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ashley.com. Ashley, for the love of home. Hey

1:04

everybody it's Dale Jr. back again for another

1:07

episode of the Dale Jr. download here in

1:09

the Bojangles Studio. We have the Ally guest

1:11

segment coming today, Elton Sawyer. He's

1:14

coming into the studio and Elton raced at

1:17

the short tracks at Langley and

1:20

then grew up racing in the Bush series in

1:22

the 80s. I raced against Elton Sawyer in the

1:24

Bush series in the late 90s, had a lot

1:26

of fun competing with him. Married

1:28

to Patti Mowese. Maybe he'll let us know

1:30

what Patti's been up to here lately. And

1:32

now he's working for NASCAR. So got to

1:34

talk about that. So let's get this started.

1:40

The following is a production of Dirty Mo

1:42

Media. Back

1:53

back back back back again for another episode of

1:55

the Dale Jr. download. Hey,

2:00

everybody, how

2:03

you doing? Adam Stern had some tweets about

2:05

hybrids. Where do you think we are in

2:07

that? It is conversation. We need a platform

2:09

that will invite new OEMs to come and

2:11

participate. The one thing that they're not going

2:14

to do is they're not going to build

2:16

a V8 push rod engine. All

2:25

right,

2:29

crack in here in the hotel studio for me

2:31

to be. Bringing the

2:33

Ally guest segment to you every single week.

2:37

I wanted Elton Sawyer on the show.

2:42

I'm the one that takes responsibility for

2:45

this guest. I get most of

2:47

the guests on this show, to be honest with you.

2:49

Now, our team will come and say, hey, what about

2:51

this? What about that? And I'll be like, nope. Or

2:54

I might be, hey, that's pretty good. But

2:56

usually it's me. Usually I'm the one coming

2:59

up with the great ideas. Steven does a good

3:01

job. He does. Steven does a great job. Me

3:04

and him work in tandem, bringing these

3:06

guests to you every single week, thanks

3:08

to Ally. Elton Sawyer raced

3:11

at Langley way back in

3:13

the day. I call

3:15

baseball stock cars. He's going to call them something

3:17

a little different, I bet. But I

3:19

still call it, I think it was kind of what a

3:21

late-mall stock car is today. And

3:24

I went and saw him race when I was a

3:26

little boy. I didn't know he was racing at Langley,

3:28

but my father-in-law, Willie,

3:33

and my mother, they lived up in

3:35

Norfolk. And I went as a little

3:37

boy to Langley and watched. And I

3:39

remember that blue 42 out there on

3:41

the racetrack. And then

3:45

he goes into the Xfinity series. And

3:48

I would end up racing with Elton, which

3:51

was a lot of fun. He was a clean racer,

3:53

but good, very hard to beat

3:55

sometimes. Drove

3:57

for one of the better teams, maybe not the best

3:59

teams. It was a full-time bush team

4:01

with no real cup affiliation. So that

4:04

was a challenge And

4:06

he did really good with it, especially late in his

4:08

career his last couple of years Top

4:10

10s top 5s in the points and then all of

4:13

a sudden out of racing all together Why

4:17

what happened? Why did he not

4:19

compete anymore? Did he want to did he just

4:22

was he done and Then

4:25

years later he goes to work for NASCAR Now

4:27

I know what it was like to get out of the race

4:30

car and go into the broadcast booth and

4:32

that was a big switch Everything I believed

4:34

as a driver Changed

4:36

dramatically when I got into the

4:38

broadcast booth all the

4:40

things I thought NASCAR did wrong All

4:43

of a sudden I started to realize why they made these decisions

4:45

and why they did things the way they did I want to

4:47

ask him about that and we're gonna ask

4:49

him about the short track package. What are they doing? We

4:53

Gonna fix it. We're gonna get right Do

4:56

we need to have hope? What are some

4:58

of the things that they're excited about that cuz

5:00

they're you know, they kind of Exhausted themselves

5:02

trying to make changes to the car. They've

5:05

went tested they put the work in Nothing's

5:08

came from it. So What

5:10

what are we doing now? So Let's

5:13

get Elton into the room here. Thank you again

5:15

ally for bringing this guy's say this to us

5:17

every single week Sorry

5:19

coming to the elderly Well,

5:30

I appreciate you coming man, I've

5:32

been looking forward to talking to you We

5:35

was talking as us and you give me a hard time because you

5:37

didn't bring Patty That's okay. I hadn't

5:39

seen her and I can't remember how long What's

5:42

she been up to? She's good. She she's

5:44

taking care of our property. We got about

5:47

30 acres up there

5:49

outside of Winston and the

5:51

big metropolis of advance. Yep, and

5:54

She's got two third-bed horses. We got two

5:56

donkeys. So she's in a venting. She does

5:59

like three-day eventing and she

6:01

went from multiple horsepower to down to

6:03

just two horsepower now. So

6:06

she does what? It's like three day

6:08

eventing. It's riding horseback,

6:10

equestrian. She's

6:13

doing that? She does

6:15

that. She rides herself? She

6:17

rides herself. And like competition? And

6:19

competition. Really? So three day

6:21

would be, dressage is like

6:24

you walk into an arena and

6:26

you know the test and then

6:29

you've got to make all these subtle movements with

6:32

the horse then you get judged on it. I

6:34

heard that this is rather expensive. I tell you what it is. I've

6:38

been known, I was

6:40

told last week, I

6:42

got little girls right and I

6:45

said, as long as they don't jump, they're

6:47

fine. When they start jumping they get way

6:49

more expensive. Oh yeah, well and that's right.

6:52

So she does both. She's

6:54

backing off the jumping. As you get more

6:56

birthdays, the falls become more

6:58

difficult. Yeah, it's short track racing.

7:01

So you have to have a barn or you

7:03

have to have a shop. You have to

7:05

have a truck and a trailer. You

7:07

have all the equipment. I tell people all

7:09

the time, the difference in short track racing

7:11

and the horse business is

7:14

that if we tear a car up

7:16

on Saturday night, you come back, you can back it in

7:18

the garage, we'll take care of it

7:20

on Monday, right? With the horses it doesn't

7:22

work that way. You get back late, early in the morning,

7:24

you've got to unload them, you've got to feed them. I

7:28

tell her all the time, short track racing is easy

7:30

compared to what you do now and she loves it.

7:33

Yeah, does she keep

7:35

up with that car and all the things going on?

7:37

She does. She was never a

7:39

huge fan. She loved

7:42

to compete, obviously a huge fan

7:44

of your dad's. I'm

7:47

glad he said that. I remember,

7:50

so I was at Road Atlanta

7:52

that day and dad

7:54

did think a lot of her and I

7:56

remember, because I wouldn't even know. There

8:00

was a woman in that race car. Yeah,

8:02

but dad was talking about it and And

8:06

he did have a pretty high opinion of her thought a lot

8:08

of her. Yeah, it was funny

8:10

She tells this story so they were out practicing

8:13

and excuse me. Obviously she was she came

8:15

from that She came from a

8:18

road race background. So she was quick. Yeah,

8:20

so how about front row? Yep. Yeah

8:22

outside front row So they were practicing and

8:24

and your dad was out there and

8:26

actually got around him through the SS and

8:30

When it was over she goes that I stay learn

8:32

hard I got to go down and I got a

8:34

ribbing a little bit since she went down and I

8:36

can't remember who the crew chief Was and she goes

8:38

yeah, I was just looking for Dale and

8:40

I think that individual mentioned said yeah Dale

8:42

said you got got by him out there

8:45

But he's got a lot of horsepower in

8:47

that car that you have she goes. Yeah,

8:49

I do But I passed him

8:51

in the SS When you don't need

8:53

a lot of power through there, so she was ribbing

8:55

a little bit But they had a I think the

8:57

first time she went to Daytona Back

9:01

when we had open tests and

9:03

cup guys would be there and Bush got

9:05

you know Bush Bush teams and Your

9:08

dad actually got in her car as small

9:11

as that seat was drug got in push

9:13

yourself in Because she asked me

9:15

hey, will you take it out? Make sure doing

9:17

what it's supposed to do so I can

9:19

only imagine what that this is obviously a

9:21

before Elton I can

9:24

only imagine why that looked like him climbing through the

9:26

window of her car. That's crazy Yeah, yeah, well

9:28

she went to Talladega with Gosh,

9:32

what it was what was the sponsor? It was

9:34

that blue and pink? Amway, yeah,

9:36

she went and said her land speed at her

9:38

world record or something like that. I'm 17 43

9:42

something yeah, I had that number back. Yes.

9:44

I wonder where that car is today so

9:47

a good story so they were

9:49

down there testing and Mike Laughlin

9:51

had built that car and The

9:53

fenders were really tight obviously to go

9:55

fast so she was out running blew

9:58

a right rear it turns around around

10:00

and it stands up on its nose and then

10:03

sat back down and she tells the story like

10:05

it was just yeah not that big a deal

10:07

sits back down we go in they beat the

10:09

fenders out and go back out. Y'all raced each

10:12

other 50 some times in the

10:15

in the old bush days. Yeah. And

10:17

in one particular instance at least at

10:19

least one got together at Orange County

10:21

in 91. So when y'all would

10:24

have a I'm sure y'all

10:26

had moments on the racetrack where you did

10:28

something or she did something and y'all'd

10:31

have a conversation about it what's that like

10:33

because no but not many people are

10:36

in competition with

10:38

their wives right so like there's

10:40

got to be moments where it gets

10:42

a little tense. Yeah it was that

10:44

particular incident at Orange County so when

10:47

we got married she still had her own

10:49

team that she that was her car that

10:51

was her guys Ronnie Silver was actually looking

10:54

after that I was driving for another team

10:56

at the time and I'll never forget

10:58

we are we're running we

11:01

go off into one I look up there's a

11:03

car that's sideways and I

11:05

look and it's the 42 which was her number I

11:07

didn't think about driver I just saw it and I'm

11:09

thinking okay well I got to go one way or

11:12

the other so obviously I took the

11:14

wrong route ended up in the left rear of

11:16

that 42 car so race

11:18

is over I think they got the winner

11:20

for maybe 15 seconds of interview

11:22

like one of our TNT races there

11:24

and so we were the we were

11:27

the storyline of that and not

11:29

where we wanted to be obviously for for a

11:31

wreck but for the most part she's

11:34

the you know obviously the single best

11:36

decision I've ever made my life was let's

11:39

get married to Patty yeah she can also

11:41

be my biggest critic she'll

11:43

tell me when hey that's that's not

11:45

right even today when

11:48

did you when did you decide that

11:50

you wanted to ask her out and how did that work

11:53

so I was driving for

11:56

a team out of Charlottesville Virginia Allen

11:58

Dillard which is Rick Massas father-in-law

12:00

and Rick had drove for Alan

12:02

for 22. Well

12:04

they were going to go their

12:06

separate ways. I'm living in Chesapeake,

12:08

Virginia. Alan Dillard calls. It's

12:10

my first opportunity to go drive for someone

12:12

other than my own team. So I

12:15

end up at AG Dillard's. We changed the number

12:18

of the car from 22 to 27 and we

12:20

have different cars in our fleet.

12:23

We have some

12:27

Laughlin cars. We have some Hopkins cars. So

12:29

we're on our way to Lanier, Georgia

12:31

for a bush race. Laughlin

12:34

is in Simpsonville, South Carolina. So

12:36

the AG Dillard team, we

12:38

stopped off in Simpsonville

12:40

just to see where a new car was

12:43

getting it built. Patty was driving

12:45

for Laughlin at that time and she happened

12:47

to be there. So long

12:49

story short, smooth guy like me. So

12:53

we shared a ride from Simpsonville

12:56

to Lanier, Georgia. So we

12:58

were going to go out that night. I

13:00

get to my hotel and I'm dragging ass

13:03

and I'm not getting ready in time. Told

13:05

her I was going to pick her up

13:07

at say six and I show up about

13:09

six-twenty but she's not there. She's

13:12

like, look, I'm not going to wait. So

13:14

I already appreciated that about her

13:17

from the get go. She's a

13:19

very independent, very strong-willed

13:22

and that's okay. I appreciate that.

