Brad Means: Reliving My Childhood with Dale Jr

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download – Episode with Brad Means: Reliving My Childhood with Dale Jr

Release Date: April 30, 2025

In this heartfelt and nostalgic episode of The Dale Jr. Download, NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes longtime friend and fellow racing enthusiast Brad Means. Hosted by Dirty Mo Media on SiriusXM, the conversation delves deep into their shared childhood experiences at racetracks, the influence of their fathers' racing careers, and the enduring bond that has kept their friendship strong over the decades.

---

Introduction to Brad Means and His Racing Heritage

Brad Means, a seasoned car chief for Thor Sport, opens up about his roots in the racing world. His father, Jimmy Means, was a dedicated independent driver in the NASCAR circuit during the '70s and '80s before transitioning to a car owner role in both the Cup and Xfinity series.

Brad Means [03:18]: "I have several best friends, but Brad Means is one of my best friends and has been for all of my life."

Dale Jr. shares his admiration for Brad's background, contrasting his own experience as the son of a celebrated racer.

---

Early Adventures and Mischief at the Racetrack

The duo reminisces about their youth spent navigating the bustling environments of racetracks. As children, they found solace and adventure in the driver's lounges, which served as their playground.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [04:01]: "The driver's lounges were our playground because we were out of the way, places to go, not get in trouble."

One of the most memorable tales involves hijacking a gator at Bristol, showcasing their youthful audacity and the leniency extended to them by adult racers.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [13:30]: "You almost got us in trouble one time at Bristol."

---

Building Friendships Through Shared Experiences

Their friendship was solidified through mutual admiration for each other's fathers and countless shared experiences at various tracks like Riverside, Wilkesboro, and Talladega. They recount moments of camaraderie, such as waxing Rusty Wallace's car with Brad and Dale Jr.’s assistance.

Brad Means [16:34]: "We waxed a couple more cars and then we got this idea to make a sticker and put it on the bumper."

These stories highlight the challenges faced by independent teams and the resourcefulness required to succeed in the racing world.

---

Challenges and Resilience in Racing Careers

Brad delves into the struggles his father faced as an independent racer, emphasizing the financial and technical hurdles. The conversation shifts to innovation and cost-cutting measures essential for survival, drawing parallels to Dale Jr.'s own experiences.

Brad Means [55:11]: "Dad was big time, like back then. Junkyard parts, take steering boxes, steering columns... anything he could salvage."

They discuss specific instances of racing innovations, such as the use of hydraulic systems to gain competitive edges, and the inevitable scrutiny from racing authorities.

---

Personal Growth and Career Pathways

As they matured, both Brad and Dale Jr. navigated their careers within the racing industry. Brad shares his journey from working with various teams to his current role at Thor Sport, highlighting the dedication and hard work required to excel.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [62:13]: "I went to RCR, my first tour of RCR with the 3 truck with Jay Sauter."

Dale Jr. reflects on his own path, working with prominent teams like Yates and Roush, and the sacrifices made along the way, including long commutes and time away from family.

---

Enduring Friendship and Mutual Respect

Despite the divergent paths in their careers, Brad and Dale Jr. maintain a strong friendship rooted in their shared history and mutual respect for each other's families and contributions to the sport.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [83:49]: "We have so many common things. You can keep those common things and that never go away."

They celebrate their enduring bond, reminiscing about the simpler times of running around racetracks as kids and the complex lives they've built since.

---

Closing Reflections

As the episode draws to a close, both hosts express gratitude for their lasting friendship and the unique experiences they've shared. They acknowledge the passage of time but emphasize that their connection remains as strong as ever.

Brad Means [86:43]: "I'm proud of you, man."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [87:06]: "You've been a great friend to me."

Dale Jr. wraps up the conversation by highlighting the importance of shared memories and the unwavering support that has defined their relationship.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Brad Means [03:18]: "I have several best friends, but Brad Means is one of my best friends and has been for all of my life."

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [04:01]: "The driver's lounges were our playground because we were out of the way, places to go, not get in trouble."

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [13:30]: "You almost got us in trouble one time at Bristol."

• Brad Means [55:11]: "Dad was big time, like back then. Junkyard parts, take steering boxes, steering columns... anything he could salvage."

• Brad Means [86:43]: "I'm proud of you, man."

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [87:06]: "You've been a great friend to me."

---

This episode offers a profound look into the lives of two individuals shaped by the high-octane world of NASCAR racing. Through shared stories of childhood adventures, professional challenges, and unwavering friendship, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brad Means provide listeners with an intimate glimpse into the passion and perseverance that fuels their enduring bond.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The new Huggies Snug n Dry are luxuriously soft and ultra dry. How soft are we talking? Unbelievably soft? Irresistibly soft. Doesn't your baby deserve a diaper that's oh, so gentle on their tushy? Huggy Snug n Dry helps keep them comfy, cozy, and protected. Experience the unexpected softness and up to 100% leak protection. More parents choose the new Huggy Snug n Dry softness versus the leading premium diaper Huggies. We got you, baby. You almost got us in trouble one time at Bristol.

[Brad Means]

What happened?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You did hijack like a. Like a gator from somebody. Oh, we're taking it. So we made a little half hot lap on the bottom there.

[Brad Means]

Holy. Yeah, we did what?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you got on it and said, my dad's down heart. We're taking this.

[Brad Means]

The following is a production of Dirty Bone Media. All right, everybody, it's time to get this going. Brad Means, my best friend or one of my great friends. Got. I got several best friends. I don't want to say. I don't want to insult my. My buddy TJ Majors, who's here on Tuesdays, but Brad Means is one of my best friends, has been for all of my life. And his dad, Jimmy, was an independent in the NASCAR circuit back in the 70s and 80s and then became a car owner for many, many years through the Cup Series and the Xfinity series up until recently. He's finally retired, I suppose, but we'll learn more about that. But Brad grew up, his father a struggling independent, trying to get from one track to the next. And we were best friends, and my dad obviously had a decorated career. And that was a very, very fun time in my life, running around the racetracks as a young teenager with Brad and the shenanigans that we get ourselves into. So we're gonna try to see if he remembers any of those things and just kind of, you know, maybe get introduced to what, you know, some of the dynamics might have been like for him. I know what my life was like as the son of Dale Earnhardt, but his experience as the son of a very determined, yet challenged, struggling independent was completely different. And it should be fun learning about that. So let's bring him on in the room. Throw them headphones on. So Brad Means on the Dell Jr. Download. Brad means is my friend. We have known each other since we were very little. Your dad, Jimmy Means, was an independent on the NASCAR circuit as a driver from the 70s all through the. The early 90s, I suppose. 93 93. And then he became a car owner. You have been a mechanic, mostly body man in this sport, working in various roles as you continue to do today for Thor sport, as it says on your T shirt on. And we're going to get into all of that, but thanks for coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thanks for having me.

[Brad Means]

When I. When you got a call about coming on the show, what did you think?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I couldn't wait.

[Brad Means]

All right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Couldn't wait.

[Brad Means]

So have you been leaning on you. Because I'm hoping that you've had some. Have some good stories.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we have plenty of stories. Right. We could talk forever.

[Brad Means]

Put them in notes. You have it in your head.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's all my head. We have note. Yeah. Tons of notes. Yeah. My memories are pretty. Pretty vivid, actually, from childhood. Things we did, places we went, you know.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

People we hung out with, times, drivers, all the stuff, you know, that we did.

[Brad Means]

So to get right into the stories that I think we're gonna end up telling, one of my favorites was when we hid Davey Allison's jacket at Norhawksboro. Yeah. This is me and Brad at the racetrack all through our childhood. This is what we did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

At the time. The driver's lounges were. The driver's lounge. They're our playground because we were out of the way, places to go, not get in trouble. Right. And back then, they would actually shower in the driver's lounge. Right. And that building, I think, still there.

[Brad Means]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's not as I kind of looked last year to see if it might be, you know, in there's, like, Al Capone's vault.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was not, but so then Davey comes in, takes his havoline jacket off and hangs it up and go. Gets in the shower. And we like what we do. So we go over there, grab his jacket, take that, the return duck for the AC unit, and hide his jacket in the duct and leave with a jacket in there. So I'd like to find. It'd be awesome if somebody has found that jacket. And really, years later. Yeah, we left it. Yeah, we ran.

[Brad Means]

I thought we sat.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We were scared in there.

[Brad Means]

Till he came back out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We were scared.

[Brad Means]

Oh, my God.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I was scared. You might have stayed. I was scared. It was nuts to be able to go around those guys all the time. And they, like, knew who we were. Obviously knew who you were. More so. But, I mean, they didn't. They weren't bothered by us. We were not a pest. I'm sure we were a pest, but they were necessarily evil for our dads to be there. Right. So they tolerated that. So there's. And like going to Bristol's driver's lounge, you know, so loud they'd be hanging out in there and Bobby Allison stepping on your shoes with his boots and like just. It's so awesome to think the number of hall of fame drivers, people that we've been in contact with, our lives in our lives, it's like, it's normal. It's normal, right? It's every week. And the people that are still around today that you can, that you see at the racetrack and they say hey to you and shake your hand and that's pretty amazing to me that they'll never forgot us or you know, obviously, you know, you're a big time media superstar. But they don't ever forget the people in this sport.

[Brad Means]

They remember us as those little boys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right? Yeah, we're old.

[Brad Means]

Where did we meet?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Riverside, California.

[Brad Means]

Yep. What was going on?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was actually on my dad's car cover, standing out of the way. And I'm pretty confident. Cause we were only like 10, spent a minute for that. Right. Then my dad got me and took me to. Your dad's trailer is you and Kelly over there with the old stacker style. Not the up top, the stacker style. Opposite side of the garage. We hung out all weekend, you know, we'd. I'd heard stories back and forth from our dads about hey, we have sons, you know.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that's the first opportunity to be around each other.

[Brad Means]

You went to more races than I did. I got to go to, to quite a few.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But you went, you went all the local stuff, right? Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And yeah, I'd heard a little bit about. There was you, Brad Means, Jimmy means son. And I don't know how this happened, but. So I don't remember, I don't remember Riverside. I remember I thought it was Wilkesboro, but maybe we met. What year was Riverside, do you remember?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

86.

