Casey Mears: Chasing A Milestone

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download – Episode Featuring Casey Mears: Chasing A Milestone

Introduction In this engaging episode of The Dale Jr. Download, host Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with fellow NASCAR driver Casey Mears to discuss Casey's journey towards achieving a significant career milestone—chasing 500 starts in the NASCAR Cup Series. Released on April 2, 2025, this conversation delves deep into Casey's racing background, recent performances, personal reflections, and future aspirations.

Reconnecting with Casey Mears Dale opens the episode by reminiscing about his longstanding friendship with Casey, highlighting their shared experiences and recent reunion during a trip organized by Jimmy Johnson. Dale expresses his excitement about interviewing Casey, especially after Casey's decision to return to racing at Martinsville.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [04:27]: "We've always been friends, but we used to hang out like, 'Hey, what you doing Tuesday? Whatcha doing Wednesday?'"

Casey's Return to Racing: Martinsville Race Casey discusses his unexpected decision to return to the NASCAR Cup Series, specifically racing at Martinsville. He explains how a conversation about reaching 500 starts ignited his motivation to compete again. Casey shares the challenges of racing with limited support, emphasizing the importance of sponsorship and team dynamics.

Casey Mears [08:03]: "I just want to be one of the first 50 to reach 500 starts in the Cup Series."

Technical Insights and Race Experience The conversation shifts to the technical aspects of Casey's car and his performance during the Martinsville race. Casey details the mechanical issues faced, such as problems with shifting and rear-end stability, and praises Carl Long's team's efforts despite their limited resources.

Casey Mears [09:39]: "He felt I was sellable. He called me and he was able to sell it."

Casey recounts specific moments from the race, including a humorous interaction with a host mistakenly flipping him off and his general experience running in the field.

Casey Mears [17:35]: "I didn't know how I was going to be received amongst the other drivers."

The Emotional Toll of Racing Dale and Casey delve into the emotional pressures of racing, discussing moments when late cautions affected race outcomes. They reflect on how these instances can be frustrating and impact a driver's career trajectory.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [68:14]: "If I would have won that race, my whole career might have been different."

Legacy and Family Influence Casey shares insights into his family's racing legacy, detailing how his grandfather, father, and uncle influenced his passion for motorsports. He discusses the origins of the "Mears Gang" and how family dynamics shaped his racing career.

Casey Mears [25:26]: "It was a lot of fun. My dad owned a race shop and race team as I was growing up."

Transitioning from Racing to Personal Life The discussion moves towards Casey's decision to move to Arizona, focusing on family priorities and personal happiness over a tumultuous racing career. He emphasizes the importance of being present for his children and finding balance outside the track.

Casey Mears [91:30]: "It's crazy to think about. It goes by like a flash."

Reflections on Team Dynamics and Sponsorship Casey reflects on his experiences with various teams and crew chiefs, highlighting the significance of strong relationships and mutual belief between drivers and their support teams. He praises Chip Ganassi for his unwavering support during critical moments in his career.

Casey Mears [73:17]: "Chip Ganassi has got a big heart. He always supports us when we're tight on budget."

Future Aspirations and Community Involvement Looking ahead, Casey expresses his desire to continue racing selectively to achieve his milestone while remaining connected to his passion for motorsports. He also touches upon his involvement in local racing events and supporting community initiatives like the Mirrors Gang.

Casey Mears [98:33]: "Having a goal, having a milestone allows me to be more lenient in how I do it."

Closing Thoughts Dale and Casey conclude the episode by reaffirming their friendship and mutual respect. Dale expresses his gratitude for Casey's participation and shares positive feedback about their renewed connection and the enriching memories from their racing days.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [107:24]: "Just being able to reconnect with you like that and kind of root that friendship back in again."

Notable Quotes

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [08:16]: "Every moment dictates maybe that next moment. Just such as life and anything."
• Casey Mears [74:27]: "We took a program when I got there, it was a tough. It was a tough ride to accept at the time..."
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [84:27]: "I almost felt some ownership to a standpoint at some point..."

Conclusion This episode offers listeners a comprehensive look into Casey Mears' racing career, his motivations for chasing 500 starts, and the personal and professional challenges he has navigated. Through candid dialogue and shared experiences, Dale and Casey provide valuable insights into the world of NASCAR racing, the importance of legacy, and the pursuit of personal milestones.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Casey Mears]

He's past second base.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And coach Bakerfield's making a grab.

[Casey Mears]

And. Oh, he missed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Incredible. Someone give that cat a contract. But, folks, even this incredible cat can't sign up for Lemonade Pet Insurance. But you can cover your pet [e-mail]. incredible. And I grabbed him. I wanted to just knock the out of him, you know? And every word that come out of my mouth. I would have decked me so hard if you would have heard what I was telling to him. I needed to be hit. He hit me. Then he got me good. And then I chased his ass back into the hauler. He'd ran and the guys held me back. I didn't get a chance to get my shot in. I've never had a beef.

[Casey Mears]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

With anybody in the garage.

[Casey Mears]

The following is a production of Dirt Mode Media. All right, so Casey's coming in here and I want to tell you, obviously very lucky to get him. After he stuck around in town running his Martinsville cup race, he stayed in town this week. And so he's going to come through. This is perfect. Guy lives way out in Phoenix. And so getting him into the studio, not all that practical. But I've always wondered kind of what he's been up to. And me and Casey used to be pals back in the day. I mean, we've always been friends, but we used to hang out like, hey, what you doing Tuesday? Whatcha doing Wednesday? I'll meet you at the bar. See you at the lake. We got a weekend off. What are we gonna do with that? And we always kind of navigated toward each other and had a lot of fun. And I've kind of forgot about those days because then he got married and I didn't. And then I got married and now, you know, we spent many, many years not quite as connected, not really connected at all. And then Jimmy Johnson planned a trip over to Europe for four nights, five days. Mackenseth, Casey Mears, myself, and all of our beautiful wives. And holy moly, that was fun. It was great. And to reconnect with Casey. And anyways, it's got me curious. I get to learn, while you learn about his childhood, his family, how he got starting racing. All I remember is him coming into the Xfinity Series. I have no idea about the rest of it and everything that happened before that. And so my wife, Amy, she would say, wait, y'all. Y'all were friends? And you didn't ask him that? No, Guys don't do that. Guys don't do that. Happens every day. I'll go somewhere. Hey, you know what? I heard Such and such is not feeling too well. What's wrong with him? I don't know. I don't know. I didn't ask. He didn't tell me. But anyways, you know, me and Casey, we had a lot of fun on that trip. And then he comes and we talked about it on this trip, he's like, man, I'm a few races away from this milestone in my career, and I might go run. And I didn't think he was serious. And then this news pops up that he's gonna run at Martinsville. Like, well, wow, he's really doing this. So it'll be fun to hear how his experience was this past weekend at Martinsville, whether he plans to do more and what he's been up to since he left. Let's get to it. Let's bring Casey into the room.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How are you?

[Casey Mears]

How's it going?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good. Good to see you. You got me.

[Casey Mears]

What's up?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good to see you, buddy.

[Casey Mears]

Dude, you don't age.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, right.

[Casey Mears]

What's the deal?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know. I was looking in my. In the mirror this morning thinking just the opposite.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, I appreciate all the things that we don't. We got to hang out. Jimmy Johnson put together a little trip where we went with our wives to Europe and spent about four or five days together. Had an. I mean, I had the best time. There were a lot of great things about that trip, and I'm very thankful for Jimmy, as we all are, and his wife Shannon, for organizing such thing, but. And Matt Kenseth and Katie were there, and it was awesome being with everybody. But, man, I think you were the life of the party. You kind of, you know, I don't know Man, I've always. I mean, I've known you for a really long time, but I don't know what. I don't know why, but it feels like that where you are in your life now, you're so much more comfortable. There's a lot less anxiety that we all think. I think we all share when we're out of the muck of a, you know, a racing career. But you seem just happy, and, man, you were. Every day we were all getting up with a headache and a little hungover, and, boy, the first text you would send would be some goofy picture or something about the day we'd all go, man, yeah, this is awesome. We're all lucky to be here together. And I've loved. I love your. I love your attitude, man. I don't know. I don't know really where I'm going, but I just wanted to say that I'm thankful that you're here today. I was excited to hear that you were going to race in the Martinsville race. I want to talk about that with you. You. You know, you got in Carl's car. It's a struggle because Carl doesn't have a ton of support. It's his own. It's his own car, his own engine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right, right.

[Casey Mears]

You know, some of the races that Carl does, there will be some support, but in this certain instance, this was all you and all. All him. How did this deal come together? When did you start talking about doing this?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, first of all, I just want to comment on the first comment you made. I really enjoyed that whole trip with you guys. We had a blast. And I think that, you know, you and I, early on, you're one of the first guys I met when I first moved back here. You know, we were hanging out and having a good time back in the day. There was a time throughout our careers where, you know, we didn't hang out as much. You know, towards the middle end of my career, and I was having kids early, and, you know, my life kind of changed. We went different directions, and you've always been super supportive of me, and I really appreciate that. And. And one thing I'm never going to forget, and the reason why it's. It's on my mind is because I just ran Martinsville and one night, and I don't even know if you remember. I think I brought it up to you before, and I don't even know if you remember the night, but we're all having a good time like we used to have, you know, probably too much fun.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I was just beating myself up because I absolutely hated Martinsville. Like, I didn't hate a racetrack more because I come from IndyCar Racing where, you know, I never ran anything under a mile. Yeah, right. So I didn't short track race like you guys did growing up. And I went to that place and you could have just blown it up and put fish in it, I wouldn't have cared, you know, And I was so pissed off one night and I'm at your house and we're having a few beers. You and I ended up being like the last two up or something. We were talking about it and he told me, you go, dude, you know, the first time I went to Martinsville, I hit every single thing. And he, I think he said, even including the pace car, right? Yeah. And he goes, just, just so you know, it's a hard place to drive. And you kind of just settled me down and, and, and got some perspective on that. And I think we stayed up and watched a couple old racing videos and then we ended up going to bed. But, but anyway, coming back here and running Martinsville this week, that, that thought was fresh on my mind, you know, knowing that I was going to come see you today.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Casey Mears]

So when you, when I saw you at the trip last year, you were talking about this milestone that you, you wouldn't mind reaching, right? What is that milestone?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, yeah, I was doing an interview and Jimmy was, I think, doing a test for first time back in a stock car after being at Indy for IndyCar for a while. And a reporter came up to me and he goes, he goes, yeah, man. He goes, you've been around quite a while. You know, you got 489 starts. I think he was asking me about the new car, what I thought about it, something like that. I can't quite recall. And I walked away from that interview going, dang, I'm 11 away from 500. Yeah, you know, that'd be a nice, nice milestone to have. And so I, I lightly started reaching out to people, you know, walking through the garage saying, it's something I really like to do. But I mean, I've been so far removed for so long now that, you know, I really never thought it would happen.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And a friend of mine, Doug Barnett called. He used to do a lot of stuff with, when I was with Jermaine Racing, and he's always constantly trying to get me a little something or try to figure out how to get me in a car again. And he goes, man, you should just call Carl along and Just see. And so we started talking. We ended up on the phone for about an hour. We started BSing about the old days a little bit. And Carl goes, hey, would you really be interested in maybe driving my car? And I thought, well, what the hell, you know, I mean, back in the day, I probably wouldn't have, you know, because, you know, I was fresh out of some good cars and, you know, last thing I wanted to do was get into something that didn't have a good chance of being competitive. And. But now with that goal in mind, it's a totally different perspective. And I thought, well, sure, man, I'd be interested in that. And shoot. I think he called me back a week later and said, hey, I got something you want to go? I said, okay, let's do it.

[Casey Mears]

That was it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was it.

[Casey Mears]

You didn't have to bring any money.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I didn't have to. He actually found a couple things. He goes, he was excited because he felt like I was sellable. Yeah, Some of the younger guys that he had in his car, he didn't know how to sell it, and he felt I was sellable. He called me and he was able to sell it. Fortunately, I had a sponsor that's. They're friends of mine. I work with them with an accurate protection group, and, you know, they jumped on board to help out as well, you know, and they came to me at first and said, hey, we want to be a part of that. And I said, well, I don't know if you really do, you know, because I just didn't know which direction it was going to go. And they're like, no, no, no, we want to support you. We want to be a part of it. And they're in the auto business, so with auto dealers and things like that. So being in and NASCAR is a great place for them to be. And anyway, everybody had a great time throughout the weekend. We didn't run like we wanted to had that conversation from you prior to the race, and I did a good job of soaking it all in and enjoying my family being there and looking up in the grandstands, you know, and appreciating all the fans that had positive things to say throughout the weekend. God, I had people that flew in from different states that hadn't been to race in eight or 10 years and said, man, we just came to see you. And I was like, damn, okay. That. That really hit home for me. I mean, it was a personal good feeling to know that you had an impression on somebody like that throughout your career.

[Casey Mears]

They. You Know, the thing that I like is when we decide that we're not going to do this anymore. We. You know, we. Some people. I don't know. I. I love to just scratch the itch. I just need to go. I just. I don't. I'll be. I'll be brutally honest. Like, when I. When I was running those Xfinity races once a year, right? And it was. I was lucky to be able to just say, hey, I want to run one a year, and had this little. Had this really successful team to do it, and so. But I would get halfway through the race, and I'd be like, man, I'm pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

I've got everything I needed, you know? Now whatever happens, happens. I'm gonna finish this race. But I love the smells. Smells and the sounds. And I love standing there before. I love. There's a moment after intros. You get done with intros, and you're just standing by your car and you're. You know, you got your kids there, your wife, and there's just a little bit of time to be with them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And to, like, watch them or really soak it in. Yeah. You know, appreciate it. I mean, so cool.

[Casey Mears]

I never. I just. I never did that, like, when we were full time. You probably didn't either.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No. You have a damn gun to your head, right? It's like you got the sponsors looking at, you want to do good, you got the team you got to perform for, you. You. In your heart, you want to go beat every damn guy out there, and you got this. This intensity on your mind, you know? And when you're trying to do it at the top level, beat the best guys in the world, you don't have time to sit back and go, oh, man, it's really cool to be here. You know, you're. You're there to beat them guys, you know, And. And so the. It is special. I. You know, this was a special weekend for me for that reason, and I appreciate the reminder prior to the race to soak that in. And, you know, I did, though, the one thing I did do, I could tell once. Once I knew that I lost my ride in the guy and the. The Jermaine car. I was running out about the second half of that year, and I used to call Booty Barker to the window every now and then, and I'd grab him, I'd be like, hey, dude, you're a NASCAR cup crew chief, and I'm a NASCAR cup driver, so this is pretty badass.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I said, let's Go have some fun. We do that before practice, and I tried to soak it in as much as I could, but you can't. You know, you get some of it in, but not all of it.

[Casey Mears]

I hadn't been in a cup car on. In a competitive race in nearly. Near, nearly 10 years. What did it feel like? What was it like for. I'll never do it. I'll never go run a cup race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Casey Mears]

Nope. Never will.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good thing you got that car now. So maybe I can.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was going to April Fools you a little bit. I was going to be like. I was going to get on here and announce that we got 10 races in the 40 car.

[Casey Mears]

Oh, man, I would love that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, but go ahead. I'm sorry, but I.

[Casey Mears]

What was the. You know, once. Once you get in there, it all kind of changes, right? You can't help but get a little competitive and. And you got to be, you know, focused and locked in. But, like, did you have. Did you have a couple moments during the race to. To sort of, you know, go, damn, man. This is, you know, what was different? Did it feel different?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I mean, the car itself, obviously, is a different car, I think. And this is me assuming this because I haven't driven the bigger tracks in this car, haven't even been on a road course or anything like that in this car. But I feel like Martinsville was probably going to be the least discrepancy between what I drove in the past and what the current car is.

[Casey Mears]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a really mechanical track. There's not a whole lot of arrow outside of shifting. I mean, even at the end of the. The cars that we drove prior to the. The new car, you know, getting the platform really stiff, no roll, you know, they were getting really flat and that kind of thing. So I felt like immediately five laps in, I was amazed how comfortable I felt right out of the gate.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, five laps in, I was like, oh, yeah, I've been here, like, almost 30 times before. I'm fine. You know, and immediately I just went to, well, the car doesn't work. I got to get this thing fixed. I got to go faster. You know, it was just. It just came. All right.

[Casey Mears]

That's in practice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it was in practice.

[Casey Mears]

How was the shifting?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The shifting wasn't too bad, you know, and I had a. I have a Simcraft simulator. And, you know, iracing. All those guys, they really do a pretty damn good job of getting it close at least. You know, sometimes you don't have all the feelings, um, but all the indicators are right and, and the track is extremely accurate. Right. The timing of when to shift and downshift was almost identical.

[Casey Mears]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, so I ran probably, you know, 15 or 20 races, you know, short, shorter races, like 15 minute races on the simulator. And I, when I unloaded in the car, I felt like I'd been there, you know, yesterday, you know, so it was super cool, but right away it was like, oh, my God, I gotta get this thing fixed.

[Casey Mears]

What was wrong?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had a couple different issues. At first, it wouldn't even drive straight down the straightaway. Like I'm in the gas, you know? You know, when you're in the gas. If I could keep it loaded all the way down the street, it'd be fine. But I had to lift a shift, you know, and the transfer of the load when I do that, man, the thing would, when I'd shift and downshift, it was doing this. I get on the brakes, I'm like, oh, thank God.

[Casey Mears]

Fix that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now I'm on the brakes. There was, they did, there was, there was air pressure in the left rear help the most because we couldn't really fix what was wrong. You know, we're pretty far over cambered. But we didn't, we didn't figure that out until we got there. And then once you get there, you can't change it. You're kind of locked in.

[Casey Mears]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so we inherently had some things built into the car that were, were a mistake, unfortunately. Those guys, honestly, I hats off to Carl Long's team. I mean, they, it is very, very difficult to do what they're trying to do. I mean, he's got nine guys at best, probably three full time guys that are working on that car. And you know, he's juggling sponsors, trying to run some Xfinity stuff, trying to run some truck stuff. And they got a small program and, you know, we, we had lost a sponsor right prior to the race, you know, and then some other guys stepped in and picked it up, which was super cool. And. But he had a lot weighing on his mind, so. So to make sure that car was perfect before it left would have been very difficult. But at the end of the day, we masked it the best we could with some stuff and, and got me some laps. You know, we were trying to make some changes that wasn't quite working out either. So I was like, man, just let me go out there and get all the laps in I can. Yeah, and we'll make something prior to the race. And they, they got it Straightened out, they got a little better. They found the, the right rear shock. You know how you wind the right rear shock all the way in to. And then count your rounds back out to know where you're at. Well, there's like 40 rounds you can do on that when it's all the way in. And we wanted to be 38 out and it was all the way closed. So through practice and stuff. So that. And then. And some left rear pressure straightened me out quite a bit.

[Casey Mears]

How did your experience in the race go? I mean, forget the net result. I'm just saying, like, as you're running the race, did you have a great time? Did you have some funny moments or any kind of tough moments?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I mean, I. There's a couple of times I downshifted a little too early when the tires were wearing, and I got the. I got the rear end kicked out going in the corner, which got my attention, you know, and one thing, you know, one thing I really appreciated coming back was I didn't know how I was going to be received amongst the other drivers.

[Casey Mears]

And I knew they were so happy to see you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And, well, I knew I was in a position too, where the, Where I was probably going to struggle with the car. Yeah, I didn't want to be that guy. I've raced around those guys. I've, you know, I get frustrated with those guys when I'm out there being competitive and there's somebody I'm, you know, seeing every 15 or 20 laps, you know what I mean? And, but the respect amongst the garage was. Was pretty awesome. You know, it was really cool to see a bunch of guys I hadn't seen a long time. And the newer, younger faces that I never raced with, I never, never seen. They knew me, but I didn't quite know them, you know what I mean? Because they, they grew up watching and, and the respect from those guys was great, you know, and it was, it was funny because that. That Carson host.

[Casey Mears]

Host, you know, he's a trip.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I've been, I've been watching him and he's. He's doing a hell of a job. Faster, you know, he's faster than I'll get out. But he's, you know, he's raising some attention for himself, you know, not, not always in a positive way, but a super nice kid. And we were in practice and I think the 10 car hit him or something like that. And then he got me confused with him and he went by me and he flipped me off down the straightaway. You know, I thought Damn, that kid is like what they say, you know? So I went up to him after. After he qualified after me. We talked for a little bit, and I said. I said, you know, it's probably not a good idea to do that because you're going to see me probably multiple times throughout the race as you're going by. And you don't want to piss off a guy like that because he's too close and you got a lot to lose, you know, and we just laughed about it and had a good time. But do you remember back in the day, there was an era where, like, there were birds coming out the window, like, every other lap?

[Casey Mears]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know how pissed off you'd get when someone flipped you off?

[Casey Mears]

I said, that was one of the. There were a lot of people that would flip you off. But being flipped off is probably one of the things that makes you the maddest.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my.

[Casey Mears]

For some reason, you could run into my car. You can give me a donut, door me in the middle of the corner. I'm going to get more angry with you flipping me the bird as you're driving away.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

100%.

[Casey Mears]

That's such an f you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you're going to. If you're going to flip someone off, you better be fast, you better be moving, and you got to be fast, at least for good. 10 laps better than that guy so he has time to cool down, because if he can catch you within two, you're done.

[Casey Mears]

I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. All right, man. Well, I'm glad you had a good time, and I assume you're legitimately going to go after that milestone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I really do want to. Yeah. I just, you know, I did have a good time. It was fun being back. There's not many guys that. They got 500 starts in the Cup Series, you know, and I'd like to be one of the first 50 to do that.

[Casey Mears]

You know, you have your eyes set on any other opportunity or any other racetrack or just kind of feeling it out, or is it still pretty early in the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's early. It's early. I have a couple guys. What was so great about doing this is it drew a lot of attention to it. There are some sponsors that have interest in and helping me make that milestone. It's a very difficult landscape right now with the charter program.

[Casey Mears]

A lot of open cars.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There isn't a lot of open cars, and there's very few cars that, you know, you can get in and be competitive, that are open, you know, and so it's a difficult Landscape. But there, you know, I got my eye on a few things. I definitely need to make some phone calls behind the scenes. Carl, you know, obviously was great for this weekend and, and maybe great in the future as well, but you know, I'm open to anything and obviously I'd love to go out and be as competitive as I can and, and accomplish that goal on top and have some fun.

[Casey Mears]

Is there a track that you miss that you might. Would like to go to?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Um, you know, Martinsville was one of those. I mean, I hated that track and it became one of my favorites at the end of my career. You know, I'd like to go there and run more competitive. I mean, I think it goes without saying, even though, you know, super speedways are kind of the, the odds of getting in a crash are very high.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

At Talladega or Daytona, but the open.

[Casey Mears]

Cars can be more competitive there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

100%. 100%. And I mean, Daytona is just special. Right? I mean, no denying it's. It's the biggest race we have all year long and you know, I'd love to do that. I mean, how cool would it be to be in the Daytona 500 for your 500 start?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean? If I could, if I could time that somehow. Y. I really always enjoyed the road courses. Watkins Lynn was a really fun track for me. I really enjoyed that. Obviously Charlotte's a special place. That'd be cool place to go.

[Casey Mears]

Hey everybody. You want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop dirtym media.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 [e-mail] this podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or growing your business, it has everything you need to create a professional site, manage your brand, and get paid all in one place. We all know in NASCAR how important the paint scheme is and how it looks on the car and well, the same thing when you're building a website. And Squarespace has that for you. With their industry leading website templates, designer fonts and color palettes, it's all important. Get paid quickly with branded invoices and streamline your workflow with built in scheduling and email tools. No matter where you start, your website is flexible to what you need. I was talking to a friend the other day, tj, who says building a new Website in Squarespace has been perfect for him. You believe that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm glad they're there. If I were to build a website, I'd have to have somewhere like that.

[Casey Mears]

Sounds pretty good. I like building websites. My buddy's new company, they're looking to get people's attention and get people to visit their website. And with the built in SEO tools that Squarespace has, they are able to maximize their reach and grow their business faster. Pretty neat. The other feature they really like is Squarespace has everything you need to run an e commerce business, which is important especially for a brand like ours. You know, everything can be done from payment to fulfillment, all with Squarespace. Your business might be brand new, but that won't prevent you from doing business and making money. Head to squarespace.com dalejr for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code Dale Jr. D A L E J R to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Casey Mears]

All right. Well, you're born in Bakersfield. I just went there like last week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you really?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you go the track out there?

[Casey Mears]

No, I had an appearance.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, did you?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. So speaking engagement. Okay. I got some El Sombrero.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

El sombrero. Did you? Little Mexican place?

[Casey Mears]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Casey Mears]

I actually text Harvick and I said, I'm in Bakersfield, man. He's like, get some El sombrero. So I had some of that on the plane.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There you go.

[Casey Mears]

What was the racing scene like in Bakersfield back when you were growing up?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, it's funny, you say you're from California and people go, oh man, where's your surfboard and your damn long hair, you know what I mean? That's immediately what everybody thinks. But Bakersfield was a oil and farming town growing up, you know, and amongst all that, there was some badass racers that came out of that town, you know, and you know, my dad, my uncle obviously made, made a big name for themselves coming out of Bakersfield. But a lot of guys that came and raced at Bakersfield made a big name for themselves. Guys like Ron Hornaday and guys like that. So it was a lot of fun. I mean, I, my dad owned a race shop and race team as I was growing up. So I, I never even came home from school and went to the house. I always went to the race shop. And what kind of cars he was racing off road at the time, you know, the Baja 1000. And what was really big back then was the Mickey Thompson off road series where he raced inside the stadium. Oh, hell yes. It was so much fun. You want to talk about the kind of racing that's the closest thing to a boxing match? It was that right there that honestly.

[Casey Mears]

Shout out to that. Because when I, when that, when that deal was going strong, I never missed it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really.

[Casey Mears]

Like when it came on tv, Okay. I think it was on ESPN or whatever.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sports or something like that. Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

And I remember, I think I remember.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

God.

[Casey Mears]

I want to say Robbie Gordon doing it a little bit. He did, but that was, they had video games.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, they had that Ivan Stewart game.

[Casey Mears]

They did, but they, yeah, they had that. They had the stand up arcade game. Like you'd go into a bowling, bowling alley or something and play it. And had the four steering wheels.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Casey Mears]

But they also had like a console version or something like that. They did, and I loved it, man, because it was contact parts falling off, you know, noses and quarter panels and things. And to a kid who just loved racing and motorsports, it was, I don't know, it was full contact and. But you know, and a lot of energy and cool little contained, tight course, like short track racing. And so you're, that's what, you kind of grew up around those type of vehicles for the most part. But then you have the other extreme of that, the Baja 1000, where you just like get in a damn, you know, get in a vehicle and just.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Haul ass across the desert, the land you can. Right.

[Casey Mears]

And so I'm going to bounce around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But yeah, no worries.

[Casey Mears]

I was telling this story the other day, and this ain't no man. And you were, you were around when this happened. Robbie Gordon was driving that monster Energy Hummer. And I'm not sure if you had the monster deal on it then, but he had this Hummer that he was messing with and he'd take it to Dakar and a couple other places. Yeah, I think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Casey Mears]

In Baja in between his cup stuff that he's messing with. And we're at Phoenix Racing and we got a night race. And so we're sitting around all morning on Saturday or something or Sunday, and he text me the day before and he goes, I got my Hummer here. You want to go for a ride? We didn't all talk all that often, but we, that's, you know, we were nice and he was, he was messing with our. He helped us run a little race for us at Michigan and our couple races for us in our junior motorsport stuff back in the day. But he just text me and say, hey, man, I want to. I'm gonna go run my Hummer across the ground tomorrow. You want to go? And I thought, and dumbest damn thing ever. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I get. He pulls up in the morning. It's like 10 o'clock in the morning. Pulls up in front of the bus and. And I get in that thing and we took off. Left the racetrack, out the tunnel and took a left and went down the highway. And we're driving down the highway about three or four miles and he just turns in through the ditch and off we go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

And he. We were on a path of some sort, so it wasn't like we were just driving through the bushes, but we were on some path and he is just hauling ass and it's just straight, straight, straight forever. And I'm like, I don't know if he knows where we are or where that, What. What's in front of us. We're flying.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right, right, right.

[Casey Mears]

We're flying. And I'm like, we're gonna, we're gonna go off in a cliff. We're going off into a ditch. We're gonna wreck the freaking hell out of this thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

And he's not. I can't talk to him. Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea if he knows where he's going.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

I was so scared.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I gotta tell you, man. He's, you know.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For Robbie, for all the right or wrong reasons, man. I. I got a lot of respect for what he's done throughout his career, his whole life. I mean, that dude has driven just about anything. And I'm telling you right now, my. My dad's my hero when it comes to off road racing. And he is a bad dude in the desert. He is a bad dude in the off road. But, but Robbie Gordon's one of those guys that really has something special. I mean, he, he has a next level in the desert that other people don't have. And when you're in a car with him or a truck going through, it's. It's going faster than it should.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, and he's okay with that. He's comfortable with where that is.

[Casey Mears]

And I felt like I was flying through fricking space, dude. You know that like in Star wars where the stars are flying by, I'm like, literally, I'm like. It felt like we were going 500 miles an hour. And I look over to him and he's comfortable as can be. Of course, the ride quality and those things are amazing. It felt like we were just on pillows just floating across the. The tires are just kind of tapping across the ground as we're going and. But I was never, ever in my life more scared. Like, I don't get scared. We race. Right. But that scared the out of me. And when we got done, I was so glad to get the hell out of that thing. And I'm like this little. And I'm like, you know what? I wish I had that ability that he has to say, I'm going to take somebody that typically doesn't get very scared and scare the out of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Casey Mears]

And you're right. Now, I never really thought about it like that till you mentioned that what a, what a talent he is, what he does have something special. And I was able to go across.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The desert firsthand, be a part of.

[Casey Mears]

It even for just a mere full moment and witness it. So getting back to your story, you grew up around those type of vehicles racing the Mickey Thompson Stadium Tour and stuff like that, but also the biggest thousand mile races or thousand kilometer races or the Baja and all that stuff. Yeah, the Baja is intimidating.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is. It can be, right? Yeah, it is. It's a very unique race. You know, for me, I was growing up with. My dad was doing it. I didn't spend a lot of time down in Baja when he was doing it because I was so young. I was a part of the stadium off road stuff, you know, because I got to participate in that. And then I started moving into formula cars. But I always wanted to do the desert. I always, that was always something I wanted to be a part of and do because I just loved it. Loved watching my dad, I played around out in the sand dunes and help.

[Casey Mears]

Me Understand what that race is like in my head, like in my, in my like totally novice mind, I think, okay, they must have a starting point and there's a finish line somewhere out there. A thousand. How far is it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thousand miles. The one I run course for the most part, they, they use various parts that are the same, but it typically changes a little bit every year. I mean, two years ago it was actually 1300 miles. Last year it was roughly 900. You know, they always call it the thousand, but they're always kind of trying to find new routes. But they run portions of the course that might run every single year.

[Casey Mears]

How many cars or vehicles usually are in this event?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hundreds of cars. Yeah, hundreds, Thousands of vehicles.

[Casey Mears]

Thousands of vehicles, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Between like four wheelers and, and dirt bikes all the way from those, you know, little Volkswagen bugs, the trophy trucks. I ran a Class 1 car with burning gone the last couple years.

[Casey Mears]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that was a lot of fun to rekindling that relationship.

[Casey Mears]

How many. And then every then you got to chase vehicles and all of that following you everywhere you go to be prepare pit fix. Do you camp? Do you, do you race from town to town and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you do. I mean you run a portion of the race. You know, when I did it, when I did it, I did it with Robbie one year in his truck. That was a lot of fun. His truck was amazing to drive. And I got to drive the middle section, which is cool because my parents have a place down there and I was able to base out of their home to do all the pre running and everything else.

[Casey Mears]

I was pre running.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was pre running is to look over the course, take notes, try to get a good idea of what's going on. A lot of the reason why you do it during the day, you can see pretty good. You know, if you're not in the dust and you can kind of judge what's coming up and be pretty fast. But nine times out of ten you're in the dust, so you're really running blind. So to know what's coming up is really important. And then at night things are different too. Right. So I ran at night my first couple of years in the Baja 1000 and you can't tell at night with your headlights. You can't tell if a hole is a foot deep or if it's a 20 foot deep hole. Damn right. Because all you can see is the high spots. And so you have to think when you're pre running. Okay, if this is at night or if I'm in the Dust. What do I need to know so that I can stay in the gas when I can't see?

[Casey Mears]

Because you can't lift. Don't lift if you don't have to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you're lifting and the next guy doesn't. Yes, you're losing.

[Casey Mears]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean? So it's, it's the competition that makes you do that. And I gotta say, it's, it's, it scares you to death because I don't know how many times throughout the race, you know, I get scared because you just, there's so many unknowns. I mean, you're running wide open, you can't see. I mean, I was, I was running 120 miles an hour down a, down a road that I knew I could run wide open down, but I couldn't see 40ft in front of me. And the co writer's going, yep, keep digging, keep digging. Yep, straight, go. And as soon as they stop talking, you're like, did his mic stop working? Oh, you know what I mean? Is there a 90 coming up? And I don't know about it. Yeah, so there's just, there's all these little heart stopping moments throughout that race and I guess to a lot of people that wouldn't sound too intriguing, but the level of, you know, adrenaline that you have in that race the whole time, just, you know, pushing yourself to the limit to, to tackle this course, you know, the.

[Casey Mears]

Where do you stay at night?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know. Well, I ended up usually run my portion. I usually go back and I stayed at my dad's house or we'd go back to the hotel, depending on what.

[Casey Mears]

So you run, you run a sec, you run a distance and then you can leave and go to wherever and then come back and run the next leg.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, you only run one leg. So like if there's, if there's a thousand miles, you know, I'm gonna, you.

[Casey Mears]

Have, you have one job.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I run my 300 and whatever, 400 miles and then that's it. I hand it over to the next guy, he runs and then I go get some sleep. If I run one of the early legs, I go get some sleep and I wake up early in the morning to catch him cross start, finish line, you know, in Ensenada or Cabo or La Paz.

[Casey Mears]

How many? So how long does the race take to run?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would say roughly 20 to 24 hours.

[Casey Mears]

Ish.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty long.

[Casey Mears]

Fast. Actually. I thought, no, I thought it would be days.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, no, these trucks are hauling ass these days. They're running fast.

[Casey Mears]

Sorry. I mean, I'm learning. This is what's great about this show. Yeah. I mean, has there give me some moments where you. Your pants. Well, we've been talking about that on this show quite a bit here lately.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, there's. There's one. There is one time, you know, we're. We're in the race. There's a. There's a water crossing. Right after the water crossing, there's this massive tree and it's a straight uphill climb, you know, that's pretty gnarly. Like you got to get around at the bottom to make it all the way up at the top. And there was a guy that was broke down right at that tree. Outside of that tree there was about four feet and then like a bunch of bushes and rocks and. And then up the hill there's a big bush and rocks, right? But you can't see up the hill because there's this big ass tree in the way. And so we kind of assess what's going on. We go, okay, we're going to go around in those rocks and. But we got to haul ass because I got to make it up this hill. So I cross that damn water and I stand in the gas and I freaking clip the back of this guy's truck and put my right side's out in the rocks and plow over a couple trees and jump back on. And when I jump back on and go up this hill and I finally clear the tree where I can see there's a buggy that didn't quite make it and he's backing back down the hill to try to get down. And I'm about to just destroy this guy, right? So I fire off out in the bushes and see a tree that's probably about 8ft tall and we blow right through that freaking thing. I don't know if somebody's camping on the other side of it. I don't know if there's another car on the other side. I know nothing, right? And we blow throughout the top of this tree and get the other side and we made it. But I mean, I. Damn, that whole time I was just in the gas and just praying that nothing bad was going to happen, you know. But that's what I had to do to get through, you know, There was another time where it rained like hell. 2019, it was the very first time I ran the Baja 1000 and I ran with Geyser Brothers and Exalta actually was the sponsor. They wanted a NASCAR guy to be a part of It. I just happened to move to Arizona at the time and was dying to run the Baja 1000. So I went and run with these guys, and it. It rained harder than it had ever rained. It flooded. Ensenada is the first time here I am knowing that I'm in a series that definitely isn't going to get canceled because of rain and have to race on Monday. First time in ever. It did it.

[Casey Mears]

Oh, wow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I might have brought it, you know, and so we. We had pre run. We kind of knew what was coming on and coming up because we had made all these good notes. I was on a real flat, fast section with a couple big rises, you know, that were just. You put an airplane. If, you know it's clear, you can stay in the gas over the rise, you know that stay in it and go. And it was one of those. I'm doing 120 miles an hour again and going to stay in it over this rise and hope that a donkey or a civilian isn't driving a car on the road or something on the other side. And I jump up my. Get in the air and no. About 100 yards, it's about 4ft deep of a lake.

[Casey Mears]

Oh.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because the water just filled in and we landed in that thing. It freaking dumped through the whole. The whole deal. But you didn't know because when you pre. Ran down, that stuff was there, you know, and it was fenced on either side, so you couldn't. You couldn't get out of it. And I start chugging through, and it started about to get stuck. Oh. So I stand in it and I stand. And it all comes through the hood again. I spin out. Neither one of us could see. I just stayed in the gas and just. I just knew I didn't want to end up in the water stuck, you know, and we ended up way off out to the side, you know, facing the wrong direction. But I was in some dirt that I could get ahold of, and we turned around and took off again. But there's. There's moments like that throughout that race. And what is a really cool. I mean, we have moments throughout our races, right? There's always a story. It doesn't matter how you run. Whatever. Something happened to you throughout that race that was a challenge to get through, and Baja's no exception. I mean, the stories that you get out of that event and sitting around a campfire with, you know, 10 or 15 other guys that just did it with you, it's, you know, it's always been a place where we just loved it and enjoyed it and had fun. But we've always known that. I mean, in Mexico, you know, there's a little less rules, Right? That's part of what's fun about it, Right. You can go down there and have some fun, you know, and then. But at the same time, there's little less rules, right?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So if you end up at the wrong place, wrong time, you can be in a bad scenario. You know, dads come back after the race with, like, bullet holes in his truck, you know, and nine times out of 10, they just think it was like, drunk ranchers that probably didn't really approve of you running through their land or something like that, but they were racing through there anyway, and it definitely changes your mind. I think the, the, the atmosphere down there right now is a little bit different than it has been probably in the last 10 or 15 years, you know, and there's been a bit more of that going on in Baja, where you didn't really, you know, deal with it in the past.

[Casey Mears]

Do you think you run more Baja races in your future?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I want to.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, I really do want to. I love it. I mean, it really is. There's nothing like it. I'm telling you. Once you're a part of it and you do it, it either gets in your blood. Either get down there and you love it, or you absolutely can't stand it with your whole heart. And. And we're the other way. Yeah, we love it with our whole heart and have a good time with it.

[Casey Mears]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Casey Mears]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Casey Mears]

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, I definitely did not see that coming.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, pretty neat, huh? So for any of our listeners shopping for commercial vehicles, here are some things you need to know about us at Dale Hart 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 Dillon Hart Jr. Chevrolet will give you a world class experience. Chevrolet together, let's drive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sales ending soon. See the details@kubota orangedays.com talk I guess.

[Casey Mears]

I want to give you opportunity to celebrate the Mirrors Gang.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Casey Mears]

You sent me and Amy some Meers Gang.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Hats and T shirts and we love it. The me's name now I understand. And I don't know. I don't know where the rest of the world is, but I'm sure racing aficionados or racing fans are aware. But maybe the casual fans, not so much, but the mir. In my mind, the Mears gang. There's a lot of racers with the last name Mears. Right. And very similar to the Unsers and the Andrettis.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Casey Mears]

You guys aren't quite as out there with it. And I would say the other thing that I think is unique in your family is you all had different disciplines. Like you went into stock car racing, you know, and there's the, there's the Baja and the buggies and the trucks and IndyCar and all kinds of stuff. Right. So everybody was kind of doing a little bit of everything. But there's a ton of success there, I guess. Help me understand what that was like growing up. Did you realize, I suppose when, when did you realize that there was some real legacy and, and, and, and a story.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Told.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So first of all, the one thing that was just the coolest thing ever was seeing Amy and the girls.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sent that video race morning. You know, that was the cutest thing ever. So that was super cool. I want to tell her. Thank you. That was, that was a blast. Or it got me. It was so cute. And Trish and I loved it. Right. And the Mirrors Gang to me is, is. It's a big place in my heart. You know, my grandfather started racing back in 1946 in Kansas and it did really, really well. Won a bunch of races. They used to call them the Jalopies back then.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And, you know, it was the old model A, model Ts with no fenders on them and. And they used to do crazy stuff like run their car around in the parking lot with the. The steering wheel turned all the way to get the tires to where. To where it would create an edge on it and they could flip them backwards, run them on the car. That's the stuff they used to do back then to get a little bit of advantage. Right. And so my grandfather had a huge passion for racing. That's what he loved. That's what he did. But he had a backhoe business. That's how he paid the bills. He moved to California. My dad was. Was my grandma, my grandpa both moved to California when. When my dad was 5 years old. Rick was just born and my grandfather ran a backhoe and. And you know, still was. Was into racing and having some fun. And pretty soon my dad, my uncle both started kite and get. Getting into it. And from what I understand, talking to my grandma, Skip, grandpa, we've lost both of them now. But they were starting to get into racing dirt bikes. And they're starting to do really well and have a lot of fun with it. But my grandma wasn't having any of it. She did not like them on a motorcycle. And they ended up somehow, I can't remember the whole story. They ended up getting a buggy, started racing some local races down in Ascot, which is south of. Of Bakersfield. And they went down there and just started winning everything, started winning a bunch of races. My dad, my uncle, both. My grandpa would hop in and drive, and they used to come down with a big group of guys that would always help them out. And some media affiliate down there dubbed them the Mears Gang. Like, oh, no, here comes the Mears Gang, you know. And there was for two reasons for that. Because they either beach on the track. If they didn't beach on the track, they usually got in a fight in the pits and won that too. So that was. But what's weird about my family, not weird, but my dad and my uncle and my grandfather, they're always known for being super nice, super easy, super down to earth. But they just took zero.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, so something wasn't working out for them on the track. They usually figured it out in the pits later, you know, and so they got dubbed the Mears Gang. My dad saw that as an opportunity to create some sort of family legacy. And he actually drew the Meers Gang.

[Casey Mears]

Logo, the one we see today.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The one you see today. And this is back in the 60s.

[Casey Mears]

That's badass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. And so then they started putting it on T shirts. They go down there with white T shirts with these big mirrors, gang logos. And that was. That was our posse, that was our crew. And that was prior to me, you know, and I always grew up. Mears gang T shirts, everything. My dad, when we went to the off road races, it was a Mears gang logo with the truck in the center of it. And if you went to an IndyCar race, it was the Mears gang logo with my uncle's Indy car in the middle of it. And that's just how we rolled, you know. And it was always really important to me throughout my career to keep that going, keep that family legacy alive, you know. And that's kind of where we got with it today.

[Casey Mears]

So how did you begin your racing career? What was the first. What was the kind of first thing that you saw? And you went, I want to do that. That's where I'm going to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The very first thing I raced, I was 5 years old and I raced a 73 wheeler flat track stuff out of Bakersfield Speedway.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so I raced flat track and a three wheeler and then jumped up to four wheelers when they first came out. And on a flat track, flat track, circle track. It was a part oval. And then you go in the infield and. Oh, you know, at bigger school speedway.

[Casey Mears]

Fourth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And jumped up to 80s, then went to modified 80s. That was really cool because we built these really customers, they started out as a dirt bike and because they had the horsepower and the. What he needed out of 82 stroke and people were converting them into four wheelers. A really good friend of ours and a close friend of my dad.

[Casey Mears]

Does the have a jump?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No jumps, just flat. All flat track.

[Casey Mears]

That's flat track, two wheel drive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yep. And a good friend of my dad's, Billy Anderson, really good friend of ours, he's going through some health issues right now, but he built this, this quad for me, and I have it to this day.

[Casey Mears]

Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I hung on to it. Yeah, it's a. It's a really cool little, little piece that he built. And that thing was so fun to drive, but went from that to racing goat carts, went from go carts to formula Mazdas, Ran formal Mazdas for a long time. Got an indie lights for four years. Dabbled in Indy cars. My first Indy car race was for Bobby Ray hall at California Speedway. Finished fourth and led the race.

[Casey Mears]

How were you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was 19 or 20 years old, something like that.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Somewhere in that range, I believe I Could be off on that. Your fact checkers probably get me on that one. But. But yeah, we were, shoot, we were running California Speedway. We'd average 236. And in the, in the race I got as high as 257.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In one of them cars and that. They were just rocket ships, man. Fun to drive. Unreal back then. And then randomly I had just a brief story of how I got to stock car racing. Was obviously we had a relationship with Roger Pinsky with my uncle racing there. And Dan Luganbuehl, who was Roger Pinsky's right hand guy for it had to be 30 years or more, had become a pretty close friend and he knew that I was coming up through the ranks, you know, doing the indie light stuff, dabbling in IndyCar and he had a friend, Wayne Jessel, with Jessel Valtrain that was, that was just getting ready to buy into that. Cc. It was CC and somebody ended up being CC Welliver, I think it was.

[Casey Mears]

Oh yeah, yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he bought into that. Yeah, yeah, he bought into that. So it was well over Jessel.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that's when Hank Parker Jr. Was racing there. I know you guys are buddies.

[Casey Mears]

We are, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. And so I was at Indy one year. That's a whole nother story. Gosh dang, that was a crazy month. But I was at Indy one year trying to qualify for the 500. I was in a terrible situation and just missed the show. Ended up just missing the show to make my first Indy 500 and I was just a wreck. I was so upset about that. Ran into Dan Luganbill on the way out of the speedway and he goes, hey. He goes, I got a buddy of mine, he's starting a Busch team. You know, we're looking, I've been talking to Roger. We're trying to create some sort of feeder program for the cup cup program. And you know, Rusty's probably going to retire in a few years. This might be a good opportunity for you getting this deal. Maybe, maybe it goes the right direction, you know. And I thought, well what the heck, you know, because CART and IRL had split at the time and nobody knew if CART was going to be the series or if, if IRL was going to be the one to continue to go on. So I thought what the heck, I'll go try it if it doesn't work out, maybe by then I'll know what IndyCar series to go back to. And by chance I got, I got this ride through Dan to go run the Busch Series. And that was it was. It was a tough. That was a tough year.

[Casey Mears]

Transition.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It was a. Oh, my gosh. From driving an Indy car to go into a stock car, it was like apples and oranges, big time, you know, and made a mistake.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now looking back on it, I think it would be easier to go the other direction.

[Casey Mears]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, when you go to an Indy car, they just, they turn better, they stop better, they, you know, everything's better. Right. Except for the racing and the fans, you know, and so we. And so then I get to that. And another really, really crazy story was, so I drove for those guys. It didn't really go well, but I got a lot of experience. I had a two year deal with them, but it was just. They didn't know if they're gonna have a sponsor for the following year. It just, it wasn't working out. And I got a call from Ricky Hendrick, who's a good friend of ours, and we started talking quite a bit and. And Brian. Let me see. Brian Vickers and I were kind of going back and forth a little bit in the bush series at the time. And Ricky called me and he goes, we were at his house one night. He goes, man, I'd really like you to drive that 5 car. I said, you got to be kidding me. I'd love to drive that 5 car. You kidding me? You know, to get that chance to drive for Rick Hendrick my second year back here in the, in the stock car world. And so he set me up with. I mean, I had the ride, you know, through Rick. We talked about it.

[Casey Mears]

This is the 5xfinity car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The 5xfinity car.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so Jimmy was my best friend at the time and one of the only guys I knew when I moved back here. He had Alan Miller, who's been a good friend of a lot of ours and really done a lot of good things for me over the year. But Jimmy goes, man, you really need to let Alan take a look at this. Just make sure that he's got things squared away. And I said, dude, I don't care what I'm getting paid. I don't care what that contract looks like. I want in that five car. And he goes, well, you should really have somebody look at it. And this is going to paint Allen in a bad light. But it's. He's. He did so many good things for so many of us, and he continued to work for me beyond this. But. Or work with me. But. But for some reason, whatever conversation Alan had with Rick, Rick called me and said, sorry, man. I thought he was calling to congratulate me. Hey, you got the ride. Done deal. And. And he said, nope, not gonna work out.

[Casey Mears]

What?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I was like, what? How? Why? What's going on? You know, and anyway, I lost that deal in the meantime.

[Casey Mears]

Is that all? You know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I need to sit down and talk to him more and really understand what happened in that conversation. Yeah. And I probably should have had that conversation when I drove for him again in the cup side, you know, and just kind of understood why that didn't work out. But he. So I didn't have that deal. I lost it. And in the meantime, I had had to go to court to get out of my current agreement. That was a two year deal with the previous guys. So I went and got out of that deal, thought I had the 5 deal lined up. It didn't happen. And I'm getting ready to go to the race of champions with Jimmy and Jeff, right? And I'm going as a tag along. They're both going to drive. And we're going on this European trip. Now, mind you, I just got into the Busch series. I'm not making hardly anything, right? Jeff's got a damn boat. He's got a place in New York. He's won the championship. He's Jeff Gordon, right? Jimmy's successful and doing well. He's in the cup series. And I'm getting ready to board this plane to go on this trip with these guys. And I can barely pay for the hotel rooms that I'm getting ready to go to, right? And I know I don't have a job, I'm like, this is ridiculous. What in the hell am I doing? And as I'm walking down the Jetway to go on this trip, it was at the end of the season, I get a call from Chip Ganassi or Andy Graves. At the time, the very first stock car that I ever drove was for Ganassi. As I was still doing IndyCar stuff, they let me do a test back here. Sterling Marlins cup car, very first stock car I ever drove. Wow. And it went well. It went pretty good. One of those two called me and I'm walking down the Jetway and they go, man, we gotta have you. And I thought, okay, cool, I'll be driving an IndyCar for chip. This is gonna be awesome. And they go, we gotta have you. And I said, okay. All right, what's the deal? What are you thinking? You want me to get back to Indy and. Oh, no, no, no. This is for a cup car. I said, a cup car? I said, I've just had one just really mediocre year in bush and you want me to go get in a cup car? And they're like, like, yeah, we gotta have you. And so they go, man, we gotta have a good clean cut young guy. And they can represent target. And you know, their target audience was young moms, you know, and, and, and, and all this goes down. And I said, well, I said, I can't get in that damn cup car for a year. You know, I only got a year of bush experience. I mean, get in there for a year. You're going to spit me out at the end of the season and my career is not going to go anywhere. And he goes, no problem. Four year deal.

[Casey Mears]

Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I was like, perfect, I'm in. And so I walked on that plane. Jimmy and Jeff sitting in first, first class. I'm getting ready to go back to my, you know, back row seat and I'm on the plane like this. Yes, boys, we're going to have a good time on vacation. I just got me a cup ride, you know what I mean?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I'm going to be racing with you boys next year. And that was, that was a really cool, really cool moment. Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Chips is a good dude.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He is.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. Is y'all. I'm assuming Yalls relationship still really good?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is. And you know, Chips. Chips always been Chips. Chips his own guy. Right. I mean, I think we've all had conversations with him and, and you know, Chip's not like anybody else. He's his own man. But I gotta tell you, deep down, that boy, he's got a big heart. And, and he, Chip Ganassi, prior to getting that deal in the cup series, when we were doing our indie lights program, which was team Mirrors, it was my dad, my uncle got together and ran my cousin and I in indie lights car for a couple years. That happened for a number of reason, but there were times where we were really tight on budget and Chip Ganassi on multiple occasions, you know, walked up to my dad, my uncle, and handed him a, a check just to help out, you know, that would buy us a set of tires that weekend or help us out. And I got to tell you, he told me he was going to give me four years in the cup series and he did. And I would have never had the career, I don't believe if I wouldn't have got that opportunity with you.

[Casey Mears]

I like him. He kind of reminds me he's like the Dana White of cup owners. And you know, he's no bull. Tells you he's kind of guy that. Now, I don't know him as well as you, nowhere near, but he gives me the vibe that he's the kind of guy that he said he's. He'll do what he says he's going to do. He was a racer himself, so he can understand some of the things that we're challenged with. Right, right. Some owners that aren't. Some owners that haven't ever driven the car, there's a bit of a disconnect, for sure, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Casey Mears]

They can still be incredible owners and very successful, but, man, when you've got an owner that's drove, it's like you can speak the same language when things aren't going well. Especially you can go, hey, you've been there. You know, this is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is.

[Casey Mears]

I need this part of this piece change or this. This person in me. We're not, you know, whatever it is. They can. They. You feel like they can understand where you're coming from.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And I think there's 110% something to be said for that, because I drove for guys that weren't, you know, drivers and guys that were just like you, I'm sure, throughout your career. And, you know, a guy like Chip, he'd sit in the driver's meeting, you say, hey, I need this, I need that. They immediately get to work on how they can fix the car to make it better. Right. Or on the side of thinking along those lines. You drive for guys that haven't driven before. They just. They're looking more at you, like, how can you figure this out?

[Casey Mears]

How can you change, you know, how can you change? What can you do different?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, a team owner that's been a driver, they know how important it is to get that car the way you need it, you know, to go fast. And that's, I think, a key component in a lot of ways.

[Casey Mears]

So I think that your experience at CHIPS was a lot of fun. You had a lot of good speed, ran their Xfinity cars from time to time and had incredible speed. What are some of your proudest moments? I suppose driving the 42 and being a part of that team and driving the 41 and the 42.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So, as you know, my first crew chief there was Jimmy Elledge, and you know him well, and we had a lot of fun together. It was. It was the right match, I think, for me, early on, you know, to really learn and understand the sport and have a guy that I could Relate to as well. And, you know, sitting on the pole at Indy was. Was a big moment for me. You know, we had some really fast race cars there back in, like, 0405, you know, wind tunnel was working right. Everything was just kind of going in the right direction every time. We built a new car, and we finally figured out that cool bind thing. And I know there's a lot of guys that think they had it figured out, but I think we were one of the first that really had it figured out. I mean, we had that coal bind thing worked out real well, and we went to Indy, sat on the pole, and obviously, that's a special place for me. All the success that my uncle's had there, my dad's race there. The mare's name is really well known when you go to the speedway. And when I ran that lap, I knew I was fast in practice. I knew I was fast in practice. And we knew we had a shot at it and went out there and put that sucker. That car was so fast. I remember that lap like. Like it was yesterday.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And we crossed start, finish line. And back then, you know, before we had these new cars, you taped up the grill, so as soon as you cross start, finish line, you cut the motor off. Right. Keep the thing from blowing up. And so across the stripe, cut the motor off. I was like, gosh, dang, that felt good. You know, And I hear on the loudspeaker, because your motor's off. Dale Carnegie's there still at the time, and he said, and it's a new track record. And by then, I'm rolling around three and coming into four. And at Indy, the grandstands are so close. Narrow, right? Right. Like the outside grandstands are. Right. And they got the inside grandstands and the sound of the crowd and how crazy they went and how loud. I get goosebumps talking about it right now. You know, that was just probably, definitely one of the coolest moments I had with Ganassi.

[Casey Mears]

Now, I'll be surprised if I'm wrong here, but I think we, being him, both qualified in the top three.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I remember that Indy that year.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, I think. I think I remember.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know when you and I qualified, we qualified 1, 2 at. @ Pocono one year because we were both about ready to go. We were last couple guys to go out, and the rain came over.

[Casey Mears]

Oh, and it cooled the track off. We hauled ass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I sat on the pole. You might have been outside front row. I can't remember. But both of Us hauled ass because it like school athletes.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. Major advantage you would replace. You went from the 41 to the 42 when. And replaced Jamie Murray. He. I think he was going to Roush.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

And then they brought Reed Sorensen in, I believe to the 41. They did anything, you know, anything odd or unusual about that? I mean, it's rare. You see, I guess the driver slide from one car over to the same. A different car in the same organization. But I bet you I'm assuming it just was a rebrand of the sheet metal and not so much anything else.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I. We actually swapped entire teams. Yeah, we did. I. I went over to Donnie Wingo and that was. That was Jamie's whole deal, all them guys. And Reed Sorensen slid in with. With. With Elledge and Ellage and I, we got a great relationship. Man, I like that guy. We had so much fun together. And. But there was some tension like that that. The first part or middle of that, that third season that I was with Ganassi where, where, you know, things aren't quite working like they want to and the finger points hurt. I think it's him. He might think it's me, you know, type deal. And. And so there was. There was some decisions made really early in that third season that we were going to make a change because they knew Jamie was going somewhere else and they knew that they had Reed coming in. They're trying to figure out where to place him. And so we decided to change it up. But the funny thing is about mid season, that third year, we started absolutely hauling ass.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And we were like, dang it, what are we doing here? Now we're changing it all.

[Casey Mears]

And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But we went ahead and made the change. I went to Donnie Wingo. Love him too. Great guy. Shoot. We went right in Daytona that year and that was the first Daytona 500 that Jimmy won. I got second. And I'll never forget Dodge being so pissed off because we. Here I am with a run, I'm third, and there's Newman and, And Jimmy.

[Casey Mears]

And Newman's in a Dodge.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I had to pick somebody, right. I couldn't go. I wasn't going to go buy both of them. Right. And so my first thought was, I'm getting behind Jimmy, you know, And I pushed him to his first win at Daytona and I ended up getting second. And I'll never forget after that race, Tony Glover, right. We were pretty tight. And after that race, I finished second. I was like, gosh dang. I was happy for Jimmy about. Gosh dang. Second you know? Yeah. And he goes, mears gang. Let me show you. See what he's called me. Mears gang. Put his hand around me. Mirrors gang. Let me go show you something. He walked me over to the NASCAR hauler and back then they post the winnings on the side. Piece of paper. Right. I think it was like 1.6 or something for a second.

[Casey Mears]

Damn. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he goes, look at that right there. And I was like, damn.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I had no idea. Like, I. I never. I've been racing, you know, for three years in the Cup Series, and I'd never looked at the damn prize money. One.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One time.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. And so I felt a little bit better after that.

[Casey Mears]

I bet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

So I want to. I want to talk to you. I think first off, before we go to Hendrick, is about the 2005 Homestead race. Leading the race with 17 laps to go, and the car should come out. You feel like that if we talked, me and Carl Edwards had had this conversation. It's not a new conversation, and it's not a new idea.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Casey Mears]

That NASCAR had a very. NASCAR was very quick to throw a yellow. Some of the races would have these long green flag runs. We just signed a new TV contract. TV was probably putting some pressure on NASCAR about the entertainment value. And, you know, it was. It didn't take a lot for yellow to come out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did not.

[Casey Mears]

It could be. You know, it could. It could. If you. And I looked at it now, this is. You know, there's a corner worker or a guy, a spotter or whatever for nascar. There's an official. That's in the corner. You and I will look at something and go, yeah, that's not metal. That's. That's a bare bond, or that's duct tape, or that's. That's a. That's a. That's not a metal piece that's in danger of doing anything. But they look at it and they'll be like, I don't know. Could be. Yeah, caution. Put it out. And, man, if there's a graph, that's a lot of fun to look at. I don't know if you've seen it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think I have. No. I could probably tell you what it looks like.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, the. There's. There's a graph that kind of tracked cautions per race from, like, I don't know, the 80s. And it's literally, like 1.7 pretty much every year right around. Right around there. Pretty flat. New TV contract around 2000, 2001. And it starts. Ramping up and it goes up to like three and a half, four, and stayed there. And it would spike every once in a while a little bit. But it's two cautions per race on average, more than it had been for 30 years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gotcha.

[Casey Mears]

When they introduced stage racing, what do you think happened? Back to 1.7.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

And so they. I feel like that now that my personal opinion is, is that we, they. We all put so much pressure on them, complain so much. Carl jokes that a lot of the debris cautions were for me because I was getting ready to get lapped. Could have been the case in this, in this race, Homestead 2005. But, you know, all of us, I think all of us in the industry back then felt this way about it. You know, the cautions were a bit egregious. Some of them were unnecessary. A lot of times they'd throw cautions and not even be to show you any reason for it right there, even anything on the track. But when NASCAR and you know, when NASCAR felt that pressure, they, they, the networks and them go to the drawing board, come up with stage breaks. Now we're going to have cautions.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right?

[Casey Mears]

Right now we don't need to do this anymore. You felt like, you know, that there was a late yellow in that race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That you were going to win 100%.

[Casey Mears]

That was probably unnecessary.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

100%.

[Casey Mears]

Yep. And you feel like that if you had won that race, your whole career might have been different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I mean, your, Your. Your life and your career is broke into these moments, right?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Each moment dictates maybe that next moment. Right. Just such as life and anything. And we had. Well, not, not that, just that one. We had three races that year. We were leading Texas at the end had a caution with like five to go. We were leading. Atlanta had a caution with like six or eight to go, and we were leading Homestead with 17 to go. And, you know, I don't think that they did that in a way of, you know, we need this other guy to win the race. It was, it was, it was purely an opportunity to make the racing more exciting. And I gotta say, the fans, from a fan's perspective, to get like a green white checkered or a late race run, I mean, it was, it was exciting, right?

[Casey Mears]

It saved the day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you bunched, you bunch. Everybody up and everybody goes racing again. And for that period of time, you know, I can't say that it was wrong, you know, but I can say it didn't work in my favor, you know, a handful of times. And you Know that particular one, why was. I was leading by a fair amount, and I had a car that wouldn't fire off good, you know, for five laps, for whatever reason, that car and the way we had our setup for the first five laps, I'd swap flies for about, you know, eight laps. And then the back end, we get in the track, we'd start taking off at about 15, lap 15 or 20. That thing was a rocket ship. It just take off and go. And, you know, we kept. We'd come in first, go into the pits, come out six or eight, you know, swap flies for a little while, go back on up to first. I mean, we by far had the fastest car in that race, and I was getting ready to lap Tony, and he was. It was the year Tony was going to win the championship. And I know if. If I would have lapped Tony, it definitely would have put. Could he still won the championship. Absolutely. But it. I think it depended on where Biffle finished in that. In that event pretty heavily, and Biffle was running good. So I got within, I don't know, probably 10 car lengths of. Of Tony and 17 to go. And here come that caution, you know, that we knew it was going to happen. And. And we. We came in the pits first. I think it would come out fourth. We ended up finishing third or fourth, you know, with the. With a short run to the end, but for sure, there were some times where, you know, if I would have won a Texas, if I would have won Atlanta, if I would have won Homestead, I mean, not many people win three races in a season.

[Casey Mears]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, and that. That. That puts you in a different category. Right. It gives people that next team you go to or the next deal that you do. When you're looking at that crew chief in the eyes and you're going, man, I need everything out of you. I need everything out of this team. I need you to treat me like I'm Jeff Gordon when you're working on this car, not Casey Mears. Yeah. You know, and. And it makes a difference.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, they know you can do it. They know you can get it done without a doubt in their mind, they're going to work on that car and give you the best piece that you have. I mean, I worked with several crew chiefs that were great, but there's times. And you have, too. I'm sure. You look that guy in the eye and he goes, he doesn't believe in me right now.

[Casey Mears]

We talked about this on my show yesterday.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Casey Mears]

Somebody was asking me about. So Denny's got a new crew chief this year, and they were just saying, you know, how do you. How do you know when it's met, when it's working? I was like, you'll walk in the holler and you can look that crew chief in the eye, and you can know right away whether he believes in you or not. And there's nothing they can do to hide or fake it 100%. And when you walk in the holler and the guy. And you know that guy's trying to turn over everything, every stone he can on that race car to help you, he believes. And if. And if you look in his eyes and you see doubt, it's freaking over.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

You're not going to. You're not going to change it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. And that happened to me a couple times throughout my career. You know it did. And Alan Gustafson, I love him. I really do. He's. He's. I. I would have that dude tune on my car in a heartbeat tomorrow, you know, but there was a moment where. Where he lost that in me. You know, we. We had a tough year that. That year, actually. You were there that season. Remember? Remember Rick? Were you there that year when. When Rick told us go to national, he said, I don't care if you guys are going to be there for six months. Figure out how to get these cars working or don't come home.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. That might have been prior. So we went. We went and did that test, and that was a headache, but we got our cars working a little bit better. Point being, first part of that season, you know, he just. You know, Kyle Busch just got out of that damn car, and I got into it.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kyle's a bad mfer. Right. He's a good driver, you know, and I think I can hang, but now that I can, now I'm on the backside of my career. He's got a. He's got a notch ahead of me.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean? I mean, notch ahead of a lot of people, right?

[Casey Mears]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so, you know, he. You know, Allen had Kyle, and, you know, we were struggling, but the whole team was struggling. But he lost a little faith in me pretty quickly, you know, and then I think once they announced that Mark Martin was coming into the car, there was a sense of urgency of, oh, shoot, we got to get this figured out. And it was the year that Jimmy and Jeff were fighting tooth and nail for the championship. Like, one guy won a race one weekend. Next guy, Jeff would win one. Next. Next weekend, Jimmy win one. We got it. Figured out midway season, both those guys made the Chase. I missed it, but if I would have made the Chase and back then I think it was 16, I would have finished third in the championship. If we had performed the way that we performed the second half of the year.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, we're the third best performing car that season, but Mark was already tagged to be in it the following year.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so that was one time, you know, and there's other times throughout my career too, where, you know, it's a performance based deal and if things aren't working, people start looking other directions. The one guy that, that I just absolutely loved working with, and he gave me, without a doubt in my mind 110 of everything he had all the time was Todd Barrier.

[Casey Mears]

Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I went to, I, I got shipped over to rcr, which was awesome to get to drive for that organization. You know, your dad drove for them for years. To be able to drive for a team that your dad drove for was, Was really special for me. Yep. And to drive for Richard and you know, we got there and it was another one of those deals where NASCAR changed the rules. None of us are running good. I think me and Harvick were flipping each other off for like 30th or something, Pocono, you know, because we were just, we were terrible. And Harvard got all pissed off at his crew and he had Todd Barrier and, and he had the baddest, I mean, the baddest freaking pit crew in the world, you know, at the time. But he got all pissed off and he wanted to change, so he took all my crew, right. And I get Todd and I get his pit crew and we, we start racing, we're still struggling, you know, and. But Todd came to me and he goes, he goes, what do you. He goes, I need to know right now what you need out of me. And I said, here's what I need out of you. I need you to treat me like I'm a multi time championship driver. And if you make this car right, we're gonna win races and we're gonna win championships. Treat me like I'm Jeff Gordon. And as long as you do that, I said, we're gonna get along just fine. And he said, no problem. Got it?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he did. We were struggling that year. Everybody wasn't running good. We'd just built all these brand new race cars because NASCAR changed the rules. And Todd is like, Richard. I found out, I think I found out what the problem is these things, but we got to build Some new cars, we got to build them differently. And Richard's like, bs, we're not doing that. We just. We just damn built 30 of these damn things. You know, I'm not building new cars. Figure out how to make these things work. And, and so Todd. And I think I can say this now because Todd's somewhere else. He's over at Gibbs. I won't get him in trouble. But he. He. He got in with the. The fab shop at midnight and built me a brand new car, you know, without. Without nobody knowing. Knowing. And we showed up to. I want to think it was Richmond. And I had Kevin's pit crew, which was just badass. I'd never had a pit crew that fast before in my life. And we. I think we finished inside of top 10. And all them guys still finished like 25th or 30th. And we went. We went on for about four or five races doing that before Richard finally asked, what the hell's going on over here? You know, And I remember Todd stood up and said, remember when he said, don't build no new race cars? Well, about five weeks ago, I went and built one for us.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Midnight. You want more of them? Richard goes, yes, sir, let's build some more of those.

[Casey Mears]

We were teammates for. It feels like longer, but One year in 2008.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One year.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

You know, don't. I don't know what you might remember about that experience, but, you know, and that was kind of toward your. Toward right before you left. But I enjoyed. I enjoyed kind of being teammates with you, but it was a very short, brief period of time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was. It was. I thought that was a cool moment because, you know, there was a core group of. Of us as drivers that. That I feel like hit it off and would. Would even hang out off the track, you know, and Jimmy and Jeff were a couple of those guys. You and I were. Were a couple of those guys. So that group together, you know, outside of the racing thing, I just thought was kind of special.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know that you had a group of guys that were friends and buddies.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. As far as four teammates, I don't know that you could get four guys to be more friendly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. 100%.

[Casey Mears]

Usually there's always. And not a bad apple, but a different one in there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. Right. 100%. So I thought we all got along real well. We shared everything. You know, I think everything was open book on the table. I don't know that it was the best years, you know, at Hendrick, as far as, like, what was the product that was getting put on the track at the time. We had a lot of struggles with that new car, you know, trying to get things right, trying to figure it out. But for sure, man, we had a blast, had a great time, and that was a real cool moment in my career.

[Casey Mears]

You talk about going on to RCR and running there for 2009. You went through a lot of crew chiefs, but eventually you landed at Germane and you would race there for five years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Casey Mears]

And you mentioned Booty and working with him, and I feel like that you found a way to really appreciate the, you know, the. That was a very small team. Very small, very small. Limited resources, limited funding, but y'all showed up every week, and Booty worked his ass off. Who was he, your crew chief the entire time?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He was. Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

So, yep, I was. When I was right after you left there and they had Todd Dillon in the car, I think it was literally the next year. So I walked, I'm walking around in the garage, and I was working with Latard at the time, and I was thinking. So I was kind. I was pretty aware of some of the stuff we were doing to the bodies and some of the trick things that we were trying to accomplish. And I walked by that car, and I went back to Steve and I said, man, I am really surprised at how hard Booty works. Even though he knows he's probably down a little bit under the hood, he probably down a little bit everywhere.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Casey Mears]

But he still does. He still is in the details.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I, I, I got a huge appreciation for Booty Barker, man. The guy just absolutely works his butt off. We took a program when I got there, it was a tough. It was a tough ride to accept at the the time, because Max Pappas, he had worked his butt off. I mean, you remember, I don't know if you remember how much time he spent at the track, you know, trying to get an opportunity and trying to get into this world. And. And we all know Max. He's just an outstanding person, human being, inside and out, but for whatever reason, it wasn't working at the time, you know, and he just had limited experience in these cars. And I got an opportunity to replace him and go in that. And, and, you know, when I first got there, this. This will give you. This will paint a picture a little bit. They had. Jermaine had a truck team that was really successful with Todd Bodine.

[Casey Mears]

They did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And those guys, they won a bunch of races, did really well. They had this cup program that was kind of Like a side gig, you know, they're running, you know, starting park some races, run half the season type deal. But they're trying to grow it. And so I come into there and I go to fit my seat. I'm fitting my first seat and I'm getting everything dialed in and. And Booty's in the window. Hey, what do you need? All the cars were different. Not one pedal was the same from car to car. Not one seat was the same from car to car. It was all just from wherever they could get a car, right? And I'm fitting this car and my seat mold won't fit in the seat that I currently had. And I couldn't figure out why I pulled it out. And it had a hex head bolt on it, you know, on the seat belts. And I said, oh, okay, that's the problem. Those are thicker and I can feel something underneath my seat. He said, just replace those with button heads. You know, that's what I've always ran. And Buddy's like, man, we're gonna have to ask Mike on this one, Mike Hillman. And I said, I said, what do you mean? I said, just put button heads in there instead of hex heads. And he goes, you're gonna have to go ask Mike. I said, I gotta go ask Mike for a button head bolt to put in my seat. And he's like, yes, sir. You need to go up to the front desk and ask Mike. I was like, all right. And I walked in, Mike, and I was kind of laughing, you know? Cause I thought, Booty, I. There's a camera somewhere, right? And I walk in there and I go, hey, Mike, I really need some button heads for my seat. Booty said to come ask you. And he just goes, man, I don't know how much of those you think they. I don't know if we can get button heads, you know. And I said, you're kidding. I'm like, you're kidding me. You know, seriously, that's how we started. I mean, it was that tight. And the reason why I found out it was so tight was we were getting a check for that cup car. And I think it was helping feed the truck program a little bit. Right? Long and short of it is Booty and I worked our butts off together real tight and real close with Bob Germain and with Geico, who was a sponsor at the time. And we really cultivated and built a team there and over time built a budget to where we could really go racing and start competing. And that's one of the more Proud moments I've had in the sport, to be honest. We took a team that was a start and part program all the way to a team that could actually go out and halfway compete, looked a lot better on the weekends, and turned it into a program that somebody else desired to be a part of.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. I was thinking that when I was asking this question or setting up the Jermaine Racing conversation is out of everything that you did. I mean, running up front and winning races and being competitive is obviously what every driver wants, but there's a lot of moments in a driver's career that have nothing to do with winning that are rewarding.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Huge. Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Things that people will never remember. I've got races that I ran that I'm more. That I'm really proud of that no one remembers. Right. I remember something that happened or something we did. And I have to imagine I do remember how shoddy and sort of patchwork that program was. And really unappreciated really by a lot of people in the industry. Didn't know one take it really that serious. Very similar to kind of Furniture Row. When they came in, it was like, oof.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right, right.

[Casey Mears]

You know, and Max was struggling, didn't have a lot of oval experience. They just weren't a threat. And from 11 to 2016, it truly did turn into a successful one car operation. And I think that you would go to the racetrack and overachieve nearly every weekend, you know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, and that's. That was. And that's a good point because we did in a lot of ways, you know, and we had, we had a good culture, and I think the culture had good perspective as well. Right. We had a sponsor that understood, really understood what we were fighting and what we're working on. They knew what kind of money they were given. They knew what kind of money other people were getting. They felt like they were getting a good value for what they're investing. Bob Jermaine always wanted to do better and. And here's a guy that never raced a race car. Right. But I was able to have some really good conversations with him to explain and to where he could fully understand of what our uphill battles were. And we used to sit down sometimes. He'd go, man, what do we got to do to get better? And I said, bob, I said, you know, another million dollars isn't going to change this program. Another two million dollars isn't going to change this program. I said, if we want to step up and we want to spend another 10 or $15 million, that might do it. We're going to get to that next level. You know what I mean? You know that guy, right? So I felt like we were kind of in that sweet spot right before the really big budget team programs. And I felt like we were getting good finishes and good results for what we had and the whole team kind of knew that. So that's what kind of kept that around for so long. You know, everybody was on the same page. There wasn't a team owner expected way more than he should get. There wasn't a sponsor that was expecting way more than they should get for their money. And we were just able to cultivate a good relationship, good open relationship throughout the whole thing. Build the team, build the program. And I can look back on that and say that I was really proud to be a part of that.

[Casey Mears]

I want to ask you about Richmond 2014. Marcus Ambrose.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

I saw that video the other day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Somehow come across my social media.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did it? Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Well, I've, I've never had anybody swing on me at the racetrack that I can remember.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Did you? Did. If I remember the video correctly. I think you both were ready to go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

What happened?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so learning later about this and Marcus and I, we never did sit down and have that beer. We always said we were going to go see Tasmania. Yeah. He took off and left.

[Casey Mears]

He's hard to reach.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't realize that, that he had a lot of things going on behind the scenes. A lot of pressure on him like he was, he was either going to be out or in. I didn't know that at the time. I was with the 13 car, which I very rarely had a. Like when, you know when you're with a team and you'd never have a good car but maybe like four or five times a year and you actually have a good car that weekend, you're just dying to get everything out of it. Right. And I had a really good car. Richmond. I had a top 10, top 5 car, legit with a GEICO program to beat all these big teams that day. And Marcus was. Didn't know if he's going to have a job. And under three or four restarts in a row, I'm on the bottom. He starts behind me. He goes all the way onto the apron at Richmond. Just misses the inside wall and then body slams me to get by me. Right. And he did it three times and so I'm freaking hot. We ended up having a halfway decent result regardless of what happened there. We pull into the pits and. And he just happened to be walking by me, and he's pissed off because he had a bad day. Yep. And I. I grabbed him. I grabbed. And I wanted to just knock the. Out of him, you know, But I thought, gosh dang it, you know, I don't want my team to lose points. I don't want to get fined, but I got to tell this guy how I feel right now. And every word that come out of my mouth, I would have decked me so hard. I mean, if I. If, if. If you would have heard what I was telling to him. I needed to be hit. You know what I'm saying? But I just didn't want to hit him. And he hit me, and he got me good. And then I. And then I chased his ass back into the hauler. He. He'd ran, and the guys held me back. I didn't get a chance to get my shot in. But the odd thing about that is Marcus Ambrose is one of the coolest guys in the garage.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, I know. You both are.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then from my standpoint, I've never had a beef with anybody in the garage.

[Casey Mears]

You're both two great dudes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's like two most mellow, kind of easygoing guys got into. It was so odd. So later we ended up talking about it, and I said, man, I said, I would have hit me, too. Don't. You know? But, you know, this. Here's what happened. Here's why I was pissed off. And, yeah, it was just an odd deal, but, you know, and I hate that it happened, too, because Marcus is a good guy. And I mean, we. We did. I take that back. We did talk later on the phone. We never did have that beer. But he said, man, he goes, that's not who I am, you know, and he goes, my kids saw that on tv. And he goes. He goes, I so ashamed I did that, you know, and so he's. He's a good dude, but he is, you know, the passion of this sport, man. And people don't understand the pressures that are going on behind the scenes. They really don't.

[Casey Mears]

Oh, my gosh. Let's talk about the end. All right. Learning that you're gonna not be in the car the next year, you know, what other opportunities did you have? How did you navigate all of that? And how did you come about the decisions you made?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, you know, there's a. There's a handful of things that were frustrating in the way that. That all transpired, Obviously, knowing that I was a huge part in building that program. I mean, there was A lot of people that were a big part in building that program, but I was a pretty big part in building that program, and I had a lot of pride in that. And I almost felt some ownership to a standpoint at some point, just because I felt like I was a part of that program even more than maybe Bob Germaine was at the time. For the amount of time that booty and I put into it to build it, I pushed for us to have a relationship with RCR because I felt like it was the best chance for the value that we're alliance. Alliance. Damn right. To get. We needed the motors. We needed a lot more help. There's no way we're going to do it on our own to make it to the next step. And I pushed really hard for that. And being at RCR before, I knew a lot of the guys there, I felt like I was going to be able to tap into that maybe a little more than some other places. And it was a big help. At first, they weren't quite giving us exactly everything. You know how that works, right? You're not going to get the first part that's built. It's going to go to one of their cars, and eventually a few months later, you're going to get it because you're a B program. But it helped our program a lot, unfortunately. It made it a really good feeder for our. For rcr. And so Bob Jermaine came to me one day and said, hey, man, you know, Richard called me and, you know, think he wants to, you know, he wants to get tie somewhere and.

[Casey Mears]

And, you know, probably discounted engines and other things.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're going to take care of our motors. They had like another million, million and a half to bring to the program. And he goes, he goes, man, I just, you know, you know, I think for us to grow, this is kind of what we need to do. And. And I was heartbroken on that deal.

[Casey Mears]

Sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was like, gosh dang it. I feel like I kind of helped bring that relationship together. And then for that relationship to. To take it from me was really hard to swallow. And. And I told Bob, I said, listen, man, I said, I understand why you're doing this financially. I really do. And Ty's a good driver. And I like Ty, I think. I mean, he's a good kid, really is. I mean, he's not a kid anymore, but back then he was a kid, you know, and, and. But I said, listen, you are not going to run any better. I said, you are not increasing your performance by making this decision, and it was nothing against Ty. It was just the resources and still the way that that thing was ran and the budget that we had, it was going to run kind similar regardless, right. And. But I said, I can understand your financial decision you're making. And, you know, he's going to put a couple million in his pocket. And this guy, Bob Jermaine, I got to hand it to him, he pulled a lot of money out of his own pocket to go racing every single year. You know, even though we had budget, I mean, this guy pulled a million, couple million out of his pocket every year to go racing and to let us do what we got to do. So when I went back home that night afterwards, and I'm thinking about it in my head and I'm going, here's a man that's invested God knows how much into this sport, into this team. It's probably towards the tail end of his run, right? And he has an opportunity to maybe recoup and put a little bit back in his pocket for all the years that he's put in. So I never blamed Bob Germain for that, and I never blamed Richard for trying to find a good spot for Ty, and I never blamed Ty for taking the deal. I would have done the same thing, but it was really hard to swallow. So I think when that happened, and I knew that that was the last time that was going to be in that car. I saw myself in a car from there on out that that was going to be pretty undesirable. Probably not making the money that I should be making. You know, you're going out even though we love what we're doing, I mean, at the end of the day, you're kind of putting your life on the line going out running these cars. And if you're not making any money, you're away from your family, and you're out there running circles and something you don't want to drive. What are you doing?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And really, my wife was kind of key in it because she goes, one day I rolled over in bed and we were waking up one morning, and she goes, you ready to move? I was like, what are you talking about? She goes, you ready to move? Let's. Let's go to Arizona. And I gotta say, it was probably one of the best things I ever did.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because the last thing I wanted to do was be a guy that was running around in the back of the pack. You know something? I didn't want to drive away from my family. And I got to tell you, probably the last eight or 10 years being to be right with my son and my daughter through almost every single thing they do. Growing up has been probably one of the best decisions I've ever made.

[Casey Mears]

You sell everything you have over here? Everything moved to Arizona.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We moved it. We. We sold. I had a storage, had a house, a couple other things. We sold everything, picked up and moved. We got three Penske Penske trucks. We loaded them up, hooked trailers to the back of them. My dad. My dad drove one. I drove one. My. And Donald, my motorhome driver back in the day, drove the other one.

[Casey Mears]

How close are you to your family now?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My father like anyone.

[Casey Mears]

Why Arizona?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Arizona.

[Casey Mears]

Why did you pick where you picked?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I wanted to be back towards the west coast because I grew up on the west Coast. I didn't want to be in California, even though I love California for various reasons. There's a lot of reasons why I didn't want to be back in California. But Trish and I met in Arizona and I always felt like. I always felt like when I got off the plane at Arizona or even California Speedway, I just get off and it felt like home a little bit more, you know. And the fact that Trish and I had met out there, she loved it. She's from South Dakota originally, but she loved Arizona as well. Growing up racing with my dad out in the desert, you know, following him around. There was tons of races that were in Arizona and the Mojave Desert and stuff like that. So it just felt like the right place to be. I wanted to play around in the sand dunes. Want to play around off road stuff?

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I remember one time, I remember.

[Casey Mears]

One time we were drinking some beer. A bunch of my friends were over at my house drinking some beer. And you drove your four but your.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Side beside the sandcar.

[Casey Mears]

Sand car. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it was that Tatum sandcar.

[Casey Mears]

Purple, blue.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was blue, blue, blue and silver.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. That thing was out of control.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You went for a ride in it, didn't we? Yeah, yeah. That was prior to the beer drinking time. Yeah, when I first got there. Yeah, that was fun.

[Casey Mears]

So you would left the stock car world behind, did you did not come do a one off or anything. And you put your roots down in Phoenix and you got into your sand cars and your hobbies. And what else, what else have you been doing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, raising kids. My dad, my boy Hayden's playing baseball. My daughter's in competitive cheer and she just won a national championship in Texas, which is just amaz amazing. So proud of those guys. And My boys full time baseball.

[Casey Mears]

What are you doing? What are you doing with your time?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm spending time with them, you know, I really am. I mean that's what we do. And. And you know, I do a one off little races here and there. I did a. Last year I went to up in Connecticut at Lime Rock park and did a little like TA2 race.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kind of pro am style event and Biffle and Newman were there and some IndyCar guys. Boris said, Danny Sullivan, you know, was in it. So that's the type of stuff that you get to do once you're at a cup that you would have never got to do otherwise. It was just a ton of fun. You know. I did a Porsche cup race with Jimmy Adams who owns Featherlight coaches. He invited me to come run his Porsche at Dakota, which was a lot of fun. I did a race in Mexico City with Michelle Jourdain and Adrian Fernandez and Mark Blendale, Paul Tracy, Max Pappas. And that race was prior to the Formula one race. You know, just. We were the race before.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so that was cool. 300,000 people in the grandstand.

[Casey Mears]

Didn't you do that damn Robbie Gordon's truck deal once?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I did.

[Casey Mears]

Where was that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I did that for about three or four. Three or four years. And those things were fun. I never was consistent through the whole season.

[Casey Mears]

Oh man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, jump in for a race.

[Casey Mears]

It looked like just chaos.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's some of the most fun ever. And you go, I gotta tell you, I've never seen a reaction out of fans like I've ever seen after one of those races. I mean the, the energy and the level of the people running back to the pits where the trucks are after the race to like high five you and almost say thank you. That was the coolest freaking thing I've ever seen. I mean he really had lightning in a bottle there and still kind of does.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know why that has never completely taken off? I have no idea. Because live there's nothing beating it.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, it was pretty spectacular. You decide that you're going to get back in a cup car, leaving full time nascar, whether you want to leave it or not, whether it's made for you, whatever that decision is. Right. Is not easy one. And even though you know, you went on and you found happiness, comfort, you're content, family, you've got purpose. Why do you want. I mean I know you 500 start milestones.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Cool.

[Casey Mears]

But you know how, you know how this stuff can be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Casey Mears]

You know, was there hesitation?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean I. You know, I guess if I'm really honest with myself, I'd show up to those races at Phoenix and those cars would fire up and they'd go out and I'd be like, that dude's still here. Why aren't I? I used to beat him. Why am I not in that car? You know, so there was just. There was an itch. I mean, listen, we start racing because we absolutely love it. It's a passion. It's something that's in our heart, in our soul, in our DNA. It makes us who we are in a lot of ways, which it shouldn't. Right. It shouldn't define you, but sometimes it does. Right. Because you love it that much. And when you have a long career, you battle through the ups and downs that it takes to get through this sport. The sponsors that leave T motors that maybe you didn't have a good relationship with the. The races that didn't go your way. I mean, let's face it, 95% of the time, for the majority of us, we're going to go home disappointed that night. Right. Throughout your whole career.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. And that kind of takes away, you know, you have love for the sport, but there's a moment towards the end where things. You build these things and they keep getting taken away from you that you just kind of. You lose that a little bit. You lose the passion for it. And. But it never completely went away. You know, it never completely went away. And when I'd show up to the track, I just felt like I needed to be out there and I didn't have a good reason to go do it. But then when I started thinking about, you know, having a goal, having a milestone.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Having a different reason to want to be out there. Right. I mean, of course I want to go out and be competitive. Gosh dang, how amazing would it be to go out and win a race, you know, in my last 10 starts to try to reach this 500 goal? But really the goal is to get to that 500.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so for that reason, it allows me to be a little bit more lenient in how I do it, who I do it with, you know, how is it all going to transpire? And it's just purely scratching the itch, like you said, you know, getting that. Getting that, that feel again and, you know, accomplishing that goal.

[Casey Mears]

One of the other things I think I was just thinking in my mind about what I think you might enjoy is me and Harvick on the CARS Tour, and now they have A west where they race at Kern county and different places. And it's really casual, like, you know, one. One or two races a month.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

And there's probably like a, I don't know, 12, 14 race schedule in the whole season. And so, like, I'm. I run about four races in my late model car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's perfect.

[Casey Mears]

And it's perfect. I got one coming up in two weeks, and then I won't race again until August. I'll go through the whole summer just doing work, but. And you never did that. You never really had that short track, grassroots chapter?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I never did, no. No. I've never raced the late model.

[Casey Mears]

No. And I think you'd enjoy it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Casey Mears]

I would encourage you to see.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

What my. What local opportunity might be out there for you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'd love to do that. And I know watching you do it is inspiring. I think it's super cool that you get out.

[Casey Mears]

You got to be willing to get your ass kick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. These guys do it every good.

[Casey Mears]

But it is that. It does scratch that itch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gotcha.

[Casey Mears]

And. And you don't have to go far to do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I've been meaning to get a hold of Harvick because, you know, now that he's done all that with the current speedway, and I just think it's so cool that he's, you know, one thing he's done a really good job of, and I was never quite in the position that he was in to be that guy to really support our hometown. I was always every year wondering where I was going to be or if I was going to have a job. But, you know, he's done a good job of giving back to Bakersfield, you know, I know he's donated a lot to the schools and things like that. It's neat to see him go back and be a part of that, you know, and try to help revive what always was, you know, a really big racing town. And, you know, seeing him run, you know, not too long ago in that. In that car out there was pretty cool, and I'd like to do that, too, someday.

[Casey Mears]

I think you would enjoy it, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

All right. Outside of trying to get to 500 starts, how old are your kids?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My son Hayden is 13. Gonna be 14 in May.

[Casey Mears]

He ain't got long till he crazy, right? Yeah. You got four years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Samantha is 16 years old. Two and driving. Yep. Yep. And so they're getting close.

[Casey Mears]

In five years, you're gonna be an empty nester.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's crazy.

[Casey Mears]

Five years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Crazy to think about that's.

[Casey Mears]

Gonna be here and gone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't believe. I mean, 16 years has gone by like that. You know, everybody always says that, right? You watch the old guys, oh, it goes by so fast. And you're like, yeah, whatever. I'm racing. I got stuff to do. And you realize it's just. It goes by like a flash.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's crazy.

[Casey Mears]

You're gonna have to start figuring out some. Some something to do because you ain't going to be sitting at home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, No, I can't do that. Yeah, yeah.

[Casey Mears]

No, for sure they're gonna go off to college.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it's crazy to think about. They're good kids. You know, you hope and pray that they make good decisions and you hope that you're instilling the best side of. Of who they can be and they take it and run with it. And, you know, I'm excited to see what their future holds. And, you know, that'll be. That's going to be a fun chapter, too, later on in life. But it's going to be hard to see him leave for sure.

[Casey Mears]

When you leave here, when you go home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm sticking around now. I stuck around for this show, which is great. So happy to be here. And then I ended up getting a hold of Marcus Smith and they're doing a grand opening for that new 1010 racetrack.

[Casey Mears]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Club track across the way. And they got a few events throughout the weekend. So I'm gonna stick around.

[Casey Mears]

Oh, wow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So I'm gonna be here for a little while.

[Casey Mears]

When you go back home, you go back to Phoenix, you'll. Or Arizona and you'll just go back to normal life.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Go back to taking the kids to school. And I'm gonna do all I can. I mean, are you gonna. We've raised. You know, there is some people that are interested in doing those races. I know the challenge is going to be, you know, how do I make that happen? You know, who is it with? How does it all work out? So hopefully I have those tough decisions and tough things to figure out.

[Casey Mears]

I just wonder, though, when you get in the car and you get in the car line or taking the kids to school, if you'll be sitting there when they're getting ready to hop out of the car and go, damn, I just ran a cup race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

I mean, you know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is.

[Casey Mears]

It's odd because I didn't ever think you were going to come back. Can do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I, I had that moment this morning. I was Sitting there, getting ready to go. I was at Jimmy's house. I've been there a few times, you know, over the years after racing, and I was like, damn, I just won a cup race. I just did that yesterday.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that was fun. And you know what was cool about that? My kids are older now. They can soak it in and understand it.

[Casey Mears]

What did they think?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They thought it was pretty cool. You know, I could really tell that they understand now a lot more about what I did for so many years, you know, and. And that was cool to see. And, you know, I was really blown. I know I said this already, but I was just blown away by the fans. I mean, there was. I can't believe the amount of old cars I signed. You know, I did a little appearance with Bob Pockers outside. He calls it a tweet up. You know, I went and did that. Yeah. There was a bunch of people volunteer to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I wanted to do it.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. No, you know what I'm saying?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You get.

[Casey Mears]

You get not like a. That's not a postership or an ask.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You appreciate that stuff now. You know, before it was an obligation. Right. Because you're so busy doing all this stuff, and it was one more thing you had to do. And I always appreciated it, but not fully. And I appreciated the fans this weekend a lot. You know, their support, it was super cool. And I think for my kids to see that, that was rewarding for me, for them to see that their dad built something over the years that people appreciated and wanted to be a part of, and. And that was cool. And then one thing I would like to comment on, too, prior to leaving here is, you know, you've always been a great friend. I know there's a period of time where we didn't, you know, spend a whole lot of time together. Kind of went our separate ways. Stuff was going on, and I really enjoyed, you know, all of us four together, our eight together when we're on that vacation.

[Casey Mears]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just being able to reconnect, you know, at a different level, a different time in our lives, rehash some of the old stuff that we did over the years. And I just feel like it was super cool to reconnect with you like that and kind of root that friendship back in again.

[Casey Mears]

I agree. I mentioned that at the top of the show, and that's a great way to close this conversation we had. I think that I want to. I'm choosing my words, but we were really fast friends back in the day, right? You know, and. And I did. I didn't really remember or appreciate, I guess, how much we did spend time together early on. We weren't teammates, you and I think the connection a little bit was Jimmy Elledge.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

And how he was a part of my life as well. But we just like to do the same things and go to the same places and drink beer and hang out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And spend time out on the lake. We. You know, we always go back to your place after the races.

[Casey Mears]

And then you got. You got married and started building a family, and your life went another direction before I got that part figured out. So. Yeah, man, when Jimmy brought us all together, I was really. I knew Matt and I knew Jimmy. I hadn't seen you in a long time, but again, man, you were kind of like the glue that held the whole trip together. You and your wife both were this sort of great energy that would. You would kind of be this tone setter, I suppose. Every morning. I remember coming down. I forget what day it was. One of our first days in London, and we were. We had been pretty hard in. In Scotland.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we did. We didn't. There wasn't a pub that we passed much. I mean, it was hard to get by.

[Casey Mears]

But I got. I remember getting up that one morning, and I was like, I am dragging. I am not feeling that great. And I come downstairs, and you and Jimmy, we're already going, and y'all were, like, dressed up all in your stuff, and I'm like, all right, get back on the sideline. I thought I was the one that, you know, would be the one that would be running, but it was impressive, man. And y'all had. You had such a. You got such a great attitude. You got such a great. You got a really great personality. You're a good dude. You care about everybody. You want everybody to be in, you know, having a good time. If you see anybody that's down or a little, you're always the first person to ask, is everything okay? Is there anything I can do? You just got a really great quality about you, man. I appreciate you. I'm thankful that we got to go on that trip and reconnect.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me, too.

[Casey Mears]

I'm thankful that you got some motivation to come and drive a race car and have some fun. You should be able to enjoy that and do that on your own accord and however you choose, I'm happy that you're satisfied and stable and productive in your personal life and doing what you want to do. And thanks for coming over today. I know you got other things you could be doing. Thanks for coming over today and sitting down and talking to us, everybody. You talk about the fan reaction and how awesome it was and how taken aback you were. People will watch the show and listen to it in audio form and have that same exact reaction. They want to know where you are, what you're doing. I have guys in here all the time with similar sort of. They're in similar places in their lives, right. And people haven't heard from in a while, and they.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I love watching it, dude. They want to bring people on here all the time. I'm like, damn, I haven't seen that guy forever.

[Casey Mears]

Well, the fans love to know what you're up to, and they don't need to. They don't need a crazy story or any splash. They just want to know you're all right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah. Because they. They. They do, you know, for lack of a better way to describe, they do fall in love with you and your career and support you. And they, you know, your. Your fans in particular rider there every single day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Casey Mears]

Through that fight.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't tell you how many people, you know that you see the same people week in and week out coming to the, you know, 30 races a year, 25 races a year. I mean, it's. They put a lot of heart and soul into it. And one thing I do want to say, too, is I'm really happy. I feel like this is a love fest right now and you settle down a little bit. But. But it's super cool, man, to see you where you're at now, too, in your life. You know, you and Amy and. And the girls, the life you guys have built is super cool. I. You couldn't have found a better girl. You know, you guys are parrots. Fun. Fun to do. And then lately, yeah, I've been. Kept catching glimpses of the show here. You guys doing some stuff together.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, gosh dang, that's the best thing ever. I'm at the ratings got to go through the roof because you guys just. You share it and you have fun and have a good time and. And I love seeing that.

[Casey Mears]

Thank you. I'm proud of Amy and I'm glad for friends like you that knew me 20 years ago to see where, you know, what I got, what. What is happening in my life and how she's a part of it. And I know, I know that, you know, I know that you knowing me the way you do, to see how Amy's changed me so much, he's got to be like blowing Your mind. But. Yeah, because, gosh, I'm different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But you are.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, you are.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Same, but same. Different in a lot of good ways.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, for sure. Well, man, hey, we'll end the love fest right here. I'm thankful that you came out. Thanks for. For visiting. I can't wait to go on another trip.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm ready.

[Casey Mears]

You were. You're a damn blast from the past and can't wait to see, I guess. Yeah. I can't wait to see what you do next in nascar. The next race you might run, hopefully. Yeah, you do go to Daytona, Talladega and get one of those in. That's always a blast, right? That's one I kind of do miss the most, is running Daytona.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I tell you what, there's an art to those places. It is. You know, once you figure it out, man, it's just a lot of fun.

[Casey Mears]

Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you, buddy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, thank you. Good to see you, bud.

[Casey Mears]

Casey Mirrors on the Del Jenner Download.

[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 Dio 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 the Dale Jr download is sponsored by Better Help. One of the biggest roadblocks for people when deciding if they need therapy is the cost. They have too much going on and bills are tight. And the last they want to do is spend more money and become even more stressed. But what if I told you therapy doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg? Let's talk numbers. Traditional in person therapy can cost anywhere from 100 to $250 per session, which adds up real fast. But with BetterHelp online therapy, you can save on average up to 50% per session. With BetterHelp, you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost. You also save on time because you're doing these sessions from your home. Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense. Your mental health is worth it. And now it's within reach. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time. Your well being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.comdaleJR to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.comdaleJR awesome to talk to Casey.

[Casey Mears]

I. I did. We did goof around and party together back in the day. And I'll say this, man. When I was. When we were younger and we were in the middle of our racing careers, 2005, 6, 7, and so forth, man, a lot of times when you go into a week, midweek, social function, bar, party, whatever it is, and you see the other drivers, even some of your friends, man, y'all all gotta be too damn cool for school all the time. What you doing? What you doing? I don't know. What you doing? What you doing? You know, I'm. You got this. Damn. I don't know. You got this ego. But Casey never was like that. Every time I ever saw Casey, he greeted you the same way. Big smile. Hey, big smile. What you doing? High five. Whatever. And he didn't have much of an ego at all, you know, Right. I think race car drivers really can't help it but get some sort of an ego. Think they're bit, you know, think they're badass. Even these truckers and Xfinity guys, man, you watch them and they get in them, they get their ride, and they're like, okay, I'm here. I made it. But especially when you get to the Cup Series. Holy moly. But Casey, man, he was pretty unaffected by it. And that's one of the things I appreciated about him, is the guy that he is today, it's the same guy he was back in the day. Now he's a little more. He's a little more calmer now or happier and content because as we talked about it, in the middle of a Cup career, there's a lot of anxiety and pressure. And you feel that. You see that in everybody. I saw it in him back in the day, but just a great dude, man. Just such A good guy and fun to catch up. Jimmie Johnson is the kind of friend that will, you know, we. I might not talk to Jimmy for months, but he'll call you and go, hey, man, I'm going on a trip and I think y'all would be great to come along. And, you know, he's one of those guys. He's like, hey, me and. Me and Kinsith are going. We wanted to. We'll see if y'all want to go. Hey, Mirrors is going to go. You know, it's like, well, damn, now I'm going on a trip with three guys I raced my ass off with back in the day that I never would have planned on my own. I never would have called them, invited them on the trip. And we went to Scotland and London, which are two places I'd never been. So pretty incredible. And just in a brief, you know, five days. Made a lot of great memories and just had some really awesome experiences. But it was fun to be around them again, especially Casey. I mean, he's just so fun. Such a good dude. But anyhow, thankful for him to come through. Hopefully you enjoyed the conversation. Great to catch up with these guys after they've been out of the sport for a while and they go on and do other things and kind of always fun to ask them where their mind's at, where their head's at after their careers are over with and they've had a little bit of time to sort of sort it out, but seems like Casey's in a pretty good place. Yeah. Let's get to the white flag.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

White flag, alright.

[Casey Mears]

The teardown was live on Twitter and YouTube Sunday after the race. If you hadn't checked it out, you're getting instant reaction from Jeff and Jordan and probably instant overreaction because I think all of us overreacted a little bit right after that Xfinity race. There was reason to react, no doubt, but after a couple days, I think we all walked back just a little bit in terms of what we think should and shouldn't happen to a few drivers, but on Monday, Denny Hamlin was back in the studio after his first win of the season. Denny not only gives us a great insight into how, you know, he put that win together on Sunday, but he also comments on the other shenanigans going on at the racetrack over the weekend and his. His sort of view on how to handle those things. Door bumper clear also dropped. On Monday, we had an incredible guest. Mark Martin dropped by on via Zoom and gave us some incredible insight. Y'all be paying attention to Mark Martin because I think this is a guy who is trying to find his lane as a contributor in the current landscape of whether it be podcasting or YouTube, what have you. I feel like, you know, Kenny Wallace came in and did what he did and you saw Rick Mass and now Schrader and all these guys, man, they are watching this stuff. And I think Mark Martin's like, you know, I got a little something to say. And so, Mark, thank you for joining us this week on Door Bumper Clear. Yesterday, me and TJ talked a lot about our, you know, thoughts about the race weekend and the upcoming race at Darlington on Dirty Air. You want to check that out? We did a little Dirty Mo Doe as well in that show. I know a lot of people keep telling me or I keep reading on online, I miss Dirty Mo Do. Well, it still lives inside of the Tuesday Dirty Air show and we're still working on giving you the best content we can in that segment. We want to be able to really, truly feed you something that you feel is useful and that is a work in progress. But I have some, I have some big high hopes for the Dirty Mo Doe segment today. Also coming out is Herm and Schrader and Speed street with Connor Daly. And then tomorrow, Bless yous Heart with my wife Amy. Another show. That one's as much fun as you could possibly have, I think. Podcasting. I'm loving the feedback that we're getting. Keep the feedback coming because not only is it fun to read Yalls comments and how hysterical or silly or funny you might find some of the things we talk about, but the feedback is also something that if positive and if helpful, I take to Amy. She's not going to seek that out herself because she's pretty nervous about it. But when I start to tell her, hey, I read some good feedback, she is absolutely curious as to what you were saying about the show and how there's people even that are like, look, it's not my cup of tea, but I'm glad they're offering some sort of a lifestyle piece of content because a lot of people are kind of glad we've moved a lot of the lifestyle stuff out of the Tuesday Dirty Air show and now that's kind of where some of that lives on Bless yous Heart because trust me, a lot of guys that tune in or a lot of listeners that tune in for Tuesday want to hear Race reaction. That's what they want. They don't want to listen to what the hell we did Tuesday and some crazy thing that happened in our lives. So that's where things are going to live on Bless yous Heart on Thursdays. And Amy's really enjoying being the host of that show and we're loving the excitement and growth around it. Don't forget to head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com that's a website. Shop.dirtymomedia.com Long, long website. My apologies, but if you want awesome hats and shirts and sweatshirts of all of our podcasts from Dirty Mo Media, if you're a big fan of, you know, Denny's show or you're a big fan of Door Bumper Clear, or maybe you listen to Bless yous Heart, you can get dedicated merch for each of the shows. And I will tell you, I don't think any of the other hosts are that involved in the creativity like Amy is. So the Bless yous Heart stuff, she's got her hands on it. The whole team over at Dirty Mo Media are putting together some great pieces for every show. Go to shop.dirtymomedia3morewords.com It's a mouthful. Enjoy the show. And yeah, we'll see you. I guess I'll see y'all Thursday. Don't bless your heart. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, Tick Tock and Instagram.