Tony Gibson: How I Almost Lost Kulwicki A Championship

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Tony Gibson: How I Almost Lost Kulwicki A Championship"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Dale Jr. Download
• Host/Author: Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM
• Episode: Tony Gibson: How I Almost Lost Kulwicki A Championship
• Release Date: March 19, 2025
• Description: Hosted by NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr., this episode features Tony Gibson, a seasoned crew chief, sharing his riveting journey through the highs and lows of NASCAR racing, offering candid insights and unforgettable stories from the track.

---

Introduction to Tony Gibson's Racing Legacy

Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomes Tony Gibson, a revered figure in NASCAR, highlighting Gibson's extensive background in the sport. Tony's roots in Daytona and his family's deep involvement in racing set the stage for an engaging conversation about perseverance, dedication, and the intricate dynamics of NASCAR teams.

Notable Quote:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [02:47]: "Tony Gibson's story is a testament to how you get involved in this industry through perseverance, dedication, and hard work."

---

Growing Up in Daytona: A Racing-Fueled Childhood

Tony Gibson delves into his upbringing in Daytona Beach, emphasizing the community's reverence for the racetrack and the historical significance it held. Raised in a family where racing was a way of life, Tony recounts childhood memories of building cars, sourcing parts from his brother Glenn's junkyard, and the influence of figures like Tiny Lund and Smokey Unick Jr.

Key Points:

• Family Influence: Tony's father repaired cars and worked for the phone company, enabling Tony and his brothers to pursue racing despite financial constraints.
• Racing Early Days: Building chassis and working on race cars from a young age fostered Tony's technical expertise and passion for motorsports.

Notable Quote:

Tony Gibson [04:17]: "We raced all the short tracks around. We didn't have a lot of money, but Dad worked his guts out so me and my brothers could race."

---

Entering the NASCAR World: From ARCA to Hendrick Motorsports

Tony narrates his transition from ARCA racing to joining Norman Degree's team, marking the beginning of his professional NASCAR career. The move was pivotal, allowing him to hone his skills and build crucial relationships within the industry.

Key Points:

• ARCA Success: Tony and his brother Mark achieved multiple ARCA race wins, leveraging sponsorship from Billy Blue to advance their racing endeavors.
• Joining Norman Degree: In 1986, Tony seized the opportunity to work with Norman Degree, moving his family to North Carolina and immersing himself in the competitive NASCAR environment.

Notable Quote:

Tony Gibson [22:03]: "Norman Degree gave me my break, teaching me everything I needed to know to succeed in NASCAR."

---

Challenges and Triumphs: The 1992 Championship Saga

One of the most gripping segments of the conversation revolves around the 1992 championship season. Tony recounts a near-disastrous event at Dover where a missing air cleaner nut led to engine failure, threatening their championship aspirations. Despite multiple setbacks, including wrecked cars and mechanical failures, the team's resilience and innovative solutions under pressure culminated in a triumphant championship win.

Key Points:

• Technical Mishaps: The incident with the air cleaner nut caused the engine to lock up post-race, jeopardizing their position.
• Team Resilience: Under Alan Kwicki's leadership, the team rallied to repair and overcome the technical issues, demonstrating unwavering commitment.
• Championship Victory: The culmination of their hard work and determination led to securing the championship, a moment Tony describes as the most meaningful in his career.

Notable Quotes:

Tony Gibson [48:59]: "The motor locked up after the race because the missing nut became lodged on top of the piston. It was a nightmare scenario."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [43:38]: "You could feel where Alan was emotionally during that weekend. It was a true test of his leadership."

---

Building Strong Relationships: Mentors and Colleagues

Throughout his career, Tony emphasizes the importance of working with the right people. He shares anecdotes about influential figures like Ray Evernham, Mark Martin, and Alan Kwicki, highlighting how these relationships shaped his professional journey and contributed to his success.

Key Points:

• Mentorship: Learning from experienced crew chiefs and drivers provided Tony with invaluable knowledge and skills.
• Team Cohesion: The bond among team members fostered a supportive environment, essential for navigating the challenges of a NASCAR season.
• Legacy of Success: Collaborations with top talents like Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch further cemented Tony's reputation as a top-tier crew chief.

Notable Quote:

Tony Gibson [102:57]: "The key is being with the right people. Nobody is successful alone."

---

Transitioning Beyond the Track: Balancing Family and Career

Tony discusses the personal sacrifices made in pursuit of racing success, including missing family moments and the emotional toll of his demanding career. Despite these challenges, he expresses contentment with his decision to transition into a production manager role, allowing him to stay connected to racing while prioritizing family.

Key Points:

• Personal Sacrifices: Balancing work commitments with family life was a constant challenge, particularly during pivotal career moments.
• Career Transition: Moving into a managerial role provided Tony with a way to remain involved in motorsports without the relentless demands of being on the road.
• Fulfillment and Legacy: Tony finds fulfillment in mentoring the next generation and cherishes the memories of his racing achievements.

Notable Quote:

Tony Gibson [95:21]: "I wanted to spend more time with my grandkids and not miss out on their important moments like I did with my daughter."

---

Final Reflections: The Essence of Success in NASCAR

In concluding the episode, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Gibson reflect on the fundamental qualities that drive success in NASCAR. Tony underscores the importance of technical expertise, relentless dedication, and maintaining strong interpersonal relationships within the team. He attributes his longevity and success to being adaptable, embracing challenges, and always striving for excellence.

Key Points:

• Technical Mastery: Attention to minute details can make the difference between victory and defeat.
• Dedication and Hard Work: Consistent effort and a passion for the sport are non-negotiable for sustained success.
• Team Dynamics: Building and nurturing strong relationships within the team fosters a resilient and effective unit.

Notable Quote:

Tony Gibson [103:22]: "Being a good person matters too. Always doing the right thing and treating people right, no matter their position, is essential."

---

Conclusion: A Story of Resilience and Excellence

Tony Gibson's narrative is a compelling testament to the spirit of NASCAR. From his grassroots beginnings in Daytona to steering championship-winning teams, his journey encapsulates the essence of racing—where passion, perseverance, and teamwork converge to overcome adversity and achieve greatness. Dale Earnhardt Jr. aptly summarizes Tony's impact, lauding his technical acumen, leadership, and unwavering integrity that not only propelled his teams to success but also inspired countless individuals aspiring to make their mark in the sport.

Final Quote:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [105:58]: "Tony's story is inspiring because it shows the sacrifice, commitment, and dedication required to thrive in NASCAR. He's a great dude, and I'm thankful for the impact he's had on my life and many others."

---

Takeaways for Aspiring NASCAR Professionals:

• Start Early: Immerse yourself in the technical aspects of racing from a young age.
• Build Strong Relationships: Seek mentorship and collaborate with seasoned professionals.
• Embrace Challenges: View setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow.
• Maintain Integrity: Uphold strong ethical standards and treat all team members with respect.
• Balance Personal and Professional Life: Strive to find harmony between racing commitments and family responsibilities.

Tony Gibson's story is not just a recount of racing triumphs but a blueprint for aspiring crew chiefs and racing professionals aiming to leave their mark on the sport.

Transcript

[Tony Gibson]

High5 casino is the top casino that's free to play. With free cash prizes, free spin rewards and tons of exclusive games, you can experience more high five moments than ever before. You're going to want to high five everyone. The neighbors, the mailman, all your co workers, of course your friends. Well, you get the point. Your High Five moment [e-mail] no purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. Must be 21 years or older. Terms and conditions apply. If you love your phone but not your carrier, just switch to T Mobile. You can keep your phone, keep your number and we'll help pay it off. Up to eight per line. You can also use our savings calculator to compare our plans and streaming benefits against Verizon and AT&T. So switch and keep your phone, keep your number and keep more of your moolah. @t mobile.com up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service ported 90 plus days with device into eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We got busted because we went to Darlington and we had. That cot had just come out and Tony Jr had figured out something.

[Tony Gibson]

We made wing mounts. So we're pushing through tech and we had already made it out of the tech line, pushing it up the hill. They're like, take those wing mounts off. Take the wings off. And I looked at two Bear and I said, two Bear, they got us and they got them wing mounts laying, though. They just took off our cars laying on that table. Two Bear looks at me and goes, oh, man, I'm going to grab those wing mounts right there and I'm going to take off running.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, everybody, Tony Gibson's out in the lobby and we're going bring him in here in a second. But just excited to talk to him. He's got a really great story, kind of the, the. I wouldn't say rags to riches, but it's basically the story of how you get involved in this industry. There's a lot of people like Tony and we have some that come to this table and tell us their story. And there's so many clues and little bits of information for all of y'all out there that are like, man, I want to be a mechanic. I want to be a crew chief. I want to. How do I get in the industry? Well, here's a story of, you know, perseverance, dedication, hard work, loyalty, and man, he. He has been around the Sport a long time. His role, his abilities and what he offered to a team were in high demand. And he never, you know, he never was without a team or a program that needed his help. And so let's get him in the room. Let's talk to him. Tony Gibson on the Dale Jr. Download. What's up, man?

[Tony Gibson]

How you, buddy?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How are you?

[Tony Gibson]

Good to see you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You too.

[Tony Gibson]

A seen in a while.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it's been a bit. This is you right here. All right, so, Tony Gibson on the Dale Jr. Download. First off, before we dive into the early days, Tony was part of the DEI days back in the mid 2000s. Worked at Hendrick Motorsports before that. Currently works at Hendrick Motorsports today.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But your one thing that I don't know about you or know a lot about you is your family and Yalls Yalls history in racing. And that was something that I thought would be fun to learn more about today. Born in Daytona.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep. Daytona beach, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To me, Daytona was the most fun or one of the most fun next to the night race at Bristol. One of the most fun stops on the circuit or during the series, especially when I was younger. But even as I got, you know, into racing myself and was able to run around town and there's just a lot to do when you're there at the racetrack and there for the. For the race weekend. But what is it, what was it like growing up there with that racetrack in. In your neighborhood?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, it was. It was a lot of fun because everybody looked at that racetrack as so much history. So they're like, man, you live in Daytona. It's so cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The locals. Locals embraced it.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes. And we raced all the short tracks around.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There were a ton of short tracks in that area.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes, exactly. And we raced them all. You know, we didn't have a lot of money. So, you know, dad, he repaired old cars and he worked for the phone company. And so dad worked his guts out so me and my brothers could go and race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did your dad drive?

[Tony Gibson]

No. Well, dad drove back in the day, but Tiny Lund drove my dad's cars. Yep. And so there's a lot of cool pictures. I wish I'd have brought them, but. So Dad's raced his whole life. And so we grew up in racing. We built our own cars, chassis. You know, growing up, Glenn's junkyard was right through the woods, about 300 yards. So he'd send us over there to get parts. Right. Glenn was cool. He'd give us whatever we wanted. You just had to come get yourself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What part of I hate to interrupt, but what. What area of Daytona are. Am I at you?

[Tony Gibson]

You are approximately five miles from Daytona National Speedway, right down Nova Road.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

East, West.

