DJD Classics - Greg Biffle: Why I Should've Left Roush Racing

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download - DJD Classics: Greg Biffle: Why I Should've Left Roush Racing

Episode Release Date: February 26, 2025
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Guest: Greg Biffle

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Introduction: Greg Biffle’s Journey in Racing

In this classic episode of The Dale Jr. Download, NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with Greg Biffle, a celebrated driver and 2015 NASCAR Cup Series champion, to delve deep into Greg's illustrious career, particularly focusing on his tenure with Roush Racing. The conversation provides an intimate look into Greg's early beginnings, the pivotal moments that shaped his career, and the regrets he harbors about his time at Roush Racing.

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Early Life and Racing Beginnings

Greg Biffle opens up about his upbringing in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from Portland, Oregon. Growing up in a non-racing hotspot, Greg found his passion for motorsports through his parents' connections and early hands-on experience with engines.

Greg Biffle [04:10]: “I worked for a guy my dad was buddies with who owned an automotive machine shop. I spent my high school years tearing engines down and building Oval track cars. Friday nights at the Portland Speedway were the turning point for me.”

Greg describes his youthful adventures, including street racing and minor run-ins with the law, which were his way of channeling his love for speed and competition.

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Building a Racing Career and Entering Roush Racing

Greg's passion for racing led him to build his own street stock cars and eventually start his own business at just 19 years old. His expertise and dedication quickly earned him recognition in the racing community.

Greg Biffle [08:17]: “We built about 50 race cars. I loved building and racing, and it wasn't long before I started gaining traction.”

The pivotal moment came when racing legend Benny Parsons recognized Greg’s talent and recommended him to Jack Roush, leading to Greg’s serendipitous hiring without the need for tests or resumes.

Greg Biffle [12:54]: “Benny Parsons put his trust in me and simply said, 'Call Jeff Smith to hire Greg.' No tests, no resumes. Just Benny’s word.”

Greg recounts the immediate transition to Roush Racing in Michigan, where he signed a four-year contract to drive in the NASCAR Truck Series, laying the foundation for his future successes.

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Successes and Offers While at Roush Racing

During his time with Roush Racing, Greg achieved significant milestones, including winning the Truck Series championship and multiple Xfinity Series titles. His performance attracted attention from other top teams, including an offer to drive the No. 20 car for Gibbs Racing.

Greg Biffle [18:10]: “Driving for Gibbs would have been a great opportunity, but I was focused on winning titles with Roush. I couldn’t bring myself to leave when we were on a championship run.”

Despite attractive offers, Greg remained loyal to Roush Racing, influenced by his strong relationships with sponsors like 3M and his fear of disrupting his established career trajectory.

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Challenges and Technological Decline at Roush Racing

Greg candidly discusses the factors that ultimately led to his regrets about staying with Roush Racing. He points to a lack of investment in new technologies and aerodynamics, which caused the team to fall behind competitors who embraced innovation.

Greg Biffle [19:53]: “We let technology pass us by. While other teams were advancing with simulations and aerodynamics, we were stuck doing the same things over and over, hoping for different results.”

He highlights specific instances where Roush Racing’s technological shortcomings were evident, such as being 90 pounds off in downforce compared to leading teams, severely impacting their competitiveness on the track.

Greg Biffle [24:07]: “At Michigan, matching the downforce of the top cars meant adding 30 horsepower of drag. We were so far behind that even minor improvements couldn’t bridge the gap.”

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On-Track Conflicts and Maintaining Respect

Greg shares personal anecdotes about conflicts on the track, notably his altercation with Jay Sauter at Richmond. Despite moments of aggression, he emphasizes his commitment to maintaining respect and professionalism.

Greg Biffle [36:44]: “I was upset after Harvick wrecked me for holding up the field, and in the heat of the moment, I threw a water bottle at him and even had a brief tug-of-war. But we talked it out later and moved past it.”

He reflects on his driving style, acknowledging that his aggressiveness sometimes led to conflicts but always aimed to treat his competitors with respect.

Greg Biffle [35:50]: “I tried to respect everyone on the track. I was probably too aggressive at times, but I always aimed to treat others the way I wanted to be treated.”

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Final Years and Retirement: A Difficult Decision

As Roush Racing struggled to keep pace with evolving technologies and tightening competition, Greg found himself at a crossroads. The decision to leave came from a place of recognizing that staying would mean compromising his desire to compete at the highest level.

Greg Biffle [58:54]: “It was killing me inside not to be competitive. I told myself if I knew I couldn’t win, I wouldn’t continue racing just for the sake of it.”

Despite efforts to negotiate his release from Roush Racing and explore opportunities with other teams, Greg ultimately chose to retire from full-time competition, feeling that his chances of winning another championship were diminishing.

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Post-Racing Endeavors: Business and Philanthropy

Since stepping away from full-time racing, Greg has ventured into various business initiatives, including owning a rock quarry and engaging in aviation pursuits. Additionally, he has dedicated time to philanthropy through the Lake Norman Humane Society, emphasizing his commitment to animal welfare.

Greg Biffle [90:00]: “We adopt out about 100 animals a month, giving them a chance at a better life. It’s our way of giving back and making a real difference.”

His passion for racing remains alive through occasional participation in fun, low-pressure events and mentoring young drivers, reflecting his enduring love for the sport.

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Reflections and Regrets: The Takeaway

Throughout the episode, Greg Biffle expresses deep regret over not leaving Roush Racing sooner. He reflects on how staying may have cost him additional championships and opportunities to drive for more competitive teams.

Greg Biffle [83:29]: “I should have left several times. We didn’t have the equipment, and I was afraid to make the change. It’s something I pondered a lot.”

This introspection serves as a poignant lesson on the importance of adaptability and recognizing when to pursue new opportunities for sustained success.

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Conclusion: Lessons from Greg Biffle’s Career

Greg Biffle's candid conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. offers invaluable insights into the high-stakes world of NASCAR racing. From the thrills of early racing days to the challenges of maintaining competitiveness within a major team, Greg's experiences underscore the complexities drivers face both on and off the track. His reflections on loyalty, technological advancements, and personal growth provide a compelling narrative for any racing enthusiast or aspiring driver.

Notable Quotes:

• Greg Biffle [12:54]: “Benny Parsons put his trust in me and simply said, 'Call Jeff Smith to hire Greg.' No tests, no resumes. Just Benny’s word.”
• Greg Biffle [19:53]: “We let technology pass us by. While other teams were advancing with simulations and aerodynamics, we were stuck doing the same things over and over, hoping for different results.”
• Greg Biffle [58:54]: “It was killing me inside not to be competitive. I told myself if I knew I couldn’t win, I wouldn’t continue racing just for the sake of it.”
• Greg Biffle [83:29]: “I should have left several times. We didn’t have the equipment, and I was afraid to make the change. It’s something I pondered a lot.”

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This episode of The Dale Jr. Download not only chronicles Greg Biffle's journey through the ranks of NASCAR but also offers profound lessons on career decisions, team dynamics, and the relentless pursuit of excellence in the ever-evolving world of motorsports.

Transcript

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, everybody, It's D. Dell Jr. Feeling a little bit under the weather this week. We had Lake Speed booked to be our guest. Don't want to get him in here, potentially get him sick. So we're going to reschedule Lake Speed. I'm looking forward to talking to him about his career, but in the meantime, Greg Biffle, he stopped by here last week with Cletus, and it was fun to see him again. It reminded us of a great conversation that we had a few years back. So I appreciate Biffle opening up about retirement, leaving Roush Racing. Here's Greg Biffle on DJD Classics. There he is. All right, you ran out of gas.

[eBay Advertiser]

I ran out of gas.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When's the last time you drove the Boss Hog Limo?

[eBay Advertiser]

God, it's probably been. It's probably been.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Too long, I guess.

[eBay Advertiser]

Too long.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you got in, pulled out, and didn't look at the. Yeah, I've done that. So does anybody put gas in your car? You do.

[eBay Advertiser]

No, I do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You do it.

[eBay Advertiser]

So, full disclosure. All my cars, I don't keep a lot of gas in them. Because you don't drive them a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it goes bad.

[eBay Advertiser]

I put gas in it every time I drive it. Or not every time, but every other time. And I'm coming up Perth Road. I look at the gas gauge, little under a quarter tank, and I'm like, perfect, I'll get a little gas on the way back. I'm coming down. Cornelius. And she's. So I gave her the. I gave her the NASCAR shake. Trying to get a Little sloshed around in there. It picked up, and I'm like, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna. I just trying to get the top of the race park, you know, so I can toast, so I can get. I can get a little gas in her.

[Greg Biffle]

So what did you do? You ran out? And then what happened?

[eBay Advertiser]

So right as I started running out, I grabbed my phone and, hey, Siri, call Roger. And my guy at the shop, Roger's. Answer the phone. I said, bring me five gallons of gas. I'm gonna be at the top of the race park. And he knew I was coming over here, so, yeah, good deal. Anyway, mobilized quick. We were back on the road.

[Greg Biffle]

Yeah. So scrambled. Roger that. That's when you know what's up.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's right.

[Greg Biffle]

And he wins the cool move of the race award because he got you here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thank you, Roger.

[Greg Biffle]

That's right.

[eBay Advertiser]

Right on time.

[Greg Biffle]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So where were you born?

[eBay Advertiser]

I was born, actually. Born in Portland, Oregon.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Portland, Oregon?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And when did you. When. When did you move away from Portland?

[eBay Advertiser]

So I moved away.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How old were you?

[eBay Advertiser]

So these are quizzes, aren't they? I should have got my quizzes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Just give me a rough, rough estimate.

[eBay Advertiser]

So when I moved away is when I first started in the truck series. So 1997, 98 was my first year of the trucks.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you were quite, you know, you.

[eBay Advertiser]

Were in your early mid-20s.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mid-20s, right. What was life like in Portland?

[eBay Advertiser]

So I grew up in Vancouver, Washington, you know, right across the river from Portland. And it's not the hotbed of racing. So I grew up. My parents own a small steel construction company. I worked for a guy that my dad was buddies with that owned automotive machine shop. So he built engines. So when I was young, in high school, working for him after school, tearing engines down, doing all those things, he had oval track cars. And that's actually how the connection came. I ended up, you know, over the racetrack. On Friday night, they raced at Portland Speedway. And my dad's like, hey, do you want to go to the track on Friday night? And I think it was more to try and get me to go do something constructive instead of getting trouble out street racing or speeding tickets. Were you a troublemaker doing all that in the car? I was. Right. So we were. We were. You know, I love driving, so I'm out messing around all the time with my buddies.

[Greg Biffle]

Yeah, Doing what? What was the trouble?

[eBay Advertiser]

Well, you know, we were street racing and, you know, doing, you know, just doing kids stuff.

[Greg Biffle]

Did you get arrested?

[eBay Advertiser]

I probably Got arrested maybe once.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really? Doing what?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, speeding or. I don't remember. I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How do you not remember? What, you got arrested?

[Greg Biffle]

Probably got arrested once means I definitely got arrested three times or more.

[eBay Advertiser]

I like that. I like that. No, I think I got arrested for driving without a license.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why did you not have your license?

[eBay Advertiser]

I got too many speeding tickets.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you lost your license for speeding?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep, for 30 days.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then they raced in a small town, right?

[eBay Advertiser]

Like Mooresville, I grew up in. Of course, they see my car sneak by and they're like, he doesn't have a license.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You knew. They knew you?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, they knew me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. When did you decide that you wanted to drive a car?

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, I. So anything that burnt gas and had a steering wheel. So I got my first motorcycle when I was 5, and I loved riding motorcycles. And then, you know, I'm at my dad's shop, I'm driving the forklift. And then he'd be like, pull that truck over here, and I get to drive the truck. And then we're at home. We had eight acres, and my grandmother lived at the end of our property. And so he'd be, go get your grandmother's car. We gotta jump start the tractor. So, you know, I'm like, running up there. So I get. I go in, get my grandma's keys and drive her car down there. I just love driving. You know, anything that. That burnt gas had wheels on it, man, I was all over it. So I. I just enjoyed that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But how did you get behind the wheel of a race car?

[eBay Advertiser]

So after I got in all that trouble, probably out screwing off, you know, on the street, my dad's like, let's go to the, you know, Portland Speedway on Friday night and watch. And we went and watched, like, the hobby. Stocks, street stocks. And I'm like, oh, my God, I was hooked. Loved it. You know, because of the competition, you know, I played sports and wrestled and those things, and I loved competition. I loved cars, and it was something I wanted to do. And we went home that next week. That next week, I bought a car and started stripping apart. I bought a 74 Ford Torino.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

From where?

[Greg Biffle]

Oh, man.

[eBay Advertiser]

Out of the newspaper. 74 Ford Torino. Cause my dad was a Ford guy, okay. So we tore this car apart, built a street stock car. You know, everybody's like, oh, you want a full frame car? And we wanted a Ford. So it was like the natural Monte Carlo type of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. What year was this? Or roughly.

[eBay Advertiser]

So that would have been probably 80. Probably 86, 87.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you put a y'all put a roll cage, four point cage in it, you know, and you rebuild the engine.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep. Did the roll cage, did the motor, and showed up on Friday night.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How'd it go?

[eBay Advertiser]

It went okay. And got. Got better and better at it. And then we decided my dad had this bright idea that we should go run the guy I worked for, A.C. nutter, we should go run his tour car, which is like a tour car. So tour cars like model Southwest Tour, Northwest Tour, okay, so a step above a late model. So, yeah, you know, would have been like a big ten car or something like that. So we went and ran some of those races about half a season, quarter season. We really didn't have the money, but that's when I really got my skill and understood what a car was. Caster camber, you know, the whole thing. Wedge the whole thing in and out. So we come back, can't really afford that. So I built another street stock car for myself. And now with all that knowledge, built 74 Nova. Went out first. Middle of the season, I show up at the racetrack, qualify in the trophy dash, win the trophy dash, run good in the main, and what happens from there is kind of funny because after that, people come over like, who's this guy? Or who's this kid? They come over and look at my car and they're like, who built this? Who put the cage in it? Who did? And I said, I did. And out of that, a bunch of people wanted me to do roll cage work and build them cars. So here I am, you know, 19 years old or something. So I started my own business. You know, I work for my parents anyway, so I kind of start my own deal. I'm like, this is my thing. I'm an entrepreneur. I love to, you know, do that kind of stuff. And now I can do something I love. So I started building roll cages and building cars and bought a distributor from Coleman Machine, started selling all the parts. And from there it just kind of escalated, you know. Then I built Limited Sportsman, started building late model cars. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you built. You. You have how many race cars you think you built?

[eBay Advertiser]

Probably 50.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow. Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. We built about 15, 20 late model sportsman cars a year. Wow. Something like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's really cool.

[eBay Advertiser]

And then I hired Roger, and he was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who works for you now?

[Greg Biffle]

That's the same guy that just.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yes.

[Greg Biffle]

Got you here? This. They go way back.

[eBay Advertiser]

I hired Roger. He was 16 and I was 19. So he's three years younger than me. And a fabricator like you've never seen before. And so we started building late model cars and then I got a chance to drive and I had a. I had a tour car. We built ourself a tour car, run a few races, and then I went back and started racing late models and had a lot of success, Won a lot of races, won a track championship at Portland. At Portland. And Tri Cities five hours away. So Friday night, Saturday night, you won both championships. You won the same year. Wow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How do you get a notice and get the job to drive a truck?

[eBay Advertiser]

So it's pretty crazy. So we, we sit at home like 1994 or 5 and watch this Tucson winter heat series on ESPN.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[eBay Advertiser]

And Roger, like, we're going to that next year. So I think the next year was maybe 96 and. Or maybe the next year was 95. So we plan to go to that and race that three race series, televised espn. We go down there, qualify fourth one, qualified fourth again, won the second one, and then I finished, you know, third or fourth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And this is in your late model?

[eBay Advertiser]

In my late model, yep. And so I go down and win the series and I became Ben, you know, friends with Benny Parsons.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[eBay Advertiser]

And we came back and won the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did you become friends with him?

[eBay Advertiser]

He, you know, you know him, he walks through the garage area, he talks to everyone, knows everyone. Bigger than life kind of guy. You know, he doesn't sit up in the booth or sit in the TV compound. He's down there walking through the pits.

[Greg Biffle]

Because they were broadcasting the series. Yes, that's how he was.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's how he was there. Right. So they're televising this ESPN series. Right. And so that's where the year before, your father hired Ron Hornaday.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[eBay Advertiser]

From that series.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

So I come and race it the following year, and Kevin Harvick came out of that series. So I go and race it the following year. And it was kind of a cool story. So we get a. I go a lap down, 75 laps. Hot dog, break another 75. So first 75 laps, I get lapped right at, you know, close to halfway. So I'm third on the grid, but lapped. We come in, I have a. Got a. I got a flat right front. You know, I didn't know why the car just got tight, wouldn't turn, got a flat tire. So go back out, they throw the green. I pass the second place car and the leader get back on the lead lap, come around and lap. The entire field was, you know, in the 75 laps in one. And, you know, Benny was impressed. And, you Know, from there, I said, you know, how do I get the, you know, next opportunity? And he said, you know, he puts his hand on my back. He goes, I'll pass your name around. You know, I know a lot of guys and whatever else. So the story goes, Benny Parsons again in the garage area at Michigan, talks to Jack Rausch. And Jack says, hey, I wasn't able to hire Tommy Kendall to drive my third truck team. Whatever else, they're just BSing. He said, hey, don't forget about that kid I told you about out in Washington. He'll do a good job. He went back, told Jeff Smith to hire me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[eBay Advertiser]

No test, no resume, no anything. They called me on the phone and hired me. That was it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[eBay Advertiser]

Just on Benny's word. Yeah, on his word.

[Greg Biffle]

That's unheard of.

[eBay Advertiser]

And later on, Benny told me, he said, I've only recommended two guys in this sport. And he said, one was Ernie Irvin and the other one was you.

[Greg Biffle]

Holy moly.

[eBay Advertiser]

And it's kind of a remarkable story. It is, honestly. It really is. So that's how I got my opportunity. It's just like winning the lottery.

[Greg Biffle]

So then you move. You move to North Carolina with a job already in hand.

[eBay Advertiser]

I pack up my stuff. I got to wind down my business. We're built. I got six cars to build. I got to be in Michigan, you know, and I'm, like, trying. And this was in September, so I had till, you know, the end of the year to try and figure this out, so. And then the truck team was in Michigan for the first three years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. So I moved to Michigan. Oh, yes.

[Greg Biffle]

That's not North Carolina.

[eBay Advertiser]

Not North Carolina. So I moved to Michigan, and then when I got to run the Xfinity series or the Bush Series, then I moved here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Greg Biffle]

Did you know Rouse had as a truck operation?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Don't remember.

[Greg Biffle]

Never heard of that.

[eBay Advertiser]

But yeah, I was in Livonia. Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

What did you know about the truck series at that point?

[eBay Advertiser]

I knew quite a bit about it because I was, you know, obviously a steward of the sport. So I really was watching it, paying attention to it. You know, I knew a lot about it. Gotcha.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You, you know, talking about your. Your racing career just right before the truck deal in 1995, you had 27 wins. You were second to Larry Phillips in division standings, the Pacific Coast Division. You're racing just specifically at those two race tracks.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, just those two tracks. And I think the way it worked back then, Junior, is you were allowed to choose two tracks and accumulate your finishes. Like, as a point, standing for those two racetracks.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So in 1995, you're running the winston racing series, and I was also in the winston racing series on the east coast in the mid atlantic region. You were in the pacific coast division. I was in the mid atlantic.

[eBay Advertiser]

Right. That's cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You had a much better experience than I did.

[eBay Advertiser]

I did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay. Hey, when you get the offer. So I imagine this is probably like a big shock, right?

[eBay Advertiser]

Huge shock.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What is the reaction from your friends, your family, your parents? What is the reaction to everybody in this tiny little town?

[eBay Advertiser]

It's quite incredible, really. And I mean, the way sort of the way the phone call goes or the story goes quickly is, you know, we ran this small shop and built these cars, and it was like three of us. It was me, Roger, four of us, you know, and a part. I had a parts guy. We're getting ready to go to lunch, and that's when Roger and I sit down, still at lunch, and we talk about business and we talk about what we're doing and where we're going and kind of what we're working on. So we're getting ready to go to lunch, and my parts guy pages me, says, jeff Smith's on the phone for you. And I'm like, I don't know who that is, but why did he give his first and last name? And I said, I'll take the call real quick, because you never know, you know, I mean, with Tucson winter heat. So I answer the phone, and I'm in there, and Roger's kind of pacing around a little bit. And five minutes later, Roger's back to work. I see sparks, and he's welding because he hates to stand around. So like 20 minutes later, you know, I have a window in my office. It looks out in the shop. Twenty minutes later, he's standing in the window, like, coming out here, you know, are we going? You know, and so I write Jack roush on the phone and, you know, or on a piece of paper and hold it up, and he's like, you know, whatever. Goes back to work. Hour later, I get off the phone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm like, what a long conversation this was.

[eBay Advertiser]

It was, you know, because Jeff knew nothing about me, you know, send me a picture of you. It's like he. You know, there was really no, you know, Internet and, you know, they couldn't, like, google and see everything. So it was. It was. It was interesting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So they had a contract ready.

[eBay Advertiser]

They faxed me a contract.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the contract?

[eBay Advertiser]

Funny enough, I don't have a Fax machine. My mom does and her. Their steel yard was like a block away. So I walk over there and I get all my faxes from my mom's shop. So they faxed me a contract. And my mom and dad are in their small modular office. And I'm on like page four of this contract. And I said, does it really matter what this says? They're gonna pay me, you know, $70,000 to drive a car, race car, and I don't have to pay for anything. I said, you know, I just turned to the last page and signed it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. What was the deal?

[eBay Advertiser]

How long? I think it was like a four year deal, you know, so. So all of Roush's contracts were fairly lengthy. So it gave them Runway to, you know, sign another contract. And so I always signed contracts the year before. I was in my option year. Yeah, they would negotiate it, you know, because they didn't want me talking to other teams. So year before, we always negotiated, you know, the next three years or whatever it might have been.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you ran, you raced for Roush from that moment on until you retired or till you didn't. Never ret. Until you quit racing in cup series full time.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you ever get another offer from another team?

[eBay Advertiser]

I got offers. Very thankful. I got offers all the time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. What were some of the most compelling offers that you were like, golly, this is a good one.

[eBay Advertiser]

Drive the 20 car for Gibbs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What year or what?

[eBay Advertiser]

That was right before Logano went in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It, when Tony was leaving.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My gosh.

[Greg Biffle]

Were you in a position where you could have even really considered it or were you?

[eBay Advertiser]

I was scooped up. I was. But I was on the run to win the title.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you have such a good year.

[eBay Advertiser]

So I would had to announce in my championship title run in my first time in Cup. Yeah. I'm like, I can't do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, I mean, this guy gave me a chance, and I won a truck championship and Xfinity title, and now I'm about to win the cup title and I'm going to sign with another team.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So let me ask this. So obviously you're in a great car about to win a championship. So it's not a. You're probably like, yeah, the equipment's a lateral move.

[eBay Advertiser]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All that's fine was the money on the Gibbs side. Really, really good.

[eBay Advertiser]

It was about the same.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[eBay Advertiser]

It was about the same. Well, I negotiated a new deal, you know, off of that. So what I was making then? No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The rumor in the garage for all these years, the Roush contracts were notoriously bad.

[eBay Advertiser]

Well, you know, I know that. I think that Carl got paid a fair amount of money and, and the days I raced and Jeff Smith was in, in charge, it was a fairly reasonable deal compared to I could have made a little bit more money going some other places. Yeah, but not a tremendous amount more.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the, what was the perks about racing at Roush? What were some of the things that were like and this is better, this is something other teams can't offer.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, I'll be perfectly honest with you. Honestly I should have left several times, two or three times really I think I should have because later on we just didn't have the equipment, you know, we just didn't have the equipment we needed. And I think I could have went somewhere else and won a lot of races and potentially a championship but I was afraid, I was afraid to in kind of end my career if you will. And I was just nervous about making that change. You know what it's like switching teams and I was just, you know, I just, I was nervous to do it. The other thing that, that was a big factor is I was, I was really good friends with all of my sponsors all throughout my career. And so 3M was my sponsor and I was good friends with the upper management. I'd go do retreats with them and do stuff and I would have had to leave those people as well. And so that was a lot of it was a determining factor. So it's a three way deal. Right. Team owner, sponsor, driver, you know, that was a. But especially in the later years I felt like, you know, when Carl left and then Matt left, you were like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, I might shoulda.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so where could you have went?

[eBay Advertiser]

I think the off, you know, opportunities then were RCR and still potentially Gibbs. And you know, I got offers from, you know, other places as well. Yeah, you know, ownership offer and you know, Petty back when that one gentleman came in and bought part of it and I was like, man, I don't know, you know they're offering to the world. Yeah, but, and I felt an affinity to Roush and I felt like, you know, when you feel like next week's going to be better or next month or next season or.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did that, how did that happen though? Because that's always been puzzling to me. Rausch Jack Roush to me is the epitome. I mean he's the racer, he's a racer but also a very sharp businessman. If there's anybody that could build a race program that would just succeed. It would be him. And he did.

[eBay Advertiser]

He did. Absolutely. Built an empire.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where did it go? The wrong direction.

[eBay Advertiser]

Technology.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How?

[eBay Advertiser]

Technology. He let. Or we let technology pass us by. And, you know, Robbie Reiser is a great guy, very smart guy. But, you know, Robbie tried to be. You know, we were really late to having a competition director. Gibbs had one. RCR had one. We didn't have a competition director. And Jack prided himself in doing more with less. And we were way late putting Robbie in charge of competition director. And then we left Robbie in charge way too long and didn't provide more support. Like, Robbie should have been in charge of the shop floor. Right. He was super good at that. And, you know, we should have had other people layered up for technology. And we just. We were just behind, you know, when it was the front bar and the driver and the crew chief, we were, you know, JAXA gave us everything we needed. We were unbeatable through some of those years. All five cars in the Chase. And when all that started, I remember RCR has the seven post rig, and they got all this stuff, and they run. They run terrible. You know, they weren't winning races, you know, and we're sort of like, got our chest stuck out. But eventually the table started to turn when they started figuring that out. You know how it was back when the. The engineer told you what sway bar you should run. They were a laughingstock. They're like, that's not gonna work. Cause it didn't work then. And I think Jack got in his head, that stuff doesn't work. Even though he's kind of a engineering guy. Anyway, that whole simulation and aerodynamically and whatnot, we just stalled out there and kept the same people and tried to do the same thing over and over and try and reinvent ourselves, and we were just stuck in the mud.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

Did all of this predate. Like when you say Roush peaked and started declining and getting behind on technology, did this predate the Fenway partnership? I mean, I'm trying to get my timeline right and then kind of like, remember how this whole Roush trajectory went?

[eBay Advertiser]

Well, I think it was right around there. They came in right when we were doing well, right before kind of all that technology and simulation and all that stuff took off. And aerodynamics. Right. I think we got beat pretty bad on aerodynamics. We had a few opportunities to compare ourselves to, like, Pinsky, for instance. I'll never forget this. We blow the two car in, the 16 car, and we're 90 pounds of downforce off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

So let me back up. When we merged with Petty, when, when Casey Kane drove over there, they had about 45 pounds more rear downforce than we did. 45, which doesn't sound like a lot. We go test Phoenix and they arrow match the car in the tunnel. They put 45 on the back of my car. We go to Phoenix and at 11 in the morning, they put on whatever made 45 pounds of downforce and the car's three tenths a lap faster. All the side grip in the world. Coming off the corner, I just lay in the throttle. It was like this. There's no way you're going to beat this. It's impossible. They take it back off. We have two more days of testing left, a day and a half. I said, guys, we need to go home. There's no spring and shock. There's nothing in the toolbox that's going to fix this. So fast forward a couple years later, three or four years later, five years later, we compare our car to the 2 car. They're 90 pounds of downforce better than us, some in the front, some in the back. 90 total. We aerobalance our car and create 30 horsepower of drag to get the same downforce as a 2 car. Now we're 30 horsepower drag worse than the 2. By matching the downforce, we go test Michigan and at Michigan, same deal. We put the aero pieces on to match the 2 car. It was 3/4 of a second a lap faster with the aero map that the 2 car had. And you think the car's going to go. Remember the argument downforce will slow the car down? 30 horsepower drag. It was three miles an hour faster at the end of the straightaway and five miles an hour faster in the middle of the corner because you didn't have to slow the car down then re accelerate. So we were off all through that. Mostly aero. I say simulation and seven posts and all that. It was probably mostly aero. Anytime we did that and we'd recognize it. And we go, oh no. And we go home and work on it and we maybe found like 45 of the 90. Well, that only gets you halfway there, you know, so. And another trait that we had is in traffic we were really bad. When we get out front, we could take off, you know, because we could kind of overcome that arrow part. But when we got back in traffic or we get a bad pit stop, we're done for the day. We can't get back up there.

[Greg Biffle]

Going back to Jack Roush, what is his response from a driver's perspective? And I'm assuming, you know, you guys had, you know, a bunch of teams and you have all the. I'm assuming you guys talk. And so it's like, what is Jack Roush's response? And I asked this question by prefacing this. We've never really had good conversation about Jack Roush. It's almost like he's a mystery man to this day for us. And so you. You are sort of our only insight into what this would have been like and what Jack Crouch is like. I'd love to have him on the show, as a matter of fact, but the fact is he's. He's sort of a mystery. So what was Jack's response to this? Y'all were clearly off. Did he just say, we're not going to go invest in technology now or we're not going to go invest in Arrow?

