all of them at some point. Like I don't, I'm not against the number forward. If it looks good, if the design is appealing. But fans are quick to go, Ah, NASCAR, can't believe NASCAR made this choice.

And a lot of times, NASCAR isn't even the one that made it. No. And similarly, there's some influence from network. There's some influence from RTA. In certain scenarios, there are some influences that they aren't in control of. You know, and so. had a lot of influences you know the RTA has a lot more to do with a lot of things that we the fans aren't crazy about yeah you know that they are that are good for the teams yes and I just you

know I'm quick to to bash NASCAR when they got it coming but you know I do see them taking a lot of lot of grief it's like the the sponsor and they say you can't see the sponsor. Well, yeah, first thing I would have seen when I saw the first drawing of, you know, the Gen 7, what's wrong with quarter panels? What'd y'all do? I mean, it doesn't have a trunk lid. It looks like a hatchback. First, when I first saw it, I said, why didn't they push the body back? But then I got to look and more and it's like the rear wheels are rubbing the back bumper. why is that? You know, it's just

looks so not like a race car. Well, the OEMs wanted all that. And I'm like, well, dude, if it's got to be that way, push the body back and narrow up the tread width because we've got to flatten those quarter panels out. I still would have made room

so that the and then if you want a sponsor on the front side of the door, you can do that. I had that in 2002. you know, I had, I did it in the 2002 car in 1981. Yeah. I had sponsor, you know, where. You slid the number back.

Yeah. I said back a little bit. I had a sponsor on a quarter. I had a sponsor on the door, front side of the door. You could do all that. But, man, I'm not, you know, I'm not a fan of the few little things that were done there with the shape of that car with that body that made it look so much different than every other race car we've ever seen. Yeah.

You've stated in the past that you would love to be to oversee an open test of the next-gen car. What would your function, what would your responsibility be at this open test? Well, I would work with the engineers, the smart engineers from the teams to, make the underbody not work at all. And I know there's a challenge and I know why there's an underbody because all the money was spent before there was one, making, you know, down force there was getting out of control. So I get it, but I would want, man, I'm just tell you,

I won't zero downforce in the front. Yeah, zero. Lift. And it, well, or lift. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know. know, start with 300 in the back. Maybe you need more.

You don't need a ton, but you need the front to be virtually nothing. And if it's nothing, it shouldn't lose anything when it gets behind a car. I can tell you I've raced cars at Atlanta and Charlotte and all those places. I raced cars that were around zero or front lift. And you never, ever, ever heard anything about aerotight. ever. Did you run up behind people right on their back bumper?

Yeah, of course. I mean, we were, all the cars, it wasn't just ours. In 1990, when we went to Atlanta to race your dad for the championship

at the end of the year, we had three cars that we went tunneled and we had two in race trim that had a lift in the front and one that was zero. And it had like 270.

How in the hell. And we all race that. Yeah. Your dad had the same thing. Everybody, had it. There was no such. Then we get into the mid-90s. We start making some serious downforce in 93, you know, by 93, and we get in the mid-90s. And I'll tell you where it went off the rails, in my opinion. It went off the rails. We started making downforce, and then people started saying,

arrow-tight. I even told Steve Meal at Martinsville, I said, I'm telling you, I can feel it. And they already thought I was nuts. You could. And so they come with the five and five. And rule and that didn't suit your dad's cars and it probably suited fords better. I don't know. I don't know what the story was and everybody's squalling arrow tight. And your dad says, I say, we need less front down force. And your dad said we need more. And that's a fact.

Oh, yeah. And it never, and your dad had a lot of pool. And it just kept going. And it kept going and it kept going and it kept going. and it kept going. I remember in 99, we went to that, we went to Japan to run the oval there and it was a 6 and 6th rule, and it was awful. But like, you know, you had this gigantic blade on the back of the car. Right.