[Brad Means]

86, yeah. So I remember being in the infield at Wilkesboro and I was in dad's trailer. It was a Friday or a Thursday. We were there for practice. We show up, it's 9:30 or something in the morning. There's no pit wall or nothing. And we're just. There's the haulers and the cars are parked at the back of the haulers at an angle. And you'd get in the car, back out and pull out on the racetrack and practice and it's still about two hours before practice is going to start. And dad's car, Dad's car and hauler were on the very end, toward the exit of pit road. And the next hauler beside us was your dad's. And I don't know how I became a fan of your dad's, but. And this is something that has stuck with me in all sports is I love an underdog. And I don't know what that's about, but. Or why I do that, but I love, like, that. That young, underfunded team that gets into, you know, the. The NCAA basketball bracket and tries to go all the way. Right. And I love those upsets and the story behind it. Yeah. Just cool. And so, for whatever reason, like, you know, I had dad as a guy to pull for. Right. And. And there were other drivers, but I became a big fan of your dad's for some reason. And it wasn't just him and other independents, it was just him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

And I even. I liked your dad so much that when I started racing myself in the street stocks, I painted my street stock exactly like your dad's. Cause he had this red Eureka vacuum cleaner. Eureka vacuum cleaner car with a black hood. And I thought, man, race cars with black hoods are cool. Right, right. And I. So I mimicked that. But dad knew that I liked your dad, Jimmy. And we're sitting there, and this was really unique, kind of out of Dad, a character for dad. He come over and he goes, hey, you want to meet Jimmy? He's right here. And your dad's working.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. He's guts out.

[Brad Means]

Right, Right. And, like, my dad goes, racetrack. And there's six, seven guys working on a car. And he's just standing there, folding his arms, watching.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

And joking with everybody. Your dad's, like, doing everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And changing valve springs. Whatever it takes, right?

[Brad Means]

So he says, hey, Jimmy, this is my son, Dale Jr. He's a big fan of yours. And, I mean, it was really. And your dad, I think, even in that moment, said, I have a son, Brad, same age. And I, in my mind, thought that we were. We were put together there. But. And so maybe. Maybe what I think was Wilkesboro actually is what happened at Riverside.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's been a minute.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

But I remember I thought that was so neat for my dad because I didn't talk about it a ton. So I thought it was so neat for my dad to recognize that I was a fan of Jimmy's and that he thought it'd be cool for me to meet him instead of just. Because dads don't do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right?

[Brad Means]

Right. Our dads didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, not at all.

[Brad Means]

Your dad wouldn't go, hey, I know you like this. You want to go see him? You want to go meet him?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You want to go?

[Brad Means]

Nah. No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Our dads are the same. Same cloth, same style, rough, like, I mean, just.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No communication, right?

[Brad Means]

No communication.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And so from that moment on, like, we became friends. And every single time that I went to a race, my very immediate thought as soon as I got on the property was, is Brad here? And where is Brad at?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And there were other people as well. We had other friends. Scott Williams was one. Scotty, he was Doug Williams son. Doug Williams was a crew chief, worked on Bud Moore's team forever as a mechanic, became a crew chief for Cal Yarbrough and other teams. Mike Whitcomb was Bob Whitcomb, the car owner's son. Bob Whitcomb's car won the Daytona 500 with Derek Cope. And Mike was our age as well, and we ran around with him when he would come, he didn't come quite as often.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

But he was always a lot of fun. Heidi Bodine, Brett's daughter, was. Was a friend of ours, and. And I would. If I saw Heidi today, she would. She's the kind of person to be just thrilled to see you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

Jason Jarrett. Jason Jarrett.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was like we had a. A whole pack of us.

[Brad Means]

It was Jason's. Dale's son. Am I missing anybody? Who else was it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know Justin Labonte a little bit.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because he was younger. Yeah. So. But that was the core group of people. You know, it was. It was like the Rat Pack running around. It was like playing in the water at Daytona and Lake Lloyd. Like, it's been. It's amazing. Like, I guess it's growing up in our era. Like, you go at home, you just go ride your bike all day and come back when it's dark. We did that at racetracks.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, it was kind of the same thing. Just don't get. Just don't die.

[Brad Means]

You know, our dads, we would. I try to explain that to people. I'm like, man, we would. When I got to the racetrack, I felt like when I was at home, I had to be. I had to. I mean, I could go and do as I pleased, and I could go out of the house and down to the pier, and I could fool around. But if I went up to my buddy's house, I had to tell dad or tell Theresa. If I left the house and went for any reason, I needed to let them know. But when we went to the racetrack, I went with my dad. You went with your dad. And as soon as we got on the property, you just. They were. They. They were focused on what their role was that day. And you could just do. Right, man. And when we go to Talladega, dude, we'd walk out to the museum, you know, right. 13, 14 years old. We just. We just go out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's probably not that safe, thinking back, looking about that like, it wasn't.

[Brad Means]

Didn't feel that dangerous. And we walked over to the dirt track and watch the dirt races and not tell our dads where we're at.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Or just go, right?

[Brad Means]

And I just. I. We'd go to Bristol and walk all over the place, you know, and be out of the. We'll be out of our dad's hollers, in everybody else's hollers, messing, you know, in. In the way, right? And not.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But not. We didn't make anybody mad, though. That was the oddest thing, that we didn't. Nobody cared at that point. It would. You wouldn't. It would now be way different now. But, like, that was a cool thing for me.

[Brad Means]

It just blows my mind that we just. We just made that place our playground. And we never got ourselves in trouble.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Brad Means]

Never.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Brad Means]

I don't remember ever getting a. You know. What the hell are y'all thinking?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You almost got us in trouble one time at Bristol.

[Brad Means]

What happened?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You did hijack like a. Like a gator from somebody. Oh, you guys. We're taking it. So we made a little. Little half hot lap on the bottom there. I brought it back.

[Brad Means]

When was that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bristol.

[Brad Means]

What year?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Proud to be 87.

[Brad Means]

Holy. Yeah, we did what?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you got on it and said, my dad's Dylan Hart. We're taking this.

[Brad Means]

And what did we do?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just rode it around.

[Brad Means]

Rode right back around the track like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, like, just like in the pit. Behind. Yeah, no, not on the track. No. We probably got escorted out of there for that. But yeah, just kind of, you know.

[Brad Means]

And then we got. What happened?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nothing. We brought it back.

[Brad Means]

We brought back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They weren't gonna say anything to you.

[Brad Means]

All right. I don't know how old were. I mean, I couldn't have been that old.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

12.

[Brad Means]

12. Jesus. My dad would whoop for that. He would if he'd have known, right? God almighty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was like. You were like the talkative, outgoing one.

[Brad Means]

I was like, I don't see myself as that. So I was like, no. I felt.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Compared to me, back down. Yeah, you were. We were. But you're more prevalent in that space than what I was.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, you Were. You were very reserved compared to me. But one of my favorite things that we did at Bristol was me and you and Scotty. Scotty was the orchestrator of a lot of our plans. And I don't remember. I think he might have had been somebody that came up with this. But I could see you doing this as well. This wasn't really something that I would do. But we were walking around in the pits. Usually we were off. Usually we were in the driver's lounge or eating goof. Eating candy out of everybody's hollers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Trickle Snickers bars out of his briefcase.

[Brad Means]

Right. Usually we were just eating junk food and just messing around and trying to. Trying to get a good vantage point for practice or whatever. We wanted to always be able to see perfectly. But this particular day we wanted to work and we. Some one of us came up with this plan to put together a somewhat serious business of wax that was way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

More Scotty than me.

[Brad Means]

Of waxing the super boxes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Super waxing. Yes. All right, we. What I remember about this is we're walking around on Friday. Ish. Maybe Thursday. Friday we ended up one of the guys on the team asked us if we would wax the car. And it might have been Scotty's team tripartic number 66 Pontiac Cale Yarbrough's deal. It might have been your dad's car, I don't know. But wasn't my dad, that's for sure. They wouldn't ask us to do that. But they were like, y'all busy yourselves. Why don't y'all do this?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're like, okay, let's wipe something. Yeah, right.

[Brad Means]

And so we wax that car. We got done and wasn't like we hadn't done it before, but we got done. We're like, hey, why don't we go up down the pits and ask these other teams if we could wax their cars? And we didn't really think anybody would let us. Right. Couple 12, 13, 14 year old kids. No, don't touch the car. Get that. You know, and so I remember we waxed a couple more cars. These guys, you know, we. We asked some of the back markers maybe and. And waxed a few cars and then we got this idea. We were like, hey, there's. This is right around the time when the bumper cam came out. And we were like, what if we made a sticker and we asked somebody if we can wax the car and put this sticker on the bumper and maybe it'll be on tv. I think it was on espn. Back then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. It would have been at that time.

[Brad Means]

So we go over, we get a. We get a white sticker, like a sticky note with. And we wrote. We drew on their super waxers. And we put our names in, I think pen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right, Right.

[Brad Means]

And not like sharpie or nothing. It was just like ink pen. And we colored it in and made it best we could. And then we went over to Rusty Wallace's car and we asked Barry Dodson and we said, hey, can we wax Yalls car? Car's sitting on jack stands. Probably an hour or two break between practices. And they were like, yeah, we're like, we got this sticker. If we wax your car, can we put the sticker on your car? And they were like, where you want to put it? We're like, right here on the bumper. Just. We just want the nose cam maybe to catch it. And they were like, yeah, we couldn't believe it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

So you and I and Scotty wax the 27 Kodiak Pontiac. We stuck this little sticker on the back bumper. And I feel like that. I remember I'd have to go back and watch it, but I feel like I remember us seeing that sticker. Maybe not legibly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. Just notice the space.

[Brad Means]

But we knew what it was that occupied during the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. That's our sticker. Right. You know, there it is. Yeah. You knew it was there.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. And do you remember that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And think back. Those cars were street stocks. We couldn't hurt them. Like, you could not. There's no way if we could have physically hurt them by cleaning them.

[Brad Means]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Unlike today's cars. Right.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You get thrown out of tech for, you know, like moving something. 12,000 or whatever. But you couldn't hurt those cars. Back then. All the pictures of the guys, like, laying on the deck lids between practices, like it was a bed, you know, like you couldn't. You couldn't hurt them. So that was. That was to our benefit back then.

[Brad Means]

So I. That was one of my favorite stories or favorite memories. And I don't think from that moment on or before that we'd ever did anything more productive, but probably not more mischief.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean? Just hanging out.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, we used to. This is going to make. Not make a lot of sense to a lot of people, but we used to go into those drivers lounges. And now this is when we were like 10, 11, 12 years old. We used to go into the driver's lounge and we'd move the furniture around to create us a racetrack. And we would race. We Would walk, race. Remember that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Brad Means]

It was dumb as. And we would walk. We would walk around with like our hands like this. Out, like, out. Like, this is our grill.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Our bumper.

[Brad Means]

Our bumper. And this is our. Our arms were our fenders. And we'd walk around and be. And we'd. We'd run into each other and bend our render cars up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You can't be bigger dorks. And we were.

[Brad Means]

No, we were super dorky.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, it's nuts.

[Brad Means]

And we would have these races, walk races. You couldn't run. You couldn't. And it really. We weren't trying to like, win or lose. It was just. We were trying to crash. Yeah, it's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's insane what you try to race.

[Brad Means]

And that was also kind of a Scotty, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was the Scotty idea. He led that. Yes, he led that one for sure.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. Scotty was the. Scotty was always gonna come up with something fun to do. I think Whitcomb was more mature than us.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think he was more apt to be in trouble more so than us.

[Brad Means]

Now, he was the one with. Hey, I got a rental car, right? When we turned 16 and got our driver's license, we still couldn't go anywhere because we'd go to these races and we were at the mercy of where our dads were gonna go. Right. We didn't have our own rental car. Right. We couldn't borrow theirs. No way. No, he did. His dad would be like, yeah, take the rental car. Whatever y'all want to do. You know that feeling you get when you're watching drivers fight it out on the racetrack, giving it everything they've got for the checkered flag? Well, you can capture that feeling forever with cars from Lionel Racing, the official diecast of nascar. The ultimate way to celebrate the biggest moments in racing. These die casts aren't toys. They're authentic, high quality replicas of your favorite rides from the sport's biggest stars, including myself and the guys on my race team. Whether you're a longtime collector or a fan who's new to the sport, Lionel Racing die casts bring the heart of racing to your shelf or man cave. With incredible detail, they're built with precision, with all the exact decals, logos and paint schemes you've seen on the actual cars. And trust me, these cars make you feel like you're right there in the middle of it. So head to lionel racing.com, your favorite racing team shop, or any authorized retailer, and start building your collection today. And don't forget, you can find a wide selection of die casts at the Lionel stores and Concord Mills near Charlotte Motor Speedway and Opry Mills in Nashville.

[Unknown]

There's nothing better than when your company is growing and you realize you need to expand. But the problem is you need someone as soon as possible. The company is growing and you don't have time to wait. How do you find quality candidates Fast? Easy. Just use Indeed.

[Brad Means]

Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites with Indeed sponsored jobs. Your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates and you can stand out and reach the people you want to faster. There's no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. According to Indeed data, sponsored job posts directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs.

[Unknown]

There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility. And@ Indeed.comdaleJR just go to Indeed.comdaleJR right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.comdalejr Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

[Brad Means]

One of the other. You know, we talked about this story on, on the show before. I don't remember you being there, but some of these moments, it's so singular. And in this particular instance, it happened on top of the Purolator hauler and it was Mike Wickham's dad's laptop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Steve Peterson's.

[Brad Means]

Well, yeah, it was Mike Wickham's dad's hauler. His team, Derek Cope, Steve Peterson, who would become a top official in nascar, was an engineer for this team and he had a laptop and nobody had laptops back then. A laptop was like a new, it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was probably 10 grand. Yeah. @ that time. Right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah. Crazy. And they had all this data and they were using this laptop to, to try to learn all they could about this car. And it's probably one of the first few laptops of me and you'd ever seen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I've never seen one.

[Brad Means]

Right. And we're just trying. The practice has started. And again when we, when the track was going to be hot, we rarely missed a lap. A lap. If the, if practice began, you and me and whoever else was with us, we had already planned and ahead of time where we were gonna watch that practice from. And this particular practice, we jump on top of the hauler in the middle of the garage at Michigan where you can't see anyways to jump up there and Watch. And that laptop sitting there on the corner. On the corner, up against the railing on this little table, and I bumped the damn thing somehow. I don't know how, but I've knocked it off the top of that truck and it landed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm just so glad you did it. Not me. That's all. I.

[Brad Means]

It was like I. I feel the. The. The way my. The way my heart sunk and the anxiety and feeling that I. I feel it every time I think about this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can still. I can. I know what that feeling would feel like.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because we're the same type of.

[Brad Means]

Even though it's years ago and laptop's long gone and it don't matter.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

I felt like. And you know what? I don't remember my ass getting beat for it. Which. It.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Which. That's. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Beatable. Ass beaten.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right? That's definitely.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, I should have gotten ass whooping for that one. But I knocked that damn laptop off and didn't even realize I'd done it. And I think you or Mike Wickham looked over the rail and you. And was like, holy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, dude.

[Brad Means]

And I look over the rail and I see it on the ground down there, and I'm like, that thing didn't survive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, oh, no, not. It was like glass. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

What happened after that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's all I remember. It was like it was overdone with. For that. You got more trouble for not bringing change back for Go Karts. And you probably did for that.

[Brad Means]

I know we would go to these towns, and for example, one was Talladega. And a lot of these little racing towns, towns near these racetracks had pay to ride Go Karts. And they would fill up. All the people in the industry and hotels and stuff, they didn't have nowhere to go, nothing to do. So a lot of times you'd go to these little go kart tracks, like, next to the hotel at Talladega, and you'd see some of the crew chiefs, crew members, and everybody's being goofy and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Having fun, getting thrown out, right?

[Brad Means]

Being wild, bumping. But we knew where all these were, and we knew weeks ahead of time. Man, we get to Talladega, y'all, it's gonna be fun. And so we would spend the afternoon at the racetrack getting up the nerve.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To ask our dads for the money.

[Brad Means]

For the money. Because we didn't have any money, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's the best times of my life, was every weekend going to the racetrack. Obviously, back then, right? We had so many races, like, talking about going to more races, we had so many races close to home. Like two Wilkesboros, two Martinsville's, two Rockhams, two Bristols, two Rockinghams. You know, so there's so many races. Like, I was sick a lot on Friday from school so I could go, you know, ride a lot. It was like the best way to grow up. It was not easy. Right. You know, it's like struck, you know, dad struggling and like trying to make races and like not finishing, blowing up. It was like not the. So that was a thing, you know, seeing him, like work so hard. Right. And not. Unfortunately, I wasn't born when he had success. Short track race in Alabama and Nashville and that stuff back then, you know, So I hate. I didn't get to see that. Right.

[Brad Means]

He was a weekly series champion.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

In 75. 474 from Nashville, Nashville. But he also.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Huntsville, too.

[Brad Means]

Huntsville, Alabama.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

At one point. He led points for. At all three at Birmingham, Huntsville and Nashville.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, I had that helmet. You gave me that helmet for your 40th birthday, I believe, in this room at one point. But I've got it back home where he's. It's his championship Winston Racing series helmet that you get.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was an honor back then. That's every.

[Brad Means]

Some drivers would start wearing the racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because it was new, right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah. It was like a badge of honor.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. It was their own trophy.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But to be able to see, you know, for us not be able to see those times and like, struggle, you know, I remember, like, Bristol was always a tough one for some reason, either to make it because the fields were shorter. Yeah. We had like a lot of problems at semi. We didn't not make the race or like blown right. Front tires or have, you know, like blow motors. It's just always. You went there all the time. So maybe that's maybe why you realize there's more. You had more struggles because you went there the most. Right. As far as your. The times you went. I can remember going. And we blew up and we had a red flag or something get across the racetrack. And I think it was one of the races were sterling in the 44 Piedmont Airlines car. Backs in the fence, all the green smoke. You know, when it's asphalt, right. And we're driving home and after the end of the race, we listen to the race and they would. The commentators would vote on good headache award. Right. And it was 500 bucks. And I can remember my mom and dad sitting there and dad hoping that he got it. Oh for. You know, because he, you know, because he didn't Finish and broke his motor. You know, that's. Those things are like crazy to think about how the advancement of the sport. Like 500 bucks meant something. Now it's got to be five. It's five million. You know, it's the way the growth of. It's insane. Yeah. But those like. I learned a lot, you know, how hard dad worked. And I work my guts out still because I learned that from my dad, you know, so it's. I don't have any other way to be, you know, but it's. I remember we were coming back from. We moved to North Carolina from Huntsville. When my dad's straight truck, which he's got back now. I'll send you pictures right. Coming back from Nashville, the winch wipers quit. We'll have to get home to go to get ready for the next race. Because the weeks were shorter. Far as the prep week was shorter.

[Brad Means]

Races over Sunday. You had to be back to track Thursday morning at the latest.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. So pulling her overpass, mom and dad opened the vent windows up. They get some coat hangers, tie the coat hangers to the windshield wipers and hook it in the. In the truck and go down the road running the windshield wipers. So get home. Like so many stories of those era, guys, just to get home. Like taking the motor out of the tow truck. I think my dad's told you that story before. Taking the motor out, put it in and go down the road and like just to get home. Yeah. The things they did to make it and survive and want to. Just to want to race, you know. And I think that never goes away.

[Brad Means]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you want to race, it never goes away like ever. I still want to race. Right, you never. It never goes away. Right.

[Brad Means]

I Speaking about, you know, your dad's struggles as an independent. I remember we went to Jimmy had the. Jimmy gets the sponsorship with Alk Seltzer. You designed that car for him. So Alka Seltzer, somebody. Some. Some. Somebody down in. In the background designed a car and it was too beast, too busy and ugly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

You sat down, drew it out on a. Tell that story there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So. Yeah, we. So I would always. Dad had people that try to get him sponsors. And then back then there wasn't. Like we didn't have the technology that we have today, obviously. I mean I'm sure it existed, but not like most stuff was hand drawn, like from real artists.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, bass not a 12 year old, but we got pretty good at drawing cars. We do that as. Right. So he had up to several like the proofs that were all super busy. So, dad, that won't show up. Let me try something. So it was simple, right? You can't. It's just a box. I just drew the box basically as a car, and they gave it to them and they liked it, so that was what they picked. So that was pretty neat as a 12 year old. So then after that, anything that anybody did for sponsorship, I would always draw. The cars I draw, I drew. So I drew so many cars, like different sponsorship proposals. Get all my color pencils out and draw it all 3D. You know, like, you had to make it look good, right? Yeah, I did. Like Cellular One. I think actually Cellular One ended up being with Jeff Bodine later and had my paint scheme. Yeah, that was really good at getting people, other people, sponsors. He'd, like, introduce them to people, right? Introduce them to the sport, of sorts.

[Brad Means]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then somebody else would get them, right? Because they were bigger name, more, you know, more goods, more glamour, you know.

[Brad Means]

So I remember when you got the Alka Seltzer deal and we went to. I remember going to Wilkesboro. He qualified 16th. And I remember you feeling so excited about how well he had qualified, and something happened in the race, and there was just. There's another one we won't talk about here in a minute, but I remember that being the. The race starts, he lost a few spots, but something ended up breaking on the car. Motor blew up. Whatever. You probably remember what it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not for that. I don't. For that.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. But I remember. I remember the. The. The chat, I guess, not the challenge, but the. The dynamic, I guess, between me and you, where you. You know, my dad had this really great opportunity and. And would have. Would go out there and was probably going to win. Going to win. And your dad was going to survive. Right. And just try to make it make sense. And I remember there being moments when, you know, there would. He would come to the racetrack and have a little extra speed. You know, for example, that day in Wilkesboro where he qualified in the top 20, that was pretty remarkable.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And then you would get your hopes up, and I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, man, I mean, I would love it if you had a good day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right?

[Brad Means]

You know, and you would. You would get so excited. And then when something goes south in the race, I remember the heartbreak.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's like you still hate, like, even, like, you know, dad hasn't took a car to the racetrack in the last couple of years, but, you know, they could go, like, in the last probably five years, they raced, like, the speedways, right? Yeah, they could. With Joy Gase, they add, like, some, like, top five finishes or, you know, really good finishes.

[Brad Means]

Xfinity team.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And, like, you hang your hat on those. Right? So those moments, you like to keep going, right? Because that's why you do it so, like, is you be competitive. And I'm sure, like, those moments, even today. Right. In my career, what I do, you still live to, like, make that difference and be better and perform. So I know that was for, like, from my dad back then. It's like, yeah, that's why we're doing it. We can't. We can compete. We can do it. You know, it keeps you, like, driving maybe when you. I mean, keep you pushing forward, maybe you should quit, but just not. You're not made that way, Right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah. The one race I think that is. It's a tough one to talk about, but in when, I guess when Tim Richmond was going through his struggle with aids, in between, I think Tim getting out of the car and Benny Parsons eventually taking the car on and finishing out that deal. Before Kenny Schrader comes in, there's an open invitation by Rick Hendrick for your dad to drive the 25 Folgers car at Charlotte Merchant Speedway. Now, they renumbered the car number 52 because that was your dad's number. When you heard about this opportunity. This is again in 1987. 87. When you heard about this opportunity, what did you think?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was? The greatest thing ever. Right. It's an opportunity, like, for my dad to make it. Right. That was an elite car at that time. Right. And to think about Rick offering that to dad at that time, it's pretty phenomenal. Of all the people, right? Of all the people. So obviously Rick saw something in a race somewhere that, you know, your dad.

[Brad Means]

Weeks before had ran at Richmond in the Eureka car and drove past my dad to take the lead and lay it a handful of laps, ended up running about seventh or eighth in that race. And it was probably. Arguably the best.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Probably performance wise, right? Actual performance, right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Your dad literally had a car that was capable of winning that afternoon. And I think that that moment, you know, show was the. That was probably what Rick saw. Saw and said, well, we got a chance here. Who do we put in there?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What are you gonna do? Right. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

What are they gonna do? But here's a guy that man might really have the ability to do it, right? Let's go do something fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he won't tear my car up on his own. Right. Because you have to. You have to take care of your equipment. Right. So the coolest thing I told you this many times before is like I think two weeks before that before they had. Before they called dad, we went to Walkamaugh Pottery and I bought a folders model and I built the model because we. Drawing cars models. That's what we did. Right. And I cut the numbers in half and made it to 52.

[Brad Means]

And before this delivery before two weeks before. So it hadn't even been.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no. It was just my. I just did it. And that was so that, that was cool because it was the same number. Their font you had not my dad's font.

[Brad Means]

With their font you manifested this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. Which I think is pretty real in the world.

[Brad Means]

You know, I do too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But yeah, it was pretty neat experience for my dad.

[Brad Means]

You remember going there when. So the track opened I think on Wednesday for practice. Do you remember going? Were you there?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wasn't. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

What's the first thing you remember about that weekend?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For me, the best thing that I remember or first thing in my memory is getting. So my sister didn't go to a lot of races. She was more like. It's not really. Wasn't her thing. But I remember walking across this introduction stage on my dad. Her and I both.

[Brad Means]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Walking across that and getting cheers. Right. Because he was in a. Like a good car and starting up front. So that was a neat qualified fourth. Fifth.

[Brad Means]

Fifth. So your dad goes out there and qualifies the car fifth. And me and you are going to watch this race. You're going to watch it with me in this. In this condo. The new condos and Charlotte Mary Speedway had been built over in turn one. Perfect. Perfect. We hold down. Yeah, perfect. We're going to sit up there and. 600 mile race. So like we're gonna sit up there and watch your dad just see what happens. Right. It's a long day. Hell yeah, man. See how this goes. It should be fun. And where the race takes off and your dad being independent, conservative, very conservative. And so he's. He loses a few spots. Right. Was riding a little bit, taking her easy. Long day. But that sort of conservative style would end up creating a situation that was unavoidable. And I remember dad got caught up in this wreck too. Going down into turn one. I don't remember who did it. It was Derek running. What'd he do? Running to the side of my daddy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think so.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. So Derek runs in the side of dad. He'll hit Derek will Come through that door in a minute, argue with us.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But it was him.

[Brad Means]

It was a hell of a wreck.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

About 20. Damn car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a big wreck.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. 12, 15 cars. Your dad is in it. Destroyed both ends. Just bad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So they later used that car as a Jaws of life demonstration car at her track somewhere. That's how bad it hurt it.

[Brad Means]

And it was like maybe 10 laps in it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Maybe no more than 20, right? No more than 20.

[Brad Means]

I'm. Where's. Me and you were sitting up in this condo. Teresa, Kelly, the rest of our family, aunts, uncles, other people. It was about 15 people in there. But me and you were sitting up there at the front on the couch, right at the window, foreheads to the glass. Right. And I remember us crying, like, real tears. Like, you know, it's like the. I had just sat there and watched my own dad. I mean, dad's gonna repair his car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's gonna be.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. He knocked a toe out on his car and he run like the rest.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Of the day, but it's gonna be fine. It's just a bad day, right?

[Brad Means]

Just a bad day for him. But your dad's one shot ended that way, and I could not make sense of that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I can, like, you know, I've not really talked to that a whole lot about it after the fact, but I can't imagine what it feels like, right, to get one shot. That's it. How long you think about. Maybe I get another one or another. You know, what's. How that. How you process that? Because that was only the only one, right? How do you deal with only. Only one, you know, that's.

[Brad Means]

They never got another chance. Right. I talked to him on our show about that, and his response about like, hey, I had to go back to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. Just go back to do.

[Brad Means]

Right. I had to just go back to doing what I'm doing. And I thought I didn't. It's hard to say these things to him without. I don't want to insult him or disrespect him, but he's. You know, he had. He had this taste of what. What good drives, like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

Right. And he knows what he can get out of his own stuff. And it ain't that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

No matter how hard he works.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

And that's what it. But that's where he's got to go back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right? It's hard. I mean, I can't. It's.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And I just felt like, man, what if there was a. You know, if you believe in manifesting and you believe. Or, you know, if you believe in, like, things happen for a reason or whatever. Right. Like, what was the reason for that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. How do you make sense of it? What's the. What. What is the reason?

[Brad Means]

I still don't really know today, like, why that had to go down that way the way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me either. You know, I mean, like, it's. It's awesome. Sad all at the same time.

[Brad Means]

I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's.

[Brad Means]

Man, we cried and. And I don't. I don't remember much about the rest of the day. It was pretty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I remember riding home and just being, like, heartbroken. I remember. I remember the whole ride home.

[Brad Means]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Complete silence. I mean, what do you say? Right? There's nothing to say. You know, it's. But it's the. The best way to grow up, you call it. It's the. I mean, my first memories are going to race. Like, I went to. Like, that's my first memories ever in life. Like, and you're my oldest friend. I've known you longer than anybody in my life other than a family member. Yeah. That's crazy to think, right? We're like, I'm gonna be 49 in a couple weeks. That's insane. We're not 10 anymore. You know, it's like time goes by so fast. I don't feel old, though. I don't act old. I don't think I've, Like, I have super high energy.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I go from when I can to a camp every day.

[Brad Means]

Do you remember going back to. Going back to the Talladega dirt track? I do remember getting my ass busted by dad once. And I think this was with you. And I don't know if you remember this, but dad. And a lot of. A lot of the. That we have memories of happened around 87, but dad and Bill Elliot duked it out in the All Star Race. And there was a me. And you were walking around Talladega and all over the racetrack, and there was. I kept seeing these shirts, and it was just a white T shirt, and it had blue and yellow and red and gold.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Marks. Like somebody ran.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, the smeared ones.

[Brad Means]

Tire marks and all kinds of. And it said, guess who ran into me today? Is all it said something like that. And it could. You could deter. You could. You could say, well, it's. It's not a knock on one or the other. Right, Right. Because it had the smears and the colors of both dad and Bill Elliot's car. And so my. My processing of it was, look, I looked at those shirts And I went, oh, man, that's neat. I want one of them, you know, because I liked dad's aggressive nature, right? I liked it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And, dude, I wanted my dad to push everybody out of the way, right? And so I liked the shirt. And I got one. We went. I got the shirt on the way over to the dirt track. Me and you walked over to the dirt track or got a hitched a ride. I don't remember. But we're gonna go to the dirt track and watch the races, and we end up over there at the dirt track. I've. I somehow had 20 bucks to get one of them T shirts. And I put that T shirt on, get to the racetrack, and there's some airbrushing somebody. Airbrushing shirts. And I'm like, hey, I want to get the three airbrushed on my shirt. And so I go. I take the shirt off, give it to the guy, he pay him five bucks, and he airbrushes dad's number three on it. Now I'm like, in my mind, I'm thinking, now I've made the shirt Dad's car, and guess who ran into me is Bill Elliot. Right. And we get done around on the dirt track and go back over to our dad's. And when my dad saw that shirt his. He went through the roof and that shirt came off and it disappeared. And he didn't see it the way I saw it, Right? Yeah, he's. I was like, no, this is your. You're the. I'm wearing your shirt. Guess who ran into me. Bill Elliot. But he was mad as hell. He's like, get that my son's not going to wear that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It wasn't a sports image shirt either.

[Brad Means]

No, he was mad because. Yeah, he's mad because it was a knockoff that he wasn't getting any money for, but he was. He also, as much as he wanted to start that on the racetrack, he didn't believe in the game. He didn't believe in, like, rubbing anybody's nose in it off the track. Yeah, he didn't like that part of it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

He didn't like that back and forth or being like, yeah, we showed y'all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, you just do it on the track.

[Brad Means]

Do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Leave it there.

[Brad Means]

Leave it there. Yeah. When he would always get interviewed after he run over somebody, oh, that's just good hard racing. He was almost insulted, right. That you would insinuate he was doing anything dirty. Yeah, that's just. That's just racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't know. It's like he was oblivious to it. That's what happened, right? It's like. So I think I told you a story before, too. Talladega. Back we used to park the family family parking by the family grandstand, right? Where we would park there and hang out. And the garage area was. You know where it is, where it used to be down off of four. So back then we were too young to have a license. There wasn't like minors. There wasn't what we have today, right? So we would. I'd sneak in the racetrack, dad take me to the garage, sign in. Because you used to get an infield pass. Get in, get a garage passes, rectangular, pastel color things, right? So I'd go to the back door. Bruce Rooney with his big cigar, gave me a garage pass. I'd sign my name on it and have him on garage pass. He'd just give me one, right? And I'm. We weren't together at this moment. We're walking through. I'm walking through the garage and some security guard with, like, a big ego, right? What was. What his job was, stop me. Wouldn't let me in the garage. And I told him, he's let me see your pass. I said, pull my pass out because where's your ID at? So I don't have an id. I know this is you. So this is my dad's racing. I have a pass. That's my name. Yada, yada, yada. He's giving me an attitude. I'm like 12, you know. And he makes a big deal out of it. Makes me sign the back of my pass so my signature matches what was on the front. So I go on my way and then 30 minutes later, I've left the garage and I'm coming back again. Well, this guy, same guy, gives me a hard time again. About this time, your dad's walking from the family parking in his, you know, good wrench suit. Gargoyles. And I'm like, dale, help me out. This guy is wearing me out. Giving me a hard time telling that my dad's over there. I stay out of the way, like I don't cause any problems. Your dad chewed that guy up and down. He cussed him. He said, if this boy comes and gets me, says, you're giving him a hard time, you're leaving this racetrack.

[Brad Means]

Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he waved the rest of the weekend. He was so nice to me after that. But I was like, we didn't. We knew where to be. In trouble, where not to be. First car. Cars out of trouble. Yeah, there's so many memories of Talladega too. Like you said back then. I remember we. We were. That dad blew a motor or changing the motor. I'll give you blue motor to go. The race in August, right. It's like 167 degrees. And I was a shifter guy, right. If I was there, yeah. 2, 9, 16, whatever to pull shifter out. And I'm in there like just sweating my ever living. It's hotter than crap and I'm just like drenched. I sweat a lot anyway. But for a kid, I'm 12 in there like that and like Ken Squire actually, like looks in there, talks to me, ask me what I'm doing. And that. That weekend, I forget whose car they. They use for it, but they're talking about how hot it was and they fried an egg on a floorboard. Yeah, that was weekend. And that was my. One of my shifter, you know, shifter moves there, changing shifters out for the. When I changed the motor.

[Brad Means]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But that was kind of get out of the way. You can't mess that up kind of. Right?

[Brad Means]

Sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So we got. That was fun doing that.

[Brad Means]

I remember when, when we were at Talladega, we did this at Bristol too. But I remember at Talladega we would be all over the racetrack when the race started. You couldn't really get. You couldn't really get a great vantage point. So we were kind of, you know, all over the place, looking for what's, you know, just what's going on. But when there was a crash or if a car got crashed, we immediately went to the garage because we wanted to see the car when it get towed back in there. We just would stand around those cars. The race is going on. Right. 500 mile Talladega race. It's happening. Grandstands are packed. The garage was eerily empty. Empty right there in a fricking soul in there. And everybody's haulers are there and all of the leftover.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a ghost town back then at the time, yeah.

[Brad Means]

But all the spark plugs, cans of brake clean and glass cleaner and just laying everywhere, all over the old wooden workbenches. And when a car would crash or multiple cars, maybe the record would drag them in there and unhook it. And oftentimes the crews weren't like hovering or busy around the cars. They're destroyed, they're out of the race. The crews tearing down the pit. Same guys that pit the car, Right. Taking the pits down, put in a holler. And so me and you would go and just stand right over the top of these Destroyed race cars and just be in awe of the damage and how bent right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's not. It's still not.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, we'd be like, whoa, look at the cross members. Wave eight inches back. Whoa, look at the left front tires touching the crush panel. There's touching the firewall. We just would be in awe of how badly they would get destroyed. And so I loved that to me was so much fun as the race was going on, you know, being able to see some of the, you know, the carnage. But I remember one time one me and you recognized that the teams were leaving all this laying around and we're walking around through there. One of the, one of the things we used to do and it's probably detrimental to our own health, but that good wrench, service brakes, parts cleaner would melt Styrofoam and we, there'd be styrofoam coffee cups everywhere, tipped over, laying in the trash. And we would get those cans of that GM Goodrich, waste them and waste them just spraying, spraying. We'd set a damn Styrofoam cup on that wooden table in the garage area. Race is happening, whatever, you know, Ghost town garage. And we just spray that brake clean and it just shoot a hole right through that styrofoam cup. And we would be like, holy. You know. And then we got it dawned on us. We were like, why are we wasting all this? There's brand new, brand new unopened cans of brake clean glass cleaner. There's boxes and boxes of auto light and champion spark plugs laying everywhere.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So did you know my dad was actually the champion spark plug carrier? Really? So they were. So your dad was ac, I think at the time, right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So every champion spark plug at that time was on my dad's truck.

[Brad Means]

Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. Earl Parker Sr. Was in Shelby, which is near my dad's shop. And so my dad carried all the champion spark plugs to the racetrack. Yeah, so we had spark plugs. We, we're good on those. Very clean. Yeah, yeah, we'd not have so much of that.

[Brad Means]

We got a cardboard box and walked through the garage and we put everything that was worth in this box and took it and put it on your dad's truck. And we thought we were doing something cool. Your dad was like, yeah, we weren't like, we weren't making a dent in the. He needed to go racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm sure he still used it, right? Yeah, right.

[Brad Means]

But he wasn't like. He was, he was kind of like, yeah, don't do that again.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

But because we were in a sense sort of stealing. But nope, the team.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. They left.

[Brad Means]

They weren't going to leave that. And wow, I love thinking about that story. I don't. I mean in my mind we're like Robin Hood, but you know, but it wasn't really like that. But you know, I always enjoyed, you know, being able to go to the racetrack and, and, and then one day that came to an end.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We got older, right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like I wanted to start racing. You want to start racing?

[Brad Means]

You started racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So it's. You just get kind of. You grow up a little bit. Right. School and things and you can't.

[Brad Means]

It was like a light switch though.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Oh, I remember one time like this wasn't. You were always working. Like you, you didn't mind working on your dad's cars and doing for him. So like you just talking about doing that, changing that shifter out. So this getting kind of weird for you. But I remember when I got a uniform, right? Chi Cheese was the company that made these uniforms and dad's like going to take you over to Chi Cheese, get you measured. I'm like, what? Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

And they made me a good wrench uniform.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember, I remember the first weekend you had it.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. I couldn't believe it. I was like, well then it was like, well, can't around no more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right?

[Brad Means]

I'm not going to work now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

I'm not going to wear this uniform and be goofing off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

You know, and so I didn't think about that. I was just right, oh, hell yeah. Uniform. And then when I put it on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was like, oh, it's a job now.

[Brad Means]

That's the. I can't. Where y'all going? My buddies are running around. I'm like, what are y'all doing? I got to stand over here and watch this stack of tires, you know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Make sure those shirts were so like wearing a piece of burlap. There's like, they're so thick, like a robot shirt.

[Brad Means]

Right. It's like extra starch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was a company though. They made all of them. If they made all the like high level team stuff.

[Brad Means]

So somehow or another I let that some get out of my damn grass and a fan brought it to an autograph session. Pants, shirt, wow. Everything with my name on the collar.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's awesome.

[Brad Means]

For me to sign. And I was like, God dang, I'd give you anything for this. But I signed it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[Brad Means]

And let them then. I mean, they weren't probably going to give it to me if I even If I bought it. But yeah, that old uniform still out there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's not theirs. I mean, it is, but I mean, right?

[Brad Means]

It is. I know, but I was like, how did that get out of my closet?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did that.

[Brad Means]

I must have sold that some to buy eggs to egg somebody's car or something. I don't know, toilet paper somebody's house. But yeah, I put that uniform on, man. And I was like, now I got.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's different, right? When you have to work with. I mean, it's kind of.

[Brad Means]

I'm running gas during the race and doing like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's fun though. It was fun experience wise to like. So my dad wouldn't let me really work. I was like the in charge of garbage cans when he raced. He would not let me work on his car because he don't have to do anything that can get him hurt and me be responsible for it. So I didn't touch any.

[Brad Means]

What I do at the shop, the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sweep a lot, like short bolt sweep. Dump a lot of trash cans. Saying stuff in a body shop with hippie, you know, nothing that could hurt anybody, you know.

[Brad Means]

What are some of the cost cutting measures that you and your dad had to do that other teams didn't?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So dad was like big time, like back then. Right. Junkyard parts, like take steering boxes, steering columns. You could use a GM column, GM steering box and use them. I guess. You raced them? Yeah. Matter of fact, I remember dad had like. He had like a 70s trailer of stuff in it and an 80s trailer of stuff in it. Like parts and pieces.

[Brad Means]

Where are those at?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're gone now. But they had like, you know, the anals of history were in there.

[Brad Means]

Right, Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But like steering columns with a key still in the ignition, you mean. So you'd gut it all for your collapsible. For your steering column.

[Brad Means]

You just needed a shaft.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just need a shaft, right? Yeah. And steering boxes. Anything he could. Anything he could salvage or make or reuse, he would like get those parts and like save money to do that. Right. And I remember going to Hendrick Motorsports when it was the one building beside the chassis dyno. And that was Hendrick. Right. A little tiny building. I think they may have. They used to take the. Dad was on the Unocal deal. I think he may have taken Unocal to the super flow place and they may have swapped it, you know, to use the Unocal stuff.

[Brad Means]

Because it made.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because it worked, right? Yeah. It wasn't like. Yeah, but it works. I remember they. He would take. So they bring him the. His. Those 35 gallon cans. Right. Of bolts. I remember we bring back six at a time of nuts and bolts and we just dump them in the floor and you'd sort of. That's, you know, so used bolts. Used bolts. Right. Some of them are brand new.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I just didn't pick them up. Right. Just put them in storm in that bucket, things like that. You know, obviously Rick's been super great, super great to dad for engine parts later on, you know, and he had relationships with. With other teams over, like, over time. And they helped him out with used parts. And a lot of times he could outrun people with our used parts. You know, engine stuff especially. That was the biggest thing with the Alkal Seltzer deal for him. It was the most money he ever had. It was half enough to really do it. And he spent too much money with other engine builders trying to get better motors or engines. Right. And they weren't that good. He'd have been better off using his resources and connections to get parts and build them themselves because he's always a really good engine builder. Like that was the biggest detriment. I think probably his. Probably his biggest regret over like only one chance in the folders car is not spending the money that he did get for that deal in the best places.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. Interesting. You end up starting to drive. You started racing go karts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I race go karts very rarely. My dad would let me go without him. So I painted it the first year when I raced it.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because he was doing me get hurt. Right. Didn't want me to race. Kind of like similar to you, I believe, you know, with that.

[Brad Means]

But you got a Mini stock after that. I remember that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't. Oh, I got limited. That's my first car ever. Really? Yeah. I wanted to buy a Mini stock. We wouldn't let me. I have no parts for that. We're not going to build that. Oh, we have no parts for that.

[Brad Means]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I got like steering boxes.

[Brad Means]

You got a limited late model.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep, limited model.

[Brad Means]

And is that the car that you were driving when I was help. I was running, messing with you. So you get a limited is a late model stock car. Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. It was the same car. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And you're running Tri County.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tri County.

[Brad Means]

So you. I went over there to watch you one night and you're like, I don't have a spotter. And I'm like, oh, can do it. And I get up on top of your hauler and we're down in one and two. Green flag comes out you're starting on the outside pole and the green flag comes out and coming. You know, I don't know if y'all ran a lap or two or whatever, but coming up off of going down into turn one, you were clear by about a couple feet. And I cleared you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

And the guy on the inside did not want the old dive bomb. Yeah, he drove on down in there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He took me out and the guy in front of me out, actually. I remember. I'll never forget it. You never forget certain things. Right? I never forget him hit me climbing over the A post over the windshield. I remember the drive shaft turning as he went over the top of me and took out the guy on the outside of me. Again, nuts. I mean, it's like, you know, it's like, where are you going, guy? Yeah, it's. But.

[Brad Means]

But he destroyed the car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. And I felt terrible about that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you gave me a free hood.

[Brad Means]

Yep. I never spotted since. I've been asked spot since. And I'm not. Not going to do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's.

[Brad Means]

It's too much of a. Too much responsibility. It's a lot of pressure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is. It's fun, though. It's. It's. It's fun. Right. In the right situation.

[Brad Means]

We were going to kick their ass that night.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we were. Actually. We had a good car.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Hey, T.J. you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrick Automotive Group.

[Unknown]

Yes, I have heard of Darren Hart Jr. Chevrolet.

[Brad Means]

I bet you'd be surprised on what type of Chevrolet vehicles we specialize in.

[Unknown]

If I had to guess, I'm going to say it would probably be Chevy trucks.

[Brad Means]

Well, we definitely sell plenty of those, but actually we're really big in commercial vehicles. We actually sell a lot of crane trucks for the number one seller, actually in crane trucks.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Unknown]

I definitely did not see that coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Pretty neat, huh? So, for any of our listeners shopping for commercial vehicles, here's some things you need to know about us. At Dalenhardt Jr. Chevrolet, we have hundreds of trucks in stock, so you can find what you need fast. And we have people there that can help you with custom orders. So if you want to build the exact vehicle you need, we can do it. We offer complimentary delivery anywhere in the continental U.S. plus, Hendrick Automotive Group is the nation's top rated dealer group for online reputation. Visit dalejrchevy.com and click Commercial to explore the wide range of available commercial vehicles. Our team at dillonheart Junior Chevrolet will give you a world class experience. Chevrolet together. Let's drive.

[Unknown]

Spring is here and summer is around the corner. And while that means a lot of good things, that also means dealing with bugs. Your home has now become a vacation home for bugs. From ants to stink bugs, it's an all inclusive resort they can't resist. But with Pesti you can get rid of them. Pesti is a kid and pet friendly. Do it yourself pest control that gets rid of over 100 types of bugs. From spiders to ants to roaches and stink bugs. Pesti provides the same professional grade products at just a quarter of the cost. Their easy to use kit takes only minutes to apply, making pest control simple and hassle free. Me and my femi love to spend as much time outside as we can. But my girls hated having to deal with the bugs. But that's no longer a problem thanks to Pesty. Plus, with it being kid friendly, I don't have to worry. The best part was how easy they made it. They mailed me my kit and took less than 10 minutes to put together. And with Pesty, I told them where I live, what kind of bugs I was dealing with. And they were able to customize the treatment to make sure it wasn't a problem and it was taken care of. Now is the time to protect your home from bugs with pesty. Go to pesti.com del junior for an extra 10 off your order. That's P-E-S-T-I-E.com Dell Junior for an extra 10 off.

[Brad Means]

So what was the place where, where'd you get your first real job outside of working for your, you know, working with your dad?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Actually my first real job out of spite, I went to Bobby Wellman race cars in Fallston. He built a bunch of trucks and bush cars stuff way back in the day. And I just like, I think I made six bucks an hour like cutting, tubing and like just basic, basic, basic fab stuff. And then dad got that bush deal to come to a shop. That team learned 77 car.

[Brad Means]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Back to a shop. Then I came back and then I've been a gypsy in my life, you know, learned a lot. But I went to RCR98, my first tour of RCR with the 3 truck with Jay Sauter. Start putting truck bodies on truck bodies way back then. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

So, so you went to RCR then where?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Went back to my dad's. My dad's like, hey, we'll get this bush car. Remember I told you the test. My dad needed me to Come back, help him.

[Brad Means]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So like, he realized, hey, he's pretty good.

[Brad Means]

So we worked at your dad's again for a while then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they shut that down in 2000. Ran some late mall races here and there, the Uara Tour back then, you know. Yeah. And had, you know, just kind of trying to. Still trying to make it, but it's not really going to happen. Really. So just keep going. And then I went to ppi. Dad's deal shut down. We had. It was a good deal. It was actually a really good gig. Yeah. Won a race for like a little. Little budget team and they sponsor money left. Had to get a real job, not at home. So I went to PPI with Ricky Craven.

[Brad Means]

Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I was there for two years putting.

[Brad Means]

Bodies on that 32 tied car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Brad Means]

Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I built the first one that won for the. His first win at Martinsville.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So then I was driving there and I was tired of driving hour and 10 minutes to work. So I was like, I'm gonna move. I'm gonna move where I'm gonna work. So I need to move where all the jobs are. So got a job at Yates with. On Elliot Sadler's deal was it was ruds to end the year, then Elliott's the next couple years. But. Yep. So work with Robert Doug. There's no finer people on the planet than those two.

[Brad Means]

Doug's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's. Yeah. So I learned a lot. It was awesome.

[Brad Means]

Still doing. Always doing bodies.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Always doing bodies.

[Brad Means]

Yep. And our. And so after Yates, where'd you end up going?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To Robbie Gordon's for a couple years. The old Robbie Gordon experiment. I started his busch team at night.

[Brad Means]

55 car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

55.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. Through the loom.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I did those at night while I was working at Yates. He's like, hey, I'm starting this cup car. I need you to come. Once you come run the whole thing. I'm like, I like hard stuff. Right. So I go. We run in the bush car. He's a rcr. He's gonna leave, do his own deal because Robbie's gonna, you know, he can do things better than everybody. He's pretty. He's pretty intense guy, right? Great guy. He's great. I mean, he was like, intense, you know. We started his book, started his cup team with Jim Beam. That was a rough go for a couple, you know, reasons and not worked. I think like my. We couldn't keep people. I worked my guts out. I think the last month I was there, I worked at least one day to like four in the morning.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And one day I worked, like, 28 hours or something trying to get stuff. I was just like, I'm not going to quit. I mean, I'm not going to not try. We're going to do it. So just whatever it took, we did it. Sleep there, do whatever. And I think I fell asleep on the. On the. In the bathroom and woke up. My legs were numb after being there for 27 hours. And I went home a couple days later. We'd go to Wendy's for lunch, and Robbie had these red T shirts. That was his work shirt, a red T shirt. Go to Wendy's, and everybody is wearing red T shirts. And my son, who's like 5 at the time, he goes, daddy, they live at Robbie's with you, too? Because that, like, I was never home, you know? So I was like. I didn't even travel, but I was never home. So I was like, I have to find something else to do. So like, a real regular hour. Deal. So I went to Roush for look for, like, very short period of time. So it was a great deal. It was great. It was, like, working on what, Bushcars.

[Brad Means]

Whose?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All of them?

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, it was. That was when they had, like, six of them, right? Mark Biffle, all of them. Oh, yeah, Carl. All of them. That's when. I don't know how I knew about it. I need to make a little bit more money at the time based upon things or whatever. I don't know how. I got Ty Norris's number. I got Ty Norris's number. I sat down to meet with Ty Burkdale behind the. Behind the little pro shop there at the golf range and sit down with him, have a great conversation and go back to work. I'm going to Michael Walters. So I did that. And I never. I was, like, all in on that for, like, two years. Hey, so this. So they brought people in, you know, as far as management changes, struggles, like, you know.

[Brad Means]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Cal came, Kaufman came. All new people come. And, like, with new people come. Have to come new people, right? Yes, they have to. I need my people. You're not my people. So.

[Brad Means]

So you got let go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got, like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Brad Means]

Where'd you go?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was a. So that's what started my gypsy tour a little bit. Because at that point was there was no jobs. That was at the 08, when everything kind of, like, contracted. Like, you couldn't get a job, get a job. So I started doing bodies on. On the side for people like east cars, Bushcraft, Whatever it was, I did it Right. So that's how I got back to doing eventually trucks and just did whatever I could do, you know. So I did that off and on for several years and I ended up going like to Thor sport and doing that for a couple tours. For Matt's first two championships, I was there and just did that back and forth from here to there. Which you drove back then. I drove.

[Brad Means]

You drove to work. You lived in North Carolina and drove to Ohio.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, every week and.

[Brad Means]

Every week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Brad Means]

And you'd work all week and then drive back home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And you were married and see my kids and stuff. So it was tough, right?

[Brad Means]

Very tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So then I went to. We got two stints between there where I went to Gibbs.

[Brad Means]

Gibbs and who.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Super talented.

[Brad Means]

Who did Gibbs wear?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Rcr.

[Brad Means]

Back to rcr. Now with rcr, you built the first three car to go to Victory Lane.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Brad Means]

Since Dale Earnhardt.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Brad Means]

So the car Austin Dillon won his first race with.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir.

[Brad Means]

You put the body on that car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we had a team that. We did it. Yep, yep, yep.

[Brad Means]

You. You obviously after rcr, where'd you go? Back to Thor?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I basically been there since then, on and off.

[Brad Means]

You've been at Thor?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did a little DGR stamp there because the truck's gonna be home. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

How long you been at Thor?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This. I'm in my third year now.

[Brad Means]

Third year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

They gotta be getting nervous.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I moved. I moved there.

[Brad Means]

Moved Ohio.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I moved Ohio. Right. I commuted for two years again. Right.

[Brad Means]

So did anybody try to talk you into sort of settling down down and just sticking with something?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think maybe you have. Yeah. Right.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. Let's talk about innovation. Me and you have been around this sport a long time. And one of our. One of my favorite things that you. You're. You're aware of and you know about is the. I think it was 1989 or so. Junior Johnson put both of his forwards on the front row at Daytona. I believe at was Sterling Marlin, maybe Jeff Bedine or Bill elliott in the 11, sterling in the 22. And you'd.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think it's probably 92.

[Brad Means]

92, I think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Well, still same story, right.

[Brad Means]

Somehow or another they had some trick trailing arms and how did they get that? How did they. How do you know what you know? What do you know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So dad had contacts at Junior's to get cars. He'd get wrecked cars and several different places, and he would get cars from there, and he got one of the cars from there, and they literally had just touched the paint up when he got it to kind of try to hide where the goods were. Had like a false floor for the lines under the seat to go to the truck. You know, like they had hydraulic throw up bearings in the truck army to move the spring cup up and down.

[Brad Means]

Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So like they. He'd got one of those cars with the false floor and it would pull the lines out and touch the paint up trying to like hide it. But you know, dad's pretty. Dad's pretty innovative also. Yeah. Now say we're not cheating to win, we're cheating to eat. Right. So that was how you made. That's how you made. You made the race to make money. You know.

[Brad Means]

So cheating to eat.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. Yeah. That's a new means original right there.

[Brad Means]

I like that one. So what were they doing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just travel rear travel. Right. You go faster rear truck.

[Brad Means]

So they had a way for the car to pass tech and then a hydraulic system in the bottom in the buckets on the trailing arm. And so I also know that they had to take those trailing arms off the car to race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. So they actually changed those back then you could load up after qualifying in Daytona.

[Brad Means]

You could put the car back in the trailer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They changed truck arms in the trailer. I can't imagine how hard that was. How. That's difficult, impossible. You had to earn that.

[Brad Means]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So dad had a.

[Brad Means]

So they didn't race these.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, they did not race.

[Brad Means]

They would do it and that's how they put them both.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think they're. Yeah, they're gonna probably race them. I think probably got ratted out.

[Brad Means]

Oh.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So they changed them on.

[Brad Means]

They got right busted.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So it's in that one video. I think Stapleton's video. Dad's declutter. He had had a hydraulic spoiler on it. And I think the. The race Lajoy got busted at Bill Davis's for. They had hydraulic deck pins to raise the deck lid up and down.

[Brad Means]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In the inspection process they caught. Somehow they caught that car. Like one car had a dad in the inspection process. And they skipped my dad for some reason. And he took it off. He was 50. 50 grand I'm over, right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And got it swapped back out.

[Brad Means]

Talk about the truck series being the last frontier for innovation. I know you can't out yourself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well still it's hand like the. We still have make the bodies right. Still handheld templates. There's no Hawkeye scan. It's kind of far as racetrack scan.

[Brad Means]

Standard templates.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Still tanner templates. Yeah, standard templates. We've made more of them in the past two Years with, you know, our renovation. But they police a lot more stuff. But like it's. It's inches, not thousands, right?

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What you can do. So you can actually, if you know.

[Brad Means]

What you're doing, besides the hydraulic spoiler or deck lid or whatever that your dad had, what are some of the other things you remember from the past? Maybe not even that your dad did, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, we did try. I don't know if he mentioned the winch. Tell you the winch story?

[Brad Means]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So we built. We had bought. We went to junior Don Levy shop and bought a banjo front steer car, which was rare. They had all rear steer stuff at the time. And make a speedway car out of it. We bring it back and we build it. We assemble it, like in three days, I think for the. To go test. I think it's this car and it wasn't very good. So we come back and that's actually not that car. That car was no good. So we sold it to Quaker Steak and Lube, but we had a bush car.

[Brad Means]

He sold it to who?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Quaker Steak and Lube. For like a display. Because it's horrible. It wouldn't drive for nothing. Later, we had a bush car. We did not run it. We got. We got scared. But we put a winch at a false battery box. In front of the battery box. There was a winch mounted in there.

[Brad Means]

Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And there's pulleys through the chassis, through the tubing. Through the tubing. And it went over the rear housing and the line went through the vent line for the rear housing. To the rear housing. Yeah. And you can sit there on the plate, flip a switch and just crank.

[Brad Means]

The rear end down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Holy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We. We did test it. It's like 6, 10 faster.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because it just hold it down. Right.

[Brad Means]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that was kind of. You know, you hear all those stories from back in the day, but pinning.

[Brad Means]

The cars before there were shocks to do that or before the rules about the shocks came into play. Goodness gracious. Your son has gotten to. Is your son showing interest in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, he's. He works with us.

[Brad Means]

He works with you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he works in marketing and pr. It's kind of. Yeah. Because he's not a ninja like I am.

[Brad Means]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he just. That's more of his. Like he gets. That's more his. He started a year ago.

[Brad Means]

How do you help him understand the work ethic that it's going to need or does he have it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He has it. It's harder. Right. Generationally, I think it's weird. Nobody. Like our generation like, it's just what you did. Right. It's not.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, you can make your own way of sorts, right, with the work ethic, sure. But it's. There's opportunities for him to do things. But he's been there, I think, a year and a half with us, and so he does a really good job. Like, he's suited for it really well. So hope he continues to like it.

[Brad Means]

Hey, everybody. You want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a T shirt again. Check it out at shop.dirtymomedia.com the one thing your mom wants from you is for you to call her this Mother's Day. Give her a call and give her an aura digital picture frame. Aura frames was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter and featured in 495 gift guides last year. So the next time you call your mom, send her that new pic from that trip you're telling her all about, right from your phone. Andrew, you've used aura before. Yeah, I have. This is a gift that my dad's side of the family gave my grandparents, and they have just loved it. I get to send pictures to them just about every week, and there's nothing that compares to the texts I get from them. The morning saying, hey, I just got your photo. I love it. Thank you so much for sending. So it's a very meaningful gift to give somebody. Yeah, it's pretty cool. We have a couple and we have one at our house. So when you add a picture to it, it's kind of fun waiting to see who notices the new photo that you've added into the rotation. Aura has a great deal from Mother's Day for limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by using Aura Frames.com to get $35 off plus free shipping on their bestselling carver mat frame. That's a U R A frames.com promo code. Dale Jr support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[Unknown]

There's nothing better than when it's sunny five and sunny out. You call up your friends to meet at your favorite restaurant. Even better if you can sit outside with a cold drink and good food. Now imagine not being able to enjoy this perfect day because of your own body odor. It's starting to get warm out, so the last thing you want to have happen is sweat. Nobody wants to have pit stains. And now you're worried about lifting your arm so others see it. Dove Men plus Care Whole Body deal helps keep your BO from ruining the good days. From pits to privates to feet, you can feel confident with 72 hour protection in all your odor zones. Dove Men Whole body do goes on instantly dry with an aluminum free vitamin E infused formula for whole body freshness and care. Dove Men plus Care Whole Body Dio get everywhere. Everywhere care. Even down there. Find it on Amazon or at Target today.

[Brad Means]

Do you remember your first trip to Victory Lane?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Brad Means]

Where was it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

North Wilkesboro. With you and your dad.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's the best. So that was the coolest thing ever for me to go back to RCR and build that car. Because that, that meant a lot to me. You.

[Brad Means]

You restored that car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I'm saying I'm sorry. To be RCR build the first 3 cars to win a race or be a part of that.

[Brad Means]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's pretty connect that for my childhood. Yeah. Right. That's the coolest thing ever to carry the big fake check down. I hate the pictures because I. I can. You're wearing my dad's hat. Charlotte Hornets sweatshirt. Yeah. Pictures from that day. Before that.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. I was sitting on trailers and watching.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. But you can't see me in the corner because I'm hiding because it's not my. I didn't win. Right. So like later I didn't go to other victory lanes where I've been a port. I built the cars because I didn't want to go unless I won. I wanted. I was like, I wanted to win. Right. So that was like. Or my dad or whatever. So like, I didn't go for a very long time to Victory Lane if I was a part of winning a race. Because I didn't. It was kind of. That was a special memory for me.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just go with you and your dad and your sister.

[Brad Means]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Especially there. Right. That was so many memories there too. Right. Growing up, you know, like leaving. I remember we left there that one time, stayed at the lake house with you and we left with cars on the racetrack practicing in your dad's Blazer. Like, we're just. We're out when he. Because when it's time for him to leave, he's leaving. Right. That was the coolest memory.

[Brad Means]

Dad driving.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Brad Means]

And you're like, oh, man. So dad leaving, practice, still going. He was right. He was happy with his car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Loaded up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We drove to Morrisville on gravel roads and run like a. I mean, it was like awesome. We were bat out of Hell, like it was hauling the mail to get to the house. That was fun.

[Brad Means]

You got any other memories of us as kids at the racetrack that we haven't touched on?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We did get in a fight one time. Wilkes Bar.

[Brad Means]

Remember that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we got a little scuffle over something. I think we'd spent so much time together, we kind of aggravated each other and we kind of got in like a little pushing, shoving match a little bit. You hit me in our head with a roll of toll paper. A roll of paper towels. Smack me with it. Yeah, same 12, 13. Jesus. Just, you know, I mean, just like.

[Brad Means]

Did we get over it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

Quick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but it's just kind of like. Yeah, it's kind of, you know, just kind of get all spun out and like. I pissed you off, right? You pissed me off. And you just, you know, like this. Whatever. That's what friends do, right? Yeah, I would imagine over enough time, but, yeah, that's kind of. That's. That's one. And, you know, growing up and like, going to. I remember, like, racing later. I remember I came up here one weekend to help you on your late model. And we were gonna go. We're just hanging out. You come help me. I was in between Hooters races. I had some time off. And you're working on a car that a Martin to, I think, in the deer head shop. And come in there and working on your car. Just piddling. He was done, I think, you know, and with Wesley. Yep. And your dad comes in, carried. Wrecked it hickory. And tore his car all to hell. And it was in the other part of the shop. Sorry. And your dad comes out there. Hey, I need some help over here. So go there. We'll carry his car. It's tore all. It's. We need torches, right. To work on it. Because Kerry could run like, third or be like. Or Carolina Hill. Seemed like back then.

[Brad Means]

Knocked the roof off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. So we go over there. We're working. We've been there like, you know, six hours working on it. And so we're working. And he goes, what are you gonna charge me? Your dad goes to me, I'm sorry, nothing. I'm here anyway helping Junior. And he goes, what are you gonna charge me? And he goes, I said, nothing, Dale. I'm already here. I'm here helping. We hang out and do stuff. And he goes, boy, you tell me what you're gonna charge me. You get in your truck and you go home. So I thought, okay, 20 bucks a day or whatever it is. He said, okay, it's Right back to digging. Just like that was a cool thing for me is like I could call, I think. Was it 662-8000 with DEI?

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I could call and ask for your dad and say who's calling? I'd tell him. He'd answer the phone.

[Brad Means]

Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

As a kid. Right. Because obviously that was your hero. Yeah, as my hero too, outside of my father. Right. So be able to have like a shared hero person.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's like a living. Like it was like John Wayne in real life.

[Brad Means]

Oh, yeah. It's hard to believe we got to do all that. It's like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's nuts. Yeah.

[Brad Means]

It's hard to believe that our lives have. Have encompassed or involved all these different little layers. Like we were, you know, being the kids that ran around the track and had our little group of buddies and then having our own separate sort of experiences as. Right. As drivers. And then careers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Different career paths.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, different career paths that have. That have felt like their own life. You know, we've like had multiple lives, Right. Multiple chapters. And we've. We've been able to stay friends and stay in. You know, some people you just drift apart. Some people you don't stay in touch with.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think for us, right. There's so many common things. Right. You can. That never go away and you still do what you're doing. So you can't. You're still involved. Right. So even though you can't don't see each other every day or lifestyles are different or change or have changed or locations have changed, you still still have that. You're still friends. Right. So like last year when I went to Florence, right. I shouldn't have went. Whatever. It was like the coolest experience ever.

[Brad Means]

You went to Florence to race in a late model stock.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I attempted the first day I thought I had it. Thought I had it. Next day, not so much. Like, I was like. It was fun though, man. So that was like. As a kid, that was my dream. Yeah, right. Is to like, we ran those cars same times, different places. Right. All of us. And like, I love those things. There was so much back then. To me, that was like. That was awesome. And like a bushcar 1998. That was like the peak racing level, looking at short track racing because they ran those tracks, right. You'd go to Orange County, South Boston and Busch cars ran there. So that was like, that's elite back then to me. So I mean, so much to go back and get it and get in one, you know, drive one. Because it's what you, you Never don't want to. It's not. It's a double negative or whatever, but you never don't want to do it if you've done it.

[Brad Means]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think you. I'm sure you battle that, right? Yes. Full time retired. But you still, like. It's still. There's an itch to scratch.

[Brad Means]

Oh, yeah. I don't know how. I don't know how I'm going to. I don't. I've got to figure this out because it's coming soon, but I don't know how.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Farmer there's not coming.

[Brad Means]

I guess. I know, but I mean, at some point I'm gonna go. Godly man. It's actually not as much fun as the trouble.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think it's worse.

[Brad Means]

It's a lot of trouble.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're not gonna get there, though. You're not.

[Brad Means]

I'm gonna go. Going to the track and sweating your ass off and getting. And being annoyed because the thing won't turn in the middle is that's part gonna eventually not be something I want to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think it will, though. Yeah. I don't know because, like, it's. Yeah, it's. It's the best. It's. It's so much fun.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. I'm enjoying it. I. I never. I mean, I enjoy. I enjoy what's going on and I enjoy this life, but I will never forget what it felt like and the freedom that we had as kids to be able to run all around them racetracks when we were just, you know, 12, 13 years old.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No care. Right.

[Brad Means]

No, like everything was great. Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The world's. The world's gonna be ours. Right.

[Brad Means]

We would. When we would hang out with Jason Jarrett, we'd sit in Ned Jarrett's bus. They all had bush vans and comfort coach vans. We would sit in those vans with air conditioner running, joking and telling stories and laughing and that'd make you a sandwich. Laughing so damn hard. Yeah. Just like the sides hurt. Yeah. And Ned coming by to get something, you know, get something. Change a shirt or something. Yeah. And just being around people and that being so normal and going. Borrowing the money from dad, barring our getting the money from our dads to go. They knew we were going to go do it, Right. Go to the dirt, the go kart track and pay. And we would. We'd get in line and pay $5 a race over and over and over. We get off and run back to the line and get back in and just run until we run out of money.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

And then Go home covered in dirt and grime. All the grime and oil coming out of the exhaust of those we'd be running. And you'd squint in your eyes because there's getting so much. Damn. Just all the deposits.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You bring goggles. You got smart. You bring bubble goggles.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. All the deposits and come coming out of the exhaust pipe of those old go kart engines that people rode over and over and over. It just cover you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was the best times.

[Brad Means]

It was so much fun. I don't think we ever did get kicked out, did we?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, we didn't. We were too little. We couldn't inflict enough damage to get thrown out. Right. The big guys would. We wouldn't.

[Brad Means]

Yeah. I remember how serious Scotty used to take it. Like every race was a real race, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was. You had.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, I know. Like, I mean, we wanted to win, but Scotty was like taking it like it was a real race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

Well, man, I've enjoyed this. I. I think that we. We have all kinds of people that come into this room. There's not many people that can come in here with the perspective that you had and that you've. And the experiences that you've had. We get some of the retired drivers and sometimes some non racing guys. There's not a whole lot of people, though, left that were so tight of. In my inner circle that haven't come through here and talked. And I've wanted to get you in here to sit down and just bull. For. For a long time. So I'm glad we were able to make it work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir. Me too.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, it's been fun, man. I mean, you. Yeah. I think the line that you said where we're. You're. You're my oldest friend. I probably think that that's true for both of us. And it was. It was an interesting experience, I think, to be one. One of us on the survival side and the other on the side of a guy that some people say is. Might have been the greatest one to ever do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Fact.

[Brad Means]

And I. I love. One thing that I love is that the, the challenges that that dynamic created never cost us or caused any issues with me and you or we just never.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Brad Means]

Never did. Because I think our shared admiration for each other's dads.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man. Yeah. Melted it together.

[Brad Means]

It did. It did melt it together. I'm proud of you, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thank you.

[Brad Means]

You've been a great friend to me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thank you.

[Brad Means]

And I'm excited for. I'm excited you're finally sort of calmed down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Brad Means]

You're done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I'm too old.

[Brad Means]

Pushing your toolbox around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I'm too old to change. Let's buy a new one. I ain't pushing. I ain't moving one. I'm too old to change. I got to settle down sometime.

[Brad Means]

Yeah, well, you seem like you. You're pretty comfortable and confident.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir.

[Brad Means]

Thanks so much, buddy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thank you.

[Brad Means]

Brad Means on the Dale Jenner download.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The new Huggies Snug n Dry are luxuriously soft and ultra dry. How soft are we talking? Unbelievably soft. Irresistibly soft. Doesn't your baby deserve a diaper that's oh, so gentle on their tushy? Huggies snug and dry helps keep them comfy, cozy, and protected. Experience the unexpected softness and up to 100% leak protection. More parents choose the new Huggies Snug n Dry softness versus the leading premium diaper Huggies. We got you, baby.

[Brad Means]

All right. So great conversation with my old buddy Brad Means. Car chief for Thor sport. But actually, man, he's. He's the guy that hangs all those awesome bodies on those trucks where you can still do some pretty creative stuff. But I, I think it's fun from time to time to bring some of my old buddies in here and kind of relive our childhood. I have. I'm not as good at remembering all of those things. Never have been. Brad's the kind of guy that will get on if me and him have a conversation. At some point in that conversation, he's going to bring up a. You remember when we did. He just has all that stuff memorized and. But I thought it'd be fun to talk about some of the way it used to be and some of the old fun we used to have. And I couldn't imagine going to a racetrack today and letting my daughter just go wherever she wanted to. Even if I had a son that I felt like, you know, understood the ins and outs of a, of a NASCAR garage and infield, I did. I wouldn't allow, I wouldn't allow them to just go wherever they wanted, either one. And, but our dads didn't give a, you know, I mean, maybe. I know that's probably misrepresenting it a little bit, but it just blows me away. But we had, we had so much fun, man. We went, we would borrow money, beg our dads for like 20 bucks, just a little bit of money to go, and we would go out into the infield or outside the track to the souvenir row and buy Models and die casts or little, the little Matchbox cars. But we would buy models. And then when we got back to the hotels that night, we spent all night just sitting there building models. Like we didn't have any paint, we just had a little model glue. And we would build these models and just to, just to crush them or throw them down the stairs or, you know, but we'd sit there all night building models. We would steal washers from the hauler and take them out and lay them on the train tracks at Darlington. The, the hotel was right on the, on the, on the right. Out in front of the hotel dividing the four lane was a train track still like that today over in Darlington where the teams stay. And we would. The train ran around midnight, 1:00 in the morning every night. And we'd sit up and right around 10:00 or dark, we'd sneak out. We felt like we were sneaking, you know, sneak out, run across the two lane, crouch down, lay some washers out on the train tracks, big old washers. And then we'd go back into the hotel room building our models. All of a sudden we hear that train running. And then we'd run out there after the train was gone to get our washers that had been flattened on the tracks. Because it'd take a washer man, or a quarter or a nickel or a dime or whatever, flatten it flat as hell. And man, we put some damn washers on them train tracks. We probably shouldn't have. They were so big. It's a wonder it didn't derail the train. But we just did. You know, we had fun. We messing around with the crew members at the pool and them throwing us in the pool and being, you know, being kids. But so many great memories from back in the day and he's the only one. I mean, I still am in contact with Mike Whitcomb from time to time and Brad and me still talk quite regularly. And so it was awesome to bring him on and I hope you all enjoyed listening to some of his stories and his. The other thing I thought that was interesting and he jumped right into it, got into it was talking about the challenges of his dad's career and his experience watching his dad be an independent and scrape everything together and how his experience as a son of a competitor was different than mine. And that we only had one argument, you know, is I think, kind of telling because had I not been a big a fan of his dad's, I feel like that my own dad's success and how that might have changed, fueled my ego and my opinion of my dad might have made things difficult for me and Brad to be friends. But since I was a fan of his dad and really pulled for his dad to succeed, we both sort of found some real common ground that helped us be buddies. But they remain friends today. I swear I'll never forget how hard we cried when he wrecked at Charlotte. That was a tough, tough day. And anyways, I hope you all enjoyed it. And we're gonna get right to the white flag.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

White legs.

[Brad Means]

All right, let's go through the gamut of Dale Jr. Download and Dirty Mo Media content that's come out this week and why you ought to listen to it if you ain't. The teardown was live after the race Sunday on Twitter and YouTube and Jeff Cluck had a big rant for the team owners and NASCAR about saving money and the run. What you what you brung idea that was apparently floated around the sport for the All Star race. And then Denny Hamlin came in there on the back end of that as well on Monday and gave his rebuttal why the teams felt the way they felt, a decision they made. Do you agree or disagree? Who do you. Who do you agree with? Door Bupa Clear also dropped. On Monday they had Kyle Busch joining the show. I text Kyle thanking him for coming in and seeing us as anytime we can get a guest like that on the show, it's amazing. He had some really great comments around the All Star race that you don't want to miss and several other things I'm sure dropping today. Along with this show is Speed street with Connor Daly where he's going to share with us everything that the teams are doing to gear up for the Indy 500 later in the month of May. And also Herman Schrader, another episode coming out today and then tomorrow, bless your heart with my lovely wife Amy having a ton of fun with that. What's the drink of the week? I don't know. Hopefully it's a good one. We're thankful for, for how everybody's embraced the show. Bless your heart and how how great everybody's been with Amy starting this sort of new challenge in her life as a bit of more of a public figure putting herself out there and I'm happy with how that's going. Also something brand new that came out and is premiering this week on Discovery, the Red Bull soapbox race. I was asked by the folks at Red Bull as they put together a TV show. They asked me if I would come on board as an analyst to help introduce this to a wider audience here in the States. So Mike Bagley joined me. We had a blast talking about all of these exciting and creative designs and watching them sometimes crash in spectacular fashion as they go down the course. The Red Bull Soapbox Race, only available on Discovery. So hopefully you'll support that. Tell us what you think, and maybe we'll do another season next year. A lot of things going on. The cars tour races this weekend at Ace on Saturday on Flow. So you want to tune in for that. And that season continues. And the rest of the the racing world is going to move on to Texas. Hope you enjoy the show and we'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok.