Josh Snider: Pranks, Parties & Life As Dale Jr's Roommate

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download Episode: Josh Snider: Pranks, Parties & Life As Dale Jr's Roommate
Release Date: July 2, 2025
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Guest: Josh Snider
Duration: Approx. 88 minutes

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Introduction and Guest Background

In this heartfelt episode of The Dale Jr. Download, host Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes his longtime friend and original Dirty Mo Posse member, Josh Snider. Dale introduces Josh as a pivotal figure in his adult life, highlighting their deep-rooted friendship that spans decades. Dale emphasizes the genuine and organic nature of their bond, distinct from his typical motorsports-related connections.

Notable Quote:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [03:25]: "Josh is one of those friends for me. So sit back, enjoy it. And he's a hell of a guy. A lot of fun."

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Early Friendship and Roommates

Dale and Josh reminisce about their early days in the Dirty Mo Posse around 2004. They discuss memorable experiences, such as branding themselves with the DMP logo using a steak brander during a spirited night after consuming Arby's Angus cheesesteak. This prank not only solidified their camaraderie but also led to memorable battles with their friend Topher.

Notable Quote:

Josh Snider [05:13]: "Well, maybe we practice on the wooden chair first."

The conversation delves into their time living together in a double-wide trailer, affectionately nicknamed "Camp Chaos," where they threw epic parties and shared countless adventures. Their living arrangement became the backdrop for numerous pranks and memorable events, including hosting large gatherings and dealing with the unpredictable antics of Dale Jr.'s father, "Punchy."

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Epic Pranks and Their Consequences

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to recounting the series of pranks that defined their friendship. Josh vividly describes the infamous cricket prank, where Dale unleashed 2,000 crickets in his bedroom, leading to chaos and a prolonged infestation.

Notable Quote:

Josh Snider [35:21]: "I had to get some professional help over there to get rid of them."

Other pranks include flooding Topher's room with water and flour, resulting in damaged property and tense confrontations. These mischievous acts, while causing temporary strife, ultimately strengthened their bond and provided countless stories to laugh about.

Notable Quote:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [30:55]: "We went into Topher's bedroom. It's like three in the morning. We threw a gallon of water on him and a pound of flour."

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Life Beyond the Double Wide

As time progressed, both Dale and Josh transitioned from their wild college days to more stable lives. Josh moved away to attend college at UNC Charlotte and later embarked on a career in PR for NASCAR before transitioning into RV sales. This shift marked a new chapter in their friendship, as they navigated adult responsibilities while maintaining their close bond.

Notable Quote:

Josh Snider [75:15]: "It's really a cool place to live. We've had some ups and downs since living here."

Dale reflects on these changes, expressing pride in Josh's accomplishments and the steadfastness of their friendship despite geographical distances.

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Reflections on Friendship and Personal Growth

Towards the episode's conclusion, Dale and Josh engage in a deep conversation about the importance of friendship, personal growth, and the transitions from youthful adventures to family life. Dale expresses profound gratitude for Josh's unwavering support during challenging times, highlighting the invaluable nature of their relationship.

Notable Quote:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [81:34]: "I would do anything in the world for you because of what you've done for me and how you've made my life better."

Josh shares his personal journey, including overcoming a bout with cancer, which deepened his faith and reinforced his commitment to being a devoted family man. He acknowledges the lasting impact Dale has had on his life, emphasizing the mutual support that has defined their friendship.

Notable Quote:

Josh Snider [82:30]: "I want to be that guy for my son and my daughter and be a good husband."

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Final Thoughts and Appreciation

In his closing remarks, Dale reinforces the episode's central theme of enduring friendship. He commends Josh for his generosity, kindness, and the positive influence he has had on his life. Dale underscores the rarity of such genuine friendships, especially those formed outside the typical motorsports circle, and celebrates the lasting legacy of their shared experiences.

Notable Quote:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [84:44]: "We have been friends for a really long time and, man, when I needed a friend, you were always there."

Josh reciprocates Dale's sentiments, expressing gratitude for the mutual support and the many memories they've created together. The episode concludes with a reaffirmation of their unbreakable bond, leaving listeners with a heartfelt testament to the power of true friendship.

Notable Quote:

Josh Snider [86:45]: "We are that person for each other. I love you, bud."

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Conclusion

This episode of The Dale Jr. Download offers an intimate glimpse into the deep friendship between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Josh Snider. Through stories of pranks, shared living spaces, and personal growth, listeners are treated to a narrative that celebrates genuine connections beyond the limelight of NASCAR. The heartfelt exchanges and nostalgic recounting of their adventures underscore the enduring nature of their bond, providing inspiration and warmth to the audience.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, Dale. Yo.

[Josh Schneider]

What are we doing for lunch today? I'm getting kind of hungry.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I'm already on it. It's actually going to be delivered soon. Arby's Angus cheesesteak with a side of curly fries is on the way. It's the ultimate meat and cheese combination for steak lovers like you and me. It's actually the perfect balance of quarter pound of Angus steak, melted American cheese fire roasted peppers and onions with a nice garlic spread to tie it all together. It's a must try. That's going to be our lunch sandwich.

[Josh Schneider]

Sounds delicious. But there's one thing I've learned is if you're talking about food, I got to trust you on this. You've never failed me yet.

[C]

I have not? No. You've nailed it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, there you go, man. This sandwich has it all. When I first tried this, I was at the shop checking on the race cars and stuff, seeing if the guys need anything. We ordered up some Arby's, and when this Angus cheesesteak arrived, I was blown away by how much steak is actually on this thing. Definitely big enough to satisfy your hunger. Tastes like a true American classic. Everybody check out your nearest Arby's today to try this Angus cheesesteak. And if you want it delivered like we do, use code dale for $0 delivery when you order through the Arby's app. That's code D A L E on the app, available for a limited time at participating U.S. locations. While supplies last, get the most out.

[C]

Of your vehicle with GM genuine parts and Acdelco original equipment. The only parts designed, engineered, tested, and backed by General Motors. Whether or not you drive a GM vehicle, you can find your perfect fit for most makes and models and choose from three tiers of parts, including GM OE or gold and silver aftermarket parts. Visit gmparts.com for more information. It was just game on. Yeah, we were all just pranking each other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The most notable prank that I believe are the 2000 crickets that I turned loose in your bedroom.

[C]

And I walk in and open up my room, and there's so many of them, it looked like the room, the floor was moving.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We went into Topher's bedroom. It's like three in the morning. We threw a gallon of water on him and a pound of flour.

[C]

Yes, and he lives straight up. What the hell? Running.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, everybody, so I got a unique guest for today's show. Josh Schneider's my buddy, my friend. We've been pals for all of My adult life. He was on briefly in some moments of the Earnhardt documentary as a guest being interviewed, and I thought it'd be a good time to bring him on and let you get to know him. Awesome guy. You ever have one of those friends that you feel like you've experienced everything with that has made your life better, that you want to introduce everybody to that you want to celebrate? Well, Josh is one of those friends for me. So sit back, enjoy it. And he's a. He's a hell of a guy. A lot of fun. All right, so it's great to have Josh here on the Dale Jr. Download. And, Josh, I'm excited to talk to you. One of my best friends from all of my adult life, at least. And if you haven't seen the Dale the Earnhardt documentary on Prime, Josh has a couple of moments in there where he did a long interview for the folks for that documentary, and they used a little bit about what you said. But thanks for doing this, Josh. Thanks for being here.

[C]

Hey, man, thanks for having me. It's cool to catch up with you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's been a while. We don't see each other these days as often because you live in the middle of the country and I live on the East Coast. You moved away from the Carolinas. We'll get into that later. But let's talk about. So Josh is part of the original Dirty Mo Posse. And we. We had a steak brander that somebody gave me. Now, everybody that's listening to this interview, listen, these times are different today. Take yourself back to 2004. Ish.

[C]

Yeah. 0405 is when we did that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, Things were a little crazier back then. We were, we were younger and, and, and dumber. And somebody gave us a steak brander to brand steaks with the DMP logo on. It's just letters. Dmp. That's all it said. Not real. Not a real designed logo. But we were drunk one night and thought, let's brand our. Our arms. Dmp. We. We are proud of being part of the Dirty Mo Posse. This, this group of friends. And so we'll brand ourselves. Josh, you were the first person to get branded. You were the one who said, I'll go first.

[C]

I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

None of us. We were going to heat this thing up with a torch. A little. A little torch. We. We heated it up cherry red. Well, you were like. You're like, go for it.

[C]

Well, maybe we practice on the wooden chair first.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, we did.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, well, this is probably, what, three or four in the morning.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[C]

And so, you know, nothing good ever happens after 2am But Brandon does. But. So I'm like, let's try it on the. And it didn't seem to really bother the chair that bad. So I'm like, okay, but what so bad is. I still have it. But the first one was a blob. I don't know if you can. Yes, a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[C]

Remember, Sunny was like, I don't know if we got the D right. I don't know. So we did it again. Oh. And it scabbed up so bad that I had to go to the doctor. Well, I was at a doctor for, like, a physical because it was around. It was December, so January. You know, you go to your doctor for your annual physical. And pus was leaking through my shirt through the thing. And he's like, what's up with your arm? And I didn't want to tell him. And during the physical, you know, they have you, like, raise your arms up and stuff. Where I couldn't raise my arm up. I was like, this. So he's like, what did you do? And he's like, oh, my gosh, this could be infected. Blah, blah, blah, and flipped out. I'm like, man, I thought it'd be better than getting a tattoo.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Golly.

[C]

Then we. Then we went back and had to get it done again because I wanted to be done right since all my.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You wanted it to look right. Yeah. So we did a second one below that.

[C]

We did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We did. Yeah.

[C]

I mean, and it was. That didn't hurt as bad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember that we did it right. And it stung bad. Right. It hurt like you would imagine initially, but then, like, after about a minute, it was fine. It didn't hurt at all. And then, like, days later, when it scabbed up, you couldn't move it. Like, it hurt. Even the thought of moving it hurt. And it. And you had to. And that was when it was most painful. Like a week, two weeks, three weeks later. Because you had no idea how many people smack you on the arm. Hey, buddy, what's happening, man? Jesus Christ. And they're like, why were you reacting so, wow, you know, I just patted you on arm. Why did you. And you're like. You were almost embarrassed to be like, yeah, I got this brand on my arm. You were like, I didn't want to tell. I was kind of like, people are going to think we're nuts. I'm not going to tell anybody I did this, but God almighty, it hurt.

[C]

It hurt. Well, I got slapped down the arm by like my boss man. Like, yeah, I just got right back to work, went out, dude, and I showed him. And I think I, like, got a sign of respect from him. Oh, yeah. Wow. How tough are you? I'm like, pretty damn tough, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So let's go back to how we met. Let's.

[C]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's relive that night. I was racing in the Xfinity series. I reckon this is 98 or so, like 97.

[C]

Because he hadn't started in an AC Delco car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hadn't been full time yet.

[C]

Nah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I'm. I got. I'm coming home from a race. We used to race around noon, 1 o' clock. So our races would be done at 3 or 4 o' clock and I would be able to get home. It'd still be six, seven o' clock. You can go do something on a Saturday night. And I had a couple of friends, Eric Thompson and Brian Thompson. They were brothers and they lived at home with their parents. And we were all pretty young back then, but they were having a party and basically it was just a bunch of people standing around in the driveway drinking beer and a little music playing. But I didn't know really anybody over there but Eric and Brian Thompson. And we call Brian Long Legs. He's a really tall dude. And I've been friends with these guys since, I mean, probably the. The late 80s. I remember seeing them at the racetrack and stuff. But we've been friends a long time. And so I go over there and I'm. I don't know anybody, but they introduced me to you and. And we ended up hanging out the rest of that night. So, like, how did all that happen?

[C]

Well, I mean, you know the Wiggins Road Boys, I kind of live near them. D. Neal, Eric Thompson and all them while went to school together and I had just left. I went to college at Wingate is right down the road, but didn't really go too well. So I moved back home and of course I kind of picked back up with D. Neal and Eric Thompson. Long legs. This is a good group of guys, man. Really good. They're like, come on over, man, we're hanging out, blah, blah, blah. I think it was. I can't remember what night it was. Went over there. Kind of like you. I knew a lot of people from high school but hadn't seen them in a while, so kind of just started hanging out with you. And then you started doing the spoonerism stuff. You remember that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[C]

I thought that was hysterical. Tig bitties and all that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So the spoonerism came from. If people will remember Dr. People will remember Dr. Jerry Punch. And he had a nephew named Kelly Punch. And me and him were freaking great friends. And he. He had spoonerisms is what he called them. Basically you take. Take the first letter of each word and you flip it and so like Bucky fuddy or something like. You know, stuff like that. And so we did. And it makes you. You know, you hear it and you're like what? Oh you know. And it's just this kind of something you do when you're drinking beer with guys. But yeah. I started doing the spinnerisms and that was. You thought that was funny as hell.

[C]

It was hilarious. And we went down and you gotta go back to the rock quarry back there. We all hung out. Just. I was just a good time and Yeah. I don't know. I was kind of back from school. You wasn't. You were kind of going ease into your bush career. So you had some time off too. A little.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And we just kind of came buds and you know, Moore's Will Fashion. Everybody's kind of cool with everyone. I thought it was pretty badass. You had a double wide and you have some awesome concerts there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

Full fledged band. This guy's badass. This is awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

You know mom and grandmother getting removed. Well sent home from college.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And still had that little party stage in me had a lot we.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That night at the Eric Thompson and Brian's house. Me and you were kind of flirting with the same girl.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We ended up kind of like hanging around together because we were both talk kind of flirting with that girl. But eventually me and you became friends and forgot like the girl. Forgot about the girl and like is all about palling around with you the rest of the night. Yeah.

[C]

She was kind of drinking beer by the campfire by herself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So we. We ended up palling around. I mean it was like instantaneous man. From that day forward I think we. We. We start. We were hanging out every week.

[C]

We were. Man. It was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And eventually. Eventually you moved in to the double wide. As a. So I had Carrie living with me. We lived together in the trailer. Carrie got engaged and moved out. And then you came in as a. As a roommate.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To rent and so we used to throw some massive parties at the double wide trailer. And we had a ton of fun hanging out and being roommates guy and.

[C]

A lot of fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm getting a bit ahead of ourselves. You. When we were friends you went off to UNC Charlotte.

[C]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And Was going to school there?

[C]

Yes. Well, actually I went there after I moved out. Moved out of your place to go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, really?

[C]

Yeah, I was at cpcc, a community college, because like I say, had a little trouble at wing it and I couldn't get what happened. Ah, just being a kid.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah, I don't really want to go into that one, but. But you know, I mean, college is tough. You're away from your parents for the first time. But anyway, so I was going to cpcc and you and I became buddies and you're like, hey man, my brother moved out and my dad ain't paying me much money and I can't afford rent. I mean, you want to move in? And I'm like, heck yeah. Because I mean, we were having camp chaos was epic parties.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's what we used to call. Yeah, that's what you used to call the trailer Camp Chaos.

[C]

I mean, and the times we had. And it was just. We lived out in the country and it really wasn't that far away from school. And then I got a job at Simpson Race Products. Remember that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[C]

I worked there for a little bit and I don't know, it was kind of like I got to redeem back in my college days again. It got me back from flowing and I wasn't just living at home and it was just a great. It was a great time. We had so much fun. I mean, a lot of epic parties, your dad getting mad cause the cigarette butts on the ground and stuff like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Talk about the time. I guess the first time you ever remember meeting dad.

[C]

Oh, scared the out of me. We talking about Punchy. You were testing that car in Charlotte and. And I. We've been friends for a couple months and I hadn't met your father yet, but obviously I knew who your dad was and. Pretty intimidating guy. Yep. But I mean, you become my buddy and it was just your friend's father didn't think much of it, but I mean, he was a very big deal. Well, see, anyway, I never imagined meeting first would go down like this. So we. I go have this old Honda and I drive that Honda to that test from cpcc. And you wad the car up and we go back to the double whack. And Punchy was with you and you were really just, this is it. This sucks. I'm. I'm done. I'm done. They put. They made. They made T shirts for this car and I just wrecked it. I mean, that's what he kept saying. I'm like, man, they'll Send. They'll send the T shirts to third world country. You'll be all right, buddy. And I was getting ready to leave because I had to go somewhere, and my shoes were kind of by the front door. And next thing, I hear this horn is blaring. And, I mean, next thing I know, that back door flew up. Get the off my property. I'm like, oh, I just ran out the front of me. He looked like 10ft tall, and he was kind of going toward Punchy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[C]

He was on the other side of the ring. Well, is this where Punchy was sitting at the back door? You know what I mean? He didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

Ain't like he was going to attack. He was. His mad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And I got the heck out of there and left my shoes. And I didn't know I left my shoes until I turned left and looked down at my feet, and I'm like, punch, I'm driving. No shoes on. Damn. I ain't going back to get them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Punchy jumped in your car?

[C]

Yeah, Punchy jumped in my car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where were y' all going?

[C]

Jumped in my car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he was. He was with me, and he was so scared, he just hopped in your car. Like, get me out of here.

[C]

Where you want me to take you? Not back there. And so I took him. I think his brother had a race shop or something. Took him over there. But a couple hours later, you called me up. But I mentioned that to your dad one time. I told him, really, the most scared I've ever been in my life. He like, well, you remember that day we moved? It might be further down the road. I helped you move.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

Double wide. And I kind of whole day with your dad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And we were doing something. I think we were in the old Elvis room and we're putting the bed together. And something came up about being scared. I'm like, yeah, the top five scared us forever. Ben's. Whenever you come that trailer and cussed us out and kicked us out that one day. And he's like, I was pissed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And then he just laughed. And then we just changed the subject. He kept talking about his pizza oven, too. But I told him, and he laughed pretty hard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The pizza oven.

[C]

But he was always so cool to me after that. I'm glad I got my Dale senior cousin out. But what a cool guy to me after, man. He had always. I mean, he would do some crazy stuff. Remember when the boys. I was living there in the double wide and you were gone. There's a couple different stories, but I guess we had had a party the weekend before and he was obviously gone. And so people did some donuts out pasture. And he's like, who up my field? You know what I mean? And I'm like. And I didn't want to rat him out or nothing. And kept on. He goes, I think I know who it is. Well, the Guy worked for MB2 Motorsports. He called MV2 Motorsports. And I got home the next day and those boys are in the field fixing what they tore up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah. And then he told me then, I don't like cigarettes sticking being out here. So if you can pick up cigarettes. Butts. And he was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, really? Damn.

[C]

And then another good story. Remember you bought. Had that 69 Impala?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And he started making blue money.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The blue car. I still have it.

[C]

You do?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh, man. Remember he threatened to knock the carport down because he couldn't get his.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Couldn't get his tractor? Yeah. We had put. We bought what, just a basic carport, cheap. Just single cover, no sides. They nail it into the ground, right? We're like, hey, you just put it right here. This is where we park. They nail that thing down in the ground. Dad comes through there and he's trying to get. So there's a field behind the double wide. And he's trying to get to that field to mow it. And he's like, I'm gonna tear this damn thing down. Y' all better move it. Better call him up and have him move it. Now I'm gonna tear it down with my tractor. And so we had to have him come over, and we're like, can you take the carport and move it over three foot? And they're like, the hell. I'm like, you have no idea.

[C]

You want to see double wide? Dale mad. You know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me and you had a big screen tube TV that I'd gotten from my dad. This thing was a late 80s, late late 80s, mid-80s. We had. It was broken when we got it. We took it to get. To get it fixed, and a man fixed it, and that's what we watched TV on. And me and you used to watch reruns of Dallas with JR Ewing every day we'd sit down because it was on TNN or tnt. I'm sorry. Yeah, something like that. And we. We, we. I don't know, for whatever reason, we both like to watch it. But I got. I got started playing, started getting Amy into Dallas. We've been watching the first season, but we. I made some money. So I sat down and I Did like an autograph deal or something and got about $2,000 or something like that. And I was like, josh, let's go pay our power bill. Because we were a couple months behind on our power bill.

[C]

That would happen from time to time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And so we physically go over to. To where you would pay this power bill in this little strip mall. And when we're. We. We walk up to the counter, we're proud, we're gonna put this money down, we're gonna pay the bill. We're gonna pay all the past month's bills. We're gonna be like, hey, y' all. We're square. And we turn around to leave, and we see this giant, like, entertainment set. It's a big cabinet, shelving, stereos, tv, brand new flat screen tv. And we had. And on this. It had a big, big sticker price tag on it. And it was exactly the amount of money we had left after we paid our power bill. And you looked at me and I looked at you, and we were like, we're gonna get this. We deserve this. Deserve it. Remember buying that and taking it home, putting it together?

[C]

I mean, we had the. It was so damn big in this double wide trailer, like, took up half the living room.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hell, yeah.

[C]

But. I mean, but you just started making a little bit of money. I mean, you were starting to get pretty big. I think you'd won in Texas already, or you're. You're close to. I think you had a couple good rounds at Vegas or something, and your autograph fee went up, I guess. And I just remember us getting there. I'm like, holy, he's made it. We got this big tv. He has freaking made it, buddy. Watch Dallas in style. I mean, and you had these huge speakers and all that stuff. That was. That was a cool moment.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hell, yeah. Well, it was awesome because our.

[C]

Man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was awesome because our house parties got better, because we had a better stereo system.

[C]

It was like we were more legit. You know what I mean? Like, we took our game to another level with that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So I. I remember when we would have parties over to double Wide. I remember one night, so I had a stereo. I had, like, a makeshift stereo system in my. In this gooseneck trailer that I would take my late model to the racetrack with, and I was still racing some late model stuff in the 97 season or so. When we kind of got to hanging out, I would drag that. I would pull that trailer over to the double wide, and that was our outdoor stereo system. Oh, yeah. And we would put all the beer coolers in the trailer. And if you wanted a beer, you went over to the gooseneck trailer or whatever, right? And so I remember that being, you know, we kind of. I remember too, another time that was one thing we did to.

[C]

To kind of very well coordinated. We could coordinate a party pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The front door got tore up. The back, actually, is the back door. The back door between when me and Carrie lived there and when you moved in, the back door was destroyed.

[C]

We had to sling the dam.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'd lost my keys multiple times, had to break in. So, I mean, this door was destroyed. You moved in. And we're like, man, let's fix that back door. So me and you, we found a mobile home sort of service place, and we went to get a door. And while we're paying for the door, they have this used burnt orange couch. And I was like, we ought to get that couch and put it on the front porch. And so we put a couch on the front porch. That thing lasted about a month before it started sticking up.

[C]

Like, I remember she asked, why is that couch up there, man? We're trying to get some porch furniture. She goes, you know, indoor port, indoor couch. I'm like, figure it out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hell yeah.

[C]

It was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was comfortable as long as it wasn't wet.

[C]

You remember you won the Texas Bush Series race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[C]

It was your first win. And for some reason, this. Everybody came to the double wide. After you won that race. You wasn't home yet. I think you stayed the next day with your dad and your dad brought you home. But that's a funny story too. But everybody came over. For some reason, somebody took the cushions off of and said, it's a hide a bed. And they pulled it out and it was this rat all over it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, no.

[C]

Yeah. So it didn't last too much longer after that. I think I thought I told you that. But anyway, Kelly come over and she was wanting to paint like some signs like we need, because we knew you were gonna be coming home the next night with you, your dad. And she's like, we gotta do something big. And so we got some bed sheets. We just spray, like, stupid stuff. I think one said, junior lost his virginity in Texas. You know what I mean? He was raised for this stupid stuff. And so we were over there doing that. For some reason, somebody pulled the hide of bed sofa. And it was hilarious.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was a great moment. I remember pulling. Dad is bringing me home. I'm riding in the car with him and Teresa, and we pull into the driveway. It's this long driveway up to this double wide trailer. And hanging in the pine trees facing us as we're pulling up is those bed sheets. There were like two or three bed sheets that said stuff on them. You could read it easily. And I'm sitting there and I'm. I'm like, holy, there's a party. People like, how's dad gonna react to this? You know, they got the bed sheets. I didn't know Kelly did that. I thought y' all. You know, all my buddies did that idea.

[C]

I'm like, that's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

If I'd have known it was Kelly, I'd have been fine. Because I thought, you know, dad, Kelly did this. But I'm like, oh, he might raise hell at my buddies for doing all this. But he was cool as hell. He was like, go have fun. He's like, go have fun.

[C]

Enjoy it even. I had your Uncle Danny came over. We called Tony junior And the boys came and, yeah, I think, you know, of course, two beer was there and. But he was just in a good mood, man. I mean, he pulled out like an hors d' oeuvre tray here. Got some leftovers here. You guys party on. Go big.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Hey, tj, you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrick Automotive Group.

[C]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[C]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[C]

Okay, I definitely did not see that coming. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Josh Schneider]

What are we doing for lunch today? I'm getting kind of hungry.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I'm already on it. It's actually going to be delivered soon. Arby's Angus cheesesteak with a side of curly fries is on the way. It's the ultimate meat and cheese combination for steak lovers like you and me. It's actually the perfect balance of quarter pound of Angus steak, melted American cheese fire, roasted peppers and onions with a nice garlic spread to tie it all together. It's a must try. That's gonna be our lunch sandwich.

[Josh Schneider]

Sounds delicious. But there's one thing I've learned is if you're talking about food, I gotta trust you on this. You've never failed me yet.

[C]

I have not?

[Josh Schneider]

No, you've nailed it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, there you go, man. This sandwich has it all. When I first tried this, I was at the shop checking on the race cars and stuff, seeing if the guys need anything. We ordered up some Arby's. And when this Angus cheesesteak arrived, I was blown away by how much steak is actually on this thing. Definitely big enough to satisfy your hunger. Tastes like a true American classic. Everybody check out your nearest Arby's today to try this Angus cheesesteak. And if you want it delivered like we do, use code dale for $0delivery when you order through the Arby's app. That's code D A L E on the app, available for a limited time at participating U.S. locations while supplies last. Talk about probably one of the biggest pranks that we ever pulled on each other. We pulled a lot of pranks over the years. The most notable prank that I believe are the 2000 crickets that I turned loose in your bedroom. I don't know why I needed to do this. I don't know what you had done that made me think that this was what I needed to do. Do you remember what Provoked. Provoked?

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Putting the crickets. Oh, was it the pregnancy test? Well, it started out what happened first.

[C]

With the column with a lot of different pranks. Okay. Topher.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I remember. So we went into Topher's bedroom. It's like three in the morning. He lived in this house up on the front of the street. We break into his house, somehow we threw a gallon of water on him and a pound of flour.

[C]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And just ruined his bed. And everything was just mucking nasty.

[C]

We broke into his room and you lift straight up. What the hell? We took off running. And your mom, man, she chewed us out so bad. And then we got Sean Brawley.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We did the same thing to Sean at his house.

[C]

And he was mad cause we.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It messes up the bedroom. Bad.

[C]

Oh, it messes it up bad. I don't know why. And then it was just game on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

We were all just pranking each other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's right.

[C]

I mean, you own the double wide. I mean, you own that trailer that I lived in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think.

[C]

Well, it's more like a triple wide. It was a modular home, Concord, single wide, merged into one. But I'm like, surely he won't do nothing too bad to his house.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was thinking that I would put the crickets in there, and you wouldn't see them until you turn the lights out, and they would start making their noise. Now, I don't know if that's how that went down. So did you recognize that you had was.

[C]

We were doing. We were doing the XM radio show at that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And that's another thing, people. I even forget about this. You and I together hosted an XM radio show on nascar on XM or somewhere on xm for a whole year.

[C]

Three years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Three years.

[C]

We did it for three. Holy. And we didn't know what the hell we were doing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had Burt Reynolds as a guest. We had Jay Z.

[C]

Remember when you did the video for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jay Z, he came on as a guest.

[C]

He came on as a guest because what the hell. And I didn't know what the hell I was doing, man. And I'm like, I'm sitting here interviewing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jay Z. Burt Reynolds was a cool one.

[C]

Oh, Burt Reynolds. What was he.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Because we were both big Burt Reynolds smoking. The Bandit fans, all that.

[C]

It was the 30th anniversary of Smokey and the Bandit. That's why he was on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God.

[C]

And they had. I remember they brought one, and that was probably the. I was nervous on that one. That was tough because we didn't really.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Steve Smith from the Panthers, when he was in his prime, he came into studio to do it.

[C]

Mr. Helton came in, Mr. Hendrick. Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had nothing. We didn't know what the hell we were doing back then.

[C]

Jimmy was doing one with Marty Smith, I think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. He's still doing one with Marty Smith. Doing a podcast now.

[C]

They are. And, yeah. You're talking about. Marty's just so damn smooth. I'm like, I'm nowhere near Marty's level. What else he be doing the show with him for?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had fun.

[C]

Loved it, man. We had a blast.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So anyways, we're doing the show and the crickets.

[C]

Oh, yeah. So I remember some whispering going on about it because Tor and Hovis come running up, and we did it in this room. Above your late model shop with the basketball. And we had. You actually stayed.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The dirty dome.

[C]

The dirty dome. Yeah. And so I knew something was going on here. Whispering. You were just like, laughing. I'm like, what did y' all do? And meanwhile, poor Kenny Wallace is sitting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There, you know, like, Kenny Wallace, the.

[C]

Guest headphones off and run straight up to my house because it was probably what, four or five hundred yards away.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And everybody's behind me. And I walk in and opened up my room, and there's so many of them. It looked like the room, the floor was moving with the crickets. I'm like, what the. What did y' all do? Holy. Like the place is already a hole. Cuz we tore that triple wide up, man. It had golf holes in it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We used to hit golf balls into the wall and drive them through the plow. Through the. Through the damn Sheetrock. Oh, my God, we get in so much trouble for that.

[C]

We. Oh, Kelly just stayed pissed. Yeah, Kelly. Y' all don't respect this stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We. We didn't at all.

[C]

She was always on our ass. Yes. When you said Talladega.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

You come home that night and you were happy because you wouldn't be like, I might be in some trouble on this one. You know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[C]

And we would always be buzzed up, ready for you to come home because it was Sunday night and your adrenaline was still going. We had great Sunday night parties. And for some reason, there was a dartboard there and it was probably me. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think I started chipping balls at the bottom. Yeah.

[C]

And it just went to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

From there turned into like full on.

[C]

Drivers, full on drive. Let's see if we can hit it to the other side.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Can you send it through the wall? Can it go through the actual wall all the way? Yeah. So you. How long did the crickets stay there?

[C]

That was tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let me ask you this. When you turn the light out to go to sleep, did the crickets. Oh, it's chirping. Sounds.

[C]

Dating a girl at the time, she wouldn't come over and stay. She was like, you already have places already. I ain't gonna be over there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God.

[C]

So it's. I think I talked to Sonny and we had to get some professional help over there to get rid of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, man.

[C]

I mean, it went on for a couple weeks because they. They.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Those shop back didn't do the trick.

[C]

Huh?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They had butt.

[C]

They. They lay eggs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, God, gross. Yeah.

[C]

And they. They. They multiply pretty fast, son's. Like, this could be a serious problem. I'm like, oh, my God. I don't know why he would do this to his own house, you know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So the. The ultimate end of the pranking was a single prank pulled by Topher Christopher Allen. God, this is good. This ended all the pranks. I come home, and I had this girl that I was dating. She's sitting on the couch. She's just. Just normal, you know? Come home, I run upstairs to, you know, throw my bag in the bedroom or do something, and I'll. You go to bathroom, use the bathroom. Come out of the bathroom, and I see something on the counter, and it's a. I go over there, and I'm like, I don't know what I'm looking at. But eventually, I mean, in just a second or two, I'm like, this is a damn pregnancy test. And it's. I'm like. And I read it, and it's positive. And I was like, holy. And I'm like, she's pregnant. Why would she just tell me? So I go downstairs, and I'm like, why don't you just tell me that? This. You know, this ain't how you. This ain't how I find out, right? And she sat there, and she didn't really have. She knew that this prank was happening, but she didn't, like, have a. She didn't have, like, a plan. And so in, like, two minutes, she's finally like, you just need to go ask your friends. And I was like, that's weird. Why would I need to talk to my friends about this? Because I still think she's pregnant.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And she's like, you just need to go ask your friends. You need to go ask Christopher. You need to go ask Topher. I'm like, weird. And so I go to Topher, and he's like, yeah, I had a friend of mine, his wife's pregnant. I had her give me the positive test so I could plant it in your bathroom. And I was like, that was diabolical, man.

[C]

I mean, because.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God, that was diabolical. I have no idea.

[C]

About a week before he was going to do it. Meanwhile, I'm dealing with this damn cricket problem.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You didn't talk him out of it. That's so mean.

[C]

No, I couldn't, because you just lit 2, 000 crickets in my dad. I was encouraging. At this point, I was ready to go put a sign up who's pregnant and willing to pee on a stick. He was working at. He was working for you. At the time, he was working at jrm?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, well, yeah, probably.

[C]

And it was a guy that worked with you guys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh.

[C]

And I can't remember what team Topher worked on, but what car number. I think it was the car chief or something. His wife was pregnant.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And I might do it, do it, do it. And Hovis was all in on it. And, you know, Brawley knew about it a little bit. Brawley still pissed because we really screwed his room up. I think we put. We did 2 pounds of flour and about 5 gallons of water on him. He really got it bad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was a bunch of us. I remember that night, we.

[C]

We were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, it was three o' clock in the morning. Been drinking beer all day. We go in there, we had multiple buckets. We had multiple bags of flour. We just destroyed his room. And I actually ran into the closet, and the light comes on, and I'm like, I'm in the closet and everyone else is gone. Y' all have left the house.

[C]

Damn door. I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I'm. Well, I went the wrong way. And I'm. I'm, like, screwed now. I'm trapped. And I'm like, he's really gonna beat my ass. Like, he might. He might swing. This is my buddy. This is my buddy. But I'm like, he might swing on me on this. And so I had to, like, listen to him stomp around in that room cussing these. Sunday, I'll get these Auger. And he goes out of the room, and I made a beeline for it to the door. And he saw me, and he was hollering or something at me. Cussing at me or something, man. But it's close. I almost got. I was almost in a fight.

[C]

Oh, yeah. I mean, it would have been a fight to the end because he was mad. I mean, he came out on the front porch. Cause he ran around the back porch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And I'm like, where's.

[C]

Oh, yeah, Junior. Where's Junior? Where's Junior? I'm laying down in the field, trying to act like I'm freaking in the army or something, you know, crawling. Like I said, we were pretty hammered at the time. And Sean's just yelling. I. I can't believe you guys did this. I gotta work tomorrow. Oh. Next thing you know, he's on the front porches cussing at us. I know y' all are out there. Then I see Junior coming around the houses, booking, booking. But it was. Oh, he was so mad at us, Joan. Didn't really get us back, though.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, he never did he never. We never.

[C]

But the pregnancy test, the crickets.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't prank anyone. Who. I was worried about the re. Repercussions. That's why we never pranked TJ because TJ Would be diabolical. Now I misread Topher. I didn't see that one coming. If I'd have known Topher was going to prank me back with that pregnancy test, I probably would have not pranked him in the first place. But T.J. was another one. I don't think we ever really did. Didn't want to mess around with. No, you didn't want to mess him. Yes, that's right.

[C]

Speaking of a great story, you remember the time went and picked him up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, my God.

[C]

They jacked up on mountain.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

We have to go pick TJ up. And it was December 2001.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This was the day after Christmas. We.

[C]

It was the first Christmas without your dad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I've known T. Yep. I've known TJ for a little while. I've. I've been kind of helping him with some advice to race. And we become friends. We're racing online. He wants to move down. He's going to move in with D. Neil.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They're going to be roommates. D. Neil's happy with this. This is going to be good. We're all. We're. We're going to drive up there to help him move.

[C]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so we're in a. We're in a white.

[C]

Where did you get the dualie from?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't. From probably dei, but it's a white crew cab.

[C]

Dually white. It was a new one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was me and you, D. Neil and Ben Gable. Ben Gable, Yeah. And we drove. We drove to Buffalo the day after Christmas. There was a compass in the mirror or whatever right above the mirror, and it was new.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And Listen, this is 2001.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, there weren't any. We didn't have like maps on our phones. And basically we're driving up 85 and we're at Salisbury. We're like 40 minutes into this drive to Buffalo, New York. And I said to y' all, I said, man, I don't know. I don't think I want to do this whole damn trip on the interstate. What do you say we do two lane roads all the way to Buffalo? And y' all were like, yeah, all right. You know, a little bit of hesitation. So we got off the damn interstate just past Salisbury, and we never touched another damn interstate all the way to Buffalo.

[C]

Well, we ended up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had to get On Interstate every now and then.

[C]

But we ended up in Washington dc.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So we followed the compass.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so we're like, just go north, north, north, north. And, yeah, we'd look at signs and stuff, and we would. We would stop every hour. So we're listening to the CD collection, right. So we're playing CDs. Everybody's playing their songs. But at air, at the top of the hour, we would play this in your song. Oh, yeah. Only to only time.

[C]

Who can say.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We put that in and would play it. And then we would pull over during the. While that song's playing, we'd pull over at the gas station. We get us a soft drink in a Slim Jim.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Every hour. Every hour to Buffalo. And we saw some signs that were like, this way to Washington dc. And I was like, y' all want to go to the Washington DC on the way? And so we drive to Washington dc and we get on the beltway that goes around dc and you can see all the monuments. We're like, damn, there it is. There's this, there's that. Wow, look at. And the. The. This was. They were still fixing the pentagon.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

From 911 and 911 had just recently happened months ago. And so we. We accidentally ended up on a road that was closed right in that area. And me. And we're on this road and all, you know, we were at. One moment we're around traffic and. And then the next moment there's no traffic. And it was like, are we in the right place? And all of a sudden, blue lights and we are riding around four guys in a white dually. We got the windows down because we're all looking, you know, rubbernecking, looking around at everything and all the sites, and we got our toboggans on everything. We looked like terrible suspects, right? And this cop pulls us over and he's like. Walks up and he's like, y' all ain't supposed to be on this road. How'd you get on this road? I was like, man, we just hit the ramp back there and here we are. I didn't drive around a barrier or nothing. I didn't know we were not supposed to be here. And he, you know, through the exchange of some IDs and so forth, he figured out who we were. And I was like, you ain't going to believe this, but we're on our way to Buffalo to pick a friend of mine up and help me move down to North Carolina. And I was like, we just thought we'd check out the sites and. And see what was going on. And, you know, here we are. So he was like, look, I get it. I believe you. I'm going to lead you to the next way to get off this road. You're not supposed to be on it, but I remember that. And then we continue to drive, and during all of this, we're telling TJ where we are. We're on the phone with him, and he's looking at a map on his computer, and he's like, why are y' all doing that? We're like, we're going. We're in D.C. he's like, where are.

[C]

You in D.C. i mean, Buffalo is north west, and we're northeast as far as you can go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's so mad, and he's like, y' all need to. He's like, y' all need to go back this way and get on this road and get on that road. And we're like, no, T.J. you don't understand. We're not. We're not on that kind of a trip. We'll get there when we get there. So we're driving through Pennsylvania, and we. We all. We're driving. It's freaking, like, two in the morning, and we're driving, and we keep seeing this stuff on the side of the road, and it's like little flashes of something, and it's like. It's like every now and then, we kept seeing, and we slowed down, and it was cannons.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And we got to thinking, we're like, one. We must be in Gettysburg. And so we drove a little further down the road, and we're seeing more cannons and things. And we found the eternal flame that's always. That's lit in this particular park at Gettysburg. And so we got out and had our picture made in front of the flame.

[C]

And during one of our stops, we bought a throwaway camera.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, we did. And we. We had a little.

[C]

Some cool. Here. We'll take some cool pictures. We're seeing some cool stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We almost. We almost. As we continued past Gettysburg, we drove, and we accidentally. We're still on two lanes, and we accidentally ended up in the mountains of Pennsylvania. It started to snow, and you remember we're going up this hill and we started spinning the tires.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. And. And we. I was like, our ass is going to end up getting stuck in the.

[C]

Middle of nowhere in hell. We were at.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know where we are. And so we don't know where we're going, what the next turn is. We're just following this compass to stay north. I remember one time we were down, we were in the mountains of Pennsylvania and we were turning left and the headlights went across this yard of this, this home. And in that yard was like a four door Cadillac deville that a guy had put on like monster truck tires.

[C]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you remember I stopped and we got out and had our picture made in front of it.

[C]

Yeah, I got it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was like, we can't take, we can't not have a picture with this car. This thing is like, we're never going to see a car like this in the rest of our lives. It was literally like monster truck tires in a Cadillac deville, Bill. And it was like four in the morning. We're like, this guy's going to come out of the, this house, shoot us. But we finally got out of the mountains and we ended up driving to Buffalo from North Carolina. It took us 22 hours or 20, 24 hours, something like that. I drove 19 of the 19 straight. And then I just, I was like, guys, I can't do it. I got tapping out and I felt like garbage.

[C]

I remember you kept calling your coach driver, Shane, Shane, Shane at the time, hey man, what's the longest you ever driven for? What's the longest? He said 17 hours. Damn it. I got to go. Longer than 17 hours? Yeah, longer than 17 hours. When you hit 19, you're like, I did 19, I'm out, done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I climbed in the back seat and I was gone. And I woke up and we're at TJ's. We pulled into TJ's house. I'm thinking, so TJ has a trailer that we're going to hook to this truck. We've talked about it. We, we're organized.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We get there. What's in the trailer? Nothing.

[C]

Nothing? Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

TJ had not moved a freaking thing in his house. His, his computer, bedroom, clothes, everything. He was still living there. Like, he ain't going nowhere. I look in this trailer, I'm like, the damn thing's empty. I go into the house, I'm like, tj, oh, I just got to grab my clothes and my computer. I'm not taking anything else. I'm like, well, you at least should have had this in there. Ready? We've been talking to you for 22 hours. On the way here, like we were gonna pull in, hook up the trailer, go.

[C]

He probably didn't think we were going to show up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know what he thought, but we had to load the damn trailer up, throw his in there, hook it.

[C]

Up, and Then you were tired, you were mad about it. You were just giving it the whole time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had to stop and see his sister. She was working somewhere.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had to stop, see her. And then we had to stop at his grandparents house. He had grabbed something from there. And then we drove back home, still only by compass. We ended up in Ohio.

[C]

Yeah, Ohio west or somewhere here. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. We ended up a bit west.

[C]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And we end up having. And that's when we were like, screw it. We're getting a hotel room.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We pull over, get this hotel room. We don't know really where we are. We pull over, get this hotel room. We go. We asked the clerk, we're like, hey, is there somewhere to go have some beers? Oh, yeah, two miles away, whatever. Four miles away. There's a little bar going over this bar. Great. Guys, I'll meet you downstairs. Go up, shower, get ready. We'll meet you downstairs in five minutes. We go downstairs. Me and D. Neal start unhooking the trailer. We're gonna leave the trailer in the parking lot. TJ Starts getting nervous, man. You think it'll be okay here? I'm like, they ain't in there. T.J. you got a couple of shirts and a damn desktop computer. Who cares? They can take the whole damn thing. And I was like, forget about it. We all hop in this damn dually and drove over to this bar. It's a bar and strip club together. And so, yeah, like, we go into the bar, and then you could go to the strip club and then back to the bar. They weren't, you know, they weren't the same place, but I remember hanging out in that bar and drinking. And then at one point, there was a big fight.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Between two brothers.

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You remember that?

[C]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They were mad at each other about something, and we were like coaching them. Like, hi, man. When you. When you. When you come up, you got to swing with your right. You do this.

[C]

And so you're coaching the bigger guy. You made me coach the little guy. I'm like, come on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is that right?

[C]

Yeah. The little guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I remember we had. We had like five or 10 people in the kitchen of the bar. And I'm like, all right, we're gonna bust through these doors and just start swinging and attacking people, like, with no real intention to do this, but we just were trying to get these brothers to fight, but we ended up getting a ride home in a police car.

[C]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We were piled in this police car to take us back to the hotel because none of us could Drive. And I remember racing luggage carts in the hall of this hotel.

[C]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

With those police officers at like 4 in the morning. Yeah. It was funny. They had blast because they raised luggage carts in Stroker Ace.

[C]

Was it stroke? Yeah, it was stroke race. Yeah, that's where we got the idea.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then we did finally get TJ home, I think toward after we got up the next morning and we were all so tired and just ready for this to be over with. We got on the interstate and we drove straight, straight to the freaking house. And then TJ lived in North Carolina, happily ever after.

[C]

Happily ever after. I mean, talking about a start of a great career. Hilarious. I mean, that trip was just. I don't know, I think you needed a distraction. We all needed a little distraction. Yeah, it was a perfect distraction.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It sure was.

[C]

I mean, that's where we just kept. I mean, we were so. I don't know how you went to sleep because every time we'd stop, we'd get Mountain Dews. And I was just so. Man, I had so much caffeine, me. I was like this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I was. That was one of them deals where you're so tired, but yeah, you've had too much caffeine. So you're like dead beat tired, but you can't like just lay down and pass out. Plus the backseat that damn dually and share, you know, another person's back there. You can't get too comfortable. Let's talk about the time I got my wisdom tea pulled out.

[C]

Wisdom.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had a friend. Yeah, we had a friend of ours, Steve Crisp, who was kind of like my PR guy. He took me to get my wisdom teeth pulled because they gonna knock you out and get all goofy. You can't drive. I wake up from getting my wisdom teeth pulled and he drives me home, puts me to bed, and I'm asleep. You're at work. He goes and buys all this food. Lot of ice cream and stuff that I can eat while I've got my wisdom teeth healing up. And he comes back. He comes back, puts it in the house. He goes back to work. And at five o' clock, he comes over and he walks into the. Into the house and me and your roommates. And he's like, hey, Josh, you're sitting on the couch eating a tub of ice cream. And he's like, hey, man, is Dale all right? And you're like, man, I hadn't seen him. I guess he's still in there asleep. And you had eaten all of the food. Is that true?

[C]

Well, I didn't all the food. Not all of it, but I did eat the ice cream.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I. Yeah, but you came home and I bet you opened the fridge.

[C]

And you're like, damn, man, we got some ice cream here. It was a hot day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, God.

[C]

Thought I'd enjoy me a bowl of ice cream. Steve comes in. That was Bill Jr. I'm like, he's still in there asleep, man. He just laughed, I think. I mean, I remember you got your wisdom. Yes, that was true. That was. I didn't eat all the food, but I was eating.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You didn't eat it all.

[C]

I was eating part of the food because he had. You know, Steve Chris would always take good care of you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, a lot of great stories about Steve Chris, but I remember he was the guy that really helped you out in 98, and he would always make sense of a lot of things. You know, as you were going to 3acdocus. I always looked up to Steve, and I disappointed him that day because he was so proud. He went grocery shopping for you. Kind of screwed it up for him. But he was looking out for you, man. He really was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you ended up after college.

[C]

Getting.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Involved in doing PR work for Martin Trix Jr. You actually wasn't in. You had an internship at DEI.

[C]

Yes. You remember this? The. Probably the worst appearance you ever went on was because of me. Oh, Steve Chris was my internship leader. Him in J.R. rhodes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And they came up with this thing. You got to come up with three ideas for a junior appearance or something. Or something. For Dale Jr. And they. They really taught me a lot during this summer of interning with that Delar Incorporated. And I did a lot of grunt work, but one thing I did learn how to do was you had to do sponsor appearances. So somehow I got talking on our way to doing another trip to Daytona. We passed by this base in Jacksonville who was having a big, huge military day of some type of celebration. So I'm like, you know what? What if they. Dale Jr. Joins the celebration? You know what I mean? Like, we could do, like, experience. I get talking to some general, really worked hard on it through some connections they had. And they did a D. Hart Jr. Day leading up to this big parade or ceremony they were going to have. But I had nothing planned out, right? I mean, tables for autograph sessions. We just walked in, like, this hangar, and there's probably like 10,000 people there, and you're just walking through the crowd, like. So you just stood up and did an impromptu Q and A. We left, and I was like, this was, like, the worst because I'd been to, like, appearances with you when J.R. rhodes and Steve Chris did them. And they were so organized. Yeah, this was terrible. But you. You wasn't pissed about it at all? I was more probably upset about it than anything else. I got on the phone with Steve and he really walked me through mistakes I made. And he's like, don't worry about it. I did my first appearance for Dale Senior, and we didn't even have a table. And he just had to walk down the line of people and sign what they had. He goes, so it's a good learning experience for you. But, yeah, that was. That internship was a very valuable internship. Taught me a lot. That led me to getting a job at dei, but was always cool with Steve Chris because he could have really let me have it for not, you know, making the mistakes that I made. But instead, he taught me a lot from that, so. And you were cool with it? I mean, because normally you could have ripped me up and down because it didn't go too smooth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You did some PR work with Truex in his Xfinity career.

[C]

Yes. Some of the best times of my life. Graduated college. And you and Teresa decided to form Chance, too, which was to give people like me an opportunity. Bono was our crew chief. Haskell Russell, Sammy Gonzalez, There's a bunch of them. I keep naming names because we were such a tight group, but we were all just trying to come up through while I was the PR guy. And I was probably a terrible PR guy. Cause I didn't write the best releases. I had a guy named Tim Pakman helped me out a lot. J.R. rhodes helped me out, and. But I really learned a lot doing that. I learned how to deal with sponsors. I learned how to deal with licensing stuff. I learned really the business end of it. And poor Martin just had to put up with it. But we had some of the best times in our life because he was really. He really hit the ground running. And we won two championships back to back. Yeah, it was cool because I got to meet a lot of deep people. I remember one I wasn't the best at sending emails.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And. Well, I would always try to get a feature story about Martin on different things. Well, you had this big, thick book. And I called the LA Times, front sports desk. Junior kind of told me, just start making some phone calls and get talking to a guy named Shav Glick, who was like the sports reporter for the LA Times. He interviewed your dad. He interviewed Muhammad Ali and everything. Well, I get talking to Him. And I pitch him to interview Martin and he goes, I tell you what, young buck, I'll do it. Just like you had the balls to call the LA Times Sports desk versus emailing. Martin had a story written on him in the LA Times by Shad Blick, totally by accident.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, wow.

[C]

Well, a couple years later, you remember Hunter? Yes. The Jim Hunter. Yes, Jim Hunter. Big wig at nascar. I'm talking like Top Dog. He's up there with Elton and those guys might have been later that year, he saw me walking around in a media center and he pulled me to the side and he's like, how in the hell did you get Shaft Glick to interview Mark? And I said, I called the LA Times Sports desk. He's like, oh, way to stick with it. So that. Oh, man, we did so many cool things, Martin. I mean, me and Martin were kind of learning together. And, you know, you're both rookies a lot to us, but doing interviews, I remember a couple times you would show up to some of his interviews and really help it out and get going, you and Jade and Junior. We just had a good group of people around us and we were really lucky.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We did your favorite Martin tricks. Junior story or apparently a cool appearance. You were part of where Clint Boyer was driving for rcr.

[C]

Oh, this is hysterical. Yeah, we were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I hadn't heard this one.

[C]

Remember Nazareth Speedway?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[C]

In Pennsylvania.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And you remember, I think it was. What was the program called? You guys have to go do appearance winner circle. Yes. Okay. So I think Nazareth was. This would be their last race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[C]

And they wanted to bring the big guns up. So they called Hornaday. And he was driving for RCR at the time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[C]

They called Martin up to do it, and they asked we would do it. And Tracy, Judd and everybody from nascar. O' Donnell's people would kind of coordinate because he was heading to Bush series up at the time. So we all go up there. Well, RC at Richard Childers assigned Clint Boyer, and I think he was maybe making his debut there. That's why he was there. So anyway, they take us all out to lunch. Clint's a pretty vocal guy today. I mean, he hadn't changed one bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[C]

Well, he sits right across from me, puts his arms up on the table, goes, how in the hell are you best friends with Del Junior? And I'm like, we're just buds. He goes, damn, you're lucky. What a cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What if he'd say that today?

[C]

I don't know. I'll never forget. He put his arms up on the table. That's, I mean, that's the first question he asked me. Not, hey, I'm Clint. Josh, no, how in the hell are you best friends with Dale Jr. Oh, damn. And so started out a good friendship. I still talked to Clint probably about six months ago. He called me, hey, it's Dale Jr.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you know that we've got brand new merch from our star stripes and beers collection available now? We've got tanks, tees, beach towels and more. Just in time for summer. Check it all [e-mail] this is an ad by BetterHelp.

[Josh Schneider]

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[D]

About underwear for a second. We all know summer is amazing. Sunshine, road trips, beach days. But it also means one thing, and that is sweat. And if you're not wearing the right underwear, that can get real uncomfortable real fast. Luckily, there's meundies. Travis I'm wearing me undies right now.

[Josh Schneider]

I am too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, really?

[Josh Schneider]

It's the, I tell you what, it's awesome. It's awesome. And it really is important. The summertime, man, you're out, you're moving around, you're sweating. The last thing you want to be doing is having the wrong kind of underwear on because you're going to notice and it's going to be a problem.

[D]

I got me a pair of pineapple pattern and then I also I'm wearing the s' mores pattern right now. So it's very summer esque.

[Josh Schneider]

S' mores in the summer.

[D]

S' mores in the summer. It's like the best time to do.

[Josh Schneider]

It I guess you could do a campfire.

[D]

And you know what you could do too, because my girlfriend loves these, these meundies. We're getting matching pairs, alright? We're gonna, we're gonna stock that drawer full of meundies.

[Josh Schneider]

That's the way to go. I mean, that's the thing is it's not just for men. They've, they've got, you know, boxer briefs, they've got cheeky cuts, they've got bralets. Whatever you need, man or woman, they've got you covered.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They do.

[D]

They really do. I mean, it is super soft fabric, breathable somehow stays cool even when it's 90 degrees and your AC is losing the battle. So your underwear drawer deserves a vacation.

[Josh Schneider]

Right now, as a listener of the Dale Junior download, you can score sizzling summer deals like up to 50% [e-mail] dalejr and enter promo code dalejr.

[D]

That's meundies.com dalejR promo code dalejr for up to 50% off MeUndies comfort. That's made for summer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you go on the cruise?

[C]

I went on the cruise. That was fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, so the, on the cruise, the where you weren't part of the group that destroyed the hallway?

[C]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember that?

[C]

I was working at DEI then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember that, though?

[C]

I remember. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Happening. So the, we went on the, we went on a cruise and it was all the people on the cruise. There was some race car drivers, me, Truex, a couple other people, same deal went. Yep. And we were going to. People could, people could buy packages to come on the cruise with us. It was really tough, but a lot of fun. I wasn't sure exactly what I was supposed to be doing, but. So I didn't feel like I was always doing what I was supposed to be doing. But one night late, I brought like 20, 25 people with me. Family, friends, cousins, uncles, some of those friends. So the captain comes over to me one day and he goes, hey, man, we had some get torn up in the hallway. Every picture on the wall in a cruise is screwed to the wall. It's because, you know, it's cruise boat rocks. So some people had ripped some of those off the wall in a hallway. And the guy said, we know who it was. We've got some camera footage and we know who it was. Some of your friends. What do you want us to do? How do you want us to handle this? And I was like, well, I was like, I'm embarrassed and I really want to make them feel like, complete. And I said, why don't, why don't you make an announcement at dinner? We all, the whole boat had dinner together. And I said, maybe, you know, he and the captain at dinner would always get up and speak, you know, about how the day's going, how the cruise is going, and just really a nice, kind of a neat thing to hear the captain talk. And he's dressed in his whites and all and everything pretty official. I said, why don't, during your speech tonight at dinner, you, you bring this up and say, hey, we know who you are and we'll talk to you soon when this cruise is over. And let's just keep these guys on edge for the rest of the trip. Let's just really kind of ruin the trip for them. And so that's what he did. He, in the middle of dinner, got up and goes, hey. He goes on this whole thing about the, the cruise going well. They. Today was great. Tomorrow we had this planned. We're going to have a great time, everybody. We're going to this dock and going to be awesome. Oh, by the way, last night some, some people tore up vandalize some of the property on the boat. And we have some footage and know exactly who you are. We'll be talking to you guys when the cruise comes to the final port. I was like, hell, yeah. And do you remember that?

[C]

I remember. I remember I wasn't a part of it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And me and you knew who it was.

[C]

We knew who it was. I ain't gonna call them out, but.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, we won't call them out.

[C]

But I remember them being so nervous and they're like, what. What do you think they're going to do? What do you think they're going to do? I'm like, I don't know. They're like. And, you know, by that time, everybody would go to JRO's to get you out a little bit of trouble. You think JR can help us out? I'm like, I don't. I'm like, one time I'm glad I was working and I had to go to bed because we had. You had appearances to do throughout the whole trip.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And you had some for Truex and Shane. Well, I was kind of in charge of Martin Shane, and I think Three Doors down was with us.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah, they were.

[C]

And the lead singer, who's a super nice guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Brad.

[C]

Brad. I mean, he was an amazing guy. And. And so I was kind of in charge of those three. And we had something we had to do at breakfast the next morning. Or something. So we had kind of toned it down a little bit that night, and I guess it was. Just went a little wild. But, oh, yeah, it was a great cruise, man, you put together. We had three doors down there. Doogie. Sonny Lefford came, and we knew your sister and all her friends. Friends came. Your mom and Willie was on there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. Yep.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember the first time I met Amy?

[C]

Yes. I remember how it all went down. You were building.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I want to know your perspective.

[C]

Well, you. You're building this house that you live in now, and you were so pumped about it, and you're like, hey, man, there's a. Sonny told me there's this girl that works this. Working with this team of people that's designing the house. She's a. Supposed to be really pretty, you know, like, really hot. I'm like, well, man, Sonny's got a pretty good taste in women, you know? I mean, probably. I don't know. You're like, I'm gonna go to the next meet. So you went to the next meet, and then you came back. She's really hot. So you put on the charm, man. You do. And you invite her up for the weekend. And we're at the western town, and she comes in, and she's just awesome. Well, I knew she had to be nervous because you had everybody there. Yeah, we're probably a pretty intimidating group. You think about it, man. In her defense, you're walking into this room, and you like this guy. He's put the charm on you pretty hard. And you're meeting. I mean, you had. All of us were there. Everybody was there. And. But she fit right in. You remember, you flew me down. We flew out there to meet her family, and I was with you, and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah, you went to the farm.

[C]

And her dad is probably, like, the coolest guy to hang out with.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember telling you, I'm like, josh, I want you to go out to this farm in Texas with me. And you were like, okay. But I could tell you were like, I'm not sure how this is gonna go for me. I'm not. Because, I mean, you know, you're kind of like the third wheel. And I was like. I was like, trust me, man. You're gonna love it. And you had to. You had to really buy in. I was glad you did, because it's awesome. We had a damn fun time.

[C]

Y' all were gonna be pretty serious. I could just tell. And she was just such an amazing person, and I was happy for you because, you know, you needed That, I mean, we all y' all want to see your best friends, find a girl to love and go on. You wanted to be happy and yeah, so I knew it was serious. And so when you asked me to go, I'm like, well, yeah, why not? I've never been to Texas before. Yeah, really down in that area. And you told me it was the home of Stone Cold Steve Austin. Yeah. Oh yeah, we're going now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was a selling point.

[C]

That closed the deal right there. But oh man, that was, that was cool. That was really neat to see. And then, you know, you go on to get married and you know, I still think the world of her dad and her sister and it's just a great family. And her grandparents, man, what an awesome group.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember having a lot of heart to heart conversations with you about like our, you know, we, we love being friends and being boys and being bachelors and all that fun. But I think, I think we all too wanted to find that, that person that, that was going to change our lives. And I know that we both have experienced that. But that was the only tough part about. I think eventually we knew we kind of had to grow up.

[C]

Had to grow up, man. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And get after it.

[C]

But what's cool is we all grew up and we found happiness and we all went do our own thing. But we're all still close today. I mean.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh yeah.

[C]

I can call you any time. You've been there for me and been there for you and that's what's cool about the friendships we formed. Yeah, we were so tight because we went through a lot together growing up. Becoming really from these boys to men.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. We had to look out for each other.

[C]

We were growing up and we screwed up a lot. But man, we made some damn great memories, some damn great friends and it's made.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure did. Hey, you ended up working in when, when you got done with PR work in nascar, you went to work selling motor homes. And now that's what's taking you to where you are today. Out in Oklahoma, right?

[C]

Oklahoma. Yeah. I live in a little town called Grove, Oklahoma. Yeah, it's a lake town. A lot like Lake Norman was 30 years ago. Ah, the lake's like three times the size of Lake Norman with 10% of the population.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Totally undeveloped.

[C]

Totally undeveloped. But it's so cool. I mean a lot of bass fishermen out there will probably know about Grand Lake.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

But I sell motorhomes now. Live out here. I'm married. Wife Stacy. I have two kids and I work for a motorhome manufacturer, but it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You've been doing that for how long?

[C]

I've been gonna be here eight years next week and two start you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When did you get into RV and selling RVs and stuff?

[C]

True.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You've been doing that for 20 years. 20 years. Truex.

[C]

A good friend of ours, Joel Suggs, y' all probably heard us talk a lot about Brandon Suggs, his brother. He worked at Tom Johnson's rv, which was right down the road. And yeah, a lot of people in NASCAR bought their motor homes from time, but Joel worked there, and Martin was ready to buy an rv. And I'm like, I got a buddy. So I called Joel up and we go down and see him and do the whole deal. Martin buys a motor home and then start referring a couple other people over to my buddy Joel. And Joel was good friends with Ricky Hendrick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[C]

And Ricky passed away. Well, Mr. Hendrick really wanted Joel to come run one of his work it under his automotive group. And Joel's like, I got this great opportunity with Rick Hendrick. I'm like, well, you don't say no to Mr. Hendrick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know that's right.

[C]

And he's like, oh. And he goes, but I have a good opening here. And at the time, I was driving a 1994 Ford Ranger, making probably about $28,000 a year. And it was funny. I would be flying on these private jets around with you. We'd land at the airport, and I'd get my 94 Ranger and drive home to my triple wide. So the little. I'm like, you know, I gotta try to find something on my own. And I knew that when Martin going to cup, it was he needed a new PR guy that wasn't going career path. So Joel kept talking to me, and I decided to take the leap and go into RV sales and got linked with Tom Johnson and a guy named Robert Duncan. Those two, Tom and Robert, really took me under the wing and really taught me the business about customers and service and really, really enjoyed it. It was a challenge that I thought that worked great for me, and I enjoyed helping people out. But I still got to work with all my friends in nascar.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And so it was a. It was a dream. Well, Tom sold out the Camping World, and I worked at Camp World for a little bit. But Newell Coach, who's the premier RV manufacturer, you had a few of them. Your father had a couple called me and asked me if I want to move here. And so my wife and I came out here to Oklahoma and looked at it, thought about it for a while. Prayed a lot of prayer because you don't know. I had a three month old son at the time and my daughter was 22 months old and moved halfway across the country. Away from you, Sean. My mother lives in mortgage Mooresville, my bro. I mean everybody, all my family. I was leaving the unknown. But there's something gravitated me to come out here to Newell Coach and moved out here. It was a great decision. I would love to have you and Amy and the kids come out here and visit because I have a little lake house now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[C]

And I have a boat. I'm actually. I'm the president of my boat slip association.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn right, brother.

[C]

And it's really cool. It's really a cool place to live. We've had some ups and downs since living here. You know, I had a little bout. I had got ill there for a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[C]

And. But this company had my back during that time and like you did and many others. And I just, I was really lucky to be working here when that happened. And so I'm very loyal to this place and always will be. You know, I miss home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

I miss Mooresville. I miss, you know, just giving you, Sean, Sonny, the guys a call up. Hey, let's go do this. And we didn't get to do it much because, you know, we're starting our families and things. But it was cool to know you guys were always right down the road.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[C]

But we've built a good home here and we really like it. We've really been blessed and we still build motorhomes. I mean. Yeah, I've built 26 a year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[C]

Yeah. In fact, Mark Martin's here all the time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. He's always talking about motor coaches.

[C]

Oh, he loves it. You meet a lot of neat people. You meet a lot of celta. You know, still a lot of guys in nascar. A lot of the drivers still have our product, so. And just sold your old one recently.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You did? You sold my old one?

[C]

Sold your old one. And in fact, your first Newell is here today getting service.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, wow.

[C]

I was walking through, talking about going down memory lane. I was preparing for this and I was kind of thinking, you know, back to documentary and all that stuff. And as they were, I was walking through, about walked into Coach612, which was your very first Newell motorhome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn, that's crazy.

[C]

So.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But what, what's next? What's. What's next for you? I mean, I know you're gonna. I know you're. You're hopefully Not a lot's gonna change, but it's got to be something out there in front of you.

[C]

Right now I'm focused on my kids. You know, it's like I said, I had a little bout with cancer and it changed my life perspective a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How so?

