Reuniting With The 2001 Rolex 24 Team That Raced With Me & Dad

Summary

Podcast Summary: Reuniting With The 2001 Rolex 24 Team That Raced With Me & Dad

Introduction

In this heartfelt episode of The Dale Jr. Download, host Dale Earnhardt Jr. reunites with key members of the 2001 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona team. Joining him are Doug Feehan, the General Manager of the Corvette program; Kelly Collins, one of the co-drivers; and Andy Pilgrim, another co-driver. The episode delves into the formation of the team, the challenges faced during testing and the race, and the lasting impact of this unique racing endeavor.

Background on the 2001 Rolex 24 Team

Dale Jr. and Kelly Collins were selected as co-drivers for the prestigious 24 Hours of Daytona race in 2001, a significant departure from their usual NASCAR endeavors. Doug Feehan provides insight into how this opportunity arose, highlighting Andy Pilgrim's remarkable performance at Petit Le Mans in 2001.

Formation of the Team

Doug Feehan ([04:40] - [06:50]) explains that the idea for Dale Jr. to join the Corvette program originated from Andy Pilgrim's impressive pass at Petit Le Mans. Dale Jr. was inspired to reach out after watching Andy's performance on RPM Tonight, which led to a personalized letter inviting him to join the team:

"Andy, I just wanted to drop your line and congratulate you on your victory at the Petit Le Mans Road Atlanta. That sort of drive and determination is exactly why I want you for a teammate in the 24 hours of Daytona." ([05:32])

Doug Feehan further elaborates on the role of Gary Claudio, a marketing genius from Pontiac NASCAR, who orchestrated the team's formation. Despite initial delays due to Dale Jr.'s neck surgery and his impending move to the Cup Series, the team was finalized in 2001 with enthusiasm and high expectations.

Testing at Sebring

The team commenced testing at Sebring, where both Dale Jr. and Kelly Collins experienced significant challenges. Dale Jr.'s aggressive driving led to a crash early in the session:

"And I back it into the bridge and destroyed this car." ([11:35])

Similarly, Kelly Collins faced his own mishap:

"I went off pit road, first series of corners, and then stand on the gas, headed to the bridge and broke a half shaft." ([17:48])

These incidents underscored the learning curve transitioning from NASCAR to endurance racing. The team responded swiftly, demonstrating their resilience and commitment to the race.

Race Day Experiences

On race day, the dynamics within the team became more evident. Kelly Collins ([25:32] - [29:08]) recalls the strategic adjustments made to braking techniques, a critical factor in endurance racing. The team utilized telemetry data to refine their approach:

"You got to match the brake pedal when the car is at max downforce, that's when the brakes are going to perform the best..." ([26:37])

Doug Feehan emphasizes the importance of driver changes and the meticulous preparation required to execute them flawlessly:

"The biggest opportunity to screw up is in the driver change. It's critically important." ([38:19])

Technical Challenges and Adaptations

The team faced numerous technical challenges, including tire management and car handling under different conditions. Kelly Collins discusses the adjustments made during the race, especially when shifting from dry to wet conditions:

"He kept telling me, 'Set the brakes.' He said, you got to set the brakes..." ([28:44])

These insights highlight the technical expertise and adaptability of the team in navigating the complexities of endurance racing.

Team Dynamics and Lessons Learned

Throughout the episode, the camaraderie and mutual respect among team members are palpable. Andy Pilgrim shares anecdotes about Dale Jr.'s dedication and willingness to learn:

"He was always open to learning." ([28:48])

The team also reflects on the unique experience of racing alongside a legendary figure like Dale Earnhardt Sr., balancing competition with collaboration. The shared experiences, both challenging and triumphant, strengthened their bonds and enriched their collective racing legacy.

Impact on Corvette Racing and Legacy

The 2001 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona team had a profound impact on Corvette Racing's reputation and the broader motorsports landscape. Doug Feehan ([103:38] - [105:09]) discusses how their participation elevated Corvette as a global brand, garnering respect from manufacturers and racing enthusiasts worldwide.

The team's success also inspired future Corvette Racing initiatives and contributed to the development of production model Corvettes based on the race cars. This synergy between racing performance and commercial vehicle development underscored the strategic importance of the endurance racing program.

Personal Reflections and Legacy

Dale Jr., Kelly Collins, and Andy Pilgrim share personal reflections on the race's significance and its enduring legacy. Kelly Collins ([72:04] - [74:41]) reminisces about the thrill of competing in a high-stakes environment and the pride of finishing strong despite setbacks:

"Having no idea what to expect every second... it was a competition all the time." ([72:04])

Andy Pilgrim recounts emotional moments and the lasting impact of Dale Jr.'s mentorship:

"It's a bucket list. In 2011, National Geographic magazine said the 24 hours of Daytona was the greatest sporting event in the world." ([121:00])

Conclusion

The episode concludes with expressions of gratitude and appreciation for the shared experiences that have shaped their careers and personal lives. Dale Jr. reflects on the uniqueness of the 2001 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona team, emphasizing the invaluable lessons learned and the lasting friendships forged through racing.

"It's part of history for sure." ([70:47])

Notable Quotes

• Andy Pilgrim: "Dale, just keep doing what you've been doing, man. You're doing great. You're doing awesome." ([81:32])
• Doug Feehan: "The biggest opportunity to screw up is in the driver change. It's critically important." ([38:19])
• Kelly Collins: "Having no idea what to expect every second... it was a competition all the time." ([72:04])

Final Thoughts

This episode provides a comprehensive and engaging recount of the 2001 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona team, offering listeners a deep dive into the challenges, triumphs, and enduring legacy of racing alongside Dale Earnhardt Jr. Through candid storytelling and insightful reflections, the podcast serves as a valuable resource for motorsports enthusiasts and those interested in the intricate dynamics of endurance racing.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Doug Feehan]

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[Kelly Collins]

When was the last time you talked to him, Andy?

[Andy Pilgrim]

The very last time I talked to him, mate, was actually during the 500 when I got back to the bus. Theresa was there and she said when I got in the door, she said, he's been asking for you. So I got on the radio, you got any advice for me here? That's what he said. Can you imagine a road race? He got any advice for me? And I laughed just like you did. So I said, dale, just keep doing what you've been doing, man. You're doing great. You're doing awesome. Like, what the heck else can I say to the guy?

[Kelly Collins]

I didn't know that.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And then it was like, okay, you know, see you later.

[Kelly Collins]

Damn. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, everybody, it's time for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download the guest segment here on Wednesday and we got a really unique one for you today. I'm gonna have in the studio Andy Pilgrim, Kelly Collins and Doug Feehan. Doug Feehan was the GM on the Corvette program back in 2001 when dad and I raced the 24 Hours of Daytona. Kelly and Andy were the co drivers. This was an idea from them to all get together and talk about that experience and the Corvette program and what that meant to dad to be able to race in that event. He was very excited about it and very happy to do it. And we're going to learn some pretty new interesting details around that program and dad's plans for it. So yeah, let's just get started. It's going to be a lot of fun for me. I'm going to learn a Ton of new stuff, I'm sure during this conversation. And we're going to bring back some great memories as well. So let's get them in the studio and get started. All right, so right here on the Dell Jr. Download, we've got quite the group of guys assembled for this show. We're going back to the 2001 Daytona 24 hours and the Corvette that Dad and I was a part of. Doug Feeham was a team general manager. You're here today, Doug. Thanks for coming.

[Doug Feehan]

Thanks for having us.

[Kelly Collins]

And then Kelly Collins was one of our co drivers.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

How you doing?

[Unnamed Speaker]

I'm doing awesome.

[Kelly Collins]

You look awesome.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And then Andy Pilgrim, also one of the co drivers. Andy, good to see you.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Good to see you.

[Kelly Collins]

Been a minute.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It's been a minute. Yes, sir.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. I, I gotta tell you, man, this is a lot of fun. I feel really lucky that we all are here together. As busy as everybody is, in as many directions as life has taken all of us. But what we're gonna try to do as best as we can. And it'll be tough for me, so I imagine it'll be tough for all of us to recall a lot of the details around all the experiences that went into that. We'll definitely talk about the race itself, but there was a build up, so some preparation, some testing at Sebring and a lot of different conversations that y' all had with dad that I probably wasn't privy to back in 2001. I was young and not paying much, not paying much attention to the, to the details and just trying to have a lot of fun. And dad was really, really focused on this effort and wanted it to go well and certainly at a point in his life where he, he was a detailed kind of guy and, and you guys got to experience that. But first off, I was really, I will say this, Doug. I was kind of surprised that dad wanted to do this. I had been around him for years, never really heard him express interest in anything other than winning races at the cup level and being a Cup champion. I hadn't had him. I mean, I knew he watched other forms of motorsport from time to time, but not, not, I mean, he was usually racing to on a Sunday. That and I never really heard him talk about, man, that'd be cool to try this or cool to try that. So when do you recall, I guess the initial conversations?

[Doug Feehan]

Well, you know, really from my perspective, it all began with Andy. Andy. We had been down at Petit Le Mans running a race. I was late in the race, couple laps left, Andy pulls off a miraculous pass on the Viper. We bring home victory. I mean, it was a really cool deal. You know, it's late at night, Everybody's tired. It was just. Well, your dad was watching the race, apparently, and got in contact with Andy. I think he either called or wrote a letter.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, it was actually. He, actually, Doug, he saw the pass on RPM tonight. RPM tonight. It was like the pass of the week on RPM tonight. I think that's where he saw it. And then just to sort of continue on that. The letter. There was a letter that came about two days after Petit Lamont, and I sent you a copy there, actually. Yeah. And it was.

[Kelly Collins]

What's the letter say?

[Andy Pilgrim]

So, yeah, I can just read it. It's real short. It was pretty funny. But first of all, I'm sitting at home. I have no. I know who Dale Earnhardt is. Of course I know who Dale Earnhardt is. But this thing came and honestly, it was an envelope, and it had the Dale logo on it, the Earnhardt logo. And I thought, oh, it might be a catalog or something. Racing catalog. So I pull this letter out, and then I'm looking at it, and it basically says, andy, I just wanted to drop your line and congratulate you on your victory at the Petit Le Mans Road Atlanta. That sort of drive and determination is exactly why I want you for a teammate in the 24 hours of Daytona. That last lap pass looked like something we do at Bristol. If I can adapt to these high downforce Corvettes like you've adapted to rubbing fenders, we should be able to skin some snakes come February. Snakes Beating the Vipers with the capped Chrysler course. That's what it was. And it says, best wishes. Look forward to seeing you here on October 17th. And that letter was October 2nd. Well, thank goodness there was no Internet. Thank goodness I didn't tell the world. Cause I called Gary Claudio, like you were saying. And Gary. And Gary was the. Basically, Doug can tell you more about Gary, but he basically said he was our team manager, if you like. And he just said, don't breathe a word to anybody. Well, you know, thank goodness he was the first call I made. So that just brings it to where it came from. Go ahead.

[Doug Feehan]

Well, Claudia, Gary Claudio, who was a marketing genius, he truly is. I mean, he's an amazing guy. And he was with Pontiac in nascar. And so he knew crisp and, you know, you know how that family thing works across brands. And so he went to work after this, came to me and said, what do you think about having senior and junior Drive for us at Daytona. I said, are you kidding me? I said, you think you can make that happen? He goes, I don't know, but I'm certainly going to try. He knew that obviously that Andy had been in touch and dad had had very, very high interest in doing it. And so we kind of put it together. Well, we put it together early, all right, but your dad, two things occurred. He had to have neck surgery. I think it was neck surgery that he had scheduled. So he wasn't going to be able to do it that year. But the other thing was, I think that was going to be your first year in Cup. You were moving up to cup. And I think he knew that you watched sports car racing on tv. At least that's what he read to me. And he says, I don't want get Junior exposed to the sports car racing before he gets his feet wet in cup because I don't want him steering off into sports cars. I want him focused on nascar. And so we delayed it for a year until we got to the 2001 time frame. And then the rest of it just kind of came together. It became really clear. We came down here, Claudio and I, and met with your dad.

[Kelly Collins]

What was that meeting like?

[Doug Feehan]

It was really casual. It was in the shop, got a tour. I had never been here before and I don't think Gary had been tour of dei. Yeah, I don't think Gary had been in the facility either. And it was. I mean, that's a long time ago. Seems like yesterday, but it was a long time ago.

[Kelly Collins]

It was brand new.

[Doug Feehan]

Oh my God, it was beautiful. I mean, it was. I'd been racing all my life and I had never seen anything like it. It was, it was magnificent. We had lunch. Cafeteria, you know, cafeteria was awesome. Yeah, it was. It was a really cool deal. So mutual excitement started to build at, at that point in time. So I went back and then met with, with our team, with the Corvette team, explained them what we were going to do. And I mean, it was just. If you could have seen the looks on their faces when I sat down and said, yeah, we're going to be having Dale junior, Dale Senior race with us at Daytona. I mean, they looked at each other like, are you kidding me?

[Kelly Collins]

There's always this. There had the second car, which out of the two cars, I mean, Ron Fellows is driving the other car. Who else was in the other car?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Chris Knifel, Johnny O. Johnny O' Yeah, yeah. And I think Frank Frion.

[Doug Feehan]

Frank Freon.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. And so who was in the second car? Besides you two.

[Andy Pilgrim]

So it was going to be. It was. Frank Freon was our regular guy. And when it first came up, it was going to be. When. When it was first introduced, when I first met you down there, it was three names were on the car, which is actually for, you know, the collectible nerd types. If they see a yellow car that's clean with three names on it. That was because Kelly was at that point, not part of the team. And it was only after we tested, like at Sebring. Well, I was supposed to be all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. He was supposed to be in the other car. Yeah. And it basically. Kelly got added later. So the cars at the end of the race, the collectibles, all have four names on. And that's why. Because at the very beginning, at the first announcement, just you. It was just you two and me. Yeah, exactly.

[Kelly Collins]

And we went to Sebring and tested.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And dad wrecked the car, and I wrecked the car. And so they thought they needed to bring in.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You know, your dad came up to me and he just nudged me right there in pit lane. And he goes, you want to drive with us in our car? And I go, it's not my decision. It's the doctors, meaning Doug. And I know there's more to that story, but that's where I found out. So anyways, I said, you gotta go. He goes, you don't wanna drive with me and my son? And I go, no, I didn't say that, Dale. I just said, I can't make that decision. And three, four minutes later, he came back over and he says, we're teammates now.

[Doug Feehan]

That was it.

[Kelly Collins]

That's awesome.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And he went talking, but there's more to it.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah. The reality was we had discussed inter team wise, what we're gonna do. And I thought it was be a great idea that we have four drivers in the car. Normally, we only have three.

[Kelly Collins]

Right.

[Doug Feehan]

But in your car, there was gonna be you, your dad, and Andy and Kelly. And we only had three drivers listed for the other car at that point in time. And so your dad came down. We were at Sebring at that Sebring test, which was interesting.

[Kelly Collins]

Great day.

[Doug Feehan]

It was very interesting. That was a funny day, I gotta tell you. We're gonna diverge here a little bit. Yeah. Cause Junior got in the car first. All right. And he goes right to the pedal. I mean, he's full throttle. And just. I mean, right out of the chute. I mean, there was no acclimation time.

[Kelly Collins]

I had no idea.

[Doug Feehan]

No, you. But I mean, you. That was gung ho, baby. It was video game time. And ended up backing it into the bridge. Yeah. Yeah. So that was. That was a morning. No big deal. All right. Nothing we hadn't expected.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. So. So we get there and what I would eventually learn is that so when we were. When we, you know, in the cup car or any other race car ever drove, at that point, you get out on the racetrack and the first lap is the best lap, grip wise. And it follows off from there. In your car, they, you know, the tires have kind of a case on them that you, you know, you gotta take it really careful for a while. Like Daytona, you know, it was about a lap and a half before you really kind of could start to laterally load the tire. Had no idea. I go off pit road, first series of corners, and then stand on the gas, headed to the bridge and. And it just turned backwards and slid forever. And I back it into the bridge and destroyed this car. The back of the car is destroyed. And I'm thinking, I mean, we've been here 15 minutes and I've test over killed this thing. Yeah. And so we roll it back into the garage. And I'm standing there and I'm embarrassed. Dad. I'm embarrassed for dad because I've wrecked the car. And your team had. Had no motion. They go into the. They. They always just like. They just like went to work like, all right, we did. We've been here before. So they go into the truck and they bring out these gigantic black bags, like huge body bags is what they kind of look like. And unzip and out comes a brand new car. Like, the whole rear section of this car, all of the. They rebuilt the underbody and the. And the top and the wing, and all of the whole. Comes out of these giant bags. And in 15 minutes, the car was back together. And then they're like, okay, get back in. I was like, really? I'm not like in the penalty violence.

[Doug Feehan]

You didn't get banned.

[Kelly Collins]

I'm not in time out. And they're like, they're like, go for it again. Just, you know, now, you know.

[Doug Feehan]

So we follow up. And he does an admirable job.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, he did a good job. We were watching lap times. You did. You got there. You got there really quick, man.

[Doug Feehan]

So then dad gets in the car. All right, now he's taking the opposite approach. He's walking down the hill to get to the cows. There's a story goes with that old timers joke. Anyway, and lap times are coming down Coming down, coming down. You can tell he's getting acclimated. He's getting way more comfortable. The next thing you hear coming down the straightaway going into 17. I mean, things is just locked up. Called boom. Into the tire wall. He had. All four tires on the car were flat. He backed it in because he had locked them up for such a period of time going in that corner, and the car was a mess. So now we got to bring it back in. And of course, he's. After the earlier episode with you. All right, He's. Oh, Doug, I'm so sorry. You know, so we're sitting down, we're having lunch while the guys are fixing the car, and we just had, you know, making sandwiches and stuff, sitting at the table, and he got. Doug. I says, again, I says, I can't tell you how sorry I am causing you guys all this work and doing all this damage. And I said. I said, don't worry about it. I said, you only got one responsibility left. He says, what's that? I said, well, you see that pile of parts over there? He goes, yeah. I said, after lunch, you and Junior are gonna go over and sign all those. I said, I'm gonna sell them. I said, I'm gonna get my money back for all the damage on the car. And lo and behold, true to the man. All right, you guys both went over with a Sharpie and signed all the. Signed all the broken. The broken parts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did sell some of them, but we always contacted you before we would do it.

[Kelly Collins]

Really?

[Doug Feehan]

I don't know if you remember any of that to make sure that you knew we were gonna do it. We didn't do it all at once every once in a while.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But that incident when he did crash, he could only get reverse, so we were gonna go out and get him. Do you remember that?

[Kelly Collins]

Yes. He backed it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

He backed it all the way down. C brain. And all he could see is his eyes and his mustache in the side mirror, and he didn't want any help. And he drove it all. And the wheels were like this. And he drove it, and he got out, and he was really bummed.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, I was not bummed. Now, I was sad for the guys that had to fix the car, but I was like, hell, yes. I'm the only guy to freaking wreck this thing.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah. Thank go. It was going to be an easier ride home. Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

You want some more ammunition for that? Okay. So at the beginning of the day, he said, you know, can someone take me around? I said, yeah. I had a Corvette C5 that GM were providing for me. So I took him around the racetrack just to show him around. This is before all this happened, right? So I took him around kind of steady, just like here, pointing apex so I could talk, you know, And. All right. Then I came back on pit lane. He says, now it's my turn. And I said, oh, yeah, sure. So I stopped the car. He gets in. He just bang, bang, bang, bang down to turn one. And I. Oh, my God, this is gonna be crazy. So he got around the track, and he was flying around the track, just figuring it out, getting the wrong line, figuring it, pulling it back, going sideways, everything else. And he made it. He comes down the back straightaway, fourth gear, flying into 17, and basically gets into the corner, realizes he's got to slow it down, slams it into third. No, first, first.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, wow.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And round. And I saw bridge, wall, bridge, wall, bridge, wall. Okay. We must have spun like three times, and then it finally stopped. And your dad was. Smile on his face. And he looked at me and goes, you were nervous, Nelly yet, boy? And I was like, no, I'm fine. And he said, that's not what your right foot's telling me. My foot plastered to the firewall.

[Doug Feehan]

You were. You were on foot on the brake, baby.

[Andy Pilgrim]

The car was never the same. I had to drive it back home. It was like. Like, I think the drive shaft. Was that a U bend in it? Man, that. So there you go. You got that.

[Kelly Collins]

I remember, I feel like for some reason we had a dinner. Like that was a two day test or we had dinner before we left. And I remember, you know, we'd wrecked a car. Both of us had wrecked a car, but we had also run some really solid times. And we're.

[Andy Pilgrim]

You were.

[Kelly Collins]

Y' all were. That was important because I think, you know, we wanted to go and run well right in Daytona. And so I think it was. I was like. I just remember being at that dinner and listening to y' all. I was listening to y' all talk to dad and dad talk to y' all and listen. Judging the temperature of the conversation.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, if you remember, he said, we're all going to dinner. Leave your cars at the track. We were back with you guys.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

With Crisp and Ty.

[Kelly Collins]

And I just remember that being a lot of. I felt really good after that dinner because it was like, camaraderie. We all kind of got the bond a little bit. And. And there was some. There was some, I guess, some confidence of, you know, that we. We could go there and be capable.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Of, Of. Of doing well. So, yeah, Sebring, that's a fun story for me to tell because, you know, wrecking that car and, and feeling like, holy, what have I done? I've done ruined this whole thing. The whole thing's ruined. And then the rest of the day going the way it did.

[Doug Feehan]

And us, we wanted to get that done out of the way. That's how you build the family. I mean, you know, we looked at what we did for a team and you got to experience a lot of it. There's a bunch of stories I think, that relate to that, but the idea was, and these guys were part of it, being a Corvette race car driver is not just driving the car. Your role outside the car is as important as your role inside the car. And when we developed that family, I mean, we knew the crew guys, all right. We knew their family, we knew their girlfriends, their wives, their dog. I mean, we knew all about them. We were one group that had bonded together. And I think your dad recognized that right away, and I think he didn't know quite how to do that. He oftentimes explained to me that he didn't fully understand how this thing worked like this, where everybody was together and friendly, helping one another. The inter team stuff that went on, I mean, there wasn't. There was a genuine love of the sport. It was a different environment. And I think getting that Sebring test was so important. And you hit the nail right on the head is going through as difficult time as it could be. I mean, there's nothing worse than wrecking a car. All right? We got that out of the way because that never happened again. All right? We went through all the stuff. We were talking about selecting the teams. Your dad came up to me when we put that fork four driver thing together, and he was not happy. All right? He said, doug, I have to tell you, I'm a little disappointed. I said, well, what? He says, well, I want to know why there's four drivers in our car and there's only three drivers in all the other cars. I said, well, Dale, I said, you know, this is your. Your first stay at, at 24 hours. I said, we've got weather to think about. I said, we've got heat to think about. I said, you know, it takes a lot out of you driving these cars. He said, doug, I drive in the Charlotte World 600. I ride in that whole damn race all by myself. I said, dale, I said, I don't want to take away from that. I said, I know that that's I mean, that's a monumental physical achievement. But I said, driving sports cars, you're shifting gears, you're turning left, you're turning right, you're mashing on the brake, you're racing with cars that are significantly faster. You're racing with cars that are significantly slower. I said, it's tough. And I could tell that I was not getting through to him. I mean, it wasn't registering. And. And so I said, look, I said, I appreciate and respect where you're coming from. I said, we got our test scheduled at Daytona. I said, we'll go down and do that Daytona test. And I said, when that test is over with, if you think that the four driver idea is a bad idea, then we'll go to three drivers. I said, I'll honor your request and we'll do that, but let's get through that test. He said, all right, that sounds fair. So we go down to Daytona. You remember this? And it was hotter than hell. It had to be. It was. I mean, it was early, early in the year. It's January, but It was like 95 degrees outside. And so his time comes to get in the car. It's morning. It's probably 10:30 in the morning. So he suits up. You know, we wear that open face helmet, gets in the car, he's out. The car would run about 50 or 55 minutes on a tank of fuel. And so he was going to do a full stint. At about the 40 minute mark, we got something on telemetry that suggested something was going south in the car and there was no sense in having it blow up or have something break. Whatever's going wrong, I don't remember what it was. So we call him in. 40 minutes in the car. Well, he pulls in, he's in the car, and I can see he's been working inside the car. So he gets out and he's flushed, sweating, helmet off, cool rag around his neck, bottle of water. He comes over and I'm sitting on the wall. He sits right down next to me. All right, I'm looking over, I don't say anything. He doesn't say anything. Two, three minutes go by and I feel elbow.

[Kelly Collins]

Doug.

[Doug Feehan]

I said, yes. He said, you know that idea you had about four drivers in the car? I said, yeah. He said, I think it's a damn fine idea. He says, and I gotta get my ass back in the gym.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

I said, you got it, Dale? I mean, I didn't elaborate on it, but it was that he had the awakening about the physical expenditure required to drive those things, even on a track that he was totally familiar with, it was kind of cool to see him acquiesce and understand what we were doing. I think it gave him a new respect for everything that we did and the knowledge that we were bringing with us and how much he had to learn. He was always open to learning.

[Kelly Collins]

What do you guys remember from the test?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, boy. I remember a lot. I remember him driving backwards down the pit lane. I remember him.

[Kelly Collins]

The test at Daytona?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, no, I wasn't at the test at night.

[Kelly Collins]

You weren't at the Daytona?

[Unnamed Speaker]

I was at Sebring because I was in Ron's car up until your dad nudged me. And then he says, what? You don't want to drive with me? You know, I'm like, I didn't say that. But anyways, that's when I got put in the car that day.

[Kelly Collins]

Really?

[Unnamed Speaker]

At Sebring? Yeah. Yeah. I was supposed to be in Ron's car, and. But I remember. I remember him driving down there like that. I remember him being very fascinated that Andy and I would help you. You guys out. He'd never shared information. Yeah. With other drivers. I mean, that's secret, right? And he's like, you're just telling us what you're doing and where you're breaking and. And he's like, that was part of that whole bonding thing. That whole day before we went to dinner. It was a lot of fun. I remember. I think you got a back shift, and you came into the pits and you got out of the car, and he said to you. He goes, what'd you do to the car? And you go, nothing. He goes, did something because she's bleeding and there was some oil coming out of the bottom of the car. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

He was.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It was a little rough on you that he was like, yeah. He's like, what are you doing here?

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And then he. And then he went and crashed the car. So then you were not, like you said, you're, like, lucky.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, yeah. Do y' all remember. I remember him being very adamant to be included in all aspects of this. Of the experience that, you know, everything that you guys were required to be at or do or any meeting that might be taking place, no matter how.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You wanted to be in everything. Yeah. He really liked. He went. He was gung ho about this thing. Like, he. He was excited for sure.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

About the whole experience and doing good.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, I remember him. I was. We were. I don't know if it was privately, but we were. I Remember us being. Well, I was being competitive with him about our times, and I remember needling him a little bit and he's like, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not time to race yet. And this is a 24 hour race. It ain't about the fastest. And I was poking it and poking and poking at him. He, he would not, he would not like, show any. He would not like, play along with me or get worked up in the bait.

[Doug Feehan]

He wasn't taking the bait.

[Kelly Collins]

No. So I didn't. I mean, I don't really. I wish I had the sheets in front of me, but I felt like at Sebring I was quicker, even though I probably beat the car up worse than he did. And then in the, in the testing at Daytona, I was a little bit quicker than he was. And I'm like, dude, what is going on?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And he's like, it's not race time yet. It's not race time yet. And I'm like, okay.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Your dad and I spoke a little bit about some of that stuff, and I think something that may have helped him a little bit, you can probably tell me if it did or didn't. But I said the braking, the braking was the biggest thing that he kept saying. The braking and his breaking points were just too early. And I said, he's breaking. He was breaking almost like at the 4 marker. And we were breaking like past, just past the 2 marker. And I said, give me half of it. I said. He said, I don't know about that. And so give me half. And he got down to the three and immediately his time started to come down and he came out the car and said, set the brakes. He said, he said, you know, the steering, the handling, the acceleration, but the braking, you said, is something that physically was different. You may feel the same way.

[Kelly Collins]

I remember that was the first, that was the very first time I had ever been able to use telemetry and look at you and you, and see what you guys are doing. And this is something that I took with me for the rest of my career. Driving that Corvette, honestly, you know, helped me obviously, you know, it should have, but it helped me really understand why you break. So we, there's, there's, there's guys that come out of, whether it be V8 supercars or, or any, any type of discipline where you run road courses just like you guys, you know, and you'll come drive our, drive our cars and, and, and, and your braking is so unique. We take what, what a, what an oval driver does when they. When they spend all their life driving around in circles, and then they go to break the same way. And so what I learned. What I learned, what we break really gradually and almost feed more brake to the center of the corner. And you do it. You guys do it the opposite. And I'm like. And so that was one of the first things you. You guys told me was like, you got to match the brake pedal. When the car is at max downforce, that's when the. The brakes are going to perform the best and the tires are going to do their job. So, like, you flip those. You almost flipped the graph upside down. So when I would. So you. The reason why you're able to go so deep into the braking zone is because you do all of your braking at once, and then you. Yes, with the arrow. And so that was something that y' all steered me toward really early in. In the. In the testing. And that was the most helpful piece of information for me to try to find the most gains. Yeah, like, I could. I could feel lateral load. Felt the same. No matter what kind of car you're driving. You know, balance. We all understand what that. But, like, the tech, the technical challenges of getting into the braking zone and getting the car slowed down and still turned on a road course with that much downforce, working with you was really interesting.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I think your dad just picked up on that slower than you did. You picked it up quite quickly.

[Kelly Collins]

Well, I will be honest with you, man. It was because y' all were so great at sitting down. And right after we would drive the car, you would sit down and go, all right, you see, you see here? That. The debrief.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

That was something we never did. Right. We didn't have that much data. We weren't sharing data. We weren't driving each other's cars.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

So this is the first time, like, all four of us in the same vehicle and. Okay, I see it. You're. You're breaking way down here, and we way more break initially and fading and, you know, it's just so easy to go out and try to replicate that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

If you remember, you guys brought something to the table, too.

[Doug Feehan]

Oh, yeah, I remember.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Because, like, you're talking about the deep that maybe remember that we go into the debrief room with the engineers, I call them imagineers, but they would give us all our data and all that stuff. And Ron, they brought in everybody. Not just us. Yeah, everybody. Ron and everybody. And we were going through this whole thing with braking and everything, and they're like, so Dale, what are you doing here on the banking between when you come out of the chicane all the way to the braking zone and turn one? And he goes, well, I just drive up here to this bump and I go, that one. Then I go to this one and another one over here and all this stuff. Well, we treat it like a straightaway, you know, talk on the radio, just hold the wheel, go through the gears. And I think Dale was exiting the chicane bus stop like 7 miles an hour slower than us. And he was getting on the brakes 150ft earlier. And his top speed was like two miles an hour faster. You as well in the banking because of your feel, your natural. It was like the two worlds were colliding, you know.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, yeah. It was like two to three tenths every time from the exit of the bus stop to the entry to two and one, you guys. And you gained it. Yeah, you were killing us.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And he was, he was. All his feathers are all, woo hoo.

[Doug Feehan]

He loved that there were four or five loops at Daytona at that point in time. And so we could, you know, we would, we could look at those segmented times. And I think it got down to the point where it was quite clear that it was 2/10 of a second. We couldn't figure out where it was. And Johnny went out there, went out and Johnny said, I'm gonna follow you. And so Johnny went out and learned the pathway and then came back and was able again, to your point, share it with the rest of the guys. But it was, it cut both ways. I mean, it did.

[Andy Pilgrim]

That was.

[Doug Feehan]

Two tenths of a second is a.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Is a big deal and I've used it ever since.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, I did like you don't forget it.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I did a 14 hour race like a couple of months ago in a much slower car and I used exactly the same thing and I gained some time and you could feel it on the guy. That's what I was driving with in the same car. It was. And I told him, this is, this is Dale Earnhardt. I learned this from the day Learnhart. I'd learned from both of them. Yeah, yeah. It was so funny. Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

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[Doug Feehan]

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[Kelly Collins]

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[Doug Feehan]

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[Kelly Collins]

What was the experience like watching us kind of prepare for an endurance race? I know that I, you know, I know dad. Dad was much, much older and so probably understood a lot of the information you guys were giving him I would learn, I think, after the fact that I didn't have to run 100% every corner that it was. And it's different today, right? They go out today and run that race in qualifying speed all. Not all day, all night. It's crazy. But we had to really take care of the car. And that was like an entire process that I learned as the race went on. But I guess, you know, how. How did y' all see dad adapting to going from running 300 to 500 mile events all his life to trying to, you know, how his mind worked to be able to help you guys get through this event?

[Andy Pilgrim]

After we did the test, I wrote quite a lot of stuff and it was kind of interesting because I sent it to him and you, obviously to both of you, because driver changes were a thing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Huge.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Taking care of the tires were a thing. Building up the tire at the beginning of his stint, things like that, positioning of the car in the pit stop, just all kinds of bits and pieces I thought might be useful to both of you. And I was going up to Pratt Miller to just see because our driver changes were really not well. So it was like, okay, so I was going to go up to Pratt.

[Kelly Collins]

Miller by myself, explain, elaborate on the driver change, why that was important.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Well, because the preparation. We had to do some modification inside the car because Kelly and I would, you know, we were so used to driver changes, but for people that weren't used to it. And we were slightly different sizes, but similar.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The sequence coming in.

[Andy Pilgrim]

The sequence and everything. Yeah. And it needed that going over. So I needed to go to Pratt Miller to just verify what can we do to move the belts? Can we fix a belt here? Can we help put that there? That's going to make it easier because you're not doing it all the time. And the funny part was after he got the stuff and he, blah, blah, blah, he called me on the phone. We were just chatting because he called me sometime just to chat. And he said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm just actually getting ready to go to the airport. I'm sort of getting my backpack for tomorrow. I was going to go to the airport to go to Pratt Mill. He said, what are you going to do? And I said, well, you know, the notes I sent you said, yeah, thanks for those, etc. And I said, I just want to go to the physically to the car and see what we can maybe do, but while we've got some time before the weekend. And he said, can I go? He says, can I Come literally, man. He said, can I come? And I'm going like, dale, yes, of course. Whatever you want to do. Yeah, sure. And he says, okay, great. And it was almost this interest level, this enthusiasm was just. You could feel it in him. And he said, I want to go, too. And he said, why don't you fly to Charlotte and we'll go up in the jet and we'll go together and we'll go there. And I said, that's it. And that's how that started. But it was just really detailing some of the things and some of the changes. And so we came. You know, I went to Charlotte and we. We ended up going up there and spending the day at Pratt Miller. And it was. It was just. The enthusiasm was genuine. It was absolutely genuine.

[Kelly Collins]

I remember being more nervous about driver changes than driving the car.

[Andy Pilgrim]

That was why I did that. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.

[Kelly Collins]

One of the things that I still use today, there's this, like, just kind of like a. I would. I would compare it to the type of material you'd use on a slingshot, but the run, the bungee cord, you guys would bungee all of the belts. So when the belts are undone, they're just kind of out and hanging around. And so, like, literally, the lap. The shoulder belts are hanging in the ceiling, and you just grab them and they come right, you know, put them. Put them where you got to go. I still use that for my lap belt on my left side, because if not, it falls under my ass and I have to dig it out.

[Andy Pilgrim]

There you go.

[Kelly Collins]

But I, you know, I remember us practicing those and. And thinking, yeah, we're not going to get good at this. This is just going to be something that's not going to be good, you know, not going to go well for us.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Exactly.

[Kelly Collins]

And we got to. I remember we got to the racetrack for the race weekend. I believe one of the first things we did, dad text me or called me, and he's like, get over the garage. We're going to practice. Drivers change this some more, you know.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And so we were. He was still focused on improving that particular aspect.

[Andy Pilgrim]

He became the big cheerleader for that stuff. He did. He absolutely did.

[Doug Feehan]

Well, it became abundantly clear when you break down a pit stop, when you look at all the things that can go south, all right? I mean, you're only putting fuel in the car, you're only putting tires on the car, and you're only doing a driver change. Well, the biggest opportunity to screw up is in the driver change. And when it goes south in a driver change, it's not one or two seconds. It's 10 or 15 seconds. And you just can't get that time back on the racetrack unless you get a yellow. I mean, there's no way to get that back. And that's why that driver change becomes so critically important. That's why we spent so much time. We still do. I mean, we're looking at that stuff every single day. And I think your dad recognized that right away. And obviously, it made an impact on you, because that was your greatest concern. It wasn't driving the car. It was effectively implementing a driver change.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, he also had that learning curve. You guys might remember at night. He didn't want to do the night practice, and he was worried about that. And we were like, just go out. You guys both go out. And he got really comfortable. And what I'm getting at is he had to learn how to manage traffic and work traffic and keep the lap time going. And when the session was over, we'd always told him, these aren't cup cars. They're all carbon fiber. You can't. You just mess up a wing plate or anything like that. And you change your arrow and everything. And you might remember this. It was crisp, and Ty and Andy and me and you and a bunch of media. And he came in after the night practice, checkered flag. He comes in, and he's excited as hell. That was great. I loved it and everything. And our crew chief at the time, Frank Rezonetti, goes, hey, Dale, what'd you hit? And he goes, nothing. He goes. And Dale goes back to talking. And then he goes, you must have hit something. He goes, I didn't hit anything. And then Frank says it one more time. He goes, all right, Andy. And he looks over to. And he goes, you'd be proud of me. I waited to turn him around to turn three.

[Doug Feehan]

He goes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

He was blocking me on the banking. I waited to turn three. And we just started laughing, like, biting our cheek because you can't do that in that car. But his way of moving traffic was to turn him around.

[Kelly Collins]

And you'd be proud of me.

[Andy Pilgrim]

He spun a bush. He spun a Porsche.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, he spun the.

[Doug Feehan]

Fortunately, he waited till the slowest corner, though. He was pretty proud of him.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I was supposed to be proud of him for the fact that he didn't do it at 140 miles an hour.

[Doug Feehan]

Somewhere, you know, like, yeah, okay, I hit something, but I did it in the slowest corner.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was funny.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And. And I think I think you actually said, dale, we, we can't do that. Just can't.

[Doug Feehan]

You just can't be doing that.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. So, yeah. Do you guys recall any more from the Daytona test or the test leading up to the race itself? We had hot weather, but nothing other.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, I can tell you this. And it gets back to the, to the, to the, to the family sort of thing, you know, because you guys had your coach right off the bat lane there and that's where, that's where you were staying. And so you have to move from the coach down to the garage area and then to the pit area and just moving around. All right. And there were fans there for this test. They allowed fans to come and we got done early in the day. Again, it was at lunchtime and he said, I can't believe what's going on here at the racetrack. And so I'm concerned. I said, well, what do you mean? He says, well, you know, he says, I'm just used to having to have security and getting mobbed by people. He says, junior and I can walk right around here and it's just, I mean, it just, it's, it's really nice. He says, why does that happen? I said, well, sports car people are just a different mentality. They know who you are, they certainly respect who you are, but they're not the type of people that are going to come up and mob you with, put something in your face to sign it and do all the rest of that. He really, I think, enjoyed the comfort level of being able to move around unencumbered. That that didn't become an element. I didn't have to worry about where my security team was. I didn't have to worry about getting paid. Well, how are we going to get back over there? Can I take the golf cart? I mean, none of that prevailed. It was a total different environment that he hadn't experienced in racing. And at the end of the race when that whole thing was over, we had a long conversation about what his experience was because he had never had in his entire career, he had never had a total experience like it was for that 24 hour event. I think that was one of the biggest takeaways for me was that he was, he was, he had really remarked about how nice of environment it was. It, quote, unquote, this is the best time I've ever had racing. It was just that simple.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It's in this letter that he wrote. He wrote several of his letters after Scally got one.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, he's got it.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah. Kelly got one. I got one. I think Doug may have got one, too, I think. Yeah. But it was like the time says it right in there. Yeah, he says. Basically, yeah. He says.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The funny thing is, you're talking takeaways from, like, Daytona, Some of the little things. The Corvette team, the two big trailers, all the hospitality, the driver tables. Right. All that stuff. And we go to get in line, and it's Ron and me and Johnny and him and you, and. Because the driver's supposed to eat first. I don't know why. I don't know why, but that's just the rule. It was. And all of a sudden, he comes and grabs me, and Ron by the lapet on the race suit, says, what are you guys doing? Get over here. We're like, what? He goes, you don't eat first. The crew eats first. Your mechanics eat first. They're the ones that take care of your race car. They're eating first. And they're all looking at me like, yeah. You know, like that. I'm like, oh, my God, this is gonna have to go this way for the whole race. And so next thing I know, you and your dad and Andy and I are sitting on the ice chest between the transporters, cutting our food like this while all the mechanics are sitting at our tables.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

He said, they take care of your car. They get to do all.

[Kelly Collins]

All right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Whatever you say, Dale. That's funny.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

We get ready for the race weekend. I mean, I'm racking my brain about things that stand out. I don't remember much about practice. I guess that means it was rather uneventful. I think I felt reasonable about how I was doing in the car. I was maybe, I don't know, three quarters to a second off of you guys. And I was pretty happy with that. And I felt like, you know, I was. We were. We were going to be okay. I didn't really know what to expect in terms of, you know, how. How well we might run, you know, And I had never. You know, of course, dad or I had never really raced in the race before and didn't know what we were up for. And my approach to it was different than Dad's. I was. I was there. I was having a good time, and I wasn't feeling a ton of pressure, But. But Dad's approach was different. We. He wanted to be everywhere y' all guys were at. You know, if you guys were out on the pit road or if you guys were at a meeting, he wanted to be there, and I wanted to be where I was supposed to be, but I wasn't as eagerly seeking out the, the, the itinerary of the day as dad was. And I've told this story before, but on race day, it's, you know, I, I know that the race is going to start and you. One of y' all is going to be in the car, we're going to take off running, and at some point, you know, they're going to say, all right, it's your turn, it's your turn, it's your turn. And so, And I really have no clue, like, what that feels like or how ready to be or what, what, what, what do I. What does the other guy supposed to be doing? Right. And so I was really, I was kind of anxious, honestly nervous about, like, when they were going to call my name. And that's normal, what the experience was. Yeah. Like I was going to climb in this car and, and go. It was really foreign. Really foreign. But I'm standing. And Steve, Chris, you mentioned Crisp. Steve Crisp is kind of like the, for the people listening, he's kind of like the. He works for Dylan Hart Incorporated. He's, he's helped. He's. He's kind of a guy that would go around on the racetracks with me and make sure that I was where I was supposed to be at all times. And great friend of Dad's, worked with Chevrolet forever. And he was basically the one that was tasked to sort of make sure me and dad were where we were supposed to be and a good kind of insulator connector to the race team. And he was pretty smart about road racing and Chevrolet in general in the Corvette program. So he's a good person to have. But he spent a lot of time with me, a ton of time with me that particular day. And we were in my bus and, man, we had these cool helmets, right?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, your dad had our helmets painted, right?

[Kelly Collins]

Dad had a open face helmet and I have got a closed face helmet. And I'm putting stickers all over my helmet. All this goofy I'd found. I don't know what it was, but. So we were having fun with our helmets and we had this drink hose that plugged into the front, which we'd never had before. Dad didn't use it. I don't know what dad used because he had open face helmet.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I think he did use a water bottle.

[Kelly Collins]

He just used a water bottle. But I connected to a system that had a button on the steering wheel like you guys.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And dad didn't really know. I'm embarrassed about this. And y' all probably heard the story before because I've told it a few times. But I was a closet cigarette smoker back then. And dad. I didn't smoke around. Dad didn't smoke in public. And I was. Me and Steve smoked as well. So me and Steve Chris was supposed to.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I caught you one time.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, yeah, me and Steve Chris was sitting there and bull smoke cigarettes. And I was trying nervous energy, being a goofball. I had that. I was just. It was about time to go out to the pit road for the pre race ceremony. And dad was coming by to get us. And Steve told me. He's like, dad's going to be here in a minute, tell us to come home. But I didn't think he's coming to the door of the bus right to get me. And that was out of character for dad. He would probably pull up on the golf cart and lay on the horn and holler, come on. And I saw that helmet sitting on the counter and I. We had like a backup helmet. And so I grabbed that helmet, I put it on. I put one of them cigarettes in that little plug for the drink, for the trig bottle. And I was like, take a picture, Steve. I got. It was just funny. And I'm standing the bus. I had had a door in the center and I'm standing right in front of that door, and that thing opened up and it was dad. And he slammed it shut. And I looked at Steve Chris, I said, man, I am in deep. This is like 15 minutes before we come out and took pictures with road. And pit road is slammed full of people. I mean, this is the race.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It was about to start.

[Doug Feehan]

Fan walk.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, yeah. And I come. Me and Steve, Chris sheepishly walk out of the bus. Dad's on the cart. Somebody else is driving it. That Me and Steve climb on the back seat and sit down and we start pulling away out of the bus lot. We're driving toward pit road.

[Doug Feehan]

You're just waiting.

[Kelly Collins]

I'm just sitting there. And Steve Chris starts snickering. And dad turns around and goes, don't encourage him. Cussing at Steve. And I was like, God, he is pissed. Damn, man, I messed up, you know, because this is like a big deal. Dad's like, get your head in the game. You're. You know, this is serious. And I'm like, I'm fine. I'm all right. I'm just having fun. And. And he was so mad, wouldn't even talk to me the rest of the morning. We go all the way out to pit road. And in all the photos, there was one where they're like, get on up there, you know, take your picture. But like, we walk out there, he goes over, says, hey to you guys. And I'm like five feet behind. Yeah. And that's why didn't know. And so.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, I did not know that. I never heard that story.

[Kelly Collins]

Man, he was so angry with me.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Well, that's classic.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, go ahead. Because he, he harped somebody to leaning over the front of the car.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

To do an autograph. And he yelled at him, get off that car.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You know, I mean, he.

[Kelly Collins]

I set him off in a bad mood.

[Doug Feehan]

So I want to know where the picture is.

[Kelly Collins]

I don't even know.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, it's gotta be.

[Kelly Collins]

I don't think we got it taken. I think as soon as I stuck it in there, I was like, hey, man, take a picture. He's like, oh. Like, oh, no. And he knew I smoke. He walked in the house one time, saw ashtray full of cigarettes. But I just would always not do it around him. He didn't, he didn't approve of that kind of, kind of thing. And he knew I, you know, wanted to be a race car driver, needed to be in good shape. But I mean, it was a, it was a scene. But so we go out to. That was another thing. I think that was pretty fun. And, and I didn't know what to expect or where to really be. But the, the pre race going out there.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

There's a, There's a moment of recognition to the, to the, to. To the, the team, the, the driver lineup. Everybody, you know, gets. Folks, this, this again, doesn't happen. Isn't something we experience in nascar. A driver, A NASCAR driver walks out to the car. We go through the intros and all of the stuff. You get to the car and you're just like. You would climb in right then if you didn't have to stand there for the, for the anthem or prayer or whatever may be going on, you would just get in because you're just ready to get in and get away from the world. Right. But in yalls, there's a ceremony is sort of, all right, everybody get together. Let's enjoy what we're about to do, and let's recognize what we're about to. Because it is a journey. That race is such.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And the crew's there at the back of the car. Everything's clean, everybody's there.

[Kelly Collins]

And the build up to the prep to it is sort of recognized in that initial moment before the Engines are fired. What do you guys remember about that morning?

[Doug Feehan]

You know, I'm gonna go to the people. I'm gonna go to the people.

[Andy Pilgrim]

The number of people around our car because of you guys.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, your dad knows every. He knows almost every fan. He knows him. He'll tell us stories, all about them.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

The night before again, this gets back to Claudio and his genius. I don't know if you remember this or not, but you guys will remember this. You know, we used to do that little ceremony where the crew guys would roast the drums. I know we did that before. Before each.

[Kelly Collins]

I don't remember that.

[Doug Feehan]

All right, so. So we're at Daytona and it's Friday night.

[Kelly Collins]

Where are we?

[Doug Feehan]

We're at the back of the transporters in a group. And the drivers. The drivers. You get the drivers are lined up. And so Claudio and I are making our, you know, pre race speech. I'm giving them the pep talk. And he's screwing around as he usually did. Well, we had made up in this event. We had made up T shirts for everybody. And they had nicknames on them. Claudia would think up nicknames for people. I don't remember what your guys were. His was Grandma. I forget what yours was.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, mine was Grandma.

[Doug Feehan]

Johnny was Little Red Riding Hood. So we get to you, and I'm really. I'm trying to be sensitive, this whole. This whole experience, because I knew it was going to be tough operating the shadow of your dad.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, right.

[Doug Feehan]

I mean, just that was just. I knew that was going to be hard, and I knew it was going to be difficult to bring you forward, to get you into the. To get you into the family, to get you into the past. I wanted to try and make you feel as comfortable as I could and the team as well. And so we get down to you and your dad. So your dad gets his T shirt, all right? And it's a giant capital letter E on the T shirt. And of course, everybody's laughing. That's pretty cool. And he's smiling. It's pretty cool. And then your T shirt comes and it's a little lowercase E. And I'm thinking, this isn't helpful. This is not helping.

[Kelly Collins]

Okay?

[Doug Feehan]

This is not helping. Junior feel part of this thing. They get the biggie and you get the little lowercase. So, I mean, I kind of bummed. Everybody's laughing. You were a good sport about it. Outwardly, there didn't seem to be anything, but it stuck in my mind. It was one of those moments where I felt bad. I really felt Bad.

[Kelly Collins]

You shouldn't.

[Doug Feehan]

Until the following week. All right? Now, I don't know if you remember this. I'm watching the nascar. I'm watching the Daytona race, all right? And they're walking around pit lane. It was for qualifying or practice or something. And you're walking around with your fire suit on, and you had it tied around your waist, and you were wearing the little ET Shirt underneath it. I'm watching that TV and I'm thinking, you know what? Suddenly I felt just a whole lot better about it. I thought it was just one of those moments in time, you know, where things come together, that only inside people would understand what that meant. And if that was clearly important to you, that you were wearing that shirt during the Daytona, he.

[Kelly Collins]

Back before we ran this race in 01, I was working on my late model car in the Deerhead shop on the farm. This is probably about three years before this.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And he would walk around with this black hat with this capital E on it. And, you know, I. Dad. That was. That was strange to me because dad was never like. I always felt like, you know, dad had a. Dad had a Persona. He was, you know, the intimidator, man in black, all these different things. And he taught, you know, he leaned into all of that stuff. Absolutely. But he wasn't kind of guy that will walk around with his name on his belt, you know, he wasn't the kind of guy that would walk around with his hat on, you know, like, Dale Earnhardt hat. But he had somebody somewhere gave him one of these hats. And he comes walking in and we roasted him. Me and a buddy of mine that was working there were like, what in you. What are you doing with that hat? That E. Big E hat on, man. What does this big E go? What does this hat mean? What does that E stand for? And we just gave him such a hard time. So, like, fast forward to that T shirt. Like when I. When I bet. When I saw that, I was like, oh, man, this. This is perfect.

[Doug Feehan]

I love this. It couldn't get any better.

[Kelly Collins]

That's right. Yeah. Cause it's.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, he was a character. Remember one time he told us that he, like 11 o' clock at night, every once in a while, he'd put on some ratty clothes and go down to Walmart and push a shopping cart around with like 10 rolls of paper towels in it and just walked by people and it was like. Like that. He just. For shock value.

[Kelly Collins]

No kidding. Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. That is wild. Hey, tj, you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrick Automotive Group.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Kelly Collins]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Kelly Collins]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay, I definitely did not see that coming.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, pretty neat, huh? So for any of our listeners shopping for commercial vehicles, here are some things you need to know about us at Dalenhardt Jr. Your 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.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, I guess we can dive into the race. You know, I, I see a lot of footage when this race comes around every year. We see, you know, we see the footage of dad driving the car, footage of him in there driving It. I will say that we. I thought that that was the best driving race car that I'd ever been behind the wheel of. And. And even today, the amount of. Once you got the tires worked in pretty good. Yeah, the. The way. The way that car wanted to be driven and begged to be driven was so much fun. And I was a bit unsure about how comfortable I would be driving something with that much, you know, power and technology, but it was. It did everything better. Everything that my NASCAR stuff did. This thing just did everything better. And I remember dad talking about that as well, just how fun it was to drive. You know, we got. We got some opportunity to race in the rain, which was a blast.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, that was a little baptism by fire for years.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was.

[Kelly Collins]

But I had some good information. You know, you guys were like, hey, man, you don't want to run an online.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And I was like, okay, I understand.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

I was not sure exactly. I was like, so in my mind, you're. You guys are like, all right, don't run in the groove because it's got oil and all kinds of all over. Don't run right offline. I'm like, but I got across the line somewhere, right. I got to get from one side of the track to the other. Like, how do I do that? It's very carefully.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Got across the line twice on the way in and on the way out.

[Kelly Collins]

That's right. So, yeah, I remember. I was like, I couldn't believe y' all put me in that car at night and during the rain. But I think the night time was probably my best time because I was a. I was always a. Always wanted to stay up late.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And it was hard to get the tires up, too. It's hard. Even. Even harder to get the tires up because of the cold weather. Yeah, for sure.

[Doug Feehan]

Senior kind of like. I don't know if guys remember this.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

He was scheduled to do two stints.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And it was. It wasn't raining. Raining, but it was missing, and the track was wet.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

All right. But he came on the radio, you know, because we're checking all the time. How you doing? How you doing? Are you comfortable, you know? Yep, yep. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. As. As it progressed. And he gets deeper into his second stint. He comes on the radio and says, guys, I'm really enjoying this, because he says the car's handling kind of like a NASCAR now.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

Because it was moving around. He was. He could feel that on the banking okay.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

He got near the end of the second stint, and he says, guys, I want to ask you something. I said, what's that? He said, can I stay in for a third stint? Do you remember that?

[Unnamed Speaker]

I thought it was a second stint.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, it was the third. He did.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Not third, not three in a row. He did one, and then he wanted.

[Andy Pilgrim]

To stay in the game.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It would be a total of three.

[Doug Feehan]

Yes.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And everybody kind of looked at each other, and, you know, when a guy's comfortable in the car and he's turning great lap times in the wet, you don't want to break that rhythm. And if he's physically feeling it, I mean. Yeah, well, go ahead. I mean, he. Number one, he was liking it, but number two, he really liked it that we said, yeah, go ahead. Because I think it made him feel like, you know what? They know I'm doing a good job in this car.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

We're not giving up anything by having me in here.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

I mean, it was just. It was one of those moments.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And when it started raining. I mean, it started raining when he just literally just about got in for his first stint. And then I actually was on the radio and told him just a little bit about what we were saying, like, watch the line. You go offline here. Be careful coming out of the bus stop because it's really slippery coming back out of the bus stop. And that was all he needed. And then he just kept going quicker and quicker and quicker and getting more and more comfortable.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. I felt like the rain tire felt had more grit.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Oh, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Oh, yeah. It was amazingly grippy.

[Kelly Collins]

You couldn't run, obviously, anywhere near the lap time, but the lateral, and it was just easier to understand.

[Doug Feehan]

Your comfort level in the car was good. Didn't feel like you were giving anything up.

[Kelly Collins]

No, not really.

[Doug Feehan]

No.

[Kelly Collins]

I felt like I was more competitive when the track was wet than versus the dry track. Like, when we ran, when the track would get dry, you guys were like, elite, you know, and it was. You know, that would be. The Delta would be a little. Little larger. Talking about the tires, getting them up to, you know, getting the heat in them and so forth. I. I don't remember dad having really any moments. I. I wasn't always uber paying attention to exactly what was going on with him in the car. But I remember two things that happened to me during the race. I'm sure there was more, but. And it was fun because it was so. It was middle of the night, and I came in, changed tires or I just got in the car. I don't know. But I went out on new tires and we had a pit limiter. And gingerly kind of drive the car around to pit exit and go into the first horseshoe. Horseshoe there in the infield. And I got on the gas coming out of the horseshoe and spun into the grass and took down a couple of those billboards. Little white billboards.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Breaking markers.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes. And. And, man, I'm spun around. It's like two in the morning. Feels like it's pretty much. I'm not quite sure how much you guys are paying attention. Like, I'm like, man, we were paying attention. I wonder if they know where I'm at. And I really don't know which way to go to get back onto the track. I'm like, I don't want to get coarse cutting or anything like that. I'm like, I've done spun around, like three or four three 60s, and I just want to rejoin in the right place. But there's cars every. Like, I'm. I'm a good 50 yards from the racetrack at this point.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And there's brake lights and headlights flying all around in the distance. And I'm like, I'm just not sure where to go. And I don't even remember rejoining the racetrack, But I got back going again and run some laps and. And then somewhere along the line, it felt like it might have been later that morning, there were, you know, with the weather, we had massive ruts in the bus stop.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And so right offline, there were like, you know, foot deep, 10, 12 inches deep, big ruts. And I dropped the tire on the bus stop and broke the shaft. The drive shaft.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But we didn't know that.

[Kelly Collins]

I came to pit road. Yeah. And I was like, there's a problem with the drive line. Come down pit road. And they're like, oh, the. Whatever. What was that thing called?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Back half shaft.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Half shaft.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

You're like, oh, we got a broken half shaft. And I was like, oh. And.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I thought. I thought they thought it was a transmission, and they replaced the transmission, and it ended up being the half shaft. When you tried to leave.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. We would have won that race. They didn't look at the half shafts. You said, something feels wrong in the drive. They replaced the whole transmission. Oh, they replaced a perfectly good transmission. Told you to go. And then Roscoe goes, it's the half shaft. They could have done. We might have won that race, dude. I mean, nothing. Because of you.

[Kelly Collins]

I know. Well, I felt like, yeah. And sorry Andy. But Andy dropped a tire in the bus stop, like, hours later and broke another half shaft.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I don't remember that.

[Kelly Collins]

I do.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, then I did anything he does wrong, he doesn't.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I block those things out of my mind.

[Unnamed Speaker]

He's English, Dale. He's English.

[Doug Feehan]

There's a reason we carried more than one.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

There were some massive holes in the bus stop. Huge. Yeah, huge.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Do you remember what happened to me? I got my fuel light coming out of the bus stop, and the engineers, they go, you can go another lap. I go, you sure? And they're like, yeah. So I'm like, I'm a driver, not a thinker, right? And I'm driving around. All of a sudden, I'm coming to the bus stop on the backside, and it starts running out of gas. Like, running out of gas. And I'm like, I'm going out of gas. And I blew the bus stop. I went all the way around, and it's raining, and I couldn't make it to pit lane. And I'm on the back with. With racing shoes, pushing with my back against the wing, trying to get it in. And I finally got it close enough to where the team could come out and get me and push.

[Kelly Collins]

I remember that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And I remember telling your dad, he goes, man, you're out of breath. And I go, you know, it's a lot easier.

[Kelly Collins]

It's harder.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You have to push it, like, probably eighty hundred yards.

[Doug Feehan]

Oh, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It's all on film. And I get in there, and he goes, how you doing? I'm like, I'm beat, man. And he goes, well, thank God you did that. And I go, thank God. I go. All I could think about was, if I was the guy that ran your race car out of gas, I'm not going to make it out through the tunnel on this race. He goes, that's true. They would have got you.

[Kelly Collins]

That's what he said.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. That was crazy.

[Kelly Collins]

Unreal.

[Doug Feehan]

You know, we got. We got down to the end of that race talking about tires, and we were running at that point in time in the GT class. We were running one, too. Yeah, we were. We were approaching the ability to win that race overall, which is a very rare occurrence for a GT car to beat prototype cars.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes.

[Doug Feehan]

But tires became. Tire supply became an issue. You all right?

[Kelly Collins]

And I don't remember that.

[Doug Feehan]

We needed. We needed. We needed a set of tires that you guys had.

[Unnamed Speaker]

They took them from us, Dale.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And so I had to make a decision. Okay. It was. It was pretty clear you were a Couple laps down. At that point in time, I mean, you weren't in.

[Unnamed Speaker]

We were second in class a couple laps down.

[Doug Feehan]

I mean, time wise. I mean, it wasn't going to happen.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

All right. But your dad was not willing to give up. And so I make the call and we get the tires, and nobody on the team was upset. I mean, they all got it except your dad. All right. He come up to me, he says, what's going on with these tires? I said, well, I said, you're a couple laps down. I said, we're battling for the overall victory in this thing. I said, you're going to be fine on the tire allotment that you have. Okay. You're just not going to have the super softs at the end. And we got to guard the position for the overall win. He looks at me and goes, oh, well, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah. He went right along with it. But when he knew the tires were getting taken away, I mean, he wasn't giving up. Even if he was a couple laps down, only had two hours to go. He was not willing to take second place. He was still.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Was there prototypes that year?

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah. Yeah. We had to wait for.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I thought we finished first and fourth overall. I thought Ron won it overall.

[Doug Feehan]

We did.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right. There was no prototypes.

[Doug Feehan]

There were prototypes racing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

They all broke out.

[Doug Feehan]

We had to wait for the Dyson to. The Dyson was the last prototype running. We had to wait for him to break.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And he finally broke. Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

I do remember hitting pit wall coming off of y' all. Remember like, how tight?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, real tight.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

The tightest corner on the track.

[Kelly Collins]

I bounced the right front off of the guardrail once. Coming off pit road. God, that was the first time I got in the car. Yeah, I get. I mean, that was just leaving. Oh, my gosh.

[Doug Feehan]

But that happens all the time.

[Kelly Collins]

I know it, but it's just like.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Jimmy Johnson rode off a car there in practice.

[Kelly Collins]

You don't want to be the guy.

[Andy Pilgrim]

No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want to be the guy.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes. Especially when your dad's. Dale Earnhardt's on the same team.

[Doug Feehan]

Well, you got to remember, I didn't hit anything.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

No.

[Doug Feehan]

Until I did.

[Unnamed Speaker]

He loves, though, being teammates. Like I said, that's the only time he's ever been teammates with anybody. Probably the only time you've. Other than Boris for a minute. Second. Right. That have been teammates with anybody. So it's a part of history for sure.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

Well, it's a different mental dynamic because, you know, there's other people depending on what you do. And it's not just the crew guys. You got to come back and answer to your answer to your fellow drivers as well. You got to respond. You feel a sense of responsibility to them, and that's not something that. That in NASCAR you don't feel. I mean, you're a guy.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

You're solo. I mean, it's me. I screw up, it's on me. Okay. You have to walk back there with your tail between your legs, and you got two or three other guys looking at you like, what'd you just do?

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

You know, nobody wants to be in that position.

[Andy Pilgrim]

No. Like you said, you don't want to be that guy.

[Doug Feehan]

No, you don't want to be that guy.

[Kelly Collins]

So we run the race. I. I will say, like, having no idea what to expect every second, you know, leading up to the race, I was unsure about the. How the race would begin and what. What we were supposed to do. Where was I supposed to be? I'd never, you know, never been a co driver. And, you know, we go through the process of the race, and I started understanding what my role is and what dad's role is and each and everybody's individual role. We get to the finish, and we get to go to Victory Lane. You know, we finished second, I think second class, fourth overall.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yep.

[Kelly Collins]

And everybody seems happy. Our, you know, our teammate won overall. We felt like, you know, a couple things go this way or that we win the race for sure and. But we get to staying in Victory Lane. I wouldn't realize. I would not realize till all these years later, having I ran the race again in 04 and then did the race multiple times as a broadcaster and obviously watched multiple versions of it at home. I wouldn't understand till later in my life how lucky we were to be to have been able to sort of cap off the experience with the opportunity to take our photo in Victory Lane as some. Only a few teams get to do.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Absolutely.

[Kelly Collins]

At the end of that day. So that was pretty special for you.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, very special.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And, you know, when you were talking about at the beginning of the race, the cars are perfect and everything's beautiful and the suits are all clean and everything. I think it was your dad. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think it was your dad that wanted to make another run of cars. The dirty cars, the gold ones, the silver cars, the yellow cars, all dirty after the race.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Those became just as popular.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I don't know. I don't know if you guys. I Don't know who was privy to this, but remember, at the end of the ceremony, we were just. There weren't many people left, but there was a trophy. But there was one trophy. You remember this? He calls over a guy who was one of the NASCAR people, one of the people that he knew. I don't know his name. Let's just say his name's Bill. Says, bill, come over here. Said, yeah, hey, Dale, how you doing? Said, yeah, good. Said, see this trophy? Said, yeah, Dale. Said, one trophy. There's four drivers. He said, yeah, Dale, that's what we have. We have a trophy for one trophy for the team and all that. He says, bill, there's four drivers and there's one trophy. And he said it again, and he says, well, he said, four drivers, one trophy. And he wasn't being me. He just. Okay, Dale, we'll see what we can do again. We have some more trophies.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, we all got trophies.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You got one, didn't.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, we all got trophies.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It was your dad doing that. Oh, yeah, I remember that. I was like. I was just watching it back and forth, like the tennis match, like.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

There was never a request.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It was. It was priceless. It was priceless. I'll never forget it. It was, like, beautiful.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. That showed up in the mail.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, it did. It did. It did.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yes.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yes, it did.

[Kelly Collins]

That's pretty cool.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It was 100 to your point about unique. It was so nice to get that, you know, which is not normal.

[Kelly Collins]

You know, I. I know that there was plans to do that again, to run that. Run that car, the. Maybe to run it back the next year. I'm not sure. Had y' all had those conversations?

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Or he did, too.

[Doug Feehan]

Absolutely. Well, he. You know, this was like a seed. I think your dad looked at it.

[Kelly Collins]

As a huge opportunity, maybe even to race that year.

[Doug Feehan]

Yes.

[Kelly Collins]

Maybe.

[Doug Feehan]

Yes.

[Kelly Collins]

Or even in Le Mans. Down the road.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Down the road.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

You know, I think he had in his mind an idea of when he was going to get out of the race car. And I think it was relatively close time frame as to what that was. And I think his total experience, all the testing, all the racing, all the things we've talked about today, I think that kind of fortified his. Was helping fortify his decision to get out of this. That there was a new chapter to be written in his racing book. It was going to be with Corvette. And I know he spoke to me and he spoke to others about it, that his dream. He quite frankly said to Me, I'm going to do one more year of Cup. He says, and Doug, and then we're going to go Le Mans. I'm getting you all in my letter.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It might be in his letter.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, I'm getting one of these cars and we're going to go do that 24 hours. I said, dallas, let's go do it. I mean, it had that kind of impact on him where he suddenly was going to be comfortable walking away from NASCAR because he had a whole new mountain to climb that I think he was totally invigorated with, totally inspired with. And I also knew he had the confidence that he could do it. Okay. There wasn't a question of. I mean, he knew he could do this.

[Andy Pilgrim]

When we went back, yeah, when he went back on the Monday after Steve, Chris told me this, he called Steve and he said, Steve, hey, trophy room. He said, let's start clearing out the trophy room. That's where we're gonna do the Corvette program.

[Kelly Collins]

Damn.

[Andy Pilgrim]

That's what he said to Steve. And Steve told me that a couple of times.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And he referenced several times to, I guess him and AJ were buddies and how he used to talk. AJ used to talk to your dad about Le Mans and in the Fords and all that stuff. He really loved that. Yeah, he was like a little kid listening to AJ is what he said.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

The enthusiasm for the whole thing was. It was almost like you were Talking to a 20 year old or something sometimes. It was genuine. It really was.

[Doug Feehan]

It was a closet dream. I mean, you could tell that suddenly that the clouds had parted and now this thing he had oftentimes thought about was right on the horizon.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Didn't you do something one time without him being there? There was a little meeting or something like that happened down in pit lane, remember? And he, he wasn't included.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah. Well, to your point, remember when you said he wanted to be part of everything? He made that implicitly clear to me on several occasions. I want to be treated like every other person on this team. He didn't want any special big E treatment. Okay. And there was something going on that really totally innocuous. It didn't involve. There was no requirement for anybody to be there except the few people that were there. It was crew guys. I forget what we were talking about, per diem rate or something going on. Well, he found out about that. We had had this meeting and he wasn't there. And he was finger in chest. Viehan. I told you at the beginning of this thing, I want to be Included, Sorry. I mean, you know, I wasn't going to make any excuse, tell him what it was about. Just said, I'll be damn sure that, you know, that doesn't happen again. But he was up in it.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And when we first got to Sebring, too. When we first got to Sebring, we had. There was a. A of bit meeting. Everybody was around, and he said a few words and he said, you treat us. You and him like everybody else. And that started it. And I think that also made people feel super comfortable.

[Doug Feehan]

Do you remember us having dinner? It was Sebring Cafe. Do you remember. Do you remember that little diner that we walked into to have dinner? Now it's packed because Sebring, I mean, where are you gonna go? And this was a relatively new place. The guy had opened up, had a restaurant in New York, and it was. It was, you know, all homemade food and that kind of thing. And so Claudia says, where we gonna go? I said, I'm gonna go see. Bring diner. We walk into that diner and it's packed, and the place goes absolutely silent. It was one of those things where people are looking at each other, like, are you just seeing what I saw?

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

Is that. Is that Dale and Junior? And you could hear then suddenly the murmuring was coming up, but no one came up to the table. No one bothers. No one any. I mean, your dad was inspired by that, that we could go and have that and not have anybody bother him. But everybody in that restaurant knew who was sitting at that table. It was a pretty cool experience.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Very cool stuff like that.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Is there anything else about the day that we're leaving out or the race itself or the experience before we move on?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, no. I mean, right after the race, we were up on the podium, and then everybody kind of. I had to go to Seabrook or down to. To West Palm beach to test some cars for Skip Barber. And he comes running over and he goes, hey, when am I going to see you again? I go, I don't know.

[Kelly Collins]

Soon.

[Unnamed Speaker]

We're going to. You know, you've talked about plans and stuff. That was it.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. When was the last time you talked to him, Andy?

[Andy Pilgrim]

The very last time I talked to him, mate, was actually during the 500.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

With the long yellow with Tony Stewart. And he said to me, because he'd invited me for the 500.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

To come. And so I actually stayed on his boat the night before the race.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And so it was like when you. When you. When you're towards the end of the race, he said, make sure you get back to the bus at the end because I'll be ready to go. He said that, you know, when there was an SUV there, when I went back to the bus and there's an SUV there back at the bus, and there were, you know, two police officers there with motorcycles and that was it. But I walked back during that Tony Stewart yell. I walked back and when I got back to the boss, Theresa was there and she said when I got in the door, she said, he's been asking for you. And I said, oh. And. And so I didn't immediately think about it, but then it. That was there like three or four minutes, it was still under yellow. And he said, does Andy have his ears on yet? And I heard it on the radio. And she said, here, he wants to talk to you. So I got on the radio and said, hey, there's Andy. He said, are you having fun? You having a good time? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm back at the bus. You know, everything's good. And he said, all right. He said, so anyway, you know, we got. You got any advice for me here? That's what he said. Can you imagine a road race? He got any advice for me? And I laughed just like you did just then. I just, I kind of laughed at no Dale. I mean, to me, watching the race, as I tried to with my inexperienced eye, it looked to me like he had a 15th, 20th place car. And he just kept working his way back up to the front. So I said, dale, just keep doing what you've been doing, man. You're doing great. You're doing awesome. I'm like, what the heck else can I say to the guy?

[Kelly Collins]

I didn't know that.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And that was it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And then it might have been the last person.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, well. And there was an overall call on the. On the radio that said green this time. And then I. It was like, okay, you know, see you later.

[Kelly Collins]

Damn.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Crazy.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

You've never told me that.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I. Yeah, we didn't speak too much after that. You know, those are things, honestly. I mean, there was a lot of stuff. These letters, I kept them for 20 years before I actually started bringing them up at enthusiast for people that would appreciate them. Yeah, yeah. I think they. You're the same way. Oh, yeah, the same way. Yeah, it was. I know. I think it was just out of respect for everything.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But when people come in my house and they read that letter, they're like, oh my God. Yeah, like, that's Dale. And I'm like, yeah, that was Dale.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah. Yeah. Four emails, huh?

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, four.

[Kelly Collins]

Email. Looks like an email.

[Andy Pilgrim]

There was email. There was email. You know, and I only bring that up because after the race, I got hundreds of emails, and some of them are looking at them. Were. Were you the Andy that Dale was talking to? Under the full course yellow before I went back to green? But there were like four or five at that time, and I still got them. Actually, I printed them off because I just wanted to keep them. But it was. It was. Well, the. The emotional reaction, man. It was. It's. It was. It was.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

People really, really.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And Andy called me from the coach.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And you guys all knew.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Way before anybody else.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And I'm just sitting there. We're having some beers, and we're all excited. And I just. My girlfriend at the time, I just turned white.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It was so surreal at the time. I mean, obviously, it's your dad, mate.

[Kelly Collins]

Sure. Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

I. I'd gone down to Atlanta to be with Panos. I don't know if you ever met Don Panos. This guy owns Road Atlanta and a bunch of other stuff. Kind of a crazy guy. These guys know him.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And I was golfing, and I had radio with me, and I'm listening to the race, and the end of the race was pretty exciting. Yeah. Okay. So I'm trying to pay attention to what I'm doing. Of course, the guys I'm playing with are pissed off because they're not race fans. And so I, you know, put the radio down and finished up, and I. And I walked in, into the pro shop. Okay. And of course, the guys there are all NASCAR fans, and they're all looking at the tv. Right. Race was over. And I look up, and now the full screen is a picture of your dad. And it was one of those pictures that wasn't a race winner picture.

[Kelly Collins]

Sure.

[Doug Feehan]

It was one of those remembrance pictures. And I'm looking at that, and I'm looking around, and the place is just absolutely silent, and everybody's just glued to the tv. And I said to the assistant pro guy, I said, what's going on? He said, dale was just killing that racket. I said, no way. The race was just coming down. The race was over. Yeah. No.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

No. I can just remember. I'll never forget just looking up at that TV and seeing that. I get emotional about it, but seeing that full frame, I mean, it was. For everybody else, it was just unbelievable.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

It was just. I. I couldn't. I couldn't accept it.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. That's interesting. Go ahead.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah. No, it's just some of the. Some of the. The respect for the man. Yeah, there was, you know, the racer, in some ways, people either loved or hated him.

[Kelly Collins]

Right.

[Andy Pilgrim]

When they were doing the introduction to Daytona, the biggest raw was for your dad. I mean, it was. I was listening to all the introductions. When I was sitting there, I was like. It was the biggest roar. You could hear some booze because people didn't like him.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

But, man, the respect was there and the emails that I got. And this one example that when I went Back to Daytona 2002, I was running a Corvette, not the factory Corvette, it was a different Corvette I was running there. And we were on practice and I'd come back from lunch and I came in the card and the guy said, hey, there's a gentleman there. He's been waiting for you. And I said, okay. And it was an older gentleman and he was probably 80 something years old. Older gentleman. And I went up to, sir, have you been waiting for me? And he said, yeah. He said, are you Andy Pilgrim?

[Doug Feehan]

Pilgrim?

[Andy Pilgrim]

And I said, yes, I'm Andy Pilgrim. And he said, son, can I shake your hand? And I said, yes, you can shake my hand, of course. And he said, son, he said, dale Earnhardt. He said he thought a lot about you. And he said, dale Earnhardt was like a son to me. And he said, I just wanted to come here and shake your hand because you know what happened. And I was like. I was just choked. And I said, sir, would you like a drink? Would you like. He'd driven there from Alabama, Southern Alabama, to come there. And I said, were you staying for the race or anything? And he said, no, son. He said, I'm gonna go home. He just wanted to come and shake your hand because he said, I think a Dale Earnhardt thought a lot about you. And he wandered off, man. Yeah, he wandered off. And it was like that. That stuck with me forever, as it would. It was incredible. It was incredible.

[Doug Feehan]

I remember seeing him on tv, Respect. On tv. He was doing an interview and the interviewer said, dale, does it bother when you're up there on driver introductions? That whole crowd is booing you and hissing? And he said, son, he said, the only time it bothers me is when they're not making any noise at all.

[Andy Pilgrim]

That makes sense.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah. When you're not evoking any emotion.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

You're not doing a job.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Absolutely.

[Doug Feehan]

I don't care what the emotion is.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I just thought of a really funny story. So I remember I had to go down to West Palm beach after the race. And the only rental car I could get that whole week was a convertible green Mustang, right? So I'm now coming from West Palm back to Sebring to test some open wheel cars. And it's like 7:15 in the morning. I gotta be at the track pretty quick. And sure enough, in the middle of nowhere, just about five miles out of Sebring, motorcycle cop pulls me over. I look in my mirror. He comes just like a movie, walking up in those tall boots like this, because you know how fast you're going. I go, yeah, I know. I got to get to the racetrack. He goes, oh, yeah, you got to get to the racetrack. I'm sure you do. And then he, he, he goes, you've been drinking. I go, no. And he goes, well, there's a bottle of champagne in the back seat.

[Doug Feehan]

Oh.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And I go, it's empty. And he goes, can I see your driver's license? He goes, california, huh? Like that. I'm getting a shakedown. He goes, kelly Collins. He goes, you know, there's a guy driving with Dale Earnhardt Senior and Junior at Daytona last weekend named Kelly Collins. I go, you got me. He goes, what? I go, you got me.

[Doug Feehan]

Champagne bottle.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And he goes, you're that Kelly Collins? I go, yeah. He goes, you were driving with Dale Sr. Jr. And he starts stomping in the dirt like this and all this stuff. And I said, that's the podium bottle. And I gave it to him.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And then do you remember the next year at Sebring, all the cop cars came up?

[Doug Feehan]

Oh, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And they all hop out. And Doug looks right at me, he goes, what have you done, Kelly? Of all the people he could have said that to. And in Watts, his name's Ivan. And he walks in and anyways, he's telling his buddies.

[Doug Feehan]

He's telling all his buddies, I know.

[Unnamed Speaker]

This guy, he did this to come rile me up right there. Sebring, with like six cop cars. So he invites me over to his house for beers, and we have Corvettes to drive. And I go over there and I have a beer with him and his whole family at his house. A little teeny house. And on the mantel of the fireplace is the bottle.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, that's badass. Wow, that's cool.

[Doug Feehan]

Those are just great stories.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Priceless. I mean, just priceless. Loader, with so much respect, you talk.

[Doug Feehan]

About being later in life. Obviously I'm later in life than most of you guys. You do begin to have just a whole new appreciation for where you've been and what you've done. You know, we're talking briefly about when we flew out to the aircraft carrier.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

I mean, we've had experiences that. Outside of racing, all of us, but as a family.

[Unnamed Speaker]

All right.

[Doug Feehan]

As a group, that no other teams have ever experienced anything like we have, I don't think. I mean, I'm not running anything like we did. And it was all part of what we were building at Corvette Racing. More than just racing cars. Just a whole lot more than racing cars. And that we're still here today. This is what I mean. Yeah. Almost 25 years ago, and we're still with each other. I mean, not a lot, but we're still in communication with each other. All the time. All the time.

[Kelly Collins]

I remember when me and dad drove the car. And then the following years, the perception of the Corvette team was kind of like a fraternity, and to get invited to be a part of that was a massive accomplishment for any. You know, especially for drivers.

[Doug Feehan]

Yes.

[Kelly Collins]

Like, if you got called to be part of the Corvette team, that was quite. Quite the announcement. And so, yeah, I understand. I mean, at least from my perspective, I was part of the team. But it was fun to be on both sides of it because, I don't know, you guys were like superstars in. In your world. And the Corvette program was the elite program in that series, and it continued to be. So after, you know, years later, there was a plan not only obviously, to race the car more, but also dad and I both had agreed to have production models of the car made. There would be a group in Michigan that would build production model Corvettes, and they were. You know, the. The race car itself was 8 inches wider than a standard production Corvette. And they were. They built this street version of this car, and it is identical. Same front splitter and everything. I mean, it looks. And I. I remember when we were talking about what we were going to do when we got these cars, and dad was like, you know, I was like, I'm going to decal my car just like the race car. And he's like, I'm not. And I was like, why? Why not? It's the. It's why this car is being built. And. And they're. Y' all are going to give us the wings off of the cars that ran le mans that year. And they ended up running 1, 2 in Le Mans. And so he gets the. I think y' all. Yeah. One. Lamar.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Kelly Collins]

And so he gets the car that has the winning wing and. Or he gets the winning wing to put on his car. And this is all agreed to before the Daytona race. And so he passes away. In Daytona, these cars still get built and you guys go and race Le Mans. The wings are put on the cars. He did not want his wing cleaned. And so his wing still has the debris and dirt from Le Mans. It's a brand new, never been driven as far as I know. Yellow Corvette that no one can ever buy on the productions floor. And that's fair. And it's got that nasty old Lamar wing on the back. I have mine and it's decal. I've actually had to go back and re. Decal it since 2000.

[Doug Feehan]

So you still have it?

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, yeah. So my decals got got, you know, old and I had to redecal the whole damn thing. And my wing is clean. I repainted my wing and my car looks just like the one we raced.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Sure.

[Kelly Collins]

I actually drove it around town a little bit. Had to put another splitter on the front. But it's low, it's on the ground low. But I, you know, that was one of the cool things that came. That came after the race considering how we lost dad being able to get that car. And he has, you know, his car and I have my version was a very proud thing for me. Another thing that we got to do. Andy was raced together in camp.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Oh, yeah, sure. Yes, of course. Nationwide 2007.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Canada and Watkins Glen.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

So there was a. I think maybe all of y' all. I know Ron well, he had told.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Him that he was going to put him in there.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And he.

[Kelly Collins]

I wasn't sure.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Come drive truck.

[Kelly Collins]

Right. He said your first.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Do you remember that? And I go, I don't know. That's a lot of weekends. I'm thinking that's a lot of weekends away from the river and surfing. And he goes, yeah, but you'll make a lot of money and I'll teach you all this stuff and they're gonna love you.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And that was kind of. Because they were gonna start up the truck team or whatever. Do you remember that?

[Kelly Collins]

I do, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And that all just ended too.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, it did.

[Doug Feehan]

We invited you back though.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes, I did get to come back.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, you did.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

Which. Which turned out to be.

[Kelly Collins]

It was. It was a day. You.

[Doug Feehan]

You did set a record.

[Kelly Collins]

What was the record?

[Doug Feehan]

The. The film of that was the most widely and frequently watched film in Sports center history.

[Kelly Collins]

The fire.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. I. Well, let's talk about it. So first off, I do remember dad saying that he wanted. You wanted to run you in a Race. So, yeah, we. And we stayed in. In contact about that and finally got that opportunity. Y. And I mean, this close to winning Montreal, Canada.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I know.

[Kelly Collins]

So close.

[Andy Pilgrim]

This close.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, so close. And you. So Robbie Gordon wrecked somebody up front and you're. You're driving by and just. Just caught him and cut the tire. But if you clear that. Oh, yeah, you're gone.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, absolutely. First. First ever national wide race. It would have been awesome. It would have been awesome.

[Kelly Collins]

I know. It still was awesome.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It was the thing. The whole experience was great, man. It was great.

[Kelly Collins]

I was so happy.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Thank you for.

[Kelly Collins]

That was great.

[Andy Pilgrim]

It was great.

[Kelly Collins]

I was so.

[Andy Pilgrim]

You were on the phone when I finished, got out of the race. Steve said, he's on the phone. And you were so excited.

[Kelly Collins]

Well, listen, so. Yeah, you know, yeah, it was always really difficult to be in dad's shadow, and it was difficult to try to, like, live up to certain aspects of his existence and. But there's these rare moments, right, where I knew I could do something that he would be happy about. It was no question that, like, man, we're going to run, Andy and dad would love this, you know, fulfilling this sort of prophecy, if you will.

[Doug Feehan]

It's something he would have done.

[Kelly Collins]

He would have done it. No question. You would have ran a truck. He would have convinced you, and that would have absolutely happened.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, I was convinced that he was convinced.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

Oh, yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And a lot of great things came out of that partnership. Not only the friendship that we all developed driving together, but I got to become closer to Ron. I'd raced against Ron before, and that experience, I think, allowed us to. And I would lean on him for that next trip. When we went to Sonoma, we went out to Winton or somewhere to test. I forget we tested somewhere.

[Doug Feehan]

I don't remember. I do not.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. I remember flying somewhere out out west or somewhere far away, maybe up Midwest somewhere and testing all day long with Ron. And man, he pushed me and pushed me, and I think I got within 3/10 of his. His lap time, and I was so happy. And maybe Gingerman, maybe.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Maybe.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes, that sounds exactly right.

[Doug Feehan]

Were you there? No, it's on the west side of the state. It's a little private track.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah. That's what. What they test sometimes.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. A little shorter road course, but so much fun.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

And we worked hard all day long to try to get competitive. And I was. They were like, you know, y' all were like, hey, you know, who do you want to run with you? And I was like, do you know who Boris that is. And you're like, yeah, for sure. And Boris was over the moon. He couldn't believe it.

[Doug Feehan]

Well, he had. Boris had been on me for a long time to become a factory driver. My boss was not a Boris fan.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, Boris.

[Doug Feehan]

And I obviously, I mean, I've been.

[Kelly Collins]

Around a long time.

[Doug Feehan]

I know Boris for a long time and very accomplished road racer. I mean, totally qualified to be in the car. And so I had made a concerted effort over the years to try and get him in as at least a third driver, which was a good place to start because I knew he had had potential and he definitely wanted to.

[Kelly Collins]

Be part of what we did.

[Doug Feehan]

And we were friends, so, you know, that makes it a whole lot easier. So this was back to your point. Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

You had Boris in here.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

I was. I'm so. I. So I felt probably the only bad. There was a lot of bad parts about crashing the car. So we had this little kind of a little hot, hot lap, warm up session before the race. And. And I wrecked the car and. And under pace laps. And so my regret really is that Boris didn't get to.

[Doug Feehan]

He never. He never got in the car.

[Kelly Collins]

Boris did not get to show like he, like to your point. He wanted to drive that Corvette so badly.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah. He doesn't fail to bring that up to me. I never did get to drive.

[Kelly Collins]

No, he didn't. But man, what a couple of days.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That race car was a brand new race car and you guys had it for me and Oliver to drive at Miami. Brand new car. And in morning warm up, they told me to change your line over this bumper. And I. It bounced me into the inside wall in fourth gear and into the outside wall. Knocked a 10,000 pound K while my foot was dragging on the ground. The whole front end off that car never took the green flag.

[Andy Pilgrim]

But wait, I ended up driving it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Huh?

[Andy Pilgrim]

I ended up driving with Ron at that race. I ended up driving that race. Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

No, I think I thought it's Miami. Hold on, hold on.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Oh, not that car. Another car. The backup car. Okay. It's okay.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Into my, My stint with Corvette.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And then it sat Pratt Miller.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And they put a whole front clip on it and the next person. And it didn't take a green flag either. So if it makes you feel any better, I think that car's jinxed.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, well, it ain't. It's a melted puddle right now.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Because it was hot.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, it is. It has an owner.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah. I've seen pictures of does it really?

[Doug Feehan]

Oh, it's passed hands a couple of times.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Just the way it is.

[Doug Feehan]

No, a banker from Ohio bought it with approval. We checked to make sure it'd be okay, and he put him back into the 2003 livery. Remember, the cars were blue at Le Mans?

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Oh, no. I've seen the car at the Corvette thing up in Laguna.

[Doug Feehan]

Well, he bought both the cars. Yeah. And he took them back to that. And then this was back in 2007, 2008, and then banking. I mean, the whole world was up in the United States, was upside down financially in those times, and he had tough times, and he ended up selling the car. And the car's now back to the race livery. Another owner has it. I see it at shows.

[Kelly Collins]

Everyone. I have the nose from the Sonoma wreck.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

In my shop.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Our race car from the 24 hours is currently at the National Corvette Museum for a year. Our race car's there. Yeah, it's currently on display for a year. It's just got there about a month ago. With my insert. With my insert. Lance Miller owns it. Lance Miller owns it. It's there with the insert that you chop the top off because your shoulders are wider than mine. You remember?

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's so funny.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, I remember. For the next. The next. At least the next year, maybe more. You ran the stripes on the left front fender.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yes, we did.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yes. Yes.

[Kelly Collins]

Whose idea was that?

[Doug Feehan]

Well, again, it comes down to Claudio. His creative mind is. Is just. I don't know. Half of what he had would get you in prison if you ever did it. The other half was absolutely genius. And throughout the. Throughout the whole racing program, he. He came up with stuff.

[Andy Pilgrim]

At Le Mans, he was Aircraft carriers. That was Gary.

[Doug Feehan]

That was Gary.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, that was Gary. Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

When we went to them all with the cowboy hats.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But we all took the picture on our car with the stripes on the fender, number three.

[Doug Feehan]

So he would come up with those things. And the impact. You can't put into words, the impact that it had on the entire team, because in their own little way, even though you were the right front tire changer or you were the guy who worked on the gearbox boxes, you were working with dale and Dale Jr. You were at that race. You know, that race had a huge impact on nascar. You guys probably don't remember this, but on that live broadcast, they would run a crawler across the bottom of the TV screen where people could call in and leave comments, and they would report those comments in that crawler. They never had that before. Only when you got just because you guys were there there racing and it was stuff like man, I'm a huge NASCAR fan but this road racing stuff looks pretty cool. 90% of them were all about how 24 hours of Daytona was the coolest race they had ever seen. Well there was no Grand Dam Series at that point in time. NASCAR saw all that and wreck it because there was pushback of your dad wanting to run with that sanctioning body that was not. That didn't come free. After that the NASCAR minds got together and said we gotta look at this road racing thing. And that was really the beginning and the birth of the MCU Grand Am because of the impact that you guys had on the NASCAR fans themselves.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Dale we'd never seen the number of people we talk about the pre race walk around. We'd never seen that many people in the stand across from the start and finish. It was because you guys were there. No, I mean seriously. It was a massive amount. Massive amount of huge huge impact. Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

That doesn't. It kind of gets lost in the.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah. Yes.

[Doug Feehan]

Within the whole story. But it was, it was, it was. It was game changing for imsa.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And then you looked in the following years. Now it's standard practice for NASCAR guys.

[Kelly Collins]

Sure enough to want to do it.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

But somebody, somebody had to really be first and to make the big mark. I'm not sure there wasn't a NASCAR guy that maybe had been there were.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Nice before but but never made a mark.

[Kelly Collins]

Not.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Not this made a. Was different with you guys.

[Doug Feehan]

With you guys there it. It changed the whole dynamic of of of imsa.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Because you bought a different demographic age wise you did and your dad had his fan base but you were a huge in a different demo and I think it was like ah you know lights went on with people that well the things need to think about it.

[Doug Feehan]

The things that attract you because gaming was just becoming a big deal. All right. You know you said the time you spent playing video games because it was all relatively new at that point in time and and the technology that was in these cars was not unlike gaming technology. Yeah. All right. I mean one fed off the other. I mean the amount of data that we supplied to the gaming people we couldn't give them everything but they had been so sophisticated that I mean you'd be. You'd be giving away your competitive advantage. That's how good it was.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Look at the iracing stuff.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

I think I came from that.

[Kelly Collins]

I think so. I've iracing launched live in 08 this was probably. I remember standing. I remember where I was on the phone. I don't know if I called you, but I called somebody at Pratt, Miller and Chevrolet about the Corvette.

[Doug Feehan]

To get the data.

[Kelly Collins]

Get the data.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

To get the Corvette. Yeah. So, like, to go. So I was. I was calling them.

[Doug Feehan]

Well, it wasn't because you knew the guy. Yeah, you knew the guy.

[Kelly Collins]

I was like, hey, iracing. This is what iracing is. This is in like 2009, where nobody knew what. None of that was. I was like, iracing is good. You want to be here. They want to put the Corvette in, but just need to be able to scan the car and get a little bit of information to make it drive so much, you know, like it really does.

[Doug Feehan]

And I can tell you, because that was an uphill push. Yes, it was for me.

[Kelly Collins]

Everybody was like, yeah, information, data. Nope.

[Doug Feehan]

But your endorsement of that. All right. And then having to sell it a little bit, Understanding how important this was to our business. All right. I mean, if you can get kids racing Corvettes in the I game, that becomes an aspirational vehicle to them. I mean, we're selling cars, guys. That's the only reason we're here. That's the final distillation of what we do. Your endorsement of that is what made that happen.

[Kelly Collins]

I was standing in my living room on the phone thinking, they probably think I'm crazy. Like, this is the duck. Like, why are you wasting. Why are you bothering us with this silly game? What is this?

[Doug Feehan]

We're not doing video. Video games. Well, that was the pushback, but we managed to. We broke through that. Your endorsement made that happen.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, you know, Dale, I just thought of something along those lines. And when we first all got together, I think we were having dinner and you said to us, like, what do you like to do? And you asked me what I like. I like to surf and go to the river and all that kind of stuff. And you're like, that's kind of cool. And I go, what do you like to do? And he goes, I like to drive RC cars. And I go, what? Like, next thing I know, because of you, I started racing.

[Doug Feehan]

Oh, Jesus.

[Unnamed Speaker]

RC cars. Yeah. 1 10th scale buggies.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Associated in that. I went to Losi.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh, wow.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And would race every Wednesday night for like three years. Years.

[Kelly Collins]

Wow.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It got. Got pretty good. Not as good as the pros.

[Kelly Collins]

Right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But man, it's fun.

[Kelly Collins]

It is.

[Andy Pilgrim]

I remember when you did that, you started having cars at the racetrack.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I remember I bring them to the racetrack. Yeah, that's all because of you.

[Kelly Collins]

Isn't that funny?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, I got really into it and finally I'm like, yeah, spending too much time rebuilding shocks, diffs, tires everywhere.

[Kelly Collins]

You're like, oh God.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And it's not cheap.

[Doug Feehan]

I was gonna say you can have a real vehicle for what it cost to do those things.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Well, it was like a little mini race team and I'm the driver, engineer everything, the, the mechanic, everything. Transporter driver. It's funny.

[Kelly Collins]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Kelly Collins]

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

[Doug Feehan]

NASCAR on Prime Lights up Music City. Who's got what it takes to tackle the concrete at Nashville Superspeedway and walk away with a NASCAR's coolest trophy? Stream the NASCAR Cup Series at Nashville Sunday at 6:30pm Eastern where music meets motorsports only on prime.

[Kelly Collins]

I want to see where you guys have been since. We'll start with you. Andy. You. I know a couple things you, you got heavily into. Into highway safety.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yes.

[Kelly Collins]

You got very passionate about that and your drive. You went on to win the 24 hours, maybe a year 2004.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Remember you were there.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And so. Yeah. Where. What are you up to these days?

[Andy Pilgrim]

These days? Still doing traffic safety. And I've been helping. I still do some stuff with the National Corvette Vet Museum and the racetrack over there. Then link to the Corvette program recently apported board member. Yeah, that happened too.

[Doug Feehan]

Congratulations, by the way. I haven't had a chance to talk to you about it.

[Andy Pilgrim]

No, thanks. That's true. Doug mentioned that part. That has just happened. Also, the traffic safety stuff is. You helped me with that. Remember that video, the first traffic safety video I made. I asked you if you might help in 2005 and you did. Teachers are still using that video because the things we brought up were paying attention. The distracted driving thing, which at that time wasn't a big deal.

[Kelly Collins]

So there's that even more important today. Imagine.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Oh my God. Goodness. Yes. Huge. Huge. Absolutely. The other things, of course, racing. Racing continued up till with GM to 2018.

[Kelly Collins]

Wow.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Believe it or not. And then I went into some SRO stuff and ended up with a friend of mine, Anthony. Tony Boton, the drag racer. His son is Anthony Botton. And since 2021, the halfway through the kid came to the Motorsports park and I did a little bit of stuff with him. Told his dad. Actually told his dad. So his dad says, I'm sending the kid. He's New Yorker, right? He says, I'm sending a kid to see you. Tell me, tell me if there's any good. So, okay. Two days at the racetrack, I told Tony and I said, yeah, so actually Tony's got some natural talent. And he's like, I knew it, I knew it. That's my genes. That's my genes. Like this. And I'm like, so Tony, what if I, I told you that he didn't have any talent? It would have been his mother's fault. True story. So I've been since that time I've been with Anthony, helping Anthony get started. I was racing with him in 22 and 23 GT4 and then GT3. So still doing the racing stuff? Still doing the traffic safety stuff.

[Kelly Collins]

You're still doing.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Enjoying that stuff? Yeah. And the. I pulled myself out of the car to be. So we got some really current pro Mercedes drivers with him. He's with the Mercedes team and we're trying. I'm traveling all over the world with this kid. All over the world. You're leaving here from today. I go to the next three weeks, it's going to be Italy, Germany, France. It's crazy. So I'm still extremely busy, mate. Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Since then I finished off that year, went to drive for BMW for two years and then GM rehired me back to drive the factory Pontiacs for five more years. Andy and I raced with Paul Edwards many times. We almost won that a couple times.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Almost speed limiter. So anyway. Yeah, yeah, I remember that with Jan Magnus and everything like that. And then I started, that ended and I would race Porsches for guys. And then I started doing pro coaching for like nine years. I had a couple guys that I did and flew around with them in their jets for a long time. We had a really good time. And then I would do movies, stunts. I've been SAG for the longest, most recent movie I did was Ford versus Ferrari.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I won the Taurus award for that, which is like the Oscar award for best work with a vehicle. And then I just do a little bit now and then. I live out in Lake Havasu. I'm retired and I just have fun.

[Kelly Collins]

That's it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Man. It was a great career.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes, sir, Great career. No more driving.

[Doug Feehan]

Nope.

[Kelly Collins]

Last time you ran a competitive race?

[Unnamed Speaker]

2013.

[Kelly Collins]

Damn. That's a long time.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, but I'm off roading all the time.

[Kelly Collins]

I know. You seem like the kind of guy who could break from it pretty easily when you were ready.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I did. I did. And people ask me that and I'm just like, don't think I don't miss a good race car like you were talking about when it's on. But knowing when to step away, not dragging around. I drove cars for Skip Barber for the race series for 11 years.

[Doug Feehan]

All the.

[Unnamed Speaker]

To get 30 cars every weekend ready to go in and out. I mean, you just. I wanted to be the guy that left and not straggling around the pits.

[Kelly Collins]

Sure.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Have a good resume, a good career. Move on. Be happy with what I did. And now I'm off to another venture.

[Kelly Collins]

What have you been up to, Doug?

[Doug Feehan]

Well, I. I hung around GM until 202020 pandemic as program manager for Corvette racing and, you know, enjoyed every minute of that. Pandemic kind of really changed the whole dynamic of Corvette racing. We had to miss le mans because we couldn't get our stuff overseas. You know, we had been there for 20 consecutive years. That was heartbreaking. We had a management change at the top, and that resulted in my dismissal from the company. That lasted about two months. And then, thanks to the fan base, they were not pleased that I wasn't going to be at races anymore. And so GM got back with me and said, would you consider taking on another role? And racing's a bad drug, as we all know. So I did. So since 2020, I've worked as a brand ambassador. So I do some things at the racetrack, Corvette corrals, speaking at those events. I do stuff for our sponsors for both Michelin and for mobile one. You know, do sales meetings and sort of things on that level. I'm kind of having all the fun stuff that I did anyway. I'm just not in a management role any longer, and that's okay. I mean, I miss. It's hard for me to go to the races and watch what's going on and not be able to have input.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

You know, but it's like having a kid. Eventually they leave home and they're. They're on their own, and you kind of got to let them be on their own. And that's. And. And that's where we are right now. But. But I have enough. I'm still having enough interaction with them that I'm still enjoying it. I'm still having a great time with it. It gives me a lot more time to do. Golf is my. Is my hobby.

[Kelly Collins]

Oh.

[Doug Feehan]

And that requires a lot of time.

[Kelly Collins]

It does.

[Doug Feehan]

And you gotta be good at it. My wife is. I wouldn't go that far, but, you know, you always work to get better. My wife is very active in the golf industry. She's on the board of directors, American junior golf association, past president. So she knows everybody in the golf industry. And when you are shameless and have very little pride, I can coattail that to play the best places in the world with some of the greatest golf guys on team. And she knows all the kids you see playing on TV right now. She has known since they've been 12 years old. So those relationships are fun to be around. And so the spare time I do have, I'm enjoying doing that.

[Kelly Collins]

Let's talk briefly about the Corvette program. So you talked about how the pandemic had changed a little bit. Some rules as well within the series changed the direction of the program. And the Corvette program, as we knew, as I knew it, doesn't exist today. So, you know, what is the state of Corvette racing and how has that changed?

[Doug Feehan]

Well, you know, depending on what lens you want to look through. All right. From a pure business perspective, as I said previously, our goal is to sell cars. You know, for the first time in history, we're building right hand drive Corvette. So people in Japan and Australia, they're always, you know, aspirational vehicle, as I said. Now they have vehicles that they can buy that are legal to drive on their own. Corvette racing. I'm going to say this right up front, and I'm going to do it shamelessly. And it was responsible for making Corvette truly become a global brand.

[Kelly Collins]

Agree.

[Doug Feehan]

All right. By our participation and our success, that we enjoy them. All right. We gained the respect of everybody on the planet. Every manufacturer, every race fan. Learn to respect Corvette for what we had accomplished. And that's one. That was our ultimate goal. I mean, that was what. Why we. That's why we race. It's way more than a checkered flag and a trophy. And I think we exemplified that. You know, we now have independent teams racing.

[Kelly Collins]

Yep.

[Doug Feehan]

Okay. And that's a, that's a Le Mans. That's a Le Mans outcome. In order to race at Le Mans now, there are no pro teams allowed at Le Mans. All right. So that's a huge change for us.

[Kelly Collins]

Big change.

[Doug Feehan]

All right. But only amateur teams. And you have to build if you're going to compete at Le Mans, you can compete at imsa, but if you want to compete at Le Mans, you have to build like 25 race cars and sell those race cars to competitors.

[Kelly Collins]

Damn.

[Doug Feehan]

That's the, that's the, that's the rule.

[Kelly Collins]

That's the box that has to be checked.

[Doug Feehan]

That's exactly right. And so you may talk about change. That's a huge change. So now at Pratt Miller, I mean, I think we're just now on. I think we're. Well, we might be building actually more than 25. We were on chassis 25 and 26. We're just getting done. So that's been almost three years of constant. Of constant car building. So that's kept them very, very busy. And those cars are out there winning races as independent teams, which again, takes the brand forward. That's a huge change that we didn't have pre pandemic. That was all. That was again, post pandemic. So it's, you know, Pratt Miller got Sold during that same timeframe, Exact same timeframe, to a company in Wisconsin, Oshkosh. Not the kids clothing line. Right. But they make cement mixers and fire trucks. All the Jordan Flatbed. That's a Oshkosh company. They're a global company, very diverse in what they build. And they have a huge defense department division. And how that came about was that they were using Pratt Miller, was doing their defense work. They were hiring Pratt Miller to do the defense work. And it just got to the point where they said, why don't we just buy the company? I mean, we're tired of writing them a check. We might as well just own them. And they did. So that has changed. All right. Because now Gary Pratt's not there, Jim Miller's not there. So that, you know, that's a whole dynamic shift. But the fan base is still there.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And with little things that appear, we still have, you know, the team stayed intact. All right, A lot of new young guys.

[Kelly Collins]

The team's intact.

[Doug Feehan]

Yes.

[Kelly Collins]

Where is the team?

[Doug Feehan]

The team is in New Hudson, Michigan.

[Kelly Collins]

Yep.

[Doug Feehan]

Same place, Same building, same M.O. you know, this is a physical sport. When you get over the wall. In the old days, the guys who built the cars were actually guys who raced the cars. I mean, same guys that were screwing the cars together were changing the tires and the pit stops. All right, well. And as competition levels rise, that dynamic changes, and those guys get older. I mean, you get to be 45, 50 years old. Slinging a tire over the wall is not that you don't want to do it or that you can't do it. It's just that a guy who's 22 years old is going to be able to do it a little bit faster, and that becomes critical. So there's been a huge influx of young people, guys. And the beauty. Getting back to what we created. You said it so well. Corvette being the premier. I mean, we're the best sports car team in the world, in the history of the world. When you look at same brand, same mark, same team, nobody has come close to doing that. It became a preferred place to work. So, you know, you'd had. We had way more applications than we had job positions. And so you get the cream of the crop. They come aboard. So watching these new young guys come in, because we have way more young guys now than we ever did before, is very gratifying. You know, for me personally, winning always is important. All right. Winning is one of the primary objectives of what you do. But from a personal perspective, after you have that down. And I'm not saying these victories aren't important and that they're not emotional. They are. But as a person, as you develop. As I develop, anyway, racing was always important, but watching the people progress became more important to me. I became way more of a people person. I always thought I was a people person, but I became way more involved. I mean, when you think about in my career personally, you know, Danny Binks. All right. Danny started for me in 1988 at Cars & Concepts. I don't know the program. He wasn't even married at that point in time. How we ended up. His son was working Ganassi doing the Ford gt. Okay. They were in business together now, but watch that happen. I had Wayne Taylor in 1996 as my driver when we won the IMSA, the WEC championship, and then had Jordan and Ricky both driving for me. You know, on the Corvette program, you watch all that develop and how those. On how you've. How you've. How everybody has worked to change those people's lives. That is what has become really important to me.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And the people that stay in contact, people, these guys, they stay in contact with me. Crew members stay in contact. Other drivers stay in contact. My phone rings all the time with people asking questions, looking for advice. I'm doing this. What do you think? Can you help? I mean, we've created a relationship there that is just. Has been so rewarding.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

As rewarding as any trophy. Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Well, it's pretty remarkable. And the Corvette brand definitely has, you know, definitely become so appreciated across the world and especially in the United States because of its performance on the racetrack. And I know you take a ton of pride in that, your involvement in that, and you should. And you're right about everything you said. You know, it was a. For me personally, especially after getting to know the team as I did driving the car. In 01 and 04, you were the home team. Every time you went overseas or anywhere else, the entire country almost banded together to cheer the Corvettes on to victory. And you always gave. The Corvette team was always in contention, which was always fun.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah. And we had it. Like I said, I brought up Gary Claudio a couple of times, but you got to meet him, and he. Just a remarkable individual and was largely responsible for the. I mean, we could have another whole show about Lamar, and we probably. Probably should. Okay. Because that's a. That's a whole nother genre, a whole nother story about. About what made Corvette great.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

And he played such a key, key role in doing that. And we had so much fun doing it. So did we not?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of pressure. You talk about, like, Daytona and stuff like that. Yeah, that kind of came second nature because I was already racing that kind of stuff. But when you go there, your start times, different, getting to the track, the food, the times, the hotel accommodation. Yeah. The way you pull into the pits, you know, where they have a rope and they pull everybody out of the way, there's no pit wall. And the amount of pressure, you know, if you forget to go into pit lane, you're done, because you're not going to make it eight and a half miles around.

[Doug Feehan]

No.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So there was a lot of pressure. Like, I think what you felt that I raced there four times, and I still felt pressure at the end because you're at the time, you're racing for the largest company in the world, representing. And I'm just some little rugrat from Newport Beach, California, driving their race car. So it was a lot of pressure.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

As I say, it's worthy of a show.

[Kelly Collins]

I never have been. I've never have been to Le Mans. I've always wanted to go and. No, Intense. Yeah. Even, like in the last several years, there were some opportunities to join Corvette and. And go. Go along. I think Ron asked me to. Ron was going to take care of me and get me over there a couple times, but we just never could make it work. Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

It's a. And just a quick story. I mean, when Herb hired me, our dream was to get to Le Mans, and that was not something GM was ever going to support. I mean, they just. You have to understand the corporate world. It's not just General Motors. It's all big corporations. But we knew that. That the regime was not in place that was going to support. And when Corvette came along and with. With the new car, you know, the C5, we saw that as an opportunity to. To strike.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

All right. And so as. As that's progressing, Herb is saying, you got to get over there and. And. And check this race out. I said, herb, I said, I've been racing since I've been three. I've been to every racetrack in America. I said that I'm not. It's just going to be another racetrack. I don't. I had never been overseas. I wasn't excited about going overseas just by myself, you know, speaking a different language. I mean, pretty intimidate. So I was figuring every excuse on the planet trying to. Well, we had that argument for about six months, and finally he won it looks like we're gonna go. You gotta get your ass over there. Okay, fine. So I get over there and I find my way through the airport and on the train and everything's a challenge completely. I'd never been in a country where they didn't speak English.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah, all right.

[Doug Feehan]

And I'm by myself. I mean it was a struggle, but I got there. I had a little help along the way. I can remember driving the car coming down the hill as you're coming from the hotel and you make a right hand turn down this hill and on the left hand side is the entrance to LA Mall. And it's three giant orange red spires which is, they're there like logo. I mean that's what Le Mans is. And I thought to myself, holy, I'm at Le Mans. I pulled in there and parked and saw what was in that paddock. And I went from Mr. Know It all to how the hell are we ever going to do this? When you see what has to be done and you guys know what has to be. What's constructed there on a temporary basis for one race, building after building after building, six, seven, eight stories high. They're just for one race and everything is different. The learning curve was huge. When we, when we first got over there, I mean it was, it was, it was overwhelming and it made us better.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Ron and Johnny and Andy and me, we were, and Frank, we were all in a minivan, pouring rain, crawling all over each other, stuck in there. Every, we were doing laps on the Mulsanne and you know, the chicanes are blocked off and we're looking at everything we can for. They made us sit over there for like five or six days just driving around the track and taking everything in so that it, the experience wasn't going to be like what he experienced.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Because that's just part of the tracks.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Public.

[Kelly Collins]

Yes.

[Andy Pilgrim]

So we could do that. But half of it isn't obviously. But part of it was. And you just drive around it like.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, it was crazy.

[Andy Pilgrim]

We raced there before with Porsche, back in 96, 97. So I, I was kind of there helping a little bit because I, you.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And Frank were our helpers to get.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Us up to speed. Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

We got to have a show and it will inspire you. It's a bucket list. In 2011, National Geographic magazine, the number one automotive magazine in the world, National Geographic said the 24 hours of the mall was the greatest sporting event in the world.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Doug Feehan]

It is just, it is so different in its implementation and presentation than anything we have here, and that's Daytona and Indian, Andy included, which are great spectacles, there's no question for sure. But Lamaz, it's worthy of a show.

[Kelly Collins]

I need to get there. Well, man, I appreciate y' all coming through, man. It's been. Yeah, it's good.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Thank you very much.

[Unnamed Speaker]

This came about.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Thank you so much.

[Unnamed Speaker]

In March, I was down at the 12 hour, and I go up to sit and hang with because I'm coaching a guy, and we just. I go, boy, it'd be really neat to get on Dale's show this many years later. Your fans might really like to hear some stuff that they'd never heard.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

And so he says, call Andy and have Andy call you. And that's how this.

[Andy Pilgrim]

You were immediately called by, said, that's a great idea.

[Kelly Collins]

It is.

[Andy Pilgrim]

And I was like, yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Well, it's very unique. We've never done a show like this.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Well, thank you for doing it, man. Thank you.

[Kelly Collins]

I love that we could all be at the same place, same time.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Hard to get everybody on 25 years later.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Yeah, 25 years.

[Doug Feehan]

That's what. Once a Corvette racer, always a Corvette racer.

[Kelly Collins]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's what I loved about it.

[Doug Feehan]

Yeah.

[Kelly Collins]

Like, I only ran, like, one race race with you guys, and I've been part of the family.

[Doug Feehan]

Absolutely. Baby, you're wearing the brand. Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It is cool. Thank you, Dale.

[Kelly Collins]

Thank you, guys.

[Andy Pilgrim]

Thank you very much indeed.

[Doug Feehan]

NASCAR on Prime. Lights up Music City. Who's got what it takes to tackle the concrete at Nashville Superspeedway and walk away with NASCAR's coolest trophy? Stream the NASCAR Cup Series at Nashville Sunday at 6:30pm Eastern, where music meets motorsports only on Prime.

[Kelly Collins]

All right, that's Andy Pilgrim, Kelly Collins, and Doug Feehan on the Dale Jr. Download, telling stories from the 2001 Daytona Rolex 24. And I hope you all enjoyed it. It was an idea to get us all together all these years later and maybe, maybe I could hear some things that I didn't know happened or some conversations or experiences that they saw from their perspective. It was a great experience for me. I look back on it very fondly, and, you know, certainly there's the, you know, the aspect of the race and the things that happen throughout the race and wondering what could have been or how we might have been able to win had we known. Everything we didn't know, but just a great driving race car. We were put in a position that made us comfortable. I think the task for Corvette racing and Pratt and Miller was a tall one to. To bring dad and me, and not just one driver, but two that were totally unfamiliar with not only the car, but also the style of event and the approach and strategy. All of those things were going to be completely unique to what we used to do in the NASCAR realm and nascar. And dad was pretty quick on picking that part up. We know dad drove wide open all the time in his cup car and all of his life in nascar, and everything he'd ever done was driving and working and going as hard as he could. But he knew right away, in the 24 hours of Daytona, that he needed to get a comfortable pace, and it didn't need to be a remarkable one. And so he picked up on that quicker than I did. I wanted to run fast. I ran every lap as hard as I could testing racing. I wanted to try to get closer and closer to Andy and Kelly's times, and I. It was a competition all the time, and dad wasn't worried about that at all. He never looked at the stopwatch. He just tried to do what was comfortable. He did not want to damage the car or do anything that was going to hurt our chances. And I don't think once the race started that he. That he did anything wrong. I hit the fence coming out of pit road once, spun the car into the grass, dropped a wheel in the bus stop, and broke a half shaft in the rear, which is basically like the axle out to the left rear or the right rear tire. So, I mean, I was all out there beating and banging and throwing the thing around, and he just was real smooth, and he knew that that was what needed to happen for us to have a flawless race. And it really didn't matter that, you know, it didn't matter if you were half a second off the best guy or it didn't matter because everybody was going to have trials and tribulations throughout the event, and he just limited mistakes, and that was. That was going to be exactly what you needed to do to win that race. We were in a GT card. The prototypes outclassed us by a second or more, and they were the ones that should win the race if everything goes okay. Well, they all broke and had trouble, and so it was rare for our class to actually win the overall. So we had a real shot just winning the whole thing if everything goes well. But we would end up in second or third overall and fourth in our class or second in our class, fourth overall. Something like at. I think that's what it is. But pretty cool experience and thankful for them to come all this way. They came. They came from different directions to be here today to give us this story. And they I'm very thankful for that. That's not a, that's a big ass for anybody to travel in. Just to sit down for a little time just to just shoot. So fun story. Hope you enjoyed it. Great way to look back on an event that was important to dad and yeah. So we'll see. We'll see what y' all think. It's time for the white flag.

[Unnamed Speaker]

White flag.

[Kelly Collins]

The teardown with Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck dropped after the race. Jordan was at the race in Charlotte. Gluck was at the Indy 500. Both of them saw both races from two different perspectives. Pretty cool to hear them come together and share their stories and experiences and opinions and they always have great ones. Good debate and good dialogue. Great show to watch. The teardown and action's detrimental with Denny Hamlin's out as well. Denny almost became a player late in the race for the win at the 600. Has some fuel issues that brought him back to pit road late. We get to hear his perspective from the race all night long. It was a fantastic race. Door bumper clear is out. Larry McReynolds was the guest this week. Great to hear from Larry. And Also our Dale Jr. Download Dirty Air episode is also available. Jordan Bianchi joined me as TJ's still out a little bit. He's he's going to be back in a week or two but a lot of great content. And Connor Daly dropped another Speed street. We get to hear from Connor and his experience at Indy, leading laps and having a shot there late in the race. Always good to hear from Connor, especially around the Indy 500 event in the month of May. And Herman Schrader dropped another episode this week and bless your heart will be out tomorrow. Me and Amy will do another episode of the that for anybody that's going to be in Nashville for the race this weekend on Sunday at 1:30 local time. I think that's central in Nashville in the Fan Zone me, Steve Latart and Adam Alexander or we're going to do a half hour live show for Dirty Mo Media in the Fan zone Sunday on race day one thirty Central time. Come out and check us out. Should be a lot of fun. We'll preview that the action for the event later that evening is coming. Couple teams will be lining up to try to try to capture success and victory in Nashville. So that live show will be presented by Hellman's Mayonnaise, a great partner here with Junior Motorsports and Dirty Mo Media. Should be a lot of fun. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Thanks for supporting us here at Dirty Mo Media and the Dell Junior Download. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok.

[Doug Feehan]

NASCAR on Prime Lights up Music City who's got what it takes to tackle the concrete at Nashville Superspeedway and walk away with NASCAR's coolest trophy? Stream the NASCAR Cup Series at Nashville Sunday at 6:30pm Eastern, where music meets motorsports only on Prime.