Todd Bodine: “That Cue Ball Headed Fool”

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download – Episode with Todd Bodine: "That Cue Ball Headed Fool"

Released on May 7, 2025

Introduction

In this engaging episode of The Dale Jr. Download, hosted by NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr., Todd Bodine, one of NASCAR's esteemed Bodine brothers, shares an in-depth look into his tumultuous yet triumphant racing career. Hosted by Dirty Mo Media and aired on SiriusXM, the conversation delves into Bodine's early struggles, significant career milestones, relationships within the racing community, and his eventual transition to broadcasting.

Early Career and Beginnings in Racing

Todd Bodine recounts his humble beginnings in racing, emphasizing the challenges he faced without the financial backing that supported his brothers Jeff and Brett. Moving from Connecticut to North Carolina at 21, Todd sought opportunities to break into the racing scene.

Todd Bodine [06:34]: "I had no money. My parents had no money. I couldn't even race go-karts. So at this point, it's like, okay, just forge my path somehow. Well, it was about working on race cars."

Todd's initial foray involved working in maintenance and fabricating parts, which eventually led him to build his first race car in the shop.

Relationship with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Family Dynamics

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Todd Bodine share a candid discussion about their relationship, shaped by the broader familial tensions between the Bodines and the Earnhardts during the mid-80s. Despite racing against each other, Todd maintains that he never held a grudge against Dale Sr. for the rivalries that affected their families.

Todd Bodine [37:12]: "I'm different and I look at things way differently than most people... I never disliked Senior because he was wrecking Jeff. It was more like these two guys are hard-ass racers."

Their interactions on and off the track reflect a mutual respect forged through shared experiences and the hardships of the racing world.

Notable Races and Incidents

Todd shares vivid memories of pivotal races that defined his career. Notably, his first win at Dover in 1991, achieved while battling a bout of food poisoning, stands out as a testament to his resilience and skill.

Todd Bodine [30:30]: "Won my first race."

He also narrates confrontations with prominent drivers like Dale Jr. and Kyle Busch, highlighting the intense and often personal nature of competition in NASCAR.

Todd Bodine [96:12]: "We come flying up through the pack, and we're... we are fast... [Kyle Busch] just sucks me around."

These anecdotes illustrate the high stakes and emotional pressures inherent in professional racing.

Transition to Truck Series and Success

After navigating the ups and downs of the Xfinity and Cup series, Todd found his true calling in the NASCAR Truck Series. Partnering with Jermaine Racing from 2005 to 2012, Todd achieved remarkable stability and success, winning 21 races and securing two championships.

Todd Bodine [66:24]: "We won 21 races in eight years, in two championships. Pretty proud of those things."

This period marked the pinnacle of Todd's racing career, providing him with the consistency and support previously elusive in his endeavors.

Later Career and Broadcasting

Following his racing tenure, Todd briefly explored broadcasting, working with Fox Sports and participating in pre-race shows. However, shifts within the broadcasting landscape led him back to the track, albeit in a limited capacity. Todd's continued passion for racing is evident as he engages with the new generation of drivers and reflects on his extensive career.

Todd Bodine [85:47]: "Yeah, we just didn't have that relationship."

His return to occasional racing events underscores his enduring love for the sport, even as he acknowledges the physical and competitive challenges of racing against younger drivers.

Reflections and Retirement

In the concluding segments, Todd reflects on the inevitable challenges of retirement and the bittersweet nature of stepping away from a lifelong passion. Despite achieving significant milestones, the emotional toll of leaving the sport is palpable.

Todd Bodine [90:12]: "No, I don't feel like I have got it all out of my system."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Todd discuss the nuances of aging in motorsports and the profound impact of racing on their personal lives, underscoring the enduring bonds forged through competition and mutual respect.

Conclusion

Todd Bodine's conversation on The Dale Jr. Download offers listeners a comprehensive and heartfelt exploration of a racing career marked by perseverance, adaptability, and unwavering passion. His stories not only highlight the thrills and challenges of NASCAR but also provide valuable insights into the personal dynamics that shape the sport.

Todd Bodine [104:33]: "I appreciate your driving ability more than I did your brothers. I raced against you a lot, and I had a lot of respect for how much you could get out of a car."

This episode serves as both a tribute to Todd Bodine's impressive legacy and a deeper understanding of the intricate tapestry that is professional racing.

Notable Quotes:

• Todd Bodine [06:34]: "I had no money. My parents had no money. I couldn't even race go-karts. So at this point, it's like, okay, just forge my path somehow."
• Todd Bodine [30:30]: "Won my first race."
• Todd Bodine [37:12]: "I'm different and I look at things way differently than most people... I never disliked Senior because he was wrecking Jeff."
• Todd Bodine [66:24]: "We won 21 races in eight years, in two championships. Pretty proud of those things."
• Todd Bodine [96:12]: "We come flying up through the pack, and we're... we are fast... [Kyle Busch] just sucks me around."
• Todd Bodine [90:12]: "No, I don't feel like I have got it all out of my system."
• Todd Bodine [104:33]: "I appreciate your driving ability more than I did your brothers. I raced against you a lot, and I had a lot of respect for how much you could get out of a car."

Timestamp Highlights:

• Early Career Struggles: [06:34]
• First Race Win: [30:30]
• Family Dynamics: [37:12]
• Transition to Truck Series: [66:24]
• Broadcasting Experience: [85:47]
• Reflections on Retirement: [90:12]
• Mutual Respect with Dale Jr.: [104:33]

This structured and comprehensive summary captures the essence of Todd Bodine's episode on The Dale Jr. Download, providing listeners and newcomers alike with a valuable overview of his racing journey and personal insights.

Transcript

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[Todd Bodine]

We take off on the green. Here come your dad. He gets the outside of me. And I raced his ass as hard as I could race him and I hung him on the outside for like six laps. Finally he, he got by me and got in line park. After the race in the garage, he come over, poked me in the chest. Now I'm scared to death. I think he's going, he's going. Something's wrong here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, so we're going to have a great show today and Todd Boudine, one of the three Bodine brothers that had success in the NASCAR world, is going to come into the room here in a moment. I raced against Todd in the Xfinity series. We had one famous run in that we're going to talk about. And Todd had a very roller coaster esque type of career. A lot of positives, a lot of tough moments, a lot of struggles as well. But ultimately, man, he would find awesome success, incredible success at the truck series level. And we're going to hear all about that. His Whole path to get there and more. So he's in the studio lobby. So let's go ahead and bring him in here and get started. Top of dime on the Dell Jr. Download. Hey.

[Todd Bodine]

Hey, dude, what are you doing here? How are you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What do you got on here? Ross Chastain.

[Todd Bodine]

I gotta support my guy, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is Ross your guy?

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What do you mean? What I mean, is that your driver you like, you just like his style?

[Todd Bodine]

No, I've known Ross since he was 12 years old.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't know that. The. The teacher of Ross.

[Todd Bodine]

I wouldn't say that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, he's turned into quite the race car driver these days.

[Todd Bodine]

He has. And that was the thing Mike told me back then. He said, you're not gonna believe how good this kid is at 12 years old.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

I mean, at 12 years old, he's out there beating these adults. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, Pretty awesome, man. I thank you for coming today. I've, you know, I've always kind of had a lot of respect for you, and we always, you know, our families had some toug things that they went through together, and we're going to get into that, and I'd love to hear your perspective on it. And then we raced against each other, and I learned a thing or two from you.

[Todd Bodine]

Speaking of which, let's just stop right there for a minute.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Todd Bodine]

All right. So you got all your tchotchkes hanging out here and everything, so I brought you a little present.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, boy.

[Todd Bodine]

All right. Put up here with the rest of your tchotchkes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The cue ball signed by Todd.

[Todd Bodine]

I love you. Want to tell them the story?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Oh, we were going to get there.

[Todd Bodine]

That's. I loved it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We'll get there. We'll get to that.

[Todd Bodine]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So get that story.

[Todd Bodine]

I should have saved it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, no, it's good. It's good. Everybody's now getting something to look forward to.

[Todd Bodine]

It's funny. You're going to like it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're obviously your. Your brother Jeff and your brother Brett raced and, you know, you. You followed their, you know, their path into. Into nascar. And I guess my biggest question on that is, was it how much of their, you know, how much of their success or how much, you know, as they go through, as they go along the way, how much of that was. Was a help to you? Was. Was that a difference maker in giving you opportunities? I. I feel like I don't know that about you, but about with Brett, I felt like it got Brett to the track, but not now. Once he got in in these cars. Like he drove for the Thomas Brothers guys and had a couple one off races in Robert G's car and so forth. He had to. He had to go out there and do it right. He had to go out there and run good. But his relationship with his brother and his brother's success, Jeff's success would. Would present opportunity. But he had to go get in the car and. And showed what he could do.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, you gotta go do it. You know, I'm not gonna say it didn't help. It had to help your name recognition, all that, you know, but my path was a little different. You know, a lot of guys started when they're really young. I didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why not?

[Todd Bodine]

I didn't have the opportunity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was going on up north? You were still in Shimong or around that area?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, we moved from Shimong to Massachusetts where Jeff was racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How old were you?

[Todd Bodine]

I was 13 when we moved. Then we moved to Virginia. Kind of followed Jeff south at that point. And my dad actually helped build Log Cabin Speedway with Satch Whirly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. We live. Have you ever been to Log Cabin?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No, but I know about it.

[Todd Bodine]

Okay. So we lived right at the racetrack. They had a little old barn they converted into a house, and that's where we lived. I graduated high school there and we moved back to Connecticut.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One moment. So while. So you went. You're. As a graduate from high school, I'm assuming, 17, 18 years old. You still haven't drove a thing?

[Todd Bodine]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you want to.

[Todd Bodine]

At this point? Yeah. I mean, I know that I love racing. In fact, when I was in Virginia, I spent the summer racing with Jeff around the south when he was driving for Emmanuel Circus in the Sportsman car. Sportsman, which is Xfinity now. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The white 99.

[Todd Bodine]

White Tornado. Yep, yep. A South Boston, south side. Langley.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Todd Bodine]

I mean, Hickory. We went. I went everywhere with them. So I knew I wanted to be in racing. And at this point, I had no money. My parents had no money. I couldn't even race. Go karts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So at this point, it's like, okay, just forge my past somehow. Well, it was about working on race cars. Well, when I graduated high school, I moved back to Connecticut and I went to work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

By yourself?

[Todd Bodine]

By myself, yeah. Two weeks after I graduated, I was gone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why would you leave the. What was kind of the hub of. Well, everybody in the world's trying to get to Charlotte, right?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, my world, I grew up with modifieds. That was my world. Okay. Now, Jeff was down here racing. It was Different. Right. But I couldn't just be in sportsman racing. My path was. Or my opportunity was. Brett was racing in Connecticut in modifieds. New England.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Still.

[Todd Bodine]

Still. And I actually went to work for the company that owned his race car, which was sherry cup. They made paper cups. So I went to work in the maintenance department. I built all the guards and stuff of machines to keep OSHA happy. Well, when I wasn't working on machines, I was over at the race shop working on the race cars. And his owner was kind enough to let me build my first race car in the shop that winter.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the car?

[Todd Bodine]

It was a modified or an sk Modified, which is modified with a stock motor in it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

With a stock motor. What's the SK today? Is that a. Is this four cylinder?

[Todd Bodine]

No, it's still. It's still V8s. And I think they're basically still stock motors, but they allow them to do a lot more than just stock anymore.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I got you.

[Todd Bodine]

But it's not like a built motor and a full modified. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Todd Bodine]

So I did that for a little bit on my own money, had no money. Went broken. Drove a couple cars for some guys. And middle of 1985, I was driving a real box full modified. And we were running 100 Lapper at Stafford Springs. A guy turned me going into three, and I slapped the wall, driver side hard. The guy that owned the car had no money. I mean, it was so bad. I'd go to the tire truck, get takeoffs to put on the car. So they tow the car in the garage in the pit area. And the guy's standing there just about in tears. Todd, I can't afford to fix this car. I said, it's a good thing, Mike, because guess what, I'm packing my. And I'm moving to North Carolina. Middle of 85. I went to North Carolina.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Todd Bodine]

Because I was at that point. I had 42 starts in my whole life.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Your whole life?

[Todd Bodine]

My whole life. And I was 21 years old.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, 20.

[Todd Bodine]

21.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was in North Carolina waiting on you.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, Jeff was driving for Rick. Brett was working on the sportsman cars. So my first job in racing in the south was working for your grandfather, Robert G. And my God, what an eye opening experience that was. Holy cow. I remember first day I came in on a Tuesday and two weeks. The week. Not the weekend before, but the weekend before that. Richmond was driving a car, Tim Richmond. And they were at darlington and him and your dad got in a pissing contest on a racetrack. And they both knocked the front ends off their car. Just ramming each other. So my first job was to put the ductwork in front of that car. They'd already got the nose back on. My job was to put the ductwork. So I Show up at 8:00. Brett's working there. I start working on his car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you and Brett are both working in my granddaddy's backyard shop?

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Holy.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How long were y'all there? Like, I don't remember any of that. I was. I would. Like, I wasn't at granddaddy's shop a lot, but I was kind of around couple times a year.

[Todd Bodine]

I was there probably two years maybe.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you ever see me?

[Todd Bodine]

I don't remember, but I got to finish the story as hell. So I'm putting the ductwork in the front of this car now. I'm modified world, right. Things fit perfect. You know, cutting around the bars and the bumpers and everything. Everything's got to be just perfect and beautiful. Nice bead rolls. So Robert, his work hours weren't the same as the rest of ours. He gets out there 11, 11:30, so this is about 11:00. And he comes rolling out there. And I'd never met him at this point. Right. I just showed up, started working. He comes out shuffling out there and got cigarette hanging out his mouth. And he looks down there and says, boy, let me tell you something. This ain't no show car. You gotta get this done. We gotta go to lunch soon. That was my. That was my introduction to Robert G. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's crazy. It's amazing what they got done in that little shop.

[Todd Bodine]

It's crazy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Crazy. And how. How many races they won out of that little shop. Holy cow.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

His cars freaking were awesome. Ran good.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He had support from Rick and all those things, but. And I can't tell you how many people have sat down at this table and told me that they worked there.

[Todd Bodine]

Crazy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So many people went through that building.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And it's still there. There's a guy. There's a guy renting it right now from Schrader. Schrader owns the property today. So you worked there for a couple years. At what point do you start finding your way back behind the wheel of a car?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, when I. That. That summer when I moved down, Brett was friends with Jay Hedgecock.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Todd Bodine]

Jay's a great guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. We run his cars in the car store.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. Yeah, they run good. And we asked Brett, asked Jay, you know, hey, any. You know anybody? Todd can drive for a little bit in stock cars. You know, he Said, well, I got this guy in Durham, doesn't have a driver. Same kind of deal, one. One car shop, just him. Really good guy. Vernon Lloyd was his name and let me call him. So Jay calls him, says, yep, he wants Todd to drive Martinsville for him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What?

[Todd Bodine]

In what, the late model stock? No. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm gonna have to go look at this thing. Fit the seat, you know, See? So I go up there and he's really nice guy. He's a plumber by trade. And I get there and the car is. It's in good shape, but it needed work, you know what I mean? So I went up a couple weekends, got the seat in, set it up, had the blocks on the floor, and you just let it down. Check the wedges, basically. And we go to Martinsville and the thing's hauling ass, you know, I've been to Martinsville my whole life. I've been going there since I was 8 years old. So I knew the track. I knew how to drive it by watching. I just had to go do it. So we were running really good. And in the race, the battery would, in the corner, would go over and short out and then come back. So we ended up going lap down, but still was fast. Well, because of that race, Danny Bumpus, who owned a car that raced at Orange County, South Boston, he come over, say, hey, I want you to drive for me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Holy cow. My first real job as a driver. This is awesome.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In a late model stock.

[Todd Bodine]

Late model stock car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damien.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't know you had real late model stock experience. That's my jam.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, I know. I love late model stock cars. It's awesome. So that winter, I knew Butchie Sirvakis Emanuel. And I called Butchie up, said, look, we want to build a new car. So I went up and I lived with Butchie for two weeks. And me and Butch built a car from the steel rack to a rolling race car. Brand new Mustang car was a Thunderbird. And so I raced that car. This is the bad part of the story. I raced that car 13 times. We blew eight motors, crashed three times. And the rest of the times we finished in top five. And we always raced in the top five, but just happened. And the crew chief was this little old redneck Southern dude, and he hated Yankees with a passion. And he fired me. So then I'm back out of a ride. So I went to work, where I went to from Robert G's. I ended up at Tiger Toms, another place that people have gone through it Was awesome. It was awesome. I was a fabricator. I can't tell you how many dump cans I built in my life. Built all those little tchotchkes that race teams needed to catch cans back then. Dump cans.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's what they did.

[Todd Bodine]

That's what they did. Yeah. And I built a couple dirt cars. So I had my little room in the back. And from there I went to Buck Baker driving school.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What'd you do there?

[Todd Bodine]

Fabricator. Yeah. Built bodies on the cars. And never was an instructor or anything because I didn't know what the hell I was doing racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How many. So golly. So how long were you there? Were you? Because he's out of Rockingham full time.

[Todd Bodine]

Then at that point, Buck. No, Buck was actually right down the street from Tiger Tom on the other side of the railroad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They were taking their cars to Rockingham or where were they running? The Buck Baker School.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, out of Rockingham. But all our. Yeah, I was just fabricating, building bodies, working on them, maintenance them. Everything that you needed to do on them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Or people tearing their up.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. You'd be surprised that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Guys, rich guys that get out there think they know how to drive and tear the up. Yeah. But we. There was times where I didn't have a lot to do. So I told Buck said, look, let's. Let's take in some work, do some bodies, you know. Robert taught me how to do good bodies. Let me do. So we did. And our first customer was Billy Standridge.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn. Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And he had a Nova and he wanted. It was pretty rough. And he wanted to get it ready to go to Charlotte.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. Purple 47.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. So I cut the sides off and made some nice sides. And this thing was. Robert g'd out. This thing was trick. I mean, Robert told me how to tuck the bumpers in and trim them and all that. It was awesome. Flaring the front fenders. So we built this car. And Billy asked Buck, he said, look, I need to borrow Todd for about three weeks. You think you can get this car ready and go to Rock or to Charlotte and crew chief it for me?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn you.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, me. So, okay, so I go to Billy's. He's up in Shelby, which is about an hour and 10 minute drive. I went up there. Heck, I stayed on his couch many nights. We get this car ready to go and I get it all set up and, you know, had a decent motor. Now this is when the V6s were coming in. We had a 311. So we had to carry a lot more weight. We go to Charlotte. And wouldn't you know, now, this is Billy Standards. He's not supposed to qualify. Well, I think we qualified, like, 15th. And everybody's like, holy cow. It was so bad that Robert Black was the guy in charge when the garage was gone. Everybody's gone out of the garage. Garage was closed. He kept all his inspectors, and they took the COVID off our car and told those guys, find out where they're cheating. Yeah, I found this out, like, two years later. And we didn't. We weren't cheating. Yeah, yeah, we did good. And then ended up blowing up in a race. But he was running well. That was my first crew chief job.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really? What'd you do after that?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, I stayed with Billy. I didn't go back to Bucks. Poor Buck. No, he didn't go back to Bucks. And we built another brand new short track car. And we were going to Martinsville that fall with it. And this thing was bad to the bone, man. I built my own lower A frames instead of one by two, I made them three quarter by inch and a half. Had no bucket in it. I had the springs with the things welded on. I mean, this thing took like £450 of lead, and it was beautiful. So we're at Martinsville, and Bobby Hillman was starting his bush team. And he comes over and he's walking through the garage area. He has no clue who I am. And he's looking at our car. He says, man, this thing's nice. Who built this? Well, I did. We all built it in our shop. Oh, this is a beautiful car. And he goes on, well, a little while later, he's on the other side talking to my brother Brett, telling him, yeah, I'm starting this Busch team and I need some people to work. I need a good fabricator. And Brett says, well, I remember that. You ought to talk to my brother Brett or my brother Todd. He said, he's over there working on a car now. He built one over there. And Bobby said, well, I was just over there looking at cars. He said, this purple car over there is beautiful. Brett said, that's the one my brother built. So Bobby come back over. Sure. Next week. You hired me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And Bobby's driving this 81 Buick La Sabra.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you went over there to work as a fabricator? Mechanic.

[Todd Bodine]

Fabricator. Chassis guy did all the setups.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's probably only two or three of you working over there.

[Todd Bodine]

Three of us? Jerry Kennan and myself and John Monson. Jerry was the official crew chief. We kind of did the setups together. We did all the shocks, all the spring calls, everything. So I understood all this stuff at this point already, and we did really well there. Highline racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. Ted Conder, Bobby Hillen, and Felix Sabattis. His first venture into racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did you get. And you would end up getting behind the wheel of this car, and that would be your break.

[Todd Bodine]

That would be the brake. So they let me build a car in the shop, a sportsman car. You remember the sportsman series at Charlotte?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Todd Bodine]

And we ran four of those races. Finished second three times.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You driving?

