DJD Classics - Gary Balough: Racing, Fighting & Smuggling

Summary

Podcast Summary: "DJD Classics - Gary Balough: Racing, Fighting & Smuggling"

Introduction

In this riveting episode of The Dale Jr. Download, host Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with Gary Blue, one of the most enigmatic figures in motorsports. Released on January 22, 2025, this classic episode delves deep into Gary’s illustrious yet tumultuous racing career, his notorious reputation, and the dark chapters that led him into the world of smuggling and incarceration.

Early Racing Career and Reputation

Gary Blue enters the conversation as an accomplished racer, boasting over a thousand feature wins across various short tracks. Dale praises Gary's book, Hot Shoe, highlighting his exceptional work ethic and creative approach to racing.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [00:05]: "The guest in our studio today is perhaps the most intriguing guest we've ever had on the download... Mark Martin said recently there are only four people on the planet not intimidated by Dale Earnhardt. Gary Hotshoe Blue was one of them."

Gary reflects on his early days racing in Florida and the Northeast, emphasizing the importance of teamwork and surrounding oneself with the right people.

Gary Blue [02:28]: "I've never won a race by myself, ever... I won 37 races that year."

Technical Ingenuity and Racing Strategies

Gary delves into his technical prowess, explaining how he modified race cars to gain competitive edges. From adjusting airboxes to balancing the car’s weight distribution, his innovations were pivotal in his dominance on the track.

Gary Blue [03:22]: "I just got off into the air... Then I kept moving the carburetor box around and air box around and cheating in the back with a rear spoiler."

He shares anecdotes about racing with legends like Bobby Allison and Raymond Beadle, showcasing his adaptability and mechanical skills.

Challenges on the Track: Fights and Rivalries

Gary's aggressive driving style often led to intense rivalries and physical confrontations. He recounts several altercations, highlighting the rough nature of racing in the 70s and 80s.

Gary Blue [18:56]: "It was probably close, but we got a highly go to... a gun fight, a knife fight, and maybe it'd be a race breakout."

One notable incident involves a violent confrontation after a race, where Gary defends his position against other drivers.

Gary Blue [19:36]: "I got my butt beat. Bill Flingo was leading the race one night... I ended up in solitary."

The Drug Smuggling Era

Transitioning from the racetrack, Gary candidly discusses his foray into drug smuggling—a decision that would ultimately derange his life and career. Initially introduced as a means to finance his burgeoning racing endeavors, Gary’s operation grew exponentially, entwining him with dangerous criminals and legal peril.

Gary Blue [50:05]: "The operation never went to the racetrack without me being there."

He shares harrowing stories of close calls with law enforcement, illustrating the constant tension and risks associated with his illicit activities.

Gary Blue [56:40]: "We had the boat filled with gasoline... Cops were chasing us... It was a close call."

Despite the adrenaline rush and the financial benefits, Gary acknowledges the destructive path smuggling led him down.

Gary Blue [50:55]: "I could look at myself in the mirror and deal with what I was doing, because it was weed... I raced to win."

Legal Battles and Incarceration

Gary details his legal struggles, including numerous appeals and the eventual certainty of incarceration. His relentless racing spirit remained undeterred even as he faced a 13-year sentence.

Gary Blue [68:17]: "I never got busted. I got told on... It's in the book here. When you see United States government versus Gary Blue, that's your first clue."

He provides an intimate look into life behind bars, contrasting his racing life with the harsh realities of prison.

Gary Blue [75:22]: "It's like a mindset. You have to put it aside to survive because you got to survive."

Return to Racing and Legacy

Upon his release, Gary doesn’t abandon his passion. Instead, he reinvigorates his racing career, mentoring younger drivers and even collaborating on a documentary about his life. His legacy is one of undeniable talent shadowed by personal turmoil, offering valuable lessons in resilience and the consequences of choices.

Gary Blue [82:23]: "I'm working with a guy, Jim Weber, with some Seneca stuff... The documentary is real close to being done."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. lauds Gary’s contributions to racing, emphasizing the duality of his story—both inspiring and cautionary.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [30:02]: "Hot Shoe A Check or Pass My Story by Gary Ballou and Bones Bouchier... I tell all my young drivers that reading this book without a doubt will make you a better race car driver."

Conclusion

"DJD Classics - Gary Balough: Racing, Fighting & Smuggling" is a compelling exploration of a complex individual whose racing genius was marred by criminal endeavors. Gary Blue’s story serves as a profound narrative on ambition, integrity, and the fine line between success and downfall. Through his candid revelations, listeners gain a multifaceted understanding of the high-stakes world of motorsports and the personal battles that drive—or derail—a career.

Notable Quotes

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [00:05]: "This is one of the most successful racers ever to strap in a race car... I've heard stories about Gary through the years."
• Gary Blue [01:34]: "I tell all my young drivers that reading this book without a doubt will make you a better race car driver."
• Gary Blue [44:29]: "That's a compliment."
• Gary Blue [50:55]: "I raced to win."
• Gary Blue [70:13]: "The only time you ever sat down a hot rod, you won the win."

Key Takeaways

• Technical Mastery: Gary’s ability to modify and optimize race cars was pivotal to his success.
• Racing Ethos: His aggressive and competitive nature earned him both respect and notoriety.
• Illicit Ventures: Gary’s involvement in drug smuggling was driven by financial pressures but led to legal consequences.
• Resilience: Despite setbacks, including lengthy prison terms, Gary maintained his passion for racing and continued to contribute to the sport post-incarceration.
• Legacy: Gary Blue’s story is a testament to the complexities of ambition and the impact of personal choices on one’s career and life.

Recommendation

For racing enthusiasts and those intrigued by the interplay between sports and personal struggles, Gary Blue’s story offers invaluable insights. His book, Hot Shoe, and the forthcoming documentary provide comprehensive narratives that enrich the understanding of his multifaceted life.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The guest in our studio today is perhaps the most intriguing guest we've ever had on the download. This is one of the most successful racers ever to strap in a race car. Yet it's possible you don't even know his name. It's possible that you do. I've heard stories about Gary through the years. Rumors and wives tales. So I took it upon myself to read his book. I wanted to know about his past in racing as well as the troubles that landed him in jail. My dad certainly knew Gary. Mark Martin said recently there are only four people on the planet not intimidated by Dale Earnhardt. Gary Hotshoe Blue was one of them. I just finished reading Gary's book, Hot Shoe.

[Gary Blue]

Yes, sir.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A checkered past my story and was blown away by what I read. Like this little insert. After racing, 1981, my dad referred to Gary as the dirtiest driving son of a he ever raced with. Obviously have questions about that because dad was certain. Dad certainly raced against a lot of dirty driving son. Probably called one on many occasions.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, he's erasure, that's for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I also want to know how someone as talented as Gary, with so much success, could get wrapped up in smuggling drugs, a decision that cost Gary 10 years behind bars, his family, and his career. I'm still fascinated by his stories of smuggling drugs. No podcast, no book or documentary will ever relieve my curiosity about that part of his life. But one thing I appreciate that I really didn't know I'd take away from the book is how it explained his work ethic and creative approach to racing. Yeah. For that, I tell all my young drivers that reading this book without a doubt will make you a better race car driver.

[Gary Blue]

That's great.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If they can apply Gary's approach to how they prepare their own cars, they will see the results on the racetrack. We got a lot of questions, Gary. I'm very thankful that you flew all the way here to answer them.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, anytime, man. I'm glad to be here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir. We're honored to welcome you to the download.

[Mike Davis]

Absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you know, many hall of fame race car drivers consider you one of the greatest drivers that they've ever competed against. What do you think made you so good as a race car driver?

[Gary Blue]

Work. You know that the people you surround yourself with, you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with as you read in that book. I've never won a race by myself, ever. Including my very first race, which the first race I raced at Hialeah, I won in a hobby. Stock car. Yeah, But Buddy Griffin helped me build a race car and helped me build the rear springs and the spindles and we put a good cage in it and put the seat in it. Doors weren't held shut with seat belts. They were wallowed shut. You know what I mean? It was high rod. I won 37 races that year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You say air is free and I try to tell my late model guys the same thing. Can you explain to us what you mean by that?

[Gary Blue]

I got off in Arrow as I knew. I knew nothing about Arrow with a cup card. So I said, I'll never get there. I don't understand none of this. And I got around Pete Hamilton and racedarcus. And Pete was in the era with a late model car, you know, and of course they were. He drove for Petty and so forth. He tell me, I called him. I said, this ain't still tight getting in, you know. He said, put some more on the nose. Put some more on the nose and it'll be loose getting in. I said, now it's loose. He said, put some more on the back. Okay, put some more in the front. Put some more in the back. And we kept on. We kept on until we got a real good balance. And then I got to where I started painting the nose and stuff and I actually put like 2 inch holes in a nose with a little plate over top of it. I could move around. I got so balanced underneath.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

You know, turned up underneath, but it was ugly behind somebody else. It lose the air. So then I started moving the nose to the right and left fender way before the right. It's closing the hole up. And I worked on closing the hole up, closing the hole, pull away from the bottom. So I just got off into the air. Then I kept moving the carburetor box around and air box around and cheating in the back with a rear spoiler. And I had some mechanical advantage back there. Sometimes the back would hop up two or three more inches and worked on the roof and narrowed the roof up and worked on the B post A and the B and turned the A's and. Oh yeah. But the big advantage I had was that I did get to go race with the couple cars and see a lot of that. Then I was around Raymond Beetle, also with the drag carts. Raymond didn't know much about air, but what did he know about organization and, and people? So, you know, and as I grew up, like racing the late model cars. Marty Henshaw was a Bobby Allison.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

I mean, he runs sheet metal shops of 70, 80, 100 people. So he was good, really skilled with people. He taught me all them skills of you can have 10 people working on a hot rod. You know what each one of them are doing, and you're doing, you're doing. You're right on top of it, you know. So that was really good. It's a people that I was around, you know, it was incredible.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you began racing in Florida, but you moved to the northeast to run dirt modifieds in the 70s and dominated up there. You were a hired driver. So was it common to have hired drivers in the 70s? That to me was really surprising to take away from your book, that you were really hired to go drive a car, be the mechanic. They got a mechanic a little on the cheap because they just pay you a little extra percentage from the winnings. But was there many guys like you in the 70s that were hired to be, you know, driving?

[Gary Blue]

There was quite a few, you know, come from South Florida. I got in the deal there. I went. Bastone had me go up here with a Torino that was a heavy car, and he had run it, smuckered and so forth. It was a late model car and it was heavy. And they called me up here to help me straighten it out. And I said, I don't know much about dirt, you know. But anyway, we got up there and I got the cutting torch to it and lightened it up and put some neat stuff on it, built some springs for it and went to Smuckers. And Scott was the hot dog there then, and Blackie, Walt and so forth. The cat that was gonna drive didn't want to drive it. He wanted me to drive it. I said, I know. I'm not racing no dirt. I don't know nothing about that. Yeah, well, I had watched him the week before pretty good. I said, I'll just get behind this cat right here, wearing by wearing, and follow him right to the front. And I did. I followed him in front for one second. Yeah, well, that got me going into dirt cars there. And then Millinger picked me up and it was a Bobby Allison car. Well, with Bobby, we were pretty tight. So Bobby had helped me and Eddie and him, and we got going pretty good, won some races. And then they called me and said, come on. We rode a modified car. I said, whoa, whoa. I don't know nothing about big blocks and injectors on fuel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You were making a living as a driver.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so was that A lot of guys doing that. Not a lot of people could have made a living as a driver. That's speaks to your Talent. People would hire you because they knew they were going to go win races. They knew the car would be better. They knew you would make the car better.

[Gary Blue]

Well, let me tell you, when I first went to New Jersey, they had a Tobias car. I couldn't hit my butt with both hands. I mean, I was ready to come on because I was used to winning races with a late model car in Palm beach and Hialeah and wherever we went and used to run it wherever it was ugly. I had to run a concert and make the race. And I'd run in the back. I don't know, I'd run 12, 15, 13. Said, I'm not doing this. I don't want to do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Had it.

[Gary Blue]

He said, no, no, no, no, no. Just stay, stay, stay. Mulligan's building a new car. Well, Whip liked to fish and he'd like to diddle, and it wasn't at my speed. They said, well, go up there and help him. I said, I'd love to. So I got a chance to go up and work Whip in his shop and we finished the car. Rocket ship I'm talking about. I'm back, you know. So we went to Heightstown the first night. Stan Pawloski was a hot dog. He set it to starter stand, which I raced asphalt. I like to drive it off in and just set it and, and drive it off, you know, not tire. Tires off of it. Well, I come from the back and I got to him and he was leading it and I jumped outside him like I knew what I was doing. He set the car boom. Straight into the guardrail. The wheel busted the right front wheel and axle, right rear tube, all that stuff. And part of the wheel went up and hit the starter and broke his leg.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Gary Blue]

So now I didn't kill the car, but I tried to kill the starter. I ended up in the infield. Two records to take it back. And I remember going across the my head down and I can't believe I wrecked this brand new car. All this work, you know, like you're done. Jerk. You know, Paul Hillman owned it. Was standing there and he said, gary, get your head up. Why do you have your head down? I said, have you seen your hot rod? He said, I've seen it. He said, we're going to whoops tonight and fix it. We're ready tomorrow night, okay? I said, listen, I'll make you a deal. Whatever I make, I'll pay for what I tore up tonight. He said, get out of here. What are you crazy? We went back and worked all night long. And we went to Flemington the next night. It had V belts on it. I can remember it had V belts up. Gilmore belt and power steering. Start stuffing. Well, it's got 12, 14 degrees of caster. You know, when you turn, it lifts you up out of seat. So I got the belt as tight as I can. It lifts me out of seat. I'm leading it. Fleming Square racer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

I couldn't. My arms are falling off. I run second. Paloski won it.

[Mike Davis]

Remembers these things like, it's unbelievable.

[Gary Blue]

My arms hurt so bad. I mean, I pumped some iron and stuff. You know how your arms feel the next day and all that and the day after. And then start sealing. I couldn't even zip my zipper to pee myself. Wipe my butt, you know. They said, come on, we're going to Nashville tonight. I said, listen, guys, I can't even lift my arms up. We're coming to get you. I said, no, no, no, no. Here they come. Drive up in front of you. Get in. Get in. I said, you got to be kidding me. Put me in there. Put me in the car truck. Moving on to the racetrack. All right, let's get in. I said, I don't think I can do this. Get in. I got in. They hooked the belts up for me. That's what my arms hurt. I went out and I practiced. And this thing was rocket again. I met my arms, were feeling good now. We won the first night to 100 lava. Yeah, that was cool. We were on a roll then, you know. But it took that new car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, how challenging was it to never be able to really establish a long term foundation moving around so much. I mean, from South Florida up north and back down to south Florida, being that hired gun and driving for so many different owners, you were moving and moving and moving all the time.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, like two best hunters I drove for, I'm gonna say in Florida, Miami area, was Marty Henshaw and Johnny Maradino. I've always had to ride with them when I come home, you know, like wintertime, I need to drive from one or the other, depending on where Marty was with Larry and this one and that one, and Johnny was with Brack and so forth. And they were pretty good hot rods. And I'd take them and I'd work on a chassis. And that's when we went to Palm beach on Friday night. I brought some cantilever hoosiers back for a 200 lapper Marine Edwards memorial. And they're round. There's no edge on the top. You Know what I mean? So we're gonna run them Saturday night in a 200 lapra. Went to Palm Beach, 50 lapper, big block, and won the race. Come back and built a 377 motor. And we put that in the car. And when they put it in there enough to plug out from underneath the head, and we fired it up and there's oil blowing everywhere. He said, well, head studs. The head come up and said, okay, here's the pipe and put it in. I diddled around there for about an hour. And I got it in, filled it full of silicone. They run the head back down. Never readjusted a lash or nothing. We went to Hialeah, but the cantilever tires would never run. They said, okay, you start in the back. Marty's car was on the pole with Roharo. I said, wow, thank you. You know, start in the back at highly. That's, you know, give me a break. You know, in the back. I said, we started back, that was probably 30 some cars, 38, 36 guards. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I went and caught Larry. Larry wasn't having no me getting by him. I mean, he run me and run me off Marty's car. Now I can't run into him. I don't want to run into him. We're friends and on and on and on. And finally he slipped enough to where I dove up under him. He turned down. I hit him in the door and he started spinning. I gassed up a little bit, hit him in the left one, straightened him up. Then he got straight and I went on. I'm leaning it. He's riding around, waiting on me. Well, Marty taught me when he waited on you. Drive through. Don't, don't just drive through. Okay.

[Mike Davis]

You're saying if they're waiting on you to come around so they can take you out. You're saying that you always learn. Take them out.

[Gary Blue]

I've hit him head on.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, okay.

[Gary Blue]

I'll come in the opposite direction. And the guy dove behind the pace car. Reading it. He run his mouth in the driver's. But he's going to wreck me and Brian Bill. I said, whoa, whoa. I drive the red car. The three car. Bright bull drives the white car. Now, who are you talking about? I had a problem with you. No, not you. Not you. I said, don't say white cars in heat race. He nailed me in the left rear pass for the lead. And There was probably 14 cars in the heat race at Reading. Oh, well modified. If one of them don't Hit you in the face. You're lucky. So nobody hit me. I said, you know what? He run his gator that he was going to do this. All right? I got it fired back up and I watched him. He went down the back straight away, and I said, gotta time this right. And I gassed her up down the front straight the wrong way. And he come off four. And I was coming down the front straight about half throttle, and he seen me coming. He dove behind the pace car. When he did, I caught him right front to right front.

[Mike Davis]

Wow.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, lady Picard. Oh, you gotta kill somebody. Somebody's gonna get a kill. And he stopped everything, you know what I mean? Well, you know, if I could have got him radiator cap. The radiator cap, I would have. Yeah. But that's, you know, that you got to stop it because if you don't stop it, everybody's going to take a shot.

[Mike Davis]

They'll run you over.

[Gary Blue]

Why pass you? Just knock you out. Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

How many. Do you know how many feature wins you were credited for? Like, is there a number that. Or did it get too much, too many to count?

[Gary Blue]

We got, we got the other side. A thousand, and we just basically quit. I must say, someplace between a thousand, twelve, hundred, something like that. I don't know. Wow. So. So just to get to the point of what so you.

[Mike Davis]

More than a thousand feature wins and you just, you sort of gloss over the versatility. And that's one of the things that really blew me away in your book. Is that really how you can go somewhere, race a different car, different track you've never been at, and you, you, you're just talking about following a guy. But most people don't pick up racing that that easily. I mean, what is it about you and your adaptability that made you be able to drive just about anything?

[Gary Blue]

I think that as far as the racetracks, I excel on going to a racetrack that nobody's ever raced on. You know, a new racetrack. When we all went there, okay, it was like we came on a trail and we would get it quicker than.

[Mike Davis]

Most just by out thinking.

[Gary Blue]

I think just being a natural. I don't know exactly how, but anytime we went to a new racetrack, we were always right at the top of the ladder. You know what I mean?

[Mike Davis]

Look, everybody thinks they work hard. I mean, you ask any racers, they're like, yeah, man, my boys been working hard. But you guys were. It seemed like you were smarter. Like you, you had something to it. Is that. Am I wrong about that?

[Gary Blue]

People. People's one Thing. People's a big thing. The right people and people work together. It's team effort. There's no lyingness. It's a team effort.

[Mike Davis]

I appreciate what you're saying. And that's right. But I still think that those. I don't know. I think you're not giving yourself enough credit because a thousand wins is unbelievable. And like Dale was saying, you were bouncing around to a bunch of different people.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. This isn't.

[Bones Bouchard]

This isn't a thousand wins or something. You're running late miles. You're running asa a lot of people. Dick Trickle drove a few different type race cars, but nobody in the history of short track racing, I don't think was so versatile in that sense.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

1. I think one great example. We've got a lot from the book, but 1973 at the Shaffer 100, you basically bolted two fuel cells in the car.

[Mike Davis]

So you had.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was a mandatory fuel stop and he bolted. So he. You know, they just. They would think around the rule book. It wasn't the bottom.

[Gary Blue]

Got the bottle on one. Bowl them together.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

Bigger can. Because we run 45 gallons. I'll call them things we run concept flow injectors. So it wasn't nothing the way that we worked on that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I think in Gary's. Gary was an amazing driver.

[Gary Blue]

Should have won it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But for what? Yeah. From what I take away from that is he could get in anybody's car and be awesome. But if he could actually work on it a little bit beforehand, he could make it.

[Bones Bouchard]

He was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He could make it even better. Because he worked around the rule book. He didn't break the rules. They didn't say he couldn't run too fuel.

[Mike Davis]

It looks like he mows.

[Bones Bouchard]

Let's not go that far.

[Gary Blue]

Thank you, Dale.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, what are some of the craziest things aside. I mean, that's a great example. Putting two fuel cells together in the car to be able to hold more fuel so you didn't have to take so much fuel on that mandatory stop eating it.

[Gary Blue]

They held in the pits. But what are some.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They held him in the pits because his fuel guy didn't.

[Gary Blue]

Wasn't putting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He didn't do a good enough job to win a grammy trying to make the fuel into the car.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What's some of the cool, craziest things you ever done to. To trick your cars up and even break the rule book?

[Gary Blue]

Well, arrow was real big. I mean, we had the back of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The car to where you talk about the car hiking up 3 inches.

[Gary Blue]

Hiking up there Quarters hiking up. So you put like 4 inches, 5 inches, 3 inches more. Where a spoiler car. You get off in the corner deeper. You know, all that. So how did you do that Mechanically?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Went to cranks and. And then probably the most outlandish thing we ever did was run mercury.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was that? Wait, what? So how. Why would you run Mercury left side?

[Gary Blue]

My car was 60% left side without the driver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So how did you do that?

[Gary Blue]

Pumps, stainless cans.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

The frame rail to frame rail.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And it pumped mercury from one side of the car to the other.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Bones Bouchard]

Wait, what?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

While you're on the racetrack, or are you.

[Gary Blue]

After you went through tech?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Incredible.

[Mike Davis]

It's amazing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So, Daryl Waltrip.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. It was nothing. Nothing in the rulebooks. You couldn't do that at the time, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Hey, EPA and all that stuff, boy. Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

But I imagine how many rules have been created because of you? Like, because of your. Your stunts. I mean, I bet there's a bunch.

