The Dale Jr. Download - Tony Gibson: How I Almost Lost Kulwicki A Championship

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes longtime NASCAR Cup crew and car chief Tony Gibson to the Download to learn about his path from the short tracks of the Southeast to stock car glory. Growing up in a racing household, in the shadows of Daytona International Speedway, Tony began working on his father Bo Gibson’s cars at an early age. Tony’s older brothers Mark and Pepe also began racing at local strongholds like New Smyrna and Jacksonville and found lots of success at the late model level. Tony explains that Mark’s career advancing into the ARCA and Busch Grand National ranks is what helped get his foot in the door of the NASCAR world. And before long he moved from his family home in Florida to North Carolina to work with Norman Negre -- It was there that Tony made Alan Kulwicki’s acquaintance. Eventually he would follow Alan, from renting part of the Negre shop, to his own AK Racing outfit, where he’d work for several years. Tony talks about the challenges of working with Alan and the major triumph of winning the 1992 NASCAR Cup Championship as an independent team. He also opens up about the tragic plane crash that claimed Alan’s life and how it changed the culture of the team and NASCAR garage forever. Tony would leave for Georgia, working with Bill Elliott for a time before reuniting with Ray Evernham at Hendrick Motorsports at the famed 24 team. Dale and Tony also discuss his years spent at Dale Earnhardt Inc., Stewart-Haas Racing and his current position at HMS working at Hendrick Tech Solutions.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 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 got busted because we went to Darlington, and we had that COT had just come out, and Tony Jr. had figured out something. We made wing mounts, so we're pushing through tech, and we had already made it out of the tech line, pushing it up the hill. They're like, take those wing mounts off, take the wings off. And I looked at Toober, and I said, Two Bear, they got us. And they got them wing mounts laying, though they just took off our cars laying on that table. Two Bear looks at me, he goes, oh, man, I'm going to grab those wing mounts right there.

and I'm going to take off running. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. All right, everybody. Tony Gibson's out in the lobby, and we're going to bring him in here in a second, but just excited to talk to him. He's got a really great story. Kind of the, I wouldn't say rags to riches,

but it's basically the story of how you get involved in this industry. There's a lot of people like Tony, and we have some that come to this table and tell us their story, and there's so many clues and little bits of information for all of y'all out there that are like, man, I want to be a mechanic. I want to be a crew chief. I want to, how do I get in the industry?

Well, here's a story of, you know, perseverance, dedication, hard work, loyalty, and, man, he has been around the sport a long time. His role, his abilities, and what he offered to a team were in high demand. And he never, you know, he never was without a team or a program that needed his help. and so let's get him in the room let's talk to him Tony Gibson on the Dale Jr. Download. What's up? How are you, buddy?

How are you? Good to see you. You do. He's seen in a while. Yeah, it's been a bit. This is you right here. All right. So Tony Gibson on the Dale Jr. download. First off, before we dive into the early days,

Tony was part of the DEI days back in, back in the mid-2000s, worked at Hendrick Motorsports before that, currently works at Hendrick Motorsports today. Yep. But your, one thing that I don't know about you or know a lot about you is your family. And y'all's history and racing.

And that was something that I thought would be fun to learn more about today. Born in Daytona. Yep. Daytona Beach. Man, to me, Daytona was the most fun or one of the most fun next to the night race at Bristol, one of the most fun stops on the circuit or on the,

during the series, especially when I was younger. But even as I got, you know, into racing myself and was able to run around town and they just a lot to do. Yeah. When you're there at the racetrack and there for the, for the race weekend.

But what is it, what was it like growing up there with that racetrack in, in your neighborhood? Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun because everybody looked at that racetrack as, So much history. So they're like, man, you live in Daytona.

The locals. Locals. Embraced it. Yes. And we raced all the short tracks around there. There were a ton of short tracks in that area. Yes, exactly. And we raced them all.

You know, we didn't have a lot of money. So, you know, dad, he repaired old cars and he worked for the phone company. And so dad worked his guts out to, so me and me and my brothers could go and race. Did your dad drive? No, dad, well, dad drove back in the day. Yeah. And, but Tiny Lund drove my dad's cars.

Yep. And so there's a lot of cool pictures. I wish I'd have brought them, but, so dad's raced his whole life. And so we grew up in racing. We built all on cars, chassis. You know, growing up, Glenn's junkyard was right through the woods, about 300 yards. So he'd send us over there to get parts, right? Glenn was cool.

He'd give us whatever we wanted. You just had to come get yourself. What part of, I'd interrupt, but what area of Daytona are, am I at? You are approximately five miles from Daytona National Speedway. Right down Nova Road. East or West? East. East.

So toward the beach. Yep, towards a beach. Shoot. Yep. And so, yeah, it was my mom retired from the Speedway. She was president of the ticket office. She was there for 27 years. Damn.

So, yeah, I can remember mom working there and Mike Helton was working in the mail room. And Mike was transporting mail. I'd see him taking mail from the two, three different buildings that they had because it was real small. Yeah. So, but I can remember Mike working there running mail back and forth to the different buildings. What was going to school and just growing up in that area like? It was, it was a lot of fun. It was hot, but it was a lot of fun.

I spent most of my time racing. A lot of the school events that a lot of kids went to, I didn't go to because we were racing. I'll never forget one story, which I got in trouble for, was, so I was going to go to prom, right? So this girl was going to the prom. I really didn't want to do it, but I'm like, all right, I'll take her to the prom.

And so, well, we were having a big race over Barreville. And we would run like New Smyrna on Friday night. or Bithelow on Friday night and run Brunswick, Georgia on Saturday, on dirt. And we'd groove our tires and go. So at that point in time, we weren't going on Saturday. We were just going to run Friday night. Well, dad decides we're going to go run dirt on Saturday. I'm like, Dad, that's prom.

I've got to take this girl to the prom. So he's like, well, you've already made a promise to her. You're going to have to do it. Well, I'm like, how am I going to get out of this, dude? I got to have some reason to get out. I'm going racing. I'm not going to this prom. something, right? So we had a St. Bernard named Dominic. So I made up this story. I'm a kid,

right? So I'm thinking, how am I going to get out of this? So I told this girl, I said, I can't take you to the prom. I have to go to the dog show. We're taking our dog to the dog show, so I'm not going to be able to go. Damn. That's terrible. That's bad, yeah, but I used it, right? So it worked. Well, her mom and their parents were pretty upset. So they called my mom. and said, what's the deal? We got to go to this. We don't have a dog show. Well, I get in big trouble, right?

So my mom's mad, everybody's mad. Dad is mad, but not really mad, right? He knows the deal. Yeah, so we're sitting at the kitchen table, and mom's just devastated, and I would do that, and I'm trying to explain why I love racing, it's what I want to do. And dad's really scolding me, you know, but the whole time he's looking at me, he's winking. You know what I mean? He's like, so I'm thinking, am I okay or not okay?

Yeah. So we get all done. And so I go outside and dad grabs me. He says, come on up the shop. And so we get up to the shop and I said, Dad, I'm really sorry. I said, but I love racing. This is all I want to do is race. I don't want to go.

I didn't want to go to the prom. He said, son, it's okay. I love the race too. It's all I want to do is race. He said, but sometimes you make responsibilities that you have to stick to. He said, so you need to understand. You don't have to go to the prom. You come with me racing, but you can't make, you got to, you got to,

to make better decisions. So we ran as many short tracks as we could run. Sometimes we'd run three nights a week. So that's all I did growing up. I didn't do a lot of, I didn't do football. I didn't do baseball. I raced. I can remember as a kid riding bicycles over to Smoke a Unique shop.

Damn. And hanging out over there. You know, you could go over there and for a nickel, you could pull a drink out of the front of the Coke machine and just hang out and spend time with smoking unit. They didn't run kids. off over there? Seems like the kind of guy that wouldn't allow people just be no. Now he would watch you. He wouldn't let you touch nothing or get in nothing. But he let you

hang out. And so Smokey Unique Jr. actually drove my dad's late model down there a few times. So we knew him very well. My grandfather did the wiring for, they had those offshore racing boats, had the twin 427s in there. And so dad built motors for him as well. And my grandfather did electrical work. There's a debate about Smokey. and him belonging in the Hall of Fame. Do you think he's a Hall of Fame worthy? Absolutely. I don't know that he'll ever make it in, but absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, if you look at some of the things that he has done for racing and even outside of racing, it's incredible. That was probably one of the smartest men's I ever been around in my life. Yeah. I mean, it's insane. Little Smokey was colorblind. You all know, you didn't know that?

Yeah, well, yeah, he was colorblind. So Dad let him drive our car. cars. So he was always coming up with cool stuff to put on the car. And, well, Dad didn't know he was colorblind. Well, we got in a big wreck one night at New Somerner Speedway. Well, they're waving a caution. He can't tell the caution from a green or any, only he knew was checkered. He couldn't tell white or nothing. Well, we just plow right into them. I mean, we just caused the biggest wreck you could ever see. And that's when found out that Smokie Unique Jr. was colorblind. So they wouldn't let him race anymore. Oh, yeah. Damn. So they, you know, he could race. That was the end of that. Yeah,

it was the end of that, done. But a great family. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. Your two brothers, Mark and. Mark and Pepepe. Yep. They both raced. Yes. They drove. Mark drove quite a bit. Yes, he did. Yep. Why didn't you want to drive? Um, I don't know. I never really showed, um, any desire to drive. I loved working on them. That's surprising. Yeah. I don't, I didn't. I didn't. Dad, it asked. You didn't see your brother go, oh, damn, yeah, when's my turn? Yeah, I know. I never, I never did.

I loved working on them. I loved doing everything I could with race cars. I loved fiddling with them, working on them. I never, I was in a demolition derby one time. How did that go? But that's it. Not too good. I got hit, knocked my battery out, and it ended up.

His battery ended up in the seat with me. And so that didn't go so good. But I don't know. I love working on cars, race cars. and I still do today. I'm just a hands-on guy, and I don't know why. I just didn't. So your brothers, Mark, I want to learn more about Mark, but Pepe, what kind of drive was he?

So Pepe was a middle brother, and he was the wild one, right, out of the group. So he was a crazy wild one out of the group. So Pepey was really good. He was a good driver. Got hurt in New Smyrna. The wall kind of jots off a four. You know how the wall comes out right there? Well, he hit right there.

Well, when he did, he broke his kneecap on the left side. And Pepe never won, but Pepe could run top five all the time. Like he was a solid top five guy, had speed, just never could close it and win. Mark was just the opposite. Mark could take a fifth-place car and win with it. And I've got to understand, we didn't have the money that all these other guys, Gary Blue, Billy Harvey, Dickie Anderson, those guys, Punky Cook. You're racing against all those guys? Yes.

God, almighty. Yeah, we raced against... I don't know how anyone beat Gary Blue back in the week. So we raced against all them guys. But I'll tell you a story about those guys. They took care of us, right? So we blew up one night. And we were done.

It was speed weeks. It was 10 nights of racing down there. Around what time frame is this? This was back in 79, 80. And so we didn't have the money. We're done. dad had a little 3-02 that's what we ran we turned the crap out of it to try to keep up right so um billy harvey was parked right beside us and he come over walked over and said you boys done

dad's like yeah we don't we're done you know it's we're gonna have to go home it was like night three i think and he says you're not done and dad's like yeah we don't i don't have a motor we don't have this is it he's like he says sir what's your name he said bo gibson he said beau you're not done. He says, you're going to come over to my truck and you're going to get a motor and you're going to take it home. You're going to put it in your car. You're going to come back tomorrow night. Dad's like, I'm not going to, I can't do that. I don't have the money to pay you for this money. You said, you don't understand. You don't owe me nothing. You're going to take that motor home and put it in. So we did. And nothing fit. Right? We had to make everything to get this motor in.

But we put the motor in. We finished. We won two nights out of it. Hell. Which was, you know, for us was great. Yeah. So we built a relationship with those guys. And every time we would show up, they would help us out. They'd qualify on brand new stickers and wouldn't run them again. They would give them to us. Damn. And didn't take nothing for it.

No money, no nothing. Those were the coolest guys to be around that you learned from. They're smart guys. Hell of a racers. Did you know or did y'all have any idea what they were getting into in terms of their smuggling? We did after a few years. Yeah. I mean, Gary got arrested in 81, but I mean, so in 79, they were at the height of their smuggling ring.

Yeah, but it didn't, you know, we knew what they did because what they would do is they would come in with Dooley's. Back then, Dooley's in a nice trailer was it, man. You know, they had the tire racks up top that were solid on the side and their names all over it. And every row, every row of tire is brand new. They had four or five sets of brand new wheels and tires. They'd never get them off the truck, right? And then you look over and Harvey and all them, their two trucks, they were the same way. They never take those new tires off.

But then at the end of the night, when it was time to leave, they'd all get in separate trucks, different trucks, and pull out and leave. And the tires never came off. We figured it out after a while, that's where the stuff was. It was in them tires. They were moving them in tires. Oh, yeah. It was cool. but I'm telling you it

they never treated us great they treated us like how can we help you yeah sure they were racers they're racers yeah and they appreciated what we were doing as just you know a family young family trying to go and race and do well yeah it was pretty cool

Gary Blue and around that time you know I talked to Mark Martin and those guys would come up and run speed weeks and that was around the time when like Arrow and all kinds of things. It was a wild, wild west. There were really no limitations and rules and things just kind of got crazy. And I know that one particular speed weeks, it was like everybody, once Gary rolled his car into the track and off the trailer, everybody ran out and bought all the metal up. Yeah.

There wasn't no metal 10 or anything left in the town of Daytona. or New Smyrna to be able to get the aerodynamics and stuff on those cars. Yeah, you couldn't do it. I mean, they, yeah, you would try to go buy aluminum and do all that stuff, and you couldn't do it. Yeah. I remember one time, and you probably remember this car, as Billy Harvey showed up with a complete clear car.

You know, everything was clear. No. And all his upper, lower, A-frames, everything was chromed out. But the whole, yeah, the whole thing was like saying clear. It was awesome, dude. Really? Oh, yeah. It was cool.

I mean, you, you know. Just because he could. Because he could. Yeah. And I think those guys would have been fine. But I remember it was, it was Winston Cup scene, I believe it was, or Motor Sports Magazine that had had a picture of Billy Harvey's all this. All that was laid out.

I remember it's a stock car magazine. That was it. And I'm like. It's a big spread. That's a big spread. I'm like. He had his cup car, his arc a car, is the super late model, go carts. And everything was blue.

Yeah. It had an indie car, remember? Because he had the indie car. Blue 31. That's right. Everything was perfect. And I think that was kind of the, when everybody saw that, it drew attention to him. And I think that was probably one of the biggest.

Have you read Gary Balloo's book? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He is an awesome. He is an awesome guy. Yeah. I remember they would come down there, you know, when they'd soak tires.

You know, you're not supposed to soak tires, but you'd soak them, you know, and they'd peel off pit lane. They'd be black strips all the way out until the end, you know. And they'd run, I remember they would, they run nitrous in the frame, rails. They blew a frame rail out one time at Newsemerner. It was hot during their firecracker week down there and blew the frame. Bottle got hot and blew the frame apart. Jesus. There's some cool stories there. I'm telling you. So getting back to Mark, is it safe to assume that Mark's driving and his success is kind of what

bridge the gap to you getting Yes You know getting into the you know Getting into the industry Yes 100% And he so he raced locally Around New Smyrna and some of the tracks Yep

And eventually decided Arca racing Arca yeah Why? Just dad just wanted to take it to step level To the next level Because dad actually Barnett Bank

Back in the Superbirds Dad owned two Superbirds so and smoky eunuch helped him with the engine stuff and everything and uh so dad wanted to get back in to the higher ranks of racing so he had a couple superbirds you race oh yeah where oh yeah at Daytona in the arque series yeah Talladega Dayton no no in the cup yeah who drove them so um Tony Lund drove my dad's car and Bobby Isaac

Oh, what was the color? It was number. It was number 70, it was 72, 73. 72 or, I think 72 was when Isaac ran it. And then they changed the number to 98. I still got postcards at the house

that cool stuff. that cool stuff. Damn. Yeah. So he had a couple of cup cars. Yep. And just ran the big tracks. Yep, that's right.

And then Dad wanted to get back into the upper ranks. So we started Arca racing. So then we met Billy Blue. You know, Billy Blue, right? So Billy Blue wanted Mark to come, wanted us to come run Arka, and he was going to sponsor us. So that's how we got hooked up with, and got the money to go and run in Arca. Yeah. Was through Billy Blue.

Mark had a lot of success in Arkham. Yeah. That's when I first kind of started remembering, like, or connecting that to you and understanding your family had more. There was more to, you know, the Gibson family than just, you know, what I knew about you. And I'd watched Mark run a bunch of times over the years, but not really understood that that was your brother, your family. Talk about his success and talk about, you know, tell me, tell us our listeners what he was able to do.

Yeah, so again, we did a lot with less, obviously. But Mark was one of those drivers, and even when he was, you know, the underdog at a dirt track or late model short track, he had that drive. He had that desire. And he was not a quitter, no matter what. And he reminded me a lot of Allen. I ended up working for Allen later. But Mark reminded me of that because Mark was always had a desire to do. better. And even when he won, it wasn't good enough, right? He wanted to win more. He wanted to win more.

And so Mark, and Mark could work on the car. He could build the engines. He could, you know, he was right there with us every day. And he just, his love for racing and his love for driving was like no other. Yeah. Help me understand, I guess, you ended up going to community college at Daytona graduating with a degree in tool and die making, moving to North. Carolina. Where is your brother's career when you took a left turn? So through running Arka, Norman degree was doing Venturini and Churchill's Arka. Arka stuff. So that's how I met Norman. So when I met Norman, Norman asked me to come up and go to work. Yep. So what about leaving your brother? I'm like, well, here's my chance. Well, yeah, they, yeah, it was hard. It was tough. But here's my chance to

What years is this? Go further. This was 86. How's your brother doing? What races have you won? So Mark was doing good. We've won several arc of races. Mark was really good on the dirt, decoyne, and we'd won Texas.

I mean... Was this Texas World? Yeah, the old speedway, remember now? Big old track. Yeah. And so it was tough. And Mark was still, they still wanted to do the do coins. and, you know, they would travel everywhere and race,

but I wanted to do more. I wanted to take it to the next level. I wanted to be, you know, I can remember in my dad's shop, you know, thinking about watching races, want to be a crew chief, right? Yeah. And that's what I wanted to do. So here was my chance.

And I asked Dad and Mark, and we sat down, and I said, here's my opportunity to go and do this. And they're like, Tony, we support you. Whatever you want to do. It was, you know, there was some crying going on. and it was tough, but I knew what I wanted to be. I knew who I wanted to be, and here was my opportunity. You went and moved into Norman Negrees Barn.

Barn, yes. I mean, when I hear the word barn. It's a barn. Yeah, it was a red barn over on Lane Street. So my dad, I drive, I had an 84 blazer, and transmission wasn't great. So I had a few those packing abs, you know, you get. my mom gave me some of that stuff and I had it out dude I made it to Norman's and I slept at the shop for about a week and then my dad brought up a camper had one of the campers go back where in the shop in the floor in the shop what just yeah just in the corner in the shop yeah and then Norman finally took me about I was there about probably four days and Norman finally took me over to stay with him and Penny but that was going to be short-lived yeah So, why?

Well, I could just tell. You know, Norman was like, you know. You still relatively. They still, they knew you, but. Yeah, not that kind of. So, yeah. So my dad brings up this camper. It goes on the back of a pickup truck,

the legs and drop down, right? You drive out. My dad pulls in, backs it in the barn, drops the legs. Dad pulls out, heads back to Florida. And here I am. Now, that was your house. And that's my home. So I'm like, okay, I got this.

That's no problem. So we get through a few months and now's getting cold and snowing. And it's really cold. And I said, hey, Norman, I said, man, I need a heater. Some kind of heater, can you help me out? Because I don't have anything. He's like, I got you. Be right back.

I'm like, cool, man. It's going to be nice right here. He's going to bring me back a heater. I'm going to be set. So I hear a knock on my. my camper door. I said, yeah, come on in because I knew it was Norman. Norman throws the door open, throws the Rottweiler.

He's got a dog, Rottweiler dog. Here's your heater. Through the dog in there for me to stay warm with. That was my heater, a dog, to cuddle with. I'm like, holy crap. No, dude, I need a heater like a heater. Yeah. Well, this will do we can get you something.

I don't have nothing right now. Damn. So I'm like, okay, so the dog stayed in there for a long time. time. I made enough money to get me a heater. Norman made you work for everything. Yes. Which is correct.

I'm okay with that. Take me inside Norman's shop. So it was really small. It's the main building on the left. I don't know if you've been there, right? So that first building on the left, really small at that point in time. We had a makeshift paint booth towards in the back. It was petitioned off and wasn't much fan and whatever we could do.

And then so about a two years. years, it was 87. It's either 87 or 80. I can't remember. Well, Alan comes in or rents part of the building. Quickey. Yeah. So that took up one whole end. So he got the Ford to Quincy's Ford. Yes. So that's in the building close to Lane Street on that end of the building. Well, we got Churchill and Vinerini's cars in there that were fixing the bodies on and we'd get them prepared and set them up and do all that. So it was small. I mean, it was very, very small. And then we would do some of Robert Yates, we were hanging bodies for them as well. So, dude, our shop was full.

There was nowhere to move. So, yeah, it was like working in the studio right here. Like, you know, it wasn't much room. But we made it work. But that's where I met Allen. Allen could see what I could do. I was hanging bodies and doing those and doing the mechanical work on those two cars, which I loved.

Day and night, I was there all hours. When you go to the racetrack on the weekends, what are you doing? So mechanicing, setting up. For who? Both of them? Both of them. We had to oversee both of them.

Like we packed the bearings. We did all that stuff. Like we maintained them and all this other stuff at the same time. And me and Norman would get it and go to the racetrack as well. So yeah, it was busy, crazy. You know, you didn't make a lot of money, but it's what I wanted to do. Yep. I think I was making like a hundred and seventy bucks, seven hundred and seventy-five dollars a week.

Yeah. Did you get to know Ed? Yes. Yeah? Yeah. Ed and agree? Only a couple times, yes, when he flew in a couple times. Flew in?

Yeah, he wasn't around all the time. No, not all the time. No. So I met him a couple of times. Thank goodness. Norman was relatively young to be managing all that by himself. Yes. But he was very good at it, which Norman...

Was it coincidental that you and Norman would end up at Stuart Host? together? Yes, that's crazy. Decades later. I know, it's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, because Norman, I mean, Norman pretty much gave me my break, to be honest with you. You know, kind of did the same for Dad. And, you know, when Ed let Dad drive his dad's first cup race at Charlotte with help,

and Dad and Norman are together that whole weekend, you know, so kind of neat. Norman gave me my start, taught me a lot, educated me. and things I had no idea that I didn't know. But Norman is the reason I'm where I'm at right now. If he doesn't give me my job, I'm still in Florida. Yeah. You know, so I own Norman a lot. So when did Alan call you?

He talked to me at the, he was at the shop. At the shop, yeah. So you, y'all kind of got to know each other through just being at the same place at the same time. Yeah. And then what's that conversation like? Like, hey, I want you to come work. Yeah. He said, man, I see what you can do.

You're a hard worker. You know, I'm going to, he was going to rent a shop over off international. And I'm going to move over there and like for you to come to work for me. Well, that's tough, right? Because Normans gave me everything to this point. But again, here's my shot. Here's my opportunity to go and race full time. So that was difficult with Norman.

He wasn't happy. Oh. No. I think he wasn't happy because, again, he gave me my chance and he taught me pretty much everything. And, you know, but I was torn between letting Norman down. Yeah. But again, here's my opportunity. Yeah, you got to go.

So I did. And like I said, Norman wasn't real happy, but we made up, you know, shortly after that. and things were fine. And then so I'm moving with Allen off International, which the shop wasn't much bigger. Actually, it was probably a little smaller. Damn. Than we were at Normans.

Yeah. And we would push cars in and out every day to work on one car. We did not have a body shop. He went and finally bought, Alan bought some plywood and we put up, he put one of those big old fans, let you get in Lowe's or whatever. And we put that and opened the door,

and that was our paint booth. Yeah. What car is Alan driving at this moment? Ford's. Yeah, but the sponsor. What year? Was it still the Quincy car? That was Z-Rex.

Got Z-Rex. Damn, he ran that Z-Rex car. So you were with him when he goes to Phoenix and gets the first win? No, I was not here. I was not with him. Not there yet. So this is after that? Yes.

And he's still in this tiny little? Yes. Damn. We didn't move into, we moved into the new shop. over by the Speedway in 1990. That's when we moved in there. Gotcha. That was our...

Who all worked with Allen? Because there's a list in... There's a few people that are pretty recognizable names that were part of that team. Well, Ray Averham was there shortly. Ray was there when we were in the new building. Why did... Ray told me that he didn't just...

He just didn't fit in there for some reason. He didn't, but I kind of saw it right off. Here's two really intelligent. guys that are super smart. Yeah. And they both were really believed in what their goals were in their direction. Yeah. Who's the two people, Ray and who?

This is Ray and Allen. Ray and Allen. Oh, yeah. So, you know, because Paul was crew chiefing. Yep. But what was Ray's role? Well, Ray was going to head up the engineering side of things. Like get things better.

There wasn't even engineering departments back in. There wasn't. No. So this was, you know, that's what Allen was driven by, right? Yeah. Mechanical engineering. and then here comes Ray. Ray's going to take us to the next level,

and we were going to be the engineering first group to go that way. Cahley. Dude, we went to Daytona that first that year, and I'll never forget this. I've told this story a lot, but so I'd always check frame rails, heights, and all that stuff. And so Alan's like, hey, Ray's going to do the frame heights and all this stuff, but you go behind and make sure they're,

They're right. And I'm like, and he tells us once we get to the racetrack at Daytona. And I'm like, Alan, this, I don't think this is going to work. I said, because he's going to be mad at me for checking behind him. Right. Like, you know, he's like, no, just do it. I got to make sure it's done right. And until I can trust him, you're going to go behind him and check him.

Well, I did. And it didn't go very well. Right. Right. and rightfully so for Ray because, you know, Ray was going to head this deal up and get us going. So Ray had his thoughts, how things ought to be done. And I was fine with whoever just give me a direction. So I go behind him and I'm checking frame heights and Ray gets done.

He's like, well, he's checking my frame. He's like, well, I don't want me to check just to make sure everything's right. So there's this trust thing now that pops up. Well, they start getting into it. Like, that's the beginning. Week one. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

This is Daytona. Rick one. Yeah. So Ray and Alan like start yelling back and forth. Ray's doing more yelling than Alan because Ray's mad. Yeah. He is frustrated. And I understand why.

And we're all standing there like, oh, Lord, here we go. So I'll never forget Ray. After he got done yelling, now he took his tape measuring through it. And Alan's standing at the toolbox. And the tape measure goes right by him, slams into the toolbox. Ray walks over, shuts his briefcase, gets his briefcase, walks out of the garage area. Alan's right after him. We're still standing there going, what's going on?

Yeah. Ray walks right out of there, walks right through the gate. Remember there's a gate that separated the cup garage from the sportsman garage. He walks right through there, where here comes Bill Davis walking the other way, and that's how they connected. So Ray went to work for Bill. Just that quick. Damn. And here we are.

Ray's gone. Ray's gone. Yep. Now we're on our own. And so I'll never forget Ray telling me this later that week is, and he yelled this at Allen several times that you'll never win a championship

running your operation like this. You'll never win it. And we ended up winning the championship in 92. And Ray said, you know, I was wrong. You know, I never thought he would, but Alan had direction and believed in certain things

and, you know, it happened. So me and Ray talk about that story a lot. Yeah. But to witness it all and watch those two guys, Ray, you know, we go on to win a championship and Ray goes on to be,

you know, a four-time crew chief cup champion. You know, for working for Jeff Gordon, it's just crazy how two paths collided and they separated and both of them ended up, you know.

Very successful. Very successful. Different routes. Yeah. Different ideals. Yeah. Hey everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. download apparel? Visit shop.dardomedia.com. We're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show.

We'll put it on a t-shirt. Again, check it out at shop.dardomomedia.com. Let's talk about Alan. Alan Kowicki was incredibly successful in the ASA ranks, moved into the NASCAR Cup Series. struggled on a very tight budget to get from one track to the next. Struggled because I want to, I guess, you know, right around the same time Mark Martin came into the series,

came into the sport, and Mark is great and his amazing drivers. He was, he too had financial hardships. and, you know, wasn't able to make that first go stick. But Allen was able to figure it out, right? And had a little more, maybe a little more stability with the Quincy deal. And then the Z-Rex deal comes along. And from the outside looking in, it's a growing, successful, business. The facade, and I'm just saying like the race cars, the logos, the way he handled

himself, the way he dressed, the way he carried himself. Everything from on the shell looks like it's going well. And now I know it wasn't easy and he had to cut some corners financially to, but he would still find the success on the racetrack. The opinion I think that I had of Allen and the one that I would often hear piecing together people's opinions and conversations is he was incredibly driven. He was a genius in many aspects, but abrupt or upfront, no bullshit, no filter. I mean, how would you describe like being in a conversation with this guy or when things got serious and he was you know he was being honest about something that needed to change or some direction he wanted to go with the car or the team or anything anything

take me into the room and let's be honest about Alan like right because I mean he he was successful and there were reasons for that yes and some people worked in that environment very well Paul yeah Paul seemed to yes that saw Paul saw Paul seem to be able to be the perfect gear for that. Yes. Yeah, we finally put a group together that Allen had a goal. He had a vision. And this is the way it was.

He was, Valon was a very good businessman. Like he was, he knew exactly every dime that got spent and what it took, what he could survive on and what he didn't. He knew exactly where to put his money, what to spend the money on. Dude, we would straighten rims. Like, we would bend rims. And if it wasn't totally killed, we'd come home. and straighten rims because we wouldn't spend the money to buy new rims.

Sam, it's been a while since I've straightened a rim. Yeah. And, you know, back when we put interliners in, right? So, Goodyear would charge you five bucks to pull the interliners in and out. We would do all that. Yeah. But he, we, Alan told us, if you take care of me, I will take care of you. Like, I'll make sure we have a company.

I'll make sure we have a business. But you guys are going to have to help me. going to be fun, road's going to be rough, but we're going to do this. I promise you, we're going to do this. And it was hard for a lot of them to buy into that. We had a revolving door of employees for a long time. But there was a group of us that stuck together because we believed in his vision. But you take Alan outside of racing where he could just unclick his mind. We could go to the movies with him. You could go eat, and he was a totally different guy. I mean, my relationship, my wife, Beth, our relationship with him and Julie was really good.

We'd go to the movies. We'd go to dinner. We'd go do things outside of race, and he's a totally different guy. Yeah. He could just flip the switch, and now he's a fun guy, and a lot of people didn't see that side of him. And we believed in his vision, and we believed in the direction we were going to go, and we stuck it out with him. he was convincing in that he could convince you that my way is going to work he had that about him but there was some that didn't believe in him and wouldn't stick it out yeah the the car owner

driver combo was not in that particular stretch was was one that was hard to get be confident in I mean, the secure and successful teams had big sponsorships and tenured owners that had built some etiquette or built some, you know, equity in this in the sport. And he come in and tried to turn in what was really an independent team. Being an independent was a heavy label. It was tough. Yeah. And he was. He was an independent that turned his team into a winning championship team.

Yes. And there wasn't many people that were going to walk into the NASCAR world at that time and do that. Right. But I'm telling you, dude, he had that drive and he had a vision that he was going to make it work. And he was not going to step down from that. Like he knew he was the underdog. He knew that. He fed into that.

He fed into it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, man, it just made him. And the first time we started, when we started having success and started started winning more races, multiple races, the more he believed in it. Like, this is going to happen. I can do this.

And we saw the same thing. Like, we believed in it as well. Like, man, this guy is right. Everything he's been telling us is right. The championship season in 92. Yeah. Do you remember Dover? Yeah.

Rec three times. Rec three cars. Yeah. How many cars did you have? Total. Four. One back in, well, we had two at the shop and two with us, and we only had four total. Yeah.

And you're in the middle of a championship battle and had literally what I think would have been a death nail, you know, for most teams. Oh, yeah. 100%. At Dover. Yeah. And I think, I mean, this is, I know this is a long time ago, but I remember the look on Allen's face after that weekend, how you could just sense, like this guy was. I don't know how you feel about that particular weekend, but to me that was the moment where Allen was probably tested the most.

Yes. He had worked so hard to climb this steep hill, right? And so close. We were there like. You're right there. Right there. Yeah, 100%. And that was like, damn, we just tore up everything we got.

We did. Tore up everything. Blowing motors. Oh, yeah. And we, I mean, it was stuff we couldn't control. That was the whole thing. And the second car we wrecked, you know, I felt bad because we just wrecked in practice. And so we were getting the other car.

We're thrashing, trying to get it done. But trying to be everybody keep them pumped up, you know. And Alan's getting buckled up. He's getting in the car. And I said, hey, I said, if you wreck this one, how about bringing me the damn steering wheel back if you don't mind? We wreck. Here he comes walking down pit road with that steering wheel in his hand. I got the steering wheel at home.

Dated sign out on quick, yes, sir. Yes, sir. He brought me to, you talking about somebody who felt about that big? I did standing on pit road. Had no clue. But he handed me to steering wheel. He said, here you go. But we dug deep, and Paul was a good leader, too.

We don't want to forget that, right? Paul Andrews was a good leader too. He stepped up, kept us together, kept the group together, and got us back. focused and we're wrecking the race right that's our third car so we get done and now we're now we are devastated right we're like man we're done there's no way we're going to yeah dig out of this we got so close Alan drags us all in the truck in the trailer and he's like look he said this has been a devastating weekend he said but he said we can do this we're not out

We're going to fight to the very end. He said, stick with me. I'm not giving up on you guys. Don't give up on me. He said, we're going to fight this thing to the very end. Wherever we end up, we end up, but we're going to end up there together. That's what he told us to the traitor when we were getting ready to leave over. Yeah.

Went home and tried to fix everything. Yes. Well, you end up in Atlanta with a shot. Yep. I think when that race started, y'all were still the underdog. Yes. Davy Allison in the 28 car looked hard to beat. Bill Elliott's in a good position driving junior's car.

Davey would get in trouble early with Ernie Irvin off of turn four, and that ended his day and made it a two-man race. Y'all ended up battling Bill all the way to the very end. But it was a little more dramatic than a lot of people may realize. Yeah. And I don't know that everybody knows the story about the, the air cleaner nut being dropped.

So, you know, you warm the motors up in the morning and all that stuff. So we're warming the motor up and everything's good. Danny Glad was our motor guy. We're warming the motor up. And so we go to stick the air cleaner back on it

and button everything up to get it ready to go through tech and go race morning. Can't find the little quarter inch carbure nut. It's done. We're looking everywhere. can't find this thing in nowhere dude we're looking we take a bore scope we go down in all the cylinders

we're looking around we can't find it nowhere so now we're running late so we're like well just put another one on it put another nut on it get everything done we go we run transmission brakes in the race we lose gear i think it was second or third gear we lost during the race i didn't know that oh yeah oh yeah 100% damn when you lose a gear in a transmission you're probably sitting there going, all right, when's the rest of it coming out? Like, well, but we didn't know about the nut. We had no idea. What do you mean?

We didn't know where it was, right? So we think we're good. Fell on the ground, fell on the floor, strong, whatever. So anyway, we run, we race. I'm not going to steal your mess up, or are you trying to go with this story, but get over with, we win the championship, right? Everything's great. We get over there, we back in the garage, they tear down, they pump your motor.

Remember they'd screw the thing there? They go to spend the motor Or to pump the motor, the motor locks up. We're like, what the hell? The starter won't spin it over. Grab a breaker bar and the wrench on the crank to spin it. It won't spin.

It'll spin back a little bit, stop. Go back, hold it to stop. Pull the intake off. That nut had traveled through that whole entire intake, through that whole entire race, forth. The inside of the intake was beat, like you'd beat it with a claw hammer. Damn.

When the motor shut off after the race, the nut got lodged on top of the piston and locked it up. Damn. Yes, sir. No shit. Yes, sir. What was the story about you being the fuel man? Yeah, so I was a fuel man. Yeah.

And it's cool. I'd done it for years. And it was pretty cool because they had a little, you know, a little pit crew. stuff that would go on, tire changers, gasmen. So me and Chocolate Myers were good buddies, and, you know, I looked up to him. So we were gasmen, so we were going back and forth with this competition thing that NASCAR had, and he ended up winning it, which is fine. So, you know, it was cool to have those kind of things.

And, you know, to be a gas man on a cup car is cool. Yeah, it was. Right, it's pretty cool. It's like being the drummer of the band. Yeah, so it's all fine. Well, it comes down, we're going to take gas only at the end of this thing. and it's all coming down to fuel mileage, right? So we'd already led one lap more.

And so it comes down a few of miles. You've got to have three and a half seconds fuel in this. Now, we don't have anything to, but we have a scale on the ground and that's it to tell the fuel. Not a lot of science to it. Nothing. Right. So it's like, go over there, you count. There's no, we don't have an iPad that says one, two, three, four.

We don't have all that, right? So cars coming down and I step over the wall because you could have one leg over, put your other leg on the wall. I'm holding this can. I look up down pit road. There ain't nobody else on pit road. I'm like, I'm going to be the only guy on TV out here gassing this car. Now, I start getting nervous. No, shit.

So here he comes down pit road. I'm getting, no, dude, I am nervous. I'm shaking. So he comes in, pulls in. I hit the thing. And I'm counting. One, two, three. And as soon as I nod my head, Paul goes, go.

Well, I'm trying to run with it because you could run as far as you could run with it. it. There wasn't no out of the box crap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I ran as far as I can't do. So I unplugged, car grips out. I start walking back to the wall, and the whole time I'm feeling this, I'm like, holy shit, this thing feels heavy. I don't know that I got enough fuel in this thing.

But I know I counted. I know when I plugged up, this should be more gas missing out of this can. Now I'm scared. Yeah. Now I'm sweating. Now I'm nervous. And Danny Glad and Paul, they're like, did you get it? I go, I think I did.

I don't know. I counted. Oh, no. But the can feels heavy. So now I'm scared. So my wife, she's eight months pregnant. So she's back at the back of the pit bunks. So I give the can so they could weigh the can and try to figure out did I get enough in it to make it to the end? I'm scared.

And I walk over to my wife, Beth, and I walked to her and I said, babe, if this thing runs out of gas, we are running like hell to get into car and get out of here. They'll kill me if this thing runs out of gas. And she's scared, you know, because she thinks, you know, oh, my God. So the last bit of that race, Junior, I'm telling you, it's the most scared I've ever been in my life. Because I knew if I failed, I failed everybody. Like, that was it. Like, you are that guy. You're the guy that here's your own time to shine.