[Todd Bodine]

I drove it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Todd Bodine]

And we actually used that car as our show car when I wasn't being raced.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So we built this car in there. I built it at night. Beautiful car. Came out great. And because I did so well.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was it a new chassis or some old.

[Todd Bodine]

It was one of Jeff's chassis.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One of his old cup chassis.

[Todd Bodine]

One of his old cup chassis.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

People love this.

[Todd Bodine]

Waddell Wilson threw away.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Todd Bodine]

It was in the back of the shop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And I went. I went to ask Waddell, you know, hey, what are you gonna do today? We're throwing it away. I said, well, can I have it? Yeah. Yeah. So Jeff was driving for Rick. Brett was driving for Bud Moore.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And I was. Bobby was driving for Stavola brothers, which was right next door. You know, these guys are racing for all these big teams. Well, Rick. Rick Group gave me some of their used parts. Bud Moore's group, he gave me some of their used parts. And Stavolda donated some stuff. I basically built his whole car for like, $2,000. Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's how you do it.

[Todd Bodine]

That's how you do it. And brother Jeff bought the motor. $7,500 for a complete motor back then. And we put it in there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's cheap.

[Todd Bodine]

And Felix got me sponsorship for all the races.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the sponsor?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, the first one was. First two were Roses because roses was our sponsor at the time, at the 81 car. I take that back. The first one was uniden, because Felix had a product deal with Uniden. The second one was Roses because we turned it into the show car. The third one was Ames, because Ames was our sponsor. And they actually were the fourth one, too. So I do these races. We do pretty well. And now Bobby. They buy Bobby out of the team. And Kyle comes in to drive because now they got Sabco. Kyle's driving for Felix and Sabco. Felix wanted Kyle to drive our car. So Ames is a sponsor. And they decided on. I think it was 18 races Kyle was gonna run. And Ames comes back and says, hey, we want to run eight more races. Kyle being Kyle. Now we're all standing around in the shop. When they told Kyle this was standard BSing, Kyle's like, Man, I don't want to run eight more races. This is enough freaking races. I've got enough crap I gotta do. And we're standing, says, let Todd drive the damn thing. I was like, well, hell, yeah. Send me in, coach, man. So I ended up running eight races that year in the sportsman car, Busch car at the time. First one was Martinsville. Qualified like 12th, got up. I was gonna finish fifth. And I missed a restart on the last restart or missed a shift on the last restart. Ended up 8th, but did really well. Second race was Dover. Never raced a big track like this before. Qualified fourth and finished third.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

And it was Harry Gant, Rick Mast, and me. We crossed the line right together. It was a hell of a race. Harry, go up to the top. Rick, go in the middle, and I'd stay around the bottom. It was a hell of a race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To watch when that happened. So when that happened, take me back to that day where I would say that was probably your. You were probably as surprised or shocked or as thrilled to have. To not have raced any more than you had. Here you are racing and competing and running good enough to win against, you know, almost the cup guys, right? You have the. You have. You know, you have this legacy with that your brothers have created. Jeff started that Brett's, you know, part of now, and you're kind of like, you know, another chapter of that, all of that all kind of culminating to that one moment in this race at Dover, and you're like, you got there and run good. You get out and you're like, you see everybody. I could do this. I belong here. Right? What was your emotion after. After having a great day like that? Like, I remember my first. I remember the first time I ran good in an Xfinity car. And, like, I'd had some good days in my late model car, but nobody was watching, right? Nobody. Nobody important saw it. But that first time I ran good in an Xfinity car was really a massive relief to me because I wanted to do this for a living, and so did you, and you were. I can't imagine in that moment, you were kind of like, well, honestly, I.

[Todd Bodine]

Don'T think I was. It was more. See, I grew up watching my brother. Both of them win races, right? Modifieds. Jeff won over, what, 600 modified races or something Brett's probably won 50 or 60. So went in racing. It was all what we did. So for me, when I get out, I can't really remember the whole thing, but when I get out there, it was more like, this is cool, I can do this. But, you know, it wasn't about showing anybody that I could do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gotcha.

[Todd Bodine]

It was almost a self gratification. Hey, you know, my brother's a good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I can.

[Todd Bodine]

I think maybe I can do this, you know, and being able to be in that car and do that, you know, having a good race car to do it with, you know, we all know that starts with four wheels on the ground. You know, it made a big difference. And I ended up running those eight races. I ran really well. Almost won an Oxford 250 that year. End up finishing third. But that, that's what caught the eye of Frank Cece and Scott Welliver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And in 91, the winter of 91, they gave me my first full time job as a race car driver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So they had had. Trying to think of the timeline there. Spencer had driven that car. I'm not sure if Sprague was in it before you.

[Todd Bodine]

He was the one they fired to put me in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So Spencer had a really.

[Todd Bodine]

Never let me forget it either.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But Sprague, I mean Spencer had used that car to. To create more opportunity. Right. So this was a really. This car was. Was viewed as an absolute gateway in. Into this, into success. Right. And Sprague had used his success at the short track ranks to land that opportunity. Didn't work out. He would, he would figure it out and have a career after that. But so here you are. I remember all this. Like I remember I was uber focused on the series as a kid because my dad's team and he competed in it at time, from time to time. And I remember, you know, watching, I was, you know, curious about you and whether you were, you know, I knew your brothers and whether here's another Bodine, is he going to be good and you land that ride. And I think a lot of people were looking at that and going, all right, you know, this will be where you find out whether you got it or not.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, did you feel. I know you were probably thrilled over the moon, but was there any pressure at all? No, none.

[Todd Bodine]

I. I never felt pressured to live up to my brothers to do anything. It was more of just a love of doing it and I wanted to go do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What if the racing. I guess if you know where. If the racing doesn't work out for you. You just still know your. Your abilities otherwise are enough to keep you happy and content and plugged into the sport some way somehow, because you'd amass this expertise of fabricating mechanical setup and all the things.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I knew I was driving was like a better. The driving was like the cherry on top.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So how did that year go?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, we. We started off pretty rough. We didn't. We didn't have. We had two cars. We only got one done to go to Daytona.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And what was the going to Daytona like for the first time?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, you know, I'd been there 100 times as a kid, and I went there as a crew member and all that stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And when you pull out there, though, for the first time, you're like, holy. Well, there ain't nothing like it.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, well, you know, you gotta pull off pit road and go wide open and that's it. And I knew it. I come off a two and look at the other end of the straightaway, and you see that big old black wall down there and you're like, hal, I can do this. I can do this. I know I can do this. And you get there and you lift.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Son of a pitch. And about the second time around is wide open. And it was easy, you know, but we went there for the race and had a hard lesson. Somebody got into my left rear quarter panel and popped it loose from the crush panels. Well, we were. I think it was Jeff Burton, somebody else and myself. We were drafting, just the three of us together, running about 12th, probably. And we came off a four and we passed a lap car. And the wind, the air coming off the lap car, went in to my left rear and bowed the quarter panel out and lifted the back of the car up and spun out, crashed it. Yeah, it was not good. That was my first Daytona meeting. But we went on about the 12th race of the year, was Dover. And we ended up winning a race which was a great story. It was three laps to go. Ernie was leading. Davey Ellison was second. I was third. Jeff Gordon was fourth. We had about straightaway, all of us together there three laps ago, Ernie blows up going into three, leading the race. So we come around, the caution's out, Davey's leading. I'm second. Pace car picks us up. Come around, gonna get the white flag and yellow flag to end the race, you know. One lap to go. We come off a four, and Davey goes to the bottom of the racetrack. I didn't know what the hell was going on. I thought maybe something in the track. So I follow him. The rest of the field all starts following him. And pretty soon we're about stopped. And I look around him, and the pace car's way up there. Well, I pull out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Go around.

[Todd Bodine]

I might take the white flag. Leading the race. Come around. Won the race. Check your flag, Davey. Ran out of gas.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Todd Bodine]

Won my first race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Holy. Yeah, you. You had food poisoning for that race. Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Oh, that was nasty. That was tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Before the race, I've never had to deal with.

[Todd Bodine]

I was at the garbage can several times. Oh, God. Got out victory lane. I couldn't hardly breathe. I was so out of breath. I needed oxygen. Ended up getting the little bit of the victory lane out of the way.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But the car was sponsorless white.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This landed the hungry Jack sponsorship.

[Todd Bodine]

Yes, it did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And helped the team expand a little bit and improve.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How. It was a brief time in this car. How many years was you run?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, three. Three years to begin with.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Then I went to cut my. You know, my career has been a roller coaster pretty much.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You ran three years. You had fiddle faddle for a little while.

[Todd Bodine]

Hungry Jack. Yeah. Hungry Jack for a year and a half, then Fiddle faddle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Todd Bodine]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so how you had. You had a lot of success in this car, though.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And we got to the point where. And I think this. I'm gonna brag a little bit. I think every racer likes to have this point. We got to the point where we unloaded the racetrack and everybody timed us.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Todd Bodine]

They wanted to know how fast was that? 34. That's what we got to keep up with. And we ended up in three years. I think we won seven or eight races in three years. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You drew the attention of Raymach.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. But I want to back up just a second because I got a couple of great Dale stories.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's go.

[Todd Bodine]

So actually, the first Dale story was Richmond in the 42Ames car. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. And we were running good. This is a new Richmond racetrack, and we were. Your dad was like, eighth, and I was seventh, and he was beating my bumper off. And finally just moved me out of the way. He said he had enough. So race goes on. And we ended up going to lap down. We have a restart. Not many laps to go. Probably 23 laps to go. Something like that, you know, back then. Lap down on the inside lead. Lap outside. So we take off on the green. You know, everybody's going by. The lap car's kind of holding them up. And here Come your dad, he gets to the outside of me and I raced his ass as hard as I could race him. And I hung him on the outside for like six laps. Finally he got by me and got in line go in the park. After the race in the garage, he come over, poked me in the chest. And now I'm scared to death. I think he's going to. He's going to. Something's wrong here. Pokes me in chest. He says, now that's how you do it when some moves you out of the way. That's how you get back even at him. Oh, that was pretty damn cool. Yeah. Yeah. And then my other one, one more is real quick. Is Talladega Busch cars. We last lap, we come off of four about well through the middle of three and four. And I was like seventh and he was eighth right behind me. We were right. We were on the top and we come off the corner and we got a run going. I mean, big time run. There was nobody in front of us. Might have been somebody pulled out, pulled back in. Anyway, he pulled off into the inside line. I drove all the way up, finished third. So we come to the gas pumps, we all parked there and you know, it was like my second race at Talladega when I finished third.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ooh.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. So we're in the garage and we're all happy and we're hanging out the car. And he pulls up over there and he gets out and he's pissed off. You can see it in his face. I yelled over, say, aaron hurt. I said, where the hell did you go? He said, if I said if you stayed behind me, I'd have one and you'd have been second. He just shakes his head and starts laughing. It was so funny. Yeah, because he knew we, me and your dad had a. You mean your dad had a different relationship?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that, that's a. I guess that's a good opportunity to talk about that. So in around the mid-80s or the late 80s, dad and Jeff had a really rough couple of years. And I've talked about it on my show several times. The Earnhardt's didn't like the Bodines. And the Bodines, you know, probably didn't love the Earnhardt's, at least that, that particular section of the family, like the Jeff and dad. And there were times when, if that could spin him out and get away with it, I was okay with it. But then there were times when he would get himself five lap penalties. And I'm thinking, what are you doing? You know, why are y'all so mad at each other that you're gonna throw the whole race away? Like. Like there was one Xfinity race. I think they actually wrecked each other and. Or dad wrecked him in the bush race, wrecking my granddaddy's car. Right. Jeff's driving my granddaddy's car and dad spins him out down the back straightaway. They go into the cup race the next day. Running seventh or something like that. Not even racing for the lead. I don't believe dad ends up wrecking Jeff in three and four and gets a five lap penalty. And I'm like, your whole family's up in this suite. Like we had the condos. Like there's 30 of us up here to watch you race. And you and him are out there around. And now we're five laps down and we got 500 miles to go. Like, what are we doing? But they were just so hard headed. What was. You know, I know you were probably consumed with your. Everything you had going on in your life, but what was your honest recollection of that. That rivalry? Because it, that. That's probably one of the top five rivalries that's been in the sport was dad and Jeff.

[Todd Bodine]

I'm. I'm. I'm different and I look at things way differently than most people. And for me, yeah, it was, you know, Dale's wrecking my brother and they're racing hard and doing these things. And it was. It was almost a sense of respect maybe for your dad and Jeff, the way they raced each other so hard. I never disliked senior because he was wrecking Jeff. It was more like these two guys are hard ass racers and they're racing hard, you know, kind of a thing. And I think that's why me and your dad always had a different relationship. Because I never. I never felt that way about him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Never held it against.

[Todd Bodine]

Never held it against him. In fact, he. 1. Another cool story is I had a farm right down about five miles from his farm.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And he. I don't know how old Taylor was probably 10 or 11 somewhere in there. And him and Taylor would get on the horses and ride through the woods about five miles to my farm.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And they did it four or five times one summer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember when you were building the house out there.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And dad taking us. Dad going out there because you wanted to. You had. You were like, hey man, you know, I'm gonna. I'm thinking about doing this with the driveway or putting this here, you know, and y'all you were, you and him having that, you know, conversation.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. So they would ride over and he. Every time he would bust my ass because I had no hitching post for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Him, he's like, you know, I'm coming.

[Todd Bodine]

Over here, damn it. Give me a hitching post up here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So that winner, I ended up putting up a hitching post and he never got to use it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

But we, we had a. If people knew the relationship we had, they'd be like, why is why. Yeah. You and him and his. Your brother.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Right. It's different.

[Todd Bodine]

It was cool. It was different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Andrew]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You get the opportunity to race for Raymock in the Cup Series replacing Dick Trickle first season in cup in 1994. And the Re Mark car had a really cool history. They had had flashes, you know, when, when they could, when they would get with the right driver or have the right sort of combination over throughout the 80s. And so and I would say that your, I would characterize your time in the car as one of those times when they did perform well and they did, you would show up. Y'all ran really good several times behind the wheel of that car. Talk about that experience and being out there on the track with the best of the best.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, that was, it was eye opening. You know, you spend your whole life watching your brothers race and then you go in a cup and win races and it's kind of like what we see today. Every step is just that much harder. Right. It's always the best of the best at the top. But it was. We had great race cars. We really did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who was working on them? Who's your crew chief?

[Todd Bodine]

Crew chief was Troy Selberg. But we had, I don't know if you remember this one, Bobby Wellman race cars.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I ran Bobby, my first late model stock. Well, the first late model stock I bought to race at the beach was a Wellman chassis.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, all of our cars at CC Welliver in the Busch Series were Wellman chassis. And I worked with Bobby and we kind of developed our own little chassis. Well, when I went with Butch, it was actually Butch Mach Motorsports because him and Raymond Bob Raheeli kind of split right there. So it was Butch Mach Motorsports, but went to Butch's and got those chassis over there. And in the Busch series I was also running Koni shocks So I ran my Koni shocks on that car because I knew my shocks, I knew what I needed. So we ran well. Yeah, I mean, we ran really well. That first race at Daytona, we actually led. I passed your dad and led seven or eight laps in that race. And Jeff Gordon wrecked me down the back, straight up. Yeah. Remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we ran really well that year. Had. I made a lot of rookie mistakes, got us in a lot of trouble. We had a couple mechanical failures while running in the top five, a couple oil lines. I mean, just dumb things were happening. But we ran well enough that I started getting offers from other teams.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What were some of those offers?

[Todd Bodine]

I've never said this to anybody. I mean, it was some big offers. Robert Yates talked to me. The King, damn King talked to me. Actually, Joe Gibbs, one of his guys, talked to me. I mean, it was like, wow. I was kind of a little taken back by it, but I was raised. We were raised to do what we said we were going to do. And when Butch hired me, I told him, I said, look, I appreciate you giving me this opportunity and I'm going to stick with you and we're going to win races together as long as it takes. And Butch was all in. So I turned them all down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

And at the end of the next season, Bush fired me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[Todd Bodine]

Learned a hard lesson. Honestly, I think the crew chief got in his ear and there's a lot of things that went on that I won't say on air because it really doesn't shed a good light on him. And I think Butch just got talked into that. It was the driver's fault.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And if, you know, the behind the scenes, it really wasn't. Which nine times out of ten, it's probably not. I didn't forget how to drive in a year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Todd Bodine]

You know, we just didn't have the race cars we had the year before. And at the end of that year, Butch fired me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So after the 95 season with Raymach, do you racing in xfinity series back then or.

[Todd Bodine]

Yep. In. In 6. 96, I went to drive for Ron Neal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who's that?

[Todd Bodine]

You remember prototype racing engines? Yeah, that was Ron. Neil, what was the car? 81. Cape Canaveral was on the car. It was Cape Canaveral cruise Lines.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And Ron gave it all he had, and it wasn't much. We had no money. We had three cars, and we'd have to take the suspension off of one car and put it on the next one for the next week. And we keep rotating and we had two motors and he had to change things every week on the motors. Damn. There was only four of us working on them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What a change from running in the cup series.

[Todd Bodine]

We spent. That year. We spent $700,000 and most of the Busch teams were spending a million three, a million five, basically twice what we spent. We won one race at South Boston. Excuse me. And finished third in the points.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then in 98, you were racing the 66 Trop Arctic car for CC in the Xfinity series. We'll just call it the Xfinity series. But you also get this opportunity to race the Tabasco car in the cup series.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I want to talk about our time together in Xfinity series. But Tabasco was one of the most sought after sponsors. It was. It was like a big deal when they came in. Great looking race car. Daryl had drove it a little bit and they struggled. And I think you came in well.

[Todd Bodine]

No, Daryl was after.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Darryl was after you. I got you.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So that was. But I remember, like, I just want to say every year there's like some new entity or a new program or something that looks really awesome right on the outside. And that was it. Everybody's like, that's Tabasco. You know, new team, big, big deal. And it sounded awesome. Now, what was. What. What was the experience?

[Todd Bodine]

It was rough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[Todd Bodine]

It was rough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why did it look. What did it. The presentation was pretty fantastic.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. It's. Tabasco is a sponsor and a company. Just fantastic people. Yeah. You know, in this sport, everybody isn't quite as forthright as you would like them to be. And that's how these owners ended up being. They came from the world of IndyCars. They said all the right things, had the right ideas for the team. Actually, things that we're doing today, they were going to do because they came from IndyCar World and. Well, so we have the largest sponsor in the sport. Yeah, it was the largest sponsor. $7 million.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

And at the time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's huge.

[Todd Bodine]

Was huge. At the time. Rick and Richard, they were getting five and a half, six million for the teams, and we had $7 million. And I'm like, oh, man, we can make something here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So we. We get Pat Trayson as a crew chief.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Pretty solid.

[Todd Bodine]

Very solid. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember y'all being fast.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In Atlanta or somewhere. Y'all went somewhere.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Mark Smith did the motors, you know, so we. We had the right people. We had a good team. Had good people on the team. Well, they made the first mistake is they went to Jack Roush and bought all the cars that Chad Little had wrecked. Okay. So now we're struggling with that. We had one good chassis. Mark had one good motor. He had a bunch of junk parts that he trying to build motors out of, and he just doing the best he could, but he had one motor that was, like, top shelf. Well, we had that motor in that car in Atlanta.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And we. I think we qualified third and finished fourth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Todd Bodine]

I mean, it was a great day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

I mean, it's like what we should be doing. Yeah. But you can't do that with a bunch of junk. You know, you can't do it week in and without. When you're just running junk.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And, you know, Pat did the best he could with the junk he had. Well, they ended up firing me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And put Darrell in there.

[Todd Bodine]

Well. And put Darrell in there. Well, when they fired me, they never told Tabasco.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ah. And that's why Tabasco flew off.

[Todd Bodine]

And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And they had all this promotional bought. You're all over it.

[Todd Bodine]

They spent $3 million on marketing me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

On top of what they gave. Because they were all in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

They were all in on a racing deal. And then all this goes down. And it was right before Charlotte and the CEO of Tabasco flew to Charlotte for the race. Went to the garage area before practice ever started, had nothing on Tabasco. Nobody even knew he was there. And again, I found this out, like, a couple years later. And he went around to all the car owners. Not all of them, but several car owners, several crew chiefs, several drivers, and ask them what's wrong with my team? And the only satisfying thing I got out of is that none of them told him it was me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

They said it was the owners and different things, but. Yeah. So that was kind of gratifying that my peers did not blame me for the situation.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, they didn't survive much longer. In 98. 99, Drake racing for CC in the 66 car with me. Man, you. Y'all were fast.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Contenders every week. I was really lucky to be in a pretty fantastic race car myself. That helped mask some of my rookie issues, but. And I had some really good people around me, so I was able to get out there and compete, but. And we raced good together, I thought, until we did. Until one time. Yeah. One time. And I don't know.

[Todd Bodine]

And it was my fault, really. Yes. If you're not watching the video, I know I went down there in there and got stuck around and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That place. So I Had two. I had two races at Pikes Peak and. And two bad day. Two bad days. That was one with you. And the other was Tony Stewart put me in the wall and in the other one. But it was a fun racetrack but very flat and our cars. Yeah, I mean our cars were kind of edgy and if you got underneath somebody, you know, it's a potential to happen. But I was pretty. I was pretty proud of myself back then. By that point in the season I had, you know, oh, I can do this. I've won a few races. I know what I'm doing. And your last name was Bodine. So it was like an automatic. It was like an automatic trigger for Earnhardt. But after that, I don't. We never had.

[Todd Bodine]

Do we remember nothing?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No problems after that?

[Todd Bodine]

No, no problems.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember. God, we thought we were such big tough back then and. And that happening and saying that about you. And then I was like, I wonder how he's gonna react. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know you well enough.

[Todd Bodine]

You said that, but you didn't let them know what you said.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who? Oh, I got out of the car and they interviewed me and I said that cue ball headed fool wrecked me.

[Todd Bodine]

And show him what I brought you brought him a little present today to put on with the rest of his tchotchkes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A little cue ball signed by Todd. This is one of my favorite things in the room now. So.

[Todd Bodine]

Cue ball headed fool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I will ask you what was your reaction when you heard that?

[Todd Bodine]

Laughed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz you're right. You were young. I think it was your first year. Right. You know, and everything our families had gone through and. And. And that was the thing. One thing. One of my big lessons growing up was. And it's. I feel this way still today is I don't hold grudges. I don't think. Try not to think bad of people and talk bad of people because especially in our sport and what we do gonna happen, man, it's just part of the nature of the game. And if you hold grudges against people, you're gonna have no friends, you're gonna have nothing. You know. And I just. It was funny. I don't know if you remember this. I tried to find one, but I couldn't find one. That next week I made some T shirts.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you?

[Todd Bodine]

You never. You had. I swear. You got one. Yeah, it was a rack of billiard balls, but we changed all the numbers on the balls to the race car numbers that we Raced with. And yours was up front, and I was the cue ball. And it showed the balls all getting broken apart. Yeah, we just gave them away at the racetrack the next week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I will say, man, you know, I know that's. This is a hat. This is a common habit of everybody. But those years, in those two years in that Xfinity series, I don't know what it was about that series, but the people competing in it, you and Lajoie and McLaughlin and all the guys that. And having Mark come and race with us. Holy the. I couldn't have asked for a better classroom to go to school in than what I experienced in. In that. In that series during those two years. I mean, obviously, getting pushed and pressured by Matt Kenseth, who would become one of the greatest, you know, race car drivers that I'd raced against, one of the, you know, a champion in the NASCAR series. And having somebody at my, you know, my age or somebody, you know, coming in at the same time as me and us competing against each other. And then Jeff Green when he hit his stride with a 32 Kleenex car the following year in 99, had he not missed Rockingham, he might have won in that championship that year. But I had a lot of fun in the series, and obviously I would get fortunate enough to move up in the cup, and you would, too. You got more opportunities to race in the cup series beyond that. So tell me how that process happened. So you talk about the roller coaster and the up and down and the in and out. The Tabasco deal goes wrong, you get back in the 66.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Prove you're more than capable. And who calls you next?

[Todd Bodine]

Travis Carter. Yeah. You know, Travis been around forever. He was with the 33. And Harry forever had his own team with Carl Haas. Spencer was driving for him. And they started a second team with DW driving, and that wasn't working out. And come over and say, hey, you know, Kmart's gonna sponsor us again next year. I'd like you come drive this thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What did you think?

[Todd Bodine]

I was all in.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, I was all in because, you know, you knew Travis was gonna have good stuff. Spencer was running good, you know, so it's like, yeah, let's do it for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So we went up. Went up to Statesville where a shop was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep, right off 40.

[Todd Bodine]

Yep, right off 40. And the second year, we're getting ready to go to Daytona. I mean, it's literally two weeks before we're going to Daytona with Kmart. Blue Light Special and kmart went chapter 11. No checks for coming in the mail.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And we had nothing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What'd you do?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, we raced for a little while and ended up. Who did we get there? We got National Guard.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Came in there. Sam Bel Navis had the sponsorship with the Guard and brought it to us. And we ended up racing with the Guard for a year. And then they went to Roush and Biffle after that. And then next year we got Discover Card and we went back to the one car team and we drove the 26, went from the 66 to 26. Donnie Wingo was the crew chief and it took us a little while to get going and figure things out. Donnie learned me. And man, by the end of the year, we were fast. We were really fast. We had a chance to win at Rockingham, running fifth and blew her right front, but we were really fast. And again the same story. We get to the end of the year and I forget who Discover Card was. Smith Barney owns Discover Card. And Smith Barney lost a bunch of money that year. Discover Card made a bunch of money. So Smith Barney said, look, we need all your money to bail ourselves out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Cut the program off. That was it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And so here we are, two weeks to go in a season. No sponsor for the next year. Travis hadn't talked to anybody about sponsorship because they said they were coming back and ended up closing down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He closed it. You're out of a ride. You would go to replace Jimmie Johnson in the Herzog Jackson Motorsports car in Xfinity series, the White 92.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, that was in the middle of all this. Yeah, yeah, that was. I was driving. I believe I was the first one to drive both series full time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. And again, another sad story. You know, it was after 911 and insurance companies were in bad shape and we were. We were leading the points in Xfinity. Rambo was a crew chief.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Tony Liberati. We were doing great, man, we were fast every week. And the Herzog's own very large construction company and their bonding company went under because of 9 11. So they had to find a new binding company. Well, they couldn't find one company that could handle their business, so they had to have two. And they sat down with these bindings companies and the company said, what's this racing program you're spending four and a half million dollars on? What is this about? Well, that's our. That's our golf game. That's what we do for fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, if you want us to bond you, you're Going to have to get rid of your four and a half million dollar game. So they closed the team down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

Halfway through the season. It was a little over halfway, but yeah, just closed it down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All of this, as tough as this probably was to go through, would lead you to the truck series. Had you ran in the truck series at all before 2005?

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, actually, I was Jack Roush's first truck driver.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. 90, 95. The first year of the series, Jack started the truck team. We ran four races, five races. Supposed to run six. Ran five races. And we ran pretty good. With the cool story there is the very first race was our Richmond and we were running like we were horrible. I mean, like 14th. Couldn't get. Hanging on for dear life. And this is when they had the halfway breaks. Come down pit road. Unbeknownst to me, I didn't know any of this was going on. Come down pit road, cross the wall. Come Mark Martin, Jimmy Finning, Teddy Musgrave.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

And I forget who his crew chief is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Now all these guys, even though Mark and Teddy were drivers, everybody knows they worked on race cars. They knew what the hell they're doing, so. And then a couple other crew members, they jacked the side of the truck up, both sides. Guys get on the back so the front comes off the ground. They change both front springs in the sway bar on the halfway break.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dang.

[Todd Bodine]

Let this thing down. Jacked it up, Check the wedge. Couple quick things. I mean, this is all in five minutes. They did all this. We went out and hauled ass, drove up. I think we finished like fifth or sixth, something like that. It was crazy. But they. On a tv, they were calling it the Million dollar pit crew because the TV was on them the whole time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, that was pretty cool. So we ran those races and that was my first truck stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

With Jack, you would end up getting an opportunity to finish your career as a trucker from 2005 to 2012 with Jermaine Racing, that you were, again, probably the guy that everybody had the stopwatch on every time you unloaded. Help me understand, I suppose, the satisfaction of finding some place that you. Where you feel, I'm assuming this, that you feel like you finally found your. Your place because you stayed there forever. You had success there forever. A lot of things changed behind the curtains with that program over the course of those years, I'm sure. But you always were competitive and one of the trucks to beat. You had stability for the first time. You had an operation that was sustainable for the first Time in your life. Talk about going through that process.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, that's. You know, Mike Hillman Sr. Hired me to do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who was driving that truck?

[Todd Bodine]

I was the first one. You were the first driver, which is another funny story. So the Germain brothers, the other car dealers out of Columbus, Ohio, Mike calls me up. Me and Mike had been friends for a while. Our shops were next to each other, and we'd have beers together after work about every night. And then he was Brett's crew chief for a while, and so we were really close friends. He calls me up, says, hey, I got these guys in Ohio gonna start a Toyota truck team. This is Toyota's first year in the trucks. He said, I want you to come drive this thing. I said, well, hell yeah. Because at the time, this was 04. I'd been relegated to doing starting parks to pay the bills, make sure everything got paid. Now you talk about pressure, and you think it's only a starting park and just go out. And there's more pressure doing that than the guys racing full time because it's like your motor's not as good. You got one set of tires for practice. You gotta qualify in a set. I mean, you have to make the race. You have no points, you have nothing. No provisionals. You talk about pressure. That was pressure. And, man, we made them all, too. We did really well. But so I was doing that, and Mike called me up, said, hey, I want you to come to the shop. These three guys are coming down to see the shop, see what's going on. I want you to meet them. We'll talk about, you know, racing. I want you to drive. So they come down, I go to the shop. It's a beautiful day out. I roll in there. I got pair of shorts on, flip flops, T shirt. And I roll up in the office, and there's these three guys sitting there with suits on and ties. Steve Germain, the middle brother, he's the smart aleck of the three. He said, mike introduces all. And Steve says, so is this how you come for a job interview, dressed like this? I said, hell, no. I thought I already had the job, man, I come to just meet you guys.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And that was our introduction. And of course, they all laughed. Great. Three great guys. I mean, really. I mean, all three of them. You know, Bob was the oldest then Steve and Rick the youngest. I mean, just great. People loved racing, had great families. I mean, couldn't ask for a better situation. And I get to drive for one of my best friends.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

You know, and we had success. Right off the bat.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

I mean the first race was Richmond. We ended up finishing fourth, Went to California and smoked them. I mean we had to pit and we had to come from back and I mean ended up cross beating Teddy with like four laps to go and won that one. Went to the next race was Las Vegas. We should have won that one. Shane Meal moved me on the last lap. He had fresher tires. He moved me on the last lap, finished second. Then we won Kansas. I mean right off the bat we had it going on and it was fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

There was no more pressure. Good schedule, great schedule. And when you unloaded the racetrack, you knew you could win the race. How much better can that get with no pressure? And we ended up in, I think it was eight years total. We won 21 races in eight years, in two championships. Won the first one for Toyota, first national series champion, for Toyota, first two time champion. Pretty proud of those things.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, the success you had in that truck, I mean that was a lot of fun to see because I think for me personally I always felt like that you weren't ever really put in a position to show exactly what you were capable of doing. And if I was to say what was my favorite era of your career, that that gave me this idea that you really could do. What you ended up doing in this truck was when you drove for, for Raymach or Butch in the 75 to get in that car, watching, watching that car from the early 80s kind of do what it did and have struggles and find, find a little success when you got in that car. The way that car improved and how that team improved as a whole really made me have a lot of appreciation I think for your ability just to go fast. Right. And I'd watched your brother raced and I'd watched Brett raced for years and I just felt like in terms of just pure feel and for a car and ability to like drive a car quickly, like you had an edge, like maybe, maybe Jeff had a little more racecraft. I'm not sure where you kind of rank you and your brothers, but in term I don't know that they would have gotten in the truck and did what you did. Presented with this opportunity, where this thing should go in. I don't know that they could re. I don't know that they could mimic what you accomplished in that truck. And I know you probably wouldn't do this publicly in terms of, you know, rating yalls abilities or talents, but maybe you can tell us where their strengths were and where yours were and what were Your weaknesses? What were their weaknesses?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, you know, it's funny you asked this, because this is. I've been asked before about this, and it's kind of. I don't know if it's ironic or just the way the family structure works, but I think I'm a little of both of them. Yeah, I really do. You know, Jeff, he hard charger, go get him, get the hell out of my way kind of racer. That's why he won 600 racers races, you know, and people didn't like him because of it. And, you know, after the race, he was about racing. He didn't go out in a parking lot, drink beer with the guys. He went back to the shop, unloaded, and got ready for the next race. I mean, that's. He was a hard nose racer. And, you know, Brett comes along, sees all of this in Jeff and what, how the fans react and how the competitors react. And I don't know how well you know Brett, but he's just like, just a nice guy. Yeah, he's just. Just everybody. He's the guy in school that everybody liked. If you're a head, a jock, a brain, it didn't matter. You liked Brett. You know, he's just that kind of guy. So Brett comes along, he goes the other way. Mr. Nice Guy on the track, patient, always trying to just put himself in the right place to win races. And he had success doing it. He was very good at it. And I grow up watching these two, right? And I'm like, well, Jeff's hard, hard to pass, and he's fast and he's, go get him. I like that. But Brett's pretty damn smart. I think that's. You got to be smart at this. So I ended up just kind of right down the middle.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I really did.

[Todd Bodine]

I took the best of both of them, and that's what I became, I think.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, you're. Jeff is 15 years older than you.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so I bet, you know, we assume. We assume that y'all had a relative. You know, being closer together in age would have kind of. I don't know, that age gap probably made things different as well. Like, he was probably gone, right. In a lot of. In a lot of situations. He was well ahead of you in life and physically, geographically, not in the same place as you to have a major influence on your life. But once you finally get to the cup level or get into the NASCAR ecosystem, how. How close are y'all through? I mean, in the last probably 20 years, right? Like, what are family reunions like, what are. You know, you're at the racetrack together, you know, is. It is. I know how me and my brother were and what, we didn't see each other or do much with each other, but then when we found each other in the same sort of lifestyle and racing against each other, we became a little more close.

[Todd Bodine]

That's pretty fair estimate right there. Assessment. You know, we really didn't race against each other until we were all in Cup.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right?

[Todd Bodine]

Exactly. I had raced against Brett, like, maybe twice in New England when I first started racing modifieds a little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Really? No. In fact, one time. One time I beat the back bumper off his car at a little short track. But so we didn't. We didn't get that close. Family ties. You're right. When. When I was growing up, Jeff was already gone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

You know, he was already off racing. Brett's five years older than me, so our relationship was different in that his friends weren't friends of mine, and they were older, so that was different, too. And when we all got into the cup together, you know, now Brett's a little different because I. I worked with Brett. Summon is modified, and I lived in the same area and worked for the same people and changed tires. Oh, that's a little different there. So me and Brett have always been a little closer. Then Brett moved south, and I was still up there, and then I moved south. But we never. You know, when you're only a couple years apart, it makes a difference in your relationship. But when you're five years, 15 years, you don't have that brotherly relationship.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not a lot of relatability.

[Todd Bodine]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Such different parts of life.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And is that the way it is today? Like, me and Carrie. Like, I can call Carrie and say, man, I love you, and he knows I'm telling him the truth, and he'll say the same to me. But otherwise, like, we don't. We don't communicate. We don't really have anything that. We don't have anything happening in our lives that do bring us together.

[Todd Bodine]

Same thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, the Earnhardt gatherings.

[Todd Bodine]

I. I think that in this day and age, life is just so busy for everybody. It's just different than when we were kids, and we all have our own things going on, and it's just hard to be together.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you read Jeff's book?

[Todd Bodine]

Believe it or not, I haven't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You got to read this book, man.

[Todd Bodine]

He gave me a copy of it, and a friend came over, so. Oh, man, I want to read that. Okay. I haven't read it, but I'm going to let you have it and got to give it back to me. And I still haven't got it back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I read this book. It's. It's. It's great. It's really good.

[Todd Bodine]

I heard there's a lot of.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There is so much stuff in there.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so Jeff. So the rivalry and, you know, for lack of a better word, it's a strong word. I don't like to use it, but the hatred that was brewing between the two. The two clans there back in the 80s, that all is like, washed away, melted away. Right. And so. So. And. And not. Not really giving. I never gave Jeff an opportunity to. For me to see his side of it. Right. And I didn't want, you know, I never gave him that chance to, like, for me to go, hmm, wonder what it was like for him, you know, and so to read his book and hear from his perspective of the. The rivalry with dad, but then also his experience as an owner driving the 7 car, his dealings with Hoosier, Goodyear, the France family, his. His version of the truth is very compelling. And I think, you know, I think it's really, really interesting. And I'm. I'm. I was just. You should read it.

[Todd Bodine]

I'm gonna. I'll get it back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He truly.

[Todd Bodine]

That's the thing about Jeff is he was. He was a rebel that came down here. You know, not a Southern rebel, but he came down as an outsider and really shook up the NASCAR world at that point. Because at that point, there wasn't a lot of. I don't know if there was any Northern or Westerners or Midwestern. I don't think there was anybody else that had come down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're right.

[Todd Bodine]

And I'm telling you, there was people that didn't destroy. They didn't like Northerners. It's just the way it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're right.

[Todd Bodine]

I don't think it's that way anymore. But back then, it was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it was a thing. You know, it was kind of like Ford versus Chevy. But what we know now. I think what we know now is that, like, the Northern modified, the history and the strength of the Northern modified and the racers like Ron Bouchard and all those guys that your brother raced against, just. We would. We would learn, or I guess we would. We would. We would grow that to respect, like how great those guys really were. Yeah. But when it was happening, it wasn't easy.

[Todd Bodine]

No, it wasn't good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Unknown]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Unknown]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Unknown]

Okay, I definitely did not see that coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Unknown]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sounds pretty good. I like building websites. My buddy's new company, they're looking to get people's attention and get people to visit their website and with the built in SEO tools that Squarespace has, they are able to maximize their reach and grow their business faster. Pretty neat. The other feature they really like is Squarespace has everything you need to run an E commerce business, which is important especially for make money. Yeah. Brand like ours, you know, everything can be done from payment to fulfillment. All with Squarespace. Your business might be brand new, but that won't prevent you from doing business and making money. Head to squarespace.com dalejr for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code Dale Jr. D A L E J R to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Let's wrap your career up. You know, and I love. This is my, this is one of my favorite parts of the conversation. So you end your career and we all kind of, we all kind of end our careers not really knowing like how much is left in the tank and does anybody who's still here believes in me. And I kind of want to know, I guess, where you, what your experience was like in the, in the final couple of years of your career. And was, was this a, was that a decision that you made? Was this process of. Because like not racing or stopping something that you have done all your life and wanted to do all your life is such a difficult thing. And I still deal with that today. I still have, I have no idea how. I can't imagine, I think personally, how heartbreaking that's going to be to say, to know for sure that I'll never get to drive another car in competition. And I wonder if it was difficult for you and, and how that process went.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, you know, I, the last year, Jermaine, we didn't run that well. We struggled.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why were, why were things becoming difficult? Because it had seemed so easy for so long.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah, we just, we kind of got off on a tangent and lost our way a little bit, which is easy to do in racing, you know. And then that at the end of that year, Jermaine's decided just, you know, that was enough. Rick and Steve Germain just didn't want to spend their money anymore. Of course, Bob stayed in it and had the cup team for a while. So they disbanded the trucks. And I, at that point, I really didn't know what I was going to do. Didn't have an idea. And I said, well, how old are.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You at this point?

[Todd Bodine]

Oh, my goodness, roughly 48 maybe somewhere in there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you partnered with Randy Moss?

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. At the end of that, in middle of that year, we did. That was cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was that? I seen him at the rate I seen him at Daytona.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he's, he's walking through the garage and he goes, yo, Dale, it's Moss, baby. I was like, damn, that is Randy Moss.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I can't believe he knows who I am. He was badass.

[Todd Bodine]

He is. He was, I'll tell you, larger than life after getting to know him. What a motivational speaker.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

What an incredibly intelligent person. He understood the sport. So at the time he was together with us, we were racing together. He was playing for the Patriots, which happens to be my team. Well, we're in a motorhome at Iowa, I think it was Iowa, and my wife starts busting his ass about how Tom Brady's overrated and doesn't deserve the rings. And Randy stood up mad defending him and he went on this tyrant and when he got done, I was like, dude, you need to be a motivational speaker. It was just so intelligent in the things he was saying. It was very impressive. But anyway, great guy, funny as hell. Yeah, that was a good time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You, you would make the decision to leave the program as the program shutting down and they're going to focus on their cup stuff. What do you, what do you do next?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, I really didn't know. And when it kind of got out, Duke, Thurston called, said, hey, why don't you come drive for me? Cool. Yeah, I'd do that. It'd be fun. You know, Duke's long history in the sport. They do things right. They got a great place up there. You know, shop's nice, the team's good, they build good stuff. Yeah, go do it. And we struggled. We struggled really bad. And we got about halfway through the year and, you know, Duke was spending his own money out of the kindness of his heart to just race me. Wanted to have the two time champion a whole bit. And we, we had fun, but we just wasn't having any success. So I told Duke, I said, look, you know, you're just wasting your money. We're not getting anywhere. We're not gaining on it. I don't need to run bad. You don't need to spend your money. Let's just call it quits.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So we did right in the middle of season and you know, I really didn't think the process through very well. It got. Quit the job and I'm like, all right, now what the hell do I do? Yeah, right. I'm old. I don't have money to bring to a team. There's no teams that will take you in the middle of the year anyway. What the hell do I do now? I mean, I really didn't think it through when I quit. And I'll Be damned. Two weeks later, Fox Sports called me. Dan Schutte, who was one of my best friends. Now, he called, he wasn't at the time. He's this producer. He said, hey, Michael Waltrip has to go to Goodwood. Being Goodwood, would you want to come to Iowa and be in the booth with Phil and Rick Allen? Hell, yeah, I'll try it. I got nothing else to do, you know, So I went my first shot out of the booth, in the booth, and I did okay. It wasn't the best, but I did okay. Hell, they hired me and I did. Did the booth like five times the rest of that year. Three or four times. Five times. Ended up doing the pre race show. And I had the pre race show for 11 years. Yeah, it was a great run. And the only thing bad about it was it was here in the studio. So I didn't get to go to the racetrack.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, then last year they decided they're gonna cut all the pre race shows out, which included mine. And I was like, all right, here we go again. Now what I'm gonna do. And now I'm. I feel like I'm in broadcasting and that's what I do. And hopefully somebody will pick me up or we'll do something. So we called a lot of people, talked to cw, talked to NBC, you know, all the. Made all the rounds and talked to my boss at Fox and said, you know, why don't you give me a shot on pit road? Yeah, you know, I know everybody. I can get. Maybe I can get some scoop or add something special to it. And she says, okay, let's give it a shot. So we did three last year, did pretty good. And here I am doing them again this year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, having fun back at the track.

[Todd Bodine]

Back at the track. And it's crazy is being away 11 years, I lost touch. I really lost touch with a lot of things going on and a lot of the new people that have come in. So I've been slowly getting to know these kids and these new crew chiefs and general managers and talking to people and it's been a lot of fun. I'm having a good time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You came back to race a one off in the trucks?

[Todd Bodine]

Actually, six offs.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Six.

[Todd Bodine]

Did six of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't know you did six.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. So when I quit Thorsport and went into broadcasting. Yeah, Never really thought about, looked back at anything. And we're at our house out by the pool one night and having some drinks, and somebody was scrolling on racing insights and looked it up, looked my name up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, hell.

[Todd Bodine]

You realize you got 794 starts in NASCAR? Like, are you me? So the big thing come. You need to do six more to get to 800. I said, you know what? That would be pretty cool, but it's been nine years since I've been in a race car. I don't know if I can still do this or not. So I got thinking about it and we talked some more, and me and Janet and was like, well, let's call Marcus Lemonis and see if he's interested in helping out. Because Marcus had helped us before. You know, he was our sponsor, our serious sponsor, Camping World. And he said, damn it, I'd love to do that. I'll do all six races with Camping World on a truck. All right, now we got a sponsor. Now I got to find a team. So I got to know Stuart a little bit, and I knew he was the one Toyota team that had really good trucks that could maybe do a second team. So I talked to Stuart, talked to Chris Larson's owner, and let's do this. So the next year, we ran six races with Hallmar Friesen Racing. Had a great time. You know, let everybody know. This was the last hurrah. So every track that we went to, the fans were so kind and generous. It really. It was pretty special. The things that we had. You know, we did things all the way along the line. I had different pit boards every race with that track and what number that was, and they're all hanging in the shop up there. So it was a really great experience. And we get down to the last race the year before was they ran Watkins Glen and they took it off the schedule that year. It's like, damn it. I wanted to end at home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And. But you know, Pennsylvania, Pocono, I've been going there since I was eight years old. That was pretty close. And my wife's from there, Janet's from that area. So that was the last race. That was going to be the last race. And we planned it up big, man. We actually had a Martz bus, a regular big bus with all our friends from the Valley up there. And we had like 50, 60 people. The racetrack did some really cool things with some videos and stuff and ended up crashing on the seventh lap. So that was the end of my career.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. As you. When you look back on it, I mean, I know you. Your last full time run was over 10 years ago. But are you. Are you. Do you feel like you have got it all out of your system?

[Todd Bodine]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So the. The driving Part. Still miss it.

[Todd Bodine]

Every day. Yeah, every day. In fact, their trucks are going back to Watkins Glen this year. And Janice, like, sure, you want to. We can, we do. We can do one more. Let's go to Watkins Glen. 801. 801. And I would love to do it, but Stewart's team's already committed to a second truck for those races. And. And honestly, I'm not in shape enough to do it. And the one thing that I did learn running those six races, you know, growing up, and I'm sure you saw this too, we watched our heroes racing. You know, when we're kids and they get older and now they're running in the teens, and then they run in the 20s, and you're like, oh, man, his car must be terrible. He's one of the greatest drivers ever. His cars have got to be junk. And then after doing those six races, and I'm like, yeah, it probably wasn't their cars. When you get older, you're just not as fast.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

It's just the simple facts of life, you know, I did run Watkins Glen for Bobby Dodder and Jason Miller's crew chief and Bobby, they gave it 100% effort. We had a really good car, had a good motor, and I go out and practice and I'm a second and a half off the pace and I'm driving my ass off.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And that's when it hit me. I was like, you're just slow. It just happens.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Now, you know, when we ran those six races, we actually ran pretty good. We had top 10 times most of the races and passed a lot of trucks and did well. But, man, I'm driving my rear end off to do it against these kids today. Holy criminy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know.

[Todd Bodine]

It's different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I. I know I'm kind of faced. I'm kind of in a situation now, personally, where I'm. I think, you know, it's very. It's very, very soon I'm gonna be faced with that reality that I'm not. No matter how great this car is, I'm not going to be able to do what it need, what I need, what needs to happen here. And that's going to be a tough day.

[Todd Bodine]

But, well, I got to tell you, the stuff that you've been racing, I've been very envious of you. It's getting to go out in the late model stock and just have fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It is so fun.

[Todd Bodine]

Just have fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you know what's interesting is the car is exactly the same car that I drove in late model stocks in 1995 or 94, 93. It's the same front Geo, it's the same chassis. They'd build them better, lighter, different. They're tricked out here and there, but it's all the same.

[Todd Bodine]

Same stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And so it's. So when I got behind the wheel, I was like, oh hell, it's the same freaking tire bouger 45. It really ain't changed much. Everything about it feels the same. So it wasn't like hard to have yet to get in that car and go, man, I have no clue what's going on. You know, man, this is gonna be tough to figure out now. There's times when it doesn't do what I want it to, but. And that's probably more me than anything, but.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, I don't think you'll ever get to that point where you not figured out because you have the smarts and know what's wrong. It's just a matter of putting this and this and your feet all together at the same time.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, but it's so wild too, watching the kids, whether they're, you know, some 20 or 18 or 15 year old kid get in those cars and run the lap and put in and haul ass. And you're like, damn, how do you know how to do that? Right? It's so impressive. Like Wyatt, my nephew, he runs, he'll run limited car, Hickory and Wynn. He'll go run this truck at some outdoor jump park, you know, where he's launching himself through the air in these little, you know, in stadium truck stuff. And when he'll go run a. He ran a dirt, dirt car full on dirt car. It might have been a crate late model, but he goes and runs one of them for the first time around fifth. And I'm like, he's 12. How does he freaking know how to do this?

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, but. Because I sure as didn't know that stuff at 12 years old. Well, yeah, but you know, they're starting younger.

[Todd Bodine]

But Wyatt's got it in his jeans. He's got it from both sides because LW was a racer and I know Kelly's a racer, Certainly got all that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Advice anyone would need from his dad and us and his mom. I do want to ask you before we, before we wrap this up, there was a couple of memorable famous confrontations.

[Todd Bodine]

Oh, I can't wait to see this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, there's, there's two that are, that are highlighted here. And I think I remember this one. The other one, not so much. There was A confrontation with David Starr on pit road.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What happened? Well, David's a nice guy.

[Todd Bodine]

I love David. He's always been one of my friends.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's. Every time, even today, I see this guy. I remember he was. He was. There was a period of time when David Starr was relatively competitive in the truck series. Right. The people that watch racing today probably don't remember that or probably didn't witness that. And they just see David out there running in the back of these xfinity fields. But when I walk up to that guy, he is always happy and happy to be there always. And he ain't. He's not trying to ruffle any feathers. He just wants to come have fun. But what happened this day?

[Todd Bodine]

Well, so we. I love you, David. So take this. Don't take it personal. Our name for David was the kidney stone because he's so hard to pass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So we're at Loudon, and he was running good. I don't know where it was. Probably it was top five, I think. And I get through some traffic, and spotter says, all right, it's a kidney stone up ahead. And I go up there, and I went to the outside of him, and he just broke loose or something. He got in a quarter panel, and around I went. Kind of like what I did with you. You know, it's just a racing deal.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Todd Bodine]

But we had a truck that was going to win, and we had come in from the back for some reason, and it was close to the end of the race, so we ended up finishing the race, come down pit road, and you know the Hillman family, and it rubbed off on our crew members. If you mess with them, you're gonna mess with all of them. And David messed with me. And it was on. And it was on big time. I mean, Mark come across the hood at David, and I got out, and we actually happened to park right next to each other in pit road after the race. And yeah, it was. It was pretty big.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn it.

[Todd Bodine]

Punches going.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Todd Bodine]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What David and you. Did you and David ever have a talk about it afterwards?

[Todd Bodine]

No, it was. And that's the thing about our one thing about our sport. I think more times than not, it's the crew members that get their panties in the wad because their truck is wrecked. But as a driver, maybe there again, maybe I'm different than most, but I understand that gonna happen, and I know exactly what happened. And David got loose and got into me. Was I happy about it? No, you're not gonna be happy about it. But I'm not gonna hate the guy because he made a mistake. Cause I've made many mistakes and taking people out. So it's gonna come around. So I never held grudges.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Kyle Busch confronted you in victory lane, and I believe this was at Kentucky.

[Todd Bodine]

Kentucky. Kentucky.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Somebody got some. There was. So the trucks relied heavily on side force. And boy, when you put those trucks side by side, the guy on the inside was in big trouble. And I think it was Kyle Busch that night.

[Todd Bodine]

Yes, it was. So went down in the. In the three, and Kyle run up high, and my. My truck was badass. So I. I drove right under him in the middle of the corner. And there was. There was a good three truck widths between us. I mean, we weren't even close. And I gonna come off. I, you know, no one was gonna side force. I'm gonna come off low, and I was gonna pass him for the lead. Well, we get in the middle corner, and he just turns down and gets right on my side and then pulls back up and just sucks me around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And I go spinning down through the infield.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

You know, he did it on purpose. That's part of racing. That's strategy, I guess you want to call it. I don't know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He knew if he got on your door, you have your hands full.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah. So that was eight laps after restart. So we came down pit road. We had to tape down the bed top. Didn't hurt anything. The bed top blew up. That was it. Tape it back down. Filled it with gas, went back out. We probably put four tires on it. And here we come. We come flying up through the pack, and we're. I mean, we are fast. We are bad fast. And drove all the way to fifth. And now there's like 20 laps to go. Mike Jr. Hillman Jr. My crew chief, he comes on the rear and said, look, I want you to run half throttle. He said, all these guys got a pit. We don't have to pit, but I want you to save some fuel just to make sure we're gonna be good because it's still kind of close.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

So I ran the last eight laps. Half throttle. Last 12 laps, half throttle. Literally all the way around. Just hold it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

And they're all peeling off. They all got to get gas. We get in the lead. I forget who was second, but he was, like, almost half track behind us doing the same thing. So I just held it half throttle. We end up winning the race. It was awesome. So get the victory lane. They stick the mic in my face and the first thing I come out is. First thing I gotta say is I gotta thank Kyle Busch for driving me dirty and sucking me around so I could come in and get enough fuel to make it the rest of the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, we go on with the interview and about the time I'm done with the interview and they go off, here come Kyle, he's in his street clothes, and he comes into Victory Lane and he's getting in my face. And we're. We got some choice words for each other now. They're showing all this on tv, so it made the headlines. Yeah, he didn't. He didn't like that I called him dirty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did y'all ever figure it out?

[Todd Bodine]

No. No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Didn't talk it out.

[Todd Bodine]

No, no, we've never. I think we've had a mutual respect back then. Well, it is. And the thing about Kyle is, and I've experienced this two separate occasions when you get him away from the racetrack. And he's not Kyle Busch, superstar racer. He's one of the coolest dudes you go hang out with.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Todd Bodine]

Drinking, having fun, dancing. I mean, he's a cool dude.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's not scared to dance.

[Todd Bodine]

No. And. And I've experienced that. And that's kind of what always upset me, is how he acts at the racetrack. Yeah, dude, you're the same person. Yeah, but he's just so intense in his racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's true. Yeah, he is. Definitely. Back then, especially, man, I've really enjoyed this. I. I hope you have. And I think our listeners will. Will say the same. It's, you know, your career is a fun one because there's so many different layers to it. So many different, you know, tough moments, redeeming moments. And. And you have been a. You have. You've been an asset to the sport. That's one of the things that. So I always felt like being. Trying to live up to either my dad or you, trying to live up to one of your brother's accomplishments was not. Was not something that I was interested in, being an asset to something I loved, which is. Which we always love. This sport was what was. What was. What was important to me. I wanted to be done one day and everybody go, it was good that you were here.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, and I think that's absolutely what we could say about Tab Odyne is that the sport was better for your involvement and the experiences that you had and the stories that you can tell and what you shared with us today are entertaining and fun for people and, you know, for them to know that when you're on those truck broadcasts that you know what you're talking about and you have the pedigree and the experience to back it, and what you've been able to do in the broadcast booth has to, has to be a good sense of pride for you. So I want to say thanks. I appreciate you coming on, giving us some time today. It's been a lot of fun catching up.

[Todd Bodine]

Well, thank you. You know, I got to tell you though, I. I've been asked a lot last few years that you've been doing this. Why hasn't Dale had you on? Why hasn't he had you on? Well, it's kind of strange and I don't know if you feel the same way, but we never really had a relationship. No, we never did. I don't know why. I don't know how it happened. Even though we're at the same racetracks half our damn lives, it's like we just never had that relationship. And I said, I told him, I said, I don't know, maybe he still calls me the cue ball headed fool. I don't know. He doesn't want me on. But I'm glad you had me. I appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Absolutely. That day I was really mad. But I was also a very cocky kid.

[Todd Bodine]

Yes, you were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I have grown up. Yep. I've grown up. And I've always had, I've just always had an appreciation for you because I feel like that. I just felt like I, I will say this publicly. I appreciated your driving ability more than I did your, Your brothers. And, and you don't have to comment on that at all. But I just, that was my. I raced against you. I raced against Brett, too, but in. Not during his peak. Certainly didn't race against your brother Jeff at all much. But I raced with you a lot. And I had a lot of respect for how much you could get out of a car. And then to see what you did in the trucks was no surprise to me. I appreciate that. And, and I, I just always, you know, I, I'm also very shy. Not. I wasn't. I could communicate with like Hank Parker Jr. And some of the. Lyndon, Lyndon Amick and some of those guys that were my age or younger. But it was hard for me to like, create a relationship with guys that were older than me.

[Todd Bodine]

I know, exactly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I only, like, I only had relationship with like Lajoy or Mike McLaughlin because they created that. Like they would come, like if you had came to me and said, hey, let me help you here let me show you something that that would have been the only way we'd ever developed a relationship because I was too shy and nervous to talk to anybody that was older than me. You know, that was your and plus you were kind of like a peer of my dad's, not so much, you know, on my level like you were. You'd raised cup right. You're, you know, the way we looked at you at least was probably different than you might imagine. But yeah, it's been fun catching up, man.

[Todd Bodine]

Thanks.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I really enjoyed this. We have never, we had never really had a conversation. No, we certainly hadn't sat down. We laughed back slapped a little bit here and there when we saw each other. But about the Cuba headed fool stuff and I knew you weren't too annoyed by that, which I'm thankful. But yeah, it's been fun.

[Todd Bodine]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thank you.

[Todd Bodine]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Tabadine on the Dale Jr download Kubota.

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right, so awesome catching up with Tabadine. I was kind of looking forward to seeing what that conversation about me calling him a cue ball headed fool would be like. And it is exactly as I thought it would. He's a, you know, good dude, good racer. You know, when, when you're in the heat of it and winning and doing as well as he was in the trucks, he is, his, his personality would be a little maybe brasher or rougher, more confident and so forth. But as, as he's wound down his racing career and been out of the truck and the cars for quite some time now, he's just kind of a guy who seems like he very appreciative, very happy and very content, very satisfied. Definitely different, different responses to some of the things that I asked him than I expected. Particularly like, you know, when he goes out and runs well at Dover in 1991 or sometime around then for his, you know, his like second or third Xfinity race driving for this new team, he doesn't have a ton of races under his belt. He's relatively green as a race car driver, goes it over and runs in the top five and it gets, he had, he, he didn't have like a reaction of elation or hey, holy, did y'all see that? You know, it was, it was different. I guess that, that, that feeling that he had was different than I would anticipated. Just trying to live through his emotions bring, you know, recall those emotions of those moments because I can put myself, I can put myself back into the industry in 1991 and guys were getting these sort of random opportunities. There were a lot of, you know, independently owned race teams that maybe either like a Bobby Hillen Jr. Might have a race team that's going to run 12 races. Kyle Petty had one, Ernie Irvin had one, Sterling Marlin had. All these cup guys would have these teams that would run, you know, a handful of races and you'd go to Charlotte, for example, and there'd be 25 cup drivers competing for, you know, a field and there would in total be 65 cars in total trying to qualify for the xfinity race in the like late 80s and early 90s, tons of cars. And so there was a lot of opportunity for Todd Bodine to get a race at South Boston or, man, go up to Langley and run that one. And guys would talk their way into things by working their ass off and being. Being around, being available, being there. When Kyle Petty said, yeah, I don't want to run those eight races, put Todd in there, you know, that was. Those were some cool stories to hear. And I always wondered how his career developed. And as the third Bodine kind of coming up through the ranks, it opened a few doors. But the, you know, the relationship with his brother Brad and Jeff being different and a little bit separated, Todd had to earn some of it. Todd had to go to work, fabricate, be a mechanic and create, make a living so that those opportunities would, you know, so he'd be there and be prepared when those opportunities happen. So pretty cool story, you know, and I. His truck career in itself is a. Is a Dale Jr. Download guest interview. But, you know, it was awesome. Really kind of learned where he came from and, yeah, his. His career, man. In and out of, you know, Xfinity cup, back to Xfinity, back to cup, back to Xfinity, to trucks. And then he finally found a place where he could become a champion and a winner and. And very proud, I suppose, of his overall career. So thankful for him to come through and hope y'all enjoyed the show, man. We're gonna. We're gonna get the white flag. White flag. All right, it's time for the white flag. I want to remind you to head on over to shop.dirtym media.com we have a ton of new merch for the Dirty Mo Media, you know, bucket full of podcasts that we have if you like. Bless yous heart, the Del Jr download door bumper Clear Actions, Detrimental, Speed street, whatever it may be. We've got hats and shirts, T shirts, sweatshirts, all that stuff available now for you to purchase and support. Show us, you know, in the comments and on social media. Follow dirtymomedia.com and post and tag us. And you wearing some of your gear. Let's see it. Let's see some of y'all out there. I know you're getting it. And don't forget our Star Stripes and Beers collection drops this week. You'll, you know, we'll have everything to be able to suit you out for summer with that collection. The teardown was live immediately after the race on Twitter and YouTube following Texas, Texas was wild. And so it was awesome to get all of the feedback from Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi over. Over that particular race and everything else going on in the industry. There is a ton going on in the industry, a lot of conversations, a lot of different conversations being had and that's a great place to kind of get a catch. All of everything going on just right after the race is over with Doorbopper Clear dropped on Monday. They were joined by Rodney Childers and Rodney came in to talk about his departure from Spire and what's next for Rodney and Rodney's take on a lot of things going on in the sport. They talked about the All Star Race and the run. What you brung idea Rodney as a crew chief could give us a lot of great perspective on that. Actions detrimental with Denny Hamlin dropped on Monday even though Denny blew the engine in his Toyota. He had a great podcast to recover and I know that he gave us some great insight on all the things going on in the sport as he does every week. He had a very passionate take on some some important things going on in the sport and you can see some of those clips as well on on the Dirty Mo media, YouTube and Twitter. This week, instead of the usual Herman Schrader, there'll be a Kenny's conversation. Kenny's out on the charity ride with Kyle Petty, which you can follow along on social media with Kyle and all the things they're doing there. Kenny's doing a great job sharing with us his experiences on the Kyle Petty charity ride and that that benefits Victory Junction and so that will be dropping today as well. And May is officially here and that means the Indy 500 and that also means you don't want to miss what Connor Daly will be bringing us throughout this month, telling us all the things that are happening over at Indy as all the teams prepare for such an incredible race. It's great having insight from Connor on that particular month as well as the rest of the IndyCar season on Wednesday as well and today as well. You want to check out NASCAR's Full Speed Season 2 on Netflix? Season 1 was a great success. Season 2 is here. It's a five episode series. It gives you the behind the scenes look at all of the contenders for the playoffs last year as they all battled for the championship. A lot of behind the scenes views of what those drivers were dealing with and going through. You get to learn who these drivers are. I don't think you can find a better place to do it. NASCAR's Full Speed Season 2 now available on Netflix Thursday. That's tomorrow and that means another episode of Bless yous Heart with my wife Amy. We went to the Miami grand prix. Our first F1 event. And we had a lot of fun and a lot of great experiences, and we're going to tell you all about that and more tomorrow on the next episode of Bless yous Heart. That's our show today. Thank you, Tabadine. Appreciate everybody's effort here at Dirty Mo Media, all of our staff, for compiling all the information to put on a great show, and I hope you all enjoyed it and we'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok.