Robin Pemberton: Investigating MWR’s Spingate, Boys Have At It & Bulls*** Penalties

Summary

Detailed Summary: The Dale Jr. Download Episode: Robin Pemberton: Investigating MWR’s Spingate, Boys Have At It & Bulls** Penalties*
Release Date: August 13, 2025
Host: Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM

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Introduction and Guest Background

In this episode of The Dale Jr. Download, hosts Mike Helton and Travis present Robin Pemberton as their guest. Robin is a seasoned figure in NASCAR, having served as a mechanic and crew chief for legendary teams, including the Petty family, Rusty Wallace, and others. His extensive experience offers listeners an insider's perspective on NASCAR's competitive and regulatory landscapes.

Notable Quote:
Mike Helton introduces Robin:

"[Robin] was a crew member, crew chief, worked with the Petties, Rusty Wallace, Die Guard, Ray Mock. He's done it all."
[00:50]

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Robin Pemberton's Early Involvement in Racing

Robin recounts his early exposure to racing through his family's restaurant near Albany Saratoga Speedway in Malta, New York. From a young age, he was immersed in the racing culture, assisting mechanics like Pete Hamilton and forming friendships with notable figures such as Richard Petty.

Notable Quote:
Robin discusses his childhood:

"We were really interested... Pete was a friend and, you know, ever since I was 10 years old... we were just friends."
[04:55]

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Working with the Petty Family and NASCAR Teams

Robin details his progression from working in the family restaurant to joining the Petty racing team. Starting in the mid-1970s, he took on various roles, from cooking and cleaning to mechanics and crew chief duties. His tenure with the Pettys coincided with significant NASCAR developments, including the rise of multi-car teams and evolving competition dynamics.

Notable Quote:
Robin on joining the Petty's:

"So I was the guy... I applied, you know, and so I've gone south a couple different Times to try to get work and it didn't quite work out."
[07:14]

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Key Events: SpinGate and Penalties

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around major controversies Robin encountered, notably the SpinGate incident and various penalties imposed on teams. Robin provides an insider's view on how these investigations were conducted, the challenges of enforcing rules, and the impact of penalties on team dynamics and championship outcomes.

Notable Quote:
Robin on SpinGate investigation:

"We got to do an investigation... I was listening to all the radio transmissions. It's the worst thing you could do at the worst time."
[00:23]

Notable Quote:
Mike Helton on penalties:

"Some of the penalties in NASCAR history were handed out in the 2007 Gatorade Duel... fascinating..."
[97:36]

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Managing Integrity and Relationships

Transitioning to his role within NASCAR's competition side, Robin discusses the delicate balance between enforcing rules and maintaining professional relationships. He reflects on instances where he had to penalize peers, emphasizing the importance of integrity over personal connections.

Notable Quote:
Robin on enforcing rules:

"It was tough, but you have to put yourself back and, and sometimes it's... penalties got to increase."
[99:43]

Notable Quote:
Mike Helton on friendships:

"Robin, you've been in the sport as a mechanic. Now you're on the side of having to enforce rules... how tough was that?"
[91:28]

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Robin’s Transition to NASCAR’s Competition Side

Robin narrates his shift from team roles to a regulatory position within NASCAR. This transition exposed him to the inner workings of rule enforcement, team management, and the broader strategic decisions shaping the sport. He highlights the challenges of adapting to a new role while striving to uphold the sport's integrity.

Notable Quote:
Robin on transitioning roles:

"The two sides don't know what each other are doing... there's a way to do that."
[93:40]

Notable Quote:
Robin on rule book meetings:

"NASCAR didn't understand that it takes a month to build a car... trying to merge those two."
[93:40]

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Reflections on NASCAR's Evolution

Throughout the discussion, Robin reflects on the evolution of NASCAR, touching upon changes in race formats, the introduction of road courses, and the impact of technological advancements like the wind tunnel. He offers insights into how these changes have influenced competition and team strategies.

Notable Quote:
Robin on race formats:

"There has to be some sort of thing in there... boasting the final race to mean something."
[112:55]

Notable Quote:
Robin on road course racing:

"SVG is incredible. He is a smoothest I've ever witnessed... hard to decide how many road course races we need."
[114:10]

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Conclusion and Future Topics

As the episode wraps up, hosts express their appreciation for Robin's candid storytelling and invaluable insights into NASCAR's competitive scene. They hint at future discussions covering more of Robin's experiences, personal challenges, and his ongoing contributions to the sport.

Notable Quote:
Mike Helton on Robin's impact:

"You have no idea the effect that you've had on different people's lives over the course of your career."
[123:12]

Notable Quote:
Robin on future collaborations:

"We need to talk about Key West... let's do it again."
[123:53]

---

Key Takeaways

• Extensive Experience: Robin Pemberton’s multifaceted roles within NASCAR provide a comprehensive understanding of the sport from both team and regulatory perspectives.

• Integrity in Enforcement: Transitioning to NASCAR’s competition side, Robin emphasizes the importance of maintaining integrity, even when it involves penalizing former peers.

• Evolution of NASCAR: The discussion highlights significant changes in NASCAR over the decades, including race formats, technological advancements, and the introduction of road courses.

• Personal Reflections: Robin shares personal anecdotes that shed light on the human side of NASCAR, including friendships, challenges, and the emotional toll of career transitions.

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Final Thoughts: This episode offers a deep dive into the complexities of NASCAR through Robin Pemberton’s personal and professional experiences. His stories not only illuminate pivotal moments in the sport’s history but also underscore the importance of integrity and adaptability in maintaining NASCAR’s legacy.

Transcript

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[Robin Pemberton]

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[Robin Pemberton]

For most makes and models and choose from three tiers of parts, including GM OE or gold and silver aftermarket parts. Visit gmparts.com for more information. So about 10 o' clock in the morning, the phone rings and it's. And it's Mike, help me. I said, what's going on? What's going on? He goes, we got fricking trouble. Well, when the 15 spawned and this happened, I'm like, we gotta do an investigation. I said, ugh, okay. I was in a room bigger than this room that they rented for me. I didn't go to anything. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in that room, listened to all the radio transmissions. It's the worst thing you could do at the worst time.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

So it was gonna be frickin monstrous. Huge.

[Mike Helton]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo. Hey, everybody, it's time for another episode of the Dell Jr. Download the guest segment here and Robin Pemberton is the guest. Robin was a crew member, crew chief, worked with the Petties, Rusty Wallace, Die Guard, Ray Mock. He's done it all. And then he goes into competition to work with nascar. He experienced a lot of things working with NASCAR in terms of competition. We had spin gate and a bunch of different things happening while he was overseeing sort of the rules. And he's heavily involved in all of those decisions and things that happened back then. This is going to be a lot of fun. I know Robin really well. We're very close, and he's got a. He's got a great heart, good guy, and he's had a heck of a career, you know, just a lot of different things going on also, you know, just looking forward to seeing what we can get into. There's going to be a lot here. Probably won't be able to talk about everything in his career, but I think we can probably have a ton still left on the table to bring him back into the studio at another time. We'll see how that goes. But I'm excited to get this one started. So let's bring Robin in. All right, so we got Robin Pemberton here on the Dale Jr. Download, an old friend of mine. Yeah, and it's good to see you.

[Robin Pemberton]

Good to see you.

[Travis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Dude, you've about done it all in this sport you worked in, you know, worked as a mechanic and a Crew chief, working on the, you know, on race teams in the garage. You worked on the NASCAR side of things as well. So you've seen this sport from a lot of different angles.

[Robin Pemberton]

I have been fortunate. Very lucky, yes.

[Mike Helton]

So. And you have a. The Pemberton family name, right?

[Travis]

A lot.

[Mike Helton]

You know, your brother and y' all have. Y' all have kind of, you know, been in it. Been in it. Yeah, in all kinds of ways. So we're going to talk about that. Grew up in New York. Yeah, New York now. I mean, there's. There's no doubt a. A lot of racing going on there.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, right.

[Mike Helton]

But how do you. How does your family get connected to the NASCAR world?

[Robin Pemberton]

It's a strange set of circumstances. So the Albany Saratoga Speedway, right. In Malta, New York. So we had the corner restaurant a mile from it, right off you get off the interstate. 12. Yeah, 12. It was 87 exit 12. And you'd have to go by the restaurant, you know, if you're coming from the south, to go by, and then take a left and go the speedway. So we were there when they were building the track in early 60s. They would come and visit mom and dad at the restaurant and this, that and the other. So I went to their very first race and was a big fan. It was modifieds. It was asphalt modifieds and charger divisions and everything they used to do back then. And. And so we were. We were really interested. So then fast forward a little bit. So when Bill France was trying to grow the sport of Grand Nationals at the time, you. So he made these Northern Tour runs, right, with everybody back when they run, what, 60, some races or whatever. Right. So during the modified years, I had modified friends as, you know, Jerry Cook and, you know, guys like that, guys from these, and Pete Hamilton, and he used to stay at the little motel across the street, eat at my mom and dad's restaurant. And during the seasons, if you stayed in that area and got on the phone to check the weather, you could go to, you know, if the weather was somewhere, you could go west to New York and race or east to Connecticut, Massachusetts and north to Vermont. And it was kind of a hub for some of them.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So Pete was a friend and, you know, ever since I was 10 years old. Right. And he used to help work on my bike and fix stuff and whatever. And he just. We were just friends.

[Mike Helton]

How. How much older was he?

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Helton]

Than you?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

10, 15 years, maybe.

[Travis]

Yep.

[Robin Pemberton]

He just, you know, just a friend. It was a L and R speed shop. Was there that they. They had their own modified cars with Don McTavish and stuff.

[Mike Helton]

Ah, Don McTavish.

[Travis]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Watch. Watch that car be built that he, you know, he lost his life Daytona. Yeah, yeah, but didn't he.

[Mike Helton]

He lost his life in that ring.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right there at the crossover gate.

[Travis]

Really?

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. So anyway, so Pete finally went south, and then he drove at the Petties. So then when the NASCAR was coming north, he wasn't. He didn't run all the races, but he was at the Petty's. He had won Daytona 500.

[Travis]

Yep.

[Robin Pemberton]

So they stayed. The Petty stayed across the street. So I met Richard and family and whatever, and they ate at a restaurant and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, that's my man forever. Right. And so I, you know, I was working in the family business, the restaurant, but doing what? Cooking, cleaning, you know, you name it. It was from the time I was 12, you know, and even in high school, you get off the bus and you come in and you'd mow the yard or you'd take the trash out from. You know, you worked all the time. So, you know, weekends, if I could get some time, like even at the speedway, Randy and I would ride our bikes. We were 10, 11, 12 years old. Ride our bikes a mile, park them in the ditch, go to the race. And before the Charger division would start, we'd get on our bikes, come back and help in the kitchen if we had to, because they were going to get busy. Yeah, I got burned out on it.

[Travis]

Right, sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and so I went to Weldon School. I got certified and, you know, Heliarkin and this, that and the other. And friends had race cars. And so Steve Meal and I were friends through all that time.

[Mike Helton]

Where did Steve live?

[Robin Pemberton]

Steve was in Colony, New York.

[Mike Helton]

Near.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, near 30 miles. 20 miles. So he would come to the racetrack. Yeah, and his dad kind of helped. Brian Ross was a modified driver up there in the 4 car for a while. And so we got to be friends. So he was a couple years older than me. He moved away. He went to Morristown College or something. And after college he went south like cold turkey. Get a job, whatever. And he worked at DeWitt, right. For a while.

[Mike Helton]

72.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yep, yep. And then he. And then he went, got to the Petty's. And then when Kyle was getting ready to start, they were looking for the quote was, we just need somebody to hold the dumb end of the tape measure. And I was the guy. I applied, you know, and so I've gone south a couple different Times to try to get work and it didn't quite work out.

[Mike Helton]

Where'd you try?

[Robin Pemberton]

Let's see, what was a place in Greenville? Laughlin. I went to Mike Laughlin's. That was a little rough for me, being from New York. There was some racial issues and stuff that they were dealing with down there. You know, it was still. It was just rough.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so I didn't. I didn't, you know, I won't left the house with 60 bucks in my pocket. Like, I didn't. Sometimes you didn't eat for two days.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

What year. What years were these?

[Robin Pemberton]

Those. Those years were probably 76 or seven. Seven, something like that. And, you know, and then I tried Iraq. Right.

[Mike Helton]

Really?

[Robin Pemberton]

I. I didn't get there.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

But they. They called or sent a note that, hey, we got a spot for you. Come on down. It's the same time I got a spot to go to the Petties.

[Mike Helton]

Oh, and you're going to the pace.

[Robin Pemberton]

So I went to the Petties for sure, you know, and it was $2 and 65 cents an hour.

[Mike Helton]

No.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, yeah. But we worked. We worked for a lot of hours.

[Mike Helton]

We worked.

[Robin Pemberton]

We worked 45 hours a week. So, you know, you got a time and a half. You know, you wound up with four bucks an hour for five hours. You know what I mean? So. And. And you learned everything. Richie Bars was there. He was kind of the lead guy and he was Chicago guy. He was a. He was. That guy could do it all. And he was fabricator and he was. Did the gears and, you know, he was something else. And man, that's the only growing man that's made me cry at work once, you know, just. Just treat you like.

[Mike Helton]

Just holler at.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, but I love the guy. I mean, we get together at the petty reunions every. You know, every. Every chance.

[Mike Helton]

Oh, I get it. I get it.

[Robin Pemberton]

And it was.

[Mike Helton]

Tony Senior had that same effect.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

He could almost get your ass.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Pretty damn pretty. Pretty small.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. So it was. It was good experience. I mean, at the time, you would build cars in the winter, so it'd be Richie and Steve and I, we would be building cars. And then when you start racing, you roll your toolbox across the street. I didn't. Richie didn't, but I would or Steve would. And you'd be the mechanic. You know, you'd be assigned to the back half of the car, another mechanic to the front half of the car. And the maintenance we would do is. It was incredible. You strip everything down to the bare Chassis, wiring, plumbing, all suspension. You just. I just had this little 38 torque wrench or, you know, air ratchet and bolts hit the floor. You never used a bolt more than once. And it was. And we put them in a bucket. And then once a month, Sam Ard would come by and pick through the nuts and bolts, put them on a Sportsman car.

[Mike Helton]

You know our Buddy Arrington.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we did. And during that time when we still. I did some stuff in the shop. You punched a car to do some Dodge work like Magnaflux and stuff and whatever. And so they would come out and said, you know, Buddy would bring a big box of stuff and there was others. And you'd sandblast Magnaflux, paint the stuff and give back. Yeah, give it back. You know, for somebody would get money. Chrysler was still paying.

[Mike Helton]

I think one of the things that I always. There's a lot of people that have. Sit in that chair that have been in through the Pettis back in those days.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And I can imagine the. You saw in that building, the historical things.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, oh, yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Just because.

[Robin Pemberton]

And I was a rat. When I was not doing something, when I was at lunch, I would go climb through the attics and stuff.

[Mike Helton]

Yes.

[Robin Pemberton]

Looking fricking Hemi engine in the crate.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

This huge copper radiator you couldn't even lift. Brand new in a wooden box, you know, up in the attic. Lord knows how they got there. But nonetheless, yeah, it was. You know, I bet it was fun as hell. The. The back building, when you drive in, there's a back building to the left, and that was called the Chrysler Barn. There was tubing in there. Thousands and thousands of feet of anything and everything you would want. Inch and three quarter. That was 30 thou, 60 thou, 90, 120. You know, inch and a quarter, same thing. And it just racks of it, you know, and there was. And there was racks of bodywork, like superbird wings and, you know, end plates, all that stuff, you know, and eventually they. I think they buried him out back. Yeah, I'll be willing to bet.

[Mike Helton]

What is the deal with burying stuff?

[Robin Pemberton]

So I don't know.

[Mike Helton]

Is it tax purposes?

[Robin Pemberton]

I don't know. I mean, I was drooling. They did it. After I left, I went.

[Mike Helton]

I'd never heard of this. I'd never heard of this. And I don't know if this is just you. You bring it up. But I went over. I went to Gary Hargett's to race out of his shop. This is an old mechanic that had worked in The Sportsman Division with Harry Gantt and dad back in the 70s. And I'm messing. I'm running one of his late model cars in the early 90s. And the first thing. One of the first things I noticed when I got to his property was the attire. Just. I could barely make it out, but this tire sticking out of the ground, and I'm like. I'm looking at him, like, tire buried in the ground, but it's at an angle. It's weird. I'm like, what's. What's the deal with the entire. He's like, oh, that's a whole car buried under there. He's like, you know, we got. When we. It's like an old race car that he ran in the 60s.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

That he just. You dug a hole, pushed it in there. And I'm like. And then I talked to Richard Childress or somebody else here on this show about burying cars. Like, when they got rid of.

[Travis]

Done.

[Mike Helton]

Done with. They just buried it.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And I know a lot of other people would push it out in the woods and let the woods take over.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

But I don't know why. Yeah, I don't either. I guess.

[Robin Pemberton]

I mean, was it. There's trick stuff on it they didn't.

[Mike Helton]

Want to sell, or they probably just were like, you know, here's a hole.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And people are always trying to like, flatten out, level out, utilize space, better land, you know, And I mean, in the 70s and 80s, if you had a gully, you know, pushed everything off in that thing, right?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. For sure.

[Mike Helton]

There wasn't really. No.

[Robin Pemberton]

Well, you know, now that you mention it. Yeah. I have seen that.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And, you know, it wasn't always cars.

[Mike Helton]

But for sure there was. I know, at one point. So the car that Lee flipped at Daytona.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes.

[Mike Helton]

That car is over here in Mooresville in a museum.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. They saved it.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I remember that car being out behind the Petty's barn.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. And I. And I'd crawl all over. Had that big old pipe in it and stuff like that. So those cars, right after they. I think they saved some of that stuff. That's when they took the Superbird stuff and damn buried it.

[Mike Helton]

It'd be amazing if they had just hang. Hung on to everything that's stuff.

[Robin Pemberton]

I mean, you know, I don't understand it.

[Mike Helton]

So how long did you work there?

[Robin Pemberton]

Almost. Right. At five years.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

That's a while.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

What was it like? I mean, you're.

[Travis]

Is this.

[Mike Helton]

You know, you're helping you. When was the first year there?

[Robin Pemberton]

79 79, like, march right after the day, one to 500.

[Mike Helton]

Did you travel?

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, yeah. So everybody travel.

[Mike Helton]

You were you helping Richard? Kyle was starting to race.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, Kyle was starting. It was mainly. Mainly Kyle.

[Mike Helton]

Did you go to Kyle? Kyle was running some short track.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, we did. Bought a car from haas, Ellington or something, Camaro, whatever. We ran some dirt races and stuff.

[Travis]

Yep.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, we did different. Different stuff.

[Mike Helton]

Trying to get him going.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Travis]

You know.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Lee would go. We would go. Because you. It was these. They'd pay you to show up, right?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So we were somewhere, and down near the beach. It was whatever. And we unloaded the car, and he wouldn't let us run until he got his money. So we start the car up, we'd back it out. He walk away, come back, he's like, no practice. Okay. He didn't have his money when he got the sandwich bag full that it was supposed to have, Then we could practice and run. And to be honest with you, I think we rained out anyways. I'm not sure. Yeah, But Lee went with us a couple times. Like, that's hilarious. Yeah.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

The traveling part is what you look at how we did it back then. Right. And I tell these stories more often than I should. We traveled everywhere. We got in a van. I mean, I was five or six years before I flew to california. You went in a van?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You drove everywhere. You drove. You. You know, you knew where your restaurants were to eat lunch and this, that, and the other. Probably the first or second time. Second time I went to. Probably the first time I went to california, they come out of, you know, Dale was still there and said, hey, you want to go to river, you know, riverside or whatever? I said, yeah.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Dale inman.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And he said, all right. He come out, and he threw me a set of keys, and he said, go down to dmv and. And get your cdl. I said, really? I got in that little ice cream truck. We had one with a thing on it. We pulled a small trailer.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I drove it down to dmv, and I told in asheboro, Told the guy, I said, hey, Dale inman told me, come down here, see you get my driver's license. He walked outside, said, you drive here?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Anybody come with you? No. All right, come on in here. Give me. Give me a freaking license. Drove home. So my first trip was in a truck, Driving truck and trailer with another guy.

[Mike Helton]

Damn. You were there to wish to be a part of Richard's final championship.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes.

[Mike Helton]

In 79.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Did you know what you were being, you were a part of.

[Robin Pemberton]

Did you realize, I guess, you know, you kind of took it for granted.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

It was, to me, it was big because of. I've been the fan for so long. Right. But the awards thing took place at the Daytona in the hotel the week before the Daytona 500 the following year.

[Travis]

No.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, Winston stuff. Tables lined up. You know, it looked like a. It looked like a. Just a, you know, football team, high school football team lined up getting awards and stuff like that. It was great. And then Richard had. He did belt buckles for everybody, silver and gold, seven time champion on them. You know, Richard Petty did 30 of them. And I still have mine. Some people sold them, but I still have mine.

[Mike Helton]

Damn, that's pretty cool.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, it was beautiful too.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah, the, you know, working with Kyle, I guess was. Had to been a lot of fun. Knowing Kyle the way I know him now. I can't imagine how he must have been when he was so young. This guy, you know, played college, played football in high school. Just all American sort of childhood. And he didn't grow up behind the wheel. He kind of grew up with a tire gauge in his hand or, you know, just being in the shop, but being a kid.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Also living a high school life. And then it was, you know, decided that I'm gonna try this. Right. And so I know that he ran some short track stuff and he. That's kind of downplayed a little bit. The story everybody loves is that Richard said, you know, we're going to go right to ARCA and you're going to drive this Chrysler and you don't need to mess around with all this other stuff. You're either good or you're not.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

But he did have some short track racing in 79.

[Robin Pemberton]

And to be honest with you, that subject never come up when I was there. Never. Not one time.

[Mike Helton]

About what?

[Robin Pemberton]

Anything before. Anything before the ARCA race, Anything before the. He won the Daytona race. Right. Nobody ever talked about if had doing anything before that.

[Mike Helton]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

It was always just in that car go.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

So. But he did like run some short track stuff. He ran Asphalt Sportsman just like Caraway here and there, just piddling. Not like a lot. But you know, when I, I don't know, I, you know, he did, he decided, I want to do it. And yeah, they went and ran that ARCA race.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And he won.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

Just like that.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

But then when Kyle is deciding, all right, I'm going to run some cup races in the 80.

[Travis]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

Were you more working on that car or were you? Okay, so when you take this old Chrysler to, like, Charlotte and wreck it.

[Travis]

Yes.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Knock the fuel cell out of it down the back stretch.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Testing.

[Mike Helton]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

It was. Short day. Yeah, it was, you know, how did.

[Mike Helton]

Kyle react to that? You know, what was sort of the temperament when things like that would happen?

[Robin Pemberton]

He didn't. He kept to himself. Right. He didn't. You know, he's obviously disappointed to be disappointed.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

Let alone it's your dad's car and, you know, but he kept his head up. He always kept his head up.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Always positive, you know, and. Yeah. So I remember it was Richard and Kyle over there. Dale was over there myself. And there was one other. That's all that was at the track.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Oh, they're in the test.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You go to Talladega, qualifies top 10, I believe, or top 20 and finished seventh or something.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. So, I mean, he was okay on all of that other stuff. You know, he is his, I think his vision and his of, you know, his. What he saw and how he drove. He was good at Michigan. He was good at those places. You know, took time to get into other, you know, racing to get some of them tracks under his belt, get good at, you know.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

So when did you leave?

[Robin Pemberton]

After 80. 83. 83. Well, that's when. That's when the King was getting ready to turn the keys over to Kyle.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

But, I mean, there was a lot going on there.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Richard drove another 10 years.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes.

[Mike Helton]

Everybody. I don't know that anybody knew that Richard was done winning races.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

Maybe y' all did being so tied in and. And so close to it, but Richard and I don't know that a lot of people, myself included, understand the dynamic of Richard would leave drive for curb in 84.

[Robin Pemberton]

There was a lot to happen in between that, though.

[Mike Helton]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right. So it was the Rick Hendrick thing. Right.

[Mike Helton]

Rick came to.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Rick tried to hire.

[Robin Pemberton]

Rick tried to hire him. And for a while, he. You know, he had drove a Hendrick personal car for a little bit. Right. Just a little bit.

[Travis]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Remember seeing it?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I don't know if I think it was a Corvette, actually. Nonetheless. And so that was kind of going on. So we are at Charlotte in the fall of that year. What year that would be 83. It's the last year. And he's. He's, you know, we all know it's. He's moving around. Right. There's things could or should happen. So I don't. So he comes to Me. So we got to be pretty close. Like, we could talk about stuff, you know, And. And he's. And he always told me. He's like, look, go to work for. Somebody has to race for a living. Because all these guys come in with money. And during that time, all those money guys, they come in. We're going to reorganize a sport. And in two years, you'd never heard from them again. Right. So Rick's the only one that ever made it. Right. But he was a racer at heart. So anyways, he's. So he said. I said, well, I'm gonna go to work for Butch and Bob Raheeli. And he said, okay. So that was a couple weeks before the race, before Charlotte. And then Charlotte, he comes to me and says, hey, you think they would. You think they'd let me drive their car? He says that to me, sitting on the bench.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I said, hell, I'll. I'll go find out.

[Mike Helton]

So which cars. This.

[Robin Pemberton]

The 75 car.

[Mike Helton]

This is the blue.

[Robin Pemberton]

The blue.

[Mike Helton]

Light blue one.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes, it was.

[Mike Helton]

It wasn't a very good car. Yeah, I mean, you know.

[Robin Pemberton]

Well, they had.

[Mike Helton]

Blue was driving it, and.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, they had a couple different, but they had. Neil was. Neil.

[Mike Helton]

He wasn't in it yet, was he? Was he.

[Robin Pemberton]

I think so. I think he was just getting ready to go to juniors, and he was leaving that.

[Mike Helton]

I got you.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

All right.

[Travis]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So. So I go down after work and then, you know, talk to Bob, talk to, you know, Butch, and like, hell. Yeah, we're out of a driver. Yeah. Yeah, we'll talk. I go back, tell Richard. Yeah, get up with him, though. It's good. So you go a month, you know, season's over with. We take. We take. He's driving their car. We go to Daytona and test with him. I'm at Butch and Bob's, and we have that. The car that he won the 500 in, and. And I'm a mechanic, and Buddy Parrot's gonna be the crew chief. I mean, happening.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right. Life is good. Something happened on the business side of things, and it all blew up. I mean, we. This after January. Sometime in January, we already got hundreds of miles under our bell. Daytona, I mean, it's. Right. It all blows up and goes to curb.

[Travis]

Damn.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. So, you know. But I'm back to base. I'm back to base. One with Butch and Bob just being a mechanic and doing this, that and the other, you know.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Which made it hard because I think they lost all that time trying to find a driver. And a sponsor, when they had a driver and a sponsor, you know, kind of put them in a bind. Real bind.

[Mike Helton]

I know that Marcus got in the car in 85. Was he there in 84, too, or.

[Travis]

I don't know.

[Mike Helton]

Who was your driver?

[Robin Pemberton]

Dude, One million people. I mean, I can't even count them all.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You were Petty's crew chief, though, in 83.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Larry Pollard and I shared the duties.

[Mike Helton]

How does Larry Pollard get into this role?

[Robin Pemberton]

He came in. He worked at Childress. So while I think. And he was a Northwest guy. Yeah, right. Driver, whatever. I think he moved here to try to race eventually. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Which he would.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes, he would.

[Travis]

Yep.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so he winds up coming over that year, and we were working together. We were like oil and water.

[Mike Helton]

Didn't get along very well.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, man, it was rough. It was rough. And nowadays we're good friends. You look back on it like, yeah, I was stupid. And he said, yeah, I did some stuff, and, you know, whatever. You still love me. Yeah, let's go on. Right. But it was. It was rough.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

At times, but he was really good. You know, I was good at my stuff. He was good at his stuff.

[Mike Helton]

Where did Dale go? To the. To the 44.

[Robin Pemberton]

He was at the 44.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah, I know he was there. 84.

[Robin Pemberton]

Fourth of July race or something like that. And he went over there.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And then what did he do? The. The two car first.

[Travis]

Who?

[Robin Pemberton]

Dale.

[Mike Helton]

Dale did. He did in 81. Damn it.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. He went to two car in 81. Yeah. Because it. At the Kings, it was. When Dale left, it was Steve and. And Wade Thornburg, I think. And, you know, and then Steve won.

[Mike Helton]

So I guess when Dale Inman leaves, you guys are starting to understand, like, oh, you know, this thing. What this thing has been.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, right.

[Mike Helton]

Is not no more. And now Richard's talking.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes.

[Mike Helton]

You know, when Richard leaves, I don't want to be here.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes. Yeah.

[Travis]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

And so you're making moves to try to figure that out.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

So you go to work with Raymond for a short period of time in 85, you take over crew chiefing duties for Bobby Allison at die Guard.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

So, Gary, they win the championship with Bobby in 83 at die guard. And things look like they're going awesome for.

[Travis]

From a. From a.

[Mike Helton]

From outside. And then there's some turmoil. He goes and takes Greg Sachs in 85 and wins 4th of July. Their backup car.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right. Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Or their, you know, their second car.

[Robin Pemberton]

That car. That car was one of those. That. The 20 was the old 28 car.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I mean, it was. Yeah, yeah. And it was awesome.

[Mike Helton]

Sachs had bought it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes.

[Mike Helton]

And then brought it in into the fold.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

So you go over to work with Bobby. Is Bobby in a good place or is Bobby getting.

[Robin Pemberton]

He's a little edgy.

[Mike Helton]

He is edgy.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

So I won't let. I won't ask you to elaborate on this, but I. My dad and Bobby were very close.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And so. And I say that because anybody that my dad thought of or had respect for, I just assume must be a badass and a good. You know, so I always had a lot of. I always held Bobby up in a high place.

[Robin Pemberton]

And you should. He's that guy.

[Mike Helton]

Right. But as I've gotten. As I've done more and more, like digging and learning and watching and observing and trying to understand our sport and history of our sport. Looking at his career, I mean, like, I think back toward when he was driving for Junior in the early 70s. Like, how. How, how he did not make that work.

[Robin Pemberton]

He went through a lot of those.

[Mike Helton]

He did.

[Robin Pemberton]

I love him, the Duck dude, but damn it, I did.

[Mike Helton]

You know, he. He would be in these really good spots that would turn out. If he had saw it through, they would have turned. He could have been, you know, three, four, five time champion.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

But he would get, you know, he would get.

[Robin Pemberton]

He would get wound up.

[Mike Helton]

Get wound up about something and go, well, I'll just go do my own. I got my own stuff. I'll go run my own car. And I mean, dude, he even did this in 80 in the 80s with Dygard. He gets.

[Robin Pemberton]

He would. I'll never forget this one time, you know, we're. We're trying to build cars and we're doing stuff. Go to the wind tunnel, you know, and we're loaded up, ready to go to Pocono. And he's going to fly in and carry me and two or three others. And then there's some that left in the van. Right car's sitting there, getting ready to push it on, and he comes walking in with a spindle. He's like, we need to put this on this left front. This. Donnie. Donnie won with it last week at Birmingham. And it's got, you know, so me being me, I already had, like. I was already doing radial brake mounts, you know, get rid of that flexi stuff that, you know, and all hard point mounted. And I said, I can't. I can't make it happen. And it had this. And it had the long Robinson steering arm on it. The one that Was. And he's like, well, if you don't want to try, you know, Bobby, I do want to try, but I can't, you know, I can't do it. And I don't remember if I did or I didn't.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah, sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, I mean, it was three o' clock in the afternoon and Pocono was the next morning.

[Travis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and so there was a few of those things. Like we, we, I think we. We sat on the outside pole at Bristol once with a Buick we built just kind of for short tracks. And we had this Ferrari type panda rod system in. It was a ball, a bearing that run in a track. So it wasn't the normal.

[Travis]

Wow.

[Robin Pemberton]

Track bar thing.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And it was working great. He said, well, you know, that way roll center doesn't change and blah, blah, blah. And I said, okay, well, you get. You. We ding somebody. And it bent the track and the thing was wobbling around and, you know, we had to come in and pit and take it off and put the track bar on. Right. And we went out and ran just as fast. Just as fast. If not, you know, could have probably run faster because he was angry. But nonetheless, it was like we took ourselves out of some of these things.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

And that fourth of July deal was the bitter end. Running two cars. He wasn't a two car guy.

[Mike Helton]

Nobody was.

[Robin Pemberton]

Nobody was.

[Mike Helton]

Nobody did. Daryl hated it. There's lots of quotes in all kinds of articles around Darrell's distaste for the idea of Junior bringing in Neil. And dad didn't ever want Skinner, all that stuff. Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Nobody wanted. They wanted their own kingdom. Right.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And I get it. I get it from my side or others that were like me. You look at it, it's like, you know, not everybody has a, you know, a driver like that that wants to be the only driver, but sometimes they have off days and off weeks and off, whatever. And you have another source.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah. We would learn that that would be the way to go.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And teams need it, you know, become cheaper to run the second. All those things we'd learn.

[Robin Pemberton]

I had trouble with it at Penske. Yeah, I'm sure, you know. Yeah, not those. You. I'm sure you'll get to that in a little bit.

[Mike Helton]

But the, the, the, the die guard management. So we have doing some documenting around 1979, 80, with Dad's championship and his rookie year, we go on and on around Darrell's, Darrell's distaste for working with that organization. And we've had Darrell on And he's talked about it and, you know, I don't know that Bobby had big problems on, on with the, with the gardeners. But what, what was it. What was their management style like? You know, they seemed. It seemed like, I will say this, like they can't. They had, you know, they buy die Guard or they buy the 88 car. They start this whole program right in.

[Robin Pemberton]

The 70s with Donnie in, in Daytona.

[Mike Helton]

In Daytona. They moved it up eventually, but it's like they're getting there. Right. And they eventually do become the team they want to become. Win a championship with Bobby and.

[Travis]

The.

[Mike Helton]

I don't know that Daryl was maybe the best driver for them because of his, his personality. In, in 78, 79, 80, he was a little. He was a little hard. Junior would. Junior was perfect for Darrell because Junior wouldn't put up. No, there's this really cool. There's this really cool moment when Junior and Cale are racing each other. And it's a. It's a quote in one of the blue books where Kael's racing, I think at Talladega, and he runs third and he gets out and it says, this is the sorry car.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And he's trying to say NASCAR's, you know, needs to give us a better.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Better plate or something for the engine.

[Robin Pemberton]

Something.

[Mike Helton]

Junior's like. The reporter goes to Junior and Junior says, well, if he wants to talk about our car, he can find somewhere else to drive. Yeah, I'm not going to put up with that. Like, that's. That's Junior Johnson.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

They're. They're in the middle of winning their second of three in a row championships when this happens. And so Daryl goes to Junior and that's perfect for Daryl because Junior wasn't.

[Robin Pemberton]

Going to put up.

[Travis]

No.

[Mike Helton]

Daryl knew it, but. So I think the gardeners were a little wild. A little bit of, you know, fly by, see their pants, going to do this, going to do that. Big ideas, ambitious. And that wasn't good for Daryl. But they get in, they get Bobby, they go win a championship. They get some great people in the building. Gary, you other people in the building. Things look like they're going well. And I mean, in just a couple of years, deal is gone.

[Robin Pemberton]

It went bad fast, like we were. They got chasing the minority money from Miller and Willie T. Ribs.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Poor Willie. I mean, I think the world of him. He was good. We were good friends and everything, but he had to drive, Right. That one car he drove at Riverside.

[Mike Helton]

How did the car.

[Robin Pemberton]

We dug it out. It was A show car. It was all broke up and bent. We made a race car out of it.

[Mike Helton]

Where is the good.

[Robin Pemberton]

We didn't have it.

[Mike Helton]

You didn't have any more?

[Robin Pemberton]

No.

[Mike Helton]

Where did it go? Did Sachs destroy all of it?

[Robin Pemberton]

Some of it, you know, but there wasn't many cars back then. You had two or three cars. Team.

[Travis]

Okay.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and. And then they bring on Willie and you. And you, like, can't buy a car.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right. And so you go get a show car and it's like you. The. The frame rails aren't even parallel.

[Travis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You put them in it and, you know, he would haul ass and something would break on it.

[Travis]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

That was. Yeah, that was interesting to see that team just sort of fizzle into nothing and so quickly.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. That when. That race when. When Sachs was winning.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I had my pit crew, they had theirs kinda because, you know, they. They were behind the curtain type R D thing.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

That was going on. Well, when they look like they were gonna win a race, I think we dropped a cylinder, broke a valve or something. But we're still running. We come down pit road, all my crew's gone. They're down there. They run down there to change tires for Greg's car. And I'm sitting there like, I need a front tire changer. I changed it. Right. We had, you know, one jack. We had jackman, but we lost tire changers. And Bobby saw what happened and he got on the radio. He saw me across the wall. I got on the radio. He said, just take your time. It doesn't matter. Just right. Race goes, we're done. I walk into the trailer about half pissed off anyways, But I'm happy that the team. The other team won. Bobby's coming on the trailer. He's like, I'll see you around. I said, really? He said, yeah, I'll see you. And I knew what it meant.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right then, right there.

[Mike Helton]

So Bobby wasn't a Bobby Wooden. Bobby didn't throw a tantrum.

[Robin Pemberton]

No.

[Mike Helton]

He just was like, matt.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

This ain't working.

[Robin Pemberton]

Just like, punch the card.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, interesting.

[Mike Helton]

I wasn't sure, like, you know, Bobby would go. You know, Bobby would get in and out of these deals.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

When I will say, like, for. To his credit, he drove for buddy bud Moore and respectfully, you know.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Decided I need to go somewhere else. And that didn't end abruptly, but he.

[Robin Pemberton]

Had all the best jobs.

[Travis]

He did.

[Mike Helton]

Had some good jobs. But I'm just saying, like, he. He could. He could make a change. Or transition without it being abrupt and clunky. But like, I always wondered, when he did get frustrated, how. How did he verbalize that and how did he re. And was he. Was he fiery? Because on the racetrack and with rivals like Petty and.

[Travis]

And.

[Mike Helton]

And different people, he could be fiery.

[Travis]

He was not.

[Mike Helton]

No. You know the fight with Kale?

[Robin Pemberton]

Not the U.S. not the. No, no.

[Mike Helton]

But not the ownership either.

[Robin Pemberton]

No.

[Travis]

Right?

[Robin Pemberton]

Nope.

[Mike Helton]

Hey, T.J. you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrick Automotive Group.

[Robin Pemberton]

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

[Mike Helton]

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

[Robin Pemberton]

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

[Mike Helton]

Well, we definitely sell plenty of those, but actually we're really big in commercial vehicles. We actually sell a lot of crane trucks. We're the number one seller actually, in crane trucks. Okay, I definitely did not see that coming. Yeah, pretty neat, huh? So, for any of our listeners shopping for commercial vehicles, here's some things you need to know about us. At Dalenhardt Jr. Chevrolet, we have hundreds of trucks in stock so you can find what you need fast. And we have people there that can help you with custom orders. So if you want to build the exact vehicle you need, we can do it. We offer complimentary delivery anywhere in the continental U.S. plus, Hendrick Automotive Group is the nation's top rated dealer group for online reputation. Visit dalejrchevy.com and click Commercial to explore the wide range of available commercial vehicles. Our team at Dylan Hart Jr. Chevrolet will give you a world class experience. Chevrolet together, let's drive.

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[Mike Helton]

After you left Die Guard, what did you do?

[Robin Pemberton]

Went back to Butch and Bob.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So yeah, I mean they were, they were talking to me. Lake Speed was going to be over there and Lake Speed come got me.

[Mike Helton]

And Lake run pretty good out in gate.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, he did. And that's that Nationwide car.

[Mike Helton]

That's right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so it's early in the year. It's like right after the Rocket Ham race, I'm still at Tygard and I had a ten year contract.

[Travis]

Damn.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, I've had a few of those. That's the longest one that ever lasted 13 months. But my other 10 for shorter. We'll get to all that. And so I went to, I guess the guy's name was Mezzanotti. He was kind of the lawyer type and whatever in the office. And I said, look, I, I can't, I gotta go. And he understood. He said, all right, we'll let you go. So I been talking to Lake to come over there. I've been son, bitch. I get there and by the time I get there, they fired Lake. Yeah. Yeah. I walk in and there's Butch. We're over on Orr Road next to Pistone's shop over on the other side of the railroad track.

[Mike Helton]

They had Jody Ridley driving a second.

[Robin Pemberton]

Jody drove and there was, there was others that drove. Yeah, that was a turmoil year.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And Mark Marcus was before that, I think. But there's a second go around with them. And so we are. That's going good. It's going okay. You know, you're working like pack of heathens. But it's not bad. It's okay. And still frustrating. Right. Because I thought I was going to have a guy. Right. So anyways, the I'm out mowing the yard. We live in a Matthews. I'm out mowing the yard. Like I got to put One of them big Jacobson push mowers that runs by itself. I wasn't even using it. I was just plowing. Right. Three quarters acre grass. And I was just, I told Lisa, I said, answer the phone. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm out, I'm doing something, whatever, because that's before cell phones and all. So I'm mowing. She says, hey, phone call. I said, I'm, I'm not, I'm not talking to anybody. Go hang up. Yeah, take a message. She goes in, she comes back out. She goes, no, this guy really needs to talk to you now. I said, what's so important? He's like, well, he's, he's, he's a, a friend of Paul Giltman, which was a engineer back in the day that he was at Dire Guard. He was at other places. It's freaking smart. Friend of Paul's. And Paul told him to call you. He's. And I said, well, who the is it? She said, jack Roush or something like that. Just, I turned him. I don't know if I turned the mower off, but I left it, you know, and I went in, took the call.

[Mike Helton]

You knew Jack? You knew who Jack was?

[Robin Pemberton]

I knew the name. You know, drag racing and road racing and all that stuff. And so we talked for a minute and you know, he's like, it's gonna start. He's like, meet you. I'll get back with you.

[Mike Helton]

Did you tell you about Mark?

[Robin Pemberton]

No, that was not even. We aren't even that far. We hadn't even got nothing.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So we're gonna meet at the. Right outside that Greensboro Airport at a meeting room there. And so it was an afternoon or the next weekend we were off or something. So it was, it was two Sundays before Bristol. And this is, there's a reason for that. And so we talk and I walk in and Steve walks in and we're like, what the, what's going on? He's like, yeah, Jack called me. Jack called me. And so Jack didn't know Steve and I were ah, boyhood buddies, you know what I mean?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so we talked through a bunch of stuff and asked about drivers and you know, he built some motors for Kenny Schrader and Trader. Hated him at the time. You know, he said they wouldn't cool. Had to have a big radiator, whatever. And so we talked about some drivers and, and Steve was real high on Mark and, And so eventually we, we got, they got that all done.

[Mike Helton]

Do you know what other drivers were discussed, mentioned Even barely.

[Robin Pemberton]

I can't even remember. There was a few.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

But really, it just regular names, guys.

[Mike Helton]

That were already kind of in and out of sport.

[Travis]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And you knew they weren't coming. They were just not a startup deal. Mark didn't have much.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So he would be coming.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

The other guys that had something, they'd hang it over your head.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So that. So then. So we had the meeting. So next weekend's Bristol Thursday night Thunders on. Remember that? And so whatever that chatter was, we're at Bristol, whatever that chatter was, or we're going to Bristol on that Friday morning. It was, Jack Roush is going to go cup racing. And he's talking to former crew chief or something, you know, Steve Meal and Robin Pemberton about starting a team that.

[Mike Helton]

Came on the tv.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I mean, we didn't say. Yeah. So by Saturday, Bob is so mad at me. Oh, he doesn't talk. Then finally he says, you know, you. If we're not good enough for you, you're out.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Today's your last day we finish a race.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, I think at the time, I think Lisa was pregnant and I'm out of work.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and so I said, all right, we gotta make this thing happen. So I'm living in Matthews and Steve is in Liberty, you know, Greensboro. So they get looking at shops and he was there more often. So he finds a building. It's like 10,000 square feet, few acres of land in Liberty. Yeah, they get that thing. Jack buys it, and it's an old. It's like a. Steve would know better than me. It's like a furniture warehouse type thing. Was just a building to put stuff in. Right. It didn't have, like. It had one little bathroom in a corner. That's it.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

It's like, all right, this is August, dude. And we're going racing in 80. Whatever it was, 80 days. So we started building. I drive 96 miles to work every day, back and forth I did from August of 87 to December of 88. We never took a day off. We took Christmas off. The first year we worked Thanksgiving, we worked New Year's Day. You know, we were doing all kinds of crazy stuff. And, like, it was a thermos, a coffee to get to work, and it was two high boy Miller lights to get home every night. You know what I mean? It was like, took that Highway 49 or whatever across the Baden Lake and whatnot and get the Matthews. And it's like, I'd leave it. I'd leave at 5:15 in the morning and I'd get back at 7:30 at night. Yeah, you know, I mean, it was 18 months of that stuff, but just about 16 months. Worked our asses off when we were. They did the media tour and so we're in there working and they're doing the media thing and we're only going to run part time. We're not running, you know, all the races. We already knew that. So Banjo Grimm was here, you know, I know some others and Danny Ryan or whatever. And I'm in the trunk of this car. We're like, it's going to be a Rocken ham car, right? Not, you know, and it'll be our spare Daytona. We have one speedway car. Anyways, I'm in the trunk working. We're just building it. I'm putting supports in the back glass and whatnot. And they're doing a press conference and I hear him announce that we're going to run all the races. We're sitting there with 1.5 cars ready to go in December and it's like, what the is? We didn't know.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I. I get out of the trunk, I go see Steve. I said, what's. Did I hear that? Yeah, I said, did you know? I didn't know. Nobody knew, you know, and manage, you know, Jack and others thought that somebody else did the meeting with us or whatever. It's like, oh, man.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, it was, it was on then.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, we go to Daytona. We had ordered another car. Probably a Hopkins. No, back then it was. We were running a Ford Snoutz. They're banjo cars. We had a third car ordered. It was going to be a short track car. When we left for Daytona, we had a partial. Best to my recollection, we had a partial car in a garage. Our Rockingham car was a spare and our Daytona car.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And it was like. I think we wrecked our primary. I'm not sure. Practice or something. Something. But it's like, God almighty. It was rough going. Rough going. First year.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah, y'. All. I remember that team getting fired up in the.

[Robin Pemberton]

How old were you then?

[Mike Helton]

I was 12 and 86, so. 87, 13 years old.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I remember Mark coming in in the blue Stroz car. And I guess I remember one time. I don't know exactly when this happened, either before Mark had his first run in cup in 81 or. Or is this after he went back home, but I think this was when he. So we're at dad's lake house. We're in the basement.

[Robin Pemberton]

And one off 150.

[Travis]

Yes.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And we're at the lake house in the basement. And I just. I just barely remember, like, this. This memory of Mark being there. It was late at night, and Mark had brought some tapes of his ASA races.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And put them in the vcr. And dad and him watched Mark running that white and orange tube. So this had to been probably before Mark came Cup racing.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, I think so.

[Mike Helton]

And Mark was like, basically kind of like, look. Look at what I'm doing. Look at all this awesome I'm doing, you know, And. And how can maybe you help. Help me understand what I need to do in the cup side and bring it in. And then Mark had his first go at Cup. It didn't go really as well as he'd hoped.

[Robin Pemberton]

It's tough racing out far away, too.

[Mike Helton]

Sure.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

It, you know, has its advantages.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

The Buck Stove deal was bull, and they kind of ruined, you know, ruined his plan and. And he whiffed on an opportunity to drive the 28 when they went. When they were switching mid season away from Benny Parsons.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Helton]

He got a call from Ranier to drive that car.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And turn it down. He's like, I got a good thing going my own here.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

He tells that story here recently. But he. So Mark's coming back to cup, and I remember having this feeling that he had been running good in that Ford in the Xfinity series, of the Bush series back then, that 31. I'm like, this guy. And y'. All. You. And I was like, with the right people. And Jack Roush. Like, I was sensitive to anything that could compare or compete with dad.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Like, when Davey got good in the 28, I was like, oh, that's not good. You know, Ernie Irvin, all these different. You know, Tim Richmond. When Tim Richmond was kind of encroaching on Dad's, you know, 86 season. And I'm like, oh, I don't know about this, man. I don't like this.

[Robin Pemberton]

It's gonna be tough.

[Mike Helton]

Well, Mark Martin was another guy that was gonna come in there and make things hard.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And that's kind of how y' all got it. Y'.

[Robin Pemberton]

All.

[Mike Helton]

Y' all did it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

The. I. It didn't look. It didn't appear from the outside the way you describe it in terms of the hard work and the. The, you know, the grind to get that team started.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

When do you feel like. I mean, y'.

[Travis]

All.

[Mike Helton]

Y' all ran really freaking good.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And I remember there being this sort of story of when's it, when's it gonna win?

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Cause he's right there. Yeah, but you were right there. Second, third, fourth, fifth. The Stroz car was this brand new program, Jack Roush's name on it. Roush is a badass and everything he does, it's going to happen. But you know, there was this sort of anticipation. I remember being in, even a kid being, you know, reading the grand national scene and going to the races, feeling this sort of anticipation of when's this team going to finally.

[Robin Pemberton]

I think we sat on one poll that year in Dover.

[Mike Helton]

When did you feel like y' all guys finally got it going? When did you go? How long were you in the Liberty Shop?

[Robin Pemberton]

I was there for the, whatever the four, four years or something.

[Mike Helton]

That same building?

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, same building. We added to it, added to it a couple times. Added a back building and you know, we got to, we, we got to, you know, that year we were contending for a championship. Whatever year that was. That would have been 8, 9, 90, 91, something like that. And you know, we were, we were wearing a wind tunnel out. We were, you know, we were test that one year we tested that big ass Ford.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

To the wind tunnel.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Mike Helton]

Big old car.

[Robin Pemberton]

They, they, they got on us because they didn't like what we were doing, right?

[Mike Helton]

Like what?

[Robin Pemberton]

So the wind tunnel guys, the GM or the Ford, what were you doing? Well, we were just reshaping stuff, right?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And so they said, getting away from their.

[Robin Pemberton]

What they thought of the car. So they, they got on us and they sent a guy down and said, you know, whatever. I said, we'll go to the tunnel. So we went to the tunnel and we said, well, this is what, you know, we're not going to tell you, but this is one of our best cars. Which was either it was probably Bill, Bill's car, right? It's probably the, the, it was probably the 9 car, whatever, milling or whatever. And then it was, you know, we had to, you know, work against Robert Yates and the 28. We rolled that thing in there and it made better downforce and less drag. And they're like, oh geez. Well what'd you do? We just did what we did. You know what I mean? You understood error when you build. You know, there's a formula for the apost shapes and you know, if the 30 inch window, you had to be. I always used a three to one rule. You know, draw a string on it and it's got to be 10 inches outside of a 30 window. You know, we needed to have side glasses and stuff. And we just had stuff that we'd done over the years with little things, and it was better.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So they got off our ass. Right. And then once we knew, we were like, okay, we're in a ballpark. There's no excuses here. You know, and then we were. Then we went to work real hard on the. On the chassis setups and stuff like that. And back in those days, with all the practice, you know, Steve was really good about spring changes and stuff, different things like that. And, you know, we'd. We'd go into corners. He'd go practice, and we'd go into corners and watch. And we'd come back and Mark and Steve and I would talk. And what we saw, you know, you saw a little too much wheel in it. You didn't. Whatever the shocks. And, you know, we start. We started to make some gains.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and then that year we were contending, you know, and felt better, but it was still, you know, we would still drive into all the races.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, we just flew a couple times, maybe to Michigan, but, yeah, still.

[Mike Helton]

A lot of work.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike Helton]

1990, after winning Richmond, the team got busted with an illegal carburetor spacer.

[Robin Pemberton]

That was bull.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Dad would win the championship. Guys were penalized 46 points.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And it cost Mark a chance at the title. The. You can be completely honest here. This is a safe space.

[Robin Pemberton]

I will be.

[Mike Helton]

They. You'd lose the championship by 26 points.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Let's go back to the spacer thing.