[C]

I'm a lot deeper in my faith now. And in fact I had to delay watching the documentary because I was finished this thing called the Chosen. And really just I think my job now is, is do still good here at Newell, but raise my kids.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

The best. And be a good father to him. I think that we all know a little bit past of that. I, I want to be that guy for my son and my daughter and. Yeah. And be a good husband. I mean, I mean, I probably. We got married late in life. We had kids late in life. You did do. I mean, I got called my, my daughter's grandfather the other day. Hilarious. Let me tell you about this one. This is a great story. So she's playing softball and she's getting pretty good. Well, it was like, well, it was a couple months ago. It started the season. I take her to her first practice and the coach is walking around the clipboard and she's like, now you're Baylor's grandfather. I'm like, now I'm her dad. She's like, oh, I'm so sorry. Damn it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it. I'm wearing a hat.

[C]

I've gotten a little bald, a little more gray. But, but really, I'm just really wanting to be the family man. I think that even though we had a good time in our 20s and 30s, we still wanted, you know, we knew that we wanted to become family man at one time. And I don't know, I still, I still want to grow business wise and try new challenges there. But I think my ultimate challenge now is to be the best father I can be to my kids.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How do you, how old are your kids?

[C]

Bradford is eight and Baylor's nine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, a long ways to go.

[C]

Long ways to go. He's, he's still in baseball right now, but he's gonna try to tackle football for the first time this year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, boy.

[C]

Oh, yeah, big deal. Big deal. Big deal. And Baylor is playing softball. She's in the chair leading. So that's, that's really it right now. I've been so blessed with everything and to have my health really means so much to me. So I look at life in a lot different perspective. I've gotten better at like for instance, when you do something great or something happens. I always Want to text you. I know it might get on your nerves a little bit, but just show how proud I am because it used to be I might not be around and what if I wasn't around and you didn't know how much I appreciated you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh.

[C]

And how much I appreciate different things. Like with, you know, my mother and this, what all she's been through. Just a lot of neat things. And I help some people out with cancer. I think I want to do more with the cancer awareness, getting a colonoscopy. I wrote something I was pretty proud of on the. Check it for Andretti. John Andretti's a website and kind of told my testimony a little bit, but very good. But yeah, that's. I think that's my thing now. I spend a lot of time on the phone with people with that stuff and trying to carry out my faith a little bit more and raising kids and selling RVs, man, I love it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I. I don't wanna, you know, discredit friendships that me and you both share with other people, but I would be hard pressed to name many that have enriched my life and affected my life the way that you have. We have been friends for a really long time and, man, when I needed. When I needed a friend, you were always there. And I went through some, you know, I went through some. I wouldn't say tough times, but I went through some times where I had a ton of doubt and I felt, you know, maybe not worthy or. Or I just kind of was struggling. And you, man, you are always a cheerleader and always in my corner, always. And man, I, I needed somebody like that in my life. And. And, you know, your heart is as golden as. As anyone I know. And everything that you've ever experienced or, or anything that I've ever. Any kind of fortune that I've ever seen you go through, you've always had, like, the best intentions, which is remarkable. And I just. I appreciate your friendship, man. We have been boys for a long time, man. I will do anything in the world for you because of what you've done for me and how you've made my life better. So I appreciate you giving us some time and I'm glad people are getting to know your story and I'm sure there's people that remember maybe hearing mentions of you or listen to our XM show back in the day and wonder what you've been up to and, you know, you're just as good as they come. So. Appreciate your time today, buddy.

[C]

Thank you, man. Same to you too. I think that you don't get enough credit for how much you've done for me. I mean, it's hilarious. Not hilarious. It's amazing. I mean, not how I meant to say. It's amazing that if something big in my life happens, good or bad, it's like I want Dale Jr. To know about. I want to share with him because I think that we've been through so much together and, you know, if I've ever had a struggle with just. Just needing advice, you'd always give. We were always just there for each other. You were. You know, we're blessed to have a friend like that because not everybody does.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[C]

And I mean, so I'm glad we had it because we've been through some tough times. I know yours is, well, more public than what mine is, but you're still going through a very tough time. And I'm just glad I was that friend. And I will always be that friend for you because that's.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hell.

[C]

Yeah, we are. You know I love you, bud.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Branded for life.

[C]

Branded for life. Multiple times, baby. Multiple times.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, buddy, let's get a beer soon.

[C]

All right, let's do it. See you, buddy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

See you, pal.

[D]

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[Josh Schneider]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[Josh Schneider]

Why are you asking why? Well, she had searched my name and a website pulled up and said that I was married. And I'm like, no, never been married, never engaged. But it's scary that these websites kind of have information, Some of it real, some of it not. And it's just out there for everybody.

[D]

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[Josh Schneider]

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[C]

Whether it's a long day or a big night, To Cova's boots are made for a good time and a long time plus. With Tokovis Best in the west guarantee you get free returns and exchanges for 30 days. Honor the west by leaving your own bootprint right now. Get 10% [e-mail] Dale when you sign up for email and texts, that's 10% [e-mail] Dale Tocovis.com Dale C. Site for details to Covis Point your toes west.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, so that's a great conversation with my buddy Josh Schneider, Snooter, as he's known around our parts. But just, you know, he, he came, he came in to do some of the Earnhardt interviews for that documentary on prime. And he called me afterwards and he said, man, I just got done with my interviews and I was, got really emotional, man. And I just, it really made me think and reflect on our friendship and just want to tell you how much I love you and how much I appreciate you. And so we thought, what the heck man, let's get on here and talk about it. Let's talk about our friendship. We became friends out of pure happenstance. A lot of my friendships are connected to motorsports or connected to racing. Josh is one of the ones that really just happened really truly organically and not many, not many friendships that I have today. Can I say that about a lot of, a lot of, a lot of things that are in my life are typically connected to motorsports or racing or nascar, but not Josh. Maybe that's why I love that friendship so much is because I know that it's not. It's. It's as genuine as it can be. And what a great guy. Do anything for you. We all, all of the people in our group would always say, that's the guy that'll give you the shirt off his back right away anytime he help anybody that needed it, even people that he did, even a stranger on the street. So he just got a great heart. I always wanted to be around him because he made me better. Every time I was around him, I would feel like that his, his heart and the way he was as a person would rub off on me and I would want to be like that. You know, I would see him be generous or caring or thoughtful in a situation and go, man, what a great example. I will follow that example. So just a great dude. And man, we've had some fun. He is hilarious. So much fun to be around. Um, just, just funny but. And a great beer drinking pal to man. I didn't appreciate that enough. I'll say that, I'll say that. You know, we're. I love where I'm at in my life. I love what's happening to me today in my life. But I think back to when, when I was a bachelor or when I was, was hanging out with Josh and when we were, when we had all these freedoms to be able to wake up, wake up each day and go, what are we going to do? You know, I didn't take advantage of that as, as much as I should have. I didn't, I didn't. Like, I'm now sort of like, you know, wishing that I had appreciated that even more than I did. But you're naive, you're young and you just don't know. But one day you're going to get older. If you were, if you're, if you're now, you know, Andrew's age, right? And you're Andrew and you got all these buddies around you. It ain't always going to be like this. Take it all in. Enjoy the experiences. If they call you up and say, hey, we're going down to the bar, we're going to go to this concert, we're going to go do this thing, go do the thing, go do it. And you know, because they're going to, they're going, they're searching for that family that sir, they're searching for that someone just the same as you. And you're all going to find that. You're all going to go down that path and that's going to be great. But what it is today will not be the Same again. And so, you know, that's kind of the moral of this story, I think is like, you know, we think we appreciate our friends. We think we're living in the moment, but I don't know that we're ever doing that as well as we could. But man, we had a lot of fun. And yeah, he's out in Oklahoma living his life, but we are as close as we've ever been. And, and like you say, like he said, we call each other up and we need something. We're that person for each other. So I appreciate everybody listening and I hope you enjoyed it. Now, time for the white flag.

[C]

White flag.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, so the tear down came out this past Sunday after the race in Atlanta. Jordan and Jeff talking about the race. I'm sure they had a lot of great things to say. Be curious their take on our new TNT product as we're bringing the races to you through broadcasting on TNT over the next five weeks. And so Atlanta being the first race actions detrimental with Denny Hamlin came out as well. Denny had a tough race at at Atlanta, but had some honest conversations about that accident on his show, which I saw, which I thought was pretty neat. Dirty Air with TJ and myself came out yesterday. A lot of fun doing that show with TJ every week. And Herman Schrader are out today and then tomorrow. Bless your heart with my wife Amy. And don't forget episode five of Becoming Earnhardt. The 1980 season will be out this weekend on Sunday. Four episodes are out now. You can listen to those. If you haven't. I think you'll enjoy it. We're creating some awesome stuff and Becoming Earnhardt. The new season is one of them. That's the show. See you tomorrow with Amy on Bless your heart. Y' all take it easy. Check out DirtyMomedia on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok. You're not just working on assignments. You're building your future with Creative Cloud Pro.

[C]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[C]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[C]

Creating your future today. In the summer, all of Oregon is our playground thanks to our incredible park system. That's why it's so cool that Oregon lottery gameplay like video lottery or cash pop helps support tons of parks. Projects statewide like accessible trails at Silver Falls State park or upgrades to your your favorite dog park in Newburgh. It's just one way a little lottery play for many Oregonians can add up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To a lot of good the Oregon Lottery.

[C]

Together we do good things. Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment only. Must be 18 or older to play.