Well, if you just take it all off, you've got to start over again. You can't just take a good race car with a good tire and take all that off. It's going to require a different race tire. It's very complicated. I don't care if they even race car. ran it or tried it, I would love to watch a team try to take a next-gen car and get it to no downforce. Well, that's what I'm saying.

I know. Yeah. I would love to watch, I don't, I'm not saying that it's improbable. I would just love to watch someone engineer in that direction and try to achieve it. Right. And then really see what a driver thought about it on the racetrack. Oh my gosh. Because that would open up good years window, you know, as the more down.

force the car has, the tougher the tire's got to be, the more durable, the more heat the tires are going to produce, the more it's going to be shoved into the racetrack. Yeah. You know, I've always, as I've watched, I've watched races on TV. And I, one of the, one of the, I've watched races and I'm careful, I'm real hesitant to mention this publicly because people think, well, you know, you're just, you're just, you know, farming nostalgia or just wanting to, you know, you're just wanting something that's never going to come back.

You're just, you know, you remember all the great things about the old days and not the sh** things. And there's one race that stands out to me. And there's a funny little, I'm, I'm passionate, right? sometimes my passion for things makes me do some pretty silly things. But the 1980 World 600, Darrell Waltrip and Benny Parsons

are racing for the win, and in the last 10 laps, they changed the lead eight to 12 times. It was remarkable. Whoever got the lead was going to lose it in the next lap or two. And I don't pretend to know why those two cars

interacted with each other the way they did. But both could easily pass the other lap after lap after lap. And I put that, I put a clip of it on the internet. And I said, man, this is one of the greatest races I've ever seen. Kevin Harvard gave me a hard time. He's like, well, there's only two cars on the lead lap. I think third's four laps down.

And I said to him, I said, I'm not really saying that the race itself, it's actually how the two cars are working together. And he goes, yeah, you've got a hell of a point there. They're actually, that's fun to watch. And we don't have cars that do that today. And so, you know, my, I was so, Adam, I was so confident that the answer to what we want and what we want our product to be is in how those two vehicles. interact with each other,

I wrote a letter, an email to O'Donnell. I think it was to O'Donnell and Hilton, and I wrote this long letter. And I gave them a link to the video, and I said, this is what we need. You know, this was 15 years ago, maybe 10 years ago.

And I'm like, man, whatever's going on between these two cars in terms of arrow, in terms of downforce, in terms of drag, there's something here. now I'm not asking you to go build me a 1979 Monte Carlo and tell me you're going to, that's what we're going to race on Sunday.

But whatever the numbers are, whatever's going on here is what we need to know. Can we reproduce it? I don't know. But we need to know what this is because this is gold. And so, you know, to your point,

you know, you ran cars in the 80s and the late 80s up to 90. with similar arrow probably than what they had in 7980, I imagine. And so whatever it is, I mean, there's a... I don't know if we'll ever, ever get there, but, man, if they gave you the keys to the building and you went to the racetrack and you think you could figure it out. Well, you know, their unwillingness to look at it.

it's been since 1995. You were talking about, what are you talking about, you know, 40 years or something? You know, 30 years, they're not willing to look at it. And it's very complicated. And of course, anytime you take a chance, even this point thing, man, if this thing turned out bad, I was going to be hammered. Oh, yeah. So it's pretty scary.

Yeah. And you have the whole weight of the industry, you know, You can't get it wrong. Yeah, you can't get it wrong. You've got a billion-dollar television. You know, you've got all the stuff that rides. It's, there's a lot of complications, but the unwillingness to look at no down force is really a problem. It's always eight.

It's ate at me since 1995, and I just know that the racing was better. And so I know that the world's different now, but people look back at the, races from the 90s and a lot of people watch those races from the 90 and says that's better than today well it depends on what you're talking about you know man there's 30 cars 25 cars on the lead lap usually now yeah does that does that make that better yeah i'm not sure i'm not you know i'm i guess it's in the eyes of the the beholder but uh one of our passing problems you know is that the cars are within three-tenths, you know, at a lot of tracks. The whole field runs the same lap time.

That's the problem. That is a problem. I could have told them that before they, you know. Oh, my gosh. When they started taking tear down shocks and showing everybody your shocks, I'm like, dude, this is wrong. You don't want everybody the same speed. I'll stand in the booth and we have this timing and scoring right in front of us,

and you can, any given lap of the race, I'm talking, we're midway through a tire run at Chicago and you'll look at the lap times that everyone just ran and there'll be guys that are clearly faster but it's very minimal it's like a half a tenth a tenth maybe maybe maybe there's a half two tenths max between the entire field and like if you have any any challenge with arrow and you're only you know two tents faster than the slowest car you know you're going to easily get stuck behind them if they want you to. Yeah, of course. Well, for sure.

So, you know, today's racing is challenged a lot of, in a lot of ways that you just can't, I don't know what you can do. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, and talking about downforce, they've all done it, you know, F1, you know, had the problem before anybody, you know, indie cars have, you know, and we should have looked at that, you know, before we continued to go down bigger and bigger. I mean, gosh, in 2013, that 55 car I drove made 2,000 plus downforce. Yeah.

And today's car, you know, on the draggy package, makes 2,000 pounds of downforce, you know. And that's where they go to try to make the racing more interesting. Let's take power away and put more drags so that people get runs. and it just creates insanity. But then if you take it all away and cars get spread out, then that's not good because it's not entertainment. So I don't know where you're supposed to go because traditionalists like you and I don't mind seeing cars get spread out. But at the same time, we enjoy a good race with cars like that where there's a good battle, but you get those excitement. further, farther, you know, between, fewer and farther between.

So, you know, it's a tough thing to balance right now. Yeah, for sure. Man, it's been a fun conversation. We went a lot longer than I thought we would. Again, I appreciate you and Matt coming all the way. Mark Martin's Never Lift. I guess I can buy this anywhere. You can buy books.

You can. Mark Martin Archive is the best place, but you get it anywhere. archive. All right. So if you want to get yours strictly directly from the man himself, Mark Martin Archive is the place you need to go. I can't wait to read it, Mark. I've been excited about this. You've been talking about it for five years. Congratulations on the finished product, buddy, and I hope it's everything you want it to be. I believe that, you know, you put a ton of hard work into it, and I know that it was difficult, but the reward on the back end when you hear all the people that are going to read this book. You're going to have people coming up to you 20 years from now that are

still just picking this up going down. I can't believe this. Tell me more about that. Tell me more about this. You're you have unlocked the key, buddy. You're going to be busy the next, you know, a couple of decades continuing to talk about this book and the stories within it. Well, I appreciate you for having me on, but just what you do for motorsports. I tell you all the time, but you, you know, you are awesome. What you do for motorsports, it's just incredible. I appreciate that.

And I appreciate you, man. You're always been a great, great friend. Mark Martin on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, so there's Mark Martin on the Dell Jr. download. Man, that's a lot of fun. I'll be honest. Just privately, personally, between you and I, I get a little nervous when I have guys in here

the second and the third time. I'm like, man, what are we going to talk about? Because I've got all the notes, my great staff here at Dirtymo Media. has provided me with the things that we haven't talked about, all the things that have happened in Mark's life since the last time he was on the show. But then there's a couple of sheets here of,

here's everything you've talked about. So that's off the table. But man, Mark comes in here and he just kicked ass. So we had a great conversation. That was fun. I, you know, I just think the world of that guy. and hopefully 67 years old. 67.

That's, man. He looks like he's in great shape. Matt's doing a great job of keeping him young. That's amazing. They get to spend a lot of time around each other. I can't, you know, can't imagine what that's like for Matt, right, to be able to be with his dad. and for the most part have his dad's full attention.

You know, Mark was a racer forever, dividing his time amongst all types of things, his son included. So pretty awesome. And that made my day getting them in here. Appreciate Mark joining us. Appreciate y'all joining us here at the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box.

You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets, and we will see you tomorrow with Bless Your Heart. Check out Dirtymoe Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.