[Tony Gibson]

East.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

East. Toward the beach.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep, towards the beach.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Shoot.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep. And so, yeah, it was. My mom retired from the speedway. She was president of the ticket office. She was there for 27 years. So, yeah, I can remember mom working there, and Mike Helton was working in the mail room, and Mike was transporting mail. I'd see him taking mail from the three different buildings that they had because it was real small, but I can remember Mike working there, running mail back and forth to the different buildings.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was going to school and just growing up in that area, like, it.

[Tony Gibson]

Was a lot of fun. It was hot, but it was a lot of fun. I spent most of my time racing. A lot of the school events that a lot of kids went to, I didn't go to because we were racing. I'll never forget one story which I got in trouble for, was, so I was going to go to prom, right? So this girl was going to the prom. I really didn't want to do it, but I'm like, all right, I'll take her to the prom. And so, well, we were having a big race over Barrowville, so. And we would run, like, New Smyrna on Friday night or Bithello on Friday night and run Brunswick, Georgia on Saturday on dirt. And we'd groove our tires and go. So at that point in time, we weren't going on Saturday. We were just gonna run Friday night. Well, dad decides we're gonna go run dirt on Saturday. I'm like, dad, that's prom. I gotta take this girl to prom. So he's like, well, you've already made a promise to her. You're gonna have to do it. Well, I'm like, how am I gonna get out of this, dude? I got to have some reason to get out. I'm going racing. I'm not going to this prom thing, right? So we had a. We had a Saint Bernard named Dominic. So I made up this story. I'm a kid, right? So I'm thinking, how am I gonna get out of this? So I told this girl, I said, I can't take you to the prom. I have to go to the dog show. We're taking our dog to the dog show. So I'm not gonna be able to go.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn. So that's terrible.

[Tony Gibson]

That's bad. Yeah. But I used it, right? So it worked well, her mom and their parents were pretty upset, so they called my mom and said, what's the deal? You got to go this. We don't have a dog show. Well, I get in big trouble, right? So my mom's mad. Everybody's mad. Dad is mad, but not really mad. Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he knows the deal.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So we're sitting at the kitchen table, and mom's just devastated. And I would do that. And I'm trying to explain why I love racing. This is what I want to do. And dad's really scolding me, you know? But the whole time he's looking at me, he's winking. You know what I mean? He's like. So I'm thinking, am I okay or not okay? So we get all done, and so I go outside, and dad grabs me, says, come on up, shop. And so we get up to the shop, and I said, dad, I'm really sorry. I said, but I love racing. This is all I want to do is race. I don't want to go. I didn't want to go to the promotion. He said, son, it's okay. I love the race, too. It's all I want to do is race. He said, but sometimes you make responsibilities that you have to stick to. He said, so you need to understand, you don't have to go to the prom. You come over with me racing, but you can't make. You got to make better decisions. So we ran as many short tracks as we could run. Sometimes we'd run three nights a week. So that's all I did growing up. I didn't. I didn't do a lot of. I didn't do football. I didn't do baseball. I raced. I can remember as a kid riding bicycles over to Smokey Unix shop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

And hanging out over there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

You know, you could go over there, and for a nickel, you could pull a drink out of the front of the. Out of the Coke machine and just hang out and spend time with smoking.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They didn't run kids off over there. Seems like the kind of guy that wouldn't allow people just be.

[Tony Gibson]

No. Now, he would watch you. Wouldn't let you touch nothing or get in, but he let you hang out. And so Smokey Unick Jr. Actually drove my dad's late model down there a few times, so we knew him very well. My grandfather did the wiring for. They had those. Those offshore racing boats, had the twin 427s in there. And so dad built motors for them as well. And my grandfather did electrical work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's a debate about Smokey and him belonging in the hall of fame. Do you think he's hall of fame?

[Tony Gibson]

Absolutely. Absolutely. I don't know that he'll ever make it in, but absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

I mean, if you look at some of the things that he has done for, for racing and even outside of racing, it's. It's incredible. That was probably one of the smartest mans I ever been around in my life. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's insane. Little Smokey was colorblind. Y'all know. You didn't know that? Yeah, yeah, he was colorblind. So dad let him drive our cars. So he was always coming up with cool stuff to put on the car and. Well, dad didn't know he was colorblind. Well, we got in a big wreck one night at New Smyrna Speedway. Well, they're waving a caution. He can't tell a caution from a green or any. All he knew was checkered. He couldn't tell white or nothing. Oh, we just plow right into him. I mean, we just caused the biggest wreck you'd ever seen. And that's when found out that Smokey Eunuch junior Was colorblind. So they wouldn't let him race anymore. Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

So they, you know, he could be into that, was into that. Done. But a great family. It was a lot of fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Your two brothers, Mark and Mark and Pepe.

[Tony Gibson]

Pepe, yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They both raced. Yes, they drove. Mark.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Drove quite a bit.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes, he did. Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why didn't you want to drive?

[Tony Gibson]

I don't know. I never really showed any desire to drive. I loved working on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's surprising.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, I don't, I didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Daddy, you didn't see your brother go, oh, damn. Yeah. When's my turn?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, I, I know. I never, I never did. I loved working on them. I loved doing everything I could with race cars. I love fiddling with them, working on them. I never. I was in a demolition derby one time, but that's it. Not too good. Yeah, I got hit, knocked my battery out and it ended up. His battery ended up in, in the seat with me and so that didn't go so good. But I don't. I don't know, I just. I love working on cars, race cars, and I still do today. I'm just a hands on guy and I don't know why. I just didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So your brothers, Mark. I want to learn more about Mark, but Pepe, what kind of driver was he?

[Tony Gibson]

So Pepe was a middle brother and he was the wild one right out of the group. So he was a Crazy wild one out of the group. So Pepe was really good. He was a good driver. Got hurt at New Smyrna. The wall kind of jots off a four. You know how the wall comes out right there? Well, he hit right there. Well, when he did, he broke his kneecap on the left side. And Pepe never won. But Pepe could run top five all the time. Like he was a solid top five. Guy had speed, just never could close it and win. Mark was just opposite. Mark could take a fifth place car and win with it. And you know, you gotta understand, we didn't have the money that all these other guys, Gary Blue, Billy Harvey, Dickey Anderson, those guys, Punky Cook, y'all racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Against all those guys?

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

God almighty.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, we raced.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I don't know how anyone beat Gary Blue back in the day.

[Tony Gibson]

So we raced against all them guys. But I'll tell you a story about those guys. They took care of us, right? So we, we blew up one night and we, we were done. It was speed weeks. It was 10 nights of racing down there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Around. What time frame is this?

[Tony Gibson]

This was back in 79, 80. And so we didn't have the money. We're done. Dad had a little 302. That's what we ran. We turned the crap out of it to try to keep up, right? So Billy Harvey was parked right beside us and he come over, walked over and said, you boys done? Dad's like, yeah, we don't. We're done. You know, we're gonna have to go home. It was like night three, I think. And he says, you're not done. Dad's like, yeah, we don't. I don't have a motor. We don't have. This is it. He's like, he says, sir, what's your name? He said, bo Gibson. He said, bo, you're not done. He says, you're going to come over to my truck and you're going to get a motor and you're going to take it home, you're going to put it in your car, you're going to come back tomorrow night. Dad's like, I'm not going to. I can't do that. I don't have the money to pay you for this. He said, you don't understand. You don't owe me nothing. You're going to take that motor home and put it in. So we did, and nothing fit right. We had to make everything to get this motor in. But we put the motor in, we finished, we won two nights out of it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

Which Was, you know, for us, was great.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So we built a relationship with those guys, and every time we would show up, they would help us out. They. They'd qualify on brand new stickers and wouldn't run them again. They would give them to us.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

And didn't take nothing for it. No money, no nothing. Those were the coolest guys to be around. That. That you learn from. They're smart guys. Hell of a racers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you know or did y'all have any idea what they were getting into in terms of their. Their smuggling?

[Tony Gibson]

We did after. After a few years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I mean, Gary got arrested in 81.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I mean that. So in 79. They were at the height of their.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Their smuggling ring.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. But it didn't, you know, we knew what they did because what they would do is they would come in with duallys back then. Duallys in a nice trailer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was.

[Tony Gibson]

Was it, man, you know, they had the tire racks up top that were solid on the side and their names all over it. And every. Every row, Every. Every row of tire is brand new. They had four or five sets of brand new wheels and tires. They'd never get them off the truck. Right. And then you look over and Harvey and all them, their two trucks, they were the same way. They never take those new tires off. But then at the end of the night, when it was time to leave, they'd all get in separate trucks, different trucks, and pull out and leave. And the tires never came off. We figured it out after a while. That's where the stuff was. It was in them tires. They were moving them in tires. Oh, yeah, it was cool. But I'm telling you, they never treated. They treated us great. They treated us like, how can we help you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, sure. They were racers.

[Tony Gibson]

They're racers. And they. They appreciated what we were doing as just, you know, a family, young family, trying to go and race and do well. It was pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gary Blue. And around that time, you know, I talked to Mark Martin, and those guys would come up and run speed weeks. And that was around the time when, like, Arrow and all kinds of things. It was a wild, wild west. There were really no limitations and rules and things just kind of got crazy. And I know that one particular Speed Weeks, it was like everybody, once Gary rolled his car in, into the track and off the trailer, everybody ran out and bought all the metal up.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What, no metal, tin or anything left in the town of Daytona or New Smyrna to be able to get the aerodynamics and stuff on those cars.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, you couldn't do it. I mean, they. Yeah, you would try to go buy aluminum and do all that stuff, and you couldn't do it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

I remember one time, and you probably remember this car is. Billy Harvey showed up with a complete clear car. You know, everything was clear and all these upper, lower A frames, everything was chromed out. But the whole. Yeah, the whole thing was like Sinclair. It was awesome, dude.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah, it was cool. I mean, you know, just.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Cause he could.

[Tony Gibson]

Just. Because he could.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And I think those guys would have been fine. But I remember it was. It was Winston cup scene, I believe it was, or Motorsports magazine that had a picture of Billy Harvey's all Indian.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember Stock car magazine.

[Tony Gibson]

That was it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I'm like, it's a big spread.

[Tony Gibson]

That's a big spread. I'm like.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Had his cup car, his ARCA car, his super late model go karts and everything was.

[Tony Gibson]

Had the Indy car, remember? Because he had the Indy car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Everything was 31.

[Tony Gibson]

That's right. Everything was perfect. And I think that was kind of the. When everybody saw that, it drew attention to him. And I think that was. Yeah, that was probably one of the. One of the biggest.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have you read Gary Ballew's book?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It's pretty awesome.

[Tony Gibson]

He is an awesome. He is an awesome guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

I remember they would come down there, you know, they'd soak tires, you know, you could. You're not supposed to soak tires, but you soak them, you know, and they'd peel off, pit lane, they'd be black strips all the way out till the end, you know, and they'd run. I remember they would. They run nitrous in the frame rails. They blew a frame rail out one time at New Smyrna. It was hot during their firecracker week down there and blew the frame bottle got hot and blew the frame frame apart.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jesus.

[Tony Gibson]

And there's some cool stories there, I'm telling you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So getting back to Mark, is it safe to assume that Mark's driving and his success is kind of what bridged the gap to you getting.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, getting into the. You know, getting into the industry.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he. So he raced locally around New Smyrna and. And some of the tracks.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And eventually decided ARCA racing. Arca?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why?