[Mike Helton]

Let's just do it.

[Robin Pemberton]

You talk to the official that's in charge of the carburetors, the spacers, the manifolds. Right. I'm not gonna leave his name out of it. And we say, look, you know, in those days, your body rake and this and that and lower hood, blah, blah, blah. I said, look, we can't. You could weld as much as you wanted to on the spacer. Randy did a show on. It was on inside NASCAR or something. And you could have a stock manifold, and you could weld six inches to it, and it's legal. You can bolt two inches to it and it's legal, or you bolt three inches to it and it's illegal. But welding as much as legal. And I went to the official and I said, look, we've got, like, two manifolds, right. We don't have all this. We got all these different cars we're trying to compete. And so he's like, look, I get it. The rule's wrong. We need to work on the rule for the welding and this, that, and the other. He said, you know, you can run the. The spacers. Okay. You know, because I said, okay. So we had a drawer wood, two, two and a quarter, you know, two and a half, three inches, you know, whatever. Whatever we could fit under the hood.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so that Richmond race was. That race that. It was so cold, you probably remember we had. We started the race with the cowl taped off because Jack was worried about all that cold, you know, getting in the engine and blowing up or whatever. And like, on the first or second pit stop, we pulled the tape off. I mean, that car hauled ass. I mean, we kicked their ass. Pull in, throw the hood open. For the post race inspection, Childress was standing at the front of the car going, that's illegal. He knew it. And, you know, it's okay. Everybody looks at everybody's stuff, but. And it was over with. It was over with. And so the. You know, Jack fired me for probably the second or third time then he was always firing me and Ryan. But anyway, so Dick Beatty was in charge. And then they had, you know, carburetor guy or whatever. And so I talked to them, and they were like, look, we think we're going to be all right. You're going to be all right.

[Travis]

Oh.

[Robin Pemberton]

So Jack didn't let any of us go to the appeal. He appealed. And the best of my recollection, Jack went in there and. And they had already told me, look, we're. We're going to amend the rule book. Looks like we'll amend the rule book. You guys will be okay with the points and whatever. Jack goes down there and says, look, new guy, I'm sensitive to the. Whatever he said. Ford, like, you know, didn't want the embarrassment to set the other weeks. You know, we'll take the penalty, but don't. Don't take away the manufacturer points. They're more important to me. I mean, it was like we'd work behind the scenes. It was like gonna be a fix, a done deal.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And then. And then I got the feedback. It's like we threw it away. It was.

[Mike Helton]

You wouldn't know in that moment either that that would be the difference.

[Robin Pemberton]

No, in my mind, I always thought I said, this will be the one, that this will be the big you. You know what I mean? Like, I just had the feeling, you know, and we, you know, we raced our guts out that year.

[Travis]

Yeah, right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And we led the points. Still led the points. For a long, long time.

[Mike Helton]

Jack suspended you with pay.

[Robin Pemberton]

What happened now? He. He would fly in. He's done. He did this shoot. He would fly in. Tuesday, we do meetings, this, that, and the other. And he would fire. He would drag me in the office, say, look, it's time to move on. And I would say to him, I remember saying, one time, I said, jack, I walk around this building. Your name's on it. But I said, I built this building just like Steve did, just like you did. I'm not leaving. I said, go do your meetings. I got to do. We're getting ready for a race. He'd come out and say, hey, you know. Yeah, I was a little, you know, upset over the week, you know, whatever. All right, I'll see you Friday at the track, you know, type thing. Yeah, but he. Yeah, it was. He did it a few times, you know, and so kind of the handwriting was on the wall. And. And what happened. The bigger the team got, the more distanced I got from Jack, where everything was. Went through Steve. He was a team. Got to be a team manager and stuff. And, you know, we had good bonus program. Like, if at the end of the year, my pay was this, my bonus was equal to that. Well, I was trying to buy a house right. In Greensboro. And you didn't make enough on paper, you know, that they didn't count the salaries. Interest rates were 11 or 12% at the time. And, you know, I said, look, I don't want more money. Put this into this so I qualify for a better loan.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And it didn't happen. Didn't happen. And, you know, and that summer. So Richard's going to announce his. I'm running one year, and I'm done. The tour, Right. The Richard's gone tour. He's announcing it to do that. So they called the shop and said, hey, look, we want you to come over and be. Be there, be present. You know, you're like part of the family, whatever. So I go over there, and there's big media stuff, and everybody's there, and we're all done. I'm getting ready to go back to the shop. Kyle grabs me, and he's like, hey, Felix wants to talk to you.

[Travis]

Felix?

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. I said, what for? We just need to talk. Philips wants to talk to you. He wants to hire you. I said, well, you got Gary. Yeah, yeah. Felix just wants to talk to you. So here's number two, Gary and me, Right? Yeah. So anyways, and so I had already been, you know, firing on in four years, three solid Times, you know, I said, okay, this is hostile environment. So I go and meet Felix at the. He had the condo over there to Charlotte, and we talked, you know, and the money was a little bit better. But it wasn't that. It was. It was. It was Kyle. It was a chance to be, like the absolute guy. Right. There was no middle management. Right. It was Felix and you and me.

[Mike Helton]

And where was Gary going? Gary. So Gary.

[Robin Pemberton]

Well, we did the meeting.

[Mike Helton]

Well, hold on. I want to pray for the. For the fans listening. So Gary had been with Kyle, crew chief in the peak car, blue and pink, beautiful race car. They won a couple races. Rockingham a couple times. Dominated Rockingham.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

New radial tire. They were figuring that out. And so what was this process?

[Robin Pemberton]

It was. Felix just didn't get along with Gary.

[Travis]

Okay.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so we did a meeting, and I said, look, Gary's a friend. Gary took me to Dygard, you know, I said, I will not be the guy to replace him. I said, so if you find him a place and then you take care of that first. I said, that's my first. The rest of this stuff, this is one of my friends, and he's like, well, I was working on, you know, blah, blah, blah. So anyways, so he. Felix and Bill France were friends, and Bill was still active, so he. He made some calls, and he. He pretty much got Bill to call Gary to do competition stuff at nascar.

[Travis]

Wow.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so then once that was announced, then I was okay. I was okay.

[Mike Helton]

But you knew Gary had a spot.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, Travis, there is social media online. It can be a rocky road sometimes.

[Josh Williams]

It can be a lot. There's everything people are saying at you. It just gets to be a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Every now and then I'll get a message from my girlfriend. She sends me something on Instagram like positive affirmations, but those are hard to come by. And especially now in the online culture, mental health and therapy is so important.

[Josh Williams]

It's a lot of negative, negative, negative. You need to think about yourself and make sure you're being a better person and you're not always down on yourself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Absolutely. These days it feels like there's advice for everything. You know, cold plunges, gratitude journals, screen detoxes. But, you know, how do you know what actually works for you? And with the Internet and information overload about mental health and wellness, it can be a struggle to know what's true and what actions to take.

[Josh Williams]

These days, using trusted resources and talking to live therapists can get you personalized recommendations and help you break through the noise. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, and Travis, it's convenient, too. You can join a session with a therapist at a click of a button. Plus you can switch therapists at any time. I've used it and I highly recommend it.

[Josh Williams]

That's the best thing is, as you're feeling this out, if you need to make a change, you can. You also get to do it on your own. You don't have to go into an office and you feel like you're being judged or anything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, absolutely. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

[Josh Williams]

Talk it out with better help our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Dale Jr that's better. H lp.com dalejr y', all, I want.

[Mike Helton]

To know about the Great innovation around winning at Watkins Glen.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh God.

[Mike Helton]

You had a fast race car, you know. And Kyle, I'll be honest, up until this point, you know, I don't, I don't know that you know, Kyle had drove for the Wood Brothers and you know, he'd been in different teams and cars. But I don't know that we really gave Kyle's ability a ton of credit. Right until the SABCO deal.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And he wins. You know, he goes out there and dominated at Rockingham a couple times and I think everyone. Dover maybe and a couple different races and then, you know, the Melon Pocono.

[Robin Pemberton]

Was a good win.

[Mike Helton]

The mellow yellow car was striking. Beautiful. Like everybody. You picked that thing out. It was, it was good looking.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Days of thunder comes along. It was this, this car was iconic.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, it was fun.

[Mike Helton]

When we do the throwbacks darlington, that's a very popular car. People like to, like to play off of.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

But talk about the, talk about the win at the Glen and how you made.

[Robin Pemberton]

So we go up there testing and in those days you just call and say, you know, it's 1500 a day or something. Nothing was going on in those days. Racetracks love to have you. So we show up, we unload. First off there's. I said where's the ambulance? Where's the wreckers? Well, they're downtown. You just call them if something happens. I said no, we lost a half a day getting records and ambulances up there. Yeah, right. I said, I'm not testing with no medical.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, hell, I'm the one who might cut my thumb off. You know what I mean? I've done that already once. And so we lost half a day. So we get running and so they're putting up, we're running. I just, I can't get through this. I can't do this. You know, I need to run wide open. There's no reason to not run wide open. So I'm like, okay. So they're putting up garage doors in the building. Before it was just open.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And I see all this frickin boxes down there. So said all right. So I go cut these 4 inch wide strips and they're like a 316 thick, you know, almost a whatever. And I start and I went and did the whole valence. If you look at picture that car had a valence. You know those days had the valence. So I widened the whole, I did the whole thing wider. I just taped it on there. Duct tape. He goes out and runs. He's like, oh, man. He's like, do you believe it's better said, okay, go get more cardboard. And I tape it on and we go. I mean, we were literally four inches more wide. I mean, it was out there.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And he's like, he just matted from turn two up to the S's. It was so good.

[Travis]

He.

[Robin Pemberton]

You get up to the chicane. A lot of times he just pushed a clutch in and never let the clutch out and goes through the chicane and then third gear, whatever, and off and go. He's like, that's perfect. He's like, it's good. So we get all that done. Worked harder on that than springs and shocks. That made the springs and shocks good, whatever they were. So we got back home, it's like, okay, smart ass, now what are you going to do? You got cardboard all over this thing. So I knew of a company in Florida, did fiberglass work. We cut the whole nose off. I put little brother Roman in a pickup truck with its nose and this, I think it was Harry's glass. And he drives. He drives a Jacksonville or whatever it was. And I said, make a mold, do this, do this. They made a whole new nose for us, right? In a week, bring it back, put it on, put the ducks in it and all this other stuff. And then really, the ducks were so big. There was. It said one time I had a quote, it said we only had GP on it, but it was G dash prix, right. So it wasn't grand prix.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

So somebody was bitching. I'm like, we're hauling ass. And, you know, if Kyle's hauling ass, there's something wrong. Right. It's one of them things in practice.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And. And so they come over. They come over and they're like, they get tape measure out and measure the valence because the. Of the G P on there, they thought that the nose was narrow because back then everybody just narrowed stuff up and whatever. And they're like, yeah, this thing ain't narrow. She's, you know, walk away. So it was freaking cheated up, right?

[Travis]

Oh, yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And it was. It was. It was good.

[Mike Helton]

Damn it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Our Daytona car we sat on the pole with was. Was an awesome car. We had so much fun building that thing that. That year or the year after. Yeah, we did it at Telada. We. We put a body on it at the racetrack, make a spring change, change the fenders, make a spring change, you know, and they got it where we would travel the full 8 inches in the back. And we unloaded that car Barry Dotson comes over and says. He's like, felix make you bring your Martinsville car here? You know, and that thing, it hauled ass. You know, we had fun back in those Meliella days.

[Mike Helton]

You end up getting let go by the. From the team. What was the disagreement over?

[Robin Pemberton]

He said it was after Charlotte.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So we blew up, and I gave everybody Monday off. And so Ryan and Roman, my brothers and myself, we went in there. So, look, let's just pull the motor out and whatever. So somehow Felix knew we were working, and he come in and he fired all three of us.

[Mike Helton]

Damn it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yep. And said, you're complacent, and you're, you know, you're complacent and you're satisfied with mediocrity. We're 10th in points. We've come off a great season, and we've blown up a couple times. And so he unloaded us all three one time. No, like, ah. And so we take. Go home, you know, I mean, they went home. I think Ryan and Rome both went over the eights. They wound up going to Yates.

[Mike Helton]

That's a good deal.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Yeah, they were good. And then I just didn't do anything. And then around August, about September, July or something, Jack calls and says, hey, you need to come. Come do Ted's deal.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Oh, Ted Musgrave.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Come to Ted's deal. Right.

[Mike Helton]

Family Channel.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, yeah. And we sat on three poles. Yeah, Right. I mean, we. We worked our ass off, but, you know, we were good. We had a little trouble racing sometimes, but we sat on three poles. There's some speed there, but I. We took three. Whatever it made July didn't do anything other than worry, you know?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So that's how that happened.

[Mike Helton]

Well, after 94 at Roush, again with. With. With Musgrave, you got a Penske. You worked with rusty through from 95 to oh, one.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

That. You got 15 wins, nine polls in 2000.

[Travis]

What.

[Mike Helton]

What was working with Rusty like? And how come. How come that. That clicked for you? How come Rusty. Well, not only did that. Not only did it seem to click between you and Rusty, but you also seem to be kind of allowed to do what you wanted to do within the Pinsky organization.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, I behaved to an extent. Okay. Like my first meeting with Roger.

[Mike Helton]

Tighten it up a little bit.

[Robin Pemberton]

Roger, he's been sitting there having a briefcase over my first meeting. He said, let me. He's glad you're here. This will be good. He said, but just remember, he's like, racing is 100% of my fun. It's 5% of my business. Don't let this mess. Mess up the 95%, you know, of the business. You know, don't, don't. Don't mess it up.

[Travis]

So.

[Robin Pemberton]

And he's like, I know you got stuff in that briefcase you can use and you've used and you've done stuff and whatever he said, just remember everybody, you know, we got to be. Got toe the line on this stuff.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I said, you got it. I mean, I had fuel gauges and, you know what I mean, lights to put in a dash. All kinds of stupid. Eventually we did. But nonetheless, you know, he laid that groundwork, and Rusty and I got along pretty good. The thing that. The first thing I noticed when I got there, you know, they won races. They won a lot of races. Buddy was really good, but every fricking car was different. Different chassis, different. Different crossbars in a Hopkins car and a Laughlin car and a this car, you know, and you, you know, dual massive master cylinders wouldn't fit in one car because of something. And you know, see, we. I. I started the chassis program. We started building our own chassis.

[Travis]

Yep.

[Robin Pemberton]

And that, that was. That was really good when we did all of that and we got along. I spent endless hours in the wind tunnel. Don Miller and Roger did a deal with University, I think in Virginia, and we helped them get that wind tunnel in Norfolk back up online. They used to do. They used to do airplanes, fighters, and we spent. There's times I went up there for probably four days in a row, and you'd run 12 hours.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, I mean, we wind tunneled that to death and it showed.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Rusty was not that other drivers didn't do this. I mean, a lot of drivers back in the day did this. But my understanding of the. The little bit of time that I got to race with Rusty, we'd go to racetrack and test it. Bristol and so forth. He was incredible at Bristol.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. We built new cars for him almost every race.

[Travis]

He.

[Mike Helton]

Is it true that Rusty was. Rusty made your job easier because of his ability to assist you with what may need to be changed on the car. Like, hey, I think we need to, you know, I think the track bar needs to be lower.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, he was really good.

[Mike Helton]

Right rear spring this.

[Robin Pemberton]

He was the tire pressure pound, whatever.

[Mike Helton]

Right. But he was on, you know, he'd go out and run.

[Robin Pemberton]

Bobby was the same way.

[Mike Helton]

Really?

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, they were. They were very close to that mentality. And Rusty was incredible.

[Travis]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

Because Rusty. Yeah, that's one of the Things that I heard about Rusty was his ability to go run a car and come in and give you. Give you suggestions on specific ideas on what we would.

[Robin Pemberton]

We would go off. We would go off the play sheet to try to develop stuff, right? And he. We were at Indy, and so we're using these springs that would coil mine. This is back then, before it was fashionable, right? And he could feel it down the front stretch. He could feel it click, whatever.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And he come in, he opened the hood, he looked. He said, hey, they're coil bind. It's got. The paint wore off. It put some tape on there. I'll go run. But it was supposed to. But he didn't, you know, he didn't really like that, which is okay. I mean, we made it fast.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

But there was things he could feel, you know, we were really good. I had a good feel for the speedway cars and different things that we did, you know, I mean, we were. We went to proving grounds with Buddy Baker and Shawna Robinson and would run stuff for a week right out in Arizona, you know, during the wintertime. And we learned stuff from there. And Buddy would test Daytona sometimes when Rusty was busy doing. Doing other things. And you just. You'd learn stuff. The radial tires, like with Buddy. I said, look, I just want to set the caster. I said, on these things, so you're not pulling on the wheel to the left, you know, when they run all that split, right. I said, you tell me, and I'll keep changing it to. When you get down the end of the straightaway, you're just putting your thumbs in it and you're. And you're going. I said, because these things don't want to be this way all the time. And we work. We worked on caster for six hours, and Buddy's like, oh, my God, you can drive this thing with two fingers. You just go off in the corner, and the caster's perfect and stuff, you know. And so he let us go do that with Buddy, and Buddy, you know, Buddy run pretty good. And so we carried that over into some of the other stuff we did, you know.

[Travis]

Yeah. I.

[Mike Helton]

Want to talk about your final couple years in competition. You went back to Petty one year in 2002, your general manager, trying to revive the family team.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You know, what was going on?

[Robin Pemberton]

Well, I'll be totally honest. I said, In 2001, when your dad passed away, it changed everything, you know, for a lot of people. Your dad and I were friends more than what people know, you know?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

We would talk about stuff, whatever. And you know, when I saw that and I said, okay, you guys were young, but in mine, my kids were younger and I said, okay, I think I want to try to. I tried to do this at the end of the Penske stuff and they wouldn't let me be a manager of get crew chiefs. So that's where Kyle was talking to me. To go over there just to do that, get it organized and you know, to be your dad's situation, it weighed heavy on me and I, I needed to make a change where I could take care of the kids more and you know, be more of a family guy. So I went over there and we, I made a lot of changes. We did a lot of stuff. We had wind tunnel, 40% wind tunnel models that, you know, they were starting a program but I was big on and you know, we were doing a lot of stuff. We were making gains, but we had, you know, Christian Fittipaldi was driving some and Kyle and you know, but I was probably spending money like it was, you know, coming out of a faucet. You know what I mean? Yeah, but we were making gains. We didn't miss any races. And they'd missed like between the two or three teams a year before them, it's like 30. And so that was better. And you know, come December, you know, the, the business manager said, hey, gotta let you go. I mean I had a 10 year contract. 10 years?

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And I was like, I was heartbroken. And I was driving from Bethel Church Road over there off of exit 28 to there every day, 70 some miles.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, for a year, making gains. I mean, it just so don't. Yeah, I get it. I was so devastated. I wouldn't tell Lisa I left the house every day at 5:30, not having a job just so she wouldn't know that I was fired.

[Mike Helton]

How long?

[Robin Pemberton]

Two weeks.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and so we were up at the Biltmore house on the weekend, spent a couple nights and right in the middle of doing paperwork of refinancing her house, you know, because the interest rates were low and doing all that. And I told her, I remember sitting in the car, need to get the paperwork in. I said, I don't have a job anymore. And she said, what in the. I said, just, we just got to move on. You know, I said, get the paperwork in because it's going to save us whatever money a month and blah, blah, blah. So we kind of got the paperwork in because it wasn't announced that I didn't have a job. And I'd been, like, I said, just going up and down the streets. So that was, that was heartbreaking. And then around January, trying to think, called Jack and he said, look, he's like, the, the inn is full. I don't. He's like, I don't have room. I don't have any room. And I said, okay. I said, well, if you hear something. So a week or two later, he's like, we. Ford needs more presence down south. They need a guy on foot down there. And I said, okay. So I guess Mike called. Mike was big on it. Mike Helton and Bill France. And I've been friends with those guys long before I went to work for them. Bill especially. And so that Ford Motorsports thing happened, right? Field manager for the programs. And it's like, all right, it's a three year deal, so start doing that. Going to all the Busch teams, all the cup teams, truck teams. What do you need? What's this? What's that? And we're doing good. We're spreading some information out and you know, things like that. But I'm only going to part of the races. So Greg Speck was the guy that was my immediate boss up there. I call him once a month or something. I'd fly up there, we'd do meetings. I said, I got him aside. I said, hey, look, I said, this isn't working the way it is. He's like, I knew, I knew you weren't gonna make. I knew you couldn't. Didn't want to be this. I said, no, no, no, no, I need to go to all the races. He goes, you need to go to all. I said, yeah, I need to go to all the races. Not being there when they're looking for somebody, I just gotta be at all the races. He's like, I can't give you any more money. There's no more budget. I can't, I can't pay you for that. I said, I don't want any more money. I just want to go to more races. Just pick up the tab on the expenses. He's like, you're the first person that's ever told me that. So I started going all the races and that was working out good. And you know, when championships would with, you know, with Bush and two in a row, I guess, Kenseth. Yeah, you know, and that was, that was working well. Towards the end of that, Jack gets me and says, you think Robert would ever do business with me? I said, well, let me see what I can do. What do you mean he's like the engine business, you know, just feel him out.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So I went to Robert and said, look, I said, this Roush, Yates, whatever, whatever, you know, talk to Jack. He's wanting to do something and this could be good. Yeah, because Robert's cylinder heads and like that, it was the, it was the best. You know, Jack had other resources to make part of it the best that he was doing. And so I went between those two a couple times and they put that together. So I'm at Ford and the phone rings in February and it's Jim Hunter. It's Hunter. I said, what? He said, what are you doing? I said, nothing. He said, yeah, Bill wants to talk to you. I said, about what? Yeah, we need something. We need some help. Bill needs to talk to you. I. I said, well, Bill just got me this three year deal and now we're 16 months into it and Bill wants to talk to me. He laughed. You know, well, we'll work it out. So anyways, so I talked to Bill a little bit and then Mike a little bit.

[Travis]

And.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and they, Mike, Mike calls one day, says, hey, you need to come Daytona Monday. I said, well, I, I be there tomorrow night or Wednesday. He's like, no, be at the hangar. So I flew down at whatever one, two o' clock in the afternoon. We spent the day with George Pine and Brian and Bill and Mike myself went to dinner and he took me back. Mike took me back to the airplane and we just talked about a lot of stuff. And Mike said, anybody ever tell you what we want you to do? I said, no. I thought it would come up. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. We need to have. We need you to be vice president. Competition. We're looking at that and we're gonna. I said, well, Gary's kind of.

[Travis]

That.

[Robin Pemberton]

He said, well, Gary's gonna be head of R D and all the new stuff. I said, okay. He said, but we want you to do that. I was like, okay, well, what about the Ford deal? Whatever. So they had to work to get me out of the Ford deal.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

To go do that. And so I was doing rule book meeting in that August, and I was still at Ford, just finished up.

[Mike Helton]

As vice president of competition, you're in charge of rule enforcement. Among other things, I'm sure. Why was I always kind of curious about this? And I don't know that I asked Gary this question, but what is it like to be on one side of the fence and go to the other side and when you got there and saw how NASCAR operated? I mean, I Imagine you went. I imagine you had, like, a couple of moments where you're like, damn it. I wish I'd have known this was the way things were.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

When I was in this.

[Travis]

On the.

[Mike Helton]

On the cruise side, right in the garage, had I known this was the processes and this was the. What they were working with, I might have done some things differently and handled some things differently. I know that, you know, going out of the race car into broadcasting, man, I, you know, they take the drivers up into the broadcast booth now, do. Do the cup races, Xfinity races. I wish I'd have done that.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Travis]

Because.

[Mike Helton]

Cause I would have had a whole different appreciation.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

And treated those people differently, knowing what they were trying to accomplish as a broadcast, as a network. And I really didn't have that respect or. And handle things the way I should have. At times. I thought I was all right. But going over to that side, you know, what was. Imagine, you're appreciative, you're looking forward to the opportunity, but also, you got to peek behind the curtain.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

What was that like?

[Robin Pemberton]

The thing. The thing that I learned early and quickly on that is the two sides don't know what each other are doing. Right. Just like you said, you need to peek behind the curtain. So there was things that NASCAR did that the teams didn't know. Like, you don't know how much they meet and they're doing. You know, I would talk to Greg Zipping Deli and others, you know, and different things. And I said, you know, they do things. They're. They're working on this way. Oh, didn't know.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and then the NASCAR side, you know, they're doing. They're doing rule book meetings in August that the teams didn't know that they were playing in that far ahead and. But yet there was some people in the NASCAR stuff that didn't. They didn't think rules needed to be out before December or something. And I explained to them that, you know, I used to do a meeting in Penske in August, always the week after the Bristol race, Engineers together, the fab guys together, you know, and say, okay, we need to talk about Daytona. We're starting Daytona now. We'd already ordered the right chassis to start hacking on or building on, but we, you know, so NASCAR didn't understand that they. Well, it takes a month to build a car. And they got December. No, no, it's August. We're building, we're testing, we're wind tunneling. We're at the track. So trying to merge Those two. I think I did a decent job of, you know, letting people know that, hey, this is. This is going on. Hey, we're working on this. What do you think to a cross crew chief or a team manager and, you know, stuff? And then eventually we did bigger meetings at the R D Center where they would come and listen, vent, and things like that, which I thought worked out well. And so it was about, like, one of the things we. In. In the day. We were. We were paying a company to analyze the tires, right. To run them on the machine. So Penske was paying and to do 100 tires. Childress was paying to do 100 tires. Whatever it was. I'm using a paraphrasing. 100, you know, Hendricks, whatever. And Goodyear was doing it. So I got everybody together. You know, Dodge is paying for their teams to do it. Chevrolet's paying, Ford's paying. You know, Toyota's getting in the loop. I said, what are we doing here? If everybody's doing this to get this information, what in the. Are we doing? Let's. In the Goodyear, guys. Well, we can't afford to do all that. I said, no, let's do this. You got a Goodyear part, and you got this manufacturer. This. Split this thing four or five ways and hand everybody the information. Same thing. When we send these companies out to measure the track surface and get all the angles and analyze the surface and everything. Everybody's doing it. Just stop. Just stop. Just stop. Give it to everybody. Find a way, right? And eventually, we kind of found a way to do that. And the companies were. I'd call a company and say, hey, I need you to do, you know. Homestead. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can't fit it in. We're doing it now for somebody else, but we can't give you the information. So they're getting it multiple times, you know, and they probably weren't even measuring it the second time. They were just getting their fee.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know. Well, they wouldn't if they were smart. But I was trying to put all that stuff together. It's like this is millions of dollars wasted.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, stuff like that.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Nascar. Some of the harshest penalties in NASCAR history were handed out in the 2007. Sorry. Gatorade duel. Rodney Childers and Josh Brown were suspended for two races. The teams and drivers, Scott Riggs, ELLIOTT Sadler penalized 25 championship points, fined money due to illegal modifications in qualifying. Kenny Francis, Robbie Reiser were suspended for four races, fined 50 grand. Casey Kane and Matt Kinsas, the drivers, were penalized 50 championship points due to illegal modifications. Michael Waltrip Racing and team member David Hyder and Bobby Kennedy were ejected from Daytona and so suspended indefinitely due to an illegal rocket fuel being found in the intake manifold.

[Robin Pemberton]

Jet.

[Mike Helton]

Jet fuel rocket. Hyder was fined $100,000 and 100 points to the team. Ultimately, Hyder would be fired. I raced against David. He's a hell of an innovator.

[Robin Pemberton]

He's a good guy.

[Mike Helton]

He is a good guy. All this in 2007 during the speed weeks.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I asked a question because you, you've been in the sport as a mechanic. Now you're on the side of having to enforce rules that you're. You're over. You're overseeing and having to wait. Having to hand down laid law down on guys that you are. They were your peers.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Still kind of are.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I got Jason Burdett.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Crew chief here. Crew chief here forever. Awesome crew chief.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And we just had, we just kind of had ran the course and we were making a change and eventually over the course of a. Of a little time, he ends up at the. At the xfinity in the Xfinity series as one of the head technical inspectors. He's over. Over the Xfinity series, I would say. And so he's now in that role.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And I see him at the track and I love this guy.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

We're friends. I've raced with him in, in the. In my cup days. He was car chief on my car and I would do anything for him.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

But now he's on the competition side. So there's. There's this strange dynamic where we are friends, but damn it, I know he could, you know, he's gonna pop my guys and he's gonna have to treat us just like he treats everybody else. And you had been thrust into that role or put yourself in that position.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

How was managing those. How was managing the integrity of the sport while also managing the respect relationship, the friendships that you still had in the garage. How tough was that?

[Robin Pemberton]

It, it was tough, but you have to put yourself back and, and sometimes it's. You got to make sure it's more black and white. You gotta like, you know, penalties got to increase. We were getting pressure from upper over management like, you know, clean some of this stuff up.

[Travis]

Up. Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, and that's how you. Points is how you do it. Money doesn't mean anything to anybody. No, you know, shame to say, but it's about the points. And some of the stuff is, is when it's pretty Blatant. You know, there's cheating to just go fast and then there's cheating to compromise the integrity of a car or something. Or something. And those are dangerous.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know what I mean? The. The. The jet fuel and stuff was how.

[Mike Helton]

Like, I guess when y' all find out and discover that something like that has happened under your watch, I imagine you go through a range of emotions.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Of angry, but also at the same time, like, almost dumbfounded. Like how.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, there's those. What, the moments.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You're sitting up in the. Yeah, you're sitting. You're sitting up in the office, you know, and it was always Mike and I and off sitting up in office. And they come and they get you and go, oh, Jesus sakes.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, please, no.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Say this can't be true.

[Robin Pemberton]

No.

[Mike Helton]

So, yeah, somebody has, you know, I'm.

[Robin Pemberton]

Walking my friends out the gate. Right. You got to leave the property.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Kicking them out.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

The Michael has a brand new team, and David and him boys pull that stuff and.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You're given no choice.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Knowing. Knowing good and well how detrimental this is going to be towards that whole program.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. And then the big one was at Richmond, and.

[Mike Helton]

Well. And then they're gonna come plead for leniency.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And they're Michael and you.

[Robin Pemberton]

Friends.

[Mike Helton]

Friends.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yes.

[Travis]

Yeah. Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

Detrimental to friendship, for sure.

[Mike Helton]

Oh, man.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, it was.

[Mike Helton]

I can't imagine.

[Robin Pemberton]

I mean, what people didn't understand is we had, you know, we had. We would send stuff. Chemical place to get analyzed and this place to get analyzed and whatever. So it's not like it's out of your hands. It's. It's. You did it right. It's not like we said, oh, it's Vaseline, and you don't do it right.

[Mike Helton]

But what was rich, tough, what was it? Richmond.

[Robin Pemberton]

Richmond was the. Was the race fixing thing.

[Mike Helton]

Oh, yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, scratch. You got to itch. You got to scratch your elbow. You got to.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I was right behind him when he spun himself.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Yeah. That was tough.

[Mike Helton]

I knew what happened, but everybody did.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. I mean, air parking, you know, they're bringing cars in and they're working the system on that with Brian.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. You know. You know, and they're doing all that. And so you kind of didn't see it from the tower.

[Mike Helton]

No. You wouldn't have known it was happening in real time.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right.

[Mike Helton]

But all the radio communication, all that.

[Robin Pemberton]

Stuff comes out, and what people don't understand is we record every radio transmission from Every team.

[Mike Helton]

Damn. To have it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, that's. I'm talking 15 years ago. Yeah, right. So the. So that's the race. That's the cut off. So in those days, I rode my motorcycle to a lot of races. I need to be by myself.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

I rode up there, you know, I ride Phoenix, you know what I mean? So I wait till the traffic clears. I leave out of there, take. They take all the pictures. I leave out of there. About 1, 2 o' clock in the morning. We'll ride home all night, dodge the deer or whatever it takes. So about 10:00 o'clock in the morning, the phone rings and it's. And it's Mike Helton. I said, I said, you okay? He said, yeah. I said, what's going on? What's going on? He goes, we got freaking trouble. I said, what? Well, when the 15 spawned and this happened and like, we got to do an investigation, I said, said, okay. So Chicago was the big week. Media week and this, that and the other. I said, all right, well, when do you want? What do you think? He's like, go up. You got to get there. Go Monday. So Monday at 9 or 10 o', clock, I'm in a airplane going to Chicago. You know, I don't. I think I was by myself. They just put me up there. So I was in a. I was in a room bigger than this room that they rented for me. And the TV people came in and they replayed stuff and replayed stuff. I was in that room for eight or 10 hours the first day and probably 16 the second day. I didn't go to anything. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in that room. Listened to all the radio transmissions, all that stuff.

[Mike Helton]

By yourself?

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, I was by myself. And some of the guys would come in from the network and they, you know, give me a hand with whatever.

[Travis]

Right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And Hoots came up.

[Mike Helton]

Investigation. Yeah, Hoots, too.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, Hoots came in, you know, helped, and. And you know, it's like, oh, my God. And you put this thing together. Well, what they didn't, you know, so now you're like fixing a race. But what they didn't understand, and there's no reason for them to understand it, we're right in the middle of negotiations for FanDuel and betting on games and whatever. Oh, right. It's the worst thing you could do at the worst time.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

So it was going to be freaking monstrous. Huge.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

So did that torpedo that?

[Robin Pemberton]

I don't know. I don't think so. Didn't help.

[Mike Helton]

But, you know, so you, you Come to the conclusion of.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You know what happened.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Who makes the decision to. To add Jeff into the.

[Robin Pemberton]

No. No decision was ever made by one person. Oh, for good reason.

[Travis]

Yes.

[Robin Pemberton]

One may have a bigger voice.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right. And it's. And it's good for your sanity.

[Travis]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

For a lot of reasons. Right.

[Travis]

And.

[Mike Helton]

But all that decision, like, to pull.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

One out and put one in.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

So we pulled some out. We wind up with one extra guy.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

With Jeff. And then. But, you know, you went to four races or whatever it was in those days, and you did your elimination back down to whatever.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, was kind of no harm, no foul. You know, he wasn't having one of his better years. You know, I think his back was bothering him and stuff. But that was a decision by a few people, Right.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so right, wrong or indifferent behind us, but it was one of them. What a fricking week that was.

[Mike Helton]

You coined the term boys, have at it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Helton]

Or have at it, boys. In 2010, during a preseason media tour.

[Robin Pemberton]

So it's the end of the media tour. We're wrapping up. All the drivers are there and owners or whatever. Most of them. So we were upstairs in a conference room, and it's Brian, Mike, there's a few other. Couple others in there. And Brian's like, you know, he's like, we're getting beat up. It's too sterile. You know, it's too. You know, Jimmy Johnson was the cleanest guy ever. Right. And it's like, you know, it's getting too sterile. We gotta. We gotta quit doing something. We. How do we do this? Said, I don't know. He's like, well, I was. The closing remarks.

[Travis]

Yes.

[Robin Pemberton]

Nothing on paper. I was like, you know, hey, you guys had a great off season. Go get them. You know, yay, team. So he says, look, we gotta. We gotta, you know, just say something.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

It's like, I'm a mother. I go down. I leave that and go down, and I'm the last guy. And there's, you know, others talking. I get up there. I don't even remember anything that I said leading up to it.

[Mike Helton]

Sure.

[Robin Pemberton]

I was in a daze.

[Mike Helton]

I believe it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Reciting, thinking. And, you know, I said, you know, said, hey, you know, whatever. You know, guys, you know, we've been holding you close and this, that, the other. So turning you loose, boys. Have at it. Have a good time.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And that was it. And I walked off stage, and that just exploded. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes in a good way, and sometimes in a Bad.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh my God. Who's crazy?

[Mike Helton]

The playoff format's a big conversation right now. In, in.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

In social media. We have a situation now where we have four rounds of elimination to one final round or one final race at Richmond for the championship or Phoenix for the championship. Do you have a favorite playoff system.

[Robin Pemberton]

That'S not being used unless the one.

[Mike Helton]

You like that we have now is.

[Robin Pemberton]

Well, yeah. So once again, stack of proposals. I got them at home. Notebook full, big.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And so the competition department, which would be at the time, David Hoots, John Darby, myself, you know, we're old school, you know, we get it. You know, Brian, we get. Brian was like, you know, there's timeouts, there's this, that and the other, other sports people need to go to the fridge, you know, that type of stuff. And we get it. But then the thing is, it was. Some people didn't like the racing strategy of 500 miles and you save your car to the end. Like when I started, you raced the last 50 miles. Then your dad commanding, raced the last 150 miles. Tim Richmond come in and race the last hundred miles, you know, 500 miles he raced, you know, I mean that's how it went. And, but others were pace, right? Sure. And so the one, the one that stuck in my mind was give the awards the same way, points, but don't throw a caution, you know, I mean today I wish they would have throwback weekend at Darlington. Pay the points by the lap, but don't throw a caution and start that some bitch at noon like it used to be at 100 degrees and let's see how it goes. Yeah, right. You're going to run 170 miles without a caution. Yeah, you know, it'll, you know, it'll make the goodness come out of you. You know what I mean? I mean, that's kind of what I, I like, but I understood some of the caution stuff, but for stage racing, yeah, it's, it's part of, it's tough when you see a situation develop that a caution comes out four laps from a regular yellow and you got to run long. You can't eight or 10 laps. You know what I mean? It's almost like if a caution comes out and everybody gets caught up, you open up pit road and you can pit three laps before you go green and get your tires or you can stay out and once you get your points, if you're already green or not, you pit then go to the. I don't know, but it's tough as.

[Mike Helton]

Far as the playoffs though. Do you have. Do you like 36 race championship all, you know, just like we used to do it before 2003.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Do you like the, the first. A lot of people love the original state chase, which was 10 races.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Some people may like the way we do it now.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Where we have one final event for four drivers.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Do you have, do you know what you would do?

[Robin Pemberton]

It's, you know, you almost been around too long. Right. I mean, when you're six races from the end and you have no, you know, 240 points out and you're in fourth place. Right. I mean look at the championships. Your dad won and Richard won and others. I mean. Yeah, they, you know, sometimes they're, they're celebrating in Rockingham and there's two races left.

[Mike Helton]

That's right.

[Robin Pemberton]

And then. So what do you do with that? Well, then some people don't watch the next two races. They don't mean anything.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, so there has to be some sort of thing in there.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna really own up on anything because real, some smart person is going to come up with a good idea. But. Yeah, it's just, it needs to be a little bit different. But I'm not sure what it is.

[Mike Helton]

I think there's a middle ground between the original and what we do today.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I don't know how we. It doesn't really make a difference to me how we end up getting there. But at the end of the season, there should be a four to six race battle between.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Four to six drivers.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

For the title.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You won't have a guy that runs away and locks it up. You'll have that final race mean something.

[Robin Pemberton]

They'll be, I don't disagree with that.

[Mike Helton]

There'll be some numerical, you know, somebody will still be alive.

[Robin Pemberton]

Well, you can't win the first race and then collect all these stage points and win the championship and finish third at Phoenix. And it's kind of anticlimactic, but yeah, for sure. It's hard to manufacture the perfect championship. Right.

[Mike Helton]

I don't know that that exists. You know, And I think that there again, I think, you know, way we do it now has been good. There's been some exciting moments. But I just wish that there was more than one event to decide who wins the championship. Because the way the drivers feel is they're almost more proud to have gotten to the final than to win it.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Because the ability is tough to get to the final.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

The Final is more about happenstance, circumstance. Yeah, there's some. Some. Some strategy and some effort in performance, but it's also. Hell, you just have to have no, you know, you. You break a rotor or something like that takes you out of it.

[Robin Pemberton]

Well, and then there's the. The, you know, the fight of road course and not road course.

[Travis]

Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You know, Richard Petty said that NASCAR is not really road course racing, and I kind of agree with that. When I grew up, you know, y' all went to Riverside, and then when Riverside went away, well, we went to the Glen.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And that was okay.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And, you know, you had guys like Sterling that didn't give a. About road course racing would just go, you know, Daytona. Go run the race and run the race and go home.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

But now you got to be great at road course racing.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Like, it's six, seven, you know, six or seven races.

[Robin Pemberton]

SVG is incredible.

[Mike Helton]

He is.

[Robin Pemberton]

He is a. He is a smoothest I've ever, ever witnessed.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And I like. I think he's good for the sport.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

But our. You know, where we are in terms of, like, how many road course races we need.

[Travis]

I'm not.

[Mike Helton]

I'm not 100. Sure. I think four is the minimum.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I think four is a good number.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And. But I like the short track stuff.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I miss Wilkesboro and old. Old school things. We had good races down there. I agree that we. We. We kicked your dad's ass one day with Mark, and we did it, and it was a total team effort at Wilkes brawl. He's. You know, it's him and you. It's Mark and Dale. That's. They had the field covered, but we had. You know, we weren't perfect and this, that, and the other. And so I went, you know, typical deal. I went down in one and two during the race. I'm sitting on the hood of somebody's car, watching a car go watch car. And Steve's up in the three and four. Steve meal. We come back together. I said, he's got too much wheel in it. The thing's tight. Okay. So we told Mark. It's like, all right, we're gonna. Next pit stop, we're gonna pull that half rubber out of the right front. Ah, no. Yeah. I don't take the time. I can't lose a spot. Whatever. And I was front tire changer. So anyways, we pulled it, you know, got it. I got it out. And we didn't. I don't think we lost a spot on the racetrack.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I might have been second to dad and that thing just took off, you know, I mean, it was a good team effort. You know what I mean? It was really good. Those two race good together.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

A lot of respect, though.

[Travis]

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Well, I think. Yeah, I think dad. Dad would get physical with guys he had some problems with, some guys he didn't, like, get along with, but he always got along great with Mark off the track even, you know, and when they had that respect and camaraderie and Mark was a smart racer.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

He never put himself in positions to be taking.

[Robin Pemberton]

He was the guy. You pass his ass and he had his pace, and 20 laps later, he's passing you because he's got tires left, right, and drives off into the sunset.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know, he understood. He understood what 90% was, you know.

[Mike Helton]

That'S why he never put himself to be. Get to be run over.

[Robin Pemberton]

Right. You know, he'd wave a guy by.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And then, you know, dad, dad. The give and take, I think.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. Your dad at Daytona, after we didn't win the championship, you know, and your dad. Your dad comes and gets me. I'm going somewhere, walking across the garage area. Comes and gets me, puts his. I've been wanting to tell you this for 100 years. He put. Puts his arm around me, gives me a pocket knife from the championship. So here he said, don't tell. Don't tell the cat in the hat. I gave you this. I said, I won't. Thanks. He goes, you got on your championship and let's go. And goes away. I said, God damn.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

He said that.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yep. He was that guy, you know. I mean.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah, I. There's a lot of other stuff in these notes that we didn't get to.

[Robin Pemberton]

That means I get to come back.

[Mike Helton]

It does. Yeah, you have. I wanted to talk to you about the cot. You know, when you left nascar, what you've been doing. I did want to talk to you about your family, your brothers. You're one of four. Four that had an individual.

[Travis]

All.

[Mike Helton]

All of you had an impact. And all of you were a cog in the wheel.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

In different ways.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And so. And I want to celebrate them. So I do want you to come back.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I really enjoyed this.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Where are you spending your days?

[Robin Pemberton]

We are in Greensboro, and we're at a house that, believe it or not, it was. Lisa grew up in kind of. And it was. A grandmother built it. Her grandfather, like, 59. It's a nice old house, you know, and it's big and it's got a pool and all this, you know, cool stuff. But it's 1950s, right. A lot of work. You know, we're probably going to try to get closer to here. Friends and family and all that down here. But we're in Greensboro, you know, and we were back and forth. I was in Indy for six years.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Doing what?

[Robin Pemberton]

Sports car stuff.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Up at Andretti's. Doing imsa.

[Travis]

Would.

[Robin Pemberton]

Would. Basically with John's son Jared. Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

What are you doing these days?

[Robin Pemberton]

Not much. You know, there's a couple people talk to me about some stuff and this. That.

[Mike Helton]

What do you want to do?

[Robin Pemberton]

I. I want to help somebody get. You know what I mean? I don't need to be the guy. I need to be the guy helping, you know?

[Travis]

Yeah. A race team. Yeah. Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Any of that stuff.

[Mike Helton]

Stuff I got you.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

How old are you, Andrew? Let's see, what's today's date?

[Mike Helton]

Come on.

[Robin Pemberton]

I will be. Today's the 12th, right. The 15th. I'll be 69.

[Mike Helton]

You got plenty of years left.

[Robin Pemberton]

I got a few.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I. I don't right now. I'm a little wounded with my neck surgery and some other stuff. I've done 69, though.

[Mike Helton]

You're in pretty damn good shape.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Considering all the chemicals and all the bull. You've been around.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah. There's a lot of. A lot of beer preservatives in me. Right.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah, a lot of beer. A lot of Bondo dust.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

You've been around some break clean. I work. I think about all that brake clean we sprayed in the air.

[Travis]

Oh.

[Mike Helton]

Clean embarrassment.

[Robin Pemberton]

But in the old days before that, there was these vats of some chemical that you. You put your arms in.

[Travis]

Oh, yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Up to here. Washing parts.

[Travis]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

And I remember I was at. We were at the Petties and Wade Thornburg said, yeah, that's new stuff. I said, okay. He's like, look, if it gets a bother in your skin, get a quart of transmission fluid and pour it in there to soften it up. It's like, oh, that's great. I mean, I'm like. To hear, I don't know what cancer's gonna get me. You know what I mean? It's like you think of all this.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah, I think about too. Like Richard Petty. I saw him the other day. We were shooting that commercial for Luke Combs at Rockingham.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And I'm like, man, he's old as.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And just moving around and.

[Robin Pemberton]

Motorcycle ride with us. Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Racing them cars with asbestos in the floorboard and all kinds of crazy. We got cooking asbestos in the floorboard of a race car in the 50s.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

And 60s and still grinding it out today.

[Robin Pemberton]

He was, you know, I mean, that Pocono, when he broke his neck, right. He didn't miss a race.

[Travis]

No, no.

[Robin Pemberton]

You know.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

I mean, it's like. And I was there.

[Mike Helton]

If it's gonna get you, it's gonna get you. Just tells me to just live your life. Yeah, it's gonna get you. It's gonna get you.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

I have enjoyed. I'm gonna say something, man. I do want you to come back because.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

A lot of.

[Robin Pemberton]

More.

[Mike Helton]

You got a lot more.

[Travis]

Cool.

[Mike Helton]

You could tell us. But I knew who. I obviously knew who you were. I grew up in the garage. As a kid, I saw the relationship that you had with my dad when you were working with Rusty, and the competitiveness and the friendship and the respect. And then when you became a part of the NASCAR man, you know, ecosystem on the competition side, I got to work with you and talk with you and communicate with you and spend more time with you and get to. Because, I mean, you were part of my dad's generation. And so any. And when I got to rub elbows with guys like you and Helton, and it meant a lot to me to use that as my compass. And so I want to say thanks for being one of the good guys that didn't. That had time for people of my generation. You were. You were one of those. So, you know, there. You know how there's some guys in the garage and Shelmerdine will kind of admit to this a little bit, that when y' all were grinding through it in the late 80s and 90s, y' all wouldn't have a whole lot of time for younger, you know, the kids running around, the sons of the drivers and all that bull. You know, y' all were working and. But a lot. And a lot of guys were cold and difficult to talk to or be around. But, man, you've always been good to me, always been a friend, and I just want to say thanks. Thank you for doing that for me. I've got so much respect for you, your family, everything your brothers did. I got to know your family really well over the last probably couple of decades, and I'm thankful that we got the chance to spend some time with you today. I'm glad to see you.

[Robin Pemberton]

We need to talk about Key West.

[Mike Helton]

We do. We had some fun down there.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, my God. Do we have some fun that one night. We're headed in to be early And I saw you over the Treehouse bar.

[Mike Helton]

Yeah.

[Robin Pemberton]

Before I know it, it's 4:30 and I'm like, I'm trying to ride a bike.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Not hard to do.

[Robin Pemberton]

Oh, yeah. It's good to see you.

[Travis]

Yeah, it is.

[Mike Helton]

I appreciate you.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, I'm so.

[Mike Helton]

You have, you know, you've laid, you've, you've. You've laid it. You've had an impact and left an impression. Impression on the sport that affects people even today. The people like you that were involved in the sport for so many years helped steer the sport, helped guide the sport, help set examples and be the compass for people like myself. You have no idea the effect that you've had on different people's lives over the course. Course of your career. And, and I just, I love you, man. I appreciate you do anything for you. I know you do the same.

[Robin Pemberton]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Travis]

Yeah.

[Mike Helton]

Good to see you, man.

[Robin Pemberton]

All right. Good to see you. Thanks for everything. I'll see you soon. We'll book this thing up and go again. Let's do it.

[Mike Helton]

Robin Pemberton on the Dale Jr. Download. All right, so that's a great conversation with Robin Pemberton. And honestly, man, I'll. I'll tell you, the. That conversation right there is some of the best stuff that we do in this room, but I literally could have sat here for another hour and a half to get into all the other things that we wanted to talk about. Robin has had some tough things to deal with with his, his family that have. That have really been difficult, and I wanted to discuss that with him, but also just other things that he experienced in his NASCAR career and what he's been doing since, you know, he's talked. Talked about doing some years in Indy with, with IMSA and so forth. So just. There's just a chunk of stuff still that I think would be fun to talk to him about. So we got to get him back, get him back here soon. That'll be a repeat guest that we'll have back pretty quickly. But this, this guy right here is. If you are a fan of the sport, you're a fan of the history, if you want to. If you want to sort of be brought back behind the curtain, so to speak, to see what it was like to work inside the NASCAR building back in some of the formidable years and the peak of the popularity of the sport, if you want to go back into the 90s and the 80s inside the garage and wonder what it was like between some of the more competitive teams in the sport, these are the Perfect guests that really can tell the story. He's a great talker. He's had to be, you know, he had to be that, you know, the face of. Face of the NASCAR organization at times and speak publicly. And so he's great at sharing his stories. And so I just. I don't even think we scratched the surface there in this conversation today of all of the great little nuggets and things that Robin could share with us. So I'm excited to have the opportunity to talk to him again. But he is the epitome of the garage grunt mechanic that saw this. This sport from so many different perspectives. He is the perfect candidate for a guest for this show. So I hope y' all enjoyed it as much as I did. I will say, too. And I kind of touched on it there at the end. I didn't want to really get into detail till he. Till he left the room. But when I was in the last probably six years of my career or maybe from like, you know, 2008 on, he was in the NASCAR building competition and all those things. And he. He would be at a lot of the dinners. We went to Chicago and we had this dinner that only the. The championship or the championship eligible drivers in the. In the playoffs would be at, and it would be Brian France and Hilton and Robin and a couple other people from nascar. And, dude, I would stand with Robin over by the drink bar and just bull, you know, everyone else is sitting down listening to some guy they hired to come in and play or, you know, music or whatever, and everybody's just doing the, you know, just every. No one's communicating. Everybody's kind of sitting to themselves at their own tables or whatever. Not a lot of bull going on. And, man, I would sit there with him and bench race and he was so nice and. And then he had a place in Key West. I would get one down there as well around 2007 and. And we'd run into each other down there and hang out and. And, you know, we just got to be really close. But he's a great dude, man. He's seen us. He's seen so many different shops work with so many iconic people in this sport. And then again, he gets to go behind the curtain to work in the NASCAR world in competition to really understand how the sport makes the decisions they make, and pretty fascinating. So thankful for him that he came on board to do the show, and I think it's one of my favorites this year. Let's get to the white flag. All right, it's time for the white flag. The teardown was live on YouTube and Twitter following the race and actions. Detrimental dropped on Monday as well as Door Bumper clear. Connor Zillich and Josh Williams were on Door Bumper Clear to chat about this past weekend. Dirty Air with TJ Majors and myself dropped yesterday, recapping all the action from Watkins Glenn and another episode of Bless yous Heart will be out tomorrow. And don't forget racing this weekend in the Cars Tour. I'll be driving the Bud Car, the baseball car at Anderson, South Carolina. You can come to the racetrack physically, go get tickets from the website or just walk up. I'm sure there'll be tickets available. Or watch it on Flow exclusively Saturday night. The pros and the late model stocks will be going after it. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We'll see you check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok.