DJD Classics w/ Andy Petree: A Legendary Innovator

Summary

The Dale Jr. Download

Episode: DJD Classics w/ Andy Petree: A Legendary Innovator
Date: March 11, 2026
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr., co-hosts
Guest: Andy Petree (NASCAR crew chief, broadcaster, team owner)

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Episode Overview

In this "Classics" edition, Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes the legendary Andy Petree to the studio. Petree’s career arc—tire changer, crew chief for icons, innovative team owner, and influential broadcaster—is explored in-depth. The episode weaves together personal stories, technical insights, and behind-the-scenes tales from NASCAR’s transformative decades. From his humble roots at a North Carolina car dealership to title runs with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and engineering game-changers, Petree shares the lessons and colorful moments that have defined his remarkable NASCAR journey.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Andy’s Current Role at RCR (Richard Childress Racing)

• [02:50-05:25]
  • Andy is now VP of Competition at RCR, overseeing all competition-related operations.
  • Recently transitioned back after enjoying a less stressful broadcasting and aviation-fueled semi-retirement.
  • “I’m a super competitive guy... There are things about racing that I really love. You can lay awake at night thinking how can I make this a little better, how can we beat them this week.” — Andy Petree [03:20]

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Early Years: The Spark & First Racecars

• [05:31-16:00]
  • Andy’s family wasn’t directly connected to racing, but his grandfather owned a Chevrolet dealership in Newton, NC, where Andy fell in love with cars.
  • First visceral connection at Hickory Speedway, age 11: “I heard those cars running from the parking lot, and I’m like, holy cow... I knew right then that was it. I was done. Nothing else in the world mattered.” — Andy Petree [06:00]
  • Built a '72 Nova on a ’64 Chevelle frame in high school, with resourceful help from local legends and friends including Dale Jarrett and Jimmy Newsome.
  • They formed DAJ Racing (Dale, Andy, Jimmy), scraping together funds and using open credit at Tom Pistone’s Charlotte parts store: “If it wasn’t for Tom Pistone, we would never have pulled this off.” [15:08]

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Transition from Driving Aspirations to Crew Chief Path

• [10:01-16:00]
  • Initially split driving duties, but when Dale Jarrett joined, Andy naturally slid into a crew chief/owner role.
  • “Once he came in...it set my path as being a crew chief.” [10:57]

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Breaking into NASCAR: Tire Changer at Junior Johnson’s Team

• [17:09-21:02]
  • With Ned Jarrett’s push, Andy landed a tire-changing job for Junior Johnson, despite never having changed a tire in competition.
  • “Junior needed a rear tire changer...Keep in mind, I’d never changed a tire.” [17:41]
  • First experience: nervous, but the team soon won the 1981 championship with Darrell Waltrip.
  • Cultural hurdles—felt out of place among Junior’s seasoned crew, so eventually shifted to Johnny Hayes/Phil Parsons’ operation.

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Early Crew Chief Years, Strategy, and Innovation

• [24:28-32:01]
  • Credited relentless determination and constant learning for his growth: “I wanted to do this...willing to use every resource that I could to get me there.” [27:51]
  • Teamwork and psychology: Would sometimes deceive drivers with tweaks—or simply let them believe they had an advantage, maximizing performance through confidence.
    • “That is usually worth more…just him thinking he’s got an advantage.” [29:14]
  • Memorable mind games with Harry Gant—changing dash stickers to keep him happy with his favorite car [31:45].

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Tales of Creative Rule-Bending and Technical Ingenuity

• [26:20-56:01]
  • 1988 Talladega—reveals, for the first time, a clever intake manifold modification to allow more air around the restrictor plate, matching what rivals (notably Bobby Allison’s car) were rumored to be doing.
    • “If we want to compete, we’ve got to do what they’re doing…It was one of the most amazing pieces of art you’ve ever seen. I still got it.” [36:40]
    • Leo Jackson later invented the tool NASCAR now uses to tech plates, leveling the playing field.
  • Creative deck lid spoiler hinge using Oldsmobile Delta 88 trunk motors to drop the spoiler for qualifying at Daytona, then pop it back up for inspection—an example of ingenuity under pressure:
    • “The key to cheating is you gotta do it right. You gotta really do the work.” [53:03]
    • “Leo checks the angle...I reach in there at the radio box, the spoiler goes ‘yeep!’…I just knew they were going to catch us.” [54:11]

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Building the Harry Gant Era: Legendary Streaks and Technical Evolution

• [41:21-46:40]
  • Meticulous, hands-on approach developing the 33 car with Gant and Leo Jackson, staying with unconventional “rear steer” suspension geometries longer than most.
  • Designed and built custom front clips to match Gant’s preferences, with innovative use of cambered housings, home-built parts, and more—especially for their historic “four in a row” win streak in 1991.
  • “It wasn’t just tricking up intake or cambering the rear housing, that’s like half of the car we really reinvented.” — Dale Jr. [44:06]
  • “We didn’t have any real engineering help, but we were able to make it work.” [44:39]

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Leaving Jackson/Gant for RCR & Dale Earnhardt Sr.

• [56:49-62:00]
  • Difficult, emotional farewell to Leo Jackson, whom Andy calls “like a father,” but the chance to crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Sr. was irresistible.
  • Family influence—the decision approved by his kids, especially his son Joey for whom the Earnhardt name was magic [59:19].

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RCR Years: Culture Shock and Championship Chemistry

• [64:20-77:13]
  • Initial intimidation “walking into the Boston Garden” of banners and seeing the iconic “Flying Aces” pit crew.
  • RCR’s racecars were “super heavy” and behind in several areas—Andy led a modernization, lightening, and innovation push.
  • Early clash of strong personalities with Earnhardt Sr. until Richard Childress brokered “bonding” at Darlington—solidified trust after a technical tire test led to victory:
    • “That’s how you bond right there. That was our first win.” [71:40]
  • Over time, frustrations with Earnhardt’s outside obligations, but a deep working relationship developed, culminating in the 1994 Cup championship.

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Petree’s Driving: Busch/Xfinity, Cup, ARCA, Trucks

• [77:15-93:11]
  • Occasional driving outings, including a 1994 Xfinity start at Martinsville in Earnhardt’s car, with Ray Evernham as crew chief for a day.
  • Frequent participation (and competition) with Schrader, including ARCA dirt-track adventures.
  • Reveals the challenge and thrill of squeezing laps as a driver, even as he built his reputation on the pit box.

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Transition to Team Ownership & the RAD Era

• [93:44-104:22]
  • Left RCR to buy Leo Jackson’s team—huge risk with sponsorship uncertainty.
    • “How many opportunities am I going to get, or somebody like me, that can make that happen?” [93:44]
  • Formed the “RAD” alliance with RCR and DEI (Richard, Andy, Dale) for aerodynamics and technical co-development.
    • “The creativity of three different organizations piled into one was super successful.” [99:26]
    • “We were making big time gains...it was like a wildfire just caught up.” [100:13]
  • RAD’s biggest advantages came on restrictor plate tracks, but also moved the needle for downforce at intermediates.

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The End of APR, Starting Over, and Innovating Again

• [104:22-107:05]
  • Sponsorship evaporated in the early 2000s; Andy shut down APR, briefly “retired,” then invented the pull-down rig—a now-standard tool for racecar simulation and setup.
• Broadcast Career
  • Andy got the call for ESPN’s NASCAR coverage—entirely new, with no prior TV/radio experience.
  • “For what we do, we just talk about what we know...I loved it.” [107:14]
  • Found renewed fulfillment being back at the track and engaging with the sport’s evolving technology.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the magic of racing:
  “I heard those cars running from the parking lot, and... I knew right then that was it. I was done. Nothing else in the world mattered.” — Andy Petree [06:00]

• On creative crew chiefing:
  “The key to cheating is you gotta do it right. You gotta really do the work.” — Andy Petree [53:03]

• On mind games & advantage:
  "That is usually worth more...just him thinking he's got an advantage is usually worth more than the actual advantage." — Andy Petree [29:14]

• On technical innovation:
  “It wasn’t just tricking up the intake... that’s like half of the car we really reinvented.” — Dale Jr. [44:06]

• On championship-winning chemistry:
  “That’s how you bond right there. That was our first win.” — Andy Petree [71:40]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:50] Petree’s modern RCR role
• [05:31] First exposure to racing, early car-building
• [17:09] Breakthrough at Junior Johnson’s shop
• [24:28] Early crew chiefing, relentless learning
• [26:20] “Cheating smart”—Talladega restrictor plate secrets
• [41:21] Building Harry Gant’s team, technical revolutions
• [56:49] Difficult departure to join RCR
• [64:20] RCR culture shock and modernization
• [71:40] “Bonding” with Earnhardt via tire test breakthrough
• [77:15] Andy’s sporadic driving stints
• [93:44] Leaving RCR for team ownership
• [98:26] Origin/executive summary of RAD
• [104:22] Closing APR, invention of the pull-down rig
• [107:07] Transition to broadcasting/new career

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Episode Tone & Style

The tone is warm, candid, filled with reverence for racing’s blue-collar ingenuity—equal parts humorous nostalgia, technical detail, and direct storytelling. Dale Jr.’s disarming interview style brings levity and camaraderie, while Andy offers humility, transparency, and a “do-the-work” ethos. It’s a masterclass in perseverance, creative problem-solving, and the human drama behind NASCAR’s glories and growing pains.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode is essential listening for any NASCAR fan or racing history buff. Andy Petree’s life in the sport encapsulates the transition from racing’s seat-of-the-pants innovation era to the modern, engineering-driven age—and his fingerprints, from technical tricks to championship banners, are found all over NASCAR.

Transcript

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. You're Dale Jun.

[Andy Petrie]

Should I say it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's Dale Jr. Podcast.

[Andy Petrie]

I gotta say it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, everybody, it's Dalenhardt Jr. Here with another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. We've got a classic for you today. Andy Petrie, crew chief broadcaster, team owner. He's done it all and he's gonna come in here and tell us about it. Let's get him at the table and get started. Brought to you by Arby's here in the Arby's studio and their new Meet in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meat. What's up, man?

[Andy Petrie]

What's happening, guys?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How you doing?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have a seat.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, have a seat.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Just mine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, buddy. That's you right there.

[Andy Petrie]

It's pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thanks, man. We've been looking forward to you coming on the show.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, yeah. I appreciate it. I have, too. I've been watching a lot of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have you?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. You've had some characters on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We've had some fun.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Co-host 1]

Throw that headset on so you can hear us. And by the way, first guest we've ever had that. Flew a helicopter in, I guess.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think so, probably. You and Rick Hendrick?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, I guess. Chase on yet?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, he, yeah, he would fly helicopter, probably. Yeah. So Andy Petrie is on the show. It's a, it's awesome to have you in here and I know that you got your hands full and you're busy working with rcr. What are you doing these days? What's your job title?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, I'm just a, you know, the VP of competition over there and kind of everything that's competition related falls under me. Got great people, you know, that handle all the things, you know, they, from engineering to operations. You got Sammy Johns and Eric Karmak and, you know, just a lot of good, good strong people over there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What made you want to go back and go back to work at rcr? You had your own deal. You kind of were doing some tv and you seem to be like you was settled into this sort of comfortable place. You didn't really want to work all the time.

[Andy Petrie]

I was, I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now you're working hard again.

[Andy Petrie]

It was great, right? I was working for espn. I was working in the booth and, and, and life was great. I mean, it really was. And then ESPN lost the contract to NBC and then you took my job. So here I see it. We're all thinking it. Yeah, right. We'll go ahead and address an elephant in the room. No, just kidding. But after that ran out, I mean, I still do work for Fox, you know, on the racehub show, which I really enjoy once a week or so during the season. And, but that's, that's it, you know, I was just, you know, piddling things in my shop. I was, you know, I'm obviously passionate about aviation and I, you know, I dabbled with, you know, I got my airframe power plant license to be able to work on helicopters and airplanes. And I bought a run out Robinson, kind of like the one I'm flying now, and overhauled it. Thought, okay, that's a good way to, you know, make a little money. I can, you know, occupy my time. It was way too hard. It was really hard work and there wasn't a lot of money in it. So I ended up selling that helicopter, making a little bit of money. And about that time, I was talking to Richard about some other things and we had lunch at the winery and he said that he just wasn't happy with the direction of the team and want to know, you know, what I thought. And we talked about some things and he, you know, what do you think about coming Back over here. It really piqued my interest, I mean, because I'm a super competitive guy, you know, and I didn't, I didn't quit being competitive just because I took on other things and, you know, miss it a little bit. There's things about, about racing that I really love, that you can, you know, lay awake at night thinking of how can I make this a little better, how can we beat them this week, how can, you know, and so I really kind of wanted to do it, you know, and so it's been, it's been fun. This is my fourth season there and I feel like that we've made some progress along the way. Won a few races and you know, won the X Indy championship a couple of years ago with Tyler. And now moving him with his career along, I think it's interesting and, you know, and Austin Dillon is sitting in this really good spot in his career where he's, you know, tons of experience, very talented. You know, I feel the pressure of being able to give him the equipment that he deserves right now. Yeah. And so it's been fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go way back. All right.

[Andy Petrie]

You got to go way back now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We're going as far as we can go.

[Andy Petrie]

That's probably further back than you can remember.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's the challenge doing this show is seeing how much you guys can remember. I, you know, you, you call yourself a car freak from, from way back, since you could walk. But what was your family's involvement around automobiles? What was the. What, what, what connected you to racing or to the car?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, it's a little different in your career, right? I mean, your, your dad was super famous, all, all in racing when you grew up. But my dad was not, I mean, my family really wasn't interested or had any connection to racing and other than for cars. My grandfather was a car dealer, Chevrolet dealer in Newton, North Carolina and News and Cross Chevrolet. So that, that's one I would hang out in the dealership and, you know, aggravate the mechanics like crazy. You know, John Settlemeyer was one of the mechanics in there and he was five time, ended up being a five time track champion at Hickory Speedway. And I got, oh man, that's really cool. You know, you got race cars. And he took me, you know, out to his shop a few times when I was a kid, showed me the cars and I just kind of got the first real interest I got though. My, my uncle took me to Hickory Speedway when I was 11, 12 years old and I got there and I heard those cars running from the parking lot. And I'm like, holy cow. And I went running up that ramp, you know, that ramp in front, just running. I didn't pay ticket, nothing. I ran top, and I looked down at those cars. They were practicing, and I knew right then that was it. I was done. I'm telling you that nothing else in the world mattered.

[Co-host 1]

About how old were you?

[Andy Petrie]

I was 11 or 12 years old. Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you play any sports in school?

[Andy Petrie]

Nope. No. But I built a race car when I was, like, still in high school.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Co-host 1]

From that point on, right?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you. You go to your first race at Hickory and hear that motor and. And get all excited about that. How long. Where, Where. Where did you finally. Where were you able to get. Finally get your hands on a car and start tuning on 1? On 1.

[Andy Petrie]

It was kind of crazy. It was like when I was still in high school and. And. And Dale Jarrett and Jimmy Newsome were good friends of mine. Well, Jimmy, I actually. Dale wasn't even the pitcher yet, but Jimmy was actually running the tire store there in Newton. Had graduated ahead of me a few years, and. And I was trying anything I could. I was trying to call anybody to help me. We didn't have any money. You know, we were poor back then. But I'm trying to find somebody to help me build a car I want to go up and race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What kind of car were you going to build?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, we started out, we built this Nova, a 72 Nova out of a 64 Chevelle frame. We go buy all this stuff, and. And I don't, like. I don't have a clue about any of this. Right. I'm just. I want to do it. I got this. This want to, but I don't have any real skills. And I started aggravating John Settlemeyer and Tommy Houston every. Like, I'd kind of lay off one for a while, and I go to the other guy, I'd wear him out to help me learn how to build this thing from the frame. I mean, we started with this frame, and then we built this whole car up. And about the time we get it on wheels, Dale Jarrett walks in, and he. With his dad, Ned, and I thought, that's cool. It kind of checks out, you know, And I didn't know why, because Dale was a jock. You know, he was a golfer. Played three sports or more in high school. He. I just didn't see him. Even though his dad was a racer. I didn't see y'.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All. Did y' all know him around town?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. Oh, we knew each other because we went to the same high school.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah, that's what it was. Y' all were at the same high school at the same time?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man.

[Andy Petrie]

And. And so they. Basically, the reason for their trip there was they wanted to drive that car. He'd heard we're building a car, and Dale wanted to drive it. And I'm like, no way, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. How did that conversation start?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah, that's right. Well, here's the deal. I had a deal with Jimmy that we'd take it to the track and whoever was fastest would drive it. Right. I mean, she already knew I was going to be the fastest.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

You know, I love that. So when Dale shows up, it's like, oh, man, this is not going to work out. You know, this is not what I want to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So what you're. Are you. But y. You're splitting sort of the responsibility and ownership of this car with Jimmy.

[Andy Petrie]

It was 50. 50. Jimmy Newsome and myself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so when Dale walks in, well,

[Andy Petrie]

this is what happened. He. We didn't have any more money. We'd already spent everybody. We had borrowed money from Beg money from everybody. And we were at kind of a dead end anyway because we didn't have enough money to buy an engine for it. And so Jimmy, you know, kind of reminded me of that and said, if we want to race this car, we've got to do this deal. I said, okay. You know, I did. I did want to race it because we put so much effort in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Andy Petrie]

And so I reluctantly agreed. And that basically set my career path as well as Dale Jarrett's, you know. And so now we're actually, you know, three way partners in this deal before we ever go to the first race. And we called it D A J Racing, which is Dale, Andy, and Jimmy.

[Co-host 1]

How good did the car perform?

[Andy Petrie]

Like, you know what? Too bad. It was kind of weird. I've told the story many times. We get the car ready to go the first race, and I've got it sitting in this little garage, you know, garage. We had a Newton. And Ned comes by and he says, all right. And it had it all kind of just sitting, making it look right. And, you know, he said, how much wedge you got in that thing? And I'm like, holy cow. What is that? What is wedge? Yeah. I mean, really? I mean, I was 17 years old.

[Co-host 1]

Sure.

[Andy Petrie]

I'm like. I thought it meant how much tilt, you know, from left to right. I said, inch and a half. He goes, perfect. We show up the track, we ain't got a clue what you. I mean, crossweight center. No idea. Right. Dale starts in the back of 24 car field and finished ninth. First time he ever said he won. That's amazing. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nice. So how. What happens? Like, how he runs a car a couple times?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, we ran, actually two. Two seasons with that car with Dale driving it. Oh, yeah. And Limited Sportsman is what it was. It was limited sportsman division at Hickory. And what.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What about you driving?

[Andy Petrie]

No, that was done, like I said. Once he came in, I met. The deal was he won't drive it, and that was it, you know? So now my. Like I said, it set my path as being a crew chief. All right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are you not upset?

[Andy Petrie]

Not really upset. I actually enjoyed that part of it, too. I always wanted to drive. You know, I always kind of. You know, I knew I always wanted to do it, but it just never. The opportunity just didn't come along for quite a few years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So y' all run. Y' all run that car. You're sort of, you know, learning the ins and outs and mechanical side of a car and how it works and figuring out what wedge is and all that stuff.

[Andy Petrie]

I figured it out, like, the third race. I'd gone to John Settlemeyer. I'm like, man, you got to help me with this. I don't know what it means. And he tried to explain it, and, man, he took a. You know, he takes like a box or something. He's trying to tell me, you know, put a little shim. Put a little shim under the right front. Put it up, you know? And now you see how all the weights on these two. And as soon as he did that, a light bulb went off in my mind, and I'm thinking, I got it. We're on our way to Asheville Speedway to run a race up there on Friday night. Yeah. And so he says, car's loose. I got it. I got. Put a little wedge in. Bam. Perfect. So now. Now we're on the road.

[Co-host 1]

You're aware.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah. Experts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You're a wizard.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wizard.

[Co-host 1]

You have a wedge question. Here's your guy right here. He's.

[Andy Petrie]

Well, that's actually the core of all of the racing suspension. Right. Once you understand what then. Then all the springs and shot, everything you do, then kind of relates back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Great point.

[Andy Petrie]

So, yeah, it was. It was the base of it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're traveling around Hickory, Asheville,

[Andy Petrie]

and also now we're not making any money doing this. Right. So I'm working for Jimmy Newsom in the tire store.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, really?

[Andy Petrie]

Make $200 a week or something. So you still. After. After I graduated. This is so the first year we. I was still in high school. The next year I graduated, went to Nashville Auto Diesel College for a little while, and realized I didn't want to be a diesel mechanic. I was watching those guys come out of that stuff, I was like, that's not for me. Plus, I wanted to race anyway.

[Co-host 1]

So did Ned kick y' all a little money or something?

[Andy Petrie]

Because he did a little. Yeah. Now, I take that back. I mean, yes, if it wasn't for Ned, we wouldn't have been able to finance it. But it was still thin, man. I'm telling you, we were so poor.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bush money.

[Andy Petrie]

Well, a little. But was just a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the drinking age back then? Were y' all drinking little bush.

[Andy Petrie]

Bush.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bush beer.

[Andy Petrie]

It's a statute of limitations. Yeah, it was 18. You. Back then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the. What was the. Take us back to the atmosphere at Hickory Motor Speedway.

[Andy Petrie]

You know, it. It was kind of. I mean, this is back in the 70s, late 70s, and, you know, you had. In the sportsman division, which I, you know, had a big passion for. Still do. It was, you know, Butch Lindley and Tommy Houston, Jack Ingram, John Settlemeyer, those guys were running in that division. We're running Limited. And it was, you know, it was. It was starting to get a little more polished. You know, everybody used to just show up. T shirts and just, you know, it's just a redneck thing. But, you know, one thing it really instilled in us, he was always this, you know, professional. Wanted us to, you know, show up the racetrack and clean clothes, don't, you know. So we had a, you know, consciousness about our image, and it was starting to change then and. But, you know, 100 lap races for the. For the late models, we ran 25 or 35 lap races in Limited. And it was fun, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Y' all working in the tire store during the day. So you. You get out of work and run right over to the shop where.

[Andy Petrie]

Well, wherever the car's at, you had a little shot. We just ended up renting a little place in Newton. And so, yeah, we'd work there all night. I mean, it was just. Only time you see work, you'd get

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

out of work, go over to the shop, you, jimmy, they'll show up.

[Andy Petrie]

So, yeah, they worked on it quite a bit. As a matter of fact, you'd be surprised how he didn't know anything. He didn't know what a spark plug was when he started and that at the end of. Our end of that, and then his career as an owner, and he can build a car. I mean, he's really took on to it. I mean, he knows a lot about the race car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You run that car for two years, and then what happens?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, like I said, we went broke doing it. And Tom Pistone. I got to say this, because if it wasn't for Tom Pistone, we would have never been able to pull this off. He had a parts store in Charlotte, and he let us have an open account there to go buy our parts. And what? And we weren't able to pay him, like, all year. The first year, nothing. I mean, we couldn't pay nothing.

[Co-host 1]

Why'd he do that?

[Andy Petrie]

I don't know. I think, Ned probably just because of the relationship or something. And so at the end of the year, we had to. We sold that car and then paid Tom Dang. Yep. And I've always thanked Pistone for that. I mean, without him, we never made it happen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I hear that, and I'm thinking, dang, I'd be so bummed, I got to sell my race. But, y', all, what was the plan?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, then we ended up. After the first year, we sold that car, and then we ended up generating enough money, was sponsored. Whatever. I don't even remember to do another one. So we built another car. Yeah. For the next year. So that was the two years of Lambda Sports.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What. What. What was different about this car?

[Andy Petrie]

It was basically the same, but. But we had a little more professional help building it. Like, Carlos Johnson was one of the guys that built cars back then. He helped us, and. And we kind of knew a little bit more about what we were doing. Came close a few times. We finished second. We never won with it, though. But we did drove that car deal. Drove it both years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then.

[Andy Petrie]

And then he went on to run for other people and sportsmen and, you know, baby Gran. And what did you do? Well, I was, you know, I was working in the tire store and got married young. I got an offer from a doctor in Newton to run a service station. Dale actually worked for me there, pumping gas, and I worked on cars in the bay.

[Co-host 1]

Man.

[Andy Petrie]

It was just me and Dale. But this was after our limited sportsman experience.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so you ran a gas station.

[Andy Petrie]

Just for a short time. And this was, like I said, an eye doctor in town where he. He got a real estate opportunity to sell that to the county to build a community center. And so, boom, I'm out of work. I'm sitting there with a Pregnant wife.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I work a gas station.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. That's fun. Yeah. Not making much money, but. No, but it's fun. What gas station?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The Exxon station up on exit 36. Still there.

[Andy Petrie]

Really? Yeah. Do you pump gas or did you work in the shop?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gas.

[Andy Petrie]

So you deal. You. And you need to compare notes with Dale Jerry, because he pumped gas. Who did it better? Which Dale did it better?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They had a sales show and Dale show.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Again, it was a small. They had a self serve and a full serve. And I was. So when they pulled the full serve, go out there and do it.

[Andy Petrie]

We only had full serve back then, but so now I'm out of work and I've just bought a little house and, you know, got my wife's pregnant with my first son. And I was like, what am I going to do? You know. And so I went to Ned Jarrett and I said, ned, I really wanted to be in racing. I wanted to work on, you know, in a Cup team. That's where I want to wind up. And he went out on a limb for me. He went out and talked to a good friend of his, Junior Johnson, and told Junior that I was this great tire changer, right. I got he. Junior needed a rear tire changer and so he put in this, you know, big push for me. Keep in mind, I'd never changed a tire.

[Co-host 1]

Did you know he was doing that?

[Andy Petrie]

No.

[Co-host 1]

Did you know he was.

[Andy Petrie]

I knew he was helping me get an opportunity. I didn't know what he actually said.

[Co-host 1]

You didn't know what he was saying.

[Andy Petrie]

But I know I showed up, met with Junior, Junior puts me in the hauler to go to Texas World Speedway. And then 1981, Daryl Walter was the driver and it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They were winning everything.

[Andy Petrie]

They were winning. They'd already won a handful of races. And we're leading the points. Okay. I show up at Texas World Speedway with ride with Henry Benfield. That was a trip. That's another whole podcast.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure, we talked about it.

[Andy Petrie]

So anyway, so we get there, we qualify, not so good. But we ended up taking the lead right off the bat. And then unscheduled, he comes down pit road. I don't have a radio. I just kind of queuing off the other guys and I think, oh, God, we got a flat tire, whatever. And I mean, I'm so nervous. You can't believe. Comes down pit road and there's water running out the pipes on the left side. So motor. I was like, oh, thank God. I might change that. I mean, that's kind of what I Felt. So we go from there in the truck to Riverside, California. Sit on the pole there, and we're running. Junior's jacking the car. Jeff Hammond was a jackman, but he had, that weekend, had taken that off to go on his honeymoon. He just got married. And so Junior's jacking caution comes out. He goes, four tire.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Here it goes.

[Andy Petrie]

I'm telling you. Here we go. So we went out there and changed those tires. Cameron, you know, it ended up working out. We won the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you. Have. You changed tires the first stop, Right. When you got around to the left side? Are you kind of looking out of the corner of your eye if you're. If you're a head or keep it up?

[Andy Petrie]

I had enough going on with myself. I was just trying to get. I just wanted to finish. I just want to get it out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

You know, and we, you know, Tim Brewer was the front tire changer. I was the rear. Like I said, Hammond would have been the jackman, but it was Junior Johnson, Jack in the car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn. What a freaking experience.

[Co-host 1]

Junior Johnson thinks that you've been jacking tires.

[Andy Petrie]

Expectations are high.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right, Right.

[Co-host 1]

And so at that first stop, does Junior Johnson still think you. You've got all this experience, and you still haven't changed a single tire yet?

[Andy Petrie]

I never told him.

[Co-host 1]

He never knew.

[Andy Petrie]

I don't guess so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Wow. You didn't figure it out, but, you

[Andy Petrie]

know, I mean, I really owe Ned Jarrett because if without him doing that, I wouldn't have gotten that opportunity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did you fit in with that group, though? Man, that.

[Andy Petrie]

Not good. Not good. That's. That's a good point.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're established, you know, they're kind of been together a long time. They got their.

[Andy Petrie]

It was not good. And the reason is the guy that was changing the rear tire was one of those guys, one of the established guys. And he had left a couple of them loose at a couple of races, and that's why he wanted to change it. And so I got.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He was still there.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, he was there in the shop. Yeah. It was kind of. It was rough for a while, but we, you know, I toughed it out the first, you know, through the whole year. We won the championship.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you work in the shop any?

[Andy Petrie]

A little bit. You know, but it was like I said, they wouldn't let me work on the car. It wouldn't, you know, they're all. It was just like, pushing me over in the corner. It was just not good. So I went and talked to Junior. I Went in his office one day and I said, look, man, I said, you don't need to be paying me to sit around here. They won't let me work on anything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What do you say?

[Andy Petrie]

And so he said, I got to have you changing tires. I said, all right, you just pay me on the weekends. I'll keep doing. And so we finished the season out and, you know, won the championship, went to New York. First time we ever did that. And it was. It was great. And then the next year, they gave the other guy a chance back on the rear.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so what happened to you?

[Andy Petrie]

That's when I met Johnny Hayes and Phil Parsons and. And the whole Skull.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who's Johnny Hayes?

[Andy Petrie]

Johnny Hayes was a Skull representative, but actually owned the team. You remember the 55 car that Benny drove, that Copenhagen, that was actually Johnny Hayes racing. And. But at the time, Phil was driving a number 28 Bush series car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Awesome.

[Andy Petrie]

It was. Yeah, he was. He was good, man. And so we. I was working on that team with him. You know, I was actually selling batteries. When I left full time out of junior shop and still changing tires, I was selling batteries out of a battery truck for, I don't know, better part of a year maybe. And then, so I was doing that, and then I'd work on Phil's car at night at Harry Gantt shop in Taylorsville.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Andy Petrie]

That's where they raced out of?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

And so we did that. And then we kind of took that little core group at the middle of 1982 and made that little. That team that went out with the 55 and Benny Parsons and ran like five races that year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

And then the next year, we ran all the, you know, like the half season. Big. The big events.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

With Phil?

[Andy Petrie]

No, with Benny.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay. Did you work on the car that Phil flipped at Dega?

[Andy Petrie]

No, it was in our shop. I was actually on the team that Benny. Benny was in that race, too. We were in that. And. Well, I really missed Benny. Wreck happened, you know, and he drove by. He was. I mean, he was a myth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah. Oh, you look at it. I mean, you look at that car. I mean, good Lord. He thought it killed Bill. Yeah. And he was ready. We were going to let him get out, you know, but then all of a sudden, somebody comes. Hey, feels all right. Feels okay. And somehow we, you know, Benny pulled it back together, and we end up finishing second almost one in that race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But what kind of working with Benny, what was that like?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, he was so. He was so cool. He was everything you see about Benny Is true. He says everything. It's just who he is. He's such a gentleman. And I think he was one of the most underrated drivers ever. You know, he was really good, man. I mean, he was. He drove our car that year, that 82 and then 83 full time. I think in 83 might have been the last race of that year. 83 at Riverside. We went out there with him and the big wreck happens off turn nine. It was. It was Tim Richmond and Daryl and was coming to the caution for rain. Well, we were running third with Benny and I thought, oh, man, we just won this race, you know, And Leo said, hang on, it ain't over yet, you know, because still had to run some caution laps. Well, sure enough, they go back green for a half a lap, it rains again and now it's at the very end and they're coming down, down the back stretch to come to the caution and there's this redheaded guy, kid that hadn't won a race yet, running second. He drives in there and drives right by. Benny wins that right. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bill Elliot, go back to step back to the 28xfinity car that. That Phil Parsons was driving. He won at Bristol.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Were you working on that?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So Phil wasn't like his brother Benny, you know, Benny they want. Benny's from North Wilkesboro, but a lot of people like to talk about his taxicab driving up in Detroit. Detroit. He was a ARCA standout. And before he came to the cup series in the early 70s and then won a championship in just a couple of years. Phil, what was his driving experience like when he comes to drive that 28 Busch car? Like, when you look at Phil, what kind of driver are you looking at?

[Andy Petrie]

Phil and I are great friends. Still are. And we were back then, but he was so cocky and I mean he really was. He thought he was just going to come in here, going to dominate everything. And so he had all this confidence and he had driven what baby grand before that and a handful of late miles sportsman races before the bush series started. And so he was taking on this thing and then doing it right. You know, got skoll back in it and had really good cars and. And like I said, had a ton of confidence. We ran good a lot of place, wrecked a lot and you know, bad speed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Good speed.

[Andy Petrie]

But had speed and then. But went to Bristol. Harry Gantt set that car up really for Bristol and he just put his setup in it in the shop. I mean, he basically did it himself. Yeah, but Let anybody touch it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My favorite Phil Parsons memory, He's driving the 17 car in the Cup Series. Yeah. Has skull on it. And he broke in Bristol. And he's mad, but he gets. He pulls down. He pulls in the backstretch pit. And he gets out of the car, and he leaves the car sitting there. Somebody, I think Bobby Allison had a problem in his. With his steering wheel.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, I remember something.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Something. And Phil runs over to his car and is going to get the steering wheel out of it and give it to Bobby, who's over on the race.

[Andy Petrie]

I think he did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Who's over on the racetrack. But he didn't dis. He didn't disconnect the cord to the button. And he grabs that wheel and he's hauling ass around his car, almost turning for a flip. It's just really funny moments. Oh, my God. It's like 1985, I think.

[Andy Petrie]

But Phil. Phil's great. I won my first race as a crew chief with Phil in Cup in the Cup Series at Talladega. So we got some good memories about that race. What year that was?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

88.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah. How did he win that? Like to go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Go back. The fastest cars right now.

[Co-host 1]

I know, but what was in that car?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay. Statute of limitations. That run out on that?

[Co-host 1]

No, it's run out.

[Andy Petrie]

No, thanks.

[Co-host 1]

It's. No, because, listen, I'm going to tell you.

[Andy Petrie]

We had. We had a few tricks back back then, it was. You know, it wasn't so much if you. If you built a car by the rule book, you want to know where they went.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

So the way you race is how you race to the enforcement. Whatever the enforcement level was. You were always snuggling right up and right next to it. And that's. The good crew chiefs were the ones that knew where that was. Like, you couldn't. Like no new guy could come in there and figure it out. You have to just keep working.

[Co-host 1]

You don't have to explain it to us.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

We're.

[Co-host 1]

We're all about it. We love this. We love this.

[Andy Petrie]

We had a little advantage.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We love the innovation. That's what we love.

[Co-host 1]

Innovation. Right. We had Chad now pulling out all his tricks and everything, but he didn't

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

pull them all out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I even had BW in here. Some of his. Because he.

[Andy Petrie]

I heard that thing about the lid dropping out of the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know how prideful he is. He won everything fair and square.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah, right.

[Co-host 1]

But you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You were.

[Co-host 1]

You were a genius on the. On the pit box and set the thing. Where did this come From, I mean, seriously, because you, You. You are telling us that you didn't even know. You didn't know what wedge was. And now you're winning a race with Phil Parsons. You are, let's say, applying some, Some imagination to maybe not imagination. You're applying some of you, you know, things that you can, you know, set yourself apart on this car. Where does this come from?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, a lot of. Most of us want to, right? I wanted to do this. I wanted to be successful so bad that I was willing to do whatever it took, and I didn't like that. I didn't have an engineering degree. I didn't back then. None of the crew chiefs did. But, you know, I, I was at least smart enough to know what I didn't know. And I would always seek out people that I knew that had. That had more either experience or knowledge. And I was never afraid to do that. I mean, I did that through my whole career. Like I told you about John Settlemeyer and Tommy Houston. I mean, I aggravated them to no end. I mean, they just got tired of seeing me comment because I just have a list of questions a mile long about everything. I wanted it so bad that I was willing to use every resource that I could to get me there.

[Co-host 1]

Do you tell drivers, honestly, this could be a question for you. How much does a crew chief tell the driver? What, what things they're doing or trying or in the car? The stuff that you don't want.

[Andy Petrie]

Okay, so he knows a lot of things that were happening with his car. I was going to tell you that right now. He might not admit it, but he knew about everything that was happening. You don't. You know, one reason you tell the driver, one reason you tell him a little bit, though, and you want him to know is you want him to think he's got an advantage. That's good, because that. That is usually worth more. Just him thinking he's got an advantage is usually worth more than the actual advantage.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I used to race late models with Gary Hargett, and I told him, I said what? I said, whatever you're going to tell me, lie to me. So that, just like you say, I think that, man, this thing's going to fly, right? And if, you know, if you're going to. If you're going to take a little wedge out, if you're going to change right rear spring. Don't tell me that. Don't even tell me. Just don't even tell me. Let me go out there and tell you how it drives. I don't Want a predetermined idea in my head what it's going to drive like, right? Because I'm already. I'm already going to screw it up. But if, but if you want to tell me you put rocket fuel in there, by all means tell me you put some rocket fuel in this thing.

[Andy Petrie]

Some people reacted to that different. Like your dad. It wouldn't really matter to him much, really. You know why? Because he was getting 105 to 10% of that car every lap all the time. So you could, if you tell him that doesn't help any, right? He's already giving you more than, than you should be getting. But other drivers would. It's a good story with Harry. So we built this car. Ended up being the car that we won the four in a row with in 91. We built it and it built it super, super light. So we had a lot of ballast in the right hand side that you. To make the minimum weight, I think was 1600 pounds at the time. And so we made this little deal, you know, exploiting some of the rules where Harry had a little ratchet. We would take in the right side battery box. We didn't put a battery in it. We just put some lead pieces over there. And then on the line, we're putting him in the car. Used to let the interior guy get in the car and help him, right? So they would swap this over. Harry would stick it over in the seat. So you'd make total weight, right. But they never really looked at the right side way. And so we put these pieces over there, make it left side hit. Well, shoot, man. Harry, you tell him because he's doing it. He knows he's got this advantage. He's not gonna let anybody beat it. Well, by the time that four in a row deal comes around, this car's been run, you know, quite a few times. And you know what happens? They get heavier as you run them. Well, by the time we did it, the thing was already 1600 pounds on the right with no weight, you know, so we didn't even have any ballast in the right side of the stage thing. And so the interior guy, Scott Robinette, says, you know, we still need to be swapping that lead just so Harry to not lose that advantage.

[Co-host 1]

Right, right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The mental advantage.

[Andy Petrie]

So we were going like £40 or £50 over on the right with that thing in there and just switch it over. It wasn't even illegal. Harry's like, I got, I got more left side weight than you. I'm gonna beat you. And he did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Awesome.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's cool.

[Andy Petrie]

I don't even know if Harry knows that, but he does now.

[Co-host 1]

Dude, these guys are playing mind games. That was the advantage.

[Andy Petrie]

And then he had this in his mind that one certain car was better than the other one. So we just changed the stickers on the dash sometimes. So he didn't know which one it was.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah, that really happened.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was always, usually smart enough to figure out that, you know, this is not the car because pedals are so, you know, y' all know you're, you're

[Co-host 1]

sort of confirming what I've always suspected. Drivers are sort of mental.

[Andy Petrie]

Right.

[Co-host 1]

They're head cases. They're head cases.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Co-host 1]

And you have to just, just to get them sometimes just to shut them. Just drive the car. And you have to trick them into like Jedi mind tricks.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Losing a tire, running out of gas, wrecking a teammate. You never know what's going to happen. NASCAR is full of crazy stories. Make your race day story even more epic with FanDuel. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook, is giving all new customers a shot at $100 in bonus bets. New customers can bet $5 and get 100 bucks in bonus bets if their first bet wins. FanDuel has so many ways to bet on your favorite drivers and races, from individual race winners to prop bets to which driver is going to take home the championship here on the Dale Jr. Download. Each week on our Dirty Mo Doe segment, we are previewing the upcoming NASCAR race. Before you place any bets, make sure you want to hear what we have to say. We're talking drivers to win, head to head, matchups, top manufacturers, and a whole lot more. Get in on the NASCAR action. For a chance to win big, just visit fanduel.com dirtymo that's fanduel.com dirtymo for your shot at $100 in bonus bets

[Andy Petrie]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Co-host 1]

Do we want to talk about Harry Gant 91? Because that's. That was an amazing stretch right there.

[Andy Petrie]

It was. It was something special.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, I still think we could try to pry out what was so good about that 1988 Talladega.

[Co-host 1]

Okay, good. Because, because. All right, listen, your stat. Your statute of limitations may not be up. Ours passed a long time ago, so it is. It is assumed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You don't have to say.

[Andy Petrie]

I can't believe I'm gonna do this, but I'm gonna go and tell you what it is.

[Co-host 1]

All right, let's hear it.

[Andy Petrie]

Okay, so we. We run the Daytona 500 in 88. We did. Well, what happened was we were, you know, we were pitted around the 12, I think it was a 12 car Bobby House was driving. And anyway, I suspected they were sucking air under the restrictor plate back then. There was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bobby won the Daytona 500 that year.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, he sure did. And I was suspecting this. I could hear the way it was idling. I could hear all these things. And, you know, then he obviously goes out there and wins the 500. We ended up finishing third with Phil and. And I. And we just. Even though we finished third, we couldn't even compete with them. I mean, they were, like, in another league. And so I went. Told Leo Jackson, he's gonna be really mad when he hears it. But I went and talked to Leo about, you know, if we want to compete, then we got to do what they're doing. I said, we got to figure out a way They're. They're finding a way to get air under around that restrictor plate. We have got to figure it out. And so he said, all right. He was very lucky. He didn't want to do it. But he. I said, in my fact, we got an argument. I said, okay, if you just want to go to the race and just show up, we'll do that, too. So he got mad, went to work, fixed a manifold. It's one of the most amazing pieces of art you've ever seen. I mean, it cut it in pieces, made it, put these holes in it, and it was. I still got it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You still have?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah. Heck, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got.

[Andy Petrie]

I got on, like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where do you keep.

[Andy Petrie]

I just keep it in my shop. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's so awesome.

[Andy Petrie]

And I guess I feel. Thanks to. But so we put that thing on there, and. And Leo did it.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right.

[Andy Petrie]

I mean, it was worth a pretty good advantage.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

And we did. We don't sit on the pole, though. Apparently, everybody else is doing it, too. And so the last lap of the race, Bobby's trying. Bobby finished second, and we end up winning.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I was wondering how Bobby was making that. That front end on that Buick run. So good late track, because that was.

[Andy Petrie]

It was what's underneath the front end was making it run.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The grill on the Buick at that time was like the opposite of what you.

[Andy Petrie]

He was pretty good, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He was.

[Andy Petrie]

After the race was over, we were tearing the engine down. I look around. There's no Leo Jackson. He was nowhere, but we got it through. He did a really good job with it. But I'll tell you what he did do. This is the best thing. He goes back to the shop, and he makes this thing that will actually bolt on the engine, pull a vacuum on it, and check for that, and takes it the next week to the garage and gives it to the series director, and he says, if I can't cheat, nobody can. This is what we need to be doing. So he showed them how to use it. That thing is still being used in the garage today.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Wow.

[Andy Petrie]

That similar thing. Yep. That's why they tech them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Now, I know that. I'd never heard that about the Bobby's car. I know that. I thought that that was the big rumor on the 4 car when it was winning all the plate races.

[Andy Petrie]

I think it's probably sterling more than a rumor. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They had drilled.

[Andy Petrie]

It gotten so hard by that time, though. That's why you got to give. I guess his runt Pittman was building the engine. Tony Glover. You got to give him a lot of credit because it was hard to get by with that back then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I heard that they had. They were drilling the studs for the carburetor. The carburetor studs. They were drilling holes in those down in there and then routing into the.

[Andy Petrie]

You need to get Glover in here, put him on the hot seat, make him come clean.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's fun.

[Andy Petrie]

You've already got me.

[Co-host 1]

Give us some context about Leo Jackson.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You've.

[Co-host 1]

You've mentioned his name several times. So, like, who was he and what did he do?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay. Leo Jackson was, you know, back in the 70s, you know, Bob Presley drove and won all those races, a ton of races. That red number four, that was. That was Leo and Richard Jackson's car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah, they built that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I didn't know that. I thought that that was their.

[Andy Petrie]

No, that was. No, no, that was Leo and Richard Jackson.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got so many pictures of that car.

[Andy Petrie]

And they won over half the races all over the country.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

I mean, crazy how. How good they were. They were ahead of their time. And so he. He ends up going cup racing with Dave Marcus a little bit. And I was working for Johnny Hayes, and he went, you know, with that 55 team, we're just kind of getting that thing off the ground with Benny. And he goes and gets Leo to come over and kind of be the crew chief and. And kind of abandon what he was doing with his. Because he was going crazy trying to do his own cup deal. And he said, yeah, I'll let somebody else pay for it. I'll go do that. And that ended up becoming Leo Jackson Motorsports a few years later with. When Harry Gant came from. From Travis Carter over to drive our car, and we still had the 33.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[Andy Petrie]

So that's Leo Jackson Motorsports, and we called it Skull Bandit Racing back then. And that was the team that I ended up buying after I won the titles with your dad and. And then.

[Co-host 1]

That's right. All right, so are we satisfied with the Phil Parsons explanation? Okay, so then we go move on to the next Trickeration car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I tried that. I heard, I heard that y' all were doing that kind of stuff and when I ran my late model at Myrtle beach, the Allen plugs in the, in the, in the intakes and yeah, yeah. I would drill a hole in the side of that Allen plug and then valley it into the, into the intake. But then you could turn that Allen plug of, you know, a quarter of a turn, seal it. Yeah. So nobody, you know, it wouldn't leak. Then you, when you get ready to go run you that thing back a little bit and open it up. It was good for it was big on a two barrel carburetor but didn't help me win. But still had to go through the corner better. So you talked about Harry setting up that car in his shop and so you'd been around Harry for a while, since the early 80s, right.

[Andy Petrie]

Actually I, you know I've been exposed to Harry Gantt back in the 70s, you know, when I first started going to Hickory, he was racing there and he was, he actually hero mine. I mean it was like. It just doesn't get much better than what he was doing. He was you know, coolest guy on the track. Winning races and you know, from my home track.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So how does the. How do you, how do you end up crew chief and for him like how does, why did you move from feels deal like how did all that happen?

[Andy Petrie]

Well like I said, I worked on Benny's cup team and Leo Jackson was you know, the crew chief then the owner of that car. And, and when we won in 88, Leo was the owner. And then in 89 is when we kind of split that up with the 55, became Richard Jackson's team. And then we formed this new team that was, you know, Leo Jackson Motorsports in Asheville for Harry Gantt. And he, you know, he, Leo had already made me the crew chief of the, of the car that Phil was driving. But so he want to know if I'd move up there and build this team. And I didn't really want to move to Asheville but I knew it was a really good opportunity for me so I took it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And Asheville's awesome.

[Andy Petrie]

It is, but it's just not where I'm from, you know, I mean I don't, I don't have any regrets but it just. At that time I didn't really want to move up there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But sure cold.

[Andy Petrie]

But wherever, wherever the work is, I'm

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

going build a team.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep. So we built a team up there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Built a team.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep. From scratch Yep. And we put, put it in the back of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where'd you get cars from?

[Andy Petrie]

Brand new banjo. Yeah, banjo.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Brand new.

[Andy Petrie]

And we, we ended up. That first year, we ended up designing our own front clip over the, over the winter, me and Leo and Scott Robinette was the fabricator that built it all for us. We, we. We locked ourselves in there during the Thanksgiving week. We were shut down and we built this thing basically.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why did you want to build the clip?

[Andy Petrie]

Because Harry Gantt liked these rear steer cars. Right. He really liked. But. But rear steer cars were so out of favor because there's just so many things wrong with that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

And so we thought again, we can maybe trick him a little bit. We can, we can build the whole front suspension that looks just like a rear steer car, but put the steering box in front. And so that's what we did. We just packaged the whole steering, you know, assembly in front of the axle. And. And so that's what we had. We had our own front clip we just built out of that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so you. What did the lower. A frame look like?

[Andy Petrie]

Just like the banjo car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Strut.

[Andy Petrie]

It was strut rod. Wow. At the Ford lower controller. All that was exactly like the rear steer car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And when did Harry finally transition fully to a traditional front steer?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, it was after I left.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Andy Petrie]

Because we ran that suspension all the way until I came up to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you were probably absolutely the last guy running any kind of lower. A frame with a structure stuff. Yeah. Wow.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so I know we had a rear steer late model from Robert Elliot we bought for Kelly. And I still to this day have no idea how to set that thing up. Set. The front end is a mess. Everything about it, like you just said, everything about it is wrong.

[Andy Petrie]

It is. I mean, it's just. You find ways to crutch it to make it work. But it was all wrong. And once we moved the. The steering box in front, it really, it was, it was a good car. It really was. And that's it. That's the. The suspension and snout that we ran when we won four in a row with Harry.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. So I've watched a video, Mike sent this video to me the other day of you showcasing that car in your shop.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you talked. I always knew about the cambered housing. We want to talk about that a little bit. Just the ingenuity and creativity there. But I didn't know any of the other things that you showed us about that car as far as that front suspension. So that's pretty incredible, you guys. I mean, That's a monumental change. It's not like, hey man, we're going to, we're going to trick up the, the, you know, the intake and we're going to try to camber this rear housing. That's like a half of the race car that y' all really reinvented.

[Andy Petrie]

We did, yeah. Yeah, it was, you know, and that's Leo Jackson was super smart and so he, you know, with his engineering and machining capabilities, like I said, he, he had a machine shop that was in front of our race shop to make everything we needed. And so you know, we just built it and it just, we didn't have any real engineering help but we were able to make it work.

[Co-host 1]

That's what I was wondering is that this is well before the, you know, engineering boom of nascar. And so like, I'm just curious where do these ideas seeded at, right? Like, and how, what is the flow of information? What, how drunk do you have to be to be able to say, hey, let's do this to a car and everybody be like, that's a good idea. You know, and people not look at you like you're crazy?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, that wasn't that far fetched. I mean like you said, okay, the, the, the, you know, the rear steer suspension as far as the geometry was pretty well established. Right. That's what most cars were up until, you know, the Mike Laughlin type front steer cars came along. And all you're really doing is just moving the steering box ahead. And it was kind of a logical thing. Even though it did took a, it took a complete rebuild to make it that way, but it wasn't that big of a stretch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You got that car in your collection that you won the four in a row with Harry and you said in the video that you thought you might be letting it go.

[Andy Petrie]

Well, I'm moving out of the building that I have now and I've got that one and I've got Jack Ingram's car, that late model Sportsman car that I'm going to have to find a home for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So why don't you want to keep them?

[Andy Petrie]

I don't have anywhere to put it. I'm going to downsize. I'm selling everything I've got in Hendersonville and moving to Lake Norman. I've got, just finished a smaller building over in Denver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They make lifts, you know, and racks and stuff. You can put them cars.

[Andy Petrie]

I just, I need to downsize my life. I've got too much stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You can't get rid of those. I mean, what, why don't you just give them the. Let the hall of fame store?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, that actually the Harry Gank car was in the hall of fame for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If they got a building, they'll put them in there.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, I'll figure out something. I'll end up probably selling them though.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Don't. Don't let them go to the private collectors. Yeah, yeah. They need to stay in the right hands, man.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, it's a cool car. We took it to Darlington. Did you see that video where you drove it?

[Co-host 1]

Right?

[Andy Petrie]

I did drive.

[Co-host 1]

Yes, I did see that. That was about what, three?

[Andy Petrie]

Harry drove it too. Harry drove it fast. He was 75 years old. He was. I got a video. I'll show you.

[Co-host 1]

He's still getting it done. I know, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Co-host 1]

How long ago was that?

[Andy Petrie]

That was in 15. I think that.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

That's right.

[Andy Petrie]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I took the Nova to Charlotte the other day and I couldn't. I was scared to go over 90 or 100 mile an hour with it.

[Andy Petrie]

Is that a rear steer?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't think it is.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

No, it's not.

[Andy Petrie]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But that's a good question. I don't think it is. Last time clips put on an 88.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I was scared to drive it fast because I know how hard it is to make it look the way it looks.

[Andy Petrie]

Right. Oh, I know. So I take this car out at Darlington. I've never driven Darlington. Never laugh, you know. So I'm trying to get Harry to go out how to set stickers that Goodyear gave us to put on and, you know, go out there and try to run a lap. He said, I don't know, man. Because he'd already run pretty quick. He said if I go out there again, he said, I'm gonna try to hold it wide open through 1 and 2 and I. I don't hit that wall again. He said, if you want to go fast, you drive it. I said, all right.

[Co-host 1]

So I can just tell him that the weight.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. Hey, let me go some way. Didn't go. So I get in that thing and I pull off pit road and I, you know, get it in high gear. I'm, you know, flat footed going down into three. You know, I'm not going to, you know, fool around here. Just go. I turn in just a little bit too early and Cliff, the apron getting into three starts sliding like this and I'm like you. I was like, oh, God, no, no, don't hit that wall. I thought I'd killed it somehow. Didn't hit it. But then I kind of gathered it Back up and got my heart rate back down and ran about five laps.

[Co-host 1]

Listen, I know we're supposed to. I know we're supposed to talk about all your, you know, your days with Dale Earnhardt and, and Rad and everything, but I still got one more I want to ask you about. Okay. Because this stuff is fascinating and I'm impressed. I was watching an interview that Ray Everham gave and where he was talking about this deck lid at Daytona.

[Andy Petrie]

He's one giving that up.

[Co-host 1]

Well, I guess. I mean, it's on YouTube.

[Andy Petrie]

Really? All right, what did you say about it?

[Co-host 1]

Well, the deck pen, the pins, like somehow it is no yours. He said this is yours.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Co-host 1]

Where Earnhardt could lower no one.

[Andy Petrie]

Earnhardt.

[Co-host 1]

It was, it was not Harry Gantt. It was Harry Gant.

[Andy Petrie]

I've still got it. I still got the deck.

[Co-host 1]

Is this on the same shelf as the.

[Andy Petrie]

It's close to it. He's got a.

[Co-host 1]

He's got a trophy case of all his.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When it comes to selling your stuff, I want all those things. I want all the. I want you to. Parts.

[Co-host 1]

So listen, if Ray Everham's out there talking, he's on a PR tour to

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

talk about all the stuff. That's what the hall of Fame needs is.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

That's right.

[Andy Petrie]

They need to exhibit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Co-host 1]

So what can you tell us about this deck lid?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay, so we go to. In Daytona, they came up with a spoiler angle rule. I guess it was 89 or 90. I can't remember what year it was. And we had always been good. Like I said, we won an 88 at Talladega, finished third, 500. So we were always good at speedways and exploiting all the rules were some of that spoiler angle was. Some of it. Some of it was heights. A lot of things that we. But Gary Nelson came along and really tightened up every. You know, this is his first, going to be his first season as a series director. And so you got to clean it all up now. We can't be cheating. They're going to check heights. And so now all of a sudden we, we can't do our little things. We were doing and we weren't very fast. We were testing and we were really slow. Motors were off at that time. And I remember being on a plane coming back, I'm just kind of in my mind think, what are we going to do? I thought if I could figure out a way to get that spoiler to lay down and get it back up because they're going to check it post race. And so I had in my mind before I even landed, I had in my mind how we could make the hinge, you know, and conceal it and how all that would work. And I didn't have, what I didn't have was an actuator for it. And so I go, we got, I mean, I go to work on it. Since we get back, me and a guy named Dean Jones worked in our shop in a little locked up room on this thing nobody knew. And we get this thing all working. The spoiler hinge is perfect. Everything's good. I've got the back plate of the spoiler. I do this little deal with silicone where it looks like it's welded but it still has flexible. And it's, you know, it's all good, but I don't have a way to move it. And I'm looking back then, no Internet, right? So you don't have way to go to search this thing. And I've looked in catalogs and so one night I took my car that we drove is Oldsmobile Delta 88 they gave us to drive, you know. So I'm driving it to the store and I get to the store, get some groceries and I pop the deck lid. Boop, pops up. You know, I'm going to throw the groceries in the trunk, I shut the deck lid and if you remember these cars, they would click and then they would have this thing that just pulled them down tight, you know. And so as soon as that happened, like as soon as they went click and went, yeah. I was walking to the driver's door and I went, whoa, wait a minute. I popped that deck lid up. I said, where is that thing? What's doing that? And so I take that thing right straight from the grocery store over to the shop and I pop that thing out and I find that little motor and it is dead perfect. It's got this little thing going up and down. I'm thinking, man, this is perfect. And so I take it, I make this, I go in there and fab up. This is like 8 o' clock at night. I fab up this whole thing to like hold the deck lid down this car, you know, and take that thing and then I had to buy another one, right, Because I needed one on each side of the spoiler.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Andy Petrie]

So we start making all the linkages and everything and. But it has perfect, had a little limit switch and we had it, we could set it and we got it. Brand it was not ice. Again, Leo Jackson, not one that wants to cheat.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so how did you engage It.

[Andy Petrie]

So, okay, that's, that's the key to it. So we get it on the car. I totally look here. So I wasn't gonna do it without telling him. He said he didn't want to do it. I said, well, tell me. Let me put it on the car. If you can find it. If you can find it, we won't run it. And you know that before. Okay, I said, if you can find it, we won't run. I'll give you all the time you want.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I feel like we've. Somebody had that same exact story.

[Co-host 1]

It was, it was dw. It was the, the, the sh. The shot that would come out of the, out of the frame rails.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but he was.

[Co-host 1]

But they couldn't, but they couldn't find the door.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's. They were saying the same thing like, if you can find it, we won't do it.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Somebody else is uncomfortable. That's pretty good.

[Andy Petrie]

So we put that right. I mean, because he knows it's in the car. You inspect it and see if you can find it. So we roll the car. Ready to go Daytona. Roll it in there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where was it?

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Huh?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay. So we had a radio box back then we had a different kind of radio system. It was an analog thing. And we put it in a box. Everybody kind of had on their aluminum box that would keep out the interference. And it sat on the tunnel the way we had ours, right beside the driver. And it had some switches on it and dials to turn the radio up and turn it on and off. So we just put a little extra switch in there, a little three way, like middle and up and down on the radio on the radio box. And so I wired all the stuff through the roll bars. I mean, the key to cheat is you got to do it right? You got to really do the work. And so we, we spent hours and hours doing this and concealed it up in the hinged part, you know, and all the stuff in the car. Everything's ready. Put it on there. Check. Okay. So Leo checks the angle. It's 45 or whatever the number was. And he goes in there, starts looking at switches and he's raising the deck lid. And he's looking at this and he's looking at that. And he's. I mean, he's all over this thing. Cannot find it. He said, I don't think it's on this car. I reached in there at the radio box. The spoiler goes, ye.

[Co-host 1]

That would have been so good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I would be. Where did you have people? So I would be I'd be my pants if I was you, because I was.

[Andy Petrie]

I was. The whole time, you're like, oh, God. I just knew they were gonna catch us. I was. I mean, I was. I guarantee, I looked so guilty. I couldn't stand it. They were all over that thing. I'm like, good Lord. And we get. We get ready to qualify. Rolls out there. Gary Nelson is checking the spoiler, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The.

[Andy Petrie]

The first day on the job.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Head of director.

[Andy Petrie]

He is supposed to be stopping all cheating. He is doing it himself instead of having somebody. He's at the right before you go on the track. He's the one putting it on your car. So I had it up a degree or so, just so I didn't have to mess safety. Yeah, well, he says, knock it down. I said, no, it's good. I was wrong. He said, no. He said, knock it down. I'm like, oh, God, my heart's one. You can see it beating through my shirt, I guarantee you. So I'm trying to get it down. It won't move, man. It won't move. It won't, Ben. I mean, I've got linkages and everything. Finally, it goes down a tenth or something. He finally says, go. And I was like. So he takes off, and at the end of pit road at Daytona, it's right close to the track, and I'm standing there with my stopwatch, going to clock Harry when he comes by. And, you know, Gary standing right there in front of me, checking the next guy swollen. I look at that car coming by, and I think, visually, oh, yeah, it was flat. Oh. And Gary didn't even look over there. He had a seat. I mean, it was.

[Co-host 1]

It was obvious.

[Andy Petrie]

Damn. So after that, I said, guess we got to get that deck lid off the car. I can't stand it anymore. I just can't. This is no way to live. Back then, they used to let you put the cars in the hauler, and so we had another deck lid, and I had them get in there and chop in wire and put the stock deck lid on it. That way I could breathe for speed. I can do it for two weeks, Right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You only did it for qualifying.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my gosh.

[Andy Petrie]

You know what was bad? We've qualified third.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

I found out years later, Junior's cars were on the front row. They were cheating more than we were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I'm sure.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. I'm sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There wasn't a legal car in the. In the lineup.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my gosh.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I think it's a.

[Co-host 1]

It's somewhat of A coincidence that I find that from Ray Evernham, because I

[Andy Petrie]

don't know, I even told him. How do you know that?

[Co-host 1]

That's something you got to sort out. But who did we have on here recently? And we said, like, who is the best? Who's the, you know, most creative or whatever they like Ray Everham, like Ray Evernham was. And you and Ray were good friends?

[Andy Petrie]

We were really close friends, yes.

[Co-host 1]

Right.

[Andy Petrie]

Still are. Yeah, we're good friends.

[Co-host 1]

So maybe that's how he knows. Right? I mean, y' all are close friends.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, so you. We, you know, let's transition. You, you have to leave. You have to tell Leo, Harry and all them. You're gonna leave.

[Andy Petrie]

That was tough, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How'd you do it?

[Andy Petrie]

You catch on to the things that really matter. But I'll tell you, that was one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life because Leo Jackson was and is to this day like a father to me. I mean, he is. I don't have more respect for anybody on earth than him. And to do that, I knew I didn't really want to leave. You know, I wasn't looking to leave, but Kurt Shelmerdine had retired. So here's, you know, the premier crew chief job in the sport is available. I didn't go looking for it. You remember Terry Satchel? He was an engineer back at GM that I used early on. I was one of the first ones in the garage to really embrace engineering. And I had him working with me. And then he ended up kind of transition to all of the GM teams working with everybody. And he was telling me, yeah, you need to go over there. And, you know, I think you could help them a lot, man. I think you could. You need to go over there, you know, get that job. It's just, I'm, you know, we just won, you know, we're winning races over with Harry if things are going good. But Harry is 52 years old now. Yeah, I won't win championship. And I know it's, you know, I actually tried to get Leo to hire Jeff Gordon and he wouldn't do it. And so I'm kind of dead in on that. Jeff was just driving in the Bush series. And then so this happens, that, that Terry Satchel said something to Richard and then Richard ends up calling me one day. I'm like, okay, man, I guess I gotta go. I just gotta go see. Yeah. You know, so I take my. My two boys, they were young at the time, and my wife and we go drive down there on Sunday, this was after the season's over in 92. And I go pull up in the parking lot, and there's two cars in the lot. And so I walk into the. What's now the museum, but that was the main shop. And I walk over into Richard's office, and. And there sits Richard. And your dad, he shows up on Sunday to meet me. And that right there is like. That meant a lot, right? You know, the best driver in sport wants me to come there and. Enough to show up on Sunday. Yeah. So we, you know, we sat there and we talked and talked and talked about it, and by the time, you know, I left the room, I decided to take it. And so. But I said, I really do need to talk to my family about it before I make the final decision, but

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'll let you know good about it.

[Andy Petrie]

So I get out. You'll love this. I get out the car and start talking to the kids. And we're driving a business. I just, you know, make sure that we're making the right decision here. I said, what do you guys. What do y' all really want me to do? And my son Joey says, I don't care, long as it's Earnhardt, you know, he wants.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Pretty awesome. Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

That's what he wanted.

[Co-host 1]

What was their best recruiting pitch?

[Andy Petrie]

They were all about winning the championship. I mean, that's all that team was geared towards. They didn't talk about winning races as much as a championship. It came up, I mean, multiple. Multiple times. And that's. That was my goal for you, 100%, because that's what I want. That was on my list. I really wanted to win, and I knew it was my best chance. Right. And so this is really cool. So. So how much do you need to make sitting around this roundtable in Richard's office? And at the time, I think I was making 70, 65, 70,000 a year working for man. Yeah. And. But Leo knew we'd been winning races, and he knew that he was going to pay me more to keep me because. And so he said I would probably be able to make about 100,000 or something, you know, the next year. So I kind of throw that number out there. They go, oh, yeah, we can. I saw them look at each other, and they go say, oh, yeah, we can do that. And I'm like, dang it, I shot too much.

[Co-host 1]

Should have asked for more.

[Andy Petrie]

And so I recovered real well, though. I said, but if we win the championship, it's going to be double. And they, like, choked a minute. I said, that's what we've been talking about, right, Is winning championship. So it worked out. First two years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Deal. Yeah. Yeah. So you go back to. To your shop. How do you tell all those guys?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay, so that was the tough part.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

So, you know, go talk to Leo. He somewhat understood, but he was really disappointed, man, because I basically ran the whole company. You know, I was. He didn't even to make budget decisions, you know, if we could afford it. You know, I made the decision of what we could buy, what we could do. I mean, it was, you know, so it was going to change the way that whole team was operated and. But I just couldn't. I had to go, you know, and it hurt me. I mean, it hurt bad. I mean, it was painful to do that. Even Harry. It was just a year or two ago, Harry tells me, talk to him on the phone. And he said, you know, it really hurt me when you left. And I said, really? I said, you know, And I was like, I didn't. He said, I would have paid. I would have paid you. I'd have paid the difference myself to keep you.

[Co-host 1]

Did they try to keep you, or did they know that this was too good of an opportunity for.

[Andy Petrie]

I think they knew that it was already decided. I don't. I don't remember us talking about it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Big difference in performance for that team after the fact. And it wasn't but a couple more years. You know, Harry retired.

[Andy Petrie]

He retired, I think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

95, I think, was his last year.

[Andy Petrie]

94. Yeah. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So a couple years.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So your instincts were right about, you know, his career and how much more he had left in a tank. But do you think about, like, what might have happened if you'd stayed?

[Andy Petrie]

No, I don't have any regrets. I never really look back on it because I just don't think that we. I know we couldn't have won. We couldn't have competed against Earnhardt in. Back in. In that time with. With what we had.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you go to rcr. One thing that I remember is this is jumping ahead of the head of it a little bit, but I remember winning the championship and our dad winning champion. Y' all went in championship and being at the banquet.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I don't think I'd spent much time around you because I think I was piddling with racing myself, so I wasn't really going as much anymore. But I remember seeing you and at the banquet.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

After the banquet, running upstairs somewhere where he's going after.

[Andy Petrie]

Well, you don't know this part, but. So we Stayed actually, the. The presidential suite at the Waldorf Astoria is like a big. I mean, apartment. I mean.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

Gotta be two, 3,000 square feet, multiple bedroom. And so, you know, Dale convinces me and Patty to come up there. Come on up here, y'.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All.

[Andy Petrie]

Come early. Come. Y' all stay with us in our room for you. You know, this earlier in the week so we can stay at the presidential suite with them, which is kind of cool. And we did. We. But then we had to move out because Junior was coming up to move me out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kelly, too.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's nice to know that I didn't get shoved in some room in.

[Andy Petrie]

You were piddling around with late models, I guess, back then. Yeah. And it might have been one of those is right in that time frame, I would run a late model race or two, you know, when we'd have an off weekend, I show up at Hickory. I think it's the only time we ever raced against each other was at a. Either, I think 100 lap or 200 lap or hickory on a Sunday afternoon. And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah. So this is. You'll like this, Mike. So I sit on the pole and finished second. I wrote me and Pete Silver had like, identical cars and. And ran for the lead the whole race. And he ended up beating me a little bit, but we lapped him. And so he. You hadn't been running Hickory long like you've been running other places. And so I remember seeing him later, he says he wanted a rematch. When you coming back up there? He wanted a rematch.

[Co-host 1]

Did I laugh you?

[Andy Petrie]

No, but he'd gotten good and started winning.

[Co-host 1]

Oh, so he wanted a rematch. Yeah, for sure.

[Andy Petrie]

You got late models now, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. We won the national championship last year.

[Andy Petrie]

Congratulations.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thank you. Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

Hey, you got two of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, we got three cards. I see where you're going with.

[Co-host 1]

So, hey, if you go back. All right, so when you go to rcr, what is the culture change?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay.

[Co-host 1]

From what you're used to. Larry McReynolds talked about this as his experience. So I was wondering. Wondering what your experience was.

[Andy Petrie]

So I walk in the building and, you know, you got banners hanging all over the walls. I look at. In your shop. I'm trying to find your winning banner where you hang them. But. But. But the championship banners are hanging. Yeah, there they are. I see them now, but they have these, you know, all over the building. And it's like walking into the Boston Garden or something, you know, and it's over. It's a little bit Overwhelming. And now you've got, you know, Will Lynn, Dave Smith, you know, all these guys that Flying Aces. Been there for years and years and years. And I'm coming in there by myself. I'm not bringing any of my people. I'm coming in to lead these guys. And they are looking at me like, I don't know who this guy is. You know, they're. They're not. They're kind of reluctant to. To really move in the direction that I want to move when I get there. And. But there's a lot of things that need to be happening. There were things that they had really got behind on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like what?

[Andy Petrie]

Everything. I mean, just the way the cars were built and packaged. How heavy they were heavy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Holy smokes.

[Andy Petrie]

They were super heavy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude. You look at dad's cars and hey,

[Andy Petrie]

you know, you don't know how good. So. You'll love this part. Terry. Terry Satchel, the guy I told you about that helped me, you know, get the interview with Richard. He comes in a few weeks later, after I'd been there maybe two or three weeks, he comes walking in. So clipboard. He said, well, what do you think? I was like, oh, kind of rub my head saying, what am I going to say here? He says. He said, something's good, isn't he? That explains everything. I could. I couldn't explain it any better.

[Co-host 1]

That's so funny. What were you about to say about when you said, reacting to the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, they, they. They put them. They. Any kind of mount, right? Whether it's a hood pin that ain't falling off. Oh, yeah, you'll be in that.

[Andy Petrie]

So that. So that's what I'm finding there. And so we ended up fixing a few of the cars. Just, you know, as much. As much as I could work on change or whatever existing fleet. Because it was just a few weeks for do the first race we do and, you know, we get all these, you know, cars kind of as good as we can get them. We go around pretty good. You know, we. We've almost won the Daytona 500. Won the. Won the Bush clash. Won the qualifying race. He wins X Mendy race. And we come within just a little win 500. Dale Jarrett beats us. So it starts out pretty good. And then we go to Rockingham. I think this is a funny thing, so you'll get a kick out of this. So the whole week at Daytona, he's trying to get in his lingo. You know, you're trying to learn each other. And he just keeps saying in the cars, neutral, neutrals neutral. Okay. So must be pretty good, you know, so I don't really adjust on it much. Well, then we get to Rockingham. You're standing on the truck. You can see the cars, right? You can kind of see them. He comes through three and four, and I'm watching it. He comes in, he says. I said, how's the car? He said, it's pretty neutral. And I'm like, all right, man. Thing, I think, look loose to me, but all right. So he goes back out there again, and that thing's sliding through. I mean, it's like smoking right rear. If I come out. I said, what's that car? He said, I think looks really loose. They said, I told you it was neutral. I'm like, neutral means lose. That's what he meant.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I did not know that.

[Andy Petrie]

Right. What he. What he. Finally. I got his head a little bit. What neutral meant was like, he has. No, no, he's not turning the wheel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ah.

[Andy Petrie]

That's what he meant. Neutral to me was not tight. Not loosen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, of course. Good.

[Andy Petrie]

So, okay, now we're on. Same page. So we tightened him up, you know, we, you know, end up finishing good there, too. But.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my gosh, like, that's something that's like that. You know, you would think that dad was. Dad being as good as he was. He was. He was everything a race car driver is, but better. But he wouldn't have, like, backward terminology

[Andy Petrie]

or it was just something he'd been used to saying. I'm sure Kirk Shelmerdine understood it well, but I didn't. Course.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But who else uses the word neutral to describe a loose race car? No one. Like, nobody does that, Right?

[Co-host 1]

Okay. So how was the relationship?

[Andy Petrie]

It's not good. It's not good. We're butting heads with Earnhardt. Yeah, we are. We're really. We were a lot alike. And, you know, I was pretty headstrong on what I want to do, and. And he. He was really headstrong. And. And kind of. He was a real dominant figure. You can imagine. And. And it wasn't the way I was used to. You know, I was used to kind of steering this team the way I want it to go, and. And he just wasn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why are y' all button heads if he's not being. Hey, man, I want this spring. I know. I want you to change.

[Andy Petrie]

I can't remember exactly what it was. A lot of it was on, like, pit calls and stuff. He was, like, trying to, you know, bull me around a little bit on. On pit Calls and this and that and, you know, so Richard. I can't remember all things, but Richard calls both of us in after about the fourth race. He said, look, man, you guys got to get on the same page. And it was one of those come Jesus meetings with him. And he told Dale, richard, have.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sorry to interrupt you. Did he. Did Richard have that kind of control over dad, too?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like when they sit down in the room, dad's a little bit.

[Andy Petrie]

He had as much control over your dad as your dad would give him. Right.

[Co-host 1]

So in other words.

[Andy Petrie]

But he knew your dad was smart enough to know that this mattered, you know, and so what he's trying to say is that if you guys cannot figure out a way to communicate and what his term was bond. Y' all got to bond. And so how did you bond? Okay, this is this way it works. So we're sitting. Me and Dale are sitting beside each other and then, you know, on the other end of Richard's desk, and he gets reached over and grabs. All right. He said, what's going to. We're going to bond this weekend. We're going to darlington. We're going to bond. We said, the rich. We got this, Richard. So we. So we walk outside. He says, we're going to dinner. Me and trace are going to be going to dinner on. On Saturday night or Friday night, whatever it was at darlington and, you know, got some guys. I want you to go. You're going to sit right with me. We're going to bond, but. All right. It's not going to work. It actually did. You know, we're at darlington, and at that time, we had a tire, right side tire that was really, you know, marginal at best. It was. You know, you could fail it easily with too much camber and everything. So it was real delicate. And so I told Dale that we were going to go. I told him at that dinner, it's on, I guess, a Friday night. So Saturday was a practice session. I told him, we're going to. We're going to run that. That tire until it fails because it gave you a good warning. And he's like, what? I said, we're going to see how many laps we can go, and then we're going to keep changing the car till we get extended and try to extend it. But you need it to fail, right? We need to know where it was, where the lap number was.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah, that is a little.

[Andy Petrie]

But it was risky. But I had him on. He bought into it. He didn't. He's skeptical at first, but you know, so it gave pretty good warning. It would give you a good little bit of warning before it failed, and then you could see it, you know, where it was failing on the corner. So he brings it in after 35 or 30 laps, and sure enough, it's failed. So we take some camber out, we adjust the chassis a little bit for the balance, and we go back out and run another run, extended about five laps. And we do this. We come through about three sets of tires until we really have changed the car quite a bit and still pretty fast, but a lot better on the tires, we end up winning. And because we could go longer than anybody on tires. And I remember going up into invictory lane, and I look at it, I said, that's how you bond right there. That was our first win.

[Co-host 1]

Win fixes, stuff done. And I'm curious, though, like, if you. You go to dinner, did you guys plan to talk setups and stuff? And, I mean, I can't imagine what is Theresa thinking at that time.

[Andy Petrie]

She wasn't all that. Yeah, a big fan of it, but Because y'.

[Co-host 1]

All.

[Andy Petrie]

Well, because they had a big. It was a group of people. There was a lot of friends or whatever was there, and they were sitting there talking. And so I basically just wanted to tell him what my strategy was. Sure. I didn't tell him what we were actually going to be doing on the car, but this is. But he's like, all right, you know, I'll try it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's impressive.

[Co-host 1]

It is. You know, I mean, I go back and I think Larry Mack was talking about how he had to. You had. You had set the precedent. Yeah, he came after me because he came after you. And so a lot of the similarities of, you know, he's going from Yates to rcr, and so the culture change was so different. And he's like, you know, everybody was used to, you know, Andy Petrie was one of the guys and, you know, Shelmerdine one of the guys. But it doesn't sound like that's the way it was certainly at the beginning.

[Andy Petrie]

No, as a matter of fact, the beginning was so bad. And the first car that I got to build, that was mine, that I built, I mean, from the. From the ground up, we used a Hopkins chassis. But everything, I mean, every single system on the car was different. Everything. It was way lighter. It was, you know, had a lot of innovative things in it. And so we take it to. It was a road course car for Sonoma, and we didn't get to test it or anything. You Know, you just got to load it in the car. And, I mean, that was like pushing a rope. Everything I want to do in that car, they were like, that's not going to work. It's not the way we do it. But this way, we're going to do this one. Everything. I mean, this went on for months. Building that car.

[Co-host 1]

This is your first car.

[Andy Petrie]

First car that I built like I want.

[Co-host 1]

Right. Got it.

[Andy Petrie]

Okay. So we get to. To Sonoma with this car that's radically different than anything's ever come out of there. And I know my career's on the line, you know, so we get. We're a little bit late getting through tech. I think there might have been a few little tech issues, but. So we weren't on the track. Right. Right when the practice started, and Richard was up on the truck clocking cars and, you know, finally get it out on the track and, you know, go, you know, goes out of sight, and, you know, they come down through there, and you kind of see them. And I've got to watch him clock and, you know, start before he goes into turn 11, comes around there. And I'm watching him go up there. Look pretty good, you know, and I look down at my watch. My hands are sitting there shaking because I think, you know, if this doesn't work, I'm out of here. And I mean, not just out of rcr. I'm out of the sport, probably. And so comes around there, and I click the. For the first lap, I click it, and I was like. And I realized I don't even know what a good time is. You know, we only go there once a year. I look over at Richard, I think I'm about in tears. I'm like, is that good? He goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. So we ended up sitting on the pole, and for sonoma, and then we should have won. We got banged up by some lap car. The way it worked out on one of the cautions where people stayed out and we led most of the race but ended up finishing the top five or six.

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mo Media Junior Motorsports and I have a new partner this year and we couldn't be more excited about this. A lot of y' all may have heard Arby's has come on board and we're loving every second of it. And Arby's has entered the chat with a meal deal that raises the bar for value. Introducing the new meat and three box for 7.99 that's filled with Arby's quality favorites. Each meat three box includes your choice of one sandwich. The classic roast beef that is hand sliced and slow roasted, the crispy chicken sandwich, or you can go with the crispy fish sandwich. All this comes with the melty mozzarella sticks, some crispy curly fries. Everybody loves those. And a peach cobbler roll for dessert. Guys, you got to try that dessert. It's really good. And you get a small drink. It's called meat and three, but you're actually getting five items all for only $7.99. Nobody out there is giving you this much value for your money. This is a value meal that won't leave you hungry. You know, you don't have to settle for less when you get more from Arby's. Available for a limited time at participating locations. While supplies last, prices may vary. Get your meat and three box at an Arby's near you today. So y' all win the championship in 1994?

[Andy Petrie]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How's the relationship at this point?

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, it's great then. Oh yeah. We were really, I mean really about mid season of 93. We, we were really, really clicking everything. I mean there's times and I got really frustrated because he was getting so much attention. So many other things, you know, souvenirs and all these things are just pulling him away from, from what we're trying to do. But it, but he's just so good on racetrack and you know, one very good qualifier. We didn't qualify good. But it didn't matter. We'd figure out a Way to be in the top five every week or win. And it was going really good, y'.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All. You drove Busch car for dad at Martinsville.

[Andy Petrie]

Oh, yeah. That was in 94.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So you've raced. You know, we talked about your.

[Andy Petrie]

I drove for DEI before you did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. We talked about your driving career and how. How it. You said it kind of disappeared when Dale Jarrett came in your garage and decided he was going to drive the car when you were 18. But you did have a career in driving. I mean, there's this picture that keeps popping up on my social media timeline of that yellow 5 car, that late model stock.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that Jimmy Hensley was driving the Busch version of that team.

[Andy Petrie]

Is that okay? So we had Advanced Auto Parts on our car back in. It was probably 87ish. And somebody that owned my. I guess the guy that owned my team had a relationship with somebody at Advanced Auto Parts up in Roanoke. And it was actually a decent sponsor for us for a late model and that. We had it before Hensley and Sam Ard's team had it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Andy Petrie]

And I don't know how that transitioned.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was Samards car.

[Andy Petrie]

That was Sam's car. Yep. And so they wanted. That was one of those double races at Hickory that. So we put them out there to do that picture.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're working in the Cup Series, but also racing every now and then.

[Andy Petrie]

Every now and then, yeah. I never ran more than maybe seven to ten races a year ever in my life.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So why in 1994 do you want to go race in Xfinity series at Martinsville?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay. This is how that happened. So we take a brand new car, rcr, up to Martinsville for a test. And we had broken a gear up there the year before. And so we had come up with a different system of how we break in the gears. They break them in on a machine. Now the ring and pinion sets. But back then we didn't have that, so we had to do it at the track. And it was meticulous to do it, you know, and, you know, your dad had been out there running and he, you know, I said, okay, we're going to start breaking these gears in. And I knew he wouldn't like. He hated that stuff, you know, so. But I said, we got to do it. We have to get this done. Let's go ahead and knock it out. And he goes, I don't. Do you just drive the thing. I don't know you know how to do it. You just do it. I'm gonna go fishing. Had that pond over there. You remember that pond that used to be out outside at Martinsville? There used to be a pond right there. As you come in, he said, I'm just gonna go over and go fishing. You just do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

He said, just highway in there. Put my pit crew uniform on, you know, and I get in the car, put the thing in. The procedure was, you got there and run it slow for 7, 8, or 10 laps. It was, you know, kind of a pain, but you do that, and then you let it sit for a minute, and then you go out there and run 10 laps hard and then take it out, you know. So it's kind of broken. Yeah. And so I did the first one. We did the first slow runs on two gears, and then we put the. Put them back in, and we did the, you know, the fast run. So first fast run, we did put it in there. Your dad been around about 21 flat, basically. And so I get in there and I go run it, and I run it about 22 flat. And he might never even drove a cup car before, right? But yeah. And so. So he come up to the window and he goes, what's wrong with you, man? You afraid to mash it? Why don't you go? You. You know, just aggravating the heck out of. He said, I thought he was fishing, right? But no, he's right there at the window as soon as I run. And so I said, all right, so I got to go back out. So first lap, I go back out with the next one. I hit the chip, come down the front stretch. First time, ran 21:10. First lap, nice. So, I mean. I mean, it's out of. I was like, check with it. I didn't want to wreck a new car, you know, that's why I tell him, look, I'm just taking easy. Says, you know, it's a brand new car. But after that, I said, screw it. I'm gonna go as hard as I can go. He challenged you? Yeah. And so after that, he's like, you know, I realized I actually could drive at Martinsville. I said, you need to let me run up here in your bushcar sometime. Well, it turns out he ended up missing a race at Richmond, A short track race. Yeah, at Richmond.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he owed one.

[Andy Petrie]

And he owed one back to him, the Good Ranch, and conduct this scheme to see if Goodrich, excuse me, would. Would actually sign off on me driving the car at that Martinsville race, which was an off weekend for us in the fall. And so they agreed and earnhardt said, I'll tell you what. If we. If we got a good point lead in the Cup Series after Charlotte, which is the last race before the off weekend, then I'll let you drive that car. So Rusty, I think, is who we were running for the championship for. He has problems. We end up gaining a bunch of points. And, I mean, before the white flag came out, I'm running to the hauler, because you know how he is. He's gone. I get in the hall right when he comes in there, and I said, I'm coming to get that car in the morning. He said, all right, come get it. So I go to the deer head shop with, you know, I think he had a truck and trailer, maybe I brought one. I can't remember, and cars there. It's the car he missed the race at Richmond. I'm taking to Martinsville, the one Dale Earnhardt didn't qualify. But it was an opportunity, you know, I'm gonna go, you know. And so we get up there, and it was a weekend offer. His guys, he didn't want his main guys doing it either, right? So I take it back to rcr. I get a handful of guys, take our weekend off. We take the cup hauler up there. You know, everybody goes with me, and I don't have anybody to help me on Saturday for qualifying, so I get Ray Overham to go with me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dang.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep, sure did. So I've got Ray up there as kind of my crew chief. And your dad wouldn't let me change. I was going to change the seat. It had a banjo seat in it. And he said, nope, you ain't change seat or you ain't going to drive. Gonna drive it in that seat. I'm like, all right. And he wouldn't even let me put brake ducts in it. He was not gonna let me cut the nose and put brake ducts in it until I made the field. So you ain't gonna make the field anyway. So don't even put. Don't cut my front end up. I said, all right. So I go up and then raise, helping me get qualified. And I'm really, really loose, you know, this is a funny story, but he says, how loose are you? We're on pit road, working on it. And I said, it's pretty loose, man. He says, and I look in my mirror, and this guy backs in the boom. Hits the wall right behind me. I said, turn around, right? He said, oh. I said, that's going to be us if we don't tighten it up. Oh, Okay, I get it now. But we. We got it, you know, decent enough to make the field. I think we qualified the mid high twenties or something, but made the field and cut the brake ducks in there, you know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

I think we finished 16.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Co-host 1]

When you say you, you, you know, convince good wrench to let you do it, I mean, like, how did that happen? Because it's like their alternative is Dale Earnhardt owes them a race. You can have the, you know, greatest race car driver to ever hold a wheel or his crew chief run at Martinsville.

[Andy Petrie]

I think that they, you know, Dale had so much clout with them. That was his weekend off. He was in the Bahamas. He didn't even. He wasn't anywhere around. He just wanted to weekend off and so.

[Co-host 1]

Okay. That's all you had to say? That's all he had to say. I mean, because he didn't want to give up his weekends off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember. I. So I knew you were a driver after all that I didn't know much about. I didn't know you'd really run any races. I mean, thinking back to 1994, 95 or whatever, I didn't think. I didn't know that you had drove a car. And then you go race Dad's bush car. So then it's starting to dawn on me maybe you.

[Andy Petrie]

You was probably mad. You probably want to drive it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I'm. So I'm running like a late model or I'm running a street stock or something.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dad calls me. I'm changing all at the dealership. My brother carries just a few feet away at the service manager's desk. He's a service writer. He said, hey, get your helmet and your uniform. Come up to the airport tomorrow morning. Don't tell your brother. I said, all right.

[Andy Petrie]

Now I remember this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What am I. What am I going to do? So I got my little late model stock uniform, Sundrop uniform, and I get on the King Air. And if we fly out of Talladega and I'm starting to get it right, I'm gonna do something at Talladega. So it's gonna be amazing. So they're testing the new V8 for the Bush series. They had V6s.

[Andy Petrie]

They had one of the RCR motors in it for that test. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And dad and dad and Dave Marcus been driving the car a little bit.

[Andy Petrie]

Mainly Dave Marcus was driving that car, and we were. It was a pretty full test for us there, so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gotcha. So he lets me go out in the. In the bush car, and I'm Matched Marcus's time. I was pumped days, Giving me tips about why, you know, why lap was good or lap was bad, like, how you make a difference as a driver. And I'm feeling pretty good. And then right at the end of the day, Here comes andy p. Bopping out of the trailer in his.

[Andy Petrie]

Dad says, you want to drive it? I said, yeah. He said, go get mile. Does she drive?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was like, damn, I want to drive it more, right? There's, like, only 30 minutes left for the tracks closing. He goes out there and matched our lap times.

[Andy Petrie]

And I'm like, you know why, though, right? So I go and get in the car. And I know your dad says, now, you can't run a thing part throttle now, because you'll mess up Richard's motor. You got to make sure you don't run part throttle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Same thing, okay?

[Andy Petrie]

So it preaches it to me. And I'm like, God, I'm not, man.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah, you know, hold that thing wide open.

[Andy Petrie]

So, all right, I pull off it road, and I'll get wide open Coming off turn two. And I'm looking at that straight away, like, God, turn, impulse. I'm seeing that and that turn. It looks nice and broad from up above. You're looking at it down the street. I think it's dead left, man. I'm holding that throttle wide. I know he's got a stopwatch, right? So if I don't hold it wide up, he's gonna know. And I. I said, man, sure would be nice to know how far to turn it, you know? So I just, like, you know, I held it wide open. First lap. It took my breath. Did you hold it wide up the first lap?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So dad told me the same thing. We're in there.

[Andy Petrie]

Did you have that same feeling Going in that first.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, he says to me, he's like, now you can't lift. If you lift, you're gonna burn a pistol.

[Andy Petrie]

That's exactly what he told me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Exactly.

[Co-host 1]

I know, but listen to how he interpreted this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm listening to dad, and I'm like, he's only. He's full of.

[Andy Petrie]

No, he was serious.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's. In my mind, I'm thinking he's full of. He's just telling me this so he. So I don't go out there and embarrass him, right? And go out there and lift and. Because lifting, in hindsight Would have been silly because it's such a, you know, it's such a big track and easy to run wide open. But he's like, now, if you live, you run part throttle, burn a piston. I'm thinking in my head, how am I going to get through the pit swat open? So I'm.

[Andy Petrie]

He pulls out of the garage,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

like just to move out of the stall, into the garage and out on the pit rail, I'm like,

[Andy Petrie]

oh, that's funny stuff. I didn't take him quite that literal. I didn't take it literal, boy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, literal.

[Andy Petrie]

I could just say, oh, my God.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then, yeah, you're right. You pull out on the track, you're going down the back straightaway, and you're thinking, there's no way it's gonna, it's gonna fly out of this place.

[Andy Petrie]

I mean, yeah, you're looking at this turn. It's a dead left hand turn at the end of the straightaway and you're going 190.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're gonna fly out of here.

[Andy Petrie]

But it's. Once you do it, it's like, yeah, it's okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But so much grip.

[Andy Petrie]

It was took my breath first time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I go out there and you're freaking out. You gotta hold the steering wheel. And I go out there and I ran just as fast as day, maybe a couple of tents. Like I was right there with him and I was like, oh, oh, man, wait till I go get out there again. We'll run this next time. I'm all, light it up then you

[Andy Petrie]

didn't get it next time I got to do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I got back out there and I let the wheel do whatever it wanted to do and I was relaxed. And then I let it feed up off the corner and out. You know how much you pick up a second slower.

[Andy Petrie]

What?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I come in, I'm like, dad comes over, what the hell? I was like, I don't know, you know, kind of let the wheel rope move around. Don't do that. Hold it. Hold that stunt. Don't let the wheel move at all. I was like, well, you know, kind of.

[Andy Petrie]

It was that much slower doing that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I was like, I kind of let it come up off the corner. And he's like, what? Don't do that. And Dave Marcus is standing there and he's like, yeah, you're just adding feet to the lap.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's like, man, you got to stay tight. I was like, man, I just. Every other racetrack we go to, we come out and go out to the fence. He's like, you probably added 5,000ft to this whole lap. He's like, no wonder it's slower. I got a chance to get back in there. And I mean, I'm holding the wheel. I'm like, locked and locked my elbows into my legs so the steering wheel wouldn't turn in the corner. Because in a turn in the corner, it's like the wheel's trying to do this.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

All right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If you let go of it, it's going to just start going crazy.

[Andy Petrie]

Track was really rough.

[Co-host 1]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

It used to jump around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was. And. And I tight tied off the bottom. Real awkward. Feels like it's bogging it down, but it was faster.

[Andy Petrie]

So when.

[Co-host 1]

When you see him come popping out of the hollow of the driver's suit,

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I wanted to run one. I was like, I might get another run. I might get another lap. When he come running out there, I

[Co-host 1]

was like, no, everybody gets to drive today.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, I knew the deep. And I was like, all right. And then he goes. He went out there in his run as fast as I run. And I was like, damn. I thought I'd done something special, but it was like, hell, anybody. Anybody can get in there and do this.

[Co-host 1]

It'd have been awesome if you'd have been like, you know, this is for taking my room at the Presidential.

[Andy Petrie]

Get out of the car, kid. So that Martinsville race that I got to run in the. In the. His Xfinity car, so I hit Terry Labonte, like, hard going into turn three on one of the restarts, the brake pedals went completely to the floor. And, you know, I didn't. And I ran all over. I don't know how. He didn't. Didn't wreck. That proved to me how good he was. Well, the next week, you know, Terry is. He's real quiet. See him at the next race, I think it was Rockingham. He comes up, me and Dale were standing there and said, hey, Dale. Yeah. Next time you want to do something for Andy, he said, take him, Hunt.

[Co-host 1]

That's awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you run that race. I mean, like, I know you've. I'm looking at your. Your statistics here. You've had five Xfinity races, seven truck races, two arc and Menard starts, a modified start. Why, like, so why do you do that random one off run?

[Andy Petrie]

I just like doing it, you know, just when you find an opportunity. I mean, I still love to drive. You. You do, too. You do the same thing, you know, you just never get over it. I mean, it's just. It's something, you know, I've never had a full season of doing it, but I always enjoy going and running a one off. Like when we ran the late model race at Hickory that was just a one off that year. I hadn't driven in years and did it there. And then, you know, Schraders, one that kind of caught me into doing this whole thing with the truck. We, you know, he goes and runs all these ARCA races he's driving for me and he's got all. He's just all over the place. And I told him one time, I said, I'm gonna come show up one of them ARCA races and outrun you. You know, just kidding around with him. And so about a month later comes, hey, I got a good idea on that ARCA deal. I said, what? He said, come to Du Quin, Illinois. I'm like, what? That's a dirt track. And he said, nah, man, you'll be fine. It'll be fun. It's a Labor Day Monday, great event. You gotta just take one of your cup cars. I'll give you the setup, you know, you'll be fine. It'll be fine. I'm like, all right, it sounds like something fun, but I know I'm. It's not going to work. Good show up. If there do coin, there's like 45, six cars there and Schraders there, Tony Stewart, all these, you know, Kimmel, all those guys, and I don't have a clue. I look at this tracks, a 1 mile dirt track, and it's, you know, they water it, they've done it. You've seen it. Now Bristol behind us. It's just, I don't even know what, what I'm doing and so get ready to qualify. I go out there and I said, I'm just gonna drive as hard as I can, you know, end up qualifying fourth out of all these guys. And I, I said, I was telling somebody the other day, I'm thinking, I'm a real dirt racer now, right? Race starts turn one or turn two. I turn around backwards and then looking at all of them. So it was a little harder than it was. I ended up finishing ninth. So I was respectable, but it was not. I wasn't as good as I thought away. But anyway, so we get a rematch. He wants a rematch or Schrader out qualified him. He qualified like 12. And he's mad and he won't even talk to me. And I'm like, dang. You know, man, one of my best friends won't even say anything. And so he's parked right beside me. Finally I go up to him. I said, hey, Kenny. I said, what? I said, I know you're mad, you know, but I said, if it makes you feel any better, I got 20 minutes practice before. Even though it's my first time on dirt, I got 20 minutes practice, and it makes you feel better. He gets so mad. He said, you wait till that race starts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you were with dad for what, two years?

[Andy Petrie]

Three years. Three. 93, four and five.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you said, by the end of 94, when y' all had the championship, things were good. Why did you make a change? Why did y'? All. Why? What was happening?

[Andy Petrie]

We were on a roll, and it was not the right time to move on, but it was the only time this opportunity was going to come up for me. Leo Jackson had come and asked me. He wanted to retire. He wanted me to come back and buy the team, and he was going to make it possible for me to do that. I mean, how many opportunities am I going to get or somebody like me that can make that happen? And it was hard decision. You know, I've got the best job in the sport. You know, crew chief for Dale Earnhardt. We're winning races, champion. You know, we came really close to winning it in 95, and. But I had kind of checked the box, right? I won a championship as a crew chief, and this is here and it's now. And so I took it. I mean, it was real risky because I had to get sponsorship lined up, too, and there was a lot of risk involved. Right. But I thought, if I'm ever going to do it, this is the only time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When I saw you at the banquet after 94, there was something about you where if something like that wasn't there was. You weren't. That wasn't too big of a moment for you to become a team owner. Right. Like you say, go find that sponsorship man. I mean, I think about moving our Xfinity program to cup, and it's almost an impossibility how.

[Co-host 1]

Well, how.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know. But you bite. You bite a chunk out of that sandwich, like there's nothing to it, you know, or you're willing to go for it.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, it was. I look back on it now and think, wow, that was bold to even think he could pull it off because, you know, Skoll had been there for quite a few years, but they were kind of wanting to wind it out and not. Not, you know, return. And so I had to go and convince them to come to sponsor me, and we were going to do these things. We're going to change the team. We're going to, you know, had Robert Press. He was driving. You know, I promised him that we would find a top 10 caliber driver put in there. And it's just no slight to Robert. We're good friends today. But it wasn't going good then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

And so they were, you know, I was lucky enough that they, they bought in, you know. So we, we had a two year deal starting in 97, 98. And I got somehow convinced Schrader to leave Hendrick and come drive for me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So how did you tell dad?

[Andy Petrie]

Okay, so I told him early in 95. I gave him plenty of notice and told you know, your dad probably first then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you gave him the whole year to try to talk you out of it?

[Andy Petrie]

No, it was, it was a few months. It was quite a few months and he tried hard and we went to, you know, I went to the boat in the Bahamas spent with him and he always had drawings of dei. He was trying to, you know, come be a partner with me, you know, just you know, give you a part of this and you know, you can be over here and do this instead of that. And I said yeah, that's tempting, it is. I said, but I said nobody's a partner with you. I said I'd be working for you. I said I want to be my own man. I want to go out here and do this. And he understood at that point. He understood. And so we go on and we have a really good success. Even after I told him we win Martinsville I think was one of the races and we're in victory lane. He said I'll come up in here and get you a picture. He said probably it's going to be the last time for a while or something like that. And I said what about next week? Because we weren't finished with the season. Oh, oh yeah, yeah. And we end up winning actually another. We won the actual the last race of the year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Atlanta.

[Andy Petrie]

Atlanta.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he won Atlanta there for man

[Andy Petrie]

he was so good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember they gave away skiing ontiques to the winter and he, he has

[Andy Petrie]

a pile had a building full of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah and he would very stingy with those. Very stingy. Hey everybody, this is Dale Jr. And if you're looking for the latest dirty Mo merch, check out shop shop.dirtymomedia.com you'll find the newest apparel for all of our shows right here. That's shop.dirtymomedia.com have you ever wished that

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

so y' all have this, y' all have the split, right? And apparently it sounds like it was a reasonable, everybody was respectable. So much so that y' all form the RAD program. And a lot of people today don't really know what RAD was. Certainly everybody that, everybody that had to compete against RAD knew what RAD was. So talk about how RAD and what RAD is and how that developed.

[Andy Petrie]

Okay, so Richard Childress comes to me at one of the races and you know, we're all spending money on aerodevelopment and wind tone time and trying to use all the resources that GM provides and. But it's all these, you know, parallel programs and it was his idea, Richard Childress, to bring all three of our organizations together and just do it collectively. We'd have more resources. We could go hire somebody to kind of run it for us. I think he even came up with the, you know, as Richard, Andy and Dale is what RAD meant.

[Co-host 1]

Right.

[Andy Petrie]

And so we put that LLC together and, and we kind of, you know, forced all of the Arrow people in all three teams to work together. Boy, they didn't like it either. They didn't want to, you know, I can imagine. Oh they didn't. It was very reluctant buy in from all the teams and, and I was like, man, this is, we got to figure this out. We got to make it work. And I told my people, we are going to do this. We are, we're going to share every single thing. Don't hold anything back. And I said we're going to, we're going to move the needle on this. And so as, as they finally started buying in, it was real quick. It's like a wildfire just caught up. I was like, okay, so we were making big Time gains and the creativity of three different organizations piled into one was super successful.

[Co-host 1]

What was the first race where you guys knew that rad was something? It was a force to deal with?

[Andy Petrie]

I don't even remember.

[Co-host 1]

I mean, to be clear, this was like a restrictor plate because of the arrow.

[Andy Petrie]

This is a restrictor plate. Oh, no, it was all of them. It was down force, too. Yeah, we shot it all. And obviously it was really evident at the. At the super speedways. Right. Okay. You know, the DEI cars, you guys were winning everything. We actually won a couple, Won one race with APR at Talladega during that time. And, oh, with Bobby Hamilton, that was part of that. Yep. So it showed up a lot at those tracks, but. But it also showed up at the other ones. Yeah, we made a lot more downforce, too.

[Co-host 1]

I remember that Bobby Hamilton was like, laying on the ground after.

[Andy Petrie]

In victory lane. It never had caution. It was a hot day, and it went green the whole way. 500 miles, man.

[Co-host 1]

I had to pick him up just for his victory.

[Andy Petrie]

I got a picture of Joe Nemechek, who's driving my other car in that race. I think he finished. He finished in the top five or six. And he comes to victory lane to congratulate Bobby. And they're both just sitting down by the car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Andy Petrie]

Stand up.

[Co-host 1]

Right, right. So, yeah, you guys had him covered at the. At the restrictor plates. I mean, my goodness. I don't even know.

[Andy Petrie]

Was it.

[Co-host 1]

Was there a streak of wins?

[Andy Petrie]

Probably, yeah. I would have to look back. I mean, between all the ones you won and I guess Michael and how

[Co-host 1]

long did that last?

[Andy Petrie]

Steve park win any of those super speedway races?

[Co-host 1]

No, but.

[Andy Petrie]

So it's between you and Michael.

[Co-host 1]

But he won.

[Andy Petrie]

I mean, what made.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What. When did rad go away?

[Andy Petrie]

After I. So in 2003. After the 2002 season, I. I lost one of them as sponsors, actually, both cup sponsors, and ended up going and doing an Xfinity thing with Paul Menard and Menards for just a short time. So, I mean, I financially couldn't participate anymore, so I had to bow out. And it. It kind of after that just fell apart.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You know, so what was that like? I mean, you, you, you. So in 96, seven, you know, late 90s, your. Your cup teams, you know, performing functioning. Then the sponsor stuff, that stuff got harder and harder to find.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When it. At what point are you, like, starting to realize you got to make a change?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. So it was 2001 was our last season running two cars. We had Joe Nemechek and. And Bobby Hamilton. And like I say, Bobby won my first race as an owner at. I guess it was in April. And then we know that we're going to lose. We're not losing Square D. We're going to have them another year. So Bobby was going to run in 2002, but Joe, we couldn't find a sponsor for the 33, and so we were looking everywhere. We're trying. This is right after 9, 11, and things were just really in turmoil. We go to Rockingham next to the last race of the year, I think it was, and we end up winning there with Joe. And so you're thinking you're doing everything possible, right? We were on the brink really, at apr. We were on the brink of really making that step to being, you know, to be able to make it. And. And so we just weren't able to get over that hurdle. So I had to shut that team down going into 2002. So we only had one team. And that's just. It's really hard, man, when you're. When you're shrinking and, you know, your good people are finding other jobs and it's just hard to hold it together.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you. So what did you do? Like?

[Andy Petrie]

Well, we did the deal with Balman Art and an Xfinity kind of a combination under your banner. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In your shop.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep. We did all the engines and did the cars. We ran a handful of races. We won an ARCA race with him at Talladega and then did a few of those ARCA bush and then did a couple of cup races. And then in 2004, we signed a deal with Menards to run the full season. Actually, I think it was a five year deal. We signed and it just wasn't going well. We were. You know, John Bernard's a great guy. I love him, but he was making me spend a lot of money on things I didn't really want to spend money on. And it was kind of telling me how to run the team. And it was probably going to be the first year as an owner, I was going to lose money. And I found out I got wind through about half the year that. That he was going to take that and go to Di. You know, even though we had a five year deal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow.

[Andy Petrie]

And so I was, like, I said I was going to. If I finished the year, I was going to lose money for the first year ever. So I was like, okay, this is my sign. I need to shut it down and just, you know, do something else, because I didn't Want to. I'd made money every year. I just didn't want to put it all back into the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How hard is it to dismantle a program?

[Andy Petrie]

It's hard. It really is. I mean, it was, you know, it was just something in my life at that time. Everything. I tried everything to keep it going. Right. I kept running into dead ends everywhere. You know, my wife tells me one day, she says, well, yeah, maybe God doesn't want you doing that anymore. Yeah, you know, maybe he's got something else for you. He finally had to hit me over the head with the two before I got it. And I went ahead and just, you know, auctioned everything off. Sold everything.

[Co-host 1]

And what year was that?

[Andy Petrie]

That was in 04, the middle. Middle of the season. So for two and a half years, I just. I basically was retired. I did that retirement thing backwards. Right. I did it in 2004 and five and even six. And, you know, my daughter was playing softball. She's, you know, great. I mean, I had some of the best years of my life. Yeah. Doing that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you get into broadcasting.

[Andy Petrie]

So I'm out there on a tractor one day and come up to get something drinking. The guy that. You know the suspension rigs you've got? I think you guys have one or two here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So, yeah, I'm building those. You are, that's right. So you were building a pull down rig when. Pull down. When you were the only one.

[Andy Petrie]

We invented it. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You invented a pull down rig so that basically teams can take the car and put it into max travel. Like you'll only be able to produce out on the racetrack. This was really, really amazing creative stuff. When teams are coil binding or not wanting to coil bind, trying to create more travel, this was such a great way to figure out how to do that and to be able to do that so that you could hit the ground running when you got to the racetrack. And so you developed this machine. Did you make money doing that?

[Andy Petrie]

I made. I probably made. I mean, ended up. We sold 33 of those units. Every. Almost every major team has one. Yeah. And so I had guys building that in the shop. And yeah, I made. I mean, yeah, I did. Well, it was accidental. I really didn't want to get into it. It kind of took off. And so I kept a couple of guys working on it and it's kind

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

of doing weird, odd stuff like that.

[Andy Petrie]

Yep. So I come. I was like on tractor, come up there to get a Gatorade and walk up in there. Jeff Swan, working for me, said, hey, some Here's a note. Some lady called from espn. I don't know if she's selling magazines. I don't know what it is. Hands it to me with a number and I put stuck in my pocket, went back to work, end up calling number later. And it was Jill Frederickson, which is a coordinating producer at espn. You know, she was a big wheel and wanted to know if I wanted a shot at this. I'm like, wow, I never thought of it, but, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Had you ever done any tv, radio? Nothing. Nothing. Not one race.

[Andy Petrie]

Nope. Nothing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What is your. What do you. What do you do?

[Andy Petrie]

So they had me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How do you go practice?

[Andy Petrie]

They had me come to Charlotte for an audition. I think the first one I did was with Dave Burns.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah. And maybe it was Alan Bestwick. I can't remember who it was. We did a couple there. And you're an analyst. You'll see. You know, it's just a little easier to be in an analyst than to be a real TV guy. That's doing, you know, that's hard. But for what we do, we just talk about what we know and just, you know, let your personality show. You do a really good job at. I love watching you. So we did one of those there and then another one in Bristol, Connecticut, with. I think it's Marty Reed, maybe some other people. And so they offered me the job, you know, and I remember thinking the money was decent. Yeah, it was pretty good. But I thought, man, I got to go back now and go to work. But I think I really want to do this. And so my wife says, well, don't let the money worry you. You know, just go do it. So I did it.

[Co-host 1]

Did you find it? You know, putting you back in the racetrack, was that fulfilling to you? I mean, is that something you realized that you were missing?

[Andy Petrie]

Yeah, it is. I mean, it's. It's definitely. It's better. You know, you haven't experienced a time where you just don't even have. Because you kind of went out of the car into the booth, kind of all that. But I had that time where I wasn't even anywhere near the track. Yeah. So, yeah, it does help quite a change. It's going back and, you know, going in the garage and meeting and talking to the people, keeping up with the technology.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Andy Petrie]

You know, it was. I enjoyed all that a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, man, it's been a great conversation. I have looked forward to this chance to talk to you, and, I mean, I've known you forever. A lot. A lot. Like, a lot of these guests that we get in here. I've known you forever, but I don't know you. And this is such an amazing opportunity for us and everyone else that listens to this show.

[Andy Petrie]

I love this show. I learned so much too from these guys you've had on here. And I think it's an honor to be on it. So thank you for asking.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's an honor to have you here. Appreciate your time and you. I mean, just a great, great conversation. Great, great stuff. So again, thanks for, thanks for coming.

[Andy Petrie]

Thanks again for having me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, sir. Andy Petrie on the Dell Jr. Download. And this is brought to you by Arby's here in the Arby's studio. Arby's has the new meet in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. Arby's we have the meats. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook X and Tick Tock.

[Co-host 1]

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[Andy Petrie]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Andy Petrie]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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