"Your Dad Would Be So Proud" - Hank Parker on DJD Classics

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Dale Jr. Download — “Your Dad Would Be So Proud”

Guest: Hank Parker Sr.
Date: December 11, 2025
Hosts: Dale Earnhardt Jr. & Dirty Mo Media

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Overview

This DJD Classics episode is a rich, candid conversation between Dale Earnhardt Jr., his crew, and legendary fisherman and TV host Hank Parker Sr. With a focus on Parker’s storied career in professional bass fishing and his deep friendship with Dale Earnhardt Sr., the episode delves into adventures on the water, behind-the-scenes of TV, and their unique bond formed through racing, family, and the outdoors. The tone is warm, funny, and occasionally deeply emotional, uncovering personal moments not often shared publicly.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Years & Entering Professional Fishing

[02:07–05:56]

• First Tournament & Lessons

  • Parker entered his first BASS tournament in 1975, realized he was “out of his league,” and set about practicing daily at Lake Wylie while running a marina.
  • Quote: "I watched how he handled the situation. I realized I was not in his league … so I went home, tail between my legs, and started practicing." — Hank Parker Sr. [02:29]

• Financial Risks & Motivation

  • Parker took a huge personal financial risk by borrowing $10,000 to fund his early career.
  • He felt motivated by necessity: “There’s no motivator like poverty.” — Hank Parker Sr. [06:18]

2. Growth of the Sport & TV Crossover

[07:40–17:18]

• Rise of Bass Fishing Fame

  • Noted how in 1979, winning the Bassmaster Classic gave him more notoriety than Dale Sr.’s first NASCAR title.
    • “I had more notoriety than he did. I had him as a guest on the show to promote the fact that he’s a NASCAR champion.” — Hank Parker Sr. [08:01]

• Approach to Competition

  • Parker explained that, unlike other sports, fishing means "beating the lake, not other people."
    • “I never worried about this guy or that guy … it’s whoever had the most fish and somebody’s going to win, it might as well be me.” — Hank Parker Sr. [09:16]

• TV Breakthrough

  • Saw the power of endorsements and publicity and took the enormous personal gamble to buy airtime/equipment and produce his own TV show.
    • “It was about a $400,000 investment to get the equipment to edit and to video.” — Hank Parker Sr. [15:27]
  • Did things differently: bartered airtime, built network presence, and got into endorsement deals.

3. The Celebrity Fishing Show & Endorsements

[17:18–21:03]

• Celebrity Guests

  • Hosted sports legends like Bo Jackson, Tony Dungy, Larry Bird, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and more.
  • Some, like Bo Jackson, just “called out of the blue wanting to fish.”

• Notable Dale Sr. Story

  • On Dale’s terse manner:
    • “You stick that microphone in Dale’s face and he’d say, 'blowed up.' That’s it.” — Hank Parker Sr. [20:54]
  • Family stories: Dale’s daughter Taylor once echoed her dad’s famous “blowed up” remark, showing the Earnhardt apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

4. Friendship & Influence with Dale Earnhardt Sr.

[25:33–38:38]

• Origins of Friendship

  • Met while Dale was racing dirt at Metrolina and Parker brought him into hunting.
  • Earnhardt was a "phenomenal outdoorsman," best deer tracker Parker had ever seen.
  • “He was as good an outdoorsman as there was in the world.” — Hank Parker Sr. [27:44]

• Pivotal Conversation

  • Parker convinced Dale to buy his kids quality cars instead of making them “work from the junkyard,” shifting the Earnhardt family legacy.
    • “That little boy just looks at him lusting after that Pepsi, but he don’t buy him one … that’s what you’re doing with your kids.” — Hank Parker Sr. [26:34]

• Sharing Personal Struggles

  • Dale would open up about his troubles expressing love, especially to his children:

    “I don’t know how to love my kid like you love your kid.” — Dale Earnhardt Sr., per Hank Parker [79:54]

  • Hank would reassure: “Oh, you love them just as much. You just don’t know how to express it.”

5. Retiring at the Top — The Importance of Family

[34:06–38:42]

• Stepping Away for Family

  • Retired at 37, at the top, to be present for his children.
    • "I cared a lot more about being a dad than I did a professional fisherman." — Hank Parker Sr. [35:29]
  • No regrets, but missed the competition deeply.

• Transition to Racing

  • Both Hank Jr. and Billy showed talent in racing—more interested in cars than fish.
  • Parker’s lack of racing expertise made their time together more collaborative and less pressured than his own approach to fishing.

6. The Parker Family’s Racing Journey

[38:50–62:55]

• From Street Stock to Xfinity

  • The front-porch talk with Dale Sr. and Parker sparked opportunities for their kids: street stocks, late models, and eventually, Xfinity Series entries.

• Notable Moments

  • Stories of street stock cars changing hands, races, big wrecks, and even Dale Jr. hunting mishaps and match-lighting mischief are woven in for comic effect.

• Intent to Own a NASCAR Team

  • Parker’s grand plan was to be a NASCAR owner with Neil Bonnett mentoring his sons.
    • The plan changed dramatically after Bonnett’s death. Emotionally, it was devastating and led to a total reassessment.

• Reflections on Hank Jr. & Billy’s Racing Careers

  • Both talented, hands-on, mechanically savvy drivers. Billy’s career was cut short by a traumatic crash; Hank Jr. was sidelined by sponsor politics.

• Closing of the Racing Chapter

  • Both sons stepped away, putting family first.
    • “Dad, I’m not going to do what you did. I’m going to be home for my kids.” — Hank Parker Sr. quoting son Hank Jr. [74:02]

7. Lifelong Lessons, Legacy, and Friendship with “Big E”

[78:34–91:50]

• Earnhardt’s Business Genius

  • Dale Sr.’s silent genius: revolutionizing NASCAR souvenirs, always thinking bigger, even with boats/airplanes ("Sunday Money" yacht discussion).

• Hunting Pranks & Outdoor Antics

  • Numerous hilarious stories: saran wrap on toilets, vehicle pranks at the deer lease, trick fishing with a five-gallon bucket.
  • “Put saran wrap over the toilet… anybody else would have quit. He just sat there and danced.” — Hank Parker Sr. [94:21]

• Dealing With Loss and Faith

  • Parker confides powerful moments: conversations with Dennis Fisher confirming Dale’s faith and their shared belief they’d see him again.
    • “I believe Dale Earnhardt’s in heaven… and we’re gonna have stories for the rest of our lives.” — Hank Parker Sr. [87:24]

8. Life Today & Final Reflections

[104:06–109:32]

• Still Active in Outdoor Media
  • Hank continues making fishing content, now navigating the modern challenges of TV vs. online, family still involved.
  • Sons and grandkids pursuing fishing, real estate, and photography.
  • Parker’s lasting advice:
    • “It’s no use to dream if you’re not gonna work. And it’s no use to work if you’re not gonna dream.” — Hank Parker Sr. [109:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “There’s no motivator like poverty.” — Hank Parker Sr. [06:18]
• “I had more notoriety than he did. I had him as a guest on the show to promote the fact that he’s a NASCAR champion.” — Hank Parker Sr. [08:01]
• “You didn’t really sit down and plan out a financial plan … you would have paid to race.” — Hank Parker Sr. [06:38]
• “You stick that microphone in Dale’s face and he’d say, 'blowed up.'” — Hank Parker Sr. [20:54]
• “Dad, I’m not going to do what you did. I’m going to be home for my kids.” — Hank Parker Sr. quoting son Hank Jr. [74:02]
• “I’d rather die trying than I had forfeit.” — Hank Parker Sr., on crossing Lake Ontario in huge waves [103:09]
• “I don’t know how to love my kid like you love your kid.” — Dale Earnhardt Sr., recounted by Hank Parker Sr. [79:54]
• “Your dad would be so proud of you.” — Hank Parker Sr. [109:32]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:07] – Hank’s first BASS tournament and humbling start
• [06:18] – Life lessons on motivation and financial risk
• [08:01] – Fame in fishing v. NASCAR in the late 70s
• [12:52] – Entering the world of television fishing shows
• [18:42] – Famous people Parker fished with (Bo Jackson, Dale Sr., etc.)
• [20:54] – Stories about Dale Sr.’s iconic communication style
• [26:34] – The Pepsi analogy that shaped the Earnhardt kids’ racing path
• [35:29] – Retiring for family
• [79:54] – Dale Sr.’s vulnerabilities and quiet affection
• [87:24] – Faith, legacy, and the hope of seeing Earnhardt again
• [109:17] – Parker’s final life lesson about dreams and work

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a must-listen for fans of racing, fishing, or just great storytelling. Parker’s friendship with Dale Earnhardt Sr. provides rare insight into the man behind the Intimidator persona—a friendship built on mutual respect, love of family, and shared adventure. The episode is punctuated by laughter, lessons, and moving tributes, capped by the assurance that the importance of relationships far outpaces any trophy or title. The recurring refrain from Hank Parker—“your dad would be so proud of you”—resonates deeply, summarizing the lasting impact of one generation upon the next.

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For More:

• Check out Hank Parker’s Outdoor Magazine on YouTube/social
• Follow Dirty Mo Media for new podcast releases and behind-the-scenes content

Transcript

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[Interviewer 1]

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[Interviewer 2]

The following is a production of Dirty Palm Media.

[Interviewer 1]

Hey, let's rewind a DJD classic.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Enjoy.

[Interviewer 2]

So, Hank Parker Senior, how long has it been since I seen you?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Man, it's been forever. Yeah, probably 20 years.

[Interviewer 2]

Is it been that long?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Probably have.

[Interviewer 2]

Oh my gosh. Yeah, it is crazy. It doesn't seem like it should have been that long.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

So.

Thanks for making some time for us.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, I'm excited.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

You guys roasted me pretty good. That's my chance to get back.

[Interviewer 2]

When.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Oh, when Hank Jr. Was here, you said your dad was racing. What was he thinking?

[Interviewer 2]

Well, I know it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, he's still wondering just to get him.

[Interviewer 2]

What were you doing?

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Why were you. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you what I was doing.

[Interviewer 2]

So. All right. I always kind of been fascinated with your. With your life and your career. And this is a great opportunity for us to. To talk about it.

You know. When did you start fishing professionally?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Well, I started really, I tried in 1975. I fished my first BAS tournament in 1975, and I realized I was out of my league. I wasn't ready. And it was at Santee Cooper, which is a lake that I was real familiar with. And I went down and conditions changed and I wasn't able to adapt to the conditions.

[Interviewer 2]

What do you mean?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Well, the water got muddy in the area that I was fishing in the river and so I had to come back down in the lake. And I really didn't know how to transition from what I had planned on doing and the weather through the curve, and I wasn't able to adapt. And I watched these guys. Old Glenn Wells from Greenbrier, Tennessee, was about 55 years old at the time. I was 20 years old. And I watched how he Handled the situation. I drew him as a partner and I realized I was not in his league. I didn't know how to fish the lures that he fished. I didn't understand a lot. So I went home and tail between my legs and started practicing. I worked on Lake Wylie. I ran a marine on Lake Wylie.

[Interviewer 2]

You did?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. I worked for a guy named Mike Hovis who owned Seven Oaks Marina. And so I worked for him. And I would fish in the mornings, the days that I worked from noon till closing time, and then the times that I worked from morning till noon, then I fished in the afternoon. I fished every day. And I fished baits that I'd never fished before. And I learned how to adapt and I learned how certain baits work that I didn't know before. Then when I went back in 1990, 1976, I started. That's. So that's when my career really started.

[Interviewer 2]

So why.

Were you going to make. Was it reasonable to think about making a living fishing competitively?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I thought so at the time. It was a few guys doing it, but not a whole lot. But Bill Dance was doing really well, Roland Martin was doing well. And I just felt like that the door was open. I was going to go for it.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. You grew up on a lake. You grew up fishing. Your family, what was your connection?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You know, my dad really, he liked to fish with a fly rod. But I didn't, I just got fascinated. The very first time I ever went to the lake just fascinated me. I just fell in love. And it just watching a bobber go under, I mean, it was a thrill.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Like driving in the. Turned to in Atlanta. I mean it was just crazy.

[Interviewer 2]

So you grew up around this and you worked at the marina. What was the commitment. What was the commitment like to go fishing? Were you, were you in a relationship? Are you married yet?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I did. I got. Got married in 1973, started fishing in 1976. So I had kids already.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Oh yeah? Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Okay. Yeah. Because, hey. Born in 74.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

So what is, are you taking. Is this a financial risk? Are you. Because you. What if you don't?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I borrowed $10,000 on a 90 day note at the Northwestern bank in Maiden, North Carolina and started fishing.

[Interviewer 2]

And how'd that go?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Well, there's no people, you know, we'd be fishing a tournament and we'd be down there around bottom money. They pay like 40 places. So I'd be in like 38th place and we'd be fishing in New York and you have to cross Lake Ontario in five foot Waves and risk your life. And the guy sit the campfire in the afternoon said, I'm not going. I'm not going to go across that lake for a 40th place check.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

What are you going to do?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I said, I'm going.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah. I got a bank note to pay.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I'm going.

[Interviewer 1]

So you already had a boat, I'm assuming, right?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I did.

[Interviewer 1]

So that $10,000 loan you. It was basically to enter into tournaments. Is that the gist of what you're spending is.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, that's right. Payment fees. Yeah. Paying entry fees and all the expenses, you know? Yeah, yeah.

[Ad Read Announcer]

You gotta.

[Interviewer 1]

You gotta be able to make that money back then.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

So, yeah, you gotta make that note.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Payment.

[Interviewer 1]

Did you make it?

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Oh, yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

There's no motivator like poverty.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I mean, it will get you on your toes.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Fair enough.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah. So it was really good for me.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

That I was in a good position. You know, Schrader said one time, Kenny Schrader said one time, and your dad was in that same league.

You didn't really sit down and plan out a financial plan on what I'm going to achieve. You would have paid to race. Bill Senior.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah. If NASCAR said, okay, I'm going to let you boys come race, but you're going to have to come up 15,000 bucks. They'd have figured out a way to.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Come up with it. So it wasn't some master plan. Dale Earnhardt never sat down and thought.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

One day I'm going to be a multimillionaire as a race car driver. And Dale Earnhardt thought, how am I going to get that next set of tires?

[Interviewer 2]

That's right.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

That was the whole deal.

[Interviewer 2]

And so are you basically doing this out of pure love for the. You know, you were thinking, man, I'm going to be able to make a living doing the one thing that makes me the happiest.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, that's exactly. That was my whole goal in life. I love to fish. I'm going to make it happen, and we'll see where it goes. You know, financially, I never dreamt the sport would grow like it grew and that the money would be available. That's available. And it just was way better than I ever dreamt.

[Interviewer 2]

But so talk about that. How big was the. How big was the BASS organization and the tournaments? How big were they when you started? How much did it change?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You know, it's really crazy. And I'm thinking the first year your dad won the championship, I won the Bassmaster classic. I think 79 maybe. And I had more notoriety than he Did.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I mean, really and truly, I had him as a guest on the show to promote the fact that he's a NASCAR champion.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And so it's amazing when you. You put the two sports together. Fishing has grown immensely, but not in the league with what NASCAR did. Between 79 and 99, NASCAR just exploded.

[Interviewer 2]

So how good were you out of the gate? Like, you're saying 76 was your first full effort at.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I won the championship in national bass my first year.

[Interviewer 2]

Really? And so, like, all right, you talk about, you know, not being good enough at 20 years old, not knowing what you needed to know. You go back home and you study and you learn everything you need to learn. And then how do you come in and just rock? How do you come in and just beat all those other guys so quickly a year later?

[Ad Read Announcer]

Right.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

It's a mindset. And I just prepared and I had a lot of confidence and I never worried. Everybody talks about when you walk in a room and you look around and there's Bill Dance and there's Billy Westmoreland and there's all these legends of the sport and you're going to draw and there you are from North Carolina and these people from all over the country and they've had all this success. How intimidating is that? That never intimidated me.

[Interviewer 2]

Really.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Never intimidated me at all. I got to catch the most fish, and I'm not worried. And people, the difference between NASCAR and pro football. Football, you got an opponent. And I know a lot of organizations, espn, they want to make it like it's a battle between Ernie Irwin and Dale Earnhardt or the Intimidator against Rusty Wallace or whomever. You really race a racetrack, and if you beat the racetrack and you turn the best times, you win the race, and it really doesn't have anything to do. Now, you do get into some scuffles in fishing. None of that happens in fishing. It's strictly beat the lake. You go out there and catch the most fish and you're going to win. I never beat Roland Martin. I never beat Bill Dance. I never beat anyone. I just caught the most fish. So I won the tournament, but it was. And that was my mindset from the beginning. I never worried about this guy or that guy because it didn't matter. It's whoever had the most fish and somebody's going to win, it might as well be me.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 1]

How many tournaments does one have to enter just to be competitive? Yeah. To be contending for a championship.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. That's a great question. In the old days, they had six Tournaments. You fish six tournaments, and then the Bassmaster Classic. And then it evolved into eight tournaments and eventually 12 tournaments. And it got bigger and bigger and more and more. But when I first started, you only had six tournaments.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Wow.

[Interviewer 2]

So you only had to. There were six. And those six you had to be at. You had to.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah. You could not miss one.

[Interviewer 2]

And so how do you. So the Bassmaster Championship, what makes you eligible to be is that, like, you know, certain members, certain winners from each tournament get some points.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Right.

[Interviewer 2]

It's a point system. Okay, so who all gets to go to the Bassmaster Championship?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Okay. You had 250 competitors.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And for each place you. You fished, if you won, you got so many points. And then it was prorated all the way down to. To the bottom 250th guy. And so you accumulated points. And so 25 out of the top 250. 25 got to go to the championship.

[Interviewer 2]

Damn. How many times did you go? Every year?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Every year. I never missed.

[Interviewer 2]

You never missed. And so how many Bass championships did you win?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I won two world titles. I was the first guy to ever win everything, which is a qualifying tournament, Bass Angle of the Year, a Super Bass tournament, which was their big money tournament, and the Bassmaster Classic. I was the first guy to ever do that.

[Interviewer 2]

When did you decide that you wanted to like? So I want to tell you, your personality is second to none. Like, you are a fun guy to talk, to be around. I remember when I was much younger, how entertaining it was to be in the same room with you. And so especially with you and Hank Jr. And how you used to razz him and give him a hard time. But when did it dawn, when did it sort of click that you could turn this into. You could become a television personality in your show. Right. You're sure a lot of people remember you from that show and still today, talk about it, you still create content around that. So when did that start? And how. How much sense did that make to you at the beginning? Right. Were you like, oh, man, this is a natural. This makes, you know, you were other people doing this?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Well, you know, the fishing world was completely different than anything any other sports world, because you really didn't have. You didn't have enough prize money to make it. Much like racing, you know, you got to have sponsors and. Or you're not going to make it on prize money. So in 1979, I won the Bassmaster Classic. I had no earthly idea what that meant. It was $25,000. First place, $25,000 was a lot of money in 1979, especially to me. But I had no earthly idea what the opportunities were going to be with that title. And as I started getting.

Opportunities and realized how much money you could literally make through endorsements and promotions and opportunities, then I saw the light and I said, man, this thing can be pretty lucrative. And so, as time went on, I just basically realized that the more publicity I get, the more influence I got on a consumer about buying my product. If I say, hey, I'm Hank Parker, well, they got to know who Hank Parker is, and I recommend you buy this lure. And the more notoriety I have, the more opportunity I have to make money off of that endorsement. Well, as time went on, I kind of exhausted all my relationships with people, with magazines and newspapers. I'd come up with all these ideas for articles. Well, you can only do that for so long. So then I thought, well, if I'm going to make more money and I'm going to grow, then I'm going to have to be in control of my own destiny as far as publicity. So I gravitated to television, not having a clue what I was doing.

[Interviewer 1]

How did you do it then? Because, I mean, like, everybody thinks they could be on tv, whether it's hunting or fishing, but you ended up on a getting a TV deal. How do you do it?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Well, you know, it really took money, and it took a big risk on my part. Everything that I'd ever earned or made in my whole life, I put at risk because you had to personally buy the airtime. Then you had to produce your own show. And so it was a big step. And at that time, you know, we look at these little cameras a day that has high resolution, that can do 4K, and you can buy one for $4,000. Well, the broadcast networks required you to have an Ikegami 79 camera, which cost 100 grand. And then you had to have a recorder. There were no.

Mics. Everything was hardwired. There wasn't any, of course. Yeah, everything was hardwired.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And so you had wires running up.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Your britches, legs, and a guy with a mixer in the back of your boat.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

It was amazing.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

So you had to buy all of that stuff. And so it was about a $400,000 investment to get the equipment to edit and to video. And then you had to buy your airtime. So we bartered our airtime. We bought mostly from NBC and CBS and network stations, and we bought different markets around the country. So we did it different from everybody else. And that's that blows my mind.

[Interviewer 2]

I know it.

[Interviewer 1]

Because that right there is an investment. Now, at what point then you talked about the endorsements. I would have to assume then you are now attractive to other endorsers. You've got your own television show. Who cares how you had to get it? You got it. And so did that open up to where it started paying for itself and then people started, rather than you having to buy airtime? Well, they started. You started selling.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I. I had no idea how any of that worked, you know, and so it's all based on cost per thousand cpm. And to this day, yeah. And I'm. I'm trying to think, what in the world is all of this? You know, And I. I've got boat sponsors, I've got ranger boats, I've got Mercury outboards, and I've got all these indemnite companies. But then we are having people like Chevrolet and other companies start to inquire about, hey, we'd like to sponsor your show, and we'll pay you this based on your delivery. And I said, well, how do you determine that? Well, your. Our CPM cost is 2750 per thousand, and you're our demographics, and that's what the value is. And so I'm. So I got a lot of lessons. It was a learning process.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I jumped in and had no earthly idea.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Somehow it just all worked out.

[Interviewer 1]

Holy moly. That blows my mind.

[Interviewer 2]

Right?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

So this is so Hank Parker's outdoor magazine. On TNN in 1985, you had Michael Runnels, who is Michael.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Michael was a guy that was a technical guy for Hummingbird, who had a degree in marketing. And. And he understood how it all came together. And so I got hooked up with him and he did all the administrative stuff. See, I was still competing, and so I'm never. You know, this more than anybody else. There's so much business behind the scenes in nascar, but that don't matter. When you put that helmet on, you can forget all of that. It's about that racetrack and that moment. Well, I've got all this business to run. I've got all these sponsors, I've got all this airtime. I've got all these demands on getting shows ready and delivered to certain networks at certain times. And all that stuff is just a big distraction because I got to go fish Lake Toho next week, and so I need to have my mind cleared where I don't worry about anything. And I did. I separated my business totally. So I had to have a person.

[Interviewer 2]

That could handle all that so your show was famous for having a lot of celebrities that were not in the fishing world. Right. So who were some of the, I guess, you know, dad was probably a blast. But who were some of the celebrities that you would have on there that was. That maybe had no idea what they were doing?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Well, I won't say they had no idea, but my biggest celebrity ever is when Bo Jackson played two sports. He was the first guy to ever get that notoriety and pull that off. And so Nike was running commercials all over television. Bo knows. Bo knows.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And it was a huge deal.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

So I'm sitting there, my office one day and everybody's gone. It's probably 5:30 in the afternoon, the phone rings and it's Bo.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And he asked for Hank Parker.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And I thought it was a joke. I didn't know who in the world was calling me pretending to be Bo Jackson. But he said, hey man, I want to go fishing with you. And it worked out. It was just so awesome. And he was playing at that time for the Kansas City Royals and he had a week off, played a doubleheader on a Tuesday. So the next Wednesday he was off. I was going to, to Oklahoma to fish on the Verdigris River. So I invited him to come. He did.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And we did a show and Bo was the coolest guy.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I mean it was just amazing.

[Interviewer 2]

Were those type of people calling you all the time, hey, I want to go fishing with you.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We had quite a few, but you know, I fish with a lot of football coaches. I fish with Tony Dungy, I fished with Randy White of the Cowboys, I fished with Larry Bird. Bird was a wow, cool guy.

[Interviewer 2]

I bet that was awesome.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah, he was cool.

[Interviewer 2]

How many times did you have dad on?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We probably fished together about ten times and we did about four shows together.

[Interviewer 2]

Really?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

One of my favorite. I have to tell this on him. He, you know, today, if you were still racing and you are Jimmy Johnson, let's just pick on Jimmy. If Jimmy was racing and he fell out of the race and all the media was there sticking microphones in his face, Jimmy, what happened? He said, well, you know, we had, we broke a valve spring and so we were limping around and we were just trying to get those points are so important. And we finally broke a crank and it took us out of the race. He'd give you that explanation. You stick that microphone in Dale's face and he'd say, blowed up.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And he'd look at you like he had two heads.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

But what do you mean what happened?

[Interviewer 1]

We were just talking about that, how he would do. You could tell when he was pissed, but he'd just say a few words.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Oh, yeah, he's going to tell you right quick. So I was doing a show out.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

At his at the farm, and Taylor and my daughter Lucy, they were fishing for catfish. And Dale and I was sitting up there watching and Taylor hung a catfish and she had a little Mickey Mouse rod and reel. And it was more than Mickey could bear.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Their little ears laying all over the pond dam. And Earnhardt looks over at her and.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Says, taylor, what happened? She pooched that little lip out and.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

She looked at him with them little beady eyes and said, it blowed up.

End of story.

[Interviewer 2]

That is hilarious.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I mean, the apple don't fall far from the tree.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Perfect man.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And as Billy would say, nor does the SAP.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

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So you and dad had.

[Interviewer 2]

A really good friendship.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh it was awesome.

[Interviewer 2]

How did y' all meet?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Do you know that you would have never had your late model car had it not been for me?

[Interviewer 2]

Really?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You would have never had it?

[Interviewer 2]

Never had It.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We were sitting on the porch at my farm. He and I had been hunting. And he said, these kids, man, these kids want everything. He said, you know, when I was growing up, Ralph Earnhardt say, if you want to race, get out there in the junkyard and get your stuff and put it together. And he said, I'm telling my kids the same thing if they want to race. I said, but, Dale, let me tell you something. When Ralph Hernhardt told you to get out in the junkyard and get your stuff and put it together and go racing, that's what he was doing. He was doing that. He was winning races. He wasn't driving for Richard Childers flying onto King Air and had a whole stable full of race cars. And I said, it reminds me of a guy that grew up poor. He's a farmer, and he brings his little boy in the store, and he buys himself a Pepsi. He don't buy one for that little boy. He sits over and drinks that Pepsi. And that little boy just looks at him and lusting after that Pepsi, but he don't buy him one. I said, that's what you're doing to your kids.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I said, you got boy. He looked at me, and for 10.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Solid minutes, he never said a word. It seemed like two hours, but for.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

10 minutes, he never said a word. Next thing I know, he bought them all. Cars fell out.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Hauler.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And you were the beneficiary of a little talk we had on the porch at the farm in South Carolina.

[Interviewer 2]

That's hilarious.

[Interviewer 1]

Holy crap, man. That is so good. What a great analogy, by the way.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I know, it's true.

[Interviewer 1]

Just dangling in front of the kids.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Well, he bottled the cars, and for what he told me, he said, leon, yo. You tear them up, you gotta fix them.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, that was true.

[Interviewer 1]

He did that, right.

[Interviewer 2]

So when did you and him become friends?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

He was racing dirt at Metrolina.

[Interviewer 2]

Dagum. Way back there.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yep.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And Donny Reeves and everybody said, you know, he likes to hunt. You need to hook up with him and take him hunting. Well, he was hunting at a place in Chester, S.C. and I hunted with old guy named Franco Hill, who was a n. Made the movie Stroker Ace. He was dad secret Stroker Ace. And Franco was just a comedian. Made jewelry out of quail drops in Geneva.

[Interviewer 2]

Yes, I remember that.

[Interviewer 1]

That story when Hank Jr. Was here.

[Interviewer 2]

Yes.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. So, Dale, I got him to go down to Franco's. That's where you killed your first deer, by the way, on Franco's property. And so he started hunting with me. And I'm gonna tell you something about Dale Earnhardt Sr. That a lot of people didn't know. He was as good an outdoorsman as there was in the world. He was as good a deer hunter. The best tracker I've ever seen. I'm 70 years old now. I've hunted with thousands of people. I've tracked deer with hundreds of people, and no one could track a deer like Dale Earnhardt.

[Interviewer 2]

No one. What do you mean by that?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

He could see this little bitty speck of blood. He had an instinct for where that deer went, and he could just stay in one position, never go out in front, get ahead of himself, and rustle up the leaves, stay back, and he'd get really aggravated. If anybody knows anything about Dale Earnhardt, he ran everything.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, he was in charge.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

He was in charge. So you follow him, don't you? Get out in front of him.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

But he was patient, and you'd think he wouldn't be of anybody. The first time I ever took him hunting, he stayed in a tree all day long.

[Interviewer 2]

I know it.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I could not believe that.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I know it.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yep.

[Interviewer 2]

Like, didn't get out at lunchtime.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Did not get out. Went in that tree before daylight and got down in the dark, and it was amazing. And that's before my mind.

[Interviewer 1]

That's before these penthouse tree stands and everything.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah. No, this is on a little ladder stand, hardly big enough to get. You hang in on. And he sits there all day long.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

That amazed me. But he had that same patience in tracking, and he just had this tremendous instinct.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

It was.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

He was really, really advanced in hunting.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. Hank Junior's the. Or not Hank Jr. But Martin Truex Jr. Will do that. He'll get in the stand in the morning and not come out. And I'm like, all right. I mean, I don't know. I got to get a sandwich.

But he. He would, you know, and. I'm not telling you anything. You.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You're.

[Interviewer 2]

You. You know the time commitment it takes to be great at anything. But, man, when season started, he was gone. And. And, you know, Teresa was pretty stern and tough, and she had things she expected and depended on out of the relationship and the marriage. But, dad, when that season started, to the end of deer season, if he wanted to be in a stand, he was going to go be in a stand.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

She didn't like me at all.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I was not one of Teresa Earnhardt's.

[Interviewer 2]

Fans, I can tell you that, because you were more.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We were gone all the time. We got a deer lease in Texas Together. And we have that dear lease.

[Interviewer 2]

What was Insignia Ranch?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Where was Piloncia? It was right out of Cotulla, Texas. And he and I had that ranch for. From 1986 until he passed away. And two months before he died, he and I sat by a campfire.

And we did a handshake deal. We had not been going together. He had always liked to go right after the cup banquet, and I would always like to go. So that's around December 10th or somewhere in that neighborhood. And I'd always like to go in January, go right after Christmas. And he didn't like that. So we ended up not hunting together as much. And so he had invited me that same year to go to Silver City, New Mexico, and elk hunt with him, so. Which spent the time up there. So he said, hey, we're going to the Pilon Sill together this year. So he went when I went in January. So two months before he died, I did a handshake deal that I would never go back to the ranch without him and he would never go back without me. So I left a truck. I left deer stands. As far as I know, he left an old Suburban at the cotulla Airport. And 15 years after his death, Gene Naquin asked me one day, he said, anybody ever gonna come get that old Suburban? Probably not.

[Interviewer 2]

Wow.

[Interviewer 1]

You left it. You kept your word.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, I never went back.

[Interviewer 1]

That's an amazing story.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Never went back.

[Interviewer 2]

My gosh. Wow.

[Interviewer 1]

If you. If we could go back for a second, you were talking about you met him when he was running dirt at Metrolina. So this would have been about mid 70s?

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, late 70s. Late 70s.

[Interviewer 1]

Was it late 70s?

[Interviewer 2]

The second half of the 70s? Probably, yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Probably in the middle. Probably 75. Probably 74.

[Interviewer 2]

He is a punk. Like, he's just a kid.

You're a new dad and he is a new dad. And.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

No, I wasn't a dad then.

[Interviewer 2]

Well, 74.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. It's probably maybe even before that.

[Interviewer 2]

Young. He was young, yeah. So you were just a dad?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Was amazing. I mean, your grandpa was quite the driver. And so everybody knew him. I didn't remember him well. I did not know him. I just knew him on the track. You know, I watched him. I saw him race at Greenville and Pickings and.

[Interviewer 2]

So you're going to races back then?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah. I love racing.

[Interviewer 2]

You were a racer?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah. I was a big Kelly Arboro fan.

[Interviewer 2]

Really?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah. My dad loved racing. We listened to it on the radio all the time. And I was just a big. Basically, I was a Junior Johnson Fan first. You know, he ran number three originally. Yeah, originally, Holly Farm Chickens.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

That was my driver, man.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And then Kelly Arvo came along, and then.

Biggie.

[Interviewer 1]

I guess the reason I ask is it's pretty fascinating. They. They met and became friends before either of them were famous or. Or successful. And then how cool would it have been for you to watch him become a NASCAR champion and then, like, and vice versa, you become a Bassmaster champion, right? You become a world champion. And that had to be, like, amazing for each of you to watch each other's progression.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We never even thought about it, really.

[Interviewer 1]

That's amazing.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

That was never discussed. When he won his first championship, he bought Neil Bonnet a 742 Remington shotgun with the. I mean, rifle with a Weaver scope on it.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And he thought that was a big deal, man. That was a big deal.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Like, I've hit the big time there. I buy a brand new rifle with the scope.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Wow.

[Interviewer 1]

Go ahead, though.

[Interviewer 2]

Well, so one of the things I wanted to ask you about is.

[Ad Read Announcer]

You.

[Interviewer 2]

Won the World Championship in 1989 and then retire. You're 37 years old.

You know, I. I don't know. I don't know what it's. I don't know about the fishing world, but I'll. I do know about, you know, the racing world. And driver retirement is a, you know, it's a really particular moment. Right. And a driver doesn't want to retire when he feels like he's got a little left in the tank. Right. You want to get it all out. Rusty Wallace talks about it today. Man, I might have just done it a little too soon. I wish I'd have done it a different way.

And I wonder, like, you know, that competitive atmosphere. I know that you had lucrative things going on. I know you talk about it. You were. Your calendar day was slammed full of responsibilities, but you did have to walk away from that competition and that. That draw of. Of trying to be the best. Right? You did that at 37 years old on top of the world.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Why?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Hank Jr. And Billy and Ben had started racing go karts. And I got them into that, and we had a little track at the house, and we absolutely loved it. And so every weekend, Hank Jr. Said, dad, can we. Can we go racing this weekend? Can we go the go kart track? No, son, I'm not going to be here. I'm not going to be here, dad.

On and on and on. And it was the hardest thing that I ever did is walk out of my house and get in my car and drive to the airport, or drive, hook up to my boat and go to a lake, knowing that I had little boys that couldn't do what they wanted to do because their dad wasn't home. And I cared a lot more about being a dad than I did a professional fisherman. And I told myself, and I told my wife at the time, if I ever get to the point financially that I can be free, I'll retire. And I knew what that meant, because I'd won it 10 years earlier, and I knew what kind of revenue, and I was more positioned to capitalize now than I was then, you know? So I knew financially I could do it. And I never hesitated. I said, I'm done. I'm going home and raise my kids.

[Interviewer 2]

Now, I want to ask you if there's any regrets, because I know there aren't any.

Did you miss the competition?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, I about died. I had to go to every single Bassmaster Classic after I won, after I retired because I had sponsor obligations. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, is sat in that crowd. And I was at the peak, man. I was better a year after I retired than I was. And I had won two tournaments the year that I retired. And. And I'm sitting there thinking, golly. Well, that. That was hard. Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

So after you retired, you still fished competitively? Somewhat. No. Minimally? No, not at all. You were done.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I quit.

[Interviewer 2]

You continued the show? The television show.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Put it all into the show.

[Interviewer 2]

All into the show, yeah. All right. So when you.

When you. Why did your boys not want to go into professional fishing?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You know, I don't know. I was pretty hard on them. I thought when you went fishing, you got one pack of cheese crackers and one Coke, and you started at daylight and you quit at dark, and you saw how many casts you could make every hour. And so when I took them when we was kids, I probably burned them out really bad.

[Interviewer 1]

Starved them to death.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Starved them to death. Yeah.

[Interviewer 1]

Died.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Dehydration.

[Interviewer 1]

Dad, I'm hungry.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I don't really know how to separate.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

That, you know, I'm a better grandpa. I promise you that. I wasn't real good, so they didn't.

[Interviewer 1]

Want any part of it, that's what you're saying.

[Interviewer 2]

And so is that maybe why racing seemed to be more interesting to them is because you all would be gaining the experience together? Right. You weren't an expert in autumn, in racing. Right. So was that maybe why that was a better experience for them to be racing and you helping them get involved?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I think anybody that is aggressive in nature that gets in a race car.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Of any kind is going to get hooked on it.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

It is an adrenaline rush like nothing else that I've ever done. I've done a lot of things, and I've had some exciting moments, but there is nothing like driving a race car. It is the most adrenaline fix that.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

There is, and so it's extremely addictive.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And my kids are just like. I think you take any kid in the. And if they've got a competitive nature and they're aggressive and you put them in a race car and that's going.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

To be their ambition for life. I'm a real race car driver.

[Interviewer 2]

When did you drive a race car for the first time?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, man.

Well, we started in go karts, and that was probably.

[Interviewer 2]

And you ran?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, I ran. Yeah, I raced go karts.

[Interviewer 2]

Where? How old were you?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I was.

Probably 33, 34.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Driving in the master's class.

[Interviewer 1]

Where does get to run go karts?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We raced Millbridge, and there was a place right there in Denver and Caraway. There were a lot of little dirt racetracks that we went to, a lot of them.

[Interviewer 2]

So you ran a lot of dirt go karts and then what? I want to bridge that to this NASCAR Busch deal you had.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Well, the way all this whole racing.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Is back on that front porch where I told Dale Earnhardt that he was.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Depriving you guys of having an opportunity and he decided he was going to.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Get y' all some Townsend cars, wasn't it? Yes. And back on that same front porch, and you were there, and I got to tell a story.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

You and Hank Jr. Were pretty rough on me, so I'm going to get rough on you.

[Interviewer 2]

I imagine what this is about.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Well, I got to tell you.

[Interviewer 2]

Hilarious.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

But anyway, it was on that front.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Porch that somehow your dad and my.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Son came up with your old orange late model car, your old street stock car.

[Interviewer 2]

And that's where dad, y' all bought that car.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Unbeknownst to me, he called me on Monday. He said, have you got a car hauler?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I said, a what?

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

He said, a trailer. If you got a trailer to put a car on.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I said, well, I got a farm trailer. I have my tractors on. He said, well, bring it over here.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And bring me a check for I don't know how much money it was. I said, for what? He said, you'll see this. Come on. So that's what I ended up with.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

That was the beginning of Hank's racing career.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Hank's and mine as well, and yours. I'm not going to let that.

[Interviewer 2]

You got a street stock too?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah. I got me a street stock card.

[Interviewer 2]

I Remember now. Hank Jr. So I took that. I had built this car, that car. I loved it. It's a great little car. I raced it a lot. And the last race I run in it, 200 lapper on New Year's Eve, and I'm leading with like 30 to go. And I busted the spider gears used to weld.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Oh, yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

I welded them up, obviously, and they busted out. But the damn car was a good car. He takes it. I think Hank Jr won a handful of races.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

He did. He did a great job.

[Interviewer 2]

He did. He ended up rolling it on the back straightaway.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Concord.

[Interviewer 2]

Yes.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yep, that's right.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

What a great racetrack that was and how awesome it was.

[Interviewer 2]

What happened to that car?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

What happened to that car? Yeah, I ended it when he rolled it.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

I know.

[Interviewer 2]

Did you put it behind a shop or is it over in the junkyard somewhere?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, I think somebody. Jim Cook or somebody wanted it to strip it for some parts that was on it.

[Interviewer 2]

So I think that's where I find that thing. That'd be cool.

You said you were going to tell a story on me on that front porch.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

What was it?

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah, we've gone hunting.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And so Dale Senior says, he said, where's Junior going hunting? I said, he's going to hunt with you.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

He said, he ain't hunting with me. He's going with you. I said, okay, I'll take it.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

So I put Dale Jr. Over here in a tree. And I said, now if you have any problems, I'm going to just go climb a tree over here and just wave and I'll come to you if you have any problems. Well, I didn't even get to my tree stand. And he's walking about across the field. He's got his gun. It's a bolt action. He's beating on that bolt. And I'm saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait a minute. He's beating on the bolt. He won't stop. And so I finally get to him and I said, hold on, what's wrong? He said, I can't get the bullet in this gun. I said, well, just hold on. Let me see it. And I said, dale, he's already won in there.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

So what, did he blow his.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Got that. He just going all over.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

So now he said, when I was racing, what was I thinking?

[Interviewer 1]

What was you thinking?

[Interviewer 2]

I will tell you, too. We were.

We were.

We were out on the front porch of that hunting property. And I don't. Y' all were inside, and me and Hank Jr sitting out there, and somehow or another, I'd got a hold of a box of matches or a booklet of matches, and we. I was sitting there lighting these matches just because they smelled good or whatever, right. I'm just piddling. We'd been kicking around ant hills and all kinds of stuff, right? And.

We had. It was like 10 minutes later, dad comes outside on the porch, opens the door, and he goes, the hell y' all been burning?

I. Me and Hank were like, well, you get scared to death. Like, freaking out scared. And I can't lie, right? You get caught in a lie, you're in big trouble. So I'm like. I was. I just playing with these matches here. He's like, like. And he goes. You know, he went off angry about, like, you gonna burn the whole dang club down. What are you playing with fire for?

[Interviewer 1]

That's a good question, actually.

[Interviewer 2]

And me. He goes. He finally goes back inside, and me and Hank sat there, and we're like, how in the heck did he know we did that? Because we couldn't smell it, Right? Boy, he. He, like. He could smell.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

He's tracking you from.

[Interviewer 2]

He could smell that match from 10 minutes ago.

[Interviewer 1]

Right. Right.

[Interviewer 2]

And me and Hank are sitting there going, how in the world did he know we were doing that?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Or that I was doing it. And I thought, man, we are. We're in big trouble. But I.

So.

Y' all raced, did you. You raced the street stock and what was your. Hank Jr. Obviously had some good success. What was your experience?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Well, we raced street stock, and then we gravitated. He went to late model, and I went to super late model and super late. I got to race against Jack Spraggs and Freddie Query and Rich Bickle and.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Some really cool guys.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And, you know, they had open carburetors. You didn't have to be restricted.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Run whatever you want. So I ran a big dominator, and that thing was bad to the bone on new tires. You could come out of, you know, Concord didn't have a turn. Two.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Come out of one. You had that dog leg. Yeah. And then you went into three, and, man, you could light it up.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

The adrenaline rush like nothing.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And I could out qualify. I remember I qualified them all one time. Sprags was on the outside. I started on the pole, and it was probably. Hank Jr. Was way back. He was probably eighth or something. And Toby Porter was there. Bickle, Freddie, Jack, the whole nine.

[Interviewer 2]

Freddie Query.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Freddie Query helped y' all a bit.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Especially Hank Jr. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he went to work for us and I think I led 10ft, maybe.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

12 as frags fastly going into one and then Freddie and then Bickle, then Toby. But two laps later, Hank Jr.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Passed me. When he passed me, he passed me.

[Interviewer 1]

Oh, he waved at you. He waved at you.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

About 15 laps later, he passed me again.

[Interviewer 1]

He waved at you again.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

He waved at me about six times. 200. Yeah, it wasn't good.

[Interviewer 2]

It wasn't good.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

It was good at all.

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[Interviewer 2]

All right.

[Interviewer 1]

So, I mean, I think we're all curious on how this ended up at.

[Ad Read Announcer]

With the.

[Interviewer 1]

The Rockingham car, right?

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

So that was cool.

[Interviewer 2]

All right. So you end up buying. Did you buy a Busch car from dad?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You know, I did, I did. We built a couple bushcars and I bought a couple. Your dad had bought a car off of Kenny Wallace. The only race that Dale Earnhardt did not make in the Busch series was at Richmond. And.

His stuff was heavy. And Kenny Wallace had built this Busch car and Dale knew if he was in that car, he'd have won the race easy. So he bought it. And I wanted it really bad. So I don't know what I paid for.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

It was way too much. But I ended up with it. And it was really a cool car.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And it was like a three quarter drop. You know, everybody's running a drop schnauder straight and it was like a three quarter drop. And so I wanted to race Rockingham.

[Interviewer 2]

Rockingham's gonna be your first bush race.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

That's gonna be my first bush race. So I'm gonna go race rock. So Buddy Baker was a great friend of mine, and I got buddy to go with me. And I had driven at Rockingham with his dad, Buck Baker's driving school.

[Interviewer 2]

That's right.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And I had. And they kept wooing me back, you know, man, you can't do that. You got to slow down. So I wanted to go, man. Really. It was an adrenaline rush. So I got Buddy, and Buddy got all the stats, who qualified on the poll and what the speeds were on the. The race the year before. And I went out there and made probably 400 laps, went through about five sets of tires, spent about 20 grand.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Out there that day fooling around, but.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I was fast enough to make the race. Buddy said, hey, you gonna make the race easy. All you gotta do is be cool. Don't drive in the three too hard. That's what's hurting you. If you just slow down getting into three, you're gonna come off four. You're gonna make this race good. I mean, you're going to be in the middle of the pack. And that's back when 50 and 60 cars were trying to make a 34 car field. So I felt pretty good about it. And when I got out there and practiced, I was decent. And that was back in the days that you could run Goodyear or Hoosier and you made your choice. Well, Hoosier had a better tire.

[Interviewer 2]

Faster.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, yeah, they had a faster tire. So I was up there, you know, in the top 15 or 16 cars, and.

I did not understand.

How much you lose from new tires to three lap old tires at Rockingham. I did not understand that at all. And so I tried to carry the same speed on three lap tires into the corner that I carried one lap or two lap tires. And it is amazing. You know that way better than I do how much those tires fall off at Rockingham.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And I had no idea. And Steve Grissom was taped up, making a mock qualifying run. I didn't want to mess him up, so I tried to pinch that thing down in two and keep from hitting Grissom, buddy. And when it let go, I mean, it let go, I hit the outside wall and then back on the inside wall, and I tore my little car up. So I didn't get to race.

[Interviewer 2]

What'd you do?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We packed her up. Your dad came to me. I was in the infield care center.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And he said, boy, you better get your butt back to concrete Gore before you get scanned up.

[Interviewer 1]

Is that the. That's the one where Hank Jr. When he tells the story, he looked at you because he had. I remember him not necessarily roasting you. I thought he was saying that, you know, no fear and you don't really feel pain. But when he looked at you, you were pretty. You banged up a little bit in that wreck.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Really?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I was way more banged up in a wreck at Concord. And I was there. I didn't. My feelings were hurt more than anything. But I did get a. I did get a little blow there, but it was so disappointing.

[Interviewer 2]

What happened in the wreck at Concord.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, man, that was a big ten race. And I had my late model car and we'd be going in carrying a lot of speed in the three, and a guy named Dan Furr got under me and pushed me head on into the turn three wall. And Hank Jr. Was leading the race. This was on lap probably 75, and Hank Jr. Was leading the race. And when he came by, the whole body was gone off my car. It wasn't nothing but a cage. You know, we ran those fiberglass bodies and the whole body came off and the whole top roll cage is mashed down to the steering wheel.

[Interviewer 2]

Dagum.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And Hank Jr. Came by and he sold his spotter. He said, Bo, I don't know who that is. But I bet they're not all right. And when he got about halfway back around, they said, that's your dad. Well, he's trying to stop on the racetrack. And my radio, you know, I can't get to my helmet. All that stuff's torn off. So I finally. I motioned him to go on because he was going to stop on the race.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah. Go, get out. But he was leading the race. I didn't want to mess him up.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 1]

He knew you were all right when you motioned on. Man, that would have been terrifying.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, it was a terrible wreck. I mean, it was a bad looking wreck.

[Interviewer 2]

Well, you try. Yeah, you try to make the race at Rockingham, Martinsville, Hickory. Hickory's tough.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Grief.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

I missed a race there in 97.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I had run a late model car a little bit at Hickory, and, man, that Busch car was like an army tank.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And I hit my same lines that I did in a late model car.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And oh, my goodness, that thing went to the wall so fast. I mean, it was like pushing like a freight train.

[Interviewer 2]

I did the same thing at Myrtle Beach. I'd never ran a bushcar. Right. So we're gonna go test at Myrtle beach in 1996 to get ready to run that race. And that year, that same year, my very first Busch race. And I go, I mean, you could carry that late model motor down into the corner on the throttle. Right. Wow. All the way down into one. And first lap in this bush car, I'm like, I know the track grips there. I go around 3 and 4. Feels good down the front. Straight away, I lifted maybe a car length before I lift on that late model, just to be sure. And I was way too far down in there. Right up to the turn. One wall almost knocked the wall down. I was like, okay, these things don't. I'm. I'm going faster than I thought I was. It's heavier. It don't stop.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

There's nothing like when you're in the middle and you realize, well, I've drove her in too deep. I'm gonna pay a price.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, I bet. So, dad convinced. Was dad supportive in convincing you to continue to try this?

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

No. He said, you're an idiot. What are you doing? Really crazy. You might get that fishing rod, get back out of a lake. What? What are you doing?

[Interviewer 2]

Really?

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

When I bought the Busch car from him, I have to tell this.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We went to Martinsville and Richard and Leo Jackson had the track rented, and.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Harry Gant was there, and your dad.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Was there, and it was that car. That he had bought from Kenny Wallace, and he had it painted up, and it was all three. And so they ran for a good little bit, and then your dad kind of showed me the line, and so I went out there and I ran.

[Interviewer 2]

In whose car? In that car.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

In the car. Three.

[Interviewer 2]

Oh, wow.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And you would never know. I'm in the three car, you know. So Harry Gant was impressed. I was running some pretty good laps, and Harry Gant told Leo Jackson, he.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Said, come out here and let this fisherman run this car.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

So I made a lap. Oh, Leo said, that ain't that fisherman.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

That's Earnhardt.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

So the next lap, I spun out. Leo said, yep. I said, fisherman.

Then we had some outdoor riders that.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Were there and they wanted to interview me, and they said, now, are you going to run? Well, I'd already ran 15, 20 laps.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And spun out three times. I said, I don't know if I am or not.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

They said, yeah, we've never seen Earnhardt have so much trouble.

[Interviewer 2]

That's hilarious.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

He don't know this. He never knew. I threw him under the bus.

I said, yeah, it's kind of making me nervous.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, my God. Oh, wow.

[Interviewer 2]

So you bought. You bought some cars from Darrell Waltrip. You bought ASA cars from him, an all pro team, engines from dad.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

He had earn. I mean, Daryl had Western Auto were sponsor him for whatever reason, they wanted to cut back. He had a bush team, ASA and all pro. I bought everything but his cup team. So I bought his bush team, his asa. And he's all pro.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. And so you were going to run some. Junior was going to run some of this stuff.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Stuff. Neil Bonnet.

[Interviewer 2]

Neil Bonnet drive some. Really?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, he was our guy.

[Interviewer 2]

You were going to own a car and build it for Neil.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Neil was going to drive it. Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

And so what happens?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

We got everything ready and go down to Daytona, and he's driving James Finch's car.

[Interviewer 2]

And you had. You had. You had all your stuff there that weekend to go and run the Xfinity race. Damn. I did not know that.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

So Neil lost his life.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And so the very next year, we set the rest of that year out. We didn't do anything. And next year I put David Bonnet. Because that was Neil's dream.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And so that was my obligation to Neil if he would run our car, help us get some sponsors that he could share. He and David.

[Interviewer 2]

Yes.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And then I was going to groom Hank Jr. I wanted to run a few races, but I was going to groom Hank Jr. And you had Neil as a mentor. How awesome that was going to be. And we had a great plan and it all went away.

[Interviewer 2]

I had no idea it all went away.

[Interviewer 1]

And the assumption here is just that Neil Bonnet. You become friends with Neil Bonnet through Dale, and y' all have been on hunting trips probably together at that point.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 1]

So you and Neil. When do you think you met Neil? Because this is. This is something also. I did not know this had you sit it out. Because that's a, That's a. That's a. That's family that you just lost, right?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah. That was devastating. That was. You know, you think of Neil Bonnet bigger than life. What a fun, loving guy, you know, and he had been through. He had had a wreck.

Three years before and had some reservations about getting back in a car.

Biggie helped him regain confidence, and it was just devastating. It was the saddest, devastating moment other than big erect Daytona that I've ever experienced. It was just a really sickening, sad.

Situation. Of course, it changed the whole direction of what we were doing and how we were doing it and what was going to happen. I mean, everything went away. And we set that year out, and that particular year, the budget to run Bush was about a million dollars. And so we go back the next year and it's like 3 million, and now the car count's gone from 45 to 75. It's just crazy what happened. And so everything in our whole life changed, and it all centered around losing Neil. I mean, when I bought that team, that was a big part of.

What we were going to do. You know, you were going have a mentor.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. And you were. You were making. Had everything went the way you wanted it to go. You would be an owner in nascar, right?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Oh, yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Running a full team. And, and, and.

I had no idea that you had that, you know, you had mapped this plan out that that was what was going to happen.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

It's all trying to get ready for Hank Jr. It was all trying to get ready for Hank Jr. And then Billy, you know, and so I was just trying to be as prepared as I could be. And, you know, you look back and the way things work now, if you would have taken your money and gone to Rick Hendrick or somebody and said, hey, you know, I'll sponsor my own kid's car, and it would have been a much better plan, but I didn't even know that was. Was available.

[Interviewer 2]

Right, right.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You know, we're just trying to build what we had.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, you would eventually do that, though, and you'd build a Full team for Hank Jr. And y' all would manage it and run it.

And.

I'll say this, so Hank Jr. Was really talented. He was, you know, he took that street stock car that I couldn't win with, and him won races with it. He took his own, you know, pro all pro cars and. And won massive races, knew everything about them, worked on them. I'd go in and talk to him about bleeders, or you could run bleeders on his cars. And the things that he would tell me, I mean, you knew immediately, like, this guy's on. He's touching every part of this car. He knows everything about it. I know you had.

You had some help. Help for some from some very smart people in the business, but they tutored and taught Hank. He was there working, which was pretty fascinating. He gets into the xfinity series driving that yellow 53. I know he had a couple other opportunities, but that is Yalls deal, Yalls cars. And y' all would go almost one Homestead, almost one South Boston, and run third to me and Jeff Green. That was incredible. I had so much fun racing and him leading and us bringing us running together in 98 and 99 a little bit.

You know, I think.

Did you. You know, when did you first, I guess, see true potential in Hank Jr.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I think it was Louisville, Kentucky. I think it was Louisville. And we walked the racetrack and Les, I can't. Lester Field.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. He runs the NASCAR weekly series. He runs the weekly series now.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Okay.

[Interviewer 2]

He's head over, like, all the weekly NASCAR touring stuff.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Okay. At that time, he was the director of the all pro series in nascar. And so he insisted that all the rookies get up, out and let's walk this racetrack. And he said, guys, there's been three drivers here lost their life. This is a treacherous racetrack. When you come into turn four, you're coming downhill off of three, and this thing will put you in the wall at high speeds, and you will lose your life. So, rookies, listen to me. We're here to learn. We're not here to win. Get that out of your mind. And follow and learn. This is going to be a learning experience for you. You don't absolutely don't think you're going to come up here and master this racetrack. This is a tough one. So we walked the track and walking downhill, and it's intimidating to me. And I told Hank Jr. I said, Boy, this is crazy. Now, I hope you listen to Mr. Lesterfield. And he said, I'm here to win, dad.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Oh, wow. I didn't like that, Wow.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I was spotting for him, and, man, he burned that place up. And we led the race. And.

When he came into the pits with about 80 laps to go, he ran over the air hose. So that put him in the back of the field, actually put him a lap down. Put him a lap down. So under green, he made his lap up, and then the caution came out. Everybody else pitted except four cars, and he didn't pit. So he's running fourth with about 20 laps to go. So I'm watching. I'm spotting for him, and I'm watching the times, and I'm telling him, I said, if you don't mess with these lap cars, you can win this race. And he came around and passed. I'm trying to think of the guy. He had Slim Jims for a sponsor, but he was Mike Cope. Mike Cope was leading the race, and on the back stretch, coming down to take the checker, he passed Cope on the outside and brought it through the. That downhill turn and won the race. Wow. And it was the most exciting thing I've ever seen in my life. I thought, oh, my goodness, this is crazy. But it was. It was exciting. And then I realized, you know, this kid's actually a pretty good race car driver.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, that would be a good indicator. That right there. That would be the moment.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah. And that was fun. That was fun. He went to Salem, Indiana, very intimidating racetrack, sat on the pole, ended up winning the race. And we just had some great races in the all pro series.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Everything changed when we got in the bush series. I mean, because of the car count and because of all the pressure of all the money.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. And what I'll say, when Hank Jr. Did get into the Xfinity series, you know, he overachieved. You know what I mean? I mean, he really did. I mean, it presented him opportunities. He would go on and land rides in the Xfinity series and the truck series and have a. Have a pretty solid career. When you think back over Hank Jr's career as a father, but also as someone who is heavily involved in his path.

What is your leading emotion?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

It was good times. I don't regret any of it. I remember we were at a crunch time, and I'm doing the books, I'm sitting at my desk, and we're trying to get a sponsor, and just got the phone call that they were not going to get on board. And so Hank Jr. Sitting there looking at that spreadsheet, and he said, dad, if we didn't get this sponsor. That means you've lost everything you've ever worked for your whole life. And I said, oh no, no, no, no, no. He said, you got more money. I said, no, no, it doesn't mean I've lost everything I've worked for. It means I've spent everything I've worked for. There's a big difference. There's a big difference. I didn't feel like I lost it. I invested it for the right reasons for him.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And for my other boys. And it just worked out that we didn't make it and so we had to move on.

[Interviewer 2]

But so Billy raced. So I talked to him one day. He's racing over at Hickory, winning a lot of races in a late mile stock car. And he was telling me about his barrel springs. And so back in the day, Mike, we were putting coilovers, running coilovers levers and a barrel spring could do a little bit more traveling. And it was just a little smarter of a spring. And I was, I guess my point is, is that between Hank Jr. And Billy and their racing experience and their racing, they were more hands on than you would think. More, more into house how the car's set up. Doing a lot of this work themselves, not afraid to get their hands dirty.

And two like to not have this, this legacy of racing in, in, in generations through the family, they understood why a component worked the way it worked.

[Interviewer 1]

They knew race cars, they really did right.

[Interviewer 2]

And Billy ends up getting a opportunity race for Rusty Wallace. And one of the best looking race cars I think is I've, I've seen in a long time had flames on number 66 DuraFlame. That's right. Good looking race cars painted side skirts. One of the first cars out there with suspended side skirts on it. Really good looking and run good. I remember a race at Vegas.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Billy had more talent. Billy was, Billy was super, super talented. Rusty was a great driver. Rusty was not a good owner. Yeah, if you start up a team and you got a rookie driver, you don't really need a rookie crew chief. And he brought a crew chief up who no experience at all with infinity type cars. He was a late model crew chief. And there Billy comes out of a late model car and puts them on.

[Interviewer 2]

It was just, I remember them having some good, good moments.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Las Vegas was awesome.

[Interviewer 2]

Vegas was awesome.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

If they had had a good pit stop, he could have won Vegas.

[Interviewer 2]

I agree.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

I mean it was really, really a good race for him.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

But after that it kind of downhill.

[Interviewer 2]

So the, I'm just, just. It's Fascinating to me looking back that they had. They got the opportunities they had and they were, they were again, like, they were moments where you could see, like, really, this could, this could be pretty good.

[Interviewer 1]

Did Hank Jr. And Billy ever share a racetrack together in the Xfinity series? Because I always remembered. I thought catfish is. I remember that Rusty Wallace announcement and I didn't. I couldn't remember if it, if it was on the tail end or after Hank Jr's did, but it was. Hank Jr was still racing.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

They raced together in Memphis.

Both had the marines for sponsors. Hank ran the 53 car and Billy ran number seven car. Okay. And it was pretty cool.

[Interviewer 1]

That is cool, right?

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And Hank Jr. Ran really well. Could have won the race. He got tangled up with your brother.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

And he was actually leading the race.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And with about 12 to go and got tangled up with Kerry and he didn't fare real well. Yeah, it was a good. He ran awesome. Billy ran decent. Not great, but decent.

[Ad Read Announcer]

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[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah, Travis.

[Interviewer 2]

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[Interviewer 2]

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When the racing program ends. Right. How does that. How does that come to a.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Stop? Well, Hank Jr. Billy, when he wrecked Chicago, Dr. Petty said that he'll never race again. He said, make it clear, Billy. Billy. I'll never clear him to race again. And then Hank was going to run the one car and Pinzoil was the.

[Interviewer 2]

Sponsor. What was Billy's? Was Billy dealing with.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Concussions? He had trauma. Head.

[Interviewer 2]

Trauma. And Hank had had some of the same.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Experiences. He did. He did. But not nearly as.

[Interviewer 2]

Severe. Really. I did not.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Know. Yeah, Billy.

[Interviewer 2]

Was. I didn't know Billy's was.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

That. Billy's got a very, very quick.

[Interviewer 2]

Wit.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. And for probably six months after the Chicago wreck, you would see his wheels were turning but he never would come up with anything. It was just like a Rolodex going round and round and round. It was scary.

But then Hank Jr. When that whole one car went away, he ended up signing with Roush and he was going to run the 99 car. Jeff Burton was going over to run for Childress and Hank was going to run the 99 car. Well, Carl Edwards came out of the truck series and he was going to run the Busch car. And I'm trying to think who his sponsor was. One of the auto parts company, they wanted Carl to run the 99. And so that put Hank on the sidelines because of the sponsor demand. And so he was testing cars and was making a lot of money for what he was doing. And he was testing cars for Matt Kenseth and.

For Mark Martin for a while and for Bill Elliott and he enjoyed it, but it was very demanding. And then they raced Dover.

No, not Dover. They raced.

Pocono and then fly to Nashville to run the bush race. And so Carl Edwards was going to do flying back and something happened weather wise and they couldn't get back. And then Hank wasn't at the racetrack. And so Jack mandated or I don't say Jack, somebody at Roush Racing mandated that they have to be there for both the Infinity race and the cup race. And so now he's testing cars Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and he's got to go Friday to the Infinity race and then leave there and go to the. He's never home. So he said I'm not doing.

[Interviewer 2]

It. That was.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

It. That's it. That's why he.

[Interviewer 1]

Quit. And I'm assuming he had kids by this time, right? Yeah, he had.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Kids. He said, and not to offend me, he said, dad, I'm not going to do what you, you did. I'm. I'm going to be home for my kids. And if I have to live under a bridge and we all have to be in a sleeping bag, I'd rather do that than to live in the Taj Mahal and never be.

[Interviewer 2]

Home. Yeah. So after you're. When you walk away from motorsports and this and this plan to become an owner and all of that, where do you.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Go? I continue to do what I've been doing. I'm fishing. And then Hank Jr. And Billy, they, they want to start a hunting show. They don't want to fish, they want to hunt. So we started a hunting show and we did that for 16.

[Interviewer 1]

Years. Yeah, it was a Great hunting show, by the.

[Interviewer 2]

Way. I.

[Interviewer 1]

Love. This is where I remember Catfish being, you know, as the race car driver. But I didn't know. I didn't get to know Billy until the hunting show, like, in. The dynamics between the three are.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Fantastic. He's a.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Nut. He is a.

[Interviewer 1]

Nut. And you guys produce that all.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yourself? We did, yeah. Yeah. So I had plenty of experience. By that time, I'd already been in television for 15 years. So I know that was pretty.

[Interviewer 2]

Easy. We driving. We're driving through Denver, North Carolina, and Denver's got, like, this one street, big long street, and. But we're driving by this building, and Hank Jr goes, you see that little strip mall right there? He's like, yeah. I was like, yeah, I see it. He goes, that's where we do all of it in that building right there. Is that.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Right? Oh.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. I mean, it's really non. Nondescript sort of building on the side of the street and, you know, along all the strip malls in Denver, North Carolina. And I don't know how many squares footage it is, but you. And they still. Y' all still work out there.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Today? Well, we. We moved. I moved my operation down. I live in the big city of Union.

[Interviewer 2]

South. Oh.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. So we're.

[Interviewer 2]

We're. You're down.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

There? Yeah, we sold all that out in the big city of.

[Interviewer 2]

Denver. So Denver's.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Gone. Denver's.

[Interviewer 2]

Gone. So the. So you and y' all get into the hunting show. So deer hunting. You know, that's kind of where. Where I feel like I connected with Hank Jr. The most in the outdoorsy world. And y' all did take me hunting for my first couple of successful.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Hunts.

Saved your.

[Interviewer 2]

Life. Saved my life several times, I'm.

[Interviewer 1]

Sure. Oh, and by the way, not to interrupt you, but, like, probably the funniest thing that's ever been said on this show was when you and Hank Jr. Were talking about the. Were.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Y'.

[Interviewer 1]

All. Either y' all were hunting quail or something, where you got the feather? Oh, my God. So hard at that story. That is one of the classic.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Moments when he shot.

[Interviewer 1]

That. Shot that thing and just rained.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Feathers all over your.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Dad. I heard that story from both Hank Jr. Yeah. And.

[Interviewer 2]

Biggie. So Hank. So I was. I was a little bit. I would love to hear Dad's side of it. I was annoyed because we going hunting. Dad's like. Dad's like, hey, you know, it's a Remington deal. I had to go. He had to go. It wasn't like it was a son. I'm gonna Take you.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Hunting. It was.

[Interviewer 2]

A. It was a sponsor deal, but when we get there and we're splitting up, they're gonna break us into, you know, two halves. There's about eight of us. I guess we're gonna go four per field. He's like, you're gonna go with the sponsors. You're gonna go with this guy in a suit, and I'm. I'm gonna go with Hank. And I'm like, what the hell is this? I wasn't too happy.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Right?

[Interviewer 2]

But. And so we were off hunting two different spots, and then eventually kind of came together to go, okay, how'd y' all do? How'd y' all do? And it's right when the middle. We're having that sort of conversation. One of them took off, and I was like.

And Dad's like, I thought you're supposed to shoot it. I wasn't. I was trying to beat dad to. To.

[Interviewer 1]

It. I thought, you're supposed to shoot.

[Interviewer 2]

It. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm gonna be the one that kills this.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

One.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah. I was gonna shoot it for anybody else, but none of them ever rent. None of them ever lifted their guns.

[Interviewer 1]

Up. And I was like, you know, there's safe matches that have been inspired by a bunch of stories. I mean, whether it's loading, loading a gun, or where you aim a gun when people. You're hunting in groups, you know that there's been inspirations done just from these hunts.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Right? Oh, man. Big E is all about safety, and he's all about being following his instruction. He is the leader in this. If his gun didn't go up, your gun should have never went up. That should have been enough right.

[Interviewer 2]

There.

That's where me and him butted.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Heads. Oh.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Man. I imagine, you know, let me tell you something about your dad. He was. He was hard. He grew up hard.

He didn't have an education, and he was embarrassed by that, and he never would talk about that. But he was the smartest individual I've ever known, smartest businessman I've ever known. He and Hank Jones pioneered the souvenir business that NASCAR has today. They built a foundation. Earnhardt was a brilliant, brilliant. Your dad was a brilliant man. Smartest man I've ever known. It's crazy. He was very private. Very, very private. It was a rare occasion that he would open up and you really see who he is. He got the intimidator because he was an introvert. He was never comfortable carrying on a conversation for a long period of time. And so he Got some bad raps about being short with his temper and his demeanor, but it was undeserving. People didn't know him. He opened up to me at my farm one day, just he and I, we'd been hunting all day long. And I'd talk to Hank Jr. On the phone. That's back in the hardline days. We had no cell phone. And I talked to Hank Jr. On the phone. And when I got off the phone, your dad looked at me and he said, I don't know how to love my kid like you love your kid.

And I said, well, we're different, Dale. We're different. You love him just as much as I love Hank Jr. You just don't know how to express it. And he said, well, you know, I'm in broken marriages, and I'm not married to the moment, and it's hard. I said, you just have to let go. You are who you are, and I know how much you love your kids. You just have a hard time expressing it. And he never was able to express to you how much he loved you. He never was able. And you always felt like he loved you when you won and he didn't when you didn't win. And I could tell that. And I've always wanted somehow to get you and just grab hold of your shoulders and tell you how hurt he was that he did not know how to express his love to you. And he teared up. And for Big E, the intimidator, just he and I sitting in the living room.

To share that with me showed me how much. How tight we were at heart as friends. But it also showed me a side of him that was sad because he really wanted to have the same relationship. I'm outgoing, I'm free to talk, and I'm not intimidated to say, I love you all. That didn't fit his demeanor, but it was in his heart. And he expressed to me that day, said, I don't know how to love my kids like you love your kids. I said, oh, you love them just as much. You just don't know how to express.

[Interviewer 2]

Them.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Dang. And that's.

[Interviewer 2]

Heartfelt.

I'd have loved to have heard that story a long time.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Ago. He loved you. Let me tell you. We were in a tent in New Mexico, in Silver City, New Mexico, and we talking racing, talking about Hank Jr. S opportunities. You were running the Bud Carr, and he looked at me and he said, that's the dumbest thing I ever did in my life, is getting that boy, that Bud spot. He said, I should have went with Burger King. He said, that has not been good for him. Oh, man, that's not been good for him. I said, well, it looks me like he's doing pretty good. He said, that ain't what I'm talking about. I mean, what I'm talking about. He said, I don't have him in the environment I'd like to have him in.

That was your.

[Interviewer 2]

Dad.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. And he had a heart, and he loved his kids. He just didn't know how to express.

[Interviewer 2]

It.

Wow. I. You know, I've watched a couple of your videos, something you did, I guess, in the last couple of years, where you.

Genuinely have a, you know, thought about dad. And I mean, I knew y' all were close. I knew y' all were so similar, you know, I mean, even just your looks when you stood next to each other, it was. It was. It was interesting how comparable y' all were. Were your sons born two days apart and both juniors? And.

I felt a real. In instant connection to Hank Jr. That. That we would just be buddies no matter what. Right.

But I saw this video a couple years ago, or I saw it just recently, but I think you've made it in the last two years where you got really. You know, you're standing at this tree stand that was Dad's favorite stand, and you're talking about how that the. That you had. No one ever had hunted that since. Right. And that's the. Stan's been there, and there was. I knew y' all were close. I knew y' all were. I.

I knew y' all had had conversations. I knew that you knew dad and had moments with him that. That not many people would be able to experience. He would open up to you and. And literally count on one hand the other people he would ever have those type of conversations with. And so it's really fun to hear some of those conversations.

You know, I'd ask. There's a million things I'd ask him if I could, but this is as good as it gets for me these days, is to hear from people like you. But listening to you talk about that tree stand and how much you love dad and how important he was to you. Even all. All these years later, you still remember the value in that relationship y' all had. It's as valuable to you today as it was when you. When it was. When it. When it was here. You know, we tend.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

To. To forget when you get older. You realize how important people are in your life and all the trophies they tarnish, the money's Gone. And what you have is way more valuable than the trophies or the money, is the memories of the people that you encountered. And your dad impacted my life in such a big way. He was bigger than life as a personality, but as a real person that a lot of people never knew. I knew a lot about him that a lot of people never, ever knew. And he was a cool guy. He was a cool, cool guy. And he was different than what people perceive him to be because his reputation was so powerful and so big that you tend to overlook who the guy was that was in that uniform. And he was a different guy than what a lot of people. And to me, the most important thing in life is Jesus Christ. That is by far the most important thing. Your dad was an intimidator in a lot of ways, and I've talked to him and shared my testimony and my relationship with Jesus, but I never really buttonholed him. I'd ask him from time to time. And the last trip we made together, Donny Reeves was with us in his diabetes. He's a diabetic. His medicine was on the wing of your dad's airplane and his Bible. So I was getting in the plane. He said, watch out. Don't kick that. That's precious. I said, what's precious, the Bible or the medicine? And he looked at me and he said, both. And I got on the airplane.

So Dennis Fisher, who he brought over from California, built our engines. And I. I'm. I'm. Not Long after your dad died, I'm sitting in a chair at dinner. Dennis Fisher. And he said, boy, we miss our buddy, don't we? I said, dennis, I can't tell you how much I miss him. I cannot tell you. I had no idea the emotions that down inside of me on how much I love Dale Earnhardt. And I said, I miss him. I said, but I don't know about Dale. I never buttonholed him. I never had him. Dale, tell me when you got saved. Tell me if you were saved. I never did that. And Dennis Fisher said, well, I want to put your mind to these. He said he was sitting in the chair you're sitting in. I'm sitting right here where I'm sitting. And I said, dale, what's going to happen to you if they scrape you up off the wall? Where are you going to spend eternity? He said, dennis, I'm going to heaven. And he said, dale, why in the world would you go to heaven? And he said, because I asked Jesus Christ to be my savior, and I believe that's True. And I believe Dale Earnhardt's in heaven and I believe I'm gonna sit around with him. But now the big campfire and we're gonna have stories for the rest of our.

[Interviewer 2]

Lives. Yeah, yeah, no, I believe that too. You know, I've.

I've never.

I never really obviously didn't have these kind of conversations with dad that you did or that Dennis did.

But I always felt like dad had.

You know, that was important to dad, you know, his relationship with, with the Lord and, and our.

Dedication to that. I mean those things he, he in. He incorporated. Incorporated that into his kids lives. That was important for him, that they understood.

That relationship and. But I, that I feel pretty good about that myself. That, that I'll see him again. You know, I always, always.

You know, people deal with loss differently. People deal with that however they got to deal with it. I really don't send, you know, give people advice on that. But you pick what you want to pick, right. What you want to believe.

But I think, you know, that I'll see him. I never really. I spent a little bit of time missing him. Certainly there are days when even yesterday we were sitting here talking about something. I was like, man, I'd love to ask him about this.

But I just know that I don't sit. I don't have this. I don't have this feeling in the back of my heart that there's, there's. I don't have this sort of. Sort of constant missing man. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him because I know I'll see. I just know it. I know that I'll see him. I know he knows where I'm at. I know he knows what I'm doing. I know he knows we're sitting right here doing this. And I'll see him again, you know, and I hope that I remember all the things that I need to ask.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Him. Oh, you will, you will. It'll be good times. Yeah, yeah. But you won't ask if you'll listen, I'll be listen.

Oh, he's going to be in charge. There's no doubt. He is in charge. He'd tell everybody where you're going to.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Sleep. Mike Collier was his pilot and we go on that El concert where we're going. He said, put Parker in that tent. Put him right.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

There. Put so and so right.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Here. Put the campfire right there. No, don't put the campfire there. Smoke will get in the.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Tent. Put it right.

[Interviewer 2]

There. You know what I.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Mean? He's going every detail you know.

[Interviewer 1]

I remember what it was you were thinking about, and this would be fun to actually ask Hank about. And that's. Is we were always. You were curious about, like, his business sense of buying the boats. The boats. His, you know, Sunday.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Money.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. And I mean, you can go ahead and ask.

[Interviewer 2]

It. Yeah. Well, I, I.

You know, I always wondered. He was you, as you say, he was very smart with his money and smart with business. But owning a yacht doesn't seem like a very smart business.

[Interviewer 1]

Move.

[Interviewer 2]

Right. And it's, It's. I've done some research on the, on the cost of running and maintaining a yacht yearly. Annually. It's ridiculous. Like, it makes no sense. It's one of the one things that I would. That dad did that didn't fit everything else he did in a. In a. In a financial way. And I would love to ask him, like, why was that? Was that just one of them things where you're like, okay, I'm just gonna. This isn't going to make sense financially, but this is what I want to do. I'm assuming that's probably the answer because, you know, like, he's like you say, everything else he did made really good sense. And he always. And he never made real bad decisions in financial money. You know, money decisions and investments. But with a. With a yacht, there's no way you can.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Make. He didn't have enough time. Had he had the time, somehow that was going to tie into a profitable business. I don't know how you think about an.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Airplane. Yeah, you, you don't use this throwing money away. You buy an airplane. Well, he built Champion.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Air. Made a fortune off of it. Champion Air turned out to be a heck of a deal. So Champion yacht, Sunday money would have. Somehow he just ran out of.

[Interviewer 2]

Time. Yeah, you might be.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Right. Oh, yeah. It would have been a profitable.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Deal. I don't.

[Interviewer 1]

Know. You're 100% right. Of course. Why are we even doubting? Of course there was an answer.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Somewhere. It would have been an awesome deal. You think? God, how did dad see that? Man, who would ever thought that y' all would be a big investment that paid dividends? But it would have.

[Interviewer 1]

Right? Did you ever go on those fishing trips with Dale and like, Bill France and any of that? Like, because we hear about those.

[Interviewer 2]

Stories.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. I hated the saltwater. The best story I heard is when they put the five gallon bucket on Hank.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Jones. Have y' all heard that.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Story?

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

No. Oh, it's.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Crazy. They'd all caught a marlin, but Hank, and it was Hank's turn. You know, they drew straw for who fights tomorrowland. So Hank had drank some coronas with some lime, and I think he had a lot more corona than he did.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Lime.

He was pretty ripe. And so they put a bucket.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

On, and they've got the captain in on it. So when you sped up the boat, man, that bucket just about pulled you out of the fighting chair. It's so.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Hard. And so they would get that.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And they'd tell Hank, he. He said, he's coming up, he's coming up. And Hank would be really, really.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Tired, and he'd close his eyes, and of course the bucket was in there. And they'd say, oh, I saw.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Him. I saw.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Him. Did you see him? I saw him.

[Interviewer 2]

Bo. I saw.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Him.

[Interviewer 2]

Boo. And it's a.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Bucket. It was a five gallon.

[Interviewer 2]

Bucket. Oh, my.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

God. They would say they saw him. So Hank was too proud to say, no, I didn't see him. You know, he'd have his eyes closed. Yeah, I saw.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Him. I saw.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Him. But keep fighting him. Keep fighting. He fought that bucket for all that was it. He was just drowned. He was so tired when they got it up on the boat. And he realized it. The bucket. I get you, Bo. I get you both. Someday I'll get you. He was so wore out, he couldn't even. He couldn't even argue with.

[Interviewer 2]

Him. That's.

[Interviewer 1]

Hilarious. That is funny. That's funny. That reminds me of that. That trick that the real tree guys, Bill Jordan did on carrier and hart when they. He crept up the buck with that buck deer. And it was. It was a. It was a.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Decoy.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. And he put that arrow. Boy, place that arrow right. Right at the kill.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Shot. And then he's.

[Interviewer 1]

Like. Didn't he move?

That's.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Funny. Oh, that is. That's.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Hilarious. I put saran wrap over the.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Toilet one time at the. We. We stayed.

[Interviewer 2]

Together. Who's.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

We? Your dad and I. Oh, we.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Stayed in the lower house. We had. When we had the pilona. There was a. There was an upper house and Richard and Tommy Teague and. And my. And maybe two or three other guys would stay in the upper house and your dad and I would stay in the lower house was kind of by ourselves. And the bathroom light was a red light. And so you could just see the outline of the toilet. So I went in there. When he went to sleep. I stretched saran wrap over.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

It. He peed all over his stuff. Anybody else would have quit. He just sat there and danced.

He didn't know what was going On. That's hilarious. It turned out to be a mistake. He got me.

[Interviewer 2]

Back. How'd he get you.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Back? Oh, I can't.

[Interviewer 2]

Tell. Can't tell.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

That. I can't tell him. He got me. He got me.

[Interviewer 1]

Good. Must have not have been just the fight in the bucket. You must have done.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Something. Oh, it was.

[Interviewer 1]

Worse. It was.

[Interviewer 2]

Worse. Damn. That is one thing that I would not want on my conscience is Dale Earnhardt's going to get me back.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

And I don't know.

[Interviewer 1]

How. Oh.

[Interviewer 2]

Man. Like I would like pulling the prank on him and then having to wait and see what he's going to come up with. Holy.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Smokes. We had a. I had a old high rack truck at the deer lease, and so I. I was coming into camp one night and I had no idea your dad was anywhere around. And he came up behind me. I mean, he hit me like a ton of bricks. And I had to steer left and drive through a barbed wire fence, keep him turning over. That old truck was top heavy. He thought that was hilarious. So I've spent the next day fixing fences while they all went hunting. So the next year we're back, and I bought an old van out of Mexico that had a hi rack on it. And I was going to scrap the van. All I wanted was the hi rack. So Donnie Reeves and I, we were going to go hunt close together. And your dad went further down into the ranch, and so Donnie killed a deer that night. So I got down early and drove over and helped him load that deer in the old van. Well, that old van didn't have any lights. It was just a piece of junk. Wouldn't hardly run. And so we're. We're coming back and right in that same corner where your dad had hit me the year before. I see the dust coming. And I said, donnie, you got your seatbelt.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

On? He said, no.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Why? I said, because here comes.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Earnhardt. He's. Oh, my gosh. He buckled.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Up. We get up there and I'm watch. I can see because the sun. I'm traveling east and the sun's behind me, and I can see about the time he's going to get me. And that Tommy Teague had a brand new Suburban and Dale borrowed it. So when he got real close to where he's going to put the bumper on me, I locked that thing down on a.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Dime. I mean, he hit me like.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

A ton of bricks, boy. It bent that bumper, had a winch on the front of it, bent the bumper in the ground so he couldn't Back up and get away from. So it blew the tires out on that old van. The whole back end was pushed.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Out. So I'm going to turn him over. That's my.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Objective. And the tires were spinning with inside the rim, and I couldn't get enough leverage to turn him over. But I caught the ladder on the side of that new suburban. It just peeled the sheet metal off of.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

It. And the only way he could.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Get back to camp is he had.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

To back up because the bumper was sticking in the ground. And I'm eating dinner.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Dinner. And he said, parker, you ain't got a bit of respect for sheet metal. I said, earnhardt, I'm sitting here.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

In victory line by the eye. I never seen you looking at sheet metal in victory line.