[Tony Gibson]

Just dad just wanted to take it to step level. Another. To the next level, because dad actually. Barnett bank back in the Superbirds. Dad owned two Superbirds and Smokey Eunuch helped him with the engine stuff. And Everything. And so dad wanted to get back in to the higher ranks of racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he had a couple superbirds in the race.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where?

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Daytona in the ARCA Series.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Talladega Daytona. No, no, in the Cup.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In the cup, yeah. Who drove them?

[Tony Gibson]

So Tiny Lund drove my dad's car. And Bobby Isaac.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, what was the color?

[Tony Gibson]

It was number. It was number 70. It was 72. 73. 72. Or I think 72 is when Isaac ran it. And then they changed the number to 98. I still got postcards at the house. That cool stuff.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So he had a couple of cup cars.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And just ran the big tracks.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep, that's right. And then dad wanted to get back into the upper ranks, so we started ARCA racing. So then we met Billy Blue. You know Billy Blue, right? Yes. So Billy Blue wanted Mark to come. Wanted us to come run arca and he was going to sponsor us. So that's how we got hooked up with and got the money to go and run in arca. Yeah, was through Billy Blue.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mark had a lot of success in arca.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's when I first kind of started remembering like, or connecting that to you and understanding your family had more. There was more to, you know, the Gibson family than just, you know, what I knew about you. And I'd watched Mark run a bunch of times over the years, but not really understood that that was your, your brother, your family.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Talk about his success and talk about, you know, tell me, tell us, our listeners, what he was able to do.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So again, we did a lot with Les, obviously, but Mark was one of those drivers, and even when he was, you know, the underdog at a dirt track or a late model short track, he had that drive, he had that desire. And he was not a quitter, no matter what. And he reminded me a lot of Allen. I ended up working for Allen later, but Mark reminded me of that because Mark was always had a desire to do better. And even when he won, it wasn't good enough. Right. He wanted to win more. He wanted to win more. And so Mark and Mark could work on the car, he could build the engines, he could, you know, he was right there with us every day. And he just. His love for racing and his love for driving was like no other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Help me understand. I guess. You ended up going to community college in Daytona, graduating with a degree in tool and die making. Moved to North Carolina. Where is your brother's career when you took a left turn?

[Tony Gibson]

So through running arca, Norman degree was doing Venturini and Churchill's arca. ARCA stuff. So that's how I met Norman. So when I met Norman, Norman asked me to come up and go to work.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. So what about leaving your brother?

[Tony Gibson]

I'm like, well, here's my chance.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, he didn't.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, they. Yeah, it was hard, it was tough, but here's my chance to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What year is this?

[Tony Gibson]

Go further. This was 86.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How's your brother doing? What races have you won?

[Tony Gibson]

So Mark was doing good. We've won, you know, several ARCA races. Mark was really good on the dirt decoy and you know, we'd won Texas.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, was this Texas world.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. The old speedway, Remember now?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Big old track.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. And so it was tough. And Mark was still. They still wanted to do the do coins and you know, they would travel everywhere and, and race. But I wanted to do more. I wanted to take it to the next level. I. I wanted to be, you know, I can remember in my dad's shop, you know, thinking about watching races. Want to be a crew chief, right? Yeah. And that's what I wanted to do. So here was my chance and I asked dad and Mark and we sat down and I said, here's my opportunity to go and do this. And they're like, tony, we support you, whatever you want to do. It was, you know, there was some crying going on and it was tough, but I knew what I wanted to be, I knew who I wanted to be and here was my opportunity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You went and moved into Norman Degree's barn?

[Tony Gibson]

Barn, Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean when I hear the word.

[Tony Gibson]

Barn, it's a barn. Yeah, it was a red barn over on Lane Street. So my dad, I drive. I had a 84 Blazer and transmission wasn't great, so I had a few. Those packing abs, you know, you get. My mom gave me some of that stuff and I headed out. Dude. I made it to Norman's and I slept at the shop for about a week. And then my dad brought up a camper, had one of them campers go back.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where in the shop?

[Tony Gibson]

In the floor. In the shop?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, just in the corner.

[Tony Gibson]

In the shop. Yep. And then Norman finally took me. I was there about probably four days. Then Norman finally took me over to stay with him and Penny. But that was going to be short lived.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So why, Why. I could just tell, you know, Norman was like, you know, you still relatively.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They still, they knew you.

[Tony Gibson]

But yeah, not. Not that kind. So. Yeah. So my dad brings up this camper goes on the back of A pickup truck. Set the legs and drop down, right? You drive out. My dad pulls in, backs it in the barn, drops the legs, dad pulls out, heads back to Florida. And here I am. Now, that was your house, and that's my home. So I'm like, okay, I got this. That's no problem. So we get through a few months, and now it's getting cold. It's snowing, and it's really cold. And I said, hey, Norman, I said, man, I need a heater, some kind of heater. Can you help me out? Because I don't have anything. He's like, I got you. Be right back. I'm like, cool, man. It's gonna be nice right here. He's gonna bring me back a heater. I'm gonna be set. So I hear a knock on my camper door. I say, yeah, come on in, because I knew it was Norman. Norman throws the door open, throws a Rottweiler. He's got a dog. Rottweiler dog. Here's your heater. Threw the dog in there for me to stay warm with. That was my heater, a dog to cuddle with. I'm like, holy crap. Like, no, dude, I need a heater. Like, a heater.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Well, this will do to. We can get you something. I don't have nothing right now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

So I'm like, okay. So the dog stayed in there with me for a long time. Finally ended up getting made enough money to get me a heater. Norman made you work for everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Tony Gibson]

Which is correct. I'm okay with that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Take me inside. Norman's shop.

[Tony Gibson]

So it was really small. It's the name. The main building on the left. I don't know if you. You've been there, right? So that first building on the left, really small at that point in time. We had a makeshift paint booth towards. In the back. It was petitioned off and wasn't much fan and whatever we could do. And then. So about a two years, it was 87. It's either 87 or 80. I can't remember. Well, Allen comes in and rents part of the building. Kawicki.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So that took up one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He got the Ford. The Quincy's Ford.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes. So that's in. That's in the building close to Lane street on that end of the building. Well, we got Churchill and Van Areni's cars in there that were fixing the bodies on. And we'd get them prepared and set them up and do all that go. So it was small. I mean, it was very, very small. And then we would do some of the Robert Yates. We were hanging bodies for them as well. So. Dude, our shop was full. There was nowhere to move, so, yeah, it was a lot, but, like, working in a studio right here, like, you know, wasn't much room, but we made it work. But that's where I met Alan. Alan could see what I could do. I was hanging bodies and doing those and doing the mechanical work on those two cars, which I loved. Day and night, I was there all hours.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Were you? When you go to the racetrack on the weekends, what are you doing?

[Tony Gibson]

So mechanicing, setting up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For who?

[Tony Gibson]

Venturing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Both of them.

[Tony Gibson]

Both of them? We had to oversee both of them. Like, we packed the bearings, we did all that stuff, we maintenanced them and all this other stuff at the same time. And me and Norman would get it and go to the racetrack as well. So, yeah, it was. It was busy. Crazy. You know, you didn't make a lot of money, but it's. It's what I wanted to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Tony Gibson]

I think I was making, like, 170 bucks. 775 a week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Did you get to know Ed?

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Only a couple times. Yes. When he flew in. Oh, a couple times.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Flew in.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You didn't.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He wasn't around all the time.

[Tony Gibson]

No, not all the time. No. So I met him a couple times. Thank goodness.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Norman was relatively young.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To be managing all that by himself.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes. But he was very good at it, which Norman.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Coincidental that you and Norman would end up at Stewart hall together.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes. That's crazy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Later.

[Tony Gibson]

I know. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Because Norman. I mean, Norman pretty much gave me my break, to be honest with you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, kind of did the same for dad and.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When Ed. Ed let dad drive.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

His dad's first cup race at Charlotte with. With help and dad. Norman are together that whole weekend, you know.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Kind of neat, Norman. Norman gave me my start. Taught me a lot. Educated me in things I had no idea that I didn't know. But Norman is the reason I'm where I'm at right now. If he doesn't give me my job, I'm still in Florida.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

You know, so I owe Norman a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So when did Alan call you?

[Tony Gibson]

He talked to me at the. He was at the shop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

At the shop. Yeah. So, yeah, y'all kind of. Y'all kind of got to know each other through just being at the same place at the same time.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then what's that conversation like? Hey, I want you to come work for me.

[Tony Gibson]

He said, man, I see what you can do. You're a hard worker. You know, I'm gonna. He was gonna rent a shop over off International and I'm gonna move over there. I'd like for you to come to work for me. Well, that's tough, right. Because Norman's gave me everything to this point. But again, here's my shot. Here's my opportunity to go and race full time. So that was difficult with Norman. He wasn't happy. Oh no, I think he wasn't happy because again, he gave me my chance and he taught me pretty much everything and you know, but I was. I was torn between letting Norman down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

But again, here's my opportunity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, you gotta go.

[Tony Gibson]

So I did and like I said, Norman wasn't real happy. But we. We made up, you know, shortly after that. And things. Things were fine. And then. So I move in with Alan off International, which the shop wasn't much bigger actually. It was probably a little smaller.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

Than we were at Normans.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And we would push cars in and out every day to work on one car. We did not have a body shop. He went and finally bought. Alan bought some plywood and we put up. He put one of those big old fans that you get at Lowe's or whatever. And we put that in. Open the door. And that was our. That was our paint booth.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. What car is Allen driving at this moment?

[Tony Gibson]

Ford. Fords.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But the sponsor. What year was it still the Quincy.

[Tony Gibson]

Car or got the Z Rex. Damn.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He ran that Z Rex car. Yeah. So you were with him when he goes to Phoenix and gets the first win?

[Tony Gibson]

No, I was not here. I was not there yet. Not there yet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So this is after that.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he's still in this tiny little.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

We didn't move into. We moved into the new shop at. Over by the speedway in 1990. That's when we moved in there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gotcha.

[Tony Gibson]

That was our.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Who all worked at this. Who all worked with Alan because there's a list. There's a few people that are pretty recognizable names that were part of that team.

[Tony Gibson]

Well, Ray Everham was there. Short lived. Ray was there when we were in the new building.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Why didn't. Ray told me that he didn't just. He just didn't fit in there for some reason.

[Tony Gibson]

He didn't. But I kind of saw it right off. Here's two really intelligent guys that are super smart and they both were really believed in what their. Their goals were in their direction.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Who's the two People. Ray and who?

[Tony Gibson]

This is Ray and Allen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ray and Allen.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah. So, you know, because Paul was crew chief and.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. But what was Ray's role?

[Tony Gibson]

Well, Ray was going to head up the engineering side of things, like, get things better.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There wasn't even engineering departments back then.

[Tony Gibson]

There wasn't?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Tony Gibson]

So this was, you know, that's what Alan was driven by. Right. Mechanical engineering. And then here comes Ray. Ray's going to take us to the next level. And. And we were going to be the engineering. First group to go that way. Dude, we went to Daytona that first, that year. And I'll never forget this. I've told this story a lot, but. So I'd always check frame rails, heights and all that stuff. And so Allen's like, hey, Ray's going to do the frame heights and all this stuff, but you go behind and make sure they're. They're right. And I'm like. And he tells us, once we get to the racetrack at Daytona. And I'm like, alan, this. I don't think this is gonna work. I said, because he's gonna be mad at me for checking behind him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right?

[Tony Gibson]

Like, he, you know, he's like, no, just do it. I gotta. I gotta make sure it's done right. And until I can trust him, you're gonna go behind him and check him. Well, I did, and it didn't go very well. Right, Right. And rightfully so for Ray, because, you know, Ray was going to head this deal up and get us going. So Ray had his thoughts how things ought to be done, and I was fine with whoever just gave me a direction. So I go behind him, and I'm checking frame heights. And Ray gets done. He's like, why are you checking my frame heights? Well, Allen wanted me to check just to make sure everything's right. So there's this trust thing now that pops up. Well, they start getting into it like, that's the beginning. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is Daytona. Rick 1. So Ray and Allen, like, start yelling back and forth. Ray's doing more yelling than. Than Alan. Because Ray's mad. He is frustrated, and I understand why. And we're all standing there like, oh, Lord, here we go. So I'll never forget, Ray took it. After he got done yelling, Allie took his tape measure and threw it. And Allen's standing at the toolbox, and the tape measure goes right by him, slams into the toolbox. Ray walks over, shuts his briefcase, gets his briefcase, walks out of the garage area. Allen's right after him. And we're still standing there going, what's going on? Yeah, Ray walks right out of there, walks right through the gate. Remember there was a gate that separated the cup garage from the Sportsman garage. He walks right through there. Here comes Bill Davis walking the other way. And that's how they connected.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so Ray went to work for Bill just that quick.

[Tony Gibson]

And here we are. Ray's gone, Ray's gone. Yep. Now we're on our own. But when? And so I'll never forget Ray telling me this later that week is, and he yelled this at Allen several times that, you know, you'll never win a championship running your operation like this. You'll never win it. And we ended up winning the championship in 92. And Ray said, you know, I was wrong. You know, I never, never thought he would. But Allen had direction and believed in certain things and, you know, it happened. So me and Ray talk about that story a lot, you know, but to witness it all and watch those two guys, Ray, you know, we go on to win a championship and Ray goes on to be, you know, a four time, you know, crew chief cup champion. John, you know, for working for Jeff Gordon. It's just crazy how two pass collided and they separated and both of them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Ended up, you know, very successful.

[Tony Gibson]

Very successful.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Different routes.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Different ideals.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey, everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a T shirt again. Check it [e-mail] if you have a.

[Tony Gibson]

Locked AT&T phone, we're here with bolt cutters. T Mobile will help pay off your locked phone and give you a new 5G phone for free. All on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com carrierfreedom via virtual prepaid MasterCard in 15 days. Free phone up to $830 via 24 monthly bill credits plus tax and a $10 device connection charge. Qualifying port in trade in service on Go5G next and credit required. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits or credit stop and balance on required finance agreements. Deal bill credits and if you pay off devices early. Race the rudders. Raise the sails. Race the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign get started today at LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions apply.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let's talk about Alan. Alan Kwicki was incredibly successful in the ASA ranks. Moved into the NASCAR Cup Series, struggled on a very tight budget to get from one track to the next. Struggled because I want to, I guess, you know, right around the same time Mark Martin came into the series, came into the sport. And Mark is great. And as amazing drivers he was, he too, had financial hardships and, you know, wasn't able to make that first go stick. But Allen was able to figure it out. Right. And had a little more. Maybe a little more stability with the Quincy deal, and then the Xerox deal comes along, and from the outside looking in, it's a growing, successful business. The facade, and I'm just saying, like, the race cars, the logos, the way he handled himself, the way he dressed, the way he carried himself, everything from on the. On the shell looks like it's going well. And now, I know it wasn't easy, and he had to cut some corners financially to. But he would still find the success on the racetrack. The. The opinion I think, that I had of Allen and the one that I. What I often hear piecing together people's opinions and conversations is he was incredibly driven. He was a genius in many aspects, but abrupt or upfront, no bull, no filter. I mean, how would you describe, like, being in a conversation with this guy or when things got serious? And he was, you know, he was being honest about something that needed to change or some direction he wanted to go with the car, the team, or anything. Anything. Take me into the room. And let's be honest about Alan. Like. Right. Because, I mean, he. He was successful, and there were reasons for that.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And some people work in that environment very well. Paul. Paul seemed to.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes, that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Paul seemed to be able to be the perfect gear for that. For that.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. We finally put a group together that Alan had a goal, he had a vision, and this is the way it was. He was. Alan was a very good businessman. He was. He knew exactly every dime that got spent and what it took, what he could survive on and what he didn't. He knew exactly where to put his money, what to spend the money on. Dude, we would straighten rims. Like, we would bend rims, and if it wasn't totally killed, we'd come home and straighten rims because we wouldn't spend the money to buy new rims.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sam. It's been a while since I've straightened a rim.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So. And, you know, back when we put Inner liners in. Right. So Goodyear would charge you five bucks to pull the inner liners in and out. We would do all that. Yeah, we. But he, we. Allen told us, if you take care of me, I will take care of you. Like, I'll make sure we have a company, I'll make sure we have a business. But you guys are going to have to help me. It's not going to be fun. Road's going to be rough. But we're going to do this. I promise you, we're going to do this. And it was hard for a lot of them to buy into that. We had a revolving door of employees for a long time, but there was a group of us that stuck together because we believed in his vision. But you take Alan outside of racing, where he could just unclick his mind. We could go to the movies with him, he could go eat, and he was a totally different guy. I mean, my relationship, my wife Beth, our relationship with him and Julie was really good. We'd go to the movies, we'd go to dinner, we'd go do things. Outside of racing, he's a totally different guy. He could just flip the switch. And now he's a fun guy. And a lot of people didn't see that side of him. And we believed in his vision and we believed in the direction we were going to go, and we stuck it out with him. He was convincing in that he could convince you that my way is going to work. He had that about him. But there were some that didn't believe in him and wouldn't stick it out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, the, the car owner, driver combo was not in that particular stretch was, Was one that was hard to get, be confident in. I mean, the, the, the secure and successful teams had big sponsorships and, and tenured owners that had, had built some etiquette or built some, you know, equity in this, in the sport. And he come in and tried to turn in what was really an independent team. Being an independent was a heavy label.

[Tony Gibson]

It was tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And he was, he was an independent that turned his team into a winning championship team.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And there wasn't many people that were going to walk into the NASCAR world at that time and do that.

[Tony Gibson]

Right. But I'm telling you, dude, he had that drive and he had a vision that, that he was going to make it work, and he was not going to step down from that. Like, he knew he was the underdog. He knew that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He fed into that.

[Tony Gibson]

He fed into it. Yeah, exactly. And, man, it just made him in the first time we started having success and started winning more races, multiple races. The more he believed in it, like, this is going to happen. I can do this. And we saw the same thing. We believed in it as well. Man, this guy is right. Everything he's been telling us is right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The championship season in 92.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember Dover?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Wrecked three times.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wrecked three cars.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How many cars did you have total?

[Tony Gibson]

Four. One back in. Well, we had two at the shop and two with us, and we only had four total. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're in the middle of a championship battle and had literally what I think would have been a death nail.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, for most teams, 100% at Dover.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I think. I mean, I. This is. I know this is a long time ago, but I remember the look on Allen's face after. After that weekend, how you could just sense like this guy was. I don't know where. Where. How you feel about that particular weekend, but to me, that was the moment where Allen was probably tested the most.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He had. He'd worked so hard to climb this steep hill. Right. And.

[Tony Gibson]

And so close. We were there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, you're right there.

[Tony Gibson]

Right there. Yeah. 100% and that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that was like, damn, we just tore up everything we got.

[Tony Gibson]

We did Tore up everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Blowing motors.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah. And we. I mean, it was. And stuff. We couldn't control. That was the whole thing. And the second car we wrecked, you know, I felt bad because we just wrecked in practice and so we were getting the other car. We're thrashing trying to get it done, but trying to be everybody, keep them pumped up, you know. And Allen's getting buckled up. He's getting in the car and I said, hey, I said, if you wreck this one, how about bringing me the damn steering wheel back if you don't mind. We wreck. Here he comes walking down pit road with that steering wheel in his hand. I got the steering wheel at home. Dated sign. Alan, quick. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. He brought me. You talking about somebody who felt about that big? I did. Standing on pit road, had no clue, but he handed me the steering wheel. He said, here you go. But we dug deep. And Paul was a good leader, too. We don't want to forget that. Right. Paul Andrews was a good leader, too. He stepped up, kept us together, kept the group together and got us back focused. And we wrecking the race. Right. That's our third car. So we get done. And Alan, we're. We're. Now. We are devastated. Right. We're like, man, we're done. There's no way we're gonna dig out of this. We got so close. Allen drags us all in the truck in the trailer and he's like, look. He said, this has been a devastating weekend. He said, but he said, we can do this. We're not out. We're going to fight to the very end. He said, stick with me. I'm not giving up on you guys. Don't give up on me. He said, we're going to fight this thing to the very end. Wherever we end up, we end up, but we're going to end up there together. That's what he told us in the trailer when we were getting ready to leave Dover.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Went home and tried to fix everything.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, you end up in Atlanta with a shot. I think when that race started, y'all were still the underdog.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Davey Allison in the 28 car looked hard to beat. Bill Elliott's in a good position driving junior's car. Davey would get in trouble early with Ernie Irvin off of turn four and that ended his day and made it a two man race. Y'all ended up battling Bill all the way to the very end.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But it was a little more dramatic than a lot of people may realize.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So. And I don't know that everybody knows the story about the air cleaner nut being dropped. So, you know, you warm the motors up in the morning, all that stuff. So we're warming the motor up and everything's good. Danny Glad was our motor motor guy warming the motor up. And so we go to stick the air cleaner back on it and button everything up to get it ready to go through tech and go race, race morning. Can't find the little quarter inch carburetor nut for the stud. We're looking everywhere. Can't find this thing nowhere, dude. We're looking. We take a borescope, we go down in all the cylinders. We're looking around, we can't find it nowhere. So now we're running late. So we're like, well, let's put another one on it. Put another nut on it. Get everything done. We go, we run transmission, brakes. In the race, we lose gear. I think it was second or third gear we lost during the race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I didn't know that.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn. When you lose a gear in a transmission, you're probably sitting there going, all right, when's the rest of it coming out?

[Tony Gibson]

Like, well, but we didn't know about the nut. We had no idea. What do you mean we didn't know where it was, right? So we think we're good. Fell on the ground, fell on the floor, strong, whatever. So anyway, we run, we race. I'm not going to steal your mess up, or are you trying to go with this story, but get over with. We win the championship, right? Everything's great. We get over there, we back in the garage, they tear down. They pump your motor. Remember, they'd screw the thing in there. They go to spin. We go to spin the motor to pump the motor. The motor locks up. We're like, what the hell? Starter won't spin it over. Grab a breaker bar and a wrench on the, on the, on the crank to spin. It won't spin. It'll spin back a little bit, stop, go back forward and stop, pull the intake off. That nut had traveled through that whole entire intake, through that whole entire race, back and forth. The inside the intake was beat like you'd beat it with a claw hammer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

When the motor shut off after the race, the nut got lodged on top of the piston and locked it up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was the story about you being the fuel man?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So I was fuel man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And. Which is cool. I'd done it for years, and it was pretty cool because they had a little, you know, little pit crew stuff that would go on. Tire changers. Gas man. So me and Chocolate Myers were good buddies and, you know, I looked up to him. So we were gas men. So we were going back and forth with this competition thing that NASCAR had, and he ended up winning it, which is fine. But so, you know, it was cool to have those kind of. Kind of things. And, you know, to be a gas man on a cup car is cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, it was, right?

[Tony Gibson]

It's pretty cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's like being the drummer of the band.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So it's all fine. Well, it comes down, we're going to take gas only at the end of this thing. And it's all coming down to fuel mileage. Right. So we'd already led one lap more. And so comes down to fuel mileage. You're gonna have three and a half seconds of fuel in this. Now, we don't have anything to. But we have a scale on the ground and that's it to tell the fuel.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not a lot of science to it.

[Tony Gibson]

Nothing. Right. So it's like, go over there, you count. There's no. We don't have an iPad that says, 1, 2, 3, 4. We don't have all that. Right. So car's coming down and I step over the wall. Because you could have one leg over, put your other leg on the wall. I'm holding this can. I look up down pit road. Ain't nobody else on pit road. I'm like, I'm gonna be the only guy on TV out here gassing this car. Now I start getting nervous.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No.

[Tony Gibson]

So here he comes down pit road. I'm getting. Dude, I am nervous. I'm shaking. So comes in, pulls in. I hit the thing. And I'm counting 1, 2, 3. And as soon as I nod my head, Paul goes, go. Well, I'm trying to run with it because you could run as far as you could run with it. There wasn't no out of the box crap.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

None of that. Yeah, yeah. Just had to get another second.

[Tony Gibson]

So I unplug, car grips out. I start walking back to the wall. And the whole time I'm feeling this. I'm like, holy, this thing feels heavy. I don't know that I got enough fuel in this thing, but I know I counted. I know when I plugged up, there should be more gas missing out of this can.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Now I'm scared.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Now I'm sweating. Now I'm nervous. And Danny, Glad and Paul, they're like, did you get it? I go, I think I did. I don't know. I counted. But the can feels heavy. So now I'm scared. So my wife, she's eight months pregnant, so she's back at the back of the pit box. So I give the can so they could weigh the can and try to figure out did I get enough in it to make it to the end. I'm scared. And I walk over to my wife, Beth, and I walked to her and I said, babe, if this thing runs out of gas, we are running like hell to get into car and get out of here. They'll kill me if this thing runs out of gas. And she's scared because she thinks, oh, my God. So the last bit of that race, Junior, I'm telling you, it's the most scared I've ever been in my life. Because I knew if I failed, it was you. I failed everybody. Like that was it. Like, you are that guy. You're the guy that, here's your time to shine. But if you fail, it's not just any other race. It's the championship.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You didn't watch him run him last couple of laps?

[Tony Gibson]

No, I was scared. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, dude. I was sick at my stomach. Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, I kept waiting to hear the radio, I'm out of gas, you know, and I, so yeah, what was the relief? Oh, it was unbelievable. You can probably see me on pit road. You know, we're all jumping up and down and we're crying and you know, we, we did it man. We, we did it. You know, we had a little, little Minnie Mouse called Underbird. You know we had and because down at the bottom of those, those, those Fords down there, they had, you know, Thunderbird in the sticker and Alan wanted to be the Underbird because we were the underdogs going to that weekend. So he had put Underbird and he put the little Minnie Mouse. It was a little sew on patch and we glued it to the, you know, the mighty.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And we glued to the front of the car. Yeah. So yeah, I, I, it's, it was the most stressful but the most meaningful, powerful in my career. Racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Was that day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, the sport dealt with some heavy loss over the next couple of years and we would lose Davey and Allen in a very short period of time to two rising stars that we felt like were going to be contenders and big boys, big players and, and represent our sport for, for many years. Allen's story was really incredible as you've described how he was self made. You know, Paul Andrews has been on my show and I was really lucky to work to. Paul went and helped me run a race with my late model car. So I actually was actually got to kind of experience just a touch of what it's like to be standing there looking out the windshield and he's working on the left front or whatever. You know, it's kind of cool because of his history, but we talked about the, the, the shock of learning the, the truth about Allen and that, that he was lost that day. It kind of really took everybody, you know, it took the error out of the, out of the whole sport.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When that happened, you know, I don't, I just wonder, you know, how we could articulate at this table right now like how difficult that is to, how difficult that is to realize that you're, you know, you're kind of faced with the fact that you don't get to choose everything. Yeah, this is, this is something that's happening and you don't get to choose.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Yeah. We, we didn't have a say, so. No, you know, it. And we lost our owner, our driver, our friend, our job. Like we're, we lost, lost everything. Like he was our everything, you know, and our group was a family like we were, we Were. You know, a lot of people don't realize that Allen didn't have a lot of really close friends. Right. So we were his family. So, I mean, we. We joke sometimes. He's making us work late just because he don't want to. He wants somebody to spend time with. Right. Which was fine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

But we lost a great friend and a family member. And we're all standing looking at each other like, what just happened? Like, what are we gonna do?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

What. What are. We were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You and you were in Bristol.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So we were driving up already. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, we were driving up in the van. So. Yeah. I don't. I don't. It's. It's the closest thing to losing a family member.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

That. That. That you could. But not be in a real blood.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So I remember, you know, going to the airport that night and trying to figure out and understand not only is this really true, like, right. Is this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There was this sort of. There was this, like. There was this weird. I remember they were being like a. There's no way. That's really.

[Tony Gibson]

Exactly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For hours right there being this sort of. Everybody had hung on to this weird idea that maybe it just. Maybe it's. Maybe they got it wrong.

[Tony Gibson]

Well, I mean, it's like, maybe it's not. This has got to be April Fools.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Not his plan.

[Tony Gibson]

It's April 1st. It's got to be April Fools. It's something. It's a sick April Fool's joke. But this is no way this. This could happen. Yeah, but, you know, y'all went to the airport, so going to that airport. And is it. That's. That's when it hit home, dude. I mean, this is real. This is. This is. It happened.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So they decided not to race that weekend. And of course, we remember the images of the truck leaving the racetrack. That was like, there's photos of that that still I see on social media from time to time. And that was. That was.

[Tony Gibson]

It was. It was gut wrenching.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Gosh, just tough.

[Tony Gibson]

I remember Steve, Mill, me and Peter were in the truck getting ready to leave. And I remember Steve Mille jumped across the wall, ran up on the racetrack and jumped up on the door, and he said, if you guys want to race, we will make sure you race. Like, if you want to put somebody in the car, do you want to do this? Everybody, we will help you make this happen. If this is what you want to do. If you think Alan wants this car to run, we'll make it happen.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And we're like, no, like, we're no. Like, I couldn't imagine.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Tony Gibson]

Going through that or doing that. Right. I just.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, that probably wasn't an option.

[Tony Gibson]

No. But everybody there wanted it. Some people didn't know what to say. Some people didn't know. So they wanted to offer anything they could to make sure we were taken care of because they realize that we lost everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So I think that I guess Steve, in that moment, or anyone, didn't want you to go home to be alone.

[Tony Gibson]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think because your family's at that racetrack.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes. And see, we flew a lot with Alan. Like, we'd fly a lot and go to his appearances and we'd eat while he's doing his deal and we'd fly. Go on. So my wife, Beth, she didn't know I wasn't with him. Yeah. And I never called her and told her any different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You didn't think about it?

[Tony Gibson]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

See, Alan was sick. I remember him. We were scaling the car. We had grain scales. Remember the old grain scales? We were scaling the car and we're running late, and Allen comes out, he's got his little bowl of soup, you know, and he's watching us and. And we're just running late, and he's like, I gotta go. I got this appearance. We're like, all right. Paul's like, you go ahead, we'll dry the vans up. It's not that big a deal, you know, we're gone. So I never told my wife, and my daughter was only two weeks old, so she's home with a two week old. Well, she doesn't know any different. She think I flow with him. And so my brother Pepe, he lives in Tennessee, he saw it on the news. Well, he calls my wife because he knew I flew a lot with Allen. And he called and asked Beth, hey, did Tony fly with Alan this weekend or they drive. She goes, no, he flew. So he's like, to him, oh, God, he was on it. And so he tells my wife, he's like, okay, well, I'll just catch up with him later. He doesn't know what to say.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Tony Gibson]

So. But then I ended up calling Beth and telling her, thank God nobody got to her before. Or Pepe didn't say something to her about it, or, you know, here she is with a 2 year old. Think that I'm. I'm on the plane as well.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So, you know, there's a lot of. Lot of things to be thankful for out of that, but unfortunately, you know, I'll tell you what, I will say one thing, Felix Damadis kind of made sure he came in, made sure we all got paid, made sure the team kept going, helped picking a driver. Yeah, Felix did a great job. We never missed a paycheck. He made sure all the business side of things stayed stable, kept it going until Jeff Bodine could come. And we all know that, that story there. So it ended up, you know, working out okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But how long did you stay there?

[Tony Gibson]

I stayed till the end of 93.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Wow. A whole other year.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, it was tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

We had had. Bodine was driving a car, Jimmy Hensley drove some like Martin's, and it wasn't really the same to me. And we'd had a couple blown motors, couple wrecks, and just things were just not going great. And I hadn't gotten over it yet. And a lot of us hadn't gotten over it yet. So I got the opportunity to go to work for Bill Elliot and crew chief his car. So ended up. All right. Here's another opportunity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Bill's got his own team down in Dawsonville.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, that's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you moved down there?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, I did move.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Your family?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How long did you work at Bill's?

[Tony Gibson]

So I was there through 97, like four years.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I had no clue. Yeah, I had no clue. You ever worked down there?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, oh, yeah, I've been down there. Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I went down to talk to Chase and saw the shop and the airstrip down and back. I'm sure it looked completely different in the 90s, but when I look at that building and all of that stuff, it's amazing to me that they. That was it.

[Tony Gibson]

That was it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's how they did it.

[Tony Gibson]

Great people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Bill and Ernie. Ernie was the stern side, Bill was the softer side. But great, great people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Family oriented racers, man. You're back to that grassroots racing family, which was really, really cool. It was hard to get help down there just because you're. You're out of the loop type of thing. Sure. And that was one of the reasons that Bill moved back, moved his organization back to North Carolina. And I was like, man, I'm not going to move back. I'm, you know, I'm not. I just. I moved my family down here. My wife's family's from Georgia, so Mark had moved up. So I'm like, I'm just, I'm just going to stay down here.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're just going to stay?

[Tony Gibson]

I'm just going to stay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you ain't going to race?

[Tony Gibson]

Well, Mark was still racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You going to go help Mark?

[Tony Gibson]

So I'm like, I'm going to go back home. So I did that for a little bit, for about six months. And then.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn. I bet. I enjoyed that.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, we had a fun. We did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really qualified.

[Tony Gibson]

And then we. And then we ended up. Because we ended up. Our first race. We ended up winning at the new Texas Speedway in the Janney Keen car. Yes. And which was really cool. Right. I got back with Mark. We go out, we win. It's like this is, you know, full circle back to family. Well, then I get a phone call. Ray Abraham come to work up here at Hendrick Motorsports. Well, okay. It's great opportunity. Here I go again. Like, you know. But my wife. So they. I move up. I ended up. You remember Ed Guzzo?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think so.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. I ended up moving in with him. Left my family down there. Let's just see if this works out. This is what.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Give it a little time.

[Tony Gibson]

Give it a little time. So it all worked out. And they ended up moving back up. So. And I worked on the 24 car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Won two championships.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. It was a lot of fun. And Ray left again. Ray left.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. But you. But it comes in there.

[Tony Gibson]

Me and Brian Weitzel stay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Brian was with you over at Allen's.

[Tony Gibson]

So Brian was there at Allen's doing part time work at Allen's. And Great guy. He was an engineer at Peterbilt and he designed all the cabs and stuff. Really cool guy. And he was an engineer that had a lot of racer in him. He was smart. You could tell the difference in him than a regular engineer. So he was a lot of fun to be around and cool. And then Brian ended up. I was his landlord for about four years. He lived in my house that I moved out of. And then Brian ended up working at Hendrick Motorsports. So now I'm back with Ray, Brian and all the guys that. I mean, one of the guys I gave a part time job to, now I'm back working with him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know.

[Tony Gibson]

And then Ray leaves him and Ed leave and Rick comes in and says, you two are in. You're doing it. So I was already car chiefing anyway. And then Brian was the head engineer. So Brian ended up crew chiefing. I think we ended up winning like two or three races in a row.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Which was really cool. But Brian Weitzel. So now Brian, he's like in third or fourth command over at Hendricks. Great guy. So I, I go to the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. So I want to ask you about that. You went to DEI during the 2002 season?

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

2Nd Talladega why did you leave Hendrick? Hendrick, I've. We both have worked there. You work there now. It's not a place you leave.

[Tony Gibson]

You don't. But I was car chiefing for Jeff Gordon, which was awesome, but I, I kicked. I don't know. Your path takes you different. You make choices. I'm not saying it was good, bad or whatever, but had the opportunity to come crew chief for Steve Park. So I'm like, here's my shot to get back in that role.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Because I want to be that guy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I want to be that guy.

[Tony Gibson]

So here's my chance to go from car chief and Jeff Gordon to. Because I didn't see that happening there. And it may have. I just didn't give myself time. I don't know. So I ended up. Here's my opportunity again. I'm gone. So I go over to DEI and. Dude, that was fun.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like your crew chief, Steve.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep, Steve. Yeah. And, you know, he, he had some, you know, health issues and stuff, but we had a lot of fun. We ran really good. And then it got to where Steve couldn't drive anymore. Remember when John Andretti come over and drove that? Remember that Burgundy?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes, I do. In Daytona.

[Tony Gibson]

Number one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So. And then it's kind of like, okay, what do we do with Gibson now? Like that we don't know what this team's going to do. Where's it going to go? There's other things. So that's when I got hooked up with Pops, Tony Jr. And then, you know, the whole story about, you know, bouncing back and forth from, from the 8 to the 15. And at that point I just wanted to do whatever I could do to, to, to make a difference, you know. In race.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You fit in really good with Tony Senior and Tony Jr.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes. Because they're old school racers, like how I grew up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And really smart.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Tony Gibson]

So you learned a lot of life lessons with those two, but you learned how to race like fun race. And I enjoyed the hell out of that. And I learned a ton from Tony Jr. And Pops.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Some what not to do, but more of what to do.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So it helped me better be a better crew chief and a better racer from being around those two guys. And still today, Tony Jr. Helps me all the time. Our kids run, you know, the wing carts and so we get a chance to, to hang out together and, and do a lot of fun stuff. And I still learn from them.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My fate, my, my. The funniest memory that I have of us all being together. We were messing we were all messing with RCR RC cars back then. And these things were crazy fast. And we had these quarter scales that a couple of us were messing with. Well, he's over at my house. And you're. You would stand down in the middle of the track and spin in circles.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Watching your car go around the track. And like myself, I would stand on the outside edge and drive it. And you had to be in the middle watching to turn in circles. And somehow or another, Tony senior was trying to straighten somebody's car out. It got wrecked or something. Or somebody was upside down. And he goes down there into the infield to put this car over. And a car, one of the quarter scales comes in there wide ass open and hit him right in the. Right in the ankles. And that. Man, I've never seen somebody go from standing straight up and down to laying his nose.

[Tony Gibson]

I'm telling you, that was quick.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He was standing straight up and down. And the next thing that touched the ground was the tip of that man's nose. I know it.

[Tony Gibson]

I thought he was dead.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He was not happy.

[Tony Gibson]

He was not happy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you laughed your ass off. I did, too. But damn, I remember you laughing.

[Tony Gibson]

That was so funny. But it was scary.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It was kind of scary because that's.

[Tony Gibson]

And the scary part about it, if he gets up and he's able, he's gonna kick our ass.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, God. So I know we were scared he was hurt, but also equally scared we might get an ass.

[Tony Gibson]

That's exactly right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But somebody run that damn car to his legs. I don't know.

[Tony Gibson]

I don't remember if it was me or it wasn't me. Somebody that was watching.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, it's only you, me, him, and Tony junior standing there.

[Tony Gibson]

That's what I'm getting at. Tony Junior.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I think it was Tony.

[Tony Gibson]

But we had fun. And, you know, of course, that was all your stuff. And you were gracious enough to let us come and have fun and do that. And you had the little dirt go kart track. Remember? We came and. Came and run that. That was a lot of fun. But the RC cars were a ton of fun. And we did some of that with Jeff Gordon a little bit, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We used to go over to Greenville Pickens and test. And then there was a track right next to the. There was a track in the RC shot right next to the track. And then we'd go over there and spend all night. Instead of going to dinner and to the hotel, we sat at the damn RC track all night. We got into all kinds of stuff as a group. I, you know, I really enjoyed working with you. And we actually got the chance to go to the racetrack together. Use as my crew chief a couple times. Tony Jr. Got suspended. And right when the cot comes around, I remember having to drive that car right around that time. But he gets suspended and he's thinking, well, I'll go take a vacation. Like, they gonna give me a vacation. I'll go take a real one. But then somehow or another in the conversation leading up to the next race, y'all learn that he's not suspended from the property. He can be on the property. Now there's. It's kind of common. It's kind of a common story. We go to Wilkes or go to New Hampshire and we run good.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

There's a picture of me coming off turn two and on the outside of the racetrack, there's a camper on a heel. This thing's got about. I'd say about four feet of freaking four by fours and stacked under one end of it just to keep it level.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Which is dangerous. And then Tony Junior's on top of.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Talking to you.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And calling the, you know, helping. Calling the race now, did he. And so I'll say this like Tony Jr. Wasn't. It was not something that he particularly worked hard to hide from nascar.

[Tony Gibson]

No, he didn't.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He's kind of like, all right, I'm suspended and. But I can.

[Tony Gibson]

I'm still going to do my job.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And here I am.

[Tony Gibson]

He was the reason they stopped that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That immediately.

[Tony Gibson]

You can't be. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You can't be on the property.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. That ended that quickly.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

But, yeah, I mean, there's been several rules made by.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We had. We got busted because we went to Darlington and we had. That cot had just come out and Tony Jr had figured out something.

[Tony Gibson]

We made wing mounts in the wing mounts. Right. Because we found out that the distance between the wing and the deck lid was where the downforce came from. Right. So we ended up making a set of wing mounts. And the only way to really tell was if you measured between the deck lid and the. The wing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How much were y'all? How much difference do you think you'd gained?

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, we gained. It was. Well, it was 60 thou offset, so it was over an eighth. 8, 3, 16 at the deck lid. It's a lot. It's kind of like picture like this. It's kind of like the underwing or the diffuser on these cars. The closer you got that together, man, that air would Tighten up. And air would come. So Tony Jr. Figured out how to do all that and what we're going to do. So I'll never forget that. So we're pushing through tech and we had already made it out of this tech line, pushing it up the hill. And here comes officials. Hold on. Stop. Come back down. So we're like, what's up? Let's come back down. So we back it over there. Darby's like, back it over there against the building. So we backed it over there. And we're standing there, standing there, standing there. Here comes big Bradley. Bradley comes over there and he's talking to Darby. And they're like, take those wing mounts off. Take the wings off. And I looked at Two Beer and I said, two beer, they got us. He's like, oh, God. I said, well, I said, it is what it is. I said, let's just play cool, get it off the ordeal and maybe they won't find it. They're gonna have to have a template to find this. So Bradley had stuck his little. We had to remember he had the little gauge 16. So he had stuck his gauge in it. When we went through for Tech, I'm thinking, well, that's kind of odd. Why would they do that? Who would know that? Nobody would know to check that. So somebody we feel like kind of ratted out. But it is at this point, we're like, okay, we're busted. So I say, man, tell Tony Jr, tell Stiffy we're busted. Like, we're, we're. We're done. So we back over there, take the wing mounts off and all that, and they check it and they got this. They got a brand new set right beside it and they got pins that drop in. So they drop them in. They wouldn't go in there, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So me and Two Bear are standing there and so we're trying to find wing mounts put back on it. We're standing over there and there's a table over there. One of them little fold up tables sitting over there. And they got them wing mounts laying. They just took off our cars laying on that table. And me and Two Bear are standing there. Two Bear looks at me and goes, oh, man, I'm gonna grab those wing mounts right there and I'm gonna take off running. He said, he says, he says, if they can't find them, they can't throw us out. I said, two Beer, they already know. He said, but if they don't have proof, how are they gonna know? He's like, I'm getting ready to grab them, and I'm gonna take off running. I'll be out of this place in no time. And, you know, two beer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah. He was serious as a heart attack.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah. Said two bear. Please don't do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He was crazy.

[Tony Gibson]

Said two bear. They'll have dogs and helicopters after you hear about 15 seconds.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Dude.

[Tony Gibson]

I said, it's over. It's done. So, yeah, they busted us. We put wing mounts on it and continued on. But Tony Jr. And that's the fun stuff that I learned from those guys was they were always thinking about, what's the next way I can stretch it? Where's that gray area I can get in or I can talk my way out of? And, you know, Tony Jr. Was always like, you always gotta have a way to talk your way out of something. Whatever you get into, make sure you have a way to kind of talk your way out. At least a story. That sounds pretty good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember when they started making everybody run these. The. If you had a roof camera or not, you had to run that little pill on top.

[Tony Gibson]

The Big Mac thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. It's a big old dome. And Tony Jr. Would. We always had them bud decals. And Tony Jr. Would get the thickest bud decals he could get and then stack them.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I mean, it was literally like maybe an eighth of an inch or 3, 16 of an inch. That it was just. Just a little bit disruptive. The wind.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Disrupting the wind in front of that cone on the roof.

[Tony Gibson]

And he would. And, you know, Stiffy worked really good at, you know, working the metal around that deal. So, you know, that thing was pretty heavy. So working the metal, making as thin as we can make it. So when the wind hit it, that thing would fall down. Yeah. I mean, there's all kinds of. Of stuff. You know, you could think. But people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

People think. When we were winning all those races at the strict plate races, I mean, we. Listen, Richard Gilmore.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Has a. Yeah. He has a knack.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

He has a. He has the ability to build a better.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Restrict plate engine than anyone else.

[Tony Gibson]

Hands down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hands down. And he still does today.

[Tony Gibson]

You see it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so. But there were so many tiny details that all together added up.

[Tony Gibson]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I remember y'all going to the wind tunnel and just finding little bitty things. Little bitty tenth here. A little. Little this, little that, little this, little that.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Like, we, you know, we'd go there with a shrinker and stretcher and, you know, and the little paddle hammers and Wooden hammers and sandbags and, and Tony Jr. Would work on all that stuff. Just changing the shapes of fenders and changing this and narrowing up the nose or just little things that you couldn't see by eye. But man, it made a huge difference on stopwatch and those guys were good at that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You know, years down the road, I met Hendrick with Latart and by that point, the approach to restrictor plate racing wasn't really putting all of that type of effort in. The details were really the effort and the energy to put the details in was more toward all the short track mile and a half. Yeah, right. All. You know, they just basically said, hey look, it's the draft is a normalizer. We're just going to build a good car with a good engine and do the best you can. And I go down the racetrack and I was like, look, I'm a good restrict plate racer, but like the details matter. They make it easier and make. And I can do things these other guys can't when my car has all of those.

[Tony Gibson]

That's right. So that raw speed you can't make up for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And he built, he started doing the details and they started working really hard and giving us, giving me some really great cars. We end up going down there and winning another Daytona 500. Hey, TJ, you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrick Automotive Group.

[Tony Gibson]

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.

[Tony Gibson]

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

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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

[Tony Gibson]

Okay, I definitely did not see that coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, pretty neat, huh? So for any of our listeners shopping for commercial vehicles, here's some things you need to know about us at Dalenhardt Jr. Chevrolet. We have hundreds of trucks in stock so you can find what you need fast. And we have people there that can help you with custom orders. So if you want to build the exact vehicle you need, we can do it. We offer complimentary delivery anywhere in the continental U.S. plus, Hendrick Automotive Group is the nation's top rated dealer group for online reputation. Visit dalejrchevy.com and click Commercial. To explore the wide range of available commercial vehicles, our team at Dillon Hart Jr. Chevrolet will give you a world class experience. Chevrolet Together. Let's drive. Help me understand the transition from DEI to shr. You know, you are. Tony Junior's gone, I'm gone. You're now the crew chief of this car. Mark Martin's driving it. Eric Almirola is driving it. It's fast. Y'all are running great. But, you know, there is the kind of writing on the wall, I suppose, of how difficult the future is going to be.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For dei. How do you end up basically, for the. For. For the most part, taking that entire team with you to shr2 beer and all those guys?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, we took everybody. Yeah. We were a family, right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Because De Iget was our family. You were our family. And it was difficult to stay when you guys left. You know, we're happy for you because, you know, you're bettering yourself. You're going to be better. But we weren't sure how we were going to be. But a few of us did know what. We knew what was coming. You know, we had seen it leading up and we had talk to you, obviously, quite a bit after you'd already left. But, yeah, we just got together as a group. Jay and Two Beer and everybody. And we're like, look, we kind of built this thing. We trust each other. We got each other's back. Let's. Let's take this to the next place. Let's just stick together. Go try to make this work. And I told them, guys, I'll take care of y'all. Yeah, like, if I get a job, I'm taking you with me. I'll take care of you, I promise.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you got offered an opportunity.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes. And Mark Martin was the biggest supporter of us as a group because army was a sponsorship. And he was the guy that went to them and said, hey, you need to take this group of guys and go race. And there's an opportunity with Tony Stewart and they're starting up this new team. You need to take this whole team and just transplant them over here and go race. So Mark Martin's the one that basically put the army and trust in us, went to bat for us to make sure we had jobs but stayed together as a group, had a sponsor. So it wasn't probably a couple weeks after that when Tony Stewart grabbed me at Talladega and wanted me to come meet with him in his bus. And so I do. I go over and I meet with him. I'm a little nervous. I don't know, you know, what's going to happen. And he asked. He said, hey, Ryan Newman's going to Drive the car. We're going to start this. We're going to merge with this Hoss team. Would you come crew chief it. And I said, yeah, but as long as my guys come and they're like, okay, well, you know, Stuart was like, you know, he was kind of walking on thin ice, too. He didn't know. He didn't want to overstep his. There's a lot of people already working there. Right. So you're going to bring a whole group in here. How does that going to look and how's that going to go over? And I said, well, I'm not coming without my guys, so if you can make it work with bringing my whole team, we'll come. So we went over there one night, all of us, all of them. I said, we're all going to go do this. We went over there to met in the lobby at Stewart Hoss Racing and. And met with Eddie. Eddie was there. Eddie Jarvis, Tony, Joe Custer and somebody else may have been. Carl Klein was there and we had this discussion on how it's going to go. This is what we're going to be. I'm bringing my own guys. I'm not leaving one of them out. Either they all come or not.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And Stuart pushed to get it done and made it happen. And we finished Homestead on Sunday. We started Monday morning with all my guys. They actually handed us our packet with all our insurance and all of our stuff in it at the racetrack at Homestead so we could all start Monday morning.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No kidding.

[Tony Gibson]

And, yeah, so it was another emotional roller coaster.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember it reminded me a lot of back in the day. I forget how this happened, but either between Hendrick and Yates, remember the 20, the 88 team, or the 24. Somebody bought somebody's like entire team.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I forget which way it went. Me and Ray were talking about that on the show, but you never really saw that before. But they knew. And Mark was right. Like Yalls program was still overachieving.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

At dei.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

With everything that was going on at DEI and how they were kind of struggling, y'all were getting everything and more.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Out of those cars. And in a large part, you know, not only do your leadership and the teams, you know, the team's cohesiveness and their bond, but Mark Martin too.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Mark was incredible.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, he's. He's. I tell you, when you talk about drivers who drive but have worked on race cars and understand the fundamentals of racing and how rubber meets the road and what it takes to make that happen and what he Wants to feel there's. There's none like him. He actually makes it easy because you can lay out three different options. If I'm tight, loose, or less, you know, break the corner down. Here are your options. Here's what I got for your shocks. Mark was always. He would sit there for a second and think he'd say, let's go up on the bar and put 100 pound right rear spring in it. And you're like, dude, are you sure? Like, yep, that's what I need. You do it instant, instant speed. But he knew from the seat of his pants what he needed, so it helped and it educated us as well. When we moved on, you know, I was like, I learned so much from that, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Like, I'm not a driver. Right. But I learned how to connect the dots and what it. What he was feeling and what we had to give him to be successful. So it helped me. So it was another learning page for me in my book.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

With being around a guy like that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

At Stewart Hoss Racing, you. You mentioned working with Ryan Newman. You actually helped Danica when she transitioned into nascar. And I thought that having worked with Danica here at Junior Motorsports and having me remembering, I guess, the enormity of her transition, how big that was, how many eyeballs were on her and how many people were paying attention, I really felt like that you were the perfect guy for that situation. Your ability to stay, to. To be able to be calm, to be able to work with her and keep her expectations managed to help her kind of understand what she's experiencing. Because there's a lot of things happened to her in that cup car that she'd never experienced before. And I felt like you gave her the best opportunity that she would have coming into a situation like that. I wanted to say that that might have been coincidental that y'all's lives sort of crossed paths at that moment, but I can't think of another person better suited to sort of help her transition into the end of the cup level. You ended up working with Kurt Busch in 2015. You had an emergency appendectomy.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Which we all. I think a lot of people that know you were very concerned about, you know, anytime any of us have any kind of a medical issue, we've all, you know, we might not be in contact with each other or keep up with each other in terms of, you know, day to day texting and so forth, but once we all have worked together, it's like, you know, your family. Your family.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I think Everybody was a bit worried about how serious that deal was gonna get for you. How tough was.

[Tony Gibson]

Was tough. It was really tough, but it was tougher. Not thinking I was gonna be at the racetrack, that was the tough part. The pain of the surgery and all that stuff is one thing, but I didn't want to be away from that racetrack.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So, you know, I ended up flying out Friday. So I had my surgery, I think, on Wednesday.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Tony Gibson]

And I flew out on Friday morning. Kirk flew me up there Friday morning so I could be there in time for practice. My wife was totally against it. Doctor was not happy with it as well. But I'm going to be at that racetrack. I'm like, I'm not going to do nothing. Just. I just want to be there. I can sit on the pit box. I can do my job without straining or doing anything. Well, so they film. They do happy hour and practice. You know, there's cameras everywhere.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Well, I thought I was going to sneak up on this ladder and get up on top of this truck so I could see the car better and do it. So I did. I climbed up the ladder. It was struggle, but I get up on ladder, get up on top of the truck. Well, my wife sees me up, they pan over, and I'm standing on top of this truck. She's like, how in the hell did he get on top of that truck? So I lied a little bit. Told me they dropped the lift gate for me and got me up there. I only had to go up three steps, you know, which she knew better. But I was able to stick it out and call the race that day and stayed the whole weekend.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

You know, it. You. You know, look at all these people in racing that are real racers. They get hurt and they go, they gonna find a way to make it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

To the racetrack. And I don't. If I. If I miss a race, it's something big. I mean, when. So when my daughter was born. A quick story. We were racing at Darlington, and so my wife was having a baby on Saturday, so. And she was having a C section. So I told Allen, I said, well, put it off till I get done with happy hour. So I get done with happy hour, and Kwiki gives me his Mark 8. You know, that was the first one that he could lower this car down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

So happy hour's over with. I jump into Mark 8. I run, I go straight to the hospital, do the C section, all that stuff and everything. I get back in the car and go right back to the racetrack. She was pissed I bet. I mean, mad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I don't know how. How hard it must have been, though, to have to. To, like, know when it was, like, when you were, all right, I'm leaving because, like, I've been in that situation and, and like, leaving that hospital knowing what you're leaving.

[Tony Gibson]

It's tough. It was tough, yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But it, but it's racing.

[Tony Gibson]

Oh, she. She brings it up every once in a while, too, so.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I bet.

[Tony Gibson]

But that's racing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's racing.

[Tony Gibson]

I mean, I'm. I just. That's the way I was always brought up. You. You raced, you were the racer and you did whatever it takes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I assume winning the 2017 Daytona 500, your proudest moment.

[Tony Gibson]

It is. Other than my daughter, my grandkids.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

In motorsports. In motorsports, yes. You know, I'd been fortunate enough to be a part of 500 wins with you guys at DEI and Jeff Gordon, but as a crew chief, when I was a kid in my dad's garage, growing up, knowing what I wanted to do my whole entire life, to be in that position, to just win a race, but to win that race, that's. That's it. That's. That's, you know, that's what you dream about. All the struggles you go through to get that done with my mom, my dad, all my friends at your home.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Track right there in your backyard. Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And you know as well as anybody, to win that race is extremely hard. Everything has to go perfect to make that happen. And I'd been trying for years to make that happen at that racetrack and to overcome the race. You know, we got in a couple little skirmishes and had to beat the side out and do several things to go through that emotional race and have it end in victory. Finally, after 30 plus years of racing, I finally got it done. Yeah, that's. You know, I. I looked at Rodney Childers and I said, I did it like, I did it, man. I made it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And to think about, you know, my dad and. Man, it's tough.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Still emotional.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Because it means a lot. Yeah. I mean, it just means a lot.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It wasn't long after that you would decide to make a change and come off the road. This role that you felt destined to be the crew chief of the car, the winning car, winning the Daytona 500, all of those things had finally happened. Did that make that choice more doable?

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, it helps, but I didn't want to really stop, but my grandkids on his way. My grandson's coming, right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And like like all of us. My daughter Laney, growing up, I miss so much of, you know, what she did as a child growing up. Basketball games, softball games. Just things that I missed because of racing. I didn't want that to happen with my grandkids. So I made a decision and I was blessed with Tony Stewart to let me do that and give me a role to where I could come off the road. I could still travel eight to 10 races a year, which I did. Still be involved, but be production manager so I can still have my hands in it, still fulfill that need to race and be a part of something. So, yeah, it all came together and it made it a little easier to quit and come off the road. It was still a struggle not packing bags to leave. And that's different.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you think you ever get over that?

[Tony Gibson]

I don't. I still miss the competitive side of things. People ask me all the time, do you miss it? I don't miss the traveling. I don't miss all that. I miss the people and the. And then the competitiveness, like wanting to win everything. You want to win practice, you want to win qualifying, you want to win the race. It's just that side of things, you know, I still find myself now, you know, scanners everywhere and listening and like, man, don't do that or, you know, how would you do it differently? And you still have that drive. And I'll probably always have that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. When SHR effectively shuts down the majority of its. Of its operation, you got an opportunity to go back to Hendrick.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And. But you're working outside of motorsports.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I have to imagine that. That you have to be probably as at peace or as comfortable as you've ever been in your professional life. Having. Having the ability to turn around and look back and see all of the success and all the boxes that you thought you wanted to check. They're checked.

[Tony Gibson]

Yep, that's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And now you kind of get to still be a part of a team, still be a part of something important, still still be an asset.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To something.

[Tony Gibson]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And talk about how today your life is fulfilled.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. So it's, you know, it's. Hendrick Technical Solutions is the military side. We're roughly 30 yards from the two race shops, so that's cool. We're all in the same complex. So I'm shop forming over there. And it's a lot going on. It's fast paced. We have a lot of, you know, when you're dealing with General Motors and the government, you have deadlines and you can't miss them. They have to be hit and things have to be done. So I still get that feeling of, you know, happy hour or loading for Daytona. That urgency is still there, the race is still there. And a lot of the things that we do build the chassis and all that for these vehicles. It looks like a cup shop in there, right? See these roll cages and it's like, man, it looks just like a cup shop. It does fulfill that fast pace that I like and the hands on that I like. When they hired me over there, Weitzel, actually someone at Brian Weitzel is the one that actually hired me to come over there and do this. And I, they, you know, they, they were like, well, we'll put your office in here. I said, I don't know, an office. I'm not an office guy. Like, give me a computer. Just put, I'll get out here on the floor somewhere. I don't care about having an office. I want to be with the people. I want to be with the guys I want to and the girls I want to, I want to be there for them. And they hound me every day over there about in our office and I'm not like, I don't, I'm. Unless you guys want me to, that's fine. But I want to be with the people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

And I do. Every day I'm out there touching, working on stuff and being a part of the, the group and the hustle and the bustle and that's, that's what drives me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. You still get to take and you still get to go to the racetrack taking your grandkids.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, yeah. So that's a lot of fun. We go to several different racetracks and it's a lot. My 7 year old Luke, he's running the wing cart Cadet wings. And then my granddaughter Libby, she's all girl. So it's all about girls, stuff like that, which is awesome. Which makes my wife happy. And Oliver, the youngest, he's four, he's running a little chant buggy car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Okay.

[Tony Gibson]

So got two of them racing. I got my hands full and it's all I can do to hold down a job and get that stuff prepared to go. We run every two weeks somewhere. Sometimes we run, you know, every week, which gets to be chaotic, but I love it. It's fun, it's racing. I still get to do the cool stuff and work on how to make it lighter. And I've been Tony Jr. And Pops. It's really cool because over the last year I've been Able to hang out with them a lot at more, you know, and we, we park side by side and, And Pops is still Pops.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Still on the gas, wide open. I mean, I've, you know, I don't. It's just been, it's been wonderful to be able to come all the way back around and now me as a little boy dreaming of my dreams and now my grandkids are, you know, possibly watching them dreams. Watching them dreams. You know, it's just so cool.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's been awesome to talk to you because, you know, we, we have, you know, we have the opportunity to talk to so many different types of people in our industry, outside of the industry that have different roles and different jobs. And your, the thing that I seem to pick up on your deal is that you were, you were, you had a, you had an ability, a quality and expertise that was always in demand. And I'm surprised, I'm, I'm surprised by the longevity getting into, you know, finally getting, you worked on race cars well before that, but getting into our industry and NASCAR in the 80s, all the way to Daytona 500 winning crew chief in, you know, in the last 10, 15 years, it's really impressive, to be honest with you, that you, that you, you had the longevity that you did. You worked with a lot of people that were very successful. You were part of a lot of successful programs.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. That's the key is being with the right people. Nobody is successful alone.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

Right. You know, it takes a, it takes a team, it takes a family and a group of people. And I've just been blessed to be able to hit it right. You know, I just, I look at stones that go across the lake, right. Make sure you step on the right one. I was fortunate enough to keep my feet wet, dry and stepped on the right stones to get to where I am now. And a lot of people aren't that fortunate.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. I will say though, that being a good person matters too. And one of the things that I think helped you was your mild mannered personality, your emphasis on always doing the right thing, treating people the right way, no matter whether they worked above you, below you, beside you.

[Tony Gibson]

That's right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You were never bigger than the whole team. And one of my favorite things was, I believe in around the time you became a crew chief, particularly more so maybe in the years with Kurt, the rest of the world got to see that we all got to, you know, we all got to really know you better and see you operate. And you didn't get to choose, you didn't get to choose. You were in the limelight as a crew chief and especially as a winning crew chief. And it was fun because I saw fans sort of become fans begin to pull for you, and the reason why they pulled for you might have been somewhat to do with the driver that you might have been a crew chief of, but a big reason why they pulled for you was because of the person you were and the character that you had. Yeah, I always really appreciated that you had an understanding. I think that grounded you from back in your days working with your family and that race team and knowing exactly what it took to get to the racetrack. And as hard as y'all had to work to get there and be successful, you carried all of that with you all the way till today. And it's really inspiring and it's a great story. Appreciate you coming today to spend some time with me. I miss you. Yeah, it's good to see you.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, you, too.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Tony Gibson]

I appreciate it. And I, you know, my dad passed away in 2019, and I'll never forget, you know, you and Jimmy Johnson reached out to me, you know, and with condolences on my dad. And that just told me there's, there's friendships. These guys have so much other stuff they can do and they're busy. You guys are busy all the time. But to take the time, that was. That meant a lot to me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, you did a lot for me. You put me in some really great race cars and always enjoyed. Yeah, we did have fun. Always enjoyed being around you, Tony. And I'm thankful for the impact you've had on my life and many other people's, too. And I appreciate it again for you giving me some time today. I know that they're probably wondering when you're going to come back over there and get back to work.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah, I told them I'd be back. They said, oh, it's Dale Jr. Go ahead.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, well, I'm thankful.

[Tony Gibson]

Yeah. Appreciate. Thank you for having me and to tell my story and a lot of cool stuff and we could go on and on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Tony Gibson]

But we'll always be family.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's right. Tony Gibson on the Dale Jr. Download.

[Tony Gibson]

All right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A great conversation with Tony Gibson. They call him the Old Man. That's his nickname. You know, I think the stories like his, they're fun because it's really the, you know, I've said it before on this show, but it, we get these guys that come in here every once in a while and they tell the story of how you get in this Business. So many people want to know. I mean, there's so many people out there. There's all these kids over at the NASCAR technical institute right now taking classes. Their dream is to be working on a car on Saturday, Sunday, or a truck somewhere. They're dying to figure out, like, how they'll show up out front here. Junior Motorsports. Who do I need to talk to? What's the. What's the secret. What door? Where's the key to unlock the special secret door to get me into this industry and get me employment? And so I love Tony's story because that's it. There's a lot of things that his story can. Can, can do to help somebody understand, you know, the. The sacrifice and the commitment and dedication that it's going to need, you're going to need, or what it's going to take, because it's not. That part's not changed. Like, the rules, the. The technology, the tracks, the cars, everything in this sport evolves and change. But what doesn't change is the emotions and the effort and the dedication, sacrifice, and all the hard work that goes into putting it together. And, you know, I'm not trying to preach about, you know, what someone has to sacrifice and dedicate to be involved or find their opportunity. And it takes, just like in Tony's story, it takes luck, fortune, meeting the right person, dedicating yourself to some sort of cause and some team that, you know you have to hope is gonna work out, but, you know, he's a. Tony's is a great story. Come out of Daytona, Grew up right there at the racetrack, inspired by all of the racing going around in that area and racing with his family and man the teams that he got to work with, the people that he got to work with and work alongside and connect with and to be able to see it through, to finally win at the cup level and win the biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500, with Kurt Busch. Pretty special. He's a great dude. I was lucky enough to have spent several years working with him. And loyal, dedicated and dependable. You know, never once ever did I feel like I had to question his ability and judgment. And I knew that as long as he was there, it was getting done. It was getting done right. And again, his character and ability to manage people, treat people the right way, whether he was working as a car chief or at the top of the food chain, you know, he was always the same. And he built a great group of folks that stayed loyal and stayed together and worked together all the way through shr from DEI to SHR was literally the same team. It's really cool. Same team that I raced with minus Tony junior and Tony Senior all the way up through the Kurt Busch days. So awesome to be able to talk to him and reconnect. Hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did. Yeah. It's time for the white flag. All right, so it's time for the white flag. Actions detrimental and door bumper clear came out Monday with Denny Hamlin. Denny was giving us more details on how he hit the jackpot, how much money he had to spend to get there. So I guess to learn that information I'll have to go listen to the podcast because Travis wasn't going to spill the beans. But that's really the story I need to know about Denny Hamlin. And I don't, you know, his race, I'm sure was fascinating, but how much money did he have to spend to win that jackpot? Also, another fascinating episode of the Teardown post race. If you haven't listened to that, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianca do such a great job every single week recapping immediately after the race on Sunday. And I really enjoyed this one with the Josh Berry win. But we had our Dirty Air episode come out yesterday with TJ Majors. We had a lot of fun talking about the Rays and catching up on life. And obviously Herman Schrader and Speed Streak come out today along with our episode with Tony Gibson that you're listening to. And then tomorrow, bless your heart with Amy, we're back in the studio and I have me a new chair, so I'm excited about that. But that's the week. I hope you guys enjoy it. Thank you again, Tony Gibson, for dropping in and we'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.