[Gary Blue]

I'll tell you a good story. I had a fireball, and I'd moved from the left side to the right side. It was like 41 pounds at full mercury. So it's pretty hard to get that under steering wheel and get it from right side and left side. But one Concord, it got caught the steering wheel across the lap, cool down lap. I won it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

I couldn't get it over. I was in trouble. You know what I mean? So I thought, what do I got to do? I rolled up off H4. I passed out. I was exhausted. I pulled off, went down in the infield and just pulled up the inside guard rail and bumped a little bit. And they all come running. I said, ray, move it, move it. Get it over there. Yeah, Ray got it over there. Then we got to the scale, but. But the fuel and everything, I think we're about £3 light. And then back and forth, back and forth. We stuffed it. We shook it with everything, you know, and everybody, they got quick change gears. They come up, quick change gears. And I put them in my pockets when I go getting a hot rod and the cop wants to pat me down. Get away from me, man. What's wrong with you? You nuts or what? And I got in the car, and we finally made weight, you know, but dang.

[Mike Davis]

And cop was patting you down.

[Gary Blue]

Patted me down, man. Get in the race car. So get away from me. Who do you think you are?

[Mike Davis]

That is amazing.

[Bones Bouchard]

Well, they do that stuff at the Snowball Derby now.

[Gary Blue]

I mean, Ricky Brooks is the best inspector I've ever seen. Anywhere, any place.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Gary Blue]

He's better than DEA drug dog.

[Bones Bouchard]

Well, you know. You know that, right?

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The local racing in the 70s and 80s was a wild affair. How many physical. I know you were. You were a fighter. How many physical fights you think you've been mixed up in? As many wins.

[Mike Davis]

What do you have more of, wins or fights?

[Gary Blue]

It was probably close, but we, we got a highly go to. To a fight, a gun fight, a knife fight, and maybe it'd be a race breakout. I'm telling the park, there were rough. They were gangsters.

[Mike Davis]

What made that race were gangsters.

[Gary Blue]

They were gangsters.

[Mike Davis]

Okay, so that might be one reason.

[Gary Blue]

I don't know where El Capone was. He should have been there.

[Mike Davis]

Maybe he was there.

[Gary Blue]

Maybe.

[Mike Davis]

Well, so you got in a lot of fights, a lot of dust ups, but. And you mentioned some in the book. Give us one that just stands out in your early days that you had to really just you talking about having to stand your ground to people. Give me a good fight story, woman.

[Gary Blue]

I got my butt beat. Bill Flingo was leading the race one night. He was president of the organization.

[Mike Davis]

And who is it?

[Gary Blue]

Who's playing goes.

[Mike Davis]

Okay. All right.

[Gary Blue]

And I run him down Marty's car and I caught him and tried to get by him. He's all over the racetrack. Finally I got under him and turned him around. He waited on me. Well, you know what happened?

[Mike Davis]

You run him up all the way.

[Gary Blue]

Up to the seat.

[Bones Bouchard]

So you just plumb right into him.

[Gary Blue]

Marty said, you did good. Yeah, look at your hot rod. He said, I don't care. You fix it all good.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Yep.

[Bones Bouchard]

He didn't mess again, right?

[Gary Blue]

No, that was over. Chill. In the parking lot when the races were over.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, oh.

[Bones Bouchard]

What happened there?

[Gary Blue]

Well, they surround me that and there was more than me and it beat out of me.

[Mike Davis]

Really?

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah. I got a good athlete in there. With that being said, my brothers were pretty crazy. They liked to fight and they were in fights all the time in Highland. I mean, my dad was a police officer, but my brothers were pretty wild. They come to the racetrack the next week with me with guns because they all have guns there now. You don't want to be without a gun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Bones Bouchard]

And Hialeah, that was a rough place. I mean, for the fans listening. You're talking about some of the great racers in motorsports history coming out of there. You're talking about Bobby Allison, of course, is the benchmark name that everybody knows. Donnie Allison, the Andersons. So many people cut their teeth down in that Miami area, which now is like a ghost town of racing. But in the day, there were so many hot talents coming from that area, and, you know, there was a lot of money down there, but there was also a lot of incredible talent.

[Gary Blue]

Well, I thought about that and thought about that. Bobby Bracken, I have talked about it. It's such a hard racetrack. It's flat, and it's a third. Yeah, it's all rhythm. And you got to learn to pick the throttle up good there and back the corner up and so forth. And I believe that's what it races. I say to myself, why was Peewee so good? Gil Hearn and Bobby Brack and Dickie Anderson and Bobby Olsen and Donnie Olson and Rags Carter, all them guys, how come they were so good? And that crap old racetrack, you know, it's not a good racetrack. We didn't have a very good playground in our backyard. Palmetto's people in Palm beach was way better how they live.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But, yeah, that's why you won two races in your career with your seat belts came undone. I mean, I My pants and pulled into the first.

[Gary Blue]

The first time was Marty's car at Highland. I came in, I was all cocky. I didn't know the seatbelt on. He said, what did you just say? I said, seatbelt, come on. About halfway through, he said, I got my sleeve caught in it. Didn't have it turned right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

He said, no way. I said, yeah. He said, ought to beat your butt right now. He said, if you ever drive my race car again with a seatbelt off, I'm gonna beat the living out of you. I said, I just wanted to race. He said, I don't really care if you want to race. Yeah, that was the first time. Now, the second time, I was in my own car out in Texas.

[Mike Davis]

Does that make it safer?

[Gary Blue]

No. No. And I'm leading the race. I'm trying. At one point in time, I'm leading the race, and I don't want to stop. I'm leading. I'm kind of driving off of Freddy and all them guys, and he had a caution. I come over and I said, I'm trying to get this belt hooked up. What? I said, belt come loose. I'm trying to get the belt hooked up. Ray says, what are you talking about? I said, seat belt come loose. It's off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He thought you might be talking.

[Gary Blue]

I said, they're getting ready to get ready to restart. I said, ray, just run down sitting over the spotters and tell them I have no seat belt. I'll let them go. I'm not going to race them. But I am going to stay the lead. Loud operational. That hard?

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

So he told him all that and we run about 15, 20 laps. That belt was off and I said, oh, this is stupid.

[Bones Bouchard]

But you still. But you didn't stop.

[Gary Blue]

No, I ain't stopping. Friday, the caution come back out, I'll pull off the side. I got the balls back on. I went to the back. We want it.

[Mike Davis]

You want it?

[Gary Blue]

I want it.

[Mike Davis]

Of course you did.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, but if I had to pull out, I wouldn't want it.

[Mike Davis]

That's right. I guess so. I don't know.

[Gary Blue]

He wouldn't have pulled out neither. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Freaked out.

[Mike Davis]

I. I don't know. They, you know, they got rules these days that probably make you. Which makes me wonder those in car cameras will do something to. I mean, I wonder how well you would fare today. Like, like if you were racing in this generation and these kids. Let's forget the seat belts and stuff, but just in today's, you know, race cars, I mean, you guys took race cars and made them your own. I mean, you would. Could you do it today and apply everything that you were so good at?

[Gary Blue]

His dad and I and all of us way back, we built our own race cars. I mean, it's tubing off the rack. We welded it. We built our own cars. We built our own spindles. We get four or five spindles from a junkyard and build a spindle out of it. Built a fixture and I built fixtures and jigs for leaf springs, serrate them. And we used to use a bottle jack with a gauge on it and a piece of aluminum underneath the right front tire and jack it up, drag it up and pull it on till it pulled and read it and see what the split was. Before we had scales, I mean, we had a bottle jack with a gauge before we ever had scales, you know, but we were that far ahead of Buddy. Then we'd flat foot the car from the front to the back. Some jack stands under it and that's so.

[Mike Davis]

So your answer is probably not because they don't do that these days. You know, I, I still work with.

[Gary Blue]

Late model teams right now. As far as bump springs and bump Roberts and packers and all that. Yeah. And shocks and all that. I still do all that. Okay, you still do all that.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah. But you, but could you drive?

[Gary Blue]

I'm going to tell you a story. We're putting a Seneca car together with my garvey right now. Oh. In Pensacola.

[Mike Davis]

Okay.

[Gary Blue]

Terry Wants me to make a lap on the car, and so the garbage. You just got to drive this. Go, Kart. You got to drive this. You got to drive. I'm done.

[Mike Davis]

This is recently.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. No, we're doing it right now.

[Mike Davis]

Oh, okay.

[Gary Blue]

Another car together right now. All right. So when that car is done, we go to Berlin. I'm going to make some laughs. I don't care. I'm going to make some lives. I just want to set it out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Gary Blue]

I want to get that understanding, it feels like.

[Mike Davis]

So, I mean, would any of us be surprised if we come back and find out he. He. He laid down the record, the track.

[Bones Bouchard]

Record at 71 years.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. Here's the deal.

[Mike Davis]

I'm digging.

[Gary Blue]

I'm probably picking one of the hardest asphalt tracks. True Dick Trickle went there twice, and the second time, he went to knock the mud on the car and set the car on fire.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Burnt the car down.

[Mike Davis]

I'll give you 30 minutes. You'll have it figured out. 30 minutes, maybe 45.

[Gary Blue]

I just want to say anything. Make a few laps. That's all.

[Mike Davis]

You still got it. You got that. You still got that thing inside.

[Gary Blue]

That's what's so hard for me to go to show car, to go to Batmo someplace and do a bug sighting or whatever. All the work to get that thing unloaded and set it all up and not get to make a lap.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Bones Bouchard]

Batmobile, man, that thing is legend.

[Gary Blue]

Just making a lab. You just. All your frustrations and everything that's inside you goes away because you just get tunnel vision. You get in just what you're doing, and it just. Yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You talk about your. Your experience with fans throughout the book. Getting ugly, getting abusive. Like at Middletown, one night when Buzzy Ruderman's car caught your tire and he flipped.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The fans like an outsider coming in and beating their hero. Every occasionally, but not a while, but not all.

[Gary Blue]

Just for a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You win too much, you become a villain. After a feature win in South Florida, someone threw a cinder block off an overpass.

[Gary Blue]

I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The windshield out of your truck.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, for the longest time.

[Gary Blue]

Let me tell you that story real quick. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's hear it.

[Gary Blue]

I love that story. I beat Dicky to beat Peewee. I was driving Peewee's car. Yeah. I had a Goodyear tire test, and he kind of left me out, and I was doing all the tests for Goodyear. What happened? He called me for needing more wheels. Big wheels. I said, I want to bring the car. Bring the car. Well, they drew straws And I got the good set of tires.

[Mike Davis]

That's right.

[Gary Blue]

So I. I beat him. Well, he wouldn't even talk to me. Shut the elevator door on my face. I sit out with him. I'm going home. I was with Uncle Herbert, told me. We loaded up and we were headed south. And the guy throws a block off the bridge. Bust the windshield, all in our face.

[Mike Davis]

Are you driving?

[Bones Bouchard]

Could have killed.

[Gary Blue]

Could have killed Uncle Harbor's job. He pulled off the side of the road. He just wigged out, made a U turn and went across the road. Went back. I said, what are we doing? He said, I'm gonna kill him. I said, whoa, go back. You turn and come back. Pull off the side of the road. And he run up the hill and had a 9 millimeter. And he started unloading that thing. I'm begging him to stop, but you go kill somebody. I'm trying to kill them. What did you do with us? What did you do to us? I said, whoa, this is bad. You know, come on, we'll just get a windshield for this thing and get on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

So we got some duct tape out and taped her out and got to the house and bought a new windshield.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So what? So for the longest. I don't. For the longest time in your career, you had a difficult relationship with fans at particular tracks. Crowds, you know, would. Would give you the finger. Boo ya.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You would. You were given spit on.

[Gary Blue]

Me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You were. Yes.

[Bones Bouchard]

Spit on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You really were giving the officials the finger and the crowd thought you were doing that. I've done that before.

[Gary Blue]

No.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was getting. I got. I was getting thrown out of a race at Hickory Motor Speedway and flipped off the tower. And obviously the fans are in between me and the tower. They thought I was giving them the bird. So that ruined my reputation at Hickory for about a decade. You ever been banned from a racetrack?

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah, highly. Throw it out for life. Hallelujah. Yeah. I won a 200 lap there. And afterwards that cannily retire. Malaria was the president at the time and a lot of politics. And they took the race from me. I kept the trophy. I said, okay, I'll keep the trophy. Bring your trophy back. Are you out of here for life? Bring the trophy back. And I thought about it. Some home for the winter. I've got a coup to ride. I could win a bunch of races. This is stupid. Just go eat some crap and do what you got to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

So I went back out to the board. Be humble pie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you want to do. I Give the trophy back. That killed me. Yeah. Because I give trophies to all the kids and stuff. I don't care. I used to. I'd rather race for the trophy than the money. Race for a living. And so I get a trophy back to him and pissed me off. They had a 50 lapper, like two weeks later. And Brax driving off, he passed me in the outside and went on. Couldn't catch him. Couldn't do nothing. Just. It was over. And about five laps ago, he coasted off into the infield, broke the quick change gears, and I won it. I won that trophy twice. I got it back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So one of the coolest things.

[Gary Blue]

And I got thrown on a nap just for that. But I came down to front, flipping the bird down the front straight. Over the opposite direction. Doing it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well. Oh, that was probably what this is.

[Gary Blue]

They're getting ready to start the race. I come with all three and four. You know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

I had won the qualifier for Nazareth for Syracuse, and we figured out.

[Mike Davis]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Nazareth was a qualifier for the big Syracuse race.

[Gary Blue]

We went back and we were testing a set of injectors. Lucas Time injectors, which was on gas because he could run concept flow on gas. You can make them work.

[Mike Davis]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

So we got time injectors to put on it. The ink was still wet on the paper outlawing it. Nazareth.

[Mike Davis]

So they made that rule just for you that day.

[Bones Bouchard]

Yeah, that day.

[Gary Blue]

That day.

[Mike Davis]

And so what did you.

[Gary Blue]

I am representing them.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, but. And then did. What did you do then? Because you said that you kicked. Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Would you. Down to five. Sally. Shooting them all. Bird. They knocked the fence down and come over the fence, and it was ugly. It wasn't nice. I know that. So then he said, you're out of here, man. You're done. Jerry Friedrich, you're done for life. That's it. Yeah. And Perry Old called him up and talked to him. My boss. Well, anyway, we're gonna let him come back. Come over here and apologize to everybody.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. They wanted you to apologize.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. So I bump on the front straightaway with my boss apologizing to the world. You know.

[Mike Davis]

What was that like?

[Gary Blue]

Hard.

[Mike Davis]

How does the race car drivers don't apologize a whole lot. I don't know if y'all know this.

[Gary Blue]

Or not, but we're always right.

[Mike Davis]

You're always right. So they made you get on the loudspeaker and apologize to the crowd.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Bones Bouchard]

Hey, the key is you apologize to the crowd. Not to the tower, though.

[Gary Blue]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One of the Yeah, I think one of the biggest signs.

[Gary Blue]

It wasn't. It wasn't about the crowd. It was about the tower.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think one of the biggest signs of respect that you can show a driver is to put a bounty on him. In 1994, you had a 500 bounty on yourself at New Smyrna Speedway, meaning anybody that came in there and beat you got an additional $500 from the track. Is that. Do you remember all the bounties of the highest bounty that you might have had?

[Gary Blue]

That. That was one of them. But they'd done it several times. But I used to tell Clyde all the time, I said, how come I don't get paid extra when I win? Clyde said, no, no, no. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you mean? But that was a pretty neat deal. We won 67 out of 79 raises that year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that's where that thousand number comes from. If you win 67, seven races a year.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, that.

[Mike Davis]

That chips away at that big number. What year was that? 90.

[Gary Blue]

94.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

94.

[Mike Davis]

So 94, you go down there, you win 16.

[Gary Blue]

I ain't quit. I'd quit. I'd retired. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Davis]

This is your retirement tour.

[Gary Blue]

Working for James, all that, you know. And I went down to help Peewee out. I struggled with a car and stuff, a hamkick car, and it was all myself. Drive it to New Smart next. How about getting for LA and all that? No, no, he's not going to drive. No. I drove to all the odd springs broke. It was horrible. I said, pete, what are you doing? You're a racer. You know about this. You've won races and races and races. You gotta get the hot rod right in the garage. We worked and we worked and we worked, went back and we won and we won and we won and we won. And every week he'd show up to the racetrack with a car running in the trailer. He fired up, bought it all up in the trailer. The door would be open, I'd be waiting on him. He'd get there in time. Practice is over. He said, you don't know. Practice your race on yours. I said, yeah, but you've changed everything on it this week. Well, we tried a couple things.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And you go out, you know, for the heat rates and you'd hang on and you'd want it, but come back and say, put the car back. What are you doing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You raced all the way through the 60s and 70s, trying to strive to get your first opportunity in NASCAR. Your first cup race was 1979 Daytona.

[Mike Davis]

500 yeah, we got.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's an Iraq. It's an iconic race obviously because of the finish between Richard Petty and, I mean, Donny Allison. Richard Petty winning the race. Cale Yarborough, Bobby Donny and all them fighting down there in the corner. A few questions. You were driving for Billy Harvey. You blew a few motors in speed weeks. Eventually you got a short track block from grand ad cox.

[Mike Davis]

Exactly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Or a short block from grand ad cox. So the block itself is destroyed in the other engines. You borrowed the heads from one blown motor, you borrowed the intake from the other blown motor to put that together to be able to qualify for the race. Obviously that's not how you're used to doing it. Right. Because you, you're for, you know, all your short track stuff. It's a first class operation.

[Gary Blue]

Five motors we broke and we were down in the infill and on fire and across the front. I don't have to tell you how exciting that gets.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean?

[Gary Blue]

Like how I didn't kill myself or hit somebody else or wreck really bad. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's it. That's the race.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, I'm done with that. I'm not doing no more of that, guys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And that's when we got the grand acock motor. That was the EH motor.

[Mike Davis]

So this is the 1979 Daytona top.

[Gary Blue]

Five with that thing all day long until it broke.

[Mike Davis]

But this is fascinating to me because I think. I think one of the underlying things through your book and I think that's important to note for your career was that it. You wanted to get to NASCAR your whole life.

[Gary Blue]

Oh yeah.

[Mike Davis]

You were killing it in late models and killing it modifieds. But let it be known that you were trying to get to the top.

[Gary Blue]

I had a NASCAR cup to run Indianapolis cars several times and I bailed out. I didn't do it.

[Mike Davis]

Turn it down.

[Gary Blue]

Good rides with AJ So you get.

[Mike Davis]

To this chance to. To race in the 1979 Daytona 500, which is an iconic race. And this is your first race, correct?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

And Dale's talking about you blowing five motors and all that stuff. But I'm curious because I'm reading about it and it doesn't seem like at any time you stop to recognize that I made it. I've been trying my whole life to get here. Did you or were you so laser focused on that race car and the fact that you were going through a motor or two.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah. Trying to make the race. Trying to make it.

[Mike Davis]

Did you? Trying to make the race because that's obviously. But any point, did you have satisfaction or fulfillment just for a second that you were in the Daytona 500?

[Gary Blue]

I think when the satisfaction finally come about is when we run up there with Darrell and everybody running the top five and you could actually see the lead car. You know what I mean? Like, holy Christ, how'd this happen? With everything had happened that's not supposed to happen. Right. And I had Mario Rossi as a crew chief. And I remember it rained and it rained and it rained. And we started the race and the racetrack was wet. And I said, look, I really want to do this, but do I want to run 200 mile an hour on a white racetrack? Yeah, this thing was 35 degrees tight.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

That flat back one, that Buick. So it was ugly in the beginning, and it pushed and it pushed. You get up and you almost get in the water and really wreck it, you know? Yeah. And I run about, I don't know, five or six laps. I got on the radio, I said, this ain't good. Just drive it. You was just driving. It'll get better. That he changed everything on the car. Yeah, everything. I never got a practice for the race. Yeah, but he'd been around a block and knew everybody. And it got better, and it got better, and it got better. Next thing you know, we're driving it to the front. I said, wow, this is pretty good. So, I mean, it was a bumpy, bumpy bumpy week. And then we broke and crashed and we took Pearson out and it was raining at all the grass. It was terrible.

[Mike Davis]

How far, how far into the race did you. Did that crash happen?

[Gary Blue]

Almost three quarters of the way through the race.

[Mike Davis]

Okay, so you're. You're moving right along.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Were you there at the end? I mean, do you recall being there to. I mean, the Allisons were your buddies.

[Gary Blue]

You knew about that? Oh, yeah. I'm gonna tell you what happened with him. We got up. We got up by the officer afterwards, and Richard Hill was up there with us and we were talking and Bob Bruhely come up. He was pissed off because they got involved in Iraq and screaming out. I mean, I chased him around the car to beat his little butt. I ended up driving for them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you did.

[Gary Blue]

But they. They grew up around me, you know what I mean?

[Bones Bouchard]

The other fight.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, the other fight. The fight. We haven't had a fight.

[Bones Bouchard]

The not so famous fight.

[Mike Davis]

Did you. When the Allison's got into it with Cale, where were you? Had you left the track already?

[Gary Blue]

I was there. It was hard. No, we were in the pits.

[Mike Davis]

You were?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Did you see it?

[Gary Blue]

I seen it, but, I mean, I've seen what happened with Kale and Donnie. And out of all the people I ever raised with in my life, including his dad. And his dad would intimidate you. I'm talking about intimidate you now.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Donnie Allison intimidated me more than anybody.

[Mike Davis]

Really.

[Gary Blue]

I said that one time, too. He said, gary, why? I said, every day, you never watched you race. You know, I never thought I was intimidating. I said, bobby could run with me, and I could run with Bobby. I could run with your dad, Pearson, any of them. But always with Donnie, I was intimidated. But I grew up around Donnie, right in the back of his pickup truck. I don't know how many fights Donnie was in at the races.

[Mike Davis]

So it was just another. Just another Donnie fight is all you're looking at.

[Gary Blue]

But Donnie. But. But, yeah, Donnie. Donnie was aggressive.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Bobby was smooth, and Donnie was aggressive.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Mike Davis]

They're still like that, aren't they, you know, Bobby Smith. What about Richard Petty? Did you ever. I mean, because he goes and wins that race. What was your recollections of racing against Richard?

[Gary Blue]

Made a big mistake. Rich Petty at Michigan.

[Mike Davis]

Oh, really?

[Gary Blue]

Real big mistake. Practicing. But I think there was some difficulty there with Pete Hamilton being my driver. Oh, that's right. And driving for Richard, because they just. Richard never really cared for me.

[Mike Davis]

Oh.

[Gary Blue]

And then I got underneath him down the back straight away at Michigan. I followed Buddy Baker by. He always there to come down. And I got him in the door, and he almost wrecked. Practice was over. I didn't want to go back in the pits. Yeah, they said they'll come around for Steve and all. Gary, do yourself a favor and stay right here for a while. And finally pushed the car, and. And everybody laid their tools down, and he's going.

[Mike Davis]

Richard is.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. So I go across there. He's leaning on tires. Where do you think you're at? I lose Speedway. I said, richard, I was drafting by you. Well, Buddy, I got two tires on a flat to keep them running into you. He said, it's practice. I got to win practice, too. You know what I mean? I feel like if you're the fastest car in practice and you sat on a pole and you do every lap, and you won the race. Let's have a beer. If you don't want to have a beer, we'll fight. I don't care.

[Mike Davis]

There's other options, by the way.

[Gary Blue]

It ain't.

[Mike Davis]

It has to be a beer fight. But anyway.

[Gary Blue]

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

[Bones Bouchard]

So the king wasn't happy with you there.

[Mike Davis]

He wasn't happy.

[Gary Blue]

You're there to win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Right. When. When was the first time you met Dale Earnhardt?

[Gary Blue]

The first time I met your dad, I would have said Metrolina.

[Mike Davis]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. That's the first time I'd seen you. You were there with your sister and had a couple of boxes, and you guys were struggling. I really wanted to walk over. I'm going to tell you the story. And I really wanted to walk over and try to help you all because I was going pretty good there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Your dad was there, and I said, he doesn't need my help. He's got it. You know what I mean? And it took you all a little while, but you got it. You know, it's like Davey Allison. I kind of tutored him. Donnie give up on him? He called. I was standing right there, and he called Bobby. He said, I'm done. I can't deal with this kid no more. I'm done. Well, the kids there by himself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

So I put him under my wing and helped him a lot and got him going. And I felt like you were the same way, you know, from your dad, and your dad was busy. If I was there, why could I help you?

[Mike Davis]

You know, make sure we get this microphone frame. I want to hear these stories. I got to make sure I. Yeah. All right. There you go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, There you go.

[Bones Bouchard]

Thanks.

[Mike Davis]

Perfect. All right. Go ahead.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So y'all race. One of the. One of the races that I first ever saw you drive was the 1981 Charlotte 300 late miles sportsman race at Charlotte Mer Speedway. That's the one where dad called you the dirty driving SUV Amazing race. And a little bit of me had become a fan of you that day, even though you and dad beat and bang to the finish. I don't know. There was just something. I love the car. It's a beautiful race car. And I thought your style was very similar to dad's. You were aggressive, and I like that type of race car driver. And you learned of dad's comments right after that race from Donny Allison in Victory Lane.

[Gary Blue]

Donnie Allison come over and reached in the car and went in my mouth. Yeah, let go. Let go. You know, he said, whatever you do, keep your mouth shut. He said, that is the crown prince that you just got into and wrecked.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, that is the crown.

[Gary Blue]

I said, no, I know. You know, but it was one of them deals that Dale was real good about getting on your right rear, and he's real Good about getting on that right rear and that arrow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And that void off that windshield and that nose. It's still there. It hadn't changed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

And he was just on the right rear. And I moved up and he got me. The right rear on the other side. Finish line at Charlotte. Well, the other side goes that way. Comes back, you're going to wreck. You know what I mean? But I got lucky. I let go and grabbed him. Let go and grabbed him. Mark Martin said he's seen all the smoke. He thought somebody blowed up. Then he looked and he blue's still going straight. Well, then he drove alongside me. I said to myself, we're going to go way off in three here. Now. I had to really pedal hard to be alongside of him getting in. You know, he got up here and he got loose stuff. He was in Robert G's car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Gary Blue]

Robert come down and said, what the hell's wrong with you? I said, well, I said, we just got racing hard. Got racing too hard.

[Mike Davis]

Were you guys beating and banging before the last lap, or was this all.

[Gary Blue]

On the last lap. Was kind of like the new kid on the block. And him and Jody were both good.

[Mike Davis]

Jody. Ridley.

[Bones Bouchard]

Ridley.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mark was right there, but Mark was behind us a little bit. And I think I had a better hot rod than both of them. I was going to win. I mean, I got a hot rod here to win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And they. They teamed up on me. Why wouldn't you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

You know, that was a tough one.

[Mike Davis]

Was that the first time you had raced against Dale Earnhardt or had you raced?

[Gary Blue]

You know, we run the control. Yeah. We'd know we'd race a bunch before that.

[Mike Davis]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember.

[Gary Blue]

You got to remember that El Century was my hero. I mean, I took his. His ground all the time. He's one of the best racers in the world, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember. I don't remember what year this was. I was somewhere between 4 to 6 years old and went to Metrolina Motor Speedway and it was dirt. And I remember dad was there. He was in cup at this time. So this was somewhere in the early 80s. But you were running and just destroyed everybody.

[Gary Blue]

Barry Wright's car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. Buddy Griffin owned it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was that a white car?

[Gary Blue]

White car with 12 on it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was so. So I remember, like, images of that day. Dad was driving somebody else's car. Might have been. Might have been Robert G's car. I'm not sure. But run second to you by about a straightaway back. Everyone else was not even in the same lap. But. And I remember that was right around that same time frame as the Charlotte 300. And so I'd seen you run Charlotte, and now you're at the dirt track, dominating. That was my first recollection of you and racing dad. So I don't know how many times we obviously raced against each other in the Cup Series. Quite a bit. It was written and said by many people, even as recently as the 90s, that you are the Dale Earnhardt of the short tracks. Is that a. Is that a.

[Gary Blue]

That's a compliment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's a compliment. So. And you. And you talk about how you appreciate, you know, dad as a driver, and.

[Mike Davis]

Although he flipped him off once, you did flip.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Hold on a second.

[Bones Bouchard]

We got to hear about that.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, I don't remember that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Talladega 1981. Talladega 500. Jody Realty.

[Bones Bouchard]

Yeah, now he remembers.

[Gary Blue]

Jody, come from the back. Yeah, I didn't make the race for buckef o spring qualifying. We started on a provisional rocket ship. Rocket ship. Come from the back. And the first time that I had really come from the back and passing, but I was going to the front, and he's going like, I'm gonna buy you. Get in line.

[Mike Davis]

He wanted you to get in line with him. Exactly.

[Gary Blue]

Just where are you going this early?

[Mike Davis]

Why did. Why didn't you just pass him and just move? I know you did, but you had to hang a bird out the window at the same time.

[Gary Blue]

He wanted me to get in line behind him. Now I'm gonna get a lot behind you. I'm gonna buy you. That's you.

[Mike Davis]

I never read a story about anybody flipping off Dylan. I'm sure it happened, but I never knew anybody.

[Gary Blue]

You know what he did right back, don't you?

[Mike Davis]

Did he do it?

[Gary Blue]

Of course he did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He gave me the same motion. We were at Michigan. We were at Michigan in that race where we run side by side of the finish line.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The whole freaking race. Every single lap, he's giving me that line.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah. Get in line.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Stay in line. Don't pass me. Stay behind me. Stay behind me. I'm like. I'm in a hornet's nest back here. Yeah, they're all over my quarter panels, and he's out front, and I'm protecting him. And I'm like, I'm not liking this. You get. It'd be better if you were behind me.

[Mike Davis]

You guys. Earnhardt stories. Did you ever have any good Earnhardt stories?

[Gary Blue]

Every time. I mean, Rachel was a good Earnhardt stories.

[Mike Davis]

No, I know that I know, but I mean, did you guys ever have any good. Get along good?

[Gary Blue]

Did you get along great? We got good. Oh, yeah. Oh, we always talked and hung out and, you know. Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

One of the funniest things, Dale and I literally laugh at this when we were talking about it, but when, when. And I'm jumping ahead, but this is an Earnhardt story, and one of my favorites is in the book, is when you were coming back into the garage after your first stint, you know, away. And. And. And Dale Earnhardt looks at you. He's like, are you back? And then when you said you were.

[Gary Blue]

Back, he went, look here. I walked out and I said, what's up, bud? And he put his hat and said, good to see you back. He said, are you going to come back and race with us? I said, maybe. I hope not. I'm gonna tell you something. That deal is, Charlotte, probably cost me a golden opportunity to drive for your dad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Gary Blue]

Oh, I would have loved to driven for your dad. Why? Do you ever remember coming to New Smart and getting on top of the truck once we race?

[Bones Bouchard]

And he used to watch the races from up on your hauler.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, he called me. He. I wandered around a pit saying. He said, look here. And I'd go, what? What's up? You racing? I said, yeah, won a couple. I've already said I'm gonna come over tonight. I said, well, come on. Come to the gate, and when you get to the gate, have them call me. If we come with a golf cart and get you, put you on trucks and nobody knows you're even there, I don't have to tell you how that deal goes. He get on truck and he watched me race, and that was, to me, like, to have him watch me race, Are you kidding me?

[Mike Davis]

That's something.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

That's nice.

[Gary Blue]

But he. He enjoyed watching me, I guess, because I was out of control most of the time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think. I think. I think he felt the same way. I felt he liked your style. It was so similar to his. Y'all were. You were real close. Yeah. You were aggressive. People call you the Dale and Harley story tracks. A lot of people, you know, compare you to Tim Richmond. I think you're kind of a blend of both. Y'all. All. Y'all all sort of had that same sort of.

[Gary Blue]

Tim and I were real good friends.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Tim drove from me and stuff. And Ted was a cool guy. He one hell of a race driver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So we want to talk about the. The drug smuggling era of your life. Now at this Point in your life, obviously, you know, you've. You cover this really well in the book and. Which I was really interested about it. For me, it's exciting. It's. It's. It's. You know, we see movies get made about this stuff and sensationalized and so forth. For me, to know somebody in racing that was so successful, yet had this whole other life that was incredibly dangerous. I don't know. Have you come to terms with, you know, obviously that, that, that took a lot away from you, and I understand. I can't even imagine how that affected your life. But now. Now you're here, you're hit a podcast, you're. You wrote a book, you're doing a documentary. Are you at a point in your life where you're. You're comfortable, you know, discussing that part of your history?

[Gary Blue]

Oh, for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. And.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And sort of using it as a message.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah. You know, you don't want to get involved in that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. So how. At what part of your life, at what point in your life did you become a guy capable of doing that? And in the book, a couple people come up to you at points in your career and say, man, this is something you'd be good at. And it was kind of maybe tongue in cheek, and then it become more serious conversation. And you said at one point, the money sounds good. I'm going to go give this a run. All I got to do is count the bails. That's not a big deal. I'm just a counter. So at what point in your life did it. Did you sort of move from a guy that would go count bails to somebody who thought, man, I'm gonna get a little further into this and make a little bit more money?

[Gary Blue]

It wasn't further. You know, here's what happens to you, Dale, is you start out, and I want to make $100,000, just get my bills paid off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

You know, so I raised for a living, and it was hard at times. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A lot of debt.

[Gary Blue]

A lot of debt. And you go and you pitch bales and catch some bells and count, and you see everything everybody's got and what they're doing. It takes money to fuel all this. Without money, you're not fueling this. That's not happening. And that's where the money come from to get me to Daytona in 79.

[Mike Davis]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

I don't believe to this day that it's any worse than moonshine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Gary Blue]

And this whole sport was basically built on moonshine. And I could look at myself in the mirror and deal with what I was doing, because it was weed, it was marijuana. It wasn't cocaine, it wasn't heroin. It wasn't none of that crap. And I had opportunity to do all that because my credibility was so good. When I told you I was going to be there, I was there. When I told you I was going to do it, I did it. My equipment was like my race guards. It finished, because if you can't finish, you can't win. And with that, when you don't finish and you throw it over, it floats with you. You're not getting rid of it. You know what I mean? So you gotta finish. And I did my smuggling just like I raced.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You talked about starting your first. The first time you ever got involved in any of that, the guy asked you to go on the boat as a counter just to count the bales. And then you created your own operation. How big was that operation at its peak?

[Gary Blue]

It got pretty big. It's like that train running down the track. It's just going and going and going, and everything gets bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Were you all there? You're there, you know, Were you always on the. Were you always running a boat, or did it become so big?

[Gary Blue]

No, I got to work with other people driving. Yes, but I was there. I was there for every one of them. So it never went. The operation never went to the racetrack without me being there.

[Bones Bouchard]

Yeah, but explain. To explain to the. To the fans listening to this podcast, when you're talking about running a boat, what exactly are you talking about here?

[Gary Blue]

Basically, what you do is you get the equipment, and you had a connection, and the connection was good. Those hot rods, we all know where that was about. And when it's time to go, you go. They tell you to go. And you got to go a certain place. You got a little fire rock, or you got to go to Bimini, or you got to go to north lighter. You got a point, you got to go. But you gotta remember that's a stick sticking up out there. And we didn't have GPS then. We had a compass and a watch. You throw a line out in the water, if you broke down and see how the current was and just how much you were drifting, how much you had changed course. And it was pretty hard to go out there in the middle of the night. It's dark out there. There's no lights. I mean, dark. If it's a cloudy night, there's no stars, there's no moon. I mean, you can't see Your hand right there. So it was a challenge. It really was a challenge. I went like when I first got the boat, 24 Foot Sea Ray. I went 13 times and almost lost my house and had my race cars all put up. I couldn't afford to buy tires for them and I just wouldn't quit. I persevered. Bobby Allison taught me that. Long time ago. Yeah, there's no quit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you went the first several trips and didn't even get a bail.

[Gary Blue]

Nothing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How, I mean, how do I understand that? How come?

[Gary Blue]

Because they didn't show up. They didn't make it. Oh, they broke down and they got busted.

[Mike Davis]

So you were losing money. You're doing this to get money and you're losing money.

[Gary Blue]

Kill me.

[Mike Davis]

I got you. You know, there's something about this. I mean, like you had some lines in there in the book that were like you, you used a lyric from a song, Smuggler's Blues. And it's. But the. Because it's, you know, basically saying that smuggling is easy and it's easy money. And then you say, you call BS that you're like, nothing's easy. So my question to you is the risk and the reward. At some point it seemed like you, you mentioned enough thing. You talk about 20 foot seas and you're talking about your, you know, 13 times going 0 for 13 and get before making money. When did it, did it not seem like this isn't worth it? You know, maybe this isn't worth it. I have, my theory is you were trying to get to cup and you were trying to pay your ride to Cup. And so that, exactly that, that's the why question.

[Gary Blue]

Why I did it. Exactly.

[Mike Davis]

But at some point did it seem like, well, this isn't going to get me to cup?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, you busted. You know, I can't get there. You know, and I never got busted. I got told on, you know, and it was a dry conspiracy. It didn't happen. We were there and it didn't happen. I come home, put everything away and went to Syracuse and won Syracuse, you know, but like when we finally got successful, when you drive through that cut and you get that stuff unloaded and you get it in the house and you get it back to people that own it. It's like one in Daytona, one in Annapolis. 500.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, adrenaline rush is absolutely incredible.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

See, I never, I never got that from reading the book. I mean, I did understand that you got an adrenaline rush from it and that you found some thrill in it, but I never took that's the first time I'm hearing that once you were done with the job, it was like.

[Mike Davis]

All right, winning a race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hell, yeah.

[Gary Blue]

Like winning a race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

Like afterwards, having a beer with everybody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, that's fascinating, but it's hard.

[Gary Blue]

There's no end to it. Like, you know, once you get it home, you got to get it offloaded. You got to get it in the house. You got to scale it, you got to go through it. You got to get your percentage out. You got to get. The rest of the people own it now. You got to get it out the front door. The front door is different than the back door. The back door is a boat. The front door is the street. So you got to come up with a deal on the front camping trailer that's there, you know, with floors all done in it and everything out of it, and put a door in the house. So you get to the trailer, and they got to take the trailer in and out every weekend that they're camping with. So the neighbors out there think that that's what's going on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

You know.

[Mike Davis]

Oh, that was fascinating, actually, because the.

[Gary Blue]

Sprinkler system company, digging in or putting plants in or a roofing company. I mean, it had to be something to get. You got to get it out.

[Mike Davis]

He got just as creative. All the creativity he was putting in race cars, he was putting them also.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Same truck. Exhausting, like the charade.

[Mike Davis]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Seems exhausting to try to cover up the actual operation.

[Gary Blue]

How about the back when the bow's tied up? There's docs and neighbors. You take them fishing, you take them have a drink, and they bring it back there. You come in, they're standing on top of it. We're cooking fish and screaming fish. You know what I mean?

[Mike Davis]

Like, that had to make you nervous a little bit.

[Gary Blue]

How about. How about when. When, you know, over in the Bahamas and the cops are standing on top.

[Bones Bouchard]

Of it, you know, on top of your boat.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

On top of the.

[Mike Davis]

Cargo.

[Gary Blue]

They'd have a bear with us and talk and stand right on top of it, and it's underneath their feet, you know, like, haven't y'all got someplace to go?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One of the. One of the. One of the craziest stories from the smuggling days for me in the. In the book is a close call you had where the boat filled up with gasoline and tell that story. And I want to ask after you're done, if that. Is that. Is that the one?

[Mike Davis]

The real scare, the pinnacle of the.

[Gary Blue]

Scare was a pretty good scare. I'VE had some other ones, but that one there, we had moved two times, three times, trying to get in line with the freighter to get what we had to get. And finally we got moved around by north light and. And we got loaded. And that was a small load. It was probably £2,000 or something. It was a 20 or 30 foot boat. I saw gas. What the heck is that? We put a bigger tank in it and covered it in carpet and rod holders and stuff. Look. Right, well, kid worked for me. Did the lines and stuff. Evidently, tie wrap broke, or he didn't tie it off enough. And the line got into the balancer. I flipped it back up, and I look, and the gas is all the way up to the alternators. If we'd ever tried to start it, it would have blowed up, kill us all. And I had a rider with me, a good friend of mine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you're still at the dock.

[Gary Blue]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're out in the water. You're out in the Middle Ocean.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, 70, 80 miles out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Gary Blue]

Christ. So we start bailing the gas out. Well, the gas just gonna float with you. We bail the gas out the best we can. I get on a handheld and I call. I said, look, I've got a problem, Big problem. We need to get this shit off this boat and give it to somebody else. And I don't know what we're gonna do here with this thing. Just keep bailing, keep baling. I'm gonna go gather some soap for you. Boats cleaner. And, you know, Dom works real good with that. So they go gather all they can. Gather all the bilge cleaner and Don, everything everybody's got. Cause there's probably 20, 30 boats out there to do it. And he brings that to me. Well, when he bought that to me, I put the rider off on a boat with him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, you had a buddy on the boat.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, I know. Since both of us mowing up here, right, you'd have seen that. You'd have seen that explosion from Miami, you know? So I put him off. But we bailed. And put water in it. And bailed and put water in it. Bailed. I dump all this soap and build Skinner in it. And I put some more water in, I'll wash it out, and I fill it back up again. It's gonna be easy. I think about it. I said, I'm gonna turn the switches back on. They're not supposed to, you know, waterproof. They shouldn't. It shouldn't ignite. And then it's just the bilge box. So I took the bilge pumps on and pumped it out and filled it up and pumped it out. Well, now with that tank leaking the fuel line, we don't have the fuel we had. That's why that tank was in there, Right. So I borrowed about 10 gallons, and that's all I could get because everybody else already topped off. They bring their fuel with Jerry does. Wow, this is going to be close. So I start back and I get all the way back, and I get about five miles out and it shuts off.

[Mike Davis]

Mm.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, no. I think about it. I said, well, I gotta take the floor up in this thing. I take the floor up. The tank was under it, and take the tank apart and the pickup goes down. And it's about that far down, and there's probably that much an inch of gas in a bottle. There's gas laying there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you had to fashion some more to the pickup.

[Gary Blue]

So. Yeah, a little MacGyver here. So I took the fuel line apart off the ray cord, got me a piece of the clamp, put on the bottom, put it all back together, put the floor back in, send the council back over, bolt it back down. All right, here we go. I drive her on in while I get to where I'm supposed to be at the marina. And the cat that's running the travel lift supposed to lift me out. Not there. Still gonna use a forklift. Remember, now, there's no fuel in the back of this thing and all that's in the front, he lifts it out and it's fuel like this. Oh, and I grabbed the back and I'm hanging on the back. He says, get away from that, man. You crazy? I said, nah. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. If it. If it dumps over, I'm done anyway, right? You know, like, get away from that thing, man. I got away from it. I'm just watching. I'm watching, watching funny sets out on the trailer. I could never, ever wait to get that thing out of the Marine and get it back. Yeah, you know, I'd say so was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That so you said there were some crazier stories and. And some closer calls. Do you remember in those.

[Gary Blue]

Here's a real cool. When they call me up, I'm at home in bed, and they got a 58 foot Chris Craft and it's got probably £15,000 on it.

[Mike Davis]

£15,000 of drugs.

[Gary Blue]

And they call me marijuana. And they call me, oh, this thing's going down. I said, what do you want me to do? We need some help. We need some help. Well, I'm putting a phone pole at my house and there four mudsucker there. I said, all right, on my way, I call a couple of my guys and had my wife put that mudsucker in the back of Berdule, wide open all the way to south, you know, Miami. And I lived in Fort Lauderdale. And to get there and this thing won't start. We're pulling and we're pulling. This thing's rolling over on its side now. Water's running out of portholes. All of a sudden I hear sirens and all this. And here they come down the waterway chasing this boat. This thing's going in. Oh, yeah. I mean, all this stuff's floating on, you know, along the boat and up around the boat. What is just soap and build a cleaner and everything. You know what I mean? They can pass us and I'm looking at. I'm just. I just stopped still. They went down into the waterway and turned on and checked them back the other way. I said, where'd they just go? They were filming a movie.

[Mike Davis]

Oh, my goodness.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Holy. Wow.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, my God. Finally we got the mudsucker going. We got it pumped out and then we saved it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God. At the closest.

[Gary Blue]

Do you have any idea how upset they would be if you sank behind the house with 15,000 pounds of weed?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How upset?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[Bones Bouchard]

How upset? What do you think?

[Gary Blue]

Way upset.

[Bones Bouchard]

Like life or death upset?

[Gary Blue]

Way upset. Yeah. I had a partner that thought he could move everything and do this and do all that. And we have kept keeping a bunch of their stuff. One time, and they had him. They gathered him up, heading for ransom.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Gary Blue]

I said, oh, God, how did we get into this, you know? Yeah, but that's when you get out too far and you believe in people that do that and don't know what they're talking about.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Did you fear for your life or you fear for your getting caught?

[Gary Blue]

I fear for getting caught.

[Mike Davis]

But you never feared for your life.

[Gary Blue]

No, because listen to me, if you do the right thing, you don't steal. There's plenty of money there for everybody. Why would you want to steal from them? There's no sense in that.

[Mike Davis]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

And you do the right thing. You tell me you're going to be there and you're there. Like I told him, I said, if I ever get this big trip, I'm buy all Rolexes, Presidentials. That's nothing to them. You know what I mean? That's like a piece of bubble gum. Yeah, but for me to do what I said I was going to do, I Bought, I don't know, 10 Rolexes. I couldn't believe it. Like you really did. I said, yeah, I told you I was going to do it. So I was a candidate for all the time of them wanting me to do bigger, better things.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I don't know, it seems like new. You knew at some point that the whole thing was going to unravel sooner or later.

[Gary Blue]

They followed us for four years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. And so, I mean, during that time, are you thinking, I want to get out of this. I'm too far in. I can't get out. Like, what was. What's going through your mind?

[Gary Blue]

I was pretty close, I think, with the cup deal with a 28 car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And plus I was there with Raymond Beatle third with Reggie and Raymond on that Milwaukee and all that. And I had to bail. And they didn't understand, you know, like Raymond didn't understand. Kerry can't. He can't. I said, I got to. It's going to ruin it all for all of us. I put 10 regiment in the car. Then I put Rusty. When Tim went with Hendrik, I. Rusty in the car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But you're. But in the smuggling game, you. You knew it was going to come to an end. You knew the cops were watching. What. Why did. Why didn't you try to get out sooner if you knew they were watching for four years?

[Gary Blue]

Conspiracy is conspiracy. If it's five years, six years, four years conspiracy. And that's what gets you. We were pretty good at what we did. As for getting in and doing everything right and people in house and all that, but you can't control that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And that's what, that's what get you.

[Mike Davis]

But I don't understand.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he felt like. I get what you're telling me is when you learned that the cops were on your trail, you knew you were getting the time. Whether you stopped now or kept digging.

[Gary Blue]

When they come to arrest me, everyone love within the 500, cut a tire down, all that. And they come at 5:00 in the morning. And first thing they said to me was, you got a better career and future than anybody. We're wrestling and we're arresting 70 people this morning.

[Mike Davis]

Oh, wow. A lot of people going down, but.

[Gary Blue]

They'Ve been four years. Yeah, but they come for you, buddy. They got it. Don't. Don't you think when you see. It's in the book here. When you see United States government versus Gary Blue, that's your first clue.

[Mike Davis]

It gets your attention.

[Gary Blue]

How do you beat the United States government? Man, I Thought I could, you know, you make a little money. I could attorney.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

And I could have won it. I should have almost won it, but they wouldn't sever me from the other nine defendants. And they were, you know, tape and just. Just bail list and names everywhere. And I mean, oh, my God. Guilty of sin.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

But that's way goes. You're in. You're in, Gary.

[Mike Davis]

I mean, my question, the thing that Dale and I would ask each other is before we started reading the book, we were like, why would someone with this much talent and this much opportunity or you know, promise with. To get where he wants to go, get caught up with it. And then as you read the book, you realize this was what you call the shortcut plan or the. Or this was a way to get your dream. And that answers the question why? Like, and that answers the question why? But when it didn't happen. Well, hold on. Before I ask that. How much can you somehow qualify us or quantify how much of this might have actually funded your racing? And we talk about the number of wins, but, like, I think you must have been in this more before that I even realized. So, like, how much of this do you think funded your career? Percentage wise? 50%.

[Gary Blue]

I had a career. None. None. I wasn't involved in. None. Yeah. At the end, when we finally got to the cup race with Harvey and so forth. That. That's what helped us. It didn't. Like when we went to Syracuse in 1980, would have money there to do it, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

I mean, so it didn't. It takes Buku money to make all this happen.

[Mike Davis]

So it didn't ever contribute to your cup stuff.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, yeah, it did. It did. That's how I got. Finally got.

[Mike Davis]

So it did. In a way, you could say that that was a successful. Whatever the path you chose, it helped you achieve it to a degree. Is that fair to say?

[Gary Blue]

Here's what I'm gonna say. I got. Yeah, I got in the 75 car and got to racing and got to be there. And then Raymond Beadle seen me. We got to become friends, and I'm drag races with him, and he wanted to get involved, and we got Reggie Jackson involved with me. We're pretty well on our way. We had Barry Dobson, had some good people put together.

[Mike Davis]

Barry Dobson.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, yeah, good people went on, Won a championship with Rusty in old Milwaukee and blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I knew that I was fixing to be indicted, but I've been my attorney. And he said, you're 300%. I said 300% of a thousand. He said no. 300. I have 100.

[Mike Davis]

That's right.

[Gary Blue]

Boy, they were bad.

[Mike Davis]

To clarify, I remember right, you're talking about the chances you had to beat this. Right. And he said you had 300% being indicted. Right, right, right. And he said, no, you're 300%. In other words, you have no chance of getting out of this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So.

[Bones Bouchard]

Well, there was also a chance, though, but you had to do something that you didn't want to do.

[Gary Blue]

I wouldn't do it. I haven't done it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Get it.

[Gary Blue]

Not going to do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So there's. You were real careful. And you talk about that in the book. Being careful about certain details of the crimes and individuals involved. Is that why you feel like there's no fear of any danger for you even today? Like you have. You don't walk around looking over your shoulder at all.

[Gary Blue]

Not at all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really. And never did?

[Gary Blue]

Nope.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[Gary Blue]

Companies love me. The Bahamians love me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

I didn't talk about nobody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

And the people I work for and work with, I said nothing. Just like Dale. All the years I've raced, I've never protested nobody in race it. Never. And I'm gonna walk up under scale and watch you go through and tell the officials and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'll walk around, look at it and see what you got and I'll come next week. Better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

During your. During the years of your appeals, you continued to race and win. And I'm going to rattle off some of those victories here in a bit. But you had to know that jail was certain in your future. As you just said, 300%. Your lawyer's telling you out of 100%. How did you block that out?

[Gary Blue]

The hardest thing. The hardest thing was to get that close with a cop. Deal. Real good deal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. And not bail.

[Gary Blue]

The thing that I wanted to do from the time I was 19 years old now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But you went and ran all pro and you won the biggest races.

[Gary Blue]

I won the race. I won the race. I won the race. But yet I race all pro. I race that late ball car. Like what I learned from a cop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know, but maybe better mentally. How did you block that out knowing that you were going to go to jail for years? I mean, how did you. A normal person or me would have said, I'm not. What's there to race for? Like I've got nothing to look forward to. But you kept going about your business.

[Gary Blue]

Won a national championship, won a championship and had a billion dollar sponsor for or 14 races.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know how you were able to do that.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, you went, so you.

[Gary Blue]

Because I thought I was going to win the appeal. I never give up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In your mind, you never gave up. You went to the 1986 Snowball Derby and won Saturday night. A Saturday night In January in 1987, you celebrated the 1986 All Pro Championship. That following Monday, you walked into prison.

[Gary Blue]

Checked in like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't even imagine.

[Gary Blue]

One of the hardest things I've ever do in my life.

[Mike Davis]

Drivers these days, a sinus cold will take over their mind while they're racing. And to be honest with you, and probably caused them to not perform as well. I mean, and that's just. I'm not knocking drivers these days. I'm just saying it's hard for a normal person to compartmentalize even the minor things that are going wrong because you're such a, you know, a creature of habit and routine. So. So you've got your life on the line in your head, and that's a fair question that he's asking. How do you race and win while that's going on?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How can anybody do anything and do it so perfectly?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But with that, why did you race?

[Gary Blue]

You raced to win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

The only time you ever sat down a hot rod, you won the win.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I mean, I think it speaks to your talent.

[Gary Blue]

It's all about winning.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think it speaks to your pure talent as a driver and your ability to take a car and make it better than everybody else's. That, to me, probably is the most fascinating part of your career. I mean, I'm curious about the smuggling side of it, but the fact that you did what you did during the appeal process, to me is.

[Mike Davis]

It's amazing.

[Gary Blue]

We had 1142 motions. Those are from case law.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Explain that to me. What does that mean?

[Gary Blue]

In other words, when you're in trial and they use something against you and somebody else has won on it, that's case law. Yeah, That's a pallet issue. The judge had something go through that somebody else had won on. And you have to have real good attorneys to stand up and appellate.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

1142 motes took them four years, then went on one. How did. People all went on that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

So you keep thinking, well, there's a shot. There's a shot. They did so many things wrong during trial.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

Oh, my God.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

But listen to me. They paid a judge. The agents get paid every Friday. They don't care how long it takes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

How you gonna beat that? They got all the Money in the world. You're not beating that.

[Mike Davis]

But you thought you were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, yeah, I read a lot of the court records on that. I could find fascinating how you guys all went back and forth with the legal system, arguing surveillance and all kinds of things. And that, to me, could have spelled out how that process would be so drawn out. Another fascinating thing that Mike and I both found interesting is during your time in jail, during your first prison term, you were sent to the Federal Correctional Institute in all places. Talladega, Alabama.

[Gary Blue]

The cars were running.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You were there that weekend.

[Gary Blue]

I was locked in a hole.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You were in solitary.

[Gary Blue]

Solitary.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

While the race was going on.

[Gary Blue]

I could hear them.

[Mike Davis]

You could hear.

[Gary Blue]

That killed me that I. I could have been at races and. And knew who I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

They didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They didn't.

[Gary Blue]

No, but they knew. I knew they knew by things I heard them say.

[Mike Davis]

You know, that's gotta be some kind of torture. I mean, if I think about torture, that for you to read the first half of this book and know where you are, who your heart is, to hear the cars in a race that you had been in.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Previously. And you're. Who knew Talladega even had a federal correction facility? I thought the Talladega infield jail, the holding cell, was the only jail you.

[Gary Blue]

Don'T want to be. That's. That's a penitentiary. That's. That's. You don't want to go there. You don't want to go to Atlanta. You don't want to go.

[Mike Davis]

I don't want to go to all of them.

[Gary Blue]

You don't want to go to none of them.

[Mike Davis]

Yeah, Yeah, I don't want to go.

[Gary Blue]

To any of them. Those are the real deal.

[Bones Bouchard]

Yeah, but take us, Take us inside that cell that day because we. What intrigues me, Gary, is the beginning of your book. Something that really resonated with me is how you're a child and you're on top of your roof listening to race cars and you get this passion. You develop this passion. You want to be inside. You want to be there. So you get there, and seven years after you raced at that Talladega race, you're on a floor of a cell hearing those race cars wanting to be inside there again. Can you. Can you walk me through what was going through your mind that day?

[Gary Blue]

It's a mindset. I mean, it just. You have to put it aside to survive because you got to survive. You can't just lay down and die. If you have that fire in you that no quit, you're done. You know, they're dragging you out, dragging you around. And then they dragged me to Lewisburg Penitentiary. And I remember getting there and I looked at it and the guard tires and the walls. I said, what have I really done to deserve this?

[Bones Bouchard]

We all sit here every week on the show and talk about racing because we all understand racing from different levels. But I don't understand things like what it's like to serve time. And I want to hear from you since you're a racer and I can identify with you. I really want to know your words, what it's like to serve time, because I don't understand that.

[Gary Blue]

Well, it is so hard to have somebody tell you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat and lock you down. And you can't watch this and you can't do that. It's incredible that way. But my first deal was you have all your family. You can't keep in your mind and survive prison and time and try to keep your life going with your family. It's so hard. It's so hard. I mean, it just, it's like it, it takes all that away from you. It takes and puts you over here someplace, away from everybody and everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're. We talked about the first time you got involved in smuggling was to help sort of speed up the process of getting you into the Cup Series and affording that because it is a big undertaking financially. What was the reason for the second time? So when I read about that, it made me think, wow. I mean, you knew the feds were watching you for four years in the 80s, in the late 80s, in the early 80s, the first time. How could you even think about going back in there? Didn't. Were they not still watching you? Did they not, like keep an eye on you even when you're out and you're done and you've served your time?

[Gary Blue]

They do, but they don't. I mean, they do, you know, with your probation and all that. I mean, I, when this all started, I did five, four years on a pill. Then I did four years and then did five years on paper, which I was up here doing that. Then the second time I got a seven year sentence and I did 68 months in and five years on paper afterwards. So add all that up to about 13, 14 years, I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But why did you go in the second time?

[Gary Blue]

The second time my knees were bleeding. I couldn't get a sponsorship, I couldn't make no money.

[Mike Davis]

You were at the bottom.

[Gary Blue]

At the bottom, at the very, very bottom And I went to Memini fishing. And you got to remember, all them kids over there now have grown up. I made Christmas for all them kids. I'd load my hatters up with 30, $40,000 worth of toys to take over there, and we'd have Christmas. You know, they needed bikes and they needed this, they needed that. Whatever they needed, we figured out how to get it. Now they're growed up. They remember that Gary kept his mouth shut. Grandpa, they call me. Yeah, he's our hero. You need to do this. You need to. No, no, no. I don't need to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got this. So you do one trip.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One trip's all it takes. You're back in.

[Gary Blue]

You're in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Golly. Another interesting story from 1989. You watched the Winston, the rust, where Rusty turned Darrell on the front straightaway for the win with other inmates.

[Gary Blue]

Well, I own part of that deal. I was. I was still in with Raymond Beetle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Gary Blue]

And Reggie.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

While you're in jail, I put Rusty in that car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Gary Blue]

But once Tim left it, Raymond said, what? Oh, oh, what are we going to do now? I said, we'll put Rusty Wallace. And he said, rusty who? I said, rusty Wallace. He said, he's never done nothing. I said, he's the next candidate. I'm telling you, he's racer. He said, we got to hire.

[Mike Davis]

You've been racing against Rusty and you knew him well?

[Gary Blue]

Oh, yeah. ASA and all, probably. We were good friends.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So the. You talk about how winning Rusty, winning the championship in 1989, really affected you because you had had the opportunity or worked. That was sort of your destiny to actually be in that car, had had things going your way, but it was.

[Gary Blue]

It was still good for me to see Raymond do good and Rusty do good. I'm still a team player.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

But it hurts, you know that that's what you work for all your life, and that's why you did what you did to get there. And here we are.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I never knew that. So when. When you. I never knew your affiliation with the 27 car. I never even knew you ever had an opportunity or were working on a deal for the 28 car or near car at that time. So it's interesting for me to see, like, a visual graph of what your career, what your direction was. Like you had a plan. Like when you were at the racetrack in 1979 in Daytona, you might not have knew exactly what that plan was, but after about 1981 was to get.

[Gary Blue]

Good enough to get in the top.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ride by 1981, you're in a 75 car with rehealing those guys and that you. You were working on a plan. You had a plan. So seeing imagining you now in that 27 car and having that potential to be with that team really even makes it more intriguing. I didn't know that because I didn't know that you had that much of a foundation created in the cup series in 81 when you left. So that's interesting.

[Gary Blue]

Here's how I feel about that 28 car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

If your dad had ever been in that 28 car, the rest of them had been racing for second every race they went to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was a rocket ship. Yeah, it was. Yes, sir, it was a rocket ship. And I think it was the best thing that could ever happen to Davey. I mean, he. It was a lot more race car than there was driver there that first year. But boy, you can't drive. You can't learn to drive until you can get in a car that can do what it needs to do.

[Gary Blue]

A good day car. Good hot rod.

[Mike Davis]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that probably was best thing could have happened to old Davey. We talked about how. How well you could have fared as a driver in today's racing. You're still involved in motorsports. You're still your man. You're. You're working with. You work. Do you still work with Stuart? Yeah, a little bit on his stuff.

[Gary Blue]

A little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How many different teams are you working with right now? Even count them?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah, I'm working with a guy, Jim Weber, with some Seneca stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And that's a pretty good deal. Probably bring Jimmy Carter in and maybe Stuart in a few races.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that's asphalt?

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. All asphalt?

[Bones Bouchard]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Your own asphalt? Strictly now.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. No, I go to dirt. I go with a big block dirt. I go to Middletown. My boss owns all that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Gary Blue]

And we go up here. I mean, New York. It's like incredible with a book.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're all over the.

[Gary Blue]

You're still New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, wherever it's. I only raced it for five seasons, and it's incredible. The fans up there are just unbelievable. Yeah, unbelievable.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sounds like you're still running.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah. When I first went back up there, I walked across the racetrack and I don't know anybody, and I got to the bottom of the racetrack and it was 15 people want a monograph. I said, you gotta be kidding me. How do these people remember me? Yeah, it don't make sense. Everybody remembers me, but it's just crazy to be gone that long, walking someplace.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You've never been gone. Everybody still remembers who you were.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

Where do you live?

[Gary Blue]

I live in Ohio. I live in Cleveland. But I went there and put some race teams together. Main event cars for Brian Short and Jimmy Carter. And then I went to Tom Ferris with Scott Baker and put three teams together there. Then I put another team together over in Pennsylvania with a Seneca car. Then I got to Delaware in Illinois, and I got all that stuff going on in New York State.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

But I'm excited about the movie. I want to do a movie.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're making a documentary?

[Gary Blue]

The documentary is real close to being done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Gary Blue]

We worked on it all last summer. I've. I've seen the rough cut of. Is incredible how they move stuff around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is it similar to the book?

[Gary Blue]

It's from the book.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

So. All right. And so a lot of the names that we read about in here, are they in the documentary?

[Gary Blue]

It's like that documentary is like me sitting right here and talking to. Yeah, whatever it is, I'm gonna tell it right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I want to rattle off some victories, man. 1968, Florida's Governor's Cup 200 winner. 1976 Syracuse, Syracuse 200 winner. 77 Syracuse 200 winner. 78 Syracuse 200 winner. 81 Miller High Life 300 winner. 1980 Snowball Derby winner. 1980 Syracuse 200 winner. 84 All American 400 winner, 84 World Crown 300 winner, 86 All American 400 winner, 86 All Pro Champion. 86 Snowball Derby winner. Winner. Over 1000 races feature events in his career. Gary Ballou. I've always wanted to talk to you. To me, you're one of the most fascinating stories in motorsports and appreciate you writing this book because I had. There were a ton of holes to fill for me. And I know there's a lot of other people out there that are as curious about you as I am. They need to read this book. Hot Shoe A Check or Pass My Story by Gary Ballou and Bones Bouchier.

[Mike Davis]

How do you pronounce.

[Bones Bouchard]

I've always said that's why everybody calls me Bones.

[Mike Davis]

Just Bones.

[Gary Blue]

He's one of the best. The best.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's a real race.

[Gary Blue]

I waited a year and a half for that. You got 181. And trying to find a sponsor, somebody to help me with it. And Chris stepped up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

And I got. I got with Lou Boyd, and they were doing a contract back and forth, back and forth. They sent me all the stuff, but there's no contract in the envelope. So I just said, well, they haven't got it yet. And I waited. And I waited. I waited. Finally, I called him. I said, where's the contract? He said, you got it waiting on you. I said, I don't have it. Oh, yeah, you do. I said, don't have it. Well, meanwhile, Bones had to do something. He took a job in California. Well, I had to wait a year and a half to get him to do it. But I wasn't doing that book without Bones with Shard. So my boss kept saying to me, gary, there's other authors. There's other people can do that book. I said, when we finally did that book and he was reading it, as I was proofreading it, my boss does all of the contracts. He said, I don't like to read, Gary. I said, okay. Sent some chapters to me. I sent some chapters. He called me up, he said, holy Christ, what have you done to me? I said, what? You know, like, oh, man, what have we done?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

He said, that's the best book I've ever read in my life. I can't wait to get home to read another part of it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

So that was good. You know what I mean?

[Mike Davis]

It's such an education on racing, and that sounds so cliche, but I'm not a racer. I work for a racer.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Mike Davis]

A good one. And I learned about race cars and the ingenuity that can be applied to it. It was unbelievable how much it educates people. And you don't have to be a racing fanatic. It's just. It's impressive. It's an impressive piece of work.

[Gary Blue]

He texted me, Crispin said, you read the book? And I was elated. I said, wow, that's not Junior, really? And then he said the whole thing. He patted some of his career out to my style and went, oh, my God, if Biggie could hear that, right? And then he went on and started telling me about the ingenuity and what the cards and how. How sanitary the cards were. Including they were. And that meant a lot to me to hear that from him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

You know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I appreciate.

[Gary Blue]

He has got there and he has made it, and he has done it.

[Mike Davis]

He's done okay for himself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I was. I'm. I'm glad I got to learn all about you. There's so many layers to you and good math. Yeah. Well, they all tell a story, and they all have. There's lessons in there, and I do tell. I tell my driver. I told Josh Berry, my late model guy that's out there, he's won 50 late model races and still racing today. I said, you need to read this book because you will be a better race car driver when you're done. Because I'll go over to the shop and Josh ain't gonna be too happy about me telling him this, but I go over to the shop and I look at his car and I go, I know that you're not getting everything you can out of the body of this car. And he doesn't. He doesn't.

[Gary Blue]

He's not in zero at all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He doesn't think that half file don't matter. He doesn't think that it's important enough. And I want him to read this book.

[Gary Blue]

Just need more smarter edge. They can even more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know. I really want him to read this book because I feel like that. And I don't want everybody to read it because they'll make any of the guys he's racing against at least. Because I do think that if you read this book, it's sort of a manual on creativity and an approach that all short track racers should have.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I know, I'm curious. I'm curious about the. The wild, crazy outlaw part of your life, but there is an amazing, amazing amount of information for racers in here. You got the documentary coming out. I can't wait to see it.

[Gary Blue]

I see some of it. I'm amazed. I'm amazing. My boss is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Three times.

[Gary Blue]

He told me over the weekend, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah. To get that was good out of him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Gary Blue]

It's really hard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir. You know, well, thanks for coming, but thanks for coming all this way, man.

[Gary Blue]

I appreciate it. I really appreciate being here on the show with you and did to spend some time with you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir.

[Gary Blue]

I want to go fishing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go fishing.

[Gary Blue]

Hey, I wanted to Key west with you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir.

[Gary Blue]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, let's go.

[Gary Blue]

We'll get down there and just have some fun, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sounds good.

[Mike Davis]

Get on a boat and you're not going to go to the Bahamas, are you?

[Gary Blue]

Here's what's going to save us. The Keys from South Florida go off to the west and off into the Gulf. Bahamas are over here. Now, if we were down around Marathon, maybe not. Marathon's a little too far down. We've done some stuff in Marathon, but Key Largo is about where we need to be straight across.

[Mike Davis]

Okay.

[Gary Blue]

Okay.

[Mike Davis]

We got GPS now, so now we don't need a cup.

[Gary Blue]

All right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I loved. I mean, there's a lot of stories we didn't get to tell today. I'd love to hang out with you and get to hear some more cool stories.

[Gary Blue]

I mean, I want to hear you sing some more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, all right. We'll get enough beer in me. We'll do some.

[Gary Blue]

Yes, sir.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, man. We'll see you.

[Gary Blue]

All right, man. Thank you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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