[eBay Advertiser]

People win races, people win championships. It's about the people. And my thing was, is we weren't. We were trying to reinvent ourself with the same people and not even moving them around. And we needed to try something different to get out and get going. You know, I almost had Chad Knauss hired.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really. I mean, I believe that Chad was. There were some moments when Chad was available.

[eBay Advertiser]

I was trying to get him to come and save Roush fenway in late 2014.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, wow.

[eBay Advertiser]

2015, right in there, I was trying to get him. I said, chad, you can be the guy. You can be the Ray Everham or the whoever set your own destiny, but you're the guy that. Can you imagine if he came over there and Roush Fenway is rivaling Penske and Hendrick and Stewart Haas right now under his leadership, and it would have happened.

[Greg Biffle]

I think you're right.

[eBay Advertiser]

It would have happened. And we were close, but it was probably, you know, people just didn't want to hand over the baton yet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One of the things that I find interesting about Roush that differs from most, about most every other organization is how, and it may have started with Mark, is how Jack allowed the drivers to have. To not only have an opinion about direction, but also sort of shape and steer. Now, I know it was probably ultimately Jack's decision on what happened and what y'all did, but it felt like all these years watching, watching you and Mark and other people in that organization, the drivers particularly where in most organizations, man, like the drivers, you know, we got opinions, obviously, we gotta voice them, sure. But we're never really making the choices. We're never really offering up massive solutions or big shifts or big Culture changes and whatnot. Whereas Jack kind of had y'all in the room all the time. When there was conversations going on or discussions, you guys were always at the table. Is that the reality of it?

[eBay Advertiser]

It is. And it's unique that you've had that view and. And recognize that. Because I see it, I agree with it and disagree with it. Cause I'm not a management and a people person and all that. But Jack's view was, let's let the best people decide. Right. The driver knows the driver has an opinion. He feels like the driver knows what he needs to win. You know, that driver really feels like. And he ran it as individual teams. Jack ran it as me, my crew chief and our engineer. And we were kind of in charge of our own destiny. He would keep guardrails, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

But you know, you guys are in charge of if you think you need a drop snout car or you think you need this front suspension or this. And he would challenge the five teams. Right. To figure out what the best is. And then if Matt's winning with, you know, this style of front suspension and this style of something, he'll be putting pressure on us. Why are you not doing that? And he felt like if you have four or five cars figuring out what is the best, you'll end up out of 43 net.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You'll end up casting a bigger net and have unbeatable. You know, one of those cars will be winning and then the other four will be able to bring up the rear, so to speak. And so he. He believed in that structure. And that structure worked for a long time. Then when technology started taking over, we didn't really have. I don't feel like we had that management structure there. Like I talked about, Robbie is the only guy. Robbie's sitting in there sort of. Right. I mean, there were other people, but I feel like. I feel like that, you know, we could have guided that ship a little bit better and shaped it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When I think about your career, you know, I always enjoyed racing with you and felt like that, you know, I never had a problem or saw anything on the racetrack as far as, man, you know, why'd he do that? Or that was a. That was. That's a jerk move. We always had. Had. I don't remember ever.

[eBay Advertiser]

I don't either ever have a problem on the racetrack.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But there were drivers that you had issues with.

[eBay Advertiser]

Sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was this. When you think back, to be quite. To be quite transparent, when you think back to racing at the short tracks, going through the truck series, even what Would you say you patterned yourself out after and did you have conflicts at these short track levels? Did you. Were you. Were you. You know, were you well respected by everybody? Did you get along with everybody? What was the.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, I tried to. Honestly, I tried to stay under the radar, tried to stay out of the conflict because that only creates you more issues going down the road. Right. Because that guy is going to pay you back whatever else. But I'll tell you, Junior, the. The thing that every driver has to figure out and. And my issue all the way back from street stock to late model days and coming up is patience. You know, not run that right front tire off, not run that right rear tire off, not overdrive the car every single lap and it. In it. And that pays dividends later on in life and in, you know, in these races is to have that. Those patience, you know, and I was probably over aggressive, you know, and I see like Ross Chastain, I watch him, I think he's got a lot, a lot of talent, but I see him over aggressive at some times. That's cost him and may cost him later, but he's learning his way. Right. He's got to learn it for himself. And he's going to recognize that. Damn. That didn't work out. You know, you can't teach somebody that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

At the same time, you can't get a guy to go faster. You can't tell a guy to be more aggressive on the racetrack. That doesn't work. It's easier to tell a guy to calm down. And so that's probably one of my traits, that I was probably too aggressive and racing. I'll never forget when Sterling Marlin came over after the race at Michigan and chewed my ass because I wouldn't let him go. And I was racing the. The devil out of him, you know, lap after lap after lap. And, you know, maybe he's clear up beside me. We're wheel to wheel, and I drive it down in the corner 10 miles and, and not let him, you know, not let him buy. But, but I learned, you know, from those things getting yelled at from. From a few guys, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And, you know, you have to, you have to learn that. But I tried to respect everyone as much as I could.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you didn't have many conflicts, but you had, you had a notable dispute with Harvick multiple times, it seemed like.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jay Sauter came into the car and threw a punch at you.

[eBay Advertiser]

Vice versa. Yeah, vice versa.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You threw a punch at him.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So. Oh, that was at Richmond.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember that Xfinity race.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep. So. So I was being probably a little aggressive, and we had a full. We had the field stacked up behind us. There was a full straightaway in front of us, and he was holding everyone up, and I nudged him a little bit off of 2, and probably the nudge. He wasn't able to hold on to it, and he wrecked. And so he went in the pits and said, I'm gonna fix my car and go back out and wreck him. And that's what he did. You know, we were running for a championship. He comes back on the track and just wipes me out off of turn four. That's right.

[Greg Biffle]

Did that punch land?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yes.

[Greg Biffle]

And did he have his helmet still on? He did, and so.

[eBay Advertiser]

But there was no haunts. And I punched him right in the collarbone, on the side of the neck, right under the helmet. I'm not going to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In the helmet, you found a vulnerable spot, went for it.

[eBay Advertiser]

So I was upset.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, sure. But what did he. Did y'all have conversation afterwards ever?

[eBay Advertiser]

We did, I think later on. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But it was.

[eBay Advertiser]

But that was the end of it. I was looking around the infield care center. When I was over there, I was still pretty upset.

[Greg Biffle]

Had you ever done anything like that up into that point? Had you ever punched somebody in a car and had you ever been in fights out of the car?

[eBay Advertiser]

Not. Not really. Yeah, not particularly. I mean, not at the racetrack.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When you. When Harvick come over the roof of the car at Bristol, did you think. Did you. Were you shocked?

[eBay Advertiser]

I wasn't. I wasn't really shocked. So. That punch, Jay sauter, cost me $15,000.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh.

[eBay Advertiser]

And roush Fenway made me pay for it out of my money, and they. They penalized me points, so I got points taken away and a $15,000 fine. So fast forward to the next year when we're at Bristol, and I give Harvick the little nudge, the bump and run, and he. You watch the video, he overcorrects and just drove it straight in the fence to the right, you know, And I'm not going to say I'd have saved it or he just saved it, whatever, but it's. You know, so when I saw Harvick coming, and my crew guy said, hey, here. You know, he's coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, you knew he was coming?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, yeah. And I said, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not going to touch him. I'm not doing nothing. I'm going to keep my hands to my side. Because I would have, you know, if that wouldn't have happened, if I wouldn't have got fined and that I probably would have hit him with uppercut, just knocked him out right as he jumped off the back of the car. You know, I mean, I would have, but I'm like. I just kept my hands to my side. I said, I'm not doing anything because I'm leading the points and I'm trying to win the title. And they. They took away.

[Greg Biffle]

You still remember from a year ago where you had the points and the fine?

[eBay Advertiser]

Absolutely. And I got a stark lesson on no fight. NASCAR then. Okay. Not today. NASCAR then was no bull. There's no fighting. There's no. There's none of that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So what I. What I can remember from that is that. That obviously the media plays this up, Right?

[eBay Advertiser]

Sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So the thing happens at Bristol, and the media plays it up, and, I mean, I don't know. We said we just now stop seeing that when we go to Bristol. It might actually come back up this weekend. I know, but. Yeah, so I used to hate that as a driver, but now I understand.

[Greg Biffle]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why? Sales. Sales tickets.

[Greg Biffle]

There was a lot going on. It wasn't just you and Harvick. Jimmy Spencer and Jack Sprague were also. Jack. Jack is running down the front straightaway.

[eBay Advertiser]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They at the same race.

[Greg Biffle]

Same. Not only the same race, but that fight is about to happen because I'm working for Spencer. Jimmy sent Jack just hard into the wall, and they were all racing in the top three. And Jack is running down the straightaway after Spencer, and that's about to happen. As soon as that happens, though, Harvick comes off, and both of those drivers are now watching. Y'all, y'all, if you want to look at the silver lining, you did avoid another fight.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's good.

[Greg Biffle]

Yeah. If that makes you feel any better, because Jimmy now is up on the wall waving his towel, getting the fans excited, because there's this big melee going on at your car. So, I mean, that. There's just. It's funny you say that NASCAR did not like fights, because it all would have unraveled that day.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I think that later on, I think they recognized that that brings attention and fans. And in 2000, whatever year it was, they didn't need any more fans and attention. They already had it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

But as that declines, you're like, okay, what can we do to make something exciting? Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But the. The rival. The thing with Harvard carried on a little bit.

[eBay Advertiser]

It did I think we had a run in like at Martinsville one time in practice.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, and he pulled out in front of me, we're making a run or vice versa, and then brake check me or something like that. So I went down, had some words with him about that.

[Greg Biffle]

You know, I remember that it almost just looked like a misunderstanding that you guys kind of handled civilly, right?

[eBay Advertiser]

We did.

[Greg Biffle]

We did you guys go talk?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I just walked down there and said, you know, did you mean to pull out in front of me? Didn't see me, Spotter. Didn't see you. I don't, I don't remember exact conversation, you know, but we, we talked about it and, you know, and that was that. That was that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So for, and then you, you know, for the rest of your cup career.

[eBay Advertiser]

We got along fine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Got along great.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The situation with Kurt and the wives and girlfriends on the pit box. How. How did you view that experience and what was so. I don't.

[eBay Advertiser]

I mean, pretty entertaining.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know I would have, but I would have probably said you can't do that.

[eBay Advertiser]

I did, but I was in the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Car that was on the tv. Everybody saw you. What did you do?

[eBay Advertiser]

That's exactly what I said. I probably if you would had A tape recorder. You just said it. I mean. And I think after the fact, she felt the same way. Was embarrassed about it because she didn't do it for tv.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, she did it because she was pissed. And their friends, kind of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're all friends, everybody.

[eBay Advertiser]

And. And. And she was like, you're gonna. He's gonna hurt somebody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What happened on the racetrack, He.

[eBay Advertiser]

He just. He was. I think he was pissed about something. I don't know what, but it was the very end of the back stretch of Texas, and he just. He just. Just turned me. Just caught my bumper. I don't know if I moved up a little bit to get an arc down in the corner, but anyway, he just. You know, I don't know if he's pissed at Roush.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

Whatever the case might be. Right. So Kurt's. Kurt. And, you know, that's. That's. What.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is that the end of that?

[eBay Advertiser]

That was the end of that. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So Boris said.

[eBay Advertiser]

Oh, yeah. I love this one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I. Me and Boris are friends.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. And I can't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't believe Boris being that mad at anybody. But apparently, you know, whatever happened on the racetrack, I can. I mean, Watkins Glenn produces some of the. Some of those moments.

[eBay Advertiser]

It's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Watkins Glenn is kind of like the Madden Xbox game Will make some of best friends.

[Greg Biffle]

I remember.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hate each other's guts.

[Greg Biffle]

Del Jarrett was mad at you that day.

[eBay Advertiser]

Oh, yeah. So it's a funny story, because him and I, we had a. We had a little run in earlier in the race. He was. I think. Think he was a lap down, and we. We had a run in, and, you know, I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't significant. You know, it was. It was not really at all significant. We had some issue, break issue, something in the race. So we're multiple laps down. We had to pit and fix it. So we're green, white, checkered at. At Watkins Glen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Y'all are near the back.

[eBay Advertiser]

I'm in the very back. Yeah. I'm not even in. I'm not even in the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

He purposely. Purposely hooks David Reagan. He's multiple laps down. David Reagan, I think was maybe a lap down, hooks David Reagan on the. After turn one. That crash hooks David Reagan, sends him into that wall. He flips upside down, comes across the track, slams into that wall. I slow down, and I'm like, what was that for? I mean, like, literally on purpose, because, you know, we were all at the back. There was. They weren't even racing for position. Yeah, you Know, and, and I have no idea why that happened. And so then I, I gave him, you know, told him he was number.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One till you flip him off the.

[eBay Advertiser]

Rest of the way back. And, you know, I don't know if I what else I did, but I didn't wreck him or anything. But the rest of the way back and all the way in the pits.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, and that's what caught. That's what got him fired up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

Was. I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he came over to your.

[eBay Advertiser]

So I pull in, get out of my car, and I'm. I'm mad because my teammate just went head on into the road and upside down across the racetrack for no reason. And so I'm just, I'm shaking, mad at that. A part time driver comes in and does that to a guy for who doesn't matter who it is. So my team guy hands me a bottle of water, right. I take the cap off, take a drink of it. And he pulls up. Boris pulls up beside my car. In, you know, in, you know, we pull it behind our transporters. Yeah, his transporter, he's over there. We're top five and points or top 10 at points. He pulls up and is flailing his arms and he's doing all this and, you know, doing all that. And I sort of lost my cool. And he has window net down and his helmet off and was trying to get out of his car and I took the water bottle and it was a really good shot from about 10ft away. I threw the water ball as hard as I could and just beaned him in the side of the head.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, no.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[eBay Advertiser]

I was upset.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And so, and so then I went running over there to the side of the car. He was still in the car. And I grabbed his steering wheel and, you know, we were, we were having.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Some tug of war.

[eBay Advertiser]

So we were having some tug of war because I was gonna beat him with that steering wheel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are you serious?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yes. Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's a big guy.

[eBay Advertiser]

He's a big guy. He was still in the car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You're trying to keep him in there.

[eBay Advertiser]

So take a steering wheel. So anyway, we're gonna wrestle, but you're.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Staying in the car while we're doing that.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. So anyway, then guys come in and break it up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, and then he's hotter than hell. He's hotter than hell. Finally gets out of the car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

His interview is a classic.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. And my, my guys got a hold of me and my feet are about that Far off the ground, you know, so it was that, was that, was that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did y'all have conversations later?

[eBay Advertiser]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You laugh about it today?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, we laugh about it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's a good dude.

[eBay Advertiser]

It's funny.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He is so beyond that, man. I mean, that was pretty much all the conflicts you were in. You kind of had at one point, this sort of little reputation. I think when you first came in, in the Cup Series, you people were thinking or maybe wondering if you were this over aggressive, sort of hothead, push, push people around kind of guy. But then you, you really transition into, you know, a fast championship caliber, you know, well respected people, you know, people loved. People love you. Even today, you know, when, when you do anything on social media or whatever, everybody's like, oh, the Biff man. Yeah, we love that guy. Right?

[eBay Advertiser]

I mean, funny. It is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you got to be excited. You gotta be happy about that. I think about how you were able to kind of, you know, create this great, great, respected Persona.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I mean, you want to. That's exactly right. You want your legacy to be, you know, respect. And you want to treat, you know, my parents always taught me that, you know, treat people the way you want to be treated. And so I tried to treat people on the racetrack when I was racing you or I was racing anyone, I tried to treat them with, you know, I'm trying to pass you and do all I can do and put a bumper to you if I have to, but I wouldn't do anything, I wouldn't expect you to do back to me, you know, with respect. And so that's, you know, I raced hard and tried to be respectful.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You coming into the Truck Series in your mid to late 20s.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. It's not a big deal if you're thinking about, okay, you know, Dale Earnhardt really get going in the Cup Series till about the same time in his life. Right. Nowadays, though, you know, it cycles, you know, Jeff Gordon kind of got going in his mid-20s. Then everybody wants younger drivers. I think it's going to eventually kind of cycle back to where, you know, a 25 to 30 year old is an acceptable guy to hire, you know, to start his cup career. But when, at any point in your career did you ever have a feeling of, damn it, you know, I wish I'd have made it. I wish I'd have got here sooner.

[eBay Advertiser]

All the time. Yeah, all the time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I wonder if when you were starting to wrap up that, you know, that final year or getting toward the back end of your cup career was that. Was that a time when you started to have some. Some. I don't know if this. Regret's the right word, but thinking, man, you know, I wish this was.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I think regret. And also junior regret that I didn't go somewhere else.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't try something different.

[eBay Advertiser]

I didn't try something different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, so that probably I went and ran a Petty car. I filled in for Jerry Naidu when he broke, hurt his ribs. I drove Andy Petrie's car when he got hurt at Richmond race in the trucks. Gosh dang it. I'll think of it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hamilton.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. Bobby Hamilton. So I drove those cars and was running up front in a Cup race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, and I drove Petty's car the same. Same thing. And then I go drive the Roush cars and they're not anything like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, and I always wonder if I just got an opportunity to drive a good, you know, good car, where I'd have gotten to. That's. And of course, you always wish you'd have started earlier. But it's funny. It's sort of like when I came in, guys were. It was unheard of to hire somebody to drive a cup car under 25, 28. It didn't happen. And I'm not saying I started a trend because Jeff Gordon was younger than I was, but when Jack hired me, and then Jack had that talent, you know, show or Gong show or let's find. He's like, how many more guys like you are across the US out there?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, so Jack said, I'm going to bring all these young guys in and see how many more there are. And I hand picked. At Toledo, Ohio, I hand picked Kurt Busch. I said, they wanted to hire this other guy, said, that's your guy. And we hired. Kurt was like 18 or 19, you know, and so here comes Kurt in, and then we hire his brother. His brother is 16.

[Greg Biffle]

I forgot about that.

[eBay Advertiser]

We hire his brother, 16 years old, and all of a sudden it's going. And NASCAR made the age rule because of Kyle Busch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

Yeah, that's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's going to race that truck at Fontana.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[eBay Advertiser]

I sure did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, did you know it was family owned? I did. It's all in your box. Yeah. Fifth generation roasters. The story from those guys began from a simple belief that great coffee has the power to bring people together. 105 years. That's how long these guys have been roasting smooth rich coffee and they build that community one cup at a time. Community in every cup since 1919. That's crazy. Long time. They've got this breakfast blend that is one of their best sellers. It's a bright and smooth medium roast and with a full body taste. They also have Mardi Gras king cake coffee. Fancy. It sounds festive. It's got a little cinnamon spice and a sweet vanilla flavor in there. That blend from Louisiana based community coffee is available year round, not just during the. Not just during Mardi Gras time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can get that anytime you want it. I do drink coffee from time to time. Amy drinks a little coffee at the house and I'm always jealous. She'll make herself a cup and I'm like, damn, I want a cup. We, we got some of their coffee sent to us and I made some of the king cake and you could smell it throughout the entire office. The cinnamon and the vanilla. Everybody was like, what is that? I'm like, it's king cake coffee. Jealous. Their breakfast blend is really good. Yeah, it's just a good cup of coffee. Nothing better. Simple. Well, you can visit communitycoffee.com and you can use this code Dale20D A L E20 for 20% off of your first order of this great tasting community coffee. That's code Dale20 for 20% off. [e-mail] talk about, tell me about your final full time season. Do you know it's your final full time season?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I knew. Well, so I'll be perfectly honest with you. It was killing me inside to not be able to be competitive. And I told myself as a driver the first time I go to that racetrack and get in that car and know for a fact I can't win, I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm not going to race just to be on the racetrack. We love to race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I had a year left in my contract and I was not going to race at Roush another year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[eBay Advertiser]

I wasn't going to do it. I couldn't stand it because we ended up that our goal was a stay in the lead lap. We're trying to stay on the lead lap.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I'm not going to do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[eBay Advertiser]

I'm not going to do that. And we're lying to ourselves. There's 30 of us in this meeting on Tuesday telling Jack and telling ourselves that next week's going to be better and next week's going to be better. And so I had to make a decision that I wanted to get out of my last year of my contract. And I tried and tried and tried to get released from my last year so that I could go sign a contract. I was close to driving the 31 car. I was close to driving some of these other cars and they kept telling me they're going to release me, telling me they're going to release me and oh, we're going to sign at Phoenix. That was before Homestead and they waited till the season was over before they'd release me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And your opportunities.

[eBay Advertiser]

And my opportunities were gone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So. All right. So at the end of the contract with, finally they release you, you're released. You're free to go at any no point in the next couple of years did a cup opportunity or any. A truck or anything. What was, what were you wanting to do so that.

[eBay Advertiser]

So I, I wanted to drive for a team I felt like I could win with and win a championship. So my decision was I'm only going to go to a team you can win with that I can win with. And so I got lots of phone calls for opportunities to go drive. Drive cars. And Kyle wore my ass out to come and run the truck and run for a title.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why didn't you?

[eBay Advertiser]

Once I had about five or six weeks off or 10 weeks off, I fell in love with having some free time. I'd done this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But damn, the truck series schedule's pretty.

[eBay Advertiser]

I know. So then finally, you know, we're sitting around a campfire at my place in the desert, and he's like, are you going to run my truck at Texas or not?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You and Kyle?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Doing the dune buggies.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I'm like, all right, I'll do it. You know, and he's like, okay. That was in March. And so then the spring Texas race, I went there and tested, and then I went back and ran. I ran like 12, 14 laps. Then I went back in that, you know, July or whenever it was and ran that truck race for him.

[Greg Biffle]

Aside from that, though, were there other. Did any cup teams at least reach out, just see what you're doing?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yes.

[Greg Biffle]

You know, what are your plans? Did you feel like that you turned down opportunities then?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I turned down about all. Obviously, I turned down all of them. Winning opportunities, not winning opportunities. So if I made the list, it was going to be Stewart, Haas, Gibbs, Hendrick, rcr.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And none of those people were giving you opportunities?

[eBay Advertiser]

I talked to some of them, but it never materialized.

[Greg Biffle]

That's what I'm asking, is that. Hell of a. How many conversations or how many actually led to an actual opportunity for you to decide on is what I was thinking.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I didn't pursue it madly, you know, because I was enjoying being so much of being semi retired. Right. And. And I did it for 20 years and never had a Saturday or Sunday off. Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you go run the truck race, you win. That didn't. That didn't change anything.

[eBay Advertiser]

Oh, God. It lit the fire.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Lit the fire in there, but damn it, no. You didn't go do nothing after that.

[eBay Advertiser]

I know. I. I was like. It lit the fire in me, but I felt like then. I felt like then I may have been past. Past a cup opportunity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You love to drive.

[eBay Advertiser]

I love.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's no if. You love to drive. You love driving.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. And I bet. I bet when you drove that truck, I bet when you walked in that garage, you went, man, this is nice.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no cutthroat, back stabbing. This is just. We're here to have some fun. You went. You practice, no pressure. Go and run the race, win the race. Awesome.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I think. I think probably where you're going and probably my final decision is, you know, I've had a lot of head concussions.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh.

[eBay Advertiser]

And it, you know, those, you know, days you get out of the race car, your ears are ringing and, you know, you're dehydrated for two or three or Four days. And I, you know, I'd already won a title in the truck, and it was so much fun, but it's dangerous.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

Right. You know, and plus the truck series, a lot of young guys in there doing dumb. Right hook you in the right rear. The. You know, at Charlotte. And I still remember when the motor blew up in that thing. You were that Hendrick. Are you driving? I went straight in the fence behind you. Which one is the oil? Charlotte. I don't know if it was the 600 or Charlotte race. Yeah, you blew up getting into three, and I just. I augured it in straight behind him. Yeah, it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was a.

[Greg Biffle]

And you got concussed off that?

[eBay Advertiser]

Well, I. I wouldn't say I got concussed, but it was, you know.

[Greg Biffle]

Rang your bell.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, rang my bell. I was sore for a few days.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. But I thought about all those things and how much I love to drive. I was like, is it worth it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know?

[Greg Biffle]

And you had kids. I mean, isn't that right?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep. Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

You would have had kids by then.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. So I was like, God, I want to do it, but I rather do it part time than do it every week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I race in the Xfinity series once a year, but I only have a very, very short list of tracks I'm willing to race at. I will not go race at Texas. There ain't gonna be no Atlanta races for me. It's Martinsville, Richmond, you know, some Darlington. Those tracks where you kind of got a little more control of your destiny.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so those are the opportunities that you're still open to.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To sort of, you know, considering if they. If they come about.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The other question then is you. You grew up racing, you know, Late Models. You grew up racing those type of. And you can go run at slow, fun, short tracks and dig around. And I know that you still have that bug. How come you haven't ever tried that?

[eBay Advertiser]

So it's. It's funny because ever. Ever since I started racing trucks, Xfinity and Cup, I got my fill off of that. Right. That's where I got my deal. And then I started doing the desert stuff. And I'll tell you, I'm gonna get your ass there one of these days. It's so much fun, and it's so exhilarating that I have as much fun doing that as I do going to Hickory on Friday night or Saturday night. I really do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I can go anytime I want. I can ride for 20 minutes or an hour. I can, you know, stop and do, do whatever. It's not 15 minutes of practice and this and that. But as I've been away from out of the car longer, I have had interest in doing that, you know, and going back and. And especially after this Wilkesboro, I'm telling you, you know, so. And I like doing fun stuff. Like I wanted to run the crown Vic race. I was like, I'm so jacked up. I love doing off the wall stuff. No pressure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You went and ran the lemons at Virginia?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wasn't that the lemons race?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I ran a lemons. I ran a few lemons races. I went all the way to Pittsburgh and ran a lemons race up there and had a ball. That was our first race. And then our second race was Carolina motorsports park in South Carolina and Kershaw. And we. That was an actual 24 hour. Most of them were just a Friday, Saturday.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know, seven hours, eight hours. So we went and ran an actual 24 hour race and ended up winning that. And it was the most fun, I'm telling you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know we've talked about it. We really want to do it.

[eBay Advertiser]

The most fun I've had racing probably since I started my career because we built the car. You know, you're. I'm the crew chief, the driver, the team manager. Like putting all this stuff together and tires and wheels and we, we kind of. I. Not single handedly, but sort of put this together. And I got four of my buddies that have never raced before. Never raced before. And I said, okay, here's the deal. We're going to go run Pittsburgh to shake the car down because I'm serious about this 24 hour race. So we're gonna go run this race and figure out what we. We're gonna figure out the ropes. So we go up there and we have a ball running this race. My other two guys spin out off the racetrack. You know, they're figuring it out. I figure out we need bigger brakes. So we come back, I put bigger brakes on the car. Think I've got it figured out up there. We had fuel pickup problems, got the fuel cell figured out. We go down to Kershaw and I know in about eight hours it uses about three quarts of oil. So this thing makes 218 horsepower. I put it on my chassis dyno. You know, it's a bone stock engine, like a couple hundred thousand miles on it. So I said, okay, we're going to stop at midnight and we're going to put four quarts of oil in it, we're going to change tires. And so we run. Midnight comes, we come in, open the hood, put four tires on it, put four quarts of oil in it, switch drivers. I mean, it was the funnest.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Didn't that sound fun, Mike?

[Greg Biffle]

It sounded fun when we were talking about it earlier this year.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So how long do you drive when you get in the car?

[eBay Advertiser]

We drove. We drove for about an hour and a half. About two hours.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And it's pretty easy because you're not. You, you. I tell people you drive about as fast as you drive when you're in a hurry to get somewhere.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

You know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're not Bald. You're not 100% sitting on the edge.

[eBay Advertiser]

Not 100%. So it's easy driving, you know, it's more strategy and you're more just trying.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To hand the baton to the next guy in the same shape. You got it.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's right. And we didn't get the lead till like 2:30 in the morning.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Try not to break it, right?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, we got the lead at like 2:30 in the morning. And so I'm in my motorhome trying to sleep. I got the radio on the nightstand, you know, and I'm listening to them and I just can't. I can't sleep. You know, I had like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was wore out at the end of it. Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And my brother's driving in the middle of the night and my brother's like, I can't see. You know, my brother's two years older than I am and some of these cars got bright lights and so we're just trying to milk it through. And it's hard getting overtaken by, you know, these little four cylinder cars that are faster than us in the corners and. And we're trying to, you know, stretch out some fuel. And he's like, man, you know, I gotta get out. You know, I'm just, you know, so I'm like, I'm like, go wake up Ryan, you know. Cause Ryan's like 30, you know, like he'll be able to see the better than all of us at night, you know, and so we go get Ryan. We pit. And the thing is when you pit, you lose three laps.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[eBay Advertiser]

Because you have to come down pit road in first gear and the guy has to get all the way out of the car before y'all can work on it. You know, y'all can, we can work on it. Put fuel in it, get the guy back In, I mean, if you don't have to go. And you can only use a five gallon can, you know, so you don't have fast dump cans.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

So it takes a little bit to do a pit stop. You lose two and a half laps. But anyway, we had a little bit of a cushion, so we brought him in, put Ryan in, and off we went. And then I'm gonna stretch my fuel window, my final run. So, you know, sun's coming up. I put my buddy in. He's gonna run her to the checkered. And I'm getting nervous now because we got about a four lap lead. And I'm like, I'm nervous because we barely have enough time to stop for fuel. And I'm like, mike, you gotta go slower. You know, I'm watching lap times. I'm like, you gotta go slower. Short shift to fourth, down the fourth front. So he's. I got him short shifting. He's just easing this thing along and, man, we made it. We made it to the Checker without running out of fuel. It was just fun. Yeah, so much fun. I mean, I. I just. It's the most fun I've had in a long time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's definitely on our schedule.

[Greg Biffle]

Yeah, we've been talking about it. Phil Parsons and his son, I believe, brought it up.

[eBay Advertiser]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mike Joy.

[Greg Biffle]

Was it Mike Joy? It was Mike Joy. You're right. That's who it was. But it does sound fun. So explain then you're having all this fun, you've run five cup races this year. What is that about?

[eBay Advertiser]

Well, so that, that really comes down to when I stepped away from the car in 16 full time, I said, I'll only come back for the right reason. I'll only come back if I can drive for a team. I think I can win races for or to come back and help an injured driver. If someone needs help or an opportunity to use my 18 years of experience and skill or whatever to help someone, you know, and that was the right opportunity. John Cohen was starting this team and I, you know, I talked. Chevy called me and I knew RCR was building the car, and I just felt like it was the right opportunity to hop in there and make a go of it, you know, and it was that amount of time, I'm like, I wanted to be back at the track and no drivers got hurt. Right. Thank God. And, you know, just the right opportunity hadn't come up and he was wearing me out for about two years about. He's putting a team together, getting a team together, getting the team Together. And so I just said, you know what? I'll. I don't think there's any expectation of how good you're going to do or whatever else. I said, I'll go back. I'll just drive it.

[Greg Biffle]

Do you have any other plans? Do. Do more, you know, if he did.

[eBay Advertiser]

A few more of them, there's like, like Junior said, there's a certain amount of tracks, bucket list type of places I like to go. I like to run. So I would do some more races for him, you know, if he, if he gets his deal put together. He's talking about Talladega, you know, you would do Talladega. I like restrictor. I love hate relationship. I like restrictor plate racing because it gives you an opportunity and, you know, it's easier for us to win a Talladega or run good than a Richmond or a Charlotte. Right. And I don't love restrictor plate racing, but it's fun sometimes when you're not in the big wreck and it gives the opportunity, gives you an opportunity. So I feel like that would be a good opportunity.

[Greg Biffle]

You, you do, you, do you feel you were underrated or people perceived you as underrated? I thought you were always really good at restrictor plate.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

I, I like it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had. We do. We do. We duped it out in 2004.

[eBay Advertiser]

That year I sat on the pole. I, I don't know. Did you win in 04?

[Greg Biffle]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

The Daytona 500. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You said you blew the water or something.

[eBay Advertiser]

I freaking got caught speeding coming to pit road. I had that thing one what, 04.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Man, I don't know.

[Greg Biffle]

You're talking about, the one Tony Stewart's up there contending. And you, that's the one you, you got busted on on pit road.

[eBay Advertiser]

I had a fast car that year, really fast car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like the first year running with all these motors.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep. Running with all these guys. Oh, we all pit. We all pit and I get caught speeding.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I finished 12th.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Oh, God. I had to rewatch that one.

[Greg Biffle]

Hey, so this is actually. You just reminded me of a question. What, what eats at you? Like, listen, you had a, you had a race where the championship might have been yours or it should have been yours, but you had a race at Texas.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, that I think. Did you blow a tire? No, we, we left a wheel loose.

[Greg Biffle]

Left a wheel loose.

[eBay Advertiser]

So that out of anything, of course, over my career. Right. That eats at me because we lost the championship by three positions over the 10 races.

[Greg Biffle]

To Tony Stewart. Right.

[eBay Advertiser]

To Tony Stewart. And I Was running third, and we had a wheel loose at Texas, and I had to come back down and put a change. The wheel put a new tire on, and we got a lap down, and we were in the lucky dog position. Every single time the leaders had passed somebody, the caution had come out. And I'm not going to say nascar, you know, played a role in that, but Matt won it in 03, Kurt won it in 04, and I was going to win it in 05.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I think, you know, I think that maybe somebody had, you know, Dak was stacked against us a little bit. But in any event, the changer, right rear changer, left the wheel loose. You know, our right side guy left the wheel loose. And so we finished 20th that day. Went and ran a good run at Phoenix and one at Homestead, and I was less than 20 car lengths from Lapp. And Tony Stewart, he was like, right there. And I mean, I'm foaming at the mouth. Caution's out. Debris. And I'm like, oh, you know, where is it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And anyway, I ended up winning that day, and. And, you know, I. I needed three more positions, and I would have. I would have got the title.

[Greg Biffle]

So that's the one that eats at you. And rightly so. I would.

[eBay Advertiser]

I would say, yeah, it would have been, you know, back in 05, I'd have been even today. Nobody's won all three championships, but. But I would have got it done way back in 05. Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And, you know, because we were talking about this actually on the show last year, I'm an evening shower guy. So it's like, I gotta make sure I smell good. Leaving the house, going into the office.

[Indeed Advertiser]

Don't want to be the smelly guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Greg Biffle]

Hey, do you mind? Also I wanted to ask you, and I know this is jumping around but you know, you're always so. First of all, you're very thoughtful in your responses, but your vantage point again is so unique, is that we went through all the conflicts that you've had. We think they're all the conflicts you had, but there's a couple other that you would have had in a unique vantage point. I want to ask just what your opinion is. Carl versus Matt Kenseth, your teammates.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Remember when Carl, you know, threatens to pick the throw.

[Greg Biffle]

What's going on?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What were those team meetings like?

[eBay Advertiser]

They were exciting. I think, you know, Carl was a fiery person and you know, Matt is real, as a matter of fact. Right. And they were, they had some, you know, they had some issue on the racetrack and let's face it, we're all, it doesn't matter. We drive for the same company. Right. We're all, you know, passionate drivers and they had some run in on the racetrack and, and you know, they were, they were not happy about it.

[Greg Biffle]

And, and did that make it awkward for you? Did you just try to stay out of It.

[eBay Advertiser]

I mean, I just kind of tried to stay out of it, you know, and mediated. Jack said you got to smooth it over between the guys, you know, and. And Matt. Matt is a. Matt is a different guy. Matt's got his opinion, and that's it.

[Greg Biffle]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And you're not changing his mind, right? You know, Matt saw it this way. That's the way Matt saw it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And. And probably rightfully so.

[Greg Biffle]

All right, next one. When. When Kurt Bush sort of had his fall from grace at ra, it seemed like there was just this, you know, constant tension. But, I mean, Jeff Smith. I mean, like. Like, he. When he. Leave it to Kurt, when he. When it ended at whatever team he was at, it was big. Like, it was a big fireball that, you know, went out the door. So what. What do you remember about that time between Kurt and Roush Racing?

[eBay Advertiser]

Well, I mean, Kurt was. Kurt was definitely unhappy. Right. I think, you know, performance driven or whatever else. Kurt. Kurt was unhappy and rightfully so. We weren't. We didn't have the equipment that. That I think we needed. And, you know, then he had his run in out in Phoenix with the dui, and he didn't get a dui, but they stopped him, and there was some discussion about whether he'd been drinking. And I think he was a real. To the cops.

[Greg Biffle]

Sure.

[eBay Advertiser]

And, you know, do you know who I am? And I think some of those things. And I think that. Honestly, I think that Roush just took that opportunity and said, you know what? You know, yeah, all right. You know, we're not gonna. You're not gonna drive, is it?

[Greg Biffle]

Right. Also, this is the last one I wanted to get your opinion on, is that, you know, you've been talking about. There was this certain moment when all of a sudden, you guys were just behind on. On a lot of things, and you weren't competing. Is that why everybody started seemingly to leave? I mean, you had Jeff Burton, which maybe there was some contract stuff, but you had Carl going to Gibbs. You had Matt leaving.

[eBay Advertiser]

Going to Gibbs.

[Greg Biffle]

Going to Gibbs.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

Which is, by the way, now. Now hearing kind of your backstory.

[eBay Advertiser]

It's.

[Greg Biffle]

How interesting is all that? Right, right, right. I mean, one might say that y'all were all having conversations about the same ride.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

Or the same couple of rides anyways. That being said, that's why that was happening.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Greg Biffle]

Was it just people were just unhappy with the competition?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, it was clear that. That in. And what's hardest ever in your career as a driver is you're winning races and dominating or, or whatever, and now you're not right. You know damn good and well it's not you or you sure think it is right. And if you, you have to question yourself, okay, what am I doing wrong? So you're like, okay, time out. I got a watch more tape and do this and do that. I got to figure out what I'm doing wrong. For the most part, you're not doing anything wrong. You know, it's just, you have, it's always like this. Look at Stuart Haas. Two years ago they were unbeatable. And then the baton gets passed to this organization and then that, and then that. And it's always a battle. It's always a battle. But what happened was we were dominant and then we slipped a little bit and then we never made that. We never made that cycle again. Never. Not every once in a while. And we did get a win here and there. Okay. Right place, right time. But we had star, what I'm going to say star athlete drivers, an elite group of drivers. And so they could win with a 10th place car fairly easily if you gave them a chance. Right. And so, you know, but we just, we just, we just didn't quite ever make that cycle again. Like some of the other teams, you know, some of the other teams did Hendrick down for a while and then they pull it back together and get back up there, you know, and it's, there's always a jockey. Yeah.

[Greg Biffle]

But isn't it also fair to say that Roush never really, when Elite drivers were leaving, it didn't seem like he was replacing Elite with Elite. I mean, you know, like today Kyle Busch announces he's going to rcr. Aside from Brad doing his ownership deal last year, like, you know, it just, is it not fair to say that Jack Roush never really went and paid for those elite drivers to come fill the Mark Martins, the Jeff Burtons, the Greg Biffles and all the people that were Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth. I mean, the list is endless. And you know, it's no knock on Booster, no knock on David Reagan, not at all on any of those guys. But they're, you know, elite level drivers.

[eBay Advertiser]

I think it's, I think it's hard to attract those guys if you can't provide them a winning car. Like, like what I was saying. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of great teams out there that. But they just don't, you know, if they're going to win races, it's not, it's going to Be by, you know, restrictor plate or they're going to get up there and win. I was so excited to see Petty win, you know, at Darlington. That was great to see. It's great to see. And this, this new car has provided some new opportunities for some, some more teams in these alliances they've made. But, you know, you can't hire those elite drivers if you don't have, you know, race winning equipment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

So it's cart in front of the horse. You got to get race winning equipment. How do I do that? If you had race winning equipment, those drivers would still be there. So if those drivers leave, you got to figure out how to get race winning equipment and then get some other ones back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So what are you up to these days?

[eBay Advertiser]

Just. Just hanging out, running out of gas on the side of the road with my.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You own a rock car?

[eBay Advertiser]

I do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In Virginia.

[eBay Advertiser]

I do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. Why do you own a rock quarry?

[eBay Advertiser]

That's kind of a unique story in itself, but I loved running equipment and building trails at my mountain property all the years and doing all that stuff. And I was building a big pond project on my property. I got about half done and this quarry I was getting the stone from for the shoreline went out of business, went belly up. And one of the guys that was helping me worked for that guy and he said, man, you should just. I tried to find the stone somewhere else and I couldn't match it. So I'm like, I gotta start over or I can take this place over. So not a lot of money. And I traded him a little bit of rock. I got the mining permit for this place, he got the rock. And I thought, you know, I got an excavator and I got this and that. I got some equipment. I'll go in there and have a little bit of fun. And it was a way more undertaking than I expected.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sounds like it.

[eBay Advertiser]

So after, you know, a couple million dollars worth of equipment, I felt like, well, then I figured out I was about halfway there to being able to mine this stuff. And I like challenges, you know, and I hired my brother to come and run it while I raced and, you know, I sort of guide him and help him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How long have you owned this, Cory?

[eBay Advertiser]

I've owned the quarry for 10 years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay, so it's still going?

[eBay Advertiser]

It's still going. Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You own. You like to fly? You used to. You had a helicopter. You still got it?

[eBay Advertiser]

No, I don't. I sold all my aviation stuff, but I love aviation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You, I thought you owned planes.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I'm itching. I don't. I. I own the hanger.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sold everything.

[eBay Advertiser]

I sold everything. I own the hangar at the Statesville Airport, which Victory Air leases.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You lease it? Oh, you're an outdoorsman.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't know that.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, man, I love. I love it. I don't hunt that much.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Fish.

[eBay Advertiser]

But I love to fish.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[eBay Advertiser]

I love.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where do you go fish?

[eBay Advertiser]

I love to fly fish. I love to saltwater fish. So I fish a lot in. In the Bahamas, mainly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How do you get down the Bahamas? What do you got down there? Anything.

[eBay Advertiser]

So I.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You got a house?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, I've got a boat. I've got a house in Florida, and my. My boat's behind the house.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[eBay Advertiser]

And so I'll take that to Nassau, usually fly to Nassau, and then we leave there, do Exum island or go wherever. And I take my 32 center console off from the big boat. And the one trip I did a few years ago, we were there for seven days. I never once was on the boat while it was moving the big boat. I was always on my small boat, out fishing, snorkeling on the beach, drinking beer, doing whatever. And the boat would move from spot to spot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You chase it with the fishing boat.

[eBay Advertiser]

Just chase it with the fishing boat. Hook up. I mean, those are the days I love. I really love.

[Greg Biffle]

That sounds amazing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tell me about the Lake Norman Humane Society.

[eBay Advertiser]

So Lake Norman Humane, we started that organization years and years ago. It started out as Friends of the Animals, and I grew up with dogs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Used to have this calendar every year. Biffle had a calendar. He asked all the drivers pose with their dog animals or their, you know, their dogs and other animals. And so I knew about your position and support of all that for years. And now you're continuing that?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, continuing that. So we merged with a group and created Lake Norman Humane. And then we built a building not too far away from here on Highway 21.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What happens there?

[eBay Advertiser]

We adopt out a lot of animals. We pull animals mostly from the shelter, and, you know, it's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Try to find them home.

[eBay Advertiser]

Try and find them homes. So they. We. In the state of North Carolina, we euthanize. I'll use the proper word, a lot of animals. And most of these dogs, you know, cats that go to the shelter, that's death row. And they have about three to seven days.

[Greg Biffle]

That's it.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. So they got to find a house fast, you know, so we do our part and pull a lot of animals that. That are adoptable from the shelter, you know, give them proper veterinarian care and get them adopted out. We adopt probably, you know, 100 animals a month. 100 dogs a month.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I went to a pound or I don't know what you call that, but shelter. Yeah. I went. Well, I went to one in Charlotte and they. There's this one room. They had a big room full of adoptable. And then there's like a different room where they're like, they can't. I was looking for a cat.

[eBay Advertiser]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Long time ago. And there's this room in the back where I saw a cat. And I was like, I want that cat. And they're like, well, we can't. It's not adoptable because we can't test it. We can't give it. It shots. We can't check it for this, that and other. Because we can't touch it.

[eBay Advertiser]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Rip our hands off.

[eBay Advertiser]

It's a feral cat then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And so they were like, you know, not adoptable. This, like, this cat will not be leaving this building. And that was a real eye opener.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so anyhow, you guys try to go to these shelters and take the adoptable animals that are finding themselves at those shelters. Y'all care for them and give them an opportunity. A longer Runway, I guess.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To be able to find a home.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yep. And we have a lot of fosters as well. So people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Those are actual homes. Homes.

[eBay Advertiser]

People will take the animal and you know, and it's on our website and, you know, people are looking for animals and it works really well now because they can say, oh, I like Lucy, you know, but so Lucy is with this foster. So this foster will bring Lucy in and the people come and meet him and say, we love them, we're going to take them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How do you become a foster?

[eBay Advertiser]

So just sign up at the shelter, come by. And we love more. The more fosters we have. It expands our organization without spending any money. So it gives us an opportunity to help more animals. And, you know, it's a great thing. And I love being part of the organization.

[Greg Biffle]

What's the web address? I mean, people listening right now. If you've got them motivated to go, you know, adopt a pet, what do they need to do?

[eBay Advertiser]

Lakenormanhumane.com look us up, you know, social media, Facebook.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And the physical address is on Highway 21.

[eBay Advertiser]

The physical address is. I'm not good with.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, no. But I.

[eBay Advertiser]

It's right near Hoke Lumber.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

The new.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right across the street from New Hope Lumber here in Mooresville.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so I pass by this thing every day going to the house and coming to Junior Motorsports. We were over there for the grand opening. Yeah, it's amazing. Great facility. And just wanted to really highlight that. Yeah, I mean, you're doing some awesome things. You know, it's. When we are. When we are in the throw, when we're doing the racing thing, right, we always align ourselves with some mission. Right. Some charitable initiative. And I love seeing people like you that continue those things and even. Even get stronger, get more involved beyond your driving career, because it really shows you true character and shows that you genuinely, you know, that really is something that's part of your DNA, man.

[eBay Advertiser]

It was a lot of fun and it was a direction for me because a lot of guys within the circle had children's charities or other things, and this was sort of a gap that I was passionate about when I was in the sport and of course, keep following after the sport. So communities support supports us a lot.

[Greg Biffle]

You know, it just occurred to me, did you not go to biffle about your dog Killer? Isn't that where you got Killer?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. My. My dog Killer was a litter. Part of a litter.

[eBay Advertiser]

Part of a litter.

[Greg Biffle]

Is that right?

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, it was.

[Greg Biffle]

I remember that now. Yeah, that's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So that was actually kind of fun because we shared. It allowed me and you to kind of share bond a little bit because. Yeah, he would be like, hey, man, how's Killer doing? And then he would bring Killer's brother and sister or parents by, and they would kind. It was interesting to see them when they would get together because they rarely saw each other, but when they would get together, it was like they. There was a. There was a new. Yeah, there's a natural sort of connection they had.

[Greg Biffle]

Killer sold a lot of merchandise, by the way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Very popular back in the day.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah. Yeah. You know what his name was before Killer, though?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[eBay Advertiser]

What is it? It was Beetle Bug.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No kidding.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'd never heard that.

[eBay Advertiser]

Well, and I think that he didn't really have a name, but that's the Foster that had him. You know, they. They. I don't know where he came up with that name, but anyway, I've had.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I love my. I love my dogs, man. But he was a great.

[eBay Advertiser]

Oh, he was a cool dog.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Great dog.

[eBay Advertiser]

And you have. You have Irish setter.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

An Irish setter now, and a Palm.

[eBay Advertiser]

So my little Palm. My family or my parents, they had Irish setters.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[eBay Advertiser]

And so I love Irish setters.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Beautiful dogs.

[eBay Advertiser]

And I see his dog all the time and I'm like. Just reminds me of home, you know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I named him Killer because Dad had a dog with the same coat. He had a. He had it. When I moved into dad's house in 81. He had a dog named Killer that would bite the hell out of you. He was literally a killer. Yeah, but he had the same white chest. Dark. Dark coat and white chest. And I was like, cool. When I saw my Killer, I was like, that's you, buddy.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's right, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Greg, thanks for coming in today. This is a lot of fun. Great catching up with you. A lot of people are. I'm gonna say we. We say this, but we say it with truth to several guests that come on the show. You were highly requested.

[eBay Advertiser]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And when we put this tweet out that you know, or we put the information out that we're gonna have, y'all man school a lot of excited people about this. So people wondering what you up to. Still care about what you got going on. And if we hope to see you behind the wheel again one day.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah, man, I hope so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Somewhere you might just pop up.

[eBay Advertiser]

That's right. That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do your own little Northwest Barrel somewhere.

[eBay Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, man. Greg Biffle on the Dell Jr. Download. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, Tick Tock, and Instagram.