The Dale Jr. Download - Todd Bodine: The Cup Series Chewed Me Up — And I Let It

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes two-time NASCAR Truck Champion Todd Bodine to the Download this week to chat about their shared family history and his path to the pinnacle of stock car racing. Born into a racing family, Todd found himself in racing at an early age thanks to his father’s involvement with Chemung Speedway.  Todd’s older brothers Geoff and Brett would both rise from the NASCAR modified ranks in the Northeast to having opportunities in Charlotte for some of the top teams in the 1980s. Todd explains that after he assisted his father with work at Log Cabin Speedway in Virginia, he would follow Brett to Connecticut and begin his own racing career. When a big crash destroyed his car and his owner ran out of money, Todd packed his bags and headed south to Charlotte to join his brothers.It was there that his shared family history with Dale Jr. began, as he would take a job working in Robert Gee’s garage on Rick Hendrick’s Busch Grand National cars. Race fans will remember Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s fierce rivalry with Todd’s older brother Geoff in the 1980s, which became the inspiration for the famed “Days of Thunder” movie starring Tom Cruise. Dale Jr. and Todd share their perspectives on the numerous family run-ins during that time, and Todd remarks that he just saw two drivers racing hard for glory. The conversation also covers Dale Jr. and Todd’s time spent together racing in the Busch Series in the late 1990s. The two would add their own chapter to the Bodine/Earnhardt feud when they had a run-in at Pikes Peak in 1999. Todd brings Dale Jr. a souvenir from the incident, and the two are able to have a good laugh all these years later. Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We take off on the green. Here come your dad. He gets the outside of me, and I raced his ass as hard as I could race him. I hung him on the outside for like six laps. Finally, he got by me and got in line. Park after the race in the garage, he come over, poke me in the chest, and now I'm scared of death. I think he's going.

Something's growing here. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, so we're going to have a great show today. and Todd Bodine, one of the three Bodine brothers that had success in the NASCAR world is going to come into the room here in a moment. I raced against Todd in the Xfinity series. We had one famous run-in that we're going to talk about. And Todd had a very roller coaster-esque type of career.

A lot of positives, a lot of tough moments, a lot of struggles as well. But ultimately, man, he would find awesome success, incredible success at the truck series level. And we're going to hear all about that, his whole path to get there and more. So he's in the studio lobby. So let's go ahead and bring him in here and get started. Top of Dine on the Dale Jr. Download. Hey, dude, what are you doing? How are you?

What are you got on here, Ross Chastan? I got to support my guy, man. Is Ross your guy? Yeah. What do you mean? What I mean? Is that your driver? You just like his style?

No, I've known Ross since he was 12 years old. I didn't know that. The teacher of Ross. I wouldn't say that. Well, he's turned into quite the race car driver these days. He has. And that was the thing Mike told me back then. He said, you're not going to believe how good this kid is at 12 years old.

Yeah. I mean, at 12 years old, he's out there beating these adults. Yeah. It was pretty cool Yeah pretty awesome Man I thank you for coming today I've um You know I've always kind of

Uh Had a lot of respect for you And we always You know our families had some Tough things that they went through together And we're going to get into that And I'd love to hear your perspective on it And then we raced against each other

And I learned a thing or two from you Um Speaking of which Yeah That's the stop right there for a minute Okay All right So you got

all your chachis hanging out here and everything. So I brought you a little present. Oh, boy. All right. Put up here with the rest of your chachis. The cue ball.

Signed by Todd. I love it. You want to tell them the story? Yeah. Oh, we were going to get there. That's all. I loved it. We'll get there.

We'll get that story. I should have saved it then. Yeah, no, it's good. It's good. Everybody's now giving something to look forward to. It's funny. You're going to like it. So,

So you're, obviously your brother Jeff and your brother Brett raced and, you know, you followed their, you know, their path into NASCAR. And I guess my biggest question on that is, was it how much of their, you know, how much of their success or how much, you know, as they go through, as they go along the way, how much of that was a help to you? was that a difference maker in giving you opportunities? I feel like, I don't know that about you, but with Brett, I felt like it got Brett to the track, but not, now once he got in these cars, like he drove for the Thomas Brothers guys and had a couple one-off races in Robert G's car and so forth, he had to go out there and do it, right?

He had to go out there and run good. But his relationship with his brother and his brother's success, Jeff Success would present opportunity, but he had to go get in the car and show what he could do. Yeah, you got to go do it. You know, I'm not going to say it didn't help. It had to help. You name recognition and all that. But my path was a little different.

You know, a lot of guys started when they're really young. I didn't. Why not? Didn't have the opportunity. What was going on up north? You were still in Shemong or around that area? Well, we moved from Shemong to Massachusetts. Massachusetts.

Where Jeff was racing. How old were you? I was 13 when we moved. Then we moved to Virginia, kind of followed Jeff South at that point. My dad actually helped build log cabin speedway. Damn. With Satchewrilly. Really?

Yeah. Have you ever been to log cabin? No, but I know about it. Okay. So we lived right at the racetrack. They had a little old barn they converted into a house, and that's where we lived. No. I graduated high school there, and we'll move back to Connecticut.

One moment. Okay. So while, so you went, you're. as a graduate from high school, I'm assuming 17, 18 years old, you still haven't drove a thing. No. Do you want to? At this point, yeah, I mean, I know that I love racing.

In fact, when I was in Virginia, I spent in summer racing with Jeff around the south when he's driving for Emmanuel Siraccus. In the sportsman car? Sportsman, which is Exfinity now, yeah. The white 99. White tornado. Yep. Yeah.

a South Boston, Southside, Langley. Damn. I mean, hickory. We went everywhere with them. So I knew I wanted to be in racing. And at this point, I had no money. My parents had no money. I couldn't even race go-karts.

So at this point, it's like, okay, just forge my path somehow. Well, it was about working on race cars. Well, when I graduated high school, I moved back to Connecticut. And I went to work. By yourself? By myself. Yeah. Two weeks after I graduated, I was gone.

Why would you leave what was kind of the hub of everybody in the world's trying to get to Charlotte, right? Well, my world, I grew up with Modifides. That was my world. Okay. Now, Jeff was down here racing. Yeah. It was different, you're right? But I couldn't just be in sportsman racing.

My path was, or my opportunity was, Brett was racing in Connecticut and Modifides in New England. Still. Still. And I actually went to work for the company that owned his race. car which was sherry cup they made paper cups oh so i went to work in the in the maintenance department i i built all the guards and stuff of machines to keep osha happy well when i wasn't working on machines i was over at the race shop working on the race cars and his owner was kind enough to let me build my first race car in the shop that winter what was the car it was a modified or an sk

modified which is modified with a stock motor in it with a stock motor in it with a stock motor. What's the SK today? Is that a four-cylinder? No, it's still, it's still V8s. And I think they're basically still stock motors, but they allow them to do a lot more than just stock anymore. I got you. But it's not like a built motor and a full modified, yeah. Okay. So I did that for a little bit on my own money, had no money, went broke, drove a couple of cars for some guys. And a little in 1985, I was driving a real box, full modified. and we were on a hunter lap for at stafford springs a guy turned me going into three and i slapped the wall driver's side hard the guy had owned the car had no money i mean it was so bad i'd go to the tire

truck get takeoffs to put on the car so they tow the car in the garage in the pit area and guys stand there just about in tears said taut i i can't afford to fix this car and i said that's a good thing mike because guess what i'm packing my and i'm moving to north carolina middle of 85 and went to North Carolina. Damn. Because at that point, I had 42 starts of my whole life. Your whole life. My whole life.

And I was 21 years old. Yeah. What was in North Carolina waiting on you? Well, Jeff was driving for Rick. Brett was working on the sportsman cars. So my first job in racing in the South was working for your grandfather. Robert G. And my God, what an eye-opening experience that was.

Holy cow. I remember the first day, I came in on a Tuesday. And two weeks, the week, not the weekend before, but the weekend before that, Richmond is driving a car, Tim Richmond, and they were at Darlington, and him and your dad got in a pissing contest on a racetrack, and they both knocked the front ends off their car, just ramming each other. So my first job was to put the ductwork in front of that car. They'd already got the nose back, and my job was to put the duck work, because I

show up at 8 o'clock. Brett's working there. I start working on this car. So you and Brett are both working in my granddaddy's backyard shop. Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. How long were y'all there? Like, I don't remember any of that. I was a, I would, like, I wasn't at Granddaddy's shop a lot, but I was kind of around a couple times a year. I was, I was there probably two years, maybe. Did you ever see me? I don't remember. No. But I got to finish the store. 20 as hell. So I'm putting a duck work in the front of this car. Now, I'm modified world, right?

Things fit perfect, you know, cutting around the bars and the bumpers and everything's got to be just perfect and beautiful, nice bead rolls. So Robert, his work hours weren't the same as the rest of ours. He gets out there 11, 11.30. So this is about 11 o'clock, and he comes rolling out there, and I'd never met him at this point, right? I just showed up to start working. And he comes out, shuffling out there and got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

And he looks down there and says, boy, let me tell you something. This ain't no show car. You got to get this done. We got to go to lunch soon. That was my introduction to Robert G. Yeah. That's crazy. It's amazing what they got done in that little shop.

It's crazy. Yeah. Crazy. And how many races they won out of that little shop. Holy cow. His cars freaking were awesome, ran good. Yeah. You had support from Rick and all those things.

And I can't tell you how many people have sat down at this table and told me that they worked there. It's crazy. So many people went through that building. Yeah. And it's still there. There's a guy rent it right now from Schrader. Schrader owns a property today. So you worked there for a couple years.

At what point do you start finding your way back behind the wheel of a car? Well, when I, that summer, when I moved down, Brett was friends with Jay Hedgecock. Yep. Jay, a great guy. Yep. We run his cars in the cars. Yeah. Yeah.

They're running good. Yeah. And we asked, Brett asked Jay. You know, hey, you know anybody Todd can drive for a little bit in stock cars? You know, he said, well, I got this guy in Durham, doesn't have a driver. Same kind of the one car shop. just him, really good guy. Vernon Lloyd was his name.

And let me call him. So Jay calls him, says, yep, he wants Todd to drive Martinsville for him. What? And what? The late model stock car. No, shit. Yeah. So I'm like, man, I'm going to have to go look at this thing, fit to see, you know, see.

So I go up there and he's really nice guy. He's a plumber by trade. And I get there, and the car is, it's in good shape, but it needed work. You know what I mean? So I went up a couple weekends Got to seat in Set it up Had the blocks on the floor

And you just let it down And check the wedge It's basically And we go to Martin's One of things haul an ass You know I've been to Martinsville My whole life I've been going there since I was eight years old

So I knew the track I knew how to drive By watching I just had to go do it So we were running really good And In the race The battery In the corner

Would go over and shore it out And then come back So we ended up going a lap down, but still was fast. Well, because of that race, Danny Bumpus, who owned a car that raced at Orange County, South Boston, he'd come over and say, hey, I want you to drive for me. Yeah. It's like, holy cow, my first real job is a driver. This is awesome. And a late model stock car?

Damn you. Yeah. I didn't know you had a late model stock experience. That's my jam. Yeah, I know. I love late model stock cars. That's awesome. So that winner, you know, I knew.

I knew Servoccus, Butchie Servoccus, Emanuel. And I called Butchie up, said, look, we want to build a new car. So I went up and I lived with Butchie for two weeks. And me and Butch built a car from the steel rack to a rolling race car. Brand new Mustang. And we had a, the other car was a Thunderbird. And so I raced that car. This is the bad part of the story.

I raced that car 13 times. We blew eight motors. Damn. Crash three times. And the rest of the times, We finished in the top five. And we always raced in the top five, but shit just happened. And the crew chief was this little old redneck southern dude,

and he hated Yankees with a passion, and he fired me. So then I'm back out of a ride. So I went to work. Where? I went to, from Robert G's, I ended up at Tiger Tom's. How is that? Another place that people have gone through. It was awesome.

It was awesome. I was a fabricator. I can't tell you how many dump cans I built in my life. We built all those little chotchkes that race teams needed to catch cans back then, dump cans. That's what they did. That's what they did, yeah. And I built a couple of dirt cars. Yeah.

So I had my little room in the back. From there, I went to Buck Baker driving school. What did you do there? It's a fabricator. Yeah, built bodies on the cars. And there was an instructor or anything because I didn't know what the hell I was doing racing. How many? So, golly.

So how long were you there? Were you, because he's out of Rockingham full time then? At that point, Buck? No, Buck was actually right down the street from Tiger Tom on the other side of the railroad tracks. But they were taking their cars to Rockingham? Or where were they running the Buck Baker School? Yeah, out of Rockingham. But all our shop was here.

Yeah, it was just a fabricator, building bodies, working on them, maintenance them, everything that he needed to do on them. Yeah. Were people tearing their shit up? Yeah. he'd be surprised the rich guys that get out there think they know how to drive

and tear the shit up. But there was times where I didn't have a lot to do. So I told Buck, I said, look, let's taking some work and I do some bodies, you know. Robert taught me how to do good bodies. I, let me do some.

So we did. And our first customer was Billy Standridge. Damn. Yeah. And he had a Nova. And he wanted, it was pretty rough, and he wanted to get it ready to go to Charlotte. Yep.

Purple 47. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I cut the sides off and made some nice sides. And this thing was Robert Ged out. This thing was trick. I mean, Robert told me how to tuck the bumpers in and trim them and all that. That was awesome.

Flair in the front fenders. So we built this car. And Billy asked Buck. He said, look, I need to borrow Todd for about three weeks. I think you can get this car ready and go to Charlotte and crew chief at for me. me. Damn it. You. Yeah, me. So, okay. So I go to Billy's. He's up in Shelby, which is about an hour and 10 minute drive. I went up to heck. I stayed on his couch many nights. We get this car ready to go and I get it all set up and, you know, had a decent motor. Now, this is when the V-6s were

coming in. We had a 3-11, so we had to carry a lot more weight. We go to Charlotte and wouldn't you know, now this is Billy Sanders. He's not supposed to qualify well. I think we qualified like 15th. And everybody's like, holy cow. It was so bad that Robert Black was the guy in charge when the garage was gone. Everybody's gone out of the garage. Garage was closed. He kept all his inspectors, and they took the cover off our car and told those guys, he says, find out where they're cheating. Yeah. I found this out like two years later. And we weren't cheating. Yeah. Yeah, we did good. And then I had blown up in the race, but he was running well. That was my first crew chief job. Really? What did you do after that? Well,

I stayed with Billy. I didn't go back to Bucks. No. Poor Buc, no. He didn't go back to Bucks. And we built another brand new short track car. And we were going to Martinsville that fall with it. And this thing was bad at a bone, man.

I built my own lower A-frames. Instead of one by two, I made them three-quarter by inch and a half. Had no bucket in it. I had the springs with the things welded on. I mean, this thing took like 450 pounds of lead. Yeah. And it was beautiful. So we're at Martinsville, and Bobby Hillen was

starting his Bush team. And he comes over and he's walking through the garage here. He has no clue who I am. And he's looking at car. He's, man, this thing's nice. Who built this? Well, I did. We all built it in our shop.

Oh, this is a beautiful car. And he goes on. Well, a little while later, he's on the other side talking to my brother Brett, telling him, yeah, I'm starting this bush team and I need some people to work. I need a good fabricator. I remember that. You ought to talk to my brother Brett or my brother Todd. He said, he's over there working on a car now.

He built one over there. And Bobby said, well, I was just over there looking at cars. He said, this purple car over there is beautiful. That's the one my brother built. Yeah. So Bobby come back over. Sure, shit. Next week you hired me.

And Bobby's driving this. 81 buickless Sabra. Yeah. So you went over there to work as a fabricator mechanic? Fabricator, chassis guy. Everything. Yeah. Because there's probably only two or three of you working over there.

There's three of us. Jerry Cannon and myself and John Monson. Jerry was the official crew chief. We kind of did the setups together. We did all the shocks, all the spring calls, everything. So I understood all this stuff at this point already. And we did really well there. Highline racing. Yeah. Ted Condor, Bobby Hillen, and Felix Sabatis is his first venture into racing. How did you get in, and you would end up getting behind the wheel of this car, and that would be your break. That would be the break. So they let me. me build a car in the shop, a sportsman car. You remember the Sportsman Series at Charlotte? And we ran four of those races and finished second three times. You driving? I drove it. Yep. And we actually used that car as our show car when that wasn't being raced. Yeah. So we built this car in there. I built it at night. Beautiful car. Came out great. And because I did so well... Was it a new chassis or some old worn out? No. No. It was one of Jeff's

chassis. One of his old cup chassis? One of his old cup chassis. One of his old cup chassis. People love this shit. Wadell Wilson threw away. Damn. It was in the back of the shop. Yeah. And I went to ask Wadell, you know, hey, what are you going to do today? We're throwing it away.

I said, well, can I have it? Yeah, yeah. So, Jeff was driving for Rick. Brett was driving for Bud Moore. Yeah. And Bobby was driving for Stavola Brothers, which was right next door. You know, these guys are racing for all these big teams. Well, Rick group gave me some of their use.

parts. Bud Moore's group, he gave me some of their use parts and Stavola's donated some stuff. I basically built his whole car for like $2,000. Damn. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. And brother Jeff bought the motor, $7,500 for a complete motor back then. And we put it in there. That's cheap. And Felix got me sponsorship for all the races. What was the sponsor? Well, the first one was, first two were roses, because roses was our sponsor at the time. At the 81 car. I take that back.

The first one was Unidin, because Felix had a product deal with Unidin. The second one was Roses, because we turned it into the show car. The third one was Ames, because Ames was our sponsor, and they actually were the fourth one too.

So I do these races. We do pretty well, and now Bobby, they buy Bobby out of the team, and Kyle comes in the drive, because now they got Sabco. Kyle's driving for Felix and Sabco. Felix wanted Kyle to drive our car. So Ames is a sponsor, and they decided on, I think it was 18 races.

Kyle was going to run. And Ames comes back and says, hey, we want to run eight more races. Kyle being Kyle. Now, we're all standing around in the shop when they told Kyle this. We're standing there BS and Kyle's like, man, I don't want to run eight more races. This is enough freaking races. I've got enough crap I got to do. And we're standing and says, let Todd drive the damn thing.

I was like, oh, hell yeah. Send me in, coach, man. So I ended up running eight races that year in the sportsman car, Bush car at the time. First one was Martinsville. Qualified like 12th. Got up, I was going to finish fifth, and I missed a restart on the last restart,

or missed a shift on the last restart, ended up eighth. But did really well. second race was Dover. I never raced a big track like this before. Qualified fourth and finished third. Damn it was Harry Gant, Rick Mast, and me. We crossed the line right together.

It was a hell of a race. Harry'd go up to the top, Rick could go in the middle and I'd stay around the bottom. It was a hell of a race watch. So when that happened, take me back to that day where, I would say that was probably your you were probably as surprised or shocked or as thrilled to have to not have raced any more than you had

here you are racing and competing and running good enough to win against you know almost the cup guys right you have the you have a you know you have this legacy with that your brothers have created that Jeff started that Brett's, you know, part of now. And you're kind of like, you know, another chapter of that. All of that all kind of culminating to that one moment in this race at Dover. And you're like, you got there and run good. You get out and you're like, do you see everybody?

I can do this. I belong here. Right? What was your emotion after having a great day like that? Like I remember my first, I remember the first time I ran good in an experience. infinity car and like I'd had some good days in my late model car but nobody was watching right nobody nobody important saw it but that first time I ran good in an exfinity car was really a massive relief to me because I wanted to do this for a living and so did you and you were

I can't imagine in that moment you were kind of like well honestly I don't think I was yeah it was more, see, I grew up watching my brother, both of them, win races, right? Modifies. Jeff won over, what, 600 modified races or something. Brett's probably one 50 or 60. So, went in, racing, it was all what we did. So for me, when I get out, when I can't really remember the whole thing, but when I get out there, it was more like, this is cool. You know, I can do this, but, you know, it wasn't about showing anybody that I could do it. Gotcha. It was almost a self-gratification.

Hey, you know, my brother's a good and I think maybe I can do this, you know. And being able to be in that car and do that, you know, having a good race car to do it with. You know, we all know that starts with four wheels on the ground. You know, it made a big difference. And I ended up running those eight races. I ran really well. I almost wanted Oxford 250 that year.

I ended up finishing third. But that's what caught the eye, Frank Cici, and Scott. Yeah. And in 91, the winner of 91, they gave me my first full-time job as a race car driver. So they had had, trying to think of the timeline there, Spencer had driven that car. I'm not sure if Sprague was in it before you or after? He was the one they fired to put me in. So Spencer had a really-

Jack never let me forget it either. But Sprague, I mean, Spencer had used that car to create more opportunity, right? So this was a really, this car was viewed as an absolute gateway into the, into success, right? Yeah. And Sprag had used his success at the short track ranks to land that opportunity. Didn't work out. He would, he would figure it out and have a career after that. But so here you are.

I remember all this. Like I remember I was Uber focused on the series as a kid because my dad's team and he competed in it from time to time. and I remember, you know, watching, I was, you know, curious about you and whether you were, you know, I knew your brothers and whether here's another Bodine, is he going to be good? And you land that ride, and I think a lot of people were looking at that and going, all right, you know, this will be where you find out whether you got it or not. Yeah. You know, did you feel, I know you were probably thrilled over the moon, but was there any pressure at all? No.

None. I never felt pressured to live up to my brothers, to do anything. It was more of just the love of doing it, and I wanted to go do it. But if the racing, I guess if, you know, if the racing doesn't work out for you, you just still know your abilities otherwise are enough to keep you happy and content and plugged into the sport some way somehow, because you'd amassed this expertise of fabricating mechanical setup, and all the things.

Yeah. Yeah, I knew I was going to be wrong. So the driving was like the cherry on top. Yeah. So how did that year ago? Well, we started off pretty rough. We didn't have, we had two cars. We only got one done to go to Daytona.

And what was going to Daytona like for the first time? Well, you know, I'd been there a hundred times as a kid and I went there as a crew member and all that stuff. And when you pull out there, though, for the first time, you're like, holy shit. Well, it's ain't nothing like it. Yeah. Well, you know you got to pull off pit road and go wide open and that's it. And I knew it. I come off a two and look at the other end of this straightaway.

And you see that big old black wall down there. And you're like, how? I can do this. I can do this. I know I can do this. And you get there and you lift. Yeah, yeah. Son up a bitch.

And about the second time around was wide open and it was easy, you know. But we went there for the race and had a hard lesson. Somebody got into my left rear quarter panel and popped it loose from the crush panels. Well, we were, I think it was Jeff Burton, somebody else and myself, we were drafting just the three of us together. We're on about 12th, probably. And we came off a four, and we passed the lap car. And the wind, the air coming off the lap car, went in to my left rear and bowed the quarter panel out and lifted the back of the car up and it spun out, crashed it. Yeah, it was not good.

That was my first Daytona meeting. But we went on, about the 12th race of the year was Dover, and we ended up winning a race, which was a great story. It was three laps to go. Ernie was leading. Davey Ellison was second. I was third, and Jeff Gordon was fourth. We had about straightaway all of us together there.

Three laps to go, Ernie blows up going into three, leading a race. So we come around, the caution's out. Davey's leading on second. Pace car picks us up. Come around. We're going to get the white flag and yellow flag to end the race. You know, one left to go. We come off a four and Davy goes to the bottom of the racetrack.

I didn't know what the hell was going on. I thought maybe there was something in the track. So I follow him. The rest of the field all starts following them. And pretty soon we're about stopped. And I look around them and the Pacecar's way up there. Well, if I pull out and go around him, I take the white flag leading the race, come around won the race checker flag

Davey ran out of gas Damn Yeah Won my first race Hell of shit Yeah You had food poisoning For that race

Yeah Oh that was nasty That was tough Yeah before the race I was at the garbage can several times Got out victory lane I couldn't hardly breathe I was so out of breath

I needed oxygen Ended up getting a little bit of the victory lane out of the way But it was tough I was sponsorless, white. Yep. This landed the Hungry Jack sponsorship. Yes, it did.

And helped the team expand a little bit and improve. Yeah. It was a brief time in this car. How many years was you run? Well, three years to begin with. Yeah. Then I went to cut. My career has been a roller coaster pretty much.

But you ran three years, you had fiddle faddle for a little while? Hungry Jack. Yeah, Hunger Jack for a year and a half, then fiddle faddle. Yep. Yeah. And so how, and you had a lot of success in this car, though. Yeah. Yeah.

And we got to the point where, and I think this, I'm going to brag a little bit, I think every racer likes to have this point. We got to the point where we unloaded the racetrack and everybody timed us. Yes. They wanted to know how fast was that 34. That's what we got to keep up with. And we ended up in three years, I think we won. seven or eight races in three years.

Yeah. You drew the attention of Raymock. Yeah, but I want to back up this for a second. Because I got a couple of great Dale stories. Let's go. So, actually, the first Dale story was Richmond in the 42 Ains car. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. And we were running good.

This is a new Richmond racetrack. And your dad was like eighth, and I, I was seventh, and he was beating my bumper off and finally just moved me out of the way. He said, he had enough. So race goes on, and we ended up going a lap down. We have a restart not many laps ago, probably 23 laps ago, something like that. You know, back then, lap down on the inside, lead lap outside. So we take off on the green.

You know, everybody's going by. The lap car is kind of holding them up, and here come your dad. He gets the outside of me, and I raced his ass as hard as I passed. could race him. And I hung him on the outside for like six laps. Finally, he got by me and got in line. Go in the park after the race in the garage. He come over, poke me in the chest, and now I'm scared to death. I think he's going to, something's wrong here. Pokes me in the chest. He says, now that's how you do it. When some asses you out of the way, that's how you get back even at him. I was like, oh, that was pretty damn cool. Yeah.

Yeah. And then my other one more is real quick is Talladega, Bush cars. We last lap, we come off of four. About, well, through the middle of three and four. And I was like seventh and he was eighth right behind me. We were right, we were on the top. And we come off the corner and we got a run going. I mean, big time run.

There was nobody in front of us. That might have been so many pulled out, pulled back in. anyway he pulled off into the inside line i drove all the way up finished third so we come to the gas pumps we all parked there and you know it was like my second race at all day going to finish third it was oh yeah so we're in the garage and we're all happy and we're hanging out the car and he pulls up over there and he gets out and he's pissed off you can see it in his face and i yelled over say er and her said where the hell did you go he said if i said if you stayed behind me out of one and would have been second. He just shakes his head and starts laughing. It was so funny. Yeah.

Because he knew, me and her dad had a, your mean and her dad had a different relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, I guess that's a good opportunity to talk about that. So in around the mid-80s or the late 80s, dad and Jeff had a really rough couple of years. And I've talked about it on my show several times. The Earnhardt's, like the bow dines and the bodines, you know, probably didn't love the Earnhardt's, at least that, that particular section of the family, like the Jeff and Dad. And there were times when, if that could spin him out and get away with it, I was okay with it. But then there were times when he would get himself five-lap penalties, and I'm thinking,

what are you doing? Why are you all so mad at each other that you're going to throw the whole race away? Like that there was one Xfinity race. I think they actually wrecked each other or dad wrecked him in the Bush race wrecking my granddaddy's car, right? Jeff's driving my granddaddy's car and dad spins him out down the back straightaway.

They go into the cup race the next day running seventh or something like that, not even racing for the lead. I don't believe. Dad ends up wrecking Jeff in three and four and gets a five-lap penalty. And I'm like, your whole family's up in this suite. Like we had the condos?

Like there's 30 of us up here to watch you around. and you and him are out there and around. And now we're five laps down and we got 500 miles to go. Like, what are we doing? But they were just so hard-headed. What was, you know,

I know you were probably consumed with everything you had going on in your life. But what was your honest recollection of that rivalry? Because that's probably one of the top five rivalries that's been in the sport was dad and Jeff. I'm different, and I look at things way differently than most people.

And for me, yeah, it was, you know, Dale's wrecking my brother and they're racing hard and doing these things. And it was almost a sense of respect, maybe, for your dad. and Jeff, the way they raced each other so hard. Yeah. I never disliked Senior because he was wrecking Jeff. It was more like these two guys are hard-ass racers, and they're racing hard, you know, kind of a thing.

And I think that's why me and your dad always had a different relationship, because I never felt that way about him. Never held it against him. Never held it against him. In fact, he won another cool story is I had a farm. right down about five miles from his farm. And he, I don't know how to old Taylor was probably 10 or 11 somewhere in there. And him and Taylor would get on the horses and ride through the woods about five miles to my farm.

Yeah. And they did it four or five times one summer. I remember when you were building the house out there. Yeah. And dad taking us, dad going out there because you wanted to, you were like, hey, man, you know, I'm going to, I'm thinking about doing this with the driveway or putting this here. You know, and you and him having that, you know, conversation. Yeah.

So they would ride over, and he, every time, he would bust my ass because I had no hitching post for him. He's like, you know, I'm coming over here. Damn it, get me a hitching post up here. Yeah. So that winter, I ended up putting up a hitching post. No shit. And he never got to use it.

Damn it. But we had a, if people knew the relationship we had. they'd be like, why is, why? You and him and his, your brother. Yeah, right. It was different. But it was cool. It's different.

Hey, it's Dale Jr. Did you know that we've got brand new merch from our Star Stripes and Bears Collection available now? We've got tanks, teas, beach towels, and more just in time for summer. Check it all out at shop.dirtymomedia.com. You get the opportunity to race for Raymock in the Cup series replacing Dick Trickle. first season in Cup in 1994. And the Raymont car had a really cool history.

They had had flashes, you know, when they could, when they would get with the right driver or have the right sort of combination over throughout the 80s. And so, and I would say that your, I would characterize your time in the car as one of those times when they did perform. well and they did you would show up y'all ran really good several times um behind the wheel of that car talk about that experience and being out there on the track with the the best of the best yeah that was uh it was eye opening you know you spend your whole life watching your brothers race and then

you go in a cup and win races and um and it's kind of like what we see today every step is just that much harder. Yeah. Right? It's always the best of the best at the top. But it was, we had great race cars. We really did. Who was working on them?

Who was your crew chief? Crew chief was Troy Selberg. But we had, I don't know if you remember this one, Bobby Wellman, race cars. I ran Bobby, my first late model stock, well, the first late model stock I bought to race at the beach was a Wellman chassis. Well, all of our cars at C.C. Wellover and the Bush series were Wellman chassis. And I worked with Bobby, and we kind of developed our own little.

chassis. Well, when I went to, with Butch, it was actually Butch Magm Motorsports, because him and Raymai, and Bobber Hilley, kind of split right there. So it was Bushmox Motorsports, but he went to Butch's and got those chassis over there. And in the, in the Bush series, I was also running cony shocks. So I ran my cony shocks on that car, because I knew my shocks. I knew what I needed. So we ran well. Yeah. I mean, we ran really well. That first race at Daytona, we actually led, I passed your dad and led seven or eight laps in that race. And Jeff Gordon wrecked me. Down the back straightway.

Down the back. Yeah. Remember that? Oh, yeah. But we ran really well that year. I made a lot of rookie mistakes, got us in a lot of trouble. We had a couple mechanical failures while running in the top five or a couple oil lines. I mean, just dumb things were happening.

But we ran well enough that I started getting offers for. other teams what were some of those offers um i've never said this to anybody i mean it was it was some big big offers uh robert yates talked to me yep uh the king damn king talked to me um actually uh joe gives one of his guys talked to me i mean it was it was like wow yeah i was kind of will taken back by it. But I was raised. We were raised to do what we said we were going to do. And when Butch hired me, I told him, I said, look, I appreciate you giving me this opportunity.

And I'm going to stick with you. And we're going to win races together as long as it takes. And he was, Butch was all in. Yeah. So I turned them all down. Damn it. and at the end of the next season, Bush fired me.

Why do you think that happened? Honestly, I think the crew chief got in his ear, and there's a lot of things that went on that I won't say on air because it really doesn't shed a good light on them. And I think Butch just got talked into that it was the driver's fault. Yeah.

And if you know the behind-the-scenes, it really was. Which nine times out of ten, it's probably not. I didn't forget how to drive in a year. Sure. You know, we just didn't have the race cars we had a year before. And at the end of that year, Bush fired me. So after the 95 season with Raymock, do you racing in the Xfinity Series back then?

Yep. In six, 96, I went to drive for Ron Neal. Who's that? You remember prototype racing engines? Yeah. That was Ron Neal. What was the car? 81 Cape Canaveral was on the car.

It was Cape Canaver Cruise Lines. And Ron gave it all he had, and it wasn't much. We had no money. We had three cars, and we'd have to take the suspension off of one car and put it on the next one for the next week, and we keep rotating. We had two motors, and he had to change things every week on the motors. Damn.

There was only four of us working on them. What a change from running in the Cup Series. That year we spent $7,000 and most of the Bush teams were spending a million $3, a million, $1,000, basically twice what we spent. We won one race at South Boston, excuse me, and finished third in the points. And then in 98 you were racing the 66 Tropic Arctic car for CC in the Xfinity Series. we'll just call it the Xfinity series. But you also get this opportunity to race the Tabasco car in the Cup series.

Yeah. And I want to talk about our time together in the Xfinity series, but Tabasco was one of the most solid-after sponsors. It was like a big deal when they came in. Great-looking race car. Darrell had drove it a little bit, and they struggled, and I think you came in. Well, no, Daryl was after us.

Dary was after you. I got you. Yeah. That was, but I remember, like, I just want to say, every year there's like some new entity or a new program or something that looks really awesome, right, on the outside. And that was it. Everybody's like, that's Tabasco, you know, new team, big team, big deal. And it sounded awesome. Now, what was, what was the experience?

It was rough. Why? It was rough. Why did it look? What did it? The presentation was pretty fantastic. Tobasco is a sponsor and a company. It's fantastic people.

Yeah. You know, in this sport, everybody isn't quite as fortright as you would like them to be. And that's how these owners ended up being. They came from the world of Indycars. They said all the right things, had the right ideas for the team. Actually, things that we're doing today, they were going to do because they came from IndyCar World.

And, well, so we have the largest sponsor in the sport. Yeah. It was the largest sponsor. $7 million. Damn it. And at the time, that's huge. That's huge.

At the time, Rick and Richard, they were getting $5.5 million for their teams, and we had $7 million. and I'm like, oh, man, we can make something here. So we get Pat Trison as a crew chief. Pretty solid. Very solid, yeah. I remember y'all being fast.

Yeah. In Atlanta or somewhere? Y'all went somewhere. Yeah. You all were so quick. Yeah. And Mark Smith did the motors. You know, so we had the right people.

We had a good team. We had good people on the team. Well, they made the first mistake is they went to Jack Rout. and bought all the cars that Chad Little had wrecked. Okay, so now we're struggling with that. You know, we had one good chassis. Mark had one good motor. He had a bunch of junk parts that he's trying to build motors out of,

and, you know, he's just doing the best he could, but he had one motor that was, like, top shelf. Well, we had that motor in that car in Atlanta. Yeah. And I think we qualified third and finished fourth. I mean, it was a great day. Yeah. I mean, it's like what we should be doing.

Yeah. But you can't do that with a bunch of junk. You know, you can't do it weekend and weed out when you're just running junk. Yeah. And, you know, Pat did the best he could with junk he had. Well, they end up firing me. And put Darrell in there. Well, and put Darrell in there.

Well, when they fired me, they never told Tabasco. Ah, and that's why Tabasco flew off. And they had all this promotional shit bought. You're all over it. They spent $3 million on marketing me. Damn it. On top of what they gave. Because they were all in.

Yeah. They were all in on a racing deal. And then all this goes down. And it was right before Charlotte. And the CEO of Tabasco flew to Charlotte for the race, went to the garage area. before practice ever started, had nothing on Tabasco. Nobody didn't even know he was there.

And again, I found this out like a couple years later. And he went around to all the car owners, not all of them, but several car owners, several crew chiefs, several drivers, and ask them what's wrong with my team? And the only satisfying thing I got out of is that none of them told them it was me. Yeah. They said it was the owners and different things. But, yeah.

So that was kind of gratifying that my peers, did not blame me for the situation. Well, they didn't survive much longer. In 98-99, racing for CC in the 66 car with me, man. Y'all were fast. Contenders every week. I was really lucky to be in a pretty fantastic race car myself that helped mask some of my rookie issues.

And I had some really good people around me. so I was able to get out there and compete. But our, and we raced good together, I thought, until we did until one time. Yeah, one time. And I don't know that we ever. And it was my fault. Really? Yes.

If you're not watched a video, I know. I went down there and there and got sucked around. Yeah. That place, so I had two, I had two races at Pikes Peak and two bad days. That was one with you and the other was Tony Stewart put me. in the wall in the other one but it was a fun racetrack but very flat and our cars uh yeah i mean our cars were kind of edgy and if you got underneath somebody you know it's a potential to happen but i was pretty i was pretty proud of myself back then by that point in the season i had

you know oh i can do this i've won a few races i know what i'm doing yeah and um and your last name was bow dine so it was like an automatic it was like an automatic trigger for in our heart. But after that, I don't, we never had, do we remember? Nothing. No problems after that. No, no problems. I remember, God, we thought we were such big tough shit back then. And, and that happening and saying that about you. And then I was like, hmm, I wonder how he's going to react. I don't know, I don't know you well enough. You said that, but you didn't let them know what you. You said.

Who? Oh, I got out of the car and they interviewed me and I said that Q ball headed fool. Wrecking. And show them what I brought you. Brought him a little present today to put on with the rest of his chakis. A little Q ball signed by Todd. This is one of my favorite things in the room now. Cube all headed full.

Yeah. I will ask you, what was your reaction when you heard that? Laughed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're right. You were young.

I think it was your first year, right? You know, and everything our families had gone through. And that was the thing. One of my big lessons growing up was, and I feel this way still today, is I don't hold grudges. I don't think, try not to think bad of people and talk bad of people. Because especially in our sport and what we do, it's going to happen.

Man, it's just part of it's the nature of the game. And if you hold grudges against people, you're going to have no friends. You're going to have nothing. And I just, it was funny. Yeah. I don't know if you remember this. I tried to find one, but I couldn't find one. That next week, I made some dumb T-shirts.

Did you? You never, you had, I swear you got one. Yeah. It was a rack of billiard balls, but we changed all the numbers on the balls to the race card numbers that we raced with. And yours was up front, and I was the cue ball, and it showed. the balls all getting broken apart. Yeah.

We just gave him away at the racetrack the next week. Damn it. Yeah. Well, I will say, man, you know, I know that's, this is a, this is a common habit of everybody, but those years in those two years in that Xfinity series, I don't know what it was about that series, but the people competing in it, you and LaJoy and McLaughlin and all the guys that, and having Marklellan. come and race with us.

Holy shit. I couldn't have asked for a better classroom to go to school in than what I experienced in that series during those two years. I mean, obviously getting pushed and pressured by Matt Kenseth, who would become one of the greatest race car drivers that I'd raced against, one of the, you know, a champion in the NASCAR series and having somebody at my age or somebody, you know, coming in at the same time as me and us competing against each other. And then Jeff Green, when he hit his stride with the 32 Kleenex car the following year in

99, had he not missed Rockingham, he might have won that one in that championship that year. But I had a lot of fun in the series, and obviously I would get fortunate enough to move up in the cup, and you would too. You got more opportunities to race in the Cup series beyond that. So tell me how that process happened. So you talk about the roller coaster and the up and down and the in and out. The Tabasco deal goes wrong. You get back in the 66, prove you're more than capable.

Yep. And who calls you next? Travis Carter. Yeah. You know, Travis's been around forever. He was with the 33 and Harry forever. and had his own team with Carl Haas. Spencer was driving for him,

and they started a second team with DW driving, and that wasn't working out. And come over and say, hey, you know, Kmart's going to sponsor us again next year. I like you come drive this thing. What did you think? I was all in. Yeah. Yeah, I was all in because, you know,

you knew Travis was going to have good stuff. Spencer was running good. you know so it's like yeah let's that's do it for sure yeah so we went up went up to statesville to where a shop was yep right off 40 yeah right off 40 and uh the second year we're we're getting ready to go to daytona i mean it's literally two weeks before we're going to detona with kmart blue light special and kmart went chapter 11 said no check for coming in the mail yeah And we had nothing. What'd you do?

Well, we raced for a little while and ended up, who did we get there? We got National Guard. Yeah. Came in there. With San Bill and Davis had the sponsorship with the Guard and brought it to us. And we ended up racing with the Guard for a year. And then they went to Rouse and Bills. Diffle after that.

And that next year, we got Discover Card. We went back to the one-car team, and we drove the 26. Went from the 66 to 26. Donnie Wingo was the crew chief. And it took us a little while to get going and figure things out. Donnie learning me. And, man, by the end of the year, we were fast. We were really fast.

We had a chance to win at Rockingham, running, fifth and blew her right front yeah but we were really fast and again the same story we we get to the end of the year and i forget who discover card was smith barney owns discover card and smith marty lost a bunch of money that year discover card made a bunch of money so smith barney said look we need all your money to bail ourselves out Yeah. Cut the program off. That was it. Yeah.

And so here we are. Two weeks to go in the season. No sponsor for the next year. Travis hadn't talked to anybody about sponsorship because they said they were coming back and ended up closing down. He closed it. You're out of a ride. You would go to replace Jimmy Johnson in the Herzog Jackson Motorsports car and Xfinity series, the White 92. Well, that was in the middle of all this.

Yeah. Yeah. I was driving. I believe I was the first one to drive both series full-time. Damn it. Yeah. And again, another sad story. You know, it was after 9-11, and insurance companies were in bad shape.

And we were leading the points. In the Xfinity series? Yeah. Rambo was a crew chief. Yeah. Tony Liberati. We were doing great, man. We were fast every week. And the Herzog's own.

very large construction company, and their bonding company went under because of 9-11. So they had to find a new bonding company. Well, they couldn't find one company that could handle their business, so they had to have two. And they sat down with these bondings companies, and the company said, what's this racing program? You're spending four and a half million dollars on. What was this about? Well, that's our golf game. That's what we do for fun.

Yeah. Well, if you want us to bond you, you're going to have to get rid of your $4.5 million of game. So they close the team down. Damn it. Halfway through this season. It was a little over halfway, but yeah, just closed it down. All of this, as tough as this probably was, to go through, would lead you to the truck series.

Had you ran in the truck series at all before 2005? Yeah. Actually, I was Jack Roush's first truck driver. Yeah. Yeah. 95, the first year of the series. Jack started the truck team. We ran four races, five races,

supposed to run six, ran five races. And we ran pretty good. The cool story there is the very first race was our Richmond. And we were running like, we were horrible. I mean, like 14th, couldn't get hanging on for dear life. And this is when they had the halfway breaks. come down pit road unbeknownst to me i didn't know any of this was going on um come down pit road across the wall come mark martin jimmy finning teddy musgrave damn it and i forget who his crew chief

is yeah now all these guys even though mark and teddy were drivers everybody knows they worked on race cars of the whole lives they knew what the hell they're doing so and then a couple other crew members They jacked the side of the truck up, both sides. Guys get on the back, so the front comes off the ground. They changed both front springs in the sway bar on the halfway break. Dang. Let this thing down, jacked it up, checked the wedge, a couple quick things. I mean, this is all in five minutes.

They did all this. We went out and hauled ass. Drove up, I think we finished like fifth or six, something like that. It was crazy. But on the TV, they were calling it the million-dollar pit crew. Because the TV was on the whole time. Yeah, that was pretty cool. So we ran those races, and that was my first truck stuff with Jack.

You would end up getting an opportunity to finish your career as a trucker. From 2005 to 2012 with Jermaine Racing, you were again probably the guy that everybody had the stopwatch on every time you unloaded. Help me understand, I suppose, the satisfactory. of finding some place that you, where you feel, I'm assuming this, that you feel like you're, you finally found your place. Because you stayed there forever. Yeah. You had success there forever.

A lot of things changed behind the curtains with that program over the course of those years, I'm sure, but you always were competitive and one of the trucks to beat. You had stability for the first time. You had an operation that was sustainable for the first time in your life. Talk about going through that process. Yeah, that's, you know, Mike Hillen, Sr. hired me to do that. Who was driving that truck? I was the first one.

You were the first driver. Which is another funny story. So there's your main brothers, car dealers out of Columbus, Ohio. Mike calls me up. Me and Mike had been friends for a while. Our shops were next to each other. and we'd have beers together after work about every night. And then he was Brett's crew chief for a while.

And so we were really close friends. He calls me up and says, hey, I got these guys in Ohio going to start a Toyota truck team. This is his first, Toyota's first year in the trucks. He said, I want you come drive this thing? I said, well, hell yeah. Because at the time, this was 04, I had been relegated to doing starting parks to pay the bills, make sure everything got paid. Now, you talk about pressure.

and you think it's only a starting park and just go out and there's more pressure doing that than the guy's racing full time because it's like your motor's not as good you got one set of tires for practice you got to qualify in a set you mean you have to make the race you have no points you have nothing you know provisional's yeah you talk about pressure that was pressure yeah and man we made them all too we did really well yeah but so i was doing that and mike called me up say hey I want you come to shop These three guys are coming down to see the shop, see what's going on. I want you to meet them. We'll talk about racing. I want you to drive. So they come down. I go to the shop. It was a beautiful day out.

I roll in there. I got a pair of shorts on, flip-flops, T-shirt. And I roll up in the office, and there's these three guys sitting there with suits on and ties. Steve Germain, he's the middle brother. He's the smart aleck of the three. he said Mike introduces all and Steve says

So is this how you come for a job interview Dressed like this I said hell no I thought I already had the job man I come to just meet you guys Yeah And that was our introduction Dale

And of course they all laughed Great three great guys I mean really I mean all three of them You know Bob was the oldest Then Steve and Rick the youngest I mean just great people

loved racing had great families. I mean, couldn't ask for a better situation. And I get to drive for one of my best friends. Yeah. You know, and we had success right off the bat. Yeah. I mean, the first race was Richmond.

We ended up finishing fourth. Went to California and smoked them. I mean, we had to pit and we had to come from the back. And, I mean, ended up beat, cross, beating Teddy with like four laps to go. And won that one. Went to the next race. was Las Vegas. We should have won that one.

Shane Meal moved me on the last lap. He had fresher tires. He moved me on the last lap, finished second. Then we won Kansas. I mean, right off the bat, we had it going on. And it was fun. Yeah. There was no more pressure.

Good schedule. Great schedule. And when you unloaded the racetrack, you knew you could win the race. How much better can that get with no pressure? And we ended up. I think it was eight years total we won 21 races in eight years and two championships

won the first one for Toyota first national series champion for Toyota first two-time champion pretty proud of those things yeah the success you had in that truck I mean that was a lot of fun to see because I think for me personally always

I always felt like that you weren't ever really put in a position to show exactly what you were capable of doing. And if I was to say, you know, what was my favorite, what was my favorite era of your career that gave me this idea that you really could do what you ended up doing in this truck was when you drove for, for Raymock or Butch in the 75? So get in that car, watching, watching that car from the early 80s kind of do what it did and have struggles and find a little success. When you got in that car, the way that car improved

and how that team improved as a whole really made me have a lot of appreciation, I think, for your ability just to go fast, right? And I'd watched your brother raced, and I'd watch Brett raced for years. And I just felt like in terms of just pure feel and for a car and ability to like

drive a car quickly like you had an edge like maybe maybe Jeff had a little more race craft I'm not sure where you kind of rank you

and your brothers but in terms I don't know that they would have gotten in the truck and did what you did presented with this opportunity where this thing should go win I don't know that they

could re re I don't know that they could re I don't know that they could mimic what you accomplished in that truck. And I know you probably wouldn't do this publicly in terms of, you know, raiding your all's abilities or talents. But maybe you can tell us where their strengths were and where yours were. And what were your weaknesses?

What were their weaknesses? Well, you know, it's funny you asked this because this is, I've been asked before about this. and it's kind of, I don't know if it's ironic or just the way the family structure works, but I think I'm a little of both of them. Yeah. I really do.

You know, Jeff, he, hard charger, go get him, get the hell out of my way kind of racer. That's why he won 600 racers, races. You know, and people didn't like them because of it. And, you know, after the race, he was about racing. He didn't go out in a parking lot, drink beer with the guys. He went back to the shop, unloaded, and got ready to, for the next race. I mean, he was a hard-known racer. And, you know, Brett comes along,

sees all of this and Jeff and how the fans react and how the competitors react. And I don't know how well you know Brett, but he's just like, just a nice guy. He's just everybody. He's the guy in school that everybody liked. If you're a head, a jock, a brain, it didn't matter, you liked Brett. You know, he's just that kind of guy. So Brett comes along, he goes the other way. Mr. Nice Guy on the track, patient, always trying to just put himself in the right place to win races. And he had success doing it. He was very good at it. And I grow up watching these two, right?

And I'm like, well, Jeff's hard to pass and he's fast and he's go get him. I like that. But Brett's pretty damn smart. I think you've got to be smart at this. So I ended up just kind of right down the middle. Yeah. I really did. I took the best of both of them, and that's what I became, I think. Well, your, Jeff is 15 years older than you.

Yeah. Right. And so, I bet, you know, we assume, we assumed that y'all had a relative, you know, being closer together in age would have kind of, I don't know, that age gap probably made things different as well. Like he was probably gone, right? In a lot of situations, he was well ahead of you in life. and physically, geographically, not in the same place as you to have a major influence on your life.

But once you finally get to the cup level or get into the NASCAR ecosystem, how close are y'all? I mean, in the last probably 20 years, right? Like, what are family reunions like? What are, you know, you're at the racetrack together, you know, is it is, I know how me and my brother were. and we didn't see each other or do much with each other, but then when we found each other in the same sort of lifestyle and racing against each other,

we became a little more close. That's pretty fair estimate right there, assessment. You know, we really didn't race against each other until we were all in cup. Right, exactly. I had raced against Brett and maybe twice in New England when I first started racing modifies a little bit. Yeah.

It wouldn't really know. In fact, one time I beat the back bumper off his car on it. It was a little short track. But so we didn't, we didn't get that close family ties. You're right. When I was growing up,

Jeff was already gone. Yeah. You know, he was already off racing. Brett's five years older to me. So our relationship was different in that his friends weren't friends of mine and they were older. So that was different too. Yeah.

And when we all got into the cup together, you know, now, now Brett's a little different because I, I worked with Brett someone as modified and I lived in the same area and worked for the same people and changed tires. You know, it's a little different there. So me and Brett have always been a little closer. Then Brett moved south and I was still up there and then I moved south. But we never, you know, when you're only a couple years apart, it makes a difference in your relationship. but when you're five years, 15 years, you don't have that brotherly relationship. Yeah.

And not a lot of relatability. No, no, not at all. Such in different parts of life. Yeah. And is that the way it is today? Like me and Carrie, like I can call Carrie and say, man, I love you. And he knows, I'm telling him the truth.

And he'll say the same to me. But otherwise, like, we don't, we don't communicate. We don't really have anything that is, We don't have anything happening in our lives that do bring us together. Same thing. Other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, the Earnhardt gatherings. I think that in this day and age, life is just so busy for everybody. It's just different than when we were kids.

And we all have our own things going on. And it's just hard to be together. Did you read Jeff's book? I believe it not, I haven't. You got to read it. Damn it. You got to read this book, man. He gave me a copy of it, and a friend came over,

said, oh, man, I don't want to read that. Well, I said, okay, I haven't read it, but I'm going to let you have it and got to give it back to me, and I still haven't got it back. Dude, I read this book. It's great. It's really good. I heard there's a lot of stuff.

There is so much stuff in there. And so, Jeff, so the rivalry, and, you know, for lack of a better word, it's as a strong word. I don't like to use it, but the hatred that was brewing between the two clans there back in the 80s, that all is like washed away, melted away, right? And so, and not really giving, I never gave Jeff an opportunity for me to see his side of it, right?

And I didn't want, you know, I never gave him that chance to like, for me to go, hmm, wonder what it was like for him, you know. And so to read his book and hear from his person, perspective of the rivalry with dad, but then also his experience as an owner driving the seven car, his dealings with Hoosier, Good Year, the France family. His version of the truth is very compelling. And I think, you know, I think it's really, really interesting. And I'm, I was just, you should read it. I'm going to. I'll get it back. That's the thing about Jeff is, he was a rebel that came down here.

You know, not a southern rebel, but he came down as an outsider and really shook up the NASCAR world at that point. Because at that point, there wasn't a lot of, I don't know if there was any northern or westerners or Midwestern. I don't think there was anybody else that had come down. You're right. And I'm telling you, there was people that didn't like northerners. It's just the way it was. You're right.

I don't think it's that way anymore, but back then it was. It was a thing. It was kind of like Ford versus Chevy. Yeah. And but what we know now, I think what we know now is, is that like the Northern modified, the history and the strength of the Northern modified and the racers like Ron Bouchard and all those guys that your brother raced against, just we would learn or I guess we would we would we would grow to respect like how great those guys really were.

Yeah, but when it was happening, it wasn't easy. No, it wasn't good. Yeah, it wasn't. Hey, TJ, you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrik Automotive Group. Yes, I have heard of Darren Hart Jr. Chevrolet. I bet you'd be surprised on what type of Chevrolet vehicles we specialize in. If I had a guess, I'm going to say it would probably be Chevy trucks.

Well, we definitely sell plenty of those, but actually we're really big in commercial vehicles. We actually sell a lot of crane trucks, or the number one seller, actually, in crane trucks. Okay, I definitely did not see that coming. Yeah, pretty neat, huh? So for any of our listeners shopping for commercial vehicles, here are some things you need to know about us at Delenhart Jr. Chevrolet. We have hundreds of trucks in stock so you can find what you need fast. And we have people there that can help you with custom orders. So if you want to build the exact vehicle you need, we can do it.

We offer complimentary delivery anywhere in the continental U.S. Plus, Hendrick Automotive Group is the nation's top-rated dealer group for online reputation. Visit Dalejuner Chevy.com and click commercial to explore the wide range of available commercial vehicles. Our team at Dellenhart Jr. Chevrolet will give you a world-class experience. Chevrolet, together, let's do. drive. Let's wrap your career up. And I love, this is one of my favorite parts of the conversation. So you end your career and we all kind of, we all kind of end our careers not really

knowing like how much is left in a tank. And does anybody who's still here believes in me? And I kind of want to know, I guess, where you, what you're experiencing. was like in the final couple of years of your career and was was this a was that a decision that you made was this process of because like not racing or stopping something that you have done all your life and wanted to do all your life is such a difficult thing and I still deal with that today I still have I have no idea how I can't imagine I think personally how how heartbreaking that's going to be to say to know for sure that I'll never get to drive another

car in competition um and I wonder if it was difficult for you and and how that process went yeah you know the last year germane we we didn't run that well we struggled why were why were things becoming difficult because it had seemed so easy for so long. Yeah, we just, we kind of got off on a tangent and lost our way a little bit, which is easy to do in racing, you know? And then that, at the end of that year, Germains decided just, you know, that was enough. Rick and Steve Germain just didn't want to spend their money anymore. Of course, Bob stayed in it and had the cup team for a while.

So they disbanded the trucks. And I, at that point, I really didn't know what I was going to do, didn't have an idea. And I said, well, how old are you at this point? Oh, my goodness. Roughly. 48, maybe, somewhere in there. So. You partnered with Randy Moss.

Yeah, at the end of that, in the middle of that year, we did. That was cool. What was that? I seen him at the, I seen him at Daytona. Yeah. And he's, he's walking through the garage. and he goes, Yo, Dale, it's Moss, baby.

I was like, damn, that is Randy Moss. Yeah. And I can't believe he knows who I am. Yeah. It was badass. He was, I'll tell you. Larger than life. After getting to know him, what a motivational speaker.

Yeah. What an incredibly intelligent person. He understood the sport. So at the time, he was together with us, we were racing together. he was playing for the Patriots, which happens to me and my team. Well, we're in a motorhome at Iowa. I think it was Iowa. And my wife starts busting his ass about how Tom Brady's overrated and doesn't deserve the rings.

And Randy stood up mad, defending him. And he went on this tyrant. And when he got done, I was like, dude, you need to be a motivational speaker. It was just so intelligent in the things he was saying. It was very impressive. But anyway, great guy. Funny as hell. Yeah, that was a good time.

You would make the decision to leave the program as the program's shutting down and they're going to focus on their cup stuff. What do you do next? Well, I really didn't know. And when it kind of got out, Duke Thurston called, said, hey, why don't you come dry for me? It said, cool. Yeah, I'd do that. It'd be fun, you know.

Duke's long history in the sport. They do things right. They got a great place up there. You know, shops nice. The team's good. They build good stuff. Yeah, go do it. And we struggled.

We struggled really bad. And we got about halfway through the year. And, you know, Duke was spending his own money. out of the kindness of his heart to just grace me and wanted to have the two-time champion the whole bit. And we had fun, but we just wasn't having any success. So I told Duke, I said, look, you know, you're just wasting your money. We're not getting anywhere.

We're not gaining on it. I don't need to run bad. You don't need to spend your money. Let's just call it quits. Yeah. So we did right in the middle of season. And, you know, I really didn't think the process through very well. Well, I got quit the job.

And I'm like, all right, now what the hell do I do? Yeah. Right? I'm old. I don't have money to bring to a team. There's no teams that are going to take you in the middle of the year anyway. I'm like, what the hell do I do now? I mean, I really didn't think it through when I quit.

Yeah. And I'll be damn. Two weeks later, Fox Sports called me. Dan Shudy, who was one of my best friends now, he called. And he wasn't at the time. He's this produced. He said, hey, Michael Waltrip has to go to Goodwood, being Goodwood. Would you want to come to Iowa and be in the booth with Phil and Rick Allen?

Hell yeah. I'll try it. I got nothing else to do. Yeah. You know? So I went my first shot out of the booth in the booth. And I did okay. I wasn't the best.

But I did okay. Hell, they hired me. And I did. did the booth like five times the rest of that year, three or four times, five times. I ended up doing the pre-race show. And I had the pre-race show for 11 years. Yeah.

It was a great run. And the only thing bad about it was it was here in the studio, so I didn't get to go to the race track. Sure. Well, then last year they decided they're going to cut all the pre-race shows out, which included mine. And I was like, all right. Here we go again.

Now what I'm going to do. And now I'm, I feel like I'm in broadcasting. And that's what I do. And hopefully somebody will pick me up or will do something. So we call a lot of people, talk to CW, talk to NBC, you know, made all the rounds. And talk to my boss at Fox and said, you know, why don't you give me a shot on Pitt Road? Yeah. I know everybody.

Maybe I can get some scoop or add something special to it. And she says, okay, let's give it a shot. So we did three last year, did pretty good, and here I am doing them again this year. Yeah. Having fun. Back at the track. Back at the track. And it's crazy.

Being away 11 years, I lost touch. I really lost touch with a lot of things going on, and a lot of the new people that have come in. So I've been slowly getting to know these kids and these new crew chiefs and general managers and talking to people, and it's been a lot of fun. I'm having a good time. You came back to race a one-off. in the trucks. Actually six off. Six.

Did six of them. I didn't know you did six. Yeah. So when I quit Thorisport and went into broadcasting, never really thought about, looked back at anything. And we were at our house out by the pool one night and having some drinks. And somebody was scrolling on racing insights and looked it up, looked my name up. Oh, hell.

You realize you got. You got 794 starts in NASCAR. Like, are you being? So the big thing come, you need to do six more to get to 800. I said, you know what? That would be pretty cool, but it's been nine years since I've been in a race car. I don't know if I can still do this or not. So I got thinking about it and we talked some more, me and Janet,

and was like, well, let's call it. Marcus Limonis and see if he's interested in helping out because Marcus had helped us before. Yeah. You know, our sponsor, our serious sponsor, Camping World. And he said, damn, I'd love to do that. I'll do all six races with Camping World on a truck. All right, now we've got a sponsor. Now I've got to find a team.

So I got to know Stewart a little bit. And I knew he was the one Toyota team that had really. good trucks that could maybe do a second team. So I talked to Stewart, talked to Chris Larson's owner, and let's do this. So the next year, we ran six races with Hallmar Freezing Racing, had a great time, you know, let everybody know this was the last hurrah. So every track that we went to, the fans were so kind and generous. It really, it was pretty special, the things that we had. and we did things all the way along the line. I had different pit boards every race with that track and what number that was,

and they're all hanging in the shop up there. So it was a really great experience, and we get down to the last race. The year before, they ran Watkins Glen, and they took it off the schedule that year. It's like, damn it, I wanted to end at home. But, you know, Pennsylvania, Pocono, I've been going there since I was eight years old. That was pretty close.

and my wife's from there, Janet's from that area. So that was the last race. That was going to be the last race. And we planned it up big, man. We actually had a Martz bus, a regular big bus, with all their friends from the valley up there. And we had like 50, 60 people. The racetrack did some really cool things with some videos and stuff

and ended up crashing on the seventh lap. So that was the end of my career. Yeah. As you, when you look back on it, I mean, I know your last full-time run was over 10 years ago, but do you, are you, do you feel like you have got it all out of your system? No. Yeah. So the driving part still miss it?

Every day. Yeah. Every day. In fact, the trucks are going back to the way. Watkins Glen this year. And Janice, like, you sure you want to, we can we do, we can do one more. Let's go to Watkins Glen and 8001. And I would love to do it, but Stewart's team's already committed to a second truck

for those races. And honestly, I'm not in shape enough to do it. And the one thing that I did learn running those six races, you know, growing up, and I'm sure you saw this too, we watched our heroes racing, you know, when we're kids and they get older and now they're running in the teens and then they run in the 20s and be like, oh man,

his car must be terrible. He's one of the greatest drivers ever. His cars are got to be junk. And then after doing those six races and I'm like, yeah, it probably wasn't their cars. When you get older, you're just not as fast. It's just the simple facts of life. You know, I did run Watkins Glen for Bobby Datter.

And Jason Miller's crew chief and Bobby, they gave it 100% effort. We had a really good car, had a good motor. And I go out and practice, and I'm a second and a half off the pace, and I'm driving my ass off. Yeah. And that's when it hit me. I was like, you're just slow. It just happens.

Yeah. Now, you know, when we ran those six races, We actually ran pretty good. We had top 10 times most of the races and passed a lot of trucks and did well. Yeah. But, man, I'm driving my rear end off to do it. And against these kids today, holy crime. I know.

It's different. Yeah. I know. I'm kind of faced. I'm kind of in a situation now personally where I'm, I think, you know, it's very, very soon I'm going to be faced with that reality that I'm, not, no matter how great this car is, I'm not going to be able to do what it needs, what I need, what needs to happen here. And that's going to be a tough day, but, uh, well, I got to tell you, the, the stuff that

you've been racing, I've been very envious of you. Yeah. It's getting to go out in the late-mile stock and just have fun. It is so fun. Just have fun. And you know what's interesting is, is the car is exactly the same car that I drove in late model stocks in 1995 or 94, 93. It's the same front geo. It's the same chassis. They'd build them better, lighter, different. They're tricked out here and there. But it's all the same. Same stuff.

Yeah. And so it's, so when I got behind the wheel, I was like, oh, hell, it's the same freaking tire. Hoosier 45. It really ain't changed much. Everything about it feels the same. So it wasn't like hard to, I have yet to get in that car and go, man, I have no clue what's going on. You know, man, this is going to be tough to figure out. Now, there's times when it doesn't do what I want it to. And that's probably more me than anything. Well, I don't think you'll ever get to that point where you'll not figure it out because you have the smarts and know what's wrong.

It's just a matter of putting this and this and their feet all together at the same time. Yeah. But it's so wild, too, watching the kids. Um, whether they're, you know, some 20 or 18 or 15 year old kid getting those cars and run the lap. Yeah. And put it and, and, and haul ass. And you're like, damn, how do you know how to do that, right? Um, it's so impressive.

Like Wyatt, my nephew, he runs, he'll run limited car at Hickory and Wind. He'll go run this truck at some outdoor jump park, you know, where he's launching himself through the air in these little. at, you know, in stadium truck stuff, and when he'll go run a, he ran a dirt car, a full-on dirt car. It might have been a crate late model, but he goes and runs one in them for the first time and run fifth. And I'm like, he's 12. Like, how does he freaking know how to do this? Yeah.

But, uh, because I sure his shit didn't know that stuff at 12 years old. Well, yeah, but, you know. They're starting younger. But Wyatt's got it in his jeans. He's got it from both sides because LW was a racer and, you know. I know. Kelly's a racer. He certainly got all that advice anyone would need from his dad and us and his mom.

I do want to ask you before we wrap this up, there was a couple of memorable, famous confrontations. Oh, I can't wait to see this. Well, there's two that are highlighted here. And I think I remember this one. The other one, not so much. There was a confrontation with David Starr. on pit road

yeah what happened oh well and david's a nice guy i love david he's always been one of my friends he's every time even today i see this guy um i remember he was he was there was a period of time

when david star was relatively competitive in a truck series right um the people that watch racing today probably don't remember that or probably didn't witness that and they just see david out there running in the back of these Xfinity Fields. But when I walk up to that guy, he is always happy and happy to be there. Always. And he ain't, he's not trying to ruffle any feathers. He just wants to come have fun. But what happened this day? Well, so we, I love you, David. So take this, per, don't take it for us. But we, our name for David was the kidney stone. Yeah. Because he's so hard to pass.

Yeah. So we're at Loudoun, and he was running good. I don't know where it was probably, it was top five, I think. And I get through some traffic and Spiter says, all right, it's a kidney stone up ahead. And I go up there and I went to the outside of him. And he just broke loose or something. He got in a quarter panel and around I went. Kind of like what I did with you.

You know, it's just a racing deal. sure but we had a truck that was going to win and we had coming from the back for some reason and uh and it was close to the end of the race so we ended up finishing the race come down pit road and you know the the Hillman family and it rubbed off on our crew members if you mess with them you're going to mess with all of them and david messed with me and it was on. And it was on big time. I mean,

Mark come across the hood at David. And I got out, and we actually happened to park right next to each other in Pitt Road after the race. And, yeah, it was pretty big. Damn it. Punch is going. Really?

Oh, yeah. Did you and David ever have a talk about it afterwards? No. No. It was, and that's the thing about our, one thing about our sport. I think more times than not,

it's the crew members that get their panties in a wad because their truck is wrecked. But as a driver, maybe there again, maybe I'm different than most, but I understand that shit's going to happen. And I know exactly what happened. And David got loose and got in me. Was I happy about it? No.

You're not going to be happy about it. But I'm not going to hate the guy because he made a mistake. Yeah. Because I've made many mistakes and taking people out. So it's going to come around. And so I never held grudges. Kyle Bush confronted you in Victory Lane, and I believe this was at Kentucky. Somebody got some, there was, so the trucks relied heavily on side force.

And boy, when you put those trucks side by side, the guy on the inside was in big trouble, and I think it was Kyle Bush that night. Yes, it was. So went down in the three, and Kyle run up high, and my truck was badass. So I drove right under him in the middle of corner. And there was a good three truck, like, widths between us. I mean, we weren't even close. And I'm going to come off. You know, no one is going to side for us.

I'm going to come off low. And I was going to pass him for the lead. Well, we get in the middle of corner, and he just turns down and gets right on my side and then pulls back up and just sucks me around. Yeah. And I go spinning down through the infield. Yeah. You know he did it on purpose.

That's part of racing. That's strategy, I guess you want to call it. I don't know. He knew if he got on your door, you used them off your hands full. So that was eight laps after a restart. So we came down pit road. We had to tape down the bed top.

It didn't hurt anything. The bedtop blew up. That was it. Tape it back down, filled it with gas, went back out. We probably put four tires on it. And here we come. We come flying up through the pack.

man we're I mean we are fast we are bad fast and drove all the way to fifth and now there's like 20 laps to go mike junior Hillman junior my crew chief he comes on a red said look I want you to run half throttle he said all these guys got a pit we don't have to pit but I want you to save some fuel just to make sure we're going to be good because it's still kind of close yeah so I ran the Last eight laps, half throttle, last 12 laps, half throttle, literally, all the way around, just hold it. Yeah. And they're all peeling off. They all got to get gas.

We get in the lead. I forget who was second, but he was like almost half track behind us doing the same thing. So I just held it half throttle. We ended up winning the race. It was awesome. So get the victory lane. They stick the mic in my face. And the first thing I come out was this is,

First thing I got to say is I got to thank Kyle Bush for driving me dirty and sucking me around so I could come in and get enough fuel to make it the rest of the race. Yeah. Well, we go on with the interview and about the time I'm done with the interview and they go off, here come Kyle. He's in his street clothes and he comes into Victory Lane and he's getting in my face and we've got some choice words for each other. Now they're showing all this on TVs. So it made the headlines. Yeah. He didn't like that I called him dirty.

Did y'all ever figure it out? No. No. Didn't talk it out? No. We've never, I think we've had a mutual respect for each other. That's a different Kyle Bush back then. Well, it is.

And the thing about Kyle is, and I've experienced this two separate occasions, when you get him away from the racetrack and he's not Kyle Bush superstar racer, he's one of the coolest dudes you're going to hang out with. yeah drinking having fun dancing i mean he's a cool he is not scared to dance no and and and i've experienced that and that's kind of what always upset me is how he acted at the racetrack yeah dude he's the same person yeah but he's just so intense in his racing that's true yeah he is definitely back then especially um man i've really enjoyed this i um i hope you have and uh I think our listeners will say the same. It's, you know, your career is a fun one because there's so many different layers to it. So many different, you know, tough moments, redeeming moments.

And you have been a, you have, you've been an asset to the sport. That's one of the things that, so I always felt like being, trying to live up. to either my dad or you trying to live up to one of your brothers' accomplishments was not something that I was interested in. Being an asset to something I loved, which we always loved this sport, was what was important to me. I wanted to be done one day and everybody go, it was good that you were here. Yeah.

You know, and I think that's absolutely what we can say about Taubo Dye. is that the sport was better for your involvement. And the experiences that you had and the stories that you can tell and what you shared with us today are entertaining and fun for people. And, you know, for them to know that when you're on those truck broadcasts, that you know what you're talking about and you have the pedigree and the experience to back it and what you've been able to do in the broadcast booth has to be a good sense of pride for you. So I want to say thanks.

I appreciate you coming on, giving us some time today. It's been a lot of fun catching up. Well, thank you. You know, I got to tell you, though, I've been asked a lot last few years that you've been doing this. Why hasn't Dale had you on? Why hasn't he had you on? Well, it's kind of strange, and I don't know if you feel the same way, but we never really had a relationship. No.

We never did. Nope. I don't know why. I don't know how it happened. Even though we're at the same racetracks, half our day. lives. It's like we just never had that relationship. And I said, I told him, I said, I don't know, maybe he still calls me the cue ball-headed fool. I don't know. He doesn't want me on. But yeah, I'm glad you had me. I appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words. Absolutely. That day, I was really mad,

but I was also a very, uh, cocky kid. Yes, you were. And I have grown up. Yep, I've grown up. And I've always had it. I've just always had an appreciation for you because I feel like that I just felt like I will say this publicly. I appreciated your driving ability more than I did your brothers. And you don't have to comment on that at all. But I just, that was my, I raced against you. I raced against Brett too, but not during his peak. Certainly didn't race against your brother, Jeff at all much.

But I raced with you a lot. And I had a lot of respect for how much you could get out of a car. and then to see what you did in the trucks was no surprise to me. I appreciate that. And I just always, you know, I'm also very shy. Not, I wasn't, I could communicate with like Hank Parker Jr. And some of the, like, Lyndon, Lennon Amick and some of those guys that were my age or younger. But it was hard for me to, like, create a relationship with guys that were older than me.

I know exactly what you mean. And I only, like, I only had a relationship with, like, Joy or Mike McLaughlin because they created that. Like if you had came to me and said, hey, let me help you here. Let me show you something. That would have been the only way we'd ever developed a relationship because I was too shy and nervous to talk to anybody that was older than me.

You know, that was, you were. And plus, you were kind of like a peer of my dad's, not so much, you know, on my level. Wow. Like, you were, you'd raised cups. right here you know you the way we looked at you at least was probably different than you might imagine but yeah it's been fun catching up man yeah thanks and I have really enjoyed this we have never we had never really had a conversation no we certainly

hadn't sat down we'd laughed back slapped a little bit here and there when we saw each other but about the keyboard-headed fool stuff and I knew you weren't too annoyed by that which I'm thankful but yeah it's been fun yeah thank you thank you You appreciate it. Tabadine on the Dale Jr. download. All right, so awesome, catching up with Tabadine. I was kind of looking forward to seeing what that conversation about me calling him a cue ball-headed fool would be like.

And it is exactly as I thought it would. He's a good dude, good racer. You know, when you're in the heat of it and winning and doing as well as he was in the trucks, his personality would be a little maybe brash. or rougher, more confident and so forth. But as he's wound down his racing career and been out of the truck and the cars for quite some time now, he's just kind of a guy who seems like he very appreciative, very happy, and very content, very satisfied.

Definitely different responses to some of the things that I asked him than I expected, particularly like, you know, when he goes out and runs well at Dover, in 1991 or sometime around then for his, you know, his like second or third Xfinity race driving for this new team. He doesn't have a ton of races under his belt. He's relatively green as a race car driver. Goes it over and runs into top five. And he gets, he had, he didn't have like a reaction of elation or,

hey, holy shit, did y'all see that? You know, it was, it was different, I guess, that, that feeling that he had was different than I would anticipate it. trying to live through his emotions, recall those emotions of those moments. Because I can put myself, I can put myself back into the industry in 1991. And guys were getting these sort of random opportunities.

There were a lot of, you know, independently on race teams that maybe either, like a Bobby Hill and Jr. might have a race team that's going to run 12 races. Kyle Petty had one. Ernie Irvin had one, Sterling Marlin had, all these cup guys would have these teams that would run, you know, a handful of races.

And you'd go to Charlotte, for example, and there'd be 25 cup drivers competing for, you know, a field. And there would, in total, be 65 cars in total trying to qualify for the Xfinity race in the late 80s and early 90s. Tons of cars. And so there was a lot of opportunity. for Todd Bedine to get a race at South Boston or a man, go up to Langley and run that one. And guys would talk their way into things by working their ass off and being around, being available, being there when Kyle Petty said,

yeah, I don't want to run those eight races. Put Todd in there. You know, that was, those were some cool stories to hear. And I always wondered how his career developed. and as the third bow dine kind of coming up through the ranks, it opened a few doors, but the, you know, the relationship with his brother, Brad, and Jeff being different and a little bit separated. Todd had to earn some of it.

Todd had to go to work, fabricate, be a mechanic, and create, you know, make a living so that those opportunities would, you know, so he'd be there and be prepared when those opportunities happened. So pretty cool story. You know, and his truck career in itself is a Dale Jr. download guest interview. But, you know, he's awesome really kind of learned where he came from. And, yeah, his career, man, in and out of, you know, Xfinity, Cup, back to Xfinity, back to Cup, back to Xfinity, to Trucks. And then he finally found a place where he could become a champion and a winner.

and very proud, I suppose, of his overall career. So thankful for him to come through, and I hope y'all enjoyed the show, man. We're going to get the white flag. All right, it's time for the white flag. I want to remind you to head on over to shop.durdymo Media.com. We have a ton of new merch for the Dirtymo Media bucket full of podcasts that we have.

If you like, bless your heart. the Dell Jr. Download, door bumper clear, actions detrimental, Speed Street, whatever it may be. We've got hats and shirts, t-shirts, sweatshirts, all that stuff available now for you to purchase and support. Show us, you know, in the comments and on social media, follow dirtymoadmedia.com and post and tag us

and you wearing some of your gear. Let's see it. Let's see some of y'all out there. I know you're getting it. And don't forget our Starstress. Stripes and Beers Collection drops this week. You'll have everything to be able to suit you out for summer with that collection. The Teardown was live immediately after the race on Twitter and YouTube following Texas.

Texas was wild. And so it was awesome to get all of the feedback from Jeff Gluck and George Mianchi over that particular race and everything else going on in the industry. There is a ton going on in the industry. a lot of conversations, a lot of different conversations being had. And that's a great place to kind of get a catch-all of everything going on just right after the race is over with. Door bumper clear dropped on Monday. They were joined by Rodney Chilters, and Rodney came in to talk about his departure from Spire and what's next for Rodney.

And Rodney's take on a lot of things going on in the sport. They talked about the All-Star race and the run-what-you-brung idea. Rodney as a crew chief could give us a lot of great perspective on that. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin dropped on Monday, even though Denny blew the engine. In his Toyota, he had a great podcast to recover, and I know that he gave us some great insight on all the things going on in the sport as he does every week. He had a very passionate take on some important things going on in the sport, and you can see some of those clips as well on the dirty moe media YouTube and Twitter. This week instead of the usual Herman Schrader, there'll be a Kenny's conversation.

Kenny's out on the charity ride with Kyle Petty, which you can follow along on social media with Kyle and all the things they're doing there. Kenny's doing a great job sharing with us. Here's experiences on the Kyle Petty Charity Ride and that benefits Victory Junction. And so that will be dropping today as well. And May is officially here,

and that means the Indy 500, and that also means you don't want to miss what Connor daily will be bringing us throughout this month telling us all the things that are happening over at Indy as all the teams prepare for such an incredible race. It's great to have an insight from Connor on that particular month as well as the rest of the IndyCar season. On Wednesday as well, and today as well you want to check out NASCAR's Full Speed season two on Netflix. Season one was a great success. Season two is here. It's a five-episode series.

It gives you the behind-the-scenes. Look at all of the contenders for the playoffs last year, as they all battled for the championship. A lot of behind-the-scenes views of what those drivers were dealing with and going through. You get to learn who these drivers are. I don't think you can find a better place to do it. NASCAR's Full Speed, Season 2, now available on Netflix.

Thursday, that's tomorrow, and that means another episode of Bless Your Heart with my wife, Amy. We went to the Miami Grand Prix. our first F1 event. And we had a lot of fun and a lot of great experiences. And we're going to tell you all about that and more tomorrow on the next episode of Bless Your Heart. That's our show today.

Thank you, Tobodine. Appreciate everybody's effort here at Dirtymo Media, all of our staff for compiling all the information to put on a great show. And I hope you all enjoyed it. We'll see you tomorrow. Check out DirtyMo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.