But if you fail, it's not just any other race. It's a championship. You didn't watch him run him last couple of laps. No. I was scared. No, I couldn't do it. Yeah, God. I couldn't do it.

I was sick at my stomach. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, I kept waiting to hear the radio. I'm out of gas, you know, and I, so yeah. What was the relief? Oh, it was unbelievable. You can probably see me on pit road. You know, we're all jumping up and down and we're crying.

And, you know, we did it, man. We did it. You know, we had a little mini mouse called Underburne. You know, we had in, because down at the bottom of those, those, those forwards down there, they had, you know, Thunderbird in the sticker. And Alan wanted to beat Underbird because we were the underdogs going to that weekend. So he had put Underbird and he put the little mini mouse. It was a little sew-on patch and we glued it to the, you know, the mighty. Yeah.

And we glued to the front of the car. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it was the most stressful, but the most meaningful. powerful in my career racing. Yeah. Was that day. You know, the sport dealt with some heavy loss over the next couple of years, and we would lose Davy and Allen in a very short period of time.

Two rising stars that we felt like were going to be contenders and big players and and represent our sport for many years. Alan's story was really incredible, as you've described how he was self-made. You know, Paul Andrews has been on my show, and I was really lucky to work, Paul went and helped me run a race with my late model cars, so I actually got to kind of experience just a touch

of what it's like to be standing there looking out the windshield, and he's working on the left front or whatever, you know. It's kind of cool because of his history. But we talked about the shock of learning the truth about Allen and that he was lost that day. It kind of really took everybody, you know, it took the error out of the whole sport when that happened. You know, I don't,

I just wonder, you know, how we could articulate at this table right now, like how difficult that is to, how difficult that is to realize that, you're, you know, you're kind of faced with the fact that you don't get to choose everything. Yeah. This is, this is something that's happening, and you don't get to choose. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't have a say-so. No.

You know, it, and we lost our owner, our driver, our friend, our job. Like, we lost everything. Like, he was our everything. You know, and our group was a family. Like, we were, you know, a lot of people don't realize that Alan didn't have a lot of really close friends, right? So we were his family. So, I mean, we joke sometimes he's making us work late just because he don't want to, he wants somebody to spend time with, right?

Which was fine. Yeah. But we lost a great friend and a family member. And we're all standing looking at each other like, what just happened? Like, what are we going to do? Yeah. What are we? Were you, and you were in Bristol.

Yeah, so we were driving up. Get ready. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we were driving up in the van. So. Yeah, I don't, I don't, it's the closest thing to lose in a family member that you could, but not be in a real blood. So I remember, you know, going to the airport that night and trying to figure out and understand not only, is this really?

true like right is this there was this sort of there was this like there was this weird i remember they were being like a there's no way that's really what happened for hours right there being this sort of yeah everybody had hung on to this weird idea that maybe it just maybe maybe it's maybe they got it wrong well i mean it's like maybe it's got to be april fools not his plane it's april first it's It's got to be April Fool's. It's a sick April Fool's joke, but this is no way this could happen. Yeah. But, you know.

Y'all went to the airport? So going to that airport and is, that's when it hit home, dude. I mean, this is real. Yeah. This is, this is, it happened. So they decided not to race that weekend. Yeah. And, of course, the, we remember the images of the,

the truck leaving the racetrack. That was like, there's photos of that that still I see on social media from time to time. And that was, that was, that was, it was gut wrenching.

Gosh, just tough. I remember Steve Mill, me and Peter were in the truck, getting ready to leave. And I remember Steve Mill jumped across the wall, ran up on the racetrack, and jumped up on the door.

And he said, if you guys want a race, we will make sure you race. Like if you want to put somebody in the car, do you want to do this? We will help you make this happen if this is what you want to do. If you think Alan wants this car to run,

we'll make it happen. Yeah. And we're like, no. Like, we're, no. Like, I couldn't imagine going through that or doing that, right? I just... Yeah, that probably wasn't an option.

No, but everybody there wanted it. Some people didn't know what to say. Some people didn't know. So they wanted to offer anything they could to make sure we were taking care of. Sure. Because they realized that we lost everything. So, you're like, it's... I think that, I guess, you know, Steve in that moment or anyone didn't want you to go home.

Right. To be alone. Right. I think... Because when you... Because we... your family's at that racetrack yes and see we flew a lot with alan like we'd fly a lot um and go to his appearances and we'd eat while he's doing his deal and we'd fly and go on so uh my wife beth

she didn't know i wasn't with him yeah and i never called her and told her any different you didn't think about it no yeah because see alan was sick i remember we were scaling the car we had grain scales remember they old grain scales we were scaling the car and we're running late and uh Alan come out he's got his little bowl of soup you know and he's watching us and and uh we're we're just running late and he's like i got to go i got this appearance they're like all right paul's like you go ahead we'll drive the vans up it's not that big a deal yeah you know we're gone so i never told my wife and my daughter was only two weeks old um so she's home with a two week old no she doesn't know any different um she think i flow with them and so uh my brother peppy he lives in tennessee um he

saw it on the news. Well, he calls my wife, because he knew I flew a lot with Alan, and he called and asked Beth, hey, is, did Tony fly with Allen this week? They drive. She goes, no, he flew. So he's like, to him, oh, God, he was on it. And so he tells my wife, he's like, okay, well, I'll just catch up with him later. He didn't know what to say.

Sure. So, but then I ended up calling Beth and telling her, thank God, nobody got to her before, or Pepe didn't say something to her about it. Or, you know, here she is with a two-you-eak. I don't think that I'm on the plane as well. Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of things to be thankful for out of that. But unfortunately, you know, I'll tell you what, I will say one thing, Felix de Bottas,

kind of made sure he came in, made sure we all got paid, made sure the team kept going, helped picking a driver, yeah. Felix did a great job. We never missed a paycheck. He made sure all the business side of things stayed stable, kept it going until Jeff Bodine could come. And we don't know that story there. So it ended up working out okay.

How long did you stay? there. I stayed till the end of 93. Wow. Another year. Yeah, it was tough. Yeah. We had had, Bowdoin was driving a car. Jimmy Hensley drove some, like Martin's a couple of times. And it wasn't really the same to me. Yeah. And we'd had a couple blown motors, couple wrecks, and just things were just not going great. And I hadn't gotten over it yet and a lot of us hadn't gotten over it yet and uh so i got the opportunity to uh to to to go to work for bill elliott and crew chief his car so ended up right here's another opportunity

bill's got his own team down in dalsam bill yeah that's right so you moved down there yeah i did move your family yeah how long did you work at bills um so i was there through 97 um like four years yeah I had no clue. Yeah. I had no clue you ever worked down there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Great.

I've been down there. Oh, yeah. I went down to talk to Chase and saw all the shops and the airport, the airstrip down and back. I'm sure it looked completely different in the 90s. But when I look at that building and all of that stuff, it's amazing to me that they, that was it. That was it. That's how they did it. Great people.

Yeah. Bill and Ernie. Ernie was the stern side. Bill was the softer side. but great, great people. Family-oriented racers, man. You're back to that grassroot race and family, which was really, really cool.

It was hard to get help down there just because you're out of the loop type of thing. Sure. And that was one of the reasons that Bill moved back, moved his organization back to North Carolina. And I was like, man, I'm not going to move back. I'm a, you know, I'm not, I just, I moved my family down here. My wife's family's from Georgia, so Mark had moved up.

So I'm like, I'm just, I'm just going to stay down here. You're just going to stay? I'm just going to stay. So. You ain't going to race? Well, Mark was still racing. You're going to go help Mark? So I'm like, I'm going to go back and help Mark.

So I did that for a little bit for about six months. And then I bet Mark enjoyed that. Yeah, we had a fun. You did it overqualified. And then we ended up, because we ended up, our first race, we ended up winning at the new Texas Speedway in the Janice King car. Which was really cool, right? I got back with Mark, we go out, we win.

It's like this is full circle, back to family. Well, then I get a phone call, Ray Abraham. Come to work up here at Hendon Motorsports. Well, okay, it's a great opportunity here. I go again. Like, you know, my wife, so I move up. I ended up, you remember Ed Guzo? I think so, yeah.

I ended up moving in with him. I left my family down there. I was to see if this works out. This is what I'm going to do. Give it a little time. So it all worked out, and they ended up moving back up. And I worked on the 24 car. Won two championships.

Yeah. It was a lot of fun. and Ray left again. Ray left. Yeah. But you, but it comes in there. Me and Brian Weiss will stay.

Brian was with you over at Allens. So Brian was there at Allens, doing part-time work at Allens. And great guy. He was an engineer at Peterbilt, and he designed all the cabs and stuff. Really cool guy. And he was an engineer that had a lot of racer in him. He was smart. You could tell the difference in him.

regular engineer. Yeah. So he was a lot of fun to be around and cool. So, and then Brian ended up, I was his landlord for about four years. He lived in my house that I moved out of. And then Brian ended up working at Hendrick Motorsports. So now I'm back with Ray, Brian, and all the guys that, I mean, one of the guys that I gave a part-time job to, now I'm back working with him.

I know. And then Ray leaves, him and Ed leave. And Rick comes in and says, you do are in. you're doing it. So I was already car chiefing anyway, and then Brian was the head engineer. So Brian ended up crew chiefing. I think we ended up winning like two or three races in a row,

which was really cool. But Brian Weisel, so now Brian, he's like in third or fourth command over Hendricks. Great guy. So I go to DEI. Yeah, so I want to ask you about that. You went to DEI. during the 2002 season.

Yes. Second Talladega. Why did you leave Hendrick? Hendrick, we both have worked there. You worked there now. It's not a place you leave. You don't, but I was car chiefing for Jeff Gordon, which was awesome. But I kicked, I don't know.

Your path takes you different. You make choices. I'm not saying it was good, bad, or whatever. But had the opportunity to come, crew chief, for Steve Park. So I'm like, here's my shot to get back in that role. Yeah. Because I want to be that guy.

I want to be that guy. So here's my chance to go from car chiefing Jeff Gordon to, because I didn't see that happening there. Right. And it may have. I just didn't give myself time. I don't know. So I ended up, here's my opportunity again.

I'm gone. So I go over to DEI and, dude, that was fun. Like. Your crew chief, Steve. Yep. Steve. Yeah. And, you know, he had some, you know, health issues and stuff, but we had a lot of fun. We ran really good. And then they got to where Steve couldn't drive anymore. Remember John Andretti come over and drove that, remember that Burgundy? Yes, I do. In Daytona. Number one. So, and then it's kind of like, okay, what do we do with Gibson now? Like, we don't know what this team's going to do. Where's it going to go? There's other things.

So that's when I got hooked up with Pops, Tony Jr. And then you know the whole story about, you know, bouncing back and forth from the 8 to the 15. Yep. At that point, I just wanted to do whatever I could do to make a difference, you know, in race. You fit in really good with Tony Sr. and Tony Jr. Yes. Because they're old school racers, like how I grew up.

Yeah. And really smart. Yep. So you learned a lot of life lessons with those two. but you learned how to race like fun race and I enjoyed the hell out of that and I learned a toned

a toni junior and pops some what not to do but more of what to do so it helped me be a better crew chief and a better racer from being around those two guys and still today Tony Jr. hopes me all the time

our kids run wing, you know, the wing carts. And so we get a chance to hang out together and do a lot of fun stuff. And I still learn from them. My, the funniest memory that I have of us all being together, we were messing, we were all messing with RC cars back then. And these things were crazy fast. And we had these quarter scales that a couple of us were messing with. well he's over at my house and you're you would stand down in the middle of the track and spin in circles

watching your car go around the track and like myself I would stand on the outside edge and drive it and you had to be in the middle watching yeah turning circles and um somehow or another Tony senior was trying to straighten somebody's car out it got wrecked or something or somebody was upside down and he goes down there into the infield to flip this car over and a car one of the quarter scales comes in their wide ass open and hit him right in the right in the ankles. And that man, I've never seen somebody go from standing straight up and down to laying on his nose. I'm telling him, dude, that was quick.

He was standing straight up and down. And the next thing that touched the ground was the tip of that man's nose. I thought he killed him. I thought he was dead. He was not happy. He was not happy at all. And you laughed your ass off. I did too. But, Deb, I remember you laughing.

That was so funny, but it was scary. That was kind of scary part about it. If he gets up and he's able, he's going to kick our ass. Oh, God. I know. We were scared that he was hurt, but also equally scared we might get an ass with. That's exactly right. Somebody run that damn car to his legs.

I don't remember who it was. It wasn't me. It was somebody that was watching. Well, it was only you, me, him, and Tony Jr.'s down there. That's what I'm getting at. It was Tony Jr. Yeah, I think it was Tony Jr. But we had fun.

And, you know, of course, that was all your stuff. And you were gracious enough to let us. come and have fun and do that. And you had the little dirt go-car track. Remember we came and came and run that. That was a lot of fun. But the RC cars were a ton of fun. And we did some of that.

We dealt with Jeff Gordon a little bit too. Did you? Yeah. We used to go over to Greenville Pickens and test, and then there was a track right next to the, there was a track and an RC shot right next to the track. And then we'd go over there and spend all night. It's fun, man.

Instead of going to dinner, and to the hotel. We set it at the damn RC track all night. We got into all kinds of stuff as a group.

I, you know, I really enjoyed working with you and we actually got the chance to go to the racetrack together,

use as my crew chief a couple times. Tony Jr. got suspended and right when the COT comes around, I remember having to drive that car

right around that time, but he gets suspended and he's thinking, well, I'll go take a vacation. Like, they're going to give me a vacation. I'll go take a real one. But then, some or another, in the conversation leading up to the next race, y'all learn that he's not suspended from the property.

He can be on the property. Now, there's kind of common, it's kind of a common story. We go to Wilkes, or we go to New Hampshire. And we run good. Yeah. There's a picture of me coming off turn two. And on the outside of the racetrack, there's a camper. on a hill his thing's got about i'd say about four feet of freaking four by fours and

stacked under one end of it just to keep it level yeah which is dangerous and then tony juniors on top of yes talking to you yes and calling the you helping calling the race now did he and so i'll say this like tony junior wasn't it was not something that he particularly worked hard to from NASCAR. No, he didn't. He's kind of like, all right, I'm suspended, but I can. I'm still going to do my job. And here I am.

He was the reason they stopped that. That's, yeah, immediately. You can't be on the property. Yeah, that ended that quickly. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, there's been several rules made by. We had, we got busted because we went to Darlington and we had COT had just come out, and Tony Jr. had figured out something.

We made wing mounts. the wing mounts. Right, because we found out that the distance between the wing and the deck lid was where the downforce came from. Right. So we ended up making a set of wing mounts. And the only way to really tell was if you measured between the deck lid and the wing. How much difference do you think you'd gained? Oh, we gained.

It was, well, it was 60,000 offset, so it was over at 8th, 3,000. 16th at the decklet. It's a lot. It's kind of like, picture it like this. It's kind of like the underwing or the diffuser on these cars. The closer you got that together, man, that hair would tighten up and here it would come. So Tony Jr. figured out how to do all that and what we're going to do.

So I'll never forget that. So we're pushing through tech. And we had already made it out of the tech line, pushing it up the hill. And here comes officials. Hold on to stop. Come back down. So we're like, what's up? Let's come back now.

So we back it over there. Darby's like, back it over there against the building. So we backed it over there, and we're standing there, standing there, standing there. Here comes big Bradley. Bradley comes over there, and he's talking to Darby. They're like, take those wing mounts off. Take the wings off. And I looked at two beer, and I said, two beer.

They got us. He's like, oh, God. I said, well, I said, it is what it is. I said, let's just play cool, get it off, the ordeal, and maybe they won't find it. They're going to have a template to find this. So Bradley had stuck his little, remember, he had the little gauge in 60.

So he had stuck his gauge in it when we went through for tech. I'm thinking, well, that's kind of odd. Why would they do that? Who would know that? Nobody would know to check that. Huh. So somebody, we feel like, kind of bad. But it is at this point.

We're like, okay, we're busted. So I say, man, tell Tony Jr., tell Stiffie, we're busted. Like, we're done. So we back over there, take the wing mounts off and all that, and they check it, and they got this, they got a brand new set right beside it, and they got pins that drop in, so they dropped them in and they wouldn't go in there, right? Yeah.

So me and Two Bear are standing there, and so we're trying to find wing mounts put back on it. We're standing over there, and there's a table over there, one of them little fold-up tables sitting over there. They got their wing mounts laying, though they just took off our cars laying on that table. And me and Tooebeer standing there, Too-Beer looks at me. He goes, oh, man, I'm going to grab those wing-mouts right there, and I'm going to take off running. He said, if they can't find them, they can't throw us out.

I said, Toobere, they already know. He said, but if they don't have proof, how are they going to know? he's like I'm getting ready to grab them and I'm going to take off running I'll be out of this place in no time and you know two beer oh yeah he was serious as a heart attack oh yeah said two bear please don't do that he was crazy said two bear they'll have dogs and helicopters after you hear about 15 seconds dude I said it's over it's it's done yeah so yeah they busted us we put wing mounts on it and and continued on but Tony Jr and that's the fun stuff that I learned from those guys was they were always thinking about about what's the next way I can stretch it. Where's that gray area I can get in or I can talk my way out of? And, you know, Tony Jr. was always like, you always got to have a way to talk your way out of something.

Whatever you get into, make sure you have a way to kind of talk your way. At least a story that sounds pretty good. I remember when they started making everybody run these, if you had a roof camera or not, you had to run that little peel on top. Yeah, the big Mac thing. Yeah, it's a big old dome. and Tony Jr. We always had them bud decals,

and Tony Jr. would get the thickest bud decals and get and then stack them. Yeah. And, I mean, it was literally like maybe an eighth of an inch or three-sixths of an inch, that it was just a little bit disrupting the wind in front of that cone on the roof. And he would, you know, Stiffy worked really good at,

you know, working the metal around that deal. So, you know, I think was pretty heavy. So working the metal, making as thin as we can, can make it so when the wind hit it, that thing would fall down. Yeah. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff, you know, you could talk about, but people. Yeah. People think when we were winning all those races at the restrictive plate races, I mean, we,

listen, Richard Gilmore. Yeah. He has a, he has a, he has the ability to build a better restricter plate engine than anyone else. Yeah, hands down. Hands down. And he still does today. You see it.

And so, but there were so many tiny details that all together added up. That's right. And I remember y'all going to the wind tunnel and just finding a little bitty thing. A little bitty tenth here, a little little, little this, little that, little this, little that. Yeah. Like we, you know, we'd go there with a shrinker and stretcher and, you know, and the little paddle hammers and wooden hammers and sandbags. and Tony Jr.

work on all that stuff, just changing the shapes of fenders and changing this and naring up the nose or just little things that you couldn't see by eye, but man, it made a huge difference on the stopwatch. And those guys were good at that. Yeah. You know, years down the road,

I met Hendrick with LaTart. And by that point, the approach to restrictor plate racing wasn't really putting all of that type of effort in. the details were really the effort and the energy to put the details in was more toward all the short track mile and a half stuff.

Right? All, you know, they just basically said, hey, look, the draft is a normalizer. Yeah. We're just going to build a good car with a good engine and do the best you can. And I go down to the racetrack and I was like, look, I'm a good restricts plate racer, but like the details matter.

They matter. They matter. And I can do things these other guys can't. when my car has all of those. That's right. That raw speed you can't make up for. And he started doing the details, and they started working really hard

and giving me some really great cars. We end up going down there and winning another Daytona 500. Hey, TJ, you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrick 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. We're the number one seller, actually, in crane trucks. Okay, I definitely did not see that coming. Yeah, pretty neat, huh?

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Our team at Dellenhart Jr. Chevrolet will give you a world-class experience. Chevrolet, together, let's do you. drive. Help me understand the transition from DEI to SHR. You know, you are, Tony Jr.'s gone, I'm gone, you're now the crew chief of this car. Mark Martin's driving it. Eric Al Marola is driving it. It's fast. Y'all are running great. But, you know, there is the kind of writing on the wall, I suppose, of how difficult the future is going to be for DEI. How do you end up, basically for the for for the most part taking that entire team with you uh to shr well two beer and all those guys yeah we took everybody um yeah we were a family right yeah um because d eig it was our family um

you were our family and and it was difficult to stay uh when you guys left you know we're happy for you because you know you're you're better in yourself you're going to be better but we weren't sure how we were going to be but a few of us did know what we knew what was coming you know we'd seen it leading up and we'd talked to you obviously quite a bit after you'd already left but um yeah we just got together as a group j and every two beer and everybody were like look we kind of built this thing we trust each other we got each other's back let's let's take this to the next place. Let's just stick together, go try to make this work, and I told them, guys, I'll take care of y'all. Yeah. Like, if I get a job, I'm taking you with me. I'll take care of you,

I promise. So you got offered an opportunity? Yes. So, and Mark Martin was the biggest supporter of us as a group, because Army was the sponsorship. And he was the guy that went to them and said, hey, you need to take this group of guys and go race. And there's an opportunity with Tony Stewart, and they're starting up this new team. You need to take this whole team and just transplant them over here and go race. So Mark Martin's the one that basically put the Army entrusting us, went to bat for us to make sure we had jobs, but stayed together. As a group, had a sponsor. So it wasn't probably a couple of times.

a couple of weeks after that when Tony Stewart grabbed me at Talladega and wanted me to come meet with him in his bus. And so I do. I go over and I meet with him. I'm a little nervous. I don't know, you know, what's going to happen. And he asked, he said, hey, Ryan Newman's going to drive the car. We're going to start this.

We're going to merge with this horse team. Would you come crew chief? And I said, yeah, but as long as my guys come. And they're like, okay, well, you know. Stuart was like You know he was kind of walking on thin ice too He didn't know he didn't want to Overstep his there's a lot of people already working there

Right? So you're going to bring a whole group in here How does that going to look And how's that going to go over? And I said well I'm not coming without my guys So if you can make it work With bringing my whole team We'll come

So we went over there one night All of us all of them I said we're all going to go do this Yeah We went over there to met in the lobby at Stuart Haas Racing and met with Eddie

Eddie was there Eddie Jarvis Tony Joe Custer and somebody else man been Carl Klein was there and we had this discussion on how it's going to go

this is what we're going to be I'm bringing my own guys I'm not leaving one of them out either they all come or not and Stewart pushed to get it done and made it happen and we finished Homestead

on Sunday we started Monday morning with all my guys. They actually handed us our packet with all our insurance and all of our stuff in it at the racetrack at Homestead. So we could all start Monday morning. No kidding. And, yeah. So it was, it was a, it was a, it was another emotional roller coaster. Yeah.

I remember, it reminded me a lot of back in the day, I forget how this happened, but either between Hendrick and Yates, Remember the 88 team or the 24? Somebody bought somebody's like entire team. Yeah. I forget which way it went. Me and Ray were talking about that on the show. But you never really saw that before. Yeah.

But they knew, and Mark was right, like y'all's program was still overachieving. Yes. At DEI. Yeah. With everything that was going on at DEI and how they were kind of struggling. Yeah. y'all were getting everything and more out of those cars and in a large part

not only do your leadership and the teams you know the team's um cohesiveness and their bond but mark martin too yeah mark was incredible oh he's he's i tell you when you talk about drivers who drive but have worked on race cars and understand the fundamentals of racing and how rubber meets the road and what it takes to make that happen and what he wants to feel, there's none like him. He actually makes it easy because you can lay out three different options. If I'm tight, loose, or let's, you know, break the corner down, here are your options.

Here's what I got four years shocks. Mark was always, he would sit there for a second and think, he'd say, let's go up on the bar and put a hundred pound right wrist bring in it. and you're like dude are you sure like yep that's what i need you do it instant instant speed but he knew from the seat of his pants what he needed so it helped and it educated us as well to when we moved on you know i was like i i learned so much from that man yeah like i'm not a driver right but I learned how to connect the dots yeah um and what it what he was feeling and what we had to give him to to be successful um so it helped me so it was another another learning

page for me in my book yeah we're being around a guy like that at steward house racing you um you mentioned working with Ryan Newman you actually helped Danica and she transitioned into NASCAR and I thought that having worked with Danica here at junior motor sports and having me remembering I guess the enormity of her transition how big that was how many eyeballs were on her and how many people were paying attention I really felt like that you were the perfect guy for that situation your ability to stay to be able to be calm to be able to work with her and keep her expectations managed to help her kind of understand what she's experiencing because there's a lot of things happened to her in that cup car that she'd never experienced

before. And I felt like you gave her the best opportunity that she would have coming into a situation like that. I wanted to say that, you know, that might have been coincidental that y'all's lives sort of cross paths at that moment, but I can't think of another. person better suited to sort of help her transition into the end of the cup level you ended up working with Kurt Bush at 2015 um you had an emergency appendectomy yeah which we all I think a lot of people that know you're very concerned about you know anytime any of us have any kind of a medical

issue and we've all you know we might not be in contact with each other or keep up with each other in terms of, you know, day-to-day texting and so forth. But once we all have worked together, it's like, you know. Your family. Your family. Yeah. And I think everybody was a bit worried about how serious that deal was going to get for you. How tough was it?

It was tough. It was really tough. But it was tougher not thinking I was going to be at the racetrack. That was a tough part. the pain of the surgery and all that stuff is one thing but I didn't want to be away from that racetrack yeah uh so you know I ended up flying out Friday I had my surgery I think on Wednesday yep and I flew out on Friday morning Kurt flew me up there Friday morning so I could be there in time for practice my wife was totally against it doctor was not happy with it as well but I

going to be at that racetrack. I'm like, I'm not going to do nothing. I just want to be there. I can sit on the pit box. I can do my job without straining or doing anything. Well, so they film, they do happy hour and practice. You know, there's cameras everywhere. Yeah.

Well, I thought I was going to sneak up on this ladder and get up on top of this truck so I could see the car better. Yeah. And do it. So I did. I climb up the ladder. It was struggle, but I get up on ladder, get up on top of the truck. well my wife sees me up they pan over and I'm standing on top of his truck she's like how

hell did he get on top of that truck so I lied a little bit told me they dropped the lift gate for me and got me up there I only had to go up three steps you know where she knew better but I was able to stick it out and call the race that day and stayed the whole weekend yeah you know it you've you know look at all these people in racing that are real racers they get hurt and they go they're going to find a way to make it yeah to the racetrack and I don't uh if I if I miss a race it's something big um I mean when so when my daughter was born a quick story we were racing at uh Darlington and um so my wife was having a baby on Saturday so and she was having the C-section so so

I told Alan, I said, well, put it off until I get done my happy hour. So I get done with happy hour, and Quickey gives me his Mark 8. You know, that was the first one at Kuika, lower this car down. Yeah. So happy hours over with, I jump into Mark 8. I run, go straight to the hospital, do the C-section, all that stuff and everything. I get back in the car and go right back to the race track. Damn.

She was pissed, dude. I bet. I mean, mad. Yeah. I don't know. How hard it must have been, though, to, like, know when it was. Like when you were, all right, I'm leaving. Because, like, I've been in that situation and, like,

leaving that hospital knowing what you're leaving. It's tough. It was tough. Yeah. But it's racing. Oh, she brings it up every once in a while, too. Yeah, I bet. But that's racing.

That's racing. I mean, I'm, I just, that's the way I was always brought up. You raced. You were the racer, and you did whatever it takes. I assume when in the 2017, Daytona, 500. hundred your proudest moment. It is. Other than my daughter, my grandkids.

Well, yeah. In motorsports. In motorsports, yes. Yeah. You know, I'd been fortunate enough to be a part of 500 wins with you guys at DEI and Dale G or Jeff Gordon. But as a crew chief, when I was a kid in my dad's garage growing up, knowing what I wanted to do my whole entire life to be in that position to just,

win a race, but to win that race. That's it. That's, that's, you know, that's what you dream about, all the struggles you go through to get that done with my mom, my dad, all my friends at your home track. Right there in your backyard, yeah. And you know as well as anybody to win that race is extremely hard. Everything has to go perfect to make that happen. And I'd been trying for years to make that happen

at that racetrack. And to overcome the race, you know, we got in a couple little skirmishes and had to beat the side out and do several things. To go through that emotional race and have it end

in victory finally, after 30-plus years of race. scene, I finally got it done. Yeah. That's, you know, I looked at Rodney Childers and I said, I did it. Like, I did it, man. I made it.

Yeah. And to think about, you know, my dad and, man, it's tough. Still emotional. Yeah. Yeah. It is because it means a lot. Yeah, I mean, it just means a lot. It wasn't long after that you would decide to.

to make a change and come off the road. This role, this role that you felt destined to be the crew chief of the car, the winning car, winning the Daytona 500, all of those things had finally happened. Did that make that choice more doable? Yeah. It helps. But I didn't want to really stop. But my grandkids on this way.

My grandson's coming, right? Yeah. And like all of us, my daughter, Lainey, growing up, I miss so much of, you know, what she did as a child growing up. Basketball games, softball games, just things that I missed because of racing. I didn't want that to happen with my grandkids. So I made a decision. I was blessed with Tony Stewart to let me do that and give me a role where I could come off the road. I could still travel eight to ten races a year, which I did, still be involved, but be production manager.

So I can still have my hands in it, still fulfill that need to race and be a part of something. So, yeah, it all came together and it made it a little easier to quit. come off the road. There's still a struggle, not packing bags to leave, and that's different. Do you think you ever get over that? I still miss the competitive side of things. People ask me all the time, do you miss it? I don't miss the traveling.

I don't miss all that. I miss the people. And then the competitiveness, like wanting to win everything. You want to win practice. You want to win qualifying. You want to win the race. It's just that side of things. you know, I still find myself now, you know, scanners everywhere and listening and like,

man, don't do that, or, you know, how would you do it differently? And you still have that drive. And I'll probably always have that. Yeah. When SHR effectively shuts down the majority of its operation, you got an opportunity to go back to Hendrick. Yeah. But you're working outside of motorsports.

And I have to imagine that you have to be probably as at peace or as comfortable as you've ever been in your professional life. Having the ability to turn around and look back and see all of the success and all the boxes that you thought you wanted to check. They're checked. Yep. That's right. And now you kind of get to still be a part of a team, still be a part of something important, still be a an asset yes

to something yes and talk about how today your your your life is fulfilled yeah so it's you know you know it's

Hendrick technical solutions is the military side we're roughly 30 yards from the two race shops so that's cool we're all in the same complex

so I'm shop foreman over there and it's a lot going on. It's fast-paced. We have a lot of, you know, when you're dealing with General Motors and the government, you have deadlines, you can't miss them. They have to be hit, and things have to be done.

So I still get that feeling of, you know, happy hour or loading for Daytona, that urgency is still there. The race is still there. And a lot of the things that we do, build the chassis and all that for these vehicles,

it looks like a cup shop in there, right? You see these roll cages and it's like man it looks just like a cup shop um it's it it does fulfill that fast pace that i like and the hands on that i like um when they when they when they when they hired me over there uh white so actually someone at brian wiesel is the one that actually hired me to come over there to do this and um i they you know they they they're like well we'll put your office in here i said i don't know an office i'm not an office guy yeah like give me a computer, just put my, I'll get out here on the floor somewhere. I don't care about having an office.

I want to be with the people. I want to be with the guys. I want to, and the girls. I want to, I want to be there for them. And they hound me every day over there about in our office. And I'm not, like, I don't, I'm, unless you guys want me to, that's fine, but I want to be with the people. Yeah. And I do. Every day. I'm out there. and working on stuff and being a part of the group and the hustle and the bustle. And that's what drives me. Yeah. You still get to take, and you still get to go to the racetrack taking your grandkids. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's a lot of fun. We go to several different racetracks and run. And it's a lot. My seven-year-old Luke, he's running the wing cart, cadet wings. And then my granddaughter Libby, she's all girl. So it's all about girls, stuff like that, which is awesome, which makes my wife. happy.

And Oliver, the youngest, he's four. He's running a little champ buggy car. Okay. So got two of them racing. I got my hands full. And it's all I can do to hold down a job and get that stuff prepared to go. We run every two weeks somewhere. Sometimes we run, you know, every week, which gets to be chaotic.

But I love it. It's fun. It's racing. I still get to do the cool. stuff and work on how to make it lighter and I've been Tony Jr. and Pops it's really cool because over the last year I've been able to hang out with them a lot at more you know and we we parked side by side and and Pops is still Pops. Oh yeah. He's still on the gas wide open. I mean I've you know I don't it's just been it's been wonderful to be

be able to come all way back around and now me as a little boy dreaming of my dreams and now my grandkids are you know could possibly watching them dreams. Watching them dreams. Yeah. You know, it's just so cool. It's been awesome to talk to you because, you know, we have, you know, we have the opportunity to talk to so many different types of people in our industry outside of the industry that have different roles and different jobs and your um the thing that i seem to pick up on your deal is that you were you were you had a you had an ability a quality and expertise that was always in demand and i'm surprised i'm surprised by the longevity um getting into you know finally getting you worked on race cars well before that but getting into our industry

NASCAR in the 80s all the way to Daytona 500 winning crew chief in the last 10, 15 years. It's really impressive, to be honest with you, that you had the longevity that you did. You worked with a lot of people that were very successful. You were part of a lot of successful programs. Yeah, that's the key as being with the right people. Yeah. Nobody is successful alone. Yeah.

Right. You know, it takes a team. It takes a family and a group of people. And I have just been blessed to be able to hit it right. You know, I just, I look at stones that go across the lake, right? Make sure you step on the right one. I was fortunate enough to keep my feet wet, dry. Yeah.

And stepped on the right stones to get to where, you know, where I am now. And a lot of people aren't that fortunate. Yeah. I will say, though, that being a good person matters too. And one of the things that I think helped you was your mild-mannered personality, your emphasis on always doing the right thing, treating people the right way, no matter whether they worked above you, below you, beside you. That's right.

You were never bigger than the whole team. and one of my favorite things was I believe in around the time you became a crew chief, particularly more so maybe in the years with Kurt, the rest of the world got to see that. We all got to, you know, we all got to really know you better and see you operate and you didn't get to choose. You didn't get to choose you were in the limelight as a crew chief and especially as a winning crew chief. And it was fun because I saw fans sort of become fans.

fans begin to pull for you. And the reason why they pulled for you might have been somewhat to do with the driver that you might have been a crew chief of, but a big reason why they pulled for you was because of the person you were and the character that you had. Yeah, and I always really appreciated that.

You had an understanding, I think, that grounded you from back in your days working with your family and that race team and knowing exactly what it took to get to the racetrack and as hard as you all had to work to get there and be successful, you carried all of that with you all the way till today. And it's really inspiring and it's a great story.

I appreciate you coming today to spend some time with me. I miss you. It's good to see you. Yeah, you too. I appreciate it. And I, you know, my dad passed away in 2019, and I'll never forget, you know, you and Jimmy Johnson reached out to me, you know, and,

with condolences on my dad. And that just told them, there's friendships. These guys have so much other stuff they can do, and they're busy. You guys are busy all the time, but to take the time, that meant a lot to me. Well, you did a lot for me. You put me in some really great race cars and always enjoyed. Yeah, we did have fun. Always enjoyed being around you, Tony.

And I'm thankful for the impact you've had on my life and many other people's too. And I appreciate it again for you giving me. some time today. I know that they're probably wondering when you're going to come back over there and get back to work. Yeah, I told them I'd be back. They said, oh, it's Dale Jr. Go ahead. Well, I'm thankful. Yeah. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me and to tell my story and a lot of cool stuff, and we could go on and on. Oh, yeah. But we'll always be family. That's right. Tony Gibson on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, a great conversation with Tony Gibson. They call him the old man. That's his nickname. You know, I think the stories.

like his, they're fun because it's really the, you know, I've said it before on this show, but we get these guys that come in here every once in a while, and they tell the story of how you get in this business. So many people want to know, I mean, there's so many people out there, there's all these kids over at the NASCAR Technical Institute right now, taking classes. Their dream is to be working on a car on Saturday, Sunday, or a truck, somewhere, they're dying to figure out like how. They'll show up out front here, Junior Merge Sports. Who do I need to talk to?

What's the secret? What door? Where's the key to unlock the special secret door to get me into this industry and get me employment? And so I love Tony's story because that's it. There's a lot of things that his story can do to help somebody understand. You know, the sacrifice and the commitment and dedication that it's going to need, you're going to need, or what it's going to take, because that part's not changed.

Like the rules, the technology, the tracks, the cars, everything in this sport evolves and changed. But what doesn't change is the emotions and the effort and the dedication, sacrifice, and all the hard work that goes into putting it together. And, you know, I'm not trying to preach about, you know, what someone has to sacrifice. sacrifice and dedicate to be involved or find their opportunity. And it takes, just like in Tony's story, it takes luck, fortune, meeting the right person, dedicating yourself to some sort of calls and some team that, you know, you have to hope is going to work out.

But, you know, Tony's is a great story. Come out of Daytona, grew up right there at the racetrack, inspired by all the, of the racing going around in that area and racing with his family. And man, the teams that he got to work with, the people that he got to work with and work alongside and connect with, and to be able to see it through to finally win at the cup level and win the biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500 with Kurt Busch, pretty special. He's a great dude. I was lucky enough to have spent several years working with him and loyal, dedicated.

and dependable, you know, never once ever, that I feel like I had to question his ability and judgment, and I knew that as long as he was there, it was getting done, it was getting done right. And again, his character and ability to manage people, treat people the right way, whether he was working as a car chief or at the top of the food chain, you know, he was always the same.

and he built a great group of folks that stayed loyal and stayed together and worked together all the way through SHR from DEI to SHR was literally the same team. It's really cool. Same team that I raced with, mine as Tony Jr. and Tony Sr., all the way up through the Kirk Bush days. So awesome to be able to talk to him and reconnect. Hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did.

Yeah, it's time for the white flag. All right, so it's time for the white flag. actions detrimental and door bumper clear came out Monday with Denny Hamlin. Denny was giving us more details on how he hit the jackpot. How much money he had to spend to get there. So I guess to learn that information, I'll have to go listen to the podcast because Travis wasn't going to spill the beans. But that's really the story I need to know about Denny Hamlin.

And his race, I'm sure, was fascinating. But how much money did he have to spend to win that? jackpot. Also another fascinating episode of the tear down post race. If you haven't listened to that, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianca do such a great job every single week. Recapping immediately after the race on Sunday. And I really enjoyed this one with the Josh Barry win. But we had our dirty air episode come out yesterday with T.J. Majors. We had a lot of fun talking about the race and catching up on life. And obviously Herman Schrader and Speed. Street. Come out today, along with our episode with Tony Gibson that you're listening to.

And then tomorrow, bless your heart with Amy. We're back in the studio, and I have me a new chair. So I'm excited about that. But that's the week. I hope you guys enjoy it. Thank you again, Tony Gibson for dropping in. And we'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.