He got me.

[Interviewer 2]

Back.

So.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Good. So.

[Interviewer 1]

Good. Hey, I've got random questions I need to ask, but it has nothing to do with your.

[Interviewer 2]

Day. Go.

[Interviewer 1]

Ahead. All right, number one. The house needs painting. The grass needs mowing. Where's he at? My dad would kill me if he didn't. If I did not ask. The origins of the song that carried your show and has been so even you. You made a hunting version of it for the hunting show. Where did that song come.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

From? I had a producer named Bill landers. Bill's awesome guys passed on, but Bill and I were great friends, and we're just starting. He said, hey, we need a theme. So song. I said, okay. He said, I can write the music, but we need to get somebody to write the lyrics. So we're walking in the bathroom at Charlotte airport, and I'm standing at the urinal, and I said, you ready? He said, ready for what? I said, the lyrics. I said, the house needs painting and the grass needs mo. Where is he at? Go on.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Fishing. And I wrote it standing.

[Interviewer 2]

There.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

That's. Oh, my God. You got to be.

[Interviewer 1]

Kidding. That song. That song right there carried me through childhood and everything. No idea. It was written at the urinal. I thought, what a genius piece of writing this is. This is. Put this right up there with Tim McGraw and everybody else came right.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Off the C. It took me about three seconds to prepare for.

[Interviewer 2]

It. Okay, so there you.

[Interviewer 1]

Go. Thank you, Franc. Second, we. I. I just would love. We never get to talk to somebody that is, you know, a bassmaster champion. Know these tournaments. But, you know, know, in the last year or so, even people that didn't follow fishing or don't just follow it religiously get introduced to the fact that there's cheating in fishing because of these two cats. Up in Ohio. The thing that was really profound about it is.

We didn't have to follow it to realize for that moment when hearing the reaction of the other fishermen how personal it was. You could feel it. It was their.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Soul.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. And so I just have to wonder, like, what was your reaction? And is cheating cheating? We love talking about it in nascar. We think it's got to talk about it. I mean, what makes you good? But like, is cheating part of.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Fishing? Not at all. Not. That was a walleye event. Walleye, for whatever reason, they're not very hardy fish and they're not very durable. And so when you catch them, put them in the live well, 90% of them are going to die. So when you have a weigh in, 90% of the time, they're, they're, they're deceased. In bass fishing, you get tremendous penalties for having a dead fish. So you rarely ever see a dead fish. If there's 1500 fish waiting in a tournament, there may be two dead fish, and it's vice versa in a, in a walleye event. So it's a whole lot easier to stuff lead down a dead fish than it is a live fish. And if you stuff lead down a live fish, he's probably going to die. So it's, you're really under scrutiny when you bring in a dead fish. I mean, they're going to, going to feel that fish, they're going to examine that fish. They may even X ray that fish. It's going to be a lot of scrutiny, especially if it's a big fish or has a lot of weight to it. And the rules were with Ray Scott, the founder of Bass. One violation and you're out forever. You are.

[Interviewer 1]

Gone. No.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Grace. No grace. You're gone. One rule violation. Now running a, a no wake sign, that would be a little bit different. You know, a minor infraction that could, could occur. That wasn't a thought that. I'm going to.

[Interviewer 2]

Cheat.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Yeah. But if you put together a plan, okay, I'm going to manipulate this thing and I'm going to intentionally cheat. You're out.

[Interviewer 1]

Forever. Okay, interesting. All right, last question I have for you is that I remember back again when Hank Jr. Was here and, and when he was talking about how, you know, it's like, I don't know if you know my dad, but he just, he ain't afraid of anything. And so he would talk about how you would have a rag that, like when you guys were, when the, when the bell sounded on it to start a fishing tournament, that, that however Fast that boat can go. You will run it that fast and more and that you would bite on a rag to keep from biting your tongue, I guess or whatever. Is that.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

True? The rag story where we, we were, we fished in the St. Lawrence Seaway and we took off out of Clayton, New York and I went into Lake Ontario and you crossed Lake Ontario and you get in six foot waves, I mean, and we're in a 18 foot bass boat and you can't see anything but water. And sometimes when they fall off of those waves, I mean it is like falling off of a.

[Interviewer 2]

Building.

[Interviewer 1]

Pow.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Pow. So I fished in the Black river on the other side of Lake Ontario. Now I got to come back for the waves and I had a partner and so I pulled to the mouth of the Black river to go out into Lake Ontario. And few of the other competitors were just there. If you don't go by boat, you don't get to weigh in. So you're disqualified. You've got to go back. So I had a couple of the competitors come up to me and pull up in their boat and they said, what are you doing? I said, going to the weigh in. They said, you want my it? We've already been out there. It is horrible. You will not make it. And I'm telling them, shut up. I got a partner sitting over here petrified, you know. And so I said, we're okay. I said, okay guys, that's all right. I said, I'm going to the weigh in. And finally, Ken Cook, one of my buddies who's passed on, Ken said, if you go across that lake, you're going to die. And I looked at him, I said, ken, I'd rather die trying than I had forfeit. And so I handed my partner a washcloth and I said, stick this in your mouth. And he said, what's that for? I said, it'll keep knocking your teeth out when we fall off these waves. Yeah. So that's why the washcloth, you put it in your mouth and when you fall down off the waves, you won't knock your teeth out. That's.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Amazing. We made.

[Interviewer 2]

It. Was it.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Close? It was.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Scary. There was times I would have probably bailed out. I mean it was really, really scary. So when we got back to the river, I was soaking wet. I tore my depth finders off the boat from all the pound and troll motor was ripped off and we got back into the river where we were safe. And I said, that's about as scared as I've ever been in my life. He said, oh, it's the scariest moment of my life. I said, when we crossed that point there at Reed Bay, that's when it was the scariest. He said, no, the scariest was the look on your face when you told that man you'd rather.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Die.

He said, because I didn't feel that.

[Interviewer 1]

Way. I wasn't.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Ready.

What a great.

[Interviewer 1]

Story. Oh.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Wow.

What a.

[Interviewer 2]

Pleasure. So, Hank, what are you up to these.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Days? We're still doing fish and television and got a YouTube show, and we're trying to branch out more into social media. The whole television world right now is, Is a moving target, where it's going to land, how it's all going to work out. You know, I'm looking at NASCAR over there on 105 on USA. I'm looking at streaming this, streaming that, and cable networks are dying, and it is just an amazing time that has me scrambling. So I don't really know what the future holds. You know, people say, well, why don't you just retire? Well, I'm kind of like Roger Miller, you know, the old country music singer Roger Miller retired. And they asked him, I said, roger, why'd you retire? And he said, well, I've made enough money to last me the rest of my life, providing I buy nothing big and die by.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Friday.

So I need to keep, keep working. And I got to figure out how to do that because it is crazy.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Times. We've committed for one more year of linear television. So where we go after that? Not sure. Not.

[Interviewer 2]

Sure.

What are the big.

Outdoor channels? What do you think that their move.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Is? You know, they're available. Let's take the Outdoor Channel, for example, which was the leader. Their availability to homes was about 44 million, and they're down to about 18 million. They're half. And so who knows where that's going to land up? And I tell people a lot of the budget that I've drawn off of for the last 40 years. Guys with mohawk haircuts that are painted green that turn a double back flip and over sensationalize everything about the outdoors. They're. They're getting 4 million followers, and every time they post something, they get 80,000 likes. And I don't know where that's going to go that I just don't see that last. And, you know, they don't have any knowledge on why this fishing rod performs the way it does, and they don't know any of that stuff. And yet they're the influencers on, on all this product. So where is that going to land? I don't know. Yeah, it's.

[Interviewer 2]

Crazy. Well, do you still enjoy it? You still enjoy.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Creating? And I like a challenge. I do. I like, I like a challenge. So I got one and we'll.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

See how it works.

[Interviewer 2]

Out. How much. How often do you still get to work with Hank Jr. Billy and.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Them? I talk to Hank Jr. And Billy probably.

Two or three times a week. His, his two boys, Boone and Cade, are hooked on fishing. So they think I walk on water and I go up and fish with them as often. They got a new boat two weeks.

[Interviewer 2]

Ago.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Really? And they're all fired up. So I've been up there. And how old are they now? Kate is 12 and Boone is.

[Interviewer 1]

17. That's amazing. That's why I asked because I still look at. I know Hank Jr. When he started having kids. I mean I still just look at him as like 2, 3, 4 years old just getting started. But no, they're teenagers.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Now.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Yeah. And they got a boat. That's awesome. And Billy, I was looking at land and stuff down in South Carolina and I think he's in reality, isn't.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

He? Oh yeah, yeah. He's doing commercial real estate and he just got his own franchise for National Land and Realty and he's got the Statesville area all the way up into Virginia. Just got his brokerage license in.

[Interviewer 1]

Virginia. That's.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Awesome. So he's, he's doing really well. He likes that. And being Lucy, Ben is selling building material. He sells these high end summer porches and doing good. And Lucy is.

Doing weddings, photography and all kinds of photography and she enjoys that. And then my youngest son, Timmy, he just got a little boy and just turned a year old.

[Interviewer 1]

So.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

What? Yeah, I love and.

[Interviewer 1]

Life. Boy, you've got a. Wait, who.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Was. Tim is my youngest and he.

[Interviewer 1]

Was. You got a one year old.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Mild mannered kid I had and he ended up fighting.

[Interviewer 2]

Mma. Right. How long did that.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Happen? Oh, I don't know how it happened. How long did he do it for? About three years, four.

[Interviewer 2]

Years. Wow. Jeffrey rest got in one of them matches one time and I'm like, what are you.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Thinking? Yeah, it is the craziest thing. I went to one as.

[Interviewer 2]

Well. His dad did go race in the bush areas at RA Rockingham. So after being a Bassmasters champion, decided to go.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Racing. Oh, that would have been a good.

[Interviewer 2]

Race. I think you set a pretty good example for them. Anything goes, right? Whatever you want to do in.

[Interviewer 1]

Life. That's.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Right. I wish I could deny it.

[Interviewer 1]

But I guess.

These stories, if you can dream it.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Right? You know, Forest Wood used to say, and Forest woods the fan. Founder of Ranger boats. And Forestwood was my hero, Forest used to say. And he and your dad were great friends. Forest used to say, it's no use to dream if you're not going to work. It's no use to work if you're not going to.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Dream. And you put those together. So, hey, go for it, man. If you want to work at it, dream.

[Interviewer 2]

On. That's right. That's good advice. Well, Hank, thanks for coming.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Today. Good to see.

[Interviewer 2]

You. It's been a heck of a conversation. Everything I hoped it'd.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Be. Your dad would be so proud of.

[Interviewer 2]

You. Well, I appreciate you saying that. And I believe I can take that to the bank coming from you. All right. Hank Parker Senior on the Del Junior download.

Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, and.

[Interviewer 1]

Instagram. Score holiday gifts. Everyone wants for way less at your Nordstrom Rack store. Save on Ugg, Nike, Rag and Bone, Vince Frame, Kurt Geiger, London and.

[Interviewer 2]

More. Cause there's always something new. I'm giving all the gifts this year with that extra 5% off when I use my Nordstrom credit.

[Interviewer 1]

Card. Santa who join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Deals. It's.

[Interviewer 2]

Easy. Big gifts, big.

[Interviewer 1]

Perks. That's why you.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Rack. The McDonald's snack wrap is back. You brought it.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

Back. Ranch snack wrap. Spicy snack.

[Big E (Friend of Dale Earnhardt Sr.)]

Wrap.

[Hank Parker Sr.]

You. You broke the Internet for a snack? Snack wrap is back.