13:24

So I said, okay, I've

13:26

screwed this deal up. But we ended up

13:28

eventually having dinner and we

13:31

both came out of eight-year relationships with

13:34

other people and our joke is

13:36

that it took us eight years to figure out it wasn't

13:38

the right deal and eight months to figure out it was

13:40

and we've been married for going

13:42

on 34 years now. You

13:47

raced primarily

13:49

when you started racing. You

13:51

were racing at Langley. You grew up around

13:53

that area. I'm going to mention two names,

13:55

Wayne Hanbury. Phil

13:58

Warren. Do you race, Phil? It

14:00

is. Those two names I know, my

14:04

mom lived in Norfolk, worked

14:06

at Delores Automotive Shop in town and

14:09

was the receptionist there. Right

14:12

around the time that you were sort of getting

14:15

near the end of your late model stock

14:17

career and getting those opportunities to race your

14:19

own car in the bush area. I

14:22

went to Langley. I saw you race. I

14:27

went and would hang out with Wayne at his house. His son

14:30

was around the same age as me and we swam in the

14:32

pool and all that stuff and got to

14:34

know Phil Warren around

14:36

that time as well. Just

14:40

coincidentally, I kind of saw

14:42

you compete and

14:45

then at the

14:47

same time saw your progression into the

14:50

bush series, right? Driving your own stuff

14:52

and trying to figure that out. You

14:55

were incredibly successful at Langley. Went

14:58

in track championships from

15:01

83 to 85. I

15:04

might be going to race there this year. Never

15:07

ran there. Been there as a kid but

15:09

never raced there. The Langley

15:11

name is synonymous with late

15:13

model stock and short track racing in

15:16

this area. What

15:18

is the secret to getting around Langley? It's

15:23

been many years since I've been there. It

15:25

looks the same. It does. It's

15:27

a flat race track. I

15:29

think for me, it's finesse.

15:33

You ease it in the corner. You got to

15:35

run it off the right rear a little bit but

15:37

you got to have good drive off. If

15:40

you're too tight, obviously in the center, you're

15:42

going to have to diamond the race track

15:44

which is not good there. For

15:47

me, it fit my style as

15:49

I began to progress and learn

15:51

my race craft early on. I

15:54

never thought I was going to race. That

15:57

wasn't something that was in the grand scheme

15:59

of things. Growing up, I played all

16:01

the ball and stick sports. What were you the best

16:03

at? I really, to

16:05

this day, I still love basketball. I had

16:08

the opportunity, or a couple of opportunities, to

16:10

go play junior college basketball, but

16:12

I could also see that wasn't going to be my

16:15

future. My dad carried

16:17

me to Langley. I was a junior in high school,

16:19

setting the stands. He

16:22

had raced at a youngster growing up,

16:24

so he had some background in motor sports.

16:28

I watched the King and

16:30

those guys back in the early 70s, so

16:32

I had some understanding of the sport. But

16:34

once he carried me and I set in

16:36

the stands, it was like, man, this is

16:38

what I want to do. I

16:41

actually got in a street division car. Back

16:44

then, you had three divisions, around 25 laps in

16:46

a street stock, something you pull out of the

16:48

junkyard, put a roll cage in. Limited

16:50

sportsmen, and then late

16:53

model sportsmen, which has grown to be what

16:55

we know as the Xfinity series today. First

16:58

race out, we qualified like

17:01

six, and they

17:04

do a draw. You take the top

17:06

10, or I think it was top 10,

17:09

the pole sitter would go in and draw a pill.

17:11

He drew six. When you invert, they put me on

17:14

the pole, and I'm thinking, man, I don't know, first

17:16

race, do you want to start on the pole? I

17:18

don't have all this figured out yet. My

17:21

dad said, look, that's your decision. You

17:23

decide what you want to do. You'll live with it. I'm

17:26

back and forth. Finally, I said, well, hell,

17:28

I may not ever get the opportunity again,

17:30

so I'm going to do it. We

17:32

go off into turn one. I must be running 12th by

17:35

the time we get off turn two. We

17:37

finally got it figured out and ended up third in

17:39

that race. It was like

17:41

it started putting all this together.

17:45

Maybe if you put some energy

17:47

to this, basketball had to work

17:49

really, really hard to play

17:51

at a high level where this felt

17:53

like, man, with a little more energy,

17:55

maybe I can have some success with

17:57

this. Plus, I loved it and

17:59

had a passion. for it. You'd work

18:01

all night. My dad would have to run

18:03

inside the shop at 1-2 o'clock

18:05

in the morning. You got to go out. You got to get

18:08

out. You had other

18:10

relatives that raced. Roger and

18:12

Earl both raced

18:14

at the racetrack as well.

18:17

Roger was a younger brother of

18:19

yours and I remember Roger Sawyer

18:21

and Earl. How

18:24

was that in terms of competition?

18:26

Did y'all aid

18:29

each other? For the

18:31

most part, Roger

18:33

and I never actually raced late models

18:36

together. I was in a late model

18:38

and he was in a street stock.

18:40

We had a couple races,

18:42

the old Richmond Fairgrounds. We went there.

18:44

Actually, Roger sat on the pole. We

18:47

qualified six. We never actually ran the

18:49

race because it got snowed out and

18:52

they wouldn't postpone or bring you back the

18:54

next day into late models. He had a

18:56

great career. He actually turned

18:58

out later on, he's a great

19:00

fabricator. He can take a piece of steel

19:03

and make anything out of it. As far

19:05

as actually competing against each other, very few

19:07

races that we run against each other. Was

19:09

the garage at

19:11

the house full of race cars? Yeah,

19:16

that was the great thing about you. My

19:19

dad was in the HVHC business. We

19:22

would work there in the summer, but

19:24

at night we'd all come home. We'd go

19:26

out in the shop and

19:28

family and friends would come by.

19:30

It's a family affair. We

19:34

had people supporting you in

19:36

that area, sponsors.

19:38

We had a

19:41

couple people that were in the construction

19:43

business. They'd be framers. They could be

19:45

people that do drywall work or plumbers,

19:47

whatever. They would come in and give

19:49

us $5,000, which was a lot of

19:52

money. A

19:55

lot of money. Then they would all migrate.

19:57

They'd go to the racetrack with you. You

20:00

get your fan base built up

20:02

and that's really what helped us

20:05

get from Langley, which my dad

20:07

and our financial situation wasn't going

20:09

to allow us to go to

20:12

bush racing without some real support.

20:16

My dad said I'll get the engines built, which

20:18

back then they were running the 311s just before

20:21

the V6 time. There

20:23

was five sponsors, five friends

20:26

in the area that we

20:28

raised. Five of them gave us 5,000

20:30

each, so we raised $25,000. Rick

20:34

Townsend built those, our first ever Pontiac

20:36

Grand Am bush car that we went

20:38

to the old fairgrounds with. That's

20:40

really what got us started.

20:43

Back then we would run Langley

20:45

four times a year, Hickory

20:48

four times a year, South Boston. That's how you

20:50

made the schedule up. The

20:52

big races were Charlotte. When you

20:54

went to Charlotte, because we didn't run Daytona back then

20:56

or Talladega, Rockingham was

20:58

there, but the big one was

21:00

Charlotte. When you got the opportunity to go

21:03

to Charlotte, that was a big deal. Yeah.

21:07

Do you have any physical mementos

21:11

from those days? Is

21:13

there maybe

21:15

a helmet or a driver suit, maybe

21:18

a hood or a door, any kind of

21:20

physical stuff from racing back in the early

21:22

80s? I

21:24

think there's three of my

21:27

most prized possessions,

21:29

if you will. Back

21:31

then, if you won a track championship,

21:34

and it was the Winston Racing Series. Yeah, the helmet. I

21:37

have three. I have 82, 83, 84 helmets that are in

21:39

my office at home. The

21:46

way the NASCAR put the Winston Racing Series

21:48

together, so there were five regions. We

21:51

were fortunate enough to win the

21:53

83, 84 Mid-Atlantic Regional

21:55

championship. We Went to Nashville for

21:57

the big banquet. Trophies

22:00

like the Winston Cup trophy said i'm

22:02

sure your dad, death and other says

22:04

received and I had them. Am I

22:06

officer those The three helmets I've never

22:08

worn. I'm in a race, never put

22:10

a mall and they is set up

22:12

there And now that I would say

22:14

there's three. The

22:16

three biggest santa. Id say that because

22:18

as you never well as helmets cause

22:20

they are they are kinda a trophy

22:22

but I do see pictures from back

22:24

and like seventy the up and guys

22:27

would take mm well the Ike race

22:29

with them. I remember. We were at

22:31

Martinsville ads and modify guys A Evans

22:33

I can remember Richie walk into their

22:35

kidneys car and put in and they

22:37

would wear their helmets and and your

22:39

bubble God as and know that Society

22:41

of Helmet are not like you. I

22:43

love the history of our sailor. I

22:45

really did that people it matters People

22:47

didn't care about the helmets where they

22:49

said are not mean that didn't help

22:51

them as a helmet sale now on

22:53

a Bell was the was to manufacture

22:55

here simply for your I Have Jimmy

22:57

Means. West and.

23:01

Racing. Ham he was like done

23:03

like he said before Tennessee champion

23:05

or some some champion that he

23:07

got home as well and as

23:09

we. Had it mister and

23:12

miss Rain on points. So.

23:15

Let's talk about you move it on into

23:17

the City series The Bush years back of

23:19

a day he ran your own stuff. Their

23:21

race Richmond a nice and eighty one in

23:23

of in what was the sports and series.

23:25

Before they they've evolved in the Bush series.

23:30

Erase for a a Manuals rock

23:32

us. Which. Is a well known

23:34

name in the store. Track ranks many

23:36

Bill Carson that race that. Martinsville

23:39

rich men an also ran up me

23:41

I had a cup car that of

23:43

a couple of as race a bus

23:46

Lindley maybe in yeah so pays well

23:48

known well known name back then and

23:50

built great race cars. And

23:53

he drove your own rod all the way up till night.

23:55

And eighty four. The

23:58

How. You. know he ran

24:00

very limited schedule. You didn't run a full

24:02

schedule and that's by design. What's the whole

24:06

process? My dad, we

24:08

were having success at Langley and

24:11

I could have stayed there forever.

24:13

When you're winning, you don't really

24:15

want to do anything else. We

24:17

could win there. We were fortunate.

24:19

We won a couple races at

24:21

South Boston, big races. We'd

24:24

go to Manassas every now and then. Never

24:26

really had great success there. But

24:29

my dad said, now we can't stay here. We've

24:31

got to move up. To do

24:33

that, we raised $5,000. He called Emmanuel Sivakas, who

24:39

at the time was a well-known

24:41

car builder, built late model stock cars,

24:43

also late model cars.

24:47

But he also had a Bush

24:49

Grant National car at the time, late

24:51

model sportsman, that Sonny Hutchins had drove,

24:53

the 01, Southern Oxygen

24:55

light blue car. Then

24:57

Jeff Bodine had drove for Emmanuel. That

24:59

was the white 99, I

25:03

believe. So, knew Emmanuel, knew what

25:05

was going on. Dad had laid

25:07

it out where we

25:09

could run the two Martinsville races, we

25:11

could run the two races

25:13

at the Richmond Fairgrounds, and we could run

25:16

the two at Langley. That would give me

25:18

six races to get my feet

25:20

under me and get it figured

25:22

out. First, we'd go to

25:25

Martinsville, and back then you would qualify

25:27

everybody, which would be 80 cars. It

25:29

was crazy.

25:32

They would lock in the top

25:34

10. Never forget, we

25:37

qualified 13th. We started on the

25:39

pole in the third heat, and we finished

25:41

third. So, we started the race, I think,

25:43

18th. We run

25:46

along there, and we ended up getting in

25:48

a ... So, it's funny. Eddie Falk, who

25:50

was from the Tidewater area,

25:52

and Diane Teal, who had raced

25:55

at Langley as well, and

25:57

she was in the race. All three of us go down

25:59

in the turn-up. three and run into each other and

26:01

knock the oil cooler off of it. So we

26:04

had to race early, but it was a great

26:06

experience. And then from there,

26:08

that's the story I was telling about getting

26:10

our first bush car ourselves. That

26:12

allowed us to continue to run Langley,

26:16

carry our own car to Martinsville. We run second

26:18

to Morgan Shepherd. So like, okay, I got this

26:20

thing figured out now. We just need to get

26:22

money and get cars built. We run the whole

26:24

deal. But it's still

26:27

that learning process of only running

26:29

six races, as you well know, and

26:31

young drivers and then trying to put a 30

26:34

or 33 race season together financially

26:37

is one thing. The other

26:39

part is the mental aspect of that grind of

26:41

trying to get that figured out. And that took

26:43

me a little while to kind of understand that

26:45

you got the ebb and flow of a season.

26:48

You know, you got to put

26:50

last week's race behind you and you just got to

26:52

keep looking forward and getting better. And

26:55

you know, as a driver, as well as your equipment.

26:57

Yeah, that is a great point. I think I don't

27:00

know what it's like for the drivers today. They

27:02

get so much information to sort of help

27:04

with that exact thing. But back in when

27:06

you were kind of starting in the bush

27:08

series and even when I started, there

27:11

wasn't anybody really telling you how

27:15

to play it mentally, right?

27:18

And like the ebb and flow and putting something, putting

27:20

a mistake in the rear view mirror and not repeating

27:22

it the next week or doubling down, right, and making

27:24

it even worse. And

27:27

so that was, I think that was probably

27:29

one of the toughest things to learn. I

27:32

would agree. Absolutely. I

27:35

think today, if you use the comparison,

27:37

I mean our cup guys, and I'm

27:39

sure even your Xfinity team and your

27:41

drivers, they're so mentally

27:43

and physically and emotionally prepared

27:46

for every event. And

27:48

then their teams and their cars. I mean, that's

27:51

why the races are where they are today. And

27:54

you think back on it, that wasn't there at that

27:56

time. I

27:58

thought leaving the race. racetrack and having a

28:01

recorder to flip it

28:03

on and just talk through, okay, here's the things I felt

28:05

like I learned. Then you would go back to that race

28:07

and you would put it back in, okay, restarts you need

28:09

to do this. You thought that was

28:12

high-tech, but the way they're doing simulators today

28:14

and the training, I think it's just a

28:17

real testament to our industry, our

28:19

drivers, and our competitors. Yeah. They

28:22

find it every advantage. Sure. You

28:26

went and signed a deal with Lewis Motorsports to

28:28

run partial schedule in 1985. What

28:30

car was that? That would have been the

28:33

42. Okay. Ashton

28:35

Lewis, a senior. Oh.

28:38

His dad, it was Bill Lewis

28:41

Chevrolet. He had Chevrolet dealerships in

28:43

the Tidewater area. He was

28:45

a huge race fan. We're

28:48

running our own car at the

28:50

Richmond Fairgrounds. Mr. Lewis is sitting

28:52

in the stands. Everybody,

28:56

that's when the ... Actually, your dad was in

28:58

that race. I remember that's

29:01

when the V6s were coming along and

29:03

Dennis Fisher was building Chevy

29:06

V6s. We're on a

29:08

V8 engine at that time. We're running decent

29:10

and Mr. Lewis is watching

29:12

and he gives us a call the next week

29:14

and we go sit down with him and

29:17

he buys us three Dennis

29:19

Fisher Chevrolet V6s. I'll never forget, there

29:21

was $17,500 a piece. That

29:24

guy. I thought it was like this was the best sponsor

29:26

in the world. That

29:28

kind of got us going. That relationship built. We

29:32

formed first team Motorsports. He

29:35

was instilled to this day a great

29:37

friend, just a

29:39

high integrity individual. If

29:42

I need some real advice, there's a couple

29:44

of people and he's

29:47

on that very short list that I would call and

29:49

get from. And his son,

29:51

Ashton. Did you

29:53

influence his career? Ashton

29:56

worked on our team. As

29:58

a young boy? As a young boy. There's a picture

30:01

of us we won loud and in 99 and Ashton

30:03

is working on the team Yeah, we got that picture

30:05

at home and it did they he

30:07

and his other son Charlie They

30:09

formed Lewis Motorsports and they had the

30:11

46 car and he ran great. He

30:13

did he was no for a family

30:15

team I mean it was literally just

30:17

their their deal, right? Exactly. Pretty

30:19

cool. I didn't even know that connection So

30:27

You attempted most of the most of the races in 86

30:31

in 87

30:33

you finally run the full schedule and

30:37

So are I wanted to know around

30:39

this point? When

30:42

did you decide? I'm

30:44

done with my my

30:48

My Langley car my late model stock. I'd call

30:50

it When

30:52

did you decide that that was? No

30:55

longer gonna be part of what you were doing.

30:57

I think it came down about that same time

30:59

I make a decision there. Well, I think just

31:01

of To focus

31:03

on one part of it, right? I mean

31:05

the Langley Era

31:08

for us was as a family and

31:10

personally, I mean just had great success

31:12

one races championships But you got to

31:14

kind of move on and

31:16

I couldn't do both. I could

31:18

after running a partial

31:21

Bush schedule I knew early

31:23

on that man. It's gonna take everything you had

31:27

Again, the late model stuff you if

31:29

you give it eight tenths, then you were going to

31:32

win races It was going to

31:34

take ten tenths everything you had every day

31:36

every week every race And

31:38

that just was going to get you to to

31:40

the race get you in the race And then

31:43

you not necessarily going to be

31:45

a front-runner So at that point

31:47

is like like you got a gonna have to

31:49

really focus on Bush

31:51

racing and put the other stuff kind of a

31:53

high tune. So when you When

31:56

you walk away from Langley that was you

31:58

never went back I went back

32:00

a couple of times, was

32:02

running some bush races and then I would go on

32:04

off weekends and run, but I

32:07

will say it became really difficult to

32:09

do that because those guys do it

32:11

every week. I'm doing that now. Right.

32:13

I commend you. You show up once and you're like,

32:16

holy moly, you butt kicked here. Yeah,

32:18

I was backing up last year. When you

32:20

went back to Bristol and did what you

32:22

did, I tell people all the time, I

32:24

said, that's hard. Yeah. I

32:26

was like, I'm going to push it first hand, but it was difficult

32:29

for me to go back and just everything I had

32:31

and the way you drive those cars are so

32:33

different than the way you would drive a car,

32:35

bush car with a little more power. Yeah. I

32:38

mean, late model cars, you got to kind of drive them off the right rear

32:40

a little bit and you start doing that in

32:42

the bush car and you're going to burn the tires off and then

32:44

you get to the next level, it's even worse. So I

32:47

just decided that it really wasn't worth

32:49

it to do that. So

32:51

from like, from 87 to 89, you're

32:54

running with the help from Lewis

32:56

Motors, from the engines.

33:00

And so then you mentioned you went

33:03

to AG Dillard in 1990, right? That

33:07

AG Dillard car, the

33:09

27, would eventually become

33:13

the car that Ward Burton would drive and

33:16

if you keep on going down the line,

33:18

I mean, it becomes Casey

33:20

Atwood's car. I mean, it's

33:23

just different people are getting involved in the team, but

33:25

it's really a team that lived on for a really

33:27

long time. But

33:30

you win your first poll at Martin's deal with this team,

33:35

but they started struggling with sponsorship

33:37

issues. Well, yeah, Mr. Dillard,

33:40

he put his own money into it

33:42

and then we had sponsorship from Smithfield

33:44

Foods, which is, you know, with Eric,

33:47

still around and they used their

33:49

Gualtney brand Hot Dogs. Back

33:51

in that day, I think

33:54

we got $250,000 to run a complete season. They

33:59

got the whole car. We

34:01

had some success, as you said,

34:03

we sat on the pole at Martinsville, first

34:06

race out at Daytona, we finished fifth. So

34:08

we feel like, okay, we're starting to kind

34:10

of get this thing figured

34:13

out. But a huge learning curve

34:15

for me driving for someone

34:17

else. When I

34:19

was the one signing the bottom right-hand corner of

34:21

the checks, although the money

34:23

side of it was difficult, you have

34:25

full control. No, I want to

34:27

do this, I want to do that, I want to do it this way, I

34:29

want to wear this uniform, I want to wear these shoes, I want

34:31

these springs. When you

34:33

drive for someone else, that's not the way it

34:35

works. And that was a learning curve for

34:37

me. And

34:41

it took a while to kind of get

34:43

a comfort level of, you're the driver, just

34:45

get in there, drive hard, give

34:47

good information. The rest

34:49

of it is kind of someone else's responsibility.

34:51

I mean, I'm there to help, but that's

34:53

not me. And that was difficult. And

34:56

then we went through a stretch where we were

34:58

wrecking cars, and Mr.

35:00

Dillard decided he needed to make a change.

35:04

And that's when Ward, a great race

35:06

car driver, Ward, ended up getting

35:08

in the car. So how did

35:10

you manage that? I

35:12

mean, that's kind of probably the first time that you've

35:14

had to deal with any kind of rejection or anyone

35:17

really kind of having a negative opinion of

35:20

the job you're doing, right? So what

35:23

was your next step? So backing up

35:25

to, obviously, Patty and I were married, and

35:28

she's a great support on this.

35:30

Look, it happened. It's

35:33

in the rearview mirror. You've got to pick

35:35

yourself up, and we've got to keep pushing. And

35:39

I did that. I ended up going

35:41

to work for Bill Davis, working

35:43

on the Babe Ruth cars, the Jeff Gordon truck. As

35:46

a mechanic? Because

35:48

I had the – I worked on my own stuff so I

35:50

could do that. The

35:52

opportunity to drive wasn't there. Called

35:56

Bill Davis. Went to work for Bill. on

36:01

the Beirut car that had very Abraham there.

36:04

So that was a great learning

36:07

curve for me. And the rejection

36:09

of it, I look back now, is probably the best

36:11

thing that ever happened. There were a lot of life

36:13

lessons that were learned from

36:16

that. And then later on, as I worked

36:18

for Bill around 1992 and 1993, when

36:22

Bobby the Bonnie came in as a rookie contender

36:25

in the Cup Series with Maxwell House, was still

36:27

working. It's just kind of a car chief back

36:29

in the day, if you will, just

36:32

working on cars. And Bill, long

36:37

story here, Bill and a guy

36:39

by the name of Bob Sutton, Bob

36:42

used to be a shop foreman for DW.

36:45

And Bob came to work for Bill Davis. Bill

36:48

put a bush car together and we went to Richmond, which kind of

36:50

got me back in the driver's seat. So

36:52

how long had you been out of the seat? Full

36:56

time, probably two years. Two

36:58

years. Two and a half years. Did you think that

37:00

you were maybe never going to get

37:02

another shot? You know, that's a great question. Were

37:05

you kind of resigned to the... I had,

37:07

in my mind, I could still

37:09

visualize, I'm going to get another opportunity. I could see

37:11

that. I didn't know when. I didn't

37:13

know how long this would be. But I

37:15

could see it and it's like, you've got to be

37:17

ready. When you get the next one, you've

37:20

got to go. It's got to work out. And

37:23

so you get an opportunity to put the car together and

37:25

you all go back to the racetrack. So how does that

37:27

develop into this long-term ride

37:30

with Aiken Sutton, which

37:32

would be one I think you're most probably

37:34

a member for. Yeah, exactly. So my relationship

37:38

with Bob Sutton, meeting him at

37:40

BDs, he had a

37:42

relationship with Brad Akins, who is

37:44

a Ford dealer in Winder, Georgia.

37:47

Very successful. At

37:50

that time, they were selling like over 400

37:52

units a month. I mean, just incredible. And

37:55

Bob and Brad formed Aiken Sutton

37:57

Motorsports in 1994. Ford

38:00

dealership had the connection

38:02

with Edsel Ford

38:04

and Ford Credit and

38:07

that became our sponsor in 1994.

38:11

We start out at

38:13

Daytona, I don't think it didn't go all

38:15

that well, we're a new team having

38:18

some engine trouble. We finally

38:20

kind of get all that ship righted

38:22

and we finally go off and we

38:24

run our first race at Myrtle Beach

38:26

in 94. So you

38:29

end up getting

38:32

in 95 a call

38:34

to replace Loyola Jr.

38:39

Who owns that car? Who

38:41

owns this car? This is the 27 Hooters

38:46

car. So Bob Brooks who is

38:48

the owner of was,

38:51

obviously we lost Bob four

38:53

or five, ten years ago now, but

38:55

he was the owner of the Hooters

38:57

restaurant chain. He had worked a deal

38:59

out with Junior Johnson to basically buy

39:02

the 27 car. He and

39:04

Junior were still connected on the

39:07

ownership side and Mike Hill who had

39:09

been with Junior for years and years, lives right

39:11

up there in the hollow right beside the 11

39:14

and 12 Budweiser cars. He was the crew chief

39:16

on the 27.

39:21

They had gone to, I think it

39:23

was Wilkesboro, and actually Jeff Purvis was

39:25

driving the 27. They missed the race.

39:28

So Mike called me, it was an off weekend for

39:31

the Busch cars. The next week he said, hey would

39:33

you like to drive this car? Never driven a cup

39:35

car in my life. Would you like to drive the

39:38

cup car in Martinsville? So

39:41

I said sure. I said I'd like to

39:43

go shake it down somewhere if possible. He

39:46

said how about Hickory? So we

39:48

load up this same car, same engine, everything

39:50

they just went to Wilkesboro and missed the

39:52

race. We go to Hickory, same seat I

39:55

get in it, and go

39:57

out run about 20 laps. Okay, this,

39:59

yeah. This will be fine. Let's go. We

40:02

go to Martin's room and we qualify eighth. And I thought,

40:04

okay, well, this is great. We run along there.

40:06

I think we ended up about 20th in

40:09

that race, which, you know, the first time out, that

40:11

was not too bad. Next week is the 600. We

40:14

go there. We qualify sixth. And

40:17

a little Schroeder valve on the right

40:19

front of the Bilstein

40:22

shock, we started the race and

40:24

it was like sideways loose. It was like, man,

40:26

I just felt like I was in a pretty

40:28

good place. I just could not get, I mean,

40:30

we run bad. Fortunately, we get

40:32

back and Mike finds this issue with the right front,

40:34

which made me feel a lot better, going to say,

40:37

man, if this is the way these cars drive, I

40:39

don't want to do it. I want to go back

40:41

to my bush car. Yeah. So that was kind of

40:43

the first start with that car. So

40:48

how long, what are you, are you

40:50

splitting between that car and

40:52

your bush car? Are you

40:55

kind of doing both? We're doing both for

40:57

a while. I don't remember

40:59

exactly how many, I think all in all, ran about 27

41:01

or so cup races in my

41:04

career. Eventually, we weren't having

41:07

the success there that we needed. And a

41:09

gentleman out of baseball

41:11

Arkansas, David Blair had purchased all

41:13

the equipment and assets from, from

41:15

junior and Bob Brooks. So he

41:17

had taken that car and

41:20

ended up putting, Todd Bodine took it

41:22

over for the rest of that season

41:24

and they kind of went away after

41:27

that. So they couldn't find sponsorship. So

41:29

that was that pretty much all of your cup

41:32

experience was basically in that 27 deal? Yep.

41:35

That was pretty much it. And you

41:37

ended up coming back to Aitkin Sutton

41:39

and finishing out your career, the Barbasol

41:41

car that you

41:43

were, you ran when I started racing

41:45

in the Bush series and you had

41:47

basically your best stretch. A lot of

41:49

great finishes in the points, always competitive

41:52

every single week. I

41:54

watched the Bristol 98

41:56

Bristol race, our

41:59

fall race. No, our spring

42:01

race from Bristol in 98, you almost

42:03

won that one. Elliot Saller and I run up front

42:05

and you almost beat us both. We broke a rocker

42:07

arm with 20 to go. I

42:10

felt that was one of us. Okay, you could

42:12

tell the car is driving. We

42:14

got this and then, I don't remember,

42:16

come off two or something, lose a cylinder and end

42:19

up. Still had a great run. Yeah.

42:21

But you had a good little stretch there. When

42:25

you think about your driving career, is

42:27

that little window of your

42:29

career probably the most fondest?

42:32

I would say at the national series level,

42:34

for sure. I mean, if I look at

42:37

the chapter of Langley,

42:40

that was an arrow

42:42

for us that when we pulled into

42:44

racetracks and you've been there, they're going

42:46

to have to beat us. That

42:49

was really fun. The

42:51

arrow that you mentioned with the Bush series,

42:53

we were very competitive weekend and week out.

42:55

I felt like we were a top 10 team

42:59

and we ended up fifth a couple of times

43:01

in the points. But that was, I felt like

43:04

I had a great opportunity there. At

43:06

some point, you just look at it

43:08

and say, these guys are really good. They

43:11

are really, really good. I know, but

43:13

all right, so you had an

43:15

eighth place, a fifth place, a fifth place, a sixth place, and

43:17

a fifth place in points from 97 to 2001. I

43:20

know we're looking at this from a 40,000 foot

43:23

view, so we're not seeing details, but you

43:25

ended up, Aikens would sail the

43:27

car to

43:30

Michael Krampus and

43:32

then you would leave looking

43:35

for opportunity. You filled in for

43:37

Jeff Purvis when he was injured at Bruteco for a

43:39

couple of races and then you're done. Yeah.

43:42

I think at the end of the 2001

43:44

season, we leave Homestead. We've

43:47

run second to Joe Nemechek. Really

43:51

felt like we should have won the race. I was a

43:53

big four tire guy. If we're going to pit, put four

43:55

tire. Don't put two on it. Joe

43:57

put two on it and he won the race and we run the

43:59

race. second and we get to the airport

44:02

and everybody's all excited. We fly back home

44:04

and we go in Monday morning and Michael

44:06

tells us if we got to get a

44:08

sponsor in the next two weeks or

44:10

I'm gonna have to close the doors.

44:13

Well if we haven't found one in you

44:16

know in six months I don't know that we're gonna

44:18

find one in two weeks and this doesn't work that

44:20

way. So that was really you know

44:22

I don't I do look at sports

44:24

in general. I don't think every professional athlete

44:27

you don't get the opportunity like John Elway

44:29

did in the Super Bowl or Peyton Manning.

44:31

It just doesn't work that way and it

44:33

didn't for me. So yeah what I'd like

44:35

to continue on but just putting the programs

44:38

and the funding it just it just wasn't

44:40

there. How old were you? I

44:42

was early 40s and

44:45

I was starting to sit in meetings with owners

44:47

where you'd always been the young

44:50

guy and when you get into

44:52

that early 40s well you know you're getting to

44:54

that age and I never heard that before. So

44:56

the one thing that I had really

44:59

resorted to from my driving career was

45:01

I didn't want to get

45:03

in equipment that I was just gonna be riding

45:05

around. I just that wasn't gonna be I

45:07

never started racing for the money. Yeah. I

45:10

raced because I enjoyed it. You had no

45:12

so when I guess when you decided that

45:14

your career is over you had no no

45:18

concerns. No because I

45:21

struggle with like giving up driving

45:24

period. I always kind of have

45:26

to have a tiny taste every

45:28

now and then. There was a

45:30

period of time that I would

45:32

say yes it was

45:34

like man I'm struggling with this but you know

45:36

I give Patty a lot of credit. It was

45:39

like you know at that

45:41

age and the money

45:43

that you make driving late models then which

45:45

cars you're not gonna retire. It just doesn't

45:48

work that way. So you know

45:50

what's the next step? You had to go to

45:52

work. Had to go to work and fortunately for

45:54

me I always like

45:57

kind of driver development type stuff and you

45:59

look at so certain drivers that feel

46:02

like they have a bright future, maybe

46:05

through their path, decision making and well

46:07

maybe I can, here's some

46:09

mistakes that I made, maybe you can

46:11

pass that on to other drivers. So I

46:13

actually was working on this driver development

46:15

type deal, working with Greg Speck at Ford.

46:19

We were at Daytona, Patty and I for the

46:21

July race and

46:23

bump into Ray Abraham. And he

46:25

said, what are you up to? And I said,

46:27

well, I'm kind of working on this. He said, well, I

46:31

may have an opportunity for you. And

46:33

he said, why don't you come by and see me next week?

46:36

So this was 2003, I believe. Long

46:41

story short, I went and met with Ray and

46:43

he needed someone to run his

46:46

Dodge R&D program. It was

46:48

a little race team within a race team. We

46:51

would take cars and had like four or five

46:53

people working for us, go to Kentucky, do engine

46:56

durability tests, had a

46:59

couple million dollar budget you had to

47:02

manage. So that was my first introduction

47:04

into out of the driver's seat, how

47:07

do you manage a little small

47:09

team? Yeah. And how

47:11

did you enjoy that? I mean, you'd ran your

47:13

own team in the Bush

47:15

series. You're

47:18

no longer, you talked about, I

47:20

guess, the struggle

47:23

with driving for an owner,

47:25

right? And understanding how to

47:28

allow decisions to be made by somebody

47:30

else and live with that right in it

47:32

and move on down the road. Now

47:34

you're in a position where you probably got

47:36

some people working underneath you, but you're still answering to a

47:39

bigger boss and have an objective

47:41

to achieve. And

47:45

you've got other guys driving the car now, right? You

47:48

don't get to turn the stairwell. You don't get to drive, tell

47:51

them how far to drive down to the corner.

47:53

You can tell them all day, I guess, but

47:55

how was that adjustment for you? Especially

48:00

with sort of that, you know, you know

48:02

a little bit of that hunger still in

48:04

the background Yeah, I think for

48:06

me it was it was easier and I

48:08

give gray a lot of credit because he

48:11

had kind of gone through A very similar

48:13

career. I mean he drove Then

48:15

that didn't work out as well. He

48:17

went into being a crew chief very

48:19

successful Then he went into the ownership

48:21

So I think watching him and how

48:23

he managed all of that was you

48:26

know It was kind of an inspiration for me to

48:29

watch that and I was I was

48:31

actually enjoying that You know, you still had

48:33

the opportunity to go to the racetrack, you

48:35

know, you hear the engines you smell the

48:37

tires you're involved I've

48:39

always really enjoyed team sports even

48:42

back in school playing You

48:44

know basketball football baseball and then in

48:46

racing the same thing. It's it is

48:49

a team I mean the drivers the

48:51

quarterback But you know there

48:53

you got to have all those other

48:55

people around you to make it be

48:57

successful so making that transition and taking

49:00

that same mindset of okay

49:02

now you're more of a more of a general

49:04

manager you're more of a guy

49:07

kind of standing back and Kind

49:09

of setting the table and letting them go and

49:12

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51:41

Well, eventually in 2015 you get

51:43

hired to be the managing director of the

51:45

Truck Series. You

51:49

know, I've been around

51:51

the sport long enough to see people

51:55

that are on one side of the garage move into that.

52:00

that role where they're working for

52:02

NASCAR and

52:05

like Gary Nelson and all those different people

52:07

that were crew chiefs and so forth going

52:09

to the competition side of it. I

52:13

know that you

52:16

might have seen this sport from a different

52:18

perspective than me, but was

52:21

going from being the

52:24

competitor to working on

52:26

the other side with NASCAR, I

52:29

mean was it kind of like getting to look

52:31

behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz? The

52:35

only thing I could probably compare it to

52:37

was like leaving DEI, which was one incredibly

52:40

different culture and going over to Hendrick. I'd

52:43

never even been behind the door at that place,

52:45

right? You walk in there and you're like,

52:48

this is how champions

52:50

are made, right? And I could

52:52

see the difference right away. This

52:55

is completely different, but when

52:57

you take on a role

53:00

within the organization that's

53:05

the governing body, how unique

53:07

was that to have that perspective? I

53:10

guess like when I

53:12

was a race car driver, I was very narrow-minded.

53:14

I wanted this and this and this was better

53:16

for the sport and this was better for the

53:18

sport. And then I became a broadcaster. I

53:20

was like, I was wrong about most of that. None

53:22

of those things are important, right? I

53:25

know why NASCAR chooses this, chooses that. And

53:29

so what was that transition like? I

53:31

mean you've been out of the car for a

53:33

little while before you made that transition. So

53:35

what was that like to finally go into

53:37

that office and now you're working for the

53:40

governing body? That's incredible. It

53:43

is. And I think all

53:45

of those prior life lessons and

53:47

working in the industry was tools in

53:50

the toolbox that has, and to this

53:52

day continues to help me. But

53:54

that first week, I'll never forget,

53:56

I started on February. the

54:00

second of 2015. We're

54:03

leaving in about a week to go

54:05

to Daytona. I'm

54:07

the series director for the truck

54:10

series, which is the national

54:12

series, third most popular series

54:14

in North America, and

54:17

the water is up to here. It's

54:19

like drinking from a fire hose every

54:21

day. To your

54:24

point, as you walk in there, it's like you don't

54:26

know what you don't know. Today,

54:29

I obviously 10 years later have a

54:31

whole different perspective. I

54:34

don't think, actually, Mike

54:37

Ford, Amanda and I were talking about this coming over

54:39

today. The

54:42

things that go into putting a race

54:44

on on a given weekend, I'm

54:48

sure a lot of people in our garages, they

54:50

don't understand that. Because to your

54:52

point, they're focused on their job as a driver,

54:54

as a donor, whatever that may be. Right

54:57

on from the sanctioning body, we're in charge of all of

54:59

it. Whether it's

55:01

a facility that NASCAR owns, or a

55:03

facility that Speedway Motorsports, or going into

55:05

Pocono that's an independent, when we walk

55:07

in there, we have to make sure,

55:09

first and foremost, the facility is ready

55:11

to race, if the safer barrier is

55:13

done properly. You're making

55:16

all your advanced logistics work around

55:18

the asphalt, and all your timing

55:20

lines and things like that. We

55:22

haven't even opened the garage and

55:24

started parking trucks and inspecting vehicles.

55:27

There was a lot to digest. I'll

55:31

never forget one night I was leaving at Daytona

55:33

for year one, and I'm talking to

55:35

Patty on the phone, I'm leaving the racetrack. She goes,

55:37

what are you going to get for dinner? I said,

55:39

I don't have time to eat. I said, I've got

55:41

like 80 emails in my inbox, and I've got to

55:43

still work to be ready for tomorrow. Fortunately,

55:47

over time, you learn how to digest

55:49

that. It's a fast pace.

55:52

Having great mentors along the way has been

55:54

perfect. What about the ... I

55:58

imagine there is quite a ... a

56:01

bench to go to, to like, you know, when

56:04

I think about, you know, if I

56:06

was in that position, like all of the individuals

56:08

that work inside that office or inside that building,

56:10

the people that you can go to for advice

56:12

and help, I imagine that that was extremely helpful.

56:14

But when

56:17

were there moments, I guess, can you

56:19

recall moments where you still

56:22

caught yourself thinking like a driver, and

56:25

you had to like check yourself a little bit about like,

56:28

cause I

56:30

go back to when I got into

56:32

the broadcast booth and I had all

56:35

of these things that I thought I

56:37

knew better and all

56:39

of the things that I thought the NASCAR was doing

56:41

wrong. And then when I got in

56:43

the booth and I realized why all these decisions got

56:45

made and why, and I wish

56:47

I'd have had that perspective sooner when I

56:50

was a race car driver, but when,

56:53

and again, you've been out of the seat for quite a while

56:55

at this point, but where did

56:58

you see your perspective and

57:02

opinions of the sport

57:04

like shift away

57:06

from what you'd always believed and thought

57:09

as a competitor? Yeah, absolutely. I think

57:11

what happens is, and it was for

57:13

me, once I got in there, and

57:15

to your point, I got behind the

57:18

curtain and you could be in those

57:20

meetings with Robin Pemberton and John Darby

57:22

and Mike Helton. And

57:24

they lay out how the

57:27

sport, Mike is the

57:29

best at laying out, he said, we're like a little

57:31

community. We got people over

57:33

here or have a gas station, people over

57:35

here are selling shirts and people over here

57:37

are selling shoes. And that's how you look

57:39

at our track promoters, you look at our

57:41

team owners, you look at our drivers, our

57:44

crew members, all of that, we

57:46

have to kind of work all together to

57:48

make this thing work. And

57:50

when you see that, and then

57:52

you see the incredible people behind

57:55

the scenes, Steve O'Dowell, Steve Phelps,

57:57

and Mike, who have had the opportunity to work with

57:59

us the wherewithal and have been around the

58:01

sport for a long time to help steer

58:03

that, you can see why

58:06

certain decisions are made the way they

58:08

are. And it's much clearer to

58:10

you. I'm totally with you. If I'd have known

58:12

that as a driver, a lot

58:14

of the times when I would get out of the

58:16

car and say things that, basically,

58:19

why the hell are they doing that? They should be doing

58:21

this. Well, now I understand

58:23

why those decisions. But it's also,

58:25

I enjoy the fact

58:28

of being able to sit down with

58:30

some of our competitors now in all

58:32

three theories and explain to them why

58:34

the sanctioning body does things the way

58:36

they do. And

58:38

once they hear it, they have a whole

58:41

different perspective and understanding of why we're doing

58:43

what we're doing. How often

58:45

is it that you're

58:47

able to take competitors up into the

58:49

control tower and have them see just

58:53

what a crazy, chaotic, to your point.

59:01

There's so many things happening all at once during our

59:03

race and so many roles up in

59:05

the control tower. I

59:08

always think one of my favorite things

59:10

to do is to take somebody along with me

59:12

because my friends say,

59:14

man, broadcast a piece of cake. How hard

59:16

is that? Right? And I'm like,

59:18

well, come along. Let me show you some of the stuff that we go

59:20

through and some of the things we have to do to prepare and

59:23

have them listen in as you

59:26

got a producer talking in one ear, the race happening in

59:28

the other, and these guys are all talking to you. I

59:31

look over in the control booth at some of the

59:34

races we're at and I don't know how y'all all

59:36

can communicate with so many people in the room, so

59:38

many voices. Yeah, I think that's a great

59:40

point. And getting drivers up

59:42

there to at least see a stage or two

59:45

is really important. This past weekend at Kansas,

59:47

we had John Hunter up to

59:50

start the truck race and he was

59:52

like, wow, just blown away. But

59:55

I think a lot of it, and this is what

59:57

I really enjoy about our team in the tower. So,

59:59

you ever Race Director, who I equate

1:00:01

everything to ball and sticks. So

1:00:03

that's your quarterback. And then

1:00:05

you'll have your ESC, which is

1:00:07

your emergency service coordinator, that

1:00:10

when we have an incident, caution

1:00:12

goes out, which is basically

1:00:15

a button that the Race Director

1:00:18

will push. ESC will start dispatching

1:00:20

all the recovery equipment, your records,

1:00:22

your rollbacks. We've got

1:00:24

our timing and scoring team that they're looking

1:00:26

at a freeze of the field

1:00:28

to get a lineup. We're getting ready

1:00:31

to open Pitt Road. Chad Little's getting ready

1:00:33

to start officiating those. We've got Devin

1:00:36

Joseph, who's doing replay, that

1:00:39

is talking back and forth with broadcast

1:00:41

because they're gonna go to commercial. Okay,

1:00:43

well, we're not gonna open Pitt Road

1:00:45

yet because we want to make sure that our

1:00:47

fans can see that. So to watch all of

1:00:50

that unfold, and they're the

1:00:52

expert in their feel. That's

1:00:55

not, I enjoy the fact that we

1:00:57

put a team together and

1:01:00

sit there and as long as it's going

1:01:02

smooth, then my job's really, really easy. If

1:01:04

we've done something wrong, then that's on me.

1:01:06

I'll take the bullets for that team, but

1:01:08

for the most part, they just execute and

1:01:11

do a flawless job. You talk about Race

1:01:13

Directors. How many Race

1:01:15

Directors are responsible

1:01:19

for the Cup Series in a given year?

1:01:22

So the way we have started out, years

1:01:24

ago, David Hoots and people have heard David's

1:01:26

name for years. He was the Race Director.

1:01:28

He was the guy. Ever. When he came

1:01:31

to Cup, David called all the races. But

1:01:34

what that put us in a

1:01:36

situation, very talented individual, but we

1:01:38

needed depth. Everybody's gonna

1:01:40

have, things happen to you in life.

1:01:42

You're gonna have a wedding, you

1:01:44

have a funeral. A lot of- And

1:01:47

maybe places. You could be sick and just be out. So

1:01:49

it took us a while to

1:01:52

continue to build depth in that

1:01:54

department. So today, we have Jason

1:01:56

Hamilton, we have Tim Berman, we

1:01:58

have Chase Bacheres and we

1:02:00

have Jesse Little. Jesse

1:02:02

comes in, obviously very similar to us,

1:02:05

had a driving background,

1:02:07

very successful, but decided

1:02:09

at our early age that that wasn't a

1:02:11

path future. He's been a

1:02:14

huge asset to us. On

1:02:16

Sundays right now, we have Tim Berman

1:02:18

and Jasson Hamilton. Very

1:02:21

similar to Xfinity and Truck where you're training

1:02:23

drivers and crew chiefs and crew members. We

1:02:26

do the same thing with our timing scoring

1:02:28

folks, our ESC folks, and race directors. Chase

1:02:31

and Jesse will call Truck and Xfinity races.

1:02:33

They're getting to the point that someday we'll put them

1:02:36

in to call a cup race. What

1:02:42

is the race director's main

1:02:44

responsibility? The main

1:02:46

responsibility is basically

1:02:48

he's coordinating, he's looking

1:02:51

around the facility. If

1:02:54

there's an incident, he's going to

1:02:56

make the call to put the caution out. That's

1:02:59

not a decision that you can have call time

1:03:01

out, hey, do you want to throw a caution?

1:03:05

What do you think? We have

1:03:07

debriefings just like race teams. Should

1:03:10

we have thrown that caution sooner? Should

1:03:12

we have held it longer? And it's just a

1:03:14

training process and a learning process. We

1:03:19

probably should have let that one play

1:03:21

out versus we were a little quick on the

1:03:24

trigger. That person has to

1:03:26

make that decision because again, it's not

1:03:28

a group decision. Over

1:03:30

time, they learn our philosophy of where we

1:03:32

are. There

1:03:35

was a time in our sport that

1:03:37

was 25 to go, there's probably going to

1:03:39

be a caution. We've

1:03:42

backed away from that and really

1:03:44

let the race unfold naturally.

1:03:48

If we have to throw a caution, we will. That's

1:03:51

the main responsibility of getting

1:03:53

the caution out. Then

1:03:55

he's also communicating with

1:03:58

the crew chiefs on Pitt Road. in

1:04:00

their spotters. They're listening to the race director

1:04:02

of where the lineups may be. Yeah.

1:04:07

When the pit road, so pit

1:04:09

road and everything happening on pit road,

1:04:11

that's not a race director role and

1:04:13

responsibility. You have an individual that manages

1:04:16

everything between time and lines, right? And

1:04:19

someone that's responsible for all the

1:04:21

safety equipment and the race

1:04:24

director is mainly just sort of

1:04:26

making sure the processes of the

1:04:28

competition side of the race playing

1:04:30

out properly in terms of ...

1:04:32

Absolutely. Yeah. In your situation, what

1:04:34

are you doing in

1:04:37

the booth? And I've really over

1:04:41

time when it was maybe

1:04:43

a Bill Gassway or

1:04:45

even back to a Gary

1:04:47

Nelson or Robin Pemberton or

1:04:50

most recently a Scott Miller. I think

1:04:52

everyone has their different management style. Right.

1:04:55

And I've always felt like that other

1:04:59

things are going to come up that I may be

1:05:02

dealing with. For example, we may have

1:05:04

something that from

1:05:06

a broadcaster standpoint I need to go down and

1:05:08

explain to you, but the race needs to go

1:05:10

on. So you're available for that.

1:05:12

So I'm available to do that if

1:05:15

that needs to be, but for the most

1:05:17

part, they know how to run the race.

1:05:20

It'd be like a crew chief knows how

1:05:22

to run the race. We have the same

1:05:24

thing in race control. Now, if a major

1:05:26

decision has to be made and something's happened,

1:05:30

we're going to penalize

1:05:32

somebody. We're going to take a race from

1:05:34

somebody during the race and obviously I'm going

1:05:36

to weigh in on that. How difficult is

1:05:39

that for you? I don't know that

1:05:41

I can compare it to anything

1:05:43

that I've experienced, but I found

1:05:45

it challenging to even go into a broadcast and

1:05:47

be critical of a driver that I was friends

1:05:49

with or competed with, but

1:05:52

you have to handle it how you

1:05:54

see it or tell the truth. When

1:05:56

you know you've got to make a decision that's

1:05:58

not going to be very positive. popular, whether

1:06:03

it's popular with a fan base, popular with

1:06:05

this race team, popular with this owner, penalizing

1:06:09

a driver for example. What

1:06:14

has that experience been like for you?

1:06:20

Your history, your background, where you

1:06:22

came from, I can't

1:06:25

imagine you ever thought you'd find yourself

1:06:27

in this situation to be making these

1:06:29

type of decisions. I

1:06:33

imagine you can't let that

1:06:35

affect how you move forward and how you do make

1:06:37

that decision. I think

1:06:39

that that would probably be one of the things that

1:06:42

I least enjoyed about the job is

1:06:44

being put in that situation to have to make

1:06:46

a choice that you didn't really make that day.

1:06:49

Yeah, that's a good point. I think

1:06:51

that the number one thing is, obviously we have a

1:06:53

rule book. We talk about

1:06:55

it all the time. It's like do

1:06:57

the right thing. Sometimes the

1:07:00

rule book was written for a situation

1:07:02

that really doesn't apply to the particular

1:07:04

situation we have right now. And

1:07:07

yes, by the letter of the law, that is

1:07:09

a penalty. What is the right

1:07:11

thing to do for this particular situation? And

1:07:15

we're human beings. We're going to make mistakes. I tell

1:07:18

our team all the time that we're going to do

1:07:20

our best to do the right thing. If

1:07:23

we need to go back and we need to change some

1:07:25

language in the rule book, we'll do that. Yeah,

1:07:28

those calls where

1:07:30

you found something on someone's car, obviously

1:07:33

calling Mr. Hendrick or calling Coach

1:07:36

Gibbs and saying, okay, here's what

1:07:38

we have. No, they're

1:07:40

not pleasant, but over time

1:07:43

you just tell them, say, look, our

1:07:46

goal is to make sure that you

1:07:48

feel like when you walk into that

1:07:50

garage that you're playing on a level

1:07:52

playing field. Yeah. And all

1:07:54

I can tell you is you have our word that

1:07:56

we're going to do that. You make

1:07:58

a call to a guy like that. like Rick Hendrick and I've made

1:08:01

phone calls with Rick and I know how persuasive he could

1:08:03

be. How do you stay

1:08:05

underground? Because

1:08:09

I mean I feel like that it would be so

1:08:11

easy for me to be, you know, because I know

1:08:14

this guy has, he's, I know that

1:08:16

Rick has, you know, we're

1:08:18

just going to be hypothetical. I

1:08:20

know that Rick or Mr. Pinsky

1:08:22

has researched their side. His

1:08:24

whole teams came and said, hey, this is what

1:08:26

happened. This is why this was the way it

1:08:28

was. We're okay. We're not wrong here. And

1:08:31

so he's coming with you with all this information

1:08:33

and there's, he's a car salesman. He could sell

1:08:35

you anything, right? How in the world

1:08:37

do you stay on

1:08:40

your course in those scenarios? I

1:08:42

think you just, again, you fall back and you look

1:08:45

at what's the right thing to do and you

1:08:47

look at the rule book and we've had those

1:08:49

cases and then that's why we have, you know,

1:08:52

the system in place that if they feel like

1:08:54

that they are, they've been done wrong, then there's

1:08:58

an appeal process and we go through

1:09:00

that. But I think the main thing

1:09:02

is at least you show

1:09:04

the industry, you show the garages that

1:09:07

they will react to this. They

1:09:09

will write a penalty and then

1:09:11

again, we will let the process

1:09:13

take its course. Where do you

1:09:15

feel, that brings me to

1:09:18

the appeals court

1:09:20

or appeals panel.

1:09:23

That is, I

1:09:25

know because we've had to run a few

1:09:27

appeals here at Junior Motor Sports through there

1:09:29

and I know that it's independent

1:09:33

of NASCAR. And

1:09:37

so how do you feel, right? If

1:09:40

you've made a decision, you feel like you're doing the right

1:09:42

thing, you're making the best choice you can make, you've got

1:09:44

all the information. There's

1:09:47

nothing there that's not available

1:09:49

to you. And you

1:09:52

go to the appeals panel and

1:09:54

they lessen the penalty or change

1:09:56

the penalty. How do

1:09:58

you manage that? Does

1:10:00

that create any frustration or

1:10:03

do you try to see the appeals

1:10:05

panel side to things? How do you manage that

1:10:07

part? Well, I think you learn from it first

1:10:10

and foremost, but we're no different.

1:10:13

When we look at the rule,

1:10:15

we're going to write a penalty. We've

1:10:19

done quite a bit of work

1:10:21

to make sure that, man, this is the right thing

1:10:23

to do. We've

1:10:26

been consistent with this penalty. We've done

1:10:28

this. We've done this. We've write

1:10:30

it. For the

1:10:32

most part, I think this is why the

1:10:34

industry feels like it is a good

1:10:37

process. The panel is going

1:10:39

to be fair. If

1:10:41

they feel like it needs to be reduced,

1:10:43

then we go back and life lessons, okay,

1:10:45

we need to change some rules because we

1:10:47

need to get this right for the industry

1:10:50

going forward. It's

1:10:52

lessons that you learn from that and you move

1:10:54

on. Granted, we go

1:10:56

in there a lot of times

1:10:59

with confidence that we're not going to lose

1:11:01

this one. Yeah.

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Angie. You were a big part of the

1:12:01

development of the next-gen car, am I right? And

1:12:07

so, is that correct? Yeah.

1:12:11

I mean, the group

1:12:13

there, the critic really goes to John Probst and

1:12:15

all the folks there at the

1:12:17

R&D Center, Brandon Thomas and Dr. Excusey.

1:12:21

And, you know, this car, unlike cars in the past, were

1:12:23

racing in the car. Unlike

1:12:27

cars in the past, where race

1:12:29

teams did all that design and

1:12:31

develop and manufacturing. Now,

1:12:34

the Thanksgiving body, we're heavily involved. I

1:12:36

mean, there's three partners, if

1:12:38

you will, in the process. You have

1:12:40

us, you have the vendor, that

1:12:43

could be an extract, that could be a

1:12:45

BBS wheels, that could be your five-star manufacturer, and

1:12:47

you have the race team. So,

1:12:49

the three of us. And one

1:12:52

thing, not to get off this topic, but

1:12:54

I think one thing that our industry does

1:12:56

today, that we're so much better

1:12:58

than we have been ever, is the

1:13:00

collaboration between the stakeholders. Whether

1:13:03

it be our TV partners, our tracks, the

1:13:06

vendors, and how we got to where we

1:13:08

are today with the next-gen car. From

1:13:10

the safety aspect and every bit of that and

1:13:13

having everybody, it is different. The

1:13:16

DNA between the walls at the race shops of

1:13:18

what you used to do, that was fun. I

1:13:21

mean, you could build your own stuff, you

1:13:23

could change stuff. But that

1:13:25

was not a financial model that

1:13:27

was going to be sustainable long-term.

1:13:29

So, when you, with this

1:13:31

next-gen car, it changed the whole

1:13:35

process, I guess, around officiating. And

1:13:37

I imagine for you, you lived

1:13:40

on both sides of it, right? Officiating those

1:13:42

cars that were pieces people created, and they

1:13:45

would bring them and have to see if

1:13:47

they fit everything. And now

1:13:49

you got a car that you know should fit, right?

1:13:51

When it rolls off trailer, there should be no problems,

1:13:53

right? Does that

1:13:55

feel like or sounds like that seems to have

1:13:58

made things easier or harder? in

1:14:01

some cases? I would say easier.

1:14:05

The challenge still is the race teams

1:14:07

understanding that with this car and the

1:14:10

deterrent model that was put in place

1:14:12

to save,

1:14:15

you know, the garage from themselves, it's

1:14:19

up to us, as Mr. Francis said, we

1:14:21

have to enforce the rules on this car.

1:14:24

And the DNA within the walls of

1:14:27

the race team has to adapt to

1:14:29

the way this car has to be

1:14:31

raced. When you start messing

1:14:33

with stuff, you're going to get in trouble.

1:14:35

It seems like that out of the gate

1:14:37

there were a few offenses and people were

1:14:39

trying, you know, and found a couple things.

1:14:41

But here, I mean, I can't remember the

1:14:43

last time that we've had a car

1:14:46

with the obvious, you know, go back to R&D Center

1:14:48

and have an obvious trick, right?

1:14:51

Do you see that culture changing? I

1:14:53

do. I mean, if you think about it, we're

1:14:55

in year three. Yeah. Right? I think year one,

1:14:57

it took them a little

1:14:59

while, the teams that get all the parts in

1:15:02

piece, they're just trying to figure out how to

1:15:04

bolt them together and go race. Yeah. So last

1:15:06

year we felt like, okay, they've had the car

1:15:08

for a year. Yeah, they've learned a lot about

1:15:10

what we're doing. They're going to try to figure

1:15:12

this out. But that really put us in a

1:15:14

position that, and Steve O'Donnell

1:15:16

and I and Steve Phelps had a

1:15:18

conversation and said, I think we have

1:15:21

got to write these penalties now.

1:15:24

I believe, figures cost, we'll get them to

1:15:27

a place where everybody in the garage feels

1:15:29

like, don't do that. Just stay away from

1:15:31

that stuff and knock on

1:15:33

wood. I feel like the garage understands

1:15:35

that that's the way we're

1:15:37

going to officiate this car. And there's really

1:15:40

two things that we do on a race

1:15:42

weekend as a sanctioning body. We inspect

1:15:45

vehicles and we officiate the race. That's

1:15:47

really the two things. And when we're

1:15:49

hiring an official, you need to be

1:15:52

a good official for the races

1:15:54

and you need to be a technical inspector

1:15:58

and they're doing three garages. You

1:16:00

know, they're doing trucks, they're doing Xfinity, and they're

1:16:02

doing cups. That

1:16:04

task of understanding the rules in all

1:16:06

the garages is important. But to your

1:16:08

question, the next gen

1:16:10

car, there's a homologated parts

1:16:13

and pieces that everybody has

1:16:16

to run. It's like going to the grocery store and

1:16:19

taking your cart and everybody put all their stuff in it.

1:16:22

You go home and you just put it together and

1:16:24

you cook your meal and you put your car together and you

1:16:26

go race. So in

1:16:29

terms of what is

1:16:31

your role in competition in terms of

1:16:33

changes, right? And

1:16:35

I'm going toward the short track package,

1:16:38

right? There's been a

1:16:40

ton of, you know, there's been

1:16:42

testing and a lot of things have been tried.

1:16:48

There's been some things learned, but

1:16:50

then we had Bristol happen,

1:16:52

right? Which was a

1:16:54

happy accident, whatever we want to call it. How

1:16:58

involved, I guess, or how much influence do you

1:17:00

have in any competition

1:17:03

changes? Yeah, I

1:17:06

mean, it's a collective group. I mean,

1:17:08

our group at the R&D Center collectively

1:17:12

is run by John Proops. You know, all

1:17:14

the R&D stuff that goes on in the

1:17:16

back, all the competition related stuff that we

1:17:18

go to the racetrack. But we said as

1:17:20

a group, and we talk

1:17:22

about all of that stuff. And

1:17:25

to your point, you know, we've done a lot

1:17:27

of testing with the rear diffuser.

1:17:30

We went to Richmond last year and

1:17:32

changed a lot of arrow bits,

1:17:34

if you will, and never seemed to be able

1:17:36

to move the needle. And that's

1:17:38

going to be difficult on short racetracks, if

1:17:40

you will know. I mean, the speed in

1:17:43

the center of the corner from

1:17:45

an arrow standpoint in Martinsville, you're running, I

1:17:47

don't know, 40, 50, 60 miles an hour

1:17:49

in the middle of the corner. So to think

1:17:51

you're going to move the needle dramatically is

1:17:54

going to be difficult. But

1:17:56

to your point, kind of a blessing in disguise.

1:17:58

And we had been on this working. closely with

1:18:01

our partners at Goodyear was the tires.

1:18:04

We never thought going to Bristol this last

1:18:07

time that we would have had, we didn't go into

1:18:09

the weekend thinking this is what it would look like.

1:18:12

We went into the weekend very

1:18:15

thinking early on, green

1:18:17

racetrack, you're going to have some tire wear. Was

1:18:23

this tire different? I mean, it was

1:18:25

the same tire we ran at Bristol before. What

1:18:28

created that scenario? I

1:18:30

think, think, is

1:18:32

you look at the temperature, it

1:18:34

was much, much cooler, same tire

1:18:36

and for whatever reason

1:18:39

still working through that with Goodyear

1:18:41

to figure out why the left

1:18:43

side tires were not wearing a

1:18:45

little bit different track treatment than

1:18:49

what we'd had in the past with the

1:18:51

PJ1 versus the Resin. When

1:18:53

you start putting all that stuff on the table and

1:18:55

really dissecting what moved

1:18:57

the needle, that

1:19:00

formula, trying to box that up

1:19:02

and keep it, the

1:19:04

end result is we

1:19:06

feel like that's where we have to

1:19:08

get with the tire. That's why we're

1:19:10

doing things at Wiltsboro, the

1:19:12

all-star race with the option tire

1:19:14

that is basically

1:19:17

the wet weather rubber put

1:19:19

on a slick tire. All

1:19:22

right, so you're trying to go to

1:19:25

Wiltsboro and y'all will more ... I

1:19:28

guess is there ... Would it be fair to

1:19:30

say that you'll

1:19:32

be paying more attention to what happens

1:19:34

to that tire versus

1:19:36

whether option versus hard makes a

1:19:38

better race or any of the

1:19:40

strategies? Absolutely. None

1:19:43

of that ... It's really about how

1:19:45

does this tire handle this track? That's

1:19:47

right. As we go, we're preparing now.

1:19:50

You get the tires laid out, here's the

1:19:52

sets you get, we're going to have a

1:19:54

practice session, they get one of each, we're

1:19:56

going to have a qualifying session, but to

1:19:58

your point, our Yeah, we want to see

1:20:01

a great race, but from the

1:20:03

sanctioning body, we'll learn something. When

1:20:05

we leave Wilkesboro that Sunday night, we'll

1:20:07

have a data point. Hopefully

1:20:10

it sends us in a direction that, okay, this is

1:20:12

where we need to go. Based

1:20:14

off other events, if

1:20:16

you take obviously Bristol, great data point,

1:20:18

then we go to Richmond where we

1:20:21

start the race on wet weather tires.

1:20:24

The first 30 laps of that race at Richmond,

1:20:26

it looked like Richmond of old. It was great.

1:20:29

All over the place. You

1:20:32

take that and we start to see,

1:20:34

we're not changing arrow bits. We're

1:20:37

still at close to 700 horsepower. The

1:20:41

dialogue around we need 1,000 horsepower,

1:20:44

there's going to be

1:20:47

significant costs to put 1,000

1:20:50

horsepower in these cars. It just is. I know

1:20:52

there's debate back and forth, but it's going to

1:20:54

happen. If we can get to where

1:20:57

we want to be with the tire, working

1:20:59

closely with Goodyear, and we feel like we

1:21:01

can because we see it. Continuing

1:21:05

to push hard in that area to get

1:21:08

us the type of racing on the

1:21:10

short tracks that our fans deserve and

1:21:12

our competitors want to see, like

1:21:14

we just saw at Kansas last weekend. That

1:21:17

place has really turned into a great race.

1:21:23

I'm having a hard time wrapping my

1:21:25

brain around cooler temperatures being a factor

1:21:28

in what we saw at Bristol. I

1:21:33

want to hope, I want to believe, but

1:21:36

if we had 20

1:21:38

degrees warmer temperatures, we would have

1:21:41

had basically the ... Yeah, I

1:21:43

think that's a fair assessment. I

1:21:45

think it's just part of the

1:21:47

equation. How does Goodyear know where

1:21:50

to get to? Yeah,

1:21:52

that's fair. That's a

1:21:54

data point with temperature that was different. The other

1:21:57

thing, as I said earlier, the difference was the

1:21:59

... track treatment, PJ-1 versus

1:22:01

the resin. And the reason,

1:22:03

not to get off-top it,

1:22:05

the reason the track treatment

1:22:07

was different is Bristol

1:22:10

became a wet weather track. Yeah,

1:22:12

we couldn't have that. And you can't run the

1:22:14

PJ-1 and wet, I mean, it would be way

1:22:16

too slick. It would be up on top of

1:22:18

it, right? Exactly. So you start putting all of

1:22:21

that in the equation, whether it's temperature, whether it's

1:22:23

resin, and you

1:22:25

start laying that out

1:22:27

to people that's a lot smarter than

1:22:29

me from an engineering perspective and trying

1:22:31

to get to that place.

1:22:34

If the testing at Wilkesboro with

1:22:37

the tire that will be the

1:22:39

option tire, if the testing, what

1:22:42

we've done and the results of those tests,

1:22:44

then we're gonna see some things at the

1:22:46

all-star race that we're gonna be really happy

1:22:48

about. What did you see at

1:22:50

the test? Well, it's like they're gonna have to

1:22:52

manage that option tire from the table. They're gonna

1:22:54

take it easy. Yeah, I mean, it'd be like

1:22:56

years ago, you go to Rockingham and Darlington. Dude,

1:22:59

that's the only kind of races I run

1:23:01

in the late-mile stock cars where I know

1:23:03

to burn the tires off of it if

1:23:06

you drive it like an idiot. And that's

1:23:08

what we saw at Bristol. You could see the

1:23:10

veterans, you could see Truett and Brad and Denny.

1:23:12

It was beautiful. And Ty

1:23:14

Gibbs did a great job, had a fast

1:23:17

car, but you could say, okay, that's not

1:23:19

gonna work for you. You better start managing

1:23:21

it. But I think to

1:23:23

your point, that's what we need to get to. Yeah,

1:23:25

no, that was great. I

1:23:30

guess the only other thing I kinda wanted to ask

1:23:32

you about was the, Adam

1:23:35

Stern had some tweets about hybrids. I mean,

1:23:37

is that a real, watching

1:23:41

fan reaction to those comments, most

1:23:44

people are like, hey, it's in other forms of

1:23:46

motor sport and it's on the highway. People

1:23:48

think it's a big deal, it's not gonna be a big deal. And

1:23:52

I know that when they started developing the next

1:23:54

gen car, they developed it with

1:23:57

the option, right, to have the open.

1:24:00

to be able to add that

1:24:02

technology. NASCAR wanted to develop a

1:24:05

vehicle that could accept that technology

1:24:09

if that was where we had to go. I know we've

1:24:12

heard O'Donnell talk about

1:24:14

different fuels

1:24:19

and different researching

1:24:21

and traveling all over the globe to try to find

1:24:23

out what the next step is.

1:24:25

Sure. Where do you think we

1:24:27

are in that? How

1:24:30

heavy is the conversation around that? I

1:24:32

think it is

1:24:34

conversation. I think to your point, this car,

1:24:37

a lot of thought and design went into

1:24:39

it, not for just what we're doing today,

1:24:41

but what are we going to do in

1:24:44

the future with sustainable fuels and what are

1:24:46

we going to do with with hybridism and

1:24:48

BEVs and things of that nature.

1:24:51

So, and new

1:24:53

OEMs coming in. I mean that's one

1:24:55

thing that's really, I mean we have

1:24:57

great partners in Chevy and Ford and

1:24:59

Toyota and they've been with us forever.

1:25:03

But we need a platform that will invite

1:25:05

some new OEMs to come and participate.

1:25:08

They love the next gen car. The

1:25:10

one thing that they're not going to

1:25:12

do is they're not going to build

1:25:14

a V8 pushrod engine. So we have

1:25:16

to continue to develop

1:25:18

and look at different platforms

1:25:20

and options that will be inviting

1:25:23

to those OEMs. So a new manufacturer

1:25:26

will not join NASCAR

1:25:28

if it's a pushrod.

1:25:31

That's the, in the conversations that

1:25:33

our folks, John Proops and OD

1:25:35

and that group have had, that's

1:25:38

a deal breaker right there. Where when

1:25:40

Toyota came in, they actually didn't have

1:25:42

that engine and developed it and built

1:25:45

it for the truck. So, kudos

1:25:47

to them. That's just not the world we

1:25:49

live in today. Wow. What kind of motor

1:25:51

do they want us to build? Well, they're

1:25:54

on a different, they're

1:25:56

turbocharged. So we've got to

1:25:58

be prepared. from the sanctioning

1:26:00

body very similar to our sister company

1:26:03

at EMSA and how does balance of

1:26:05

performance work? For

1:26:07

75 plus years, we've raced the

1:26:10

same type of engines, naturally aspirated,

1:26:12

carburetors, cubic inches

1:26:14

are all right there. From an

1:26:16

officiating standpoint, that's

1:26:18

been fairly easy to police. When

1:26:22

you venture into the balance of performance

1:26:24

and torque sensors and

1:26:27

horsepower and torque at the rear

1:26:29

tire, that's a different

1:26:31

way to police your sport, but

1:26:34

we're going to have to figure out how

1:26:36

that looks to be able

1:26:38

to, again, be able to get new OEMs

1:26:40

to come in. Wow. Okay.

1:26:43

I didn't think about that. There could be a

1:26:45

scenario where a new manufacturer comes in with a

1:26:47

different style power plant compared

1:26:50

to another manufacturer and then you would then

1:26:52

do what you do similar in EMSA. Yeah.

1:26:55

You would look at how do you, again, how do

1:26:58

you balance that? It reminds me a

1:27:00

lot, sorry to interrupt you, it reminds me a lot of it's

1:27:03

different, but I would think it'd be

1:27:05

very similar to when Dodge

1:27:07

came back in. Everybody,

1:27:10

even the Fords had different spoilers than the

1:27:12

Chevys and the Stodges had different valences than

1:27:14

everybody else and other people, some had more

1:27:17

kick out, you had a bit of

1:27:19

that balance of power going on

1:27:21

with the aero side of things

1:27:23

back in the early 2000s in the

1:27:25

late 90s. Oh,

1:27:27

that's a great point. I think the next gen

1:27:29

car has helped us from that aero side of

1:27:32

it to keep all three in the same box.

1:27:35

We would have to venture in those

1:27:37

steps on the engine architecture side to

1:27:40

be able to do that same thing.

1:27:43

That'll be challenging, but it will take all

1:27:45

of our partners on the OEM side to

1:27:47

all buy in to

1:27:50

be able to do that. Wow, that's

1:27:52

something. Well,

1:27:54

I appreciate you coming today. I've enjoyed

1:27:56

talking to you. It's been fun. I

1:27:58

was asking our group to to get

1:28:00

you in here because I was really

1:28:02

interested about your Langley days and

1:28:05

having been able to witness that

1:28:07

as a child and

1:28:09

race against you in the Xfinity series. Had some

1:28:11

great runs. I've never had any problems. No, we

1:28:13

didn't. You were a clean racer.

1:28:16

Well, I appreciate that. When

1:28:19

you own your own stuff, the last thing, my

1:28:21

dad said, when you come back and the fenders

1:28:23

are ripped off of it, you're going

1:28:25

to be working just to put it back together. You're

1:28:27

not working on it to make it better or faster

1:28:29

or turn better. Figure that out

1:28:31

and it worked out.

1:28:34

I'm sure I did some things that made you scratch your head

1:28:36

on the racetrack, but I always

1:28:38

enjoyed competing with you. I appreciate that. I

1:28:41

want to say this too. One

1:28:48

of the things that I pay very

1:28:50

close attention to are the people that

1:28:52

NASCAR chooses to put in certain roles.

1:28:54

You mentioned Steve O'Donnell and

1:28:56

Mike Helton. There's

1:29:00

been so many great individuals

1:29:02

that have been in charge of

1:29:05

different parts of our

1:29:07

sport, especially

1:29:09

on the competition side. You'll

1:29:14

be the guy, at least right now, that

1:29:16

the teams go to when they have an

1:29:18

issue with how things are done at the

1:29:21

racetrack and during the actual event. Having

1:29:24

that person be somebody with actual

1:29:26

racing experience and a racing background

1:29:28

is important, but also having that

1:29:30

person have

1:29:32

genuine decent common sense

1:29:34

and someone who's easy to talk to

1:29:37

is important. I'm

1:29:39

fascinated by the certain

1:29:44

individuals that are in these roles as this

1:29:47

whole machine travels down the road decade

1:29:49

after decade. I think that the sport

1:29:52

is very lucky to have you. You're

1:29:54

a huge asset with

1:29:56

all of your experience over the

1:29:58

years driving race cars. and being

1:30:00

a part of the sport, it's got to be

1:30:02

a massive value to them. And they did

1:30:04

a great job allowing you to have the responsibilities

1:30:07

and roles that you've had over

1:30:10

the years and wearing really good hands. So I just

1:30:12

wanted to tell you that. I thank a lot of

1:30:14

you and I appreciate you and thanks

1:30:16

for giving us some time today, Hild. Thank

1:30:19

you my friend. And like you, I have a

1:30:21

passion for this sport. I get up every morning

1:30:23

loving what I do and to

1:30:25

be able to be in the garage and interact

1:30:27

with all the folks that you mentioned and I

1:30:29

appreciate those kind words. All right buddy. I'm

1:30:31

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for the love of home. All right. So

1:31:19

that was great having Elton Sawyer

1:31:23

on the show. And

1:31:26

I guess I forgot,

1:31:28

I heard that they weren't going to really

1:31:31

toy with the car anymore. He talked about

1:31:33

how they changed a lot of things and

1:31:35

just weren't getting anywhere. And

1:31:38

I've read where they're dialing back

1:31:42

what component changes right on

1:31:44

the car and they're going more

1:31:47

toward targeting the tire, which he

1:31:49

said. And

1:31:53

I want to believe that they can get there. I

1:31:55

think they'll have to be aggressive and they'll have

1:31:57

to be willing to. to

1:32:01

slip over the line a little bit. Like, look,

1:32:06

until Bristol, I had never heard

1:32:08

about cool temperatures producing

1:32:10

tire wear. And

1:32:14

as that conversation was going on around,

1:32:16

well, why'd that happen? How'd that happen?

1:32:18

Well, it was unusually cool. Wait

1:32:21

a minute, what, cold temperatures? That usually is

1:32:23

better for tires, right? Less heat. But

1:32:27

anyhow, I hope that

1:32:30

they get what they're looking for. Apparently

1:32:33

they saw some things that's a test at North Wiltsboro that

1:32:35

they were happy with. I'm certain

1:32:37

that if they take that, if

1:32:40

they make that rain tire right, and put it

1:32:42

on a slick, Martinsville

1:32:45

and Richmond will be way better

1:32:48

races. Way better. The

1:32:51

new asphalt at North Wiltsboro will

1:32:54

be a bit of a challenge. But,

1:32:58

you know, I think as we talked earlier yesterday,

1:33:01

that surface is gonna age really

1:33:03

rapidly. And so, anyhow,

1:33:06

I think this altered tire hopefully is

1:33:10

the direction the teams or the sport

1:33:12

can go to find some improvements

1:33:15

in our short

1:33:17

track racing. Plus

1:33:19

his answer on hybrids

1:33:22

was interesting. I

1:33:24

was also surprised by that. I

1:33:27

guess what I heard was there

1:33:29

could be a little overlap where new

1:33:32

manufacturer comes in with a different

1:33:34

style of power plant, whereas the

1:33:37

current manufacturers may be slow

1:33:39

to get that developed and there could be

1:33:41

a little overlap where there's a bit of

1:33:44

balance of power involved, like you

1:33:46

have at IMSA, where they have control

1:33:48

or try to even

1:33:51

out things a little bit to, and

1:33:53

boy, will there be debate

1:33:56

over whether that balance of power

1:33:59

is correct. Right that is

1:34:01

going to be because I remember and I brought

1:34:03

it up when you know

1:34:05

they were given You know the

1:34:07

the fords more spoiler or

1:34:09

they were given the the the

1:34:12

dodges more kick out on the front or lower front Valence

1:34:14

or whatever it was right there was a lot of that

1:34:16

going on back in the late 90s and

1:34:18

early 2000s. I remember Dad

1:34:22

even talking about it That

1:34:26

was this every week was

1:34:28

debatable on whether

1:34:30

a car someone had an advantage and You

1:34:34

were never gonna get that to go away That

1:34:38

nobody was ever gonna leave the racetrack go Yep,

1:34:40

all the manufacturers are pretty even now boy that

1:34:42

meant that are all those arrows because if somebody

1:34:45

has more spoiler You're gonna assume

1:34:47

they got better down force no

1:34:49

matter what the numbers say,

1:34:51

right? You're never gonna believe

1:34:53

if your car got left rear spoiler on

1:34:55

it that you're in it You're an advantage

1:34:58

or you're even neutral to the to the

1:35:00

other competitors. So if

1:35:02

somebody's Car

1:35:05

has to be Tamped tampered

1:35:07

down a little bit in terms of

1:35:10

power. They're never gonna be okay with

1:35:12

that And

1:35:14

so especially when another manufacturers out there running

1:35:17

in front of them. Oh, hey, you know

1:35:20

I've got a complaint because I ain't got power that he has

1:35:24

Oh boy, I would but maybe that's not even

1:35:26

what he was trying to say. Maybe he was

1:35:29

he did say the last thing He did say was You

1:35:32

know They're all gonna have to buy in if

1:35:34

we do allow this other manufacturer come in with a

1:35:36

different style power plant there The rest will have to

1:35:39

buy in does that mean immediately or will there

1:35:41

be like a Grace period of

1:35:43

a year to development. I imagine there

1:35:45

have to be some development time

1:35:48

a lot it Does

1:35:51

NASCAR say what you can't come in until these other

1:35:53

manufacturers have their stuff built? They're ready to build it

1:35:55

and they want to but it's gonna take them six

1:35:58

to twelve months. So you have to wait Who

1:36:00

knows how this plays out? But it

1:36:02

seems like they're getting closer

1:36:04

to understanding

1:36:07

how to get that other

1:36:09

manufacturer in. And

1:36:11

it seems like that could be a reality. The

1:36:15

big game changer for sure. I didn't think it would

1:36:17

happen. But it

1:36:20

was fun talking about its career. I

1:36:22

raced against Elton

1:36:26

and also awesome to hear about Patty and

1:36:28

what she's up to. And

1:36:30

man, she was a tough competitor and

1:36:35

she was a lot of fun to race with. So

1:36:37

anyways, I hope you all enjoyed that. I

1:36:40

was kind of interested

1:36:43

in the conversations

1:36:45

around suspending drivers

1:36:47

and the appeals

1:36:49

panel, race director,

1:36:51

what's up with that. That

1:36:55

helped me a little bit because I've

1:36:57

had some frustrations over the

1:37:00

decisions that are made in the booth sometimes of

1:37:02

what a caution should be or shouldn't. I like

1:37:04

the fact that they go back home and they

1:37:06

go, hey, let's all talk about this.

1:37:09

I think we could have did better here. I

1:37:11

think we should have let that play out. I

1:37:14

like that. I like to know that they're doing that. So

1:37:18

I miss when there was

1:37:20

a David Hootes in the booth. I miss when

1:37:22

there was the same

1:37:25

guy every single week. But

1:37:27

he talked to us about why they can't do it

1:37:29

that way anymore, why there's got to be depth, why

1:37:31

there might be a different person in the booth for

1:37:33

a specific weekend. And

1:37:36

when someone else is the race director, they

1:37:38

see it differently. They think of, you know,

1:37:40

they are going to call it differently. They're

1:37:44

going, what deserves to be a yellow to them

1:37:46

will be different than the other person that was

1:37:48

in that booth the week before. And

1:37:51

so that has been something that I've had to sort of

1:37:55

come to terms with. Let's

1:37:57

talk about this specifically. Going

1:38:00

below the yellow line at Daytona or

1:38:02

Talladega Alright, we

1:38:04

go to Daytona and this used

1:38:07

to happen quite a bit. We go to Daytona for speed

1:38:09

weeks and you'd have Trucks

1:38:12

in Xfinity and Cup in three three

1:38:14

days in a row three

1:38:17

different race directors and different

1:38:20

styles of calls on

1:38:23

blocking and going below the line and So

1:38:26

we would always say hey ma'am. Well you didn't

1:38:28

you know in the truck race you called that

1:38:30

differently and You

1:38:33

get so frustrated Well,

1:38:35

it was because it's a different director. He

1:38:37

made a different choice. He didn't think it was

1:38:39

a block He didn't think the guy he

1:38:42

thought the guy was forced below line. So he chose to

1:38:45

penalize this guy, right And

1:38:47

you had to go. Well, I don't love that. I Wish

1:38:51

it was the same director. It can't be

1:38:54

but damn it I hate when the calls sort

1:38:56

of conflict with each other right

1:38:58

and that was just Went

1:39:01

between series truck and Xfinity and Cup

1:39:03

and now now there's a little

1:39:05

bit of that from week to week just in

1:39:07

the Cup series you'll see a little different style

1:39:09

of what a yellow should be or

1:39:11

could be or How race

1:39:13

plays out but hey, I

1:39:15

do like that. They go home and they talk about

1:39:18

it and they're true There's there's a philosophy that That

1:39:20

Helton believes NASCAR has about that that

1:39:23

they're trying to implement and change and

1:39:26

place in all of these Individuals

1:39:29

that are part of race control and race directing

1:39:33

So, I don't know. I thought it was a pretty fun

1:39:35

conversation I think some people might

1:39:37

walk away from this wishing we were you know, oh

1:39:40

we were hard on I wish we were I wish

1:39:42

they Were hard on him every time we have somebody

1:39:44

in here from NASCAR. They weren't hard enough Like

1:39:47

it's kind of me an interrogation. Yeah, like we're like

1:39:49

we're gonna just make the guy have a miserable experience

1:39:51

I probably gonna walk out of here and never wish

1:39:53

you never wish he comes back.

1:39:55

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're not doing that here.

1:40:00

Anyways, Ah gotta say Gala for

1:40:02

allowing us to have you just

1:40:04

segments every week and proceed. L

1:40:08

offer for allow me to have a known here

1:40:10

and he was one of the people that are

1:40:12

one of the bring year. Because

1:40:15

I think he does do a good job.

1:40:17

I don't envy his position. I don't envy have

1:40:19

to be your i would not wanna be

1:40:21

the guy. That has to go

1:40:24

out there. And and. And. Make The

1:40:26

speech, Elton.

1:40:29

As you progress through. Roles in

1:40:31

Nascar is kaput as Director of Truck

1:40:34

Series and and on and so forth.

1:40:36

Has now in the position where. When.

1:40:38

Slice. penalize with something goes wrong with Nascar.

1:40:40

Makes a mistake. Whatever he's the guy has

1:40:43

stepped from the media. Not.

1:40:45

The job I want. Ah, but he doesn't

1:40:47

He does it well enough. they they got

1:40:49

a great person in that role. And

1:40:53

so by for the than thankful for Allah no

1:40:55

matter what. The same for where the trace tickets

1:40:57

like a new car or do home. For.

1:40:59

All better off with and Allah. All

1:41:07

this is vince These

1:41:10

addition. says. A lot

1:41:12

different than yesterday. That much. Sunday.

1:41:15

Night the tear down just got your me

1:41:17

Auntie They go over everything that went on

1:41:19

a Kansas. Try.

1:41:21

To help you understand how Nascar determines

1:41:24

the winter. When. Both cars cross the

1:41:26

finish line at the same time. Drop

1:41:29

Monday actions detrimental Denny Hamlin Door

1:41:31

proper clear with Joe Edmunds. Door

1:41:34

proper cleared as always.

1:41:37

Rowdy. And. As like they were. Even

1:41:40

more so with oil though with your i'm

1:41:42

Denny Hamlin has some great comments and points

1:41:45

about this past weekend at Kansas, the race

1:41:47

card the next day and car and how

1:41:49

it's debts and does so well those racetracks.

1:41:53

Other drivers just had a blast. This.

1:41:56

Past weekend and. Refreshing

1:41:58

Me it is. I'm.

1:42:01

Are Dirty Air show drop

1:42:03

Yesterday and Speed Street with

1:42:05

Call It really takes Holden

1:42:08

me. On the guests. That.

1:42:10

Drops today tomorrow Dirty Modo

1:42:12

receive a tarp previewing dogs

1:42:14

and a D J D

1:42:16

Reloaded Carlin the games back

1:42:18

did usually says easily Sata

1:42:20

comes from something stupid assailed

1:42:22

his. Would

1:42:25

try and pinpoint. that's one stupid things said

1:42:27

and done. that's our chauffeur for for tomorrow.

1:42:29

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1:42:31

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